and his immediate and intimate advisers Duke could answer for the peace of the
were alike terrified by the violence and country, but for no more. He was again
fierce language of the press and the people, check-mated; his loyalty had no other effect
and ready to adopt any feasible means by than to give circulation to a host of calum-
which the Bill might be passed into a law.' nious stories representing him as eager for
Mr. Roebuck often writes at random when an occasion of letting loose his red-coats upon
a malignant interpretation is to be put upon the people. Miss Martineau duly parades
conduct. He does not seem to consider the old Radical tales of the Scotch Greys
whether his version will bear even a gloss of being employed through the Sunday 'rough-
probability.
sharpening their swords, to make them
The Bill was introduced into the Commons inflict a ragged wound' (Mart., ii. 65).
by Lord John Russell for the third time. That some preparations against an outbreak
In the Upper House the second reading was were necessary was shown by the attitude
carried by nine, but on the first division in of the Birmingham Union, now 200,000
committee ministers were defeated by thirty-strong, which was to encamp on Hampstead
five. The question now was, whether a Heath, or perhaps Penenden Heath, in order
sufficient number of peers should be created to incorporate with it bodies coming from
to give the government a majority. The the south' (Mart., ii. 63). The detail is
point had been debated in several meet-worthy of a housekeeper's tea-table.
ings of the Cabinet. We know not how This agitation was the more criminal as it
far Mr. Roebuck's statements are to be de- was wholly unnecessary. Throughout these
pended on.
books it is assumed that the Bill was carried
by intimidation; that it was forced upon
The ministry looked almost entirely to the the King and the Lords by 'popular influ-
Chancellor for advice and support. Lord Grey
saw all the dangers and difficulties of his position, ence; and that without the Unions and their
and trembled before them. He was kept at his gatherings it must have been lost. The as-
post and his courage was sustained by the sumption is wholly groundless; we contest
more active and resolute mind of his colleague.it from first to last; and we dwell on it for

ii. 225.

a moment here, because it has often been
extolled as a politic movement, and because
some leading public men were certainly at
the bottom of it-or why the hint to Sir W.
Napier about taking the command of the

According to our historian's detail of facts, a large majority of the Cabinet at first declared against a creation; but on the 1st of January, 1832, the majority reluctantly, Unionists? and at first only partially, gave up their own With a hostile House of Commons no opinions in favour of those of the Chancel- Government can be carried on; the body lor and Lord Durham' (ii. 226). The can no more live when the heart has ceased King, as an earest of his determination to to beat, than the State can fulfil its funchave the bill carried, was asked to create ten tions when the Commons refuse their copeers; but his Majesty preferred, he said, operation. It was not the mob-meetings doing what was necessary at once to proceed- nor the threatening language used at them, ing by driblets, and offered to create twenty- nor the silly placarding 'run for gold' which one new peers, which he somewhat hastily as- checked the Duke. They must know little sumed that Lord Grey could warrant was of his character who think so; it was the sufficient to carry the Bill.' The subject knowledge that the Commons were irreconwas postponed until it was seen what the cilably opposed to him, and that he could decision of the Lords would be. The min- not hope for a favourable change by a Disisterial defeat on a mere matter of detail in solution. This was a constitutional obstacle committee did not seem to the King of suf- not to be overcome, and the Duke bowed to ficient importance to justify the creation of it, and retired. fifty or sixty peers-and he received the re- The agitation was indeed so far from forsignation of the Ministers. warding the Bill that it had a directly conOn the devotion of the Duke the King trary effect. It was the frenzy excited by knew he could depend. He was summoned the Bill, and the boasting insolence of vulto the royal councils-but the situation was gar demagogues-the threats of violence, hopeless. Sir Robert Peel stood prudently and the revolutionary organization-which aloof. The Commons, by an overwhelming embittered the objections of the steady majority, were pledged to the Bill. A dis- Tories, and at last arrayed against it that solution at that time would have been mad-body of moderate opinion which, commonly ness and how could the Government be silent in this country, has always great carried on in the face of a hostile House of weight when circumstances force it to deCommons and an exasperated people? The clare itself. The King came to regard it

