The Press. — London, England, 1853-05-07 00:00:00

MP THE PRESS. 12 PROBATIONARY ODES.—No. I. CMS ROMANI:B SUM.—Lonl Puhnerhton on the Greek• Debate. Black as black Morton (11, near a hap( ier Queen, Lo! where he fawns—Athenian Aberdeen ; Athenian. but not Attic ! There were known Two NeXCA in the Poseidon' town ; And the strung words of her Ilistiaian (11 tell What Byron knew, who knew that Athens well ; How the best woman is the one. when dead. Of whom least good, least evil. may be said ; Upon whose broken tombs may still be seen The bits and bridles of their diseipline. What, thou of Athens ! Yes. as then they were 'rho old, old. women vegetating there. Say, wouldst thou choose some loftier rank than theirs. Some sign less abject than their grave declares ? 'There all in vain. where can thy likeness be, Thou mighty Cipher, all without a key ? Yet stay—yes. 1 hle there was S4S epieene, A ruler tame almost as Aberdeen. Our first Scotch King. who had to boast like thee His Spanish match, his Scotch theology cti, And who, for Peace (4). bore England's fortunes down Their lowest depths, till thou 'lntl thine were known — Thou and thy Oinslons. I )id not Guizot swear That Britain still should know his patriot care ; While o'er the navies of our Nelson's isle Dark Gordon 01 smiled as only he could smile ; And Randier as died and cursed that trick ((i ), Learnt at thy foreign hands. Caesarean Metternieh? Oh, fair green glades, ye pleasances of Eu, Where cyst the Cruises plotted, robbed, and slew, Who has not beard of Mal** a tale of crime In your soft shades in legendary time? Alas ! that we should match them ! Ow sweet face Through a white wimple looks with tearful grace, And pale despair and sorrow-preseient eyes In an old frame from out pair galleries. The Mary-martyr blessed and damned by fame, The fitirest bearer of the Virgin's name. Methinks, to a Scotch heart, that wan pale look Might vouch a truth as true as a Blue Book ; Breathing a protest in its young remorse Against the curse of marriages by force. Sot so, not so ! A Seotchman, by a Ogee'. (By him unfelt the mor a l of tilt. scene) Bade her betray a sister-sovereign's And flung a maiden in a eretise'h arms. WlO4 HONOUR then all tied? and was then. none To brand the deed, albeit the deed was done? Hoxoun to thee, Great Britain's Valmerston ! Thou wert too late; but after times shall say, When dotards sold a virgin's hand away. One Voice was raised in chivalrous disgust. At a child's choice, constrained. 'twixt impotence awl lust. What 'nattered it the Thane? [low should he care, When Onixot called him "glint " and Philippe " cher." Or al ccelleut? Aye, most exeelling when. For nothing gained, he sold to Orleans Spain ! Forbearing Mug! if, with his happier wile. Ile had but asked for vitehting White's fair isle, tlis guest would only have made one reply— Yes—No—Nay, " Yes!" Yes—haply—bye and bye. (To he (Instituted.) M. P. (I) If even,' Englishman is a (iris IhtUaNt . n, Lord Palmerton, with stattnummllhe forethought, probabl) had in his mind both a %wain cud a prophecy. Ilk sifter est Wm. ht RnMANt: reieeto. (2) Timey.ll.lo.l. (1) The prenatat suite of Alasolutint Spain will best illustrate what Lord Aberdeen ling effected by his "Spanish match." ills atwitipt at theologieal legislation In rivotlitiol re,oiltell in the most memorable religions secession ever known Ili. re. the disastrous results %%Melt it could he impossible to exaggerate. Posterity will feel them when the 4 . o:tlition Ministry shall long have been forgotten. (4) James I, watt caricatured going down a flight of steps carrying a moil representing the three kingdoms in his hand, a *Tell issuing from Ida Ino.lttls, with the one Word, as It %int his one Idea, " Peace." (6) Thle gentleman was a Peelite Lord of the Admiralty at the time. lie attends Lord Derby's meetings; but always voter with the tioverinuent, enrrpt when they are strong enough to 41,1 without him. (6) Sir James Viridian' underwent all the ohlonny of op.• • those letters while). cost the Itandlems their lives. lint it is notorious that it was at the instances of Austria and Naples, and through Lord Aberdeen** influence, that the plot was diseovered 111111 beirilyea, Which resulted in their imprisonment mud death. SATURDAY, exposed you to the charge of exclusiveness, that atoned in discipline and compactness for your want of numerical force. The enthusiasm is vanished—the connection is broken—the discipline is gone. What and where arc the Whigs now? Your history itself seems to ceasc— you are merged into a section of your former opponents —you are subordinates in a cabinet from which the name of 1% hig is excluded— your ancient badge is exchanged for a shred from the mantle of the dead chief who in life most derided your pretensions, most damaged your reputation ;—and who, even when accepting your opinions, shrunk pointedly from all thought of your alliance. Twice did Sir Robert Peel pass into your camp a deserter from his own forces, but in neither case an associate with yours. He did but seize upon your weapons to pile them up as trophies for himself. And perhaps all his hostilities never so injured the Whigs as when he appropriated, to en large. the measures he had before resisted. and showed the practical people of England that he alone could perfinin what you, the Whigs, had in vain attempted to do. Nay, even when on the abolition of the corn laws he assigned to each associate in his victory the due propor tion of merit, so eager was his desire to disparage your earnestness, and cast a slur on your own claims to popular gratitude. that, with all his habitual abhorrence to extra-forensic agitation, he gave the lion's share of conceded praise to the Orator of the League. And yet it is to the special followers of your most illustrious enemy that you now post pone all your claims of two centuries, not participating on equal terms in the 'polio opinot,—and consenting to erase the very name of Whig from