صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

THE LATE LORD HOLLAND.*

[EDINBURGH REVIEW FOR JULY, 1841.]

MANY reasons make it impossible for us to ed to render-the continuance of an extensive lay before our readers, at the present moment, grievance, and of the dissatisfaction consequent a complete view of the character and public thereupon, dangerous to the tranquillity of the career of the late Lord Holland. But we feel country, and ultimately subversive of the authat we have already deferred too long the duty thority of the state. Experience and theory of paying some tribute to his memory. We alike forbid us to deny that effect of a free confeel that it is more becoming to bring, without stitution; a sense of justice and a love of liberty further delay, an offering, though intrinsically equally deter us from lamenting it. But we of little value, than to leave his tomb longer have always been taught to look for the remewithout some token of our reverence and love. dy of such disorders in the redress of the griev We shall say very little of the book which ances which justify them, and in the removal lies on our table. And yet it is a book which, of the dissatisfaction from which they flow; even if it had been the work of a less distin- not in restraints on ancient privileges, not in guished man, or had appeared under circum-inroads on the right of public discussion, nor stances less interesting, would have well repaid in violations of the principles of a free governan attentive perusal. It is valuable, both as a record of principles and as a model of composition. We find in it all the great maxims which, during more than forty years, guided Lord Holland's public conduct, and the chief reasons on which those maxims rest, condensed into the smallest possible space, and set forth with admirable perspicuity, dignity, and precision. To his opinions on Foreign Policy we, for the most part, cordially assent; but, now and then, we are inclined to think them imprudently generous. We could not have signed the protest against the detention of Napoleon. The protest respecting the course which England pursued at the Congress of Verona, though it contains much that is excellent, contains also positions which, we are inclined to think, Lord Holland would, at a later period, have admitted to be unsound. But to all his doctrines on Constitutional Questions we give our hearty approbation; and we firmly believe that no British government has ever deviated from that line of internal policy which he has traced, without detriment to the public.

We will give, as a specimen of this little volume, a single passage, in which a chief article of the political creed of the Whigs is stated and explained with singular clearness, force, and brevity. Our readers will remember that, in 1825, the Catholic Association agitated for emancipation with most formidable effect. The Tories acted after their kind. Instead of removing the grievance, they tried to put down the agitation, and brought in a law, apparently sharp and stringent, but, in truth, utterly impotent, for restraining the right of petition. Lord Holland's protest on that occasion is excellent.

ment. If, therefore, the legal method of seeking redress, which has been resorted to by persons labouring under grievous disabilities, be fraught with immediate or remote danger to the state, we draw from that circumstance a conclusion long since foretold by great authority-namely, that the British constitution and large exclusions cannot subsist together; that the constitution must destroy them, or they will destroy the constitution."

It was not, however, of this little book, valuable and interesting as it is, but of the author, that we meant to speak; and we will try to do so with calmness and impartiality.

In order fully to appreciate the character of Lord Holland, it is necessary to go far back into the history of his family; for he had inherited something more than a coronet and an estate. To the house of which he was the head belongs one distinction, which we believe to be without a parallel in our annals. During more than a century, there has never been a time at which a Fox has not stood in a prominent station among public men. Scarcely had the checkered career of the first Lord Holland closed, when his son, Charles, rose to the head of the Opposition, and to the first rank among English debaters. And before Charles was borne to Westminster Abbey, a third Fox had already become one of the most conspicuous politicians in the kingdom.

It is impossible not to be struck by the strong family likeness which, in spite of diversities arising from education and position, appears in these three distinguished persons. In their faces and figures there was a resemblance, such as is common enough in novels, where "We are," says he, "well aware that the one picture is good for ten generations, but privileges of the people, the rights of free dis- such as in real life is seldom found. The ample cussion, and the spirit and letter of our popular person, the massy and thoughtful forehead, the institutions, must render-and they are intend-large eyebrows, the full cheek and lip; the ex

The Opinions of Lord Holland, as recorded in the Journals of the House of Lords, from 1797 to 1841. Colected and edited by D. C. MOYLAN, of Lincoln's Inn,

Barrister-at-Law. Svo London. 1841.

pression, so singularly compounded of sense, humour, courage, openness, a strong will and a features of the founder of the house, as the sweet temper, were common to all. But the

As it was with the faces of the men of this noble family, so was it with their minds. Nature had done much for them all. She had moulded them all of that clay of which she is most sparing. To all she had given strong reason and sharp wit; a quick relish for every physical and intellectual enjoyment; constitutional intrepidity, and that frankness by which constitutional intrepidity is generally accompanied; spirits which nothing could depress; tempers easy, generous, and placable; and that genial courtesy which has its seat in the heart, and of which artificial politeness is only a faint and cold imitation. Such a disposition is the richest inheritance that ever was entailed on any family.

