Lyda Farrington Krausé - "We Ten"

Catherine Parr Traill - "Canadian Crusoes"

Stephen Gwynn - "The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2"

P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse - "Jill the Reckless"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

Coningsby

B >> Benjamin Disraeli >> Coningsby




'In my time, the regular thing was to move an amendment on the address.'

'Quite out of the question,' exclaimed Tadpole, with a scoff.

'Entirely given up,' said Taper, with a sneer.

'If you will drink no more claret, we will go and hear some music,' said
the Duke.




CHAPTER III.


A breakfast at Beaumanoir was a meal of some ceremony. Every guest was
expected to attend, and at a somewhat early hour. Their host and hostess
set them the example of punctuality. 'Tis an old form rigidly adhered to
in some great houses, but, it must be confessed, does not contrast very
agreeably with the easier arrangements of establishments of less
pretension and of more modern order.

The morning after the dinner to which we have been recently introduced,
there was one individual absent from the breakfast-table whose non-
appearance could scarcely be passed over without notice; and several
inquired with some anxiety, whether their host were indisposed.

'The Duke has received some letters from London which detain him,' replied
the Duchess. 'He will join us.'

'Your Grace will be glad to hear that your son Henry is very well,' said
Mr. Rigby; 'I heard of him this morning. Harry Coningsby enclosed me a
letter for his grandfather, and tells me that he and Henry Sydney had just
had a capital run with the King's hounds.'

'It is three years since we have seen Mr. Coningsby,' said the Duchess.
'Once he was often here. He was a great favourite of mine. I hardly ever
knew a more interesting boy.'

'Yes, I have done a great deal for him,' said Mr. Rigby. 'Lord Monmouth is
fond of him, and wishes that he should make a figure; but how any one is
to distinguish himself now, I am really at a loss to comprehend.'

'But are affairs so very bad?' said the Duchess, smiling. 'I thought that
we were all regaining our good sense and good temper.'

'I believe all the good sense and all the good temper in England are
concentrated in your Grace,' said Mr. Rigby, gallantly.

'I should be sorry to be such a monopolist. But Lord Fitz-Booby was giving
me last night quite a glowing report of Mr. Tadpole's prospects for the
nation. We were all to have our own again; and Percy to carry the county.'

'My dear Madam, before twelve months are past, there will not be a county
in England. Why should there be? If boroughs are to be disfranchised, why
should not counties be destroyed?'

At this moment the Duke entered, apparently agitated. He bowed to his
guests, and apologised for his unusual absence. 'The truth is,' he
continued, 'I have just received a very important despatch. An event has
occurred which may materially affect affairs. Lord Spencer is dead.'

A thunderbolt in a summer sky, as Sir William Temple says, could not have
produced a greater sensation. The business of the repast ceased in a
moment. The knives and forks were suddenly silent. All was still.

'It is an immense event,' said Tadpole.

'I don't see my way,' said Taper.

'When did he die?' said Lord Fitz-Booby.

'I don't believe it,' said Mr. Rigby.

'They have got their man ready,' said Tadpole.

'It is impossible to say what will happen,' said Taper.

'Now is the time for an amendment on the address,' said Fitz-Booby.

'There are two reasons which convince me that Lord Spencer is not dead,'
said Mr. Rigby.

'I fear there is no doubt of it,' said the Duke, shaking his head.

'Lord Althorp was the only man who could keep them together,' said Lord
Fitz-Booby.

'On the contrary,' said Tadpole. 'If I be right in my man, and I have no
doubt of it, you will have a radical programme, and they will be stronger
than ever.'

'Do you think they can get the steam up again?' said Taper, musingly.

'They will bid high,' replied Tadpole. 'Nothing could be more unfortunate
than this death. Things were going on so well and so quietly! The
Wesleyans almost with us!'

'And Shabbyton too!' mournfully exclaimed Taper. 'Another registration and
quiet times, and I could have reduced the constituency to two hundred and
fifty.'

'If Lord Spencer had died on the 10th,' said Rigby, 'it must have been
known to Henry Rivers. And I have a letter from Henry Rivers by this post.
Now, Althorp is in Northamptonshire, mark that, and Northampton is a
county--'

'My dear Rigby,' said the Duke, 'pardon me for interrupting you.
Unhappily, there is no doubt Lord Spencer is dead, for I am one of his
executors.'

