Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

rest of their lives. But it is the permanent condition, the life's long trial, of the curate class, and when "a poor creature," as saucy young ladies and gentlemen calls him, gets up in the reading-desk, drones out the prayers, and hammers through an old sermon, few know how often it may be said that he once had genius, sentiment, learning, and zeal, but that

"Chill penury repressed his noble rage,

And froze the genial current of the soul."

It is all very well to talk of the labour of love, and to expect a man to be all the more open to the sublimest motives because he can have no other. Such, however, is the language of bishops and archdeacons, who are always the most eloquent in recommending "counsels of perfection." The truth is that nineteen men out of twenty-to be on the safe sidewill be sure to do their work ill if they are paid for it ill, and they will make no effort to improve it if no improvement whatever be rewarded. Of the general class of curates few have the least chance of a living, even if they did their duty ever so well; and every head of a mercantile establishment knows how he would be served, if the best salary he could give his best men was one hundred pounds a year, without the chance of improvement. A curate need only take his allotted part in the services of the Church, show himself a little in his parish, call occasionally on a parishioner, and drop in now and then upon the school, and he will pass muster with the enthusiast who spends ten hours a-day in teaching, praying, exhorting, consoling, revealing, and other spiritual labours. They both stand the same in the eyes of the Church of England. The record of their labours is the same. If the devotee has a patron, or a wealthy friend, or £5,000 to spare in his own pocket, he may, if he pleases, solicit his patron, or invest his money, and acquire a more important, or more dignified, or more agreeable position in the Church. Otherwise, he not only may, but most probably will, remain all his life what he is a curate, or small incumbent, on his £100 a year. Being a devotee, however, he is much more likely to spend his money in charity, in church-building, in education, in answers to appeals, and he will probably remain what he is all his days. No doubt, it is better for him that he should. No doubt, he has treasure "elsewhere." No doubt, in that "elsewhere" piety, simplicity, and zeal are recognized even in the humble form of a curate. In the Church of England they are not. Whether its preferments are in private or official hands, or simply on the market, they are very rarely indeed administered on any such consideration. This state of things will not only be admitted, it will even be defended by most zealous Churchmen. In the gross violation of common sense which characterizes the state of our ecclesiastical endowments, "zealous Churchmen" see a trace of the supernatural. There must be something heavenly about it, for it defies all earthly consideration. If the salaries and promotions of any department of State, of an army, or a navy, or a mercantile house, were left on such a footing, everything would go to rack and ruin. But spiritual facts are not in their nature so palpable and obtrusive as material: while a department in confusion, an Exchequer in default, a foundered fleet, a Crimean campaign, or a bankrupt bank addresses itself to the mest" carnal" apprehensions, a spiritual chaos can be discerned only by those who really care about such things.

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

The Press endeavours to escape under cover of " a feigned issue." It says:

"There is only one substantial point in dispute between the Herald and ourselves. It is simply as to whether Maynooth was ever a test of Conservative Protestantism between 1835 and 1841."

What have we been discussing with the Press for the last three weeks? The Maynooth question. And what is the Maynooth question? It is, whether or not the act of 1845 shall be repealed? Now, what can speeches made in 1835 or 1841, long before the Maynooth Endowment Bill was framed, have to do with that question? Clearly, nothing. We ourselves introduced the years 1835-1841 into the discussion. But how? We stated that Sir Robert Peel built up the Conservative party on Protestant professions, and ruined the Conservative party by proving a traitor to those principles. And we warned the Conservatives of the present day against the blindness, the madness of treading in his steps. That he did so rear up a party on Protestant professions we proved by Dr. Buchanan's memorandum, confirmed by Mr. Pringle's evidence, and still more confirmed by Sir Robert's own wretched plea of non mi ricordo. We proved it still further by Sir James Graham's speeches of 1838-1839, 1840, made while he sat by Sir Robert Peel's side.

"But did he say nothing about Maynooth ?"

No, he did not say anything about Maynooth-nor about the Wiseman aggression, nor about Mr. Chambers's Bill for Conventual Visitation. The reason may be found in the Critic

66

"The Spanish fleet thou cans't not see, because 'tis not in sight." So much for Sir James Graham's speeches. Lastly, we are again reminded of Lord George Bentinck.

"The important fact, that the lamented Lord George Bentinck was not only opposed to insulting the Roman Catholics of Ireland, by revok. ing grants to them, over which time has cast the shield of prescription, but that he was actually in favour of endowing the Roman Catholic priesthood, a project which we never recommended."

It is said, "the Herald thought it better to keep silent on this impor. tant fact." We kept silence, because we thought it a fact of no importance whatever. Lord George Bentinck spoke and voted in favour of the Romanists, as he spoke and voted in favour of the Jews; and might, probably, if he had been asked, have spoken and voted in favour of the Socinians, or of the Mormonites. But what then? Lord George Bentinck was a great man on two or three particular questions, to which he had devoted much attention. On these his opinion was valuable. But there were other questions, and questions of importance, respecting which he was profoundly ignorant. In the present case, if we were to be struck to the earth by the mere mention of his name, as approving Maynooth, we might reckon on being next called upon to "emancipate the Jews," because that was his vote. But the plain truth is, that both on the Maynooth question and the Jewish question, at least 99 out of every 100 of the Conservative party hold Lord George Bentinck to have been altogether in the wrong. And hence, to cite his opinion on the question now before us, is of as little use as to cite the opinion of Mr. Thomas Moore or my Lord Palmerston himself.

ART. VIII. PEEL'S MEMOIRS-THE PHILOSOPHY OF AGITATION.

