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    tocracy . Their reigns were the dark ages of England : the tone . of England was Boeotian ; and had there been a clever man in Trance during the period , we should have 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 HI ., educated in England , and comprehending England , could have done svithout 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 .

    3 STot 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 may conclude were accidents , seeing what a fool Rodney was , would have destroyed England . There never was such a mismanaged war 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 he diminished , and Fox laying down the Whig principle that taxation without representation was robbery . But the King was only gallantly defending the dominions he inherited , and avoiding the dictation of young routs and roystercra like Charles Fox . The crime of the King was in

    distrusting the House of Commons which listened to those 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 House consisted of members of rotten or close boroughs ; and , on the Avhole , it as little represented the people of England ( who were- for tho American war ) as the Senate of Louis Napoleon represents the people of France . Undoubtedly , Charles Fox , by his ruffianly

    daring , and reckless swagger , fresh from faro to talk t he ri ghts of man , or from an orgie to vindicate the Constitution , saved England from a despotism : for ho and hia party had to appeal to public opinion , had to create it , and therefore to bo governed by 11 ; and in organising an opposition , within and without , in Ireland as well us in England , in the Proas as well a 3 in the llouso , ho made " erica "

    hving principles which took root in the world . Am , as tho French Revolution rushed over the earth , Whig talk caught the contagion : and as William 1 'itt was in , -with a masterly intention to 8 t "y in , with n King behind him , and nil tho land a "d all tho Church alongside him , tho Whigs had <>> % one game to play—to head tho advancing "" waliam of mankind . They talked " public virtue " an got chunk , to secure him , with tho greatest

    scroundrel of modern times , —George IIL's heir ; setting son against father being no crime , when politics are concerned . They criticised the war with acumen , and contended that an unjust war 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 ; i l [ )

    Pitt not struggled against Napoleon , Napoleon would have have got Ireland , India , and the whole of the West Indies . And when the 17 80 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 wild Charles Fox , —and when Shelburne , the " Jesuit , " the most roguish Minister who eve ? 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 Whigs was Europe indebted that the Duke of Wellington did not , in 1830 , when Waterloo was undone , and his glory ridiculed , force on a new anti-revolutionary 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 into power ? They fomented a Revolution in 18 , 30 , 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 made 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 , has told the truth . With an interval of five years , when Sir Robert Peel , essentially a democrat , reigned , the Whigs have had from 1831 to 1851 tho power they bo long plotted for : and Cni 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 tho

    lead of the nation is tho most conclusive proof that there was no earnestness in their principles : hi 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 , —us Canning proposed Catholic Emancipation , —and there never being a real difficulty about it ) , and the Frectrado measures : and tho twenty years' history

    supplica no other great topic . I he civil and religious liberty principles of the Whigfi were illustrated in Ireland by sustaining tho establishment of an alien Church , and abroad by leaving tho Continent , when they gave up power in 1851 , less free than it was the day tho treaty of Vienna waa 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 , has been the enlightenment of Peel and

    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 ofthe modern history of the Whigs is an account of the Marquis of Lansdowne . He followed Lord John Russell into the coalit ion , as 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 human mistake , while wanting power , for him ^ self 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 the last week ' s article , under the head of " Governing Classes , " Lord Palmerston . was spoken of as a " raging young Pcelite . " This was , of course , a misprint for " Pittite . " ]

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    * Thirt is of conruo written from tlui Whigs » ' own point of viow . As < i Libonil , in tho hirgoat kciiko , tho writer Hyinf ) ii thiM , 4 with tho Amnricntia' hiiccc . hh , —na ho would rejoice , or analof'oua rcnbonti . if tho Irish , in I 7 ! W , liml Hucceedcd .

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    BEHIND THE SCENES OF OXFORD . 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 tho 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 the 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 venerable a relic of theold world should not be—in ruins . On the present occasion , however , we aro not visiting Oxford with an eye to the picturesque , nor with tho insouciance of an artist ' s appreciation ; we arc accompanying the great apostle of an industrial epoch , Mr . Cobden , on Iiib Mephistophelic 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 . Talcing 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 associations of wasted " money and misspent hours , abjure the religion of tho place , wipe out all trivial fond records of undercraduato " Hfr , " nnd listen to us for a moment , while encased in the stern armour of a Commissioner , we report as we find , without fear or favour . is 1

    " Behind the scenes" never a very cheering experience . Tlie first acquaintance with the coulisses in comparable to nothing but tho taste of tho forbidden fruit : it sours your very nature , drives you out ofthe Paradise of tho last innocence , and converts an entlmsiaHt into a cynic . In rhort , it suddenly transforms an ingenuous youth into a blast " man of tho world . " Alas ! wo all know that first " behind the scenes ; " but wo have little hesitation in affirming ,, that for an honest , and ingenuous stranger to got behind tho scones of Oxford University , is a thousand times nioro cruel a . disillusion , more blank an awakening , more bitter an undeceiving . You have Haiti , as you gazed on those solemn fabrics , " There lire tho cloisters , the chapels , and tho schools , in whose austere ami holy shade learning anil pioty , religion and philosophy , were planted , nursed , and

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    - . » ^ December 17 , 1853 . ] THE LEADER . 1215

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 17, 1853, page 1215, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2017/page/15/