On this page

• Text (2)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    December 31, 1853.] __ ¦' • THE IiEAD EB...

  • 

    ULTRAMONTANISM IN GERMANY. (third and co...

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    The Governing Classes. ¦ 'No.-Xvi. The D...

    being equally worthless . Only the middle classes are compelled to think , —rby trades requiring thought and observation of men : —only the medium oat will nourish , —only the medium rose will smell . And the cleverest classes are necessarily the classes whose ^ professions are specially intellectual , —the solicitor , the barrister , the physician , the actuary , and the journalist . There are , certainly , instances of clever peers , even of long descent . There is the Earl of Derby ; but it is observable he belongs to an Opposition family , and that he was trained as a Whig . But the instances , ( modern ) of intellectual aristocrats

    are very rare : and may generally be pronounced accidents— -like seven-legged Merinoes , or modest Frenchmen : —Derbies being possible among earls , just as a Burns is among ploughboys . What would become of the British aristocracy but that wives are repeatedly imported from the city , and that the "blood ' peeresses pass ¦ wintersin Italy and Paris , it would be impossible to say . Probably the Bishops might be occasionally permitted to talk for more than ten minutes per bishop a time . For the sake of its influence on the State , the Church might be disposed to agree that , speaking with reference to physical laws , immorality is desirable for an

    aristocracy . * General reflections like these are fully borne out by observing that the higher the grade—that is , the longer the descent—in the Peerage , the less is the intellect . There are more clever barons ^ han viscounts ; more clever viscounts than earls ; more clever earls than marquises ; more clever marquises than dukes—there being only one duke who can speak English , and he ( Newcastle ) being the first born duke who has been able to do so since his ancestor , the managing Pelharo , used to make the

    tapestry shudder with his blunders . The ducal condition in this country is , indeed , very melancholy . We have several dukes whose houses were first vigorously founded by royal bastards—and an aristocrat ' s bastard is always cleverer than an aristocrat ' s legitimate son , for Falconbridge ' s reasons ; and -we have one truly British duke who descends from a solid Dutchman , —the house having supplied two clever men ( younger sons)—Lord William and Lord George Bentinck . But a frightful fate seems to have overcome all our dukes , except the present Duke of Newcastle , who has had family reasons to keep off the usual mental sloth of

    the class . Not a duke has openly participated in our political history since the last Duke of Newcastle did what he liked with his own , and since the present Duke of Norfolk , eight years ago , proposed , with an ingenuity which exhibited the characteristics of his order , that the corn-laws should be tempered with curry powder . The dukes would appear to hide their heads in their coronets ; or , at any rate , to agree with Pulteney , that head 3 of parties are like heads of snakes—best carried on by the tails . A duke occasionally gets into office ; but we saw , in the recent case of the Duke of Northumberland , what are the notions with which he enters on his

    functions , and how absolutely a duke looks to his Stafford " to—ah—in short—in point of factsee after what is going on" ( thus sa , id the duke ) . A duke is , no doubt , rather a tremendous social personage . One travels , if one is of democ ratic opinions , with great awe through the Dulcery /—down in the midland counties ; and on writes , if one is devoted to our glorious constitution , with great vigour to the papers , when , a duke dying , and his successor is hurrying to the deathbed , the brutal directors will not absolutely stop an express train , bearing the now duke , at the most convenient , though it bo not a

    timetabled station . The dukea arc humourously rich ; even the Into Duke of Newcastle would have been rich if ho hadn't done what he liked with his own ; mid the presentDulce of Buckingham cameintoposscseion of a f « w counties and a dozen or two of palacca . ( In a parenthesis it may be remarked , to sustain the theory suggested , that the moment the Mtirquis of Ohahdoa was ruined , he discovered capacity , and becoming insolvent , was at once detected to be clevor . ) Itlvery duko owns a hand of close boroughs : can affect a pack of boroughs ; and indirectl y wields enormous socinl and political influence . You may laugh at dukes : all statesmen ° o ; but the first thing iovery statesman does , also ,

    on being sent for by the Queen , is to send for a duke . No man can undertake to form a Government , unless he can play a couple of dukes : they are the coloured cards of the political game . The Duke of Bedford is a most imposing duke . He can shut up Covent-garden , and he can forma coalition . He could pull down half Bloomsbury : and he did pull down Lord Derby . Wonderful man .

