The Press. — London, England, 1857-05-09 00:00:00

446 the sporting term " outsider• " into a stock Parliamentary phrase. The increased power of an official like Mr HATTER is a fact that cannot be overlooked. With a Conservative party in power, we are convinced (foe the reasons above stated) that " a whip" could never exercise the despotism of Mr. HAYTER. Jobbery is the clement in which the myriads of petty Liberals live and move. We cannot be surprised at Mr. HAYTER'S head being turnel. He fancies himself great and high because he looks down from his small elevation at the political beings who emerge from the lowest levels in order to pay him. court. A man at the top of the Chinese tower in Kew-gardens might just as well fancy himself on a range with the peak of Snowdon Imagination is not the faculty that one would expect to see developed in so narrow an intel• lest as Mr. HArrEtt has, but he supposes him self fifty times higher than he is ; his greatness swells in the inverse ratio to the pettiness of the politicians on whom he exercises his jugglery. . . _ In one thing, at least, the Right Honourable Gentleman has reached the superlative degree. Mr. HAYTER is the finest living exemplar of a little-great man ; his s►nirks, his grins, his flatt►ry, his fussy sclf•importance, and his in veterate habit of wondering at hi►nself, pre sents finished characterexquisitely provocative of ridicule. But Mr. HAYTER has reached his cuhninating point; reaction► has begun, and its sounds may scare the Roform Club while convulsing with laughter those who like to see the impostures of mock-Liberalism exposed. THE MANCHESTER EXHIBITION. AMID much of the cant of connoiseurship with which we have been deluged upon this oc casion, there is no doubt much honest exulta tion at the spread of Art amongst us, and ninny sincere aspirations that the culture of the national taste may serve to elevate the lower classes and purge away some of the worst propensities of the national character. We are far from wishing to throw cold water upon any such benevolent expectations—we only desire that not too much may be expected. How far it is possible to popularise the fine arts among so laborious a people as the Eng lish, is a doubtful point ; and how far, even if so popularised, they would by themselves ameliorate the class in question, is a subject upon which philosophers are still divided. There is, however, one unalloyed benefit which me may expect to arise from exhibitions of this nature,—the stimulus, we mean, which they cannot fail to supply to the ingenuity of our manufacturing producers. And another. which, though not peculiar to the Manchester Exhibition. in an eminent de,2ree results from it, namely, that the poor cannot avoid acknow ledging the kindly disposition of their supe• riors towards themselves, and seeing that they are at least really anxious to aid them whether they go the right way to work or not. The liberality of wealthy picture-owners will leave an agreeable impression on the mind of many a dissatisfied mochanic or Chartist poli tician who has passed his life in reviling the aristocracy. It is, perhaps, also not too mtieh to expect, though some may think it fanciful, that the contemplation of those historic portraits in in which are enshrined the features of a noble and gallant race who lifted England to the eminence she now enj , ya, may do something towards inspiring jester notions of the post than are gathered from the comic histories and illiterate fietions which unhappily finin so large a portion of the mechanic's reading. The face and the dress, and the armour— specimens of which have been liberally con tributed—will gradually shape themselves into something like a real likeness of the men and the life of bygone centuries, and the gazer will ask himself half reproachfully, if these indeed are they whom he has su lung regarded ivith aversion. But to quit the question of what effect is likely to be produced on the people at large ~_ THE PRESS. by becoming acquainted with the beauties of Art, it is hardly possible to doubt of the great influence it must exercise upon the growth of native artists. Art is eminently of the people. A painter or a sculptor of high birth is a rarity. This, no doubt, is mainly the result of its extreme precariousness as a profession, which prevents its being adopted by middle-class cadets of good family. We are only speaking of the fact; and it io curious to speculate on the possibility of some future ‘VILKIE or GAINSBOROUGH conceiving the first inclination to his career as he walks wonderingly through the glowing galleries of Manchester. Nations do not long remain poised in any one particular attitude. They pass from the struggles of savage life to the establishment of public laws and domestic c:miforts, and from these to the assertion of political and intellectual freedom. When the last stage has been passed—when the human being has done all that he can for himself, both as man and citizen, either vindicated his liberty, or contentedly acquiesced in servitude—he at last begins to turn his attention to ornament, elegance, and refinement. May we not hail the popularity with which Art exhibitions are now received as a welcome omen that England too has now passed through her fiercest politi• cal struggles—that greater amenity is begin- 'ling to pervade all classes—and that our mer cantile magnates are beginning to exchange political agitation for the enjoyments of taste and luxury? They may well do so. They have won a proud position, and have much to lose and little to gain by further changes. And when we hear so much of the absence of political excitement, and the want of interest which the people evince in the laboured activity of their professed patrms, are we wrong in coupling it with the opening of the Manchester Exhibition as indicative of a great truth, the auspicium, ntelioris (Ili I THE DEBATE IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS. THE discussion in the House of Peers on Thursday was interesting and important. In the absence of Lord DERRY, the House was addressed from the Conservative benches by the Earl of MALMESBURY in a brief but vigo rous speech. His Lordship criticised the Cabinet severely on the meagreness of the list of practical measures proposed to be brought forward. The number of those mea sures is so few that Lord M ALM ERSBURY was justified in calling attention to this additional proof of " a wasted year." NVe are glad that Lard MALMESBURY took occasion again to vindicate the Conservative party from Lord PAL MERSTON'S blustering charge of combination upon the Chinese question in the last Parliament. The remarks of Laid MALMESBURY on Thursday were spi rited and just; and they drew forth a strong declaration of opinion from Lord GREY, who declared " that the whole tone of our public " discussions was lowered when such mean " and unworthy motives were ascribed to " honourable men." The Premier's callous ness under the reproofs for his nnparliamen tary language is one of the worst features lately manifested in his character. Coarseness of thought and language are unworthy of one filling the office of First Minister, not to speak of the conventional proprieties which should rule the deportment of every English gentle man in or out of Parliament. By a curious coincidence the case of General ASHBURNHAM, and the attacks made on that officer in the Times, Wits a prominent topic in the debate A bad precedent does not justify an improper act ; if such were the case, the circulators of the accusations against General AsumasnAm might seek to shelter themselves under the example of Lord PAL MERSTON. They might plausibly contend that if the Premier had a right to burl forth gross charges against his political rivals, why should not English officers indulge themselves in accusation of their military colleagues ? On points of propriety it is clear that Lord PALmEasToN cannot be accepted as a ruling guide ; and his mode of dealing with his ad- SATURDAY, versaries is to be deprecated rather than followed. Lord PANMURI otidettekok to defend General ASHBURNHAM, and in some important respects his Lordship succeeded. Upon others some thing more might have been said. On the general question of presumptuous criticism on military men, it is plain that something must be done. The subject is of the greatest constitutional and political importance, and we reserve its special consideration for an other day. DUBLIN CASTLE POLITICS. THERE are few posts under the Crown go anomalous as that of the Chief Secretary of Ireland. It is an important office, and yet it is not of the first Ministerial rank. The power and patronage of the Irish system are by law and routine concentrated in the hands of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and it is under the Viceroy that the Chief Secretary acts. It is the custom for the "L L." (as they say at Dublin) to reside in the Irish metropolis all the year round. In summer "his Excellency" goes to the " Phcenix " (reclaimed from a morass by Lord CHESTERFIELD, and advertised beyond provincial fame by LEVER'S novels), and in winter this stately personage (as ho always is ex ofiiJio) goes into the bad air and brilliant company in the famous but unwhole some walls of Dublin Castle. The Chief Secretary, on the other hand, leafs a different kind of life. He autumns and winters in Ireland, but he enjoys his spring and summer in London, and can " take the dust" of Hyde-park until August. He is a Parliamentary personage. He has to manage the Irish Members, to hear their oral petitions, pretend to read their written memorials, give a sigh to every grievance, and a shake of the hand to many a patriotic placehunter, who seeks office purely pro bono public°. Although a party man, the Chief Secretary must recol lect that he represents the Crown. He has to court the Opposition, or at least his Chiefship must not lend himself to acts that are flagrantly onesided. He sees a country offi cially before him—" with two Irelands shut "up into one island," as Lord LIVERPOOL &scribed it. He should be a man of busi ness, and he ought also to bo a Parliamentary speaker, capable of parrying an attack, or " punishing" an adversary. Along with the talents of a politician, our Irish Chief Secre tary should exhibit the nature of a c..urtier ; he should be supple, genial, and adroit. The post is certainly a capital school fur an ap prentice statesman. Recollecting these things, we ore not sur prised that a clever man like Mr. HORSMAN, with his obtrusive pretensions, his Radical asser tion of " first principles," and his undisguised assumption of first rate importance, should have failed. Lord CARLISLE is a rhetorician, and a sentimentalist. He is not a man of affairs, hut words ; an orator at once faltering in his articulation, and florid in his language ; a statesman with pointless generalities in his head, and the wellsugared cant of Liberalism on his tongue. He wants a congenial, smooth, painstaking Chief Secretary who will act well in the farce of Carlisle Statemanthip, or the Howards at Dublin Castle. Lord CARLISLE must have " popularity." Whether it be spon taneous, or organised, is of no consequence. Mr. HORSMAN, therefore, cannot " do" at Dublin. People say that he is—no matter. They want him " out "—a point on which Green and Orange are agreed. The Irish poet said that the tears in Erin's eyes would never cease until the various tints in her sons' polities should, like the colours of the rainbow, melt into one arch of peace. For the benefit of Mr. HOUSMAN, at the risk of excruciating the ears of Viceiegal poetasters,