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^^(^^¦¦¦•¦¦¦¦ iMMgMM ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ - ^^^^ Helaboration of that idle orator , and were rather rewarded for the patience by a good quarter of an hour ' s set of sentences towards the end , yet the buttonheld sensation had been horribly protracted And what had he effected ? He had made Lord John ridiculous : but that is sheer waste of time . Why Mr . Disraeli is for ever affecting the profoundest respect for Lord John , and always talking the ^ profoundest contempt for Lord John , nobody knows ; and one watched Mr . Disraeli ' s vicious sneers , and analysed the rage gleaming in Lord John's rat-like countenance with a bewilderment that did not in the least promote the business in hand . Lord John was in a great passion : he would speak to no one , not the
abjectest Whig about , as he passed through the lobby ( when Mr . Disraeli was at seltzer-water ) to go into the library , and arrange his reply ; his reply arranged , he got back with gloomy savageness to have it out ; he could not sit through Mr . Gladstone's speech calmly —he thought Mr . Gladstone had perorated when Mr . Gladstone had not half done , and was on his legs to burst out when he saw his blunder , was order-ordered and laughed back . All these were unusual symptoms in this most apathetic of mean men : and denoted the fearful perturbation of the small nature . When he was up , there was no mistake about it ; he would not pronounce one word right—not one : he held his chin as high , up as it would go ; he kept his arms
laced , in the school-girl way , behind his back ; and he gave his historic snort—a loud Haw!—between all his sentences ; for it is Lord John's manner , when having finished one sentence , and not having settled the next , to make that imbecile expectoration to keep attention awake , and it is told that a young reporter once took notes of these snorts , Lord John's speech accordingly looking in type like a long continued oration by Job's warhorse . But though savage he could not be effective . He had simply to say that Mr . Disraeli had degraded a great question by being personal , as if you were not to make individuals responsible for being old simpletons while pretending to statesmanship ; and
his best hit was to make the most of Tory discontent with Mr . Disraeli by suggesting with diabolical emphasis that the move would not increase the respectability or the glory of the party . As to his defence of himself , it is absurd . Pie did incite the nation to war : he did talk of material guarantees : he did try at Vienna to effect a paper peace ; and he is only carrying on war to reduce the number of Russia's ships in the Black Sea . The picture , as painted by himself , is the portrait of a man of fussy intellect and feeble character ; incapabhT of comprehending the position ; unequal to guiding the position . The House has a weakness for Lord John ; but they cannot stand him now . When he rose , at least two hundred members left their places to go out and
talk over Mr . Gladstone : the buzz was so disdainfully loud that it took the Speaker at least three minutes to get a hearing for the " leading man of the age . " When he sat down , after his lumbering inanities about the Tory party , I think that the two hundred members who had got back after the lobby chat laughed at him . I am not sure , for at the moment I was listening to a lady iu the cage overhead who had just come in from a party , and who was asking " who that dreadfully dirty little man was that was speaking ? " As the dreadfully dirty little man's female relatives , members of the 32 , are always plentiful in the cage on the nights when he feels obleeged to say something as to the " posation auf Aangland , " there no doubt ensued a row—happily drowned in the break-up of the House .
The speech of Thursday was Mr . Gladstone ' s . Like all his elaborate efforts , it was finished in construction ( though spoiled by too much deference to the slip-slop , loose style of Parliament ) , brilliant , eloquent , masterly , —and delightful to listen to , if merely as an elocutionary performance . It was a speech which you felt , as you heard it poured out from that master mind , would modify public opinion , affect our passing history , bo the text of a controversy ; and the earnest man as usual met tho earnest audience : —at times the still House , though nt that hour crowded with festive costume , though looking grandly theatrical under tho blaze of brilliant light , was as reverential in its tone as a cathedral congregation . A great
orator had encountered the happy conjunction of a great theme and a great audience : and that sx > lcndid speech , a . state paper which ia tho first of the many contributed on the subject to dufino to Europe tho exact position , and the complete argument , was a triumph such as few men ever have , and no man often . It was a speech that places tho speaker among the recognised orators—alongside Chatham and Burko and Brougham . But , alas ! it produced feelinga of pain among the many who Imvo of late years looked to Mr . Gladstone aa tho fittest Parliamentary leader of our time . JL < "or , in making that impression aa an orator , ho was destroying himself as a statesman . Mr . Gladstone has boon giving hhuaelf up to logic , and is losing tho State . Tho man who will not consent occasionally , I
m ^ u ^ a ^ atmmmima ^ m ^ mmmmmt ^ im ^ immmmmmmmmma ^^^ tm ^^ Hmmmmm or even continuously , for the sake of power , to go with the majority , however wrong—to go with them in order to prevent them being more wrong —is very noble , very Christian , but he is not a statesman , and his business is not among politicians , —his business is in the closet , the press , books . When Mr . Gladstone , years ago , was arguing that Puseyism was logically good Anglicanism—when Mr . Gladstone was rendering Sir Robert Peel uncomfortable by the development of his doubts as to the consistency of the Maynpoth Grant—when
Mr . Gladstone was doing other things of ^ that kind , the country was not vexed with the delicate bloom of his conscience—we calculated that it would wear off , and leave a serviceable surface , in good time . In the Railway Board , in the Colonial Office , at the Exchequer , in letters to Lord Aberdeen about a tortured Italian patriot , Mr . Gladstone seemed to indicate that he had set himself to the actual work of practical government , and that that massive understanding had ceased to perplex itself with scholastic refinements on plain matters .
