Part 24
Throughout the whole parliamentary career of Mr Disraeli, a consistent course of conduct with reference to State policy has been pursued; though it is observable that, in the first few years, he had not yet thrown away some of his extraordinary theories. We see that, as he advances in manhood, and becomes practically acquainted with legislation, the vain conceptions and egotistic vanity of his youth pass away, and he settles down into a steady, through-going, parliamentary chief. The different opinions which he has at times expressed of various statesmen are easily to be accounted for, though some who, as the poet says, judge of others by themselves, may discern in this discreditable motives. Public opinion is always varying with regard to public men, and a young man is likely to be influenced by it. But, at all events, he ought, through motives of modesty, to keep his opinion to himself; and it is of the greatest importance that one who aspires to be a statesman in this country, where parties are always changing, should not be constantly giving expression to the feelings of the moment. It is not safe for a politician; for while he is giving vent to what is generally a mere fancied animosity to the mere party-feeling of the moment, he may perhaps be throwing down the gauntlet at the feet of a future colleague; and all for no purpose, for oftentimes there is no foundation for aversion to a public man. Nor is it right that the House of Commons, our country, and Continental nations, should be constantly hearing statesmen mutually complimenting and abusing each other. It is a maxim in State policy that you should deal with your enemy as though one day he may be your friend, and _vice versâ_. In private life, it happens that one who is a friend may first be viewed with coolness, and then treated as an enemy; and this change in conduct may be legitimate, though not creditable. Still more frequently may this happen in public life. Mr Disraeli has, we should think, learnt from bitter experience the folly of giving expression to mere transient feelings either of anger or respect. He is a man of extremes; he knows no mediocrity of feeling; witness the inflated style of the soliloquies in his novels, which have drawn down upon him the unmitigated ire of his zealous biographer. With him a statesman’s career is either “a system of petty larceny on a great scale,” or it is “a precious possession of the House of Commons.” This is a pity; but Mr Disraeli, unlike other statesmen, had not in early life the friendship of those who had trodden the thorny paths of English politics before him, to inculcate upon him the necessity of being habitually reserved and moderate in his expressions; and neither reserve nor moderation forms a part of his natural character. Too warm a nature, or too ardent a temperament are not discreditable, though they often bring pain and trouble along with them.
We now come to the most hackneyed, and, we admit, the most painful portion of Mr Disraeli’s life—his treatment of Sir Robert Peel.
But these things belong to the past. Great blame, in the eyes of an impartial observer, may be attached to Peel for the course he then took, and great blame may also attach to Disraeli; much, on the other hand, may be said in palliation of the conduct of both. The one has long ago been forgiven by the great party which he irreparably injured; the other will, we firmly believe, prove himself, at no distant period, as firm and enlightened a Minister as he is now one of the most talented and accomplished statesmen that ever adorned with his eloquence, or controlled by his wisdom, the legislation of the British Parliament.
We now conclude by urging the necessity there is for the reascendancy of the Conservative party. We are evidently on the verge of a momentous period. Are we to commit the guidance of our affairs to a Government whose conduct, as yet, has been one course of bungling—the result of dissension, of abortive speculations—the result of a misplaced self-confidence, and of unsuccessful negotiation—the result of an infatuated love of peace? We make, then, our appeal to the Protestants of England; are we any longer to truckle to the Pope of Rome—are we still to devote the public money to the support of Roman Catholic priests, and then call it “religious bigotry?” We make our appeal to the friends of Turkey amongst us: are we to have a Ministry in power who are divided in their opinions concerning the vitality of the country which we are desirous of protecting, and amongst whose supporters are men who deny our right to go to war at all? We make our appeal to the foes of Russia; shall we have a Premier who declares that “what is called the security of Europe” has nothing to fear from Russian aggression, and then says that he has nothing to retract or explain? Let us have a Ministry of able men, united amongst themselves, prepared to uphold our Protestant religion, agreed upon the vitality of Turkey, resolved to resist Russia, determined to secure a durable peace; and, above all, one that is strong in the confidence of the country, and supported by a united majority. Let us tear down the emblems of the most incapable and mischief-making Coalition that ever any country was cursed with, and proclaim over its fall the reascendancy of Conservative principles.
_Printed by William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh._
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Footnote 1:
Σπυριδῶνος Τρικουπη ἱστορία τῆς Ἕλληνικῆς ἐπαναστάσεως. Τόμος Α. London, 1853. (History of the Greek Revolution. By Spiridion Tricoupi, Greek Minister, London. Vol. i.)
Footnote 2:
_History of Europe from the Fall of Napoleon in 1815, to the Accession of Louis Napoleon in 1852._ By Sir ARCHIBALD ALISON, Bart. Vol. iii.
Footnote 3:
The work, when completed, will, we understand, consist of four volumes octavo; the second volume is expected to appear in a few weeks.
Footnote 4:
Sir A. Alison, perhaps, as we shall see afterwards, confines his sympathy to the assertion that, _after the infamous butchery of the Greeks at Chios_, the intervention of the Christian States in behalf of the oppressed Christian people became a duty.
