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j .2*4 THE LEADER. [Saturday-
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The Governing 'Classes. No. Xiv. The Mar...
and family were barbarians , —like the best English nobles of that day , Horace Walpole , who was not of the Whig genus , excepted ; but Fox , lived , in his youth , a great , deal abroad , and in the cultivated good society , saturated -with "Voltaire , of Paris and Italy , and he acquired tastes and faculties and sympathies which puzzled the then Holland House , and also Brookes ' , when he got home—his "French verses , of which any fairly educated English youth of twenty of our day would be heartily ashamed , being regarded by a British society not very well
able to spell , as proofs of surprising genius . Fox became the idol of the young fellows ; and as Fox read everything , particularly novels , it became a fashion to be clever—especially with \ the women . But the other heroes of the party were literary . Burke first , and then Sheridan , sustained and intensified the tone imparted by Fox to the party—men like Barre and Francis having prepared the way for that allusive and " smart" style of debating which Gibbon deplored , and which reached its perfection when Sheridan thundered a quotation from
Demosthenes , which he subsequently confessed was in the Irish tongue , or as near an approach as he could remember to that enthusiastic language . That the fashion did as much harm as good to the Whigs is quite certain . Every young Whig wrote something when he came of age : and the majority of the young Whigs made great messes of literature—or if they succeeded , got spoiled as politicians . Lord John wrote a play and a biography ; and has ever since ,
no doubt , deeply regretted that he thus offered a real test of the extent of his capacity . On the other hand , Shiel , who was , if anything , a Whig , like all the young Irish collegians who worshipped Grattan , wrote a play which spoiled him—he acted all his life after . For a' certain time the literary reputation of the Whigs gave them an artistic position as a party : and they derived immense advantage , as the reading public increased , from the accession to their cause of all the clever fellows who
turned up . Holland House was somewhere to go to : and the poets on town decided on Whiggery To have Moore on their side was worth fifty votes to the Whigs ; and how easily astute nobles could contrive to silence all the dangerous pens , was illustrated in Moore's career—for by a little flattery , a little cottage , and a little aid of directer sorts , they-kept him quiet , intense Irish patriot as he was , even after Sheridan was deserted—and even while O'Connell was being prosecuted . Very slight management , and a few dinners , secured Sidney Smith , Jeffrey ,
and Brougham : and the Edinburgh Review got the intellect of England alongside the Whigs . " All the talents" were so obviously Whigs , that every man of genius took to the party as a matter of course . Byron was no Whig , either by connexion , or by nature : and yet Byron was nattered and petted into doing enormous service to the Whigs by doing enormous mischief ( and more out of England than in it ) to the Tories—strong Tories , too , like Castlcreagh and Wellington . Mackintosh was taken up hy the Whigs because he attacked Burke ( whose
Style , all the Whigs said , had fallen off—as soon as lie left them ) : and yet Mackintosh had as little sympathy with Whig principles as with French principles . Canning lounged into the Whig party as an inevitable thing ; it waa only when , matured , hia vigorous and honest genius discovered that the Whigs were diletantti , that ho sought the more masculine sympathies of Pitt . In those days the Whigs , oternall } --out , and forced to cultivate external alliances , managed
the press excellently . They sent Perry gossip and invitations , and , what is more , dined with him : bo with Hunt , and as clever and influential men of thqsaiuo class ; and the result was , that the press—which in these days , neglected , in abstract and to pnrty useleas—educated the rising' generation to believe in the Whigs . We wonder now when nn editor of a great journal dines with Lord Aberdeen : in thorns days royal Whig dukes went to dine with editorsand the editors did not chronicle the fact .
