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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/20389-0.txt b/20389-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1003b30 --- /dev/null +++ b/20389-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10159 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Historical and Political Essays, by William +Edward Hartpole Lecky + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Historical and Political Essays + + +Author: William Edward Hartpole Lecky + + + +Release Date: January 17, 2007 [eBook #20389] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL ESSAYS*** + + +E-text prepared by Ted Garvin, Jeannie Howse, and the Project Gutenberg +Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/c/) + + + + +-----------------------------------------------------------+ + | Transcriber's Note: | + | | + | Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original | + | document have been preserved. | + | | + | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected in this | + | text. For a complete list, please see the end of this | + | document. | + | | + +-----------------------------------------------------------+ + + + + + +HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL ESSAYS + +by + +WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY + + + + + + + +Longmans, Green, and Co. +39 Paternoster Row, London +New York, Bombay, and Calcutta +1908 +All rights reserved + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + THOUGHTS ON HISTORY 1 + + THE POLITICAL VALUE OF HISTORY 21 + + THE EMPIRE: ITS VALUE AND ITS GROWTH 43 + + IRELAND IN THE LIGHT OF HISTORY 68 + + FORMATIVE INFLUENCES 90 + + CARLYLE'S MESSAGE TO HIS AGE 104 + + ISRAEL AMONG THE NATIONS 116 + + MADAME DE STAËL 131 + + THE PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE OF SIR ROBERT PEEL 151 + + THE FIFTEENTH EARL OF DERBY 200 + + MR. HENRY REEVE 242 + + DEAN MILMAN 249 + + QUEEN VICTORIA AS A MORAL FORCE 275 + + OLD-AGE PENSIONS 298 + + INDEX 319 + + + + +The Essays 'Thoughts on History,' 'Formative Influences,' +'Madame de Staël,' 'Israel among the Nations,' 'Old-age +Pensions,' appeared originally in the American Review, the +_Forum_--the first under the title of 'The Art of Writing +History'; 'Ireland in the Light of History,' in the _North +American Review_. Those on Sir Robert Peel, Mr. Henry Reeve, +and Dean Milman were written for the _Edinburgh Review_. The +Essay on 'Queen Victoria as a Moral Force' appeared first in +the _Pall Mall Magazine_; 'Carlyle's Message to His Age' in +the _Contemporary Review_. 'The Political Value of History' +was a presidential address delivered before the Birmingham and +Midland Institute; 'The Empire,' an inaugural address +delivered at the Imperial Institute; and the 'Memoir of the +Fifteenth Earl of Derby' was originally prefixed to the +volumes of his speeches and addresses. + + + + +HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL ESSAYS + + + + +THOUGHTS ON HISTORY + + +I do not propose in this paper to enter into any general inquiry about +the best method of writing history. Such inquiries appear to me to be +of no real value, for there are many different kinds of history which +should be written in many different ways. A diplomatic, a military, or +a parliamentary history, dealing with a short period or a particular +episode, must evidently be treated in a very different spirit from an +extended history where the object of the historian should be to +describe the various aspects of the national life, and to trace +through long periods of time the ultimate causes of national progress +and decay. The history of religion, of art, of literature, of social +and industrial development, of scientific progress, have all their +different methods. A writer who treats of some great revolution that +has transformed human affairs should deal largely in retrospect, for +the most important part of his task is to explain the long course of +events that prepared and produced the catastrophe; while a writer who +treats of more normal times will do well to plunge rapidly into his +theme. + +Historians, too, differ widely in their special talents, and these +talents are never altogether combined. The power of vividly realising +and portraying men, or societies or modes of thought that have long +since passed away; the power of arranging and combining great +multitudes of various facts; the power of judging with discrimination, +accuracy, and impartiality conflicting arguments or evidence; the +power of tracing through the long course of events the true chain of +cause and effect, selecting the facts that are most valuable and +significant and explaining the relation between general causes and +particular effects, are all very different and belong to different +types of mind. It is idle to expect a writer with the gifts of a +Clarendon, a Kinglake, or a Froude to write history in the spirit of a +Hallam or a Grote. Writers who are eminently distinguished for wide, +patient, and accurate research have sometimes little power either of +describing or interpreting the facts which they collect. All that can +be said with any profit is that each writer will do best if he follows +the natural bent of his genius, and that he should select those kinds +or periods of history in which his special gifts have most scope and +the qualities in which he is deficient are least needed. + +It is the fashion of a modern school of historical writers to deplore +what they call the intrusion of literature into history. History, in +their judgment, should be treated as science and not as literature, +and the kind of intellect they most value is not unlike that of a +skilful and well-trained attorney. To collect documents with industry; +to compare, classify, interpret and estimate them is the main work of +the historian. It is no doubt true that there are some fields of +history where the primary facts are so little known, so much contested +or so largely derived from recondite manuscript sources, that a +faithful historian will be obliged in justice to his readers to +sacrifice both proportion and artistic charm to the supreme importance +of analysing evidence, reproducing documents and accumulating proofs; +but in general the depreciation of the literary element in history +seems to me essentially wrong. It is only necessary to recall the +names of Herodotus and Thucydides, of Livy and Tacitus, of Gibbon and +Macaulay, and of the long line of great masters of style who have +related the annals of France. It may, indeed, be confidently asserted +that there is no subject in which rarer literary qualities are more +demanded than in the higher forms of history. The art of portraying +characters; of describing events; of compressing, arranging, and +selecting great masses of heterogeneous facts, of conducting many +different chains of narrative without confusion or obscurity; of +preserving in a vast and complicated subject the true proportion and +relief, will tax the highest literary skill, and no one who does not +possess some, at least, of these gifts in an unusual measure is likely +to attain a permanent place among the great masters of history. It is +a misfortune when some stirring and momentous period falls into the +hands of the mere compiler, for he occupies the ground and a really +great writer will hesitate to appropriate and plagiarise the materials +his predecessor has collected. There are books of great research and +erudition which one would have wished to have been all re-written by +some writer of real genius who could have given order, meaning and +vividness to a mere chaos of accurate and laboriously sifted learning. +The great prominence which it is now the fashion to ascribe to the +study of diplomatic documents, is very apt to destroy the true value +and perspective of history. It is always the temptation of those who +are dealing with manuscript materials to overrate the small personal +details which they bring to light, and to give them much more than +their due space in their narrative. This tendency the new school +powerfully encourages. It is quite right that the treasure-houses of +diplomatic correspondence which have of late years been thrown open +should be explored and sifted, but history written chiefly from these +materials, though it has its own importance, is not likely to be +distinguished either by artistic form or by philosophical value. Those +who are immersed in these studies are very apt to overrate their +importance and the part which diplomacy and statesmanship have borne +in the great movement of human affairs. + +A true and comprehensive history should be the life of a nation. It +should describe it in its larger and more various aspects. It should +be a study of causes and effects, of distant as well as proximate +causes, and of the large, slow and permanent evolution of things. It +should include, as Buckle and Macaulay saw, the social, the +industrial, the intellectual life of the nation as well as mere +political changes, and it should be pre-eminently marked by a true +perspective dealing with subjects at a length proportioned to their +real importance. All this requires a powerful and original intellect +quite different from that of a mere compiler. It requires too, in a +high degree, the kind of imagination which enables a man to reproduce +not only the acts but the feelings, the ideals, the modes of thought +and life of a distant past, and pierce through the actions and +professions of men to their real characters. Insight into character is +one of the first requisites of a historian. It is therefore, much to +be desired that he should possess a wide knowledge of the world, the +knowledge of different types of character, foreign as well as English, +which travel and society and practical experience of business can +give, and it will also be of no small advantage to him if he has +passed through more than one intellectual or religious phase, widening +the area of his appreciation and realisations. He should also have +enough of the dramatic element to enable him to throw himself into +ways of reasoning or feeling very different from his own. One of the +most valuable of all forms of historical imagination is that which +enables a writer to place himself in the point of view of the best men +on different sides, and to bring out the full sense of opposing +arguments. All these gifts or qualities are never in a high degree +united, but they are all essential to a great historian, and a true +school of history should widen instead of narrowing our conception of +it. + +The supreme virtue of the historian is truthfulness, and it may be +violated in many different degrees. The worst form is when a writer +deliberately falsifies facts or deliberately excludes from his picture +qualifying circumstances. But there are other and much more subtle +ways in which party spirit continually and often quite unconsciously +distorts history. All history is necessarily a selection of facts, and +a writer who is animated by a strong sympathy with one side of a +question or a strong desire to prove some special point will be much +tempted in his selection to give an undue prominence to those that +support his view, or, even where neither facts nor arguments are +suppressed, to give a party character to his work by an unfair +distribution of lights and shades. The strong and vivid epithets are +chiefly reserved for the good or bad deeds on one side, the vague, +general and comparatively colourless epithets for the corresponding +deeds on the other side; and in this way very similar facts are +brought before the reader with such different degrees of illumination +and relief that they make a wholly different impression on his mind. +In the history of Macaulay this defect may, I think, be especially +traced. The characteristic defect of that great and in most respects +admirable writer, both as historian and artist, was the singular +absence of graduation in his mind. The neutral tints which are +essential to the accurate shading of character seemed almost wanting, +and a love of strong contrasted lights and shades, coupled with his +supreme command of powerful epithets, continually misled him. But no +attentive reader can fail to observe how unequally those epithets are +distributed and how clearly this inequality discloses the strong bias +under which he wrote. + +The truth of an historical picture lies mainly in its judicious and +accurate shading, and it is this art which the historian should +especially cultivate. He will scarcely do so with success unless it +becomes to him not merely a matter of duty, but also a pleasure and a +pride. The kind of interest which he takes in his narrative should be +much less that of a politician and an advocate than of a painter, who, +now darkening and now lightening the picture, seeks by many delicate +touches to catch with exact fidelity the tone and hue of the object he +represents. + +The degree of certainty that it is possible to attain in history +varies greatly in different departments. The growth of institutions +and laws, military events, changes in manners and in creeds, can be +described with much confidence, and although it is more difficult to +depict the inner moral life of nations, the influences that form their +characters and prepare them for greatness or decay, yet when the +materials for our induction are sufficiently large this field of +history may be studied with great profit. Diplomatic history and the +more secret springs of political history can only be fully disclosed +when the archives relating to them have been explored and when the +confidential correspondence of the chief actors in them has been +published. The biographical element in history is always the most +uncertain. Even among contemporaries the judgment of character and +motives depends largely on indications so slight and subtle that they +rarely pass into books and are only fully felt by direct personal +contact, and the smallest knowledge of life shows how quickly +anecdotes and sayings are distorted, coloured, and misplaced when they +pass from lip to lip. Most of the 'good sayings' of history are +invention, and most of them have been attributed to different persons. +A history which is plainly written under the influence of party bias +has the value of an advocate's speech giving one side of the question. +When our only materials for the knowledge of a period are derived from +such histories, the saying of Voltaire should be remembered--that we +can confidently believe only the evil which a party writer tells of +his own side and the good which he recognises in his opponents. In +judging the historian we must consider his nearness to the events he +relates, his probable means of information and the internal evidence +in his narrative of accuracy, honesty, and judgment, and we must also +consider the standard of proof and the methods of historical writing +prevailing in his time. A modern writer who placed in the mouths of +his personages speeches which he himself invented would be justly +discredited, but in antiquity it was a recognised custom for a +historian to embody in fictitious speeches the reflections suggested +by his narrative and the motives which he believed to have actuated +his heroes. + +Different ages differ enormously in the severity of proof which they +exact, in the degree of accuracy which they attain. The credibility of +a statement also depends not only on the amount of its evidence, but +also on its own inherent probability. Everyone will feel that an +amount of testimony that would be quite sufficient to persuade him +that a butcher's boy had been seen driving along a highway is wholly +different from that which would be required to persuade him that a +ghost had been met there. The same rule applies to the history of the +past, and it is complicated by the great difference in different ages +of the measure of probability, or, in other words, by the strong +predisposition in certain stages of knowledge to accept statements or +explanations of facts which in later stages we know to be incredible +or in a high degree improbable. Few subjects in history are more +difficult than the laws of evidence in dealing with the supernatural +and the extent to which the authority of historians in relating +credible and probable facts is invalidated by the presence of a +mythical element in their narratives. + +Connected with this subject is also the question how far it is +possible by merely internal evidence to decompose an ancient document, +resolving it into its separate elements, distinguishing its different +dates and its different degrees of credibility. The reader is no doubt +aware with what a rare skill this method of inquiry has been pursued +in the present century, chiefly by great German and Dutch scholars, in +dealing with the early Jewish writings. At the same time, without +disputing the value of their work or the importance of many of the +results at which they have arrived, I may be pardoned for expressing +my belief that this kind of investigation is often pursued with an +exaggerated confidence. Plausible conjecture is too frequently +mistaken for positive proof. Undue significance is attached to what +may be mere casual coincidences, and a minuteness of accuracy is +professed in discriminating between the different elements in a +narrative which cannot be attained by mere internal evidence. In all +writings, but especially in the writings of an age when criticism was +unknown, there will be repetitions, contradictions, inconsistencies +and diversities of style which do not necessarily indicate different +authorship or dates. + +I have spoken of the uncertainty of the biographical element in +history. It must, however, be said that when a historian is dealing +with men who have played a very prominent part on the stage of life, +the general acceptance of his judgment is a strong corroboration of +its truth. It may be added that the later judgment of men is not +unfrequently more true than the contemporary judgment. The wisdom of a +teaching or of a policy is shown by its results, and these results are +in most cases very gradually disclosed. Great men are like great +mountains which are surrounded by lower peaks that often obscure their +grandeur and seem to a near observer to equal or even to overtop them. +It is only when seen from far off that their true dimensions are fully +realised and they soar to heaven above all rivals. In the page of +history men are judged mainly by the net result of their lives, by the +broad lines of their characters and achievements. Many injudicious +words, many minor weaknesses of conduct, are forgotten. Faults of +manner, deficiencies of tact, awkwardnesses of appearance, which tell +so largely upon the judgments of contemporaries, are no longer seen. +The conversational nimbleness and versatility of intellect, the charm +or assurance or magnetism of manner, the weight of social position, +all of which tend to secure to an inferior man a pre-eminence in the +circle in which he moves, are equally evanescent, and the shy, rugged, +and tactless recluse often emerges on the strength of his genuine and +abiding performances to a position in the eyes of the world which he +never attained during his lifetime. + +That fine saying of Cardan, 'Tempus mea possessio, tempus ager meus,' +might be the motto of the historian. Time is the field which he +cultivates, and a true sense of space and distance should be one of +the chief characteristics of his work. Few things are more difficult +to attain than a just perspective in history. The most dramatic +incidents are not the most important, and in weighing the joys and +sorrows of the past our measures of judgment are almost hopelessly +false. The most humane man cannot emancipate himself from the law of +his nature, according to which he is more affected by some tragic +circumstance which has taken place in his own house or in his own +street than by a catastrophe which has carried anguish and desolation +over enormous areas in a distant continent. In history, too, there are +vast tracts which are almost necessarily unrealised. We judge a period +mainly by its great men, by its brilliant or salient incidents, by the +fortunes of a small class; and the great mass of obscure, suffering, +inarticulate humanity, whose happiness is often so profoundly affected +by political and military events, almost escapes our notice. It should +be the object of history to bring before us past events in their true +proportion and significance, and one of the greatest improvements in +modern history is the increased attention which is paid to the +social, industrial, and moral history of the poor. The paucity of our +information and the difficulty of realising the conditions of obscure +multitudes will always make this branch of history very imperfect, but +it is one of the most essential to the just judgment of the past. + +Another task which lies before the historian is that of distinguishing +proximate from ultimate causes. Our first natural impulse is to +attribute a great change to the men who effected it and to the period +in which it took place, and to neglect or underrate the long train of +causes which had been, often through many generations, preparing its +advent. A faithful historian must especially guard against this error. +He must study the slow process of growth as well as the moment of +efflorescence, the long progress of decay as well as the final +catastrophe. He will probably find that the part played by statesmen +and legislatures is less than he had imagined, and that the causes of +the movements he relates must be sought over a wider area and through +a longer period. + +Moral, intellectual, or economical movements very slightly connected +with political life are often those which have most largely +contributed to the good or evil fortunes of a nation; and even in the +sphere of politics it is not the events which attract the most vivid +contemporary interest that have the most enduring influence. Few +things contribute so much to the formation of the social type as the +laws regulating the succession of property and especially the +agglomeration or division of landed property. The growth of militarism +in a nation, besides its direct and obvious consequences, forms a type +of character which will sooner or later show itself in almost every +department of legislation, and the tendency of politics to enlarge or +narrow the sphere of individual liberty or of government control, will +affect most deeply the habits of the people. Laws regulating private +enterprises, substituting State control or initiative for individual +action, encouraging or discouraging thrift, and above all interfering +with free contracts, have much more than an immediate influence, for +they become the prolific parents of many further extensions. In the +words of an excellent observer, it will be found 'that our legislative +interference is but the first link of a long chain of repetitions, +every subsequent interference being naturally produced by the effects +of the preceding.' It is by studying such tendencies through long +periods of time that their good or evil influences may be best +discovered, and this should be one of the great tasks of the +historian. + +But, however large a part may be given to the impersonal influences in +history, he will still be largely concerned with the record of +individual achievements, and the great men of the past will form the +most conspicuous landmarks of his narrative. I have often thought, +however, that nations are judged too much by the great men they have +produced and not sufficiently by the way in which they have +discriminated among them and appreciated them. Genius is like the wind +that bloweth where it listeth, and it often appears in strangely +uncongenial quarters. The true nobility of a nation is shown by the +men they choose, by the men they follow, by the men they admire, by +the ideals of character and conduct they place before them. Tried by +such tests, there is often much that is profoundly saddening in the +history of countries that have been far from poor in the number of +their great men. + +In the judgment of historical characters there are two cautions on +which it may not be useless to dwell. There is a large class of public +men who show little capacity in dealing with or directing the present +conditions of their time, but who see clearly the bourne to which +existing forces or tendencies are moving and who, judged by their +distant forecasts, will appear much wiser than their contemporaries. +It is the natural bias of the historian to place them perhaps higher +than they deserve. This power of just speculative foresight is no very +rare gift, and in public affairs it is often as much a hindrance as a +help. Forms of government and other great religious or political +institutions, like the products of nature, have their times of +immaturity, of growth, of ripeness and of decay, and it by no means +follows because they at last become indefensible, that they have not +during many generations discharged useful functions and that those who +first assailed and condemned them are deserving of praise. Not +unfrequently, indeed, a public man must take his choice whether by +fully identifying himself with the existing conditions around him and +employing them to the best advantages he will lead a useful and +practical life, or whether as an advanced thinker he will associate +himself with the cause that is one day to conquer, place himself in +the van of progress and at the sacrifice of much present influence +deserve the credit of foresight. + +Historians will probably always judge men and policies by their net +results, by their final consequences, and this judgment is on the +whole the most sure that we can attain. It is not, however, altogether +infallible. Apart from the question of the moral character of the +methods employed which a good historian should never omit from his +consideration, success is not always a decisive proof of sagacity. +Chance and the unexpected play a great part in human affairs, and a +judgment founded on a perfectly just estimate of probabilities will +often prove wrong. The result which was the least probable will come +true, some wholly unforeseen and unforeseeable occurrence will scatter +dangers that were very real and give a new complexion to events. The +rise of some pre-eminently great or of some pre-eminently mischievous +personage among the guiding influences of a nation will derange the +most sagacious calculations, and the reckless gambler or the obtuse +obstructionist may prove more right than the most cautious, the most +skilful, the most farseeing statesman. + +A fatal and very common error is that of judging the actions of the +past by the moral standard of our own age. This is especially the +error of novices in history and of those who without any wide and +general culture devote themselves exclusively to a single period. +While the primary and essential elements of right and wrong remain +unchanged, nothing is more certain than that the standard or ideal of +duty is continually altering. A very humane man in another age may +have done things which would now be regarded as atrociously barbarous. +A very virtuous man may have done things which would now indicate +extreme profligacy. We seldom indeed make sufficient allowance for the +degree in which the judgments and dispositions of even the best man +are coloured by the moral tone of the time or society in which they +live. And what is true of individuals is equally true of nations. In +order to judge equitably the legislation of any people, we must always +consider corresponding contemporary legislations and ideas. When this +is neglected our judgments of the past become wholly false. How often, +for example, has such a subject as the history of the penal laws +against Irish Catholics been treated without the smallest reference to +the contemporary laws against Protestants that existed in every +Catholic nation and the contemporary laws against Catholics that +existed in almost every Protestant country in Europe. How often have +the English commercial restrictions on the American colonies been +treated as if they were instances of extreme and exceptional tyranny, +while a more extended knowledge would show that they were simply the +expression of ideas of commercial policy and about the relation of +dependencies to the mother-country which then almost universally +prevailed. + +It is not merely the moral standard that changes. A corresponding +change takes place in the moral type, or, in other words, in the class +of virtues which is especially cultivated and especially valued. To +know an age aright we should above all things seek to understand its +ideal, the direction in which the stream of its self-sacrifice and +moral energy naturally flowed. Few things in history are more +interesting and more valuable than a study of the causes that produced +and modified these successive ideals. Thus in the moral type of pagan +antiquity the civic virtues occupied incomparably the foremost place. +The idea of a supremely good man was essentially that of a man of +action, of a man whose whole life was devoted to the service of his +country. The life and death of Cato were for generations the favourite +model. He was deemed, in the words of an old Latin historian, to be of +all men the one 'most like to virtue.' This pattern retained its force +till the softening influence of the Greek spirit, permeating Roman +life, made the stoical ideal seem too hard and unsympathising; till +the corruption and despotism of the Empire had withdrawn the best men +from political life and attached a certain taint or stigma to public +employment; till new religions arose in the East, bringing with them +new ideals to govern the world. Gradually we may trace the +contemplative virtues rising to the foremost place until, about the +fifth century, the ideal had totally changed. The heroic type was +replaced by the saintly type. The supremely good man was now the +ascetic. The first condition of sanctity was a complete abandonment of +secular duties and cares and a complete subjugation of the body. A +vast literature of legends arose reflecting and glorifying the +prevailing ideal and holding up the hermit life as the supreme pattern +of perfection, and this literature occupies a place in mediævalism +very similar to that held by the 'Lives' of Plutarch in antiquity. + +Ancient art was essentially the glorification of the body, a +representation of the full strength and beauty of developed manhood. +The saint of the mediæval mosaic represents the body in its extreme +maceration and humiliation. The rhetorician, Dio Chrysostom, in a +somewhat whimsical passage, which was suggested by a remark of Plato, +found a special moral significance in the fact that Homer, though he +places his heroes on the the banks of what he calls 'the fishy +Hellespont,' never makes them eat fish, but always flesh and the flesh +of oxen, for this, as he says, is 'strength-producing food' and is +therefore suited for the formation of heroes and the proper diet for +men of virtue. Compare this judgment with the protracted, and indeed +incredible, fasts which the monkish writers delighted in attributing +to the saints of the desert, and we have a vivid picture of the change +that had passed over the ideal. + +But as time moved on the ascetic ideal gradually declined and was +replaced by the very different ideal of chivalry. It consisted chiefly +of three new elements. The first element was a spirit of gallantry +which gave women a wholly new place in the imaginations of men. It was +in part a reaction against the extreme austerity of the saints, and +this reaction was much intensified after the cessation of the panic +which had risen at the close of the tenth century about the +approaching end of the world. It was in part produced by the softer +and more epicurean civilisation which grew up in the country bordering +on the Pyrenees. It was especially represented in the romances and +poems of the Troubadours, and the new tendency even received some +assistance from the Church when the Council of Clermont, which +originated the Crusades, imposed on the knight the religious +obligation of defending all widows and orphans. + +The second element was an increased reverence for secular rank, which +grew out of the feudal system, when a great hereditary aristocracy +arose and all European society was moulded into a compact hierarchy, +of which the serf was the basis and the emperor the apex. The +principle of subordination and obedience ran through the whole +edifice, and a respect for rank was universally diffused. Men came to +associate their ideal of greatness with regal or noble authority, and +they were therefore prepared to idealise any great sovereign who might +arise. Such a sovereign appeared in Charlemagne, who exercised upon +Christendom a fascination not less powerful than that which Alexander +had once exercised upon Greece, and he accordingly soon became the +centre of a whole literature of romance. + +The third element was the fusion of religious enthusiasm with the +military spirit. Christianity in its first phases was utterly opposed +to the military spirit; but this opposition was naturally mitigated +when the Church triumphed under Constantine and became associated with +governments and armies. The hostility was still further qualified when +many tribes of warlike barbarians embraced the faith, and the military +obligation which was an essential element of feudalism acted in the +same direction. But, above all, the rise and conquests of +Mohammedanism awoke the military energies of Christendom and +determined the direction it should take. In the Crusades the two great +streams of military enthusiasm and of religious enthusiasm met, and +the result was the formation of a new ideal which for a long period +mainly governed the imagination of Christendom. + +It for a time absorbed, eclipsed, and transformed all purely national +ideals. No poet was ever more intensely English in his character and +sympathies than Chaucer, and he wrote when the dazzling glories of +Crécy and Poitiers were still very recent. Yet it is not on these +fields, but in the long wars with the Moslems, that his pattern knight +had won his renown. The military expeditions of Charlemagne were +directed almost exclusively against the Saxons and against Slavonic +tribes. With the Spanish Mohammedans he came but very slightly in +contact. He made in person but one expedition against them, and that +expedition was both insignificant and unsuccessful. But in the +Karlovingian romances, which were written when the crusading +enthusiasm was at its height, the figure of the great emperor +underwent a strange and most significant transformation. The German +wars were scarcely noticed. Charlemagne is surrounded with the special +glory that ought to have belonged to Charles Martel. He is represented +as having passed his entire life in a victorious struggle with the +Mohammedans of Europe, and is even gravely credited with a triumphant +expedition to Jerusalem. The three romances of the Crusades which are +believed to be the oldest were all written by monks, and they all make +Charlemagne their hero. Even geography was transformed by the new +enthusiasm, and old maps sometimes represent Jerusalem as the centre +of the world. + +In few periods has there been so great a difference between the ideals +created by the popular imagination and the realities that are +recognised by history. Few wars have been accompanied by more cruelty, +more outrage, and more licentiousness than the Crusades or have +brought a blacker cloud of disasters in their train. Yet the idea that +inspired them was a lofty one, and they were so speedily transfigured +by the imaginations of men that in combination with the other +influences I have mentioned they created an ideal which is one of the +most beautiful in the history of the world. We may trace it clearly in +the romances of Arthur and Charlemagne and of the "Cid;" in the +"Red-Cross Knight" of Tasso and Spenser; in the old ballads which +paint so vividly the hero of chivalry, ever ready to draw his sword +for his faith and his lady-love and in the cause of the feeble and the +oppressed. The glorification of military courage and self-sacrifice +which had been so prominent in antiquity was again in the ascendant, +but it was combined with a new kind of honour and with a new vein of +courtesy, modesty, and gentleness. When we apply the epithet +'chivalrous' to a modern gentleman, this is no unmeaning term. There +is even now an element in that character which may be distinctly +traced to the ideal of chivalry which the Crusades made dominant in +Europe. + +I do not propose to follow the history of other ideals that have in +turn prevailed. What I have written will, I trust, be sufficient to +illustrate a kind of history which appears to me to possess much +interest and value. It will show, too, that a faithful historian is +very largely concerned with the fictions as well as with the facts of +the past. Legends which have no firm historical basis are often of the +highest historical value as reflecting the moral sentiments of their +time. Nor do they merely reflect them. In some periods they contribute +perhaps more than any other influence to mould and colour them and to +give them an enduring strength. The facts of history have been largely +governed by its fictions. Great events often acquire their full power +over the human mind only when they have passed through the +transfiguring medium of the imagination, and men as they were supposed +to be have even sometimes exercised a wider influence than men as they +actually were. Ideals ultimately rule the world, and each before it +loses its ascendancy bequeaths some moral truth as an abiding legacy +to the human race. + + + + +THE POLITICAL VALUE OF HISTORY + + +When, shortly after I had accepted the honourable task which I am +endeavouring to fulfil to-night, I received from your Secretary a +report of the annual proceedings of the Birmingham and Midland +Institute,--when I observed the immense range and variety of subjects +included within your programme, illustrating so strikingly the intense +intellectual activity of this great town,--my first feeling was one of +some bewilderment and dismay. What, I asked myself, could I say that +would be of much real value, addressing an unknown audience, and +relating to fields of knowledge so vast, so multifarious, and in many +of their parts so far beyond the range of my own studies? On +reflection, however, it appeared to me that in this, as in most other +cases, the proverb was a wise one which bids the cobbler stick to his +last, and that a writer who, during many years of his life, has been +engaged in the study of English history could hardly do better than +devote the time at his disposal to-night to a few reflections on the +political value of history, and on the branches and methods of +historical study that are most fitted to form a sound political +judgment. + +Is history a study of real use in practical, and especially in +political, life? The question, as you know, has been by no means +always answered in the same way. In its earlier stages history was +regarded chiefly as a form of poetry recording the more dramatic +actions of kings, warriors, and statesmen. Homer and the early +ballads are indeed the first historians of their countries, and long +after Homer one of the most illustrious of the critics of antiquity +described history as merely 'poetry free from the incumbrance of +verse.' The portraits that adorned it gave some insight into human +character; it breathed noble sentiments, rewarded and stimulated noble +actions, and kindled by its strong appeals to the imagination high +patriotic feeling; but its end was rather to paint than to guide, to +consecrate a noble past than to furnish a key for the future; and the +artist in selecting his facts looked mainly for those which could +throw the richest colour upon his canvas. Most experience was in his +eyes (to adopt an image of Coleridge) like the stern light of a ship, +which illuminates only the path we have already traversed; and a large +proportion of the subjects which are most significant as illustrating +the true welfare and development of nations were deliberately rejected +as below the dignity of history. The old conception of history can +hardly be better illustrated than in the words of Savage Landor. 'Show +me,' he makes one of his heroes say, 'how great projects were +executed, great advantages gained, and great calamities averted. Show +me the generals and the statesmen who stood foremost, that I may bend +to them in reverence.... Let the books of the Treasury lie closed as +religiously as the Sibyl's. Leave weights and measures in the +market-place; Commerce in the harbour; the Arts in the light they +love; Philosophy in the shade. Place History on her rightful throne, +and at the sides of her Eloquence and War.'[1] + +It was chiefly in the eighteenth century that a very different +conception of history grew up. Historians then came to believe that +their task was not so much to paint a picture as to solve a problem; +to explain or illustrate the successive phases of national growth, +prosperity, and adversity. The history of morals, of industry, of +intellect, and of art; the changes that take place in manners or +beliefs; the dominant ideas that prevailed in successive periods; the +rise, fall, and modification of political constitutions; in a word, +all the conditions of national well-being became the subjects of their +works. They sought rather to write a history of peoples than a history +of kings. They looked specially in history for the chain of causes and +effects. They undertook to study in the past the physiology of +nations, and hoped by applying the experimental method on a large +scale to deduce some lessons of real value about the conditions on +which the well-being of society mainly depends. + +How far have they succeeded in their attempt, and furnished us with a +real compass for political guidance? Let me in the first place frankly +express my own belief that to many readers of history the study is not +only useless, but even positively misleading. An unintelligent, a +superficial, a pedantic or an inaccurate use of history is the source +of very many errors in practical judgment. Human affairs are so +infinitely complex that it is vain to expect that they will ever +exactly reproduce themselves, or that any study of the past can enable +us to predict the future with the minuteness and the completeness that +can be attained in the exact sciences. Nor will any wise man judge the +merits of existing institutions solely on historic grounds. Do not +persuade yourself that any institution, however great may be its +antiquity, however transcendent may have been its uses in a remote +past, can permanently justify its existence, unless it can be shown +to exercise a really beneficial influence over our own society and our +own age. It is equally true that no institution which is exercising +such a beneficial influence should be condemned, because it can be +shown from history that under other conditions and in other times its +influence was rather for evil than for good. + +These propositions may seem like truisms; yet how often do we hear a +kind of reasoning that is inconsistent with them! How often, for +example, in the discussions on the Continent on the advantages and +disadvantages of monastic institutions has the chief stress of the +argument been laid upon the great benefits which those institutions +produced in ages that were utterly different from our own,--in the +dark period of the barbarian invasions, when they were the only +refuges of a pacific civilisation, the only libraries, the only +schools, the only centres of art, the only refuge for gentle and +intellectual natures; the chief barrier against violence and rapine; +the chief promoters of agriculture and industry! How often in +discussions on the merits and demerits of an Established Church in +England have we heard arguments drawn from the hostility which the +Church of England showed towards English liberty in the time of the +Stuarts; although it is abundantly evident that the dangers of a royal +despotism, which were then so serious, have utterly disappeared, and +that the political action of the Church of England at that period was +mainly governed by a doctrine of the Divine right of kings, and of the +duty of passive obedience, which is now as dead as the old belief that +the king's touch could cure scrofula! How often have the champions of +modern democracy appealed in support of their views to the glories of +the democracies of ancient Greece, without ever reminding their +hearers that these small municipal republics rested on the basis of +slavery, and that the bulk of those who would exercise the chief +controlling influence over affairs in a pure democracy of the modern +type were absolutely excluded from political power! How often in +discussions about the advantages and disadvantages of Home Rule in +Ireland do we find arguments drawn from the merits or demerits of the +Irish Parliament of the eighteenth century, with a complete +forgetfulness of the fact that this Parliament consisted exclusively +of a Protestant gentry; that it represented in the highest degree the +property of the country, and the classes who are most closely attached +to English rule; that it was constituted in such a manner that the +English Government could exercise a complete control over its +deliberations, and that for good or for ill it was utterly unlike any +body that could now be constituted in Ireland! + +Or again, to turn to another field: it is quite certain that every age +has special dangers to guard against, and that as time moves on these +dangers not only change, but are sometimes even reversed. There have +been periods in English history when the great dangers to be +encountered sprang from the excessive and encroaching power of a +monarchy or of an aristocracy. The battle to be then fought was for +the free exercise of religious worship and expression of religious +opinion, for a free parliament, for a free press, for a free platform, +for an independent jury-box. All the best patriotism, all the most +heroic self-sacrifice of the nation, was thrown into defence of these +causes; and the wisest statesmen of the time made it the main object +of their legislation to protect and consolidate them. + +These things are now as valuable as they ever were, but no reasonable +man will maintain that they are in the smallest danger. The battles of +the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have been definitely won. A +kind of language which at one period of English history implied the +noblest heroism is now the idlest and cheapest of clap-trap. The +sycophant and the self-seeker bow before quite other idols than of +old. The dangers of the time come from other quarters; other +tendencies prevail, other tasks remain to be accomplished; and a +public man who in framing his course followed blindly in the steps of +the heroes or reformers of the past would be like a mariner who set +his sails to the winds of yesterday. + +It is difficult, I think, to doubt that the judgments of all of us are +more or less affected by causes of this kind. It is, I imagine, true +of the great majority of educated men that their first political +impression or bias is formed much less by the events of their own time +than by childish recollections of the more dramatic conflicts of the +past. We are Cavaliers or Roundheads before we are Conservatives or +Liberals; and although we gradually learn to realise how profoundly +the condition of affairs and the balance of forces have altered, yet +no wise man can doubt the power which the first bias of the +imagination exercises in very many cases through a whole life. +Language which grew out of bygone conflicts continues to be used long +after those conflicts and their causes have ended; but that which was +once a very genuine voice comes at last to be little more than an +insincere echo. + +The best corrective for this kind of evil is a really intelligent +study of history. One of the first tasks that every sincere student +should set before himself is to endeavour to understand what is the +dominant idea or characteristic of the period with which he is +occupied; what forces chiefly ruled it, what forces were then rising +into a dangerous ascendancy, and what forces were on the decline; what +illusions, what exaggerations, what false hopes and unworthy +influences chiefly prevailed. It is only when studied in this spirit +that the true significance of history is disclosed, and the same +method which furnishes a key to the past forms also an admirable +discipline for the judgment of the present. He who has learnt to +understand the true character and tendencies of many succeeding ages +is not likely to go very far wrong in estimating his own. + +Another branch of history which I would especially commend to the +attention of all political students is the history of Institutions. In +the constantly fluctuating conditions of human life no institution +ever remained for a long period unaltered. Sometimes with changed +beliefs and changed conditions institutions lose all their original +utility. They become simply useless, obstructive, and corrupt; and +though by mere passive resistance they may continue to exist long +after they have ceased to serve any good purpose, they will at last be +undermined by their own abuses. Other institutions, on the other hand, +show the true characteristic of vitality--the power of adapting +themselves to changed conditions and new utilities. Few things in +history are more interesting and more instructive than a careful study +of these transformations. Sometimes the original objects almost wholly +disappear, and utilities which were either never contemplated by the +founders or were only regarded as of purely secondary importance take +the first place on the scene. The old plan and symmetry almost +disappear as the institution is modified now in this direction and now +in that to meet some pressing want. The first architects, if they +could rise from the dead, would scarcely recognise their +creation--would perhaps look on it with horror. The indirect +advantages of an institution are sometimes greater than its direct +ones; and institutions are often more valuable on account of the evils +they avert than on account of the positive advantages they produce. +Not unfrequently in their later and transformed condition they +exercise wider and greater influence than when they were originally +established; for the strength derived from the long traditions of the +past and from the habits that are formed around anything that is +deeply rooted in the national life gives them a vastly increased +importance. + +There is probably no better test of the political genius of a nation +than the power which it possesses of adapting old institutions to new +wants; and it is, I think, in this skill and in this disposition that +the political pre-eminence of the English people has been most +conspicuously shown. It is difficult to overrate its importance. It is +the institutions of a country that chiefly maintain the sense of its +organic unity, its essential connection with its past. By their +continuous existence they bind together as by a living chain the past +with the present, the living with the dead. + +Few greater calamities can befall a nation than to cut herself off, as +France did in her great Revolution, from all vital connection with her +own past. This is one of the chief lessons you will learn from +Burke--the greatest and truest of all our political teachers. Bacon +expressed in an admirable sentence the best spirit of English politics +when he urged that 'men in their innovations should follow the example +of Time itself, which indeed innovated greatly, but quietly, and by +degrees scarcely to be perceived.' + +There is a third department of history which appears to me especially +valuable to political students. It is the history of those vast +Revolutions for good or for ill which seem to have transformed the +characters or permanently changed the fortunes of nations, either by a +sudden and violent shock or by the slow process of gradual renovation. +You will find on this subject, in our country, two great and opposite +exaggerations. There is a school of writers, of which Buckle is an +admirable representative, who are so struck by the long chain of +causes, extending over many centuries, that preceded and prepared +Revolutions, that they teach a kind of historic fatalism, reducing +almost to nothing the action of Individualities; and there is another +school, which is specially represented by Carlyle, who reduce all +history into biographies, into the action of a few great men upon +their kind. + +The one class of writers will tell you with great truth that the Roman +Republic was not destroyed by Cæsar, but by the long train of +influences that made the career of Cæsar a possibility. They will show +how influences working through many generations had sapped the +foundations of the Republic--how the beliefs and habits on which it +once rested had passed away--how its institutions no longer +corresponded with the prevailing wants and ideas--how a form of +government which had proved excellently adapted for a restricted +dominion failed when the Roman eagles flew triumphantly over the whole +civilised world, and how in this manner the strongest tendencies of +the time were preparing the downfall of the Republic, and the +establishment of a great empire upon its ruins. They will show how the +intellectual influences of the Renaissance, the invention of printing, +and a crowd of other causes, many of them at first sight very remote +from theological controversies, had in the sixteenth century so +shaken the power of the Roman Catholic Church, that the way was +prepared for the Reformation, and it became possible for Luther and +Calvin to succeed, where Wyckliffe and Huss had failed. They will show +how profoundly our theological beliefs are affected by our general +conception of the system of the universe, and how inevitably, as +Science changes the latter, the former will undergo a corresponding +process of modification. Creeds that are no longer in harmony with the +general spirit of the time may long continue, but a new spirit will be +breathed into the old forms. Those portions which are most discordant +with our fresh knowledge will be neglected or attenuated. Although +they may not be openly discarded, they will cease to be realised or +vitally operative. + +In the sphere of politics a similar law prevails, and the fate of +nations largely depends upon forces quite different from those on +which the mere political historian concentrates his attention. The +growth of military or industrial habits; the elevation or depression +of different classes; the changes that take place in the distribution +of wealth; inventions or discoveries that alter the course or +character of industry or commerce, or reverse the relative advantages +of different nations in the competitions of life; the increase and, +still more, the diffusion of knowledge; the many influences that +affect convictions, habits and ideals, that raise, or lower, or modify +the moral tone and type--all these things concur in shaping the +destinies of nations. Legislation is only really successful when it is +in harmony with the general spirit of the age. Laws and statesmen for +the most part indicate and ratify, but do not create. They are like +the hands of the watch, which move obedient to the hidden machinery +behind. + +In all this kind of speculation there is, I believe, great truth, and +it opens out fields of inquiry that are of the utmost interest and +importance. I have, however, long thought that it has been pushed by +some modern writers to extravagant exaggeration. As you well know, +there is another aspect of history, which, long before Carlyle, was +enforced by some of the ablest and most independent intellects of +Christendom. Pascal tells us that if Cleopatra's nose had been +shorter, the whole face of the world might have been changed, and +Voltaire is never tired of dwelling on the small springs on which the +greatest events of history turn. Frederick the Great, who was probably +the keenest practical intellect of his age, constantly insisted on the +same view. In the vast field of politics, he maintained, casual events +which no human sagacity can predict play by far the largest part. We +are in most cases groping our way blindly in the dark. Occasionally, +when favourable circumstances occur, there is a gleam of light of +which the skilful avail themselves. All the rest is uncertainty. The +world is mainly governed by a multitude of secondary, obscure, or +impenetrable causes. It is a game of chance in which the most skilful +may lose like the most ignorant. 'The older one becomes the more +clearly one sees that King Hazard fashions three-fourths of the events +in this miserable world.' + +My own view of this question is that though there are certain streams +of tendency, though there is a certain steady and orderly evolution +that it is impossible in the long run to resist, yet individual action +and even mere accident have borne a very great part in modifying the +direction of history. It is with History as with the general laws of +Nature. We can none of us escape the all-pervading force of +gravitation, or the influence of the climate under which we live, or +the succession of the seasons, or the laws of growth and of decay; yet +man is not a mere passive weed drifting helplessly upon the sea of +life, and human wisdom and human folly can do and have done much to +modify the conditions of his being. + +It is quite true that religions depend largely for their continued +vitality upon the knowledge and intellectual atmosphere of their time; +but there are periods when the human mind is in such a state of +pliancy that a small pressure can give it a bent which will last for +generations. If Mohammed had been killed in one of the first +skirmishes of his career, I know no reason for believing that a great +monotheistic religion would have arisen in Arabia, capable of moulding +for more than twelve hundred years not only the beliefs, laws, and +governments, but also the inmost moral and mental character of a vast +section of the human race. Gibbon was probably right in his conjecture +that if Charles Martel had been defeated at the famous battle near +Tours, the creed of Islam would have overspread a great part of what +is now Christian Europe, and in that case it might have ruled over it +for centuries. No one can follow the history of the conversion of the +barbarians to Christianity without perceiving how often a religion has +been imposed in the first instance by the mere will of the ruler, +which gradually took such root that it became far too strong for any +political power to destroy. Persecution cannot annihilate a creed +which is firmly established, or maintain a creed which has been +thoroughly undermined, but there are intermediate stages in which its +influence on national beliefs has been enormously great. Even at the +Reformation, though more general causes were of capital importance, +political events had a very large part in defining the frontier line +between the rival creeds, and the divisions so created have for the +most part endured. + +In secular politics numerous instances of the same kind will occur to +every thoughtful reader of history. If, as might easily have happened, +Hannibal after the battle of Cannae had taken and burned Rome, and +transferred the supremacy of the world to a maritime commercial State +upon the Mediterranean; if, instead of the Regency, Louis XV. and +Louis XVI., France had passed during the eighteenth century under +sovereigns of the stamp of the elder branch of the House of Orange or +of Henry IV., or of the Great Elector, or of Frederick the Great; if, +at the French Revolution, the supreme military genius had been +connected with the character of Washington rather than with the +character of Napoleon--who can doubt that the course of European +history would have been vastly changed? The causes that made +constitutional liberty succeed in England, while it failed in other +countries where its prospects seemed once at least as promising, are +many and complex; but no careful student of English history will doubt +the prominence among them of the accidental fact that James II., by +embracing Catholicism, had thrown the Church feeling at a very +critical moment into opposition to the monarchical feeling, and that +in the last days of Anne, when the question of the succession was +trembling most doubtfully in the balance, his son refused to conform +to the Anglican creed. + +Laws are no doubt in a great degree inoperative when they do not +spring from and represent the opinion of the nation, but they have in +their turn a great power of consolidating, deepening, and directing +opinion. When some important progress has been attained, and with the +support of public opinion has been embodied in a law, that law will do +much to prevent the natural reflux of the wave. It becomes a kind of +moral landmark, a powerful educating influence, and by giving what had +been achieved the sanction of legality, it contributes largely to its +permanence. Roman law undoubtedly played a great part in European +history long after all the conditions in which it was first enacted +had passed away, and the legislator who can determine in any country +the system of national education, or the succession of property, will +do much to influence the opinions and social types of many succeeding +generations. + +The point, however, on which I would here especially insist is that +there has scarcely been a great revolution in the world which might +not at some stage of its progress have been either averted, or +materially modified, or at least greatly postponed, by wise +statesmanship and timely compromise. Take, for example, the American +Revolution, which destroyed the political unity of the English race. +You will often hear this event treated as if it were simply due to the +wanton tyranny of an English Government, which desired to reduce its +colonies to servitude by taxing them without their consent. But if you +will look closely into the history of that time--and there is no +history which is more instructive--you will find that this is a gross +misrepresentation. What happened was essentially this. England, under +the guidance of the elder Pitt, had been waging a great and most +successful war, which left her with an enormously extended Empire, but +also with an addition of more than seventy millions to her National +Debt. That debt was now nearly one hundred and forty millions, and +England was reeling under the taxation it required. The war had been +waged largely in America, and its most brilliant result was the +conquest of Canada, by which the old American colonies had benefited +more than any other part of the Empire, for the expulsion of the +French from North America put an end to the one great danger which +hung over them. It was, however, extremely probable that if France +ever regained her strength, one of her first objects would be to +recover her dominion in America. + +Under these circumstances the English Government concluded that it was +impossible that England alone, overburdened as she was by taxation, +could undertake the military defence of her greatly extended Empire. +Their object, therefore, was to create subsidiary armies for its +defence. Ireland already raised by the vote of the Irish Parliament, +and out of exclusively Irish resources, an army consisting of from +twelve to fifteen thousand men, most of whom were available for the +general purposes of the Empire. In India, under a despotic system, a +separate army was maintained for the protection of India. It was the +strong belief of the English Government that a third army should be +maintained in America for the defence of the American colonies and of +the neighbouring islands, and that it was just and reasonable that +America should bear some part of the expense of her own defence. She +was charged with no part of the interest of the National Debt; she +paid nothing towards the cost of the navy which protected her coast; +she was the most lightly taxed and the most prosperous portion of the +Empire; she was the part which had benefited most by the late war, and +she was the part which was most likely to be menaced if the war was +renewed. Under these circumstances Grenville determined that a small +army of ten thousand men should be kept in America, under the distinct +promise that it was never to serve beyond that country and the West +Indian Isles, and he asked America to contribute 100,000_l._ a year, +or about a third part of its expense. + +But here the difficulty arose. The Irish army was maintained by the +vote of the Irish Parliament; but there was no single parliament +representing the American colonies, and it soon became evident that it +was impossible to induce thirteen State legislatures to agree upon any +scheme for supporting an army in America. Under these circumstances +Grenville in an ill-omened moment resolved to revive a dormant power +which existed in the Constitution, and levy this new war-tax by +Imperial taxation. He at the same time guaranteed the colonists that +the proceeds of this tax should be expended solely in America; he +intimated to them in the clearest way that if they would meet his +wishes by themselves providing the necessary sum, he would be +abundantly satisfied, and he delayed the enforcement of the measure +for a year in order to give them ample time for doing so. + +Such and so small was the original cause of difference between England +and her colonies. Who can fail to see that it was a difference +abundantly susceptible of compromise, and that a wise and moderate +statesmanship might easily have averted the catastrophe? There are few +sadder and few more instructive pages in history than those which show +how mistake after mistake was committed, till the rift which was once +so small widened and deepened; till the two sections of the English +race were thrown into an irreconcilable antagonism, and the fair +vision of an United Empire in the East and in the West came for ever +to an end. + +Or glance for a moment at the French Revolution. It is a favourite +task of historians to trace through the preceding generations the long +train of causes that made the transformation of French institutions +absolutely inevitable; but it is not so often remembered that when the +States-General met in 1789 by far the larger part of the benefits of +the Revolution could have been attained without difficulty, without +convulsion, and by general consent. The nobles and clergy had pledged +themselves to surrender their feudal privileges and their privileges +in taxation; a reforming king was on the throne, and a reforming +minister was at his side. If the spirit of moderation had then +prevailed, the inevitable transformation might probably have been made +without the effusion of a drop of blood. Jefferson was at this time +the Minister of the United States in Paris. As an old republican he +knew well the conditions of free governments, and among the +politicians of his own country he represented the democratic section. +I know few words in history more pathetic than those in which he +described the situation. 'I was much acquainted,' he writes, 'with the +leading patriots of the Assembly. Being from a country which had +successfully passed through a similar reformation, they were disposed +to my acquaintance, and had some confidence in me. I urged most +strenuously an immediate compromise to secure what the Government were +now ready to yield.... It was well understood that the King would +grant at this time (1) freedom of the person by Habeas Corpus; (2) +freedom of conscience; (3) freedom of the press; (4) trial by jury; +(5) a representative legislature; (6) annual meetings; (7) the +origination of laws; (8) the exclusive right of taxation and +appropriation; and (9) the responsibility of Ministers; and with the +exercise of these powers they could obtain in future whatever might be +further necessary to improve and preserve their constitution. They +thought otherwise,' continued Jefferson; 'and events have proved their +lamentable error; for after thirty years of war, foreign and domestic, +the loss of millions of lives, the prostration of private happiness, +and the foreign subjugation of their own country for a time, they have +obtained no more, nor even that securely.'[2] + +Let me, in concluding these observations, sum up in a few words some +other advantages which you may derive from history. It is, I think, +one of the best schools for that kind of reasoning which is most +useful in practical life. It teaches men to weigh conflicting +probabilities, to estimate degrees of evidence, to form a sound +judgment of the value of authorities. Reasoning is taught by actual +practice much more than by any _a priori_ methods. Many good +judges--and I own I am inclined to agree with them--doubt much whether +a study of formal logic ever yet made a good reasoner. Mathematics are +no doubt invaluable in this respect, but they only deal with +demonstrations; and it has often been observed how many excellent +mathematicians are somewhat peculiarly destitute of the power of +measuring degrees of probability. But history is largely concerned +with the kind of probabilities on which the conduct of life mainly +depends. There is one hint about historical reasoning which I think +may not be unworthy of your notice. When studying some great +historical controversy, place yourselves by an effort of the +imagination alternately on each side of the battle; try to realise as +fully as you can the point of view of the best men on either side, and +then draw up upon paper the arguments of each in the strongest form +you can give them. You will find that few practices do more to +elucidate the past, or form a better mental discipline. + +History, again, greatly expands our horizon and enlarges our +experience by bringing us in direct contact with men of many times and +countries. It gives young men something of the experience of old men, +and untravelled men something of the experience of travelled ones. A +great source of error in our judgment of men is that we do not make +sufficient allowance for the difference of types. The essentials of +right and wrong no doubt continue the same, but if you look carefully +into history you will find that the special stress which is attached +to particular virtues is constantly changing. Sometimes it is the +civic virtues, sometimes the religious virtues, sometimes the +industrial virtues, sometimes the love of truth, sometimes the more +amiable dispositions, that are most valued, and occupy the foremost +place in the moral type. The men of each age must be judged by the +ideal of their own age and country, and not by the ideal of ours. Men +look at life in very different aspects, and they differ greatly in +their ways of reasoning, in the qualities they admire, in the aims +which they chiefly prize. In few things do they differ more than in +their capacity for self-government; in the kinds of liberty they +especially value; in their love or dislike of government guidance or +control. + +The power of realising and understanding types of character very +different from our own is not, I think, an English quality, and a +great many of our mistakes in governing other nations come from this +deficiency. Some thirty or forty years ago especially it was the +custom of English statesmen to write and speak as if the salvation of +every nation depended mainly upon its adoption of a miniature copy of +the British Constitution. Now, if there is a lesson which history +teaches clearly, it is that the same institutions are not fitted for +all nations, and that what in one nation may prove perfectly +successful, will in another be supremely disastrous. The habits and +traditions of a nation; the peculiar bent of its character and +intellect; the degree in which self-control, respect for law, the +spirit of compromise, and disinterested public spirit are diffused +through the people; the relations of classes, and the divisions of +property, are all considerations of capital importance. It is a great +error, both in history and in practical politics, to attach too much +value to a political machine. The essential consideration is by what +men and in what spirit that machine is likely to be worked. Few +Constitutions contain more theoretical anomalies, and even +absurdities, than that under which England has attained to such an +unexampled height of political prosperity; while a servile imitation +of some of the most skilfully-devised Constitutions in Europe has not +saved some of the South American States from long courses of anarchy, +bankruptcy, and revolution. + +These are some of the political lessons that may be drawn from +history. Permit me, in conclusion, to say that its most precious +lessons are moral ones. It expands the range of our vision, and +teaches us in judging the true interests of nations to look beyond the +immediate future. Few good judges will deny that this habit is now +much wanted. The immensely increased prominence in political life of +ephemeral influences, and especially of the influence of a daily +press; the immense multiplication of elections, which intensifies +party conflicts, all tend to concentrate our thoughts more and more +upon an immediate issue. They narrow the range of our vision, and make +us somewhat insensible to distant consequences and remote +contingencies. It is not easy, in the heat and passion of modern +political life, to look beyond a parliament or an election, beyond the +interest of a party or the triumph of an hour. Yet nothing is more +certain than that the ultimate, distant, and perhaps indirect +consequences of political measures are often far more important than +their immediate fruits, and that in the prosperity of nations a large +amount of continuity in politics and the gradual formation of +political habits are of transcendent importance. History is never more +valuable than when it enables us, standing as on a height, to look +beyond the smoke and turmoil of our petty quarrels, and to detect in +the slow developments of the past the great permanent forces that are +steadily bearing nations onwards to improvement or decay. + +The strongest of these forces are the moral ones. Mistakes in +statesmanship, military triumphs or disasters, no doubt affect +materially the prosperity of nations, but their permanent political +well-being is essentially the outcome of their moral state. Its +foundation is laid in pure domestic life, in commercial integrity, in +a high standard of moral worth and of public spirit; in simple habits, +in courage, uprightness, and self-sacrifice, in a certain soundness +and moderation of judgment, which springs quite as much from character +as from intellect. If you would form a wise judgment of the future of +a nation, observe carefully whether these qualities are increasing or +decaying. Observe especially what qualities count for most in public +life. Is character becoming of greater or less importance? Are the men +who obtain the highest posts in the nation men of whom in private life +and irrespective of party competent judges speak with genuine respect? +Are they men of sincere convictions, sound judgment, consistent lives, +indisputable integrity, or are they men who have won their positions +by the arts of a demagogue or an intriguer; men of nimble tongues and +not earnest beliefs--skilful, above all things, in spreading their +sails to each passing breeze of popularity? Such considerations as +these are apt to be forgotten in the fierce excitement of a party +contest; but if history has any meaning, it is such considerations +that affect most vitally the permanent well-being of communities, and +it is by observing this moral current that you can best cast the +horoscope of a nation. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] _Pericles and Aspasia._ + +[2] Jefferson's _Memoirs_, i. 80. + + + + +THE EMPIRE: ITS VALUE AND ITS GROWTH + + +I have been asked on the present occasion to deliver a short address +which might serve as an introduction to the course of lectures and +conferences on the history and resources of the different portions of +the Empire which are to take place in the Imperial Institute. In +attempting to discharge this task my first reflection is one which the +very existence of the Institute can hardly fail to suggest to anyone +with any knowledge of recent history. It is the great revolution of +opinion which has taken place in England within the last few years +about the real value to her both of her colonies and of her Indian +Empire. Not many years ago it was a popular doctrine among a large and +important class of politicians that these vast dominions were not +merely useless but detrimental to the mother-country, and that it +should be the end of a wise policy to prepare and facilitate their +disruption. Bentham, in a pamphlet called 'Emancipate your Colonies,' +advocated a speedy and complete separation. James Mill, who held a +high place among these politicians, wrote an article on Colonies for +the 'Encyclopædia Britannica' which clearly expresses their view. +Colonies, he contended, are very little calculated to yield any +advantage whatever to the countries that hold them, and their chief +influence is to produce and prolong bad government. Why, then, he +asks, do European nations maintain them? The answer is very +characteristic, both of the man and of his school. Something, he +charitably admits, is due to mere ignorance, to mistaken views of +utility; but the main cause is of another kind. He quotes the saying +of Sancho Panza, who desired to possess an island in order that he +might sell its inhabitants as slaves, and put the money in his pocket; +and he maintains that the chief cause of our Colonial Empire is the +selfish interest of the governing few who valued colonies because they +gave them places and enabled them to multiply wars. In more moderate +and decorous language, Goldwin Smith wrote a book, the object of which +was to show how desirable it was that this Empire should be gradually +but steadily reduced to the sweet simplicity of two islands. Similar +views prevailed very generally in the Manchester school. Cobden +frequently expressed them. The question of the colonies, he +maintained, was mainly a question of pounds, shillings, and pence; he +proved, as he imagined, by many figures that they were a very bad +bargain; and he expressed his confident hope that one of the results +of free trade would be 'gradually and imperceptibly to loosen the +bands which unite our colonies to us.' About our Indian Empire he +entertained much stronger opinions. He described it as a calamity and +a curse to the people of England. He looked on it, in his own words, +'with an eye of despair,' and declared that it was destroying and +demoralising the national character. It was the belief of his school +of politicians that all the nations of the world would speedily follow +the example of England and adopt a policy of perfect free trade; that +when all men were able to sell their industries with equal facility in +all countries, it would become a matter of little consequence to them +under what flag they lived, and that this complete commercial +assimilation would soon be followed by a general movement for +disarming, which would put an end to all fear of future war. + +Many politicians who certainly cannot be classified with the +Manchester school held views tending in some degree in the same +direction. Even Sir Cornewall Lewis in his treatise on the 'Government +of Dependencies,' which was published in 1841, summed up the +advantages and disadvantages of a great empire in a manner that gives +the impression that in his own judgment the disadvantages on the whole +predominated. In the Autobiography of that great writer and excellent +public servant Sir Henry Taylor, who for many years exercised much +influence in the Colonial Office, we have a curious picture of the +opinions which were held on this subject about thirty years ago, both +by Sir Henry Taylor himself and by Sir Frederick Rogers, who was at +this time permanent Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies. They +both agreed that all our North American colonies were a kind of +_damnosa hereditas_, and that it was in a high degree desirable that +they should be amicably separated from Great Britain. Sir Henry Taylor +wrote his views on the subject with great frankness to the Duke of +Newcastle, who was then Secretary of State. 'When your Grace and the +Prince of Wales,' he said, 'were employing yourselves so successfully +in conciliating the colonists, I thought that you were drawing closer +ties which might better be slackened, if there were any chance of +their slipping away altogether. I think that a policy which has regard +to a not very far off future should prepare facilities and +propensities for separation.... In my estimation the worst consequence +of the late dispute with the United States has been that of involving +this country and its North American provinces in closer relations and +a common cause.'[3] 'I have always believed,' wrote Sir Frederick +Rogers in 1885--'and the belief has so confirmed and consolidated +itself, that I can hardly realise the possibility of anyone seriously +thinking the contrary--that the destiny of our colonies is +independence; and that in this point of view the function of the +Colonial Office is to secure that our connection while it lasts shall +be as profitable to both parties, and our separation when it comes as +amicable as possible.' + +I do not believe that opinions of this kind, though they were held by +a large and powerful section of English politicians, ever penetrated +very deeply into the English nation. One of the causes of Mr. Cobden's +'despair' was his conviction that the English people would never be +persuaded to surrender India except at the close of a disastrous and +exhausting war, and in his day the policy of national surrender was +certainly not that of the statesmen who led either party in +Parliament. No one would attribute it to Mr. Disraeli, in whose long +political life the note of Imperialism was perhaps that which sounded +with the clearest ring, and it was quite as repugnant to Lord +Palmerston and Lord John Russell. In an admirable speech which was +delivered in the beginning of 1850, Lord John Russell disclaimed all +sympathy with it, and I can well remember the indignation with which +in his latter days he was accustomed to speak of the views on the +subject which were then frequently expressed. 'When I was young,' he +once said to me, 'it was thought the mark of a wise statesman that he +had turned a small kingdom into a great empire. In my old age it +appears to be thought the object of a statesman to turn a great +empire into a small kingdom.' + +I do not think that anyone who has watched the current of English +opinion will doubt that the views of the Manchester school on this +subject have within the last few years steadily lost ground, and that +a far warmer and, in my opinion, nobler and more healthy feeling +towards India and the colonies has grown up. The change may be +attributed to many causes. In the first place, what Carlyle called +'The Calico Millennium' has not arrived. The nations have not adopted +free trade, but nearly all of them, including unfortunately many of +our own colonies, have raised tariff walls against our trade. The +Reign of Peace has not come. National antipathies and jealousies play +about as great a part in human affairs as they ever did, and there are +certainly not less than three and a half millions, there are probably +nearly four millions, of men under arms in what are called the peace +establishments of Europe. It is beginning to be clearly seen that, +with our vast, redundant, ever-growing population, with our enormous +manufactures, and our utterly insufficient supply of home-grown food, +it is a matter of life and death to the nation, and especially to its +working classes, that there should be secure and extending fields open +to our goods, and in the present condition of the world we must mainly +look for these fields within our own Empire. The gigantic dimensions +that Indian trade has assumed within the last few years, and the +extraordinary commercial development of some other parts of our +Empire, have pointed the moral, and it has been made still more +apparent by the eagerness with which other Powers, and especially +Germany, have flung themselves into the path of colonisation. In an +age, too, when all the paths of professional and industrial life in +our country are crowded to excess, the competitive system has combined +with our new acquisitions of territory to throw open noble fields of +employment, enterprise and ambition to poor and struggling talent, and +India is proving a school of inestimable value for maintaining some of +the best and most masculine qualities of our race. It is the great +seed-plot of our military strength; and the problems of Indian +administration are peculiarly fitted to form men of a kind that is +much needed among us--men of strong purpose and firm will, and high +ruling and organising powers, men accustomed to deal with facts rather +than with words, and to estimate measures by their intrinsic value, +and not merely by their party advantages, men skilful in judging human +character under its many types and aspects and disguises. + +If again we turn to our great self-governing colonies, we have learnt +to feel how valuable it is, in an age in which international +jealousies are so rife, that there should be vast and rapidly growing +portions of the globe that are not only at peace with us, but at one +with us; how unspeakably important it is to the future of the world +that the English race, through the ages that are to come, should cling +as closely as possible together. As a distinguished statesman who +lately represented the United States in England[4] has admirably said, +'If it is not always true that trade follows flag, it is at least true +that "heart follows flag,"' and the feeling that our fellow-subjects +in distant parts of the Empire bear to us is very different from the +feeling even of the most friendly foreign nation. Our great colonies +have readily undertaken the responsibility of providing for their own +defence by land, and even in some degree by sea. If the protection of +their coasts in time of war might become a great strain upon our navy, +this disadvantage is largely balanced by the importance of distant +maritime possessions to every nation that desires to maintain an +efficient fleet; by the immense advantage to a great commercial Power +of secure harbours and coaling stations scattered over the world. It +is not difficult to conceive circumstances in which the destruction of +some of our main industries, occurring, perhaps, in the midst of a +great war, might make it utterly impossible for our present population +to live upon British soil, and when the possession of vast territories +under the British flag, and in the hands of the British race, might +become a matter of transcendent importance. Think for a moment of the +colossal, and indeed appalling, proportions which our great towns are +assuming! Think of all the vice and ignorance and disease, of all the +sordid abject misery, of all the lawless passions that are festering +within them! And then consider how precarious are many of the +conditions of our industrial prosperity, how grave and how numerous +are the dangers that threaten it both from within and from without. +Who can reflect seriously on these things without feeling that the day +may come--perhaps at no distant date--when the question of emigration +may overshadow all others? To many of us, indeed, it seems one of the +greatest errors of modern English statesmanship that when the great +exodus from Ireland took place after the famine, Government took no +step to aid it, or to direct it to quarters where it would have been +of real benefit to the Empire. Many good judges think that the +advantages of such interference in allaying bitter feelings, +softening a disastrous crisis, and permanently strengthening the +Empire, might have been well purchased even if they cost as much as +England has sometimes lost by one comparatively insignificant war or +by one disastrous strike. In dealing with this question of emigration +in the future, colonial assistance may be of supreme importance. And +those who have understood the significance of that memorable incident +in our recent history--the despatch of Australian troops to fight our +battles in the Soudan--may perceive that there is at least a +possibility of a still closer and more beneficent union between +England and her colonies--a union that would vastly increase the +strength of both, and by doing so become a great guarantee of peace in +the world. + +It would be a calumny to suppose that the change of feeling I have +described was solely due to a calculation of interests. Patriotism +cannot be reduced to a mere question of money, and a nation which has +grown tired of the responsibilities of empire, and careless of the +acquisitions of its past and of its greatness in the future, would +indeed have entered into a period of inevitable decadence. Happily we +have not yet come to this. I believe the overwhelming majority of the +people of these islands are convinced that an England reduced to the +limits which the Manchester school would assign to it would be an +England shorn of the chief elements of its dignity in the world, and +that no greater disgrace could befall them than to have sacrificed +through indifference, or negligence, or faint-heartedness, an Empire +which has been built up by so much genius and so much heroism in the +past. Railways and telegraphs and newspapers have brought us into +closer touch with our distant possessions, have enabled us to realise +more vividly both their character and their greatness, and have thus +extended the horizon of our sympathies and interests. The figures of +illustrious colonial statesmen are becoming familiar to us. Men formed +in Indian and colonial spheres are becoming more numerous and +prominent in our own public life. The presence in England of a High +Commissioner from Canada, and of Agents-General from our other +colonies, constitutes a real though informal colonial representation, +and on more than one recent occasion our foreign policy has been +swayed by colonial pressure. These young democracies, with their vast +undeveloped resources, their unwearied energies, their great social +and industrial problems, are beginning to loom largely in the +imaginations of Europe. They feel, we believe, a just pride in being +members of a great and ancient Empire, and heirs to the glories of its +past. We, in our turn, feel a no less just pride in our union with +those coming nations which are still lit with the hues of sunrise and +rich in the promise of the future. + +It has been suggested to me that I should on the present occasion say +something about the methods by which this great Empire was built up, +but it is obvious that in a short address like the present it is only +possible to touch on so large a subject in the most cursory manner. +Much is due to our insular position and our command of the sea, which +gave Englishmen, in the competition of nations, a peculiar power both +of conquering and holding distant dependencies. Being precluded, +perhaps quite as much by their position as by their desire, from +throwing themselves, like most continental nations, into a long course +of European aggression, they have largely employed their redundant +energies in exploring, conquering, civilising, and governing distant +and half-savage lands. They have found, like all other nations, that +an Empire planted amid the shifting sands of half-civilised and +anarchical races is compelled for its own security, and as a mere +matter of police, to extend its borders. The chapter of +accidents--which has played a larger part in most human affairs than +many very philosophical enquirers are inclined to admit--has counted +for something. But, in addition to these things, there are certain +general characteristics of English policy which have contributed very +largely to the success of the Empire. + +It has been the habit of most nations to regulate colonial governments +in all their details according to the best metropolitan ideas, and to +surround them with a network of restrictions. England has in general +pursued a different course. Partly on system, but partly also, I +think, from neglect, she has always allowed an unusual latitude to +local knowledge and to local wishes. She has endeavoured to secure, +wherever her power extends, life and property, and contract and +personal freedom, and, in these latter days, religious liberty; but +for the rest she has meddled very little; she has allowed her +settlements to develop much as they please, and has given, in practice +if not in theory, the fullest powers to her governors. It is +astonishing, in the history of the British Empire, how large a part of +its greatness is due to the independent action of individual +adventurers, or groups of emigrants, or commercial companies, almost +wholly unassisted and uncontrolled by the Government at home. An +Empire formed by such methods is not likely to exhibit much symmetry +and unity of plan, but it is certain to be pervaded in an unusual +degree, in all its parts, by a spirit of enterprise and self-reliance; +it will probably be peculiarly fertile in men not only of energy but +of resource, capable of dealing with strange conditions and +unforeseen exigencies. England in the past periods of her history has, +on the whole, been singularly successful in adapting her different +administrations to widely different national circumstances and +characters, and governments of the most various types have arisen +under her rule. Nothing in the history of the world is more wonderful +than that under the flag of these two little islands there should have +grown up the greatest and most beneficent despotism in the world, +comprising nearly two hundred and thirty millions of inhabitants under +direct British rule, and more than fifty millions under British +protectorates; while at the same time British colonies and settlements +that are scattered throughout the globe number not less than fifty-six +distinct subordinate governments. + +This system would have been less successful if it had not been for two +important facts. The original stuff of which our Colonial Empire was +formed was singularly good. Some of the most important of our colonies +were founded in the days of religious war, and the early settlers +consisted largely of religious refugees--a class who are usually +superior to the average of men in intellectual and industrial +qualities, and are nearly always greatly superior to them in strength +of conviction, and in those high moral qualities which play so great a +part in the well-being of nations. Besides this, in those distant +days, the difficulties of emigration were so great that they were +rarely voluntarily encountered except by men of much more than average +courage, enterprise and resource. These early adventurers were +certainly often of no saintly type, but they were largely endowed with +the robuster qualities that are most needed for grappling with new +circumstances and carving out the empires of the future. + +The second fact is the high standard of patriotism and honour which we +may, I think, truly say has nearly always prevailed among English +public servants. It is not an easy thing to secure honest and faithful +administration in remote countries, far from the supervision and +practical control of the central government. I think we may boast with +truth that England has attained this end, not indeed perfectly, but at +least to a greater degree than most other nations. The history of +Indian and colonial governors has never been written as a whole, but +it is well worthy of study. In the appointment of these men party has +always counted for something, and family has counted for something; +but they have never been the only considerations, and, on the whole, I +believe it will be found, if we consider the three elements of +character, capacity and experience, that our Indian and colonial +governors represent a higher level of ruling qualities than has been +attained by any line of hereditary sovereigns, or by any line of +elected presidents. In the period of the foundation of our Indian +Empire much was done that was violent and rapacious, but the best +modern research seems to show that the picture which a few years ago +was generally accepted had been greatly overcharged. The history of +Warren Hastings and his companions has been recently studied with +great knowledge and ability, and with the result that the more serious +opinions on the subject have been considerably modified. Much +exaggeration undoubtedly grew up in the last century, partly through +ignorance of Oriental affairs, and partly also through the eloquence +of Burke. There is no figure in English political history for which I +at least entertain a greater reverence than Edmund Burke. I believe +him to have been a man of transparent honesty, as well as of +transcendent genius; but his politics were too apt to be steeped in +passion, and he was often carried away by the irresistible force of +his own imagination and feelings. Misrepresentations were greatly +consolidated by the Indian History of James Mill, which was for a long +time the main, and indeed almost the only, source from which +Englishmen obtained their knowledge of Indian history. It was written, +as might be expected, with the strongest bias of hostility to the +English in India, yet I suspect that many superficial readers imagined +that a history which was so unquestionably dull must be at least +impartial and philosophical. Unfortunately, Macaulay relied greatly on +it, and, without having made any serious independent studies on the +subject, he invested some of its misrepresentations with all the +splendour of his eloquence. I believe all competent authorities are +now agreed that his essay on Warren Hastings, though it is one of the +most brilliant of his writings, is also one of the most seriously +misleading. + +I am not prepared to say that the reaction of opinion produced by the +new school of Indian historians has not been sometimes carried too +far, but these writers have certainly dispelled much exaggeration and +some positive falsehood. They have shown that, although under +circumstances of extreme difficulty and extraordinary temptation, some +very bad things were done by Englishmen in India, these things were +neither as numerous nor as grave as has been alleged. + +On the whole, too, it may be truly said that English colonial policy +in its broad lines has to a remarkable degree avoided grave errors. +The chief exception is to be found in the series of mistakes which +produced the American Revolution, and ended in the loss of our chief +American colonies. Yet even in this instance it is, I believe, coming +to be perceived that there is much more to be said for the English +case than the historians of the last generation were apt to imagine. +In imposing commercial restrictions on the colonies and endeavouring +to secure for the mother-country the monopoly of their trade, we +merely acted upon ideas that were then almost universally received, +and our commercial code was on the whole less illiberal than that of +other nations. Both Spain and France imposed restrictions on their +colonies which were far more severe, and the English restrictions were +at least mitigated by frequent partial relaxations and exceptions, by +some important monopolies granted in favour of the colonies in the +English market and by bounties encouraging several branches of +colonial produce. It is at least certain that under the large measure +of political liberty granted by the English Government to the English +colonies their material prosperity, even in the worst period of +commercial restriction, steadily and rapidly advanced. This has been +clearly shown by more than one writer on our side of the Atlantic, but +the subject has never been treated with more exhaustive knowledge and +more perfect impartiality than by an American writer--Mr. George +Beer--whose work on the Commercial Policy of England has recently been +published by Columbia College, in New York. No one will now altogether +defend Grenville's policy of taxing America by the Imperial +Parliament, but it ought not to be forgotten that it was expressly +provided that every farthing of this taxation was to be expended in +America, and devoted to colonial defence. England had just terminated +a great war, which, by expelling the French from Canada, had been of +inestimable advantage to her colonies, but which had left the +mother-country almost crushed by debt. All that Grenville desired was, +that the American colonies should provide a portion of the cost of +their own defence, as our great colonies are doing at the present +time, and he only resorted to Imperial taxation because he despaired +of achieving this end by any other means. The step which he took was +no doubt a false one. As is so often the case in England, it was made +worse by party changes and by party recriminations, and many later +mistakes aggravated and embittered the original dispute; but I think +an impartial reader of this melancholy chapter of English history will +come to the conclusion that these mistakes were by no means all on one +side. + +It is a story which is certainly not without its lesson to our own +time. It is very improbable that any future statesman will follow the +example of George Grenville, and endeavour by Act of Parliament to +impose taxation on a self-governing colony; but it would be a grave +error to suppose that the danger of unwise parliamentary interference +in Indian and colonial affairs has diminished. Great as are the +advantages of telegraphs and newspapers in the government of the +Empire, they are not without their drawbacks. Government by telegraph +is a very dangerous thing, and there is, I fear, an increasing +tendency to override local knowledge, and to apply English standards +and methods of government to wholly un-English conditions. +Ill-considered resolutions of the House of Commons, often passed in +obedience to some popular fad, and without any real intention of +carrying them into effect; language used in Parliament which is often +due to no deeper motive than a desire to win the favour of some class +of voters in an English constituency, may do as much as serious +misgovernment to alienate great masses of British subjects beyond the +sea. All really competent judges are agreed that one of the first +conditions of successful government in India has been that Indian +questions have for the most part been kept out of the range of English +party politics, and that Indian government has been conducted on +principles essentially different from democratic government at home. + +On the whole, however, it is impossible to review the colonial history +of England without being struck with the many serious dangers that +might easily have shattered the Empire, which were averted by wise +statesmanship and timely--or at least not fatally tardy--concession. +There was the question of the criminal population which we once +transported to Australia. In the early stage of the colony, when the +population was very sparse and the need for labour very imperative, +this was not regarded as in any degree a grievance; but the time came +when it became a grievance of the gravest kind, and the Imperial power +had at length the wisdom to abandon it. There was the question of the +different and hostile religious bodies existing in different portions +of the Empire, at a time when the monopoly of political power by the +members of a single Established Church, the exclusive endowment of its +clergy, and the maintenance of the purely Protestant character of the +English Government were cherished as religious duties by politicians +at home. Yet at this very time an established and endowed Roman +Catholic Church was flourishing in Canada, and there were numerous +examples throughout the British dominions of the concurrent endowment +of different forms of religious belief by the State,[5] while in India +it abstained, with an extreme, and sometimes even an exaggerated, +scrupulousness, from all measures that could by any possibility offend +the native religious prejudices. There was the question of +Slavery--though we were freed from the most difficult part of this +problem by the secession of America. In addition, however, to its +moral aspects, it affected most vitally the material prosperity of +some of our richest colonies; it raised the very dangerous +constitutional question of the right of the Imperial Parliament to +interfere with the internal affairs of a self-governing colony, and it +brought the Home Government into more serious collision with the local +Governments than any question since the American Revolution. Whatever +may be thought of the wisdom of the measures by which we abolished +slavery in our West Indian colonies, no one at least can deny the +liberality of a Parliament which voted from Imperial resources twenty +millions for the accomplishment of the work. There was the conflict of +race and creed which between 1830 and 1840 had brought Canada to +absolute rebellion, and threatened a complete alienation of Canadian +feeling from the mother-country. This discontent was effectually +allayed and dispelled by the union of Upper and Lower Canada under a +system of constitutional government of the most liberal character, +which gave the colonists on all subjects of internal legislation a +legislative independence that was in practice almost complete. +Considered as a measure of conciliation this has proved one of the +most successful of the nineteenth century, and in spite of a few +discordant notes it may be truly said that there are few greater +contrasts in the present reign than are presented between Canadian +feeling towards the mother-country when Queen Victoria ascended the +throne and Canadian feeling at the present hour. There was also the +great and dangerous task to be accomplished of adapting the system of +colonial government to the different stages of colonial development. +There was a time when the colonies were so weak that they depended +mainly on England for their protection; but, unlike some of the great +colonising Powers of ancient and modern times, England never drew a +direct tribute from her colonies, and, in spite of much unwise and +some unjust legislation, I believe there was never a time when they +were not on the whole benefited by the connection. Soon, however, the +colonies grew to the strength and maturity of nationhood, and the +mother-country speedily recognised the fact, and allowed no unworthy +or ungenerous fears to restrain her from granting them the fullest +powers, both of self-government and of federation. It is true that she +still sends out a governor--usually drawn from the ranks of +experienced and considerable English public men--to preside over +colonial affairs. It is true that she retains a right of veto which is +scarcely ever exercised except to prevent some intercolonial or +international dispute, some act of violence, or some grave anomaly in +the legislation of the Empire. It is true that colonial cases may be +carried, on appeal, to an English tribunal, representing the very +highest judicial capacity of the mother-country, and free from all +possibility and suspicion of partiality; but I do not believe that any +of these light ties are unpopular with any considerable section of the +colonists. On the other hand, though it would be idle to suppose that +our great colonies depend largely upon the mother-country, I believe +that most colonists recognise that there is something in the weight +and dignity attaching to fellow-membership and fellow-citizenship in +a great Empire--something in the protection of the greatest navy in +the world--something in the improved credit which connection with a +very rich centre undoubtedly gives to colonial finance. + +It is the custom of our friends and neighbours on the Continent to +bestow much scornful remark on the egotism of English policy, which +attends mainly to the interests of the British Empire, and is not +ready to make war for an idea and in support of the interests of +others. I think, if it were necessary, we might fairly defend +ourselves by showing that in the past we have meddled with the affairs +of other nations quite as much as is reasonable. For my own part, I +confess that I distrust greatly these explosions of military +benevolence. They always begin by killing a great many men. They +usually end in ways that are not those of a disinterested +philanthropy. After all, an egotism that mainly confines itself to the +well-being of about a fifth part of the globe cannot be said to be of +a very narrow type, and it is essentially by her conduct to her own +Empire that the part of England in promoting the happiness of mankind +must be ultimately judged. It is indeed but too true that many of the +political causes which have played a great part on platforms, in +parties, and in Parliaments are of such a nature that their full +attainment would not bring relief to one suffering human heart, or +staunch one tear of pain, or add in any appreciable degree to the real +happiness of a single home. But most assuredly Imperial questions are +not of this order. Remember what India had been for countless ages +before the establishment of British rule. Think of its endless wars of +race and creed, its savage oppressions, its fierce anarchies, its +barbarous customs; and then consider what it is to have established +for so many years over the vast space from the Himalayas to Cape +Comorin a reign of perfect peace; to have conferred upon more than two +hundred and fifty millions of the human race perfect religious +freedom, perfect security of life, liberty, and property; to have +planted in the midst of these teeming multitudes a strong central +government, enlightened by the best knowledge of Western Europe, and +steadily occupied in preventing famine, alleviating disease, +extirpating savage customs, multiplying the agencies of civilisation +and progress. This is the true meaning of that system of government on +which Mr. Cobden looked with 'an eye of despair.' What work of human +policy--I would even say what form of human philanthropy--has ever +contributed more largely to reduce the great sum of human misery and +to add to the possibilities of human happiness? + +And if we turn to the other side of our Empire, although it is quite +true that our great free colonies are fully capable of shaping their +destinies for themselves, may we not truly say that these noble +flowers have sprung from British and from Irish seeds? May we not say +that the laws, the Constitutions, the habits of thought and character +that have so largely made them what they are, are mainly of English +origin? May we not even add that it is in no small part due to their +place in the British Empire that these vast sections of the globe, +with their diverse and sometimes jarring interests, have remained at +perfect peace with us and with each other, and have escaped the curse +of an exaggerated militarism, which is fast eating like a canker into +the prosperity of the great nations of Europe? + +When responsible government was conceded by the British Government to +her more important colonies, it was done in the fullest and largest +measure. Although the mother-country remained burdened with the task +of defending them she made no reservation securing for herself free +trade with her colonies or even preferential treatment, and she +surrendered unconditionally to the local legislatures the waste and +unoccupied lands which had long been regarded in England as held in +trust for the benefit of the Empire as a whole. The growing belief +that the connection with the colonies was likely to be a very +transitory one, and also the belief that free-trade doctrines were +likely speedily to prevail, no doubt influenced English statesmen, and +it is not probable that any of them foresaw that both Canada and +Australia would speedily make use of their newly acquired power to +impose heavy duties on English goods. The strongly protectionist +character which the English colonies assumed at a time when England +had committed herself to the most extreme free-trade policy tended no +doubt to separation, and when the English Government adopted the +policy of withdrawing its garrisons from the colonies, when the North +American colonies, with the full assent of the mother-country, formed +themselves into a great federation, and when a movement in the same +direction sprang up in Australia, it was the opinion of some of the +most sagacious statesmen and thinkers in England that the time of +separation was very near.[6] + +On the whole, however, these predictions have hitherto been falsified. +The federation of North America and, at a later period, the federation +of Australia have been followed by an increased and not a diminished +disposition on the side of the colonists to draw closer the ties with +the mother-country, while in England the popular imagination has been +more and more impressed with the growing magnitude and importance of +her colonial dominions. The tendency towards great political +agglomerations based upon an affinity of race, language and creed, +which has produced the Pan-Slavonic movement and the Pan-Germanic +movement, and which chiefly made the unity of Italy, has not been +without its influence in the English-speaking world, and it is felt +that a close union between its several parts is essential if it is +fully to maintain its relative position under the new conditions of +the world. The English-speaking nations comprise the most rapidly +increasing, the most progressive, the most happily situated nations of +the earth, and if their power and influence are not wasted by internal +quarrels their type of civilisation must one day become dominant in +the world. + +Whether their harmony and unity are likely to be attained is one of +the great problems of the future, but the ideal is one which every +patriotic Englishman should at least set before him. It is not one +which can be called an assured destiny, and to many the chances seem +on the whole against it. Unexpected collisions of interest or passion +or ambition may at any time mar the prospects, and in great +democracies largely influenced by demagogues and by an irresponsible +and anonymous Press there are always powerful agencies that do not +make for peace. Immediate party interests both at home and in the +colonies too frequently blind men to distant and ulterior +consequences, and the many ill-wishers to the British Empire are sure +to direct their policy largely to its disruption. The natural bond of +union of a great Empire is economical unity, binding its several parts +together by a common system of free trade and by a common commercial +policy towards other Powers. Unfortunately the profoundly different +policy adopted on these matters in England and her colonies has made +such a Union almost impracticable, and it is quite possible for the +English colonies to be united by closer commercial ties with foreign +countries than with the mother-country. The question of the common +defence of the Empire and the question of the representation of the +colonies in Imperial politics are also questions of great difficulty +and of pressing importance. + +Something has been done showing at least a disposition to meet them. +The concession of preferential duties in favour of England by some of +our most important colonies, the small subsidies made to the +maintenance of the British navy, and the far more important military +assistance given by the colonies to the mother-country in the Egyptian +and the South African wars are indicative of the feeling of closer +unity which has grown up between England and her colonies, and in +addition to the appointment of Agents-General, the introduction of a +few eminent colonial judges into the Judicial Committee of the Privy +Council, which is the Supreme Court of Appeal of the Empire, has given +the colonies some real representation in Imperial affairs. Much more, +however, in this direction may be done. There have been several +instances of eminent colonials obtaining seats in the English House of +Commons to the great advantage of the Empire, but a regular +representation of the colonies in this assembly may, I think, be +dismissed as altogether impracticable. The mere distance is a +sufficient objection, and at least nine-tenths of the business of the +House of Commons deals with purely English questions depending for +their wise solution on inherited English habits and on compromises +with existing institutions, and a large proportion of them are +problems which have been already dealt with in the colonies on other +grounds and without any of the complexities of an old country. What +reason could there be for calling in the colonists to adjudicate, +perhaps even to turn the balance, on questions relating to English +education, English licensing laws, English taxation, English +dispositions of property? The difficulty of distinguishing between +Imperial and local questions would be insuperable. The division of the +House into two categories of members with distinct spheres of voting +power would prove unworkable, and the colonial representatives would +during most of their time in Parliament have nothing to do. An +increase in the number of peers drawn from the colonies would be less +impracticable, but there would be much that is invidious in the +choice; much danger that the colonial peers living in England would +get out of touch with the colonies and become an object of envy and +jealousy; and English lawyers do not think that a large infusion of +colonial law peers would raise the competence of the Supreme Judicial +Tribunal of the Empire, which represents at present the highest legal +talent and attainments in England and deals mainly with English legal +questions. A Consultative Council, however, consisting of the +Agents-General and perhaps reinforced by additional colonial +representatives and dealing exclusively with Imperial questions, does +not seem wholly impracticable, and many competent judges believe that +a supreme legal tribunal for dealing with inter-colonial and +international conflicts might be constructed which would be both more +efficient and more representative than any that now exists. + +It is probable, however, that the true tie that must unite the +different portions of the Empire must be mainly a moral one. In the +conditions of modern life no power is likely to maintain long a vast, +scattered, heterogeneous Empire if the central governing power within +it has declined; if through want of efficiency, or moral energy, or +moral purity, it ceases to win the respect of its several parts. It is +no less true that the cohesion can only be permanently maintained by +the wide diffusion of a larger and Imperial patriotism, pervading the +whole like a vital principle; binding men by the ties of pride and of +affection to the great Empire to which they belong, and subordinating +to its maintenance local and party and class interests. If this spirit +dies out, the movement of disintegration is sure to begin. No +political machinery, no utilitarian calculation, will in the long run +be powerful enough to arrest it. + +What may be the future place of these islands in the government of the +world no human being can foretell. Nations, as history but too plainly +shows, have their periods of decay as well as their periods of growth. +The balance of power in the world is constantly shifting. Maxims and +influences very different from those which made England what she is +are in the ascendant, and the clouds upon the horizon are neither few +nor slight. But, whatever fate may be in store for these islands, and +for the political unity we so justly prize, we may at least +confidently predict that no revolution in human affairs can now +destroy the future ascendancy of the English language and of the +Imperial race. Whatever misfortunes, whatever humiliations the future +may reserve to us, they cannot deprive England of the glory of having +created this mighty Empire. + + Not Heaven itself upon the Past has power. + But what has been, has been--and we have had our hour. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[3] _Autobiography_, ii. pp. 234, 235. + +[4] Mr. Bayard. + +[5] See the enumeration of these endowments in Gladstone's _State and +Church_, Ch. IX. + +[6] See Cairnes' _Political Essays_, 49-50, 56. + + + + +IRELAND IN THE LIGHT OF HISTORY + + +The kind of interest which belongs to Irish history is curiously +different from that which attaches to the history of England and to +that of most of the great nations of the Continent. In very few +histories do we find so little national unity or continuous progress, +or such long spaces which are almost wholly occupied by perplexed, +petty internal broils, often stained by atrocious crimes, but turning +on no large issue and leading to no clear or stable results. Except +during the great missionary period of the sixth and seventh centuries, +and during a brief portion of the eighteenth century, we have little +of the interest that arises from dramatic situations or shining +characters, and in few countries has the highest intellect been, on +the whole, so slightly connected with the administration of affairs. +To a philosophical student of politics, however, Irish history +possesses an interest of the highest order. It is an invaluable study +of morbid anatomy. In very few histories can we trace so clearly the +effects of political and social circumstances in forming national +character; the calamity of missed opportunities and of fluctuating and +procrastinating policy; the folly of attempting to govern by the same +methods and institutions nations that are wholly different in their +characters and their civilisation. + +The idea which still floats vaguely in many minds that Ireland, before +the arrival of the Normans, was a single and independent nation, is +wholly false. Ireland was not a nation, but a collection of separate +tribes and kingdoms, engaged in almost constant warfare. In this +respect, however, she resembled many countries which have since +attained the most perfect unity, and there can be little doubt that, +if her development had been impeded by no extraneous influences, +Ireland would have followed the same path as England or France. Much +stress has been justly laid on the disorganising influence of a long +succession of Danish invasions, though it must be remembered that +Ireland owes to the Danes the foundation of some of her most important +cities. Roman conquest, which introduced into most of Europe +invaluable elements of order, organisation, and respect for law, never +extended to Ireland. The Anglo-Norman invasion and conquest produced +consequences which were almost wholly evil. If the invaders had been +driven from the Irish shore, the natural course of development would, +no doubt, have been in time continued. If the invaders had completely +conquered Ireland, a fusion might have taken place as complete and as +healthy as in England. Neither of these two events occurred. The +English conquest was prolonged over nearly four hundred years. A +hostile and separate power was planted in the centre of Ireland +sufficiently powerful to prevent the formation of another +civilisation, yet not sufficiently powerful to impose a civilisation +of its own. Feudalism was introduced, but the keystone of the system, +a strong resident sovereign, was wanting, and Ireland was soon torn by +the wars of great Anglo-Norman nobles, who were, in fact, independent +sovereigns, much like the old Irish kings. The Scotch invasion of the +fourteenth century added enormously to the anarchy and confusion; the +English power as a living reality contracted to the narrow limits of +the pale; in outlying districts the Anglo-Norman assimilated quickly +with the Celtic element, while the English legislators in Ireland, +alarmed at the tendency, made it the main object of their policy, in +the words of Sir John Davies, 'to make a perpetual separation and +enmity between the English and Irish, pretending no doubt that the +English should in the end root out the Irish.' + +Such a state of things continued till the long and terrible wars of +Henry VIII. and Elizabeth broke the power of the independent chiefs +and of the Celtic clans, and gave Ireland, for the first time, a +political unity. It is one of the great infelicities of Irish history +that this result was obtained at the very period of the Reformation. +The conquerors adopted one religion, while the conquered retained the +other, and thus a new and most enduring barrier was raised between the +two nations in Ireland, and a pernicious antagonism was established +between law and religion. + +Another influence not less powerful than religion had at the same time +come into play. It had become the English policy to place great bodies +of English and Scotch settlers on the land that was confiscated in +consequence of rebellion, and under the impulse of the strong spirit +of adventure which grew up in the generation that followed the +Reformation, streams of English and Scotch adventurers poured over. +The great settlement of Ulster under James I. proved ultimately a +success, and laid the foundation of the prosperity of that province. +Other plantations were in time absorbed and assimilated by the Celtic +population; but vast revolutions in the ownership of land, accompanied +by the subversion of the old tribal customs, laid the foundation of an +agrarian war which still continues. + +Religious and agrarian causes combined with the civil war in England +to produce the great rebellion of 1641 and the eleven years of +ghastly, exterminating war which followed. Hardly any page in human +history is more appalling. A full third of the population of Ireland +perished. Thirty or forty thousand of the most energetic left the +country and took service in foreign armies. Great tracts were left +absolutely depopulated, and after the rearrangement of land, which was +accomplished by the Act of Settlement, the immense preponderance of +landed property remained in the hands of the Protestant nation. + +New elements, however, of great energy had been planted in Ireland, +and the field had been thrown open to their exertions. The excellence +of Irish wool and the cheapness of Irish labour laid the foundation of +a flourishing woollen manufacture, and with peace, mild +administration, and much practical tolerance, the wounds of the +country seemed gradually healing. The later Stuart reigns, which form +a dark page in English history, were a period of considerable +prosperity in Ireland, but that period was soon interrupted by the +Revolution. There was no general or passionate rising in Ireland +resembling that of 1641, but it was inevitable that the Irish +Catholics should have adopted the side of the Catholic King, and it +was equally inevitable that when a Catholic Parliament, consisting +largely of sons of the men whose properties had recently been +confiscated, had assembled at Dublin, its members should have made a +desperate effort to reverse their fortunes and replace the land of the +country mainly in Catholic hands. The battle of the Boyne shattered +the Catholic hopes, and it was followed by a new confiscation, by a +new emigration of the ablest and most energetic Catholics, by a long +period of commercial restraints, penal laws, and complete Protestant +ascendancy. + +The commercial restraints formed part of a protective policy which was +at that time general in Europe, and which was severely felt in the +American colonies. Though it did not absolutely originate in, it was +greatly intensified by, the Revolution, which gave the manufacturing +and commercial classes a new power in English government. The linen +manufacture was spared, but the total destruction by law of the +flourishing woollen manufacture, followed by a number of restrictions +imposed on other branches of industry, deprived Ireland of her most +promising sources of wealth, drove great multitudes of energetic +Protestants out of the country, and threw the people more and more +upon the soil as almost their sole means of support. + +The penal laws against the Catholics accompanied or closely followed +the commercial restraints. The blame of them may be divided with some +equality between the Government of England and the Parliament of +Ireland. It was the Irish Parliament which enacted these laws, but an +English Act first made the Irish Parliament exclusively Protestant, +and the whole legislation was carried at a time when the Irish +Parliament was completely dependent, and incompetent even to discuss +any measure without the previous approbation of the English +Government. In order to judge this legislation with equity, it must be +remembered that in the beginning of the eighteenth century restrictive +laws against Protestantism in Catholic countries, and against +Catholicism in Protestant ones, almost universally prevailed. The laws +against Irish Catholics were, on the whole, less stringent than those +against Catholics in England. They were largely modelled after the +French legislation against the Huguenots, but persecution in Ireland +never approached in severity that of Louis XIV., and was absolutely +insignificant compared with that which had extirpated Protestantism +and Judaism from Spain. The code, however, was not mainly the product +of religious feeling, but of policy, and in this respect it has been +defended in its broad outlines, though not in all its details, by such +Irishmen as Charlemont, Flood, and Parsons. They argued that at the +close of a long period of savage civil war it was absolutely necessary +for a small minority, who found themselves in possession of the +government and land of the country, to deprive the conquered and +hostile majority of every element of political and military strength. +This was the real object of the code. It was a measure of self-defence +justified by necessity and by the fact that it produced in Ireland for +the space of about eighty years the most perfect tranquillity. + +There is much truth in these considerations, but it is also true that +the penal code produced more pernicious moral, social, and political +effects than many sanguinary persecutions. In other countries +disqualifying or persecuting laws were directed against small +fractions of the nation. In Ireland they were directed against the +bulk of the community. Being supported by little or no genuine +religious fanaticism or proselytising ardour, they made few +Protestants except in the upper orders, where many conformed in order +to keep their land or to enter professions; but they drove nearly all +the best and most energetic Catholics to the Continent; they +discouraged industry; closed the door of knowledge; taught the people +to look upon law as something hostile to religion; introduced +division and immorality into families by the rewards they offered to +apostasy; and condemned the whole country to poverty and impotence by +fatally depressing the great majority of its people. Under the +influence of the penal laws the Catholics inevitably acquired the +vices of serfs, and the Protestants the vices of monopolists. A great +portion of the code was pronounced, with good reason, to be flagrantly +opposed to the articles of the Treaty of Limerick, and it completed +the work of the confiscations by making the landlord class in Ireland +almost wholly Protestant, while the great majority of the tenantry +were Catholics. + +There was a moment, however, in the beginning of the century when the +whole current of Irish history might easily have changed. Scotland had +suffered, like Ireland, from the protective policy that followed the +Revolution, and her independent Parliament had retaliated by measures +which threatened the speedy separation of the two crowns, and soon led +to a legislative Union. In Ireland such a Union was ardently desired +by enlightened Irishmen, and there is every reason to believe that it +could then have been carried with universal consent. The Catholics +were perfectly passive, and would gladly have accepted a change which +withdrew them from the direct government of the conquerors in a recent +civil war. The Protestants had as yet no distinctively national +feeling, and a legislative Union would have emancipated their industry +and added enormously to their security. Molyneux, the first great +champion of the legislative independence of Ireland, emphatically +declared that he and those who thought with him would gladly have +accepted the alternative of a Union, and both the Irish Houses of +Parliament voted addresses in favour of such a measure. If it had +been carried, Ireland would have been at least saved from the evils +that rose from the commercial restrictions and from the extreme +jobbing that grew up around the local legislature, and she would, +perhaps, have been saved from some parts of the penal code. But the +golden opportunity was lost. The English commercial classes dreaded +Irish competition in their markets, and the petition of the Irish +legislature was disregarded. + +Nearly seventy years of quiet followed. The establishment of the +Hanoverian dynasty, the Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745, the +different wars in which England was engaged, left Ireland absolutely +undisturbed. The House of Commons then sat for a whole reign and met +only every second year. It was completely subservient to the English +Privy Council, and it consisted so largely of nomination boroughs that +a few great nobles commanded a decisive preponderance, and they +practically conducted the government and administered the patronage of +Ireland. There was great jobbing and corruption, but taxation, on the +whole, was exceedingly light, and there was no tendency to throw it +unduly on the poor, or to create in Ireland any of the many feudal +burdens that prevailed in France and Germany. The practical evil most +felt was the system of tithes for the support of the Protestant +establishment, and it was aggravated by a very unfair exemption of +pasture land, and also by the prevailing system of farming out tithes +to a class of men known as tithe proctors. In the country districts +all power was concentrated in the hands of the landlords, who, with +many faults and under many difficulties, at least succeeded in +attaining a large measure of genuine popularity. + +There was an Irish army of twelve thousand men, but the greater part +of it was always sent abroad in time of war, and Ireland was then +often left with not more than five thousand soldiers. No militia and +no constabulary force existed, but when Whiteboy or other disturbances +arose, the landlords put themselves at the head of their tenantry, and +usually succeeded in suppressing them. Law was very little observed; +industrial virtues were at the lowest ebb; there was abundance of +drunkenness, idleness, turbulence, neglect of duty, extreme ignorance, +and extreme poverty; but there was not much real oppression or +religious bigotry, and there were no signs of political disturbance or +conspiracy. After a few years the portions of the penal code which +restricted the Catholic worship became a dead letter, and Catholic +chapels were everywhere rising on the Protestant estates. The +monopoly, however, of place and power continued, though the legal +profession was full of professing converts. The theological +temperature in both sects had greatly subsided. Land was usually let +by the owner on long leases, and at very low rents, to tenants who +almost invariably divided and sublet their tenancies. + +At a later period of the century, when population pressed closely on +subsistence, the system of middlemen produced a fierce competition +which raised rent in the lower grades to an enormous height, but this +evil was less felt with a scanty population, and the hierarchy of +tenants at least saved the landlords from the dangerous isolation +which their circumstances tended to produce. Arthur Young, who +examined the condition of the country very carefully between 1776 and +1778, perceived great signs of growing prosperity, especially in the +towns, and, although agriculture was far behind that of England, he +found a considerable number of active, intelligent, and improving +landlords. In the opinion of Young the rental of Ireland was unduly +and unnaturally low, but he urged the landlords to exercise a more +direct and controlling influence over their estates, and he +recommended them, for this purpose, to give leases for shorter periods +and gradually to abolish the system of middlemen and subletting. + +In the north there was a powerful, intelligent Protestant community, +with a strong leaning to republicanism. They were chiefly +Presbyterians, and they resented bitterly the commercial restrictions +and the obligation of paying tithes to an Episcopal church. The Irish +Parliament was so constituted that they had no political power at all +equivalent to their importance, and, like the Presbyterians in +England, they were burdened by the Test Act, and their marriages were +only valid if celebrated in the Established Church. The great power of +the bishops, both in the Privy Council and in the House of Lords, +formed a very serious obstacle to church reform. In all classes of +Protestants, however, in the closing years of George II., there was a +strong resentment at the political subjection of Ireland, and a +determination to obtain, if possible, those constitutional rights +which the Revolution of 1688 had secured for England. + +It is impossible, within the narrow limits assigned to me, to give +even a sketch of the successive stages by which the independence of +the Irish Parliament was established. The movement began with the +Octennial Act, limiting the duration of Parliament, and it came to +full maturity during the war of the American Revolution. Among the +Irish Catholics there appears to have been absolutely no sympathy with +the American cause, but Ulster Protestantism was enthusiastically on +the side of America. Presbyterians from Ulster bore a considerable +part in the American armies, and under the influence of American +example public opinion in Ireland rapidly advanced. The great +Volunteer movement of 1778 and the following years was originated by +the fact that the Government could supply no troops for the defence of +Ulster at a time when it was in imminent danger of attack from France. +The Protestant gentry called their people to arms; and a great +Protestant force was created, which not only secured the country +against foreign danger and maintained the most perfect internal order, +but also exercised a decisive influence over Irish politics. Volunteer +conventions were assembled which represented both property and +educated Protestant opinion much more truly than the borough +Parliament, and which loudly demanded free trade and Parliamentary +independence. Grattan made himself the mouthpiece of the popular +feeling; and the English Government and Parliament yielded to the +demand. The whole system of commercial restraints, which prevented +Ireland from developing her resources and trading with foreign +countries and the British colonies, was abolished, leaving the +commercial intercourse between Great Britain and Ireland to be +regulated by special Acts. The power of the Privy Council over +legislation was abolished. The appellate jurisdiction of the Irish +House of Lords was restored, and, above all, the sole competence of +the King, Lords, and Commons of Ireland to legislate for Ireland was +recognised. The Irish Parliament nearly at the same time made great +steps towards uniting the people by relieving the Presbyterians from +the Test Act and from the restrictions on their marriages, and the +Catholics from those parts of the penal code which chiefly restrained +their worship, their education, and their industry. At the same time +the Protestant monopoly of political power and of the higher offices +remained. + +Ireland thus found herself in possession of a Parliament which was, in +name at least, perfectly independent. It was a purely Protestant +Parliament, elected by Protestants, consisting mainly of landlords and +great Protestant lawyers, and representing pre-eminently the property +of the country. It was intensely and exclusively loyal, and always +ready to adopt far more stringent coercive measures against anarchy +and sedition than have ever been adopted by an Imperial Parliament. It +included many men of great talents and great liberality, and through +the county constituencies and the representatives of the chief towns +educated public opinion was seriously felt within its walls; but the +large majority of its members sat for nomination boroughs within the +control of the government, and places and pensions were inordinately +multiplied for the purpose of securing a majority. + +Could this constitution last? In framing the course of foreign and +Imperial policy, in all questions of peace or war, of negotiations or +alliances, the Irish Parliament had no voice. Yet it might in time of +war, by withholding its concurrence, withdraw the whole weight of +Ireland from the forces and fatally dislocate the policy of the +Empire. It might pursue a commercial policy absolutely inconsistent +with Imperial interests, and bring Ireland into intimate commercial +connection with the enemies of England; and if English party spirit +extended to Ireland and ran in opposite directions in the two +legislatures, a collision was inevitable. The Lord Lieutenant and +Chief Secretary, who administered the government of Ireland, were +appointed by a British Ministry representing the dominant British +party; the counsels of the Irish Government were framed in a British +Cabinet; the royal consent was given to every Irish Bill under the +Great Seal of Great Britain and upon the advice of a British Minister. +If a machine so constituted could work as long as it was in the hands +of a small and undoubtedly loyal and largely influenced class, could +it work if Parliamentary reform made the Irish Parliament subject to +the fierce and fluctuating tides of popular opinion? above all, if +Catholic enfranchisement brought a vast, ignorant, and possibly +seditious element into political life? + +It was the recorded opinion of each successive Lord Lieutenant who +administered the Irish Government after 1782 that it could not, and +that it must sooner or later end either in a union or a separation. +They said this, though they fully acknowledged the perfect loyalty +hitherto shown by the Irish Parliament; the liberality with which it +voted its supplies; the care with which it subordinated its particular +measures to the general interests of the Empire. The failure--not +solely or even mainly through Irish fault--of an attempt to establish +a fixed commercial arrangement between England and Ireland, and a +difference between the British and Irish Parliaments on the Imperial +question of a regency, strengthened the opinion of the English +Government, and for many years before the Union was enacted it was in +contemplation. On the two great and pressing questions at issue this +policy exercised a powerful influence. The Government obstinately +resisted every serious attempt to reform the Parliament, lest they +should lose that controlling power which they believed to be essential +to the permanence of the connection. On the Catholic question their +views were more fluctuating, but their dominant impression was that +emancipation could only be safely conceded in an Imperial Parliament, +and that it ought to be reserved as a boon which might one day make a +legislative Union acceptable to the Irish people. + +In Ireland, or at least in Protestant Ireland, the idea of a Union was +now intensely unpopular, but the reformers in the Irish Parliament +were seriously divided. Flood and Charlemont desired Parliamentary +reform on a purely Protestant basis. They believed that this would +include in political life the bulk of the property, loyalty, +intelligence, and energy of the country, and that the Irish Catholics +could not for a long period be safely admitted to political power. +Grattan, on the other hand, believed that it was the first interest of +Ireland to efface the political distinction between the two creeds and +nations, and that an introduction of a certain proportion of Catholic +gentry into the Irish Parliament would be in the highest degree +beneficial. He, at the same time, always taught that Ireland was +utterly unfit for democracy, and that under her peculiar conditions no +policy could be more disastrous than one which would 'destroy the +influence of landed property'; 'set population adrift from the +influence of property'; subvert or weaken the guiding influence of the +loyal and educated. When the United Irishmen proposed a Reform Bill +which would have made the Irish Parliament a purely democratic body, +Grattan denounced it with the greatest vehemence. 'This plan of +personal representation,' he said, 'from a revolution of power, would +speedily lead to a revolution of property, and become a plan of +plunder as well as a scene of confusion.... Of such a representation +the first ordinance would be robbery, accompanied with the +circumstance incidental to robbery, murder.' He believed, however, +that with a substantial property qualification independent +constituencies might be formed which would safely represent the best +elements of both creeds. + +The denial of parliamentary reform and Catholic emancipation, and the +refusal of the Irish Parliament to deal with the still more pressing +question of tithes, produced much disaffection; but still the country +was steadily improving, and no serious danger was felt till the French +Revolution burst upon Europe. In every country it stimulated the +smouldering elements of disorder. In few countries was its influence +more fatal than in Ireland. I have very lately described at length the +terrible years of growing conspiracy, anarchy, and crime; of +fluctuating policy, and savage repression, and revived religious +animosity, and maddening panic, deliberately and malignantly fomented, +that preceded and prepared the rebellion. It is sufficient here to say +that in the beginning of 1798 three provinces were organised to assist +a French invasion. But at the last moment the leaders were betrayed +and arrested; the French did not arrive; the rebellion was almost +confined to a few Leinster counties, and it broke out without leaders +and without a plan. In most places the rebels proved to be wretched +bands of marauders intent only on plunder, and, although they +committed many murders, they were utterly incapable of meeting the +loyalists in the field. But in Wexford, priests put themselves at the +head of the movement and turned it into a religious war, deriving its +main force from religious fanaticism, and waged with desperate courage +and ferocity. The massacre of Protestants on Vinegar Hill, in +Scullabogue Barn, and on Wexford Bridge, and the general character +the rebellion in Leinster assumed, at once and for ever checked all +that tendency to rebellion which had so long existed among the +Protestants of Ulster. Some twenty thousand persons perished before +the flame was extinguished. The repression was as savage as the +rebellion, and it left Ireland torn by fiercer religious animosities +than at any period since the Restoration. + +It will dispel many illusions if the reader will remember that the +great Irish rebellion was directed mainly against the Irish +Parliament, and that it received its death-blow from Irish loyalists +acting under that Parliament before any assistance arrived from +England. The conspiracy began among Protestants and Deists, who aimed +at a union of sects for the purpose of obtaining a democratic +republic. It turned into a war which was scarcely less essentially +religious than the wars of the Cevennes or of the Anabaptists. Yet two +great Catholic provinces remained quiet during the struggle, and a +great proportion of the loyalist force which crushed the rebellion +consisted of Catholic militia. + +The English Government thought that the time had now come for carrying +a legislative Union, and, in the eyes of Lord Cornwallis at least, one +of its chief recommendations was that it would take the government of +Ireland out of the hands of the triumphant party, and would make +Catholic emancipation a possibility. The Catholic bishops were sounded +and found to be very favourable. They declared their full willingness +to accept an endowment for the priesthood and to give the English +Government a right of veto on episcopal appointments, and they warmly, +efficiently, and unanimously supported the Union. The great majority +of the Catholic landed gentry and probably of the lower priests were +on the same side; but in general the Catholic laity seem to have +shown little interest and to have taken little part in the contest. In +Dublin, Catholics as well as Protestants were generally hostile, but +Catholic Cork was decidedly favourable, and an assurance that the +Government desired to carry emancipation in an Imperial Parliament +proved sufficient to prevent any serious Catholic opposition. The +United Irishmen seem to have witnessed rather with pleasure than the +reverse the dethronement of the body which had defeated them, and the +Presbyterians showed scarcely any interest in the question. + +Yet outside the ranks of the Catholic clergy the measure found few +active supporters, while the Protestants of the Established Church +were in general ardently and passionately hostile. The great majority +of the county members and the great preponderance of petitions were +against the Union, and the opposition to it, which was led by Foster, +Grattan, Parsons, and Plunket, comprised nearly all the independent +and unbribed talent in Parliament. The very eminent ability of that +small group of Protestant gentlemen never flashed more brightly than +in the closing scenes, and there was a moment when the attitude of the +Orangemen and the yeomanry was so menacing that the Government were +seriously alarmed. But a lavish distribution of peerages and places +purchased a majority, and the troops stationed in Ireland were too +numerous for armed opposition to be possible. In truth, however, no +opposition beyond the dimensions of a riot was to be feared. Outside +Dublin, Catholic, Presbyterian, and seditious Ireland remained almost +indifferent. Even before the measure had passed, opposition speakers +complained bitterly that they were deserted by popular support; and it +is a memorable fact that in the general election that followed the +Union not a single Irish member of Parliament was defeated because he +had voted for it. + +Pitt intended the Union to be immediately followed by measures +admitting the Catholics into the Imperial Parliament, paying the +priests, and commuting the tithes. If these three measures, or even if +the last two (which were, in truth, the most important), had been +promptly carried, the Union might have become popular. The Catholic +question had, of late, been greatly mismanaged. The chief men who +directed the government in Ireland were bitterly opposed to any +concession of political power to the Catholics, but the views of the +English Ministers had been materially changed. They desired above all +things to separate the Catholics from the United Irishmen, and in 1793 +they forced upon their reluctant advisers in Ireland an Act which +extended the suffrage to the vast ignorant Catholic masses, though it +left the Catholic gentry still excluded from Parliament. Two years +later Lord Fitzwilliam was sent over with instructions to postpone the +question if possible, but with authority, as he believed, to carry +emancipation if it could not be postponed, and he found the Irish +Parliament perfectly prepared to pass it. But the opposition of the +King and a question of patronage produced a fatal division and led to +the recall of the Viceroy. The passions aroused by the rebellion +greatly increased the difficulties of admitting Catholics to a +separate Parliament, but there is clear evidence that at the time of +the Union the Irish Protestants were in favour of their admission into +the Imperial one. The dispositions of the King were well known, but it +was believed that, if the scheme of Pitt was submitted to him as the +matured policy of a united Cabinet, he must have yielded. It is well +known how the plan was prematurely revealed; how Pitt resigned office +when the King refused his consent; how the agitation of the question +threw the King into an access of insanity; and how Pitt then promised +that he would not again raise it during the reign. Pitt's conduct on +this occasion is, and probably always will be, differently judged. +There can be but one opinion of its calamitous effect upon Irish +history. + +Ninety years have passed since the Union, and the conditions of +Ireland have completely changed. The whole system of religious +disqualification and commercial disability has long since passed away. +Every path has been thrown open, and English professions, as well as +the great Colonial and Indian services, are crowded with Irishmen. The +Established Church no longer exists. Representation has been placed on +a broadly democratic basis, giving Ireland, however, an absurdly +disproportioned weight in the representation of the kingdom, and its +poorest and most backward districts an absurdly disproportioned weight +in the representation of Ireland. Finally, an attempt has been made to +put down agrarian agitation by legislation to which there is no real +parallel in English history, and some parts of which would have been +impossible under the Constitution of the United States. Landlords who +possessed by the clearest title known to English law the most absolute +ownership of their estates have been converted into mere +rent-chargers. Tenants who entered upon their tenancies under formal +written contracts for limited periods have been rooted for ever on the +soil. Rents have been reduced by judicial sentence, with complete +disregard both to previous contracts and to market value, and the +legal owner has had no option of refusing the change and re-entering +on the occupation of his land. A scheme of purchase, too, based upon +Imperial credit, has been established and will probably soon be +largely extended, which is so extravagantly and almost grotesquely +favorable to the tenant that it enables him by paying for the space of +forty-nine years, instead of his reduced judicial rent, an annual sum +which is considerably smaller, to purchase the freehold of his farm. +It is a simple and incontestable truth that neither in the United +States, nor in England, nor in any portion of the Continent of Europe, +is the agricultural tenant so favoured by law as in Ireland, or +anything of the nature of landlord oppression made so impossible. But +though agitation has diminished, it has not ceased, and the great body +of the poorer Catholics still follow the banner of Home Rule. + +About a third of the population of Ireland, on the other hand, regard +Home Rule as the greatest catastrophe that could befall themselves, +their country, or the Empire; and it is worthy of notice that they +include almost all the descendants of Grattan's Parliament, and of the +volunteers and of those classes who in the eighteenth century +sustained the spirit of nationality in Ireland. Belfast and the +surrounding counties, which alone in Ireland have attained the full +height and vigour of English industrial civilisation; almost all the +Protestants, both Episcopalian and Nonconformist; almost all the +Catholic gentry; the decided preponderance of Catholics in the lay +professions, and a great and guiding section of the Catholic +middle-class are on the same side. Their conviction does not rest upon +any abstract doctrine about the evil of federal governments or of +local parliaments. It rests upon their firm persuasion that in the +existing conditions of Ireland no Parliament could be established +there which could be trusted to fulfil the most elementary conditions +of honest government--to maintain law; to protect property; to observe +or enforce contracts; to secure the rights and liberties of +individuals and minorities; to act loyally in times of difficulty and +danger in the interests of the Empire. + +They know that the existing Home Rule movement has grown up by the +guidance and by the support of men who are implacable enemies to the +British Empire; that it has been for years the steady object of its +leaders to inspire the Irish masses with feelings of hatred to that +Empire, contempt for contracts, defiance of law and of those who +administer it; that, having signally failed in rousing the +agricultural population in a national struggle, those leaders resolved +to turn the movement into an organised attack upon landed property; +that in the prosecution of this enterprise they have been guilty, not +only of measures which are grossly and palpably dishonest, but also of +an amount of intimidation, of cruelty, of systematic disregard for +individual freedom scarcely paralleled in any country during the +present century; and finally that, through subscriptions which are not +drawn from Ireland, political agitation in Ireland has become a large +and highly lucrative trade--a trade which, like most others, will no +doubt continue as long as it pays. + +The nature, methods, and objects of the organisation which would +probably exercise a dominant influence over an Irish Parliament have +been established by overwhelming evidence and beyond all reasonable +doubt, after a long, careful, and most impartial judicial +investigation. The report of the late Special Commissioners[7] and the +evidence on which it is founded have been published; and their +conclusions have very recently been summed up in an admirable work by +Professor Dicey, perhaps the ablest of living writers on political +subjects. Readers may find in these works abundant evidence of the +true character of the Irish Home Rule movement. If they read them with +impartiality they will, I believe, have little difficulty in +concluding that there have been few political movements in the +nineteenth century which are less deserving of the respect or support +of honest men. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[7] The Parnell Commission.--ED. + + + + +FORMATIVE INFLUENCES + + +It was about four years before the great upheaval of beliefs in +England, which was partly caused and partly disclosed by the +publication of the 'Essays and Reviews,' in 1860, that I entered +Trinity College, Dublin. I had then a strong leaning toward +theological studies and looked forward to a peaceful clerical life in +a family living near Cork; and in addition to the ordinary university +course, I went through that appointed for divinity students. I found +my life at the university one of more than common intellectual +activity, for although circumstances and temperament made me perhaps +culpably indifferent to college ambitions and competitions, I soon +threw myself with intense eagerness into a long course of private +reading, chiefly relating to the formation and history of opinions. +The great High Church wave which had a few years before been so +powerful, had been broken when Newman and many other leaders of the +party had passed to Catholicism. Darwin and Herbert Spencer had not +yet risen above the horizon. Mill was in the zenith of his fame and +influence. The intellectual atmosphere was much agitated by the recent +discoveries of geology, by their manifest bearing on the Mosaic +cosmogony and on the history of the Fall, and by the attempts of Hugh +Miller, Hitchcock, and other writers to reconcile them with the +received theology. In poetry, Tennyson and Longfellow reigned, I +think with an approach to equality which has not continued. In +politics, the school of orthodox political economy was almost +unchallenged. In spite of the protests of Carlyle, all sound Liberals +in England then desired to restrict as much as possible the functions +of government, and to enlarge as much as possible the sphere of +individual liberty; and they regarded unrestrained competition and +inviolable contracts as the chief conditions of material progress. + +The first great intellectual influence which I experienced was, I +believe, that of Bishop Butler, who was at that time probably studied +more assiduously at Dublin than in any other university in the +kingdom. There were few sermons in the college chapel in which some +allusion to his writings might not be found, and few serious students +whose modes of thought were not at least coloured by his influence. +That influence now appears to me to have been not only various, but +even in some measure contradictory. The 'Analogy' is perhaps the most +original, if not the most powerful, book ever written in defence of +the Christian creed; but it has probably been the parent of much +modern Agnosticism, for its method is to parallel every difficulty in +revealed religion by a corresponding difficulty in natural religion, +and to argue that the two must stand or fall together. Butler's +unrivalled sermons on human nature, on the other hand, have been +essentially conservative and constructive, and their influence has +been at least as strong on character as on belief. Their doctrine is +that consciousness reveals in the inner principles of our being a +moral hierarchy, 'a difference in nature and kind altogether distinct +from strength'; and that among these principles conscience has, by the +very structure of our nature, a recognised supremacy or guiding +authority which clearly distinguishes it from all others. + +'The principle of reflection or conscience being compared with the +various appetites, affections, and passions in men, the former is +manifestly supreme and chief, without regard to strength.... From its +very nature it manifestly claims superiority over all others, so that +you cannot form a notion of this faculty, conscience, without taking +in judgment, direction, superintendency. To preside and govern, from +the very economy and constitution of man, belongs to it. Had it +strength as it has right, it would govern the world.' + +It was a noble philosophy, well fitted to strengthen and elevate the +character, and it has supported many amid the dissolution of positive +beliefs. Utilitarian theories of morals move very smoothly as long as +their only task is to define the course which it is in the interests +of society that each man should pursue. They are less successful in +furnishing any firm and adequate reason why a man should pursue that +course when individual interests and individual passion are opposed to +it. It is the merit of the schools of Kant and of Butler, that they +raise the idea of duty above all the calculations of self-interest, +and make it the supreme and guiding principle of life. + +Among living men, the strongest intellectual influence at that time in +Dublin was, I think, Whately, our archbishop, an original and powerful +thinker who has scarcely obtained a place in the literary and +intellectual history of his time commensurate with the wide and deep +influence he undoubtedly exercised. For this there are many reasons. +Unlike the High Church leaders who flourished with him at Oxford in +the second quarter of the nineteenth century, he never identified +himself with any organised party or school of thought, and he thus +deprived himself of many echoes and of much support. It was, indeed, +one of his first principles that there is no more fatal obstacle to +the discovery of truth than the deflecting influence of party and +system, and that the jealous maintenance of an independent judgment is +the first element of intellectual honesty. Few considerable writers +have appealed less to common passions or wide sympathies; and the only +passion--if it can be called so--that appears strongly in his +writings, is the love of truth for its own sake, which is the rarest +and highest of all. He was accustomed to speculate much upon that +strange power of intellectual magnetism which enables some men to draw +others to their views apart from any process of definite reasoning; +and he acknowledged with truth that he was wholly destitute of it; +that he had never produced any effect which could not be clearly +accounted for, or altered any judgment except by distinct reasons. As +a writer, his style, though wholly without grace, was admirable in its +lucidity. He had a singular felicity of illustration, and especially +of metaphor, and a rare power of throwing his thoughts into terse and +pithy sentences; but his many books, though full of original thinking +and in a high degree suggestive to other writers, had always a certain +fragmentary and occasional character, which prevented them from taking +a place in standard literature. He was conscious of it himself, and +was accustomed to say that it was the mission of his life to make up +cartridges for others to fire. The little volume of 'Miscellanies,' +including his commonplace book and his notes for his books, which was +published by his daughter, exhibits with great clearness the character +of his mind. Though a very candid and, in the best sense of the word, +a very tolerant man, and an excellent scholar, he had, I think, little +power of reproducing the modes of thought of men whose mental +structure was widely different from his own, or of entering into the +intellectual conditions of other ages; but he touched a large circle +of subjects, social, political, and even scientific, as well as moral +and religious, with an original and most independent judgment; and he +raised greatly the moral standard of love of truth and the +intellectual standard of severe reasoning wherever his influence +extended. He delighted in that fine saying of Hobbes that, 'words are +the counters of the wise man, but the money of the fool'; he believed +that most controversies might be resolved into verbal ambiguities; and +his hatred of vagueness, grandiloquence, affected obscurity, and +rhetorical exaggeration exercised a very useful influence over young +men. He was also a most attentive and sagacious observer of human +nature, and few modern writers have written so wisely on the +diversities and the management of character and on the science of +life. In this respect he had a strong affinity to Bacon--the Bacon not +of the 'Organon,' but of the 'Essays'--and perhaps still more to +Benjamin Franklin. In theology he challenged the severest inquiry, and +believed that if honestly pursued it would lead only to orthodox +belief. 'A good man,' he once wrote, 'will indeed wish to find the +evidence of the Christian religion satisfactory; but a wise man will +not for that reason think it satisfactory, but will weigh the evidence +the more carefully on account of the importance of the question.' + +His strongest antipathy was to the teaching of the Oxford 'Tracts,' +and he wrote about them with great severity, but more from the moral +than the intellectual side. He believed the Tractarian doctrines of +'reserve' and 'economy' to be essentially disingenuous; he considered +that there was good reason to conclude that leading members of the +Oxford school had remained in the Church of England for a considerable +time after they had adopted the Roman theology, had used language +deliberately intended to mask their position, and had employed their +influence as English clergymen to sap the English Church; and he +especially denounced as the grossest dishonesty the attempt that was +made in Tract XC. to show that a man was justified in subscribing to +the Articles of the Church of England and at the same time holding +everything laid down by the Council of Trent, 'though the Articles +were expressly drawn up to condemn the authoritative teaching of the +Roman Church, and after the Council of Trent had held 22 out of its +whole number of 25 sessions.' The quibbling, special-pleading, +equivocating mind which is consciously or half-consciously +endeavouring by subtle distinctions to maintain an untenable position, +was of all things the most abhorrent to him, and while the +Evangelicals denounced the Tractarians as leading men to Rome, +Whately, perhaps alone among his contemporaries, steadily predicted +that their teachings would be followed by a great period of religious +scepticism. This, he said, would be the result of the discredit they +were throwing on the evidential school, of their habit of coupling +ecclesiastical with Scripture miracles, and of their doctrine that it +is the function of faith to supply the missing links of imperfect +evidence and to impart the character of certainty to propositions +which in reason rest only on probabilities. He himself was of the +school of Grotius and Paley, and believed that simple historical +evidence established supernatural facts. This subject long held a +foremost place in my thoughts and studies, and I afterward wrote much +upon it in connection with the history of witchcraft and the miracles +of the Saints. + +I owed much to Whately, but I was studying concurrently with him +teachers of very opposite schools, among others Coleridge, Newman, and +Emerson in English; Pascal, Bossuet, Rousseau, and Voltaire in French. +Locke's writings formed part of the college course, and I became very +familiar with them, and fully shared Hallam's special admiration for +the little treatise 'On the Conduct of the Understanding,' while +Dugald Stewart, Mackintosh, and Mill opened out wide and various +vistas in moral philosophy. The following passage from Coleridge, +which I chose as the motto of almost my first published writing, +exercised so great an influence over my later studies, and shows so +happily the direction in which I was endeavoring to turn my mind, that +I may be excused from quoting it at length: + +'Let it be remembered by controversialists on all subjects, that every +speculative error which boasts a multitude of advocates has its golden +as well as its dark side; that there is always some truth connected +with it, the exclusive attention to which has misled the +understanding; some moral beauty which has given it charms for the +heart. Let it be remembered that no assailant of an error can +reasonably hope to be listened to by its advocates, who has not proved +to them that he has seen the disputed subject in the same point of +view and is capable of contemplating it with the same feelings as +themselves; for why should we abandon a cause at the persuasion of one +who is ignorant of the reasons which have attached us to it?' + +Adopting an illustration which had been employed by Bossuet for +another purpose, I came to believe that religious systems resemble +those pictures occasionally seen in the museums of the curious, which +appear at first to be mere incongruous assemblages of unconnected and +unmeaning figures, till they are regarded from one particular point of +view, when these figures immediately mass themselves into a regular +form, and the whole picture assumes a coherent and symmetrical +appearance. To discover in each system this point of view; to +cultivate that peculiar form of imagination which makes it possible to +realise how different forms of opinions are held by their more +intelligent adherents, appeared to me the first condition of +understanding them. + +In this method of inquiry I was, at a little later period, much aided +by the writings of Bayle, a great critic who brought to the study of +opinions an almost unrivalled knowledge, and one of the keenest and +most detached of human intellects. Gradually, however, by a natural +and insensible process I passed into the habit of examining opinions +mainly from an historical point of view--investigating the +circumstances under which they grow up; their relation to the general +conditions of their time; the direction in which they naturally +develop; the part, whether for good or ill, which during long spaces +of time they have played in the world. It was first of all in +connection with the Roman Catholic controversy, with which we were +much occupied in Ireland, that I learnt to pursue this course. Of the +enormous and essential difference between matured Catholicism and the +Christianity of the New Testament, I never doubted, and my convictions +were much deepened by long travels in Italy, France, and Spain, during +which I endeavoured to study carefully Catholicism in its actual +workings as a popular religion, and not as it appears clarified and +rationalised in such books as the 'Exposition,' by Bossuet. I often +asked myself, who could have imagined from a perusal of the New +Testament that Christianity was intended to be a highly centralised +monarchy, governed with supreme divine authority by the Bishop of +Rome; that this bishop was to be connected, not with the great author +of the Epistle to the Romans, but with St. Peter; that the figure +which was to occupy the most prominent place in the devotions and +imaginations of millions of Christian worshippers was to be the Virgin +Mary, who is not so much as mentioned in the Epistles; that in the +immediate neighbourhood, and with the full sanction of the highest +ecclesiastical authorities, graven images were to be employed in +devotion as conspicuously as in a pagan temple, particular images +being singled out from all others for particular devotion by special +indulgences and by special miracles? I soon convinced myself that +popular Catholicism, as it exists in southern Europe and as it has +existed through a long course of centuries, is as literally +polytheistic and idolatrous as any form of paganism, though it has +many beauties, and though much of its very mingled influence has been +for good. In the teaching of my early youth, this transformation of +Christianity was described as the great predicted apostasy, the +mystery of iniquity, the work of Antichrist among mankind. Under the +influence of the historic method it assumed a different aspect, and +the mystery became very explicable. Hobbes had struck the keynote in a +passage of profound truth as well as of admirable beauty: + +'If a man consider the original of this great ecclesiastical +dominion, he will easily perceive that the Papacy is no other than the +ghost of the deceased Roman Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave +thereof.' + +Few evolutions in history, indeed, can be more clearly traced than the +successive stages through which Rome, by a gradual and very natural +process, obtained the primacy of Christendom. In the condition of +Europe, again, at the time of the downfall of the Roman Empire, the +invasion, the triumph, and the rapid conversion of the barbarians, the +chief causes of the materialising transformation which Christian ideas +underwent appeared abundantly evident; and it became clear to me that +some such transformation was inevitable, and essential to their enduring +influence. Was it possible, I asked myself, that in ages of anarchy and +convulsion, any religion resembling Protestant Christianity could have +prevailed among great masses of wild and ignorant barbarians, with all +the associations and mental habits of idolaters, at a time when neither +rag paper nor printing was invented, and when a wide diffusion of the +Bible was absolutely impossible? But such methods of reasoning could not +stop there. I was naturally led to consider how different are the +measures of probability, the predispositions toward the miraculous, the +canons of evidence and proof, the standards and ideals of morals in +different ages, and how largely these differences affect the whole +question of evidence. I began to realise the existence of climates of +opinion; to observe how particular forms of belief naturally grow and +flourish in certain stages of intellectual development, and fade when +these conditions have changed; how much that is called apostasy and +imposture is in reality anachronism, the survival in one age of forms of +belief that were the appropriate product of an earlier one. + +A writer of extraordinary brilliancy and power was at this time +exercising a great influence either of attraction or repulsion on all +serious students of history. Those who are old enough to remember the +appearance of the first volume of Buckle's 'History,' in 1857, and of +the second volume, in 1861, will remember also how rapidly and how +passionately it divided opinion. It was in truth a book in which +extraordinary merits were balanced by extraordinary defects. On the +special subject of the growth of religions, which most interested me, +it was peculiarly deficient, for with all his great gifts Buckle was +almost colour-blind to the devotional and reverential aspect of things, +and he had little more power than Whately of projecting himself into +the beliefs, ideals, and modes of thought of other men and ages. His +unqualified, undiscriminating contempt for the ages of superstition is +the more remarkable, because fifteen years before the appearance of his +first volume, Comte, with whom Buckle had some affinity, and for whom +he expressed great admiration, had been placing those ages on a +pinnacle of extravagant eulogy. His doctrine that there is no real +progress in moral ideas and no real history of morals, I have always +believed to be profoundly untrue, and to have vitiated a large part of +his conclusions; and although he rendered valuable service in showing +by ample illustrations that the capital changes in history are much +less due to the great men who directly effected them than to the long +train of intellectual, political, or industrial tendencies that had +prepared them, he pushed this, like many of his other generalisations, +to exaggeration and even to extravagance. Individuals, and even +accidents, have had a great modifying and deflecting influence in +history, and sometimes the part they have played can scarcely be +over-estimated. If, as I have elsewhere said, a stray dart had struck +down Mohammed in one of the early skirmishes of his career, there is no +reason to believe that the world would have seen a great military and +monotheistic religion arise in Arabia, powerful enough to sweep over a +large part of three continents, and to mould during many centuries the +lives and characters of about a fifth part of the human race. In one +respect, too, Buckle was singularly unfortunate in the time in which he +appeared. From the days of Bacon and Locke to the days of Condillac and +Bentham, it had been the tendency of advanced liberal thinkers to +aggrandise as much as possible the power of circumstances and +experience over the individual, and to reduce to the narrowest limits +every influence that is innate, transmitted, or hereditary. They +represented man as essentially the creature of circumstances, and his +mind as a sheet of blank paper on which education might write what it +pleased. Buckle pushed this habit of thought so far that he even +questioned the reality of such an evident and well-known fact as +hereditary insanity. But only two years after the appearance of the +first volume of the 'History of Civilisation,' Darwin published his +'Origin of Species,' which gradually effected a revolution in +speculative philosophy almost as great as it effected in natural +science; and from that time the supreme importance of inborn and +hereditary tendencies has become the very central fact in English +philosophy. It must be added that Buckle had many of the distinctive +faults of a young writer; of a writer who had mixed little with men, +and had formed his mind almost exclusively by solitary, unguided study. +He had a very imperfect appreciation of the extreme complexity of +social phenomena, an excessive tendency to sweeping generalisations, +and an arrogance of assertion which provoked much hostility. His wide +and multifarious knowledge was not always discriminating, and he +sometimes mixed good and bad authorities with a strange indifference. + +This is a long catalogue of defects, but in spite of them Buckle +opened out wider horizons than any previous writer in the field of +history. No other English historian had sketched his plan with so bold +a hand, or had shown so clearly the transcendent importance of +studying not merely the actions of soldiers, politicians, and +diplomatists, but also those great connected evolutions of +intellectual, social, and industrial life on which the type of each +succeeding age mainly depends. To not a few of his contemporaries he +imparted an altogether new interest in history, and his admirable +literary talent, the vast range of topics which he illuminated with a +fresh significance, and the noble enthusiasm for knowledge and for +freedom that pervades his work, made its appearance an epoch in the +lives of many who have passed far from its definite conclusions. The +task which he had undertaken was almost too vast for the longest life, +and when he died at Damascus, in 1862, he had not yet completed his +fortieth year, and his judgment was probably still far from its full +maturity. A few lines of Pliny which I wrote on the title-page of his +history, will suffice to show the feelings with which I heard of his +death: + +'Mihi autem videtur acerba semper et immatura mors eorum qui immortale +aliquid parant. Nam qui voluptatibus dediti quasi in diem vivunt, +vivendi causas quotidie finiunt; qui vero posteros cogitant et +memoriam sui operibus extendunt, his nulla mors non repentina est, ut +quæ semper inchoatum aliquid abrumpat.' + +I do not purpose to pursue these recollections further. I had drifted +far from my Cork living and very decisively into the ways of +literature, and after I left the university I spent about four years +on the Continent. I read much in foreign libraries, and I also derived +great profit as well as keen pleasure from the study of Italian art, +which throws an invaluable light on the branches of history I was then +investigating. In its earlier phase especially, before the sense of +beauty dominates over the idea, art represents with a singular +fidelity not only the religious beliefs of men, but also the far more +delicate and evanescent shades of their realisations, ideals, and +emotions. + +The result of those years of study was my 'History of the Spirit of +Rationalism in Europe,' which appeared in the early part of 1865. With +many defects, it had at least the merit of describing with great +sincerity the process by which the opinions of its author had been +formed, and to this sincerity it probably owed no small part of its +success. + + + + +CARLYLE'S MESSAGE TO HIS AGE. + + +When Carlyle came to London in 1831, bringing with him the 'Sartor +Resartus,' which is now perhaps the most famous of all his works, it +is well known that he applied in turn to three of the principal +publishers in London, and that each of them, after due deliberation, +positively refused to print his manuscript. When at last, with great +difficulty, he procured its admission into 'Fraser's Magazine,' +Carlyle was accustomed to say that he only knew of two men who found +anything to admire in it. One of them was the great American writer, +Emerson, who afterwards superintended its publication in America. The +other was a priest from Cork, who wrote to say that he wished to take +in 'Fraser's Magazine' as long as anything by this writer appeared in +it. On the other hand, several persons told Fraser that they would +stop taking in the magazine if any more of such nonsense appeared in +it. The editor wrote to Carlyle that the work had been received with +'unqualified disapprobation.' Five years elapsed before it was +reprinted as a separate book, and in order that it should be reprinted +it was found necessary for a number of Carlyle's private friends to +club together and guarantee the publisher from loss by engaging to +take three hundred copies. But when, a few years before his death, a +cheap edition of Carlyle's works was published, 'Sartor Resartus' had +acquired such a popularity that thirty thousand copies were almost +immediately sold, and since his death it has been reprinted in a +sixpenny form; it has penetrated far and wide through all classes, and +it is now, I suppose, one of the most popular and most influential of +the books that were published in England in the second quarter of the +century. + +Such a contrast between the first reception and the later judgment of +a book is very remarkable, and it applies more or less to all +Carlyle's earlier writings. It is a memorable fact in the literary +history of the nineteenth century that one of the greatest and most +industrious writers in England lived for many years in such poverty +that he often thought of abandoning literature and emigrating to the +colonies, and he would probably have done so if he had not found in +public lecturing a means of supplying his frugal wants. The cause of +this long-continued neglect is partly, no doubt, to be found in his +style, for, like Browning, Carlyle wrote an English which was so +contorted and sometimes so obscure that his readers had to be slowly +educated into understanding, or at least enjoying, it. But there are +other and deeper causes which I propose to devote the short time at my +disposal to indicating. + +It has been truly said that there are two great classes among writers. +There are those who are echoes and there are those who are voices. +There are some writers who represent faithfully and express strongly +the dominant tendencies, opinions, habits, characteristics of their +age, collecting as in a focus the half-formed thoughts that are +prevailing around them, giving them an articulate voice, and by the +force of their advocacy greatly strengthening them. There are others +who either start new ways of thinking for which the public around +them are still unprepared, or who throw themselves in opposition to +the dominant tendencies of their times, pointing out the evils and +dangers connected with them, and dwelling specially on neglected +truths. It is not surprising that the first class are by far the most +popular. The public is much like Narcissus in the fable, who fell in +love with his own reflection in the water. All men like to find their +own opinions expressed with a power and eloquence they cannot +themselves attain, and most men dislike a writer who, in the first +flush of a great enthusiasm, points out all that can be said on the +other side. But when the first enthusiasm is over--when the prevailing +tendency has fully triumphed and the evils and defects connected with +it are disclosed--the words of this unpopular or neglected teacher +will begin to gather weight. It will be found that although he may not +have been wiser than those who advocated the other side, yet his words +contained exactly that kind of truth which was most needed or most +generally forgotten, and his reputation will steadily rise. + +This appears to me to have been very much the position which Carlyle +occupied towards the chief questions of his day, and it explains, I +think, in a great degree the growth of his influence. It is +remarkable, indeed, how many things there are in his writings which +appeared paradoxes when he wrote, and which now seem almost truisms. +Thus at a time when the political and intellectual ascendency of +France over the Continent was at its height, Carlyle was one of the +few men who clearly recognised the essential greatness that lay hid in +Germany, and especially in Prussia--a greatness which after the wars +of 1866 and 1870 became very evident to the world. He was one of the +first men in England to recognise the importance of German +literature, and especially the supreme greatness of Goethe. His +translation of 'Wilhelm Meister' was published in 1824, and his noble +essay on Goethe in 1832; but at first it seemed to find scarcely any +echo. The editor for whom he wrote it reported that all the opinions +he could gather about this essay were 'eminently unfavourable.' De +Quincey, who of all English critics was believed to know Germany best, +and Jeffrey, who exercised the greatest influence on English literary +opinion, combined to depreciate or ridicule Goethe. But there is now +no educated man who disputes that Carlyle in this matter was +essentially right, and that his critics were wholly wrong. And to turn +to subjects more directly connected with England, Carlyle wrote at a +time when the whole school of what was called advanced thought rested +upon the theory that the province of Government ought to be made as +small as possible, and that all the relations of classes should be +reduced to simple, temporary contracts founded on mutual interest. +According to this theory, it was the one duty of Government to keep +order. For the rest it should stand aside, and not attempt to meddle +in social or industrial questions. The most complete liberty of +thought and action should be established, and everything should be +left to unrestricted competition--to the free play of unprivileged, +untrammelled, unguided social forces. This was the theory which was +called orthodox political economy--the _laisser-faire_ system--the +philosophy of competition or supply and demand, and it was incessantly +denounced by Carlyle as Mammon worship, as 'devil take the hindmost,' +as 'pure egoism'; 'the shabbiest gospel that had been taught among +men.' He declared that in the long run no society could flourish, or +even permanently cohere, if the only relation between man and man was +a mere money tie. He maintained that what he called the condition of +England question, or, in other words, the great mass of struggling, +anarchical poverty that was growing up in the chief centres of +population, was a question which imperiously demanded the most +strenuous Government intervention--which was, in fact, far more +important than any of the purely political questions. The whole system +of factory legislation, the whole system of legislation about working +men's dwellings, which has taken place in this century, has been a +realisation of the ideas of Carlyle. When Carlyle first wrote, it was +the received opinion that the education of the people was a matter in +which the Government should in no degree interfere, and that it ought +to be left altogether to individuals, or Churches, or societies. In +his work on Chartism, which was published as early as 1834, Carlyle +argued that the 'universal education of the people' was an +indispensable duty of the Government. It was not until about twenty +years ago that this duty was fully recognised in England. In the same +work he maintained that State-aided, State-organised, State-directed +emigration must one day be undertaken on a large scale, as the only +efficient agent in coping with the great masses of growing pauperism. +In his 'Past and Present,' which was published in 1843, he threw out +another idea which has proved very prolific, and which is probably +destined to become still more so. It is that it may become both +possible and needful for the master worker 'to grant his workers +permanent interest in his enterprise and theirs.' + +It is evident how much less strange those ideas appear now than they +did when they were first put out some fifty years ago. One of the +most remarkable changes that has taken place during the lives of men +who are still of middle age has been in the opinion of advanced +thinkers about the function of Government. In the early days of +Carlyle the whole set, or lie, of opinion in England was towards +cutting in all directions the bands of Government control, diminishing +as much as possible the sphere of Government functions or +interference. It was a revolt against the old Tory system of paternal +Government, against the system of Guilds, against the State +regulations which once prevailed in all departments of industrial +life. In the present generation it is not too much to say that the +current has been absolutely reversed. The constantly increasing +tendency, whenever any abuse of any kind is discovered, is to call +upon Parliament to make a law to remedy it. Every year the network of +regulation is strengthened; every year there is an increasing +disposition to enlarge and multiply the functions, powers, and +responsibilities of Government. I should not be dealing sincerely with +you if I did not express my own opinion that this tendency carries +with it dangers even more serious than those of the opposite +exaggerations of a past century: dangers to character by sapping the +spirit of self-reliance and independence; dangers to liberty by +accustoming men to the constant interference of authority, and +abridging in innumerable ways the freedom of action and choice. I wish +I could persuade those who form their estimate of the province of +Government from Carlyle's 'Past and Present' and 'Latter-day +Pamphlets' to study also the admirable little treatise of Herbert +Spencer, called 'The Man and the State,' in which the opposite side is +argued. What I have said however, is sufficient to show how +remarkably Carlyle, in some of the parts of his teaching that were +once the most unpopular, anticipated tendencies which only became very +apparent in practical politics when he was an old man or after his +death. + +The main and fundamental part of his teaching is the supreme sanctity +of work; the duty imposed on every human being, be he rich or be he +poor, to find a life-purpose and to follow it out strenuously and +honestly. 'All true work,' he said, 'is religion'; and the essence of +every sound religion is, 'Know thy work and do it.' In his conception +of life all true dignity and nobility grows out of the honest +discharge of practical duty. He had always a strong sympathy with the +feudal system which annexed indissolubly the idea of public function +with the possession of property. The great landlord who is wisely +governing large districts and using all his influence to diffuse +order, comfort, education, and civilisation among his tenantry; the +captain of industry who is faithfully and honestly organising the +labour of thousands, and regarding his task as a moral duty; the rich +man who, with all the means of enjoyment at his feet, devotes his +energies 'to make some nook of God's creation a little fruitfuller, +better, more worthy of God--to make some human hearts a little wiser, +manfuller, happier, more blessed,' always received his admiration and +applause. No one, on the other hand, spoke with more contempt of a +governing class which had ceased to govern; of titles which had lost +their original meaning, and no longer implied or expressed duties +performed; of wealth that was employed solely or mainly in selfish +enjoyment or in idle show. It was Carlyle's deep conviction that the +best test of the moral worth of every nation, class, and individual, +is to be found in their standard of work and in their dislike to a +useless and idle life. As is well known, he had no sympathy with the +prevailing political ideas. He believed that men were not only not +equal, but were profoundly unequal; that it was the first interest of +society that the wisest men should be selected as its leaders, and +that the popular methods of finding the wisest were by no means those +which were most likely to succeed. 'No British man,' he complained, +'can attain to be a statesman or chief of workers till he has first +proved himself a chief of talkers.' 'The two greatest nations in the +world, the English and American, are all going to wind and tongue.' He +believed much more than his contemporaries did that there was need and +room in our modern English life for strong Government organisation, +guidance, discipline, reverence, obedience, and control. 'Wise +command, wise obedience,' he wrote in one of his 'Latter-day +Pamphlets,' 'the capability of these two is the best measure of +culture and human virtue in every man.' + +There is another class of workers to which he himself belonged--the +men who are the teachers of mankind. He taught them by his example as +well as by his precepts. Whatever else may be said about Carlyle, no +one can question that he took his literary vocation most seriously. He +was for a long time a very poor man, but he never sought wealth by +advocating popular opinions, by pandering to common prejudices, or by +veiling most unpalatable beliefs. In the vast mass of literature which +he has bequeathed to us there is no scamped work, and every competent +judge has recognised the untiring and conscientious accuracy with +which he verified and sifted the minutest fact. His standard of +truthfulness was extremely high, and one of his great quarrels with +his age was that it was an age of half-beliefs and insincere +professions. He maintained that religious beliefs which had once been +living realities had too often degenerated into mere formulas, untruly +professed or mechanically repeated with the lips only, and without any +genuine or heartfelt conviction. He often repeated a saying of +Coleridge: 'They do not believe--they only believe that they believe.' +He used to speak of men who 'played false with their intellects'; or, +in other words, turned away their minds from unwelcome truths and by +allowing their wishes or interests to sway their judgments, persuaded +or half-persuaded themselves to believe whatever they wished. A firm +grasp of facts, he maintained, was the first characteristic of an +honest mind; the main element in all honest, intellectual work. His +own special talent was the gift of insight, the power of looking into +the heart of things, piercing to essential facts, discerning the real +characters of men, their true measure of genuine, solid worth. Creeds, +professions, opinions, circumstances, all these are the externals or +clothes of men. It is necessary to look behind them and beyond them if +we would reach the genuine human heart. One of the reasons why he +detested what he called stump oratory was because he believed it to be +a great school of insincerity. Its end was not truth, but +plausibility. It was the effort of interested men to throw opinions +into such forms as might most captivate uninstructed men; to keep back +every unpopular side; to magnify everything in them that was +seductive. He once said to me that two great curses seemed to him +eating away the heart and worth of the English people. One was drink. +The other was stump oratory, which accustomed men to say without +shame what they did not in their hearts believe to be true, and +accustomed their hearers to accept such a proceeding as perfectly +natural. And the same strong passion for veracity he carried into his +judgment of other forms of work. Rightly or wrongly, he believed that +the standard of conscientious work had been lowered in England through +the feverish competition of modern times, and under the system of what +he called 'cheap and nasty'; that English work had lost something of +its old solidity and worth, and was now made rather to captivate than +to wear. Carlyle saw in this much more than an industrial change. He +maintained that the love and pride of thorough work had long been a +pre-eminently English quality, that it was the very tap-root of the +moral worth of the English character, and that anything that tended to +weaken it was a grave moral evil. + +It is worth while trying to understand what truth underlay those parts +of his teaching which seem most repulsive. The worship of force, which +is so apparent in many of his writings, is a striking example. He was +often accused of teaching that might is right. He always answered that +he had not done so--that what he taught was that right is might; that +by the providential constitution of the Universe truth in the long run +is sure to be stronger than falsehood; that good will prevail over +evil, and that right and might, though they differ widely in short +periods of time, would in long spaces prove to be identical. Nothing, +he was accustomed to say, seemed weaker than the Christian religion +when the disciples assembled in the upper room; yet it was in truth +the strongest thing in the world, and it accordingly prevailed. It was +one of his favourite sayings 'that the soul of the Universe is just,' +and he believed therefore that the ultimate fate of nations, whether +it be good or bad, was very much what they deserved. It is curious to +observe the analogy between this teaching and the doctrine of the +survival of the fittest, which a very different teacher--Charles +Darwin--has made so conspicuous. + +He scandalised--and I think with a good deal of reason--most of his +contemporaries by the ridicule which he threw upon the career of +Howard, and upon the great movement for prison reform which was so +actively pursued in his time. Much of what he wrote on this subject +is, to me at least, very repulsive; but you will generally find in the +most extravagant utterances of Carlyle that there is some true meaning +at bottom. He maintained that the passion for reforming and improving +prisons and prison-life had been carried in England to such a point +that the lot of a convicted criminal was often much better than that +of an honest and struggling artisan. He believed that a just and wise +distribution of compassion is a most important element of national +well-being, and that the English people are very apt to be indifferent +to great masses of unobtrusive, struggling, honourable, unsensational +poverty at their very doors, while they fall into paroxysms of emotion +about the actors in some sensational crime, about some seductive +murderess, about the wrongs of some far-off and often half-savage +race. 'In one of these Lancashire weavers dying with hunger there is +more thought and heart, a greater arithmetical amount of misery and +desperation, than in whole gangs of Quashees.' He maintained, too, +that a strain of sentiment about criminals was very prevalent in his +day, which tended seriously to obliterate or diminish the real +difference between right and wrong. He hated with an intense hatred +that whole system of philosophy which denied that there was a deep, +essential, fundamental difference between right and wrong, and turned +the whole matter into a mere calculation of interests. He was +accustomed to say that one of the chief merits of Christianity was +that it taught that right and wrong were as far apart as Heaven and +Hell, and that no greater calamity can befall a nation than a +weakening of the righteous hatred of evil. + +The parts of Carlyle's teaching on which I have dwelt to-day will be +chiefly found in his 'Past and Present,' his 'Heroes and Hero +Worship,' his 'Latter-day Pamphlets,' his 'Chartism,' and in the two +admirable essays called 'Signs of the Times' and 'Characteristics.' In +my own opinion, though Carlyle teaches much, his writings are most +valuable as a moral force. Very few great writers have maintained more +steadily that the moral element is the deepest and most important part +of our being, deeper and stronger than all intellectual +considerations. In his writings, amid much that has imperishable +value, there is, I think, much that is exaggerated, much that is +one-sided, much that is unwise. But no one can be imbued with his +teaching without finding it a great moral tonic, and deriving from it +a nobler, braver, and more unworldly conception of human life. + + + + +ISRAEL AMONG THE NATIONS[8] + + +Among the strange and unforeseen developments that have characterised +the fourth quarter of the nineteenth century, few are likely to be +regarded by the future historian with a deeper or more melancholy +interest than the anti-Semite movement, which has swept with such a +portentous rapidity over a great part of Europe. It has produced in +Russia by far the most serious religious persecution of the century. +It has raged fiercely in Roumania, the other great centre of the +Oriental Jews. In enlightened Germany it has become a considerable +parliamentary force. In Austria it counts among its adherents men of +the highest social station. Even France, which from the days of the +Revolution has been specially distinguished for its liberality to the +Jews, has not escaped the contagion. General Boulanger found the +anti-Jewish sentiment sufficiently powerful to make an appeal to it +one of the articles of his programme, and the extraordinary popularity +of the writings of Drumont shows that Boulanger had not altogether +miscalculated its force. + +It is this movement which has been the occasion of the very valuable +work of M. Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu on 'Israel among the Nations.' The +author, who is universally recognised as one of the greatest of living +political writers, has special qualifications for his task. With an +exceedingly wide knowledge of the literature relating to his subject +he combines much personal knowledge of the Jews in Palestine and in +many other countries, and especially in those countries where the +persecution has most furiously raged. + +That persecution, he justly says, unites in different degrees three of +the most powerful elements that can move mankind--the spirit of +religious intolerance; the spirit of exclusive nationality; and the +jealousy which springs from trade or mercantile competition. Of these +elements M. Leroy-Beaulieu considers the first to be on the whole the +weakest. In that hideous Russian Persecution which 'the New Exodus' of +Frederic has made familiar to the English reader, the religious +element certainly occupies a very leading place. Pobedonosteff, who +shared with his master the chief guilt and infamy of this atrocious +crime, belonged to the same type as the Torquemadas of the past, and +the spirit that animated him has entered largely into the anti-Semite +movement in other lands. The 'Gloria' of Galdos, perhaps the most +powerful religious novel of our time, describes the conflict in modern +Spain of the fanaticism of Catholicism with the fanaticism of Judaism. +Even the old calumny that the Jews are accustomed at Easter to murder +Christian children in order to mix their blood with the passover +bread, is still living in many parts of Europe. M. Leroy-Beaulieu has +collected much curious evidence on the subject. It is a calumny which +appears first to have become popular about 1100 A.D. It is +embodied in a well-known tale of Chaucer. It is the subject of one of +the great frescoes that were painted around the Cathedral of Toledo to +commemorate the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. Two Popes of the +thirteenth century, to their great honour, declared its falsehood, +and by the order of Benedict XIV. Ganganelli wrote a full memoir +examining and refuting it. But in spite of all condemnations, in spite +of many exposures in the law courts, it is still a popular belief in +Russia, Poland, Roumania, Hungary, and Bohemia, and even within the +last ten years it has been the direct cause of many outrages against +the Jews. + +Another element to which M. Leroy-Beaulieu attaches considerable +importance is the Kultur Kampf in Germany. When the German Government +was engaged in its fierce struggle with the Catholics, these +endeavoured to effect a diversion and to avenge themselves on papers, +which were largely in the hands of Jews, by raising a new cry. They +declared that a Kultur Kampf was indeed needed, but that it should be +directed against the alien people who were undermining the moral +foundations of Christian societies; who were the implacable enemies of +the Christian creed and of Christian ideals. The cry was soon taken up +by a large body of Evangelical Protestants. The 'Germania' and the +'Civiltà Cattolica,' which were the chief organs of Ultramontanism in +Germany and Italy, and the 'Kreuz Zeitung,' which represented the +strictest forms of German Protestantism, agreed in fomenting it. + +Still more powerful, in the opinion of our author, has been the spirit +of intense and exclusive nationality which has in the present +generation arisen in so many countries and which seeks to expel all +alien or heterogeneous elements, and to mould the whole national being +into a single definite type. The movement has been still further +strengthened by the greater keenness of trade competition. In the +midst of many idle, drunken, and ignorant populations the shrewd, +thrifty, and sober Jew stands conspicuous as the most successful +trader. His rare power of judging, influencing, and managing men, his +fertility of resource, his indomitable perseverance and industry, +continually force him into the foremost rank, and he is prominent in +occupations which excite much animosity. The tax-gatherer, the agent, +the middleman, and the moneylender are very commonly of Jewish race, +and great Jewish capitalists largely control the money markets of +Europe at a time when capital is the special object of socialistic +attacks. + +The most valuable portion of this work is, I think, that examining the +part which the Jewish race is now playing in the world, and tracing +the action of historical causes on the formation of their character. +On the old problem of the continued existence of the race through so +many ages M. Leroy-Beaulieu has much to say. He reminds us that in the +East the idea of nationality is habitually absorbed in the idea of +religion, and that there are many examples of the long survival of +peoples or tribes which have lost their political individuality. He +instances the Copts of Egypt, the Maronites and Druses of Lebanon, the +Parsees of India, the Armenians and Greeks of Asia as displaying, +though in a less degree, the same phenomenon as the Jews. He +attributes the long continuance of the Jews as a separate people +mainly to two causes. One of them is Christian hatred, which compelled +the Jews for many centuries to remain a separate people, unmixed with +surrounding nations; living in a separate quarter; marrying among +themselves; strengthened and disciplined in the struggle of life by +enormous difficulties and by the constant elimination through +persecution of the weaker elements. The other is the very elaborate +Jewish ritual extending to all departments of life, which has stamped +upon them an intensely distinctive character. + +The force of these causes is undoubted, but they are not, I think, the +only elements to be considered. M. Leroy-Beaulieu appears to me to +have somewhat underrated the physiological force and tenacity of the +Jewish race-type. Following the line of reasoning of a remarkable +essay of Renan, he shows very clearly that the modern Jews are far +from being pure Semites. He proves from Josephus and from other +sources that there was a considerable period, both before and after +the Christian era, when great numbers of Greeks, Latins, and Egyptians +adopted the Jewish faith; that much alien blood afterward poured into +the race through conversions among the barbarians and through the +circumcision of the slaves of Jewish masters, and that there is even +reason to believe that, in some periods of history, marriages with +Christians were not infrequent. It is probable, however, that most +alien elements that were introduced into the race sooner or later +mingled with the old stock, and no fact is more clearly shown than the +extraordinary power of the Jewish type to survive and dominate in a +mixed race. A single instance of a marriage with a Jewess will be +sufficient to perpetuate it in a family for many generations. In this +fact the Jews possess an element of stability which is wholly +independent of all considerations of creed and ritual. Few things are +more curious than the effect of persecution on the Jewish element in +Spain and Portugal. Tens of thousands of Jews in those countries were +burned at the stake or driven into exile, but great numbers also +conformed. They mixed in a few generations with the old Christian +population, and Spain and Portugal, M. Leroy-Beaulieu truly says, are +now among the countries in which the Jewish blood is most evidently +and most widely diffused. + +Another consideration, which M. Leroy-Beaulieu has omitted to mention, +but which appears to me to have much weight, is the condemnation of +lending money at interest by the Church. This condemnation, which +lasted many centuries, had two important consequences. One of them was +that the Jews became almost the only moneylenders in Europe. The trade +was deemed sinful for a Christian, but it was found to be a very +necessary one; and the Jews (as some Catholic theologians observed) +being already damned, were allowed to practise it. The other +consequence was that on account of the stigma which the Church +attached to moneylending, the amount of money to be lent was greatly +diminished, or in other words, the rate of interest was enormously and +artificially raised. At a time, therefore, when Catholic intolerance +made it impossible for the Jews to mingle with and be absorbed in +surrounding nations they acquired one of the greatest elements of +power and stability that a race can possess--a monopoly of the most +lucrative trade in the world. + +The physical characteristics of the race are very remarkable and they +are especially displayed among the Eastern Jews, who still maintain +scrupulously amid poverty and persecution the religious observances of +their ancestors. It is now clearly shown that the Levitical code was +in a high degree hygienic, and even anticipates some of the +discoveries of modern physiology. Prescriptions about forbidden kinds +of food and about the mode of cooking food, which only excited the +ridicule of Voltaire, have a real hygienic value in the eyes of Claude +Bernard and of Pasteur. The Jews have never adopted the Catholic +notions about the sanctity of celibacy and virginity, but they lay +great stress on the purity of marriage. Although they live chiefly in +towns, illegitimate births are proportionately rarer among them than +among either Protestants or Catholics. They have been as a rule +singularly free from the kinds of vice that do most to enfeeble and +corrode a race. They are distinguished for their domestic virtues, +especially for care of their children, and they are nearly everywhere +less addicted than Christian nations to intoxicating drinks. These +things help to explain the curious fact that in nearly all countries +the average duration of life is considerably longer among Jews than +among Christians. This superiority is general, but, as M. +Leroy-Beaulieu observes, it tends to diminish in Western countries +where Jews, being freed from disabilities, are more assimilated to the +surrounding populations. They now usually marry later than Christians; +they have on the whole fewer children, but a proportionately larger +number of Jewish than of Christian infants attain adult age. M. +Leroy-Beaulieu mentions two curious facts which are less easy to +explain. Still-born births are very rare among Jews, and there is +among them a wholly abnormal preponderance of male births over female +ones. + +It might be supposed from these facts that the Jews were a robust +race, but no one who has come much in contact with them will share +this delusion. Nothing is more conspicuous among them than their +unhealthy colouring, their frail, bent, and feeble bodies. They +develop early, but they have very little of the spring and buoyancy of +youth and they have everywhere a low average of physical strength. +Malformations and deformities are common among them; their nervous +organisation is extremely sensitive, and though they are as a race +distinguished for their sound, clear, and practical judgment, they are +very liable to insanity and to other nervous and brain disorders. +Physical beauty as well as physical strength is much rarer among them +than among Christians. + +The causes of this inferiority may be easily explained. Life pursued +during many generations in the crowded Ghetto; the sordid habits that +grow out of extreme poverty and out of the assumption of the +appearance of poverty, which is natural in a persecuted and plundered +race, go far to explain it; but there is another and, I think, a more +important cause which M. Leroy-Beaulieu has rather strangely +neglected. Physical strength and beauty can be maintained at a high +level in crowded town populations only by a constant influx from the +country. The pure air and the healthy labour of the fields are their +main source. This great school of health the Jews have never known. +For many centuries it would have been impossible for them to have +lived in peace as farmers or agricultural labourers among a Christian +peasantry, and if they ever possessed any aptitude or taste for +agricultural pursuits they have long since wholly lost it. + +Their moral like their physical characteristics present strange +contrasts. No natural want of moral elevation or tenderness or grace +can be ascribed to the nation that has produced both the Old Testament +and the Gospels, and has most largely shaped and inspired the moral +life of the civilised world. In Christian times no race has maintained +its faith with a more devoted courage, and it has encountered and +survived persecutions before which the persecutions of other creeds +dwindle almost into insignificance. M. Leroy-Beaulieu quotes the +statement of the grand Rabbi Lehmann, that it is a clearly attested +fact that in two months of the year 1096 twelve thousand Jews, whose +names have been preserved, were massacred in the towns of the Rhine +alone, because they refused to accept a Christian baptism. The Spanish +Jews who perished by one of the most excruciating deaths rather than +forswear their faith may be numbered by thousands, and those who +preferred exile and spoliation to apostasy, by hundreds of thousands. +Even in our own sceptical and materialising age the conduct of the +Russian Jews under the recent savage persecution shows that the old +spirit is not extinct. In the face of the long and splendid roll of +Jewish heroism, it is idle to dwell on the fact that in each great +persecution some Jews have yielded to the fear of death and consented +to perform the rites of a faith which they inwardly abhorred, or on +the fact that a few Rabbis have under such circumstances justified +these feigned conversions. + +Prolonged persecution, however, has had a profound influence on their +character, and its influence in some respects has been very +pernicious. Hatred naturally provokes hatred, and violent oppression +against which there is no redress is naturally encountered by +subterfuge and fraud. A race who were for centuries playing their part +in life against overwhelming obstacles learned to avail themselves of +every advantage. Adulation, servility, falsehood, and deception became +common among them. They became at once hard, wily, and rapacious, and +ready instruments in ignoble and oppressive callings. Shut out from +open paths and honourable ambitions they haunted the obscurer byways +of industry; they were to be found in many occupations which sharpen +the intellect but blunt the moral sense, and they threw themselves +passionately into the acquisition of wealth and of secret power. +Exposed for generations, even in lands where they were not more +seriously persecuted, to constant insult and contempt, they often lost +their self-respect and learned to acquiesce tamely in what another +race would resent. Slavish conditions produced, as they always do, +slavish characteristics, and, as is always the case, those +characteristics did not at once disappear when the conditions that +produced them had altered. + +M. Leroy-Beaulieu has dwelt with much force on this subject, and he +ascribes considerable weight to the fact that the Jews have been +wholly outside the system of feudalism and chivalry in which the +modern conception of honour was chiefly formed. Perhaps the Jew might +retort with some justice, that he has had at least the compensating +moral advantage of having derived no part of his notions of right and +wrong from a Church in which such an institution as the Spanish +Inquisition was deemed a holy thing. + +Defects of another kind have contributed largely to his unpopularity. +Great as is the power of assimilation which the Jewish race possesses, +the charm and grace of manner seem to have been among the qualities +they most slowly and most imperfectly acquire. It is natural that men +who have been excluded from honours but not from wealth should value +money and the ostentatious display of riches more than their +neighbours. In the professions in which the Jews chiefly excel, men +rise most rapidly from low origin and culture to conspicuous wealth. +Direct money-making has some tendency to materialise and lower the +character, and Jews have been for generations prominent in occupations +which do much to impair those delicacies of feeling on which the charm +of manner largely depends. Besides this, as M. Leroy-Beaulieu truly +remarks, though the oldest of the cultured races they are a race of +_parvenus_ in the good society of Europe. In nearly all countries they +have till very recently been excluded from the kind of society and +from the kind of education in which the best manners are formed. The +exaggerations of bad taste; the love of the loud, the gaudy, the +ostentatious, and the meretricious; the awkwardness of men who are ill +at ease in an unaccustomed sphere, who have not yet mastered the happy +mean between arrogance and obsequiousness and who are therefore +somewhat prone to both extremes, still frequently characterise them. +Few persons who know Germany will doubt that the tone of manners of +the German Jews has contributed quite as much as any other cause to +their unpopularity. + +It is probable that these defects will gradually diminish, and it +would be a grave error to regard the Jewish race as wholly devoted to +material ends. The multitude of their martyrs is a sufficient answer +to the charge, and no people cherish more strongly the ideals of their +past and have more of the pride both of race and of creed. They have +at all times, as M. Leroy-Beaulieu observes, been distinguished for +their reverence for learning, and it is an undoubted fact that Jewish +families and families mixed with Jewish blood have produced an amount +and variety of ability that far exceed the average of men. The ability +goes rather with the race than with the religion. Spinosa, Heine, +Ricardo, and Disraeli--to quote but a few of the most illustrious +names--were not believers in the synagogue. Some of the forms in which +the Jews have most excelled are such as might have been expected from +their past. It is natural that the descendants of the most nomadic +and cosmopolitan of races should have been great masters of language +and in the foremost rank of philologists, and it is not surprising +that the descendants of the chief moneylenders and calculators of the +world should have produced great financiers, and have shown a very +eminent aptitude for mathematics. Medicine more than most professions +depends on individual ability, and has been exercised independently of +the favour of Churches and Governments, and in medicine the Jews were +for a long period pre-eminent. Their marked taste and turn for music +may appear more surprising. It is universally recognised and is +sufficiently evident to anyone who will look at the faces of the chief +orchestras of Europe. Besides a crowd of lesser names they have +produced among composers Mendelssohn, Meyerbeer, and Halévy, and among +contemporary performers Rubinstein, Joachim, Hermann Levy, and Lucca. +A Jewess is the most popular tragic actress on the contemporary stage, +and another Jewess was probably the greatest tragic actress of the +century. M. Leroy-Beaulieu notices that in painting and sculpture the +Jews have been less conspicuous, and he attributes this to their +horror of idolatry. I should rather ascribe it to the fact that +European art in its best period was mainly devoted to depicting +Christian subjects for Christian churches. At all events several +considerable Jewish names may be cited in contemporary art, and the +Dutch painter who bears the name of Israels is perhaps the greatest +living master of the pathetic in painting. In Western Europe, wherever +public life has been opened to them, Jews have thrown themselves into +almost all the great movements of their time and have distinguished +themselves in nearly all. Crémieux, who was a leading figure in the +French Republic of 1848, was a Jew both by birth and by creed. David +Manin and Léon Gambetta had Jewish blood in their veins. Lassalle and +Marx, the chief names in German socialism, as well as great numbers of +their followers belong to the same race, and more than one English +example of political eminence will occur to the reader. In both German +and Dutch literature Jewish names are frequent and they are nearly +everywhere prominent in journalism. In the army they have been much +less distinguished. Many Jews no doubt serve in the great continental +armies with honour, but the Jew is naturally a pacific being, hating +violence and recoiling with a peculiar horror from blood. The +beneficence of the Jew was for a long time very naturally confined to +his own race, but since the hand of persecution has been withdrawn, +and wherever the Jews have been suffered to mingle freely with the +Christian population, it has taken a wider range and Jewish names are +conspicuous in some of the best forms of unsectarian philanthropy. + +It is the evident tendency of modern political life to split up into a +number of distinct groups representing distinct interests or forms of +thought. We find a Catholic party, a Nonconformist party, a Labour +party, a Socialist party, a Temperance party, and many others. But in +spite of the crusade that has arisen in so many countries against the +Jews, we nowhere find a distinct and clearly defined Jewish party. The +tendency of the race is rather to throw themselves ardently into +existing movements, and their power of assimilation is one of their +most remarkable gifts. As M. Leroy-Beaulieu shows by many +illustrations, they are apt in most Western nations even to exaggerate +the national characteristics, though they usually combine with them a +certain flexibility of adaptation and a certain cosmopolitanism of +view which is essentially their own. + +It was inevitable that with such tendencies the old rigidity of creed +should be impaired and that the observances which completely severed +the Jew from other people should be discarded. There can be little +doubt that the dissolution of old beliefs which has been such a marked +and ominous characteristic of the latter half of the nineteenth +century has been even more common among the Western Jews than in +Christian nations, and it appears to have spread quite as rapidly +among the women as among the men. Many Jews have passed into complete +religious indifference--into absolute and often very cynical negation. +They have become, as Sheridan wittily said, like the blank page +between the Old and the New Testament. Others have taken refuge in a +kind of highly rationalised Judaism little different from pure Theism. +Some of the most independent, scientific, and trenchant criticism of +the Old Testament writings has proceeded from members of the race +which was once distinguished for the most complete and superstitious +worship of the letter of the law. Spinoza in his 'Tractatus +Theologico-Politicus' led the way in this path, and in our own day I +need only mention the writings of Salvador, Kalisch, and Darmesteter +and the remarkable Hibbert Lectures of Mr. Montefiore. + +This movement, however, is chiefly confined to the Western Jews. The +Oriental Jews have retained in a far greater measure their old creed +and ritual, their old fanaticism and aspirations. To them Palestine is +still the land of promise, and they still dream that it is destined to +become once more a Jewish State. Few persons who consider the +conditions of the East and the power of the Jewish race will +pronounce the realisation of this dream to be impossible or even in a +very high degree improbable. Perhaps the most formidable obstacle is +the poverty of the land and the total absence among the Jews of +agricultural tastes and aptitudes. One thing, however, may be safely +predicted. If Palestine is ever again to become a Jewish land, this +will be effected only through the wealth and energy of the Western +Jews, and it is not those Jews who are likely to inhabit it. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[8] Mr. Lecky had made various notes with the intention of bringing this +essay up to date, but failing health prevented him from accomplishing +it.--ED. + + + + +MADAME DE STAËL + + +Among the many important works which have lately been published on the +Continent, reconstructing the history of France during the struggle of +the Revolution and during the periods that immediately preceded and +followed it, scarcely any have been so comprehensive, and not many +have been so valuable, as 'The History of the Life and Times of Madame +de Staël,' by Lady Blennerhassett. The author--a Bavarian lady who was +an intimate friend and favourite pupil of Dr. Döllinger--has brought +to her task a knowledge, which is scarcely rivalled in its +completeness, of the French, German, English, and Italian literatures +relating to the period; and she has produced a work of which it is in +one sense the merit, but in another the defect, that it sweeps over a +far wider field than might be expected from its title. It is seldom, I +think, a judicious thing to confuse the provinces of history and +biography by turning the life of an individual into an elaborate +history of his time; and in the few cases in which this method has +been successfully pursued, the biographer has selected as his subject +some man like Cromwell, or Frederick the Great, or Napoleon, who was +indisputably the chief mover of his age. When figures of less +prominence are chosen, both the history and the biography are apt to +suffer. The true perspective, or relative magnitude, of events is +impaired, and the book is almost sure to lose something of its +artistic charm and of its popularity. Mr. Masson, as it seems to me, +committed a mistake of this kind in his 'Life of Milton,' when he +grouped around the great Puritan poet--who, however illustrious, was +certainly not the central figure of his time--a full and valuable +history of the Commonwealth, and of large sections of the reigns of +Charles I. and Charles II. + +In like manner, a great part of the work of Lady Blennerhassett is not +biography, but history, and history of a very high order. Madame de +Staël was so closely connected in her own person, and still more +through her father, with the early events of the French Revolution, +that we accept with gratitude the admirable sketch of that period +which Lady Blennerhassett has given us; but we should scarcely expect +to find in a work primarily devoted to Madame de Staël full and +masterly accounts of the Ministry of Turgot, of the rise and teaching +of the Economists, of the rival influence of the writings of +Montesquieu and Rousseau on the French political character, of the +effect of English influence and American example in preparing the +Revolution, and of the part played by Germans and Swedes in French +politics. At the same time, the pictures of the social and +intellectual life prevailing in the different countries with which +Madame de Staël was connected, and the full accounts given of a crowd +of persons with whom she came into casual contact, though in +themselves both interesting and valuable, often tend to divert the +reader from the main subject of the book. In truth, Lady +Blennerhassett has not been able to resist the temptation of a very +full mind to pour out all its knowledge, and, while possessing many +rare and brilliant literary gifts, she appears to me to want that +restraining sense of literary perspective which gives biography its +true proportion and symmetry. This defect has, I fear, diminished the +popularity of a most valuable book. In the original German, and in an +excellent French translation which was revised by the author and which +I especially commend to my readers, the work consists of three very +substantial volumes.[9] A hasty reader will readily conclude that, in +this short and crowded life, such a space is far more than should be +allotted to a long-vanished figure which, though interesting and +brilliant, was not of the first magnitude. But if he has the courage +to persevere, he will soon discover that few modern books have lighted +up in so many directions the political, social, moral, and +intellectual history of a momentous period, and have exhibited at once +so many kinds of talent and so wide a range of sympathies and +knowledge. The complete competence, the firm, sober, and--if I may use +the expression--masculine judgment with which Lady Blennerhassett has +grasped the great political problems of the period of the Revolution, +is not less conspicuous than the truly feminine delicacy of +observation and touch with which she has delineated social life in +many different countries, and painted the finer shades of many widely +dissimilar characters. + +Anne Louise Germaine Necker was born in Paris on April 22, 1766. Her +father was at that time known only as a Swiss banker of high character +and reputation, who had amassed a vast fortune and had come to Paris +for his private affairs; but about two years after the birth of his +daughter he was appointed to represent the interests of Geneva at +Paris, and when she was ten years old he rose, for the first time, to +a leading place in the Ministry of France. Her mother had been the +Mademoiselle Curchod whose charms and accomplishments had captivated +Gibbon when he was a young man at Lausanne. Every reader of his +autobiography will remember the famous passage in which he describes +his engagement, the opposition of his father, and the resignation with +which he 'sighed as a lover, but obeyed as a son.' M. d'Haussonville +has published from the archives at Coppet some melancholy letters +which show clearly that Gibbon exhibited more heartlessness and +inflicted more suffering than might be gathered from his own stately +narrative. But no lasting scar remained. After a few years of poverty +and hardship, during which she was obliged to earn a livelihood as a +schoolmistress, Mademoiselle Curchod found in Necker a husband who +realised her fondest wishes; and when, soon after, she became the +centre of a brilliant salon at Paris, her former lover, then in the +zenith of his fame, was often among her guests. Madame Necker did not +always abstain from slightly veiled allusions to the past, but it is +pleasant to see that a warm and solid friendship seems to have grown +up between Gibbon and both his host and hostess. A pretty anecdote is +related of how, on one occasion, after he had left the house, they +agreed in expressing the deep regret with which they looked forward to +his approaching departure for England; when their little daughter, who +was then just ten years old, gravely offered to prevent the +catastrophe by marrying the illustrious, but by no means +prepossessing, historian. + +It was a saying of Talleyrand that he who had not lived before 1789 +had never known the full charm of life. Germaine Necker grew up in the +last bright flush of a society which had, perhaps, as many +fascinations as any that the world has known. Her mother, however, +though she occupied a prominent position in this brilliant world, was +never altogether of it. She shared fully, indeed, its intellectual +tastes, and had herself won some small place in literature. She threw +herself ardently into its philanthropic movements, and especially into +that for the reform of the hospitals. She formed a warm and true +friendship with Buffon and Thomas. She corresponded with Voltaire, and +attracted to her house most of the best writers of the age. But to the +last she remained eminently and characteristically Swiss, and she +never acquired the light touch, or the easy, pliant grace, of the true +Parisian. She was a little cold, a little prim, a little pedantic, a +little self-conscious. Neither her reserved manners nor her strong +domestic tastes, nor the vein of Puritanism that ran through her +opinions, harmonised with the lax and sceptical society around her, +and it was no sacrifice to her to exchange the splendours and the +gaieties of Paris for her peaceful retreat on the Lake of Geneva. + +In this, as in most respects, her daughter was very different. In her +the Swiss element had altogether disappeared, and, as is often the +case with the eminent child of eminent parents, her character shot out +in directions wholly unlike both that of her father and that of her +mother. She was not beautiful, though her dark and eminently lustrous +eyes, beaming with intelligence, and her rich brown tint, gave some +charm to her large and rather coarse features; while her massive +shoulders, arms, and breast, her full lips and the firm grasp of her +vigorous hand, indicated a strong, frank, ruling, and passionate +nature, overflowing with life and with many forms of energy. Her +education was somewhat fitfully conducted, but she threw herself +eagerly into literary enthusiasms. At fifteen we find her annotating +Montesquieu. Raynal and Richardson were among her idols, but, like +most of the more ardent spirits of her generation, her ideas and +character were moulded chiefly by the genius of Rousseau. Her first +work of importance was an exposition of his doctrines, and his +influence left deep traces on both 'Corinne' and 'Delphine.' Her +strong sane judgment, however, her genuine humanity, and the +moderating influence of her father, saved her from being swept away, +like Madame Roland and most of the disciples of Rousseau, by the +sanguinary torrent of revolutionary enthusiasm; and in times of wild +passion and exaggeration she usually exhibited a singular soundness +and sobriety of political judgment. She was sometimes mistaken, but on +the whole it may well be doubted whether there is any other French +writer or politician of the period of the Revolution whose +contemporary judgments of men and events have been more frequently +ratified by posterity. + +In this respect she was not of the school of Rousseau. In another and +less admirable way she was curiously untouched by his spirit, for few +superior intellects have been so openly, so utterly, insensible to the +charms of nature. She once spoke of 'the infernal peace' of her Swiss +home, and she candidly acknowledged that if it were not for respect +for the opinions of others she would not open her window to look for +the first time on the Bay of Naples, though she would gladly travel +five hundred leagues to make the acquaintance of a man of talent. On +the borders of the Lake of Geneva, with one of the fairest scenes on +earth expanding before her, she was incessantly pining for 'le +ruisseau de la Rue du Bac'--for the interest and the excitement of a +society which had become the passion of her life. + +Her gifts of conversation were very wonderful, and she had a wide +range of sympathies, keen insight into character, and great power of +describing it by a few vivid words. She had, however, no reticence or +reserve, she made many enemies by her unbounded frankness, and she +often fatigued or overwhelmed by her exuberant animal spirits and by +the torrent of her words. At the same time, unlike most great talkers, +she possessed to a very eminent degree the gifts of learning from +others, of grasping the characteristic features of their teaching, of +awakening sympathies, of dispelling bashfulness, and of kindling +latent intellect into a flame. Few women combined so remarkably a +sound and moderate judgment with extreme vividness and impetuosity of +emotion. She admired deeply, and she generally admired wisely; her +first judgments and impulses were almost always generous; and, +although she was subject to violent gusts of passion, she could be +very patient with those she loved. Through her whole life she was the +warmest and most self-sacrificing of friends, and her few antipathies +were singularly devoid of rancour. One of those who knew her best +pronounced her to be 'absolutely incapable of hatred.' + +She soon became the most attractive figure in the salon of Madame +Necker, and as the health of her mother declined she became its +central figure. Her rare accomplishments and her position as a great +heiress naturally would have drawn many suitors around her, but in +that age the determined Protestantism of her family was a formidable +barrier. It appears from something that she wrote late in life to a +German correspondent that, when a mere girl, she had come under the +spell of Louis de Narbonne, who asked her hand, and with whom, in +after years, she had relations which caused much scandal and which +greatly coloured her political life. The story that her parents at one +time contemplated a marriage between her and William Pitt, on the +occasion of his visit to France in 1783, was discredited by Lord +Stanhope; but M. d'Haussonville pronounces it to be quite true, though +there is no clear evidence that Pitt was apprised of the wish of the +Neckers. She was then only seventeen, and her vehement protest against +an English marriage nipped the project in the bud. In 1786, however, a +marriage was negotiated for her with the Swedish ambassador, the Baron +de Staël, who was at that time a special favourite of Gustavus III. It +was a marriage into which but little affection entered, and twelve +years later it ended in a separation. There was afterward, it is true, +a partial reconciliation, and she was present with her husband when he +died, in 1802, on the way from Paris to Coppet. + +Her marriage gave her an independent position, and she mixed much in +the politics of the early days of the Revolution. She corresponded +regularly with the Swedish King, and formed intimate friendships with +great numbers of the guiding politicians. The proudest moment of her +life was in August 1788, when, amid a transport of transient +enthusiasm and extravagant hopefulness, her father was for the second +time called to the helm. Her devotion to him amounted almost to +adoration, and she would never acknowledge, what the rest of the world +soon perceived, that, though excellently adapted to be Minister in +quiet, regular times, he had neither the daring nor the insight, nor +the commanding power, that was needed to guide the bark of State +through the fierce storms of the Revolution. She fully shared the +enthusiasm with which the opening of the States General was received. +She mentions that on that occasion she was watching the procession +from a window with Madame de Montmorin, wife of the Minister of +Foreign Affairs, and that as she expressed her delight, her companion +said: 'You are wrong in rejoicing; great calamities will follow from +this to France and to us.' The words were truly prophetic. Madame de +Montmorin perished on the scaffold with one of her sons; the other was +drowned. Her husband was murdered in prison during the massacre of the +second of September. Her eldest daughter died in the prison hospital. +Her youngest daughter withered away when not yet thirty, +broken-hearted by the calamities of her family. + +Madame de Staël, too, soon discovered that no millennium was at hand. +She was an eye-witness of the terrible scenes of the fifth and sixth +of October, when Versailles was invaded by a half-famished mob, when +the guards were cut down and beheaded, and when the royal family were +brought captive to Paris. She clearly saw that all power was passing +from the Government to the clubs, and that the mob violence which +reigned was either instigated or deliberately connived at by the very +men whose first duty was to repress it. 'These gentlemen,' she once +said, 'are like the rainbow; they always appear when the storm is +over.' Under her influence the Swedish Embassy became the chief centre +in which the 'Constitutional Party' was organised. Narbonne and +Talleyrand were then completely devoted to her. Ségur, Choiseul, the +Prince de Broglie, and other members of the party were constantly at +her house; and at what were called her 'coalition dinners' she brought +them in contact with leading men of other groups. She had a +conspicuous talent for inspiring, encouraging, conciliating, and +organising a party; and for some months she exercised a very real +political influence. Her aim was a constitutional monarchy of the +English type; but she came gradually to believe that a republic, or at +least a change of Sovereigns, had become inevitable. She never wavered +in her devotion to liberty, order, and justice; but on minor questions +she always exhibited a spirit of compromise which was very rare in her +age and in her country. 'The true line of conduct in politics,' she +once said, 'is always to be ready to rally to the least obnoxious +party among your adversaries, even though it is far from representing +exactly your own point of view.' At the end of 1791 she had a moment +of delicious triumph, when her favourite Narbonne became Minister of +War. Marie Antoinette, who disliked her, clearly recognised her hand. +'Count Louis de Narbonne,' she wrote to Fersen, 'has been Minister of +War since yesterday. What a glory for Madame de Staël and what a +pleasure for her to have the whole army at her disposal!' + +The triumphs of Madame de Staël, however, were very fleeting. Her +father had fallen irretrievably, and in September 1790 he passed +almost unnoticed out of the country where, but little more than a year +before, he had been welcomed with such enthusiasm. The Ministry of +Narbonne, to which she had attached her most ardent hopes, ended in +four months, and before its conclusion her husband, whose views on +French politics had been for some time diverging from those of his +Sovereign, was recalled. He was not, however, replaced, and Madame de +Staël remained alone in Paris till September 1792. Her position there +was an extremely dangerous one. She had long been an object of +incessant abuse in the Royalist press, and now the red waves of +Jacobinism were rising higher and higher, surging fiercely around +those to whom she was most attached. Nothing in her life is so +admirable as the courage with which, in this period of the Revolution, +she devoted herself to saving the lives of the proscribed. Her purse +was always open, and she often risked not only her fortune, but her +life. The royal family had always disliked her; but she was filled +with horror at the fate that was impending over them, and she herself +organised a plan for their escape, in which, if it had been accepted, +she would have borne a leading part, at the imminent risk of her head; +and she afterward wrote an earnest and eloquent pamphlet in the hope +of saving the life of the Queen. Sometimes by interceding with those +in power, sometimes by concealing fugitives in the Swedish Embassy, +very often by large and timely gifts of money, she saved many. Her own +life, at the time of the September massacres, was in extreme danger, +and she at last fled to Switzerland. Coppet then became a great centre +of refugees, and many of them owed their lives to her help. Among +others, Narbonne appears to have owed his escape, in part at least, to +her assistance, and she chiefly managed the escape of his daughter. +She was for a long time completely under his charm; but he is said to +have been irritated by her often tactless impetuosity, and especially +by the manner in which public opinion regarded him as her creature, +and he seems to have treated her with much ingratitude. There was no +violent breach, but there was a separation, and a wound which was long +and bitterly felt. Many years later, Madame de Staël, when praising +the Prince de Ligne, said of him: 'He had the manners of Monsieur de +Narbonne--and a heart.' + +A short visit to England, in 1793, the death of her mother in May +1794, and the publication of her first purely political work, +'Reflections on Peace, addressed to Mr. Pitt and to the French,' were +the chief events of her life during the next few months. In this work +she dwelt with much force on the absurdity of supposing that any +foreign intervention could restore what the Revolution had destroyed, +and she predicted that the inevitable effect of the prolongation or +extension of the war would be to strengthen that militant Jacobinism +which was now the greatest danger to Europe. In this year, too, she +first came in contact with Benjamin Constant, and her acquaintance +soon developed into a connection which gave her a new and powerful +instrument for acting on French politics, but which also brought with +it much suffering, many reproaches, and long and lasting discredit. In +May 1795 we find her again in Paris, with her husband, who had once +more been sent on a mission to France; again eagerly engaged in French +politics; again largely occupied in defending the interests of her +proscribed friends. Among others, Talleyrand appears to have owed his +recall to her influence. As usual, she excited many antipathies, she +was denounced in the Convention by Legendre for her political +intrigues and especially for her efforts in favour of the emigrants, +and she was obliged to leave Paris for about eighteen months. Her pen +was at this time very active, and to this period belong her 'Essay on +Novels' and her 'Treatise on the Passions.' + +The star of Bonaparte was now rapidly rising, and it profoundly +affected the last years of her life. The pages in her 'Considerations +on the French Revolution' in which she describes her first interview +with him, after the peace of Campo Formio, are among the most graphic +she ever wrote, though something of the shadow of the picture was, no +doubt, drawn from later experience and antipathy. She was at first +dazzled; she was at all times profoundly impressed by his genius, but +she soon came to perceive that his nature was wholly unlike that of +other men. She had seen, she said, men worthy of all respect, and she +had seen men noted for their ferocity; but the impression produced on +her by Bonaparte was generically different from that produced by +either of these classes. She found that such epithets as 'good,' +'violent,' 'gentle,' and 'cruel' could not be applied to him in their +ordinary senses. He was in truth a being who stood self-centred, and +apart from the sympathies, passions, and enthusiasms of his kind, +habitually regarding men, not as fellow-creatures, but as mere +counters in a game; a will of colossal strength; an intellect of +clear, cold, transcendent power, solely governed by the imperturbable +calculation of the strictest egotism, and never drawn aside by love or +hatred, by pity or religion, or by attachment to any cause. It was +impossible, she found, to exaggerate his contempt for human nature and +his disbelief in the reality of human virtue. A perfectly honest man +was the only kind of man he never could understand. Such a man +perplexed and baffled his calculations, acting on them as the sign of +the cross acts on the machinations of a demon. The superiority which +so clearly shone in his conversation was not that of a mind cultivated +by study and by society; it was the supreme insight into the +circumstances of life possessed by a mighty hunter of men. There was +something in him, she said, like a cold and trenchant sword, which at +the same moment could wound and chill. + +Such was the estimate she formed of the man who, nearly at the same +time, was presented by Talleyrand to the Directory as 'the pacificator +of Europe,' as a hero 'who despised luxury and pomp--the wretched +ambition of common souls--and who loved the poems of Ossian, +especially because they detach men from the earth'! That two such +different natures should come into collision was very natural. +Bonaparte always hated superior women, and especially women who +meddled in politics. He well knew that the circle of Madame de Staël +was the centre of ideas about freedom and constitutional government +irreconcilably opposed to his ambition, and that the world of good +society and good taste, of independent thought and independent +characters, in which she played so great a part, remained unsubdued +and undazzled by his power. Benjamin Constant had been placed in 'the +Tribunate,' and in the beginning of 1800 he made a speech there, +indicating a desire to establish in that body an opposition like the +opposition in the English Parliament. Bonaparte was furious at his +attitude, and at once ascribed it to the inspiration of Madame de +Staël. A year later the last work of her father appeared, and it +contained an earnest warning against growing despotism in France and a +strong argument for the establishment of a republican constitution. +The sayings of Madame de Staël that were repeated from lip to lip, and +the atmosphere of thought that grew up around her, irritated and +disquieted Bonaparte. 'She is moving the minds of men,' he said, 'in a +direction that does not suit me.' 'They pretend that she does not +speak of politics or of me, but somehow it always happens that those +who have been with her become less attached to me.' Soon her salon was +emptied by an emphatic intimation that those who entered it would +incur the displeasure of the First Consul. Official scribes were +busily employed in depreciating her, and these measures were speedily +followed by the long exile which darkened the later years of her life. + +It is impossible for me in this article to relate, even in outline, +the story of this exile, and of her travels in England, Italy, +Austria, Russia, and, above all, in Germany. Madame de Staël has +herself described this period of her life in her 'Ten Years of Exile,' +and all the details have been collected by Lady Blennerhassett with an +industry that leaves nothing to be desired. A woman of a more heroic +type would have borne with less repining an exclusion from Paris life +which was mitigated by wealth, and fame, and abundant occupation, and +a family that adored her, and troops of admiring friends. A woman who +was less essentially noble would have assuredly accepted the overtures +that were more than once made to her, and would have purchased her +peace with Napoleon by burning a few grains of literary incense on his +altar. But though, in a life of more than common vicissitude and +temptation, Madame de Staël was betrayed into great weaknesses and +into some serious faults, she never lost her sense of the dignity and +integrity of literature, and her works are singularly free from +unworthy flattery as well as from unworthy resentments and jealousies. +The homage which Napoleon desired was never received, and in her great +work on Italy and her still greater one on Germany there was no trace +of his victories, influence, or animosities. 'In France,' he once +said, 'there is a small literature and a great literature; the small +literature is on my side, but the great literature is not for me.' + +The disfavour which thrust Madame de Staël out of political +influence, and then drove her into exile, proved a blessing in +disguise, for it turned her mind decisively from political intrigues +to those forms of literature in which she was most fitted to excel. +Her treatise on 'Literature,' which was published in 1800, was +conceived upon a scale too large for her own knowledge, and though she +herself attributed to it the great and general favour that she enjoyed +for a time in Paris society, it has not taken an enduring place in +French literature. 'Delphine,' the most personal, and also the most +censured, of her novels, had a still wider success, and made a deeper +and more lasting impression. It appeared in 1802, and it was followed +by a long interval, during which she appears to have published nothing +except a short but admirable notice of her father, who died in the +spring of 1804; but in 1807 'Corinne' burst upon the world, and at +once obtained a European fame equalled by that of no French novel +since 'La Nouvelle Héloise.' In this great work of imagination she +embodied, in a highly poetic form, the impressions she had derived +from her journeys in England and Italy, and its immense and +instantaneous success placed her on the very pinnacle of fame. It is +worthy of notice that a bitter attack upon 'Corinne' appeared in 'Le +Moniteur,' based chiefly upon the fact that its hero was an +Englishman; and there is good reason to believe that this attack was +from the pen of Napoleon himself. + +A book of larger scope and of more serious influence soon followed. +Germany at this time presented the singular spectacle of a people who +had been reduced to the lowest depths of political depression, but +who, at the same time, could boast of a contemporary literature that +was the first in the world. In France a translation of 'Werther' had +attained great popularity; some of the plays of Schiller, the idylls +of Gessner, and a few other German works were well known; but scarcely +any Frenchman had a conception of the magnitude and importance of the +intellectual activity which was growing up beyond the Rhine, or of the +vast place which Goethe, Schiller, and Kant were destined to take in +European thought. It was one of the chief pleasures and occupations of +Madame de Staël, during her exile, to explore this almost unknown +field. It would scarcely have been thought that she was well fitted +for the task. She learned the language late in life, and her +characteristically French mind seemed very little in harmony with +either the strength or the weakness of the Teutonic intellect. There +was nothing very profound, or very subtle, or very poetical in her +nature, and she had all that instinctive dislike to the vague, the +disproportioned, the exaggerated, and the ambiguous, to fantastic and +far-fetched conjecture, and to imposing edifices of speculation based +upon scanty or shadowy materials, that pre-eminently distinguishes the +best French thought. Very wisely, however, she placed herself in +direct communication with the great writers of Germany, and a wholly +new world of thought and sentiment gradually opened upon her mind. It +is not too much to say that it was her pen that first revealed to the +Latin world the intellectual greatness of Germany. In England, +Coleridge had already laboured in the same field, and his admirable +translation of 'Wallenstein' had appeared as early as 1800; but it had +been completely still-born, and in England also it was reserved for +the great Frenchwoman to give the first considerable impulse to the +study of German literature. For the history, the merits, and the +defects of her work on Germany, I cannot do better than to refer to +the admirable pages which Lady Blennerhassett has devoted to the +subject. With the doubtful exception of 'Le Génie du Christianisme,' +it was by far the most important French work which appeared during the +reign of Napoleon. It is a characteristic fact that the whole of the +first edition was confiscated by order of his Government. Happily the +manuscript was saved, and about three years later it was printed in +England. + +After some discreditable scenes, on which a recently published +correspondence has thrown a painful though somewhat doubtful light, +the connection of Madame de Staël with Benjamin Constant was broken. +The two continued occasionally to correspond, and as late as 1815 we +find her lending him a large sum of money; but their relations were +never again what they had been, and on the side of Constant there +appears to have been a large amount of positive malevolence. 'O +Benjamin,' she wrote to him in one of her later letters, 'you have +destroyed my life! For ten years not a day has passed that my heart +has not suffered for you--and yet I loved you so much!' A strong +affection, such as she had not found in her marriage with the Baron de +Staël, was an imperious necessity of her existence, and after her +breach with Constant she soon found an object in a young officer from +Geneva named Rocca, who had returned to his native town badly wounded +after brilliant service in Spain. When they first met, in 1810, Madame +de Staël was forty-four and Rocca about twenty-three; but a genuine +and honourable affection seems to have grown up on both sides, and in +the following year they were married. Madame de Staël, however, either +clinging to her name or dreading the ridicule of such a strangely +assorted marriage, insisted upon its concealment, and Rocca generally +passed in society as her lover. A child was born in 1812, but it was +only after the death of Madame de Staël that the legitimacy of the +connection was established. It proved much more productive of +happiness than might have been expected, and greatly brightened her +closing years. Nearly at the same time an important change passed over +her religious views, and the vague deism of her youth deepened into a +positive, definite, and earnest Christianity, but without mysticism +and without intolerance. Some beautiful lines that are cited by Lady +Blennerhassett very faithfully express the spirit of her belief: 'Il +faut avoir soin, si l'on peut, que le déclin de cette vie soit la +jeunesse de l'autre. Se désintéresser de soi, sans cesser de +s'intéresser aux autres, met quelque chose de divin dans l'âme.' + +She lived to see the downfall of perhaps the only man she really +hated, his return from Elba, his final defeat at Waterloo, and the +restoration of the Bourbons. But, though she detested Napoleon and his +system, these things gave her no pleasure. The spectacle of an invaded +and a dismembered France aroused her strongest feelings of patriotism, +and she loved liberty too truly and too ardently to rejoice in the +influences that triumphed in 1815. Her last years were chiefly spent +in the composition of her 'Considerations on the French Revolution,' +in which she sums up the convictions of her life. It is one of her +most valuable and most lasting books. The disproportioned prominence +which is naturally assigned in it to Necker, and the manifest personal +element in her antipathy to Napoleon, impair its weight, indeed, as a +history; but few writers have criticised with more justice the +successive stages of the Revolution, and few books of its generation +are so rich in political wisdom. The concluding chapters, in which, in +a strain of noble eloquence, she pleads the cause of moderate and +constitutional freedom, show how steadily and how strongly, in an age +of many disenchantments, she clung to the belief of her youth. + +The 'Considerations on the French Revolution' had a vast and an +immediate success, and in a few days sixty thousand copies were sold. +Madame de Staël, however, did not live to witness her triumph. In +February 1817 she was struck down by a paralytic illness, and on July +14, after a long period of complete prostration, she passed away +tranquilly in her sleep. It was a peaceful ending to an agitated and +chequered career. She had enjoyed much and suffered much. She had +committed grave faults, and had met with her full share of +disappointment and ingratitude; but few women have left such an +enduring monument behind them, or have touched human life on so many +sides and with so many sympathies. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[9] There is also an English, and somewhat abridged, translation. + + + + +THE PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE OF SIR ROBERT PEEL + + +There is probably no other English public man of the present century +whose career has attracted in so large a measure the interest both of +politicians and of men of letters as Sir Robert Peel. In addition to a +crowd of industrious but not very distinguished compilers, it has been +discussed with great skill by Guizot, by Lord Dalling, by Mr. Goldwin +Smith, and by Mr. Spencer Walpole; and in that great literature of +monographs which has grown up with such remarkable rapidity in England +within the last decade, no less than three have been devoted to the +life of Peel. The interest that attaches to him is, indeed, of a very +peculiar character. He was almost wholly destitute of the power of +imagination that is so conspicuous in the careers or speeches of +Chatham and Burke, of Canning and Beaconsfield. Except during a few +years that followed the Reform Bill of 1832, he never exhibited the +spectacle of a leader struggling successfully against enormous odds. +He was not one of those statesmen who see further than their +contemporaries, and who, after years of failure and struggle, are +proved by their ultimate triumph to have most truly read the +tendencies of their age. Though he was three times Prime Minister of +England, and though he was for a time deemed the most brilliant of +party leaders, he left the great and powerful party which trusted him +almost hopelessly shattered. Twice in his life he carried measures of +transcendent importance which he had not only persistently opposed, +but had been specially placed in power for the purpose of resisting. +The most striking incidents in his career are incidents of failure +rather than of success, and history has pronounced that, on the most +important questions of his time, he was disastrously wrong. The long +delay in the inevitable emancipation of the Catholics, which was +largely due to him, and the circumstances under which he ultimately +carried the measure, produced evils that are in full activity at the +present hour. His persistent opposition to parliamentary reform +contributed to bring England to the very verge of revolution; though +when the Reform Bill had been carried he nobly retrieved his error by +the frankness with which he accepted, and the skill with which he +used, the new conditions of English politics. His abolition of the +Corn Laws at the head of a Government which had been pledged to +maintain them gave a great shock to public confidence, and for a long +period most seriously dislocated the machinery of party government. +But, in spite of all this, there are few statesmen who have carried so +large a number of measures of great and acknowledged importance, who +have impressed so deeply the sense of their superiority on the minds +of their contemporaries, or who were followed to the grave by a more +widespread and genuine regret. + +It is this contrast between the leading incidents of Peel's life and +the impression which he made on the world that constitutes the great +interest of his career. The explanation is not difficult to discover. +It is the common story of extraordinary qualities balanced by +striking defects. He was not a great statesman, but he was a +supremely great administrator, a supremely great master of +parliamentary management and of parliamentary legislation. He had +little prescience; he often grossly misread the signs of the times, or +only recognised them when it was too late; but when he was once +convinced, he acted on his conviction with frankness and courage, and +when a thing had to be done, no one could do it like him. As Disraeli +said: 'In the course of time the method which was natural to Sir +Robert Peel matured into a habit of such expertness that no one in the +despatch of affairs ever adapted the means more fitly to the end.'[10] +In the words of Sir Cornewall Lewis: 'For concocting, producing, +explaining, and defending measures, he had no equal, or anything like +an equal.'[11] + +In the interesting volumes which were published by Lord Mahon and Mr. +Cardwell in 1856 we have Peel's own explanation of his conduct +relating to the removal of the Catholic disabilities in 1829, and to +the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846; but the publication of his +confidential correspondence has been long delayed, and the volume +before us only carries the work down to 1827. It has been edited by +Mr. Parker with great care and accuracy, and with undeviating good +sense and good taste, and it throws much curious light upon a corner +of history which has been but little explored. + +Peel started in life with great advantages. The eldest son of a very +wealthy manufacturer who had long occupied a respectable place in +Parliament, and who was closely attached to the dominant party in the +State, he was from his earliest youth destined by his father to be a +statesman. Under such circumstances he was certain in the pre-Reform +period to have not only all the advantages which the best school and +university education could give, but also the still greater advantages +of an early introduction into both parliamentary and official life; +provided always that no aberration of character, or taste, or +imagination, or opinion drew him aside from the plain path that lay +before him. He grew up in an atmosphere of the best middle-class +virtues. Decorum, good sense, industry, strict morality; a sober +religious orthodoxy; much simplicity of life, preserved in the midst +of great wealth; ideals which, if not very lofty, were at least +eminently practical and perfectly honourable, prevailed around him, +and their influence imbued his whole nature. He accepted cordially the +destiny that was before him, and threw himself into it with untiring +industry. His opinions changed during his life much more than his +character, and the shy, sensitive, industrious, somewhat +self-conscious, somewhat awkward Harrow boy, prefigured very +faithfully the future statesman. He is described as wandering when a +schoolboy by himself among the hedges, knocking down birds with +stones, a practice in which he was very skilful, and which eventually +developed into a strong passion for shooting. He was quiet, +good-natured, studious, scarcely ever in scrapes, and it was not until +the last year of his school life that he threw himself with any +keenness into the amusements of his comrades. He had good natural +abilities; but probably the one point in which he greatly exceeded the +average of intelligent boys was his memory, which was of extraordinary +retentiveness, and which he carefully cultivated. During a few months +which elapsed between leaving Harrow and going to Oxford he constantly +attended the House of Commons, under the Gallery; and he also +attended some natural history lectures at the Royal Institution. His +Oxford career was very successful. He is said to have worked before +his degree examination for no less than eighteen hours, through the +day and night. He gained a double-first, and in the first class of +mathematics he stood alone. Such a success at once stamped him as a +youth of extraordinary promise, and the impression it made was +especially great because, the examination system having been very +recently reorganised, he was the first Oxford man who had attained it. + +He was brought into Parliament in April 1809, almost immediately after +he came of age, for the borough of Cashel. No special significance +attaches to the fact of his having entered Parliament for an Irish +constituency, for his father had simply bought the seat, and the young +member appears to have never gone over to his constituents or held any +communication with them. + +'When I sat for Cashel,' he afterwards wrote, 'and was not in office, +having made those sacrifices which could then legally be made, but now +cannot, I did not consider myself at all pledged to the support of +Government.'[12] Perceval, who represented in its extreme form the +Tory reaction that followed the Revolution, was then Prime Minister, +and Peel at once took his place among his followers. He first spoke in +seconding the Address in 1810, and in the partial judgment of his +father his speech was considered, 'by men the best qualified to form a +correct opinion of public speaking, the best first speech since that +of Mr. Pitt.'[13] + +It was not, perhaps, an unmixed advantage to Peel that while he was +still a mere boy his father had somewhat ostentatiously destined him +to be one day a Tory statesman. Such an education could hardly fail to +strengthen the self-consciousness which was never wanting in Peel's +character, and to give a decided bias to his judgment. At the same +time, the distinctive merits of his career would have probably never +been fully developed without the early administrative training which +his opinions made possible for him, and there is nothing in his early +history to give the least countenance to the belief that his adherence +to the extreme type of Tory politics imposed the slightest strain upon +his judgment. His immediate interests and his sentiments appear at +this time to have perfectly concurred. He came into Parliament with +the party which was dominant, and with the section of the party which +was most poor in able men. Had he adopted on the Catholic question the +liberal opinions of Canning and Castlereagh, he must have held a +position altogether subordinate to them; and the same causes that in +the preceding Ministry had raised Perceval to be leader of the House +of Commons over the heads of Castlereagh and Canning, marked out for +Peel the future leadership of the party of resistance to concession. +It has been said, on the authority of Sir Lawrence Peel, that his +first appointment was that of private secretary to Lord Liverpool, but +Mr. Parker has found no trace of this in the papers either of Peel or +of Lord Liverpool. In 1810, however, when he was but just twenty-two, +he entered administrative life as Under-Secretary of State for War and +the Colonies, and he held that place till August 1812, when he +obtained the far more important post of Chief Secretary for Ireland, +and became for the next six years virtual governor of that country. + +It was a post requiring not only great administrative skill, but also +great gifts of original statesmanship. During the last five years of +the eighteenth century, and especially during the rebellion of 1798, +religious passions in Ireland, which had for more than a generation +been steadily subsiding, had been kindled into a flame, and the urgent +necessity of settling the Catholic question had begun to press with +irresistible force on the minds of the more intelligent statesmen. +Pitt had intended to complete the Union by measures for admitting +Catholics into Parliament, for commuting tithes, and for paying the +Catholic clergy. Through the instrumentality of Lord Castlereagh +assurances of the disposition of the Cabinet had been conveyed to the +Catholic bishops and the leading Catholic laymen in 1799, which were +sufficient to secure their active support for the Union and to prevent +any serious opposition among the Catholic laity. The bishops met the +wishes of the English Government by drawing up a series of +resolutions, in which they declared their readiness to accept with +gratitude an endowment for the priesthood, to confer upon the English +Government a power of veto over the appointment of Catholic bishops +which would prevent the introduction into that body of any disloyal +men, and to certify to the Government the nomination of all Catholic +parish priests, as well as the fact that they had taken the oath of +allegiance. But the King had not been informed of the negotiations +that had taken place, and it is well known how his uncompromising +opposition produced the resignation of Pitt in 1801, how the agitation +caused by the question threw the King into a temporary fit of +insanity, and how Pitt at once promised that he would not move the +question again during the reign. In the spring of 1804 Pitt resumed +office, on the express understanding that he would not permit Catholic +Emancipation; when the question was introduced in 1805 by Lord +Grenville in the Lords, and by Fox in the Commons, it was defeated in +both Houses by immense majorities, and Pitt declared that though he +was still of opinion that there was no danger in the concession, yet, +as long as the circumstances which prevented him from bringing it +forward continued, he would be no party to agitating the question. + +In 1806 Pitt died, and Fox and Grenville were themselves in power, but +the Catholics were again disappointed. The prejudice of the King, the +feeling of the country, the recent vote of the House of Commons, the +presence of Lord Sidmouth in the Ministry, proved insuperable +obstacles, and Fox could only urge the Catholic leaders to postpone +the question. Fox died in September 1806, and the Government presided +over by Lord Grenville met a new Parliament in the following December. +Grenville had been Pitt's colleague during the negotiations with the +Catholics that preceded the Union; he had strongly urged upon Pitt the +necessity of resigning in 1801, and he never forgave him for having so +lightly abandoned the cause. Grenville did not attempt to carry +emancipation, but he resolved to take at least one serious step in the +direction of concession, by throwing open to the Catholics all the +posts in the army and navy. An Irish Act of 1793 had enabled them to +hold in Ireland commissions in the army, and to attain any rank except +commander-in-chief, master-general of the ordnance, and general of the +staff; but if the regiments in which they served were sent to England, +they were disqualified by law from remaining in the service. The +original Bill of Grenville's Government was intended to remove this +anomaly, and assimilate the law in the two countries; but in the +course of the discussions it was agreed that the Catholics should be +freed from the exceptions to which they were subjected by the Irish +Act, that all posts in the army and navy should be thrown open to men +of all religious persuasions, subject only to the obligation of taking +an oath which was prescribed, and that Catholic soldiers should be +guaranteed by law the free exercise of their religion. The King had +been informed of this, and was understood to have given a distinct, +though a reluctant, assent; but a strong Protestant party, headed by +Perceval, fiercely opposed it. The King withdrew his assent from the +added clauses, and expressed his disapprobation of the whole measure. +At last, after much discussion, the Ministers agreed for the present +to withdraw their Bill, reserving to themselves by a Cabinet minute, +which was submitted to the King, the right to renew it, or to propose +any other measure on the subject which they desired. But the King was +determined to push his victory to the end. He demanded from his +Ministers a promise in writing that they would never again propose to +him any measure connected with Catholic emancipation, and as the +Ministers refused to give this unconstitutional pledge, the King +dismissed them from office, and called the Duke of Portland to the +head of affairs. + +It was the second time that the King had broken up a Ministry on the +Catholic question, and his conduct was especially significant, as his +refusal to grant military promotion to Catholics was announced in the +midst of a great war, and at a time when thousands of Catholics were +fighting in his armies. It at once appeared that there were two +entirely distinct schools of Tories. Pitt, to the very close of his +life, had declared that his opinions on the Catholic question were +unchanged, though he would not force them against the inclination of +the King; and his views were adopted by Canning, Castlereagh, and +Wellesley. Perceval, on the other hand, emphatically declared that he +'could not conceive a time or any change of circumstances which could +render further concession to the Catholics consistent with the safety +of the State.'[14] With the exception of Eldon, scarcely any man of +real ability adopted this view until Peel entered Parliament as the +follower of Perceval. It is sufficiently evident from this fact how +little truth there is in the theory that attributes Peel's early +Toryism to a blind admiration for Pitt. + +The party of the King triumphed. Parliament was dissolved on the 'No +Popery' cry, and on the first great party division that followed the +election the Ministers in the House of Commons had a majority of 195. +Canning and Castlereagh, though they had no sympathy with that cry, +availed themselves of the current that ran so strongly against the +Whigs. In the Ministry of the Duke of Portland they held the seals for +the Foreign and War Departments, but the leadership of the Commons and +the virtual leadership of the Ministry was given to Perceval, who, +though entirely without brilliant parts, exhibited unexpected talents, +both as a practical debater and as a manager of men, and who had the +advantage of representing fully the dominant party. Several +circumstances, however, other than a conviction of the danger of the +Catholic claims, contributed to the triumph of the anti-Catholic +party. The Whigs, already broken by their policy towards France in the +first stages of the Revolution and of the war, had become still more +unpopular through their opposition to the seizure of the Danish fleet +and to the Peninsular War. They were divided among themselves, for +there was little sympathy between the more aristocratic Whigs, who +were represented by Grenville and Lord Howick, and the more Radical +party of Sir F. Burdett and Whitbread. A strong personal as well as +political dislike already existed between Howick and Canning, and +prevented their hearty co-operation on the one great question on which +they were agreed. Above all, there was a general conviction among +statesmen that the King's mind was trembling on the verge of insanity, +and that a renewal of the Catholic complications of 1801 would produce +a catastrophe. + +The question was debated in both the Lords and Commons in 1808. In the +former it was lost by a majority of 87, and in the latter by a +majority of 153. Grattan on this occasion introduced the Catholic +petition in a speech of consummate power; but both Castlereagh and +Canning opposed the reception of the petition, on the ground that the +time was unsuited for the agitation of the question; and the spirit of +the ruling part of the Ministry was sufficiently shown by the +reduction of the Maynooth grant from 13,000_l._ to 9,250_l._ When the +Portland Government was broken up in September 1809 by the quarrel, +duel, and resignation of Canning and Castlereagh, Perceval became the +head of the new Ministry, Lord Wellesley occupying the place of +Canning, and Lord Hawkesbury that of Castlereagh; and an intensely +anti-Catholic ministry continued to the death of Perceval. In 1809 the +Catholic question was not introduced into Parliament. In the spring of +1810 it was introduced into both Houses, but was defeated by +majorities of 86 and 104; but in October 1810 an event occurred which +profoundly changed the aspect of affairs. The King's insanity broke +out anew in a form which gave little hope of recovery, and the Prince +of Wales was appointed Regent. For a year the regency was subject to +restrictions similar to those which had been adopted in 1788, but on +February 1, 1812, these restrictions were to cease, and the Regent was +to enter into full fruition of the royal power. + +The hopes of the Catholics were now raised to the highest point. With +the confirmed insanity of George III. the most serious of all the +obstacles to their claims was removed. During the year of the +restricted regency, while there was still some chance of the recovery +of the King, the Prince of Wales declined to remove the existing +Ministry from office, though even this decision was not taken without +some hesitation and some negotiations with the Whigs. The Catholics, +however, fully expected that the royal influence would now be exerted +in their favour, and that the Whig Ministry would speedily come. The +Prince of Wales had long been in close connection with the Whigs. As +early as 1797 he had expressed a desire to go over to Ireland as +Lord-Lieutenant, carrying with him a policy of conciliation to the +Catholics. In 1805, when Fox and Grenville had introduced the Catholic +question into the Imperial Parliament, the Prince, while stating that +considerations of obvious delicacy prevented him from taking an +immediate and open part in its favour, had given the Whig leaders the +fullest authority to assure the Catholics of Ireland that he would +never forsake their interests, the 'most distinct and authentic +pledge' of his wish to relieve them from the disabilities of which +they complained, and to exert himself in their favour as soon as he +was constitutionally able to do so. It is easy therefore to imagine +the consternation and the indignation with which, in 1812, the +Catholics found that the Prince Regent had changed his principles and +his policy; that, after a short and perhaps insincere negotiation with +the Whigs, he had resolved to maintain in power a Ministry which was +constructed for the main purpose of maintaining the Catholic +disabilities; and that his own opinions were rapidly verging towards +this policy. + +The situation in Ireland was becoming very dangerous. For some years +after the Union a great apathy prevailed, and there is no reasonable +doubt that, if events in England had been favourable, Catholic +emancipation would have met with no serious opposition in Ireland, and +could have been carried with every reasonable limitation and +safeguard. The most competent English officials calculated that at +least sixty-four of the hundred Irish representatives would vote for +it, and that a decided preponderance of Irish Protestant opinion was +in its favour. On the other hand, the Catholic bishops and aristocracy +had fully accepted the policy of an endowment for the priests and a +veto on the appointment of bishops, and the most Conservative elements +in the Catholic body still exercised an ascendancy over their +co-religionists. The question of the veto had been mentioned in the +Commons, by Sir J. Hippisley, in 1805, and in 1808 Grattan and +Ponsonby formally announced, on the authority of the Catholic bishops, +their readiness to accept it. A letter from Bishop Milner was read to +the House, which very clearly stated their position: + +'The Catholic prelates of Ireland,' he wrote, 'are willing to give a +direct negative power to his Majesty's Government with respect to the +nomination of their titular bishoprics, in such manner that when they +have among themselves resolved who is the fittest person for the +vacant see, they will transmit his name to his Majesty's Ministers; +and if the latter should object to that name, they will transmit +another and another, until a name is presented to which no objection +is made; and (which is never likely to be the case) should the Pope +refuse to give those essentially necessary spiritual powers, of which +he is the depository, to the person so presented by the Catholic +bishops and so approved by the Government, they will continue to +propose names till one occurs which is agreeable to both +parties--namely, the Crown and Apostolic See.' + +The prelates also engaged to nominate no persons who had not +previously taken the oath of allegiance.[15] But a democratic party +had now arisen among the Catholics, which utterly repudiated the +restrictions of the veto, which sought emancipation by violent and +democratic agitation, and which was rapidly drawing the most dangerous +elements in the country into its channel. The bishops, pushed on by +the strong force that was behind them, speedily retraced their steps +and passed resolutions against the restrictions they had accepted, and +there were evident signs that the Catholic body was passing away from +the guidance of Grattan and of the gentry. This was not surprising in +a country where many elements of anarchy subsisted; and the democratic +party had already found in O'Connell a leader of consummate skill, and +of untiring industry, energy, and ambition. But the chief cause of the +great change that was passing over the Irish Catholics was to be +found in the disappointment of their hopes in 1801, in 1804, in 1806, +and 1812; in the desertion of their cause by Pitt; in the proved +impotence of the Whigs; in the failure of 'the securities' even to +mitigate the hostility of Perceval and his followers; in the profound +consternation and exasperation that were produced by the attitude of +the Regent. The formation of the General Committee of Catholic +Delegates was speedily followed by its suppression under the +Convention Act. But the influence of O'Connell was rapidly growing; +there were already ominous signs of a possible agitation for the +repeal of the Union, and the indignation of the Catholics was +significantly shown by the famous 'witchery resolutions,' which were +unanimously carried by the aggregate meeting of the Catholics in the +June of 1812, reflecting on the influence which Lady Hertford was +believed to exercise over the Prince. After calling for the 'total and +unqualified repeal of the penal laws which aggrieve the Catholics,' +they proceeded to use the following language: 'That from authentic +documents now before us we hear, with deep disappointment and anguish, +how cruelly the promised boon of Catholic freedom has been interrupted +by the fatal witchery of an unworthy secret influence.... To this +impure source we trace but too distinctly our baffled hopes and +protracted servitude.' Such language was not calculated to conciliate +the Prince, and he was only confirmed in his hostility to the +Catholics. As early as September 1813 the Duke of Richmond wrote to +Peel: 'I was delighted to find H.R.H. as steady a Protestant as the +Attorney-General.' + +The commencement, however, of what was virtually a new reign had given +a new activity to the question. It was brought forward in different +forms in the first months of 1812 by Lord Wellesley and Lord +Donoughmore in one House, and by Lord Morpeth and Grattan in the +other; and although it was still defeated, the diminished majorities, +the evident signs of an increased Catholic party in the country, and +the language of some of the most distinguished men in Parliament, +clearly indicated the progress of the measure. Canning especially now +strenuously urged that the time had come when the Catholic question +must be fully dealt with. The assassination of Perceval on May 11, +1812, again changed the situation and led to a long series of feeble +and abortive negotiations. An attempt was made to continue the +existing Ministry under the lead of Lord Liverpool, with the addition +of Canning and Lord Wellesley; but these statesmen declined the offer, +on the ground that the other Ministers refused to carry Catholic +emancipation, and Lord Wellesley on the additional ground of their +languor in prosecuting the Spanish war. The Regent then authorised +Lord Wellesley to construct a Ministry, with the assistance of +Canning, and an offer was made to Lords Grey and Grenville to join it, +promising an immediate consideration of the Catholic claims with a +view to a conciliatory settlement; while, on the other hand, attempts +were made to retain the services of the leading members of Perceval's +Ministry. But the Whig leaders refused to take part in a coalition +Ministry, in which they would probably be outvoted, and the former +Cabinet was reconstructed, under the leadership of Lord Liverpool, but +on the principle of leaving the Catholic question an open one. +Liverpool himself was opposed to concession, but his opposition was by +no means of the unqualified kind which had been shown by Perceval; and +a large proportion of his colleagues, including Castlereagh, who led +the House of Commons, were in favour of Catholic emancipation. If +Canning had consented to join the Ministry, Lord Wellesley would +probably have been Lord-Lieutenant in Ireland, and under these +circumstances the Catholic side could scarcely have failed to acquire +a decisive preponderance. If, on the other hand, Castlereagh had +followed the example of Canning, and refused to take part in a +Ministry which declined to settle the Catholic question, or if the +Whigs had consented to co-operate with Canning, the settlement of this +great question could scarcely have been deferred. Unfortunately, none +of these things happened. Castlereagh remained the leader of the +House. Canning refused to follow his leadership, and two years later +accepted the embassy to Lisbon. The Whig leaders stood aloof from all +Ministerial combinations. The Duke of Richmond, who was violently +anti-Catholic, continued to be Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland; the post of +Chief Secretary was given to Peel, and Ireland was destined to undergo +fifteen more years of demoralising and disorganising agitation before +the Catholic question was settled. + +Canning, however, as an independent member, brought forward a +resolution pledging the House to an early consideration of the laws +affecting his Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects, with a view to their +final conciliatory adjustment, and the conditions of the question had +so profoundly changed that it was carried by a majority of 129; while +a similar motion by Lord Wellesley in the House of Lords was met by +the previous question, which was carried by a majority of only one. + +Peel, though he had come into Parliament as a special follower of +Perceval, had not yet pledged himself decisively against the +Catholics. He had voted silently against Canning's motion in June, and +although he had spoken against a previous motion of Grattan, he had +done so mainly on the ground that the time was not opportune, and had +expressly guarded himself against giving any positive pledge. He was +now, however, obliged to take a more prominent part, and for the next +six years he was the chief support of the anti-Catholic party in +Parliament. His part was a very difficult one, for he had to encounter +Grattan, Plunket, Canning, and the Whig leaders, and he had scarcely +any real supporters. Saurin, the Attorney-General, it is true, was +strongly opposed to all concession. He was a lawyer of high character +and attainments, of Huguenot descent and strong Huguenot principles, +and he had borne a distinguished part in opposition to the Union; but +Saurin refused to go to London. Bushe, who was Solicitor-General, +leaned to the Catholic side; and, to the great indignation and +consternation of the Government, Wellesley Pole, who had preceded Peel +as Chief Secretary and who was the brother of Lord Wellesley, now +pronounced himself strongly in Parliament in favour of the Catholics. +This speech was entirely unexpected, for Pole had hitherto been +regarded as a staunch adherent of the Protestant party, and as late as +the last day of 1811 he had sent a memorandum on the Catholic question +to the Secretary of State in England, which was intended to be laid +before the Cabinet, and which maintained the impossibility of safely +satisfying the Catholic claims, and the expediency of the Prince +Regent's taking a decided part against them. A general election had +taken place in September, and it is evident from the letters of Lord +Liverpool and Peel that they at this time looked upon Canning and his +followers with even more hostility than the regular Opposition. + +In the new Parliament the Catholic question at once assumed a great +prominence. A motion for the immediate consideration of the laws +affecting the Catholics was introduced by Grattan, supported by +Castlereagh, opposed by Peel, and ultimately carried by a majority of +40. A resolution of Grattan's for removing laws imposing civil and +military disabilities on the Catholics, with such regulations and +exceptions as might provide for the security of the Protestant +succession and of the Established Church, was next introduced. Peel +opposed it bitterly, but was beaten by a majority of 67. + +'We were terribly beaten,' he wrote to his Under-Secretary, 'but we +are sad cowards, I am afraid; at least, we are shamefully used. Poor +Duigenan could not get a hearing, and the general impression seemed +against the Protestants. We will fight them out, however, to the last. +I am sure it is better than to give way.' 