Coningsby

B >> Benjamin Disraeli >> Coningsby

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37

The lads had the best of it; they said a great many funny things, and
delivered themselves of several sharp retorts; whereas there was something
ridiculous in Rigby putting forth his 'slashing' talents against such
younkers. However, he brought the infliction on himself by his strange
habit of deciding on subjects of which he knew nothing, and of always
contradicting persons on the very subjects of which they were necessarily
masters.

To see Rigby baited was more amusement to Lord Monmouth even than Montem.
Lucian Gay, however, when the affair was getting troublesome, came forward
as a diversion. He sang an extemporaneous song on the ceremony of the day,
and introduced the names of all the guests at the dinner, and of a great
many other persons besides. This was capital! The boys were in raptures,
but when the singer threw forth a verse about Dr. Keate, the applause
became uproarious.

'Good-bye, my dear Harry,' said Lord Monmouth, when he bade his grandson
farewell. 'I am going abroad again; I cannot remain in this Radical-ridden
country. Remember, though I am away, Monmouth House is your home, at least
so long as it belongs to me. I understand my tailor has turned Liberal,
and is going to stand for one of the metropolitan districts, a friend of
Lord Durham; perhaps I shall find him in it when I return. I fear there
are evil days for the NEW GENERATION!'

END OF BOOK I.

BOOK II.

CHAPTER I.

It was early in November, 1834, and a large shooting party was assembled
at Beaumanoir, the seat of that great nobleman, who was the father of
Henry Sydney. England is unrivalled for two things, sporting and politics.
They were combined at Beaumanoir; for the guests came not merely to
slaughter the Duke's pheasants, but to hold council on the prospects of
the party, which it was supposed by the initiated, began at this time to
indicate some symptoms of brightening.

The success of the Reform Ministry on their first appeal to the new
constituency which they had created, had been fatally complete. But the
triumph was as destructive to the victors as to the vanquished.

'We are too strong,' prophetically exclaimed one of the fortunate cabinet,
which found itself supported by an inconceivable majority of three
hundred. It is to be hoped that some future publisher of private memoirs
may have preserved some of the traits of that crude and short-lived
parliament, when old Cobbett insolently thrust Sir Robert from the
prescriptive seat of the chief of opposition, and treasury understrappers
sneered at the 'queer lot' that had arrived from Ireland, little
foreseeing what a high bidding that 'queer lot' would eventually command.
Gratitude to Lord Grey was the hustings-cry at the end of 1832, the
pretext that was to return to the new-modelled House of Commons none but
men devoted to the Whig cause. The successful simulation, like everything
that is false, carried within it the seeds of its own dissolution.
Ingratitude to Lord Grey was more the fashion at the commencement of 1834,
and before the close of that eventful year, the once popular Reform
Ministry was upset, and the eagerly-sought Reformed Parliament dissolved!

It can scarcely be alleged that the public was altogether unprepared for
this catastrophe. Many deemed it inevitable; few thought it imminent. The
career of the Ministry, and the existence of the Parliament, had indeed
from the first been turbulent and fitful. It was known, from authority,
that there were dissensions in the cabinet, while a House of Commons which
passed votes on subjects not less important than the repeal of a tax, or
the impeachment of a judge, on one night, and rescinded its resolutions on
the following, certainly established no increased claims to the confidence
of its constituents in its discretion. Nevertheless, there existed at this
period a prevalent conviction that the Whig party, by a great stroke of
state, similar in magnitude and effect to that which in the preceding
century had changed the dynasty, had secured to themselves the government
of this country for, at least, the lives of the present generation. And
even the well-informed in such matters were inclined to look upon the
perplexing circumstances to which we have alluded rather as symptoms of a
want of discipline in a new system of tactics, than as evidences of any
essential and deeply-rooted disorder.