And , ufter all , thiH patronage of literature , at first an accident , and then a policy , w / ih very definite , — or rather very indefinitely small , in substance 1 Thoro are no instances of Whig liberality to men of genius ; whereas there arc many instances of Tory liberality to men of genius . Canning and Disraeli , one the eon of an actress , the other the son of a Jew
antiquarian , got the " lead" of the House of Commons : are there such instances on the Whig side ? When the Marquis of Epckingham died , Burke was the natural heir ; but he was pooh-poohed into a fourth or fifth place , and set aside in favour of Charles Fox , who was a mere ILord Derby : and it was when Burke discovered , in the very zenith of his genius , that an unfamily-ed " adventurer" had no chance with young nobles addicted to declamation on the rights of man , that he left the Whigs , —
taking on them a terrible vengeance by arresting the French devolution ! Sheridan ' s is a parallel case . Too much has been made of his sorrows : he was not more worthless , or half so immoral , as Fox : but he was worthless and he was immoral : and he died friendless , because he had never deserved to keep a friend . But he served the Whigs for years : served them when he could have got from
George IV . what he most needed , —money—to desert them : and yet they never gave him a first office or seat : —and on his death-bed he cursed them and the hire for which he had sold his genius . Prophetically , with justice : for when he died they maligned him : and Lord Holland , the hospitable Lord Holland , tells , in his book , how " Sherry , " when his guest , used to take a bottle of wine and a book— " the former for useV—up to bed , and how he
would stop , next morning , on his way to town , at a Kensington public-house for a drain : —interesting details , but hardly worthy of the narration of a hospitable entertainer . The Whigs bought Moore , and made him eternally contemptible * —a traitor to the creed and the country to which he lavishly professed devotion : but at how small a price ! They gave his father a gaugership : they gave him 300 / . a year . That as a party ; and as individuals , they did less . When Moore was
flying from the Bermuda storm—" still vexed" in the law courts , too—they made him offers of help so small that he was compelled to decline them . Lord John Russell proffered him the copyright of the dismal Biography , not adding—strangely enoughhis share in the receipts during the performance of Don Carlos ! Not a Whig followed Moore to his grave ; and Moore ' s legacy to the Whigs , —that they would make such use of his MSS . as would bring his widow a small annuity , whereupon to end her days ,
—is so nobly appreciated , that rather than club 100 / . per annum between them , they soil his memory by pitching to the public the undigested mass of his essentially private papers . So on to the end of the list of Whig agents . To Mackintosh , as to Macaulay afterwards , they gave a second-rate Indian ap pointment . They attempted to retain Brougham as their abject tool : and because Brougham resisted , they reviled him . They never could bear great law officers : as Fox hated Thurlow and Dunning , Lord John Ilussell lias sneered at Brougham and
suppressed Roebuck , —wherefore Brougham dictated , and Roebuck wrote their history . * The Whigs were always promising to promising young men but never fulfilled a promise . Mr . Fonblanque was , for a space of twenty years , the greatest of the " Liberal" " Wits , " before he was found out by the Whigs ; and excepting Mr . Fonblanque , not a Liberal writer , who Avas not also one of the caste , has , in later times , received nt the hand of the Whigs a passport to the service of the country . And those who were ivi " the House" fared worse : for their ambition
Avaa the more conspicuous , and their disappointment the more glaring . Charles Bullcr was a surpassingly brilliant num . At one point in his career , if he had headed the Radical party , ho would have effected wonders . But he sank all hia energies , all Iuh genius , all his honour , in the service of the Whigs : perhaps because he was very poor , but I believe because he was misled by the iynis fatuus of tho historic glory of the Whigs . Such a perfect
parliamentary man had not turned up Hince Charles Townshend : he waa created for the House of Commons . Yet he died , full of rcirior . se and misery ; ho had been kept down , while Cni / ins like Lord had been put up . Tho catalogue ( and it might be amplified to pain ) in as long us the list of Margaret ' s lovers—used , and then h corned— - who floated down the Seine , below tho Tour do Neale . Lately , Holland House became ) hIuuhiccI an the Whig Tour do * Tho writer of ( his , liowo v <; r , ummmcH no U > tlio torio of tlint work . Ho novur read it .
