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of the apparent tendencies of this latter time; assuredly self-denial, sense of duty, loyalty, aristocratic feeling, are not among the public professions of faith which have distinguished the notorious men of this age. These are no characteristics of the noisy oracles who have been listened to with such applause. These have had but little share in the impulses that have changed the nation's

course.

Let us consider what are the opposites of all these as guides of action. A desire to make England one vast scene of buying and selling-a studied contempt of loyalty-a bitter hatred of the aristocracy-a disavowal of all feelings as springs of political action, except those which have hitherto been considered as distinctive of the lower orders of humanity-a loud systematic derision of courage, selfdevotion, and patriotism-an identifying of national honour with national wealth-a dogged pursuing of selfinterest-a habit of considering ease and comfort as the summum bonum let us consider these as the characteristics of the loudest of our apostles and their party, and is there no truth or reality in the picture?

Great is the power of impudent clamour. Again will the suspended din of leagues, and peace societies, and rampant democracy, break forth, and the presence of Wellington will be no longer an example or a reproach. That high mind and heart, and that vast reputation, won, as we have been often reminded, not by industrious self-seeking-not by any such principles as "buying in the cheapest market, and selling in the dearest"not by throwing off the trammels of prescription and authority, but by sustained appliance of all his great endowments to the service of his country-will pass away into an historical name; and those to whom that mind, and heart, and reputation, have been a restraint and a terror, will "play such fantastic tricks before high Heaven as will make the angels weep."

Amid the eulogies which have been written on the great departed, there was a passage in one which, while intended as panegyric, was irresistibly provocative of ideas unbecoming the

solemnity of the occasion. A journalist, applauding the Duke's readiness to sacrifice even his own dignity to the public service, asserted, that had he been chosen to take office with Mr Cobden for a colleague, he would have cheerfully consented to the arrangement. We apologise to the illustrious shade for repeating the mention of his name in such strange company-but perhaps it may serve to point a moral; and, without discussing the truth of the assertion, we will for a moment consider it to have been realised. Imagine, then, a point of statesmanship discussed by these uncongenial associates-imagine the difficulty which the noble Duke, accustomed to recognise duty, honour, loyalty, as governing principles, would experience in understanding the, to him, novel doctrines of self-interest, of the necessity of sacrificing all considerations to the interests of trade, and of renunciation of the claims of national honour! How obtuse would he have been to the clinching argument of balance of profit and loss, so complacently indicated with unanswerable fore-finger! how slow to appreciate the vast boon conferred on the human race in the diffusion of printed cottons!— how utterly incredulous that there could be a class of educated men in England quite indifferent as to whether they lived under an English hereditary Sovereign or a French Emperor, so that they might, unmolested, pursue their beloved traffic !with what difficulty receiving the idea that, to watch over the nation's pocket is the Alpha and Omega of statesmanship! And, when these ideas were slowly admitted, what a severe and righteous contempt would wither their advocate! But no-we do this Mr Cobden wrong. In that venerable presence the audacious Free-Trader would have felt strangely abashed. A new and generous sentiment would for a moment have been reflected into his breast, and the novel spectacle might have been witnessed, of the unscrupulous agitator and clap-trap orator proclaiming, with unwilling tongue, a momentary allegiance to a policy neither contemptible nor debasing.

We do not wish, or intend, to laud

the Duke as an epitome of human excellences. All we insist on is, that, the nation, having declared its sense of those excellences, cannot decently, with the same breath, praise their very opposites. The mere confession of respect for those qualities which distinguished him must have practically given the lie to many a confident leading article from the same pen; and to many a eulogistic writer the question must have occurred, Is this veneration, which I and others profess for the man, sincere, or is it "mouth-honour, breath, which the poor heart would fain deny, but dare not?"