with dislike and fear when he saw the dark in his Political Philosophy, it is exceedingly influences embattled on its side, and even doubtful, after all, whether either he or Earl the majority in the Commons declined as Grey would ever have screwed up their the violence out of doors went on increas- courage to insist on such a measure. The ing. The Reform majority on Lord Eb- passage we allude to is, certainly, the most rington's motion for an address to the Crown extraordinary one as yet published in refersank to 80, and the party, by Mr. Roebuck's ence to the interior history of that time; but own admission, was kept together only by our sincere respect for Lord Brougham forindefatigable exertion. bids a formal discussion of his avowed narration at the tail of an article on Mr. Roebuck and Miss Martineau.

6

again, to be followed, at a still shorter interval, by other more sweeping measures yet-until our legislature resembled the worst of French Assemblies or Conventions.

Had the Birmingham Union made their threatened movement, there would from that instant have been an end to Reform. The The final character of the Reform Bill action of physical force,' on which some of was, as Mr. Roebuck records, one of the the Whig leaders were so senseless as to reasons most insisted on by its authors in rely, would of necessity have suspended the excuse of its extensive changes. Twenty proceedings of the Legislature, and thrown years have passed, and the statesman who for the time all power into the hands of the conducted that bill through the Commons Executive. In the march of an immense comes forward with a new representative multitude to London, collision at some point scheme. We are duly thankful for its failwith the authorities charged to preserve the ure-but let us not forget that it dropped peace must occur; and what can it be sup- still-born only because it did not go nearly posed that a mass of undisciplined artizans, far enough to meet the views of the noble however vast, could have effected against lord's supporters. The more radical comthe army united under its illustrious chief? bination with which we are threatened as a The miserable timidity which has twice be- Government, should the country afford suptrayed the throne in France would not have port to its pretensions, would undoubtedly paralyzed here the soldier's arm. The dis- bring in a bill of a more comprehensive persion of the Manchester multitude by character, and all the dreary work of agitathree troops of hussars would have been a tion would have to be gone through once lesson not lost on either party. Had the Duke been driven to draw the sword, his sense of duty would have forced him to keep it unsheathed until tranquillity was restored. Order is not only the first condition of go- Miss Martineau seems to anticipate that vernment, but the foundation on which all the next great agitation we are doomed to law and all society are built up. In spite of undergo will be social. In a passage written his memorable declaration-which has done very shortly before the great outbreak of him scarcely less honour than his immortal Socialism in Paris, and when the labour victories that he would lay down his life workshops and other fooleries of Louis Blanc to preserve his country from civil war he were in full blow, she tells us that 'the would have felt himself compelled to act great question of the Rights of Labour canwith decision on the instant that insurrection not be neglected under lighter penalty than declared itself. There can be no doubt ruin to all;' and that its solution may be what the result would have been. But the central fact of the next period of British when would the angry passions excited by history.' We have better hope than that the contest have died away? Revolution Socialism, in any of its monstrous shapes, would have commenced where physical re- will ever be permitted to gain ground sistance ended. A return to legal and con- amongst us. It is impossible that the view stitutional rule would have been impossible; of the revolutions and troubles of the Conand whether civil liberty had perished by tinent, and more especially of France-atthe sword maintaining its ascendancy, or by tended with so many and so great evils to the disorders which would inevitably have all the best interests of mankind, and espe broken forth when it was laid aside, the cially to freedom-can be wholly lost on British Constitution would have been equally our people. If political experience can exercise any, the slightest, influence over opin

lost.

With the resignation of the Duke the ion, we may rationally hope that the Construggle ended. He withdrew from the servative element in this country will be Lords until the Bill passed, and most of the greatly strengthened by the evidence still opposition peers followed his example. Why passing before our eyes of the immeasurable the ministry shrank so long from a large crea- evils which follow from the adoption of rash tion of peers, has never been satisfactorily theories, and attend on the excesses of popuexplained. According to Lord Brougham lar agitation. The practical sense of Eng