Nesle : and in our day , the old Whigs broke down because every young Liberal—a premature Ul ysses —found that though the Syrens made pleasant music—they kept their places . A terrible chapter of history would be " the Whigs and their Victims : ""In verdant meads they sport , and wide around Lie human bones , that whiten all the ground . " Old parties need new blood : but blood is simply the product—of food .
Whether the Whigs hare not always been as unreal in their politics as unearnest in their patronage of letters , is a question , appropriately raised" in discussing the career and character of the amiable Marquis of Lansdowne , which will never be fairly discussed but by some man like Guizot , who , without being an Englishman , comprehends as thoroughly as
any Englishman could , English history . At this period it is a question to be raised by Liberals , without the slightest danger to the Liberal cause . The English people have no longer to seek popular triumphs by playing different sections of the aristocracy against one another . In our day our democracy has to pit Manchester against Downing-street , —the ambitious middle class against the whole of a
wornout aristocracy . Mr . Disraeli said , when turned out , that he was sure of one thing , —that England had never loved coalitions : but between the last and any preceding coalition there could be no parallel . This last was a coalition , in fact , of the whole of the aristocracy—of Whig and Tory ; all others were coalitions of sections of Lords against other Lords ; and though , even in this case , a clique of Lords are left out , they are Lords without a party or a principle , and , consequently , leaving out Lord Derby means as little in history as leaving out Lord
Greylosing Lord Palmerston as little as leaving outLord Grey . And by such a coalition the Whigs commit suicide ; or rather , the alliance of a Tory leader like Lord Aberdeen with the alliance of a Whig leader like Lord Lansdowne , is the alliance of Mezentius with a corpse : and hence the propriety of an inquest on Whiggery . And an impartial investigation does not lead to the conclusion that the Whigs-have ever
been respectable . That the empire is indebted to them for every advance in liberty and or ganisation since the Revolution of 1688 , is palpably true , —and that at this moment the whole aristocracy is , so to speak , Whig—and that we have a coalition dependent for its chances upon n . competition , with the middle class , in Liberalism , —are beyond all question . But the Tiger fought with the Lion for the Lamb , not for the Fox ' s sake : and the Fox eat his Lamb
without a thought of gratitude to either of the combatants . " Civil and Religious Liberty" has never been more than a cry with the Whigs ; whereas " Church and State" was more than a cry with the Tories—their interests were bound up in Conservatism , and their interestswero the interests of their class , which included the Whigs . The « glorious revolution , " with which the Whigs always began their congr atulat ions , result
was a colossal imposture on the people . The was to make the House of Commons omni potent , and gradually the House of Commons got more and more aft aid of the people ; but , in intention , tho Whigs , who comprised moat of the titled nobility , meant merely to destroy a Monarch who had resolved himself to rule , and not to let the Aristocracy rule , the nation . How far religious liberty was meant , waa in ire
proved by the penal laws against the Papiats - land ; and Scotland , in an early maBsncre , . otic afterwards , ascertained the extent of Whig and JJutcii devotion to civil freedom , while England , becoming a Dutch Treasure House ( and always , —is not thc saI ? feeling exhibited to this day , —abhorring tho rulc 01 " Foreign Prince" ) , perceived how much finer it * to be governed by a Stadtholder than by » op ° ~ though the price of the Stadtholdcr was a n
national debt . The reign of Anno ( and even w soon the aristocracy had split again , so that her liament , when she died , wafl the most High CM and Prerogative Parliament since the time ot ^ II ., —which suggests tho " progress" made oy ^ glorious revolution ) has been called the Al ? B' a ago of Knglaml : —and ho it was—for liberty , civi religious , was dead . Tho Whigs held power tiu £ the two first Georges' reignB , not beetiuao l ' icB for civil and religious liberty , but because tlio ¦ ^ were JaeobitieH , and because the Kings were . ign ^ and brutal foreigners , compelled to rely on tn
J .2*4 The Leader. [Saturday-
j . 2 * 4 THE LEADER . [ Saturday-
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 17, 1853, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_17121853/page/14/
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