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merely honorary in their character, were eagerly desired by them, and were at last obtained without any co-operation on his part. That he admired his army, placed the fullest confidence in its bravery and loyalty, and was always forward to bestow on it the most exalted eulogy, we have already seen; and, if he was not a man of a hard and selfish nature, but one, even in trifles, uniformly solicitous to consult the feelings of others, it is plain that we must seek elsewhere for the reasons of his conduct in this particular, and that it is to be found partly in his sense of duty, and partly in his feeling that no reward of any kind was worth a farthing if it were granted to solicitation. We find him, in one of his letters published by Gurwood, discouraging an officer of high reputation from applying for an honorary distinction to which he conceived himself entitled, on this very ground; and stating that he himself had never asked for a single reward of any kind, but that all the honours that had been showered on him had been wholly unsought on his part. He may also, very probably, have thought that any advocacy by him of the claims of his army would bear in some degree the appearance of a desire for a further recognition of his own merits, to which he was, on principle, averse. There is no question that the army did feel sore on the subject; but it can no more be denied that the Duke's idea is correct, that honorary rewards lose half their value if only conceded to importunity, than that the reward in question had been most fully and gloriously earned, and ought to have been bestowed at the end of the war, and not to have been delayed till many of those entitled to it had sunk into the grave, discontented and irritated at what they thought the ingratitude of their country.

In his estimation of the Duke's political career, M. de Brialmont evidently feels himself less at home, and is less consistent with himself than in his review of the great soldier's military genius. He considers that "his political genius was inferior to his military talents," and affirms that he could not have avoided

"A deficiency in certain qualities necessary to a statesman, because they are the result either of a special education,

or of a long initiation into public affairs. He was devoid also of experience in parliamentary debates and intrigues, which is another element of success not to be acquired in camps. Accusof the field of battle, he disdained the tomed to the grand and noble contests employment of petty means to which the greatest ministers are forced at times to have recourse.

"More skilful in overcoming than in eluding obstacles, he was suited to difficult situations, but he had not the address necessary in times of peace for the government of a people jealous of its liberty, and having but little sympathy He was no longer possessed of that irwith military ideas or military routine. resistible ascendancy of talent and eloquence, which gives some men the power of directing the path of an entire party towards a common object. Of a serious and cold character, he only understood speaking to men's reason, while in many cases it is to the imagination that it is necessary to address oneself. Besides, on the subject of government the Duke had ideas wholly military, which were unpalatable to the majority of English politicians. To maintain order, to ensure the execution of the laws, and to support the Crown, were the objects by which he regulated his conduct and his opinions."- iii. 257.

With respect to his alleged intics, we may appeal to M. de Briferiority in the practical part of polialmont himself, who at other times line much more highly than he does in appears to rate his ability in that the passage we have lately cited. In another place, where he accounts for the resistance which he offered to the Reform Bill, he takes a much higher view of his political sagacity, saying :

"It is because the Spaniards had given him so much reason to abhor anarchy that he showed himself in his own country so bitter against the Irish agitators, and also against those who tried by exciting popular commotions to obtain Parliamentary Reform."

"The Whigs have blamed this excessive pertinacity of his; and, on the other hand, the Tories have reproached him with having made too many concessions to the Liberal party, by his support of the bills for Catholic Emancipation, and for the repeal of the corn laws. In the eyes of those who make it a point of honour to serve their party blindly, who reject as unworthy every concession made to circumstances or to the necessities of government, who show themselves so careful of their individuality that they would let the State perish rather than sacri

fice what they call their principles or their personal dignity-in the eyes of these positive gentlemen, Wellington was clearly a statesman of ordinary calibre. But his most capacious understanding and his noble character made him disdain every opposition which was inspired by any other motives than a desire for the public interests and for the national honour. He had no regard whatever for that spurious popularity which is obtained by flattering the masses, only nourishing them in vain and illusive hopes. The real prosperity of the people, the domestic tranquillity of Great Britain, and the necessities of the government, were, to the exclusion of all political prejudice of any kind, the only interests with which he gave himself any serious and constant concern." The history of the world can produce no one in both respects the equal of "the great Duke.' Washington may have paralleled his vir

tues, his disinterestedness, his patriotism, his firmness; but he had not his talents. Napoleon may have equalled, and in some respects even surpassed his talents; but he was wholly destitute of his virtues. The parallel, however, which we should look for in vain in an individual M. de Brialmont finds in his nation taken as a whole. He tells us, and we cannot resist closing our sketch with so great a compliment to the whole body of our countrymen—

"There never was any man who more completely corresponded to the interests, character and habits of the British people: laborious, patient, simple, loyal, conscientious in everything, and seeking only to be useful; to do his duty thoroughly was his only ambition; he was a great man, but above all things, he was a great Briton.”—iii. 266.

GERMINAL.

A VISION OF PERPETUAL SPRING.

