The Press. — London, England, 1853-10-22 00:00:00

OCTOBER 22, 1853. SKETCHES OF RADICALS. 4. THE RADICAL IIIsTORIAN. I HATE little doubt that my maulers must have remarked with me an artful feature of Radical tactics—now (like other artful features) getting rather overdone. I allude to the productions for the people," histories "for the people," songs for the p eo ple, - d own t o shirts "for the people," and there is no saying what. The amiable object of all this is to effect a thorough separation between classes, to imprcas on the masses the idea that their interest is one and that of the upper class another. A body of busybodies work at this objeet in a thousand ways, and then raise a complaint that. the upper class don't sympathise with the many ! The knowing fellows themselves. mean while, take right good care that no sympathy shall exist that they can prevent. Now these, like all mankind, have a tendency to picture in the past their own ideas and affections. History, to most people, is a great grandmother's looking-glass, in which, however antique the object, you see your own face ! And hence we have " Histories for the People," " Popular History of King-craft' " The Oligarchy in Time," " The British Aristocracy, a Picture," by Ribald Mumps, Esq., and so on, eul nauseam, and further ! I shall fling together a few remarks On the general characteristics of this school in the present paper. The great and leading feature of such a history is naturally the measuring of all past time by the present standard of things. A kind of civilisation and " enlightenment" (which is inure knowing than deep) spreads itself over the surface of the world ; and, by the notions of good, easy, trading people in towns, the historian tries the Middle ages, the Crusades, the Church, the gentlemen of Queen Elizabeth's time, and similar phenomena. His favourite illustration is " light " the " light" of knowlege, diffusion of " light." Now, to adopt his image, I admit the enormous increase in the consumption of mutton fat dips ; but I deny that we have any more of the sun than our ancestors. In plain language, we have largely improved in material comforts; but in downright manhood and nobility of character, in great-heartedness, reverence, and such qualities, the advance is not SO apparent. But you know the Radical historian must insist on the ad vance—must calumniate the past. And why? Because the past is full of Government, full of Kings, and Aristocrats, and Churches. To pull down the present institutions he must assail their history. Ile wishes to try everything by the nineteenth-century standard, the growths of fifteen centuries by the notions of one. Radicalism Proper is the negation of history. I have heard and read schemes of abolition and uprooting—about as sensible as it would be, if you thought your chimney smoked, to pull it down ; and (to adopt an image which I in tend to stick in the ribs of Hawker) schemes of reform on a par with an old proposal to clean the chimney by sending a live goose down a ln fact, we must, by degrees, induce the Radical to remember that the institutions of Europe are a gradual unconscious growth from a thousand forces, a FOREST, my dear Rugby, where you may lop, if required, hero and there, but which you must not with remorseless axe reduce to stumps for enlightened orators to harangue upon. One notion I remember I used to derive from the " great work of Bugby" was, that a piddle merlin!, had once been held in which our ancestors appointed a king, nobles, priests, divided time country into shares, and, after giving a vote of thanks to the chairman (at respectable Saxon of the middle class), returned to their ordinary occupations. This was the Bugbeian ideal. And how had that charming form of life been broken in upon ? By the machination of the aristocrat, was the stern answer of Rugby. 1 need scarcely say that the further inquiry I have made the less I have believed in the Bugbeian ideal. The notion of that historian is curiously at variance with anything that can be gathered front the Palgraves and Kembles. To expose the Normans to the hatred of the nod.), our friend and his party absurdly concocted an ideal out of the Saxon period—when masses of his friends were in the position of Uncle Tom—when you could have killed Rugby's ancestor, at a rate of compensation much lower than that of one of the " governing classes." However, there remains to him the consolation of asserting that the nobility got uppermost by "brute force." " Brute force, sir !" says he. " But, my dear Rugby, all over Europe, how small the body in com parison !" " They had the arms," grunts Rugby. " How the deuce did they get the arms? Push it where you will, people must have behered in them somehow." " Bodily bulk," says the laconic II " But what if in the early development of races mental and physical energy go together? Charlemagne, William the Norman, Robert the Bruce, were each men of the highest bodily advantages ; yet I will venture to say they haul each of them some brains!" Here the name of William makes our friend furious : he hates William ; yet he makes a fuss about our organisation, our " blue books." Where is there a blue book to compare with " Domesday" ? 589 A history written from the point Of view I have been illustrating is not a cheerful performanee. Neither the life nor the tote of old times is to be found in it ; and it is contradicted by arehiteeture, by ballads, and by the tnulitionary feeling of the country. What a gloomy picture to see a middle-aged gentleman of commercial ten &mica taking the Plantagenets to task, like a police magintrate examining the noisy youth about town, of last night, and judging of everything about an age aeeording to the imports ! When we ask for the moral upshot of the Elizabethan age, we are told that they had not forks to use. Who doesn't approve of forks? 01 101 01 I have known a Reformer show a disagreeable preference for the use of the knife at times); but, thankfully acknowledging the use of every prong, 1 must put in a plea, for the heroes of the time, and its energetic noble life, too. In the same way, why make such a fuss about the tournaments, hawkings, fierce sports, and the rest of it ? . . . These old gentlemen overflowed with life and energy, in their play us in their serious pursuits. That comparative indifference to suffering even is by no means so terrible to a thinker as to a mere agitating jabberer! When life was universally hardier, pain was a less regarded thing, too; and when did the bum% shrink from his sham of it, my moat philosophical of Radicals? Do I scorn a comfortable arm-chair? Am I indifferent to cheap sugar—penny postage—the Ostend boat —and the Timex newspaper at breakfast? Far from it. lint shall 1 therefere admit Rugby to be the equal of Sir John Chanties? I wish him, only, to 44, a little more justice to Sir John Chandos, and to the ancestors of that distinguished gentleman and his friend,. Europe had many things to do lwfore it could produee cheap sugar, penny postage, the Times newspaper at breakfast, and an enlightened Rugby! Races had to find their places ; orders of men to be shaken into order ; land parcelled out on p4 , rinanent principles; Parliament constituted ; laws fixed ; life reduced into harmony, unffer the name of manners." From Alfred and Charlemagne to Sidney and Raleigh, the nobles of Europe took the kill in this. The scowl of Mawker, announcing dud " the whole thing is exploded now," must not terrify us,—may pobsibly call forth some observations on the sub ject by-and-bye. THE PRESS. MR. GLADSTONE AS "lIIIACUS." Ms. CluinsToNE at. Manchester described the Ottoman empire as " P. political solecism "—" roa sovereignty full of anomaly, tall el misery. and full of difficulty." On the following Wednesday his particular organ had no fur forgotten its cue as to give utterance to the follow • ing :—" No one supposes that dechmstions agniumt Turkey are mere " literary exercises, or *withered expressions of grief for the painful " necessity of lighting On the same side with imigans and savages. All " the tinnles against the Turks are intended to lead to the belief " that it is justifiable, even at the cost of national interest, to break " faith at the last momont with the Infidel. Hue !Myas relit" On the following slay it compared a performer of this sort to the " false witness " who helped Ahab to tho portion of Naboth' the Jeireelite. We will not accompany it into its seriptunil analogies, but content ourselves with its first similitude for the benefit of the CliAsetmi.oa o f the Ex cimorEtt, for we now discover that, putting amide the wisdom, there is alt extraordinary resemblance between Mr. lil.tlneinN E 111111 7 lytotem. If Ulysses, for instance, had found himself ut Nlatiehestm he would have realised, as of old, the cave of the Cyclops, and, like Mr. Lximiroxr., would hays) endeavoured to put out the solitary eye it pONSMICS, possibly with some implement consecrated to " peace." Like Ulysses, Mr. lii.AoKrosa had to 1111 ace a fresh start in life, by appropriating some of the linen of the Whig Alcinous while it was at the wash. Like Ulysseb, he has had to propitiate certain mild-eyed Lotus-caters in the shape of Oxford Tractarians. Like Ulysses, ut ono time he had to stop his ears with cotton, to prevent his hieing c o nverted into excellent Berkshire baron. Like Ulysses, he has a discerning Euryclea in the Provost of Oriel, and a faithful hound in Ponw Moto:. Like Ulysses, he has had to dispose of inconvenient suitors ; like Ulysses, he has exhibited no great talents for converting dm Calypso IS or soy other stwrict4 of stock its the Si Mai Seam. Again. like Ulysses, his greatest aptitude is for soft-sawslering townwounril- Melt with as little care for the scope of his arguments as for the speedy conclusion of his eccentric wandering-. For 1114 undefined course he may appropriate the linos, conceived in the true spirit of . his original:— " It may lie we shall tutu+ the Happy 11.104, Anil mate with great Sir Wawa Omen we knew; It may be that the gulfs will welds is% •li.au" which last is na an improbable fate for an lthacus who, notwithstand ing his nautical experience, hati committed hituseli to each a crazy craft ae the Coalition.