We have heard a great deal said of late against what are termed “personalities”—a term which, I suppose, implies remarks or reflections on the personal conduct of an individual. If a statesman is hard pressed on some unpleasant point, he escapes by saying, that it is only a “personality,” and that to “bandy personalities” is a thing from which he is precluded by his dignity. If a discussion in Parliament turn much upon these personalities, they are treated by those who may find them distasteful, as a totally irrelevant matter, interrupting the true business of the House; and if they are noticed, it is done as if it was a pure p??e????, a gratuitous piece of condescension on the part of the person replying to the attack. It seems to be laid down as a sort of axiom by many, that political questions should be discussed solely on their own merits, abstaining from all remarks on personal character, more especially in Parliament, where all such reflections are condemned as pure waste of the time of the House.

That political questions should be discussed on their own merits, and that those merits are in no way affected by the character of any individual whatever, is perfectly true; but if it be meant to be inferred that the personal character of public men is therefore a matter of no importance, a subject which is to be veiled in a sacred silence, and never to be examined or discussed, such a sentiment is eminently flimsy and false, one which could only find general acceptance in a poor-minded age, to which material interests were of greater value than the far higher ones of national character. For that the national character is greatly affected by the personal character of its leading public men, is a truth that will scarcely be called in question. The venality and corruption which more especially disgraced the ministry of Walpole, and infected, in a greater or less degree, that of his successors, may reasonably be expected to have exercised a widely debasing influence on the nation at large, an expectation amply confirmed (to say nothing of native testimonies) by the estimates which foreign writers of that time draw of the national character of England. The intriguing and profligate character of many of the public men under Charles II. had, no doubt, a similarly evil influence on the popular mind; and generally, all insincerity in high places must be looked on as a bane to the country. Most widely should we err, if, in estimating the career of these statesmen, we looked only to the outward character of their measures, in a commercial, economical, or political point of view. However beneficial many of their measures may have been in these respects, if their own character was not sincere and honest, if these measures were brought about not by fair and open means, but by artful and underhand intrigues, by false professions, by duplicity, and insincerity, by venality, whether of the open bribe, or the insidious government influence, we pass a verdict of censure on their career, we reject them from the rank of the true patriots, the sacred band, who have earned renown as the pure benefactors of their country,—“Quique sui memores alios fecere merendo.”

If we looked only at the commercial or practical consequences of his measures, the career of Walpole might be esteemed glorious—for I believe it is generally considered that his measures were sagacious and successful. But the venal character of his administration is a blot that no one may remove, and this stain on his personal character neutralises (as far as he is concerned) all the effect of his measures. Posterity, accordingly, has done him justice, and has assigned him his fitting rank—he takes his place among the skilful statesmen, not among the great patriots. Who will be able to alter this decision? Who shall have influence to induce the world to raise him to the higher rank,—to make us couple the name of Walpole with those of Aristides, Phocion, and Demosthenes?

Since, then, this personal character exercises so wide an influence for good or for bad upon the character, and therefore on the destinies, of a nation, are we to be told, that it is not a subject of discussion, that it is shrined in an inviolable asylum, removed from the free exercise of thought; that we must confine our views to the character of measures, and not dare to direct them to the character of men? Who is it, in writing the history of Charles I. who has not pointed out the lamentable defect in the character of that unfortunate prince, that his friends could not rely on his professions? And if there be a statesman of the present day, whose friends cannot rely upon his professions, are we totally to abstain from making any reflection, either mentally or verbally, on so lamentable a defect? By whom are we taught this new and precious doctrine? Certain members of the late Government take upon them to be our chief instructors in it; more especially, perhaps, Mr. Sidney Herbert. Sharp expressions had been raining pretty thick from his foes, amid which he and his colleagues (proh nefas!) had been termed “Janissaries!” Talibus exarsit dictis violentia Sidnei;
Dat gemitum;
and he delivers an able lecture to his opponents on their strong and ungentlemanly language. After this, let us take care what we are about: let us say nothing ungentlemanly respecting the conduct of Walpole: whatever we may think of the personal character of Cromwell, let us, in our language at least, observe the established courtesies and urbanities of discussion.

“Not so,” perhaps says Mr. Herbert. “I make a distinction: I do not mean to debar you from free discussion on the characters of the dead; but what I desire is, that you abstain from meddling with the conduct of the living.” Where is it, then, that he has found this doctrine? Were those who blamed, and strongly too, the conduct of Shaftesbury, and Bolingbroke, and Walpole, when alive, culpable? Was it only permitted to do so after their death? Is Aristophanes thought peculiarly guilty for having blamed Cleon while alive and in power? Is Socrates stigmatised for having wounded the feelings of any demagogue of the day, or of the thirty tyrants? Is Cicero reproached for his ungentlemanly tone towards Catiline, his disregard of the feelings of Verres, his total want of courtesy and urbanity even to so eminent and distinguished a man as Antony? Or in our own days, is Lord Lyndhurst blamed for having again happily applied the language of Cicero to denounce the conduct, or rather misconduct, of O’Connell? No; if their censure was deserved, they are honoured for having decidedly expressed it. And when, indeed, is it of greater importance that a true estimate should be formed of the character of public men, than while they are yet alive,—while that character is still exercising its widely-acting influence, and while mistakes in respect to it may lead to the most pernicious consequences? It is during their lifetime that we should discuss the characters of such men as O’Connell and Peel. A true estimate of their character after death is, doubtless, better than nothing; but a true estimate of it during life is better still. The proverb tells us, that “late is better than never;” but it does not deny that early is better than late.

“Well, then,” perhaps Mr. Herbert may reply, “you may, if you please, judge their character while they are yet alive, but this must be in proper time and place; I must request you to abstain from doing so in Parliament. Strong language in Parliament on personal character is a thing which I can never approve; here I must insist on the use of mild language, on a gentlemanly and courteous tone of discussion.”

And what, we would ask, is the object of Parliament, if not to discuss impartially, but firmly and decidedly, all important subjects that deeply concern the public weal? And what subject more important than the conduct of the men who hold the helm? Since how long is it that Parliament has been considered as having no right to form or to express any opinion on this subject? Since how long has the new doctrine been held or been acted on, that they are only to regard measures, and not the conduct of men? This is calling on them to abdicate one of the highest and most important of their functions; for the public character of statesmen is at least as important a consideration as that of the measures they propose; frequently of much greater importance. And in what place can such opinions be more fitly expressed, or with greater weight and propriety, than within the walls of Parliament; of that assembly, whose duty it is to deliberate on all matters concerning the national welfare?

“Well, then,” perhaps says our Parliamentary master of the ceremonies, “let us grant even this point; still I must insist on their expressing such opinions in courteous and gentlemanly language.”

We should be much obliged to our preceptor, if he would inform us of the precise mode in which this is to be done. We suppose he will grant that if such opinions are to be expressed at all, the thing chiefly desirable is, that the expression of the opinions be true; that the language employed convey an accurate and well-defined idea of the real sentiments entertained by the speaker.

Now, if the deliberate opinion which the speaker wishes to convey to the assembly be, that a public man is insincere, underhand, and artful, one whose convictions have no genuine strength, one whose professions cannot be trusted, we would fain be informed how these ideas can be accurately, truthfully, and unmistakeably conveyed, in gentlemanly, courteous, and pleasing language. Our tutor must give us a list of expressions by which this can be effected, before he blame us for not making use of them. But even suppose that his ingenious intellect should enable him to accomplish this, we would still desire to be informed what would be the use of it, and why, if we wish to express our opinion of a person’s insincerity, the discourteous word of “insincere,” which is now in use, should not be as good as the most gentlemanly and elegant detour that could be invented even by Mr. Herbert’s ingenuity.

Or take the very word of “Janissary,” which forms the bone of contention. The Janissaries were a body who acted under orders of their chief, without perhaps troubling themselves much about the abstract merits of the case. If bidden by their General to do a thing, they did it; if bidden to abstain, they abstained. Such conduct is not altogether unknown among the politicians of England. If, then, the word Janissary convey an accurate idea, well applicable to certain individuals, why should its use be so atrocious? Really, we are at a loss to comprehend the storm of indignation excited in the late Government by the simple word Janissary. We have heard of a fish-woman who patiently endured all the opprobrious epithets heaped on her by one of her fellows, till this latter happened to apply to her the term of “individual.” What the term of “individual” was to the fish-woman, the term of “Janissary” seems to have been to certain members of the late Peel cabinet. We will, however, grant that its application was somewhat unjust, though quite in a different way from what those parties suppose. Leaving it to them to defend themselves, we must take up the part of the Janissaries, whose feelings seem to have been totally disregarded in the whole matter. Let us remember that they no longer exist; victims of a melancholy end, they are incapable of speaking for themselves; be it then allowed to us to see that fair play is done them. Is it just, we ask, that their name should be so scornfully rejected as the ne plus ultra of reproaches by English statesmen? What great guilt are they charged with, that it should be thus opprobrious? Not, surely, that they were paid: I have some doubts even whether such was the case; but, granted that they were, so are our soldiers, so are our officials. Whatever were their errors, they were bold and brave, true and consistent to their Mussulman principles. They were not basely subservient to government influence; their fault lay rather the other way. It was not that they truckled to the Prime Vizier, but that they did not sufficiently respect their Sultan. Their misconduct has been expiated by their death. Peace be with their ashes! Let us not add insult to injury. It is not for Peel and his followers to spurn at and dishonour their name. Considering the recent conduct of so many of our public men, may we not reasonably think that it is a greater insult to the Janissaries to apply their name to some of our statesmen, than it is to those statesmen that the name of Janissary should be applied to them. Would not the shade of an old Janissary be fully as indignant if he heard himself termed a paid English official, as the English official in his full-blown virtue could be at being called a paid Janissary?

The contrast of all these indignant professions of our statesmen with their actual practice, has not the best effect. The present is not the time best fitted for these displays; the brilliancy of public virtue has not of late been so lustrous as to justify this tone of triumph over the poor Ottomans. If these epithets are so distasteful to our public men, there is a far better mode of repelling them than these angry protestations. Let them act with that openness, sincerity, and candour which England looks for in her statesmen, and they need not fear far harder terms than this much dreaded name of Janissary.

But enough of this digression, which is purely incidental. We have merely wished to state a principle, let others accommodate it to the rules of Parliamentary warfare. Enough has been said for our object, to vindicate the utility of a review of the public character of leading statesmen, and the right of expressing a judgment upon it in firm and decided language.

That the practice of defaming the character of a public man without cause, simply because he is a political opponent—a practice too much employed in the party political warfare of the day—is one deserving the severest reprobation: this is a truth that no one ought to deny. But the evil of this practice consists, not in the decided tone of the language, nor in the severity of the opinion expressed, but in the absence of all just cause to warrant the strength of the censure.

But to argue, that because many people are blamed unjustly, no one is to be blamed justly—that the abuse of censure precludes the use of it,—is a mode of reasoning which cannot for a moment be admitted. We all know, that if we are forbidden from using everything that may be abused, nothing of any worth or importance would be left; and it is an old remark, that the very best and most useful things, are precisely those that are liable to the easiest and greatest abuses.

If I thought that the views which I entertain on the conduct of the late Premier were in the least degree the result of political prejudices, I should carefully abstain from giving them publicity. But I am not conscious of being swayed by any such motives. With regard to the greater part of the actual measures brought forward by Sir R. Peel, as far as I know them, I feel no reason to disapprove of them. With regard to many of his measures, which are wanting in any specific or decided character, it is natural that no very decided opinion should be felt. They are good, for all I know to the contrary, as far as they go. With respect to the more prominent measure of Catholic Emancipation, it is one that has my hearty approval. With respect to the bulk of his financial measures, I believe them, from general report, to be sagacious and skilful. But, it will be said, you have a strong opinion in favour of Protection, and here your political prejudices warp your judgment. Such, I can safely say, is by no means the case. I by no means entertain any fixed and definite opinion, either for or against the actual measure of the repeal of the Corn Laws. I have not obtained sufficient knowledge of the facts of the case, to enable me to come to such a decisive opinion; and so little am I suited at present for a staunch Protectionist, that I feel in perfect readiness, if greater knowledge, or the practical result of the working of the measure should convince me of its utility, to recognise its value and importance; nay, I will even say, that in the state of excitement into which the public mind had been worked on the subject, I rejoice at the experiment being made, for if it work well, so much the better, and if it work ill, our laws are not as those of the Medes and Persians. Its evils can be stopped in time, and if so, will be far less than those arising from permanent disaffection among the people. Certainly, many of the principles urged in its support, I consider fallacious, and some of those fallacies I have endeavoured to expose; but I know perfectly well, that people may form a correct practical judgment, though unable to explain, philosophically, the true principles on which that judgment is really based. No earnest free-trader, who advocates his cause from a sense of its truth, could wish such fallacies to remain without exposure. If their view is true, it cannot but gain instead of lose, by being removed from the treacherous support of unsound principles.