pencil of Reynolds and the chisel of Nollekens people with the bayonet. Many of his contemhave handed them down to us, were disagree- poraries had a morality quite as lax as his; but ably harsh and exaggerated. In his descend- very few among them had his talents, and none ants, the aspect was preserved; but it was had his hardihood and energy. He could not, softened, till it became, in the late lord, the like Sandys and Doddington, find safety in conmost gracious and interesting countenance that tempt. He therefore became an object of such was ever lighted up by the mingled lustre of general aversion as no statesman since the fall intelligence and benevolence. of Strafford has incurred-of such general aversion as was probably never in any country incurred by a man of so kind and cordial a disposition. A weak mind would have sunk under such a load of unpopularity. But that resolute spirit seemed to derive new firmness from the public hatred. The only effect which reproaches appeared to produce on him, was to sour, in some degree, his naturally sweet temper. The last steps of his public life were marked, not only by that audacity which he had derived from nature-not only by that immorality which he had learned in the school of Walpole-but by a harshness which almost amounted to eruelty, and which had never been supposed to belong to his character. His severity increased the unpopularity from which it had sprung. The well-known lampoon of Gray may serve as a specimen of the feeling of the country. All the images are taken from shipwrecks, quicksands, and cormorants. Lord Holland is represented as complaining, that the cowardice of his accomplices had prevented him from putting down the free spirit of the city of London by sword and fire, and as pining for the time when birds of prey should make their nests in Westminster Abbey, and unclean beasts burrow in St. Paul's.

But training and situation greatly modified the fine qualities which nature lavished with such profusion on three generations of the house of Fox. The first Lord Holland was a needy political adventurer. He entered public life at a time when the standard of integrity among statesmen was low. He started as the adherent of a minister who had indeed many titles to respect; who possessed eminent talents both for administration and for debate; who understood the public interest well, and who meant fairly by the country; but who had seen so much perfidy and meanness, that he had become skeptical as to the existence of probity. Weary of the cant of patriotism, Walpole had learned to talk a cant of a different kind. Disgusted by that sort of hypocrisy which is at least a homage to virtue, he was too much in the habit of practising the less respectable hypocrisy which ostentatiously displays and sometimes even stimulates vice. To Walpole, Fox attached himself politically and personally, with the ardour which belonged to his temperament. And it is not to be denied, that in the school of Walpole he contracted faults which destroyed the value of his many great endowments. He raised himself, indeed, to the first consideration in the House of Commons; he became a consummate master of the art of debate; he attained honours and immense wealth-but the public esteem and confidence were withheld from him. His private friends, indeed, justly extolled his generosity and good-nature. They maintained, that in those parts of his conduct which they could least defend, there was nothing sordid; and that, if he was misled, he was misled by amiable feelings-by a desire to serve his friends, and by anxious tenderness for his children. But by the nation he was regarded as a man of insatiable rapacity and desperate ambition; as a man ready to adopt, without scruple, the most immoral and the most unconstitutional measures; as a man perfectly fitted, by all his opinions and feelings, for the work of managing the Parliament by means of secret service-money, and of keeping down the VOL. IV.-58

Within a few months after the death of this remarkable man, his second son Charles appeared at the head of the party opposed to the American War. Charles had inherited the bodily and mental constitution of his father, and had been much-far too much-under his father's influence. It was indeed impossible that a son of so affectionate and noble a spirit should not have been warmly attached to a parent who possessed many fine qualities, and who carried his indulgence and liberality to wards his children even to a culpable extent. The young man saw that the person to whom he was bound by the strongest ties, was, in the highest degree, odious to the nation; and the effect was what might have been expected from his strong passions and constitutional boldness. He cast in his lot with his father, and took, while still a boy, a deep part in the most unjustifiable and unpopular measures that had been adopted since the reign of James the Second. In the debates on the Middlesex election, he distinguished himself, not only by his precocious powers of eloquence, but by the vehement and scornful manner in which he bade defiance to public opinion. He was at that time regarded as a man likely to be the most formidable champion of arbitrary government that had appeared since the Revolution

to be a Bute with far greater powers-a Mansfield with far greater courage. Happily his father's death liberated him early from the pernicious influence by which he had been misled. His mind expanded. His range of observation became wider. His genius broke through early prejudices. His natural bene

2 Q

volence and magnanimity had fair play. In a very short time he appeared in a situation worthy of his understanding and of his heart. From a family whose name was associated in the public mind with tyranny and corruptionfrom a party of which the theory and the practice were equally servile-from the midst of the Luttrells, the Dysons, the Barringtonscame forth the greatest parliamentary defender of civil and religious liberty.