Footnote 5:
That this “_bloody_ and _brutal_” policy is still exercised by the Turks, when they have their free swing, is evident from the letter of Mr Saunders, the British Consul at Prevesa, which appeared about two months ago in the _Times_, and of which a Greek translation now lies before us in the Αθηνᾶ—an Athenian newspaper—of the 9th June.
Footnote 6:
It may be interesting to observe here, as a proof of the permanency of the Greek language, that the phrase used by our modern Greek ambassador in this place, ατενίσας είς τον ουρανον, is exactly the same as that used by St Luke in the account of the martyrdom of St Stephen, Acts, vii. 55. Indeed, the vocabulary of the living Greeks, as well as their syntax, is strongly tinged by the language of the Septuagint and the New Testament; a fact, of which our students of theology, if they have any sense, will take note.
Footnote 7:
Δεν συστελλομαι νὰ ὁμολογήσω ὅτι ἤμῆν εναντιος τοῦ τοιούτου κινήματυς κατὰ του Σουλτανου· ὄχι διότι θὲν επεθύμουν τῆν ελευθερίαν τοῦ ἔθνους μου ἀλλὰ διότι μ’ εφαινετο ἄωρον το κίνημα, μὲ το νὰ ἦσαν ἀπειροπολεμοι οἱ Ἕλληνες καὶ οἱ πλεῖστοι ἄοπλοι, ὁ δὲ κίνδυνος μεγας.—PERRHAEBUS, _Military Memoirs_. Athens, 1836.
Footnote 8:
τοῦ Κερατιου κὁλπου—that is, we have no doubt, the large expansion of the Golden Horn west of Galata, and north of the Fanar.
Footnote 9:
The modern Greek has lost not a whit of the fine rich flexibility which has made the ancient dialect such a convenient organ for our scientific terminology. The word for Lazaretto used here is λοιμοκαθαρτήριον; and scores of such words are seen on the signboards of the streets of Athens at the present hour.
Footnote 10:
_Appendix to Spottiswood_, p. 29.
Footnote 11:
Dr J. H. Todd, who first published this letter, (_English Churchman_, Jan. 11, 1849), supposed Bishop Taylor to be speaking of Dr Peter Barron of Cambridge, but afterwards, on the evidence being communicated to him, was entirely satisfied, and corrected his mistake. “The author referred to (writes Dr Todd) is certainly Dr Robert Barron of Aberdeen, a divine of whom the Church of Scotland may be justly proud.”—_Irish Ecclesiastical Journal_, March 1849.
Footnote 12:
Upon an allegation of unsoundness of doctrine in some of his works, the General Assembly of 1640 dragged his widow, in custody of a “rote of musketiers,” from her retreat in Strathislay, to enable them to search his house for his manuscripts and letters, a year after his death. The proceedings add some circumstances of inhumanity to the old revolting cases not unknown in Scotland, where a dead man was dug out of his grave to be placed at the bar, tried and sentenced.
Footnote 13:
P. 288.
Footnote 14:
Vol. iii. p. 331.
Footnote 15:
_History of Scots Affairs_, vol. iii. p. 231.
Footnote 16:
Aberdeen, 1635.
Footnote 17:
Vol. iii. p. 227.
Footnote 18:
In the Presbytery of Aberdeen, 26th May 1642. He died in 1659, in the ninety-fifth year of his age.
Footnote 19:
_Life of Bishop Bedell_—Preface. Of most of these theological authors I am obliged to speak in the language of others. I have not even, in all cases, read the works which have formed their character.
Footnote 20:
_Dr M‘Crie’s Life of Melville_, vol. ii. p. 445. It is with hesitation that any one who has benefited by this work will express a difference of opinion from its author. But it seems to me that Dr M‘Crie has been led by his admiration for Andrew Melville to rate too highly an exercise in which he excelled. The writing of modern Latin poetry, however valuable as a part of grammatical education, has, in truth, never been an effort of imagination or fancy; and its products, when most successful, have never produced the effect of genuine poetry on the mind of the reader.
Footnote 21:
_History of the Rebellion_. Oxford, 1826. Vol. i. p. 145.
Footnote 22:
_Life of Bishop Bedell_—Preface.
Footnote 23:
_Delitiæ poetarum Scotorum hujus ævi illustrium_, and fifth volume of the Great Atlas—both published by John Blaeu at Amsterdam, the former in 1637, the latter in 1654.
Footnote 24:
_Joannis Leochaei Scoti musæ._ _Londini_, 1620. Leech was Rector of the University in 1619.
Footnote 25:
“Ad Senatum Aberdonensem;” “Tumulus Joannis Colissonii;” “De Abrenethæa;” “De aulæis acu-pictis D. Isabellæ Setonæ Comitissæ Laderdeliæ.” _Epigrammata Arturi Jonstoni, Scoti, Medici Regii, Abredoniæ: excudebat Edvardus Rabanus_, 1632.