land, strong as we admit it to be, is liable better. Be that as it may-ever since sage to sudden aberrations, both commercial and Montesquieu attributed the psychological political. Bubbles are mistaken for realities formation of national character to the terin both cases; but there is this difference restrial zones and skyey influences, our lively between them, that while the evils of com- neighbours have connected these and sundry mercial panic can rarely be more than tem- other Boeotianisms of Great Britain with its porary, those of political convulsion may be fogs. Of a truth, a catch-cold climate and permanent and final. Robust as the Eng- coal-beds inexhaustible suggest the comforts lish Constitution is, we doubt-like Jeffrey of home, which, as there is no place like it, in his sobered judicial age-if it could sur- we pretty generally decorate to our best vive another Reform crisis. with private gatherings and garnish: these -good or bad according to personal tasteare the flowerets which lure from the dry high-roads of daily duty and drudgery-and are surely not ungracefully offered to the household gods. Again, a hatred of London blacks which efface the lines where beauty lingers, and a love for the country, the second nature of an Englishman, draft these domesticated hobbies to air more conservative, and to habitations in which forefathers have lived and descendants may guard them. Hence the number of fine things that are withdrawn every year by a pardonable egotism from the beaten paths of men: left thus to private caprice and ignorance-for brain cannot be entailed like land-too many are forgotten and lost, until some indefatigable German doctor, or enthusiastic virtuosa, digs up the soul of Pedro Garcia.

ART. VII.-Lives of the Friends and Contemporaries of Lord Clarendon, illustrative of Portraits in his Gallery. By Lady Theresa Lewis. 3 vols. 8vo., 1852.

Ir may seem singular that neither Dr. Waagen nor Mrs. Jameson should have noticed, in their comprehensive accounts of the works of art near London, the remarkable collection formed by the great Chancellor Clarendon, which is preserved at the Grove, in Hertfordshire, within twenty miles of the metropolis. This omission may be ascribed to the oblivious veil thrown over the very existence of these heir-looms by the retiring habits, for nearly half a century, All who have had the good fortune to of the two last noble inmates; and rarely visit the Grove, happily no longer hermetihas shy and reserved scholar or world-weary cally sealed, will admit that Lady Theresa statesman retreated to hermitage more Lewis has peculiar claims to form a catapeaceful and self-sufficing. Neither when logue of the gallery and illustrate its worthe present distinguished Peer came into thies. Sister of the founder's representative, possession, and these authors were busy col- who also has well breasted storms of state, lecting materials, could acquaintance with and bred up herself amid such home assothis gallery well become more general. ciations, the religio loci must have grown The portals of the Grove were closed alike with her growth, until forms and faces of the on them and on the owner, occupied with dead, living in her mind's eye, would be high offices abroad and away-and gems come familiar as those of existing kindred rich and rare were yet a while longer dooined and friends. We must all have felt the to blush unseen and undescribed. This is a mysterious influence which life-sized porcasualty to which such collections are more traits exercise on the imagination when, conexposed here than on the continent. There scious of presence, they are mused on at they are concentrated in city museums, open night-fall; nor can it be difficult to underto the public, illustrated by professional stand with what silent eloquence these directors, and fostered by paternal govern- shadowy figures, starting as it were from ments, who, treating their subjects as chil- their frames, must have appealed to one so dren, provide them with hornbooks and near and dear, to chronicle deeds done in leading-strings. In England, which wealth the flesh, and fill up a record which an acciand security of property have made empha- dent had too long left a blank. We may, tically the paradise of collectors, our laissez- however, compliment Lady Theresa Lewis aller governments either care for none of these things, or leaving their full-grown countrymen to shift for themselves, trust to the chapter of accidents and individual exertions-or, if they do interfere in such delicate departments, provide laughing-stocks to foreigners, who manage these matters

not only on the filial piety which suggested and inspired her work, but on the diligence, accuracy, and ability of its execution. Her essay may not, perchance, tally with the preconceptions of those who have anticipated from fair hands some delicacy penned with crowquill on gilt-edged paper, and hovering

between confectionary Books of Beauty and ladybird Queen-Biographies, which do the ephemeral business of the boudoir and die: but, dealing with a civil chaos, the crash of crowns and altars, her written exponent reflects the serious tone of the theme and time, and will be welcomed by all whose appetite, braced by intellectual exercise, demands and digests the substantial and nutritious.