This announcement silenced even Mr. Rigby, and the conversation now
entirely merged in speculations on what would occur. Numerous were the
conjectures hazarded, but the prevailing impression was, that this
unforeseen event might embarrass those secret expectations of Court
succour in which a certain section of the party had for some time reason
to indulge.

From the moment, however, of the announcement of Lord Spencer's death, a
change might be visibly observed in the tone of the party at Beaumanoir.
They became silent, moody, and restless. There seemed a general, though
not avowed, conviction that a crisis of some kind or other was at hand.
The post, too, brought letters every day from town teeming with fanciful
speculations, and occasionally mysterious hopes.

'I kept this cover for Peel,' said the Duke pensively, as he loaded his
gun on the morning of the 14th. 'Do you know, I was always against his
going to Rome.'

'It is very odd,' said Tadpole, 'but I was thinking of the very same
thing.'

'It will be fifteen years before England will see a Tory Government,' said
Mr. Rigby, drawing his ramrod, 'and then it will only last five months.'

'Melbourne, Althorp, and Durham, all in the Lords,' said Taper. 'Three
leaders! They must quarrel.'

'If Durham come in, mark me, he will dissolve on Household Suffrage and
the Ballot,' said Tadpole.

'Not nearly so good a cry as Church,' replied Taper.

'With the Malt Tax,' said Tadpole. 'Church, without the Malt Tax, will not
do against Household Suffrage and Ballot.'

'Malt Tax is madness,' said Taper. 'A good farmer's friend cry without
Malt Tax would work just as well.'

'They will never dissolve,' said the Duke. 'They are so strong.'

'They cannot go on with three hundred majority,' said Taper. 'Forty is as
much as can be managed with open constituencies.'

'If he had only gone to Paris instead of Rome!' said the Duke.

'Yes,' said Mr. Rigby, 'I could have written to him then by every post,
and undeceived him as to his position.'

'After all he is the only man,' said the Duke; 'and I really believe the
country thinks so.'

'Pray, what is the country?' inquired Mr. Rigby. 'The country is nothing;
it is the constituency you have to deal with.'

'And to manage them you must have a good cry,' said Taper. 'All now
depends upon a good cry.'

'So much for the science of politics,' said the Duke, bringing down a
pheasant. 'How Peel would have enjoyed this cover!'

'He will have plenty of time for sport during his life,' said Mr. Rigby.

On the evening of the 15th of November, a despatch arrived at Beaumanoir,
informing his Grace that the King had dismissed the Whig Ministry, and
sent for the Duke of Wellington. Thus the first agitating suspense was
over; to be succeeded, however, by expectation still more anxious. It was
remarkable that every individual suddenly found that he had particular
business in London which could not be neglected. The Duke very properly
pleaded his executorial duties; but begged his guests on no account to be
disturbed by his inevitable absence. Lord Fitz-Booby had just received a
letter from his daughter, who was indisposed at Brighton, and he was most
anxious to reach her. Tadpole had to receive deputations from Wesleyans,
and well-registered boroughs anxious to receive well-principled
candidates. Taper was off to get the first job at the contingent Treasury,
in favour of the Borough of Shabbyton. Mr. Rigby alone was silent; but he
quietly ordered a post-chaise at daybreak, and long before his fellow
guests were roused from their slumbers, he was halfway to London, ready to
give advice, either at the pavilion or at Apsley House.




CHAPTER IV.


Although it is far from improbable that, had Sir Robert Peel been in
England in the autumn of 1834, the Whig government would not have been
dismissed; nevertheless, whatever may now be the opinion of the policy of
that measure; whether it be looked on as a premature movement which
necessarily led to the compact reorganisation of the Liberal party, or as
a great stroke of State, which, by securing at all events a dissolution of
the Parliament of 1832, restored the healthy balance of parties in the
Legislature, questions into which we do not now wish to enter, it must be
generally admitted, that the conduct of every individual eminently
concerned in that great historical transaction was characterised by the
rarest and most admirable quality of public life, moral courage. The
Sovereign who dismissed a Ministry apparently supported by an overwhelming
majority in the Parliament and the nation, and called to his councils the
absent chief of a parliamentary section, scarcely numbering at that moment
one hundred and forty individuals, and of a party in the country supposed
to be utterly discomfited by a recent revolution; the two ministers who in
this absence provisionally administered the affairs of the kingdom in the
teeth of an enraged and unscrupulous Opposition, and perhaps themselves
not sustained by a profound conviction, that the arrival of their expected
leader would convert their provisional into a permanent position; above
all the statesman who accepted the great charge at a time and under
circumstances which marred probably the deep projects of his own prescient
sagacity and maturing ambition; were all men gifted with a high spirit of
enterprise, and animated by that active fortitude which is the soul of
free governments.

