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    S4 THE LEA DE B; [Ho, 460, Januam 15, 18...

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    mote the popular movement for the overth...

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    Thoughts, Facts, And Suggestions On Parl...

    ability and a blockhead or impostor along with him , or they have returned two respectable aullards , or lordlings , or flunkeys of great men . It is positively deplorable to look over the rank and file of what ought to be the party of pfbgress in . Parliament and to see how helpless ana hopeless it is , as now constituted , both with regard to moral courage and debating ability . Take , for example , the metropolitan county , a county which , in the struggle for the first Reform Bill , was represented influentially and worthily by old George Byng , and which , in the coming conflict for another and better measure , is luckily able still to command the useful , and reliable services of one

    Crown . And does any rational man believe tha the nation at large would have felt or shown such a determination had the independent constituencies of that day put themselves up to auction , or submitted to be misrepresented by ignorant , wavering , bigoted , or blundering , make-believe members ?

    who bears his name ; but a county which , as regards its other member , " might as well be not represented at all . Mr . Hanbury belongs to that narrow and bigoted clique who are oligarchs in religion , oligarchs in politics , and oligarchs in trade . In creed they desire to perpetuate the domination of one sect over all others , in politics they will keep up the domination of one usurping class over the rest of the community ; and as for all that concerns social and industrial life , they have but one faith and one idea—the worship of the grasping and grinding

    money power . It was clear , from the majority he obtained over Lord Chelsea , that the Liberals might have returned whom they pleased ; and now , when they want a man of intellect and talent to fight their battle with the obstructives in Parliament , they fbid themselves saddled with one who is incapable of giving them any practical aid , and whose probable course may be anticipated from his vote in favour of the Conspiracy Bill . Take the case of Hull . There also , in times past , good and able men have been returned , and there also is still to be found one efficient and consistent representative ,

    Mr . James Clay . But in which lobby will the other member for the borough most probably be found when questions arise next session in which the people feel a deep interest ? Lord Ashley , to do him justice , did not take his constituents in . They must have seen at the first glance that , he had neither the talent nor the desire to impose on them . He was flung at them from Cambridg e House , in the midst of the uproar about the China war , and without being able to make a speech worth hearing , or to give a pledge worth keeping , his backers contrived to foist him on the electors of Hull . It

    is gratifying to observe that a portion of the constituency have at length awakened to a sense of their situation , and that his illiberal Lordship has been served with notice to quit a post he should never have been suffered to occupy . Again , look at Dublin and Edinburgh , the capitals respectively of th , e two sister kingdoms : the one returns two nominal Whigs , and the other two nominal Tories ; but will any impartial man rise up and tell us that Edinburgh and Dublin are represented as they ought to be P Examples are always irksome and invidious : we willingly forbear to multiply them .

    But of the scandalous truth we have pointed at there is , unhappilyi no room for question , and before we are many weeks older , every earnest Reformer in the land will have bitter cause to deplore the lack of ability , courage , and popular sympathy , in the foremost ranks of the popular party in Parliament . But why advert to these things now ? 3 ? or this plain simple reason , that in the face of discussions that may , and in all probability will , lead to a dissolution , it is of the last importance that every where the constituencies should prepare betimes for a wise and worthier exercise of the powers they already possess . Let it never be forgotten that it was in this way that the Bill of 1832 was carried . When first proposed in March , 1831 , the second

    reading was passed by a majority of one ; on going into committee , its further progress was arrested by a hostile majority of eight ; Ministers appealed to the country , and such a weeding took place of inveterate retrogrades and inoapables , such an array of talent and earnestness was presented in the new Parliament , that the majority obtained therein thoroughly overwhelmed the party of resistance , not only in division but still more in , debate . Mere numerioal preponderance would not have been enough to do the work . This is proved by the fact that the Lords twice' threw out the Bill . But the people felt that they were thoroughly well officered by their representatives in the Jlouse of Commons , and they gave the Qourt and aristocracy to understand thai , if driven to make a ohoice , they would obey the House of Commons rather than the Peers , two Bishops , and the

    S4 The Lea De B; [Ho, 460, Januam 15, 18...