'Your defence of the +Protestant cause,' wrote Saurin, 'was not only by far the ablest and +best, but the only one which did not seem to strengthen the cause of +the adversary by some concession of principle. I really fear the +Protestant cause is lost in the Commons. There can be no rally now but +on the securities.'[16] + +Grattan at once brought in a Bill in accordance with the terms of the +Resolution that had been carried; but the Protestant party now rallied +around a motion of Sir John Hippisley, for a committee to inquire into +the state and tenets of the Roman Catholics, and the laws affecting +them. Canning pointed out with great force that a committee of inquiry +was exactly what the Protestant party had for so many years +strenuously resisted; but, as Peel wrote to the Duke of Richmond, +there was no inconsistency in their conduct: 'When the question was +whether we should consider the claims of the Catholics and the laws +affecting them, or should resist their claims, we voted for resistance +without inquiry; the question now is, whether we shall consider or +concede, and we prefer inquiry to concession.'[17] + +The motion for delay, however, was defeated by 187 to 235, and the +second reading of Grattan's Bill was carried by 245 to 203. But a +sudden change now occurred in the prospects of the cause. Canning and +Castlereagh, with the full assent of Grattan, introduced clauses for +the securities which had been before intimated, giving the Crown a +control over the nomination of the Catholic bishops. But the bishops +unanimously condemned the proposal, and the large majority of the +Catholic Board supported them. It became evident that the Bill before +Parliament would fail to satisfy the Catholics, and after a long +discussion the clause admitting Catholics to Parliament was rejected +by 251 to 247. + +Peel had triumphed. The profound division which had broken out among +the supporters of Catholic emancipation threw back for many years a +cause which had been almost gained, though in 1817 an Act was passed +without opposition throwing open to the Catholics the military and +naval positions which Grenville had vainly attempted to open in 1807. +Few things could have been eventually more disastrous both to Ireland +and to the Empire than the defeat of the influence represented by +Grattan and by the Catholic gentry, and the growing ascendancy of +O'Connell and the democratic and sacerdotal party in Irish popular +politics. Grattan had long predicted that, if concession was not +speedily and wisely made, population in Ireland would drift away from +the guiding and moderating influence of property; that seditious and +anarchical men would gain an ascendancy which would make the whole +problem of Irish Government incalculably difficult; that a priesthood +unconnected with the English Government would lead to a 'Catholic +laity discorporated from the people of England.' In the Irish +Parliament the strong bias of Conservatism in his policy had been +repeatedly displayed, and it was equally apparent in the Imperial +Parliament. In 1807 he had supported the Insurrection Act, in +opposition to many of his friends, on the ground that there was a real +and dangerous French party in Ireland, which the common law was +insufficient to suppress. In 1814 he expressed his full approval of +the proclamation suppressing the Catholic Board. He steadily and +earnestly maintained that, although it was vitally necessary that +Catholic emancipation should be speedily carried, it should be +accompanied by measures for securing, as far as possible, the loyalty +of the higher Catholic clergy, and uniting them in interest and +sentiment with the British Government. He looked with bitter hostility +on the rise and policy of O'Connell. He accused him of 'setting afloat +the bad passions of the people,' making grievances instruments of +power without any honest wish to redress them, treating politics as a +trade to serve a desperate and interested purpose. + +But the influence of Grattan was now manifestly declining, and Peel +watched the decline with a short-sighted and not very generous +pleasure. In Parliament, though numbers were against the Catholics, +the overwhelming preponderance of ability was still in favour of the +principle of emancipation, and it was in leading the anti-Catholic +party that Peel chiefly acquired his almost unrivalled parliamentary +skill. He had, indeed, all the qualities of a great debater: courage, +fluency, self-possession, complete command of every subject he +treated, unfailing lucidity both in statement and reasoning; admirable +skill in marshalling and disentangling great masses of facts, in +meeting, evading, or retorting arguments, and detecting the weak +points of the case of an opponent, in veiling, by plausible language, +extreme or unpalatable views, in extricating himself by subtle +distinctions and qualifications from embarrassing situations. He can +scarcely, it is true, be called a great orator. His style was formal, +cumbrous, extremely verbose, without sparkle and without fire. He had +little or no power of moving the passions, nothing of the flexibility +that can adapt itself to very different audiences, nothing of the +philosophic insight that can impart a perennial interest to transient +discussions. But few men have ever understood the House of Commons +like him, or have possessed in so high a degree the qualities that are +most fitted to command and influence it. The great mass of +anti-Catholic sentiment in the country rallied around him as its most +powerful champion, and in 1817 he attained one of the chief objects of +his ambition in being elected member for Oxford University. It is well +known that his older and more brilliant rival had long aspired to this +honour. It was mainly through the Catholic question that Canning +missed and Peel won the prize. + +The nickname 'Orange Peel,' which was given to him in Ireland, was +not wholly deserved. His letters abundantly show that he had no +sympathy with the ribbons, the anniversaries, the party tunes, the +insulting processions and insulting language of the Orangemen; and, +although he believed that in Ireland anti-Catholicism and loyalty were +very closely connected, he viewed with much dislike the growth of any +political confederacies unconnected with the Government. Declamation +and boastfulness and needless provocation were, indeed, wholly alien +to his nature; and even when defending extreme causes he rarely or +never used the language of a fanatic. He resisted Catholic concession +mainly on the ground that the admission of the Catholics to political +power would prove incompatible with the existence of the Established +Church in Ireland, with the security of property in a country where +property was mainly in Protestant hands, and ultimately with the +connection between the two countries. His arguments were not based on +religion, but on political expediency; but it was an expediency which +he believed to be permanent. + +'I see,' he wrote to the Duke of Richmond, 'one of the papers reports +me as having said that I was not an advocate for perpetual exclusion. +It might be inferred that I objected only to the time of discussing +the question. That is not the case.... There are certain anomalies in +the system which I would wish to remove, but the main principles of it +I would retain untouched.... At no time, and under no circumstances, +so long as the Catholic admits the supremacy in spirituals of a +foreign earthly potentate, and will not tell us what supremacy in +spirituals means--so long as he will not give us voluntarily the +security which every despotic Sovereign in Europe has by the +concession of the Pope himself--will I consent to admit them.'[18] + +The letters before us show clearly that his political sympathy was +with Saurin, with Duigenan, with Lord Eldon, and even with Lord +Norbury. O'Connell early perceived in Peel his most dangerous +opponent, and a strong personal enmity, which was as much due to +profound differences of character as to differences of policy, grew up +between them. A scurrilous attack of O'Connell on Peel in 1815 was +followed by a challenge, and a duel was prevented only by the arrest +of O'Connell. The antipathy between the two men was never mitigated. +O'Connell said of Peel that 'his smile was like the silver plate on a +coffin.' Peel, in his confidential letters, expressed the utmost +dislike and contempt for the character of O'Connell, and when he was +at length compelled by the Clare election to concede Catholic +emancipation, his feeling towards him was significantly and +characteristically shown. He enumerated in a brilliant passage the men +to whom the triumph of Catholic emancipation was really due. He spoke +of Fox and Grattan, of Plunket and of Canning, but he made no mention +of O'Connell. + +The administrative side of Peel's Chief Secretaryship is much more +creditable to him than the political side. The vivid picture which his +letters present of the manner in which Ireland was governed more than +fifteen years after the Union will probably strike the reader with +some surprise, when he remembers that the Union had extinguished about +seventy small boroughs, and had at the same time greatly diminished +the importance of the Irish representatives, and therefore the +necessities for corruption. Peel noticed that while 'the pension list +of Great Britain was limited to 90,000_l._ per annum, the pension list +of Ireland may amount to 80,000_l._ a year; and he found almost all +Irish patronage still employed for political purposes, and almost +every office honeycombed with abuses and peculations. A few extracts +will give the reader some notion of the nature and extent of the evil, +and of the efforts of Peel to reduce it:-- + +'How is it possible,' he wrote, 'to propose that a shilling should be +granted to a general officer on the staff in Ireland when sixpence is +granted in England? This is called a modification in official phrase, +but it ought to be called doubling the allowance. Set your face +steadily against all increase of salary, all extra allowances, all +plausible claims for additional emolument. Economy must be the order +of the day--rigid economy.'[19] 'When English members hear that the +sheriff appoints the grand jury, that the grand jury tax the county, +that the sheriff has a considerable influence at elections, and that +the sheriff is appointed openly on the recommendation of the member +supporting the Government, they are startled not a little.... I know +that this is a most convenient patronage to the Government, but I know +also that I cannot hint in the House of Commons at such a source of +patronage, and I confess I have great doubts on the legitimacy of +it.... After Lord Redesdale's declaration ... that the mode of +appointing sheriffs "poisons the sources of justice," and witnessing +the general feeling among the English against making the nomination of +a most important officer in the execution of justice dependent on the +will of the county member, I thought it highly expedient to give a +positive assurance that the Government would revert to the ancient +and legal practice of appointing sheriffs in Ireland.... With a pure +Bench--and time will, I hope, purify it--the change would be an +essential change for the better.'[20] 'Foster says that the abuses +discovered in the office [of Clerk of the Pleas] are enormous, that +the amount of fees exacted from suitors is not less than 30,000_l._ +per annum, of which the principal clerk did not receive more than +one-third. A Mr. Pollock, the first deputy, is in receipt of 8,000_l._ +or 9,000_l._ a year as his own share of the profits; other deputies +and persons unnecessarily employed have profits amounting to 1,200_l._ +or 1,400_l._ a year each. Foster thinks that every possible difficulty +will be thrown in the way of an early decision in the Irish Courts.... +In the meantime, the Chief Baron is receiving the enormous profits +arising from these enormous abuses.'[21] + +The practice of buying and selling public offices, and the practice of +dividing the salaries of a single office between a principal and +deputies, still continued; but Peel did his utmost to eradicate them. +If it were permitted in one case, he said, 'every officer in every +department who purchased on corrupt terms and is now living may claim +a right to sell the office so purchased.' + +'With respect to a payment out of the salary to R., I can have no +scruple in giving you my opinion that it would not be right. I have +never been, and cannot conscientiously be, a party to an arrangement +of that kind, because I think this is quite clear, that if the salary +of the office is disproportionate to the labour of it, and can bear to +be taxed to the amount of 200_l._, the public should benefit, and the +emoluments of the office be reduced.'[22] + +One of Peel's first tasks was to conduct a general election, and he +had ample opportunities of judging how these things were managed in +Ireland. A law known as Curwen's Act had been recently passed, +condemning to a heavy fine in the event of failure, and to the loss of +his seat in the event of success, any person giving, or promising to +give, or consenting to give either money or office for a seat in +Parliament. The law was not a little embarrassing to Peel, as his own +seat of Cashel had been purchased, and he thought it safer to transfer +himself to the English seat of Chippenham, where his return was +managed by his father without any intervention on his own part. At the +same time, the elections in Ireland went on much as if Curwen's Act +had never passed. + +'I am placed in a delicate situation enough here,' he wrote to his +friend Croker: 'bound to secure the Government interests, if possible, +from dilapidation, but still more bound to faint with horror at the +mention of money transactions, to threaten the unfortunate culprits +with impeachment if they hint at an impure return, and yet to prevent +those strongholds, Cashel, Mallow, and Tralee, from surrendering to +the enemies who besiege them.' + +Croker himself furnished an admirable illustration of the manner in +which these principles were carried out. 'I find the borough' [Down], +he writes, 'extremely well disposed to me. Of the respectable and +steady people I have a decided majority, not less than twenty; but +there are sixty-two persons who are extremely doubtful.... I have the +greatest repugnance to bribery, ... but my agent informs me that many +voters will require money.... The return absolutely depends upon +pounds sterling. The best computation which my agents can make is +that a sum of 2,000_l._ will be necessary. The natural expenses will +be 500_l._ These, I think, I am bound to make good. But with regard to +the money for votes, that I expect from Government.' + +Peel replied that he could not answer for the Government in England, +and that the Irish Government possessed no funds for this purpose; he +would himself have been ready to send Croker '1,000_l._ as a private +concern between ourselves with no reference whatever to Government'; +but he had it not. 'If you think proper,' he added, 'to take the +chance whether it [the Government] will assist you, you can promise.' +For about six years Peel was constantly receiving from Croker requests +for places, in order to discharge 'debts of gratitude' incurred at +this election; and in 1816 we find the Government very nearly beaten +in the House of Commons in an attempt to raise Croker's own salary. + +'Could you tell me,' writes Lord Palmerston to Peel, 'whether you +think there is any probability of a contest for the county of Sligo at +the next election? I could at the present moment make from 280 to 290 +voters by giving leases to tenants who are now holding at will. If +there is any chance of their being of use next year, I will do so +forthwith, and register them in time. If not, I should perhaps +postpone giving twenty-one years' leases till matters look a little +more propitious to the payment of rents.' + +'Lord Lorton wrote yesterday to his agent to make all the freeholders +he can on his small Queen's County property. He says he is sorry he +can't make more than twenty, but that those shall go against Pole.' + +A few illustrations of the minor details of patronage may be added. +One gentleman called upon Peel about an election in Clare, but 'said +that he would make no promise of his interest unless he received a +pledge from me that his two brothers should be provided for--one in +the Church, and the other advanced in the profession of the law.' + +Lord C. 'wanted, long since, to make terms with me for his support in +Cork, ... and wished to be one of a committee for superintending the +patronage of the county.' + +'When G. wants a baronetcy, he is very rich; and when he wants a +place, he is very poor. I think we may fairly turn the tables on him, +and when he asks to be a baronet, make his poverty the objection, and +his wealth when he asks for an office.' + +'Pole is constantly pressing K., of the Navigation Board, for +promotion.... I am told he entirely neglects his duty. Pole readily +admits his hopeless stupidity and unfitness for office.' + +'I do not think your son,' Peel wrote to his Under-Secretary, 'can +make a more inefficient member of the Board of Stamps than Mr. T. has +done. I am perfectly ready, therefore, to acquiesce in the exchange.' +'I make a great sacrifice,' he wrote to Lord Whitworth, 'when I say +that I doubt whether O.'s habits would qualify him for such practical +duties as the Collector of Belfast at least ought to perform. Belfast +is so flourishing a town, and contributes so much to the revenue, that +I fear the Collectorship of it is too prominent a situation to place +in it a young man ... we must admit to be a ruined man by gambling. +Considering how careless he has been of his own money, perhaps some +office not connected with the collection of the public money ... would +be more suited to him.... What do you think of the following +arrangement? Make J. collector for this very bad and very good reason, +that he is the most inefficient Commissioner, and therefore the public +service will suffer least from his appointment. Make Colonel H. a +Commissioner. He will be about as inefficient as J. Make R.M. junior, +the most inefficient of the three, Surveyor of Lands, _vice_ H., which +(though he will lose 200_l._ a year) will greatly oblige his father, +the member; and, lastly, fulfil your good intentions towards O. by +making him a Commissioner of Accounts, _vice_ M.' + +Many other characteristic pictures pass before us. There were officers +of the revenue who were recommended to 'the marked favour' of the +Government because they had shown what Peel somewhat rashly called +'the common honesty' of refusing bribes. There was an official who +scandalously connived at an abuse of justice by which innocent women +were condemned to transportation, though taking measures that the +Government should indirectly hear of the transaction. There were +shameful abuses in the sale of the office of gaoler, shameful frauds +in the collection of taxes, in the Customs, in the barrack charges. + +'My most decided opinion,' Peel wrote about one of these culprits, 'is +in favour of his dismissal. I am quite tired of, and disgusted with, +the shameful corruptions which every Irish inquiry brings to +light.'[23] + +Much trouble was given by newspapers which were subsidised by the +Government, and at the same time conducted in a manner which no honest +Government could approve of.[24] Another evil is disclosed in the +following very creditable letter written by Peel to one of his +successors: + +'I found in Ireland that every official man, not content with the +favour of Government to himself, thought he had a right to quarter his +family on the patronage of Government. I took the course that you have +done in order to enable me to resist with effect such extravagant +pretensions. I determined never to gratify any private wish of my own +by the smallest Irish appointment. There is nothing half so disgusting +as the personal monopoly of honours and offices by those to whom the +distribution of them is entrusted.'[25] + +In the Irish Pension List there had been enormous abuses, but Peel +took credit for having effectually stopped them. 'No member of +Parliament,' he wrote, 'has benefited by it. No vote has been +influenced by it.... I do not think there are any three years in the +whole period of the Irish history during which so honest a use has +been made of it.'[26] + +As might have been expected, blunders arising from extreme +inefficiency were very numerous. In one case, by negligent drafting, +the Insurrection Bill was made to extend to three instead of two +years, while a simple mistake in one of the Revenue Bills was believed +to have cost the Revenue not less than 40,000_l._[27] + +In all this dreary field the great administrative ability of Peel and +the essential integrity of his character produced much real +improvement, though it is very possible to exaggerate his merits. No +one who has read the Hardwicke and Colchester papers will question +that some of his predecessors, and especially the Chancellor, Lord +Redesdale, had laboured with at least equal earnestness to purify +Irish administration; and the energy with which Lord Redesdale, +though out of office, still recurred to the subject, was extremely +displeasing to Peel.[28] His own patronage, as we have already seen, +was by no means ideal, and he was very anxious to stifle parliamentary +inquiries. + +'I believe,' he wrote, 'an honest, despotic government would be by far +the fittest government for Ireland'; but as this could not be attained +he wished no essential alteration. 'I think the present system on +which the government of Ireland is conducted is the best, but I am +terribly afraid that Englishmen, who know nothing of Ireland, would +not concur with me if they inquired into detail. It is very difficult +to manage even the most limited inquiry. How could we prevent the +introduction of tithes, magistracy, the Catholic question itself?'[29] + +Whatever might be the case in the future, he believed that in the +present it was impossible for the Irish Government to receive adequate +support unless it made up its mind to purchase it. 'It would be good +policy,' he says in one of his letters, 'to direct the channel of +patronage as plentifully as we can towards those who are adhering to +us on these pressing questions of army establishments and property +tax.' He refused in very lofty tones applications for peerages as +rewards for political support; but the merit of this refusal belongs +mainly to Lord Liverpool, who, at the beginning of the Chief +Secretaryship, took on this subject a very firm and honourable line, +both in England and Ireland, and maintained it at the sacrifice of +many votes. For Irish honours unaccompanied by endowments there appear +to have been few applicants. Peel disliked the bestowal of +ecclesiastical dignities as rewards for political services; but if he +did not practise it quite as much as his predecessors, this appears to +have been much more due to nature than to policy. + +'There is nothing so extraordinary,' he wrote, 'in natural history as +the longevity of all bishops, priests, and deacons in Ireland. During +the last five years there has been literally no Church preferment to +dispose of, to the infinite disappointment of many expectants.' + +In the higher legal appointments, however, while insisting that +'attachment to the Government on principle' was very material, Peel +cordially agreed with Saurin that it was vitally necessary to select +men 'for character, and not for politics or connection'; and he added, +that those were not likely to be the least fit for high office who +were too proud to solicit it. 'It is a species of pride which +occasions very little practical inconvenience in Ireland.' + +His letters show clearly the terrible evils of Irish life. He speaks +of 'the enormous and overgrown population,' with no employment except +agriculture; of a poverty so extreme that in many districts widespread +starvation was averted only by prompt Government intervention; of +'that infernal curse, the forty shilling freeholds'; of the evil +system of employing the military in distraining for rent and in the +collection of tithes; of juries, through fear or sympathy, acquitting +prisoners in the face of the clearest evidence; of the gross perjury +in the law courts; of the almost universal disaffection of the lower +orders, fostered by a seditious press; of the growing spirit of +animosity in the north of Ireland between the lower orders of +Protestants and Catholics, which was breaking out in constant riots, +and had already cost many lives. This last evil, it might be truly +said, was very largely due to the policy of his own party, who had +protracted through so many years the Catholic question, which ought +to have been settled at the Union. There was extreme and chronic +ignorance, poverty, and anarchy; the payment of tithes was constantly +resisted; and a failure of the potato crop, and a sudden and terrible +fall in the price of agricultural products after the peace, added +enormously to the difficulties of the situation. It is remarkable, +indeed, that there appears to have been in 1816 and 1817 less +disturbance of the public peace in Ireland than in England; Peel found +it even possible to reduce the military establishments, and in Dublin +extreme distress was borne with remarkable patience; but in many parts +of the country crimes of combination were frequent, and almost +incredibly savage. Peel mentions one case of a family of eight persons +who were deliberately burnt in their house by a party of armed men, +because the owner of the house had prosecuted to conviction three men, +on a capital charge, at the Louth assizes. In another case a farmer, +who had shot two men who attacked his house, was himself shot dead on +a Sunday morning, after Mass, at the chapel door, in the presence of +hundreds of men, not one of whom attempted to arrest the culprit. + +These things filled Peel with a not unnatural horror, and his letters +showed clearly his intense dislike both of the Irish character and of +the Irish religion.[30] By far the most valuable contribution he made +to the improvement of Ireland during his Chief Secretaryship was the +formation, in 1814, of an efficient police force, which has ever since +been popularly associated with his name, and which was the nucleus +from which the present admirable constabulary force was developed in +1822 and in 1835. 'We ought to be crucified,' he wrote, 'if we make +the measure a job, and select our constables from the servants of our +parliamentary friends.' He attempted also, though without much +success, to institute a system of popular education on a perfectly +unsectarian basis, and with Catholics among the commissioners.[31] He +appears to have met with little encouragement, and at least one +Catholic bishop lost no time in cursing 'these nefarious deistical +schools'; but some schools were established, and Peel has the merit of +being one of the earliest advocates of a general system of unsectarian +national education for Ireland, which many years after was +accomplished. His measures for the relief of distress appear to have +been skilful and judicious, supporting and stimulating, but not +superseding private benevolence.[32] For the rest, he relied chiefly +on Insurrection Acts strengthening the Executive and giving a greater +efficiency to the administration of justice, and on strong protective +legislation encouraging the corn and the manufactures of Ireland. + +'I have always,' he wrote, 'been, and always shall be, as strong an +advocate for giving that preference to the productions of Ireland, +natural or artificial, which will best promote the industry of the +people, as I am for instructing the lower orders.'[33] + +To the tithe system he would do nothing, and this is one of the fatal +blots on his reputation as a statesman. There was no single source of +crime, agitation, and disaffection in Ireland which was so prolific as +this, and there was no subject on which the wisest statesmen had been +more agreed than on the supreme importance of meeting this evil by a +judicious system of commutation. Pitt had clearly expressed his +opinion of the necessity of such a commutation to the Duke of Rutland +as early as 1786, and it was one of the measures which he intended to +have followed the Union. Grattan had brought schemes of commutation in +three successive years before the Irish Parliament. Lord Loughborough, +who was the chief cause of the failure of Catholic emancipation after +the Union, had himself drawn up a Tithe Commutation Bill. Lord +Redesdale, who represented the extreme Toryism of the ministry of +Addington, strongly urged the absolute necessity of speedy legislation +on the subject. The Duke of Bedford, in 1807, dwelt on the importance +of commuting tithes into a land-tax, and ultimately into land. Parnell +and Grattan had brought the subject before the Imperial Parliament in +1810, and it was again and again insisted on by the Whig writers, and +nowhere more strongly than in Sydney Smith's admirable letters to +Peter Plymley and in some of the pages of the 'Edinburgh Review.' But +nothing was done till the evil had become intolerable, and had brought +the country to a state of anarchy and demoralisation that can scarcely +be exaggerated. The connection of Peel with the question of Irish +tithes is a very remarkable one. The Tithe Commutation Act, which was +carried by a Whig Government in 1838, is one of the few instances of +perfectly successful legislation in Irish history, and it is well +known that the chief credit of this measure does not belong to the +Ministers who carried it. It was the very measure which Sir Robert +Peel had introduced in 1835, which the Whig party when in opposition +defeated by connecting it with the Appropriation clause, and which the +Whig party when in power were compelled to carry without that clause. +But if the chief credit of the final settlement of this momentous +question justly belongs to Peel, it must not be forgotten that in the +eleven years during which, as Chief Secretary or as Home Secretary, he +was directly responsible for the government of Ireland, he had allowed +this monster curse to grow and strengthen without making any serious +effort to mitigate it. + +Peel was Chief Secretary during the concluding part of the viceroyalty +of the Duke of Richmond, during the whole of that of Lord Whitworth, +and during part of that of Lord Talbot. He had grown very tired of his +position, but agreed to postpone his departure till after a general +election, and he at last left Ireland, as he says, with 'undiminished +and unqualified satisfaction,' in August 1818. He remained out of +office until January 1822; but the interval was not spent in idleness, +and in 1819 he took the leading part in the great Act for resuming +cash payments, which, as it has been truly said, attaches to his name +'the same meed of praise which he had quoted as inscribed on the tomb +of Queen Elizabeth: "Moneta in justum valorem redacta."' It is one of +his greatest legislative achievements; it is also the first of that +series of recantations which forms one of the most distinctive +features of his career, for it was based upon the policy which Horner +had advocated in 1811, and against which Peel had then voted. He still +took, on the Catholic question, the leading part in opposition to +emancipation, declaring his determination to offer 'a most sincere and +uncompromising,' though he now feared unavailing, resistance to +Catholic concession. The last time the question was brought forward, +by Grattan, was in 1819, and he was defeated by a majority of only +two. In 1821, after the death of Grattan, and in a new Parliament, +Plunket carried a Bill for Catholic emancipation successfully through +all its stages in the House of Commons, though it was afterwards +rejected in the Lords. In the ensuing session a similar fate befel a +Bill of Canning's to relieve Catholic peers of their disabilities. +Some considerable change, however, was introduced into the spirit of +the Irish Government by the appointment of Lord Wellesley, who was in +favour of the Catholics, to the viceroyalty. One of its most important +results was the removal of Saurin from the office of Attorney-General +and the appointment of Plunket in his place. Lord Wellesley described +this measure to Lady Blessington as the removal of 'an old Orangeman' +who, though 'Attorney-General by title, had really been +Lord-Lieutenant for fifteen years'; but it is evident from the letters +of Peel that his warm sympathies, both personal and political, were +with Saurin. + +The accession of George IV. to the throne in the beginning of 1820 +brought to a crisis the quarrel between the new King and his wife, and +led to the resignation of Canning in the last days of the year, and +Lord Liverpool then tried to induce Peel to enter the Cabinet in the +vacant post of President of the Board of Control. Peel, however, +refused the office, declaring that he differed from some of the +proceedings of the Ministry about the Queen. In the summer of 1821 he +again declined a similar offer, chiefly, as it appears, on the ground +of uncertain health and of a dislike to official life which his recent +marriage had produced. But when Lord Sidmouth resigned the Home +Office, Peel proved less inflexible, and on January 17, 1822, he +accepted the seals, which he held till 1827. In August Castlereagh, +or, as he now was, Lord Londonderry, committed suicide. Lord +Liverpool saw the necessity of recalling Canning to the Cabinet as +Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Canning would accept the post only as +leader of the House of Commons. The King hated Canning, and would +gladly have excluded him altogether from the Ministry, and Eldon and +the Duke of Newcastle greatly desired that the leadership of the House +of Commons should be given to Peel. Canning, however, who had been +sixteen years longer in Parliament than Peel, had both the right and +the power to insist upon the leadership, and Peel acquiesced in his +claim with honourable frankness. Except on the Catholic question they +appear to have cordially agreed, and something of the success of +Canning's brilliant foreign policy is due to the loyalty with which he +was supported by Peel in the Cabinet and at Court. + +Space will not permit us to relate at length the history of Peel's +conduct as home Minister. The Catholic question was rapidly advancing +to a crisis, and the system of a divided Ministry in which it was an +open question, and in which the leading Ministers took opposite sides, +was becoming plainly impossible. Ireland was again in a state of +anarchy bordering on civil war, and the foundation, in 1823, of the +Catholic Association by O'Connell and Sheil gave a new impulse to the +agitation. The Duke of Wellington, who knew the country well and was +not liable to panic, predicted that the new association if it +continued would lead to civil war, and declared that the organisation +of the disaffected in Ireland was much more perfect than in 1798.[34] +At the same time the long-protracted and increasing violence of the +conflict had aroused fierce Orange passions both in the North and in +Dublin, while in England the King was embarrassing even his +'anti-Catholic' Ministers by the vehemence of his hostility to +concession. He described Peel as 'the King's Protestant Minister' and +Lord Wellesley as an 'enemy in the camp.' He assured Peel that, +whether the Cabinet wished it or not, he would never consent to give +letters of precedence to a Roman Catholic barrister, and he wrote Peel +a formal letter in which he said, 'the sentiments of the King upon +Catholic emancipation are those of his revered and excellent father; +from those sentiments the King never can and never will deviate.'[35] + +Peel, while maintaining his unflinching hostility to important +concessions, tried to moderate all parties. He implored the King to +make no public declaration. He wrote to Ireland strongly discouraging +the violence of the Orangemen and urging that 'in this age of liberal +doctrine, when prescription is no longer even a presumption in favour +of what is established, it will be a work of desperate difficulty to +contend against "emancipation," as they call it, unless we can fight +with the advantage on our side of great discretion, forbearance, and +moderation on the part of the Irish Protestants.' He recurred to his +old idea of establishing a system of unsectarian national education, +and he readily abandoned the corrupt and proselytising charter +schools. He supported a measure of Lord Nugent, which Lord Eldon +succeeded in defeating in the Lords, for extending to the English +Catholics such privileges as were already possessed by Catholics in +Ireland, and he fully approved of a letter written on behalf of the +Cabinet to the Lord-Lieutenant urging 'that a disposition should be +manifested to admit the Roman Catholics of Ireland to a fair +proportion of the emoluments and honours to which they are eligible by +law,' but without issuing patents of precedence.[36] + +On matters unconnected with the Catholic question his administration +was skilful and, on the whole, enlightened; and in 1823 he introduced +the first of a series of important measures diminishing the enormous +number of capital offences that disgraced the English criminal code, +and, at the same time, doing much to simplify and consolidate that +code. In this, as in most respects, there was little original in his +legislation. He followed, at some distance, in the steps of Romilly +and Mackintosh, and he left very much to be done, which was chiefly +accomplished during the Whig ascendancy that followed the Reform Bill +of 1832. It appears, from some remarkable letters in this volume, +that, before Peel took up the question of criminal reform, George IV. +was exceedingly sensible of the enormity of executing very young men +for secondary offences, and that he was continually pressing on his +Ministers a more merciful administration of the law. He sometimes +found Peel by no means ready to yield. In one case Peel invoked the +aid of the Cabinet to overrule the wish of the King, who desired to +save two culprits from the gallows; and, in another case, he +threatened to resign his office if the King persisted in commuting the +sentence of a youth who had been found guilty of uttering forged +notes.[37] But Peel had at least the merit of recognising an +intolerable abuse, and his legislation on the subject was skilfully +framed and still more skilfully introduced and carried. In his +patronage in this, as in later periods of his life, he cared much more +than most English Ministers for the interests of science, literature, +and art. He was by no means indifferent to the opportunities his +position gave him of advancing his own family and friends; but he +never, in his English patronage, forgot the character of those whom he +recommended for promotion, and he brought forward or assisted many men +of ability and learning with whom he had no connection and no +political sympathy. The letters in this volume between Peel and his +very intimate Oxford friend Dr. Lloyd are especially interesting and +characteristic. They are in general very honourable to Peel; but Mr. +Parker is much too indulgent when he describes the intensely worldly +letters in which Dr. Lloyd urged his own merits and his claims to the +bishopric of Oxford as merely 'frank, and free from affectation of the +traditional _nolo episcopari_.' Both Peel and Lord Liverpool appear to +have had a much stronger sense than most of their predecessors of the +responsibilities attaching to Church patronage and of the duty of +administering it in the public interest, and in this respect they were +broadly distinguished from Lord Eldon. + +'It is really a cruel thing,' Lord Liverpool wrote to Peel, 'that the +patronage of the Crown as to Church matters should be divided between +the Minister and the Chancellor, and that all the public claims should +fall upon the former. The Chancellor has nine livings to the +Minister's one. With respect to these he does occasionally attend to +local claims, but he has besides four cathedrals, and to no one of +these cathedrals has any man of distinguished learning or merit been +promoted.' + +In the beginning of 1825 the Irish Government, having without +consulting Peel undertaken a foolish prosecution of O'Connell for a +not very dangerous speech, received a heavy rebuff, for the Grand +Jury threw out the Bill, and the prosecution of an Orange leader was +equally unsuccessful. A Bill was about the same time brought in and +carried, suppressing the new association; but it could not suppress +the spirit which it had aroused. O'Connell, however, was thoroughly +alarmed at the state of the country, and as far as possible from +desiring a rebellion, and he was at this time in a very conciliatory +mood. He was perfectly ready to accept an endowment for the +priesthood, which would attach them to the Government, and also a +considerable raising of the Irish franchise. This was the last +occasion on which his party and the Catholic gentry very cordially +concurred, and it was the last occasion on which the Catholic question +could have been settled on a basis that would have given real strength +to the Empire. A Relief Bill passed through all its stages in the +Commons by considerable majorities, and it was followed by a Bill for +raising the qualifications of Irish electors, and by a resolution for +endowing the priesthood. O'Connell fully believed that Catholic +emancipation would definitely pass in this session,[38] and he +appeared to have excellent reasons for his belief. In Ireland it +generally prevailed, and it exercised an immediate pacifying +influence. Lord Fingall and other Catholic noblemen, in presenting an +address at this time to the King, were able to say 'the whole of +Ireland reposes in profound tranquillity, and the law, without the aid +of any extraordinary power, everywhere receives voluntary obedience.' +It was afterwards stated by Lord George Bentinck that Peel had changed +his opinions about Catholic emancipation in 1825, and had communicated +this change to Lord Liverpool. The letters before us, however, +conclusively prove that if Peel was shaken, it was not about the +merits of emancipation, but about the practicability of resisting it. +Having been four times defeated in the Commons on the Catholic +question, he tendered his resignation, and Lord Liverpool at once +declared that without his assistance he could not continue the +struggle. Peel was the only Minister in the House of Commons opposed +to the Catholic cause, differing on the question from all his +colleagues in the House. If he had resigned, and if Lord Liverpool had +followed his example, there is good reason to believe that a +Government might have been formed which would have carried the measure +safely and speedily with the securities that had been accepted. Most +unfortunately for the Empire, the 'Protestant' party persuaded Peel to +withdraw his resignation in order to avert this surrender. In the +House of Lords the Duke of York, who was the heir-presumptive to the +throne, stood up and declared his unalterable opposition to the +Catholic claims, 'whatever might be his situation in life, so help him +God,' and the Lords rejected the Bill by a majority of 48. + +The conscientious views of George III. obtained some measure of +respect even from those who believed them to be most unfounded; but no +halo of sanctity dignified the scruples of George IV. or of the Duke +of York. The Irish Catholics, exasperated at the present +disappointment of their hopes, and at the prospect of another hostile +King, flung themselves into a furious agitation, and in a few months +all the progress which had been made towards pacifying the country was +undone, while in England Peel had to meet a terrible commercial +crisis. Seventy county banks stopped in less than a week. In dealing +with questions of commerce and currency Peel was always in his +element, and his measures appear to have been wise and skilful. A +general election took place, and he was again returned by the +University of Oxford as the uncompromising opponent of Catholic +emancipation. In England the anti-Catholic party gained some seats, +and the increasing violence in Ireland had produced some reaction. In +Ireland it was soon apparent that what Grattan had feared had come to +pass, and that the tie which had hitherto attached the people to their +landlords was completely broken. The priests everywhere appeared at +the head of their people, and it was at once seen that a new and +terrible power was dominating Irish politics. In Waterford, where the +Beresfords had long been omnipotent, they were totally defeated, and +Leslie Foster sent Peel a vivid description of his own defeat in the +Louth election. At the outset of the contest, upwards of five-sixths +of the votes were promised to him; but the whole priesthood turned +themselves into electioneering agents against him. In every chapel +there were political sermons; the priests menaced all who voted for +him with eternal damnation; they were present at every polling-booth +to overawe their parishioners; and their efforts were seconded by +savage mobs who waylaid and beat all opponents, and forced multitudes +of Protestants, by threats of assassination or of the burning of their +houses, to vote against their promises and their convictions. 'In the +county town the studied violence and intimidation were such that it +was only by locking up my voters in enclosed yards that their lives +were preserved.' By these means the election was won. What, asked +Foster, will be the end of this? 'The landlords are exasperated to the +utmost, the priests swaggering in their triumph, the tenantry sullen +and insolent. Men who, a month ago, were all civility and submission +now hardly suppress their curses when a gentleman passes by. The text +of every village orator is, "Boys, you have put down three lords; +stick to your priests, and you will carry all before you."' + +The letters of Goulburn, the Chief Secretary, show that the picture +was not overcharged. + +'Never,' he wrote, 'were Roman Catholic and Protestant so decidedly +opposed. Never did the former act with so general a concert, or place +themselves so completely under the command of the priesthood.' 'The +priests exercise on all matters a dominion perfectly uncontrolled and +uncontrollable. In many parts of the country their sermons are purely +political, and the altars in the several chapels are the rostra from +which they declaim on the subject of Roman Catholic grievances, exhort +to the collection of rent, or denounce their Protestant neighbours in +a mode perfectly intelligible and effective, but not within the grasp +of the law. In several towns no Roman Catholic will now deal with a +Protestant shop-keeper, in consequence of the priest's interdiction, +and this species of interference, stirring up enmity on one hand and +feelings of resentment on the other, is mainly conducive to outrage +and disorder.... The first vacancy on the Roman Catholic bench is to +be supplied by Dr. England from America, a man of all others most +decidedly hostile to British interests and the most active in +fomenting the discord of this country.... With such leaders it is +reasonable to anticipate the worst. It is impossible to detail in a +letter the various modes in which the Roman Catholic priesthood now +interfere in every transaction of every description, how they rule the +mob, the gentry, and the magistracy, and how they impede the +administration of justice.' Their power is greater than any other in +the State, 'and they love to display it, and omit no opportunity of +taunting their adversaries.' 'The state of society here is so +disorganised, and the Government has so inferior an authority to other +powers acting on the people, that the opinion formed to-day may be +quite changed to-morrow.'[39] + +The election of 1826 virtually carried Catholic emancipation, for it +reduced Ireland to a state in which it was impossible long to resist +it. Clear-sighted men had no difficulty in perceiving that the policy +of Peel had failed to avert it, though it had succeeded in making +impossible the securities which Grattan and the wisest men of his +generation had pronounced indispensable for its safe working, in +kindling religious hatreds as intense as in the darkest period of the +eighteenth century, in breaking down that healthy relation and +subordination of classes on which beyond all other things the future +well-being of Ireland depended. Peel was not wholly blind to what was +happening. 'A darker cloud than ever,' he wrote, 'seems to me to +impend over Ireland, that is if one of the remaining bonds of society, +the friendly connection between landlord and tenant, is +dissolved.'[40] He still persuaded himself, however, that the +political power of the priests was transient, and that a reaction +would set in that might destroy it. The defeat of the Catholic +question in the new Parliament by a majority of four encouraged him in +his resistance. In January 1827 the death of the Duke of York removed +one serious obstacle to the Catholic cause, and six weeks later Lord +Liverpool, who had so long held together the divided Ministry, was +struck down by apoplexy. Peel would gladly have continued in his +present position if a peer of real weight who held his opinions on the +Catholic question was appointed to the vacant place. But there was no +such peer, except Wellington, to be found, and under Wellington +Canning refused to serve. Canning had, indeed, now fully resolved to +be at the head of the Administration, and Peel refused to serve under +him. + +With his opinions on the Catholic question it is impossible to blame +him, and the letters which passed between the two statesmen are very +honourable to both, and show clearly that in spite of great divergence +of opinion, character, and interests, each could recognise the good +faith of the other. In a letter written to one of his brothers Peel +describes his position with complete frankness: + +'I am content with my position in the Government, and willing to +retain it--willing to see Mr. Canning leader of the House of Commons, +as he has been. But giving him credit for honesty and sincerity, if he +is at the head of the Government, and has all the patronage of the +Government, he must exert himself as an honest man to carry the +Catholic question; and to the carrying of that question, to the +preparation for its being carried, I never can be a party. Still less +can I be a party to it for the sake of office.' + +These words were written little more than a year before Peel +undertook, as Minister of the Crown, to introduce a measure of +Catholic emancipation. But if they do little credit to his prescience, +no one can mistake the accent of sincerity in what follows: + +'I do not choose to see new lights on the Catholic question precisely +at that conjuncture when the Duke of York has been laid in his grave +and Lord Liverpool struck dumb by the palsy. Would any man, woman, or +child believe that after nineteen years' stubborn unbelief I was +converted, at the very moment Mr. Canning was Prime Minister, out of +pure conscience and the force of truth?'[41] + +With the resignation of Peel and the other anti-Catholic members of +Lord Liverpool's Government, and the formation of the short Canning +Ministry, this instalment of Peel's letters comes to an end.[42] We +rejoice that the publication of this very interesting correspondence +has been entrusted to an editor who is at once so competent and so +judicious. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[10] _Life of Lord George Bentinck_, p. 304. + +[11] Lewis's _Letters_, p. 226. + +[12] _Private Correspondence of Sir R. Peel, 1788-1827_. Ed. by C.S. +Parker, M.P., 1891, p. 24. + +[13] _Ibid._ p. 27. + +[14] _Hansard_, First Ser. xxi. 663. + +[15] Butler's _Hist. Memoirs_, ii. 177. + +[16] _Peel Correspondence_, p. 80. + +[17] _Peel Correspondence_, p. 83. + +[18] _Peel Correspondence_, p. 76. + +[19] _Peel Correspondence_, pp. 217, 218. + +[20] _Peel Correspondence_, pp. 222-224. + +[21] _Ibid._ p. 212. + +[22] _Ibid._ p. 284. + +[23] _Peel Correspondence_, p. 282. + +[24] _Ibid._ pp. 114-116, 211, 218. + +[25] _Peel Correspondence_, p. 60. + +[26] _Ibid._ p. 275. + +[27] _Ibid._ p. 96. + +[28] _Peel Correspondence_, p. 211. + +[29] _Ibid._ pp. 215, 219, 220. + +[30] _Peel Correspondence_, pp. 207, 231, 235, 236. + +[31] _Peel Correspondence_, pp. 87-92. + +[32] _Ibid._ pp. 244, 265. + +[33] _Ibid._ pp. 167, 233. + +[34] _Peel Correspondence_, p. 348. + +[35] _Peel Correspondence_, pp. 349, 358, 359, 370-371. + +[36] _Peel Correspondence_, p. 358. + +[37] _Ibid._ pp. 315-317. + +[38] Fitzpatrick's _Correspondence of O'Connell_, i. p. 108. + +[39] _Peel Correspondence_, pp. 416, 418, 419, 422. + +[40] _Ibid._ pp. 413, 420. + +[41] _Peel Correspondence_, p. 485. + +[42] Two more volumes have been published since this Essay was +written.--ED. + + + + +EDWARD HENRY, FIFTEENTH EARL OF DERBY + + +The time has not yet arrived for the publication of a full life of the +late Lord Derby, but in submitting to the public a collection of his +more important speeches outside Parliament, a short sketch of the +chief features of his life and character may not be out of place. + +Edward Henry, fifteenth Earl of Derby, was born July 21, 1826, and was +educated at Rugby, and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he obtained a +First Class in classics. In March 1848 he unsuccessfully contested +Lancaster, and soon after started for a long and instructive journey +in America and the West Indies. During his absence from England he was +elected Member for Lynn Regis upon the death of Lord George Bentinck +in September 1848, and he held this seat without interruption till his +accession to the earldom in October 1869. His first speech in the +House of Commons was delivered on May 31, 1850, on the sugar duties. +The effect on the West Indies of the abolition of the preferential +duty on sugar was a subject which he had specially studied during his +journey, and he had published a pamphlet upon it. Sir Robert Peel +greatly praised his maiden speech, and Greville describes the great +impression which it made--an impression which a further knowledge of +the speaker speedily confirmed. + +The appearance in Parliament of the eldest son of one of the most +brilliant party leaders of the age could scarcely fail to be a +considerable political event, and it was soon found that the new +member was not only a man of rare ability, but was also in nearly all +respects very unlike his illustrious father. Never was there a more +striking instance of that strange freak of heredity by which an able +son is sometimes much less the continuation than the complement of an +able father, exhibiting in strongly contrasted lights both opposite +qualities and opposite defects. The fourteenth Earl was a great +orator. He was one of the greatest debaters who have ever lived. He +was a party leader of extraordinary power, delighting in political +conflict; throwing into it much of the fire and passion which he +displayed in his sporting contests; little fitted to conciliate +opponents, but eminently fitted to win the enthusiastic loyalty of his +followers, to rally a dispirited minority, to lead a party attack. His +keen and rapid judgment; his perfect command of pure and lucid +English; his unfailing readiness in argument, invective, sarcasm, and +repartee; his indomitable courage, and the somewhat imperious dignity +of his manner, all marked him out for the position which he held. If +there was some truth in the common taunt that he was more a party +leader than a statesman, it must at least be remembered that he has +identified his name with several important measures, and that during +most of his career he was in a hopeless minority. His enemies accused +him of rashness, arrogance, and some superficiality, both of thought +and knowledge. They alleged that he carried too much of the sporting +spirit into politics; that his naturally excellent judgment was often +deflected by the passions of the fray; that he was accustomed to +judge measures more by their party advantages than by their intrinsic +merits, and to care more for an immediate triumph than for ultimate +results. + +His son was made in a very different mould. Though like most able and +clear-headed men he acquired by much practice a respectable facility +in purely extemporaneous argument, he was never a great debater. His +speeches were very carefully prepared, and they possessed conspicuous +merits of form as well as of matter, but they were not the speeches of +a brilliant orator. No one could reason more clearly, more powerfully, +or more persuasively. He was a supreme master of terse, luminous, +weighty, and accurate English. He had much skill in bringing into +vivid relief the salient points of an obscure and complicated subject, +condensing an argument into a phrase, and illustrating it by graphic +felicities of language that clung to the memory. But he hated +rhetoric. His enunciation was faulty and unimpressive. He appealed +solely to the reason, and never to passion or to prejudice, and he had +nothing of the fire and temperament of a party orator. Very few +politicians mastered so thoroughly the subjects with which they dealt. +No politician of his time retained so remarkably, amid party +conflicts, the power of judging questions from all their sides; of +balancing judicially opposing considerations; of looking beyond the +passions and interests of the hour; of realising the points of view of +those to whom he was opposed. Declamation, clap-trap, evasion, +ambiguities of thought and expression, empty plausibilities, unfair, +partial, and exaggerated statements, were all essentially repugnant to +that clear and sceptical intellect, to that sound, cautious, practical +judgment. His business talents were very great, and they were +assiduously cultivated. His appetite for work was insatiable. No one +knew better how to administer a great department or preside over a +Parliamentary Committee, or arbitrate in a difficult controversy, or +give wise and timely advice to an inexperienced organisation. It was +in these fields that his influence was, perhaps, most deeply felt. His +success in them did not depend merely on his unflagging industry and +his excellent judgment, it was also largely due to his eminently +conciliatory character. The uniform courtesy which he displayed to men +of all ranks and opinions is happily no rare thing among his class, +but everyone who was brought in contact with Lord Derby soon felt that +he was in the presence of one who tried to understand his position, to +estimate his arguments at their full worth, to find some common ground +of agreement. If it were possible in a bitter controversy to arrive at +reasonable compromise, Lord Derby was most likely to effect it. He had +a curious talent of making speeches with which everyone must agree, +and which at the same time were never commonplace. Their secret lay in +the habit of mind that led him always to seek out the common grounds +of principle or fact that underlie every controversy, and which in the +heat of the conflict the disputants had often failed to recognise. + +It was not difficult to forecast the place which a statesman of this +kind was likely to fill in English politics. He was plainly wanting in +many of the qualities of a party leader, and in most of the qualities +of a parliamentary gladiator, and he was not likely to succeed in all +forms of statesmanship. He would certainly not prove + + A daring pilot in extremity, + Pleased with the danger when the waves went high. + + + +His clear perception of the objections to any course, combined with a +very deep sense of responsibility, not unfrequently enfeebled his will +in moments when bold and decisive action was required, and there were +times when the love of compromise which was so useful an element in +his character seemed to his best friends too closely allied to +weakness. But he probably saved every party with which he acted from +many mistakes. He brought to every Government which he joined a very +eminent administrative capacity. He defended every policy that he +espoused with a persuasive reasoning that few men could equal. He was +a supremely skilful detector of false weights and of false measures. +Every fad, every new-born enthusiasm, every crude ill-digested theory, +found in him the calmest and most penetrating of critics, and he +inspired the great body of moderate men of all parties with a deep +confidence in his patriotism and in his judgment. + +His political position was marked out by the fact that his father had +recently broken away from the Whig connection which had hitherto been +that of his family, and was now the leader of the Conservative party. +The son naturally took his place under his father's banner, but I much +question whether he would have done so if no family influence had +interfered. It was not that he at any time changed considerably his +views. As Macaulay has truly said--while the extremes of the two +English parties are separated by a wide chasm, there is a frontier +line where they almost blend; and Lord Derby when a Conservative +always represented the Liberal, and when a Liberal the Conservative +wing of his party. But his mind had much of the Whig character; his +judgment was very independent; and on Church questions especially he +was never fully in harmony with his party. He was appointed +Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in his father's first +short Ministry in March 1852, at a time when he was travelling in +India, and he left office with his father in December of the same +year. In 1853 he made a remarkable speech on Indian affairs, in some +degree foreshadowing the Indian policy which he was afterwards +destined to take such a large part in carrying into effect. During the +next few years he spoke frequently on Indian and Colonial questions, +on questions connected with education, factories, and other +working-class interests, and he supported--often in opposition to the +majority of his party--a large number of reforms which have since been +accomplished. He advocated the introduction of competitive +examinations, first of all into the Diplomatic, and then into most +branches of the Civil Service. He spoke against the system of purchase +in the army, and served on a Royal Commission on the subject. He +supported a motion for securing to married women their property and +earnings. He took a decided part in opposition to Church rates. He +voted for the emancipation of the Jews. He voted and spoke in favour +of the Maynooth grant. He was an early advocate of the opening of +museums on Sundays, and of a conscience clause to be enforced in all +schools receiving State assistance. He supported the establishment of +the Divorce Court, and clearly showed that preference for social as +distinguished from political questions which he retained through his +whole life. He delighted in placing himself in touch with working men. +Mechanics' institutes, free libraries, almost every movement for the +education and improvement of the working class, found in him a steady +friend. He once wrote to Lord Shaftesbury: 'We are both public men +deeply interested in the condition of the working class, and for my +own part I would rather look back on services such as you have +performed for that class than receive the highest honours in the +employment of the State.' On working-class questions he was often +accused of Radicalism, but it was Radicalism of the old school, which +relied mainly for reform on spontaneous effort, on moral improvement, +and extended education, and was very jealous of State interference, +compulsion, and control. He had a great admiration for Mill's +writings, and especially for his treatise on Liberty, which he +described as 'one of the wisest books of our time.' Mill fully +reciprocated the feeling. He once spoke of Lord Stanley as 'one of the +very few English public men who hold that a politician's opinions +ought to be founded on principles.' + +'Our party,' wrote Lord Malmesbury in 1853, 'are angry with Disraeli, +which is constantly the case, and they are also displeased with Lord +Stanley, suspecting him to be coquetting with the Manchester party.' +Greville, nearly at the same time, expressed his belief that Lord +Stanley was taking 'a wise and liberal line,' and that he was 'pretty +sure to act a conspicuous part.' In November 1855 there was a critical +moment in his career, when Lord Palmerston, on the death of Sir +William Molesworth, offered Lord Stanley the post of Secretary of +State for the Colonies. He at once went down to Knowsley to consult +his father, who put a strong veto on the proposal, and the offer was +refused, but in terms which showed that it had been far from +unacceptable. It is probable that the refusal was a wise one, for +although on many home questions Lord Stanley would have found himself +more in harmony with moderate Liberals than with his own party, he +would certainly have dissented from Lord Palmerston's foreign policy. +During the Crimean war he seems to have sympathised with the views of +Bright and Cobden. He took an active part in an able but now nearly +forgotten Tory paper called 'The Press,' which was opposed to the war, +and his extreme horror of war and of every policy which could possibly +lead to war was one of his strongest characteristics. Responsibility +in office never weighed lightly upon him, but responsibility for +measures which led or might lead to bloodshed was more than he could +bear. + +At the time when this offer of Lord Palmerston was made, Lord Stanley +was little more than twenty-nine. Greville considered that he had +acted wisely in refusing, and he has given us an interesting account +of the light in which the young statesman then appeared to experienced +political judges. 'His position and abilities,' he said, 'are certain +before long to make him conspicuous, and to enable him to play a very +considerable part. He is exceedingly ambitious, of an independent turn +of mind, very industrious, and has acquired a vast amount of +information. Not long ago Disraeli gave me an account of him and of +his curious opinions--exceedingly curious in a man in his condition of +life and with his prospects. Last night Lord Strangford (George +Smythe) talked to me about him, expressed the highest opinion of his +capacity and acquirements, and confirmed what Disraeli had told me of +his notions and views even more, for he says that he is a real and +sincere democrat, and that he would like if he could to prove his +sincerity by divesting himself of his aristocratic character, and even +of the wealth he is heir to. How far this may be true I know not.... +Nothing appears to me certain but that he will play a considerable +part for good or for evil, but I cannot pretend to guess what it will +be. At present he seems to be more allied with Bright than with any +other public man, and as his disposition about the war and its +continuance is very much that of Bright it would have been difficult +for him to take office with Palmerston.' + +Lord Stanley had not long to wait for high office. His father formed +his second Administration in February 1858, and Lord Stanley was made +Colonial Secretary. He appears to have accepted the office with some +reluctance, and only because Sir E. Bulwer, for whom it was at first +intended, found that he could not secure his re-election. The +Government was a very weak one, and it opened with the worst +prospects. It was a Government in a minority. Its very existence +depended on the dissensions between Lord Palmerston and Lord John +Russell, and its first steps met with little favour either in the +House or in the country. The Indian Mutiny was now nearly suppressed, +and Lord Palmerston shortly before quitting office had pledged the +House of Commons to the policy of withdrawing the Government of India +from the East India Company and placing it directly under the Crown. +To carry this policy into effect was the first task of the new +Government. They introduced an Indian Bill which they were compelled +to withdraw, and then substituted for it a new Bill founded on +resolutions which were carried through the House of Commons. In May +the Government almost fell on account of the indiscreet publication of +a despatch of Lord Ellenborough, condemning a Proclamation of the +Governor-General, Lord Canning. A vote of censure was moved and would +certainly have been carried if Lord Ellenborough had not saved his +colleagues by resigning. He was President of the Board of Control, the +Office which then directed Indian affairs, and Lord Stanley took his +place, piloted the Indian Bill successfully through the House of +Commons, and when the measure became law, was the first Secretary of +State for India, and undertook the very important and responsible task +of beginning the new system of Indian Government. + +'The Times' noticed the singular good fortune of Lord Derby in being +able at this very critical moment to place his eldest son in one of +the most important Cabinet offices in his Ministry without incurring +from any side the smallest imputation of nepotism, and the skill and +success of the new administration of the India Office was speedily and +generally recognised. Greville tells us that Lord Stanley 'gained +golden opinions and great popularity at the India House'; and he gives +a striking instance of the firmness with which he maintained the full +authority of the new Council over Indian affairs. He adds: 'I was +prepared to hear of his ability, his indefatigable industry, and his +business qualities; but I was surprised to hear so much of his +courtesy, affability, patience, and candour; that he is neither +dictatorial nor conceited, always ready to listen to other people's +opinions and advice, and never fancying that he knows better than +anyone else. I afterwards told Jonathan Peel what I had heard and he +confirmed the truth of this report and said he was the same in the +Cabinet.' 'Lord Stanley,' Greville said, 'is so completely _the man_ +of the present day, and in all human probability is destined to play +so important and conspicuous a part in political life, that the time +may come when any details, however minute, of his early career will be +deemed worthy of recollection.' It is a characteristic fact that Lord +Stanley offered a seat on the Indian Council to John Stuart Mill, +which, however, that great writer declined. + +The disturbance in European politics which culminated in the French +declaration of war against Austria contributed to weaken still further +the feeble Ministry of Lord Derby. The Reform Bill caused profound +divisions in its ranks. Mr. Walpole and Mr. Henley resigned, and the +Government Bill was defeated in the spring of 1859. Lord Malmesbury +mentions that in the Cabinet divisions on that question Lord Stanley +supported the more democratic view, and that on one occasion he +threatened to resign if the measure were not made more liberal. He +defended the Bill in an elaborate speech, advocating such an +introduction of the working class to the franchise as would give them +a considerable but not a preponderating power. A general election +followed, and the Government gained several seats, but not sufficient +to give it a majority. The different fractions of the Opposition drew +together; on June 11 a vote of want of confidence was carried by a +majority of 13, and Lord Derby immediately resigned. + +In opposition Lord Stanley devoted himself chiefly to the class of +questions that had occupied him before his accession to office. He +served on the long Cambridge University Commission, and supported the +admission of Nonconformists to Fellowships. He was also warmly in +favour of the measure which made it possible for clergymen to free +themselves from their Orders and to adopt other professions. He +presided over the Commission on the Sanitary State of the Indian Army +and over the Commission on Patents. Like Disraeli, he displayed during +the American Civil War a reticence and reserve which contrasted very +favourably with the rash language of other leaders. + +In 1862 a curious episode occurred which showed at least the +widespread reputation that he had acquired. Prince Alfred having +refused the throne of Greece, the idea was for a short time +entertained of offering it to Lord Stanley. 'If he accepts,' Disraeli +wrote to his friend Mrs. Willyams, 'I shall lose a powerful friend and +colleague. It is a dazzling adventure for the house of Stanley, but +they are not an imaginative race, and I fancy they will prefer +Knowsley to the Parthenon and Lancashire to the Attic Plains.' 'The +Greeks really want to make my friend Lord Stanley their king. This +beats any novel; but he will not. Had I his youth I would not +hesitate, even with the earldom of Derby in the distance.' + +It does not appear that this proposal ever took a very serious form, +and if it had been made there is little doubt that Disraeli formed a +just forecast of what would have been the result. The death of Lord +Palmerston on October 18, 1865, gave a new turn to the political +kaleidoscope: Lord Russell became Prime Minister; the policy of reform +was pushed into the forefront, and the Reform Bill of 1866 speedily +produced a secession in the Liberal ranks and led to the downfall of +the Ministry. The feature of the Bill which specially lent itself to +attack was that it dealt solely with reduction of the franchise, +leaving the question of the distribution of seats to subsequent +legislation, and an amendment was moved by Lord Grosvenor to the +effect that no Bill for the reduction of the franchise should be +discussed till the whole scheme was before the House. This amendment +was seconded by Lord Stanley in a speech which Lord Malmesbury +pronounced to be 'the finest and most statesmanlike speech he ever +made.' In June the Government were beaten by a small majority on an +amendment of Lord Dunkellin substituting rating for rental; a few days +later Lord Russell resigned and Lord Derby for the third time became +Prime Minister. + +As on the two former occasions he was in a minority, though the +temporary secession of a portion of the Liberal party gave him a +precarious power. Once more, too, he took office amid the convulsions +of a European war, for the war of Prussia and Italy with Austria had +just begun. In the new Ministry Lord Stanley was Secretary for Foreign +Affairs. In his election address he gave the keynote of his policy by +insisting in the strongest terms that England should observe a strict +neutrality in European controversies. Her vast Indian and Colonial +Empire, he said, made her a world apart and threw upon her duties and +responsibilities that taxed all her energies. She had duties also to +her poorer classes at home, whose condition was not what we could +desire; and by simply existing as a free, prosperous, and +self-governed nation, we should do more for the real freedom of Europe +than by any policy of meddling or war. + +As far as his own department was concerned Lord Stanley's +administration during this short Ministry was both eminently +consistent and eminently successful. It is true that this pacific +Minister made the Abyssinian war for the release of some imprisoned +British subjects, but he only did this after every peaceful effort to +procure their release had proved abortive, and it was almost +universally recognised that there was no honourable alternative open +to him. During his ministry the Luxemburg question brought France and +Prussia to the very verge of war. It fell to the task of Lord Stanley +to mediate between them, and he did so with a success which certainly +adjourned, though it could not ultimately avert, the great catastrophe +that burst upon Europe in 1870. No success could have been more +gratifying to him, and he was fond of repeating the saying of Canning +that 'If a war must come sooner or later, for my part I prefer that it +should come later than sooner.' Lord Russell bore an ungrudging +testimony to the 'tact and discretion' Lord Stanley displayed in this +negotiation. In the same spirit he refused to take part in a +conference of European Powers which the French Emperor desired to +convene to settle the Roman question, declaring that this question was +one with which England should in no way meddle, and that a conference +would be useless and dangerous unless a basis were laid down before. +He refused to interfere in any way with the Cretan rebellion, and with +the impending disputes between Turkey and Greece. His abstention on +this question was blamed by some, but it met with the full approbation +of his great opponent, Lord Russell, who declared that 'he had acted +with much prudence and discretion.' He laid the foundation also of the +settlement of the long outstanding difficulty with America by +proposing to refer the Alabama question to arbitration, and he +negotiated a treaty on the subject, which, however, the Senate refused +to ratify. + +In all this he was very consistent. The same consistency cannot be +claimed for his support of a Reform Bill far more Radical than that +which his party had so recently rejected. In my own judgment it is +impossible to defend with success the conduct of the Derby Ministry on +this question, and although Lord Stanley took only a subsidiary part +in it, he cannot escape his share of the responsibility. The +difficulty of the position of the eldest son of the Prime Minister who +was taking this 'leap in the dark' was very great, and it must be +remembered that he had long been identified with the more democratic +wing of his party. After the great agitation that followed the +downfall of the Russell Ministry, he probably regarded a democratic +measure as inevitable, and it was the character of his mind to be very +ready to accept what he considered the inevitable, and to endeavour by +timely compromise to mitigate its effects. Lord Derby's health was now +completely broken, and on February 24, 1868, he resigned office, and +Disraeli became Prime Minister. + +Mr. Gladstone soon re-united the sundered sections of the Opposition +by raising the question of the Disestablishment of the Irish Church. +The resolutions asserting the expediency of this policy were +introduced into the House of Commons in April. Lord Stanley was put +forward as the principal opponent. His amendment expressed no opinion +about the merits of the proposed policy, but simply affirmed that it +was a question which ought to be reserved for a new Parliament which +was soon to be elected under an altered franchise. In his speech he +disclaimed any wish to maintain that the Irish Church Establishment +was what it ought to be, but urged that in the condition of Ireland a +merely destructive measure would do nothing but harm, that it would +serve no good purpose to attack the Establishment without laying down +the lines of a definite, constructive ecclesiastical policy, and that +it was absurd to launch such a question in the last session of an +expiring Parliament. The more ardent spirits of the Tory party +strongly censured the ambiguity of this defence, and the Government +were beaten by majorities of 56 and 60. The House of Commons was +dissolved in the autumn and a large Liberal majority returned. +Disraeli at once resigned without waiting for the assembling of +Parliament. + +In October 1869 the death of Lord Derby terminated the career of his +son in the House of Commons, and the following year added very greatly +to the happiness of his life by his marriage with the Dowager +Marchioness of Salisbury. His attitude in opposition is clearly shown +in his published speeches. He had no wish to see the Conservative +party again in office till they possessed an assured and homogeneous +majority, and he maintained that it should be their main object to +strengthen the influence of the more moderate section in the +Government. He believed that by habitually pursuing this policy they +would best prevent revolutionary changes, mitigate by wise compromises +measures which they did not wholly approve, secure the continuance of +the harmony of classes, on which more than on any other condition the +prosperity of England depends, and gradually strengthen their own hold +on the confidence of the country. It was also his earnest desire that +English politics should be turned as much as possible from a policy of +organic change to a policy of administrative reform. He considered it +a great evil that public men had acquired the habit of continually +tampering with the existing legislative machinery instead of wisely +using it for the benefit of the whole nation. The party system, as he +always thought, had falsified the perspective of English politics, +bringing into the foreground comparatively unimportant questions which +were well suited to rally parties and win majorities; thrusting into +the background others which were immeasurably more important, but +which were less available for party purposes. What Carlyle called 'The +Condition of England Question' was always in his thoughts. No one +would accuse him of under-rating the evils of war, but he questioned +whether the most sanguinary battle which had ever been fought carried +off nearly as many human beings as die in England every year from +purely preventible causes. He threw the whole force of his clear and +penetrating intellect into such questions as sanitary reform, the +regulation of mines, the promotion of education and especially +technical education, the organisation of charities, the treatment of +juvenile offenders, the diffusion of wise methods of encouraging +saving among the poor. The overcrowding of the great cities, and the +vast masses of insanitary dwellings, seemed to him one of the most +pressing dangers of the time, and he was a prominent member of nearly +every important company and association in England for improving the +houses of artisans. He had no puritanism in his nature and was very +anxious, by the establishment of free libraries and people's parks, +and Sunday opening of museums, to extend the range of innocent +pleasure. 'Men die,' he once said, 'for want of cheerfulness, as +plants die for want of light.' He did not believe in the repression of +drunkenness by coercive legislation like the Local Veto Bill, but he +believed that its true root lay in overcrowding, ignorance, insanitary +conditions of life, the want of innocent means of enjoyment, excessive +hours of labour. 'When you have to deal with men in masses,' he said, +'the connection between vice and disease is very close. With a low +average of popular health you will have a low average of national +morality and probably also of national intellect. Drunkenness and +vice of other kinds will flourish on such a soil, and you cannot get +healthy brains to grow on unhealthy bodies. Cleanliness and +self-respect grow together, and it is no paradox to affirm that you +tend to purify men's thoughts and feelings when you purify the air +they breathe.' He supported liberally the movement for establishing +coffee-houses, and he looked with great hope to the co-operative +movement as averting or mitigating industrial conflicts. 'The subject +of co-operation,' he said, 'is in my judgment more important as +regards the future of England than nine-tenths of those which are +discussed in Parliament, and around which political controversies +gather.' As the possessor of one of the largest properties in England +he was excellently informed on all agricultural questions, and he +exercised a great influence upon them. Among other services he +dispelled many misrepresentations by obtaining an accurate return of +the numbers of owners of land in the United Kingdom, and of the +quantity of land which they owned. + +With the single exception of Lord Shaftesbury, I believe no +conspicuous English public man devoted so much time and labour as Lord +Derby to the class of questions I have described. He brought to their +discussion an almost unrivalled fulness of knowledge. His purse was +liberally opened in such causes, and the speeches in which he examined +what Government can do and what it cannot do for the material +well-being of the poor, are in my judgment among the most valuable +contributions to political thought that have been furnished by any +English statesman during the present century. + +The election of 1874, bringing the Conservative party again into +power, called him to other fields, and he became for the second time +Foreign Secretary under Disraeli, and was soon involved in that +Eastern Question which led to his severance from the Conservative +party. It would answer no good purpose in a short sketch like the +present to rake up the still smouldering ashes of that controversy. +The time will come when it will be reviewed in the calm light of +history, and with the assistance of materials that are not now before +the public. I shall here content myself with a mere sketch. In the +earlier stages of their foreign policy the Government appear to have +been perfectly agreed. Lord Derby fully concurred in the purchase of +the Khedive's shares in the Suez Canal, which was one of the most +successful strokes of policy of the Government, though he defended it +on somewhat more prosaic grounds than some of its supporters, and was +careful to explain that it was essentially a measure of self-defence, +and not connected with any project for the dismemberment of Turkey or +the establishment of an English protectorate in Egypt. When the +insurrection broke out in 1875 in Herzegovina and Bosnia, neither Lord +Derby nor any of his colleagues believed it to be more than a mere +passing disturbance. But the feebleness manifested by the Turkish army +in suppressing the insurrection, and the partial bankruptcy of the +Government at Constantinople, contributed with many elements of race +and religious dissension, with foreign intrigue and local +misgovernment, to aggravate the sore, and the movement soon acquired +the dimensions of a great European danger. In sending an English +Consul in conjunction with the Consuls of the other Powers to the +scene of insurrection, in order, if possible, to arrive at a +mediation; in the acceptance of the Andrassy Note, by which the three +Imperial Powers laid down the reforms which they considered urgently +necessary; in the rejection of the Berlin Memorandum, on the ground +that the Porte could not or would not carry out its demands, and that +it would almost certainly lead to an armed intervention; and finally, +in sending the British fleet to Besika Bay for the purpose of +protecting English and Christian interests at Constantinople, at a +time when that city was in a state of almost complete anarchy, the +Government were fully agreed, and they carried with them an immense +majority in Parliament and in the country. For some time, also, the +country seemed to approve of the policy which Lord Derby uniformly +avowed and steadily observed, of maintaining a strict neutrality in +the contest that was raging; doing all that could be done by advice, +remonstrance, mediation, and moral influence to induce the Porte to +carry out internal reforms; warning the Turkish Government in clear +terms that under the circumstances of the case they must not look for +any military assistance from England, but at the same time +discouraging as much as possible the active interference of other +Powers in the affairs of Turkey, and abstaining rigidly from any step +that would involve the use of force or the chance of war unless some +serious English interest was affected. He believed that the integrity +of the Turkish Empire was a vital English interest, and that any +attempt to substitute a Slavonic for a Turkish Empire would bring upon +Europe calamities the extent of which it was impossible to exaggerate +or to foresee. Russia and Austria would at once come into collision; +England would almost certainly be drawn into the war, and all the +fierce elements of race hatred and religious fanaticism would be let +loose. + +For a time most English politicians seem to have agreed with him, and +his one great object was to bring about an armistice, a mediation, and +a peace. But the popular agitation which arose in England on the +subject of the Bulgarian atrocities in the summer and autumn of 1876 +added enormously to his difficulties, and the danger was the greater +because some skilful party management was blended with much genuine +philanthropy. The speeches addressed by Lord Derby to the successive +deputations that came to him, give the best explanation and defence of +his position during this critical period, and the interruptions to +which he had to reply give a vivid picture of the state of feeling +that had arisen. The Crimean war was now deplored as a calamity, if +not a crime. The Turks were described on high political authority as +'the one great anti-human specimen of humanity.' The Ministers were +accused of complicity in the Bulgarian massacres; they were urged to +cast neutrality to the wind; to adopt a policy of armed coercion in +Turkey; even to assist Russia in driving the Turks out of +Constantinople. It had become, as Lord Derby sarcastically said, a +very unpopular thing for an English Minister to talk of English +interests in connection with the Eastern Question--almost dangerous +for any man at a public meeting to express in plain terms his doubt of +the disinterested philanthropy of Russia. + +Lord Derby had at this time to encounter much unpopularity. He was +accused of an undue leaning towards the Turkish Government, and an +inadequate sympathy with the Christian populations, and it was alleged +that if he had acted in firm concert with the other Powers in coercing +the Porte--if he had not proclaimed so loudly and constantly his +determination to abstain from all active interference and +compulsion--his remonstrances would have had more effect, and he might +have averted or restricted the calamities that had occurred. But a +great change soon took place. The first object of the Government was +to prevent the Turkish disturbance from leading to a European war, and +in this object they failed. On April 24, 1877, Russia, in spite of +English remonstrances, declared war against Turkey. On the same day a +Russian army crossed the Pruth, and the Eastern Question entered into +a new and dangerous phase. + +To a statesman like Lord Derby, who maintained that war, unless it is +a necessity, is a crime; that the maintenance of peace is beyond all +comparison the greatest of British interests, the months that followed +were extremely trying. His first object was to limit the war, and to +safeguard English interests, and for this purpose he drew up on May 6, +1877, a Note defining the English interests that were vital in the +East. He warned the Russian Government that an attempt by Russia to +blockade the Suez Canal, an attack on Egypt, a Russian occupation of +Constantinople, or an alteration of the existing arrangements for the +navigation of the Bosphorus or the Dardanelles might compel England to +abandon her neutrality. Russia accepted these conditions, and for some +time there appeared every prospect of limiting the war. But in the +beginning of 1878 a period of extreme danger undoubtedly arrived. +Plevna had fallen. The Turkish resistance had collapsed. A Russian +army, flushed with victory, had advanced to near Constantinople. The +treaty of San Stephano was signed; which in the opinion of most +European statesmen placed Turkey at the feet of Russia, and Russia at +first refused to submit its terms to a conference of European Powers. +Public feeling in England now ran strongly in a direction almost +opposite to that in which it had been running eighteen months before, +and the nation was extremely alarmed at the danger of Constantinople +becoming speedily and irremediably a Russian port. On the other hand, +the national and military pride of the conquering Power was aroused, +and it was felt that a single false step, a single imprudent menace, +might lead to war. + +It was one of those moments in which men's judgments are largely +affected by their temperaments, and it soon became evident that the +Cabinet was seriously divided. Disraeli had now become Lord +Beaconsfield, and sat with his Foreign Secretary in the House of +Lords. With his character it was inevitable that he should meet the +danger by a bold, decisive, and even aggressive, policy. It was no +less natural that Lord Derby should have persistently leaned towards +the side of caution and shrunk from any measure that could cut short +negotiation and diminish the chances of peace. The order given that +the British Fleet should enter the Dardanelles, first produced the +inevitable schism, and Lord Derby and Lord Carnarvon resigned. The +order was countermanded, and Lord Derby, for a short time, resumed his +post. He acquiesced, but with great reluctance, in the vote of credit +for six millions which was at once brought before the House of +Commons, but he was soon convinced that measures he did not approve of +were impending, and when orders were given for calling out the +reserves he definitely resigned. + +He announced his resignation on March 28, 1878, in terms of much +dignity and moderation. He believed, he said, that his colleagues +desired peace as truly as himself, and he did not maintain that their +later measures led inevitably to war, but he considered that they were +neither necessary nor 'prudent in the interests of European peace.' +He agreed that the terms of the treaty should be submitted to a +European Congress, in which England should take part. On minor matters +he thought it his duty to waive his own opinion, but he could not do +so on a question involving the momentous issue of peace or war. The +threat involved in the last act of the Government, he said, in a later +speech, would make it more difficult for Russia to modify her policy, +and he believed that without a threat such a modification of the +treaty of San Stephano could be obtained as would make it acceptable. +He had been accused of indecision and even of cowardice. For his own +part he thought it needed more courage to stand up in his place to +express views which he knew to be unpopular among the great body of +his friends, than to sit at a desk in Downing Street and issue orders +which would bring no danger or unpopularity to himself, but might +bring about a European war. + +The short speech in which Lord Beaconsfield accepted the resignation, +and dwelt on the long friendship, personal as well as political, that +bound him to Lord Derby, seems to me a perfect model of good feeling +and good taste. Unfortunately the example of the Prime Minister was +not followed, and words used in a later debate went far to make the +breach irrevocable. + +Lord Derby for a short time maintained a neutral position, but the +foreign policy of Lord Beaconsfield was in the highest degree +distasteful to him. A wave of Chauvinism was passing over England, +which was utterly opposed to his views, and he believed that a section +of the Conservative party encouraged it in order to divert the +thoughts of men from internal reforms. He objected to the acquisition +of Cyprus, to some of the responsibilities assumed by England under +the treaty of Berlin, and very strongly to the Afghan war; and in the +beginning of 1880 he formally attached himself to the Liberal party, +on the ground of his objections to the foreign policy of the +Government. His speeches in his new capacity differed very little from +those which he had formerly delivered, but he said that he had learnt +to see more clearly the uselessness of attempting to resist popular +ideas, and to think 'more highly of the moderation, the fairness, and +the general justice with which masses of men, including all conditions +of life, are disposed to use their power.' He thought that England +should mix herself as little as possible with 'the sanguinary muddle' +of European diplomacy; that she should avoid increasing her +responsibilities; that she should take stringent measures to reduce +her debt; that she should pay much more attention than she was +accustomed to do to the condition of her own poorer population; and +that it should be the object of her statesmen to meet every great +popular demand by wise and equitable compromise. One of the greatest +dangers, he said, that could befall the country, would be 'a state of +things in which the comparatively harmless antagonism of parties would +be replaced by the far more serious and dangerous war of classes. From +that danger more than from any other it is the business of a +well-considered Liberalism to protect us.' + +In 1882 he accepted the Colonial Office from Mr. Gladstone, and held +it until the fall of the Government in the summer of 1885. His +ministry was not a very eventful one, and it was marked by that steady +adherence to a middle line which had always characterised him. He +congratulated the country that the indifference to our colonies which +had prevailed during his youth had passed away, but he was by no means +favourable to extensions of the Empire. 'We have quite black men +enough,' he was accustomed to say; and he believed that any increase +of our responsibilities was likely to endanger the Empire, and to +divert the energies of politicians from pressing home questions. He +did not condemn the policy which led to the occupation of Egypt by +England, but he declared that even if it was inevitable it was a +misfortune, and that we ought to 'see that we do not on any pretext, +however plausible, get that Egyptian millstone tied permanently round +our necks.' He was very sceptical about Imperial Federation, and +entirely incredulous about the possibility of an Imperial Zollverein. +He deplored the protectionism of the colonies, but was himself a +strict free-trader of the school of Cobden, and utterly opposed to any +attempt to negotiate treaties with the colonies on a basis of +preferential tariffs. On the other hand, he showed himself quite ready +to favour Confederation in Australia, and he accepted gratefully +Australian help in the Soudan, but he was much alarmed by tendencies +in some colonies which might lead to complications with foreign +Powers, and he incurred considerable unpopularity in Australia by +refusing to consent to the annexation by Queensland of New Guinea. + +There is, however, one incident in the colonial administration of Lord +Derby on which it is necessary to dwell at somewhat greater length, +for subsequent events have given it an unfortunate prominence and it +has thrown some discredit on his statesmanship. I allude, of course, +to the convention with the Transvaal in 1884. In the preceding +convention, which had been signed in August 1881, complete +self-government had been granted by England to the Transvaal 'subject +to the suzerainty of her Majesty' and her successors, and also to a +large number of carefully specified reservations and limitations. They +comprised the complete control of the external relations of the +Transvaal, including the conclusion of treaties and the conduct of +diplomatic intercourse with foreign Powers, which could only be +carried on through her Majesty's officers; the right of moving British +troops in case of necessity through the Transvaal; a power of veto +over all legislation affecting the interests of the native population. +A number of articles prohibited slavery in the new State; protected +with much detail the interests of the native population; secured +complete religious liberty; established the right of all persons other +than natives who conformed themselves to the laws of the State, to +enter, travel, and reside in any part of the Transvaal, to acquire +property and to carry on their business without being subject to any +other taxation than that which was imposed on the citizens of the +Transvaal; and placed British imports and exports on the same plane as +those of the most-favoured nations. The limits of the new State were +carefully defined and a British Resident was established in the +Transvaal to superintend the carrying out of these provisions. There +was no express provision in the convention for the political +privileges of the English residents in the Transvaal, but the +Government appear to have relied on a not very explicit verbal +assurance given to the British Commissioners by President Kruger in +May 1881. Asked about the rights of British subjects to complete free +trade throughout the Transvaal, President Kruger answered that before +the annexation 'they were on the same footing as the burghers'; that +'there was not the slightest difference in accordance with the Sand +River convention'; that this state of things would be continued and +that 'there would be equal protection for everybody.' Sir Evelyn Wood +then added, 'and equal privileges?' 'We make no difference,' answered +President Kruger, 'so far as burgher rights are concerned. There may +perhaps be some slight difference in the case of a young person who +has just come into the country.' It was subsequently explained that +the words 'young person' did not refer to age, but to the time of +residence in the Republic--according to the old Transvaal +Constitution, a year's residence in the Republic was necessary for +naturalisation. With this assurance the Government of 1881 appears to +have been content. They believed in words expressly sanctioned by Mr. +Gladstone, that the concession of limited independence to the +Transvaal by the convention of 1881 would 'provide for the full +liberty and equal treatment of the entire white population, guard the +interests of the natives, and promote harmony and good-will among the +various races in South Africa.'[43] As a matter of fact, the only +change in the political position of the English residents in the +Transvaal was that the period of naturalisation was extended from one +to five years--a change which appears to have produced little or no +commotion in the Republic. + +The convention of 1881 was, however, extremely unpopular among a large +section of the Boer population. Complete independence was their avowed +object, and in order to attain it their first task was to abolish the +suzerainty of Great Britain. Almost immediately after the convention +was signed, the limitations of the Transvaal established by the +convention were flagrantly disregarded by Transvaal filibusters, who +proceeded with the tacit and even with the avowed countenance of their +Government to place new sections of native territory under the +exclusive protectorate of the Transvaal Government;[44] and a +deputation, headed by President Kruger, came to England in 1883 for +the purpose of negotiating with the Colonial Office for the abolition +of the chief articles of the convention of 1881. They avowed with +complete frankness that absolute independence would alone satisfy +them, and that their desire was to revert to the Sand River convention +of 1852, by which this independence had been recognised. This demand +was absolutely rejected by the Imperial Government, but Lord Derby +attempted to meet the objections of the Transvaal leaders by +substituting for the articles of the convention of 1881 new articles +in several respects more favourable to the pretensions of the Boers. + +He, in the first place, made a sentimental concession to which it is +probable he attached little importance, but which was regarded by the +Boer population as a considerable step towards the achievement of +their independence. The term 'Transvaal State,' which was accepted in +the convention of 1881 as the designation of the new State, was +dropped and the old title of 'South African Republic' was revived and +recognised. The question of suzerainty was dealt with in a somewhat +ambiguous fashion. The new convention purported only to substitute new +articles in the place of those of the preceding convention; and it was +afterwards argued that the old preamble, which asserted at once the +internal independence of the Transvaal and the suzerainty of Great +Britain, remained in force. In fact, however, this preamble was +neither reprinted nor replaced in the new convention, and the term +'suzerainty,' which occurred in the original draft of the document, +was deliberately expunged--it is said by Lord Derby himself. He +considered the term wholly wanting in the precision which is desirable +in a treaty arrangement, that it was capable of many different degrees +of extension, and that the fact of the paramountcy of Great Britain +over the new State might be sufficiently established without the use +of an ambiguous word which excited the most bitter hostility in the +Transvaal. His own words in defending his conduct in the House of +Lords are perfectly clear. 'The word suzerainty,' he said, 'is a very +vague word, and I do not think it is capable of any precise legal +definition. Whatever we may understand by it, I think it is not very +easy to define. But I apprehend whether you call it a protectorate, or +a suzerainty, or the recognition of England as a paramount Power, the +fact is that a certain controlling power is retained when the State +which exercises this suzerainty has a right to veto any negotiation +into which the dependent State may enter with foreign Powers. Whatever +suzerainty meant in the convention of Pretoria (1881), the condition +of things which it implies still remains; although the word is not +actually employed, we have kept the substance. We have abstained from +using the word because it was not capable of legal definition, and +because it seemed to be a word which was likely to lead to +misconception and misunderstanding.' + +The articles of the previous convention relating to slavery, to native +rights, to free trade, to religious liberty, to the rights of +residence of foreigners in the Transvaal, reappear in the new +convention, and the limits of the State were somewhat more fully +defined, but the controlling power of Great Britain over the foreign +policy of the Transvaal, though clearly reasserted, was somewhat +limited in its scope. It was provided that the South African Republic +should conclude no treaty or engagement with any State or nation other +than the Orange Free State, or with any native tribe to the eastward +or westward of the Republic, until the same had been approved by the +Queen; that every such treaty should be at once submitted to her +Majesty's Government for her consent, but that this consent should be +presumed to have been granted if no notification to the contrary was +received within six months. The desire of the Transvaal authorities to +be recognised as representing an independent sovereign power was thus +distinctly rejected, and the English Government positively refused a +proposal to admit foreign arbitration in cases of dispute between +England and the Transvaal. + +This convention has been severely censured by later writers on the +ground of the insufficiency and ambiguity of its assertion of the +paramount authority of Great Britain over the Transvaal, and of its +failure to do anything to supply the great deficiency in the preceding +convention by an article securing political equality for the British +population within it. A few years later, when an immense English +immigration had taken place, not only with the consent but at the +express invitation of the Transvaal Government; when the English +element formed a large majority of the inhabitants of the State; when +they paid an enormous preponderance of its taxation, and were the +chief agents in developing its wealth and raising it from the position +of a very poor pastoral community into that of a great and wealthy +State, the Transvaal Government proceeded to impose upon the new +emigrants disqualifications and disabilities which were utterly +unknown when England conceded self-government to 'the inhabitants of +the Transvaal.' They completely deprived the vast majority of +political power or local self-government, and surrounded them at every +turn with the most irritating disabilities. The Transvaal became the +one part of South Africa where one white race was held in a position +of inferiority to another. At a time when perfect equality was enjoyed +by the Dutch population in our own colonies, the political +disqualification of the English race was made the very corner-stone of +the policy of the Transvaal Government. An annual revenue greatly in +excess of what was required for its internal government was raised +almost entirely from the taxation of an unrepresented class, to whom +the prosperity of the State was mainly due, and it was employed in +accumulating a great armament which could only be intended for use +against England and for maintaining the subjection of an English +population. + +This was the position to which the paramount Power in South Africa, +the Power which of its own free will had conceded a limited +independence to the Transvaal, found itself reduced. And yet it was +possible for the Boer Government to maintain that there was nothing in +all this legislation which was inconsistent with the terms of the +convention of 1884. + +I do not think that the justice of this criticism can be wholly +denied. The Transvaal authorities had already given clear intimation +of their desire to emancipate themselves from all British control, and +especially of their determination to disregard the limitations which +had been imposed on the expansion of their State. There is, however, +one very material fact to be remembered in judging the policy of Lord +Derby. At the time of the convention of 1884 the English population in +the Transvaal was a small, scattered, and powerless minority, and as +their numbers were far too scanty to make them a danger to the State, +there was not much reason to believe that the Transvaal authorities +would repudiate their own assurances and subject them to oppressive +disabilities. It was not until two years after the convention that the +vast gold-mines of the Transvaal were discovered and all the +conditions of the South African problem fundamentally changed. The +gigantic immigration that ensued reversed the proportion between the +two races. The revenue and the expenditure of the State multiplied +more than fifteen fold in little more than ten years.[45] The +Transvaal became the most powerful and wealthy State in South Africa, +and the great preponderance of the Outlander element in numbers, +wealth, energy, and industry rendered a conflict of races almost +inevitable. No statesman could have foreseen this change, and a +convention that might have allayed discontent if the gold-mines had +never been discovered, proved wholly inefficient to meet it. + +Though in a politician of the stamp of Lord Derby the change from a very +liberal conservatism to a very conservative liberalism involved little +real modification of opinion, it necessarily involved some change of +attitude, and on some questions he spoke with a freedom which would have +been impossible as a member of the Conservative party. On Church +questions, for example, while strongly maintaining that the country was +not ripe for the disestablishment of the Church in England, he declared +that in his opinion the exclusive alliance of one religious denomination +among many with the State could not be permanently maintained side by +side with a democratic representation--that disestablishment and at +least partial disendowment must ultimately come; that if the +representatives of Scotland desired the disestablishment of their +Church, it was not for Englishmen to oppose them; and that Wales had a +strong claim to be separately dealt with. 'The Welsh people constitute +in many respects a distinct nationality, and I do not see why we should +refuse to Welsh loyalty what we have granted to Irish sedition.' On the +subject of endowments indeed as early as 1875 his view was that of most +moderate Liberals. 'To my mind, so far as right is concerned, the +Legislature may do what it chooses in regard to any endowment, without +injustice, provided only that the rights of living individuals are +respected. How far it is politic to use that power is another matter.... +Respect the founder's object, but use your own discretion as to the +means. If you don't do the first, you will have no new endowments. If +you neglect the last, those which you have will be of no use.'[46] He +maintained that the question of local government had in England become +one of pressing importance, and that the administration of county +affairs must be put into the hands of elective bodies. He would give +those local parliaments very large power--but he most urgently insisted +on the importance of one restriction. The new bodies must not be given +an unlimited power of mortgaging the future. The gradual reduction of +the National Debt had been for some years one of the chief aims of +enlightened politicians, but all that had been done in this direction +would be undone if, side by side with the National Debt, there grew up a +municipal debt of perhaps equal amount. In this tendency to municipal +extravagance he saw one of the gravest menaces to property. 'The growth +of Socialism throughout Europe has followed very closely on the gigantic +increase of national indebtedness during the present century, and men +who begin to feel the pressure intolerable are apt to raise questions, +more easily stated than solved, as to the right of any State to impose +burdens in perpetuity for the benefit of one generation.' He urged that +every local body which contracted a debt should be under a statutory +obligation to provide for its repayment in fifty or sixty years at +latest. + +The growth of municipal indebtedness; the excessive tendency to +increase the functions of the State; the disaffection of Ireland and +the contingency of an isolated and disloyal body of some eighty Irish +representatives offering their services to any party which would +consent to carry out their designs, appeared to Lord Derby the chief +dangers of English domestic politics. The last danger was very +speedily realised, and the sudden conversion of Mr. Gladstone to Home +Rule produced one more change in the attitude of Lord Derby. On this +question he had never flinched or wavered, and he at once took his +place in the front rank of the Liberal Unionists, whom for some time +he led in the House of Lords. I do not know that the Unionist case has +ever been more powerfully put forward than in his speeches on the +subject, and the eminently judicial character of his mind, and his +entire freedom from all mere party bias, gave a special weight to his +advocacy. With this exception he took little part in party politics +during the last years of his life, but he devoted himself largely to +social questions, and among other things served with great assiduity +and ability on the Labour Commission. His last speech was delivered at +Manchester on the unveiling of the statue of Mr. Bright in October +1891. His last public work was that of presiding over the Labour +Commission in May 1892. In the preceding year an attack of influenza, +followed by a relapse, had shattered a health which had hitherto been +robust. Other complications ensued, and he passed away at Knowsley on +April 21, 1893, in his sixty-seventh year. + +The foregoing sketch will, I hope, have given a sufficient idea of his +public character. Few men have made a greater sacrifice of ambition to +a conscientious conviction than he did, when, rather than support a +measure which might lead to war, he abandoned the Conservative +Ministry in 1878. He was then the fully recognised successor of Lord +Beaconsfield, and if he had adopted a different course he would in a +short time have been, beyond all doubt, Prime Minister of England. On +the whole, however, the severance from old friends cost him, I +believe, far more than the sacrifice of his political prospects. +Whatever he may have been in his youth, he was certainly not in mature +life an ambitious man. With the great position he held in England the +world had little to offer him, and the self-knowledge which was not +the least of his many remarkable gifts showed him that party conflict +was not the sphere in which Nature intended him to move. With many of +the qualities of the highest statesmanship he wanted some necessary +ingredients of a great statesman. He wanted the power of appealing to +the imagination and moving the passions. He wanted more decision of +character, more power of initiative, more capacity of bearing lightly +the weight of a great responsibility. His belief that the House of +Lords must always ultimately yield to the House of Commons aggravated +a weakness of resolution which was deeply rooted in his nature. There +were moments when his inveterate moderation tended to exasperate, and +he was accused, not altogether without reason, of sometimes making +admirable speeches, pointing out in the clearest terms all the evils +and dangers of a measure, and then concluding by exhorting the House +of Lords to vote for it, introducing mitigating amendments in +Committee. The measures he treated in this way usually, as he had +predicted, became law, but this was not the attitude of a great +leader. During a considerable part of his career, like a very large +proportion of moderate men in England, he was in the embarrassing +position of agreeing substantially with the home policy of one party +and with the foreign policy of the other. After the death of Lord +Palmerston an element of passion was infused into public life which +was very uncongenial to his temperament, and English politics passed +into phases in which caution, character, judgment, and knowledge were +less prized than brilliant strokes that appealed to the popular +imagination, clever coalitions, a skilful barter of principles for +votes. In spheres governed by such methods Lord Derby was very useful, +but he was not likely to play a foremost part. + +To few men who have taken a conspicuous part in active politics was +the excitement of such an existence so little necessary. Happy in his +domestic life and in a companionship and sympathy which were +all-sufficient to him, he was not less happy in the wide range of his +interests and duties. The administration of his vast estate would have +been more than sufficient to tax the energies of most men, and it +was, I believe, universally acknowledged that it was admirably +administered. In the everyday affairs of practical life he had no +indecision, and he judged swiftly with the clearest of judgments. +Nothing about him was more remarkable than the apparent ease and the +absence of all hurry and confusion with which he could deal with many +different forms of work. His study in its perfect neatness was more +like a lady's boudoir than the workshop of a very busy man. _Ohne +Hast, ohne Rast_, might have been his motto. He had much belief in the +future of English land, and was not, I think, at all exempt from the +great English landlord's foible of adding field to field. In the long +period of agricultural depression it was easy for a rich man to do so. +'In my experience,' he used to say, 'in nine cases out of ten it is +Naboth who comes to Ahab and begs him to buy his vineyard.' Certainly +no one had reason to complain, for there were few better or more +popular landlords than Lord Derby. In many long walks with him through +his property I was always struck with the evident pleasure with which +he was welcomed by his people, the fulness of knowledge and the +kindness of interest with which he inquired into the circumstances of +every tenant. It is characteristic of him that only two days before +his death he was giving instructions for building a hospital for the +sick poor of Knowsley. I have known few men in whom the desire to make +everyone about them happy was so strongly and so clearly marked. He +was fond of looking minutely into the circumstances of men of +different classes, and comparing their wants with their means, often +with somewhat whimsical results. There was a tradesman who made +regularly 5_l._ a week; who was accustomed every week to devote 2_l._ +to his household expenses, to lay by 2_l._, and to employ the +remainder in getting drunk. He was, Lord Derby thought, the only man +he had ever known who satisfied all his wants with 40 per cent. of his +income, who always laid by 40 per cent., and who expended 20 per cent. +on his pleasures. + +Outside his property Lord Derby had strong county interests. With +perhaps the exception of Birmingham there is no part of England where +a distinctive local patriotism is so intensely developed as in +Lancashire, and Lord Derby in tastes and character was pre-eminently a +Lancashire man, very proud of the greatness, and deeply concerned in +the interests, of his county. In all the vicissitudes of his career, +Liverpool, I believe, never wavered in its attachment to him. He +contributed to the many charitable and philanthropic works with which +he was concerned not only much money, but also--what in so rich a man +was far more meritorious--an extraordinary amount of time and patient +supervision. Among the many offices he accepted, was president of the +Literary Fund for dispensing charity to needy authors, and on the +committee of that charity I had, during many years, ample opportunity +of observing how far he was from treating a presidential position as a +sinecure. The regularity of his attendance, the constant attention he +paid to every detail of the charity; the infinite pains which he would +bestow upon obscure cases of distress, marked him out as a model +president, and many of those whom our rules did not allow us to help +were assisted by his bounty. He contributed with a large but +discriminating generosity to many causes that were conspicuous in the +eyes of the world, but his special bias was towards unostentatious +and unobserved benevolence, and crowds of obscure men in obscure +positions were assisted by him. + +Those who did not know him, and those who had come in merely casual +contact with him, sometimes formed a false impression of his +character. He had a great deal of natural shyness. He had very little +of the gift of small talk. On occasions of mere show and in +uncongenial atmospheres he was apt to be awkward and embarrassed, and +when walking by himself he was extremely absent and quite capable of +brushing against his oldest friend with a complete unconsciousness of +his presence. These traits sometimes gave rise to natural +misinterpretations, which a fuller knowledge always dispelled. No one +who knew Lord Derby could fail to feel that his nature was one of the +most genuine and transparent simplicity, singularly free from all +tinge of arrogance, superciliousness, and acrimony. His personal +tastes were exceedingly simple, and there was not a particle of +ostentation in his character. He delighted in a quiet country life and +had a strong sense of natural beauty. In his youth he had been an +ardent mountaineer, and in later life he had few greater pleasures +than to watch the growth of his plantations. He calculated that he had +planted in his lifetime about two million of trees. + +He was among the best-read men I have ever known. His private library +was one of the finest in England, and he took a keen interest in it. A +love of sumptuous, large-paper editions was indeed one of the very few +luxuries in which from mere personal taste he greatly indulged. Like +all men of literary tastes he had his limitations. German was a closed +book to him. Theology and metaphysics were conspicuous by their +absence. He was certainly not drawn to the mystical, the +unintelligible, or the morbid, either in imaginative or speculative +literature, and although he was a great lover and great buyer of +water-colour pictures, I do not think he had much real sense or +knowledge of art. But he had read very extensively and with great +profit and discrimination in many widely different fields, and his +memory was unusually retentive. He was an excellent literary critic, +and if clear thought and accurate knowledge were what he most valued, +it would be a complete mistake to suppose that he was insensible to +the poetic and imaginative side of literature. He could repeat long +passages from 'Childe Harold,' and I can well remember the delight +which he took in the picturesque narrative of Mr. Froude, and in the +fiery verses of Sir Alfred Lyall. + +He was one of the kindest and most gracious of hosts, and his genuine +unforced good nature and good humour drew to him many whose tastes and +sympathies were widely different from his own. Nature certainly never +intended him for a sportsman, but he preserved game extensively and +until the last years of his life usually went out with his guests. 'I +rather like shooting,' he once said to me, 'it prevents the necessity +of general conversation.' Among kindred spirits, however, his own +conversation was eminently attractive. His wide knowledge both of +books and men, his vast range of political anecdote, his experience of +so many statesmen and offices and departments of life, made it +singularly instructive. He was a very shrewd, and at the same time a +very kind, judge of character; and he had a power, which is certainly +not common, of fully appreciating merits that are allied with great +and manifest defects. He had much quaint, dry humour, and a great +happiness of expression; and one always felt that his opinions were +genuinely thought out--that they were voices and not echoes. His +private conversation had the quality that I have noticed in his +public speeches, of grasping at once the essential elements of a +question and disencumbering it from accessories and details. It is one +of the qualities that add most to the charm of conversation, and, with +the exception of Lord Russell, I do not think I have met with anyone +who possessed it to a greater degree than Lord Derby. He delighted in +long walks with one or two friends, and he might be seen to great +advantage in some small dining-clubs which play a larger part than is +generally recognised in the best English social life of our time. He +had been a member of Grillion's for thirty-seven years, but the +society to which he was most attached was, I think, 'The Club' which +was founded by Johnson and Reynolds. During the nineteen years of +which I can speak from personal experience, he was an almost constant +attendant, and certainly no other member enjoyed a greater popularity +in it, or contributed more largely to its charm. + +He hated cant of all kinds, and had a great distrust of ostentatious +professions of lofty motives. He disliked, I think greatly, the habit +of dragging sacred names into party speeches, and attributing every +party manoeuvre to a solemn sense of duty. Language of this kind +will never be found in his speeches, but I have known few men who were +governed through life more steadily though more unobtrusively by a +sense of duty. He always tried to look facts in the face, and to +promote in the many spheres which he could influence the real +happiness of men. There have been statesmen among his contemporaries +of greater power and of more brilliant achievement. There has been, I +believe, no statesman of sounder judgment and more disinterested +patriotism; there have been very few whose departure has left a void +in so many spheres. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[43] See, on this subject, Cook's _Rights and Wrongs of the Transvaal +War_, pp. 260-265. + +[44] See Westlake's _L'Angleterre et les Républiques Boers_, pp. 30-31. + +[45] See the table of revenue and expenditure in Fitzpatrick's +_Transvaal from Within_, p. 71. + +[46] Inaugural address at Edinburgh University. + + + + +HENRY REEVE, C.B., F.S.A., D.C.L. + + +Although it has never been the custom of the 'Edinburgh Review' to +withdraw the veil of anonymity from its writers and its +administration, it would be mere affectation to suffer it to appear +before the public without some allusion to the great editor whom we +have just lost,[47] and who for forty years has watched with +indefatigable care over its pages. + +The career of Mr. Henry Reeve is perhaps the most striking +illustration in our time of how little in English life influence is +measured by notoriety. To the outer world his name was but little +known. He is remembered as the translator of Tocqueville, as the +editor of the 'Greville Memoirs,' as the author of a not quite +forgotten book on Royal and Republican France, showing much knowledge +of French literature and politics; as the holder during fifty years of +the respectable, but not very prominent, post of Registrar of the +Privy Council. To those who have a more intimate knowledge of the +political and literary life of England, it is well known that during +nearly the whole of his long life he was a powerful and living force +in English literature; that few men of his time have filled a larger +place in some of the most select circles of English social life; and +that he exercised during many years a political influence such as +rarely falls to the lot of any Englishman outside Parliament, or even +outside the Cabinet. + +He was born at Norwich in 1813, and brought up in a highly cultivated, +and even brilliant, literary circle. His father, Dr. Reeve, was one of +the earliest contributors to the 'Edinburgh Review.' The Austins, the +Opies, the Taylors, and the Aldersons were closely related to him, and +he is said to have been indebted to his gifted aunt, Sarah Austin, for +his appointment in the Privy Council. The family income was not large, +and a great part of Mr. Reeve's education took place on the Continent, +chiefly at Geneva and Munich. He went with excellent introductions, +and the years he spent abroad were abundantly fruitful. He learned +German so well that he was at one time a contributor to a German +periodical. He was one of the rare Englishmen who spoke French almost +like a Frenchman, and at a very early age he formed friendships with +several eminent French writers. His translation of the 'Democracy in +America,' by Tocqueville, which appeared in 1835, strengthened his +hold on French society. Two years later he obtained the appointment in +the Privy Council, which he held until 1887. It was in this office +that he became the colleague and fast friend of Charles Greville, who +on his death-bed entrusted him with the publication of his 'Memoirs.' + +Mr. Reeve had now obtained an assured income and a steady occupation, +but it was far from satisfying his desire for work. He became a +contributor, and very soon a leading contributor, to the 'Times,' +while his close and confidential intercourse with Mr. Delane gave him +a considerable voice in its management. The penny newspaper was still +unborn, and the 'Times' at this period was the undisputed monarch of +the Press, and exercised an influence over public opinion, both in +England and on the Continent, such as no existing paper can be said +to possess. It is, we believe, no exaggeration to say that for the +space of fifteen years nearly every article that appeared in its +columns on foreign politics was written by Mr. Reeve, and the period +during which he wrote for it included the year 1848, when foreign +politics had the most transcendent importance. + +The great political influence which he at this time exercised +naturally drew him into close connection with many of the chief +statesmen of his time. With Lord Clarendon especially his friendship +was close and confidential, and he received from that statesman almost +weekly letters during his viceroyalty in Ireland and during others of +the more critical periods of his career. In France, Mr. Reeve's +connections were scarcely less numerous than in England. Guizot, +Thiers, Cousin, Tocqueville, Villemain, Circourt--in fact, nearly all +the leading figures in French literature and politics during the reign +of Louis Philippe were among his friends or correspondents. He was at +all times singularly international in his sympathies and friendships, +and he appears to have been more than once made the channel of +confidential communications between English and French statesmen. + +It was a task for which he was eminently suited. The qualities which +most impressed all who came into close communication with him were the +strength, swiftness, and soundness of his judgment, and his unfailing +tact and discretion in dealing with delicate questions. He was +eminently a man of the world, and had quite as much knowledge of men +as of books. Probably few men of his time have been so frequently and +so variously consulted. He always spoke with confidence and authority, +and his clear, keen-cut, decisive sentences, a certain stateliness of +manner which did not so much claim as assume ascendancy, and a +somewhat elaborate formality of courtesy which was very efficacious in +repelling intruders, sometimes concealed from strangers the softer +side of his character. But those who knew him well soon learnt to +recognise the genuine kindliness of his nature, his remarkable skill +in avoiding friction, and the rare steadiness of his friendships. + +One great source of his influence was the just belief in his complete +independence and disinterestedness. For a very able man his ambition +was singularly moderate. As he once said, he had made it his object +throughout life only to aim at things which were well within his +power. He had very little respect for the judgment of the multitude, +and he cared nothing for notoriety and not much for dignities. A +moderate competence, congenial work, a sphere of wide and genuine +influence, a close and intimate friendship with a large proportion of +the guiding spirits of his time, were the things he really valued, and +all these he fully attained. He had great conversational powers, which +never degenerated into monologue, a singularly equable, happy, and +sanguine temperament, and a keen delight in cultivated society. These +characteristics showed conspicuously in two small and very select +dining-clubs which have included most of the distinguished English +statesmen and men of letters of the century. He became a member of the +Literary Society in 1857 and of Dr. Johnson's Club in 1861, and it is +a remarkable evidence of the appreciation of his social tact that both +bodies speedily selected him as their treasurer. He held that position +in 'The Club' from 1868 till within a year of his death, when failing +health and absence from London obliged him to relinquish it. The +French Institute elected him 'Correspondant' in 1863 and Associated +Member in 1888, in which latter dignity he succeeded Sir Henry Maine. +In 1869 the University of Oxford conferred on him the honorary degree +of D.C.L. + +It was in 1855, on the death of Sir George Cornewall Lewis, that he +assumed the editorship of the 'Edinburgh Review' which he retained +till the day of his death. Both on the political and the literary side +he was in full harmony with its traditions. His rare and minute +knowledge of recent English and foreign political history; his vast +fund of political anecdote; his personal acquaintance with so many of +the chief actors on the political scene, both in England and France, +gave a great weight and authority to his judgments, and his mind was +essentially of the Whig cast. He was a genuine Liberal of the school +of Russell, Palmerston, Clarendon, and Cornewall Lewis. It was a sober +and tolerant Liberalism, rooted in the traditions of the past, and +deeply attached to the historical elements in the Constitution. The +dislike and distrust with which he had always viewed the progress of +democracy deepened with age, and it was his firm conviction that it +could never become the permanent basis of good government. Like most +men of his type of thought and character, he was strongly repelled by +the later career of Mr. Gladstone, and the Home Rule policy at last +severed him definitely from the bulk of the Liberal party. From this +time the present Duke of Devonshire was the leader of his party. + +His literary judgments had much analogy to his political ones. His +leanings were all towards the old standards of thought and style. He +had been formed in the school of Macaulay and Milman, and of the great +French writers under Louis Philippe. Sober thought, clear reasoning, +solid scholarship, a transparent, vivid, and restrained style were the +literary qualities he most appreciated. He was a great purist, +inexorably hostile to a new word. In philosophy he was a devoted +disciple of Kant, and his decided orthodoxy in religious belief +affected many of his judgments. He could not appreciate Carlyle; he +looked with much distrust on Darwinism and the philosophy of Herbert +Spencer and he had very little patience with some of the moral and +intellectual extravagances of modern literature. But, according to his +own standards and in the wide range of his own subjects, his literary +judgment was eminently sound, and he was quick and generous in +recognising rising eminence. In at least one case the first +considerable recognition of a prominent historian was an article in +the 'Edinburgh Review' from his pen. + +He had a strong sense of the responsibility of an editor, and +especially of the editor of a Review of unsigned articles. No article +appeared which he did not carefully consider. His powerful +individuality was deeply stamped upon the Review, and he carefully +maintained its unity and consistency of sentiments. It was one of the +chief occupations and pleasures of his closing days, and the very last +letter he dictated referred to it. + +Time, as might be expected, had greatly thinned the circle of his +friends. Of the France which he knew so well scarcely anything +remained, but his old friend and senior Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire +visited him at Christ Church, and he kept up to the end a warm +friendship with the Duc d'Aumale. He spent his eightieth birthday at +Chantilly, and until the very last year of his life he was never +absent when the Duke dined at 'The Club.' In Lord Derby he lost the +statesman with whom in his later years he was most closely connected +by private friendship and political sympathy, while the death of Lady +Stanley of Alderley deprived him of an attached and lifelong friend. + +Growing infirmities prevented him in his latter days from mixing much +in general society in London, but his life was brightened by all that +loving companionship could give; his mental powers were unfaded, and +he could still enjoy the society of younger friends. He looked forward +to the end with a perfect and a most characteristic calm, without fear +and without regret. It was the placid close of a long, dignified, and +useful life. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[47] Mr. Reeve died October 21, 1895.--ED. + + + + +HENRY HART MILMAN, D.D., DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S. + + +The great prominence which the High Church movement has assumed in the +ecclesiastical history of England during the second and third quarters +of the nineteenth century, and the extraordinary success with which it +has permeated the Established Church by its influence, have led some +writers to exaggerate not a little the place which it occupied in the +general intellectual development of the time. In the universities, it +is true, it long exercised an extraordinary influence, and Mr. +Gladstone, who was by far the most remarkable layman whom it +profoundly influenced, was accustomed to say that for at least a +generation almost the whole of the best intellect of Oxford was +controlled by it. It possessed in Newman a writer of most striking and +undoubted genius. In an age remarkable for brilliancy of style he was +one of the greatest masters of English prose. His power of drawing +subtle distinctions and pursuing long trains of subtle reasoning made +him one of the most skilful of controversialists, and he had a great +insight into spiritual cravings and an admirable gift of interpreting +and appealing to many forms of religious emotion. But though he was a +man of rare, delicate, and most seductive genius, we have sometimes +doubted whether any of his books are destined to take a permanent and +considerable place in English literature. He was not a great scholar, +or an original and independent thinker. Dealing with questions +inseparably connected with historical evidence, he had neither the +judicial spirit nor the firm grasp of a real historian, and he had +very little skill in measuring probabilities and degrees of evidence. +He had a manifest incapacity, which was quite as much moral as +intellectual, for looking facts in the face and pursuing trains of +thought to unwelcome conclusions. He often took refuge from them in +clouds of casuistry. The scepticism which was a marked feature of his +intellect allied itself closely with credulity, for it was directed +against reason itself; and though he has expressed in admirable +language many true and beautiful thoughts, the glamour of his style +too often concealed much weakness and uncertainty of judgment and much +sophistry in argument. + +Many of those who co-operated with him were men of great learning and +distinguished ability. No one will question the patristic knowledge of +Pusey, the metaphysical acumen of Ward, the genuine vein of religious +poetry in Keble and Faber, the wide accomplishments and scholarly +criticism of Church. But on the whole the broad stream of English +thought has gone in other directions. In politics the Oxford movement +had brilliant representatives in Gladstone and Selborne, but the ideal +of the relations of Church and State and the ideal of education to +which the Oxford school aspired, have been absolutely discarded. The +universities have been secularised. The Irish Established Church, +which it was one of the first objects of the party to defend, has been +abolished by Gladstone himself, and although the English Established +Church retains its hold on the affections of the nation, it is +defended by its most skilful supporters on very different grounds and +by very different arguments from those which were put forward by the +Oxford divines. Among the foremost names in lay literature during the +fifty years we are considering, it is curious to observe how few were +even touched by the movement. Froude is an exception, but he speedily +repudiated it. The mediæval sympathies that were sometimes shown by +Ruskin sprang from a wholly different source. Macaulay, Carlyle, +Hallam, Grote, Mill, Buckle, Tennyson, Browning, and the great +novelists, from Dickens to George Eliot, all wrote very much as they +might have written if the movement had never existed. An unusual +proportion of the best intellect of England passed into the fields of +physical science, and the methods of reasoning and habits of thought +which they inculcated were wholly out of harmony with the school of +Newman, while both geology and Darwinism have made serious incursions +into long-cherished beliefs. Even in the Church itself, though the +High Church movement was stronger than any other, great deductions +have to be made. The school of independent Biblical criticism, which +in various degrees has come to be generally accepted, certainly owed +nothing to it, and several of the most illustrious Churchmen of this +period were wholly alien to it. Thirlwall and Merivale were +conspicuous examples, but they devoted themselves chiefly to great +works of secular history. Arnold--who was one of the strongest +personal influences of his age, and whose influence was both +perpetuated and widened by Dean Stanley--and Whately, who was one of +the most independent and original thinkers of the nineteenth century, +were strongly antagonistic. In the field of ecclesiastical history it +might have been expected that a school which was at once so scholarly +and so wedded to tradition would have been pre-eminent, but no +ecclesiastical histories which England has produced can, on the whole, +be placed on as high a level as those which were written by the great +Broad Church divine whose name stands at the head of this article. + +Milman was, indeed, a man well deserving of commemoration on account +of the works which he produced, yet it is perhaps not too much to say +that to those among whom he lived the man seemed even greater than his +works. For many years he was a central and most popular figure in the +best English literary society, and he reckoned most of the leading +intellects of his day among his friends. He was in an extraordinary +degree many-sided, both in his knowledge and his sympathies. He was an +admirable critic, and the eminent sanity of his judgment, as well as +the eminent kindness of his nature, combined with a great charm both +of manner and of conversation. Few men of his time had more friends, +and were more admired, consulted, and loved. + +Mr. Arthur Milman has sketched his father's life in one short +volume,[48] written in excellent English and with uniformly good +taste. We have read it with much interest, yet in laying it down it is +impossible not to be sensible how much of the personal charm which was +so conspicuous in its subject has passed beyond recovery. More than +thirty years have gone by since the old Dean was laid in his grave, +and but few of those who knew him intimately survive. He appears to +have kept no journal. He wrote nothing autobiographical, and he had a +strong sense of the chasm that should separate private from public +life. It was wholly contrary to his unegotistical nature to make the +great public the confidant of his domestic affairs or of his inner +feelings, and he was deeply sensible of the injustice which is so +often done by biographers in printing unguarded, unqualified opinions +and judgments, expressed in the freedom of private correspondence. He +acted sternly on this view. Many of the foremost men in England were +among his correspondents, but he deliberately burnt their letters. 'I +could never bear,' we have heard him say, 'that what was written to me +by dear friends in the most unreserved and absolute confidence should, +through my fault, be one day dragged before the public.' This +reticence and this strong feeling of the sanctity of friendship and +private correspondence, which is now becoming very rare, was one of +his most characteristic traits, but it has necessarily deprived his +biography of many elements of interest. + +He was the youngest son of Sir Francis Milman, the well-known +physician of George III. He was born in 1791, and educated at Eton and +Oxford, where he soon distinguished himself as one of the most +brilliant of students. He won the Newdigate in 1812, the Chancellor's +prize for Latin verse in 1813, the prize for English and Latin essays +in 1816. He obtained a first class in classics, and in 1815 he was +elected a Fellow of his college. He was ordained in the following +year, and a year later Lord Eldon, who was then Chancellor of the +university, nominated him to the vicarage of St. Mary at Reading, +where he spent eighteen happy and fruitful years. Like most young and +brilliant men, he first turned to verse, and for several years he +poured out in rapid succession a number of dramas and poems which have +been collected in three substantial volumes. The tragedy of 'Fazio' +was written when he was still at Oxford, and it was speedily followed +by a long and ambitious epic poem called 'Samor, Lord of the Bright +City'; by three elaborate sacred dramas, the 'Fall of Jerusalem,' the +'Martyr of Antioch,' and 'Belshazzar'; and by an historical tragedy on +'Anne Boleyn,' as well as by a few minor poems. + +Some of these works had considerable popularity. 'Fazio' for many +years held its place on the stage. Byron, in one of his letters to +Rogers, speaks of its 'great and deserved success' when it was brought +out at Covent Garden. Its heroine was a favourite part of Miss O'Neil +and of Fanny Kemble. It was translated into Italian by Del Ongaro for +Ristori, who acted it with admirable power, and there was also a +French translation or adaptation in which Mademoiselle Mars took part. +The 'Fall of Jerusalem' was never intended for the stage, but it had a +great literary success. Murray, who had given only a hundred and fifty +guineas for 'Fazio,' gave five hundred for the 'Fall of Jerusalem,' +and he gave the same sum both for the 'Martyr of Antioch' and for +'Belshazzar,' which succeeded it. Neither of these, however, proved as +popular as the 'Fall of Jerusalem,' but the 'Martyr of Antioch' +contains that noble funeral ode beginning 'Brother, thou art gone +before us, and thy saintly soul is flown,' which is familiar to +numbers who are probably not aware of its authorship. It is worthy of +notice that as recently as 1880 Sir Arthur Sullivan set the 'Martyr of +Antioch' to music and brought it out at the Leeds Festival, where it +achieved an immediate and brilliant success, and was frequently +performed.[49] On the other hand, 'Samor' and 'Anne Boleyn' were +almost absolute failures, and, on the whole, the longer poems of +Milman have not retained their popularity, and probably now rarely +find a reader. + +Those who turn to them will certainly be struck by the command of +language and metre they display. It was shown both in rhyme and in +blank verse. Many fine odes are scattered through them, and in the +octo-syllabic verse Milman always appears to us peculiarly happy. But +his poetry, like most of the poetry that was written under the Byronic +influence, was rather the poetry of rhetoric than of imagination, and +it wanted both the intensity and the concentration of the great +master. Stately, sonorous, fluent, unfailingly lucid, it was too +lengthy and too artificial, and Lockhart was not wholly wrong in +pronouncing that it showed 'fine talents, but no genius,' and in +urging that prose rather than poetry was the vehicle in which its +author was destined to succeed. In addition, however, to the funeral +ode to which we have referred, Milman has written many hymns, and some +of these are of singular beauty. They appeared originally in the +collection of that other great hymn-writer, Bishop Heber, who was one +of his dearest friends, and one of the men to whose memory he looked +back with the fondest affection. The Good Friday hymn, 'Bound upon th' +accursèd tree,' the Palm Sunday hymn, 'Ride on, ride on in majesty,' +and perhaps still more that exquisitely pathetic hymn (so often +misprinted in modern hymn-books) beginning + + When our heads are bowed with woe, + When our bitter tears o'erflow, + +have long since taken their permanent place in devotional literature. + +In another and very different field of poetry also he greatly +excelled. He was an admirable example of that highly finished and +fastidious classical scholarship which is, or was, the pride of our +great public schools, and he took great pleasure in translations from +the classics. He translated into verse the 'Agamemnon' of Æschylus, +and the 'Bacchanals' of Euripides, and also a great number of small +and much less known poems. He held the professorship of poetry at +Oxford from 1821 to 1831, and as his lectures, according to the custom +which then prevailed, were delivered in Latin, he had the happy +thought of diversifying them by English metrical translations of the +different poems he treated. They range over a wide field of obscure +Greek poets, as well as of epitaphs, votive inscriptions, and +inscriptions relating to the fine arts, and in addition to these there +are translations from Sanscrit poetry--a branch of knowledge which was +then very little cultivated, and to which Milman was greatly +attracted. These poems the author published in 1865, but the lectures +in which they were produced he committed to the flames. They had, in +his opinion, lost their value through the subsequent publication of +the works on the history of Greek literature by Bode, Ulrici, Otfried +Müller, and Mure. + +In prose his pen was exceedingly active. In 1820 he began his long +connection with the 'Quarterly Review,' which continued, with +occasional intervals, through more than forty years. His articles +extended over a great variety of subjects, but most of them were +essentially reviews and essentially critical. The fact that he was +both a poet and an accomplished critic of verse caused some persons to +ascribe to him the authorship of two articles which had an unhappy +reputation--the criticism which was falsely supposed to have hastened +the death of Keats, and the attack upon the 'Alastor' of Shelley, a +poet for whom Milman had a special admiration. It is now well known +that neither of these articles was by him, but it is characteristic of +his loyalty to his colleagues that he never disclaimed the authorship. +This loyalty was indeed not less conspicuous in his nature than the +singular kindness of disposition with which he ever shrank from giving +pain. After his death a few of his many essays in the 'Quarterly' were +collected in one volume. Among them there is an admirable account of +Erasmus, with whom in mental characteristics he had considerable +affinity. + +In 1829 appeared his first historical work, the 'History of the Jews,' +a work which excited a violent storm of theological indignation. The +crime of Milman was that he applied to Jewish history the usual canons +of historical criticism--sifting evidence, discriminating between +documents, pointing out the parallelisms between Jewish conditions and +those of other Oriental nations, and attempting to separate in the +sacred writings the parts which were essential and revealed from those +which were merely human and fallible. In a remarkable preface to a +revised and enlarged edition of this work, which was published thirty +years later, he laid down very clearly the principles that had guided +him. The Jewish writers, in his opinion, were 'men of their age and +country who, as they spoke the language, so they thought the thoughts +of their nation and their time.... They had no special knowledge on +any subject but moral and religious truth to distinguish them from +other men, and were as fallible as others on all questions of science, +and even of history, extraneous to their religious teaching.... Their +one paramount object being instruction and enlightenment in religion, +they left their hearers uninstructed and unenlightened as before in +other things.... In all other respects society, civilisation, +developed itself according to its usual laws. The Hebrew in the +wilderness, excepting as far as the law modified his manners and +habits, was an Arab of the desert. Abraham, except in his worship and +intercourse with the one true God, was a nomad Sheik.... The moral and +religious truth, and this alone, I apprehend, is "the word of God" +contained in the sacred writings.' + +It must also, he contended, be always remembered that the Semitic +records are of an 'essentially Oriental, figurative, poetical cast,' +and that it is therefore wholly erroneous to suppose that every word +can be construed with the precision of an Act of Parliament or of a +simple modern historical narrative. + +His attitude towards the miraculous was carefully defined. He observed +the absolute impossibility of evading the conclusion that the Jewish +writers, whether eye-witnesses or not, implicitly believed in 'the +supernaturalism, the divine or miraculous agency almost throughout the +older history of the Jews,' and that it is 'an integral, inseparable +part of the narrative.' Sometimes it is possible 'with more or less +probability to detect the naked fact which may lie beneath the +imaginative or marvellous language in which it is recorded; but even +in these cases the solution can be hardly more than conjectural.' In +other cases 'the supernatural so entirely predominates and is so of +the intimate essence of the transaction that the facts and the +interpretation must be accepted together or rejected together.' In +such cases it is the duty of the historian simply 'to relate the facts +as recorded, to adduce his authorities, and to abstain from all +explanation for which he has no ground.' + +The distinction between the providential and the strictly miraculous +appears to him impossible to draw. 'Belief in Divine Providence, in +the agency of God as the Prime Mover in the Natural world as in the +mind of Man, is an inseparable part of religion. There can be no +religion without it.' But in numerous cases, to distinguish between +the simply providential and the strictly miraculous implies a +knowledge of the working of natural causes greater than we possess; +and in certain stages of civilisation, and very eminently in the +Jewish mind, there is a marked tendency to suppress secondary causes, +and to attribute not only the more extraordinary but also the common +events of life to direct divine agency. The possibility and the +reality of the miraculous he emphatically asserts. + +'The palmary miracle of all, the Resurrection, stands entirely by +itself. Every attempt to resolve it into a natural event, a delusion +or hallucination in the minds of the disciples, the eye-witnesses and +death-defying witnesses to its truth, or to treat it as an allegory or +figure of speech, is to me a signal failure. It must be accepted as +the keystone--for such it is--and seal to the great Christian doctrine +of a future life, as a historical fact, or rejected as a baseless +fable.' + +But great numbers of what were deemed miracles may be explained by +natural causes, by figurative modes of expression which were common in +Oriental nations, by the tendency of the human mind to embellish or +exaggerate surprising facts, or invent supernatural causes for what it +is unable to explain, by the retrospective imagination which seeks to +dignify the distant past with a supernatural halo. The early annals of +all nations are strewn with pretended miracles which no one will now +maintain, and Milman shows in a powerful passage how the idea of the +miraculous has been steadily contracting and receding; how dangerous +it is to base the defence of Christianity on the evidence of miracles +rather than on appeals to the conscience, the moral sense, the innate +religiousness, the deep spiritual cravings of human nature. + +Such views, though now sufficiently commonplace, seemed very novel in +England when Milman wrote. Dean Stanley described his work as 'the +first decisive inroad of German theology into England; the first +palpable indication that the Bible could be studied like another book; +that the characters and events of sacred history could be treated at +once critically and reverently.' But though Milman was very well +acquainted with German theology, he resented the notion that he was +its interpreter or representative. He contended that in restricting +the province of inspiration to the direct inculcation of religious +truth he was following a sound Anglican tradition. He quoted the +authority of Paley and Warburton, of Tillotson and Secker. In such +principles of interpretation he said he had found 'a safeguard during +a long and not unreflective life against the difficulties arising out +of the philosophical and historical researches of his time.' They had +enabled him 'to follow out all the marvellous discoveries of science, +and all those hardly less marvellous, if less certain, conclusions of +historical, ethnological, linguistic criticism, in the serene +confidence that they are utterly irrelevant to the truth of +Christianity.' 'If on such subjects,' he concluded, 'some solid ground +be not found on which highly educated, reflective, reading, reasoning +men may find firm footing, I can foresee nothing but a wide, a +widening--I fear, an irreparable--breach between the thought and the +religion of England. A comprehensive, all-embracing, truly Catholic +Christianity which knows what is essential to religion, what is +temporary and extraneous to it, may defy the world.' + +These words are taken from the later preface to which we have +referred. In the same preface, and also in his 'History of +Christianity,' may be found some interesting remarks on the German +school of Biblical criticism, the greater portion of which has arisen +since the original publication of the 'History of the Jews.' In many +of its conclusions he had anticipated it, and he was quite as sensible +as the German writers of the hopelessness of seeking scientific +revelations in the Biblical narrative; of the worthlessness of most of +the common schemes for reconciling science and theology; of the +untrustworthy character of Jewish chronology and Jewish figures; of +the grave doubts that hang over the authorship and the date of some of +the books; of the necessity of making full allowance, when reading +them, for human fallibility and inaccuracy. At the same time, his +admiration for the German critics was by no means unqualified. While +fully admitting their extraordinary learning, industry, and ingenuity, +he complained that their too common infirmity was 'a passion for +making history without historical materials,' basing the most dogmatic +and positive statements upon faint indications, or upon ingenious +conjectures that could not legitimately go beyond a very low degree of +probability. The assurance with which these writers undertook by +internal evidence to decompose ancient documents, assigning each +paragraph to an independent source; the decisive weight they were +accustomed to give to slight improbabilities or coincidences, and to +small variations of style and phraseology; the confidence with which +they put forward solutions or conjectures which, however ingenious or +plausible, were based on no external evidence as if they were proved +facts, appeared to him profoundly unhistorical. + +It must have been somewhat irritating to one who clung so closely to +University life, and who had been justly regarded as one of the most +brilliant of Oxford scholars, to find that his own University was +prominent in the condemnation of the 'History of the Jews.' Only two +years before he had preached with general approbation the Bampton +Lectures in defence of Christianity. His new work was again and again +condemned from the University pulpits, and among others by the +Margaret Professor of Divinity and by the Hulsean lecturer for 1832. +The clamour was naturally taken up in many other quarters, and +especially by the religious newspapers. It was noticed that 'Milman's +History' appeared in the window of Carlisle, the infidel bookseller. + +'I only wish,' wrote Milman, when the fact was brought to his notice, +'all Carlisle's customers would read it. A noble lord once wrote to +the bishop of a certain diocese to complain that a baronet who lived +in the same parish brought his mistress to church, which sorely +shocked his regular family. The bishop gravely assured him that he was +very glad to hear that Sir ---- brought his naughty lady to church, +and hoped that she would profit by what she heard there and amend her +ways. So say I of Carlisle's customers.'[50] + +The opinions expressed in this, as in his later works, no doubt in +some degree obstructed the promotion of Milman in the Church, but he +had no reason to regret it. Of all men, he once said, he thought he +owed most to Bishop Blomfield, for there was once a question of +offering him a bishopric, and it was a remonstrance of the Bishop of +London that prevented it. 'I am _afraid_,' he said, 'that if it had +been offered me I should have accepted it, and I should then never +have written my "Latin Christianity."' But, though he escaped the fate +which has cut short the best work of more than one distinguished +historian, his conspicuous position among the scholars and writers in +the Church was widely recognised, and he was soon transferred from a +provincial town to a central position in the Metropolis. In 1835 Sir +Robert Peel made him Rector of St. Margaret's, Westminster, and +Prebendary in the Abbey. Though continuing without intermission his +historical work, he appears to have discharged with exemplary vigour +the duties of a large and poor parish until 1849, when Lord John +Russell appointed him Dean of St. Paul's. The position was exactly +suited to him. It was one of much dignity, but also of much leisure, +and it gave him ample opportunities of pursuing the studies which were +the true work of his life. + +The great subject of the history of Christianity was, indeed, +continually before him. Among other things, he studied minutely both +the text and the authorities of Gibbon, for whom he had a deep and +growing admiration. An excellent edition of Gibbon was one of the +first results. Milman's notes have been included in Smith's later +edition, and, though a large proportion of them were naturally +somewhat controversial, being devoted to refuting some of the +conclusions of the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters, it is impossible +to read them without recognising the candour as well as the learning +and the acumen of the critic. Few things that Milman has written are +finer than the preface in which, in ten or twelve masterly pages, he +sums up his estimate of his great predecessor. + +The three volumes of the 'History of Christianity,' dealing with its +early history up to the period of the abolition of Paganism in the +Roman Empire, appeared in 1840, and they were followed by the six +large volumes of the 'History of Latin Christianity,' carrying the +history of the Western Church to the end of the Pontificate of +Nicholas V. in 1455. This great work was published in two +instalments--the first three volumes in 1854, and the remaining three +in the following year--and it gave its author indisputably the first +place among the ecclesiastical historians of England and a high place +among the historians of the nineteenth century. He possessed, indeed, +in an eminent degree some of the qualities that are most rare, and at +the same time most valuable, in ecclesiastical history. A large +proportion of the most learned ecclesiastical historians have been men +who have devoted their whole lives to this single department of +knowledge, who derived from it all their measures of probability and +canons of criticism, and who, treating it as an isolated and mainly +supernatural thing, have taken very little account of the intellectual +and political secular influences that have largely shaped its course. +Most of them also have been men who undertook their task with +convictions and habits of thought that were absolutely incompatible +with real independence and impartiality of judgment in estimating +either the events or the characters they described. Milman was wholly +free from these defects. His wide knowledge, his cool, critical, +admirably trained judgment, were never better shown than in the many +pages in which he has pointed out the analogies or resemblances +between Jewish and other Oriental beliefs; the manner in which +national characteristics or secular intellectual tendencies affected +theological types; the countless modifications in belief or practice +which grew up, as the Church accommodated itself to the conditions of +successive ages and entered into alliance or conflict with different +political systems; the many indirect, subtle, far-reaching ways in +which the world and the Church interacted upon each other in all the +great departments of speculation, art, industry, social and political +life. A certain aloofness and coldness of judgment in dealing with +sacred subjects was the reproach which was most frequently brought +against him. As he himself said, he wrote rather as an historian than +a religious instructor, and he dealt with his subject chiefly in its +temporal, social, and political aspects. Justice and impartiality of +judgment to friend and foe he deemed one of the first moral duties of +an historian, and Dean Church was not wrong in ascribing to him a +quite 'unusual combination of the strongest feeling about right and +wrong with the largest equity.' 'What a delightful book, so tolerant +of the intolerant!' was his characteristic eulogy of the work of +another writer, and it truly reflects the turn of his own mind. +Provost Hawtrey, who was no mean judge of men, said, after an intimacy +of nearly fifty years, that he had never known a man who possessed in +a greater degree than Milman the virtue of Christian charity in its +highest and rarest form. It was a gift which stood him in good stead +in dealing with the very blended characters, the tangled politics, the +often misguided enthusiasms of ecclesiastical history. While he was +constitutionally extremely averse to the moral casuistry which +confuses the boundaries of right and wrong, he had too sound a grasp +of the evolution of history to fall into the common error of judging +the acts of one age by the moral standards of another. His history was +eminently a history of large lines and broad tendencies. The growth, +influence, and decline of the Papacy--the distinctive characteristics +of Latin and Teutonic Christianity; the effect of Christianity on +jurisprudence; the monastic system in its various phases; the rise and +conquests of Mohammedanism; the severance of Greek from Latin +Christianity; Charlemagne, Hildebrand, the Crusades, the Templars, the +Great Councils; the decay of Latin and the rise of modern languages; +the influence of the Church on literature, painting, sculpture, and +architecture--are but a few of the great subjects he has treated, +always with knowledge and intelligence, often with conspicuous +brilliancy. + +In so vast a field there were, no doubt, many subjects which have been +treated with a greater fulness and completeness by other writers. +There are some in which subsequent research has gone far to supersede +what Milman has written, and inaccuracies of detail not unfrequently +crept into his work; but in the truthfulness of its broad lines, in +the sagacity of its estimates both of men and events, it holds a high +place among the histories of the world. Very few historians have +combined in a larger measure the three great requisites of knowledge, +soundness of judgment, and inexorable love of truth. The growth and +modifications of doctrines and the minutiæ of religious controversies +were, however, subjects in which he took little interest, and though +they could not be excluded from an ecclesiastical history, they are +dealt with only in a slight and cursory manner. Those who desire to +study in detail this side of ecclesiastical history will find other +histories much more useful. It has been said that his work is +imperfect as a book of reference, for while the great events and +personages are discussed with a fulness that leaves little to be +desired, many of the more insignificant transactions or more obscure +periods are passed over or barely noticed. Critics of different +religious schools have also complained that his mind was essentially +secular; that he had a low sense of the certainty and the importance +of dogma; that there were some classes of ecclesiastical writers who +have been deeply revered in the Church with whom he had no real +sympathy; that the spirit of criticism was stronger in his book than +the spirit of reverence; that he did not do full justice to the +spiritual and inner side of the religion he described. He looked upon +it, they said, too externally. He valued it as a moral revolution, the +introduction of new principles of virtue and new rules for individual +and social happiness. Much of this criticism would probably have been +accepted with but little qualification by Milman himself. He would +have said that what these writers complained of was in the main +inseparable from an historical as distinguished from a devotional +treatment of his subject. He would have added that no form of human +history reveals so clearly as ecclesiastical history the fallibility, +the credulity, the intolerance of the human mind, or requires more +imperatively the constant exercise of independent judgment and of +fearless and unsparing criticism, and that, if the history of the +Church is ever to be written with profit, it must be written in such a +spirit. Of his own deeper convictions he seldom spoke; but in the +concluding page of his 'Latin Christianity' there is a passage of +profound interest. Leaving it, as he says, to the future historian of +religion to say what part of the ancient dogmatic system may be +allowed to fall silently into disuse, and what transformations the +interpretation of the Sacred Writings may still undergo, he adds these +significant words: + +'As it is my own confident belief that the words of Christ, and his +words alone (the primal indefeasible truths of Christianity), shall +not pass away, so I cannot presume to say that men may not attain to a +clearer, at the same time more full, comprehensive, and balanced sense +of those words, than has as yet been generally received in the +Christian world. As all else is transient and mutable, these only +eternal and universal, assuredly whatever light may be thrown on the +mental constitution of man, even on the constitution of nature and the +laws which govern the world, will be concentered so as to give a more +penetrating vision of those undying truths.... Christianity may yet +have to exercise a far wider, even if more silent and untraceable +influence, through its primary, all-pervading principles, on the +civilisation of mankind.' + +Macaulay, speaking of the 'History of Latin Christianity' in his +Journal, says, 'I was more impressed than ever by the contrast between +the substance and the style: the substance is excellent; the style +very much otherwise.' Looking at it from a purely literary point of +view it had undoubtedly great merits. Milman had an admirable sense of +proportion--a rare quality in history. He was invariably lucid, and it +is easy to cull from his history many characters excellently drawn, +many pages of vivid narrative, or terse and weighty criticism. Still, +on the whole his historic style is on a lower level than that of +Macaulay, Buckle, and Froude, though it will compare, I think, not +unfavourably with that of Hallam and Grote. The points of controversy +are usually relegated to his notes, which contain a great mass of +curious learning and excellent criticism. The reader who turns to them +from works of the German school will be struck by his strong English +common-sense and grasp of facts, and his dislike of subtle far-fetched +ingenuities of explanation. He has the crowning merit of being always +readable, and his strong sane moral sense never left him. He was +probably at his best in the later volumes, when he could treat his +subject like secular history and was free from the embarrassing +theological difficulties of the earlier portion, and he is especially +admirable in those chapters which give scope to his wide literary and +artistic sympathies. He was an excellent Italian scholar and keenly +sensible of the beauties of Italian literature, and his love of the +ancient classics never left him. There was something at once +characteristic and amusing in the delight which he again and again +expressed, after the termination of his History, at being able to +return to them after spending so many years in reading bad Latin and +Greek. In taste and character he was indeed pre-eminently a man of +letters, and as such he ranks in the first line among his +contemporaries. + +The outburst of indignation that in some quarters had greeted the +first appearance of the 'History of the Jews' was not repeated when +that work was republished in an enlarged form. Nor does it appear to +have arisen on the appearance of the two later histories. Newman +reviewed the 'History of Early Christianity' at great length, speaking +with much personal respect of the writer, though he was naturally +extremely hostile to its spirit. The difference between the High +Church sentiment and the mind of Milman was indeed organic. Milman's +own type of thought was formed before the Tractarian movement had +begun; the sacerdotal spirit was thoroughly alien to him, and his +profound study of ecclesiastical history had certainly not tended to +attract him to it. He fully recognised both the abilities and the +piety of Newman, and he described his secession as perhaps the +greatest loss the Church of England had experienced since the +Reformation; but he disliked his opinions, he profoundly distrusted +the whole character of his mind and reasonings, and he early foresaw +that he could never find a permanent resting-place in the English +Church. In the posthumous volume of Essays there will be found a full +and most searching examination of Newman's 'Essay on Development,' in +which these points of difference are clearly shown. For Keble, Milman +entertained warmer feelings. They were contemporaries, and at one time +most intimate friends. In the field of sacred poetry they had been +fellow-labourers. Keble had succeeded Milman as professor of poetry, +and Milman had been one of the few persons who had read the 'Christian +Year' in manuscript. When, after Keble's death, a committee was +appointed to erect a memorial to his memory, Milman was much hurt at +finding that it was determined to give it a distinctly Tractarian +character, and that his own name was deliberately excluded. In +Milman's last years the Oxford movement had begun to assume its +ritualistic form, and questions of vestments and ceremonies and +candles came to the forefront. With all this Milman had no sympathy. +'After the drama,' he said of it, 'the melodrama!' + +It was a remarkable coincidence that for some years the two deaneries +of London were both held by brilliant men of letters and by men with +the strongest theological sympathy. A feeling of warm personal +affection united Milman and Stanley, and there was something +peculiarly touching in the almost filial attitude which Stanley +assumed towards his older colleague. In one point, however, they +differed greatly. Stanley was a keen fighter. He threw himself into +the forefront of ecclesiastical controversies, and was never seen to +greater advantage than when leading a small minority, defying +inveterate prejudice, defending an unpopular cause. Milman could +seldom be tempted to follow his example. He pleaded old age and +declining strength, but, in truth, though he never flinched from the +avowal of his own opinions, he had a deep and increasing distaste for +religious controversies and Church politics. He was rarely seen in +Convocation, and he always regarded its revival as a misfortune. He +proposed, however, in it a petition for the discontinuance of the use +of the State services commemorating the martyrdom of Charles I., the +restoration of Charles II., the discovery of the gunpowder plot, and +the Revolution of 1688; and Parliament soon after adopted his view. He +also sat on the Royal Commission in 1864 for considering the subject +of clerical subscription. He took on this occasion a characteristic +line, advocating a complete abolition of the subscription of the +Articles, and desiring that the sole test of membership of the Church +should be the acceptance of the Liturgy and the Creeds. In 1865 he +received an invitation, which greatly gratified him, to preach before +the University of Oxford the annual sermon on Hebrew prophecy. The +sermon was delivered in the pulpit of St. Mary's, where many years +before he had been so vehemently condemned for views on the same +subject, no one of which, as he truly said, he had either recanted or +modified. His sermon was afterwards printed, and would form a worthy +chapter of his 'History of the Jews.' In the Colenso controversy he +had no great sympathy with either side. Many of Bishop Colenso's +arguments appeared to him crude or exaggerated, and he dissented from +many of his conclusions, but he considered that he had been treated +with gross injustice and intolerance, and he accordingly subscribed to +his defence fund. For the rest, he confined his ecclesiastical life as +much as possible to his own cathedral, where he presided over the +State funeral of the Duke of Wellington, and where he introduced the +custom of throwing open the nave to evening services. His last and +unfinished work was his 'Annals of St. Paul's,' investigating its +history and portraying with his old learning and with much of his old +felicity the lives of his predecessors. + +It was however in secular literary society that he was most fitted to +shine, and there he passed many of his happiest hours. The usual +honours of a distinguished man of letters clustered thickly around +him. He was a trustee of the British Museum; an honorary member of the +Royal Academy; a correspondent of the French Institute. He was also a +member of 'The Club'--the small dining-club which was founded in 1764 +by Sir Joshua Reynolds and Dr. Johnson, and which since then has +included in its fortnightly dinners the great majority of those +Englishmen who in many walks of life have been most distinguished by +their genius or their accomplishments. He was elected to it in 1836, +three years before Macaulay, and he became one of its most constant +attendants. In 1841 'The Club' made him its treasurer, and he held +that position for twenty-three years, and presided over the centenary +dinner in 1864. He was also an original member of the Philobiblion +Society, which has brought together many curious and hitherto unknown +documents, and he wrote for it a short paper on Michael Scott the +Wizard, who, as he showed, had been once offered the Archbishopric of +Cashel. He was never a keen politician, but he was intimate with a +long succession of leading statesmen, and he contributed to Sir +Cornewall Lewis's 'Administrations of Great Britain' a full and +valuable letter on the relations of Pitt and Addington, which was +largely based on his own recollections of the latter statesman. + +London society in the middle of the nineteenth century was much +smaller and less mixed than at present, and there was then a +distinctively literary or at least intellectual society which can now +hardly be said to exist. The most eminent men of letters came more +frequently together. Criticism was in fewer and perhaps stronger +hands, and was to a larger extent representative of the opinions +expressed in such social gatherings. In this kind of society Milman +was long a foremost figure. He had all the gifts that fit men for +it--not only brilliancy, knowledge, and versatility, but also +unfailing tact, a rare charm of courtesy, a singularly wide tolerance. +He was quick and generous in recognising rising talent, and he had +that sympathetic touch which seldom failed to elicit what was best in +those with whom he came in contact. Few men possessed more eminently +the genius of friendship--the power of attaching others--the power of +attaching himself to others. In the long list of his intimate friends +Macaulay, Sir Charles Lyell, and Sir George Cornewall Lewis were +conspicuous. Like most men of this type, he found the multiplying +gaps around him the chief trial of old age. Not long before he died +there was an exhibition of contemporary portraits, but though Milman +went to it he could not go through it. 'When I found myself,' he said, +'surrounded by the likenesses--often the miserable likenesses--of so +many I had known and loved, it was more than I could bear.' + +An admirable portrait by Watts which is now in the National Portrait +Gallery will recall to those who knew him his appearance in old +age--his strong masculine features beaming with intelligence, his +grand shaggy brows, his bright and penetrating eyes. An illness +affecting the spine had bowed him nearly double, and there are still +those who will remember how his bent figure seemed projected, almost +like a bird in its flight, across the dinner-table, while his eager +brilliant talk delighted and fascinated his hearers. In his last years +increasing deafness obliged him to narrow the circle of his social +life, but he retained to the end all the vividness of his mind and +sympathies, and when at length death came in his seventy-eighth year, +it found him in the midst of unfinished work. His life was not of a +kind to win wide popularity and to give him a conspicuous place among +the great masses of his nation, but few English clergymen of his +generation made so deep an impression on those who came in contact +with them or have left works of such enduring value behind them. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[48] _Henry Hart Milman, D.D., Dean of St. Paul's._ A Biographical +Sketch by his son, Arthur Milman, M.A., LL.D. + +[49] Laurence's _Life of Sir A. Sullivan_, p. 310. + +[50] Smiles' _Memoirs of John Murray_, ii. p. 300. + + + + +QUEEN VICTORIA AS A MORAL FORCE + + +At a time when the unprecedented increase of gigantic and rapidly +acquired fortunes has deeply infected both English and American +society with the characteristic vices of a Plutocracy, the profound +feeling of sorrow and admiration elicited by the death of Queen +Victoria is an encouraging sign. It shows that the vulgar ideals, the +false moral measurements, the feverish social ambitions, the love of +the ostentatious and the factitious, and the disdain for simple +habits, pleasures, and characters so apparent in certain conspicuous +sections of society, have not yet blunted the moral sense or perverted +the moral perceptions of the great masses on either side of the +Atlantic. To this type, indeed, we could scarcely find a more complete +antithesis than in the life and character of the great Queen who has +passed away. Nothing more deeply impressed all who came in contact +with her than the essential simplicity and genuineness of her nature. + +She was a great ruler, but she was also to the last a true, kindly, +simple-minded woman, retaining with undiminished intensity all the +warmth of a most affectionate nature, all the soundness of a most +excellent judgment. Brought up from childhood in the artificial +atmosphere of a Court, called while still a girl to the isolation of a +throne; deprived, when her reign had yet forty years to run, of the +support and counsel of her husband, she might well have been pardoned +if she often found herself out of touch with large sections of her +people, and had viewed life through a false medium or in partial +aspects. Yet Lord Salisbury probably in no degree exaggerated when he +said that if he wished to ascertain the feelings and opinions of the +English people, and especially of the English middle classes, he knew +no truer or more enlightening judgment than that of the Queen. She +thought with them and she felt with them; she shared their ambitions; +she knew by a kind of intuitive instinct the course of their +judgments; she sympathised deeply with their trials and their sorrows. + +She could hardly be called a brilliant woman. It is difficult indeed +to judge the full social capacities of anyone who lives under the +constant restraints of a royal position, but I do not think that in +any sphere of life the Queen would have been regarded as a woman of +striking wit, or originality, or even commanding power. The qualities +that made her so successful in her high calling were of another kind: +supreme good sense; a tact in dealing with men and circumstances so +unfailing that it almost amounted to genius; an indefatigable industry +which never flagged from early youth till extreme old age; a sense of +duty so steady and so strong that it governed all her actions and +pleasures, and saved her not only from the grosser and more common +temptations of an exalted position, but also in a most unusual degree +from the subtle and often half-concealed deflecting influences that +spring from ambition or resentment, from personal predilections and +personal dislikes. It was these qualities, combined with her +unrivalled experience of affairs, and strengthened by long and +constant intercourse with the foremost English statesmen of two +generations, that made her what she undoubtedly was--a perfect model +of a constitutional Sovereign. + +The position of a Sovereign under a parliamentary government like ours +is a singular and difficult one. There was a school of politicians who +were much more prominent in the last generation than in the present +one, who regarded the Sovereign, in political life at least, as little +more than a figure-head or a cipher, absolved from all responsibility, +but also divested of all power, and fulfilling functions in the +Constitution which are little more than mechanical. This view of the +unimportance of the Monarchy will now be held by few really +intelligent men. Those take but a false and narrow view of human +affairs who fail to realise the part which sentiment and enthusiasm +play in the government of men; and no one who knows England will +question that the throne is the centre of a great strength of personal +attachment which is wholly different from any attachment to a party or +a parliament. + +In India and the Colonies this is still more the case. It is not the +British Parliament or the British Cabinet that there forms the centre +of unity or excites genuine attachment. The Crown is the main link +binding the different States to one another, and the pervading +sentiment of a common loyalty unites them in one great and living +whole. In foreign politics it cannot be a matter of indifference that +a Sovereign is closely related to nearly all the greatest rulers in +the world, and in frequent, intimate, unconstrained correspondence +with them. This is a kind of influence which no Minister, however +powerful, can exercise, and it was possessed by Queen Victoria +probably to a greater degree than by any Sovereign on record, for +there has scarcely ever been one who included among her relations so +many of the Sovereigns of the world. Future historians will no doubt +have ample means of judging how frequently and how judiciously it was +employed in assuaging differences and promoting European peace. All +the great offices in Church and State, all the great distributions of +honours were submitted to her; and though in a large number of cases +this patronage is purely Ministerial or professional, there are many +cases in which the Sovereign had a real voice, and a strong objection +on her part was usually attended to. In Church patronage and in the +distribution of honours she is known to have taken a great interest, +and to have exercised a considerable influence. + +The one subject on which the Queen was not always in harmony with her +people was that of foreign politics. She and the Prince Consort took a +keen interest in them, and during his lifetime she followed very +implicitly his guidance. The strong German sympathies she imbued from +her own marriage were much intensified by the marriages of her +children, and especially by that of her eldest daughter to the heir of +the Prussian throne. The influence also of Stockmar, who was the +closest adviser of her early married life, was not wholly for good, +and the theory which the Prince held that the direction of foreign +affairs is in a peculiar degree under the care of the Sovereign, and +that the Prince, her husband, should be regarded as 'her permanent +Minister,' created during many years much friction. In a +constitutional country, where the responsibility of affairs rests +wholly on the Minister, who is doubly responsible to the Cabinet and +to the Parliament, such a theory can only be maintained with great +qualifications. + +On the other hand, the government of the country was carried on in the +name of the Queen. Foreign despatches were addressed to her and could +only be answered with her sanction. The right of the English +Sovereigns to be present at the Cabinet Councils of their Ministers +was abdicated when George I. came to the throne, but every important +departure in policy was submitted to the Queen and required her +assent. The testimony of Ministers of all shades of policy supports +the belief that this was no idle form. The Queen, though always open +to argument and tolerant of contradiction, had her own decided +opinions; she exercised her undoubted right of expressing and +defending them, and even apart from her royal position, her great +experience and her singular clearness and rectitude of judgment made +her opinion well worth listening to. + +The claim put forward by the Queen in her famous memorandum of August +1850, can, I think, hardly be pronounced excessive. She demanded only +that before a line of policy was adopted and brought before her she +should be distinctly informed of the facts of the case and of the +motives that inspired it; that when she had given her sanction to a +measure it should not be arbitrarily altered or modified by the +Minister; that she must be kept acquainted with all important +communications between foreign Ministers and her own Foreign +Secretary, and that the drafts of foreign despatches must be sent to +her for her approval in sufficient time for her to make herself +acquainted with them. She complained that Lord Palmerston was +accustomed to send despatches to the Continent without submitting +them, in their last revise, to the Sovereign; that in one case he +retained without her knowledge a passage which the Prince Consort had +deleted; that he paid little or no attention to the numerous memoranda +which were drawn up by the Prince for his instruction; that he of his +own will and without any consultation committed his Government, in a +conversation with the French Ambassador, to an approbation of the +_coup d'état_ of Napoleon III. If the general line of his policy had +been in accordance with the royal wishes, indiscretions of detail +could probably have been overlooked, but the Queen and Prince were +both undoubtedly on many occasions--and especially in 1848 and +1849--strongly opposed to the policy of Lord Palmerston. In the +interests of peace they objected to the remarkably provocative +character of his despatches, which excited a degree of animosity and +resentment among the Governments of the Continent that has rarely been +paralleled--on two, if not three, occasions it brought England into +grave danger of a war with France--and which aroused a very widespread +indignation among statesmen of his own party at home. + +The widely different tone which was adopted by Lord Clarendon and Lord +Granville, the open breach between Palmerston and Lord John Russell on +account of the way in which the former conducted his foreign policy +without consultation with the Cabinet, and the refusal of Lord Grey, +in a most critical moment, to take office in a Government in which +Lord Palmerston held the seals of the Foreign Office, show how fully +in this respect the sentiments of the Queen accorded with those of +many of Lord Palmerston's own colleagues. But in addition to mere +questions of manner and procedure, there was much in the substance of +the policy of Palmerston to which the Queen objected. Her dislike to +the Revolutionary element on the Continent, which Lord Palmerston +either encouraged or viewed with indifference, her sympathy with the +old governments and dynasties, that were so gravely shaken in the year +of the Revolution, were very marked. In the disputes between Germany +and Denmark on the Schleswig-Holstein question her sympathies, unlike +those of her people, were decidedly with Germany, and although she was +fully sensible of the misgovernment of some of the Italian States, she +was not favourable to that cause of Italian unity which Lord John +Russell and Lord Palmerston so strenuously upheld. Her nature, which +was very frank, made it impossible for her, even if she desired it, to +conceal her opinions, and she devoted much time and pains to making +herself acquainted with the details of every question as it arose. She +made it a rule to sign no paper that she had not read. She did not +hesitate fully to apprise her Ministers of her views when they +differed from their own, and she enforced her views by argument and +remonstrance. She more than once drew up memoranda of her dissent from +the opinions of her Foreign Minister, and insisted on their being +brought before the Cabinet for consideration. In the formation of a +new Ministry she more than once exercised her power of deciding to +whom the succession of the first places should be offered. After an +adverse vote of the House of Commons, she considered herself fully +authorised to decide whether she would accept the resignation of a +Minister or submit the issue to the test of a dissolution, and there +were occasions on which she remonstrated with her Ministers on their +too ready determination to resign. + +At the same time it is certain that the Queen fulfilled with +perfection that most difficult duty of an able constitutional +Sovereign--the duty of yielding her convictions to those of her +responsible Ministers and acting faithfully with Ministers she +distrusted. To a Sovereign with clear views and a more than common +force of character this must often have been very painful, and to have +fulfilled it faithfully and with no loss of dignity is no small merit. +It is the universal testimony of all who served her, that no Sovereign +ever supported her successive Ministers with a more perfect loyalty or +held the scales between contending parties with a more complete +impartiality. No one understood better to what point a constitutional +Sovereign may press her opinions and at what point she is bound to +give way; and while maintaining her rightful authority she never in +any degree transgressed its bounds. In the very beginning of her reign +she showed this quality in a high degree. She looked up to Lord +Melbourne with an almost filial affection, and there were peculiar +reasons why his great opponent, Sir Robert Peel, should have been +distasteful to her. The dispute about the removal of her Ladies of the +Bedchamber, and still more the conduct of Sir Robert Peel in +supporting the reduction of the income which the Whigs had proposed +for Prince Albert, must have touched her feelings on the most +sensitive points, and the stiff, formal, somewhat awkward manner of +Peel seemed very little fitted to ingratiate him with a young +Sovereign. Yet when the change of Ministry arrived, Peel found no +trace of resentment in the Queen. She gave him her complete +confidence, and she fully estimated his great qualities. Of all the +Ministers who served her there is indeed none of whom she has written +in warmer terms. When Lord Palmerston became Prime Minister in 1855 it +was contrary to her earnest desire, but when the change was made +Palmerston himself acknowledged that he had 'no reason to complain of +the least want of cordiality or confidence on the part of the Court.' +At the time when she was most opposed to her Ministers, she fully +acquiesced in the principle that she must submit all letters on public +affairs to them and frame her replies upon their advice. There were +constant attempts on the part of foreign Sovereigns who were connected +with her to carry on affairs by correspondence with her without the +knowledge and sanction of her Ministers, but the Queen steadily +resisted them. Anything, indeed, that in any way savoured of intrigue +was in the highest degree repugnant to her nature. + +She acted in the same way in internal affairs. Few measures that were +carried in her time were more repugnant to her than Gladstone's +disestablishment of the Irish Church. It abolished an institution of +which she was herself the head and which a special clause in the +Coronation Oath required her to uphold, and she foretold, not without +good reason, that it would not pacify Ireland but would be an +encouragement to further agitation. The question, however, had been +submitted at a general election to the decision of the country, and +after that decision had been unequivocally given in favour of the +policy of Gladstone, she frankly accepted it with the assent of the +Prime Minister. When a great danger of a conflict between the two +Houses of Parliament had arisen, she devoted herself actively in +preventing it. She employed for that service the instrumentality of +Archbishop Tait--a great statesman-prelate, whose promotion to the see +of Canterbury was due to her own personal initiative, contrary to the +wish of Lord Beaconsfield, but most fully justified by the result--and +it was largely due to the intervention of the Queen that the Church +Bill was not thrown out in the House of Lords. She acted in a +somewhat similar way with reference to the Franchise Bill of 1884, +though on this occasion she does not seem to have disliked the +measure, which she urged the House of Lords to accept. + +On three very memorable occasions the intervention of the Queen had +probably a great effect on English politics. It is well known that at +the time when the issue of peace or war with the United States was +trembling in the balance on account of the seizure of the Southern +envoys on the 'Trent,' the Queen, acting in accordance with the Prince +Consort, by softening and revising the language of an English despatch +to America, did very much to prevent the dispute from leading to a +great war; that in the proclamation which was issued to the Indian +people after the Sepoy Mutiny, she insisted on the excision of some +most unfortunate words that seemed to menace the native creeds, and on +the insertion of an emphatic promise that they should in no wise be +interfered with, and thus probably prevented a new outburst of most +dangerous fanaticism; that at the time of the Schleswig-Holstein +dispute she contributed powerfully and actively to give a turn to the +negotiations that averted a war with Prussia and Austria, which, as is +now almost universally recognised, could only have led to a great +catastrophe. + +Whatever opinions may be formed of the merits of the dispute between +Denmark and the German powers about Schleswig-Holstein, few persons +who judge by the event can doubt that an isolated intervention of +England on behalf of Denmark against the combined forces of Austria +and Prussia would have been absolutely impotent to effect the object +that was desired, and that even if France had consented to join in the +struggle it would have led to a military disaster hardly less than +that of the war of Sedan. If, contrary to all probability, the +combined forces of France and England had proved stronger than those +of Austria and Germany, the result could have hardly failed to be that +France would have been established on the left bank of the Rhine, and +that the treaty of Vienna, which it was one of the great objects of +English policy to maintain, would have been torn into shreds. + +The dangers, however, of conflict arising from the extreme +irritability of English public opinion against Germany on the Danish +question, were very great, and there can be little doubt that the +personal influence of the Queen with the German Sovereign was an +appreciable influence, and it was her desire that a paragraph in the +Queen's Speech opening Parliament in February 1864 was erased. Words +which contained at least a veiled or attributed threat to Germany were +omitted, and instead of them an inoffensive paragraph was inserted +expressing the Queen's ardent desire for peace and recording the +earnest efforts she had made to maintain it.[51] At the same time +when, by the Convention of Gastein in August 1865, the Duchies were +severed from the Danish throne and placed in the virtual possession of +Prussia and Austria, the protest of Lord Russell against so flagrant a +violation of public right, and especially of the right of the people +to be consulted on their own destiny, was drawn up with her full +assent and indeed in a great measure at her suggestion.[52] + +On other occasions her remonstrances were disregarded, and courses +were pursued to which she strongly objected. The surrender after +Majuba was in her opinion a pusillanimous abandonment of the English +flag, and it was with extreme reluctance that she acquiesced in it. +Still more vehement were her feelings about the long abandonment of +General Gordon in the Soudan. She had been indefatigable in urging on +the Ministry of Gladstone the duty of speedy measures for his rescue, +and when, owing to the long delay of the Ministry, the most heroic of +modern Englishmen perished at Khartoum, her indignation knew no +bounds. In a letter to his sisters, burning with mingled pity and +indignation, she pronounced his 'cruel though heroic fate' to be 'a +stain left upon England,' which she keenly felt. This was one of the +few occasions in which she allowed her sentiments in hostility to the +policy of her Ministers to appear publicly before the world. In +general, she had a profound distrust of the policy and judgment of Mr. +Gladstone, and she fully shared the dread with which the great body of +English statesmen looked upon the Home Rule policy. It was no new +sentiment on her part, for she had lived through the Repeal agitation +of O'Connell, and as far back as 1843 Sir Robert Peel had somewhat +unconstitutionally declared in Parliament that he was authorised by +the Queen to state that she, like her predecessor, was resolved to +maintain the Union inviolate by all the means in her power. + +There can now be no harm in saying--what when both parties were alive +was naturally kept in the background--that the relations of the Queen +with Mr. Gladstone were usually of a very painful character. She had +personally not much to complain of. The skill and firmness with which +Mr. Gladstone resisted the attempts to diminish the parliamentary +subsidies for her family were fully and gratefully recognised by the +Queen, but the main course of his politics, both foreign and domestic, +filled her with alarm, and she never appears to have experienced the +attraction which his great personal gifts exercised over most of those +with whom he came in immediate contact. The extreme copiousness of his +vocabulary, the extreme subtlety of his mind and reasoning, and the +imperiousness of temper with which he seldom failed to meet +opposition, were all repugnant to her. To those who have experienced +the sustained emphasis of language with which Mr. Gladstone was +accustomed in conversation to enforce his views, there is much truth +as well as humour in the saying which was attributed to the Queen, 'I +wish Mr. Gladstone would not always speak to me as if I was a public +meeting'; and a little episode which is related by Sir Theodore Martin +illustrates the irritation which Mr. Gladstone's methods of business +must have caused to a very busy and overworked lady who always loved +few words and simple and direct arguments.[53] At all times the Queen +had decided political opinions, and the experience of a long reign had +given her a large measure of not unjustifiable self-confidence. Few +persons had studied as she had during all those years the various +political questions that arose, and she had had the advantage of +discussing them at length with a long succession of the leading +statesmen of England. Under such circumstances her opinions had no +small weight, and although in the Liberal Government she gave her full +confidence to Lord Clarendon and Lord Granville, she looked with the +gravest apprehension on the policy of Mr. Gladstone. + +It was a painful and irksome position, but it did not lead the Queen +to any unconstitutional course. No public act or word ever disclosed +her feelings. It was indeed in most cases very slowly, and in small +circles and through private channels, that the convictions of the +Queen became known. + +At the close of the second Ministry of Mr. Gladstone she at once +offered him an earldom, which he refused, and on his death she fully +acquiesced in the public funeral in Westminster Abbey, and the Prince +of Wales attended it as her representative. In an autograph letter to +Mrs. Gladstone she spoke with the deep and genuine warmth that was +never wanting in her letters of condolence of her sympathy with the +bereavement of that lady. She spoke of his illustrious gifts and of +his personal kindness to herself, but it was noticed that no sentence +in the letter intimated any approbation of his general policy. 'Truth +in the inmost parts' was indeed a prominent characteristic of the +Queen, and she wrote nothing which was not in accordance with her true +convictions. + +There were occasions when she took independent steps, and some of these +had a considerable influence on politics. Louis Napoleon was one of the +few great Sovereigns who were not related to her, and to few persons +could the _coup d'état_ which brought him to the throne have been more +repugnant, but the cordial personal relations she established with him +undoubtedly contributed considerably to the good relations which for +many years subsisted between England and France. Bismarck detested +English Court influence and was greatly prejudiced against her, but he +has left a striking testimony to the favourable impression which her +tact and good sense made upon him when he first came into contact with +her. She possessed to a high degree the power of choosing the right +moment and striking the true chord, and she appears to have been an +excellent judge not only of the feelings of large bodies of men, but +also of the individual characters of those with whom she dealt. She had +a style of writing which was eminently characteristic and eminently +feminine, and it is easy to trace the letters which were entirely her +own. Her letters of congratulation, or sympathy, or encouragement on +public occasions scarcely ever failed in their effect and never +contained an injudicious word. The same thing may be said of her many +beautiful letters to those who were suffering from some grievous +calamity. Whether she was writing to a great public character like the +widow of an American President, or expressing her sorrow for obscure +sufferers, there was the same note of true womanly sympathy, so +manifestly spontaneous and so manifestly heartfelt, that it found its +way to the hearts of thousands. The tact for which she was so justly +celebrated, like all true tact, sprang largely from character, from the +quick and lively sympathies of an eminently affectionate nature. No one +could have been less theatrical, or less likely in any unworthy way to +seek for popularity; but she knew admirably the occasions or the methods +by which she could strike the imagination and appeal most favourably to +the feelings of her people. She showed this in the very beginning of her +reign when she insisted, in defiance of the opinion of the Duke of +Wellington, on riding herself through the ranks of her troops at her +first review. She showed it on countless other occasions of her long +reign--pre-eminently in her two Jubilees and in her last visit to +Ireland. It is well known that this visit was entirely her own idea. To +many it seemed rash or even positively dangerous. They dwelt upon the +bitter disaffection of a great portion of the Irish people, upon the +danger of mob outrage or even assassination, upon the extreme difficulty +of preventing a royal visit to Ireland from taking a party character and +being regarded as a party triumph or defeat. But the Queen, as Sir +William Harcourt once truly said, 'never feared her people,' and nothing +could be more happy than the manner in which she availed herself of the +new turn given to Irish feeling by the splendid achievements of Irish +soldiers in South Africa, to come over, as if to thank her Irish people +in person, and at the same time to repair in extreme old age a neglect +for which she had been often, and not altogether unjustly, blamed. There +never indeed was a more brilliant and unqualified success. To those who +witnessed the spontaneous and passionate enthusiasm with which she was +everywhere greeted, it seemed as if all bitter feeling vanished at her +presence; and the Irish visit, which was one of the last, was also one +of the brightest pages of her reign. The credit of its most skilful +arrangements belongs chiefly to the officials in Dublin, but the Irish +people will long remember the patient courage with which the aged Queen +went through its fatigues; the tactful kindness and the gracious dignity +with which she won the hearts of multitudes who had never before seen +her or spoken to her; the evident enjoyment with which she responded to +the cordiality of her reception. One feature of that visit was +especially characteristic. It was the Children's Review in Phoenix Park, +where, by the desire of the Queen, 'some fifty thousand children were +brought together to meet her. No act of kindness could have gone more +directly home to the hearts of the parents, and it left a memory in many +young minds that will never be effaced. + +It is rather, however, by the example of a life than by any public +acts that a constitutional Sovereign can impress her personality on +the affections of her people. Of the reign of Queen Victoria it may be +truly said that very few in English history have been so blameless as +this, which was the longest of all. Her Court was a model of quiet +dignity and decorum, singularly free from all the atmosphere of +intrigue and from all suspicion of injudicious or unworthy +favouritism. She managed it as she managed her family, with a happy +mixture of tact and affection; and though she gave her confidence to +many she gave it to such persons and in such a way that it seemed +never to be abused. No domestic life could in all its relations have +been more perfect, and her love of children amounted to a passion. +Among the great female rulers it would be difficult to find one less +like Queen Victoria than the Empress Catherine of Russia, but they had +this common trait of an intense love of children and a great power of +winning their affection. There is a charming letter of Catherine to +Grimm, describing her life among her grandchildren, which might almost +have been written by the English Queen. Her vast family, spread +through many countries, was her abiding interest and delight, and +although she had to pay in full measure the natural penalty of many +bereavements, she at least never knew the dreary loneliness that +clouded the last days of her great predecessor, Elizabeth. + +In the early years of her reign she fully filled her place as the +leader of English society. In the plays she patronised, in the art +she preferred, in the restrictions of her Drawing Rooms, in the +fashions she countenanced, in the intimacies she selected or +encouraged, her influence was always healthy and pure, and for some +years it powerfully affected the tone of English society. +Unfortunately, after the great calamity of her widowhood the nerves of +the Queen seem to have been shaken, and though she never intermitted +her political duties and spent daily many hours over her +correspondence, she allowed her social duties to fall too much and too +long into abeyance. She still, it is true, occasionally appeared in +public ceremonies. She laid the first stones of several hospitals and +infirmaries. She presided over the inauguration of several great +industrial enterprises. She sometimes opened Parliament in person, and +was sometimes present at military and naval reviews. But she scarcely +ever appeared in London, except for a few days. She never appeared in +a London theatre. She shrank from great crowds and large social +gatherings, and buried herself too much in her Highland home. This is +one of the few real reproaches that history is likely to bring against +her. Her influence on English society was never wholly lost, and it +was always an influence for good, but for many years it was exerted +less frequently and less powerfully than it should have been, and the +tone of large sections of society lost something by her retirement. + +It may be doubted, however, whether this long retirement really +injured her in the minds of her people. Her rare occasional +appearances had a greater weight, and the depth of feeling exhibited +by her long widowhood became a new title to respect. The transparent +simplicity and unselfishness of her character were now generally +appreciated, and her own books contributed greatly to make her people +understand her. It is in general far from a wise thing for royal +personages to descend into the arena of literature unless they possess +some special aptitude for it. They expose themselves to a kind of +criticism wholly different from that which follows them in their +public lives--a criticism more minute and often more deliberately +malevolent than that to which an ordinary writer is subject. The Queen +wrote pure and excellent English and she had a good literary taste, +but she certainly could never have become a great writer; and the +complete frankness and unreserve of her Journals, as well as their +curious homeliness of thought and feeling, were not viewed with favour +in some sections of the fashionable and of the literary world. There +were circles in which the word 'bourgeois,' and there were others in +which the word 'commonplace,' was often pronounced. Yet in this, as on +nearly all occasions when the Queen acted on her own impulse, she +acted wisely. Her books had at once an enormous circulation, and there +can be no doubt that they contributed very widely to her popularity. +Multitudes to whom she had before been little more than a name, now +realised that she was one with whom they had very much in common. Her +evident longing for sympathy produced an immediate response. Her deep +domestic affection, her constant interest in her servants, her high +spirits, her love of scenery, her love of animals, her power of taking +delight in little things, appeared vividly in her pages and came home +to the largest classes of her people. + +In some respects the Queen was an eminently democratic Sovereign. +While maintaining the dignity of her position, rank and wealth were in +her eyes always subordinate to the great realities of life and to +true human affections. In no one was the touch of Nature that makes +the whole world kin more constantly visible. She was never more in her +place than in visiting some poor tenant on the morrow of a great +bereavement, or uttering words of comfort by the sick bed of some +humble dependant. Men of all ranks who came in contact with her were +struck with her thoughtful kindness, and her royal gift of an +excellent memory never showed itself more frequently than in the +manner in which she remembered and inquired after the fortunes and +happiness of obscure persons related to those with whom she spoke. + +Her religious opinions were brought very little before the public. +Beyond a deep sense of Providential guidance and of the comforting +power of religion, little is to be gathered from her published +utterances; but she seemed equally at home in the Scotch Presbyterian +and the Anglican Episcopal Church, and her marked admiration for such +men as Dean Stanley and Norman Macleod, and for the preaching of +Principal Caird, gives some clue to the bias of her opinions. Her mind +was not speculative but eminently practical, and while she patronised +good works of the most various kinds, there is reason to believe that +those which most appealed to her personal feelings were those which +directly contributed to alleviate the sufferings, or promote the +material welfare, of the poor. She devoted the greater part of her +Jubilee present to institutions for providing nurses for the sick +poor, and this is said to have been one of the charities in which she +took the warmest and most constant interest. + +She is said not to have had any sympathy with the movement for the +extension of political power to women, which became so conspicuous in +her reign; but her own success in filling for sixty-three years the +highest political position in the nation will always be quoted in its +support. Considering, indeed, how comparatively small has been the +number of reigning female Sovereigns, it is remarkable how many in +modern times have shown themselves pre-eminently capable. Isabella of +Spain, Catherine of Russia, Maria Theresa of Austria, and our own +Elizabeth, all rise far above the level of ordinary Sovereigns. Some +of these seem figures of a larger and stronger mould than Queen +Victoria, but they governed under very different constitutional +conditions, and, with one exception, there are serious blots on their +memory. There are few sadder facts in history than that the pure and +tender-hearted Spanish Queen should have been deeply tinged with the +persecuting fanaticism of her age and country; that she should have +consented to the establishment of the Inquisition in Castile, to the +expulsion of the Moors from her dominions, to the first law in Europe +establishing a practical censorship of the Press. The unscrupulous +ambition, the shameless favouritism, the gross personal vices of +Catherine, are as conspicuous as her high intelligence, her +indomitable will, her majestic commanding power. The reign of +Elizabeth is perhaps the most glorious in English history, but the +character of that great Queen is lamentably tarnished by waywardness +and caprice. Among purely constitutional Sovereigns Queen Anne holds a +respectable, though certainly not a brilliant, place, and it may be +added that much of the merit of the very constitutional though not +very glorious reign of George II. is due to the excellent sense and +judgment of Queen Caroline. In spite of the saying of Burke, the age +of chivalry is not wholly dead. The sex of Queen Victoria no doubt +gave an additional touch of warmth to the loyalty of her people, and +many of the qualities that made her most popular are intensely, if not +distinctively, feminine. They would not, however, have given her the +place she will always hold in English history, if they had not been +united with what men are accustomed to regard as more peculiarly +masculine--a clear, well-balanced mind, singularly free from +fanaticisms and exaggerations, excellently fitted to estimate rightly +the true proportion of things. + +In the last years of her reign the political horizon greatly cleared. +Lord Beaconsfield, during his later Ministries, obtained not only her +fullest political confidence, but also won a warmer degree of personal +friendship than she had bestowed on any Minister since the death of +Lord Melbourne; and her relations with his successor, Lord Salisbury, +appear to have been perfectly harmonious. The decisive rejection by +the country of the Home Rule policy removed a great incubus from her +mind, and she was fully in harmony with the strong Imperialist +sentiments which now began to prevail in English thought, and +especially with the warmer feeling towards our distant colonies which +was one of its chief characteristics. Her own popularity also rapidly +grew. She had keenly felt and bitterly resented the reproaches which +had at one period been frequently brought against her for her neglect +of social and ceremonial duties during many years of her widowhood. +Her censors, she maintained, made no allowance for her loneliness, her +advancing years, her feeble health, the overwhelming and incessant +pressure of her more serious political duties. But her two Jubilees, +bringing her once more into close touch with her people, put an end to +these reproaches. The Queen found with pleasure and perhaps with +surprise how capable she still was of performing great public +functions, and the vast outburst of spontaneous loyalty and affection +of which she became the object gave her deep and unconcealed pleasure. +To those, however, who were closely in connection with her it was +touching to observe the gracious and unaffected modesty with which she +received the homage of her subjects. Flattery was one of the things +she disliked the most, and all who knew her best were struck with the +singularly modest view she always took of herself. But blending with +this modesty, and even with a shyness which she never wholly +conquered, was the craving of a deeply affectionate and womanly nature +for sympathy, and this craving was now abundantly gratified. + +Still, with all this there was much that was melancholy in her later +days. She had survived nearly all the intimacies of her youth. Death +had made--especially in very recent times--many gaps in the circle of +those who were nearest to her, and several of her children and of her +children's husbands had preceded her to the tomb. Her sight had +greatly failed. She was bowed down by physical infirmity, and her last +year was saddened by a long, sanguinary, and inglorious war. Yet +almost to the very end she continued with unabated courage to fulfil +her daily task, and there was no sign that she had lost anything of +her quick sympathy and her admirable judgment and tact. Her life was a +most harmonious whole in which mind and character were happily +attuned, + + Like perfect music set to noble words. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[51] _Queen Victoria_, by Sidney Lee, p. 349. + +[52] Ollivier, _L'Empire Libéral_, vii. p. 455. + +[53] Sir Theodore Martin was asked by the Queen to give her a _précis_ +of a very long and unintelligible letter of Mr. Gladstone purporting to +explain the Irish Church Disestablishment Bill (_Queen Victoria as I +knew Her_, by Sir Theodore Martin).--ED. + + + + +OLD-AGE PENSIONS + + +There are many signs that the question of old-age pensions is destined +to assume a great prominence in England; although it is probable that +the large increase of national expenditure which is certain to follow +the unhappy war in South Africa may, for some time, postpone actual +legislation on the subject. The generation has passed away which +witnessed the enormous abuses of Poor Law relief that existed, under +the old English Poor Law, before 1834, and the rapid diminution of +pauperism that was effected by the sterner administration introduced +in that year. + +The principles of poor-law relief which were then recognised by the +best minds in England have been somewhat forgotten. These principles +were that, while in England provision is made for the support of all +who are absolutely destitute, it is of the utmost importance that on +the whole the condition of the pauper should be a less eligible one +than that of an independent labourer; that nothing should be done that +could diminish habits of thrift, forethought, and steady industry +among the poor; nothing that could weaken their sense of the necessity +of providing for their latter days, or of their duty of supporting, +when they have the means, their aged parents and relations. In +accordance with these principles it was laid down that outdoor relief +should be either absolutely refused to the able-bodied or only +granted under most exceptional circumstances; that the workhouse test, +with its stringent, deterrent discipline, should be steadily +maintained; that relaxations and special favours granted out of public +funds should be limited, as far as possible, to cases of special +calamity which it was impossible for any prudence or foresight to have +averted. + +It would certainly be a great exaggeration to say that these +principles have disappeared. Indeed, the robust, independent, +self-respecting character which it was the object of the Manchester +School to encourage is abundantly displayed in the gigantic Friendly +and other working-class Co-operative Societies which have so largely +increased in England during the last half-century. Two of these +Friendly Societies--the Manchester Unity and the Foresters--have each +of them more than seven hundred thousand members on their roll. At the +same time, it is equally certain that in many quarters a different, +and, in my opinion, very dangerous, spirit prevails. In England as +elsewhere there is an increased tendency to aggrandise the functions +of the State and to look to State aid or State control rather than +individual or co-operative effort as the remedy of every evil. Social +questions have assumed a greater prominence in politics; and, with the +lowering of the franchise, the vague State Socialism, which, in +different degrees, pervades most working-class politics, has given a +bias to both parties in the State. It has become prominent in every +election and has produced many rash pledges. + +The close connection between taxation and representation, which was +once considered the cardinal principle of English Liberalism, has, in +a marked degree, diminished, both in Imperial and local taxation. It +used to be contended that those who chiefly paid should chiefly +regulate, and that taxation should be as much as possible the +voluntary grant of the taxpayers, restricted to their common purposes. +But in many quarters a different belief has grown up. It is held that +in the hands of a democracy taxation should be made the means of +redressing the inequalities of fortune, ability, or industry; the +preponderant class voting and spending money which another class are +obliged to pay. The income-tax is so arranged that a large majority of +the voters are exempt from its burden; a highly graduated system of +death duties is now nearly the most prominent of our Imperial taxes; +and the Local Government Act of 1894 has placed local taxation on the +most democratic basis. The latter has given the power of voting rates +to many who do not pay them; and, by abolishing the nominated, or +ex-officio, guardians, and the plural voting of the larger ratepayers, +it has almost destroyed the influence of property on local taxation. + +At the same time the doctrine has arisen, and is now sedulously +propagated in England, that the State ought to undertake to provide at +the public expense for all old persons, or at least for all deserving +old persons, who have not succeeded in obtaining a sufficient +livelihood for themselves; that this provision should not be regarded +as an eleemosynary grant, but as a positive right; and that, in order +to free it from the taint of pauperism, and take away from the +recipient all reluctance to receive it, a new fund should be created, +entirely distinct from poor-law relief, and administered by some other +tribunal than the poor-law guardians. + +The claim has been supported on another ground. The immense +improvement of the material condition of the English working classes +during the last half-century is beyond all question; but it is much +more evident among the young and the strong than among the old. The +intense competition of modern industry, stimulated to the highest +point by free trade, by the factory system, and by the vast +development of machinery, has expelled the old and feeble from some of +its most important fields; and the influence of trade-unions in +enforcing, in each trade which they can control, a uniform and minimum +wage, has obliged the employer to employ only the most efficient +labour. + +The old man who could once easily obtain a little work at low wages +now finds it much more difficult; and the recent legislation +compelling the employer to compensate his workmen for all accidents +that take place in his employment, even when those accidents are in no +degree due to any negligence on his own part or on that of his +servants, has acted in the same direction. Such serious obligations +have been thrown on the employer in the more dangerous trades, that he +is obliged in self-defence to restrict himself to the workmen who are +least liable to accidents; and they are naturally those whose +strength, activity, and eyesight are at their best. Among the +recipients of poor-law relief the proportion of men over sixty-five is +enormously great; and some figures which, in 1893, were brought before +the Commission on the Aged Poor, made a great impression on the +country. It was stated that in a single year 29.3 of the whole +population over sixty-five were in receipt of poor-law relief in +England and Wales; and assuming that a third part of these old persons +belonged to the well-to-do, it was calculated that not much less than +three in seven must fall into the ranks of pauperism. + +There has been much controversy about the accuracy of this statement; +and, even if it be admitted, a good deal has been said to attenuate +its force. In the poor-law system as it was reformed in 1834, it was a +first principle that the workhouse, with its painful and degrading +associations, was to be the chief form of poor-law relief, and that +outdoor relief should only be granted on exceptional occasions and on +stringent conditions. This provision has been gradually relaxed. +Outdoor relief, which, in the eyes of the poor, carries with it very +little of the discredit and dislike that gathers round the workhouse, +is now by far the larger part of poor-law relief; and in many +districts it is administered with great laxity. + +It has been proved by the clearest evidence that the immense majority +of the aged and deserving poor who are in receipt of poor-law relief +only receive it in the form of outdoor relief, and very often only in +the form of medical relief, and that if they go to the workhouse it is +only when their peculiar circumstances make it desirable for them to +do so. Wherever a more stringent system of relief is imposed, +pauperism invariably and rapidly decreases; and Mr. Loch, the +Secretary of the Charity Organisation Society, has collected much +evidence to show that, on the whole, old-age pauperism is diminishing, +though it has not been diminishing at the same rate as pauperism under +the age of sixty. The administration of the workhouses has also +greatly improved; and the poor-law infirmaries are becoming hospitals +which are largely resorted to in time of sickness by many who might +easily avoid them. On the whole, old-age destitution is, and must be, +a grave question for philanthropists; but there has been great +exaggeration about its magnitude and its hardships. + +The expediency of devising a new and better method of providing for +the destitute aged poor of deserving character has long been +smouldering obscurely in English politics; but it obtained a real +importance for the first time when a very strong Royal Commission, +under the presidency of Lord Aberdare, was appointed, at the beginning +of 1893, to inquire into the question. After long and careful inquiry, +and after hearing a great multitude of witnesses, this Commission +reported in the spring of 1895. The majority of the members, while +recommending various reforms in the administration of the poor-law, +reported decisively against any system of old-age pensions, either in +the form of endowment or assisted assurance, as likely to do more harm +than good; but a minority, which derived special importance from the +presence of Mr. Chamberlain, refused to accept this decision as final, +and urged that the question should be submitted to a smaller body of +experts. In the election which took place in 1895 the question +appeared frequently upon the platform, and many members on both sides +of politics pledged themselves on the subject. + +The weight which is always attached to the speeches of Mr. Chamberlain +gave a great impulse to the movement. He never countenanced the idea +of universal old-age pensions, which was already advocated by many; +but he strongly maintained that special provision, apart from the +poor-law and in the shape of pensions, might, and ought to, be made +for the old and deserving poor; he expressed his belief that such a +measure 'would do more than anything else to secure the happiness of +the working classes'; and he suggested as the most feasible scheme +that 'whenever a man acquires for himself in a Friendly Society or +any other society a pension of 2_s._ 6_d._ a week the State should +come in and double that pension.' Mr. Chamberlain, however, did not +insist on this precise proposal; but he gave the question a great +prominence; and among politicians on both sides there was a manifest +tendency to make party capital out of it. + +A purely non-party Committee, presided over by Lord Rothschild, and +consisting mainly of distinguished financial authorities connected +with the permanent Civil Service, and therefore removed from active +politics, was appointed in 1896, in accordance with the recommendation +of the Aberdare Commission, to inquire especially into the question of +old-age pensions; and it reported in a document of conspicuous +ability. It was unanimous in condemning as impracticable or dangerous +all the schemes for such pensions that were brought before it; and it +fully confirmed the views of the preceding Commission. The report, and +the evidence on which it is based, clearly show the ways in which +measures intended for the benefit of the working class may prove in +the highest degree injurious to them. + +If the matter could have been decided by pure reasoning, this report +might have been generally accepted as decisive. But many of the +supporters of the Government had at the election made speeches in +favour of old-age pensions. One of its most powerful members had +thrown his weight into the scale. The idea had taken hold of great +sections of the working classes. The trade-unions, that see in +increasing old-age poverty the chief drawback to their policy of +enforcing in each trade a uniform and minimum wage, were naturally +delighted that the State should undertake, out of public funds, to +remove their difficulty. A number of Bills dealing with the question +had been introduced into the House of Commons by private members; and +the reluctance of the Government to take it up had become a favourite +form of party attack. The Government acted as perhaps most +Governments, under the circumstances, would have done. While refusing +to give any pledge, and repudiating any sympathy with the idea of +universal pensions, and insisting that an encouragement of thrift +should be an essential condition of any old-age pension scheme, they +refused to admit that a false departure had been made; and they +appointed a new Committee--of which the writer of these lines was a +member--to report upon the best means of improving the condition of +the aged deserving poor, and upon the feasibility of dealing with +their case by old-age pensions. + +Mr. Chaplin, the President of the Local Government Board, an +experienced and very popular member of the Cabinet, presided over the +Committee; and the fact that he drew up the report of the majority +gave that report its chief political importance. The Committee +consisted largely of members who had already committed themselves +deeply in favour of old-age pensions; and it will hardly be disputed +in England that it carried with it much less financial and political +weight than its predecessors; and that the majority report--which was +carried by 9 to 4--is more remarkable for the boldness of its +recommendations than for the cogency of its reasoning. It completely, +and almost contemptuously, discarded the conclusions of the majority +of the Aberdare Commission, and the unanimous opinion of the +Rothschild Committee; and it recommended that old-age pensions, +derived in part from Imperial and in part from local sources, and +varying from 5_s._ to 7_s._ a week, should be granted to all the +deserving poor who had attained the age of sixty-five and whose +incomes did not exceed 10_s._ a week. It proposed that these pensions +should be granted by committees established in every poor-law union +and elected by the poor-law guardians; that they should be revised +every three years; and that they should be distributed through the +agency of the post-office. + +On the great difficulties that seemed so formidable to its +predecessors it touched very lightly. How many of the poor were likely +under the proposed system to become pensioners, and what burden of +taxation was likely to be thrown on the State, were questions that +were put aside as irrelevant to the inquiry. To meet the enormous +difficulty of deciding upon the real merits, and of investigating the +real circumstances, of the great masses of independent and industrious +labourers who live in the manufacturing towns, or are constantly +moving from one great centre of population to another, and circulating +in quest of work through the whole extent of the Empire, it was +suggested that the relief be confined to those who were resident in a +single locality; and it was pointed out that a number of charities, +endowed out of old legacies or donations, and applying to particular +classes or districts, had come to be administered by the Charity +Commissioners, and that in this restricted field they had been able to +convert a large part of the income at their disposal from doles into +permanent pensions. + +The thrift test and the character test, which previous inquirers had +found it almost impossible to establish on a satisfactory basis, were +defined on the loosest lines. The pensioner must not, during the +preceding twenty years, have been sentenced to penal servitude or +imprisonment without the option of a fine; he must not, during the +same period of time, have been in receipt of poor-law relief 'other +than medical relief or unless under circumstances of a wholly +exceptional character'; and he must have 'endeavoured to the best of +his ability, by his industry and by the exercise of reasonable +providence, to make provision for himself and those immediately +dependent on him.' + +The extreme vagueness and the extreme elasticity of such provisions +are sufficiently manifest; and it is difficult to see how they can +give any real assistance in practical legislation; while they leave +the door open to the largest and most lavish expenditure. I have +endeavoured in a minority report to deal with these questions at +somewhat greater length than my present space will admit; but a few +pages may suffice to give an outline of the case of those who believe +the new policy to be both mistaken and dangerous. + +Nothing is more certain or more cheering in the condition of modern +England than the extraordinary diminution that has taken place, during +the present generation, in pauperism. It began with the reform of the +poor law in 1834; and although it has been found possible to relax +greatly the stringency of the poor-law regulations that were then +made, it has steadily continued. Much of this is due to the increase +in the rate of wages which has taken place in most departments of +English industry, and which has been accompanied by a great decrease +in the cost of most of the chief necessaries of life, as well as by a +considerable reduction in the hours of work. Sir Robert Giffen, in the +very remarkable paper which he published, in 1883, on the condition of +the working classes in England during the preceding fifty years, has +shown that in every class of work in which it is possible to make a +comparison the wages of the labourer have in these fifty years risen +at least 20 per cent., and in most cases between 50 and 100 per cent.; +and he has clearly demonstrated that no other section of the community +has obtained so large a proportion of the increase of the national +wealth, and improved in so great a degree in material prosperity. + +But the mere increase of wages is but one element of this improvement. +The very mainspring of the prosperity of the great masses of the +British working classes is to be found in their increased sobriety, +and in the habits of thrift and providence that have followed the +spread of education. The statistics of the Friendly Societies, the +Industrial and Provident Societies, the Building Societies, the +savings-banks, and of countless other institutions, created by +voluntary working-class effort for the purpose of insuring against +sickness or death, and providing working-class investments, attest in +the clearest manner the rapid growth of provident and thrifty habits +among the wage-earning classes. In no other respect is the improvement +of the nation so marked and so indisputable and no element in the +national character is more important to its prosperity and to its +enduring greatness. In the evidence that was brought before our +Committee, it was shown that since 1849 the pauperism of Great Britain +had been reduced from 62.7 per 1,000 to 26.2 per 1,000, if lunatics +and vagrants are included, to 22.8 per 1,000, if lunatics and vagrants +are excluded. + +The first, and most vital, condition of any sound legislation for the +relief of poverty is that it should not impair these industrial +qualities, or weaken these vast voluntary organisations of self-help +which are their result. Can it be said that the old-age pension policy +is compatible with this condition? + +It proposes to open, in addition to the existing system of poor +relief, a new fund, amounting to many millions of pounds a year, and +drawn from compulsory taxation for the purpose of subsidising simple +poverty; a fund to which it is to be rather creditable than otherwise +to resort; a fund which is intended to deal, not with exceptional +calamity, but with that which springs from the mere efflux of time, +and which is, beyond all others, the most normal and most easily +foreseen. It proposes to teach the whole working population to look to +the State, and not to themselves, for the provision for their old age, +and for the old age of those who might be dependent on them, and thus +to destroy the most powerful of all motives to thrift--the very +mainspring of productive and self-sacrificing industry. And it +proposes to do this at a time when wages are higher than they have +ever been before; when voluntary societies for securing the poor from +want are flourishing and increasing as they have never done before; +when the rapid decline of pauperism is one of the most marked and most +universally recognised signs of national improvement. Can it be +seriously believed that the addition of many millions a year to the +State funds directly employed in the relief of poverty will, in the +long run, tend to diminish pauperism or to encourage self-reliance and +thrift? + +Mr. Chamberlain and the other more considerable advocates of old-age +pensions clearly see that if such pensions are to be of real value +they must discriminate between the deserving and the undeserving; and +they believe that they may have the effect of stimulating, instead of +weakening, thrift. For this purpose several schemes have been devised. + +The most popular Continental method of achieving this end is by a law +obliging the working man in early life to insure against old age, and +by supplementing the income derived from this insurance by a State +subsidy. In Germany, where this system is actually carried out, the +old-age pension is derived from three sources--viz. compulsory +insurance by the workers, compulsory contribution by the employer, and +a State subsidy. Compulsory insurance found for many years a powerful +English advocate in Canon Blackley; and it has been recommended by a +recent inquiry in Holland, which, however, refused to propose any +system of old-age pensions. According to the best accounts, the German +system has been far from successful either economically or +politically; and it has certainly not prevented Socialism from +becoming one of the great dangers of the State. Into this question, +however, it is needless to enter, as it is now universally admitted in +England that compulsory insurance for old age is an impossibility; for +it would certainly be repudiated by the working classes. + +A large group of proposals are to the effect that old-age pensions +should be granted to all poor persons over the age of sixty-five whose +total income is less than 10_s._ a week, provided that a certain +portion of that income consists of a fixed annuity acquired by their +own industry and thrift. It is urged that in most of the great +branches of industry a deserving man in his earlier and stronger years +could easily earn such an annuity; and it is suggested that the State +should double it, or add to it sufficient to make it up to 10_s._ a +week, or supplement it by a fixed grant of 2_s._ 6_d._, or 5_s._, or +even 7_s._ a week. + +The objections to such schemes are very serious. It is obvious that if +they encourage a workman to save up to the amount required to secure a +pension, they would have a directly opposite effect as soon as that +amount had been attained. The first result of any addition to his +income would then be to disqualify him for a pension. It is also +obvious that the pensioner of sixty-five would have a strong +inducement to abstain from the work he could easily do, and that if he +continued to do it he would compete on exceptionally favourable terms +with the workman who, though he had passed the prime of life, was not +yet entitled to a pension, restricting his means of employment and +beating down his wages. Many of the most necessitous and deserving +poor would also be left unrelieved. + +Although it is true that in the more flourishing trades men could +easily in early life save out of their wages a sufficient sum to +acquire this annuity, there are large fields of industry in which such +a saving would be almost or absolutely impossible. We have had +melancholy evidence of how utterly insufficient most forms of women's +wages are to provide the needed margin. The same thing is true of the +agricultural labourer in the more depressed districts in England and +in large tracts of Ireland and Scotland. Even in the more remunerative +employments innumerable special circumstances would prevent a thrifty +and deserving man from obtaining this annuity. Certainly no one is +more deserving of compassion and State aid than the widow and young +orphans of a working man; but the scheme we are considering would not +only not help them, but would most seriously injure them. It is a +direct incentive to the workman to sink his savings in an annuity +which would terminate with his own life. + +The whole policy, indeed, of attempting to turn all working-class +savings into this one channel is a false one; and it has been shown +that no kind of saving is in fact less popular among working men than +the purchase of a deferred annuity. I may here be allowed to quote a +few lines from my own report: + +'In the infinitely various conditions of a working-man's life thrift +will take many forms, and an attempt to prescribe a single form is +eminently injudicious. The whole life-plan of a farmer whose farm will +remain with him to the end will be different from that of an artisan +or a domestic servant whose power of earning a livelihood depends +entirely upon his physical strength. The former will probably find it +most profitable to expend his savings on the improvement of his farm. +Where the system of peasant proprietorship prevails most agricultural +thrift is directed to the purchase and enlargement of farms. In +Ireland it is largely directed to the purchase of tenant right, or to +enabling the younger members of the family to emigrate. + +'Nor is it true that even the artisan will find the purchase of an +annuity the best thing to be aimed at. To buy a house or some +furniture; to start a small business; to expend his savings in tiding +over periods of slack or failing work; to avail himself of the +advantage which some fluctuation in the market gives to the man who +can transport himself promptly to a new locality or a new business is +often far more to his advantage. Above all, money expended in settling +his family is often his best policy as well as the course which is +most beneficial to the community. At present a large proportion of +working men look forward to their children to help them in their old +age, and make it a main object of their lives to place them in a +position to do so. It does not seem to me a wise thing for the State +either to emancipate children from this duty or to induce every +married working man to sink his savings in an annuity which will end +with his life and from which his widow and children can derive no +benefit. It is certainly not for the advantage of the country that in +selecting between alternative ways of providing for old age he should +be induced to choose that which throws the greatest burden on the +State. With the vast increase of population, with the great +fluctuations of modern industry, and with the rapid development of the +colonies, it is extremely desirable both in the interest of the +working men and of the State that they should be induced to transfer +themselves from congested towns and from exhausted industries to new +fields. A general pension system would certainly contribute most +powerfully to prevent them from doing so.' + +It has been proposed by others that the pension fund should be placed +in the hands of Friendly or Benefit Societies, and that they should be +intrusted with its administration, or that subscription to such +societies for a certain number of years should be taken by the State +as the thrift test. On the first proposal it is sufficient to say, +that these great voluntary societies are themselves opposed to it; for +if they were directly subsidised by the State, they would be obliged +to submit to a State control of their management and their finances +which they do not desire. It is observed that only a very small +proportion of the subscribers to these societies ever find it +necessary to come upon the poor rates; and if a system of old-age +pensions were confined to these limits, it would act in the most +unequal manner. Their members are drawn in a far larger proportion +from the lucrative and flourishing trades than from those which are +struggling and underpaid. Few women belong to them. In Ireland, which +is the poorest part of the Empire, Friendly Societies scarcely exist; +and the same thing is true of large districts in Wales and Scotland. +The main result of such proposals would be to concentrate the new +State fund for the relief of poverty on the richest parts of the +Empire, and on the trades that need it the least. + +The extreme difficulty of finding any efficient test of thrift is very +evident; and those proposed by a large number of the advocates of +old-age pensions are so easy as to be almost worthless. Some consider +it sufficient that a man has for a certain number of years not been in +receipt of poor-law relief, except medical relief or relief granted +under 'exceptional circumstances.' Others would accept the mere fact +that a man has lived to be sixty-five, as the drunken and disreputable +workman seldom lives so long. A large number of resolutions have +condemned Mr. Chaplin's report on the grounds that old-age pensions +ought not to be confined to the 'deserving' poor; that they ought to +begin at an earlier age than sixty-five; that they ought to be +administered by a body totally unconnected with the poor law, so as to +carry with them no taint of pauperism or eleemosynary relief. They +ought, it is said, to be universal; to be looked on as a matter of +strict right; to be considered as of the same nature as the pension +given to the soldier or the Civil Servant. + +It is obvious that all this may carry us very far. It is estimated +that some of the most popular proposals would involve an annual +expenditure of considerably more than twenty millions of +pounds--making allowance for the saving that might be effected in the +ordinary poor-law relief, but not counting the cost of administration. +And this expenditure would be a growing one; and once accepted it +could hardly be withdrawn. The vast addition to the national debt that +might follow a great European war or the great shrinkage of the +national income that might easily follow some revolution in trade or +manufacture, might render the burden of taxation incomparably more +serious than at present; but once the great mass of the population had +learned to regard State support in old age as their normal prospect +and their inalienable right, it would be impossible, without producing +a social revolution, to recede. All the advantages gained by +generations of economical administration of the national finance would +be nullified; while the certain result of this crushing addition to +taxation would be to weaken incalculably the spirit of thrift, +providence, and self-reliance, and at the same time to lower wages, by +removing one of the great considerations by which they are regulated. +And this reduction of wages would fall not only on the recipient of +the pension, but also on multitudes who would never live to attain it. +Nothing can be more certain than that a general system of pensions +attached to the labour of the wage-earner must lower wages, at least +among all those who are approaching the pension age; while it would +prevent or retard their natural increase over a far wider area. + +It would also most certainly bring with it the gravest danger of +corruption. It would not be easy to secure the pure and the impartial +administration of these vast funds; but the political dangers would be +much more serious. It is proposed that the pension system should be +first introduced on a small scale, but gradually extended till it +included all the aged poor, or at least all who were deserving. Such a +question would infallibly pass into the competitions of party warfare. +It would become in most constituencies one of the most prominent of +electioneering tests. Rival candidates would be competing for the +votes of a wage-earning electorate who had a direct pecuniary interest +in increasing or extending pensions and in relaxing the conditions on +which they are given. Can it be doubted that in many cases their first +object would be to outbid one another, and that national and party +politics would soon be forced into a demoralising race of +extravagance? + +I cannot conclude without protesting against the supposition that +those who think with me are indifferent to the great evil of old-age +destitution and propose nothing for its relief. The committees which +have most clearly pointed out the dangers of old-age pensions have +also urged, that within the lines of our present poor-law system it is +quite possible to do much, by an improved classification, to +distinguish among the recipients of poor-law relief between the +respectable and the worthless. Much has already been done, and in the +most important unions the guardians have introduced a large amount of +classification by merit. As I have already said, the immense majority +of the respectable aged poor are now relieved only in their own homes +or in comfortable infirmaries. The severe test of absolute destitution +has in practice been greatly relaxed; there is a legal provision +preventing those who are receiving help from Friendly Societies from +being disqualified for relief; husbands and wives are no longer +separated in the workhouse; and in some unions of which we had +evidence much more has been done. This, however, depends too much on +the will of particular Boards of Guardians, and there are in +consequence great inequalities of treatment. The condition of the +deserving poor may be greatly improved by relaxation in points of +hours, discipline, and visitors, and by workhouse arrangements +securing more universally that paupers who have lived respectable +lives should not be obliged to mix with the drunken, the disreputable, +and the hopelessly idle. And, though extensions of outdoor relief +should be carefully watched, and entail great dangers, yet under wise +and strict administration something more may be done in this +direction. + +But all this should be regarded as essentially poor-law relief, and +not as the recognition of a claim of right for services supposed to +have been rendered to the community. No form of State Socialism is +more dangerous than the doctrine which has been countenanced by Prince +Bismarck, and which is making many disciples in England--namely, that +an industrious man, who has pursued his course in life with perfect +independence, made his own contracts, chosen his own work, and been +paid for it by stipulated wages, is entitled, if he fails in obtaining +a sufficiency for his old age, to be placed as a 'soldier of industry' +in the same category as State servants, and to receive like them, not +on the ground of compassion, but of right, a State pension drawn from +the taxation of the community. There is no real analogy between the +relief that is very properly granted to such workmen in their +destitution, and the pensions--largely of the nature of deferred +pay--that are given by the State or by private employers, under the +terms of distinct contracts, and for specific services duly rendered, +to those who have entered into their employment and placed themselves +under their control. + + + + +INDEX + + +Aberdare Commission, 303 + +Addington, 273 + +American Revolution, 34-37, 55-57, 77, 78 + +Anne, Queen, 295 + +Anti-Semite movement, 116-121, 123-125, 128 + +Arnold, Dr., 251 + +Australia, 58 + +Austria, 116, 145 + + +Bacon, 28, 94, 101 + +Bayard, Mr., 48 + +Bayle, 97 + +Beaconsfield, Earl of (B. Disraeli), 126, 151, 153, 207, 211, 214, + 215, 217, 283; + imperialism, 46; + policy regarding Eastern Crisis, 222; + relations with Lord Derby, 223; + Queen Victoria's regard for, 296 + +Beer, George, 56 + +Bentham, J., 43, 101 + +Bernard, Claude, 121 + +Bismarck, Prince, 288, 289, 317 + +Blackley, Canon, 310 + +Blennerhassett, Lady, 131-133, 145, 148, 149 + +Blomfield, Bishop, 263 + +Bossuet, 96-98 + +Boulanger, General, 116 + +Bright, 207, 208 + +British Empire, growth, 51, 53, 64; + defence, 61, 65; + unity, 45, 48, 51, 62, 67 + +Browning, Robert, 105, 251 + +Buckle, H.T., 29, 100-102, 251, 269 + +Burke, Edmund, 28, 54, 55, 151, 295 + +Butler's 'Analogy,' 91, 92 + + +Caird, Principal, 294 + +Canada, 59, 60 + +Canning, 151, 174, 188, 189, 198, 199; + attitude towards Catholic Question, 156, 160, 161, 166-170, 172, 188; + quoted, 213 + +Cardan, quoted, 10 + +Carlyle, Thomas, 47, 91, 216, 247, 251; + school of, 29; + style, 105; + characteristics, 106-113; + teaching, 107, 108, 110-115 + +Caroline, Queen, 295 + +Castlereagh, Viscount, 156, 157, 160, 161, 167, 169, 170, 188 + +Catherine, of Russia, Empress, 291, 295 + +Catholic Emancipation, 78-86, 152, 153, 157-174, 187-190, 193, 194, 197; + _see also under_ Ireland + +Cato, 15 + +Chamberlain, Joseph, 303-304, 309 + +Charlemagne, 17-19, 266 + +Charlemont, 73, 81 + +Chartism, 108, 115 + +Chatham, Lord, 85, 86, 138, 151, 157-160, 165, 186, 273 + +Chaucer, 18, 117 + +Chivalry, 17, 19, 295 + +Chrysostom, Dio, 16 + +Church, Dean, 250, 265 + +Clarendon, Lord, 244, 246, 280 + +Cobden, Richard, 44, 46, 62 + +Colenso, Bishop, 272 + +Coleridge, 22, 96, 112, 147 + +Colonial policy of Great Britain, 43-46, 52, 53, 55-61 + +Colonies, British: + defence, 49, 56, 65; + federation, 63, 64; + governors, 52, 54, 60; + representation, 51, 65, 66; + trade, 47, 56, 63-65, 225; + value of, 47-50; + attachment to the Crown, 277 + +Comte, 100 + +Constant, Benjamin, 142, 144, 148 + +Constitutional sovereignty, 277 + +Co-operation, 108, 217, 299 + +Croker, 177, 178 + +Crusades, 18, 19, 266 + +Curchod, Mlle., _see_ Necker, Mme. + +Curwen's Act, 177 + + +Dalling, Lord, 151 + +Darwin and his teaching, 90, 101, 114, 247, 251 + +Davies, Sir John, quoted, 70 + +Delane, J.T., 243 + +De Quincey, 107 + +Derby, 14th Earl of, 201, 202, 204-206, 208-210, 212, 214, 215 + +Derby, 15th Earl of: + career, 200, 205-213, 215, 217, 218, 222-224, 234, 235; + views on Church questions, 205, 210, 214, 232, 233; + on Reform Bill, 210; + Indian policy, 205, 209, 210; + foreign policy, 212, 213, 217-224; + colonial policy, 208, 224, 225, 228-230; + attitude towards Home Rule, 234; + contemporary opinion of him, 206-209, 211-213, 219, 220; + marriage 215; + interest in social questions, 205, 206, 212, 216, 217, 224, 235; + in working men, 205, 206, 210, 216, 217, 237; + tastes, 239, 240; + conversation, 240, 241; + estimate of his talents and character, 202-204, 207, 209, 212, 217, + 219-224; + speeches, 202, 205, 211, 212, 214, 215, 217, 222-224, 229, 234-236 + +Dicey, Professor 89 + +Disraeli, B., _see_ Beaconsfield + +Duigenan, 169, 174 + + +Eastern Question, Lord Derby's views on, 218-223 + +_Edinburgh Review_, 242, 243, 246, 247 + +Education, popular, 108, 185 + +Eldon, Lord, 160, 174, 189, 190, 192, 253 + +Elizabeth, Queen, 291, 295; + inscription on tomb of, 187 + +Ellenborough, Lord, 208, 209 + +Emerson, R.W., 96, 104 + +Emigration, 49, 50, 53, 108 + +Erasmus, 257 + +'Essays and Reviews,' 90 + + +Faber, 250 + +Factory legislation, 108 + +Federation, 63, 64, 225 + +Feudalism, 17, 69, 110 + +Fitzwilliam, Lord, 85 + +Flood, 73, 81 + +Foster, Leslie, 195 + +Fox, 158, 162, 174 + +France, 73, 97, 98, 116 + +Franklin, Benjamin, 94 + +_Fraser's Magazine_, 104 + +Free Trade, 44, 45, 47, 63, 64, 78, 225 + +French Revolution, 28, 37, 38, 82, 139, 141, 142 + +Froude, J.A., 251, 269 + + +Galdos' 'Gloria,' 117 + +George II., 295 + +George III. and Catholic Emancipation, 85, 86, 157-162, 194 + +George IV., as Prince Regent, 162, 163, 165, 166; + as King, 188-191, 194 + +German literature, 146, 147 + +Germany, 106, 107, 116, 118, 145, 260, 262, 310, 317 + +Gibbon, 3, 134, 263, 264 + +Giffen, Sir Robert, 307, 308 + +Gladstone, W.E., 214, 246, 249, 250, 283, 286-288 + +Goethe, 107, 147 + +Gordon, General, 286 + +Goulburn, 196, 197 + +Grattan, 78, 81, 82, 84, 161, 163, 164, 166, 168-171, 174, 186, 187, + 195, 197 + +Grenville, George, 36, 56, 57 + +Grenville, Lord, 158, 161, 162, 166 + +Greville, Charles, 206, 207, 209, 243 + +Grey, Lord, 166, 280 + +Grote, 251, 269 + +Guizot, 151, 244 + +Gustavus III., King of Sweden, 138 + + +Hallam, A., 96, 251, 269 + +Harcourt, Sir William, quoted, 290 + +Hastings, Warren, 54, 55 + +Haussonville, M. d', 134, 138 + +Hawkesbury, Lord, 161 + +Hawtrey, Provost, 265 + +Heber, Bishop, 255 + +High Church movement, 90, 92, 249-251, 270 + +Hippisley, Sir John, 163, 169 + +Historians, qualities requisite, 2, 4-6, 10-12; + motto for, 10; + scientific school, 2-4; + literary, 3; + methods, 7, 8, 22, 23; + applied to religion, 97-99; + eighteenth century, 22, 23; + fatalist school, 29, 30; + individualist school, 29, 31 + +History: + biographical element, 7, 9; + individual influences, 12, 13; + fiction and, 20; + accident as affecting, 31, 100; + of institutions, 27, 28; + of revolutions, 29, 30, 34-38; + speculations, 32, 33; + advantages of studying, 38-40; + moral lessons, 40, 42 + +Hobbes, 94, 98, 99 + +Home Rule, _see under_ Ireland + +Homer, 16, 22 + + +Ideals, varying popular, 14-19 + +Imperial Institute, 43 + +Imperialism, 46-51, 63, 64, 296 + +India, 44, 46-48, 54, 55, 57, 58, 61, 62, 277 + +Ireland (_see also_ Ulster): + invasions, 69; + rebellions, 71, 82, 83, 85, 157; + influence of the Reformation, 70; + under the Stuarts, 71; + trade, 71, 72, 75, 78; + effects of English Revolution, 71, 72; + of American Revolution, 77, 78; + of French Revolution, 82; + Young's views on, 76, 77; + Catholics and Protestants, 70-79, 81-87; + Volunteer movement, 78, 87; + political agitation, 77, 78, 82, 87, 88; + union with Great Britain, 74, 75, 81, 83-85, 157; + Catholic Emancipation, 81-86, 157-174, 189, 194-198; + corruption, 175-179, 181, 183; + discontent, 165, 183, 184, 189, 194; + tithe commutation, 185-187; + Church disestablishment, 214, 215, 250, 283; + land tenure, 70, 75-77, 86, 87; + landlords, 75-77, 79, 86, 87; + Home Rule, 25, 87-89, 234, 246, 286, 296; + Queen Victoria's visit, 290, 291; + present condition, 86, 87; + representation in Parliament, 86 + +Irish Acts of Parliament, + of settlement, 71; + octennial, 77; + of 1793, 85, 158, 159; + of union, 74, 75, 81, 83-85 + +Irish Parliament, 71, 72, 74, 75, 77-83, 85 + +Irishmen, United, 81, 84, 85 + +Isabella of Spain, Queen, 295 + +Italian art, 103 + +Italy, 97, 98, 145, 146 + + +Jefferson, quoted, 37, 38 + +Jeffrey, 107 + +Jewish type, + stability of, 120, 121; + trade, 118, 119, 121; + writings, modern investigation of, 8, 9, 257-259, 261, 262, 271, 272 + +Jews, + calumnies against, 117, 118; + characteristics, 118-130; + code, 121; + compared with other tribes, 119; + continuity of race, 119, 120; + distinguished, 126-129; + persecution of, 116-121, 123-126; + return of, to Palestine, 129, 130; + Milman's 'History of the', 257, 258, 262, 272 + + +Kant, Immanuel, 92, 147, 247 + +Keats, John, 256 + +Keble, John, 250, 270 + +Kruger, President, 226-228 + + +Landor, Walter Savage, quoted, 22 + +Leroy, Beaulieu, M. Anatole, 116-128 + +Lewis, Sir G. Cornewall, 45, 153, 246, 273 + +Liverpool, Lord, 156, 166, 168, 182, 188, 192-194, 197-199 + +Lloyd, Dr., 192 + +Locke, 96, 101 + +Lockhart, 255 + +Loughborough, Lord, 186 + +Louis Napoleon, _see_ Napoleon III. + +Lyall, Sir Alfred, 240 + + +Macaulay, Lord, 3, 6, 8, 55, 204, 246, 251, 268, 269, 272, 273 + +Macleod, Norman, 294 + +Malmesbury, Lord, 206, 210 + +Manchester School, 44, 45, 47, 50, 299 + +Marie Antoinette, Queen, 140, 141 + +Martin, Sir Theodore, 287 + +Masson's 'Life of Milton,' 132 + +Melbourne, Lord, 282, 296 + +Mill, James, 43, 55 + +Mill, John Stuart, 90, 96, 206, 210, 251 + +Milman, Dean, + career, 253, 256, 262, 263, 271-274; + dramatist, 253; + poet, 254, 255; + translator, 256; + hymns, 255; + historian, 257-270; + critic, 252, 256-261, 263-267, 269; + learning, 269; + style, 268, 269; + views on miracles, 258-260; + on German criticism, 260-262; + on Christianity, 268; + on Tractarian movement, 270; + on clerical subscription, 271; + Mr. Reeve and, 246; + Dean Stanley and, 271; + friendships, 252, 273; + private correspondence, 253; + social gifts, 272, 273; + characteristics, 252, 253, 257, 265, 266, 268, 269, 271, 272-274; + works, 252-270, 272, 273; + portrait, 274 + +Milman, Arthur, 252 + +Milner, Bishop, 163, 164 + +Milton, 132 + +Mohammedanism, rise of, 32, 101 + +Molyneux, 74 + +Monasticism, 24 + +Montesquieu, 132, 136 + +Montmorin, Mme, de, 139 + +Moral standard, changes in, 14-19, 266 + +Murray, 254 + + +Napoleon I., 142-146, 149 + +Napoleon III., 280, 288 + +Narbonne, Louis de, 138-141 + +Necker, Mme., 134, 135, 142 + +Necker, Monsieur, 133, 138, 140, 144, 146, 149 + +Necker, Germaine, _see_ Staël, Mme. de + +Newcastle, Duke of, 45, 189 + +Newman, Cardinal, 90, 96, 249-251, 269, 270 + + +O'Connell, 164, 165, 171, 174, 189, 192, 193, 286 + +Old-age pensions, 307, 309, 311-316; + proposals for, 300, 309, 310, 313; + Royal Commission, 303; + Rothschild Committee, 304, 305; + Chaplin Committee, 305, 307 + +Orangemen, 84, 173, 189, 190 + + +Palestine, return of Jews to, 129, 130 + +Paley, 95, 260 + +Palmerston, Lord, 46, 178, 206-209, 211, 246, 279-282 + +Parker, editor of Peel Correspondence, 153, 156, 192 + +Parnell, C.S., 186 + +Parnell Commission, 88, 89 + +Parsons, 73, 84 + +Pasteur, 121 + +Pauperism, diminution of, 298-309 + +Peel, Sir Lawrence, 156 + +Peel, Sir Robert, + education, 154, 155; + career, 151, 153-156, 168, 172, 177, 187, 188, 194; + abolition of Corn Laws, 152, 153; + Irish Secretary, 156, 157, 167, 174-187; + relations with O'Connell, 174; + correspondence, 153, 173, 175-185, 189, 190, 191, 197-199; + Croker and, 177, 178; + advocates unsectarian education for Ireland, 185, 190; + Catholic Emancipation, 152, 153, 168-174, 187, 189-191, 193-195, 197-199; + financial measures, 187, 194, 195; + patronage, 178-183, 191, 192; + police force organised, 184, 185; + Home Secretary, 188-198; + parliamentary skill, 152, 153, 157, 181, 191; + debating powers, 172, 173; + Queen Victoria and, 282, 286; + recantations, 152, 153, 187, 193, 194; + estimate of his character and abilities, 151-154, 156, 157, 172, 181, 191 + +Perceval, 155, 156, 159-161, 165, 166 + +Pitt, William, _see_ Chatham + +Pliny, quoted, 102 + +Plunket, 84, 168, 174, 188 + +Pobedonosteff, 117 + +Pole, Wellesley, 168 + +Poor-law relief, + improvement in, 316, 317; + principles of, 298, 299 + +Portland, Duke of, 159-161 + +Portugal, Jews in, 120, 121 + +Prince Consort, 278-280, 282, 284 + +Prince Regent, _see_ George IV + +Prison reform, Carlyle's views on, 114 + +Pusey, 250 + + +'Quarterly Review,' 256, 257 + + +Rationalism in Europe, author's History of, 103 + +Redesdale, Lord, 175, 181, 182, 186 + +Reeve, Henry: + education, 243; + career, 243, 245, 246; + editor of _Edinburgh Review_, 242, 246, 247; + historical knowledge, 246; + views on Home Rule, 246; + linguistic talent, 243; + literary judgment, 246, 247; + religious and philosophical views, 247; + political and social influence, 242, 244-246; + friendships, 243, 244, 247, 248; + writings of, 242-244, 247; + closing days, 248 + +Reform Bills, 210, 211, 213 + +Reformation, + causes of the, 29, 30; + effect in Ireland, 70 + +Revolution, + American, 34-37; + effects of, in Ireland, 77, 78 + +Revolution, + English, effect of, in Ireland, 71, 72; + on trade, 72, 74 + +Revolutions, history of, 29, 30, 34-38 + +Richmond, Duke of, 165, 167, 187 + +Ristori, Mme., 245 + +Rocca, 148, 149 + +Rogers, Sir Frederick, 45, 46 + +Roumania, anti-Semite movement in, 116, 118 + +Rousseau, 96, 132, 136 + +Ruskin, 251 + +Russell, Lord John, 46, 47, 211-213, 241, 246, 263, 280, 281, 285 + +Russia, anti-Semite movement in, 116-118, 124 + + +Salisbury, Lord, 276, 296 + +Saurin, 165, 168, 169, 174, 183, 188 + +Schiller, 147 + +Schleswig-Holstein question, 281, 284, 285 + +Scotland, Act of Union with, 74 + +Shaftesbury, Lord, 206, 217 + +Shelley, P.B., 256, 257 + +Sidmouth, Lord, 158, 188 + +Smith, Goldwin, 44, 151 + +Socialism, 299, 310 + +Spain, 73, 97, 98, 117, 120, 121, 124, 125 + +Spencer, Herbert, 90, 109, 247 + +Staël, Baron de, 138, 140, 142 + +Staël, Mme. de., parentage, 133, 134; + personal appearance, 135; + career, 134-138, 142, 145, 148-150; + devotion to her father, 138; + friendships, 138, 139, 142, 145; + literary works, 136, 141, 142, 145-150; + Napoleon I., views on, 143, 144; + political influence, 139, 140, 142, 144; + religious views, 136, 149; + travels, 145, 146; + characteristics, 136, 137, 141, 145, 148, 149 + +Stanley, Dean, 251, 260, 271, 294 + +Stanley, Lord, _see_ Derby, 15th Earl of + +Stockmar, Baron, 278 + +Sullivan, Sir Arthur, 254 + + +Tait, Archbishop, 283 + +Talleyrand, 134, 139, 142, 144 + +Taxation of American Colonies, 34-36, 56, 57; + democratic principles of, 300 + +Taylor, Sir Henry, 45, 46 + +Tennyson, Lord, 90, 251 + +Tocqueville, 242-244 + +Trade, + Colonial, 47, 56, 63-65; + Indian, 47; + Irish, 71, 72, 75, 78; + Jewish, 118, 119, 121; + affected by English Revolution, 72 + +Transportation to Australia, 58 + +Transvaal affairs, 225-232, 286 + +Trinity College, Dublin, 90-92, 96-100, 103 + + +Ulster, 70, 77, 78, 83, 84 + +United Irishmen, 81, 84, 85 + + +Voltaire, 7, 96, 121, 135 + +Volunteer movement in Ireland, 78, 87 + +Victoria, Queen: + relations with her Ministers, 279-283, 286-288, 296; + memorandum on foreign affairs, 279, 280; + political influence, 277, 278, 280, 282-286, 288; + patronage, 278; + views on foreign policy, 279-281, 283-286; + on Irish Church disestablishment, 283; + on women's suffrage, 294; + on Home Rule, 296; + wide experience, 276, 279, 287; + letters, 288, 289; + journals, 292, 293; + widowhood, 275, 292, 296; + moral influence, 291, 292; + rule of, 275, 277-279, 281-284, 293-295; + popularity, 289-291, 293, 296, 297; + characteristics, 274-276, 279, 281-283, 287-294, 296, 297; + jubilees, 290, 296, 297; + visit to Ireland, 290, 291; + closing days, 296, 297 + + +Walpole, Spencer, 151 + +Ward, 250 + +Watts, 274 + +Wellesley, Lord, _see_ Wellington, Duke of + +Wellington, Duke of, 160, 161, 166, 167, 188-190, 198, 272, 289 + +Whateley, Archbishop, 92-96, 100, 251 + +Women rulers, 295 + +Working classes, improvement in their condition, 300, 301, 308 + + +York, Duke of, 194, 197-199 + +Young, Arthur, 76, 77 + + + +PRINTED BY +SPOTTISWOODE AND CO. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: Historical and Political Essays</p> +<p>Author: William Edward Hartpole Lecky</p> +<p>Release Date: January 17, 2007 [eBook #20389]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: UTF-8</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL ESSAYS***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3 class="pg">E-text prepared by Ted Garvin, Jeannie Howse,<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (http://www.pgdp.net/c/)</h3> +<p> </p> +<div class="tr"> +<p class="cen" style="font-weight: bold;">Transcriber's Note:<br /><br /></p> + +<p class="noin">Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have been preserved.</p> +<p class="noin">Obvious typographical errors have been corrected in this text. +For a complete list, please see the <a href="#TN">end of this document</a>.</p> +</div> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h1>HISTORICAL</h1> + +<h4>AND</h4> + +<h1>POLITICAL ESSAYS<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /></h1> + +<h4 style="margin-bottom: -1px;">BY</h4> +<h2 style="margin-top: -1px;">WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /></h2> + + + +<h3 style="margin-bottom: -1px">LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.</h3> +<h5 style="margin-top: -1px;">39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON<br /> +NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA<br /> +1908</h5> + +<h6>All rights reserved</h6> + +<hr /> + +<h3><a name="toc" id="toc"></a>CONTENTS</h3> + + +<div class="centered"> +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="70%" summary="Table of Contents"> + <tr> + <td> </td> + <td class="tdr"><span style="font-size: 80%;">PAGE</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#THOUGHTS_ON_HISTORY">Thoughts on History</a></td> + <td class="tdr">1</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#VALUE_OF_HISTORY">The Political Value of History</a></td> + <td class="tdr">21</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#THE_EMPIRE">The Empire: its Value and its Growth</a></td> + <td class="tdr">43</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#LIGHT_OF_HISTORY">Ireland in the Light of History</a></td> + <td class="tdr">68</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#FORMATIVE_INFLUENCES">Formative Influences</a></td> + <td class="tdr">90</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#CARLYLES_MESSAGE">Carlyle's Message to His Age</a></td> + <td class="tdr">104</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#ISRAEL">Israel among the Nations</a></td> + <td class="tdr">116</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#MADAME_DE_STAEL">Madame de Staël</a></td> + <td class="tdr">131</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#SIR_ROBERT_PEEL">The Private Correspondence of Sir Robert Peel</a></td> + <td class="tdr">151</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#EDWARD_HENRY">The Fifteenth Earl of Derby</a></td> + <td class="tdr">200</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#HENRY_REEVE">Mr. Henry Reeve</a></td> + <td class="tdr">242</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#HENRY_HART_MILMAN">Dean Milman</a></td> + <td class="tdr">249</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#QUEEN_VICTORIA">Queen Victoria as a Moral Force</a></td> + <td class="tdr">275</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#OLD-AGE_PENSIONS">Old-age Pensions</a></td> + <td class="tdr">298</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#INDEX">Index</a></td> + <td class="tdr">319</td> + </tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +</p> + +<div class="block"><p>The Essays 'Thoughts on History,' 'Formative Influences,' +'Madame de Staël,' 'Israel among the Nations,' 'Old-age +Pensions,' appeared originally in the American Review, the +<i>Forum</i>—the first under the title of 'The Art of Writing +History'; 'Ireland in the Light of History,' in the <i>North +American Review</i>. Those on Sir Robert Peel, Mr. Henry Reeve, +and Dean Milman were written for the <i>Edinburgh Review</i>. The +Essay on 'Queen Victoria as a Moral Force' appeared first in +the <i>Pall Mall Magazine</i>; 'Carlyle's Message to His Age' in +the <i>Contemporary Review</i>. 'The Political Value of History' +was a presidential address delivered before the Birmingham and +Midland Institute; 'The Empire,' an inaugural address +delivered at the Imperial Institute; and the 'Memoir of the +Fifteenth Earl of Derby' was originally prefixed to the +volumes of his speeches and addresses.</p></div> + +<p> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +</p> + +<h2>HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL ESSAYS</h2> + +<p> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +</p> +<hr /> + +<h3><a name="THOUGHTS_ON_HISTORY" id="THOUGHTS_ON_HISTORY"></a>THOUGHTS ON HISTORY<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<p>I do not propose in this paper to enter into any general inquiry about +the best method of writing history. Such inquiries appear to me to be +of no real value, for there are many different kinds of history which +should be written in many different ways. A diplomatic, a military, or +a parliamentary history, dealing with a short period or a particular +episode, must evidently be treated in a very different spirit from an +extended history where the object of the historian should be to +describe the various aspects of the national life, and to trace +through long periods of time the ultimate causes of national progress +and decay. The history of religion, of art, of literature, of social +and industrial development, of scientific progress, have all their +different methods. A writer who treats of some great revolution that +has transformed human affairs should deal largely in retrospect, for +the most important part of his task is to explain the long course of +events that prepared and produced the catastrophe; while a writer who +treats of more normal times will do well to plunge rapidly into his +theme.</p> + +<p>Historians, too, differ widely in their special talents, and these +talents are never altogether combined. The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span>power of vividly realising +and portraying men, or societies or modes of thought that have long +since passed away; the power of arranging and combining great +multitudes of various facts; the power of judging with discrimination, +accuracy, and impartiality conflicting arguments or evidence; the +power of tracing through the long course of events the true chain of +cause and effect, selecting the facts that are most valuable and +significant and explaining the relation between general causes and +particular effects, are all very different and belong to different +types of mind. It is idle to expect a writer with the gifts of a +Clarendon, a Kinglake, or a Froude to write history in the spirit of a +Hallam or a Grote. Writers who are eminently distinguished for wide, +patient, and accurate research have sometimes little power either of +describing or interpreting the facts which they collect. All that can +be said with any profit is that each writer will do best if he follows +the natural bent of his genius, and that he should select those kinds +or periods of history in which his special gifts have most scope and +the qualities in which he is deficient are least needed.</p> + +<p>It is the fashion of a modern school of historical writers to deplore +what they call the intrusion of literature into history. History, in +their judgment, should be treated as science and not as literature, +and the kind of intellect they most value is not unlike that of a +skilful and well-trained attorney. To collect documents with industry; +to compare, classify, interpret and estimate them is the main work of +the historian. It is no doubt true that there are some fields of +history where the primary facts are so little known, so much contested +or so largely derived from recondite manuscript sources, that a +faithful historian will be obliged in justice to his readers <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span>to +sacrifice both proportion and artistic charm to the supreme importance +of analysing evidence, reproducing documents and accumulating proofs; +but in general the depreciation of the literary element in history +seems to me essentially wrong. It is only necessary to recall the +names of Herodotus and Thucydides, of Livy and Tacitus, of Gibbon and +Macaulay, and of the long line of great masters of style who have +related the annals of France. It may, indeed, be confidently asserted +that there is no subject in which rarer literary qualities are more +demanded than in the higher forms of history. The art of portraying +characters; of describing events; of compressing, arranging, and +selecting great masses of heterogeneous facts, of conducting many +different chains of narrative without confusion or obscurity; of +preserving in a vast and complicated subject the true proportion and +relief, will tax the highest literary skill, and no one who does not +possess some, at least, of these gifts in an unusual measure is likely +to attain a permanent place among the great masters of history. It is +a misfortune when some stirring and momentous period falls into the +hands of the mere compiler, for he occupies the ground and a really +great writer will hesitate to appropriate and plagiarise the materials +his predecessor has collected. There are books of great research and +erudition which one would have wished to have been all re-written by +some writer of real genius who could have given order, meaning and +vividness to a mere chaos of accurate and laboriously sifted learning. +The great prominence which it is now the fashion to ascribe to the +study of diplomatic documents, is very apt to destroy the true value +and perspective of history. It is always the temptation of those who +are dealing with manuscript materials to overrate the small <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>personal +details which they bring to light, and to give them much more than +their due space in their narrative. This tendency the new school +powerfully encourages. It is quite right that the treasure-houses of +diplomatic correspondence which have of late years been thrown open +should be explored and sifted, but history written chiefly from these +materials, though it has its own importance, is not likely to be +distinguished either by artistic form or by philosophical value. Those +who are immersed in these studies are very apt to overrate their +importance and the part which diplomacy and statesmanship have borne +in the great movement of human affairs.</p> + +<p>A true and comprehensive history should be the life of a nation. It +should describe it in its larger and more various aspects. It should +be a study of causes and effects, of distant as well as proximate +causes, and of the large, slow and permanent evolution of things. It +should include, as Buckle and Macaulay saw, the social, the +industrial, the intellectual life of the nation as well as mere +political changes, and it should be pre-eminently marked by a true +perspective dealing with subjects at a length proportioned to their +real importance. All this requires a powerful and original intellect +quite different from that of a mere compiler. It requires too, in a +high degree, the kind of imagination which enables a man to reproduce +not only the acts but the feelings, the ideals, the modes of thought +and life of a distant past, and pierce through the actions and +professions of men to their real characters. Insight into character is +one of the first requisites of a historian. It is therefore, much to +be desired that he should possess a wide knowledge of the world, the +knowledge of different types of character, foreign as well as English, +which <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span>travel and society and practical experience of business can +give, and it will also be of no small advantage to him if he has +passed through more than one intellectual or religious phase, widening +the area of his appreciation and realisations. He should also have +enough of the dramatic element to enable him to throw himself into +ways of reasoning or feeling very different from his own. One of the +most valuable of all forms of historical imagination is that which +enables a writer to place himself in the point of view of the best men +on different sides, and to bring out the full sense of opposing +arguments. All these gifts or qualities are never in a high degree +united, but they are all essential to a great historian, and a true +school of history should widen instead of narrowing our conception of +it.</p> + +<p>The supreme virtue of the historian is truthfulness, and it may be +violated in many different degrees. The worst form is when a writer +deliberately falsifies facts or deliberately excludes from his picture +qualifying circumstances. But there are other and much more subtle +ways in which party spirit continually and often quite unconsciously +distorts history. All history is necessarily a selection of facts, and +a writer who is animated by a strong sympathy with one side of a +question or a strong desire to prove some special point will be much +tempted in his selection to give an undue prominence to those that +support his view, or, even where neither facts nor arguments are +suppressed, to give a party character to his work by an unfair +distribution of lights and shades. The strong and vivid epithets are +chiefly reserved for the good or bad deeds on one side, the vague, +general and comparatively colourless epithets for the corresponding +deeds on the other side; and in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>this way very similar facts are +brought before the reader with such different degrees of illumination +and relief that they make a wholly different impression on his mind. +In the history of Macaulay this defect may, I think, be especially +traced. The characteristic defect of that great and in most respects +admirable writer, both as historian and artist, was the singular +absence of graduation in his mind. The neutral tints which are +essential to the accurate shading of character seemed almost wanting, +and a love of strong contrasted lights and shades, coupled with his +supreme command of powerful epithets, continually misled him. But no +attentive reader can fail to observe how unequally those epithets are +distributed and how clearly this inequality discloses the strong bias +under which he wrote.