But he is apparently relapsing into the delicate mental disease produced by an excess of logical faculty . His error in leaving the Palmerston Government because Palmerston assented to the Sebastopol Committee , arose from his exquisite conscientiousness and his preternaturally-pellucid logic ; but the gravity of the mistake in getting again into the background has since been observed , and Mr . Gladstone on Thursday proved as clearly as he proved anything that he ought to be agitating his views on the war in the Cabinet , and not in the House of Commons . In his declaration now , that the war has become sinful because it is carried on for purposes not originally specified when we
went to war , he strikes his countrymen with the conviction that he is admirably logical , but that he has imperfect notions of the science of governing-men . Mr . Gladstone is quite right , perhaps , that the war is not only sinful and illogical , but absurd . But Lord Palmerston is the better statesman in not confessing illogicality and in humouring the humorous British people . Mr . Gladstone , then , by that one speech , passes away from among our practical leaders and takes up his position next to Mr . Bright , below Mr . W . J . Fox , not far from Mr . Lawrence Heyworth , —as a crotcheteer .
Let us trust that he and Mr . Bright will reappear in the stations which their characters and intellects , alike first-rate , would command in peaceful circumstances ; and in the mean while their experience will suggest to them that though it is a fine thing to have the confidence and the affection of the pure-minded and logical Christian community , yet that community is not sufficiently large to obtain power even for the powerful : —and that it is the duty of the powerful , therefore , not to thrust away power . Mankind , particularly English mankind , are very easily governed ; and the best men ought not to give up Government to the worst .
Lord Palmerston last night suggested that Mr . Gladstone ought never to have sat in his ( Lord P . ' s ) Government ; and Lord Malmesbury , in the House of Lords , said , amid the cheering of the few Peers present , that it was a good thing for England that the Peelites will now be regarded as combinations of the Jesuit and the Quaker . But Lord Palmeston's Government missed the Peelites in this debate . Lord Palmerston was , on the whole , more melancholy , feeble , and futile than his Colonial Minister . It was late when he had to speak , and he had not got more than two hours' doz 3 all night : and he was ludicrously interrupted by Black Rod , and found that the wretched joko on that interruption did not take ,
and altogether was upset by the laughing at Sir Augustus Clifford and himself . His speech was a concoction of formalities and commonplaces , badly delivered , impatiently endured . He only said one good thing—that he would do the will of the people —that any Minister now must do tho will of the people—which , perhaps , is an appeal to pressure from without to put down some of his Cabinet and nil the Court : but for that sagacious saying , in which he virtually undertakes a great war , free from negotiations , if England will stand by him , ho got no credit . So that Mr . Disraeli ' s reply—done in Mr . Disraeli ' s old Pcolic style , with a refreshing renewal of swift strength , with that
audacious swagger and gladiatorial gesticulation winch aro not vulgar , but delightful , in Mr . Disraeli —was very effective ; and the government , which lias no hotter men to put forward than those two oldoat old lords , got into its safe division decidedly damaged . Mr . Layard was effective against them , but not so effective as he would have been if he had taken more pains and elaborated his excellent points ; ho was effective from his full knowledge ; and that that umpK : knowledge would give him parliamentary position if lie would but condescend to work for it like other men who tako time , ho must soo in the circumstance that all through his speech tho generoussounding chocrs wore given from the Tory benches—from tho very men with whoso class ho is
