The Press. — London, England, 1853-06-11 00:00:00

JUNE 11, 1853. Y,ittraturt. The Castlereagh. Despatches. Marquis of Londonderry. London : Murray. The Grenville Correspondence. Vols. 111. and IN. Edited by W. J. Smith, Esq. London : Murray. The Court and Cabinets of George the Third. By the Duke of Buckingham, h.Cx. London : Hurst and Blackett. The Letters of Lord Chesteiyield. Vol. V. Edited by Lord Mahott. hoodoo : Bentley. ANNALS (IF ' , Awry. Wit: of the most remarkable fashions of the day is the practice of publishing domestic records, and contributing materials to the his torian from private archives. A list of the family papers printed within the last dozen years would be as prolix as the heads of a speech by Mr. Gladstone, if not quite as prosaic as a peroration from Sir Charles Wood. The causes of this new aristocratic fashion arc various ; some noble persons wish to defend the memory of their relatives; others feel justifiable pride in recording the deeds of that "proud aristocracy," sneered at, indeed, by . Sir Robert Peel, when he tied from it in dan ger, but manfully honoured for " the memory of its immortal services" in that Edinburgh letter which daunted the heart of the Great Revolver as much as the shout that hailed O'Connell's election for Clare in '29. The cen sorious may think that a fondness to see their names in print might have influenced some of these noble publishers. The weakness is par donable, and those who are the first to sneer would be the very first to print if they had famous forefathers. Pride of pedigree is no mere Vanity-fair pattern traced by.the subtle spirit of aristocracy upon the porcelain of society. The eye, trained to observation, can see it every where in the world's dell. A regard for those who have gone before us is a human instinct, not a conventional habit. It inspires the savage, as he wanders in his desert solitudes, and wrings tears and untutored poetry from the Indian chief, as he stands where the bones of his sires are safe from the winter's flood, and the white man's rage. The two great historians of the last century were influenced 1y this heart -stirring instinct, and Hume and Gibbon, sconces at the religion of the Cross, were believers in the charm attendant on a far descended name. Thus Franklin loved to trace his descent for two hundred years through a line of mechanics, whose various characters he has recorded ; and Bishop Watson, who was no " Conservative Democrat," en deavours in his memoirs to give his family all the consequence that facts would permit. " They never look forward to posterity who do uot look backward to t heir ancestors," was the opinion of one of the profoundest of commen tators upon the human heart. We allude to this taste for publishing family papers in order to explain to our readers why we are compelled to ask their attention to so many works on personal and political history. Essayists may choose their subjects as they please, but reviewers must attend to the lite rary "actuality" of the age. The state of our library-table attests the simultaneous publica tion of works relating to the Grenvilles and the Pitts—the Foxes and the Rockinghams. There is a fifth volume on Chesterfield from Lord Mahon, that pleasing if not profound his torian ; and here are the last of the vast pile of the Castlereagh Despatches, compiled in twelve volumes by the M a rquis of London Berry, that gallant defender of a brother's fame, which History one day will honourably acknowledge. Our private information brings rumours of various similar works, and we begin to think, " How are we to provide for them all, and give variety to the readers of the PRESS'?" We feel almost as alarmed as a hapless younger brother of our acquaintance, when it was announced to him by the tittering doctor that, for the third time, his " dear little Emily" had presented him with twins! Since Tonjours perdri.e is as tiresome at t he reading-desk as at the diulier-table, we will THE PRESS. Edited by the Third Series. call in the resources of Art to give flavour and variety to our literary repasts. Order and me thod are necessary to simplify our study of the "Annals of Party," for the complete his tory of which we have been lately receiving such copious materials. To characterise the particular merits of these contributions we must classify them, by an arrangement founded on historical events, and the ruling principles of our British society. PARTY, in a parliamentary sense, dates from the seventeenth century. Its arelneology we leave to the pedants, and we content ourselves by saying that the Tories and Whigs existed long before they were thus baptised. and, in stead of dating those great confederacies from the times of Halifax and Shaftesbury, we see their aspirations iu the thoughts and actions of Falkland and Hyde upon the one s ide, o f Hampden and Pym upon the other. The Re volution of I6ss authenticated the grand com• mission of Party to advise the Crown, to guide the Senate, and INSPIRE the PRori.v.. Since King William, in laBB, acting in concert with the Whigs and Tories, extinguished the con spiracy of Arbitrary Power at home with Popery abroad, the annals of Party may be classified under five distinct ems. I. (From 16$$ to 1748.) The En. atilt' CHANGE Of DYNASTV.—AII the politics of that time were potentially affected by the great European question, whether the Stuarts were to be sup ported in their pretensions to the crown of England ? By the treaty of Aix-ht -Chapelle, in 1748, France bound herself to abandon the Stuarts ; that fated house receiving its final blow from a Regent Orleans, au ominous mune in the history of dynasties! " 168$ " became an acknowledged fact, and momentous conse quences upon which a world still holds de bate were involved. King William and Marl borough were the men of action of the period ; Churchill gloriously achieved what the Prince of Orange had gallantly designed. Walpole was its greatest minister, Bolingbroke* its most brilliant representative. The groat .taco bite question being settled, a new age com menced. 11. The ERA of FACTION, from 1748 to the American War.