</p> + +<p>The truth of an historical picture lies mainly in its judicious and +accurate shading, and it is this art which the historian should +especially cultivate. He will scarcely do so with success unless it +becomes to him not merely a matter of duty, but also a pleasure and a +pride. The kind of interest which he takes in his narrative should be +much less that of a politician and an advocate than of a painter, who, +now darkening and now lightening the picture, seeks by many delicate +touches to catch with exact fidelity the tone and hue of the object he +represents.</p> + +<p>The degree of certainty that it is possible to attain in history +varies greatly in different departments. The growth of institutions +and laws, military events, changes in manners and in creeds, can be +described with much confidence, and although it is more difficult to +depict the inner moral life of nations, the influences that form their +characters and prepare them for greatness or decay, yet <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>when the +materials for our induction are sufficiently large this field of +history may be studied with great profit. Diplomatic history and the +more secret springs of political history can only be fully disclosed +when the archives relating to them have been explored and when the +confidential correspondence of the chief actors in them has been +published. The biographical element in history is always the most +uncertain. Even among contemporaries the judgment of character and +motives depends largely on indications so slight and subtle that they +rarely pass into books and are only fully felt by direct personal +contact, and the smallest knowledge of life shows how quickly +anecdotes and sayings are distorted, coloured, and misplaced when they +pass from lip to lip. Most of the 'good sayings' of history are +invention, and most of them have been attributed to different persons. +A history which is plainly written under the influence of party bias +has the value of an advocate's speech giving one side of the question. +When our only materials for the knowledge of a period are derived from +such histories, the saying of Voltaire should be remembered—that we +can confidently believe only the evil which a party writer tells of +his own side and the good which he recognises in his opponents. In +judging the historian we must consider his nearness to the events he +relates, his probable means of information and the internal evidence +in his narrative of accuracy, honesty, and judgment, and we must also +consider the standard of proof and the methods of historical writing +prevailing in his time. A modern writer who placed in the mouths of +his personages speeches which he himself invented would be justly +discredited, but in antiquity it was a recognised custom for a +historian to embody in fictitious speeches the reflections suggested +by his narrative <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>and the motives which he believed to have actuated +his heroes.</p> + +<p>Different ages differ enormously in the severity of proof which they +exact, in the degree of accuracy which they attain. The credibility of +a statement also depends not only on the amount of its evidence, but +also on its own inherent probability. Everyone will feel that an +amount of testimony that would be quite sufficient to persuade him +that a butcher's boy had been seen driving along a highway is wholly +different from that which would be required to persuade him that a +ghost had been met there. The same rule applies to the history of the +past, and it is complicated by the great difference in different ages +of the measure of probability, or, in other words, by the strong +predisposition in certain stages of knowledge to accept statements or +explanations of facts which in later stages we know to be incredible +or in a high degree improbable. Few subjects in history are more +difficult than the laws of evidence in dealing with the supernatural +and the extent to which the authority of historians in relating +credible and probable facts is invalidated by the presence of a +mythical element in their narratives.</p> + +<p>Connected with this subject is also the question how far it is +possible by merely internal evidence to decompose an ancient document, +resolving it into its separate elements, distinguishing its different +dates and its different degrees of credibility. The reader is no doubt +aware with what a rare skill this method of inquiry has been pursued +in the present century, chiefly by great German and Dutch scholars, in +dealing with the early Jewish writings. At the same time, without +disputing the value of their work or the importance of many of the +results at which they <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>have arrived, I may be pardoned for expressing +my belief that this kind of investigation is often pursued with an +exaggerated confidence. Plausible conjecture is too frequently +mistaken for positive proof. Undue significance is attached to what +may be mere casual coincidences, and a minuteness of accuracy is +professed in discriminating between the different elements in a +narrative which cannot be attained by mere internal evidence. In all +writings, but especially in the writings of an age when criticism was +unknown, there will be repetitions, contradictions, inconsistencies +and diversities of style which do not necessarily indicate different +authorship or dates.</p> + +<p>I have spoken of the uncertainty of the biographical element in +history. It must, however, be said that when a historian is dealing +with men who have played a very prominent part on the stage of life, +the general acceptance of his judgment is a strong corroboration of +its truth. It may be added that the later judgment of men is not +unfrequently more true than the contemporary judgment. The wisdom of a +teaching or of a policy is shown by its results, and these results are +in most cases very gradually disclosed. Great men are like great +mountains which are surrounded by lower peaks that often obscure their +grandeur and seem to a near observer to equal or even to overtop them. +It is only when seen from far off that their true dimensions are fully +realised and they soar to heaven above all rivals. In the page of +history men are judged mainly by the net result of their lives, by the +broad lines of their characters and achievements. Many injudicious +words, many minor weaknesses of conduct, are forgotten. Faults of +manner, deficiencies of tact, awkwardnesses of appearance, which tell +so largely upon the judgments of contemporaries, are no longer seen. +The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>conversational nimbleness and versatility of intellect, the charm +or assurance or magnetism of manner, the weight of social position, +all of which tend to secure to an inferior man a pre-eminence in the +circle in which he moves, are equally evanescent, and the shy, rugged, +and tactless recluse often emerges on the strength of his genuine and +abiding performances to a position in the eyes of the world which he +never attained during his lifetime.</p> + +<p>That fine saying of Cardan, 'Tempus mea possessio, tempus ager meus,' +might be the motto of the historian. Time is the field which he +cultivates, and a true sense of space and distance should be one of +the chief characteristics of his work. Few things are more difficult +to attain than a just perspective in history. The most dramatic +incidents are not the most important, and in weighing the joys and +sorrows of the past our measures of judgment are almost hopelessly +false. The most humane man cannot emancipate himself from the law of +his nature, according to which he is more affected by some tragic +circumstance which has taken place in his own house or in his own +street than by a catastrophe which has carried anguish and desolation +over enormous areas in a distant continent. In history, too, there are +vast tracts which are almost necessarily unrealised. We judge a period +mainly by its great men, by its brilliant or salient incidents, by the +fortunes of a small class; and the great mass of obscure, suffering, +inarticulate humanity, whose happiness is often so profoundly affected +by political and military events, almost escapes our notice. It should +be the object of history to bring before us past events in their true +proportion and significance, and one of the greatest improvements in +modern history is the increased <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>attention which is paid to the +social, industrial, and moral history of the poor. The paucity of our +information and the difficulty of realising the conditions of obscure +multitudes will always make this branch of history very imperfect, but +it is one of the most essential to the just judgment of the past.</p> + +<p>Another task which lies before the historian is that of distinguishing +proximate from ultimate causes. Our first natural impulse is to +attribute a great change to the men who effected it and to the period +in which it took place, and to neglect or underrate the long train of +causes which had been, often through many generations, preparing its +advent. A faithful historian must especially guard against this error. +He must study the slow process of growth as well as the moment of +efflorescence, the long progress of decay as well as the final +catastrophe. He will probably find that the part played by statesmen +and legislatures is less than he had imagined, and that the causes of +the movements he relates must be sought over a wider area and through +a longer period.</p> + +<p>Moral, intellectual, or economical movements very slightly connected +with political life are often those which have most largely +contributed to the good or evil fortunes of a nation; and even in the +sphere of politics it is not the events which attract the most vivid +contemporary interest that have the most enduring influence. Few +things contribute so much to the formation of the social type as the +laws regulating the succession of property and especially the +agglomeration or division of landed property. The growth of militarism +in a nation, besides its direct and obvious consequences, forms a type +of character which will sooner or later show itself in almost every +department of legislation, and the tendency <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>of politics to enlarge or +narrow the sphere of individual liberty or of government control, will +affect most deeply the habits of the people. Laws regulating private +enterprises, substituting State control or initiative for individual +action, encouraging or discouraging thrift, and above all interfering +with free contracts, have much more than an immediate influence, for +they become the prolific parents of many further extensions. In the +words of an excellent observer, it will be found 'that our legislative +interference is but the first link of a long chain of repetitions, +every subsequent interference being naturally produced by the effects +of the preceding.' It is by studying such tendencies through long +periods of time that their good or evil influences may be best +discovered, and this should be one of the great tasks of the +historian.</p> + +<p>But, however large a part may be given to the impersonal influences in +history, he will still be largely concerned with the record of +individual achievements, and the great men of the past will form the +most conspicuous landmarks of his narrative. I have often thought, +however, that nations are judged too much by the great men they have +produced and not sufficiently by the way in which they have +discriminated among them and appreciated them. Genius is like the wind +that bloweth where it listeth, and it often appears in strangely +uncongenial quarters. The true nobility of a nation is shown by the +men they choose, by the men they follow, by the men they admire, by +the ideals of character and conduct they place before them. Tried by +such tests, there is often much that is profoundly saddening in the +history of countries that have been far from poor in the number of +their great men.</p> + +<p>In the judgment of historical characters there are two <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>cautions on +which it may not be useless to dwell. There is a large class of public +men who show little capacity in dealing with or directing the present +conditions of their time, but who see clearly the bourne to which +existing forces or tendencies are moving and who, judged by their +distant forecasts, will appear much wiser than their contemporaries. +It is the natural bias of the historian to place them perhaps higher +than they deserve. This power of just speculative foresight is no very +rare gift, and in public affairs it is often as much a hindrance as a +help. Forms of government and other great religious or political +institutions, like the products of nature, have their times of +immaturity, of growth, of ripeness and of decay, and it by no means +follows because they at last become indefensible, that they have not +during many generations discharged useful functions and that those who +first assailed and condemned them are deserving of praise. Not +unfrequently, indeed, a public man must take his choice whether by +fully identifying himself with the existing conditions around him and +employing them to the best advantages he will lead a useful and +practical life, or whether as an advanced thinker he will associate +himself with the cause that is one day to conquer, place himself in +the van of progress and at the sacrifice of much present influence +deserve the credit of foresight.</p> + +<p>Historians will probably always judge men and policies by their net +results, by their final consequences, and this judgment is on the +whole the most sure that we can attain. It is not, however, altogether +infallible. Apart from the question of the moral character of the +methods employed which a good historian should never omit from his +consideration, success is not always a decisive proof of sagacity. +Chance and the unexpected <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>play a great part in human affairs, and a +judgment founded on a perfectly just estimate of probabilities will +often prove wrong. The result which was the least probable will come +true, some wholly unforeseen and unforeseeable occurrence will scatter +dangers that were very real and give a new complexion to events. The +rise of some pre-eminently great or of some pre-eminently mischievous +personage among the guiding influences of a nation will derange the +most sagacious calculations, and the reckless gambler or the obtuse +obstructionist may prove more right than the most cautious, the most +skilful, the most farseeing statesman.</p> + +<p>A fatal and very common error is that of judging the actions of the +past by the moral standard of our own age. This is especially the +error of novices in history and of those who without any wide and +general culture devote themselves exclusively to a single period. +While the primary and essential elements of right and wrong remain +unchanged, nothing is more certain than that the standard or ideal of +duty is continually altering. A very humane man in another age may +have done things which would now be regarded as atrociously barbarous. +A very virtuous man may have done things which would now indicate +extreme profligacy. We seldom indeed make sufficient allowance for the +degree in which the judgments and dispositions of even the best man +are coloured by the moral tone of the time or society in which they +live. And what is true of individuals is equally true of nations. In +order to judge equitably the legislation of any people, we must always +consider corresponding contemporary legislations and ideas. When this +is neglected our judgments of the past become wholly false. How often, +for example, has such a subject as the history of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>the penal laws +against Irish Catholics been treated without the smallest reference to +the contemporary laws against Protestants that existed in every +Catholic nation and the contemporary laws against Catholics that +existed in almost every Protestant country in Europe. How often have +the English commercial restrictions on the American colonies been +treated as if they were instances of extreme and exceptional tyranny, +while a more extended knowledge would show that they were simply the +expression of ideas of commercial policy and about the relation of +dependencies to the mother-country which then almost universally +prevailed.</p> + +<p>It is not merely the moral standard that changes. A corresponding +change takes place in the moral type, or, in other words, in the class +of virtues which is especially cultivated and especially valued. To +know an age aright we should above all things seek to understand its +ideal, the direction in which the stream of its self-sacrifice and +moral energy naturally flowed. Few things in history are more +interesting and more valuable than a study of the causes that produced +and modified these successive ideals. Thus in the moral type of pagan +antiquity the civic virtues occupied incomparably the foremost place. +The idea of a supremely good man was essentially that of a man of +action, of a man whose whole life was devoted to the service of his +country. The life and death of Cato were for generations the favourite +model. He was deemed, in the words of an old Latin historian, to be of +all men the one 'most like to virtue.' This pattern retained its force +till the softening influence of the Greek spirit, permeating Roman +life, made the stoical ideal seem too hard and unsympathising; till +the corruption and despotism of the Empire had withdrawn the best men +from political <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>life and attached a certain taint or stigma to public +employment; till new religions arose in the East, bringing with them +new ideals to govern the world. Gradually we may trace the +contemplative virtues rising to the foremost place until, about the +fifth century, the ideal had totally changed. The heroic type was +replaced by the saintly type. The supremely good man was now the +ascetic. The first condition of sanctity was a complete abandonment of +secular duties and cares and a complete subjugation of the body. A +vast literature of legends arose reflecting and glorifying the +prevailing ideal and holding up the hermit life as the supreme pattern +of perfection, and this literature occupies a place in mediævalism +very similar to that held by the 'Lives' of Plutarch in antiquity.</p> + +<p>Ancient art was essentially the glorification of the body, a +representation of the full strength and beauty of developed manhood. +The saint of the mediæval mosaic represents the body in its extreme +maceration and humiliation. The rhetorician, Dio Chrysostom, in a +somewhat whimsical passage, which was suggested by a remark of Plato, +found a special moral significance in the fact that Homer, though he +places his heroes on the the banks of what he calls 'the fishy +Hellespont,' never makes them eat fish, but always flesh and the flesh +of oxen, for this, as he says, is 'strength-producing food' and is +therefore suited for the formation of heroes and the proper diet for +men of virtue. Compare this judgment with the protracted, and indeed +incredible, fasts which the monkish writers delighted in attributing +to the saints of the desert, and we have a vivid picture of the change +that had passed over the ideal.</p> + +<p>But as time moved on the ascetic ideal gradually <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>declined and was +replaced by the very different ideal of chivalry. It consisted chiefly +of three new elements. The first element was a spirit of gallantry +which gave women a wholly new place in the imaginations of men. It was +in part a reaction against the extreme austerity of the saints, and +this reaction was much intensified after the cessation of the panic +which had risen at the close of the tenth century about the +approaching end of the world. It was in part produced by the softer +and more epicurean civilisation which grew up in the country bordering +on the Pyrenees. It was especially represented in the romances and +poems of the Troubadours, and the new tendency even received some +assistance from the Church when the Council of Clermont, which +originated the Crusades, imposed on the knight the religious +obligation of defending all widows and orphans.</p> + +<p>The second element was an increased reverence for secular rank, which +grew out of the feudal system, when a great hereditary aristocracy +arose and all European society was moulded into a compact hierarchy, +of which the serf was the basis and the emperor the apex. The +principle of subordination and obedience ran through the whole +edifice, and a respect for rank was universally diffused. Men came to +associate their ideal of greatness with regal or noble authority, and +they were therefore prepared to idealise any great sovereign who might +arise. Such a sovereign appeared in Charlemagne, who exercised upon +Christendom a fascination not less powerful than that which Alexander +had once exercised upon Greece, and he accordingly soon became the +centre of a whole literature of romance.</p> + +<p>The third element was the fusion of religious enthusiasm with the +military spirit. Christianity in its first <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>phases was utterly opposed +to the military spirit; but this opposition was naturally mitigated +when the Church triumphed under Constantine and became associated with +governments and armies. The hostility was still further qualified when +many tribes of warlike barbarians embraced the faith, and the military +obligation which was an essential element of feudalism acted in the +same direction. But, above all, the rise and conquests of +Mohammedanism awoke the military energies of Christendom and +determined the direction it should take. In the Crusades the two great +streams of military enthusiasm and of religious enthusiasm met, and +the result was the formation of a new ideal which for a long period +mainly governed the imagination of Christendom.</p> + +<p>It for a time absorbed, eclipsed, and transformed all purely national +ideals. No poet was ever more intensely English in his character and +sympathies than Chaucer, and he wrote when the dazzling glories of +Crécy and Poitiers were still very recent. Yet it is not on these +fields, but in the long wars with the Moslems, that his pattern knight +had won his renown. The military expeditions of Charlemagne were +directed almost exclusively against the Saxons and against Slavonic +tribes. With the Spanish Mohammedans he came but very slightly in +contact. He made in person but one expedition against them, and that +expedition was both insignificant and unsuccessful. But in the +Karlovingian romances, which were written when the crusading +enthusiasm was at its height, the figure of the great emperor +underwent a strange and most significant transformation. The German +wars were scarcely noticed. Charlemagne is surrounded with the special +glory that ought to have belonged to Charles Martel. He is represented +as having passed his entire life <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>in a victorious struggle with the +Mohammedans of Europe, and is even gravely credited with a triumphant +expedition to Jerusalem. The three romances of the Crusades which are +believed to be the oldest were all written by monks, and they all make +Charlemagne their hero. Even geography was transformed by the new +enthusiasm, and old maps sometimes represent Jerusalem as the centre +of the world.</p> + +<p>In few periods has there been so great a difference between the ideals +created by the popular imagination and the realities that are +recognised by history. Few wars have been accompanied by more cruelty, +more outrage, and more licentiousness than the Crusades or have +brought a blacker cloud of disasters in their train. Yet the idea that +inspired them was a lofty one, and they were so speedily transfigured +by the imaginations of men that in combination with the other +influences I have mentioned they created an ideal which is one of the +most beautiful in the history of the world. We may trace it clearly in +the romances of Arthur and Charlemagne and of the "Cid;" in the +"Red-Cross Knight" of Tasso and Spenser; in the old ballads which +paint so vividly the hero of chivalry, ever ready to draw his sword +for his faith and his lady-love and in the cause of the feeble and the +oppressed. The glorification of military courage and self-sacrifice +which had been so prominent in antiquity was again in the ascendant, +but it was combined with a new kind of honour and with a new vein of +courtesy, modesty, and gentleness. When we apply the epithet +'chivalrous' to a modern gentleman, this is no unmeaning term. There +is even now an element in that character which may be distinctly +traced to the ideal of chivalry which the Crusades made dominant in +Europe.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>I do not propose to follow the history of other ideals that have in +turn prevailed. What I have written will, I trust, be sufficient to +illustrate a kind of history which appears to me to possess much +interest and value. It will show, too, that a faithful historian is +very largely concerned with the fictions as well as with the facts of +the past. Legends which have no firm historical basis are often of the +highest historical value as reflecting the moral sentiments of their +time. Nor do they merely reflect them. In some periods they contribute +perhaps more than any other influence to mould and colour them and to +give them an enduring strength. The facts of history have been largely +governed by its fictions. Great events often acquire their full power +over the human mind only when they have passed through the +transfiguring medium of the imagination, and men as they were supposed +to be have even sometimes exercised a wider influence than men as they +actually were. Ideals ultimately rule the world, and each before it +loses its ascendancy bequeaths some moral truth as an abiding legacy +to the human race.</p> + +<p> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +</p> +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span></p> + +<h3><a name="VALUE_OF_HISTORY" id="VALUE_OF_HISTORY"></a>THE POLITICAL VALUE OF HISTORY<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + + +<p>When, shortly after I had accepted the honourable task which I am +endeavouring to fulfil to-night, I received from your Secretary a +report of the annual proceedings of the Birmingham and Midland +Institute,—when I observed the immense range and variety of subjects +included within your programme, illustrating so strikingly the intense +intellectual activity of this great town,—my first feeling was one of +some bewilderment and dismay. What, I asked myself, could I say that +would be of much real value, addressing an unknown audience, and +relating to fields of knowledge so vast, so multifarious, and in many +of their parts so far beyond the range of my own studies? On +reflection, however, it appeared to me that in this, as in most other +cases, the proverb was a wise one which bids the cobbler stick to his +last, and that a writer who, during many years of his life, has been +engaged in the study of English history could hardly do better than +devote the time at his disposal to-night to a few reflections on the +political value of history, and on the branches and methods of +historical study that are most fitted to form a sound political +judgment.</p> + +<p>Is history a study of real use in practical, and especially in +political, life? The question, as you know, has been by no means +always answered in the same way. In its earlier stages history was +regarded chiefly as a form of poetry recording the more dramatic +actions of kings, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>warriors, and statesmen. Homer and the early +ballads are indeed the first historians of their countries, and long +after Homer one of the most illustrious of the critics of antiquity +described history as merely 'poetry free from the incumbrance of +verse.' The portraits that adorned it gave some insight into human +character; it breathed noble sentiments, rewarded and stimulated noble +actions, and kindled by its strong appeals to the imagination high +patriotic feeling; but its end was rather to paint than to guide, to +consecrate a noble past than to furnish a key for the future; and the +artist in selecting his facts looked mainly for those which could +throw the richest colour upon his canvas. Most experience was in his +eyes (to adopt an image of Coleridge) like the stern light of a ship, +which illuminates only the path we have already traversed; and a large +proportion of the subjects which are most significant as illustrating +the true welfare and development of nations were deliberately rejected +as below the dignity of history. The old conception of history can +hardly be better illustrated than in the words of Savage Landor. 'Show +me,' he makes one of his heroes say, 'how great projects were +executed, great advantages gained, and great calamities averted. Show +me the generals and the statesmen who stood foremost, that I may bend +to them in reverence.... Let the books of the Treasury lie closed as +religiously as the Sibyl's. Leave weights and measures in the +market-place; Commerce in the harbour; the Arts in the light they +love; Philosophy in the shade. Place History on her rightful throne, +and at the sides of her Eloquence and War.'<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p> + +<p>It was chiefly in the eighteenth century that a very different +conception of history grew up. Historians then <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>came to believe that +their task was not so much to paint a picture as to solve a problem; +to explain or illustrate the successive phases of national growth, +prosperity, and adversity. The history of morals, of industry, of +intellect, and of art; the changes that take place in manners or +beliefs; the dominant ideas that prevailed in successive periods; the +rise, fall, and modification of political constitutions; in a word, +all the conditions of national well-being became the subjects of their +works. They sought rather to write a history of peoples than a history +of kings. They looked specially in history for the chain of causes and +effects. They undertook to study in the past the physiology of +nations, and hoped by applying the experimental method on a large +scale to deduce some lessons of real value about the conditions on +which the well-being of society mainly depends.</p> + +<p>How far have they succeeded in their attempt, and furnished us with a +real compass for political guidance? Let me in the first place frankly +express my own belief that to many readers of history the study is not +only useless, but even positively misleading. An unintelligent, a +superficial, a pedantic or an inaccurate use of history is the source +of very many errors in practical judgment. Human affairs are so +infinitely complex that it is vain to expect that they will ever +exactly reproduce themselves, or that any study of the past can enable +us to predict the future with the minuteness and the completeness that +can be attained in the exact sciences. Nor will any wise man judge the +merits of existing institutions solely on historic grounds. Do not +persuade yourself that any institution, however great may be its +antiquity, however transcendent may have been its uses in a remote +past, can permanently justify its existence, unless it can be <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>shown +to exercise a really beneficial influence over our own society and our +own age. It is equally true that no institution which is exercising +such a beneficial influence should be condemned, because it can be +shown from history that under other conditions and in other times its +influence was rather for evil than for good.</p> + +<p>These propositions may seem like truisms; yet how often do we hear a +kind of reasoning that is inconsistent with them! How often, for +example, in the discussions on the Continent on the advantages and +disadvantages of monastic institutions has the chief stress of the +argument been laid upon the great benefits which those institutions +produced in ages that were utterly different from our own,—in the +dark period of the barbarian invasions, when they were the only +refuges of a pacific civilisation, the only libraries, the only +schools, the only centres of art, the only refuge for gentle and +intellectual natures; the chief barrier against violence and rapine; +the chief promoters of agriculture and industry! How often in +discussions on the merits and demerits of an Established Church in +England have we heard arguments drawn from the hostility which the +Church of England showed towards English liberty in the time of the +Stuarts; although it is abundantly evident that the dangers of a royal +despotism, which were then so serious, have utterly disappeared, and +that the political action of the Church of England at that period was +mainly governed by a doctrine of the Divine right of kings, and of the +duty of passive obedience, which is now as dead as the old belief that +the king's touch could cure scrofula! How often have the champions of +modern democracy appealed in support of their views to the glories of +the democracies of ancient Greece, without ever reminding their +hearers <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>that these small municipal republics rested on the basis of +slavery, and that the bulk of those who would exercise the chief +controlling influence over affairs in a pure democracy of the modern +type were absolutely excluded from political power! How often in +discussions about the advantages and disadvantages of Home Rule in +Ireland do we find arguments drawn from the merits or demerits of the +Irish Parliament of the eighteenth century, with a complete +forgetfulness of the fact that this Parliament consisted exclusively +of a Protestant gentry; that it represented in the highest degree the +property of the country, and the classes who are most closely attached +to English rule; that it was constituted in such a manner that the +English Government could exercise a complete control over its +deliberations, and that for good or for ill it was utterly unlike any +body that could now be constituted in Ireland!</p> + +<p>Or again, to turn to another field: it is quite certain that every age +has special dangers to guard against, and that as time moves on these +dangers not only change, but are sometimes even reversed. There have +been periods in English history when the great dangers to be +encountered sprang from the excessive and encroaching power of a +monarchy or of an aristocracy. The battle to be then fought was for +the free exercise of religious worship and expression of religious +opinion, for a free parliament, for a free press, for a free platform, +for an independent jury-box. All the best patriotism, all the most +heroic self-sacrifice of the nation, was thrown into defence of these +causes; and the wisest statesmen of the time made it the main object +of their legislation to protect and consolidate them.</p> + +<p>These things are now as valuable as they ever were, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>but no reasonable +man will maintain that they are in the smallest danger. The battles of +the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have been definitely won. A +kind of language which at one period of English history implied the +noblest heroism is now the idlest and cheapest of clap-trap. The +sycophant and the self-seeker bow before quite other idols than of +old. The dangers of the time come from other quarters; other +tendencies prevail, other tasks remain to be accomplished; and a +public man who in framing his course followed blindly in the steps of +the heroes or reformers of the past would be like a mariner who set +his sails to the winds of yesterday.</p> + +<p>It is difficult, I think, to doubt that the judgments of all of us are +more or less affected by causes of this kind. It is, I imagine, true +of the great majority of educated men that their first political +impression or bias is formed much less by the events of their own time +than by childish recollections of the more dramatic conflicts of the +past. We are Cavaliers or Roundheads before we are Conservatives or +Liberals; and although we gradually learn to realise how profoundly +the condition of affairs and the balance of forces have altered, yet +no wise man can doubt the power which the first bias of the +imagination exercises in very many cases through a whole life. +Language which grew out of bygone conflicts continues to be used long +after those conflicts and their causes have ended; but that which was +once a very genuine voice comes at last to be little more than an +insincere echo.</p> + +<p>The best corrective for this kind of evil is a really intelligent +study of history. One of the first tasks that every sincere student +should set before himself is to endeavour to understand what is the +dominant idea or characteristic of the period with which he is +occupied; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>what forces chiefly ruled it, what forces were then rising +into a dangerous ascendancy, and what forces were on the decline; what +illusions, what exaggerations, what false hopes and unworthy +influences chiefly prevailed. It is only when studied in this spirit +that the true significance of history is disclosed, and the same +method which furnishes a key to the past forms also an admirable +discipline for the judgment of the present. He who has learnt to +understand the true character and tendencies of many succeeding ages +is not likely to go very far wrong in estimating his own.</p> + +<p>Another branch of history which I would especially commend to the +attention of all political students is the history of Institutions. In +the constantly fluctuating conditions of human life no institution +ever remained for a long period unaltered. Sometimes with changed +beliefs and changed conditions institutions lose all their original +utility. They become simply useless, obstructive, and corrupt; and +though by mere passive resistance they may continue to exist long +after they have ceased to serve any good purpose, they will at last be +undermined by their own abuses. Other institutions, on the other hand, +show the true characteristic of vitality—the power of adapting +themselves to changed conditions and new utilities. Few things in +history are more interesting and more instructive than a careful study +of these transformations. Sometimes the original objects almost wholly +disappear, and utilities which were either never contemplated by the +founders or were only regarded as of purely secondary importance take +the first place on the scene. The old plan and symmetry almost +disappear as the institution is modified now in this direction and now +in that to meet some pressing want. The first architects, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>if they +could rise from the dead, would scarcely recognise their +creation—would perhaps look on it with horror. The indirect +advantages of an institution are sometimes greater than its direct +ones; and institutions are often more valuable on account of the evils +they avert than on account of the positive advantages they produce. +Not unfrequently in their later and transformed condition they +exercise wider and greater influence than when they were originally +established; for the strength derived from the long traditions of the +past and from the habits that are formed around anything that is +deeply rooted in the national life gives them a vastly increased +importance.</p> + +<p>There is probably no better test of the political genius of a nation +than the power which it possesses of adapting old institutions to new +wants; and it is, I think, in this skill and in this disposition that +the political pre-eminence of the English people has been most +conspicuously shown. It is difficult to overrate its importance. It is +the institutions of a country that chiefly maintain the sense of its +organic unity, its essential connection with its past. By their +continuous existence they bind together as by a living chain the past +with the present, the living with the dead.</p> + +<p>Few greater calamities can befall a nation than to cut herself off, as +France did in her great Revolution, from all vital connection with her +own past. This is one of the chief lessons you will learn from +Burke—the greatest and truest of all our political teachers. Bacon +expressed in an admirable sentence the best spirit of English politics +when he urged that 'men in their innovations should follow the example +of Time itself, which indeed innovated greatly, but quietly, and by +degrees scarcely to be perceived.'</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>There is a third department of history which appears to me especially +valuable to political students. It is the history of those vast +Revolutions for good or for ill which seem to have transformed the +characters or permanently changed the fortunes of nations, either by a +sudden and violent shock or by the slow process of gradual renovation. +You will find on this subject, in our country, two great and opposite +exaggerations. There is a school of writers, of which Buckle is an +admirable representative, who are so struck by the long chain of +causes, extending over many centuries, that preceded and prepared +Revolutions, that they teach a kind of historic fatalism, reducing +almost to nothing the action of Individualities; and there is another +school, which is specially represented by Carlyle, who reduce all +history into biographies, into the action of a few great men upon +their kind.</p> + +<p>The one class of writers will tell you with great truth that the Roman +Republic was not destroyed by Cæsar, but by the long train of +influences that made the career of Cæsar a possibility. They will show +how influences working through many generations had sapped the +foundations of the Republic—how the beliefs and habits on which it +once rested had passed away—how its institutions no longer +corresponded with the prevailing wants and ideas—how a form of +government which had proved excellently adapted for a restricted +dominion failed when the Roman eagles flew triumphantly over the whole +civilised world, and how in this manner the strongest tendencies of +the time were preparing the downfall of the Republic, and the +establishment of a great empire upon its ruins. They will show how the +intellectual influences of the Renaissance, the invention of printing, +and a crowd of other causes, many of them at first sight very remote +from <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>theological controversies, had in the sixteenth century so +shaken the power of the Roman Catholic Church, that the way was +prepared for the Reformation, and it became possible for Luther and +Calvin to succeed, where Wyckliffe and Huss had failed. They will show +how profoundly our theological beliefs are affected by our general +conception of the system of the universe, and how inevitably, as +Science changes the latter, the former will undergo a corresponding +process of modification. Creeds that are no longer in harmony with the +general spirit of the time may long continue, but a new spirit will be +breathed into the old forms. Those portions which are most discordant +with our fresh knowledge will be neglected or attenuated. Although +they may not be openly discarded, they will cease to be realised or +vitally operative.</p> + +<p>In the sphere of politics a similar law prevails, and the fate of +nations largely depends upon forces quite different from those on +which the mere political historian concentrates his attention. The +growth of military or industrial habits; the elevation or depression +of different classes; the changes that take place in the distribution +of wealth; inventions or discoveries that alter the course or +character of industry or commerce, or reverse the relative advantages +of different nations in the competitions of life; the increase and, +still more, the diffusion of knowledge; the many influences that +affect convictions, habits and ideals, that raise, or lower, or modify +the moral tone and type—all these things concur in shaping the +destinies of nations. Legislation is only really successful when it is +in harmony with the general spirit of the age. Laws and statesmen for +the most part indicate and ratify, but do not create. They are like +the hands of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>watch, which move obedient to the hidden machinery +behind.</p> + +<p>In all this kind of speculation there is, I believe, great truth, and +it opens out fields of inquiry that are of the utmost interest and +importance. I have, however, long thought that it has been pushed by +some modern writers to extravagant exaggeration. As you well know, +there is another aspect of history, which, long before Carlyle, was +enforced by some of the ablest and most independent intellects of +Christendom. Pascal tells us that if Cleopatra's nose had been +shorter, the whole face of the world might have been changed, and +Voltaire is never tired of dwelling on the small springs on which the +greatest events of history turn. Frederick the Great, who was probably +the keenest practical intellect of his age, constantly insisted on the +same view. In the vast field of politics, he maintained, casual events +which no human sagacity can predict play by far the largest part. We +are in most cases groping our way blindly in the dark. Occasionally, +when favourable circumstances occur, there is a gleam of light of +which the skilful avail themselves. All the rest is uncertainty. The +world is mainly governed by a multitude of secondary, obscure, or +impenetrable causes. It is a game of chance in which the most skilful +may lose like the most ignorant. 'The older one becomes the more +clearly one sees that King Hazard fashions three-fourths of the events +in this miserable world.'</p> + +<p>My own view of this question is that though there are certain streams +of tendency, though there is a certain steady and orderly evolution +that it is impossible in the long run to resist, yet individual action +and even mere accident have borne a very great part in modifying the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>direction of history. It is with History as with the general laws of +Nature. We can none of us escape the all-pervading force of +gravitation, or the influence of the climate under which we live, or +the succession of the seasons, or the laws of growth and of decay; yet +man is not a mere passive weed drifting helplessly upon the sea of +life, and human wisdom and human folly can do and have done much to +modify the conditions of his being.</p> + +<p>It is quite true that religions depend largely for their continued +vitality upon the knowledge and intellectual atmosphere of their time; +but there are periods when the human mind is in such a state of +pliancy that a small pressure can give it a bent which will last for +generations. If Mohammed had been killed in one of the first +skirmishes of his career, I know no reason for believing that a great +monotheistic religion would have arisen in Arabia, capable of moulding +for more than twelve hundred years not only the beliefs, laws, and +governments, but also the inmost moral and mental character of a vast +section of the human race. Gibbon was probably right in his conjecture +that if Charles Martel had been defeated at the famous battle near +Tours, the creed of Islam would have overspread a great part of what +is now Christian Europe, and in that case it might have ruled over it +for centuries. No one can follow the history of the conversion of the +barbarians to Christianity without perceiving how often a religion has +been imposed in the first instance by the mere will of the ruler, +which gradually took such root that it became far too strong for any +political power to destroy. Persecution cannot annihilate a creed +which is firmly established, or maintain a creed which has been +thoroughly undermined, but there are intermediate stages <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>in which its +influence on national beliefs has been enormously great. Even at the +Reformation, though more general causes were of capital importance, +political events had a very large part in defining the frontier line +between the rival creeds, and the divisions so created have for the +most part endured.</p> + +<p>In secular politics numerous instances of the same kind will occur to +every thoughtful reader of history. If, as might easily have happened, +Hannibal after the battle of Cannae had taken and burned Rome, and +transferred the supremacy of the world to a maritime commercial State +upon the Mediterranean; if, instead of the Regency, Louis XV. and +Louis XVI., France had passed during the eighteenth century under +sovereigns of the stamp of the elder branch of the House of Orange or +of Henry IV., or of the Great Elector, or of Frederick the Great; if, +at the French Revolution, the supreme military genius had been +connected with the character of Washington rather than with the +character of Napoleon—who can doubt that the course of European +history would have been vastly changed? The causes that made +constitutional liberty succeed in England, while it failed in other +countries where its prospects seemed once at least as promising, are +many and complex; but no careful student of English history will doubt +the prominence among them of the accidental fact that James II., by +embracing Catholicism, had thrown the Church feeling at a very +critical moment into opposition to the monarchical feeling, and that +in the last days of Anne, when the question of the succession was +trembling most doubtfully in the balance, his son refused to conform +to the Anglican creed.</p> + +<p>Laws are no doubt in a great degree inoperative when they do not +spring from and represent the opinion of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>nation, but they have in +their turn a great power of consolidating, deepening, and directing +opinion. When some important progress has been attained, and with the +support of public opinion has been embodied in a law, that law will do +much to prevent the natural reflux of the wave. It becomes a kind of +moral landmark, a powerful educating influence, and by giving what had +been achieved the sanction of legality, it contributes largely to its +permanence. Roman law undoubtedly played a great part in European +history long after all the conditions in which it was first enacted +had passed away, and the legislator who can determine in any country +the system of national education, or the succession of property, will +do much to influence the opinions and social types of many succeeding +generations.</p> + +<p>The point, however, on which I would here especially insist is that +there has scarcely been a great revolution in the world which might +not at some stage of its progress have been either averted, or +materially modified, or at least greatly postponed, by wise +statesmanship and timely compromise. Take, for example, the American +Revolution, which destroyed the political unity of the English race. +You will often hear this event treated as if it were simply due to the +wanton tyranny of an English Government, which desired to reduce its +colonies to servitude by taxing them without their consent. But if you +will look closely into the history of that time—and there is no +history which is more instructive—you will find that this is a gross +misrepresentation. What happened was essentially this. England, under +the guidance of the elder Pitt, had been waging a great and most +successful war, which left her with an enormously extended Empire, but +also with an addition of more than seventy millions to her <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>National +Debt. That debt was now nearly one hundred and forty millions, and +England was reeling under the taxation it required. The war had been +waged largely in America, and its most brilliant result was the +conquest of Canada, by which the old American colonies had benefited +more than any other part of the Empire, for the expulsion of the +French from North America put an end to the one great danger which +hung over them. It was, however, extremely probable that if France +ever regained her strength, one of her first objects would be to +recover her dominion in America.</p> + +<p>Under these circumstances the English Government concluded that it was +impossible that England alone, overburdened as she was by taxation, +could undertake the military defence of her greatly extended Empire. +Their object, therefore, was to create subsidiary armies for its +defence. Ireland already raised by the vote of the Irish Parliament, +and out of exclusively Irish resources, an army consisting of from +twelve to fifteen thousand men, most of whom were available for the +general purposes of the Empire. In India, under a despotic system, a +separate army was maintained for the protection of India. It was the +strong belief of the English Government that a third army should be +maintained in America for the defence of the American colonies and of +the neighbouring islands, and that it was just and reasonable that +America should bear some part of the expense of her own defence. She +was charged with no part of the interest of the National Debt; she +paid nothing towards the cost of the navy which protected her coast; +she was the most lightly taxed and the most prosperous portion of the +Empire; she was the part which had benefited most by the late war, and +she was the part which was most likely to be <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>menaced if the war was +renewed. Under these circumstances Grenville determined that a small +army of ten thousand men should be kept in America, under the distinct +promise that it was never to serve beyond that country and the West +Indian Isles, and he asked America to contribute 100,000<i>l.</i> a year, +or about a third part of its expense.</p> + +<p>But here the difficulty arose. The Irish army was maintained by the +vote of the Irish Parliament; but there was no single parliament +representing the American colonies, and it soon became evident that it +was impossible to induce thirteen State legislatures to agree upon any +scheme for supporting an army in America. Under these circumstances +Grenville in an ill-omened moment resolved to revive a dormant power +which existed in the Constitution, and levy this new war-tax by +Imperial taxation. He at the same time guaranteed the colonists that +the proceeds of this tax should be expended solely in America; he +intimated to them in the clearest way that if they would meet his +wishes by themselves providing the necessary sum, he would be +abundantly satisfied, and he delayed the enforcement of the measure +for a year in order to give them ample time for doing so.</p> + +<p>Such and so small was the original cause of difference between England +and her colonies. Who can fail to see that it was a difference +abundantly susceptible of compromise, and that a wise and moderate +statesmanship might easily have averted the catastrophe? There are few +sadder and few more instructive pages in history than those which show +how mistake after mistake was committed, till the rift which was once +so small widened and deepened; till the two sections of the English +race were thrown into an irreconcilable antagonism, and the fair +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>vision of an United Empire in the East and in the West came for ever +to an end.</p> + +<p>Or glance for a moment at the French Revolution. It is a favourite +task of historians to trace through the preceding generations the long +train of causes that made the transformation of French institutions +absolutely inevitable; but it is not so often remembered that when the +States-General met in 1789 by far the larger part of the benefits of +the Revolution could have been attained without difficulty, without +convulsion, and by general consent. The nobles and clergy had pledged +themselves to surrender their feudal privileges and their privileges +in taxation; a reforming king was on the throne, and a reforming +minister was at his side. If the spirit of moderation had then +prevailed, the inevitable transformation might probably have been made +without the effusion of a drop of blood. Jefferson was at this time +the Minister of the United States in Paris. As an old republican he +knew well the conditions of free governments, and among the +politicians of his own country he represented the democratic section. +I know few words in history more pathetic than those in which he +described the situation. 'I was much acquainted,' he writes, 'with the +leading patriots of the Assembly. Being from a country which had +successfully passed through a similar reformation, they were disposed +to my acquaintance, and had some confidence in me. I urged most +strenuously an immediate compromise to secure what the Government were +now ready to yield.... It was well understood that the King would +grant at this time (1) freedom of the person by Habeas Corpus; (2) +freedom of conscience; (3) freedom of the press; (4) trial by jury; +(5) a representative legislature; (6) annual meetings; (7) the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>origination of laws; (8) the exclusive right of taxation and +appropriation; and (9) the responsibility of Ministers; and with the +exercise of these powers they could obtain in future whatever might be +further necessary to improve and preserve their constitution. They +thought otherwise,' continued Jefferson; 'and events have proved their +lamentable error; for after thirty years of war, foreign and domestic, +the loss of millions of lives, the prostration of private happiness, +and the foreign subjugation of their own country for a time, they have +obtained no more, nor even that securely.'<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p> + +<p>Let me, in concluding these observations, sum up in a few words some +other advantages which you may derive from history. It is, I think, +one of the best schools for that kind of reasoning which is most +useful in practical life. It teaches men to weigh conflicting +probabilities, to estimate degrees of evidence, to form a sound +judgment of the value of authorities. Reasoning is taught by actual +practice much more than by any <i>a priori</i> methods. Many good +judges—and I own I am inclined to agree with them—doubt much whether +a study of formal logic ever yet made a good reasoner. Mathematics are +no doubt invaluable in this respect, but they only deal with +demonstrations; and it has often been observed how many excellent +mathematicians are somewhat peculiarly destitute of the power of +measuring degrees of probability. But history is largely concerned +with the kind of probabilities on which the conduct of life mainly +depends. There is one hint about historical reasoning which I think +may not be unworthy of your notice. When studying some great +historical controversy, place yourselves by an effort of the +imagination alternately on each side <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>of the battle; try to realise as +fully as you can the point of view of the best men on either side, and +then draw up upon paper the arguments of each in the strongest form +you can give them. You will find that few practices do more to +elucidate the past, or form a better mental discipline.</p> + +<p>History, again, greatly expands our horizon and enlarges our +experience by bringing us in direct contact with men of many times and +countries. It gives young men something of the experience of old men, +and untravelled men something of the experience of travelled ones. A +great source of error in our judgment of men is that we do not make +sufficient allowance for the difference of types. The essentials of +right and wrong no doubt continue the same, but if you look carefully +into history you will find that the special stress which is attached +to particular virtues is constantly changing. Sometimes it is the +civic virtues, sometimes the religious virtues, sometimes the +industrial virtues, sometimes the love of truth, sometimes the more +amiable dispositions, that are most valued, and occupy the foremost +place in the moral type. The men of each age must be judged by the +ideal of their own age and country, and not by the ideal of ours. Men +look at life in very different aspects, and they differ greatly in +their ways of reasoning, in the qualities they admire, in the aims +which they chiefly prize. In few things do they differ more than in +their capacity for self-government; in the kinds of liberty they +especially value; in their love or dislike of government guidance or +control.</p> + +<p>The power of realising and understanding types of character very +different from our own is not, I think, an English quality, and a +great many of our mistakes in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>governing other nations come from this +deficiency. Some thirty or forty years ago especially it was the +custom of English statesmen to write and speak as if the salvation of +every nation depended mainly upon its adoption of a miniature copy of +the British Constitution. Now, if there is a lesson which history +teaches clearly, it is that the same institutions are not fitted for +all nations, and that what in one nation may prove perfectly +successful, will in another be supremely disastrous. The habits and +traditions of a nation; the peculiar bent of its character and +intellect; the degree in which self-control, respect for law, the +spirit of compromise, and disinterested public spirit are diffused +through the people; the relations of classes, and the divisions of +property, are all considerations of capital importance. It is a great +error, both in history and in practical politics, to attach too much +value to a political machine. The essential consideration is by what +men and in what spirit that machine is likely to be worked. Few +Constitutions contain more theoretical anomalies, and even +absurdities, than that under which England has attained to such an +unexampled height of political prosperity; while a servile imitation +of some of the most skilfully-devised Constitutions in Europe has not +saved some of the South American States from long courses of anarchy, +bankruptcy, and revolution.</p> + +<p>These are some of the political lessons that may be drawn from +history. Permit me, in conclusion, to say that its most precious +lessons are moral ones. It expands the range of our vision, and +teaches us in judging the true interests of nations to look beyond the +immediate future. Few good judges will deny that this habit is now +much wanted. The immensely increased prominence in political life of +ephemeral influences, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>especially of the influence of a daily +press; the immense multiplication of elections, which intensifies +party conflicts, all tend to concentrate our thoughts more and more +upon an immediate issue. They narrow the range of our vision, and make +us somewhat insensible to distant consequences and remote +contingencies. It is not easy, in the heat and passion of modern +political life, to look beyond a parliament or an election, beyond the +interest of a party or the triumph of an hour. Yet nothing is more +certain than that the ultimate, distant, and perhaps indirect +consequences of political measures are often far more important than +their immediate fruits, and that in the prosperity of nations a large +amount of continuity in politics and the gradual formation of +political habits are of transcendent importance. History is never more +valuable than when it enables us, standing as on a height, to look +beyond the smoke and turmoil of our petty quarrels, and to detect in +the slow developments of the past the great permanent forces that are +steadily bearing nations onwards to improvement or decay.</p> + +<p>The strongest of these forces are the moral ones. Mistakes in +statesmanship, military triumphs or disasters, no doubt affect +materially the prosperity of nations, but their permanent political +well-being is essentially the outcome of their moral state. Its +foundation is laid in pure domestic life, in commercial integrity, in +a high standard of moral worth and of public spirit; in simple habits, +in courage, uprightness, and self-sacrifice, in a certain soundness +and moderation of judgment, which springs quite as much from character +as from intellect. If you would form a wise judgment of the future of +a nation, observe carefully whether these qualities are increasing or +decaying. Observe especially what qualities <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>count for most in public +life. Is character becoming of greater or less importance? Are the men +who obtain the highest posts in the nation men of whom in private life +and irrespective of party competent judges speak with genuine respect? +Are they men of sincere convictions, sound judgment, consistent lives, +indisputable integrity, or are they men who have won their positions +by the arts of a demagogue or an intriguer; men of nimble tongues and +not earnest beliefs—skilful, above all things, in spreading their +sails to each passing breeze of popularity? Such considerations as +these are apt to be forgotten in the fierce excitement of a party +contest; but if history has any meaning, it is such considerations +that affect most vitally the permanent well-being of communities, and +it is by observing this moral current that you can best cast the +horoscope of a nation.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> <i>Pericles and Aspasia.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Jefferson's <i>Memoirs</i>, i. 80.</p></div> + +<p> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +</p> +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span><br /></p> + +<h3><a name="THE_EMPIRE" id="THE_EMPIRE"></a>THE EMPIRE: ITS VALUE AND ITS GROWTH<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + + +<p>I have been asked on the present occasion to deliver a short address +which might serve as an introduction to the course of lectures and +conferences on the history and resources of the different portions of +the Empire which are to take place in the Imperial Institute. In +attempting to discharge this task my first reflection is one which the +very existence of the Institute can hardly fail to suggest to anyone +with any knowledge of recent history. It is the great revolution of +opinion which has taken place in England within the last few years +about the real value to her both of her colonies and of her Indian +Empire. Not many years ago it was a popular doctrine among a large and +important class of politicians that these vast dominions were not +merely useless but detrimental to the mother-country, and that it +should be the end of a wise policy to prepare and facilitate their +disruption. Bentham, in a pamphlet called 'Emancipate your Colonies,' +advocated a speedy and complete separation. James Mill, who held a +high place among these politicians, wrote an article on Colonies for +the 'Encyclopædia Britannica' which clearly expresses their view. +Colonies, he contended, are very little calculated to yield any +advantage whatever to the countries that hold them, and their chief +influence is to produce and prolong bad government. Why, then, he +asks, do European nations <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>maintain them? The answer is very +characteristic, both of the man and of his school. Something, he +charitably admits, is due to mere ignorance, to mistaken views of +utility; but the main cause is of another kind. He quotes the saying +of Sancho Panza, who desired to possess an island in order that he +might sell its inhabitants as slaves, and put the money in his pocket; +and he maintains that the chief cause of our Colonial Empire is the +selfish interest of the governing few who valued colonies because they +gave them places and enabled them to multiply wars. In more moderate +and decorous language, Goldwin Smith wrote a book, the object of which +was to show how desirable it was that this Empire should be gradually +but steadily reduced to the sweet simplicity of two islands. Similar +views prevailed very generally in the Manchester school. Cobden +frequently expressed them. The question of the colonies, he +maintained, was mainly a question of pounds, shillings, and pence; he +proved, as he imagined, by many figures that they were a very bad +bargain; and he expressed his confident hope that one of the results +of free trade would be 'gradually and imperceptibly to loosen the +bands which unite our colonies to us.' About our Indian Empire he +entertained much stronger opinions. He described it as a calamity and +a curse to the people of England. He looked on it, in his own words, +'with an eye of despair,' and declared that it was destroying and +demoralising the national character. It was the belief of his school +of politicians that all the nations of the world would speedily follow +the example of England and adopt a policy of perfect free trade; that +when all men were able to sell their industries with equal facility in +all countries, it would become a matter of little consequence <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>to them +under what flag they lived, and that this complete commercial +assimilation would soon be followed by a general movement for +disarming, which would put an end to all fear of future war.</p> + +<p>Many politicians who certainly cannot be classified with the +Manchester school held views tending in some degree in the same +direction. Even Sir Cornewall Lewis in his treatise on the 'Government +of Dependencies,' which was published in 1841, summed up the +advantages and disadvantages of a great empire in a manner that gives +the impression that in his own judgment the disadvantages on the whole +predominated. In the Autobiography of that great writer and excellent +public servant Sir Henry Taylor, who for many years exercised much +influence in the Colonial Office, we have a curious picture of the +opinions which were held on this subject about thirty years ago, both +by Sir Henry Taylor himself and by Sir Frederick Rogers, who was at +this time permanent Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies. They +both agreed that all our North American colonies were a kind of +<i>damnosa hereditas</i>, and that it was in a high degree desirable that +they should be amicably separated from Great Britain. Sir Henry Taylor +wrote his views on the subject with great frankness to the Duke of +Newcastle, who was then Secretary of State. 'When your Grace and the +Prince of Wales,' he said, 'were employing yourselves so successfully +in conciliating the colonists, I thought that you were drawing closer +ties which might better be slackened, if there were any chance of +their slipping away altogether. I think that a policy which has regard +to a not very far off future should prepare facilities and +propensities for separation.... In my estimation the worst consequence +of the late dispute with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>the United States has been that of involving +this country and its North American provinces in closer relations and +a common cause.'<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> 'I have always believed,' wrote Sir Frederick +Rogers in 1885—'and the belief has so confirmed and consolidated +itself, that I can hardly realise the possibility of anyone seriously +thinking the contrary—that the destiny of our colonies is +independence; and that in this point of view the function of the +Colonial Office is to secure that our connection while it lasts shall +be as profitable to both parties, and our separation when it comes as +amicable as possible.'</p> + +<p>I do not believe that opinions of this kind, though they were held by +a large and powerful section of English politicians, ever penetrated +very deeply into the English nation. One of the causes of Mr. Cobden's +'despair' was his conviction that the English people would never be +persuaded to surrender India except at the close of a disastrous and +exhausting war, and in his day the policy of national surrender was +certainly not that of the statesmen who led either party in +Parliament. No one would attribute it to Mr. Disraeli, in whose long +political life the note of Imperialism was perhaps that which sounded +with the clearest ring, and it was quite as repugnant to Lord +Palmerston and Lord John Russell. In an admirable speech which was +delivered in the beginning of 1850, Lord John Russell disclaimed all +sympathy with it, and I can well remember the indignation with which +in his latter days he was accustomed to speak of the views on the +subject which were then frequently expressed. 'When I was young,' he +once said to me, 'it was thought the mark of a wise statesman that he +had turned a small kingdom into a great empire. In my old age it +appears <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>to be thought the object of a statesman to turn a great +empire into a small kingdom.'</p> + +<p>I do not think that anyone who has watched the current of English +opinion will doubt that the views of the Manchester school on this +subject have within the last few years steadily lost ground, and that +a far warmer and, in my opinion, nobler and more healthy feeling +towards India and the colonies has grown up. The change may be +attributed to many causes. In the first place, what Carlyle called +'The Calico Millennium' has not arrived. The nations have not adopted +free trade, but nearly all of them, including unfortunately many of +our own colonies, have raised tariff walls against our trade. The +Reign of Peace has not come. National antipathies and jealousies play +about as great a part in human affairs as they ever did, and there are +certainly not less than three and a half millions, there are probably +nearly four millions, of men under arms in what are called the peace +establishments of Europe. It is beginning to be clearly seen that, +with our vast, redundant, ever-growing population, with our enormous +manufactures, and our utterly insufficient supply of home-grown food, +it is a matter of life and death to the nation, and especially to its +working classes, that there should be secure and extending fields open +to our goods, and in the present condition of the world we must mainly +look for these fields within our own Empire. The gigantic dimensions +that Indian trade has assumed within the last few years, and the +extraordinary commercial development of some other parts of our +Empire, have pointed the moral, and it has been made still more +apparent by the eagerness with which other Powers, and especially +Germany, have flung themselves <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>into the path of colonisation. In an +age, too, when all the paths of professional and industrial life in +our country are crowded to excess, the competitive system has combined +with our new acquisitions of territory to throw open noble fields of +employment, enterprise and ambition to poor and struggling talent, and +India is proving a school of inestimable value for maintaining some of +the best and most masculine qualities of our race. It is the great +seed-plot of our military strength; and the problems of Indian +administration are peculiarly fitted to form men of a kind that is +much needed among us—men of strong purpose and firm will, and high +ruling and organising powers, men accustomed to deal with facts rather +than with words, and to estimate measures by their intrinsic value, +and not merely by their party advantages, men skilful in judging human +character under its many types and aspects and disguises.</p> + +<p>If again we turn to our great self-governing colonies, we have learnt +to feel how valuable it is, in an age in which international +jealousies are so rife, that there should be vast and rapidly growing +portions of the globe that are not only at peace with us, but at one +with us; how unspeakably important it is to the future of the world +that the English race, through the ages that are to come, should cling +as closely as possible together. As a distinguished statesman who +lately represented the United States in England<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> has admirably said, +'If it is not always true that trade follows flag, it is at least true +that "heart follows flag,"' and the feeling that our fellow-subjects +in distant parts of the Empire bear to us is very different from the +feeling even of the most friendly foreign nation. Our great colonies +have readily <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>undertaken the responsibility of providing for their own +defence by land, and even in some degree by sea. If the protection of +their coasts in time of war might become a great strain upon our navy, +this disadvantage is largely balanced by the importance of distant +maritime possessions to every nation that desires to maintain an +efficient fleet; by the immense advantage to a great commercial Power +of secure harbours and coaling stations scattered over the world. It +is not difficult to conceive circumstances in which the destruction of +some of our main industries, occurring, perhaps, in the midst of a +great war, might make it utterly impossible for our present population +to live upon British soil, and when the possession of vast territories +under the British flag, and in the hands of the British race, might +become a matter of transcendent importance. Think for a moment of the +colossal, and indeed appalling, proportions which our great towns are +assuming! Think of all the vice and ignorance and disease, of all the +sordid abject misery, of all the lawless passions that are festering +within them! And then consider how precarious are many of the +conditions of our industrial prosperity, how grave and how numerous +are the dangers that threaten it both from within and from without. +Who can reflect seriously on these things without feeling that the day +may come—perhaps at no distant date—when the question of emigration +may overshadow all others? To many of us, indeed, it seems one of the +greatest errors of modern English statesmanship that when the great +exodus from Ireland took place after the famine, Government took no +step to aid it, or to direct it to quarters where it would have been +of real benefit to the Empire. Many good judges think that the +advantages of such interference in allaying <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>bitter feelings, +softening a disastrous crisis, and permanently strengthening the +Empire, might have been well purchased even if they cost as much as +England has sometimes lost by one comparatively insignificant war or +by one disastrous strike. In dealing with this question of emigration +in the future, colonial assistance may be of supreme importance. And +those who have understood the significance of that memorable incident +in our recent history—the despatch of Australian troops to fight our +battles in the Soudan—may perceive that there is at least a +possibility of a still closer and more beneficent union between +England and her colonies—a union that would vastly increase the +strength of both, and by doing so become a great guarantee of peace in +the world.</p> + +<p>It would be a calumny to suppose that the change of feeling I have +described was solely due to a calculation of interests. Patriotism +cannot be reduced to a mere question of money, and a nation which has +grown tired of the responsibilities of empire, and careless of the +acquisitions of its past and of its greatness in the future, would +indeed have entered into a period of inevitable decadence. Happily we +have not yet come to this. I believe the overwhelming majority of the +people of these islands are convinced that an England reduced to the +limits which the Manchester school would assign to it would be an +England shorn of the chief elements of its dignity in the world, and +that no greater disgrace could befall them than to have sacrificed +through indifference, or negligence, or faint-heartedness, an Empire +which has been built up by so much genius and so much heroism in the +past. Railways and telegraphs and newspapers have brought us into +closer touch with our distant possessions, have enabled us to realise +more vividly both <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>their character and their greatness, and have thus +extended the horizon of our sympathies and interests. The figures of +illustrious colonial statesmen are becoming familiar to us. Men formed +in Indian and colonial spheres are becoming more numerous and +prominent in our own public life. The presence in England of a High +Commissioner from Canada, and of Agents-General from our other +colonies, constitutes a real though informal colonial representation, +and on more than one recent occasion our foreign policy has been +swayed by colonial pressure. These young democracies, with their vast +undeveloped resources, their unwearied energies, their great social +and industrial problems, are beginning to loom largely in the +imaginations of Europe. They feel, we believe, a just pride in being +members of a great and ancient Empire, and heirs to the glories of its +past. We, in our turn, feel a no less just pride in our union with +those coming nations which are still lit with the hues of sunrise and +rich in the promise of the future.</p> + +<p>It has been suggested to me that I should on the present occasion say +something about the methods by which this great Empire was built up, +but it is obvious that in a short address like the present it is only +possible to touch on so large a subject in the most cursory manner. +Much is due to our insular position and our command of the sea, which +gave Englishmen, in the competition of nations, a peculiar power both +of conquering and holding distant dependencies. Being precluded, +perhaps quite as much by their position as by their desire, from +throwing themselves, like most continental nations, into a long course +of European aggression, they have largely employed their redundant +energies in exploring, conquering, civilising, and governing distant +and half-savage lands. They have <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>found, like all other nations, that +an Empire planted amid the shifting sands of half-civilised and +anarchical races is compelled for its own security, and as a mere +matter of police, to extend its borders. The chapter of +accidents—which has played a larger part in most human affairs than +many very philosophical enquirers are inclined to admit—has counted +for something. But, in addition to these things, there are certain +general characteristics of English policy which have contributed very +largely to the success of the Empire.</p> + +<p>It has been the habit of most nations to regulate colonial governments +in all their details according to the best metropolitan ideas, and to +surround them with a network of restrictions. England has in general +pursued a different course. Partly on system, but partly also, I +think, from neglect, she has always allowed an unusual latitude to +local knowledge and to local wishes. She has endeavoured to secure, +wherever her power extends, life and property, and contract and +personal freedom, and, in these latter days, religious liberty; but +for the rest she has meddled very little; she has allowed her +settlements to develop much as they please, and has given, in practice +if not in theory, the fullest powers to her governors. It is +astonishing, in the history of the British Empire, how large a part of +its greatness is due to the independent action of individual +adventurers, or groups of emigrants, or commercial companies, almost +wholly unassisted and uncontrolled by the Government at home. An +Empire formed by such methods is not likely to exhibit much symmetry +and unity of plan, but it is certain to be pervaded in an unusual +degree, in all its parts, by a spirit of enterprise and self-reliance; +it will probably be peculiarly fertile in men not only of energy but +of resource, capable of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>dealing with strange conditions and +unforeseen exigencies. England in the past periods of her history has, +on the whole, been singularly successful in adapting her different +administrations to widely different national circumstances and +characters, and governments of the most various types have arisen +under her rule. Nothing in the history of the world is more wonderful +than that under the flag of these two little islands there should have +grown up the greatest and most beneficent despotism in the world, +comprising nearly two hundred and thirty millions of inhabitants under +direct British rule, and more than fifty millions under British +protectorates; while at the same time British colonies and settlements +that are scattered throughout the globe number not less than fifty-six +distinct subordinate governments.</p> + +<p>This system would have been less successful if it had not been for two +important facts. The original stuff of which our Colonial Empire was +formed was singularly good. Some of the most important of our colonies +were founded in the days of religious war, and the early settlers +consisted largely of religious refugees—a class who are usually +superior to the average of men in intellectual and industrial +qualities, and are nearly always greatly superior to them in strength +of conviction, and in those high moral qualities which play so great a +part in the well-being of nations. Besides this, in those distant +days, the difficulties of emigration were so great that they were +rarely voluntarily encountered except by men of much more than average +courage, enterprise and resource. These early adventurers were +certainly often of no saintly type, but they were largely endowed with +the robuster qualities that are most needed for grappling with new +circumstances and carving out the empires of the future.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>The second fact is the high standard of patriotism and honour which we +may, I think, truly say has nearly always prevailed among English +public servants. It is not an easy thing to secure honest and faithful +administration in remote countries, far from the supervision and +practical control of the central government. I think we may boast with +truth that England has attained this end, not indeed perfectly, but at +least to a greater degree than most other nations. The history of +Indian and colonial governors has never been written as a whole, but +it is well worthy of study. In the appointment of these men party has +always counted for something, and family has counted for something; +but they have never been the only considerations, and, on the whole, I +believe it will be found, if we consider the three elements of +character, capacity and experience, that our Indian and colonial +governors represent a higher level of ruling qualities than has been +attained by any line of hereditary sovereigns, or by any line of +elected presidents. In the period of the foundation of our Indian +Empire much was done that was violent and rapacious, but the best +modern research seems to show that the picture which a few years ago +was generally accepted had been greatly overcharged. The history of +Warren Hastings and his companions has been recently studied with +great knowledge and ability, and with the result that the more serious +opinions on the subject have been considerably modified. Much +exaggeration undoubtedly grew up in the last century, partly through +ignorance of Oriental affairs, and partly also through the eloquence +of Burke. There is no figure in English political history for which I +at least entertain a greater reverence than Edmund Burke. I believe +him to have been a man of transparent honesty, as well as of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>transcendent genius; but his politics were too apt to be steeped in +passion, and he was often carried away by the irresistible force of +his own imagination and feelings. Misrepresentations were greatly +consolidated by the Indian History of James Mill, which was for a long +time the main, and indeed almost the only, source from which +Englishmen obtained their knowledge of Indian history. It was written, +as might be expected, with the strongest bias of hostility to the +English in India, yet I suspect that many superficial readers imagined +that a history which was so unquestionably dull must be at least +impartial and philosophical. Unfortunately, Macaulay relied greatly on +it, and, without having made any serious independent studies on the +subject, he invested some of its misrepresentations with all the +splendour of his eloquence. I believe all competent authorities are +now agreed that his essay on Warren Hastings, though it is one of the +most brilliant of his writings, is also one of the most seriously +misleading.</p> + +<p>I am not prepared to say that the reaction of opinion produced by the +new school of Indian historians has not been sometimes carried too +far, but these writers have certainly dispelled much exaggeration and +some positive falsehood. They have shown that, although under +circumstances of extreme difficulty and extraordinary temptation, some +very bad things were done by Englishmen in India, these things were +neither as numerous nor as grave as has been alleged.</p> + +<p>On the whole, too, it may be truly said that English colonial policy +in its broad lines has to a remarkable degree avoided grave errors. +The chief exception is to be found in the series of mistakes which +produced the American Revolution, and ended in the loss of our chief +American <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>colonies. Yet even in this instance it is, I believe, coming +to be perceived that there is much more to be said for the English +case than the historians of the last generation were apt to imagine. +In imposing commercial restrictions on the colonies and endeavouring +to secure for the mother-country the monopoly of their trade, we +merely acted upon ideas that were then almost universally received, +and our commercial code was on the whole less illiberal than that of +other nations. Both Spain and France imposed restrictions on their +colonies which were far more severe, and the English restrictions were +at least mitigated by frequent partial relaxations and exceptions, by +some important monopolies granted in favour of the colonies in the +English market and by bounties encouraging several branches of +colonial produce. It is at least certain that under the large measure +of political liberty granted by the English Government to the English +colonies their material prosperity, even in the worst period of +commercial restriction, steadily and rapidly advanced. This has been +clearly shown by more than one writer on our side of the Atlantic, but +the subject has never been treated with more exhaustive knowledge and +more perfect impartiality than by an American writer—Mr. George +Beer—whose work on the Commercial Policy of England has recently been +published by Columbia College, in New York. No one will now altogether +defend Grenville's policy of taxing America by the Imperial +Parliament, but it ought not to be forgotten that it was expressly +provided that every farthing of this taxation was to be expended in +America, and devoted to colonial defence. England had just terminated +a great war, which, by expelling the French from Canada, had been of +inestimable advantage to her colonies, but <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>which had left the +mother-country almost crushed by debt. All that Grenville desired was, +that the American colonies should provide a portion of the cost of +their own defence, as our great colonies are doing at the present +time, and he only resorted to Imperial taxation because he despaired +of achieving this end by any other means. The step which he took was +no doubt a false one. As is so often the case in England, it was made +worse by party changes and by party recriminations, and many later +mistakes aggravated and embittered the original dispute; but I think +an impartial reader of this melancholy chapter of English history will +come to the conclusion that these mistakes were by no means all on one +side.</p> + +<p>It is a story which is certainly not without its lesson to our own +time. It is very improbable that any future statesman will follow the +example of George Grenville, and endeavour by Act of Parliament to +impose taxation on a self-governing colony; but it would be a grave +error to suppose that the danger of unwise parliamentary interference +in Indian and colonial affairs has diminished. Great as are the +advantages of telegraphs and newspapers in the government of the +Empire, they are not without their drawbacks. Government by telegraph +is a very dangerous thing, and there is, I fear, an increasing +tendency to override local knowledge, and to apply English standards +and methods of government to wholly un-English conditions. +Ill-considered resolutions of the House of Commons, often passed in +obedience to some popular fad, and without any real intention of +carrying them into effect; language used in Parliament which is often +due to no deeper motive than a desire to win the favour of some class +of voters in an English constituency, may do as much as serious +misgovernment to alienate <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>great masses of British subjects beyond the +sea. All really competent judges are agreed that one of the first +conditions of successful government in India has been that Indian +questions have for the most part been kept out of the range of English +party politics, and that Indian government has been conducted on +principles essentially different from democratic government at home.</p> + +<p>On the whole, however, it is impossible to review the colonial history +of England without being struck with the many serious dangers that +might easily have shattered the Empire, which were averted by wise +statesmanship and timely—or at least not fatally tardy—concession. +There was the question of the criminal population which we once +transported to Australia. In the early stage of the colony, when the +population was very sparse and the need for labour very imperative, +this was not regarded as in any degree a grievance; but the time came +when it became a grievance of the gravest kind, and the Imperial power +had at length the wisdom to abandon it. There was the question of the +different and hostile religious bodies existing in different portions +of the Empire, at a time when the monopoly of political power by the +members of a single Established Church, the exclusive endowment of its +clergy, and the maintenance of the purely Protestant character of the +English Government were cherished as religious duties by politicians +at home. Yet at this very time an established and endowed Roman +Catholic Church was flourishing in Canada, and there were numerous +examples throughout the British dominions of the concurrent endowment +of different forms of religious belief by the State,<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> while in India +it <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>abstained, with an extreme, and sometimes even an exaggerated, +scrupulousness, from all measures that could by any possibility offend +the native religious prejudices. There was the question of +Slavery—though we were freed from the most difficult part of this +problem by the secession of America. In addition, however, to its +moral aspects, it affected most vitally the material prosperity of +some of our richest colonies; it raised the very dangerous +constitutional question of the right of the Imperial Parliament to +interfere with the internal affairs of a self-governing colony, and it +brought the Home Government into more serious collision with the local +Governments than any question since the American Revolution. Whatever +may be thought of the wisdom of the measures by which we abolished +slavery in our West Indian colonies, no one at least can deny the +liberality of a Parliament which voted from Imperial resources twenty +millions for the accomplishment of the work. There was the conflict of +race and creed which between 1830 and 1840 had brought Canada to +absolute rebellion, and threatened a complete alienation of Canadian +feeling from the mother-country. This discontent was effectually +allayed and dispelled by the union of Upper and Lower Canada under a +system of constitutional government of the most liberal character, +which gave the colonists on all subjects of internal legislation a +legislative independence that was in practice almost complete. +Considered as a measure of conciliation this has proved one of the +most successful of the nineteenth century, and in spite of a few +discordant notes it may be truly said that there are few greater +contrasts in the present reign than are presented between Canadian +feeling towards the mother-country when Queen Victoria ascended the +throne and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>Canadian feeling at the present hour. There was also the +great and dangerous task to be accomplished of adapting the system of +colonial government to the different stages of colonial development. +There was a time when the colonies were so weak that they depended +mainly on England for their protection; but, unlike some of the great +colonising Powers of ancient and modern times, England never drew a +direct tribute from her colonies, and, in spite of much unwise and +some unjust legislation, I believe there was never a time when they +were not on the whole benefited by the connection. Soon, however, the +colonies grew to the strength and maturity of nationhood, and the +mother-country speedily recognised the fact, and allowed no unworthy +or ungenerous fears to restrain her from granting them the fullest +powers, both of self-government and of federation. It is true that she +still sends out a governor—usually drawn from the ranks of +experienced and considerable English public men—to preside over +colonial affairs. It is true that she retains a right of veto which is +scarcely ever exercised except to prevent some intercolonial or +international dispute, some act of violence, or some grave anomaly in +the legislation of the Empire. It is true that colonial cases may be +carried, on appeal, to an English tribunal, representing the very +highest judicial capacity of the mother-country, and free from all +possibility and suspicion of partiality; but I do not believe that any +of these light ties are unpopular with any considerable section of the +colonists. On the other hand, though it would be idle to suppose that +our great colonies depend largely upon the mother-country, I believe +that most colonists recognise that there is something in the weight +and dignity attaching to fellow-membership and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>fellow-citizenship in +a great Empire—something in the protection of the greatest navy in +the world—something in the improved credit which connection with a +very rich centre undoubtedly gives to colonial finance.</p> + +<p>It is the custom of our friends and neighbours on the Continent to +bestow much scornful remark on the egotism of English policy, which +attends mainly to the interests of the British Empire, and is not +ready to make war for an idea and in support of the interests of +others. I think, if it were necessary, we might fairly defend +ourselves by showing that in the past we have meddled with the affairs +of other nations quite as much as is reasonable. For my own part, I +confess that I distrust greatly these explosions of military +benevolence. They always begin by killing a great many men. They +usually end in ways that are not those of a disinterested +philanthropy. After all, an egotism that mainly confines itself to the +well-being of about a fifth part of the globe cannot be said to be of +a very narrow type, and it is essentially by her conduct to her own +Empire that the part of England in promoting the happiness of mankind +must be ultimately judged. It is indeed but too true that many of the +political causes which have played a great part on platforms, in +parties, and in Parliaments are of such a nature that their full +attainment would not bring relief to one suffering human heart, or +staunch one tear of pain, or add in any appreciable degree to the real +happiness of a single home. But most assuredly Imperial questions are +not of this order. Remember what India had been for countless ages +before the establishment of British rule. Think of its endless wars of +race and creed, its savage oppressions, its fierce anarchies, its +barbarous customs; and then consider what it is to have established +for so <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>many years over the vast space from the Himalayas to Cape +Comorin a reign of perfect peace; to have conferred upon more than two +hundred and fifty millions of the human race perfect religious +freedom, perfect security of life, liberty, and property; to have +planted in the midst of these teeming multitudes a strong central +government, enlightened by the best knowledge of Western Europe, and +steadily occupied in preventing famine, alleviating disease, +extirpating savage customs, multiplying the agencies of civilisation +and progress. This is the true meaning of that system of government on +which Mr. Cobden looked with 'an eye of despair.' What work of human +policy—I would even say what form of human philanthropy—has ever +contributed more largely to reduce the great sum of human misery and +to add to the possibilities of human happiness?</p> + +<p>And if we turn to the other side of our Empire, although it is quite +true that our great free colonies are fully capable of shaping their +destinies for themselves, may we not truly say that these noble +flowers have sprung from British and from Irish seeds? May we not say +that the laws, the Constitutions, the habits of thought and character +that have so largely made them what they are, are mainly of English +origin? May we not even add that it is in no small part due to their +place in the British Empire that these vast sections of the globe, +with their diverse and sometimes jarring interests, have remained at +perfect peace with us and with each other, and have escaped the curse +of an exaggerated militarism, which is fast eating like a canker into +the prosperity of the great nations of Europe?</p> + +<p>When responsible government was conceded by the British Government to +her more important colonies, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>it was done in the fullest and largest +measure. Although the mother-country remained burdened with the task +of defending them she made no reservation securing for herself free +trade with her colonies or even preferential treatment, and she +surrendered unconditionally to the local legislatures the waste and +unoccupied lands which had long been regarded in England as held in +trust for the benefit of the Empire as a whole. The growing belief +that the connection with the colonies was likely to be a very +transitory one, and also the belief that free-trade doctrines were +likely speedily to prevail, no doubt influenced English statesmen, and +it is not probable that any of them foresaw that both Canada and +Australia would speedily make use of their newly acquired power to +impose heavy duties on English goods. The strongly protectionist +character which the English colonies assumed at a time when England +had committed herself to the most extreme free-trade policy tended no +doubt to separation, and when the English Government adopted the +policy of withdrawing its garrisons from the colonies, when the North +American colonies, with the full assent of the mother-country, formed +themselves into a great federation, and when a movement in the same +direction sprang up in Australia, it was the opinion of some of the +most sagacious statesmen and thinkers in England that the time of +separation was very near.<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p> + +<p>On the whole, however, these predictions have hitherto been falsified. +The federation of North America and, at a later period, the federation +of Australia have been followed by an increased and not a diminished +disposition on the side of the colonists to draw closer the ties with +the mother-country, while in England the popular <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>imagination has been +more and more impressed with the growing magnitude and importance of +her colonial dominions. The tendency towards great political +agglomerations based upon an affinity of race, language and creed, +which has produced the Pan-Slavonic movement and the Pan-Germanic +movement, and which chiefly made the unity of Italy, has not been +without its influence in the English-speaking world, and it is felt +that a close union between its several parts is essential if it is +fully to maintain its relative position under the new conditions of +the world. The English-speaking nations comprise the most rapidly +increasing, the most progressive, the most happily situated nations of +the earth, and if their power and influence are not wasted by internal +quarrels their type of civilisation must one day become dominant in +the world.</p> + +<p>Whether their harmony and unity are likely to be attained is one of +the great problems of the future, but the ideal is one which every +patriotic Englishman should at least set before him. It is not one +which can be called an assured destiny, and to many the chances seem +on the whole against it. Unexpected collisions of interest or passion +or ambition may at any time mar the prospects, and in great +democracies largely influenced by demagogues and by an irresponsible +and anonymous Press there are always powerful agencies that do not +make for peace. Immediate party interests both at home and in the +colonies too frequently blind men to distant and ulterior +consequences, and the many ill-wishers to the British Empire are sure +to direct their policy largely to its disruption. The natural bond of +union of a great Empire is economical unity, binding its several parts +together by a common system of free trade and by a common commercial +policy towards other Powers. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>Unfortunately the profoundly different +policy adopted on these matters in England and her colonies has made +such a Union almost impracticable, and it is quite possible for the +English colonies to be united by closer commercial ties with foreign +countries than with the mother-country. The question of the common +defence of the Empire and the question of the representation of the +colonies in Imperial politics are also questions of great difficulty +and of pressing importance.</p> + +<p>Something has been done showing at least a disposition to meet them. +The concession of preferential duties in favour of England by some of +our most important colonies, the small subsidies made to the +maintenance of the British navy, and the far more important military +assistance given by the colonies to the mother-country in the Egyptian +and the South African wars are indicative of the feeling of closer +unity which has grown up between England and her colonies, and in +addition to the appointment of Agents-General, the introduction of a +few eminent colonial judges into the Judicial Committee of the Privy +Council, which is the Supreme Court of Appeal of the Empire, has given +the colonies some real representation in Imperial affairs. Much more, +however, in this direction may be done. There have been several +instances of eminent colonials obtaining seats in the English House of +Commons to the great advantage of the Empire, but a regular +representation of the colonies in this assembly may, I think, be +dismissed as altogether impracticable. The mere distance is a +sufficient objection, and at least nine-tenths of the business of the +House of Commons deals with purely English questions depending for +their wise solution on inherited English habits and on compromises +with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>existing institutions, and a large proportion of them are +problems which have been already dealt with in the colonies on other +grounds and without any of the complexities of an old country. What +reason could there be for calling in the colonists to adjudicate, +perhaps even to turn the balance, on questions relating to English +education, English licensing laws, English taxation, English +dispositions of property? The difficulty of distinguishing between +Imperial and local questions would be insuperable. The division of the +House into two categories of members with distinct spheres of voting +power would prove unworkable, and the colonial representatives would +during most of their time in Parliament have nothing to do. An +increase in the number of peers drawn from the colonies would be less +impracticable, but there would be much that is invidious in the +choice; much danger that the colonial peers living in England would +get out of touch with the colonies and become an object of envy and +jealousy; and English lawyers do not think that a large infusion of +colonial law peers would raise the competence of the Supreme Judicial +Tribunal of the Empire, which represents at present the highest legal +talent and attainments in England and deals mainly with English legal +questions. A Consultative Council, however, consisting of the +Agents-General and perhaps reinforced by additional colonial +representatives and dealing exclusively with Imperial questions, does +not seem wholly impracticable, and many competent judges believe that +a supreme legal tribunal for dealing with inter-colonial and +international conflicts might be constructed which would be both more +efficient and more representative than any that now exists.</p> + +<p>It is probable, however, that the true tie that must unite the +different portions of the Empire must be mainly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>a moral one. In the +conditions of modern life no power is likely to maintain long a vast, +scattered, heterogeneous Empire if the central governing power within +it has declined; if through want of efficiency, or moral energy, or +moral purity, it ceases to win the respect of its several parts. It is +no less true that the cohesion can only be permanently maintained by +the wide diffusion of a larger and Imperial patriotism, pervading the +whole like a vital principle; binding men by the ties of pride and of +affection to the great Empire to which they belong, and subordinating +to its maintenance local and party and class interests. If this spirit +dies out, the movement of disintegration is sure to begin. No +political machinery, no utilitarian calculation, will in the long run +be powerful enough to arrest it.</p> + +<p>What may be the future place of these islands in the government of the +world no human being can foretell. Nations, as history but too plainly +shows, have their periods of decay as well as their periods of growth. +The balance of power in the world is constantly shifting. Maxims and +influences very different from those which made England what she is +are in the ascendant, and the clouds upon the horizon are neither few +nor slight. But, whatever fate may be in store for these islands, and +for the political unity we so justly prize, we may at least +confidently predict that no revolution in human affairs can now +destroy the future ascendancy of the English language and of the +Imperial race. Whatever misfortunes, whatever humiliations the future +may reserve to us, they cannot deprive England of the glory of having +created this mighty Empire.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Not Heaven itself upon the Past has power.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But what has been, has been—and we have had our hour.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> <i>Autobiography</i>, ii. pp. 234, 235.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Mr. Bayard.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> See the enumeration of these endowments in Gladstone's +<i>State and Church</i>, Ch. IX.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> See Cairnes' <i>Political Essays</i>, 49-50, 56.</p></div> + +<p> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +</p> +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span><br /></p> + +<h3><a name="LIGHT_OF_HISTORY" id="LIGHT_OF_HISTORY"></a>IRELAND IN THE LIGHT OF HISTORY<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + + +<p>The kind of interest which belongs to Irish history is curiously +different from that which attaches to the history of England and to +that of most of the great nations of the Continent. In very few +histories do we find so little national unity or continuous progress, +or such long spaces which are almost wholly occupied by perplexed, +petty internal broils, often stained by atrocious crimes, but turning +on no large issue and leading to no clear or stable results. Except +during the great missionary period of the sixth and seventh centuries, +and during a brief portion of the eighteenth century, we have little +of the interest that arises from dramatic situations or shining +characters, and in few countries has the highest intellect been, on +the whole, so slightly connected with the administration of affairs. +To a philosophical student of politics, however, Irish history +possesses an interest of the highest order. It is an invaluable study +of morbid anatomy. In very few histories can we trace so clearly the +effects of political and social circumstances in forming national +character; the calamity of missed opportunities and of fluctuating and +procrastinating policy; the folly of attempting to govern by the same +methods and institutions nations that are wholly different in their +characters and their civilisation.</p> + +<p>The idea which still floats vaguely in many minds that Ireland, before +the arrival of the Normans, was a single <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>and independent nation, is +wholly false. Ireland was not a nation, but a collection of separate +tribes and kingdoms, engaged in almost constant warfare. In this +respect, however, she resembled many countries which have since +attained the most perfect unity, and there can be little doubt that, +if her development had been impeded by no extraneous influences, +Ireland would have followed the same path as England or France. Much +stress has been justly laid on the disorganising influence of a long +succession of Danish invasions, though it must be remembered that +Ireland owes to the Danes the foundation of some of her most important +cities. Roman conquest, which introduced into most of Europe +invaluable elements of order, organisation, and respect for law, never +extended to Ireland. The Anglo-Norman invasion and conquest produced +consequences which were almost wholly evil. If the invaders had been +driven from the Irish shore, the natural course of development would, +no doubt, have been in time continued. If the invaders had completely +conquered Ireland, a fusion might have taken place as complete and as +healthy as in England. Neither of these two events occurred. The +English conquest was prolonged over nearly four hundred years. A +hostile and separate power was planted in the centre of Ireland +sufficiently powerful to prevent the formation of another +civilisation, yet not sufficiently powerful to impose a civilisation +of its own. Feudalism was introduced, but the keystone of the system, +a strong resident sovereign, was wanting, and Ireland was soon torn by +the wars of great Anglo-Norman nobles, who were, in fact, independent +sovereigns, much like the old Irish kings. The Scotch invasion of the +fourteenth century added enormously to the anarchy and confusion; the +English power as a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>living reality contracted to the narrow limits of +the pale; in outlying districts the Anglo-Norman assimilated quickly +with the Celtic element, while the English legislators in Ireland, +alarmed at the tendency, made it the main object of their policy, in +the words of Sir John Davies, 'to make a perpetual separation and +enmity between the English and Irish, pretending no doubt that the +English should in the end root out the Irish.'</p> + +<p>Such a state of things continued till the long and terrible wars of +Henry VIII. and Elizabeth broke the power of the independent chiefs +and of the Celtic clans, and gave Ireland, for the first time, a +political unity. It is one of the great infelicities of Irish history +that this result was obtained at the very period of the Reformation. +The conquerors adopted one religion, while the conquered retained the +other, and thus a new and most enduring barrier was raised between the +two nations in Ireland, and a pernicious antagonism was established +between law and religion.</p> + +<p>Another influence not less powerful than religion had at the same time +come into play. It had become the English policy to place great bodies +of English and Scotch settlers on the land that was confiscated in +consequence of rebellion, and under the impulse of the strong spirit +of adventure which grew up in the generation that followed the +Reformation, streams of English and Scotch adventurers poured over. +The great settlement of Ulster under James I. proved ultimately a +success, and laid the foundation of the prosperity of that province. +Other plantations were in time absorbed and assimilated by the Celtic +population; but vast revolutions in the ownership of land, accompanied +by the subversion of the old tribal customs, laid the foundation of an +agrarian war which still continues.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>Religious and agrarian causes combined with the civil war in England +to produce the great rebellion of 1641 and the eleven years of +ghastly, exterminating war which followed. Hardly any page in human +history is more appalling. A full third of the population of Ireland +perished. Thirty or forty thousand of the most energetic left the +country and took service in foreign armies. Great tracts were left +absolutely depopulated, and after the rearrangement of land, which was +accomplished by the Act of Settlement, the immense preponderance of +landed property remained in the hands of the Protestant nation.</p> + +<p>New elements, however, of great energy had been planted in Ireland, +and the field had been thrown open to their exertions. The excellence +of Irish wool and the cheapness of Irish labour laid the foundation of +a flourishing woollen manufacture, and with peace, mild +administration, and much practical tolerance, the wounds of the +country seemed gradually healing. The later Stuart reigns, which form +a dark page in English history, were a period of considerable +prosperity in Ireland, but that period was soon interrupted by the +Revolution. There was no general or passionate rising in Ireland +resembling that of 1641, but it was inevitable that the Irish +Catholics should have adopted the side of the Catholic King, and it +was equally inevitable that when a Catholic Parliament, consisting +largely of sons of the men whose properties had recently been +confiscated, had assembled at Dublin, its members should have made a +desperate effort to reverse their fortunes and replace the land of the +country mainly in Catholic hands. The battle of the Boyne shattered +the Catholic hopes, and it was followed by a new confiscation, by a +new emigration <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>of the ablest and most energetic Catholics, by a long +period of commercial restraints, penal laws, and complete Protestant +ascendancy.</p> + +<p>The commercial restraints formed part of a protective policy which was +at that time general in Europe, and which was severely felt in the +American colonies. Though it did not absolutely originate in, it was +greatly intensified by, the Revolution, which gave the manufacturing +and commercial classes a new power in English government. The linen +manufacture was spared, but the total destruction by law of the +flourishing woollen manufacture, followed by a number of restrictions +imposed on other branches of industry, deprived Ireland of her most +promising sources of wealth, drove great multitudes of energetic +Protestants out of the country, and threw the people more and more +upon the soil as almost their sole means of support.</p> + +<p>The penal laws against the Catholics accompanied or closely followed +the commercial restraints. The blame of them may be divided with some +equality between the Government of England and the Parliament of +Ireland. It was the Irish Parliament which enacted these laws, but an +English Act first made the Irish Parliament exclusively Protestant, +and the whole legislation was carried at a time when the Irish +Parliament was completely dependent, and incompetent even to discuss +any measure without the previous approbation of the English +Government. In order to judge this legislation with equity, it must be +remembered that in the beginning of the eighteenth century restrictive +laws against Protestantism in Catholic countries, and against +Catholicism in Protestant ones, almost universally prevailed. The laws +against Irish Catholics were, on the whole, less stringent <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>than those +against Catholics in England. They were largely modelled after the +French legislation against the Huguenots, but persecution in Ireland +never approached in severity that of Louis XIV., and was absolutely +insignificant compared with that which had extirpated Protestantism +and Judaism from Spain. The code, however, was not mainly the product +of religious feeling, but of policy, and in this respect it has been +defended in its broad outlines, though not in all its details, by such +Irishmen as Charlemont, Flood, and Parsons. They argued that at the +close of a long period of savage civil war it was absolutely necessary +for a small minority, who found themselves in possession of the +government and land of the country, to deprive the conquered and +hostile majority of every element of political and military strength. +This was the real object of the code. It was a measure of self-defence +justified by necessity and by the fact that it produced in Ireland for +the space of about eighty years the most perfect tranquillity.</p> + +<p>There is much truth in these considerations, but it is also true that +the penal code produced more pernicious moral, social, and political +effects than many sanguinary persecutions. In other countries +disqualifying or persecuting laws were directed against small +fractions of the nation. In Ireland they were directed against the +bulk of the community. Being supported by little or no genuine +religious fanaticism or proselytising ardour, they made few +Protestants except in the upper orders, where many conformed in order +to keep their land or to enter professions; but they drove nearly all +the best and most energetic Catholics to the Continent; they +discouraged industry; closed the door of knowledge; taught the people +to look upon law as something hostile to religion; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>introduced +division and immorality into families by the rewards they offered to +apostasy; and condemned the whole country to poverty and impotence by +fatally depressing the great majority of its people. Under the +influence of the penal laws the Catholics inevitably acquired the +vices of serfs, and the Protestants the vices of monopolists. A great +portion of the code was pronounced, with good reason, to be flagrantly +opposed to the articles of the Treaty of Limerick, and it completed +the work of the confiscations by making the landlord class in Ireland +almost wholly Protestant, while the great majority of the tenantry +were Catholics.</p> + +<p>There was a moment, however, in the beginning of the century when the +whole current of Irish history might easily have changed. Scotland had +suffered, like Ireland, from the protective policy that followed the +Revolution, and her independent Parliament had retaliated by measures +which threatened the speedy separation of the two crowns, and soon led +to a legislative Union. In Ireland such a Union was ardently desired +by enlightened Irishmen, and there is every reason to believe that it +could then have been carried with universal consent. The Catholics +were perfectly passive, and would gladly have accepted a change which +withdrew them from the direct government of the conquerors in a recent +civil war. The Protestants had as yet no distinctively national +feeling, and a legislative Union would have emancipated their industry +and added enormously to their security. Molyneux, the first great +champion of the legislative independence of Ireland, emphatically +declared that he and those who thought with him would gladly have +accepted the alternative of a Union, and both the Irish Houses of +Parliament voted <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>addresses in favour of such a measure. If it had +been carried, Ireland would have been at least saved from the evils +that rose from the commercial restrictions and from the extreme +jobbing that grew up around the local legislature, and she would, +perhaps, have been saved from some parts of the penal code. But the +golden opportunity was lost. The English commercial classes dreaded +Irish competition in their markets, and the petition of the Irish +legislature was disregarded.</p> + +<p>Nearly seventy years of quiet followed. The establishment of the +Hanoverian dynasty, the Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745, the +different wars in which England was engaged, left Ireland absolutely +undisturbed. The House of Commons then sat for a whole reign and met +only every second year. It was completely subservient to the English +Privy Council, and it consisted so largely of nomination boroughs that +a few great nobles commanded a decisive preponderance, and they +practically conducted the government and administered the patronage of +Ireland. There was great jobbing and corruption, but taxation, on the +whole, was exceedingly light, and there was no tendency to throw it +unduly on the poor, or to create in Ireland any of the many feudal +burdens that prevailed in France and Germany. The practical evil most +felt was the system of tithes for the support of the Protestant +establishment, and it was aggravated by a very unfair exemption of +pasture land, and also by the prevailing system of farming out tithes +to a class of men known as tithe proctors. In the country districts +all power was concentrated in the hands of the landlords, who, with +many faults and under many difficulties, at least succeeded in +attaining a large measure of genuine popularity.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>There was an Irish army of twelve thousand men, but the greater part +of it was always sent abroad in time of war, and Ireland was then +often left with not more than five thousand soldiers. No militia and +no constabulary force existed, but when Whiteboy or other disturbances +arose, the landlords put themselves at the head of their tenantry, and +usually succeeded in suppressing them. Law was very little observed; +industrial virtues were at the lowest ebb; there was abundance of +drunkenness, idleness, turbulence, neglect of duty, extreme ignorance, +and extreme poverty; but there was not much real oppression or +religious bigotry, and there were no signs of political disturbance or +conspiracy. After a few years the portions of the penal code which +restricted the Catholic worship became a dead letter, and Catholic +chapels were everywhere rising on the Protestant estates. The +monopoly, however, of place and power continued, though the legal +profession was full of professing converts. The theological +temperature in both sects had greatly subsided. Land was usually let +by the owner on long leases, and at very low rents, to tenants who +almost invariably divided and sublet their tenancies.</p> + +<p>At a later period of the century, when population pressed closely on +subsistence, the system of middlemen produced a fierce competition +which raised rent in the lower grades to an enormous height, but this +evil was less felt with a scanty population, and the hierarchy of +tenants at least saved the landlords from the dangerous isolation +which their circumstances tended to produce. Arthur Young, who +examined the condition of the country very carefully between 1776 and +1778, perceived great signs of growing prosperity, especially in the +towns, and, although agriculture was far behind that of England, he +found a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>considerable number of active, intelligent, and improving +landlords. In the opinion of Young the rental of Ireland was unduly +and unnaturally low, but he urged the landlords to exercise a more +direct and controlling influence over their estates, and he +recommended them, for this purpose, to give leases for shorter periods +and gradually to abolish the system of middlemen and subletting.</p> + +<p>In the north there was a powerful, intelligent Protestant community, +with a strong leaning to republicanism. They were chiefly +Presbyterians, and they resented bitterly the commercial restrictions +and the obligation of paying tithes to an Episcopal church. The Irish +Parliament was so constituted that they had no political power at all +equivalent to their importance, and, like the Presbyterians in +England, they were burdened by the Test Act, and their marriages were +only valid if celebrated in the Established Church. The great power of +the bishops, both in the Privy Council and in the House of Lords, +formed a very serious obstacle to church reform. In all classes of +Protestants, however, in the closing years of George II., there was a +strong resentment at the political subjection of Ireland, and a +determination to obtain, if possible, those constitutional rights +which the Revolution of 1688 had secured for England.</p> + +<p>It is impossible, within the narrow limits assigned to me, to give +even a sketch of the successive stages by which the independence of +the Irish Parliament was established. The movement began with the +Octennial Act, limiting the duration of Parliament, and it came to +full maturity during the war of the American Revolution. Among the +Irish Catholics there appears to have been absolutely no sympathy with +the American cause, but Ulster Protestantism was enthusiastically on +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>the side of America. Presbyterians from Ulster bore a considerable +part in the American armies, and under the influence of American +example public opinion in Ireland rapidly advanced. The great +Volunteer movement of 1778 and the following years was originated by +the fact that the Government could supply no troops for the defence of +Ulster at a time when it was in imminent danger of attack from France. +The Protestant gentry called their people to arms; and a great +Protestant force was created, which not only secured the country +against foreign danger and maintained the most perfect internal order, +but also exercised a decisive influence over Irish politics. Volunteer +conventions were assembled which represented both property and +educated Protestant opinion much more truly than the borough +Parliament, and which loudly demanded free trade and Parliamentary +independence. Grattan made himself the mouthpiece of the popular +feeling; and the English Government and Parliament yielded to the +demand. The whole system of commercial restraints, which prevented +Ireland from developing her resources and trading with foreign +countries and the British colonies, was abolished, leaving the +commercial intercourse between Great Britain and Ireland to be +regulated by special Acts. The power of the Privy Council over +legislation was abolished. The appellate jurisdiction of the Irish +House of Lords was restored, and, above all, the sole competence of +the King, Lords, and Commons of Ireland to legislate for Ireland was +recognised. The Irish Parliament nearly at the same time made great +steps towards uniting the people by relieving the Presbyterians from +the Test Act and from the restrictions on their marriages, and the +Catholics from those parts of the penal code which chiefly restrained +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>their worship, their education, and their industry. At the same time +the Protestant monopoly of political power and of the higher offices +remained.</p> + +<p>Ireland thus found herself in possession of a Parliament which was, in +name at least, perfectly independent. It was a purely Protestant +Parliament, elected by Protestants, consisting mainly of landlords and +great Protestant lawyers, and representing pre-eminently the property +of the country. It was intensely and exclusively loyal, and always +ready to adopt far more stringent coercive measures against anarchy +and sedition than have ever been adopted by an Imperial Parliament. It +included many men of great talents and great liberality, and through +the county constituencies and the representatives of the chief towns +educated public opinion was seriously felt within its walls; but the +large majority of its members sat for nomination boroughs within the +control of the government, and places and pensions were inordinately +multiplied for the purpose of securing a majority.</p> + +<p>Could this constitution last? In framing the course of foreign and +Imperial policy, in all questions of peace or war, of negotiations or +alliances, the Irish Parliament had no voice. Yet it might in time of +war, by withholding its concurrence, withdraw the whole weight of +Ireland from the forces and fatally dislocate the policy of the +Empire. It might pursue a commercial policy absolutely inconsistent +with Imperial interests, and bring Ireland into intimate commercial +connection with the enemies of England; and if English party spirit +extended to Ireland and ran in opposite directions in the two +legislatures, a collision was inevitable. The Lord Lieutenant and +Chief Secretary, who administered the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>government of Ireland, were +appointed by a British Ministry representing the dominant British +party; the counsels of the Irish Government were framed in a British +Cabinet; the royal consent was given to every Irish Bill under the +Great Seal of Great Britain and upon the advice of a British Minister. +If a machine so constituted could work as long as it was in the hands +of a small and undoubtedly loyal and largely influenced class, could +it work if Parliamentary reform made the Irish Parliament subject to +the fierce and fluctuating tides of popular opinion? above all, if +Catholic enfranchisement brought a vast, ignorant, and possibly +seditious element into political life?</p> + +<p>It was the recorded opinion of each successive Lord Lieutenant who +administered the Irish Government after 1782 that it could not, and +that it must sooner or later end either in a union or a separation. +They said this, though they fully acknowledged the perfect loyalty +hitherto shown by the Irish Parliament; the liberality with which it +voted its supplies; the care with which it subordinated its particular +measures to the general interests of the Empire. The failure—not +solely or even mainly through Irish fault—of an attempt to establish +a fixed commercial arrangement between England and Ireland, and a +difference between the British and Irish Parliaments on the Imperial +question of a regency, strengthened the opinion of the English +Government, and for many years before the Union was enacted it was in +contemplation. On the two great and pressing questions at issue this +policy exercised a powerful influence. The Government obstinately +resisted every serious attempt to reform the Parliament, lest they +should lose that controlling power which they believed to be essential +to the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>permanence of the connection. On the Catholic question their +views were more fluctuating, but their dominant impression was that +emancipation could only be safely conceded in an Imperial Parliament, +and that it ought to be reserved as a boon which might one day make a +legislative Union acceptable to the Irish people.</p> + +<p>In Ireland, or at least in Protestant Ireland, the idea of a Union was +now intensely unpopular, but the reformers in the Irish Parliament +were seriously divided. Flood and Charlemont desired Parliamentary +reform on a purely Protestant basis. They believed that this would +include in political life the bulk of the property, loyalty, +intelligence, and energy of the country, and that the Irish Catholics +could not for a long period be safely admitted to political power. +Grattan, on the other hand, believed that it was the first interest of +Ireland to efface the political distinction between the two creeds and +nations, and that an introduction of a certain proportion of Catholic +gentry into the Irish Parliament would be in the highest degree +beneficial. He, at the same time, always taught that Ireland was +utterly unfit for democracy, and that under her peculiar conditions no +policy could be more disastrous than one which would 'destroy the +influence of landed property'; 'set population adrift from the +influence of property'; subvert or weaken the guiding influence of the +loyal and educated. When the United Irishmen proposed a Reform Bill +which would have made the Irish Parliament a purely democratic body, +Grattan denounced it with the greatest vehemence. 'This plan of +personal representation,' he said, 'from a revolution of power, would +speedily lead to a revolution of property, and become a plan of +plunder as well as a scene of confusion.... Of such a representation +the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>first ordinance would be robbery, accompanied with the +circumstance incidental to robbery, murder.' He believed, however, +that with a substantial property qualification independent +constituencies might be formed which would safely represent the best +elements of both creeds.</p> + +<p>The denial of parliamentary reform and Catholic emancipation, and the +refusal of the Irish Parliament to deal with the still more pressing +question of tithes, produced much disaffection; but still the country +was steadily improving, and no serious danger was felt till the French +Revolution burst upon Europe. In every country it stimulated the +smouldering elements of disorder. In few countries was its influence +more fatal than in Ireland. I have very lately described at length the +terrible years of growing conspiracy, anarchy, and crime; of +fluctuating policy, and savage repression, and revived religious +animosity, and maddening panic, deliberately and malignantly fomented, +that preceded and prepared the rebellion. It is sufficient here to say +that in the beginning of 1798 three provinces were organised to assist +a French invasion. But at the last moment the leaders were betrayed +and arrested; the French did not arrive; the rebellion was almost +confined to a few Leinster counties, and it broke out without leaders +and without a plan. In most places the rebels proved to be wretched +bands of marauders intent only on plunder, and, although they +committed many murders, they were utterly incapable of meeting the +loyalists in the field. But in Wexford, priests put themselves at the +head of the movement and turned it into a religious war, deriving its +main force from religious fanaticism, and waged with desperate courage +and ferocity. The massacre of Protestants on Vinegar Hill, in +Scullabogue Barn, and on Wexford Bridge, and the general <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>character +the rebellion in Leinster assumed, at once and for ever checked all +that tendency to rebellion which had so long existed among the +Protestants of Ulster. Some twenty thousand persons perished before +the flame was extinguished. The repression was as savage as the +rebellion, and it left Ireland torn by fiercer religious animosities +than at any period since the Restoration.</p> + +<p>It will dispel many illusions if the reader will remember that the +great Irish rebellion was directed mainly against the Irish +Parliament, and that it received its death-blow from Irish loyalists +acting under that Parliament before any assistance arrived from +England. The conspiracy began among Protestants and Deists, who aimed +at a union of sects for the purpose of obtaining a democratic +republic. It turned into a war which was scarcely less essentially +religious than the wars of the Cevennes or of the Anabaptists. Yet two +great Catholic provinces remained quiet during the struggle, and a +great proportion of the loyalist force which crushed the rebellion +consisted of Catholic militia.</p> + +<p>The English Government thought that the time had now come for carrying +a legislative Union, and, in the eyes of Lord Cornwallis at least, one +of its chief recommendations was that it would take the government of +Ireland out of the hands of the triumphant party, and would make +Catholic emancipation a possibility. The Catholic bishops were sounded +and found to be very favourable. They declared their full willingness +to accept an endowment for the priesthood and to give the English +Government a right of veto on episcopal appointments, and they warmly, +efficiently, and unanimously supported the Union. The great majority +of the Catholic landed gentry and probably of the lower priests were +on the same <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>side; but in general the Catholic laity seem to have +shown little interest and to have taken little part in the contest. In +Dublin, Catholics as well as Protestants were generally hostile, but +Catholic Cork was decidedly favourable, and an assurance that the +Government desired to carry emancipation in an Imperial Parliament +proved sufficient to prevent any serious Catholic opposition. The +United Irishmen seem to have witnessed rather with pleasure than the +reverse the dethronement of the body which had defeated them, and the +Presbyterians showed scarcely any interest in the question.</p> + +<p>Yet outside the ranks of the Catholic clergy the measure found few +active supporters, while the Protestants of the Established Church +were in general ardently and passionately hostile. The great majority +of the county members and the great preponderance of petitions were +against the Union, and the opposition to it, which was led by Foster, +Grattan, Parsons, and Plunket, comprised nearly all the independent +and unbribed talent in Parliament. The very eminent ability of that +small group of Protestant gentlemen never flashed more brightly than +in the closing scenes, and there was a moment when the attitude of the +Orangemen and the yeomanry was so menacing that the Government were +seriously alarmed. But a lavish distribution of peerages and places +purchased a majority, and the troops stationed in Ireland were too +numerous for armed opposition to be possible. In truth, however, no +opposition beyond the dimensions of a riot was to be feared. Outside +Dublin, Catholic, Presbyterian, and seditious Ireland remained almost +indifferent. Even before the measure had passed, opposition speakers +complained bitterly that they were deserted by popular support; and it +is a memorable <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>fact that in the general election that followed the +Union not a single Irish member of Parliament was defeated because he +had voted for it.</p> + +<p>Pitt intended the Union to be immediately followed by measures +admitting the Catholics into the Imperial Parliament, paying the +priests, and commuting the tithes. If these three measures, or even if +the last two (which were, in truth, the most important), had been +promptly carried, the Union might have become popular. The Catholic +question had, of late, been greatly mismanaged. The chief men who +directed the government in Ireland were bitterly opposed to any +concession of political power to the Catholics, but the views of the +English Ministers had been materially changed. They desired above all +things to separate the Catholics from the United Irishmen, and in 1793 +they forced upon their reluctant advisers in Ireland an Act which +extended the suffrage to the vast ignorant Catholic masses, though it +left the Catholic gentry still excluded from Parliament. Two years +later Lord Fitzwilliam was sent over with instructions to postpone the +question if possible, but with authority, as he believed, to carry +emancipation if it could not be postponed, and he found the Irish +Parliament perfectly prepared to pass it. But the opposition of the +King and a question of patronage produced a fatal division and led to +the recall of the Viceroy. The passions aroused by the rebellion +greatly increased the difficulties of admitting Catholics to a +separate Parliament, but there is clear evidence that at the time of +the Union the Irish Protestants were in favour of their admission into +the Imperial one. The dispositions of the King were well known, but it +was believed that, if the scheme of Pitt was submitted to him as the +matured policy of a united Cabinet, he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>must have yielded. It is well +known how the plan was prematurely revealed; how Pitt resigned office +when the King refused his consent; how the agitation of the question +threw the King into an access of insanity; and how Pitt then promised +that he would not again raise it during the reign. Pitt's conduct on +this occasion is, and probably always will be, differently judged. +There can be but one opinion of its calamitous effect upon Irish +history.</p> + +<p>Ninety years have passed since the Union, and the conditions of +Ireland have completely changed. The whole system of religious +disqualification and commercial disability has long since passed away. +Every path has been thrown open, and English professions, as well as +the great Colonial and Indian services, are crowded with Irishmen. The +Established Church no longer exists. Representation has been placed on +a broadly democratic basis, giving Ireland, however, an absurdly +disproportioned weight in the representation of the kingdom, and its +poorest and most backward districts an absurdly disproportioned weight +in the representation of Ireland. Finally, an attempt has been made to +put down agrarian agitation by legislation to which there is no real +parallel in English history, and some parts of which would have been +impossible under the Constitution of the United States. Landlords who +possessed by the clearest title known to English law the most absolute +ownership of their estates have been converted into mere +rent-chargers. Tenants who entered upon their tenancies under formal +written contracts for limited periods have been rooted for ever on the +soil. Rents have been reduced by judicial sentence, with complete +disregard both to previous contracts and to market value, and the +legal owner has had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>no option of refusing the change and re-entering +on the occupation of his land. A scheme of purchase, too, based upon +Imperial credit, has been established and will probably soon be +largely extended, which is so extravagantly and almost grotesquely +favorable to the tenant that it enables him by paying for the space of +forty-nine years, instead of his reduced judicial rent, an annual sum +which is considerably smaller, to purchase the freehold of his farm. +It is a simple and incontestable truth that neither in the United +States, nor in England, nor in any portion of the Continent of Europe, +is the agricultural tenant so favoured by law as in Ireland, or +anything of the nature of landlord oppression made so impossible. But +though agitation has diminished, it has not ceased, and the great body +of the poorer Catholics still follow the banner of Home Rule.</p> + +<p>About a third of the population of Ireland, on the other hand, regard +Home Rule as the greatest catastrophe that could befall themselves, +their country, or the Empire; and it is worthy of notice that they +include almost all the descendants of Grattan's Parliament, and of the +volunteers and of those classes who in the eighteenth century +sustained the spirit of nationality in Ireland. Belfast and the +surrounding counties, which alone in Ireland have attained the full +height and vigour of English industrial civilisation; almost all the +Protestants, both Episcopalian and Nonconformist; almost all the +Catholic gentry; the decided preponderance of Catholics in the lay +professions, and a great and guiding section of the Catholic +middle-class are on the same side. Their conviction does not rest upon +any abstract doctrine about the evil of federal governments or of +local parliaments. It rests upon their firm persuasion that in the +existing conditions of Ireland no Parliament <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>could be established +there which could be trusted to fulfil the most elementary conditions +of honest government—to maintain law; to protect property; to observe +or enforce contracts; to secure the rights and liberties of +individuals and minorities; to act loyally in times of difficulty and +danger in the interests of the Empire.</p> + +<p>They know that the existing Home Rule movement has grown up by the +guidance and by the support of men who are implacable enemies to the +British Empire; that it has been for years the steady object of its +leaders to inspire the Irish masses with feelings of hatred to that +Empire, contempt for contracts, defiance of law and of those who +administer it; that, having signally failed in rousing the +agricultural population in a national struggle, those leaders resolved +to turn the movement into an organised attack upon landed property; +that in the prosecution of this enterprise they have been guilty, not +only of measures which are grossly and palpably dishonest, but also of +an amount of intimidation, of cruelty, of systematic disregard for +individual freedom scarcely paralleled in any country during the +present century; and finally that, through subscriptions which are not +drawn from Ireland, political agitation in Ireland has become a large +and highly lucrative trade—a trade which, like most others, will no +doubt continue as long as it pays.</p> + +<p>The nature, methods, and objects of the organisation which would +probably exercise a dominant influence over an Irish Parliament have +been established by overwhelming evidence and beyond all reasonable +doubt, after a long, careful, and most impartial judicial +investigation. The report of the late Special Commissioners<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> and the +evidence on which it is founded have been published; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>and their +conclusions have very recently been summed up in an admirable work by +Professor Dicey, perhaps the ablest of living writers on political +subjects. Readers may find in these works abundant evidence of the +true character of the Irish Home Rule movement. If they read them with +impartiality they will, I believe, have little difficulty in +concluding that there have been few political movements in the +nineteenth century which are less deserving of the respect or support +of honest men.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> The Parnell Commission.—<span class="smcap">Ed.</span></p></div> +<p> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +</p> +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span><br /></p> + +<h3><a name="FORMATIVE_INFLUENCES" id="FORMATIVE_INFLUENCES"></a>FORMATIVE INFLUENCES<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + + +<p>It was about four years before the great upheaval of beliefs in +England, which was partly caused and partly disclosed by the +publication of the 'Essays and Reviews,' in 1860, that I entered +Trinity College, Dublin. I had then a strong leaning toward +theological studies and looked forward to a peaceful clerical life in +a family living near Cork; and in addition to the ordinary university +course, I went through that appointed for divinity students. I found +my life at the university one of more than common intellectual +activity, for although circumstances and temperament made me perhaps +culpably indifferent to college ambitions and competitions, I soon +threw myself with intense eagerness into a long course of private +reading, chiefly relating to the formation and history of opinions. +The great High Church wave which had a few years before been so +powerful, had been broken when Newman and many other leaders of the +party had passed to Catholicism. Darwin and Herbert Spencer had not +yet risen above the horizon. Mill was in the zenith of his fame and +influence. The intellectual atmosphere was much agitated by the recent +discoveries of geology, by their manifest bearing on the Mosaic +cosmogony and on the history of the Fall, and by the attempts of Hugh +Miller, Hitchcock, and other writers to reconcile them with the +received theology. In poetry, Tennyson and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>Longfellow reigned, I +think with an approach to equality which has not continued. In +politics, the school of orthodox political economy was almost +unchallenged. In spite of the protests of Carlyle, all sound Liberals +in England then desired to restrict as much as possible the functions +of government, and to enlarge as much as possible the sphere of +individual liberty; and they regarded unrestrained competition and +inviolable contracts as the chief conditions of material progress.</p> + +<p>The first great intellectual influence which I experienced was, I +believe, that of Bishop Butler, who was at that time probably studied +more assiduously at Dublin than in any other university in the +kingdom. There were few sermons in the college chapel in which some +allusion to his writings might not be found, and few serious students +whose modes of thought were not at least coloured by his influence. +That influence now appears to me to have been not only various, but +even in some measure contradictory. The 'Analogy' is perhaps the most +original, if not the most powerful, book ever written in defence of +the Christian creed; but it has probably been the parent of much +modern Agnosticism, for its method is to parallel every difficulty in +revealed religion by a corresponding difficulty in natural religion, +and to argue that the two must stand or fall together. Butler's +unrivalled sermons on human nature, on the other hand, have been +essentially conservative and constructive, and their influence has +been at least as strong on character as on belief. Their doctrine is +that consciousness reveals in the inner principles of our being a +moral hierarchy, 'a difference in nature and kind altogether distinct +from strength'; and that among these principles conscience has, by the +very structure of our nature, a recognised <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>supremacy or guiding +authority which clearly distinguishes it from all others.</p> + +<p>'The principle of reflection or conscience being compared with the +various appetites, affections, and passions in men, the former is +manifestly supreme and chief, without regard to strength.... From its +very nature it manifestly claims superiority over all others, so that +you cannot form a notion of this faculty, conscience, without taking +in judgment, direction, superintendency. To preside and govern, from +the very economy and constitution of man, belongs to it. Had it +strength as it has right, it would govern the world.'</p> + +<p>It was a noble philosophy, well fitted to strengthen and elevate the +character, and it has supported many amid the dissolution of positive +beliefs. Utilitarian theories of morals move very smoothly as long as +their only task is to define the course which it is in the interests +of society that each man should pursue. They are less successful in +furnishing any firm and adequate reason why a man should pursue that +course when individual interests and individual passion are opposed to +it. It is the merit of the schools of Kant and of Butler, that they +raise the idea of duty above all the calculations of self-interest, +and make it the supreme and guiding principle of life.</p> + +<p>Among living men, the strongest intellectual influence at that time in +Dublin was, I think, Whately, our archbishop, an original and powerful +thinker who has scarcely obtained a place in the literary and +intellectual history of his time commensurate with the wide and deep +influence he undoubtedly exercised. For this there are many reasons. +Unlike the High Church leaders who flourished with him at Oxford in +the second quarter of the nineteenth <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>century, he never identified +himself with any organised party or school of thought, and he thus +deprived himself of many echoes and of much support. It was, indeed, +one of his first principles that there is no more fatal obstacle to +the discovery of truth than the deflecting influence of party and +system, and that the jealous maintenance of an independent judgment is +the first element of intellectual honesty. Few considerable writers +have appealed less to common passions or wide sympathies; and the only +passion—if it can be called so—that appears strongly in his +writings, is the love of truth for its own sake, which is the rarest +and highest of all. He was accustomed to speculate much upon that +strange power of intellectual magnetism which enables some men to draw +others to their views apart from any process of definite reasoning; +and he acknowledged with truth that he was wholly destitute of it; +that he had never produced any effect which could not be clearly +accounted for, or altered any judgment except by distinct reasons. As +a writer, his style, though wholly without grace, was admirable in its +lucidity. He had a singular felicity of illustration, and especially +of metaphor, and a rare power of throwing his thoughts into terse and +pithy sentences; but his many books, though full of original thinking +and in a high degree suggestive to other writers, had always a certain +fragmentary and occasional character, which prevented them from taking +a place in standard literature. He was conscious of it himself, and +was accustomed to say that it was the mission of his life to make up +cartridges for others to fire. The little volume of 'Miscellanies,' +including his commonplace book and his notes for his books, which was +published by his daughter, exhibits with great clearness the character +of his mind. Though a very candid and, in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>the best sense of the word, +a very tolerant man, and an excellent scholar, he had, I think, little +power of reproducing the modes of thought of men whose mental +structure was widely different from his own, or of entering into the +intellectual conditions of other ages; but he touched a large circle +of subjects, social, political, and even scientific, as well as moral +and religious, with an original and most independent judgment; and he +raised greatly the moral standard of love of truth and the +intellectual standard of severe reasoning wherever his influence +extended. He delighted in that fine saying of Hobbes that, 'words are +the counters of the wise man, but the money of the fool'; he believed +that most controversies might be resolved into verbal ambiguities; and +his hatred of vagueness, grandiloquence, affected obscurity, and +rhetorical exaggeration exercised a very useful influence over young +men. He was also a most attentive and sagacious observer of human +nature, and few modern writers have written so wisely on the +diversities and the management of character and on the science of +life. In this respect he had a strong affinity to Bacon—the Bacon not +of the 'Organon,' but of the 'Essays'—and perhaps still more to +Benjamin Franklin. In theology he challenged the severest inquiry, and +believed that if honestly pursued it would lead only to orthodox +belief. 'A good man,' he once wrote, 'will indeed wish to find the +evidence of the Christian religion satisfactory; but a wise man will +not for that reason think it satisfactory, but will weigh the evidence +the more carefully on account of the importance of the question.'</p> + +<p>His strongest antipathy was to the teaching of the Oxford 'Tracts,' +and he wrote about them with great severity, but more from the moral +than the intellectual <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>side. He believed the Tractarian doctrines of +'reserve' and 'economy' to be essentially disingenuous; he considered +that there was good reason to conclude that leading members of the +Oxford school had remained in the Church of England for a considerable +time after they had adopted the Roman theology, had used language +deliberately intended to mask their position, and had employed their +influence as English clergymen to sap the English Church; and he +especially denounced as the grossest dishonesty the attempt that was +made in Tract XC. to show that a man was justified in subscribing to +the Articles of the Church of England and at the same time holding +everything laid down by the Council of Trent, 'though the Articles +were expressly drawn up to condemn the authoritative teaching of the +Roman Church, and after the Council of Trent had held 22 out of its +whole number of 25 sessions.' The quibbling, special-pleading, +equivocating mind which is consciously or half-consciously +endeavouring by subtle distinctions to maintain an untenable position, +was of all things the most abhorrent to him, and while the +Evangelicals denounced the Tractarians as leading men to Rome, +Whately, perhaps alone among his contemporaries, steadily predicted +that their teachings would be followed by a great period of religious +scepticism. This, he said, would be the result of the discredit they +were throwing on the evidential school, of their habit of coupling +ecclesiastical with Scripture miracles, and of their doctrine that it +is the function of faith to supply the missing links of imperfect +evidence and to impart the character of certainty to propositions +which in reason rest only on probabilities. He himself was of the +school of Grotius and Paley, and believed that simple historical +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>evidence established supernatural facts. This subject long held a +foremost place in my thoughts and studies, and I afterward wrote much +upon it in connection with the history of witchcraft and the miracles +of the Saints.</p> + +<p>I owed much to Whately, but I was studying concurrently with him +teachers of very opposite schools, among others Coleridge, Newman, and +Emerson in English; Pascal, Bossuet, Rousseau, and Voltaire in French. +Locke's writings formed part of the college course, and I became very +familiar with them, and fully shared Hallam's special admiration for +the little treatise 'On the Conduct of the Understanding,' while +Dugald Stewart, Mackintosh, and Mill opened out wide and various +vistas in moral philosophy. The following passage from Coleridge, +which I chose as the motto of almost my first published writing, +exercised so great an influence over my later studies, and shows so +happily the direction in which I was endeavoring to turn my mind, that +I may be excused from quoting it at length:</p> + +<p>'Let it be remembered by controversialists on all subjects, that every +speculative error which boasts a multitude of advocates has its golden +as well as its dark side; that there is always some truth connected +with it, the exclusive attention to which has misled the +understanding; some moral beauty which has given it charms for the +heart. Let it be remembered that no assailant of an error can +reasonably hope to be listened to by its advocates, who has not proved +to them that he has seen the disputed subject in the same point of +view and is capable of contemplating it with the same feelings as +themselves; for why should we abandon a cause at the persuasion of one +who is ignorant of the reasons which have attached us to it?'</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>Adopting an illustration which had been employed by Bossuet for +another purpose, I came to believe that religious systems resemble +those pictures occasionally seen in the museums of the curious, which +appear at first to be mere incongruous assemblages of unconnected and +unmeaning figures, till they are regarded from one particular point of +view, when these figures immediately mass themselves into a regular +form, and the whole picture assumes a coherent and symmetrical +appearance. To discover in each system this point of view; to +cultivate that peculiar form of imagination which makes it possible to +realise how different forms of opinions are held by their more +intelligent adherents, appeared to me the first condition of +understanding them.</p> + +<p>In this method of inquiry I was, at a little later period, much aided +by the writings of Bayle, a great critic who brought to the study of +opinions an almost unrivalled knowledge, and one of the keenest and +most detached of human intellects. Gradually, however, by a natural +and insensible process I passed into the habit of examining opinions +mainly from an historical point of view—investigating the +circumstances under which they grow up; their relation to the general +conditions of their time; the direction in which they naturally +develop; the part, whether for good or ill, which during long spaces +of time they have played in the world. It was first of all in +connection with the Roman Catholic controversy, with which we were +much occupied in Ireland, that I learnt to pursue this course. Of the +enormous and essential difference between matured Catholicism and the +Christianity of the New Testament, I never doubted, and my convictions +were much deepened by long travels in Italy, France, and Spain, during +which I endeavoured to study <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>carefully Catholicism in its actual +workings as a popular religion, and not as it appears clarified and +rationalised in such books as the 'Exposition,' by Bossuet. I often +asked myself, who could have imagined from a perusal of the New +Testament that Christianity was intended to be a highly centralised +monarchy, governed with supreme divine authority by the Bishop of +Rome; that this bishop was to be connected, not with the great author +of the Epistle to the Romans, but with St. Peter; that the figure +which was to occupy the most prominent place in the devotions and +imaginations of millions of Christian worshippers was to be the Virgin +Mary, who is not so much as mentioned in the Epistles; that in the +immediate neighbourhood, and with the full sanction of the highest +ecclesiastical authorities, graven images were to be employed in +devotion as conspicuously as in a pagan temple, particular images +being singled out from all others for particular devotion by special +indulgences and by special miracles? I soon convinced myself that +popular Catholicism, as it exists in southern Europe and as it has +existed through a long course of centuries, is as literally +polytheistic and idolatrous as any form of paganism, though it has +many beauties, and though much of its very mingled influence has been +for good. In the teaching of my early youth, this transformation of +Christianity was described as the great predicted apostasy, the +mystery of iniquity, the work of Antichrist among mankind. Under the +influence of the historic method it assumed a different aspect, and +the mystery became very explicable. Hobbes had struck the keynote in a +passage of profound truth as well as of admirable beauty:</p> + +<p>'If a man consider the original of this great <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>ecclesiastical +dominion, he will easily perceive that the Papacy is no other than the +ghost of the deceased Roman Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave +thereof.'</p> + +<p>Few evolutions in history, indeed, can be more clearly traced than the +successive stages through which Rome, by a gradual and very natural +process, obtained the primacy of Christendom. In the condition of +Europe, again, at the time of the downfall of the Roman Empire, the +invasion, the triumph, and the rapid conversion of the barbarians, the +chief causes of the materialising transformation which Christian ideas +underwent appeared abundantly evident; and it became clear to me that +some such transformation was inevitable, and essential to their enduring +influence. Was it possible, I asked myself, that in ages of anarchy and +convulsion, any religion resembling Protestant Christianity could have +prevailed among great masses of wild and ignorant barbarians, with all +the associations and mental habits of idolaters, at a time when neither +rag paper nor printing was invented, and when a wide diffusion of the +Bible was absolutely impossible? But such methods of reasoning could not +stop there. I was naturally led to consider how different are the +measures of probability, the predispositions toward the miraculous, the +canons of evidence and proof, the standards and ideals of morals in +different ages, and how largely these differences affect the whole +question of evidence. I began to realise the existence of climates of +opinion; to observe how particular forms of belief naturally grow and +flourish in certain stages of intellectual development, and fade when +these conditions have changed; how much that is called apostasy and +imposture is in reality anachronism, the survival in one age of forms of +belief that were the appropriate product of an earlier one.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>A writer of extraordinary brilliancy and power was at this time +exercising a great influence either of attraction or repulsion on all +serious students of history. Those who are old enough to remember the +appearance of the first volume of Buckle's 'History,' in 1857, and of +the second volume, in 1861, will remember also how rapidly and how +passionately it divided opinion. It was in truth a book in which +extraordinary merits were balanced by extraordinary defects. On the +special subject of the growth of religions, which most interested me, +it was peculiarly deficient, for with all his great gifts Buckle was +almost colour-blind to the devotional and reverential aspect of things, +and he had little more power than Whately of projecting himself into +the beliefs, ideals, and modes of thought of other men and ages. His +unqualified, undiscriminating contempt for the ages of superstition is +the more remarkable, because fifteen years before the appearance of his +first volume, Comte, with whom Buckle had some affinity, and for whom +he expressed great admiration, had been placing those ages on a +pinnacle of extravagant eulogy. His doctrine that there is no real +progress in moral ideas and no real history of morals, I have always +believed to be profoundly untrue, and to have vitiated a large part of +his conclusions; and although he rendered valuable service in showing +by ample illustrations that the capital changes in history are much +less due to the great men who directly effected them than to the long +train of intellectual, political, or industrial tendencies that had +prepared them, he pushed this, like many of his other generalisations, +to exaggeration and even to extravagance. Individuals, and even +accidents, have had a great modifying and deflecting influence in +history, and sometimes <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>the part they have played can scarcely be +over-estimated. If, as I have elsewhere said, a stray dart had struck +down Mohammed in one of the early skirmishes of his career, there is no +reason to believe that the world would have seen a great military and +monotheistic religion arise in Arabia, powerful enough to sweep over a +large part of three continents, and to mould during many centuries the +lives and characters of about a fifth part of the human race. In one +respect, too, Buckle was singularly unfortunate in the time in which he +appeared. From the days of Bacon and Locke to the days of Condillac and +Bentham, it had been the tendency of advanced liberal thinkers to +aggrandise as much as possible the power of circumstances and +experience over the individual, and to reduce to the narrowest limits +every influence that is innate, transmitted, or hereditary. They +represented man as essentially the creature of circumstances, and his +mind as a sheet of blank paper on which education might write what it +pleased. Buckle pushed this habit of thought so far that he even +questioned the reality of such an evident and well-known fact as +hereditary insanity. But only two years after the appearance of the +first volume of the 'History of Civilisation,' Darwin published his +'Origin of Species,' which gradually effected a revolution in +speculative philosophy almost as great as it effected in natural +science; and from that time the supreme importance of inborn and +hereditary tendencies has become the very central fact in English +philosophy. It must be added that Buckle had many of the distinctive +faults of a young writer; of a writer who had mixed little with men, +and had formed his mind almost exclusively by solitary, unguided study. +He had a very imperfect appreciation of the extreme complexity of +social <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>phenomena, an excessive tendency to sweeping generalisations, +and an arrogance of assertion which provoked much hostility. His wide +and multifarious knowledge was not always discriminating, and he +sometimes mixed good and bad authorities with a strange indifference.</p> + +<p>This is a long catalogue of defects, but in spite of them Buckle +opened out wider horizons than any previous writer in the field of +history. No other English historian had sketched his plan with so bold +a hand, or had shown so clearly the transcendent importance of +studying not merely the actions of soldiers, politicians, and +diplomatists, but also those great connected evolutions of +intellectual, social, and industrial life on which the type of each +succeeding age mainly depends. To not a few of his contemporaries he +imparted an altogether new interest in history, and his admirable +literary talent, the vast range of topics which he illuminated with a +fresh significance, and the noble enthusiasm for knowledge and for +freedom that pervades his work, made its appearance an epoch in the +lives of many who have passed far from its definite conclusions. The +task which he had undertaken was almost too vast for the longest life, +and when he died at Damascus, in 1862, he had not yet completed his +fortieth year, and his judgment was probably still far from its full +maturity. A few lines of Pliny which I wrote on the title-page of his +history, will suffice to show the feelings with which I heard of his +death:</p> + +<p>'Mihi autem videtur acerba semper et immatura mors eorum qui immortale +aliquid parant. Nam qui voluptatibus dediti quasi in diem vivunt, +vivendi causas quotidie finiunt; qui vero posteros cogitant et +memoriam sui operibus extendunt, his nulla mors non repentina est, ut +quæ semper inchoatum aliquid abrumpat.'</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>I do not purpose to pursue these recollections further. I had drifted +far from my Cork living and very decisively into the ways of +literature, and after I left the university I spent about four years +on the Continent. I read much in foreign libraries, and I also derived +great profit as well as keen pleasure from the study of Italian art, +which throws an invaluable light on the branches of history I was then +investigating. In its earlier phase especially, before the sense of +beauty dominates over the idea, art represents with a singular +fidelity not only the religious beliefs of men, but also the far more +delicate and evanescent shades of their realisations, ideals, and +emotions.</p> + +<p>The result of those years of study was my 'History of the Spirit of +Rationalism in Europe,' which appeared in the early part of 1865. With +many defects, it had at least the merit of describing with great +sincerity the process by which the opinions of its author had been +formed, and to this sincerity it probably owed no small part of its +success.</p> +<p> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /></p> +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span><br /></p> + +<h3><a name="CARLYLES_MESSAGE" id="CARLYLES_MESSAGE"></a>CARLYLE'S MESSAGE TO HIS AGE.<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + + +<p>When Carlyle came to London in 1831, bringing with him the 'Sartor +Resartus,' which is now perhaps the most famous of all his works, it +is well known that he applied in turn to three of the principal +publishers in London, and that each of them, after due deliberation, +positively refused to print his manuscript. When at last, with great +difficulty, he procured its admission into 'Fraser's Magazine,' +Carlyle was accustomed to say that he only knew of two men who found +anything to admire in it. One of them was the great American writer, +Emerson, who afterwards superintended its publication in America. The +other was a priest from Cork, who wrote to say that he wished to take +in 'Fraser's Magazine' as long as anything by this writer appeared in +it. On the other hand, several persons told Fraser that they would +stop taking in the magazine if any more of such nonsense appeared in +it. The editor wrote to Carlyle that the work had been received with +'unqualified disapprobation.' Five years elapsed before it was +reprinted as a separate book, and in order that it should be reprinted +it was found necessary for a number of Carlyle's private friends to +club together and guarantee the publisher from loss by engaging to +take three hundred copies. But when, a few years before his death, a +cheap edition of Carlyle's works was published, 'Sartor Resartus' had +acquired such <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>a popularity that thirty thousand copies were almost +immediately sold, and since his death it has been reprinted in a +sixpenny form; it has penetrated far and wide through all classes, and +it is now, I suppose, one of the most popular and most influential of +the books that were published in England in the second quarter of the +century.</p> + +<p>Such a contrast between the first reception and the later judgment of +a book is very remarkable, and it applies more or less to all +Carlyle's earlier writings. It is a memorable fact in the literary +history of the nineteenth century that one of the greatest and most +industrious writers in England lived for many years in such poverty +that he often thought of abandoning literature and emigrating to the +colonies, and he would probably have done so if he had not found in +public lecturing a means of supplying his frugal wants. The cause of +this long-continued neglect is partly, no doubt, to be found in his +style, for, like Browning, Carlyle wrote an English which was so +contorted and sometimes so obscure that his readers had to be slowly +educated into understanding, or at least enjoying, it. But there are +other and deeper causes which I propose to devote the short time at my +disposal to indicating.</p> + +<p>It has been truly said that there are two great classes among writers. +There are those who are echoes and there are those who are voices. +There are some writers who represent faithfully and express strongly +the dominant tendencies, opinions, habits, characteristics of their +age, collecting as in a focus the half-formed thoughts that are +prevailing around them, giving them an articulate voice, and by the +force of their advocacy greatly strengthening them. There are others +who either start new ways of thinking for which the public <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>around +them are still unprepared, or who throw themselves in opposition to +the dominant tendencies of their times, pointing out the evils and +dangers connected with them, and dwelling specially on neglected +truths. It is not surprising that the first class are by far the most +popular. The public is much like Narcissus in the fable, who fell in +love with his own reflection in the water. All men like to find their +own opinions expressed with a power and eloquence they cannot +themselves attain, and most men dislike a writer who, in the first +flush of a great enthusiasm, points out all that can be said on the +other side. But when the first enthusiasm is over—when the prevailing +tendency has fully triumphed and the evils and defects connected with +it are disclosed—the words of this unpopular or neglected teacher +will begin to gather weight. It will be found that although he may not +have been wiser than those who advocated the other side, yet his words +contained exactly that kind of truth which was most needed or most +generally forgotten, and his reputation will steadily rise.</p> + +<p>This appears to me to have been very much the position which Carlyle +occupied towards the chief questions of his day, and it explains, I +think, in a great degree the growth of his influence. It is +remarkable, indeed, how many things there are in his writings which +appeared paradoxes when he wrote, and which now seem almost truisms. +Thus at a time when the political and intellectual ascendency of +France over the Continent was at its height, Carlyle was one of the +few men who clearly recognised the essential greatness that lay hid in +Germany, and especially in Prussia—a greatness which after the wars +of 1866 and 1870 became very evident to the world. He was one of the +first men in England to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>recognise the importance of German +literature, and especially the supreme greatness of Goethe. His +translation of 'Wilhelm Meister' was published in 1824, and his noble +essay on Goethe in 1832; but at first it seemed to find scarcely any +echo. The editor for whom he wrote it reported that all the opinions +he could gather about this essay were 'eminently unfavourable.' De +Quincey, who of all English critics was believed to know Germany best, +and Jeffrey, who exercised the greatest influence on English literary +opinion, combined to depreciate or ridicule Goethe. But there is now +no educated man who disputes that Carlyle in this matter was +essentially right, and that his critics were wholly wrong. And to turn +to subjects more directly connected with England, Carlyle wrote at a +time when the whole school of what was called advanced thought rested +upon the theory that the province of Government ought to be made as +small as possible, and that all the relations of classes should be +reduced to simple, temporary contracts founded on mutual interest. +According to this theory, it was the one duty of Government to keep +order. For the rest it should stand aside, and not attempt to meddle +in social or industrial questions. The most complete liberty of +thought and action should be established, and everything should be +left to unrestricted competition—to the free play of unprivileged, +untrammelled, unguided social forces. This was the theory which was +called orthodox political economy—the <i>laisser-faire</i> system—the +philosophy of competition or supply and demand, and it was incessantly +denounced by Carlyle as Mammon worship, as 'devil take the hindmost,' +as 'pure egoism'; 'the shabbiest gospel that had been taught among +men.' He declared that in the long run no society could flourish, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>or +even permanently cohere, if the only relation between man and man was +a mere money tie. He maintained that what he called the condition of +England question, or, in other words, the great mass of struggling, +anarchical poverty that was growing up in the chief centres of +population, was a question which imperiously demanded the most +strenuous Government intervention—which was, in fact, far more +important than any of the purely political questions. The whole system +of factory legislation, the whole system of legislation about working +men's dwellings, which has taken place in this century, has been a +realisation of the ideas of Carlyle. When Carlyle first wrote, it was +the received opinion that the education of the people was a matter in +which the Government should in no degree interfere, and that it ought +to be left altogether to individuals, or Churches, or societies. In +his work on Chartism, which was published as early as 1834, Carlyle +argued that the 'universal education of the people' was an +indispensable duty of the Government. It was not until about twenty +years ago that this duty was fully recognised in England. In the same +work he maintained that State-aided, State-organised, State-directed +emigration must one day be undertaken on a large scale, as the only +efficient agent in coping with the great masses of growing pauperism. +In his 'Past and Present,' which was published in 1843, he threw out +another idea which has proved very prolific, and which is probably +destined to become still more so. It is that it may become both +possible and needful for the master worker 'to grant his workers +permanent interest in his enterprise and theirs.'</p> + +<p>It is evident how much less strange those ideas appear now than they +did when they were first put out some <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>fifty years ago. One of the +most remarkable changes that has taken place during the lives of men +who are still of middle age has been in the opinion of advanced +thinkers about the function of Government. In the early days of +Carlyle the whole set, or lie, of opinion in England was towards +cutting in all directions the bands of Government control, diminishing +as much as possible the sphere of Government functions or +interference. It was a revolt against the old Tory system of paternal +Government, against the system of Guilds, against the State +regulations which once prevailed in all departments of industrial +life. In the present generation it is not too much to say that the +current has been absolutely reversed. The constantly increasing +tendency, whenever any abuse of any kind is discovered, is to call +upon Parliament to make a law to remedy it. Every year the network of +regulation is strengthened; every year there is an increasing +disposition to enlarge and multiply the functions, powers, and +responsibilities of Government. I should not be dealing sincerely with +you if I did not express my own opinion that this tendency carries +with it dangers even more serious than those of the opposite +exaggerations of a past century: dangers to character by sapping the +spirit of self-reliance and independence; dangers to liberty by +accustoming men to the constant interference of authority, and +abridging in innumerable ways the freedom of action and choice. I wish +I could persuade those who form their estimate of the province of +Government from Carlyle's 'Past and Present' and 'Latter-day +Pamphlets' to study also the admirable little treatise of Herbert +Spencer, called 'The Man and the State,' in which the opposite side is +argued. What I have said <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>however, is sufficient to show how +remarkably Carlyle, in some of the parts of his teaching that were +once the most unpopular, anticipated tendencies which only became very +apparent in practical politics when he was an old man or after his +death.</p> + +<p>The main and fundamental part of his teaching is the supreme sanctity +of work; the duty imposed on every human being, be he rich or be he +poor, to find a life-purpose and to follow it out strenuously and +honestly. 'All true work,' he said, 'is religion'; and the essence of +every sound religion is, 'Know thy work and do it.' In his conception +of life all true dignity and nobility grows out of the honest +discharge of practical duty. He had always a strong sympathy with the +feudal system which annexed indissolubly the idea of public function +with the possession of property. The great landlord who is wisely +governing large districts and using all his influence to diffuse +order, comfort, education, and civilisation among his tenantry; the +captain of industry who is faithfully and honestly organising the +labour of thousands, and regarding his task as a moral duty; the rich +man who, with all the means of enjoyment at his feet, devotes his +energies 'to make some nook of God's creation a little fruitfuller, +better, more worthy of God—to make some human hearts a little wiser, +manfuller, happier, more blessed,' always received his admiration and +applause. No one, on the other hand, spoke with more contempt of a +governing class which had ceased to govern; of titles which had lost +their original meaning, and no longer implied or expressed duties +performed; of wealth that was employed solely or mainly in selfish +enjoyment or in idle show. It was Carlyle's deep conviction that the +best test of the moral worth of every nation, class, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>individual, +is to be found in their standard of work and in their dislike to a +useless and idle life. As is well known, he had no sympathy with the +prevailing political ideas. He believed that men were not only not +equal, but were profoundly unequal; that it was the first interest of +society that the wisest men should be selected as its leaders, and +that the popular methods of finding the wisest were by no means those +which were most likely to succeed. 'No British man,' he complained, +'can attain to be a statesman or chief of workers till he has first +proved himself a chief of talkers.' 'The two greatest nations in the +world, the English and American, are all going to wind and tongue.' He +believed much more than his contemporaries did that there was need and +room in our modern English life for strong Government organisation, +guidance, discipline, reverence, obedience, and control. 'Wise +command, wise obedience,' he wrote in one of his 'Latter-day +Pamphlets,' 'the capability of these two is the best measure of +culture and human virtue in every man.'</p> + +<p>There is another class of workers to which he himself belonged—the +men who are the teachers of mankind. He taught them by his example as +well as by his precepts. Whatever else may be said about Carlyle, no +one can question that he took his literary vocation most seriously. He +was for a long time a very poor man, but he never sought wealth by +advocating popular opinions, by pandering to common prejudices, or by +veiling most unpalatable beliefs. In the vast mass of literature which +he has bequeathed to us there is no scamped work, and every competent +judge has recognised the untiring and conscientious accuracy with +which he verified and sifted the minutest fact. His standard of +truthfulness was extremely <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>high, and one of his great quarrels with +his age was that it was an age of half-beliefs and insincere +professions. He maintained that religious beliefs which had once been +living realities had too often degenerated into mere formulas, untruly +professed or mechanically repeated with the lips only, and without any +genuine or heartfelt conviction. He often repeated a saying of +Coleridge: 'They do not believe—they only believe that they believe.' +He used to speak of men who 'played false with their intellects'; or, +in other words, turned away their minds from unwelcome truths and by +allowing their wishes or interests to sway their judgments, persuaded +or half-persuaded themselves to believe whatever they wished. A firm +grasp of facts, he maintained, was the first characteristic of an +honest mind; the main element in all honest, intellectual work. His +own special talent was the gift of insight, the power of looking into +the heart of things, piercing to essential facts, discerning the real +characters of men, their true measure of genuine, solid worth. Creeds, +professions, opinions, circumstances, all these are the externals or +clothes of men. It is necessary to look behind them and beyond them if +we would reach the genuine human heart. One of the reasons why he +detested what he called stump oratory was because he believed it to be +a great school of insincerity. Its end was not truth, but +plausibility. It was the effort of interested men to throw opinions +into such forms as might most captivate uninstructed men; to keep back +every unpopular side; to magnify everything in them that was +seductive. He once said to me that two great curses seemed to him +eating away the heart and worth of the English people. One was drink. +The other was stump oratory, which accustomed men to say without +shame <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>what they did not in their hearts believe to be true, and +accustomed their hearers to accept such a proceeding as perfectly +natural. And the same strong passion for veracity he carried into his +judgment of other forms of work. Rightly or wrongly, he believed that +the standard of conscientious work had been lowered in England through +the feverish competition of modern times, and under the system of what +he called 'cheap and nasty'; that English work had lost something of +its old solidity and worth, and was now made rather to captivate than +to wear. Carlyle saw in this much more than an industrial change. He +maintained that the love and pride of thorough work had long been a +pre-eminently English quality, that it was the very tap-root of the +moral worth of the English character, and that anything that tended to +weaken it was a grave moral evil.</p> + +<p>It is worth while trying to understand what truth underlay those parts +of his teaching which seem most repulsive. The worship of force, which +is so apparent in many of his writings, is a striking example. He was +often accused of teaching that might is right. He always answered that +he had not done so—that what he taught was that right is might; that +by the providential constitution of the Universe truth in the long run +is sure to be stronger than falsehood; that good will prevail over +evil, and that right and might, though they differ widely in short +periods of time, would in long spaces prove to be identical. Nothing, +he was accustomed to say, seemed weaker than the Christian religion +when the disciples assembled in the upper room; yet it was in truth +the strongest thing in the world, and it accordingly prevailed. It was +one of his favourite sayings 'that the soul of the Universe is just,' +and he believed therefore that the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>ultimate fate of nations, whether +it be good or bad, was very much what they deserved. It is curious to +observe the analogy between this teaching and the doctrine of the +survival of the fittest, which a very different teacher—Charles +Darwin—has made so conspicuous.</p> + +<p>He scandalised—and I think with a good deal of reason—most of his +contemporaries by the ridicule which he threw upon the career of +Howard, and upon the great movement for prison reform which was so +actively pursued in his time. Much of what he wrote on this subject +is, to me at least, very repulsive; but you will generally find in the +most extravagant utterances of Carlyle that there is some true meaning +at bottom. He maintained that the passion for reforming and improving +prisons and prison-life had been carried in England to such a point +that the lot of a convicted criminal was often much better than that +of an honest and struggling artisan. He believed that a just and wise +distribution of compassion is a most important element of national +well-being, and that the English people are very apt to be indifferent +to great masses of unobtrusive, struggling, honourable, unsensational +poverty at their very doors, while they fall into paroxysms of emotion +about the actors in some sensational crime, about some seductive +murderess, about the wrongs of some far-off and often half-savage +race. 'In one of these Lancashire weavers dying with hunger there is +more thought and heart, a greater arithmetical amount of misery and +desperation, than in whole gangs of Quashees.' He maintained, too, +that a strain of sentiment about criminals was very prevalent in his +day, which tended seriously to obliterate or diminish the real +difference between right and wrong. He hated with an intense hatred +that whole system of philosophy which <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>denied that there was a deep, +essential, fundamental difference between right and wrong, and turned +the whole matter into a mere calculation of interests. He was +accustomed to say that one of the chief merits of Christianity was +that it taught that right and wrong were as far apart as Heaven and +Hell, and that no greater calamity can befall a nation than a +weakening of the righteous hatred of evil.</p> + +<p>The parts of Carlyle's teaching on which I have dwelt to-day will be +chiefly found in his 'Past and Present,' his 'Heroes and Hero +Worship,' his 'Latter-day Pamphlets,' his 'Chartism,' and in the two +admirable essays called 'Signs of the Times' and 'Characteristics.' In +my own opinion, though Carlyle teaches much, his writings are most +valuable as a moral force. Very few great writers have maintained more +steadily that the moral element is the deepest and most important part +of our being, deeper and stronger than all intellectual +considerations. In his writings, amid much that has imperishable +value, there is, I think, much that is exaggerated, much that is +one-sided, much that is unwise. But no one can be imbued with his +teaching without finding it a great moral tonic, and deriving from it +a nobler, braver, and more unworldly conception of human life.</p> +<p> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /></p> +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span><br /></p> + +<h3><a name="ISRAEL" id="ISRAEL"></a>ISRAEL AMONG THE NATIONS<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a><span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + + +<p>Among the strange and unforeseen developments that have characterised +the fourth quarter of the nineteenth century, few are likely to be +regarded by the future historian with a deeper or more melancholy +interest than the anti-Semite movement, which has swept with such a +portentous rapidity over a great part of Europe. It has produced in +Russia by far the most serious religious persecution of the century. +It has raged fiercely in Roumania, the other great centre of the +Oriental Jews. In enlightened Germany it has become a considerable +parliamentary force. In Austria it counts among its adherents men of +the highest social station. Even France, which from the days of the +Revolution has been specially distinguished for its liberality to the +Jews, has not escaped the contagion. General Boulanger found the +anti-Jewish sentiment sufficiently powerful to make an appeal to it +one of the articles of his programme, and the extraordinary popularity +of the writings of Drumont shows that Boulanger had not altogether +miscalculated its force.</p> + +<p>It is this movement which has been the occasion of the very valuable +work of M. Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu on 'Israel among the Nations.' The +author, who is universally recognised as one of the greatest of living +political writers, has special qualifications for his task. With an +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>exceedingly wide knowledge of the literature relating to his subject +he combines much personal knowledge of the Jews in Palestine and in +many other countries, and especially in those countries where the +persecution has most furiously raged.</p> + +<p>That persecution, he justly says, unites in different degrees three of +the most powerful elements that can move mankind—the spirit of +religious intolerance; the spirit of exclusive nationality; and the +jealousy which springs from trade or mercantile competition. Of these +elements M. Leroy-Beaulieu considers the first to be on the whole the +weakest. In that hideous Russian Persecution which 'the New Exodus' of +Frederic has made familiar to the English reader, the religious +element certainly occupies a very leading place. Pobedonosteff, who +shared with his master the chief guilt and infamy of this atrocious +crime, belonged to the same type as the Torquemadas of the past, and +the spirit that animated him has entered largely into the anti-Semite +movement in other lands. The 'Gloria' of Galdos, perhaps the most +powerful religious novel of our time, describes the conflict in modern +Spain of the fanaticism of Catholicism with the fanaticism of Judaism. +Even the old calumny that the Jews are accustomed at Easter to murder +Christian children in order to mix their blood with the passover +bread, is still living in many parts of Europe. M. Leroy-Beaulieu has +collected much curious evidence on the subject. It is a calumny which +appears first to have become popular about 1100 <span class="smcap">A.D.</span> It is +embodied in a well-known tale of Chaucer. It is the subject of one of +the great frescoes that were painted around the Cathedral of Toledo to +commemorate the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. Two Popes of the +thirteenth century, to their great honour, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>declared its falsehood, +and by the order of Benedict XIV. Ganganelli wrote a full memoir +examining and refuting it. But in spite of all condemnations, in spite +of many exposures in the law courts, it is still a popular belief in +Russia, Poland, Roumania, Hungary, and Bohemia, and even within the +last ten years it has been the direct cause of many outrages against +the Jews.</p> + +<p>Another element to which M. Leroy-Beaulieu attaches considerable +importance is the Kultur Kampf in Germany. When the German Government +was engaged in its fierce struggle with the Catholics, these +endeavoured to effect a diversion and to avenge themselves on papers, +which were largely in the hands of Jews, by raising a new cry. They +declared that a Kultur Kampf was indeed needed, but that it should be +directed against the alien people who were undermining the moral +foundations of Christian societies; who were the implacable enemies of +the Christian creed and of Christian ideals. The cry was soon taken up +by a large body of Evangelical Protestants. The 'Germania' and the +'Civiltà Cattolica,' which were the chief organs of Ultramontanism in +Germany and Italy, and the 'Kreuz Zeitung,' which represented the +strictest forms of German Protestantism, agreed in fomenting it.</p> + +<p>Still more powerful, in the opinion of our author, has been the spirit +of intense and exclusive nationality which has in the present +generation arisen in so many countries and which seeks to expel all +alien or heterogeneous elements, and to mould the whole national being +into a single definite type. The movement has been still further +strengthened by the greater keenness of trade competition. In the +midst of many idle, drunken, and ignorant populations the shrewd, +thrifty, and sober Jew stands conspicuous <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>as the most successful +trader. His rare power of judging, influencing, and managing men, his +fertility of resource, his indomitable perseverance and industry, +continually force him into the foremost rank, and he is prominent in +occupations which excite much animosity. The tax-gatherer, the agent, +the middleman, and the moneylender are very commonly of Jewish race, +and great Jewish capitalists largely control the money markets of +Europe at a time when capital is the special object of socialistic +attacks.</p> + +<p>The most valuable portion of this work is, I think, that examining the +part which the Jewish race is now playing in the world, and tracing +the action of historical causes on the formation of their character. +On the old problem of the continued existence of the race through so +many ages M. Leroy-Beaulieu has much to say. He reminds us that in the +East the idea of nationality is habitually absorbed in the idea of +religion, and that there are many examples of the long survival of +peoples or tribes which have lost their political individuality. He +instances the Copts of Egypt, the Maronites and Druses of Lebanon, the +Parsees of India, the Armenians and Greeks of Asia as displaying, +though in a less degree, the same phenomenon as the Jews. He +attributes the long continuance of the Jews as a separate people +mainly to two causes. One of them is Christian hatred, which compelled +the Jews for many centuries to remain a separate people, unmixed with +surrounding nations; living in a separate quarter; marrying among +themselves; strengthened and disciplined in the struggle of life by +enormous difficulties and by the constant elimination through +persecution of the weaker elements. The other is the very elaborate +Jewish ritual extending to all <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span>departments of life, which has stamped +upon them an intensely distinctive character.</p> + +<p>The force of these causes is undoubted, but they are not, I think, the +only elements to be considered. M. Leroy-Beaulieu appears to me to +have somewhat underrated the physiological force and tenacity of the +Jewish race-type. Following the line of reasoning of a remarkable +essay of Renan, he shows very clearly that the modern Jews are far +from being pure Semites. He proves from Josephus and from other +sources that there was a considerable period, both before and after +the Christian era, when great numbers of Greeks, Latins, and Egyptians +adopted the Jewish faith; that much alien blood afterward poured into +the race through conversions among the barbarians and through the +circumcision of the slaves of Jewish masters, and that there is even +reason to believe that, in some periods of history, marriages with +Christians were not infrequent. It is probable, however, that most +alien elements that were introduced into the race sooner or later +mingled with the old stock, and no fact is more clearly shown than the +extraordinary power of the Jewish type to survive and dominate in a +mixed race. A single instance of a marriage with a Jewess will be +sufficient to perpetuate it in a family for many generations. In this +fact the Jews possess an element of stability which is wholly +independent of all considerations of creed and ritual. Few things are +more curious than the effect of persecution on the Jewish element in +Spain and Portugal. Tens of thousands of Jews in those countries were +burned at the stake or driven into exile, but great numbers also +conformed. They mixed in a few generations with the old Christian +population, and Spain and Portugal, M. Leroy-Beaulieu truly says, are +now <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>among the countries in which the Jewish blood is most evidently +and most widely diffused.</p> + +<p>Another consideration, which M. Leroy-Beaulieu has omitted to mention, +but which appears to me to have much weight, is the condemnation of +lending money at interest by the Church. This condemnation, which +lasted many centuries, had two important consequences. One of them was +that the Jews became almost the only moneylenders in Europe. The trade +was deemed sinful for a Christian, but it was found to be a very +necessary one; and the Jews (as some Catholic theologians observed) +being already damned, were allowed to practise it. The other +consequence was that on account of the stigma which the Church +attached to moneylending, the amount of money to be lent was greatly +diminished, or in other words, the rate of interest was enormously and +artificially raised. At a time, therefore, when Catholic intolerance +made it impossible for the Jews to mingle with and be absorbed in +surrounding nations they acquired one of the greatest elements of +power and stability that a race can possess—a monopoly of the most +lucrative trade in the world.</p> + +<p>The physical characteristics of the race are very remarkable and they +are especially displayed among the Eastern Jews, who still maintain +scrupulously amid poverty and persecution the religious observances of +their ancestors. It is now clearly shown that the Levitical code was +in a high degree hygienic, and even anticipates some of the +discoveries of modern physiology. Prescriptions about forbidden kinds +of food and about the mode of cooking food, which only excited the +ridicule of Voltaire, have a real hygienic value in the eyes of Claude +Bernard and of Pasteur. The Jews have never adopted the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>Catholic +notions about the sanctity of celibacy and virginity, but they lay +great stress on the purity of marriage. Although they live chiefly in +towns, illegitimate births are proportionately rarer among them than +among either Protestants or Catholics. They have been as a rule +singularly free from the kinds of vice that do most to enfeeble and +corrode a race. They are distinguished for their domestic virtues, +especially for care of their children, and they are nearly everywhere +less addicted than Christian nations to intoxicating drinks. These +things help to explain the curious fact that in nearly all countries +the average duration of life is considerably longer among Jews than +among Christians. This superiority is general, but, as M. +Leroy-Beaulieu observes, it tends to diminish in Western countries +where Jews, being freed from disabilities, are more assimilated to the +surrounding populations. They now usually marry later than Christians; +they have on the whole fewer children, but a proportionately larger +number of Jewish than of Christian infants attain adult age. M. +Leroy-Beaulieu mentions two curious facts which are less easy to +explain. Still-born births are very rare among Jews, and there is +among them a wholly abnormal preponderance of male births over female +ones.</p> + +<p>It might be supposed from these facts that the Jews were a robust +race, but no one who has come much in contact with them will share +this delusion. Nothing is more conspicuous among them than their +unhealthy colouring, their frail, bent, and feeble bodies. They +develop early, but they have very little of the spring and buoyancy of +youth and they have everywhere a low average of physical strength. +Malformations and deformities are common among them; their nervous +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>organisation is extremely sensitive, and though they are as a race +distinguished for their sound, clear, and practical judgment, they are +very liable to insanity and to other nervous and brain disorders. +Physical beauty as well as physical strength is much rarer among them +than among Christians.</p> + +<p>The causes of this inferiority may be easily explained. Life pursued +during many generations in the crowded Ghetto; the sordid habits that +grow out of extreme poverty and out of the assumption of the +appearance of poverty, which is natural in a persecuted and plundered +race, go far to explain it; but there is another and, I think, a more +important cause which M. Leroy-Beaulieu has rather strangely +neglected. Physical strength and beauty can be maintained at a high +level in crowded town populations only by a constant influx from the +country. The pure air and the healthy labour of the fields are their +main source. This great school of health the Jews have never known. +For many centuries it would have been impossible for them to have +lived in peace as farmers or agricultural labourers among a Christian +peasantry, and if they ever possessed any aptitude or taste for +agricultural pursuits they have long since wholly lost it.</p> + +<p>Their moral like their physical characteristics present strange +contrasts. No natural want of moral elevation or tenderness or grace +can be ascribed to the nation that has produced both the Old Testament +and the Gospels, and has most largely shaped and inspired the moral +life of the civilised world. In Christian times no race has maintained +its faith with a more devoted courage, and it has encountered and +survived persecutions before which the persecutions of other creeds +dwindle almost into insignificance. M. Leroy-Beaulieu quotes the +statement <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>of the grand Rabbi Lehmann, that it is a clearly attested +fact that in two months of the year 1096 twelve thousand Jews, whose +names have been preserved, were massacred in the towns of the Rhine +alone, because they refused to accept a Christian baptism. The Spanish +Jews who perished by one of the most excruciating deaths rather than +forswear their faith may be numbered by thousands, and those who +preferred exile and spoliation to apostasy, by hundreds of thousands. +Even in our own sceptical and materialising age the conduct of the +Russian Jews under the recent savage persecution shows that the old +spirit is not extinct. In the face of the long and splendid roll of +Jewish heroism, it is idle to dwell on the fact that in each great +persecution some Jews have yielded to the fear of death and consented +to perform the rites of a faith which they inwardly abhorred, or on +the fact that a few Rabbis have under such circumstances justified +these feigned conversions.</p> + +<p>Prolonged persecution, however, has had a profound influence on their +character, and its influence in some respects has been very +pernicious. Hatred naturally provokes hatred, and violent oppression +against which there is no redress is naturally encountered by +subterfuge and fraud. A race who were for centuries playing their part +in life against overwhelming obstacles learned to avail themselves of +every advantage. Adulation, servility, falsehood, and deception became +common among them. They became at once hard, wily, and rapacious, and +ready instruments in ignoble and oppressive callings. Shut out from +open paths and honourable ambitions they haunted the obscurer byways +of industry; they were to be found in many occupations which sharpen +the intellect but blunt the moral sense, and they threw themselves +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>passionately into the acquisition of wealth and of secret power. +Exposed for generations, even in lands where they were not more +seriously persecuted, to constant insult and contempt, they often lost +their self-respect and learned to acquiesce tamely in what another +race would resent. Slavish conditions produced, as they always do, +slavish characteristics, and, as is always the case, those +characteristics did not at once disappear when the conditions that +produced them had altered.</p> + +<p>M. Leroy-Beaulieu has dwelt with much force on this subject, and he +ascribes considerable weight to the fact that the Jews have been +wholly outside the system of feudalism and chivalry in which the +modern conception of honour was chiefly formed. Perhaps the Jew might +retort with some justice, that he has had at least the compensating +moral advantage of having derived no part of his notions of right and +wrong from a Church in which such an institution as the Spanish +Inquisition was deemed a holy thing.</p> + +<p>Defects of another kind have contributed largely to his unpopularity. +Great as is the power of assimilation which the Jewish race possesses, +the charm and grace of manner seem to have been among the qualities +they most slowly and most imperfectly acquire. It is natural that men +who have been excluded from honours but not from wealth should value +money and the ostentatious display of riches more than their +neighbours. In the professions in which the Jews chiefly excel, men +rise most rapidly from low origin and culture to conspicuous wealth. +Direct money-making has some tendency to materialise and lower the +character, and Jews have been for generations prominent in occupations +which do much to impair those delicacies of feeling on which the charm +of manner <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>largely depends. Besides this, as M. Leroy-Beaulieu truly +remarks, though the oldest of the cultured races they are a race of +<i>parvenus</i> in the good society of Europe. In nearly all countries they +have till very recently been excluded from the kind of society and +from the kind of education in which the best manners are formed. The +exaggerations of bad taste; the love of the loud, the gaudy, the +ostentatious, and the meretricious; the awkwardness of men who are ill +at ease in an unaccustomed sphere, who have not yet mastered the happy +mean between arrogance and obsequiousness and who are therefore +somewhat prone to both extremes, still frequently characterise them. +Few persons who know Germany will doubt that the tone of manners of +the German Jews has contributed quite as much as any other cause to +their unpopularity.</p> + +<p>It is probable that these defects will gradually diminish, and it +would be a grave error to regard the Jewish race as wholly devoted to +material ends. The multitude of their martyrs is a sufficient answer +to the charge, and no people cherish more strongly the ideals of their +past and have more of the pride both of race and of creed. They have +at all times, as M. Leroy-Beaulieu observes, been distinguished for +their reverence for learning, and it is an undoubted fact that Jewish +families and families mixed with Jewish blood have produced an amount +and variety of ability that far exceed the average of men. The ability +goes rather with the race than with the religion. Spinosa, Heine, +Ricardo, and Disraeli—to quote but a few of the most illustrious +names—were not believers in the synagogue. Some of the forms in which +the Jews have most excelled are such as might have been expected from +their past. It is natural that the descendants of the most <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>nomadic +and cosmopolitan of races should have been great masters of language +and in the foremost rank of philologists, and it is not surprising +that the descendants of the chief moneylenders and calculators of the +world should have produced great financiers, and have shown a very +eminent aptitude for mathematics. Medicine more than most professions +depends on individual ability, and has been exercised independently of +the favour of Churches and Governments, and in medicine the Jews were +for a long period pre-eminent. Their marked taste and turn for music +may appear more surprising. It is universally recognised and is +sufficiently evident to anyone who will look at the faces of the chief +orchestras of Europe. Besides a crowd of lesser names they have +produced among composers Mendelssohn, Meyerbeer, and Halévy, and among +contemporary performers Rubinstein, Joachim, Hermann Levy, and Lucca. +A Jewess is the most popular tragic actress on the contemporary stage, +and another Jewess was probably the greatest tragic actress of the +century. M. Leroy-Beaulieu notices that in painting and sculpture the +Jews have been less conspicuous, and he attributes this to their +horror of idolatry. I should rather ascribe it to the fact that +European art in its best period was mainly devoted to depicting +Christian subjects for Christian churches. At all events several +considerable Jewish names may be cited in contemporary art, and the +Dutch painter who bears the name of Israels is perhaps the greatest +living master of the pathetic in painting. In Western Europe, wherever +public life has been opened to them, Jews have thrown themselves into +almost all the great movements of their time and have distinguished +themselves in nearly all. Crémieux, who was a leading figure in the +French <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>Republic of 1848, was a Jew both by birth and by creed. David +Manin and Léon Gambetta had Jewish blood in their veins. Lassalle and +Marx, the chief names in German socialism, as well as great numbers of +their followers belong to the same race, and more than one English +example of political eminence will occur to the reader. In both German +and Dutch literature Jewish names are frequent and they are nearly +everywhere prominent in journalism. In the army they have been much +less distinguished. Many Jews no doubt serve in the great continental +armies with honour, but the Jew is naturally a pacific being, hating +violence and recoiling with a peculiar horror from blood. The +beneficence of the Jew was for a long time very naturally confined to +his own race, but since the hand of persecution has been withdrawn, +and wherever the Jews have been suffered to mingle freely with the +Christian population, it has taken a wider range and Jewish names are +conspicuous in some of the best forms of unsectarian philanthropy.</p> + +<p>It is the evident tendency of modern political life to split up into a +number of distinct groups representing distinct interests or forms of +thought. We find a Catholic party, a Nonconformist party, a Labour +party, a Socialist party, a Temperance party, and many others. But in +spite of the crusade that has arisen in so many countries against the +Jews, we nowhere find a distinct and clearly defined Jewish party. The +tendency of the race is rather to throw themselves ardently into +existing movements, and their power of assimilation is one of their +most remarkable gifts. As M. Leroy-Beaulieu shows by many +illustrations, they are apt in most Western nations even to exaggerate +the national characteristics, though they usually combine with them a +certain flexibility of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>adaptation and a certain cosmopolitanism of +view which is essentially their own.</p> + +<p>It was inevitable that with such tendencies the old rigidity of creed +should be impaired and that the observances which completely severed +the Jew from other people should be discarded. There can be little +doubt that the dissolution of old beliefs which has been such a marked +and ominous characteristic of the latter half of the nineteenth +century has been even more common among the Western Jews than in +Christian nations, and it appears to have spread quite as rapidly +among the women as among the men. Many Jews have passed into complete +religious indifference—into absolute and often very cynical negation. +They have become, as Sheridan wittily said, like the blank page +between the Old and the New Testament. Others have taken refuge in a +kind of highly rationalised Judaism little different from pure Theism. +Some of the most independent, scientific, and trenchant criticism of +the Old Testament writings has proceeded from members of the race +which was once distinguished for the most complete and superstitious +worship of the letter of the law. Spinoza in his 'Tractatus +Theologico-Politicus' led the way in this path, and in our own day I +need only mention the writings of Salvador, Kalisch, and Darmesteter +and the remarkable Hibbert Lectures of Mr. Montefiore.</p> + +<p>This movement, however, is chiefly confined to the Western Jews. The +Oriental Jews have retained in a far greater measure their old creed +and ritual, their old fanaticism and aspirations. To them Palestine is +still the land of promise, and they still dream that it is destined to +become once more a Jewish State. Few persons who consider the +conditions of the East and the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>power of the Jewish race will +pronounce the realisation of this dream to be impossible or even in a +very high degree improbable. Perhaps the most formidable obstacle is +the poverty of the land and the total absence among the Jews of +agricultural tastes and aptitudes. One thing, however, may be safely +predicted. If Palestine is ever again to become a Jewish land, this +will be effected only through the wealth and energy of the Western +Jews, and it is not those Jews who are likely to inhabit it.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Mr. Lecky had made various notes with the intention of +bringing this essay up to date, but failing health prevented him from +accomplishing it.—<span class="smcap">Ed.</span></p></div> +<p> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /></p> +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span><br /></p> + +<h3><a name="MADAME_DE_STAEL" id="MADAME_DE_STAEL"></a>MADAME DE STAËL<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + + +<p>Among the many important works which have lately been published on the +Continent, reconstructing the history of France during the struggle of +the Revolution and during the periods that immediately preceded and +followed it, scarcely any have been so comprehensive, and not many +have been so valuable, as 'The History of the Life and Times of Madame +de Staël,' by Lady Blennerhassett. The author—a Bavarian lady who was +an intimate friend and favourite pupil of Dr. Döllinger—has brought +to her task a knowledge, which is scarcely rivalled in its +completeness, of the French, German, English, and Italian literatures +relating to the period; and she has produced a work of which it is in +one sense the merit, but in another the defect, that it sweeps over a +far wider field than might be expected from its title. It is seldom, I +think, a judicious thing to confuse the provinces of history and +biography by turning the life of an individual into an elaborate +history of his time; and in the few cases in which this method has +been successfully pursued, the biographer has selected as his subject +some man like Cromwell, or Frederick the Great, or Napoleon, who was +indisputably the chief mover of his age. When figures of less +prominence are chosen, both the history and the biography are apt to +suffer. The true perspective, or relative magnitude, of events is +impaired, and the book is almost sure to lose something of its +artistic charm and of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>its popularity. Mr. Masson, as it seems to me, +committed a mistake of this kind in his 'Life of Milton,' when he +grouped around the great Puritan poet—who, however illustrious, was +certainly not the central figure of his time—a full and valuable +history of the Commonwealth, and of large sections of the reigns of +Charles I. and Charles II.</p> + +<p>In like manner, a great part of the work of Lady Blennerhassett is not +biography, but history, and history of a very high order. Madame de +Staël was so closely connected in her own person, and still more +through her father, with the early events of the French Revolution, +that we accept with gratitude the admirable sketch of that period +which Lady Blennerhassett has given us; but we should scarcely expect +to find in a work primarily devoted to Madame de Staël full and +masterly accounts of the Ministry of Turgot, of the rise and teaching +of the Economists, of the rival influence of the writings of +Montesquieu and Rousseau on the French political character, of the +effect of English influence and American example in preparing the +Revolution, and of the part played by Germans and Swedes in French +politics. At the same time, the pictures of the social and +intellectual life prevailing in the different countries with which +Madame de Staël was connected, and the full accounts given of a crowd +of persons with whom she came into casual contact, though in +themselves both interesting and valuable, often tend to divert the +reader from the main subject of the book. In truth, Lady +Blennerhassett has not been able to resist the temptation of a very +full mind to pour out all its knowledge, and, while possessing many +rare and brilliant literary gifts, she appears to me to want that +restraining sense of literary perspective which gives <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>biography its +true proportion and symmetry. This defect has, I fear, diminished the +popularity of a most valuable book. In the original German, and in an +excellent French translation which was revised by the author and which +I especially commend to my readers, the work consists of three very +substantial volumes.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> A hasty reader will readily conclude that, in +this short and crowded life, such a space is far more than should be +allotted to a long-vanished figure which, though interesting and +brilliant, was not of the first magnitude. But if he has the courage +to persevere, he will soon discover that few modern books have lighted +up in so many directions the political, social, moral, and +intellectual history of a momentous period, and have exhibited at once +so many kinds of talent and so wide a range of sympathies and +knowledge. The complete competence, the firm, sober, and—if I may use +the expression—masculine judgment with which Lady Blennerhassett has +grasped the great political problems of the period of the Revolution, +is not less conspicuous than the truly feminine delicacy of +observation and touch with which she has delineated social life in +many different countries, and painted the finer shades of many widely +dissimilar characters.</p> + +<p>Anne Louise Germaine Necker was born in Paris on April 22, 1766. Her +father was at that time known only as a Swiss banker of high character +and reputation, who had amassed a vast fortune and had come to Paris +for his private affairs; but about two years after the birth of his +daughter he was appointed to represent the interests of Geneva at +Paris, and when she was ten years old he rose, for the first time, to +a leading place in the Ministry of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span>France. Her mother had been the +Mademoiselle Curchod whose charms and accomplishments had captivated +Gibbon when he was a young man at Lausanne. Every reader of his +autobiography will remember the famous passage in which he describes +his engagement, the opposition of his father, and the resignation with +which he 'sighed as a lover, but obeyed as a son.' M. d'Haussonville +has published from the archives at Coppet some melancholy letters +which show clearly that Gibbon exhibited more heartlessness and +inflicted more suffering than might be gathered from his own stately +narrative. But no lasting scar remained. After a few years of poverty +and hardship, during which she was obliged to earn a livelihood as a +schoolmistress, Mademoiselle Curchod found in Necker a husband who +realised her fondest wishes; and when, soon after, she became the +centre of a brilliant salon at Paris, her former lover, then in the +zenith of his fame, was often among her guests. Madame Necker did not +always abstain from slightly veiled allusions to the past, but it is +pleasant to see that a warm and solid friendship seems to have grown +up between Gibbon and both his host and hostess. A pretty anecdote is +related of how, on one occasion, after he had left the house, they +agreed in expressing the deep regret with which they looked forward to +his approaching departure for England; when their little daughter, who +was then just ten years old, gravely offered to prevent the +catastrophe by marrying the illustrious, but by no means +prepossessing, historian.</p> + +<p>It was a saying of Talleyrand that he who had not lived before 1789 +had never known the full charm of life. Germaine Necker grew up in the +last bright flush of a society which had, perhaps, as many +fascinations as <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>any that the world has known. Her mother, however, +though she occupied a prominent position in this brilliant world, was +never altogether of it. She shared fully, indeed, its intellectual +tastes, and had herself won some small place in literature. She threw +herself ardently into its philanthropic movements, and especially into +that for the reform of the hospitals. She formed a warm and true +friendship with Buffon and Thomas. She corresponded with Voltaire, and +attracted to her house most of the best writers of the age. But to the +last she remained eminently and characteristically Swiss, and she +never acquired the light touch, or the easy, pliant grace, of the true +Parisian. She was a little cold, a little prim, a little pedantic, a +little self-conscious. Neither her reserved manners nor her strong +domestic tastes, nor the vein of Puritanism that ran through her +opinions, harmonised with the lax and sceptical society around her, +and it was no sacrifice to her to exchange the splendours and the +gaieties of Paris for her peaceful retreat on the Lake of Geneva.</p> + +<p>In this, as in most respects, her daughter was very different. In her +the Swiss element had altogether disappeared, and, as is often the +case with the eminent child of eminent parents, her character shot out +in directions wholly unlike both that of her father and that of her +mother. She was not beautiful, though her dark and eminently lustrous +eyes, beaming with intelligence, and her rich brown tint, gave some +charm to her large and rather coarse features; while her massive +shoulders, arms, and breast, her full lips and the firm grasp of her +vigorous hand, indicated a strong, frank, ruling, and passionate +nature, overflowing with life and with many forms of energy. Her +education was somewhat fitfully conducted, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>but she threw herself +eagerly into literary enthusiasms. At fifteen we find her annotating +Montesquieu. Raynal and Richardson were among her idols, but, like +most of the more ardent spirits of her generation, her ideas and +character were moulded chiefly by the genius of Rousseau. Her first +work of importance was an exposition of his doctrines, and his +influence left deep traces on both 'Corinne' and 'Delphine.' Her +strong sane judgment, however, her genuine humanity, and the +moderating influence of her father, saved her from being swept away, +like Madame Roland and most of the disciples of Rousseau, by the +sanguinary torrent of revolutionary enthusiasm; and in times of wild +passion and exaggeration she usually exhibited a singular soundness +and sobriety of political judgment. She was sometimes mistaken, but on +the whole it may well be doubted whether there is any other French +writer or politician of the period of the Revolution whose +contemporary judgments of men and events have been more frequently +ratified by posterity.</p> + +<p>In this respect she was not of the school of Rousseau. In another and +less admirable way she was curiously untouched by his spirit, for few +superior intellects have been so openly, so utterly, insensible to the +charms of nature. She once spoke of 'the infernal peace' of her Swiss +home, and she candidly acknowledged that if it were not for respect +for the opinions of others she would not open her window to look for +the first time on the Bay of Naples, though she would gladly travel +five hundred leagues to make the acquaintance of a man of talent. On +the borders of the Lake of Geneva, with one of the fairest scenes on +earth expanding before her, she was incessantly pining for 'le +ruisseau de la Rue du <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>Bac'—for the interest and the excitement of a +society which had become the passion of her life.</p> + +<p>Her gifts of conversation were very wonderful, and she had a wide +range of sympathies, keen insight into character, and great power of +describing it by a few vivid words. She had, however, no reticence or +reserve, she made many enemies by her unbounded frankness, and she +often fatigued or overwhelmed by her exuberant animal spirits and by +the torrent of her words. At the same time, unlike most great talkers, +she possessed to a very eminent degree the gifts of learning from +others, of grasping the characteristic features of their teaching, of +awakening sympathies, of dispelling bashfulness, and of kindling +latent intellect into a flame. Few women combined so remarkably a +sound and moderate judgment with extreme vividness and impetuosity of +emotion. She admired deeply, and she generally admired wisely; her +first judgments and impulses were almost always generous; and, +although she was subject to violent gusts of passion, she could be +very patient with those she loved. Through her whole life she was the +warmest and most self-sacrificing of friends, and her few antipathies +were singularly devoid of rancour. One of those who knew her best +pronounced her to be 'absolutely incapable of hatred.'</p> + +<p>She soon became the most attractive figure in the salon of Madame +Necker, and as the health of her mother declined she became its +central figure. Her rare accomplishments and her position as a great +heiress naturally would have drawn many suitors around her, but in +that age the determined Protestantism of her family was a formidable +barrier. It appears from something that she wrote late in life to a +German correspondent that, when a mere girl, she had come under the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>spell of Louis de Narbonne, who asked her hand, and with whom, in +after years, she had relations which caused much scandal and which +greatly coloured her political life. The story that her parents at one +time contemplated a marriage between her and William Pitt, on the +occasion of his visit to France in 1783, was discredited by Lord +Stanhope; but M. d'Haussonville pronounces it to be quite true, though +there is no clear evidence that Pitt was apprised of the wish of the +Neckers. She was then only seventeen, and her vehement protest against +an English marriage nipped the project in the bud. In 1786, however, a +marriage was negotiated for her with the Swedish ambassador, the Baron +de Staël, who was at that time a special favourite of Gustavus III. It +was a marriage into which but little affection entered, and twelve +years later it ended in a separation. There was afterward, it is true, +a partial reconciliation, and she was present with her husband when he +died, in 1802, on the way from Paris to Coppet.</p> + +<p>Her marriage gave her an independent position, and she mixed much in +the politics of the early days of the Revolution. She corresponded +regularly with the Swedish King, and formed intimate friendships with +great numbers of the guiding politicians. The proudest moment of her +life was in August 1788, when, amid a transport of transient +enthusiasm and extravagant hopefulness, her father was for the second +time called to the helm. Her devotion to him amounted almost to +adoration, and she would never acknowledge, what the rest of the world +soon perceived, that, though excellently adapted to be Minister in +quiet, regular times, he had neither the daring nor the insight, nor +the commanding power, that was needed to guide the bark of State +through the fierce <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>storms of the Revolution. She fully shared the +enthusiasm with which the opening of the States General was received. +She mentions that on that occasion she was watching the procession +from a window with Madame de Montmorin, wife of the Minister of +Foreign Affairs, and that as she expressed her delight, her companion +said: 'You are wrong in rejoicing; great calamities will follow from +this to France and to us.' The words were truly prophetic. Madame de +Montmorin perished on the scaffold with one of her sons; the other was +drowned. Her husband was murdered in prison during the massacre of the +second of September. Her eldest daughter died in the prison hospital. +Her youngest daughter withered away when not yet thirty, +broken-hearted by the calamities of her family.</p> + +<p>Madame de Staël, too, soon discovered that no millennium was at hand. +She was an eye-witness of the terrible scenes of the fifth and sixth +of October, when Versailles was invaded by a half-famished mob, when +the guards were cut down and beheaded, and when the royal family were +brought captive to Paris. She clearly saw that all power was passing +from the Government to the clubs, and that the mob violence which +reigned was either instigated or deliberately connived at by the very +men whose first duty was to repress it. 'These gentlemen,' she once +said, 'are like the rainbow; they always appear when the storm is +over.' Under her influence the Swedish Embassy became the chief centre +in which the 'Constitutional Party' was organised. Narbonne and +Talleyrand were then completely devoted to her. Ségur, Choiseul, the +Prince de Broglie, and other members of the party were constantly at +her house; and at what were called her 'coalition dinners' she brought +them in contact with leading men of other groups. She had a +conspicuous <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>talent for inspiring, encouraging, conciliating, and +organising a party; and for some months she exercised a very real +political influence. Her aim was a constitutional monarchy of the +English type; but she came gradually to believe that a republic, or at +least a change of Sovereigns, had become inevitable. She never wavered +in her devotion to liberty, order, and justice; but on minor questions +she always exhibited a spirit of compromise which was very rare in her +age and in her country. 'The true line of conduct in politics,' she +once said, 'is always to be ready to rally to the least obnoxious +party among your adversaries, even though it is far from representing +exactly your own point of view.' At the end of 1791 she had a moment +of delicious triumph, when her favourite Narbonne became Minister of +War. Marie Antoinette, who disliked her, clearly recognised her hand. +'Count Louis de Narbonne,' she wrote to Fersen, 'has been Minister of +War since yesterday. What a glory for Madame de Staël and what a +pleasure for her to have the whole army at her disposal!'</p> + +<p>The triumphs of Madame de Staël, however, were very fleeting. Her +father had fallen irretrievably, and in September 1790 he passed +almost unnoticed out of the country where, but little more than a year +before, he had been welcomed with such enthusiasm. The Ministry of +Narbonne, to which she had attached her most ardent hopes, ended in +four months, and before its conclusion her husband, whose views on +French politics had been for some time diverging from those of his +Sovereign, was recalled. He was not, however, replaced, and Madame de +Staël remained alone in Paris till September 1792. Her position there +was an extremely dangerous one. She had long been an object of +incessant abuse in the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>Royalist press, and now the red waves of +Jacobinism were rising higher and higher, surging fiercely around +those to whom she was most attached. Nothing in her life is so +admirable as the courage with which, in this period of the Revolution, +she devoted herself to saving the lives of the proscribed. Her purse +was always open, and she often risked not only her fortune, but her +life. The royal family had always disliked her; but she was filled +with horror at the fate that was impending over them, and she herself +organised a plan for their escape, in which, if it had been accepted, +she would have borne a leading part, at the imminent risk of her head; +and she afterward wrote an earnest and eloquent pamphlet in the hope +of saving the life of the Queen. Sometimes by interceding with those +in power, sometimes by concealing fugitives in the Swedish Embassy, +very often by large and timely gifts of money, she saved many. Her own +life, at the time of the September massacres, was in extreme danger, +and she at last fled to Switzerland. Coppet then became a great centre +of refugees, and many of them owed their lives to her help. Among +others, Narbonne appears to have owed his escape, in part at least, to +her assistance, and she chiefly managed the escape of his daughter. +She was for a long time completely under his charm; but he is said to +have been irritated by her often tactless impetuosity, and especially +by the manner in which public opinion regarded him as her creature, +and he seems to have treated her with much ingratitude. There was no +violent breach, but there was a separation, and a wound which was long +and bitterly felt. Many years later, Madame de Staël, when praising +the Prince de Ligne, said of him: 'He had the manners of Monsieur de +Narbonne—and a heart.'</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>A short visit to England, in 1793, the death of her mother in May +1794, and the publication of her first purely political work, +'Reflections on Peace, addressed to Mr. Pitt and to the French,' were +the chief events of her life during the next few months. In this work +she dwelt with much force on the absurdity of supposing that any +foreign intervention could restore what the Revolution had destroyed, +and she predicted that the inevitable effect of the prolongation or +extension of the war would be to strengthen that militant Jacobinism +which was now the greatest danger to Europe. In this year, too, she +first came in contact with Benjamin Constant, and her acquaintance +soon developed into a connection which gave her a new and powerful +instrument for acting on French politics, but which also brought with +it much suffering, many reproaches, and long and lasting discredit. In +May 1795 we find her again in Paris, with her husband, who had once +more been sent on a mission to France; again eagerly engaged in French +politics; again largely occupied in defending the interests of her +proscribed friends. Among others, Talleyrand appears to have owed his +recall to her influence. As usual, she excited many antipathies, she +was denounced in the Convention by Legendre for her political +intrigues and especially for her efforts in favour of the emigrants, +and she was obliged to leave Paris for about eighteen months. Her pen +was at this time very active, and to this period belong her 'Essay on +Novels' and her 'Treatise on the Passions.'</p> + +<p>The star of Bonaparte was now rapidly rising, and it profoundly +affected the last years of her life. The pages in her 'Considerations +on the French Revolution' in which she describes her first interview +with him, after <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>the peace of Campo Formio, are among the most graphic +she ever wrote, though something of the shadow of the picture was, no +doubt, drawn from later experience and antipathy. She was at first +dazzled; she was at all times profoundly impressed by his genius, but +she soon came to perceive that his nature was wholly unlike that of +other men. She had seen, she said, men worthy of all respect, and she +had seen men noted for their ferocity; but the impression produced on +her by Bonaparte was generically different from that produced by +either of these classes. She found that such epithets as 'good,' +'violent,' 'gentle,' and 'cruel' could not be applied to him in their +ordinary senses. He was in truth a being who stood self-centred, and +apart from the sympathies, passions, and enthusiasms of his kind, +habitually regarding men, not as fellow-creatures, but as mere +counters in a game; a will of colossal strength; an intellect of +clear, cold, transcendent power, solely governed by the imperturbable +calculation of the strictest egotism, and never drawn aside by love or +hatred, by pity or religion, or by attachment to any cause. It was +impossible, she found, to exaggerate his contempt for human nature and +his disbelief in the reality of human virtue. A perfectly honest man +was the only kind of man he never could understand. Such a man +perplexed and baffled his calculations, acting on them as the sign of +the cross acts on the machinations of a demon. The superiority which +so clearly shone in his conversation was not that of a mind cultivated +by study and by society; it was the supreme insight into the +circumstances of life possessed by a mighty hunter of men. There was +something in him, she said, like a cold and trenchant sword, which at +the same moment could wound and chill.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>Such was the estimate she formed of the man who, nearly at the same +time, was presented by Talleyrand to the Directory as 'the pacificator +of Europe,' as a hero 'who despised luxury and pomp—the wretched +ambition of common souls—and who loved the poems of Ossian, +especially because they detach men from the earth'! That two such +different natures should come into collision was very natural. +Bonaparte always hated superior women, and especially women who +meddled in politics. He well knew that the circle of Madame de Staël +was the centre of ideas about freedom and constitutional government +irreconcilably opposed to his ambition, and that the world of good +society and good taste, of independent thought and independent +characters, in which she played so great a part, remained unsubdued +and undazzled by his power. Benjamin Constant had been placed in 'the +Tribunate,' and in the beginning of 1800 he made a speech there, +indicating a desire to establish in that body an opposition like the +opposition in the English Parliament. Bonaparte was furious at his +attitude, and at once ascribed it to the inspiration of Madame de +Staël. A year later the last work of her father appeared, and it +contained an earnest warning against growing despotism in France and a +strong argument for the establishment of a republican constitution. +The sayings of Madame de Staël that were repeated from lip to lip, and +the atmosphere of thought that grew up around her, irritated and +disquieted Bonaparte. 'She is moving the minds of men,' he said, 'in a +direction that does not suit me.' 'They pretend that she does not +speak of politics or of me, but somehow it always happens that those +who have been with her become less attached to me.' Soon her salon was +emptied by an emphatic intimation that those who entered it <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>would +incur the displeasure of the First Consul. Official scribes were +busily employed in depreciating her, and these measures were speedily +followed by the long exile which darkened the later years of her life.</p> + +<p>It is impossible for me in this article to relate, even in outline, +the story of this exile, and of her travels in England, Italy, +Austria, Russia, and, above all, in Germany. Madame de Staël has +herself described this period of her life in her 'Ten Years of Exile,' +and all the details have been collected by Lady Blennerhassett with an +industry that leaves nothing to be desired. A woman of a more heroic +type would have borne with less repining an exclusion from Paris life +which was mitigated by wealth, and fame, and abundant occupation, and +a family that adored her, and troops of admiring friends. A woman who +was less essentially noble would have assuredly accepted the overtures +that were more than once made to her, and would have purchased her +peace with Napoleon by burning a few grains of literary incense on his +altar. But though, in a life of more than common vicissitude and +temptation, Madame de Staël was betrayed into great weaknesses and +into some serious faults, she never lost her sense of the dignity and +integrity of literature, and her works are singularly free from +unworthy flattery as well as from unworthy resentments and jealousies. +The homage which Napoleon desired was never received, and in her great +work on Italy and her still greater one on Germany there was no trace +of his victories, influence, or animosities. 'In France,' he once +said, 'there is a small literature and a great literature; the small +literature is on my side, but the great literature is not for me.'</p> + +<p>The disfavour which thrust Madame de Staël out <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>of political +influence, and then drove her into exile, proved a blessing in +disguise, for it turned her mind decisively from political intrigues +to those forms of literature in which she was most fitted to excel. +Her treatise on 'Literature,' which was published in 1800, was +conceived upon a scale too large for her own knowledge, and though she +herself attributed to it the great and general favour that she enjoyed +for a time in Paris society, it has not taken an enduring place in +French literature. 'Delphine,' the most personal, and also the most +censured, of her novels, had a still wider success, and made a deeper +and more lasting impression. It appeared in 1802, and it was followed +by a long interval, during which she appears to have published nothing +except a short but admirable notice of her father, who died in the +spring of 1804; but in 1807 'Corinne' burst upon the world, and at +once obtained a European fame equalled by that of no French novel +since 'La Nouvelle Héloise.' In this great work of imagination she +embodied, in a highly poetic form, the impressions she had derived +from her journeys in England and Italy, and its immense and +instantaneous success placed her on the very pinnacle of fame. It is +worthy of notice that a bitter attack upon 'Corinne' appeared in 'Le +Moniteur,' based chiefly upon the fact that its hero was an +Englishman; and there is good reason to believe that this attack was +from the pen of Napoleon himself.</p> + +<p>A book of larger scope and of more serious influence soon followed. +Germany at this time presented the singular spectacle of a people who +had been reduced to the lowest depths of political depression, but +who, at the same time, could boast of a contemporary literature that +was the first in the world. In France a translation <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span>of 'Werther' had +attained great popularity; some of the plays of Schiller, the idylls +of Gessner, and a few other German works were well known; but scarcely +any Frenchman had a conception of the magnitude and importance of the +intellectual activity which was growing up beyond the Rhine, or of the +vast place which Goethe, Schiller, and Kant were destined to take in +European thought. It was one of the chief pleasures and occupations of +Madame de Staël, during her exile, to explore this almost unknown +field. It would scarcely have been thought that she was well fitted +for the task. She learned the language late in life, and her +characteristically French mind seemed very little in harmony with +either the strength or the weakness of the Teutonic intellect. There +was nothing very profound, or very subtle, or very poetical in her +nature, and she had all that instinctive dislike to the vague, the +disproportioned, the exaggerated, and the ambiguous, to fantastic and +far-fetched conjecture, and to imposing edifices of speculation based +upon scanty or shadowy materials, that pre-eminently distinguishes the +best French thought. Very wisely, however, she placed herself in +direct communication with the great writers of Germany, and a wholly +new world of thought and sentiment gradually opened upon her mind. It +is not too much to say that it was her pen that first revealed to the +Latin world the intellectual greatness of Germany. In England, +Coleridge had already laboured in the same field, and his admirable +translation of 'Wallenstein' had appeared as early as 1800; but it had +been completely still-born, and in England also it was reserved for +the great Frenchwoman to give the first considerable impulse to the +study of German literature. For the history, the merits, and the +defects of her work on <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>Germany, I cannot do better than to refer to +the admirable pages which Lady Blennerhassett has devoted to the +subject. With the doubtful exception of 'Le Génie du Christianisme,' +it was by far the most important French work which appeared during the +reign of Napoleon. It is a characteristic fact that the whole of the +first edition was confiscated by order of his Government. Happily the +manuscript was saved, and about three years later it was printed in +England.</p> + +<p>After some discreditable scenes, on which a recently published +correspondence has thrown a painful though somewhat doubtful light, +the connection of Madame de Staël with Benjamin Constant was broken. +The two continued occasionally to correspond, and as late as 1815 we +find her lending him a large sum of money; but their relations were +never again what they had been, and on the side of Constant there +appears to have been a large amount of positive malevolence. 'O +Benjamin,' she wrote to him in one of her later letters, 'you have +destroyed my life! For ten years not a day has passed that my heart +has not suffered for you—and yet I loved you so much!' A strong +affection, such as she had not found in her marriage with the Baron de +Staël, was an imperious necessity of her existence, and after her +breach with Constant she soon found an object in a young officer from +Geneva named Rocca, who had returned to his native town badly wounded +after brilliant service in Spain. When they first met, in 1810, Madame +de Staël was forty-four and Rocca about twenty-three; but a genuine +and honourable affection seems to have grown up on both sides, and in +the following year they were married. Madame de Staël, however, either +clinging to her name or dreading the ridicule of such a strangely +assorted marriage, insisted <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>upon its concealment, and Rocca generally +passed in society as her lover. A child was born in 1812, but it was +only after the death of Madame de Staël that the legitimacy of the +connection was established. It proved much more productive of +happiness than might have been expected, and greatly brightened her +closing years. Nearly at the same time an important change passed over +her religious views, and the vague deism of her youth deepened into a +positive, definite, and earnest Christianity, but without mysticism +and without intolerance. Some beautiful lines that are cited by Lady +Blennerhassett very faithfully express the spirit of her belief: 'Il +faut avoir soin, si l'on peut, que le déclin de cette vie soit la +jeunesse de l'autre. Se désintéresser de soi, sans cesser de +s'intéresser aux autres, met quelque chose de divin dans l'âme.'</p> + +<p>She lived to see the downfall of perhaps the only man she really +hated, his return from Elba, his final defeat at Waterloo, and the +restoration of the Bourbons. But, though she detested Napoleon and his +system, these things gave her no pleasure. The spectacle of an invaded +and a dismembered France aroused her strongest feelings of patriotism, +and she loved liberty too truly and too ardently to rejoice in the +influences that triumphed in 1815. Her last years were chiefly spent +in the composition of her 'Considerations on the French Revolution,' +in which she sums up the convictions of her life. It is one of her +most valuable and most lasting books. The disproportioned prominence +which is naturally assigned in it to Necker, and the manifest personal +element in her antipathy to Napoleon, impair its weight, indeed, as a +history; but few writers have criticised with more justice the +successive stages of the Revolution, and few <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>books of its generation +are so rich in political wisdom. The concluding chapters, in which, in +a strain of noble eloquence, she pleads the cause of moderate and +constitutional freedom, show how steadily and how strongly, in an age +of many disenchantments, she clung to the belief of her youth.</p> + +<p>The 'Considerations on the French Revolution' had a vast and an +immediate success, and in a few days sixty thousand copies were sold. +Madame de Staël, however, did not live to witness her triumph. In +February 1817 she was struck down by a paralytic illness, and on July +14, after a long period of complete prostration, she passed away +tranquilly in her sleep. It was a peaceful ending to an agitated and +chequered career. She had enjoyed much and suffered much. She had +committed grave faults, and had met with her full share of +disappointment and ingratitude; but few women have left such an +enduring monument behind them, or have touched human life on so many +sides and with so many sympathies.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> There is also an English, and somewhat abridged, +translation.</p></div> +<p> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /></p> +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span><br /></p> + +<h3><a name="SIR_ROBERT_PEEL" id="SIR_ROBERT_PEEL"></a>THE PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE OF SIR ROBERT PEEL<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + + +<p>There is probably no other English public man of the present century +whose career has attracted in so large a measure the interest both of +politicians and of men of letters as Sir Robert Peel. In addition to a +crowd of industrious but not very distinguished compilers, it has been +discussed with great skill by Guizot, by Lord Dalling, by Mr. Goldwin +Smith, and by Mr. Spencer Walpole; and in that great literature of +monographs which has grown up with such remarkable rapidity in England +within the last decade, no less than three have been devoted to the +life of Peel. The interest that attaches to him is, indeed, of a very +peculiar character. He was almost wholly destitute of the power of +imagination that is so conspicuous in the careers or speeches of +Chatham and Burke, of Canning and Beaconsfield. Except during a few +years that followed the Reform Bill of 1832, he never exhibited the +spectacle of a leader struggling successfully against enormous odds. +He was not one of those statesmen who see further than their +contemporaries, and who, after years of failure and struggle, are +proved by their ultimate triumph to have most truly read the +tendencies of their age. Though he was three times Prime Minister of +England, and though he was for a time deemed the most brilliant of +party leaders, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>he left the great and powerful party which trusted him +almost hopelessly shattered. Twice in his life he carried measures of +transcendent importance which he had not only persistently opposed, +but had been specially placed in power for the purpose of resisting. +The most striking incidents in his career are incidents of failure +rather than of success, and history has pronounced that, on the most +important questions of his time, he was disastrously wrong. The long +delay in the inevitable emancipation of the Catholics, which was +largely due to him, and the circumstances under which he ultimately +carried the measure, produced evils that are in full activity at the +present hour. His persistent opposition to parliamentary reform +contributed to bring England to the very verge of revolution; though +when the Reform Bill had been carried he nobly retrieved his error by +the frankness with which he accepted, and the skill with which he +used, the new conditions of English politics. His abolition of the +Corn Laws at the head of a Government which had been pledged to +maintain them gave a great shock to public confidence, and for a long +period most seriously dislocated the machinery of party government. +But, in spite of all this, there are few statesmen who have carried so +large a number of measures of great and acknowledged importance, who +have impressed so deeply the sense of their superiority on the minds +of their contemporaries, or who were followed to the grave by a more +widespread and genuine regret.</p> + +<p>It is this contrast between the leading incidents of Peel's life and +the impression which he made on the world that constitutes the great +interest of his career. The explanation is not difficult to discover. +It is the common story of extraordinary qualities balanced by +striking <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>defects. He was not a great statesman, but he was a +supremely great administrator, a supremely great master of +parliamentary management and of parliamentary legislation. He had +little prescience; he often grossly misread the signs of the times, or +only recognised them when it was too late; but when he was once +convinced, he acted on his conviction with frankness and courage, and +when a thing had to be done, no one could do it like him. As Disraeli +said: 'In the course of time the method which was natural to Sir +Robert Peel matured into a habit of such expertness that no one in the +despatch of affairs ever adapted the means more fitly to the end.'<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> +In the words of Sir Cornewall Lewis: 'For concocting, producing, +explaining, and defending measures, he had no equal, or anything like +an equal.'<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></p> + +<p>In the interesting volumes which were published by Lord Mahon and Mr. +Cardwell in 1856 we have Peel's own explanation of his conduct +relating to the removal of the Catholic disabilities in 1829, and to +the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846; but the publication of his +confidential correspondence has been long delayed, and the volume +before us only carries the work down to 1827. It has been edited by +Mr. Parker with great care and accuracy, and with undeviating good +sense and good taste, and it throws much curious light upon a corner +of history which has been but little explored.</p> + +<p>Peel started in life with great advantages. The eldest son of a very +wealthy manufacturer who had long occupied a respectable place in +Parliament, and who was closely attached to the dominant party in the +State, he was from his earliest youth destined by his father to be a +statesman. Under such circumstances he was certain <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>in the pre-Reform +period to have not only all the advantages which the best school and +university education could give, but also the still greater advantages +of an early introduction into both parliamentary and official life; +provided always that no aberration of character, or taste, or +imagination, or opinion drew him aside from the plain path that lay +before him. He grew up in an atmosphere of the best middle-class +virtues. Decorum, good sense, industry, strict morality; a sober +religious orthodoxy; much simplicity of life, preserved in the midst +of great wealth; ideals which, if not very lofty, were at least +eminently practical and perfectly honourable, prevailed around him, +and their influence imbued his whole nature. He accepted cordially the +destiny that was before him, and threw himself into it with untiring +industry. His opinions changed during his life much more than his +character, and the shy, sensitive, industrious, somewhat +self-conscious, somewhat awkward Harrow boy, prefigured very +faithfully the future statesman. He is described as wandering when a +schoolboy by himself among the hedges, knocking down birds with +stones, a practice in which he was very skilful, and which eventually +developed into a strong passion for shooting. He was quiet, +good-natured, studious, scarcely ever in scrapes, and it was not until +the last year of his school life that he threw himself with any +keenness into the amusements of his comrades. He had good natural +abilities; but probably the one point in which he greatly exceeded the +average of intelligent boys was his memory, which was of extraordinary +retentiveness, and which he carefully cultivated. During a few months +which elapsed between leaving Harrow and going to Oxford he constantly +attended the House of Commons, under the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span>Gallery; and he also +attended some natural history lectures at the Royal Institution. His +Oxford career was very successful. He is said to have worked before +his degree examination for no less than eighteen hours, through the +day and night. He gained a double-first, and in the first class of +mathematics he stood alone. Such a success at once stamped him as a +youth of extraordinary promise, and the impression it made was +especially great because, the examination system having been very +recently reorganised, he was the first Oxford man who had attained it.</p> + +<p>He was brought into Parliament in April 1809, almost immediately after +he came of age, for the borough of Cashel. No special significance +attaches to the fact of his having entered Parliament for an Irish +constituency, for his father had simply bought the seat, and the young +member appears to have never gone over to his constituents or held any +communication with them.</p> + +<p>'When I sat for Cashel,' he afterwards wrote, 'and was not in office, +having made those sacrifices which could then legally be made, but now +cannot, I did not consider myself at all pledged to the support of +Government.'<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> Perceval, who represented in its extreme form the +Tory reaction that followed the Revolution, was then Prime Minister, +and Peel at once took his place among his followers. He first spoke in +seconding the Address in 1810, and in the partial judgment of his +father his speech was considered, 'by men the best qualified to form a +correct opinion of public speaking, the best first speech since that +of Mr. Pitt.'<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></p> + +<p>It was not, perhaps, an unmixed advantage to Peel <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>that while he was +still a mere boy his father had somewhat ostentatiously destined him +to be one day a Tory statesman. Such an education could hardly fail to +strengthen the self-consciousness which was never wanting in Peel's +character, and to give a decided bias to his judgment. At the same +time, the distinctive merits of his career would have probably never +been fully developed without the early administrative training which +his opinions made possible for him, and there is nothing in his early +history to give the least countenance to the belief that his adherence +to the extreme type of Tory politics imposed the slightest strain upon +his judgment. His immediate interests and his sentiments appear at +this time to have perfectly concurred. He came into Parliament with +the party which was dominant, and with the section of the party which +was most poor in able men. Had he adopted on the Catholic question the +liberal opinions of Canning and Castlereagh, he must have held a +position altogether subordinate to them; and the same causes that in +the preceding Ministry had raised Perceval to be leader of the House +of Commons over the heads of Castlereagh and Canning, marked out for +Peel the future leadership of the party of resistance to concession. +It has been said, on the authority of Sir Lawrence Peel, that his +first appointment was that of private secretary to Lord Liverpool, but +Mr. Parker has found no trace of this in the papers either of Peel or +of Lord Liverpool. In 1810, however, when he was but just twenty-two, +he entered administrative life as Under-Secretary of State for War and +the Colonies, and he held that place till August 1812, when he +obtained the far more important post of Chief Secretary for Ireland, +and became for the next six years virtual governor of that country.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>It was a post requiring not only great administrative skill, but also +great gifts of original statesmanship. During the last five years of +the eighteenth century, and especially during the rebellion of 1798, +religious passions in Ireland, which had for more than a generation +been steadily subsiding, had been kindled into a flame, and the urgent +necessity of settling the Catholic question had begun to press with +irresistible force on the minds of the more intelligent statesmen. +Pitt had intended to complete the Union by measures for admitting +Catholics into Parliament, for commuting tithes, and for paying the +Catholic clergy. Through the instrumentality of Lord Castlereagh +assurances of the disposition of the Cabinet had been conveyed to the +Catholic bishops and the leading Catholic laymen in 1799, which were +sufficient to secure their active support for the Union and to prevent +any serious opposition among the Catholic laity. The bishops met the +wishes of the English Government by drawing up a series of +resolutions, in which they declared their readiness to accept with +gratitude an endowment for the priesthood, to confer upon the English +Government a power of veto over the appointment of Catholic bishops +which would prevent the introduction into that body of any disloyal +men, and to certify to the Government the nomination of all Catholic +parish priests, as well as the fact that they had taken the oath of +allegiance. But the King had not been informed of the negotiations +that had taken place, and it is well known how his uncompromising +opposition produced the resignation of Pitt in 1801, how the agitation +caused by the question threw the King into a temporary fit of +insanity, and how Pitt at once promised that he would not move the +question again during the reign. In the spring of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>1804 Pitt resumed +office, on the express understanding that he would not permit Catholic +Emancipation; when the question was introduced in 1805 by Lord +Grenville in the Lords, and by Fox in the Commons, it was defeated in +both Houses by immense majorities, and Pitt declared that though he +was still of opinion that there was no danger in the concession, yet, +as long as the circumstances which prevented him from bringing it +forward continued, he would be no party to agitating the question.</p> + +<p>In 1806 Pitt died, and Fox and Grenville were themselves in power, but +the Catholics were again disappointed. The prejudice of the King, the +feeling of the country, the recent vote of the House of Commons, the +presence of Lord Sidmouth in the Ministry, proved insuperable +obstacles, and Fox could only urge the Catholic leaders to postpone +the question. Fox died in September 1806, and the Government presided +over by Lord Grenville met a new Parliament in the following December. +Grenville had been Pitt's colleague during the negotiations with the +Catholics that preceded the Union; he had strongly urged upon Pitt the +necessity of resigning in 1801, and he never forgave him for having so +lightly abandoned the cause. Grenville did not attempt to carry +emancipation, but he resolved to take at least one serious step in the +direction of concession, by throwing open to the Catholics all the +posts in the army and navy. An Irish Act of 1793 had enabled them to +hold in Ireland commissions in the army, and to attain any rank except +commander-in-chief, master-general of the ordnance, and general of the +staff; but if the regiments in which they served were sent to England, +they were disqualified by law from remaining in the service. The +original Bill of Grenville's Government was intended to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>remove this +anomaly, and assimilate the law in the two countries; but in the +course of the discussions it was agreed that the Catholics should be +freed from the exceptions to which they were subjected by the Irish +Act, that all posts in the army and navy should be thrown open to men +of all religious persuasions, subject only to the obligation of taking +an oath which was prescribed, and that Catholic soldiers should be +guaranteed by law the free exercise of their religion. The King had +been informed of this, and was understood to have given a distinct, +though a reluctant, assent; but a strong Protestant party, headed by +Perceval, fiercely opposed it. The King withdrew his assent from the +added clauses, and expressed his disapprobation of the whole measure. +At last, after much discussion, the Ministers agreed for the present +to withdraw their Bill, reserving to themselves by a Cabinet minute, +which was submitted to the King, the right to renew it, or to propose +any other measure on the subject which they desired. But the King was +determined to push his victory to the end. He demanded from his +Ministers a promise in writing that they would never again propose to +him any measure connected with Catholic emancipation, and as the +Ministers refused to give this unconstitutional pledge, the King +dismissed them from office, and called the Duke of Portland to the +head of affairs.</p> + +<p>It was the second time that the King had broken up a Ministry on the +Catholic question, and his conduct was especially significant, as his +refusal to grant military promotion to Catholics was announced in the +midst of a great war, and at a time when thousands of Catholics were +fighting in his armies. It at once appeared that there were two +entirely distinct schools of Tories. Pitt, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>to the very close of his +life, had declared that his opinions on the Catholic question were +unchanged, though he would not force them against the inclination of +the King; and his views were adopted by Canning, Castlereagh, and +Wellesley. Perceval, on the other hand, emphatically declared that he +'could not conceive a time or any change of circumstances which could +render further concession to the Catholics consistent with the safety +of the State.'<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> With the exception of Eldon, scarcely any man of +real ability adopted this view until Peel entered Parliament as the +follower of Perceval. It is sufficiently evident from this fact how +little truth there is in the theory that attributes Peel's early +Toryism to a blind admiration for Pitt.</p> + +<p>The party of the King triumphed. Parliament was dissolved on the 'No +Popery' cry, and on the first great party division that followed the +election the Ministers in the House of Commons had a majority of 195. +Canning and Castlereagh, though they had no sympathy with that cry, +availed themselves of the current that ran so strongly against the +Whigs. In the Ministry of the Duke of Portland they held the seals for +the Foreign and War Departments, but the leadership of the Commons and +the virtual leadership of the Ministry was given to Perceval, who, +though entirely without brilliant parts, exhibited unexpected talents, +both as a practical debater and as a manager of men, and who had the +advantage of representing fully the dominant party. Several +circumstances, however, other than a conviction of the danger of the +Catholic claims, contributed to the triumph of the anti-Catholic +party. The Whigs, already broken by their policy towards France in the +first stages of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>Revolution and of the war, had become still more +unpopular through their opposition to the seizure of the Danish fleet +and to the Peninsular War. They were divided among themselves, for +there was little sympathy between the more aristocratic Whigs, who +were represented by Grenville and Lord Howick, and the more Radical +party of Sir F. Burdett and Whitbread. A strong personal as well as +political dislike already existed between Howick and Canning, and +prevented their hearty co-operation on the one great question on which +they were agreed. Above all, there was a general conviction among +statesmen that the King's mind was trembling on the verge of insanity, +and that a renewal of the Catholic complications of 1801 would produce +a catastrophe.</p> + +<p>The question was debated in both the Lords and Commons in 1808. In the +former it was lost by a majority of 87, and in the latter by a +majority of 153. Grattan on this occasion introduced the Catholic +petition in a speech of consummate power; but both Castlereagh and +Canning opposed the reception of the petition, on the ground that the +time was unsuited for the agitation of the question; and the spirit of +the ruling part of the Ministry was sufficiently shown by the +reduction of the Maynooth grant from 13,000<i>l.</i> to 9,250<i>l.</i> When the +Portland Government was broken up in September 1809 by the quarrel, +duel, and resignation of Canning and Castlereagh, Perceval became the +head of the new Ministry, Lord Wellesley occupying the place of +Canning, and Lord Hawkesbury that of Castlereagh; and an intensely +anti-Catholic ministry continued to the death of Perceval. In 1809 the +Catholic question was not introduced into Parliament. In the spring of +1810 it was introduced into both Houses, but was defeated by +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>majorities of 86 and 104; but in October 1810 an event occurred which +profoundly changed the aspect of affairs. The King's insanity broke +out anew in a form which gave little hope of recovery, and the Prince +of Wales was appointed Regent. For a year the regency was subject to +restrictions similar to those which had been adopted in 1788, but on +February 1, 1812, these restrictions were to cease, and the Regent was +to enter into full fruition of the royal power.</p> + +<p>The hopes of the Catholics were now raised to the highest point. With +the confirmed insanity of George III. the most serious of all the +obstacles to their claims was removed. During the year of the +restricted regency, while there was still some chance of the recovery +of the King, the Prince of Wales declined to remove the existing +Ministry from office, though even this decision was not taken without +some hesitation and some negotiations with the Whigs. The Catholics, +however, fully expected that the royal influence would now be exerted +in their favour, and that the Whig Ministry would speedily come. The +Prince of Wales had long been in close connection with the Whigs. As +early as 1797 he had expressed a desire to go over to Ireland as +Lord-Lieutenant, carrying with him a policy of conciliation to the +Catholics. In 1805, when Fox and Grenville had introduced the Catholic +question into the Imperial Parliament, the Prince, while stating that +considerations of obvious delicacy prevented him from taking an +immediate and open part in its favour, had given the Whig leaders the +fullest authority to assure the Catholics of Ireland that he would +never forsake their interests, the 'most distinct and authentic +pledge' of his wish to relieve them from the disabilities of which +they complained, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>and to exert himself in their favour as soon as he +was constitutionally able to do so. It is easy therefore to imagine +the consternation and the indignation with which, in 1812, the +Catholics found that the Prince Regent had changed his principles and +his policy; that, after a short and perhaps insincere negotiation with +the Whigs, he had resolved to maintain in power a Ministry which was +constructed for the main purpose of maintaining the Catholic +disabilities; and that his own opinions were rapidly verging towards +this policy.</p> + +<p>The situation in Ireland was becoming very dangerous. For some years +after the Union a great apathy prevailed, and there is no reasonable +doubt that, if events in England had been favourable, Catholic +emancipation would have met with no serious opposition in Ireland, and +could have been carried with every reasonable limitation and +safeguard. The most competent English officials calculated that at +least sixty-four of the hundred Irish representatives would vote for +it, and that a decided preponderance of Irish Protestant opinion was +in its favour. On the other hand, the Catholic bishops and aristocracy +had fully accepted the policy of an endowment for the priests and a +veto on the appointment of bishops, and the most Conservative elements +in the Catholic body still exercised an ascendancy over their +co-religionists. The question of the veto had been mentioned in the +Commons, by Sir J. Hippisley, in 1805, and in 1808 Grattan and +Ponsonby formally announced, on the authority of the Catholic bishops, +their readiness to accept it. A letter from Bishop Milner was read to +the House, which very clearly stated their position:</p> + +<p>'The Catholic prelates of Ireland,' he wrote, 'are willing to give a +direct negative power to his Majesty's <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>Government with respect to the +nomination of their titular bishoprics, in such manner that when they +have among themselves resolved who is the fittest person for the +vacant see, they will transmit his name to his Majesty's Ministers; +and if the latter should object to that name, they will transmit +another and another, until a name is presented to which no objection +is made; and (which is never likely to be the case) should the Pope +refuse to give those essentially necessary spiritual powers, of which +he is the depository, to the person so presented by the Catholic +bishops and so approved by the Government, they will continue to +propose names till one occurs which is agreeable to both +parties—namely, the Crown and Apostolic See.'</p> + +<p>The prelates also engaged to nominate no persons who had not +previously taken the oath of allegiance.<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> But a democratic party +had now arisen among the Catholics, which utterly repudiated the +restrictions of the veto, which sought emancipation by violent and +democratic agitation, and which was rapidly drawing the most dangerous +elements in the country into its channel. The bishops, pushed on by +the strong force that was behind them, speedily retraced their steps +and passed resolutions against the restrictions they had accepted, and +there were evident signs that the Catholic body was passing away from +the guidance of Grattan and of the gentry. This was not surprising in +a country where many elements of anarchy subsisted; and the democratic +party had already found in O'Connell a leader of consummate skill, and +of untiring industry, energy, and ambition. But the chief cause of the +great change that was passing over the Irish Catholics was to be +found <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>in the disappointment of their hopes in 1801, in 1804, in 1806, +and 1812; in the desertion of their cause by Pitt; in the proved +impotence of the Whigs; in the failure of 'the securities' even to +mitigate the hostility of Perceval and his followers; in the profound +consternation and exasperation that were produced by the attitude of +the Regent. The formation of the General Committee of Catholic +Delegates was speedily followed by its suppression under the +Convention Act. But the influence of O'Connell was rapidly growing; +there were already ominous signs of a possible agitation for the +repeal of the Union, and the indignation of the Catholics was +significantly shown by the famous 'witchery resolutions,' which were +unanimously carried by the aggregate meeting of the Catholics in the +June of 1812, reflecting on the influence which Lady Hertford was +believed to exercise over the Prince. After calling for the 'total and +unqualified repeal of the penal laws which aggrieve the Catholics,' +they proceeded to use the following language: 'That from authentic +documents now before us we hear, with deep disappointment and anguish, +how cruelly the promised boon of Catholic freedom has been interrupted +by the fatal witchery of an unworthy secret influence.... To this +impure source we trace but too distinctly our baffled hopes and +protracted servitude.' Such language was not calculated to conciliate +the Prince, and he was only confirmed in his hostility to the +Catholics. As early as September 1813 the Duke of Richmond wrote to +Peel: 'I was delighted to find H.R.H. as steady a Protestant as the +Attorney-General.'</p> + +<p>The commencement, however, of what was virtually a new reign had given +a new activity to the question. It was brought forward in different +forms in the first months <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>of 1812 by Lord Wellesley and Lord +Donoughmore in one House, and by Lord Morpeth and Grattan in the +other; and although it was still defeated, the diminished majorities, +the evident signs of an increased Catholic party in the country, and +the language of some of the most distinguished men in Parliament, +clearly indicated the progress of the measure. Canning especially now +strenuously urged that the time had come when the Catholic question +must be fully dealt with. The assassination of Perceval on May 11, +1812, again changed the situation and led to a long series of feeble +and abortive negotiations. An attempt was made to continue the +existing Ministry under the lead of Lord Liverpool, with the addition +of Canning and Lord Wellesley; but these statesmen declined the offer, +on the ground that the other Ministers refused to carry Catholic +emancipation, and Lord Wellesley on the additional ground of their +languor in prosecuting the Spanish war. The Regent then authorised +Lord Wellesley to construct a Ministry, with the assistance of +Canning, and an offer was made to Lords Grey and Grenville to join it, +promising an immediate consideration of the Catholic claims with a +view to a conciliatory settlement; while, on the other hand, attempts +were made to retain the services of the leading members of Perceval's +Ministry. But the Whig leaders refused to take part in a coalition +Ministry, in which they would probably be outvoted, and the former +Cabinet was reconstructed, under the leadership of Lord Liverpool, but +on the principle of leaving the Catholic question an open one. +Liverpool himself was opposed to concession, but his opposition was by +no means of the unqualified kind which had been shown by Perceval; and +a large proportion of his colleagues, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>including Castlereagh, who led +the House of Commons, were in favour of Catholic emancipation. If +Canning had consented to join the Ministry, Lord Wellesley would +probably have been Lord-Lieutenant in Ireland, and under these +circumstances the Catholic side could scarcely have failed to acquire +a decisive preponderance. If, on the other hand, Castlereagh had +followed the example of Canning, and refused to take part in a +Ministry which declined to settle the Catholic question, or if the +Whigs had consented to co-operate with Canning, the settlement of this +great question could scarcely have been deferred. Unfortunately, none +of these things happened. Castlereagh remained the leader of the +House. Canning refused to follow his leadership, and two years later +accepted the embassy to Lisbon. The Whig leaders stood aloof from all +Ministerial combinations. The Duke of Richmond, who was violently +anti-Catholic, continued to be Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland; the post of +Chief Secretary was given to Peel, and Ireland was destined to undergo +fifteen more years of demoralising and disorganising agitation before +the Catholic question was settled.