But I feel quite sure that I entertain no prejudice against any man, merely on account of his being a free-trader. I dislike all whose suspicious conversion prevents full confidence in the sincerity of their motives. I feel no sympathy with those who, with the ignoble violence of petty minds, preach up a war against the aristocracy, impugn all motives but their own, and seem to anticipate with triumph the downfal of those above them, and their own seizure on rank and power in their turn.7 But then, it is not here the free trade that I dislike, but, in the one case, the insincerity; in the other, the bigotry and narrow-mindedness. But with a reasonable and liberal-minded free-trader, such as many of the Whig party doubtless are, who is willing to do justice to other motives than his own, and is actuated by a sincere and earnest belief in the truth of his principles, I feel perfectly sure that no animosity vitiates my feelings towards him, and that I could be as good friends with him as with any person whatever. I believe, indeed, that there are few people in England less under the influence of party or political prejudice than myself, nor less unfitted, so far as their absence is concerned, for forming an impartial estimate of a public man’s character. I feel, therefore, no apprehension, in the present case, of being influenced, even unconsciously, by unworthy motives, but simply by the desire of expressing my opinion on conduct which appears to me to call for grave and decided censure. My judgment is not based on any isolated or doubtful expression, nor on minute and recondite circumstances: it is the simple reading of those plain and unmistakeable characters which more conspicuously mark Sir Robert Peel’s career, which are known and admitted by all, and which lie within the comprehension of all.

For my own part, I knew next to nothing of his former political conduct, till the discussion caused by recent circumstances; a vague knowledge of some change in his opinion on the Catholic Question, was nearly the whole information I possessed of the career of a man respecting whom, feeling no great admiration of his character, I never took any lively interest. Nor can I say, that at present I have any thing but the most elementary knowledge of the circumstances of his political life. I know no more than those leading events which form the salient points in his career, which, however, it seems to me, are quite sufficient for a just conclusion,—a conclusion which, perhaps, is the less likely to err, as founded on simpler premises, and freer from all subtle minutiÆ.

I take then the facts which, as far as I can learn, are admitted by all,—himself among the rest. If there be any error in my statement of them, it certainly does not arise from design.

After having been for some time in the government with Canning, he refused to hold office under him, and went into opposition, from a strong and decided feeling (as was professed by himself) against the Catholic claims which that statesman advocated.

Amid the ranks of this opposition, were some partisans, more zealous than scrupulous, who carried on their party warfare in an unduly violent way, which produced an effect much deeper than political attacks usually do, on the generous and sensitive mind of Canning. This misconduct, though confined to few, and little thought of at the time by their associates, has, by its result, cast somewhat of a shade over the whole of this opposition.

Owing at length to the efforts of his party, Sir R. Peel is brought in, as the Protestant champion, to resist the Catholic claims, which the great bulk of that party look upon as fraught with danger both to the spiritual and temporal welfare of the State.

This party, which places him in power, never for a moment doubts that his opinion coincides with their own, nor does he ever express a sentiment which could lead them to suppose that they were mistaken in their conviction. His actions and his speeches are perfectly in harmony with that opinion, and all tend to confirm them in unlimited confidence.

When, however, he is seated in office, and while they are still enjoying their opinion in perfect security, lie astonishes them by proposing and passing the very measure which they imagined it was his principal object to resist.

On the sudden and unexpected triumph of the principles of reform, which raised the Whigs to power, Peel is again reduced to the ranks of Opposition, and we here find him strenuously attacking all their principles, which he denounces as dangerous to the institutions of Church and State. He thus rallies round himself a party termed Conservative, whose object is to resist these encroachments, which they look on as irreligious, destructive, and anarchical.

This party gradually gains ground, while the Whigs decline in proportion. At length, when the Whigs begin to devote their attention to the development of free-trade principles, the storm, under Peel’s auspices, is roused to the highest pitch, and the Whigs fall prostrate under their triumphant adversaries.

Peel then comes into power, (for the second time,) supported by a large majority. He stands forth in the character of “Defender of the Faith,” and of the institutions of Church and State, and, generally, as the firm antagonist of all Whiggish principles.

But more especially does he stand forth as the great Champion of Protection—to resist the menacing encroachments of Free Trade—to check all advances in the direction of that dimly seen and dreaded catastrophe—the Repeal of the Corn Laws. Here, again, his party entertain the strongest conviction that his opinions on this subject coincide with their own; and on the strength of this conviction they take their measures in full security on the most important matters.

Sir R. Peel, as before, never for a moment leads them to infer, by any word or action, that this conviction is erroneous; on the contrary, for a considerable period of time, he gives repeated assurances, in the strongest language, of his support of the principle of Protection.

Nevertheless his measures, as it is soon observed, are all imbued with the precise policy which he had formerly so denounced in his opponents—a discovery which excites considerable dissatisfaction among his followers, though they reconcile themselves to it, as they best may, on the plea of the necessity of the times. Not for a moment, however, are they induced to doubt of his firm determination to uphold the Corn Laws.

No sooner, however, has the repeal of these laws (by the declaration of the opposite party and the strength of public opinion) become feasible, than, without giving any previous intimation of his real opinion, while his party are still in complete security, and relying on his support, he proposes and carries the very measure which they believed him to be heartily endeavouring to oppose, and for the sake of resisting which they had placed him in power, and supported him.

Before quitting power, he makes a speech explanatory of his views and principles, in which he expresses his adoption of all those principles of policy which, when the Whigs were in power, he had so resolutely denounced, and his perfect readiness to assist in developing their doctrines much further than they themselves had done.

Such is a simple outline of the facts,—facts of no dubious or recondite nature, but notorious, and not, I apprehend, capable of denial.

It is from these facts that my opinion is formed, that Sir R. Peel’s career is deserving of the gravest censure: it is from these that I draw the conclusion, by some so much deprecated, and venture to pronounce, without feeling much risk of error, that Sir R. Peel, in his public conduct, is insincere, a man unworthy of all trust and confidence. A most unwarrantable attack, exclaim his partisans; an imputation that can only be the result of the venomous malignancy of a political opponent! Who else would dare to brand such a man with the odious crime of insincerity, to assert that he is not worthy of being trusted—to impute to a statesman of such pure and exalted virtue the detestable guilt of political hypocrisy!

How far the simple ideas of right and wrong may be altered by a tenure of office, or by long acquaintance with political affairs, we are fortunately ignorant; but unless they undergo some improvement, or at least some modification, we are at a loss to account for all the indignation manifested at these charges by the principal members of the late ministry, and by other leading political luminaries, and are tempted to inquire whence arise such great angers in these celestial minds? To our unsophisticated intellect it seems, that to say that Sir R. Peel is insincere, is only saying, in a concise and general way, what is conveyed in the simple statement of the above facts, with somewhat more of detail. What better exposition of the word insincerity could we give to a person desirous of receiving it than the plain recital of Sir R. Peel’s conduct, as given above? That conduct is little else than the very definition of the word. Is not a man said to be insincere when, either by words or deeds, or by their omission, he wilfully leads people to believe that he holds opinions which he really does not, and to act in important matters upon that supposition;—when, knowing that they believe him to support their cause, and that they are placing their trust in him accordingly, he does not undeceive them, as one word of his might do, but suffers them complacently to remain in their error?

Is not a man said to be unworthy of trust, or faithless, who, while he knows that a trust of the greatest importance is reposed in him, and who has tacitly acknowledged the acceptance of that trust, is seeking all the time the ruin of that cause, the defence of which has been intrusted in full confidence to him?

Is not a man said to be a hypocrite who acts outwardly a part which is at variance with his inward convictions? Is not a man a hypocrite, who outwardly so behaves himself, that he is looked upon as the Protestant champion, while inwardly he is casting about how to carry the Catholic claims? Is not he a hypocrite whose demeanour is such that he is clapped on the political stage as the hero of Protection, whilst inwardly he is thinking of the time when he shall be cheered as the Repealer of the Corn Laws?

Now, that Sir R. Peel was ignorant that his party reposed trust in him, and believed his views to coincide with their own, is, I imagine, what nobody, not even himself, could for a moment pretend. It may be looked on as a fact that cannot be disputed, that he knew that a large body of men believed him to hold a certain class of opinions, while he himself knew that he was holding the contrary,8 and that nevertheless he suffered them to repose trust in him, without ever undeceiving them of their error, which a word of his would have sufficed to do, and allowed them to act in security on matters of importance upon that erroneous belief.

He is placed, then, in this dilemma;—that if he acknowledges the fact he acknowledges the insincerity; if he denies the fact, nobody will believe the denial; and so far from escaping from the odium of insincerity, he will only prove it the more, by adding one piece of it to another. Any way, then, he cannot escape this charge of insincerity, which is complained of as so peculiarly distasteful. To what purpose, then, are all these high-sounding speeches, this tone of injured innocence, this indignation at the slightest hint of the names of deceit or hypocrisy? It falls powerless on his accusers; it is not they who laboriously strain to prove the charges, it is the facts which speak for themselves. But what is the use, alas! of all this declamation against the unhappy facts, which are in no degree moved or affected by it? Here, again, if the reputation of sincerity be so much valued, would it not have been a far better method of securing it, instead of making all these laboured professions of esteem, to have simply observed its rules in practice? How is it that so mature and able a statesman overlooked so simple and obvious a course? Let politics explain the mystery.

The fact that he himself professes to see nothing in the least degree blamable in his conduct, nothing that can in any way be qualified as insincere, and that some of his partisans are indignant at such terms being applied to it, is a useful example, to show how political prejudices can blind the mind to the simplest moral truths.

The only line of defence that he could reasonably take, would be to grant the insincerity, but to maintain that it was rendered necessary and justifiable by circumstances. Thus, (taking the second case, of the repeal of the Corn Laws,) his partisans might argue, that the measure was one most highly beneficial to the country; that it was of vital importance as well for its commercial interests, as also to allay the strong and growing discontent which had taken hold of the nation; that the concealment and dissimulation of which such complaint is made, were necessary to obtain these benefits. Had Sir R. Peel avowed at an early stage his real views, the prejudices of the Protectionists would immediately have displaced him from power. It was necessary not to awaken these prejudices, and this end was obtained by concealing his true sentiments; by suffering them to repose their trust in one who was really their enemy, which, it is admitted, was certainly a piece of hypocrisy. “But then,” would they say, “mark the advantages of this hypocrisy. Peel is thus enabled quietly to watch his opportunity. The Whigs, finding the current of opinion strongly setting for free trade, declare their adherence to it. Now, then, they are fairly compromised, and Peel has the game all to himself. If he goes out, and the Whigs come in, they will not be able to carry it, for when Peel is out of office, not a dozen of his party will vote in favour of Free Trade. They will not be able then to make any head, and if they come in they will be immediately displaced again. Peel all the time, with that hypocrisy which you so much blame, has kept his own plans snugly locked up in his impenetrable breast, and is still looked upon by the unconscious Protectionists as their hero and champion, so much so, that they refuse to believe any rumours which may be floating about to the contrary. Thanks then to this hypocrisy, he smoothly comes in again as before, but the case, now that he is once more in office, is widely altered. If the Whigs had proposed the measure, perhaps not a dozen of his party would have supported it. But now that he is in office, the ‘government influence’ is in his hands;” (that “government influence,” a phrase after Mr. Sidney Herbert’s own heart which means, I believe, being interpreted, that mixture of motives which combines, with the purest public duty, certain visions of peerages, salaries, offices of various kinds, and all the undefinable tribe of loaves and fishes.) “Will Peel find only a dozen free-traders among his ranks now? Rest assured that a wonderful liberality will be diffused among them; for the government influence has the property of making many a man a free-trader, who otherwise would have lived and died a staunch Protectionist. A round hundred will be converted in addition to the former dozen, by the magic of this government influence. This, in addition to the Whigs, who would any way vote for free-trade, will be sufficient to carry the measure with a good majority.

“Do not then let us blame so loudly this hypocrisy, before we have examined how far it has been advantageous. In the present case, it has hastened on a most beneficial measure, and we may well overlook in regard to that a little falsehood and deceit. If the Protectionists have been taken in, it is no very great matter; they are not people to be pitied; they should have looked sharper about what they were doing. Peel had shown them before what they might expect in the Catholic business; and it is their own fault if such old birds let themselves be caught, twice running, with chaff.”

This, altering somewhat the expressions to suit the dignity of his language, is the line of defence that Sir R. Peel ought to adopt. Admitting the insincerity, which it is useless to attempt to deny, he should rest his case on the necessities of the State, on the important benefits of his measure. In this view it will be a case of a conflict of duties,—of the duty of truthfulness and sincerity, which in ordinary cases is binding—and the duty to his country; and he may say, that considering his duty to his country as greater than his duty of sincerity to the Protectionists, he considered himself justified in deceiving them, with a view of benefiting the nation. In this case, however, we must remark, that he ought to acknowledge the deceit, and feel compunction for it; for the breach of a duty, even when sacrificed to a superior one, should not (as the moralists and as reason tell us) take place in a virtuous mind without pain.9 This pain, however, Sir R. Peel is particularly unwilling to acknowledge; he strenuously insists on feeling no humiliation or compunction of any kind for any part of his conduct, by which assertion he gives us no favourable impression of the nature of his mind; while by taking up so foolish and exaggerated a posture, he materially injures the strength of his defence.

That the duty of truth, though paramount in ordinary circumstances, is not so in all, and requires in certain cases to be sacrificed to superior duties, is what all must on reflection admit.10 The wife who saved her husband by a falsehood, is immortalized as the “splendide mendax” of Horace, and many other cases might be quoted in point. There is no reason why a statesman also might not, in some circumstances, be “splendide mendax,” but it is a dangerous aim, and he must take especial care, that the natural meanness of the “mendacia” do not more than counteract the splendour of his measures.

In estimating such conduct, two points come into consideration, the splendour of the benefit obtained, and the character of those upon whom the deceit is practised. Thus, in the above case of Hypermnestra, the benefit obtained was the preservation of her husband’s life, a benefit of the greatest importance to him, and one which her duty to her husband made it imperative upon her to seek. Moreover, the conduct of those whom she deceived was such, that the duty of sincerity towards them was scarcely binding; for they themselves were endeavouring to compass an act of the greatest guilt, one which involved not only deceit, but murder. In every way her conduct was perfectly right, and justly is she celebrated as “splendide mendax.”