The Duke's military life is that by which he will chiefly be remembered. His fame was of itself a denial of that pusillanimous spirit, now so prevalent, which shudders at the idea of war and personal danger, and loves to prophesy, spite of reason, of history, and of existing facts, its speedy extinction. "War," say the peaceful brotherhood," is an unmixed evil." So says the husbandman of the tempest which levels his crops to the ground; but the philosopher, nevertheless, admits the necessity of storms. War calls forth qualities whose manifestation is not too dearly purchased at the expense of blood, and what these amiable and timorous persons hold dearer than any blood, except their ownnamely, treasure. (Write treasure first, as Dogberry says!) What has the long peace which the virtues of Wellington earned taught us? Among other things it has taught us to undervalue, decry, and discourage the development of those attributes which alone can avail in the hour of danger. It has taught us to express our opinion as a nation, that swift travelling, surprising inventions, secure means of money-getting, and assiduous study to increase those appliances which oil the machinery of life, and send us smoothly and luxuriously onward to the grave, are the only things to be sought and admired, and their inventors applauded.

While, as a nation, we are hugging ourselves as we think of our pecuniary prosperity, our freedom from any but slight molestations, the uninterrupted course and renewed facilities of our commerce, and the many improve

ments in the art of existence which science has conferred, there comes this event to test our sincerity. In a moment all our fashionable philosophy is forgotten. In spite of Manchester schooling, we admit that the Duke was a great man-that there are such things as military virtues-that they rank, for the moment, higher than the science of taking money from your neighbour's pocket and transferring it to your own-that glory is not an empty name, but a splendid reality, capable of rousing in us strange feelings of enthusiasm. There are some who, while lounging pleasantly on prize sofas from the Great Exhibition, and reading the story of the Peninsular Campaigns, will envy Sir Arthur his bivouac on the cold ground, with hope for a fire, confidence for a pillow. Nay, there are, perhaps, some of the new school who have so far forgot themselves as to feel their cheeks flush, and their hearts beat in double time, as they read how the English general routed Soult, or held Massena in check-who have, for a moment, thought it would have been worth ten years of peaceful life on 'Change to have stood beside the great Duke when Napoleon was shattering his columns against a living bulwark of Englishmen. And let us say, O unworthy young cotton-spinner, or degenerate member of Peace Society! that, for once, your impulse is true! There would have been more of life in that hour of Waterloo-more selfknowledge-more awakening of noble faculties in your soul, if it happen to possess any such slumbering inhabitants, in one glorious hour, than in a long and wrinkling course of remunerative Mammon-worship.

But these and the like impulses, roused by the present majestic image of the old warrior passing peacefully away in his castle of Walmer, will be short-lived. The grave will close over him- his memory will be not a sound, but an echo

and we shall return to our engrossing pursuits, our beloved ease, and our wallowing in the mire. When will another life go out whose extinction shall, for a space, darken England, and force us to think nobly, in spite of surrounding circumstances and of ourselves? What sign is there

of the training of future Wellingtons? Before his rising, other great lights were shining in the firmament—men were familiar with heroism, and did not then, when a great man died, turn to one another asking, "When comes there such another?" There was no sign then of sterility in the nation-no failure of the necessary influences for producing noble plants. But now!-shall we turn to any of the approved and popular nurseries of opinion for the germ that is in time to overshadow us, and beneath which we shall dwell in security? Is there any indication, or probability, of these affording one who shall stand up against a future conqueror of the world, ready to perish to the last man?"

The spectacle of this great relic of a past time, vanishing amid a nation's sorrow and regard, is a terrible rebuke to the self-applause of the age.