</p> + +<p>Canning, however, as an independent member, brought forward a +resolution pledging the House to an early consideration of the laws +affecting his Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects, with a view to their +final conciliatory adjustment, and the conditions of the question had +so profoundly changed that it was carried by a majority of 129; while +a similar motion by Lord Wellesley in the House of Lords was met by +the previous question, which was carried by a majority of only one.</p> + +<p>Peel, though he had come into Parliament as a special follower of +Perceval, had not yet pledged himself <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>decisively against the +Catholics. He had voted silently against Canning's motion in June, and +although he had spoken against a previous motion of Grattan, he had +done so mainly on the ground that the time was not opportune, and had +expressly guarded himself against giving any positive pledge. He was +now, however, obliged to take a more prominent part, and for the next +six years he was the chief support of the anti-Catholic party in +Parliament. His part was a very difficult one, for he had to encounter +Grattan, Plunket, Canning, and the Whig leaders, and he had scarcely +any real supporters. Saurin, the Attorney-General, it is true, was +strongly opposed to all concession. He was a lawyer of high character +and attainments, of Huguenot descent and strong Huguenot principles, +and he had borne a distinguished part in opposition to the Union; but +Saurin refused to go to London. Bushe, who was Solicitor-General, +leaned to the Catholic side; and, to the great indignation and +consternation of the Government, Wellesley Pole, who had preceded Peel +as Chief Secretary and who was the brother of Lord Wellesley, now +pronounced himself strongly in Parliament in favour of the Catholics. +This speech was entirely unexpected, for Pole had hitherto been +regarded as a staunch adherent of the Protestant party, and as late as +the last day of 1811 he had sent a memorandum on the Catholic question +to the Secretary of State in England, which was intended to be laid +before the Cabinet, and which maintained the impossibility of safely +satisfying the Catholic claims, and the expediency of the Prince +Regent's taking a decided part against them. A general election had +taken place in September, and it is evident from the letters of Lord +Liverpool and Peel that they at this time looked upon Canning and his +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>followers with even more hostility than the regular Opposition.</p> + +<p>In the new Parliament the Catholic question at once assumed a great +prominence. A motion for the immediate consideration of the laws +affecting the Catholics was introduced by Grattan, supported by +Castlereagh, opposed by Peel, and ultimately carried by a majority of +40. A resolution of Grattan's for removing laws imposing civil and +military disabilities on the Catholics, with such regulations and +exceptions as might provide for the security of the Protestant +succession and of the Established Church, was next introduced. Peel +opposed it bitterly, but was beaten by a majority of 67.</p> + +<p>'We were terribly beaten,' he wrote to his Under-Secretary, 'but we +are sad cowards, I am afraid; at least, we are shamefully used. Poor +Duigenan could not get a hearing, and the general impression seemed +against the Protestants. We will fight them out, however, to the last. +I am sure it is better than to give way.' 'Your defence of the +Protestant cause,' wrote Saurin, 'was not only by far the ablest and +best, but the only one which did not seem to strengthen the cause of +the adversary by some concession of principle. I really fear the +Protestant cause is lost in the Commons. There can be no rally now but +on the securities.'<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a></p> + +<p>Grattan at once brought in a Bill in accordance with the terms of the +Resolution that had been carried; but the Protestant party now rallied +around a motion of Sir John Hippisley, for a committee to inquire into +the state and tenets of the Roman Catholics, and the laws affecting +them. Canning pointed out with great force that a committee of inquiry +was exactly what the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>Protestant party had for so many years +strenuously resisted; but, as Peel wrote to the Duke of Richmond, +there was no inconsistency in their conduct: 'When the question was +whether we should consider the claims of the Catholics and the laws +affecting them, or should resist their claims, we voted for resistance +without inquiry; the question now is, whether we shall consider or +concede, and we prefer inquiry to concession.'<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></p> + +<p>The motion for delay, however, was defeated by 187 to 235, and the +second reading of Grattan's Bill was carried by 245 to 203. But a +sudden change now occurred in the prospects of the cause. Canning and +Castlereagh, with the full assent of Grattan, introduced clauses for +the securities which had been before intimated, giving the Crown a +control over the nomination of the Catholic bishops. But the bishops +unanimously condemned the proposal, and the large majority of the +Catholic Board supported them. It became evident that the Bill before +Parliament would fail to satisfy the Catholics, and after a long +discussion the clause admitting Catholics to Parliament was rejected +by 251 to 247.</p> + +<p>Peel had triumphed. The profound division which had broken out among +the supporters of Catholic emancipation threw back for many years a +cause which had been almost gained, though in 1817 an Act was passed +without opposition throwing open to the Catholics the military and +naval positions which Grenville had vainly attempted to open in 1807. +Few things could have been eventually more disastrous both to Ireland +and to the Empire than the defeat of the influence represented by +Grattan and by the Catholic gentry, and the growing <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>ascendancy of +O'Connell and the democratic and sacerdotal party in Irish popular +politics. Grattan had long predicted that, if concession was not +speedily and wisely made, population in Ireland would drift away from +the guiding and moderating influence of property; that seditious and +anarchical men would gain an ascendancy which would make the whole +problem of Irish Government incalculably difficult; that a priesthood +unconnected with the English Government would lead to a 'Catholic +laity discorporated from the people of England.' In the Irish +Parliament the strong bias of Conservatism in his policy had been +repeatedly displayed, and it was equally apparent in the Imperial +Parliament. In 1807 he had supported the Insurrection Act, in +opposition to many of his friends, on the ground that there was a real +and dangerous French party in Ireland, which the common law was +insufficient to suppress. In 1814 he expressed his full approval of +the proclamation suppressing the Catholic Board. He steadily and +earnestly maintained that, although it was vitally necessary that +Catholic emancipation should be speedily carried, it should be +accompanied by measures for securing, as far as possible, the loyalty +of the higher Catholic clergy, and uniting them in interest and +sentiment with the British Government. He looked with bitter hostility +on the rise and policy of O'Connell. He accused him of 'setting afloat +the bad passions of the people,' making grievances instruments of +power without any honest wish to redress them, treating politics as a +trade to serve a desperate and interested purpose.</p> + +<p>But the influence of Grattan was now manifestly declining, and Peel +watched the decline with a short-sighted and not very generous +pleasure. In Parliament, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>though numbers were against the Catholics, +the overwhelming preponderance of ability was still in favour of the +principle of emancipation, and it was in leading the anti-Catholic +party that Peel chiefly acquired his almost unrivalled parliamentary +skill. He had, indeed, all the qualities of a great debater: courage, +fluency, self-possession, complete command of every subject he +treated, unfailing lucidity both in statement and reasoning; admirable +skill in marshalling and disentangling great masses of facts, in +meeting, evading, or retorting arguments, and detecting the weak +points of the case of an opponent, in veiling, by plausible language, +extreme or unpalatable views, in extricating himself by subtle +distinctions and qualifications from embarrassing situations. He can +scarcely, it is true, be called a great orator. His style was formal, +cumbrous, extremely verbose, without sparkle and without fire. He had +little or no power of moving the passions, nothing of the flexibility +that can adapt itself to very different audiences, nothing of the +philosophic insight that can impart a perennial interest to transient +discussions. But few men have ever understood the House of Commons +like him, or have possessed in so high a degree the qualities that are +most fitted to command and influence it. The great mass of +anti-Catholic sentiment in the country rallied around him as its most +powerful champion, and in 1817 he attained one of the chief objects of +his ambition in being elected member for Oxford University. It is well +known that his older and more brilliant rival had long aspired to this +honour. It was mainly through the Catholic question that Canning +missed and Peel won the prize.</p> + +<p>The nickname 'Orange Peel,' which was given to him <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>in Ireland, was +not wholly deserved. His letters abundantly show that he had no +sympathy with the ribbons, the anniversaries, the party tunes, the +insulting processions and insulting language of the Orangemen; and, +although he believed that in Ireland anti-Catholicism and loyalty were +very closely connected, he viewed with much dislike the growth of any +political confederacies unconnected with the Government. Declamation +and boastfulness and needless provocation were, indeed, wholly alien +to his nature; and even when defending extreme causes he rarely or +never used the language of a fanatic. He resisted Catholic concession +mainly on the ground that the admission of the Catholics to political +power would prove incompatible with the existence of the Established +Church in Ireland, with the security of property in a country where +property was mainly in Protestant hands, and ultimately with the +connection between the two countries. His arguments were not based on +religion, but on political expediency; but it was an expediency which +he believed to be permanent.</p> + +<p>'I see,' he wrote to the Duke of Richmond, 'one of the papers reports +me as having said that I was not an advocate for perpetual exclusion. +It might be inferred that I objected only to the time of discussing +the question. That is not the case.... There are certain anomalies in +the system which I would wish to remove, but the main principles of it +I would retain untouched.... At no time, and under no circumstances, +so long as the Catholic admits the supremacy in spirituals of a +foreign earthly potentate, and will not tell us what supremacy in +spirituals means—so long as he will not give us voluntarily the +security which every despotic Sovereign <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>in Europe has by the +concession of the Pope himself—will I consent to admit them.'<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a></p> + +<p>The letters before us show clearly that his political sympathy was +with Saurin, with Duigenan, with Lord Eldon, and even with Lord +Norbury. O'Connell early perceived in Peel his most dangerous +opponent, and a strong personal enmity, which was as much due to +profound differences of character as to differences of policy, grew up +between them. A scurrilous attack of O'Connell on Peel in 1815 was +followed by a challenge, and a duel was prevented only by the arrest +of O'Connell. The antipathy between the two men was never mitigated. +O'Connell said of Peel that 'his smile was like the silver plate on a +coffin.' Peel, in his confidential letters, expressed the utmost +dislike and contempt for the character of O'Connell, and when he was +at length compelled by the Clare election to concede Catholic +emancipation, his feeling towards him was significantly and +characteristically shown. He enumerated in a brilliant passage the men +to whom the triumph of Catholic emancipation was really due. He spoke +of Fox and Grattan, of Plunket and of Canning, but he made no mention +of O'Connell.</p> + +<p>The administrative side of Peel's Chief Secretaryship is much more +creditable to him than the political side. The vivid picture which his +letters present of the manner in which Ireland was governed more than +fifteen years after the Union will probably strike the reader with +some surprise, when he remembers that the Union had extinguished about +seventy small boroughs, and had at the same time greatly diminished +the importance of the Irish representatives, and therefore the +necessities for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>corruption. Peel noticed that while 'the pension list +of Great Britain was limited to 90,000<i>l.</i> per annum, the pension list +of Ireland may amount to 80,000<i>l.</i> a year; and he found almost all +Irish patronage still employed for political purposes, and almost +every office honeycombed with abuses and peculations. A few extracts +will give the reader some notion of the nature and extent of the evil, +and of the efforts of Peel to reduce it:—</p> + +<p>'How is it possible,' he wrote, 'to propose that a shilling should be +granted to a general officer on the staff in Ireland when sixpence is +granted in England? This is called a modification in official phrase, +but it ought to be called doubling the allowance. Set your face +steadily against all increase of salary, all extra allowances, all +plausible claims for additional emolument. Economy must be the order +of the day—rigid economy.'<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> 'When English members hear that the +sheriff appoints the grand jury, that the grand jury tax the county, +that the sheriff has a considerable influence at elections, and that +the sheriff is appointed openly on the recommendation of the member +supporting the Government, they are startled not a little.... I know +that this is a most convenient patronage to the Government, but I know +also that I cannot hint in the House of Commons at such a source of +patronage, and I confess I have great doubts on the legitimacy of +it.... After Lord Redesdale's declaration ... that the mode of +appointing sheriffs "poisons the sources of justice," and witnessing +the general feeling among the English against making the nomination of +a most important officer in the execution of justice dependent on the +will of the county member, I thought it highly expedient to give a +positive assurance <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span>that the Government would revert to the ancient +and legal practice of appointing sheriffs in Ireland.... With a pure +Bench—and time will, I hope, purify it—the change would be an +essential change for the better.'<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> 'Foster says that the abuses +discovered in the office [of Clerk of the Pleas] are enormous, that +the amount of fees exacted from suitors is not less than 30,000<i>l.</i> +per annum, of which the principal clerk did not receive more than +one-third. A Mr. Pollock, the first deputy, is in receipt of 8,000<i>l.</i> +or 9,000<i>l.</i> a year as his own share of the profits; other deputies +and persons unnecessarily employed have profits amounting to 1,200<i>l.</i> +or 1,400<i>l.</i> a year each. Foster thinks that every possible difficulty +will be thrown in the way of an early decision in the Irish Courts.... +In the meantime, the Chief Baron is receiving the enormous profits +arising from these enormous abuses.'<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a></p> + +<p>The practice of buying and selling public offices, and the practice of +dividing the salaries of a single office between a principal and +deputies, still continued; but Peel did his utmost to eradicate them. +If it were permitted in one case, he said, 'every officer in every +department who purchased on corrupt terms and is now living may claim +a right to sell the office so purchased.'</p> + +<p>'With respect to a payment out of the salary to R., I can have no +scruple in giving you my opinion that it would not be right. I have +never been, and cannot conscientiously be, a party to an arrangement +of that kind, because I think this is quite clear, that if the salary +of the office is disproportionate to the labour of it, and can bear to +be taxed to the amount of 200<i>l.</i>, the public should benefit, and the +emoluments of the office be reduced.'<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>One of Peel's first tasks was to conduct a general election, and he +had ample opportunities of judging how these things were managed in +Ireland. A law known as Curwen's Act had been recently passed, +condemning to a heavy fine in the event of failure, and to the loss of +his seat in the event of success, any person giving, or promising to +give, or consenting to give either money or office for a seat in +Parliament. The law was not a little embarrassing to Peel, as his own +seat of Cashel had been purchased, and he thought it safer to transfer +himself to the English seat of Chippenham, where his return was +managed by his father without any intervention on his own part. At the +same time, the elections in Ireland went on much as if Curwen's Act +had never passed.</p> + +<p>'I am placed in a delicate situation enough here,' he wrote to his +friend Croker: 'bound to secure the Government interests, if possible, +from dilapidation, but still more bound to faint with horror at the +mention of money transactions, to threaten the unfortunate culprits +with impeachment if they hint at an impure return, and yet to prevent +those strongholds, Cashel, Mallow, and Tralee, from surrendering to +the enemies who besiege them.'</p> + +<p>Croker himself furnished an admirable illustration of the manner in +which these principles were carried out. 'I find the borough' [Down], +he writes, 'extremely well disposed to me. Of the respectable and +steady people I have a decided majority, not less than twenty; but +there are sixty-two persons who are extremely doubtful.... I have the +greatest repugnance to bribery, ... but my agent informs me that many +voters will require money.... The return absolutely depends upon +pounds sterling. The best computation which my agents <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span>can make is +that a sum of 2,000<i>l.</i> will be necessary. The natural expenses will +be 500<i>l.</i> These, I think, I am bound to make good. But with regard to +the money for votes, that I expect from Government.'</p> + +<p>Peel replied that he could not answer for the Government in England, +and that the Irish Government possessed no funds for this purpose; he +would himself have been ready to send Croker '1,000<i>l.</i> as a private +concern between ourselves with no reference whatever to Government'; +but he had it not. 'If you think proper,' he added, 'to take the +chance whether it [the Government] will assist you, you can promise.' +For about six years Peel was constantly receiving from Croker requests +for places, in order to discharge 'debts of gratitude' incurred at +this election; and in 1816 we find the Government very nearly beaten +in the House of Commons in an attempt to raise Croker's own salary.</p> + +<p>'Could you tell me,' writes Lord Palmerston to Peel, 'whether you +think there is any probability of a contest for the county of Sligo at +the next election? I could at the present moment make from 280 to 290 +voters by giving leases to tenants who are now holding at will. If +there is any chance of their being of use next year, I will do so +forthwith, and register them in time. If not, I should perhaps +postpone giving twenty-one years' leases till matters look a little +more propitious to the payment of rents.'</p> + +<p>'Lord Lorton wrote yesterday to his agent to make all the freeholders +he can on his small Queen's County property. He says he is sorry he +can't make more than twenty, but that those shall go against Pole.'</p> + +<p>A few illustrations of the minor details of patronage may be added. +One gentleman called upon Peel about <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>an election in Clare, but 'said +that he would make no promise of his interest unless he received a +pledge from me that his two brothers should be provided for—one in +the Church, and the other advanced in the profession of the law.'</p> + +<p>Lord C. 'wanted, long since, to make terms with me for his support in +Cork, ... and wished to be one of a committee for superintending the +patronage of the county.'</p> + +<p>'When G. wants a baronetcy, he is very rich; and when he wants a +place, he is very poor. I think we may fairly turn the tables on him, +and when he asks to be a baronet, make his poverty the objection, and +his wealth when he asks for an office.'</p> + +<p>'Pole is constantly pressing K., of the Navigation Board, for +promotion.... I am told he entirely neglects his duty. Pole readily +admits his hopeless stupidity and unfitness for office.'</p> + +<p>'I do not think your son,' Peel wrote to his Under-Secretary, 'can +make a more inefficient member of the Board of Stamps than Mr. T. has +done. I am perfectly ready, therefore, to acquiesce in the exchange.' +'I make a great sacrifice,' he wrote to Lord Whitworth, 'when I say +that I doubt whether O.'s habits would qualify him for such practical +duties as the Collector of Belfast at least ought to perform. Belfast +is so flourishing a town, and contributes so much to the revenue, that +I fear the Collectorship of it is too prominent a situation to place +in it a young man ... we must admit to be a ruined man by gambling. +Considering how careless he has been of his own money, perhaps some +office not connected with the collection of the public money ... would +be more suited to him.... What do you <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>think of the following +arrangement? Make J. collector for this very bad and very good reason, +that he is the most inefficient Commissioner, and therefore the public +service will suffer least from his appointment. Make Colonel H. a +Commissioner. He will be about as inefficient as J. Make R.M. junior, +the most inefficient of the three, Surveyor of Lands, <i>vice</i> H., which +(though he will lose 200<i>l.</i> a year) will greatly oblige his father, +the member; and, lastly, fulfil your good intentions towards O. by +making him a Commissioner of Accounts, <i>vice</i> M.'</p> + +<p>Many other characteristic pictures pass before us. There were officers +of the revenue who were recommended to 'the marked favour' of the +Government because they had shown what Peel somewhat rashly called +'the common honesty' of refusing bribes. There was an official who +scandalously connived at an abuse of justice by which innocent women +were condemned to transportation, though taking measures that the +Government should indirectly hear of the transaction. There were +shameful abuses in the sale of the office of gaoler, shameful frauds +in the collection of taxes, in the Customs, in the barrack charges.</p> + +<p>'My most decided opinion,' Peel wrote about one of these culprits, 'is +in favour of his dismissal. I am quite tired of, and disgusted with, +the shameful corruptions which every Irish inquiry brings to +light.'<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a></p> + +<p>Much trouble was given by newspapers which were subsidised by the +Government, and at the same time conducted in a manner which no honest +Government could approve of.<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> Another evil is disclosed in the +following very creditable letter written by Peel to one of his +successors:</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span>'I found in Ireland that every official man, not content with the +favour of Government to himself, thought he had a right to quarter his +family on the patronage of Government. I took the course that you have +done in order to enable me to resist with effect such extravagant +pretensions. I determined never to gratify any private wish of my own +by the smallest Irish appointment. There is nothing half so disgusting +as the personal monopoly of honours and offices by those to whom the +distribution of them is entrusted.'<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a></p> + +<p>In the Irish Pension List there had been enormous abuses, but Peel +took credit for having effectually stopped them. 'No member of +Parliament,' he wrote, 'has benefited by it. No vote has been +influenced by it.... I do not think there are any three years in the +whole period of the Irish history during which so honest a use has +been made of it.'<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a></p> + +<p>As might have been expected, blunders arising from extreme +inefficiency were very numerous. In one case, by negligent drafting, +the Insurrection Bill was made to extend to three instead of two +years, while a simple mistake in one of the Revenue Bills was believed +to have cost the Revenue not less than 40,000<i>l.</i><a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a></p> + +<p>In all this dreary field the great administrative ability of Peel and +the essential integrity of his character produced much real +improvement, though it is very possible to exaggerate his merits. No +one who has read the Hardwicke and Colchester papers will question +that some of his predecessors, and especially the Chancellor, Lord +Redesdale, had laboured with at least equal earnestness to purify +Irish administration; and the energy with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>which Lord Redesdale, +though out of office, still recurred to the subject, was extremely +displeasing to Peel.<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> His own patronage, as we have already seen, +was by no means ideal, and he was very anxious to stifle parliamentary +inquiries.</p> + +<p>'I believe,' he wrote, 'an honest, despotic government would be by far +the fittest government for Ireland'; but as this could not be attained +he wished no essential alteration. 'I think the present system on +which the government of Ireland is conducted is the best, but I am +terribly afraid that Englishmen, who know nothing of Ireland, would +not concur with me if they inquired into detail. It is very difficult +to manage even the most limited inquiry. How could we prevent the +introduction of tithes, magistracy, the Catholic question itself?'<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a></p> + +<p>Whatever might be the case in the future, he believed that in the +present it was impossible for the Irish Government to receive adequate +support unless it made up its mind to purchase it. 'It would be good +policy,' he says in one of his letters, 'to direct the channel of +patronage as plentifully as we can towards those who are adhering to +us on these pressing questions of army establishments and property +tax.' He refused in very lofty tones applications for peerages as +rewards for political support; but the merit of this refusal belongs +mainly to Lord Liverpool, who, at the beginning of the Chief +Secretaryship, took on this subject a very firm and honourable line, +both in England and Ireland, and maintained it at the sacrifice of +many votes. For Irish honours unaccompanied by endowments there appear +to have been few applicants. Peel disliked the bestowal of +ecclesiastical dignities as rewards for political services; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>but if he +did not practise it quite as much as his predecessors, this appears to +have been much more due to nature than to policy.</p> + +<p>'There is nothing so extraordinary,' he wrote, 'in natural history as +the longevity of all bishops, priests, and deacons in Ireland. During +the last five years there has been literally no Church preferment to +dispose of, to the infinite disappointment of many expectants.'</p> + +<p>In the higher legal appointments, however, while insisting that +'attachment to the Government on principle' was very material, Peel +cordially agreed with Saurin that it was vitally necessary to select +men 'for character, and not for politics or connection'; and he added, +that those were not likely to be the least fit for high office who +were too proud to solicit it. 'It is a species of pride which +occasions very little practical inconvenience in Ireland.'</p> + +<p>His letters show clearly the terrible evils of Irish life. He speaks +of 'the enormous and overgrown population,' with no employment except +agriculture; of a poverty so extreme that in many districts widespread +starvation was averted only by prompt Government intervention; of +'that infernal curse, the forty shilling freeholds'; of the evil +system of employing the military in distraining for rent and in the +collection of tithes; of juries, through fear or sympathy, acquitting +prisoners in the face of the clearest evidence; of the gross perjury +in the law courts; of the almost universal disaffection of the lower +orders, fostered by a seditious press; of the growing spirit of +animosity in the north of Ireland between the lower orders of +Protestants and Catholics, which was breaking out in constant riots, +and had already cost many lives. This last evil, it might be truly +said, was very largely due to the policy of his own party, who had +protracted through <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>so many years the Catholic question, which ought +to have been settled at the Union. There was extreme and chronic +ignorance, poverty, and anarchy; the payment of tithes was constantly +resisted; and a failure of the potato crop, and a sudden and terrible +fall in the price of agricultural products after the peace, added +enormously to the difficulties of the situation. It is remarkable, +indeed, that there appears to have been in 1816 and 1817 less +disturbance of the public peace in Ireland than in England; Peel found +it even possible to reduce the military establishments, and in Dublin +extreme distress was borne with remarkable patience; but in many parts +of the country crimes of combination were frequent, and almost +incredibly savage. Peel mentions one case of a family of eight persons +who were deliberately burnt in their house by a party of armed men, +because the owner of the house had prosecuted to conviction three men, +on a capital charge, at the Louth assizes. In another case a farmer, +who had shot two men who attacked his house, was himself shot dead on +a Sunday morning, after Mass, at the chapel door, in the presence of +hundreds of men, not one of whom attempted to arrest the culprit.</p> + +<p>These things filled Peel with a not unnatural horror, and his letters +showed clearly his intense dislike both of the Irish character and of +the Irish religion.<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> By far the most valuable contribution he made +to the improvement of Ireland during his Chief Secretaryship was the +formation, in 1814, of an efficient police force, which has ever since +been popularly associated with his name, and which was the nucleus +from which the present admirable constabulary force was developed in +1822 and in 1835. 'We ought to be crucified,' he wrote, 'if we make +the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>measure a job, and select our constables from the servants of our +parliamentary friends.' He attempted also, though without much +success, to institute a system of popular education on a perfectly +unsectarian basis, and with Catholics among the commissioners.<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> He +appears to have met with little encouragement, and at least one +Catholic bishop lost no time in cursing 'these nefarious deistical +schools'; but some schools were established, and Peel has the merit of +being one of the earliest advocates of a general system of unsectarian +national education for Ireland, which many years after was +accomplished. His measures for the relief of distress appear to have +been skilful and judicious, supporting and stimulating, but not +superseding private benevolence.<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> For the rest, he relied chiefly +on Insurrection Acts strengthening the Executive and giving a greater +efficiency to the administration of justice, and on strong protective +legislation encouraging the corn and the manufactures of Ireland.</p> + +<p>'I have always,' he wrote, 'been, and always shall be, as strong an +advocate for giving that preference to the productions of Ireland, +natural or artificial, which will best promote the industry of the +people, as I am for instructing the lower orders.'<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a></p> + +<p>To the tithe system he would do nothing, and this is one of the fatal +blots on his reputation as a statesman. There was no single source of +crime, agitation, and disaffection in Ireland which was so prolific as +this, and there was no subject on which the wisest statesmen had been +more agreed than on the supreme importance of meeting this evil by a +judicious system of commutation. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>Pitt had clearly expressed his +opinion of the necessity of such a commutation to the Duke of Rutland +as early as 1786, and it was one of the measures which he intended to +have followed the Union. Grattan had brought schemes of commutation in +three successive years before the Irish Parliament. Lord Loughborough, +who was the chief cause of the failure of Catholic emancipation after +the Union, had himself drawn up a Tithe Commutation Bill. Lord +Redesdale, who represented the extreme Toryism of the ministry of +Addington, strongly urged the absolute necessity of speedy legislation +on the subject. The Duke of Bedford, in 1807, dwelt on the importance +of commuting tithes into a land-tax, and ultimately into land. Parnell +and Grattan had brought the subject before the Imperial Parliament in +1810, and it was again and again insisted on by the Whig writers, and +nowhere more strongly than in Sydney Smith's admirable letters to +Peter Plymley and in some of the pages of the 'Edinburgh Review.' But +nothing was done till the evil had become intolerable, and had brought +the country to a state of anarchy and demoralisation that can scarcely +be exaggerated. The connection of Peel with the question of Irish +tithes is a very remarkable one. The Tithe Commutation Act, which was +carried by a Whig Government in 1838, is one of the few instances of +perfectly successful legislation in Irish history, and it is well +known that the chief credit of this measure does not belong to the +Ministers who carried it. It was the very measure which Sir Robert +Peel had introduced in 1835, which the Whig party when in opposition +defeated by connecting it with the Appropriation clause, and which the +Whig party when in power were compelled to carry without that clause. +But if the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span>chief credit of the final settlement of this momentous +question justly belongs to Peel, it must not be forgotten that in the +eleven years during which, as Chief Secretary or as Home Secretary, he +was directly responsible for the government of Ireland, he had allowed +this monster curse to grow and strengthen without making any serious +effort to mitigate it.</p> + +<p>Peel was Chief Secretary during the concluding part of the viceroyalty +of the Duke of Richmond, during the whole of that of Lord Whitworth, +and during part of that of Lord Talbot. He had grown very tired of his +position, but agreed to postpone his departure till after a general +election, and he at last left Ireland, as he says, with 'undiminished +and unqualified satisfaction,' in August 1818. He remained out of +office until January 1822; but the interval was not spent in idleness, +and in 1819 he took the leading part in the great Act for resuming +cash payments, which, as it has been truly said, attaches to his name +'the same meed of praise which he had quoted as inscribed on the tomb +of Queen Elizabeth: "Moneta in justum valorem redacta."' It is one of +his greatest legislative achievements; it is also the first of that +series of recantations which forms one of the most distinctive +features of his career, for it was based upon the policy which Horner +had advocated in 1811, and against which Peel had then voted. He still +took, on the Catholic question, the leading part in opposition to +emancipation, declaring his determination to offer 'a most sincere and +uncompromising,' though he now feared unavailing, resistance to +Catholic concession. The last time the question was brought forward, +by Grattan, was in 1819, and he was defeated by a majority of only +two. In 1821, after the death of Grattan, and in a new <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span>Parliament, +Plunket carried a Bill for Catholic emancipation successfully through +all its stages in the House of Commons, though it was afterwards +rejected in the Lords. In the ensuing session a similar fate befel a +Bill of Canning's to relieve Catholic peers of their disabilities. +Some considerable change, however, was introduced into the spirit of +the Irish Government by the appointment of Lord Wellesley, who was in +favour of the Catholics, to the viceroyalty. One of its most important +results was the removal of Saurin from the office of Attorney-General +and the appointment of Plunket in his place. Lord Wellesley described +this measure to Lady Blessington as the removal of 'an old Orangeman' +who, though 'Attorney-General by title, had really been +Lord-Lieutenant for fifteen years'; but it is evident from the letters +of Peel that his warm sympathies, both personal and political, were +with Saurin.</p> + +<p>The accession of George IV. to the throne in the beginning of 1820 +brought to a crisis the quarrel between the new King and his wife, and +led to the resignation of Canning in the last days of the year, and +Lord Liverpool then tried to induce Peel to enter the Cabinet in the +vacant post of President of the Board of Control. Peel, however, +refused the office, declaring that he differed from some of the +proceedings of the Ministry about the Queen. In the summer of 1821 he +again declined a similar offer, chiefly, as it appears, on the ground +of uncertain health and of a dislike to official life which his recent +marriage had produced. But when Lord Sidmouth resigned the Home +Office, Peel proved less inflexible, and on January 17, 1822, he +accepted the seals, which he held till 1827. In August Castlereagh, +or, as he now was, Lord Londonderry, committed suicide. Lord +Liverpool <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>saw the necessity of recalling Canning to the Cabinet as +Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Canning would accept the post only as +leader of the House of Commons. The King hated Canning, and would +gladly have excluded him altogether from the Ministry, and Eldon and +the Duke of Newcastle greatly desired that the leadership of the House +of Commons should be given to Peel. Canning, however, who had been +sixteen years longer in Parliament than Peel, had both the right and +the power to insist upon the leadership, and Peel acquiesced in his +claim with honourable frankness. Except on the Catholic question they +appear to have cordially agreed, and something of the success of +Canning's brilliant foreign policy is due to the loyalty with which he +was supported by Peel in the Cabinet and at Court.</p> + +<p>Space will not permit us to relate at length the history of Peel's +conduct as home Minister. The Catholic question was rapidly advancing +to a crisis, and the system of a divided Ministry in which it was an +open question, and in which the leading Ministers took opposite sides, +was becoming plainly impossible. Ireland was again in a state of +anarchy bordering on civil war, and the foundation, in 1823, of the +Catholic Association by O'Connell and Sheil gave a new impulse to the +agitation. The Duke of Wellington, who knew the country well and was +not liable to panic, predicted that the new association if it +continued would lead to civil war, and declared that the organisation +of the disaffected in Ireland was much more perfect than in 1798.<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> +At the same time the long-protracted and increasing violence of the +conflict had aroused fierce Orange passions both in the North and in +Dublin, while in England the King was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span>embarrassing even his +'anti-Catholic' Ministers by the vehemence of his hostility to +concession. He described Peel as 'the King's Protestant Minister' and +Lord Wellesley as an 'enemy in the camp.' He assured Peel that, +whether the Cabinet wished it or not, he would never consent to give +letters of precedence to a Roman Catholic barrister, and he wrote Peel +a formal letter in which he said, 'the sentiments of the King upon +Catholic emancipation are those of his revered and excellent father; +from those sentiments the King never can and never will deviate.'<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a></p> + +<p>Peel, while maintaining his unflinching hostility to important +concessions, tried to moderate all parties. He implored the King to +make no public declaration. He wrote to Ireland strongly discouraging +the violence of the Orangemen and urging that 'in this age of liberal +doctrine, when prescription is no longer even a presumption in favour +of what is established, it will be a work of desperate difficulty to +contend against "emancipation," as they call it, unless we can fight +with the advantage on our side of great discretion, forbearance, and +moderation on the part of the Irish Protestants.' He recurred to his +old idea of establishing a system of unsectarian national education, +and he readily abandoned the corrupt and proselytising charter +schools. He supported a measure of Lord Nugent, which Lord Eldon +succeeded in defeating in the Lords, for extending to the English +Catholics such privileges as were already possessed by Catholics in +Ireland, and he fully approved of a letter written on behalf of the +Cabinet to the Lord-Lieutenant urging 'that a disposition should be +manifested to admit the Roman Catholics of Ireland <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span>to a fair +proportion of the emoluments and honours to which they are eligible by +law,' but without issuing patents of precedence.<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a></p> + +<p>On matters unconnected with the Catholic question his administration +was skilful and, on the whole, enlightened; and in 1823 he introduced +the first of a series of important measures diminishing the enormous +number of capital offences that disgraced the English criminal code, +and, at the same time, doing much to simplify and consolidate that +code. In this, as in most respects, there was little original in his +legislation. He followed, at some distance, in the steps of Romilly +and Mackintosh, and he left very much to be done, which was chiefly +accomplished during the Whig ascendancy that followed the Reform Bill +of 1832. It appears, from some remarkable letters in this volume, +that, before Peel took up the question of criminal reform, George IV. +was exceedingly sensible of the enormity of executing very young men +for secondary offences, and that he was continually pressing on his +Ministers a more merciful administration of the law. He sometimes +found Peel by no means ready to yield. In one case Peel invoked the +aid of the Cabinet to overrule the wish of the King, who desired to +save two culprits from the gallows; and, in another case, he +threatened to resign his office if the King persisted in commuting the +sentence of a youth who had been found guilty of uttering forged +notes.<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> But Peel had at least the merit of recognising an +intolerable abuse, and his legislation on the subject was skilfully +framed and still more skilfully introduced and carried. In his +patronage in this, as in later periods of his life, he cared much more +than most English Ministers for the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span>interests of science, literature, +and art. He was by no means indifferent to the opportunities his +position gave him of advancing his own family and friends; but he +never, in his English patronage, forgot the character of those whom he +recommended for promotion, and he brought forward or assisted many men +of ability and learning with whom he had no connection and no +political sympathy. The letters in this volume between Peel and his +very intimate Oxford friend Dr. Lloyd are especially interesting and +characteristic. They are in general very honourable to Peel; but Mr. +Parker is much too indulgent when he describes the intensely worldly +letters in which Dr. Lloyd urged his own merits and his claims to the +bishopric of Oxford as merely 'frank, and free from affectation of the +traditional <i>nolo episcopari</i>.' Both Peel and Lord Liverpool appear to +have had a much stronger sense than most of their predecessors of the +responsibilities attaching to Church patronage and of the duty of +administering it in the public interest, and in this respect they were +broadly distinguished from Lord Eldon.</p> + +<p>'It is really a cruel thing,' Lord Liverpool wrote to Peel, 'that the +patronage of the Crown as to Church matters should be divided between +the Minister and the Chancellor, and that all the public claims should +fall upon the former. The Chancellor has nine livings to the +Minister's one. With respect to these he does occasionally attend to +local claims, but he has besides four cathedrals, and to no one of +these cathedrals has any man of distinguished learning or merit been +promoted.'</p> + +<p>In the beginning of 1825 the Irish Government, having without +consulting Peel undertaken a foolish prosecution of O'Connell for a +not very dangerous speech, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>received a heavy rebuff, for the Grand +Jury threw out the Bill, and the prosecution of an Orange leader was +equally unsuccessful. A Bill was about the same time brought in and +carried, suppressing the new association; but it could not suppress +the spirit which it had aroused. O'Connell, however, was thoroughly +alarmed at the state of the country, and as far as possible from +desiring a rebellion, and he was at this time in a very conciliatory +mood. He was perfectly ready to accept an endowment for the +priesthood, which would attach them to the Government, and also a +considerable raising of the Irish franchise. This was the last +occasion on which his party and the Catholic gentry very cordially +concurred, and it was the last occasion on which the Catholic question +could have been settled on a basis that would have given real strength +to the Empire. A Relief Bill passed through all its stages in the +Commons by considerable majorities, and it was followed by a Bill for +raising the qualifications of Irish electors, and by a resolution for +endowing the priesthood. O'Connell fully believed that Catholic +emancipation would definitely pass in this session,<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> and he +appeared to have excellent reasons for his belief. In Ireland it +generally prevailed, and it exercised an immediate pacifying +influence. Lord Fingall and other Catholic noblemen, in presenting an +address at this time to the King, were able to say 'the whole of +Ireland reposes in profound tranquillity, and the law, without the aid +of any extraordinary power, everywhere receives voluntary obedience.' +It was afterwards stated by Lord George Bentinck that Peel had changed +his opinions about Catholic emancipation in 1825, and had communicated +this change to Lord Liverpool. The letters <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span>before us, however, +conclusively prove that if Peel was shaken, it was not about the +merits of emancipation, but about the practicability of resisting it. +Having been four times defeated in the Commons on the Catholic +question, he tendered his resignation, and Lord Liverpool at once +declared that without his assistance he could not continue the +struggle. Peel was the only Minister in the House of Commons opposed +to the Catholic cause, differing on the question from all his +colleagues in the House. If he had resigned, and if Lord Liverpool had +followed his example, there is good reason to believe that a +Government might have been formed which would have carried the measure +safely and speedily with the securities that had been accepted. Most +unfortunately for the Empire, the 'Protestant' party persuaded Peel to +withdraw his resignation in order to avert this surrender. In the +House of Lords the Duke of York, who was the heir-presumptive to the +throne, stood up and declared his unalterable opposition to the +Catholic claims, 'whatever might be his situation in life, so help him +God,' and the Lords rejected the Bill by a majority of 48.</p> + +<p>The conscientious views of George III. obtained some measure of +respect even from those who believed them to be most unfounded; but no +halo of sanctity dignified the scruples of George IV. or of the Duke +of York. The Irish Catholics, exasperated at the present +disappointment of their hopes, and at the prospect of another hostile +King, flung themselves into a furious agitation, and in a few months +all the progress which had been made towards pacifying the country was +undone, while in England Peel had to meet a terrible commercial +crisis. Seventy county banks stopped in less than a week. In dealing +with questions of commerce and currency Peel <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>was always in his +element, and his measures appear to have been wise and skilful. A +general election took place, and he was again returned by the +University of Oxford as the uncompromising opponent of Catholic +emancipation. In England the anti-Catholic party gained some seats, +and the increasing violence in Ireland had produced some reaction. In +Ireland it was soon apparent that what Grattan had feared had come to +pass, and that the tie which had hitherto attached the people to their +landlords was completely broken. The priests everywhere appeared at +the head of their people, and it was at once seen that a new and +terrible power was dominating Irish politics. In Waterford, where the +Beresfords had long been omnipotent, they were totally defeated, and +Leslie Foster sent Peel a vivid description of his own defeat in the +Louth election. At the outset of the contest, upwards of five-sixths +of the votes were promised to him; but the whole priesthood turned +themselves into electioneering agents against him. In every chapel +there were political sermons; the priests menaced all who voted for +him with eternal damnation; they were present at every polling-booth +to overawe their parishioners; and their efforts were seconded by +savage mobs who waylaid and beat all opponents, and forced multitudes +of Protestants, by threats of assassination or of the burning of their +houses, to vote against their promises and their convictions. 'In the +county town the studied violence and intimidation were such that it +was only by locking up my voters in enclosed yards that their lives +were preserved.' By these means the election was won. What, asked +Foster, will be the end of this? 'The landlords are exasperated to the +utmost, the priests swaggering in their triumph, the tenantry sullen +and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span>insolent. Men who, a month ago, were all civility and submission +now hardly suppress their curses when a gentleman passes by. The text +of every village orator is, "Boys, you have put down three lords; +stick to your priests, and you will carry all before you."'</p> + +<p>The letters of Goulburn, the Chief Secretary, show that the picture +was not overcharged.</p> + +<p>'Never,' he wrote, 'were Roman Catholic and Protestant so decidedly +opposed. Never did the former act with so general a concert, or place +themselves so completely under the command of the priesthood.' 'The +priests exercise on all matters a dominion perfectly uncontrolled and +uncontrollable. In many parts of the country their sermons are purely +political, and the altars in the several chapels are the rostra from +which they declaim on the subject of Roman Catholic grievances, exhort +to the collection of rent, or denounce their Protestant neighbours in +a mode perfectly intelligible and effective, but not within the grasp +of the law. In several towns no Roman Catholic will now deal with a +Protestant shop-keeper, in consequence of the priest's interdiction, +and this species of interference, stirring up enmity on one hand and +feelings of resentment on the other, is mainly conducive to outrage +and disorder.... The first vacancy on the Roman Catholic bench is to +be supplied by Dr. England from America, a man of all others most +decidedly hostile to British interests and the most active in +fomenting the discord of this country.... With such leaders it is +reasonable to anticipate the worst. It is impossible to detail in a +letter the various modes in which the Roman Catholic priesthood now +interfere in every transaction of every description, how they rule the +mob, the gentry, and the magistracy, and how they impede the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span>administration of justice.' Their power is greater than any other in +the State, 'and they love to display it, and omit no opportunity of +taunting their adversaries.' 'The state of society here is so +disorganised, and the Government has so inferior an authority to other +powers acting on the people, that the opinion formed to-day may be +quite changed to-morrow.'<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a></p> + +<p>The election of 1826 virtually carried Catholic emancipation, for it +reduced Ireland to a state in which it was impossible long to resist +it. Clear-sighted men had no difficulty in perceiving that the policy +of Peel had failed to avert it, though it had succeeded in making +impossible the securities which Grattan and the wisest men of his +generation had pronounced indispensable for its safe working, in +kindling religious hatreds as intense as in the darkest period of the +eighteenth century, in breaking down that healthy relation and +subordination of classes on which beyond all other things the future +well-being of Ireland depended. Peel was not wholly blind to what was +happening. 'A darker cloud than ever,' he wrote, 'seems to me to +impend over Ireland, that is if one of the remaining bonds of society, +the friendly connection between landlord and tenant, is +dissolved.'<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> He still persuaded himself, however, that the +political power of the priests was transient, and that a reaction +would set in that might destroy it. The defeat of the Catholic +question in the new Parliament by a majority of four encouraged him in +his resistance. In January 1827 the death of the Duke of York removed +one serious obstacle to the Catholic cause, and six weeks later Lord +Liverpool, who had so long held together the divided Ministry, was +struck down by <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span>apoplexy. Peel would gladly have continued in his +present position if a peer of real weight who held his opinions on the +Catholic question was appointed to the vacant place. But there was no +such peer, except Wellington, to be found, and under Wellington +Canning refused to serve. Canning had, indeed, now fully resolved to +be at the head of the Administration, and Peel refused to serve under +him.</p> + +<p>With his opinions on the Catholic question it is impossible to blame +him, and the letters which passed between the two statesmen are very +honourable to both, and show clearly that in spite of great divergence +of opinion, character, and interests, each could recognise the good +faith of the other. In a letter written to one of his brothers Peel +describes his position with complete frankness:</p> + +<p>'I am content with my position in the Government, and willing to +retain it—willing to see Mr. Canning leader of the House of Commons, +as he has been. But giving him credit for honesty and sincerity, if he +is at the head of the Government, and has all the patronage of the +Government, he must exert himself as an honest man to carry the +Catholic question; and to the carrying of that question, to the +preparation for its being carried, I never can be a party. Still less +can I be a party to it for the sake of office.'</p> + +<p>These words were written little more than a year before Peel +undertook, as Minister of the Crown, to introduce a measure of +Catholic emancipation. But if they do little credit to his prescience, +no one can mistake the accent of sincerity in what follows:</p> + +<p>'I do not choose to see new lights on the Catholic question precisely +at that conjuncture when the Duke of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span>York has been laid in his grave +and Lord Liverpool struck dumb by the palsy. Would any man, woman, or +child believe that after nineteen years' stubborn unbelief I was +converted, at the very moment Mr. Canning was Prime Minister, out of +pure conscience and the force of truth?'<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a></p> + +<p>With the resignation of Peel and the other anti-Catholic members of +Lord Liverpool's Government, and the formation of the short Canning +Ministry, this instalment of Peel's letters comes to an end.<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> We +rejoice that the publication of this very interesting correspondence +has been entrusted to an editor who is at once so competent and so +judicious.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> <i>Life of Lord George Bentinck</i>, p. 304.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> Lewis's <i>Letters</i>, p. 226.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> <i>Private Correspondence of Sir R. Peel, 1788-1827</i>. Ed. +by C.S. Parker, M.P., 1891, p. 24.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 27.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> <i>Hansard</i>, First Ser. xxi. 663.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Butler's <i>Hist. Memoirs</i>, ii. 177.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> <i>Peel Correspondence</i>, p. 80.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> <i>Peel Correspondence</i>, p. 83.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> <i>Peel Correspondence</i>, p. 76.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> <i>Peel Correspondence</i>, pp. 217, 218.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> <i>Peel Correspondence</i>, pp. 222-224.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 212.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 284.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> <i>Peel Correspondence</i>, p. 282.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> pp. 114-116, 211, 218.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> <i>Peel Correspondence</i>, p. 60.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 275.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 96.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> <i>Peel Correspondence</i>, p. 211.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> pp. 215, 219, 220.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> <i>Peel Correspondence</i>, pp. 207, 231, 235, 236.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> <i>Peel Correspondence</i>, pp. 87-92.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> pp. 244, 265.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> pp. 167, 233.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> <i>Peel Correspondence</i>, p. 348.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> <i>Peel Correspondence</i>, pp. 349, 358, 359, 370-371.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> <i>Peel Correspondence</i>, p. 358.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> pp. 315-317.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> Fitzpatrick's <i>Correspondence of O'Connell</i>, i. p. 108.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> <i>Peel Correspondence</i>, pp. 416, 418, 419, 422.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> pp. 413, 420.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> <i>Peel Correspondence</i>, p. 485.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> Two more volumes have been published since this Essay +was written.—<span class="smcap">Ed.</span></p></div> +<p> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /></p> +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span><br /></p> + +<h3><a name="EDWARD_HENRY" id="EDWARD_HENRY"></a>EDWARD HENRY, FIFTEENTH EARL OF DERBY<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + + +<p>The time has not yet arrived for the publication of a full life of the +late Lord Derby, but in submitting to the public a collection of his +more important speeches outside Parliament, a short sketch of the +chief features of his life and character may not be out of place.</p> + +<p>Edward Henry, fifteenth Earl of Derby, was born July 21, 1826, and was +educated at Rugby, and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he obtained a +First Class in classics. In March 1848 he unsuccessfully contested +Lancaster, and soon after started for a long and instructive journey +in America and the West Indies. During his absence from England he was +elected Member for Lynn Regis upon the death of Lord George Bentinck +in September 1848, and he held this seat without interruption till his +accession to the earldom in October 1869. His first speech in the +House of Commons was delivered on May 31, 1850, on the sugar duties. +The effect on the West Indies of the abolition of the preferential +duty on sugar was a subject which he had specially studied during his +journey, and he had published a pamphlet upon it. Sir Robert Peel +greatly praised his maiden speech, and Greville describes the great +impression which it made—an impression which a further knowledge of +the speaker speedily confirmed.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span>The appearance in Parliament of the eldest son of one of the most +brilliant party leaders of the age could scarcely fail to be a +considerable political event, and it was soon found that the new +member was not only a man of rare ability, but was also in nearly all +respects very unlike his illustrious father. Never was there a more +striking instance of that strange freak of heredity by which an able +son is sometimes much less the continuation than the complement of an +able father, exhibiting in strongly contrasted lights both opposite +qualities and opposite defects. The fourteenth Earl was a great +orator. He was one of the greatest debaters who have ever lived. He +was a party leader of extraordinary power, delighting in political +conflict; throwing into it much of the fire and passion which he +displayed in his sporting contests; little fitted to conciliate +opponents, but eminently fitted to win the enthusiastic loyalty of his +followers, to rally a dispirited minority, to lead a party attack. His +keen and rapid judgment; his perfect command of pure and lucid +English; his unfailing readiness in argument, invective, sarcasm, and +repartee; his indomitable courage, and the somewhat imperious dignity +of his manner, all marked him out for the position which he held. If +there was some truth in the common taunt that he was more a party +leader than a statesman, it must at least be remembered that he has +identified his name with several important measures, and that during +most of his career he was in a hopeless minority. His enemies accused +him of rashness, arrogance, and some superficiality, both of thought +and knowledge. They alleged that he carried too much of the sporting +spirit into politics; that his naturally excellent judgment was often +deflected by the passions of the fray; that he was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span>accustomed to +judge measures more by their party advantages than by their intrinsic +merits, and to care more for an immediate triumph than for ultimate +results.</p> + +<p>His son was made in a very different mould. Though like most able and +clear-headed men he acquired by much practice a respectable facility +in purely extemporaneous argument, he was never a great debater. His +speeches were very carefully prepared, and they possessed conspicuous +merits of form as well as of matter, but they were not the speeches of +a brilliant orator. No one could reason more clearly, more powerfully, +or more persuasively. He was a supreme master of terse, luminous, +weighty, and accurate English. He had much skill in bringing into +vivid relief the salient points of an obscure and complicated subject, +condensing an argument into a phrase, and illustrating it by graphic +felicities of language that clung to the memory. But he hated +rhetoric. His enunciation was faulty and unimpressive. He appealed +solely to the reason, and never to passion or to prejudice, and he had +nothing of the fire and temperament of a party orator. Very few +politicians mastered so thoroughly the subjects with which they dealt. +No politician of his time retained so remarkably, amid party +conflicts, the power of judging questions from all their sides; of +balancing judicially opposing considerations; of looking beyond the +passions and interests of the hour; of realising the points of view of +those to whom he was opposed. Declamation, clap-trap, evasion, +ambiguities of thought and expression, empty plausibilities, unfair, +partial, and exaggerated statements, were all essentially repugnant to +that clear and sceptical intellect, to that sound, cautious, practical +judgment. His business talents were very great, and they were +assiduously <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span>cultivated. His appetite for work was insatiable. No one +knew better how to administer a great department or preside over a +Parliamentary Committee, or arbitrate in a difficult controversy, or +give wise and timely advice to an inexperienced organisation. It was +in these fields that his influence was, perhaps, most deeply felt. His +success in them did not depend merely on his unflagging industry and +his excellent judgment, it was also largely due to his eminently +conciliatory character. The uniform courtesy which he displayed to men +of all ranks and opinions is happily no rare thing among his class, +but everyone who was brought in contact with Lord Derby soon felt that +he was in the presence of one who tried to understand his position, to +estimate his arguments at their full worth, to find some common ground +of agreement. If it were possible in a bitter controversy to arrive at +reasonable compromise, Lord Derby was most likely to effect it. He had +a curious talent of making speeches with which everyone must agree, +and which at the same time were never commonplace. Their secret lay in +the habit of mind that led him always to seek out the common grounds +of principle or fact that underlie every controversy, and which in the +heat of the conflict the disputants had often failed to recognise.</p> + +<p>It was not difficult to forecast the place which a statesman of this +kind was likely to fill in English politics. He was plainly wanting in +many of the qualities of a party leader, and in most of the qualities +of a parliamentary gladiator, and he was not likely to succeed in all +forms of statesmanship. He would certainly not prove</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A daring pilot in extremity,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pleased with the danger when the waves went high.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="noin"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span>His clear perception of the objections to any course, combined with a +very deep sense of responsibility, not unfrequently enfeebled his will +in moments when bold and decisive action was required, and there were +times when the love of compromise which was so useful an element in +his character seemed to his best friends too closely allied to +weakness. But he probably saved every party with which he acted from +many mistakes. He brought to every Government which he joined a very +eminent administrative capacity. He defended every policy that he +espoused with a persuasive reasoning that few men could equal. He was +a supremely skilful detector of false weights and of false measures. +Every fad, every new-born enthusiasm, every crude ill-digested theory, +found in him the calmest and most penetrating of critics, and he +inspired the great body of moderate men of all parties with a deep +confidence in his patriotism and in his judgment.</p> + +<p>His political position was marked out by the fact that his father had +recently broken away from the Whig connection which had hitherto been +that of his family, and was now the leader of the Conservative party. +The son naturally took his place under his father's banner, but I much +question whether he would have done so if no family influence had +interfered. It was not that he at any time changed considerably his +views. As Macaulay has truly said—while the extremes of the two +English parties are separated by a wide chasm, there is a frontier +line where they almost blend; and Lord Derby when a Conservative +always represented the Liberal, and when a Liberal the Conservative +wing of his party. But his mind had much of the Whig character; his +judgment was very independent; and on <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span>Church questions especially he +was never fully in harmony with his party. He was appointed +Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in his father's first +short Ministry in March 1852, at a time when he was travelling in +India, and he left office with his father in December of the same +year. In 1853 he made a remarkable speech on Indian affairs, in some +degree foreshadowing the Indian policy which he was afterwards +destined to take such a large part in carrying into effect. During the +next few years he spoke frequently on Indian and Colonial questions, +on questions connected with education, factories, and other +working-class interests, and he supported—often in opposition to the +majority of his party—a large number of reforms which have since been +accomplished. He advocated the introduction of competitive +examinations, first of all into the Diplomatic, and then into most +branches of the Civil Service. He spoke against the system of purchase +in the army, and served on a Royal Commission on the subject. He +supported a motion for securing to married women their property and +earnings. He took a decided part in opposition to Church rates. He +voted for the emancipation of the Jews. He voted and spoke in favour +of the Maynooth grant. He was an early advocate of the opening of +museums on Sundays, and of a conscience clause to be enforced in all +schools receiving State assistance. He supported the establishment of +the Divorce Court, and clearly showed that preference for social as +distinguished from political questions which he retained through his +whole life. He delighted in placing himself in touch with working men. +Mechanics' institutes, free libraries, almost every movement for the +education and improvement of the working class, found in him a steady +friend. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span>He once wrote to Lord Shaftesbury: 'We are both public men +deeply interested in the condition of the working class, and for my +own part I would rather look back on services such as you have +performed for that class than receive the highest honours in the +employment of the State.' On working-class questions he was often +accused of Radicalism, but it was Radicalism of the old school, which +relied mainly for reform on spontaneous effort, on moral improvement, +and extended education, and was very jealous of State interference, +compulsion, and control. He had a great admiration for Mill's +writings, and especially for his treatise on Liberty, which he +described as 'one of the wisest books of our time.' Mill fully +reciprocated the feeling. He once spoke of Lord Stanley as 'one of the +very few English public men who hold that a politician's opinions +ought to be founded on principles.'</p> + +<p>'Our party,' wrote Lord Malmesbury in 1853, 'are angry with Disraeli, +which is constantly the case, and they are also displeased with Lord +Stanley, suspecting him to be coquetting with the Manchester party.' +Greville, nearly at the same time, expressed his belief that Lord +Stanley was taking 'a wise and liberal line,' and that he was 'pretty +sure to act a conspicuous part.' In November 1855 there was a critical +moment in his career, when Lord Palmerston, on the death of Sir +William Molesworth, offered Lord Stanley the post of Secretary of +State for the Colonies. He at once went down to Knowsley to consult +his father, who put a strong veto on the proposal, and the offer was +refused, but in terms which showed that it had been far from +unacceptable. It is probable that the refusal was a wise one, for +although on many home questions Lord Stanley would <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span>have found himself +more in harmony with moderate Liberals than with his own party, he +would certainly have dissented from Lord Palmerston's foreign policy. +During the Crimean war he seems to have sympathised with the views of +Bright and Cobden. He took an active part in an able but now nearly +forgotten Tory paper called 'The Press,' which was opposed to the war, +and his extreme horror of war and of every policy which could possibly +lead to war was one of his strongest characteristics. Responsibility +in office never weighed lightly upon him, but responsibility for +measures which led or might lead to bloodshed was more than he could +bear.</p> + +<p>At the time when this offer of Lord Palmerston was made, Lord Stanley +was little more than twenty-nine. Greville considered that he had +acted wisely in refusing, and he has given us an interesting account +of the light in which the young statesman then appeared to experienced +political judges. 'His position and abilities,' he said, 'are certain +before long to make him conspicuous, and to enable him to play a very +considerable part. He is exceedingly ambitious, of an independent turn +of mind, very industrious, and has acquired a vast amount of +information. Not long ago Disraeli gave me an account of him and of +his curious opinions—exceedingly curious in a man in his condition of +life and with his prospects. Last night Lord Strangford (George +Smythe) talked to me about him, expressed the highest opinion of his +capacity and acquirements, and confirmed what Disraeli had told me of +his notions and views even more, for he says that he is a real and +sincere democrat, and that he would like if he could to prove his +sincerity by divesting himself of his aristocratic character, and even +of the wealth <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span>he is heir to. How far this may be true I know not.... +Nothing appears to me certain but that he will play a considerable +part for good or for evil, but I cannot pretend to guess what it will +be. At present he seems to be more allied with Bright than with any +other public man, and as his disposition about the war and its +continuance is very much that of Bright it would have been difficult +for him to take office with Palmerston.'</p> + +<p>Lord Stanley had not long to wait for high office. His father formed +his second Administration in February 1858, and Lord Stanley was made +Colonial Secretary. He appears to have accepted the office with some +reluctance, and only because Sir E. Bulwer, for whom it was at first +intended, found that he could not secure his re-election. The +Government was a very weak one, and it opened with the worst +prospects. It was a Government in a minority. Its very existence +depended on the dissensions between Lord Palmerston and Lord John +Russell, and its first steps met with little favour either in the +House or in the country. The Indian Mutiny was now nearly suppressed, +and Lord Palmerston shortly before quitting office had pledged the +House of Commons to the policy of withdrawing the Government of India +from the East India Company and placing it directly under the Crown. +To carry this policy into effect was the first task of the new +Government. They introduced an Indian Bill which they were compelled +to withdraw, and then substituted for it a new Bill founded on +resolutions which were carried through the House of Commons. In May +the Government almost fell on account of the indiscreet publication of +a despatch of Lord Ellenborough, condemning a Proclamation of the +Governor-General, Lord Canning. A vote of censure was moved and would +certainly have been <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span>carried if Lord Ellenborough had not saved his +colleagues by resigning. He was President of the Board of Control, the +Office which then directed Indian affairs, and Lord Stanley took his +place, piloted the Indian Bill successfully through the House of +Commons, and when the measure became law, was the first Secretary of +State for India, and undertook the very important and responsible task +of beginning the new system of Indian Government.</p> + +<p>'The Times' noticed the singular good fortune of Lord Derby in being +able at this very critical moment to place his eldest son in one of +the most important Cabinet offices in his Ministry without incurring +from any side the smallest imputation of nepotism, and the skill and +success of the new administration of the India Office was speedily and +generally recognised. Greville tells us that Lord Stanley 'gained +golden opinions and great popularity at the India House'; and he gives +a striking instance of the firmness with which he maintained the full +authority of the new Council over Indian affairs. He adds: 'I was +prepared to hear of his ability, his indefatigable industry, and his +business qualities; but I was surprised to hear so much of his +courtesy, affability, patience, and candour; that he is neither +dictatorial nor conceited, always ready to listen to other people's +opinions and advice, and never fancying that he knows better than +anyone else. I afterwards told Jonathan Peel what I had heard and he +confirmed the truth of this report and said he was the same in the +Cabinet.' 'Lord Stanley,' Greville said, 'is so completely <i>the man</i> +of the present day, and in all human probability is destined to play +so important and conspicuous a part in political life, that the time +may come when any details, however minute, of his early career will be +deemed worthy of recollection.' <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span>It is a characteristic fact that Lord +Stanley offered a seat on the Indian Council to John Stuart Mill, +which, however, that great writer declined.</p> + +<p>The disturbance in European politics which culminated in the French +declaration of war against Austria contributed to weaken still further +the feeble Ministry of Lord Derby. The Reform Bill caused profound +divisions in its ranks. Mr. Walpole and Mr. Henley resigned, and the +Government Bill was defeated in the spring of 1859. Lord Malmesbury +mentions that in the Cabinet divisions on that question Lord Stanley +supported the more democratic view, and that on one occasion he +threatened to resign if the measure were not made more liberal. He +defended the Bill in an elaborate speech, advocating such an +introduction of the working class to the franchise as would give them +a considerable but not a preponderating power. A general election +followed, and the Government gained several seats, but not sufficient +to give it a majority. The different fractions of the Opposition drew +together; on June 11 a vote of want of confidence was carried by a +majority of 13, and Lord Derby immediately resigned.</p> + +<p>In opposition Lord Stanley devoted himself chiefly to the class of +questions that had occupied him before his accession to office. He +served on the long Cambridge University Commission, and supported the +admission of Nonconformists to Fellowships. He was also warmly in +favour of the measure which made it possible for clergymen to free +themselves from their Orders and to adopt other professions. He +presided over the Commission on the Sanitary State of the Indian Army +and over the Commission on Patents. Like Disraeli, he displayed during +the American Civil War a reticence and reserve <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span>which contrasted very +favourably with the rash language of other leaders.</p> + +<p>In 1862 a curious episode occurred which showed at least the +widespread reputation that he had acquired. Prince Alfred having +refused the throne of Greece, the idea was for a short time +entertained of offering it to Lord Stanley. 'If he accepts,' Disraeli +wrote to his friend Mrs. Willyams, 'I shall lose a powerful friend and +colleague. It is a dazzling adventure for the house of Stanley, but +they are not an imaginative race, and I fancy they will prefer +Knowsley to the Parthenon and Lancashire to the Attic Plains.' 'The +Greeks really want to make my friend Lord Stanley their king. This +beats any novel; but he will not. Had I his youth I would not +hesitate, even with the earldom of Derby in the distance.'</p> + +<p>It does not appear that this proposal ever took a very serious form, +and if it had been made there is little doubt that Disraeli formed a +just forecast of what would have been the result. The death of Lord +Palmerston on October 18, 1865, gave a new turn to the political +kaleidoscope: Lord Russell became Prime Minister; the policy of reform +was pushed into the forefront, and the Reform Bill of 1866 speedily +produced a secession in the Liberal ranks and led to the downfall of +the Ministry. The feature of the Bill which specially lent itself to +attack was that it dealt solely with reduction of the franchise, +leaving the question of the distribution of seats to subsequent +legislation, and an amendment was moved by Lord Grosvenor to the +effect that no Bill for the reduction of the franchise should be +discussed till the whole scheme was before the House. This amendment +was seconded by Lord Stanley in a speech which Lord Malmesbury +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span>pronounced to be 'the finest and most statesmanlike speech he ever +made.' In June the Government were beaten by a small majority on an +amendment of Lord Dunkellin substituting rating for rental; a few days +later Lord Russell resigned and Lord Derby for the third time became +Prime Minister.</p> + +<p>As on the two former occasions he was in a minority, though the +temporary secession of a portion of the Liberal party gave him a +precarious power. Once more, too, he took office amid the convulsions +of a European war, for the war of Prussia and Italy with Austria had +just begun. In the new Ministry Lord Stanley was Secretary for Foreign +Affairs. In his election address he gave the keynote of his policy by +insisting in the strongest terms that England should observe a strict +neutrality in European controversies. Her vast Indian and Colonial +Empire, he said, made her a world apart and threw upon her duties and +responsibilities that taxed all her energies. She had duties also to +her poorer classes at home, whose condition was not what we could +desire; and by simply existing as a free, prosperous, and +self-governed nation, we should do more for the real freedom of Europe +than by any policy of meddling or war.</p> + +<p>As far as his own department was concerned Lord Stanley's +administration during this short Ministry was both eminently +consistent and eminently successful. It is true that this pacific +Minister made the Abyssinian war for the release of some imprisoned +British subjects, but he only did this after every peaceful effort to +procure their release had proved abortive, and it was almost +universally recognised that there was no honourable alternative open +to him. During his ministry the Luxemburg question brought France and +Prussia to the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span>very verge of war. It fell to the task of Lord Stanley +to mediate between them, and he did so with a success which certainly +adjourned, though it could not ultimately avert, the great catastrophe +that burst upon Europe in 1870. No success could have been more +gratifying to him, and he was fond of repeating the saying of Canning +that 'If a war must come sooner or later, for my part I prefer that it +should come later than sooner.' Lord Russell bore an ungrudging +testimony to the 'tact and discretion' Lord Stanley displayed in this +negotiation. In the same spirit he refused to take part in a +conference of European Powers which the French Emperor desired to +convene to settle the Roman question, declaring that this question was +one with which England should in no way meddle, and that a conference +would be useless and dangerous unless a basis were laid down before. +He refused to interfere in any way with the Cretan rebellion, and with +the impending disputes between Turkey and Greece. His abstention on +this question was blamed by some, but it met with the full approbation +of his great opponent, Lord Russell, who declared that 'he had acted +with much prudence and discretion.' He laid the foundation also of the +settlement of the long outstanding difficulty with America by +proposing to refer the Alabama question to arbitration, and he +negotiated a treaty on the subject, which, however, the Senate refused +to ratify.</p> + +<p>In all this he was very consistent. The same consistency cannot be +claimed for his support of a Reform Bill far more Radical than that +which his party had so recently rejected. In my own judgment it is +impossible to defend with success the conduct of the Derby Ministry on +this question, and although Lord Stanley took only a subsidiary part +in it, he cannot escape his share of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span>responsibility. The +difficulty of the position of the eldest son of the Prime Minister who +was taking this 'leap in the dark' was very great, and it must be +remembered that he had long been identified with the more democratic +wing of his party. After the great agitation that followed the +downfall of the Russell Ministry, he probably regarded a democratic +measure as inevitable, and it was the character of his mind to be very +ready to accept what he considered the inevitable, and to endeavour by +timely compromise to mitigate its effects. Lord Derby's health was now +completely broken, and on February 24, 1868, he resigned office, and +Disraeli became Prime Minister.</p> + +<p>Mr. Gladstone soon re-united the sundered sections of the Opposition +by raising the question of the Disestablishment of the Irish Church. +The resolutions asserting the expediency of this policy were +introduced into the House of Commons in April. Lord Stanley was put +forward as the principal opponent. His amendment expressed no opinion +about the merits of the proposed policy, but simply affirmed that it +was a question which ought to be reserved for a new Parliament which +was soon to be elected under an altered franchise. In his speech he +disclaimed any wish to maintain that the Irish Church Establishment +was what it ought to be, but urged that in the condition of Ireland a +merely destructive measure would do nothing but harm, that it would +serve no good purpose to attack the Establishment without laying down +the lines of a definite, constructive ecclesiastical policy, and that +it was absurd to launch such a question in the last session of an +expiring Parliament. The more ardent spirits of the Tory party +strongly censured the ambiguity of this defence, and the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span>Government +were beaten by majorities of 56 and 60. The House of Commons was +dissolved in the autumn and a large Liberal majority returned. +Disraeli at once resigned without waiting for the assembling of +Parliament.</p> + +<p>In October 1869 the death of Lord Derby terminated the career of his +son in the House of Commons, and the following year added very greatly +to the happiness of his life by his marriage with the Dowager +Marchioness of Salisbury. His attitude in opposition is clearly shown +in his published speeches. He had no wish to see the Conservative +party again in office till they possessed an assured and homogeneous +majority, and he maintained that it should be their main object to +strengthen the influence of the more moderate section in the +Government. He believed that by habitually pursuing this policy they +would best prevent revolutionary changes, mitigate by wise compromises +measures which they did not wholly approve, secure the continuance of +the harmony of classes, on which more than on any other condition the +prosperity of England depends, and gradually strengthen their own hold +on the confidence of the country. It was also his earnest desire that +English politics should be turned as much as possible from a policy of +organic change to a policy of administrative reform. He considered it +a great evil that public men had acquired the habit of continually +tampering with the existing legislative machinery instead of wisely +using it for the benefit of the whole nation. The party system, as he +always thought, had falsified the perspective of English politics, +bringing into the foreground comparatively unimportant questions which +were well suited to rally parties and win majorities; thrusting into +the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span>background others which were immeasurably more important, but +which were less available for party purposes. What Carlyle called 'The +Condition of England Question' was always in his thoughts. No one +would accuse him of under-rating the evils of war, but he questioned +whether the most sanguinary battle which had ever been fought carried +off nearly as many human beings as die in England every year from +purely preventible causes. He threw the whole force of his clear and +penetrating intellect into such questions as sanitary reform, the +regulation of mines, the promotion of education and especially +technical education, the organisation of charities, the treatment of +juvenile offenders, the diffusion of wise methods of encouraging +saving among the poor. The overcrowding of the great cities, and the +vast masses of insanitary dwellings, seemed to him one of the most +pressing dangers of the time, and he was a prominent member of nearly +every important company and association in England for improving the +houses of artisans. He had no puritanism in his nature and was very +anxious, by the establishment of free libraries and people's parks, +and Sunday opening of museums, to extend the range of innocent +pleasure. 'Men die,' he once said, 'for want of cheerfulness, as +plants die for want of light.' He did not believe in the repression of +drunkenness by coercive legislation like the Local Veto Bill, but he +believed that its true root lay in overcrowding, ignorance, insanitary +conditions of life, the want of innocent means of enjoyment, excessive +hours of labour. 'When you have to deal with men in masses,' he said, +'the connection between vice and disease is very close. With a low +average of popular health you will have a low average of national +morality and probably also of national <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span>intellect. Drunkenness and +vice of other kinds will flourish on such a soil, and you cannot get +healthy brains to grow on unhealthy bodies. Cleanliness and +self-respect grow together, and it is no paradox to affirm that you +tend to purify men's thoughts and feelings when you purify the air +they breathe.' He supported liberally the movement for establishing +coffee-houses, and he looked with great hope to the co-operative +movement as averting or mitigating industrial conflicts. 'The subject +of co-operation,' he said, 'is in my judgment more important as +regards the future of England than nine-tenths of those which are +discussed in Parliament, and around which political controversies +gather.' As the possessor of one of the largest properties in England +he was excellently informed on all agricultural questions, and he +exercised a great influence upon them. Among other services he +dispelled many misrepresentations by obtaining an accurate return of +the numbers of owners of land in the United Kingdom, and of the +quantity of land which they owned.</p> + +<p>With the single exception of Lord Shaftesbury, I believe no +conspicuous English public man devoted so much time and labour as Lord +Derby to the class of questions I have described. He brought to their +discussion an almost unrivalled fulness of knowledge. His purse was +liberally opened in such causes, and the speeches in which he examined +what Government can do and what it cannot do for the material +well-being of the poor, are in my judgment among the most valuable +contributions to political thought that have been furnished by any +English statesman during the present century.</p> + +<p>The election of 1874, bringing the Conservative party again into +power, called him to other fields, and he became for the second time +Foreign Secretary under Disraeli, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span>was soon involved in that +Eastern Question which led to his severance from the Conservative +party. It would answer no good purpose in a short sketch like the +present to rake up the still smouldering ashes of that controversy. +The time will come when it will be reviewed in the calm light of +history, and with the assistance of materials that are not now before +the public. I shall here content myself with a mere sketch. In the +earlier stages of their foreign policy the Government appear to have +been perfectly agreed. Lord Derby fully concurred in the purchase of +the Khedive's shares in the Suez Canal, which was one of the most +successful strokes of policy of the Government, though he defended it +on somewhat more prosaic grounds than some of its supporters, and was +careful to explain that it was essentially a measure of self-defence, +and not connected with any project for the dismemberment of Turkey or +the establishment of an English protectorate in Egypt. When the +insurrection broke out in 1875 in Herzegovina and Bosnia, neither Lord +Derby nor any of his colleagues believed it to be more than a mere +passing disturbance. But the feebleness manifested by the Turkish army +in suppressing the insurrection, and the partial bankruptcy of the +Government at Constantinople, contributed with many elements of race +and religious dissension, with foreign intrigue and local +misgovernment, to aggravate the sore, and the movement soon acquired +the dimensions of a great European danger. In sending an English +Consul in conjunction with the Consuls of the other Powers to the +scene of insurrection, in order, if possible, to arrive at a +mediation; in the acceptance of the Andrassy Note, by which the three +Imperial Powers laid down the reforms which they considered urgently +necessary; in the rejection of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span>Berlin Memorandum, on the ground +that the Porte could not or would not carry out its demands, and that +it would almost certainly lead to an armed intervention; and finally, +in sending the British fleet to Besika Bay for the purpose of +protecting English and Christian interests at Constantinople, at a +time when that city was in a state of almost complete anarchy, the +Government were fully agreed, and they carried with them an immense +majority in Parliament and in the country. For some time, also, the +country seemed to approve of the policy which Lord Derby uniformly +avowed and steadily observed, of maintaining a strict neutrality in +the contest that was raging; doing all that could be done by advice, +remonstrance, mediation, and moral influence to induce the Porte to +carry out internal reforms; warning the Turkish Government in clear +terms that under the circumstances of the case they must not look for +any military assistance from England, but at the same time +discouraging as much as possible the active interference of other +Powers in the affairs of Turkey, and abstaining rigidly from any step +that would involve the use of force or the chance of war unless some +serious English interest was affected. He believed that the integrity +of the Turkish Empire was a vital English interest, and that any +attempt to substitute a Slavonic for a Turkish Empire would bring upon +Europe calamities the extent of which it was impossible to exaggerate +or to foresee. Russia and Austria would at once come into collision; +England would almost certainly be drawn into the war, and all the +fierce elements of race hatred and religious fanaticism would be let +loose.</p> + +<p>For a time most English politicians seem to have agreed with him, and +his one great object was to bring about an armistice, a mediation, and +a peace. But the popular <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span>agitation which arose in England on the +subject of the Bulgarian atrocities in the summer and autumn of 1876 +added enormously to his difficulties, and the danger was the greater +because some skilful party management was blended with much genuine +philanthropy. The speeches addressed by Lord Derby to the successive +deputations that came to him, give the best explanation and defence of +his position during this critical period, and the interruptions to +which he had to reply give a vivid picture of the state of feeling +that had arisen. The Crimean war was now deplored as a calamity, if +not a crime. The Turks were described on high political authority as +'the one great anti-human specimen of humanity.' The Ministers were +accused of complicity in the Bulgarian massacres; they were urged to +cast neutrality to the wind; to adopt a policy of armed coercion in +Turkey; even to assist Russia in driving the Turks out of +Constantinople. It had become, as Lord Derby sarcastically said, a +very unpopular thing for an English Minister to talk of English +interests in connection with the Eastern Question—almost dangerous +for any man at a public meeting to express in plain terms his doubt of +the disinterested philanthropy of Russia.</p> + +<p>Lord Derby had at this time to encounter much unpopularity. He was +accused of an undue leaning towards the Turkish Government, and an +inadequate sympathy with the Christian populations, and it was alleged +that if he had acted in firm concert with the other Powers in coercing +the Porte—if he had not proclaimed so loudly and constantly his +determination to abstain from all active interference and +compulsion—his remonstrances would have had more effect, and he might +have averted or restricted the calamities that had occurred. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span>But a +great change soon took place. The first object of the Government was +to prevent the Turkish disturbance from leading to a European war, and +in this object they failed. On April 24, 1877, Russia, in spite of +English remonstrances, declared war against Turkey. On the same day a +Russian army crossed the Pruth, and the Eastern Question entered into +a new and dangerous phase.</p> + +<p>To a statesman like Lord Derby, who maintained that war, unless it is +a necessity, is a crime; that the maintenance of peace is beyond all +comparison the greatest of British interests, the months that followed +were extremely trying. His first object was to limit the war, and to +safeguard English interests, and for this purpose he drew up on May 6, +1877, a Note defining the English interests that were vital in the +East. He warned the Russian Government that an attempt by Russia to +blockade the Suez Canal, an attack on Egypt, a Russian occupation of +Constantinople, or an alteration of the existing arrangements for the +navigation of the Bosphorus or the Dardanelles might compel England to +abandon her neutrality. Russia accepted these conditions, and for some +time there appeared every prospect of limiting the war. But in the +beginning of 1878 a period of extreme danger undoubtedly arrived. +Plevna had fallen. The Turkish resistance had collapsed. A Russian +army, flushed with victory, had advanced to near Constantinople. The +treaty of San Stephano was signed; which in the opinion of most +European statesmen placed Turkey at the feet of Russia, and Russia at +first refused to submit its terms to a conference of European Powers. +Public feeling in England now ran strongly in a direction almost +opposite to that in which it had been running eighteen <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span>months before, +and the nation was extremely alarmed at the danger of Constantinople +becoming speedily and irremediably a Russian port. On the other hand, +the national and military pride of the conquering Power was aroused, +and it was felt that a single false step, a single imprudent menace, +might lead to war.</p> + +<p>It was one of those moments in which men's judgments are largely +affected by their temperaments, and it soon became evident that the +Cabinet was seriously divided. Disraeli had now become Lord +Beaconsfield, and sat with his Foreign Secretary in the House of +Lords. With his character it was inevitable that he should meet the +danger by a bold, decisive, and even aggressive, policy. It was no +less natural that Lord Derby should have persistently leaned towards +the side of caution and shrunk from any measure that could cut short +negotiation and diminish the chances of peace. The order given that +the British Fleet should enter the Dardanelles, first produced the +inevitable schism, and Lord Derby and Lord Carnarvon resigned. The +order was countermanded, and Lord Derby, for a short time, resumed his +post. He acquiesced, but with great reluctance, in the vote of credit +for six millions which was at once brought before the House of +Commons, but he was soon convinced that measures he did not approve of +were impending, and when orders were given for calling out the +reserves he definitely resigned.</p> + +<p>He announced his resignation on March 28, 1878, in terms of much +dignity and moderation. He believed, he said, that his colleagues +desired peace as truly as himself, and he did not maintain that their +later measures led inevitably to war, but he considered that they were +neither necessary nor 'prudent in the interests of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span>European peace.' +He agreed that the terms of the treaty should be submitted to a +European Congress, in which England should take part. On minor matters +he thought it his duty to waive his own opinion, but he could not do +so on a question involving the momentous issue of peace or war. The +threat involved in the last act of the Government, he said, in a later +speech, would make it more difficult for Russia to modify her policy, +and he believed that without a threat such a modification of the +treaty of San Stephano could be obtained as would make it acceptable. +He had been accused of indecision and even of cowardice. For his own +part he thought it needed more courage to stand up in his place to +express views which he knew to be unpopular among the great body of +his friends, than to sit at a desk in Downing Street and issue orders +which would bring no danger or unpopularity to himself, but might +bring about a European war.</p> + +<p>The short speech in which Lord Beaconsfield accepted the resignation, +and dwelt on the long friendship, personal as well as political, that +bound him to Lord Derby, seems to me a perfect model of good feeling +and good taste. Unfortunately the example of the Prime Minister was +not followed, and words used in a later debate went far to make the +breach irrevocable.</p> + +<p>Lord Derby for a short time maintained a neutral position, but the +foreign policy of Lord Beaconsfield was in the highest degree +distasteful to him. A wave of Chauvinism was passing over England, +which was utterly opposed to his views, and he believed that a section +of the Conservative party encouraged it in order to divert the +thoughts of men from internal reforms. He objected to the acquisition +of Cyprus, to some of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span>responsibilities assumed by England under +the treaty of Berlin, and very strongly to the Afghan war; and in the +beginning of 1880 he formally attached himself to the Liberal party, +on the ground of his objections to the foreign policy of the +Government. His speeches in his new capacity differed very little from +those which he had formerly delivered, but he said that he had learnt +to see more clearly the uselessness of attempting to resist popular +ideas, and to think 'more highly of the moderation, the fairness, and +the general justice with which masses of men, including all conditions +of life, are disposed to use their power.' He thought that England +should mix herself as little as possible with 'the sanguinary muddle' +of European diplomacy; that she should avoid increasing her +responsibilities; that she should take stringent measures to reduce +her debt; that she should pay much more attention than she was +accustomed to do to the condition of her own poorer population; and +that it should be the object of her statesmen to meet every great +popular demand by wise and equitable compromise. One of the greatest +dangers, he said, that could befall the country, would be 'a state of +things in which the comparatively harmless antagonism of parties would +be replaced by the far more serious and dangerous war of classes. From +that danger more than from any other it is the business of a +well-considered Liberalism to protect us.'</p> + +<p>In 1882 he accepted the Colonial Office from Mr. Gladstone, and held +it until the fall of the Government in the summer of 1885. His +ministry was not a very eventful one, and it was marked by that steady +adherence to a middle line which had always characterised him. He +congratulated the country that the indifference to our <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span>colonies which +had prevailed during his youth had passed away, but he was by no means +favourable to extensions of the Empire. 'We have quite black men +enough,' he was accustomed to say; and he believed that any increase +of our responsibilities was likely to endanger the Empire, and to +divert the energies of politicians from pressing home questions. He +did not condemn the policy which led to the occupation of Egypt by +England, but he declared that even if it was inevitable it was a +misfortune, and that we ought to 'see that we do not on any pretext, +however plausible, get that Egyptian millstone tied permanently round +our necks.' He was very sceptical about Imperial Federation, and +entirely incredulous about the possibility of an Imperial Zollverein. +He deplored the protectionism of the colonies, but was himself a +strict free-trader of the school of Cobden, and utterly opposed to any +attempt to negotiate treaties with the colonies on a basis of +preferential tariffs. On the other hand, he showed himself quite ready +to favour Confederation in Australia, and he accepted gratefully +Australian help in the Soudan, but he was much alarmed by tendencies +in some colonies which might lead to complications with foreign +Powers, and he incurred considerable unpopularity in Australia by +refusing to consent to the annexation by Queensland of New Guinea.</p> + +<p>There is, however, one incident in the colonial administration of Lord +Derby on which it is necessary to dwell at somewhat greater length, +for subsequent events have given it an unfortunate prominence and it +has thrown some discredit on his statesmanship. I allude, of course, +to the convention with the Transvaal in 1884. In the preceding +convention, which had been signed in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span>August 1881, complete +self-government had been granted by England to the Transvaal 'subject +to the suzerainty of her Majesty' and her successors, and also to a +large number of carefully specified reservations and limitations. They +comprised the complete control of the external relations of the +Transvaal, including the conclusion of treaties and the conduct of +diplomatic intercourse with foreign Powers, which could only be +carried on through her Majesty's officers; the right of moving British +troops in case of necessity through the Transvaal; a power of veto +over all legislation affecting the interests of the native population. +A number of articles prohibited slavery in the new State; protected +with much detail the interests of the native population; secured +complete religious liberty; established the right of all persons other +than natives who conformed themselves to the laws of the State, to +enter, travel, and reside in any part of the Transvaal, to acquire +property and to carry on their business without being subject to any +other taxation than that which was imposed on the citizens of the +Transvaal; and placed British imports and exports on the same plane as +those of the most-favoured nations. The limits of the new State were +carefully defined and a British Resident was established in the +Transvaal to superintend the carrying out of these provisions. There +was no express provision in the convention for the political +privileges of the English residents in the Transvaal, but the +Government appear to have relied on a not very explicit verbal +assurance given to the British Commissioners by President Kruger in +May 1881. Asked about the rights of British subjects to complete free +trade throughout the Transvaal, President Kruger answered that before +the annexation 'they were on the same footing <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span>as the burghers'; that +'there was not the slightest difference in accordance with the Sand +River convention'; that this state of things would be continued and +that 'there would be equal protection for everybody.' Sir Evelyn Wood +then added, 'and equal privileges?' 'We make no difference,' answered +President Kruger, 'so far as burgher rights are concerned. There may +perhaps be some slight difference in the case of a young person who +has just come into the country.' It was subsequently explained that +the words 'young person' did not refer to age, but to the time of +residence in the Republic—according to the old Transvaal +Constitution, a year's residence in the Republic was necessary for +naturalisation. With this assurance the Government of 1881 appears to +have been content. They believed in words expressly sanctioned by Mr. +Gladstone, that the concession of limited independence to the +Transvaal by the convention of 1881 would 'provide for the full +liberty and equal treatment of the entire white population, guard the +interests of the natives, and promote harmony and good-will among the +various races in South Africa.'<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a> As a matter of fact, the only +change in the political position of the English residents in the +Transvaal was that the period of naturalisation was extended from one +to five years—a change which appears to have produced little or no +commotion in the Republic.</p> + +<p>The convention of 1881 was, however, extremely unpopular among a large +section of the Boer population. Complete independence was their avowed +object, and in order to attain it their first task was to abolish the +suzerainty of Great Britain. Almost immediately after <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span>the convention +was signed, the limitations of the Transvaal established by the +convention were flagrantly disregarded by Transvaal filibusters, who +proceeded with the tacit and even with the avowed countenance of their +Government to place new sections of native territory under the +exclusive protectorate of the Transvaal Government;<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> and a +deputation, headed by President Kruger, came to England in 1883 for +the purpose of negotiating with the Colonial Office for the abolition +of the chief articles of the convention of 1881. They avowed with +complete frankness that absolute independence would alone satisfy +them, and that their desire was to revert to the Sand River convention +of 1852, by which this independence had been recognised. This demand +was absolutely rejected by the Imperial Government, but Lord Derby +attempted to meet the objections of the Transvaal leaders by +substituting for the articles of the convention of 1881 new articles +in several respects more favourable to the pretensions of the Boers.</p> + +<p>He, in the first place, made a sentimental concession to which it is +probable he attached little importance, but which was regarded by the +Boer population as a considerable step towards the achievement of +their independence. The term 'Transvaal State,' which was accepted in +the convention of 1881 as the designation of the new State, was +dropped and the old title of 'South African Republic' was revived and +recognised. The question of suzerainty was dealt with in a somewhat +ambiguous fashion. The new convention purported only to substitute new +articles in the place of those of the preceding convention; and it was +afterwards argued that the old preamble, which asserted at once the +internal independence of the Transvaal <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span>and the suzerainty of Great +Britain, remained in force. In fact, however, this preamble was +neither reprinted nor replaced in the new convention, and the term +'suzerainty,' which occurred in the original draft of the document, +was deliberately expunged—it is said by Lord Derby himself. He +considered the term wholly wanting in the precision which is desirable +in a treaty arrangement, that it was capable of many different degrees +of extension, and that the fact of the paramountcy of Great Britain +over the new State might be sufficiently established without the use +of an ambiguous word which excited the most bitter hostility in the +Transvaal. His own words in defending his conduct in the House of +Lords are perfectly clear. 'The word suzerainty,' he said, 'is a very +vague word, and I do not think it is capable of any precise legal +definition. Whatever we may understand by it, I think it is not very +easy to define. But I apprehend whether you call it a protectorate, or +a suzerainty, or the recognition of England as a paramount Power, the +fact is that a certain controlling power is retained when the State +which exercises this suzerainty has a right to veto any negotiation +into which the dependent State may enter with foreign Powers. Whatever +suzerainty meant in the convention of Pretoria (1881), the condition +of things which it implies still remains; although the word is not +actually employed, we have kept the substance. We have abstained from +using the word because it was not capable of legal definition, and +because it seemed to be a word which was likely to lead to +misconception and misunderstanding.'</p> + +<p>The articles of the previous convention relating to slavery, to native +rights, to free trade, to religious liberty, to the rights of +residence of foreigners in the Transvaal, reappear in the new +convention, and the limits of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span>State were somewhat more fully +defined, but the controlling power of Great Britain over the foreign +policy of the Transvaal, though clearly reasserted, was somewhat +limited in its scope. It was provided that the South African Republic +should conclude no treaty or engagement with any State or nation other +than the Orange Free State, or with any native tribe to the eastward +or westward of the Republic, until the same had been approved by the +Queen; that every such treaty should be at once submitted to her +Majesty's Government for her consent, but that this consent should be +presumed to have been granted if no notification to the contrary was +received within six months. The desire of the Transvaal authorities to +be recognised as representing an independent sovereign power was thus +distinctly rejected, and the English Government positively refused a +proposal to admit foreign arbitration in cases of dispute between +England and the Transvaal.</p> + +<p>This convention has been severely censured by later writers on the +ground of the insufficiency and ambiguity of its assertion of the +paramount authority of Great Britain over the Transvaal, and of its +failure to do anything to supply the great deficiency in the preceding +convention by an article securing political equality for the British +population within it. A few years later, when an immense English +immigration had taken place, not only with the consent but at the +express invitation of the Transvaal Government; when the English +element formed a large majority of the inhabitants of the State; when +they paid an enormous preponderance of its taxation, and were the +chief agents in developing its wealth and raising it from the position +of a very poor pastoral community into that of a great and wealthy +State, the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span>Transvaal Government proceeded to impose upon the new +emigrants disqualifications and disabilities which were utterly +unknown when England conceded self-government to 'the inhabitants of +the Transvaal.' They completely deprived the vast majority of +political power or local self-government, and surrounded them at every +turn with the most irritating disabilities. The Transvaal became the +one part of South Africa where one white race was held in a position +of inferiority to another. At a time when perfect equality was enjoyed +by the Dutch population in our own colonies, the political +disqualification of the English race was made the very corner-stone of +the policy of the Transvaal Government. An annual revenue greatly in +excess of what was required for its internal government was raised +almost entirely from the taxation of an unrepresented class, to whom +the prosperity of the State was mainly due, and it was employed in +accumulating a great armament which could only be intended for use +against England and for maintaining the subjection of an English +population.</p> + +<p>This was the position to which the paramount Power in South Africa, +the Power which of its own free will had conceded a limited +independence to the Transvaal, found itself reduced. And yet it was +possible for the Boer Government to maintain that there was nothing in +all this legislation which was inconsistent with the terms of the +convention of 1884.</p> + +<p>I do not think that the justice of this criticism can be wholly +denied. The Transvaal authorities had already given clear intimation +of their desire to emancipate themselves from all British control, and +especially of their determination to disregard the limitations which +had been imposed on the expansion of their State. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span>There is, however, +one very material fact to be remembered in judging the policy of Lord +Derby. At the time of the convention of 1884 the English population in +the Transvaal was a small, scattered, and powerless minority, and as +their numbers were far too scanty to make them a danger to the State, +there was not much reason to believe that the Transvaal authorities +would repudiate their own assurances and subject them to oppressive +disabilities. It was not until two years after the convention that the +vast gold-mines of the Transvaal were discovered and all the +conditions of the South African problem fundamentally changed. The +gigantic immigration that ensued reversed the proportion between the +two races. The revenue and the expenditure of the State multiplied +more than fifteen fold in little more than ten years.<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> The +Transvaal became the most powerful and wealthy State in South Africa, +and the great preponderance of the Outlander element in numbers, +wealth, energy, and industry rendered a conflict of races almost +inevitable. No statesman could have foreseen this change, and a +convention that might have allayed discontent if the gold-mines had +never been discovered, proved wholly inefficient to meet it.</p> + +<p>Though in a politician of the stamp of Lord Derby the change from a very +liberal conservatism to a very conservative liberalism involved little +real modification of opinion, it necessarily involved some change of +attitude, and on some questions he spoke with a freedom which would have +been impossible as a member of the Conservative party. On Church +questions, for example, while strongly maintaining that the country was +not ripe <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span>for the disestablishment of the Church in England, he declared +that in his opinion the exclusive alliance of one religious denomination +among many with the State could not be permanently maintained side by +side with a democratic representation—that disestablishment and at +least partial disendowment must ultimately come; that if the +representatives of Scotland desired the disestablishment of their +Church, it was not for Englishmen to oppose them; and that Wales had a +strong claim to be separately dealt with. 'The Welsh people constitute +in many respects a distinct nationality, and I do not see why we should +refuse to Welsh loyalty what we have granted to Irish sedition.' On the +subject of endowments indeed as early as 1875 his view was that of most +moderate Liberals. 'To my mind, so far as right is concerned, the +Legislature may do what it chooses in regard to any endowment, without +injustice, provided only that the rights of living individuals are +respected. How far it is politic to use that power is another matter.... +Respect the founder's object, but use your own discretion as to the +means. If you don't do the first, you will have no new endowments. If +you neglect the last, those which you have will be of no use.'<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> He +maintained that the question of local government had in England become +one of pressing importance, and that the administration of county +affairs must be put into the hands of elective bodies. He would give +those local parliaments very large power—but he most urgently insisted +on the importance of one restriction. The new bodies must not be given +an unlimited power of mortgaging the future. The gradual reduction of +the National Debt had been for some years one of the chief aims of +enlightened politicians, but all <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span>that had been done in this direction +would be undone if, side by side with the National Debt, there grew up a +municipal debt of perhaps equal amount. In this tendency to municipal +extravagance he saw one of the gravest menaces to property. 'The growth +of Socialism throughout Europe has followed very closely on the gigantic +increase of national indebtedness during the present century, and men +who begin to feel the pressure intolerable are apt to raise questions, +more easily stated than solved, as to the right of any State to impose +burdens in perpetuity for the benefit of one generation.' He urged that +every local body which contracted a debt should be under a statutory +obligation to provide for its repayment in fifty or sixty years at +latest.</p> + +<p>The growth of municipal indebtedness; the excessive tendency to +increase the functions of the State; the disaffection of Ireland and +the contingency of an isolated and disloyal body of some eighty Irish +representatives offering their services to any party which would +consent to carry out their designs, appeared to Lord Derby the chief +dangers of English domestic politics. The last danger was very +speedily realised, and the sudden conversion of Mr. Gladstone to Home +Rule produced one more change in the attitude of Lord Derby. On this +question he had never flinched or wavered, and he at once took his +place in the front rank of the Liberal Unionists, whom for some time +he led in the House of Lords. I do not know that the Unionist case has +ever been more powerfully put forward than in his speeches on the +subject, and the eminently judicial character of his mind, and his +entire freedom from all mere party bias, gave a special weight to his +advocacy. With this exception he took little part in party politics +during the last years of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span>his life, but he devoted himself largely to +social questions, and among other things served with great assiduity +and ability on the Labour Commission. His last speech was delivered at +Manchester on the unveiling of the statue of Mr. Bright in October +1891. His last public work was that of presiding over the Labour +Commission in May 1892. In the preceding year an attack of influenza, +followed by a relapse, had shattered a health which had hitherto been +robust. Other complications ensued, and he passed away at Knowsley on +April 21, 1893, in his sixty-seventh year.</p> + +<p>The foregoing sketch will, I hope, have given a sufficient idea of his +public character. Few men have made a greater sacrifice of ambition to +a conscientious conviction than he did, when, rather than support a +measure which might lead to war, he abandoned the Conservative +Ministry in 1878. He was then the fully recognised successor of Lord +Beaconsfield, and if he had adopted a different course he would in a +short time have been, beyond all doubt, Prime Minister of England. On +the whole, however, the severance from old friends cost him, I +believe, far more than the sacrifice of his political prospects. +Whatever he may have been in his youth, he was certainly not in mature +life an ambitious man. With the great position he held in England the +world had little to offer him, and the self-knowledge which was not +the least of his many remarkable gifts showed him that party conflict +was not the sphere in which Nature intended him to move. With many of +the qualities of the highest statesmanship he wanted some necessary +ingredients of a great statesman. He wanted the power of appealing to +the imagination and moving the passions. He wanted more decision of +character, more power of initiative, more capacity of bearing lightly +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span>the weight of a great responsibility. His belief that the House of +Lords must always ultimately yield to the House of Commons aggravated +a weakness of resolution which was deeply rooted in his nature. There +were moments when his inveterate moderation tended to exasperate, and +he was accused, not altogether without reason, of sometimes making +admirable speeches, pointing out in the clearest terms all the evils +and dangers of a measure, and then concluding by exhorting the House +of Lords to vote for it, introducing mitigating amendments in +Committee. The measures he treated in this way usually, as he had +predicted, became law, but this was not the attitude of a great +leader. During a considerable part of his career, like a very large +proportion of moderate men in England, he was in the embarrassing +position of agreeing substantially with the home policy of one party +and with the foreign policy of the other. After the death of Lord +Palmerston an element of passion was infused into public life which +was very uncongenial to his temperament, and English politics passed +into phases in which caution, character, judgment, and knowledge were +less prized than brilliant strokes that appealed to the popular +imagination, clever coalitions, a skilful barter of principles for +votes. In spheres governed by such methods Lord Derby was very useful, +but he was not likely to play a foremost part.</p> + +<p>To few men who have taken a conspicuous part in active politics was +the excitement of such an existence so little necessary. Happy in his +domestic life and in a companionship and sympathy which were +all-sufficient to him, he was not less happy in the wide range of his +interests and duties. The administration of his vast estate would have +been more than sufficient <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span>to tax the energies of most men, and it +was, I believe, universally acknowledged that it was admirably +administered. In the everyday affairs of practical life he had no +indecision, and he judged swiftly with the clearest of judgments. +Nothing about him was more remarkable than the apparent ease and the +absence of all hurry and confusion with which he could deal with many +different forms of work. His study in its perfect neatness was more +like a lady's boudoir than the workshop of a very busy man. <i>Ohne +Hast, ohne Rast</i>, might have been his motto. He had much belief in the +future of English land, and was not, I think, at all exempt from the +great English landlord's foible of adding field to field. In the long +period of agricultural depression it was easy for a rich man to do so. +'In my experience,' he used to say, 'in nine cases out of ten it is +Naboth who comes to Ahab and begs him to buy his vineyard.' Certainly +no one had reason to complain, for there were few better or more +popular landlords than Lord Derby. In many long walks with him through +his property I was always struck with the evident pleasure with which +he was welcomed by his people, the fulness of knowledge and the +kindness of interest with which he inquired into the circumstances of +every tenant. It is characteristic of him that only two days before +his death he was giving instructions for building a hospital for the +sick poor of Knowsley. I have known few men in whom the desire to make +everyone about them happy was so strongly and so clearly marked. He +was fond of looking minutely into the circumstances of men of +different classes, and comparing their wants with their means, often +with somewhat whimsical results. There was a tradesman who made +regularly 5<i>l.</i> a week; who was accustomed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span>every week to devote 2<i>l.</i> +to his household expenses, to lay by 2<i>l.</i>, and to employ the +remainder in getting drunk. He was, Lord Derby thought, the only man +he had ever known who satisfied all his wants with 40 per cent. of his +income, who always laid by 40 per cent., and who expended 20 per cent. +on his pleasures.</p> + +<p>Outside his property Lord Derby had strong county interests. With +perhaps the exception of Birmingham there is no part of England where +a distinctive local patriotism is so intensely developed as in +Lancashire, and Lord Derby in tastes and character was pre-eminently a +Lancashire man, very proud of the greatness, and deeply concerned in +the interests, of his county. In all the vicissitudes of his career, +Liverpool, I believe, never wavered in its attachment to him. He +contributed to the many charitable and philanthropic works with which +he was concerned not only much money, but also—what in so rich a man +was far more meritorious—an extraordinary amount of time and patient +supervision. Among the many offices he accepted, was president of the +Literary Fund for dispensing charity to needy authors, and on the +committee of that charity I had, during many years, ample opportunity +of observing how far he was from treating a presidential position as a +sinecure. The regularity of his attendance, the constant attention he +paid to every detail of the charity; the infinite pains which he would +bestow upon obscure cases of distress, marked him out as a model +president, and many of those whom our rules did not allow us to help +were assisted by his bounty. He contributed with a large but +discriminating generosity to many causes that were conspicuous in the +eyes of the world, but his special bias was towards unostentatious +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span>and unobserved benevolence, and crowds of obscure men in obscure +positions were assisted by him.</p> + +<p>Those who did not know him, and those who had come in merely casual +contact with him, sometimes formed a false impression of his +character. He had a great deal of natural shyness. He had very little +of the gift of small talk. On occasions of mere show and in +uncongenial atmospheres he was apt to be awkward and embarrassed, and +when walking by himself he was extremely absent and quite capable of +brushing against his oldest friend with a complete unconsciousness of +his presence. These traits sometimes gave rise to natural +misinterpretations, which a fuller knowledge always dispelled. No one +who knew Lord Derby could fail to feel that his nature was one of the +most genuine and transparent simplicity, singularly free from all +tinge of arrogance, superciliousness, and acrimony. His personal +tastes were exceedingly simple, and there was not a particle of +ostentation in his character. He delighted in a quiet country life and +had a strong sense of natural beauty. In his youth he had been an +ardent mountaineer, and in later life he had few greater pleasures +than to watch the growth of his plantations. He calculated that he had +planted in his lifetime about two million of trees.</p> + +<p>He was among the best-read men I have ever known. His private library +was one of the finest in England, and he took a keen interest in it. A +love of sumptuous, large-paper editions was indeed one of the very few +luxuries in which from mere personal taste he greatly indulged. Like +all men of literary tastes he had his limitations. German was a closed +book to him. Theology and metaphysics were conspicuous by their +absence. He was certainly not drawn to the mystical, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span>the +unintelligible, or the morbid, either in imaginative or speculative +literature, and although he was a great lover and great buyer of +water-colour pictures, I do not think he had much real sense or +knowledge of art. But he had read very extensively and with great +profit and discrimination in many widely different fields, and his +memory was unusually retentive. He was an excellent literary critic, +and if clear thought and accurate knowledge were what he most valued, +it would be a complete mistake to suppose that he was insensible to +the poetic and imaginative side of literature. He could repeat long +passages from 'Childe Harold,' and I can well remember the delight +which he took in the picturesque narrative of Mr. Froude, and in the +fiery verses of Sir Alfred Lyall.</p> + +<p>He was one of the kindest and most gracious of hosts, and his genuine +unforced good nature and good humour drew to him many whose tastes and +sympathies were widely different from his own. Nature certainly never +intended him for a sportsman, but he preserved game extensively and +until the last years of his life usually went out with his guests. 'I +rather like shooting,' he once said to me, 'it prevents the necessity +of general conversation.' Among kindred spirits, however, his own +conversation was eminently attractive. His wide knowledge both of +books and men, his vast range of political anecdote, his experience of +so many statesmen and offices and departments of life, made it +singularly instructive. He was a very shrewd, and at the same time a +very kind, judge of character; and he had a power, which is certainly +not common, of fully appreciating merits that are allied with great +and manifest defects. He had much quaint, dry humour, and a great +happiness of expression; and one always felt that his opinions were +genuinely thought out—that they were voices and not echoes. His +private <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span>conversation had the quality that I have noticed in his +public speeches, of grasping at once the essential elements of a +question and disencumbering it from accessories and details. It is one +of the qualities that add most to the charm of conversation, and, with +the exception of Lord Russell, I do not think I have met with anyone +who possessed it to a greater degree than Lord Derby. He delighted in +long walks with one or two friends, and he might be seen to great +advantage in some small dining-clubs which play a larger part than is +generally recognised in the best English social life of our time. He +had been a member of Grillion's for thirty-seven years, but the +society to which he was most attached was, I think, 'The Club' which +was founded by Johnson and Reynolds. During the nineteen years of +which I can speak from personal experience, he was an almost constant +attendant, and certainly no other member enjoyed a greater popularity +in it, or contributed more largely to its charm.</p> + +<p>He hated cant of all kinds, and had a great distrust of ostentatious +professions of lofty motives. He disliked, I think greatly, the habit +of dragging sacred names into party speeches, and attributing every +party manœuvre to a solemn sense of duty. Language of this kind +will never be found in his speeches, but I have known few men who were +governed through life more steadily though more unobtrusively by a +sense of duty. He always tried to look facts in the face, and to +promote in the many spheres which he could influence the real +happiness of men. There have been statesmen among his contemporaries +of greater power and of more brilliant achievement. There has been, I +believe, no statesman of sounder judgment and more disinterested +patriotism; there have been very few whose departure has left a void +in so many spheres.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> See, on this subject, Cook's <i>Rights and Wrongs of the +Transvaal War</i>, pp. 260-265.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> See Westlake's <i>L'Angleterre et les Républiques Boers</i>, +pp. 30-31.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> See the table of revenue and expenditure in +Fitzpatrick's <i>Transvaal from Within</i>, p. 71.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> Inaugural address at Edinburgh University.</p></div> +<p> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /></p> +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span><br /></p> + +<h3><a name="HENRY_REEVE" id="HENRY_REEVE"></a>HENRY REEVE, C.B., F.S.A., D.C.L.<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + + +<p>Although it has never been the custom of the 'Edinburgh Review' to +withdraw the veil of anonymity from its writers and its +administration, it would be mere affectation to suffer it to appear +before the public without some allusion to the great editor whom we +have just lost,<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> and who for forty years has watched with +indefatigable care over its pages.</p> + +<p>The career of Mr. Henry Reeve is perhaps the most striking +illustration in our time of how little in English life influence is +measured by notoriety. To the outer world his name was but little +known. He is remembered as the translator of Tocqueville, as the +editor of the 'Greville Memoirs,' as the author of a not quite +forgotten book on Royal and Republican France, showing much knowledge +of French literature and politics; as the holder during fifty years of +the respectable, but not very prominent, post of Registrar of the +Privy Council. To those who have a more intimate knowledge of the +political and literary life of England, it is well known that during +nearly the whole of his long life he was a powerful and living force +in English literature; that few men of his time have filled a larger +place in some of the most select circles of English social life; and +that he exercised during many years a political influence such as +rarely falls to the lot of any Englishman outside Parliament, or even +outside the Cabinet.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span>He was born at Norwich in 1813, and brought up in a highly cultivated, +and even brilliant, literary circle. His father, Dr. Reeve, was one of +the earliest contributors to the 'Edinburgh Review.' The Austins, the +Opies, the Taylors, and the Aldersons were closely related to him, and +he is said to have been indebted to his gifted aunt, Sarah Austin, for +his appointment in the Privy Council. The family income was not large, +and a great part of Mr. Reeve's education took place on the Continent, +chiefly at Geneva and Munich. He went with excellent introductions, +and the years he spent abroad were abundantly fruitful. He learned +German so well that he was at one time a contributor to a German +periodical. He was one of the rare Englishmen who spoke French almost +like a Frenchman, and at a very early age he formed friendships with +several eminent French writers. His translation of the 'Democracy in +America,' by Tocqueville, which appeared in 1835, strengthened his +hold on French society. Two years later he obtained the appointment in +the Privy Council, which he held until 1887. It was in this office +that he became the colleague and fast friend of Charles Greville, who +on his death-bed entrusted him with the publication of his 'Memoirs.'</p> + +<p>Mr. Reeve had now obtained an assured income and a steady occupation, +but it was far from satisfying his desire for work. He became a +contributor, and very soon a leading contributor, to the 'Times,' +while his close and confidential intercourse with Mr. Delane gave him +a considerable voice in its management. The penny newspaper was still +unborn, and the 'Times' at this period was the undisputed monarch of +the Press, and exercised an influence over public opinion, both in +England and on the Continent, such as no existing paper can be said +to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span>possess. It is, we believe, no exaggeration to say that for the +space of fifteen years nearly every article that appeared in its +columns on foreign politics was written by Mr. Reeve, and the period +during which he wrote for it included the year 1848, when foreign +politics had the most transcendent importance.</p> + +<p>The great political influence which he at this time exercised +naturally drew him into close connection with many of the chief +statesmen of his time. With Lord Clarendon especially his friendship +was close and confidential, and he received from that statesman almost +weekly letters during his viceroyalty in Ireland and during others of +the more critical periods of his career. In France, Mr. Reeve's +connections were scarcely less numerous than in England. Guizot, +Thiers, Cousin, Tocqueville, Villemain, Circourt—in fact, nearly all +the leading figures in French literature and politics during the reign +of Louis Philippe were among his friends or correspondents. He was at +all times singularly international in his sympathies and friendships, +and he appears to have been more than once made the channel of +confidential communications between English and French statesmen.</p> + +<p>It was a task for which he was eminently suited. The qualities which +most impressed all who came into close communication with him were the +strength, swiftness, and soundness of his judgment, and his unfailing +tact and discretion in dealing with delicate questions. He was +eminently a man of the world, and had quite as much knowledge of men +as of books. Probably few men of his time have been so frequently and +so variously consulted. He always spoke with confidence and authority, +and his clear, keen-cut, decisive sentences, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span>a certain stateliness of +manner which did not so much claim as assume ascendancy, and a +somewhat elaborate formality of courtesy which was very efficacious in +repelling intruders, sometimes concealed from strangers the softer +side of his character. But those who knew him well soon learnt to +recognise the genuine kindliness of his nature, his remarkable skill +in avoiding friction, and the rare steadiness of his friendships.</p> + +<p>One great source of his influence was the just belief in his complete +independence and disinterestedness. For a very able man his ambition +was singularly moderate. As he once said, he had made it his object +throughout life only to aim at things which were well within his +power. He had very little respect for the judgment of the multitude, +and he cared nothing for notoriety and not much for dignities. A +moderate competence, congenial work, a sphere of wide and genuine +influence, a close and intimate friendship with a large proportion of +the guiding spirits of his time, were the things he really valued, and +all these he fully attained. He had great conversational powers, which +never degenerated into monologue, a singularly equable, happy, and +sanguine temperament, and a keen delight in cultivated society. These +characteristics showed conspicuously in two small and very select +dining-clubs which have included most of the distinguished English +statesmen and men of letters of the century. He became a member of the +Literary Society in 1857 and of Dr. Johnson's Club in 1861, and it is +a remarkable evidence of the appreciation of his social tact that both +bodies speedily selected him as their treasurer. He held that position +in 'The Club' from 1868 till within a year of his death, when failing +health and absence from London obliged him to relinquish it. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span>The +French Institute elected him 'Correspondant' in 1863 and Associated +Member in 1888, in which latter dignity he succeeded Sir Henry Maine. +In 1869 the University of Oxford conferred on him the honorary degree +of D.C.L.</p> + +<p>It was in 1855, on the death of Sir George Cornewall Lewis, that he +assumed the editorship of the 'Edinburgh Review' which he retained +till the day of his death. Both on the political and the literary side +he was in full harmony with its traditions. His rare and minute +knowledge of recent English and foreign political history; his vast +fund of political anecdote; his personal acquaintance with so many of +the chief actors on the political scene, both in England and France, +gave a great weight and authority to his judgments, and his mind was +essentially of the Whig cast. He was a genuine Liberal of the school +of Russell, Palmerston, Clarendon, and Cornewall Lewis. It was a sober +and tolerant Liberalism, rooted in the traditions of the past, and +deeply attached to the historical elements in the Constitution. The +dislike and distrust with which he had always viewed the progress of +democracy deepened with age, and it was his firm conviction that it +could never become the permanent basis of good government. Like most +men of his type of thought and character, he was strongly repelled by +the later career of Mr. Gladstone, and the Home Rule policy at last +severed him definitely from the bulk of the Liberal party. From this +time the present Duke of Devonshire was the leader of his party.</p> + +<p>His literary judgments had much analogy to his political ones. His +leanings were all towards the old standards of thought and style. He +had been formed in the school of Macaulay and Milman, and of the great +French writers <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span>under Louis Philippe. Sober thought, clear reasoning, +solid scholarship, a transparent, vivid, and restrained style were the +literary qualities he most appreciated. He was a great purist, +inexorably hostile to a new word. In philosophy he was a devoted +disciple of Kant, and his decided orthodoxy in religious belief +affected many of his judgments. He could not appreciate Carlyle; he +looked with much distrust on Darwinism and the philosophy of Herbert +Spencer and he had very little patience with some of the moral and +intellectual extravagances of modern literature. But, according to his +own standards and in the wide range of his own subjects, his literary +judgment was eminently sound, and he was quick and generous in +recognising rising eminence. In at least one case the first +considerable recognition of a prominent historian was an article in +the 'Edinburgh Review' from his pen.</p> + +<p>He had a strong sense of the responsibility of an editor, and +especially of the editor of a Review of unsigned articles. No article +appeared which he did not carefully consider. His powerful +individuality was deeply stamped upon the Review, and he carefully +maintained its unity and consistency of sentiments. It was one of the +chief occupations and pleasures of his closing days, and the very last +letter he dictated referred to it.</p> + +<p>Time, as might be expected, had greatly thinned the circle of his +friends. Of the France which he knew so well scarcely anything +remained, but his old friend and senior Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire +visited him at Christ Church, and he kept up to the end a warm +friendship with the Duc d'Aumale. He spent his eightieth birthday at +Chantilly, and until the very last year of his life he was never +absent when the Duke dined at 'The Club.' In <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span>Lord Derby he lost the +statesman with whom in his later years he was most closely connected +by private friendship and political sympathy, while the death of Lady +Stanley of Alderley deprived him of an attached and lifelong friend.</p> + +<p>Growing infirmities prevented him in his latter days from mixing much +in general society in London, but his life was brightened by all that +loving companionship could give; his mental powers were unfaded, and +he could still enjoy the society of younger friends. He looked forward +to the end with a perfect and a most characteristic calm, without fear +and without regret. It was the placid close of a long, dignified, and +useful life.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> Mr. Reeve died October 21, 1895.—<span class="smcap">Ed.</span></p></div> +<p> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /></p> +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span><br /></p> + +<h3><a name="HENRY_HART_MILMAN" id="HENRY_HART_MILMAN"></a>HENRY HART MILMAN, D.D., DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S.<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + + +<p>The great prominence which the High Church movement has assumed in the +ecclesiastical history of England during the second and third quarters +of the nineteenth century, and the extraordinary success with which it +has permeated the Established Church by its influence, have led some +writers to exaggerate not a little the place which it occupied in the +general intellectual development of the time. In the universities, it +is true, it long exercised an extraordinary influence, and Mr. +Gladstone, who was by far the most remarkable layman whom it +profoundly influenced, was accustomed to say that for at least a +generation almost the whole of the best intellect of Oxford was +controlled by it. It possessed in Newman a writer of most striking and +undoubted genius. In an age remarkable for brilliancy of style he was +one of the greatest masters of English prose. His power of drawing +subtle distinctions and pursuing long trains of subtle reasoning made +him one of the most skilful of controversialists, and he had a great +insight into spiritual cravings and an admirable gift of interpreting +and appealing to many forms of religious emotion. But though he was a +man of rare, delicate, and most seductive genius, we have sometimes +doubted whether any of his books are destined to take a permanent and +considerable place in English literature. He was not a great scholar, +or an original and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span>independent thinker. Dealing with questions +inseparably connected with historical evidence, he had neither the +judicial spirit nor the firm grasp of a real historian, and he had +very little skill in measuring probabilities and degrees of evidence. +He had a manifest incapacity, which was quite as much moral as +intellectual, for looking facts in the face and pursuing trains of +thought to unwelcome conclusions. He often took refuge from them in +clouds of casuistry. The scepticism which was a marked feature of his +intellect allied itself closely with credulity, for it was directed +against reason itself; and though he has expressed in admirable +language many true and beautiful thoughts, the glamour of his style +too often concealed much weakness and uncertainty of judgment and much +sophistry in argument.</p> + +<p>Many of those who co-operated with him were men of great learning and +distinguished ability. No one will question the patristic knowledge of +Pusey, the metaphysical acumen of Ward, the genuine vein of religious +poetry in Keble and Faber, the wide accomplishments and scholarly +criticism of Church. But on the whole the broad stream of English +thought has gone in other directions. In politics the Oxford movement +had brilliant representatives in Gladstone and Selborne, but the ideal +of the relations of Church and State and the ideal of education to +which the Oxford school aspired, have been absolutely discarded. The +universities have been secularised. The Irish Established Church, +which it was one of the first objects of the party to defend, has been +abolished by Gladstone himself, and although the English Established +Church retains its hold on the affections of the nation, it is +defended by its most skilful supporters on very different grounds and +by very different arguments <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span>from those which were put forward by the +Oxford divines. Among the foremost names in lay literature during the +fifty years we are considering, it is curious to observe how few were +even touched by the movement. Froude is an exception, but he speedily +repudiated it. The mediæval sympathies that were sometimes shown by +Ruskin sprang from a wholly different source. Macaulay, Carlyle, +Hallam, Grote, Mill, Buckle, Tennyson, Browning, and the great +novelists, from Dickens to George Eliot, all wrote very much as they +might have written if the movement had never existed. An unusual +proportion of the best intellect of England passed into the fields of +physical science, and the methods of reasoning and habits of thought +which they inculcated were wholly out of harmony with the school of +Newman, while both geology and Darwinism have made serious incursions +into long-cherished beliefs. Even in the Church itself, though the +High Church movement was stronger than any other, great deductions +have to be made. The school of independent Biblical criticism, which +in various degrees has come to be generally accepted, certainly owed +nothing to it, and several of the most illustrious Churchmen of this +period were wholly alien to it. Thirlwall and Merivale were +conspicuous examples, but they devoted themselves chiefly to great +works of secular history. Arnold—who was one of the strongest +personal influences of his age, and whose influence was both +perpetuated and widened by Dean Stanley—and Whately, who was one of +the most independent and original thinkers of the nineteenth century, +were strongly antagonistic. In the field of ecclesiastical history it +might have been expected that a school which was at once so scholarly +and so wedded to tradition would have been pre-eminent, but no +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span>ecclesiastical histories which England has produced can, on the whole, +be placed on as high a level as those which were written by the great +Broad Church divine whose name stands at the head of this article.</p> + +<p>Milman was, indeed, a man well deserving of commemoration on account +of the works which he produced, yet it is perhaps not too much to say +that to those among whom he lived the man seemed even greater than his +works. For many years he was a central and most popular figure in the +best English literary society, and he reckoned most of the leading +intellects of his day among his friends. He was in an extraordinary +degree many-sided, both in his knowledge and his sympathies. He was an +admirable critic, and the eminent sanity of his judgment, as well as +the eminent kindness of his nature, combined with a great charm both +of manner and of conversation. Few men of his time had more friends, +and were more admired, consulted, and loved.</p> + +<p>Mr. Arthur Milman has sketched his father's life in one short +volume,<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> written in excellent English and with uniformly good +taste. We have read it with much interest, yet in laying it down it is +impossible not to be sensible how much of the personal charm which was +so conspicuous in its subject has passed beyond recovery. More than +thirty years have gone by since the old Dean was laid in his grave, +and but few of those who knew him intimately survive. He appears to +have kept no journal. He wrote nothing autobiographical, and he had a +strong sense of the chasm that should separate private from public +life. It was wholly contrary to his unegotistical nature to make the +great <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span>public the confidant of his domestic affairs or of his inner +feelings, and he was deeply sensible of the injustice which is so +often done by biographers in printing unguarded, unqualified opinions +and judgments, expressed in the freedom of private correspondence. He +acted sternly on this view. Many of the foremost men in England were +among his correspondents, but he deliberately burnt their letters. 'I +could never bear,' we have heard him say, 'that what was written to me +by dear friends in the most unreserved and absolute confidence should, +through my fault, be one day dragged before the public.' This +reticence and this strong feeling of the sanctity of friendship and +private correspondence, which is now becoming very rare, was one of +his most characteristic traits, but it has necessarily deprived his +biography of many elements of interest.</p> + +<p>He was the youngest son of Sir Francis Milman, the well-known +physician of George III. He was born in 1791, and educated at Eton and +Oxford, where he soon distinguished himself as one of the most +brilliant of students. He won the Newdigate in 1812, the Chancellor's +prize for Latin verse in 1813, the prize for English and Latin essays +in 1816. He obtained a first class in classics, and in 1815 he was +elected a Fellow of his college. He was ordained in the following +year, and a year later Lord Eldon, who was then Chancellor of the +university, nominated him to the vicarage of St. Mary at Reading, +where he spent eighteen happy and fruitful years. Like most young and +brilliant men, he first turned to verse, and for several years he +poured out in rapid succession a number of dramas and poems which have +been collected in three substantial volumes. The tragedy of 'Fazio' +was written when he was still at <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span>Oxford, and it was speedily followed +by a long and ambitious epic poem called 'Samor, Lord of the Bright +City'; by three elaborate sacred dramas, the 'Fall of Jerusalem,' the +'Martyr of Antioch,' and 'Belshazzar'; and by an historical tragedy on +'Anne Boleyn,' as well as by a few minor poems.</p> + +<p>Some of these works had considerable popularity. 'Fazio' for many +years held its place on the stage. Byron, in one of his letters to +Rogers, speaks of its 'great and deserved success' when it was brought +out at Covent Garden. Its heroine was a favourite part of Miss O'Neil +and of Fanny Kemble. It was translated into Italian by Del Ongaro for +Ristori, who acted it with admirable power, and there was also a +French translation or adaptation in which Mademoiselle Mars took part. +The 'Fall of Jerusalem' was never intended for the stage, but it had a +great literary success. Murray, who had given only a hundred and fifty +guineas for 'Fazio,' gave five hundred for the 'Fall of Jerusalem,' +and he gave the same sum both for the 'Martyr of Antioch' and for +'Belshazzar,' which succeeded it. Neither of these, however, proved as +popular as the 'Fall of Jerusalem,' but the 'Martyr of Antioch' +contains that noble funeral ode beginning 'Brother, thou art gone +before us, and thy saintly soul is flown,' which is familiar to +numbers who are probably not aware of its authorship. It is worthy of +notice that as recently as 1880 Sir Arthur Sullivan set the 'Martyr of +Antioch' to music and brought it out at the Leeds Festival, where it +achieved an immediate and brilliant success, and was frequently +performed.<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> On the other hand, 'Samor' and 'Anne Boleyn' were +almost absolute failures, and, on the whole, the longer poems of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span>Milman have not retained their popularity, and probably now rarely +find a reader.</p> + +<p>Those who turn to them will certainly be struck by the command of +language and metre they display. It was shown both in rhyme and in +blank verse. Many fine odes are scattered through them, and in the +octo-syllabic verse Milman always appears to us peculiarly happy. But +his poetry, like most of the poetry that was written under the Byronic +influence, was rather the poetry of rhetoric than of imagination, and +it wanted both the intensity and the concentration of the great +master. Stately, sonorous, fluent, unfailingly lucid, it was too +lengthy and too artificial, and Lockhart was not wholly wrong in +pronouncing that it showed 'fine talents, but no genius,' and in +urging that prose rather than poetry was the vehicle in which its +author was destined to succeed. In addition, however, to the funeral +ode to which we have referred, Milman has written many hymns, and some +of these are of singular beauty. They appeared originally in the +collection of that other great hymn-writer, Bishop Heber, who was one +of his dearest friends, and one of the men to whose memory he looked +back with the fondest affection. The Good Friday hymn, 'Bound upon th' +accursèd tree,' the Palm Sunday hymn, 'Ride on, ride on in majesty,' +and perhaps still more that exquisitely pathetic hymn (so often +misprinted in modern hymn-books) beginning</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">When our heads are bowed with woe,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When our bitter tears o'erflow,<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="noin">have long since taken their permanent place in devotional literature.</p> + +<p>In another and very different field of poetry also he greatly +excelled. He was an admirable example of that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span>highly finished and +fastidious classical scholarship which is, or was, the pride of our +great public schools, and he took great pleasure in translations from +the classics. He translated into verse the 'Agamemnon' of Æschylus, +and the 'Bacchanals' of Euripides, and also a great number of small +and much less known poems. He held the professorship of poetry at +Oxford from 1821 to 1831, and as his lectures, according to the custom +which then prevailed, were delivered in Latin, he had the happy +thought of diversifying them by English metrical translations of the +different poems he treated. They range over a wide field of obscure +Greek poets, as well as of epitaphs, votive inscriptions, and +inscriptions relating to the fine arts, and in addition to these there +are translations from Sanscrit poetry—a branch of knowledge which was +then very little cultivated, and to which Milman was greatly +attracted. These poems the author published in 1865, but the lectures +in which they were produced he committed to the flames. They had, in +his opinion, lost their value through the subsequent publication of +the works on the history of Greek literature by Bode, Ulrici, Otfried +Müller, and Mure.</p> + +<p>In prose his pen was exceedingly active. In 1820 he began his long +connection with the 'Quarterly Review,' which continued, with +occasional intervals, through more than forty years. His articles +extended over a great variety of subjects, but most of them were +essentially reviews and essentially critical. The fact that he was +both a poet and an accomplished critic of verse caused some persons to +ascribe to him the authorship of two articles which had an unhappy +reputation—the criticism which was falsely supposed to have hastened +the death of Keats, and the attack upon the 'Alastor' of Shelley, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span>a +poet for whom Milman had a special admiration. It is now well known +that neither of these articles was by him, but it is characteristic of +his loyalty to his colleagues that he never disclaimed the authorship. +This loyalty was indeed not less conspicuous in his nature than the +singular kindness of disposition with which he ever shrank from giving +pain. After his death a few of his many essays in the 'Quarterly' were +collected in one volume. Among them there is an admirable account of +Erasmus, with whom in mental characteristics he had considerable +affinity.</p> + +<p>In 1829 appeared his first historical work, the 'History of the Jews,' +a work which excited a violent storm of theological indignation. The +crime of Milman was that he applied to Jewish history the usual canons +of historical criticism—sifting evidence, discriminating between +documents, pointing out the parallelisms between Jewish conditions and +those of other Oriental nations, and attempting to separate in the +sacred writings the parts which were essential and revealed from those +which were merely human and fallible. In a remarkable preface to a +revised and enlarged edition of this work, which was published thirty +years later, he laid down very clearly the principles that had guided +him. The Jewish writers, in his opinion, were 'men of their age and +country who, as they spoke the language, so they thought the thoughts +of their nation and their time.... They had no special knowledge on +any subject but moral and religious truth to distinguish them from +other men, and were as fallible as others on all questions of science, +and even of history, extraneous to their religious teaching.... Their +one paramount object being instruction and enlightenment in religion, +they left their hearers uninstructed and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span>unenlightened as before in +other things.... In all other respects society, civilisation, +developed itself according to its usual laws. The Hebrew in the +wilderness, excepting as far as the law modified his manners and +habits, was an Arab of the desert. Abraham, except in his worship and +intercourse with the one true God, was a nomad Sheik.... The moral and +religious truth, and this alone, I apprehend, is "the word of God" +contained in the sacred writings.'</p> + +<p>It must also, he contended, be always remembered that the Semitic +records are of an 'essentially Oriental, figurative, poetical cast,' +and that it is therefore wholly erroneous to suppose that every word +can be construed with the precision of an Act of Parliament or of a +simple modern historical narrative.</p> + +<p>His attitude towards the miraculous was carefully defined. He observed +the absolute impossibility of evading the conclusion that the Jewish +writers, whether eye-witnesses or not, implicitly believed in 'the +supernaturalism, the divine or miraculous agency almost throughout the +older history of the Jews,' and that it is 'an integral, inseparable +part of the narrative.' Sometimes it is possible 'with more or less +probability to detect the naked fact which may lie beneath the +imaginative or marvellous language in which it is recorded; but even +in these cases the solution can be hardly more than conjectural.' In +other cases 'the supernatural so entirely predominates and is so of +the intimate essence of the transaction that the facts and the +interpretation must be accepted together or rejected together.' In +such cases it is the duty of the historian simply 'to relate the facts +as recorded, to adduce his authorities, and to abstain from all +explanation for which he has no ground.'</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span>The distinction between the providential and the strictly miraculous +appears to him impossible to draw. 'Belief in Divine Providence, in +the agency of God as the Prime Mover in the Natural world as in the +mind of Man, is an inseparable part of religion. There can be no +religion without it.' But in numerous cases, to distinguish between +the simply providential and the strictly miraculous implies a +knowledge of the working of natural causes greater than we possess; +and in certain stages of civilisation, and very eminently in the +Jewish mind, there is a marked tendency to suppress secondary causes, +and to attribute not only the more extraordinary but also the common +events of life to direct divine agency. The possibility and the +reality of the miraculous he emphatically asserts.</p> + +<p>'The palmary miracle of all, the Resurrection, stands entirely by +itself. Every attempt to resolve it into a natural event, a delusion +or hallucination in the minds of the disciples, the eye-witnesses and +death-defying witnesses to its truth, or to treat it as an allegory or +figure of speech, is to me a signal failure. It must be accepted as +the keystone—for such it is—and seal to the great Christian doctrine +of a future life, as a historical fact, or rejected as a baseless +fable.'</p> + +<p>But great numbers of what were deemed miracles may be explained by +natural causes, by figurative modes of expression which were common in +Oriental nations, by the tendency of the human mind to embellish or +exaggerate surprising facts, or invent supernatural causes for what it +is unable to explain, by the retrospective imagination which seeks to +dignify the distant past with a supernatural halo. The early annals of +all nations are strewn with pretended miracles which no one will <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span>now +maintain, and Milman shows in a powerful passage how the idea of the +miraculous has been steadily contracting and receding; how dangerous +it is to base the defence of Christianity on the evidence of miracles +rather than on appeals to the conscience, the moral sense, the innate +religiousness, the deep spiritual cravings of human nature.</p> + +<p>Such views, though now sufficiently commonplace, seemed very novel in +England when Milman wrote. Dean Stanley described his work as 'the +first decisive inroad of German theology into England; the first +palpable indication that the Bible could be studied like another book; +that the characters and events of sacred history could be treated at +once critically and reverently.' But though Milman was very well +acquainted with German theology, he resented the notion that he was +its interpreter or representative. He contended that in restricting +the province of inspiration to the direct inculcation of religious +truth he was following a sound Anglican tradition. He quoted the +authority of Paley and Warburton, of Tillotson and Secker. In such +principles of interpretation he said he had found 'a safeguard during +a long and not unreflective life against the difficulties arising out +of the philosophical and historical researches of his time.' They had +enabled him 'to follow out all the marvellous discoveries of science, +and all those hardly less marvellous, if less certain, conclusions of +historical, ethnological, linguistic criticism, in the serene +confidence that they are utterly irrelevant to the truth of +Christianity.' 'If on such subjects,' he concluded, 'some solid ground +be not found on which highly educated, reflective, reading, reasoning +men may find firm footing, I can foresee nothing but a wide, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span>a +widening—I fear, an irreparable—breach between the thought and the +religion of England. A comprehensive, all-embracing, truly Catholic +Christianity which knows what is essential to religion, what is +temporary and extraneous to it, may defy the world.'</p> + +<p>These words are taken from the later preface to which we have +referred. In the same preface, and also in his 'History of +Christianity,' may be found some interesting remarks on the German +school of Biblical criticism, the greater portion of which has arisen +since the original publication of the 'History of the Jews.' In many +of its conclusions he had anticipated it, and he was quite as sensible +as the German writers of the hopelessness of seeking scientific +revelations in the Biblical narrative; of the worthlessness of most of +the common schemes for reconciling science and theology; of the +untrustworthy character of Jewish chronology and Jewish figures; of +the grave doubts that hang over the authorship and the date of some of +the books; of the necessity of making full allowance, when reading +them, for human fallibility and inaccuracy. At the same time, his +admiration for the German critics was by no means unqualified. While +fully admitting their extraordinary learning, industry, and ingenuity, +he complained that their too common infirmity was 'a passion for +making history without historical materials,' basing the most dogmatic +and positive statements upon faint indications, or upon ingenious +conjectures that could not legitimately go beyond a very low degree of +probability. The assurance with which these writers undertook by +internal evidence to decompose ancient documents, assigning each +paragraph to an independent source; the decisive weight they were +accustomed to give to slight improbabilities <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span>or coincidences, and to +small variations of style and phraseology; the confidence with which +they put forward solutions or conjectures which, however ingenious or +plausible, were based on no external evidence as if they were proved +facts, appeared to him profoundly unhistorical.</p> + +<p>It must have been somewhat irritating to one who clung so closely to +University life, and who had been justly regarded as one of the most +brilliant of Oxford scholars, to find that his own University was +prominent in the condemnation of the 'History of the Jews.' Only two +years before he had preached with general approbation the Bampton +Lectures in defence of Christianity. His new work was again and again +condemned from the University pulpits, and among others by the +Margaret Professor of Divinity and by the Hulsean lecturer for 1832. +The clamour was naturally taken up in many other quarters, and +especially by the religious newspapers. It was noticed that 'Milman's +History' appeared in the window of Carlisle, the infidel bookseller.</p> + +<p>'I only wish,' wrote Milman, when the fact was brought to his notice, +'all Carlisle's customers would read it. A noble lord once wrote to +the bishop of a certain diocese to complain that a baronet who lived +in the same parish brought his mistress to church, which sorely +shocked his regular family. The bishop gravely assured him that he was +very glad to hear that Sir —— brought his naughty lady to church, +and hoped that she would profit by what she heard there and amend her +ways. So say I of Carlisle's customers.'<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a></p> + +<p>The opinions expressed in this, as in his later works, no doubt in +some degree obstructed the promotion of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span>Milman in the Church, but he +had no reason to regret it. Of all men, he once said, he thought he +owed most to Bishop Blomfield, for there was once a question of +offering him a bishopric, and it was a remonstrance of the Bishop of +London that prevented it. 'I am <i>afraid</i>,' he said, 'that if it had +been offered me I should have accepted it, and I should then never +have written my "Latin Christianity."' But, though he escaped the fate +which has cut short the best work of more than one distinguished +historian, his conspicuous position among the scholars and writers in +the Church was widely recognised, and he was soon transferred from a +provincial town to a central position in the Metropolis. In 1835 Sir +Robert Peel made him Rector of St. Margaret's, Westminster, and +Prebendary in the Abbey. Though continuing without intermission his +historical work, he appears to have discharged with exemplary vigour +the duties of a large and poor parish until 1849, when Lord John +Russell appointed him Dean of St. Paul's. The position was exactly +suited to him. It was one of much dignity, but also of much leisure, +and it gave him ample opportunities of pursuing the studies which were +the true work of his life.</p> + +<p>The great subject of the history of Christianity was, indeed, +continually before him. Among other things, he studied minutely both +the text and the authorities of Gibbon, for whom he had a deep and +growing admiration. An excellent edition of Gibbon was one of the +first results. Milman's notes have been included in Smith's later +edition, and, though a large proportion of them were naturally +somewhat controversial, being devoted to refuting some of the +conclusions of the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters, it is impossible +to read them without <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span>recognising the candour as well as the learning +and the acumen of the critic. Few things that Milman has written are +finer than the preface in which, in ten or twelve masterly pages, he +sums up his estimate of his great predecessor.</p> + +<p>The three volumes of the 'History of Christianity,' dealing with its +early history up to the period of the abolition of Paganism in the +Roman Empire, appeared in 1840, and they were followed by the six +large volumes of the 'History of Latin Christianity,' carrying the +history of the Western Church to the end of the Pontificate of +Nicholas V. in 1455. This great work was published in two +instalments—the first three volumes in 1854, and the remaining three +in the following year—and it gave its author indisputably the first +place among the ecclesiastical historians of England and a high place +among the historians of the nineteenth century. He possessed, indeed, +in an eminent degree some of the qualities that are most rare, and at +the same time most valuable, in ecclesiastical history. A large +proportion of the most learned ecclesiastical historians have been men +who have devoted their whole lives to this single department of +knowledge, who derived from it all their measures of probability and +canons of criticism, and who, treating it as an isolated and mainly +supernatural thing, have taken very little account of the intellectual +and political secular influences that have largely shaped its course. +Most of them also have been men who undertook their task with +convictions and habits of thought that were absolutely incompatible +with real independence and impartiality of judgment in estimating +either the events or the characters they described. Milman was wholly +free from these defects. His wide knowledge, his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span>cool, critical, +admirably trained judgment, were never better shown than in the many +pages in which he has pointed out the analogies or resemblances +between Jewish and other Oriental beliefs; the manner in which +national characteristics or secular intellectual tendencies affected +theological types; the countless modifications in belief or practice +which grew up, as the Church accommodated itself to the conditions of +successive ages and entered into alliance or conflict with different +political systems; the many indirect, subtle, far-reaching ways in +which the world and the Church interacted upon each other in all the +great departments of speculation, art, industry, social and political +life. A certain aloofness and coldness of judgment in dealing with +sacred subjects was the reproach which was most frequently brought +against him. As he himself said, he wrote rather as an historian than +a religious instructor, and he dealt with his subject chiefly in its +temporal, social, and political aspects. Justice and impartiality of +judgment to friend and foe he deemed one of the first moral duties of +an historian, and Dean Church was not wrong in ascribing to him a +quite 'unusual combination of the strongest feeling about right and +wrong with the largest equity.' 'What a delightful book, so tolerant +of the intolerant!' was his characteristic eulogy of the work of +another writer, and it truly reflects the turn of his own mind. +Provost Hawtrey, who was no mean judge of men, said, after an intimacy +of nearly fifty years, that he had never known a man who possessed in +a greater degree than Milman the virtue of Christian charity in its +highest and rarest form. It was a gift which stood him in good stead +in dealing with the very blended characters, the tangled politics, the +often misguided enthusiasms of ecclesiastical history. While he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span>was +constitutionally extremely averse to the moral casuistry which +confuses the boundaries of right and wrong, he had too sound a grasp +of the evolution of history to fall into the common error of judging +the acts of one age by the moral standards of another. His history was +eminently a history of large lines and broad tendencies. The growth, +influence, and decline of the Papacy—the distinctive characteristics +of Latin and Teutonic Christianity; the effect of Christianity on +jurisprudence; the monastic system in its various phases; the rise and +conquests of Mohammedanism; the severance of Greek from Latin +Christianity; Charlemagne, Hildebrand, the Crusades, the Templars, the +Great Councils; the decay of Latin and the rise of modern languages; +the influence of the Church on literature, painting, sculpture, and +architecture—are but a few of the great subjects he has treated, +always with knowledge and intelligence, often with conspicuous +brilliancy.</p> + +<p>In so vast a field there were, no doubt, many subjects which have been +treated with a greater fulness and completeness by other writers. +There are some in which subsequent research has gone far to supersede +what Milman has written, and inaccuracies of detail not unfrequently +crept into his work; but in the truthfulness of its broad lines, in +the sagacity of its estimates both of men and events, it holds a high +place among the histories of the world. Very few historians have +combined in a larger measure the three great requisites of knowledge, +soundness of judgment, and inexorable love of truth. The growth and +modifications of doctrines and the minutiæ of religious controversies +were, however, subjects in which he took little interest, and though +they could not be excluded from an ecclesiastical history, they <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span>are +dealt with only in a slight and cursory manner. Those who desire to +study in detail this side of ecclesiastical history will find other +histories much more useful. It has been said that his work is +imperfect as a book of reference, for while the great events and +personages are discussed with a fulness that leaves little to be +desired, many of the more insignificant transactions or more obscure +periods are passed over or barely noticed. Critics of different +religious schools have also complained that his mind was essentially +secular; that he had a low sense of the certainty and the importance +of dogma; that there were some classes of ecclesiastical writers who +have been deeply revered in the Church with whom he had no real +sympathy; that the spirit of criticism was stronger in his book than +the spirit of reverence; that he did not do full justice to the +spiritual and inner side of the religion he described. He looked upon +it, they said, too externally. He valued it as a moral revolution, the +introduction of new principles of virtue and new rules for individual +and social happiness. Much of this criticism would probably have been +accepted with but little qualification by Milman himself. He would +have said that what these writers complained of was in the main +inseparable from an historical as distinguished from a devotional +treatment of his subject. He would have added that no form of human +history reveals so clearly as ecclesiastical history the fallibility, +the credulity, the intolerance of the human mind, or requires more +imperatively the constant exercise of independent judgment and of +fearless and unsparing criticism, and that, if the history of the +Church is ever to be written with profit, it must be written in such a +spirit. Of his own deeper convictions he seldom spoke; but in the +concluding page <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span>of his 'Latin Christianity' there is a passage of +profound interest. Leaving it, as he says, to the future historian of +religion to say what part of the ancient dogmatic system may be +allowed to fall silently into disuse, and what transformations the +interpretation of the Sacred Writings may still undergo, he adds these +significant words:</p> + +<p>'As it is my own confident belief that the words of Christ, and his +words alone (the primal indefeasible truths of Christianity), shall +not pass away, so I cannot presume to say that men may not attain to a +clearer, at the same time more full, comprehensive, and balanced sense +of those words, than has as yet been generally received in the +Christian world. As all else is transient and mutable, these only +eternal and universal, assuredly whatever light may be thrown on the +mental constitution of man, even on the constitution of nature and the +laws which govern the world, will be concentered so as to give a more +penetrating vision of those undying truths.... Christianity may yet +have to exercise a far wider, even if more silent and untraceable +influence, through its primary, all-pervading principles, on the +civilisation of mankind.'</p> + +<p>Macaulay, speaking of the 'History of Latin Christianity' in his +Journal, says, 'I was more impressed than ever by the contrast between +the substance and the style: the substance is excellent; the style +very much otherwise.' Looking at it from a purely literary point of +view it had undoubtedly great merits. Milman had an admirable sense of +proportion—a rare quality in history. He was invariably lucid, and it +is easy to cull from his history many characters excellently drawn, +many pages of vivid narrative, or terse and weighty criticism. Still, +on the whole his historic style is on a lower level than that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span>of +Macaulay, Buckle, and Froude, though it will compare, I think, not +unfavourably with that of Hallam and Grote. The points of controversy +are usually relegated to his notes, which contain a great mass of +curious learning and excellent criticism. The reader who turns to them +from works of the German school will be struck by his strong English +common-sense and grasp of facts, and his dislike of subtle far-fetched +ingenuities of explanation. He has the crowning merit of being always +readable, and his strong sane moral sense never left him. He was +probably at his best in the later volumes, when he could treat his +subject like secular history and was free from the embarrassing +theological difficulties of the earlier portion, and he is especially +admirable in those chapters which give scope to his wide literary and +artistic sympathies. He was an excellent Italian scholar and keenly +sensible of the beauties of Italian literature, and his love of the +ancient classics never left him. There was something at once +characteristic and amusing in the delight which he again and again +expressed, after the termination of his History, at being able to +return to them after spending so many years in reading bad Latin and +Greek. In taste and character he was indeed pre-eminently a man of +letters, and as such he ranks in the first line among his +contemporaries.</p> + +<p>The outburst of indignation that in some quarters had greeted the +first appearance of the 'History of the Jews' was not repeated when +that work was republished in an enlarged form. Nor does it appear to +have arisen on the appearance of the two later histories. Newman +reviewed the 'History of Early Christianity' at great length, speaking +with much personal respect of the writer, though he was naturally +extremely hostile to its spirit. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span>The difference between the High +Church sentiment and the mind of Milman was indeed organic. Milman's +own type of thought was formed before the Tractarian movement had +begun; the sacerdotal spirit was thoroughly alien to him, and his +profound study of ecclesiastical history had certainly not tended to +attract him to it. He fully recognised both the abilities and the +piety of Newman, and he described his secession as perhaps the +greatest loss the Church of England had experienced since the +Reformation; but he disliked his opinions, he profoundly distrusted +the whole character of his mind and reasonings, and he early foresaw +that he could never find a permanent resting-place in the English +Church. In the posthumous volume of Essays there will be found a full +and most searching examination of Newman's 'Essay on Development,' in +which these points of difference are clearly shown. For Keble, Milman +entertained warmer feelings. They were contemporaries, and at one time +most intimate friends. In the field of sacred poetry they had been +fellow-labourers. Keble had succeeded Milman as professor of poetry, +and Milman had been one of the few persons who had read the 'Christian +Year' in manuscript. When, after Keble's death, a committee was +appointed to erect a memorial to his memory, Milman was much hurt at +finding that it was determined to give it a distinctly Tractarian +character, and that his own name was deliberately excluded. In +Milman's last years the Oxford movement had begun to assume its +ritualistic form, and questions of vestments and ceremonies and +candles came to the forefront. With all this Milman had no sympathy. +'After the drama,' he said of it, 'the melodrama!'</p> + +<p>It was a remarkable coincidence that for some years <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span>the two deaneries +of London were both held by brilliant men of letters and by men with +the strongest theological sympathy. A feeling of warm personal +affection united Milman and Stanley, and there was something +peculiarly touching in the almost filial attitude which Stanley +assumed towards his older colleague. In one point, however, they +differed greatly. Stanley was a keen fighter. He threw himself into +the forefront of ecclesiastical controversies, and was never seen to +greater advantage than when leading a small minority, defying +inveterate prejudice, defending an unpopular cause. Milman could +seldom be tempted to follow his example. He pleaded old age and +declining strength, but, in truth, though he never flinched from the +avowal of his own opinions, he had a deep and increasing distaste for +religious controversies and Church politics. He was rarely seen in +Convocation, and he always regarded its revival as a misfortune. He +proposed, however, in it a petition for the discontinuance of the use +of the State services commemorating the martyrdom of Charles I., the +restoration of Charles II., the discovery of the gunpowder plot, and +the Revolution of 1688; and Parliament soon after adopted his view. He +also sat on the Royal Commission in 1864 for considering the subject +of clerical subscription. He took on this occasion a characteristic +line, advocating a complete abolition of the subscription of the +Articles, and desiring that the sole test of membership of the Church +should be the acceptance of the Liturgy and the Creeds. In 1865 he +received an invitation, which greatly gratified him, to preach before +the University of Oxford the annual sermon on Hebrew prophecy. The +sermon was delivered in the pulpit of St. Mary's, where many years +before he had been so vehemently condemned for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span>views on the same +subject, no one of which, as he truly said, he had either recanted or +modified. His sermon was afterwards printed, and would form a worthy +chapter of his 'History of the Jews.' In the Colenso controversy he +had no great sympathy with either side. Many of Bishop Colenso's +arguments appeared to him crude or exaggerated, and he dissented from +many of his conclusions, but he considered that he had been treated +with gross injustice and intolerance, and he accordingly subscribed to +his defence fund. For the rest, he confined his ecclesiastical life as +much as possible to his own cathedral, where he presided over the +State funeral of the Duke of Wellington, and where he introduced the +custom of throwing open the nave to evening services. His last and +unfinished work was his 'Annals of St. Paul's,' investigating its +history and portraying with his old learning and with much of his old +felicity the lives of his predecessors.</p> + +<p>It was however in secular literary society that he was most fitted to +shine, and there he passed many of his happiest hours. The usual +honours of a distinguished man of letters clustered thickly around +him. He was a trustee of the British Museum; an honorary member of the +Royal Academy; a correspondent of the French Institute. He was also a +member of 'The Club'—the small dining-club which was founded in 1764 +by Sir Joshua Reynolds and Dr. Johnson, and which since then has +included in its fortnightly dinners the great majority of those +Englishmen who in many walks of life have been most distinguished by +their genius or their accomplishments. He was elected to it in 1836, +three years before Macaulay, and he became one of its most constant +attendants. In 1841 'The Club' made him its <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span>treasurer, and he held +that position for twenty-three years, and presided over the centenary +dinner in 1864. He was also an original member of the Philobiblion +Society, which has brought together many curious and hitherto unknown +documents, and he wrote for it a short paper on Michael Scott the +Wizard, who, as he showed, had been once offered the Archbishopric of +Cashel. He was never a keen politician, but he was intimate with a +long succession of leading statesmen, and he contributed to Sir +Cornewall Lewis's 'Administrations of Great Britain' a full and +valuable letter on the relations of Pitt and Addington, which was +largely based on his own recollections of the latter statesman.</p> + +<p>London society in the middle of the nineteenth century was much +smaller and less mixed than at present, and there was then a +distinctively literary or at least intellectual society which can now +hardly be said to exist. The most eminent men of letters came more +frequently together. Criticism was in fewer and perhaps stronger +hands, and was to a larger extent representative of the opinions +expressed in such social gatherings. In this kind of society Milman +was long a foremost figure. He had all the gifts that fit men for +it—not only brilliancy, knowledge, and versatility, but also +unfailing tact, a rare charm of courtesy, a singularly wide tolerance. +He was quick and generous in recognising rising talent, and he had +that sympathetic touch which seldom failed to elicit what was best in +those with whom he came in contact. Few men possessed more eminently +the genius of friendship—the power of attaching others—the power of +attaching himself to others. In the long list of his intimate friends +Macaulay, Sir Charles Lyell, and Sir George Cornewall Lewis were +conspicuous. Like most <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span>men of this type, he found the multiplying +gaps around him the chief trial of old age. Not long before he died +there was an exhibition of contemporary portraits, but though Milman +went to it he could not go through it. 'When I found myself,' he said, +'surrounded by the likenesses—often the miserable likenesses—of so +many I had known and loved, it was more than I could bear.'</p> + +<p>An admirable portrait by Watts which is now in the National Portrait +Gallery will recall to those who knew him his appearance in old +age—his strong masculine features beaming with intelligence, his +grand shaggy brows, his bright and penetrating eyes. An illness +affecting the spine had bowed him nearly double, and there are still +those who will remember how his bent figure seemed projected, almost +like a bird in its flight, across the dinner-table, while his eager +brilliant talk delighted and fascinated his hearers. In his last years +increasing deafness obliged him to narrow the circle of his social +life, but he retained to the end all the vividness of his mind and +sympathies, and when at length death came in his seventy-eighth year, +it found him in the midst of unfinished work. His life was not of a +kind to win wide popularity and to give him a conspicuous place among +the great masses of his nation, but few English clergymen of his +generation made so deep an impression on those who came in contact +with them or have left works of such enduring value behind them.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> <i>Henry Hart Milman, D.D., Dean of St. Paul's.</i> A +Biographical Sketch by his son, Arthur Milman, M.A., LL.D.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> Laurence's <i>Life of Sir A. Sullivan</i>, p. 310.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> Smiles' <i>Memoirs of John Murray</i>, ii. p. 300.</p></div> +<p> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /></p> +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span><br /></p> + +<h3><a name="QUEEN_VICTORIA" id="QUEEN_VICTORIA"></a>QUEEN VICTORIA AS A MORAL FORCE<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + + +<p>At a time when the unprecedented increase of gigantic and rapidly +acquired fortunes has deeply infected both English and American +society with the characteristic vices of a Plutocracy, the profound +feeling of sorrow and admiration elicited by the death of Queen +Victoria is an encouraging sign. It shows that the vulgar ideals, the +false moral measurements, the feverish social ambitions, the love of +the ostentatious and the factitious, and the disdain for simple +habits, pleasures, and characters so apparent in certain conspicuous +sections of society, have not yet blunted the moral sense or perverted +the moral perceptions of the great masses on either side of the +Atlantic. To this type, indeed, we could scarcely find a more complete +antithesis than in the life and character of the great Queen who has +passed away. Nothing more deeply impressed all who came in contact +with her than the essential simplicity and genuineness of her nature.</p> + +<p>She was a great ruler, but she was also to the last a true, kindly, +simple-minded woman, retaining with undiminished intensity all the +warmth of a most affectionate nature, all the soundness of a most +excellent judgment. Brought up from childhood in the artificial +atmosphere of a Court, called while still a girl to the isolation of a +throne; deprived, when her reign had yet forty years to run, of the +support and counsel of her <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span>husband, she might well have been pardoned +if she often found herself out of touch with large sections of her +people, and had viewed life through a false medium or in partial +aspects. Yet Lord Salisbury probably in no degree exaggerated when he +said that if he wished to ascertain the feelings and opinions of the +English people, and especially of the English middle classes, he knew +no truer or more enlightening judgment than that of the Queen. She +thought with them and she felt with them; she shared their ambitions; +she knew by a kind of intuitive instinct the course of their +judgments; she sympathised deeply with their trials and their sorrows.</p> + +<p>She could hardly be called a brilliant woman. It is difficult indeed +to judge the full social capacities of anyone who lives under the +constant restraints of a royal position, but I do not think that in +any sphere of life the Queen would have been regarded as a woman of +striking wit, or originality, or even commanding power. The qualities +that made her so successful in her high calling were of another kind: +supreme good sense; a tact in dealing with men and circumstances so +unfailing that it almost amounted to genius; an indefatigable industry +which never flagged from early youth till extreme old age; a sense of +duty so steady and so strong that it governed all her actions and +pleasures, and saved her not only from the grosser and more common +temptations of an exalted position, but also in a most unusual degree +from the subtle and often half-concealed deflecting influences that +spring from ambition or resentment, from personal predilections and +personal dislikes. It was these qualities, combined with her +unrivalled experience of affairs, and strengthened by long and +constant intercourse <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span>with the foremost English statesmen of two +generations, that made her what she undoubtedly was—a perfect model +of a constitutional Sovereign.</p> + +<p>The position of a Sovereign under a parliamentary government like ours +is a singular and difficult one. There was a school of politicians who +were much more prominent in the last generation than in the present +one, who regarded the Sovereign, in political life at least, as little +more than a figure-head or a cipher, absolved from all responsibility, +but also divested of all power, and fulfilling functions in the +Constitution which are little more than mechanical. This view of the +unimportance of the Monarchy will now be held by few really +intelligent men. Those take but a false and narrow view of human +affairs who fail to realise the part which sentiment and enthusiasm +play in the government of men; and no one who knows England will +question that the throne is the centre of a great strength of personal +attachment which is wholly different from any attachment to a party or +a parliament.</p> + +<p>In India and the Colonies this is still more the case. It is not the +British Parliament or the British Cabinet that there forms the centre +of unity or excites genuine attachment. The Crown is the main link +binding the different States to one another, and the pervading +sentiment of a common loyalty unites them in one great and living +whole. In foreign politics it cannot be a matter of indifference that +a Sovereign is closely related to nearly all the greatest rulers in +the world, and in frequent, intimate, unconstrained correspondence +with them. This is a kind of influence which no Minister, however +powerful, can exercise, and it was possessed by Queen Victoria +probably to a greater degree than by any <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span>Sovereign on record, for +there has scarcely ever been one who included among her relations so +many of the Sovereigns of the world. Future historians will no doubt +have ample means of judging how frequently and how judiciously it was +employed in assuaging differences and promoting European peace. All +the great offices in Church and State, all the great distributions of +honours were submitted to her; and though in a large number of cases +this patronage is purely Ministerial or professional, there are many +cases in which the Sovereign had a real voice, and a strong objection +on her part was usually attended to. In Church patronage and in the +distribution of honours she is known to have taken a great interest, +and to have exercised a considerable influence.</p> + +<p>The one subject on which the Queen was not always in harmony with her +people was that of foreign politics. She and the Prince Consort took a +keen interest in them, and during his lifetime she followed very +implicitly his guidance. The strong German sympathies she imbued from +her own marriage were much intensified by the marriages of her +children, and especially by that of her eldest daughter to the heir of +the Prussian throne. The influence also of Stockmar, who was the +closest adviser of her early married life, was not wholly for good, +and the theory which the Prince held that the direction of foreign +affairs is in a peculiar degree under the care of the Sovereign, and +that the Prince, her husband, should be regarded as 'her permanent +Minister,' created during many years much friction. In a +constitutional country, where the responsibility of affairs rests +wholly on the Minister, who is doubly responsible to the Cabinet and +to the Parliament, such a theory can only be maintained with great +qualifications.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span>On the other hand, the government of the country was carried on in the +name of the Queen. Foreign despatches were addressed to her and could +only be answered with her sanction. The right of the English +Sovereigns to be present at the Cabinet Councils of their Ministers +was abdicated when George I. came to the throne, but every important +departure in policy was submitted to the Queen and required her +assent. The testimony of Ministers of all shades of policy supports +the belief that this was no idle form. The Queen, though always open +to argument and tolerant of contradiction, had her own decided +opinions; she exercised her undoubted right of expressing and +defending them, and even apart from her royal position, her great +experience and her singular clearness and rectitude of judgment made +her opinion well worth listening to.</p> + +<p>The claim put forward by the Queen in her famous memorandum of August +1850, can, I think, hardly be pronounced excessive. She demanded only +that before a line of policy was adopted and brought before her she +should be distinctly informed of the facts of the case and of the +motives that inspired it; that when she had given her sanction to a +measure it should not be arbitrarily altered or modified by the +Minister; that she must be kept acquainted with all important +communications between foreign Ministers and her own Foreign +Secretary, and that the drafts of foreign despatches must be sent to +her for her approval in sufficient time for her to make herself +acquainted with them. She complained that Lord Palmerston was +accustomed to send despatches to the Continent without submitting +them, in their last revise, to the Sovereign; that in one case he +retained without her knowledge a passage which the Prince Consort <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span>had +deleted; that he paid little or no attention to the numerous memoranda +which were drawn up by the Prince for his instruction; that he of his +own will and without any consultation committed his Government, in a +conversation with the French Ambassador, to an approbation of the +<i>coup d'état</i> of Napoleon III. If the general line of his policy had +been in accordance with the royal wishes, indiscretions of detail +could probably have been overlooked, but the Queen and Prince were +both undoubtedly on many occasions—and especially in 1848 and +1849—strongly opposed to the policy of Lord Palmerston. In the +interests of peace they objected to the remarkably provocative +character of his despatches, which excited a degree of animosity and +resentment among the Governments of the Continent that has rarely been +paralleled—on two, if not three, occasions it brought England into +grave danger of a war with France—and which aroused a very widespread +indignation among statesmen of his own party at home.</p> + +<p>The widely different tone which was adopted by Lord Clarendon and Lord +Granville, the open breach between Palmerston and Lord John Russell on +account of the way in which the former conducted his foreign policy +without consultation with the Cabinet, and the refusal of Lord Grey, +in a most critical moment, to take office in a Government in which +Lord Palmerston held the seals of the Foreign Office, show how fully +in this respect the sentiments of the Queen accorded with those of +many of Lord Palmerston's own colleagues. But in addition to mere +questions of manner and procedure, there was much in the substance of +the policy of Palmerston to which the Queen objected. Her dislike to +the Revolutionary element on the Continent, which Lord Palmerston +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span>either encouraged or viewed with indifference, her sympathy with the +old governments and dynasties, that were so gravely shaken in the year +of the Revolution, were very marked. In the disputes between Germany +and Denmark on the Schleswig-Holstein question her sympathies, unlike +those of her people, were decidedly with Germany, and although she was +fully sensible of the misgovernment of some of the Italian States, she +was not favourable to that cause of Italian unity which Lord John +Russell and Lord Palmerston so strenuously upheld. Her nature, which +was very frank, made it impossible for her, even if she desired it, to +conceal her opinions, and she devoted much time and pains to making +herself acquainted with the details of every question as it arose. She +made it a rule to sign no paper that she had not read. She did not +hesitate fully to apprise her Ministers of her views when they +differed from their own, and she enforced her views by argument and +remonstrance. She more than once drew up memoranda of her dissent from +the opinions of her Foreign Minister, and insisted on their being +brought before the Cabinet for consideration. In the formation of a +new Ministry she more than once exercised her power of deciding to +whom the succession of the first places should be offered. After an +adverse vote of the House of Commons, she considered herself fully +authorised to decide whether she would accept the resignation of a +Minister or submit the issue to the test of a dissolution, and there +were occasions on which she remonstrated with her Ministers on their +too ready determination to resign.</p> + +<p>At the same time it is certain that the Queen fulfilled with +perfection that most difficult duty of an able constitutional +Sovereign—the duty of yielding her convictions <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span>to those of her +responsible Ministers and acting faithfully with Ministers she +distrusted. To a Sovereign with clear views and a more than common +force of character this must often have been very painful, and to have +fulfilled it faithfully and with no loss of dignity is no small merit. +It is the universal testimony of all who served her, that no Sovereign +ever supported her successive Ministers with a more perfect loyalty or +held the scales between contending parties with a more complete +impartiality. No one understood better to what point a constitutional +Sovereign may press her opinions and at what point she is bound to +give way; and while maintaining her rightful authority she never in +any degree transgressed its bounds. In the very beginning of her reign +she showed this quality in a high degree. She looked up to Lord +Melbourne with an almost filial affection, and there were peculiar +reasons why his great opponent, Sir Robert Peel, should have been +distasteful to her. The dispute about the removal of her Ladies of the +Bedchamber, and still more the conduct of Sir Robert Peel in +supporting the reduction of the income which the Whigs had proposed +for Prince Albert, must have touched her feelings on the most +sensitive points, and the stiff, formal, somewhat awkward manner of +Peel seemed very little fitted to ingratiate him with a young +Sovereign. Yet when the change of Ministry arrived, Peel found no +trace of resentment in the Queen. She gave him her complete +confidence, and she fully estimated his great qualities. Of all the +Ministers who served her there is indeed none of whom she has written +in warmer terms. When Lord Palmerston became Prime Minister in 1855 it +was contrary to her earnest desire, but when the change was made +Palmerston himself acknowledged that he had 'no reason to complain of +the least want of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span>cordiality or confidence on the part of the Court.' +At the time when she was most opposed to her Ministers, she fully +acquiesced in the principle that she must submit all letters on public +affairs to them and frame her replies upon their advice. There were +constant attempts on the part of foreign Sovereigns who were connected +with her to carry on affairs by correspondence with her without the +knowledge and sanction of her Ministers, but the Queen steadily +resisted them. Anything, indeed, that in any way savoured of intrigue +was in the highest degree repugnant to her nature.</p> + +<p>She acted in the same way in internal affairs. Few measures that were +carried in her time were more repugnant to her than Gladstone's +disestablishment of the Irish Church. It abolished an institution of +which she was herself the head and which a special clause in the +Coronation Oath required her to uphold, and she foretold, not without +good reason, that it would not pacify Ireland but would be an +encouragement to further agitation. The question, however, had been +submitted at a general election to the decision of the country, and +after that decision had been unequivocally given in favour of the +policy of Gladstone, she frankly accepted it with the assent of the +Prime Minister. When a great danger of a conflict between the two +Houses of Parliament had arisen, she devoted herself actively in +preventing it. She employed for that service the instrumentality of +Archbishop Tait—a great statesman-prelate, whose promotion to the see +of Canterbury was due to her own personal initiative, contrary to the +wish of Lord Beaconsfield, but most fully justified by the result—and +it was largely due to the intervention of the Queen that the Church +Bill was not thrown out in the House of Lords. She acted in a +somewhat <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span>similar way with reference to the Franchise Bill of 1884, +though on this occasion she does not seem to have disliked the +measure, which she urged the House of Lords to accept.</p> + +<p>On three very memorable occasions the intervention of the Queen had +probably a great effect on English politics. It is well known that at +the time when the issue of peace or war with the United States was +trembling in the balance on account of the seizure of the Southern +envoys on the 'Trent,' the Queen, acting in accordance with the Prince +Consort, by softening and revising the language of an English despatch +to America, did very much to prevent the dispute from leading to a +great war; that in the proclamation which was issued to the Indian +people after the Sepoy Mutiny, she insisted on the excision of some +most unfortunate words that seemed to menace the native creeds, and on +the insertion of an emphatic promise that they should in no wise be +interfered with, and thus probably prevented a new outburst of most +dangerous fanaticism; that at the time of the Schleswig-Holstein +dispute she contributed powerfully and actively to give a turn to the +negotiations that averted a war with Prussia and Austria, which, as is +now almost universally recognised, could only have led to a great +catastrophe.</p> + +<p>Whatever opinions may be formed of the merits of the dispute between +Denmark and the German powers about Schleswig-Holstein, few persons +who judge by the event can doubt that an isolated intervention of +England on behalf of Denmark against the combined forces of Austria +and Prussia would have been absolutely impotent to effect the object +that was desired, and that even if France had consented to join in the +struggle it would <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span>have led to a military disaster hardly less than +that of the war of Sedan. If, contrary to all probability, the +combined forces of France and England had proved stronger than those +of Austria and Germany, the result could have hardly failed to be that +France would have been established on the left bank of the Rhine, and +that the treaty of Vienna, which it was one of the great objects of +English policy to maintain, would have been torn into shreds.</p> + +<p>The dangers, however, of conflict arising from the extreme +irritability of English public opinion against Germany on the Danish +question, were very great, and there can be little doubt that the +personal influence of the Queen with the German Sovereign was an +appreciable influence, and it was her desire that a paragraph in the +Queen's Speech opening Parliament in February 1864 was erased. Words +which contained at least a veiled or attributed threat to Germany were +omitted, and instead of them an inoffensive paragraph was inserted +expressing the Queen's ardent desire for peace and recording the +earnest efforts she had made to maintain it.<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> At the same time +when, by the Convention of Gastein in August 1865, the Duchies were +severed from the Danish throne and placed in the virtual possession of +Prussia and Austria, the protest of Lord Russell against so flagrant a +violation of public right, and especially of the right of the people +to be consulted on their own destiny, was drawn up with her full +assent and indeed in a great measure at her suggestion.<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a></p> + +<p>On other occasions her remonstrances were disregarded, and courses +were pursued to which she strongly objected. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span>The surrender after +Majuba was in her opinion a pusillanimous abandonment of the English +flag, and it was with extreme reluctance that she acquiesced in it. +Still more vehement were her feelings about the long abandonment of +General Gordon in the Soudan. She had been indefatigable in urging on +the Ministry of Gladstone the duty of speedy measures for his rescue, +and when, owing to the long delay of the Ministry, the most heroic of +modern Englishmen perished at Khartoum, her indignation knew no +bounds. In a letter to his sisters, burning with mingled pity and +indignation, she pronounced his 'cruel though heroic fate' to be 'a +stain left upon England,' which she keenly felt. This was one of the +few occasions in which she allowed her sentiments in hostility to the +policy of her Ministers to appear publicly before the world. In +general, she had a profound distrust of the policy and judgment of Mr. +Gladstone, and she fully shared the dread with which the great body of +English statesmen looked upon the Home Rule policy. It was no new +sentiment on her part, for she had lived through the Repeal agitation +of O'Connell, and as far back as 1843 Sir Robert Peel had somewhat +unconstitutionally declared in Parliament that he was authorised by +the Queen to state that she, like her predecessor, was resolved to +maintain the Union inviolate by all the means in her power.</p> + +<p>There can now be no harm in saying—what when both parties were alive +was naturally kept in the background—that the relations of the Queen +with Mr. Gladstone were usually of a very painful character. She had +personally not much to complain of. The skill and firmness with which +Mr. Gladstone resisted the attempts to diminish the parliamentary +subsidies for her family were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span>fully and gratefully recognised by the +Queen, but the main course of his politics, both foreign and domestic, +filled her with alarm, and she never appears to have experienced the +attraction which his great personal gifts exercised over most of those +with whom he came in immediate contact. The extreme copiousness of his +vocabulary, the extreme subtlety of his mind and reasoning, and the +imperiousness of temper with which he seldom failed to meet +opposition, were all repugnant to her. To those who have experienced +the sustained emphasis of language with which Mr. Gladstone was +accustomed in conversation to enforce his views, there is much truth +as well as humour in the saying which was attributed to the Queen, 'I +wish Mr. Gladstone would not always speak to me as if I was a public +meeting'; and a little episode which is related by Sir Theodore Martin +illustrates the irritation which Mr. Gladstone's methods of business +must have caused to a very busy and overworked lady who always loved +few words and simple and direct arguments.<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> At all times the Queen +had decided political opinions, and the experience of a long reign had +given her a large measure of not unjustifiable self-confidence. Few +persons had studied as she had during all those years the various +political questions that arose, and she had had the advantage of +discussing them at length with a long succession of the leading +statesmen of England. Under such circumstances her opinions had no +small weight, and although in the Liberal Government she gave her full +confidence to Lord Clarendon and Lord Granville, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span>she looked with the +gravest apprehension on the policy of Mr. Gladstone.</p> + +<p>It was a painful and irksome position, but it did not lead the Queen +to any unconstitutional course. No public act or word ever disclosed +her feelings. It was indeed in most cases very slowly, and in small +circles and through private channels, that the convictions of the +Queen became known.</p> + +<p>At the close of the second Ministry of Mr. Gladstone she at once +offered him an earldom, which he refused, and on his death she fully +acquiesced in the public funeral in Westminster Abbey, and the Prince +of Wales attended it as her representative. In an autograph letter to +Mrs. Gladstone she spoke with the deep and genuine warmth that was +never wanting in her letters of condolence of her sympathy with the +bereavement of that lady. She spoke of his illustrious gifts and of +his personal kindness to herself, but it was noticed that no sentence +in the letter intimated any approbation of his general policy. 'Truth +in the inmost parts' was indeed a prominent characteristic of the +Queen, and she wrote nothing which was not in accordance with her true +convictions.</p> + +<p>There were occasions when she took independent steps, and some of +these had a considerable influence on politics. Louis Napoleon was one +of the few great Sovereigns who were not related to her, and to few +persons could the <i>coup d'état</i> which brought him to the throne have +been more repugnant, but the cordial personal relations she +established with him undoubtedly contributed considerably to the good +relations which for many years subsisted between England and France. +Bismarck detested English Court influence and was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span>greatly prejudiced +against her, but he has left a striking testimony to the favourable +impression which her tact and good sense made upon him when he first +came into contact with her. She possessed to a high degree the power +of choosing the right moment and striking the true chord, and she +appears to have been an excellent judge not only of the feelings of +large bodies of men, but also of the individual characters of those +with whom she dealt. She had a style of writing which was eminently +characteristic and eminently feminine, and it is easy to trace the +letters which were entirely her own. Her letters of congratulation, or +sympathy, or encouragement on public occasions scarcely ever failed in +their effect and never contained an injudicious word. The same thing +may be said of her many beautiful letters to those who were suffering +from some grievous calamity. Whether she was writing to a great public +character like the widow of an American President, or expressing her +sorrow for obscure sufferers, there was the same note of true womanly +sympathy, so manifestly spontaneous and so manifestly heartfelt, that +it found its way to the hearts of thousands. The tact for which she +was so justly celebrated, like all true tact, sprang largely from +character, from the quick and lively sympathies of an eminently +affectionate nature. No one could have been less theatrical, or less +likely in any unworthy way to seek for popularity; but she knew +admirably the occasions or the methods by which she could strike the +imagination and appeal most favourably to the feelings of her people. +She showed this in the very beginning of her reign when she insisted, +in defiance of the opinion of the Duke of Wellington, on riding +herself through the ranks of her troops at her first review. She +showed it on countless other occasions of her long +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span>reign—pre-eminently in her two Jubilees and in her last visit to +Ireland. It is well known that this visit was entirely her own idea. +To many it seemed rash or even positively dangerous. They dwelt upon +the bitter disaffection of a great portion of the Irish people, upon +the danger of mob outrage or even assassination, upon the extreme +difficulty of preventing a royal visit to Ireland from taking a party +character and being regarded as a party triumph or defeat. But the +Queen, as Sir William Harcourt once truly said, 'never feared her +people,' and nothing could be more happy than the manner in which she +availed herself of the new turn given to Irish feeling by the splendid +achievements of Irish soldiers in South Africa, to come over, as if to +thank her Irish people in person, and at the same time to repair in +extreme old age a neglect for which she had been often, and not +altogether unjustly, blamed. There never indeed was a more brilliant +and unqualified success. To those who witnessed the spontaneous and +passionate enthusiasm with which she was everywhere greeted, it seemed +as if all bitter feeling vanished at her presence; and the Irish +visit, which was one of the last, was also one of the brightest pages +of her reign. The credit of its most skilful arrangements belongs +chiefly to the officials in Dublin, but the Irish people will long +remember the patient courage with which the aged Queen went through +its fatigues; the tactful kindness and the gracious dignity with which +she won the hearts of multitudes who had never before seen her or +spoken to her; the evident enjoyment with which she responded to the +cordiality of her reception. One feature of that visit was especially +characteristic. It was the Children's Review in Phœnix Park, where, +by the desire of the Queen, 'some <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span>fifty thousand children were +brought together to meet her. No act of kindness could have gone more +directly home to the hearts of the parents, and it left a memory in +many young minds that will never be effaced.</p> + +<p>It is rather, however, by the example of a life than by any public +acts that a constitutional Sovereign can impress her personality on +the affections of her people. Of the reign of Queen Victoria it may be +truly said that very few in English history have been so blameless as +this, which was the longest of all. Her Court was a model of quiet +dignity and decorum, singularly free from all the atmosphere of +intrigue and from all suspicion of injudicious or unworthy +favouritism. She managed it as she managed her family, with a happy +mixture of tact and affection; and though she gave her confidence to +many she gave it to such persons and in such a way that it seemed +never to be abused. No domestic life could in all its relations have +been more perfect, and her love of children amounted to a passion. +Among the great female rulers it would be difficult to find one less +like Queen Victoria than the Empress Catherine of Russia, but they had +this common trait of an intense love of children and a great power of +winning their affection. There is a charming letter of Catherine to +Grimm, describing her life among her grandchildren, which might almost +have been written by the English Queen. Her vast family, spread +through many countries, was her abiding interest and delight, and +although she had to pay in full measure the natural penalty of many +bereavements, she at least never knew the dreary loneliness that +clouded the last days of her great predecessor, Elizabeth.</p> + +<p>In the early years of her reign she fully filled her place as the +leader of English society. In the plays she <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span>patronised, in the art +she preferred, in the restrictions of her Drawing Rooms, in the +fashions she countenanced, in the intimacies she selected or +encouraged, her influence was always healthy and pure, and for some +years it powerfully affected the tone of English society. +Unfortunately, after the great calamity of her widowhood the nerves of +the Queen seem to have been shaken, and though she never intermitted +her political duties and spent daily many hours over her +correspondence, she allowed her social duties to fall too much and too +long into abeyance. She still, it is true, occasionally appeared in +public ceremonies. She laid the first stones of several hospitals and +infirmaries. She presided over the inauguration of several great +industrial enterprises. She sometimes opened Parliament in person, and +was sometimes present at military and naval reviews. But she scarcely +ever appeared in London, except for a few days. She never appeared in +a London theatre. She shrank from great crowds and large social +gatherings, and buried herself too much in her Highland home. This is +one of the few real reproaches that history is likely to bring against +her. Her influence on English society was never wholly lost, and it +was always an influence for good, but for many years it was exerted +less frequently and less powerfully than it should have been, and the +tone of large sections of society lost something by her retirement.</p> + +<p>It may be doubted, however, whether this long retirement really +injured her in the minds of her people. Her rare occasional +appearances had a greater weight, and the depth of feeling exhibited +by her long widowhood became a new title to respect. The transparent +simplicity and unselfishness of her character were now generally +appreciated, and her own books contributed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span>greatly to make her people +understand her. It is in general far from a wise thing for royal +personages to descend into the arena of literature unless they possess +some special aptitude for it. They expose themselves to a kind of +criticism wholly different from that which follows them in their +public lives—a criticism more minute and often more deliberately +malevolent than that to which an ordinary writer is subject. The Queen +wrote pure and excellent English and she had a good literary taste, +but she certainly could never have become a great writer; and the +complete frankness and unreserve of her Journals, as well as their +curious homeliness of thought and feeling, were not viewed with favour +in some sections of the fashionable and of the literary world. There +were circles in which the word 'bourgeois,' and there were others in +which the word 'commonplace,' was often pronounced. Yet in this, as on +nearly all occasions when the Queen acted on her own impulse, she +acted wisely. Her books had at once an enormous circulation, and there +can be no doubt that they contributed very widely to her popularity. +Multitudes to whom she had before been little more than a name, now +realised that she was one with whom they had very much in common. Her +evident longing for sympathy produced an immediate response. Her deep +domestic affection, her constant interest in her servants, her high +spirits, her love of scenery, her love of animals, her power of taking +delight in little things, appeared vividly in her pages and came home +to the largest classes of her people.</p> + +<p>In some respects the Queen was an eminently democratic Sovereign. +While maintaining the dignity of her position, rank and wealth were in +her eyes always subordinate to the great realities of life and to +true <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span>human affections. In no one was the touch of Nature that makes +the whole world kin more constantly visible. She was never more in her +place than in visiting some poor tenant on the morrow of a great +bereavement, or uttering words of comfort by the sick bed of some +humble dependant. Men of all ranks who came in contact with her were +struck with her thoughtful kindness, and her royal gift of an +excellent memory never showed itself more frequently than in the +manner in which she remembered and inquired after the fortunes and +happiness of obscure persons related to those with whom she spoke.</p> + +<p>Her religious opinions were brought very little before the public. +Beyond a deep sense of Providential guidance and of the comforting +power of religion, little is to be gathered from her published +utterances; but she seemed equally at home in the Scotch Presbyterian +and the Anglican Episcopal Church, and her marked admiration for such +men as Dean Stanley and Norman Macleod, and for the preaching of +Principal Caird, gives some clue to the bias of her opinions. Her mind +was not speculative but eminently practical, and while she patronised +good works of the most various kinds, there is reason to believe that +those which most appealed to her personal feelings were those which +directly contributed to alleviate the sufferings, or promote the +material welfare, of the poor. She devoted the greater part of her +Jubilee present to institutions for providing nurses for the sick +poor, and this is said to have been one of the charities in which she +took the warmest and most constant interest.</p> + +<p>She is said not to have had any sympathy with the movement for the +extension of political power to women, which became so conspicuous in +her reign; but her own <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span>success in filling for sixty-three years the +highest political position in the nation will always be quoted in its +support. Considering, indeed, how comparatively small has been the +number of reigning female Sovereigns, it is remarkable how many in +modern times have shown themselves pre-eminently capable. Isabella of +Spain, Catherine of Russia, Maria Theresa of Austria, and our own +Elizabeth, all rise far above the level of ordinary Sovereigns. Some +of these seem figures of a larger and stronger mould than Queen +Victoria, but they governed under very different constitutional +conditions, and, with one exception, there are serious blots on their +memory. There are few sadder facts in history than that the pure and +tender-hearted Spanish Queen should have been deeply tinged with the +persecuting fanaticism of her age and country; that she should have +consented to the establishment of the Inquisition in Castile, to the +expulsion of the Moors from her dominions, to the first law in Europe +establishing a practical censorship of the Press. The unscrupulous +ambition, the shameless favouritism, the gross personal vices of +Catherine, are as conspicuous as her high intelligence, her +indomitable will, her majestic commanding power. The reign of +Elizabeth is perhaps the most glorious in English history, but the +character of that great Queen is lamentably tarnished by waywardness +and caprice. Among purely constitutional Sovereigns Queen Anne holds a +respectable, though certainly not a brilliant, place, and it may be +added that much of the merit of the very constitutional though not +very glorious reign of George II. is due to the excellent sense and +judgment of Queen Caroline. In spite of the saying of Burke, the age +of chivalry is not wholly dead. The sex of Queen <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span>Victoria no doubt +gave an additional touch of warmth to the loyalty of her people, and +many of the qualities that made her most popular are intensely, if not +distinctively, feminine. They would not, however, have given her the +place she will always hold in English history, if they had not been +united with what men are accustomed to regard as more peculiarly +masculine—a clear, well-balanced mind, singularly free from +fanaticisms and exaggerations, excellently fitted to estimate rightly +the true proportion of things.</p> + +<p>In the last years of her reign the political horizon greatly cleared. +Lord Beaconsfield, during his later Ministries, obtained not only her +fullest political confidence, but also won a warmer degree of personal +friendship than she had bestowed on any Minister since the death of +Lord Melbourne; and her relations with his successor, Lord Salisbury, +appear to have been perfectly harmonious. The decisive rejection by +the country of the Home Rule policy removed a great incubus from her +mind, and she was fully in harmony with the strong Imperialist +sentiments which now began to prevail in English thought, and +especially with the warmer feeling towards our distant colonies which +was one of its chief characteristics. Her own popularity also rapidly +grew. She had keenly felt and bitterly resented the reproaches which +had at one period been frequently brought against her for her neglect +of social and ceremonial duties during many years of her widowhood. +Her censors, she maintained, made no allowance for her loneliness, her +advancing years, her feeble health, the overwhelming and incessant +pressure of her more serious political duties. But her two Jubilees, +bringing her once more into close touch with her people, put an end to +these reproaches. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span>The Queen found with pleasure and perhaps with +surprise how capable she still was of performing great public +functions, and the vast outburst of spontaneous loyalty and affection +of which she became the object gave her deep and unconcealed pleasure. +To those, however, who were closely in connection with her it was +touching to observe the gracious and unaffected modesty with which she +received the homage of her subjects. Flattery was one of the things +she disliked the most, and all who knew her best were struck with the +singularly modest view she always took of herself. But blending with +this modesty, and even with a shyness which she never wholly +conquered, was the craving of a deeply affectionate and womanly nature +for sympathy, and this craving was now abundantly gratified.</p> + +<p>Still, with all this there was much that was melancholy in her later +days. She had survived nearly all the intimacies of her youth. Death +had made—especially in very recent times—many gaps in the circle of +those who were nearest to her, and several of her children and of her +children's husbands had preceded her to the tomb. Her sight had +greatly failed. She was bowed down by physical infirmity, and her last +year was saddened by a long, sanguinary, and inglorious war. Yet +almost to the very end she continued with unabated courage to fulfil +her daily task, and there was no sign that she had lost anything of +her quick sympathy and her admirable judgment and tact. Her life was a +most harmonious whole in which mind and character were happily +attuned,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Like perfect music set to noble words.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> <i>Queen Victoria</i>, by Sidney Lee, p. 349.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> Ollivier, <i>L'Empire Libéral</i>, vii. p. 455.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> Sir Theodore Martin was asked by the Queen to give her a +<i>précis</i> of a very long and unintelligible letter of Mr. Gladstone +purporting to explain the Irish Church Disestablishment Bill (<i>Queen +Victoria as I knew Her</i>, by Sir Theodore Martin).—<span class="smcap">Ed.</span></p></div> +<p> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /></p> +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span><br /></p> + +<h3><a name="OLD-AGE_PENSIONS" id="OLD-AGE_PENSIONS"></a>OLD-AGE PENSIONS<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + + +<p>There are many signs that the question of old-age pensions is destined +to assume a great prominence in England; although it is probable that +the large increase of national expenditure which is certain to follow +the unhappy war in South Africa may, for some time, postpone actual +legislation on the subject. The generation has passed away which +witnessed the enormous abuses of Poor Law relief that existed, under +the old English Poor Law, before 1834, and the rapid diminution of +pauperism that was effected by the sterner administration introduced +in that year.</p> + +<p>The principles of poor-law relief which were then recognised by the +best minds in England have been somewhat forgotten. These principles +were that, while in England provision is made for the support of all +who are absolutely destitute, it is of the utmost importance that on +the whole the condition of the pauper should be a less eligible one +than that of an independent labourer; that nothing should be done that +could diminish habits of thrift, forethought, and steady industry +among the poor; nothing that could weaken their sense of the necessity +of providing for their latter days, or of their duty of supporting, +when they have the means, their aged parents and relations. In +accordance with these principles it was laid down that outdoor relief +should be either absolutely refused to the able-bodied or only +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span>granted under most exceptional circumstances; that the workhouse test, +with its stringent, deterrent discipline, should be steadily +maintained; that relaxations and special favours granted out of public +funds should be limited, as far as possible, to cases of special +calamity which it was impossible for any prudence or foresight to have +averted.</p> + +<p>It would certainly be a great exaggeration to say that these +principles have disappeared. Indeed, the robust, independent, +self-respecting character which it was the object of the Manchester +School to encourage is abundantly displayed in the gigantic Friendly +and other working-class Co-operative Societies which have so largely +increased in England during the last half-century. Two of these +Friendly Societies—the Manchester Unity and the Foresters—have each +of them more than seven hundred thousand members on their roll. At the +same time, it is equally certain that in many quarters a different, +and, in my opinion, very dangerous, spirit prevails. In England as +elsewhere there is an increased tendency to aggrandise the functions +of the State and to look to State aid or State control rather than +individual or co-operative effort as the remedy of every evil. Social +questions have assumed a greater prominence in politics; and, with the +lowering of the franchise, the vague State Socialism, which, in +different degrees, pervades most working-class politics, has given a +bias to both parties in the State. It has become prominent in every +election and has produced many rash pledges.</p> + +<p>The close connection between taxation and representation, which was +once considered the cardinal principle of English Liberalism, has, in +a marked degree, diminished, both in Imperial and local taxation. It +used <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span>to be contended that those who chiefly paid should chiefly +regulate, and that taxation should be as much as possible the +voluntary grant of the taxpayers, restricted to their common purposes. +But in many quarters a different belief has grown up. It is held that +in the hands of a democracy taxation should be made the means of +redressing the inequalities of fortune, ability, or industry; the +preponderant class voting and spending money which another class are +obliged to pay. The income-tax is so arranged that a large majority of +the voters are exempt from its burden; a highly graduated system of +death duties is now nearly the most prominent of our Imperial taxes; +and the Local Government Act of 1894 has placed local taxation on the +most democratic basis. The latter has given the power of voting rates +to many who do not pay them; and, by abolishing the nominated, or +ex-officio, guardians, and the plural voting of the larger ratepayers, +it has almost destroyed the influence of property on local taxation.</p> + +<p>At the same time the doctrine has arisen, and is now sedulously +propagated in England, that the State ought to undertake to provide at +the public expense for all old persons, or at least for all deserving +old persons, who have not succeeded in obtaining a sufficient +livelihood for themselves; that this provision should not be regarded +as an eleemosynary grant, but as a positive right; and that, in order +to free it from the taint of pauperism, and take away from the +recipient all reluctance to receive it, a new fund should be created, +entirely distinct from poor-law relief, and administered by some other +tribunal than the poor-law guardians.</p> + +<p>The claim has been supported on another ground. The immense +improvement of the material condition of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span>English working classes +during the last half-century is beyond all question; but it is much +more evident among the young and the strong than among the old. The +intense competition of modern industry, stimulated to the highest +point by free trade, by the factory system, and by the vast +development of machinery, has expelled the old and feeble from some of +its most important fields; and the influence of trade-unions in +enforcing, in each trade which they can control, a uniform and minimum +wage, has obliged the employer to employ only the most efficient +labour.</p> + +<p>The old man who could once easily obtain a little work at low wages +now finds it much more difficult; and the recent legislation +compelling the employer to compensate his workmen for all accidents +that take place in his employment, even when those accidents are in no +degree due to any negligence on his own part or on that of his +servants, has acted in the same direction. Such serious obligations +have been thrown on the employer in the more dangerous trades, that he +is obliged in self-defence to restrict himself to the workmen who are +least liable to accidents; and they are naturally those whose +strength, activity, and eyesight are at their best. Among the +recipients of poor-law relief the proportion of men over sixty-five is +enormously great; and some figures which, in 1893, were brought before +the Commission on the Aged Poor, made a great impression on the +country. It was stated that in a single year 29.3 of the whole +population over sixty-five were in receipt of poor-law relief in +England and Wales; and assuming that a third part of these old persons +belonged to the well-to-do, it was calculated that not much less than +three in seven must fall into the ranks of pauperism.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span>There has been much controversy about the accuracy of this statement; +and, even if it be admitted, a good deal has been said to attenuate +its force. In the poor-law system as it was reformed in 1834, it was a +first principle that the workhouse, with its painful and degrading +associations, was to be the chief form of poor-law relief, and that +outdoor relief should only be granted on exceptional occasions and on +stringent conditions. This provision has been gradually relaxed. +Outdoor relief, which, in the eyes of the poor, carries with it very +little of the discredit and dislike that gathers round the workhouse, +is now by far the larger part of poor-law relief; and in many +districts it is administered with great laxity.</p> + +<p>It has been proved by the clearest evidence that the immense majority +of the aged and deserving poor who are in receipt of poor-law relief +only receive it in the form of outdoor relief, and very often only in +the form of medical relief, and that if they go to the workhouse it is +only when their peculiar circumstances make it desirable for them to +do so. Wherever a more stringent system of relief is imposed, +pauperism invariably and rapidly decreases; and Mr. Loch, the +Secretary of the Charity Organisation Society, has collected much +evidence to show that, on the whole, old-age pauperism is diminishing, +though it has not been diminishing at the same rate as pauperism under +the age of sixty. The administration of the workhouses has also +greatly improved; and the poor-law infirmaries are becoming hospitals +which are largely resorted to in time of sickness by many who might +easily avoid them. On the whole, old-age destitution is, and must be, +a grave question for philanthropists; but there has been great +exaggeration about its magnitude and its hardships.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span>The expediency of devising a new and better method of providing for +the destitute aged poor of deserving character has long been +smouldering obscurely in English politics; but it obtained a real +importance for the first time when a very strong Royal Commission, +under the presidency of Lord Aberdare, was appointed, at the beginning +of 1893, to inquire into the question. After long and careful inquiry, +and after hearing a great multitude of witnesses, this Commission +reported in the spring of 1895. The majority of the members, while +recommending various reforms in the administration of the poor-law, +reported decisively against any system of old-age pensions, either in +the form of endowment or assisted assurance, as likely to do more harm +than good; but a minority, which derived special importance from the +presence of Mr. Chamberlain, refused to accept this decision as final, +and urged that the question should be submitted to a smaller body of +experts. In the election which took place in 1895 the question +appeared frequently upon the platform, and many members on both sides +of politics pledged themselves on the subject.</p> + +<p>The weight which is always attached to the speeches of Mr. Chamberlain +gave a great impulse to the movement. He never countenanced the idea +of universal old-age pensions, which was already advocated by many; +but he strongly maintained that special provision, apart from the +poor-law and in the shape of pensions, might, and ought to, be made +for the old and deserving poor; he expressed his belief that such a +measure 'would do more than anything else to secure the happiness of +the working classes'; and he suggested as the most feasible scheme +that 'whenever a man acquires for himself in a Friendly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span>Society or +any other society a pension of 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> a week the State should +come in and double that pension.' Mr. Chamberlain, however, did not +insist on this precise proposal; but he gave the question a great +prominence; and among politicians on both sides there was a manifest +tendency to make party capital out of it.</p> + +<p>A purely non-party Committee, presided over by Lord Rothschild, and +consisting mainly of distinguished financial authorities connected +with the permanent Civil Service, and therefore removed from active +politics, was appointed in 1896, in accordance with the recommendation +of the Aberdare Commission, to inquire especially into the question of +old-age pensions; and it reported in a document of conspicuous +ability. It was unanimous in condemning as impracticable or dangerous +all the schemes for such pensions that were brought before it; and it +fully confirmed the views of the preceding Commission. The report, and +the evidence on which it is based, clearly show the ways in which +measures intended for the benefit of the working class may prove in +the highest degree injurious to them.</p> + +<p>If the matter could have been decided by pure reasoning, this report +might have been generally accepted as decisive. But many of the +supporters of the Government had at the election made speeches in +favour of old-age pensions. One of its most powerful members had +thrown his weight into the scale. The idea had taken hold of great +sections of the working classes. The trade-unions, that see in +increasing old-age poverty the chief drawback to their policy of +enforcing in each trade a uniform and minimum wage, were naturally +delighted that the State should undertake, out of public funds, to +remove their <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span>difficulty. A number of Bills dealing with the question +had been introduced into the House of Commons by private members; and +the reluctance of the Government to take it up had become a favourite +form of party attack. The Government acted as perhaps most +Governments, under the circumstances, would have done. While refusing +to give any pledge, and repudiating any sympathy with the idea of +universal pensions, and insisting that an encouragement of thrift +should be an essential condition of any old-age pension scheme, they +refused to admit that a false departure had been made; and they +appointed a new Committee—of which the writer of these lines was a +member—to report upon the best means of improving the condition of +the aged deserving poor, and upon the feasibility of dealing with +their case by old-age pensions.</p> + +<p>Mr. Chaplin, the President of the Local Government Board, an +experienced and very popular member of the Cabinet, presided over the +Committee; and the fact that he drew up the report of the majority +gave that report its chief political importance. The Committee +consisted largely of members who had already committed themselves +deeply in favour of old-age pensions; and it will hardly be disputed +in England that it carried with it much less financial and political +weight than its predecessors; and that the majority report—which was +carried by 9 to 4—is more remarkable for the boldness of its +recommendations than for the cogency of its reasoning. It completely, +and almost contemptuously, discarded the conclusions of the majority +of the Aberdare Commission, and the unanimous opinion of the +Rothschild Committee; and it recommended that old-age pensions, +derived in part from Imperial and in part from local sources, and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span>varying from 5<i>s.</i> to 7<i>s.</i> a week, should be granted to all the +deserving poor who had attained the age of sixty-five and whose +incomes did not exceed 10<i>s.</i> a week. It proposed that these pensions +should be granted by committees established in every poor-law union +and elected by the poor-law guardians; that they should be revised +every three years; and that they should be distributed through the +agency of the post-office.</p> + +<p>On the great difficulties that seemed so formidable to its +predecessors it touched very lightly. How many of the poor were likely +under the proposed system to become pensioners, and what burden of +taxation was likely to be thrown on the State, were questions that +were put aside as irrelevant to the inquiry. To meet the enormous +difficulty of deciding upon the real merits, and of investigating the +real circumstances, of the great masses of independent and industrious +labourers who live in the manufacturing towns, or are constantly +moving from one great centre of population to another, and circulating +in quest of work through the whole extent of the Empire, it was +suggested that the relief be confined to those who were resident in a +single locality; and it was pointed out that a number of charities, +endowed out of old legacies or donations, and applying to particular +classes or districts, had come to be administered by the Charity +Commissioners, and that in this restricted field they had been able to +convert a large part of the income at their disposal from doles into +permanent pensions.</p> + +<p>The thrift test and the character test, which previous inquirers had +found it almost impossible to establish on a satisfactory basis, were +defined on the loosest lines. The pensioner must not, during the +preceding twenty years, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span>have been sentenced to penal servitude or +imprisonment without the option of a fine; he must not, during the +same period of time, have been in receipt of poor-law relief 'other +than medical relief or unless under circumstances of a wholly +exceptional character'; and he must have 'endeavoured to the best of +his ability, by his industry and by the exercise of reasonable +providence, to make provision for himself and those immediately +dependent on him.'</p> + +<p>The extreme vagueness and the extreme elasticity of such provisions +are sufficiently manifest; and it is difficult to see how they can +give any real assistance in practical legislation; while they leave +the door open to the largest and most lavish expenditure. I have +endeavoured in a minority report to deal with these questions at +somewhat greater length than my present space will admit; but a few +pages may suffice to give an outline of the case of those who believe +the new policy to be both mistaken and dangerous.</p> + +<p>Nothing is more certain or more cheering in the condition of modern +England than the extraordinary diminution that has taken place, during +the present generation, in pauperism. It began with the reform of the +poor law in 1834; and although it has been found possible to relax +greatly the stringency of the poor-law regulations that were then +made, it has steadily continued. Much of this is due to the increase +in the rate of wages which has taken place in most departments of +English industry, and which has been accompanied by a great decrease +in the cost of most of the chief necessaries of life, as well as by a +considerable reduction in the hours of work. Sir Robert Giffen, in the +very remarkable paper which he published, in 1883, on the condition of +the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span>working classes in England during the preceding fifty years, has +shown that in every class of work in which it is possible to make a +comparison the wages of the labourer have in these fifty years risen +at least 20 per cent., and in most cases between 50 and 100 per cent.; +and he has clearly demonstrated that no other section of the community +has obtained so large a proportion of the increase of the national +wealth, and improved in so great a degree in material prosperity.</p> + +<p>But the mere increase of wages is but one element of this improvement. +The very mainspring of the prosperity of the great masses of the +British working classes is to be found in their increased sobriety, +and in the habits of thrift and providence that have followed the +spread of education. The statistics of the Friendly Societies, the +Industrial and Provident Societies, the Building Societies, the +savings-banks, and of countless other institutions, created by +voluntary working-class effort for the purpose of insuring against +sickness or death, and providing working-class investments, attest in +the clearest manner the rapid growth of provident and thrifty habits +among the wage-earning classes. In no other respect is the improvement +of the nation so marked and so indisputable and no element in the +national character is more important to its prosperity and to its +enduring greatness. In the evidence that was brought before our +Committee, it was shown that since 1849 the pauperism of Great Britain +had been reduced from 62.7 per 1,000 to 26.2 per 1,000, if lunatics +and vagrants are included, to 22.8 per 1,000, if lunatics and vagrants +are excluded.</p> + +<p>The first, and most vital, condition of any sound legislation for the +relief of poverty is that it should not impair these industrial +qualities, or weaken these vast <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span>voluntary organisations of self-help +which are their result. Can it be said that the old-age pension policy +is compatible with this condition?</p> + +<p>It proposes to open, in addition to the existing system of poor +relief, a new fund, amounting to many millions of pounds a year, and +drawn from compulsory taxation for the purpose of subsidising simple +poverty; a fund to which it is to be rather creditable than otherwise +to resort; a fund which is intended to deal, not with exceptional +calamity, but with that which springs from the mere efflux of time, +and which is, beyond all others, the most normal and most easily +foreseen. It proposes to teach the whole working population to look to +the State, and not to themselves, for the provision for their old age, +and for the old age of those who might be dependent on them, and thus +to destroy the most powerful of all motives to thrift—the very +mainspring of productive and self-sacrificing industry. And it +proposes to do this at a time when wages are higher than they have +ever been before; when voluntary societies for securing the poor from +want are flourishing and increasing as they have never done before; +when the rapid decline of pauperism is one of the most marked and most +universally recognised signs of national improvement. Can it be +seriously believed that the addition of many millions a year to the +State funds directly employed in the relief of poverty will, in the +long run, tend to diminish pauperism or to encourage self-reliance and +thrift?</p> + +<p>Mr. Chamberlain and the other more considerable advocates of old-age +pensions clearly see that if such pensions are to be of real value +they must discriminate between the deserving and the undeserving; and +they believe that they may have the effect of stimulating, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span>instead of +weakening, thrift. For this purpose several schemes have been devised.</p> + +<p>The most popular Continental method of achieving this end is by a law +obliging the working man in early life to insure against old age, and +by supplementing the income derived from this insurance by a State +subsidy. In Germany, where this system is actually carried out, the +old-age pension is derived from three sources—viz. compulsory +insurance by the workers, compulsory contribution by the employer, and +a State subsidy. Compulsory insurance found for many years a powerful +English advocate in Canon Blackley; and it has been recommended by a +recent inquiry in Holland, which, however, refused to propose any +system of old-age pensions. According to the best accounts, the German +system has been far from successful either economically or +politically; and it has certainly not prevented Socialism from +becoming one of the great dangers of the State. Into this question, +however, it is needless to enter, as it is now universally admitted in +England that compulsory insurance for old age is an impossibility; for +it would certainly be repudiated by the working classes.</p> + +<p>A large group of proposals are to the effect that old-age pensions +should be granted to all poor persons over the age of sixty-five whose +total income is less than 10<i>s.</i> a week, provided that a certain +portion of that income consists of a fixed annuity acquired by their +own industry and thrift. It is urged that in most of the great +branches of industry a deserving man in his earlier and stronger years +could easily earn such an annuity; and it is suggested that the State +should double it, or add to it sufficient to make it up to 10<i>s.</i> a +week, or supplement it by a fixed grant of 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>, or 5<i>s.</i>, or +even 7<i>s.</i> a week.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span>The objections to such schemes are very serious. It is obvious that if +they encourage a workman to save up to the amount required to secure a +pension, they would have a directly opposite effect as soon as that +amount had been attained. The first result of any addition to his +income would then be to disqualify him for a pension. It is also +obvious that the pensioner of sixty-five would have a strong +inducement to abstain from the work he could easily do, and that if he +continued to do it he would compete on exceptionally favourable terms +with the workman who, though he had passed the prime of life, was not +yet entitled to a pension, restricting his means of employment and +beating down his wages. Many of the most necessitous and deserving +poor would also be left unrelieved.</p> + +<p>Although it is true that in the more flourishing trades men could +easily in early life save out of their wages a sufficient sum to +acquire this annuity, there are large fields of industry in which such +a saving would be almost or absolutely impossible. We have had +melancholy evidence of how utterly insufficient most forms of women's +wages are to provide the needed margin. The same thing is true of the +agricultural labourer in the more depressed districts in England and +in large tracts of Ireland and Scotland. Even in the more remunerative +employments innumerable special circumstances would prevent a thrifty +and deserving man from obtaining this annuity. Certainly no one is +more deserving of compassion and State aid than the widow and young +orphans of a working man; but the scheme we are considering would not +only not help them, but would most seriously injure them. It is a +direct incentive to the workman to sink his savings in an annuity +which would terminate with his own life.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span>The whole policy, indeed, of attempting to turn all working-class +savings into this one channel is a false one; and it has been shown +that no kind of saving is in fact less popular among working men than +the purchase of a deferred annuity. I may here be allowed to quote a +few lines from my own report:</p> + +<p>'In the infinitely various conditions of a working-man's life thrift +will take many forms, and an attempt to prescribe a single form is +eminently injudicious. The whole life-plan of a farmer whose farm will +remain with him to the end will be different from that of an artisan +or a domestic servant whose power of earning a livelihood depends +entirely upon his physical strength. The former will probably find it +most profitable to expend his savings on the improvement of his farm. +Where the system of peasant proprietorship prevails most agricultural +thrift is directed to the purchase and enlargement of farms. In +Ireland it is largely directed to the purchase of tenant right, or to +enabling the younger members of the family to emigrate.</p> + +<p>'Nor is it true that even the artisan will find the purchase of an +annuity the best thing to be aimed at. To buy a house or some +furniture; to start a small business; to expend his savings in tiding +over periods of slack or failing work; to avail himself of the +advantage which some fluctuation in the market gives to the man who +can transport himself promptly to a new locality or a new business is +often far more to his advantage. Above all, money expended in settling +his family is often his best policy as well as the course which is +most beneficial to the community. At present a large proportion of +working men look forward to their children to help them in their old +age, and make it a main object of their lives to place them in a +position to do so. It does <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span>not seem to me a wise thing for the State +either to emancipate children from this duty or to induce every +married working man to sink his savings in an annuity which will end +with his life and from which his widow and children can derive no +benefit. It is certainly not for the advantage of the country that in +selecting between alternative ways of providing for old age he should +be induced to choose that which throws the greatest burden on the +State. With the vast increase of population, with the great +fluctuations of modern industry, and with the rapid development of the +colonies, it is extremely desirable both in the interest of the +working men and of the State that they should be induced to transfer +themselves from congested towns and from exhausted industries to new +fields. A general pension system would certainly contribute most +powerfully to prevent them from doing so.'</p> + +<p>It has been proposed by others that the pension fund should be placed +in the hands of Friendly or Benefit Societies, and that they should be +intrusted with its administration, or that subscription to such +societies for a certain number of years should be taken by the State +as the thrift test. On the first proposal it is sufficient to say, +that these great voluntary societies are themselves opposed to it; for +if they were directly subsidised by the State, they would be obliged +to submit to a State control of their management and their finances +which they do not desire. It is observed that only a very small +proportion of the subscribers to these societies ever find it +necessary to come upon the poor rates; and if a system of old-age +pensions were confined to these limits, it would act in the most +unequal manner. Their members are drawn in a far larger proportion +from the lucrative and flourishing trades than from those which are +struggling <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[314]</a></span>and underpaid. Few women belong to them. In Ireland, which +is the poorest part of the Empire, Friendly Societies scarcely exist; +and the same thing is true of large districts in Wales and Scotland. +The main result of such proposals would be to concentrate the new +State fund for the relief of poverty on the richest parts of the +Empire, and on the trades that need it the least.</p> + +<p>The extreme difficulty of finding any efficient test of thrift is very +evident; and those proposed by a large number of the advocates of +old-age pensions are so easy as to be almost worthless. Some consider +it sufficient that a man has for a certain number of years not been in +receipt of poor-law relief, except medical relief or relief granted +under 'exceptional circumstances.' Others would accept the mere fact +that a man has lived to be sixty-five, as the drunken and disreputable +workman seldom lives so long. A large number of resolutions have +condemned Mr. Chaplin's report on the grounds that old-age pensions +ought not to be confined to the 'deserving' poor; that they ought to +begin at an earlier age than sixty-five; that they ought to be +administered by a body totally unconnected with the poor law, so as to +carry with them no taint of pauperism or eleemosynary relief. They +ought, it is said, to be universal; to be looked on as a matter of +strict right; to be considered as of the same nature as the pension +given to the soldier or the Civil Servant.</p> + +<p>It is obvious that all this may carry us very far. It is estimated +that some of the most popular proposals would involve an annual +expenditure of considerably more than twenty millions of +pounds—making allowance for the saving that might be effected in the +ordinary poor-law relief, but not counting the cost of administration. +And this expenditure would be a growing one; and once <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span>accepted it +could hardly be withdrawn. The vast addition to the national debt that +might follow a great European war or the great shrinkage of the +national income that might easily follow some revolution in trade or +manufacture, might render the burden of taxation incomparably more +serious than at present; but once the great mass of the population had +learned to regard State support in old age as their normal prospect +and their inalienable right, it would be impossible, without producing +a social revolution, to recede. All the advantages gained by +generations of economical administration of the national finance would +be nullified; while the certain result of this crushing addition to +taxation would be to weaken incalculably the spirit of thrift, +providence, and self-reliance, and at the same time to lower wages, by +removing one of the great considerations by which they are regulated. +And this reduction of wages would fall not only on the recipient of +the pension, but also on multitudes who would never live to attain it. +Nothing can be more certain than that a general system of pensions +attached to the labour of the wage-earner must lower wages, at least +among all those who are approaching the pension age; while it would +prevent or retard their natural increase over a far wider area.</p> + +<p>It would also most certainly bring with it the gravest danger of +corruption. It would not be easy to secure the pure and the impartial +administration of these vast funds; but the political dangers would be +much more serious. It is proposed that the pension system should be +first introduced on a small scale, but gradually extended till it +included all the aged poor, or at least all who were deserving. Such a +question would infallibly pass into the competitions of party warfare. +It would become <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[316]</a></span>in most constituencies one of the most prominent of +electioneering tests. Rival candidates would be competing for the +votes of a wage-earning electorate who had a direct pecuniary interest +in increasing or extending pensions and in relaxing the conditions on +which they are given. Can it be doubted that in many cases their first +object would be to outbid one another, and that national and party +politics would soon be forced into a demoralising race of +extravagance?</p> + +<p>I cannot conclude without protesting against the supposition that +those who think with me are indifferent to the great evil of old-age +destitution and propose nothing for its relief. The committees which +have most clearly pointed out the dangers of old-age pensions have +also urged, that within the lines of our present poor-law system it is +quite possible to do much, by an improved classification, to +distinguish among the recipients of poor-law relief between the +respectable and the worthless. Much has already been done, and in the +most important unions the guardians have introduced a large amount of +classification by merit. As I have already said, the immense majority +of the respectable aged poor are now relieved only in their own homes +or in comfortable infirmaries. The severe test of absolute destitution +has in practice been greatly relaxed; there is a legal provision +preventing those who are receiving help from Friendly Societies from +being disqualified for relief; husbands and wives are no longer +separated in the workhouse; and in some unions of which we had +evidence much more has been done. This, however, depends too much on +the will of particular Boards of Guardians, and there are in +consequence great inequalities of treatment. The condition of the +deserving poor may be greatly improved by relaxation in points of +hours, discipline, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[317]</a></span>and visitors, and by workhouse arrangements +securing more universally that paupers who have lived respectable +lives should not be obliged to mix with the drunken, the disreputable, +and the hopelessly idle. And, though extensions of outdoor relief +should be carefully watched, and entail great dangers, yet under wise +and strict administration something more may be done in this +direction.</p> + +<p>But all this should be regarded as essentially poor-law relief, and +not as the recognition of a claim of right for services supposed to +have been rendered to the community. No form of State Socialism is +more dangerous than the doctrine which has been countenanced by Prince +Bismarck, and which is making many disciples in England—namely, that +an industrious man, who has pursued his course in life with perfect +independence, made his own contracts, chosen his own work, and been +paid for it by stipulated wages, is entitled, if he fails in obtaining +a sufficiency for his old age, to be placed as a 'soldier of industry' +in the same category as State servants, and to receive like them, not +on the ground of compassion, but of right, a State pension drawn from +the taxation of the community. There is no real analogy between the +relief that is very properly granted to such workmen in their +destitution, and the pensions—largely of the nature of deferred +pay—that are given by the State or by private employers, under the +terms of distinct contracts, and for specific services duly rendered, +to those who have entered into their employment and placed themselves +under their control.</p> +<p> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[318]</a></span><br /></p> +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[319]</a></span><br /></p> + +<h3><a name="INDEX" id="INDEX"></a>INDEX</h3> + + +<ul><li>Aberdare Commission, <a href="#Page_303">303</a></li> + +<li>Addington, <a href="#Page_273">273</a></li> + +<li>American Revolution, <a href="#Page_34">34-37</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55-57</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a></li> + +<li>Anne, Queen, <a href="#Page_295">295</a></li> + +<li>Anti-Semite movement, <a href="#Page_116">116-121</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123-125</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a></li> + +<li>Arnold, Dr., <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li> + +<li>Australia, <a href="#Page_58">58</a></li> + +<li>Austria, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>Bacon, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a></li> + +<li>Bayard, Mr., <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li> + +<li>Bayle, <a href="#Page_97">97</a></li> + +<li>Beaconsfield, Earl of (B. Disraeli), <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> imperialism, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>;</li> + <li> policy regarding Eastern Crisis, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>;</li> + <li> relations with Lord Derby, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>;</li> + <li> Queen Victoria's regard for, <a href="#Page_296">296</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li>Beer, George, <a href="#Page_56">56</a></li> + +<li>Bentham, J., <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a></li> + +<li>Bernard, Claude, <a href="#Page_121">121</a></li> + +<li>Bismarck, Prince, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a></li> + +<li>Blackley, Canon, <a href="#Page_310">310</a></li> + +<li>Blennerhassett, Lady, <a href="#Page_131">131-133</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li> + +<li>Blomfield, Bishop, <a href="#Page_263">263</a></li> + +<li>Bossuet, <a href="#Page_96">96-98</a></li> + +<li>Boulanger, General, <a href="#Page_116">116</a></li> + +<li>Bright, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a></li> + +<li>British Empire, growth, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> defence, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>;</li> + <li> unity, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li>Browning, Robert, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li> + +<li>Buckle, H.T., <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100-102</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a></li> + +<li>Burke, Edmund, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a></li> + +<li>Butler's 'Analogy,' <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>Caird, Principal, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></li> + +<li>Canada, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a></li> + +<li>Canning, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> attitude towards Catholic Question, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166-170</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>;</li> + <li> quoted, <a href="#Page_213">213</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li>Cardan, quoted, <a href="#Page_10">10</a></li> + +<li>Carlyle, Thomas, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> school of, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>;</li> + <li> style, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>;</li> + <li> characteristics, <a href="#Page_106">106-113</a>;</li> + <li> teaching, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110-115</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li>Caroline, Queen, <a href="#Page_295">295</a></li> + +<li>Castlereagh, Viscount, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a></li> + +<li>Catherine, of Russia, Empress, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a></li> + +<li>Catholic Emancipation, <a href="#Page_78">78-86</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157-174</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187-190</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> <i>see also under</i> Ireland</li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li>Cato, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li> + +<li>Chamberlain, Joseph, <a href="#Page_303">303-304</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a></li> + +<li>Charlemagne, <a href="#Page_17">17-19</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> + +<li>Charlemont, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a></li> + +<li>Chartism, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a></li> + +<li>Chatham, Lord, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157-160</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a></li> + +<li>Chaucer, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li> + +<li>Chivalry, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a></li> + +<li>Chrysostom, Dio, <a href="#Page_16">16</a></li> + +<li>Church, Dean, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a></li> + +<li>Clarendon, Lord, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a></li> + +<li>Cobden, Richard, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li> + +<li>Colenso, Bishop, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li> + +<li>Coleridge, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li> + +<li>Colonial policy of Great Britain, <a href="#Page_43">43-46</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55-61</a></li> + +<li>Colonies, British: + <ul class="nest"> + <li> defence, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>;</li> + <li> federation, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>;</li> + <li> governors, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>;</li> + <li> representation, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>;</li> + <li> trade, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63-65</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>;</li> + <li> value of, <a href="#Page_47">47-50</a>;</li> + <li> attachment to the Crown, <a href="#Page_277">277</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li>Comte, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></li> + +<li>Constant, Benjamin, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a></li> + +<li>Constitutional sovereignty, <a href="#Page_277">277</a></li> + +<li>Co-operation, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a></li> + +<li>Croker, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[320]</a></span></li> + +<li>Crusades, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> + +<li>Curchod, Mlle., <i>see</i> Necker, Mme.