The Press. — London, England, 1856-03-08 00:00:00

■ 1 31 ki tl ai fr T w ti T C PI fo fo V fo th V Cl B re L a yc di Fi et ar at th B, be di I'l 0% an THE PRESS. MARCH 8, 1856. ARGYLL: No. There the Noble Viscount showed his ignorance of physical science. Brass was a compound metal. The most useful ki n d of solder was tin—(Hear, hear, hear)—and he was sure the Mem bers of her Majesty's Government would support him in the assertion that it was tin—(the remainder of this sentence was lost in tumultuous cheers and rattling of glasses on the table). They might also derive instruction from geology. In the primary formation nothing was ever found. That might be compared to the Whig formation in politics. Granite was very old, and Dr. Johnson, an enemy to the Whigs, had borne tes timony to their antiquity. He said that the Devil was the first Whiff. The oldest inhabitant, as his Noble Friend the President of th; Council could testify Lord LANSDOWNE : I can testify to nothing, but the immaculate purity of the Whig party. ARGYLL : Well, he would not press that point. Then there was a formation in which the remains of various extinct species were to be found. He hoped he might, without offence, designate the Noble Viscount as the old red sandstone. PAM.: What the devil do you mean by that? ARGYLL : Why every one know that in the old red sandstone you found now and then a part of some antediluvian animal or other—as of the mammoth or ichtyosaurus. Now, if they examined the Noble Viscount's career, they would find it made up in an extraordinary manner of extinct Administrations. They found in it a bit of the Liverpool Administration, and a bit of the Goderich, and a bit of the Canning, and he knew not how many others ; and, taking the Reform Bill as the flood, the Noble Viscount was richer in antediluvian remains than any formation he knew of. . _ _ PAM. • I say, Duke, this won't do. You're carrying the joke too far. Antediluvian, indeed; why, what are you ? A lilliputian post pillar, a diminutive letter-bag, an abridgment of a penny postman. I'll make you drive the first mail-cart on the Queen's birthday. If lam ante diluvian, what do you call yourself? ARGYLL : Passing over some injurious expressions of my Noble Friend, I consider myself to be an embodiment of the last and most enlightened age of the world PAN.: No you aint. You're merely an embodiment of conceit, ami an offshoot of Stafford-house. I'll have you made up into a letter, and sent to the Land's End, with directions to every postmaster to thump you with his stamp till yuu are bruised into a jelly. I'll get Barnum to come over and exhibit you as Tom Thumb arrived at maturity of littleness. I'll have a house made for you out of my hat box. I'll cure you of your ante diluvianism. We came here to eat your dinner, not to have your scientific gabble thrust down our throats. I'll go down to the House, and provoke Dizzy to rise that I may get over the nausea of your measure. Now, some of you wake Lewis and Wood, and pack them in a cab after me to Westminster. (Party breaks up.) OUR BOROUGH ELECTION. (AFTER CRABBE.) Where aguish swamps absorb the farmer's lands, Mid Lincoln fens an ancient borough stands, Whose quiet streets resound H ith sounds of strife, And whose smooth dulness yields to bustling life. The reason of this change should ye inquire, Know its late Member is a Knight of Shire, Succeeding in that honour his dull sire, Who as Lord Aveland sits with right in tail, Not a life puppet like poor Wensleydale. And Boston's market-place a hustings boasts, And Boston's taprooms echo varying toasts, For Mr. Ingram hear the hoarse huzza, And listen to the vivats raised for Sleigh, While cheers for Adams aid the loud display. And who is Ingram? Question it who can, A pedlar turned a literary man. His panegyric we may soon peruse And see his portrait in the London News. For Mr. Ingram owns that harmless sheet — But, hark ! whose voice is this that startles Boston's streets? 'Tis Percy Wormwood, moralist and wit, Brought down by Ingram to his benefit, The gentle satirist, whose lash descends Less fiercely on his foes than on his friends ; Wormwood, whose savage humour's strangely blent With an unmanly maudlin sentiment ; Wormwood, who snaps and snarls in currish strain, Then drivelling weeps, and snaps, and snarls again. His the shrill ♦oice that's raised in Ingram's cause, And names the statesman meet to mend our laws. " Rush to the poll ye men of ten pound votes, And roar as I dictate with thirsty throats ; For Mr. Ingram raise the loud huzza, For Ingram and the lEsop in his pay. Ingram's a man of letters "—Hold, enough ! What is a man of letters, Mr. Puff ? Is your vote to confer the honour'd name ? Or shall quack medicines vindicate the claim ? Be candid, Wormwood, and for once reveal The secret " reasons" for your earnest zeal. You warrant him to cure his country's ills, What, Wormwood, with his vote or with his pills ? PROMOTION. James Baron Wensleydale to be a Lord—in Waitiny. A MODEL ARTICLE. [The following document has been inclosed to Ls, " with the best compliments of a late contributor to the Swaimlay Review." What he means by calling himself " late " we do not know—whether he has been discharged, or whether he is dead, or whether, as is most probable, his articles are sent in after the proper time. Nor do we know why he has favoured us with the communication. He says that what he incloses is the Model Article, which all the contributors to the Sinalterday flevieio are expected to adopt as the groundwork of their productions. They may vary their style, and the Latin Delectus may be pillaged ad libitum, but every article must include the praise and the abuse contained