    Who . is he ? Nobody knows ; Did anybody ever see the Duke of Bedford ? Nobody . Did anybody ever hear of him ? Never : until we , self-governed people , were informed , this time last year , " that he had altered our history , destroyed the Whigs and destroyed the Tories , and formed a coalition . Sur ^ prising person . What should we have done without the Duke of Bedford ? Towards the close of 1852

    politics were at a dead lock : Mr . Disraeli had come in with the pantomime season ; but his wand had lost its power , —not one of the tricks would work , — and the last thing men concluded was , that Pantaloon and Clown , in the shape of Aberdeen and Graham , would have kicked Harlequin Derby and Columbine Walpole—bewildered with turning—into the gallery . But the Duke of Bedford stepped from the clouds like the Genius who always comes down in a car with a run at the end of the piece : andwhirr—everybody was dancing with everybody ,

    Mr . Osborne was on the top of Lord Johns head , Sir William Molesworth pitching hysteric summersaults , and the curtain fell on the most exhilarating tableaux of mot ? ern politics , —a blue fire serpent squaring a red flame circle . The Duke of Bedford must be a profound man — for a duke . Solomon was shrewd in offering to each mamma the half of-the putative child . The Rabelaisian gentleman was knowing who decided the dispute about the oyster by according to each disputant a shell , and himself masticating the fish . But the

    Duke of Bedford was the first who acted on the celebrated hint of a perplexed leader—that if the great families would only agree to share , they could both enjoy the plunder of the nation at the same time . But why did he not , why does he not , come forward for the national thanks?—for isn't the Coalition popular , on the peace-and-quietness principle ? Is he merely the John Doe of the political cause ; or is he a bond , fide personage ? And if he is a reality , how is it that he has such great political power as to twist European history ? Why a Bedford more than a Norfolk ? He can't be cleverer than Norfolk : a

    duke , as a duke , is undistinguishable from another duke . Yet on consideration he may be a cleverer man . Is it not a British belief that the house of Russell is " illustrious ? " Is not their name written on the banner of Civil and Religious Liberty ? Ah , yes . Let us not forget the glorious traditions of this family—a family which , as Macaulay said , incorporate and incarnate the magnificent principles of Milton and of Locke—a family which gave two martyrs , a neck to a Stuart and a throat to Courvoisier . Certainly the Stuart martyr took French

    money , and sneaked out of a party responsibility . Certainly , the family is rich by the plunder of Church lands , which onco sustained the poor . Certainly , the family produced the Lord John Russell , who deluded a trusting people with the Reform Bill of 1832 , who maintained an alien Church in Ireland , who wrote the Durham letter , and who Russianiscd Europe . Certainly the family hold an odd number of rotten boroughs ; and from 184 G to 1852 insisted on a monopoly for its clan of the whole patronage of Great Britain .

    Certainly the family was intensly Protectionist and therefore depredatory of the people , up to 1846 , and has at this moment sighing souvenirs of a fixed duty . And certainly this illustrious family never produced a bettor man than the Earl of Bedford , who . ponducted Philip of Spain to an English Queen ' s arms , a nobler man than the Lord William Russell , who took French cold , or an abler man than the Lord

