THE LATE LORD HOLLAND. (EDINBURGH REVIEW, JUNE, 1841.) The Opinions of Lord Holland, as Recorded in the Journals of the House of Lords, from 1797 to 1841. Collected and Edited by D. C. MOYLAN, of Lincoln's Inn, Barrister-at-Law. 8vo. London: 1841. MANY reasons make it impossible for us to lay before our readers, at the present moment, a complete view of the character and public career of the late Lord Holland. But we feel that we have already deferred too long the duty of paying some tribute to his memory. We feel that it is more becoming to bring, without further delay, an offering, though intrinsically of little value, than to leave his tomb longer without some token of our reverence and love. We shall say very little of the book which lies on our table. And yet it is a Political book which, even if it had maxims of been the work of a less Lord Holland. distinguished man, or had appeared under circumstances less interesting, would have well repaid an 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 ConstituConstitutional tional Questions we give Questions. our hearty approbation; Views on 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. discussion. "We are," says he, "well aware that the privileges of the people, the rights of free discussion, and the Protest on inspirit and letter of our terference popular institutions, must with right of render-and they are intended to render the continuance of an extensive grievance, and of the dissatisfaction consequent thereupon, dangerous to the tranquillity of the country, and ultimately subversive of the authority of the State. Experience and theory alike forbid us to deny that effect of a free constitution; a sense of justice and a love of liberty equally deter us from lamenting it. But we have always been taught to look for the remedy of such disorders in the redress of the grievances which justify them, and in the removal of the dissatisfaction from which they flow-not in restraints on ancient privileges, not in inroads on the right of public discussion, nor in violations of the principles of a free government. 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 authoritynamely, 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. Lord Holland. In order fully to appreciate the character of Lord Holland, it is necessary to go far back into the history of his The family of 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 amongst public men. Scarcely had the chequered 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. racteristics. It is impossible not to be struck by the strong family likeness which, in spite of diversities arising from Personal cha- 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 one picture is good for ten generations, but such as in real life is seldom found. The ample person, the massy and thoughtful forehead, the large eyebrows, the full cheek and lip; the expression, so singularly compounded of sense, humour, courage, openness, a strong will and a sweet temper, were common to all. But the features of the founder of the House, as the pencil of Reynolds and the chisel of Nollekens have handed them down to us, were disagreeably harsh and exaggerated. In his descendants the aspect was preserved; but it was softened, till it became, in the late lord, the most gracious and interesting countenance that was everlighted up by the mingled lustre of intelligence and benevolence. As it was with the faces of the men of this noble family, so was it also 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. first Lord Holland. He entered But training and situation greatly modified the fine qualities which nature lavished with such pro- Character and fusion on three generations career of the of the house of Fox. The first Lord Holland was a needy political adventurer. 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 sceptical 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 simulates 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 people with the bayonet. Many of his contemporaries had a morality quite as lax as his; but very few among them had his talents, and none had his hardihood and energy. He could not, like Sandys and Doddington, find safety in contempt. He therefore became an object of such general aversion as no statesman since the fall 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 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 towards 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 His last last steps of his public life expanded. His range of observation political acts were marked, not only by became wider. His genius broke through harsh. that audacity which he had early prejudices. His natural benevolence derived from nature-not only by that and magnanimity had fair play. In a immorality which he had learned in the very short time he appeared in a situation school of Walpole-but by a harshness worthy of his understanding and of his which almost amounted to cruelty, and heart. From a family whose name was which had never been supposed to belong associated in the public mind with to his character. His severity increased tyranny and corruption-from a party of the unpopularity from which it had sprung. which the theory and the practice were The well-known lampoon of Gray may equally servile-from the midst of the serve as a specimen of the feeling of the Luttrells, the Dysons, the Barringtonscountry. All the images are taken from came forth the greatest parliamentary shipwrecks, quicksands, and cormorants. | defender of civil and religious liberty. Lord Holland is represented as com- The late Lord Holland succeeded to plaining that the cowardice of his accom- the talents and to the fine natural displices had prevented him from putting positions of his House. 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. Within a few months after the death of this remarkable man, his second son Charles appeared at the Charles Fox. 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 The third But his situation was very Lord Holland. 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 His advanharmony with the great tages. 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 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. Contrast man as addressing fifteen or twenty solemn and a debater. It In statement, the late Lord Holland was not successful; his chief excellence lay in reply. He had the Lord Holland's quick eye of his House excellence as for the unsound parts of an argument, and a great felicity in exposing them. He was decidedly more distinguished in debate than any Peer On the other hand, the late Lord of his times who had not sat in the Holland, as compared with his grand- House of Commons. Nay, to find his equal father and his uncle, la- among persons similarly situated, we between House boured under one great must go back eighty years-to Earl Granof Lords and disadvantage. They were ville. For Mansfield, Thurlow, Loughof Commons. members of the House of borough, Grey, Grenville, Brougham, Commons. He became a Peer while still Plunkett, and other eminent men, living an infant. When he entered public life and dead, whom we will not stop to the House of Lords was a very small enumerate, carried to the Upper House and a very decorous assembly. The an eloquence formed and matured in the minority to which he belonged was Lower. The opinion of the most disscarcely able to muster five or six votes cerning judges was, that Lord Holland's on the most important nights, when oratorical performances, though someeighty or ninety lords were present. times most successful, afforded no fair Debate had accordingly become a mere measure of his oratorical powers; and form, as it was in the Irish House of that, in an assembly of which the debates Peers before the Union. This was a were frequent and animated, he would great misfortune to a man like Lord have attained a very high order of exHolland. It was not by occasionally cellence. It was, indeed, impossible to 66 laws. We have hitherto touched almost exclusively on those parts of Lord Holland's character which were open Amiability of to the observation of mil- his private lions. How shall we excharacter. press the feelings with which his memory is cherished by those who were honoured with his friendship? Or in 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: converse with him without seeing that noble, who in every great crisis cast in he was born a debater. To him, as to his lot with the commons-of the planter, his uncle, the exercise of the mind in who made manful war on the slave-trade discussion was a positive pleasure. With of the landowner, whose whole heart the greatest good-nature and good breed-was in the struggle against the corning, 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 Courteous courteously and pleasantly disputatious- disputatious. In truth, his ness. quickness in discovering and apprehending distinctions and analogies was such as a veteran judge might envy. The lawyers of the Duchy of Lancaster were astonished 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 subtlety 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 put his logic to its proper use; and in him the dialectician was always subordinate to the statesman. His political life is written in the chronicles of his country. Perhaps, as we have already intimated, foreign and his opinions on two or three domestic great questions of Foreign policy. Policy were open to just objection. Yet even his errors, if he erred, were amiable and respectable. We are not sure that we do not love and admire him the more because he was now and then seduced from what we regard as a wise policy, by sympathy with the oppressed; by generosity towards the fallen; by a philanthropy so enlarged, that it took in all nations; by love of peace, which in him was second only to the love of freedom; by the magnanimous credulity of a mind which was as incapable of suspecting as of devising mischief. Views on To his views on questions of Domestic Policy, the voice of his countrymen does ample justice. They revere the memory of the man who was, during forty years, the constant protector of all oppressed races, of all persecuted sects-of the man, whom neither the prejudices nor the interests belonging to his station could seduce from the path of right-of the "Thou hill, whose brow the antique structures Yet a few years, and the shades and |