Memoirs by the Right Honorable Sir Robert Peel, Bart., M.P., &c.-Published by the Trustees of his Papers, Lord Mahon, now Earl Stanhope, and the Right Honorable Edward Cardwell, M.P.-Part I. Roman Catholic Question. London: John Murray. 1856.

Most of the critical journals have noticed Sir Robert Peel's memoirs, and join in the expression of some disappointment at the dryness of the first volume. So far, however, from regarding the justification disclosed by its pages as incomplete, they seem of a mind to consider it superfluous. What the public expectation required was either more amplitude or more anatomy, a warmer pencil, or a more vigorous scalpel. Although the correspondence, of which the book is principally made up, purports to be, and is, in strictness confidential, it retains for the most part a severely official character. There is hardly any freedom, any unreserve, anything unguarded, that may serve to mark the stages or break the abruptness of a change, which we take to have been less sudden than it seems, rather on Sir Robert Peel's credit than on the evidence of his memoirs. The outline, too, of events and circumstances, by which the letters stand connected and explained, is thin although distinct. It is in the nature of a ground plan, where we find everything correct, symmetrical, and intelligible, but without beauty or interest. We must look elsewhere for the philosophy of consistency or change; for any large or abstract principles of statesmanship; for any gloss upon that most difficult chapter of constitutional history for which these memoirs supply materials. Still more hopeless is the prospect of anecdotes, or sketches of character, or smart sayings, or scandal, or sentiment, or anything that constitutes the vulgar merit of memoirs. These things have their own place and fitness, but if the public expected them of Sir Robert Peel, the public has no reason to complain of disappointment. Sir Robert Peel was never more accurately himself than in the compilation of this book. Calculating, but not speculative; regardful of things as he was incurious of ideas; not so nice about a name as studious of a result; governed, but not overawed, by his responsibility; treating politics as a pursuit, while too many

regard it as a game; and the commonwealth as a trust, though it is the high breeding of party to use it as a counter; ambitious yet scrupulous; benevolent without the forms of benevolence; self-sacrificing without the externals of heroism; bold, but not imaginative, and sagacious though not ingenious; he seems exactly the man to have written the book before us from a sense of duty, not as a labour of love, even of self-love; and to have composed his history as he performed his part, for the ease of his conscience and the service of the state.

[ocr errors]

The book might easily have been rendered more attractive, whether by the author or the editors, but in that case it must have been less characteristic. It might have made been more welcome to the drawing-room, and that without any decrease of value; but its present place is in the closet, and in the hands of the advanced student who can dispense with notes and scholia. The philosophy to be learned in its pages has never been symbolized; it is nowhere to be met in axioms or formulas; it lies at considerable depth beneath the surface; but it will reward the inquirer with some of the most important truths in the ethics of the constitution. "The origin of party may be traced," writes Lord Brougham, by fond theorists and sanguine votaries of the system to a radical difference of opinion and principle, to the idem sentire de republica,' which at all times marshalled men in combinations and split them in opposition; but it is pretty plain to any person of ordinary understanding that a far less romantic ground of union and of operation has for the most part excited the individual interests of the parties; the idem velle atque idem nolle,' the desire of power and of plunder which, as all cannot share, each is desirous of snatching and holding. The history of English party is as certainly that of a few great men and powerful families on the one hand, contending for place and power, with a few other on the opposite quarter, as it is the history of the Plantagenets, the Tudors, and the Stuarts. There is nothing more untrue than to represent principle as at the bottom of it-Interest is at the bottom, and the opposition of principles is subservient to the opposition of interest. Accordingly, the result has been that unless, pernaps, where a dynasty was changed, as in 1688 and for some time afterwards, and excepting on questions connected with this change, the very same conduct was held and the same

principles professed by both parties when in office, and by both when in opposition. Of this we have seen sufficiently marked instances in the course of the foregoing pages. The Whig in opposition was for retrenchment and for peace; transplant him into office, he cares little for either. Bills of coercion, suspensions of the constitution, were his abhorrence when propounded by Tories; in place he propounded them himself. Acts of indemnity and of attainder were the favorites of the Tory in power, the Tory in opposition was the enemy of both. The gravest charge ever brought by the Whig against his adversary was the personal proscription of an exalted individual to please a king; the worst charge that the Tory can level against the Whig is the support of a proscription still less justifiable to please a viceroy.

"It cannot surely in these circumstances be deemed extraordinary that plain men uninitiated in the aristocratic mysteries whereof a rigid devotion to party, forms one of the most sacred, should be apt to see a very different connexion between principle and faction, from the one usually put forward, and that without at all denying a relation between the two things, they discern the account generally given by party men, and suspect them of taking up principles in order to marshal themselves in alliances, and hostilities for their own interests,instead of engaging in these contests because of their conflicting principles-In a word there seems some reason to suppose that interest having really divided them into bands, principles are professed for the purpose of better compassing their objects in maintaining a character and gaining the support of the people."*

This statement, for it is something more than theory, so broadly presented by Lord Brougham, though true to a great extent, is, perhaps, not so universal in its application as even our own experience might lead us to suppose; nor do the facts themselves inevitably lead to the conclusions that have been drawn from them or involve the moral offence imputed in the passage. Many men of vigorous intellect, and incorruptible virtue, having been rocked and dandled into statemanship, connect the well-being of the state as a matter of course with the power of their party; and look upon their own advancement as a happy accident, nay, rather a necessary condition of prosperous government. The weight of authority the sacredness of tradition, the spell of association, accompany them from be

* Historical sketches of Statesmen who flourished in the time of George III. vol. I., p. 137.

« AnteriorContinuar »