    John Russell , who led the Whig party into a cul-desac . But it , nevertheless , believes it is an illustrious family—and is believed to bo an illustrious family ; nnd that tradition may have some effect in sustaining the intellect of its successive dukea ; not to mention the invigorating animus imparted by n constant fear lest the Pope should recover England , and repossess himself of Woburn . There are circumstances ) which may distinguish the Duke of Bcdfdrd

    from other faineant dukes : and , no doubt , a Duke of Bedford is politically more powerful than other dukes ,, so long as he has a brother who leads , not merely a party , but the House of Commons . .. ¦ But should riot the fact that there is a Duke of Bedford , of whom we know [ nothing , influencing vitally the movements of the state machine , suggest caution in our conclusions that we have progressed beyond the day when a Sarah Churchill , or a Mrs . Masham , or any other old woman governed a queen who governed the country ? We hear , from Great

    Britons who have no chance of getting a consulship , a good deal about the evils of secret diplomacy . But is the Foreign Office the only one of our Government bureaux , whose agencies , and whose policy is secret and mysterious ? Secret diplomacy is only a branch of reserved Government ; the evil we suffer from , is the evil of—Secret History . The moral of the Palmerston . episode in the Coalition annals is instructive to those who have faith in our political system ; the whole incident is ruinous to our political pretensions . In a " recess , "

    when there is no Parliament , and therefore no Ministerial responsibility even in appearance , and when the people of England know as little of the causes of the war into which they are drifting as the people of Russia know of the causes of the war intowhich they are dragged , a principal Minister retires from office ; and after a dismal interval , in which the moanings of curiosity of the leading joxirnals indicate the measure of our self-government , he returns

    to oflice ; and of the reasons of the first step , as of the reasons of the last , and of the meaning of the whole manoeuvre , this great and remarkably enlighted nation is profoundly , not to say elaborately and ingeniously , ignorant . Why ? Because the House of Lords having packed the House of Commons with sons and slaves , to resist the towns , the dukes and . great peers can afford—to keep out of sight . We are a clever people—even duller than our own dukes . Noh-Electok .

    December 31, 1853.] __ ¦' • The Iiead Eb...

    December 31 , 1853 . ] __ ¦' THE IiEAD EBt . 1263

    Ultramontanism In Germany. (Third And Co...

    ULTRAMONTANISM IN GERMANY . ( third and concluding article . ) Memento Mori , says the Trappist . Memento Mori f is the lugubrious refrain that resounds in the ears of the secular power through all the pretensions of the Papacy . The Roman Church is founded on the doctrine of a despotic Universalism ; she calls herself absolute and eternal . The ecclesiastical policy of her pontiffs is for ever pirouetting round that principle of spiritual feudality which Gregory VII ,, Innocent III ., and Boniface VIII . sought to impose on

    secular power . This policy is sometimes masked ; its purpose is never changed . Wherever the Roman . Church finds herself , whether by force of treaties or of legislation , subordinate to the State , she will , when she can , re-assert her " rights . " Wherever the hierarchical Machiavellis have obtained these " rights , " they will demand equality between the Church and the State . Accord equality , —and the Church

    will invade the State , as sovereign and master . The Papacy is a power with which neither transaction nor truco nor repose is possible . If the Catholic Church keeps silence on certain rights " which lmvc been snatched from her by violence , " it is only " because prudential reasons do not render it advisable to urge her claims at the present moment . " ( These aro the words of a Report by a dean of the chapter on the conflicts botween Wesuenberg and the Government of Baden . ) The right of surveillanco exercised by the State over the Cliurch has existed to a certain extent in Germany ever since the Treaty of Westphalia , as well in the Catholic as in tho Protestant states . The monarchical absolutism which triumphed on the thirty years ' war , had begun , to introduce into the ecclesiastical as well as into the civil administration , tho dogma of " IJEtat e ' est mot . " The French

    Revolution struck a terrible blow at the Papacy ; it ' sought to shatter tho systom to its very foundation . Napoleon ' s policy was reactionary , inasmuch as it returned to monarchical traditions and re-established tho Church . But Napoleon completed the subordination of the Church to . the State . Wherever his sword penetrated he realised in a monarchical form tho bourgeois idea of , 1789 , the principle of the preponderance of tho secular power . Tlua mitigated

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 31, 1853, page 15, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_31121853/page/15/