    S 4 THE LEA DE B ; [ Ho , 460 , Januam 15 , 1869 .

    Mote The Popular Movement For The Overth...

    mote the popular movement for the overthrow of Napoleonic dominion . In the camp , on the battlefields of struggling Germany , we find him not . In . return we meet him again , in 1814 , in the diplomatic closets at the Congress of Vienna—at that famous assembling of purple -born sovereigns and bedizened ambassadors , who consumed the time in ridiculous squabbles of etiquette , and in a gay succession of soirees and balls , whilst Bonaparte , on his island in the Mediterranean , gloomily meditated anhthfir nltank on the territories of those crowned

    noodles . Le Congres danse , mats il ne yiarche pqs > said Talleyrand . Our Mecklenburg George found plenty of work for his heels at those saltatory festivals , and did not trouble his head about securing the affection of the people by any offers of amelioration or political reform . When the yoke of Napoleon was definitively overthrown , George of Strelitz—mounting the throne in 1816—carried on government in a certain easy-going , good-humoured way ; still , however , taking abundant care to preserve all the worst abuses of medievalism and rule by Right Divine .

    His principality , in , fact , is the one in which serfdom has had the longest existence in all Germany . Bondage had been abolished in Prussia , in the German provinces of Austria , and in every petty state of the Confederacy , and yet continued in Mecklenburg under the fostering hand of'the benevolent Grand-Dukes there . Altogether , there was a-wonderful harmony between the petty Court of Strelitz and the landed proprietors of noble robber descent . In one of the Diets of Mecklenburg—composed

    before 1848 almost exclusively of : ' ridblemen- ^ a rollicking cavalier , in answer to some timid demands for reform , . hesitated , not to say , that " lie gloried in the club-law his ancestors knew how to use so well , " that he should "be glad to sec his noble , friends again have recourse to that very efficacious law . " Such observations received no reprimand or comment from the Grand-Ducal Government . George did not , it is true , himself launch out into similar audacious tirades ; but they were evidently far from uivpleasing to his august

    ears . ....-. At tiineSj he thought it his duty somewhat to moderate the Feudalist or ultra-reactionary tendencies , when they assumed a form obnoxious to Monarchy itself . Thus he had repeated squabbles with his brother , the well-known Duke Charles : an absolutist of a rather eccentric nature , who would have screwed back mankind exactly to the condition it was in before the French Revolution . Duke Charles , it will be remembered , was a fierce opponent to the marriage of Princess Helena of

    Mecklenburg with the Duke of Orleans ; for , in his opinion , the new French dynasty which arose from the barricades of July , was " not legitimate , " and therefore " not to be recognised" by the ancient and important family of Strelitz . It was on thb occasion that the Grand-Duke George , with all his predilection for pure legitimacy , nevertheless stepped forth to conciliate court parties , and smooth the way for the marital union . In 184 . 8 , the Strelitz ruler made himself conspicuous by the support he undisguisedly lent to the malcontent aristocracy of the sister principality , Schwerin . From his Court proceeded continual protests and intrigues against the new revolutionary

    order of things . At his Court the plotting RtHers of Schwerin took refuge when driven out from their own soil . The rump committee of the nobility of Schwerin were received with open arms by Grand-Duke George j and the bettor to favour their reactionary plans , ho entered into a treaty of military aid to bo given by the King of Prussia to the Conservative cause in Strelitz . Thus it came to pass that nowhere in Germany had the Feudalist interest regained such an ascendancy after 1849 as in theso potty northern dominions- —thanks to the ccasolosa