The startling rapidity, however, of the strange incidents of 1834; the
indignant, soon to become vituperative, secession of a considerable
section of the cabinet, some of them esteemed too at that time among its
most efficient members; the piteous deprecation of 'pressure from
without,' from lips hitherto deemed too stately for entreaty, followed by
the Trades' Union, thirty thousand strong, parading in procession to
Downing-street; the Irish negotiations of Lord Hatherton, strange blending
of complex intrigue and almost infantile ingenuousness; the still
inexplicable resignation of Lord Althorp, hurriedly followed by his still
more mysterious resumption of power, the only result of his precipitate
movements being the fall of Lord Grey himself, attended by circumstances
which even a friendly historian could scarcely describe as honourable to
his party or dignified to himself; latterly, the extemporaneous address of
King William to the Bishops; the vagrant and grotesque apocalypse of the
Lord Chancellor; and the fierce recrimination and memorable defiance of
the Edinburgh banquet, all these impressive instances of public affairs
and public conduct had combined to create a predominant opinion that,
whatever might be the consequences, the prolonged continuance of the
present party in power was a clear impossibility.

It is evident that the suicidal career of what was then styled the Liberal
party had been occasioned and stimulated by its unnatural excess of
strength. The apoplectic plethora of 1834 was not less fatal than the
paralytic tenuity of 1841. It was not feasible to gratify so many
ambitions, or to satisfy so many expectations. Every man had his double;
the heels of every placeman were dogged by friendly rivals ready to trip
them up. There were even two cabinets; the one that met in council, and
the one that met in cabal. The consequence of destroying the legitimate
Opposition of the country was, that a moiety of the supporters of
Government had to discharge the duties of Opposition.

Herein, then, we detect the real cause of all that irregular and unsettled
carriage of public men which so perplexed the nation after the passing of
the Reform Act. No government can be long secure without a formidable
Opposition. It reduces their supporters to that tractable number which can
be managed by the joint influences of fruition and of hope. It offers
vengeance to the discontented, and distinction to the ambitious; and
employs the energies of aspiring spirits, who otherwise may prove traitors
in a division or assassins in a debate.

The general election of 1832 abrogated the Parliamentary Opposition of
England, which had practically existed for more than a century and a half.
And what a series of equivocal transactions and mortifying adventures did
the withdrawal of this salutary restraint entail on the party which then
so loudly congratulated themselves and the country that they were at
length relieved from its odious repression! In the hurry of existence one
is apt too generally to pass over the political history of the times in
which we ourselves live. The two years that followed the Reform of the
House of Commons are full of instruction, on which a young man would do
well to ponder. It is hardly possible that he could rise from the study of
these annals without a confirmed disgust for political intrigue; a
dazzling practice, apt at first to fascinate youth, for it appeals at once
to our invention and our courage, but one which really should only be the
resource of the second-rate. Great minds must trust to great truths and
great talents for their rise, and nothing else.

While, however, as the autumn of 1834 advanced, the people of this country
became gradually sensible of the necessity of some change in the councils
of their Sovereign, no man felt capable of predicting by what means it was
to be accomplished, or from what quarry the new materials were to be
extracted. The Tory party, according to those perverted views of Toryism
unhappily too long prevalent in this country, was held to be literally
defunct, except by a few old battered crones of office, crouched round the
embers of faction which they were fanning, and muttering 'reaction' in
mystic whispers. It cannot be supposed indeed for a moment, that the
distinguished personage who had led that party in the House of Commons
previously to the passing of the act of 1832, ever despaired in
consequence of his own career. His then time of life, the perfection,
almost the prime, of manhood; his parliamentary practice, doubly estimable
in an inexperienced assembly; his political knowledge; his fair character
and reputable position; his talents and tone as a public speaker, which he
had always aimed to adapt to the habits and culture of that middle class
from which it was concluded the benches of the new Parliament were mainly
to be recruited, all these were qualities the possession of which must
have assured a mind not apt to be disturbed in its calculations by any
intemperate heats, that with time and patience the game was yet for him.