</li> + +<li>Curwen's Act, <a href="#Page_177">177</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>Dalling, Lord, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li> + +<li>Darwin and his teaching, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li> + +<li>Davies, Sir John, quoted, <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li> + +<li>Delane, J.T., <a href="#Page_243">243</a></li> + +<li>De Quincey, <a href="#Page_107">107</a></li> + +<li>Derby, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>th Earl of, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204-206</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208-210</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a></li> + +<li>Derby, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>th Earl of: + <ul class="nest"> + <li> career, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205-213</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222-224</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>;</li> + <li> views on Church questions, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>;</li> + <li> on Reform Bill, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>;</li> + <li> Indian policy, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>;</li> + <li> foreign policy, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217-224</a>;</li> + <li> colonial policy, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228-230</a>;</li> + <li> attitude towards Home Rule, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>;</li> + <li> contemporary opinion of him, <a href="#Page_206">206-209</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211-213</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>;</li> + <li> marriage <a href="#Page_215">215</a>;</li> + <li> interest in social questions, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>;</li> + <li> in working men, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>;</li> + <li> tastes, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>;</li> + <li> conversation, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>;</li> + <li> estimate of his talents and character, <a href="#Page_202">202-204</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219-224</a>;</li> + <li> speeches, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222-224</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234-236</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li>Dicey, Professor <a href="#Page_89">89</a></li> + +<li>Disraeli, B., <i>see</i> Beaconsfield</li> + +<li>Duigenan, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>Eastern Question, Lord Derby's views on, <a href="#Page_218">218-223</a></li> + +<li><i>Edinburgh Review</i>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a></li> + +<li>Education, popular, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a></li> + +<li>Eldon, Lord, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a></li> + +<li>Elizabeth, Queen, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> inscription on tomb of, <a href="#Page_187">187</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li>Ellenborough, Lord, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a></li> + +<li>Emerson, R.W., <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a></li> + +<li>Emigration, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a></li> + +<li>Erasmus, <a href="#Page_257">257</a></li> + +<li>'Essays and Reviews,' <a href="#Page_90">90</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>Faber, <a href="#Page_250">250</a></li> + +<li>Factory legislation, <a href="#Page_108">108</a></li> + +<li>Federation, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a></li> + +<li>Feudalism, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li> + +<li>Fitzwilliam, Lord, <a href="#Page_85">85</a></li> + +<li>Flood, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a></li> + +<li>Foster, Leslie, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li> + +<li>Fox, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a></li> + +<li>France, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a></li> + +<li>Franklin, Benjamin, <a href="#Page_94">94</a></li> + +<li><i>Fraser's Magazine</i>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a></li> + +<li>Free Trade, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a></li> + +<li>French Revolution, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li> + +<li>Froude, J.A., <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>Galdos' 'Gloria,' <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li> + +<li>George II., <a href="#Page_295">295</a></li> + +<li>George III. and Catholic Emancipation, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157-162</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a></li> + +<li>George IV., as Prince Regent, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> as King, <a href="#Page_188">188-191</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li>German literature, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li> + +<li>Germany, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a></li> + +<li>Gibbon, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a></li> + +<li>Giffen, Sir Robert, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a></li> + +<li>Gladstone, W.E., <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286-288</a></li> + +<li>Goethe, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li> + +<li>Gordon, General, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></li> + +<li>Goulburn, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a></li> + +<li>Grattan, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168-171</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a></li> + +<li>Grenville, George, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li> + +<li>Grenville, Lord, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a></li> + +<li>Greville, Charles, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a></li> + +<li>Grey, Lord, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a></li> + +<li>Grote, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a></li> + +<li>Guizot, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a></li> + +<li>Gustavus III., King of Sweden, <a href="#Page_138">138</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>Hallam, A., <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a></li> + +<li>Harcourt, Sir William, quoted, <a href="#Page_290">290</a></li> + +<li>Hastings, Warren, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a></li> + +<li>Haussonville, M. d', <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a></li> + +<li>Hawkesbury, Lord, <a href="#Page_161">161</a></li> + +<li>Hawtrey, Provost, <a href="#Page_265">265</a></li> + +<li>Heber, Bishop, <a href="#Page_255">255</a></li> + +<li>High Church movement, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249-251</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li> + +<li>Hippisley, Sir John, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a></li> + +<li>Historians, qualities requisite, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_4">4-6</a>, <a href="#Page_10">10-12</a>;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[321]</a></span> + <ul class="nest"> + <li> motto for, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>;</li> + <li> scientific school, <a href="#Page_2">2-4</a>;</li> + <li> literary, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>;</li> + <li> methods, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>;</li> + <li> applied to religion, <a href="#Page_97">97-99</a>;</li> + <li> eighteenth century, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>;</li> + <li> fatalist school, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>;</li> + <li> individualist school, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li>History: + <ul class="nest"> + <li> biographical element, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>;</li> + <li> individual influences, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>;</li> + <li> fiction and, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>;</li> + <li> accident as affecting, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>;</li> + <li> of institutions, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>;</li> + <li> of revolutions, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34-38</a>;</li> + <li> speculations, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>;</li> + <li> advantages of studying, <a href="#Page_38">38-40</a>;</li> + <li> moral lessons, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li>Hobbes, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a></li> + +<li>Home Rule, <i>see under</i> Ireland</li> + +<li>Homer, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>Ideals, varying popular, <a href="#Page_14">14-19</a></li> + +<li>Imperial Institute, <a href="#Page_43">43</a></li> + +<li>Imperialism, <a href="#Page_46">46-51</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a></li> + +<li>India, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46-48</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a></li> + +<li>Ireland (<i>see also</i> Ulster): + <ul class="nest"> + <li> invasions, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>;</li> + <li> rebellions, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>;</li> + <li> influence of the Reformation, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>;</li> + <li> under the Stuarts, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>;</li> + <li> trade, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>;</li> + <li> effects of English Revolution, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>;</li> + <li> of American Revolution, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>;</li> + <li> of French Revolution, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>;</li> + <li> Young's views on, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>;</li> + <li> Catholics and Protestants, <a href="#Page_70">70-79</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81-87</a>;</li> + <li> Volunteer movement, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>;</li> + <li> political agitation, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>;</li> + <li> union with Great Britain, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83-85</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>;</li> + <li> Catholic Emancipation, <a href="#Page_81">81-86</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157-174</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194-198</a>;</li> + <li> corruption, <a href="#Page_175">175-179</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>;</li> + <li> discontent, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>;</li> + <li> tithe commutation, <a href="#Page_185">185-187</a>;</li> + <li> Church disestablishment, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>;</li> + <li> land tenure, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75-77</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>;</li> + <li> landlords, <a href="#Page_75">75-77</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>;</li> + <li> Home Rule, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87-89</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>;</li> + <li> Queen Victoria's visit, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>;</li> + <li> present condition, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>;</li> + <li> representation in Parliament, <a href="#Page_86">86</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li>Irish Acts of Parliament, + <ul class="nest"> + <li> of settlement, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>;</li> + <li> octennial, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>;</li> + <li> of 1793, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>;</li> + <li> of union, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83-85</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li>Irish Parliament, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77-83</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a></li> + +<li>Irishmen, United, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a></li> + +<li>Isabella of Spain, Queen, <a href="#Page_295">295</a></li> + +<li>Italian art, <a href="#Page_103">103</a></li> + +<li>Italy, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>Jefferson, quoted, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a></li> + +<li>Jeffrey, <a href="#Page_107">107</a></li> + +<li>Jewish type, + <ul class="nest"> + <li> stability of, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>;</li> + <li> trade, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>;</li> + <li> writings, modern investigation of, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257-259</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li>Jews, + <ul class="nest"> + <li> calumnies against, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>;</li> + <li> characteristics, <a href="#Page_118">118-130</a>;</li> + <li> code, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>;</li> + <li> compared with other tribes, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>;</li> + <li> continuity of race, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>;</li> + <li> distinguished, <a href="#Page_126">126-129</a>;</li> + <li> persecution of, <a href="#Page_116">116-121</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123-126</a>;</li> + <li> return of, to Palestine, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>;</li> + <li> Milman's 'History of the', <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li> + </ul> +<br /><br /></li> + + +<li>Kant, Immanuel, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a></li> + +<li>Keats, John, <a href="#Page_256">256</a></li> + +<li>Keble, John, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li> + +<li>Kruger, President, <a href="#Page_226">226-228</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>Landor, Walter Savage, quoted, <a href="#Page_22">22</a></li> + +<li>Leroy, Beaulieu, M. Anatole, <a href="#Page_116">116-128</a></li> + +<li>Lewis, Sir G. Cornewall, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a></li> + +<li>Liverpool, Lord, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192-194</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197-199</a></li> + +<li>Lloyd, Dr., <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li> + +<li>Locke, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a></li> + +<li>Lockhart, <a href="#Page_255">255</a></li> + +<li>Loughborough, Lord, <a href="#Page_186">186</a></li> + +<li>Louis Napoleon, <i>see</i> Napoleon III.</li> + +<li>Lyall, Sir Alfred, <a href="#Page_240">240</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>Macaulay, Lord, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a></li> + +<li>Macleod, Norman, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></li> + +<li>Malmesbury, Lord, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a></li> + +<li>Manchester School, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a></li> + +<li>Marie Antoinette, Queen, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a></li> + +<li>Martin, Sir Theodore, <a href="#Page_287">287</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[322]</a></span></li> + +<li>Masson's 'Life of Milton,' <a href="#Page_132">132</a></li> + +<li>Melbourne, Lord, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a></li> + +<li>Mill, James, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a></li> + +<li>Mill, John Stuart, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li> + +<li>Milman, Dean, + <ul class="nest"> + <li> career, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271-274</a>;</li> + <li> dramatist, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>;</li> + <li> poet, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>;</li> + <li> translator, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>;</li> + <li> hymns, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>;</li> + <li> historian, <a href="#Page_257">257-270</a>;</li> + <li> critic, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256-261</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263-267</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>;</li> + <li> learning, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>;</li> + <li> style, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>;</li> + <li> views on miracles, <a href="#Page_258">258-260</a>;</li> + <li> on German criticism, <a href="#Page_260">260-262</a>;</li> + <li> on Christianity, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>;</li> + <li> on Tractarian movement, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>;</li> + <li> on clerical subscription, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>;</li> + <li> Mr. Reeve and, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>;</li> + <li> Dean Stanley and, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>;</li> + <li> friendships, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>;</li> + <li> private correspondence, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>;</li> + <li> social gifts, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>;</li> + <li> characteristics, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272-274</a>;</li> + <li> works, <a href="#Page_252">252-270</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>;</li> + <li> portrait, <a href="#Page_274">274</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li>Milman, Arthur, <a href="#Page_252">252</a></li> + +<li>Milner, Bishop, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a></li> + +<li>Milton, <a href="#Page_132">132</a></li> + +<li>Mohammedanism, rise of, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a></li> + +<li>Molyneux, <a href="#Page_74">74</a></li> + +<li>Monasticism, <a href="#Page_24">24</a></li> + +<li>Montesquieu, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a></li> + +<li>Montmorin, Mme, de, <a href="#Page_139">139</a></li> + +<li>Moral standard, changes in, <a href="#Page_14">14-19</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> + +<li>Murray, <a href="#Page_254">254</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>Napoleon I., <a href="#Page_142">142-146</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li> + +<li>Napoleon III., <a href="#Page_280">280</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a></li> + +<li>Narbonne, Louis de, <a href="#Page_138">138-141</a></li> + +<li>Necker, Mme., <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li> + +<li>Necker, Monsieur, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li> + +<li>Necker, Germaine, <i>see</i> Staël, Mme. de</li> + +<li>Newcastle, Duke of, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a></li> + +<li>Newman, Cardinal, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249-251</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>O'Connell, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></li> + +<li>Old-age pensions, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>, <a href="#Page_311">311-316</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> proposals for, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>;</li> + <li> Royal Commission, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>;</li> + <li> Rothschild Committee, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>;</li> + <li> Chaplin Committee, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li>Orangemen, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>Palestine, return of Jews to, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li> + +<li>Paley, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a></li> + +<li>Palmerston, Lord, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206-209</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279-282</a></li> + +<li>Parker, editor of Peel Correspondence, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li> + +<li>Parnell, C.S., <a href="#Page_186">186</a></li> + +<li>Parnell Commission, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></li> + +<li>Parsons, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a></li> + +<li>Pasteur, <a href="#Page_121">121</a></li> + +<li>Pauperism, diminution of, <a href="#Page_298">298-309</a></li> + +<li>Peel, Sir Lawrence, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li> + +<li>Peel, Sir Robert, + <ul class="nest"> + <li> education, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>;</li> + <li> career, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153-156</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>;</li> + <li> abolition of Corn Laws, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>;</li> + <li> Irish Secretary, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174-187</a>;</li> + <li> relations with O'Connell, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>;</li> + <li> correspondence, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175-185</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197-199</a>;</li> + <li> Croker and, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>;</li> + <li> advocates unsectarian education for Ireland, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>;</li> + <li> Catholic Emancipation, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168-174</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189-191</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193-195</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197-199</a>;</li> + <li> financial measures, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>;</li> + <li> patronage, <a href="#Page_178">178-183</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>;</li> + <li> police force organised, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>;</li> + <li> Home Secretary, <a href="#Page_188">188-198</a>;</li> + <li> parliamentary skill, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>;</li> + <li> debating powers, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>;</li> + <li> Queen Victoria and, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>;</li> + <li> recantations, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>;</li> + <li> estimate of his character and abilities, <a href="#Page_151">151-154</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li>Perceval, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159-161</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a></li> + +<li>Pitt, William, <i>see</i> Chatham</li> + +<li>Pliny, quoted, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li> + +<li>Plunket, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a></li> + +<li>Pobedonosteff, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li> + +<li>Pole, Wellesley, <a href="#Page_168">168</a></li> + +<li>Poor-law relief, + <ul class="nest"> + <li> improvement in, <a href="#Page_316">316</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>;</li> + <li> principles of, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li>Portland, Duke of, <a href="#Page_159">159-161</a></li> + +<li>Portugal, Jews in, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a></li> + +<li>Prince Consort, <a href="#Page_278">278-280</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a></li> + +<li>Prince Regent, <i>see</i> George IV</li> + +<li>Prison reform, Carlyle's views on, <a href="#Page_114">114</a></li> + +<li>Pusey, <a href="#Page_250">250</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>'Quarterly Review,' <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[323]</a></span><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>Rationalism in Europe, author's History of, <a href="#Page_103">103</a></li> + +<li>Redesdale, Lord, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a></li> + +<li>Reeve, Henry: + <ul class="nest"> + <li> education, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>;</li> + <li> career, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>;</li> + <li> editor of <i>Edinburgh Review</i>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>;</li> + <li> historical knowledge, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>;</li> + <li> views on Home Rule, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>;</li> + <li> linguistic talent, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>;</li> + <li> literary judgment, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>;</li> + <li> religious and philosophical views, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>;</li> + <li> political and social influence, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244-246</a>;</li> + <li> friendships, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>;</li> + <li> writings of, <a href="#Page_242">242-244</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>;</li> + <li> closing days, <a href="#Page_248">248</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li>Reform Bills, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a></li> + +<li>Reformation, + <ul class="nest"> + <li> causes of the, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>;</li> + <li> effect in Ireland, <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li>Revolution, + <ul class="nest"> + <li> American, <a href="#Page_34">34-37</a>;</li> + <li> effects of, in Ireland, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li>Revolution, + <ul class="nest"> + <li> English, effect of, in Ireland, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>;</li> + <li> on trade, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li>Revolutions, history of, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34-38</a></li> + +<li>Richmond, Duke of, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a></li> + +<li>Ristori, Mme., <a href="#Page_245">245</a></li> + +<li>Rocca, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li> + +<li>Rogers, Sir Frederick, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a></li> + +<li>Roumania, anti-Semite movement in, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a></li> + +<li>Rousseau, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a></li> + +<li>Ruskin, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li> + +<li>Russell, Lord John, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211-213</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a></li> + +<li>Russia, anti-Semite movement in, <a href="#Page_116">116-118</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>Salisbury, Lord, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a></li> + +<li>Saurin, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a></li> + +<li>Schiller, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li> + +<li>Schleswig-Holstein question, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a></li> + +<li>Scotland, Act of Union with, <a href="#Page_74">74</a></li> + +<li>Shaftesbury, Lord, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a></li> + +<li>Shelley, P.B., <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a></li> + +<li>Sidmouth, Lord, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a></li> + +<li>Smith, Goldwin, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li> + +<li>Socialism, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a></li> + +<li>Spain, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a></li> + +<li>Spencer, Herbert, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a></li> + +<li>Staël, Baron de, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li> + +<li>Staël, Mme. de., parentage, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> personal appearance, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>;</li> + <li> career, <a href="#Page_134">134-138</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148-150</a>;</li> + <li> devotion to her father, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>;</li> + <li> friendships, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>;</li> + <li> literary works, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145-150</a>;</li> + <li> Napoleon I., views on, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>;</li> + <li> political influence, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>;</li> + <li> religious views, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>;</li> + <li> travels, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>;</li> + <li> characteristics, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li>Stanley, Dean, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></li> + +<li>Stanley, Lord, <i>see</i> Derby, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>th Earl of</li> + +<li>Stockmar, Baron, <a href="#Page_278">278</a></li> + +<li>Sullivan, Sir Arthur, <a href="#Page_254">254</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>Tait, Archbishop, <a href="#Page_283">283</a></li> + +<li>Talleyrand, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a></li> + +<li>Taxation of American Colonies, <a href="#Page_34">34-36</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> democratic principles of, <a href="#Page_300">300</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li>Taylor, Sir Henry, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a></li> + +<li>Tennyson, Lord, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li> + +<li>Tocqueville, <a href="#Page_242">242-244</a></li> + +<li>Trade, Colonial, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63-65</a>; + <ul class="nest"> + <li> Indian, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>;</li> + <li> Irish, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>;</li> + <li> Jewish, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>;</li> + <li> affected by English Revolution, <a href="#Page_72">72</a></li> + </ul> +</li> + +<li>Transportation to Australia, <a href="#Page_58">58</a></li> + +<li>Transvaal affairs, <a href="#Page_225">225-232</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></li> + +<li>Trinity College, Dublin, <a href="#Page_90">90-92</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96-100</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>Ulster, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a></li> + +<li>United Irishmen, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>Voltaire, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a></li> + +<li>Volunteer movement in Ireland, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a></li> + +<li>Victoria, Queen: + <ul class="nest"> + <li> relations with her Ministers, <a href="#Page_279">279-283</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286-288</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>;</li> + <li> memorandum on foreign affairs, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>;</li> + <li> political influence, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282-286</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>;</li> + <li> patronage, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>;</li> + <li> views on foreign policy, <a href="#Page_279">279-281</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283-286</a>;</li> + <li> on Irish Church disestablishment, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>;</li> + <li> on women's suffrage, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>;</li> + <li> on Home Rule, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>;</li> + <li> wide experience, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>;</li> + <li> letters, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>;</li> + <li> journals, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>;</li> + <li> widowhood, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>;</li> + <li> moral influence, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[324]</a></span></li> + <li> rule of, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277-279</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281-284</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293-295</a>;</li> + <li> popularity, <a href="#Page_289">289-291</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>;</li> + <li> characteristics, <a href="#Page_274">274-276</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281-283</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287-294</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>;</li> + <li> jubilees, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>;</li> + <li> visit to Ireland, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>;</li> + <li> closing days, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a><br /><br /></li> + </ul> +</li> + + +<li>Walpole, Spencer, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li> + +<li>Ward, <a href="#Page_250">250</a></li> + +<li>Watts, <a href="#Page_274">274</a></li> + +<li>Wellesley, Lord, <i>see</i> Wellington, Duke of</li> + +<li>Wellington, Duke of, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188-190</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a></li> + +<li>Whateley, Archbishop, <a href="#Page_92">92-96</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li> + +<li>Women rulers, <a href="#Page_295">295</a></li> + +<li>Working classes, improvement in their condition, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a><br /><br /></li> + + +<li>York, Duke of, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197-199</a></li> + +<li>Young, Arthur, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li> +</ul> +<p> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /></p> +<hr /> + + + +<h5>PRINTED BY<br /> +SPOTTISWOODE AND CO. 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Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5329f5b --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #20389 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20389) diff --git a/old/20389-8.txt b/old/20389-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..35e62f7 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/20389-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10160 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Historical and Political Essays, by William +Edward Hartpole Lecky + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Historical and Political Essays + + +Author: William Edward Hartpole Lecky + + + +Release Date: January 17, 2007 [eBook #20389] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL ESSAYS*** + + +E-text prepared by Ted Garvin, Jeannie Howse, and the Project Gutenberg +Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/c/) + + + + +-----------------------------------------------------------+ + | Transcriber's Note: | + | | + | Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original | + | document have been preserved. | + | | + | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected in this | + | text. For a complete list, please see the end of this | + | document. | + | | + +-----------------------------------------------------------+ + + + + + +HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL ESSAYS + +by + +WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY + + + + + + + +Longmans, Green, and Co. +39 Paternoster Row, London +New York, Bombay, and Calcutta +1908 +All rights reserved + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + THOUGHTS ON HISTORY 1 + + THE POLITICAL VALUE OF HISTORY 21 + + THE EMPIRE: ITS VALUE AND ITS GROWTH 43 + + IRELAND IN THE LIGHT OF HISTORY 68 + + FORMATIVE INFLUENCES 90 + + CARLYLE'S MESSAGE TO HIS AGE 104 + + ISRAEL AMONG THE NATIONS 116 + + MADAME DE STAËL 131 + + THE PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE OF SIR ROBERT PEEL 151 + + THE FIFTEENTH EARL OF DERBY 200 + + MR. HENRY REEVE 242 + + DEAN MILMAN 249 + + QUEEN VICTORIA AS A MORAL FORCE 275 + + OLD-AGE PENSIONS 298 + + INDEX 319 + + + + +The Essays 'Thoughts on History,' 'Formative Influences,' +'Madame de Staël,' 'Israel among the Nations,' 'Old-age +Pensions,' appeared originally in the American Review, the +_Forum_--the first under the title of 'The Art of Writing +History'; 'Ireland in the Light of History,' in the _North +American Review_. Those on Sir Robert Peel, Mr. Henry Reeve, +and Dean Milman were written for the _Edinburgh Review_. The +Essay on 'Queen Victoria as a Moral Force' appeared first in +the _Pall Mall Magazine_; 'Carlyle's Message to His Age' in +the _Contemporary Review_. 'The Political Value of History' +was a presidential address delivered before the Birmingham and +Midland Institute; 'The Empire,' an inaugural address +delivered at the Imperial Institute; and the 'Memoir of the +Fifteenth Earl of Derby' was originally prefixed to the +volumes of his speeches and addresses. + + + + +HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL ESSAYS + + + + +THOUGHTS ON HISTORY + + +I do not propose in this paper to enter into any general inquiry about +the best method of writing history. Such inquiries appear to me to be +of no real value, for there are many different kinds of history which +should be written in many different ways. A diplomatic, a military, or +a parliamentary history, dealing with a short period or a particular +episode, must evidently be treated in a very different spirit from an +extended history where the object of the historian should be to +describe the various aspects of the national life, and to trace +through long periods of time the ultimate causes of national progress +and decay. The history of religion, of art, of literature, of social +and industrial development, of scientific progress, have all their +different methods. A writer who treats of some great revolution that +has transformed human affairs should deal largely in retrospect, for +the most important part of his task is to explain the long course of +events that prepared and produced the catastrophe; while a writer who +treats of more normal times will do well to plunge rapidly into his +theme. + +Historians, too, differ widely in their special talents, and these +talents are never altogether combined. The power of vividly realising +and portraying men, or societies or modes of thought that have long +since passed away; the power of arranging and combining great +multitudes of various facts; the power of judging with discrimination, +accuracy, and impartiality conflicting arguments or evidence; the +power of tracing through the long course of events the true chain of +cause and effect, selecting the facts that are most valuable and +significant and explaining the relation between general causes and +particular effects, are all very different and belong to different +types of mind. It is idle to expect a writer with the gifts of a +Clarendon, a Kinglake, or a Froude to write history in the spirit of a +Hallam or a Grote. Writers who are eminently distinguished for wide, +patient, and accurate research have sometimes little power either of +describing or interpreting the facts which they collect. All that can +be said with any profit is that each writer will do best if he follows +the natural bent of his genius, and that he should select those kinds +or periods of history in which his special gifts have most scope and +the qualities in which he is deficient are least needed. + +It is the fashion of a modern school of historical writers to deplore +what they call the intrusion of literature into history. History, in +their judgment, should be treated as science and not as literature, +and the kind of intellect they most value is not unlike that of a +skilful and well-trained attorney. To collect documents with industry; +to compare, classify, interpret and estimate them is the main work of +the historian. It is no doubt true that there are some fields of +history where the primary facts are so little known, so much contested +or so largely derived from recondite manuscript sources, that a +faithful historian will be obliged in justice to his readers to +sacrifice both proportion and artistic charm to the supreme importance +of analysing evidence, reproducing documents and accumulating proofs; +but in general the depreciation of the literary element in history +seems to me essentially wrong. It is only necessary to recall the +names of Herodotus and Thucydides, of Livy and Tacitus, of Gibbon and +Macaulay, and of the long line of great masters of style who have +related the annals of France. It may, indeed, be confidently asserted +that there is no subject in which rarer literary qualities are more +demanded than in the higher forms of history. The art of portraying +characters; of describing events; of compressing, arranging, and +selecting great masses of heterogeneous facts, of conducting many +different chains of narrative without confusion or obscurity; of +preserving in a vast and complicated subject the true proportion and +relief, will tax the highest literary skill, and no one who does not +possess some, at least, of these gifts in an unusual measure is likely +to attain a permanent place among the great masters of history. It is +a misfortune when some stirring and momentous period falls into the +hands of the mere compiler, for he occupies the ground and a really +great writer will hesitate to appropriate and plagiarise the materials +his predecessor has collected. There are books of great research and +erudition which one would have wished to have been all re-written by +some writer of real genius who could have given order, meaning and +vividness to a mere chaos of accurate and laboriously sifted learning. +The great prominence which it is now the fashion to ascribe to the +study of diplomatic documents, is very apt to destroy the true value +and perspective of history. It is always the temptation of those who +are dealing with manuscript materials to overrate the small personal +details which they bring to light, and to give them much more than +their due space in their narrative. This tendency the new school +powerfully encourages. It is quite right that the treasure-houses of +diplomatic correspondence which have of late years been thrown open +should be explored and sifted, but history written chiefly from these +materials, though it has its own importance, is not likely to be +distinguished either by artistic form or by philosophical value. Those +who are immersed in these studies are very apt to overrate their +importance and the part which diplomacy and statesmanship have borne +in the great movement of human affairs. + +A true and comprehensive history should be the life of a nation. It +should describe it in its larger and more various aspects. It should +be a study of causes and effects, of distant as well as proximate +causes, and of the large, slow and permanent evolution of things. It +should include, as Buckle and Macaulay saw, the social, the +industrial, the intellectual life of the nation as well as mere +political changes, and it should be pre-eminently marked by a true +perspective dealing with subjects at a length proportioned to their +real importance. All this requires a powerful and original intellect +quite different from that of a mere compiler. It requires too, in a +high degree, the kind of imagination which enables a man to reproduce +not only the acts but the feelings, the ideals, the modes of thought +and life of a distant past, and pierce through the actions and +professions of men to their real characters. Insight into character is +one of the first requisites of a historian. It is therefore, much to +be desired that he should possess a wide knowledge of the world, the +knowledge of different types of character, foreign as well as English, +which travel and society and practical experience of business can +give, and it will also be of no small advantage to him if he has +passed through more than one intellectual or religious phase, widening +the area of his appreciation and realisations. He should also have +enough of the dramatic element to enable him to throw himself into +ways of reasoning or feeling very different from his own. One of the +most valuable of all forms of historical imagination is that which +enables a writer to place himself in the point of view of the best men +on different sides, and to bring out the full sense of opposing +arguments. All these gifts or qualities are never in a high degree +united, but they are all essential to a great historian, and a true +school of history should widen instead of narrowing our conception of +it. + +The supreme virtue of the historian is truthfulness, and it may be +violated in many different degrees. The worst form is when a writer +deliberately falsifies facts or deliberately excludes from his picture +qualifying circumstances. But there are other and much more subtle +ways in which party spirit continually and often quite unconsciously +distorts history. All history is necessarily a selection of facts, and +a writer who is animated by a strong sympathy with one side of a +question or a strong desire to prove some special point will be much +tempted in his selection to give an undue prominence to those that +support his view, or, even where neither facts nor arguments are +suppressed, to give a party character to his work by an unfair +distribution of lights and shades. The strong and vivid epithets are +chiefly reserved for the good or bad deeds on one side, the vague, +general and comparatively colourless epithets for the corresponding +deeds on the other side; and in this way very similar facts are +brought before the reader with such different degrees of illumination +and relief that they make a wholly different impression on his mind. +In the history of Macaulay this defect may, I think, be especially +traced. The characteristic defect of that great and in most respects +admirable writer, both as historian and artist, was the singular +absence of graduation in his mind. The neutral tints which are +essential to the accurate shading of character seemed almost wanting, +and a love of strong contrasted lights and shades, coupled with his +supreme command of powerful epithets, continually misled him. But no +attentive reader can fail to observe how unequally those epithets are +distributed and how clearly this inequality discloses the strong bias +under which he wrote. + +The truth of an historical picture lies mainly in its judicious and +accurate shading, and it is this art which the historian should +especially cultivate. He will scarcely do so with success unless it +becomes to him not merely a matter of duty, but also a pleasure and a +pride. The kind of interest which he takes in his narrative should be +much less that of a politician and an advocate than of a painter, who, +now darkening and now lightening the picture, seeks by many delicate +touches to catch with exact fidelity the tone and hue of the object he +represents. + +The degree of certainty that it is possible to attain in history +varies greatly in different departments. The growth of institutions +and laws, military events, changes in manners and in creeds, can be +described with much confidence, and although it is more difficult to +depict the inner moral life of nations, the influences that form their +characters and prepare them for greatness or decay, yet when the +materials for our induction are sufficiently large this field of +history may be studied with great profit. Diplomatic history and the +more secret springs of political history can only be fully disclosed +when the archives relating to them have been explored and when the +confidential correspondence of the chief actors in them has been +published. The biographical element in history is always the most +uncertain. Even among contemporaries the judgment of character and +motives depends largely on indications so slight and subtle that they +rarely pass into books and are only fully felt by direct personal +contact, and the smallest knowledge of life shows how quickly +anecdotes and sayings are distorted, coloured, and misplaced when they +pass from lip to lip. Most of the 'good sayings' of history are +invention, and most of them have been attributed to different persons. +A history which is plainly written under the influence of party bias +has the value of an advocate's speech giving one side of the question. +When our only materials for the knowledge of a period are derived from +such histories, the saying of Voltaire should be remembered--that we +can confidently believe only the evil which a party writer tells of +his own side and the good which he recognises in his opponents. In +judging the historian we must consider his nearness to the events he +relates, his probable means of information and the internal evidence +in his narrative of accuracy, honesty, and judgment, and we must also +consider the standard of proof and the methods of historical writing +prevailing in his time. A modern writer who placed in the mouths of +his personages speeches which he himself invented would be justly +discredited, but in antiquity it was a recognised custom for a +historian to embody in fictitious speeches the reflections suggested +by his narrative and the motives which he believed to have actuated +his heroes. + +Different ages differ enormously in the severity of proof which they +exact, in the degree of accuracy which they attain. The credibility of +a statement also depends not only on the amount of its evidence, but +also on its own inherent probability. Everyone will feel that an +amount of testimony that would be quite sufficient to persuade him +that a butcher's boy had been seen driving along a highway is wholly +different from that which would be required to persuade him that a +ghost had been met there. The same rule applies to the history of the +past, and it is complicated by the great difference in different ages +of the measure of probability, or, in other words, by the strong +predisposition in certain stages of knowledge to accept statements or +explanations of facts which in later stages we know to be incredible +or in a high degree improbable. Few subjects in history are more +difficult than the laws of evidence in dealing with the supernatural +and the extent to which the authority of historians in relating +credible and probable facts is invalidated by the presence of a +mythical element in their narratives. + +Connected with this subject is also the question how far it is +possible by merely internal evidence to decompose an ancient document, +resolving it into its separate elements, distinguishing its different +dates and its different degrees of credibility. The reader is no doubt +aware with what a rare skill this method of inquiry has been pursued +in the present century, chiefly by great German and Dutch scholars, in +dealing with the early Jewish writings. At the same time, without +disputing the value of their work or the importance of many of the +results at which they have arrived, I may be pardoned for expressing +my belief that this kind of investigation is often pursued with an +exaggerated confidence. Plausible conjecture is too frequently +mistaken for positive proof. Undue significance is attached to what +may be mere casual coincidences, and a minuteness of accuracy is +professed in discriminating between the different elements in a +narrative which cannot be attained by mere internal evidence. In all +writings, but especially in the writings of an age when criticism was +unknown, there will be repetitions, contradictions, inconsistencies +and diversities of style which do not necessarily indicate different +authorship or dates. + +I have spoken of the uncertainty of the biographical element in +history. It must, however, be said that when a historian is dealing +with men who have played a very prominent part on the stage of life, +the general acceptance of his judgment is a strong corroboration of +its truth. It may be added that the later judgment of men is not +unfrequently more true than the contemporary judgment. The wisdom of a +teaching or of a policy is shown by its results, and these results are +in most cases very gradually disclosed. Great men are like great +mountains which are surrounded by lower peaks that often obscure their +grandeur and seem to a near observer to equal or even to overtop them. +It is only when seen from far off that their true dimensions are fully +realised and they soar to heaven above all rivals. In the page of +history men are judged mainly by the net result of their lives, by the +broad lines of their characters and achievements. Many injudicious +words, many minor weaknesses of conduct, are forgotten. Faults of +manner, deficiencies of tact, awkwardnesses of appearance, which tell +so largely upon the judgments of contemporaries, are no longer seen. +The conversational nimbleness and versatility of intellect, the charm +or assurance or magnetism of manner, the weight of social position, +all of which tend to secure to an inferior man a pre-eminence in the +circle in which he moves, are equally evanescent, and the shy, rugged, +and tactless recluse often emerges on the strength of his genuine and +abiding performances to a position in the eyes of the world which he +never attained during his lifetime. + +That fine saying of Cardan, 'Tempus mea possessio, tempus ager meus,' +might be the motto of the historian. Time is the field which he +cultivates, and a true sense of space and distance should be one of +the chief characteristics of his work. Few things are more difficult +to attain than a just perspective in history. The most dramatic +incidents are not the most important, and in weighing the joys and +sorrows of the past our measures of judgment are almost hopelessly +false. The most humane man cannot emancipate himself from the law of +his nature, according to which he is more affected by some tragic +circumstance which has taken place in his own house or in his own +street than by a catastrophe which has carried anguish and desolation +over enormous areas in a distant continent. In history, too, there are +vast tracts which are almost necessarily unrealised. We judge a period +mainly by its great men, by its brilliant or salient incidents, by the +fortunes of a small class; and the great mass of obscure, suffering, +inarticulate humanity, whose happiness is often so profoundly affected +by political and military events, almost escapes our notice. It should +be the object of history to bring before us past events in their true +proportion and significance, and one of the greatest improvements in +modern history is the increased attention which is paid to the +social, industrial, and moral history of the poor. The paucity of our +information and the difficulty of realising the conditions of obscure +multitudes will always make this branch of history very imperfect, but +it is one of the most essential to the just judgment of the past. + +Another task which lies before the historian is that of distinguishing +proximate from ultimate causes. Our first natural impulse is to +attribute a great change to the men who effected it and to the period +in which it took place, and to neglect or underrate the long train of +causes which had been, often through many generations, preparing its +advent. A faithful historian must especially guard against this error. +He must study the slow process of growth as well as the moment of +efflorescence, the long progress of decay as well as the final +catastrophe. He will probably find that the part played by statesmen +and legislatures is less than he had imagined, and that the causes of +the movements he relates must be sought over a wider area and through +a longer period. + +Moral, intellectual, or economical movements very slightly connected +with political life are often those which have most largely +contributed to the good or evil fortunes of a nation; and even in the +sphere of politics it is not the events which attract the most vivid +contemporary interest that have the most enduring influence. Few +things contribute so much to the formation of the social type as the +laws regulating the succession of property and especially the +agglomeration or division of landed property. The growth of militarism +in a nation, besides its direct and obvious consequences, forms a type +of character which will sooner or later show itself in almost every +department of legislation, and the tendency of politics to enlarge or +narrow the sphere of individual liberty or of government control, will +affect most deeply the habits of the people. Laws regulating private +enterprises, substituting State control or initiative for individual +action, encouraging or discouraging thrift, and above all interfering +with free contracts, have much more than an immediate influence, for +they become the prolific parents of many further extensions. In the +words of an excellent observer, it will be found 'that our legislative +interference is but the first link of a long chain of repetitions, +every subsequent interference being naturally produced by the effects +of the preceding.' It is by studying such tendencies through long +periods of time that their good or evil influences may be best +discovered, and this should be one of the great tasks of the +historian. + +But, however large a part may be given to the impersonal influences in +history, he will still be largely concerned with the record of +individual achievements, and the great men of the past will form the +most conspicuous landmarks of his narrative. I have often thought, +however, that nations are judged too much by the great men they have +produced and not sufficiently by the way in which they have +discriminated among them and appreciated them. Genius is like the wind +that bloweth where it listeth, and it often appears in strangely +uncongenial quarters. The true nobility of a nation is shown by the +men they choose, by the men they follow, by the men they admire, by +the ideals of character and conduct they place before them. Tried by +such tests, there is often much that is profoundly saddening in the +history of countries that have been far from poor in the number of +their great men. + +In the judgment of historical characters there are two cautions on +which it may not be useless to dwell. There is a large class of public +men who show little capacity in dealing with or directing the present +conditions of their time, but who see clearly the bourne to which +existing forces or tendencies are moving and who, judged by their +distant forecasts, will appear much wiser than their contemporaries. +It is the natural bias of the historian to place them perhaps higher +than they deserve. This power of just speculative foresight is no very +rare gift, and in public affairs it is often as much a hindrance as a +help. Forms of government and other great religious or political +institutions, like the products of nature, have their times of +immaturity, of growth, of ripeness and of decay, and it by no means +follows because they at last become indefensible, that they have not +during many generations discharged useful functions and that those who +first assailed and condemned them are deserving of praise. Not +unfrequently, indeed, a public man must take his choice whether by +fully identifying himself with the existing conditions around him and +employing them to the best advantages he will lead a useful and +practical life, or whether as an advanced thinker he will associate +himself with the cause that is one day to conquer, place himself in +the van of progress and at the sacrifice of much present influence +deserve the credit of foresight. + +Historians will probably always judge men and policies by their net +results, by their final consequences, and this judgment is on the +whole the most sure that we can attain. It is not, however, altogether +infallible. Apart from the question of the moral character of the +methods employed which a good historian should never omit from his +consideration, success is not always a decisive proof of sagacity. +Chance and the unexpected play a great part in human affairs, and a +judgment founded on a perfectly just estimate of probabilities will +often prove wrong. The result which was the least probable will come +true, some wholly unforeseen and unforeseeable occurrence will scatter +dangers that were very real and give a new complexion to events. The +rise of some pre-eminently great or of some pre-eminently mischievous +personage among the guiding influences of a nation will derange the +most sagacious calculations, and the reckless gambler or the obtuse +obstructionist may prove more right than the most cautious, the most +skilful, the most farseeing statesman. + +A fatal and very common error is that of judging the actions of the +past by the moral standard of our own age. This is especially the +error of novices in history and of those who without any wide and +general culture devote themselves exclusively to a single period. +While the primary and essential elements of right and wrong remain +unchanged, nothing is more certain than that the standard or ideal of +duty is continually altering. A very humane man in another age may +have done things which would now be regarded as atrociously barbarous. +A very virtuous man may have done things which would now indicate +extreme profligacy. We seldom indeed make sufficient allowance for the +degree in which the judgments and dispositions of even the best man +are coloured by the moral tone of the time or society in which they +live. And what is true of individuals is equally true of nations. In +order to judge equitably the legislation of any people, we must always +consider corresponding contemporary legislations and ideas. When this +is neglected our judgments of the past become wholly false. How often, +for example, has such a subject as the history of the penal laws +against Irish Catholics been treated without the smallest reference to +the contemporary laws against Protestants that existed in every +Catholic nation and the contemporary laws against Catholics that +existed in almost every Protestant country in Europe. How often have +the English commercial restrictions on the American colonies been +treated as if they were instances of extreme and exceptional tyranny, +while a more extended knowledge would show that they were simply the +expression of ideas of commercial policy and about the relation of +dependencies to the mother-country which then almost universally +prevailed. + +It is not merely the moral standard that changes. A corresponding +change takes place in the moral type, or, in other words, in the class +of virtues which is especially cultivated and especially valued. To +know an age aright we should above all things seek to understand its +ideal, the direction in which the stream of its self-sacrifice and +moral energy naturally flowed. Few things in history are more +interesting and more valuable than a study of the causes that produced +and modified these successive ideals. Thus in the moral type of pagan +antiquity the civic virtues occupied incomparably the foremost place. +The idea of a supremely good man was essentially that of a man of +action, of a man whose whole life was devoted to the service of his +country. The life and death of Cato were for generations the favourite +model. He was deemed, in the words of an old Latin historian, to be of +all men the one 'most like to virtue.' This pattern retained its force +till the softening influence of the Greek spirit, permeating Roman +life, made the stoical ideal seem too hard and unsympathising; till +the corruption and despotism of the Empire had withdrawn the best men +from political life and attached a certain taint or stigma to public +employment; till new religions arose in the East, bringing with them +new ideals to govern the world. Gradually we may trace the +contemplative virtues rising to the foremost place until, about the +fifth century, the ideal had totally changed. The heroic type was +replaced by the saintly type. The supremely good man was now the +ascetic. The first condition of sanctity was a complete abandonment of +secular duties and cares and a complete subjugation of the body. A +vast literature of legends arose reflecting and glorifying the +prevailing ideal and holding up the hermit life as the supreme pattern +of perfection, and this literature occupies a place in mediævalism +very similar to that held by the 'Lives' of Plutarch in antiquity. + +Ancient art was essentially the glorification of the body, a +representation of the full strength and beauty of developed manhood. +The saint of the mediæval mosaic represents the body in its extreme +maceration and humiliation. The rhetorician, Dio Chrysostom, in a +somewhat whimsical passage, which was suggested by a remark of Plato, +found a special moral significance in the fact that Homer, though he +places his heroes on the the banks of what he calls 'the fishy +Hellespont,' never makes them eat fish, but always flesh and the flesh +of oxen, for this, as he says, is 'strength-producing food' and is +therefore suited for the formation of heroes and the proper diet for +men of virtue. Compare this judgment with the protracted, and indeed +incredible, fasts which the monkish writers delighted in attributing +to the saints of the desert, and we have a vivid picture of the change +that had passed over the ideal. + +But as time moved on the ascetic ideal gradually declined and was +replaced by the very different ideal of chivalry. It consisted chiefly +of three new elements. The first element was a spirit of gallantry +which gave women a wholly new place in the imaginations of men. It was +in part a reaction against the extreme austerity of the saints, and +this reaction was much intensified after the cessation of the panic +which had risen at the close of the tenth century about the +approaching end of the world. It was in part produced by the softer +and more epicurean civilisation which grew up in the country bordering +on the Pyrenees. It was especially represented in the romances and +poems of the Troubadours, and the new tendency even received some +assistance from the Church when the Council of Clermont, which +originated the Crusades, imposed on the knight the religious +obligation of defending all widows and orphans. + +The second element was an increased reverence for secular rank, which +grew out of the feudal system, when a great hereditary aristocracy +arose and all European society was moulded into a compact hierarchy, +of which the serf was the basis and the emperor the apex. The +principle of subordination and obedience ran through the whole +edifice, and a respect for rank was universally diffused. Men came to +associate their ideal of greatness with regal or noble authority, and +they were therefore prepared to idealise any great sovereign who might +arise. Such a sovereign appeared in Charlemagne, who exercised upon +Christendom a fascination not less powerful than that which Alexander +had once exercised upon Greece, and he accordingly soon became the +centre of a whole literature of romance. + +The third element was the fusion of religious enthusiasm with the +military spirit. Christianity in its first phases was utterly opposed +to the military spirit; but this opposition was naturally mitigated +when the Church triumphed under Constantine and became associated with +governments and armies. The hostility was still further qualified when +many tribes of warlike barbarians embraced the faith, and the military +obligation which was an essential element of feudalism acted in the +same direction. But, above all, the rise and conquests of +Mohammedanism awoke the military energies of Christendom and +determined the direction it should take. In the Crusades the two great +streams of military enthusiasm and of religious enthusiasm met, and +the result was the formation of a new ideal which for a long period +mainly governed the imagination of Christendom. + +It for a time absorbed, eclipsed, and transformed all purely national +ideals. No poet was ever more intensely English in his character and +sympathies than Chaucer, and he wrote when the dazzling glories of +Crécy and Poitiers were still very recent. Yet it is not on these +fields, but in the long wars with the Moslems, that his pattern knight +had won his renown. The military expeditions of Charlemagne were +directed almost exclusively against the Saxons and against Slavonic +tribes. With the Spanish Mohammedans he came but very slightly in +contact. He made in person but one expedition against them, and that +expedition was both insignificant and unsuccessful. But in the +Karlovingian romances, which were written when the crusading +enthusiasm was at its height, the figure of the great emperor +underwent a strange and most significant transformation. The German +wars were scarcely noticed. Charlemagne is surrounded with the special +glory that ought to have belonged to Charles Martel. He is represented +as having passed his entire life in a victorious struggle with the +Mohammedans of Europe, and is even gravely credited with a triumphant +expedition to Jerusalem. The three romances of the Crusades which are +believed to be the oldest were all written by monks, and they all make +Charlemagne their hero. Even geography was transformed by the new +enthusiasm, and old maps sometimes represent Jerusalem as the centre +of the world. + +In few periods has there been so great a difference between the ideals +created by the popular imagination and the realities that are +recognised by history. Few wars have been accompanied by more cruelty, +more outrage, and more licentiousness than the Crusades or have +brought a blacker cloud of disasters in their train. Yet the idea that +inspired them was a lofty one, and they were so speedily transfigured +by the imaginations of men that in combination with the other +influences I have mentioned they created an ideal which is one of the +most beautiful in the history of the world. We may trace it clearly in +the romances of Arthur and Charlemagne and of the "Cid;" in the +"Red-Cross Knight" of Tasso and Spenser; in the old ballads which +paint so vividly the hero of chivalry, ever ready to draw his sword +for his faith and his lady-love and in the cause of the feeble and the +oppressed. The glorification of military courage and self-sacrifice +which had been so prominent in antiquity was again in the ascendant, +but it was combined with a new kind of honour and with a new vein of +courtesy, modesty, and gentleness. When we apply the epithet +'chivalrous' to a modern gentleman, this is no unmeaning term. There +is even now an element in that character which may be distinctly +traced to the ideal of chivalry which the Crusades made dominant in +Europe. + +I do not propose to follow the history of other ideals that have in +turn prevailed. What I have written will, I trust, be sufficient to +illustrate a kind of history which appears to me to possess much +interest and value. It will show, too, that a faithful historian is +very largely concerned with the fictions as well as with the facts of +the past. Legends which have no firm historical basis are often of the +highest historical value as reflecting the moral sentiments of their +time. Nor do they merely reflect them. In some periods they contribute +perhaps more than any other influence to mould and colour them and to +give them an enduring strength. The facts of history have been largely +governed by its fictions. Great events often acquire their full power +over the human mind only when they have passed through the +transfiguring medium of the imagination, and men as they were supposed +to be have even sometimes exercised a wider influence than men as they +actually were. Ideals ultimately rule the world, and each before it +loses its ascendancy bequeaths some moral truth as an abiding legacy +to the human race. + + + + +THE POLITICAL VALUE OF HISTORY + + +When, shortly after I had accepted the honourable task which I am +endeavouring to fulfil to-night, I received from your Secretary a +report of the annual proceedings of the Birmingham and Midland +Institute,--when I observed the immense range and variety of subjects +included within your programme, illustrating so strikingly the intense +intellectual activity of this great town,--my first feeling was one of +some bewilderment and dismay. What, I asked myself, could I say that +would be of much real value, addressing an unknown audience, and +relating to fields of knowledge so vast, so multifarious, and in many +of their parts so far beyond the range of my own studies? On +reflection, however, it appeared to me that in this, as in most other +cases, the proverb was a wise one which bids the cobbler stick to his +last, and that a writer who, during many years of his life, has been +engaged in the study of English history could hardly do better than +devote the time at his disposal to-night to a few reflections on the +political value of history, and on the branches and methods of +historical study that are most fitted to form a sound political +judgment. + +Is history a study of real use in practical, and especially in +political, life? The question, as you know, has been by no means +always answered in the same way. In its earlier stages history was +regarded chiefly as a form of poetry recording the more dramatic +actions of kings, warriors, and statesmen. Homer and the early +ballads are indeed the first historians of their countries, and long +after Homer one of the most illustrious of the critics of antiquity +described history as merely 'poetry free from the incumbrance of +verse.' The portraits that adorned it gave some insight into human +character; it breathed noble sentiments, rewarded and stimulated noble +actions, and kindled by its strong appeals to the imagination high +patriotic feeling; but its end was rather to paint than to guide, to +consecrate a noble past than to furnish a key for the future; and the +artist in selecting his facts looked mainly for those which could +throw the richest colour upon his canvas. Most experience was in his +eyes (to adopt an image of Coleridge) like the stern light of a ship, +which illuminates only the path we have already traversed; and a large +proportion of the subjects which are most significant as illustrating +the true welfare and development of nations were deliberately rejected +as below the dignity of history. The old conception of history can +hardly be better illustrated than in the words of Savage Landor. 'Show +me,' he makes one of his heroes say, 'how great projects were +executed, great advantages gained, and great calamities averted. Show +me the generals and the statesmen who stood foremost, that I may bend +to them in reverence.... Let the books of the Treasury lie closed as +religiously as the Sibyl's. Leave weights and measures in the +market-place; Commerce in the harbour; the Arts in the light they +love; Philosophy in the shade. Place History on her rightful throne, +and at the sides of her Eloquence and War.'[1] + +It was chiefly in the eighteenth century that a very different +conception of history grew up. Historians then came to believe that +their task was not so much to paint a picture as to solve a problem; +to explain or illustrate the successive phases of national growth, +prosperity, and adversity. The history of morals, of industry, of +intellect, and of art; the changes that take place in manners or +beliefs; the dominant ideas that prevailed in successive periods; the +rise, fall, and modification of political constitutions; in a word, +all the conditions of national well-being became the subjects of their +works. They sought rather to write a history of peoples than a history +of kings. They looked specially in history for the chain of causes and +effects. They undertook to study in the past the physiology of +nations, and hoped by applying the experimental method on a large +scale to deduce some lessons of real value about the conditions on +which the well-being of society mainly depends. + +How far have they succeeded in their attempt, and furnished us with a +real compass for political guidance? Let me in the first place frankly +express my own belief that to many readers of history the study is not +only useless, but even positively misleading. An unintelligent, a +superficial, a pedantic or an inaccurate use of history is the source +of very many errors in practical judgment. Human affairs are so +infinitely complex that it is vain to expect that they will ever +exactly reproduce themselves, or that any study of the past can enable +us to predict the future with the minuteness and the completeness that +can be attained in the exact sciences. Nor will any wise man judge the +merits of existing institutions solely on historic grounds. Do not +persuade yourself that any institution, however great may be its +antiquity, however transcendent may have been its uses in a remote +past, can permanently justify its existence, unless it can be shown +to exercise a really beneficial influence over our own society and our +own age. It is equally true that no institution which is exercising +such a beneficial influence should be condemned, because it can be +shown from history that under other conditions and in other times its +influence was rather for evil than for good. + +These propositions may seem like truisms; yet how often do we hear a +kind of reasoning that is inconsistent with them! How often, for +example, in the discussions on the Continent on the advantages and +disadvantages of monastic institutions has the chief stress of the +argument been laid upon the great benefits which those institutions +produced in ages that were utterly different from our own,--in the +dark period of the barbarian invasions, when they were the only +refuges of a pacific civilisation, the only libraries, the only +schools, the only centres of art, the only refuge for gentle and +intellectual natures; the chief barrier against violence and rapine; +the chief promoters of agriculture and industry! How often in +discussions on the merits and demerits of an Established Church in +England have we heard arguments drawn from the hostility which the +Church of England showed towards English liberty in the time of the +Stuarts; although it is abundantly evident that the dangers of a royal +despotism, which were then so serious, have utterly disappeared, and +that the political action of the Church of England at that period was +mainly governed by a doctrine of the Divine right of kings, and of the +duty of passive obedience, which is now as dead as the old belief that +the king's touch could cure scrofula! How often have the champions of +modern democracy appealed in support of their views to the glories of +the democracies of ancient Greece, without ever reminding their +hearers that these small municipal republics rested on the basis of +slavery, and that the bulk of those who would exercise the chief +controlling influence over affairs in a pure democracy of the modern +type were absolutely excluded from political power! How often in +discussions about the advantages and disadvantages of Home Rule in +Ireland do we find arguments drawn from the merits or demerits of the +Irish Parliament of the eighteenth century, with a complete +forgetfulness of the fact that this Parliament consisted exclusively +of a Protestant gentry; that it represented in the highest degree the +property of the country, and the classes who are most closely attached +to English rule; that it was constituted in such a manner that the +English Government could exercise a complete control over its +deliberations, and that for good or for ill it was utterly unlike any +body that could now be constituted in Ireland! + +Or again, to turn to another field: it is quite certain that every age +has special dangers to guard against, and that as time moves on these +dangers not only change, but are sometimes even reversed. There have +been periods in English history when the great dangers to be +encountered sprang from the excessive and encroaching power of a +monarchy or of an aristocracy. The battle to be then fought was for +the free exercise of religious worship and expression of religious +opinion, for a free parliament, for a free press, for a free platform, +for an independent jury-box. All the best patriotism, all the most +heroic self-sacrifice of the nation, was thrown into defence of these +causes; and the wisest statesmen of the time made it the main object +of their legislation to protect and consolidate them. + +These things are now as valuable as they ever were, but no reasonable +man will maintain that they are in the smallest danger. The battles of +the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have been definitely won. A +kind of language which at one period of English history implied the +noblest heroism is now the idlest and cheapest of clap-trap. The +sycophant and the self-seeker bow before quite other idols than of +old. The dangers of the time come from other quarters; other +tendencies prevail, other tasks remain to be accomplished; and a +public man who in framing his course followed blindly in the steps of +the heroes or reformers of the past would be like a mariner who set +his sails to the winds of yesterday. + +It is difficult, I think, to doubt that the judgments of all of us are +more or less affected by causes of this kind. It is, I imagine, true +of the great majority of educated men that their first political +impression or bias is formed much less by the events of their own time +than by childish recollections of the more dramatic conflicts of the +past. We are Cavaliers or Roundheads before we are Conservatives or +Liberals; and although we gradually learn to realise how profoundly +the condition of affairs and the balance of forces have altered, yet +no wise man can doubt the power which the first bias of the +imagination exercises in very many cases through a whole life. +Language which grew out of bygone conflicts continues to be used long +after those conflicts and their causes have ended; but that which was +once a very genuine voice comes at last to be little more than an +insincere echo. + +The best corrective for this kind of evil is a really intelligent +study of history. One of the first tasks that every sincere student +should set before himself is to endeavour to understand what is the +dominant idea or characteristic of the period with which he is +occupied; what forces chiefly ruled it, what forces were then rising +into a dangerous ascendancy, and what forces were on the decline; what +illusions, what exaggerations, what false hopes and unworthy +influences chiefly prevailed. It is only when studied in this spirit +that the true significance of history is disclosed, and the same +method which furnishes a key to the past forms also an admirable +discipline for the judgment of the present. He who has learnt to +understand the true character and tendencies of many succeeding ages +is not likely to go very far wrong in estimating his own. + +Another branch of history which I would especially commend to the +attention of all political students is the history of Institutions. In +the constantly fluctuating conditions of human life no institution +ever remained for a long period unaltered. Sometimes with changed +beliefs and changed conditions institutions lose all their original +utility. They become simply useless, obstructive, and corrupt; and +though by mere passive resistance they may continue to exist long +after they have ceased to serve any good purpose, they will at last be +undermined by their own abuses. Other institutions, on the other hand, +show the true characteristic of vitality--the power of adapting +themselves to changed conditions and new utilities. Few things in +history are more interesting and more instructive than a careful study +of these transformations. Sometimes the original objects almost wholly +disappear, and utilities which were either never contemplated by the +founders or were only regarded as of purely secondary importance take +the first place on the scene. The old plan and symmetry almost +disappear as the institution is modified now in this direction and now +in that to meet some pressing want. The first architects, if they +could rise from the dead, would scarcely recognise their +creation--would perhaps look on it with horror. The indirect +advantages of an institution are sometimes greater than its direct +ones; and institutions are often more valuable on account of the evils +they avert than on account of the positive advantages they produce. +Not unfrequently in their later and transformed condition they +exercise wider and greater influence than when they were originally +established; for the strength derived from the long traditions of the +past and from the habits that are formed around anything that is +deeply rooted in the national life gives them a vastly increased +importance. + +There is probably no better test of the political genius of a nation +than the power which it possesses of adapting old institutions to new +wants; and it is, I think, in this skill and in this disposition that +the political pre-eminence of the English people has been most +conspicuously shown. It is difficult to overrate its importance. It is +the institutions of a country that chiefly maintain the sense of its +organic unity, its essential connection with its past. By their +continuous existence they bind together as by a living chain the past +with the present, the living with the dead. + +Few greater calamities can befall a nation than to cut herself off, as +France did in her great Revolution, from all vital connection with her +own past. This is one of the chief lessons you will learn from +Burke--the greatest and truest of all our political teachers. Bacon +expressed in an admirable sentence the best spirit of English politics +when he urged that 'men in their innovations should follow the example +of Time itself, which indeed innovated greatly, but quietly, and by +degrees scarcely to be perceived.' + +There is a third department of history which appears to me especially +valuable to political students. It is the history of those vast +Revolutions for good or for ill which seem to have transformed the +characters or permanently changed the fortunes of nations, either by a +sudden and violent shock or by the slow process of gradual renovation. +You will find on this subject, in our country, two great and opposite +exaggerations. There is a school of writers, of which Buckle is an +admirable representative, who are so struck by the long chain of +causes, extending over many centuries, that preceded and prepared +Revolutions, that they teach a kind of historic fatalism, reducing +almost to nothing the action of Individualities; and there is another +school, which is specially represented by Carlyle, who reduce all +history into biographies, into the action of a few great men upon +their kind. + +The one class of writers will tell you with great truth that the Roman +Republic was not destroyed by Cæsar, but by the long train of +influences that made the career of Cæsar a possibility. They will show +how influences working through many generations had sapped the +foundations of the Republic--how the beliefs and habits on which it +once rested had passed away--how its institutions no longer +corresponded with the prevailing wants and ideas--how a form of +government which had proved excellently adapted for a restricted +dominion failed when the Roman eagles flew triumphantly over the whole +civilised world, and how in this manner the strongest tendencies of +the time were preparing the downfall of the Republic, and the +establishment of a great empire upon its ruins. They will show how the +intellectual influences of the Renaissance, the invention of printing, +and a crowd of other causes, many of them at first sight very remote +from theological controversies, had in the sixteenth century so +shaken the power of the Roman Catholic Church, that the way was +prepared for the Reformation, and it became possible for Luther and +Calvin to succeed, where Wyckliffe and Huss had failed. They will show +how profoundly our theological beliefs are affected by our general +conception of the system of the universe, and how inevitably, as +Science changes the latter, the former will undergo a corresponding +process of modification. Creeds that are no longer in harmony with the +general spirit of the time may long continue, but a new spirit will be +breathed into the old forms. Those portions which are most discordant +with our fresh knowledge will be neglected or attenuated. Although +they may not be openly discarded, they will cease to be realised or +vitally operative. + +In the sphere of politics a similar law prevails, and the fate of +nations largely depends upon forces quite different from those on +which the mere political historian concentrates his attention. The +growth of military or industrial habits; the elevation or depression +of different classes; the changes that take place in the distribution +of wealth; inventions or discoveries that alter the course or +character of industry or commerce, or reverse the relative advantages +of different nations in the competitions of life; the increase and, +still more, the diffusion of knowledge; the many influences that +affect convictions, habits and ideals, that raise, or lower, or modify +the moral tone and type--all these things concur in shaping the +destinies of nations. Legislation is only really successful when it is +in harmony with the general spirit of the age. Laws and statesmen for +the most part indicate and ratify, but do not create. They are like +the hands of the watch, which move obedient to the hidden machinery +behind. + +In all this kind of speculation there is, I believe, great truth, and +it opens out fields of inquiry that are of the utmost interest and +importance. I have, however, long thought that it has been pushed by +some modern writers to extravagant exaggeration. As you well know, +there is another aspect of history, which, long before Carlyle, was +enforced by some of the ablest and most independent intellects of +Christendom. Pascal tells us that if Cleopatra's nose had been +shorter, the whole face of the world might have been changed, and +Voltaire is never tired of dwelling on the small springs on which the +greatest events of history turn. Frederick the Great, who was probably +the keenest practical intellect of his age, constantly insisted on the +same view. In the vast field of politics, he maintained, casual events +which no human sagacity can predict play by far the largest part. We +are in most cases groping our way blindly in the dark. Occasionally, +when favourable circumstances occur, there is a gleam of light of +which the skilful avail themselves. All the rest is uncertainty. The +world is mainly governed by a multitude of secondary, obscure, or +impenetrable causes. It is a game of chance in which the most skilful +may lose like the most ignorant. 'The older one becomes the more +clearly one sees that King Hazard fashions three-fourths of the events +in this miserable world.' + +My own view of this question is that though there are certain streams +of tendency, though there is a certain steady and orderly evolution +that it is impossible in the long run to resist, yet individual action +and even mere accident have borne a very great part in modifying the +direction of history. It is with History as with the general laws of +Nature. We can none of us escape the all-pervading force of +gravitation, or the influence of the climate under which we live, or +the succession of the seasons, or the laws of growth and of decay; yet +man is not a mere passive weed drifting helplessly upon the sea of +life, and human wisdom and human folly can do and have done much to +modify the conditions of his being. + +It is quite true that religions depend largely for their continued +vitality upon the knowledge and intellectual atmosphere of their time; +but there are periods when the human mind is in such a state of +pliancy that a small pressure can give it a bent which will last for +generations. If Mohammed had been killed in one of the first +skirmishes of his career, I know no reason for believing that a great +monotheistic religion would have arisen in Arabia, capable of moulding +for more than twelve hundred years not only the beliefs, laws, and +governments, but also the inmost moral and mental character of a vast +section of the human race. Gibbon was probably right in his conjecture +that if Charles Martel had been defeated at the famous battle near +Tours, the creed of Islam would have overspread a great part of what +is now Christian Europe, and in that case it might have ruled over it +for centuries. No one can follow the history of the conversion of the +barbarians to Christianity without perceiving how often a religion has +been imposed in the first instance by the mere will of the ruler, +which gradually took such root that it became far too strong for any +political power to destroy. Persecution cannot annihilate a creed +which is firmly established, or maintain a creed which has been +thoroughly undermined, but there are intermediate stages in which its +influence on national beliefs has been enormously great. Even at the +Reformation, though more general causes were of capital importance, +political events had a very large part in defining the frontier line +between the rival creeds, and the divisions so created have for the +most part endured. + +In secular politics numerous instances of the same kind will occur to +every thoughtful reader of history. If, as might easily have happened, +Hannibal after the battle of Cannae had taken and burned Rome, and +transferred the supremacy of the world to a maritime commercial State +upon the Mediterranean; if, instead of the Regency, Louis XV. and +Louis XVI., France had passed during the eighteenth century under +sovereigns of the stamp of the elder branch of the House of Orange or +of Henry IV., or of the Great Elector, or of Frederick the Great; if, +at the French Revolution, the supreme military genius had been +connected with the character of Washington rather than with the +character of Napoleon--who can doubt that the course of European +history would have been vastly changed? The causes that made +constitutional liberty succeed in England, while it failed in other +countries where its prospects seemed once at least as promising, are +many and complex; but no careful student of English history will doubt +the prominence among them of the accidental fact that James II., by +embracing Catholicism, had thrown the Church feeling at a very +critical moment into opposition to the monarchical feeling, and that +in the last days of Anne, when the question of the succession was +trembling most doubtfully in the balance, his son refused to conform +to the Anglican creed. + +Laws are no doubt in a great degree inoperative when they do not +spring from and represent the opinion of the nation, but they have in +their turn a great power of consolidating, deepening, and directing +opinion. When some important progress has been attained, and with the +support of public opinion has been embodied in a law, that law will do +much to prevent the natural reflux of the wave. It becomes a kind of +moral landmark, a powerful educating influence, and by giving what had +been achieved the sanction of legality, it contributes largely to its +permanence. Roman law undoubtedly played a great part in European +history long after all the conditions in which it was first enacted +had passed away, and the legislator who can determine in any country +the system of national education, or the succession of property, will +do much to influence the opinions and social types of many succeeding +generations. + +The point, however, on which I would here especially insist is that +there has scarcely been a great revolution in the world which might +not at some stage of its progress have been either averted, or +materially modified, or at least greatly postponed, by wise +statesmanship and timely compromise. Take, for example, the American +Revolution, which destroyed the political unity of the English race. +You will often hear this event treated as if it were simply due to the +wanton tyranny of an English Government, which desired to reduce its +colonies to servitude by taxing them without their consent. But if you +will look closely into the history of that time--and there is no +history which is more instructive--you will find that this is a gross +misrepresentation. What happened was essentially this. England, under +the guidance of the elder Pitt, had been waging a great and most +successful war, which left her with an enormously extended Empire, but +also with an addition of more than seventy millions to her National +Debt. That debt was now nearly one hundred and forty millions, and +England was reeling under the taxation it required. The war had been +waged largely in America, and its most brilliant result was the +conquest of Canada, by which the old American colonies had benefited +more than any other part of the Empire, for the expulsion of the +French from North America put an end to the one great danger which +hung over them. It was, however, extremely probable that if France +ever regained her strength, one of her first objects would be to +recover her dominion in America. + +Under these circumstances the English Government concluded that it was +impossible that England alone, overburdened as she was by taxation, +could undertake the military defence of her greatly extended Empire. +Their object, therefore, was to create subsidiary armies for its +defence. Ireland already raised by the vote of the Irish Parliament, +and out of exclusively Irish resources, an army consisting of from +twelve to fifteen thousand men, most of whom were available for the +general purposes of the Empire. In India, under a despotic system, a +separate army was maintained for the protection of India. It was the +strong belief of the English Government that a third army should be +maintained in America for the defence of the American colonies and of +the neighbouring islands, and that it was just and reasonable that +America should bear some part of the expense of her own defence. She +was charged with no part of the interest of the National Debt; she +paid nothing towards the cost of the navy which protected her coast; +she was the most lightly taxed and the most prosperous portion of the +Empire; she was the part which had benefited most by the late war, and +she was the part which was most likely to be menaced if the war was +renewed. Under these circumstances Grenville determined that a small +army of ten thousand men should be kept in America, under the distinct +promise that it was never to serve beyond that country and the West +Indian Isles, and he asked America to contribute 100,000_l._ a year, +or about a third part of its expense. + +But here the difficulty arose. The Irish army was maintained by the +vote of the Irish Parliament; but there was no single parliament +representing the American colonies, and it soon became evident that it +was impossible to induce thirteen State legislatures to agree upon any +scheme for supporting an army in America. Under these circumstances +Grenville in an ill-omened moment resolved to revive a dormant power +which existed in the Constitution, and levy this new war-tax by +Imperial taxation. He at the same time guaranteed the colonists that +the proceeds of this tax should be expended solely in America; he +intimated to them in the clearest way that if they would meet his +wishes by themselves providing the necessary sum, he would be +abundantly satisfied, and he delayed the enforcement of the measure +for a year in order to give them ample time for doing so. + +Such and so small was the original cause of difference between England +and her colonies. Who can fail to see that it was a difference +abundantly susceptible of compromise, and that a wise and moderate +statesmanship might easily have averted the catastrophe? There are few +sadder and few more instructive pages in history than those which show +how mistake after mistake was committed, till the rift which was once +so small widened and deepened; till the two sections of the English +race were thrown into an irreconcilable antagonism, and the fair +vision of an United Empire in the East and in the West came for ever +to an end. + +Or glance for a moment at the French Revolution. It is a favourite +task of historians to trace through the preceding generations the long +train of causes that made the transformation of French institutions +absolutely inevitable; but it is not so often remembered that when the +States-General met in 1789 by far the larger part of the benefits of +the Revolution could have been attained without difficulty, without +convulsion, and by general consent. The nobles and clergy had pledged +themselves to surrender their feudal privileges and their privileges +in taxation; a reforming king was on the throne, and a reforming +minister was at his side. If the spirit of moderation had then +prevailed, the inevitable transformation might probably have been made +without the effusion of a drop of blood. Jefferson was at this time +the Minister of the United States in Paris. As an old republican he +knew well the conditions of free governments, and among the +politicians of his own country he represented the democratic section. +I know few words in history more pathetic than those in which he +described the situation. 'I was much acquainted,' he writes, 'with the +leading patriots of the Assembly. Being from a country which had +successfully passed through a similar reformation, they were disposed +to my acquaintance, and had some confidence in me. I urged most +strenuously an immediate compromise to secure what the Government were +now ready to yield.... It was well understood that the King would +grant at this time (1) freedom of the person by Habeas Corpus; (2) +freedom of conscience; (3) freedom of the press; (4) trial by jury; +(5) a representative legislature; (6) annual meetings; (7) the +origination of laws; (8) the exclusive right of taxation and +appropriation; and (9) the responsibility of Ministers; and with the +exercise of these powers they could obtain in future whatever might be +further necessary to improve and preserve their constitution. They +thought otherwise,' continued Jefferson; 'and events have proved their +lamentable error; for after thirty years of war, foreign and domestic, +the loss of millions of lives, the prostration of private happiness, +and the foreign subjugation of their own country for a time, they have +obtained no more, nor even that securely.'[2] + +Let me, in concluding these observations, sum up in a few words some +other advantages which you may derive from history. It is, I think, +one of the best schools for that kind of reasoning which is most +useful in practical life. It teaches men to weigh conflicting +probabilities, to estimate degrees of evidence, to form a sound +judgment of the value of authorities. Reasoning is taught by actual +practice much more than by any _a priori_ methods. Many good +judges--and I own I am inclined to agree with them--doubt much whether +a study of formal logic ever yet made a good reasoner. Mathematics are +no doubt invaluable in this respect, but they only deal with +demonstrations; and it has often been observed how many excellent +mathematicians are somewhat peculiarly destitute of the power of +measuring degrees of probability. But history is largely concerned +with the kind of probabilities on which the conduct of life mainly +depends. There is one hint about historical reasoning which I think +may not be unworthy of your notice. When studying some great +historical controversy, place yourselves by an effort of the +imagination alternately on each side of the battle; try to realise as +fully as you can the point of view of the best men on either side, and +then draw up upon paper the arguments of each in the strongest form +you can give them. You will find that few practices do more to +elucidate the past, or form a better mental discipline. + +History, again, greatly expands our horizon and enlarges our +experience by bringing us in direct contact with men of many times and +countries. It gives young men something of the experience of old men, +and untravelled men something of the experience of travelled ones. A +great source of error in our judgment of men is that we do not make +sufficient allowance for the difference of types. The essentials of +right and wrong no doubt continue the same, but if you look carefully +into history you will find that the special stress which is attached +to particular virtues is constantly changing. Sometimes it is the +civic virtues, sometimes the religious virtues, sometimes the +industrial virtues, sometimes the love of truth, sometimes the more +amiable dispositions, that are most valued, and occupy the foremost +place in the moral type. The men of each age must be judged by the +ideal of their own age and country, and not by the ideal of ours. Men +look at life in very different aspects, and they differ greatly in +their ways of reasoning, in the qualities they admire, in the aims +which they chiefly prize. In few things do they differ more than in +their capacity for self-government; in the kinds of liberty they +especially value; in their love or dislike of government guidance or +control. + +The power of realising and understanding types of character very +different from our own is not, I think, an English quality, and a +great many of our mistakes in governing other nations come from this +deficiency. Some thirty or forty years ago especially it was the +custom of English statesmen to write and speak as if the salvation of +every nation depended mainly upon its adoption of a miniature copy of +the British Constitution. Now, if there is a lesson which history +teaches clearly, it is that the same institutions are not fitted for +all nations, and that what in one nation may prove perfectly +successful, will in another be supremely disastrous. The habits and +traditions of a nation; the peculiar bent of its character and +intellect; the degree in which self-control, respect for law, the +spirit of compromise, and disinterested public spirit are diffused +through the people; the relations of classes, and the divisions of +property, are all considerations of capital importance. It is a great +error, both in history and in practical politics, to attach too much +value to a political machine. The essential consideration is by what +men and in what spirit that machine is likely to be worked. Few +Constitutions contain more theoretical anomalies, and even +absurdities, than that under which England has attained to such an +unexampled height of political prosperity; while a servile imitation +of some of the most skilfully-devised Constitutions in Europe has not +saved some of the South American States from long courses of anarchy, +bankruptcy, and revolution. + +These are some of the political lessons that may be drawn from +history. Permit me, in conclusion, to say that its most precious +lessons are moral ones. It expands the range of our vision, and +teaches us in judging the true interests of nations to look beyond the +immediate future. Few good judges will deny that this habit is now +much wanted. The immensely increased prominence in political life of +ephemeral influences, and especially of the influence of a daily +press; the immense multiplication of elections, which intensifies +party conflicts, all tend to concentrate our thoughts more and more +upon an immediate issue. They narrow the range of our vision, and make +us somewhat insensible to distant consequences and remote +contingencies. It is not easy, in the heat and passion of modern +political life, to look beyond a parliament or an election, beyond the +interest of a party or the triumph of an hour. Yet nothing is more +certain than that the ultimate, distant, and perhaps indirect +consequences of political measures are often far more important than +their immediate fruits, and that in the prosperity of nations a large +amount of continuity in politics and the gradual formation of +political habits are of transcendent importance. History is never more +valuable than when it enables us, standing as on a height, to look +beyond the smoke and turmoil of our petty quarrels, and to detect in +the slow developments of the past the great permanent forces that are +steadily bearing nations onwards to improvement or decay. + +The strongest of these forces are the moral ones. Mistakes in +statesmanship, military triumphs or disasters, no doubt affect +materially the prosperity of nations, but their permanent political +well-being is essentially the outcome of their moral state. Its +foundation is laid in pure domestic life, in commercial integrity, in +a high standard of moral worth and of public spirit; in simple habits, +in courage, uprightness, and self-sacrifice, in a certain soundness +and moderation of judgment, which springs quite as much from character +as from intellect. If you would form a wise judgment of the future of +a nation, observe carefully whether these qualities are increasing or +decaying. Observe especially what qualities count for most in public +life. Is character becoming of greater or less importance? Are the men +who obtain the highest posts in the nation men of whom in private life +and irrespective of party competent judges speak with genuine respect? +Are they men of sincere convictions, sound judgment, consistent lives, +indisputable integrity, or are they men who have won their positions +by the arts of a demagogue or an intriguer; men of nimble tongues and +not earnest beliefs--skilful, above all things, in spreading their +sails to each passing breeze of popularity? Such considerations as +these are apt to be forgotten in the fierce excitement of a party +contest; but if history has any meaning, it is such considerations +that affect most vitally the permanent well-being of communities, and +it is by observing this moral current that you can best cast the +horoscope of a nation. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] _Pericles and Aspasia._ + +[2] Jefferson's _Memoirs_, i. 80. + + + + +THE EMPIRE: ITS VALUE AND ITS GROWTH + + +I have been asked on the present occasion to deliver a short address +which might serve as an introduction to the course of lectures and +conferences on the history and resources of the different portions of +the Empire which are to take place in the Imperial Institute. In +attempting to discharge this task my first reflection is one which the +very existence of the Institute can hardly fail to suggest to anyone +with any knowledge of recent history. It is the great revolution of +opinion which has taken place in England within the last few years +about the real value to her both of her colonies and of her Indian +Empire. Not many years ago it was a popular doctrine among a large and +important class of politicians that these vast dominions were not +merely useless but detrimental to the mother-country, and that it +should be the end of a wise policy to prepare and facilitate their +disruption. Bentham, in a pamphlet called 'Emancipate your Colonies,' +advocated a speedy and complete separation. James Mill, who held a +high place among these politicians, wrote an article on Colonies for +the 'Encyclopædia Britannica' which clearly expresses their view. +Colonies, he contended, are very little calculated to yield any +advantage whatever to the countries that hold them, and their chief +influence is to produce and prolong bad government. Why, then, he +asks, do European nations maintain them? The answer is very +characteristic, both of the man and of his school. Something, he +charitably admits, is due to mere ignorance, to mistaken views of +utility; but the main cause is of another kind. He quotes the saying +of Sancho Panza, who desired to possess an island in order that he +might sell its inhabitants as slaves, and put the money in his pocket; +and he maintains that the chief cause of our Colonial Empire is the +selfish interest of the governing few who valued colonies because they +gave them places and enabled them to multiply wars. In more moderate +and decorous language, Goldwin Smith wrote a book, the object of which +was to show how desirable it was that this Empire should be gradually +but steadily reduced to the sweet simplicity of two islands. Similar +views prevailed very generally in the Manchester school. Cobden +frequently expressed them. The question of the colonies, he +maintained, was mainly a question of pounds, shillings, and pence; he +proved, as he imagined, by many figures that they were a very bad +bargain; and he expressed his confident hope that one of the results +of free trade would be 'gradually and imperceptibly to loosen the +bands which unite our colonies to us.' About our Indian Empire he +entertained much stronger opinions. He described it as a calamity and +a curse to the people of England. He looked on it, in his own words, +'with an eye of despair,' and declared that it was destroying and +demoralising the national character. It was the belief of his school +of politicians that all the nations of the world would speedily follow +the example of England and adopt a policy of perfect free trade; that +when all men were able to sell their industries with equal facility in +all countries, it would become a matter of little consequence to them +under what flag they lived, and that this complete commercial +assimilation would soon be followed by a general movement for +disarming, which would put an end to all fear of future war. + +Many politicians who certainly cannot be classified with the +Manchester school held views tending in some degree in the same +direction. Even Sir Cornewall Lewis in his treatise on the 'Government +of Dependencies,' which was published in 1841, summed up the +advantages and disadvantages of a great empire in a manner that gives +the impression that in his own judgment the disadvantages on the whole +predominated. In the Autobiography of that great writer and excellent +public servant Sir Henry Taylor, who for many years exercised much +influence in the Colonial Office, we have a curious picture of the +opinions which were held on this subject about thirty years ago, both +by Sir Henry Taylor himself and by Sir Frederick Rogers, who was at +this time permanent Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies. They +both agreed that all our North American colonies were a kind of +_damnosa hereditas_, and that it was in a high degree desirable that +they should be amicably separated from Great Britain. Sir Henry Taylor +wrote his views on the subject with great frankness to the Duke of +Newcastle, who was then Secretary of State. 'When your Grace and the +Prince of Wales,' he said, 'were employing yourselves so successfully +in conciliating the colonists, I thought that you were drawing closer +ties which might better be slackened, if there were any chance of +their slipping away altogether. I think that a policy which has regard +to a not very far off future should prepare facilities and +propensities for separation.... In my estimation the worst consequence +of the late dispute with the United States has been that of involving +this country and its North American provinces in closer relations and +a common cause.'[3] 'I have always believed,' wrote Sir Frederick +Rogers in 1885--'and the belief has so confirmed and consolidated +itself, that I can hardly realise the possibility of anyone seriously +thinking the contrary--that the destiny of our colonies is +independence; and that in this point of view the function of the +Colonial Office is to secure that our connection while it lasts shall +be as profitable to both parties, and our separation when it comes as +amicable as possible.' + +I do not believe that opinions of this kind, though they were held by +a large and powerful section of English politicians, ever penetrated +very deeply into the English nation. One of the causes of Mr. Cobden's +'despair' was his conviction that the English people would never be +persuaded to surrender India except at the close of a disastrous and +exhausting war, and in his day the policy of national surrender was +certainly not that of the statesmen who led either party in +Parliament. No one would attribute it to Mr. Disraeli, in whose long +political life the note of Imperialism was perhaps that which sounded +with the clearest ring, and it was quite as repugnant to Lord +Palmerston and Lord John Russell. In an admirable speech which was +delivered in the beginning of 1850, Lord John Russell disclaimed all +sympathy with it, and I can well remember the indignation with which +in his latter days he was accustomed to speak of the views on the +subject which were then frequently expressed. 'When I was young,' he +once said to me, 'it was thought the mark of a wise statesman that he +had turned a small kingdom into a great empire. In my old age it +appears to be thought the object of a statesman to turn a great +empire into a small kingdom.' + +I do not think that anyone who has watched the current of English +opinion will doubt that the views of the Manchester school on this +subject have within the last few years steadily lost ground, and that +a far warmer and, in my opinion, nobler and more healthy feeling +towards India and the colonies has grown up. The change may be +attributed to many causes. In the first place, what Carlyle called +'The Calico Millennium' has not arrived. The nations have not adopted +free trade, but nearly all of them, including unfortunately many of +our own colonies, have raised tariff walls against our trade. The +Reign of Peace has not come. National antipathies and jealousies play +about as great a part in human affairs as they ever did, and there are +certainly not less than three and a half millions, there are probably +nearly four millions, of men under arms in what are called the peace +establishments of Europe. It is beginning to be clearly seen that, +with our vast, redundant, ever-growing population, with our enormous +manufactures, and our utterly insufficient supply of home-grown food, +it is a matter of life and death to the nation, and especially to its +working classes, that there should be secure and extending fields open +to our goods, and in the present condition of the world we must mainly +look for these fields within our own Empire. The gigantic dimensions +that Indian trade has assumed within the last few years, and the +extraordinary commercial development of some other parts of our +Empire, have pointed the moral, and it has been made still more +apparent by the eagerness with which other Powers, and especially +Germany, have flung themselves into the path of colonisation. In an +age, too, when all the paths of professional and industrial life in +our country are crowded to excess, the competitive system has combined +with our new acquisitions of territory to throw open noble fields of +employment, enterprise and ambition to poor and struggling talent, and +India is proving a school of inestimable value for maintaining some of +the best and most masculine qualities of our race. It is the great +seed-plot of our military strength; and the problems of Indian +administration are peculiarly fitted to form men of a kind that is +much needed among us--men of strong purpose and firm will, and high +ruling and organising powers, men accustomed to deal with facts rather +than with words, and to estimate measures by their intrinsic value, +and not merely by their party advantages, men skilful in judging human +character under its many types and aspects and disguises. + +If again we turn to our great self-governing colonies, we have learnt +to feel how valuable it is, in an age in which international +jealousies are so rife, that there should be vast and rapidly growing +portions of the globe that are not only at peace with us, but at one +with us; how unspeakably important it is to the future of the world +that the English race, through the ages that are to come, should cling +as closely as possible together. As a distinguished statesman who +lately represented the United States in England[4] has admirably said, +'If it is not always true that trade follows flag, it is at least true +that "heart follows flag,"' and the feeling that our fellow-subjects +in distant parts of the Empire bear to us is very different from the +feeling even of the most friendly foreign nation. Our great colonies +have readily undertaken the responsibility of providing for their own +defence by land, and even in some degree by sea. If the protection of +their coasts in time of war might become a great strain upon our navy, +this disadvantage is largely balanced by the importance of distant +maritime possessions to every nation that desires to maintain an +efficient fleet; by the immense advantage to a great commercial Power +of secure harbours and coaling stations scattered over the world. It +is not difficult to conceive circumstances in which the destruction of +some of our main industries, occurring, perhaps, in the midst of a +great war, might make it utterly impossible for our present population +to live upon British soil, and when the possession of vast territories +under the British flag, and in the hands of the British race, might +become a matter of transcendent importance. Think for a moment of the +colossal, and indeed appalling, proportions which our great towns are +assuming! Think of all the vice and ignorance and disease, of all the +sordid abject misery, of all the lawless passions that are festering +within them! And then consider how precarious are many of the +conditions of our industrial prosperity, how grave and how numerous +are the dangers that threaten it both from within and from without. +Who can reflect seriously on these things without feeling that the day +may come--perhaps at no distant date--when the question of emigration +may overshadow all others? To many of us, indeed, it seems one of the +greatest errors of modern English statesmanship that when the great +exodus from Ireland took place after the famine, Government took no +step to aid it, or to direct it to quarters where it would have been +of real benefit to the Empire. Many good judges think that the +advantages of such interference in allaying bitter feelings, +softening a disastrous crisis, and permanently strengthening the +Empire, might have been well purchased even if they cost as much as +England has sometimes lost by one comparatively insignificant war or +by one disastrous strike. In dealing with this question of emigration +in the future, colonial assistance may be of supreme importance. And +those who have understood the significance of that memorable incident +in our recent history--the despatch of Australian troops to fight our +battles in the Soudan--may perceive that there is at least a +possibility of a still closer and more beneficent union between +England and her colonies--a union that would vastly increase the +strength of both, and by doing so become a great guarantee of peace in +the world. + +It would be a calumny to suppose that the change of feeling I have +described was solely due to a calculation of interests. Patriotism +cannot be reduced to a mere question of money, and a nation which has +grown tired of the responsibilities of empire, and careless of the +acquisitions of its past and of its greatness in the future, would +indeed have entered into a period of inevitable decadence. Happily we +have not yet come to this. I believe the overwhelming majority of the +people of these islands are convinced that an England reduced to the +limits which the Manchester school would assign to it would be an +England shorn of the chief elements of its dignity in the world, and +that no greater disgrace could befall them than to have sacrificed +through indifference, or negligence, or faint-heartedness, an Empire +which has been built up by so much genius and so much heroism in the +past. Railways and telegraphs and newspapers have brought us into +closer touch with our distant possessions, have enabled us to realise +more vividly both their character and their greatness, and have thus +extended the horizon of our sympathies and interests. The figures of +illustrious colonial statesmen are becoming familiar to us. Men formed +in Indian and colonial spheres are becoming more numerous and +prominent in our own public life. The presence in England of a High +Commissioner from Canada, and of Agents-General from our other +colonies, constitutes a real though informal colonial representation, +and on more than one recent occasion our foreign policy has been +swayed by colonial pressure. These young democracies, with their vast +undeveloped resources, their unwearied energies, their great social +and industrial problems, are beginning to loom largely in the +imaginations of Europe. They feel, we believe, a just pride in being +members of a great and ancient Empire, and heirs to the glories of its +past. We, in our turn, feel a no less just pride in our union with +those coming nations which are still lit with the hues of sunrise and +rich in the promise of the future. + +It has been suggested to me that I should on the present occasion say +something about the methods by which this great Empire was built up, +but it is obvious that in a short address like the present it is only +possible to touch on so large a subject in the most cursory manner. +Much is due to our insular position and our command of the sea, which +gave Englishmen, in the competition of nations, a peculiar power both +of conquering and holding distant dependencies. Being precluded, +perhaps quite as much by their position as by their desire, from +throwing themselves, like most continental nations, into a long course +of European aggression, they have largely employed their redundant +energies in exploring, conquering, civilising, and governing distant +and half-savage lands. They have found, like all other nations, that +an Empire planted amid the shifting sands of half-civilised and +anarchical races is compelled for its own security, and as a mere +matter of police, to extend its borders. The chapter of +accidents--which has played a larger part in most human affairs than +many very philosophical enquirers are inclined to admit--has counted +for something. But, in addition to these things, there are certain +general characteristics of English policy which have contributed very +largely to the success of the Empire. + +It has been the habit of most nations to regulate colonial governments +in all their details according to the best metropolitan ideas, and to +surround them with a network of restrictions. England has in general +pursued a different course. Partly on system, but partly also, I +think, from neglect, she has always allowed an unusual latitude to +local knowledge and to local wishes. She has endeavoured to secure, +wherever her power extends, life and property, and contract and +personal freedom, and, in these latter days, religious liberty; but +for the rest she has meddled very little; she has allowed her +settlements to develop much as they please, and has given, in practice +if not in theory, the fullest powers to her governors. It is +astonishing, in the history of the British Empire, how large a part of +its greatness is due to the independent action of individual +adventurers, or groups of emigrants, or commercial companies, almost +wholly unassisted and uncontrolled by the Government at home. An +Empire formed by such methods is not likely to exhibit much symmetry +and unity of plan, but it is certain to be pervaded in an unusual +degree, in all its parts, by a spirit of enterprise and self-reliance; +it will probably be peculiarly fertile in men not only of energy but +of resource, capable of dealing with strange conditions and +unforeseen exigencies. England in the past periods of her history has, +on the whole, been singularly successful in adapting her different +administrations to widely different national circumstances and +characters, and governments of the most various types have arisen +under her rule. Nothing in the history of the world is more wonderful +than that under the flag of these two little islands there should have +grown up the greatest and most beneficent despotism in the world, +comprising nearly two hundred and thirty millions of inhabitants under +direct British rule, and more than fifty millions under British +protectorates; while at the same time British colonies and settlements +that are scattered throughout the globe number not less than fifty-six +distinct subordinate governments. + +This system would have been less successful if it had not been for two +important facts. The original stuff of which our Colonial Empire was +formed was singularly good. Some of the most important of our colonies +were founded in the days of religious war, and the early settlers +consisted largely of religious refugees--a class who are usually +superior to the average of men in intellectual and industrial +qualities, and are nearly always greatly superior to them in strength +of conviction, and in those high moral qualities which play so great a +part in the well-being of nations. Besides this, in those distant +days, the difficulties of emigration were so great that they were +rarely voluntarily encountered except by men of much more than average +courage, enterprise and resource. These early adventurers were +certainly often of no saintly type, but they were largely endowed with +the robuster qualities that are most needed for grappling with new +circumstances and carving out the empires of the future. + +The second fact is the high standard of patriotism and honour which we +may, I think, truly say has nearly always prevailed among English +public servants. It is not an easy thing to secure honest and faithful +administration in remote countries, far from the supervision and +practical control of the central government. I think we may boast with +truth that England has attained this end, not indeed perfectly, but at +least to a greater degree than most other nations. The history of +Indian and colonial governors has never been written as a whole, but +it is well worthy of study. In the appointment of these men party has +always counted for something, and family has counted for something; +but they have never been the only considerations, and, on the whole, I +believe it will be found, if we consider the three elements of +character, capacity and experience, that our Indian and colonial +governors represent a higher level of ruling qualities than has been +attained by any line of hereditary sovereigns, or by any line of +elected presidents. In the period of the foundation of our Indian +Empire much was done that was violent and rapacious, but the best +modern research seems to show that the picture which a few years ago +was generally accepted had been greatly overcharged. The history of +Warren Hastings and his companions has been recently studied with +great knowledge and ability, and with the result that the more serious +opinions on the subject have been considerably modified. Much +exaggeration undoubtedly grew up in the last century, partly through +ignorance of Oriental affairs, and partly also through the eloquence +of Burke. There is no figure in English political history for which I +at least entertain a greater reverence than Edmund Burke. I believe +him to have been a man of transparent honesty, as well as of +transcendent genius; but his politics were too apt to be steeped in +passion, and he was often carried away by the irresistible force of +his own imagination and feelings. Misrepresentations were greatly +consolidated by the Indian History of James Mill, which was for a long +time the main, and indeed almost the only, source from which +Englishmen obtained their knowledge of Indian history. It was written, +as might be expected, with the strongest bias of hostility to the +English in India, yet I suspect that many superficial readers imagined +that a history which was so unquestionably dull must be at least +impartial and philosophical. Unfortunately, Macaulay relied greatly on +it, and, without having made any serious independent studies on the +subject, he invested some of its misrepresentations with all the +splendour of his eloquence. I believe all competent authorities are +now agreed that his essay on Warren Hastings, though it is one of the +most brilliant of his writings, is also one of the most seriously +misleading. + +I am not prepared to say that the reaction of opinion produced by the +new school of Indian historians has not been sometimes carried too +far, but these writers have certainly dispelled much exaggeration and +some positive falsehood. They have shown that, although under +circumstances of extreme difficulty and extraordinary temptation, some +very bad things were done by Englishmen in India, these things were +neither as numerous nor as grave as has been alleged. + +On the whole, too, it may be truly said that English colonial policy +in its broad lines has to a remarkable degree avoided grave errors. +The chief exception is to be found in the series of mistakes which +produced the American Revolution, and ended in the loss of our chief +American colonies. Yet even in this instance it is, I believe, coming +to be perceived that there is much more to be said for the English +case than the historians of the last generation were apt to imagine. +In imposing commercial restrictions on the colonies and endeavouring +to secure for the mother-country the monopoly of their trade, we +merely acted upon ideas that were then almost universally received, +and our commercial code was on the whole less illiberal than that of +other nations. Both Spain and France imposed restrictions on their +colonies which were far more severe, and the English restrictions were +at least mitigated by frequent partial relaxations and exceptions, by +some important monopolies granted in favour of the colonies in the +English market and by bounties encouraging several branches of +colonial produce. It is at least certain that under the large measure +of political liberty granted by the English Government to the English +colonies their material prosperity, even in the worst period of +commercial restriction, steadily and rapidly advanced. This has been +clearly shown by more than one writer on our side of the Atlantic, but +the subject has never been treated with more exhaustive knowledge and +more perfect impartiality than by an American writer--Mr. George +Beer--whose work on the Commercial Policy of England has recently been +published by Columbia College, in New York. No one will now altogether +defend Grenville's policy of taxing America by the Imperial +Parliament, but it ought not to be forgotten that it was expressly +provided that every farthing of this taxation was to be expended in +America, and devoted to colonial defence. England had just terminated +a great war, which, by expelling the French from Canada, had been of +inestimable advantage to her colonies, but which had left the +mother-country almost crushed by debt. All that Grenville desired was, +that the American colonies should provide a portion of the cost of +their own defence, as our great colonies are doing at the present +time, and he only resorted to Imperial taxation because he despaired +of achieving this end by any other means. The step which he took was +no doubt a false one. As is so often the case in England, it was made +worse by party changes and by party recriminations, and many later +mistakes aggravated and embittered the original dispute; but I think +an impartial reader of this melancholy chapter of English history will +come to the conclusion that these mistakes were by no means all on one +side. + +It is a story which is certainly not without its lesson to our own +time. It is very improbable that any future statesman will follow the +example of George Grenville, and endeavour by Act of Parliament to +impose taxation on a self-governing colony; but it would be a grave +error to suppose that the danger of unwise parliamentary interference +in Indian and colonial affairs has diminished. Great as are the +advantages of telegraphs and newspapers in the government of the +Empire, they are not without their drawbacks. Government by telegraph +is a very dangerous thing, and there is, I fear, an increasing +tendency to override local knowledge, and to apply English standards +and methods of government to wholly un-English conditions. +Ill-considered resolutions of the House of Commons, often passed in +obedience to some popular fad, and without any real intention of +carrying them into effect; language used in Parliament which is often +due to no deeper motive than a desire to win the favour of some class +of voters in an English constituency, may do as much as serious +misgovernment to alienate great masses of British subjects beyond the +sea. All really competent judges are agreed that one of the first +conditions of successful government in India has been that Indian +questions have for the most part been kept out of the range of English +party politics, and that Indian government has been conducted on +principles essentially different from democratic government at home. + +On the whole, however, it is impossible to review the colonial history +of England without being struck with the many serious dangers that +might easily have shattered the Empire, which were averted by wise +statesmanship and timely--or at least not fatally tardy--concession. +There was the question of the criminal population which we once +transported to Australia. In the early stage of the colony, when the +population was very sparse and the need for labour very imperative, +this was not regarded as in any degree a grievance; but the time came +when it became a grievance of the gravest kind, and the Imperial power +had at length the wisdom to abandon it. There was the question of the +different and hostile religious bodies existing in different portions +of the Empire, at a time when the monopoly of political power by the +members of a single Established Church, the exclusive endowment of its +clergy, and the maintenance of the purely Protestant character of the +English Government were cherished as religious duties by politicians +at home. Yet at this very time an established and endowed Roman +Catholic Church was flourishing in Canada, and there were numerous +examples throughout the British dominions of the concurrent endowment +of different forms of religious belief by the State,[5] while in India +it abstained, with an extreme, and sometimes even an exaggerated, +scrupulousness, from all measures that could by any possibility offend +the native religious prejudices. There was the question of +Slavery--though we were freed from the most difficult part of this +problem by the secession of America. In addition, however, to its +moral aspects, it affected most vitally the material prosperity of +some of our richest colonies; it raised the very dangerous +constitutional question of the right of the Imperial Parliament to +interfere with the internal affairs of a self-governing colony, and it +brought the Home Government into more serious collision with the local +Governments than any question since the American Revolution. Whatever +may be thought of the wisdom of the measures by which we abolished +slavery in our West Indian colonies, no one at least can deny the +liberality of a Parliament which voted from Imperial resources twenty +millions for the accomplishment of the work. There was the conflict of +race and creed which between 1830 and 1840 had brought Canada to +absolute rebellion, and threatened a complete alienation of Canadian +feeling from the mother-country. This discontent was effectually +allayed and dispelled by the union of Upper and Lower Canada under a +system of constitutional government of the most liberal character, +which gave the colonists on all subjects of internal legislation a +legislative independence that was in practice almost complete. +Considered as a measure of conciliation this has proved one of the +most successful of the nineteenth century, and in spite of a few +discordant notes it may be truly said that there are few greater +contrasts in the present reign than are presented between Canadian +feeling towards the mother-country when Queen Victoria ascended the +throne and Canadian feeling at the present hour. There was also the +great and dangerous task to be accomplished of adapting the system of +colonial government to the different stages of colonial development. +There was a time when the colonies were so weak that they depended +mainly on England for their protection; but, unlike some of the great +colonising Powers of ancient and modern times, England never drew a +direct tribute from her colonies, and, in spite of much unwise and +some unjust legislation, I believe there was never a time when they +were not on the whole benefited by the connection. Soon, however, the +colonies grew to the strength and maturity of nationhood, and the +mother-country speedily recognised the fact, and allowed no unworthy +or ungenerous fears to restrain her from granting them the fullest +powers, both of self-government and of federation. It is true that she +still sends out a governor--usually drawn from the ranks of +experienced and considerable English public men--to preside over +colonial affairs. It is true that she retains a right of veto which is +scarcely ever exercised except to prevent some intercolonial or +international dispute, some act of violence, or some grave anomaly in +the legislation of the Empire. It is true that colonial cases may be +carried, on appeal, to an English tribunal, representing the very +highest judicial capacity of the mother-country, and free from all +possibility and suspicion of partiality; but I do not believe that any +of these light ties are unpopular with any considerable section of the +colonists. On the other hand, though it would be idle to suppose that +our great colonies depend largely upon the mother-country, I believe +that most colonists recognise that there is something in the weight +and dignity attaching to fellow-membership and fellow-citizenship in +a great Empire--something in the protection of the greatest navy in +the world--something in the improved credit which connection with a +very rich centre undoubtedly gives to colonial finance. + +It is the custom of our friends and neighbours on the Continent to +bestow much scornful remark on the egotism of English policy, which +attends mainly to the interests of the British Empire, and is not +ready to make war for an idea and in support of the interests of +others. I think, if it were necessary, we might fairly defend +ourselves by showing that in the past we have meddled with the affairs +of other nations quite as much as is reasonable. For my own part, I +confess that I distrust greatly these explosions of military +benevolence. They always begin by killing a great many men. They +usually end in ways that are not those of a disinterested +philanthropy. After all, an egotism that mainly confines itself to the +well-being of about a fifth part of the globe cannot be said to be of +a very narrow type, and it is essentially by her conduct to her own +Empire that the part of England in promoting the happiness of mankind +must be ultimately judged. It is indeed but too true that many of the +political causes which have played a great part on platforms, in +parties, and in Parliaments are of such a nature that their full +attainment would not bring relief to one suffering human heart, or +staunch one tear of pain, or add in any appreciable degree to the real +happiness of a single home. But most assuredly Imperial questions are +not of this order. Remember what India had been for countless ages +before the establishment of British rule. Think of its endless wars of +race and creed, its savage oppressions, its fierce anarchies, its +barbarous customs; and then consider what it is to have established +for so many years over the vast space from the Himalayas to Cape +Comorin a reign of perfect peace; to have conferred upon more than two +hundred and fifty millions of the human race perfect religious +freedom, perfect security of life, liberty, and property; to have +planted in the midst of these teeming multitudes a strong central +government, enlightened by the best knowledge of Western Europe, and +steadily occupied in preventing famine, alleviating disease, +extirpating savage customs, multiplying the agencies of civilisation +and progress. This is the true meaning of that system of government on +which Mr. Cobden looked with 'an eye of despair.' What work of human +policy--I would even say what form of human philanthropy--has ever +contributed more largely to reduce the great sum of human misery and +to add to the possibilities of human happiness? + +And if we turn to the other side of our Empire, although it is quite +true that our great free colonies are fully capable of shaping their +destinies for themselves, may we not truly say that these noble +flowers have sprung from British and from Irish seeds? May we not say +that the laws, the Constitutions, the habits of thought and character +that have so largely made them what they are, are mainly of English +origin? May we not even add that it is in no small part due to their +place in the British Empire that these vast sections of the globe, +with their diverse and sometimes jarring interests, have remained at +perfect peace with us and with each other, and have escaped the curse +of an exaggerated militarism, which is fast eating like a canker into +the prosperity of the great nations of Europe? + +When responsible government was conceded by the British Government to +her more important colonies, it was done in the fullest and largest +measure. Although the mother-country remained burdened with the task +of defending them she made no reservation securing for herself free +trade with her colonies or even preferential treatment, and she +surrendered unconditionally to the local legislatures the waste and +unoccupied lands which had long been regarded in England as held in +trust for the benefit of the Empire as a whole. The growing belief +that the connection with the colonies was likely to be a very +transitory one, and also the belief that free-trade doctrines were +likely speedily to prevail, no doubt influenced English statesmen, and +it is not probable that any of them foresaw that both Canada and +Australia would speedily make use of their newly acquired power to +impose heavy duties on English goods. The strongly protectionist +character which the English colonies assumed at a time when England +had committed herself to the most extreme free-trade policy tended no +doubt to separation, and when the English Government adopted the +policy of withdrawing its garrisons from the colonies, when the North +American colonies, with the full assent of the mother-country, formed +themselves into a great federation, and when a movement in the same +direction sprang up in Australia, it was the opinion of some of the +most sagacious statesmen and thinkers in England that the time of +separation was very near.[6] + +On the whole, however, these predictions have hitherto been falsified. +The federation of North America and, at a later period, the federation +of Australia have been followed by an increased and not a diminished +disposition on the side of the colonists to draw closer the ties with +the mother-country, while in England the popular imagination has been +more and more impressed with the growing magnitude and importance of +her colonial dominions. The tendency towards great political +agglomerations based upon an affinity of race, language and creed, +which has produced the Pan-Slavonic movement and the Pan-Germanic +movement, and which chiefly made the unity of Italy, has not been +without its influence in the English-speaking world, and it is felt +that a close union between its several parts is essential if it is +fully to maintain its relative position under the new conditions of +the world. The English-speaking nations comprise the most rapidly +increasing, the most progressive, the most happily situated nations of +the earth, and if their power and influence are not wasted by internal +quarrels their type of civilisation must one day become dominant in +the world. + +Whether their harmony and unity are likely to be attained is one of +the great problems of the future, but the ideal is one which every +patriotic Englishman should at least set before him. It is not one +which can be called an assured destiny, and to many the chances seem +on the whole against it. Unexpected collisions of interest or passion +or ambition may at any time mar the prospects, and in great +democracies largely influenced by demagogues and by an irresponsible +and anonymous Press there are always powerful agencies that do not +make for peace. Immediate party interests both at home and in the +colonies too frequently blind men to distant and ulterior +consequences, and the many ill-wishers to the British Empire are sure +to direct their policy largely to its disruption. The natural bond of +union of a great Empire is economical unity, binding its several parts +together by a common system of free trade and by a common commercial +policy towards other Powers. Unfortunately the profoundly different +policy adopted on these matters in England and her colonies has made +such a Union almost impracticable, and it is quite possible for the +English colonies to be united by closer commercial ties with foreign +countries than with the mother-country. The question of the common +defence of the Empire and the question of the representation of the +colonies in Imperial politics are also questions of great difficulty +and of pressing importance. + +Something has been done showing at least a disposition to meet them. +The concession of preferential duties in favour of England by some of +our most important colonies, the small subsidies made to the +maintenance of the British navy, and the far more important military +assistance given by the colonies to the mother-country in the Egyptian +and the South African wars are indicative of the feeling of closer +unity which has grown up between England and her colonies, and in +addition to the appointment of Agents-General, the introduction of a +few eminent colonial judges into the Judicial Committee of the Privy +Council, which is the Supreme Court of Appeal of the Empire, has given +the colonies some real representation in Imperial affairs. Much more, +however, in this direction may be done. There have been several +instances of eminent colonials obtaining seats in the English House of +Commons to the great advantage of the Empire, but a regular +representation of the colonies in this assembly may, I think, be +dismissed as altogether impracticable. The mere distance is a +sufficient objection, and at least nine-tenths of the business of the +House of Commons deals with purely English questions depending for +their wise solution on inherited English habits and on compromises +with existing institutions, and a large proportion of them are +problems which have been already dealt with in the colonies on other +grounds and without any of the complexities of an old country. What +reason could there be for calling in the colonists to adjudicate, +perhaps even to turn the balance, on questions relating to English +education, English licensing laws, English taxation, English +dispositions of property? The difficulty of distinguishing between +Imperial and local questions would be insuperable. The division of the +House into two categories of members with distinct spheres of voting +power would prove unworkable, and the colonial representatives would +during most of their time in Parliament have nothing to do. An +increase in the number of peers drawn from the colonies would be less +impracticable, but there would be much that is invidious in the +choice; much danger that the colonial peers living in England would +get out of touch with the colonies and become an object of envy and +jealousy; and English lawyers do not think that a large infusion of +colonial law peers would raise the competence of the Supreme Judicial +Tribunal of the Empire, which represents at present the highest legal +talent and attainments in England and deals mainly with English legal +questions. A Consultative Council, however, consisting of the +Agents-General and perhaps reinforced by additional colonial +representatives and dealing exclusively with Imperial questions, does +not seem wholly impracticable, and many competent judges believe that +a supreme legal tribunal for dealing with inter-colonial and +international conflicts might be constructed which would be both more +efficient and more representative than any that now exists. + +It is probable, however, that the true tie that must unite the +different portions of the Empire must be mainly a moral one. In the +conditions of modern life no power is likely to maintain long a vast, +scattered, heterogeneous Empire if the central governing power within +it has declined; if through want of efficiency, or moral energy, or +moral purity, it ceases to win the respect of its several parts. It is +no less true that the cohesion can only be permanently maintained by +the wide diffusion of a larger and Imperial patriotism, pervading the +whole like a vital principle; binding men by the ties of pride and of +affection to the great Empire to which they belong, and subordinating +to its maintenance local and party and class interests. If this spirit +dies out, the movement of disintegration is sure to begin. No +political machinery, no utilitarian calculation, will in the long run +be powerful enough to arrest it. + +What may be the future place of these islands in the government of the +world no human being can foretell. Nations, as history but too plainly +shows, have their periods of decay as well as their periods of growth. +The balance of power in the world is constantly shifting. Maxims and +influences very different from those which made England what she is +are in the ascendant, and the clouds upon the horizon are neither few +nor slight. But, whatever fate may be in store for these islands, and +for the political unity we so justly prize, we may at least +confidently predict that no revolution in human affairs can now +destroy the future ascendancy of the English language and of the +Imperial race. Whatever misfortunes, whatever humiliations the future +may reserve to us, they cannot deprive England of the glory of having +created this mighty Empire. + + Not Heaven itself upon the Past has power. + But what has been, has been--and we have had our hour. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[3] _Autobiography_, ii. pp. 234, 235. + +[4] Mr. Bayard. + +[5] See the enumeration of these endowments in Gladstone's _State and +Church_, Ch. IX. + +[6] See Cairnes' _Political Essays_, 49-50, 56. + + + + +IRELAND IN THE LIGHT OF HISTORY + + +The kind of interest which belongs to Irish history is curiously +different from that which attaches to the history of England and to +that of most of the great nations of the Continent. In very few +histories do we find so little national unity or continuous progress, +or such long spaces which are almost wholly occupied by perplexed, +petty internal broils, often stained by atrocious crimes, but turning +on no large issue and leading to no clear or stable results. Except +during the great missionary period of the sixth and seventh centuries, +and during a brief portion of the eighteenth century, we have little +of the interest that arises from dramatic situations or shining +characters, and in few countries has the highest intellect been, on +the whole, so slightly connected with the administration of affairs. +To a philosophical student of politics, however, Irish history +possesses an interest of the highest order. It is an invaluable study +of morbid anatomy. In very few histories can we trace so clearly the +effects of political and social circumstances in forming national +character; the calamity of missed opportunities and of fluctuating and +procrastinating policy; the folly of attempting to govern by the same +methods and institutions nations that are wholly different in their +characters and their civilisation. + +The idea which still floats vaguely in many minds that Ireland, before +the arrival of the Normans, was a single and independent nation, is +wholly false. Ireland was not a nation, but a collection of separate +tribes and kingdoms, engaged in almost constant warfare. In this +respect, however, she resembled many countries which have since +attained the most perfect unity, and there can be little doubt that, +if her development had been impeded by no extraneous influences, +Ireland would have followed the same path as England or France. Much +stress has been justly laid on the disorganising influence of a long +succession of Danish invasions, though it must be remembered that +Ireland owes to the Danes the foundation of some of her most important +cities. Roman conquest, which introduced into most of Europe +invaluable elements of order, organisation, and respect for law, never +extended to Ireland. The Anglo-Norman invasion and conquest produced +consequences which were almost wholly evil. If the invaders had been +driven from the Irish shore, the natural course of development would, +no doubt, have been in time continued. If the invaders had completely +conquered Ireland, a fusion might have taken place as complete and as +healthy as in England. Neither of these two events occurred. The +English conquest was prolonged over nearly four hundred years. A +hostile and separate power was planted in the centre of Ireland +sufficiently powerful to prevent the formation of another +civilisation, yet not sufficiently powerful to impose a civilisation +of its own. Feudalism was introduced, but the keystone of the system, +a strong resident sovereign, was wanting, and Ireland was soon torn by +the wars of great Anglo-Norman nobles, who were, in fact, independent +sovereigns, much like the old Irish kings. The Scotch invasion of the +fourteenth century added enormously to the anarchy and confusion; the +English power as a living reality contracted to the narrow limits of +the pale; in outlying districts the Anglo-Norman assimilated quickly +with the Celtic element, while the English legislators in Ireland, +alarmed at the tendency, made it the main object of their policy, in +the words of Sir John Davies, 'to make a perpetual separation and +enmity between the English and Irish, pretending no doubt that the +English should in the end root out the Irish.' + +Such a state of things continued till the long and terrible wars of +Henry VIII. and Elizabeth broke the power of the independent chiefs +and of the Celtic clans, and gave Ireland, for the first time, a +political unity. It is one of the great infelicities of Irish history +that this result was obtained at the very period of the Reformation. +The conquerors adopted one religion, while the conquered retained the +other, and thus a new and most enduring barrier was raised between the +two nations in Ireland, and a pernicious antagonism was established +between law and religion. + +Another influence not less powerful than religion had at the same time +come into play. It had become the English policy to place great bodies +of English and Scotch settlers on the land that was confiscated in +consequence of rebellion, and under the impulse of the strong spirit +of adventure which grew up in the generation that followed the +Reformation, streams of English and Scotch adventurers poured over. +The great settlement of Ulster under James I. proved ultimately a +success, and laid the foundation of the prosperity of that province. +Other plantations were in time absorbed and assimilated by the Celtic +population; but vast revolutions in the ownership of land, accompanied +by the subversion of the old tribal customs, laid the foundation of an +agrarian war which still continues. + +Religious and agrarian causes combined with the civil war in England +to produce the great rebellion of 1641 and the eleven years of +ghastly, exterminating war which followed. Hardly any page in human +history is more appalling. A full third of the population of Ireland +perished. Thirty or forty thousand of the most energetic left the +country and took service in foreign armies. Great tracts were left +absolutely depopulated, and after the rearrangement of land, which was +accomplished by the Act of Settlement, the immense preponderance of +landed property remained in the hands of the Protestant nation. + +New elements, however, of great energy had been planted in Ireland, +and the field had been thrown open to their exertions. The excellence +of Irish wool and the cheapness of Irish labour laid the foundation of +a flourishing woollen manufacture, and with peace, mild +administration, and much practical tolerance, the wounds of the +country seemed gradually healing. The later Stuart reigns, which form +a dark page in English history, were a period of considerable +prosperity in Ireland, but that period was soon interrupted by the +Revolution. There was no general or passionate rising in Ireland +resembling that of 1641, but it was inevitable that the Irish +Catholics should have adopted the side of the Catholic King, and it +was equally inevitable that when a Catholic Parliament, consisting +largely of sons of the men whose properties had recently been +confiscated, had assembled at Dublin, its members should have made a +desperate effort to reverse their fortunes and replace the land of the +country mainly in Catholic hands. The battle of the Boyne shattered +the Catholic hopes, and it was followed by a new confiscation, by a +new emigration of the ablest and most energetic Catholics, by a long +period of commercial restraints, penal laws, and complete Protestant +ascendancy. + +The commercial restraints formed part of a protective policy which was +at that time general in Europe, and which was severely felt in the +American colonies. Though it did not absolutely originate in, it was +greatly intensified by, the Revolution, which gave the manufacturing +and commercial classes a new power in English government. The linen +manufacture was spared, but the total destruction by law of the +flourishing woollen manufacture, followed by a number of restrictions +imposed on other branches of industry, deprived Ireland of her most +promising sources of wealth, drove great multitudes of energetic +Protestants out of the country, and threw the people more and more +upon the soil as almost their sole means of support. + +The penal laws against the Catholics accompanied or closely followed +the commercial restraints. The blame of them may be divided with some +equality between the Government of England and the Parliament of +Ireland. It was the Irish Parliament which enacted these laws, but an +English Act first made the Irish Parliament exclusively Protestant, +and the whole legislation was carried at a time when the Irish +Parliament was completely dependent, and incompetent even to discuss +any measure without the previous approbation of the English +Government. In order to judge this legislation with equity, it must be +remembered that in the beginning of the eighteenth century restrictive +laws against Protestantism in Catholic countries, and against +Catholicism in Protestant ones, almost universally prevailed. The laws +against Irish Catholics were, on the whole, less stringent than those +against Catholics in England. They were largely modelled after the +French legislation against the Huguenots, but persecution in Ireland +never approached in severity that of Louis XIV., and was absolutely +insignificant compared with that which had extirpated Protestantism +and Judaism from Spain. The code, however, was not mainly the product +of religious feeling, but of policy, and in this respect it has been +defended in its broad outlines, though not in all its details, by such +Irishmen as Charlemont, Flood, and Parsons. They argued that at the +close of a long period of savage civil war it was absolutely necessary +for a small minority, who found themselves in possession of the +government and land of the country, to deprive the conquered and +hostile majority of every element of political and military strength. +This was the real object of the code. It was a measure of self-defence +justified by necessity and by the fact that it produced in Ireland for +the space of about eighty years the most perfect tranquillity. + +There is much truth in these considerations, but it is also true that +the penal code produced more pernicious moral, social, and political +effects than many sanguinary persecutions. In other countries +disqualifying or persecuting laws were directed against small +fractions of the nation. In Ireland they were directed against the +bulk of the community. Being supported by little or no genuine +religious fanaticism or proselytising ardour, they made few +Protestants except in the upper orders, where many conformed in order +to keep their land or to enter professions; but they drove nearly all +the best and most energetic Catholics to the Continent; they +discouraged industry; closed the door of knowledge; taught the people +to look upon law as something hostile to religion; introduced +division and immorality into families by the rewards they offered to +apostasy; and condemned the whole country to poverty and impotence by +fatally depressing the great majority of its people. Under the +influence of the penal laws the Catholics inevitably acquired the +vices of serfs, and the Protestants the vices of monopolists. A great +portion of the code was pronounced, with good reason, to be flagrantly +opposed to the articles of the Treaty of Limerick, and it completed +the work of the confiscations by making the landlord class in Ireland +almost wholly Protestant, while the great majority of the tenantry +were Catholics. + +There was a moment, however, in the beginning of the century when the +whole current of Irish history might easily have changed. Scotland had +suffered, like Ireland, from the protective policy that followed the +Revolution, and her independent Parliament had retaliated by measures +which threatened the speedy separation of the two crowns, and soon led +to a legislative Union. In Ireland such a Union was ardently desired +by enlightened Irishmen, and there is every reason to believe that it +could then have been carried with universal consent. The Catholics +were perfectly passive, and would gladly have accepted a change which +withdrew them from the direct government of the conquerors in a recent +civil war. The Protestants had as yet no distinctively national +feeling, and a legislative Union would have emancipated their industry +and added enormously to their security. Molyneux, the first great +champion of the legislative independence of Ireland, emphatically +declared that he and those who thought with him would gladly have +accepted the alternative of a Union, and both the Irish Houses of +Parliament voted addresses in favour of such a measure. If it had +been carried, Ireland would have been at least saved from the evils +that rose from the commercial restrictions and from the extreme +jobbing that grew up around the local legislature, and she would, +perhaps, have been saved from some parts of the penal code. But the +golden opportunity was lost. The English commercial classes dreaded +Irish competition in their markets, and the petition of the Irish +legislature was disregarded. + +Nearly seventy years of quiet followed. The establishment of the +Hanoverian dynasty, the Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745, the +different wars in which England was engaged, left Ireland absolutely +undisturbed. The House of Commons then sat for a whole reign and met +only every second year. It was completely subservient to the English +Privy Council, and it consisted so largely of nomination boroughs that +a few great nobles commanded a decisive preponderance, and they +practically conducted the government and administered the patronage of +Ireland. There was great jobbing and corruption, but taxation, on the +whole, was exceedingly light, and there was no tendency to throw it +unduly on the poor, or to create in Ireland any of the many feudal +burdens that prevailed in France and Germany. The practical evil most +felt was the system of tithes for the support of the Protestant +establishment, and it was aggravated by a very unfair exemption of +pasture land, and also by the prevailing system of farming out tithes +to a class of men known as tithe proctors. In the country districts +all power was concentrated in the hands of the landlords, who, with +many faults and under many difficulties, at least succeeded in +attaining a large measure of genuine popularity. + +There was an Irish army of twelve thousand men, but the greater part +of it was always sent abroad in time of war, and Ireland was then +often left with not more than five thousand soldiers. No militia and +no constabulary force existed, but when Whiteboy or other disturbances +arose, the landlords put themselves at the head of their tenantry, and +usually succeeded in suppressing them. Law was very little observed; +industrial virtues were at the lowest ebb; there was abundance of +drunkenness, idleness, turbulence, neglect of duty, extreme ignorance, +and extreme poverty; but there was not much real oppression or +religious bigotry, and there were no signs of political disturbance or +conspiracy. After a few years the portions of the penal code which +restricted the Catholic worship became a dead letter, and Catholic +chapels were everywhere rising on the Protestant estates. The +monopoly, however, of place and power continued, though the legal +profession was full of professing converts. The theological +temperature in both sects had greatly subsided. Land was usually let +by the owner on long leases, and at very low rents, to tenants who +almost invariably divided and sublet their tenancies. + +At a later period of the century, when population pressed closely on +subsistence, the system of middlemen produced a fierce competition +which raised rent in the lower grades to an enormous height, but this +evil was less felt with a scanty population, and the hierarchy of +tenants at least saved the landlords from the dangerous isolation +which their circumstances tended to produce. Arthur Young, who +examined the condition of the country very carefully between 1776 and +1778, perceived great signs of growing prosperity, especially in the +towns, and, although agriculture was far behind that of England, he +found a considerable number of active, intelligent, and improving +landlords. In the opinion of Young the rental of Ireland was unduly +and unnaturally low, but he urged the landlords to exercise a more +direct and controlling influence over their estates, and he +recommended them, for this purpose, to give leases for shorter periods +and gradually to abolish the system of middlemen and subletting. + +In the north there was a powerful, intelligent Protestant community, +with a strong leaning to republicanism. They were chiefly +Presbyterians, and they resented bitterly the commercial restrictions +and the obligation of paying tithes to an Episcopal church. The Irish +Parliament was so constituted that they had no political power at all +equivalent to their importance, and, like the Presbyterians in +England, they were burdened by the Test Act, and their marriages were +only valid if celebrated in the Established Church. The great power of +the bishops, both in the Privy Council and in the House of Lords, +formed a very serious obstacle to church reform. In all classes of +Protestants, however, in the closing years of George II., there was a +strong resentment at the political subjection of Ireland, and a +determination to obtain, if possible, those constitutional rights +which the Revolution of 1688 had secured for England. + +It is impossible, within the narrow limits assigned to me, to give +even a sketch of the successive stages by which the independence of +the Irish Parliament was established. The movement began with the +Octennial Act, limiting the duration of Parliament, and it came to +full maturity during the war of the American Revolution. Among the +Irish Catholics there appears to have been absolutely no sympathy with +the American cause, but Ulster Protestantism was enthusiastically on +the side of America. Presbyterians from Ulster bore a considerable +part in the American armies, and under the influence of American +example public opinion in Ireland rapidly advanced. The great +Volunteer movement of 1778 and the following years was originated by +the fact that the Government could supply no troops for the defence of +Ulster at a time when it was in imminent danger of attack from France. +The Protestant gentry called their people to arms; and a great +Protestant force was created, which not only secured the country +against foreign danger and maintained the most perfect internal order, +but also exercised a decisive influence over Irish politics. Volunteer +conventions were assembled which represented both property and +educated Protestant opinion much more truly than the borough +Parliament, and which loudly demanded free trade and Parliamentary +independence. Grattan made himself the mouthpiece of the popular +feeling; and the English Government and Parliament yielded to the +demand. The whole system of commercial restraints, which prevented +Ireland from developing her resources and trading with foreign +countries and the British colonies, was abolished, leaving the +commercial intercourse between Great Britain and Ireland to be +regulated by special Acts. The power of the Privy Council over +legislation was abolished. The appellate jurisdiction of the Irish +House of Lords was restored, and, above all, the sole competence of +the King, Lords, and Commons of Ireland to legislate for Ireland was +recognised. The Irish Parliament nearly at the same time made great +steps towards uniting the people by relieving the Presbyterians from +the Test Act and from the restrictions on their marriages, and the +Catholics from those parts of the penal code which chiefly restrained +their worship, their education, and their industry. At the same time +the Protestant monopoly of political power and of the higher offices +remained. + +Ireland thus found herself in possession of a Parliament which was, in +name at least, perfectly independent. It was a purely Protestant +Parliament, elected by Protestants, consisting mainly of landlords and +great Protestant lawyers, and representing pre-eminently the property +of the country. It was intensely and exclusively loyal, and always +ready to adopt far more stringent coercive measures against anarchy +and sedition than have ever been adopted by an Imperial Parliament. It +included many men of great talents and great liberality, and through +the county constituencies and the representatives of the chief towns +educated public opinion was seriously felt within its walls; but the +large majority of its members sat for nomination boroughs within the +control of the government, and places and pensions were inordinately +multiplied for the purpose of securing a majority. + +Could this constitution last? In framing the course of foreign and +Imperial policy, in all questions of peace or war, of negotiations or +alliances, the Irish Parliament had no voice. Yet it might in time of +war, by withholding its concurrence, withdraw the whole weight of +Ireland from the forces and fatally dislocate the policy of the +Empire. It might pursue a commercial policy absolutely inconsistent +with Imperial interests, and bring Ireland into intimate commercial +connection with the enemies of England; and if English party spirit +extended to Ireland and ran in opposite directions in the two +legislatures, a collision was inevitable. The Lord Lieutenant and +Chief Secretary, who administered the government of Ireland, were +appointed by a British Ministry representing the dominant British +party; the counsels of the Irish Government were framed in a British +Cabinet; the royal consent was given to every Irish Bill under the +Great Seal of Great Britain and upon the advice of a British Minister. +If a machine so constituted could work as long as it was in the hands +of a small and undoubtedly loyal and largely influenced class, could +it work if Parliamentary reform made the Irish Parliament subject to +the fierce and fluctuating tides of popular opinion? above all, if +Catholic enfranchisement brought a vast, ignorant, and possibly +seditious element into political life? + +It was the recorded opinion of each successive Lord Lieutenant who +administered the Irish Government after 1782 that it could not, and +that it must sooner or later end either in a union or a separation. +They said this, though they fully acknowledged the perfect loyalty +hitherto shown by the Irish Parliament; the liberality with which it +voted its supplies; the care with which it subordinated its particular +measures to the general interests of the Empire. The failure--not +solely or even mainly through Irish fault--of an attempt to establish +a fixed commercial arrangement between England and Ireland, and a +difference between the British and Irish Parliaments on the Imperial +question of a regency, strengthened the opinion of the English +Government, and for many years before the Union was enacted it was in +contemplation. On the two great and pressing questions at issue this +policy exercised a powerful influence. The Government obstinately +resisted every serious attempt to reform the Parliament, lest they +should lose that controlling power which they believed to be essential +to the permanence of the connection. On the Catholic question their +views were more fluctuating, but their dominant impression was that +emancipation could only be safely conceded in an Imperial Parliament, +and that it ought to be reserved as a boon which might one day make a +legislative Union acceptable to the Irish people. + +In Ireland, or at least in Protestant Ireland, the idea of a Union was +now intensely unpopular, but the reformers in the Irish Parliament +were seriously divided. Flood and Charlemont desired Parliamentary +reform on a purely Protestant basis. They believed that this would +include in political life the bulk of the property, loyalty, +intelligence, and energy of the country, and that the Irish Catholics +could not for a long period be safely admitted to political power. +Grattan, on the other hand, believed that it was the first interest of +Ireland to efface the political distinction between the two creeds and +nations, and that an introduction of a certain proportion of Catholic +gentry into the Irish Parliament would be in the highest degree +beneficial. He, at the same time, always taught that Ireland was +utterly unfit for democracy, and that under her peculiar conditions no +policy could be more disastrous than one which would 'destroy the +influence of landed property'; 'set population adrift from the +influence of property'; subvert or weaken the guiding influence of the +loyal and educated. When the United Irishmen proposed a Reform Bill +which would have made the Irish Parliament a purely democratic body, +Grattan denounced it with the greatest vehemence. 'This plan of +personal representation,' he said, 'from a revolution of power, would +speedily lead to a revolution of property, and become a plan of +plunder as well as a scene of confusion.... Of such a representation +the first ordinance would be robbery, accompanied with the +circumstance incidental to robbery, murder.' He believed, however, +that with a substantial property qualification independent +constituencies might be formed which would safely represent the best +elements of both creeds. + +The denial of parliamentary reform and Catholic emancipation, and the +refusal of the Irish Parliament to deal with the still more pressing +question of tithes, produced much disaffection; but still the country +was steadily improving, and no serious danger was felt till the French +Revolution burst upon Europe. In every country it stimulated the +smouldering elements of disorder. In few countries was its influence +more fatal than in Ireland. I have very lately described at length the +terrible years of growing conspiracy, anarchy, and crime; of +fluctuating policy, and savage repression, and revived religious +animosity, and maddening panic, deliberately and malignantly fomented, +that preceded and prepared the rebellion. It is sufficient here to say +that in the beginning of 1798 three provinces were organised to assist +a French invasion. But at the last moment the leaders were betrayed +and arrested; the French did not arrive; the rebellion was almost +confined to a few Leinster counties, and it broke out without leaders +and without a plan. In most places the rebels proved to be wretched +bands of marauders intent only on plunder, and, although they +committed many murders, they were utterly incapable of meeting the +loyalists in the field. But in Wexford, priests put themselves at the +head of the movement and turned it into a religious war, deriving its +main force from religious fanaticism, and waged with desperate courage +and ferocity. The massacre of Protestants on Vinegar Hill, in +Scullabogue Barn, and on Wexford Bridge, and the general character +the rebellion in Leinster assumed, at once and for ever checked all +that tendency to rebellion which had so long existed among the +Protestants of Ulster. Some twenty thousand persons perished before +the flame was extinguished. The repression was as savage as the +rebellion, and it left Ireland torn by fiercer religious animosities +than at any period since the Restoration. + +It will dispel many illusions if the reader will remember that the +great Irish rebellion was directed mainly against the Irish +Parliament, and that it received its death-blow from Irish loyalists +acting under that Parliament before any assistance arrived from +England. The conspiracy began among Protestants and Deists, who aimed +at a union of sects for the purpose of obtaining a democratic +republic. It turned into a war which was scarcely less essentially +religious than the wars of the Cevennes or of the Anabaptists. Yet two +great Catholic provinces remained quiet during the struggle, and a +great proportion of the loyalist force which crushed the rebellion +consisted of Catholic militia. + +The English Government thought that the time had now come for carrying +a legislative Union, and, in the eyes of Lord Cornwallis at least, one +of its chief recommendations was that it would take the government of +Ireland out of the hands of the triumphant party, and would make +Catholic emancipation a possibility. The Catholic bishops were sounded +and found to be very favourable. They declared their full willingness +to accept an endowment for the priesthood and to give the English +Government a right of veto on episcopal appointments, and they warmly, +efficiently, and unanimously supported the Union. The great majority +of the Catholic landed gentry and probably of the lower priests were +on the same side; but in general the Catholic laity seem to have +shown little interest and to have taken little part in the contest. In +Dublin, Catholics as well as Protestants were generally hostile, but +Catholic Cork was decidedly favourable, and an assurance that the +Government desired to carry emancipation in an Imperial Parliament +proved sufficient to prevent any serious Catholic opposition. The +United Irishmen seem to have witnessed rather with pleasure than the +reverse the dethronement of the body which had defeated them, and the +Presbyterians showed scarcely any interest in the question. + +Yet outside the ranks of the Catholic clergy the measure found few +active supporters, while the Protestants of the Established Church +were in general ardently and passionately hostile. The great majority +of the county members and the great preponderance of petitions were +against the Union, and the opposition to it, which was led by Foster, +Grattan, Parsons, and Plunket, comprised nearly all the independent +and unbribed talent in Parliament. The very eminent ability of that +small group of Protestant gentlemen never flashed more brightly than +in the closing scenes, and there was a moment when the attitude of the +Orangemen and the yeomanry was so menacing that the Government were +seriously alarmed. But a lavish distribution of peerages and places +purchased a majority, and the troops stationed in Ireland were too +numerous for armed opposition to be possible. In truth, however, no +opposition beyond the dimensions of a riot was to be feared. Outside +Dublin, Catholic, Presbyterian, and seditious Ireland remained almost +indifferent. Even before the measure had passed, opposition speakers +complained bitterly that they were deserted by popular support; and it +is a memorable fact that in the general election that followed the +Union not a single Irish member of Parliament was defeated because he +had voted for it. + +Pitt intended the Union to be immediately followed by measures +admitting the Catholics into the Imperial Parliament, paying the +priests, and commuting the tithes. If these three measures, or even if +the last two (which were, in truth, the most important), had been +promptly carried, the Union might have become popular. The Catholic +question had, of late, been greatly mismanaged. The chief men who +directed the government in Ireland were bitterly opposed to any +concession of political power to the Catholics, but the views of the +English Ministers had been materially changed. They desired above all +things to separate the Catholics from the United Irishmen, and in 1793 +they forced upon their reluctant advisers in Ireland an Act which +extended the suffrage to the vast ignorant Catholic masses, though it +left the Catholic gentry still excluded from Parliament. Two years +later Lord Fitzwilliam was sent over with instructions to postpone the +question if possible, but with authority, as he believed, to carry +emancipation if it could not be postponed, and he found the Irish +Parliament perfectly prepared to pass it. But the opposition of the +King and a question of patronage produced a fatal division and led to +the recall of the Viceroy. The passions aroused by the rebellion +greatly increased the difficulties of admitting Catholics to a +separate Parliament, but there is clear evidence that at the time of +the Union the Irish Protestants were in favour of their admission into +the Imperial one. The dispositions of the King were well known, but it +was believed that, if the scheme of Pitt was submitted to him as the +matured policy of a united Cabinet, he must have yielded. It is well +known how the plan was prematurely revealed; how Pitt resigned office +when the King refused his consent; how the agitation of the question +threw the King into an access of insanity; and how Pitt then promised +that he would not again raise it during the reign. Pitt's conduct on +this occasion is, and probably always will be, differently judged. +There can be but one opinion of its calamitous effect upon Irish +history. + +Ninety years have passed since the Union, and the conditions of +Ireland have completely changed. The whole system of religious +disqualification and commercial disability has long since passed away. +Every path has been thrown open, and English professions, as well as +the great Colonial and Indian services, are crowded with Irishmen. The +Established Church no longer exists. Representation has been placed on +a broadly democratic basis, giving Ireland, however, an absurdly +disproportioned weight in the representation of the kingdom, and its +poorest and most backward districts an absurdly disproportioned weight +in the representation of Ireland. Finally, an attempt has been made to +put down agrarian agitation by legislation to which there is no real +parallel in English history, and some parts of which would have been +impossible under the Constitution of the United States. Landlords who +possessed by the clearest title known to English law the most absolute +ownership of their estates have been converted into mere +rent-chargers. Tenants who entered upon their tenancies under formal +written contracts for limited periods have been rooted for ever on the +soil. Rents have been reduced by judicial sentence, with complete +disregard both to previous contracts and to market value, and the +legal owner has had no option of refusing the change and re-entering +on the occupation of his land. A scheme of purchase, too, based upon +Imperial credit, has been established and will probably soon be +largely extended, which is so extravagantly and almost grotesquely +favorable to the tenant that it enables him by paying for the space of +forty-nine years, instead of his reduced judicial rent, an annual sum +which is considerably smaller, to purchase the freehold of his farm. +It is a simple and incontestable truth that neither in the United +States, nor in England, nor in any portion of the Continent of Europe, +is the agricultural tenant so favoured by law as in Ireland, or +anything of the nature of landlord oppression made so impossible. But +though agitation has diminished, it has not ceased, and the great body +of the poorer Catholics still follow the banner of Home Rule. + +About a third of the population of Ireland, on the other hand, regard +Home Rule as the greatest catastrophe that could befall themselves, +their country, or the Empire; and it is worthy of notice that they +include almost all the descendants of Grattan's Parliament, and of the +volunteers and of those classes who in the eighteenth century +sustained the spirit of nationality in Ireland. Belfast and the +surrounding counties, which alone in Ireland have attained the full +height and vigour of English industrial civilisation; almost all the +Protestants, both Episcopalian and Nonconformist; almost all the +Catholic gentry; the decided preponderance of Catholics in the lay +professions, and a great and guiding section of the Catholic +middle-class are on the same side. Their conviction does not rest upon +any abstract doctrine about the evil of federal governments or of +local parliaments. It rests upon their firm persuasion that in the +existing conditions of Ireland no Parliament could be established +there which could be trusted to fulfil the most elementary conditions +of honest government--to maintain law; to protect property; to observe +or enforce contracts; to secure the rights and liberties of +individuals and minorities; to act loyally in times of difficulty and +danger in the interests of the Empire. + +They know that the existing Home Rule movement has grown up by the +guidance and by the support of men who are implacable enemies to the +British Empire; that it has been for years the steady object of its +leaders to inspire the Irish masses with feelings of hatred to that +Empire, contempt for contracts, defiance of law and of those who +administer it; that, having signally failed in rousing the +agricultural population in a national struggle, those leaders resolved +to turn the movement into an organised attack upon landed property; +that in the prosecution of this enterprise they have been guilty, not +only of measures which are grossly and palpably dishonest, but also of +an amount of intimidation, of cruelty, of systematic disregard for +individual freedom scarcely paralleled in any country during the +present century; and finally that, through subscriptions which are not +drawn from Ireland, political agitation in Ireland has become a large +and highly lucrative trade--a trade which, like most others, will no +doubt continue as long as it pays. + +The nature, methods, and objects of the organisation which would +probably exercise a dominant influence over an Irish Parliament have +been established by overwhelming evidence and beyond all reasonable +doubt, after a long, careful, and most impartial judicial +investigation. The report of the late Special Commissioners[7] and the +evidence on which it is founded have been published; and their +conclusions have very recently been summed up in an admirable work by +Professor Dicey, perhaps the ablest of living writers on political +subjects. Readers may find in these works abundant evidence of the +true character of the Irish Home Rule movement. If they read them with +impartiality they will, I believe, have little difficulty in +concluding that there have been few political movements in the +nineteenth century which are less deserving of the respect or support +of honest men. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[7] The Parnell Commission.--ED. + + + + +FORMATIVE INFLUENCES + + +It was about four years before the great upheaval of beliefs in +England, which was partly caused and partly disclosed by the +publication of the 'Essays and Reviews,' in 1860, that I entered +Trinity College, Dublin. I had then a strong leaning toward +theological studies and looked forward to a peaceful clerical life in +a family living near Cork; and in addition to the ordinary university +course, I went through that appointed for divinity students. I found +my life at the university one of more than common intellectual +activity, for although circumstances and temperament made me perhaps +culpably indifferent to college ambitions and competitions, I soon +threw myself with intense eagerness into a long course of private +reading, chiefly relating to the formation and history of opinions. +The great High Church wave which had a few years before been so +powerful, had been broken when Newman and many other leaders of the +party had passed to Catholicism. Darwin and Herbert Spencer had not +yet risen above the horizon. Mill was in the zenith of his fame and +influence. The intellectual atmosphere was much agitated by the recent +discoveries of geology, by their manifest bearing on the Mosaic +cosmogony and on the history of the Fall, and by the attempts of Hugh +Miller, Hitchcock, and other writers to reconcile them with the +received theology. In poetry, Tennyson and Longfellow reigned, I +think with an approach to equality which has not continued. In +politics, the school of orthodox political economy was almost +unchallenged. In spite of the protests of Carlyle, all sound Liberals +in England then desired to restrict as much as possible the functions +of government, and to enlarge as much as possible the sphere of +individual liberty; and they regarded unrestrained competition and +inviolable contracts as the chief conditions of material progress. + +The first great intellectual influence which I experienced was, I +believe, that of Bishop Butler, who was at that time probably studied +more assiduously at Dublin than in any other university in the +kingdom. There were few sermons in the college chapel in which some +allusion to his writings might not be found, and few serious students +whose modes of thought were not at least coloured by his influence. +That influence now appears to me to have been not only various, but +even in some measure contradictory. The 'Analogy' is perhaps the most +original, if not the most powerful, book ever written in defence of +the Christian creed; but it has probably been the parent of much +modern Agnosticism, for its method is to parallel every difficulty in +revealed religion by a corresponding difficulty in natural religion, +and to argue that the two must stand or fall together. Butler's +unrivalled sermons on human nature, on the other hand, have been +essentially conservative and constructive, and their influence has +been at least as strong on character as on belief. Their doctrine is +that consciousness reveals in the inner principles of our being a +moral hierarchy, 'a difference in nature and kind altogether distinct +from strength'; and that among these principles conscience has, by the +very structure of our nature, a recognised supremacy or guiding +authority which clearly distinguishes it from all others. + +'The principle of reflection or conscience being compared with the +various appetites, affections, and passions in men, the former is +manifestly supreme and chief, without regard to strength.... From its +very nature it manifestly claims superiority over all others, so that +you cannot form a notion of this faculty, conscience, without taking +in judgment, direction, superintendency. To preside and govern, from +the very economy and constitution of man, belongs to it. Had it +strength as it has right, it would govern the world.' + +It was a noble philosophy, well fitted to strengthen and elevate the +character, and it has supported many amid the dissolution of positive +beliefs. Utilitarian theories of morals move very smoothly as long as +their only task is to define the course which it is in the interests +of society that each man should pursue. They are less successful in +furnishing any firm and adequate reason why a man should pursue that +course when individual interests and individual passion are opposed to +it. It is the merit of the schools of Kant and of Butler, that they +raise the idea of duty above all the calculations of self-interest, +and make it the supreme and guiding principle of life. + +Among living men, the strongest intellectual influence at that time in +Dublin was, I think, Whately, our archbishop, an original and powerful +thinker who has scarcely obtained a place in the literary and +intellectual history of his time commensurate with the wide and deep +influence he undoubtedly exercised. For this there are many reasons. +Unlike the High Church leaders who flourished with him at Oxford in +the second quarter of the nineteenth century, he never identified +himself with any organised party or school of thought, and he thus +deprived himself of many echoes and of much support. It was, indeed, +one of his first principles that there is no more fatal obstacle to +the discovery of truth than the deflecting influence of party and +system, and that the jealous maintenance of an independent judgment is +the first element of intellectual honesty. Few considerable writers +have appealed less to common passions or wide sympathies; and the only +passion--if it can be called so--that appears strongly in his +writings, is the love of truth for its own sake, which is the rarest +and highest of all. He was accustomed to speculate much upon that +strange power of intellectual magnetism which enables some men to draw +others to their views apart from any process of definite reasoning; +and he acknowledged with truth that he was wholly destitute of it; +that he had never produced any effect which could not be clearly +accounted for, or altered any judgment except by distinct reasons. As +a writer, his style, though wholly without grace, was admirable in its +lucidity. He had a singular felicity of illustration, and especially +of metaphor, and a rare power of throwing his thoughts into terse and +pithy sentences; but his many books, though full of original thinking +and in a high degree suggestive to other writers, had always a certain +fragmentary and occasional character, which prevented them from taking +a place in standard literature. He was conscious of it himself, and +was accustomed to say that it was the mission of his life to make up +cartridges for others to fire. The little volume of 'Miscellanies,' +including his commonplace book and his notes for his books, which was +published by his daughter, exhibits with great clearness the character +of his mind. Though a very candid and, in the best sense of the word, +a very tolerant man, and an excellent scholar, he had, I think, little +power of reproducing the modes of thought of men whose mental +structure was widely different from his own, or of entering into the +intellectual conditions of other ages; but he touched a large circle +of subjects, social, political, and even scientific, as well as moral +and religious, with an original and most independent judgment; and he +raised greatly the moral standard of love of truth and the +intellectual standard of severe reasoning wherever his influence +extended. He delighted in that fine saying of Hobbes that, 'words are +the counters of the wise man, but the money of the fool'; he believed +that most controversies might be resolved into verbal ambiguities; and +his hatred of vagueness, grandiloquence, affected obscurity, and +rhetorical exaggeration exercised a very useful influence over young +men. He was also a most attentive and sagacious observer of human +nature, and few modern writers have written so wisely on the +diversities and the management of character and on the science of +life. In this respect he had a strong affinity to Bacon--the Bacon not +of the 'Organon,' but of the 'Essays'--and perhaps still more to +Benjamin Franklin. In theology he challenged the severest inquiry, and +believed that if honestly pursued it would lead only to orthodox +belief. 'A good man,' he once wrote, 'will indeed wish to find the +evidence of the Christian religion satisfactory; but a wise man will +not for that reason think it satisfactory, but will weigh the evidence +the more carefully on account of the importance of the question.' + +His strongest antipathy was to the teaching of the Oxford 'Tracts,' +and he wrote about them with great severity, but more from the moral +than the intellectual side. He believed the Tractarian doctrines of +'reserve' and 'economy' to be essentially disingenuous; he considered +that there was good reason to conclude that leading members of the +Oxford school had remained in the Church of England for a considerable +time after they had adopted the Roman theology, had used language +deliberately intended to mask their position, and had employed their +influence as English clergymen to sap the English Church; and he +especially denounced as the grossest dishonesty the attempt that was +made in Tract XC. to show that a man was justified in subscribing to +the Articles of the Church of England and at the same time holding +everything laid down by the Council of Trent, 'though the Articles +were expressly drawn up to condemn the authoritative teaching of the +Roman Church, and after the Council of Trent had held 22 out of its +whole number of 25 sessions.' The quibbling, special-pleading, +equivocating mind which is consciously or half-consciously +endeavouring by subtle distinctions to maintain an untenable position, +was of all things the most abhorrent to him, and while the +Evangelicals denounced the Tractarians as leading men to Rome, +Whately, perhaps alone among his contemporaries, steadily predicted +that their teachings would be followed by a great period of religious +scepticism. This, he said, would be the result of the discredit they +were throwing on the evidential school, of their habit of coupling +ecclesiastical with Scripture miracles, and of their doctrine that it +is the function of faith to supply the missing links of imperfect +evidence and to impart the character of certainty to propositions +which in reason rest only on probabilities. He himself was of the +school of Grotius and Paley, and believed that simple historical +evidence established supernatural facts. This subject long held a +foremost place in my thoughts and studies, and I afterward wrote much +upon it in connection with the history of witchcraft and the miracles +of the Saints. + +I owed much to Whately, but I was studying concurrently with him +teachers of very opposite schools, among others Coleridge, Newman, and +Emerson in English; Pascal, Bossuet, Rousseau, and Voltaire in French. +Locke's writings formed part of the college course, and I became very +familiar with them, and fully shared Hallam's special admiration for +the little treatise 'On the Conduct of the Understanding,' while +Dugald Stewart, Mackintosh, and Mill opened out wide and various +vistas in moral philosophy. The following passage from Coleridge, +which I chose as the motto of almost my first published writing, +exercised so great an influence over my later studies, and shows so +happily the direction in which I was endeavoring to turn my mind, that +I may be excused from quoting it at length: + +'Let it be remembered by controversialists on all subjects, that every +speculative error which boasts a multitude of advocates has its golden +as well as its dark side; that there is always some truth connected +with it, the exclusive attention to which has misled the +understanding; some moral beauty which has given it charms for the +heart. Let it be remembered that no assailant of an error can +reasonably hope to be listened to by its advocates, who has not proved +to them that he has seen the disputed subject in the same point of +view and is capable of contemplating it with the same feelings as +themselves; for why should we abandon a cause at the persuasion of one +who is ignorant of the reasons which have attached us to it?' + +Adopting an illustration which had been employed by Bossuet for +another purpose, I came to believe that religious systems resemble +those pictures occasionally seen in the museums of the curious, which +appear at first to be mere incongruous assemblages of unconnected and +unmeaning figures, till they are regarded from one particular point of +view, when these figures immediately mass themselves into a regular +form, and the whole picture assumes a coherent and symmetrical +appearance. To discover in each system this point of view; to +cultivate that peculiar form of imagination which makes it possible to +realise how different forms of opinions are held by their more +intelligent adherents, appeared to me the first condition of +understanding them. + +In this method of inquiry I was, at a little later period, much aided +by the writings of Bayle, a great critic who brought to the study of +opinions an almost unrivalled knowledge, and one of the keenest and +most detached of human intellects. Gradually, however, by a natural +and insensible process I passed into the habit of examining opinions +mainly from an historical point of view--investigating the +circumstances under which they grow up; their relation to the general +conditions of their time; the direction in which they naturally +develop; the part, whether for good or ill, which during long spaces +of time they have played in the world. It was first of all in +connection with the Roman Catholic controversy, with which we were +much occupied in Ireland, that I learnt to pursue this course. Of the +enormous and essential difference between matured Catholicism and the +Christianity of the New Testament, I never doubted, and my convictions +were much deepened by long travels in Italy, France, and Spain, during +which I endeavoured to study carefully Catholicism in its actual +workings as a popular religion, and not as it appears clarified and +rationalised in such books as the 'Exposition,' by Bossuet. I often +asked myself, who could have imagined from a perusal of the New +Testament that Christianity was intended to be a highly centralised +monarchy, governed with supreme divine authority by the Bishop of +Rome; that this bishop was to be connected, not with the great author +of the Epistle to the Romans, but with St. Peter; that the figure +which was to occupy the most prominent place in the devotions and +imaginations of millions of Christian worshippers was to be the Virgin +Mary, who is not so much as mentioned in the Epistles; that in the +immediate neighbourhood, and with the full sanction of the highest +ecclesiastical authorities, graven images were to be employed in +devotion as conspicuously as in a pagan temple, particular images +being singled out from all others for particular devotion by special +indulgences and by special miracles? I soon convinced myself that +popular Catholicism, as it exists in southern Europe and as it has +existed through a long course of centuries, is as literally +polytheistic and idolatrous as any form of paganism, though it has +many beauties, and though much of its very mingled influence has been +for good. In the teaching of my early youth, this transformation of +Christianity was described as the great predicted apostasy, the +mystery of iniquity, the work of Antichrist among mankind. Under the +influence of the historic method it assumed a different aspect, and +the mystery became very explicable. Hobbes had struck the keynote in a +passage of profound truth as well as of admirable beauty: + +'If a man consider the original of this great ecclesiastical +dominion, he will easily perceive that the Papacy is no other than the +ghost of the deceased Roman Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave +thereof.' + +Few evolutions in history, indeed, can be more clearly traced than the +successive stages through which Rome, by a gradual and very natural +process, obtained the primacy of Christendom. In the condition of +Europe, again, at the time of the downfall of the Roman Empire, the +invasion, the triumph, and the rapid conversion of the barbarians, the +chief causes of the materialising transformation which Christian ideas +underwent appeared abundantly evident; and it became clear to me that +some such transformation was inevitable, and essential to their enduring +influence. Was it possible, I asked myself, that in ages of anarchy and +convulsion, any religion resembling Protestant Christianity could have +prevailed among great masses of wild and ignorant barbarians, with all +the associations and mental habits of idolaters, at a time when neither +rag paper nor printing was invented, and when a wide diffusion of the +Bible was absolutely impossible? But such methods of reasoning could not +stop there. I was naturally led to consider how different are the +measures of probability, the predispositions toward the miraculous, the +canons of evidence and proof, the standards and ideals of morals in +different ages, and how largely these differences affect the whole +question of evidence. I began to realise the existence of climates of +opinion; to observe how particular forms of belief naturally grow and +flourish in certain stages of intellectual development, and fade when +these conditions have changed; how much that is called apostasy and +imposture is in reality anachronism, the survival in one age of forms of +belief that were the appropriate product of an earlier one. + +A writer of extraordinary brilliancy and power was at this time +exercising a great influence either of attraction or repulsion on all +serious students of history. Those who are old enough to remember the +appearance of the first volume of Buckle's 'History,' in 1857, and of +the second volume, in 1861, will remember also how rapidly and how +passionately it divided opinion. It was in truth a book in which +extraordinary merits were balanced by extraordinary defects. On the +special subject of the growth of religions, which most interested me, +it was peculiarly deficient, for with all his great gifts Buckle was +almost colour-blind to the devotional and reverential aspect of things, +and he had little more power than Whately of projecting himself into +the beliefs, ideals, and modes of thought of other men and ages. His +unqualified, undiscriminating contempt for the ages of superstition is +the more remarkable, because fifteen years before the appearance of his +first volume, Comte, with whom Buckle had some affinity, and for whom +he expressed great admiration, had been placing those ages on a +pinnacle of extravagant eulogy. His doctrine that there is no real +progress in moral ideas and no real history of morals, I have always +believed to be profoundly untrue, and to have vitiated a large part of +his conclusions; and although he rendered valuable service in showing +by ample illustrations that the capital changes in history are much +less due to the great men who directly effected them than to the long +train of intellectual, political, or industrial tendencies that had +prepared them, he pushed this, like many of his other generalisations, +to exaggeration and even to extravagance. Individuals, and even +accidents, have had a great modifying and deflecting influence in +history, and sometimes the part they have played can scarcely be +over-estimated. If, as I have elsewhere said, a stray dart had struck +down Mohammed in one of the early skirmishes of his career, there is no +reason to believe that the world would have seen a great military and +monotheistic religion arise in Arabia, powerful enough to sweep over a +large part of three continents, and to mould during many centuries the +lives and characters of about a fifth part of the human race. In one +respect, too, Buckle was singularly unfortunate in the time in which he +appeared. From the days of Bacon and Locke to the days of Condillac and +Bentham, it had been the tendency of advanced liberal thinkers to +aggrandise as much as possible the power of circumstances and +experience over the individual, and to reduce to the narrowest limits +every influence that is innate, transmitted, or hereditary. They +represented man as essentially the creature of circumstances, and his +mind as a sheet of blank paper on which education might write what it +pleased. Buckle pushed this habit of thought so far that he even +questioned the reality of such an evident and well-known fact as +hereditary insanity. But only two years after the appearance of the +first volume of the 'History of Civilisation,' Darwin published his +'Origin of Species,' which gradually effected a revolution in +speculative philosophy almost as great as it effected in natural +science; and from that time the supreme importance of inborn and +hereditary tendencies has become the very central fact in English +philosophy. It must be added that Buckle had many of the distinctive +faults of a young writer; of a writer who had mixed little with men, +and had formed his mind almost exclusively by solitary, unguided study. +He had a very imperfect appreciation of the extreme complexity of +social phenomena, an excessive tendency to sweeping generalisations, +and an arrogance of assertion which provoked much hostility. His wide +and multifarious knowledge was not always discriminating, and he +sometimes mixed good and bad authorities with a strange indifference. + +This is a long catalogue of defects, but in spite of them Buckle +opened out wider horizons than any previous writer in the field of +history. No other English historian had sketched his plan with so bold +a hand, or had shown so clearly the transcendent importance of +studying not merely the actions of soldiers, politicians, and +diplomatists, but also those great connected evolutions of +intellectual, social, and industrial life on which the type of each +succeeding age mainly depends. To not a few of his contemporaries he +imparted an altogether new interest in history, and his admirable +literary talent, the vast range of topics which he illuminated with a +fresh significance, and the noble enthusiasm for knowledge and for +freedom that pervades his work, made its appearance an epoch in the +lives of many who have passed far from its definite conclusions. The +task which he had undertaken was almost too vast for the longest life, +and when he died at Damascus, in 1862, he had not yet completed his +fortieth year, and his judgment was probably still far from its full +maturity. A few lines of Pliny which I wrote on the title-page of his +history, will suffice to show the feelings with which I heard of his +death: + +'Mihi autem videtur acerba semper et immatura mors eorum qui immortale +aliquid parant. Nam qui voluptatibus dediti quasi in diem vivunt, +vivendi causas quotidie finiunt; qui vero posteros cogitant et +memoriam sui operibus extendunt, his nulla mors non repentina est, ut +quæ semper inchoatum aliquid abrumpat.' + +I do not purpose to pursue these recollections further. I had drifted +far from my Cork living and very decisively into the ways of +literature, and after I left the university I spent about four years +on the Continent. I read much in foreign libraries, and I also derived +great profit as well as keen pleasure from the study of Italian art, +which throws an invaluable light on the branches of history I was then +investigating. In its earlier phase especially, before the sense of +beauty dominates over the idea, art represents with a singular +fidelity not only the religious beliefs of men, but also the far more +delicate and evanescent shades of their realisations, ideals, and +emotions. + +The result of those years of study was my 'History of the Spirit of +Rationalism in Europe,' which appeared in the early part of 1865. With +many defects, it had at least the merit of describing with great +sincerity the process by which the opinions of its author had been +formed, and to this sincerity it probably owed no small part of its +success. + + + + +CARLYLE'S MESSAGE TO HIS AGE. + + +When Carlyle came to London in 1831, bringing with him the 'Sartor +Resartus,' which is now perhaps the most famous of all his works, it +is well known that he applied in turn to three of the principal +publishers in London, and that each of them, after due deliberation, +positively refused to print his manuscript. When at last, with great +difficulty, he procured its admission into 'Fraser's Magazine,' +Carlyle was accustomed to say that he only knew of two men who found +anything to admire in it. One of them was the great American writer, +Emerson, who afterwards superintended its publication in America. The +other was a priest from Cork, who wrote to say that he wished to take +in 'Fraser's Magazine' as long as anything by this writer appeared in +it. On the other hand, several persons told Fraser that they would +stop taking in the magazine if any more of such nonsense appeared in +it. The editor wrote to Carlyle that the work had been received with +'unqualified disapprobation.' Five years elapsed before it was +reprinted as a separate book, and in order that it should be reprinted +it was found necessary for a number of Carlyle's private friends to +club together and guarantee the publisher from loss by engaging to +take three hundred copies. But when, a few years before his death, a +cheap edition of Carlyle's works was published, 'Sartor Resartus' had +acquired such a popularity that thirty thousand copies were almost +immediately sold, and since his death it has been reprinted in a +sixpenny form; it has penetrated far and wide through all classes, and +it is now, I suppose, one of the most popular and most influential of +the books that were published in England in the second quarter of the +century. + +Such a contrast between the first reception and the later judgment of +a book is very remarkable, and it applies more or less to all +Carlyle's earlier writings. It is a memorable fact in the literary +history of the nineteenth century that one of the greatest and most +industrious writers in England lived for many years in such poverty +that he often thought of abandoning literature and emigrating to the +colonies, and he would probably have done so if he had not found in +public lecturing a means of supplying his frugal wants. The cause of +this long-continued neglect is partly, no doubt, to be found in his +style, for, like Browning, Carlyle wrote an English which was so +contorted and sometimes so obscure that his readers had to be slowly +educated into understanding, or at least enjoying, it. But there are +other and deeper causes which I propose to devote the short time at my +disposal to indicating. + +It has been truly said that there are two great classes among writers. +There are those who are echoes and there are those who are voices. +There are some writers who represent faithfully and express strongly +the dominant tendencies, opinions, habits, characteristics of their +age, collecting as in a focus the half-formed thoughts that are +prevailing around them, giving them an articulate voice, and by the +force of their advocacy greatly strengthening them. There are others +who either start new ways of thinking for which the public around +them are still unprepared, or who throw themselves in opposition to +the dominant tendencies of their times, pointing out the evils and +dangers connected with them, and dwelling specially on neglected +truths. It is not surprising that the first class are by far the most +popular. The public is much like Narcissus in the fable, who fell in +love with his own reflection in the water. All men like to find their +own opinions expressed with a power and eloquence they cannot +themselves attain, and most men dislike a writer who, in the first +flush of a great enthusiasm, points out all that can be said on the +other side. But when the first enthusiasm is over--when the prevailing +tendency has fully triumphed and the evils and defects connected with +it are disclosed--the words of this unpopular or neglected teacher +will begin to gather weight. It will be found that although he may not +have been wiser than those who advocated the other side, yet his words +contained exactly that kind of truth which was most needed or most +generally forgotten, and his reputation will steadily rise. + +This appears to me to have been very much the position which Carlyle +occupied towards the chief questions of his day, and it explains, I +think, in a great degree the growth of his influence. It is +remarkable, indeed, how many things there are in his writings which +appeared paradoxes when he wrote, and which now seem almost truisms. +Thus at a time when the political and intellectual ascendency of +France over the Continent was at its height, Carlyle was one of the +few men who clearly recognised the essential greatness that lay hid in +Germany, and especially in Prussia--a greatness which after the wars +of 1866 and 1870 became very evident to the world. He was one of the +first men in England to recognise the importance of German +literature, and especially the supreme greatness of Goethe. His +translation of 'Wilhelm Meister' was published in 1824, and his noble +essay on Goethe in 1832; but at first it seemed to find scarcely any +echo. The editor for whom he wrote it reported that all the opinions +he could gather about this essay were 'eminently unfavourable.' De +Quincey, who of all English critics was believed to know Germany best, +and Jeffrey, who exercised the greatest influence on English literary +opinion, combined to depreciate or ridicule Goethe. But there is now +no educated man who disputes that Carlyle in this matter was +essentially right, and that his critics were wholly wrong. And to turn +to subjects more directly connected with England, Carlyle wrote at a +time when the whole school of what was called advanced thought rested +upon the theory that the province of Government ought to be made as +small as possible, and that all the relations of classes should be +reduced to simple, temporary contracts founded on mutual interest. +According to this theory, it was the one duty of Government to keep +order. For the rest it should stand aside, and not attempt to meddle +in social or industrial questions. The most complete liberty of +thought and action should be established, and everything should be +left to unrestricted competition--to the free play of unprivileged, +untrammelled, unguided social forces. This was the theory which was +called orthodox political economy--the _laisser-faire_ system--the +philosophy of competition or supply and demand, and it was incessantly +denounced by Carlyle as Mammon worship, as 'devil take the hindmost,' +as 'pure egoism'; 'the shabbiest gospel that had been taught among +men.' He declared that in the long run no society could flourish, or +even permanently cohere, if the only relation between man and man was +a mere money tie. He maintained that what he called the condition of +England question, or, in other words, the great mass of struggling, +anarchical poverty that was growing up in the chief centres of +population, was a question which imperiously demanded the most +strenuous Government intervention--which was, in fact, far more +important than any of the purely political questions. The whole system +of factory legislation, the whole system of legislation about working +men's dwellings, which has taken place in this century, has been a +realisation of the ideas of Carlyle. When Carlyle first wrote, it was +the received opinion that the education of the people was a matter in +which the Government should in no degree interfere, and that it ought +to be left altogether to individuals, or Churches, or societies. In +his work on Chartism, which was published as early as 1834, Carlyle +argued that the 'universal education of the people' was an +indispensable duty of the Government. It was not until about twenty +years ago that this duty was fully recognised in England. In the same +work he maintained that State-aided, State-organised, State-directed +emigration must one day be undertaken on a large scale, as the only +efficient agent in coping with the great masses of growing pauperism. +In his 'Past and Present,' which was published in 1843, he threw out +another idea which has proved very prolific, and which is probably +destined to become still more so. It is that it may become both +possible and needful for the master worker 'to grant his workers +permanent interest in his enterprise and theirs.' + +It is evident how much less strange those ideas appear now than they +did when they were first put out some fifty years ago. One of the +most remarkable changes that has taken place during the lives of men +who are still of middle age has been in the opinion of advanced +thinkers about the function of Government. In the early days of +Carlyle the whole set, or lie, of opinion in England was towards +cutting in all directions the bands of Government control, diminishing +as much as possible the sphere of Government functions or +interference. It was a revolt against the old Tory system of paternal +Government, against the system of Guilds, against the State +regulations which once prevailed in all departments of industrial +life. In the present generation it is not too much to say that the +current has been absolutely reversed. The constantly increasing +tendency, whenever any abuse of any kind is discovered, is to call +upon Parliament to make a law to remedy it. Every year the network of +regulation is strengthened; every year there is an increasing +disposition to enlarge and multiply the functions, powers, and +responsibilities of Government. I should not be dealing sincerely with +you if I did not express my own opinion that this tendency carries +with it dangers even more serious than those of the opposite +exaggerations of a past century: dangers to character by sapping the +spirit of self-reliance and independence; dangers to liberty by +accustoming men to the constant interference of authority, and +abridging in innumerable ways the freedom of action and choice. I wish +I could persuade those who form their estimate of the province of +Government from Carlyle's 'Past and Present' and 'Latter-day +Pamphlets' to study also the admirable little treatise of Herbert +Spencer, called 'The Man and the State,' in which the opposite side is +argued. What I have said however, is sufficient to show how +remarkably Carlyle, in some of the parts of his teaching that were +once the most unpopular, anticipated tendencies which only became very +apparent in practical politics when he was an old man or after his +death. + +The main and fundamental part of his teaching is the supreme sanctity +of work; the duty imposed on every human being, be he rich or be he +poor, to find a life-purpose and to follow it out strenuously and +honestly. 'All true work,' he said, 'is religion'; and the essence of +every sound religion is, 'Know thy work and do it.' In his conception +of life all true dignity and nobility grows out of the honest +discharge of practical duty. He had always a strong sympathy with the +feudal system which annexed indissolubly the idea of public function +with the possession of property. The great landlord who is wisely +governing large districts and using all his influence to diffuse +order, comfort, education, and civilisation among his tenantry; the +captain of industry who is faithfully and honestly organising the +labour of thousands, and regarding his task as a moral duty; the rich +man who, with all the means of enjoyment at his feet, devotes his +energies 'to make some nook of God's creation a little fruitfuller, +better, more worthy of God--to make some human hearts a little wiser, +manfuller, happier, more blessed,' always received his admiration and +applause. No one, on the other hand, spoke with more contempt of a +governing class which had ceased to govern; of titles which had lost +their original meaning, and no longer implied or expressed duties +performed; of wealth that was employed solely or mainly in selfish +enjoyment or in idle show. It was Carlyle's deep conviction that the +best test of the moral worth of every nation, class, and individual, +is to be found in their standard of work and in their dislike to a +useless and idle life. As is well known, he had no sympathy with the +prevailing political ideas. He believed that men were not only not +equal, but were profoundly unequal; that it was the first interest of +society that the wisest men should be selected as its leaders, and +that the popular methods of finding the wisest were by no means those +which were most likely to succeed. 'No British man,' he complained, +'can attain to be a statesman or chief of workers till he has first +proved himself a chief of talkers.' 'The two greatest nations in the +world, the English and American, are all going to wind and tongue.' He +believed much more than his contemporaries did that there was need and +room in our modern English life for strong Government organisation, +guidance, discipline, reverence, obedience, and control. 'Wise +command, wise obedience,' he wrote in one of his 'Latter-day +Pamphlets,' 'the capability of these two is the best measure of +culture and human virtue in every man.' + +There is another class of workers to which he himself belonged--the +men who are the teachers of mankind. He taught them by his example as +well as by his precepts. Whatever else may be said about Carlyle, no +one can question that he took his literary vocation most seriously. He +was for a long time a very poor man, but he never sought wealth by +advocating popular opinions, by pandering to common prejudices, or by +veiling most unpalatable beliefs. In the vast mass of literature which +he has bequeathed to us there is no scamped work, and every competent +judge has recognised the untiring and conscientious accuracy with +which he verified and sifted the minutest fact. His standard of +truthfulness was extremely high, and one of his great quarrels with +his age was that it was an age of half-beliefs and insincere +professions. He maintained that religious beliefs which had once been +living realities had too often degenerated into mere formulas, untruly +professed or mechanically repeated with the lips only, and without any +genuine or heartfelt conviction. He often repeated a saying of +Coleridge: 'They do not believe--they only believe that they believe.' +He used to speak of men who 'played false with their intellects'; or, +in other words, turned away their minds from unwelcome truths and by +allowing their wishes or interests to sway their judgments, persuaded +or half-persuaded themselves to believe whatever they wished. A firm +grasp of facts, he maintained, was the first characteristic of an +honest mind; the main element in all honest, intellectual work. His +own special talent was the gift of insight, the power of looking into +the heart of things, piercing to essential facts, discerning the real +characters of men, their true measure of genuine, solid worth. Creeds, +professions, opinions, circumstances, all these are the externals or +clothes of men. It is necessary to look behind them and beyond them if +we would reach the genuine human heart. One of the reasons why he +detested what he called stump oratory was because he believed it to be +a great school of insincerity. Its end was not truth, but +plausibility. It was the effort of interested men to throw opinions +into such forms as might most captivate uninstructed men; to keep back +every unpopular side; to magnify everything in them that was +seductive. He once said to me that two great curses seemed to him +eating away the heart and worth of the English people. One was drink. +The other was stump oratory, which accustomed men to say without +shame what they did not in their hearts believe to be true, and +accustomed their hearers to accept such a proceeding as perfectly +natural. And the same strong passion for veracity he carried into his +judgment of other forms of work. Rightly or wrongly, he believed that +the standard of conscientious work had been lowered in England through +the feverish competition of modern times, and under the system of what +he called 'cheap and nasty'; that English work had lost something of +its old solidity and worth, and was now made rather to captivate than +to wear. Carlyle saw in this much more than an industrial change. He +maintained that the love and pride of thorough work had long been a +pre-eminently English quality, that it was the very tap-root of the +moral worth of the English character, and that anything that tended to +weaken it was a grave moral evil. + +It is worth while trying to understand what truth underlay those parts +of his teaching which seem most repulsive. The worship of force, which +is so apparent in many of his writings, is a striking example. He was +often accused of teaching that might is right. He always answered that +he had not done so--that what he taught was that right is might; that +by the providential constitution of the Universe truth in the long run +is sure to be stronger than falsehood; that good will prevail over +evil, and that right and might, though they differ widely in short +periods of time, would in long spaces prove to be identical. Nothing, +he was accustomed to say, seemed weaker than the Christian religion +when the disciples assembled in the upper room; yet it was in truth +the strongest thing in the world, and it accordingly prevailed. It was +one of his favourite sayings 'that the soul of the Universe is just,' +and he believed therefore that the ultimate fate of nations, whether +it be good or bad, was very much what they deserved. It is curious to +observe the analogy between this teaching and the doctrine of the +survival of the fittest, which a very different teacher--Charles +Darwin--has made so conspicuous. + +He scandalised--and I think with a good deal of reason--most of his +contemporaries by the ridicule which he threw upon the career of +Howard, and upon the great movement for prison reform which was so +actively pursued in his time. Much of what he wrote on this subject +is, to me at least, very repulsive; but you will generally find in the +most extravagant utterances of Carlyle that there is some true meaning +at bottom. He maintained that the passion for reforming and improving +prisons and prison-life had been carried in England to such a point +that the lot of a convicted criminal was often much better than that +of an honest and struggling artisan. He believed that a just and wise +distribution of compassion is a most important element of national +well-being, and that the English people are very apt to be indifferent +to great masses of unobtrusive, struggling, honourable, unsensational +poverty at their very doors, while they fall into paroxysms of emotion +about the actors in some sensational crime, about some seductive +murderess, about the wrongs of some far-off and often half-savage +race. 'In one of these Lancashire weavers dying with hunger there is +more thought and heart, a greater arithmetical amount of misery and +desperation, than in whole gangs of Quashees.' He maintained, too, +that a strain of sentiment about criminals was very prevalent in his +day, which tended seriously to obliterate or diminish the real +difference between right and wrong. He hated with an intense hatred +that whole system of philosophy which denied that there was a deep, +essential, fundamental difference between right and wrong, and turned +the whole matter into a mere calculation of interests. He was +accustomed to say that one of the chief merits of Christianity was +that it taught that right and wrong were as far apart as Heaven and +Hell, and that no greater calamity can befall a nation than a +weakening of the righteous hatred of evil. + +The parts of Carlyle's teaching on which I have dwelt to-day will be +chiefly found in his 'Past and Present,' his 'Heroes and Hero +Worship,' his 'Latter-day Pamphlets,' his 'Chartism,' and in the two +admirable essays called 'Signs of the Times' and 'Characteristics.' In +my own opinion, though Carlyle teaches much, his writings are most +valuable as a moral force. Very few great writers have maintained more +steadily that the moral element is the deepest and most important part +of our being, deeper and stronger than all intellectual +considerations. In his writings, amid much that has imperishable +value, there is, I think, much that is exaggerated, much that is +one-sided, much that is unwise. But no one can be imbued with his +teaching without finding it a great moral tonic, and deriving from it +a nobler, braver, and more unworldly conception of human life. + + + + +ISRAEL AMONG THE NATIONS[8] + + +Among the strange and unforeseen developments that have characterised +the fourth quarter of the nineteenth century, few are likely to be +regarded by the future historian with a deeper or more melancholy +interest than the anti-Semite movement, which has swept with such a +portentous rapidity over a great part of Europe. It has produced in +Russia by far the most serious religious persecution of the century. +It has raged fiercely in Roumania, the other great centre of the +Oriental Jews. In enlightened Germany it has become a considerable +parliamentary force. In Austria it counts among its adherents men of +the highest social station. Even France, which from the days of the +Revolution has been specially distinguished for its liberality to the +Jews, has not escaped the contagion. General Boulanger found the +anti-Jewish sentiment sufficiently powerful to make an appeal to it +one of the articles of his programme, and the extraordinary popularity +of the writings of Drumont shows that Boulanger had not altogether +miscalculated its force. + +It is this movement which has been the occasion of the very valuable +work of M. Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu on 'Israel among the Nations.' The +author, who is universally recognised as one of the greatest of living +political writers, has special qualifications for his task. With an +exceedingly wide knowledge of the literature relating to his subject +he combines much personal knowledge of the Jews in Palestine and in +many other countries, and especially in those countries where the +persecution has most furiously raged. + +That persecution, he justly says, unites in different degrees three of +the most powerful elements that can move mankind--the spirit of +religious intolerance; the spirit of exclusive nationality; and the +jealousy which springs from trade or mercantile competition. Of these +elements M. Leroy-Beaulieu considers the first to be on the whole the +weakest. In that hideous Russian Persecution which 'the New Exodus' of +Frederic has made familiar to the English reader, the religious +element certainly occupies a very leading place. Pobedonosteff, who +shared with his master the chief guilt and infamy of this atrocious +crime, belonged to the same type as the Torquemadas of the past, and +the spirit that animated him has entered largely into the anti-Semite +movement in other lands. The 'Gloria' of Galdos, perhaps the most +powerful religious novel of our time, describes the conflict in modern +Spain of the fanaticism of Catholicism with the fanaticism of Judaism. +Even the old calumny that the Jews are accustomed at Easter to murder +Christian children in order to mix their blood with the passover +bread, is still living in many parts of Europe. M. Leroy-Beaulieu has +collected much curious evidence on the subject. It is a calumny which +appears first to have become popular about 1100 A.D. It is +embodied in a well-known tale of Chaucer. It is the subject of one of +the great frescoes that were painted around the Cathedral of Toledo to +commemorate the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. Two Popes of the +thirteenth century, to their great honour, declared its falsehood, +and by the order of Benedict XIV. Ganganelli wrote a full memoir +examining and refuting it. But in spite of all condemnations, in spite +of many exposures in the law courts, it is still a popular belief in +Russia, Poland, Roumania, Hungary, and Bohemia, and even within the +last ten years it has been the direct cause of many outrages against +the Jews. + +Another element to which M. Leroy-Beaulieu attaches considerable +importance is the Kultur Kampf in Germany. When the German Government +was engaged in its fierce struggle with the Catholics, these +endeavoured to effect a diversion and to avenge themselves on papers, +which were largely in the hands of Jews, by raising a new cry. They +declared that a Kultur Kampf was indeed needed, but that it should be +directed against the alien people who were undermining the moral +foundations of Christian societies; who were the implacable enemies of +the Christian creed and of Christian ideals. The cry was soon taken up +by a large body of Evangelical Protestants. The 'Germania' and the +'Civiltà Cattolica,' which were the chief organs of Ultramontanism in +Germany and Italy, and the 'Kreuz Zeitung,' which represented the +strictest forms of German Protestantism, agreed in fomenting it. + +Still more powerful, in the opinion of our author, has been the spirit +of intense and exclusive nationality which has in the present +generation arisen in so many countries and which seeks to expel all +alien or heterogeneous elements, and to mould the whole national being +into a single definite type. The movement has been still further +strengthened by the greater keenness of trade competition. In the +midst of many idle, drunken, and ignorant populations the shrewd, +thrifty, and sober Jew stands conspicuous as the most successful +trader. His rare power of judging, influencing, and managing men, his +fertility of resource, his indomitable perseverance and industry, +continually force him into the foremost rank, and he is prominent in +occupations which excite much animosity. The tax-gatherer, the agent, +the middleman, and the moneylender are very commonly of Jewish race, +and great Jewish capitalists largely control the money markets of +Europe at a time when capital is the special object of socialistic +attacks. + +The most valuable portion of this work is, I think, that examining the +part which the Jewish race is now playing in the world, and tracing +the action of historical causes on the formation of their character. +On the old problem of the continued existence of the race through so +many ages M. Leroy-Beaulieu has much to say. He reminds us that in the +East the idea of nationality is habitually absorbed in the idea of +religion, and that there are many examples of the long survival of +peoples or tribes which have lost their political individuality. He +instances the Copts of Egypt, the Maronites and Druses of Lebanon, the +Parsees of India, the Armenians and Greeks of Asia as displaying, +though in a less degree, the same phenomenon as the Jews. He +attributes the long continuance of the Jews as a separate people +mainly to two causes. One of them is Christian hatred, which compelled +the Jews for many centuries to remain a separate people, unmixed with +surrounding nations; living in a separate quarter; marrying among +themselves; strengthened and disciplined in the struggle of life by +enormous difficulties and by the constant elimination through +persecution of the weaker elements. The other is the very elaborate +Jewish ritual extending to all departments of life, which has stamped +upon them an intensely distinctive character. + +The force of these causes is undoubted, but they are not, I think, the +only elements to be considered. M. Leroy-Beaulieu appears to me to +have somewhat underrated the physiological force and tenacity of the +Jewish race-type. Following the line of reasoning of a remarkable +essay of Renan, he shows very clearly that the modern Jews are far +from being pure Semites. He proves from Josephus and from other +sources that there was a considerable period, both before and after +the Christian era, when great numbers of Greeks, Latins, and Egyptians +adopted the Jewish faith; that much alien blood afterward poured into +the race through conversions among the barbarians and through the +circumcision of the slaves of Jewish masters, and that there is even +reason to believe that, in some periods of history, marriages with +Christians were not infrequent. It is probable, however, that most +alien elements that were introduced into the race sooner or later +mingled with the old stock, and no fact is more clearly shown than the +extraordinary power of the Jewish type to survive and dominate in a +mixed race. A single instance of a marriage with a Jewess will be +sufficient to perpetuate it in a family for many generations. In this +fact the Jews possess an element of stability which is wholly +independent of all considerations of creed and ritual. Few things are +more curious than the effect of persecution on the Jewish element in +Spain and Portugal. Tens of thousands of Jews in those countries were +burned at the stake or driven into exile, but great numbers also +conformed. They mixed in a few generations with the old Christian +population, and Spain and Portugal, M. Leroy-Beaulieu truly says, are +now among the countries in which the Jewish blood is most evidently +and most widely diffused. + +Another consideration, which M. Leroy-Beaulieu has omitted to mention, +but which appears to me to have much weight, is the condemnation of +lending money at interest by the Church. This condemnation, which +lasted many centuries, had two important consequences. One of them was +that the Jews became almost the only moneylenders in Europe. The trade +was deemed sinful for a Christian, but it was found to be a very +necessary one; and the Jews (as some Catholic theologians observed) +being already damned, were allowed to practise it. The other +consequence was that on account of the stigma which the Church +attached to moneylending, the amount of money to be lent was greatly +diminished, or in other words, the rate of interest was enormously and +artificially raised. At a time, therefore, when Catholic intolerance +made it impossible for the Jews to mingle with and be absorbed in +surrounding nations they acquired one of the greatest elements of +power and stability that a race can possess--a monopoly of the most +lucrative trade in the world. + +The physical characteristics of the race are very remarkable and they +are especially displayed among the Eastern Jews, who still maintain +scrupulously amid poverty and persecution the religious observances of +their ancestors. It is now clearly shown that the Levitical code was +in a high degree hygienic, and even anticipates some of the +discoveries of modern physiology. Prescriptions about forbidden kinds +of food and about the mode of cooking food, which only excited the +ridicule of Voltaire, have a real hygienic value in the eyes of Claude +Bernard and of Pasteur. The Jews have never adopted the Catholic +notions about the sanctity of celibacy and virginity, but they lay +great stress on the purity of marriage. Although they live chiefly in +towns, illegitimate births are proportionately rarer among them than +among either Protestants or Catholics. They have been as a rule +singularly free from the kinds of vice that do most to enfeeble and +corrode a race. They are distinguished for their domestic virtues, +especially for care of their children, and they are nearly everywhere +less addicted than Christian nations to intoxicating drinks. These +things help to explain the curious fact that in nearly all countries +the average duration of life is considerably longer among Jews than +among Christians. This superiority is general, but, as M. +Leroy-Beaulieu observes, it tends to diminish in Western countries +where Jews, being freed from disabilities, are more assimilated to the +surrounding populations. They now usually marry later than Christians; +they have on the whole fewer children, but a proportionately larger +number of Jewish than of Christian infants attain adult age. M. +Leroy-Beaulieu mentions two curious facts which are less easy to +explain. Still-born births are very rare among Jews, and there is +among them a wholly abnormal preponderance of male births over female +ones. + +It might be supposed from these facts that the Jews were a robust +race, but no one who has come much in contact with them will share +this delusion. Nothing is more conspicuous among them than their +unhealthy colouring, their frail, bent, and feeble bodies. They +develop early, but they have very little of the spring and buoyancy of +youth and they have everywhere a low average of physical strength. +Malformations and deformities are common among them; their nervous +organisation is extremely sensitive, and though they are as a race +distinguished for their sound, clear, and practical judgment, they are +very liable to insanity and to other nervous and brain disorders. +Physical beauty as well as physical strength is much rarer among them +than among Christians. + +The causes of this inferiority may be easily explained. Life pursued +during many generations in the crowded Ghetto; the sordid habits that +grow out of extreme poverty and out of the assumption of the +appearance of poverty, which is natural in a persecuted and plundered +race, go far to explain it; but there is another and, I think, a more +important cause which M. Leroy-Beaulieu has rather strangely +neglected. Physical strength and beauty can be maintained at a high +level in crowded town populations only by a constant influx from the +country. The pure air and the healthy labour of the fields are their +main source. This great school of health the Jews have never known. +For many centuries it would have been impossible for them to have +lived in peace as farmers or agricultural labourers among a Christian +peasantry, and if they ever possessed any aptitude or taste for +agricultural pursuits they have long since wholly lost it. + +Their moral like their physical characteristics present strange +contrasts. No natural want of moral elevation or tenderness or grace +can be ascribed to the nation that has produced both the Old Testament +and the Gospels, and has most largely shaped and inspired the moral +life of the civilised world. In Christian times no race has maintained +its faith with a more devoted courage, and it has encountered and +survived persecutions before which the persecutions of other creeds +dwindle almost into insignificance. M. Leroy-Beaulieu quotes the +statement of the grand Rabbi Lehmann, that it is a clearly attested +fact that in two months of the year 1096 twelve thousand Jews, whose +names have been preserved, were massacred in the towns of the Rhine +alone, because they refused to accept a Christian baptism. The Spanish +Jews who perished by one of the most excruciating deaths rather than +forswear their faith may be numbered by thousands, and those who +preferred exile and spoliation to apostasy, by hundreds of thousands. +Even in our own sceptical and materialising age the conduct of the +Russian Jews under the recent savage persecution shows that the old +spirit is not extinct. In the face of the long and splendid roll of +Jewish heroism, it is idle to dwell on the fact that in each great +persecution some Jews have yielded to the fear of death and consented +to perform the rites of a faith which they inwardly abhorred, or on +the fact that a few Rabbis have under such circumstances justified +these feigned conversions. + +Prolonged persecution, however, has had a profound influence on their +character, and its influence in some respects has been very +pernicious. Hatred naturally provokes hatred, and violent oppression +against which there is no redress is naturally encountered by +subterfuge and fraud. A race who were for centuries playing their part +in life against overwhelming obstacles learned to avail themselves of +every advantage. Adulation, servility, falsehood, and deception became +common among them. They became at once hard, wily, and rapacious, and +ready instruments in ignoble and oppressive callings. Shut out from +open paths and honourable ambitions they haunted the obscurer byways +of industry; they were to be found in many occupations which sharpen +the intellect but blunt the moral sense, and they threw themselves +passionately into the acquisition of wealth and of secret power. +Exposed for generations, even in lands where they were not more +seriously persecuted, to constant insult and contempt, they often lost +their self-respect and learned to acquiesce tamely in what another +race would resent. Slavish conditions produced, as they always do, +slavish characteristics, and, as is always the case, those +characteristics did not at once disappear when the conditions that +produced them had altered. + +M. Leroy-Beaulieu has dwelt with much force on this subject, and he +ascribes considerable weight to the fact that the Jews have been +wholly outside the system of feudalism and chivalry in which the +modern conception of honour was chiefly formed. Perhaps the Jew might +retort with some justice, that he has had at least the compensating +moral advantage of having derived no part of his notions of right and +wrong from a Church in which such an institution as the Spanish +Inquisition was deemed a holy thing. + +Defects of another kind have contributed largely to his unpopularity. +Great as is the power of assimilation which the Jewish race possesses, +the charm and grace of manner seem to have been among the qualities +they most slowly and most imperfectly acquire. It is natural that men +who have been excluded from honours but not from wealth should value +money and the ostentatious display of riches more than their +neighbours. In the professions in which the Jews chiefly excel, men +rise most rapidly from low origin and culture to conspicuous wealth. +Direct money-making has some tendency to materialise and lower the +character, and Jews have been for generations prominent in occupations +which do much to impair those delicacies of feeling on which the charm +of manner largely depends. Besides this, as M. Leroy-Beaulieu truly +remarks, though the oldest of the cultured races they are a race of +_parvenus_ in the good society of Europe. In nearly all countries they +have till very recently been excluded from the kind of society and +from the kind of education in which the best manners are formed. The +exaggerations of bad taste; the love of the loud, the gaudy, the +ostentatious, and the meretricious; the awkwardness of men who are ill +at ease in an unaccustomed sphere, who have not yet mastered the happy +mean between arrogance and obsequiousness and who are therefore +somewhat prone to both extremes, still frequently characterise them. +Few persons who know Germany will doubt that the tone of manners of +the German Jews has contributed quite as much as any other cause to +their unpopularity. + +It is probable that these defects will gradually diminish, and it +would be a grave error to regard the Jewish race as wholly devoted to +material ends. The multitude of their martyrs is a sufficient answer +to the charge, and no people cherish more strongly the ideals of their +past and have more of the pride both of race and of creed. They have +at all times, as M. Leroy-Beaulieu observes, been distinguished for +their reverence for learning, and it is an undoubted fact that Jewish +families and families mixed with Jewish blood have produced an amount +and variety of ability that far exceed the average of men. The ability +goes rather with the race than with the religion. Spinosa, Heine, +Ricardo, and Disraeli--to quote but a few of the most illustrious +names--were not believers in the synagogue. Some of the forms in which +the Jews have most excelled are such as might have been expected from +their past. It is natural that the descendants of the most nomadic +and cosmopolitan of races should have been great masters of language +and in the foremost rank of philologists, and it is not surprising +that the descendants of the chief moneylenders and calculators of the +world should have produced great financiers, and have shown a very +eminent aptitude for mathematics. Medicine more than most professions +depends on individual ability, and has been exercised independently of +the favour of Churches and Governments, and in medicine the Jews were +for a long period pre-eminent. Their marked taste and turn for music +may appear more surprising. It is universally recognised and is +sufficiently evident to anyone who will look at the faces of the chief +orchestras of Europe. Besides a crowd of lesser names they have +produced among composers Mendelssohn, Meyerbeer, and Halévy, and among +contemporary performers Rubinstein, Joachim, Hermann Levy, and Lucca. +A Jewess is the most popular tragic actress on the contemporary stage, +and another Jewess was probably the greatest tragic actress of the +century. M. Leroy-Beaulieu notices that in painting and sculpture the +Jews have been less conspicuous, and he attributes this to their +horror of idolatry. I should rather ascribe it to the fact that +European art in its best period was mainly devoted to depicting +Christian subjects for Christian churches. At all events several +considerable Jewish names may be cited in contemporary art, and the +Dutch painter who bears the name of Israels is perhaps the greatest +living master of the pathetic in painting. In Western Europe, wherever +public life has been opened to them, Jews have thrown themselves into +almost all the great movements of their time and have distinguished +themselves in nearly all. Crémieux, who was a leading figure in the +French Republic of 1848, was a Jew both by birth and by creed. David +Manin and Léon Gambetta had Jewish blood in their veins. Lassalle and +Marx, the chief names in German socialism, as well as great numbers of +their followers belong to the same race, and more than one English +example of political eminence will occur to the reader. In both German +and Dutch literature Jewish names are frequent and they are nearly +everywhere prominent in journalism. In the army they have been much +less distinguished. Many Jews no doubt serve in the great continental +armies with honour, but the Jew is naturally a pacific being, hating +violence and recoiling with a peculiar horror from blood. The +beneficence of the Jew was for a long time very naturally confined to +his own race, but since the hand of persecution has been withdrawn, +and wherever the Jews have been suffered to mingle freely with the +Christian population, it has taken a wider range and Jewish names are +conspicuous in some of the best forms of unsectarian philanthropy. + +It is the evident tendency of modern political life to split up into a +number of distinct groups representing distinct interests or forms of +thought. We find a Catholic party, a Nonconformist party, a Labour +party, a Socialist party, a Temperance party, and many others. But in +spite of the crusade that has arisen in so many countries against the +Jews, we nowhere find a distinct and clearly defined Jewish party. The +tendency of the race is rather to throw themselves ardently into +existing movements, and their power of assimilation is one of their +most remarkable gifts. As M. Leroy-Beaulieu shows by many +illustrations, they are apt in most Western nations even to exaggerate +the national characteristics, though they usually combine with them a +certain flexibility of adaptation and a certain cosmopolitanism of +view which is essentially their own. + +It was inevitable that with such tendencies the old rigidity of creed +should be impaired and that the observances which completely severed +the Jew from other people should be discarded. There can be little +doubt that the dissolution of old beliefs which has been such a marked +and ominous characteristic of the latter half of the nineteenth +century has been even more common among the Western Jews than in +Christian nations, and it appears to have spread quite as rapidly +among the women as among the men. Many Jews have passed into complete +religious indifference--into absolute and often very cynical negation. +They have become, as Sheridan wittily said, like the blank page +between the Old and the New Testament. Others have taken refuge in a +kind of highly rationalised Judaism little different from pure Theism. +Some of the most independent, scientific, and trenchant criticism of +the Old Testament writings has proceeded from members of the race +which was once distinguished for the most complete and superstitious +worship of the letter of the law. Spinoza in his 'Tractatus +Theologico-Politicus' led the way in this path, and in our own day I +need only mention the writings of Salvador, Kalisch, and Darmesteter +and the remarkable Hibbert Lectures of Mr. Montefiore. + +This movement, however, is chiefly confined to the Western Jews. The +Oriental Jews have retained in a far greater measure their old creed +and ritual, their old fanaticism and aspirations. To them Palestine is +still the land of promise, and they still dream that it is destined to +become once more a Jewish State. Few persons who consider the +conditions of the East and the power of the Jewish race will +pronounce the realisation of this dream to be impossible or even in a +very high degree improbable. Perhaps the most formidable obstacle is +the poverty of the land and the total absence among the Jews of +agricultural tastes and aptitudes. One thing, however, may be safely +predicted. If Palestine is ever again to become a Jewish land, this +will be effected only through the wealth and energy of the Western +Jews, and it is not those Jews who are likely to inhabit it. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[8] Mr. Lecky had made various notes with the intention of bringing this +essay up to date, but failing health prevented him from accomplishing +it.--ED. + + + + +MADAME DE STAËL + + +Among the many important works which have lately been published on the +Continent, reconstructing the history of France during the struggle of +the Revolution and during the periods that immediately preceded and +followed it, scarcely any have been so comprehensive, and not many +have been so valuable, as 'The History of the Life and Times of Madame +de Staël,' by Lady Blennerhassett. The author--a Bavarian lady who was +an intimate friend and favourite pupil of Dr. Döllinger--has brought +to her task a knowledge, which is scarcely rivalled in its +completeness, of the French, German, English, and Italian literatures +relating to the period; and she has produced a work of which it is in +one sense the merit, but in another the defect, that it sweeps over a +far wider field than might be expected from its title. It is seldom, I +think, a judicious thing to confuse the provinces of history and +biography by turning the life of an individual into an elaborate +history of his time; and in the few cases in which this method has +been successfully pursued, the biographer has selected as his subject +some man like Cromwell, or Frederick the Great, or Napoleon, who was +indisputably the chief mover of his age. When figures of less +prominence are chosen, both the history and the biography are apt to +suffer. The true perspective, or relative magnitude, of events is +impaired, and the book is almost sure to lose something of its +artistic charm and of its popularity. Mr. Masson, as it seems to me, +committed a mistake of this kind in his 'Life of Milton,' when he +grouped around the great Puritan poet--who, however illustrious, was +certainly not the central figure of his time--a full and valuable +history of the Commonwealth, and of large sections of the reigns of +Charles I. and Charles II. + +In like manner, a great part of the work of Lady Blennerhassett is not +biography, but history, and history of a very high order. Madame de +Staël was so closely connected in her own person, and still more +through her father, with the early events of the French Revolution, +that we accept with gratitude the admirable sketch of that period +which Lady Blennerhassett has given us; but we should scarcely expect +to find in a work primarily devoted to Madame de Staël full and +masterly accounts of the Ministry of Turgot, of the rise and teaching +of the Economists, of the rival influence of the writings of +Montesquieu and Rousseau on the French political character, of the +effect of English influence and American example in preparing the +Revolution, and of the part played by Germans and Swedes in French +politics. At the same time, the pictures of the social and +intellectual life prevailing in the different countries with which +Madame de Staël was connected, and the full accounts given of a crowd +of persons with whom she came into casual contact, though in +themselves both interesting and valuable, often tend to divert the +reader from the main subject of the book. In truth, Lady +Blennerhassett has not been able to resist the temptation of a very +full mind to pour out all its knowledge, and, while possessing many +rare and brilliant literary gifts, she appears to me to want that +restraining sense of literary perspective which gives biography its +true proportion and symmetry. This defect has, I fear, diminished the +popularity of a most valuable book. In the original German, and in an +excellent French translation which was revised by the author and which +I especially commend to my readers, the work consists of three very +substantial volumes.[9] A hasty reader will readily conclude that, in +this short and crowded life, such a space is far more than should be +allotted to a long-vanished figure which, though interesting and +brilliant, was not of the first magnitude. But if he has the courage +to persevere, he will soon discover that few modern books have lighted +up in so many directions the political, social, moral, and +intellectual history of a momentous period, and have exhibited at once +so many kinds of talent and so wide a range of sympathies and +knowledge. The complete competence, the firm, sober, and--if I may use +the expression--masculine judgment with which Lady Blennerhassett has +grasped the great political problems of the period of the Revolution, +is not less conspicuous than the truly feminine delicacy of +observation and touch with which she has delineated social life in +many different countries, and painted the finer shades of many widely +dissimilar characters. + +Anne Louise Germaine Necker was born in Paris on April 22, 1766. Her +father was at that time known only as a Swiss banker of high character +and reputation, who had amassed a vast fortune and had come to Paris +for his private affairs; but about two years after the birth of his +daughter he was appointed to represent the interests of Geneva at +Paris, and when she was ten years old he rose, for the first time, to +a leading place in the Ministry of France. Her mother had been the +Mademoiselle Curchod whose charms and accomplishments had captivated +Gibbon when he was a young man at Lausanne. Every reader of his +autobiography will remember the famous passage in which he describes +his engagement, the opposition of his father, and the resignation with +which he 'sighed as a lover, but obeyed as a son.' M. d'Haussonville +has published from the archives at Coppet some melancholy letters +which show clearly that Gibbon exhibited more heartlessness and +inflicted more suffering than might be gathered from his own stately +narrative. But no lasting scar remained. After a few years of poverty +and hardship, during which she was obliged to earn a livelihood as a +schoolmistress, Mademoiselle Curchod found in Necker a husband who +realised her fondest wishes; and when, soon after, she became the +centre of a brilliant salon at Paris, her former lover, then in the +zenith of his fame, was often among her guests. Madame Necker did not +always abstain from slightly veiled allusions to the past, but it is +pleasant to see that a warm and solid friendship seems to have grown +up between Gibbon and both his host and hostess. A pretty anecdote is +related of how, on one occasion, after he had left the house, they +agreed in expressing the deep regret with which they looked forward to +his approaching departure for England; when their little daughter, who +was then just ten years old, gravely offered to prevent the +catastrophe by marrying the illustrious, but by no means +prepossessing, historian. + +It was a saying of Talleyrand that he who had not lived before 1789 +had never known the full charm of life. Germaine Necker grew up in the +last bright flush of a society which had, perhaps, as many +fascinations as any that the world has known. Her mother, however, +though she occupied a prominent position in this brilliant world, was +never altogether of it. She shared fully, indeed, its intellectual +tastes, and had herself won some small place in literature. She threw +herself ardently into its philanthropic movements, and especially into +that for the reform of the hospitals. She formed a warm and true +friendship with Buffon and Thomas. She corresponded with Voltaire, and +attracted to her house most of the best writers of the age. But to the +last she remained eminently and characteristically Swiss, and she +never acquired the light touch, or the easy, pliant grace, of the true +Parisian. She was a little cold, a little prim, a little pedantic, a +little self-conscious. Neither her reserved manners nor her strong +domestic tastes, nor the vein of Puritanism that ran through her +opinions, harmonised with the lax and sceptical society around her, +and it was no sacrifice to her to exchange the splendours and the +gaieties of Paris for her peaceful retreat on the Lake of Geneva. + +In this, as in most respects, her daughter was very different. In her +the Swiss element had altogether disappeared, and, as is often the +case with the eminent child of eminent parents, her character shot out +in directions wholly unlike both that of her father and that of her +mother. She was not beautiful, though her dark and eminently lustrous +eyes, beaming with intelligence, and her rich brown tint, gave some +charm to her large and rather coarse features; while her massive +shoulders, arms, and breast, her full lips and the firm grasp of her +vigorous hand, indicated a strong, frank, ruling, and passionate +nature, overflowing with life and with many forms of energy. Her +education was somewhat fitfully conducted, but she threw herself +eagerly into literary enthusiasms. At fifteen we find her annotating +Montesquieu. Raynal and Richardson were among her idols, but, like +most of the more ardent spirits of her generation, her ideas and +character were moulded chiefly by the genius of Rousseau. Her first +work of importance was an exposition of his doctrines, and his +influence left deep traces on both 'Corinne' and 'Delphine.' Her +strong sane judgment, however, her genuine humanity, and the +moderating influence of her father, saved her from being swept away, +like Madame Roland and most of the disciples of Rousseau, by the +sanguinary torrent of revolutionary enthusiasm; and in times of wild +passion and exaggeration she usually exhibited a singular soundness +and sobriety of political judgment. She was sometimes mistaken, but on +the whole it may well be doubted whether there is any other French +writer or politician of the period of the Revolution whose +contemporary judgments of men and events have been more frequently +ratified by posterity. + +In this respect she was not of the school of Rousseau. In another and +less admirable way she was curiously untouched by his spirit, for few +superior intellects have been so openly, so utterly, insensible to the +charms of nature. She once spoke of 'the infernal peace' of her Swiss +home, and she candidly acknowledged that if it were not for respect +for the opinions of others she would not open her window to look for +the first time on the Bay of Naples, though she would gladly travel +five hundred leagues to make the acquaintance of a man of talent. On +the borders of the Lake of Geneva, with one of the fairest scenes on +earth expanding before her, she was incessantly pining for 'le +ruisseau de la Rue du Bac'--for the interest and the excitement of a +society which had become the passion of her life. + +Her gifts of conversation were very wonderful, and she had a wide +range of sympathies, keen insight into character, and great power of +describing it by a few vivid words. She had, however, no reticence or +reserve, she made many enemies by her unbounded frankness, and she +often fatigued or overwhelmed by her exuberant animal spirits and by +the torrent of her words. At the same time, unlike most great talkers, +she possessed to a very eminent degree the gifts of learning from +others, of grasping the characteristic features of their teaching, of +awakening sympathies, of dispelling bashfulness, and of kindling +latent intellect into a flame. Few women combined so remarkably a +sound and moderate judgment with extreme vividness and impetuosity of +emotion. She admired deeply, and she generally admired wisely; her +first judgments and impulses were almost always generous; and, +although she was subject to violent gusts of passion, she could be +very patient with those she loved. Through her whole life she was the +warmest and most self-sacrificing of friends, and her few antipathies +were singularly devoid of rancour. One of those who knew her best +pronounced her to be 'absolutely incapable of hatred.' + +She soon became the most attractive figure in the salon of Madame +Necker, and as the health of her mother declined she became its +central figure. Her rare accomplishments and her position as a great +heiress naturally would have drawn many suitors around her, but in +that age the determined Protestantism of her family was a formidable +barrier. It appears from something that she wrote late in life to a +German correspondent that, when a mere girl, she had come under the +spell of Louis de Narbonne, who asked her hand, and with whom, in +after years, she had relations which caused much scandal and which +greatly coloured her political life. The story that her parents at one +time contemplated a marriage between her and William Pitt, on the +occasion of his visit to France in 1783, was discredited by Lord +Stanhope; but M. d'Haussonville pronounces it to be quite true, though +there is no clear evidence that Pitt was apprised of the wish of the +Neckers. She was then only seventeen, and her vehement protest against +an English marriage nipped the project in the bud. In 1786, however, a +marriage was negotiated for her with the Swedish ambassador, the Baron +de Staël, who was at that time a special favourite of Gustavus III. It +was a marriage into which but little affection entered, and twelve +years later it ended in a separation. There was afterward, it is true, +a partial reconciliation, and she was present with her husband when he +died, in 1802, on the way from Paris to Coppet. + +Her marriage gave her an independent position, and she mixed much in +the politics of the early days of the Revolution. She corresponded +regularly with the Swedish King, and formed intimate friendships with +great numbers of the guiding politicians. The proudest moment of her +life was in August 1788, when, amid a transport of transient +enthusiasm and extravagant hopefulness, her father was for the second +time called to the helm. Her devotion to him amounted almost to +adoration, and she would never acknowledge, what the rest of the world +soon perceived, that, though excellently adapted to be Minister in +quiet, regular times, he had neither the daring nor the insight, nor +the commanding power, that was needed to guide the bark of State +through the fierce storms of the Revolution. She fully shared the +enthusiasm with which the opening of the States General was received. +She mentions that on that occasion she was watching the procession +from a window with Madame de Montmorin, wife of the Minister of +Foreign Affairs, and that as she expressed her delight, her companion +said: 'You are wrong in rejoicing; great calamities will follow from +this to France and to us.' The words were truly prophetic. Madame de +Montmorin perished on the scaffold with one of her sons; the other was +drowned. Her husband was murdered in prison during the massacre of the +second of September. Her eldest daughter died in the prison hospital. +Her youngest daughter withered away when not yet thirty, +broken-hearted by the calamities of her family. + +Madame de Staël, too, soon discovered that no millennium was at hand. +She was an eye-witness of the terrible scenes of the fifth and sixth +of October, when Versailles was invaded by a half-famished mob, when +the guards were cut down and beheaded, and when the royal family were +brought captive to Paris. She clearly saw that all power was passing +from the Government to the clubs, and that the mob violence which +reigned was either instigated or deliberately connived at by the very +men whose first duty was to repress it. 'These gentlemen,' she once +said, 'are like the rainbow; they always appear when the storm is +over.' Under her influence the Swedish Embassy became the chief centre +in which the 'Constitutional Party' was organised. Narbonne and +Talleyrand were then completely devoted to her. Ségur, Choiseul, the +Prince de Broglie, and other members of the party were constantly at +her house; and at what were called her 'coalition dinners' she brought +them in contact with leading men of other groups. She had a +conspicuous talent for inspiring, encouraging, conciliating, and +organising a party; and for some months she exercised a very real +political influence. Her aim was a constitutional monarchy of the +English type; but she came gradually to believe that a republic, or at +least a change of Sovereigns, had become inevitable. She never wavered +in her devotion to liberty, order, and justice; but on minor questions +she always exhibited a spirit of compromise which was very rare in her +age and in her country. 'The true line of conduct in politics,' she +once said, 'is always to be ready to rally to the least obnoxious +party among your adversaries, even though it is far from representing +exactly your own point of view.' At the end of 1791 she had a moment +of delicious triumph, when her favourite Narbonne became Minister of +War. Marie Antoinette, who disliked her, clearly recognised her hand. +'Count Louis de Narbonne,' she wrote to Fersen, 'has been Minister of +War since yesterday. What a glory for Madame de Staël and what a +pleasure for her to have the whole army at her disposal!' + +The triumphs of Madame de Staël, however, were very fleeting. Her +father had fallen irretrievably, and in September 1790 he passed +almost unnoticed out of the country where, but little more than a year +before, he had been welcomed with such enthusiasm. The Ministry of +Narbonne, to which she had attached her most ardent hopes, ended in +four months, and before its conclusion her husband, whose views on +French politics had been for some time diverging from those of his +Sovereign, was recalled. He was not, however, replaced, and Madame de +Staël remained alone in Paris till September 1792. Her position there +was an extremely dangerous one. She had long been an object of +incessant abuse in the Royalist press, and now the red waves of +Jacobinism were rising higher and higher, surging fiercely around +those to whom she was most attached. Nothing in her life is so +admirable as the courage with which, in this period of the Revolution, +she devoted herself to saving the lives of the proscribed. Her purse +was always open, and she often risked not only her fortune, but her +life. The royal family had always disliked her; but she was filled +with horror at the fate that was impending over them, and she herself +organised a plan for their escape, in which, if it had been accepted, +she would have borne a leading part, at the imminent risk of her head; +and she afterward wrote an earnest and eloquent pamphlet in the hope +of saving the life of the Queen. Sometimes by interceding with those +in power, sometimes by concealing fugitives in the Swedish Embassy, +very often by large and timely gifts of money, she saved many. Her own +life, at the time of the September massacres, was in extreme danger, +and she at last fled to Switzerland. Coppet then became a great centre +of refugees, and many of them owed their lives to her help. Among +others, Narbonne appears to have owed his escape, in part at least, to +her assistance, and she chiefly managed the escape of his daughter. +She was for a long time completely under his charm; but he is said to +have been irritated by her often tactless impetuosity, and especially +by the manner in which public opinion regarded him as her creature, +and he seems to have treated her with much ingratitude. There was no +violent breach, but there was a separation, and a wound which was long +and bitterly felt. Many years later, Madame de Staël, when praising +the Prince de Ligne, said of him: 'He had the manners of Monsieur de +Narbonne--and a heart.' + +A short visit to England, in 1793, the death of her mother in May +1794, and the publication of her first purely political work, +'Reflections on Peace, addressed to Mr. Pitt and to the French,' were +the chief events of her life during the next few months. In this work +she dwelt with much force on the absurdity of supposing that any +foreign intervention could restore what the Revolution had destroyed, +and she predicted that the inevitable effect of the prolongation or +extension of the war would be to strengthen that militant Jacobinism +which was now the greatest danger to Europe. In this year, too, she +first came in contact with Benjamin Constant, and her acquaintance +soon developed into a connection which gave her a new and powerful +instrument for acting on French politics, but which also brought with +it much suffering, many reproaches, and long and lasting discredit. In +May 1795 we find her again in Paris, with her husband, who had once +more been sent on a mission to France; again eagerly engaged in French +politics; again largely occupied in defending the interests of her +proscribed friends. Among others, Talleyrand appears to have owed his +recall to her influence. As usual, she excited many antipathies, she +was denounced in the Convention by Legendre for her political +intrigues and especially for her efforts in favour of the emigrants, +and she was obliged to leave Paris for about eighteen months. Her pen +was at this time very active, and to this period belong her 'Essay on +Novels' and her 'Treatise on the Passions.' + +The star of Bonaparte was now rapidly rising, and it profoundly +affected the last years of her life. The pages in her 'Considerations +on the French Revolution' in which she describes her first interview +with him, after the peace of Campo Formio, are among the most graphic +she ever wrote, though something of the shadow of the picture was, no +doubt, drawn from later experience and antipathy. She was at first +dazzled; she was at all times profoundly impressed by his genius, but +she soon came to perceive that his nature was wholly unlike that of +other men. She had seen, she said, men worthy of all respect, and she +had seen men noted for their ferocity; but the impression produced on +her by Bonaparte was generically different from that produced by +either of these classes. She found that such epithets as 'good,' +'violent,' 'gentle,' and 'cruel' could not be applied to him in their +ordinary senses. He was in truth a being who stood self-centred, and +apart from the sympathies, passions, and enthusiasms of his kind, +habitually regarding men, not as fellow-creatures, but as mere +counters in a game; a will of colossal strength; an intellect of +clear, cold, transcendent power, solely governed by the imperturbable +calculation of the strictest egotism, and never drawn aside by love or +hatred, by pity or religion, or by attachment to any cause. It was +impossible, she found, to exaggerate his contempt for human nature and +his disbelief in the reality of human virtue. A perfectly honest man +was the only kind of man he never could understand. Such a man +perplexed and baffled his calculations, acting on them as the sign of +the cross acts on the machinations of a demon. The superiority which +so clearly shone in his conversation was not that of a mind cultivated +by study and by society; it was the supreme insight into the +circumstances of life possessed by a mighty hunter of men. There was +something in him, she said, like a cold and trenchant sword, which at +the same moment could wound and chill. + +Such was the estimate she formed of the man who, nearly at the same +time, was presented by Talleyrand to the Directory as 'the pacificator +of Europe,' as a hero 'who despised luxury and pomp--the wretched +ambition of common souls--and who loved the poems of Ossian, +especially because they detach men from the earth'! That two such +different natures should come into collision was very natural. +Bonaparte always hated superior women, and especially women who +meddled in politics. He well knew that the circle of Madame de Staël +was the centre of ideas about freedom and constitutional government +irreconcilably opposed to his ambition, and that the world of good +society and good taste, of independent thought and independent +characters, in which she played so great a part, remained unsubdued +and undazzled by his power. Benjamin Constant had been placed in 'the +Tribunate,' and in the beginning of 1800 he made a speech there, +indicating a desire to establish in that body an opposition like the +opposition in the English Parliament. Bonaparte was furious at his +attitude, and at once ascribed it to the inspiration of Madame de +Staël. A year later the last work of her father appeared, and it +contained an earnest warning against growing despotism in France and a +strong argument for the establishment of a republican constitution. +The sayings of Madame de Staël that were repeated from lip to lip, and +the atmosphere of thought that grew up around her, irritated and +disquieted Bonaparte. 'She is moving the minds of men,' he said, 'in a +direction that does not suit me.' 'They pretend that she does not +speak of politics or of me, but somehow it always happens that those +who have been with her become less attached to me.' Soon her salon was +emptied by an emphatic intimation that those who entered it would +incur the displeasure of the First Consul. Official scribes were +busily employed in depreciating her, and these measures were speedily +followed by the long exile which darkened the later years of her life. + +It is impossible for me in this article to relate, even in outline, +the story of this exile, and of her travels in England, Italy, +Austria, Russia, and, above all, in Germany. Madame de Staël has +herself described this period of her life in her 'Ten Years of Exile,' +and all the details have been collected by Lady Blennerhassett with an +industry that leaves nothing to be desired. A woman of a more heroic +type would have borne with less repining an exclusion from Paris life +which was mitigated by wealth, and fame, and abundant occupation, and +a family that adored her, and troops of admiring friends. A woman who +was less essentially noble would have assuredly accepted the overtures +that were more than once made to her, and would have purchased her +peace with Napoleon by burning a few grains of literary incense on his +altar. But though, in a life of more than common vicissitude and +temptation, Madame de Staël was betrayed into great weaknesses and +into some serious faults, she never lost her sense of the dignity and +integrity of literature, and her works are singularly free from +unworthy flattery as well as from unworthy resentments and jealousies. +The homage which Napoleon desired was never received, and in her great +work on Italy and her still greater one on Germany there was no trace +of his victories, influence, or animosities. 'In France,' he once +said, 'there is a small literature and a great literature; the small +literature is on my side, but the great literature is not for me.' + +The disfavour which thrust Madame de Staël out of political +influence, and then drove her into exile, proved a blessing in +disguise, for it turned her mind decisively from political intrigues +to those forms of literature in which she was most fitted to excel. +Her treatise on 'Literature,' which was published in 1800, was +conceived upon a scale too large for her own knowledge, and though she +herself attributed to it the great and general favour that she enjoyed +for a time in Paris society, it has not taken an enduring place in +French literature. 'Delphine,' the most personal, and also the most +censured, of her novels, had a still wider success, and made a deeper +and more lasting impression. It appeared in 1802, and it was followed +by a long interval, during which she appears to have published nothing +except a short but admirable notice of her father, who died in the +spring of 1804; but in 1807 'Corinne' burst upon the world, and at +once obtained a European fame equalled by that of no French novel +since 'La Nouvelle Héloise.' In this great work of imagination she +embodied, in a highly poetic form, the impressions she had derived +from her journeys in England and Italy, and its immense and +instantaneous success placed her on the very pinnacle of fame. It is +worthy of notice that a bitter attack upon 'Corinne' appeared in 'Le +Moniteur,' based chiefly upon the fact that its hero was an +Englishman; and there is good reason to believe that this attack was +from the pen of Napoleon himself. + +A book of larger scope and of more serious influence soon followed. +Germany at this time presented the singular spectacle of a people who +had been reduced to the lowest depths of political depression, but +who, at the same time, could boast of a contemporary literature that +was the first in the world. In France a translation of 'Werther' had +attained great popularity; some of the plays of Schiller, the idylls +of Gessner, and a few other German works were well known; but scarcely +any Frenchman had a conception of the magnitude and importance of the +intellectual activity which was growing up beyond the Rhine, or of the +vast place which Goethe, Schiller, and Kant were destined to take in +European thought. It was one of the chief pleasures and occupations of +Madame de Staël, during her exile, to explore this almost unknown +field. It would scarcely have been thought that she was well fitted +for the task. She learned the language late in life, and her +characteristically French mind seemed very little in harmony with +either the strength or the weakness of the Teutonic intellect. There +was nothing very profound, or very subtle, or very poetical in her +nature, and she had all that instinctive dislike to the vague, the +disproportioned, the exaggerated, and the ambiguous, to fantastic and +far-fetched conjecture, and to imposing edifices of speculation based +upon scanty or shadowy materials, that pre-eminently distinguishes the +best French thought. Very wisely, however, she placed herself in +direct communication with the great writers of Germany, and a wholly +new world of thought and sentiment gradually opened upon her mind. It +is not too much to say that it was her pen that first revealed to the +Latin world the intellectual greatness of Germany. In England, +Coleridge had already laboured in the same field, and his admirable +translation of 'Wallenstein' had appeared as early as 1800; but it had +been completely still-born, and in England also it was reserved for +the great Frenchwoman to give the first considerable impulse to the +study of German literature. For the history, the merits, and the +defects of her work on Germany, I cannot do better than to refer to +the admirable pages which Lady Blennerhassett has devoted to the +subject. With the doubtful exception of 'Le Génie du Christianisme,' +it was by far the most important French work which appeared during the +reign of Napoleon. It is a characteristic fact that the whole of the +first edition was confiscated by order of his Government. Happily the +manuscript was saved, and about three years later it was printed in +England. + +After some discreditable scenes, on which a recently published +correspondence has thrown a painful though somewhat doubtful light, +the connection of Madame de Staël with Benjamin Constant was broken. +The two continued occasionally to correspond, and as late as 1815 we +find her lending him a large sum of money; but their relations were +never again what they had been, and on the side of Constant there +appears to have been a large amount of positive malevolence. 'O +Benjamin,' she wrote to him in one of her later letters, 'you have +destroyed my life! For ten years not a day has passed that my heart +has not suffered for you--and yet I loved you so much!' A strong +affection, such as she had not found in her marriage with the Baron de +Staël, was an imperious necessity of her existence, and after her +breach with Constant she soon found an object in a young officer from +Geneva named Rocca, who had returned to his native town badly wounded +after brilliant service in Spain. When they first met, in 1810, Madame +de Staël was forty-four and Rocca about twenty-three; but a genuine +and honourable affection seems to have grown up on both sides, and in +the following year they were married. Madame de Staël, however, either +clinging to her name or dreading the ridicule of such a strangely +assorted marriage, insisted upon its concealment, and Rocca generally +passed in society as her lover. A child was born in 1812, but it was +only after the death of Madame de Staël that the legitimacy of the +connection was established. It proved much more productive of +happiness than might have been expected, and greatly brightened her +closing years. Nearly at the same time an important change passed over +her religious views, and the vague deism of her youth deepened into a +positive, definite, and earnest Christianity, but without mysticism +and without intolerance. Some beautiful lines that are cited by Lady +Blennerhassett very faithfully express the spirit of her belief: 'Il +faut avoir soin, si l'on peut, que le déclin de cette vie soit la +jeunesse de l'autre. Se désintéresser de soi, sans cesser de +s'intéresser aux autres, met quelque chose de divin dans l'âme.' + +She lived to see the downfall of perhaps the only man she really +hated, his return from Elba, his final defeat at Waterloo, and the +restoration of the Bourbons. But, though she detested Napoleon and his +system, these things gave her no pleasure. The spectacle of an invaded +and a dismembered France aroused her strongest feelings of patriotism, +and she loved liberty too truly and too ardently to rejoice in the +influences that triumphed in 1815. Her last years were chiefly spent +in the composition of her 'Considerations on the French Revolution,' +in which she sums up the convictions of her life. It is one of her +most valuable and most lasting books. The disproportioned prominence +which is naturally assigned in it to Necker, and the manifest personal +element in her antipathy to Napoleon, impair its weight, indeed, as a +history; but few writers have criticised with more justice the +successive stages of the Revolution, and few books of its generation +are so rich in political wisdom. The concluding chapters, in which, in +a strain of noble eloquence, she pleads the cause of moderate and +constitutional freedom, show how steadily and how strongly, in an age +of many disenchantments, she clung to the belief of her youth. + +The 'Considerations on the French Revolution' had a vast and an +immediate success, and in a few days sixty thousand copies were sold. +Madame de Staël, however, did not live to witness her triumph. In +February 1817 she was struck down by a paralytic illness, and on July +14, after a long period of complete prostration, she passed away +tranquilly in her sleep. It was a peaceful ending to an agitated and +chequered career. She had enjoyed much and suffered much. She had +committed grave faults, and had met with her full share of +disappointment and ingratitude; but few women have left such an +enduring monument behind them, or have touched human life on so many +sides and with so many sympathies. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[9] There is also an English, and somewhat abridged, translation. + + + + +THE PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE OF SIR ROBERT PEEL + + +There is probably no other English public man of the present century +whose career has attracted in so large a measure the interest both of +politicians and of men of letters as Sir Robert Peel. In addition to a +crowd of industrious but not very distinguished compilers, it has been +discussed with great skill by Guizot, by Lord Dalling, by Mr. Goldwin +Smith, and by Mr. Spencer Walpole; and in that great literature of +monographs which has grown up with such remarkable rapidity in England +within the last decade, no less than three have been devoted to the +life of Peel. The interest that attaches to him is, indeed, of a very +peculiar character. He was almost wholly destitute of the power of +imagination that is so conspicuous in the careers or speeches of +Chatham and Burke, of Canning and Beaconsfield. Except during a few +years that followed the Reform Bill of 1832, he never exhibited the +spectacle of a leader struggling successfully against enormous odds. +He was not one of those statesmen who see further than their +contemporaries, and who, after years of failure and struggle, are +proved by their ultimate triumph to have most truly read the +tendencies of their age. Though he was three times Prime Minister of +England, and though he was for a time deemed the most brilliant of +party leaders, he left the great and powerful party which trusted him +almost hopelessly shattered. Twice in his life he carried measures of +transcendent importance which he had not only persistently opposed, +but had been specially placed in power for the purpose of resisting. +The most striking incidents in his career are incidents of failure +rather than of success, and history has pronounced that, on the most +important questions of his time, he was disastrously wrong. The long +delay in the inevitable emancipation of the Catholics, which was +largely due to him, and the circumstances under which he ultimately +carried the measure, produced evils that are in full activity at the +present hour. His persistent opposition to parliamentary reform +contributed to bring England to the very verge of revolution; though +when the Reform Bill had been carried he nobly retrieved his error by +the frankness with which he accepted, and the skill with which he +used, the new conditions of English politics. His abolition of the +Corn Laws at the head of a Government which had been pledged to +maintain them gave a great shock to public confidence, and for a long +period most seriously dislocated the machinery of party government. +But, in spite of all this, there are few statesmen who have carried so +large a number of measures of great and acknowledged importance, who +have impressed so deeply the sense of their superiority on the minds +of their contemporaries, or who were followed to the grave by a more +widespread and genuine regret. + +It is this contrast between the leading incidents of Peel's life and +the impression which he made on the world that constitutes the great +interest of his career. The explanation is not difficult to discover. +It is the common story of extraordinary qualities balanced by +striking defects. He was not a great statesman, but he was a +supremely great administrator, a supremely great master of +parliamentary management and of parliamentary legislation. He had +little prescience; he often grossly misread the signs of the times, or +only recognised them when it was too late; but when he was once +convinced, he acted on his conviction with frankness and courage, and +when a thing had to be done, no one could do it like him. As Disraeli +said: 'In the course of time the method which was natural to Sir +Robert Peel matured into a habit of such expertness that no one in the +despatch of affairs ever adapted the means more fitly to the end.'[10] +In the words of Sir Cornewall Lewis: 'For concocting, producing, +explaining, and defending measures, he had no equal, or anything like +an equal.'[11] + +In the interesting volumes which were published by Lord Mahon and Mr. +Cardwell in 1856 we have Peel's own explanation of his conduct +relating to the removal of the Catholic disabilities in 1829, and to +the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846; but the publication of his +confidential correspondence has been long delayed, and the volume +before us only carries the work down to 1827. It has been edited by +Mr. Parker with great care and accuracy, and with undeviating good +sense and good taste, and it throws much curious light upon a corner +of history which has been but little explored. + +Peel started in life with great advantages. The eldest son of a very +wealthy manufacturer who had long occupied a respectable place in +Parliament, and who was closely attached to the dominant party in the +State, he was from his earliest youth destined by his father to be a +statesman. Under such circumstances he was certain in the pre-Reform +period to have not only all the advantages which the best school and +university education could give, but also the still greater advantages +of an early introduction into both parliamentary and official life; +provided always that no aberration of character, or taste, or +imagination, or opinion drew him aside from the plain path that lay +before him. He grew up in an atmosphere of the best middle-class +virtues. Decorum, good sense, industry, strict morality; a sober +religious orthodoxy; much simplicity of life, preserved in the midst +of great wealth; ideals which, if not very lofty, were at least +eminently practical and perfectly honourable, prevailed around him, +and their influence imbued his whole nature. He accepted cordially the +destiny that was before him, and threw himself into it with untiring +industry. His opinions changed during his life much more than his +character, and the shy, sensitive, industrious, somewhat +self-conscious, somewhat awkward Harrow boy, prefigured very +faithfully the future statesman. He is described as wandering when a +schoolboy by himself among the hedges, knocking down birds with +stones, a practice in which he was very skilful, and which eventually +developed into a strong passion for shooting. He was quiet, +good-natured, studious, scarcely ever in scrapes, and it was not until +the last year of his school life that he threw himself with any +keenness into the amusements of his comrades. He had good natural +abilities; but probably the one point in which he greatly exceeded the +average of intelligent boys was his memory, which was of extraordinary +retentiveness, and which he carefully cultivated. During a few months +which elapsed between leaving Harrow and going to Oxford he constantly +attended the House of Commons, under the Gallery; and he also +attended some natural history lectures at the Royal Institution. His +Oxford career was very successful. He is said to have worked before +his degree examination for no less than eighteen hours, through the +day and night. He gained a double-first, and in the first class of +mathematics he stood alone. Such a success at once stamped him as a +youth of extraordinary promise, and the impression it made was +especially great because, the examination system having been very +recently reorganised, he was the first Oxford man who had attained it. + +He was brought into Parliament in April 1809, almost immediately after +he came of age, for the borough of Cashel. No special significance +attaches to the fact of his having entered Parliament for an Irish +constituency, for his father had simply bought the seat, and the young +member appears to have never gone over to his constituents or held any +communication with them. + +'When I sat for Cashel,' he afterwards wrote, 'and was not in office, +having made those sacrifices which could then legally be made, but now +cannot, I did not consider myself at all pledged to the support of +Government.'[12] Perceval, who represented in its extreme form the +Tory reaction that followed the Revolution, was then Prime Minister, +and Peel at once took his place among his followers. He first spoke in +seconding the Address in 1810, and in the partial judgment of his +father his speech was considered, 'by men the best qualified to form a +correct opinion of public speaking, the best first speech since that +of Mr. Pitt.'[13] + +It was not, perhaps, an unmixed advantage to Peel that while he was +still a mere boy his father had somewhat ostentatiously destined him +to be one day a Tory statesman. Such an education could hardly fail to +strengthen the self-consciousness which was never wanting in Peel's +character, and to give a decided bias to his judgment. At the same +time, the distinctive merits of his career would have probably never +been fully developed without the early administrative training which +his opinions made possible for him, and there is nothing in his early +history to give the least countenance to the belief that his adherence +to the extreme type of Tory politics imposed the slightest strain upon +his judgment. His immediate interests and his sentiments appear at +this time to have perfectly concurred. He came into Parliament with +the party which was dominant, and with the section of the party which +was most poor in able men. Had he adopted on the Catholic question the +liberal opinions of Canning and Castlereagh, he must have held a +position altogether subordinate to them; and the same causes that in +the preceding Ministry had raised Perceval to be leader of the House +of Commons over the heads of Castlereagh and Canning, marked out for +Peel the future leadership of the party of resistance to concession. +It has been said, on the authority of Sir Lawrence Peel, that his +first appointment was that of private secretary to Lord Liverpool, but +Mr. Parker has found no trace of this in the papers either of Peel or +of Lord Liverpool. In 1810, however, when he was but just twenty-two, +he entered administrative life as Under-Secretary of State for War and +the Colonies, and he held that place till August 1812, when he +obtained the far more important post of Chief Secretary for Ireland, +and became for the next six years virtual governor of that country. + +It was a post requiring not only great administrative skill, but also +great gifts of original statesmanship. During the last five years of +the eighteenth century, and especially during the rebellion of 1798, +religious passions in Ireland, which had for more than a generation +been steadily subsiding, had been kindled into a flame, and the urgent +necessity of settling the Catholic question had begun to press with +irresistible force on the minds of the more intelligent statesmen. +Pitt had intended to complete the Union by measures for admitting +Catholics into Parliament, for commuting tithes, and for paying the +Catholic clergy. Through the instrumentality of Lord Castlereagh +assurances of the disposition of the Cabinet had been conveyed to the +Catholic bishops and the leading Catholic laymen in 1799, which were +sufficient to secure their active support for the Union and to prevent +any serious opposition among the Catholic laity. The bishops met the +wishes of the English Government by drawing up a series of +resolutions, in which they declared their readiness to accept with +gratitude an endowment for the priesthood, to confer upon the English +Government a power of veto over the appointment of Catholic bishops +which would prevent the introduction into that body of any disloyal +men, and to certify to the Government the nomination of all Catholic +parish priests, as well as the fact that they had taken the oath of +allegiance. But the King had not been informed of the negotiations +that had taken place, and it is well known how his uncompromising +opposition produced the resignation of Pitt in 1801, how the agitation +caused by the question threw the King into a temporary fit of +insanity, and how Pitt at once promised that he would not move the +question again during the reign. In the spring of 1804 Pitt resumed +office, on the express understanding that he would not permit Catholic +Emancipation; when the question was introduced in 1805 by Lord +Grenville in the Lords, and by Fox in the Commons, it was defeated in +both Houses by immense majorities, and Pitt declared that though he +was still of opinion that there was no danger in the concession, yet, +as long as the circumstances which prevented him from bringing it +forward continued, he would be no party to agitating the question. + +In 1806 Pitt died, and Fox and Grenville were themselves in power, but +the Catholics were again disappointed. The prejudice of the King, the +feeling of the country, the recent vote of the House of Commons, the +presence of Lord Sidmouth in the Ministry, proved insuperable +obstacles, and Fox could only urge the Catholic leaders to postpone +the question. Fox died in September 1806, and the Government presided +over by Lord Grenville met a new Parliament in the following December. +Grenville had been Pitt's colleague during the negotiations with the +Catholics that preceded the Union; he had strongly urged upon Pitt the +necessity of resigning in 1801, and he never forgave him for having so +lightly abandoned the cause. Grenville did not attempt to carry +emancipation, but he resolved to take at least one serious step in the +direction of concession, by throwing open to the Catholics all the +posts in the army and navy. An Irish Act of 1793 had enabled them to +hold in Ireland commissions in the army, and to attain any rank except +commander-in-chief, master-general of the ordnance, and general of the +staff; but if the regiments in which they served were sent to England, +they were disqualified by law from remaining in the service. The +original Bill of Grenville's Government was intended to remove this +anomaly, and assimilate the law in the two countries; but in the +course of the discussions it was agreed that the Catholics should be +freed from the exceptions to which they were subjected by the Irish +Act, that all posts in the army and navy should be thrown open to men +of all religious persuasions, subject only to the obligation of taking +an oath which was prescribed, and that Catholic soldiers should be +guaranteed by law the free exercise of their religion. The King had +been informed of this, and was understood to have given a distinct, +though a reluctant, assent; but a strong Protestant party, headed by +Perceval, fiercely opposed it. The King withdrew his assent from the +added clauses, and expressed his disapprobation of the whole measure. +At last, after much discussion, the Ministers agreed for the present +to withdraw their Bill, reserving to themselves by a Cabinet minute, +which was submitted to the King, the right to renew it, or to propose +any other measure on the subject which they desired. But the King was +determined to push his victory to the end. He demanded from his +Ministers a promise in writing that they would never again propose to +him any measure connected with Catholic emancipation, and as the +Ministers refused to give this unconstitutional pledge, the King +dismissed them from office, and called the Duke of Portland to the +head of affairs. + +It was the second time that the King had broken up a Ministry on the +Catholic question, and his conduct was especially significant, as his +refusal to grant military promotion to Catholics was announced in the +midst of a great war, and at a time when thousands of Catholics were +fighting in his armies. It at once appeared that there were two +entirely distinct schools of Tories. Pitt, to the very close of his +life, had declared that his opinions on the Catholic question were +unchanged, though he would not force them against the inclination of +the King; and his views were adopted by Canning, Castlereagh, and +Wellesley. Perceval, on the other hand, emphatically declared that he +'could not conceive a time or any change of circumstances which could +render further concession to the Catholics consistent with the safety +of the State.'[14] With the exception of Eldon, scarcely any man of +real ability adopted this view until Peel entered Parliament as the +follower of Perceval. It is sufficiently evident from this fact how +little truth there is in the theory that attributes Peel's early +Toryism to a blind admiration for Pitt. + +The party of the King triumphed. Parliament was dissolved on the 'No +Popery' cry, and on the first great party division that followed the +election the Ministers in the House of Commons had a majority of 195. +Canning and Castlereagh, though they had no sympathy with that cry, +availed themselves of the current that ran so strongly against the +Whigs. In the Ministry of the Duke of Portland they held the seals for +the Foreign and War Departments, but the leadership of the Commons and +the virtual leadership of the Ministry was given to Perceval, who, +though entirely without brilliant parts, exhibited unexpected talents, +both as a practical debater and as a manager of men, and who had the +advantage of representing fully the dominant party. Several +circumstances, however, other than a conviction of the danger of the +Catholic claims, contributed to the triumph of the anti-Catholic +party. The Whigs, already broken by their policy towards France in the +first stages of the Revolution and of the war, had become still more +unpopular through their opposition to the seizure of the Danish fleet +and to the Peninsular War. They were divided among themselves, for +there was little sympathy between the more aristocratic Whigs, who +were represented by Grenville and Lord Howick, and the more Radical +party of Sir F. Burdett and Whitbread. A strong personal as well as +political dislike already existed between Howick and Canning, and +prevented their hearty co-operation on the one great question on which +they were agreed. Above all, there was a general conviction among +statesmen that the King's mind was trembling on the verge of insanity, +and that a renewal of the Catholic complications of 1801 would produce +a catastrophe. + +The question was debated in both the Lords and Commons in 1808. In the +former it was lost by a majority of 87, and in the latter by a +majority of 153. Grattan on this occasion introduced the Catholic +petition in a speech of consummate power; but both Castlereagh and +Canning opposed the reception of the petition, on the ground that the +time was unsuited for the agitation of the question; and the spirit of +the ruling part of the Ministry was sufficiently shown by the +reduction of the Maynooth grant from 13,000_l._ to 9,250_l._ When the +Portland Government was broken up in September 1809 by the quarrel, +duel, and resignation of Canning and Castlereagh, Perceval became the +head of the new Ministry, Lord Wellesley occupying the place of +Canning, and Lord Hawkesbury that of Castlereagh; and an intensely +anti-Catholic ministry continued to the death of Perceval. In 1809 the +Catholic question was not introduced into Parliament. In the spring of +1810 it was introduced into both Houses, but was defeated by +majorities of 86 and 104; but in October 1810 an event occurred which +profoundly changed the aspect of affairs. The King's insanity broke +out anew in a form which gave little hope of recovery, and the Prince +of Wales was appointed Regent. For a year the regency was subject to +restrictions similar to those which had been adopted in 1788, but on +February 1, 1812, these restrictions were to cease, and the Regent was +to enter into full fruition of the royal power. + +The hopes of the Catholics were now raised to the highest point. With +the confirmed insanity of George III. the most serious of all the +obstacles to their claims was removed. During the year of the +restricted regency, while there was still some chance of the recovery +of the King, the Prince of Wales declined to remove the existing +Ministry from office, though even this decision was not taken without +some hesitation and some negotiations with the Whigs. The Catholics, +however, fully expected that the royal influence would now be exerted +in their favour, and that the Whig Ministry would speedily come. The +Prince of Wales had long been in close connection with the Whigs. As +early as 1797 he had expressed a desire to go over to Ireland as +Lord-Lieutenant, carrying with him a policy of conciliation to the +Catholics. In 1805, when Fox and Grenville had introduced the Catholic +question into the Imperial Parliament, the Prince, while stating that +considerations of obvious delicacy prevented him from taking an +immediate and open part in its favour, had given the Whig leaders the +fullest authority to assure the Catholics of Ireland that he would +never forsake their interests, the 'most distinct and authentic +pledge' of his wish to relieve them from the disabilities of which +they complained, and to exert himself in their favour as soon as he +was constitutionally able to do so. It is easy therefore to imagine +the consternation and the indignation with which, in 1812, the +Catholics found that the Prince Regent had changed his principles and +his policy; that, after a short and perhaps insincere negotiation with +the Whigs, he had resolved to maintain in power a Ministry which was +constructed for the main purpose of maintaining the Catholic +disabilities; and that his own opinions were rapidly verging towards +this policy. + +The situation in Ireland was becoming very dangerous. For some years +after the Union a great apathy prevailed, and there is no reasonable +doubt that, if events in England had been favourable, Catholic +emancipation would have met with no serious opposition in Ireland, and +could have been carried with every reasonable limitation and +safeguard. The most competent English officials calculated that at +least sixty-four of the hundred Irish representatives would vote for +it, and that a decided preponderance of Irish Protestant opinion was +in its favour. On the other hand, the Catholic bishops and aristocracy +had fully accepted the policy of an endowment for the priests and a +veto on the appointment of bishops, and the most Conservative elements +in the Catholic body still exercised an ascendancy over their +co-religionists. The question of the veto had been mentioned in the +Commons, by Sir J. Hippisley, in 1805, and in 1808 Grattan and +Ponsonby formally announced, on the authority of the Catholic bishops, +their readiness to accept it. A letter from Bishop Milner was read to +the House, which very clearly stated their position: + +'The Catholic prelates of Ireland,' he wrote, 'are willing to give a +direct negative power to his Majesty's Government with respect to the +nomination of their titular bishoprics, in such manner that when they +have among themselves resolved who is the fittest person for the +vacant see, they will transmit his name to his Majesty's Ministers; +and if the latter should object to that name, they will transmit +another and another, until a name is presented to which no objection +is made; and (which is never likely to be the case) should the Pope +refuse to give those essentially necessary spiritual powers, of which +he is the depository, to the person so presented by the Catholic +bishops and so approved by the Government, they will continue to +propose names till one occurs which is agreeable to both +parties--namely, the Crown and Apostolic See.' + +The prelates also engaged to nominate no persons who had not +previously taken the oath of allegiance.[15] But a democratic party +had now arisen among the Catholics, which utterly repudiated the +restrictions of the veto, which sought emancipation by violent and +democratic agitation, and which was rapidly drawing the most dangerous +elements in the country into its channel. The bishops, pushed on by +the strong force that was behind them, speedily retraced their steps +and passed resolutions against the restrictions they had accepted, and +there were evident signs that the Catholic body was passing away from +the guidance of Grattan and of the gentry. This was not surprising in +a country where many elements of anarchy subsisted; and the democratic +party had already found in O'Connell a leader of consummate skill, and +of untiring industry, energy, and ambition. But the chief cause of the +great change that was passing over the Irish Catholics was to be +found in the disappointment of their hopes in 1801, in 1804, in 1806, +and 1812; in the desertion of their cause by Pitt; in the proved +impotence of the Whigs; in the failure of 'the securities' even to +mitigate the hostility of Perceval and his followers; in the profound +consternation and exasperation that were produced by the attitude of +the Regent. The formation of the General Committee of Catholic +Delegates was speedily followed by its suppression under the +Convention Act. But the influence of O'Connell was rapidly growing; +there were already ominous signs of a possible agitation for the +repeal of the Union, and the indignation of the Catholics was +significantly shown by the famous 'witchery resolutions,' which were +unanimously carried by the aggregate meeting of the Catholics in the +June of 1812, reflecting on the influence which Lady Hertford was +believed to exercise over the Prince. After calling for the 'total and +unqualified repeal of the penal laws which aggrieve the Catholics,' +they proceeded to use the following language: 'That from authentic +documents now before us we hear, with deep disappointment and anguish, +how cruelly the promised boon of Catholic freedom has been interrupted +by the fatal witchery of an unworthy secret influence.... To this +impure source we trace but too distinctly our baffled hopes and +protracted servitude.' Such language was not calculated to conciliate +the Prince, and he was only confirmed in his hostility to the +Catholics. As early as September 1813 the Duke of Richmond wrote to +Peel: 'I was delighted to find H.R.H. as steady a Protestant as the +Attorney-General.' + +The commencement, however, of what was virtually a new reign had given +a new activity to the question. It was brought forward in different +forms in the first months of 1812 by Lord Wellesley and Lord +Donoughmore in one House, and by Lord Morpeth and Grattan in the +other; and although it was still defeated, the diminished majorities, +the evident signs of an increased Catholic party in the country, and +the language of some of the most distinguished men in Parliament, +clearly indicated the progress of the measure. Canning especially now +strenuously urged that the time had come when the Catholic question +must be fully dealt with. The assassination of Perceval on May 11, +1812, again changed the situation and led to a long series of feeble +and abortive negotiations. An attempt was made to continue the +existing Ministry under the lead of Lord Liverpool, with the addition +of Canning and Lord Wellesley; but these statesmen declined the offer, +on the ground that the other Ministers refused to carry Catholic +emancipation, and Lord Wellesley on the additional ground of their +languor in prosecuting the Spanish war. The Regent then authorised +Lord Wellesley to construct a Ministry, with the assistance of +Canning, and an offer was made to Lords Grey and Grenville to join it, +promising an immediate consideration of the Catholic claims with a +view to a conciliatory settlement; while, on the other hand, attempts +were made to retain the services of the leading members of Perceval's +Ministry. But the Whig leaders refused to take part in a coalition +Ministry, in which they would probably be outvoted, and the former +Cabinet was reconstructed, under the leadership of Lord Liverpool, but +on the principle of leaving the Catholic question an open one. +Liverpool himself was opposed to concession, but his opposition was by +no means of the unqualified kind which had been shown by Perceval; and +a large proportion of his colleagues, including Castlereagh, who led +the House of Commons, were in favour of Catholic emancipation. If +Canning had consented to join the Ministry, Lord Wellesley would +probably have been Lord-Lieutenant in Ireland, and under these +circumstances the Catholic side could scarcely have failed to acquire +a decisive preponderance. If, on the other hand, Castlereagh had +followed the example of Canning, and refused to take part in a +Ministry which declined to settle the Catholic question, or if the +Whigs had consented to co-operate with Canning, the settlement of this +great question could scarcely have been deferred. Unfortunately, none +of these things happened. Castlereagh remained the leader of the +House. Canning refused to follow his leadership, and two years later +accepted the embassy to Lisbon. The Whig leaders stood aloof from all +Ministerial combinations. The Duke of Richmond, who was violently +anti-Catholic, continued to be Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland; the post of +Chief Secretary was given to Peel, and Ireland was destined to undergo +fifteen more years of demoralising and disorganising agitation before +the Catholic question was settled. + +Canning, however, as an independent member, brought forward a +resolution pledging the House to an early consideration of the laws +affecting his Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects, with a view to their +final conciliatory adjustment, and the conditions of the question had +so profoundly changed that it was carried by a majority of 129; while +a similar motion by Lord Wellesley in the House of Lords was met by +the previous question, which was carried by a majority of only one. + +Peel, though he had come into Parliament as a special follower of +Perceval, had not yet pledged himself decisively against the +Catholics. He had voted silently against Canning's motion in June, and +although he had spoken against a previous motion of Grattan, he had +done so mainly on the ground that the time was not opportune, and had +expressly guarded himself against giving any positive pledge. He was +now, however, obliged to take a more prominent part, and for the next +six years he was the chief support of the anti-Catholic party in +Parliament. His part was a very difficult one, for he had to encounter +Grattan, Plunket, Canning, and the Whig leaders, and he had scarcely +any real supporters. Saurin, the Attorney-General, it is true, was +strongly opposed to all concession. He was a lawyer of high character +and attainments, of Huguenot descent and strong Huguenot principles, +and he had borne a distinguished part in opposition to the Union; but +Saurin refused to go to London. Bushe, who was Solicitor-General, +leaned to the Catholic side; and, to the great indignation and +consternation of the Government, Wellesley Pole, who had preceded Peel +as Chief Secretary and who was the brother of Lord Wellesley, now +pronounced himself strongly in Parliament in favour of the Catholics. +This speech was entirely unexpected, for Pole had hitherto been +regarded as a staunch adherent of the Protestant party, and as late as +the last day of 1811 he had sent a memorandum on the Catholic question +to the Secretary of State in England, which was intended to be laid +before the Cabinet, and which maintained the impossibility of safely +satisfying the Catholic claims, and the expediency of the Prince +Regent's taking a decided part against them. A general election had +taken place in September, and it is evident from the letters of Lord +Liverpool and Peel that they at this time looked upon Canning and his +followers with even more hostility than the regular Opposition. + +In the new Parliament the Catholic question at once assumed a great +prominence. A motion for the immediate consideration of the laws +affecting the Catholics was introduced by Grattan, supported by +Castlereagh, opposed by Peel, and ultimately carried by a majority of +40. A resolution of Grattan's for removing laws imposing civil and +military disabilities on the Catholics, with such regulations and +exceptions as might provide for the security of the Protestant +succession and of the Established Church, was next introduced. Peel +opposed it bitterly, but was beaten by a majority of 67. + +'We were terribly beaten,' he wrote to his Under-Secretary, 'but we +are sad cowards, I am afraid; at least, we are shamefully used. Poor +Duigenan could not get a hearing, and the general impression seemed +against the Protestants. We will fight them out, however, to the last. +I am sure it is better than to give way.' 'Your defence of the +Protestant cause,' wrote Saurin, 'was not only by far the ablest and +best, but the only one which did not seem to strengthen the cause of +the adversary by some concession of principle. I really fear the +Protestant cause is lost in the Commons. There can be no rally now but +on the securities.'[16] + +Grattan at once brought in a Bill in accordance with the terms of the +Resolution that had been carried; but the Protestant party now rallied +around a motion of Sir John Hippisley, for a committee to inquire into +the state and tenets of the Roman Catholics, and the laws affecting +them. Canning pointed out with great force that a committee of inquiry +was exactly what the Protestant party had for so many years +strenuously resisted; but, as Peel wrote to the Duke of Richmond, +there was no inconsistency in their conduct: 'When the question was +whether we should consider the claims of the Catholics and the laws +affecting them, or should resist their claims, we voted for resistance +without inquiry; the question now is, whether we shall consider or +concede, and we prefer inquiry to concession.'[17] + +The motion for delay, however, was defeated by 187 to 235, and the +second reading of Grattan's Bill was carried by 245 to 203. But a +sudden change now occurred in the prospects of the cause. Canning and +Castlereagh, with the full assent of Grattan, introduced clauses for +the securities which had been before intimated, giving the Crown a +control over the nomination of the Catholic bishops. But the bishops +unanimously condemned the proposal, and the large majority of the +Catholic Board supported them. It became evident that the Bill before +Parliament would fail to satisfy the Catholics, and after a long +discussion the clause admitting Catholics to Parliament was rejected +by 251 to 247. + +Peel had triumphed. The profound division which had broken out among +the supporters of Catholic emancipation threw back for many years a +cause which had been almost gained, though in 1817 an Act was passed +without opposition throwing open to the Catholics the military and +naval positions which Grenville had vainly attempted to open in 1807. +Few things could have been eventually more disastrous both to Ireland +and to the Empire than the defeat of the influence represented by +Grattan and by the Catholic gentry, and the growing ascendancy of +O'Connell and the democratic and sacerdotal party in Irish popular +politics. Grattan had long predicted that, if concession was not +speedily and wisely made, population in Ireland would drift away from +the guiding and moderating influence of property; that seditious and +anarchical men would gain an ascendancy which would make the whole +problem of Irish Government incalculably difficult; that a priesthood +unconnected with the English Government would lead to a 'Catholic +laity discorporated from the people of England.' In the Irish +Parliament the strong bias of Conservatism in his policy had been +repeatedly displayed, and it was equally apparent in the Imperial +Parliament. In 1807 he had supported the Insurrection Act, in +opposition to many of his friends, on the ground that there was a real +and dangerous French party in Ireland, which the common law was +insufficient to suppress. In 1814 he expressed his full approval of +the proclamation suppressing the Catholic Board. He steadily and +earnestly maintained that, although it was vitally necessary that +Catholic emancipation should be speedily carried, it should be +accompanied by measures for securing, as far as possible, the loyalty +of the higher Catholic clergy, and uniting them in interest and +sentiment with the British Government. He looked with bitter hostility +on the rise and policy of O'Connell. He accused him of 'setting afloat +the bad passions of the people,' making grievances instruments of +power without any honest wish to redress them, treating politics as a +trade to serve a desperate and interested purpose. + +But the influence of Grattan was now manifestly declining, and Peel +watched the decline with a short-sighted and not very generous +pleasure. In Parliament, though numbers were against the Catholics, +the overwhelming preponderance of ability was still in favour of the +principle of emancipation, and it was in leading the anti-Catholic +party that Peel chiefly acquired his almost unrivalled parliamentary +skill. He had, indeed, all the qualities of a great debater: courage, +fluency, self-possession, complete command of every subject he +treated, unfailing lucidity both in statement and reasoning; admirable +skill in marshalling and disentangling great masses of facts, in +meeting, evading, or retorting arguments, and detecting the weak +points of the case of an opponent, in veiling, by plausible language, +extreme or unpalatable views, in extricating himself by subtle +distinctions and qualifications from embarrassing situations. He can +scarcely, it is true, be called a great orator. His style was formal, +cumbrous, extremely verbose, without sparkle and without fire. He had +little or no power of moving the passions, nothing of the flexibility +that can adapt itself to very different audiences, nothing of the +philosophic insight that can impart a perennial interest to transient +discussions. But few men have ever understood the House of Commons +like him, or have possessed in so high a degree the qualities that are +most fitted to command and influence it. The great mass of +anti-Catholic sentiment in the country rallied around him as its most +powerful champion, and in 1817 he attained one of the chief objects of +his ambition in being elected member for Oxford University. It is well +known that his older and more brilliant rival had long aspired to this +honour. It was mainly through the Catholic question that Canning +missed and Peel won the prize. + +The nickname 'Orange Peel,' which was given to him in Ireland, was +not wholly deserved. His letters abundantly show that he had no +sympathy with the ribbons, the anniversaries, the party tunes, the +insulting processions and insulting language of the Orangemen; and, +although he believed that in Ireland anti-Catholicism and loyalty were +very closely connected, he viewed with much dislike the growth of any +political confederacies unconnected with the Government. Declamation +and boastfulness and needless provocation were, indeed, wholly alien +to his nature; and even when defending extreme causes he rarely or +never used the language of a fanatic. He resisted Catholic concession +mainly on the ground that the admission of the Catholics to political +power would prove incompatible with the existence of the Established +Church in Ireland, with the security of property in a country where +property was mainly in Protestant hands, and ultimately with the +connection between the two countries. His arguments were not based on +religion, but on political expediency; but it was an expediency which +he believed to be permanent. + +'I see,' he wrote to the Duke of Richmond, 'one of the papers reports +me as having said that I was not an advocate for perpetual exclusion. +It might be inferred that I objected only to the time of discussing +the question. That is not the case.... There are certain anomalies in +the system which I would wish to remove, but the main principles of it +I would retain untouched.... At no time, and under no circumstances, +so long as the Catholic admits the supremacy in spirituals of a +foreign earthly potentate, and will not tell us what supremacy in +spirituals means--so long as he will not give us voluntarily the +security which every despotic Sovereign in Europe has by the +concession of the Pope himself--will I consent to admit them.'[18] + +The letters before us show clearly that his political sympathy was +with Saurin, with Duigenan, with Lord Eldon, and even with Lord +Norbury. O'Connell early perceived in Peel his most dangerous +opponent, and a strong personal enmity, which was as much due to +profound differences of character as to differences of policy, grew up +between them. A scurrilous attack of O'Connell on Peel in 1815 was +followed by a challenge, and a duel was prevented only by the arrest +of O'Connell. The antipathy between the two men was never mitigated. +O'Connell said of Peel that 'his smile was like the silver plate on a +coffin.' Peel, in his confidential letters, expressed the utmost +dislike and contempt for the character of O'Connell, and when he was +at length compelled by the Clare election to concede Catholic +emancipation, his feeling towards him was significantly and +characteristically shown. He enumerated in a brilliant passage the men +to whom the triumph of Catholic emancipation was really due. He spoke +of Fox and Grattan, of Plunket and of Canning, but he made no mention +of O'Connell. + +The administrative side of Peel's Chief Secretaryship is much more +creditable to him than the political side. The vivid picture which his +letters present of the manner in which Ireland was governed more than +fifteen years after the Union will probably strike the reader with +some surprise, when he remembers that the Union had extinguished about +seventy small boroughs, and had at the same time greatly diminished +the importance of the Irish representatives, and therefore the +necessities for corruption. Peel noticed that while 'the pension list +of Great Britain was limited to 90,000_l._ per annum, the pension list +of Ireland may amount to 80,000_l._ a year; and he found almost all +Irish patronage still employed for political purposes, and almost +every office honeycombed with abuses and peculations. A few extracts +will give the reader some notion of the nature and extent of the evil, +and of the efforts of Peel to reduce it:-- + +'How is it possible,' he wrote, 'to propose that a shilling should be +granted to a general officer on the staff in Ireland when sixpence is +granted in England? This is called a modification in official phrase, +but it ought to be called doubling the allowance. Set your face +steadily against all increase of salary, all extra allowances, all +plausible claims for additional emolument. Economy must be the order +of the day--rigid economy.'[19] 'When English members hear that the +sheriff appoints the grand jury, that the grand jury tax the county, +that the sheriff has a considerable influence at elections, and that +the sheriff is appointed openly on the recommendation of the member +supporting the Government, they are startled not a little.... I know +that this is a most convenient patronage to the Government, but I know +also that I cannot hint in the House of Commons at such a source of +patronage, and I confess I have great doubts on the legitimacy of +it.... After Lord Redesdale's declaration ... that the mode of +appointing sheriffs "poisons the sources of justice," and witnessing +the general feeling among the English against making the nomination of +a most important officer in the execution of justice dependent on the +will of the county member, I thought it highly expedient to give a +positive assurance that the Government would revert to the ancient +and legal practice of appointing sheriffs in Ireland.... With a pure +Bench--and time will, I hope, purify it--the change would be an +essential change for the better.'[20] 'Foster says that the abuses +discovered in the office [of Clerk of the Pleas] are enormous, that +the amount of fees exacted from suitors is not less than 30,000_l._ +per annum, of which the principal clerk did not receive more than +one-third. A Mr. Pollock, the first deputy, is in receipt of 8,000_l._ +or 9,000_l._ a year as his own share of the profits; other deputies +and persons unnecessarily employed have profits amounting to 1,200_l._ +or 1,400_l._ a year each. Foster thinks that every possible difficulty +will be thrown in the way of an early decision in the Irish Courts.... +In the meantime, the Chief Baron is receiving the enormous profits +arising from these enormous abuses.'[21] + +The practice of buying and selling public offices, and the practice of +dividing the salaries of a single office between a principal and +deputies, still continued; but Peel did his utmost to eradicate them. +If it were permitted in one case, he said, 'every officer in every +department who purchased on corrupt terms and is now living may claim +a right to sell the office so purchased.' + +'With respect to a payment out of the salary to R., I can have no +scruple in giving you my opinion that it would not be right. I have +never been, and cannot conscientiously be, a party to an arrangement +of that kind, because I think this is quite clear, that if the salary +of the office is disproportionate to the labour of it, and can bear to +be taxed to the amount of 200_l._, the public should benefit, and the +emoluments of the office be reduced.'[22] + +One of Peel's first tasks was to conduct a general election, and he +had ample opportunities of judging how these things were managed in +Ireland. A law known as Curwen's Act had been recently passed, +condemning to a heavy fine in the event of failure, and to the loss of +his seat in the event of success, any person giving, or promising to +give, or consenting to give either money or office for a seat in +Parliament. The law was not a little embarrassing to Peel, as his own +seat of Cashel had been purchased, and he thought it safer to transfer +himself to the English seat of Chippenham, where his return was +managed by his father without any intervention on his own part. At the +same time, the elections in Ireland went on much as if Curwen's Act +had never passed. + +'I am placed in a delicate situation enough here,' he wrote to his +friend Croker: 'bound to secure the Government interests, if possible, +from dilapidation, but still more bound to faint with horror at the +mention of money transactions, to threaten the unfortunate culprits +with impeachment if they hint at an impure return, and yet to prevent +those strongholds, Cashel, Mallow, and Tralee, from surrendering to +the enemies who besiege them.' + +Croker himself furnished an admirable illustration of the manner in +which these principles were carried out. 'I find the borough' [Down], +he writes, 'extremely well disposed to me. Of the respectable and +steady people I have a decided majority, not less than twenty; but +there are sixty-two persons who are extremely doubtful.... I have the +greatest repugnance to bribery, ... but my agent informs me that many +voters will require money.... The return absolutely depends upon +pounds sterling. The best computation which my agents can make is +that a sum of 2,000_l._ will be necessary. The natural expenses will +be 500_l._ These, I think, I am bound to make good. But with regard to +the money for votes, that I expect from Government.' + +Peel replied that he could not answer for the Government in England, +and that the Irish Government possessed no funds for this purpose; he +would himself have been ready to send Croker '1,000_l._ as a private +concern between ourselves with no reference whatever to Government'; +but he had it not. 'If you think proper,' he added, 'to take the +chance whether it [the Government] will assist you, you can promise.' +For about six years Peel was constantly receiving from Croker requests +for places, in order to discharge 'debts of gratitude' incurred at +this election; and in 1816 we find the Government very nearly beaten +in the House of Commons in an attempt to raise Croker's own salary. + +'Could you tell me,' writes Lord Palmerston to Peel, 'whether you +think there is any probability of a contest for the county of Sligo at +the next election? I could at the present moment make from 280 to 290 +voters by giving leases to tenants who are now holding at will. If +there is any chance of their being of use next year, I will do so +forthwith, and register them in time. If not, I should perhaps +postpone giving twenty-one years' leases till matters look a little +more propitious to the payment of rents.' + +'Lord Lorton wrote yesterday to his agent to make all the freeholders +he can on his small Queen's County property. He says he is sorry he +can't make more than twenty, but that those shall go against Pole.' + +A few illustrations of the minor details of patronage may be added. +One gentleman called upon Peel about an election in Clare, but 'said +that he would make no promise of his interest unless he received a +pledge from me that his two brothers should be provided for--one in +the Church, and the other advanced in the profession of the law.' + +Lord C. 'wanted, long since, to make terms with me for his support in +Cork, ... and wished to be one of a committee for superintending the +patronage of the county.' + +'When G. wants a baronetcy, he is very rich; and when he wants a +place, he is very poor. I think we may fairly turn the tables on him, +and when he asks to be a baronet, make his poverty the objection, and +his wealth when he asks for an office.' + +'Pole is constantly pressing K., of the Navigation Board, for +promotion.... I am told he entirely neglects his duty. Pole readily +admits his hopeless stupidity and unfitness for office.' + +'I do not think your son,' Peel wrote to his Under-Secretary, 'can +make a more inefficient member of the Board of Stamps than Mr. T. has +done. I am perfectly ready, therefore, to acquiesce in the exchange.' +'I make a great sacrifice,' he wrote to Lord Whitworth, 'when I say +that I doubt whether O.'s habits would qualify him for such practical +duties as the Collector of Belfast at least ought to perform. Belfast +is so flourishing a town, and contributes so much to the revenue, that +I fear the Collectorship of it is too prominent a situation to place +in it a young man ... we must admit to be a ruined man by gambling. +Considering how careless he has been of his own money, perhaps some +office not connected with the collection of the public money ... would +be more suited to him.... What do you think of the following +arrangement? Make J. collector for this very bad and very good reason, +that he is the most inefficient Commissioner, and therefore the public +service will suffer least from his appointment. Make Colonel H. a +Commissioner. He will be about as inefficient as J. Make R.M. junior, +the most inefficient of the three, Surveyor of Lands, _vice_ H., which +(though he will lose 200_l._ a year) will greatly oblige his father, +the member; and, lastly, fulfil your good intentions towards O. by +making him a Commissioner of Accounts, _vice_ M.' + +Many other characteristic pictures pass before us. There were officers +of the revenue who were recommended to 'the marked favour' of the +Government because they had shown what Peel somewhat rashly called +'the common honesty' of refusing bribes. There was an official who +scandalously connived at an abuse of justice by which innocent women +were condemned to transportation, though taking measures that the +Government should indirectly hear of the transaction. There were +shameful abuses in the sale of the office of gaoler, shameful frauds +in the collection of taxes, in the Customs, in the barrack charges. + +'My most decided opinion,' Peel wrote about one of these culprits, 'is +in favour of his dismissal. I am quite tired of, and disgusted with, +the shameful corruptions which every Irish inquiry brings to +light.'[23] + +Much trouble was given by newspapers which were subsidised by the +Government, and at the same time conducted in a manner which no honest +Government could approve of.[24] Another evil is disclosed in the +following very creditable letter written by Peel to one of his +successors: + +'I found in Ireland that every official man, not content with the +favour of Government to himself, thought he had a right to quarter his +family on the patronage of Government. I took the course that you have +done in order to enable me to resist with effect such extravagant +pretensions. I determined never to gratify any private wish of my own +by the smallest Irish appointment. There is nothing half so disgusting +as the personal monopoly of honours and offices by those to whom the +distribution of them is entrusted.'[25] + +In the Irish Pension List there had been enormous abuses, but Peel +took credit for having effectually stopped them. 'No member of +Parliament,' he wrote, 'has benefited by it. No vote has been +influenced by it.... I do not think there are any three years in the +whole period of the Irish history during which so honest a use has +been made of it.'[26] + +As might have been expected, blunders arising from extreme +inefficiency were very numerous. In one case, by negligent drafting, +the Insurrection Bill was made to extend to three instead of two +years, while a simple mistake in one of the Revenue Bills was believed +to have cost the Revenue not less than 40,000_l._[27] + +In all this dreary field the great administrative ability of Peel and +the essential integrity of his character produced much real +improvement, though it is very possible to exaggerate his merits. No +one who has read the Hardwicke and Colchester papers will question +that some of his predecessors, and especially the Chancellor, Lord +Redesdale, had laboured with at least equal earnestness to purify +Irish administration; and the energy with which Lord Redesdale, +though out of office, still recurred to the subject, was extremely +displeasing to Peel.[28] His own patronage, as we have already seen, +was by no means ideal, and he was very anxious to stifle parliamentary +inquiries. + +'I believe,' he wrote, 'an honest, despotic government would be by far +the fittest government for Ireland'; but as this could not be attained +he wished no essential alteration. 'I think the present system on +which the government of Ireland is conducted is the best, but I am +terribly afraid that Englishmen, who know nothing of Ireland, would +not concur with me if they inquired into detail. It is very difficult +to manage even the most limited inquiry. How could we prevent the +introduction of tithes, magistracy, the Catholic question itself?'[29] + +Whatever might be the case in the future, he believed that in the +present it was impossible for the Irish Government to receive adequate +support unless it made up its mind to purchase it. 'It would be good +policy,' he says in one of his letters, 'to direct the channel of +patronage as plentifully as we can towards those who are adhering to +us on these pressing questions of army establishments and property +tax.' He refused in very lofty tones applications for peerages as +rewards for political support; but the merit of this refusal belongs +mainly to Lord Liverpool, who, at the beginning of the Chief +Secretaryship, took on this subject a very firm and honourable line, +both in England and Ireland, and maintained it at the sacrifice of +many votes. For Irish honours unaccompanied by endowments there appear +to have been few applicants. Peel disliked the bestowal of +ecclesiastical dignities as rewards for political services; but if he +did not practise it quite as much as his predecessors, this appears to +have been much more due to nature than to policy. + +'There is nothing so extraordinary,' he wrote, 'in natural history as +the longevity of all bishops, priests, and deacons in Ireland. During +the last five years there has been literally no Church preferment to +dispose of, to the infinite disappointment of many expectants.' + +In the higher legal appointments, however, while insisting that +'attachment to the Government on principle' was very material, Peel +cordially agreed with Saurin that it was vitally necessary to select +men 'for character, and not for politics or connection'; and he added, +that those were not likely to be the least fit for high office who +were too proud to solicit it. 'It is a species of pride which +occasions very little practical inconvenience in Ireland.' + +His letters show clearly the terrible evils of Irish life. He speaks +of 'the enormous and overgrown population,' with no employment except +agriculture; of a poverty so extreme that in many districts widespread +starvation was averted only by prompt Government intervention; of +'that infernal curse, the forty shilling freeholds'; of the evil +system of employing the military in distraining for rent and in the +collection of tithes; of juries, through fear or sympathy, acquitting +prisoners in the face of the clearest evidence; of the gross perjury +in the law courts; of the almost universal disaffection of the lower +orders, fostered by a seditious press; of the growing spirit of +animosity in the north of Ireland between the lower orders of +Protestants and Catholics, which was breaking out in constant riots, +and had already cost many lives. This last evil, it might be truly +said, was very largely due to the policy of his own party, who had +protracted through so many years the Catholic question, which ought +to have been settled at the Union. There was extreme and chronic +ignorance, poverty, and anarchy; the payment of tithes was constantly +resisted; and a failure of the potato crop, and a sudden and terrible +fall in the price of agricultural products after the peace, added +enormously to the difficulties of the situation. It is remarkable, +indeed, that there appears to have been in 1816 and 1817 less +disturbance of the public peace in Ireland than in England; Peel found +it even possible to reduce the military establishments, and in Dublin +extreme distress was borne with remarkable patience; but in many parts +of the country crimes of combination were frequent, and almost +incredibly savage. Peel mentions one case of a family of eight persons +who were deliberately burnt in their house by a party of armed men, +because the owner of the house had prosecuted to conviction three men, +on a capital charge, at the Louth assizes. In another case a farmer, +who had shot two men who attacked his house, was himself shot dead on +a Sunday morning, after Mass, at the chapel door, in the presence of +hundreds of men, not one of whom attempted to arrest the culprit. + +These things filled Peel with a not unnatural horror, and his letters +showed clearly his intense dislike both of the Irish character and of +the Irish religion.[30] By far the most valuable contribution he made +to the improvement of Ireland during his Chief Secretaryship was the +formation, in 1814, of an efficient police force, which has ever since +been popularly associated with his name, and which was the nucleus +from which the present admirable constabulary force was developed in +1822 and in 1835. 'We ought to be crucified,' he wrote, 'if we make +the measure a job, and select our constables from the servants of our +parliamentary friends.' He attempted also, though without much +success, to institute a system of popular education on a perfectly +unsectarian basis, and with Catholics among the commissioners.[31] He +appears to have met with little encouragement, and at least one +Catholic bishop lost no time in cursing 'these nefarious deistical +schools'; but some schools were established, and Peel has the merit of +being one of the earliest advocates of a general system of unsectarian +national education for Ireland, which many years after was +accomplished. His measures for the relief of distress appear to have +been skilful and judicious, supporting and stimulating, but not +superseding private benevolence.[32] For the rest, he relied chiefly +on Insurrection Acts strengthening the Executive and giving a greater +efficiency to the administration of justice, and on strong protective +legislation encouraging the corn and the manufactures of Ireland. + +'I have always,' he wrote, 'been, and always shall be, as strong an +advocate for giving that preference to the productions of Ireland, +natural or artificial, which will best promote the industry of the +people, as I am for instructing the lower orders.'[33] + +To the tithe system he would do nothing, and this is one of the fatal +blots on his reputation as a statesman. There was no single source of +crime, agitation, and disaffection in Ireland which was so prolific as +this, and there was no subject on which the wisest statesmen had been +more agreed than on the supreme importance of meeting this evil by a +judicious system of commutation. Pitt had clearly expressed his +opinion of the necessity of such a commutation to the Duke of Rutland +as early as 1786, and it was one of the measures which he intended to +have followed the Union. Grattan had brought schemes of commutation in +three successive years before the Irish Parliament. Lord Loughborough, +who was the chief cause of the failure of Catholic emancipation after +the Union, had himself drawn up a Tithe Commutation Bill. Lord +Redesdale, who represented the extreme Toryism of the ministry of +Addington, strongly urged the absolute necessity of speedy legislation +on the subject. The Duke of Bedford, in 1807, dwelt on the importance +of commuting tithes into a land-tax, and ultimately into land. Parnell +and Grattan had brought the subject before the Imperial Parliament in +1810, and it was again and again insisted on by the Whig writers, and +nowhere more strongly than in Sydney Smith's admirable letters to +Peter Plymley and in some of the pages of the 'Edinburgh Review.' But +nothing was done till the evil had become intolerable, and had brought +the country to a state of anarchy and demoralisation that can scarcely +be exaggerated. The connection of Peel with the question of Irish +tithes is a very remarkable one. The Tithe Commutation Act, which was +carried by a Whig Government in 1838, is one of the few instances of +perfectly successful legislation in Irish history, and it is well +known that the chief credit of this measure does not belong to the +Ministers who carried it. It was the very measure which Sir Robert +Peel had introduced in 1835, which the Whig party when in opposition +defeated by connecting it with the Appropriation clause, and which the +Whig party when in power were compelled to carry without that clause. +But if the chief credit of the final settlement of this momentous +question justly belongs to Peel, it must not be forgotten that in the +eleven years during which, as Chief Secretary or as Home Secretary, he +was directly responsible for the government of Ireland, he had allowed +this monster curse to grow and strengthen without making any serious +effort to mitigate it. + +Peel was Chief Secretary during the concluding part of the viceroyalty +of the Duke of Richmond, during the whole of that of Lord Whitworth, +and during part of that of Lord Talbot. He had grown very tired of his +position, but agreed to postpone his departure till after a general +election, and he at last left Ireland, as he says, with 'undiminished +and unqualified satisfaction,' in August 1818. He remained out of +office until January 1822; but the interval was not spent in idleness, +and in 1819 he took the leading part in the great Act for resuming +cash payments, which, as it has been truly said, attaches to his name +'the same meed of praise which he had quoted as inscribed on the tomb +of Queen Elizabeth: "Moneta in justum valorem redacta."' It is one of +his greatest legislative achievements; it is also the first of that +series of recantations which forms one of the most distinctive +features of his career, for it was based upon the policy which Horner +had advocated in 1811, and against which Peel had then voted. He still +took, on the Catholic question, the leading part in opposition to +emancipation, declaring his determination to offer 'a most sincere and +uncompromising,' though he now feared unavailing, resistance to +Catholic concession. The last time the question was brought forward, +by Grattan, was in 1819, and he was defeated by a majority of only +two. In 1821, after the death of Grattan, and in a new Parliament, +Plunket carried a Bill for Catholic emancipation successfully through +all its stages in the House of Commons, though it was afterwards +rejected in the Lords. In the ensuing session a similar fate befel a +Bill of Canning's to relieve Catholic peers of their disabilities. +Some considerable change, however, was introduced into the spirit of +the Irish Government by the appointment of Lord Wellesley, who was in +favour of the Catholics, to the viceroyalty. One of its most important +results was the removal of Saurin from the office of Attorney-General +and the appointment of Plunket in his place. Lord Wellesley described +this measure to Lady Blessington as the removal of 'an old Orangeman' +who, though 'Attorney-General by title, had really been +Lord-Lieutenant for fifteen years'; but it is evident from the letters +of Peel that his warm sympathies, both personal and political, were +with Saurin. + +The accession of George IV. to the throne in the beginning of 1820 +brought to a crisis the quarrel between the new King and his wife, and +led to the resignation of Canning in the last days of the year, and +Lord Liverpool then tried to induce Peel to enter the Cabinet in the +vacant post of President of the Board of Control. Peel, however, +refused the office, declaring that he differed from some of the +proceedings of the Ministry about the Queen. In the summer of 1821 he +again declined a similar offer, chiefly, as it appears, on the ground +of uncertain health and of a dislike to official life which his recent +marriage had produced. But when Lord Sidmouth resigned the Home +Office, Peel proved less inflexible, and on January 17, 1822, he +accepted the seals, which he held till 1827. In August Castlereagh, +or, as he now was, Lord Londonderry, committed suicide. Lord +Liverpool saw the necessity of recalling Canning to the Cabinet as +Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Canning would accept the post only as +leader of the House of Commons. The King hated Canning, and would +gladly have excluded him altogether from the Ministry, and Eldon and +the Duke of Newcastle greatly desired that the leadership of the House +of Commons should be given to Peel. Canning, however, who had been +sixteen years longer in Parliament than Peel, had both the right and +the power to insist upon the leadership, and Peel acquiesced in his +claim with honourable frankness. Except on the Catholic question they +appear to have cordially agreed, and something of the success of +Canning's brilliant foreign policy is due to the loyalty with which he +was supported by Peel in the Cabinet and at Court. + +Space will not permit us to relate at length the history of Peel's +conduct as home Minister. The Catholic question was rapidly advancing +to a crisis, and the system of a divided Ministry in which it was an +open question, and in which the leading Ministers took opposite sides, +was becoming plainly impossible. Ireland was again in a state of +anarchy bordering on civil war, and the foundation, in 1823, of the +Catholic Association by O'Connell and Sheil gave a new impulse to the +agitation. The Duke of Wellington, who knew the country well and was +not liable to panic, predicted that the new association if it +continued would lead to civil war, and declared that the organisation +of the disaffected in Ireland was much more perfect than in 1798.[34] +At the same time the long-protracted and increasing violence of the +conflict had aroused fierce Orange passions both in the North and in +Dublin, while in England the King was embarrassing even his +'anti-Catholic' Ministers by the vehemence of his hostility to +concession. He described Peel as 'the King's Protestant Minister' and +Lord Wellesley as an 'enemy in the camp.' He assured Peel that, +whether the Cabinet wished it or not, he would never consent to give +letters of precedence to a Roman Catholic barrister, and he wrote Peel +a formal letter in which he said, 'the sentiments of the King upon +Catholic emancipation are those of his revered and excellent father; +from those sentiments the King never can and never will deviate.'[35] + +Peel, while maintaining his unflinching hostility to important +concessions, tried to moderate all parties. He implored the King to +make no public declaration. He wrote to Ireland strongly discouraging +the violence of the Orangemen and urging that 'in this age of liberal +doctrine, when prescription is no longer even a presumption in favour +of what is established, it will be a work of desperate difficulty to +contend against "emancipation," as they call it, unless we can fight +with the advantage on our side of great discretion, forbearance, and +moderation on the part of the Irish Protestants.' He recurred to his +old idea of establishing a system of unsectarian national education, +and he readily abandoned the corrupt and proselytising charter +schools. He supported a measure of Lord Nugent, which Lord Eldon +succeeded in defeating in the Lords, for extending to the English +Catholics such privileges as were already possessed by Catholics in +Ireland, and he fully approved of a letter written on behalf of the +Cabinet to the Lord-Lieutenant urging 'that a disposition should be +manifested to admit the Roman Catholics of Ireland to a fair +proportion of the emoluments and honours to which they are eligible by +law,' but without issuing patents of precedence.[36] + +On matters unconnected with the Catholic question his administration +was skilful and, on the whole, enlightened; and in 1823 he introduced +the first of a series of important measures diminishing the enormous +number of capital offences that disgraced the English criminal code, +and, at the same time, doing much to simplify and consolidate that +code. In this, as in most respects, there was little original in his +legislation. He followed, at some distance, in the steps of Romilly +and Mackintosh, and he left very much to be done, which was chiefly +accomplished during the Whig ascendancy that followed the Reform Bill +of 1832. It appears, from some remarkable letters in this volume, +that, before Peel took up the question of criminal reform, George IV. +was exceedingly sensible of the enormity of executing very young men +for secondary offences, and that he was continually pressing on his +Ministers a more merciful administration of the law. He sometimes +found Peel by no means ready to yield. In one case Peel invoked the +aid of the Cabinet to overrule the wish of the King, who desired to +save two culprits from the gallows; and, in another case, he +threatened to resign his office if the King persisted in commuting the +sentence of a youth who had been found guilty of uttering forged +notes.[37] But Peel had at least the merit of recognising an +intolerable abuse, and his legislation on the subject was skilfully +framed and still more skilfully introduced and carried. In his +patronage in this, as in later periods of his life, he cared much more +than most English Ministers for the interests of science, literature, +and art. He was by no means indifferent to the opportunities his +position gave him of advancing his own family and friends; but he +never, in his English patronage, forgot the character of those whom he +recommended for promotion, and he brought forward or assisted many men +of ability and learning with whom he had no connection and no +political sympathy. The letters in this volume between Peel and his +very intimate Oxford friend Dr. Lloyd are especially interesting and +characteristic. They are in general very honourable to Peel; but Mr. +Parker is much too indulgent when he describes the intensely worldly +letters in which Dr. Lloyd urged his own merits and his claims to the +bishopric of Oxford as merely 'frank, and free from affectation of the +traditional _nolo episcopari_.' Both Peel and Lord Liverpool appear to +have had a much stronger sense than most of their predecessors of the +responsibilities attaching to Church patronage and of the duty of +administering it in the public interest, and in this respect they were +broadly distinguished from Lord Eldon. + +'It is really a cruel thing,' Lord Liverpool wrote to Peel, 'that the +patronage of the Crown as to Church matters should be divided between +the Minister and the Chancellor, and that all the public claims should +fall upon the former. The Chancellor has nine livings to the +Minister's one. With respect to these he does occasionally attend to +local claims, but he has besides four cathedrals, and to no one of +these cathedrals has any man of distinguished learning or merit been +promoted.' + +In the beginning of 1825 the Irish Government, having without +consulting Peel undertaken a foolish prosecution of O'Connell for a +not very dangerous speech, received a heavy rebuff, for the Grand +Jury threw out the Bill, and the prosecution of an Orange leader was +equally unsuccessful. A Bill was about the same time brought in and +carried, suppressing the new association; but it could not suppress +the spirit which it had aroused. O'Connell, however, was thoroughly +alarmed at the state of the country, and as far as possible from +desiring a rebellion, and he was at this time in a very conciliatory +mood. He was perfectly ready to accept an endowment for the +priesthood, which would attach them to the Government, and also a +considerable raising of the Irish franchise. This was the last +occasion on which his party and the Catholic gentry very cordially +concurred, and it was the last occasion on which the Catholic question +could have been settled on a basis that would have given real strength +to the Empire. A Relief Bill passed through all its stages in the +Commons by considerable majorities, and it was followed by a Bill for +raising the qualifications of Irish electors, and by a resolution for +endowing the priesthood. O'Connell fully believed that Catholic +emancipation would definitely pass in this session,[38] and he +appeared to have excellent reasons for his belief. In Ireland it +generally prevailed, and it exercised an immediate pacifying +influence. Lord Fingall and other Catholic noblemen, in presenting an +address at this time to the King, were able to say 'the whole of +Ireland reposes in profound tranquillity, and the law, without the aid +of any extraordinary power, everywhere receives voluntary obedience.' +It was afterwards stated by Lord George Bentinck that Peel had changed +his opinions about Catholic emancipation in 1825, and had communicated +this change to Lord Liverpool. The letters before us, however, +conclusively prove that if Peel was shaken, it was not about the +merits of emancipation, but about the practicability of resisting it. +Having been four times defeated in the Commons on the Catholic +question, he tendered his resignation, and Lord Liverpool at once +declared that without his assistance he could not continue the +struggle. Peel was the only Minister in the House of Commons opposed +to the Catholic cause, differing on the question from all his +colleagues in the House. If he had resigned, and if Lord Liverpool had +followed his example, there is good reason to believe that a +Government might have been formed which would have carried the measure +safely and speedily with the securities that had been accepted. Most +unfortunately for the Empire, the 'Protestant' party persuaded Peel to +withdraw his resignation in order to avert this surrender. In the +House of Lords the Duke of York, who was the heir-presumptive to the +throne, stood up and declared his unalterable opposition to the +Catholic claims, 'whatever might be his situation in life, so help him +God,' and the Lords rejected the Bill by a majority of 48. + +The conscientious views of George III. obtained some measure of +respect even from those who believed them to be most unfounded; but no +halo of sanctity dignified the scruples of George IV. or of the Duke +of York. The Irish Catholics, exasperated at the present +disappointment of their hopes, and at the prospect of another hostile +King, flung themselves into a furious agitation, and in a few months +all the progress which had been made towards pacifying the country was +undone, while in England Peel had to meet a terrible commercial +crisis. Seventy county banks stopped in less than a week. In dealing +with questions of commerce and currency Peel was always in his +element, and his measures appear to have been wise and skilful. A +general election took place, and he was again returned by the +University of Oxford as the uncompromising opponent of Catholic +emancipation. In England the anti-Catholic party gained some seats, +and the increasing violence in Ireland had produced some reaction. In +Ireland it was soon apparent that what Grattan had feared had come to +pass, and that the tie which had hitherto attached the people to their +landlords was completely broken. The priests everywhere appeared at +the head of their people, and it was at once seen that a new and +terrible power was dominating Irish politics. In Waterford, where the +Beresfords had long been omnipotent, they were totally defeated, and +Leslie Foster sent Peel a vivid description of his own defeat in the +Louth election. At the outset of the contest, upwards of five-sixths +of the votes were promised to him; but the whole priesthood turned +themselves into electioneering agents against him. In every chapel +there were political sermons; the priests menaced all who voted for +him with eternal damnation; they were present at every polling-booth +to overawe their parishioners; and their efforts were seconded by +savage mobs who waylaid and beat all opponents, and forced multitudes +of Protestants, by threats of assassination or of the burning of their +houses, to vote against their promises and their convictions. 'In the +county town the studied violence and intimidation were such that it +was only by locking up my voters in enclosed yards that their lives +were preserved.' By these means the election was won. What, asked +Foster, will be the end of this? 'The landlords are exasperated to the +utmost, the priests swaggering in their triumph, the tenantry sullen +and insolent. Men who, a month ago, were all civility and submission +now hardly suppress their curses when a gentleman passes by. The text +of every village orator is, "Boys, you have put down three lords; +stick to your priests, and you will carry all before you."' + +The letters of Goulburn, the Chief Secretary, show that the picture +was not overcharged. + +'Never,' he wrote, 'were Roman Catholic and Protestant so decidedly +opposed. Never did the former act with so general a concert, or place +themselves so completely under the command of the priesthood.' 'The +priests exercise on all matters a dominion perfectly uncontrolled and +uncontrollable. In many parts of the country their sermons are purely +political, and the altars in the several chapels are the rostra from +which they declaim on the subject of Roman Catholic grievances, exhort +to the collection of rent, or denounce their Protestant neighbours in +a mode perfectly intelligible and effective, but not within the grasp +of the law. In several towns no Roman Catholic will now deal with a +Protestant shop-keeper, in consequence of the priest's interdiction, +and this species of interference, stirring up enmity on one hand and +feelings of resentment on the other, is mainly conducive to outrage +and disorder.... The first vacancy on the Roman Catholic bench is to +be supplied by Dr. England from America, a man of all others most +decidedly hostile to British interests and the most active in +fomenting the discord of this country.... With such leaders it is +reasonable to anticipate the worst. It is impossible to detail in a +letter the various modes in which the Roman Catholic priesthood now +interfere in every transaction of every description, how they rule the +mob, the gentry, and the magistracy, and how they impede the +administration of justice.' Their power is greater than any other in +the State, 'and they love to display it, and omit no opportunity of +taunting their adversaries.' 'The state of society here is so +disorganised, and the Government has so inferior an authority to other +powers acting on the people, that the opinion formed to-day may be +quite changed to-morrow.'[39] + +The election of 1826 virtually carried Catholic emancipation, for it +reduced Ireland to a state in which it was impossible long to resist +it. Clear-sighted men had no difficulty in perceiving that the policy +of Peel had failed to avert it, though it had succeeded in making +impossible the securities which Grattan and the wisest men of his +generation had pronounced indispensable for its safe working, in +kindling religious hatreds as intense as in the darkest period of the +eighteenth century, in breaking down that healthy relation and +subordination of classes on which beyond all other things the future +well-being of Ireland depended. Peel was not wholly blind to what was +happening. 'A darker cloud than ever,' he wrote, 'seems to me to +impend over Ireland, that is if one of the remaining bonds of society, +the friendly connection between landlord and tenant, is +dissolved.'[40] He still persuaded himself, however, that the +political power of the priests was transient, and that a reaction +would set in that might destroy it. The defeat of the Catholic +question in the new Parliament by a majority of four encouraged him in +his resistance. In January 1827 the death of the Duke of York removed +one serious obstacle to the Catholic cause, and six weeks later Lord +Liverpool, who had so long held together the divided Ministry, was +struck down by apoplexy. Peel would gladly have continued in his +present position if a peer of real weight who held his opinions on the +Catholic question was appointed to the vacant place. But there was no +such peer, except Wellington, to be found, and under Wellington +Canning refused to serve. Canning had, indeed, now fully resolved to +be at the head of the Administration, and Peel refused to serve under +him. + +With his opinions on the Catholic question it is impossible to blame +him, and the letters which passed between the two statesmen are very +honourable to both, and show clearly that in spite of great divergence +of opinion, character, and interests, each could recognise the good +faith of the other. In a letter written to one of his brothers Peel +describes his position with complete frankness: + +'I am content with my position in the Government, and willing to +retain it--willing to see Mr. Canning leader of the House of Commons, +as he has been. But giving him credit for honesty and sincerity, if he +is at the head of the Government, and has all the patronage of the +Government, he must exert himself as an honest man to carry the +Catholic question; and to the carrying of that question, to the +preparation for its being carried, I never can be a party. Still less +can I be a party to it for the sake of office.' + +These words were written little more than a year before Peel +undertook, as Minister of the Crown, to introduce a measure of +Catholic emancipation. But if they do little credit to his prescience, +no one can mistake the accent of sincerity in what follows: + +'I do not choose to see new lights on the Catholic question precisely +at that conjuncture when the Duke of York has been laid in his grave +and Lord Liverpool struck dumb by the palsy. Would any man, woman, or +child believe that after nineteen years' stubborn unbelief I was +converted, at the very moment Mr. Canning was Prime Minister, out of +pure conscience and the force of truth?'[41] + +With the resignation of Peel and the other anti-Catholic members of +Lord Liverpool's Government, and the formation of the short Canning +Ministry, this instalment of Peel's letters comes to an end.[42] We +rejoice that the publication of this very interesting correspondence +has been entrusted to an editor who is at once so competent and so +judicious. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[10] _Life of Lord George Bentinck_, p. 304. + +[11] Lewis's _Letters_, p. 226. + +[12] _Private Correspondence of Sir R. Peel, 1788-1827_. Ed. by C.S. +Parker, M.P., 1891, p. 24. + +[13] _Ibid._ p. 27. + +[14] _Hansard_, First Ser. xxi. 663. + +[15] Butler's _Hist. Memoirs_, ii. 177. + +[16] _Peel Correspondence_, p. 80. + +[17] _Peel Correspondence_, p. 83. + +[18] _Peel Correspondence_, p. 76. + +[19] _Peel Correspondence_, pp. 217, 218. + +[20] _Peel Correspondence_, pp. 222-224. + +[21] _Ibid._ p. 212. + +[22] _Ibid._ p. 284. + +[23] _Peel Correspondence_, p. 282. + +[24] _Ibid._ pp. 114-116, 211, 218. + +[25] _Peel Correspondence_, p. 60. + +[26] _Ibid._ p. 275. + +[27] _Ibid._ p. 96. + +[28] _Peel Correspondence_, p. 211. + +[29] _Ibid._ pp. 215, 219, 220. + +[30] _Peel Correspondence_, pp. 207, 231, 235, 236. + +[31] _Peel Correspondence_, pp. 87-92. + +[32] _Ibid._ pp. 244, 265. + +[33] _Ibid._ pp. 167, 233. + +[34] _Peel Correspondence_, p. 348. + +[35] _Peel Correspondence_, pp. 349, 358, 359, 370-371. + +[36] _Peel Correspondence_, p. 358. + +[37] _Ibid._ pp. 315-317. + +[38] Fitzpatrick's _Correspondence of O'Connell_, i. p. 108. + +[39] _Peel Correspondence_, pp. 416, 418, 419, 422. + +[40] _Ibid._ pp. 413, 420. + +[41] _Peel Correspondence_, p. 485. + +[42] Two more volumes have been published since this Essay was +written.--ED. + + + + +EDWARD HENRY, FIFTEENTH EARL OF DERBY + + +The time has not yet arrived for the publication of a full life of the +late Lord Derby, but in submitting to the public a collection of his +more important speeches outside Parliament, a short sketch of the +chief features of his life and character may not be out of place. + +Edward Henry, fifteenth Earl of Derby, was born July 21, 1826, and was +educated at Rugby, and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he obtained a +First Class in classics. In March 1848 he unsuccessfully contested +Lancaster, and soon after started for a long and instructive journey +in America and the West Indies. During his absence from England he was +elected Member for Lynn Regis upon the death of Lord George Bentinck +in September 1848, and he held this seat without interruption till his +accession to the earldom in October 1869. His first speech in the +House of Commons was delivered on May 31, 1850, on the sugar duties. +The effect on the West Indies of the abolition of the preferential +duty on sugar was a subject which he had specially studied during his +journey, and he had published a pamphlet upon it. Sir Robert Peel +greatly praised his maiden speech, and Greville describes the great +impression which it made--an impression which a further knowledge of +the speaker speedily confirmed. + +The appearance in Parliament of the eldest son of one of the most +brilliant party leaders of the age could scarcely fail to be a +considerable political event, and it was soon found that the new +member was not only a man of rare ability, but was also in nearly all +respects very unlike his illustrious father. Never was there a more +striking instance of that strange freak of heredity by which an able +son is sometimes much less the continuation than the complement of an +able father, exhibiting in strongly contrasted lights both opposite +qualities and opposite defects. The fourteenth Earl was a great +orator. He was one of the greatest debaters who have ever lived. He +was a party leader of extraordinary power, delighting in political +conflict; throwing into it much of the fire and passion which he +displayed in his sporting contests; little fitted to conciliate +opponents, but eminently fitted to win the enthusiastic loyalty of his +followers, to rally a dispirited minority, to lead a party attack. His +keen and rapid judgment; his perfect command of pure and lucid +English; his unfailing readiness in argument, invective, sarcasm, and +repartee; his indomitable courage, and the somewhat imperious dignity +of his manner, all marked him out for the position which he held. If +there was some truth in the common taunt that he was more a party +leader than a statesman, it must at least be remembered that he has +identified his name with several important measures, and that during +most of his career he was in a hopeless minority. His enemies accused +him of rashness, arrogance, and some superficiality, both of thought +and knowledge. They alleged that he carried too much of the sporting +spirit into politics; that his naturally excellent judgment was often +deflected by the passions of the fray; that he was accustomed to +judge measures more by their party advantages than by their intrinsic +merits, and to care more for an immediate triumph than for ultimate +results. + +His son was made in a very different mould. Though like most able and +clear-headed men he acquired by much practice a respectable facility +in purely extemporaneous argument, he was never a great debater. His +speeches were very carefully prepared, and they possessed conspicuous +merits of form as well as of matter, but they were not the speeches of +a brilliant orator. No one could reason more clearly, more powerfully, +or more persuasively. He was a supreme master of terse, luminous, +weighty, and accurate English. He had much skill in bringing into +vivid relief the salient points of an obscure and complicated subject, +condensing an argument into a phrase, and illustrating it by graphic +felicities of language that clung to the memory. But he hated +rhetoric. His enunciation was faulty and unimpressive. He appealed +solely to the reason, and never to passion or to prejudice, and he had +nothing of the fire and temperament of a party orator. Very few +politicians mastered so thoroughly the subjects with which they dealt. +No politician of his time retained so remarkably, amid party +conflicts, the power of judging questions from all their sides; of +balancing judicially opposing considerations; of looking beyond the +passions and interests of the hour; of realising the points of view of +those to whom he was opposed. Declamation, clap-trap, evasion, +ambiguities of thought and expression, empty plausibilities, unfair, +partial, and exaggerated statements, were all essentially repugnant to +that clear and sceptical intellect, to that sound, cautious, practical +judgment. His business talents were very great, and they were +assiduously cultivated. His appetite for work was insatiable. No one +knew better how to administer a great department or preside over a +Parliamentary Committee, or arbitrate in a difficult controversy, or +give wise and timely advice to an inexperienced organisation. It was +in these fields that his influence was, perhaps, most deeply felt. His +success in them did not depend merely on his unflagging industry and +his excellent judgment, it was also largely due to his eminently +conciliatory character. The uniform courtesy which he displayed to men +of all ranks and opinions is happily no rare thing among his class, +but everyone who was brought in contact with Lord Derby soon felt that +he was in the presence of one who tried to understand his position, to +estimate his arguments at their full worth, to find some common ground +of agreement. If it were possible in a bitter controversy to arrive at +reasonable compromise, Lord Derby was most likely to effect it. He had +a curious talent of making speeches with which everyone must agree, +and which at the same time were never commonplace. Their secret lay in +the habit of mind that led him always to seek out the common grounds +of principle or fact that underlie every controversy, and which in the +heat of the conflict the disputants had often failed to recognise. + +It was not difficult to forecast the place which a statesman of this +kind was likely to fill in English politics. He was plainly wanting in +many of the qualities of a party leader, and in most of the qualities +of a parliamentary gladiator, and he was not likely to succeed in all +forms of statesmanship. He would certainly not prove + + A daring pilot in extremity, + Pleased with the danger when the waves went high. + + + +His clear perception of the objections to any course, combined with a +very deep sense of responsibility, not unfrequently enfeebled his will +in moments when bold and decisive action was required, and there were +times when the love of compromise which was so useful an element in +his character seemed to his best friends too closely allied to +weakness. But he probably saved every party with which he acted from +many mistakes. He brought to every Government which he joined a very +eminent administrative capacity. He defended every policy that he +espoused with a persuasive reasoning that few men could equal. He was +a supremely skilful detector of false weights and of false measures. +Every fad, every new-born enthusiasm, every crude ill-digested theory, +found in him the calmest and most penetrating of critics, and he +inspired the great body of moderate men of all parties with a deep +confidence in his patriotism and in his judgment. + +His political position was marked out by the fact that his father had +recently broken away from the Whig connection which had hitherto been +that of his family, and was now the leader of the Conservative party. +The son naturally took his place under his father's banner, but I much +question whether he would have done so if no family influence had +interfered. It was not that he at any time changed considerably his +views. As Macaulay has truly said--while the extremes of the two +English parties are separated by a wide chasm, there is a frontier +line where they almost blend; and Lord Derby when a Conservative +always represented the Liberal, and when a Liberal the Conservative +wing of his party. But his mind had much of the Whig character; his +judgment was very independent; and on Church questions especially he +was never fully in harmony with his party. He was appointed +Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in his father's first +short Ministry in March 1852, at a time when he was travelling in +India, and he left office with his father in December of the same +year. In 1853 he made a remarkable speech on Indian affairs, in some +degree foreshadowing the Indian policy which he was afterwards +destined to take such a large part in carrying into effect. During the +next few years he spoke frequently on Indian and Colonial questions, +on questions connected with education, factories, and other +working-class interests, and he supported--often in opposition to the +majority of his party--a large number of reforms which have since been +accomplished. He advocated the introduction of competitive +examinations, first of all into the Diplomatic, and then into most +branches of the Civil Service. He spoke against the system of purchase +in the army, and served on a Royal Commission on the subject. He +supported a motion for securing to married women their property and +earnings. He took a decided part in opposition to Church rates. He +voted for the emancipation of the Jews. He voted and spoke in favour +of the Maynooth grant. He was an early advocate of the opening of +museums on Sundays, and of a conscience clause to be enforced in all +schools receiving State assistance. He supported the establishment of +the Divorce Court, and clearly showed that preference for social as +distinguished from political questions which he retained through his +whole life. He delighted in placing himself in touch with working men. +Mechanics' institutes, free libraries, almost every movement for the +education and improvement of the working class, found in him a steady +friend. He once wrote to Lord Shaftesbury: 'We are both public men +deeply interested in the condition of the working class, and for my +own part I would rather look back on services such as you have +performed for that class than receive the highest honours in the +employment of the State.' On working-class questions he was often +accused of Radicalism, but it was Radicalism of the old school, which +relied mainly for reform on spontaneous effort, on moral improvement, +and extended education, and was very jealous of State interference, +compulsion, and control. He had a great admiration for Mill's +writings, and especially for his treatise on Liberty, which he +described as 'one of the wisest books of our time.' Mill fully +reciprocated the feeling. He once spoke of Lord Stanley as 'one of the +very few English public men who hold that a politician's opinions +ought to be founded on principles.' + +'Our party,' wrote Lord Malmesbury in 1853, 'are angry with Disraeli, +which is constantly the case, and they are also displeased with Lord +Stanley, suspecting him to be coquetting with the Manchester party.' +Greville, nearly at the same time, expressed his belief that Lord +Stanley was taking 'a wise and liberal line,' and that he was 'pretty +sure to act a conspicuous part.' In November 1855 there was a critical +moment in his career, when Lord Palmerston, on the death of Sir +William Molesworth, offered Lord Stanley the post of Secretary of +State for the Colonies. He at once went down to Knowsley to consult +his father, who put a strong veto on the proposal, and the offer was +refused, but in terms which showed that it had been far from +unacceptable. It is probable that the refusal was a wise one, for +although on many home questions Lord Stanley would have found himself +more in harmony with moderate Liberals than with his own party, he +would certainly have dissented from Lord Palmerston's foreign policy. +During the Crimean war he seems to have sympathised with the views of +Bright and Cobden. He took an active part in an able but now nearly +forgotten Tory paper called 'The Press,' which was opposed to the war, +and his extreme horror of war and of every policy which could possibly +lead to war was one of his strongest characteristics. Responsibility +in office never weighed lightly upon him, but responsibility for +measures which led or might lead to bloodshed was more than he could +bear. + +At the time when this offer of Lord Palmerston was made, Lord Stanley +was little more than twenty-nine. Greville considered that he had +acted wisely in refusing, and he has given us an interesting account +of the light in which the young statesman then appeared to experienced +political judges. 'His position and abilities,' he said, 'are certain +before long to make him conspicuous, and to enable him to play a very +considerable part. He is exceedingly ambitious, of an independent turn +of mind, very industrious, and has acquired a vast amount of +information. Not long ago Disraeli gave me an account of him and of +his curious opinions--exceedingly curious in a man in his condition of +life and with his prospects. Last night Lord Strangford (George +Smythe) talked to me about him, expressed the highest opinion of his +capacity and acquirements, and confirmed what Disraeli had told me of +his notions and views even more, for he says that he is a real and +sincere democrat, and that he would like if he could to prove his +sincerity by divesting himself of his aristocratic character, and even +of the wealth he is heir to. How far this may be true I know not.... +Nothing appears to me certain but that he will play a considerable +part for good or for evil, but I cannot pretend to guess what it will +be. At present he seems to be more allied with Bright than with any +other public man, and as his disposition about the war and its +continuance is very much that of Bright it would have been difficult +for him to take office with Palmerston.' + +Lord Stanley had not long to wait for high office. His father formed +his second Administration in February 1858, and Lord Stanley was made +Colonial Secretary. He appears to have accepted the office with some +reluctance, and only because Sir E. Bulwer, for whom it was at first +intended, found that he could not secure his re-election. The +Government was a very weak one, and it opened with the worst +prospects. It was a Government in a minority. Its very existence +depended on the dissensions between Lord Palmerston and Lord John +Russell, and its first steps met with little favour either in the +House or in the country. The Indian Mutiny was now nearly suppressed, +and Lord Palmerston shortly before quitting office had pledged the +House of Commons to the policy of withdrawing the Government of India +from the East India Company and placing it directly under the Crown. +To carry this policy into effect was the first task of the new +Government. They introduced an Indian Bill which they were compelled +to withdraw, and then substituted for it a new Bill founded on +resolutions which were carried through the House of Commons. In May +the Government almost fell on account of the indiscreet publication of +a despatch of Lord Ellenborough, condemning a Proclamation of the +Governor-General, Lord Canning. A vote of censure was moved and would +certainly have been carried if Lord Ellenborough had not saved his +colleagues by resigning. He was President of the Board of Control, the +Office which then directed Indian affairs, and Lord Stanley took his +place, piloted the Indian Bill successfully through the House of +Commons, and when the measure became law, was the first Secretary of +State for India, and undertook the very important and responsible task +of beginning the new system of Indian Government. + +'The Times' noticed the singular good fortune of Lord Derby in being +able at this very critical moment to place his eldest son in one of +the most important Cabinet offices in his Ministry without incurring +from any side the smallest imputation of nepotism, and the skill and +success of the new administration of the India Office was speedily and +generally recognised. Greville tells us that Lord Stanley 'gained +golden opinions and great popularity at the India House'; and he gives +a striking instance of the firmness with which he maintained the full +authority of the new Council over Indian affairs. He adds: 'I was +prepared to hear of his ability, his indefatigable industry, and his +business qualities; but I was surprised to hear so much of his +courtesy, affability, patience, and candour; that he is neither +dictatorial nor conceited, always ready to listen to other people's +opinions and advice, and never fancying that he knows better than +anyone else. I afterwards told Jonathan Peel what I had heard and he +confirmed the truth of this report and said he was the same in the +Cabinet.' 'Lord Stanley,' Greville said, 'is so completely _the man_ +of the present day, and in all human probability is destined to play +so important and conspicuous a part in political life, that the time +may come when any details, however minute, of his early career will be +deemed worthy of recollection.' It is a characteristic fact that Lord +Stanley offered a seat on the Indian Council to John Stuart Mill, +which, however, that great writer declined. + +The disturbance in European politics which culminated in the French +declaration of war against Austria contributed to weaken still further +the feeble Ministry of Lord Derby. The Reform Bill caused profound +divisions in its ranks. Mr. Walpole and Mr. Henley resigned, and the +Government Bill was defeated in the spring of 1859. Lord Malmesbury +mentions that in the Cabinet divisions on that question Lord Stanley +supported the more democratic view, and that on one occasion he +threatened to resign if the measure were not made more liberal. He +defended the Bill in an elaborate speech, advocating such an +introduction of the working class to the franchise as would give them +a considerable but not a preponderating power. A general election +followed, and the Government gained several seats, but not sufficient +to give it a majority. The different fractions of the Opposition drew +together; on June 11 a vote of want of confidence was carried by a +majority of 13, and Lord Derby immediately resigned. + +In opposition Lord Stanley devoted himself chiefly to the class of +questions that had occupied him before his accession to office. He +served on the long Cambridge University Commission, and supported the +admission of Nonconformists to Fellowships. He was also warmly in +favour of the measure which made it possible for clergymen to free +themselves from their Orders and to adopt other professions. He +presided over the Commission on the Sanitary State of the Indian Army +and over the Commission on Patents. Like Disraeli, he displayed during +the American Civil War a reticence and reserve which contrasted very +favourably with the rash language of other leaders. + +In 1862 a curious episode occurred which showed at least the +widespread reputation that he had acquired. Prince Alfred having +refused the throne of Greece, the idea was for a short time +entertained of offering it to Lord Stanley. 'If he accepts,' Disraeli +wrote to his friend Mrs. Willyams, 'I shall lose a powerful friend and +colleague. It is a dazzling adventure for the house of Stanley, but +they are not an imaginative race, and I fancy they will prefer +Knowsley to the Parthenon and Lancashire to the Attic Plains.' 'The +Greeks really want to make my friend Lord Stanley their king. This +beats any novel; but he will not. Had I his youth I would not +hesitate, even with the earldom of Derby in the distance.' + +It does not appear that this proposal ever took a very serious form, +and if it had been made there is little doubt that Disraeli formed a +just forecast of what would have been the result. The death of Lord +Palmerston on October 18, 1865, gave a new turn to the political +kaleidoscope: Lord Russell became Prime Minister; the policy of reform +was pushed into the forefront, and the Reform Bill of 1866 speedily +produced a secession in the Liberal ranks and led to the downfall of +the Ministry. The feature of the Bill which specially lent itself to +attack was that it dealt solely with reduction of the franchise, +leaving the question of the distribution of seats to subsequent +legislation, and an amendment was moved by Lord Grosvenor to the +effect that no Bill for the reduction of the franchise should be +discussed till the whole scheme was before the House. This amendment +was seconded by Lord Stanley in a speech which Lord Malmesbury +pronounced to be 'the finest and most statesmanlike speech he ever +made.' In June the Government were beaten by a small majority on an +amendment of Lord Dunkellin substituting rating for rental; a few days +later Lord Russell resigned and Lord Derby for the third time became +Prime Minister. + +As on the two former occasions he was in a minority, though the +temporary secession of a portion of the Liberal party gave him a +precarious power. Once more, too, he took office amid the convulsions +of a European war, for the war of Prussia and Italy with Austria had +just begun. In the new Ministry Lord Stanley was Secretary for Foreign +Affairs. In his election address he gave the keynote of his policy by +insisting in the strongest terms that England should observe a strict +neutrality in European controversies. Her vast Indian and Colonial +Empire, he said, made her a world apart and threw upon her duties and +responsibilities that taxed all her energies. She had duties also to +her poorer classes at home, whose condition was not what we could +desire; and by simply existing as a free, prosperous, and +self-governed nation, we should do more for the real freedom of Europe +than by any policy of meddling or war. + +As far as his own department was concerned Lord Stanley's +administration during this short Ministry was both eminently +consistent and eminently successful. It is true that this pacific +Minister made the Abyssinian war for the release of some imprisoned +British subjects, but he only did this after every peaceful effort to +procure their release had proved abortive, and it was almost +universally recognised that there was no honourable alternative open +to him. During his ministry the Luxemburg question brought France and +Prussia to the very verge of war. It fell to the task of Lord Stanley +to mediate between them, and he did so with a success which certainly +adjourned, though it could not ultimately avert, the great catastrophe +that burst upon Europe in 1870. No success could have been more +gratifying to him, and he was fond of repeating the saying of Canning +that 'If a war must come sooner or later, for my part I prefer that it +should come later than sooner.' Lord Russell bore an ungrudging +testimony to the 'tact and discretion' Lord Stanley displayed in this +negotiation. In the same spirit he refused to take part in a +conference of European Powers which the French Emperor desired to +convene to settle the Roman question, declaring that this question was +one with which England should in no way meddle, and that a conference +would be useless and dangerous unless a basis were laid down before. +He refused to interfere in any way with the Cretan rebellion, and with +the impending disputes between Turkey and Greece. His abstention on +this question was blamed by some, but it met with the full approbation +of his great opponent, Lord Russell, who declared that 'he had acted +with much prudence and discretion.' He laid the foundation also of the +settlement of the long outstanding difficulty with America by +proposing to refer the Alabama question to arbitration, and he +negotiated a treaty on the subject, which, however, the Senate refused +to ratify. + +In all this he was very consistent. The same consistency cannot be +claimed for his support of a Reform Bill far more Radical than that +which his party had so recently rejected. In my own judgment it is +impossible to defend with success the conduct of the Derby Ministry on +this question, and although Lord Stanley took only a subsidiary part +in it, he cannot escape his share of the responsibility. The +difficulty of the position of the eldest son of the Prime Minister who +was taking this 'leap in the dark' was very great, and it must be +remembered that he had long been identified with the more democratic +wing of his party. After the great agitation that followed the +downfall of the Russell Ministry, he probably regarded a democratic +measure as inevitable, and it was the character of his mind to be very +ready to accept what he considered the inevitable, and to endeavour by +timely compromise to mitigate its effects. Lord Derby's health was now +completely broken, and on February 24, 1868, he resigned office, and +Disraeli became Prime Minister. + +Mr. Gladstone soon re-united the sundered sections of the Opposition +by raising the question of the Disestablishment of the Irish Church. +The resolutions asserting the expediency of this policy were +introduced into the House of Commons in April. Lord Stanley was put +forward as the principal opponent. His amendment expressed no opinion +about the merits of the proposed policy, but simply affirmed that it +was a question which ought to be reserved for a new Parliament which +was soon to be elected under an altered franchise. In his speech he +disclaimed any wish to maintain that the Irish Church Establishment +was what it ought to be, but urged that in the condition of Ireland a +merely destructive measure would do nothing but harm, that it would +serve no good purpose to attack the Establishment without laying down +the lines of a definite, constructive ecclesiastical policy, and that +it was absurd to launch such a question in the last session of an +expiring Parliament. The more ardent spirits of the Tory party +strongly censured the ambiguity of this defence, and the Government +were beaten by majorities of 56 and 60. The House of Commons was +dissolved in the autumn and a large Liberal majority returned. +Disraeli at once resigned without waiting for the assembling of +Parliament. + +In October 1869 the death of Lord Derby terminated the career of his +son in the House of Commons, and the following year added very greatly +to the happiness of his life by his marriage with the Dowager +Marchioness of Salisbury. His attitude in opposition is clearly shown +in his published speeches. He had no wish to see the Conservative +party again in office till they possessed an assured and homogeneous +majority, and he maintained that it should be their main object to +strengthen the influence of the more moderate section in the +Government. He believed that by habitually pursuing this policy they +would best prevent revolutionary changes, mitigate by wise compromises +measures which they did not wholly approve, secure the continuance of +the harmony of classes, on which more than on any other condition the +prosperity of England depends, and gradually strengthen their own hold +on the confidence of the country. It was also his earnest desire that +English politics should be turned as much as possible from a policy of +organic change to a policy of administrative reform. He considered it +a great evil that public men had acquired the habit of continually +tampering with the existing legislative machinery instead of wisely +using it for the benefit of the whole nation. The party system, as he +always thought, had falsified the perspective of English politics, +bringing into the foreground comparatively unimportant questions which +were well suited to rally parties and win majorities; thrusting into +the background others which were immeasurably more important, but +which were less available for party purposes. What Carlyle called 'The +Condition of England Question' was always in his thoughts. No one +would accuse him of under-rating the evils of war, but he questioned +whether the most sanguinary battle which had ever been fought carried +off nearly as many human beings as die in England every year from +purely preventible causes. He threw the whole force of his clear and +penetrating intellect into such questions as sanitary reform, the +regulation of mines, the promotion of education and especially +technical education, the organisation of charities, the treatment of +juvenile offenders, the diffusion of wise methods of encouraging +saving among the poor. The overcrowding of the great cities, and the +vast masses of insanitary dwellings, seemed to him one of the most +pressing dangers of the time, and he was a prominent member of nearly +every important company and association in England for improving the +houses of artisans. He had no puritanism in his nature and was very +anxious, by the establishment of free libraries and people's parks, +and Sunday opening of museums, to extend the range of innocent +pleasure. 'Men die,' he once said, 'for want of cheerfulness, as +plants die for want of light.' He did not believe in the repression of +drunkenness by coercive legislation like the Local Veto Bill, but he +believed that its true root lay in overcrowding, ignorance, insanitary +conditions of life, the want of innocent means of enjoyment, excessive +hours of labour. 'When you have to deal with men in masses,' he said, +'the connection between vice and disease is very close. With a low +average of popular health you will have a low average of national +morality and probably also of national intellect. Drunkenness and +vice of other kinds will flourish on such a soil, and you cannot get +healthy brains to grow on unhealthy bodies. Cleanliness and +self-respect grow together, and it is no paradox to affirm that you +tend to purify men's thoughts and feelings when you purify the air +they breathe.' He supported liberally the movement for establishing +coffee-houses, and he looked with great hope to the co-operative +movement as averting or mitigating industrial conflicts. 'The subject +of co-operation,' he said, 'is in my judgment more important as +regards the future of England than nine-tenths of those which are +discussed in Parliament, and around which political controversies +gather.' As the possessor of one of the largest properties in England +he was excellently informed on all agricultural questions, and he +exercised a great influence upon them. Among other services he +dispelled many misrepresentations by obtaining an accurate return of +the numbers of owners of land in the United Kingdom, and of the +quantity of land which they owned. + +With the single exception of Lord Shaftesbury, I believe no +conspicuous English public man devoted so much time and labour as Lord +Derby to the class of questions I have described. He brought to their +discussion an almost unrivalled fulness of knowledge. His purse was +liberally opened in such causes, and the speeches in which he examined +what Government can do and what it cannot do for the material +well-being of the poor, are in my judgment among the most valuable +contributions to political thought that have been furnished by any +English statesman during the present century. + +The election of 1874, bringing the Conservative party again into +power, called him to other fields, and he became for the second time +Foreign Secretary under Disraeli, and was soon involved in that +Eastern Question which led to his severance from the Conservative +party. It would answer no good purpose in a short sketch like the +present to rake up the still smouldering ashes of that controversy. +The time will come when it will be reviewed in the calm light of +history, and with the assistance of materials that are not now before +the public. I shall here content myself with a mere sketch. In the +earlier stages of their foreign policy the Government appear to have +been perfectly agreed. Lord Derby fully concurred in the purchase of +the Khedive's shares in the Suez Canal, which was one of the most +successful strokes of policy of the Government, though he defended it +on somewhat more prosaic grounds than some of its supporters, and was +careful to explain that it was essentially a measure of self-defence, +and not connected with any project for the dismemberment of Turkey or +the establishment of an English protectorate in Egypt. When the +insurrection broke out in 1875 in Herzegovina and Bosnia, neither Lord +Derby nor any of his colleagues believed it to be more than a mere +passing disturbance. But the feebleness manifested by the Turkish army +in suppressing the insurrection, and the partial bankruptcy of the +Government at Constantinople, contributed with many elements of race +and religious dissension, with foreign intrigue and local +misgovernment, to aggravate the sore, and the movement soon acquired +the dimensions of a great European danger. In sending an English +Consul in conjunction with the Consuls of the other Powers to the +scene of insurrection, in order, if possible, to arrive at a +mediation; in the acceptance of the Andrassy Note, by which the three +Imperial Powers laid down the reforms which they considered urgently +necessary; in the rejection of the Berlin Memorandum, on the ground +that the Porte could not or would not carry out its demands, and that +it would almost certainly lead to an armed intervention; and finally, +in sending the British fleet to Besika Bay for the purpose of +protecting English and Christian interests at Constantinople, at a +time when that city was in a state of almost complete anarchy, the +Government were fully agreed, and they carried with them an immense +majority in Parliament and in the country. For some time, also, the +country seemed to approve of the policy which Lord Derby uniformly +avowed and steadily observed, of maintaining a strict neutrality in +the contest that was raging; doing all that could be done by advice, +remonstrance, mediation, and moral influence to induce the Porte to +carry out internal reforms; warning the Turkish Government in clear +terms that under the circumstances of the case they must not look for +any military assistance from England, but at the same time +discouraging as much as possible the active interference of other +Powers in the affairs of Turkey, and abstaining rigidly from any step +that would involve the use of force or the chance of war unless some +serious English interest was affected. He believed that the integrity +of the Turkish Empire was a vital English interest, and that any +attempt to substitute a Slavonic for a Turkish Empire would bring upon +Europe calamities the extent of which it was impossible to exaggerate +or to foresee. Russia and Austria would at once come into collision; +England would almost certainly be drawn into the war, and all the +fierce elements of race hatred and religious fanaticism would be let +loose. + +For a time most English politicians seem to have agreed with him, and +his one great object was to bring about an armistice, a mediation, and +a peace. But the popular agitation which arose in England on the +subject of the Bulgarian atrocities in the summer and autumn of 1876 +added enormously to his difficulties, and the danger was the greater +because some skilful party management was blended with much genuine +philanthropy. The speeches addressed by Lord Derby to the successive +deputations that came to him, give the best explanation and defence of +his position during this critical period, and the interruptions to +which he had to reply give a vivid picture of the state of feeling +that had arisen. The Crimean war was now deplored as a calamity, if +not a crime. The Turks were described on high political authority as +'the one great anti-human specimen of humanity.' The Ministers were +accused of complicity in the Bulgarian massacres; they were urged to +cast neutrality to the wind; to adopt a policy of armed coercion in +Turkey; even to assist Russia in driving the Turks out of +Constantinople. It had become, as Lord Derby sarcastically said, a +very unpopular thing for an English Minister to talk of English +interests in connection with the Eastern Question--almost dangerous +for any man at a public meeting to express in plain terms his doubt of +the disinterested philanthropy of Russia. + +Lord Derby had at this time to encounter much unpopularity. He was +accused of an undue leaning towards the Turkish Government, and an +inadequate sympathy with the Christian populations, and it was alleged +that if he had acted in firm concert with the other Powers in coercing +the Porte--if he had not proclaimed so loudly and constantly his +determination to abstain from all active interference and +compulsion--his remonstrances would have had more effect, and he might +have averted or restricted the calamities that had occurred. But a +great change soon took place. The first object of the Government was +to prevent the Turkish disturbance from leading to a European war, and +in this object they failed. On April 24, 1877, Russia, in spite of +English remonstrances, declared war against Turkey. On the same day a +Russian army crossed the Pruth, and the Eastern Question entered into +a new and dangerous phase. + +To a statesman like Lord Derby, who maintained that war, unless it is +a necessity, is a crime; that the maintenance of peace is beyond all +comparison the greatest of British interests, the months that followed +were extremely trying. His first object was to limit the war, and to +safeguard English interests, and for this purpose he drew up on May 6, +1877, a Note defining the English interests that were vital in the +East. He warned the Russian Government that an attempt by Russia to +blockade the Suez Canal, an attack on Egypt, a Russian occupation of +Constantinople, or an alteration of the existing arrangements for the +navigation of the Bosphorus or the Dardanelles might compel England to +abandon her neutrality. Russia accepted these conditions, and for some +time there appeared every prospect of limiting the war. But in the +beginning of 1878 a period of extreme danger undoubtedly arrived. +Plevna had fallen. The Turkish resistance had collapsed. A Russian +army, flushed with victory, had advanced to near Constantinople. The +treaty of San Stephano was signed; which in the opinion of most +European statesmen placed Turkey at the feet of Russia, and Russia at +first refused to submit its terms to a conference of European Powers. +Public feeling in England now ran strongly in a direction almost +opposite to that in which it had been running eighteen months before, +and the nation was extremely alarmed at the danger of Constantinople +becoming speedily and irremediably a Russian port. On the other hand, +the national and military pride of the conquering Power was aroused, +and it was felt that a single false step, a single imprudent menace, +might lead to war. + +It was one of those moments in which men's judgments are largely +affected by their temperaments, and it soon became evident that the +Cabinet was seriously divided. Disraeli had now become Lord +Beaconsfield, and sat with his Foreign Secretary in the House of +Lords. With his character it was inevitable that he should meet the +danger by a bold, decisive, and even aggressive, policy. It was no +less natural that Lord Derby should have persistently leaned towards +the side of caution and shrunk from any measure that could cut short +negotiation and diminish the chances of peace. The order given that +the British Fleet should enter the Dardanelles, first produced the +inevitable schism, and Lord Derby and Lord Carnarvon resigned. The +order was countermanded, and Lord Derby, for a short time, resumed his +post. He acquiesced, but with great reluctance, in the vote of credit +for six millions which was at once brought before the House of +Commons, but he was soon convinced that measures he did not approve of +were impending, and when orders were given for calling out the +reserves he definitely resigned. + +He announced his resignation on March 28, 1878, in terms of much +dignity and moderation. He believed, he said, that his colleagues +desired peace as truly as himself, and he did not maintain that their +later measures led inevitably to war, but he considered that they were +neither necessary nor 'prudent in the interests of European peace.' +He agreed that the terms of the treaty should be submitted to a +European Congress, in which England should take part. On minor matters +he thought it his duty to waive his own opinion, but he could not do +so on a question involving the momentous issue of peace or war. The +threat involved in the last act of the Government, he said, in a later +speech, would make it more difficult for Russia to modify her policy, +and he believed that without a threat such a modification of the +treaty of San Stephano could be obtained as would make it acceptable. +He had been accused of indecision and even of cowardice. For his own +part he thought it needed more courage to stand up in his place to +express views which he knew to be unpopular among the great body of +his friends, than to sit at a desk in Downing Street and issue orders +which would bring no danger or unpopularity to himself, but might +bring about a European war. + +The short speech in which Lord Beaconsfield accepted the resignation, +and dwelt on the long friendship, personal as well as political, that +bound him to Lord Derby, seems to me a perfect model of good feeling +and good taste. Unfortunately the example of the Prime Minister was +not followed, and words used in a later debate went far to make the +breach irrevocable. + +Lord Derby for a short time maintained a neutral position, but the +foreign policy of Lord Beaconsfield was in the highest degree +distasteful to him. A wave of Chauvinism was passing over England, +which was utterly opposed to his views, and he believed that a section +of the Conservative party encouraged it in order to divert the +thoughts of men from internal reforms. He objected to the acquisition +of Cyprus, to some of the responsibilities assumed by England under +the treaty of Berlin, and very strongly to the Afghan war; and in the +beginning of 1880 he formally attached himself to the Liberal party, +on the ground of his objections to the foreign policy of the +Government. His speeches in his new capacity differed very little from +those which he had formerly delivered, but he said that he had learnt +to see more clearly the uselessness of attempting to resist popular +ideas, and to think 'more highly of the moderation, the fairness, and +the general justice with which masses of men, including all conditions +of life, are disposed to use their power.' He thought that England +should mix herself as little as possible with 'the sanguinary muddle' +of European diplomacy; that she should avoid increasing her +responsibilities; that she should take stringent measures to reduce +her debt; that she should pay much more attention than she was +accustomed to do to the condition of her own poorer population; and +that it should be the object of her statesmen to meet every great +popular demand by wise and equitable compromise. One of the greatest +dangers, he said, that could befall the country, would be 'a state of +things in which the comparatively harmless antagonism of parties would +be replaced by the far more serious and dangerous war of classes. From +that danger more than from any other it is the business of a +well-considered Liberalism to protect us.' + +In 1882 he accepted the Colonial Office from Mr. Gladstone, and held +it until the fall of the Government in the summer of 1885. His +ministry was not a very eventful one, and it was marked by that steady +adherence to a middle line which had always characterised him. He +congratulated the country that the indifference to our colonies which +had prevailed during his youth had passed away, but he was by no means +favourable to extensions of the Empire. 'We have quite black men +enough,' he was accustomed to say; and he believed that any increase +of our responsibilities was likely to endanger the Empire, and to +divert the energies of politicians from pressing home questions. He +did not condemn the policy which led to the occupation of Egypt by +England, but he declared that even if it was inevitable it was a +misfortune, and that we ought to 'see that we do not on any pretext, +however plausible, get that Egyptian millstone tied permanently round +our necks.' He was very sceptical about Imperial Federation, and +entirely incredulous about the possibility of an Imperial Zollverein. +He deplored the protectionism of the colonies, but was himself a +strict free-trader of the school of Cobden, and utterly opposed to any +attempt to negotiate treaties with the colonies on a basis of +preferential tariffs. On the other hand, he showed himself quite ready +to favour Confederation in Australia, and he accepted gratefully +Australian help in the Soudan, but he was much alarmed by tendencies +in some colonies which might lead to complications with foreign +Powers, and he incurred considerable unpopularity in Australia by +refusing to consent to the annexation by Queensland of New Guinea. + +There is, however, one incident in the colonial administration of Lord +Derby on which it is necessary to dwell at somewhat greater length, +for subsequent events have given it an unfortunate prominence and it +has thrown some discredit on his statesmanship. I allude, of course, +to the convention with the Transvaal in 1884. In the preceding +convention, which had been signed in August 1881, complete +self-government had been granted by England to the Transvaal 'subject +to the suzerainty of her Majesty' and her successors, and also to a +large number of carefully specified reservations and limitations. They +comprised the complete control of the external relations of the +Transvaal, including the conclusion of treaties and the conduct of +diplomatic intercourse with foreign Powers, which could only be +carried on through her Majesty's officers; the right of moving British +troops in case of necessity through the Transvaal; a power of veto +over all legislation affecting the interests of the native population. +A number of articles prohibited slavery in the new State; protected +with much detail the interests of the native population; secured +complete religious liberty; established the right of all persons other +than natives who conformed themselves to the laws of the State, to +enter, travel, and reside in any part of the Transvaal, to acquire +property and to carry on their business without being subject to any +other taxation than that which was imposed on the citizens of the +Transvaal; and placed British imports and exports on the same plane as +those of the most-favoured nations. The limits of the new State were +carefully defined and a British Resident was established in the +Transvaal to superintend the carrying out of these provisions. There +was no express provision in the convention for the political +privileges of the English residents in the Transvaal, but the +Government appear to have relied on a not very explicit verbal +assurance given to the British Commissioners by President Kruger in +May 1881. Asked about the rights of British subjects to complete free +trade throughout the Transvaal, President Kruger answered that before +the annexation 'they were on the same footing as the burghers'; that +'there was not the slightest difference in accordance with the Sand +River convention'; that this state of things would be continued and +that 'there would be equal protection for everybody.' Sir Evelyn Wood +then added, 'and equal privileges?' 'We make no difference,' answered +President Kruger, 'so far as burgher rights are concerned. There may +perhaps be some slight difference in the case of a young person who +has just come into the country.' It was subsequently explained that +the words 'young person' did not refer to age, but to the time of +residence in the Republic--according to the old Transvaal +Constitution, a year's residence in the Republic was necessary for +naturalisation. With this assurance the Government of 1881 appears to +have been content. They believed in words expressly sanctioned by Mr. +Gladstone, that the concession of limited independence to the +Transvaal by the convention of 1881 would 'provide for the full +liberty and equal treatment of the entire white population, guard the +interests of the natives, and promote harmony and good-will among the +various races in South Africa.'[43] As a matter of fact, the only +change in the political position of the English residents in the +Transvaal was that the period of naturalisation was extended from one +to five years--a change which appears to have produced little or no +commotion in the Republic. + +The convention of 1881 was, however, extremely unpopular among a large +section of the Boer population. Complete independence was their avowed +object, and in order to attain it their first task was to abolish the +suzerainty of Great Britain. Almost immediately after the convention +was signed, the limitations of the Transvaal established by the +convention were flagrantly disregarded by Transvaal filibusters, who +proceeded with the tacit and even with the avowed countenance of their +Government to place new sections of native territory under the +exclusive protectorate of the Transvaal Government;[44] and a +deputation, headed by President Kruger, came to England in 1883 for +the purpose of negotiating with the Colonial Office for the abolition +of the chief articles of the convention of 1881. They avowed with +complete frankness that absolute independence would alone satisfy +them, and that their desire was to revert to the Sand River convention +of 1852, by which this independence had been recognised. This demand +was absolutely rejected by the Imperial Government, but Lord Derby +attempted to meet the objections of the Transvaal leaders by +substituting for the articles of the convention of 1881 new articles +in several respects more favourable to the pretensions of the Boers. + +He, in the first place, made a sentimental concession to which it is +probable he attached little importance, but which was regarded by the +Boer population as a considerable step towards the achievement of +their independence. The term 'Transvaal State,' which was accepted in +the convention of 1881 as the designation of the new State, was +dropped and the old title of 'South African Republic' was revived and +recognised. The question of suzerainty was dealt with in a somewhat +ambiguous fashion. The new convention purported only to substitute new +articles in the place of those of the preceding convention; and it was +afterwards argued that the old preamble, which asserted at once the +internal independence of the Transvaal and the suzerainty of Great +Britain, remained in force. In fact, however, this preamble was +neither reprinted nor replaced in the new convention, and the term +'suzerainty,' which occurred in the original draft of the document, +was deliberately expunged--it is said by Lord Derby himself. He +considered the term wholly wanting in the precision which is desirable +in a treaty arrangement, that it was capable of many different degrees +of extension, and that the fact of the paramountcy of Great Britain +over the new State might be sufficiently established without the use +of an ambiguous word which excited the most bitter hostility in the +Transvaal. His own words in defending his conduct in the House of +Lords are perfectly clear. 'The word suzerainty,' he said, 'is a very +vague word, and I do not think it is capable of any precise legal +definition. Whatever we may understand by it, I think it is not very +easy to define. But I apprehend whether you call it a protectorate, or +a suzerainty, or the recognition of England as a paramount Power, the +fact is that a certain controlling power is retained when the State +which exercises this suzerainty has a right to veto any negotiation +into which the dependent State may enter with foreign Powers. Whatever +suzerainty meant in the convention of Pretoria (1881), the condition +of things which it implies still remains; although the word is not +actually employed, we have kept the substance. We have abstained from +using the word because it was not capable of legal definition, and +because it seemed to be a word which was likely to lead to +misconception and misunderstanding.' + +The articles of the previous convention relating to slavery, to native +rights, to free trade, to religious liberty, to the rights of +residence of foreigners in the Transvaal, reappear in the new +convention, and the limits of the State were somewhat more fully +defined, but the controlling power of Great Britain over the foreign +policy of the Transvaal, though clearly reasserted, was somewhat +limited in its scope. It was provided that the South African Republic +should conclude no treaty or engagement with any State or nation other +than the Orange Free State, or with any native tribe to the eastward +or westward of the Republic, until the same had been approved by the +Queen; that every such treaty should be at once submitted to her +Majesty's Government for her consent, but that this consent should be +presumed to have been granted if no notification to the contrary was +received within six months. The desire of the Transvaal authorities to +be recognised as representing an independent sovereign power was thus +distinctly rejected, and the English Government positively refused a +proposal to admit foreign arbitration in cases of dispute between +England and the Transvaal. + +This convention has been severely censured by later writers on the +ground of the insufficiency and ambiguity of its assertion of the +paramount authority of Great Britain over the Transvaal, and of its +failure to do anything to supply the great deficiency in the preceding +convention by an article securing political equality for the British +population within it. A few years later, when an immense English +immigration had taken place, not only with the consent but at the +express invitation of the Transvaal Government; when the English +element formed a large majority of the inhabitants of the State; when +they paid an enormous preponderance of its taxation, and were the +chief agents in developing its wealth and raising it from the position +of a very poor pastoral community into that of a great and wealthy +State, the Transvaal Government proceeded to impose upon the new +emigrants disqualifications and disabilities which were utterly +unknown when England conceded self-government to 'the inhabitants of +the Transvaal.' They completely deprived the vast majority of +political power or local self-government, and surrounded them at every +turn with the most irritating disabilities. The Transvaal became the +one part of South Africa where one white race was held in a position +of inferiority to another. At a time when perfect equality was enjoyed +by the Dutch population in our own colonies, the political +disqualification of the English race was made the very corner-stone of +the policy of the Transvaal Government. An annual revenue greatly in +excess of what was required for its internal government was raised +almost entirely from the taxation of an unrepresented class, to whom +the prosperity of the State was mainly due, and it was employed in +accumulating a great armament which could only be intended for use +against England and for maintaining the subjection of an English +population. + +This was the position to which the paramount Power in South Africa, +the Power which of its own free will had conceded a limited +independence to the Transvaal, found itself reduced. And yet it was +possible for the Boer Government to maintain that there was nothing in +all this legislation which was inconsistent with the terms of the +convention of 1884. + +I do not think that the justice of this criticism can be wholly +denied. The Transvaal authorities had already given clear intimation +of their desire to emancipate themselves from all British control, and +especially of their determination to disregard the limitations which +had been imposed on the expansion of their State. There is, however, +one very material fact to be remembered in judging the policy of Lord +Derby. At the time of the convention of 1884 the English population in +the Transvaal was a small, scattered, and powerless minority, and as +their numbers were far too scanty to make them a danger to the State, +there was not much reason to believe that the Transvaal authorities +would repudiate their own assurances and subject them to oppressive +disabilities. It was not until two years after the convention that the +vast gold-mines of the Transvaal were discovered and all the +conditions of the South African problem fundamentally changed. The +gigantic immigration that ensued reversed the proportion between the +two races. The revenue and the expenditure of the State multiplied +more than fifteen fold in little more than ten years.[45] The +Transvaal became the most powerful and wealthy State in South Africa, +and the great preponderance of the Outlander element in numbers, +wealth, energy, and industry rendered a conflict of races almost +inevitable. No statesman could have foreseen this change, and a +convention that might have allayed discontent if the gold-mines had +never been discovered, proved wholly inefficient to meet it. + +Though in a politician of the stamp of Lord Derby the change from a very +liberal conservatism to a very conservative liberalism involved little +real modification of opinion, it necessarily involved some change of +attitude, and on some questions he spoke with a freedom which would have +been impossible as a member of the Conservative party. On Church +questions, for example, while strongly maintaining that the country was +not ripe for the disestablishment of the Church in England, he declared +that in his opinion the exclusive alliance of one religious denomination +among many with the State could not be permanently maintained side by +side with a democratic representation--that disestablishment and at +least partial disendowment must ultimately come; that if the +representatives of Scotland desired the disestablishment of their +Church, it was not for Englishmen to oppose them; and that Wales had a +strong claim to be separately dealt with. 'The Welsh people constitute +in many respects a distinct nationality, and I do not see why we should +refuse to Welsh loyalty what we have granted to Irish sedition.' On the +subject of endowments indeed as early as 1875 his view was that of most +moderate Liberals. 'To my mind, so far as right is concerned, the +Legislature may do what it chooses in regard to any endowment, without +injustice, provided only that the rights of living individuals are +respected. How far it is politic to use that power is another matter.... +Respect the founder's object, but use your own discretion as to the +means. If you don't do the first, you will have no new endowments. If +you neglect the last, those which you have will be of no use.'[46] He +maintained that the question of local government had in England become +one of pressing importance, and that the administration of county +affairs must be put into the hands of elective bodies. He would give +those local parliaments very large power--but he most urgently insisted +on the importance of one restriction. The new bodies must not be given +an unlimited power of mortgaging the future. The gradual reduction of +the National Debt had been for some years one of the chief aims of +enlightened politicians, but all that had been done in this direction +would be undone if, side by side with the National Debt, there grew up a +municipal debt of perhaps equal amount. In this tendency to municipal +extravagance he saw one of the gravest menaces to property. 'The growth +of Socialism throughout Europe has followed very closely on the gigantic +increase of national indebtedness during the present century, and men +who begin to feel the pressure intolerable are apt to raise questions, +more easily stated than solved, as to the right of any State to impose +burdens in perpetuity for the benefit of one generation.' He urged that +every local body which contracted a debt should be under a statutory +obligation to provide for its repayment in fifty or sixty years at +latest. + +The growth of municipal indebtedness; the excessive tendency to +increase the functions of the State; the disaffection of Ireland and +the contingency of an isolated and disloyal body of some eighty Irish +representatives offering their services to any party which would +consent to carry out their designs, appeared to Lord Derby the chief +dangers of English domestic politics. The last danger was very +speedily realised, and the sudden conversion of Mr. Gladstone to Home +Rule produced one more change in the attitude of Lord Derby. On this +question he had never flinched or wavered, and he at once took his +place in the front rank of the Liberal Unionists, whom for some time +he led in the House of Lords. I do not know that the Unionist case has +ever been more powerfully put forward than in his speeches on the +subject, and the eminently judicial character of his mind, and his +entire freedom from all mere party bias, gave a special weight to his +advocacy. With this exception he took little part in party politics +during the last years of his life, but he devoted himself largely to +social questions, and among other things served with great assiduity +and ability on the Labour Commission. His last speech was delivered at +Manchester on the unveiling of the statue of Mr. Bright in October +1891. His last public work was that of presiding over the Labour +Commission in May 1892. In the preceding year an attack of influenza, +followed by a relapse, had shattered a health which had hitherto been +robust. Other complications ensued, and he passed away at Knowsley on +April 21, 1893, in his sixty-seventh year. + +The foregoing sketch will, I hope, have given a sufficient idea of his +public character. Few men have made a greater sacrifice of ambition to +a conscientious conviction than he did, when, rather than support a +measure which might lead to war, he abandoned the Conservative +Ministry in 1878. He was then the fully recognised successor of Lord +Beaconsfield, and if he had adopted a different course he would in a +short time have been, beyond all doubt, Prime Minister of England. On +the whole, however, the severance from old friends cost him, I +believe, far more than the sacrifice of his political prospects. +Whatever he may have been in his youth, he was certainly not in mature +life an ambitious man. With the great position he held in England the +world had little to offer him, and the self-knowledge which was not +the least of his many remarkable gifts showed him that party conflict +was not the sphere in which Nature intended him to move. With many of +the qualities of the highest statesmanship he wanted some necessary +ingredients of a great statesman. He wanted the power of appealing to +the imagination and moving the passions. He wanted more decision of +character, more power of initiative, more capacity of bearing lightly +the weight of a great responsibility. His belief that the House of +Lords must always ultimately yield to the House of Commons aggravated +a weakness of resolution which was deeply rooted in his nature. There +were moments when his inveterate moderation tended to exasperate, and +he was accused, not altogether without reason, of sometimes making +admirable speeches, pointing out in the clearest terms all the evils +and dangers of a measure, and then concluding by exhorting the House +of Lords to vote for it, introducing mitigating amendments in +Committee. The measures he treated in this way usually, as he had +predicted, became law, but this was not the attitude of a great +leader. During a considerable part of his career, like a very large +proportion of moderate men in England, he was in the embarrassing +position of agreeing substantially with the home policy of one party +and with the foreign policy of the other. After the death of Lord +Palmerston an element of passion was infused into public life which +was very uncongenial to his temperament, and English politics passed +into phases in which caution, character, judgment, and knowledge were +less prized than brilliant strokes that appealed to the popular +imagination, clever coalitions, a skilful barter of principles for +votes. In spheres governed by such methods Lord Derby was very useful, +but he was not likely to play a foremost part. + +To few men who have taken a conspicuous part in active politics was +the excitement of such an existence so little necessary. Happy in his +domestic life and in a companionship and sympathy which were +all-sufficient to him, he was not less happy in the wide range of his +interests and duties. The administration of his vast estate would have +been more than sufficient to tax the energies of most men, and it +was, I believe, universally acknowledged that it was admirably +administered. In the everyday affairs of practical life he had no +indecision, and he judged swiftly with the clearest of judgments. +Nothing about him was more remarkable than the apparent ease and the +absence of all hurry and confusion with which he could deal with many +different forms of work. His study in its perfect neatness was more +like a lady's boudoir than the workshop of a very busy man. _Ohne +Hast, ohne Rast_, might have been his motto. He had much belief in the +future of English land, and was not, I think, at all exempt from the +great English landlord's foible of adding field to field. In the long +period of agricultural depression it was easy for a rich man to do so. +'In my experience,' he used to say, 'in nine cases out of ten it is +Naboth who comes to Ahab and begs him to buy his vineyard.' Certainly +no one had reason to complain, for there were few better or more +popular landlords than Lord Derby. In many long walks with him through +his property I was always struck with the evident pleasure with which +he was welcomed by his people, the fulness of knowledge and the +kindness of interest with which he inquired into the circumstances of +every tenant. It is characteristic of him that only two days before +his death he was giving instructions for building a hospital for the +sick poor of Knowsley. I have known few men in whom the desire to make +everyone about them happy was so strongly and so clearly marked. He +was fond of looking minutely into the circumstances of men of +different classes, and comparing their wants with their means, often +with somewhat whimsical results. There was a tradesman who made +regularly 5_l._ a week; who was accustomed every week to devote 2_l._ +to his household expenses, to lay by 2_l._, and to employ the +remainder in getting drunk. He was, Lord Derby thought, the only man +he had ever known who satisfied all his wants with 40 per cent. of his +income, who always laid by 40 per cent., and who expended 20 per cent. +on his pleasures. + +Outside his property Lord Derby had strong county interests. With +perhaps the exception of Birmingham there is no part of England where +a distinctive local patriotism is so intensely developed as in +Lancashire, and Lord Derby in tastes and character was pre-eminently a +Lancashire man, very proud of the greatness, and deeply concerned in +the interests, of his county. In all the vicissitudes of his career, +Liverpool, I believe, never wavered in its attachment to him. He +contributed to the many charitable and philanthropic works with which +he was concerned not only much money, but also--what in so rich a man +was far more meritorious--an extraordinary amount of time and patient +supervision. Among the many offices he accepted, was president of the +Literary Fund for dispensing charity to needy authors, and on the +committee of that charity I had, during many years, ample opportunity +of observing how far he was from treating a presidential position as a +sinecure. The regularity of his attendance, the constant attention he +paid to every detail of the charity; the infinite pains which he would +bestow upon obscure cases of distress, marked him out as a model +president, and many of those whom our rules did not allow us to help +were assisted by his bounty. He contributed with a large but +discriminating generosity to many causes that were conspicuous in the +eyes of the world, but his special bias was towards unostentatious +and unobserved benevolence, and crowds of obscure men in obscure +positions were assisted by him. + +Those who did not know him, and those who had come in merely casual +contact with him, sometimes formed a false impression of his +character. He had a great deal of natural shyness. He had very little +of the gift of small talk. On occasions of mere show and in +uncongenial atmospheres he was apt to be awkward and embarrassed, and +when walking by himself he was extremely absent and quite capable of +brushing against his oldest friend with a complete unconsciousness of +his presence. These traits sometimes gave rise to natural +misinterpretations, which a fuller knowledge always dispelled. No one +who knew Lord Derby could fail to feel that his nature was one of the +most genuine and transparent simplicity, singularly free from all +tinge of arrogance, superciliousness, and acrimony. His personal +tastes were exceedingly simple, and there was not a particle of +ostentation in his character. He delighted in a quiet country life and +had a strong sense of natural beauty. In his youth he had been an +ardent mountaineer, and in later life he had few greater pleasures +than to watch the growth of his plantations. He calculated that he had +planted in his lifetime about two million of trees. + +He was among the best-read men I have ever known. His private library +was one of the finest in England, and he took a keen interest in it. A +love of sumptuous, large-paper editions was indeed one of the very few +luxuries in which from mere personal taste he greatly indulged. Like +all men of literary tastes he had his limitations. German was a closed +book to him. Theology and metaphysics were conspicuous by their +absence. He was certainly not drawn to the mystical, the +unintelligible, or the morbid, either in imaginative or speculative +literature, and although he was a great lover and great buyer of +water-colour pictures, I do not think he had much real sense or +knowledge of art. But he had read very extensively and with great +profit and discrimination in many widely different fields, and his +memory was unusually retentive. He was an excellent literary critic, +and if clear thought and accurate knowledge were what he most valued, +it would be a complete mistake to suppose that he was insensible to +the poetic and imaginative side of literature. He could repeat long +passages from 'Childe Harold,' and I can well remember the delight +which he took in the picturesque narrative of Mr. Froude, and in the +fiery verses of Sir Alfred Lyall. + +He was one of the kindest and most gracious of hosts, and his genuine +unforced good nature and good humour drew to him many whose tastes and +sympathies were widely different from his own. Nature certainly never +intended him for a sportsman, but he preserved game extensively and +until the last years of his life usually went out with his guests. 'I +rather like shooting,' he once said to me, 'it prevents the necessity +of general conversation.' Among kindred spirits, however, his own +conversation was eminently attractive. His wide knowledge both of +books and men, his vast range of political anecdote, his experience of +so many statesmen and offices and departments of life, made it +singularly instructive. He was a very shrewd, and at the same time a +very kind, judge of character; and he had a power, which is certainly +not common, of fully appreciating merits that are allied with great +and manifest defects. He had much quaint, dry humour, and a great +happiness of expression; and one always felt that his opinions were +genuinely thought out--that they were voices and not echoes. His +private conversation had the quality that I have noticed in his +public speeches, of grasping at once the essential elements of a +question and disencumbering it from accessories and details. It is one +of the qualities that add most to the charm of conversation, and, with +the exception of Lord Russell, I do not think I have met with anyone +who possessed it to a greater degree than Lord Derby. He delighted in +long walks with one or two friends, and he might be seen to great +advantage in some small dining-clubs which play a larger part than is +generally recognised in the best English social life of our time. He +had been a member of Grillion's for thirty-seven years, but the +society to which he was most attached was, I think, 'The Club' which +was founded by Johnson and Reynolds. During the nineteen years of +which I can speak from personal experience, he was an almost constant +attendant, and certainly no other member enjoyed a greater popularity +in it, or contributed more largely to its charm. + +He hated cant of all kinds, and had a great distrust of ostentatious +professions of lofty motives. He disliked, I think greatly, the habit +of dragging sacred names into party speeches, and attributing every +party manoeuvre to a solemn sense of duty. Language of this kind +will never be found in his speeches, but I have known few men who were +governed through life more steadily though more unobtrusively by a +sense of duty. He always tried to look facts in the face, and to +promote in the many spheres which he could influence the real +happiness of men. There have been statesmen among his contemporaries +of greater power and of more brilliant achievement. There has been, I +believe, no statesman of sounder judgment and more disinterested +patriotism; there have been very few whose departure has left a void +in so many spheres. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[43] See, on this subject, Cook's _Rights and Wrongs of the Transvaal +War_, pp. 260-265. + +[44] See Westlake's _L'Angleterre et les Républiques Boers_, pp. 30-31. + +[45] See the table of revenue and expenditure in Fitzpatrick's +_Transvaal from Within_, p. 71. + +[46] Inaugural address at Edinburgh University. + + + + +HENRY REEVE, C.B., F.S.A., D.C.L. + + +Although it has never been the custom of the 'Edinburgh Review' to +withdraw the veil of anonymity from its writers and its +administration, it would be mere affectation to suffer it to appear +before the public without some allusion to the great editor whom we +have just lost,[47] and who for forty years has watched with +indefatigable care over its pages. + +The career of Mr. Henry Reeve is perhaps the most striking +illustration in our time of how little in English life influence is +measured by notoriety. To the outer world his name was but little +known. He is remembered as the translator of Tocqueville, as the +editor of the 'Greville Memoirs,' as the author of a not quite +forgotten book on Royal and Republican France, showing much knowledge +of French literature and politics; as the holder during fifty years of +the respectable, but not very prominent, post of Registrar of the +Privy Council. To those who have a more intimate knowledge of the +political and literary life of England, it is well known that during +nearly the whole of his long life he was a powerful and living force +in English literature; that few men of his time have filled a larger +place in some of the most select circles of English social life; and +that he exercised during many years a political influence such as +rarely falls to the lot of any Englishman outside Parliament, or even +outside the Cabinet. + +He was born at Norwich in 1813, and brought up in a highly cultivated, +and even brilliant, literary circle. His father, Dr. Reeve, was one of +the earliest contributors to the 'Edinburgh Review.' The Austins, the +Opies, the Taylors, and the Aldersons were closely related to him, and +he is said to have been indebted to his gifted aunt, Sarah Austin, for +his appointment in the Privy Council. The family income was not large, +and a great part of Mr. Reeve's education took place on the Continent, +chiefly at Geneva and Munich. He went with excellent introductions, +and the years he spent abroad were abundantly fruitful. He learned +German so well that he was at one time a contributor to a German +periodical. He was one of the rare Englishmen who spoke French almost +like a Frenchman, and at a very early age he formed friendships with +several eminent French writers. His translation of the 'Democracy in +America,' by Tocqueville, which appeared in 1835, strengthened his +hold on French society. Two years later he obtained the appointment in +the Privy Council, which he held until 1887. It was in this office +that he became the colleague and fast friend of Charles Greville, who +on his death-bed entrusted him with the publication of his 'Memoirs.' + +Mr. Reeve had now obtained an assured income and a steady occupation, +but it was far from satisfying his desire for work. He became a +contributor, and very soon a leading contributor, to the 'Times,' +while his close and confidential intercourse with Mr. Delane gave him +a considerable voice in its management. The penny newspaper was still +unborn, and the 'Times' at this period was the undisputed monarch of +the Press, and exercised an influence over public opinion, both in +England and on the Continent, such as no existing paper can be said +to possess. It is, we believe, no exaggeration to say that for the +space of fifteen years nearly every article that appeared in its +columns on foreign politics was written by Mr. Reeve, and the period +during which he wrote for it included the year 1848, when foreign +politics had the most transcendent importance. + +The great political influence which he at this time exercised +naturally drew him into close connection with many of the chief +statesmen of his time. With Lord Clarendon especially his friendship +was close and confidential, and he received from that statesman almost +weekly letters during his viceroyalty in Ireland and during others of +the more critical periods of his career. In France, Mr. Reeve's +connections were scarcely less numerous than in England. Guizot, +Thiers, Cousin, Tocqueville, Villemain, Circourt--in fact, nearly all +the leading figures in French literature and politics during the reign +of Louis Philippe were among his friends or correspondents. He was at +all times singularly international in his sympathies and friendships, +and he appears to have been more than once made the channel of +confidential communications between English and French statesmen. + +It was a task for which he was eminently suited. The qualities which +most impressed all who came into close communication with him were the +strength, swiftness, and soundness of his judgment, and his unfailing +tact and discretion in dealing with delicate questions. He was +eminently a man of the world, and had quite as much knowledge of men +as of books. Probably few men of his time have been so frequently and +so variously consulted. He always spoke with confidence and authority, +and his clear, keen-cut, decisive sentences, a certain stateliness of +manner which did not so much claim as assume ascendancy, and a +somewhat elaborate formality of courtesy which was very efficacious in +repelling intruders, sometimes concealed from strangers the softer +side of his character. But those who knew him well soon learnt to +recognise the genuine kindliness of his nature, his remarkable skill +in avoiding friction, and the rare steadiness of his friendships. + +One great source of his influence was the just belief in his complete +independence and disinterestedness. For a very able man his ambition +was singularly moderate. As he once said, he had made it his object +throughout life only to aim at things which were well within his +power. He had very little respect for the judgment of the multitude, +and he cared nothing for notoriety and not much for dignities. A +moderate competence, congenial work, a sphere of wide and genuine +influence, a close and intimate friendship with a large proportion of +the guiding spirits of his time, were the things he really valued, and +all these he fully attained. He had great conversational powers, which +never degenerated into monologue, a singularly equable, happy, and +sanguine temperament, and a keen delight in cultivated society. These +characteristics showed conspicuously in two small and very select +dining-clubs which have included most of the distinguished English +statesmen and men of letters of the century. He became a member of the +Literary Society in 1857 and of Dr. Johnson's Club in 1861, and it is +a remarkable evidence of the appreciation of his social tact that both +bodies speedily selected him as their treasurer. He held that position +in 'The Club' from 1868 till within a year of his death, when failing +health and absence from London obliged him to relinquish it. The +French Institute elected him 'Correspondant' in 1863 and Associated +Member in 1888, in which latter dignity he succeeded Sir Henry Maine. +In 1869 the University of Oxford conferred on him the honorary degree +of D.C.L. + +It was in 1855, on the death of Sir George Cornewall Lewis, that he +assumed the editorship of the 'Edinburgh Review' which he retained +till the day of his death. Both on the political and the literary side +he was in full harmony with its traditions. His rare and minute +knowledge of recent English and foreign political history; his vast +fund of political anecdote; his personal acquaintance with so many of +the chief actors on the political scene, both in England and France, +gave a great weight and authority to his judgments, and his mind was +essentially of the Whig cast. He was a genuine Liberal of the school +of Russell, Palmerston, Clarendon, and Cornewall Lewis. It was a sober +and tolerant Liberalism, rooted in the traditions of the past, and +deeply attached to the historical elements in the Constitution. The +dislike and distrust with which he had always viewed the progress of +democracy deepened with age, and it was his firm conviction that it +could never become the permanent basis of good government. Like most +men of his type of thought and character, he was strongly repelled by +the later career of Mr. Gladstone, and the Home Rule policy at last +severed him definitely from the bulk of the Liberal party. From this +time the present Duke of Devonshire was the leader of his party. + +His literary judgments had much analogy to his political ones. His +leanings were all towards the old standards of thought and style. He +had been formed in the school of Macaulay and Milman, and of the great +French writers under Louis Philippe. Sober thought, clear reasoning, +solid scholarship, a transparent, vivid, and restrained style were the +literary qualities he most appreciated. He was a great purist, +inexorably hostile to a new word. In philosophy he was a devoted +disciple of Kant, and his decided orthodoxy in religious belief +affected many of his judgments. He could not appreciate Carlyle; he +looked with much distrust on Darwinism and the philosophy of Herbert +Spencer and he had very little patience with some of the moral and +intellectual extravagances of modern literature. But, according to his +own standards and in the wide range of his own subjects, his literary +judgment was eminently sound, and he was quick and generous in +recognising rising eminence. In at least one case the first +considerable recognition of a prominent historian was an article in +the 'Edinburgh Review' from his pen. + +He had a strong sense of the responsibility of an editor, and +especially of the editor of a Review of unsigned articles. No article +appeared which he did not carefully consider. His powerful +individuality was deeply stamped upon the Review, and he carefully +maintained its unity and consistency of sentiments. It was one of the +chief occupations and pleasures of his closing days, and the very last +letter he dictated referred to it. + +Time, as might be expected, had greatly thinned the circle of his +friends. Of the France which he knew so well scarcely anything +remained, but his old friend and senior Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire +visited him at Christ Church, and he kept up to the end a warm +friendship with the Duc d'Aumale. He spent his eightieth birthday at +Chantilly, and until the very last year of his life he was never +absent when the Duke dined at 'The Club.' In Lord Derby he lost the +statesman with whom in his later years he was most closely connected +by private friendship and political sympathy, while the death of Lady +Stanley of Alderley deprived him of an attached and lifelong friend. + +Growing infirmities prevented him in his latter days from mixing much +in general society in London, but his life was brightened by all that +loving companionship could give; his mental powers were unfaded, and +he could still enjoy the society of younger friends. He looked forward +to the end with a perfect and a most characteristic calm, without fear +and without regret. It was the placid close of a long, dignified, and +useful life. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[47] Mr. Reeve died October 21, 1895.--ED. + + + + +HENRY HART MILMAN, D.D., DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S. + + +The great prominence which the High Church movement has assumed in the +ecclesiastical history of England during the second and third quarters +of the nineteenth century, and the extraordinary success with which it +has permeated the Established Church by its influence, have led some +writers to exaggerate not a little the place which it occupied in the +general intellectual development of the time. In the universities, it +is true, it long exercised an extraordinary influence, and Mr. +Gladstone, who was by far the most remarkable layman whom it +profoundly influenced, was accustomed to say that for at least a +generation almost the whole of the best intellect of Oxford was +controlled by it. It possessed in Newman a writer of most striking and +undoubted genius. In an age remarkable for brilliancy of style he was +one of the greatest masters of English prose. His power of drawing +subtle distinctions and pursuing long trains of subtle reasoning made +him one of the most skilful of controversialists, and he had a great +insight into spiritual cravings and an admirable gift of interpreting +and appealing to many forms of religious emotion. But though he was a +man of rare, delicate, and most seductive genius, we have sometimes +doubted whether any of his books are destined to take a permanent and +considerable place in English literature. He was not a great scholar, +or an original and independent thinker. Dealing with questions +inseparably connected with historical evidence, he had neither the +judicial spirit nor the firm grasp of a real historian, and he had +very little skill in measuring probabilities and degrees of evidence. +He had a manifest incapacity, which was quite as much moral as +intellectual, for looking facts in the face and pursuing trains of +thought to unwelcome conclusions. He often took refuge from them in +clouds of casuistry. The scepticism which was a marked feature of his +intellect allied itself closely with credulity, for it was directed +against reason itself; and though he has expressed in admirable +language many true and beautiful thoughts, the glamour of his style +too often concealed much weakness and uncertainty of judgment and much +sophistry in argument. + +Many of those who co-operated with him were men of great learning and +distinguished ability. No one will question the patristic knowledge of +Pusey, the metaphysical acumen of Ward, the genuine vein of religious +poetry in Keble and Faber, the wide accomplishments and scholarly +criticism of Church. But on the whole the broad stream of English +thought has gone in other directions. In politics the Oxford movement +had brilliant representatives in Gladstone and Selborne, but the ideal +of the relations of Church and State and the ideal of education to +which the Oxford school aspired, have been absolutely discarded. The +universities have been secularised. The Irish Established Church, +which it was one of the first objects of the party to defend, has been +abolished by Gladstone himself, and although the English Established +Church retains its hold on the affections of the nation, it is +defended by its most skilful supporters on very different grounds and +by very different arguments from those which were put forward by the +Oxford divines. Among the foremost names in lay literature during the +fifty years we are considering, it is curious to observe how few were +even touched by the movement. Froude is an exception, but he speedily +repudiated it. The mediæval sympathies that were sometimes shown by +Ruskin sprang from a wholly different source. Macaulay, Carlyle, +Hallam, Grote, Mill, Buckle, Tennyson, Browning, and the great +novelists, from Dickens to George Eliot, all wrote very much as they +might have written if the movement had never existed. An unusual +proportion of the best intellect of England passed into the fields of +physical science, and the methods of reasoning and habits of thought +which they inculcated were wholly out of harmony with the school of +Newman, while both geology and Darwinism have made serious incursions +into long-cherished beliefs. Even in the Church itself, though the +High Church movement was stronger than any other, great deductions +have to be made. The school of independent Biblical criticism, which +in various degrees has come to be generally accepted, certainly owed +nothing to it, and several of the most illustrious Churchmen of this +period were wholly alien to it. Thirlwall and Merivale were +conspicuous examples, but they devoted themselves chiefly to great +works of secular history. Arnold--who was one of the strongest +personal influences of his age, and whose influence was both +perpetuated and widened by Dean Stanley--and Whately, who was one of +the most independent and original thinkers of the nineteenth century, +were strongly antagonistic. In the field of ecclesiastical history it +might have been expected that a school which was at once so scholarly +and so wedded to tradition would have been pre-eminent, but no +ecclesiastical histories which England has produced can, on the whole, +be placed on as high a level as those which were written by the great +Broad Church divine whose name stands at the head of this article. + +Milman was, indeed, a man well deserving of commemoration on account +of the works which he produced, yet it is perhaps not too much to say +that to those among whom he lived the man seemed even greater than his +works. For many years he was a central and most popular figure in the +best English literary society, and he reckoned most of the leading +intellects of his day among his friends. He was in an extraordinary +degree many-sided, both in his knowledge and his sympathies. He was an +admirable critic, and the eminent sanity of his judgment, as well as +the eminent kindness of his nature, combined with a great charm both +of manner and of conversation. Few men of his time had more friends, +and were more admired, consulted, and loved. + +Mr. Arthur Milman has sketched his father's life in one short +volume,[48] written in excellent English and with uniformly good +taste. We have read it with much interest, yet in laying it down it is +impossible not to be sensible how much of the personal charm which was +so conspicuous in its subject has passed beyond recovery. More than +thirty years have gone by since the old Dean was laid in his grave, +and but few of those who knew him intimately survive. He appears to +have kept no journal. He wrote nothing autobiographical, and he had a +strong sense of the chasm that should separate private from public +life. It was wholly contrary to his unegotistical nature to make the +great public the confidant of his domestic affairs or of his inner +feelings, and he was deeply sensible of the injustice which is so +often done by biographers in printing unguarded, unqualified opinions +and judgments, expressed in the freedom of private correspondence. He +acted sternly on this view. Many of the foremost men in England were +among his correspondents, but he deliberately burnt their letters. 'I +could never bear,' we have heard him say, 'that what was written to me +by dear friends in the most unreserved and absolute confidence should, +through my fault, be one day dragged before the public.' This +reticence and this strong feeling of the sanctity of friendship and +private correspondence, which is now becoming very rare, was one of +his most characteristic traits, but it has necessarily deprived his +biography of many elements of interest. + +He was the youngest son of Sir Francis Milman, the well-known +physician of George III. He was born in 1791, and educated at Eton and +Oxford, where he soon distinguished himself as one of the most +brilliant of students. He won the Newdigate in 1812, the Chancellor's +prize for Latin verse in 1813, the prize for English and Latin essays +in 1816. He obtained a first class in classics, and in 1815 he was +elected a Fellow of his college. He was ordained in the following +year, and a year later Lord Eldon, who was then Chancellor of the +university, nominated him to the vicarage of St. Mary at Reading, +where he spent eighteen happy and fruitful years. Like most young and +brilliant men, he first turned to verse, and for several years he +poured out in rapid succession a number of dramas and poems which have +been collected in three substantial volumes. The tragedy of 'Fazio' +was written when he was still at Oxford, and it was speedily followed +by a long and ambitious epic poem called 'Samor, Lord of the Bright +City'; by three elaborate sacred dramas, the 'Fall of Jerusalem,' the +'Martyr of Antioch,' and 'Belshazzar'; and by an historical tragedy on +'Anne Boleyn,' as well as by a few minor poems. + +Some of these works had considerable popularity. 'Fazio' for many +years held its place on the stage. Byron, in one of his letters to +Rogers, speaks of its 'great and deserved success' when it was brought +out at Covent Garden. Its heroine was a favourite part of Miss O'Neil +and of Fanny Kemble. It was translated into Italian by Del Ongaro for +Ristori, who acted it with admirable power, and there was also a +French translation or adaptation in which Mademoiselle Mars took part. +The 'Fall of Jerusalem' was never intended for the stage, but it had a +great literary success. Murray, who had given only a hundred and fifty +guineas for 'Fazio,' gave five hundred for the 'Fall of Jerusalem,' +and he gave the same sum both for the 'Martyr of Antioch' and for +'Belshazzar,' which succeeded it. Neither of these, however, proved as +popular as the 'Fall of Jerusalem,' but the 'Martyr of Antioch' +contains that noble funeral ode beginning 'Brother, thou art gone +before us, and thy saintly soul is flown,' which is familiar to +numbers who are probably not aware of its authorship. It is worthy of +notice that as recently as 1880 Sir Arthur Sullivan set the 'Martyr of +Antioch' to music and brought it out at the Leeds Festival, where it +achieved an immediate and brilliant success, and was frequently +performed.[49] On the other hand, 'Samor' and 'Anne Boleyn' were +almost absolute failures, and, on the whole, the longer poems of +Milman have not retained their popularity, and probably now rarely +find a reader. + +Those who turn to them will certainly be struck by the command of +language and metre they display. It was shown both in rhyme and in +blank verse. Many fine odes are scattered through them, and in the +octo-syllabic verse Milman always appears to us peculiarly happy. But +his poetry, like most of the poetry that was written under the Byronic +influence, was rather the poetry of rhetoric than of imagination, and +it wanted both the intensity and the concentration of the great +master. Stately, sonorous, fluent, unfailingly lucid, it was too +lengthy and too artificial, and Lockhart was not wholly wrong in +pronouncing that it showed 'fine talents, but no genius,' and in +urging that prose rather than poetry was the vehicle in which its +author was destined to succeed. In addition, however, to the funeral +ode to which we have referred, Milman has written many hymns, and some +of these are of singular beauty. They appeared originally in the +collection of that other great hymn-writer, Bishop Heber, who was one +of his dearest friends, and one of the men to whose memory he looked +back with the fondest affection. The Good Friday hymn, 'Bound upon th' +accursèd tree,' the Palm Sunday hymn, 'Ride on, ride on in majesty,' +and perhaps still more that exquisitely pathetic hymn (so often +misprinted in modern hymn-books) beginning + + When our heads are bowed with woe, + When our bitter tears o'erflow, + +have long since taken their permanent place in devotional literature. + +In another and very different field of poetry also he greatly +excelled. He was an admirable example of that highly finished and +fastidious classical scholarship which is, or was, the pride of our +great public schools, and he took great pleasure in translations from +the classics. He translated into verse the 'Agamemnon' of Æschylus, +and the 'Bacchanals' of Euripides, and also a great number of small +and much less known poems. He held the professorship of poetry at +Oxford from 1821 to 1831, and as his lectures, according to the custom +which then prevailed, were delivered in Latin, he had the happy +thought of diversifying them by English metrical translations of the +different poems he treated. They range over a wide field of obscure +Greek poets, as well as of epitaphs, votive inscriptions, and +inscriptions relating to the fine arts, and in addition to these there +are translations from Sanscrit poetry--a branch of knowledge which was +then very little cultivated, and to which Milman was greatly +attracted. These poems the author published in 1865, but the lectures +in which they were produced he committed to the flames. They had, in +his opinion, lost their value through the subsequent publication of +the works on the history of Greek literature by Bode, Ulrici, Otfried +Müller, and Mure. + +In prose his pen was exceedingly active. In 1820 he began his long +connection with the 'Quarterly Review,' which continued, with +occasional intervals, through more than forty years. His articles +extended over a great variety of subjects, but most of them were +essentially reviews and essentially critical. The fact that he was +both a poet and an accomplished critic of verse caused some persons to +ascribe to him the authorship of two articles which had an unhappy +reputation--the criticism which was falsely supposed to have hastened +the death of Keats, and the attack upon the 'Alastor' of Shelley, a +poet for whom Milman had a special admiration. It is now well known +that neither of these articles was by him, but it is characteristic of +his loyalty to his colleagues that he never disclaimed the authorship. +This loyalty was indeed not less conspicuous in his nature than the +singular kindness of disposition with which he ever shrank from giving +pain. After his death a few of his many essays in the 'Quarterly' were +collected in one volume. Among them there is an admirable account of +Erasmus, with whom in mental characteristics he had considerable +affinity. + +In 1829 appeared his first historical work, the 'History of the Jews,' +a work which excited a violent storm of theological indignation. The +crime of Milman was that he applied to Jewish history the usual canons +of historical criticism--sifting evidence, discriminating between +documents, pointing out the parallelisms between Jewish conditions and +those of other Oriental nations, and attempting to separate in the +sacred writings the parts which were essential and revealed from those +which were merely human and fallible. In a remarkable preface to a +revised and enlarged edition of this work, which was published thirty +years later, he laid down very clearly the principles that had guided +him. The Jewish writers, in his opinion, were 'men of their age and +country who, as they spoke the language, so they thought the thoughts +of their nation and their time.... They had no special knowledge on +any subject but moral and religious truth to distinguish them from +other men, and were as fallible as others on all questions of science, +and even of history, extraneous to their religious teaching.... Their +one paramount object being instruction and enlightenment in religion, +they left their hearers uninstructed and unenlightened as before in +other things.... In all other respects society, civilisation, +developed itself according to its usual laws. The Hebrew in the +wilderness, excepting as far as the law modified his manners and +habits, was an Arab of the desert. Abraham, except in his worship and +intercourse with the one true God, was a nomad Sheik.... The moral and +religious truth, and this alone, I apprehend, is "the word of God" +contained in the sacred writings.' + +It must also, he contended, be always remembered that the Semitic +records are of an 'essentially Oriental, figurative, poetical cast,' +and that it is therefore wholly erroneous to suppose that every word +can be construed with the precision of an Act of Parliament or of a +simple modern historical narrative. + +His attitude towards the miraculous was carefully defined. He observed +the absolute impossibility of evading the conclusion that the Jewish +writers, whether eye-witnesses or not, implicitly believed in 'the +supernaturalism, the divine or miraculous agency almost throughout the +older history of the Jews,' and that it is 'an integral, inseparable +part of the narrative.' Sometimes it is possible 'with more or less +probability to detect the naked fact which may lie beneath the +imaginative or marvellous language in which it is recorded; but even +in these cases the solution can be hardly more than conjectural.' In +other cases 'the supernatural so entirely predominates and is so of +the intimate essence of the transaction that the facts and the +interpretation must be accepted together or rejected together.' In +such cases it is the duty of the historian simply 'to relate the facts +as recorded, to adduce his authorities, and to abstain from all +explanation for which he has no ground.' + +The distinction between the providential and the strictly miraculous +appears to him impossible to draw. 'Belief in Divine Providence, in +the agency of God as the Prime Mover in the Natural world as in the +mind of Man, is an inseparable part of religion. There can be no +religion without it.' But in numerous cases, to distinguish between +the simply providential and the strictly miraculous implies a +knowledge of the working of natural causes greater than we possess; +and in certain stages of civilisation, and very eminently in the +Jewish mind, there is a marked tendency to suppress secondary causes, +and to attribute not only the more extraordinary but also the common +events of life to direct divine agency. The possibility and the +reality of the miraculous he emphatically asserts. + +'The palmary miracle of all, the Resurrection, stands entirely by +itself. Every attempt to resolve it into a natural event, a delusion +or hallucination in the minds of the disciples, the eye-witnesses and +death-defying witnesses to its truth, or to treat it as an allegory or +figure of speech, is to me a signal failure. It must be accepted as +the keystone--for such it is--and seal to the great Christian doctrine +of a future life, as a historical fact, or rejected as a baseless +fable.' + +But great numbers of what were deemed miracles may be explained by +natural causes, by figurative modes of expression which were common in +Oriental nations, by the tendency of the human mind to embellish or +exaggerate surprising facts, or invent supernatural causes for what it +is unable to explain, by the retrospective imagination which seeks to +dignify the distant past with a supernatural halo. The early annals of +all nations are strewn with pretended miracles which no one will now +maintain, and Milman shows in a powerful passage how the idea of the +miraculous has been steadily contracting and receding; how dangerous +it is to base the defence of Christianity on the evidence of miracles +rather than on appeals to the conscience, the moral sense, the innate +religiousness, the deep spiritual cravings of human nature. + +Such views, though now sufficiently commonplace, seemed very novel in +England when Milman wrote. Dean Stanley described his work as 'the +first decisive inroad of German theology into England; the first +palpable indication that the Bible could be studied like another book; +that the characters and events of sacred history could be treated at +once critically and reverently.' But though Milman was very well +acquainted with German theology, he resented the notion that he was +its interpreter or representative. He contended that in restricting +the province of inspiration to the direct inculcation of religious +truth he was following a sound Anglican tradition. He quoted the +authority of Paley and Warburton, of Tillotson and Secker. In such +principles of interpretation he said he had found 'a safeguard during +a long and not unreflective life against the difficulties arising out +of the philosophical and historical researches of his time.' They had +enabled him 'to follow out all the marvellous discoveries of science, +and all those hardly less marvellous, if less certain, conclusions of +historical, ethnological, linguistic criticism, in the serene +confidence that they are utterly irrelevant to the truth of +Christianity.' 'If on such subjects,' he concluded, 'some solid ground +be not found on which highly educated, reflective, reading, reasoning +men may find firm footing, I can foresee nothing but a wide, a +widening--I fear, an irreparable--breach between the thought and the +religion of England. A comprehensive, all-embracing, truly Catholic +Christianity which knows what is essential to religion, what is +temporary and extraneous to it, may defy the world.' + +These words are taken from the later preface to which we have +referred. In the same preface, and also in his 'History of +Christianity,' may be found some interesting remarks on the German +school of Biblical criticism, the greater portion of which has arisen +since the original publication of the 'History of the Jews.' In many +of its conclusions he had anticipated it, and he was quite as sensible +as the German writers of the hopelessness of seeking scientific +revelations in the Biblical narrative; of the worthlessness of most of +the common schemes for reconciling science and theology; of the +untrustworthy character of Jewish chronology and Jewish figures; of +the grave doubts that hang over the authorship and the date of some of +the books; of the necessity of making full allowance, when reading +them, for human fallibility and inaccuracy. At the same time, his +admiration for the German critics was by no means unqualified. While +fully admitting their extraordinary learning, industry, and ingenuity, +he complained that their too common infirmity was 'a passion for +making history without historical materials,' basing the most dogmatic +and positive statements upon faint indications, or upon ingenious +conjectures that could not legitimately go beyond a very low degree of +probability. The assurance with which these writers undertook by +internal evidence to decompose ancient documents, assigning each +paragraph to an independent source; the decisive weight they were +accustomed to give to slight improbabilities or coincidences, and to +small variations of style and phraseology; the confidence with which +they put forward solutions or conjectures which, however ingenious or +plausible, were based on no external evidence as if they were proved +facts, appeared to him profoundly unhistorical. + +It must have been somewhat irritating to one who clung so closely to +University life, and who had been justly regarded as one of the most +brilliant of Oxford scholars, to find that his own University was +prominent in the condemnation of the 'History of the Jews.' Only two +years before he had preached with general approbation the Bampton +Lectures in defence of Christianity. His new work was again and again +condemned from the University pulpits, and among others by the +Margaret Professor of Divinity and by the Hulsean lecturer for 1832. +The clamour was naturally taken up in many other quarters, and +especially by the religious newspapers. It was noticed that 'Milman's +History' appeared in the window of Carlisle, the infidel bookseller. + +'I only wish,' wrote Milman, when the fact was brought to his notice, +'all Carlisle's customers would read it. A noble lord once wrote to +the bishop of a certain diocese to complain that a baronet who lived +in the same parish brought his mistress to church, which sorely +shocked his regular family. The bishop gravely assured him that he was +very glad to hear that Sir ---- brought his naughty lady to church, +and hoped that she would profit by what she heard there and amend her +ways. So say I of Carlisle's customers.'[50] + +The opinions expressed in this, as in his later works, no doubt in +some degree obstructed the promotion of Milman in the Church, but he +had no reason to regret it. Of all men, he once said, he thought he +owed most to Bishop Blomfield, for there was once a question of +offering him a bishopric, and it was a remonstrance of the Bishop of +London that prevented it. 'I am _afraid_,' he said, 'that if it had +been offered me I should have accepted it, and I should then never +have written my "Latin Christianity."' But, though he escaped the fate +which has cut short the best work of more than one distinguished +historian, his conspicuous position among the scholars and writers in +the Church was widely recognised, and he was soon transferred from a +provincial town to a central position in the Metropolis. In 1835 Sir +Robert Peel made him Rector of St. Margaret's, Westminster, and +Prebendary in the Abbey. Though continuing without intermission his +historical work, he appears to have discharged with exemplary vigour +the duties of a large and poor parish until 1849, when Lord John +Russell appointed him Dean of St. Paul's. The position was exactly +suited to him. It was one of much dignity, but also of much leisure, +and it gave him ample opportunities of pursuing the studies which were +the true work of his life. + +The great subject of the history of Christianity was, indeed, +continually before him. Among other things, he studied minutely both +the text and the authorities of Gibbon, for whom he had a deep and +growing admiration. An excellent edition of Gibbon was one of the +first results. Milman's notes have been included in Smith's later +edition, and, though a large proportion of them were naturally +somewhat controversial, being devoted to refuting some of the +conclusions of the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters, it is impossible +to read them without recognising the candour as well as the learning +and the acumen of the critic. Few things that Milman has written are +finer than the preface in which, in ten or twelve masterly pages, he +sums up his estimate of his great predecessor. + +The three volumes of the 'History of Christianity,' dealing with its +early history up to the period of the abolition of Paganism in the +Roman Empire, appeared in 1840, and they were followed by the six +large volumes of the 'History of Latin Christianity,' carrying the +history of the Western Church to the end of the Pontificate of +Nicholas V. in 1455. This great work was published in two +instalments--the first three volumes in 1854, and the remaining three +in the following year--and it gave its author indisputably the first +place among the ecclesiastical historians of England and a high place +among the historians of the nineteenth century. He possessed, indeed, +in an eminent degree some of the qualities that are most rare, and at +the same time most valuable, in ecclesiastical history. A large +proportion of the most learned ecclesiastical historians have been men +who have devoted their whole lives to this single department of +knowledge, who derived from it all their measures of probability and +canons of criticism, and who, treating it as an isolated and mainly +supernatural thing, have taken very little account of the intellectual +and political secular influences that have largely shaped its course. +Most of them also have been men who undertook their task with +convictions and habits of thought that were absolutely incompatible +with real independence and impartiality of judgment in estimating +either the events or the characters they described. Milman was wholly +free from these defects. His wide knowledge, his cool, critical, +admirably trained judgment, were never better shown than in the many +pages in which he has pointed out the analogies or resemblances +between Jewish and other Oriental beliefs; the manner in which +national characteristics or secular intellectual tendencies affected +theological types; the countless modifications in belief or practice +which grew up, as the Church accommodated itself to the conditions of +successive ages and entered into alliance or conflict with different +political systems; the many indirect, subtle, far-reaching ways in +which the world and the Church interacted upon each other in all the +great departments of speculation, art, industry, social and political +life. A certain aloofness and coldness of judgment in dealing with +sacred subjects was the reproach which was most frequently brought +against him. As he himself said, he wrote rather as an historian than +a religious instructor, and he dealt with his subject chiefly in its +temporal, social, and political aspects. Justice and impartiality of +judgment to friend and foe he deemed one of the first moral duties of +an historian, and Dean Church was not wrong in ascribing to him a +quite 'unusual combination of the strongest feeling about right and +wrong with the largest equity.' 'What a delightful book, so tolerant +of the intolerant!' was his characteristic eulogy of the work of +another writer, and it truly reflects the turn of his own mind. +Provost Hawtrey, who was no mean judge of men, said, after an intimacy +of nearly fifty years, that he had never known a man who possessed in +a greater degree than Milman the virtue of Christian charity in its +highest and rarest form. It was a gift which stood him in good stead +in dealing with the very blended characters, the tangled politics, the +often misguided enthusiasms of ecclesiastical history. While he was +constitutionally extremely averse to the moral casuistry which +confuses the boundaries of right and wrong, he had too sound a grasp +of the evolution of history to fall into the common error of judging +the acts of one age by the moral standards of another. His history was +eminently a history of large lines and broad tendencies. The growth, +influence, and decline of the Papacy--the distinctive characteristics +of Latin and Teutonic Christianity; the effect of Christianity on +jurisprudence; the monastic system in its various phases; the rise and +conquests of Mohammedanism; the severance of Greek from Latin +Christianity; Charlemagne, Hildebrand, the Crusades, the Templars, the +Great Councils; the decay of Latin and the rise of modern languages; +the influence of the Church on literature, painting, sculpture, and +architecture--are but a few of the great subjects he has treated, +always with knowledge and intelligence, often with conspicuous +brilliancy. + +In so vast a field there were, no doubt, many subjects which have been +treated with a greater fulness and completeness by other writers. +There are some in which subsequent research has gone far to supersede +what Milman has written, and inaccuracies of detail not unfrequently +crept into his work; but in the truthfulness of its broad lines, in +the sagacity of its estimates both of men and events, it holds a high +place among the histories of the world. Very few historians have +combined in a larger measure the three great requisites of knowledge, +soundness of judgment, and inexorable love of truth. The growth and +modifications of doctrines and the minutiæ of religious controversies +were, however, subjects in which he took little interest, and though +they could not be excluded from an ecclesiastical history, they are +dealt with only in a slight and cursory manner. Those who desire to +study in detail this side of ecclesiastical history will find other +histories much more useful. It has been said that his work is +imperfect as a book of reference, for while the great events and +personages are discussed with a fulness that leaves little to be +desired, many of the more insignificant transactions or more obscure +periods are passed over or barely noticed. Critics of different +religious schools have also complained that his mind was essentially +secular; that he had a low sense of the certainty and the importance +of dogma; that there were some classes of ecclesiastical writers who +have been deeply revered in the Church with whom he had no real +sympathy; that the spirit of criticism was stronger in his book than +the spirit of reverence; that he did not do full justice to the +spiritual and inner side of the religion he described. He looked upon +it, they said, too externally. He valued it as a moral revolution, the +introduction of new principles of virtue and new rules for individual +and social happiness. Much of this criticism would probably have been +accepted with but little qualification by Milman himself. He would +have said that what these writers complained of was in the main +inseparable from an historical as distinguished from a devotional +treatment of his subject. He would have added that no form of human +history reveals so clearly as ecclesiastical history the fallibility, +the credulity, the intolerance of the human mind, or requires more +imperatively the constant exercise of independent judgment and of +fearless and unsparing criticism, and that, if the history of the +Church is ever to be written with profit, it must be written in such a +spirit. Of his own deeper convictions he seldom spoke; but in the +concluding page of his 'Latin Christianity' there is a passage of +profound interest. Leaving it, as he says, to the future historian of +religion to say what part of the ancient dogmatic system may be +allowed to fall silently into disuse, and what transformations the +interpretation of the Sacred Writings may still undergo, he adds these +significant words: + +'As it is my own confident belief that the words of Christ, and his +words alone (the primal indefeasible truths of Christianity), shall +not pass away, so I cannot presume to say that men may not attain to a +clearer, at the same time more full, comprehensive, and balanced sense +of those words, than has as yet been generally received in the +Christian world. As all else is transient and mutable, these only +eternal and universal, assuredly whatever light may be thrown on the +mental constitution of man, even on the constitution of nature and the +laws which govern the world, will be concentered so as to give a more +penetrating vision of those undying truths.... Christianity may yet +have to exercise a far wider, even if more silent and untraceable +influence, through its primary, all-pervading principles, on the +civilisation of mankind.' + +Macaulay, speaking of the 'History of Latin Christianity' in his +Journal, says, 'I was more impressed than ever by the contrast between +the substance and the style: the substance is excellent; the style +very much otherwise.' Looking at it from a purely literary point of +view it had undoubtedly great merits. Milman had an admirable sense of +proportion--a rare quality in history. He was invariably lucid, and it +is easy to cull from his history many characters excellently drawn, +many pages of vivid narrative, or terse and weighty criticism. Still, +on the whole his historic style is on a lower level than that of +Macaulay, Buckle, and Froude, though it will compare, I think, not +unfavourably with that of Hallam and Grote. The points of controversy +are usually relegated to his notes, which contain a great mass of +curious learning and excellent criticism. The reader who turns to them +from works of the German school will be struck by his strong English +common-sense and grasp of facts, and his dislike of subtle far-fetched +ingenuities of explanation. He has the crowning merit of being always +readable, and his strong sane moral sense never left him. He was +probably at his best in the later volumes, when he could treat his +subject like secular history and was free from the embarrassing +theological difficulties of the earlier portion, and he is especially +admirable in those chapters which give scope to his wide literary and +artistic sympathies. He was an excellent Italian scholar and keenly +sensible of the beauties of Italian literature, and his love of the +ancient classics never left him. There was something at once +characteristic and amusing in the delight which he again and again +expressed, after the termination of his History, at being able to +return to them after spending so many years in reading bad Latin and +Greek. In taste and character he was indeed pre-eminently a man of +letters, and as such he ranks in the first line among his +contemporaries. + +The outburst of indignation that in some quarters had greeted the +first appearance of the 'History of the Jews' was not repeated when +that work was republished in an enlarged form. Nor does it appear to +have arisen on the appearance of the two later histories. Newman +reviewed the 'History of Early Christianity' at great length, speaking +with much personal respect of the writer, though he was naturally +extremely hostile to its spirit. The difference between the High +Church sentiment and the mind of Milman was indeed organic. Milman's +own type of thought was formed before the Tractarian movement had +begun; the sacerdotal spirit was thoroughly alien to him, and his +profound study of ecclesiastical history had certainly not tended to +attract him to it. He fully recognised both the abilities and the +piety of Newman, and he described his secession as perhaps the +greatest loss the Church of England had experienced since the +Reformation; but he disliked his opinions, he profoundly distrusted +the whole character of his mind and reasonings, and he early foresaw +that he could never find a permanent resting-place in the English +Church. In the posthumous volume of Essays there will be found a full +and most searching examination of Newman's 'Essay on Development,' in +which these points of difference are clearly shown. For Keble, Milman +entertained warmer feelings. They were contemporaries, and at one time +most intimate friends. In the field of sacred poetry they had been +fellow-labourers. Keble had succeeded Milman as professor of poetry, +and Milman had been one of the few persons who had read the 'Christian +Year' in manuscript. When, after Keble's death, a committee was +appointed to erect a memorial to his memory, Milman was much hurt at +finding that it was determined to give it a distinctly Tractarian +character, and that his own name was deliberately excluded. In +Milman's last years the Oxford movement had begun to assume its +ritualistic form, and questions of vestments and ceremonies and +candles came to the forefront. With all this Milman had no sympathy. +'After the drama,' he said of it, 'the melodrama!' + +It was a remarkable coincidence that for some years the two deaneries +of London were both held by brilliant men of letters and by men with +the strongest theological sympathy. A feeling of warm personal +affection united Milman and Stanley, and there was something +peculiarly touching in the almost filial attitude which Stanley +assumed towards his older colleague. In one point, however, they +differed greatly. Stanley was a keen fighter. He threw himself into +the forefront of ecclesiastical controversies, and was never seen to +greater advantage than when leading a small minority, defying +inveterate prejudice, defending an unpopular cause. Milman could +seldom be tempted to follow his example. He pleaded old age and +declining strength, but, in truth, though he never flinched from the +avowal of his own opinions, he had a deep and increasing distaste for +religious controversies and Church politics. He was rarely seen in +Convocation, and he always regarded its revival as a misfortune. He +proposed, however, in it a petition for the discontinuance of the use +of the State services commemorating the martyrdom of Charles I., the +restoration of Charles II., the discovery of the gunpowder plot, and +the Revolution of 1688; and Parliament soon after adopted his view. He +also sat on the Royal Commission in 1864 for considering the subject +of clerical subscription. He took on this occasion a characteristic +line, advocating a complete abolition of the subscription of the +Articles, and desiring that the sole test of membership of the Church +should be the acceptance of the Liturgy and the Creeds. In 1865 he +received an invitation, which greatly gratified him, to preach before +the University of Oxford the annual sermon on Hebrew prophecy. The +sermon was delivered in the pulpit of St. Mary's, where many years +before he had been so vehemently condemned for views on the same +subject, no one of which, as he truly said, he had either recanted or +modified. His sermon was afterwards printed, and would form a worthy +chapter of his 'History of the Jews.' In the Colenso controversy he +had no great sympathy with either side. Many of Bishop Colenso's +arguments appeared to him crude or exaggerated, and he dissented from +many of his conclusions, but he considered that he had been treated +with gross injustice and intolerance, and he accordingly subscribed to +his defence fund. For the rest, he confined his ecclesiastical life as +much as possible to his own cathedral, where he presided over the +State funeral of the Duke of Wellington, and where he introduced the +custom of throwing open the nave to evening services. His last and +unfinished work was his 'Annals of St. Paul's,' investigating its +history and portraying with his old learning and with much of his old +felicity the lives of his predecessors. + +It was however in secular literary society that he was most fitted to +shine, and there he passed many of his happiest hours. The usual +honours of a distinguished man of letters clustered thickly around +him. He was a trustee of the British Museum; an honorary member of the +Royal Academy; a correspondent of the French Institute. He was also a +member of 'The Club'--the small dining-club which was founded in 1764 +by Sir Joshua Reynolds and Dr. Johnson, and which since then has +included in its fortnightly dinners the great majority of those +Englishmen who in many walks of life have been most distinguished by +their genius or their accomplishments. He was elected to it in 1836, +three years before Macaulay, and he became one of its most constant +attendants. In 1841 'The Club' made him its treasurer, and he held +that position for twenty-three years, and presided over the centenary +dinner in 1864. He was also an original member of the Philobiblion +Society, which has brought together many curious and hitherto unknown +documents, and he wrote for it a short paper on Michael Scott the +Wizard, who, as he showed, had been once offered the Archbishopric of +Cashel. He was never a keen politician, but he was intimate with a +long succession of leading statesmen, and he contributed to Sir +Cornewall Lewis's 'Administrations of Great Britain' a full and +valuable letter on the relations of Pitt and Addington, which was +largely based on his own recollections of the latter statesman. + +London society in the middle of the nineteenth century was much +smaller and less mixed than at present, and there was then a +distinctively literary or at least intellectual society which can now +hardly be said to exist. The most eminent men of letters came more +frequently together. Criticism was in fewer and perhaps stronger +hands, and was to a larger extent representative of the opinions +expressed in such social gatherings. In this kind of society Milman +was long a foremost figure. He had all the gifts that fit men for +it--not only brilliancy, knowledge, and versatility, but also +unfailing tact, a rare charm of courtesy, a singularly wide tolerance. +He was quick and generous in recognising rising talent, and he had +that sympathetic touch which seldom failed to elicit what was best in +those with whom he came in contact. Few men possessed more eminently +the genius of friendship--the power of attaching others--the power of +attaching himself to others. In the long list of his intimate friends +Macaulay, Sir Charles Lyell, and Sir George Cornewall Lewis were +conspicuous. Like most men of this type, he found the multiplying +gaps around him the chief trial of old age. Not long before he died +there was an exhibition of contemporary portraits, but though Milman +went to it he could not go through it. 'When I found myself,' he said, +'surrounded by the likenesses--often the miserable likenesses--of so +many I had known and loved, it was more than I could bear.' + +An admirable portrait by Watts which is now in the National Portrait +Gallery will recall to those who knew him his appearance in old +age--his strong masculine features beaming with intelligence, his +grand shaggy brows, his bright and penetrating eyes. An illness +affecting the spine had bowed him nearly double, and there are still +those who will remember how his bent figure seemed projected, almost +like a bird in its flight, across the dinner-table, while his eager +brilliant talk delighted and fascinated his hearers. In his last years +increasing deafness obliged him to narrow the circle of his social +life, but he retained to the end all the vividness of his mind and +sympathies, and when at length death came in his seventy-eighth year, +it found him in the midst of unfinished work. His life was not of a +kind to win wide popularity and to give him a conspicuous place among +the great masses of his nation, but few English clergymen of his +generation made so deep an impression on those who came in contact +with them or have left works of such enduring value behind them. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[48] _Henry Hart Milman, D.D., Dean of St. Paul's._ A Biographical +Sketch by his son, Arthur Milman, M.A., LL.D. + +[49] Laurence's _Life of Sir A. Sullivan_, p. 310. + +[50] Smiles' _Memoirs of John Murray_, ii. p. 300. + + + + +QUEEN VICTORIA AS A MORAL FORCE + + +At a time when the unprecedented increase of gigantic and rapidly +acquired fortunes has deeply infected both English and American +society with the characteristic vices of a Plutocracy, the profound +feeling of sorrow and admiration elicited by the death of Queen +Victoria is an encouraging sign. It shows that the vulgar ideals, the +false moral measurements, the feverish social ambitions, the love of +the ostentatious and the factitious, and the disdain for simple +habits, pleasures, and characters so apparent in certain conspicuous +sections of society, have not yet blunted the moral sense or perverted +the moral perceptions of the great masses on either side of the +Atlantic. To this type, indeed, we could scarcely find a more complete +antithesis than in the life and character of the great Queen who has +passed away. Nothing more deeply impressed all who came in contact +with her than the essential simplicity and genuineness of her nature. + +She was a great ruler, but she was also to the last a true, kindly, +simple-minded woman, retaining with undiminished intensity all the +warmth of a most affectionate nature, all the soundness of a most +excellent judgment. Brought up from childhood in the artificial +atmosphere of a Court, called while still a girl to the isolation of a +throne; deprived, when her reign had yet forty years to run, of the +support and counsel of her husband, she might well have been pardoned +if she often found herself out of touch with large sections of her +people, and had viewed life through a false medium or in partial +aspects. Yet Lord Salisbury probably in no degree exaggerated when he +said that if he wished to ascertain the feelings and opinions of the +English people, and especially of the English middle classes, he knew +no truer or more enlightening judgment than that of the Queen. She +thought with them and she felt with them; she shared their ambitions; +she knew by a kind of intuitive instinct the course of their +judgments; she sympathised deeply with their trials and their sorrows. + +She could hardly be called a brilliant woman. It is difficult indeed +to judge the full social capacities of anyone who lives under the +constant restraints of a royal position, but I do not think that in +any sphere of life the Queen would have been regarded as a woman of +striking wit, or originality, or even commanding power. The qualities +that made her so successful in her high calling were of another kind: +supreme good sense; a tact in dealing with men and circumstances so +unfailing that it almost amounted to genius; an indefatigable industry +which never flagged from early youth till extreme old age; a sense of +duty so steady and so strong that it governed all her actions and +pleasures, and saved her not only from the grosser and more common +temptations of an exalted position, but also in a most unusual degree +from the subtle and often half-concealed deflecting influences that +spring from ambition or resentment, from personal predilections and +personal dislikes. It was these qualities, combined with her +unrivalled experience of affairs, and strengthened by long and +constant intercourse with the foremost English statesmen of two +generations, that made her what she undoubtedly was--a perfect model +of a constitutional Sovereign. + +The position of a Sovereign under a parliamentary government like ours +is a singular and difficult one. There was a school of politicians who +were much more prominent in the last generation than in the present +one, who regarded the Sovereign, in political life at least, as little +more than a figure-head or a cipher, absolved from all responsibility, +but also divested of all power, and fulfilling functions in the +Constitution which are little more than mechanical. This view of the +unimportance of the Monarchy will now be held by few really +intelligent men. Those take but a false and narrow view of human +affairs who fail to realise the part which sentiment and enthusiasm +play in the government of men; and no one who knows England will +question that the throne is the centre of a great strength of personal +attachment which is wholly different from any attachment to a party or +a parliament. + +In India and the Colonies this is still more the case. It is not the +British Parliament or the British Cabinet that there forms the centre +of unity or excites genuine attachment. The Crown is the main link +binding the different States to one another, and the pervading +sentiment of a common loyalty unites them in one great and living +whole. In foreign politics it cannot be a matter of indifference that +a Sovereign is closely related to nearly all the greatest rulers in +the world, and in frequent, intimate, unconstrained correspondence +with them. This is a kind of influence which no Minister, however +powerful, can exercise, and it was possessed by Queen Victoria +probably to a greater degree than by any Sovereign on record, for +there has scarcely ever been one who included among her relations so +many of the Sovereigns of the world. Future historians will no doubt +have ample means of judging how frequently and how judiciously it was +employed in assuaging differences and promoting European peace. All +the great offices in Church and State, all the great distributions of +honours were submitted to her; and though in a large number of cases +this patronage is purely Ministerial or professional, there are many +cases in which the Sovereign had a real voice, and a strong objection +on her part was usually attended to. In Church patronage and in the +distribution of honours she is known to have taken a great interest, +and to have exercised a considerable influence. + +The one subject on which the Queen was not always in harmony with her +people was that of foreign politics. She and the Prince Consort took a +keen interest in them, and during his lifetime she followed very +implicitly his guidance. The strong German sympathies she imbued from +her own marriage were much intensified by the marriages of her +children, and especially by that of her eldest daughter to the heir of +the Prussian throne. The influence also of Stockmar, who was the +closest adviser of her early married life, was not wholly for good, +and the theory which the Prince held that the direction of foreign +affairs is in a peculiar degree under the care of the Sovereign, and +that the Prince, her husband, should be regarded as 'her permanent +Minister,' created during many years much friction. In a +constitutional country, where the responsibility of affairs rests +wholly on the Minister, who is doubly responsible to the Cabinet and +to the Parliament, such a theory can only be maintained with great +qualifications. + +On the other hand, the government of the country was carried on in the +name of the Queen. Foreign despatches were addressed to her and could +only be answered with her sanction. The right of the English +Sovereigns to be present at the Cabinet Councils of their Ministers +was abdicated when George I. came to the throne, but every important +departure in policy was submitted to the Queen and required her +assent. The testimony of Ministers of all shades of policy supports +the belief that this was no idle form. The Queen, though always open +to argument and tolerant of contradiction, had her own decided +opinions; she exercised her undoubted right of expressing and +defending them, and even apart from her royal position, her great +experience and her singular clearness and rectitude of judgment made +her opinion well worth listening to. + +The claim put forward by the Queen in her famous memorandum of August +1850, can, I think, hardly be pronounced excessive. She demanded only +that before a line of policy was adopted and brought before her she +should be distinctly informed of the facts of the case and of the +motives that inspired it; that when she had given her sanction to a +measure it should not be arbitrarily altered or modified by the +Minister; that she must be kept acquainted with all important +communications between foreign Ministers and her own Foreign +Secretary, and that the drafts of foreign despatches must be sent to +her for her approval in sufficient time for her to make herself +acquainted with them. She complained that Lord Palmerston was +accustomed to send despatches to the Continent without submitting +them, in their last revise, to the Sovereign; that in one case he +retained without her knowledge a passage which the Prince Consort had +deleted; that he paid little or no attention to the numerous memoranda +which were drawn up by the Prince for his instruction; that he of his +own will and without any consultation committed his Government, in a +conversation with the French Ambassador, to an approbation of the +_coup d'état_ of Napoleon III. If the general line of his policy had +been in accordance with the royal wishes, indiscretions of detail +could probably have been overlooked, but the Queen and Prince were +both undoubtedly on many occasions--and especially in 1848 and +1849--strongly opposed to the policy of Lord Palmerston. In the +interests of peace they objected to the remarkably provocative +character of his despatches, which excited a degree of animosity and +resentment among the Governments of the Continent that has rarely been +paralleled--on two, if not three, occasions it brought England into +grave danger of a war with France--and which aroused a very widespread +indignation among statesmen of his own party at home. + +The widely different tone which was adopted by Lord Clarendon and Lord +Granville, the open breach between Palmerston and Lord John Russell on +account of the way in which the former conducted his foreign policy +without consultation with the Cabinet, and the refusal of Lord Grey, +in a most critical moment, to take office in a Government in which +Lord Palmerston held the seals of the Foreign Office, show how fully +in this respect the sentiments of the Queen accorded with those of +many of Lord Palmerston's own colleagues. But in addition to mere +questions of manner and procedure, there was much in the substance of +the policy of Palmerston to which the Queen objected. Her dislike to +the Revolutionary element on the Continent, which Lord Palmerston +either encouraged or viewed with indifference, her sympathy with the +old governments and dynasties, that were so gravely shaken in the year +of the Revolution, were very marked. In the disputes between Germany +and Denmark on the Schleswig-Holstein question her sympathies, unlike +those of her people, were decidedly with Germany, and although she was +fully sensible of the misgovernment of some of the Italian States, she +was not favourable to that cause of Italian unity which Lord John +Russell and Lord Palmerston so strenuously upheld. Her nature, which +was very frank, made it impossible for her, even if she desired it, to +conceal her opinions, and she devoted much time and pains to making +herself acquainted with the details of every question as it arose. She +made it a rule to sign no paper that she had not read. She did not +hesitate fully to apprise her Ministers of her views when they +differed from their own, and she enforced her views by argument and +remonstrance. She more than once drew up memoranda of her dissent from +the opinions of her Foreign Minister, and insisted on their being +brought before the Cabinet for consideration. In the formation of a +new Ministry she more than once exercised her power of deciding to +whom the succession of the first places should be offered. After an +adverse vote of the House of Commons, she considered herself fully +authorised to decide whether she would accept the resignation of a +Minister or submit the issue to the test of a dissolution, and there +were occasions on which she remonstrated with her Ministers on their +too ready determination to resign. + +At the same time it is certain that the Queen fulfilled with +perfection that most difficult duty of an able constitutional +Sovereign--the duty of yielding her convictions to those of her +responsible Ministers and acting faithfully with Ministers she +distrusted. To a Sovereign with clear views and a more than common +force of character this must often have been very painful, and to have +fulfilled it faithfully and with no loss of dignity is no small merit. +It is the universal testimony of all who served her, that no Sovereign +ever supported her successive Ministers with a more perfect loyalty or +held the scales between contending parties with a more complete +impartiality. No one understood better to what point a constitutional +Sovereign may press her opinions and at what point she is bound to +give way; and while maintaining her rightful authority she never in +any degree transgressed its bounds. In the very beginning of her reign +she showed this quality in a high degree. She looked up to Lord +Melbourne with an almost filial affection, and there were peculiar +reasons why his great opponent, Sir Robert Peel, should have been +distasteful to her. The dispute about the removal of her Ladies of the +Bedchamber, and still more the conduct of Sir Robert Peel in +supporting the reduction of the income which the Whigs had proposed +for Prince Albert, must have touched her feelings on the most +sensitive points, and the stiff, formal, somewhat awkward manner of +Peel seemed very little fitted to ingratiate him with a young +Sovereign. Yet when the change of Ministry arrived, Peel found no +trace of resentment in the Queen. She gave him her complete +confidence, and she fully estimated his great qualities. Of all the +Ministers who served her there is indeed none of whom she has written +in warmer terms. When Lord Palmerston became Prime Minister in 1855 it +was contrary to her earnest desire, but when the change was made +Palmerston himself acknowledged that he had 'no reason to complain of +the least want of cordiality or confidence on the part of the Court.' +At the time when she was most opposed to her Ministers, she fully +acquiesced in the principle that she must submit all letters on public +affairs to them and frame her replies upon their advice. There were +constant attempts on the part of foreign Sovereigns who were connected +with her to carry on affairs by correspondence with her without the +knowledge and sanction of her Ministers, but the Queen steadily +resisted them. Anything, indeed, that in any way savoured of intrigue +was in the highest degree repugnant to her nature. + +She acted in the same way in internal affairs. Few measures that were +carried in her time were more repugnant to her than Gladstone's +disestablishment of the Irish Church. It abolished an institution of +which she was herself the head and which a special clause in the +Coronation Oath required her to uphold, and she foretold, not without +good reason, that it would not pacify Ireland but would be an +encouragement to further agitation. The question, however, had been +submitted at a general election to the decision of the country, and +after that decision had been unequivocally given in favour of the +policy of Gladstone, she frankly accepted it with the assent of the +Prime Minister. When a great danger of a conflict between the two +Houses of Parliament had arisen, she devoted herself actively in +preventing it. She employed for that service the instrumentality of +Archbishop Tait--a great statesman-prelate, whose promotion to the see +of Canterbury was due to her own personal initiative, contrary to the +wish of Lord Beaconsfield, but most fully justified by the result--and +it was largely due to the intervention of the Queen that the Church +Bill was not thrown out in the House of Lords. She acted in a +somewhat similar way with reference to the Franchise Bill of 1884, +though on this occasion she does not seem to have disliked the +measure, which she urged the House of Lords to accept. + +On three very memorable occasions the intervention of the Queen had +probably a great effect on English politics. It is well known that at +the time when the issue of peace or war with the United States was +trembling in the balance on account of the seizure of the Southern +envoys on the 'Trent,' the Queen, acting in accordance with the Prince +Consort, by softening and revising the language of an English despatch +to America, did very much to prevent the dispute from leading to a +great war; that in the proclamation which was issued to the Indian +people after the Sepoy Mutiny, she insisted on the excision of some +most unfortunate words that seemed to menace the native creeds, and on +the insertion of an emphatic promise that they should in no wise be +interfered with, and thus probably prevented a new outburst of most +dangerous fanaticism; that at the time of the Schleswig-Holstein +dispute she contributed powerfully and actively to give a turn to the +negotiations that averted a war with Prussia and Austria, which, as is +now almost universally recognised, could only have led to a great +catastrophe. + +Whatever opinions may be formed of the merits of the dispute between +Denmark and the German powers about Schleswig-Holstein, few persons +who judge by the event can doubt that an isolated intervention of +England on behalf of Denmark against the combined forces of Austria +and Prussia would have been absolutely impotent to effect the object +that was desired, and that even if France had consented to join in the +struggle it would have led to a military disaster hardly less than +that of the war of Sedan. If, contrary to all probability, the +combined forces of France and England had proved stronger than those +of Austria and Germany, the result could have hardly failed to be that +France would have been established on the left bank of the Rhine, and +that the treaty of Vienna, which it was one of the great objects of +English policy to maintain, would have been torn into shreds. + +The dangers, however, of conflict arising from the extreme +irritability of English public opinion against Germany on the Danish +question, were very great, and there can be little doubt that the +personal influence of the Queen with the German Sovereign was an +appreciable influence, and it was her desire that a paragraph in the +Queen's Speech opening Parliament in February 1864 was erased. Words +which contained at least a veiled or attributed threat to Germany were +omitted, and instead of them an inoffensive paragraph was inserted +expressing the Queen's ardent desire for peace and recording the +earnest efforts she had made to maintain it.[51] At the same time +when, by the Convention of Gastein in August 1865, the Duchies were +severed from the Danish throne and placed in the virtual possession of +Prussia and Austria, the protest of Lord Russell against so flagrant a +violation of public right, and especially of the right of the people +to be consulted on their own destiny, was drawn up with her full +assent and indeed in a great measure at her suggestion.[52] + +On other occasions her remonstrances were disregarded, and courses +were pursued to which she strongly objected. The surrender after +Majuba was in her opinion a pusillanimous abandonment of the English +flag, and it was with extreme reluctance that she acquiesced in it. +Still more vehement were her feelings about the long abandonment of +General Gordon in the Soudan. She had been indefatigable in urging on +the Ministry of Gladstone the duty of speedy measures for his rescue, +and when, owing to the long delay of the Ministry, the most heroic of +modern Englishmen perished at Khartoum, her indignation knew no +bounds. In a letter to his sisters, burning with mingled pity and +indignation, she pronounced his 'cruel though heroic fate' to be 'a +stain left upon England,' which she keenly felt. This was one of the +few occasions in which she allowed her sentiments in hostility to the +policy of her Ministers to appear publicly before the world. In +general, she had a profound distrust of the policy and judgment of Mr. +Gladstone, and she fully shared the dread with which the great body of +English statesmen looked upon the Home Rule policy. It was no new +sentiment on her part, for she had lived through the Repeal agitation +of O'Connell, and as far back as 1843 Sir Robert Peel had somewhat +unconstitutionally declared in Parliament that he was authorised by +the Queen to state that she, like her predecessor, was resolved to +maintain the Union inviolate by all the means in her power. + +There can now be no harm in saying--what when both parties were alive +was naturally kept in the background--that the relations of the Queen +with Mr. Gladstone were usually of a very painful character. She had +personally not much to complain of. The skill and firmness with which +Mr. Gladstone resisted the attempts to diminish the parliamentary +subsidies for her family were fully and gratefully recognised by the +Queen, but the main course of his politics, both foreign and domestic, +filled her with alarm, and she never appears to have experienced the +attraction which his great personal gifts exercised over most of those +with whom he came in immediate contact. The extreme copiousness of his +vocabulary, the extreme subtlety of his mind and reasoning, and the +imperiousness of temper with which he seldom failed to meet +opposition, were all repugnant to her. To those who have experienced +the sustained emphasis of language with which Mr. Gladstone was +accustomed in conversation to enforce his views, there is much truth +as well as humour in the saying which was attributed to the Queen, 'I +wish Mr. Gladstone would not always speak to me as if I was a public +meeting'; and a little episode which is related by Sir Theodore Martin +illustrates the irritation which Mr. Gladstone's methods of business +must have caused to a very busy and overworked lady who always loved +few words and simple and direct arguments.[53] At all times the Queen +had decided political opinions, and the experience of a long reign had +given her a large measure of not unjustifiable self-confidence. Few +persons had studied as she had during all those years the various +political questions that arose, and she had had the advantage of +discussing them at length with a long succession of the leading +statesmen of England. Under such circumstances her opinions had no +small weight, and although in the Liberal Government she gave her full +confidence to Lord Clarendon and Lord Granville, she looked with the +gravest apprehension on the policy of Mr. Gladstone. + +It was a painful and irksome position, but it did not lead the Queen +to any unconstitutional course. No public act or word ever disclosed +her feelings. It was indeed in most cases very slowly, and in small +circles and through private channels, that the convictions of the +Queen became known. + +At the close of the second Ministry of Mr. Gladstone she at once +offered him an earldom, which he refused, and on his death she fully +acquiesced in the public funeral in Westminster Abbey, and the Prince +of Wales attended it as her representative. In an autograph letter to +Mrs. Gladstone she spoke with the deep and genuine warmth that was +never wanting in her letters of condolence of her sympathy with the +bereavement of that lady. She spoke of his illustrious gifts and of +his personal kindness to herself, but it was noticed that no sentence +in the letter intimated any approbation of his general policy. 'Truth +in the inmost parts' was indeed a prominent characteristic of the +Queen, and she wrote nothing which was not in accordance with her true +convictions. + +There were occasions when she took independent steps, and some of these +had a considerable influence on politics. Louis Napoleon was one of the +few great Sovereigns who were not related to her, and to few persons +could the _coup d'état_ which brought him to the throne have been more +repugnant, but the cordial personal relations she established with him +undoubtedly contributed considerably to the good relations which for +many years subsisted between England and France. Bismarck detested +English Court influence and was greatly prejudiced against her, but he +has left a striking testimony to the favourable impression which her +tact and good sense made upon him when he first came into contact with +her. She possessed to a high degree the power of choosing the right +moment and striking the true chord, and she appears to have been an +excellent judge not only of the feelings of large bodies of men, but +also of the individual characters of those with whom she dealt. She had +a style of writing which was eminently characteristic and eminently +feminine, and it is easy to trace the letters which were entirely her +own. Her letters of congratulation, or sympathy, or encouragement on +public occasions scarcely ever failed in their effect and never +contained an injudicious word. The same thing may be said of her many +beautiful letters to those who were suffering from some grievous +calamity. Whether she was writing to a great public character like the +widow of an American President, or expressing her sorrow for obscure +sufferers, there was the same note of true womanly sympathy, so +manifestly spontaneous and so manifestly heartfelt, that it found its +way to the hearts of thousands. The tact for which she was so justly +celebrated, like all true tact, sprang largely from character, from the +quick and lively sympathies of an eminently affectionate nature. No one +could have been less theatrical, or less likely in any unworthy way to +seek for popularity; but she knew admirably the occasions or the methods +by which she could strike the imagination and appeal most favourably to +the feelings of her people. She showed this in the very beginning of her +reign when she insisted, in defiance of the opinion of the Duke of +Wellington, on riding herself through the ranks of her troops at her +first review. She showed it on countless other occasions of her long +reign--pre-eminently in her two Jubilees and in her last visit to +Ireland. It is well known that this visit was entirely her own idea. To +many it seemed rash or even positively dangerous. They dwelt upon the +bitter disaffection of a great portion of the Irish people, upon the +danger of mob outrage or even assassination, upon the extreme difficulty +of preventing a royal visit to Ireland from taking a party character and +being regarded as a party triumph or defeat. But the Queen, as Sir +William Harcourt once truly said, 'never feared her people,' and nothing +could be more happy than the manner in which she availed herself of the +new turn given to Irish feeling by the splendid achievements of Irish +soldiers in South Africa, to come over, as if to thank her Irish people +in person, and at the same time to repair in extreme old age a neglect +for which she had been often, and not altogether unjustly, blamed. There +never indeed was a more brilliant and unqualified success. To those who +witnessed the spontaneous and passionate enthusiasm with which she was +everywhere greeted, it seemed as if all bitter feeling vanished at her +presence; and the Irish visit, which was one of the last, was also one +of the brightest pages of her reign. The credit of its most skilful +arrangements belongs chiefly to the officials in Dublin, but the Irish +people will long remember the patient courage with which the aged Queen +went through its fatigues; the tactful kindness and the gracious dignity +with which she won the hearts of multitudes who had never before seen +her or spoken to her; the evident enjoyment with which she responded to +the cordiality of her reception. One feature of that visit was +especially characteristic. It was the Children's Review in Phoenix Park, +where, by the desire of the Queen, 'some fifty thousand children were +brought together to meet her. No act of kindness could have gone more +directly home to the hearts of the parents, and it left a memory in many +young minds that will never be effaced. + +It is rather, however, by the example of a life than by any public +acts that a constitutional Sovereign can impress her personality on +the affections of her people. Of the reign of Queen Victoria it may be +truly said that very few in English history have been so blameless as +this, which was the longest of all. Her Court was a model of quiet +dignity and decorum, singularly free from all the atmosphere of +intrigue and from all suspicion of injudicious or unworthy +favouritism. She managed it as she managed her family, with a happy +mixture of tact and affection; and though she gave her confidence to +many she gave it to such persons and in such a way that it seemed +never to be abused. No domestic life could in all its relations have +been more perfect, and her love of children amounted to a passion. +Among the great female rulers it would be difficult to find one less +like Queen Victoria than the Empress Catherine of Russia, but they had +this common trait of an intense love of children and a great power of +winning their affection. There is a charming letter of Catherine to +Grimm, describing her life among her grandchildren, which might almost +have been written by the English Queen. Her vast family, spread +through many countries, was her abiding interest and delight, and +although she had to pay in full measure the natural penalty of many +bereavements, she at least never knew the dreary loneliness that +clouded the last days of her great predecessor, Elizabeth. + +In the early years of her reign she fully filled her place as the +leader of English society. In the plays she patronised, in the art +she preferred, in the restrictions of her Drawing Rooms, in the +fashions she countenanced, in the intimacies she selected or +encouraged, her influence was always healthy and pure, and for some +years it powerfully affected the tone of English society. +Unfortunately, after the great calamity of her widowhood the nerves of +the Queen seem to have been shaken, and though she never intermitted +her political duties and spent daily many hours over her +correspondence, she allowed her social duties to fall too much and too +long into abeyance. She still, it is true, occasionally appeared in +public ceremonies. She laid the first stones of several hospitals and +infirmaries. She presided over the inauguration of several great +industrial enterprises. She sometimes opened Parliament in person, and +was sometimes present at military and naval reviews. But she scarcely +ever appeared in London, except for a few days. She never appeared in +a London theatre. She shrank from great crowds and large social +gatherings, and buried herself too much in her Highland home. This is +one of the few real reproaches that history is likely to bring against +her. Her influence on English society was never wholly lost, and it +was always an influence for good, but for many years it was exerted +less frequently and less powerfully than it should have been, and the +tone of large sections of society lost something by her retirement. + +It may be doubted, however, whether this long retirement really +injured her in the minds of her people. Her rare occasional +appearances had a greater weight, and the depth of feeling exhibited +by her long widowhood became a new title to respect. The transparent +simplicity and unselfishness of her character were now generally +appreciated, and her own books contributed greatly to make her people +understand her. It is in general far from a wise thing for royal +personages to descend into the arena of literature unless they possess +some special aptitude for it. They expose themselves to a kind of +criticism wholly different from that which follows them in their +public lives--a criticism more minute and often more deliberately +malevolent than that to which an ordinary writer is subject. The Queen +wrote pure and excellent English and she had a good literary taste, +but she certainly could never have become a great writer; and the +complete frankness and unreserve of her Journals, as well as their +curious homeliness of thought and feeling, were not viewed with favour +in some sections of the fashionable and of the literary world. There +were circles in which the word 'bourgeois,' and there were others in +which the word 'commonplace,' was often pronounced. Yet in this, as on +nearly all occasions when the Queen acted on her own impulse, she +acted wisely. Her books had at once an enormous circulation, and there +can be no doubt that they contributed very widely to her popularity. +Multitudes to whom she had before been little more than a name, now +realised that she was one with whom they had very much in common. Her +evident longing for sympathy produced an immediate response. Her deep +domestic affection, her constant interest in her servants, her high +spirits, her love of scenery, her love of animals, her power of taking +delight in little things, appeared vividly in her pages and came home +to the largest classes of her people. + +In some respects the Queen was an eminently democratic Sovereign. +While maintaining the dignity of her position, rank and wealth were in +her eyes always subordinate to the great realities of life and to +true human affections. In no one was the touch of Nature that makes +the whole world kin more constantly visible. She was never more in her +place than in visiting some poor tenant on the morrow of a great +bereavement, or uttering words of comfort by the sick bed of some +humble dependant. Men of all ranks who came in contact with her were +struck with her thoughtful kindness, and her royal gift of an +excellent memory never showed itself more frequently than in the +manner in which she remembered and inquired after the fortunes and +happiness of obscure persons related to those with whom she spoke. + +Her religious opinions were brought very little before the public. +Beyond a deep sense of Providential guidance and of the comforting +power of religion, little is to be gathered from her published +utterances; but she seemed equally at home in the Scotch Presbyterian +and the Anglican Episcopal Church, and her marked admiration for such +men as Dean Stanley and Norman Macleod, and for the preaching of +Principal Caird, gives some clue to the bias of her opinions. Her mind +was not speculative but eminently practical, and while she patronised +good works of the most various kinds, there is reason to believe that +those which most appealed to her personal feelings were those which +directly contributed to alleviate the sufferings, or promote the +material welfare, of the poor. She devoted the greater part of her +Jubilee present to institutions for providing nurses for the sick +poor, and this is said to have been one of the charities in which she +took the warmest and most constant interest. + +She is said not to have had any sympathy with the movement for the +extension of political power to women, which became so conspicuous in +her reign; but her own success in filling for sixty-three years the +highest political position in the nation will always be quoted in its +support. Considering, indeed, how comparatively small has been the +number of reigning female Sovereigns, it is remarkable how many in +modern times have shown themselves pre-eminently capable. Isabella of +Spain, Catherine of Russia, Maria Theresa of Austria, and our own +Elizabeth, all rise far above the level of ordinary Sovereigns. Some +of these seem figures of a larger and stronger mould than Queen +Victoria, but they governed under very different constitutional +conditions, and, with one exception, there are serious blots on their +memory. There are few sadder facts in history than that the pure and +tender-hearted Spanish Queen should have been deeply tinged with the +persecuting fanaticism of her age and country; that she should have +consented to the establishment of the Inquisition in Castile, to the +expulsion of the Moors from her dominions, to the first law in Europe +establishing a practical censorship of the Press. The unscrupulous +ambition, the shameless favouritism, the gross personal vices of +Catherine, are as conspicuous as her high intelligence, her +indomitable will, her majestic commanding power. The reign of +Elizabeth is perhaps the most glorious in English history, but the +character of that great Queen is lamentably tarnished by waywardness +and caprice. Among purely constitutional Sovereigns Queen Anne holds a +respectable, though certainly not a brilliant, place, and it may be +added that much of the merit of the very constitutional though not +very glorious reign of George II. is due to the excellent sense and +judgment of Queen Caroline. In spite of the saying of Burke, the age +of chivalry is not wholly dead. The sex of Queen Victoria no doubt +gave an additional touch of warmth to the loyalty of her people, and +many of the qualities that made her most popular are intensely, if not +distinctively, feminine. They would not, however, have given her the +place she will always hold in English history, if they had not been +united with what men are accustomed to regard as more peculiarly +masculine--a clear, well-balanced mind, singularly free from +fanaticisms and exaggerations, excellently fitted to estimate rightly +the true proportion of things. + +In the last years of her reign the political horizon greatly cleared. +Lord Beaconsfield, during his later Ministries, obtained not only her +fullest political confidence, but also won a warmer degree of personal +friendship than she had bestowed on any Minister since the death of +Lord Melbourne; and her relations with his successor, Lord Salisbury, +appear to have been perfectly harmonious. The decisive rejection by +the country of the Home Rule policy removed a great incubus from her +mind, and she was fully in harmony with the strong Imperialist +sentiments which now began to prevail in English thought, and +especially with the warmer feeling towards our distant colonies which +was one of its chief characteristics. Her own popularity also rapidly +grew. She had keenly felt and bitterly resented the reproaches which +had at one period been frequently brought against her for her neglect +of social and ceremonial duties during many years of her widowhood. +Her censors, she maintained, made no allowance for her loneliness, her +advancing years, her feeble health, the overwhelming and incessant +pressure of her more serious political duties. But her two Jubilees, +bringing her once more into close touch with her people, put an end to +these reproaches. The Queen found with pleasure and perhaps with +surprise how capable she still was of performing great public +functions, and the vast outburst of spontaneous loyalty and affection +of which she became the object gave her deep and unconcealed pleasure. +To those, however, who were closely in connection with her it was +touching to observe the gracious and unaffected modesty with which she +received the homage of her subjects. Flattery was one of the things +she disliked the most, and all who knew her best were struck with the +singularly modest view she always took of herself. But blending with +this modesty, and even with a shyness which she never wholly +conquered, was the craving of a deeply affectionate and womanly nature +for sympathy, and this craving was now abundantly gratified. + +Still, with all this there was much that was melancholy in her later +days. She had survived nearly all the intimacies of her youth. Death +had made--especially in very recent times--many gaps in the circle of +those who were nearest to her, and several of her children and of her +children's husbands had preceded her to the tomb. Her sight had +greatly failed. She was bowed down by physical infirmity, and her last +year was saddened by a long, sanguinary, and inglorious war. Yet +almost to the very end she continued with unabated courage to fulfil +her daily task, and there was no sign that she had lost anything of +her quick sympathy and her admirable judgment and tact. Her life was a +most harmonious whole in which mind and character were happily +attuned, + + Like perfect music set to noble words. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[51] _Queen Victoria_, by Sidney Lee, p. 349. + +[52] Ollivier, _L'Empire Libéral_, vii. p. 455. + +[53] Sir Theodore Martin was asked by the Queen to give her a _précis_ +of a very long and unintelligible letter of Mr. Gladstone purporting to +explain the Irish Church Disestablishment Bill (_Queen Victoria as I +knew Her_, by Sir Theodore Martin).--ED. + + + + +OLD-AGE PENSIONS + + +There are many signs that the question of old-age pensions is destined +to assume a great prominence in England; although it is probable that +the large increase of national expenditure which is certain to follow +the unhappy war in South Africa may, for some time, postpone actual +legislation on the subject. The generation has passed away which +witnessed the enormous abuses of Poor Law relief that existed, under +the old English Poor Law, before 1834, and the rapid diminution of +pauperism that was effected by the sterner administration introduced +in that year. + +The principles of poor-law relief which were then recognised by the +best minds in England have been somewhat forgotten. These principles +were that, while in England provision is made for the support of all +who are absolutely destitute, it is of the utmost importance that on +the whole the condition of the pauper should be a less eligible one +than that of an independent labourer; that nothing should be done that +could diminish habits of thrift, forethought, and steady industry +among the poor; nothing that could weaken their sense of the necessity +of providing for their latter days, or of their duty of supporting, +when they have the means, their aged parents and relations. In +accordance with these principles it was laid down that outdoor relief +should be either absolutely refused to the able-bodied or only +granted under most exceptional circumstances; that the workhouse test, +with its stringent, deterrent discipline, should be steadily +maintained; that relaxations and special favours granted out of public +funds should be limited, as far as possible, to cases of special +calamity which it was impossible for any prudence or foresight to have +averted. + +It would certainly be a great exaggeration to say that these +principles have disappeared. Indeed, the robust, independent, +self-respecting character which it was the object of the Manchester +School to encourage is abundantly displayed in the gigantic Friendly +and other working-class Co-operative Societies which have so largely +increased in England during the last half-century. Two of these +Friendly Societies--the Manchester Unity and the Foresters--have each +of them more than seven hundred thousand members on their roll. At the +same time, it is equally certain that in many quarters a different, +and, in my opinion, very dangerous, spirit prevails. In England as +elsewhere there is an increased tendency to aggrandise the functions +of the State and to look to State aid or State control rather than +individual or co-operative effort as the remedy of every evil. Social +questions have assumed a greater prominence in politics; and, with the +lowering of the franchise, the vague State Socialism, which, in +different degrees, pervades most working-class politics, has given a +bias to both parties in the State. It has become prominent in every +election and has produced many rash pledges. + +The close connection between taxation and representation, which was +once considered the cardinal principle of English Liberalism, has, in +a marked degree, diminished, both in Imperial and local taxation. It +used to be contended that those who chiefly paid should chiefly +regulate, and that taxation should be as much as possible the +voluntary grant of the taxpayers, restricted to their common purposes. +But in many quarters a different belief has grown up. It is held that +in the hands of a democracy taxation should be made the means of +redressing the inequalities of fortune, ability, or industry; the +preponderant class voting and spending money which another class are +obliged to pay. The income-tax is so arranged that a large majority of +the voters are exempt from its burden; a highly graduated system of +death duties is now nearly the most prominent of our Imperial taxes; +and the Local Government Act of 1894 has placed local taxation on the +most democratic basis. The latter has given the power of voting rates +to many who do not pay them; and, by abolishing the nominated, or +ex-officio, guardians, and the plural voting of the larger ratepayers, +it has almost destroyed the influence of property on local taxation. + +At the same time the doctrine has arisen, and is now sedulously +propagated in England, that the State ought to undertake to provide at +the public expense for all old persons, or at least for all deserving +old persons, who have not succeeded in obtaining a sufficient +livelihood for themselves; that this provision should not be regarded +as an eleemosynary grant, but as a positive right; and that, in order +to free it from the taint of pauperism, and take away from the +recipient all reluctance to receive it, a new fund should be created, +entirely distinct from poor-law relief, and administered by some other +tribunal than the poor-law guardians. + +The claim has been supported on another ground. The immense +improvement of the material condition of the English working classes +during the last half-century is beyond all question; but it is much +more evident among the young and the strong than among the old. The +intense competition of modern industry, stimulated to the highest +point by free trade, by the factory system, and by the vast +development of machinery, has expelled the old and feeble from some of +its most important fields; and the influence of trade-unions in +enforcing, in each trade which they can control, a uniform and minimum +wage, has obliged the employer to employ only the most efficient +labour. + +The old man who could once easily obtain a little work at low wages +now finds it much more difficult; and the recent legislation +compelling the employer to compensate his workmen for all accidents +that take place in his employment, even when those accidents are in no +degree due to any negligence on his own part or on that of his +servants, has acted in the same direction. Such serious obligations +have been thrown on the employer in the more dangerous trades, that he +is obliged in self-defence to restrict himself to the workmen who are +least liable to accidents; and they are naturally those whose +strength, activity, and eyesight are at their best. Among the +recipients of poor-law relief the proportion of men over sixty-five is +enormously great; and some figures which, in 1893, were brought before +the Commission on the Aged Poor, made a great impression on the +country. It was stated that in a single year 29.3 of the whole +population over sixty-five were in receipt of poor-law relief in +England and Wales; and assuming that a third part of these old persons +belonged to the well-to-do, it was calculated that not much less than +three in seven must fall into the ranks of pauperism. + +There has been much controversy about the accuracy of this statement; +and, even if it be admitted, a good deal has been said to attenuate +its force. In the poor-law system as it was reformed in 1834, it was a +first principle that the workhouse, with its painful and degrading +associations, was to be the chief form of poor-law relief, and that +outdoor relief should only be granted on exceptional occasions and on +stringent conditions. This provision has been gradually relaxed. +Outdoor relief, which, in the eyes of the poor, carries with it very +little of the discredit and dislike that gathers round the workhouse, +is now by far the larger part of poor-law relief; and in many +districts it is administered with great laxity. + +It has been proved by the clearest evidence that the immense majority +of the aged and deserving poor who are in receipt of poor-law relief +only receive it in the form of outdoor relief, and very often only in +the form of medical relief, and that if they go to the workhouse it is +only when their peculiar circumstances make it desirable for them to +do so. Wherever a more stringent system of relief is imposed, +pauperism invariably and rapidly decreases; and Mr. Loch, the +Secretary of the Charity Organisation Society, has collected much +evidence to show that, on the whole, old-age pauperism is diminishing, +though it has not been diminishing at the same rate as pauperism under +the age of sixty. The administration of the workhouses has also +greatly improved; and the poor-law infirmaries are becoming hospitals +which are largely resorted to in time of sickness by many who might +easily avoid them. On the whole, old-age destitution is, and must be, +a grave question for philanthropists; but there has been great +exaggeration about its magnitude and its hardships. + +The expediency of devising a new and better method of providing for +the destitute aged poor of deserving character has long been +smouldering obscurely in English politics; but it obtained a real +importance for the first time when a very strong Royal Commission, +under the presidency of Lord Aberdare, was appointed, at the beginning +of 1893, to inquire into the question. After long and careful inquiry, +and after hearing a great multitude of witnesses, this Commission +reported in the spring of 1895. The majority of the members, while +recommending various reforms in the administration of the poor-law, +reported decisively against any system of old-age pensions, either in +the form of endowment or assisted assurance, as likely to do more harm +than good; but a minority, which derived special importance from the +presence of Mr. Chamberlain, refused to accept this decision as final, +and urged that the question should be submitted to a smaller body of +experts. In the election which took place in 1895 the question +appeared frequently upon the platform, and many members on both sides +of politics pledged themselves on the subject. + +The weight which is always attached to the speeches of Mr. Chamberlain +gave a great impulse to the movement. He never countenanced the idea +of universal old-age pensions, which was already advocated by many; +but he strongly maintained that special provision, apart from the +poor-law and in the shape of pensions, might, and ought to, be made +for the old and deserving poor; he expressed his belief that such a +measure 'would do more than anything else to secure the happiness of +the working classes'; and he suggested as the most feasible scheme +that 'whenever a man acquires for himself in a Friendly Society or +any other society a pension of 2_s._ 6_d._ a week the State should +come in and double that pension.' Mr. Chamberlain, however, did not +insist on this precise proposal; but he gave the question a great +prominence; and among politicians on both sides there was a manifest +tendency to make party capital out of it. + +A purely non-party Committee, presided over by Lord Rothschild, and +consisting mainly of distinguished financial authorities connected +with the permanent Civil Service, and therefore removed from active +politics, was appointed in 1896, in accordance with the recommendation +of the Aberdare Commission, to inquire especially into the question of +old-age pensions; and it reported in a document of conspicuous +ability. It was unanimous in condemning as impracticable or dangerous +all the schemes for such pensions that were brought before it; and it +fully confirmed the views of the preceding Commission. The report, and +the evidence on which it is based, clearly show the ways in which +measures intended for the benefit of the working class may prove in +the highest degree injurious to them. + +If the matter could have been decided by pure reasoning, this report +might have been generally accepted as decisive. But many of the +supporters of the Government had at the election made speeches in +favour of old-age pensions. One of its most powerful members had +thrown his weight into the scale. The idea had taken hold of great +sections of the working classes. The trade-unions, that see in +increasing old-age poverty the chief drawback to their policy of +enforcing in each trade a uniform and minimum wage, were naturally +delighted that the State should undertake, out of public funds, to +remove their difficulty. A number of Bills dealing with the question +had been introduced into the House of Commons by private members; and +the reluctance of the Government to take it up had become a favourite +form of party attack. The Government acted as perhaps most +Governments, under the circumstances, would have done. While refusing +to give any pledge, and repudiating any sympathy with the idea of +universal pensions, and insisting that an encouragement of thrift +should be an essential condition of any old-age pension scheme, they +refused to admit that a false departure had been made; and they +appointed a new Committee--of which the writer of these lines was a +member--to report upon the best means of improving the condition of +the aged deserving poor, and upon the feasibility of dealing with +their case by old-age pensions. + +Mr. Chaplin, the President of the Local Government Board, an +experienced and very popular member of the Cabinet, presided over the +Committee; and the fact that he drew up the report of the majority +gave that report its chief political importance. The Committee +consisted largely of members who had already committed themselves +deeply in favour of old-age pensions; and it will hardly be disputed +in England that it carried with it much less financial and political +weight than its predecessors; and that the majority report--which was +carried by 9 to 4--is more remarkable for the boldness of its +recommendations than for the cogency of its reasoning. It completely, +and almost contemptuously, discarded the conclusions of the majority +of the Aberdare Commission, and the unanimous opinion of the +Rothschild Committee; and it recommended that old-age pensions, +derived in part from Imperial and in part from local sources, and +varying from 5_s._ to 7_s._ a week, should be granted to all the +deserving poor who had attained the age of sixty-five and whose +incomes did not exceed 10_s._ a week. It proposed that these pensions +should be granted by committees established in every poor-law union +and elected by the poor-law guardians; that they should be revised +every three years; and that they should be distributed through the +agency of the post-office. + +On the great difficulties that seemed so formidable to its +predecessors it touched very lightly. How many of the poor were likely +under the proposed system to become pensioners, and what burden of +taxation was likely to be thrown on the State, were questions that +were put aside as irrelevant to the inquiry. To meet the enormous +difficulty of deciding upon the real merits, and of investigating the +real circumstances, of the great masses of independent and industrious +labourers who live in the manufacturing towns, or are constantly +moving from one great centre of population to another, and circulating +in quest of work through the whole extent of the Empire, it was +suggested that the relief be confined to those who were resident in a +single locality; and it was pointed out that a number of charities, +endowed out of old legacies or donations, and applying to particular +classes or districts, had come to be administered by the Charity +Commissioners, and that in this restricted field they had been able to +convert a large part of the income at their disposal from doles into +permanent pensions. + +The thrift test and the character test, which previous inquirers had +found it almost impossible to establish on a satisfactory basis, were +defined on the loosest lines. The pensioner must not, during the +preceding twenty years, have been sentenced to penal servitude or +imprisonment without the option of a fine; he must not, during the +same period of time, have been in receipt of poor-law relief 'other +than medical relief or unless under circumstances of a wholly +exceptional character'; and he must have 'endeavoured to the best of +his ability, by his industry and by the exercise of reasonable +providence, to make provision for himself and those immediately +dependent on him.' + +The extreme vagueness and the extreme elasticity of such provisions +are sufficiently manifest; and it is difficult to see how they can +give any real assistance in practical legislation; while they leave +the door open to the largest and most lavish expenditure. I have +endeavoured in a minority report to deal with these questions at +somewhat greater length than my present space will admit; but a few +pages may suffice to give an outline of the case of those who believe +the new policy to be both mistaken and dangerous. + +Nothing is more certain or more cheering in the condition of modern +England than the extraordinary diminution that has taken place, during +the present generation, in pauperism. It began with the reform of the +poor law in 1834; and although it has been found possible to relax +greatly the stringency of the poor-law regulations that were then +made, it has steadily continued. Much of this is due to the increase +in the rate of wages which has taken place in most departments of +English industry, and which has been accompanied by a great decrease +in the cost of most of the chief necessaries of life, as well as by a +considerable reduction in the hours of work. Sir Robert Giffen, in the +very remarkable paper which he published, in 1883, on the condition of +the working classes in England during the preceding fifty years, has +shown that in every class of work in which it is possible to make a +comparison the wages of the labourer have in these fifty years risen +at least 20 per cent., and in most cases between 50 and 100 per cent.; +and he has clearly demonstrated that no other section of the community +has obtained so large a proportion of the increase of the national +wealth, and improved in so great a degree in material prosperity. + +But the mere increase of wages is but one element of this improvement. +The very mainspring of the prosperity of the great masses of the +British working classes is to be found in their increased sobriety, +and in the habits of thrift and providence that have followed the +spread of education. The statistics of the Friendly Societies, the +Industrial and Provident Societies, the Building Societies, the +savings-banks, and of countless other institutions, created by +voluntary working-class effort for the purpose of insuring against +sickness or death, and providing working-class investments, attest in +the clearest manner the rapid growth of provident and thrifty habits +among the wage-earning classes. In no other respect is the improvement +of the nation so marked and so indisputable and no element in the +national character is more important to its prosperity and to its +enduring greatness. In the evidence that was brought before our +Committee, it was shown that since 1849 the pauperism of Great Britain +had been reduced from 62.7 per 1,000 to 26.2 per 1,000, if lunatics +and vagrants are included, to 22.8 per 1,000, if lunatics and vagrants +are excluded. + +The first, and most vital, condition of any sound legislation for the +relief of poverty is that it should not impair these industrial +qualities, or weaken these vast voluntary organisations of self-help +which are their result. Can it be said that the old-age pension policy +is compatible with this condition? + +It proposes to open, in addition to the existing system of poor +relief, a new fund, amounting to many millions of pounds a year, and +drawn from compulsory taxation for the purpose of subsidising simple +poverty; a fund to which it is to be rather creditable than otherwise +to resort; a fund which is intended to deal, not with exceptional +calamity, but with that which springs from the mere efflux of time, +and which is, beyond all others, the most normal and most easily +foreseen. It proposes to teach the whole working population to look to +the State, and not to themselves, for the provision for their old age, +and for the old age of those who might be dependent on them, and thus +to destroy the most powerful of all motives to thrift--the very +mainspring of productive and self-sacrificing industry. And it +proposes to do this at a time when wages are higher than they have +ever been before; when voluntary societies for securing the poor from +want are flourishing and increasing as they have never done before; +when the rapid decline of pauperism is one of the most marked and most +universally recognised signs of national improvement. Can it be +seriously believed that the addition of many millions a year to the +State funds directly employed in the relief of poverty will, in the +long run, tend to diminish pauperism or to encourage self-reliance and +thrift? + +Mr. Chamberlain and the other more considerable advocates of old-age +pensions clearly see that if such pensions are to be of real value +they must discriminate between the deserving and the undeserving; and +they believe that they may have the effect of stimulating, instead of +weakening, thrift. For this purpose several schemes have been devised. + +The most popular Continental method of achieving this end is by a law +obliging the working man in early life to insure against old age, and +by supplementing the income derived from this insurance by a State +subsidy. In Germany, where this system is actually carried out, the +old-age pension is derived from three sources--viz. compulsory +insurance by the workers, compulsory contribution by the employer, and +a State subsidy. Compulsory insurance found for many years a powerful +English advocate in Canon Blackley; and it has been recommended by a +recent inquiry in Holland, which, however, refused to propose any +system of old-age pensions. According to the best accounts, the German +system has been far from successful either economically or +politically; and it has certainly not prevented Socialism from +becoming one of the great dangers of the State. Into this question, +however, it is needless to enter, as it is now universally admitted in +England that compulsory insurance for old age is an impossibility; for +it would certainly be repudiated by the working classes. + +A large group of proposals are to the effect that old-age pensions +should be granted to all poor persons over the age of sixty-five whose +total income is less than 10_s._ a week, provided that a certain +portion of that income consists of a fixed annuity acquired by their +own industry and thrift. It is urged that in most of the great +branches of industry a deserving man in his earlier and stronger years +could easily earn such an annuity; and it is suggested that the State +should double it, or add to it sufficient to make it up to 10_s._ a +week, or supplement it by a fixed grant of 2_s._ 6_d._, or 5_s._, or +even 7_s._ a week. + +The objections to such schemes are very serious. It is obvious that if +they encourage a workman to save up to the amount required to secure a +pension, they would have a directly opposite effect as soon as that +amount had been attained. The first result of any addition to his +income would then be to disqualify him for a pension. It is also +obvious that the pensioner of sixty-five would have a strong +inducement to abstain from the work he could easily do, and that if he +continued to do it he would compete on exceptionally favourable terms +with the workman who, though he had passed the prime of life, was not +yet entitled to a pension, restricting his means of employment and +beating down his wages. Many of the most necessitous and deserving +poor would also be left unrelieved. + +Although it is true that in the more flourishing trades men could +easily in early life save out of their wages a sufficient sum to +acquire this annuity, there are large fields of industry in which such +a saving would be almost or absolutely impossible. We have had +melancholy evidence of how utterly insufficient most forms of women's +wages are to provide the needed margin. The same thing is true of the +agricultural labourer in the more depressed districts in England and +in large tracts of Ireland and Scotland. Even in the more remunerative +employments innumerable special circumstances would prevent a thrifty +and deserving man from obtaining this annuity. Certainly no one is +more deserving of compassion and State aid than the widow and young +orphans of a working man; but the scheme we are considering would not +only not help them, but would most seriously injure them. It is a +direct incentive to the workman to sink his savings in an annuity +which would terminate with his own life. + +The whole policy, indeed, of attempting to turn all working-class +savings into this one channel is a false one; and it has been shown +that no kind of saving is in fact less popular among working men than +the purchase of a deferred annuity. I may here be allowed to quote a +few lines from my own report: + +'In the infinitely various conditions of a working-man's life thrift +will take many forms, and an attempt to prescribe a single form is +eminently injudicious. The whole life-plan of a farmer whose farm will +remain with him to the end will be different from that of an artisan +or a domestic servant whose power of earning a livelihood depends +entirely upon his physical strength. The former will probably find it +most profitable to expend his savings on the improvement of his farm. +Where the system of peasant proprietorship prevails most agricultural +thrift is directed to the purchase and enlargement of farms. In +Ireland it is largely directed to the purchase of tenant right, or to +enabling the younger members of the family to emigrate. + +'Nor is it true that even the artisan will find the purchase of an +annuity the best thing to be aimed at. To buy a house or some +furniture; to start a small business; to expend his savings in tiding +over periods of slack or failing work; to avail himself of the +advantage which some fluctuation in the market gives to the man who +can transport himself promptly to a new locality or a new business is +often far more to his advantage. Above all, money expended in settling +his family is often his best policy as well as the course which is +most beneficial to the community. At present a large proportion of +working men look forward to their children to help them in their old +age, and make it a main object of their lives to place them in a +position to do so. It does not seem to me a wise thing for the State +either to emancipate children from this duty or to induce every +married working man to sink his savings in an annuity which will end +with his life and from which his widow and children can derive no +benefit. It is certainly not for the advantage of the country that in +selecting between alternative ways of providing for old age he should +be induced to choose that which throws the greatest burden on the +State. With the vast increase of population, with the great +fluctuations of modern industry, and with the rapid development of the +colonies, it is extremely desirable both in the interest of the +working men and of the State that they should be induced to transfer +themselves from congested towns and from exhausted industries to new +fields. A general pension system would certainly contribute most +powerfully to prevent them from doing so.' + +It has been proposed by others that the pension fund should be placed +in the hands of Friendly or Benefit Societies, and that they should be +intrusted with its administration, or that subscription to such +societies for a certain number of years should be taken by the State +as the thrift test. On the first proposal it is sufficient to say, +that these great voluntary societies are themselves opposed to it; for +if they were directly subsidised by the State, they would be obliged +to submit to a State control of their management and their finances +which they do not desire. It is observed that only a very small +proportion of the subscribers to these societies ever find it +necessary to come upon the poor rates; and if a system of old-age +pensions were confined to these limits, it would act in the most +unequal manner. Their members are drawn in a far larger proportion +from the lucrative and flourishing trades than from those which are +struggling and underpaid. Few women belong to them. In Ireland, which +is the poorest part of the Empire, Friendly Societies scarcely exist; +and the same thing is true of large districts in Wales and Scotland. +The main result of such proposals would be to concentrate the new +State fund for the relief of poverty on the richest parts of the +Empire, and on the trades that need it the least. + +The extreme difficulty of finding any efficient test of thrift is very +evident; and those proposed by a large number of the advocates of +old-age pensions are so easy as to be almost worthless. Some consider +it sufficient that a man has for a certain number of years not been in +receipt of poor-law relief, except medical relief or relief granted +under 'exceptional circumstances.' Others would accept the mere fact +that a man has lived to be sixty-five, as the drunken and disreputable +workman seldom lives so long. A large number of resolutions have +condemned Mr. Chaplin's report on the grounds that old-age pensions +ought not to be confined to the 'deserving' poor; that they ought to +begin at an earlier age than sixty-five; that they ought to be +administered by a body totally unconnected with the poor law, so as to +carry with them no taint of pauperism or eleemosynary relief. They +ought, it is said, to be universal; to be looked on as a matter of +strict right; to be considered as of the same nature as the pension +given to the soldier or the Civil Servant. + +It is obvious that all this may carry us very far. It is estimated +that some of the most popular proposals would involve an annual +expenditure of considerably more than twenty millions of +pounds--making allowance for the saving that might be effected in the +ordinary poor-law relief, but not counting the cost of administration. +And this expenditure would be a growing one; and once accepted it +could hardly be withdrawn. The vast addition to the national debt that +might follow a great European war or the great shrinkage of the +national income that might easily follow some revolution in trade or +manufacture, might render the burden of taxation incomparably more +serious than at present; but once the great mass of the population had +learned to regard State support in old age as their normal prospect +and their inalienable right, it would be impossible, without producing +a social revolution, to recede. All the advantages gained by +generations of economical administration of the national finance would +be nullified; while the certain result of this crushing addition to +taxation would be to weaken incalculably the spirit of thrift, +providence, and self-reliance, and at the same time to lower wages, by +removing one of the great considerations by which they are regulated. +And this reduction of wages would fall not only on the recipient of +the pension, but also on multitudes who would never live to attain it. +Nothing can be more certain than that a general system of pensions +attached to the labour of the wage-earner must lower wages, at least +among all those who are approaching the pension age; while it would +prevent or retard their natural increase over a far wider area. + +It would also most certainly bring with it the gravest danger of +corruption. It would not be easy to secure the pure and the impartial +administration of these vast funds; but the political dangers would be +much more serious. It is proposed that the pension system should be +first introduced on a small scale, but gradually extended till it +included all the aged poor, or at least all who were deserving. Such a +question would infallibly pass into the competitions of party warfare. +It would become in most constituencies one of the most prominent of +electioneering tests. Rival candidates would be competing for the +votes of a wage-earning electorate who had a direct pecuniary interest +in increasing or extending pensions and in relaxing the conditions on +which they are given. Can it be doubted that in many cases their first +object would be to outbid one another, and that national and party +politics would soon be forced into a demoralising race of +extravagance? + +I cannot conclude without protesting against the supposition that +those who think with me are indifferent to the great evil of old-age +destitution and propose nothing for its relief. The committees which +have most clearly pointed out the dangers of old-age pensions have +also urged, that within the lines of our present poor-law system it is +quite possible to do much, by an improved classification, to +distinguish among the recipients of poor-law relief between the +respectable and the worthless. Much has already been done, and in the +most important unions the guardians have introduced a large amount of +classification by merit. As I have already said, the immense majority +of the respectable aged poor are now relieved only in their own homes +or in comfortable infirmaries. The severe test of absolute destitution +has in practice been greatly relaxed; there is a legal provision +preventing those who are receiving help from Friendly Societies from +being disqualified for relief; husbands and wives are no longer +separated in the workhouse; and in some unions of which we had +evidence much more has been done. This, however, depends too much on +the will of particular Boards of Guardians, and there are in +consequence great inequalities of treatment. The condition of the +deserving poor may be greatly improved by relaxation in points of +hours, discipline, and visitors, and by workhouse arrangements +securing more universally that paupers who have lived respectable +lives should not be obliged to mix with the drunken, the disreputable, +and the hopelessly idle. And, though extensions of outdoor relief +should be carefully watched, and entail great dangers, yet under wise +and strict administration something more may be done in this +direction. + +But all this should be regarded as essentially poor-law relief, and +not as the recognition of a claim of right for services supposed to +have been rendered to the community. No form of State Socialism is +more dangerous than the doctrine which has been countenanced by Prince +Bismarck, and which is making many disciples in England--namely, that +an industrious man, who has pursued his course in life with perfect +independence, made his own contracts, chosen his own work, and been +paid for it by stipulated wages, is entitled, if he fails in obtaining +a sufficiency for his old age, to be placed as a 'soldier of industry' +in the same category as State servants, and to receive like them, not +on the ground of compassion, but of right, a State pension drawn from +the taxation of the community. There is no real analogy between the +relief that is very properly granted to such workmen in their +destitution, and the pensions--largely of the nature of deferred +pay--that are given by the State or by private employers, under the +terms of distinct contracts, and for specific services duly rendered, +to those who have entered into their employment and placed themselves +under their control. + + + + +INDEX + + +Aberdare Commission, 303 + +Addington, 273 + +American Revolution, 34-37, 55-57, 77, 78 + +Anne, Queen, 295 + +Anti-Semite movement, 116-121, 123-125, 128 + +Arnold, Dr., 251 + +Australia, 58 + +Austria, 116, 145 + + +Bacon, 28, 94, 101 + +Bayard, Mr., 48 + +Bayle, 97 + +Beaconsfield, Earl of (B. Disraeli), 126, 151, 153, 207, 211, 214, + 215, 217, 283; + imperialism, 46; + policy regarding Eastern Crisis, 222; + relations with Lord Derby, 223; + Queen Victoria's regard for, 296 + +Beer, George, 56 + +Bentham, J., 43, 101 + +Bernard, Claude, 121 + +Bismarck, Prince, 288, 289, 317 + +Blackley, Canon, 310 + +Blennerhassett, Lady, 131-133, 145, 148, 149 + +Blomfield, Bishop, 263 + +Bossuet, 96-98 + +Boulanger, General, 116 + +Bright, 207, 208 + +British Empire, growth, 51, 53, 64; + defence, 61, 65; + unity, 45, 48, 51, 62, 67 + +Browning, Robert, 105, 251 + +Buckle, H.T., 29, 100-102, 251, 269 + +Burke, Edmund, 28, 54, 55, 151, 295 + +Butler's 'Analogy,' 91, 92 + + +Caird, Principal, 294 + +Canada, 59, 60 + +Canning, 151, 174, 188, 189, 198, 199; + attitude towards Catholic Question, 156, 160, 161, 166-170, 172, 188; + quoted, 213 + +Cardan, quoted, 10 + +Carlyle, Thomas, 47, 91, 216, 247, 251; + school of, 29; + style, 105; + characteristics, 106-113; + teaching, 107, 108, 110-115 + +Caroline, Queen, 295 + +Castlereagh, Viscount, 156, 157, 160, 161, 167, 169, 170, 188 + +Catherine, of Russia, Empress, 291, 295 + +Catholic Emancipation, 78-86, 152, 153, 157-174, 187-190, 193, 194, 197; + _see also under_ Ireland + +Cato, 15 + +Chamberlain, Joseph, 303-304, 309 + +Charlemagne, 17-19, 266 + +Charlemont, 73, 81 + +Chartism, 108, 115 + +Chatham, Lord, 85, 86, 138, 151, 157-160, 165, 186, 273 + +Chaucer, 18, 117 + +Chivalry, 17, 19, 295 + +Chrysostom, Dio, 16 + +Church, Dean, 250, 265 + +Clarendon, Lord, 244, 246, 280 + +Cobden, Richard, 44, 46, 62 + +Colenso, Bishop, 272 + +Coleridge, 22, 96, 112, 147 + +Colonial policy of Great Britain, 43-46, 52, 53, 55-61 + +Colonies, British: + defence, 49, 56, 65; + federation, 63, 64; + governors, 52, 54, 60; + representation, 51, 65, 66; + trade, 47, 56, 63-65, 225; + value of, 47-50; + attachment to the Crown, 277 + +Comte, 100 + +Constant, Benjamin, 142, 144, 148 + +Constitutional sovereignty, 277 + +Co-operation, 108, 217, 299 + +Croker, 177, 178 + +Crusades, 18, 19, 266 + +Curchod, Mlle., _see_ Necker, Mme. + +Curwen's Act, 177 + + +Dalling, Lord, 151 + +Darwin and his teaching, 90, 101, 114, 247, 251 + +Davies, Sir John, quoted, 70 + +Delane, J.T., 243 + +De Quincey, 107 + +Derby, 14th Earl of, 201, 202, 204-206, 208-210, 212, 214, 215 + +Derby, 15th Earl of: + career, 200, 205-213, 215, 217, 218, 222-224, 234, 235; + views on Church questions, 205, 210, 214, 232, 233; + on Reform Bill, 210; + Indian policy, 205, 209, 210; + foreign policy, 212, 213, 217-224; + colonial policy, 208, 224, 225, 228-230; + attitude towards Home Rule, 234; + contemporary opinion of him, 206-209, 211-213, 219, 220; + marriage 215; + interest in social questions, 205, 206, 212, 216, 217, 224, 235; + in working men, 205, 206, 210, 216, 217, 237; + tastes, 239, 240; + conversation, 240, 241; + estimate of his talents and character, 202-204, 207, 209, 212, 217, + 219-224; + speeches, 202, 205, 211, 212, 214, 215, 217, 222-224, 229, 234-236 + +Dicey, Professor 89 + +Disraeli, B., _see_ Beaconsfield + +Duigenan, 169, 174 + + +Eastern Question, Lord Derby's views on, 218-223 + +_Edinburgh Review_, 242, 243, 246, 247 + +Education, popular, 108, 185 + +Eldon, Lord, 160, 174, 189, 190, 192, 253 + +Elizabeth, Queen, 291, 295; + inscription on tomb of, 187 + +Ellenborough, Lord, 208, 209 + +Emerson, R.W., 96, 104 + +Emigration, 49, 50, 53, 108 + +Erasmus, 257 + +'Essays and Reviews,' 90 + + +Faber, 250 + +Factory legislation, 108 + +Federation, 63, 64, 225 + +Feudalism, 17, 69, 110 + +Fitzwilliam, Lord, 85 + +Flood, 73, 81 + +Foster, Leslie, 195 + +Fox, 158, 162, 174 + +France, 73, 97, 98, 116 + +Franklin, Benjamin, 94 + +_Fraser's Magazine_, 104 + +Free Trade, 44, 45, 47, 63, 64, 78, 225 + +French Revolution, 28, 37, 38, 82, 139, 141, 142 + +Froude, J.A., 251, 269 + + +Galdos' 'Gloria,' 117 + +George II., 295 + +George III. and Catholic Emancipation, 85, 86, 157-162, 194 + +George IV., as Prince Regent, 162, 163, 165, 166; + as King, 188-191, 194 + +German literature, 146, 147 + +Germany, 106, 107, 116, 118, 145, 260, 262, 310, 317 + +Gibbon, 3, 134, 263, 264 + +Giffen, Sir Robert, 307, 308 + +Gladstone, W.E., 214, 246, 249, 250, 283, 286-288 + +Goethe, 107, 147 + +Gordon, General, 286 + +Goulburn, 196, 197 + +Grattan, 78, 81, 82, 84, 161, 163, 164, 166, 168-171, 174, 186, 187, + 195, 197 + +Grenville, George, 36, 56, 57 + +Grenville, Lord, 158, 161, 162, 166 + +Greville, Charles, 206, 207, 209, 243 + +Grey, Lord, 166, 280 + +Grote, 251, 269 + +Guizot, 151, 244 + +Gustavus III., King of Sweden, 138 + + +Hallam, A., 96, 251, 269 + +Harcourt, Sir William, quoted, 290 + +Hastings, Warren, 54, 55 + +Haussonville, M. d', 134, 138 + +Hawkesbury, Lord, 161 + +Hawtrey, Provost, 265 + +Heber, Bishop, 255 + +High Church movement, 90, 92, 249-251, 270 + +Hippisley, Sir John, 163, 169 + +Historians, qualities requisite, 2, 4-6, 10-12; + motto for, 10; + scientific school, 2-4; + literary, 3; + methods, 7, 8, 22, 23; + applied to religion, 97-99; + eighteenth century, 22, 23; + fatalist school, 29, 30; + individualist school, 29, 31 + +History: + biographical element, 7, 9; + individual influences, 12, 13; + fiction and, 20; + accident as affecting, 31, 100; + of institutions, 27, 28; + of revolutions, 29, 30, 34-38; + speculations, 32, 33; + advantages of studying, 38-40; + moral lessons, 40, 42 + +Hobbes, 94, 98, 99 + +Home Rule, _see under_ Ireland + +Homer, 16, 22 + + +Ideals, varying popular, 14-19 + +Imperial Institute, 43 + +Imperialism, 46-51, 63, 64, 296 + +India, 44, 46-48, 54, 55, 57, 58, 61, 62, 277 + +Ireland (_see also_ Ulster): + invasions, 69; + rebellions, 71, 82, 83, 85, 157; + influence of the Reformation, 70; + under the Stuarts, 71; + trade, 71, 72, 75, 78; + effects of English Revolution, 71, 72; + of American Revolution, 77, 78; + of French Revolution, 82; + Young's views on, 76, 77; + Catholics and Protestants, 70-79, 81-87; + Volunteer movement, 78, 87; + political agitation, 77, 78, 82, 87, 88; + union with Great Britain, 74, 75, 81, 83-85, 157; + Catholic Emancipation, 81-86, 157-174, 189, 194-198; + corruption, 175-179, 181, 183; + discontent, 165, 183, 184, 189, 194; + tithe commutation, 185-187; + Church disestablishment, 214, 215, 250, 283; + land tenure, 70, 75-77, 86, 87; + landlords, 75-77, 79, 86, 87; + Home Rule, 25, 87-89, 234, 246, 286, 296; + Queen Victoria's visit, 290, 291; + present condition, 86, 87; + representation in Parliament, 86 + +Irish Acts of Parliament, + of settlement, 71; + octennial, 77; + of 1793, 85, 158, 159; + of union, 74, 75, 81, 83-85 + +Irish Parliament, 71, 72, 74, 75, 77-83, 85 + +Irishmen, United, 81, 84, 85 + +Isabella of Spain, Queen, 295 + +Italian art, 103 + +Italy, 97, 98, 145, 146 + + +Jefferson, quoted, 37, 38 + +Jeffrey, 107 + +Jewish type, + stability of, 120, 121; + trade, 118, 119, 121; + writings, modern investigation of, 8, 9, 257-259, 261, 262, 271, 272 + +Jews, + calumnies against, 117, 118; + characteristics, 118-130; + code, 121; + compared with other tribes, 119; + continuity of race, 119, 120; + distinguished, 126-129; + persecution of, 116-121, 123-126; + return of, to Palestine, 129, 130; + Milman's 'History of the', 257, 258, 262, 272 + + +Kant, Immanuel, 92, 147, 247 + +Keats, John, 256 + +Keble, John, 250, 270 + +Kruger, President, 226-228 + + +Landor, Walter Savage, quoted, 22 + +Leroy, Beaulieu, M. Anatole, 116-128 + +Lewis, Sir G. Cornewall, 45, 153, 246, 273 + +Liverpool, Lord, 156, 166, 168, 182, 188, 192-194, 197-199 + +Lloyd, Dr., 192 + +Locke, 96, 101 + +Lockhart, 255 + +Loughborough, Lord, 186 + +Louis Napoleon, _see_ Napoleon III. + +Lyall, Sir Alfred, 240 + + +Macaulay, Lord, 3, 6, 8, 55, 204, 246, 251, 268, 269, 272, 273 + +Macleod, Norman, 294 + +Malmesbury, Lord, 206, 210 + +Manchester School, 44, 45, 47, 50, 299 + +Marie Antoinette, Queen, 140, 141 + +Martin, Sir Theodore, 287 + +Masson's 'Life of Milton,' 132 + +Melbourne, Lord, 282, 296 + +Mill, James, 43, 55 + +Mill, John Stuart, 90, 96, 206, 210, 251 + +Milman, Dean, + career, 253, 256, 262, 263, 271-274; + dramatist, 253; + poet, 254, 255; + translator, 256; + hymns, 255; + historian, 257-270; + critic, 252, 256-261, 263-267, 269; + learning, 269; + style, 268, 269; + views on miracles, 258-260; + on German criticism, 260-262; + on Christianity, 268; + on Tractarian movement, 270; + on clerical subscription, 271; + Mr. Reeve and, 246; + Dean Stanley and, 271; + friendships, 252, 273; + private correspondence, 253; + social gifts, 272, 273; + characteristics, 252, 253, 257, 265, 266, 268, 269, 271, 272-274; + works, 252-270, 272, 273; + portrait, 274 + +Milman, Arthur, 252 + +Milner, Bishop, 163, 164 + +Milton, 132 + +Mohammedanism, rise of, 32, 101 + +Molyneux, 74 + +Monasticism, 24 + +Montesquieu, 132, 136 + +Montmorin, Mme, de, 139 + +Moral standard, changes in, 14-19, 266 + +Murray, 254 + + +Napoleon I., 142-146, 149 + +Napoleon III., 280, 288 + +Narbonne, Louis de, 138-141 + +Necker, Mme., 134, 135, 142 + +Necker, Monsieur, 133, 138, 140, 144, 146, 149 + +Necker, Germaine, _see_ Staël, Mme. de + +Newcastle, Duke of, 45, 189 + +Newman, Cardinal, 90, 96, 249-251, 269, 270 + + +O'Connell, 164, 165, 171, 174, 189, 192, 193, 286 + +Old-age pensions, 307, 309, 311-316; + proposals for, 300, 309, 310, 313; + Royal Commission, 303; + Rothschild Committee, 304, 305; + Chaplin Committee, 305, 307 + +Orangemen, 84, 173, 189, 190 + + +Palestine, return of Jews to, 129, 130 + +Paley, 95, 260 + +Palmerston, Lord, 46, 178, 206-209, 211, 246, 279-282 + +Parker, editor of Peel Correspondence, 153, 156, 192 + +Parnell, C.S., 186 + +Parnell Commission, 88, 89 + +Parsons, 73, 84 + +Pasteur, 121 + +Pauperism, diminution of, 298-309 + +Peel, Sir Lawrence, 156 + +Peel, Sir Robert, + education, 154, 155; + career, 151, 153-156, 168, 172, 177, 187, 188, 194; + abolition of Corn Laws, 152, 153; + Irish Secretary, 156, 157, 167, 174-187; + relations with O'Connell, 174; + correspondence, 153, 173, 175-185, 189, 190, 191, 197-199; + Croker and, 177, 178; + advocates unsectarian education for Ireland, 185, 190; + Catholic Emancipation, 152, 153, 168-174, 187, 189-191, 193-195, 197-199; + financial measures, 187, 194, 195; + patronage, 178-183, 191, 192; + police force organised, 184, 185; + Home Secretary, 188-198; + parliamentary skill, 152, 153, 157, 181, 191; + debating powers, 172, 173; + Queen Victoria and, 282, 286; + recantations, 152, 153, 187, 193, 194; + estimate of his character and abilities, 151-154, 156, 157, 172, 181, 191 + +Perceval, 155, 156, 159-161, 165, 166 + +Pitt, William, _see_ Chatham + +Pliny, quoted, 102 + +Plunket, 84, 168, 174, 188 + +Pobedonosteff, 117 + +Pole, Wellesley, 168 + +Poor-law relief, + improvement in, 316, 317; + principles of, 298, 299 + +Portland, Duke of, 159-161 + +Portugal, Jews in, 120, 121 + +Prince Consort, 278-280, 282, 284 + +Prince Regent, _see_ George IV + +Prison reform, Carlyle's views on, 114 + +Pusey, 250 + + +'Quarterly Review,' 256, 257 + + +Rationalism in Europe, author's History of, 103 + +Redesdale, Lord, 175, 181, 182, 186 + +Reeve, Henry: + education, 243; + career, 243, 245, 246; + editor of _Edinburgh Review_, 242, 246, 247; + historical knowledge, 246; + views on Home Rule, 246; + linguistic talent, 243; + literary judgment, 246, 247; + religious and philosophical views, 247; + political and social influence, 242, 244-246; + friendships, 243, 244, 247, 248; + writings of, 242-244, 247; + closing days, 248 + +Reform Bills, 210, 211, 213 + +Reformation, + causes of the, 29, 30; + effect in Ireland, 70 + +Revolution, + American, 34-37; + effects of, in Ireland, 77, 78 + +Revolution, + English, effect of, in Ireland, 71, 72; + on trade, 72, 74 + +Revolutions, history of, 29, 30, 34-38 + +Richmond, Duke of, 165, 167, 187 + +Ristori, Mme., 245 + +Rocca, 148, 149 + +Rogers, Sir Frederick, 45, 46 + +Roumania, anti-Semite movement in, 116, 118 + +Rousseau, 96, 132, 136 + +Ruskin, 251 + +Russell, Lord John, 46, 47, 211-213, 241, 246, 263, 280, 281, 285 + +Russia, anti-Semite movement in, 116-118, 124 + + +Salisbury, Lord, 276, 296 + +Saurin, 165, 168, 169, 174, 183, 188 + +Schiller, 147 + +Schleswig-Holstein question, 281, 284, 285 + +Scotland, Act of Union with, 74 + +Shaftesbury, Lord, 206, 217 + +Shelley, P.B., 256, 257 + +Sidmouth, Lord, 158, 188 + +Smith, Goldwin, 44, 151 + +Socialism, 299, 310 + +Spain, 73, 97, 98, 117, 120, 121, 124, 125 + +Spencer, Herbert, 90, 109, 247 + +Staël, Baron de, 138, 140, 142 + +Staël, Mme. de., parentage, 133, 134; + personal appearance, 135; + career, 134-138, 142, 145, 148-150; + devotion to her father, 138; + friendships, 138, 139, 142, 145; + literary works, 136, 141, 142, 145-150; + Napoleon I., views on, 143, 144; + political influence, 139, 140, 142, 144; + religious views, 136, 149; + travels, 145, 146; + characteristics, 136, 137, 141, 145, 148, 149 + +Stanley, Dean, 251, 260, 271, 294 + +Stanley, Lord, _see_ Derby, 15th Earl of + +Stockmar, Baron, 278 + +Sullivan, Sir Arthur, 254 + + +Tait, Archbishop, 283 + +Talleyrand, 134, 139, 142, 144 + +Taxation of American Colonies, 34-36, 56, 57; + democratic principles of, 300 + +Taylor, Sir Henry, 45, 46 + +Tennyson, Lord, 90, 251 + +Tocqueville, 242-244 + +Trade, + Colonial, 47, 56, 63-65; + Indian, 47; + Irish, 71, 72, 75, 78; + Jewish, 118, 119, 121; + affected by English Revolution, 72 + +Transportation to Australia, 58 + +Transvaal affairs, 225-232, 286 + +Trinity College, Dublin, 90-92, 96-100, 103 + + +Ulster, 70, 77, 78, 83, 84 + +United Irishmen, 81, 84, 85 + + +Voltaire, 7, 96, 121, 135 + +Volunteer movement in Ireland, 78, 87 + +Victoria, Queen: + relations with her Ministers, 279-283, 286-288, 296; + memorandum on foreign affairs, 279, 280; + political influence, 277, 278, 280, 282-286, 288; + patronage, 278; + views on foreign policy, 279-281, 283-286; + on Irish Church disestablishment, 283; + on women's suffrage, 294; + on Home Rule, 296; + wide experience, 276, 279, 287; + letters, 288, 289; + journals, 292, 293; + widowhood, 275, 292, 296; + moral influence, 291, 292; + rule of, 275, 277-279, 281-284, 293-295; + popularity, 289-291, 293, 296, 297; + characteristics, 274-276, 279, 281-283, 287-294, 296, 297; + jubilees, 290, 296, 297; + visit to Ireland, 290, 291; + closing days, 296, 297 + + +Walpole, Spencer, 151 + +Ward, 250 + +Watts, 274 + +Wellesley, Lord, _see_ Wellington, Duke of + +Wellington, Duke of, 160, 161, 166, 167, 188-190, 198, 272, 289 + +Whateley, Archbishop, 92-96, 100, 251 + +Women rulers, 295 + +Working classes, improvement in their condition, 300, 301, 308 + + +York, Duke of, 194, 197-199 + +Young, Arthur, 76, 77 + + + +PRINTED BY +SPOTTISWOODE AND CO. LTD., NEW-STREET SQUARE +LONDON + + + + * * * * * + + + + +-----------------------------------------------------------+ + | Typographical errors corrected in text: | + | | + | Page 322: added page number 322, to Murray entry. | + | Page 324: Whateley replaced with Whately | + | | + +-----------------------------------------------------------+ + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL ESSAYS*** + + +******* This file should be named 20389-8.txt or 20389-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/3/8/20389 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + diff --git a/old/20389-8.zip b/old/20389-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..51c67d8 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/20389-8.zip diff --git a/old/20389.txt b/old/20389.