It was a lively season, that winter of 1834! What hopes, what fears, and
what bets! From the day on which Mr. Hudson was to arrive at Rome to the
election of the Speaker, not a contingency that was not the subject of a
wager! People sprang up like mushrooms; town suddenly became full.
Everybody who had been in office, and everybody who wished to be in
office; everybody who had ever had anything, and everybody who ever
expected to have anything, were alike visible. All of course by mere
accident; one might meet the same men regularly every day for a month, who
were only 'passing through town.'

Now was the time for men to come forward who had never despaired of their
country. True they had voted for the Reform Bill, but that was to prevent
a revolution. And now they were quite ready to vote against the Reform
Bill, but this was to prevent a dissolution. These are the true patriots,
whose confidence in the good sense of their countrymen and in their own
selfishness is about equal. In the meantime, the hundred and forty threw a
grim glance on the numerous waiters on Providence, and amiable trimmers,
who affectionately enquired every day when news might be expected of Sir
Robert. Though too weak to form a government, and having contributed in no
wise by their exertions to the fall of the late, the cohort of
Parliamentary Tories felt all the alarm of men who have accidentally
stumbled on some treasure-trove, at the suspicious sympathy of new allies.
But, after all, who were to form the government, and what was the
government to be? Was it to be a Tory government, or an Enlightened-
Spirit-of-the-Age Liberal-Moderate-Reform government; was it to be a
government of high philosophy or of low practice; of principle or of
expediency; of great measures or of little men? A government of statesmen
or of clerks? Of Humbug or of Humdrum? Great questions these, but
unfortunately there was nobody to answer them. They tried the Duke; but
nothing could be pumped out of him. All that he knew, which he told in his
curt, husky manner, was, that he had to carry on the King's government. As
for his solitary colleague, he listened and smiled, and then in his
musical voice asked them questions in return, which is the best possible
mode of avoiding awkward inquiries. It was very unfair this; for no one
knew what tone to take; whether they should go down to their public
dinners and denounce the Reform Act or praise it; whether the Church was
to be re-modelled or only admonished; whether Ireland was to be conquered
or conciliated.

'This can't go on much longer,' said Taper to Tadpole, as they reviewed
together their electioneering correspondence on the 1st of December; 'we
have no cry.'

'He is half way by this time,' said Tadpole; 'send an extract from a
private letter to the _Standard_, dated Augsburg, and say he will be here
in four days.'

At last he came; the great man in a great position, summoned from Rome to
govern England. The very day that he arrived he had his audience with the
King.

It was two days after this audience; the town, though November, in a state
of excitement; clubs crowded, not only morning rooms, but halls and
staircases swarming with members eager to give and to receive rumours
equally vain; streets lined with cabs and chariots, grooms and horses; it
was two days after this audience that Mr. Ormsby, celebrated for his
political dinners, gave one to a numerous party. Indeed his saloons to-
day, during the half-hour of gathering which precedes dinner, offered in
the various groups, the anxious countenances, the inquiring voices, and
the mysterious whispers, rather the character of an Exchange or Bourse
than the tone of a festive society.

Here might be marked a murmuring knot of greyheaded privy-councillors, who
had held fat offices under Perceval and Liverpool, and who looked back to
the Reform Act as to a hideous dream; there some middle-aged aspirants
might be observed who had lost their seats in the convulsion, but who
flattered themselves they had done something for the party in the
interval, by spending nothing except their breath in fighting hopeless
boroughs, and occasionally publishing a pamphlet, which really produced
less effect than chalking the walls. Light as air, and proud as a young
peacock, tripped on his toes a young Tory, who had contrived to keep his
seat in a Parliament where he had done nothing, but who thought an Under-
Secretaryship was now secure, particularly as he was the son of a noble
Lord who had also in a public capacity plundered and blundered in the good
old time. The true political adventurer, who with dull desperation had
stuck at nothing, had never neglected a treasury note, had been present at
every division, never spoke when he was asked to be silent, and was always
ready on any subject when they wanted him to open his mouth; who had
treated his leaders with servility even behind their backs, and was happy
for the day if a future Secretary of the Treasury bowed to him; who had
not only discountenanced discontent in the party, but had regularly
reported in strict confidence every instance of insubordination which came
to his knowledge; might there too be detected under all the agonies of the
crisis; just beginning to feel the dread misgiving, whether being a slave
and a sneak were sufficient qualifications for office, without family or
connection. Poor fellow! half the industry he had wasted on his cheerless
craft might have made his fortune in some decent trade!