Let us then examine, on both these points, the conduct of the late Premier; let us weigh Peel against Hypermnestra. Let us scrutinise the character of his “mendacia,” and see whether it should be ranked in the category of “splendida” or “ingloria.”

First, then, as to the benefits which his recent conduct has conferred upon his country.

Admitting (what, however, we cannot hold as any way proved at present) that the measure itself of free-trade in corn, is one of the highest benefit to the country,—granting that the promises held out by its most sanguine advocates, shall be copiously fulfilled,—it still remains to inquire, how far the country’s possession of those benefits will be attributable to the conduct of Sir R. Peel, who, up to the eleventh hour, was their strenuous and consistent opponent.

It is a generally admitted truth, that under the constitution we now possess, as soon as public opinion is decidedly formed in favour of any principle, that principle must triumph over all opposing influences. If, then, public opinion were strongly pronounced in favour of free-trade in corn, if the majority of the electors, who, under our constitution, represent by the members they send to Parliament the deliberate opinion of the nation, were strongly and decidedly in favour of the measure, why should they be unable to give effect to those opinions?—what need would they have of all the circuitous and underhand process employed by the late Premier? No damage could have been done in this case to their cause by Sir R. Peel’s avowal of his real opinions, instead of the close secrecy in which, for purposes best known to himself, he thought fit to veil them for so long a period. Granted, that by so doing he would have been displaced from office; the country would not have felt at all embarrassed by such an event—it would have had no difficulty on that account in finding men who could execute its deliberate opinion. However desirable it may be to Sir Robert, that he should have been the minister to pass the measure, that his name might be associated with it, and that it should cast a halo on his career, all that is a matter of pure indifference to the nation, and cannot be looked on in the light of a benefit. If the opinions of the actual Parliament were the only obstacle, a dissolution was nigh at hand, or might have been resorted to at any moment, when the country could have had no possible difficulty in expressing its real opinions, and carrying them into effect, either through him or others. However much, then, it might be advantageous to himself, we cannot see what benefit, in such a case, free-trade can have derived from the sinister support of all this disingenuous conduct.

But, if the merit attributed to him be, that by means of his skilful artifices, and by the government influence at his disposal, he succeeded in carrying the measure before it was the deliberate opinion of the House, or of the majority of the electors of the country, then it is plain that his conduct has been unconstitutional, and deserving far more blame than praise. In this case the majority would have been obtained by improper influences, not by the deliberate convictions of sincere and earnest men, and would have been forced, by a species of trick, by the minority of the electors on the majority. We all know to some extent what “government influence” means—though the idea of it is so mysterious and vague, that it is impossible to give a very precise definition. Without asserting that it is an influence of any very dishonourable kind, (as times go,) we may safely assert that it is not of the most honourable. Motives resulting from sincerity and truth, are certainly more estimable than those which result from government influence. We should have thought that a minister, however useful he might find it in practice, would carefully abstain from making much direct reference to it in public. That a statesman should boast of the success with which, by his eloquence and earnestness, he had advocated a principle—of the impression which his arguments had made on the minds of his hearers,—of how he had consistently supported it from the time while it was yet weak and doubtful, till its triumphant success had crowned his arduous exertions, this we could readily understand,—this would be a just subject of self-gratulation. But if he has no proofs of having persuaded the minds of men by reason; if, on the contrary, his arguments have all tended to plunge them deeper into error and delusion, we cannot understand how he should think it a matter of boast, that he had persuaded their minds by “government influence.” Such a boast appears to us not to be of the most honourable kind to himself, and certainly not very complimentary to those who had supported him. If we ourselves had voted for a minister, and had heard him afterwards declare, that he believed us to have done so from “government influence,” we should certainly look upon it as a species of insult. Sir R. Peel, however, in giving his own account of his share of merit in promoting the measure, makes no scruple of attributing it all to his well-timed use of “government influence.” After particularly insisting, that Lord John Russell cannot claim much merit in the affair, he explains to us what amount properly falls to himself. “The real state of the case,” says he, “was, that parties were nearly equally balanced, and THAT THE GOVERNMENT INFLUENCE WAS THROWN INTO THE SCALE.” With his wonted egotism, he does not seem to think it possible, that the gentlemen of his party may have given their vote without reference to him, solely as the result of their genuine convictions. Such is the reward which his unhappy followers receive from the master whom they so faithfully supported. We do not say that they may not have deserved it, but we think they had a right to look for it from other hands.

By his own account, then, the matter stands thus: the merit of the affair is to be shared between Cobden and Peel. In this division of labour, Cobden has all the clean work, and Peel all the dirty. Cobden converts all those whose minds are amenable to persuasion, and Peel all those whose minds are amenable to “government influence.”

Sir Robert Peel, however, seems most perfectly satisfied with his exploit, and never for a moment to doubt that it entitles him to the greatest applause. St. Augustine could not speak with more exultation of converting millions of Pagans to Christianity by the fervour of his eloquence, than Sir R. Peel does of his illustrious feat of converting some hundred ignoble minds to free-trade by his paltry government influence. This is the glorious, the devoted deed, upon which he rests his claims to immortality; this it is which is to enshrine his name amid the gratitude of an admiring posterity. On account of this he trusts that “his name will be gratefully remembered in those places which are the abode of the man whose lot it is to labour, and to gain his bread with the sweat of his brow, when he recruits his strength with abundant and untaxed food, the sweeter because no longer leavened with a sense of injustice.” What this abundance of food will actually turn out to be, and when it is to begin, (for I apprehend that as yet, although the law is in operation, no labourers have been incommoded with plethora,) we will not here endeavour to determine. But even if it should turn out to be an abundance altogether unlooked for and unprecedented, we would not have Sir Robert Peel imagine that much of the labourer’s gratitude will go to him. The labourer is generally a shrewd man, with a good share of honest common sense; and he neither likes his bread nor his minister to be leavened with the taint of injustice. He is perfectly capable of discriminating between those who consistently advocate a cause, and those who, having profitably opposed it in the hour of its weakness, when they might have aided it, embrace it at the eleventh hour, in the time of its triumph, when it is capable of aiding them. It is not on time-serving patriots, such as these, that posterity confers her gratitude. Posterity gives her gratitude to the upright and sincere, not to the crafty, servile, and deceitful. Posterity admires those who convert their fellows to truth by persuasion, she scorns those who can only convert them to dishonour by government influence.

If, then, the majority of electors were in favour of free-trade, Peel’s artifices were null and superfluous; if they were not yet in favour of it, they were unconstitutional. He either did no good whatever to the cause, or he passed it sooner than constitutional principles warranted. In the latter case he might claim some merit for anticipating, by a brief period, the time when it would have been duly carried by a majority of the electors. A short additional interval of the enjoyment of free-trade is then, it appears, the utmost extent of his services. Against this are to be placed all the evils arising from his peculiar mode of passing the measure,—the shock given to confidence in public men by such sudden inconsistency,—the general lowering of political character by his craftiness and duplicity,—the disgust excited at the avowed and conspicuous part which government influence has played on the occasion. The country feels justly offended with the minister, who, in a free nation, where the conscientious voice of the majority should alone decide, attempts to anticipate that decision by the voice of those who are biassed by lower and unrecognised motives, and who scruples not to boast of the success of such a method, and lay claim to merit on its account. It feels justly offended also at the discovery, that no less than a hundred of its representatives, who are looked on as the elite of the land, are capable of voting on a measure of first-rate importance, on other grounds than their own heartfelt convictions; that they are ready to vote against it if proposed by A, and for it if proposed by B. Even the cause of free-trade receives its share of damage by becoming associated with the odium of such mischievous proceedings. This, indeed, is felt and acknowledged by many of the free-traders themselves. I may quote, as an illustration, some expressions in a published letter of Mr. Vernon Smith, that has fallen under my eye. He states as a motive for declining office, that “he should be very sorry in his person, however humble, to sanction the belief that official emolument is a motive of action among public men. Sufficient shock” he says, “has already been given to public virtue;” and he subsequently adds, speaking of the Corn Bill, “We have to await many mischiefs from its mode of settlement.”

For our part, had we been free-traders, most earnestly should we have implored that our cause might not be encumbered with the sinister aid of Sir Robert Peel.

Weighing, then, well all the circumstances of the case; considering the relative value of moral and economical advantages; nay, even looking principally merely to the latter, it appears to me, as the result of Sir R. Peel’s recent proceedings, that no residuum of benefit to the country is left, but a very considerable amount of injury. Such a result is not one of sufficient lustre and brightness to enable us to grant him the title in question of “splendide mendax.”

Let us, however, inquire into the other point, as to the character of those who were the dupes of his insincerity, and how far the duty of sincerity between him and them was binding.

The duty of sincerity between a leading statesman and that body of men who were termed his party, does not result from any verbal promise given by one to the other, but is a tacit compact, arising from the nature of things, mutually understood, though not defined; and, precisely on account of its tacit nature, and of so much being left to good faith, is perhaps the more incumbent on an honourable mind. Not, indeed, that the party who have placed a public man in power, have therefore the smallest right to claim an influence over his opinions;—not that because they think they have done a service to him, they are to claim his support of their views as a recompense for that service. He is perfectly free to hold what opinions he pleases, but he is under an obligation honestly to profess those opinions. He is free to change them when he likes, but he is bound to give an intimation of those changes. This is not a case of services bandied to and fro between one party and another, but it is a mutual duty which all public men owe to each other for the furtherance of the welfare of the State. Unless public men of all parties and positions are sincere in the avowal of their opinions, public business sustains severe injury. For in this, as in other things, isolated individuals can accomplish little; men must combine their efforts, and organise themselves, that they may act effectually; and in order to do this, they must know the general tenor of each other’s opinions, and count on their support or their hostility accordingly. If they once took to deceiving one another on these points; if a body of Whigs came over to the Tory benches, (or vice versÂ,) and acted and spoke like Tories, merely with the view of deceiving them, leading them into erroneous calculations, and then profiting by the error they had caused, such conduct would justly be stigmatised as baneful and dishonourable. For public men act and concert measures in matters of the greatest importance upon the belief which they thus entertain of the general views of others, and unless they can act in security on this belief, there is an end of all public confidence. But this general sincerity of profession and behaviour, though binding on all, even the humblest member of the House, is more especially so on the leading and more distinguished statesmen, inasmuch as its breach in their case is productive of greater evils. A knowledge of their real views is of the greatest importance to all parties, whose measures vitally depend on the opinion they entertain of the general views of these statesmen. Upon this belief they securely act in matters of the greatest importance; upon this they support or oppose a ministry; and if they are deceived in this belief, they are thus induced to act in a way which they would, if they knew the truth, think contrary to the public welfare. If a man should knowingly induce in another, though without any actual falsehood, an erroneous belief, and suffer him to act in consequence in a way prejudicial to his private fortune, (of which we have seen many instances in the late railroad transactions,) such conduct is justly denounced as highly censurable. But much more censurable is the conduct of him who induces an erroneous belief in another, so as to lead him to act in a way prejudicial (under his views) to the public welfare. By how much the public welfare is dearer to the high-minded man than his own individual fortune, by so much is the misconduct of the hypocrite in Parliament greater than that of the hypocrite upon ’Change. When, therefore, a Prime Minister knowingly suffers an erroneous belief to exist in the minds of men, owing to which they give him their support, which support, if they knew his real views, they would think injurious to the public welfare, he is committing a breach of a solemn trust; he is suffering, or rather he is inducing, men to act contrary to the dictates of their conscience, to do that which he knows they will afterwards repent of, as contrary to what they deem the interests of their country; and his conduct is in every way deserving of the strongest and severest censure.

That Sir Robert Peel knew that men looked upon him as a Protectionist, while he knew that he was not one; that he knew that, in consequence of this belief, they supported him; that he knew that if they were aware of his real views, they would instantly withdraw their support, and that as soon as they discovered them they would grievously repent of that which they had given him, as having been contrary to the real interests of their country;—that he knew all this, and that, nevertheless, he concealed his real views from these men, and allowed them to retain their erroneous belief, and to act consequently in a way diametrically opposite to their conscientious convictions, though a single sentence of his would have sufficed to dispel their error, and enable them to further their country’s interests conformably with their own views—this, I say, is matter of fact, which he would in vain attempt to deny.

This case, then, exactly corresponds with the preceding; he has broken a solemn though tacit trust; he has given a severe blow to public confidence; he has culpably suffered honourable men to deceive themselves in matters deeply concerning the public welfare; and his conduct, therefore, exposes him to a severer censure than I have any wish to seek for language to express.

And when honest men, who have been for a long time conscientiously supporting him, find that he has been tacitly deceiving them, and concealing from them his real views,—that he has been sporting with their convictions, and using them for nothing more than tools for his own secret purposes,—shall we wonder that they feel just indignation at such conduct, and that they express their feelings in stronger terms than suit the delicate ears of Mr. Sidney Herbert?

Sir R. Peel has indeed attempted, in a broken kind of way, to excuse his conduct, by saying,—“I never told you so and so; if you supported me without knowing my real opinions, it was your own fault. I did not say any thing that you can charge me with as a falsehood.” Without mentioning that, in this case, great suspicion is cast on many even of his verbal professions, which come down to no distant period, surely a sexagenarian Premier can scarcely need to be told, that there is a deceit in actions not less than in professions. Does he think it an excuse that he did not deceive others, but only allowed them to deceive themselves? A pleasant kind of sincerity! Why, this is no more than the excuse of a school-boy, who thinks it a sufficient salve to his conscience that he has skilfully managed to deceive without uttering any thing directly false with his lips. And this is the excuse put forth by an English Minister! Miserable excuse, that fitly crowns the deceit—paltriness of mind, almost inconceivable!