the cornerstone of the Government, to cement the founda tion of which you fritter your own masonry into splints and rubble. And what do you gain by an alliance in which you figure not as con• federate potentates, but as dependent auxiliaries? It is in vain to boast of the sacrifices of patriotism—of the necessities of carrying on the Queen's Government—Government in which your two most distinguished leaders actually hold no official appointment ! From the list which includes each scattered subaltern of Peel are cashiered the men who had formed the first ranks of your phalanx. The thoughtful mind of Lord Grey—the ready vigour and force of his cousin. Sir George—the finan cial reputation of Baring—the earnest intelligence of Labouchere—the liberal accomplisments and exquisite temper of Carlisle—the wit and the courage of Clstmicarde—the business-like abilities of Seymour— the scholarship awl moderation of Vernon Smith—the immense erudi tion and dazzling eloquence of Macaulay—are severed from the sides of those who serve as subordinates to Gladstone. True, Macaulay's ab negation is voluntary—can you say the same of the rest? Why these exclusions of your own natural officers, except that they have been too much identified with the memory of your past battles ; and in the eyes of your new associates their sears are not the tokens of honour, but the excuse for dismissal from service ? But the Queen's Government must be carried on. True ; but how, and by whom? The nation is divided between two great parties, that of the Movement, commonly called the Radical, and that composed of the supporters of the policy which characterized the short Government of Lord Derby. Between these two great divisions of the electoral body there are noble intermediators I grant, men whose sublime duty it may be to grasp with firm hand the balance of opposing parties. But it it clear that no mere junction of petty sections can obtain what is the first requisite of a Government—a strength of numbers sufficient to carry its measures. But neither of these parties do you gain—neither of them do you conciliate in your fusion with politicians equally dis severed from both. You win the Conservative tiladstone, but not the Conservatives—you win the Radical Alolesworth, but not the Radicals You rally round you no popular sympathies when you invest all your political capital in the precarious speeulation of a Peelite Cabinet. Look to the last general election. What men less popular then than the Peelites. despite their unquestionable talents? Peel himself was a name that carried with it the affection and trust of' an immense pro portion of the electoral class. I grant this most fully ; but to his in dividual memory alone the popular attachment confines itself. How many men in the House of Commons can be called Peelites ? Are there forty ? So. then, in this fragment from the main Conserva tive body—without popular prestige, without electoral influence, without definite policy—you, the Whigs, to whom Lord Grey be queathed the government of England. while not one opposing litigant had resources sufficient to contest your title—you, the Whigs, at last sink your identity and vanish out of sight ! So thus do the organs of the Government which your leaders help to compose emphatically style it the Conservative—so thus the very title of Whig is ignored as a thing past and obsolete. And the highest com pliment the Premier can pay to your veteran chief is to assure the startled public that my Lord .Tohn Russell is—Conservative! Is this a position that can flatter the ,just pride of party? And is this the Be All and the End All of the descendants of Somers and Wal pole? Is the position—if you grant it undignified—wholly the fault of the accomplished and practised chief to whom the conduct of your party was consigned in the Commons when Lord Althorp was lost amongst the Peers ? If his be the fault. it arises from no defect in the inherent qualities which command admiration anti justify power. To a name to which history has given a blazon beyond all the or and ozor of heralds Lord John Russell united an intellect refined by letters, and invigorated by practical life Consummate in the usual tactics of party—..ourteous to opponents, if somewhat indifferent to fiiends—rising On legitimate occasions to an eloquence ennobled by generous sentiments. and entitled by a various knowledge, Lord Johns just pretensions to be the leader of gentlemen, and the expo nent of party opinion, were never denied, save by the mutinous follow ers who sat at his rear, only with more effect to assail him from behind. Where, then. NV:!' his titult. when we ask "What has become of the mighty party that passed to his guidance?" It seems to me simply this, that he never comprehended the true ground he should occupy, nor the directions in which he should advance. For the last twenty TO THE WHIGS. GENnEmEx,—Whatever praise or whatever l'enSilre attilell to the name it was once your boast to assume, the name itself is so identified with the History of England, that we have a right to ask why it has disap peared from our records? Hitherto you have l►een an essential element in that collision of opinion from which flash all the political truths that enlighten statesmen and save nations. Even at the period in which your numbers were reduced to the lowest—exiled from the Court, and alienated hem die People—the genius of your leaders sustained the enthusiasm of Party. It is enthusiasm alone that gives flesh and blood to the skeletons of abstract opinion : and the devotion of the genial patricians who gloried to call themselves the friends of Fox carried on that hereditary affection of clanship which bound you to gether, and which ultimately enabled you, in the enactment of the Reform Bill, to obtain the renown and to reap the rewards which belong to the successful arbiters between rival classes and conflicting passions. It was this close and firm connection, however justly it