In dazzling contrast with these throes of low ambition, were some
brilliant personages who had just scampered up from Melton, thinking it
probable that Sir Robert might want some moral lords of the bed-chamber.
Whatever may have been their private fears or feelings, all however seemed
smiling and significant, as if they knew something if they chose to tell
it, and that something very much to their own satisfaction. The only grave
countenance that was occasionally ushered into the room belonged to some
individual whose destiny was not in doubt, and who was already practising
the official air that was in future to repress the familiarity of his
former fellow-stragglers.

'Do you hear anything?' said a great noble who wanted something in the
general scramble, but what he knew not; only he had a vague feeling he
ought to have something, having made such great sacrifices.

'There is a report that Clifford is to be Secretary to the Board of
Control,' said Mr. Earwig, whose whole soul was in this subaltern
arrangement, of which the Minister of course had not even thought; 'but I
cannot trace it to any authority.'

'I wonder who will be their Master of the Horse,' said the great noble,
loving gossip though he despised the gossiper.

'Clifford has done nothing for the party,' said Mr. Earwig.

'I dare say Rambrooke will have the Buckhounds,' said the great noble,
musingly.

'Your Lordship has not heard Clifford's name mentioned?' continued Mr.
Earwig.

'I should think they had not come to that sort of thing,' said the great
noble, with ill-disguised contempt.' The first thing after the Cabinet is
formed is the Household: the things you talk of are done last;' and he
turned upon his heel, and met the imperturbable countenance and clear
sarcastic eye of Lord Eskdale.

'You have not heard anything?' asked the great noble of his brother
patrician.

'Yes, a great deal since I have been in this room; but unfortunately it is
all untrue.'

'There is a report that Rambrooke is to have the Buck-hounds; but I cannot
trace it to any authority.'

'Pooh!' said Lord Eskdale.

'I don't see that Rambrooke should have the Buckhounds any more than
anybody else. What sacrifices has he made?'

'Past sacrifices are nothing,' said Lord Eskdale. 'Present sacrifices are
the thing we want: men who will sacrifice their principles and join us.'

'You have not heard Rambrooke's name mentioned?'

'When a Minister has no Cabinet, and only one hundred and forty supporters
in the House of Commons, he has something else to think of than places at
Court,' said Lord Eskdale, as he slowly turned away to ask Lucian Gay
whether it were true that Jenny Colon was coming over.

Shortly after this, Henry Sydney's father, who dined with Mr. Ornisby,
drew Lord Eskdale into a window, and said in an undertone:

'So there is to be a kind of programme: something is to be written.'

'Well, we want a cue,' said Lord Eskdale. 'I heard of this last night:
Rigby has written something.'

The Duke shook his head.

'No; Peel means to do it himself.'

But at this moment Mr. Ornisby begged his Grace to lead them to dinner.

'Something is to be written.' It is curious to recall the vague terms in
which the first projection of documents, that are to exercise a vast
influence on the course of affairs or the minds of nations, is often
mentioned. This 'something to be written' was written; and speedily; and
has ever since been talked of.

We believe we may venture to assume that at no period during the movements
of 1834-5 did Sir Robert Peel ever believe in the success of his
administration. Its mere failure could occasion him little
dissatisfaction; he was compensated for it by the noble opportunity
afforded to him for the display of those great qualities, both moral and
intellectual, which the swaddling-clothes of a routine prosperity had long
repressed, but of which his opposition to the Reform Bill had given to the
nation a significant intimation. The brief administration elevated him in
public opinion, and even in the eye of Europe; and it is probable that a
much longer term of power would not have contributed more to his fame.