Still worse is it, when he attempts to justify his conduct by taunting his friends with a previous inconsistency of their own, which they had been reluctantly induced to commit through him, in order to support him in power.11 We cannot understand why he should thus delight in exposing the not very pleasing recesses of his ignoble nature. Certainly, “Quem Jupiter vult perdere, prius dementat.” Otherwise he must see that such palliations as these are far more injurious to his character than the severest attacks of his foes.

The only case in which this duty of sincerity towards public men could at all cease to be binding, and admit of a valid excuse, would be, when those upon whom the deceit was practised were not men conscientiously seeking the public good, but were acting from unworthy views, for private or for class interests. In this case, we will admit that the duty of sincerity would not be of any very strict obligation. This is doubtless the view that is taken by many people of the conduct of the Protectionists; by all that numerous class represented by Messrs. Bright, Villiers, &c.—men who, however sincere themselves, are not probably endowed by nature with very comprehensive or liberal minds. From these gentlemen we hear nothing but attacks on the character of the whole body of the landlords; they look on them as a selfish oligarchy, sacrificing the public good to their own class interests. Such views having been industriously propagated by the League, are entertained with more or less of bitterness by a considerable body of the people. It is on this account that Sir R. Peel’s conduct has met with so much applause among them; this it was which animated the cheers that consoled him on his resignation of power; his treachery to the Protectionists, so far from appearing censurable in the eyes of these admirers, has rather enhanced the merit of his success. But such views, however they may suit the minds of those whose passions are aroused in the party warfare of the day, can meet with no acceptance from the impartial judge. It is impossible to admit for a moment that a very large portion of the whole population of the country, including not only landlords but people of all classes, merchants, tradesmen, and operatives, were so lamentably destitute of all regard for their country, and that public spirit was entirely monopolised by the party advocating free-trade. Neither can we admit that the large body of Protectionist members in the House, forming upwards of a third of the whole, were all playing so unworthy a part. For, adding them to the converts of “Government influence,” we should thus have more than half the House of Commons acting upon questionable motives—a prospect certainly not cheering, nor honourable to the country.

Sir R. Peel, indeed, with his usual magnanimity, does not scruple to adopt, in a great measure, the above view; and, seeing how little he spares the feelings of his own devoted supporters, we cannot expect him to show much tenderness to those who have become his foes. Accordingly, we find him making frequent hints at these unworthy motives; indeed, but for some such belief, we cannot understand how he could have justified to himself his deceitful conduct. In his last words, on laying down his power, he does not conceal his sentiments:—“I shall leave a name,” says he, “execrated by every monopolist, who, from less honourable motives, clings to Protection for his own individual benefit,”—a sentiment warmly, applauded by Messrs. Bright, Villiers, & Co.

The generosity of nature displayed in this parting blow is indeed worthy of admiration! We should scarcely think that it was pronounced by a man, who, up to the age of fifty-six, had done every thing in his power to uphold this very monopoly and oppose the Repeal of the Corn Laws, and who had strongly denounced all imputations of the above kind, in the language of its early and consistent supporters. How noble must be the man, who, having for all his life courted and flattered the aristocracy, and thus obtained power as their champion, now gives them a parting kick, and delivers them over to popular odium as monopolists, after having obtained for himself popularity and influence at their expense!

Really, let us remark, when Sir Robert scruples not to express such views, he has no reason to be indignant if the stones of his opponents break some of the panes of his own glass house, even though they damage a few of the artificial flowers, which he has been striving to rear there with so much care.

But, as we observed before, the impartial judge cannot accept this opinion of Sir Robert’s. He will proportion his praise and blame pretty nearly equally between both parties. He will hope that in both, the main body of men are acting on sincere and worthy motives; in both he must acknowledge it to be probable that there are a few whose motives are of a less estimable kind. But he will not put all the virtue on one side, nor all the selfishness on the other. We have yet to learn that Sir Robert is in any way qualified to pass his censure on the body of English gentlemen. The less he says upon these points the better. In the impartial estimate of the three parties, it is he and his that will come by far the worst off.

We cannot then admit that the character of the parties deceived, in any way justified the insincerity; no sufficient excuse is found upon this head, and the breach of the duty remains exposed to grave and severe censure. England does not recognise such conduct in her Ministers. She has long been accustomed to pride herself on a general openness and sincerity of dealing; and that honesty which she looks for in the humbler walks of life, she claims in a yet more imperative degree from her leading and conspicuous statesmen. She reprobates among these all deceitful and underhand conduct, all espionage and mystery; she loves not the secret opener of letters, even though the plea of utility be at hand to excuse his conduct; nor is the government influence, Sir Robert’s darling, at all palatable to her taste. Such proceedings she thinks more fitted to the court of the despot, to the sinuous policy of the Oriental Divan; in a free country she demands that public men should be honest and straightforward, and should not, from whatever motives, suppress and mask the genuine convictions of their mind. She looks not on language as a method of concealing the thoughts, but as a method of declaring them. The recent conduct of Peel has been in every way alien to her principles. It was a skilful coup d’État, well suited to a Turkish Vizier, but totally inappropriate to an English Minister.

Having, then, examined the insincerity on both the points proposed, we find that in neither does it wear an aspect of splendour or of brilliancy, but much of the reverse. We refuse it then the title of a splendid insincerity, but we qualify it as poor, culpable, and inglorious.

Sir R. Peel, however, gives us quite a different account of the matter: he puts in his claim to a generosity of the purest and most exalted kind. “What possible motives could I have had,” he asks, “except the most devoted and patriotic? See what an enormous sacrifice I have made! To afford my country the blessings of Free Trade, I have given up my power and the confidence of a large party, every thing, in a word, which is chiefly valuable to a public man. I have come forward and boldly avowed the truth, in spite of all the taunts of inconsistency and apostasy to which I inevitably exposed myself. But these I esteem as nothing in comparison with the good of my country. For my part, I declare that the proudest moment of my life was when I avowed my opinions to my colleagues, and proposed measures for opening the ports.”

It is curious to observe how completely blind Sir Robert Peel seems to be, to the point on which his conduct is really blamable. He insists much on his perfect integrity in proposing the measure, seeing that he thought it highly beneficial to his country. Surely so self-evident a truism can scarcely need so much parade: surely it is an acknowledged fact that a statesman is not to blame for proposing measures which he deems to be highly beneficial. Sir Robert was doubtless most perfectly right in proposing his measure; nobody, I apprehend, at all blames him on that head. He was doing his simple duty, considering what his views were upon the subject. But that for which he is justly blamable, is for not having done so before. He was culpable for suppressing so long his real opinions, for professing to deem free trade injurious, while really he thought it beneficial. He is culpable for the general mask which he has so long thrown over all his real character and opinions, leading astray the minds of men, and ruining public confidence. This is the point to which blame attaches, and on this he is perfectly silent. We should be glad to know whether it was from motives of a very high and exalted virtue, that he so long suffered his colleagues, and the public generally, to deceive themselves? Was it from any very stoical sense of duty that he so long passed himself off for a protectionist, when really a free trader? Was it from any very intense and devoted patriotism that for so long he bitterly denounced Whig principles, when, as it now turns out, he thoroughly approves of them in his heart? Was it any great stretch of self-sacrifice, any very generous magnanimity, to obtain power, and so long to retain it, upon false pretences? This is the point which it would be desirable for him to clear up. Instead of this, we have much declamation, quite beside the purpose, on his virtue in coming forward and avowing his real opinion. What! is it then any such excessive stretch of virtue, that a man should actually tell the truth? Is it any thing so marvellous in a statesman, that he should advocate a measure which he thinks vitally necessary for his country? Sir R. Peel seems to think that when it entails, as in his own case, the sacrifice of power, such conduct is eminently praise-worthy and meritorious. Why, it is his bare duty and nothing more; it is what he ought to have done years ago, holding the views he does; or, rather, he should never have entered on that power at all. Surely power and place are not so dear to statesmen that they should think it very arduous and patriotic to sacrifice them for their duty to their country. Not to do so would be highly blamable, to do so is simply right, but in no way a subject for praise or self-glorification. And yet Sir R. Peel naively tells us, that the proudest moment of his life was when he declared his real sentiments to his colleagues, and avowed his advocacy of free trade. A strange subject of pride, to fulfil (much too late) a duty of common honesty! Wondrous triumph of virtue, to put a tardy close to a culpable and pernicious dissimulation, which had already been productive of great harm! And this is the glorious feat, which, as Sir R. Peel informs us, afforded him the proudest moment of his life! Curious, unenviable career, of which such is the proudest moment?

It seems then to be “the enormous sacrifice” which he has made, upon which he rests his claim to devoted virtue. “I have sacrificed,” says he, every thing that “is dear to a public man.” Certainly, we do not deny that he has made many sacrifices. He has sacrificed his former supporters, handing them over to discomfiture and to the public odium as monopolists. By his course of dissimulation and deceit he has also sacrificed his character, and with it all claims to public confidence. But these sacrifices are not of any very sublime and devoted nature. It is not by a sacrifice of character that a claim to exalted virtue can best be established. The method is ingenious, but somewhat Irish,12 and likely to meet with no solid success. There remains, then, the sacrifice of power, to which we will grant its share of merit, (provided it is not made a matter of boast.) We learn, however, from some of his new admirers, that it has not been laid down for nought. It appears to have been exchanged for a good equivalent of popularity and influence, upon which it is hinted that a firmer power is to arise ere long, much grander and more durable than the last. Mr. Wakley, for instance, informs us that “at this moment Sir R. Peel is the most popular man in the kingdom; that he is beloved, nay adored, by the masses, who believe that no man has ever before made such sacrifices on their behalf.” And that most probably “he (Sir R. Peel) will shortly return to power upon the shoulders of the people, and will remain there just as long as he pleases.”

If this be so, what shall we say of the sacrifice? Had Sir Robert advocated this measure while it was weak, and while such advocacy entailed a real sacrifice, then might he justly put in his claim to heroism and devotion. But he gained his power by opposing it while weak, he did not adopt it till it was strong, and capable of supporting that power. He rejected it when its adoption would have weakened him, he embraced it when his adherence procured for him an extensive (though ill-deserved) popularity and influence. By associating his name with it, he has obtained renown, frequently the dearest reward of ambition. In no way are the circumstances of his conduct such as to support his claims to intense and exalted patriotism. It is not for men of time-serving convictions like these, to aspire to the rank of Aristides or Washington.

If, indeed, we go back to the characters of antiquity, we find others much better suited to our man, than these exalted natures; but there is one especially whose resemblance is such that we cannot help suspecting that there must be more than chance in it. He is described by Aristophanes, and with such lively and accurate traits, that no one can fail to recognise the type of our present hero. It has not, indeed, been reserved for the nineteenth century to discover that a measure promising cheap food is well suited to procure popularity and power, and that the favour of the people can most readily be obtained by courting that highly important organ, its stomach. (Nor can we altogether blame this judgment of the “popular bellua.”) The late contest between our political leaders is most amusingly similar to that described in the “Knights,” between the two candidates for the good graces of the Athenian Demos.

But it is when we come to the crowning trick that we more especially recognise our patriot, that famous “coup” of the hare, which has shed immortal lustre on the ???a?t?p????. How exactly was Cleon like the Whigs, boasting K. ???’ ?? ?a??’ ??e?? ?p??e? d??? ???’ ????
?????. ????. p??e? ?a??? ?? ?e??seta?;
? ??? ????, ??????? ??e??? t?.
And how beautiful is the heaven-sent flash of genius which irradiates the mind of the Athenian Peel, when, distracting his adversary’s attention, by directing it to “envoys with bags of money,” he snatches away the choice tit-bit, and proffers it with his own hands to the chuckling Demos;— ?????. ? ???d???, ???? t? ?a??’ ? s?? f???;
It is a stroke that may have been often imitated, but never surpassed, and must excite envy even in the breast of his present successful follower. And is not our modern trickster’s recognition of the services of Cobden, and his own claim of merit for his skilful “government influence,” almost prophetically expressed in the slightly varied line— P. t? ?? ???a ??d????, t? d? ???’ ???.
and the contest for their respective claims to favour between himself and Lord John? R. ??? d’ ????d??e?s’. P. Greek: ??? d’ ?pt?s? ?e.
with the pithy judgement of the Demos, ?p??’? ?? ??? ???? t?? pa?a???t?? ? ?????.13

Yes, when we read this it is impossible to hesitate; an Attic colony must have settled in England, and the sausage-seller’s progeny must still be thriving among us. The blood of the ???a?t?p???? must yet be circulating in the veins of the ??t???p???? of the day.

Yet when we read of our sausage-seller’s subsequent career, we feel that we have done him injustice; most widely different is his policy as Agoracritus, from any thing in the career of Peel.

In fact, our ??t???p???? is the ???a?t?p???? inverted. The Athenian starts as a demagogue, and ends as a patriot. Peel starts in the character of a patriot, and ends in that of a demagogue. The Athenian starts with the trick of the hare, and ends in an honest and noble policy. Peel starts with the appearance of an honest policy, and ends with the trick of the hare.