For, among its most efficient representatives and favourite offspring, there is not one who is likely to be pointed at as an example, or remembered with reverence and pride. Looking at them, fame would seem no longer an aspiration of humanity. To cajol and flatter a mob for their voices to advocate that in public as a principle, which, in private life, would be considered a baseness-to add house to house, mill to mill, and scrip to scrip-to dwell barely in decencies for ever-to enjoy ease which they never earned by labour-such appears to be the sublime ambition of such of our public men as claim to be peculiarly the representatives of the

spirit of the age. To that spirit no man ever formed a more antagonistic embodiment that the Duke. Its yielding to expediency-its apathy and unbelief-its love of ease-and, what it is proudest of, its liberalism—were all repugnant to his sterling nature. And it seems to us that the vivid contrast afforded by the base, trafficking, ease-loving, self-seeking doctrines which the unsleeping activity and audacity of their assertors have rendered popular, is what now projects the Duke's image in relief so strong as to insure universal recognition, and to fill the public eye. To harmonise with that image, a very different back-ground is required, whose elements must be sought in other days than these.

One glance more before the eternal gates close on him. There we have assurance of a man! Some there are who, while not sparing of their admiration and respect, will take far other models for imitation. Some there are who will be awakened out of their apathy at sight of the funeral honours paid to one whose spirit was so different from that of the time, which yet has virtue enough to lament him. Whether we shall ever look upon his like again, we know not; but of this we may be assured, that the qualities which, in this generation, seem to command success, and which are ever evincing themselves more obtrusively as their current value is recognised, will never form a spirit resembling that which manifested itself, for us and for posterity, as Arthur Duke of Wellington!

2 T

VOL. LXXII.—NO. CCCCXLV.

THE HOLIDAYS.

THE Holidays! We doubt whether the word has less attraction for the ear of the statesman than for that of the school-boy-whether the golden time of recreation is most sincerely longed for by the man of business or the urchin of the Latin class. Work, of course, is a matter of necessity to most of us; and though we do most confidently believe that the majority of mankind have no abstract relish for severe labour, yet the penalties of idleness are so terrible, that we submit ourselves, on the whole, with reasonable fortitude, to the common doom. Work, therefore, we perform with a will for many months of the year-some of us making speeches, others writing articles, divers pleading in the courts of law, and many sweltering in counting-houses-until, as if by a general impulse, when the sweet days of summer arrive, and the streets become intolerable through heat, the whole population of the town rises in revolt against labour. Railroad, stage-coach, and steamer are put into immediate requisition; and in a few days the squares are as deserted as though the inhabitants had seceded to the diggings.

This year the holidays were somewhat unusually broken. On the very verge of, if not in them, came the general election, an event which, even at this distance of time, we recall with no pleasurable sensations. To keep out of the turmoil of an election is clearly impossible. You may be a philosopher, but you are also a Briton; and although you were as deadened to humanity as was Timon of Athens, you must necessarily have some preference when the choice lies between Alcibiades and Apemantus. If you are a non-elector, you can, at all events, bellow-if you have a vote, we defy you to escape the poll. Indeed, it is wonderful how soon and keenly a man will warm to a contest. We have heard an old gentleman protest, of a Monday, that no consideration upon earth would induce him to register his vote, and on the Friday

He

thereafter, we have seen him installed as chairman of a committee, and as active as a cat in an aviary. Indeed, we regard the man, even though he be an adversary, who withholds his vote on such an occasion, with feelings little short of contempt. has a vote, and he ought to exercise it one way or another. If he abstains, without alleging some intelligible reason, you are at liberty to set him down as a sneak. But such apathy is not general. On the late occasion there was a hard struggle throughout the kingdom, and not until August had succeeded to the reign of July did the din of battle cease. What a beautiful hush of tranquillity was instantly diffused over the land! Men of all denominations and shades of opinion united in a cordial thanksgiving that they were fairly rid of the nuisance; and nobody but the keeper of a pothouse durst venture an opinion in favour of annual parliaments. The journals, hitherto SO fiery, grew straightway preternaturally dull. It was no use taking up a newspaper, for nothing was recorded in its columns; and the very sight of the huge close-printed sheet, among the fresh green hills, made one involuntarily shudder, by recalling the atmosphere of its place of birth. To write leaders during the dog-days is a worse than Tunisian slavery; to read them, may not be quite so bad; but the task required more fortitude than we acknowledge to have fallen to our share. As well remain in town as transport its gossip to the country.