A Virgin, waking from dear dreams of love,
The Earth stirs faintly, and with slumberous hand,
Half-conscious, flings away the robing snow

That warmed her couch for Winter. Like a bride
Elate to meet her lusty lord, the Sun,

She issues forth all smiling, when its light

The vernal matin of the year reveals—

That annual Morn of Nature, whose approach
The cuckoo's clarion celebrates, what time

The crocus streaks with purpling gold the dawn
Of gradual vegetation. So the hours
From dewy April, and from blossomed May,
Spread open to their burning Noon July:
So lengthen to October's mellow Eve,
When Autumn, like a sunset, throws a flush
Of glory o'er the woodlands, till each leaf
Its radiance saturates with crimson; when
The yellow wall-fruits blush, and in the grass
The ripening sorrel reddens to the tips.
Yet now the Spring-born Day is but begun,
The prelude of its harmonies the song

Of throstles in the thicket. Cooled with rains,
The clean-washed grove, in all its brownest twigs,
Throbs with a latent budding of young leaves.
Pale glitters forth, thro' tangled briars and moss,
In form a tiny paten of fair gold,

The darling primrose. Prattling rolls the brook,
Where clustered hazels hang white tassels down
To dally with the bubbles. On its brink
A casual movement of the cress proclaims
The liquid path it mantles. Like a veil
Asunder riven by the solar beam,
The mist floats back in gauzy amplitude.

Creation feels thro' each minutest pore
The vital influence of the season. Warm,
The green sap boiling from the root, imparts
Unseen pulsations to the greener rind,

And so, thro' bowery dell and o'er the lawn
Where gilded king-cups and the silver sheen
Of early daisies 'broider all the turf,
The vivifying dews spread, verdurous.
Along the undulating lea stray lambs
That crop to milky core the meadow-vetch.
Around, in air crystalline as the sky
That crowns ideal groves in Faeryland,
On wings erratic float the babbling rooks.
By tufts of knotted cowslip beetles run
In mail resplendent with metallic dyes,
Now golden-green in hue, now purple-black,
They thread the mazes of the sprouts, and gleam
Like precious jewels glimmering in the sod.
A poet once in dreamy Rhineland sighed
To girdle round in flight the rolling globe,
Perpetual twilight trailing in his wake,
And gorgeous clouds before him shadowed from
An everlasting sundown. Not such mine
The dazzling fancy loved and cherished most.
Eternal daybreak in eternal spring

For me would have a charm more exquisite,
Desirable, divine: the pleasure drawn
From promise never ending or complete-
The promise of the blossom in the bud,
The promise of the fruitage in the bough,
The promise of sweet nut in sourest pod,
The promise of all summer bees and birds,
Autumnal apples and autumnal corn—
A beauty never learning in decay
The sorrows of fruition. Thus for me
Let life in endless sweets evaporate,
Insatiate passion glowing thro' the veins
Of all things sentient to the thrills of love-
The plant that opes its petals to the ray
Or drinks the tears of even; and the midge
On silver tissue pinions sailing by :
The lordly moth of radiant dragon-dyes,
Its wings of damson velvet dusted down
With powder gold like amber in a meal :
The finch green-flickering from the privet-white
With creamy blossoms curdling into bloom :
The callow linnet in its woven lair :

And more than all, the blushing Queen of May-
A garland of white roses round her brow-
Her nut-brown locks descending to the edge
Of silken bodice clasping daintily

The swell of her pure virgin bosom. Thus
For me should rural freshness be renewed,
And foliage blurred no more by summer dust
Or cankered by the blight-worm: but for aye
Mad frolics in the garden croft resound,
And dances on the village green, and trysts
Beneath the flowering hawthorn-when the breeze
The music of enamoured tones should blend
With floral sweetness gushing from the spray.

W. C. K.

DOUBLE GOVERNMENT.

Double, double-toil and trouble.

To kill two birds with one stone is a piece of luck which has passed into a proverb. This luck once happened to Chantrey, the sculptor. Out sporting one day, he killed two woodcocks at one shot, and what the carving knife destroyed the chisel brought to life again. The hand that took their life gave them life; they fell together, and together in marble they sit perched side by side. The epigrams written on this lucky shot were so good that they have been since collected in a little volume, to which the curious are referred for fuller particulars of this interesting event in Chantrey's life.

Now, the double governments of India and Ireland are the two birds we should like to shoot with one stone. Perched side by side, like Chantrey's woodcocks, as luck will have it, if you kill the one you must hit the other also. Double government in India is doomed this session, and it is not easy to see how a measure aimed at abolishing circumlocution in India can miss hitting circumlocution in Ireland. If Lord Derby could kill the two birds with one shot it would save powder and give him a reputation for luck as the sporting premier.

Indian and Irish officialism both go by duplicate movement. It is a game of dummy in both cases, but the Irish dummy differs in some respects from the Indian. The Indian is like that four-armed image of Kali, the patron goddess of Calcutta, slaughtering her foes with one pair of arms, rewarding her worshippers with the other. The Irish dummy is less terrible: it is only a man behind a mask; the man is in London, the mask in Dublin, but the mask is so natural that even fullgrown children are known to be deceived by it.

government is an invention of modern statecraft. Though brought to its highest perfection in the administration of Irish and Indian affairs, it is in reality as old as Adam. It began when the first man took the first woman into a partnership of power, and since then the domestic rule has been decidedly double.