—As compared with the former and subsequent periods, in this age politics turned on smaller principles. Office was con• founded with power; there was neither the poetry of Jacobite sentiment, nor the profundity of the dynastic question, and men did not live for history. Ambition was stunted to a shrub like growth, with one splendid exception. Like a forest-tree in a suburban garden, the Great Commoner towered: standing under his vast shadow, we look up and admire, but, gazing cireumspeetively, we cry with Popo, " Lo! what huge beeps of littleneu around !" 111. The ERA of the AMERICAN WAR, termi nating with the Peace of Paris in 1783.—ti cal The colonial di ffi culty was started ; the prac problem of external empire wits mooted, falla cious principles were applied, and the solution was therefore unfortunate. The Crown had not competent advisers ; Lord North, a first rate wit, was a second-class statesman ; the genius of Chatham was clouded by illusions of the mind. Still, England was only defeated, not disgraced ; for a purer light had began to be shed upon our politics, its Burke, the phi losopher of that era and the prophet of the next, rose over our imperial horizon, at once to dazzle and to guide. IV. The ERA of ENtiLlsll EMPIRE, commencing with tlw Ministry of the younger Pitt, termi nating with Waterbio.—ln Parliament this was the time of Pitt and Fox ; in Empire it was signalised by the conquest of India being se cured and prodigiously enlarged ; in English politics a new school of NATIONAL. TORYISM was founded by Pitt, Commerce went to Court, and the trading classes, sick of Fox and the jargon of faction, turned Tories, and cheered for Ships, Colonies, and Connnerce"—the watch words of the greatest Prime Minister that the world ever saw. Peaceful times appeared at hand, and the reign of the Third of the English Oeorges promised to rival the days of Anto lines. But a fell spirit of impassioned demo- • When Burke, in the Itetleetionn on the Revlution," P I•luite " Who reads ltolinglaroke now r" he is referring to id% infidel writings. 311.101))*sirs 114 .linglooke was as aupei fiend NS he wax profound upon polities. He was the Ant to eYetewo' tine aud c%l'oWiti the l'hilue"PhY of party. 135 eracy, springing from the relaxed morals and voluptuous ideas of tho eighteenth century, was even then brooding over Europe. Mira bean's text, " La earriere vulvae aux Wens," was the word of ):ranee—and that word was mis interpreted and exaggerated by myriads of frenzied revolutionists. And let Philosophy mark how the English minister of Order, the French missionary_ of Anarchy, issued the same watchwords. What different works were done with these similar mottoes ! ! The English word worked for social purposes, and the aim of the labourers was to raise. not to level ; the French mot appealed to personal vanities and the ephemeral MO rations of self-love. In England the adven turing talent of the country is associated with our old and free institutions. The class which numbers the ISeymours with their far descended glory, and all the Howard% with their virtues, and the Stanleya with their puis sant spirit, and the Cavendishea with their splendour, and the bright, courtly Villierses , and the many famous families whose names are blazoned in the nation's history—that dabs of the proud peers of England is open to the learning of lawyers who imitate a St. Leonard's, —to heroes who will take a Harding° for a model. Hereditary titles (and " the wreath of laurel would not be worth the wear if it were not evergreen") can be won by the tongue of the orator, the toil of th e senator, the sword of the brave, and the dignified industry of great merchants, like the llarings. Our temple of British glory is placed on an eminence, steep is the ascent and toilsome the path. aria' panting mediocrity faints half way, while merit, murmuring " Nurse) corda," gains the " cloud cap't tower," and is welcomed by the sweet echo that hails him who perseveres. Against none is the gate of honour elosed in o ur free monarchy , renting on its open aristocracy. Patrician pride oilers its sparkling t wonet to untitled beauty, and a descendant of the Crusaders requires no prouder rank in the partner of his human than that of au •• English Lady." The providence of English history approvingly smiles upon our Saxon respect for woman. It gave us Elizabeth, the heroine of the liteformation. and the protectress of England ; it encircled Anne with the starry radiance of her Augustan age ; and, in our times, how su blime is the sight, in an age of toppling thrones, quaking republics, and runaway Popes, to view the MAiEt4TT of ENGLAND walk fiwth unguarded, hailed bv peoples acclaim, as the Sun-burst in the Heavens signalises VICTORIA'S progress, whit,' illumining her flower-strewn path ! In that era of empire the British monarchy reposed upon a society of freemen, animated with the ennobling and conservative morals that spring from " the spirit of religion and the spirit of a gentleman." Our Constitution stood because it had both—the French Alonarehy fell because it had neither. Let the lesson be graven in our hearts, for now, as then, the democracy of Europe, unbaptised iu Christianity, and unchastened by historical spirit, swelters in selfishness, and, while bawl. ing for "the greatest happiness of the greatest number," counts that greatest number " number one." t In those days Freud+ demo cracy kindled into a blaze the boarded discontents of Europe, and the incendiary spirit of the time became inearnate, as the earth travailed, when NAPOLEON—" a hero and a calamity " —ap vear ed amongst mankind. His armless, " living to fight, fou d ght to live nt an d marched over a subjecte eontine . The nations wondered, trembled , and bowed down to worship him, with tal exeeption. England never bent the knee: with uncowering soul and 114.111 . . Slone and unaided, she went forth to the tremer - dolls encounter, while the world looked on. It was an age of marvels, and foreino‘t amongst them were the strangely true miracles wrought by nu Englishman in Spain. From the rocks of Torres Vedras, with his sword pointed towards Paris, Arthur Wellesley bade the surging tide -.of French invasion roll bark its wares, Hal THE WAVES DID SIMI. HAI'S, and on that retiring flood Souh, and Suehet, and Massena, and many 11101 c beside, were all swept, vea! beyond the peaks of the Pyrenees • "Tie Q 11 1 ,1114 We11111.•1' " )10% t“ +sir E.lwnrd Ilulvicr ttmi's ,•..m.“1) ot i