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    ability and a blockhead or impostor along with him , or they have returned two respectable dullards , 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 progress in Parliament and to see how helpless and hopeless it is , as how constituted , both with regard to moral courage and debating ability . Takej 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

    who bears his name ; but a county which , as regards its other member , might as well be 'Hot represented at all ; Mr . Hanbury belongs to that narrow and bigoted clique who are oligarchs in religion , oligarchs in pontics , 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 cominunityi and as for all that concerns social and industrial life , they have but one faith and one

    idea-T-the worship of the grasping and grinding money power . It was clear , from the majority he obtained over IiOrd Chelsea , that the Liberals might have returned wtibm they pleased ; arid now , when they want a man of intellect and talent to fight their battle with the obstructives in Parliament , they find 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 , Mir . 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 trim 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- Cambridge House , in the midst of the uproar about the China war , and without being ableto make a speech worth hearing , or to aive 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 liave 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 the 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 , unhappily , 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 wh y advert to these things now r For 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 everywhere 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 BUI 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 a , n 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 < jjn debate . ' Here numerical preponderance would not have beep , 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 House of Commons , and they gave the Court and aristocracy to understand that , if driven to make a ohoice , they would obey the House of @om <> mona rather than the Peers , the Bishops , and the

    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 ?

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    BIOGRAPHIES 03 ? GERMAN PRINCES . . : ¦ .. '¦ . No . X . ¦ : / ' .. . ¦ GEORGE , GRAND-DU ^ E OF MECKLENBURGSTRELITZ . This 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 iiis out-of-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 dis ^ tinguish princes in general , nor as containing any of those sanguinary occurrences so characteristic of German Monarchy ten years ago . The Grand-Puke George was born in 1779 . Of the uninteresting story of his early youth let it suffice to say that he passed it mostly 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 li b eral 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 unr fortunate subjects as so many heads of cattle , to be exchanged or bartered a way to other rulers without their having any vote in the matter . It is true ,

    with regard to arts and science , the Serene Jtligliness of the Hessian Jjilliput 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 " enli g htened despotism" so prevalent towards the end ot 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 rdgime , and aristocratic

    mismanagement , which brought down upon Prussia the supsequent disasters of the battle of Jena . It was the time of thq Haugwitzes and the Lucohesinjs , 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 large , against whose union and liberty they formed the worst impediment . In this profligate society—profligate 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 sohool of vile diplomatic manoeuvres of which Haugwitz and Lucohesini were the types . Though still young in years , ho was deputed b y his Mecklenburg relations to Paris , to negotiate about the accession to the Rhino buna ¦—that disgraceful league of pott y German sovereigns , who placed themselves under the proteotorate 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 German blood for cementing the structure of German oppression . Ho evinced considerable alacrity to accept that odious commission . But he showed no such eagerness to wipe out the disgrace on the German name when the hour for revenge and national resurrection arrived . Ho did nothing in 1818 and 1814 to

    promote 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 another attack on the territories of those crowned noodles . Le Congres danse , mats il tie marche pas ,

    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 mediievalism and rule by Right Divine . His Tjrincipalitv , 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 noblemen—a

    rollicking cavalier , in answer to some timid demands for reform , hesitated not to say , that " he gloried in the club-law his ancestors knew how to use so well , " and that he should " be glad to see 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 unpleasing to his august

    ears . At times , 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 screvyed 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 this 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 ho 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 tjio plotting Bitters of Schvverin took refuge when driven out from thenown soil . The rump committee of the nobility , of Schwerin wore received with open arms by Gnnid-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 enmc to pass that nowhere in Germany had the Feudalist intorcat

    regained such an ascendancy after 184 ) 0 as in these potty northern dominions— 'thanks to the ccasoloss efforts of the wily old man who has scon generations rise and depart under his rule . Within the last years , the Strelitz ruler has relapsed , in public opinion , into utter oblivion . His vory cxistenoo lias almost become a matter of doubt , and a myth . Nay , some Court ohroniclcrs—otherwise well informed—have oven sot him down as positively dead , and solemnly recorded tho advent of his sou Frederick , the husband of tho lato Duke of Cambridge ' s daughter . Those trusty recorders aro , however , in error . George of Mecklenburg Strelitz is still this side the Styx . Ho is only dead to tho Bpirit of tho ago , and goos on in a- pottering dotage , trying after an artificial revival ot a state of things whioh departed with the rest of the rococo rubbish of powder , patch , and pigtail .

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    84 THE LEADIII . [ No . 460 , January 15 * 1859 .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 15, 1859, page 84, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2277/page/20/