    BIOGRAPHIES OF GERMAN PRINCES . ¦ ¦'¦ . : No . . X . . . ¦ ' : . ¦ . GEORGE , GRAND-DUKE OF MECKLENBURGSTREUTZ . T ^ is potentate is the senior sovereign of the whole universe—at least among those who are supposed to be privileged to enrol their names on the tablets of royalty . As such , he is entitled to some notice , even though his long life and reign may offer but little material for the pen of the biographer . The Nestor of Strelitz has always found comfort in a certain mediocrity of manners well adapted to the dull nature of his outrof-the-world principality . Were it not that , now and then , he has left the beaten tracks , and assumed an attitude rather ultra ,

    his reign—in spite of its lengthened run—might remain unnoticed , as neither conspicuous for any display of those singular " moralities" which distinguish princes in general s nor as containing any of those sanguinary occurrences so characteristic of German Monarchy ten years ago . The Grand-Duke George was born in 1779 . Of the uninteresting story of his early youth let it suffice to say that he passed it nlpstly at the Darmstadt Court , to which he was related through his mother , the Princess Frederike , daughter of the Landgrave of Hesse . The example set him at that Court was certainly not likely to imbue him with

    favour for liberal government ; nor was he there taught much of the duties he owed to the common German Fatherland . The Hessian Landgrave was one of those minnow princes who looked upon their petty dominions , and everybody that lived in them , as their private property ^ counting their Unfortunate subjects as so many heads of cattle , to be exchanged or bartered away to other rulers without their having any vote in the matter . It is true , with regard to arts and science , the Serene Highness of the Hessian Lilliput had a few crotchets favourable to the development of those branches of

    human culture , although science was , of course , expected to keep duly within the bounds prescribed by " monarchic order . " Thus young George was , at an early age , filled with the peculiar notions of " enlightened despotism" so prevalent towards the end of the last , century . A few years' sojourn at the University of Rostock completed his education . He then repaired to the Court of Berlin , to live near his two sisters ; Louise , the Queen of Prussia ; and Frederike , afterwards Queen of Hanover . The time he passed at Berlin was during that blessed epoch of pigtailed , antiquated regime , and aristocratic

    mismanagement , which brought down upon Prussia the subsequent disasters of the battle of Jena . It was the time of the Haugwitzes and the Luqchesinis , of those frivolous Junkers and Court-Chamberlains , on whom must be charged at the same time the misfortunes of the monarchy whose servants they were , and the misery of Germany at largo , against whose union and liberty they formed the worst impediment . In this profligate society- ^ -profligato by policy as well as by private character—the young Mecklenburg prince found no very elevating models of conduct . No wonder that wo see him soon afterwards

    revelling in the pleasures , and attendant extravagances , of Italian tours , whilst the German fatherland was rent asunder by the foreign swords and princely treachery at home . Returned from Italy , he showed himself an accomplished adept in the school of vile diplomatic manoeuvres of which Haugwitz and Lucchesini were the types . Though stul young in years , ho was deputed by his Mecklenburg relations to Paris , to negotiate about the accession to the Rhino bund

    r-that disgraceful lotfguo of petty Gorman sovereigns , who placed themselves under the protectorate of the Corsican despot . It was through him that Mecklenburg entered into that league . He signed and sealed the bond which promised the sacrifice of Gorman blood , for cementing the structure of German oppression . He evinced considerable alacrity to accept that odious commission . But ho showed no such eager " ness to wipe put the disgrace on the German name when the hour for revenge and national resurrection arrived .. He did nothing in 1813 and 1814 to pro

    efforts of the wily old man who has seen generation rise and depart under his rule . Within the last years , the Strolitz ruler has relapsed , in publio opinion , into utter oblivion . H » s vory oxistcnoo has almost become a matter of doubt , and a myth . Nay , some Court chroniclers—otherwise well informed—have oven sot him down as positively dead , and solemnly recorded tho advent of his son Frederick , tho husband of tho late Duko of Cambridge ' s daughter . Those trusty recorders are , however , in error . Goorgo of Mecklenburg Strolitz ; is still this side tho Styx . Ho is only dead to the spirit of tho ago , and goes on m a pottering dotago , trying after an artificial revival ol a state of things which departed with tho / ost of tuo rooooo rubbish of powder , patqh , and pigtail .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 15, 1859, page 20, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_15011859/page/20/