The Athenian directs his efforts to a high and noble aim, to purify and regenerate the ????, to purge him from the love of gain, from fickle caprice, and overweening vanity, and lead him to higher and nobler influences; to attune his mind to old national feelings, and revive in him a love of his country’s institutions, before fast falling into contempt. Under the auspices of the bard of the shining brow, we are conducted to a glorious vision, where amid the sound of the opening PropylÆa, the regenerate ???? is sitting on his throne, clad in his long-lost ornaments, tett???f??a? ???a?? s??at? ?ap???. ???? pe? ???ste?d? p??te??? ?a? ???t??d? ???es?te??

But what is the vision to which Peel’s principles have conducted us? How will the ???? that delights his economical mind bear comparison with that of the Athenian? The Athenian’s is sitting upon a throne, Peel’s is standing bowing behind a counter. The Athenian’s is animated by the love of the beautiful, Peel’s by the love of the gainful. The Athenian’s is alive to poetry and art, Peel’s is engrossed by industry and commerce. The Athenian’s strives to give real value to mind, Peel’s to give exchangeable value to matter. The Athenian’s delights in philosophical, Peel’s in commercial speculations. The Athenian’s is a nation of heroes, Peel’s is a nation of shopkeepers. There is the workman toiling twelve hours a-day, while Parliament discusses the probability of a discussion on his condition. There is the pauper, revelling in the workhouse on his diet of “abundant and untaxed food.” There, too, is the liberal cotton lord, proud of his intelligence, his piety, and his purse. “I thank my stars that I am not as other men are, monopolists, aristocrats, or even as this Protectionist. I eat slave-grown sugar. I pay half per cent income-tax on all that I possess. I work my men twelve hours a-day, and leave them no time for vice and idleness. I buy in the cheapest, and I sell in the dearest market.”

There is the liberality that prefers free trade to free man, and the principles of economy to those of humanity. There is the piety that justifies its avarice by texts, and patronises slavery on the ground of Christian duty. There is the philanthropy that loves itself and its tea better than the happiness of its fellows; that dooms thousands of its race to the lowest depths of wo, in order to save a penny on the pound of sugar. Go, ye liberal and enlightened Christians, learn Christianity from Voltaire. He did not bow before the idol of trade, at which you are now prostrating yourselves; he raised his voice in the cause of humanity against those vile principles of commercial cupidity which you have chosen for your creed. He, pointing to the degraded negro, could indignantly exclaim— “Voyez, À quel prix vous mangez du sucre en Europe!”
He did not think that market cheap, where such a price was paid for it. Yes! while you are dealing out damnation in your bigoted sects, he was more, far more a Christian than you are.14

We by no means wish to lay to Sir Robert’s charge all the evils of the above picture; nevertheless, we think that the economical principles so dear to his heart, have had no little share in contributing to them. Certainly we look in vain for any efforts on his part to elevate the national character. His last support of the sugar bill is admirably characteristic; he is decidedly opposed to its principle, (he sympathises indeed most warmly with the negroes,) but, nevertheless, he is compelled as usual to support it—at a great sacrifice of course to his feelings—owing to the peculiar position of political affairs. Certainly, his career cuts a lamentable figure by the side of that of Agoracritus.

Nevertheless, though we cannot think his career meritorious, it is without doubt remarkable. This phenomenon of a man, who through life had been regarded as a leader in the aristocratic or Tory school, casting his skin nearly at the mature age of sixty, and soaring forth in the sunshine of popular favour in the gaudy and pleasing colours of the Radical, is certainly one of a curious and interesting kind. A variety of questions are suggested by it to the inquiring spirit. For how long has this suppression of his real opinions existed? For how long has he been pleased, according to his phrase, to allow people to deceive themselves? Is he still allowing them this amusing privilege? Do we even now see him in his real colours, or is some further metamorphosis in store? Have his changes been the sudden conversions of a facile and unstable inconsistency, or are they the long prepared denouement of a secret and mysterious plot? Has a tyro in politics been unlearning his prejudices and mistakes at the expense of his country, or has a Radical in disguise been prowling in the Tory fold, luring on the aristocracy to their own discomfiture?

Between the two alternatives of inconsistency and insincerity, it might be thought that his apologists would all take the first, and his accusers the second; that while the latter attacked him for premeditate treachery, the former might defend him on the ground of a natural facility of disposition, which rendered him prone to sudden conversions beneath the pressure of the times.

Such, however, by no means seems to be the case: on the contrary, the darker and more mysterious view of his conduct is the one taken by his most ardent admirers; (for, strange to say, such beings still exist.) Happening to be in conversation with one of these, (a zealous Radical,) I chanced to indulge in some animadversions on Sir Robert’s weakness, as shown in his numerous and repeated conversions, expressing an opinion that a statesman so exceedingly fallible must be totally unfitted to guide the destinies of a great nation. But such, I found, was by no means the view of my radical friend; who, somewhat to my surprise, maintained that he was a most able and skilful man, by far the best fitted of all our existing statesmen for the post of Prime Minister. Of any thing like weakness he would not hear. Does Peel’s general character, said he, savour of weakness? does he look like an innocent child, who does not know what he is about? Depend upon it there is a method in his inconsistency; depend upon it he has perfectly well known, all along, the game he has been playing.

What! then, said I, do you mean to say, that all his former professions were insincere? that when he opposed Canning on the Catholic question, he all along looked forward to his carrying it? that when he opposed the Whigs, he intended when in, power to adopt their principles? that when he made such strenuous professions in favour of Protection, he all along had an eye to the repeal of the Corn Laws?

Certainly, replied my friend, I may say not only that I think it, but that I know it. Do you suppose that so skilful a man would make his moves without having an eye to the game he was playing?

And is not such insincerity, said I, most detestable?

Insincerity! replied my Liberal, with a shrug of the shoulders,—it is a fine word, a very pretty word for declamation; but, young man, when you are as old as I am, you will know what it passes for in the political world. Depend upon it, only those cry out about it who are hurt by it; those who benefit by it give it quite a different name. The man who is an apostate and a renegade to the party whom he betrays, is a virtuous and patriotic convert to that which receives him.

Surely, cried I, if Peel has really been playing the game you attribute to him, no one could hesitate to pronounce him insincere.

Not at all so, said his admirer, his sincerity can easily be defended. I look upon him myself as a most sincere patriot, notwithstanding the view that I take of his policy. His principle has been a most consistent and patriotic one;—always to carry the popular measure, as soon as the public mind was ripe for it.

But was not, then, his conduct to Canning most reprehensible, when he professed such repugnance to the Catholic claims?

Not by any means; he really opposed them at the time, because the public mind was not yet ripe for them; and he sincerely proposed them afterwards, because it had ripened in the interim. The measure which would have been hazardous in the former case, had become safe and beneficial in the second. The same may be said of his apparent changes with respect to the principles of the Whigs and the Free Traders. He abstained from these doctrines as long as their popularity was doubtful, and embraced them as soon as the maturity of public opinion had rendered them wise and beneficial.

Why then, I inquired, did he profess to oppose them on principle?—why did he not declare that he was only waiting for the public mind to ripen? I cannot say that I got a very satisfactory answer on this head, but it was something to the effect that the public good, statesman-like discretion, peculiarities of political affairs, might justify some suppression on this point.

In fact, continued my friend, his whole opposition to the Whigs and the Reform Bill, was nothing but a piece of acting, into which he was led by the force of circumstances. Nobody thought that the public mind was so nearly ripe for it as it proved to be, and Peel therefore was not prepared to take advantage of it. It was an unforeseen event which took him by surprise, and he thus, against his will, was forced out of the movement. But his opposition was entirely fictitious,—he was never a Tory at heart: he might use their prejudices as tools to serve his purposes, but he was always too wary to adopt them in reality. His heart was always with the popular doctrines, more so than was the case with the Whigs themselves, as his recent behaviour evinces. He is ready now to take up and carry out their principles at a point where they themselves hesitate to do so. This is what he has all along been aiming at,—the post he aspires to is that of the man of the people, the leader of the movement. He is far better fitted for this than the Whigs; he has no sickly visions of finality. He will not scruple to carry out the dominant wishes of the people, whithersoever they may lead. Then he has this peculiar advantage, that while most other ministers are fettered by their pledges and professions, these are no impediments to Peel. This is why I look upon him as our fittest minister, because he will most fully carry out the people’s will. As soon as that will is decidedly expressed, his only care will be to execute it.

We ventured to raise some doubts as to the fitness of such a character for the post of Minister. Surely, said we, he can scarcely be fit for a ruler, who is thus servile to the dominant opinion of the day. Surely a Minister should be somewhat in advance of the mass, and rather capable of directing their opinion than compelled to follow it.

If we look to mere outward brilliancy, replied he, that may be true, but if we look to solid utility, the case is different. In a despotic country, such a minister as you require might be needful; in Austria, for instance, a Metternich may be of use to direct and anticipate public opinion. But in a free country like ours, where public opinion is so active, we shall never want demagogues to form it; of these there will always be a plentiful stock; the difficulty is to find a minister who will interpret and execute the popular will, after it has been fashioned by these more original spirits. And this, if I mistake not, is eminently found in Peel, as time, I suspect, will demonstrate. Think not that his career is over; think not, as his short-sighted adversaries may imagine, that he is extinguished as a public man. That darling wish of his heart, to be borne triumphantly into power by the masses, as leader of the popular movement, lies at length almost within his grasp. His recent desertion of the aristocracy was admirably timed; though he may have lost their support, he has gained in exchange the favour of the people. He has craftily quitted the falling house, to take ampler lodgings in the new and rising fabric. However powerless he may seem to the ignorant, he has still admirable cards in his hand. His adversaries may be formidable in number, but they are weak in intrinsic strength. No one knows better than he how to play them off one against the other, and to profit by their dissensions. Meanwhile he is patiently biding his time, which, be assured, is not far distant. Politics have lately displayed much greater wonders than the triumphant return to power of Sir Robert Peel.

And if once he return, think not that he will easily be dispossessed of it. He will well know how to play the part of the popular favourite. There stands not in the House a more thorough Radical than the inner man of Sir Robert Peel. It is from him that we shall obtain Extended Suffrage, finally to become Universal. It is from him that we shall obtain the diminution, and at last the abolition of Church Establishments. It is from him, or from such as he, that we may hope finally to obtain a Republic. You may smile, and think such a prospect absurd. Would you have thought it more absurd, if I had told you three years ago that from him we should have obtained Repeal of the Corn Laws? Depend upon it, we shall yet see the day when Sir Robert shall be the triumphant popular minister.

Heaven forbid! thought I; yet I was forced to confess that it did not seem unlikely. I could, however, by no means join in the admiration which my friend expressed for such a character. While granting that some respect might be felt for the skilful d?a?????, who leads and sways the popular mind, I could feel nothing but contempt for the servile d??p?d??, who merely watches and follows it. I rallied him somewhat upon the magnanimous liberality, which could ally itself with so poor and ungenerous a character, so debased, if his account were true, by meanness, duplicity, and hypocrisy. My Radical waxed somewhat warm, and at length he parted, in all the dignity of his liberality, thinking me a young fool; while I returned, laughing at his generous patriotism, and thinking him a servile-minded old humbug.15

The more, however, I pondered on the subject, the more did I see the justice of his views on Peel’s character, and at length I almost entirely coincided with him,—in every thing but his admiration.

What then shall we say of these principles, looking at them under their moral aspect? Taking his admirer’s view, I know not how they could escape the severest censure. But though these admirers of his make no scruple in adopting this view, and even in warmly defending it, we cannot but hesitate to follow their example. An insincerity so deliberate, so calculated, is more than we can readily admit. No doubt, his actual conduct has been such as my friend above described, as facts sufficiently show. No doubt, he has professed one set of principles when seeking power, and another when in possession of it. No doubt, he has used the aristocratical element as his stepping-stone to greatness, and has afterwards kicked it over for the popular one as its support. But we think that these principles have acted in a great measure spontaneously, without any very fixed and deliberate plan in his own mind. We take his conduct to have been not so much the result of calculation, as of the peculiar organisation of his nature. We believe him to have been in a great measure unconscious of the inherent servility and flexibility of his convictions. When he opposed a measure, he probably imagined that he did so chiefly on its own merits, and was not aware that his conversion would inevitably take place, as soon as public opinion was ripe for that measure.

Let us, however, listen to himself, and see what light we can derive from his own lips as to the nature of his principles. By his own account, in the case of the Corn Laws, the suppression of his real opinions lasted for somewhere about three years. “About three years ago,” says he, “a great change took place in my opinions on the subject;” but it seems that for the public good, he thought it best to allow people to deceive themselves, and therefore carefully suppressed all intimation of this change. So far, then, his own account tallies with that of his admirer, and we have his own word that his insincerity, for a considerable period of time, was deliberate and calculated. But the actual duration of this hypocrisy it must evidently be impossible to determine with accuracy; for if a person can, by his own avowal, practise it knowingly and deliberately for three years, it is probable that in a vague and unconscious way, not thoroughly known even to himself, he has been indulging in it for a much longer period.

Again, with respect to his Whig principles, it is impossible to determine accurately how long they have been suppressed, and he has not favoured us on this point with much specific information; but it would appear that they latently existed at the time that he so strenuously opposed that government, and that the germ of Whiggery was developing itself in his bosom, while outwardly he was shining as a high Tory.