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5d48dba --- /dev/null +++ b/old/20389.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10160 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Historical and Political Essays, by William +Edward Hartpole Lecky + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Historical and Political Essays + + +Author: William Edward Hartpole Lecky + + + +Release Date: January 17, 2007 [eBook #20389] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL ESSAYS*** + + +E-text prepared by Ted Garvin, Jeannie Howse, and the Project Gutenberg +Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/c/) + + + + +-----------------------------------------------------------+ + | Transcriber's Note: | + | | + | Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original | + | document have been preserved. | + | | + | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected in this | + | text. For a complete list, please see the end of this | + | document. | + | | + +-----------------------------------------------------------+ + + + + + +HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL ESSAYS + +by + +WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY + + + + + + + +Longmans, Green, and Co. +39 Paternoster Row, London +New York, Bombay, and Calcutta +1908 +All rights reserved + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + THOUGHTS ON HISTORY 1 + + THE POLITICAL VALUE OF HISTORY 21 + + THE EMPIRE: ITS VALUE AND ITS GROWTH 43 + + IRELAND IN THE LIGHT OF HISTORY 68 + + FORMATIVE INFLUENCES 90 + + CARLYLE'S MESSAGE TO HIS AGE 104 + + ISRAEL AMONG THE NATIONS 116 + + MADAME DE STAEL 131 + + THE PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE OF SIR ROBERT PEEL 151 + + THE FIFTEENTH EARL OF DERBY 200 + + MR. HENRY REEVE 242 + + DEAN MILMAN 249 + + QUEEN VICTORIA AS A MORAL FORCE 275 + + OLD-AGE PENSIONS 298 + + INDEX 319 + + + + +The Essays 'Thoughts on History,' 'Formative Influences,' +'Madame de Stael,' 'Israel among the Nations,' 'Old-age +Pensions,' appeared originally in the American Review, the +_Forum_--the first under the title of 'The Art of Writing +History'; 'Ireland in the Light of History,' in the _North +American Review_. Those on Sir Robert Peel, Mr. Henry Reeve, +and Dean Milman were written for the _Edinburgh Review_. The +Essay on 'Queen Victoria as a Moral Force' appeared first in +the _Pall Mall Magazine_; 'Carlyle's Message to His Age' in +the _Contemporary Review_. 'The Political Value of History' +was a presidential address delivered before the Birmingham and +Midland Institute; 'The Empire,' an inaugural address +delivered at the Imperial Institute; and the 'Memoir of the +Fifteenth Earl of Derby' was originally prefixed to the +volumes of his speeches and addresses. + + + + +HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL ESSAYS + + + + +THOUGHTS ON HISTORY + + +I do not propose in this paper to enter into any general inquiry about +the best method of writing history. Such inquiries appear to me to be +of no real value, for there are many different kinds of history which +should be written in many different ways. A diplomatic, a military, or +a parliamentary history, dealing with a short period or a particular +episode, must evidently be treated in a very different spirit from an +extended history where the object of the historian should be to +describe the various aspects of the national life, and to trace +through long periods of time the ultimate causes of national progress +and decay. The history of religion, of art, of literature, of social +and industrial development, of scientific progress, have all their +different methods. A writer who treats of some great revolution that +has transformed human affairs should deal largely in retrospect, for +the most important part of his task is to explain the long course of +events that prepared and produced the catastrophe; while a writer who +treats of more normal times will do well to plunge rapidly into his +theme. + +Historians, too, differ widely in their special talents, and these +talents are never altogether combined. The power of vividly realising +and portraying men, or societies or modes of thought that have long +since passed away; the power of arranging and combining great +multitudes of various facts; the power of judging with discrimination, +accuracy, and impartiality conflicting arguments or evidence; the +power of tracing through the long course of events the true chain of +cause and effect, selecting the facts that are most valuable and +significant and explaining the relation between general causes and +particular effects, are all very different and belong to different +types of mind. It is idle to expect a writer with the gifts of a +Clarendon, a Kinglake, or a Froude to write history in the spirit of a +Hallam or a Grote. Writers who are eminently distinguished for wide, +patient, and accurate research have sometimes little power either of +describing or interpreting the facts which they collect. All that can +be said with any profit is that each writer will do best if he follows +the natural bent of his genius, and that he should select those kinds +or periods of history in which his special gifts have most scope and +the qualities in which he is deficient are least needed. + +It is the fashion of a modern school of historical writers to deplore +what they call the intrusion of literature into history. History, in +their judgment, should be treated as science and not as literature, +and the kind of intellect they most value is not unlike that of a +skilful and well-trained attorney. To collect documents with industry; +to compare, classify, interpret and estimate them is the main work of +the historian. It is no doubt true that there are some fields of +history where the primary facts are so little known, so much contested +or so largely derived from recondite manuscript sources, that a +faithful historian will be obliged in justice to his readers to +sacrifice both proportion and artistic charm to the supreme importance +of analysing evidence, reproducing documents and accumulating proofs; +but in general the depreciation of the literary element in history +seems to me essentially wrong. It is only necessary to recall the +names of Herodotus and Thucydides, of Livy and Tacitus, of Gibbon and +Macaulay, and of the long line of great masters of style who have +related the annals of France. It may, indeed, be confidently asserted +that there is no subject in which rarer literary qualities are more +demanded than in the higher forms of history. The art of portraying +characters; of describing events; of compressing, arranging, and +selecting great masses of heterogeneous facts, of conducting many +different chains of narrative without confusion or obscurity; of +preserving in a vast and complicated subject the true proportion and +relief, will tax the highest literary skill, and no one who does not +possess some, at least, of these gifts in an unusual measure is likely +to attain a permanent place among the great masters of history. It is +a misfortune when some stirring and momentous period falls into the +hands of the mere compiler, for he occupies the ground and a really +great writer will hesitate to appropriate and plagiarise the materials +his predecessor has collected. There are books of great research and +erudition which one would have wished to have been all re-written by +some writer of real genius who could have given order, meaning and +vividness to a mere chaos of accurate and laboriously sifted learning. +The great prominence which it is now the fashion to ascribe to the +study of diplomatic documents, is very apt to destroy the true value +and perspective of history. It is always the temptation of those who +are dealing with manuscript materials to overrate the small personal +details which they bring to light, and to give them much more than +their due space in their narrative. This tendency the new school +powerfully encourages. It is quite right that the treasure-houses of +diplomatic correspondence which have of late years been thrown open +should be explored and sifted, but history written chiefly from these +materials, though it has its own importance, is not likely to be +distinguished either by artistic form or by philosophical value. Those +who are immersed in these studies are very apt to overrate their +importance and the part which diplomacy and statesmanship have borne +in the great movement of human affairs. + +A true and comprehensive history should be the life of a nation. It +should describe it in its larger and more various aspects. It should +be a study of causes and effects, of distant as well as proximate +causes, and of the large, slow and permanent evolution of things. It +should include, as Buckle and Macaulay saw, the social, the +industrial, the intellectual life of the nation as well as mere +political changes, and it should be pre-eminently marked by a true +perspective dealing with subjects at a length proportioned to their +real importance. All this requires a powerful and original intellect +quite different from that of a mere compiler. It requires too, in a +high degree, the kind of imagination which enables a man to reproduce +not only the acts but the feelings, the ideals, the modes of thought +and life of a distant past, and pierce through the actions and +professions of men to their real characters. Insight into character is +one of the first requisites of a historian. It is therefore, much to +be desired that he should possess a wide knowledge of the world, the +knowledge of different types of character, foreign as well as English, +which travel and society and practical experience of business can +give, and it will also be of no small advantage to him if he has +passed through more than one intellectual or religious phase, widening +the area of his appreciation and realisations. He should also have +enough of the dramatic element to enable him to throw himself into +ways of reasoning or feeling very different from his own. One of the +most valuable of all forms of historical imagination is that which +enables a writer to place himself in the point of view of the best men +on different sides, and to bring out the full sense of opposing +arguments. All these gifts or qualities are never in a high degree +united, but they are all essential to a great historian, and a true +school of history should widen instead of narrowing our conception of +it. + +The supreme virtue of the historian is truthfulness, and it may be +violated in many different degrees. The worst form is when a writer +deliberately falsifies facts or deliberately excludes from his picture +qualifying circumstances. But there are other and much more subtle +ways in which party spirit continually and often quite unconsciously +distorts history. All history is necessarily a selection of facts, and +a writer who is animated by a strong sympathy with one side of a +question or a strong desire to prove some special point will be much +tempted in his selection to give an undue prominence to those that +support his view, or, even where neither facts nor arguments are +suppressed, to give a party character to his work by an unfair +distribution of lights and shades. The strong and vivid epithets are +chiefly reserved for the good or bad deeds on one side, the vague, +general and comparatively colourless epithets for the corresponding +deeds on the other side; and in this way very similar facts are +brought before the reader with such different degrees of illumination +and relief that they make a wholly different impression on his mind. +In the history of Macaulay this defect may, I think, be especially +traced. The characteristic defect of that great and in most respects +admirable writer, both as historian and artist, was the singular +absence of graduation in his mind. The neutral tints which are +essential to the accurate shading of character seemed almost wanting, +and a love of strong contrasted lights and shades, coupled with his +supreme command of powerful epithets, continually misled him. But no +attentive reader can fail to observe how unequally those epithets are +distributed and how clearly this inequality discloses the strong bias +under which he wrote. + +The truth of an historical picture lies mainly in its judicious and +accurate shading, and it is this art which the historian should +especially cultivate. He will scarcely do so with success unless it +becomes to him not merely a matter of duty, but also a pleasure and a +pride. The kind of interest which he takes in his narrative should be +much less that of a politician and an advocate than of a painter, who, +now darkening and now lightening the picture, seeks by many delicate +touches to catch with exact fidelity the tone and hue of the object he +represents. + +The degree of certainty that it is possible to attain in history +varies greatly in different departments. The growth of institutions +and laws, military events, changes in manners and in creeds, can be +described with much confidence, and although it is more difficult to +depict the inner moral life of nations, the influences that form their +characters and prepare them for greatness or decay, yet when the +materials for our induction are sufficiently large this field of +history may be studied with great profit. Diplomatic history and the +more secret springs of political history can only be fully disclosed +when the archives relating to them have been explored and when the +confidential correspondence of the chief actors in them has been +published. The biographical element in history is always the most +uncertain. Even among contemporaries the judgment of character and +motives depends largely on indications so slight and subtle that they +rarely pass into books and are only fully felt by direct personal +contact, and the smallest knowledge of life shows how quickly +anecdotes and sayings are distorted, coloured, and misplaced when they +pass from lip to lip. Most of the 'good sayings' of history are +invention, and most of them have been attributed to different persons. +A history which is plainly written under the influence of party bias +has the value of an advocate's speech giving one side of the question. +When our only materials for the knowledge of a period are derived from +such histories, the saying of Voltaire should be remembered--that we +can confidently believe only the evil which a party writer tells of +his own side and the good which he recognises in his opponents. In +judging the historian we must consider his nearness to the events he +relates, his probable means of information and the internal evidence +in his narrative of accuracy, honesty, and judgment, and we must also +consider the standard of proof and the methods of historical writing +prevailing in his time. A modern writer who placed in the mouths of +his personages speeches which he himself invented would be justly +discredited, but in antiquity it was a recognised custom for a +historian to embody in fictitious speeches the reflections suggested +by his narrative and the motives which he believed to have actuated +his heroes. + +Different ages differ enormously in the severity of proof which they +exact, in the degree of accuracy which they attain. The credibility of +a statement also depends not only on the amount of its evidence, but +also on its own inherent probability. Everyone will feel that an +amount of testimony that would be quite sufficient to persuade him +that a butcher's boy had been seen driving along a highway is wholly +different from that which would be required to persuade him that a +ghost had been met there. The same rule applies to the history of the +past, and it is complicated by the great difference in different ages +of the measure of probability, or, in other words, by the strong +predisposition in certain stages of knowledge to accept statements or +explanations of facts which in later stages we know to be incredible +or in a high degree improbable. Few subjects in history are more +difficult than the laws of evidence in dealing with the supernatural +and the extent to which the authority of historians in relating +credible and probable facts is invalidated by the presence of a +mythical element in their narratives. + +Connected with this subject is also the question how far it is +possible by merely internal evidence to decompose an ancient document, +resolving it into its separate elements, distinguishing its different +dates and its different degrees of credibility. The reader is no doubt +aware with what a rare skill this method of inquiry has been pursued +in the present century, chiefly by great German and Dutch scholars, in +dealing with the early Jewish writings. At the same time, without +disputing the value of their work or the importance of many of the +results at which they have arrived, I may be pardoned for expressing +my belief that this kind of investigation is often pursued with an +exaggerated confidence. Plausible conjecture is too frequently +mistaken for positive proof. Undue significance is attached to what +may be mere casual coincidences, and a minuteness of accuracy is +professed in discriminating between the different elements in a +narrative which cannot be attained by mere internal evidence. In all +writings, but especially in the writings of an age when criticism was +unknown, there will be repetitions, contradictions, inconsistencies +and diversities of style which do not necessarily indicate different +authorship or dates. + +I have spoken of the uncertainty of the biographical element in +history. It must, however, be said that when a historian is dealing +with men who have played a very prominent part on the stage of life, +the general acceptance of his judgment is a strong corroboration of +its truth. It may be added that the later judgment of men is not +unfrequently more true than the contemporary judgment. The wisdom of a +teaching or of a policy is shown by its results, and these results are +in most cases very gradually disclosed. Great men are like great +mountains which are surrounded by lower peaks that often obscure their +grandeur and seem to a near observer to equal or even to overtop them. +It is only when seen from far off that their true dimensions are fully +realised and they soar to heaven above all rivals. In the page of +history men are judged mainly by the net result of their lives, by the +broad lines of their characters and achievements. Many injudicious +words, many minor weaknesses of conduct, are forgotten. Faults of +manner, deficiencies of tact, awkwardnesses of appearance, which tell +so largely upon the judgments of contemporaries, are no longer seen. +The conversational nimbleness and versatility of intellect, the charm +or assurance or magnetism of manner, the weight of social position, +all of which tend to secure to an inferior man a pre-eminence in the +circle in which he moves, are equally evanescent, and the shy, rugged, +and tactless recluse often emerges on the strength of his genuine and +abiding performances to a position in the eyes of the world which he +never attained during his lifetime. + +That fine saying of Cardan, 'Tempus mea possessio, tempus ager meus,' +might be the motto of the historian. Time is the field which he +cultivates, and a true sense of space and distance should be one of +the chief characteristics of his work. Few things are more difficult +to attain than a just perspective in history. The most dramatic +incidents are not the most important, and in weighing the joys and +sorrows of the past our measures of judgment are almost hopelessly +false. The most humane man cannot emancipate himself from the law of +his nature, according to which he is more affected by some tragic +circumstance which has taken place in his own house or in his own +street than by a catastrophe which has carried anguish and desolation +over enormous areas in a distant continent. In history, too, there are +vast tracts which are almost necessarily unrealised. We judge a period +mainly by its great men, by its brilliant or salient incidents, by the +fortunes of a small class; and the great mass of obscure, suffering, +inarticulate humanity, whose happiness is often so profoundly affected +by political and military events, almost escapes our notice. It should +be the object of history to bring before us past events in their true +proportion and significance, and one of the greatest improvements in +modern history is the increased attention which is paid to the +social, industrial, and moral history of the poor. The paucity of our +information and the difficulty of realising the conditions of obscure +multitudes will always make this branch of history very imperfect, but +it is one of the most essential to the just judgment of the past. + +Another task which lies before the historian is that of distinguishing +proximate from ultimate causes. Our first natural impulse is to +attribute a great change to the men who effected it and to the period +in which it took place, and to neglect or underrate the long train of +causes which had been, often through many generations, preparing its +advent. A faithful historian must especially guard against this error. +He must study the slow process of growth as well as the moment of +efflorescence, the long progress of decay as well as the final +catastrophe. He will probably find that the part played by statesmen +and legislatures is less than he had imagined, and that the causes of +the movements he relates must be sought over a wider area and through +a longer period. + +Moral, intellectual, or economical movements very slightly connected +with political life are often those which have most largely +contributed to the good or evil fortunes of a nation; and even in the +sphere of politics it is not the events which attract the most vivid +contemporary interest that have the most enduring influence. Few +things contribute so much to the formation of the social type as the +laws regulating the succession of property and especially the +agglomeration or division of landed property. The growth of militarism +in a nation, besides its direct and obvious consequences, forms a type +of character which will sooner or later show itself in almost every +department of legislation, and the tendency of politics to enlarge or +narrow the sphere of individual liberty or of government control, will +affect most deeply the habits of the people. Laws regulating private +enterprises, substituting State control or initiative for individual +action, encouraging or discouraging thrift, and above all interfering +with free contracts, have much more than an immediate influence, for +they become the prolific parents of many further extensions. In the +words of an excellent observer, it will be found 'that our legislative +interference is but the first link of a long chain of repetitions, +every subsequent interference being naturally produced by the effects +of the preceding.' It is by studying such tendencies through long +periods of time that their good or evil influences may be best +discovered, and this should be one of the great tasks of the +historian. + +But, however large a part may be given to the impersonal influences in +history, he will still be largely concerned with the record of +individual achievements, and the great men of the past will form the +most conspicuous landmarks of his narrative. I have often thought, +however, that nations are judged too much by the great men they have +produced and not sufficiently by the way in which they have +discriminated among them and appreciated them. Genius is like the wind +that bloweth where it listeth, and it often appears in strangely +uncongenial quarters. The true nobility of a nation is shown by the +men they choose, by the men they follow, by the men they admire, by +the ideals of character and conduct they place before them. Tried by +such tests, there is often much that is profoundly saddening in the +history of countries that have been far from poor in the number of +their great men. + +In the judgment of historical characters there are two cautions on +which it may not be useless to dwell. There is a large class of public +men who show little capacity in dealing with or directing the present +conditions of their time, but who see clearly the bourne to which +existing forces or tendencies are moving and who, judged by their +distant forecasts, will appear much wiser than their contemporaries. +It is the natural bias of the historian to place them perhaps higher +than they deserve. This power of just speculative foresight is no very +rare gift, and in public affairs it is often as much a hindrance as a +help. Forms of government and other great religious or political +institutions, like the products of nature, have their times of +immaturity, of growth, of ripeness and of decay, and it by no means +follows because they at last become indefensible, that they have not +during many generations discharged useful functions and that those who +first assailed and condemned them are deserving of praise. Not +unfrequently, indeed, a public man must take his choice whether by +fully identifying himself with the existing conditions around him and +employing them to the best advantages he will lead a useful and +practical life, or whether as an advanced thinker he will associate +himself with the cause that is one day to conquer, place himself in +the van of progress and at the sacrifice of much present influence +deserve the credit of foresight. + +Historians will probably always judge men and policies by their net +results, by their final consequences, and this judgment is on the +whole the most sure that we can attain. It is not, however, altogether +infallible. Apart from the question of the moral character of the +methods employed which a good historian should never omit from his +consideration, success is not always a decisive proof of sagacity. +Chance and the unexpected play a great part in human affairs, and a +judgment founded on a perfectly just estimate of probabilities will +often prove wrong. The result which was the least probable will come +true, some wholly unforeseen and unforeseeable occurrence will scatter +dangers that were very real and give a new complexion to events. The +rise of some pre-eminently great or of some pre-eminently mischievous +personage among the guiding influences of a nation will derange the +most sagacious calculations, and the reckless gambler or the obtuse +obstructionist may prove more right than the most cautious, the most +skilful, the most farseeing statesman. + +A fatal and very common error is that of judging the actions of the +past by the moral standard of our own age. This is especially the +error of novices in history and of those who without any wide and +general culture devote themselves exclusively to a single period. +While the primary and essential elements of right and wrong remain +unchanged, nothing is more certain than that the standard or ideal of +duty is continually altering. A very humane man in another age may +have done things which would now be regarded as atrociously barbarous. +A very virtuous man may have done things which would now indicate +extreme profligacy. We seldom indeed make sufficient allowance for the +degree in which the judgments and dispositions of even the best man +are coloured by the moral tone of the time or society in which they +live. And what is true of individuals is equally true of nations. In +order to judge equitably the legislation of any people, we must always +consider corresponding contemporary legislations and ideas. When this +is neglected our judgments of the past become wholly false. How often, +for example, has such a subject as the history of the penal laws +against Irish Catholics been treated without the smallest reference to +the contemporary laws against Protestants that existed in every +Catholic nation and the contemporary laws against Catholics that +existed in almost every Protestant country in Europe. How often have +the English commercial restrictions on the American colonies been +treated as if they were instances of extreme and exceptional tyranny, +while a more extended knowledge would show that they were simply the +expression of ideas of commercial policy and about the relation of +dependencies to the mother-country which then almost universally +prevailed. + +It is not merely the moral standard that changes. A corresponding +change takes place in the moral type, or, in other words, in the class +of virtues which is especially cultivated and especially valued. To +know an age aright we should above all things seek to understand its +ideal, the direction in which the stream of its self-sacrifice and +moral energy naturally flowed. Few things in history are more +interesting and more valuable than a study of the causes that produced +and modified these successive ideals. Thus in the moral type of pagan +antiquity the civic virtues occupied incomparably the foremost place. +The idea of a supremely good man was essentially that of a man of +action, of a man whose whole life was devoted to the service of his +country. The life and death of Cato were for generations the favourite +model. He was deemed, in the words of an old Latin historian, to be of +all men the one 'most like to virtue.' This pattern retained its force +till the softening influence of the Greek spirit, permeating Roman +life, made the stoical ideal seem too hard and unsympathising; till +the corruption and despotism of the Empire had withdrawn the best men +from political life and attached a certain taint or stigma to public +employment; till new religions arose in the East, bringing with them +new ideals to govern the world. Gradually we may trace the +contemplative virtues rising to the foremost place until, about the +fifth century, the ideal had totally changed. The heroic type was +replaced by the saintly type. The supremely good man was now the +ascetic. The first condition of sanctity was a complete abandonment of +secular duties and cares and a complete subjugation of the body. A +vast literature of legends arose reflecting and glorifying the +prevailing ideal and holding up the hermit life as the supreme pattern +of perfection, and this literature occupies a place in mediaevalism +very similar to that held by the 'Lives' of Plutarch in antiquity. + +Ancient art was essentially the glorification of the body, a +representation of the full strength and beauty of developed manhood. +The saint of the mediaeval mosaic represents the body in its extreme +maceration and humiliation. The rhetorician, Dio Chrysostom, in a +somewhat whimsical passage, which was suggested by a remark of Plato, +found a special moral significance in the fact that Homer, though he +places his heroes on the the banks of what he calls 'the fishy +Hellespont,' never makes them eat fish, but always flesh and the flesh +of oxen, for this, as he says, is 'strength-producing food' and is +therefore suited for the formation of heroes and the proper diet for +men of virtue. Compare this judgment with the protracted, and indeed +incredible, fasts which the monkish writers delighted in attributing +to the saints of the desert, and we have a vivid picture of the change +that had passed over the ideal. + +But as time moved on the ascetic ideal gradually declined and was +replaced by the very different ideal of chivalry. It consisted chiefly +of three new elements. The first element was a spirit of gallantry +which gave women a wholly new place in the imaginations of men. It was +in part a reaction against the extreme austerity of the saints, and +this reaction was much intensified after the cessation of the panic +which had risen at the close of the tenth century about the +approaching end of the world. It was in part produced by the softer +and more epicurean civilisation which grew up in the country bordering +on the Pyrenees. It was especially represented in the romances and +poems of the Troubadours, and the new tendency even received some +assistance from the Church when the Council of Clermont, which +originated the Crusades, imposed on the knight the religious +obligation of defending all widows and orphans. + +The second element was an increased reverence for secular rank, which +grew out of the feudal system, when a great hereditary aristocracy +arose and all European society was moulded into a compact hierarchy, +of which the serf was the basis and the emperor the apex. The +principle of subordination and obedience ran through the whole +edifice, and a respect for rank was universally diffused. Men came to +associate their ideal of greatness with regal or noble authority, and +they were therefore prepared to idealise any great sovereign who might +arise. Such a sovereign appeared in Charlemagne, who exercised upon +Christendom a fascination not less powerful than that which Alexander +had once exercised upon Greece, and he accordingly soon became the +centre of a whole literature of romance. + +The third element was the fusion of religious enthusiasm with the +military spirit. Christianity in its first phases was utterly opposed +to the military spirit; but this opposition was naturally mitigated +when the Church triumphed under Constantine and became associated with +governments and armies. The hostility was still further qualified when +many tribes of warlike barbarians embraced the faith, and the military +obligation which was an essential element of feudalism acted in the +same direction. But, above all, the rise and conquests of +Mohammedanism awoke the military energies of Christendom and +determined the direction it should take. In the Crusades the two great +streams of military enthusiasm and of religious enthusiasm met, and +the result was the formation of a new ideal which for a long period +mainly governed the imagination of Christendom. + +It for a time absorbed, eclipsed, and transformed all purely national +ideals. No poet was ever more intensely English in his character and +sympathies than Chaucer, and he wrote when the dazzling glories of +Crecy and Poitiers were still very recent. Yet it is not on these +fields, but in the long wars with the Moslems, that his pattern knight +had won his renown. The military expeditions of Charlemagne were +directed almost exclusively against the Saxons and against Slavonic +tribes. With the Spanish Mohammedans he came but very slightly in +contact. He made in person but one expedition against them, and that +expedition was both insignificant and unsuccessful. But in the +Karlovingian romances, which were written when the crusading +enthusiasm was at its height, the figure of the great emperor +underwent a strange and most significant transformation. The German +wars were scarcely noticed. Charlemagne is surrounded with the special +glory that ought to have belonged to Charles Martel. He is represented +as having passed his entire life in a victorious struggle with the +Mohammedans of Europe, and is even gravely credited with a triumphant +expedition to Jerusalem. The three romances of the Crusades which are +believed to be the oldest were all written by monks, and they all make +Charlemagne their hero. Even geography was transformed by the new +enthusiasm, and old maps sometimes represent Jerusalem as the centre +of the world. + +In few periods has there been so great a difference between the ideals +created by the popular imagination and the realities that are +recognised by history. Few wars have been accompanied by more cruelty, +more outrage, and more licentiousness than the Crusades or have +brought a blacker cloud of disasters in their train. Yet the idea that +inspired them was a lofty one, and they were so speedily transfigured +by the imaginations of men that in combination with the other +influences I have mentioned they created an ideal which is one of the +most beautiful in the history of the world. We may trace it clearly in +the romances of Arthur and Charlemagne and of the "Cid;" in the +"Red-Cross Knight" of Tasso and Spenser; in the old ballads which +paint so vividly the hero of chivalry, ever ready to draw his sword +for his faith and his lady-love and in the cause of the feeble and the +oppressed. The glorification of military courage and self-sacrifice +which had been so prominent in antiquity was again in the ascendant, +but it was combined with a new kind of honour and with a new vein of +courtesy, modesty, and gentleness. When we apply the epithet +'chivalrous' to a modern gentleman, this is no unmeaning term. There +is even now an element in that character which may be distinctly +traced to the ideal of chivalry which the Crusades made dominant in +Europe. + +I do not propose to follow the history of other ideals that have in +turn prevailed. What I have written will, I trust, be sufficient to +illustrate a kind of history which appears to me to possess much +interest and value. It will show, too, that a faithful historian is +very largely concerned with the fictions as well as with the facts of +the past. Legends which have no firm historical basis are often of the +highest historical value as reflecting the moral sentiments of their +time. Nor do they merely reflect them. In some periods they contribute +perhaps more than any other influence to mould and colour them and to +give them an enduring strength. The facts of history have been largely +governed by its fictions. Great events often acquire their full power +over the human mind only when they have passed through the +transfiguring medium of the imagination, and men as they were supposed +to be have even sometimes exercised a wider influence than men as they +actually were. Ideals ultimately rule the world, and each before it +loses its ascendancy bequeaths some moral truth as an abiding legacy +to the human race. + + + + +THE POLITICAL VALUE OF HISTORY + + +When, shortly after I had accepted the honourable task which I am +endeavouring to fulfil to-night, I received from your Secretary a +report of the annual proceedings of the Birmingham and Midland +Institute,--when I observed the immense range and variety of subjects +included within your programme, illustrating so strikingly the intense +intellectual activity of this great town,--my first feeling was one of +some bewilderment and dismay. What, I asked myself, could I say that +would be of much real value, addressing an unknown audience, and +relating to fields of knowledge so vast, so multifarious, and in many +of their parts so far beyond the range of my own studies? On +reflection, however, it appeared to me that in this, as in most other +cases, the proverb was a wise one which bids the cobbler stick to his +last, and that a writer who, during many years of his life, has been +engaged in the study of English history could hardly do better than +devote the time at his disposal to-night to a few reflections on the +political value of history, and on the branches and methods of +historical study that are most fitted to form a sound political +judgment. + +Is history a study of real use in practical, and especially in +political, life? The question, as you know, has been by no means +always answered in the same way. In its earlier stages history was +regarded chiefly as a form of poetry recording the more dramatic +actions of kings, warriors, and statesmen. Homer and the early +ballads are indeed the first historians of their countries, and long +after Homer one of the most illustrious of the critics of antiquity +described history as merely 'poetry free from the incumbrance of +verse.' The portraits that adorned it gave some insight into human +character; it breathed noble sentiments, rewarded and stimulated noble +actions, and kindled by its strong appeals to the imagination high +patriotic feeling; but its end was rather to paint than to guide, to +consecrate a noble past than to furnish a key for the future; and the +artist in selecting his facts looked mainly for those which could +throw the richest colour upon his canvas. Most experience was in his +eyes (to adopt an image of Coleridge) like the stern light of a ship, +which illuminates only the path we have already traversed; and a large +proportion of the subjects which are most significant as illustrating +the true welfare and development of nations were deliberately rejected +as below the dignity of history. The old conception of history can +hardly be better illustrated than in the words of Savage Landor. 'Show +me,' he makes one of his heroes say, 'how great projects were +executed, great advantages gained, and great calamities averted. Show +me the generals and the statesmen who stood foremost, that I may bend +to them in reverence.... Let the books of the Treasury lie closed as +religiously as the Sibyl's. Leave weights and measures in the +market-place; Commerce in the harbour; the Arts in the light they +love; Philosophy in the shade. Place History on her rightful throne, +and at the sides of her Eloquence and War.'[1] + +It was chiefly in the eighteenth century that a very different +conception of history grew up. Historians then came to believe that +their task was not so much to paint a picture as to solve a problem; +to explain or illustrate the successive phases of national growth, +prosperity, and adversity. The history of morals, of industry, of +intellect, and of art; the changes that take place in manners or +beliefs; the dominant ideas that prevailed in successive periods; the +rise, fall, and modification of political constitutions; in a word, +all the conditions of national well-being became the subjects of their +works. They sought rather to write a history of peoples than a history +of kings. They looked specially in history for the chain of causes and +effects. They undertook to study in the past the physiology of +nations, and hoped by applying the experimental method on a large +scale to deduce some lessons of real value about the conditions on +which the well-being of society mainly depends. + +How far have they succeeded in their attempt, and furnished us with a +real compass for political guidance? Let me in the first place frankly +express my own belief that to many readers of history the study is not +only useless, but even positively misleading. An unintelligent, a +superficial, a pedantic or an inaccurate use of history is the source +of very many errors in practical judgment. Human affairs are so +infinitely complex that it is vain to expect that they will ever +exactly reproduce themselves, or that any study of the past can enable +us to predict the future with the minuteness and the completeness that +can be attained in the exact sciences. Nor will any wise man judge the +merits of existing institutions solely on historic grounds. Do not +persuade yourself that any institution, however great may be its +antiquity, however transcendent may have been its uses in a remote +past, can permanently justify its existence, unless it can be shown +to exercise a really beneficial influence over our own society and our +own age. It is equally true that no institution which is exercising +such a beneficial influence should be condemned, because it can be +shown from history that under other conditions and in other times its +influence was rather for evil than for good. + +These propositions may seem like truisms; yet how often do we hear a +kind of reasoning that is inconsistent with them! How often, for +example, in the discussions on the Continent on the advantages and +disadvantages of monastic institutions has the chief stress of the +argument been laid upon the great benefits which those institutions +produced in ages that were utterly different from our own,--in the +dark period of the barbarian invasions, when they were the only +refuges of a pacific civilisation, the only libraries, the only +schools, the only centres of art, the only refuge for gentle and +intellectual natures; the chief barrier against violence and rapine; +the chief promoters of agriculture and industry! How often in +discussions on the merits and demerits of an Established Church in +England have we heard arguments drawn from the hostility which the +Church of England showed towards English liberty in the time of the +Stuarts; although it is abundantly evident that the dangers of a royal +despotism, which were then so serious, have utterly disappeared, and +that the political action of the Church of England at that period was +mainly governed by a doctrine of the Divine right of kings, and of the +duty of passive obedience, which is now as dead as the old belief that +the king's touch could cure scrofula! How often have the champions of +modern democracy appealed in support of their views to the glories of +the democracies of ancient Greece, without ever reminding their +hearers that these small municipal republics rested on the basis of +slavery, and that the bulk of those who would exercise the chief +controlling influence over affairs in a pure democracy of the modern +type were absolutely excluded from political power! How often in +discussions about the advantages and disadvantages of Home Rule in +Ireland do we find arguments drawn from the merits or demerits of the +Irish Parliament of the eighteenth century, with a complete +forgetfulness of the fact that this Parliament consisted exclusively +of a Protestant gentry; that it represented in the highest degree the +property of the country, and the classes who are most closely attached +to English rule; that it was constituted in such a manner that the +English Government could exercise a complete control over its +deliberations, and that for good or for ill it was utterly unlike any +body that could now be constituted in Ireland! + +Or again, to turn to another field: it is quite certain that every age +has special dangers to guard against, and that as time moves on these +dangers not only change, but are sometimes even reversed. There have +been periods in English history when the great dangers to be +encountered sprang from the excessive and encroaching power of a +monarchy or of an aristocracy. The battle to be then fought was for +the free exercise of religious worship and expression of religious +opinion, for a free parliament, for a free press, for a free platform, +for an independent jury-box. All the best patriotism, all the most +heroic self-sacrifice of the nation, was thrown into defence of these +causes; and the wisest statesmen of the time made it the main object +of their legislation to protect and consolidate them. + +These things are now as valuable as they ever were, but no reasonable +man will maintain that they are in the smallest danger. The battles of +the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have been definitely won. A +kind of language which at one period of English history implied the +noblest heroism is now the idlest and cheapest of clap-trap. The +sycophant and the self-seeker bow before quite other idols than of +old. The dangers of the time come from other quarters; other +tendencies prevail, other tasks remain to be accomplished; and a +public man who in framing his course followed blindly in the steps of +the heroes or reformers of the past would be like a mariner who set +his sails to the winds of yesterday. + +It is difficult, I think, to doubt that the judgments of all of us are +more or less affected by causes of this kind. It is, I imagine, true +of the great majority of educated men that their first political +impression or bias is formed much less by the events of their own time +than by childish recollections of the more dramatic conflicts of the +past. We are Cavaliers or Roundheads before we are Conservatives or +Liberals; and although we gradually learn to realise how profoundly +the condition of affairs and the balance of forces have altered, yet +no wise man can doubt the power which the first bias of the +imagination exercises in very many cases through a whole life. +Language which grew out of bygone conflicts continues to be used long +after those conflicts and their causes have ended; but that which was +once a very genuine voice comes at last to be little more than an +insincere echo. + +The best corrective for this kind of evil is a really intelligent +study of history. One of the first tasks that every sincere student +should set before himself is to endeavour to understand what is the +dominant idea or characteristic of the period with which he is +occupied; what forces chiefly ruled it, what forces were then rising +into a dangerous ascendancy, and what forces were on the decline; what +illusions, what exaggerations, what false hopes and unworthy +influences chiefly prevailed. It is only when studied in this spirit +that the true significance of history is disclosed, and the same +method which furnishes a key to the past forms also an admirable +discipline for the judgment of the present. He who has learnt to +understand the true character and tendencies of many succeeding ages +is not likely to go very far wrong in estimating his own. + +Another branch of history which I would especially commend to the +attention of all political students is the history of Institutions. In +the constantly fluctuating conditions of human life no institution +ever remained for a long period unaltered. Sometimes with changed +beliefs and changed conditions institutions lose all their original +utility. They become simply useless, obstructive, and corrupt; and +though by mere passive resistance they may continue to exist long +after they have ceased to serve any good purpose, they will at last be +undermined by their own abuses. Other institutions, on the other hand, +show the true characteristic of vitality--the power of adapting +themselves to changed conditions and new utilities. Few things in +history are more interesting and more instructive than a careful study +of these transformations. Sometimes the original objects almost wholly +disappear, and utilities which were either never contemplated by the +founders or were only regarded as of purely secondary importance take +the first place on the scene. The old plan and symmetry almost +disappear as the institution is modified now in this direction and now +in that to meet some pressing want. The first architects, if they +could rise from the dead, would scarcely recognise their +creation--would perhaps look on it with horror. The indirect +advantages of an institution are sometimes greater than its direct +ones; and institutions are often more valuable on account of the evils +they avert than on account of the positive advantages they produce. +Not unfrequently in their later and transformed condition they +exercise wider and greater influence than when they were originally +established; for the strength derived from the long traditions of the +past and from the habits that are formed around anything that is +deeply rooted in the national life gives them a vastly increased +importance. + +There is probably no better test of the political genius of a nation +than the power which it possesses of adapting old institutions to new +wants; and it is, I think, in this skill and in this disposition that +the political pre-eminence of the English people has been most +conspicuously shown. It is difficult to overrate its importance. It is +the institutions of a country that chiefly maintain the sense of its +organic unity, its essential connection with its past. By their +continuous existence they bind together as by a living chain the past +with the present, the living with the dead. + +Few greater calamities can befall a nation than to cut herself off, as +France did in her great Revolution, from all vital connection with her +own past. This is one of the chief lessons you will learn from +Burke--the greatest and truest of all our political teachers. Bacon +expressed in an admirable sentence the best spirit of English politics +when he urged that 'men in their innovations should follow the example +of Time itself, which indeed innovated greatly, but quietly, and by +degrees scarcely to be perceived.' + +There is a third department of history which appears to me especially +valuable to political students. It is the history of those vast +Revolutions for good or for ill which seem to have transformed the +characters or permanently changed the fortunes of nations, either by a +sudden and violent shock or by the slow process of gradual renovation. +You will find on this subject, in our country, two great and opposite +exaggerations. There is a school of writers, of which Buckle is an +admirable representative, who are so struck by the long chain of +causes, extending over many centuries, that preceded and prepared +Revolutions, that they teach a kind of historic fatalism, reducing +almost to nothing the action of Individualities; and there is another +school, which is specially represented by Carlyle, who reduce all +history into biographies, into the action of a few great men upon +their kind. + +The one class of writers will tell you with great truth that the Roman +Republic was not destroyed by Caesar, but by the long train of +influences that made the career of Caesar a possibility. They will show +how influences working through many generations had sapped the +foundations of the Republic--how the beliefs and habits on which it +once rested had passed away--how its institutions no longer +corresponded with the prevailing wants and ideas--how a form of +government which had proved excellently adapted for a restricted +dominion failed when the Roman eagles flew triumphantly over the whole +civilised world, and how in this manner the strongest tendencies of +the time were preparing the downfall of the Republic, and the +establishment of a great empire upon its ruins. They will show how the +intellectual influences of the Renaissance, the invention of printing, +and a crowd of other causes, many of them at first sight very remote +from theological controversies, had in the sixteenth century so +shaken the power of the Roman Catholic Church, that the way was +prepared for the Reformation, and it became possible for Luther and +Calvin to succeed, where Wyckliffe and Huss had failed. They will show +how profoundly our theological beliefs are affected by our general +conception of the system of the universe, and how inevitably, as +Science changes the latter, the former will undergo a corresponding +process of modification. Creeds that are no longer in harmony with the +general spirit of the time may long continue, but a new spirit will be +breathed into the old forms. Those portions which are most discordant +with our fresh knowledge will be neglected or attenuated. Although +they may not be openly discarded, they will cease to be realised or +vitally operative. + +In the sphere of politics a similar law prevails, and the fate of +nations largely depends upon forces quite different from those on +which the mere political historian concentrates his attention. The +growth of military or industrial habits; the elevation or depression +of different classes; the changes that take place in the distribution +of wealth; inventions or discoveries that alter the course or +character of industry or commerce, or reverse the relative advantages +of different nations in the competitions of life; the increase and, +still more, the diffusion of knowledge; the many influences that +affect convictions, habits and ideals, that raise, or lower, or modify +the moral tone and type--all these things concur in shaping the +destinies of nations. Legislation is only really successful when it is +in harmony with the general spirit of the age. Laws and statesmen for +the most part indicate and ratify, but do not create. They are like +the hands of the watch, which move obedient to the hidden machinery +behind. + +In all this kind of speculation there is, I believe, great truth, and +it opens out fields of inquiry that are of the utmost interest and +importance. I have, however, long thought that it has been pushed by +some modern writers to extravagant exaggeration. As you well know, +there is another aspect of history, which, long before Carlyle, was +enforced by some of the ablest and most independent intellects of +Christendom. Pascal tells us that if Cleopatra's nose had been +shorter, the whole face of the world might have been changed, and +Voltaire is never tired of dwelling on the small springs on which the +greatest events of history turn. Frederick the Great, who was probably +the keenest practical intellect of his age, constantly insisted on the +same view. In the vast field of politics, he maintained, casual events +which no human sagacity can predict play by far the largest part. We +are in most cases groping our way blindly in the dark. Occasionally, +when favourable circumstances occur, there is a gleam of light of +which the skilful avail themselves. All the rest is uncertainty. The +world is mainly governed by a multitude of secondary, obscure, or +impenetrable causes. It is a game of chance in which the most skilful +may lose like the most ignorant. 'The older one becomes the more +clearly one sees that King Hazard fashions three-fourths of the events +in this miserable world.' + +My own view of this question is that though there are certain streams +of tendency, though there is a certain steady and orderly evolution +that it is impossible in the long run to resist, yet individual action +and even mere accident have borne a very great part in modifying the +direction of history. It is with History as with the general laws of +Nature. We can none of us escape the all-pervading force of +gravitation, or the influence of the climate under which we live, or +the succession of the seasons, or the laws of growth and of decay; yet +man is not a mere passive weed drifting helplessly upon the sea of +life, and human wisdom and human folly can do and have done much to +modify the conditions of his being. + +It is quite true that religions depend largely for their continued +vitality upon the knowledge and intellectual atmosphere of their time; +but there are periods when the human mind is in such a state of +pliancy that a small pressure can give it a bent which will last for +generations. If Mohammed had been killed in one of the first +skirmishes of his career, I know no reason for believing that a great +monotheistic religion would have arisen in Arabia, capable of moulding +for more than twelve hundred years not only the beliefs, laws, and +governments, but also the inmost moral and mental character of a vast +section of the human race. Gibbon was probably right in his conjecture +that if Charles Martel had been defeated at the famous battle near +Tours, the creed of Islam would have overspread a great part of what +is now Christian Europe, and in that case it might have ruled over it +for centuries. No one can follow the history of the conversion of the +barbarians to Christianity without perceiving how often a religion has +been imposed in the first instance by the mere will of the ruler, +which gradually took such root that it became far too strong for any +political power to destroy. Persecution cannot annihilate a creed +which is firmly established, or maintain a creed which has been +thoroughly undermined, but there are intermediate stages in which its +influence on national beliefs has been enormously great. Even at the +Reformation, though more general causes were of capital importance, +political events had a very large part in defining the frontier line +between the rival creeds, and the divisions so created have for the +most part endured. + +In secular politics numerous instances of the same kind will occur to +every thoughtful reader of history. If, as might easily have happened, +Hannibal after the battle of Cannae had taken and burned Rome, and +transferred the supremacy of the world to a maritime commercial State +upon the Mediterranean; if, instead of the Regency, Louis XV. and +Louis XVI., France had passed during the eighteenth century under +sovereigns of the stamp of the elder branch of the House of Orange or +of Henry IV., or of the Great Elector, or of Frederick the Great; if, +at the French Revolution, the supreme military genius had been +connected with the character of Washington rather than with the +character of Napoleon--who can doubt that the course of European +history would have been vastly changed? The causes that made +constitutional liberty succeed in England, while it failed in other +countries where its prospects seemed once at least as promising, are +many and complex; but no careful student of English history will doubt +the prominence among them of the accidental fact that James II., by +embracing Catholicism, had thrown the Church feeling at a very +critical moment into opposition to the monarchical feeling, and that +in the last days of Anne, when the question of the succession was +trembling most doubtfully in the balance, his son refused to conform +to the Anglican creed. + +Laws are no doubt in a great degree inoperative when they do not +spring from and represent the opinion of the nation, but they have in +their turn a great power of consolidating, deepening, and directing +opinion. When some important progress has been attained, and with the +support of public opinion has been embodied in a law, that law will do +much to prevent the natural reflux of the wave. It becomes a kind of +moral landmark, a powerful educating influence, and by giving what had +been achieved the sanction of legality, it contributes largely to its +permanence. Roman law undoubtedly played a great part in European +history long after all the conditions in which it was first enacted +had passed away, and the legislator who can determine in any country +the system of national education, or the succession of property, will +do much to influence the opinions and social types of many succeeding +generations. + +The point, however, on which I would here especially insist is that +there has scarcely been a great revolution in the world which might +not at some stage of its progress have been either averted, or +materially modified, or at least greatly postponed, by wise +statesmanship and timely compromise. Take, for example, the American +Revolution, which destroyed the political unity of the English race. +You will often hear this event treated as if it were simply due to the +wanton tyranny of an English Government, which desired to reduce its +colonies to servitude by taxing them without their consent. But if you +will look closely into the history of that time--and there is no +history which is more instructive--you will find that this is a gross +misrepresentation. What happened was essentially this. England, under +the guidance of the elder Pitt, had been waging a great and most +successful war, which left her with an enormously extended Empire, but +also with an addition of more than seventy millions to her National +Debt. That debt was now nearly one hundred and forty millions, and +England was reeling under the taxation it required. The war had been +waged largely in America, and its most brilliant result was the +conquest of Canada, by which the old American colonies had benefited +more than any other part of the Empire, for the expulsion of the +French from North America put an end to the one great danger which +hung over them. It was, however, extremely probable that if France +ever regained her strength, one of her first objects would be to +recover her dominion in America. + +Under these circumstances the English Government concluded that it was +impossible that England alone, overburdened as she was by taxation, +could undertake the military defence of her greatly extended Empire. +Their object, therefore, was to create subsidiary armies for its +defence. Ireland already raised by the vote of the Irish Parliament, +and out of exclusively Irish resources, an army consisting of from +twelve to fifteen thousand men, most of whom were available for the +general purposes of the Empire. In India, under a despotic system, a +separate army was maintained for the protection of India. It was the +strong belief of the English Government that a third army should be +maintained in America for the defence of the American colonies and of +the neighbouring islands, and that it was just and reasonable that +America should bear some part of the expense of her own defence. She +was charged with no part of the interest of the National Debt; she +paid nothing towards the cost of the navy which protected her coast; +she was the most lightly taxed and the most prosperous portion of the +Empire; she was the part which had benefited most by the late war, and +she was the part which was most likely to be menaced if the war was +renewed. Under these circumstances Grenville determined that a small +army of ten thousand men should be kept in America, under the distinct +promise that it was never to serve beyond that country and the West +Indian Isles, and he asked America to contribute 100,000_l._ a year, +or about a third part of its expense. + +But here the difficulty arose. The Irish army was maintained by the +vote of the Irish Parliament; but there was no single parliament +representing the American colonies, and it soon became evident that it +was impossible to induce thirteen State legislatures to agree upon any +scheme for supporting an army in America. Under these circumstances +Grenville in an ill-omened moment resolved to revive a dormant power +which existed in the Constitution, and levy this new war-tax by +Imperial taxation. He at the same time guaranteed the colonists that +the proceeds of this tax should be expended solely in America; he +intimated to them in the clearest way that if they would meet his +wishes by themselves providing the necessary sum, he would be +abundantly satisfied, and he delayed the enforcement of the measure +for a year in order to give them ample time for doing so. + +Such and so small was the original cause of difference between England +and her colonies. Who can fail to see that it was a difference +abundantly susceptible of compromise, and that a wise and moderate +statesmanship might easily have averted the catastrophe? There are few +sadder and few more instructive pages in history than those which show +how mistake after mistake was committed, till the rift which was once +so small widened and deepened; till the two sections of the English +race were thrown into an irreconcilable antagonism, and the fair +vision of an United Empire in the East and in the West came for ever +to an end. + +Or glance for a moment at the French Revolution. It is a favourite +task of historians to trace through the preceding generations the long +train of causes that made the transformation of French institutions +absolutely inevitable; but it is not so often remembered that when the +States-General met in 1789 by far the larger part of the benefits of +the Revolution could have been attained without difficulty, without +convulsion, and by general consent. The nobles and clergy had pledged +themselves to surrender their feudal privileges and their privileges +in taxation; a reforming king was on the throne, and a reforming +minister was at his side. If the spirit of moderation had then +prevailed, the inevitable transformation might probably have been made +without the effusion of a drop of blood. Jefferson was at this time +the Minister of the United States in Paris. As an old republican he +knew well the conditions of free governments, and among the +politicians of his own country he represented the democratic section. +I know few words in history more pathetic than those in which he +described the situation. 'I was much acquainted,' he writes, 'with the +leading patriots of the Assembly. Being from a country which had +successfully passed through a similar reformation, they were disposed +to my acquaintance, and had some confidence in me. I urged most +strenuously an immediate compromise to secure what the Government were +now ready to yield.... It was well understood that the King would +grant at this time (1) freedom of the person by Habeas Corpus; (2) +freedom of conscience; (3) freedom of the press; (4) trial by jury; +(5) a representative legislature; (6) annual meetings; (7) the +origination of laws; (8) the exclusive right of taxation and +appropriation; and (9) the responsibility of Ministers; and with the +exercise of these powers they could obtain in future whatever might be +further necessary to improve and preserve their constitution. They +thought otherwise,' continued Jefferson; 'and events have proved their +lamentable error; for after thirty years of war, foreign and domestic, +the loss of millions of lives, the prostration of private happiness, +and the foreign subjugation of their own country for a time, they have +obtained no more, nor even that securely.'[2] + +Let me, in concluding these observations, sum up in a few words some +other advantages which you may derive from history. It is, I think, +one of the best schools for that kind of reasoning which is most +useful in practical life. It teaches men to weigh conflicting +probabilities, to estimate degrees of evidence, to form a sound +judgment of the value of authorities. Reasoning is taught by actual +practice much more than by any _a priori_ methods. Many good +judges--and I own I am inclined to agree with them--doubt much whether +a study of formal logic ever yet made a good reasoner. Mathematics are +no doubt invaluable in this respect, but they only deal with +demonstrations; and it has often been observed how many excellent +mathematicians are somewhat peculiarly destitute of the power of +measuring degrees of probability. But history is largely concerned +with the kind of probabilities on which the conduct of life mainly +depends. There is one hint about historical reasoning which I think +may not be unworthy of your notice. When studying some great +historical controversy, place yourselves by an effort of the +imagination alternately on each side of the battle; try to realise as +fully as you can the point of view of the best men on either side, and +then draw up upon paper the arguments of each in the strongest form +you can give them. You will find that few practices do more to +elucidate the past, or form a better mental discipline. + +History, again, greatly expands our horizon and enlarges our +experience by bringing us in direct contact with men of many times and +countries. It gives young men something of the experience of old men, +and untravelled men something of the experience of travelled ones. A +great source of error in our judgment of men is that we do not make +sufficient allowance for the difference of types. The essentials of +right and wrong no doubt continue the same, but if you look carefully +into history you will find that the special stress which is attached +to particular virtues is constantly changing. Sometimes it is the +civic virtues, sometimes the religious virtues, sometimes the +industrial virtues, sometimes the love of truth, sometimes the more +amiable dispositions, that are most valued, and occupy the foremost +place in the moral type. The men of each age must be judged by the +ideal of their own age and country, and not by the ideal of ours. Men +look at life in very different aspects, and they differ greatly in +their ways of reasoning, in the qualities they admire, in the aims +which they chiefly prize. In few things do they differ more than in +their capacity for self-government; in the kinds of liberty they +especially value; in their love or dislike of government guidance or +control. + +The power of realising and understanding types of character very +different from our own is not, I think, an English quality, and a +great many of our mistakes in governing other nations come from this +deficiency. Some thirty or forty years ago especially it was the +custom of English statesmen to write and speak as if the salvation of +every nation depended mainly upon its adoption of a miniature copy of +the British Constitution. Now, if there is a lesson which history +teaches clearly, it is that the same institutions are not fitted for +all nations, and that what in one nation may prove perfectly +successful, will in another be supremely disastrous. The habits and +traditions of a nation; the peculiar bent of its character and +intellect; the degree in which self-control, respect for law, the +spirit of compromise, and disinterested public spirit are diffused +through the people; the relations of classes, and the divisions of +property, are all considerations of capital importance. It is a great +error, both in history and in practical politics, to attach too much +value to a political machine. The essential consideration is by what +men and in what spirit that machine is likely to be worked. Few +Constitutions contain more theoretical anomalies, and even +absurdities, than that under which England has attained to such an +unexampled height of political prosperity; while a servile imitation +of some of the most skilfully-devised Constitutions in Europe has not +saved some of the South American States from long courses of anarchy, +bankruptcy, and revolution. + +These are some of the political lessons that may be drawn from +history. Permit me, in conclusion, to say that its most precious +lessons are moral ones. It expands the range of our vision, and +teaches us in judging the true interests of nations to look beyond the +immediate future. Few good judges will deny that this habit is now +much wanted. The immensely increased prominence in political life of +ephemeral influences, and especially of the influence of a daily +press; the immense multiplication of elections, which intensifies +party conflicts, all tend to concentrate our thoughts more and more +upon an immediate issue. They narrow the range of our vision, and make +us somewhat insensible to distant consequences and remote +contingencies. It is not easy, in the heat and passion of modern +political life, to look beyond a parliament or an election, beyond the +interest of a party or the triumph of an hour. Yet nothing is more +certain than that the ultimate, distant, and perhaps indirect +consequences of political measures are often far more important than +their immediate fruits, and that in the prosperity of nations a large +amount of continuity in politics and the gradual formation of +political habits are of transcendent importance. History is never more +valuable than when it enables us, standing as on a height, to look +beyond the smoke and turmoil of our petty quarrels, and to detect in +the slow developments of the past the great permanent forces that are +steadily bearing nations onwards to improvement or decay. + +The strongest of these forces are the moral ones. Mistakes in +statesmanship, military triumphs or disasters, no doubt affect +materially the prosperity of nations, but their permanent political +well-being is essentially the outcome of their moral state. Its +foundation is laid in pure domestic life, in commercial integrity, in +a high standard of moral worth and of public spirit; in simple habits, +in courage, uprightness, and self-sacrifice, in a certain soundness +and moderation of judgment, which springs quite as much from character +as from intellect. If you would form a wise judgment of the future of +a nation, observe carefully whether these qualities are increasing or +decaying. Observe especially what qualities count for most in public +life. Is character becoming of greater or less importance? Are the men +who obtain the highest posts in the nation men of whom in private life +and irrespective of party competent judges speak with genuine respect? +Are they men of sincere convictions, sound judgment, consistent lives, +indisputable integrity, or are they men who have won their positions +by the arts of a demagogue or an intriguer; men of nimble tongues and +not earnest beliefs--skilful, above all things, in spreading their +sails to each passing breeze of popularity? Such considerations as +these are apt to be forgotten in the fierce excitement of a party +contest; but if history has any meaning, it is such considerations +that affect most vitally the permanent well-being of communities, and +it is by observing this moral current that you can best cast the +horoscope of a nation. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] _Pericles and Aspasia._ + +[2] Jefferson's _Memoirs_, i. 80. + + + + +THE EMPIRE: ITS VALUE AND ITS GROWTH + + +I have been asked on the present occasion to deliver a short address +which might serve as an introduction to the course of lectures and +conferences on the history and resources of the different portions of +the Empire which are to take place in the Imperial Institute. In +attempting to discharge this task my first reflection is one which the +very existence of the Institute can hardly fail to suggest to anyone +with any knowledge of recent history. It is the great revolution of +opinion which has taken place in England within the last few years +about the real value to her both of her colonies and of her Indian +Empire. Not many years ago it was a popular doctrine among a large and +important class of politicians that these vast dominions were not +merely useless but detrimental to the mother-country, and that it +should be the end of a wise policy to prepare and facilitate their +disruption. Bentham, in a pamphlet called 'Emancipate your Colonies,' +advocated a speedy and complete separation. James Mill, who held a +high place among these politicians, wrote an article on Colonies for +the 'Encyclopaedia Britannica' which clearly expresses their view. +Colonies, he contended, are very little calculated to yield any +advantage whatever to the countries that hold them, and their chief +influence is to produce and prolong bad government. Why, then, he +asks, do European nations maintain them? The answer is very +characteristic, both of the man and of his school. Something, he +charitably admits, is due to mere ignorance, to mistaken views of +utility; but the main cause is of another kind. He quotes the saying +of Sancho Panza, who desired to possess an island in order that he +might sell its inhabitants as slaves, and put the money in his pocket; +and he maintains that the chief cause of our Colonial Empire is the +selfish interest of the governing few who valued colonies because they +gave them places and enabled them to multiply wars. In more moderate +and decorous language, Goldwin Smith wrote a book, the object of which +was to show how desirable it was that this Empire should be gradually +but steadily reduced to the sweet simplicity of two islands. Similar +views prevailed very generally in the Manchester school. Cobden +frequently expressed them. The question of the colonies, he +maintained, was mainly a question of pounds, shillings, and pence; he +proved, as he imagined, by many figures that they were a very bad +bargain; and he expressed his confident hope that one of the results +of free trade would be 'gradually and imperceptibly to loosen the +bands which unite our colonies to us.' About our Indian Empire he +entertained much stronger opinions. He described it as a calamity and +a curse to the people of England. He looked on it, in his own words, +'with an eye of despair,' and declared that it was destroying and +demoralising the national character. It was the belief of his school +of politicians that all the nations of the world would speedily follow +the example of England and adopt a policy of perfect free trade; that +when all men were able to sell their industries with equal facility in +all countries, it would become a matter of little consequence to them +under what flag they lived, and that this complete commercial +assimilation would soon be followed by a general movement for +disarming, which would put an end to all fear of future war. + +Many politicians who certainly cannot be classified with the +Manchester school held views tending in some degree in the same +direction. Even Sir Cornewall Lewis in his treatise on the 'Government +of Dependencies,' which was published in 1841, summed up the +advantages and disadvantages of a great empire in a manner that gives +the impression that in his own judgment the disadvantages on the whole +predominated. In the Autobiography of that great writer and excellent +public servant Sir Henry Taylor, who for many years exercised much +influence in the Colonial Office, we have a curious picture of the +opinions which were held on this subject about thirty years ago, both +by Sir Henry Taylor himself and by Sir Frederick Rogers, who was at +this time permanent Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies. They +both agreed that all our North American colonies were a kind of +_damnosa hereditas_, and that it was in a high degree desirable that +they should be amicably separated from Great Britain. Sir Henry Taylor +wrote his views on the subject with great frankness to the Duke of +Newcastle, who was then Secretary of State. 'When your Grace and the +Prince of Wales,' he said, 'were employing yourselves so successfully +in conciliating the colonists, I thought that you were drawing closer +ties which might better be slackened, if there were any chance of +their slipping away altogether. I think that a policy which has regard +to a not very far off future should prepare facilities and +propensities for separation.... In my estimation the worst consequence +of the late dispute with the United States has been that of involving +this country and its North American provinces in closer relations and +a common cause.'[3] 'I have always believed,' wrote Sir Frederick +Rogers in 1885--'and the belief has so confirmed and consolidated +itself, that I can hardly realise the possibility of anyone seriously +thinking the contrary--that the destiny of our colonies is +independence; and that in this point of view the function of the +Colonial Office is to secure that our connection while it lasts shall +be as profitable to both parties, and our separation when it comes as +amicable as possible.' + +I do not believe that opinions of this kind, though they were held by +a large and powerful section of English politicians, ever penetrated +very deeply into the English nation. One of the causes of Mr. Cobden's +'despair' was his conviction that the English people would never be +persuaded to surrender India except at the close of a disastrous and +exhausting war, and in his day the policy of national surrender was +certainly not that of the statesmen who led either party in +Parliament. No one would attribute it to Mr. Disraeli, in whose long +political life the note of Imperialism was perhaps that which sounded +with the clearest ring, and it was quite as repugnant to Lord +Palmerston and Lord John Russell. In an admirable speech which was +delivered in the beginning of 1850, Lord John Russell disclaimed all +sympathy with it, and I can well remember the indignation with which +in his latter days he was accustomed to speak of the views on the +subject which were then frequently expressed. 'When I was young,' he +once said to me, 'it was thought the mark of a wise statesman that he +had turned a small kingdom into a great empire. In my old age it +appears to be thought the object of a statesman to turn a great +empire into a small kingdom.' + +I do not think that anyone who has watched the current of English +opinion will doubt that the views of the Manchester school on this +subject have within the last few years steadily lost ground, and that +a far warmer and, in my opinion, nobler and more healthy feeling +towards India and the colonies has grown up. The change may be +attributed to many causes. In the first place, what Carlyle called +'The Calico Millennium' has not arrived. The nations have not adopted +free trade, but nearly all of them, including unfortunately many of +our own colonies, have raised tariff walls against our trade. The +Reign of Peace has not come. National antipathies and jealousies play +about as great a part in human affairs as they ever did, and there are +certainly not less than three and a half millions, there are probably +nearly four millions, of men under arms in what are called the peace +establishments of Europe. It is beginning to be clearly seen that, +with our vast, redundant, ever-growing population, with our enormous +manufactures, and our utterly insufficient supply of home-grown food, +it is a matter of life and death to the nation, and especially to its +working classes, that there should be secure and extending fields open +to our goods, and in the present condition of the world we must mainly +look for these fields within our own Empire. The gigantic dimensions +that Indian trade has assumed within the last few years, and the +extraordinary commercial development of some other parts of our +Empire, have pointed the moral, and it has been made still more +apparent by the eagerness with which other Powers, and especially +Germany, have flung themselves into the path of colonisation. In an +age, too, when all the paths of professional and industrial life in +our country are crowded to excess, the competitive system has combined +with our new acquisitions of territory to throw open noble fields of +employment, enterprise and ambition to poor and struggling talent, and +India is proving a school of inestimable value for maintaining some of +the best and most masculine qualities of our race. It is the great +seed-plot of our military strength; and the problems of Indian +administration are peculiarly fitted to form men of a kind that is +much needed among us--men of strong purpose and firm will, and high +ruling and organising powers, men accustomed to deal with facts rather +than with words, and to estimate measures by their intrinsic value, +and not merely by their party advantages, men skilful in judging human +character under its many types and aspects and disguises. + +If again we turn to our great self-governing colonies, we have learnt +to feel how valuable it is, in an age in which international +jealousies are so rife, that there should be vast and rapidly growing +portions of the globe that are not only at peace with us, but at one +with us; how unspeakably important it is to the future of the world +that the English race, through the ages that are to come, should cling +as closely as possible together. As a distinguished statesman who +lately represented the United States in England[4] has admirably said, +'If it is not always true that trade follows flag, it is at least true +that "heart follows flag,"' and the feeling that our fellow-subjects +in distant parts of the Empire bear to us is very different from the +feeling even of the most friendly foreign nation. Our great colonies +have readily undertaken the responsibility of providing for their own +defence by land, and even in some degree by sea. If the protection of +their coasts in time of war might become a great strain upon our navy, +this disadvantage is largely balanced by the importance of distant +maritime possessions to every nation that desires to maintain an +efficient fleet; by the immense advantage to a great commercial Power +of secure harbours and coaling stations scattered over the world. It +is not difficult to conceive circumstances in which the destruction of +some of our main industries, occurring, perhaps, in the midst of a +great war, might make it utterly impossible for our present population +to live upon British soil, and when the possession of vast territories +under the British flag, and in the hands of the British race, might +become a matter of transcendent importance. Think for a moment of the +colossal, and indeed appalling, proportions which our great towns are +assuming! Think of all the vice and ignorance and disease, of all the +sordid abject misery, of all the lawless passions that are festering +within them! And then consider how precarious are many of the +conditions of our industrial prosperity, how grave and how numerous +are the dangers that threaten it both from within and from without. +Who can reflect seriously on these things without feeling that the day +may come--perhaps at no distant date--when the question of emigration +may overshadow all others? To many of us, indeed, it seems one of the +greatest errors of modern English statesmanship that when the great +exodus from Ireland took place after the famine, Government took no +step to aid it, or to direct it to quarters where it would have been +of real benefit to the Empire. Many good judges think that the +advantages of such interference in allaying bitter feelings, +softening a disastrous crisis, and permanently strengthening the +Empire, might have been well purchased even if they cost as much as +England has sometimes lost by one comparatively insignificant war or +by one disastrous strike. In dealing with this question of emigration +in the future, colonial assistance may be of supreme importance. And +those who have understood the significance of that memorable incident +in our recent history--the despatch of Australian troops to fight our +battles in the Soudan--may perceive that there is at least a +possibility of a still closer and more beneficent union between +England and her colonies--a union that would vastly increase the +strength of both, and by doing so become a great guarantee of peace in +the world. + +It would be a calumny to suppose that the change of feeling I have +described was solely due to a calculation of interests. Patriotism +cannot be reduced to a mere question of money, and a nation which has +grown tired of the responsibilities of empire, and careless of the +acquisitions of its past and of its greatness in the future, would +indeed have entered into a period of inevitable decadence. Happily we +have not yet come to this. I believe the overwhelming majority of the +people of these islands are convinced that an England reduced to the +limits which the Manchester school would assign to it would be an +England shorn of the chief elements of its dignity in the world, and +that no greater disgrace could befall them than to have sacrificed +through indifference, or negligence, or faint-heartedness, an Empire +which has been built up by so much genius and so much heroism in the +past. Railways and telegraphs and newspapers have brought us into +closer touch with our distant possessions, have enabled us to realise +more vividly both their character and their greatness, and have thus +extended the horizon of our sympathies and interests. The figures of +illustrious colonial statesmen are becoming familiar to us. Men formed +in Indian and colonial spheres are becoming more numerous and +prominent in our own public life. The presence in England of a High +Commissioner from Canada, and of Agents-General from our other +colonies, constitutes a real though informal colonial representation, +and on more than one recent occasion our foreign policy has been +swayed by colonial pressure. These young democracies, with their vast +undeveloped resources, their unwearied energies, their great social +and industrial problems, are beginning to loom largely in the +imaginations of Europe. They feel, we believe, a just pride in being +members of a great and ancient Empire, and heirs to the glories of its +past. We, in our turn, feel a no less just pride in our union with +those coming nations which are still lit with the hues of sunrise and +rich in the promise of the future. + +It has been suggested to me that I should on the present occasion say +something about the methods by which this great Empire was built up, +but it is obvious that in a short address like the present it is only +possible to touch on so large a subject in the most cursory manner. +Much is due to our insular position and our command of the sea, which +gave Englishmen, in the competition of nations, a peculiar power both +of conquering and holding distant dependencies. Being precluded, +perhaps quite as much by their position as by their desire, from +throwing themselves, like most continental nations, into a long course +of European aggression, they have largely employed their redundant +energies in exploring, conquering, civilising, and governing distant +and half-savage lands. They have found, like all other nations, that +an Empire planted amid the shifting sands of half-civilised and +anarchical races is compelled for its own security, and as a mere +matter of police, to extend its borders. The chapter of +accidents--which has played a larger part in most human affairs than +many very philosophical enquirers are inclined to admit--has counted +for something. But, in addition to these things, there are certain +general characteristics of English policy which have contributed very +largely to the success of the Empire. + +It has been the habit of most nations to regulate colonial governments +in all their details according to the best metropolitan ideas, and to +surround them with a network of restrictions. England has in general +pursued a different course. Partly on system, but partly also, I +think, from neglect, she has always allowed an unusual latitude to +local knowledge and to local wishes. She has endeavoured to secure, +wherever her power extends, life and property, and contract and +personal freedom, and, in these latter days, religious liberty; but +for the rest she has meddled very little; she has allowed her +settlements to develop much as they please, and has given, in practice +if not in theory, the fullest powers to her governors. It is +astonishing, in the history of the British Empire, how large a part of +its greatness is due to the independent action of individual +adventurers, or groups of emigrants, or commercial companies, almost +wholly unassisted and uncontrolled by the Government at home. An +Empire formed by such methods is not likely to exhibit much symmetry +and unity of plan, but it is certain to be pervaded in an unusual +degree, in all its parts, by a spirit of enterprise and self-reliance; +it will probably be peculiarly fertile in men not only of energy but +of resource, capable of dealing with strange conditions and +unforeseen exigencies. England in the past periods of her history has, +on the whole, been singularly successful in adapting her different +administrations to widely different national circumstances and +characters, and governments of the most various types have arisen +under her rule. Nothing in the history of the world is more wonderful +than that under the flag of these two little islands there should have +grown up the greatest and most beneficent despotism in the world, +comprising nearly two hundred and thirty millions of inhabitants under +direct British rule, and more than fifty millions under British +protectorates; while at the same time British colonies and settlements +that are scattered throughout the globe number not less than fifty-six +distinct subordinate governments. + +This system would have been less successful if it had not been for two +important facts. The original stuff of which our Colonial Empire was +formed was singularly good. Some of the most important of our colonies +were founded in the days of religious war, and the early settlers +consisted largely of religious refugees--a class who are usually +superior to the average of men in intellectual and industrial +qualities, and are nearly always greatly superior to them in strength +of conviction, and in those high moral qualities which play so great a +part in the well-being of nations. Besides this, in those distant +days, the difficulties of emigration were so great that they were +rarely voluntarily encountered except by men of much more than average +courage, enterprise and resource. These early adventurers were +certainly often of no saintly type, but they were largely endowed with +the robuster qualities that are most needed for grappling with new +circumstances and carving out the empires of the future. + +The second fact is the high standard of patriotism and honour which we +may, I think, truly say has nearly always prevailed among English +public servants. It is not an easy thing to secure honest and faithful +administration in remote countries, far from the supervision and +practical control of the central government. I think we may boast with +truth that England has attained this end, not indeed perfectly, but at +least to a greater degree than most other nations. The history of +Indian and colonial governors has never been written as a whole, but +it is well worthy of study. In the appointment of these men party has +always counted for something, and family has counted for something; +but they have never been the only considerations, and, on the whole, I +believe it will be found, if we consider the three elements of +character, capacity and experience, that our Indian and colonial +governors represent a higher level of ruling qualities than has been +attained by any line of hereditary sovereigns, or by any line of +elected presidents. In the period of the foundation of our Indian +Empire much was done that was violent and rapacious, but the best +modern research seems to show that the picture which a few years ago +was generally accepted had been greatly overcharged. The history of +Warren Hastings and his companions has been recently studied with +great knowledge and ability, and with the result that the more serious +opinions on the subject have been considerably modified. Much +exaggeration undoubtedly grew up in the last century, partly through +ignorance of Oriental affairs, and partly also through the eloquence +of Burke. There is no figure in English political history for which I +at least entertain a greater reverence than Edmund Burke. I believe +him to have been a man of transparent honesty, as well as of +transcendent genius; but his politics were too apt to be steeped in +passion, and he was often carried away by the irresistible force of +his own imagination and feelings. Misrepresentations were greatly +consolidated by the Indian History of James Mill, which was for a long +time the main, and indeed almost the only, source from which +Englishmen obtained their knowledge of Indian history. It was written, +as might be expected, with the strongest bias of hostility to the +English in India, yet I suspect that many superficial readers imagined +that a history which was so unquestionably dull must be at least +impartial and philosophical. Unfortunately, Macaulay relied greatly on +it, and, without having made any serious independent studies on the +subject, he invested some of its misrepresentations with all the +splendour of his eloquence. I believe all competent authorities are +now agreed that his essay on Warren Hastings, though it is one of the +most brilliant of his writings, is also one of the most seriously +misleading. + +I am not prepared to say that the reaction of opinion produced by the +new school of Indian historians has not been sometimes carried too +far, but these writers have certainly dispelled much exaggeration and +some positive falsehood. They have shown that, although under +circumstances of extreme difficulty and extraordinary temptation, some +very bad things were done by Englishmen in India, these things were +neither as numerous nor as grave as has been alleged. + +On the whole, too, it may be truly said that English colonial policy +in its broad lines has to a remarkable degree avoided grave errors. +The chief exception is to be found in the series of mistakes which +produced the American Revolution, and ended in the loss of our chief +American colonies. Yet even in this instance it is, I believe, coming +to be perceived that there is much more to be said for the English +case than the historians of the last generation were apt to imagine. +In imposing commercial restrictions on the colonies and endeavouring +to secure for the mother-country the monopoly of their trade, we +merely acted upon ideas that were then almost universally received, +and our commercial code was on the whole less illiberal than that of +other nations. Both Spain and France imposed restrictions on their +colonies which were far more severe, and the English restrictions were +at least mitigated by frequent partial relaxations and exceptions, by +some important monopolies granted in favour of the colonies in the +English market and by bounties encouraging several branches of +colonial produce. It is at least certain that under the large measure +of political liberty granted by the English Government to the English +colonies their material prosperity, even in the worst period of +commercial restriction, steadily and rapidly advanced. This has been +clearly shown by more than one writer on our side of the Atlantic, but +the subject has never been treated with more exhaustive knowledge and +more perfect impartiality than by an American writer--Mr. George +Beer--whose work on the Commercial Policy of England has recently been +published by Columbia College, in New York. No one will now altogether +defend Grenville's policy of taxing America by the Imperial +Parliament, but it ought not to be forgotten that it was expressly +provided that every farthing of this taxation was to be expended in +America, and devoted to colonial defence. England had just terminated +a great war, which, by expelling the French from Canada, had been of +inestimable advantage to her colonies, but which had left the +mother-country almost crushed by debt. All that Grenville desired was, +that the American colonies should provide a portion of the cost of +their own defence, as our great colonies are doing at the present +time, and he only resorted to Imperial taxation because he despaired +of achieving this end by any other means. The step which he took was +no doubt a false one. As is so often the case in England, it was made +worse by party changes and by party recriminations, and many later +mistakes aggravated and embittered the original dispute; but I think +an impartial reader of this melancholy chapter of English history will +come to the conclusion that these mistakes were by no means all on one +side. + +It is a story which is certainly not without its lesson to our own +time. It is very improbable that any future statesman will follow the +example of George Grenville, and endeavour by Act of Parliament to +impose taxation on a self-governing colony; but it would be a grave +error to suppose that the danger of unwise parliamentary interference +in Indian and colonial affairs has diminished. Great as are the +advantages of telegraphs and newspapers in the government of the +Empire, they are not without their drawbacks. Government by telegraph +is a very dangerous thing, and there is, I fear, an increasing +tendency to override local knowledge, and to apply English standards +and methods of government to wholly un-English conditions. +Ill-considered resolutions of the House of Commons, often passed in +obedience to some popular fad, and without any real intention of +carrying them into effect; language used in Parliament which is often +due to no deeper motive than a desire to win the favour of some class +of voters in an English constituency, may do as much as serious +misgovernment to alienate great masses of British subjects beyond the +sea. All really competent judges are agreed that one of the first +conditions of successful government in India has been that Indian +questions have for the most part been kept out of the range of English +party politics, and that Indian government has been conducted on +principles essentially different from democratic government at home. + +On the whole, however, it is impossible to review the colonial history +of England without being struck with the many serious dangers that +might easily have shattered the Empire, which were averted by wise +statesmanship and timely--or at least not fatally tardy--concession. +There was the question of the criminal population which we once +transported to Australia. In the early stage of the colony, when the +population was very sparse and the need for labour very imperative, +this was not regarded as in any degree a grievance; but the time came +when it became a grievance of the gravest kind, and the Imperial power +had at length the wisdom to abandon it. There was the question of the +different and hostile religious bodies existing in different portions +of the Empire, at a time when the monopoly of political power by the +members of a single Established Church, the exclusive endowment of its +clergy, and the maintenance of the purely Protestant character of the +English Government were cherished as religious duties by politicians +at home. Yet at this very time an established and endowed Roman +Catholic Church was flourishing in Canada, and there were numerous +examples throughout the British dominions of the concurrent endowment +of different forms of religious belief by the State,[5] while in India +it abstained, with an extreme, and sometimes even an exaggerated, +scrupulousness, from all measures that could by any possibility offend +the native religious prejudices. There was the question of +Slavery--though we were freed from the most difficult part of this +problem by the secession of America. In addition, however, to its +moral aspects, it affected most vitally the material prosperity of +some of our richest colonies; it raised the very dangerous +constitutional question of the right of the Imperial Parliament to +interfere with the internal affairs of a self-governing colony, and it +brought the Home Government into more serious collision with the local +Governments than any question since the American Revolution. Whatever +may be thought of the wisdom of the measures by which we abolished +slavery in our West Indian colonies, no one at least can deny the +liberality of a Parliament which voted from Imperial resources twenty +millions for the accomplishment of the work. There was the conflict of +race and creed which between 1830 and 1840 had brought Canada to +absolute rebellion, and threatened a complete alienation of Canadian +feeling from the mother-country. This discontent was effectually +allayed and dispelled by the union of Upper and Lower Canada under a +system of constitutional government of the most liberal character, +which gave the colonists on all subjects of internal legislation a +legislative independence that was in practice almost complete. +Considered as a measure of conciliation this has proved one of the +most successful of the nineteenth century, and in spite of a few +discordant notes it may be truly said that there are few greater +contrasts in the present reign than are presented between Canadian +feeling towards the mother-country when Queen Victoria ascended the +throne and Canadian feeling at the present hour. There was also the +great and dangerous task to be accomplished of adapting the system of +colonial government to the different stages of colonial development. +There was a time when the colonies were so weak that they depended +mainly on England for their protection; but, unlike some of the great +colonising Powers of ancient and modern times, England never drew a +direct tribute from her colonies, and, in spite of much unwise and +some unjust legislation, I believe there was never a time when they +were not on the whole benefited by the connection. Soon, however, the +colonies grew to the strength and maturity of nationhood, and the +mother-country speedily recognised the fact, and allowed no unworthy +or ungenerous fears to restrain her from granting them the fullest +powers, both of self-government and of federation. It is true that she +still sends out a governor--usually drawn from the ranks of +experienced and considerable English public men--to preside over +colonial affairs. It is true that she retains a right of veto which is +scarcely ever exercised except to prevent some intercolonial or +international dispute, some act of violence, or some grave anomaly in +the legislation of the Empire. It is true that colonial cases may be +carried, on appeal, to an English tribunal, representing the very +highest judicial capacity of the mother-country, and free from all +possibility and suspicion of partiality; but I do not believe that any +of these light ties are unpopular with any considerable section of the +colonists. On the other hand, though it would be idle to suppose that +our great colonies depend largely upon the mother-country, I believe +that most colonists recognise that there is something in the weight +and dignity attaching to fellow-membership and fellow-citizenship in +a great Empire--something in the protection of the greatest navy in +the world--something in the improved credit which connection with a +very rich centre undoubtedly gives to colonial finance. + +It is the custom of our friends and neighbours on the Continent to +bestow much scornful remark on the egotism of English policy, which +attends mainly to the interests of the British Empire, and is not +ready to make war for an idea and in support of the interests of +others. I think, if it were necessary, we might fairly defend +ourselves by showing that in the past we have meddled with the affairs +of other nations quite as much as is reasonable. For my own part, I +confess that I distrust greatly these explosions of military +benevolence. They always begin by killing a great many men. They +usually end in ways that are not those of a disinterested +philanthropy. After all, an egotism that mainly confines itself to the +well-being of about a fifth part of the globe cannot be said to be of +a very narrow type, and it is essentially by her conduct to her own +Empire that the part of England in promoting the happiness of mankind +must be ultimately judged. It is indeed but too true that many of the +political causes which have played a great part on platforms, in +parties, and in Parliaments are of such a nature that their full +attainment would not bring relief to one suffering human heart, or +staunch one tear of pain, or add in any appreciable degree to the real +happiness of a single home. But most assuredly Imperial questions are +not of this order. Remember what India had been for countless ages +before the establishment of British rule. Think of its endless wars of +race and creed, its savage oppressions, its fierce anarchies, its +barbarous customs; and then consider what it is to have established +for so many years over the vast space from the Himalayas to Cape +Comorin a reign of perfect peace; to have conferred upon more than two +hundred and fifty millions of the human race perfect religious +freedom, perfect security of life, liberty, and property; to have +planted in the midst of these teeming multitudes a strong central +government, enlightened by the best knowledge of Western Europe, and +steadily occupied in preventing famine, alleviating disease, +extirpating savage customs, multiplying the agencies of civilisation +and progress. This is the true meaning of that system of government on +which Mr. Cobden looked with 'an eye of despair.' What work of human +policy--I would even say what form of human philanthropy--has ever +contributed more largely to reduce the great sum of human misery and +to add to the possibilities of human happiness? + +And if we turn to the other side of our Empire, although it is quite +true that our great free colonies are fully capable of shaping their +destinies for themselves, may we not truly say that these noble +flowers have sprung from British and from Irish seeds? May we not say +that the laws, the Constitutions, the habits of thought and character +that have so largely made them what they are, are mainly of English +origin? May we not even add that it is in no small part due to their +place in the British Empire that these vast sections of the globe, +with their diverse and sometimes jarring interests, have remained at +perfect peace with us and with each other, and have escaped the curse +of an exaggerated militarism, which is fast eating like a canker into +the prosperity of the great nations of Europe? + +When responsible government was conceded by the British Government to +her more important colonies, it was done in the fullest and largest +measure. Although the mother-country remained burdened with the task +of defending them she made no reservation securing for herself free +trade with her colonies or even preferential treatment, and she +surrendered unconditionally to the local legislatures the waste and +unoccupied lands which had long been regarded in England as held in +trust for the benefit of the Empire as a whole. The growing belief +that the connection with the colonies was likely to be a very +transitory one, and also the belief that free-trade doctrines were +likely speedily to prevail, no doubt influenced English statesmen, and +it is not probable that any of them foresaw that both Canada and +Australia would speedily make use of their newly acquired power to +impose heavy duties on English goods. The strongly protectionist +character which the English colonies assumed at a time when England +had committed herself to the most extreme free-trade policy tended no +doubt to separation, and when the English Government adopted the +policy of withdrawing its garrisons from the colonies, when the North +American colonies, with the full assent of the mother-country, formed +themselves into a great federation, and when a movement in the same +direction sprang up in Australia, it was the opinion of some of the +most sagacious statesmen and thinkers in England that the time of +separation was very near.[6] + +On the whole, however, these predictions have hitherto been falsified. +The federation of North America and, at a later period, the federation +of Australia have been followed by an increased and not a diminished +disposition on the side of the colonists to draw closer the ties with +the mother-country, while in England the popular imagination has been +more and more impressed with the growing magnitude and importance of +her colonial dominions. The tendency towards great political +agglomerations based upon an affinity of race, language and creed, +which has produced the Pan-Slavonic movement and the Pan-Germanic +movement, and which chiefly made the unity of Italy, has not been +without its influence in the English-speaking world, and it is felt +that a close union between its several parts is essential if it is +fully to maintain its relative position under the new conditions of +the world. The English-speaking nations comprise the most rapidly +increasing, the most progressive, the most happily situated nations of +the earth, and if their power and influence are not wasted by internal +quarrels their type of civilisation must one day become dominant in +the world. + +Whether their harmony and unity are likely to be attained is one of +the great problems of the future, but the ideal is one which every +patriotic Englishman should at least set before him. It is not one +which can be called an assured destiny, and to many the chances seem +on the whole against it. Unexpected collisions of interest or passion +or ambition may at any time mar the prospects, and in great +democracies largely influenced by demagogues and by an irresponsible +and anonymous Press there are always powerful agencies that do not +make for peace. Immediate party interests both at home and in the +colonies too frequently blind men to distant and ulterior +consequences, and the many ill-wishers to the British Empire are sure +to direct their policy largely to its disruption. The natural bond of +union of a great Empire is economical unity, binding its several parts +together by a common system of free trade and by a common commercial +policy towards other Powers. Unfortunately the profoundly different +policy adopted on these matters in England and her colonies has made +such a Union almost impracticable, and it is quite possible for the +English colonies to be united by closer commercial ties with foreign +countries than with the mother-country. The question of the common +defence of the Empire and the question of the representation of the +colonies in Imperial politics are also questions of great difficulty +and of pressing importance. + +Something has been done showing at least a disposition to meet them. +The concession of preferential duties in favour of England by some of +our most important colonies, the small subsidies made to the +maintenance of the British navy, and the far more important military +assistance given by the colonies to the mother-country in the Egyptian +and the South African wars are indicative of the feeling of closer +unity which has grown up between England and her colonies, and in +addition to the appointment of Agents-General, the introduction of a +few eminent colonial judges into the Judicial Committee of the Privy +Council, which is the Supreme Court of Appeal of the Empire, has given +the colonies some real representation in Imperial affairs. Much more, +however, in this direction may be done. There have been several +instances of eminent colonials obtaining seats in the English House of +Commons to the great advantage of the Empire, but a regular +representation of the colonies in this assembly may, I think, be +dismissed as altogether impracticable. The mere distance is a +sufficient objection, and at least nine-tenths of the business of the +House of Commons deals with purely English questions depending for +their wise solution on inherited English habits and on compromises +with existing institutions, and a large proportion of them are +problems which have been already dealt with in the colonies on other +grounds and without any of the complexities of an old country. What +reason could there be for calling in the colonists to adjudicate, +perhaps even to turn the balance, on questions relating to English +education, English licensing laws, English taxation, English +dispositions of property? The difficulty of distinguishing between +Imperial and local questions would be insuperable. The division of the +House into two categories of members with distinct spheres of voting +power would prove unworkable, and the colonial representatives would +during most of their time in Parliament have nothing to do. An +increase in the number of peers drawn from the colonies would be less +impracticable, but there would be much that is invidious in the +choice; much danger that the colonial peers living in England would +get out of touch with the colonies and become an object of envy and +jealousy; and English lawyers do not think that a large infusion of +colonial law peers would raise the competence of the Supreme Judicial +Tribunal of the Empire, which represents at present the highest legal +talent and attainments in England and deals mainly with English legal +questions. A Consultative Council, however, consisting of the +Agents-General and perhaps reinforced by additional colonial +representatives and dealing exclusively with Imperial questions, does +not seem wholly impracticable, and many competent judges believe that +a supreme legal tribunal for dealing with inter-colonial and +international conflicts might be constructed which would be both more +efficient and more representative than any that now exists. + +It is probable, however, that the true tie that must unite the +different portions of the Empire must be mainly a moral one. In the +conditions of modern life no power is likely to maintain long a vast, +scattered, heterogeneous Empire if the central governing power within +it has declined; if through want of efficiency, or moral energy, or +moral purity, it ceases to win the respect of its several parts. It is +no less true that the cohesion can only be permanently maintained by +the wide diffusion of a larger and Imperial patriotism, pervading the +whole like a vital principle; binding men by the ties of pride and of +affection to the great Empire to which they belong, and subordinating +to its maintenance local and party and class interests. If this spirit +dies out, the movement of disintegration is sure to begin. No +political machinery, no utilitarian calculation, will in the long run +be powerful enough to arrest it. + +What may be the future place of these islands in the government of the +world no human being can foretell. Nations, as history but too plainly +shows, have their periods of decay as well as their periods of growth. +The balance of power in the world is constantly shifting. Maxims and +influences very different from those which made England what she is +are in the ascendant, and the clouds upon the horizon are neither few +nor slight. But, whatever fate may be in store for these islands, and +for the political unity we so justly prize, we may at least +confidently predict that no revolution in human affairs can now +destroy the future ascendancy of the English language and of the +Imperial race. Whatever misfortunes, whatever humiliations the future +may reserve to us, they cannot deprive England of the glory of having +created this mighty Empire. + + Not Heaven itself upon the Past has power. + But what has been, has been--and we have had our hour. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[3] _Autobiography_, ii. pp. 234, 235. + +[4] Mr. Bayard. + +[5] See the enumeration of these endowments in Gladstone's _State and +Church_, Ch. IX. + +[6] See Cairnes' _Political Essays_, 49-50, 56. + + + + +IRELAND IN THE LIGHT OF HISTORY + + +The kind of interest which belongs to Irish history is curiously +different from that which attaches to the history of England and to +that of most of the great nations of the Continent. In very few +histories do we find so little national unity or continuous progress, +or such long spaces which are almost wholly occupied by perplexed, +petty internal broils, often stained by atrocious crimes, but turning +on no large issue and leading to no clear or stable results. Except +during the great missionary period of the sixth and seventh centuries, +and during a brief portion of the eighteenth century, we have little +of the interest that arises from dramatic situations or shining +characters, and in few countries has the highest intellect been, on +the whole, so slightly connected with the administration of affairs. +To a philosophical student of politics, however, Irish history +possesses an interest of the highest order. It is an invaluable study +of morbid anatomy. In very few histories can we trace so clearly the +effects of political and social circumstances in forming national +character; the calamity of missed opportunities and of fluctuating and +procrastinating policy; the folly of attempting to govern by the same +methods and institutions nations that are wholly different in their +characters and their civilisation. + +The idea which still floats vaguely in many minds that Ireland, before +the arrival of the Normans, was a single and independent nation, is +wholly false. Ireland was not a nation, but a collection of separate +tribes and kingdoms, engaged in almost constant warfare. In this +respect, however, she resembled many countries which have since +attained the most perfect unity, and there can be little doubt that, +if her development had been impeded by no extraneous influences, +Ireland would have followed the same path as England or France. Much +stress has been justly laid on the disorganising influence of a long +succession of Danish invasions, though it must be remembered that +Ireland owes to the Danes the foundation of some of her most important +cities. Roman conquest, which introduced into most of Europe +invaluable elements of order, organisation, and respect for law, never +extended to Ireland. The Anglo-Norman invasion and conquest produced +consequences which were almost wholly evil. If the invaders had been +driven from the Irish shore, the natural course of development would, +no doubt, have been in time continued. If the invaders had completely +conquered Ireland, a fusion might have taken place as complete and as +healthy as in England. Neither of these two events occurred. The +English conquest was prolonged over nearly four hundred years. A +hostile and separate power was planted in the centre of Ireland +sufficiently powerful to prevent the formation of another +civilisation, yet not sufficiently powerful to impose a civilisation +of its own. Feudalism was introduced, but the keystone of the system, +a strong resident sovereign, was wanting, and Ireland was soon torn by +the wars of great Anglo-Norman nobles, who were, in fact, independent +sovereigns, much like the old Irish kings. The Scotch invasion of the +fourteenth century added enormously to the anarchy and confusion; the +English power as a living reality contracted to the narrow limits of +the pale; in outlying districts the Anglo-Norman assimilated quickly +with the Celtic element, while the English legislators in Ireland, +alarmed at the tendency, made it the main object of their policy, in +the words of Sir John Davies, 'to make a perpetual separation and +enmity between the English and Irish, pretending no doubt that the +English should in the end root out the Irish.' + +Such a state of things continued till the long and terrible wars of +Henry VIII. and Elizabeth broke the power of the independent chiefs +and of the Celtic clans, and gave Ireland, for the first time, a +political unity. It is one of the great infelicities of Irish history +that this result was obtained at the very period of the Reformation. +The conquerors adopted one religion, while the conquered retained the +other, and thus a new and most enduring barrier was raised between the +two nations in Ireland, and a pernicious antagonism was established +between law and religion. + +Another influence not less powerful than religion had at the same time +come into play. It had become the English policy to place great bodies +of English and Scotch settlers on the land that was confiscated in +consequence of rebellion, and under the impulse of the strong spirit +of adventure which grew up in the generation that followed the +Reformation, streams of English and Scotch adventurers poured over. +The great settlement of Ulster under James I. proved ultimately a +success, and laid the foundation of the prosperity of that province. +Other plantations were in time absorbed and assimilated by the Celtic +population; but vast revolutions in the ownership of land, accompanied +by the subversion of the old tribal customs, laid the foundation of an +agrarian war which still continues. + +Religious and agrarian causes combined with the civil war in England +to produce the great rebellion of 1641 and the eleven years of +ghastly, exterminating war which followed. Hardly any page in human +history is more appalling. A full third of the population of Ireland +perished. Thirty or forty thousand of the most energetic left the +country and took service in foreign armies. Great tracts were left +absolutely depopulated, and after the rearrangement of land, which was +accomplished by the Act of Settlement, the immense preponderance of +landed property remained in the hands of the Protestant nation. + +New elements, however, of great energy had been planted in Ireland, +and the field had been thrown open to their exertions. The excellence +of Irish wool and the cheapness of Irish labour laid the foundation of +a flourishing woollen manufacture, and with peace, mild +administration, and much practical tolerance, the wounds of the +country seemed gradually healing. The later Stuart reigns, which form +a dark page in English history, were a period of considerable +prosperity in Ireland, but that period was soon interrupted by the +Revolution. There was no general or passionate rising in Ireland +resembling that of 1641, but it was inevitable that the Irish +Catholics should have adopted the side of the Catholic King, and it +was equally inevitable that when a Catholic Parliament, consisting +largely of sons of the men whose properties had recently been +confiscated, had assembled at Dublin, its members should have made a +desperate effort to reverse their fortunes and replace the land of the +country mainly in Catholic hands. The battle of the Boyne shattered +the Catholic hopes, and it was followed by a new confiscation, by a +new emigration of the ablest and most energetic Catholics, by a long +period of commercial restraints, penal laws, and complete Protestant +ascendancy. + +The commercial restraints formed part of a protective policy which was +at that time general in Europe, and which was severely felt in the +American colonies. Though it did not absolutely originate in, it was +greatly intensified by, the Revolution, which gave the manufacturing +and commercial classes a new power in English government. The linen +manufacture was spared, but the total destruction by law of the +flourishing woollen manufacture, followed by a number of restrictions +imposed on other branches of industry, deprived Ireland of her most +promising sources of wealth, drove great multitudes of energetic +Protestants out of the country, and threw the people more and more +upon the soil as almost their sole means of support. + +The penal laws against the Catholics accompanied or closely followed +the commercial restraints. The blame of them may be divided with some +equality between the Government of England and the Parliament of +Ireland. It was the Irish Parliament which enacted these laws, but an +English Act first made the Irish Parliament exclusively Protestant, +and the whole legislation was carried at a time when the Irish +Parliament was completely dependent, and incompetent even to discuss +any measure without the previous approbation of the English +Government. In order to judge this legislation with equity, it must be +remembered that in the beginning of the eighteenth century restrictive +laws against Protestantism in Catholic countries, and against +Catholicism in Protestant ones, almost universally prevailed. The laws +against Irish Catholics were, on the whole, less stringent than those +against Catholics in England. They were largely modelled after the +French legislation against the Huguenots, but persecution in Ireland +never approached in severity that of Louis XIV., and was absolutely +insignificant compared with that which had extirpated Protestantism +and Judaism from Spain. The code, however, was not mainly the product +of religious feeling, but of policy, and in this respect it has been +defended in its broad outlines, though not in all its details, by such +Irishmen as Charlemont, Flood, and Parsons. They argued that at the +close of a long period of savage civil war it was absolutely necessary +for a small minority, who found themselves in possession of the +government and land of the country, to deprive the conquered and +hostile majority of every element of political and military strength. +This was the real object of the code. It was a measure of self-defence +justified by necessity and by the fact that it produced in Ireland for +the space of about eighty years the most perfect tranquillity. + +There is much truth in these considerations, but it is also true that +the penal code produced more pernicious moral, social, and political +effects than many sanguinary persecutions. In other countries +disqualifying or persecuting laws were directed against small +fractions of the nation. In Ireland they were directed against the +bulk of the community. Being supported by little or no genuine +religious fanaticism or proselytising ardour, they made few +Protestants except in the upper orders, where many conformed in order +to keep their land or to enter professions; but they drove nearly all +the best and most energetic Catholics to the Continent; they +discouraged industry; closed the door of knowledge; taught the people +to look upon law as something hostile to religion; introduced +division and immorality into families by the rewards they offered to +apostasy; and condemned the whole country to poverty and impotence by +fatally depressing the great majority of its people. Under the +influence of the penal laws the Catholics inevitably acquired the +vices of serfs, and the Protestants the vices of monopolists. A great +portion of the code was pronounced, with good reason, to be flagrantly +opposed to the articles of the Treaty of Limerick, and it completed +the work of the confiscations by making the landlord class in Ireland +almost wholly Protestant, while the great majority of the tenantry +were Catholics. + +There was a moment, however, in the beginning of the century when the +whole current of Irish history might easily have changed. Scotland had +suffered, like Ireland, from the protective policy that followed the +Revolution, and her independent Parliament had retaliated by measures +which threatened the speedy separation of the two crowns, and soon led +to a legislative Union. In Ireland such a Union was ardently desired +by enlightened Irishmen, and there is every reason to believe that it +could then have been carried with universal consent. The Catholics +were perfectly passive, and would gladly have accepted a change which +withdrew them from the direct government of the conquerors in a recent +civil war. The Protestants had as yet no distinctively national +feeling, and a legislative Union would have emancipated their industry +and added enormously to their security. Molyneux, the first great +champion of the legislative independence of Ireland, emphatically +declared that he and those who thought with him would gladly have +accepted the alternative of a Union, and both the Irish Houses of +Parliament voted addresses in favour of such a measure. If it had +been carried, Ireland would have been at least saved from the evils +that rose from the commercial restrictions and from the extreme +jobbing that grew up around the local legislature, and she would, +perhaps, have been saved from some parts of the penal code. But the +golden opportunity was lost. The English commercial classes dreaded +Irish competition in their markets, and the petition of the Irish +legislature was disregarded. + +Nearly seventy years of quiet followed. The establishment of the +Hanoverian dynasty, the Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745, the +different wars in which England was engaged, left Ireland absolutely +undisturbed. The House of Commons then sat for a whole reign and met +only every second year. It was completely subservient to the English +Privy Council, and it consisted so largely of nomination boroughs that +a few great nobles commanded a decisive preponderance, and they +practically conducted the government and administered the patronage of +Ireland. There was great jobbing and corruption, but taxation, on the +whole, was exceedingly light, and there was no tendency to throw it +unduly on the poor, or to create in Ireland any of the many feudal +burdens that prevailed in France and Germany. The practical evil most +felt was the system of tithes for the support of the Protestant +establishment, and it was aggravated by a very unfair exemption of +pasture land, and also by the prevailing system of farming out tithes +to a class of men known as tithe proctors. In the country districts +all power was concentrated in the hands of the landlords, who, with +many faults and under many difficulties, at least succeeded in +attaining a large measure of genuine popularity. + +There was an Irish army of twelve thousand men, but the greater part +of it was always sent abroad in time of war, and Ireland was then +often left with not more than five thousand soldiers. No militia and +no constabulary force existed, but when Whiteboy or other disturbances +arose, the landlords put themselves at the head of their tenantry, and +usually succeeded in suppressing them. Law was very little observed; +industrial virtues were at the lowest ebb; there was abundance of +drunkenness, idleness, turbulence, neglect of duty, extreme ignorance, +and extreme poverty; but there was not much real oppression or +religious bigotry, and there were no signs of political disturbance or +conspiracy. After a few years the portions of the penal code which +restricted the Catholic worship became a dead letter, and Catholic +chapels were everywhere rising on the Protestant estates. The +monopoly, however, of place and power continued, though the legal +profession was full of professing converts. The theological +temperature in both sects had greatly subsided. Land was usually let +by the owner on long leases, and at very low rents, to tenants who +almost invariably divided and sublet their tenancies. + +At a later period of the century, when population pressed closely on +subsistence, the system of middlemen produced a fierce competition +which raised rent in the lower grades to an enormous height, but this +evil was less felt with a scanty population, and the hierarchy of +tenants at least saved the landlords from the dangerous isolation +which their circumstances tended to produce. Arthur Young, who +examined the condition of the country very carefully between 1776 and +1778, perceived great signs of growing prosperity, especially in the +towns, and, although agriculture was far behind that of England, he +found a considerable number of active, intelligent, and improving +landlords. In the opinion of Young the rental of Ireland was unduly +and unnaturally low, but he urged the landlords to exercise a more +direct and controlling influence over their estates, and he +recommended them, for this purpose, to give leases for shorter periods +and gradually to abolish the system of middlemen and subletting. + +In the north there was a powerful, intelligent Protestant community, +with a strong leaning to republicanism. They were chiefly +Presbyterians, and they resented bitterly the commercial restrictions +and the obligation of paying tithes to an Episcopal church. The Irish +Parliament was so constituted that they had no political power at all +equivalent to their importance, and, like the Presbyterians in +England, they were burdened by the Test Act, and their marriages were +only valid if celebrated in the Established Church. The great power of +the bishops, both in the Privy Council and in the House of Lords, +formed a very serious obstacle to church reform. In all classes of +Protestants, however, in the closing years of George II., there was a +strong resentment at the political subjection of Ireland, and a +determination to obtain, if possible, those constitutional rights +which the Revolution of 1688 had secured for England. + +It is impossible, within the narrow limits assigned to me, to give +even a sketch of the successive stages by which the independence of +the Irish Parliament was established. The movement began with the +Octennial Act, limiting the duration of Parliament, and it came to +full maturity during the war of the American Revolution. Among the +Irish Catholics there appears to have been absolutely no sympathy with +the American cause, but Ulster Protestantism was enthusiastically on +the side of America. Presbyterians from Ulster bore a considerable +part in the American armies, and under the influence of American +example public opinion in Ireland rapidly advanced. The great +Volunteer movement of 1778 and the following years was originated by +the fact that the Government could supply no troops for the defence of +Ulster at a time when it was in imminent danger of attack from France. +The Protestant gentry called their people to arms; and a great +Protestant force was created, which not only secured the country +against foreign danger and maintained the most perfect internal order, +but also exercised a decisive influence over Irish politics. Volunteer +conventions were assembled which represented both property and +educated Protestant opinion much more truly than the borough +Parliament, and which loudly demanded free trade and Parliamentary +independence. Grattan made himself the mouthpiece of the popular +feeling; and the English Government and Parliament yielded to the +demand. The whole system of commercial restraints, which prevented +Ireland from developing her resources and trading with foreign +countries and the British colonies, was abolished, leaving the +commercial intercourse between Great Britain and Ireland to be +regulated by special Acts. The power of the Privy Council over +legislation was abolished. The appellate jurisdiction of the Irish +House of Lords was restored, and, above all, the sole competence of +the King, Lords, and Commons of Ireland to legislate for Ireland was +recognised. The Irish Parliament nearly at the same time made great +steps towards uniting the people by relieving the Presbyterians from +the Test Act and from the restrictions on their marriages, and the +Catholics from those parts of the penal code which chiefly restrained +their worship, their education, and their industry. At the same time +the Protestant monopoly of political power and of the higher offices +remained. + +Ireland thus found herself in possession of a Parliament which was, in +name at least, perfectly independent. It was a purely Protestant +Parliament, elected by Protestants, consisting mainly of landlords and +great Protestant lawyers, and representing pre-eminently the property +of the country. It was intensely and exclusively loyal, and always +ready to adopt far more stringent coercive measures against anarchy +and sedition than have ever been adopted by an Imperial Parliament. It +included many men of great talents and great liberality, and through +the county constituencies and the representatives of the chief towns +educated public opinion was seriously felt within its walls; but the +large majority of its members sat for nomination boroughs within the +control of the government, and places and pensions were inordinately +multiplied for the purpose of securing a majority. + +Could this constitution last? In framing the course of foreign and +Imperial policy, in all questions of peace or war, of negotiations or +alliances, the Irish Parliament had no voice. Yet it might in time of +war, by withholding its concurrence, withdraw the whole weight of +Ireland from the forces and fatally dislocate the policy of the +Empire. It might pursue a commercial policy absolutely inconsistent +with Imperial interests, and bring Ireland into intimate commercial +connection with the enemies of England; and if English party spirit +extended to Ireland and ran in opposite directions in the two +legislatures, a collision was inevitable. The Lord Lieutenant and +Chief Secretary, who administered the government of Ireland, were +appointed by a British Ministry representing the dominant British +party; the counsels of the Irish Government were framed in a British +Cabinet; the royal consent was given to every Irish Bill under the +Great Seal of Great Britain and upon the advice of a British Minister. +If a machine so constituted could work as long as it was in the hands +of a small and undoubtedly loyal and largely influenced class, could +it work if Parliamentary reform made the Irish Parliament subject to +the fierce and fluctuating tides of popular opinion? above all, if +Catholic enfranchisement brought a vast, ignorant, and possibly +seditious element into political life? + +It was the recorded opinion of each successive Lord Lieutenant who +administered the Irish Government after 1782 that it could not, and +that it must sooner or later end either in a union or a separation. +They said this, though they fully acknowledged the perfect loyalty +hitherto shown by the Irish Parliament; the liberality with which it +voted its supplies; the care with which it subordinated its particular +measures to the general interests of the Empire. The failure--not +solely or even mainly through Irish fault--of an attempt to establish +a fixed commercial arrangement between England and Ireland, and a +difference between the British and Irish Parliaments on the Imperial +question of a regency, strengthened the opinion of the English +Government, and for many years before the Union was enacted it was in +contemplation. On the two great and pressing questions at issue this +policy exercised a powerful influence. The Government obstinately +resisted every serious attempt to reform the Parliament, lest they +should lose that controlling power which they believed to be essential +to the permanence of the connection. On the Catholic question their +views were more fluctuating, but their dominant impression was that +emancipation could only be safely conceded in an Imperial Parliament, +and that it ought to be reserved as a boon which might one day make a +legislative Union acceptable to the Irish people. + +In Ireland, or at least in Protestant Ireland, the idea of a Union was +now intensely unpopular, but the reformers in the Irish Parliament +were seriously divided. Flood and Charlemont desired Parliamentary +reform on a purely Protestant basis. They believed that this would +include in political life the bulk of the property, loyalty, +intelligence, and energy of the country, and that the Irish Catholics +could not for a long period be safely admitted to political power. +Grattan, on the other hand, believed that it was the first interest of +Ireland to efface the political distinction between the two creeds and +nations, and that an introduction of a certain proportion of Catholic +gentry into the Irish Parliament would be in the highest degree +beneficial. He, at the same time, always taught that Ireland was +utterly unfit for democracy, and that under her peculiar conditions no +policy could be more disastrous than one which would 'destroy the +influence of landed property'; 'set population adrift from the +influence of property'; subvert or weaken the guiding influence of the +loyal and educated. When the United Irishmen proposed a Reform Bill +which would have made the Irish Parliament a purely democratic body, +Grattan denounced it with the greatest vehemence. 'This plan of +personal representation,' he said, 'from a revolution of power, would +speedily lead to a revolution of property, and become a plan of +plunder as well as a scene of confusion.... Of such a representation +the first ordinance would be robbery, accompanied with the +circumstance incidental to robbery, murder.' He believed, however, +that with a substantial property qualification independent +constituencies might be formed which would safely represent the best +elements of both creeds. + +The denial of parliamentary reform and Catholic emancipation, and the +refusal of the Irish Parliament to deal with the still more pressing +question of tithes, produced much disaffection; but still the country +was steadily improving, and no serious danger was felt till the French +Revolution burst upon Europe. In every country it stimulated the +smouldering elements of disorder. In few countries was its influence +more fatal than in Ireland. I have very lately described at length the +terrible years of growing conspiracy, anarchy, and crime; of +fluctuating policy, and savage repression, and revived religious +animosity, and maddening panic, deliberately and malignantly fomented, +that preceded and prepared the rebellion. It is sufficient here to say +that in the beginning of 1798 three provinces were organised to assist +a French invasion. But at the last moment the leaders were betrayed +and arrested; the French did not arrive; the rebellion was almost +confined to a few Leinster counties, and it broke out without leaders +and without a plan. In most places the rebels proved to be wretched +bands of marauders intent only on plunder, and, although they +committed many murders, they were utterly incapable of meeting the +loyalists in the field. But in Wexford, priests put themselves at the +head of the movement and turned it into a religious war, deriving its +main force from religious fanaticism, and waged with desperate courage +and ferocity. The massacre of Protestants on Vinegar Hill, in +Scullabogue Barn, and on Wexford Bridge, and the general character +the rebellion in Leinster assumed, at once and for ever checked all +that tendency to rebellion which had so long existed among the +Protestants of Ulster. Some twenty thousand persons perished before +the flame was extinguished. The repression was as savage as the +rebellion, and it left Ireland torn by fiercer religious animosities +than at any period since the Restoration. + +It will dispel many illusions if the reader will remember that the +great Irish rebellion was directed mainly against the Irish +Parliament, and that it received its death-blow from Irish loyalists +acting under that Parliament before any assistance arrived from +England. The conspiracy began among Protestants and Deists, who aimed +at a union of sects for the purpose of obtaining a democratic +republic. It turned into a war which was scarcely less essentially +religious than the wars of the Cevennes or of the Anabaptists. Yet two +great Catholic provinces remained quiet during the struggle, and a +great proportion of the loyalist force which crushed the rebellion +consisted of Catholic militia. + +The English Government thought that the time had now come for carrying +a legislative Union, and, in the eyes of Lord Cornwallis at least, one +of its chief recommendations was that it would take the government of +Ireland out of the hands of the triumphant party, and would make +Catholic emancipation a possibility. The Catholic bishops were sounded +and found to be very favourable. They declared their full willingness +to accept an endowment for the priesthood and to give the English +Government a right of veto on episcopal appointments, and they warmly, +efficiently, and unanimously supported the Union. The great majority +of the Catholic landed gentry and probably of the lower priests were +on the same side; but in general the Catholic laity seem to have +shown little interest and to have taken little part in the contest. In +Dublin, Catholics as well as Protestants were generally hostile, but +Catholic Cork was decidedly favourable, and an assurance that the +Government desired to carry emancipation in an Imperial Parliament +proved sufficient to prevent any serious Catholic opposition. The +United Irishmen seem to have witnessed rather with pleasure than the +reverse the dethronement of the body which had defeated them, and the +Presbyterians showed scarcely any interest in the question. + +Yet outside the ranks of the Catholic clergy the measure found few +active supporters, while the Protestants of the Established Church +were in general ardently and passionately hostile. The great majority +of the county members and the great preponderance of petitions were +against the Union, and the opposition to it, which was led by Foster, +Grattan, Parsons, and Plunket, comprised nearly all the independent +and unbribed talent in Parliament. The very eminent ability of that +small group of Protestant gentlemen never flashed more brightly than +in the closing scenes, and there was a moment when the attitude of the +Orangemen and the yeomanry was so menacing that the Government were +seriously alarmed. But a lavish distribution of peerages and places +purchased a majority, and the troops stationed in Ireland were too +numerous for armed opposition to be possible. In truth, however, no +opposition beyond the dimensions of a riot was to be feared. Outside +Dublin, Catholic, Presbyterian, and seditious Ireland remained almost +indifferent. Even before the measure had passed, opposition speakers +complained bitterly that they were deserted by popular support; and it +is a memorable fact that in the general election that followed the +Union not a single Irish member of Parliament was defeated because he +had voted for it. + +Pitt intended the Union to be immediately followed by measures +admitting the Catholics into the Imperial Parliament, paying the +priests, and commuting the tithes. If these three measures, or even if +the last two (which were, in truth, the most important), had been +promptly carried, the Union might have become popular. The Catholic +question had, of late, been greatly mismanaged. The chief men who +directed the government in Ireland were bitterly opposed to any +concession of political power to the Catholics, but the views of the +English Ministers had been materially changed. They desired above all +things to separate the Catholics from the United Irishmen, and in 1793 +they forced upon their reluctant advisers in Ireland an Act which +extended the suffrage to the vast ignorant Catholic masses, though it +left the Catholic gentry still excluded from Parliament. Two years +later Lord Fitzwilliam was sent over with instructions to postpone the +question if possible, but with authority, as he believed, to carry +emancipation if it could not be postponed, and he found the Irish +Parliament perfectly prepared to pass it. But the opposition of the +King and a question of patronage produced a fatal division and led to +the recall of the Viceroy. The passions aroused by the rebellion +greatly increased the difficulties of admitting Catholics to a +separate Parliament, but there is clear evidence that at the time of +the Union the Irish Protestants were in favour of their admission into +the Imperial one. The dispositions of the King were well known, but it +was believed that, if the scheme of Pitt was submitted to him as the +matured policy of a united Cabinet, he must have yielded. It is well +known how the plan was prematurely revealed; how Pitt resigned office +when the King refused his consent; how the agitation of the question +threw the King into an access of insanity; and how Pitt then promised +that he would not again raise it during the reign. Pitt's conduct on +this occasion is, and probably always will be, differently judged. +There can be but one opinion of its calamitous effect upon Irish +history. + +Ninety years have passed since the Union, and the conditions of +Ireland have completely changed. The whole system of religious +disqualification and commercial disability has long since passed away. +Every path has been thrown open, and English professions, as well as +the great Colonial and Indian services, are crowded with Irishmen. The +Established Church no longer exists. Representation has been placed on +a broadly democratic basis, giving Ireland, however, an absurdly +disproportioned weight in the representation of the kingdom, and its +poorest and most backward districts an absurdly disproportioned weight +in the representation of Ireland. Finally, an attempt has been made to +put down agrarian agitation by legislation to which there is no real +parallel in English history, and some parts of which would have been +impossible under the Constitution of the United States. Landlords who +possessed by the clearest title known to English law the most absolute +ownership of their estates have been converted into mere +rent-chargers. Tenants who entered upon their tenancies under formal +written contracts for limited periods have been rooted for ever on the +soil. Rents have been reduced by judicial sentence, with complete +disregard both to previous contracts and to market value, and the +legal owner has had no option of refusing the change and re-entering +on the occupation of his land. A scheme of purchase, too, based upon +Imperial credit, has been established and will probably soon be +largely extended, which is so extravagantly and almost grotesquely +favorable to the tenant that it enables him by paying for the space of +forty-nine years, instead of his reduced judicial rent, an annual sum +which is considerably smaller, to purchase the freehold of his farm. +It is a simple and incontestable truth that neither in the United +States, nor in England, nor in any portion of the Continent of Europe, +is the agricultural tenant so favoured by law as in Ireland, or +anything of the nature of landlord oppression made so impossible. But +though agitation has diminished, it has not ceased, and the great body +of the poorer Catholics still follow the banner of Home Rule. + +About a third of the population of Ireland, on the other hand, regard +Home Rule as the greatest catastrophe that could befall themselves, +their country, or the Empire; and it is worthy of notice that they +include almost all the descendants of Grattan's Parliament, and of the +volunteers and of those classes who in the eighteenth century +sustained the spirit of nationality in Ireland. Belfast and the +surrounding counties, which alone in Ireland have attained the full +height and vigour of English industrial civilisation; almost all the +Protestants, both Episcopalian and Nonconformist; almost all the +Catholic gentry; the decided preponderance of Catholics in the lay +professions, and a great and guiding section of the Catholic +middle-class are on the same side. Their conviction does not rest upon +any abstract doctrine about the evil of federal governments or of +local parliaments. It rests upon their firm persuasion that in the +existing conditions of Ireland no Parliament could be established +there which could be trusted to fulfil the most elementary conditions +of honest government--to maintain law; to protect property; to observe +or enforce contracts; to secure the rights and liberties of +individuals and minorities; to act loyally in times of difficulty and +danger in the interests of the Empire. + +They know that the existing Home Rule movement has grown up by the +guidance and by the support of men who are implacable enemies to the +British Empire; that it has been for years the steady object of its +leaders to inspire the Irish masses with feelings of hatred to that +Empire, contempt for contracts, defiance of law and of those who +administer it; that, having signally failed in rousing the +agricultural population in a national struggle, those leaders resolved +to turn the movement into an organised attack upon landed property; +that in the prosecution of this enterprise they have been guilty, not +only of measures which are grossly and palpably dishonest, but also of +an amount of intimidation, of cruelty, of systematic disregard for +individual freedom scarcely paralleled in any country during the +present century; and finally that, through subscriptions which are not +drawn from Ireland, political agitation in Ireland has become a large +and highly lucrative trade--a trade which, like most others, will no +doubt continue as long as it pays. + +The nature, methods, and objects of the organisation which would +probably exercise a dominant influence over an Irish Parliament have +been established by overwhelming evidence and beyond all reasonable +doubt, after a long, careful, and most impartial judicial +investigation. The report of the late Special Commissioners[7] and the +evidence on which it is founded have been published; and their +conclusions have very recently been summed up in an admirable work by +Professor Dicey, perhaps the ablest of living writers on political +subjects. Readers may find in these works abundant evidence of the +true character of the Irish Home Rule movement. If they read them with +impartiality they will, I believe, have little difficulty in +concluding that there have been few political movements in the +nineteenth century which are less deserving of the respect or support +of honest men. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[7] The Parnell Commission.--ED. + + + + +FORMATIVE INFLUENCES + + +It was about four years before the great upheaval of beliefs in +England, which was partly caused and partly disclosed by the +publication of the 'Essays and Reviews,' in 1860, that I entered +Trinity College, Dublin. I had then a strong leaning toward +theological studies and looked forward to a peaceful clerical life in +a family living near Cork; and in addition to the ordinary university +course, I went through that appointed for divinity students. I found +my life at the university one of more than common intellectual +activity, for although circumstances and temperament made me perhaps +culpably indifferent to college ambitions and competitions, I soon +threw myself with intense eagerness into a long course of private +reading, chiefly relating to the formation and history of opinions. +The great High Church wave which had a few years before been so +powerful, had been broken when Newman and many other leaders of the +party had passed to Catholicism. Darwin and Herbert Spencer had not +yet risen above the horizon. Mill was in the zenith of his fame and +influence. The intellectual atmosphere was much agitated by the recent +discoveries of geology, by their manifest bearing on the Mosaic +cosmogony and on the history of the Fall, and by the attempts of Hugh +Miller, Hitchcock, and other writers to reconcile them with the +received theology. In poetry, Tennyson and Longfellow reigned, I +think with an approach to equality which has not continued. In +politics, the school of orthodox political economy was almost +unchallenged. In spite of the protests of Carlyle, all sound Liberals +in England then desired to restrict as much as possible the functions +of government, and to enlarge as much as possible the sphere of +individual liberty; and they regarded unrestrained competition and +inviolable contracts as the chief conditions of material progress. + +The first great intellectual influence which I experienced was, I +believe, that of Bishop Butler, who was at that time probably studied +more assiduously at Dublin than in any other university in the +kingdom. There were few sermons in the college chapel in which some +allusion to his writings might not be found, and few serious students +whose modes of thought were not at least coloured by his influence. +That influence now appears to me to have been not only various, but +even in some measure contradictory. The 'Analogy' is perhaps the most +original, if not the most powerful, book ever written in defence of +the Christian creed; but it has probably been the parent of much +modern Agnosticism, for its method is to parallel every difficulty in +revealed religion by a corresponding difficulty in natural religion, +and to argue that the two must stand or fall together. Butler's +unrivalled sermons on human nature, on the other hand, have been +essentially conservative and constructive, and their influence has +been at least as strong on character as on belief. Their doctrine is +that consciousness reveals in the inner principles of our being a +moral hierarchy, 'a difference in nature and kind altogether distinct +from strength'; and that among these principles conscience has, by the +very structure of our nature, a recognised supremacy or guiding +authority which clearly distinguishes it from all others. + +'The principle of reflection or conscience being compared with the +various appetites, affections, and passions in men, the former is +manifestly supreme and chief, without regard to strength.... From its +very nature it manifestly claims superiority over all others, so that +you cannot form a notion of this faculty, conscience, without taking +in judgment, direction, superintendency. To preside and govern, from +the very economy and constitution of man, belongs to it. Had it +strength as it has right, it would govern the world.' + +It was a noble philosophy, well fitted to strengthen and elevate the +character, and it has supported many amid the dissolution of positive +beliefs. Utilitarian theories of morals move very smoothly as long as +their only task is to define the course which it is in the interests +of society that each man should pursue. They are less successful in +furnishing any firm and adequate reason why a man should pursue that +course when individual interests and individual passion are opposed to +it. It is the merit of the schools of Kant and of Butler, that they +raise the idea of duty above all the calculations of self-interest, +and make it the supreme and guiding principle of life. + +Among living men, the strongest intellectual influence at that time in +Dublin was, I think, Whately, our archbishop, an original and powerful +thinker who has scarcely obtained a place in the literary and +intellectual history of his time commensurate with the wide and deep +influence he undoubtedly exercised. For this there are many reasons. +Unlike the High Church leaders who flourished with him at Oxford in +the second quarter of the nineteenth century, he never identified +himself with any organised party or school of thought, and he thus +deprived himself of many echoes and of much support. It was, indeed, +one of his first principles that there is no more fatal obstacle to +the discovery of truth than the deflecting influence of party and +system, and that the jealous maintenance of an independent judgment is +the first element of intellectual honesty. Few considerable writers +have appealed less to common passions or wide sympathies; and the only +passion--if it can be called so--that appears strongly in his +writings, is the love of truth for its own sake, which is the rarest +and highest of all. He was accustomed to speculate much upon that +strange power of intellectual magnetism which enables some men to draw +others to their views apart from any process of definite reasoning; +and he acknowledged with truth that he was wholly destitute of it; +that he had never produced any effect which could not be clearly +accounted for, or altered any judgment except by distinct reasons. As +a writer, his style, though wholly without grace, was admirable in its +lucidity. He had a singular felicity of illustration, and especially +of metaphor, and a rare power of throwing his thoughts into terse and +pithy sentences; but his many books, though full of original thinking +and in a high degree suggestive to other writers, had always a certain +fragmentary and occasional character, which prevented them from taking +a place in standard literature. He was conscious of it himself, and +was accustomed to say that it was the mission of his life to make up +cartridges for others to fire. The little volume of 'Miscellanies,' +including his commonplace book and his notes for his books, which was +published by his daughter, exhibits with great clearness the character +of his mind. Though a very candid and, in the best sense of the word, +a very tolerant man, and an excellent scholar, he had, I think, little +power of reproducing the modes of thought of men whose mental +structure was widely different from his own, or of entering into the +intellectual conditions of other ages; but he touched a large circle +of subjects, social, political, and even scientific, as well as moral +and religious, with an original and most independent judgment; and he +raised greatly the moral standard of love of truth and the +intellectual standard of severe reasoning wherever his influence +extended. He delighted in that fine saying of Hobbes that, 'words are +the counters of the wise man, but the money of the fool'; he believed +that most controversies might be resolved into verbal ambiguities; and +his hatred of vagueness, grandiloquence, affected obscurity, and +rhetorical exaggeration exercised a very useful influence over young +men. He was also a most attentive and sagacious observer of human +nature, and few modern writers have written so wisely on the +diversities and the management of character and on the science of +life. In this respect he had a strong affinity to Bacon--the Bacon not +of the 'Organon,' but of the 'Essays'--and perhaps still more to +Benjamin Franklin. In theology he challenged the severest inquiry, and +believed that if honestly pursued it would lead only to orthodox +belief. 'A good man,' he once wrote, 'will indeed wish to find the +evidence of the Christian religion satisfactory; but a wise man will +not for that reason think it satisfactory, but will weigh the evidence +the more carefully on account of the importance of the question.' + +His strongest antipathy was to the teaching of the Oxford 'Tracts,' +and he wrote about them with great severity, but more from the moral +than the intellectual side. He believed the Tractarian doctrines of +'reserve' and 'economy' to be essentially disingenuous; he considered +that there was good reason to conclude that leading members of the +Oxford school had remained in the Church of England for a considerable +time after they had adopted the Roman theology, had used language +deliberately intended to mask their position, and had employed their +influence as English clergymen to sap the English Church; and he +especially denounced as the grossest dishonesty the attempt that was +made in Tract XC. to show that a man was justified in subscribing to +the Articles of the Church of England and at the same time holding +everything laid down by the Council of Trent, 'though the Articles +were expressly drawn up to condemn the authoritative teaching of the +Roman Church, and after the Council of Trent had held 22 out of its +whole number of 25 sessions.' The quibbling, special-pleading, +equivocating mind which is consciously or half-consciously +endeavouring by subtle distinctions to maintain an untenable position, +was of all things the most abhorrent to him, and while the +Evangelicals denounced the Tractarians as leading men to Rome, +Whately, perhaps alone among his contemporaries, steadily predicted +that their teachings would be followed by a great period of religious +scepticism. This, he said, would be the result of the discredit they +were throwing on the evidential school, of their habit of coupling +ecclesiastical with Scripture miracles, and of their doctrine that it +is the function of faith to supply the missing links of imperfect +evidence and to impart the character of certainty to propositions +which in reason rest only on probabilities. He himself was of the +school of Grotius and Paley, and believed that simple historical +evidence established supernatural facts. This subject long held a +foremost place in my thoughts and studies, and I afterward wrote much +upon it in connection with the history of witchcraft and the miracles +of the Saints. + +I owed much to Whately, but I was studying concurrently with him +teachers of very opposite schools, among others Coleridge, Newman, and +Emerson in English; Pascal, Bossuet, Rousseau, and Voltaire in French. +Locke's writings formed part of the college course, and I became very +familiar with them, and fully shared Hallam's special admiration for +the little treatise 'On the Conduct of the Understanding,' while +Dugald Stewart, Mackintosh, and Mill opened out wide and various +vistas in moral philosophy. The following passage from Coleridge, +which I chose as the motto of almost my first published writing, +exercised so great an influence over my later studies, and shows so +happily the direction in which I was endeavoring to turn my mind, that +I may be excused from quoting it at length: + +'Let it be remembered by controversialists on all subjects, that every +speculative error which boasts a multitude of advocates has its golden +as well as its dark side; that there is always some truth connected +with it, the exclusive attention to which has misled the +understanding; some moral beauty which has given it charms for the +heart. Let it be remembered that no assailant of an error can +reasonably hope to be listened to by its advocates, who has not proved +to them that he has seen the disputed subject in the same point of +view and is capable of contemplating it with the same feelings as +themselves; for why should we abandon a cause at the persuasion of one +who is ignorant of the reasons which have attached us to it?' + +Adopting an illustration which had been employed by Bossuet for +another purpose, I came to believe that religious systems resemble +those pictures occasionally seen in the museums of the curious, which +appear at first to be mere incongruous assemblages of unconnected and +unmeaning figures, till they are regarded from one particular point of +view, when these figures immediately mass themselves into a regular +form, and the whole picture assumes a coherent and symmetrical +appearance. To discover in each system this point of view; to +cultivate that peculiar form of imagination which makes it possible to +realise how different forms of opinions are held by their more +intelligent adherents, appeared to me the first condition of +understanding them. + +In this method of inquiry I was, at a little later period, much aided +by the writings of Bayle, a great critic who brought to the study of +opinions an almost unrivalled knowledge, and one of the keenest and +most detached of human intellects. Gradually, however, by a natural +and insensible process I passed into the habit of examining opinions +mainly from an historical point of view--investigating the +circumstances under which they grow up; their relation to the general +conditions of their time; the direction in which they naturally +develop; the part, whether for good or ill, which during long spaces +of time they have played in the world. It was first of all in +connection with the Roman Catholic controversy, with which we were +much occupied in Ireland, that I learnt to pursue this course. Of the +enormous and essential difference between matured Catholicism and the +Christianity of the New Testament, I never doubted, and my convictions +were much deepened by long travels in Italy, France, and Spain, during +which I endeavoured to study carefully Catholicism in its actual +workings as a popular religion, and not as it appears clarified and +rationalised in such books as the 'Exposition,' by Bossuet. I often +asked myself, who could have imagined from a perusal of the New +Testament that Christianity was intended to be a highly centralised +monarchy, governed with supreme divine authority by the Bishop of +Rome; that this bishop was to be connected, not with the great author +of the Epistle to the Romans, but with St. Peter; that the figure +which was to occupy the most prominent place in the devotions and +imaginations of millions of Christian worshippers was to be the Virgin +Mary, who is not so much as mentioned in the Epistles; that in the +immediate neighbourhood, and with the full sanction of the highest +ecclesiastical authorities, graven images were to be employed in +devotion as conspicuously as in a pagan temple, particular images +being singled out from all others for particular devotion by special +indulgences and by special miracles? I soon convinced myself that +popular Catholicism, as it exists in southern Europe and as it has +existed through a long course of centuries, is as literally +polytheistic and idolatrous as any form of paganism, though it has +many beauties, and though much of its very mingled influence has been +for good. In the teaching of my early youth, this transformation of +Christianity was described as the great predicted apostasy, the +mystery of iniquity, the work of Antichrist among mankind. Under the +influence of the historic method it assumed a different aspect, and +the mystery became very explicable. Hobbes had struck the keynote in a +passage of profound truth as well as of admirable beauty: + +'If a man consider the original of this great ecclesiastical +dominion, he will easily perceive that the Papacy is no other than the +ghost of the deceased Roman Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave +thereof.' + +Few evolutions in history, indeed, can be more clearly traced than the +successive stages through which Rome, by a gradual and very natural +process, obtained the primacy of Christendom. In the condition of +Europe, again, at the time of the downfall of the Roman Empire, the +invasion, the triumph, and the rapid conversion of the barbarians, the +chief causes of the materialising transformation which Christian ideas +underwent appeared abundantly evident; and it became clear to me that +some such transformation was inevitable, and essential to their enduring +influence. Was it possible, I asked myself, that in ages of anarchy and +convulsion, any religion resembling Protestant Christianity could have +prevailed among great masses of wild and ignorant barbarians, with all +the associations and mental habits of idolaters, at a time when neither +rag paper nor printing was invented, and when a wide diffusion of the +Bible was absolutely impossible? But such methods of reasoning could not +stop there. I was naturally led to consider how different are the +measures of probability, the predispositions toward the miraculous, the +canons of evidence and proof, the standards and ideals of morals in +different ages, and how largely these differences affect the whole +question of evidence. I began to realise the existence of climates of +opinion; to observe how particular forms of belief naturally grow and +flourish in certain stages of intellectual development, and fade when +these conditions have changed; how much that is called apostasy and +imposture is in reality anachronism, the survival in one age of forms of +belief that were the appropriate product of an earlier one. + +A writer of extraordinary brilliancy and power was at this time +exercising a great influence either of attraction or repulsion on all +serious students of history. Those who are old enough to remember the +appearance of the first volume of Buckle's 'History,' in 1857, and of +the second volume, in 1861, will remember also how rapidly and how +passionately it divided opinion. It was in truth a book in which +extraordinary merits were balanced by extraordinary defects. On the +special subject of the growth of religions, which most interested me, +it was peculiarly deficient, for with all his great gifts Buckle was +almost colour-blind to the devotional and reverential aspect of things, +and he had little more power than Whately of projecting himself into +the beliefs, ideals, and modes of thought of other men and ages. His +unqualified, undiscriminating contempt for the ages of superstition is +the more remarkable, because fifteen years before the appearance of his +first volume, Comte, with whom Buckle had some affinity, and for whom +he expressed great admiration, had been placing those ages on a +pinnacle of extravagant eulogy. His doctrine that there is no real +progress in moral ideas and no real history of morals, I have always +believed to be profoundly untrue, and to have vitiated a large part of +his conclusions; and although he rendered valuable service in showing +by ample illustrations that the capital changes in history are much +less due to the great men who directly effected them than to the long +train of intellectual, political, or industrial tendencies that had +prepared them, he pushed this, like many of his other generalisations, +to exaggeration and even to extravagance. Individuals, and even +accidents, have had a great modifying and deflecting influence in +history, and sometimes the part they have played can scarcely be +over-estimated. If, as I have elsewhere said, a stray dart had struck +down Mohammed in one of the early skirmishes of his career, there is no +reason to believe that the world would have seen a great military and +monotheistic religion arise in Arabia, powerful enough to sweep over a +large part of three continents, and to mould during many centuries the +lives and characters of about a fifth part of the human race. In one +respect, too, Buckle was singularly unfortunate in the time in which he +appeared. From the days of Bacon and Locke to the days of Condillac and +Bentham, it had been the tendency of advanced liberal thinkers to +aggrandise as much as possible the power of circumstances and +experience over the individual, and to reduce to the narrowest limits +every influence that is innate, transmitted, or hereditary. They +represented man as essentially the creature of circumstances, and his +mind as a sheet of blank paper on which education might write what it +pleased. Buckle pushed this habit of thought so far that he even +questioned the reality of such an evident and well-known fact as +hereditary insanity. But only two years after the appearance of the +first volume of the 'History of Civilisation,' Darwin published his +'Origin of Species,' which gradually effected a revolution in +speculative philosophy almost as great as it effected in natural +science; and from that time the supreme importance of inborn and +hereditary tendencies has become the very central fact in English +philosophy. It must be added that Buckle had many of the distinctive +faults of a young writer; of a writer who had mixed little with men, +and had formed his mind almost exclusively by solitary, unguided study. +He had a very imperfect appreciation of the extreme complexity of +social phenomena, an excessive tendency to sweeping generalisations, +and an arrogance of assertion which provoked much hostility. His wide +and multifarious knowledge was not always discriminating, and he +sometimes mixed good and bad authorities with a strange indifference. + +This is a long catalogue of defects, but in spite of them Buckle +opened out wider horizons than any previous writer in the field of +history. No other English historian had sketched his plan with so bold +a hand, or had shown so clearly the transcendent importance of +studying not merely the actions of soldiers, politicians, and +diplomatists, but also those great connected evolutions of +intellectual, social, and industrial life on which the type of each +succeeding age mainly depends. To not a few of his contemporaries he +imparted an altogether new interest in history, and his admirable +literary talent, the vast range of topics which he illuminated with a +fresh significance, and the noble enthusiasm for knowledge and for +freedom that pervades his work, made its appearance an epoch in the +lives of many who have passed far from its definite conclusions. The +task which he had undertaken was almost too vast for the longest life, +and when he died at Damascus, in 1862, he had not yet completed his +fortieth year, and his judgment was probably still far from its full +maturity. A few lines of Pliny which I wrote on the title-page of his +history, will suffice to show the feelings with which I heard of his +death: + +'Mihi autem videtur acerba semper et immatura mors eorum qui immortale +aliquid parant. Nam qui voluptatibus dediti quasi in diem vivunt, +vivendi causas quotidie finiunt; qui vero posteros cogitant et +memoriam sui operibus extendunt, his nulla mors non repentina est, ut +quae semper inchoatum aliquid abrumpat.' + +I do not purpose to pursue these recollections further. I had drifted +far from my Cork living and very decisively into the ways of +literature, and after I left the university I spent about four years +on the Continent. I read much in foreign libraries, and I also derived +great profit as well as keen pleasure from the study of Italian art, +which throws an invaluable light on the branches of history I was then +investigating. In its earlier phase especially, before the sense of +beauty dominates over the idea, art represents with a singular +fidelity not only the religious beliefs of men, but also the far more +delicate and evanescent shades of their realisations, ideals, and +emotions. + +The result of those years of study was my 'History of the Spirit of +Rationalism in Europe,' which appeared in the early part of 1865. With +many defects, it had at least the merit of describing with great +sincerity the process by which the opinions of its author had been +formed, and to this sincerity it probably owed no small part of its +success. + + + + +CARLYLE'S MESSAGE TO HIS AGE. + + +When Carlyle came to London in 1831, bringing with him the 'Sartor +Resartus,' which is now perhaps the most famous of all his works, it +is well known that he applied in turn to three of the principal +publishers in London, and that each of them, after due deliberation, +positively refused to print his manuscript. When at last, with great +difficulty, he procured its admission into 'Fraser's Magazine,' +Carlyle was accustomed to say that he only knew of two men who found +anything to admire in it. One of them was the great American writer, +Emerson, who afterwards superintended its publication in America. The +other was a priest from Cork, who wrote to say that he wished to take +in 'Fraser's Magazine' as long as anything by this writer appeared in +it. On the other hand, several persons told Fraser that they would +stop taking in the magazine if any more of such nonsense appeared in +it. The editor wrote to Carlyle that the work had been received with +'unqualified disapprobation.' Five years elapsed before it was +reprinted as a separate book, and in order that it should be reprinted +it was found necessary for a number of Carlyle's private friends to +club together and guarantee the publisher from loss by engaging to +take three hundred copies. But when, a few years before his death, a +cheap edition of Carlyle's works was published, 'Sartor Resartus' had +acquired such a popularity that thirty thousand copies were almost +immediately sold, and since his death it has been reprinted in a +sixpenny form; it has penetrated far and wide through all classes, and +it is now, I suppose, one of the most popular and most influential of +the books that were published in England in the second quarter of the +century. + +Such a contrast between the first reception and the later judgment of +a book is very remarkable, and it applies more or less to all +Carlyle's earlier writings. It is a memorable fact in the literary +history of the nineteenth century that one of the greatest and most +industrious writers in England lived for many years in such poverty +that he often thought of abandoning literature and emigrating to the +colonies, and he would probably have done so if he had not found in +public lecturing a means of supplying his frugal wants. The cause of +this long-continued neglect is partly, no doubt, to be found in his +style, for, like Browning, Carlyle wrote an English which was so +contorted and sometimes so obscure that his readers had to be slowly +educated into understanding, or at least enjoying, it. But there are +other and deeper causes which I propose to devote the short time at my +disposal to indicating. + +It has been truly said that there are two great classes among writers. +There are those who are echoes and there are those who are voices. +There are some writers who represent faithfully and express strongly +the dominant tendencies, opinions, habits, characteristics of their +age, collecting as in a focus the half-formed thoughts that are +prevailing around them, giving them an articulate voice, and by the +force of their advocacy greatly strengthening them. There are others +who either start new ways of thinking for which the public around +them are still unprepared, or who throw themselves in opposition to +the dominant tendencies of their times, pointing out the evils and +dangers connected with them, and dwelling specially on neglected +truths. It is not surprising that the first class are by far the most +popular. The public is much like Narcissus in the fable, who fell in +love with his own reflection in the water. All men like to find their +own opinions expressed with a power and eloquence they cannot +themselves attain, and most men dislike a writer who, in the first +flush of a great enthusiasm, points out all that can be said on the +other side. But when the first enthusiasm is over--when the prevailing +tendency has fully triumphed and the evils and defects connected with +it are disclosed--the words of this unpopular or neglected teacher +will begin to gather weight. It will be found that although he may not +have been wiser than those who advocated the other side, yet his words +contained exactly that kind of truth which was most needed or most +generally forgotten, and his reputation will steadily rise. + +This appears to me to have been very much the position which Carlyle +occupied towards the chief questions of his day, and it explains, I +think, in a great degree the growth of his influence. It is +remarkable, indeed, how many things there are in his writings which +appeared paradoxes when he wrote, and which now seem almost truisms. +Thus at a time when the political and intellectual ascendency of +France over the Continent was at its height, Carlyle was one of the +few men who clearly recognised the essential greatness that lay hid in +Germany, and especially in Prussia--a greatness which after the wars +of 1866 and 1870 became very evident to the world. He was one of the +first men in England to recognise the importance of German +literature, and especially the supreme greatness of Goethe. His +translation of 'Wilhelm Meister' was published in 1824, and his noble +essay on Goethe in 1832; but at first it seemed to find scarcely any +echo. The editor for whom he wrote it reported that all the opinions +he could gather about this essay were 'eminently unfavourable.' De +Quincey, who of all English critics was believed to know Germany best, +and Jeffrey, who exercised the greatest influence on English literary +opinion, combined to depreciate or ridicule Goethe. But there is now +no educated man who disputes that Carlyle in this matter was +essentially right, and that his critics were wholly wrong. And to turn +to subjects more directly connected with England, Carlyle wrote at a +time when the whole school of what was called advanced thought rested +upon the theory that the province of Government ought to be made as +small as possible, and that all the relations of classes should be +reduced to simple, temporary contracts founded on mutual interest. +According to this theory, it was the one duty of Government to keep +order. For the rest it should stand aside, and not attempt to meddle +in social or industrial questions. The most complete liberty of +thought and action should be established, and everything should be +left to unrestricted competition--to the free play of unprivileged, +untrammelled, unguided social forces. This was the theory which was +called orthodox political economy--the _laisser-faire_ system--the +philosophy of competition or supply and demand, and it was incessantly +denounced by Carlyle as Mammon worship, as 'devil take the hindmost,' +as 'pure egoism'; 'the shabbiest gospel that had been taught among +men.' He declared that in the long run no society could flourish, or +even permanently cohere, if the only relation between man and man was +a mere money tie. He maintained that what he called the condition of +England question, or, in other words, the great mass of struggling, +anarchical poverty that was growing up in the chief centres of +population, was a question which imperiously demanded the most +strenuous Government intervention--which was, in fact, far more +important than any of the purely political questions. The whole system +of factory legislation, the whole system of legislation about working +men's dwellings, which has taken place in this century, has been a +realisation of the ideas of Carlyle. When Carlyle first wrote, it was +the received opinion that the education of the people was a matter in +which the Government should in no degree interfere, and that it ought +to be left altogether to individuals, or Churches, or societies. In +his work on Chartism, which was published as early as 1834, Carlyle +argued that the 'universal education of the people' was an +indispensable duty of the Government. It was not until about twenty +years ago that this duty was fully recognised in England. In the same +work he maintained that State-aided, State-organised, State-directed +emigration must one day be undertaken on a large scale, as the only +efficient agent in coping with the great masses of growing pauperism. +In his 'Past and Present,' which was published in 1843, he threw out +another idea which has proved very prolific, and which is probably +destined to become still more so. It is that it may become both +possible and needful for the master worker 'to grant his workers +permanent interest in his enterprise and theirs.' + +It is evident how much less strange those ideas appear now than they +did when they were first put out some fifty years ago. One of the +most remarkable changes that has taken place during the lives of men +who are still of middle age has been in the opinion of advanced +thinkers about the function of Government. In the early days of +Carlyle the whole set, or lie, of opinion in England was towards +cutting in all directions the bands of Government control, diminishing +as much as possible the sphere of Government functions or +interference. It was a revolt against the old Tory system of paternal +Government, against the system of Guilds, against the State +regulations which once prevailed in all departments of industrial +life. In the present generation it is not too much to say that the +current has been absolutely reversed. The constantly increasing +tendency, whenever any abuse of any kind is discovered, is to call +upon Parliament to make a law to remedy it. Every year the network of +regulation is strengthened; every year there is an increasing +disposition to enlarge and multiply the functions, powers, and +responsibilities of Government. I should not be dealing sincerely with +you if I did not express my own opinion that this tendency carries +with it dangers even more serious than those of the opposite +exaggerations of a past century: dangers to character by sapping the +spirit of self-reliance and independence; dangers to liberty by +accustoming men to the constant interference of authority, and +abridging in innumerable ways the freedom of action and choice. I wish +I could persuade those who form their estimate of the province of +Government from Carlyle's 'Past and Present' and 'Latter-day +Pamphlets' to study also the admirable little treatise of Herbert +Spencer, called 'The Man and the State,' in which the opposite side is +argued. What I have said however, is sufficient to show how +remarkably Carlyle, in some of the parts of his teaching that were +once the most unpopular, anticipated tendencies which only became very +apparent in practical politics when he was an old man or after his +death. + +The main and fundamental part of his teaching is the supreme sanctity +of work; the duty imposed on every human being, be he rich or be he +poor, to find a life-purpose and to follow it out strenuously and +honestly. 'All true work,' he said, 'is religion'; and the essence of +every sound religion is, 'Know thy work and do it.' In his conception +of life all true dignity and nobility grows out of the honest +discharge of practical duty. He had always a strong sympathy with the +feudal system which annexed indissolubly the idea of public function +with the possession of property. The great landlord who is wisely +governing large districts and using all his influence to diffuse +order, comfort, education, and civilisation among his tenantry; the +captain of industry who is faithfully and honestly organising the +labour of thousands, and regarding his task as a moral duty; the rich +man who, with all the means of enjoyment at his feet, devotes his +energies 'to make some nook of God's creation a little fruitfuller, +better, more worthy of God--to make some human hearts a little wiser, +manfuller, happier, more blessed,' always received his admiration and +applause. No one, on the other hand, spoke with more contempt of a +governing class which had ceased to govern; of titles which had lost +their original meaning, and no longer implied or expressed duties +performed; of wealth that was employed solely or mainly in selfish +enjoyment or in idle show. It was Carlyle's deep conviction that the +best test of the moral worth of every nation, class, and individual, +is to be found in their standard of work and in their dislike to a +useless and idle life. As is well known, he had no sympathy with the +prevailing political ideas. He believed that men were not only not +equal, but were profoundly unequal; that it was the first interest of +society that the wisest men should be selected as its leaders, and +that the popular methods of finding the wisest were by no means those +which were most likely to succeed. 'No British man,' he complained, +'can attain to be a statesman or chief of workers till he has first +proved himself a chief of talkers.' 'The two greatest nations in the +world, the English and American, are all going to wind and tongue.' He +believed much more than his contemporaries did that there was need and +room in our modern English life for strong Government organisation, +guidance, discipline, reverence, obedience, and control. 'Wise +command, wise obedience,' he wrote in one of his 'Latter-day +Pamphlets,' 'the capability of these two is the best measure of +culture and human virtue in every man.' + +There is another class of workers to which he himself belonged--the +men who are the teachers of mankind. He taught them by his example as +well as by his precepts. Whatever else may be said about Carlyle, no +one can question that he took his literary vocation most seriously. He +was for a long time a very poor man, but he never sought wealth by +advocating popular opinions, by pandering to common prejudices, or by +veiling most unpalatable beliefs. In the vast mass of literature which +he has bequeathed to us there is no scamped work, and every competent +judge has recognised the untiring and conscientious accuracy with +which he verified and sifted the minutest fact. His standard of +truthfulness was extremely high, and one of his great quarrels with +his age was that it was an age of half-beliefs and insincere +professions. He maintained that religious beliefs which had once been +living realities had too often degenerated into mere formulas, untruly +professed or mechanically repeated with the lips only, and without any +genuine or heartfelt conviction. He often repeated a saying of +Coleridge: 'They do not believe--they only believe that they believe.' +He used to speak of men who 'played false with their intellects'; or, +in other words, turned away their minds from unwelcome truths and by +allowing their wishes or interests to sway their judgments, persuaded +or half-persuaded themselves to believe whatever they wished. A firm +grasp of facts, he maintained, was the first characteristic of an +honest mind; the main element in all honest, intellectual work. His +own special talent was the gift of insight, the power of looking into +the heart of things, piercing to essential facts, discerning the real +characters of men, their true measure of genuine, solid worth. Creeds, +professions, opinions, circumstances, all these are the externals or +clothes of men. It is necessary to look behind them and beyond them if +we would reach the genuine human heart. One of the reasons why he +detested what he called stump oratory was because he believed it to be +a great school of insincerity. Its end was not truth, but +plausibility. It was the effort of interested men to throw opinions +into such forms as might most captivate uninstructed men; to keep back +every unpopular side; to magnify everything in them that was +seductive. He once said to me that two great curses seemed to him +eating away the heart and worth of the English people. One was drink. +The other was stump oratory, which accustomed men to say without +shame what they did not in their hearts believe to be true, and +accustomed their hearers to accept such a proceeding as perfectly +natural. And the same strong passion for veracity he carried into his +judgment of other forms of work. Rightly or wrongly, he believed that +the standard of conscientious work had been lowered in England through +the feverish competition of modern times, and under the system of what +he called 'cheap and nasty'; that English work had lost something of +its old solidity and worth, and was now made rather to captivate than +to wear. Carlyle saw in this much more than an industrial change. He +maintained that the love and pride of thorough work had long been a +pre-eminently English quality, that it was the very tap-root of the +moral worth of the English character, and that anything that tended to +weaken it was a grave moral evil. + +It is worth while trying to understand what truth underlay those parts +of his teaching which seem most repulsive. The worship of force, which +is so apparent in many of his writings, is a striking example. He was +often accused of teaching that might is right. He always answered that +he had not done so--that what he taught was that right is might; that +by the providential constitution of the Universe truth in the long run +is sure to be stronger than falsehood; that good will prevail over +evil, and that right and might, though they differ widely in short +periods of time, would in long spaces prove to be identical. Nothing, +he was accustomed to say, seemed weaker than the Christian religion +when the disciples assembled in the upper room; yet it was in truth +the strongest thing in the world, and it accordingly prevailed. It was +one of his favourite sayings 'that the soul of the Universe is just,' +and he believed therefore that the ultimate fate of nations, whether +it be good or bad, was very much what they deserved. It is curious to +observe the analogy between this teaching and the doctrine of the +survival of the fittest, which a very different teacher--Charles +Darwin--has made so conspicuous. + +He scandalised--and I think with a good deal of reason--most of his +contemporaries by the ridicule which he threw upon the career of +Howard, and upon the great movement for prison reform which was so +actively pursued in his time. Much of what he wrote on this subject +is, to me at least, very repulsive; but you will generally find in the +most extravagant utterances of Carlyle that there is some true meaning +at bottom. He maintained that the passion for reforming and improving +prisons and prison-life had been carried in England to such a point +that the lot of a convicted criminal was often much better than that +of an honest and struggling artisan. He believed that a just and wise +distribution of compassion is a most important element of national +well-being, and that the English people are very apt to be indifferent +to great masses of unobtrusive, struggling, honourable, unsensational +poverty at their very doors, while they fall into paroxysms of emotion +about the actors in some sensational crime, about some seductive +murderess, about the wrongs of some far-off and often half-savage +race. 'In one of these Lancashire weavers dying with hunger there is +more thought and heart, a greater arithmetical amount of misery and +desperation, than in whole gangs of Quashees.' He maintained, too, +that a strain of sentiment about criminals was very prevalent in his +day, which tended seriously to obliterate or diminish the real +difference between right and wrong. He hated with an intense hatred +that whole system of philosophy which denied that there was a deep, +essential, fundamental difference between right and wrong, and turned +the whole matter into a mere calculation of interests. He was +accustomed to say that one of the chief merits of Christianity was +that it taught that right and wrong were as far apart as Heaven and +Hell, and that no greater calamity can befall a nation than a +weakening of the righteous hatred of evil. + +The parts of Carlyle's teaching on which I have dwelt to-day will be +chiefly found in his 'Past and Present,' his 'Heroes and Hero +Worship,' his 'Latter-day Pamphlets,' his 'Chartism,' and in the two +admirable essays called 'Signs of the Times' and 'Characteristics.' In +my own opinion, though Carlyle teaches much, his writings are most +valuable as a moral force. Very few great writers have maintained more +steadily that the moral element is the deepest and most important part +of our being, deeper and stronger than all intellectual +considerations. In his writings, amid much that has imperishable +value, there is, I think, much that is exaggerated, much that is +one-sided, much that is unwise. But no one can be imbued with his +teaching without finding it a great moral tonic, and deriving from it +a nobler, braver, and more unworldly conception of human life. + + + + +ISRAEL AMONG THE NATIONS[8] + + +Among the strange and unforeseen developments that have characterised +the fourth quarter of the nineteenth century, few are likely to be +regarded by the future historian with a deeper or more melancholy +interest than the anti-Semite movement, which has swept with such a +portentous rapidity over a great part of Europe. It has produced in +Russia by far the most serious religious persecution of the century. +It has raged fiercely in Roumania, the other great centre of the +Oriental Jews. In enlightened Germany it has become a considerable +parliamentary force. In Austria it counts among its adherents men of +the highest social station. Even France, which from the days of the +Revolution has been specially distinguished for its liberality to the +Jews, has not escaped the contagion. General Boulanger found the +anti-Jewish sentiment sufficiently powerful to make an appeal to it +one of the articles of his programme, and the extraordinary popularity +of the writings of Drumont shows that Boulanger had not altogether +miscalculated its force. + +It is this movement which has been the occasion of the very valuable +work of M. Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu on 'Israel among the Nations.' The +author, who is universally recognised as one of the greatest of living +political writers, has special qualifications for his task. With an +exceedingly wide knowledge of the literature relating to his subject +he combines much personal knowledge of the Jews in Palestine and in +many other countries, and especially in those countries where the +persecution has most furiously raged. + +That persecution, he justly says, unites in different degrees three of +the most powerful elements that can move mankind--the spirit of +religious intolerance; the spirit of exclusive nationality; and the +jealousy which springs from trade or mercantile competition. Of these +elements M. Leroy-Beaulieu considers the first to be on the whole the +weakest. In that hideous Russian Persecution which 'the New Exodus' of +Frederic has made familiar to the English reader, the religious +element certainly occupies a very leading place. Pobedonosteff, who +shared with his master the chief guilt and infamy of this atrocious +crime, belonged to the same type as the Torquemadas of the past, and +the spirit that animated him has entered largely into the anti-Semite +movement in other lands. The 'Gloria' of Galdos, perhaps the most +powerful religious novel of our time, describes the conflict in modern +Spain of the fanaticism of Catholicism with the fanaticism of Judaism. +Even the old calumny that the Jews are accustomed at Easter to murder +Christian children in order to mix their blood with the passover +bread, is still living in many parts of Europe. M. Leroy-Beaulieu has +collected much curious evidence on the subject. It is a calumny which +appears first to have become popular about 1100 A.D. It is +embodied in a well-known tale of Chaucer. It is the subject of one of +the great frescoes that were painted around the Cathedral of Toledo to +commemorate the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. Two Popes of the +thirteenth century, to their great honour, declared its falsehood, +and by the order of Benedict XIV. Ganganelli wrote a full memoir +examining and refuting it. But in spite of all condemnations, in spite +of many exposures in the law courts, it is still a popular belief in +Russia, Poland, Roumania, Hungary, and Bohemia, and even within the +last ten years it has been the direct cause of many outrages against +the Jews. + +Another element to which M. Leroy-Beaulieu attaches considerable +importance is the Kultur Kampf in Germany. When the German Government +was engaged in its fierce struggle with the Catholics, these +endeavoured to effect a diversion and to avenge themselves on papers, +which were largely in the hands of Jews, by raising a new cry. They +declared that a Kultur Kampf was indeed needed, but that it should be +directed against the alien people who were undermining the moral +foundations of Christian societies; who were the implacable enemies of +the Christian creed and of Christian ideals. The cry was soon taken up +by a large body of Evangelical Protestants. The 'Germania' and the +'Civilta Cattolica,' which were the chief organs of Ultramontanism in +Germany and Italy, and the 'Kreuz Zeitung,' which represented the +strictest forms of German Protestantism, agreed in fomenting it. + +Still more powerful, in the opinion of our author, has been the spirit +of intense and exclusive nationality which has in the present +generation arisen in so many countries and which seeks to expel all +alien or heterogeneous elements, and to mould the whole national being +into a single definite type. The movement has been still further +strengthened by the greater keenness of trade competition. In the +midst of many idle, drunken, and ignorant populations the shrewd, +thrifty, and sober Jew stands conspicuous as the most successful +trader. His rare power of judging, influencing, and managing men, his +fertility of resource, his indomitable perseverance and industry, +continually force him into the foremost rank, and he is prominent in +occupations which excite much animosity. The tax-gatherer, the agent, +the middleman, and the moneylender are very commonly of Jewish race, +and great Jewish capitalists largely control the money markets of +Europe at a time when capital is the special object of socialistic +attacks. + +The most valuable portion of this work is, I think, that examining the +part which the Jewish race is now playing in the world, and tracing +the action of historical causes on the formation of their character. +On the old problem of the continued existence of the race through so +many ages M. Leroy-Beaulieu has much to say. He reminds us that in the +East the idea of nationality is habitually absorbed in the idea of +religion, and that there are many examples of the long survival of +peoples or tribes which have lost their political individuality. He +instances the Copts of Egypt, the Maronites and Druses of Lebanon, the +Parsees of India, the Armenians and Greeks of Asia as displaying, +though in a less degree, the same phenomenon as the Jews. He +attributes the long continuance of the Jews as a separate people +mainly to two causes. One of them is Christian hatred, which compelled +the Jews for many centuries to remain a separate people, unmixed with +surrounding nations; living in a separate quarter; marrying among +themselves; strengthened and disciplined in the struggle of life by +enormous difficulties and by the constant elimination through +persecution of the weaker elements. The other is the very elaborate +Jewish ritual extending to all departments of life, which has stamped +upon them an intensely distinctive character. + +The force of these causes is undoubted, but they are not, I think, the +only elements to be considered. M. Leroy-Beaulieu appears to me to +have somewhat underrated the physiological force and tenacity of the +Jewish race-type. Following the line of reasoning of a remarkable +essay of Renan, he shows very clearly that the modern Jews are far +from being pure Semites. He proves from Josephus and from other +sources that there was a considerable period, both before and after +the Christian era, when great numbers of Greeks, Latins, and Egyptians +adopted the Jewish faith; that much alien blood afterward poured into +the race through conversions among the barbarians and through the +circumcision of the slaves of Jewish masters, and that there is even +reason to believe that, in some periods of history, marriages with +Christians were not infrequent. It is probable, however, that most +alien elements that were introduced into the race sooner or later +mingled with the old stock, and no fact is more clearly shown than the +extraordinary power of the Jewish type to survive and dominate in a +mixed race. A single instance of a marriage with a Jewess will be +sufficient to perpetuate it in a family for many generations. In this +fact the Jews possess an element of stability which is wholly +independent of all considerations of creed and ritual. Few things are +more curious than the effect of persecution on the Jewish element in +Spain and Portugal. Tens of thousands of Jews in those countries were +burned at the stake or driven into exile, but great numbers also +conformed. They mixed in a few generations with the old Christian +population, and Spain and Portugal, M. Leroy-Beaulieu truly says, are +now among the countries in which the Jewish blood is most evidently +and most widely diffused. + +Another consideration, which M. Leroy-Beaulieu has omitted to mention, +but which appears to me to have much weight, is the condemnation of +lending money at interest by the Church. This condemnation, which +lasted many centuries, had two important consequences. One of them was +that the Jews became almost the only moneylenders in Europe. The trade +was deemed sinful for a Christian, but it was found to be a very +necessary one; and the Jews (as some Catholic theologians observed) +being already damned, were allowed to practise it. The other +consequence was that on account of the stigma which the Church +attached to moneylending, the amount of money to be lent was greatly +diminished, or in other words, the rate of interest was enormously and +artificially raised. At a time, therefore, when Catholic intolerance +made it impossible for the Jews to mingle with and be absorbed in +surrounding nations they acquired one of the greatest elements of +power and stability that a race can possess--a monopoly of the most +lucrative trade in the world. + +The physical characteristics of the race are very remarkable and they +are especially displayed among the Eastern Jews, who still maintain +scrupulously amid poverty and persecution the religious observances of +their ancestors. It is now clearly shown that the Levitical code was +in a high degree hygienic, and even anticipates some of the +discoveries of modern physiology. Prescriptions about forbidden kinds +of food and about the mode of cooking food, which only excited the +ridicule of Voltaire, have a real hygienic value in the eyes of Claude +Bernard and of Pasteur. The Jews have never adopted the Catholic +notions about the sanctity of celibacy and virginity, but they lay +great stress on the purity of marriage. Although they live chiefly in +towns, illegitimate births are proportionately rarer among them than +among either Protestants or Catholics. They have been as a rule +singularly free from the kinds of vice that do most to enfeeble and +corrode a race. They are distinguished for their domestic virtues, +especially for care of their children, and they are nearly everywhere +less addicted than Christian nations to intoxicating drinks. These +things help to explain the curious fact that in nearly all countries +the average duration of life is considerably longer among Jews than +among Christians. This superiority is general, but, as M. +Leroy-Beaulieu observes, it tends to diminish in Western countries +where Jews, being freed from disabilities, are more assimilated to the +surrounding populations. They now usually marry later than Christians; +they have on the whole fewer children, but a proportionately larger +number of Jewish than of Christian infants attain adult age. M. +Leroy-Beaulieu mentions two curious facts which are less easy to +explain. Still-born births are very rare among Jews, and there is +among them a wholly abnormal preponderance of male births over female +ones. + +It might be supposed from these facts that the Jews were a robust +race, but no one who has come much in contact with them will share +this delusion. Nothing is more conspicuous among them than their +unhealthy colouring, their frail, bent, and feeble bodies. They +develop early, but they have very little of the spring and buoyancy of +youth and they have everywhere a low average of physical strength. +Malformations and deformities are common among them; their nervous +organisation is extremely sensitive, and though they are as a race +distinguished for their sound, clear, and practical judgment, they are +very liable to insanity and to other nervous and brain disorders. +Physical beauty as well as physical strength is much rarer among them +than among Christians. + +The causes of this inferiority may be easily explained. Life pursued +during many generations in the crowded Ghetto; the sordid habits that +grow out of extreme poverty and out of the assumption of the +appearance of poverty, which is natural in a persecuted and plundered +race, go far to explain it; but there is another and, I think, a more +important cause which M. Leroy-Beaulieu has rather strangely +neglected. Physical strength and beauty can be maintained at a high +level in crowded town populations only by a constant influx from the +country. The pure air and the healthy labour of the fields are their +main source. This great school of health the Jews have never known. +For many centuries it would have been impossible for them to have +lived in peace as farmers or agricultural labourers among a Christian +peasantry, and if they ever possessed any aptitude or taste for +agricultural pursuits they have long since wholly lost it. + +Their moral like their physical characteristics present strange +contrasts. No natural want of moral elevation or tenderness or grace +can be ascribed to the nation that has produced both the Old Testament +and the Gospels, and has most largely shaped and inspired the moral +life of the civilised world. In Christian times no race has maintained +its faith with a more devoted courage, and it has encountered and +survived persecutions before which the persecutions of other creeds +dwindle almost into insignificance. M. Leroy-Beaulieu quotes the +statement of the grand Rabbi Lehmann, that it is a clearly attested +fact that in two months of the year 1096 twelve thousand Jews, whose +names have been preserved, were massacred in the towns of the Rhine +alone, because they refused to accept a Christian baptism. The Spanish +Jews who perished by one of the most excruciating deaths rather than +forswear their faith may be numbered by thousands, and those who +preferred exile and spoliation to apostasy, by hundreds of thousands. +Even in our own sceptical and materialising age the conduct of the +Russian Jews under the recent savage persecution shows that the old +spirit is not extinct. In the face of the long and splendid roll of +Jewish heroism, it is idle to dwell on the fact that in each great +persecution some Jews have yielded to the fear of death and consented +to perform the rites of a faith which they inwardly abhorred, or on +the fact that a few Rabbis have under such circumstances justified +these feigned conversions. + +Prolonged persecution, however, has had a profound influence on their +character, and its influence in some respects has been very +pernicious. Hatred naturally provokes hatred, and violent oppression +against which there is no redress is naturally encountered by +subterfuge and fraud. A race who were for centuries playing their part +in life against overwhelming obstacles learned to avail themselves of +every advantage. Adulation, servility, falsehood, and deception became +common among them. They became at once hard, wily, and rapacious, and +ready instruments in ignoble and oppressive callings. Shut out from +open paths and honourable ambitions they haunted the obscurer byways +of industry; they were to be found in many occupations which sharpen +the intellect but blunt the moral sense, and they threw themselves +passionately into the acquisition of wealth and of secret power. +Exposed for generations, even in lands where they were not more +seriously persecuted, to constant insult and contempt, they often lost +their self-respect and learned to acquiesce tamely in what another +race would resent. Slavish conditions produced, as they always do, +slavish characteristics, and, as is always the case, those +characteristics did not at once disappear when the conditions that +produced them had altered. + +M. Leroy-Beaulieu has dwelt with much force on this subject, and he +ascribes considerable weight to the fact that the Jews have been +wholly outside the system of feudalism and chivalry in which the +modern conception of honour was chiefly formed. Perhaps the Jew might +retort with some justice, that he has had at least the compensating +moral advantage of having derived no part of his notions of right and +wrong from a Church in which such an institution as the Spanish +Inquisition was deemed a holy thing. + +Defects of another kind have contributed largely to his unpopularity. +Great as is the power of assimilation which the Jewish race possesses, +the charm and grace of manner seem to have been among the qualities +they most slowly and most imperfectly acquire. It is natural that men +who have been excluded from honours but not from wealth should value +money and the ostentatious display of riches more than their +neighbours. In the professions in which the Jews chiefly excel, men +rise most rapidly from low origin and culture to conspicuous wealth. +Direct money-making has some tendency to materialise and lower the +character, and Jews have been for generations prominent in occupations +which do much to impair those delicacies of feeling on which the charm +of manner largely depends. Besides this, as M. Leroy-Beaulieu truly +remarks, though the oldest of the cultured races they are a race of +_parvenus_ in the good society of Europe. In nearly all countries they +have till very recently been excluded from the kind of society and +from the kind of education in which the best manners are formed. The +exaggerations of bad taste; the love of the loud, the gaudy, the +ostentatious, and the meretricious; the awkwardness of men who are ill +at ease in an unaccustomed sphere, who have not yet mastered the happy +mean between arrogance and obsequiousness and who are therefore +somewhat prone to both extremes, still frequently characterise them. +Few persons who know Germany will doubt that the tone of manners of +the German Jews has contributed quite as much as any other cause to +their unpopularity. + +It is probable that these defects will gradually diminish, and it +would be a grave error to regard the Jewish race as wholly devoted to +material ends. The multitude of their martyrs is a sufficient answer +to the charge, and no people cherish more strongly the ideals of their +past and have more of the pride both of race and of creed. They have +at all times, as M. Leroy-Beaulieu observes, been distinguished for +their reverence for learning, and it is an undoubted fact that Jewish +families and families mixed with Jewish blood have produced an amount +and variety of ability that far exceed the average of men. The ability +goes rather with the race than with the religion. Spinosa, Heine, +Ricardo, and Disraeli--to quote but a few of the most illustrious +names--were not believers in the synagogue. Some of the forms in which +the Jews have most excelled are such as might have been expected from +their past. It is natural that the descendants of the most nomadic +and cosmopolitan of races should have been great masters of language +and in the foremost rank of philologists, and it is not surprising +that the descendants of the chief moneylenders and calculators of the +world should have produced great financiers, and have shown a very +eminent aptitude for mathematics. Medicine more than most professions +depends on individual ability, and has been exercised independently of +the favour of Churches and Governments, and in medicine the Jews were +for a long period pre-eminent. Their marked taste and turn for music +may appear more surprising. It is universally recognised and is +sufficiently evident to anyone who will look at the faces of the chief +orchestras of Europe. Besides a crowd of lesser names they have +produced among composers Mendelssohn, Meyerbeer, and Halevy, and among +contemporary performers Rubinstein, Joachim, Hermann Levy, and Lucca. +A Jewess is the most popular tragic actress on the contemporary stage, +and another Jewess was probably the greatest tragic actress of the +century. M. Leroy-Beaulieu notices that in painting and sculpture the +Jews have been less conspicuous, and he attributes this to their +horror of idolatry. I should rather ascribe it to the fact that +European art in its best period was mainly devoted to depicting +Christian subjects for Christian churches. At all events several +considerable Jewish names may be cited in contemporary art, and the +Dutch painter who bears the name of Israels is perhaps the greatest +living master of the pathetic in painting. In Western Europe, wherever +public life has been opened to them, Jews have thrown themselves into +almost all the great movements of their time and have distinguished +themselves in nearly all. Cremieux, who was a leading figure in the +French Republic of 1848, was a Jew both by birth and by creed. David +Manin and Leon Gambetta had Jewish blood in their veins. Lassalle and +Marx, the chief names in German socialism, as well as great numbers of +their followers belong to the same race, and more than one English +example of political eminence will occur to the reader. In both German +and Dutch literature Jewish names are frequent and they are nearly +everywhere prominent in journalism. In the army they have been much +less distinguished. Many Jews no doubt serve in the great continental +armies with honour, but the Jew is naturally a pacific being, hating +violence and recoiling with a peculiar horror from blood. The +beneficence of the Jew was for a long time very naturally confined to +his own race, but since the hand of persecution has been withdrawn, +and wherever the Jews have been suffered to mingle freely with the +Christian population, it has taken a wider range and Jewish names are +conspicuous in some of the best forms of unsectarian philanthropy. + +It is the evident tendency of modern political life to split up into a +number of distinct groups representing distinct interests or forms of +thought. We find a Catholic party, a Nonconformist party, a Labour +party, a Socialist party, a Temperance party, and many others. But in +spite of the crusade that has arisen in so many countries against the +Jews, we nowhere find a distinct and clearly defined Jewish party. The +tendency of the race is rather to throw themselves ardently into +existing movements, and their power of assimilation is one of their +most remarkable gifts. As M. Leroy-Beaulieu shows by many +illustrations, they are apt in most Western nations even to exaggerate +the national characteristics, though they usually combine with them a +certain flexibility of adaptation and a certain cosmopolitanism of +view which is essentially their own. + +It was inevitable that with such tendencies the old rigidity of creed +should be impaired and that the observances which completely severed +the Jew from other people should be discarded. There can be little +doubt that the dissolution of old beliefs which has been such a marked +and ominous characteristic of the latter half of the nineteenth +century has been even more common among the Western Jews than in +Christian nations, and it appears to have spread quite as rapidly +among the women as among the men. Many Jews have passed into complete +religious indifference--into absolute and often very cynical negation. +They have become, as Sheridan wittily said, like the blank page +between the Old and the New Testament. Others have taken refuge in a +kind of highly rationalised Judaism little different from pure Theism. +Some of the most independent, scientific, and trenchant criticism of +the Old Testament writings has proceeded from members of the race +which was once distinguished for the most complete and superstitious +worship of the letter of the law. Spinoza in his 'Tractatus +Theologico-Politicus' led the way in this path, and in our own day I +need only mention the writings of Salvador, Kalisch, and Darmesteter +and the remarkable Hibbert Lectures of Mr. Montefiore. + +This movement, however, is chiefly confined to the Western Jews. The +Oriental Jews have retained in a far greater measure their old creed +and ritual, their old fanaticism and aspirations. To them Palestine is +still the land of promise, and they still dream that it is destined to +become once more a Jewish State. Few persons who consider the +conditions of the East and the power of the Jewish race will +pronounce the realisation of this dream to be impossible or even in a +very high degree improbable. Perhaps the most formidable obstacle is +the poverty of the land and the total absence among the Jews of +agricultural tastes and aptitudes. One thing, however, may be safely +predicted. If Palestine is ever again to become a Jewish land, this +will be effected only through the wealth and energy of the Western +Jews, and it is not those Jews who are likely to inhabit it. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[8] Mr. Lecky had made various notes with the intention of bringing this +essay up to date, but failing health prevented him from accomplishing +it.--ED. + + + + +MADAME DE STAEL + + +Among the many important works which have lately been published on the +Continent, reconstructing the history of France during the struggle of +the Revolution and during the periods that immediately preceded and +followed it, scarcely any have been so comprehensive, and not many +have been so valuable, as 'The History of the Life and Times of Madame +de Stael,' by Lady Blennerhassett. The author--a Bavarian lady who was +an intimate friend and favourite pupil of Dr. Doellinger--has brought +to her task a knowledge, which is scarcely rivalled in its +completeness, of the French, German, English, and Italian literatures +relating to the period; and she has produced a work of which it is in +one sense the merit, but in another the defect, that it sweeps over a +far wider field than might be expected from its title. It is seldom, I +think, a judicious thing to confuse the provinces of history and +biography by turning the life of an individual into an elaborate +history of his time; and in the few cases in which this method has +been successfully pursued, the biographer has selected as his subject +some man like Cromwell, or Frederick the Great, or Napoleon, who was +indisputably the chief mover of his age. When figures of less +prominence are chosen, both the history and the biography are apt to +suffer. The true perspective, or relative magnitude, of events is +impaired, and the book is almost sure to lose something of its +artistic charm and of its popularity. Mr. Masson, as it seems to me, +committed a mistake of this kind in his 'Life of Milton,' when he +grouped around the great Puritan poet--who, however illustrious, was +certainly not the central figure of his time--a full and valuable +history of the Commonwealth, and of large sections of the reigns of +Charles I. and Charles II. + +In like manner, a great part of the work of Lady Blennerhassett is not +biography, but history, and history of a very high order. Madame de +Stael was so closely connected in her own person, and still more +through her father, with the early events of the French Revolution, +that we accept with gratitude the admirable sketch of that period +which Lady Blennerhassett has given us; but we should scarcely expect +to find in a work primarily devoted to Madame de Stael full and +masterly accounts of the Ministry of Turgot, of the rise and teaching +of the Economists, of the rival influence of the writings of +Montesquieu and Rousseau on the French political character, of the +effect of English influence and American example in preparing the +Revolution, and of the part played by Germans and Swedes in French +politics. At the same time, the pictures of the social and +intellectual life prevailing in the different countries with which +Madame de Stael was connected, and the full accounts given of a crowd +of persons with whom she came into casual contact, though in +themselves both interesting and valuable, often tend to divert the +reader from the main subject of the book. In truth, Lady +Blennerhassett has not been able to resist the temptation of a very +full mind to pour out all its knowledge, and, while possessing many +rare and brilliant literary gifts, she appears to me to want that +restraining sense of literary perspective which gives biography its +true proportion and symmetry. This defect has, I fear, diminished the +popularity of a most valuable book. In the original German, and in an +excellent French translation which was revised by the author and which +I especially commend to my readers, the work consists of three very +substantial volumes.[9] A hasty reader will readily conclude that, in +this short and crowded life, such a space is far more than should be +allotted to a long-vanished figure which, though interesting and +brilliant, was not of the first magnitude. But if he has the courage +to persevere, he will soon discover that few modern books have lighted +up in so many directions the political, social, moral, and +intellectual history of a momentous period, and have exhibited at once +so many kinds of talent and so wide a range of sympathies and +knowledge. The complete competence, the firm, sober, and--if I may use +the expression--masculine judgment with which Lady Blennerhassett has +grasped the great political problems of the period of the Revolution, +is not less conspicuous than the truly feminine delicacy of +observation and touch with which she has delineated social life in +many different countries, and painted the finer shades of many widely +dissimilar characters. + +Anne Louise Germaine Necker was born in Paris on April 22, 1766. Her +father was at that time known only as a Swiss banker of high character +and reputation, who had amassed a vast fortune and had come to Paris +for his private affairs; but about two years after the birth of his +daughter he was appointed to represent the interests of Geneva at +Paris, and when she was ten years old he rose, for the first time, to +a leading place in the Ministry of France. Her mother had been the +Mademoiselle Curchod whose charms and accomplishments had captivated +Gibbon when he was a young man at Lausanne. Every reader of his +autobiography will remember the famous passage in which he describes +his engagement, the opposition of his father, and the resignation with +which he 'sighed as a lover, but obeyed as a son.' M. d'Haussonville +has published from the archives at Coppet some melancholy letters +which show clearly that Gibbon exhibited more heartlessness and +inflicted more suffering than might be gathered from his own stately +narrative. But no lasting scar remained. After a few years of poverty +and hardship, during which she was obliged to earn a livelihood as a +schoolmistress, Mademoiselle Curchod found in Necker a husband who +realised her fondest wishes; and when, soon after, she became the +centre of a brilliant salon at Paris, her former lover, then in the +zenith of his fame, was often among her guests. Madame Necker did not +always abstain from slightly veiled allusions to the past, but it is +pleasant to see that a warm and solid friendship seems to have grown +up between Gibbon and both his host and hostess. A pretty anecdote is +related of how, on one occasion, after he had left the house, they +agreed in expressing the deep regret with which they looked forward to +his approaching departure for England; when their little daughter, who +was then just ten years old, gravely offered to prevent the +catastrophe by marrying the illustrious, but by no means +prepossessing, historian. + +It was a saying of Talleyrand that he who had not lived before 1789 +had never known the full charm of life. Germaine Necker grew up in the +last bright flush of a society which had, perhaps, as many +fascinations as any that the world has known. Her mother, however, +though she occupied a prominent position in this brilliant world, was +never altogether of it. She shared fully, indeed, its intellectual +tastes, and had herself won some small place in literature. She threw +herself ardently into its philanthropic movements, and especially into +that for the reform of the hospitals. She formed a warm and true +friendship with Buffon and Thomas. She corresponded with Voltaire, and +attracted to her house most of the best writers of the age. But to the +last she remained eminently and characteristically Swiss, and she +never acquired the light touch, or the easy, pliant grace, of the true +Parisian. She was a little cold, a little prim, a little pedantic, a +little self-conscious. Neither her reserved manners nor her strong +domestic tastes, nor the vein of Puritanism that ran through her +opinions, harmonised with the lax and sceptical society around her, +and it was no sacrifice to her to exchange the splendours and the +gaieties of Paris for her peaceful retreat on the Lake of Geneva. + +In this, as in most respects, her daughter was very different. In her +the Swiss element had altogether disappeared, and, as is often the +case with the eminent child of eminent parents, her character shot out +in directions wholly unlike both that of her father and that of her +mother. She was not beautiful, though her dark and eminently lustrous +eyes, beaming with intelligence, and her rich brown tint, gave some +charm to her large and rather coarse features; while her massive +shoulders, arms, and breast, her full lips and the firm grasp of her +vigorous hand, indicated a strong, frank, ruling, and passionate +nature, overflowing with life and with many forms of energy. Her +education was somewhat fitfully conducted, but she threw herself +eagerly into literary enthusiasms. At fifteen we find her annotating +Montesquieu. Raynal and Richardson were among her idols, but, like +most of the more ardent spirits of her generation, her ideas and +character were moulded chiefly by the genius of Rousseau. Her first +work of importance was an exposition of his doctrines, and his +influence left deep traces on both 'Corinne' and 'Delphine.' Her +strong sane judgment, however, her genuine humanity, and the +moderating influence of her father, saved her from being swept away, +like Madame Roland and most of the disciples of Rousseau, by the +sanguinary torrent of revolutionary enthusiasm; and in times of wild +passion and exaggeration she usually exhibited a singular soundness +and sobriety of political judgment. She was sometimes mistaken, but on +the whole it may well be doubted whether there is any other French +writer or politician of the period of the Revolution whose +contemporary judgments of men and events have been more frequently +ratified by posterity. + +In this respect she was not of the school of Rousseau. In another and +less admirable way she was curiously untouched by his spirit, for few +superior intellects have been so openly, so utterly, insensible to the +charms of nature. She once spoke of 'the infernal peace' of her Swiss +home, and she candidly acknowledged that if it were not for respect +for the opinions of others she would not open her window to look for +the first time on the Bay of Naples, though she would gladly travel +five hundred leagues to make the acquaintance of a man of talent. On +the borders of the Lake of Geneva, with one of the fairest scenes on +earth expanding before her, she was incessantly pining for 'le +ruisseau de la Rue du Bac'--for the interest and the excitement of a +society which had become the passion of her life. + +Her gifts of conversation were very wonderful, and she had a wide +range of sympathies, keen insight into character, and great power of +describing it by a few vivid words. She had, however, no reticence or +reserve, she made many enemies by her unbounded frankness, and she +often fatigued or overwhelmed by her exuberant animal spirits and by +the torrent of her words. At the same time, unlike most great talkers, +she possessed to a very eminent degree the gifts of learning from +others, of grasping the characteristic features of their teaching, of +awakening sympathies, of dispelling bashfulness, and of kindling +latent intellect into a flame. Few women combined so remarkably a +sound and moderate judgment with extreme vividness and impetuosity of +emotion. She admired deeply, and she generally admired wisely; her +first judgments and impulses were almost always generous; and, +although she was subject to violent gusts of passion, she could be +very patient with those she loved. Through her whole life she was the +warmest and most self-sacrificing of friends, and her few antipathies +were singularly devoid of rancour. One of those who knew her best +pronounced her to be 'absolutely incapable of hatred.' + +She soon became the most attractive figure in the salon of Madame +Necker, and as the health of her mother declined she became its +central figure. Her rare accomplishments and her position as a great +heiress naturally would have drawn many suitors around her, but in +that age the determined Protestantism of her family was a formidable +barrier. It appears from something that she wrote late in life to a +German correspondent that, when a mere girl, she had come under the +spell of Louis de Narbonne, who asked her hand, and with whom, in +after years, she had relations which caused much scandal and which +greatly coloured her political life. The story that her parents at one +time contemplated a marriage between her and William Pitt, on the +occasion of his visit to France in 1783, was discredited by Lord +Stanhope; but M. d'Haussonville pronounces it to be quite true, though +there is no clear evidence that Pitt was apprised of the wish of the +Neckers. She was then only seventeen, and her vehement protest against +an English marriage nipped the project in the bud. In 1786, however, a +marriage was negotiated for her with the Swedish ambassador, the Baron +de Stael, who was at that time a special favourite of Gustavus III. It +was a marriage into which but little affection entered, and twelve +years later it ended in a separation. There was afterward, it is true, +a partial reconciliation, and she was present with her husband when he +died, in 1802, on the way from Paris to Coppet. + +Her marriage gave her an independent position, and she mixed much in +the politics of the early days of the Revolution. She corresponded +regularly with the Swedish King, and formed intimate friendships with +great numbers of the guiding politicians. The proudest moment of her +life was in August 1788, when, amid a transport of transient +enthusiasm and extravagant hopefulness, her father was for the second +time called to the helm. Her devotion to him amounted almost to +adoration, and she would never acknowledge, what the rest of the world +soon perceived, that, though excellently adapted to be Minister in +quiet, regular times, he had neither the daring nor the insight, nor +the commanding power, that was needed to guide the bark of State +through the fierce storms of the Revolution. She fully shared the +enthusiasm with which the opening of the States General was received. +She mentions that on that occasion she was watching the procession +from a window with Madame de Montmorin, wife of the Minister of +Foreign Affairs, and that as she expressed her delight, her companion +said: 'You are wrong in rejoicing; great calamities will follow from +this to France and to us.' The words were truly prophetic. Madame de +Montmorin perished on the scaffold with one of her sons; the other was +drowned. Her husband was murdered in prison during the massacre of the +second of September. Her eldest daughter died in the prison hospital. +Her youngest daughter withered away when not yet thirty, +broken-hearted by the calamities of her family. + +Madame de Stael, too, soon discovered that no millennium was at hand. +She was an eye-witness of the terrible scenes of the fifth and sixth +of October, when Versailles was invaded by a half-famished mob, when +the guards were cut down and beheaded, and when the royal family were +brought captive to Paris. She clearly saw that all power was passing +from the Government to the clubs, and that the mob violence which +reigned was either instigated or deliberately connived at by the very +men whose first duty was to repress it. 'These gentlemen,' she once +said, 'are like the rainbow; they always appear when the storm is +over.' Under her influence the Swedish Embassy became the chief centre +in which the 'Constitutional Party' was organised. Narbonne and +Talleyrand were then completely devoted to her. Segur, Choiseul, the +Prince de Broglie, and other members of the party were constantly at +her house; and at what were called her 'coalition dinners' she brought +them in contact with leading men of other groups. She had a +conspicuous talent for inspiring, encouraging, conciliating, and +organising a party; and for some months she exercised a very real +political influence. Her aim was a constitutional monarchy of the +English type; but she came gradually to believe that a republic, or at +least a change of Sovereigns, had become inevitable. She never wavered +in her devotion to liberty, order, and justice; but on minor questions +she always exhibited a spirit of compromise which was very rare in her +age and in her country. 'The true line of conduct in politics,' she +once said, 'is always to be ready to rally to the least obnoxious +party among your adversaries, even though it is far from representing +exactly your own point of view.' At the end of 1791 she had a moment +of delicious triumph, when her favourite Narbonne became Minister of +War. Marie Antoinette, who disliked her, clearly recognised her hand. +'Count Louis de Narbonne,' she wrote to Fersen, 'has been Minister of +War since yesterday. What a glory for Madame de Stael and what a +pleasure for her to have the whole army at her disposal!' + +The triumphs of Madame de Stael, however, were very fleeting. Her +father had fallen irretrievably, and in September 1790 he passed +almost unnoticed out of the country where, but little more than a year +before, he had been welcomed with such enthusiasm. The Ministry of +Narbonne, to which she had attached her most ardent hopes, ended in +four months, and before its conclusion her husband, whose views on +French politics had been for some time diverging from those of his +Sovereign, was recalled. He was not, however, replaced, and Madame de +Stael remained alone in Paris till September 1792. Her position there +was an extremely dangerous one. She had long been an object of +incessant abuse in the Royalist press, and now the red waves of +Jacobinism were rising higher and higher, surging fiercely around +those to whom she was most attached. Nothing in her life is so +admirable as the courage with which, in this period of the Revolution, +she devoted herself to saving the lives of the proscribed. Her purse +was always open, and she often risked not only her fortune, but her +life. The royal family had always disliked her; but she was filled +with horror at the fate that was impending over them, and she herself +organised a plan for their escape, in which, if it had been accepted, +she would have borne a leading part, at the imminent risk of her head; +and she afterward wrote an earnest and eloquent pamphlet in the hope +of saving the life of the Queen. Sometimes by interceding with those +in power, sometimes by concealing fugitives in the Swedish Embassy, +very often by large and timely gifts of money, she saved many. Her own +life, at the time of the September massacres, was in extreme danger, +and she at last fled to Switzerland. Coppet then became a great centre +of refugees, and many of them owed their lives to her help. Among +others, Narbonne appears to have owed his escape, in part at least, to +her assistance, and she chiefly managed the escape of his daughter. +She was for a long time completely under his charm; but he is said to +have been irritated by her often tactless impetuosity, and especially +by the manner in which public opinion regarded him as her creature, +and he seems to have treated her with much ingratitude. There was no +violent breach, but there was a separation, and a wound which was long +and bitterly felt. Many years later, Madame de Stael, when praising +the Prince de Ligne, said of him: 'He had the manners of Monsieur de +Narbonne--and a heart.' + +A short visit to England, in 1793, the death of her mother in May +1794, and the publication of her first purely political work, +'Reflections on Peace, addressed to Mr. Pitt and to the French,' were +the chief events of her life during the next few months. In this work +she dwelt with much force on the absurdity of supposing that any +foreign intervention could restore what the Revolution had destroyed, +and she predicted that the inevitable effect of the prolongation or +extension of the war would be to strengthen that militant Jacobinism +which was now the greatest danger to Europe. In this year, too, she +first came in contact with Benjamin Constant, and her acquaintance +soon developed into a connection which gave her a new and powerful +instrument for acting on French politics, but which also brought with +it much suffering, many reproaches, and long and lasting discredit. In +May 1795 we find her again in Paris, with her husband, who had once +more been sent on a mission to France; again eagerly engaged in French +politics; again largely occupied in defending the interests of her +proscribed friends. Among others, Talleyrand appears to have owed his +recall to her influence. As usual, she excited many antipathies, she +was denounced in the Convention by Legendre for her political +intrigues and especially for her efforts in favour of the emigrants, +and she was obliged to leave Paris for about eighteen months. Her pen +was at this time very active, and to this period belong her 'Essay on +Novels' and her 'Treatise on the Passions.' + +The star of Bonaparte was now rapidly rising, and it profoundly +affected the last years of her life. The pages in her 'Considerations +on the French Revolution' in which she describes her first interview +with him, after the peace of Campo Formio, are among the most graphic +she ever wrote, though something of the shadow of the picture was, no +doubt, drawn from later experience and antipathy. She was at first +dazzled; she was at all times profoundly impressed by his genius, but +she soon came to perceive that his nature was wholly unlike that of +other men. She had seen, she said, men worthy of all respect, and she +had seen men noted for their ferocity; but the impression produced on +her by Bonaparte was generically different from that produced by +either of these classes. She found that such epithets as 'good,' +'violent,' 'gentle,' and 'cruel' could not be applied to him in their +ordinary senses. He was in truth a being who stood self-centred, and +apart from the sympathies, passions, and enthusiasms of his kind, +habitually regarding men, not as fellow-creatures, but as mere +counters in a game; a will of colossal strength; an intellect of +clear, cold, transcendent power, solely governed by the imperturbable +calculation of the strictest egotism, and never drawn aside by love or +hatred, by pity or religion, or by attachment to any cause. It was +impossible, she found, to exaggerate his contempt for human nature and +his disbelief in the reality of human virtue. A perfectly honest man +was the only kind of man he never could understand. Such a man +perplexed and baffled his calculations, acting on them as the sign of +the cross acts on the machinations of a demon. The superiority which +so clearly shone in his conversation was not that of a mind cultivated +by study and by society; it was the supreme insight into the +circumstances of life possessed by a mighty hunter of men. There was +something in him, she said, like a cold and trenchant sword, which at +the same moment could wound and chill. + +Such was the estimate she formed of the man who, nearly at the same +time, was presented by Talleyrand to the Directory as 'the pacificator +of Europe,' as a hero 'who despised luxury and pomp--the wretched +ambition of common souls--and who loved the poems of Ossian, +especially because they detach men from the earth'! That two such +different natures should come into collision was very natural. +Bonaparte always hated superior women, and especially women who +meddled in politics. He well knew that the circle of Madame de Stael +was the centre of ideas about freedom and constitutional government +irreconcilably opposed to his ambition, and that the world of good +society and good taste, of independent thought and independent +characters, in which she played so great a part, remained unsubdued +and undazzled by his power. Benjamin Constant had been placed in 'the +Tribunate,' and in the beginning of 1800 he made a speech there, +indicating a desire to establish in that body an opposition like the +opposition in the English Parliament. Bonaparte was furious at his +attitude, and at once ascribed it to the inspiration of Madame de +Stael. A year later the last work of her father appeared, and it +contained an earnest warning against growing despotism in France and a +strong argument for the establishment of a republican constitution. +The sayings of Madame de Stael that were repeated from lip to lip, and +the atmosphere of thought that grew up around her, irritated and +disquieted Bonaparte. 'She is moving the minds of men,' he said, 'in a +direction that does not suit me.' 'They pretend that she does not +speak of politics or of me, but somehow it always happens that those +who have been with her become less attached to me.' Soon her salon was +emptied by an emphatic intimation that those who entered it would +incur the displeasure of the First Consul. Official scribes were +busily employed in depreciating her, and these measures were speedily +followed by the long exile which darkened the later years of her life. + +It is impossible for me in this article to relate, even in outline, +the story of this exile, and of her travels in England, Italy, +Austria, Russia, and, above all, in Germany. Madame de Stael has +herself described this period of her life in her 'Ten Years of Exile,' +and all the details have been collected by Lady Blennerhassett with an +industry that leaves nothing to be desired. A woman of a more heroic +type would have borne with less repining an exclusion from Paris life +which was mitigated by wealth, and fame, and abundant occupation, and +a family that adored her, and troops of admiring friends. A woman who +was less essentially noble would have assuredly accepted the overtures +that were more than once made to her, and would have purchased her +peace with Napoleon by burning a few grains of literary incense on his +altar. But though, in a life of more than common vicissitude and +temptation, Madame de Stael was betrayed into great weaknesses and +into some serious faults, she never lost her sense of the dignity and +integrity of literature, and her works are singularly free from +unworthy flattery as well as from unworthy resentments and jealousies. +The homage which Napoleon desired was never received, and in her great +work on Italy and her still greater one on Germany there was no trace +of his victories, influence, or animosities. 'In France,' he once +said, 'there is a small literature and a great literature; the small +literature is on my side, but the great literature is not for me.' + +The disfavour which thrust Madame de Stael out of political +influence, and then drove her into exile, proved a blessing in +disguise, for it turned her mind decisively from political intrigues +to those forms of literature in which she was most fitted to excel. +Her treatise on 'Literature,' which was published in 1800, was +conceived upon a scale too large for her own knowledge, and though she +herself attributed to it the great and general favour that she enjoyed +for a time in Paris society, it has not taken an enduring place in +French literature. 'Delphine,' the most personal, and also the most +censured, of her novels, had a still wider success, and made a deeper +and more lasting impression. It appeared in 1802, and it was followed +by a long interval, during which she appears to have published nothing +except a short but admirable notice of her father, who died in the +spring of 1804; but in 1807 'Corinne' burst upon the world, and at +once obtained a European fame equalled by that of no French novel +since 'La Nouvelle Heloise.' In this great work of imagination she +embodied, in a highly poetic form, the impressions she had derived +from her journeys in England and Italy, and its immense and +instantaneous success placed her on the very pinnacle of fame. It is +worthy of notice that a bitter attack upon 'Corinne' appeared in 'Le +Moniteur,' based chiefly upon the fact that its hero was an +Englishman; and there is good reason to believe that this attack was +from the pen of Napoleon himself. + +A book of larger scope and of more serious influence soon followed. +Germany at this time presented the singular spectacle of a people who +had been reduced to the lowest depths of political depression, but +who, at the same time, could boast of a contemporary literature that +was the first in the world. In France a translation of 'Werther' had +attained great popularity; some of the plays of Schiller, the idylls +of Gessner, and a few other German works were well known; but scarcely +any Frenchman had a conception of the magnitude and importance of the +intellectual activity which was growing up beyond the Rhine, or of the +vast place which Goethe, Schiller, and Kant were destined to take in +European thought. It was one of the chief pleasures and occupations of +Madame de Stael, during her exile, to explore this almost unknown +field. It would scarcely have been thought that she was well fitted +for the task. She learned the language late in life, and her +characteristically French mind seemed very little in harmony with +either the strength or the weakness of the Teutonic intellect. There +was nothing very profound, or very subtle, or very poetical in her +nature, and she had all that instinctive dislike to the vague, the +disproportioned, the exaggerated, and the ambiguous, to fantastic and +far-fetched conjecture, and to imposing edifices of speculation based +upon scanty or shadowy materials, that pre-eminently distinguishes the +best French thought. Very wisely, however, she placed herself in +direct communication with the great writers of Germany, and a wholly +new world of thought and sentiment gradually opened upon her mind. It +is not too much to say that it was her pen that first revealed to the +Latin world the intellectual greatness of Germany. In England, +Coleridge had already laboured in the same field, and his admirable +translation of 'Wallenstein' had appeared as early as 1800; but it had +been completely still-born, and in England also it was reserved for +the great Frenchwoman to give the first considerable impulse to the +study of German literature. For the history, the merits, and the +defects of her work on Germany, I cannot do better than to refer to +the admirable pages which Lady Blennerhassett has devoted to the +subject. With the doubtful exception of 'Le Genie du Christianisme,' +it was by far the most important French work which appeared during the +reign of Napoleon. It is a characteristic fact that the whole of the +first edition was confiscated by order of his Government. Happily the +manuscript was saved, and about three years later it was printed in +England. + +After some discreditable scenes, on which a recently published +correspondence has thrown a painful though somewhat doubtful light, +the connection of Madame de Stael with Benjamin Constant was broken. +The two continued occasionally to correspond, and as late as 1815 we +find her lending him a large sum of money; but their relations were +never again what they had been, and on the side of Constant there +appears to have been a large amount of positive malevolence. 'O +Benjamin,' she wrote to him in one of her later letters, 'you have +destroyed my life! For ten years not a day has passed that my heart +has not suffered for you--and yet I loved you so much!' A strong +affection, such as she had not found in her marriage with the Baron de +Stael, was an imperious necessity of her existence, and after her +breach with Constant she soon found an object in a young officer from +Geneva named Rocca, who had returned to his native town badly wounded +after brilliant service in Spain. When they first met, in 1810, Madame +de Stael was forty-four and Rocca about twenty-three; but a genuine +and honourable affection seems to have grown up on both sides, and in +the following year they were married. Madame de Stael, however, either +clinging to her name or dreading the ridicule of such a strangely +assorted marriage, insisted upon its concealment, and Rocca generally +passed in society as her lover. A child was born in 1812, but it was +only after the death of Madame de Stael that the legitimacy of the +connection was established. It proved much more productive of +happiness than might have been expected, and greatly brightened her +closing years. Nearly at the same time an important change passed over +her religious views, and the vague deism of her youth deepened into a +positive, definite, and earnest Christianity, but without mysticism +and without intolerance. Some beautiful lines that are cited by Lady +Blennerhassett very faithfully express the spirit of her belief: 'Il +faut avoir soin, si l'on peut, que le declin de cette vie soit la +jeunesse de l'autre. Se desinteresser de soi, sans cesser de +s'interesser aux autres, met quelque chose de divin dans l'ame.' + +She lived to see the downfall of perhaps the only man she really +hated, his return from Elba, his final defeat at Waterloo, and the +restoration of the Bourbons. But, though she detested Napoleon and his +system, these things gave her no pleasure. The spectacle of an invaded +and a dismembered France aroused her strongest feelings of patriotism, +and she loved liberty too truly and too ardently to rejoice in the +influences that triumphed in 1815. Her last years were chiefly spent +in the composition of her 'Considerations on the French Revolution,' +in which she sums up the convictions of her life. It is one of her +most valuable and most lasting books. The disproportioned prominence +which is naturally assigned in it to Necker, and the manifest personal +element in her antipathy to Napoleon, impair its weight, indeed, as a +history; but few writers have criticised with more justice the +successive stages of the Revolution, and few books of its generation +are so rich in political wisdom. The concluding chapters, in which, in +a strain of noble eloquence, she pleads the cause of moderate and +constitutional freedom, show how steadily and how strongly, in an age +of many disenchantments, she clung to the belief of her youth. + +The 'Considerations on the French Revolution' had a vast and an +immediate success, and in a few days sixty thousand copies were sold. +Madame de Stael, however, did not live to witness her triumph. In +February 1817 she was struck down by a paralytic illness, and on July +14, after a long period of complete prostration, she passed away +tranquilly in her sleep. It was a peaceful ending to an agitated and +chequered career. She had enjoyed much and suffered much. She had +committed grave faults, and had met with her full share of +disappointment and ingratitude; but few women have left such an +enduring monument behind them, or have touched human life on so many +sides and with so many sympathies. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[9] There is also an English, and somewhat abridged, translation. + + + + +THE PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE OF SIR ROBERT PEEL + + +There is probably no other English public man of the present century +whose career has attracted in so large a measure the interest both of +politicians and of men of letters as Sir Robert Peel. In addition to a +crowd of industrious but not very distinguished compilers, it has been +discussed with great skill by Guizot, by Lord Dalling, by Mr. Goldwin +Smith, and by Mr. Spencer Walpole; and in that great literature of +monographs which has grown up with such remarkable rapidity in England +within the last decade, no less than three have been devoted to the +life of Peel. The interest that attaches to him is, indeed, of a very +peculiar character. He was almost wholly destitute of the power of +imagination that is so conspicuous in the careers or speeches of +Chatham and Burke, of Canning and Beaconsfield. Except during a few +years that followed the Reform Bill of 1832, he never exhibited the +spectacle of a leader struggling successfully against enormous odds. +He was not one of those statesmen who see further than their +contemporaries, and who, after years of failure and struggle, are +proved by their ultimate triumph to have most truly read the +tendencies of their age. Though he was three times Prime Minister of +England, and though he was for a time deemed the most brilliant of +party leaders, he left the great and powerful party which trusted him +almost hopelessly shattered. Twice in his life he carried measures of +transcendent importance which he had not only persistently opposed, +but had been specially placed in power for the purpose of resisting. +The most striking incidents in his career are incidents of failure +rather than of success, and history has pronounced that, on the most +important questions of his time, he was disastrously wrong. The long +delay in the inevitable emancipation of the Catholics, which was +largely due to him, and the circumstances under which he ultimately +carried the measure, produced evils that are in full activity at the +present hour. His persistent opposition to parliamentary reform +contributed to bring England to the very verge of revolution; though +when the Reform Bill had been carried he nobly retrieved his error by +the frankness with which he accepted, and the skill with which he +used, the new conditions of English politics. His abolition of the +Corn Laws at the head of a Government which had been pledged to +maintain them gave a great shock to public confidence, and for a long +period most seriously dislocated the machinery of party government. +But, in spite of all this, there are few statesmen who have carried so +large a number of measures of great and acknowledged importance, who +have impressed so deeply the sense of their superiority on the minds +of their contemporaries, or who were followed to the grave by a more +widespread and genuine regret. + +It is this contrast between the leading incidents of Peel's life and +the impression which he made on the world that constitutes the great +interest of his career. The explanation is not difficult to discover. +It is the common story of extraordinary qualities balanced by +striking defects. He was not a great statesman, but he was a +supremely great administrator, a supremely great master of +parliamentary management and of parliamentary legislation. He had +little prescience; he often grossly misread the signs of the times, or +only recognised them when it was too late; but when he was once +convinced, he acted on his conviction with frankness and courage, and +when a thing had to be done, no one could do it like him. As Disraeli +said: 'In the course of time the method which was natural to Sir +Robert Peel matured into a habit of such expertness that no one in the +despatch of affairs ever adapted the means more fitly to the end.'[10] +In the words of Sir Cornewall Lewis: 'For concocting, producing, +explaining, and defending measures, he had no equal, or anything like +an equal.'[11] + +In the interesting volumes which were published by Lord Mahon and Mr. +Cardwell in 1856 we have Peel's own explanation of his conduct +relating to the removal of the Catholic disabilities in 1829, and to +the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846; but the publication of his +confidential correspondence has been long delayed, and the volume +before us only carries the work down to 1827. It has been edited by +Mr. Parker with great care and accuracy, and with undeviating good +sense and good taste, and it throws much curious light upon a corner +of history which has been but little explored. + +Peel started in life with great advantages. The eldest son of a very +wealthy manufacturer who had long occupied a respectable place in +Parliament, and who was closely attached to the dominant party in the +State, he was from his earliest youth destined by his father to be a +statesman. Under such circumstances he was certain in the pre-Reform +period to have not only all the advantages which the best school and +university education could give, but also the still greater advantages +of an early introduction into both parliamentary and official life; +provided always that no aberration of character, or taste, or +imagination, or opinion drew him aside from the plain path that lay +before him. He grew up in an atmosphere of the best middle-class +virtues. Decorum, good sense, industry, strict morality; a sober +religious orthodoxy; much simplicity of life, preserved in the midst +of great wealth; ideals which, if not very lofty, were at least +eminently practical and perfectly honourable, prevailed around him, +and their influence imbued his whole nature. He accepted cordially the +destiny that was before him, and threw himself into it with untiring +industry. His opinions changed during his life much more than his +character, and the shy, sensitive, industrious, somewhat +self-conscious, somewhat awkward Harrow boy, prefigured very +faithfully the future statesman. He is described as wandering when a +schoolboy by himself among the hedges, knocking down birds with +stones, a practice in which he was very skilful, and which eventually +developed into a strong passion for shooting. He was quiet, +good-natured, studious, scarcely ever in scrapes, and it was not until +the last year of his school life that he threw himself with any +keenness into the amusements of his comrades. He had good natural +abilities; but probably the one point in which he greatly exceeded the +average of intelligent boys was his memory, which was of extraordinary +retentiveness, and which he carefully cultivated. During a few months +which elapsed between leaving Harrow and going to Oxford he constantly +attended the House of Commons, under the Gallery; and he also +attended some natural history lectures at the Royal Institution. His +Oxford career was very successful. He is said to have worked before +his degree examination for no less than eighteen hours, through the +day and night. He gained a double-first, and in the first class of +mathematics he stood alone. Such a success at once stamped him as a +youth of extraordinary promise, and the impression it made was +especially great because, the examination system having been very +recently reorganised, he was the first Oxford man who had attained it. + +He was brought into Parliament in April 1809, almost immediately after +he came of age, for the borough of Cashel. No special significance +attaches to the fact of his having entered Parliament for an Irish +constituency, for his father had simply bought the seat, and the young +member appears to have never gone over to his constituents or held any +communication with them. + +'When I sat for Cashel,' he afterwards wrote, 'and was not in office, +having made those sacrifices which could then legally be made, but now +cannot, I did not consider myself at all pledged to the support of +Government.'[12] Perceval, who represented in its extreme form the +Tory reaction that followed the Revolution, was then Prime Minister, +and Peel at once took his place among his followers. He first spoke in +seconding the Address in 1810, and in the partial judgment of his +father his speech was considered, 'by men the best qualified to form a +correct opinion of public speaking, the best first speech since that +of Mr. Pitt.'[13] + +It was not, perhaps, an unmixed advantage to Peel that while he was +still a mere boy his father had somewhat ostentatiously destined him +to be one day a Tory statesman. Such an education could hardly fail to +strengthen the self-consciousness which was never wanting in Peel's +character, and to give a decided bias to his judgment. At the same +time, the distinctive merits of his career would have probably never +been fully developed without the early administrative training which +his opinions made possible for him, and there is nothing in his early +history to give the least countenance to the belief that his adherence +to the extreme type of Tory politics imposed the slightest strain upon +his judgment. His immediate interests and his sentiments appear at +this time to have perfectly concurred. He came into Parliament with +the party which was dominant, and with the section of the party which +was most poor in able men. Had he adopted on the Catholic question the +liberal opinions of Canning and Castlereagh, he must have held a +position altogether subordinate to them; and the same causes that in +the preceding Ministry had raised Perceval to be leader of the House +of Commons over the heads of Castlereagh and Canning, marked out for +Peel the future leadership of the party of resistance to concession. +It has been said, on the authority of Sir Lawrence Peel, that his +first appointment was that of private secretary to Lord Liverpool, but +Mr. Parker has found no trace of this in the papers either of Peel or +of Lord Liverpool. In 1810, however, when he was but just twenty-two, +he entered administrative life as Under-Secretary of State for War and +the Colonies, and he held that place till August 1812, when he +obtained the far more important post of Chief Secretary for Ireland, +and became for the next six years virtual governor of that country. + +It was a post requiring not only great administrative skill, but also +great gifts of original statesmanship. During the last five years of +the eighteenth century, and especially during the rebellion of 1798, +religious passions in Ireland, which had for more than a generation +been steadily subsiding, had been kindled into a flame, and the urgent +necessity of settling the Catholic question had begun to press with +irresistible force on the minds of the more intelligent statesmen. +Pitt had intended to complete the Union by measures for admitting +Catholics into Parliament, for commuting tithes, and for paying the +Catholic clergy. Through the instrumentality of Lord Castlereagh +assurances of the disposition of the Cabinet had been conveyed to the +Catholic bishops and the leading Catholic laymen in 1799, which were +sufficient to secure their active support for the Union and to prevent +any serious opposition among the Catholic laity. The bishops met the +wishes of the English Government by drawing up a series of +resolutions, in which they declared their readiness to accept with +gratitude an endowment for the priesthood, to confer upon the English +Government a power of veto over the appointment of Catholic bishops +which would prevent the introduction into that body of any disloyal +men, and to certify to the Government the nomination of all Catholic +parish priests, as well as the fact that they had taken the oath of +allegiance. But the King had not been informed of the negotiations +that had taken place, and it is well known how his uncompromising +opposition produced the resignation of Pitt in 1801, how the agitation +caused by the question threw the King into a temporary fit of +insanity, and how Pitt at once promised that he would not move the +question again during the reign. In the spring of 1804 Pitt resumed +office, on the express understanding that he would not permit Catholic +Emancipation; when the question was introduced in 1805 by Lord +Grenville in the Lords, and by Fox in the Commons, it was defeated in +both Houses by immense majorities, and Pitt declared that though he +was still of opinion that there was no danger in the concession, yet, +as long as the circumstances which prevented him from bringing it +forward continued, he would be no party to agitating the question. + +In 1806 Pitt died, and Fox and Grenville were themselves in power, but +the Catholics were again disappointed. The prejudice of the King, the +feeling of the country, the recent vote of the House of Commons, the +presence of Lord Sidmouth in the Ministry, proved insuperable +obstacles, and Fox could only urge the Catholic leaders to postpone +the question. Fox died in September 1806, and the Government presided +over by Lord Grenville met a new Parliament in the following December. +Grenville had been Pitt's colleague during the negotiations with the +Catholics that preceded the Union; he had strongly urged upon Pitt the +necessity of resigning in 1801, and he never forgave him for having so +lightly abandoned the cause. Grenville did not attempt to carry +emancipation, but he resolved to take at least one serious step in the +direction of concession, by throwing open to the Catholics all the +posts in the army and navy. An Irish Act of 1793 had enabled them to +hold in Ireland commissions in the army, and to attain any rank except +commander-in-chief, master-general of the ordnance, and general of the +staff; but if the regiments in which they served were sent to England, +they were disqualified by law from remaining in the service. The +original Bill of Grenville's Government was intended to remove this +anomaly, and assimilate the law in the two countries; but in the +course of the discussions it was agreed that the Catholics should be +freed from the exceptions to which they were subjected by the Irish +Act, that all posts in the army and navy should be thrown open to men +of all religious persuasions, subject only to the obligation of taking +an oath which was prescribed, and that Catholic soldiers should be +guaranteed by law the free exercise of their religion. The King had +been informed of this, and was understood to have given a distinct, +though a reluctant, assent; but a strong Protestant party, headed by +Perceval, fiercely opposed it. The King withdrew his assent from the +added clauses, and expressed his disapprobation of the whole measure. +At last, after much discussion, the Ministers agreed for the present +to withdraw their Bill, reserving to themselves by a Cabinet minute, +which was submitted to the King, the right to renew it, or to propose +any other measure on the subject which they desired. But the King was +determined to push his victory to the end. He demanded from his +Ministers a promise in writing that they would never again propose to +him any measure connected with Catholic emancipation, and as the +Ministers refused to give this unconstitutional pledge, the King +dismissed them from office, and called the Duke of Portland to the +head of affairs. + +It was the second time that the King had broken up a Ministry on the +Catholic question, and his conduct was especially significant, as his +refusal to grant military promotion to Catholics was announced in the +midst of a great war, and at a time when thousands of Catholics were +fighting in his armies. It at once appeared that there were two +entirely distinct schools of Tories. Pitt, to the very close of his +life, had declared that his opinions on the Catholic question were +unchanged, though he would not force them against the inclination of +the King; and his views were adopted by Canning, Castlereagh, and +Wellesley. Perceval, on the other hand, emphatically declared that he +'could not conceive a time or any change of circumstances which could +render further concession to the Catholics consistent with the safety +of the State.'