Footnote 26:
STRACHAN’S _Panegyricus_. Among the strangers he distinguishes Parkins, an Englishman who had, the year before (1630), obtained a degree of M.D. in our University. The earliest diploma of M.D. I have seen is that which I have noted (somewhat out of place) among the academic prints, and which was granted in 1697.
Footnote 27:
“Patricius ... supremas dignitates scholasticas in viros onini laude majores (_quorum vos hic vultus videtis_) qui vel ipsas dignitates honorarunt, conferri curavit. Quid memorem Sandilandios, Rhætos, Baronios, Scrogios, Sibbaldos, Leslæos, maxima illa nomina.... Deus mi! quanta dici celebritas, quo tot pileati patres, theologiæ, juris et medicinæ doctores et baccalaurei de gymnasio nostro velut agmine facto prodierunt!” He alludes to the strangers attracted by the fame of the society—to the divines, Forbes, Barron, &c.—to the physicians. “Quantus medicorum grex! quanta claritas!... Quantum uterque Jonstonus, ejusdem uteri, ejusdem artis fratres.... Mathesi profunda, quantum poesi et impangendis carminibus valeant, novistis. Arthurus medicus Regis et divinus poeta elegiæ et epigrammatis, quibus non solum suæ ætatis homines superat verum antiquissimos quosque æquat. Gulielmus rei herbariæ et mathematum, quorum professor meritissimus est, gloria cluit. De Gulielmo certe idem usurpare possumus.... ‘Deliciæ est humani generis,’ tanta est ejus comitas, tanta urbanitas.”
Footnote 28:
These notices are taken from the _History of the University of Edinburgh, from 1580 to 1646_, by Thomas Crawford, printed in 1808 from a MS. of the seventeenth century.
Footnote 29:
_Caballeros_ is the word used. It is hardly to be translated in an English word.
Footnote 30:
As a single sample of these excavations, we may mention one made at Portelette, on the Somme. At a depth of nine feet, a large quantity of bones was met with; and one foot lower, a piece of deer’s horn, bearing marks of human workmanship. At twenty feet from the surface, and _five feet below the level of the present bed of the river_, three axes, highly finished, and in perfect preservation, were turned up in a bed of turf. Some axe-cases of stag’s horn were also discovered in the same bed. Near these was a coarse vase of black pottery, very much broken, and surrounded with a black mass of decomposed pottery; and also large quantities of wrought bones, both human and animal.
Footnote 31:
Some very curious speculations and researches on this subject will be found in a pamphlet entitled _A Vindication of the Bardic Accounts of the Early Invasions of Ireland; with a Verification of the River-Ocean of the Greeks_. M‘Glashan, Dublin, 1851.
Footnote 32:
It is not improbable that the old feudal law, which placed the person of a female vassal at the disposal of the seigneur on her wedding-night, originated in political motives as well as in a tyrannous sensuality.
Footnote 33:
_Aperçus Genealogiques sur les Descendants de Guillaume._ _Rev. Archéol._ 1845, p. 794.
Footnote 34:
_Types of Mankind._ By T. C. WATT and G. R. GLIDDON. London: 1854.
Footnote 35:
_What Good may come of the India Bill; or Notes of what has been, is, and may be, the Government of India._ By FRANCIS HORSLEY ROBINSON.
_Modern India. A Sketch of the System of Civil Government; to which is prefixed some Account of the Natives and Native Institutions._ By GEORGE CAMPBELL, Esq., Bengal Civil Service.
_The Administration of the East India Company. A History of Indian Progress._ By JOHN WILLIAM KAYE, Author of the “History of the War in Afghanistan.”
_Life in the Mission, the Camp, and the Zenana; or Six Years in India._ By Mrs H. COLIN MACKENZIE.
_Defects Civil and Military of the Indian Government._ By Lieutenant-General Sir CHARLES JAMES NAPIER, G.C.B. Edited by Lieutenant-General Sir W. F. P. NAPIER, K.C.B.
_How Wars arise in India. Observations on Mr Cobden’s Pamphlet entitled “The Origin of the Burmese War._” By JOHN CLARK MARSHMAN.
_An Address to Parliament on the Duties of Great Britain to India in respect of the Education of the Natives and their Official Employment._ By CHARLES HAY CAMERON, late Fourth Member of the Council of India, President of the Indian Law Commission, and President of the Council of Education for Bengal.
Footnote 36:
_Modern India and its Government_, by G. CAMPBELL, Esq.; pp. 316, 317.
Footnote 37:
Pages 229, 230, 388.
Footnote 38:
We do not pretend to precise numerical accuracy; it is enough for our argument that what we have gathered from the _Indian Register_ be nearly correct.
Footnote 39:
Page 241.
Footnote 40:
Page 238.
Footnote 41:
Page 248.
Footnote 42:
Page 254.
Footnote 43:
Page 89.
Footnote 44:
Compare the fifth paragraph of the memorandum inserted at page 107 with the first nine lines of 114.
Footnote 45:
Court-house or Office.
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained. ● Used numbers for footnotes, placing them all at the end of the last chapter. ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.