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    * ^ Bece m&br 17, 1853.] THE LEADER. 121...

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    BEHIND THE SCENES OF 0XF6RD. When a stra...

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    The Governing 'Classes. No. Xiv. The Mar...

    tocracy . Their reigns were the dark ages of England : the tone of England was Boeotian ; and had there been a clever man in France during the period , we should hare been beaten both in India and America , and robbed of Ireland and Scotlandshut up into the impotence of the Isle of Man . And the Whigs made their next appearance exactly under similar circumstances to those which first created the party . George III ., educated in England , and comprehending England , could have done without the two or three great families : and when he

    gave those families to understand his views , they became virulent Whigs , appealed to Parliament and to the people . Why ? There was no question at issue beyond a personal contest . First Bute , and then Shelburne , offered to become the Sully of the Henri Quatre : and a very good King , in his young days , when he loved and was beloved , would George have been . But Pitt put down Bute , and Fox put down Shelburne ' , and it was only when the King got the country on his side—in the long French war , — that his Majesty secured his Sully—in that flaming

    young Liberal , the second Pitt . The pretence that the Whigs were for civil and religious liberty at this period , because they were against the American , and against the anti-French war , has no foundation whatever in historical fact . Chatham howled In fine orations , which nobody now can read , against the employment of savages in the American colonies but Chatham was head of the Administration , if only a sleeping partner , which imposed the tea tax , and , to the last , he was in favour of vigorously prosecuting the war , —it not being in his nature to give in .

    Not a Whig opened his mouth against the war until after several defeats of English armies , and until a French and Spanish fleet had got between Admiral Darby and Plymouth . The Opposition of that day , being Whigs , opposed the War , just as the Opposition of this day opposes the Peace—because it was the Opposition . And the Whigs were wrong and the King was right . England should have beaten , and could have beaten , the colonies . To impose taxes on the colonies was infamous : but the colonists were only three millions ; and to be beaten by them was a

    disgrace which degraded England , and but for one or two naval victories , which we niay conclude were accidents , seeing what a fool Rodney was , would have destroyed England . There never was such a mismanaged Avar as the American war ; and it was because , with such management , it was hopeless , and not because it involved any principle , that the Whigs took advantage of the cry to turn events against the King and force

    him into a peace . It reads very splendid , —that page in the History of our British Parliament : Dunning moving that the power of the Crown was increasing and ought to bo diminished , and Fox laying down the Whig principle that taxation without representation was robbery . But the King was only gallantly defending tlio dominions he inherited , and avoiding the dictation of young roues and roysterers like Charles Fox . The crime of the Kin /? was in

    distrusting the House « f Commons which listened to these magnificent sentiments : and that House illustrated by example the Whig principle that a body of men taxing an unrepresented nation was a body of robbers . Every third member held a place , which was generally a sinecure ; two-thirds of the IIouso consisted of members of rotten or close boroughs ; and , on the whole , it as little represented the people of England ( who were for the American war ) as the Senate of Louis Napoleon represents the people of Franco . Undoubtedly , Charles Fox , by his ruffianly

    daring , and reckless swagger , fresh trom furo to talk U « e rights of man , or from an orgio to vindicate the Constitution , saved England-from a despotism : for ho and hi 8 party had to appeal to public opinion , had to create it , and therefore fa * bo governed by lfc > and in organising an opposition , within and without , in Ireland as well as in England , in the l > ress as well as in tlio House , lie made ' cries "

    living principles which took root in the world . An < 1 , 'is tho French Revolution rushed over the oartli , Whig talk caught the contagion : and in Willia m Pitt was in , with a masterly intention to fitfty in , with a King behind him , and all the land WI »< all tho Church alongside him , tho Whigs had ?) ll ly one game to piny—to head tlio advancing "boralis m of mankind . They talked " public virtue " ail ( 1 got drunk , to secure him . with tho greatest

    scroundrel of modern times , — -George ILL' S heir ; setting son against father being no crime , when politics are concerned . They criticised the war with acumen , and contended that an unjust Avar could never succeed—until it did ; and Mr . Fox could see no treason in a polite correspondence with the most deadly enemy England ever possessed—Napoleon . The Whigs were wrong and . recreant in opposing the French war , as they had previously been in opposing the American war : * for it is demonstrable , so far as any logical prediction can be , that had