The late Lord Holland succeeded to the talents and to the fine natural dispositions of his house. But his situation was very different from that of the two eminent men of whom we have spoken. In some important respects it was better; in some it was worse than theirs. He had one great advantage over them. He received a good political education. The first lord was educated by Sir Robert Walpole. Mr. Fox was educated by his father. The late lord was educated by Mr. Fox. The pernicious maxims early imbibed by the first Lord Holland, made his great talents useless, and worse than useless, to the state. The pernicious maxims early imbibed by Mr. Fox led him, at the commencement of his public life, into great faults, which, though afterwards nobly expiated, were never forgotten. To the very end of his career, small men, when they had nothing else to say in defence of their own tyranny, bigotry, and imbecility, could always raise a cheer by some paltry taunt about the election of Colonel Luttrell, the imprisonment of the Lord Mayor, and other measures in which the great Whig leader had borne a part at the age of one or two-and-twenty. On Lord Holland no such slur could be thrown. Those who most dissent from his opinions must acknowledge, that a public life, more consistent, is not to be found in our annals. Every part of it is in perfect harmony with every other; and the whole is in perfect harmony with the great principles of toleration and civil freedom. This rare felicity is in a great measure to be attributed to the influence of Mr. Fox. Lord Holland, as was natural in a person of his talents and expectations, began at a very early age to take the keenest interest in politics; and Mr. Fox found the greatest pleasure in forming the mind of so hopeful a pupil. They corresponded largely on political subjects when the young lord was only sixteen; and their friendship and mutual confidence continued to the day of that mournful separation at Chiswick. Under such training, such a man as Lord Holland was in no danger of falling into those faults which threw a dark shade over the whole career of his grandfather, and from which the youth of his uncle was not wholly free.

On the other hand, the late Lord Holland, as compared with his grandfather and his uncle, Laboured under one great disadvantage. They were members of the House of Commons. He became a peer while still an infant. When be entered public life, the House of Lords was a very small and a very decorous assembly. The minority to which he belonged was scarcely able to muster five or six votes on the most important nights, when eighty or ninety lords were present. Debate had accordingly be

come a mere form, as it was in the Irish House of Peers before the Union. This was a great misfortune to a man like Lord Holland. It was not by occasionally addressing fifteen or twenty solemn and unfriendly auditors, that his grandfather and his uncle attained their unrivalled parliamentary skill. The former had learned his art in "the great Walpolean battles," on nights when Onslow was in the chair seventeen hours without intermission; when the thick ranks on both sides kept unbroken order till long after the winter sun had risen upon them; when the blind were led out by the hand into the lobby; and the paralytic laid down in their bed-clothes on the benches. The pow ers of Charles Fox were, from the first, exercised in conflicts not less exciting. The great talents of the late Lord Holland had no such advantage. This was the more unfortunate, because the peculiar species of eloquence, which belonged to him in common with his family, required much practice to develope it. With strong sense, and the greatest readiness of wit, a certain tendency to hesitation was hereditary in the line of Fox. This hesitation arose, not from the poverty, but from the wealth of their vocabulary. They paused, not from the difficulty of finding one expression, but from the difficulty of choosing between several. It was only by slow degrees, and constant exercise, that the first Lord Holland and his son overcame the defect. Indeed, neither of them overcame it completely.

In statement, the late Lord Holland was not successful; his chief excellence lay in reply. He had the quick eye of his house for the unsound parts of an argument, and a great felicity in exposing them. He was decidedly more distinguished in debate than any peer of his times who had not sat in the House of Commons. Nay, to find his equal among persons similarly situated, we must go back eighty years-to Earl Granville. For Mansfield, Thurlow, Loughborough, Grey, Grenville, Brougham, Plunkett, and other eminent men, living and dead, whom we will not stop to enumerate, carried to the Upper House an eloquence formed and matured in the Lower. The opinion of the most discerning judges was, that Lord Holland's oratorical performances, though sometimes most successful, afforded no fair measure of his oratorical powers; and that, in an assembly of which the debates were frequent and animated, he would have attained a very high order of excellence. It was, indeed, impossible to converse with him without seeing that he was born a debater. To him, as to his uncle, the exercise of the mind in discussion was a positive pleasure. With the greatest good-nature and good-breeding, he was the very opposite to an assenter. The word "disputatious" is generally used as a word of reproach; but we can express our meaning only by saying that Lord Holland was most courteously and pleasantly disputatious. In truth, his quickness in discovering and apprehending distinctions and analogies was such as a veteran judge might envy. The law. yers of the Duchy of Lancaster were astonishled to find in an unprofessional man so strong

a relish for the esoteric parts of their science; and complained that as soon as they had split a hair, Lord Holland proceeded to split the filaments into filaments still finer. In a mind less happily constituted, there might have been a risk that this turn for subtilty would have produced serious evil. But in the heart and understanding of Lord Holland there was ample security against all such danger. He was not a man to be the dupe of his own ingenuity. He puts his logic to its proper use; and in him the dialectician was always subordinate to the statesman.