As, however, some people must necessarily remain in bondage to perform indispensable tasks while others go free, it is not to be wondered at, considering the frailty of human nature, if persons so situated should envy, and even try to abridge, the short-lived happiness of the rest. Acting on this principle, some unfortunate London scribes were forgetful of their duties to mankind as to suggest that Parliament should immediately assemble, and a new era of strife begin, before the echo

SO

of the old one had died upon the public ear. To the credit of the country be it said, the impudent proposal was met with a shout of universal disapprobation. Were members, yet panting with the toil and fatigue of their contests, to be dragged up without a month's repose to London, there to enjoy, in stifling St Stephens, the old flowers of rhetoric with which all politicians are familiar? Were the chiefs of parties never to have a breathing-time-a moment for quiet thought-or leisure to consider their plans of future operations? To do them justice, no set of men were more incensed at the proposal than the Whigs-for Lord John Russell was known to be in Scotland, a country peculiarly adapted for letterwriting; and, as his lordship had, on one previous occasion, made a notable hit from Edinburgh, there was no saying what might be expected from him now, if he was only allowed the benefit of time. Your state-letter is not a document to be tossed off like a dinner invitation. It requires thought and careful revision; and, besides, it is usually submitted, in the strictest confidence, to various colleagues, before it is finally given to the papers. Lord John Russell, though a correct, is not a rapid composer. Mr M'Gregor would despatch thirty epistles to his constituents, before the ex-Premier could satisfy himself as to the propriety of a single sentence.

In common with many others, we confess that we did expect to be favoured with some such manifesto. We are aware that grave doubts have arisen in the minds of many influential members of the Whig party as to the prudence of the former communication, which, though it might be welltimed as a party stroke, did nevertheless commit them to certain views which they had not previously professed, and did eventually compel them to adopt certain measures which theretofore they were not prepared with any cordiality to receive. We are also aware at least it is matter of common report that his lordship, on that occasion, received a sharp intimation from several of his supporters, that they were by no means satisfied with his precipitancy; that, according to their views, a leader in opposition

was not freed from the wholesome obligation of taking deliberate counsel before announcing a decided line of action. In short, that he had better divest himself, as soon as possible, of the notion that in him alone were concentrated the whole genius and essence of Whiggery. Of all this we were aware; but, being accustomed to look upon Lord John as a choleric fellow, who would take his own way in spite of every remonstrance, we still had hopes of a letter; and are not a little disappointed to find that, for this year at least, there will be a blank in political correspondence.

There are, however, more methods of expression than one; and it is consolatory to know that the public has had the benefit of listening, more than once during the holidays, to the wisdom of the noble lord.

Two remarkable personages, in two neighbouring countries, have at the same time been going their political rounds. Louis Napoleon has been making the tour of France, receiving everywhere, as we are assured by the press, the warmest expressions of sympathy and devotion; and it is now evident that he intends, with as little delay as possible, to assume the imperial diadem. Lord John Russell has been progressing from The Gart to Stirling, and from Stirling to Perth, picking up stray burgess - tickets, vowing fidelity to divers Guildries, and taking an active share in a public political banquet. His aspirations are certainly more humble than those of the PrincePresident, as his sphere is more limited; but, for all that, they may be equally personal; and, judging from the character of the company in which he last appeared, as well as from the tone which he assumed, we cannot doubt that the object and purpose of these peregrinations is his speedy reinstatement into office. Whether he may succeed or not, is, of course, matter of opinion. In the mean time, it may be as well for us to see what grounds he can set forth to induce the country to reverse the judgment which it has already passed upon him, and upon his party.

Since the result of the late election, it is observable that an unusual degree of bitterness and exasperation

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