    Pitt not struggled against Napoleon , Napoleon would have have got Ireland , India , and the whole of the West Indies . And when the 1780 Whigs had all disappeared , —" when their principles had become enlarged by the growth of the mind of the empire , — when decorous Lord John Russell had succeeded to wiid Charles Fox , — and when Shelburney the" Jesuit , " the most roguish Minister who ever got power , had died and given up his title and his lead to his son , the present cultivated and conscientious Marquis of Lansdowne , —what did the "Whigs

    do ? To get into power they headed , still , the nation , and talked civil and religious liberty . To them , though not yet in power , was Ireland indebted for Catholic Emancipation , which was a measure in the teeth of Whig principles of 1688 : and , as we subsequently found , of 1851 , —when the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill was proposed by Whigs and opposed by Tories . To the Whrgs was Europe indebted that the Duke of Wellington did not , in 1830 , when Waterloo was undone , and his glory ridiculed , force on a new antirrevolutionary war—this time without

    a justification , because the Napoleon was the Napoleon of Peace . England did endure a practical despotism during Castlereagh ' s reign , when Sidmouth ' s Six Acts rendered London as free a city as Pesth is now : but what would have been the Government , but that there were Whigs to criticise , in the sacred freedom of Parliamentary speech ? And though the Union Act , in 1800 , which made Ireland as completely an English province as was Wales , was an act of despotism , yet but for the Whigs would it not have been an unconditional

    piece of despotism ? But the question recurs—What did the Whigs do when they got info power ? They fomented a Revolution in 1830 , and they passed a Reform Bill , which will remain for ever the test of their ceaseless liberal chatter . The Reform Bill was another Revolution of 1688 : a stupendous delusion of a people ; twenty years after unreserved confession being mado that the Reformed House of Commons is more corruptly elected ( for a rotten borough is no borough , and a close borough is not so bad as a saleable borough ) than the House of

    Commons of 1782 , —and more corrupt , because upon smaller temptations , if Mr . Hudson , our South-Sea speculator 1 , has told the truth . With an interval of five years , when Sir Eobert Peel , essentially a democrat , reigned , tho Whigs have had from- 1831 to 1851 tho power they so long plotted for : and Cut bono ? They cannot boast of a single great measure ; and , as they had no difficulties , —no Sovereign to struggle with—and no violent reactionary party , Sir Robert Peel having always led forwards , to contend against , —the fact that they resigned the

    lead of tho nation is the most conclusive proof that there was no earnestness in their principles : in other words , that they were a mere oligarchy , and not a national party . Sir Robert Peel passed Catholic Emancipation , tho Test Act repeal ( which Lord John Russell only proposed , —as Canning proposed Catholic Emancipation , —and there never being n real difficulty about it ) , and tho Freetrade measures ; and tho twenty years' history

    supplies no other great topic . Tho civil and religious liberty principles of the Whigs were illustrated in Ireland by sustaining tho establishment of un alien Church , and abroad by leaving the Continent , when they gave up power in 1851 , less free than it w « h the day tho treaty of Vienna wan signed . In England they never stirred an inch for education , nor attempted to enfranchise tho press ; and whatever enlightenment wo aro indebted to for new principles of taxation , hut * been tho enlightenment of Peel and * This iti of courao written from tli « Whigs' own point of viow . Ah h Lihorul , in tho largOHt t > onno , tho wrilor KyinpiitliiHCH with tlio Ammcmis' hucccsh , —an ho wonl « l vtyoico , or « nnlo £ oiiH reasons , if tho Irish , in 17 i ) 8 , had Huccccucd .