tic as it is, still continues to grow as fast as a young town of logwood by a water-privilege in Michigan, may soon displace those turrets and gardens which are associated with so much that is interesting and noble-with the courtly magnificence of Rich-with the loves of Ormond-with the counsels of Cromwellwith the death of Addison. The time is coming when, perhaps, a few old men, the last survivors of our generation, will in vain seek, amidst new streets, and squares, and railway stations, for the site of that dwelling which was in their youth the favourite resort of wits His political life is written in the chronicles and beauties-of painters and poets-of scho of his country. Perhaps, as we have already lars, philosophers, and statesmen. They will intimated, his opinions on two or three great then remember, with strange tenderness, many questions of Foreign Policy were open to just objects once familiar to them-the avenue and objection. Yet even his errors, if he erred, the terrace, the busts and the paintings; the were amiable and respectable. We are not carving, the grotesque gilding, and the enig sure that we do not love and admire him thematical mottoes. With peculiar fondness they more because he was now and then seduced will recall that venerable chamber, in which from what we regard as a wise policy, by sym- all the antique gravity of a college library was pathy with the oppressed; by generosity to- so singularly blended with all that female wards the fallen; by a philanthropy so en- grace and wit could devise to embellish a larged that it took in all nations; by love of drawing-room. They will recollect, not unpeace, which in him was second only to the moved, those shelves loaded with the varied love of freedom; by the magnanimous credulity learning of many lands and many ages; those of a mind which was as incapable of suspect- portraits in which were preserved the features ing as of devising mischief. of the best and wisest Englishmen of two gene. To his views on questions of Domestic Po-rations. They will recollect how many men licy, the voice of his countrymen does ample who have guided the politics of Europe-who justice. They revere the memory of the man have moved great assemblies by reason and who was, during forty years, the constant pro- eloquence-who have put life into bronze and tector of all oppressed races, of all persecuted canvass, or who have left to posterity things sects of the man, whom neither the preju- so written as it shall not willingly let them die dices nor the interests belonging to his station-were there mixed with all that was loveliest could seduce from the path of right-of the noble, who in every great crisis cast in his lot with the commons-of the planter, who made manful war on the slave-trade-of the landowner, whose whole heart was in the struggle against the corn-laws.

and gayest in the society of the most splendid of capitals. They will remember the singular character which belonged to that circle, in which every talent and accomplishment, every art and science, had its place. They will remember how the last debate was discussed in We have hitherto touched almost exclusive- one corner, and the last comedy of Scribe in ly on those parts of Lord Holland's character another; while Wilkie gazed with modest adwhich were open to the observation of mil-miration on Reynolds' Baretti; while Mackinlions. How shall we express the feelings with tosh turned over Thomas Aquinas to verify a which his memory is cherished by those who quotation; while Talleyrand related his conwere honoured with his friendship? Or inversations with Barras at the Luxemburg, or what language shall we speak of that house, once celebrated for its rare attractions to the furthest ends of the civilized world, and now silent and desolate as the grave? That house was, a hundred and twenty years ago, apostrophized by a poet in tender and graceful lines, which have now acquired a new meaning not less sad than that which they originally bore:

"Thou hill, whose brow the antique structures grace,
Rear'd by bold chiefs of Warwick's noble race,
Why, once so loved, whene'er thy bower appears,
O'er my dim eyeballs glance the sudden tears?
How sweet were once thy prospects fresh and fair,
Thy sloping walks, and unpolluted air!
How sweet the glooms beneath thine aged trees,
Thy noontide shadow, and thine evening breeze!
His image thy forsaken bowers restore;
Thy walks and airy prospects charm no more;
No more the summer in thy glooms allay'd,
Thine evening breezes, and thy noonday shade."