Unquestionably, whatever may have been insinuated, this distinguished
person had no inkling that his services in 1834 might be claimed by his
Sovereign. At the close of the session of that year he had quitted England
with his family, and had arrived at Rome, where it was his intention to
pass the winter. The party charges that have imputed to him a previous and
sinister knowledge of the intentions of the Court, appear to have been
made not only in ignorance of the personal character, but of the real
position, of the future minister.

It had been the misfortune of this eminent gentleman when he first entered
public life, to become identified with a political connection which,
having arrogated to itself the name of an illustrious historical party,
pursued a policy which was either founded on no principle whatever, or on
principles exactly contrary to those which had always guided the conduct
of the great Tory leaders. The chief members of this official confederacy
were men distinguished by none of the conspicuous qualities of statesmen.
They had none of the divine gifts that govern senates and guide councils.
They were not orators; they were not men of deep thought or happy
resource, or of penetrative and sagacious minds. Their political ken was
essentially dull and contracted. They expended some energy in obtaining a
defective, blundering acquaintance with foreign affairs; they knew as
little of the real state of their own country as savages of an approaching
eclipse. This factious league had shuffled themselves into power by
clinging to the skirts of a great minister, the last of Tory statesmen,
but who, in the unparalleled and confounding emergencies of his latter
years, had been forced, unfortunately for England, to relinquish Toryism.
His successors inherited all his errors without the latent genius, which
in him might have still rallied and extricated him from the consequences
of his disasters. His successors did not merely inherit his errors; they
exaggerated, they caricatured them. They rode into power on a springtide
of all the rampant prejudices and rancorous passions of their time. From
the King to the boor their policy was a mere pandering to public
ignorance. Impudently usurping the name of that party of which
nationality, and therefore universality, is the essence, these pseudo-
Tories made Exclusion the principle of their political constitution, and
Restriction the genius of their commercial code.

The blind goddess that plays with human fortunes has mixed up the memory
of these men with traditions of national glory. They conducted to a
prosperous conclusion the most renowned war in which England has ever been
engaged. Yet every military conception that emanated from their cabinet
was branded by their characteristic want of grandeur. Chance, however,
sent them a great military genius, whom they treated for a long time with
indifference, and whom they never heartily supported until his career had
made him their master. His transcendent exploits, and European events even
greater than his achievements, placed in the manikin grasp of the English
ministry, the settlement of Europe.

The act of the Congress of Vienna remains the eternal monument of their
diplomatic knowledge and political sagacity. Their capital feats were the
creation of two kingdoms, both of which are already erased from the map of
Europe. They made no single preparation for the inevitable, almost
impending, conjunctures of the East. All that remains of the pragmatic
arrangements of the mighty Congress of Vienna is the mediatisation of the
petty German princes.

But the settlement of Europe by the pseudo-Tories was the dictate of
inspiration compared with their settlement of England. The peace of Paris
found the government of this country in the hands of a body of men of whom
it is no exaggeration to say that they were ignorant of every principle of
every branch of political science. So long as our domestic administration
was confined merely to the raising of a revenue, they levied taxes with
gross facility from the industry of a country too busy to criticise or
complain. But when the excitement and distraction of war had ceased, and
they were forced to survey the social elements that surrounded them, they
seemed, for the first time, to have become conscious of their own
incapacity. These men, indeed, were the mere children of routine. They
prided themselves on being practical men. In the language of this defunct
school of statesmen, a practical man is a man who practises the blunders
of his predecessors.

Now commenced that Condition-of-England Question of which our generation
hears so much. During five-and-twenty years every influence that can
develop the energies and resources of a nation had been acting with
concentrated stimulation on the British Isles. National peril and national
glory; the perpetual menace of invasion, the continual triumph of
conquest; the most extensive foreign commerce that was ever conducted by a
single nation; an illimitable currency; an internal trade supported by
swarming millions whom manufacturers and inclosure-bills summoned into
existence; above all, the supreme control obtained by man over mechanic
power, these are some of the causes of that rapid advance of material
civilisation in England, to which the annals of the world can afford no
parallel. But there was no proportionate advance in our moral
civilisation. In the hurry-skurry of money-making, men-making, and
machine-making, we had altogether outgrown, not the spirit, but the
organisation, of our institutions.

