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Leader (1850-1860), 24th December 1853, Edition 2 of 2, Page 13

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      "Scots Wha Hae Wi' Wallace Bled." If Sco...

      own a Scott and a Burns ? ( Cheers . ) We admire the nazes of ' . Gibbon ? but may we not hail with even more delight the works of Hume , Robertson , Alison , and Macaulay ? / Renewed cheers . ) We admire the works of Lawrence and Reynolds , but we claim as our own a Wilkie , a Grant , ' and a Sw inton . " ¦ ^ < r - v , . . If Scotland is obliged to go a great way back to co unterbalance a Wellington by a Wallace , we know well enough that she can find a Napier and an Abercrombie in our own day . ; but then we find thes e gallant Scotchmen exercising their prowess upon other fields ; not content to renew nts kburn to

      achieveme on Bannoc , nor . returning haunt the glens of their native highlands . Lord Efflinton ' s countrymen delight in Hume and Macaulay , — those thoroughly English writers ; but how is it that they borrow their historical philosophy from Alison rather than Macaulay , and behave as if they dreaded the liberal humanities of Macaulay scarcely less than the scepticism of Hume ? They especially claim as their own Kobert Burns ; but do they thoroughly take to their heart the hearty democratic manliness of the poet , who says that " the rank is but the o-uinea stamp ? " Do they accept the broad Church

      of the songster , who was such an TJmversahst that he even hoped Old Nick would " take a thought an' men . ' ? " Do they enter into the thorough enjoyment of the Epicurean philosopher , who declared that ¦ " Church and State might gO to——" another place , rather than interfere with his assignation ? Or do they , out of the works of Robert Burns , take only what the exciseman might have written , and what the Kirk Session might sanction with its imprimatur ? Perhaps if Scotchmen had permitted to their country a little more verisimilitude , in claiming to . be the birth-place of Burns—had taken less pains to cover the land with the darkness and desolation of Knox ' s

      asceticism—they might not have driven high Scotch influences to freer climes and a happier metropolis , and would not have had to complain that , though meritorious , they are neglected . ~ A Scotch judge has just declared that there is no law which obliges Scotchmen to stop at home on Sundays , or to go abroad only as if the whole

      nation -were marching to the funeral of its happiness . The announcement has come like a clap of thunder upon a people which did not know its own freedom ; and perhaps if Scotchmen can muster courage to use that freedom , they may render residence amongst them tolerable , and may produce that fusion of English and Scotch society which would give them what they want , more than any titular concessions to the Lord Advocate , or pecuniary concessions to palace and post-office .

      Djjgimtob^Sl4, 1853f.], The Leader. 1237

      DjjGiMtoB ^ Sl 4 , 1853 f . ] , THE LEADER . 1237

      The Governing- Classes. No. Xv. Lord Joh...

      THE GOVERNING- CLASSES . No . XV . LORD JOHN RUSSELL . Thekb are painful difficulties in the way of any man who attempts , in order to illustrate a system , to sketch the portraits of contemporaries . If you praise , you are suspected of flattery ; nnd if you sneer , you arc supposed to be guilty of the partiality of a political opponent , or of the impartiality of a private enemy . But there is this excuse fpr painting your contemporaries—you paint men who have sat to you . It is a cant to conclude that you can draw ac curately the features of those only whom you see at a v ast distance , and to extol the impartiality of posterity . The impartiality of posterity is the impartiality of those who are uninterested in the verdict—of judges who notice facts , and not feelings , and therefore nevor see tho facts from the right point of view . And , at least , it is good that contemporaries should mention their opinions of one another , or how would posterity obtain material for arbitration ? Those who havO f laudations to otter do not hesitate in presenting thorn ; and would it not bo an injury to posterity , if those who do not coincide in tlio Praise , were to withhold their criticisms ? Certainly ,

