The Press. — London, England, 1858-01-30 00:00:00

Martineau, who elucida tes some of the quell connected with them, but is hardly in position to pronounce a decisive judgment. The year 1799 brings us to the epoch of Wellesley, of the Mahratta war, the tore mutiny, and his " Subsidiary System" latter of which is well explained in the following remarks, though we by no means ltend to endorse them all: Subsidiary system was a system of permanent with the States of India, by which England was to i a military force to each, and to control all State Airs (except such as related to the royal family) through Resident—the expense of both these institutions being ^by the State thus assisted. Lord Wellesley's policy use every occasion on which we were compelled, in prudence or humanity, to interfere with an Indian e, to render that State subservient to English rule, preserving its native court, religion, and customs. his method all violence to native feelings and habits avoided; the sovereign remained a visible object of ancient homage, and the name of independence re ined. The thing was gone, assuredly ; but no method Id have preserved it amidst the corruption and humilia , in which every State was sunk ; whereas destruction war and famine was thus averted. It is enough to say in the way of comment, that India has since been repeatedly at peace from end to end, for the first time in history ; that the non-Mussulman portion of the inhabi tants (seven eights of the whole at this time) have be come more anti more attached to our rule; that industry, security, and comfort (backward as they still are) have advanced almost as marvellously as the expansion cf our frontier; and that the revenue increased at once, in Lord Wellesley's own term, by his system and his financial reforms together, from seven to fifteen millions. • • • • • The first object was to enable all the States with which we had relations to keep their engagements with as ; and this implied at the moment excluding the French from those States, and precluding wars among the respective rulers. Such was the aim. The result was giving us virtual possession of the Carnatic, the Nizain's dominions, the Peishwa's territory, and *he kingdom of Oude. Thus much was done before continual opposition from home induced Lord Wellesley first to relax in his policy, and then to leave his great scheme unfinished. Lord Wellesley was succeeded by Lord Corn wallis again, who lived but a short time, and was replaced by Lord Minto in 1807. In the period of his rule the north-western provinces and Central India were brought into some degree of order; but the commercial affairs of the Company had declined, while war still went on—the Ghoorkas in Nepaul and the Pindarries were successively subdued. Under Lord Moira (afterwards Lord Hastings), the next viceroy, began the Burmese war, which lasted till 1826, and ended in the annexation of Assam and the Tenasserim coast. Between 1823 and 1835 there were twelve years of peaceful administration, under Lord Hastings, Lord Amherst, and Lord William Bentinck— the first of whom reformed and modified the revenue system, and the latter abolished Suttee and Thuggee. The period from 1835 to 1842 is characterised as the " beginning of an external policy "—when Lord Auckland sought to anticipate, by the occupation of Cabul, the expected invasion from the Persian and Russian quarter ;—a measure whose dis astrous results there is no need to recall. But to counterbalance the retreat through Affghan istan came the settlement of Scinde under Sir Charles Napier, which has done such good service at the present day. Further than this, in a merely historical review, we need not go. The administrations of Lord Ellenborough, Lord Hardinge, and Lord Dalhousie, if not fresh in every one's recollection, have been sufficiently debated elsewhere to excuse us from entering into matters which we have no space to mention, much less to discuss. We may conclude by recommending Miss Martineau's first chapter, to which we have not had occasion to allude, but which contains an abler sketch of the physical geography of India than is to be found elsewhere in so short a compass. There are some marks of hurry in the remainder of her work, and the sequence of events is not always indicated with perfect clearness; but on the whole it is vigorous and able, and those who wish for a compendious and yet readable summary, which may put them on a level with present events, will do well to obtain it. Estimates of some Englishmen and Scotchmen. Reprinted principally from the National Review. By Walter Bagehot. One Vol. London : Chapman and Hall. WE have already had occasion to mention NOVero4 of 0049 map iu our periodical uotioes Marti tione a Foal The Lord Yellen —the follow intend The treaties supply affairs n Real& borne l WB4 to t either p prince, while pi By this was IVO the mini =wined. could hi tion in by war ~..lome THE PRESS, JANUARY 30, 1858. of the Review from which they are reprinted. We have been greatly pleased by them on a second as well as on a first perusal. The style is fresh, and really deserves the epithet of spackling. The humour is genuine, and the subjects are such as no Englishman, and even few highly-educated foreigners, could regard with indifference. Perhaps, indeed, these arc rather too various. There are few single minds competent to appreciate such wide diversities of character as must ho in cluded within a list embracing Bishop Butler, the poet Shelley, and Sir Robert Peel. We cannot turn from one to another of these ela borate dissections of human nature without a passing suspicion either of their soundness or their originality. The more purely literary essays are the most satisfactory. In some of the others, Mr. Bagehot seems to start from a conventional point of view, and sometimes conveys the impression that his political opi• nions are second-hand, while his literary judg ments are the result of independent thought. Ho has also other faults, of which time, we trust, will cure him. Ho is occasionally smart at the expense of consistency, and flippant to the verge of childishness. He has, too, some little pedantic affectation which we heartily re commend him to shake off. He is always trying to swim in shallow water, and naturally exposes himself in the effort. " Psychology" has fatal attractions for him. If he had to explain why a dustman likes beer, he would account for it on the soundest psychological principles. " That adult temperament," he would commence, and so proceed, much to his reader's astonishment, who fancies he knows a simpler account of the phenomenon. Some times, also, Mr. Bagehot writes from insuffi cient knowledge. But, taken as a whole, these essays are very entertaining, and in the de pertinent of pure criticism likely to be very serviceable. We shall offer a few instances of the prin cipal faults we have noticed. In the first essay, upon "The First Edinburgh Reviewers," Mr. Bagehot has a good deal to say on the character of Lord Eldon. He treats him with a degree of contempt which we are willing to attribute to want of reflection on the subject. We do this the more readily as Mr. Bagehot does not seem to know what he means himself In one place he writes, "As fot Lord Eldon, " it is the most difficult thing in the world to " believe that there ever was such a man. It " only shows how intense historical evidence "is that no one ever doubts it." Now, this in conversation would be passably witty, and even in an essay might be thought facetious, if the salt of it were not washed out a page or two further on by the following :—" The fact is that " Lord Eldon's rule was maintained a great " deal on the same motives as that of Louis " Napoleon . . . . he was like the present " Emperor, the head of what we call the party "of order." Now, so far from finding it diffi cult to believe there was such a man in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, we should have thought it much more contrary to human experience if there hadn't been. It is curious to observe how thoroughly Mr. Bagehot contradicts himself in this essay, in thought at least, if not in language. In one page he points out how natural it was that a repressive school of politicians should have flourished at that period ; in another he calls their opinions " stupid and crude acquies cence." Now, if there were sound reasons for Lord Eldon's fear of revolution, his acquies cence—we should prefer to call it contentment —in the system of his day was neither stupid nor crude. What are Mr. Bagehot's words Everybody knows what keeps Louis Napoleon in his place. It is not attachment to him, bat dread of what he restrains—dread of revolution. The present may not be good, and having such newspapers,—you might say no newspapers,—is dreadful; but it is better than no trade, bankrupt banks, loss of old savings ; your mother beheaded on destructive principles ; your eldest son shot on conservative ones. Very similar was the feeling of Englishmen in the year 1800. They had no liking at all for the French system. Statesmen saw its absurdity, holy men were shocked at its impiety, mercantile men saw its effect on the Five per Cents. Everybody was revolted by its cruelty. These feelings were perfectly justifiable. The Reformers of 1810 were not like those of to-day. More than that, the whole energies of the country were engaged in a war pro aria et foois. We 00144 not change our front in presence of 113 the enemy. Nor after 1815 was it wise to undertake the work of change till the angry passions of the past had begun to subside. Under these circumstances, Eldon and Castle reagh were the right men in the right place. Reform is sometimes made Revolution by coming too soon as well as by coming too late. In preventing Reform for a certain space of time Lord Eldon did good service to his country. He did the work for which his genius fitted him, and when be had done enough gave way to a younger generation. This quarrelling with men of the past because they are unlike men of the present is really absurd. Nobody blames Nelson for hating the French, yet such language would be insuf ferable now. In comparing the system of education at the Scotch and English universities, Mr. Bagehot falls into that common mistake which is so often made by persons unacquainted with the latter. Under the old system at Oxford, it was impossible to obtain even a second class without severe metaphysical study; while a tint was almost invariably a guarantee of thorough acquaintance with ancient metaphysics, and with a large branch of moral philosophy and logic. We hope, by-the bye, her Majesty's Minis ters may agree with the following definition of Liberalism : It is a principle of fermenting enjoyment, running over all the nerves, inspiring the frame, happy in its mind, easy in Ps place, glad to behold the ann. The two following articles, on Cowper and Gibbon, are admirable, if regarded from Mr. Bagehot's own point of view. He is a stanch romanticist, and takes a much lower view of the literature of the eighteenth century than, in our opinion, it deserves. All his observa tions on Pope seem to us especially untrue. One of them is this—" His subject was not " life at large, hut fashionable life." Now, we should like Mr. Bagehot to explain what he means by this. Did Gildon, or Dennis, or Welstead belong to fashionable life? But he treated all his subjects with a view only to that class of readers ? Possibly ; because there was no other class. Literary culture and social distinction then went hand in hand. " The Town " was an author's only audience. The same is equally true of Juvenal, Horace, or D►yden. We entirely deny that Pope's mind was "a hoard of small maxims, a quintes " sense of petty observations." He certainly does not employ those almighty adjectives which have been found so serviceable by writers of the present day. But his know ledge of human nature was as deep as Field ing's. His essays do not produce the same effect upon us as "Tom Jones" does, because Pope's method was analytic, and the novelist's method is synthetic, to which we have now grown accustomed. The one takes to pieces, the other puts together. Or, to use a clearer illustration, Pope gives us the plan of the building, and shows its defects either of convenience or beauty ; Fielding leads us through the rooms, bids us mark the furniture and the pictures, and en route pays a visit to the cellar. Though we agree with the essayist in his estimate of Cowper's Homer, we cannot agree with him in his opinion of English blank verse. The verse of teu syllables, whether rhyming or blank, is the most difficult metre in the language, and the latter the more diffi cult of the two. But in the hands of a master it lacks not " the trumpet sound." We must consider, moreover, how much there is both in the Iliad and Odyssey of a pastoral or didactic character which our blank verse is as well, perhaps better, calculated to express than rhyme. Mr. Bagehot's estimate of Gibbon is con ceived in the same spirit as his estimate of Cowper. It is, we think, too high in some re spects and too low in others. To us his want of candour is more conspicuous than his want of vivacity. In the article on Butler, either we misunder stand Mr. Bagehot or Mr. Bagehot m;.sunder stands the bishop. The argument of the " Analogy " goes not a step beyond this,—to show that natural religion and revealed reli gion may both have proceeded from the same author. ro urge against this argument what we might have expected God to do 0 rev.* 1