The peace came; the stimulating influences suddenly ceased; the people, in
a novel and painful position, found themselves without guides. They went
to the ministry; they asked to be guided; they asked to be governed.
Commerce requested a code; trade required a currency; the unfranchised
subject solicited his equal privilege; suffering labour clamoured for its
rights; a new race demanded education. What did the ministry do?

They fell into a panic. Having fulfilled during their lives the duties of
administration, they were frightened because they were called upon, for
the first time, to perform the functions of government. Like all weak men,
they had recourse to what they called strong measures. They determined to
put down the multitude. They thought they were imitating Mr. Pitt, because
they mistook disorganisation for sedition.

Their projects of relief were as ridiculous as their system of coercion
was ruthless; both were alike founded in intense ignorance. When we recall
Mr. Vansittart with his currency resolutions; Lord Castlereagh with his
plans for the employment of labour; and Lord Sidmouth with his plots for
ensnaring the laborious; we are tempted to imagine that the present epoch
has been one of peculiar advances in political ability, and marvel how
England could have attained her present pitch under a series of such
governors.

We should, however, be labouring under a very erroneous impression. Run
over the statesmen that have figured in England since the accession of the
present family, and we may doubt whether there be one, with the exception
perhaps of the Duke of Newcastle, who would have been a worthy colleague
of the council of Mr. Perceval, or the early cabinet of Lord Liverpool.
Assuredly the genius of Bolingbroke and the sagacity of Walpole would have
alike recoiled from such men and such measures. And if we take the
individuals who were governing England immediately before the French
Revolution, one need only refer to the speeches of Mr. Pitt, and
especially to those of that profound statesman and most instructed man,
Lord Shelburne, to find that we can boast no remarkable superiority either
in political justice or in political economy. One must attribute this
degeneracy, therefore, to the long war and our insular position, acting
upon men naturally of inferior abilities, and unfortunately, in addition,
of illiterate habits.

In the meantime, notwithstanding all the efforts of the political
Panglosses who, in evening Journals and Quarterly Reviews were continually
proving that this was the best of all possible governments, it was evident
to the ministry itself that the machine must stop. The class of Rigbys
indeed at this period, one eminently favourable to that fungous tribe,
greatly distinguished themselves. They demonstrated in a manner absolutely
convincing, that it was impossible for any person to possess any ability,
knowledge, or virtue, any capacity of reasoning, any ray of fancy or
faculty of imagination, who was not a supporter of the existing
administration. If any one impeached the management of a department, the
public was assured that the accuser had embezzled; if any one complained
of the conduct of a colonial governor, the complainant was announced as a
returned convict. An amelioration of the criminal code was discountenanced
because a search in the parish register of an obscure village proved that
the proposer had not been born in wedlock. A relaxation of the commercial
system was denounced because one of its principal advocates was a
Socinian. The inutility of Parliamentary Reform was ever obvious since Mr.
Rigby was a member of the House of Commons.

To us, with our _Times_ newspaper every morning on our breakfast-table,
bringing, on every subject which can interest the public mind, a degree of
information and intelligence which must form a security against any
prolonged public misconception, it seems incredible that only five-and-
twenty years ago the English mind could have been so ridden and
hoodwinked, and that, too, by men of mean attainments and moderate
abilities. But the war had directed the energies of the English people
into channels by no means favourable to political education. Conquerors of
the world, with their ports filled with the shipping of every clime, and
their manufactories supplying the European continent, in the art of self-
government, that art in which their fathers excelled, they had become
literally children; and Rigby and his brother hirelings were the nurses
that frightened them with hideous fables and ugly words.