      whatever tho disadvantages or tho . improprieties of tho system , wo find Jhat no scruples of delicacy restrain oitlior sycophancy or indignation ; and it is a mistake to suppose that in tho gallery of tho " Governing Classes" the writer has done anything unusual . Wo live in an ago when it is decorous to rofor to a spado merely as a garden implomont ; but cautious criticism is not tho characteristic of a free country , and wo seo bold exceptions tolerably a pplauded . It is to bo observed , too , that there is no decay in tho exercise of our iintnomoriul privilege of Political insolence . Rather , indeed , a salutary

      improvement . Fox was more severe on North than Junius on Grafton . There is nothing Fox said of North so severe as Canning said of Ogden , or Brougham of Canning . And there is nothing in our Parliamentary history comparable ; -for vehement impertinence , to Disraeli ' s 1846 assaults on Peel . And nothing Mr . Disraeli said of Sir Kobert Peel was so severe as genteel Tory organs say , daily and weekly ,

      of the present Prime Minister . The justifications for this free speech are ample . We are ruled by an oligarchy ; and during a recess , when representative institutions are taking rest , we don't know what is going on ; but at least we possess the glorious right of freemen , to suggest Tower-hill for Peers who won't let us , a self-governed people , into the secrets of the State .

      It is a painful thing to approach a deliberate comment on the career of Lord John Russell . Not only for the ordinary reason , that you tread upon ashes underneath which the fire has not yet been extinguished , but for the special reason that , if he has disappointed a nation ' s hopes , it may be because the nation never had a logical basis for its belief in him . There is also a present reason for delicacy in reference to him . He—" as a Minister of State , is renowned for ruining Great Britain gratis ; " he is taking care of the Constitution without a salary

      which , is very good of him , and to a great extent disarms those public writers who are entitled to bully the moment the victim takes public money . But there are precedents for abusing Lord John Russell . His best friends have been all their lives ridiculing him ; and there is good ground for surmising that he does not mind it . He prints , himself , Moore's remark on . his great fault—his irresolution and vacillation ; and in his new preface to the sixth volume of the Moore publication—a _ preface which , for its utter inconsequence and malappropriateness , suggests

      doubts of the writer ' s sanity—he interjects an doge on that Sydney Smith ( whose principal joke , in Lord John ' s estimation , was jumping over the prostrate Sir James Mackintosh and exclaiming " JRuat Justitia ! ") who made such cruel mots on Lord John that the Tories are for ever quoting them . Either from great magnanimity or great conceit , he is indifferent to what the world says of him ; and that is a great encouragement to historical students when engaged in the dissection of so distinguished a man . How the world could ever be in doubts about his character ,

      after the evidence of those who knew and know him best , is very suprising . It is not surprising that he should undertake the government of the State , seeing that we have the assurance of a high authority , who knew him intimately , that he was the sort of man who would undertake the command of the Channel fleet , or an operation for the stone . But it is surprising that we should always have been expecting great measures from a man who , we wore informed , is " squirrel-minded , " and " made up of well-regulated party feeling . " It is astonishing that

      we should ho disappointed in a son of a duke , the chosen leader of tho great Whig families , not turning out as decided a democrat as we would have desired . It is marvellous that we should be disgusted because a feeble nature and a cold temperament never took to enthusiastic Liberalism and ardent Radicalism . It is wonderful that we should bo angry because a man of scholarly taste , and r efined tendencies , and cultivated piety , would never sympathise with the political school which has no traditions , civil or religious , and no etiquette , and which would govern in a vulgar way . When the Sandwich Islanders burnt tho ship's

      figure-head , which they had set up as a god , because tho figure-head did not oblige tho islanders by keeping off a storm , na requested , great injustice was done to tho Gosport carpenter who originally , very innocently , carved tho statue . Is it Lord John ' s faultthat he is only wood , —and not a divinity ? When he was put up by tho old Whigs , to propose the Reform Bills of 1830-2 , his simple object—clever young man—was to pass such a measure ao would enable tho Whigs to keop in for ever . But tho country insisted that ho wna a young Republican , of unheard-of patriotism and purity ; and ever sineo the country has been debating him , because , after all , ho was found to be a mere Whig . Lord John Russell in , in fact , in character and morality , only an average member of the governing classes ; a little cleverer