    Gladstone—not of the Whigs . They are dead : and they deserved to die ; and , for all ages , they are damned—the Thugs of liberal principles . A sketch of the modern history of the Whigs is an account of the Marquis of Lansdowne . He followed Lord John Russell into the coalit ion , aa chief mourner for Whiggery . Politically , then , the Marquis has lived an imposture and a failure . But as a Peer , since 1809 , he cannot be considered responsible for the decay of his party . It was the business of the Commoners of his Cabinets ,

    who were face to face with the nation , to comprehend and to manage the nation : he never aimed at a more ambitious role than to act as a courtier-statesm an , forming the link between the throne and the tribunes . And that part he filled always with grace , and to all men ' s admiration . For forty years he has been a favourite , first esteemed , then reverenced , in the House of Lords , for whose tone and climate his accomplished , but not energetic , and not original , intellect , admirably qualified him . If the nation had been more worthy , he would

    perhaps have been more liberal : and it is not a great fault if he—always contentedly following bolder , more presuming , and profounder minds—made the common , lvurnau mistake , while wanting power , for himself and for his party , to fancy that he was a better man than he turned out to be , when tried . At least he has lived , as a private nobleman , nobly : and there is none to deny him the glory , whatever the deficiencies of his intellect and the faults incidental

    to his caste , that he has served his Sovereign and his country with one aim—the purest hope of public good . The public should have less reverence for Peers : and more reverence ' for intellect : but the Marquis of Lansdowne is as little responsible-for the system of the ; Whigs , ~ as Louis XIII . for the system of Richelieu , or as the Marquis of Rockingham for the system of Burke . Non-Elector . [ In tho last week ' s article , under the head of " Governing Classes , " LordPalvnerston waa spoken of as a " raging young Peelito . " This was , of course , a misprint for " Pittite . " ]

    * ^ Bece M&Br 17, 1853.] The Leader. 121...

    * ^ Bece m & br 17 , 1853 . ] THE LEADER . 1215

    Behind The Scenes Of 0xf6rd. When A Stra...

    BEHIND THE SCENES OF 0 XF 6 RD . When a stranger from the nineteenth century approaches Oxford , he finds so much that is venerable and picturesque in the city of butteries and bells ,, that he is ready , in the freshness of the first sensation , to declare it the most interesting , if not the most beautiful , object of a modern pilgrimage . Indeed , Oxford is a place of peculiar , if not very refreshing , attractions . To the eye of an artist , taking

    in the general effect of tho distant towers , whether from the old London road , or from Bagley Wood , or even from the rushing railway ( that dreadful conspirator in all reforms ) , there hangs a strange charm about that Sarcophagus of useless learning , and if an inevitable regret dashes the enthusiasm of admiration ( a regret which a profounder observation only confirms ) it is , that so vonerable a relic of theold world should not ho . - —in ruins .

    On the present occasion , however , wo arc not visiting Oxford with an eye to the picturesque , nor with the insouciance of an artist ' s appreciation ; we are accompanying the great apostle of an industrial epoch , Mr . Cobden , on his Mephistophclic career of investigation into the scholastic economy of those doubly imposing , and undeniably ancient , institutions which wo have been admiring for a moment from before the curtain . Taking into consideration the

    tendencies of our present guide , philosopher , and friend , our readers will surely pardon us if we abstain ! from any indulgence in antiquarian sentimentality Wo request them to discard all the fond associationsof wanted money and misspent hours , abjuro tho religion of tho place , wipe out all trivial fond records of undergraduate " life , " and listen to us for a moment , while encased in the stern armour of a Commissioner ,, wo report ns wo find , without fear or favour . the ia

    " Behind scenes" never a very cheering : experience . The first acquaintance with the coulisses , ifi comparable to nothing but tho taste of tho forbidden fruit : it sours your very nature , drives you out of the Paradise of tho last innocence , and converts an enthusiast into a cynic . In short , it suddenly transforms an ingenuous youth into u blase " man of tho world . " Alas ! wo all know that first " behind the scenes ; " but we have little hesitation in affirming , that for an Iionc . it , and ingenuous stranger to get behind the scenes of Oxford University , is a thou- * - sand times more cruel a disillusion , moro blank an awakening , more bitter an undeceiving-. You have said , ua you gazed on those solemn fabrics , " There are tho cloistera , the chapels , and tho schools , in whose austere and holy shade learning and piety religion and philosophy , wcro planted , nursed , an < f

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 17, 1853, page 15, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_17121853/page/15/