tures convey nothing definite, long disquisitions weary. Pithy and pregnant, indeed, must be the sentences that express in a few lines both the character of the art and the person, and give alike the gist of the painter and the portrayed; and this, we must say, Lady Theresa has gone far to accomplish in the descriptive catalogue with which her volumes are concluded, and which was all she It was no easy task to book something had originally intended, in order to fill up new on the general bearing of this eventful the blank left by her predecessors. Her subject; the great landmarks and principal author appetite grew, however, on what it actors have been fixed by the founder of the fed, until sketches expanded into full-lengths gallery-enshrined and illustrated in his for she has spared no labour in reconciling History; and Clarendon drew with his pen conflicting statements of a period when parthe minds of his contemporaries no less mas- ty spirit ran high, when events, actions, and terly than Vandyke sketched their features characters were misrepresented. Dissatiswith his pencil. In our times, moreover, fied with stereotyped sources of information, we have seen the court and camp of Charles she has not disdained to search, amid muand Cromwell invaded by plumy paladins seums and muniment-rooms, for all original and awe-inspiring amazons in hosts; the late matter that bore upon this Clarendon colMr. D'Israeli with his gossiping but always lection-which the period and circumstances amusing Commentaries; M. Guizot with his above all the definite, specific purpose of overrated Restoration, where the English its foundation-as also its subsequent strange past was warmed up for a present French chances, have invested with no common inpurpose; Carlyle, quaintly coxcombical-but terest.

picturesque, dramatic, an honest zealot-a In a former number (cxxxviii.) we treated brave thinker with more genius than a hun-Lord Clarendon in his public character as dred sham poets and stump-orators;-Foster, chancellor, minister, and historian: and now philosophical, suggestive, and masculine;-propose to consider him in his private relaWarburton, smart and sparkling, but igno- tions, and to deal with his solaces and rerant and inconclusive. No end either of laxations rather than with his labours and royal chamber-women: we have Miss Ben- duties. We profess no predilections for ger, who so watered the whiskey of Chal- Chancery, and are agreeably surprised to mers, and disturbed his deathbed by pla- connect anything pleasurable with a locality giarisms; worthy prosy Lucy Aiken; the which all who enter bid hope farewell. The clever and painstaking but ultra-bigoted and violets that grow under the shadow of the ultra-sentimental Agnes Strickland; all busy woolsack are too few and far between to be alike-scrap-stitching, tidying and mispla- passed ungathered. Charles I., the master cing, book and bed making; and last, not Lord Clarendon so truly loved and so faithleast, Mrs. Sutherland, with her Clarendon fully served, and in many respects his model, Catalogue, printed in two colossal quartos of was cast on troubled times. Accident thrust some 700 pages each, and sold at the mode- crowns upon one who, like good old René rate price of six guineas-pereant male qui of Anjou, would have bartered care-lined ante nos nostra dixerint. In a field so well ermine away for a dolce far niente existence, gleaned, Lady Theresa could only fall back devoted to the pursuits of literature and art on the over-looked or the inadequately treat--or certainly have relished and adorned the ed-and hope, by separating the man from quiet dignities and duties of Lambeth, had the mass, to enlist sympathy for him-and his elder brother Henry lived to make him peradventure furnish new materials for fu- what he playfully proposed. We cannot ture history, which distils and concentrates agree with certain mighty Whigs that all the essence. Biography paints in miniature, public interest in him is based in his musand occasionally too minutely-L'auteur se tachios and lace collar;-but when we gaze tue à alonger ce que le lecteur se tue à abréger on that high-bred pensive expression-so -and details are run into which destroy prescient of calamity-as embalmed by breadth and interest; yet the compilation Vandyke, the errors of the monarch may of a mere catalogue is a labour to which real well be forgotten in pity for the man. talent has no right to be condemned, and would seem that the blessings of liberty, may well be left to the auctioneer and civil and religious, can only be secured at Academy. A catalogue raisonné is of a prices commensurately costly; nor are eihigher order, and less easy to do well than ther of these blessings essential to the full is imagined; for, while short notices of pic- I development of the imitative arts, which,

It