Notwithstanding, however, all this successful mystification, the Arch-
Mediocrity who presided, rather than ruled, over this Cabinet of
Mediocrities, became hourly more conscious that the inevitable transition
from fulfilling the duties of an administration to performing the
functions of a government could not be conducted without talents and
knowledge. The Arch-Mediocrity had himself some glimmering traditions of
political science. He was sprung from a laborious stock, had received some
training, and though not a statesman, might be classed among those whom
the Lord Keeper Williams used to call 'statemongers.' In a subordinate
position his meagre diligence and his frigid method might not have been
without value; but the qualities that he possessed were misplaced; nor can
any character be conceived less invested with the happy properties of a
leader. In the conduct of public affairs his disposition was exactly the
reverse of that which is the characteristic of great men. He was
peremptory in little questions, and great ones he left open.

In the natural course of events, in 1819 there ought to have been a change
of government, and another party in the state should have entered into
office; but the Whigs, though they counted in their ranks at that period
an unusual number of men of great ability, and formed, indeed, a compact
and spirited opposition, were unable to contend against the new adjustment
of borough influence which had occurred during the war, and under the
protracted administration by which that war had been conducted. New
families had arisen on the Tory side that almost rivalled old Newcastle
himself in their electioneering management; and it was evident that,
unless some reconstruction of the House of Commons could be effected, the
Whig party could never obtain a permanent hold of official power. Hence,
from that period, the Whigs became Parliamentary Reformers.

It was inevitable, therefore, that the country should be governed by the
same party; indispensable that the ministry should be renovated by new
brains and blood. Accordingly, a Mediocrity, not without repugnance, was
induced to withdraw, and the great name of Wellington supplied his place
in council. The talents of the Duke, as they were then understood, were
not exactly of the kind most required by the cabinet, and his colleagues
were careful that he should not occupy too prominent a post; but still it
was an impressive acquisition, and imparted to the ministry a semblance of
renown.

There was an individual who had not long entered public life, but who had
already filled considerable, though still subordinate offices. Having
acquired a certain experience of the duties of administration, and
distinction for his mode of fulfilling them, he had withdrawn from his
public charge; perhaps because he found it a barrier to the attainment of
that parliamentary reputation for which he had already shown both a desire
and a capacity; perhaps because, being young and independent, he was not
over-anxious irremediably to identify his career with a school of politics
of the infallibility of which his experience might have already made him a
little sceptical. But he possessed the talents that were absolutely
wanted, and the terms were at his own dictation. Another, and a very
distinguished Mediocrity, who would not resign, was thrust out, and Mr.
Peel became Secretary of State.

From this moment dates that intimate connection between the Duke of
Wellington and the present First Minister, which has exercised a
considerable influence over the career of individuals and the course of
affairs. It was the sympathetic result of superior minds placed among
inferior intelligences, and was, doubtless, assisted by a then mutual
conviction, that the difference of age, the circumstance of sitting in
different houses, and the general contrast of their previous pursuits and
accomplishments, rendered personal rivalry out of the question. From this
moment, too, the domestic government of the country assumed a new
character, and one universally admitted to have been distinguished by a
spirit of enlightened progress and comprehensive amelioration.

A short time after this, a third and most distinguished Mediocrity died;
and Canning, whom they had twice worried out of the cabinet, where they
had tolerated him some time in an obscure and ambiguous position, was
recalled just in time from his impending banishment, installed in the
first post in the Lower House, and intrusted with the seals of the Foreign
Office. The Duke of Wellington had coveted them, nor could Lord Liverpool
have been insensible to his Grace's peculiar fitness for such duties; but
strength was required in the House of Commons, where they had only one
Secretary of State, a young man already distinguished, yet untried as a
leader, and surrounded by colleagues notoriously incapable to assist him
in debate.

The accession of Mr. Canning to the cabinet, in a position, too, of
surpassing influence, soon led to a further weeding of the Mediocrities,
and, among other introductions, to the memorable entrance of Mr.
Huskisson. In this wise did that cabinet, once notable only for the
absence of all those qualities which authorise the possession of power,
come to be generally esteemed as a body of men, who, for parliamentary
eloquence, official practice, political information, sagacity in council,
and a due understanding of their epoch, were inferior to none that had
directed the policy of the empire since the Revolution.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37