With respect to the Catholic Question he is more communicative, and he takes care to inform us, in a speech revised by his own hand, and published for the benefit of posterity in Hansard, that here, too, his duplicity had been of long standing, and very much of a deliberate and premeditated nature. When proposing, as Minister, the measure of Catholic Emancipation, which outwardly he had so long opposed, he reports himself to have said, “So far as my own course in this question is concerned, it is the same with that which suggested itself to my mind in the year 1825, when I was his Majesty’s Principal Minister for the Home Department, and found myself in a minority in this House on this [the Catholic] Question.”16 Now, the course which he was then pursuing was that of openly advocating and supporting the Catholic claims. And the same course, he tells us, (that, therefore, we must conclude, of his advocating these claims,) suggested itself to his mind in 1825. His duplicity then was of long standing; for he did not, as is well known, suffer the public to be in the least aware of any such suggestion, from the time when it presented itself to his mind in 1825, till 1829, when he first avowed that favourable leaning to those claims, which had so long lain dormant in the interior of his breast. His conduct certainly was well calculated to prevent any suspicion of the existence of such a tendency in his mind; for in 1827, two years after the suggestion had offered itself, he declared himself compelled, by a painful but rigorous sense of duty, to quit Canning’s ministry, and join the opposition against that statesman, on account of his own deep repugnance to those claims, and his conviction of their ruinous tendency. Nay, more, he suffered himself to be borne into power for the ostensible purpose of resisting those claims, and made the round of the country amid the acclamations of his supporters, as Protestant champion, without giving the slightest hint of the suggestion which the minority in 1825 had awakened in his mind, and which was so shortly to develop itself in full force, as soon as he was seated in power.

If, then, we are to believe his own account, his hypocrisy in this matter must have been of considerable duration, of much skill, and consummate perfidy. Though a feat of his earlier prime, it must have been quite worthy to compare with the recent great exploit of his maturity.

The speech from which we have extracted the above passage, is the same which gave rise to the discussion in Parliament, in which Sir Robert’s conduct in this business was attacked. He then endeavoured to rebut the charges founded on it, by denying the authenticity of the expressions attributed to him, some of which rested only on the isolated reports of particular newspapers.17 But the sentence above quoted stands at full length in his own corrected report in Hansard, revised, as its title tells us, by Mr. Secretary Peel, the authenticity of which has never been questioned. And certainly its natural sense would lead us to conclude, that he was ready, in the interior of his mind, in 1825, to embrace the cause of Catholic Emancipation. If, as he would fain demonstrate, it has a contrary meaning, it can be only, we presume, when taken in some non-natural sense;—the fixing of which we leave to those more conversant than ourselves with that very ingenious mode of interpretation.

And if it be true that he did feel so disposed, that he was “almost persuaded,” at that early period, of the wisdom of granting the Catholic claims, then his subsequent behaviour in putting himself at the head of the party who unflinchingly and undoubtingly opposed those claims, as injurious to the country, his professing to coincide fully in their views, and his obtaining power on the strength of those professions, cannot but be looked on as a political manoeuvre of the most disingenuous and culpable kind.

What could have been the motive of his making so strange a confession, is a somewhat curious subject of inquiry. We think we recognise in it an attempt to establish a kind of vague compromise between insincerity and inconsistency. If his conduct were attributed to mere inconsistency, he must plead guilty to a long previous mistake, and must forfeit all pretensions to political prudence and foresight. If, however, it were thought that he had for a long time had a secret leaning in favour of the Catholic claims, and had only been waiting for the ripeness of public opinion to declare his real sentiments, then he would escape the charge of weakness and imprudence, and would only incur the blame of a beneficial insincerity. He would thus gain the good graces of all those whose strong attachment to the measure would make them overlook, in behalf of its importance, what they would consider a pardonable deceit.

This view, indeed, he could not explicitly state in so many words, as it would have laid him too open to the accusations of his opponents; but it can be hinted at, as in the above passage. For what intelligible meaning can be attached to that sentence, if it do not convey the idea that his inconsistency, after all, was not so flagrant as had been represented; that his mind for some time previously had been leaning that way, and that, to use his peculiar phrase, his course was “the same with that which suggested itself to his mind in the year 1825.” We believe this expression to be the most accurate that he could have used. The design of supporting the Catholic claims had not then fully ripened in his mind, he had not formed any accurate and deliberate plan of conduct; but the possibility of doing so at some future day secretly “suggested itself to his mind.” A scarcely audible voice whispered in his mind, “Perhaps, Peel, some time or other, in certain contingencies, State necessities, public duty, &c., may require that you should lend a favourable ear to the Catholic claims.” What these peculiar contingencies were would also be suggested by the same little voice, but in so low a tone and in such vague terms that he himself would not be able to render a definite account of them.

Whatever, however, be the real construction of the above passage, or of any other similar ones that may be met with among his speeches, we ourselves should not be disposed to attach too prominent an importance to them. Such confessions might be admirably fitted as a taunt to him, as an “argumentum ad hominem,” as a case of “habemus confitentem reum:” but it is not on his own verbal expressions that the judgment on his conduct is to be formed. Strange indeed would it be if a skilful orator should so blunder in his speech as openly to avow an act of duplicity and deceit; it is only matter of marvel how such expressions as that above quoted could ever have been used. But, in a case like this, if he wished fully to express all that he knew of his own intentions, if he desired to unburden his mind by the fullest possible confession, he would not be able accurately to do so, and his own estimate of his own character would be little worth. It is an unfailing consequence with those who practise hypocrisy in the view of deceiving others, that they also at the same time deceive themselves. One deliberate and systematic piece of deceit produces an incalculable amount of this subtler and unconscious hypocrisy. It is a kind of general veil or mantle in which the person walks, which conceals his soul even from his own view, and deceives him as to the motives of his own actions. Under its soothing influence no sense of insecurity is felt; and the man whose conduct is all the time biassed by some egotistical motive, walks in the proud conviction to himself that he is a model of patriotism and virtue. Such an hypocrisy, to take a prominent instance, is well exemplified in the case of Cromwell; but illustrations must be familiar to every one in the humbler walks of life, and if he have a difficulty in discerning it in others, he will have none if he knows how to examine himself. It is a tendency which exists in all, and requires strong efforts for its subjugation. All strong passions or desires carry it along with them, unless their deceptive influence be firmly counteracted by the stronger desire for truth and right.

In Sir Robert’s case we believe it to have arisen from the action of a strong egotistical desire of power and fame, unchecked by any heartfelt and earnest convictions with regard to the truth of his public principles. His whole career is a continuous proof of this defect of all genuine and lively seizure of the truth; for never does he advocate an opinion while it is weak, and never does he oppose it when it is strong. Owing to this, his principles, though he himself may have no distinct consciousness of it, have insensibly bent themselves to the stronger motives of ambition. He remains all the time in ignorance of the secret bias, and is by no means aware of how far from true patriotism he is.

Accustomed to rely on the opinions of others, from the absence of all earnest conviction in himself, he must be forced to trust to their voice even in matters relating to his own conduct; and, when he hears the cheers of the populace that salute him at the door of the House of Commons, he lays the flattering unction to his soul that he is a martyr and a patriot. How should it be otherwise? When he hears himself applauded as an eminently virtuous and injured man, what means is there of undeceiving him, if his own conscience be silent or confirm the delusion? I find it well remarked to my purpose by Mencius, the Chinese sage, speaking of some statesmen of his day, whom he declares to have had only a false appearance of virtue,—“Having had for a long time this false appearance, and not having made any return to sincerity and integrity, how could they know,” he asks, “that they did not possess it?”18

And when we speak of the weakness or servility of conviction, we would by no means be understood to mean a mere liability to change. The man of sincere and earnest mind frequently changes his opinions oftenest. The difference lies in the motives of the change. In the case of the earnest man these arise from his own mind, in the case of the servile-minded man from external circumstances. Such, for instance, are political advantages, or the number, or clamour, or strength of the advocates of an opinion. Circumstances generally enable us to discriminate pretty accurately. If a man always rejects an opinion when shared by few, and always adopts it when popular and dominant; if he has nothing to say to it when it is of no service to him, but embraces it when it is strong, and can give him renown and popularity, we shall not probably err in deeming that man to be of a servile mind, wanting in sincere and earnest convictions. The truthful-minded man at once avows his change, the servile-minded one cunningly conceals it till it suits his purpose. If, besides this, a man be cold, pompous, and an egotist, if his character be marked by duplicity, if his language be plausible, but unsatisfactory if he be found to pay more deference to his foes through fear than to his friends from affection, all these are corroborating tests of the servile character in question. Though it may be difficult to assign its precise tokens in words, there is less difficulty in discriminating it in practice.

It is this total want of all earnest and heartfelt conviction of the truth, which forms the key to the interpretation of the whole of Sir R. Peel’s career. Deciphered by this, all the tortuous inconsistencies of his course arrange themselves in systematic order, all the varied hieroglyphics of his mysterious conduct yield a clear and intelligible meaning. The man who is thoroughly convinced of the truth of his principles, labours unceasingly to impart them to others, to urge upon them the importance of his views, to point out the beneficial results which must flow from his course of policy. Such an earnest conviction animated Pitt in his resistance to the French Revolution, Canning in his advocacy of the Catholic claims, Wilberforce in his endeavours for Negro Emancipation; and lately, (if we may be pardoned somewhat of a bathos,) Cobden in his war against the Corn Laws. Without meaning to assimilate the merits, of these various efforts, they all serve as examples of the way in which men act when animated by a genuine and sincere conviction. But there is no principle, great or small, which has owed its advance in public opinion to one sentence of Peel’s. Say rather, there is none which while yet in its infancy, and in need of support, has not been opposed by him to the best of his power. While it is weak, he raises his tongue against it; while it is doubtful, he halts between two opinions, and watches the struggle in cautious silence; as soon as it has become dominant and can dispense with his support, he proffers his aid with copious professions of zeal, and seeks to fix on his inglorious brow the laurels that rightly belong to another.

Had he lived in the Roman world at an earlier age, when Christianity was yet striving against the secular powers, while it was weak and despised, who would have opposed it more loudly than the Robert Peel of the day? who would have more warmly urged its impracticability, its unfitness for the concerns of life? who would more eloquently have exhorted the Roman world to hold to the wisdom of their forefathers? As, however, the tide gradually and steadily rolled on, and day by day one conversion followed another, these eloquent protestations would begin somewhat to flag, and at length that plausible tongue would lie in silence. But when at last it began to make its way among the higher powers of the land, amid the eminent and wealthy; when finally it even penetrated into the Court of the Emperor, and rumours began to be whispered that he himself looked on it with no unfavourable eye, a few days before Constantine’s conversion Pellius would announce his formal adhesion to its principles, with an intimation that he had for some years been leaning that way, and that “a similar course had suggested itself to his mind,” even at the time when he took some part in the Dioclesian persecution.19 A skilful management of “government influence,” pouring grace and unction on many benighted minds, would secure him a good claim to merit, and he would doubtless be rewarded for his seasonable change by a high post amid the officers of the regenerate Emperor.

This time-serving conduct, skilfully managed, will frequently succeed admirably with the world; for these children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light. The sincere advocates of principles through good and through bad report, are looked upon as unpractical and fanciful theorists; while those who carefully watch their opportunity, and conform themselves with good grace to the dominant tide of opinion, are hailed as able and practical men, and even obtain from the mass the praise of more than common honesty, inasmuch as they are not ashamed to avow a change in their opinions. It is of such as these that the wise Confucius pointedly says, “The most honest men of their time are the pest of virtue.”

“What!” asks the surprised disciple Wen-tchang, “whom do you call the most honest men of their time?”

“Those,” replies the Sage, “who direct their principal efforts to speak and act like all the world, are the adulators of their age: these are the most honest men of their generation.”

“And why,” says the disciple, “do you call them the pest of virtue?”

“If you wish to find a defect in them, you will not know where to lay hold of them; if you wish to attack them in any place, you will not be able to compass it. They participate in the poverty of the manners of their age. That which dwells in their heart resembles integrity and sincerity, and their actions resemble the practice of temperance and virtue. As all the people of their country boast of them incessantly, they believe themselves to be models of perfection. This is why I regard them as the pest of virtue.”

“I detest,” continues Confucius, “that which has only the appearance of reality: I detest the tares, in the fear that they will ruin the crop. I detest the skilful statesman, in the fear that he will confound equity.”20

Might not the simple lessons of Confucius be read with advantage even in our enlightened age, which certainly is not without its “adulators?” Might not they do some good to Sir R. Peel, and awaken that “skilful statesman” to a juster estimate of his real virtue?

The idea contained in the above passage is most accurately and profoundly true, and shows, like most of his remarks, that Confucius had a penetrating knowledge of human nature. There are, in fact, two great classes into which mankind may be divided; those whose model of conduct is the general conduct of the society in which they live, and those whose model is an ideal in their own minds, unattainable indeed, and never to be realised in practice, but the mere aiming at which elevates their character. The first of these are the men described above by Confucius, “whose principal effort is to think and to act just like all the world,” whom he ironically terms “the most honest men of their district.” And even in our day this class furnishes us with a vast number of “most highly respectable men.” Destitute of all splendid visions, they are never led astray into any extravagance that might shock the decorous laws of society, and they are looked upon accordingly as models of temperance and virtue. These are the “children of this world” most wise in their generation: the “men of the world,” from whom arise the sharp practical man, the skilful statesman, the time-serving diplomatist,21 and all the host of Vicars of Bray, whether in religion or politics.