[14] With the exception of Eldon, scarcely any man of +real ability adopted this view until Peel entered Parliament as the +follower of Perceval. It is sufficiently evident from this fact how +little truth there is in the theory that attributes Peel's early +Toryism to a blind admiration for Pitt. + +The party of the King triumphed. Parliament was dissolved on the 'No +Popery' cry, and on the first great party division that followed the +election the Ministers in the House of Commons had a majority of 195. +Canning and Castlereagh, though they had no sympathy with that cry, +availed themselves of the current that ran so strongly against the +Whigs. In the Ministry of the Duke of Portland they held the seals for +the Foreign and War Departments, but the leadership of the Commons and +the virtual leadership of the Ministry was given to Perceval, who, +though entirely without brilliant parts, exhibited unexpected talents, +both as a practical debater and as a manager of men, and who had the +advantage of representing fully the dominant party. Several +circumstances, however, other than a conviction of the danger of the +Catholic claims, contributed to the triumph of the anti-Catholic +party. The Whigs, already broken by their policy towards France in the +first stages of the Revolution and of the war, had become still more +unpopular through their opposition to the seizure of the Danish fleet +and to the Peninsular War. They were divided among themselves, for +there was little sympathy between the more aristocratic Whigs, who +were represented by Grenville and Lord Howick, and the more Radical +party of Sir F. Burdett and Whitbread. A strong personal as well as +political dislike already existed between Howick and Canning, and +prevented their hearty co-operation on the one great question on which +they were agreed. Above all, there was a general conviction among +statesmen that the King's mind was trembling on the verge of insanity, +and that a renewal of the Catholic complications of 1801 would produce +a catastrophe. + +The question was debated in both the Lords and Commons in 1808. In the +former it was lost by a majority of 87, and in the latter by a +majority of 153. Grattan on this occasion introduced the Catholic +petition in a speech of consummate power; but both Castlereagh and +Canning opposed the reception of the petition, on the ground that the +time was unsuited for the agitation of the question; and the spirit of +the ruling part of the Ministry was sufficiently shown by the +reduction of the Maynooth grant from 13,000_l._ to 9,250_l._ When the +Portland Government was broken up in September 1809 by the quarrel, +duel, and resignation of Canning and Castlereagh, Perceval became the +head of the new Ministry, Lord Wellesley occupying the place of +Canning, and Lord Hawkesbury that of Castlereagh; and an intensely +anti-Catholic ministry continued to the death of Perceval. In 1809 the +Catholic question was not introduced into Parliament. In the spring of +1810 it was introduced into both Houses, but was defeated by +majorities of 86 and 104; but in October 1810 an event occurred which +profoundly changed the aspect of affairs. The King's insanity broke +out anew in a form which gave little hope of recovery, and the Prince +of Wales was appointed Regent. For a year the regency was subject to +restrictions similar to those which had been adopted in 1788, but on +February 1, 1812, these restrictions were to cease, and the Regent was +to enter into full fruition of the royal power. + +The hopes of the Catholics were now raised to the highest point. With +the confirmed insanity of George III. the most serious of all the +obstacles to their claims was removed. During the year of the +restricted regency, while there was still some chance of the recovery +of the King, the Prince of Wales declined to remove the existing +Ministry from office, though even this decision was not taken without +some hesitation and some negotiations with the Whigs. The Catholics, +however, fully expected that the royal influence would now be exerted +in their favour, and that the Whig Ministry would speedily come. The +Prince of Wales had long been in close connection with the Whigs. As +early as 1797 he had expressed a desire to go over to Ireland as +Lord-Lieutenant, carrying with him a policy of conciliation to the +Catholics. In 1805, when Fox and Grenville had introduced the Catholic +question into the Imperial Parliament, the Prince, while stating that +considerations of obvious delicacy prevented him from taking an +immediate and open part in its favour, had given the Whig leaders the +fullest authority to assure the Catholics of Ireland that he would +never forsake their interests, the 'most distinct and authentic +pledge' of his wish to relieve them from the disabilities of which +they complained, and to exert himself in their favour as soon as he +was constitutionally able to do so. It is easy therefore to imagine +the consternation and the indignation with which, in 1812, the +Catholics found that the Prince Regent had changed his principles and +his policy; that, after a short and perhaps insincere negotiation with +the Whigs, he had resolved to maintain in power a Ministry which was +constructed for the main purpose of maintaining the Catholic +disabilities; and that his own opinions were rapidly verging towards +this policy. + +The situation in Ireland was becoming very dangerous. For some years +after the Union a great apathy prevailed, and there is no reasonable +doubt that, if events in England had been favourable, Catholic +emancipation would have met with no serious opposition in Ireland, and +could have been carried with every reasonable limitation and +safeguard. The most competent English officials calculated that at +least sixty-four of the hundred Irish representatives would vote for +it, and that a decided preponderance of Irish Protestant opinion was +in its favour. On the other hand, the Catholic bishops and aristocracy +had fully accepted the policy of an endowment for the priests and a +veto on the appointment of bishops, and the most Conservative elements +in the Catholic body still exercised an ascendancy over their +co-religionists. The question of the veto had been mentioned in the +Commons, by Sir J. Hippisley, in 1805, and in 1808 Grattan and +Ponsonby formally announced, on the authority of the Catholic bishops, +their readiness to accept it. A letter from Bishop Milner was read to +the House, which very clearly stated their position: + +'The Catholic prelates of Ireland,' he wrote, 'are willing to give a +direct negative power to his Majesty's Government with respect to the +nomination of their titular bishoprics, in such manner that when they +have among themselves resolved who is the fittest person for the +vacant see, they will transmit his name to his Majesty's Ministers; +and if the latter should object to that name, they will transmit +another and another, until a name is presented to which no objection +is made; and (which is never likely to be the case) should the Pope +refuse to give those essentially necessary spiritual powers, of which +he is the depository, to the person so presented by the Catholic +bishops and so approved by the Government, they will continue to +propose names till one occurs which is agreeable to both +parties--namely, the Crown and Apostolic See.' + +The prelates also engaged to nominate no persons who had not +previously taken the oath of allegiance.[15] But a democratic party +had now arisen among the Catholics, which utterly repudiated the +restrictions of the veto, which sought emancipation by violent and +democratic agitation, and which was rapidly drawing the most dangerous +elements in the country into its channel. The bishops, pushed on by +the strong force that was behind them, speedily retraced their steps +and passed resolutions against the restrictions they had accepted, and +there were evident signs that the Catholic body was passing away from +the guidance of Grattan and of the gentry. This was not surprising in +a country where many elements of anarchy subsisted; and the democratic +party had already found in O'Connell a leader of consummate skill, and +of untiring industry, energy, and ambition. But the chief cause of the +great change that was passing over the Irish Catholics was to be +found in the disappointment of their hopes in 1801, in 1804, in 1806, +and 1812; in the desertion of their cause by Pitt; in the proved +impotence of the Whigs; in the failure of 'the securities' even to +mitigate the hostility of Perceval and his followers; in the profound +consternation and exasperation that were produced by the attitude of +the Regent. The formation of the General Committee of Catholic +Delegates was speedily followed by its suppression under the +Convention Act. But the influence of O'Connell was rapidly growing; +there were already ominous signs of a possible agitation for the +repeal of the Union, and the indignation of the Catholics was +significantly shown by the famous 'witchery resolutions,' which were +unanimously carried by the aggregate meeting of the Catholics in the +June of 1812, reflecting on the influence which Lady Hertford was +believed to exercise over the Prince. After calling for the 'total and +unqualified repeal of the penal laws which aggrieve the Catholics,' +they proceeded to use the following language: 'That from authentic +documents now before us we hear, with deep disappointment and anguish, +how cruelly the promised boon of Catholic freedom has been interrupted +by the fatal witchery of an unworthy secret influence.... To this +impure source we trace but too distinctly our baffled hopes and +protracted servitude.' Such language was not calculated to conciliate +the Prince, and he was only confirmed in his hostility to the +Catholics. As early as September 1813 the Duke of Richmond wrote to +Peel: 'I was delighted to find H.R.H. as steady a Protestant as the +Attorney-General.' + +The commencement, however, of what was virtually a new reign had given +a new activity to the question. It was brought forward in different +forms in the first months of 1812 by Lord Wellesley and Lord +Donoughmore in one House, and by Lord Morpeth and Grattan in the +other; and although it was still defeated, the diminished majorities, +the evident signs of an increased Catholic party in the country, and +the language of some of the most distinguished men in Parliament, +clearly indicated the progress of the measure. Canning especially now +strenuously urged that the time had come when the Catholic question +must be fully dealt with. The assassination of Perceval on May 11, +1812, again changed the situation and led to a long series of feeble +and abortive negotiations. An attempt was made to continue the +existing Ministry under the lead of Lord Liverpool, with the addition +of Canning and Lord Wellesley; but these statesmen declined the offer, +on the ground that the other Ministers refused to carry Catholic +emancipation, and Lord Wellesley on the additional ground of their +languor in prosecuting the Spanish war. The Regent then authorised +Lord Wellesley to construct a Ministry, with the assistance of +Canning, and an offer was made to Lords Grey and Grenville to join it, +promising an immediate consideration of the Catholic claims with a +view to a conciliatory settlement; while, on the other hand, attempts +were made to retain the services of the leading members of Perceval's +Ministry. But the Whig leaders refused to take part in a coalition +Ministry, in which they would probably be outvoted, and the former +Cabinet was reconstructed, under the leadership of Lord Liverpool, but +on the principle of leaving the Catholic question an open one. +Liverpool himself was opposed to concession, but his opposition was by +no means of the unqualified kind which had been shown by Perceval; and +a large proportion of his colleagues, including Castlereagh, who led +the House of Commons, were in favour of Catholic emancipation. If +Canning had consented to join the Ministry, Lord Wellesley would +probably have been Lord-Lieutenant in Ireland, and under these +circumstances the Catholic side could scarcely have failed to acquire +a decisive preponderance. If, on the other hand, Castlereagh had +followed the example of Canning, and refused to take part in a +Ministry which declined to settle the Catholic question, or if the +Whigs had consented to co-operate with Canning, the settlement of this +great question could scarcely have been deferred. Unfortunately, none +of these things happened. Castlereagh remained the leader of the +House. Canning refused to follow his leadership, and two years later +accepted the embassy to Lisbon. The Whig leaders stood aloof from all +Ministerial combinations. The Duke of Richmond, who was violently +anti-Catholic, continued to be Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland; the post of +Chief Secretary was given to Peel, and Ireland was destined to undergo +fifteen more years of demoralising and disorganising agitation before +the Catholic question was settled. + +Canning, however, as an independent member, brought forward a +resolution pledging the House to an early consideration of the laws +affecting his Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects, with a view to their +final conciliatory adjustment, and the conditions of the question had +so profoundly changed that it was carried by a majority of 129; while +a similar motion by Lord Wellesley in the House of Lords was met by +the previous question, which was carried by a majority of only one. + +Peel, though he had come into Parliament as a special follower of +Perceval, had not yet pledged himself decisively against the +Catholics. He had voted silently against Canning's motion in June, and +although he had spoken against a previous motion of Grattan, he had +done so mainly on the ground that the time was not opportune, and had +expressly guarded himself against giving any positive pledge. He was +now, however, obliged to take a more prominent part, and for the next +six years he was the chief support of the anti-Catholic party in +Parliament. His part was a very difficult one, for he had to encounter +Grattan, Plunket, Canning, and the Whig leaders, and he had scarcely +any real supporters. Saurin, the Attorney-General, it is true, was +strongly opposed to all concession. He was a lawyer of high character +and attainments, of Huguenot descent and strong Huguenot principles, +and he had borne a distinguished part in opposition to the Union; but +Saurin refused to go to London. Bushe, who was Solicitor-General, +leaned to the Catholic side; and, to the great indignation and +consternation of the Government, Wellesley Pole, who had preceded Peel +as Chief Secretary and who was the brother of Lord Wellesley, now +pronounced himself strongly in Parliament in favour of the Catholics. +This speech was entirely unexpected, for Pole had hitherto been +regarded as a staunch adherent of the Protestant party, and as late as +the last day of 1811 he had sent a memorandum on the Catholic question +to the Secretary of State in England, which was intended to be laid +before the Cabinet, and which maintained the impossibility of safely +satisfying the Catholic claims, and the expediency of the Prince +Regent's taking a decided part against them. A general election had +taken place in September, and it is evident from the letters of Lord +Liverpool and Peel that they at this time looked upon Canning and his +followers with even more hostility than the regular Opposition. + +In the new Parliament the Catholic question at once assumed a great +prominence. A motion for the immediate consideration of the laws +affecting the Catholics was introduced by Grattan, supported by +Castlereagh, opposed by Peel, and ultimately carried by a majority of +40. A resolution of Grattan's for removing laws imposing civil and +military disabilities on the Catholics, with such regulations and +exceptions as might provide for the security of the Protestant +succession and of the Established Church, was next introduced. Peel +opposed it bitterly, but was beaten by a majority of 67. + +'We were terribly beaten,' he wrote to his Under-Secretary, 'but we +are sad cowards, I am afraid; at least, we are shamefully used. Poor +Duigenan could not get a hearing, and the general impression seemed +against the Protestants. We will fight them out, however, to the last. +I am sure it is better than to give way.' 'Your defence of the +Protestant cause,' wrote Saurin, 'was not only by far the ablest and +best, but the only one which did not seem to strengthen the cause of +the adversary by some concession of principle. I really fear the +Protestant cause is lost in the Commons. There can be no rally now but +on the securities.'[16] + +Grattan at once brought in a Bill in accordance with the terms of the +Resolution that had been carried; but the Protestant party now rallied +around a motion of Sir John Hippisley, for a committee to inquire into +the state and tenets of the Roman Catholics, and the laws affecting +them. Canning pointed out with great force that a committee of inquiry +was exactly what the Protestant party had for so many years +strenuously resisted; but, as Peel wrote to the Duke of Richmond, +there was no inconsistency in their conduct: 'When the question was +whether we should consider the claims of the Catholics and the laws +affecting them, or should resist their claims, we voted for resistance +without inquiry; the question now is, whether we shall consider or +concede, and we prefer inquiry to concession.'[17] + +The motion for delay, however, was defeated by 187 to 235, and the +second reading of Grattan's Bill was carried by 245 to 203. But a +sudden change now occurred in the prospects of the cause. Canning and +Castlereagh, with the full assent of Grattan, introduced clauses for +the securities which had been before intimated, giving the Crown a +control over the nomination of the Catholic bishops. But the bishops +unanimously condemned the proposal, and the large majority of the +Catholic Board supported them. It became evident that the Bill before +Parliament would fail to satisfy the Catholics, and after a long +discussion the clause admitting Catholics to Parliament was rejected +by 251 to 247. + +Peel had triumphed. The profound division which had broken out among +the supporters of Catholic emancipation threw back for many years a +cause which had been almost gained, though in 1817 an Act was passed +without opposition throwing open to the Catholics the military and +naval positions which Grenville had vainly attempted to open in 1807. +Few things could have been eventually more disastrous both to Ireland +and to the Empire than the defeat of the influence represented by +Grattan and by the Catholic gentry, and the growing ascendancy of +O'Connell and the democratic and sacerdotal party in Irish popular +politics. Grattan had long predicted that, if concession was not +speedily and wisely made, population in Ireland would drift away from +the guiding and moderating influence of property; that seditious and +anarchical men would gain an ascendancy which would make the whole +problem of Irish Government incalculably difficult; that a priesthood +unconnected with the English Government would lead to a 'Catholic +laity discorporated from the people of England.' In the Irish +Parliament the strong bias of Conservatism in his policy had been +repeatedly displayed, and it was equally apparent in the Imperial +Parliament. In 1807 he had supported the Insurrection Act, in +opposition to many of his friends, on the ground that there was a real +and dangerous French party in Ireland, which the common law was +insufficient to suppress. In 1814 he expressed his full approval of +the proclamation suppressing the Catholic Board. He steadily and +earnestly maintained that, although it was vitally necessary that +Catholic emancipation should be speedily carried, it should be +accompanied by measures for securing, as far as possible, the loyalty +of the higher Catholic clergy, and uniting them in interest and +sentiment with the British Government. He looked with bitter hostility +on the rise and policy of O'Connell. He accused him of 'setting afloat +the bad passions of the people,' making grievances instruments of +power without any honest wish to redress them, treating politics as a +trade to serve a desperate and interested purpose. + +But the influence of Grattan was now manifestly declining, and Peel +watched the decline with a short-sighted and not very generous +pleasure. In Parliament, though numbers were against the Catholics, +the overwhelming preponderance of ability was still in favour of the +principle of emancipation, and it was in leading the anti-Catholic +party that Peel chiefly acquired his almost unrivalled parliamentary +skill. He had, indeed, all the qualities of a great debater: courage, +fluency, self-possession, complete command of every subject he +treated, unfailing lucidity both in statement and reasoning; admirable +skill in marshalling and disentangling great masses of facts, in +meeting, evading, or retorting arguments, and detecting the weak +points of the case of an opponent, in veiling, by plausible language, +extreme or unpalatable views, in extricating himself by subtle +distinctions and qualifications from embarrassing situations. He can +scarcely, it is true, be called a great orator. His style was formal, +cumbrous, extremely verbose, without sparkle and without fire. He had +little or no power of moving the passions, nothing of the flexibility +that can adapt itself to very different audiences, nothing of the +philosophic insight that can impart a perennial interest to transient +discussions. But few men have ever understood the House of Commons +like him, or have possessed in so high a degree the qualities that are +most fitted to command and influence it. The great mass of +anti-Catholic sentiment in the country rallied around him as its most +powerful champion, and in 1817 he attained one of the chief objects of +his ambition in being elected member for Oxford University. It is well +known that his older and more brilliant rival had long aspired to this +honour. It was mainly through the Catholic question that Canning +missed and Peel won the prize. + +The nickname 'Orange Peel,' which was given to him in Ireland, was +not wholly deserved. His letters abundantly show that he had no +sympathy with the ribbons, the anniversaries, the party tunes, the +insulting processions and insulting language of the Orangemen; and, +although he believed that in Ireland anti-Catholicism and loyalty were +very closely connected, he viewed with much dislike the growth of any +political confederacies unconnected with the Government. Declamation +and boastfulness and needless provocation were, indeed, wholly alien +to his nature; and even when defending extreme causes he rarely or +never used the language of a fanatic. He resisted Catholic concession +mainly on the ground that the admission of the Catholics to political +power would prove incompatible with the existence of the Established +Church in Ireland, with the security of property in a country where +property was mainly in Protestant hands, and ultimately with the +connection between the two countries. His arguments were not based on +religion, but on political expediency; but it was an expediency which +he believed to be permanent. + +'I see,' he wrote to the Duke of Richmond, 'one of the papers reports +me as having said that I was not an advocate for perpetual exclusion. +It might be inferred that I objected only to the time of discussing +the question. That is not the case.... There are certain anomalies in +the system which I would wish to remove, but the main principles of it +I would retain untouched.... At no time, and under no circumstances, +so long as the Catholic admits the supremacy in spirituals of a +foreign earthly potentate, and will not tell us what supremacy in +spirituals means--so long as he will not give us voluntarily the +security which every despotic Sovereign in Europe has by the +concession of the Pope himself--will I consent to admit them.'[18] + +The letters before us show clearly that his political sympathy was +with Saurin, with Duigenan, with Lord Eldon, and even with Lord +Norbury. O'Connell early perceived in Peel his most dangerous +opponent, and a strong personal enmity, which was as much due to +profound differences of character as to differences of policy, grew up +between them. A scurrilous attack of O'Connell on Peel in 1815 was +followed by a challenge, and a duel was prevented only by the arrest +of O'Connell. The antipathy between the two men was never mitigated. +O'Connell said of Peel that 'his smile was like the silver plate on a +coffin.' Peel, in his confidential letters, expressed the utmost +dislike and contempt for the character of O'Connell, and when he was +at length compelled by the Clare election to concede Catholic +emancipation, his feeling towards him was significantly and +characteristically shown. He enumerated in a brilliant passage the men +to whom the triumph of Catholic emancipation was really due. He spoke +of Fox and Grattan, of Plunket and of Canning, but he made no mention +of O'Connell. + +The administrative side of Peel's Chief Secretaryship is much more +creditable to him than the political side. The vivid picture which his +letters present of the manner in which Ireland was governed more than +fifteen years after the Union will probably strike the reader with +some surprise, when he remembers that the Union had extinguished about +seventy small boroughs, and had at the same time greatly diminished +the importance of the Irish representatives, and therefore the +necessities for corruption. Peel noticed that while 'the pension list +of Great Britain was limited to 90,000_l._ per annum, the pension list +of Ireland may amount to 80,000_l._ a year; and he found almost all +Irish patronage still employed for political purposes, and almost +every office honeycombed with abuses and peculations. A few extracts +will give the reader some notion of the nature and extent of the evil, +and of the efforts of Peel to reduce it:-- + +'How is it possible,' he wrote, 'to propose that a shilling should be +granted to a general officer on the staff in Ireland when sixpence is +granted in England? This is called a modification in official phrase, +but it ought to be called doubling the allowance. Set your face +steadily against all increase of salary, all extra allowances, all +plausible claims for additional emolument. Economy must be the order +of the day--rigid economy.'[19] 'When English members hear that the +sheriff appoints the grand jury, that the grand jury tax the county, +that the sheriff has a considerable influence at elections, and that +the sheriff is appointed openly on the recommendation of the member +supporting the Government, they are startled not a little.... I know +that this is a most convenient patronage to the Government, but I know +also that I cannot hint in the House of Commons at such a source of +patronage, and I confess I have great doubts on the legitimacy of +it.... After Lord Redesdale's declaration ... that the mode of +appointing sheriffs "poisons the sources of justice," and witnessing +the general feeling among the English against making the nomination of +a most important officer in the execution of justice dependent on the +will of the county member, I thought it highly expedient to give a +positive assurance that the Government would revert to the ancient +and legal practice of appointing sheriffs in Ireland.... With a pure +Bench--and time will, I hope, purify it--the change would be an +essential change for the better.'[20] 'Foster says that the abuses +discovered in the office [of Clerk of the Pleas] are enormous, that +the amount of fees exacted from suitors is not less than 30,000_l._ +per annum, of which the principal clerk did not receive more than +one-third. A Mr. Pollock, the first deputy, is in receipt of 8,000_l._ +or 9,000_l._ a year as his own share of the profits; other deputies +and persons unnecessarily employed have profits amounting to 1,200_l._ +or 1,400_l._ a year each. Foster thinks that every possible difficulty +will be thrown in the way of an early decision in the Irish Courts.... +In the meantime, the Chief Baron is receiving the enormous profits +arising from these enormous abuses.'[21] + +The practice of buying and selling public offices, and the practice of +dividing the salaries of a single office between a principal and +deputies, still continued; but Peel did his utmost to eradicate them. +If it were permitted in one case, he said, 'every officer in every +department who purchased on corrupt terms and is now living may claim +a right to sell the office so purchased.' + +'With respect to a payment out of the salary to R., I can have no +scruple in giving you my opinion that it would not be right. I have +never been, and cannot conscientiously be, a party to an arrangement +of that kind, because I think this is quite clear, that if the salary +of the office is disproportionate to the labour of it, and can bear to +be taxed to the amount of 200_l._, the public should benefit, and the +emoluments of the office be reduced.'[22] + +One of Peel's first tasks was to conduct a general election, and he +had ample opportunities of judging how these things were managed in +Ireland. A law known as Curwen's Act had been recently passed, +condemning to a heavy fine in the event of failure, and to the loss of +his seat in the event of success, any person giving, or promising to +give, or consenting to give either money or office for a seat in +Parliament. The law was not a little embarrassing to Peel, as his own +seat of Cashel had been purchased, and he thought it safer to transfer +himself to the English seat of Chippenham, where his return was +managed by his father without any intervention on his own part. At the +same time, the elections in Ireland went on much as if Curwen's Act +had never passed. + +'I am placed in a delicate situation enough here,' he wrote to his +friend Croker: 'bound to secure the Government interests, if possible, +from dilapidation, but still more bound to faint with horror at the +mention of money transactions, to threaten the unfortunate culprits +with impeachment if they hint at an impure return, and yet to prevent +those strongholds, Cashel, Mallow, and Tralee, from surrendering to +the enemies who besiege them.' + +Croker himself furnished an admirable illustration of the manner in +which these principles were carried out. 'I find the borough' [Down], +he writes, 'extremely well disposed to me. Of the respectable and +steady people I have a decided majority, not less than twenty; but +there are sixty-two persons who are extremely doubtful.... I have the +greatest repugnance to bribery, ... but my agent informs me that many +voters will require money.... The return absolutely depends upon +pounds sterling. The best computation which my agents can make is +that a sum of 2,000_l._ will be necessary. The natural expenses will +be 500_l._ These, I think, I am bound to make good. But with regard to +the money for votes, that I expect from Government.' + +Peel replied that he could not answer for the Government in England, +and that the Irish Government possessed no funds for this purpose; he +would himself have been ready to send Croker '1,000_l._ as a private +concern between ourselves with no reference whatever to Government'; +but he had it not. 'If you think proper,' he added, 'to take the +chance whether it [the Government] will assist you, you can promise.' +For about six years Peel was constantly receiving from Croker requests +for places, in order to discharge 'debts of gratitude' incurred at +this election; and in 1816 we find the Government very nearly beaten +in the House of Commons in an attempt to raise Croker's own salary. + +'Could you tell me,' writes Lord Palmerston to Peel, 'whether you +think there is any probability of a contest for the county of Sligo at +the next election? I could at the present moment make from 280 to 290 +voters by giving leases to tenants who are now holding at will. If +there is any chance of their being of use next year, I will do so +forthwith, and register them in time. If not, I should perhaps +postpone giving twenty-one years' leases till matters look a little +more propitious to the payment of rents.' + +'Lord Lorton wrote yesterday to his agent to make all the freeholders +he can on his small Queen's County property. He says he is sorry he +can't make more than twenty, but that those shall go against Pole.' + +A few illustrations of the minor details of patronage may be added. +One gentleman called upon Peel about an election in Clare, but 'said +that he would make no promise of his interest unless he received a +pledge from me that his two brothers should be provided for--one in +the Church, and the other advanced in the profession of the law.' + +Lord C. 'wanted, long since, to make terms with me for his support in +Cork, ... and wished to be one of a committee for superintending the +patronage of the county.' + +'When G. wants a baronetcy, he is very rich; and when he wants a +place, he is very poor. I think we may fairly turn the tables on him, +and when he asks to be a baronet, make his poverty the objection, and +his wealth when he asks for an office.' + +'Pole is constantly pressing K., of the Navigation Board, for +promotion.... I am told he entirely neglects his duty. Pole readily +admits his hopeless stupidity and unfitness for office.' + +'I do not think your son,' Peel wrote to his Under-Secretary, 'can +make a more inefficient member of the Board of Stamps than Mr. T. has +done. I am perfectly ready, therefore, to acquiesce in the exchange.' +'I make a great sacrifice,' he wrote to Lord Whitworth, 'when I say +that I doubt whether O.'s habits would qualify him for such practical +duties as the Collector of Belfast at least ought to perform. Belfast +is so flourishing a town, and contributes so much to the revenue, that +I fear the Collectorship of it is too prominent a situation to place +in it a young man ... we must admit to be a ruined man by gambling. +Considering how careless he has been of his own money, perhaps some +office not connected with the collection of the public money ... would +be more suited to him.... What do you think of the following +arrangement? Make J. collector for this very bad and very good reason, +that he is the most inefficient Commissioner, and therefore the public +service will suffer least from his appointment. Make Colonel H. a +Commissioner. He will be about as inefficient as J. Make R.M. junior, +the most inefficient of the three, Surveyor of Lands, _vice_ H., which +(though he will lose 200_l._ a year) will greatly oblige his father, +the member; and, lastly, fulfil your good intentions towards O. by +making him a Commissioner of Accounts, _vice_ M.' + +Many other characteristic pictures pass before us. There were officers +of the revenue who were recommended to 'the marked favour' of the +Government because they had shown what Peel somewhat rashly called +'the common honesty' of refusing bribes. There was an official who +scandalously connived at an abuse of justice by which innocent women +were condemned to transportation, though taking measures that the +Government should indirectly hear of the transaction. There were +shameful abuses in the sale of the office of gaoler, shameful frauds +in the collection of taxes, in the Customs, in the barrack charges. + +'My most decided opinion,' Peel wrote about one of these culprits, 'is +in favour of his dismissal. I am quite tired of, and disgusted with, +the shameful corruptions which every Irish inquiry brings to +light.'[23] + +Much trouble was given by newspapers which were subsidised by the +Government, and at the same time conducted in a manner which no honest +Government could approve of.[24] Another evil is disclosed in the +following very creditable letter written by Peel to one of his +successors: + +'I found in Ireland that every official man, not content with the +favour of Government to himself, thought he had a right to quarter his +family on the patronage of Government. I took the course that you have +done in order to enable me to resist with effect such extravagant +pretensions. I determined never to gratify any private wish of my own +by the smallest Irish appointment. There is nothing half so disgusting +as the personal monopoly of honours and offices by those to whom the +distribution of them is entrusted.'[25] + +In the Irish Pension List there had been enormous abuses, but Peel +took credit for having effectually stopped them. 'No member of +Parliament,' he wrote, 'has benefited by it. No vote has been +influenced by it.... I do not think there are any three years in the +whole period of the Irish history during which so honest a use has +been made of it.'[26] + +As might have been expected, blunders arising from extreme +inefficiency were very numerous. In one case, by negligent drafting, +the Insurrection Bill was made to extend to three instead of two +years, while a simple mistake in one of the Revenue Bills was believed +to have cost the Revenue not less than 40,000_l._[27] + +In all this dreary field the great administrative ability of Peel and +the essential integrity of his character produced much real +improvement, though it is very possible to exaggerate his merits. No +one who has read the Hardwicke and Colchester papers will question +that some of his predecessors, and especially the Chancellor, Lord +Redesdale, had laboured with at least equal earnestness to purify +Irish administration; and the energy with which Lord Redesdale, +though out of office, still recurred to the subject, was extremely +displeasing to Peel.[28] His own patronage, as we have already seen, +was by no means ideal, and he was very anxious to stifle parliamentary +inquiries. + +'I believe,' he wrote, 'an honest, despotic government would be by far +the fittest government for Ireland'; but as this could not be attained +he wished no essential alteration. 'I think the present system on +which the government of Ireland is conducted is the best, but I am +terribly afraid that Englishmen, who know nothing of Ireland, would +not concur with me if they inquired into detail. It is very difficult +to manage even the most limited inquiry. How could we prevent the +introduction of tithes, magistracy, the Catholic question itself?'[29] + +Whatever might be the case in the future, he believed that in the +present it was impossible for the Irish Government to receive adequate +support unless it made up its mind to purchase it. 'It would be good +policy,' he says in one of his letters, 'to direct the channel of +patronage as plentifully as we can towards those who are adhering to +us on these pressing questions of army establishments and property +tax.' He refused in very lofty tones applications for peerages as +rewards for political support; but the merit of this refusal belongs +mainly to Lord Liverpool, who, at the beginning of the Chief +Secretaryship, took on this subject a very firm and honourable line, +both in England and Ireland, and maintained it at the sacrifice of +many votes. For Irish honours unaccompanied by endowments there appear +to have been few applicants. Peel disliked the bestowal of +ecclesiastical dignities as rewards for political services; but if he +did not practise it quite as much as his predecessors, this appears to +have been much more due to nature than to policy. + +'There is nothing so extraordinary,' he wrote, 'in natural history as +the longevity of all bishops, priests, and deacons in Ireland. During +the last five years there has been literally no Church preferment to +dispose of, to the infinite disappointment of many expectants.' + +In the higher legal appointments, however, while insisting that +'attachment to the Government on principle' was very material, Peel +cordially agreed with Saurin that it was vitally necessary to select +men 'for character, and not for politics or connection'; and he added, +that those were not likely to be the least fit for high office who +were too proud to solicit it. 'It is a species of pride which +occasions very little practical inconvenience in Ireland.' + +His letters show clearly the terrible evils of Irish life. He speaks +of 'the enormous and overgrown population,' with no employment except +agriculture; of a poverty so extreme that in many districts widespread +starvation was averted only by prompt Government intervention; of +'that infernal curse, the forty shilling freeholds'; of the evil +system of employing the military in distraining for rent and in the +collection of tithes; of juries, through fear or sympathy, acquitting +prisoners in the face of the clearest evidence; of the gross perjury +in the law courts; of the almost universal disaffection of the lower +orders, fostered by a seditious press; of the growing spirit of +animosity in the north of Ireland between the lower orders of +Protestants and Catholics, which was breaking out in constant riots, +and had already cost many lives. This last evil, it might be truly +said, was very largely due to the policy of his own party, who had +protracted through so many years the Catholic question, which ought +to have been settled at the Union. There was extreme and chronic +ignorance, poverty, and anarchy; the payment of tithes was constantly +resisted; and a failure of the potato crop, and a sudden and terrible +fall in the price of agricultural products after the peace, added +enormously to the difficulties of the situation. It is remarkable, +indeed, that there appears to have been in 1816 and 1817 less +disturbance of the public peace in Ireland than in England; Peel found +it even possible to reduce the military establishments, and in Dublin +extreme distress was borne with remarkable patience; but in many parts +of the country crimes of combination were frequent, and almost +incredibly savage. Peel mentions one case of a family of eight persons +who were deliberately burnt in their house by a party of armed men, +because the owner of the house had prosecuted to conviction three men, +on a capital charge, at the Louth assizes. In another case a farmer, +who had shot two men who attacked his house, was himself shot dead on +a Sunday morning, after Mass, at the chapel door, in the presence of +hundreds of men, not one of whom attempted to arrest the culprit. + +These things filled Peel with a not unnatural horror, and his letters +showed clearly his intense dislike both of the Irish character and of +the Irish religion.[30] By far the most valuable contribution he made +to the improvement of Ireland during his Chief Secretaryship was the +formation, in 1814, of an efficient police force, which has ever since +been popularly associated with his name, and which was the nucleus +from which the present admirable constabulary force was developed in +1822 and in 1835. 'We ought to be crucified,' he wrote, 'if we make +the measure a job, and select our constables from the servants of our +parliamentary friends.' He attempted also, though without much +success, to institute a system of popular education on a perfectly +unsectarian basis, and with Catholics among the commissioners.[31] He +appears to have met with little encouragement, and at least one +Catholic bishop lost no time in cursing 'these nefarious deistical +schools'; but some schools were established, and Peel has the merit of +being one of the earliest advocates of a general system of unsectarian +national education for Ireland, which many years after was +accomplished. His measures for the relief of distress appear to have +been skilful and judicious, supporting and stimulating, but not +superseding private benevolence.[32] For the rest, he relied chiefly +on Insurrection Acts strengthening the Executive and giving a greater +efficiency to the administration of justice, and on strong protective +legislation encouraging the corn and the manufactures of Ireland. + +'I have always,' he wrote, 'been, and always shall be, as strong an +advocate for giving that preference to the productions of Ireland, +natural or artificial, which will best promote the industry of the +people, as I am for instructing the lower orders.'[33] + +To the tithe system he would do nothing, and this is one of the fatal +blots on his reputation as a statesman. There was no single source of +crime, agitation, and disaffection in Ireland which was so prolific as +this, and there was no subject on which the wisest statesmen had been +more agreed than on the supreme importance of meeting this evil by a +judicious system of commutation. Pitt had clearly expressed his +opinion of the necessity of such a commutation to the Duke of Rutland +as early as 1786, and it was one of the measures which he intended to +have followed the Union. Grattan had brought schemes of commutation in +three successive years before the Irish Parliament. Lord Loughborough, +who was the chief cause of the failure of Catholic emancipation after +the Union, had himself drawn up a Tithe Commutation Bill. Lord +Redesdale, who represented the extreme Toryism of the ministry of +Addington, strongly urged the absolute necessity of speedy legislation +on the subject. The Duke of Bedford, in 1807, dwelt on the importance +of commuting tithes into a land-tax, and ultimately into land. Parnell +and Grattan had brought the subject before the Imperial Parliament in +1810, and it was again and again insisted on by the Whig writers, and +nowhere more strongly than in Sydney Smith's admirable letters to +Peter Plymley and in some of the pages of the 'Edinburgh Review.' But +nothing was done till the evil had become intolerable, and had brought +the country to a state of anarchy and demoralisation that can scarcely +be exaggerated. The connection of Peel with the question of Irish +tithes is a very remarkable one. The Tithe Commutation Act, which was +carried by a Whig Government in 1838, is one of the few instances of +perfectly successful legislation in Irish history, and it is well +known that the chief credit of this measure does not belong to the +Ministers who carried it. It was the very measure which Sir Robert +Peel had introduced in 1835, which the Whig party when in opposition +defeated by connecting it with the Appropriation clause, and which the +Whig party when in power were compelled to carry without that clause. +But if the chief credit of the final settlement of this momentous +question justly belongs to Peel, it must not be forgotten that in the +eleven years during which, as Chief Secretary or as Home Secretary, he +was directly responsible for the government of Ireland, he had allowed +this monster curse to grow and strengthen without making any serious +effort to mitigate it. + +Peel was Chief Secretary during the concluding part of the viceroyalty +of the Duke of Richmond, during the whole of that of Lord Whitworth, +and during part of that of Lord Talbot. He had grown very tired of his +position, but agreed to postpone his departure till after a general +election, and he at last left Ireland, as he says, with 'undiminished +and unqualified satisfaction,' in August 1818. He remained out of +office until January 1822; but the interval was not spent in idleness, +and in 1819 he took the leading part in the great Act for resuming +cash payments, which, as it has been truly said, attaches to his name +'the same meed of praise which he had quoted as inscribed on the tomb +of Queen Elizabeth: "Moneta in justum valorem redacta."' It is one of +his greatest legislative achievements; it is also the first of that +series of recantations which forms one of the most distinctive +features of his career, for it was based upon the policy which Horner +had advocated in 1811, and against which Peel had then voted. He still +took, on the Catholic question, the leading part in opposition to +emancipation, declaring his determination to offer 'a most sincere and +uncompromising,' though he now feared unavailing, resistance to +Catholic concession. The last time the question was brought forward, +by Grattan, was in 1819, and he was defeated by a majority of only +two. In 1821, after the death of Grattan, and in a new Parliament, +Plunket carried a Bill for Catholic emancipation successfully through +all its stages in the House of Commons, though it was afterwards +rejected in the Lords. In the ensuing session a similar fate befel a +Bill of Canning's to relieve Catholic peers of their disabilities. +Some considerable change, however, was introduced into the spirit of +the Irish Government by the appointment of Lord Wellesley, who was in +favour of the Catholics, to the viceroyalty. One of its most important +results was the removal of Saurin from the office of Attorney-General +and the appointment of Plunket in his place. Lord Wellesley described +this measure to Lady Blessington as the removal of 'an old Orangeman' +who, though 'Attorney-General by title, had really been +Lord-Lieutenant for fifteen years'; but it is evident from the letters +of Peel that his warm sympathies, both personal and political, were +with Saurin. + +The accession of George IV. to the throne in the beginning of 1820 +brought to a crisis the quarrel between the new King and his wife, and +led to the resignation of Canning in the last days of the year, and +Lord Liverpool then tried to induce Peel to enter the Cabinet in the +vacant post of President of the Board of Control. Peel, however, +refused the office, declaring that he differed from some of the +proceedings of the Ministry about the Queen. In the summer of 1821 he +again declined a similar offer, chiefly, as it appears, on the ground +of uncertain health and of a dislike to official life which his recent +marriage had produced. But when Lord Sidmouth resigned the Home +Office, Peel proved less inflexible, and on January 17, 1822, he +accepted the seals, which he held till 1827. In August Castlereagh, +or, as he now was, Lord Londonderry, committed suicide. Lord +Liverpool saw the necessity of recalling Canning to the Cabinet as +Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Canning would accept the post only as +leader of the House of Commons. The King hated Canning, and would +gladly have excluded him altogether from the Ministry, and Eldon and +the Duke of Newcastle greatly desired that the leadership of the House +of Commons should be given to Peel. Canning, however, who had been +sixteen years longer in Parliament than Peel, had both the right and +the power to insist upon the leadership, and Peel acquiesced in his +claim with honourable frankness. Except on the Catholic question they +appear to have cordially agreed, and something of the success of +Canning's brilliant foreign policy is due to the loyalty with which he +was supported by Peel in the Cabinet and at Court. + +Space will not permit us to relate at length the history of Peel's +conduct as home Minister. The Catholic question was rapidly advancing +to a crisis, and the system of a divided Ministry in which it was an +open question, and in which the leading Ministers took opposite sides, +was becoming plainly impossible. Ireland was again in a state of +anarchy bordering on civil war, and the foundation, in 1823, of the +Catholic Association by O'Connell and Sheil gave a new impulse to the +agitation. The Duke of Wellington, who knew the country well and was +not liable to panic, predicted that the new association if it +continued would lead to civil war, and declared that the organisation +of the disaffected in Ireland was much more perfect than in 1798.[34] +At the same time the long-protracted and increasing violence of the +conflict had aroused fierce Orange passions both in the North and in +Dublin, while in England the King was embarrassing even his +'anti-Catholic' Ministers by the vehemence of his hostility to +concession. He described Peel as 'the King's Protestant Minister' and +Lord Wellesley as an 'enemy in the camp.' He assured Peel that, +whether the Cabinet wished it or not, he would never consent to give +letters of precedence to a Roman Catholic barrister, and he wrote Peel +a formal letter in which he said, 'the sentiments of the King upon +Catholic emancipation are those of his revered and excellent father; +from those sentiments the King never can and never will deviate.'[35] + +Peel, while maintaining his unflinching hostility to important +concessions, tried to moderate all parties. He implored the King to +make no public declaration. He wrote to Ireland strongly discouraging +the violence of the Orangemen and urging that 'in this age of liberal +doctrine, when prescription is no longer even a presumption in favour +of what is established, it will be a work of desperate difficulty to +contend against "emancipation," as they call it, unless we can fight +with the advantage on our side of great discretion, forbearance, and +moderation on the part of the Irish Protestants.' He recurred to his +old idea of establishing a system of unsectarian national education, +and he readily abandoned the corrupt and proselytising charter +schools. He supported a measure of Lord Nugent, which Lord Eldon +succeeded in defeating in the Lords, for extending to the English +Catholics such privileges as were already possessed by Catholics in +Ireland, and he fully approved of a letter written on behalf of the +Cabinet to the Lord-Lieutenant urging 'that a disposition should be +manifested to admit the Roman Catholics of Ireland to a fair +proportion of the emoluments and honours to which they are eligible by +law,' but without issuing patents of precedence.[36] + +On matters unconnected with the Catholic question his administration +was skilful and, on the whole, enlightened; and in 1823 he introduced +the first of a series of important measures diminishing the enormous +number of capital offences that disgraced the English criminal code, +and, at the same time, doing much to simplify and consolidate that +code. In this, as in most respects, there was little original in his +legislation. He followed, at some distance, in the steps of Romilly +and Mackintosh, and he left very much to be done, which was chiefly +accomplished during the Whig ascendancy that followed the Reform Bill +of 1832. It appears, from some remarkable letters in this volume, +that, before Peel took up the question of criminal reform, George IV. +was exceedingly sensible of the enormity of executing very young men +for secondary offences, and that he was continually pressing on his +Ministers a more merciful administration of the law. He sometimes +found Peel by no means ready to yield. In one case Peel invoked the +aid of the Cabinet to overrule the wish of the King, who desired to +save two culprits from the gallows; and, in another case, he +threatened to resign his office if the King persisted in commuting the +sentence of a youth who had been found guilty of uttering forged +notes.[37] But Peel had at least the merit of recognising an +intolerable abuse, and his legislation on the subject was skilfully +framed and still more skilfully introduced and carried. In his +patronage in this, as in later periods of his life, he cared much more +than most English Ministers for the interests of science, literature, +and art. He was by no means indifferent to the opportunities his +position gave him of advancing his own family and friends; but he +never, in his English patronage, forgot the character of those whom he +recommended for promotion, and he brought forward or assisted many men +of ability and learning with whom he had no connection and no +political sympathy. The letters in this volume between Peel and his +very intimate Oxford friend Dr. Lloyd are especially interesting and +characteristic. They are in general very honourable to Peel; but Mr. +Parker is much too indulgent when he describes the intensely worldly +letters in which Dr. Lloyd urged his own merits and his claims to the +bishopric of Oxford as merely 'frank, and free from affectation of the +traditional _nolo episcopari_.' Both Peel and Lord Liverpool appear to +have had a much stronger sense than most of their predecessors of the +responsibilities attaching to Church patronage and of the duty of +administering it in the public interest, and in this respect they were +broadly distinguished from Lord Eldon. + +'It is really a cruel thing,' Lord Liverpool wrote to Peel, 'that the +patronage of the Crown as to Church matters should be divided between +the Minister and the Chancellor, and that all the public claims should +fall upon the former. The Chancellor has nine livings to the +Minister's one. With respect to these he does occasionally attend to +local claims, but he has besides four cathedrals, and to no one of +these cathedrals has any man of distinguished learning or merit been +promoted.' + +In the beginning of 1825 the Irish Government, having without +consulting Peel undertaken a foolish prosecution of O'Connell for a +not very dangerous speech, received a heavy rebuff, for the Grand +Jury threw out the Bill, and the prosecution of an Orange leader was +equally unsuccessful. A Bill was about the same time brought in and +carried, suppressing the new association; but it could not suppress +the spirit which it had aroused. O'Connell, however, was thoroughly +alarmed at the state of the country, and as far as possible from +desiring a rebellion, and he was at this time in a very conciliatory +mood. He was perfectly ready to accept an endowment for the +priesthood, which would attach them to the Government, and also a +considerable raising of the Irish franchise. This was the last +occasion on which his party and the Catholic gentry very cordially +concurred, and it was the last occasion on which the Catholic question +could have been settled on a basis that would have given real strength +to the Empire. A Relief Bill passed through all its stages in the +Commons by considerable majorities, and it was followed by a Bill for +raising the qualifications of Irish electors, and by a resolution for +endowing the priesthood. O'Connell fully believed that Catholic +emancipation would definitely pass in this session,[38] and he +appeared to have excellent reasons for his belief. In Ireland it +generally prevailed, and it exercised an immediate pacifying +influence. Lord Fingall and other Catholic noblemen, in presenting an +address at this time to the King, were able to say 'the whole of +Ireland reposes in profound tranquillity, and the law, without the aid +of any extraordinary power, everywhere receives voluntary obedience.' +It was afterwards stated by Lord George Bentinck that Peel had changed +his opinions about Catholic emancipation in 1825, and had communicated +this change to Lord Liverpool. The letters before us, however, +conclusively prove that if Peel was shaken, it was not about the +merits of emancipation, but about the practicability of resisting it. +Having been four times defeated in the Commons on the Catholic +question, he tendered his resignation, and Lord Liverpool at once +declared that without his assistance he could not continue the +struggle. Peel was the only Minister in the House of Commons opposed +to the Catholic cause, differing on the question from all his +colleagues in the House. If he had resigned, and if Lord Liverpool had +followed his example, there is good reason to believe that a +Government might have been formed which would have carried the measure +safely and speedily with the securities that had been accepted. Most +unfortunately for the Empire, the 'Protestant' party persuaded Peel to +withdraw his resignation in order to avert this surrender. In the +House of Lords the Duke of York, who was the heir-presumptive to the +throne, stood up and declared his unalterable opposition to the +Catholic claims, 'whatever might be his situation in life, so help him +God,' and the Lords rejected the Bill by a majority of 48. + +The conscientious views of George III. obtained some measure of +respect even from those who believed them to be most unfounded; but no +halo of sanctity dignified the scruples of George IV. or of the Duke +of York. The Irish Catholics, exasperated at the present +disappointment of their hopes, and at the prospect of another hostile +King, flung themselves into a furious agitation, and in a few months +all the progress which had been made towards pacifying the country was +undone, while in England Peel had to meet a terrible commercial +crisis. Seventy county banks stopped in less than a week. In dealing +with questions of commerce and currency Peel was always in his +element, and his measures appear to have been wise and skilful. A +general election took place, and he was again returned by the +University of Oxford as the uncompromising opponent of Catholic +emancipation. In England the anti-Catholic party gained some seats, +and the increasing violence in Ireland had produced some reaction. In +Ireland it was soon apparent that what Grattan had feared had come to +pass, and that the tie which had hitherto attached the people to their +landlords was completely broken. The priests everywhere appeared at +the head of their people, and it was at once seen that a new and +terrible power was dominating Irish politics. In Waterford, where the +Beresfords had long been omnipotent, they were totally defeated, and +Leslie Foster sent Peel a vivid description of his own defeat in the +Louth election. At the outset of the contest, upwards of five-sixths +of the votes were promised to him; but the whole priesthood turned +themselves into electioneering agents against him. In every chapel +there were political sermons; the priests menaced all who voted for +him with eternal damnation; they were present at every polling-booth +to overawe their parishioners; and their efforts were seconded by +savage mobs who waylaid and beat all opponents, and forced multitudes +of Protestants, by threats of assassination or of the burning of their +houses, to vote against their promises and their convictions. 'In the +county town the studied violence and intimidation were such that it +was only by locking up my voters in enclosed yards that their lives +were preserved.' By these means the election was won. What, asked +Foster, will be the end of this? 'The landlords are exasperated to the +utmost, the priests swaggering in their triumph, the tenantry sullen +and insolent. Men who, a month ago, were all civility and submission +now hardly suppress their curses when a gentleman passes by. The text +of every village orator is, "Boys, you have put down three lords; +stick to your priests, and you will carry all before you."' + +The letters of Goulburn, the Chief Secretary, show that the picture +was not overcharged. + +'Never,' he wrote, 'were Roman Catholic and Protestant so decidedly +opposed. Never did the former act with so general a concert, or place +themselves so completely under the command of the priesthood.' 'The +priests exercise on all matters a dominion perfectly uncontrolled and +uncontrollable. In many parts of the country their sermons are purely +political, and the altars in the several chapels are the rostra from +which they declaim on the subject of Roman Catholic grievances, exhort +to the collection of rent, or denounce their Protestant neighbours in +a mode perfectly intelligible and effective, but not within the grasp +of the law. In several towns no Roman Catholic will now deal with a +Protestant shop-keeper, in consequence of the priest's interdiction, +and this species of interference, stirring up enmity on one hand and +feelings of resentment on the other, is mainly conducive to outrage +and disorder.... The first vacancy on the Roman Catholic bench is to +be supplied by Dr. England from America, a man of all others most +decidedly hostile to British interests and the most active in +fomenting the discord of this country.... With such leaders it is +reasonable to anticipate the worst. It is impossible to detail in a +letter the various modes in which the Roman Catholic priesthood now +interfere in every transaction of every description, how they rule the +mob, the gentry, and the magistracy, and how they impede the +administration of justice.' Their power is greater than any other in +the State, 'and they love to display it, and omit no opportunity of +taunting their adversaries.' 'The state of society here is so +disorganised, and the Government has so inferior an authority to other +powers acting on the people, that the opinion formed to-day may be +quite changed to-morrow.'[39] + +The election of 1826 virtually carried Catholic emancipation, for it +reduced Ireland to a state in which it was impossible long to resist +it. Clear-sighted men had no difficulty in perceiving that the policy +of Peel had failed to avert it, though it had succeeded in making +impossible the securities which Grattan and the wisest men of his +generation had pronounced indispensable for its safe working, in +kindling religious hatreds as intense as in the darkest period of the +eighteenth century, in breaking down that healthy relation and +subordination of classes on which beyond all other things the future +well-being of Ireland depended. Peel was not wholly blind to what was +happening. 'A darker cloud than ever,' he wrote, 'seems to me to +impend over Ireland, that is if one of the remaining bonds of society, +the friendly connection between landlord and tenant, is +dissolved.'[40] He still persuaded himself, however, that the +political power of the priests was transient, and that a reaction +would set in that might destroy it. The defeat of the Catholic +question in the new Parliament by a majority of four encouraged him in +his resistance. In January 1827 the death of the Duke of York removed +one serious obstacle to the Catholic cause, and six weeks later Lord +Liverpool, who had so long held together the divided Ministry, was +struck down by apoplexy. Peel would gladly have continued in his +present position if a peer of real weight who held his opinions on the +Catholic question was appointed to the vacant place. But there was no +such peer, except Wellington, to be found, and under Wellington +Canning refused to serve. Canning had, indeed, now fully resolved to +be at the head of the Administration, and Peel refused to serve under +him. + +With his opinions on the Catholic question it is impossible to blame +him, and the letters which passed between the two statesmen are very +honourable to both, and show clearly that in spite of great divergence +of opinion, character, and interests, each could recognise the good +faith of the other. In a letter written to one of his brothers Peel +describes his position with complete frankness: + +'I am content with my position in the Government, and willing to +retain it--willing to see Mr. Canning leader of the House of Commons, +as he has been. But giving him credit for honesty and sincerity, if he +is at the head of the Government, and has all the patronage of the +Government, he must exert himself as an honest man to carry the +Catholic question; and to the carrying of that question, to the +preparation for its being carried, I never can be a party. Still less +can I be a party to it for the sake of office.' + +These words were written little more than a year before Peel +undertook, as Minister of the Crown, to introduce a measure of +Catholic emancipation. But if they do little credit to his prescience, +no one can mistake the accent of sincerity in what follows: + +'I do not choose to see new lights on the Catholic question precisely +at that conjuncture when the Duke of York has been laid in his grave +and Lord Liverpool struck dumb by the palsy. Would any man, woman, or +child believe that after nineteen years' stubborn unbelief I was +converted, at the very moment Mr. Canning was Prime Minister, out of +pure conscience and the force of truth?'[41] + +With the resignation of Peel and the other anti-Catholic members of +Lord Liverpool's Government, and the formation of the short Canning +Ministry, this instalment of Peel's letters comes to an end.[42] We +rejoice that the publication of this very interesting correspondence +has been entrusted to an editor who is at once so competent and so +judicious. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[10] _Life of Lord George Bentinck_, p. 304. + +[11] Lewis's _Letters_, p. 226. + +[12] _Private Correspondence of Sir R. Peel, 1788-1827_. Ed. by C.S. +Parker, M.P., 1891, p. 24. + +[13] _Ibid._ p. 27. + +[14] _Hansard_, First Ser. xxi. 663. + +[15] Butler's _Hist. Memoirs_, ii. 177. + +[16] _Peel Correspondence_, p. 80. + +[17] _Peel Correspondence_, p. 83. + +[18] _Peel Correspondence_, p. 76. + +[19] _Peel Correspondence_, pp. 217, 218. + +[20] _Peel Correspondence_, pp. 222-224. + +[21] _Ibid._ p. 212. + +[22] _Ibid._ p. 284. + +[23] _Peel Correspondence_, p. 282. + +[24] _Ibid._ pp. 114-116, 211, 218. + +[25] _Peel Correspondence_, p. 60. + +[26] _Ibid._ p. 275. + +[27] _Ibid._ p. 96. + +[28] _Peel Correspondence_, p. 211. + +[29] _Ibid._ pp. 215, 219, 220. + +[30] _Peel Correspondence_, pp. 207, 231, 235, 236. + +[31] _Peel Correspondence_, pp. 87-92. + +[32] _Ibid._ pp. 244, 265. + +[33] _Ibid._ pp. 167, 233. + +[34] _Peel Correspondence_, p. 348. + +[35] _Peel Correspondence_, pp. 349, 358, 359, 370-371. + +[36] _Peel Correspondence_, p. 358. + +[37] _Ibid._ pp. 315-317. + +[38] Fitzpatrick's _Correspondence of O'Connell_, i. p. 108. + +[39] _Peel Correspondence_, pp. 416, 418, 419, 422. + +[40] _Ibid._ pp. 413, 420. + +[41] _Peel Correspondence_, p. 485. + +[42] Two more volumes have been published since this Essay was +written.--ED. + + + + +EDWARD HENRY, FIFTEENTH EARL OF DERBY + + +The time has not yet arrived for the publication of a full life of the +late Lord Derby, but in submitting to the public a collection of his +more important speeches outside Parliament, a short sketch of the +chief features of his life and character may not be out of place. + +Edward Henry, fifteenth Earl of Derby, was born July 21, 1826, and was +educated at Rugby, and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he obtained a +First Class in classics. In March 1848 he unsuccessfully contested +Lancaster, and soon after started for a long and instructive journey +in America and the West Indies. During his absence from England he was +elected Member for Lynn Regis upon the death of Lord George Bentinck +in September 1848, and he held this seat without interruption till his +accession to the earldom in October 1869. His first speech in the +House of Commons was delivered on May 31, 1850, on the sugar duties. +The effect on the West Indies of the abolition of the preferential +duty on sugar was a subject which he had specially studied during his +journey, and he had published a pamphlet upon it. Sir Robert Peel +greatly praised his maiden speech, and Greville describes the great +impression which it made--an impression which a further knowledge of +the speaker speedily confirmed. + +The appearance in Parliament of the eldest son of one of the most +brilliant party leaders of the age could scarcely fail to be a +considerable political event, and it was soon found that the new +member was not only a man of rare ability, but was also in nearly all +respects very unlike his illustrious father. Never was there a more +striking instance of that strange freak of heredity by which an able +son is sometimes much less the continuation than the complement of an +able father, exhibiting in strongly contrasted lights both opposite +qualities and opposite defects. The fourteenth Earl was a great +orator. He was one of the greatest debaters who have ever lived. He +was a party leader of extraordinary power, delighting in political +conflict; throwing into it much of the fire and passion which he +displayed in his sporting contests; little fitted to conciliate +opponents, but eminently fitted to win the enthusiastic loyalty of his +followers, to rally a dispirited minority, to lead a party attack. His +keen and rapid judgment; his perfect command of pure and lucid +English; his unfailing readiness in argument, invective, sarcasm, and +repartee; his indomitable courage, and the somewhat imperious dignity +of his manner, all marked him out for the position which he held. If +there was some truth in the common taunt that he was more a party +leader than a statesman, it must at least be remembered that he has +identified his name with several important measures, and that during +most of his career he was in a hopeless minority. His enemies accused +him of rashness, arrogance, and some superficiality, both of thought +and knowledge. They alleged that he carried too much of the sporting +spirit into politics; that his naturally excellent judgment was often +deflected by the passions of the fray; that he was accustomed to +judge measures more by their party advantages than by their intrinsic +merits, and to care more for an immediate triumph than for ultimate +results. + +His son was made in a very different mould. Though like most able and +clear-headed men he acquired by much practice a respectable facility +in purely extemporaneous argument, he was never a great debater. His +speeches were very carefully prepared, and they possessed conspicuous +merits of form as well as of matter, but they were not the speeches of +a brilliant orator. No one could reason more clearly, more powerfully, +or more persuasively. He was a supreme master of terse, luminous, +weighty, and accurate English. He had much skill in bringing into +vivid relief the salient points of an obscure and complicated subject, +condensing an argument into a phrase, and illustrating it by graphic +felicities of language that clung to the memory. But he hated +rhetoric. His enunciation was faulty and unimpressive. He appealed +solely to the reason, and never to passion or to prejudice, and he had +nothing of the fire and temperament of a party orator. Very few +politicians mastered so thoroughly the subjects with which they dealt. +No politician of his time retained so remarkably, amid party +conflicts, the power of judging questions from all their sides; of +balancing judicially opposing considerations; of looking beyond the +passions and interests of the hour; of realising the points of view of +those to whom he was opposed. Declamation, clap-trap, evasion, +ambiguities of thought and expression, empty plausibilities, unfair, +partial, and exaggerated statements, were all essentially repugnant to +that clear and sceptical intellect, to that sound, cautious, practical +judgment. His business talents were very great, and they were +assiduously cultivated. His appetite for work was insatiable. No one +knew better how to administer a great department or preside over a +Parliamentary Committee, or arbitrate in a difficult controversy, or +give wise and timely advice to an inexperienced organisation. It was +in these fields that his influence was, perhaps, most deeply felt. His +success in them did not depend merely on his unflagging industry and +his excellent judgment, it was also largely due to his eminently +conciliatory character. The uniform courtesy which he displayed to men +of all ranks and opinions is happily no rare thing among his class, +but everyone who was brought in contact with Lord Derby soon felt that +he was in the presence of one who tried to understand his position, to +estimate his arguments at their full worth, to find some common ground +of agreement. If it were possible in a bitter controversy to arrive at +reasonable compromise, Lord Derby was most likely to effect it. He had +a curious talent of making speeches with which everyone must agree, +and which at the same time were never commonplace. Their secret lay in +the habit of mind that led him always to seek out the common grounds +of principle or fact that underlie every controversy, and which in the +heat of the conflict the disputants had often failed to recognise. + +It was not difficult to forecast the place which a statesman of this +kind was likely to fill in English politics. He was plainly wanting in +many of the qualities of a party leader, and in most of the qualities +of a parliamentary gladiator, and he was not likely to succeed in all +forms of statesmanship. He would certainly not prove + + A daring pilot in extremity, + Pleased with the danger when the waves went high. + + + +His clear perception of the objections to any course, combined with a +very deep sense of responsibility, not unfrequently enfeebled his will +in moments when bold and decisive action was required, and there were +times when the love of compromise which was so useful an element in +his character seemed to his best friends too closely allied to +weakness. But he probably saved every party with which he acted from +many mistakes. He brought to every Government which he joined a very +eminent administrative capacity. He defended every policy that he +espoused with a persuasive reasoning that few men could equal. He was +a supremely skilful detector of false weights and of false measures. +Every fad, every new-born enthusiasm, every crude ill-digested theory, +found in him the calmest and most penetrating of critics, and he +inspired the great body of moderate men of all parties with a deep +confidence in his patriotism and in his judgment. + +His political position was marked out by the fact that his father had +recently broken away from the Whig connection which had hitherto been +that of his family, and was now the leader of the Conservative party. +The son naturally took his place under his father's banner, but I much +question whether he would have done so if no family influence had +interfered. It was not that he at any time changed considerably his +views. As Macaulay has truly said--while the extremes of the two +English parties are separated by a wide chasm, there is a frontier +line where they almost blend; and Lord Derby when a Conservative +always represented the Liberal, and when a Liberal the Conservative +wing of his party. But his mind had much of the Whig character; his +judgment was very independent; and on Church questions especially he +was never fully in harmony with his party. He was appointed +Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in his father's first +short Ministry in March 1852, at a time when he was travelling in +India, and he left office with his father in December of the same +year. In 1853 he made a remarkable speech on Indian affairs, in some +degree foreshadowing the Indian policy which he was afterwards +destined to take such a large part in carrying into effect. During the +next few years he spoke frequently on Indian and Colonial questions, +on questions connected with education, factories, and other +working-class interests, and he supported--often in opposition to the +majority of his party--a large number of reforms which have since been +accomplished. He advocated the introduction of competitive +examinations, first of all into the Diplomatic, and then into most +branches of the Civil Service. He spoke against the system of purchase +in the army, and served on a Royal Commission on the subject. He +supported a motion for securing to married women their property and +earnings. He took a decided part in opposition to Church rates. He +voted for the emancipation of the Jews. He voted and spoke in favour +of the Maynooth grant. He was an early advocate of the opening of +museums on Sundays, and of a conscience clause to be enforced in all +schools receiving State assistance. He supported the establishment of +the Divorce Court, and clearly showed that preference for social as +distinguished from political questions which he retained through his +whole life. He delighted in placing himself in touch with working men. +Mechanics' institutes, free libraries, almost every movement for the +education and improvement of the working class, found in him a steady +friend. He once wrote to Lord Shaftesbury: 'We are both public men +deeply interested in the condition of the working class, and for my +own part I would rather look back on services such as you have +performed for that class than receive the highest honours in the +employment of the State.' On working-class questions he was often +accused of Radicalism, but it was Radicalism of the old school, which +relied mainly for reform on spontaneous effort, on moral improvement, +and extended education, and was very jealous of State interference, +compulsion, and control. He had a great admiration for Mill's +writings, and especially for his treatise on Liberty, which he +described as 'one of the wisest books of our time.' Mill fully +reciprocated the feeling. He once spoke of Lord Stanley as 'one of the +very few English public men who hold that a politician's opinions +ought to be founded on principles.' + +'Our party,' wrote Lord Malmesbury in 1853, 'are angry with Disraeli, +which is constantly the case, and they are also displeased with Lord +Stanley, suspecting him to be coquetting with the Manchester party.' +Greville, nearly at the same time, expressed his belief that Lord +Stanley was taking 'a wise and liberal line,' and that he was 'pretty +sure to act a conspicuous part.' In November 1855 there was a critical +moment in his career, when Lord Palmerston, on the death of Sir +William Molesworth, offered Lord Stanley the post of Secretary of +State for the Colonies. He at once went down to Knowsley to consult +his father, who put a strong veto on the proposal, and the offer was +refused, but in terms which showed that it had been far from +unacceptable. It is probable that the refusal was a wise one, for +although on many home questions Lord Stanley would have found himself +more in harmony with moderate Liberals than with his own party, he +would certainly have dissented from Lord Palmerston's foreign policy. +During the Crimean war he seems to have sympathised with the views of +Bright and Cobden. He took an active part in an able but now nearly +forgotten Tory paper called 'The Press,' which was opposed to the war, +and his extreme horror of war and of every policy which could possibly +lead to war was one of his strongest characteristics. Responsibility +in office never weighed lightly upon him, but responsibility for +measures which led or might lead to bloodshed was more than he could +bear. + +At the time when this offer of Lord Palmerston was made, Lord Stanley +was little more than twenty-nine. Greville considered that he had +acted wisely in refusing, and he has given us an interesting account +of the light in which the young statesman then appeared to experienced +political judges. 'His position and abilities,' he said, 'are certain +before long to make him conspicuous, and to enable him to play a very +considerable part. He is exceedingly ambitious, of an independent turn +of mind, very industrious, and has acquired a vast amount of +information. Not long ago Disraeli gave me an account of him and of +his curious opinions--exceedingly curious in a man in his condition of +life and with his prospects. Last night Lord Strangford (George +Smythe) talked to me about him, expressed the highest opinion of his +capacity and acquirements, and confirmed what Disraeli had told me of +his notions and views even more, for he says that he is a real and +sincere democrat, and that he would like if he could to prove his +sincerity by divesting himself of his aristocratic character, and even +of the wealth he is heir to. How far this may be true I know not.... +Nothing appears to me certain but that he will play a considerable +part for good or for evil, but I cannot pretend to guess what it will +be. At present he seems to be more allied with Bright than with any +other public man, and as his disposition about the war and its +continuance is very much that of Bright it would have been difficult +for him to take office with Palmerston.' + +Lord Stanley had not long to wait for high office. His father formed +his second Administration in February 1858, and Lord Stanley was made +Colonial Secretary. He appears to have accepted the office with some +reluctance, and only because Sir E. Bulwer, for whom it was at first +intended, found that he could not secure his re-election. The +Government was a very weak one, and it opened with the worst +prospects. It was a Government in a minority. Its very existence +depended on the dissensions between Lord Palmerston and Lord John +Russell, and its first steps met with little favour either in the +House or in the country. The Indian Mutiny was now nearly suppressed, +and Lord Palmerston shortly before quitting office had pledged the +House of Commons to the policy of withdrawing the Government of India +from the East India Company and placing it directly under the Crown. +To carry this policy into effect was the first task of the new +Government. They introduced an Indian Bill which they were compelled +to withdraw, and then substituted for it a new Bill founded on +resolutions which were carried through the House of Commons. In May +the Government almost fell on account of the indiscreet publication of +a despatch of Lord Ellenborough, condemning a Proclamation of the +Governor-General, Lord Canning. A vote of censure was moved and would +certainly have been carried if Lord Ellenborough had not saved his +colleagues by resigning. He was President of the Board of Control, the +Office which then directed Indian affairs, and Lord Stanley took his +place, piloted the Indian Bill successfully through the House of +Commons, and when the measure became law, was the first Secretary of +State for India, and undertook the very important and responsible task +of beginning the new system of Indian Government. + +'The Times' noticed the singular good fortune of Lord Derby in being +able at this very critical moment to place his eldest son in one of +the most important Cabinet offices in his Ministry without incurring +from any side the smallest imputation of nepotism, and the skill and +success of the new administration of the India Office was speedily and +generally recognised. Greville tells us that Lord Stanley 'gained +golden opinions and great popularity at the India House'; and he gives +a striking instance of the firmness with which he maintained the full +authority of the new Council over Indian affairs. He adds: 'I was +prepared to hear of his ability, his indefatigable industry, and his +business qualities; but I was surprised to hear so much of his +courtesy, affability, patience, and candour; that he is neither +dictatorial nor conceited, always ready to listen to other people's +opinions and advice, and never fancying that he knows better than +anyone else. I afterwards told Jonathan Peel what I had heard and he +confirmed the truth of this report and said he was the same in the +Cabinet.' 'Lord Stanley,' Greville said, 'is so completely _the man_ +of the present day, and in all human probability is destined to play +so important and conspicuous a part in political life, that the time +may come when any details, however minute, of his early career will be +deemed worthy of recollection.' It is a characteristic fact that Lord +Stanley offered a seat on the Indian Council to John Stuart Mill, +which, however, that great writer declined. + +The disturbance in European politics which culminated in the French +declaration of war against Austria contributed to weaken still further +the feeble Ministry of Lord Derby. The Reform Bill caused profound +divisions in its ranks. Mr. Walpole and Mr. Henley resigned, and the +Government Bill was defeated in the spring of 1859. Lord Malmesbury +mentions that in the Cabinet divisions on that question Lord Stanley +supported the more democratic view, and that on one occasion he +threatened to resign if the measure were not made more liberal. He +defended the Bill in an elaborate speech, advocating such an +introduction of the working class to the franchise as would give them +a considerable but not a preponderating power. A general election +followed, and the Government gained several seats, but not sufficient +to give it a majority. The different fractions of the Opposition drew +together; on June 11 a vote of want of confidence was carried by a +majority of 13, and Lord Derby immediately resigned. + +In opposition Lord Stanley devoted himself chiefly to the class of +questions that had occupied him before his accession to office. He +served on the long Cambridge University Commission, and supported the +admission of Nonconformists to Fellowships. He was also warmly in +favour of the measure which made it possible for clergymen to free +themselves from their Orders and to adopt other professions. He +presided over the Commission on the Sanitary State of the Indian Army +and over the Commission on Patents. Like Disraeli, he displayed during +the American Civil War a reticence and reserve which contrasted very +favourably with the rash language of other leaders. + +In 1862 a curious episode occurred which showed at least the +widespread reputation that he had acquired. Prince Alfred having +refused the throne of Greece, the idea was for a short time +entertained of offering it to Lord Stanley. 'If he accepts,' Disraeli +wrote to his friend Mrs. Willyams, 'I shall lose a powerful friend and +colleague. It is a dazzling adventure for the house of Stanley, but +they are not an imaginative race, and I fancy they will prefer +Knowsley to the Parthenon and Lancashire to the Attic Plains.' 'The +Greeks really want to make my friend Lord Stanley their king. This +beats any novel; but he will not. Had I his youth I would not +hesitate, even with the earldom of Derby in the distance.' + +It does not appear that this proposal ever took a very serious form, +and if it had been made there is little doubt that Disraeli formed a +just forecast of what would have been the result. The death of Lord +Palmerston on October 18, 1865, gave a new turn to the political +kaleidoscope: Lord Russell became Prime Minister; the policy of reform +was pushed into the forefront, and the Reform Bill of 1866 speedily +produced a secession in the Liberal ranks and led to the downfall of +the Ministry. The feature of the Bill which specially lent itself to +attack was that it dealt solely with reduction of the franchise, +leaving the question of the distribution of seats to subsequent +legislation, and an amendment was moved by Lord Grosvenor to the +effect that no Bill for the reduction of the franchise should be +discussed till the whole scheme was before the House. This amendment +was seconded by Lord Stanley in a speech which Lord Malmesbury +pronounced to be 'the finest and most statesmanlike speech he ever +made.' In June the Government were beaten by a small majority on an +amendment of Lord Dunkellin substituting rating for rental; a few days +later Lord Russell resigned and Lord Derby for the third time became +Prime Minister. + +As on the two former occasions he was in a minority, though the +temporary secession of a portion of the Liberal party gave him a +precarious power. Once more, too, he took office amid the convulsions +of a European war, for the war of Prussia and Italy with Austria had +just begun. In the new Ministry Lord Stanley was Secretary for Foreign +Affairs. In his election address he gave the keynote of his policy by +insisting in the strongest terms that England should observe a strict +neutrality in European controversies. Her vast Indian and Colonial +Empire, he said, made her a world apart and threw upon her duties and +responsibilities that taxed all her energies. She had duties also to +her poorer classes at home, whose condition was not what we could +desire; and by simply existing as a free, prosperous, and +self-governed nation, we should do more for the real freedom of Europe +than by any policy of meddling or war. + +As far as his own department was concerned Lord Stanley's +administration during this short Ministry was both eminently +consistent and eminently successful. It is true that this pacific +Minister made the Abyssinian war for the release of some imprisoned +British subjects, but he only did this after every peaceful effort to +procure their release had proved abortive, and it was almost +universally recognised that there was no honourable alternative open +to him. During his ministry the Luxemburg question brought France and +Prussia to the very verge of war. It fell to the task of Lord Stanley +to mediate between them, and he did so with a success which certainly +adjourned, though it could not ultimately avert, the great catastrophe +that burst upon Europe in 1870. No success could have been more +gratifying to him, and he was fond of repeating the saying of Canning +that 'If a war must come sooner or later, for my part I prefer that it +should come later than sooner.' Lord Russell bore an ungrudging +testimony to the 'tact and discretion' Lord Stanley displayed in this +negotiation. In the same spirit he refused to take part in a +conference of European Powers which the French Emperor desired to +convene to settle the Roman question, declaring that this question was +one with which England should in no way meddle, and that a conference +would be useless and dangerous unless a basis were laid down before. +He refused to interfere in any way with the Cretan rebellion, and with +the impending disputes between Turkey and Greece. His abstention on +this question was blamed by some, but it met with the full approbation +of his great opponent, Lord Russell, who declared that 'he had acted +with much prudence and discretion.' He laid the foundation also of the +settlement of the long outstanding difficulty with America by +proposing to refer the Alabama question to arbitration, and he +negotiated a treaty on the subject, which, however, the Senate refused +to ratify. + +In all this he was very consistent. The same consistency cannot be +claimed for his support of a Reform Bill far more Radical than that +which his party had so recently rejected. In my own judgment it is +impossible to defend with success the conduct of the Derby Ministry on +this question, and although Lord Stanley took only a subsidiary part +in it, he cannot escape his share of the responsibility. The +difficulty of the position of the eldest son of the Prime Minister who +was taking this 'leap in the dark' was very great, and it must be +remembered that he had long been identified with the more democratic +wing of his party. After the great agitation that followed the +downfall of the Russell Ministry, he probably regarded a democratic +measure as inevitable, and it was the character of his mind to be very +ready to accept what he considered the inevitable, and to endeavour by +timely compromise to mitigate its effects. Lord Derby's health was now +completely broken, and on February 24, 1868, he resigned office, and +Disraeli became Prime Minister. + +Mr. Gladstone soon re-united the sundered sections of the Opposition +by raising the question of the Disestablishment of the Irish Church. +The resolutions asserting the expediency of this policy were +introduced into the House of Commons in April. Lord Stanley was put +forward as the principal opponent. His amendment expressed no opinion +about the merits of the proposed policy, but simply affirmed that it +was a question which ought to be reserved for a new Parliament which +was soon to be elected under an altered franchise. In his speech he +disclaimed any wish to maintain that the Irish Church Establishment +was what it ought to be, but urged that in the condition of Ireland a +merely destructive measure would do nothing but harm, that it would +serve no good purpose to attack the Establishment without laying down +the lines of a definite, constructive ecclesiastical policy, and that +it was absurd to launch such a question in the last session of an +expiring Parliament. The more ardent spirits of the Tory party +strongly censured the ambiguity of this defence, and the Government +were beaten by majorities of 56 and 60. The House of Commons was +dissolved in the autumn and a large Liberal majority returned. +Disraeli at once resigned without waiting for the assembling of +Parliament. + +In October 1869 the death of Lord Derby terminated the career of his +son in the House of Commons, and the following year added very greatly +to the happiness of his life by his marriage with the Dowager +Marchioness of Salisbury. His attitude in opposition is clearly shown +in his published speeches. He had no wish to see the Conservative +party again in office till they possessed an assured and homogeneous +majority, and he maintained that it should be their main object to +strengthen the influence of the more moderate section in the +Government. He believed that by habitually pursuing this policy they +would best prevent revolutionary changes, mitigate by wise compromises +measures which they did not wholly approve, secure the continuance of +the harmony of classes, on which more than on any other condition the +prosperity of England depends, and gradually strengthen their own hold +on the confidence of the country. It was also his earnest desire that +English politics should be turned as much as possible from a policy of +organic change to a policy of administrative reform. He considered it +a great evil that public men had acquired the habit of continually +tampering with the existing legislative machinery instead of wisely +using it for the benefit of the whole nation. The party system, as he +always thought, had falsified the perspective of English politics, +bringing into the foreground comparatively unimportant questions which +were well suited to rally parties and win majorities; thrusting into +the background others which were immeasurably more important, but +which were less available for party purposes. What Carlyle called 'The +Condition of England Question' was always in his thoughts. No one +would accuse him of under-rating the evils of war, but he questioned +whether the most sanguinary battle which had ever been fought carried +off nearly as many human beings as die in England every year from +purely preventible causes. He threw the whole force of his clear and +penetrating intellect into such questions as sanitary reform, the +regulation of mines, the promotion of education and especially +technical education, the organisation of charities, the treatment of +juvenile offenders, the diffusion of wise methods of encouraging +saving among the poor. The overcrowding of the great cities, and the +vast masses of insanitary dwellings, seemed to him one of the most +pressing dangers of the time, and he was a prominent member of nearly +every important company and association in England for improving the +houses of artisans. He had no puritanism in his nature and was very +anxious, by the establishment of free libraries and people's parks, +and Sunday opening of museums, to extend the range of innocent +pleasure. 'Men die,' he once said, 'for want of cheerfulness, as +plants die for want of light.' He did not believe in the repression of +drunkenness by coercive legislation like the Local Veto Bill, but he +believed that its true root lay in overcrowding, ignorance, insanitary +conditions of life, the want of innocent means of enjoyment, excessive +hours of labour. 'When you have to deal with men in masses,' he said, +'the connection between vice and disease is very close. With a low +average of popular health you will have a low average of national +morality and probably also of national intellect. Drunkenness and +vice of other kinds will flourish on such a soil, and you cannot get +healthy brains to grow on unhealthy bodies. Cleanliness and +self-respect grow together, and it is no paradox to affirm that you +tend to purify men's thoughts and feelings when you purify the air +they breathe.' He supported liberally the movement for establishing +coffee-houses, and he looked with great hope to the co-operative +movement as averting or mitigating industrial conflicts. 'The subject +of co-operation,' he said, 'is in my judgment more important as +regards the future of England than nine-tenths of those which are +discussed in Parliament, and around which political controversies +gather.' As the possessor of one of the largest properties in England +he was excellently informed on all agricultural questions, and he +exercised a great influence upon them. Among other services he +dispelled many misrepresentations by obtaining an accurate return of +the numbers of owners of land in the United Kingdom, and of the +quantity of land which they owned. + +With the single exception of Lord Shaftesbury, I believe no +conspicuous English public man devoted so much time and labour as Lord +Derby to the class of questions I have described. He brought to their +discussion an almost unrivalled fulness of knowledge. His purse was +liberally opened in such causes, and the speeches in which he examined +what Government can do and what it cannot do for the material +well-being of the poor, are in my judgment among the most valuable +contributions to political thought that have been furnished by any +English statesman during the present century. + +The election of 1874, bringing the Conservative party again into +power, called him to other fields, and he became for the second time +Foreign Secretary under Disraeli, and was soon involved in that +Eastern Question which led to his severance from the Conservative +party. It would answer no good purpose in a short sketch like the +present to rake up the still smouldering ashes of that controversy. +The time will come when it will be reviewed in the calm light of +history, and with the assistance of materials that are not now before +the public. I shall here content myself with a mere sketch. In the +earlier stages of their foreign policy the Government appear to have +been perfectly agreed. Lord Derby fully concurred in the purchase of +the Khedive's shares in the Suez Canal, which was one of the most +successful strokes of policy of the Government, though he defended it +on somewhat more prosaic grounds than some of its supporters, and was +careful to explain that it was essentially a measure of self-defence, +and not connected with any project for the dismemberment of Turkey or +the establishment of an English protectorate in Egypt. When the +insurrection broke out in 1875 in Herzegovina and Bosnia, neither Lord +Derby nor any of his colleagues believed it to be more than a mere +passing disturbance. But the feebleness manifested by the Turkish army +in suppressing the insurrection, and the partial bankruptcy of the +Government at Constantinople, contributed with many elements of race +and religious dissension, with foreign intrigue and local +misgovernment, to aggravate the sore, and the movement soon acquired +the dimensions of a great European danger. In sending an English +Consul in conjunction with the Consuls of the other Powers to the +scene of insurrection, in order, if possible, to arrive at a +mediation; in the acceptance of the Andrassy Note, by which the three +Imperial Powers laid down the reforms which they considered urgently +necessary; in the rejection of the Berlin Memorandum, on the ground +that the Porte could not or would not carry out its demands, and that +it would almost certainly lead to an armed intervention; and finally, +in sending the British fleet to Besika Bay for the purpose of +protecting English and Christian interests at Constantinople, at a +time when that city was in a state of almost complete anarchy, the +Government were fully agreed, and they carried with them an immense +majority in Parliament and in the country. For some time, also, the +country seemed to approve of the policy which Lord Derby uniformly +avowed and steadily observed, of maintaining a strict neutrality in +the contest that was raging; doing all that could be done by advice, +remonstrance, mediation, and moral influence to induce the Porte to +carry out internal reforms; warning the Turkish Government in clear +terms that under the circumstances of the case they must not look for +any military assistance from England, but at the same time +discouraging as much as possible the active interference of other +Powers in the affairs of Turkey, and abstaining rigidly from any step +that would involve the use of force or the chance of war unless some +serious English interest was affected. He believed that the integrity +of the Turkish Empire was a vital English interest, and that any +attempt to substitute a Slavonic for a Turkish Empire would bring upon +Europe calamities the extent of which it was impossible to exaggerate +or to foresee. Russia and Austria would at once come into collision; +England would almost certainly be drawn into the war, and all the +fierce elements of race hatred and religious fanaticism would be let +loose. + +For a time most English politicians seem to have agreed with him, and +his one great object was to bring about an armistice, a mediation, and +a peace. But the popular agitation which arose in England on the +subject of the Bulgarian atrocities in the summer and autumn of 1876 +added enormously to his difficulties, and the danger was the greater +because some skilful party management was blended with much genuine +philanthropy. The speeches addressed by Lord Derby to the successive +deputations that came to him, give the best explanation and defence of +his position during this critical period, and the interruptions to +which he had to reply give a vivid picture of the state of feeling +that had arisen. The Crimean war was now deplored as a calamity, if +not a crime. The Turks were described on high political authority as +'the one great anti-human specimen of humanity.' The Ministers were +accused of complicity in the Bulgarian massacres; they were urged to +cast neutrality to the wind; to adopt a policy of armed coercion in +Turkey; even to assist Russia in driving the Turks out of +Constantinople. It had become, as Lord Derby sarcastically said, a +very unpopular thing for an English Minister to talk of English +interests in connection with the Eastern Question--almost dangerous +for any man at a public meeting to express in plain terms his doubt of +the disinterested philanthropy of Russia. + +Lord Derby had at this time to encounter much unpopularity. He was +accused of an undue leaning towards the Turkish Government, and an +inadequate sympathy with the Christian populations, and it was alleged +that if he had acted in firm concert with the other Powers in coercing +the Porte--if he had not proclaimed so loudly and constantly his +determination to abstain from all active interference and +compulsion--his remonstrances would have had more effect, and he might +have averted or restricted the calamities that had occurred. But a +great change soon took place. The first object of the Government was +to prevent the Turkish disturbance from leading to a European war, and +in this object they failed. On April 24, 1877, Russia, in spite of +English remonstrances, declared war against Turkey. On the same day a +Russian army crossed the Pruth, and the Eastern Question entered into +a new and dangerous phase. + +To a statesman like Lord Derby, who maintained that war, unless it is +a necessity, is a crime; that the maintenance of peace is beyond all +comparison the greatest of British interests, the months that followed +were extremely trying. His first object was to limit the war, and to +safeguard English interests, and for this purpose he drew up on May 6, +1877, a Note defining the English interests that were vital in the +East. He warned the Russian Government that an attempt by Russia to +blockade the Suez Canal, an attack on Egypt, a Russian occupation of +Constantinople, or an alteration of the existing arrangements for the +navigation of the Bosphorus or the Dardanelles might compel England to +abandon her neutrality. Russia accepted these conditions, and for some +time there appeared every prospect of limiting the war. But in the +beginning of 1878 a period of extreme danger undoubtedly arrived. +Plevna had fallen. The Turkish resistance had collapsed. A Russian +army, flushed with victory, had advanced to near Constantinople. The +treaty of San Stephano was signed; which in the opinion of most +European statesmen placed Turkey at the feet of Russia, and Russia at +first refused to submit its terms to a conference of European Powers. +Public feeling in England now ran strongly in a direction almost +opposite to that in which it had been running eighteen months before, +and the nation was extremely alarmed at the danger of Constantinople +becoming speedily and irremediably a Russian port. On the other hand, +the national and military pride of the conquering Power was aroused, +and it was felt that a single false step, a single imprudent menace, +might lead to war. + +It was one of those moments in which men's judgments are largely +affected by their temperaments, and it soon became evident that the +Cabinet was seriously divided. Disraeli had now become Lord +Beaconsfield, and sat with his Foreign Secretary in the House of +Lords. With his character it was inevitable that he should meet the +danger by a bold, decisive, and even aggressive, policy. It was no +less natural that Lord Derby should have persistently leaned towards +the side of caution and shrunk from any measure that could cut short +negotiation and diminish the chances of peace. The order given that +the British Fleet should enter the Dardanelles, first produced the +inevitable schism, and Lord Derby and Lord Carnarvon resigned. The +order was countermanded, and Lord Derby, for a short time, resumed his +post. He acquiesced, but with great reluctance, in the vote of credit +for six millions which was at once brought before the House of +Commons, but he was soon convinced that measures he did not approve of +were impending, and when orders were given for calling out the +reserves he definitely resigned. + +He announced his resignation on March 28, 1878, in terms of much +dignity and moderation. He believed, he said, that his colleagues +desired peace as truly as himself, and he did not maintain that their +later measures led inevitably to war, but he considered that they were +neither necessary nor 'prudent in the interests of European peace.' +He agreed that the terms of the treaty should be submitted to a +European Congress, in which England should take part. On minor matters +he thought it his duty to waive his own opinion, but he could not do +so on a question involving the momentous issue of peace or war. The +threat involved in the last act of the Government, he said, in a later +speech, would make it more difficult for Russia to modify her policy, +and he believed that without a threat such a modification of the +treaty of San Stephano could be obtained as would make it acceptable. +He had been accused of indecision and even of cowardice. For his own +part he thought it needed more courage to stand up in his place to +express views which he knew to be unpopular among the great body of +his friends, than to sit at a desk in Downing Street and issue orders +which would bring no danger or unpopularity to himself, but might +bring about a European war. + +The short speech in which Lord Beaconsfield accepted the resignation, +and dwelt on the long friendship, personal as well as political, that +bound him to Lord Derby, seems to me a perfect model of good feeling +and good taste. Unfortunately the example of the Prime Minister was +not followed, and words used in a later debate went far to make the +breach irrevocable. + +Lord Derby for a short time maintained a neutral position, but the +foreign policy of Lord Beaconsfield was in the highest degree +distasteful to him. A wave of Chauvinism was passing over England, +which was utterly opposed to his views, and he believed that a section +of the Conservative party encouraged it in order to divert the +thoughts of men from internal reforms. He objected to the acquisition +of Cyprus, to some of the responsibilities assumed by England under +the treaty of Berlin, and very strongly to the Afghan war; and in the +beginning of 1880 he formally attached himself to the Liberal party, +on the ground of his objections to the foreign policy of the +Government. His speeches in his new capacity differed very little from +those which he had formerly delivered, but he said that he had learnt +to see more clearly the uselessness of attempting to resist popular +ideas, and to think 'more highly of the moderation, the fairness, and +the general justice with which masses of men, including all conditions +of life, are disposed to use their power.' He thought that England +should mix herself as little as possible with 'the sanguinary muddle' +of European diplomacy; that she should avoid increasing her +responsibilities; that she should take stringent measures to reduce +her debt; that she should pay much more attention than she was +accustomed to do to the condition of her own poorer population; and +that it should be the object of her statesmen to meet every great +popular demand by wise and equitable compromise. One of the greatest +dangers, he said, that could befall the country, would be 'a state of +things in which the comparatively harmless antagonism of parties would +be replaced by the far more serious and dangerous war of classes. From +that danger more than from any other it is the business of a +well-considered Liberalism to protect us.' + +In 1882 he accepted the Colonial Office from Mr. Gladstone, and held +it until the fall of the Government in the summer of 1885. His +ministry was not a very eventful one, and it was marked by that steady +adherence to a middle line which had always characterised him. He +congratulated the country that the indifference to our colonies which +had prevailed during his youth had passed away, but he was by no means +favourable to extensions of the Empire. 'We have quite black men +enough,' he was accustomed to say; and he believed that any increase +of our responsibilities was likely to endanger the Empire, and to +divert the energies of politicians from pressing home questions. He +did not condemn the policy which led to the occupation of Egypt by +England, but he declared that even if it was inevitable it was a +misfortune, and that we ought to 'see that we do not on any pretext, +however plausible, get that Egyptian millstone tied permanently round +our necks.' He was very sceptical about Imperial Federation, and +entirely incredulous about the possibility of an Imperial Zollverein. +He deplored the protectionism of the colonies, but was himself a +strict free-trader of the school of Cobden, and utterly opposed to any +attempt to negotiate treaties with the colonies on a basis of +preferential tariffs. On the other hand, he showed himself quite ready +to favour Confederation in Australia, and he accepted gratefully +Australian help in the Soudan, but he was much alarmed by tendencies +in some colonies which might lead to complications with foreign +Powers, and he incurred considerable unpopularity in Australia by +refusing to consent to the annexation by Queensland of New Guinea. + +There is, however, one incident in the colonial administration of Lord +Derby on which it is necessary to dwell at somewhat greater length, +for subsequent events have given it an unfortunate prominence and it +has thrown some discredit on his statesmanship. I allude, of course, +to the convention with the Transvaal in 1884. In the preceding +convention, which had been signed in August 1881, complete +self-government had been granted by England to the Transvaal 'subject +to the suzerainty of her Majesty' and her successors, and also to a +large number of carefully specified reservations and limitations. They +comprised the complete control of the external relations of the +Transvaal, including the conclusion of treaties and the conduct of +diplomatic intercourse with foreign Powers, which could only be +carried on through her Majesty's officers; the right of moving British +troops in case of necessity through the Transvaal; a power of veto +over all legislation affecting the interests of the native population. +A number of articles prohibited slavery in the new State; protected +with much detail the interests of the native population; secured +complete religious liberty; established the right of all persons other +than natives who conformed themselves to the laws of the State, to +enter, travel, and reside in any part of the Transvaal, to acquire +property and to carry on their business without being subject to any +other taxation than that which was imposed on the citizens of the +Transvaal; and placed British imports and exports on the same plane as +those of the most-favoured nations. The limits of the new State were +carefully defined and a British Resident was established in the +Transvaal to superintend the carrying out of these provisions. There +was no express provision in the convention for the political +privileges of the English residents in the Transvaal, but the +Government appear to have relied on a not very explicit verbal +assurance given to the British Commissioners by President Kruger in +May 1881. Asked about the rights of British subjects to complete free +trade throughout the Transvaal, President Kruger answered that before +the annexation 'they were on the same footing as the burghers'; that +'there was not the slightest difference in accordance with the Sand +River convention'; that this state of things would be continued and +that 'there would be equal protection for everybody.' Sir Evelyn Wood +then added, 'and equal privileges?' 'We make no difference,' answered +President Kruger, 'so far as burgher rights are concerned. There may +perhaps be some slight difference in the case of a young person who +has just come into the country.' It was subsequently explained that +the words 'young person' did not refer to age, but to the time of +residence in the Republic--according to the old Transvaal +Constitution, a year's residence in the Republic was necessary for +naturalisation. With this assurance the Government of 1881 appears to +have been content. They believed in words expressly sanctioned by Mr. +Gladstone, that the concession of limited independence to the +Transvaal by the convention of 1881 would 'provide for the full +liberty and equal treatment of the entire white population, guard the +interests of the natives, and promote harmony and good-will among the +various races in South Africa.'[43] As a matter of fact, the only +change in the political position of the English residents in the +Transvaal was that the period of naturalisation was extended from one +to five years--a change which appears to have produced little or no +commotion in the Republic. + +The convention of 1881 was, however, extremely unpopular among a large +section of the Boer population. Complete independence was their avowed +object, and in order to attain it their first task was to abolish the +suzerainty of Great Britain. Almost immediately after the convention +was signed, the limitations of the Transvaal established by the +convention were flagrantly disregarded by Transvaal filibusters, who +proceeded with the tacit and even with the avowed countenance of their +Government to place new sections of native territory under the +exclusive protectorate of the Transvaal Government;[44] and a +deputation, headed by President Kruger, came to England in 1883 for +the purpose of negotiating with the Colonial Office for the abolition +of the chief articles of the convention of 1881. They avowed with +complete frankness that absolute independence would alone satisfy +them, and that their desire was to revert to the Sand River convention +of 1852, by which this independence had been recognised. This demand +was absolutely rejected by the Imperial Government, but Lord Derby +attempted to meet the objections of the Transvaal leaders by +substituting for the articles of the convention of 1881 new articles +in several respects more favourable to the pretensions of the Boers. + +He, in the first place, made a sentimental concession to which it is +probable he attached little importance, but which was regarded by the +Boer population as a considerable step towards the achievement of +their independence. The term 'Transvaal State,' which was accepted in +the convention of 1881 as the designation of the new State, was +dropped and the old title of 'South African Republic' was revived and +recognised. The question of suzerainty was dealt with in a somewhat +ambiguous fashion. The new convention purported only to substitute new +articles in the place of those of the preceding convention; and it was +afterwards argued that the old preamble, which asserted at once the +internal independence of the Transvaal and the suzerainty of Great +Britain, remained in force. In fact, however, this preamble was +neither reprinted nor replaced in the new convention, and the term +'suzerainty,' which occurred in the original draft of the document, +was deliberately expunged--it is said by Lord Derby himself. He +considered the term wholly wanting in the precision which is desirable +in a treaty arrangement, that it was capable of many different degrees +of extension, and that the fact of the paramountcy of Great Britain +over the new State might be sufficiently established without the use +of an ambiguous word which excited the most bitter hostility in the +Transvaal. His own words in defending his conduct in the House of +Lords are perfectly clear. 'The word suzerainty,' he said, 'is a very +vague word, and I do not think it is capable of any precise legal +definition. Whatever we may understand by it, I think it is not very +easy to define. But I apprehend whether you call it a protectorate, or +a suzerainty, or the recognition of England as a paramount Power, the +fact is that a certain controlling power is retained when the State +which exercises this suzerainty has a right to veto any negotiation +into which the dependent State may enter with foreign Powers. Whatever +suzerainty meant in the convention of Pretoria (1881), the condition +of things which it implies still remains; although the word is not +actually employed, we have kept the substance. We have abstained from +using the word because it was not capable of legal definition, and +because it seemed to be a word which was likely to lead to +misconception and misunderstanding.' + +The articles of the previous convention relating to slavery, to native +rights, to free trade, to religious liberty, to the rights of +residence of foreigners in the Transvaal, reappear in the new +convention, and the limits of the State were somewhat more fully +defined, but the controlling power of Great Britain over the foreign +policy of the Transvaal, though clearly reasserted, was somewhat +limited in its scope. It was provided that the South African Republic +should conclude no treaty or engagement with any State or nation other +than the Orange Free State, or with any native tribe to the eastward +or westward of the Republic, until the same had been approved by the +Queen; that every such treaty should be at once submitted to her +Majesty's Government for her consent, but that this consent should be +presumed to have been granted if no notification to the contrary was +received within six months. The desire of the Transvaal authorities to +be recognised as representing an independent sovereign power was thus +distinctly rejected, and the English Government positively refused a +proposal to admit foreign arbitration in cases of dispute between +England and the Transvaal. + +This convention has been severely censured by later writers on the +ground of the insufficiency and ambiguity of its assertion of the +paramount authority of Great Britain over the Transvaal, and of its +failure to do anything to supply the great deficiency in the preceding +convention by an article securing political equality for the British +population within it. A few years later, when an immense English +immigration had taken place, not only with the consent but at the +express invitation of the Transvaal Government; when the English +element formed a large majority of the inhabitants of the State; when +they paid an enormous preponderance of its taxation, and were the +chief agents in developing its wealth and raising it from the position +of a very poor pastoral community into that of a great and wealthy +State, the Transvaal Government proceeded to impose upon the new +emigrants disqualifications and disabilities which were utterly +unknown when England conceded self-government to 'the inhabitants of +the Transvaal.' They completely deprived the vast majority of +political power or local self-government, and surrounded them at every +turn with the most irritating disabilities. The Transvaal became the +one part of South Africa where one white race was held in a position +of inferiority to another. At a time when perfect equality was enjoyed +by the Dutch population in our own colonies, the political +disqualification of the English race was made the very corner-stone of +the policy of the Transvaal Government. An annual revenue greatly in +excess of what was required for its internal government was raised +almost entirely from the taxation of an unrepresented class, to whom +the prosperity of the State was mainly due, and it was employed in +accumulating a great armament which could only be intended for use +against England and for maintaining the subjection of an English +population. + +This was the position to which the paramount Power in South Africa, +the Power which of its own free will had conceded a limited +independence to the Transvaal, found itself reduced. And yet it was +possible for the Boer Government to maintain that there was nothing in +all this legislation which was inconsistent with the terms of the +convention of 1884. + +I do not think that the justice of this criticism can be wholly +denied. The Transvaal authorities had already given clear intimation +of their desire to emancipate themselves from all British control, and +especially of their determination to disregard the limitations which +had been imposed on the expansion of their State. There is, however, +one very material fact to be remembered in judging the policy of Lord +Derby. At the time of the convention of 1884 the English population in +the Transvaal was a small, scattered, and powerless minority, and as +their numbers were far too scanty to make them a danger to the State, +there was not much reason to believe that the Transvaal authorities +would repudiate their own assurances and subject them to oppressive +disabilities. It was not until two years after the convention that the +vast gold-mines of the Transvaal were discovered and all the +conditions of the South African problem fundamentally changed. The +gigantic immigration that ensued reversed the proportion between the +two races. The revenue and the expenditure of the State multiplied +more than fifteen fold in little more than ten years.[45] The +Transvaal became the most powerful and wealthy State in South Africa, +and the great preponderance of the Outlander element in numbers, +wealth, energy, and industry rendered a conflict of races almost +inevitable. No statesman could have foreseen this change, and a +convention that might have allayed discontent if the gold-mines had +never been discovered, proved wholly inefficient to meet it. + +Though in a politician of the stamp of Lord Derby the change from a very +liberal conservatism to a very conservative liberalism involved little +real modification of opinion, it necessarily involved some change of +attitude, and on some questions he spoke with a freedom which would have +been impossible as a member of the Conservative party. On Church +questions, for example, while strongly maintaining that the country was +not ripe for the disestablishment of the Church in England, he declared +that in his opinion the exclusive alliance of one religious denomination +among many with the State could not be permanently maintained side by +side with a democratic representation--that disestablishment and at +least partial disendowment must ultimately come; that if the +representatives of Scotland desired the disestablishment of their +Church, it was not for Englishmen to oppose them; and that Wales had a +strong claim to be separately dealt with. 'The Welsh people constitute +in many respects a distinct nationality, and I do not see why we should +refuse to Welsh loyalty what we have granted to Irish sedition.' On the +subject of endowments indeed as early as 1875 his view was that of most +moderate Liberals. 'To my mind, so far as right is concerned, the +Legislature may do what it chooses in regard to any endowment, without +injustice, provided only that the rights of living individuals are +respected. How far it is politic to use that power is another matter.... +Respect the founder's object, but use your own discretion as to the +means. If you don't do the first, you will have no new endowments. If +you neglect the last, those which you have will be of no use.'[46] He +maintained that the question of local government had in England become +one of pressing importance, and that the administration of county +affairs must be put into the hands of elective bodies. He would give +those local parliaments very large power--but he most urgently insisted +on the importance of one restriction. The new bodies must not be given +an unlimited power of mortgaging the future. The gradual reduction of +the National Debt had been for some years one of the chief aims of +enlightened politicians, but all that had been done in this direction +would be undone if, side by side with the National Debt, there grew up a +municipal debt of perhaps equal amount. In this tendency to municipal +extravagance he saw one of the gravest menaces to property. 'The growth +of Socialism throughout Europe has followed very closely on the gigantic +increase of national indebtedness during the present century, and men +who begin to feel the pressure intolerable are apt to raise questions, +more easily stated than solved, as to the right of any State to impose +burdens in perpetuity for the benefit of one generation.' He urged that +every local body which contracted a debt should be under a statutory +obligation to provide for its repayment in fifty or sixty years at +latest. + +The growth of municipal indebtedness; the excessive tendency to +increase the functions of the State; the disaffection of Ireland and +the contingency of an isolated and disloyal body of some eighty Irish +representatives offering their services to any party which would +consent to carry out their designs, appeared to Lord Derby the chief +dangers of English domestic politics. The last danger was very +speedily realised, and the sudden conversion of Mr. Gladstone to Home +Rule produced one more change in the attitude of Lord Derby. On this +question he had never flinched or wavered, and he at once took his +place in the front rank of the Liberal Unionists, whom for some time +he led in the House of Lords. I do not know that the Unionist case has +ever been more powerfully put forward than in his speeches on the +subject, and the eminently judicial character of his mind, and his +entire freedom from all mere party bias, gave a special weight to his +advocacy. With this exception he took little part in party politics +during the last years of his life, but he devoted himself largely to +social questions, and among other things served with great assiduity +and ability on the Labour Commission. His last speech was delivered at +Manchester on the unveiling of the statue of Mr. Bright in October +1891. His last public work was that of presiding over the Labour +Commission in May 1892. In the preceding year an attack of influenza, +followed by a relapse, had shattered a health which had hitherto been +robust. Other complications ensued, and he passed away at Knowsley on +April 21, 1893, in his sixty-seventh year. + +The foregoing sketch will, I hope, have given a sufficient idea of his +public character. Few men have made a greater sacrifice of ambition to +a conscientious conviction than he did, when, rather than support a +measure which might lead to war, he abandoned the Conservative +Ministry in 1878. He was then the fully recognised successor of Lord +Beaconsfield, and if he had adopted a different course he would in a +short time have been, beyond all doubt, Prime Minister of England. On +the whole, however, the severance from old friends cost him, I +believe, far more than the sacrifice of his political prospects. +Whatever he may have been in his youth, he was certainly not in mature +life an ambitious man. With the great position he held in England the +world had little to offer him, and the self-knowledge which was not +the least of his many remarkable gifts showed him that party conflict +was not the sphere in which Nature intended him to move. With many of +the qualities of the highest statesmanship he wanted some necessary +ingredients of a great statesman. He wanted the power of appealing to +the imagination and moving the passions. He wanted more decision of +character, more power of initiative, more capacity of bearing lightly +the weight of a great responsibility. His belief that the House of +Lords must always ultimately yield to the House of Commons aggravated +a weakness of resolution which was deeply rooted in his nature. There +were moments when his inveterate moderation tended to exasperate, and +he was accused, not altogether without reason, of sometimes making +admirable speeches, pointing out in the clearest terms all the evils +and dangers of a measure, and then concluding by exhorting the House +of Lords to vote for it, introducing mitigating amendments in +Committee. The measures he treated in this way usually, as he had +predicted, became law, but this was not the attitude of a great +leader. During a considerable part of his career, like a very large +proportion of moderate men in England, he was in the embarrassing +position of agreeing substantially with the home policy of one party +and with the foreign policy of the other. After the death of Lord +Palmerston an element of passion was infused into public life which +was very uncongenial to his temperament, and English politics passed +into phases in which caution, character, judgment, and knowledge were +less prized than brilliant strokes that appealed to the popular +imagination, clever coalitions, a skilful barter of principles for +votes. In spheres governed by such methods Lord Derby was very useful, +but he was not likely to play a foremost part. + +To few men who have taken a conspicuous part in active politics was +the excitement of such an existence so little necessary. Happy in his +domestic life and in a companionship and sympathy which were +all-sufficient to him, he was not less happy in the wide range of his +interests and duties. The administration of his vast estate would have +been more than sufficient to tax the energies of most men, and it +was, I believe, universally acknowledged that it was admirably +administered. In the everyday affairs of practical life he had no +indecision, and he judged swiftly with the clearest of judgments. +Nothing about him was more remarkable than the apparent ease and the +absence of all hurry and confusion with which he could deal with many +different forms of work. His study in its perfect neatness was more +like a lady's boudoir than the workshop of a very busy man. _Ohne +Hast, ohne Rast_, might have been his motto. He had much belief in the +future of English land, and was not, I think, at all exempt from the +great English landlord's foible of adding field to field. In the long +period of agricultural depression it was easy for a rich man to do so. +'In my experience,' he used to say, 'in nine cases out of ten it is +Naboth who comes to Ahab and begs him to buy his vineyard.' Certainly +no one had reason to complain, for there were few better or more +popular landlords than Lord Derby. In many long walks with him through +his property I was always struck with the evident pleasure with which +he was welcomed by his people, the fulness of knowledge and the +kindness of interest with which he inquired into the circumstances of +every tenant. It is characteristic of him that only two days before +his death he was giving instructions for building a hospital for the +sick poor of Knowsley. I have known few men in whom the desire to make +everyone about them happy was so strongly and so clearly marked. He +was fond of looking minutely into the circumstances of men of +different classes, and comparing their wants with their means, often +with somewhat whimsical results. There was a tradesman who made +regularly 5_l._ a week; who was accustomed every week to devote 2_l._ +to his household expenses, to lay by 2_l._, and to employ the +remainder in getting drunk. He was, Lord Derby thought, the only man +he had ever known who satisfied all his wants with 40 per cent. of his +income, who always laid by 40 per cent., and who expended 20 per cent. +on his pleasures. + +Outside his property Lord Derby had strong county interests. With +perhaps the exception of Birmingham there is no part of England where +a distinctive local patriotism is so intensely developed as in +Lancashire, and Lord Derby in tastes and character was pre-eminently a +Lancashire man, very proud of the greatness, and deeply concerned in +the interests, of his county. In all the vicissitudes of his career, +Liverpool, I believe, never wavered in its attachment to him. He +contributed to the many charitable and philanthropic works with which +he was concerned not only much money, but also--what in so rich a man +was far more meritorious--an extraordinary amount of time and patient +supervision. Among the many offices he accepted, was president of the +Literary Fund for dispensing charity to needy authors, and on the +committee of that charity I had, during many years, ample opportunity +of observing how far he was from treating a presidential position as a +sinecure. The regularity of his attendance, the constant attention he +paid to every detail of the charity; the infinite pains which he would +bestow upon obscure cases of distress, marked him out as a model +president, and many of those whom our rules did not allow us to help +were assisted by his bounty. He contributed with a large but +discriminating generosity to many causes that were conspicuous in the +eyes of the world, but his special bias was towards unostentatious +and unobserved benevolence, and crowds of obscure men in obscure +positions were assisted by him. + +Those who did not know him, and those who had come in merely casual +contact with him, sometimes formed a false impression of his +character. He had a great deal of natural shyness. He had very little +of the gift of small talk. On occasions of mere show and in +uncongenial atmospheres he was apt to be awkward and embarrassed, and +when walking by himself he was extremely absent and quite capable of +brushing against his oldest friend with a complete unconsciousness of +his presence. These traits sometimes gave rise to natural +misinterpretations, which a fuller knowledge always dispelled. No one +who knew Lord Derby could fail to feel that his nature was one of the +most genuine and transparent simplicity, singularly free from all +tinge of arrogance, superciliousness, and acrimony. His personal +tastes were exceedingly simple, and there was not a particle of +ostentation in his character. He delighted in a quiet country life and +had a strong sense of natural beauty. In his youth he had been an +ardent mountaineer, and in later life he had few greater pleasures +than to watch the growth of his plantations. He calculated that he had +planted in his lifetime about two million of trees. + +He was among the best-read men I have ever known. His private library +was one of the finest in England, and he took a keen interest in it. A +love of sumptuous, large-paper editions was indeed one of the very few +luxuries in which from mere personal taste he greatly indulged. Like +all men of literary tastes he had his limitations. German was a closed +book to him. Theology and metaphysics were conspicuous by their +absence. He was certainly not drawn to the mystical, the +unintelligible, or the morbid, either in imaginative or speculative +literature, and although he was a great lover and great buyer of +water-colour pictures, I do not think he had much real sense or +knowledge of art. But he had read very extensively and with great +profit and discrimination in many widely different fields, and his +memory was unusually retentive. He was an excellent literary critic, +and if clear thought and accurate knowledge were what he most valued, +it would be a complete mistake to suppose that he was insensible to +the poetic and imaginative side of literature. He could repeat long +passages from 'Childe Harold,' and I can well remember the delight +which he took in the picturesque narrative of Mr. Froude, and in the +fiery verses of Sir Alfred Lyall. + +He was one of the kindest and most gracious of hosts, and his genuine +unforced good nature and good humour drew to him many whose tastes and +sympathies were widely different from his own. Nature certainly never +intended him for a sportsman, but he preserved game extensively and +until the last years of his life usually went out with his guests. 'I +rather like shooting,' he once said to me, 'it prevents the necessity +of general conversation.' Among kindred spirits, however, his own +conversation was eminently attractive. His wide knowledge both of +books and men, his vast range of political anecdote, his experience of +so many statesmen and offices and departments of life, made it +singularly instructive. He was a very shrewd, and at the same time a +very kind, judge of character; and he had a power, which is certainly +not common, of fully appreciating merits that are allied with great +and manifest defects. He had much quaint, dry humour, and a great +happiness of expression; and one always felt that his opinions were +genuinely thought out--that they were voices and not echoes. His +private conversation had the quality that I have noticed in his +public speeches, of grasping at once the essential elements of a +question and disencumbering it from accessories and details. It is one +of the qualities that add most to the charm of conversation, and, with +the exception of Lord Russell, I do not think I have met with anyone +who possessed it to a greater degree than Lord Derby. He delighted in +long walks with one or two friends, and he might be seen to great +advantage in some small dining-clubs which play a larger part than is +generally recognised in the best English social life of our time. He +had been a member of Grillion's for thirty-seven years, but the +society to which he was most attached was, I think, 'The Club' which +was founded by Johnson and Reynolds. During the nineteen years of +which I can speak from personal experience, he was an almost constant +attendant, and certainly no other member enjoyed a greater popularity +in it, or contributed more largely to its charm. + +He hated cant of all kinds, and had a great distrust of ostentatious +professions of lofty motives. He disliked, I think greatly, the habit +of dragging sacred names into party speeches, and attributing every +party manoeuvre to a solemn sense of duty. Language of this kind +will never be found in his speeches, but I have known few men who were +governed through life more steadily though more unobtrusively by a +sense of duty. He always tried to look facts in the face, and to +promote in the many spheres which he could influence the real +happiness of men. There have been statesmen among his contemporaries +of greater power and of more brilliant achievement. There has been, I +believe, no statesman of sounder judgment and more disinterested +patriotism; there have been very few whose departure has left a void +in so many spheres. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[43] See, on this subject, Cook's _Rights and Wrongs of the Transvaal +War_, pp. 260-265. + +[44] See Westlake's _L'Angleterre et les Republiques Boers_, pp. 30-31. + +[45] See the table of revenue and expenditure in Fitzpatrick's +_Transvaal from Within_, p. 71. + +[46] Inaugural address at Edinburgh University. + + + + +HENRY REEVE, C.B., F.S.A., D.C.L. + + +Although it has never been the custom of the 'Edinburgh Review' to +withdraw the veil of anonymity from its writers and its +administration, it would be mere affectation to suffer it to appear +before the public without some allusion to the great editor whom we +have just lost,[47] and who for forty years has watched with +indefatigable care over its pages. + +The career of Mr. Henry Reeve is perhaps the most striking +illustration in our time of how little in English life influence is +measured by notoriety. To the outer world his name was but little +known. He is remembered as the translator of Tocqueville, as the +editor of the 'Greville Memoirs,' as the author of a not quite +forgotten book on Royal and Republican France, showing much knowledge +of French literature and politics; as the holder during fifty years of +the respectable, but not very prominent, post of Registrar of the +Privy Council. To those who have a more intimate knowledge of the +political and literary life of England, it is well known that during +nearly the whole of his long life he was a powerful and living force +in English literature; that few men of his time have filled a larger +place in some of the most select circles of English social life; and +that he exercised during many years a political influence such as +rarely falls to the lot of any Englishman outside Parliament, or even +outside the Cabinet. + +He was born at Norwich in 1813, and brought up in a highly cultivated, +and even brilliant, literary circle. His father, Dr. Reeve, was one of +the earliest contributors to the 'Edinburgh Review.' The Austins, the +Opies, the Taylors, and the Aldersons were closely related to him, and +he is said to have been indebted to his gifted aunt, Sarah Austin, for +his appointment in the Privy Council. The family income was not large, +and a great part of Mr. Reeve's education took place on the Continent, +chiefly at Geneva and Munich. He went with excellent introductions, +and the years he spent abroad were abundantly fruitful. He learned +German so well that he was at one time a contributor to a German +periodical. He was one of the rare Englishmen who spoke French almost +like a Frenchman, and at a very early age he formed friendships with +several eminent French writers. His translation of the 'Democracy in +America,' by Tocqueville, which appeared in 1835, strengthened his +hold on French society. Two years later he obtained the appointment in +the Privy Council, which he held until 1887. It was in this office +that he became the colleague and fast friend of Charles Greville, who +on his death-bed entrusted him with the publication of his 'Memoirs.' + +Mr. Reeve had now obtained an assured income and a steady occupation, +but it was far from satisfying his desire for work. He became a +contributor, and very soon a leading contributor, to the 'Times,' +while his close and confidential intercourse with Mr. Delane gave him +a considerable voice in its management. The penny newspaper was still +unborn, and the 'Times' at this period was the undisputed monarch of +the Press, and exercised an influence over public opinion, both in +England and on the Continent, such as no existing paper can be said +to possess. It is, we believe, no exaggeration to say that for the +space of fifteen years nearly every article that appeared in its +columns on foreign politics was written by Mr. Reeve, and the period +during which he wrote for it included the year 1848, when foreign +politics had the most transcendent importance. + +The great political influence which he at this time exercised +naturally drew him into close connection with many of the chief +statesmen of his time. With Lord Clarendon especially his friendship +was close and confidential, and he received from that statesman almost +weekly letters during his viceroyalty in Ireland and during others of +the more critical periods of his career. In France, Mr. Reeve's +connections were scarcely less numerous than in England. Guizot, +Thiers, Cousin, Tocqueville, Villemain, Circourt--in fact, nearly all +the leading figures in French literature and politics during the reign +of Louis Philippe were among his friends or correspondents. He was at +all times singularly international in his sympathies and friendships, +and he appears to have been more than once made the channel of +confidential communications between English and French statesmen. + +It was a task for which he was eminently suited. The qualities which +most impressed all who came into close communication with him were the +strength, swiftness, and soundness of his judgment, and his unfailing +tact and discretion in dealing with delicate questions. He was +eminently a man of the world, and had quite as much knowledge of men +as of books. Probably few men of his time have been so frequently and +so variously consulted. He always spoke with confidence and authority, +and his clear, keen-cut, decisive sentences, a certain stateliness of +manner which did not so much claim as assume ascendancy, and a +somewhat elaborate formality of courtesy which was very efficacious in +repelling intruders, sometimes concealed from strangers the softer +side of his character. But those who knew him well soon learnt to +recognise the genuine kindliness of his nature, his remarkable skill +in avoiding friction, and the rare steadiness of his friendships. + +One great source of his influence was the just belief in his complete +independence and disinterestedness. For a very able man his ambition +was singularly moderate. As he once said, he had made it his object +throughout life only to aim at things which were well within his +power. He had very little respect for the judgment of the multitude, +and he cared nothing for notoriety and not much for dignities. A +moderate competence, congenial work, a sphere of wide and genuine +influence, a close and intimate friendship with a large proportion of +the guiding spirits of his time, were the things he really valued, and +all these he fully attained. He had great conversational powers, which +never degenerated into monologue, a singularly equable, happy, and +sanguine temperament, and a keen delight in cultivated society. These +characteristics showed conspicuously in two small and very select +dining-clubs which have included most of the distinguished English +statesmen and men of letters of the century. He became a member of the +Literary Society in 1857 and of Dr. Johnson's Club in 1861, and it is +a remarkable evidence of the appreciation of his social tact that both +bodies speedily selected him as their treasurer. He held that position +in 'The Club' from 1868 till within a year of his death, when failing +health and absence from London obliged him to relinquish it. The +French Institute elected him 'Correspondant' in 1863 and Associated +Member in 1888, in which latter dignity he succeeded Sir Henry Maine. +In 1869 the University of Oxford conferred on him the honorary degree +of D.C.L. + +It was in 1855, on the death of Sir George Cornewall Lewis, that he +assumed the editorship of the 'Edinburgh Review' which he retained +till the day of his death. Both on the political and the literary side +he was in full harmony with its traditions. His rare and minute +knowledge of recent English and foreign political history; his vast +fund of political anecdote; his personal acquaintance with so many of +the chief actors on the political scene, both in England and France, +gave a great weight and authority to his judgments, and his mind was +essentially of the Whig cast. He was a genuine Liberal of the school +of Russell, Palmerston, Clarendon, and Cornewall Lewis. It was a sober +and tolerant Liberalism, rooted in the traditions of the past, and +deeply attached to the historical elements in the Constitution. The +dislike and distrust with which he had always viewed the progress of +democracy deepened with age, and it was his firm conviction that it +could never become the permanent basis of good government. Like most +men of his type of thought and character, he was strongly repelled by +the later career of Mr. Gladstone, and the Home Rule policy at last +severed him definitely from the bulk of the Liberal party. From this +time the present Duke of Devonshire was the leader of his party. + +His literary judgments had much analogy to his political ones. His +leanings were all towards the old standards of thought and style. He +had been formed in the school of Macaulay and Milman, and of the great +French writers under Louis Philippe. Sober thought, clear reasoning, +solid scholarship, a transparent, vivid, and restrained style were the +literary qualities he most appreciated. He was a great purist, +inexorably hostile to a new word. In philosophy he was a devoted +disciple of Kant, and his decided orthodoxy in religious belief +affected many of his judgments. He could not appreciate Carlyle; he +looked with much distrust on Darwinism and the philosophy of Herbert +Spencer and he had very little patience with some of the moral and +intellectual extravagances of modern literature. But, according to his +own standards and in the wide range of his own subjects, his literary +judgment was eminently sound, and he was quick and generous in +recognising rising eminence. In at least one case the first +considerable recognition of a prominent historian was an article in +the 'Edinburgh Review' from his pen. + +He had a strong sense of the responsibility of an editor, and +especially of the editor of a Review of unsigned articles. No article +appeared which he did not carefully consider. His powerful +individuality was deeply stamped upon the Review, and he carefully +maintained its unity and consistency of sentiments. It was one of the +chief occupations and pleasures of his closing days, and the very last +letter he dictated referred to it. + +Time, as might be expected, had greatly thinned the circle of his +friends. Of the France which he knew so well scarcely anything +remained, but his old friend and senior Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire +visited him at Christ Church, and he kept up to the end a warm +friendship with the Duc d'Aumale. He spent his eightieth birthday at +Chantilly, and until the very last year of his life he was never +absent when the Duke dined at 'The Club.' In Lord Derby he lost the +statesman with whom in his later years he was most closely connected +by private friendship and political sympathy, while the death of Lady +Stanley of Alderley deprived him of an attached and lifelong friend. + +Growing infirmities prevented him in his latter days from mixing much +in general society in London, but his life was brightened by all that +loving companionship could give; his mental powers were unfaded, and +he could still enjoy the society of younger friends. He looked forward +to the end with a perfect and a most characteristic calm, without fear +and without regret. It was the placid close of a long, dignified, and +useful life. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[47] Mr. Reeve died October 21, 1895.--ED. + + + + +HENRY HART MILMAN, D.D., DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S. + + +The great prominence which the High Church movement has assumed in the +ecclesiastical history of England during the second and third quarters +of the nineteenth century, and the extraordinary success with which it +has permeated the Established Church by its influence, have led some +writers to exaggerate not a little the place which it occupied in the +general intellectual development of the time. In the universities, it +is true, it long exercised an extraordinary influence, and Mr. +Gladstone, who was by far the most remarkable layman whom it +profoundly influenced, was accustomed to say that for at least a +generation almost the whole of the best intellect of Oxford was +controlled by it. It possessed in Newman a writer of most striking and +undoubted genius. In an age remarkable for brilliancy of style he was +one of the greatest masters of English prose. His power of drawing +subtle distinctions and pursuing long trains of subtle reasoning made +him one of the most skilful of controversialists, and he had a great +insight into spiritual cravings and an admirable gift of interpreting +and appealing to many forms of religious emotion. But though he was a +man of rare, delicate, and most seductive genius, we have sometimes +doubted whether any of his books are destined to take a permanent and +considerable place in English literature. He was not a great scholar, +or an original and independent thinker. Dealing with questions +inseparably connected with historical evidence, he had neither the +judicial spirit nor the firm grasp of a real historian, and he had +very little skill in measuring probabilities and degrees of evidence. +He had a manifest incapacity, which was quite as much moral as +intellectual, for looking facts in the face and pursuing trains of +thought to unwelcome conclusions. He often took refuge from them in +clouds of casuistry. The scepticism which was a marked feature of his +intellect allied itself closely with credulity, for it was directed +against reason itself; and though he has expressed in admirable +language many true and beautiful thoughts, the glamour of his style +too often concealed much weakness and uncertainty of judgment and much +sophistry in argument. + +Many of those who co-operated with him were men of great learning and +distinguished ability. No one will question the patristic knowledge of +Pusey, the metaphysical acumen of Ward, the genuine vein of religious +poetry in Keble and Faber, the wide accomplishments and scholarly +criticism of Church. But on the whole the broad stream of English +thought has gone in other directions. In politics the Oxford movement +had brilliant representatives in Gladstone and Selborne, but the ideal +of the relations of Church and State and the ideal of education to +which the Oxford school aspired, have been absolutely discarded. The +universities have been secularised. The Irish Established Church, +which it was one of the first objects of the party to defend, has been +abolished by Gladstone himself, and although the English Established +Church retains its hold on the affections of the nation, it is +defended by its most skilful supporters on very different grounds and +by very different arguments from those which were put forward by the +Oxford divines. Among the foremost names in lay literature during the +fifty years we are considering, it is curious to observe how few were +even touched by the movement. Froude is an exception, but he speedily +repudiated it. The mediaeval sympathies that were sometimes shown by +Ruskin sprang from a wholly different source. Macaulay, Carlyle, +Hallam, Grote, Mill, Buckle, Tennyson, Browning, and the great +novelists, from Dickens to George Eliot, all wrote very much as they +might have written if the movement had never existed. An unusual +proportion of the best intellect of England passed into the fields of +physical science, and the methods of reasoning and habits of thought +which they inculcated were wholly out of harmony with the school of +Newman, while both geology and Darwinism have made serious incursions +into long-cherished beliefs. Even in the Church itself, though the +High Church movement was stronger than any other, great deductions +have to be made. The school of independent Biblical criticism, which +in various degrees has come to be generally accepted, certainly owed +nothing to it, and several of the most illustrious Churchmen of this +period were wholly alien to it. Thirlwall and Merivale were +conspicuous examples, but they devoted themselves chiefly to great +works of secular history. Arnold--who was one of the strongest +personal influences of his age, and whose influence was both +perpetuated and widened by Dean Stanley--and Whately, who was one of +the most independent and original thinkers of the nineteenth century, +were strongly antagonistic. In the field of ecclesiastical history it +might have been expected that a school which was at once so scholarly +and so wedded to tradition would have been pre-eminent, but no +ecclesiastical histories which England has produced can, on the whole, +be placed on as high a level as those which were written by the great +Broad Church divine whose name stands at the head of this article. + +Milman was, indeed, a man well deserving of commemoration on account +of the works which he produced, yet it is perhaps not too much to say +that to those among whom he lived the man seemed even greater than his +works. For many years he was a central and most popular figure in the +best English literary society, and he reckoned most of the leading +intellects of his day among his friends. He was in an extraordinary +degree many-sided, both in his knowledge and his sympathies. He was an +admirable critic, and the eminent sanity of his judgment, as well as +the eminent kindness of his nature, combined with a great charm both +of manner and of conversation. Few men of his time had more friends, +and were more admired, consulted, and loved. + +Mr. Arthur Milman has sketched his father's life in one short +volume,[48] written in excellent English and with uniformly good +taste. We have read it with much interest, yet in laying it down it is +impossible not to be sensible how much of the personal charm which was +so conspicuous in its subject has passed beyond recovery. More than +thirty years have gone by since the old Dean was laid in his grave, +and but few of those who knew him intimately survive. He appears to +have kept no journal. He wrote nothing autobiographical, and he had a +strong sense of the chasm that should separate private from public +life. It was wholly contrary to his unegotistical nature to make the +great public the confidant of his domestic affairs or of his inner +feelings, and he was deeply sensible of the injustice which is so +often done by biographers in printing unguarded, unqualified opinions +and judgments, expressed in the freedom of private correspondence. He +acted sternly on this view. Many of the foremost men in England were +among his correspondents, but he deliberately burnt their letters. 'I +could never bear,' we have heard him say, 'that what was written to me +by dear friends in the most unreserved and absolute confidence should, +through my fault, be one day dragged before the public.' This +reticence and this strong feeling of the sanctity of friendship and +private correspondence, which is now becoming very rare, was one of +his most characteristic traits, but it has necessarily deprived his +biography of many elements of interest. + +He was the youngest son of Sir Francis Milman, the well-known +physician of George III. He was born in 1791, and educated at Eton and +Oxford, where he soon distinguished himself as one of the most +brilliant of students. He won the Newdigate in 1812, the Chancellor's +prize for Latin verse in 1813, the prize for English and Latin essays +in 1816. He obtained a first class in classics, and in 1815 he was +elected a Fellow of his college. He was ordained in the following +year, and a year later Lord Eldon, who was then Chancellor of the +university, nominated him to the vicarage of St. Mary at Reading, +where he spent eighteen happy and fruitful years. Like most young and +brilliant men, he first turned to verse, and for several years he +poured out in rapid succession a number of dramas and poems which have +been collected in three substantial volumes. The tragedy of 'Fazio' +was written when he was still at Oxford, and it was speedily followed +by a long and ambitious epic poem called 'Samor, Lord of the Bright +City'; by three elaborate sacred dramas, the 'Fall of Jerusalem,' the +'Martyr of Antioch,' and 'Belshazzar'; and by an historical tragedy on +'Anne Boleyn,' as well as by a few minor poems. + +Some of these works had considerable popularity. 'Fazio' for many +years held its place on the stage. Byron, in one of his letters to +Rogers, speaks of its 'great and deserved success' when it was brought +out at Covent Garden. Its heroine was a favourite part of Miss O'Neil +and of Fanny Kemble. It was translated into Italian by Del Ongaro for +Ristori, who acted it with admirable power, and there was also a +French translation or adaptation in which Mademoiselle Mars took part. +The 'Fall of Jerusalem' was never intended for the stage, but it had a +great literary success. Murray, who had given only a hundred and fifty +guineas for 'Fazio,' gave five hundred for the 'Fall of Jerusalem,' +and he gave the same sum both for the 'Martyr of Antioch' and for +'Belshazzar,' which succeeded it. Neither of these, however, proved as +popular as the 'Fall of Jerusalem,' but the 'Martyr of Antioch' +contains that noble funeral ode beginning 'Brother, thou art gone +before us, and thy saintly soul is flown,' which is familiar to +numbers who are probably not aware of its authorship. It is worthy of +notice that as recently as 1880 Sir Arthur Sullivan set the 'Martyr of +Antioch' to music and brought it out at the Leeds Festival, where it +achieved an immediate and brilliant success, and was frequently +performed.[49] On the other hand, 'Samor' and 'Anne Boleyn' were +almost absolute failures, and, on the whole, the longer poems of +Milman have not retained their popularity, and probably now rarely +find a reader. + +Those who turn to them will certainly be struck by the command of +language and metre they display. It was shown both in rhyme and in +blank verse. Many fine odes are scattered through them, and in the +octo-syllabic verse Milman always appears to us peculiarly happy. But +his poetry, like most of the poetry that was written under the Byronic +influence, was rather the poetry of rhetoric than of imagination, and +it wanted both the intensity and the concentration of the great +master. Stately, sonorous, fluent, unfailingly lucid, it was too +lengthy and too artificial, and Lockhart was not wholly wrong in +pronouncing that it showed 'fine talents, but no genius,' and in +urging that prose rather than poetry was the vehicle in which its +author was destined to succeed. In addition, however, to the funeral +ode to which we have referred, Milman has written many hymns, and some +of these are of singular beauty. They appeared originally in the +collection of that other great hymn-writer, Bishop Heber, who was one +of his dearest friends, and one of the men to whose memory he looked +back with the fondest affection. The Good Friday hymn, 'Bound upon th' +accursed tree,' the Palm Sunday hymn, 'Ride on, ride on in majesty,' +and perhaps still more that exquisitely pathetic hymn (so often +misprinted in modern hymn-books) beginning + + When our heads are bowed with woe, + When our bitter tears o'erflow, + +have long since taken their permanent place in devotional literature. + +In another and very different field of poetry also he greatly +excelled. He was an admirable example of that highly finished and +fastidious classical scholarship which is, or was, the pride of our +great public schools, and he took great pleasure in translations from +the classics. He translated into verse the 'Agamemnon' of AEschylus, +and the 'Bacchanals' of Euripides, and also a great number of small +and much less known poems. He held the professorship of poetry at +Oxford from 1821 to 1831, and as his lectures, according to the custom +which then prevailed, were delivered in Latin, he had the happy +thought of diversifying them by English metrical translations of the +different poems he treated. They range over a wide field of obscure +Greek poets, as well as of epitaphs, votive inscriptions, and +inscriptions relating to the fine arts, and in addition to these there +are translations from Sanscrit poetry--a branch of knowledge which was +then very little cultivated, and to which Milman was greatly +attracted. These poems the author published in 1865, but the lectures +in which they were produced he committed to the flames. They had, in +his opinion, lost their value through the subsequent publication of +the works on the history of Greek literature by Bode, Ulrici, Otfried +Mueller, and Mure. + +In prose his pen was exceedingly active. In 1820 he began his long +connection with the 'Quarterly Review,' which continued, with +occasional intervals, through more than forty years. His articles +extended over a great variety of subjects, but most of them were +essentially reviews and essentially critical. The fact that he was +both a poet and an accomplished critic of verse caused some persons to +ascribe to him the authorship of two articles which had an unhappy +reputation--the criticism which was falsely supposed to have hastened +the death of Keats, and the attack upon the 'Alastor' of Shelley, a +poet for whom Milman had a special admiration. It is now well known +that neither of these articles was by him, but it is characteristic of +his loyalty to his colleagues that he never disclaimed the authorship. +This loyalty was indeed not less conspicuous in his nature than the +singular kindness of disposition with which he ever shrank from giving +pain. After his death a few of his many essays in the 'Quarterly' were +collected in one volume. Among them there is an admirable account of +Erasmus, with whom in mental characteristics he had considerable +affinity. + +In 1829 appeared his first historical work, the 'History of the Jews,' +a work which excited a violent storm of theological indignation. The +crime of Milman was that he applied to Jewish history the usual canons +of historical criticism--sifting evidence, discriminating between +documents, pointing out the parallelisms between Jewish conditions and +those of other Oriental nations, and attempting to separate in the +sacred writings the parts which were essential and revealed from those +which were merely human and fallible. In a remarkable preface to a +revised and enlarged edition of this work, which was published thirty +years later, he laid down very clearly the principles that had guided +him. The Jewish writers, in his opinion, were 'men of their age and +country who, as they spoke the language, so they thought the thoughts +of their nation and their time.... They had no special knowledge on +any subject but moral and religious truth to distinguish them from +other men, and were as fallible as others on all questions of science, +and even of history, extraneous to their religious teaching.... Their +one paramount object being instruction and enlightenment in religion, +they left their hearers uninstructed and unenlightened as before in +other things.... In all other respects society, civilisation, +developed itself according to its usual laws. The Hebrew in the +wilderness, excepting as far as the law modified his manners and +habits, was an Arab of the desert. Abraham, except in his worship and +intercourse with the one true God, was a nomad Sheik.... The moral and +religious truth, and this alone, I apprehend, is "the word of God" +contained in the sacred writings.' + +It must also, he contended, be always remembered that the Semitic +records are of an 'essentially Oriental, figurative, poetical cast,' +and that it is therefore wholly erroneous to suppose that every word +can be construed with the precision of an Act of Parliament or of a +simple modern historical narrative. + +His attitude towards the miraculous was carefully defined. He observed +the absolute impossibility of evading the conclusion that the Jewish +writers, whether eye-witnesses or not, implicitly believed in 'the +supernaturalism, the divine or miraculous agency almost throughout the +older history of the Jews,' and that it is 'an integral, inseparable +part of the narrative.' Sometimes it is possible 'with more or less +probability to detect the naked fact which may lie beneath the +imaginative or marvellous language in which it is recorded; but even +in these cases the solution can be hardly more than conjectural.' In +other cases 'the supernatural so entirely predominates and is so of +the intimate essence of the transaction that the facts and the +interpretation must be accepted together or rejected together.' In +such cases it is the duty of the historian simply 'to relate the facts +as recorded, to adduce his authorities, and to abstain from all +explanation for which he has no ground.' + +The distinction between the providential and the strictly miraculous +appears to him impossible to draw. 'Belief in Divine Providence, in +the agency of God as the Prime Mover in the Natural world as in the +mind of Man, is an inseparable part of religion. There can be no +religion without it.' But in numerous cases, to distinguish between +the simply providential and the strictly miraculous implies a +knowledge of the working of natural causes greater than we possess; +and in certain stages of civilisation, and very eminently in the +Jewish mind, there is a marked tendency to suppress secondary causes, +and to attribute not only the more extraordinary but also the common +events of life to direct divine agency. The possibility and the +reality of the miraculous he emphatically asserts. + +'The palmary miracle of all, the Resurrection, stands entirely by +itself. Every attempt to resolve it into a natural event, a delusion +or hallucination in the minds of the disciples, the eye-witnesses and +death-defying witnesses to its truth, or to treat it as an allegory or +figure of speech, is to me a signal failure. It must be accepted as +the keystone--for such it is--and seal to the great Christian doctrine +of a future life, as a historical fact, or rejected as a baseless +fable.' + +But great numbers of what were deemed miracles may be explained by +natural causes, by figurative modes of expression which were common in +Oriental nations, by the tendency of the human mind to embellish or +exaggerate surprising facts, or invent supernatural causes for what it +is unable to explain, by the retrospective imagination which seeks to +dignify the distant past with a supernatural halo. The early annals of +all nations are strewn with pretended miracles which no one will now +maintain, and Milman shows in a powerful passage how the idea of the +miraculous has been steadily contracting and receding; how dangerous +it is to base the defence of Christianity on the evidence of miracles +rather than on appeals to the conscience, the moral sense, the innate +religiousness, the deep spiritual cravings of human nature. + +Such views, though now sufficiently commonplace, seemed very novel in +England when Milman wrote. Dean Stanley described his work as 'the +first decisive inroad of German theology into England; the first +palpable indication that the Bible could be studied like another book; +that the characters and events of sacred history could be treated at +once critically and reverently.' But though Milman was very well +acquainted with German theology, he resented the notion that he was +its interpreter or representative. He contended that in restricting +the province of inspiration to the direct inculcation of religious +truth he was following a sound Anglican tradition. He quoted the +authority of Paley and Warburton, of Tillotson and Secker. In such +principles of interpretation he said he had found 'a safeguard during +a long and not unreflective life against the difficulties arising out +of the philosophical and historical researches of his time.' They had +enabled him 'to follow out all the marvellous discoveries of science, +and all those hardly less marvellous, if less certain, conclusions of +historical, ethnological, linguistic criticism, in the serene +confidence that they are utterly irrelevant to the truth of +Christianity.' 'If on such subjects,' he concluded, 'some solid ground +be not found on which highly educated, reflective, reading, reasoning +men may find firm footing, I can foresee nothing but a wide, a +widening--I fear, an irreparable--breach between the thought and the +religion of England. A comprehensive, all-embracing, truly Catholic +Christianity which knows what is essential to religion, what is +temporary and extraneous to it, may defy the world.' + +These words are taken from the later preface to which we have +referred. In the same preface, and also in his 'History of +Christianity,' may be found some interesting remarks on the German +school of Biblical criticism, the greater portion of which has arisen +since the original publication of the 'History of the Jews.' In many +of its conclusions he had anticipated it, and he was quite as sensible +as the German writers of the hopelessness of seeking scientific +revelations in the Biblical narrative; of the worthlessness of most of +the common schemes for reconciling science and theology; of the +untrustworthy character of Jewish chronology and Jewish figures; of +the grave doubts that hang over the authorship and the date of some of +the books; of the necessity of making full allowance, when reading +them, for human fallibility and inaccuracy. At the same time, his +admiration for the German critics was by no means unqualified. While +fully admitting their extraordinary learning, industry, and ingenuity, +he complained that their too common infirmity was 'a passion for +making history without historical materials,' basing the most dogmatic +and positive statements upon faint indications, or upon ingenious +conjectures that could not legitimately go beyond a very low degree of +probability. The assurance with which these writers undertook by +internal evidence to decompose ancient documents, assigning each +paragraph to an independent source; the decisive weight they were +accustomed to give to slight improbabilities or coincidences, and to +small variations of style and phraseology; the confidence with which +they put forward solutions or conjectures which, however ingenious or +plausible, were based on no external evidence as if they were proved +facts, appeared to him profoundly unhistorical. + +It must have been somewhat irritating to one who clung so closely to +University life, and who had been justly regarded as one of the most +brilliant of Oxford scholars, to find that his own University was +prominent in the condemnation of the 'History of the Jews.' Only two +years before he had preached with general approbation the Bampton +Lectures in defence of Christianity. His new work was again and again +condemned from the University pulpits, and among others by the +Margaret Professor of Divinity and by the Hulsean lecturer for 1832. +The clamour was naturally taken up in many other quarters, and +especially by the religious newspapers. It was noticed that 'Milman's +History' appeared in the window of Carlisle, the infidel bookseller. + +'I only wish,' wrote Milman, when the fact was brought to his notice, +'all Carlisle's customers would read it. A noble lord once wrote to +the bishop of a certain diocese to complain that a baronet who lived +in the same parish brought his mistress to church, which sorely +shocked his regular family. The bishop gravely assured him that he was +very glad to hear that Sir ---- brought his naughty lady to church, +and hoped that she would profit by what she heard there and amend her +ways. So say I of Carlisle's customers.'[50] + +The opinions expressed in this, as in his later works, no doubt in +some degree obstructed the promotion of Milman in the Church, but he +had no reason to regret it. Of all men, he once said, he thought he +owed most to Bishop Blomfield, for there was once a question of +offering him a bishopric, and it was a remonstrance of the Bishop of +London that prevented it. 'I am _afraid_,' he said, 'that if it had +been offered me I should have accepted it, and I should then never +have written my "Latin Christianity."' But, though he escaped the fate +which has cut short the best work of more than one distinguished +historian, his conspicuous position among the scholars and writers in +the Church was widely recognised, and he was soon transferred from a +provincial town to a central position in the Metropolis. In 1835 Sir +Robert Peel made him Rector of St. Margaret's, Westminster, and +Prebendary in the Abbey. Though continuing without intermission his +historical work, he appears to have discharged with exemplary vigour +the duties of a large and poor parish until 1849, when Lord John +Russell appointed him Dean of St. Paul's. The position was exactly +suited to him. It was one of much dignity, but also of much leisure, +and it gave him ample opportunities of pursuing the studies which were +the true work of his life. + +The great subject of the history of Christianity was, indeed, +continually before him. Among other things, he studied minutely both +the text and the authorities of Gibbon, for whom he had a deep and +growing admiration. An excellent edition of Gibbon was one of the +first results. Milman's notes have been included in Smith's later +edition, and, though a large proportion of them were naturally +somewhat controversial, being devoted to refuting some of the +conclusions of the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters, it is impossible +to read them without recognising the candour as well as the learning +and the acumen of the critic. Few things that Milman has written are +finer than the preface in which, in ten or twelve masterly pages, he +sums up his estimate of his great predecessor. + +The three volumes of the 'History of Christianity,' dealing with its +early history up to the period of the abolition of Paganism in the +Roman Empire, appeared in 1840, and they were followed by the six +large volumes of the 'History of Latin Christianity,' carrying the +history of the Western Church to the end of the Pontificate of +Nicholas V. in 1455. This great work was published in two +instalments--the first three volumes in 1854, and the remaining three +in the following year--and it gave its author indisputably the first +place among the ecclesiastical historians of England and a high place +among the historians of the nineteenth century. He possessed, indeed, +in an eminent degree some of the qualities that are most rare, and at +the same time most valuable, in ecclesiastical history. A large +proportion of the most learned ecclesiastical historians have been men +who have devoted their whole lives to this single department of +knowledge, who derived from it all their measures of probability and +canons of criticism, and who, treating it as an isolated and mainly +supernatural thing, have taken very little account of the intellectual +and political secular influences that have largely shaped its course. +Most of them also have been men who undertook their task with +convictions and habits of thought that were absolutely incompatible +with real independence and impartiality of judgment in estimating +either the events or the characters they described. Milman was wholly +free from these defects. His wide knowledge, his cool, critical, +admirably trained judgment, were never better shown than in the many +pages in which he has pointed out the analogies or resemblances +between Jewish and other Oriental beliefs; the manner in which +national characteristics or secular intellectual tendencies affected +theological types; the countless modifications in belief or practice +which grew up, as the Church accommodated itself to the conditions of +successive ages and entered into alliance or conflict with different +political systems; the many indirect, subtle, far-reaching ways in +which the world and the Church interacted upon each other in all the +great departments of speculation, art, industry, social and political +life. A certain aloofness and coldness of judgment in dealing with +sacred subjects was the reproach which was most frequently brought +against him. As he himself said, he wrote rather as an historian than +a religious instructor, and he dealt with his subject chiefly in its +temporal, social, and political aspects. Justice and impartiality of +judgment to friend and foe he deemed one of the first moral duties of +an historian, and Dean Church was not wrong in ascribing to him a +quite 'unusual combination of the strongest feeling about right and +wrong with the largest equity.' 'What a delightful book, so tolerant +of the intolerant!' was his characteristic eulogy of the work of +another writer, and it truly reflects the turn of his own mind. +Provost Hawtrey, who was no mean judge of men, said, after an intimacy +of nearly fifty years, that he had never known a man who possessed in +a greater degree than Milman the virtue of Christian charity in its +highest and rarest form. It was a gift which stood him in good stead +in dealing with the very blended characters, the tangled politics, the +often misguided enthusiasms of ecclesiastical history. While he was +constitutionally extremely averse to the moral casuistry which +confuses the boundaries of right and wrong, he had too sound a grasp +of the evolution of history to fall into the common error of judging +the acts of one age by the moral standards of another. His history was +eminently a history of large lines and broad tendencies. The growth, +influence, and decline of the Papacy--the distinctive characteristics +of Latin and Teutonic Christianity; the effect of Christianity on +jurisprudence; the monastic system in its various phases; the rise and +conquests of Mohammedanism; the severance of Greek from Latin +Christianity; Charlemagne, Hildebrand, the Crusades, the Templars, the +Great Councils; the decay of Latin and the rise of modern languages; +the influence of the Church on literature, painting, sculpture, and +architecture--are but a few of the great subjects he has treated, +always with knowledge and intelligence, often with conspicuous +brilliancy. + +In so vast a field there were, no doubt, many subjects which have been +treated with a greater fulness and completeness by other writers. +There are some in which subsequent research has gone far to supersede +what Milman has written, and inaccuracies of detail not unfrequently +crept into his work; but in the truthfulness of its broad lines, in +the sagacity of its estimates both of men and events, it holds a high +place among the histories of the world. Very few historians have +combined in a larger measure the three great requisites of knowledge, +soundness of judgment, and inexorable love of truth. The growth and +modifications of doctrines and the minutiae of religious controversies +were, however, subjects in which he took little interest, and though +they could not be excluded from an ecclesiastical history, they are +dealt with only in a slight and cursory manner. Those who desire to +study in detail this side of ecclesiastical history will find other +histories much more useful. It has been said that his work is +imperfect as a book of reference, for while the great events and +personages are discussed with a fulness that leaves little to be +desired, many of the more insignificant transactions or more obscure +periods are passed over or barely noticed. Critics of different +religious schools have also complained that his mind was essentially +secular; that he had a low sense of the certainty and the importance +of dogma; that there were some classes of ecclesiastical writers who +have been deeply revered in the Church with whom he had no real +sympathy; that the spirit of criticism was stronger in his book than +the spirit of reverence; that he did not do full justice to the +spiritual and inner side of the religion he described. He looked upon +it, they said, too externally. He valued it as a moral revolution, the +introduction of new principles of virtue and new rules for individual +and social happiness. Much of this criticism would probably have been +accepted with but little qualification by Milman himself. He would +have said that what these writers complained of was in the main +inseparable from an historical as distinguished from a devotional +treatment of his subject. He would have added that no form of human +history reveals so clearly as ecclesiastical history the fallibility, +the credulity, the intolerance of the human mind, or requires more +imperatively the constant exercise of independent judgment and of +fearless and unsparing criticism, and that, if the history of the +Church is ever to be written with profit, it must be written in such a +spirit. Of his own deeper convictions he seldom spoke; but in the +concluding page of his 'Latin Christianity' there is a passage of +profound interest. Leaving it, as he says, to the future historian of +religion to say what part of the ancient dogmatic system may be +allowed to fall silently into disuse, and what transformations the +interpretation of the Sacred Writings may still undergo, he adds these +significant words: + +'As it is my own confident belief that the words of Christ, and his +words alone (the primal indefeasible truths of Christianity), shall +not pass away, so I cannot presume to say that men may not attain to a +clearer, at the same time more full, comprehensive, and balanced sense +of those words, than has as yet been generally received in the +Christian world. As all else is transient and mutable, these only +eternal and universal, assuredly whatever light may be thrown on the +mental constitution of man, even on the constitution of nature and the +laws which govern the world, will be concentered so as to give a more +penetrating vision of those undying truths.... Christianity may yet +have to exercise a far wider, even if more silent and untraceable +influence, through its primary, all-pervading principles, on the +civilisation of mankind.' + +Macaulay, speaking of the 'History of Latin Christianity' in his +Journal, says, 'I was more impressed than ever by the contrast between +the substance and the style: the substance is excellent; the style +very much otherwise.' Looking at it from a purely literary point of +view it had undoubtedly great merits. Milman had an admirable sense of +proportion--a rare quality in history. He was invariably lucid, and it +is easy to cull from his history many characters excellently drawn, +many pages of vivid narrative, or terse and weighty criticism. Still, +on the whole his historic style is on a lower level than that of +Macaulay, Buckle, and Froude, though it will compare, I think, not +unfavourably with that of Hallam and Grote. The points of controversy +are usually relegated to his notes, which contain a great mass of +curious learning and excellent criticism. The reader who turns to them +from works of the German school will be struck by his strong English +common-sense and grasp of facts, and his dislike of subtle far-fetched +ingenuities of explanation. He has the crowning merit of being always +readable, and his strong sane moral sense never left him. He was +probably at his best in the later volumes, when he could treat his +subject like secular history and was free from the embarrassing +theological difficulties of the earlier portion, and he is especially +admirable in those chapters which give scope to his wide literary and +artistic sympathies. He was an excellent Italian scholar and keenly +sensible of the beauties of Italian literature, and his love of the +ancient classics never left him. There was something at once +characteristic and amusing in the delight which he again and again +expressed, after the termination of his History, at being able to +return to them after spending so many years in reading bad Latin and +Greek. In taste and character he was indeed pre-eminently a man of +letters, and as such he ranks in the first line among his +contemporaries. + +The outburst of indignation that in some quarters had greeted the +first appearance of the 'History of the Jews' was not repeated when +that work was republished in an enlarged form. Nor does it appear to +have arisen on the appearance of the two later histories. Newman +reviewed the 'History of Early Christianity' at great length, speaking +with much personal respect of the writer, though he was naturally +extremely hostile to its spirit. The difference between the High +Church sentiment and the mind of Milman was indeed organic. Milman's +own type of thought was formed before the Tractarian movement had +begun; the sacerdotal spirit was thoroughly alien to him, and his +profound study of ecclesiastical history had certainly not tended to +attract him to it. He fully recognised both the abilities and the +piety of Newman, and he described his secession as perhaps the +greatest loss the Church of England had experienced since the +Reformation; but he disliked his opinions, he profoundly distrusted +the whole character of his mind and reasonings, and he early foresaw +that he could never find a permanent resting-place in the English +Church. In the posthumous volume of Essays there will be found a full +and most searching examination of Newman's 'Essay on Development,' in +which these points of difference are clearly shown. For Keble, Milman +entertained warmer feelings. They were contemporaries, and at one time +most intimate friends. In the field of sacred poetry they had been +fellow-labourers. Keble had succeeded Milman as professor of poetry, +and Milman had been one of the few persons who had read the 'Christian +Year' in manuscript. When, after Keble's death, a committee was +appointed to erect a memorial to his memory, Milman was much hurt at +finding that it was determined to give it a distinctly Tractarian +character, and that his own name was deliberately excluded. In +Milman's last years the Oxford movement had begun to assume its +ritualistic form, and questions of vestments and ceremonies and +candles came to the forefront. With all this Milman had no sympathy. +'After the drama,' he said of it, 'the melodrama!' + +It was a remarkable coincidence that for some years the two deaneries +of London were both held by brilliant men of letters and by men with +the strongest theological sympathy. A feeling of warm personal +affection united Milman and Stanley, and there was something +peculiarly touching in the almost filial attitude which Stanley +assumed towards his older colleague. In one point, however, they +differed greatly. Stanley was a keen fighter. He threw himself into +the forefront of ecclesiastical controversies, and was never seen to +greater advantage than when leading a small minority, defying +inveterate prejudice, defending an unpopular cause. Milman could +seldom be tempted to follow his example. He pleaded old age and +declining strength, but, in truth, though he never flinched from the +avowal of his own opinions, he had a deep and increasing distaste for +religious controversies and Church politics. He was rarely seen in +Convocation, and he always regarded its revival as a misfortune. He +proposed, however, in it a petition for the discontinuance of the use +of the State services commemorating the martyrdom of Charles I., the +restoration of Charles II., the discovery of the gunpowder plot, and +the Revolution of 1688; and Parliament soon after adopted his view. He +also sat on the Royal Commission in 1864 for considering the subject +of clerical subscription. He took on this occasion a characteristic +line, advocating a complete abolition of the subscription of the +Articles, and desiring that the sole test of membership of the Church +should be the acceptance of the Liturgy and the Creeds. In 1865 he +received an invitation, which greatly gratified him, to preach before +the University of Oxford the annual sermon on Hebrew prophecy. The +sermon was delivered in the pulpit of St. Mary's, where many years +before he had been so vehemently condemned for views on the same +subject, no one of which, as he truly said, he had either recanted or +modified. His sermon was afterwards printed, and would form a worthy +chapter of his 'History of the Jews.' In the Colenso controversy he +had no great sympathy with either side. Many of Bishop Colenso's +arguments appeared to him crude or exaggerated, and he dissented from +many of his conclusions, but he considered that he had been treated +with gross injustice and intolerance, and he accordingly subscribed to +his defence fund. For the rest, he confined his ecclesiastical life as +much as possible to his own cathedral, where he presided over the +State funeral of the Duke of Wellington, and where he introduced the +custom of throwing open the nave to evening services. His last and +unfinished work was his 'Annals of St. Paul's,' investigating its +history and portraying with his old learning and with much of his old +felicity the lives of his predecessors. + +It was however in secular literary society that he was most fitted to +shine, and there he passed many of his happiest hours. The usual +honours of a distinguished man of letters clustered thickly around +him. He was a trustee of the British Museum; an honorary member of the +Royal Academy; a correspondent of the French Institute. He was also a +member of 'The Club'--the small dining-club which was founded in 1764 +by Sir Joshua Reynolds and Dr. Johnson, and which since then has +included in its fortnightly dinners the great majority of those +Englishmen who in many walks of life have been most distinguished by +their genius or their accomplishments. He was elected to it in 1836, +three years before Macaulay, and he became one of its most constant +attendants. In 1841 'The Club' made him its treasurer, and he held +that position for twenty-three years, and presided over the centenary +dinner in 1864. He was also an original member of the Philobiblion +Society, which has brought together many curious and hitherto unknown +documents, and he wrote for it a short paper on Michael Scott the +Wizard, who, as he showed, had been once offered the Archbishopric of +Cashel. He was never a keen politician, but he was intimate with a +long succession of leading statesmen, and he contributed to Sir +Cornewall Lewis's 'Administrations of Great Britain' a full and +valuable letter on the relations of Pitt and Addington, which was +largely based on his own recollections of the latter statesman. + +London society in the middle of the nineteenth century was much +smaller and less mixed than at present, and there was then a +distinctively literary or at least intellectual society which can now +hardly be said to exist. The most eminent men of letters came more +frequently together. Criticism was in fewer and perhaps stronger +hands, and was to a larger extent representative of the opinions +expressed in such social gatherings. In this kind of society Milman +was long a foremost figure. He had all the gifts that fit men for +it--not only brilliancy, knowledge, and versatility, but also +unfailing tact, a rare charm of courtesy, a singularly wide tolerance. +He was quick and generous in recognising rising talent, and he had +that sympathetic touch which seldom failed to elicit what was best in +those with whom he came in contact. Few men possessed more eminently +the genius of friendship--the power of attaching others--the power of +attaching himself to others. In the long list of his intimate friends +Macaulay, Sir Charles Lyell, and Sir George Cornewall Lewis were +conspicuous. Like most men of this type, he found the multiplying +gaps around him the chief trial of old age. Not long before he died +there was an exhibition of contemporary portraits, but though Milman +went to it he could not go through it. 'When I found myself,' he said, +'surrounded by the likenesses--often the miserable likenesses--of so +many I had known and loved, it was more than I could bear.' + +An admirable portrait by Watts which is now in the National Portrait +Gallery will recall to those who knew him his appearance in old +age--his strong masculine features beaming with intelligence, his +grand shaggy brows, his bright and penetrating eyes. An illness +affecting the spine had bowed him nearly double, and there are still +those who will remember how his bent figure seemed projected, almost +like a bird in its flight, across the dinner-table, while his eager +brilliant talk delighted and fascinated his hearers. In his last years +increasing deafness obliged him to narrow the circle of his social +life, but he retained to the end all the vividness of his mind and +sympathies, and when at length death came in his seventy-eighth year, +it found him in the midst of unfinished work. His life was not of a +kind to win wide popularity and to give him a conspicuous place among +the great masses of his nation, but few English clergymen of his +generation made so deep an impression on those who came in contact +with them or have left works of such enduring value behind them. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[48] _Henry Hart Milman, D.D., Dean of St. Paul's._ A Biographical +Sketch by his son, Arthur Milman, M.A., LL.D. + +[49] Laurence's _Life of Sir A. Sullivan_, p. 310. + +[50] Smiles' _Memoirs of John Murray_, ii. p. 300. + + + + +QUEEN VICTORIA AS A MORAL FORCE + + +At a time when the unprecedented increase of gigantic and rapidly +acquired fortunes has deeply infected both English and American +society with the characteristic vices of a Plutocracy, the profound +feeling of sorrow and admiration elicited by the death of Queen +Victoria is an encouraging sign. It shows that the vulgar ideals, the +false moral measurements, the feverish social ambitions, the love of +the ostentatious and the factitious, and the disdain for simple +habits, pleasures, and characters so apparent in certain conspicuous +sections of society, have not yet blunted the moral sense or perverted +the moral perceptions of the great masses on either side of the +Atlantic. To this type, indeed, we could scarcely find a more complete +antithesis than in the life and character of the great Queen who has +passed away. Nothing more deeply impressed all who came in contact +with her than the essential simplicity and genuineness of her nature. + +She was a great ruler, but she was also to the last a true, kindly, +simple-minded woman, retaining with undiminished intensity all the +warmth of a most affectionate nature, all the soundness of a most +excellent judgment. Brought up from childhood in the artificial +atmosphere of a Court, called while still a girl to the isolation of a +throne; deprived, when her reign had yet forty years to run, of the +support and counsel of her husband, she might well have been pardoned +if she often found herself out of touch with large sections of her +people, and had viewed life through a false medium or in partial +aspects. Yet Lord Salisbury probably in no degree exaggerated when he +said that if he wished to ascertain the feelings and opinions of the +English people, and especially of the English middle classes, he knew +no truer or more enlightening judgment than that of the Queen. She +thought with them and she felt with them; she shared their ambitions; +she knew by a kind of intuitive instinct the course of their +judgments; she sympathised deeply with their trials and their sorrows. + +She could hardly be called a brilliant woman. It is difficult indeed +to judge the full social capacities of anyone who lives under the +constant restraints of a royal position, but I do not think that in +any sphere of life the Queen would have been regarded as a woman of +striking wit, or originality, or even commanding power. The qualities +that made her so successful in her high calling were of another kind: +supreme good sense; a tact in dealing with men and circumstances so +unfailing that it almost amounted to genius; an indefatigable industry +which never flagged from early youth till extreme old age; a sense of +duty so steady and so strong that it governed all her actions and +pleasures, and saved her not only from the grosser and more common +temptations of an exalted position, but also in a most unusual degree +from the subtle and often half-concealed deflecting influences that +spring from ambition or resentment, from personal predilections and +personal dislikes. It was these qualities, combined with her +unrivalled experience of affairs, and strengthened by long and +constant intercourse with the foremost English statesmen of two +generations, that made her what she undoubtedly was--a perfect model +of a constitutional Sovereign. + +The position of a Sovereign under a parliamentary government like ours +is a singular and difficult one. There was a school of politicians who +were much more prominent in the last generation than in the present +one, who regarded the Sovereign, in political life at least, as little +more than a figure-head or a cipher, absolved from all responsibility, +but also divested of all power, and fulfilling functions in the +Constitution which are little more than mechanical. This view of the +unimportance of the Monarchy will now be held by few really +intelligent men. Those take but a false and narrow view of human +affairs who fail to realise the part which sentiment and enthusiasm +play in the government of men; and no one who knows England will +question that the throne is the centre of a great strength of personal +attachment which is wholly different from any attachment to a party or +a parliament. + +In India and the Colonies this is still more the case. It is not the +British Parliament or the British Cabinet that there forms the centre +of unity or excites genuine attachment. The Crown is the main link +binding the different States to one another, and the pervading +sentiment of a common loyalty unites them in one great and living +whole. In foreign politics it cannot be a matter of indifference that +a Sovereign is closely related to nearly all the greatest rulers in +the world, and in frequent, intimate, unconstrained correspondence +with them. This is a kind of influence which no Minister, however +powerful, can exercise, and it was possessed by Queen Victoria +probably to a greater degree than by any Sovereign on record, for +there has scarcely ever been one who included among her relations so +many of the Sovereigns of the world. Future historians will no doubt +have ample means of judging how frequently and how judiciously it was +employed in assuaging differences and promoting European peace. All +the great offices in Church and State, all the great distributions of +honours were submitted to her; and though in a large number of cases +this patronage is purely Ministerial or professional, there are many +cases in which the Sovereign had a real voice, and a strong objection +on her part was usually attended to. In Church patronage and in the +distribution of honours she is known to have taken a great interest, +and to have exercised a considerable influence. + +The one subject on which the Queen was not always in harmony with her +people was that of foreign politics. She and the Prince Consort took a +keen interest in them, and during his lifetime she followed very +implicitly his guidance. The strong German sympathies she imbued from +her own marriage were much intensified by the marriages of her +children, and especially by that of her eldest daughter to the heir of +the Prussian throne. The influence also of Stockmar, who was the +closest adviser of her early married life, was not wholly for good, +and the theory which the Prince held that the direction of foreign +affairs is in a peculiar degree under the care of the Sovereign, and +that the Prince, her husband, should be regarded as 'her permanent +Minister,' created during many years much friction. In a +constitutional country, where the responsibility of affairs rests +wholly on the Minister, who is doubly responsible to the Cabinet and +to the Parliament, such a theory can only be maintained with great +qualifications. + +On the other hand, the government of the country was carried on in the +name of the Queen. Foreign despatches were addressed to her and could +only be answered with her sanction. The right of the English +Sovereigns to be present at the Cabinet Councils of their Ministers +was abdicated when George I. came to the throne, but every important +departure in policy was submitted to the Queen and required her +assent. The testimony of Ministers of all shades of policy supports +the belief that this was no idle form. The Queen, though always open +to argument and tolerant of contradiction, had her own decided +opinions; she exercised her undoubted right of expressing and +defending them, and even apart from her royal position, her great +experience and her singular clearness and rectitude of judgment made +her opinion well worth listening to. + +The claim put forward by the Queen in her famous memorandum of August +1850, can, I think, hardly be pronounced excessive. She demanded only +that before a line of policy was adopted and brought before her she +should be distinctly informed of the facts of the case and of the +motives that inspired it; that when she had given her sanction to a +measure it should not be arbitrarily altered or modified by the +Minister; that she must be kept acquainted with all important +communications between foreign Ministers and her own Foreign +Secretary, and that the drafts of foreign despatches must be sent to +her for her approval in sufficient time for her to make herself +acquainted with them. She complained that Lord Palmerston was +accustomed to send despatches to the Continent without submitting +them, in their last revise, to the Sovereign; that in one case he +retained without her knowledge a passage which the Prince Consort had +deleted; that he paid little or no attention to the numerous memoranda +which were drawn up by the Prince for his instruction; that he of his +own will and without any consultation committed his Government, in a +conversation with the French Ambassador, to an approbation of the +_coup d'etat_ of Napoleon III. If the general line of his policy had +been in accordance with the royal wishes, indiscretions of detail +could probably have been overlooked, but the Queen and Prince were +both undoubtedly on many occasions--and especially in 1848 and +1849--strongly opposed to the policy of Lord Palmerston. In the +interests of peace they objected to the remarkably provocative +character of his despatches, which excited a degree of animosity and +resentment among the Governments of the Continent that has rarely been +paralleled--on two, if not three, occasions it brought England into +grave danger of a war with France--and which aroused a very widespread +indignation among statesmen of his own party at home. + +The widely different tone which was adopted by Lord Clarendon and Lord +Granville, the open breach between Palmerston and Lord John Russell on +account of the way in which the former conducted his foreign policy +without consultation with the Cabinet, and the refusal of Lord Grey, +in a most critical moment, to take office in a Government in which +Lord Palmerston held the seals of the Foreign Office, show how fully +in this respect the sentiments of the Queen accorded with those of +many of Lord Palmerston's own colleagues. But in addition to mere +questions of manner and procedure, there was much in the substance of +the policy of Palmerston to which the Queen objected. Her dislike to +the Revolutionary element on the Continent, which Lord Palmerston +either encouraged or viewed with indifference, her sympathy with the +old governments and dynasties, that were so gravely shaken in the year +of the Revolution, were very marked. In the disputes between Germany +and Denmark on the Schleswig-Holstein question her sympathies, unlike +those of her people, were decidedly with Germany, and although she was +fully sensible of the misgovernment of some of the Italian States, she +was not favourable to that cause of Italian unity which Lord John +Russell and Lord Palmerston so strenuously upheld. Her nature, which +was very frank, made it impossible for her, even if she desired it, to +conceal her opinions, and she devoted much time and pains to making +herself acquainted with the details of every question as it arose. She +made it a rule to sign no paper that she had not read. She did not +hesitate fully to apprise her Ministers of her views when they +differed from their own, and she enforced her views by argument and +remonstrance. She more than once drew up memoranda of her dissent from +the opinions of her Foreign Minister, and insisted on their being +brought before the Cabinet for consideration. In the formation of a +new Ministry she more than once exercised her power of deciding to +whom the succession of the first places should be offered. After an +adverse vote of the House of Commons, she considered herself fully +authorised to decide whether she would accept the resignation of a +Minister or submit the issue to the test of a dissolution, and there +were occasions on which she remonstrated with her Ministers on their +too ready determination to resign. + +At the same time it is certain that the Queen fulfilled with +perfection that most difficult duty of an able constitutional +Sovereign--the duty of yielding her convictions to those of her +responsible Ministers and acting faithfully with Ministers she +distrusted. To a Sovereign with clear views and a more than common +force of character this must often have been very painful, and to have +fulfilled it faithfully and with no loss of dignity is no small merit. +It is the universal testimony of all who served her, that no Sovereign +ever supported her successive Ministers with a more perfect loyalty or +held the scales between contending parties with a more complete +impartiality. No one understood better to what point a constitutional +Sovereign may press her opinions and at what point she is bound to +give way; and while maintaining her rightful authority she never in +any degree transgressed its bounds. In the very beginning of her reign +she showed this quality in a high degree. She looked up to Lord +Melbourne with an almost filial affection, and there were peculiar +reasons why his great opponent, Sir Robert Peel, should have been +distasteful to her. The dispute about the removal of her Ladies of the +Bedchamber, and still more the conduct of Sir Robert Peel in +supporting the reduction of the income which the Whigs had proposed +for Prince Albert, must have touched her feelings on the most +sensitive points, and the stiff, formal, somewhat awkward manner of +Peel seemed very little fitted to ingratiate him with a young +Sovereign. Yet when the change of Ministry arrived, Peel found no +trace of resentment in the Queen. She gave him her complete +confidence, and she fully estimated his great qualities. Of all the +Ministers who served her there is indeed none of whom she has written +in warmer terms. When Lord Palmerston became Prime Minister in 1855 it +was contrary to her earnest desire, but when the change was made +Palmerston himself acknowledged that he had 'no reason to complain of +the least want of cordiality or confidence on the part of the Court.' +At the time when she was most opposed to her Ministers, she fully +acquiesced in the principle that she must submit all letters on public +affairs to them and frame her replies upon their advice. There were +constant attempts on the part of foreign Sovereigns who were connected +with her to carry on affairs by correspondence with her without the +knowledge and sanction of her Ministers, but the Queen steadily +resisted them. Anything, indeed, that in any way savoured of intrigue +was in the highest degree repugnant to her nature. + +She acted in the same way in internal affairs. Few measures that were +carried in her time were more repugnant to her than Gladstone's +disestablishment of the Irish Church. It abolished an institution of +which she was herself the head and which a special clause in the +Coronation Oath required her to uphold, and she foretold, not without +good reason, that it would not pacify Ireland but would be an +encouragement to further agitation. The question, however, had been +submitted at a general election to the decision of the country, and +after that decision had been unequivocally given in favour of the +policy of Gladstone, she frankly accepted it with the assent of the +Prime Minister. When a great danger of a conflict between the two +Houses of Parliament had arisen, she devoted herself actively in +preventing it. She employed for that service the instrumentality of +Archbishop Tait--a great statesman-prelate, whose promotion to the see +of Canterbury was due to her own personal initiative, contrary to the +wish of Lord Beaconsfield, but most fully justified by the result--and +it was largely due to the intervention of the Queen that the Church +Bill was not thrown out in the House of Lords. She acted in a +somewhat similar way with reference to the Franchise Bill of 1884, +though on this occasion she does not seem to have disliked the +measure, which she urged the House of Lords to accept. + +On three very memorable occasions the intervention of the Queen had +probably a great effect on English politics. It is well known that at +the time when the issue of peace or war with the United States was +trembling in the balance on account of the seizure of the Southern +envoys on the 'Trent,' the Queen, acting in accordance with the Prince +Consort, by softening and revising the language of an English despatch +to America, did very much to prevent the dispute from leading to a +great war; that in the proclamation which was issued to the Indian +people after the Sepoy Mutiny, she insisted on the excision of some +most unfortunate words that seemed to menace the native creeds, and on +the insertion of an emphatic promise that they should in no wise be +interfered with, and thus probably prevented a new outburst of most +dangerous fanaticism; that at the time of the Schleswig-Holstein +dispute she contributed powerfully and actively to give a turn to the +negotiations that averted a war with Prussia and Austria, which, as is +now almost universally recognised, could only have led to a great +catastrophe. + +Whatever opinions may be formed of the merits of the dispute between +Denmark and the German powers about Schleswig-Holstein, few persons +who judge by the event can doubt that an isolated intervention of +England on behalf of Denmark against the combined forces of Austria +and Prussia would have been absolutely impotent to effect the object +that was desired, and that even if France had consented to join in the +struggle it would have led to a military disaster hardly less than +that of the war of Sedan. If, contrary to all probability, the +combined forces of France and England had proved stronger than those +of Austria and Germany, the result could have hardly failed to be that +France would have been established on the left bank of the Rhine, and +that the treaty of Vienna, which it was one of the great objects of +English policy to maintain, would have been torn into shreds. + +The dangers, however, of conflict arising from the extreme +irritability of English public opinion against Germany on the Danish +question, were very great, and there can be little doubt that the +personal influence of the Queen with the German Sovereign was an +appreciable influence, and it was her desire that a paragraph in the +Queen's Speech opening Parliament in February 1864 was erased. Words +which contained at least a veiled or attributed threat to Germany were +omitted, and instead of them an inoffensive paragraph was inserted +expressing the Queen's ardent desire for peace and recording the +earnest efforts she had made to maintain it.[51] At the same time +when, by the Convention of Gastein in August 1865, the Duchies were +severed from the Danish throne and placed in the virtual possession of +Prussia and Austria, the protest of Lord Russell against so flagrant a +violation of public right, and especially of the right of the people +to be consulted on their own destiny, was drawn up with her full +assent and indeed in a great measure at her suggestion.[52] + +On other occasions her remonstrances were disregarded, and courses +were pursued to which she strongly objected. The surrender after +Majuba was in her opinion a pusillanimous abandonment of the English +flag, and it was with extreme reluctance that she acquiesced in it. +Still more vehement were her feelings about the long abandonment of +General Gordon in the Soudan. She had been indefatigable in urging on +the Ministry of Gladstone the duty of speedy measures for his rescue, +and when, owing to the long delay of the Ministry, the most heroic of +modern Englishmen perished at Khartoum, her indignation knew no +bounds. In a letter to his sisters, burning with mingled pity and +indignation, she pronounced his 'cruel though heroic fate' to be 'a +stain left upon England,' which she keenly felt. This was one of the +few occasions in which she allowed her sentiments in hostility to the +policy of her Ministers to appear publicly before the world. In +general, she had a profound distrust of the policy and judgment of Mr. +Gladstone, and she fully shared the dread with which the great body of +English statesmen looked upon the Home Rule policy. It was no new +sentiment on her part, for she had lived through the Repeal agitation +of O'Connell, and as far back as 1843 Sir Robert Peel had somewhat +unconstitutionally declared in Parliament that he was authorised by +the Queen to state that she, like her predecessor, was resolved to +maintain the Union inviolate by all the means in her power. + +There can now be no harm in saying--what when both parties were alive +was naturally kept in the background--that the relations of the Queen +with Mr. Gladstone were usually of a very painful character. She had +personally not much to complain of. The skill and firmness with which +Mr. Gladstone resisted the attempts to diminish the parliamentary +subsidies for her family were fully and gratefully recognised by the +Queen, but the main course of his politics, both foreign and domestic, +filled her with alarm, and she never appears to have experienced the +attraction which his great personal gifts exercised over most of those +with whom he came in immediate contact. The extreme copiousness of his +vocabulary, the extreme subtlety of his mind and reasoning, and the +imperiousness of temper with which he seldom failed to meet +opposition, were all repugnant to her. To those who have experienced +the sustained emphasis of language with which Mr. Gladstone was +accustomed in conversation to enforce his views, there is much truth +as well as humour in the saying which was attributed to the Queen, 'I +wish Mr. Gladstone would not always speak to me as if I was a public +meeting'; and a little episode which is related by Sir Theodore Martin +illustrates the irritation which Mr. Gladstone's methods of business +must have caused to a very busy and overworked lady who always loved +few words and simple and direct arguments.[53] At all times the Queen +had decided political opinions, and the experience of a long reign had +given her a large measure of not unjustifiable self-confidence. Few +persons had studied as she had during all those years the various +political questions that arose, and she had had the advantage of +discussing them at length with a long succession of the leading +statesmen of England. Under such circumstances her opinions had no +small weight, and although in the Liberal Government she gave her full +confidence to Lord Clarendon and Lord Granville, she looked with the +gravest apprehension on the policy of Mr. Gladstone. + +It was a painful and irksome position, but it did not lead the Queen +to any unconstitutional course. No public act or word ever disclosed +her feelings. It was indeed in most cases very slowly, and in small +circles and through private channels, that the convictions of the +Queen became known. + +At the close of the second Ministry of Mr. Gladstone she at once +offered him an earldom, which he refused, and on his death she fully +acquiesced in the public funeral in Westminster Abbey, and the Prince +of Wales attended it as her representative. In an autograph letter to +Mrs. Gladstone she spoke with the deep and genuine warmth that was +never wanting in her letters of condolence of her sympathy with the +bereavement of that lady. She spoke of his illustrious gifts and of +his personal kindness to herself, but it was noticed that no sentence +in the letter intimated any approbation of his general policy. 'Truth +in the inmost parts' was indeed a prominent characteristic of the +Queen, and she wrote nothing which was not in accordance with her true +convictions. + +There were occasions when she took independent steps, and some of these +had a considerable influence on politics. Louis Napoleon was one of the +few great Sovereigns who were not related to her, and to few persons +could the _coup d'etat_ which brought him to the throne have been more +repugnant, but the cordial personal relations she established with him +undoubtedly contributed considerably to the good relations which for +many years subsisted between England and France. Bismarck detested +English Court influence and was greatly prejudiced against her, but he +has left a striking testimony to the favourable impression which her +tact and good sense made upon him when he first came into contact with +her. She possessed to a high degree the power of choosing the right +moment and striking the true chord, and she appears to have been an +excellent judge not only of the feelings of large bodies of men, but +also of the individual characters of those with whom she dealt. She had +a style of writing which was eminently characteristic and eminently +feminine, and it is easy to trace the letters which were entirely her +own. Her letters of congratulation, or sympathy, or encouragement on +public occasions scarcely ever failed in their effect and never +contained an injudicious word. The same thing may be said of her many +beautiful letters to those who were suffering from some grievous +calamity. Whether she was writing to a great public character like the +widow of an American President, or expressing her sorrow for obscure +sufferers, there was the same note of true womanly sympathy, so +manifestly spontaneous and so manifestly heartfelt, that it found its +way to the hearts of thousands. The tact for which she was so justly +celebrated, like all true tact, sprang largely from character, from the +quick and lively sympathies of an eminently affectionate nature. No one +could have been less theatrical, or less likely in any unworthy way to +seek for popularity; but she knew admirably the occasions or the methods +by which she could strike the imagination and appeal most favourably to +the feelings of her people. She showed this in the very beginning of her +reign when she insisted, in defiance of the opinion of the Duke of +Wellington, on riding herself through the ranks of her troops at her +first review. She showed it on countless other occasions of her long +reign--pre-eminently in her two Jubilees and in her last visit to +Ireland. It is well known that this visit was entirely her own idea. To +many it seemed rash or even positively dangerous. They dwelt upon the +bitter disaffection of a great portion of the Irish people, upon the +danger of mob outrage or even assassination, upon the extreme difficulty +of preventing a royal visit to Ireland from taking a party character and +being regarded as a party triumph or defeat. But the Queen, as Sir +William Harcourt once truly said, 'never feared her people,' and nothing +could be more happy than the manner in which she availed herself of the +new turn given to Irish feeling by the splendid achievements of Irish +soldiers in South Africa, to come over, as if to thank her Irish people +in person, and at the same time to repair in extreme old age a neglect +for which she had been often, and not altogether unjustly, blamed. There +never indeed was a more brilliant and unqualified success. To those who +witnessed the spontaneous and passionate enthusiasm with which she was +everywhere greeted, it seemed as if all bitter feeling vanished at her +presence; and the Irish visit, which was one of the last, was also one +of the brightest pages of her reign. The credit of its most skilful +arrangements belongs chiefly to the officials in Dublin, but the Irish +people will long remember the patient courage with which the aged Queen +went through its fatigues; the tactful kindness and the gracious dignity +with which she won the hearts of multitudes who had never before seen +her or spoken to her; the evident enjoyment with which she responded to +the cordiality of her reception. One feature of that visit was +especially characteristic. It was the Children's Review in Phoenix Park, +where, by the desire of the Queen, 'some fifty thousand children were +brought together to meet her. No act of kindness could have gone more +directly home to the hearts of the parents, and it left a memory in many +young minds that will never be effaced. + +It is rather, however, by the example of a life than by any public +acts that a constitutional Sovereign can impress her personality on +the affections of her people. Of the reign of Queen Victoria it may be +truly said that very few in English history have been so blameless as +this, which was the longest of all. Her Court was a model of quiet +dignity and decorum, singularly free from all the atmosphere of +intrigue and from all suspicion of injudicious or unworthy +favouritism. She managed it as she managed her family, with a happy +mixture of tact and affection; and though she gave her confidence to +many she gave it to such persons and in such a way that it seemed +never to be abused. No domestic life could in all its relations have +been more perfect, and her love of children amounted to a passion. +Among the great female rulers it would be difficult to find one less +like Queen Victoria than the Empress Catherine of Russia, but they had +this common trait of an intense love of children and a great power of +winning their affection. There is a charming letter of Catherine to +Grimm, describing her life among her grandchildren, which might almost +have been written by the English Queen. Her vast family, spread +through many countries, was her abiding interest and delight, and +although she had to pay in full measure the natural penalty of many +bereavements, she at least never knew the dreary loneliness that +clouded the last days of her great predecessor, Elizabeth. + +In the early years of her reign she fully filled her place as the +leader of English society. In the plays she patronised, in the art +she preferred, in the restrictions of her Drawing Rooms, in the +fashions she countenanced, in the intimacies she selected or +encouraged, her influence was always healthy and pure, and for some +years it powerfully affected the tone of English society. +Unfortunately, after the great calamity of her widowhood the nerves of +the Queen seem to have been shaken, and though she never intermitted +her political duties and spent daily many hours over her +correspondence, she allowed her social duties to fall too much and too +long into abeyance. She still, it is true, occasionally appeared in +public ceremonies. She laid the first stones of several hospitals and +infirmaries. She presided over the inauguration of several great +industrial enterprises. She sometimes opened Parliament in person, and +was sometimes present at military and naval reviews. But she scarcely +ever appeared in London, except for a few days. She never appeared in +a London theatre. She shrank from great crowds and large social +gatherings, and buried herself too much in her Highland home. This is +one of the few real reproaches that history is likely to bring against +her. Her influence on English society was never wholly lost, and it +was always an influence for good, but for many years it was exerted +less frequently and less powerfully than it should have been, and the +tone of large sections of society lost something by her retirement. + +It may be doubted, however, whether this long retirement really +injured her in the minds of her people. Her rare occasional +appearances had a greater weight, and the depth of feeling exhibited +by her long widowhood became a new title to respect. The transparent +simplicity and unselfishness of her character were now generally +appreciated, and her own books contributed greatly to make her people +understand her. It is in general far from a wise thing for royal +personages to descend into the arena of literature unless they possess +some special aptitude for it. They expose themselves to a kind of +criticism wholly different from that which follows them in their +public lives--a criticism more minute and often more deliberately +malevolent than that to which an ordinary writer is subject. The Queen +wrote pure and excellent English and she had a good literary taste, +but she certainly could never have become a great writer; and the +complete frankness and unreserve of her Journals, as well as their +curious homeliness of thought and feeling, were not viewed with favour +in some sections of the fashionable and of the literary world. There +were circles in which the word 'bourgeois,' and there were others in +which the word 'commonplace,' was often pronounced. Yet in this, as on +nearly all occasions when the Queen acted on her own impulse, she +acted wisely. Her books had at once an enormous circulation, and there +can be no doubt that they contributed very widely to her popularity. +Multitudes to whom she had before been little more than a name, now +realised that she was one with whom they had very much in common. Her +evident longing for sympathy produced an immediate response. Her deep +domestic affection, her constant interest in her servants, her high +spirits, her love of scenery, her love of animals, her power of taking +delight in little things, appeared vividly in her pages and came home +to the largest classes of her people. + +In some respects the Queen was an eminently democratic Sovereign. +While maintaining the dignity of her position, rank and wealth were in +her eyes always subordinate to the great realities of life and to +true human affections. In no one was the touch of Nature that makes +the whole world kin more constantly visible. She was never more in her +place than in visiting some poor tenant on the morrow of a great +bereavement, or uttering words of comfort by the sick bed of some +humble dependant. Men of all ranks who came in contact with her were +struck with her thoughtful kindness, and her royal gift of an +excellent memory never showed itself more frequently than in the +manner in which she remembered and inquired after the fortunes and +happiness of obscure persons related to those with whom she spoke. + +Her religious opinions were brought very little before the public. +Beyond a deep sense of Providential guidance and of the comforting +power of religion, little is to be gathered from her published +utterances; but she seemed equally at home in the Scotch Presbyterian +and the Anglican Episcopal Church, and her marked admiration for such +men as Dean Stanley and Norman Macleod, and for the preaching of +Principal Caird, gives some clue to the bias of her opinions. Her mind +was not speculative but eminently practical, and while she patronised +good works of the most various kinds, there is reason to believe that +those which most appealed to her personal feelings were those which +directly contributed to alleviate the sufferings, or promote the +material welfare, of the poor. She devoted the greater part of her +Jubilee present to institutions for providing nurses for the sick +poor, and this is said to have been one of the charities in which she +took the warmest and most constant interest. + +She is said not to have had any sympathy with the movement for the +extension of political power to women, which became so conspicuous in +her reign; but her own success in filling for sixty-three years the +highest political position in the nation will always be quoted in its +support. Considering, indeed, how comparatively small has been the +number of reigning female Sovereigns, it is remarkable how many in +modern times have shown themselves pre-eminently capable. Isabella of +Spain, Catherine of Russia, Maria Theresa of Austria, and our own +Elizabeth, all rise far above the level of ordinary Sovereigns. Some +of these seem figures of a larger and stronger mould than Queen +Victoria, but they governed under very different constitutional +conditions, and, with one exception, there are serious blots on their +memory. There are few sadder facts in history than that the pure and +tender-hearted Spanish Queen should have been deeply tinged with the +persecuting fanaticism of her age and country; that she should have +consented to the establishment of the Inquisition in Castile, to the +expulsion of the Moors from her dominions, to the first law in Europe +establishing a practical censorship of the Press. The unscrupulous +ambition, the shameless favouritism, the gross personal vices of +Catherine, are as conspicuous as her high intelligence, her +indomitable will, her majestic commanding power. The reign of +Elizabeth is perhaps the most glorious in English history, but the +character of that great Queen is lamentably tarnished by waywardness +and caprice. Among purely constitutional Sovereigns Queen Anne holds a +respectable, though certainly not a brilliant, place, and it may be +added that much of the merit of the very constitutional though not +very glorious reign of George II. is due to the excellent sense and +judgment of Queen Caroline. In spite of the saying of Burke, the age +of chivalry is not wholly dead. The sex of Queen Victoria no doubt +gave an additional touch of warmth to the loyalty of her people, and +many of the qualities that made her most popular are intensely, if not +distinctively, feminine. They would not, however, have given her the +place she will always hold in English history, if they had not been +united with what men are accustomed to regard as more peculiarly +masculine--a clear, well-balanced mind, singularly free from +fanaticisms and exaggerations, excellently fitted to estimate rightly +the true proportion of things. + +In the last years of her reign the political horizon greatly cleared. +Lord Beaconsfield, during his later Ministries, obtained not only her +fullest political confidence, but also won a warmer degree of personal +friendship than she had bestowed on any Minister since the death of +Lord Melbourne; and her relations with his successor, Lord Salisbury, +appear to have been perfectly harmonious. The decisive rejection by +the country of the Home Rule policy removed a great incubus from her +mind, and she was fully in harmony with the strong Imperialist +sentiments which now began to prevail in English thought, and +especially with the warmer feeling towards our distant colonies which +was one of its chief characteristics. Her own popularity also rapidly +grew. She had keenly felt and bitterly resented the reproaches which +had at one period been frequently brought against her for her neglect +of social and ceremonial duties during many years of her widowhood. +Her censors, she maintained, made no allowance for her loneliness, her +advancing years, her feeble health, the overwhelming and incessant +pressure of her more serious political duties. But her two Jubilees, +bringing her once more into close touch with her people, put an end to +these reproaches. The Queen found with pleasure and perhaps with +surprise how capable she still was of performing great public +functions, and the vast outburst of spontaneous loyalty and affection +of which she became the object gave her deep and unconcealed pleasure. +To those, however, who were closely in connection with her it was +touching to observe the gracious and unaffected modesty with which she +received the homage of her subjects. Flattery was one of the things +she disliked the most, and all who knew her best were struck with the +singularly modest view she always took of herself. But blending with +this modesty, and even with a shyness which she never wholly +conquered, was the craving of a deeply affectionate and womanly nature +for sympathy, and this craving was now abundantly gratified. + +Still, with all this there was much that was melancholy in her later +days. She had survived nearly all the intimacies of her youth. Death +had made--especially in very recent times--many gaps in the circle of +those who were nearest to her, and several of her children and of her +children's husbands had preceded her to the tomb. Her sight had +greatly failed. She was bowed down by physical infirmity, and her last +year was saddened by a long, sanguinary, and inglorious war. Yet +almost to the very end she continued with unabated courage to fulfil +her daily task, and there was no sign that she had lost anything of +her quick sympathy and her admirable judgment and tact. Her life was a +most harmonious whole in which mind and character were happily +attuned, + + Like perfect music set to noble words. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[51] _Queen Victoria_, by Sidney Lee, p. 349. + +[52] Ollivier, _L'Empire Liberal_, vii. p. 455. + +[53] Sir Theodore Martin was asked by the Queen to give her a _precis_ +of a very long and unintelligible letter of Mr. Gladstone purporting to +explain the Irish Church Disestablishment Bill (_Queen Victoria as I +knew Her_, by Sir Theodore Martin).--ED. + + + + +OLD-AGE PENSIONS + + +There are many signs that the question of old-age pensions is destined +to assume a great prominence in England; although it is probable that +the large increase of national expenditure which is certain to follow +the unhappy war in South Africa may, for some time, postpone actual +legislation on the subject. The generation has passed away which +witnessed the enormous abuses of Poor Law relief that existed, under +the old English Poor Law, before 1834, and the rapid diminution of +pauperism that was effected by the sterner administration introduced +in that year. + +The principles of poor-law relief which were then recognised by the +best minds in England have been somewhat forgotten. These principles +were that, while in England provision is made for the support of all +who are absolutely destitute, it is of the utmost importance that on +the whole the condition of the pauper should be a less eligible one +than that of an independent labourer; that nothing should be done that +could diminish habits of thrift, forethought, and steady industry +among the poor; nothing that could weaken their sense of the necessity +of providing for their latter days, or of their duty of supporting, +when they have the means, their aged parents and relations. In +accordance with these principles it was laid down that outdoor relief +should be either absolutely refused to the able-bodied or only +granted under most exceptional circumstances; that the workhouse test, +with its stringent, deterrent discipline, should be steadily +maintained; that relaxations and special favours granted out of public +funds should be limited, as far as possible, to cases of special +calamity which it was impossible for any prudence or foresight to have +averted. + +It would certainly be a great exaggeration to say that these +principles have disappeared. Indeed, the robust, independent, +self-respecting character which it was the object of the Manchester +School to encourage is abundantly displayed in the gigantic Friendly +and other working-class Co-operative Societies which have so largely +increased in England during the last half-century. Two of these +Friendly Societies--the Manchester Unity and the Foresters--have each +of them more than seven hundred thousand members on their roll. At the +same time, it is equally certain that in many quarters a different, +and, in my opinion, very dangerous, spirit prevails. In England as +elsewhere there is an increased tendency to aggrandise the functions +of the State and to look to State aid or State control rather than +individual or co-operative effort as the remedy of every evil. Social +questions have assumed a greater prominence in politics; and, with the +lowering of the franchise, the vague State Socialism, which, in +different degrees, pervades most working-class politics, has given a +bias to both parties in the State. It has become prominent in every +election and has produced many rash pledges. + +The close connection between taxation and representation, which was +once considered the cardinal principle of English Liberalism, has, in +a marked degree, diminished, both in Imperial and local taxation. It +used to be contended that those who chiefly paid should chiefly +regulate, and that taxation should be as much as possible the +voluntary grant of the taxpayers, restricted to their common purposes. +But in many quarters a different belief has grown up. It is held that +in the hands of a democracy taxation should be made the means of +redressing the inequalities of fortune, ability, or industry; the +preponderant class voting and spending money which another class are +obliged to pay. The income-tax is so arranged that a large majority of +the voters are exempt from its burden; a highly graduated system of +death duties is now nearly the most prominent of our Imperial taxes; +and the Local Government Act of 1894 has placed local taxation on the +most democratic basis. The latter has given the power of voting rates +to many who do not pay them; and, by abolishing the nominated, or +ex-officio, guardians, and the plural voting of the larger ratepayers, +it has almost destroyed the influence of property on local taxation. + +At the same time the doctrine has arisen, and is now sedulously +propagated in England, that the State ought to undertake to provide at +the public expense for all old persons, or at least for all deserving +old persons, who have not succeeded in obtaining a sufficient +livelihood for themselves; that this provision should not be regarded +as an eleemosynary grant, but as a positive right; and that, in order +to free it from the taint of pauperism, and take away from the +recipient all reluctance to receive it, a new fund should be created, +entirely distinct from poor-law relief, and administered by some other +tribunal than the poor-law guardians. + +The claim has been supported on another ground. The immense +improvement of the material condition of the English working classes +during the last half-century is beyond all question; but it is much +more evident among the young and the strong than among the old. The +intense competition of modern industry, stimulated to the highest +point by free trade, by the factory system, and by the vast +development of machinery, has expelled the old and feeble from some of +its most important fields; and the influence of trade-unions in +enforcing, in each trade which they can control, a uniform and minimum +wage, has obliged the employer to employ only the most efficient +labour. + +The old man who could once easily obtain a little work at low wages +now finds it much more difficult; and the recent legislation +compelling the employer to compensate his workmen for all accidents +that take place in his employment, even when those accidents are in no +degree due to any negligence on his own part or on that of his +servants, has acted in the same direction. Such serious obligations +have been thrown on the employer in the more dangerous trades, that he +is obliged in self-defence to restrict himself to the workmen who are +least liable to accidents; and they are naturally those whose +strength, activity, and eyesight are at their best. Among the +recipients of poor-law relief the proportion of men over sixty-five is +enormously great; and some figures which, in 1893, were brought before +the Commission on the Aged Poor, made a great impression on the +country. It was stated that in a single year 29.3 of the whole +population over sixty-five were in receipt of poor-law relief in +England and Wales; and assuming that a third part of these old persons +belonged to the well-to-do, it was calculated that not much less than +three in seven must fall into the ranks of pauperism. + +There has been much controversy about the accuracy of this statement; +and, even if it be admitted, a good deal has been said to attenuate +its force. In the poor-law system as it was reformed in 1834, it was a +first principle that the workhouse, with its painful and degrading +associations, was to be the chief form of poor-law relief, and that +outdoor relief should only be granted on exceptional occasions and on +stringent conditions. This provision has been gradually relaxed. +Outdoor relief, which, in the eyes of the poor, carries with it very +little of the discredit and dislike that gathers round the workhouse, +is now by far the larger part of poor-law relief; and in many +districts it is administered with great laxity. + +It has been proved by the clearest evidence that the immense majority +of the aged and deserving poor who are in receipt of poor-law relief +only receive it in the form of outdoor relief, and very often only in +the form of medical relief, and that if they go to the workhouse it is +only when their peculiar circumstances make it desirable for them to +do so. Wherever a more stringent system of relief is imposed, +pauperism invariably and rapidly decreases; and Mr. Loch, the +Secretary of the Charity Organisation Society, has collected much +evidence to show that, on the whole, old-age pauperism is diminishing, +though it has not been diminishing at the same rate as pauperism under +the age of sixty. The administration of the workhouses has also +greatly improved; and the poor-law infirmaries are becoming hospitals +which are largely resorted to in time of sickness by many who might +easily avoid them. On the whole, old-age destitution is, and must be, +a grave question for philanthropists; but there has been great +exaggeration about its magnitude and its hardships. + +The expediency of devising a new and better method of providing for +the destitute aged poor of deserving character has long been +smouldering obscurely in English politics; but it obtained a real +importance for the first time when a very strong Royal Commission, +under the presidency of Lord Aberdare, was appointed, at the beginning +of 1893, to inquire into the question. After long and careful inquiry, +and after hearing a great multitude of witnesses, this Commission +reported in the spring of 1895. The majority of the members, while +recommending various reforms in the administration of the poor-law, +reported decisively against any system of old-age pensions, either in +the form of endowment or assisted assurance, as likely to do more harm +than good; but a minority, which derived special importance from the +presence of Mr. Chamberlain, refused to accept this decision as final, +and urged that the question should be submitted to a smaller body of +experts. In the election which took place in 1895 the question +appeared frequently upon the platform, and many members on both sides +of politics pledged themselves on the subject. + +The weight which is always attached to the speeches of Mr. Chamberlain +gave a great impulse to the movement. He never countenanced the idea +of universal old-age pensions, which was already advocated by many; +but he strongly maintained that special provision, apart from the +poor-law and in the shape of pensions, might, and ought to, be made +for the old and deserving poor; he expressed his belief that such a +measure 'would do more than anything else to secure the happiness of +the working classes'; and he suggested as the most feasible scheme +that 'whenever a man acquires for himself in a Friendly Society or +any other society a pension of 2_s._ 6_d._ a week the State should +come in and double that pension.' Mr. Chamberlain, however, did not +insist on this precise proposal; but he gave the question a great +prominence; and among politicians on both sides there was a manifest +tendency to make party capital out of it. + +A purely non-party Committee, presided over by Lord Rothschild, and +consisting mainly of distinguished financial authorities connected +with the permanent Civil Service, and therefore removed from active +politics, was appointed in 1896, in accordance with the recommendation +of the Aberdare Commission, to inquire especially into the question of +old-age pensions; and it reported in a document of conspicuous +ability. It was unanimous in condemning as impracticable or dangerous +all the schemes for such pensions that were brought before it; and it +fully confirmed the views of the preceding Commission. The report, and +the evidence on which it is based, clearly show the ways in which +measures intended for the benefit of the working class may prove in +the highest degree injurious to them. + +If the matter could have been decided by pure reasoning, this report +might have been generally accepted as decisive. But many of the +supporters of the Government had at the election made speeches in +favour of old-age pensions. One of its most powerful members had +thrown his weight into the scale. The idea had taken hold of great +sections of the working classes. The trade-unions, that see in +increasing old-age poverty the chief drawback to their policy of +enforcing in each trade a uniform and minimum wage, were naturally +delighted that the State should undertake, out of public funds, to +remove their difficulty. A number of Bills dealing with the question +had been introduced into the House of Commons by private members; and +the reluctance of the Government to take it up had become a favourite +form of party attack. The Government acted as perhaps most +Governments, under the circumstances, would have done. While refusing +to give any pledge, and repudiating any sympathy with the idea of +universal pensions, and insisting that an encouragement of thrift +should be an essential condition of any old-age pension scheme, they +refused to admit that a false departure had been made; and they +appointed a new Committee--of which the writer of these lines was a +member--to report upon the best means of improving the condition of +the aged deserving poor, and upon the feasibility of dealing with +their case by old-age pensions. + +Mr. Chaplin, the President of the Local Government Board, an +experienced and very popular member of the Cabinet, presided over the +Committee; and the fact that he drew up the report of the majority +gave that report its chief political importance. The Committee +consisted largely of members who had already committed themselves +deeply in favour of old-age pensions; and it will hardly be disputed +in England that it carried with it much less financial and political +weight than its predecessors; and that the majority report--which was +carried by 9 to 4--is more remarkable for the boldness of its +recommendations than for the cogency of its reasoning. It completely, +and almost contemptuously, discarded the conclusions of the majority +of the Aberdare Commission, and the unanimous opinion of the +Rothschild Committee; and it recommended that old-age pensions, +derived in part from Imperial and in part from local sources, and +varying from 5_s._ to 7_s._ a week, should be granted to all the +deserving poor who had attained the age of sixty-five and whose +incomes did not exceed 10_s._ a week. It proposed that these pensions +should be granted by committees established in every poor-law union +and elected by the poor-law guardians; that they should be revised +every three years; and that they should be distributed through the +agency of the post-office. + +On the great difficulties that seemed so formidable to its +predecessors it touched very lightly. How many of the poor were likely +under the proposed system to become pensioners, and what burden of +taxation was likely to be thrown on the State, were questions that +were put aside as irrelevant to the inquiry. To meet the enormous +difficulty of deciding upon the real merits, and of investigating the +real circumstances, of the great masses of independent and industrious +labourers who live in the manufacturing towns, or are constantly +moving from one great centre of population to another, and circulating +in quest of work through the whole extent of the Empire, it was +suggested that the relief be confined to those who were resident in a +single locality; and it was pointed out that a number of charities, +endowed out of old legacies or donations, and applying to particular +classes or districts, had come to be administered by the Charity +Commissioners, and that in this restricted field they had been able to +convert a large part of the income at their disposal from doles into +permanent pensions. + +The thrift test and the character test, which previous inquirers had +found it almost impossible to establish on a satisfactory basis, were +defined on the loosest lines. The pensioner must not, during the +preceding twenty years, have been sentenced to penal servitude or +imprisonment without the option of a fine; he must not, during the +same period of time, have been in receipt of poor-law relief 'other +than medical relief or unless under circumstances of a wholly +exceptional character'; and he must have 'endeavoured to the best of +his ability, by his industry and by the exercise of reasonable +providence, to make provision for himself and those immediately +dependent on him.' + +The extreme vagueness and the extreme elasticity of such provisions +are sufficiently manifest; and it is difficult to see how they can +give any real assistance in practical legislation; while they leave +the door open to the largest and most lavish expenditure. I have +endeavoured in a minority report to deal with these questions at +somewhat greater length than my present space will admit; but a few +pages may suffice to give an outline of the case of those who believe +the new policy to be both mistaken and dangerous. + +Nothing is more certain or more cheering in the condition of modern +England than the extraordinary diminution that has taken place, during +the present generation, in pauperism. It began with the reform of the +poor law in 1834; and although it has been found possible to relax +greatly the stringency of the poor-law regulations that were then +made, it has steadily continued. Much of this is due to the increase +in the rate of wages which has taken place in most departments of +English industry, and which has been accompanied by a great decrease +in the cost of most of the chief necessaries of life, as well as by a +considerable reduction in the hours of work. Sir Robert Giffen, in the +very remarkable paper which he published, in 1883, on the condition of +the working classes in England during the preceding fifty years, has +shown that in every class of work in which it is possible to make a +comparison the wages of the labourer have in these fifty years risen +at least 20 per cent., and in most cases between 50 and 100 per cent.; +and he has clearly demonstrated that no other section of the community +has obtained so large a proportion of the increase of the national +wealth, and improved in so great a degree in material prosperity. + +But the mere increase of wages is but one element of this improvement. +The very mainspring of the prosperity of the great masses of the +British working classes is to be found in their increased sobriety, +and in the habits of thrift and providence that have followed the +spread of education. The statistics of the Friendly Societies, the +Industrial and Provident Societies, the Building Societies, the +savings-banks, and of countless other institutions, created by +voluntary working-class effort for the purpose of insuring against +sickness or death, and providing working-class investments, attest in +the clearest manner the rapid growth of provident and thrifty habits +among the wage-earning classes. In no other respect is the improvement +of the nation so marked and so indisputable and no element in the +national character is more important to its prosperity and to its +enduring greatness. In the evidence that was brought before our +Committee, it was shown that since 1849 the pauperism of Great Britain +had been reduced from 62.7 per 1,000 to 26.2 per 1,000, if lunatics +and vagrants are included, to 22.8 per 1,000, if lunatics and vagrants +are excluded. + +The first, and most vital, condition of any sound legislation for the +relief of poverty is that it should not impair these industrial +qualities, or weaken these vast voluntary organisations of self-help +which are their result. Can it be said that the old-age pension policy +is compatible with this condition? + +It proposes to open, in addition to the existing system of poor +relief, a new fund, amounting to many millions of pounds a year, and +drawn from compulsory taxation for the purpose of subsidising simple +poverty; a fund to which it is to be rather creditable than otherwise +to resort; a fund which is intended to deal, not with exceptional +calamity, but with that which springs from the mere efflux of time, +and which is, beyond all others, the most normal and most easily +foreseen. It proposes to teach the whole working population to look to +the State, and not to themselves, for the provision for their old age, +and for the old age of those who might be dependent on them, and thus +to destroy the most powerful of all motives to thrift--the very +mainspring of productive and self-sacrificing industry. And it +proposes to do this at a time when wages are higher than they have +ever been before; when voluntary societies for securing the poor from +want are flourishing and increasing as they have never done before; +when the rapid decline of pauperism is one of the most marked and most +universally recognised signs of national improvement. Can it be +seriously believed that the addition of many millions a year to the +State funds directly employed in the relief of poverty will, in the +long run, tend to diminish pauperism or to encourage self-reliance and +thrift? + +Mr. Chamberlain and the other more considerable advocates of old-age +pensions clearly see that if such pensions are to be of real value +they must discriminate between the deserving and the undeserving; and +they believe that they may have the effect of stimulating, instead of +weakening, thrift. For this purpose several schemes have been devised. + +The most popular Continental method of achieving this end is by a law +obliging the working man in early life to insure against old age, and +by supplementing the income derived from this insurance by a State +subsidy. In Germany, where this system is actually carried out, the +old-age pension is derived from three sources--viz. compulsory +insurance by the workers, compulsory contribution by the employer, and +a State subsidy. Compulsory insurance found for many years a powerful +English advocate in Canon Blackley; and it has been recommended by a +recent inquiry in Holland, which, however, refused to propose any +system of old-age pensions. According to the best accounts, the German +system has been far from successful either economically or +politically; and it has certainly not prevented Socialism from +becoming one of the great dangers of the State. Into this question, +however, it is needless to enter, as it is now universally admitted in +England that compulsory insurance for old age is an impossibility; for +it would certainly be repudiated by the working classes. + +A large group of proposals are to the effect that old-age pensions +should be granted to all poor persons over the age of sixty-five whose +total income is less than 10_s._ a week, provided that a certain +portion of that income consists of a fixed annuity acquired by their +own industry and thrift. It is urged that in most of the great +branches of industry a deserving man in his earlier and stronger years +could easily earn such an annuity; and it is suggested that the State +should double it, or add to it sufficient to make it up to 10_s._ a +week, or supplement it by a fixed grant of 2_s._ 6_d._, or 5_s._, or +even 7_s._ a week. + +The objections to such schemes are very serious. It is obvious that if +they encourage a workman to save up to the amount required to secure a +pension, they would have a directly opposite effect as soon as that +amount had been attained. The first result of any addition to his +income would then be to disqualify him for a pension. It is also +obvious that the pensioner of sixty-five would have a strong +inducement to abstain from the work he could easily do, and that if he +continued to do it he would compete on exceptionally favourable terms +with the workman who, though he had passed the prime of life, was not +yet entitled to a pension, restricting his means of employment and +beating down his wages. Many of the most necessitous and deserving +poor would also be left unrelieved. + +Although it is true that in the more flourishing trades men could +easily in early life save out of their wages a sufficient sum to +acquire this annuity, there are large fields of industry in which such +a saving would be almost or absolutely impossible. We have had +melancholy evidence of how utterly insufficient most forms of women's +wages are to provide the needed margin. The same thing is true of the +agricultural labourer in the more depressed districts in England and +in large tracts of Ireland and Scotland. Even in the more remunerative +employments innumerable special circumstances would prevent a thrifty +and deserving man from obtaining this annuity. Certainly no one is +more deserving of compassion and State aid than the widow and young +orphans of a working man; but the scheme we are considering would not +only not help them, but would most seriously injure them. It is a +direct incentive to the workman to sink his savings in an annuity +which would terminate with his own life. + +The whole policy, indeed, of attempting to turn all working-class +savings into this one channel is a false one; and it has been shown +that no kind of saving is in fact less popular among working men than +the purchase of a deferred annuity. I may here be allowed to quote a +few lines from my own report: + +'In the infinitely various conditions of a working-man's life thrift +will take many forms, and an attempt to prescribe a single form is +eminently injudicious. The whole life-plan of a farmer whose farm will +remain with him to the end will be different from that of an artisan +or a domestic servant whose power of earning a livelihood depends +entirely upon his physical strength. The former will probably find it +most profitable to expend his savings on the improvement of his farm. +Where the system of peasant proprietorship prevails most agricultural +thrift is directed to the purchase and enlargement of farms. In +Ireland it is largely directed to the purchase of tenant right, or to +enabling the younger members of the family to emigrate. + +'Nor is it true that even the artisan will find the purchase of an +annuity the best thing to be aimed at. To buy a house or some +furniture; to start a small business; to expend his savings in tiding +over periods of slack or failing work; to avail himself of the +advantage which some fluctuation in the market gives to the man who +can transport himself promptly to a new locality or a new business is +often far more to his advantage. Above all, money expended in settling +his family is often his best policy as well as the course which is +most beneficial to the community. At present a large proportion of +working men look forward to their children to help them in their old +age, and make it a main object of their lives to place them in a +position to do so. It does not seem to me a wise thing for the State +either to emancipate children from this duty or to induce every +married working man to sink his savings in an annuity which will end +with his life and from which his widow and children can derive no +benefit. It is certainly not for the advantage of the country that in +selecting between alternative ways of providing for old age he should +be induced to choose that which throws the greatest burden on the +State. With the vast increase of population, with the great +fluctuations of modern industry, and with the rapid development of the +colonies, it is extremely desirable both in the interest of the +working men and of the State that they should be induced to transfer +themselves from congested towns and from exhausted industries to new +fields. A general pension system would certainly contribute most +powerfully to prevent them from doing so.' + +It has been proposed by others that the pension fund should be placed +in the hands of Friendly or Benefit Societies, and that they should be +intrusted with its administration, or that subscription to such +societies for a certain number of years should be taken by the State +as the thrift test. On the first proposal it is sufficient to say, +that these great voluntary societies are themselves opposed to it; for +if they were directly subsidised by the State, they would be obliged +to submit to a State control of their management and their finances +which they do not desire. It is observed that only a very small +proportion of the subscribers to these societies ever find it +necessary to come upon the poor rates; and if a system of old-age +pensions were confined to these limits, it would act in the most +unequal manner. Their members are drawn in a far larger proportion +from the lucrative and flourishing trades than from those which are +struggling and underpaid. Few women belong to them. In Ireland, which +is the poorest part of the Empire, Friendly Societies scarcely exist; +and the same thing is true of large districts in Wales and Scotland. +The main result of such proposals would be to concentrate the new +State fund for the relief of poverty on the richest parts of the +Empire, and on the trades that need it the least. + +The extreme difficulty of finding any efficient test of thrift is very +evident; and those proposed by a large number of the advocates of +old-age pensions are so easy as to be almost worthless. Some consider +it sufficient that a man has for a certain number of years not been in +receipt of poor-law relief, except medical relief or relief granted +under 'exceptional circumstances.' Others would accept the mere fact +that a man has lived to be sixty-five, as the drunken and disreputable +workman seldom lives so long. A large number of resolutions have +condemned Mr. Chaplin's report on the grounds that old-age pensions +ought not to be confined to the 'deserving' poor; that they ought to +begin at an earlier age than sixty-five; that they ought to be +administered by a body totally unconnected with the poor law, so as to +carry with them no taint of pauperism or eleemosynary relief. They +ought, it is said, to be universal; to be looked on as a matter of +strict right; to be considered as of the same nature as the pension +given to the soldier or the Civil Servant. + +It is obvious that all this may carry us very far. It is estimated +that some of the most popular proposals would involve an annual +expenditure of considerably more than twenty millions of +pounds--making allowance for the saving that might be effected in the +ordinary poor-law relief, but not counting the cost of administration. +And this expenditure would be a growing one; and once accepted it +could hardly be withdrawn. The vast addition to the national debt that +might follow a great European war or the great shrinkage of the +national income that might easily follow some revolution in trade or +manufacture, might render the burden of taxation incomparably more +serious than at present; but once the great mass of the population had +learned to regard State support in old age as their normal prospect +and their inalienable right, it would be impossible, without producing +a social revolution, to recede. All the advantages gained by +generations of economical administration of the national finance would +be nullified; while the certain result of this crushing addition to +taxation would be to weaken incalculably the spirit of thrift, +providence, and self-reliance, and at the same time to lower wages, by +removing one of the great considerations by which they are regulated. +And this reduction of wages would fall not only on the recipient of +the pension, but also on multitudes who would never live to attain it. +Nothing can be more certain than that a general system of pensions +attached to the labour of the wage-earner must lower wages, at least +among all those who are approaching the pension age; while it would +prevent or retard their natural increase over a far wider area. + +It would also most certainly bring with it the gravest danger of +corruption. It would not be easy to secure the pure and the impartial +administration of these vast funds; but the political dangers would be +much more serious. It is proposed that the pension system should be +first introduced on a small scale, but gradually extended till it +included all the aged poor, or at least all who were deserving. Such a +question would infallibly pass into the competitions of party warfare. +It would become in most constituencies one of the most prominent of +electioneering tests. Rival candidates would be competing for the +votes of a wage-earning electorate who had a direct pecuniary interest +in increasing or extending pensions and in relaxing the conditions on +which they are given. Can it be doubted that in many cases their first +object would be to outbid one another, and that national and party +politics would soon be forced into a demoralising race of +extravagance? + +I cannot conclude without protesting against the supposition that +those who think with me are indifferent to the great evil of old-age +destitution and propose nothing for its relief. The committees which +have most clearly pointed out the dangers of old-age pensions have +also urged, that within the lines of our present poor-law system it is +quite possible to do much, by an improved classification, to +distinguish among the recipients of poor-law relief between the +respectable and the worthless. Much has already been done, and in the +most important unions the guardians have introduced a large amount of +classification by merit. As I have already said, the immense majority +of the respectable aged poor are now relieved only in their own homes +or in comfortable infirmaries. The severe test of absolute destitution +has in practice been greatly relaxed; there is a legal provision +preventing those who are receiving help from Friendly Societies from +being disqualified for relief; husbands and wives are no longer +separated in the workhouse; and in some unions of which we had +evidence much more has been done. This, however, depends too much on +the will of particular Boards of Guardians, and there are in +consequence great inequalities of treatment. The condition of the +deserving poor may be greatly improved by relaxation in points of +hours, discipline, and visitors, and by workhouse arrangements +securing more universally that paupers who have lived respectable +lives should not be obliged to mix with the drunken, the disreputable, +and the hopelessly idle. And, though extensions of outdoor relief +should be carefully watched, and entail great dangers, yet under wise +and strict administration something more may be done in this +direction. + +But all this should be regarded as essentially poor-law relief, and +not as the recognition of a claim of right for services supposed to +have been rendered to the community. No form of State Socialism is +more dangerous than the doctrine which has been countenanced by Prince +Bismarck, and which is making many disciples in England--namely, that +an industrious man, who has pursued his course in life with perfect +independence, made his own contracts, chosen his own work, and been +paid for it by stipulated wages, is entitled, if he fails in obtaining +a sufficiency for his old age, to be placed as a 'soldier of industry' +in the same category as State servants, and to receive like them, not +on the ground of compassion, but of right, a State pension drawn from +the taxation of the community. There is no real analogy between the +relief that is very properly granted to such workmen in their +destitution, and the pensions--largely of the nature of deferred +pay--that are given by the State or by private employers, under the +terms of distinct contracts, and for specific services duly rendered, +to those who have entered into their employment and placed themselves +under their control. + + + + +INDEX + + +Aberdare Commission, 303 + +Addington, 273 + +American Revolution, 34-37, 55-57, 77, 78 + +Anne, Queen, 295 + +Anti-Semite movement, 116-121, 123-125, 128 + +Arnold, Dr., 251 + +Australia, 58 + +Austria, 116, 145 + + +Bacon, 28, 94, 101 + +Bayard, Mr., 48 + +Bayle, 97 + +Beaconsfield, Earl of (B. Disraeli), 126, 151, 153, 207, 211, 214, + 215, 217, 283; + imperialism, 46; + policy regarding Eastern Crisis, 222; + relations with Lord Derby, 223; + Queen Victoria's regard for, 296 + +Beer, George, 56 + +Bentham, J., 43, 101 + +Bernard, Claude, 121 + +Bismarck, Prince, 288, 289, 317 + +Blackley, Canon, 310 + +Blennerhassett, Lady, 131-133, 145, 148, 149 + +Blomfield, Bishop, 263 + +Bossuet, 96-98 + +Boulanger, General, 116 + +Bright, 207, 208 + +British Empire, growth, 51, 53, 64; + defence, 61, 65; + unity, 45, 48, 51, 62, 67 + +Browning, Robert, 105, 251 + +Buckle, H.T., 29, 100-102, 251, 269 + +Burke, Edmund, 28, 54, 55, 151, 295 + +Butler's 'Analogy,' 91, 92 + + +Caird, Principal, 294 + +Canada, 59, 60 + +Canning, 151, 174, 188, 189, 198, 199; + attitude towards Catholic Question, 156, 160, 161, 166-170, 172, 188; + quoted, 213 + +Cardan, quoted, 10 + +Carlyle, Thomas, 47, 91, 216, 247, 251; + school of, 29; + style, 105; + characteristics, 106-113; + teaching, 107, 108, 110-115 + +Caroline, Queen, 295 + +Castlereagh, Viscount, 156, 157, 160, 161, 167, 169, 170, 188 + +Catherine, of Russia, Empress, 291, 295 + +Catholic Emancipation, 78-86, 152, 153, 157-174, 187-190, 193, 194, 197; + _see also under_ Ireland + +Cato, 15 + +Chamberlain, Joseph, 303-304, 309 + +Charlemagne, 17-19, 266 + +Charlemont, 73, 81 + +Chartism, 108, 115 + +Chatham, Lord, 85, 86, 138, 151, 157-160, 165, 186, 273 + +Chaucer, 18, 117 + +Chivalry, 17, 19, 295 + +Chrysostom, Dio, 16 + +Church, Dean, 250, 265 + +Clarendon, Lord, 244, 246, 280 + +Cobden, Richard, 44, 46, 62 + +Colenso, Bishop, 272 + +Coleridge, 22, 96, 112, 147 + +Colonial policy of Great Britain, 43-46, 52, 53, 55-61 + +Colonies, British: + defence, 49, 56, 65; + federation, 63, 64; + governors, 52, 54, 60; + representation, 51, 65, 66; + trade, 47, 56, 63-65, 225; + value of, 47-50; + attachment to the Crown, 277 + +Comte, 100 + +Constant, Benjamin, 142, 144, 148 + +Constitutional sovereignty, 277 + +Co-operation, 108, 217, 299 + +Croker, 177, 178 + +Crusades, 18, 19, 266 + +Curchod, Mlle., _see_ Necker, Mme. + +Curwen's Act, 177 + + +Dalling, Lord, 151 + +Darwin and his teaching, 90, 101, 114, 247, 251 + +Davies, Sir John, quoted, 70 + +Delane, J.T., 243 + +De Quincey, 107 + +Derby, 14th Earl of, 201, 202, 204-206, 208-210, 212, 214, 215 + +Derby, 15th Earl of: + career, 200, 205-213, 215, 217, 218, 222-224, 234, 235; + views on Church questions, 205, 210, 214, 232, 233; + on Reform Bill, 210; + Indian policy, 205, 209, 210; + foreign policy, 212, 213, 217-224; + colonial policy, 208, 224, 225, 228-230; + attitude towards Home Rule, 234; + contemporary opinion of him, 206-209, 211-213, 219, 220; + marriage 215; + interest in social questions, 205, 206, 212, 216, 217, 224, 235; + in working men, 205, 206, 210, 216, 217, 237; + tastes, 239, 240; + conversation, 240, 241; + estimate of his talents and character, 202-204, 207, 209, 212, 217, + 219-224; + speeches, 202, 205, 211, 212, 214, 215, 217, 222-224, 229, 234-236 + +Dicey, Professor 89 + +Disraeli, B., _see_ Beaconsfield + +Duigenan, 169, 174 + + +Eastern Question, Lord Derby's views on, 218-223 + +_Edinburgh Review_, 242, 243, 246, 247 + +Education, popular, 108, 185 + +Eldon, Lord, 160, 174, 189, 190, 192, 253 + +Elizabeth, Queen, 291, 295; + inscription on tomb of, 187 + +Ellenborough, Lord, 208, 209 + +Emerson, R.W., 96, 104 + +Emigration, 49, 50, 53, 108 + +Erasmus, 257 + +'Essays and Reviews,' 90 + + +Faber, 250 + +Factory legislation, 108 + +Federation, 63, 64, 225 + +Feudalism, 17, 69, 110 + +Fitzwilliam, Lord, 85 + +Flood, 73, 81 + +Foster, Leslie, 195 + +Fox, 158, 162, 174 + +France, 73, 97, 98, 116 + +Franklin, Benjamin, 94 + +_Fraser's Magazine_, 104 + +Free Trade, 44, 45, 47, 63, 64, 78, 225 + +French Revolution, 28, 37, 38, 82, 139, 141, 142 + +Froude, J.A., 251, 269 + + +Galdos' 'Gloria,' 117 + +George II., 295 + +George III. and Catholic Emancipation, 85, 86, 157-162, 194 + +George IV., as Prince Regent, 162, 163, 165, 166; + as King, 188-191, 194 + +German literature, 146, 147 + +Germany, 106, 107, 116, 118, 145, 260, 262, 310, 317 + +Gibbon, 3, 134, 263, 264 + +Giffen, Sir Robert, 307, 308 + +Gladstone, W.E., 214, 246, 249, 250, 283, 286-288 + +Goethe, 107, 147 + +Gordon, General, 286 + +Goulburn, 196, 197 + +Grattan, 78, 81, 82, 84, 161, 163, 164, 166, 168-171, 174, 186, 187, + 195, 197 + +Grenville, George, 36, 56, 57 + +Grenville, Lord, 158, 161, 162, 166 + +Greville, Charles, 206, 207, 209, 243 + +Grey, Lord, 166, 280 + +Grote, 251, 269 + +Guizot, 151, 244 + +Gustavus III., King of Sweden, 138 + + +Hallam, A., 96, 251, 269 + +Harcourt, Sir William, quoted, 290 + +Hastings, Warren, 54, 55 + +Haussonville, M. d', 134, 138 + +Hawkesbury, Lord, 161 + +Hawtrey, Provost, 265 + +Heber, Bishop, 255 + +High Church movement, 90, 92, 249-251, 270 + +Hippisley, Sir John, 163, 169 + +Historians, qualities requisite, 2, 4-6, 10-12; + motto for, 10; + scientific school, 2-4; + literary, 3; + methods, 7, 8, 22, 23; + applied to religion, 97-99; + eighteenth century, 22, 23; + fatalist school, 29, 30; + individualist school, 29, 31 + +History: + biographical element, 7, 9; + individual influences, 12, 13; + fiction and, 20; + accident as affecting, 31, 100; + of institutions, 27, 28; + of revolutions, 29, 30, 34-38; + speculations, 32, 33; + advantages of studying, 38-40; + moral lessons, 40, 42 + +Hobbes, 94, 98, 99 + +Home Rule, _see under_ Ireland + +Homer, 16, 22 + + +Ideals, varying popular, 14-19 + +Imperial Institute, 43 + +Imperialism, 46-51, 63, 64, 296 + +India, 44, 46-48, 54, 55, 57, 58, 61, 62, 277 + +Ireland (_see also_ Ulster): + invasions, 69; + rebellions, 71, 82, 83, 85, 157; + influence of the Reformation, 70; + under the Stuarts, 71; + trade, 71, 72, 75, 78; + effects of English Revolution, 71, 72; + of American Revolution, 77, 78; + of French Revolution, 82; + Young's views on, 76, 77; + Catholics and Protestants, 70-79, 81-87; + Volunteer movement, 78, 87; + political agitation, 77, 78, 82, 87, 88; + union with Great Britain, 74, 75, 81, 83-85, 157; + Catholic Emancipation, 81-86, 157-174, 189, 194-198; + corruption, 175-179, 181, 183; + discontent, 165, 183, 184, 189, 194; + tithe commutation, 185-187; + Church disestablishment, 214, 215, 250, 283; + land tenure, 70, 75-77, 86, 87; + landlords, 75-77, 79, 86, 87; + Home Rule, 25, 87-89, 234, 246, 286, 296; + Queen Victoria's visit, 290, 291; + present condition, 86, 87; + representation in Parliament, 86 + +Irish Acts of Parliament, + of settlement, 71; + octennial, 77; + of 1793, 85, 158, 159; + of union, 74, 75, 81, 83-85 + +Irish Parliament, 71, 72, 74, 75, 77-83, 85 + +Irishmen, United, 81, 84, 85 + +Isabella of Spain, Queen, 295 + +Italian art, 103 + +Italy, 97, 98, 145, 146 + + +Jefferson, quoted, 37, 38 + +Jeffrey, 107 + +Jewish type, + stability of, 120, 121; + trade, 118, 119, 121; + writings, modern investigation of, 8, 9, 257-259, 261, 262, 271, 272 + +Jews, + calumnies against, 117, 118; + characteristics, 118-130; + code, 121; + compared with other tribes, 119; + continuity of race, 119, 120; + distinguished, 126-129; + persecution of, 116-121, 123-126; + return of, to Palestine, 129, 130; + Milman's 'History of the', 257, 258, 262, 272 + + +Kant, Immanuel, 92, 147, 247 + +Keats, John, 256 + +Keble, John, 250, 270 + +Kruger, President, 226-228 + + +Landor, Walter Savage, quoted, 22 + +Leroy, Beaulieu, M. Anatole, 116-128 + +Lewis, Sir G. Cornewall, 45, 153, 246, 273 + +Liverpool, Lord, 156, 166, 168, 182, 188, 192-194, 197-199 + +Lloyd, Dr., 192 + +Locke, 96, 101 + +Lockhart, 255 + +Loughborough, Lord, 186 + +Louis Napoleon, _see_ Napoleon III. + +Lyall, Sir Alfred, 240 + + +Macaulay, Lord, 3, 6, 8, 55, 204, 246, 251, 268, 269, 272, 273 + +Macleod, Norman, 294 + +Malmesbury, Lord, 206, 210 + +Manchester School, 44, 45, 47, 50, 299 + +Marie Antoinette, Queen, 140, 141 + +Martin, Sir Theodore, 287 + +Masson's 'Life of Milton,' 132 + +Melbourne, Lord, 282, 296 + +Mill, James, 43, 55 + +Mill, John Stuart, 90, 96, 206, 210, 251 + +Milman, Dean, + career, 253, 256, 262, 263, 271-274; + dramatist, 253; + poet, 254, 255; + translator, 256; + hymns, 255; + historian, 257-270; + critic, 252, 256-261, 263-267, 269; + learning, 269; + style, 268, 269; + views on miracles, 258-260; + on German criticism, 260-262; + on Christianity, 268; + on Tractarian movement, 270; + on clerical subscription, 271; + Mr. Reeve and, 246; + Dean Stanley and, 271; + friendships, 252, 273; + private correspondence, 253; + social gifts, 272, 273; + characteristics, 252, 253, 257, 265, 266, 268, 269, 271, 272-274; + works, 252-270, 272, 273; + portrait, 274 + +Milman, Arthur, 252 + +Milner, Bishop, 163, 164 + +Milton, 132 + +Mohammedanism, rise of, 32, 101 + +Molyneux, 74 + +Monasticism, 24 + +Montesquieu, 132, 136 + +Montmorin, Mme, de, 139 + +Moral standard, changes in, 14-19, 266 + +Murray, 254 + + +Napoleon I., 142-146, 149 + +Napoleon III., 280, 288 + +Narbonne, Louis de, 138-141 + +Necker, Mme., 134, 135, 142 + +Necker, Monsieur, 133, 138, 140, 144, 146, 149 + +Necker, Germaine, _see_ Stael, Mme. de + +Newcastle, Duke of, 45, 189 + +Newman, Cardinal, 90, 96, 249-251, 269, 270 + + +O'Connell, 164, 165, 171, 174, 189, 192, 193, 286 + +Old-age pensions, 307, 309, 311-316; + proposals for, 300, 309, 310, 313; + Royal Commission, 303; + Rothschild Committee, 304, 305; + Chaplin Committee, 305, 307 + +Orangemen, 84, 173, 189, 190 + + +Palestine, return of Jews to, 129, 130 + +Paley, 95, 260 + +Palmerston, Lord, 46, 178, 206-209, 211, 246, 279-282 + +Parker, editor of Peel Correspondence, 153, 156, 192 + +Parnell, C.S., 186 + +Parnell Commission, 88, 89 + +Parsons, 73, 84 + +Pasteur, 121 + +Pauperism, diminution of, 298-309 + +Peel, Sir Lawrence, 156 + +Peel, Sir Robert, + education, 154, 155; + career, 151, 153-156, 168, 172, 177, 187, 188, 194; + abolition of Corn Laws, 152, 153; + Irish Secretary, 156, 157, 167, 174-187; + relations with O'Connell, 174; + correspondence, 153, 173, 175-185, 189, 190, 191, 197-199; + Croker and, 177, 178; + advocates unsectarian education for Ireland, 185, 190; + Catholic Emancipation, 152, 153, 168-174, 187, 189-191, 193-195, 197-199; + financial measures, 187, 194, 195; + patronage, 178-183, 191, 192; + police force organised, 184, 185; + Home Secretary, 188-198; + parliamentary skill, 152, 153, 157, 181, 191; + debating powers, 172, 173; + Queen Victoria and, 282, 286; + recantations, 152, 153, 187, 193, 194; + estimate of his character and abilities, 151-154, 156, 157, 172, 181, 191 + +Perceval, 155, 156, 159-161, 165, 166 + +Pitt, William, _see_ Chatham + +Pliny, quoted, 102 + +Plunket, 84, 168, 174, 188 + +Pobedonosteff, 117 + +Pole, Wellesley, 168 + +Poor-law relief, + improvement in, 316, 317; + principles of, 298, 299 + +Portland, Duke of, 159-161 + +Portugal, Jews in, 120, 121 + +Prince Consort, 278-280, 282, 284 + +Prince Regent, _see_ George IV + +Prison reform, Carlyle's views on, 114 + +Pusey, 250 + + +'Quarterly Review,' 256, 257 + + +Rationalism in Europe, author's History of, 103 + +Redesdale, Lord, 175, 181, 182, 186 + +Reeve, Henry: + education, 243; + career, 243, 245, 246; + editor of _Edinburgh Review_, 242, 246, 247; + historical knowledge, 246; + views on Home Rule, 246; + linguistic talent, 243; + literary judgment, 246, 247; + religious and philosophical views, 247; + political and social influence, 242, 244-246; + friendships, 243, 244, 247, 248; + writings of, 242-244, 247; + closing days, 248 + +Reform Bills, 210, 211, 213 + +Reformation, + causes of the, 29, 30; + effect in Ireland, 70 + +Revolution, + American, 34-37; + effects of, in Ireland, 77, 78 + +Revolution, + English, effect of, in Ireland, 71, 72; + on trade, 72, 74 + +Revolutions, history of, 29, 30, 34-38 + +Richmond, Duke of, 165, 167, 187 + +Ristori, Mme., 245 + +Rocca, 148, 149 + +Rogers, Sir Frederick, 45, 46 + +Roumania, anti-Semite movement in, 116, 118 + +Rousseau, 96, 132, 136 + +Ruskin, 251 + +Russell, Lord John, 46, 47, 211-213, 241, 246, 263, 280, 281, 285 + +Russia, anti-Semite movement in, 116-118, 124 + + +Salisbury, Lord, 276, 296 + +Saurin, 165, 168, 169, 174, 183, 188 + +Schiller, 147 + +Schleswig-Holstein question, 281, 284, 285 + +Scotland, Act of Union with, 74 + +Shaftesbury, Lord, 206, 217 + +Shelley, P.B., 256, 257 + +Sidmouth, Lord, 158, 188 + +Smith, Goldwin, 44, 151 + +Socialism, 299, 310 + +Spain, 73, 97, 98, 117, 120, 121, 124, 125 + +Spencer, Herbert, 90, 109, 247 + +Stael, Baron de, 138, 140, 142 + +Stael, Mme. de., parentage, 133, 134; + personal appearance, 135; + career, 134-138, 142, 145, 148-150; + devotion to her father, 138; + friendships, 138, 139, 142, 145; + literary works, 136, 141, 142, 145-150; + Napoleon I., views on, 143, 144; + political influence, 139, 140, 142, 144; + religious views, 136, 149; + travels, 145, 146; + characteristics, 136, 137, 141, 145, 148, 149 + +Stanley, Dean, 251, 260, 271, 294 + +Stanley, Lord, _see_ Derby, 15th Earl of + +Stockmar, Baron, 278 + +Sullivan, Sir Arthur, 254 + + +Tait, Archbishop, 283 + +Talleyrand, 134, 139, 142, 144 + +Taxation of American Colonies, 34-36, 56, 57; + democratic principles of, 300 + +Taylor, Sir Henry, 45, 46 + +Tennyson, Lord, 90, 251 + +Tocqueville, 242-244 + +Trade, + Colonial, 47, 56, 63-65; + Indian, 47; + Irish, 71, 72, 75, 78; + Jewish, 118, 119, 121; + affected by English Revolution, 72 + +Transportation to Australia, 58 + +Transvaal affairs, 225-232, 286 + +Trinity College, Dublin, 90-92, 96-100, 103 + + +Ulster, 70, 77, 78, 83, 84 + +United Irishmen, 81, 84, 85 + + +Voltaire, 7, 96, 121, 135 + +Volunteer movement in Ireland, 78, 87 + +Victoria, Queen: + relations with her Ministers, 279-283, 286-288, 296; + memorandum on foreign affairs, 279, 280; + political influence, 277, 278, 280, 282-286, 288; + patronage, 278; + views on foreign policy, 279-281, 283-286; + on Irish Church disestablishment, 283; + on women's suffrage, 294; + on Home Rule, 296; + wide experience, 276, 279, 287; + letters, 288, 289; + journals, 292, 293; + widowhood, 275, 292, 296; + moral influence, 291, 292; + rule of, 275, 277-279, 281-284, 293-295; + popularity, 289-291, 293, 296, 297; + characteristics, 274-276, 279, 281-283, 287-294, 296, 297; + jubilees, 290, 296, 297; + visit to Ireland, 290, 291; + closing days, 296, 297 + + +Walpole, Spencer, 151 + +Ward, 250 + +Watts, 274 + +Wellesley, Lord, _see_ Wellington, Duke of + +Wellington, Duke of, 160, 161, 166, 167, 188-190, 198, 272, 289 + +Whateley, Archbishop, 92-96, 100, 251 + +Women rulers, 295 + +Working classes, improvement in their condition, 300, 301, 308 + + +York, Duke of, 194, 197-199 + +Young, Arthur, 76, 77 + + + +PRINTED BY +SPOTTISWOODE AND CO. 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