Yet a few years, and the shades and structures may follow their illustrious masters. The wonderful city which, ancient and gigan

his ride with Lannes over the field of Auster. litz. They will remember, above all, the grace

and the kindness, far more admirable than grace-with which the princely hospitality of that ancient mansion was dispensed. They will remember the venerable and benignant countenance and the cordial voice of him who bade them welcome. They will remember that temper which years of pain, of sickness, of lameness, of confinement, seemed only to make sweeter and sweeter; and that frank politeness, which at once relieved all the embarrassment of the youngest and most timid writer or artist, who found himself for the first time among ambassadors and earls. They will remember that constant flow of conversation, so natural, so animated, so various, so rich with observation and anecdote; that wit which never gave a wound; that exquisite mimicry which ennobled, instead of degrading; that goodness of heart which appeared in every look and accent, and gave additional value to

every talent and acquirement. They will remember, too, that he whose name they hold in reverence was not less distinguished by the inflexible uprightness of his political conduct than by his loving disposition and his winning manners. They will remember that, in the last lines which he traced, he expressed his

joy that he had done nothing unworthy of the friend of Fox and Grey; and they will have reason to feel similar joy, if, in looking back on many troubled years, they cannot accuse themselves of having done any thing unworthy of men who were distinguished by the friendship of Lord Holland.

WARREN HASTINGS.*

[EDINBURGH REVIEW, OCTOBER, 1841.]

This book seems to have been manufactured | fect, our own view of the life and character of in pursuance of a contract, by which the representatives of Warren Hastings, on the one part, bound themselves to furnish papers, and Mr. Gleig, on the other part, bound himself to furnish praise. It is but just to say that the covenants on both sides have been most faithfully kept; and the result is before us in the form of three big bad volumes, full of undigested correspondence and undiscerning panegyric.

Mr. Hastings. Our feeling towards him is not exactly that of the House of Commons which impeached him in 1787; neither is it that of the House of Commons which uncovered and stood up to receive him in 1813. He had great qualities, and he rendered great services to the state. But to represent him as a man of stainless virtue, is to make him ridiculous; and from regard for his memory, if from no other feeling, his friends would have done well to lend no countenance to such puerile adulation. We believe that, if he were now living, he would have sufficient judgment and suffi cient greatness of mind to wish to be shown as he was. He must have known that there were dark spots on his fame. He might also have felt with pride, that the splendour of his fame would bear many spots. He would have preferred, we are confident, even the severity of Mr. Mill to the puffing of Mr. Gleig. He would have wished posterity to have a likeness of him, though an unfavourable likeness, rather than a daub at once insipid and unnatural, resembling neither him nor anybody else.

If it were worth while to examine this performance in detail, we could easily make a long article by merely pointing out inaccurate statements, inelegant expressions, and immoral doctrines. But it would be idle to waste criticism on a bookmaker; and, whatever credit Mr. Gleig may have justly earned by former works, it is as a bookmaker, and nothing more, that he now comes before us. More eminent men than Mr. Gleig have written nearly as ill as he, when they have stooped to similar drudgery. It would be unjust to estimate Goldsmith by the History of Greece, or Scott by the Life of Napoleon. Mr. Gleig is neither a Goldsmith nor a Scott; but it would be un-"Paint me as I am," said Oliver Cromwell, just to deny that he is capable of something better than these memoirs. It would also, we hope and believe, be unjust to charge any Christian minister with the guilt of deliberately maintaining some propositions which we find in this book. It is not too much to say, that Mr. Gleig has written several passages, which bear the same relation to the "Prince" of Machiavelli that the "Prince of Machiavelli bears to the "Whole Duty of Man," and which would excite amazement in a den of robbers, or on board of a schooner of pirates. But we are willing to attribute these offences to haste, to thoughtlessness, and to that disease of the understanding which may be called the Furor Biographicus, and which is to writers of lives what the goître is to an Alpine shepherd, or dirt-eating to a Negro slave.

[blocks in formation]

while sitting to young Lely. "If you leave out the scars and wrinkles, I will not pay you a shilling." Even in such a trifle, the great Protector showed both his good sense and his magnanimity. He did not wish all that was characteristic in his countenance to be lost, in the vain attempt to give him the regular features and the smooth blooming cheeks of the curl-pated minions of James the First. He was content that his face should go forth marked with all the blemishes which had been put on it by time, by war, by sleepless nights, by anxiety, perhaps by remorse; but with valour, policy, authority, and public care, written in all its princely lines. If men truly great knew their own interest, it is thus that they would wish their minds to be portrayed.

[ocr errors]

Warren Hastings sprang from an ancient and illustrious race. It has been affirmed that his pedigree can be traced back to the great Danish sea-king, whose sails were long the terror of both coasts of the British channel; and who, after many fierce and doubtful struggles, yielded at last to the valour and genius of Alfred. But the undoubted splendour of the line of Hastings needs no illustration from fable. One branch of that line wore, in the:

« السابقةمتابعة »