The others are those who derive their principles not from the fashionable dicta of the world, nor the ruling doctrines of the age, but from the idea of truth within their own minds; who, “though the sun were on their right hand and the moon were on their left,” would not be diverted from the genuine convictions of their conscience. They look not to the flickering glare of public opinion, but to the immutable light of truth; these are “the children of light,” the souls of pure and high-minded virtue. From these have sprung all that humanity has of great and noble, all those who have sacrificed on the altar of truth; in religion the Martyrs, in philosophy the Sages, in politics the sincere and devoted Patriots. They do not despise opinions because the world despises them, nor do they honour them because the world does them honour; they are “justi ac tenaces propositi viri,” who do not ebb and flow with the tide of public opinion.

In which of these two classes Sir Robert Peel is to be placed, is what his own conduct will decide, better than our judgment. Nevertheless, we will hazard the opinion, that Sir Robert Peel is no child of light. We suspect that there are very few principles, for which he would suffer himself to be burnt,—even in effigy. With no high ideal by which to guide his conduct, with no generous or exalted views, he has ventured on a career beyond his powers. Fitted by Nature to make an excellent Chancellor of the Exchequer, he has not known how to content himself with his proper post. A narrow egotist, he has attempted to guide the destinies of a great nation. His career, as might have been expected, has been a notable failure. If it be not exposed to very heavy blame, we decidedly must withhold all praise from it; if it have little of the execrable, it certainly has nothing of the admirable. Unstable as water, how could he excel? and excellence has been wanting accordingly. His career has been one continuous mistake; the greatest mistake of all being that he ever began it. His only discoveries have been, that he had previously been in error. His only victories have been over his friends, whom thrice he has dragged through the mire of dishonour.22 He has portioned out triumph to his foes, defeat and bitterness to his supporters. He quits power amid the disgust and indignation of his old friends, and the contemptuous patronage of his new. Such has been the career of the safe man, the practical and able statesman! The generous Canning, a man of real and noble ideas, was looked upon as dangerous, and the wary and cautious Peel was raised to power in his stead. Could they have foreseen—those who were toiling for their safe man, and so alarmed at the dangerous ideas of Canning—that it was to the safe man they were to be indebted for Catholic, Emancipation, and Repeal of the Corn Laws? Reflect upon this, ye lovers of safe men, and be wise: choose those who are really safe, and see first that they are men at all, and next only that they be safe ones; men—of high and bold ideas, not crafty and narrow-minded egotists.

The above described modification of character is, no doubt, extensively prevalent, and by its frequency in their ranks casts somewhat of a shade over the whole body of politicians and statesmen; so much so, that it was an axiom of one of the most distinguished of their number, that they were all to be considered dishonest, till their conduct proved the contrary. But, though far too many examples of it are afforded by political history, we may safely say that seldom has a better opportunity of studying such a character existed, than at the present day, when it is exemplified in a far more open and unblushing way than usual, by the two most noted actors on the political stage, the one of England, the other of Ireland. It is impossible not to recognise the intrinsic similarity in the characters of Peel and O’Connell, though outwardly very differently modified by the circumstances and the tempers of the nations with which they have had to deal. But in both, one great characteristic is the same, that their professions have been at variance with their convictions; that the ends to which they have secretly been working, have been totally different from those which they put forward to the public as their aim. Both have made use of principles and feelings as tools to their ambition, in which they themselves did not in the least degree sympathise; nay, which, in Peel’s case, were the secret object of his hostility and aversion. Peel made use of the principles of Toryism, the banner of Church and State; O’Connell of the principle of Nationality, so dear to the Irish, the cry of Repeal, and the Parliament in College Green. That O’Connell cares little enough about Repeal, is now sufficiently evident; and that Peel cared absolutely nothing about Toryism, is but a faint expression of the truth, inasmuch as his object has evidently been to overthrow it, as soon as it had raised him to power. O’Connell, while professedly upholding the cause of the National and fiery Anti-Saxon party, has secretly made friends with the much less romantic and more practical interests of the Catholic priesthood and the Whigs; Peel, while professedly maintaining the declining cause of the Church and State, the old institutions, the national feelings, &c., of the country, has secretly made friends with the much less ideal and more substantial interests of the commercial classes, and the Manchester cotton lords. Both have ended in a complete rupture with the party of which they were the former champion. Peel is at open war with the Tories, O’Connell with the Nationals. The love of their former friends, is in both cases turned into bitter disgust and contempt; and as we have already heard violent denunciations of Peel from his old supporters, we shall probably ere long hear equally violent against O’Connell. Both, in fact, share the merited fate of long-continued falsity of principle; they stand forth in their old age with their nakedness uncovered, the contempt of all those who can penetrate the hollowness of their career. For both the same excuse is set up, that they deceived for the good of their country. For both the excuse is alike untenable, for nothing can justify such deliberate tampering with the truth; and in both, their final exposure may serve as a warning to show how delusive is such a notion.

On the whole, however, we must greatly give the preference to the Irish agitator; his services to his country have been much greater, his exertions much more effective, and his career much more consistent; for, however insincere he may be on certain points, he has never been guilty of professing principles diametrically opposite to his convictions; he cannot be accused of any such hypocrisy as that of professing Toryism while in heart a Radical. He has consistently supported, and very mainly procured, by his own exertions, many measures important to his country; not to name others, that of Catholic Emancipation. But there is not a single measure which owes its success to the exertions of Peel; though he may have been the nominal instrument of carrying them, their triumph has been in reality the work of others, and they would have been passed with equal or greater readiness had he never existed. The Corn Bill, on which he rests his principal claim, has doubtless lost much more by his long-continued opposition, than it has gained by his tardy conversion. He has done nothing but adopt those principles which had already become dominant through the exertions of others, and has lived entirely on the fruit of other people’s intellects. Every one must admit, that in all this O’Connell is, beyond comparison, superior to Peel. In other respects, too, the bold and open bonhommie of the Irish agitator, is far preferable to the cold and repulsive egotism of the English statesman.

That the career of the man who, with weak principles, as above described, attempts to play a conspicuous part in politics, will be pregnant with humiliation, is what we might at once predict. In the present instance of Peel this has been most strikingly exemplified. Unable to nourish himself with the food of truth, he has scantily sustained himself by eating his professions. Perpetually has he opposed, to the best of his power, men whose principles he has afterwards been compelled to adopt. After gaining power by such opposition, he has been forced to confess that he gained it by injuring his country. Even should we take the most favourable view of his conduct to Canning, that the nature of the case will allow, how much has it still of a humiliating character! He is reluctantly induced, at a great sacrifice to his feelings, to join the unfortunate opposition against that statesman, solely, as he believes, from a stern sense of public duty. Yet he is obliged afterwards to confess that Canning was much wiser than himself in the matter, and to carry the very measure on account of which his friend had been so mercilessly assailed. He discovers that the violence done to his feelings, not only was productive of no good to his country, but actually of detriment. He discovers that his former objections were not (as had been professed) to the principle of the measure, but only because the public mind was not yet ripe for it, and that as soon as the public mind ripened, his own would ripen too. What regret must thus be excited in the mind awakened to the consciousness of its long mistake!

If he had been satisfied that his opposition to Canning had proceeded from a firm and well-grounded conviction, from an unswerving sense of public duty, his conduct, however repugnant to his feelings, would, on the whole, be a just subject of pride, and the sacrifice of his friendship to his duty would entitle him to gratitude and respect. But, alas! it turns out that this firm conviction was wanting, that it was based on a foundation of sand; that what principles he had were vague and weak, and were liable to be biassed all the time, much more than he knew, by extraneous and contingent circumstances. This is the reason why they afterwards gave way, when their yielding was demanded by his political position. The law of duty that was deemed so stern and inflexible, proved, when the test was applied, to be pliant and elastic; the convictions which were believed to be based on the firmest Protestant principle, turned out to be chiefly dependent on public ripeness. And when he reflected that he had gained his power by so mistaken a course, by so unfounded an opposition to Canning, surely this would call for feelings of repentance on account of his previous errors, this would at least demand some expression of that contrition and humiliation, which seem so distasteful to his nature. But this is what he seems peculiarly disinclined to do, and till some such avowal of repentance has been made, we cannot think that he will have expiated his error.

His position with respect to the Whigs is of a similarly humiliating kind. What must he now think of that bitter opposition which he formerly promoted and encouraged against them, now that he discover that he is fully prepared to carry out their extremest principles? Must it not be a subject of penitence to him to discover, that here again his policy was, under his present views, injurious to his country; that his power has been based on an opposition to people wiser, as he now confesses, than himself? Yet here, too, he most strangely resists any avowal of contrition or humiliation.

This phenomenon is not of an amiable nature, nor one which would dispose us to a favourable view of his career. We can scarcely, I think, wonder, all things considered, that his previous conduct, and more especially that towards Canning, should have been brought under discussion in Parliament, as liable to the suspicion of premeditate duplicity and insincerity—of having, in fact, been similar to that of his three last years with respect to the Corn Laws. Ill, indeed, would it have spoken for the political morality of that Honourable House, if his conduct had been passed over without notice, as the usual and proper course which might be looked for from a British Statesman. Upon this question we will leave others to decide, for this is a point on which every one must entertain his own opinion. Since such has avowedly been his conduct for the three last years, there is nothing to prevent us from extending it over the whole of his public life. We do not, however, purpose to enter minutely into any such researches. We can only wonder at the very needless amount of agitation into which his supporters were thrown, when the subject, not long since, was broached in Parliament. A belief was there expressed, that his conduct on the Catholic Question had been equally insincere with his recent behaviour on the Corn Laws; that he had then, as now, suffered his colleagues and the public to deceive themselves, and had not openly avowed his real opinions. Sir R. Peel is roused to the greatest indignation at such an assertion. Yet surely this anger in him is somewhat out of place. His present insincerity, or deceit by sufferance, he does not attempt to deny;—it would, indeed, be useless for him to do so. Why, then, is he so indignant at the idea that his former conduct should have been similar to his present? Was insincerity a greater crime twenty years ago than it is now? Is deceit in the green tree worse than it is in the dry? If his public duty in 1845 authorised him to allow Lord Stanley, Lord Ashburton, and his party generally, “to deceive themselves,” why might it not have authorised him in 1825 to allow Mr. Canning and Lord Liverpool to deceive themselves also? If it be lawful for him now to mask and suppress his real opinions, why should it not have been so then? Yet by his energetic protestations he would seem to think that it must have been highly censurable. Such charges could only proceed, if we believe him, from the base and vindictive malice of political opponents. Yet what are these charges? The charges of having done then precisely what he has avowedly been doing now, and what it can scarcely be questioned he has done in the case of the Whigs also; the charge of having suppressed his real opinions, and led his colleagues and the public astray; of having opposed a measure professedly on principle, when in reality he was only waiting for sufficient symptoms of “public ripeness,” or for some other favourable conjuncture, as might best suit his views.

His indignation, then, seems to me to be the severest censure that could be passed on his conduct; and since he takes such pains to condemn himself, we will not trouble ourselves to defend him. We will leave him to his own tender mercies; from no quarter can his castigation proceed better than from his own hand.

We will merely hint a few remarks on the line of defence he has adopted. He seems to think that it all turns on some verbal expressions of his own, and that if he establish his position on these, no possible ground is left for suspecting him of insincerity. He insists several times, “I repeat that the whole of this question turns on the point, Did I, or did I not (at a certain time) use such and such expressions to Lord Liverpool?” We cannot agree with him in thinking that the question turns mainly upon this, or even that it is much affected by it. The question, in our apprehension, turns upon this:—Seeing that you have been, through an unknown portion of your career, accustomed to suppress and mask your opinions, and allow people, as you phrase it, to deceive themselves, have we any reason to think that your conduct was more ingenuous in your youth than it was in your mature prime, and is in your declining age? Seeing what your practice has recently been, we think that people must be allowed on these matters to judge for themselves, and to form their own opinion on your insincerity, as to its nature, its duration, and its amount. Indeed, if the question were to be decided by his own words, it would fare ill with his case; for, as we saw above, in a passage of his revised and corrected speech, his own expressions on this matter make against him more than those of his bitterest opponent could do. Were we to believe his own assertion, that the same course which he pursued in 1829, with respect to the Catholic Question, had suggested itself to his mind so early as in 1825, we should be forced to regard his conduct to Canning as disgraced by most culpable hypocrisy. He must have opposed that statesman upon hollow and deceitful grounds, and must have obtained power upon false pretences. We do not assert that such was actually the case, but if we are to believe his statements it must have been so. We can only hope that his account of the business was incorrect, and that the foresight he would seek to attribute to himself had no real existence. If, then, any body is maligning him, it would seem to be himself; and when he is thus merciless to his own character, he can scarcely wonder at some severity from the hands of his foes. We have no wish for our part to say any thing of him so injurious, as that which he has left on record against himself; and we will leave him therefore, as before, to smart beneath the lash of his own self-inflicted chastisement.