The probable effect of the premature effort of his party on his future
position as a Minister was, however, far from being so satisfactory. At
the lowest ebb of his political fortunes, it cannot be doubted that Sir
Robert Peel looked forward, perhaps through the vista of many years, to a
period when the national mind, arrived by reflection and experience at
certain conclusions, would seek in him a powerful expositor of its
convictions. His time of life permitted him to be tranquil in adversity,
and to profit by its salutary uses. He would then have acceded to power as
the representative of a Creed, instead of being the leader of a
Confederacy, and he would have been supported by earnest and enduring
enthusiasm, instead of by that churlish sufferance which is the result of
a supposed balance of advantages in his favour. This is the consequence of
the tactics of those short-sighted intriguers, who persisted in looking
upon a revolution as a mere party struggle, and would not permit the mind
of the nation to work through the inevitable phases that awaited it. In
1834, England, though frightened at the reality of Reform, still adhered
to its phrases; it was inclined, as practical England, to maintain
existing institutions; but, as theoretical England, it was suspicious that
they were indefensible.

No one had arisen either in Parliament, the Universities, or the Press, to
lead the public mind to the investigation of principles; and not to
mistake, in their reformations, the corruption of practice for fundamental
ideas. It was this perplexed, ill-informed, jaded, shallow generation,
repeating cries which they did not comprehend, and wearied with the
endless ebullitions of their own barren conceit, that Sir Robert Peel was
summoned to govern. It was from such materials, ample in quantity, but in
all spiritual qualities most deficient; with great numbers, largely acred,
consoled up to their chins, but without knowledge, genius, thought, truth,
or faith, that Sir Robert Peel was to form a 'great Conservative party on
a comprehensive basis.' That he did this like a dexterous politician, who
can deny? Whether he realised those prescient views of a great statesman
in which he had doubtless indulged, and in which, though still clogged by
the leadership of 1834, he may yet find fame for himself and salvation for
his country, is altogether another question. His difficult attempt was
expressed in an address to his constituents, which now ranks among state
papers. We shall attempt briefly to consider it with the impartiality of
the future.





CHAPTER V.


The Tamworth Manifesto of 1834 was an attempt to construct a party without
principles; its basis therefore was necessarily Latitudinarianism; and its
inevitable consequence has been Political Infidelity.

At an epoch of political perplexity and social alarm, the confederation
was convenient, and was calculated by aggregation to encourage the timid
and confused. But when the perturbation was a little subsided, and men
began to inquire why they were banded together, the difficulty of defining
their purpose proved that the league, however respectable, was not a
party. The leaders indeed might profit by their eminent position to obtain
power for their individual gratification, but it was impossible to secure
their followers that which, after all, must be the great recompense of a
political party, the putting in practice of their opinions; for they had
none.

There was indeed a considerable shouting about what they called
Conservative principles; but the awkward question naturally arose, what
will you conserve? The prerogatives of the Crown, provided they are not
exercised; the independence of the House of Lords, provided it is not
asserted; the Ecclesiastical estate, provided it is regulated by a
commission of laymen. Everything, in short, that is established, as long
as it is a phrase and not a fact.

In the meantime, while forms and phrases are religiously cherished in
order to make the semblance of a creed, the rule of practice is to bend to
the passion or combination of the hour. Conservatism assumes in theory
that everything established should be maintained; but adopts in practice
that everything that is established is indefensible. To reconcile this
theory and this practice, they produce what they call 'the best bargain;'
some arrangement which has no principle and no purpose, except to obtain a
temporary lull of agitation, until the mind of the Conservatives, without
a guide and without an aim, distracted, tempted, and bewildered, is
prepared for another arrangement, equally statesmanlike with the preceding
one.

Conservatism was an attempt to carry on affairs by substituting the
fulfilment of the duties of office for the performance of the functions of
government; and to maintain this negative system by the mere influence of
property, reputable private conduct, and what are called good connections.
Conservatism discards Prescription, shrinks from Principle, disavows
Progress; having rejected all respect for Antiquity, it offers no redress
for the Present, and makes no preparation for the Future. It is obvious
that for a time, under favourable circumstances, such a confederation
might succeed; but it is equally clear, that on the arrival of one of
those critical conjunctures that will periodically occur in all states,
and which such an unimpassioned system is even calculated ultimately to
create, all power of resistance will be wanting: the barren curse of
political infidelity will paralyse all action; and the Conservative
Constitution will be discovered to be a Caput Mortuum.

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