at war . Mr . Roundell Palmer was really eloquent in elaboration of Mr . Gladstone ' s view : but theil Lord John and Lord Palmerston slumbered through his speech , and the House was dining , so that ire must regret Mr . Palmer spoke at alL Mr . Lowe had a still smaller audience , but he deserved a full house , which he will yet have , for his robust common sense and elegant plain speaking . Mr . Whiteside had a distinct parliamentary success : —that is afact , not an opinion—men of all sides were loud and hearty in their declaration that he had at last justified the reputation with which he had entered the House . > Lord Stanley was a failure , not for his speech , which I have no doubt was sound and excellent and pointed , but because he was only heard . by the benches immediately in face of him . Lord Stanley is a man of first-rate powers , a born governor ; but he cannot speak , and never will be a speaker , —and , therefore , he ought to take to Mr . Carlyle ' s can £ that oratory is a mischievous delusion , suited only to a barbaric periodj and so on . Poor Lord Grey suffered , last night , from the greater attraction at the other House . He had only half a dozen Peers to talk to , not more than the same number of Bishops , and Lord Redesdale seems so effectually to have frightened away the ladies , that the sex was represented by no more -than Countess Grey ( of course ) and two or three daughters of very rural Deans . Nevertheless , Lord Grey , honest crocheteer , had his say from five to eightf , and proved every one in the wrong to his entire satisfaction . He brought up the cleverest of the Bishops , the only clever Duke , and one Minister—but you can scarcely call the talk a debate . Yet the Lords had their revenge on the public inattention to them by sending in that awful Black Rod ( whose little ebony stick looks like a note of exclamation on the Constitution ) to flutter the Commons into consternation , and to make their leader look more ridiculous than he ever looked before . The miscellaneous Parliamentary incidents of thia week are not numerous . Sir James Graham in attempting to put Mr . Layard down , put himself down : and on Monday had to do what has so often been re = quired of him—to confess that he was a huge blunderer in consequence of being so colossally crafty . ' . That large old gentleman did not look noble in apolo-: gising that evening , and must have noticed that the respectful but cold House did not believe a word of his explanations ! But it was as well , even at the expense of Sir James Graham being found out in a meanness , to have the question settled who killed Cock Robin ; and Mr . Layard , if he be patient , and take such advice as has been offered in these columns , and as Mr . Disraeli gave him very kindly on Thursday , will have a quiet time of it now . A more promising Peelite than Sir James is Mr . Gordon , Lord Aberdeen's son , who made a maiden speech on Tuesday on the Ballot—speaking with vigour and heartiness , and with due affectation of modesty required by elderly idiots from clever young men—and indicating that the young Whigs do not enjoy a monopoly of liberal principles . That painfully elderly Whig , Lord Seymour , illustrated , on the same night , what Whig principles amount to . Speaking in the full confidence that as a nation of snobs we like to be despised , he said that the borough constituencies wanted the ballot because . they were rogues : and he argued that they were rogues , because , he said , they are of the small shopkeeping class ; and even tradesmenall tradesmen being in the habit of adulterating goods , and generally defrauding the public—are scoundrels . Thus , argues the lord , if you canaille adulterate your goods , why should we not adulterate the Government , and get our share of fraud in that fashion—an argument that the English people ought to look into , hanging Lord Seymour if it be unsound —or themselves , if it be well founded . Meanwhile , Lord Seymour ' s malignant candonr allows of a pleasant peep into the mind ( so to speak ) of tho aristocratic animal ; and considering tho pot-and-kettle controversy going on between Lorda and people , one begins to feel clato with one s own , one ' s native land . Mr . Henry Berkeley made his great annual joke , a proposal of the Ballofc , witli , hiauauul irresistible comicality;—model moral man as ho is , ho is bent on purifying our public lite , &ir ; and as long as it ' s quite sure not to be carried , no will keep the ballot motion before our eyes , and give us pleasant speeches , in which , confident in his pocket borough , ho ably denounces tho undue > m-, fluonco of ' the aristocracy . Not many of tl e dotrj- , mental sons of peers aro able to amuse us ; but when an Honourable , of some capacity , I ves to middle ago , he is very effective in bringing his knowledge of tUo world to bear upon political aflectations . Avani Hrc /««« # «« politique , it fuut tire homme blast ; and . ig 7 « d forty ' yoab . in making the most of " advantages in rendering private 1 fo pleasant , Mr . llcnrv Berkeley is sublime in undertaking ¦ to provide « machinery which ho guarantees to make us all publicly honest . „*„« , „„»» A Saturday Morning " A STKANGHIl . . , ¦
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May 26 , 1855 . ] T H E X . E A D E B ,. ffi *
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Leader (1850-1860), May 26, 1855, page 497, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2092/page/17/
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