in the Model.] XTOT the least noble among the thousand noble things which have been said by the Earl of Aberdeen, in the course of the most honourable life ever spent by a patriot in the service of his country, was his saying on Friday night that " new circumstances frequently made it necessary to alter our opinion of old cases." The phrase has the sparkle of the diamond, but, unlike the Disraelite epigrams, it has also the diamond's solidity. It is another proof, if such were needed, of the elaborate dishonesty of the "leading journal," that it maliciously omits the word " frequently," its so-culled report of the speech of Lord Aberdeen, thus seeking, with the usual tortuous impu dence of the " organ," to accredit the Earl with the unceasing habit of tergiversation of which the " organ " itself is the irrubescent type. But manipulation of a cognate character has too often been the subject of Philippic. Like Domitiau, the Times cannot bear diamonds of weight or value—nee sufferre queat majoris pondera gemnicc. Enunciating that wise political axiom, the Earl of Aberdeen (to whom it is due, under Providence, that England is not now a Russian province, and called Gortschacovia), with the legitimate dexterity of a statesman, not with the gladiatorial tact of a mere debater, like the author of " Tancred," cut away the around of the Tories, and of their unavowed ally the " leading journal." Superbly magnanimous, Lord Aberdeen made his opponents a present of all the charges by which they had sought to damage his character for inconsistency. The Rupert of Debate, with his usual insolence, likened the Earl to a weathercock, because he went round and round. Stern was the rebuke of the scientific man to the mere man of the world. " The Noble Lord calls me a weathercock, and imputes blame to me that I go round and round. The Noble Lord's extensive acquaintance must include some philosopher who can tell him that a weathercock is intended to go round and round. His taunt, therefore, is as the wind that turns it." Lord Derby will think twice before he ventures again upon a scientific image : (lid we think he understood Latin, we would say to him, "Procul, 0 precut !" But not even the malignant inge nuity of the Member for Bucks, or the blustering censor who as " our organ " makes us ridiculous in the eyes of Europe, can avail against an adversary whose masterly plea is that all you have said is true— and what then ? Probably Burke never attained so brilliant a dia lectic triumph, and assuredly Peel never promulgated a more stated manly defence. The true nobility of Lord Aberdeen's character may be observed by all who are not wilfully blinded by the dust of Buckinghamshire, in the period he selects for this majestic avowal. While the "organ " insulted him and virtue by affecting to defend him, he was as silent as the sky. While his Ministry might be injured by the avowal of his policy, Lord Aberdeen threw over it the regis of imperturbable reserve, upon which shield the thunderstroke of Rupert, and the light arrows of the Buckinghamshire Teucer, alike descended in vain. But when he can lose nothing by the disclosure—reyis ad exemplar, we smile at the ready taunt—he makes it frankly and fearlessly, and tells the Peers that circumstances alter cases. Mr. Disraeli may make the roof of the Commons resonant with his anger at the phrase, but it defies his unconstitutional, disproportionate, and antiphlogistical sophisti cation. _ _ _ When, in " Waverley," Sir Walter Scott makes Feargus Mclvor describe the real nature of his regard for Rose Bradwardine, he says— [Here ingot the passage, and in any article into which half a page of reprint from the Waverley novels can be introduced it will be desirable to give Even Mr. Benjamin Disraeli could not have made a more revengeful reply ; nor could the " leading journal " have more deliberately dis torted the meaning of the speech. But their motto, like that of the pretty fool in the French chanson, is, "Ne rien savoir—n'apprendre As for the comments of the Leader of the Opposition upon Lord Aberdeen's speech, the time has come for speaking very plainly in deed. Mr. Disraeli has got hold of the very worst attributes of Pitt and Windham ; he combines the audacity of Burke with the supercherie of Melbourne, and he balances the superficiality of Castlereagh with the obscurity of Mackintosh, while subverting doctrines with the reck lessness of Bentham, and erecting theories with the rapidity of De Siey es. By analysing this description of his genius, a reader will arrive at a defined perception of our meaning—sol oriens per fugit umbras—and we have no hesitation in affirming that none of those who are qualified to apprehend our solution of the Disraelite problem will deem it worth while to demand categorical annihilation of the Disraelite arguments. That Lord Aberdeen's inimitable and unapproachable eloquence should excite the rancour of the " organ" was to be expected, for a would-be monopolist of rhetoric is not a whit less arrogant than any other Protectionist ; but neither garbled reports nor ghastly scoffing will hallucinate the public. Virtus celari non potent. When the author of " Coningsby " shall be a nominis umbra, and when the " organ's " ultimate tune shall be reared out, its bellows burst, and its reeds split, a procession may wend from Printing-house-square, taking Grosvenor gate in its way, to hang civic crowns upon a newly-erected statue to Aberdeen. [Upon reperusing the above, we think that it is remarkably fine writing, and we hope that (notwithstanding moribund appearances) the " Review " may be spared among us for some weeks to come. It is heartily welcome to this .clvertidement.]