There is another charge, quite distinct from the preceding, brought against him with respect to his conduct towards Canning; viz., that he sanctioned the violent attacks made against that statesman by some of his supporters.23

His own language, indeed, is free from this violence, but we can scarcely avoid thinking that blame attaches to him for indifference in the matter, for suffering his followers to employ an ungenerous mode of warfare against his rival, when it may reasonably be supposed that a decided expression of disapproval on his part would have gone far to put a stop to this. His conduct in the case of the Whigs was very similar, and their very generous behaviour at the present time to him, affords a most striking contrast to his previous treatment of them. As to the actual guilt to be imputed to these direct assailants of Canning, we hear very different estimates. That their attacks had a very powerful effect upon him personally, and were bitterly felt by him, there can be no doubt; and there seems no good ground for questioning the opinion of his relatives, that they had a share in hastening his death. It is urged, however, in their behalf, that they were doing no more than what is frequently done in politics; that they were young men, accustomed to see violent personal attacks considered an ordinary weapon of political warfare, and they would probably therefore think that theirs were perfectly en rÉgle; that their assaults were not more bitter than what have often been made on other statesmen; that public men must expect this kind of annoyance, and that it was impossible to anticipate that they would produce so unwonted an effect in this instance. Granting them the full benefit of these apologies, there will still remain a considerable share of blame. If a practice is culpable, however general, those who adopt it must bear in some measure the guilt of any evil consequences that ensue. School-boys are in the habit of flinging stones without any very great regard to the damage they may occasion, and the practice among them not being looked on as blamable, we cannot, from proofs that a boy has flung these stones, argue in him any very peculiarly evil nature. Nevertheless, nobody can deny, that if one of these boys, though not much more careless or vicious than his fellows, should chance to aim so full at a more than usually delicate head, that his stone should be the cause of death, this should be a subject of repentance to him, a lesson that he should remember with humiliation for the rest of his life, and one which should be frequently quoted as a useful example of the culpability of the practice. A guilt of a nature analogous to this is what we should attribute to these assailants; the guilt of great wantonness and meanness, though not of malice prepense.

And if a person whose years, or whose position, such as a tutor to these boys, ought to have rendered him wiser, should have been standing by at the time, while these stones were raining against a friend or rival of his, with the view of diverting and pleasing him, and should have regarded the matter with indifference, thinking to himself it is no more than what all boys do, it is not likely that any harm will come from it this time more than any other;—he also should look on his connivance, under the circumstances, as matter of humiliation and repentance. A culpability similar to this very possibly attaches to Sir R. Peel, and if so, it should not be looked upon as in any way light and trivial, however much it may be sought to be sheltered by custom or example.

His blame indeed in this matter would be rather negative than positive, rather of omission than of commission, and would not therefore afford ground for any positive charge. Very probably, by the ordinary rules of political warfare, his conduct in this affair would be justifiable. It would be deemed sufficient by them that he should be clear from all such violence himself; it would not be thought incumbent on him to take any especial pains to stop it in others. Had he, however, been of a generous nature, we should have expected more than this; and we think in that case he would have taken more energetic measures to repress this wanton and culpable practice, especially against one who had been his friend. There is certainly nothing in his conduct on this occasion to applaud; no generous traits, as there might have been, to raise him in our estimation. But this is more, perhaps, than we could reasonably expect; men do not look for grapes from thistles, nor for generosity from Peels. We cannot well make it an actual charge against a man, that he was not generous; absence of generosity is not guilt, but poverty of character. That Sir R. Peel’s conduct on this occasion may have evinced poverty of character, is no more than what his general career would dispose us to believe. A higher mind would not have been contented with doing no more than what was ordinarily done; he would have seen more clearly the culpability of the practice, though established by usage, and would have blamed it in stronger language than many of his party would think it merited. We think, therefore, that it is a passage in his career which he should look on with deep humiliation, although we should not be disposed to consider it the ground of any very serious charge.

It is not, however, in any way a matter of wonder that some should entertain a severer judgment; for Sir R. Peel’s subsequent conduct has been such, that it justifies much liberty of opinion on these matters. It is in these cases that a perfect sincerity and ingenuousness of conduct is of the greatest use in purging a character which may undeservedly have been placed in untoward and suspicious circumstances. If his own wily and deceitful behaviour has very much weakened the defence which such a character would have afforded him, he has none but himself to blame. We can feel no pity for him under such imputations, for these suspicions are no more than the natural and proper punishment which general insincerity calls down upon itself. As one of the rewards of truthful and ingenuous conduct is that it fortifies the whole character, and repels unmerited suspicion, so the fitting and appropriate punishment of hypocrisy is that it throws a tarnish over the whole career, and prevents the assumption of the high tone of blameless and unassailable purity.

Nor can we leave unnoticed the weakness of his retort on his assailants, when he complains so loudly of these old accusations being disturbed after so long a slumber. He would argue from this that they arise entirely from party malice. “I ask,” says he, “whether, if I had not brought forward the present measure, I should have heard a word of all these accusations?” Very likely not; we quite agree with him that in that case they would probably have lain dormant without much revival of notice. But so acute a mind must, one would think, perceive that their re-appearance at the present moment might reasonably be expected, independent of all party or unworthy motives. His whole recent conduct has been extraordinary and unprecedented, and people are naturally anxious to trace up the hidden springs in which so remarkable a policy takes its rise. But more than that—it is his recent conduct which more especially establishes his insincerity; and does he forget that it is on the suspicion of insincerity, that the culpability of much of his previous course depends? His career cannot well be judged a priori, but it can be so much better, a posteriori. When he refers to the character given him by Canning, as a testimony of his integrity, does he think that Canning would have so expressed himself, if he had known at that time what was to be his future conduct on the Catholic question? Does he not see that it is his subsequent behaviour which entirely nullifies all the praises that Canning may have bestowed upon him, even if it were not futile in every way to refer to such compliments? And does he not see that his recent conduct in the case of the Corn Laws aggravates the suspicion of insincerity? It is this which has reasonably awakened a scrutiny into the previous events of his career; it is this which has excited that discussion which has fixed for ever an unmusical dissonance between the names of Canning and of Peel.

For out own part, putting aside his culpability in the matter, we would look upon his relation with these maligners of Canning, to be not so much blamable as ominous. However much we may be disposed to acquit him of any connivance in the matter, yet the mere fact that his power owed obligation at its outset to so violent an opposition against a man like Canning—an opposition which so deeply imbittered the career of that generous and high-minded statesman, this mere fact, I say, is an unfortunate and untoward fact, one which would stand as no happy augury at the commencement of the brightest course of pure and irreproachable patriotism. But when it stands at the commencement of a career like his, of that long tissue of inconsistent profession, of masked and disingenuous policy, it is a gloomy and an inauspicious fact, one which fully justifies the expression of his antagonist, in calling his an ill-omened and a sinister career.

Whatever view be taken, there is no ground for complaint, if his conduct be strictly and rigidly scrutinised; for really, all things considered, he is not a subject who can lay claim to any excessive and scrupulous delicacy. For our part, when we hear his conduct to Canning censured, though it may be too severely, we are rather disposed to reserve our pity for Canning, than to give any portion of our tenderness to the fragile and sensitive Peel. For is it not precisely one of the complaints to which he is justly liable, that he was not duly alive to the evil of such attacks when made against the character of another, and that he profited by the support of those who made them, without any very energetic remonstrance? Did he not stand by while the iron was eating into the soul of his former friend, without any very great and poignant grief, without any severe disturbance of his equanimity? He appears to have maintained a magnanimous composure, and philosophically to have reaped the advantages, unmindful, in his short-sighted views, of what might happen to himself. “Eheu! quam temere in nosmet legem sancimus iniquam!” Now, when his own conduct is assailed, though on just and reasonable grounds, while that of Canning was attacked on the most frivolous and unreasonable, whither has suddenly vanished that stoical fortitude with which he so firmly bore up against the attacks on his friend? Now it is his turn to wince and to complain, to protest against all rancour in politics, to deprecate all asperity of tone, to claim a mild and courteous mode of discussion. Maxims most good and true in themselves, but why were they not remembered earlier? Where were they among his former party? where were they when those unjust attacks were made, which now form a just subject of attack in their turn? It was not from him nor his partisans that the voice was raised which stigmatised those proceedings. No: his present complaints are idle: to be of avail we ought to have heard of them earlier. His position at present is no more than the result of that natural and equitable action, by which injustice, though late, punishes itself. It is a law of nature from which no man may escape; neither a beggar nor a Premier. One wrong begets another, of like brood and kind with itself. ?? ??? d?sse?? ????? et? ?? p?e???a t??te?, sfet??? d’ e???ta ?????.24 The cup which in his youth he tranquilly suffered a nobler soul to drain to the dregs, how should he refuse in his declining years to put his lips to the margin? Let him try its taste with the best face he can, without superfluous whinings or complainings. He need not be unnecessarily apprehensive of its effect; it will not act on him as it did on a nobler nature. The chill and callous organisation of the egotist will receive no more than a beneficial stimulus from the potion which is death to the generous soul. The darts which would find their way direct to the frank and open heart, will fall blunt and powerless long before they reach those hidden and inaccessible recesses of his own, cased as it is in a triple mail of coldness, secrecy, and self-delusion. Should a stray one, piercing that elephantine hide, awaken an unwonted smart, our pity would be steeled by the reflection,—“Pallas te hoc vulnere, Pallas immolat,” and we should watch the flow of blood, with no apprehension of a serious effect, but with feelings of pleasure, arising from the sense of a somewhat satisfied justice.

What, then, is the moral of the whole matter? A short and simple one.

Let no one aspire to a leading part in politics, unless he possess genuine and earnest convictions: let no one who has not such firm principles in his heart, give utterance to energetic professions with his lips: let no one who has not a great soul set up for being a great man.

If Sir R. Peel’s career as a public man were over, the reflections suggested by it, however interesting in a speculative point of view, would not be of much immediate practical importance. But such is by no means the case: this mysterious character is still among us, playing his part upon the stage, and possessed of very extensive influence and popularity. It is this, indeed, which renders his example more peculiarly baneful and demoralising, for, owing to the favour he has gained by his recent measures, the hollowness and insincerity of his previous career are by many wholly overlooked. The admiration lavished on such a policy as this, must exercise a most pernicious influence, injurious to the character of public men, and of the nation at large. Every thing that can counteract this mistaken tendency, would be a real benefit; and it is chiefly with this view that we have been induced to contribute our mite in an otherwise ungenial task. But when we find skilful insincerity receiving the praises due only to disinterested virtue, we feel called upon to lift our feeble voice against so fatal a delusion. The prospect, by no means improbable, of his return to power, renders such efforts still more important. For such an event is far more likely than many would be inclined to deem. However deserted he may be by his old friends, a new and rising party is gathering around him, and the old champion of the High Tories is become the flower of the Ultra Radicals. The strongest hopes are entertained by these of his speedy return to the post of Minister. We are told, as quoted above, that he is to be triumphantly borne into power on the shoulders of the people, and in that enviable position to remain as long as he pleases; a sort of perpetual Grand Vizier. He has made friends, it would appear, with the Mammon of the Cotton Lords, that when the Landlords failed they might receive him into everlasting habitations. That he has sufficient popularity and influence for this purpose is not to be questioned, and the jealousies of the two great rival parties are likely to be favourable to his views. If it be true that he has all along been working to this consummation, that his secret and steady aim has been to come out as the Popular Minister of the movement, however severely his previous conduct must be censured, we cannot deny it a certain amount of skill. We hope, however, that it will meet with the ill success that it deserves. It is impossible to think that a character like this, however able, is fitted to govern the nation. That the popular will, whatever it may be, will be readily executed by him, is perfectly clear; but something more than this is necessary to constitute a good Minister. They must indeed be a peculiar kind of Liberals who would gladly ally themselves with such a leader as this. “License they mean, when they cry liberty,
For who loves that must first be wise and good.”

Now their chosen master, Sir Robert, has unfortunately placed himself in such a position, that he cannot be both wise and good. His course must either have been very much mistaken, or very insincere, so that if he be wise he cannot be good, and if he be good he cannot be wise. It is impossible, therefore, that he can be both, though perfectly possible that he may be neither. We cannot, then, congratulate the Ultra party upon the acquisition that they have made; and if as friends they find reason to be satisfied with their new champion, they will be the first of his friends who have done so.

Surely, however, we are not yet so badly off, but that we may find men both wiser and better for our Ministers. Let us hope that the new government, in spite of its very inauspicious commencement, may at least, by its honesty and sincerity, form a brilliant contrast to its predecessor. They have a great task before them, one which will test their worth and their abilities to the utmost, and afford the amplest scope to their energies; viz. the improvement of the social condition of the labouring classes. Let them know at once, and let them openly proclaim it, that this will require far higher and more extensive principles than those of political economy; that it will not be accomplished by the “competition” or by the “state of nature” proposed by an Episcopal economist, nor by the mere process of buying in the cheapest and selling in the dearest market. Nay, let them be well assured that it will require an infringement of this sacred principle, however blasphemous it may sound in the ears of our Liberal cottonocracy. It will require an interference with the market of labour, and with the lordly privileges of capital. They must be prepared to encounter the censure of many a dogmatic economist, the odium of many a wealthy capitalist, and even the ingratitude of many of the people upon whom their benefits shall be conferred. The problem is one for which their predecessor, Sir Robert, was evidently totally unfitted, for it will require minds above the spirit of the time, Statesmen who must anticipate, not follow, the reigning popular doctrines. Their present conduct will show whether they are really Liberals, or merely false and empty assumers of the name; whether they are in possession of the high and true principles which conduce to the virtue and happiness of States, or whether, like the mass, they are principally engrossed in commercial and industrial doctrines. It cannot be disguised that they have made a very poor beginning, disgraceful to their name and to their former achievements; let us hope that shame may serve to stimulate them for the future to something more glorious and honourable.

Sir Robert Peel’s conduct will serve them in many matters as a useful example, as a solemn warning, as a practical illustration of the homely adage, that “honesty is the best policy.” We have seen enough of the evils entailed by a masked and disingenuous policy, which delights in allowing people to deceive themselves. Let us now contrast with it the advantages of a sincere, open, and consistent course. Let us profit by the late Premier’s career as an example, in which case it will not have been without its use; and let us, by so doing, avoid the disgrace of falling again under his power.

Printed by William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh.