The Press. — London, England, 1858-10-23 00:00:00

THE PRESS, OCTOBER 23, 1858. 1034 not its fast friends, yet from various motives are not pre pared to concur in its removal. Some, because they think it a better Government than the one which preceded it. Others, because they think it abetter Government than any which is likely to follow. Others again, because, though in mental vislon they forecast some form of Liberal re abmation, yet they know the time is not come. Others, because they think the Minister, who took office t' meet a real public emergency, ought to have fair play. And all these are taught by their common sense that they ought not to distress a Government which they are not prepared to remove. Thus it comes about that with four fifths of the House of Commons the Administration is strong for every practical purpose ; that it can rely on its allies as well as on its native troops ; that its m►litia sometimes rival its regulars. The favourable disposition thus induced in a large majority of the House of Commons towards an Administration which it might under other circumstances have regarded as obnoxious, was not long in being strengthened by the conduct of the new Ministers, and that in reference to matters of great importance in which Lord Pal merston had most signally failed. This point is so well put by the reviewer that we must once more let him state the case in his own words : The late Ministry stood in the main upon its foreign policy. It was once said to be a policy of vigour tempered with conciliation : it is now see❑ to have been a policy of arrogance, dashed and variegated with timidity. When the notorious Conspiracy Bill was produced, when the Walewski despatch met the light of day, England had to yawn and wink and stretch, to pass through all the stages of discomfort that lie intermediate between sleeping and waking, before she could understand what was really the matter, and learn the amount of shame she had suffered in the hands of what will perhaps after all he chiefly re membered as the braggart or Bobadil administration. When the facts wt re sufficiently verified and understood, it still seemed incredible that so quarrelsome a Government could have been dastardly otherwise than by accident. The surrender of our honour was therefore compassionately riewed as au isolated error committed in a moment of for getfulness. But this theory was almost still-born; for before it could gain currency, the case of Naples and the two imprisoned enginemen, \Vat t and Park, came full into the public gaze. For six or eight lung and dreary months had these unfortunate persons been learning by experience how justice is understood and administered in the kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and what was the value in those latitudes of English citizenship. This too they learnt while that very statesman was First Minister of the Crown, who, iu 1840, had vaunted, in defiance alike of prudence, of decency, and of public law, that he would empower the Englishman to clrry with him throughout the world the exceptional and domineering privileges of the citizen of Imperial Rome. But scarcely hal Lord !levity assumed the reins of power when IYatt and Park were set free, and their liber ation has since been followed up by the grant of the large sum of 3,000/. in compensation for their sufferings. Nor was the Sardinian portion of the case forgotten by the Administration. The Cagliari has long ago returned to Genoa. She is probably now again employed upon the errands of peaceful commerce, and the claim for an indemnity in respect of the detention of the shin and crew has been put in course of adjudication. This train of events has reflected a glare of dismal light upon the fo-eioi policy of the late Goveru.nent. It has now apo, ared that to such a condition of impotence and isolation were we re dnced, by the practice of premature demonstrations and imprudent menaces never meant to take effect, that, even for the most ordinary use, our resourcite had at last become paralyzed in our hands, and that the King of Naples could safely set England at defiance so long as England was content to be represented by the Palmer-ton Administra tion. The Case of the Cagliari, before February last, seemed to offer no choice, except on the one hand the humiliation of onr country, and, on the other, an Euro pean dilemma. Yet it required nothing in the world for its solution, except only the removal of that Government from offi e, which had miscalculated the relation between the cowardice of the Sovereign of Naples and its own. We regret that our limits will not permit us to follow the writer into his account of that memo rable episode of the history of last session, when a desperate attempt was made to dislodge the new Ministry before they should have time to establish themselves firmly in their position, and to place Lord Palmerston once more at the head of affairs. Happily, as the reviewer observes with great truth, " the recoil upon Lord Palmerston and " his friends was far heavier than even the oni " ginal downfall of February, while the effect " upon the assailed Administration was to draw " forth its spirit in self-defence, to hearten its " friends, to attract independent public sympathy " to its side, to renew and consolidate its title to 64 office, and, in a word, to send it on its way " rejoicing." How long that " rejoicing " may last, is another question ; one which., we agree with our writer in thinking, cannot fail to " suggest many sub " jects of grave and anxious reflection." To call attention to these is not an unfriendly act, nor is it, we need scarcely add, so intended either by the reviewer or by ourselves. It is, on the contrary, one of the most valuable services that can be rendered to Lord Derby's Government by its supporters, to direct the attention of Conservatives to the fact that there are " breakers ahead," and to induce, on the part of the public generally, a calm and careful consideration of the difficulties which, not Lord Derby's Government in particular, but any Government, of whomsoever composed, and by whomsoever led, will have to encounter at no distant day, in the present aspect of the British empire and of the world at large. We shall take them in the order in which they are discussed in the article before us, without pledging ourselves to all the opinions incidentally put forward by the reviewer, from some of which we decidedly dissent on what, did our limits admit of it, we could easily show to be valid grounds. First, there is the political condition of the great majority of the States on the continent of Europe. The severe repression which followed the frantic but ineffectual outbreaks in 1848, is, there is too much reason to fear, preparing the way for a renewal of similar spasmodic efforts for the attainment of liberty, and these, it is easy to foresee, can only end in anarchy. Even the case of France, where the system of repression has taken the most rational form, and has even succeeded in establishing itself upon a quasi popular basis, forms no exception from the state of uneasiness and insecurity which must ever attend on the substitution of force for the power of law, of despotism for freedom, in the govern ment of nations. Another and most serious feature in the present aspect of the European continent, and of France especially, is, that the recession of liberty is accompanied by the steady advance of Ultramontanism,—the Papacy, in alliance with the despotic Governments, having revived pretensions which, it had been thought, had long been snuffed out, even at the Vatican itself. How far this is from being the case, we need not, indeed, cross the Channel to convince ourselves. We have, from this and other kindred causes, domestic dangers to apprehend which, though passed over in silence by the reviewer, are anything but visionary or insigni ficant. We have, moreover—and on this point he dwells strongly and with good reason—serious elements, if not of danger, at least of difficulty, in our national finances, which, while they require adjustment on various points, do not, at present, hold out many facilities for dealing with them to the Minister put in charge of the public Exche quer. Ominously connected with the question of national finance, is the new phase into which the Government of India has entered, at a juncture singularly inauspicious. The war has, notwithstanding the vainglorious effusions in dulged in on this subject by some of our con temporaries, not yet been brought to a termina tion ; nor is it easy to say how long it may con tinue to demand from us fresh supplies of blood and treasure. Under these circumstances it is cer tainly not beyond the range of possibility that, " while continuing to call ourselves masters of " India, we should have to become in one pars " mount particular its slaves, by undertaking to " defend it at the charge of the British people." Next comes the question of Parliamentary Reform, which, in whatever way it may be eventually settled, will assuredly not be settled without considerable difficulty; were it only because there are parties who, while affecting to be most anxious for its settlement, do not in reality wish to see it settled, being naturally un willing to lose their political stock-in-trade. Lastly, the reviewer dwells, with great force, on the ugliest of all our prospective difficulties, the Turkish difficulty. On this subject we trans cribe the following remarks, embodying some useful truths not as generally understood as they deserve to be : It would be impossible adequately to describe within the space at our command the dangers of the Ottoman Empire. Suffice it to say that for the present, perhaps even for the future, Russian ambition, formidable as it i s , n ever th e l ess must be reckoned among the least of them. Unwieldy size, ill-defined and disputable relations to her own members, administration radically corrupt, finances long embarrassed and rapidly moving towards exhaustion, classes widely severed from, anti hopelessly exasperated with one another, the disproportionate distribution of the elements of power; all these would deserve a full consider ation. But greater, perhaps, than any of V.:ern is the risk which the Ottoman Power now runs of seeing arrayed against it the whole mass of smonldering Mahometan fanaticism. The so-called reforms, little es they hare done towards conciliating the Christians, have produced in the Mahometan mind a widely-spread conviction that the race of the Sultans is false to the Prophet and to his mission. Of this estrangement, and of the hatred arising out of it, twee may be found in the late proceedings in Arabia, where it is probable that actual want of power restrained the Turkish authorities from the prpmpt per. formance of their duty. Their hold on the country nominal : wife it otherwise, Our 0111 occupation of Me n could not be justified for a moment. Mecca is the great focus of Mahometan enthusiasm : and it would take little to excite such a revulsion in the Peninsula as would at once put an end to the shadow of Turkish rule by which it is at present overhung. It would be easy to add to this formidable cata logue of prospective difficulties. One of the most serious of them, not noted by our writer, is the impending conflict of religious opinions ; th e concessions already made with the view of avert ing it having only added fresh fuel to the fire, while the principle—thoroughly unsound and fallacious—of banishing religious opinions alto gether from the sphere of politics, has introduced an additional element of discord. But on this topic we will not now dwell. Our object in the foregoing remarks has been simply to call attention to what is, on the whole, a masterly outline of the new complexion given to British politics at home and abroad by the downfall of Lord Palmerston and the accession to power of Lord Derby ; and we, therefore, pass on, at once, to another article of the Review, from no less able a pen, on a subject which, in its turn, though on grounds widely different, has a strong claim upon public atten tion—the state and prospects of high art in this country. The circumstance which appears to have sug gested this valuable paper, on an important branch of national education in the highest sense of the term, is the proposed publication, by the Arundel Society, of " a series of copies in colour of the most important frescoes of Italy, as comprising " the greatest works of the greatest masters " nursed in that cradle of Christian art, and " more especially as illustrating the highest " object and aim af painting, when forming, as " in its best period, an essential part of architec " tural decoration." With a view to induce, on the part of the public, a due appreciation of the service which the Society is thus about to render, the writer of an essay on " Fresco-painting" gives a brief but comprehensive and withal highly interesting sketch of the history of that noble art from its first rise in the thirteenth to its decline in the sixteenth century, interspersed with notices of some of the most valuable remains of the works of the great masters, of their present condition, and of the measures taken for the pre servation of such as have survived, wholly or in part, the Vandalism of modern times. Nothing, indeed, could afford a stronger or a more lament able proof of the degradation into which Italy has sunk, as well as of the extinction of all high religious feeling, under the withering in fluence of the roped= than the barbarous neglect with which these glorious monuments of national greatness and of Christian art are treated. The progress of this simultaneous decadence of religion and taste is thus graphically portrayed by the writer:— When the deep religious feeling of the middle ages, that union of child-like faith with an earnest impatience of the vices anal power of priestcraft—the Dantesque of Catho licism—gave way to an uninquiring pietism and a cowardly resignation to priestly authority, the nimble brush of the academies swept over the solemn, heartfelt outpourings of the early masters, leaving in their stead theatrical groups of muscular apostles and anatomic saints, happily, fur.the most part, invisible in varnish and chiaroscuro. Neat succeeded the age of whitewash, when a large portion of mankind seem suddenly to have been seized with the one idea that all that is not white is dirt. Then the " operaio " of the south, like his fellow the churchwarden of the north, with the lime-pail in one hand and a broom in the other, restored the walls disfigured by old pictures and "rubs di Giotto," in which popes, monks, and kings were not alw a y s treated with the highest respect and consideration , to a virgin purity more befitting the morals and taste of the times. Lastly, the foreign invader and occupier of Italy still quarters his soldiery and stables his horses in the de secrated church and convent. wantoning in the destruction of what little may remain of their priceless monuments. A few noble old frescoes, that, by their almost divine beauty, may have stayed the hand of even the Italian de stroyer, gradually yielded to the ladder and nails of the sacristan and the carpenter. Who that has wandered in the highways and byways of Italy has not watched the preparation for a " feats "? Garlands of flowers and green boughs stretching across the street, and the perfume of bay leaves, trampled under the feet of a listless crowd, in vite you through the curtained doorway of a neighbouring church. The solemn chant of evening vespers, rising from the dark choir Lehind the high altar, is well nigh lost in the clatter of the hammer. The rays of the falling sun stream through the jewelled windows upon gorge"' hangings of crimson silk embroidered with gold, trailing upon the filthy pavement. Workmen hurry oboe with tinkling chandeliers, &nil acolytes with lags of fragrant lilies and roses. The ponderous ladders are raised 'Pm" tb• painted aisles, and huge nails are driven in with re. asorseless hinds. Flakes of yielding Pilleter" 12 111"ers an eat tie lee at a- sst he he t- .e, id - ed ;is en le, on ad he re, of !ct ly p- his Lch the del the ng ers Lnd est as ee- on the er, yes ly- art 'tie ith of ent re- in nt- al a y ll in- -3119 of ed. of r e d Jut the ho• ly the of mpg the