      than any of the others , and therefore in a first place Of course , it is rather wrong that he should have deluded a great people with his Reform Bill , and that he should continue to govern , 'indifferent , or inactive ^ in the midst of English social horrors and English political shams ; but a people is generally responsible for its own position , A Whig party is , doubtless , a real political swindle ; but a Whig party could only exist

      among a base and barbarous people . But that this remarkably enlightened nation is so attached to Peers , the Peers would be better persons than they are . If a Marquis of Exeter returns Members for Stamford , it is not because his Lordship is a villain , but because the inhabitants of Stamford are cowards and rogues . And Great Britain is the Stamford of the British aristocracy .

      There would be nothing to say against Lord John , were it not that the Whigs are for ever proclaiming that he is a man of genius . Unfortunately , he has written himself down . Had he been content with politics , he would have lived and died with as high a reputation as Charles Fox ( who carefully wrote little ) , or as Lord Derby , who , more carefully , never wrote anything . But he possessed a taste for reading , and would write ; and what he has written , though , like his more important speeches , it suggests and indicates a capacity superior to the clerks and

      administrators of his caste , must be pronounced , on the whole , the emanations of a mediocre mind . The Whigs say , that the man who wins the leadership of the House of Commons must be a great man . There is no ground for that conclusion . The House of Commons is an assembly where prominence is obtained by those who devote themselves to it ; who work for it , and obtain the " knack" of the placethe knack of statesmanship , or the simulation of

      statesmanship , being obtained by a certain class of not necessarily brilliant intellect with , the same facility as the knack of special pleading , of journalism , or of actuaries . And , strangely enough , the House of Commons [ both sides ] has generally been led by notoriously inferior men . Walpole was not a first class intellect ; aud certainly Pulteney was not . The first Lord Holland was not a first-rate man ; nor was Lord North . What clever leader have the

      Whigs had since their idol , Fox , who , we may assume , was as able as Lord Derby ? Tierney left no impression upon history . Lord Althorpe was decidedly dull . Why , then , take for granted that Lord John is a great man , because he got a position , obtained perhaps , by a technical cleverness , and the accident of birth ? The most successful " leader" the House of Commons ever possessed was Sir Robert Peel , both as Opposition chief and as Minister ; and yet a comparison between Sir Robert Peel and Lord John , Russell would be

      favourable to the latter . Lord John is hardly so able a man as Tierney was , but he has had this advantage—which accounts for most of the mistakes about him—over Tierney : that Tierney died before the Whigs got in ; and that Lord John has had his name connected , not only with great debates , but with great measures . Lord John , at this moment , does not at all occupy tho first place in the House of Commons . His defects when pitted against Mr . Disraeli aro conspicuous ; and a comparison with Mr . Gladstone would be disastrous to him . He has

      a rarer capacity , and a more philosophic intellect , than Lord Pahnerston ; ho has a higher character than Sir James Graham ; ho is immeasurably superior to the Sir John Pakington species of member ; and ho has the advantage of the Cobdens and Brights in knowledge of , and sympathy with , the Houso , In contrast and comparison with those and their class ho shines , and is gonerally supposed to bo a very able man—particularly when ho speaks from the right hand of Mr . Speaker , for then there , is always a corps on duty to cheer him . But an

      accurate , uninfluenced observer can only come to the conclusion that Lord " John is , as Mr . Moore said , " always mild and sensible "—nothing more . A perfect gentleman , and an accomplished man , with a pleasant style , which is distinctive , and not more Parliamentary slang , like Graham ' s or Pakington ' s , he gained the affection of his party and tho good will of the House—a not very difficult feat , since ho could always command attontion as the confidential mouthpiece of the groat Whig families , and often could command attontion as tho Minister of tho

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 24, 1853, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_24121853/page/13/