The Press. — London, England, 1856-11-15 00:00:00

N OVEMBER 15. 1856. Yitcraturt. Speeches of Eminent British Statesmen during the Thirty-nine Years Peace. Second Series. London : Griffin and Co. IT is much to be desired that a competent editor would select some of the choicest specimens of the eloquence of the English Senate and print them in a form convenient and useful. We are convinced that, from the importance of their subjects, as well as from the intrinsic abilities of the speakers, a vast number of the orations delivered since the introduction of parliamentary reporting richly merit preservation, as having strong claims to classical rank in our English litera ture. Some of them, even when devoid of passion and elevated diction, deserve to be admired for the cogency of their reasoning; and there are many amongst them which are models of the didactic style, in which com plex questions are discussed and solved in presence of a mixed audience. It is true that there have been numerous compilations of our English orators ; but there is no one work on the subject deserving of a place in a gentleman's library. Hansard, alone, would cover a side of a room, awl " Wright's Parliamentary History" is a work more for reference than reading. A collection of some sixty speeches, culled from the mass of our political harangues, and judiciously illustrated, would be a most valuable preser.t to the public, and might be eminently useful as exhibiting the best models of various styles. The speeches in the volume before us have been selected without any fixed rule for choice. We have here single speeches from • Mr. Macaulay (tie follow the order of arrange ment), the Earl of Derby, Lord Brougham, Lord Althorp, Mr. O'Connell, Mr. Sheil, Mr. C. P Villiers, Lord Melbourne, Lord Ripon, Sir R. Peel, Lord Palmerston, and Lord Lyndhurst. The selection is evidently made by one not versed in political mutters, or familiar with the finest efforts of the various speakers. Not one of the speakers (if they could be consulted) would approve of the choice made, with the single exception of the present Premier. The editor has taken the speech of Lord Palmerston in the Pacifico debate (June 25, 1850) as an example of the Viscount's eloquence. Beyoed doubt that speech was the best ever made by the Premier, and it was none the worse for having under gone a long process of incubation. It was spoken on a subject with which he was com pletely familiar, and he had fully a fortnight for its preparation. It was well delivered. and had nothing of the jauntiness which gives so trivial an expression to the Premier's ordi nary efforts. It also deserves praise for having compressed a large amount of matter into a four hours' address. There is one par ticular ppssple in it to which we shall call special attention. It will be recollected that in the debate in the House of Lords the Earl of Derby had, with much poignant wit and ridicule, exposed the whole absurdity of the Pacifico business with the most effective sarcasm. Lord Palmerston, in the House of Commons, took a gilive tone, and thus affected to rebuke Lord Derby : In discussing these cases I am concerned to have to say that they appear to me to have been dealt with elsewhere in a spirit and in a tone which I think was neither befitting the nersons concerning whom, nor the persons by whom, nor the persons before whom, the discussion took place. It is otter more convenient to treat matters with ridicule than with grave argument, and we have had senous things treated jocosely, and grave men kept in a roar of laughter for an hour together at the poverty of one sufferer or at the miserable habitation of another; at the nationality of one injured man or the religion of another: as if because man was poor he might be bastinadotd and tortured with impunity ; as if a man who was born in Scotlana might be robbed without redress, or because a man is of the Jewish persuasion he is fair game fur any outrage. It is a true sqving, and has often been repeated, that a very moderate share of human wisdom is sufficient fur the guidance of LIIIIII4II affairs. but there is another truth equally indis putable, which i that a man who aspires to govern mankind ought to bring to the task generous sentiments, compassionate sympathies, 112 d noble and elevated thoughts. That taunt brought down many party cheers. But tie ask the Premier's flatterers to recollect the constant levity which from first to last has THE PRESS. accompanied his career Even when a Dritish army was rotting in rags, and when " horrible and heartrending " accounts had shocked the country so much so that the ordinary places of public amusement were nearly deserted, and festive intercourse sus pended,even then the spirit of a Merry Andrew too often animated the present Premier on his legs. Joe Millers trickled from his lips ; the grimace was on his countenance ; our weekly comic contemporary grew jealous of its rival in the House of Commons ; and, amidst the cheers of a full house, Mr Bright, some months afterwards, delivered such a lecture to Lord Palmerston as no parliamen tary leader ever received in our days. The speeches delivered by Lord Palmerston during the Coalition would not suit the tone of the above extract. These speeches, to use his own words, were neither " befitting the per " sons concerning whom, nor the persons by " whom, nor the persons before whom, the " discussion took place ;" and it is a pity that the Premier then did not give the Crimean army the benefit of the " generous sentiments and " compassionate sympathies " which he had so profusely lavished on Don Pacifico. The best speech for closet reading in this volume is the address of Mr. Macaulay (Feb 6th, 1833), on the " Repeal of the Union." It reads well, but it had only moderate success on delivery, because it was delivered out of season. It was spoken on the debate upon the Address in the first Reformed Parliament ; and Mr. O'Connell, with masterly art, declined to bring Repeal before the House, but fought a battle against the Whigs with unparalleled truculence of tone. Mr. Macaulay's essay (for it is substantially one) fell rather fiat, therefore, as being obviously a set speech. The following passage in that speech told well at the time, when it was cheered by a crowded house. Addressing himself to Mr. O'Connell, Mr. Macaulay said : I can assure him that men who faced the cry of No Popery are not likely to be scared by the cry of Repeal. The time will come when history will do justice to the NVhigs of England, and will faithfully relate how much they did and suffered for Ireland ; how, for the sake of Ireland, they quitted office in 1807 ; how, for the sake of Ireland, they remained out of office more than twenty years, braving the frowns of the Court, braving the hisses of the multi tude, renouncing power, and patronage, and salaries, and peerages, and garters, and yet not obtaining in return even a little fleeting popularity. I see on the benches near me men who might by uttering one word against Catholic emancipation—nay, by merely abstaining from uttering a word in favour of Catholic emancipation—have been re turned to this house without difficulty or expense, and who, rather than wrong their Irish fellow•subjects, were content to relinquish all the objects of their honourable ambition, and to retire into private life with conscience and fame un tarnished. As to one eminent person, who seems to be regarded with especial malevolence by those who ought never to mention his name without reverence and grati tude, I will only say this :—that the loudest clamour which the honourable and I..arned gentleman can excite against Lord Grey will be trifling when compared with the clamour which Lord Grey withstood in order to place the honour able and learned gentleman where he now sits. Though a young member of the Whig party, I will venture to speak in the name of the whole body. I tell the honourable ass learned gentleman, that the same spirit which sustained us in a just contest for him will sustain us in an equally just cortest against him. Calumny, abuse, royal displeasure, popular fury, exclusion from office, exclusion from Parlia ment, we were ready to endure them all, rather than that he Qhmild be less than a British subject. We never will safer him to be more. But in two years afterwards the Whigs truckled to O'Connell, and swelled his tribute money with largesses from the house of Russell ; and in Lichfield-house a different language was held from that taken by Mr. Macaulay. O'Connell triumphed over the Whigs, and with their concurrence he crowned himself on Jura Hill ; and it was reserved for the Conservatives not to allow him "to be " more than a British subject." The address of Mr. Stanley (Lord Derby) in 1833, on the plan for emancipation of the negroes, is a most able argument, without claptrap declamation, and exhibiting all the sinewy strength of the eloquent speaker's style. It reads like au historical retrospect of the whole question of negro emancipation, and we do not doubt but that it would be read with interest now in America. In commenc ing his review of the labours of Parliament on the subject, Lord Derby observed : So long ago as the year 1792 (and then, with an ap logy for his plan having remained unmatured and unex hvotel to the public for twelve years) Mr. Burke, in his celebrated letter to Mr. Dandas, disclosed his plan for hors. 1095 what he called a Negro Code, and said " that he was con vinced the true origin of the slave trade Wad not in the place it began at, but in the place of its final destination ;" he then said, I was, therefore, and still am of opinion, that the whole work ought to he taken up together, end that the gradual abolition of slavery in the West Indies should go hand in hand with anything which is done to put a stop to the supply of negroes from the coast of Africa." Together with this letter, Mr. Burke inclosed his Negro Code, embracing regulations for trade, and containing provisions for putting an end to the system of slavery in the colonies. The preamble is so remarkable that he would beg to trouble the house with it. The preamble began by saying, " Whereas it is expedient, and conform able to the principles of the Christian religion, the dictates of morality, and the rules of sound policy, that an end should be put to all traffic in the persons of men, and to the detention of such persons in slavery, as soon as the same can be effected without great inconveniences from a sudden change of practices long established ; and during the continuance of those practices, it is desirable to intro duce some regulations to lessen the inconveniences of such traffic and detention .n servitude until both can gradually be done away with," (U. It is remarkable that amidst his other extra ordinery labours Burke should have produced a Negro Code. He was prior even to Wilberforce and Clarkson in his labours on the subject, which he commenced to study in 1780. Wilberforce, in his " Diary." records what enormous knowledge Burke possessed on the West India question; and down to 1826 the Negro Code of Burke remained in action, though it was avowedly only an attempt at compromise. Wilberforce, we recolb , et, regretted that Burke's morose manner, after his fall from office in 1784, rendered it difficult to associate with him. The pre amble to Burke's bill, as mentioned in the foregoing extract, is noticeable for many reasons. It affirms the principle of slavery being anti-Christian and anti-social; but it recognises the difficulty arising from " sudden " change of practices long established." This is the germ of the mighty question now so ardently discussed in America The speech of Lord Brougham for imme diate emancipation of the negro apprentices (House of Lords, Feb. 20, 1838) is too wordy, and is too much in the nature of a mere harangue. We must observe that the fame of Brougham as an orator was much raised in the House of Commons by the short and rapid bursts of vehement expostulation which used to come from him in committee debates. In short speeches, like that of Sheridan on the mutiny at the Nore and on the press (1810), laurels are often given denied to more elabo rate efforts. Some of the finest things that have ever come from Lord Brougham were in his short speeches not reported in Hansard. A similar remark Applies to many other pat liamentary celebrities. We cannot commend the editorial execution of this volume. The choice of speeches is too arbitrary. It professes to be matte " from the " passing of the Reform Bill to the corn " mencement of the Russian War," and yet it does not give a single specimen of the late or of the present Earl Grey, or of Lord John Russell, o or Mr. Disraeli, or Mr. Gladstone, or Sir William Follett, or Sir James Graham ! We hope that some competent person will yet he found to select the great orations delivered in our age. By the Author of Amy Herbert." London ; Longmans. IN the department of fiction she has chosen Miss Sewell has certainly no superior ; we are almost inclined to add, no rival. We do not think that the department is a very high one, or, what is more, a very useful one, but the authoress has by long practice and obse vation of life and unwearied application to ' art succeeded in attaining a pitch of levee which writers of higher talent well envy. In her present novel a very slight, but the action never Throughout two closely-written attention is rivetted upon one r the same time the incidentr rally out of one another, ar and easily diversified, the' no temptation to skint Lady Augusta Clare woman, is the kind r stepmother of the affectionate, and willed, imperie tion has incr