The next step of development was when the first king chose à favourite as his prime minister: the one ruled de jure the other de facto, and so it passed from family into political life.

All

As the art of government grew more complex it was carried on more and more by a system of checks. mixed constitutions are cases of double government. The last variety that we shall notice is the balance of power. Diplomacy and duplicity have always gone together. The diplomatic art has furnished some very choice instances of that duplex movement by which the wheels of the state are made to go.

Thus, the domineering wife, the mayor of the palace, the minister plenipotentiary, are all lower instances of double government; the latest and highest instance being the Board of Control for India and the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland.

The history of that system of checks and tallies by which Indian affairs have been regulated for the last seventy years is too well known to need description. The Board of Control grew out of the conquests of Clive and Hastings, as the only possible compromise between vested interests and sovereign rights. It was a fair case for compromise. On the one hand, the company of merchants had become princes, the factory had become a fort, and the fort a presidency; and so imperceptibly had the change gone on that it was impossible to say where the rights of private property ceased and their sovereignty merged in that of the state. On the other hand, the rights of the crown were undoubted. Its own charter would become null and void if under that charter a It is not to be thought that double sovereignty grew up independent of

Now, as you should know with what little wisdom the world is governed, it will be well to give a sketch of the rise and progress of double government. Antiquitas seculi juventas mundi is a wise saw, which means that some of the silliest institutions are also the oldest.

it. A king can delegate everything but his own supremacy. Whenever deputed power approaches this, and in the degree it approaches it, it prepares the way for its downfall. The Company must have foreseen this, and the appointment of a Board of Control seventy years ago was in fact a warning to set its house in order, for its Raj was passing away-the king must come by his own.

The Company, indeed, have had little to complain of on this score. Like the man in the fable, death has given them three warnings. If they have heeded them not and will die disputing, the State is not to blame when it waves its scythe at last and cuts the controversy short with one sweep of annexation.

The absurdity of an East-end and a West-end staff of officials docketing the same papers, copying the same minutes, double-locking the same despatch boxes, has been often dilated on. Like a well-squeezed lemon, the joke has given up all its juice. The last drop of acid was wrung from it by Mr. Lowe, in the House of Commons lately, by a happy allusion to Horace :

"Navibus atque

Quadrigis petimus bene vivere." We seek, that is, to carry on the government of India by means of cabs and river steamers.

But where the absurdity ends the mischief begins. It is no joking matter to leave India to the chapter of accidents, under a divided command; expeditions by sea and land have so often proved disastrous because the general had a will of his own and the admiral was as positive on his side. From Syracuse to Carthagena the effect of divided counsels has always been the same. It was so in the Roman armies, when two generals held alternate command. The generalissimo of the day had always an excuse for not taking thought for the morrow. So with the two Boards in Cannon-row and Leadenhall-street, responsibility could be bandied to and fro between them. Happily, no very serious decision rested with either during the progress of the mutiny. Except to despatch troops nothing could be done by the authorities at home. Yet even in that little matter there was room for some dissension of thought and conduct. Velis

et remis should have been the motto of both, whereas the Company chose sails and the Board paddles by which to transport succours to India. The balance of gain and loss has hardly been settled yet between the two, and probably never will, as we devoutly trust that the last despatch-box will make its last journey to the East-end before the mutiny is over, and the Double Government sink into the place of departed shadows, to consort with the HeptarchyConvocation, the Scotch Parliament, and the Irish Lord Deputy.

It is a curious feature of our free constitution, that whenever some part of it has served its time and is passing away under an irresistible law of progress, a hundred good reasons for retaining it start into notice for the first time. So opposed to each other are the useful and the ornamental, the practical and the plausible, that the time for show does not arrive till the time for service is over. Thus, the sea-shell becomes a mirror to the rainbow, after it has served its time as a tenement to the fish that lived and died in it. The romance of feudalism, in the same way, only began when the necessity for it had ended. Castles and keeps, drawbridges and moats grew picturesque in proportion as they were useless. The prisons of real life, when dismantled and ivygrown, become the palaces of fairy land. As with a stroke of an enchanter's wand, whatever time touches it beautifies; and things grown out of date and obsolete become first curiosities, then relics, and, in the last degree of all, models of beauty.

To transfer this law of æsthetics into the domain of politics, the strength of conservatism consists in this law of inverse proportion between the useful and the beautiful. A Minie rifle that hits the mark at a thousand paces, and an old cross-bow out of gear, are at the two extremes of the art of gunnery; but we hang up the one in our oaken halls. It could not carry a bolt across the room; but it carries our thoughts back to Cressy and Agincourt. Now, we wish to speak very respectfully of this organ of veneration. Without the conservative element the life of men and nations would progress but in vacuo. The back-water in a mill-wheel or paddle is a loss of power, but it is inseparable

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