The Press.
London, England, 1855-01-27 00:00:00

JANUARY 27, 1855.

nobleman with less social popularity has
never filled the elevated office of First Minister.
In Parliament he never had a following, and
in general intercourse his freezing manner,
cold as a Crimean blast, repelled the few,
and displeased the many. On his graceless
demeanour and corrosive cynicism Lord
BYRON concentrated a volume of satire when
he derided him as "Athenian Aberdeen."
But his disagreeable defects as an indivi-
dual shrink into nothing when compared with
the gloomy results of his public life. It was
his retrograde " Foreign Policy" that preci-
pitated Europe, at the critical period of 1830,
into a whirlpool of revolutionary passion. The
extravagance of his absolutist prejudices were
fatally provocative of democratic frenzy. At
a later time his policy has made nations
" moan" under his cold-blooded aversion to a
generous and spirited line of action for Eng-
land. Singularly enough, whatever errors
Lord PALMERSTON produced by too much in
terference were increased by Lord ABERDEEN
pushing his policy of indifference into the
other extreme. If Lord PALMERSTON was too
precipitate, Lord ABERDEEN thought that the
mistakes of his antagonist were to be rectified
by a miserable inertness and a protracted
vacillation. The blunders of too much zeal
were to be cured, forsooth, by showing no
British sympathies at all. So when the Pope
parcelled out England, and Doctor WISEMAN
snatched at an English ecclesiastical title,
Lord ABERDEEN tolerated the Papal audacity,
and with his sardonic smile courted tho inso-
lence of further aggression. He helped to
spread schisms in the Church of Scotland by
his legislation, as he aided in Romish attacks
on the Royal prerogative, and after a mediocre
career, without the inspiration of genius or
the blaze of glory, by an utterly unscrupulous
intrigue he made himself Prime Minister, to
the grievous and (we fear) lasting detriment
of his Sovereign and country.
Yet such is the man whose want of self-
respect induces him now to grasp at the
honours of the Garter! Our readers do not
require to be told that (unlike the case of
peerages) the vacant Garters are, by custom,
at the disposal of the Prime Minister. Except
in requital of extraordinary services, sig-
nalised by victorious results, it is not the
custom for Prime Ministers to consent to
their own personal decoration. But Lord
ABERDEEN, sinking in influence, thwarted and
baffled in his continental combinations, must
have some external marks of honour to hide
the degradation of his impending fall. The
least chivalrous public character in Europe
must have the star of the Garter blazing over
his heart of insincerity. Seldom was ambition
more vainglorious—rarely was personal con-
ceit more miserably selfish. The genealogists
of his family tell us in the peerage books that
the Gordons of the Aberdeen branch descend
from that BERTRAND LE GOIIRDON who shot the
fatal arrow at King RICHARD Cmun DE LION,
and the living head of the house authenticates
his pedigree with marked antipathy to the
lionhearted spirit of England. While the
Czar was trobly fortifying Sebastopol our
Premier was prating of peace, as if he had
been whispered by Mr. BRIGHT ! yet such is
the man who assumes for himself the illus-
trious Order of the Garter.

But this attempt to overbear public opinion,
this crafty parade of honourable emblems,
will not pass current with the people of
England. Neither birth, nor fortune, nor
courtly privileges can shield public characters
from censure in this land of freedom when
their actions discredit their distinctions.
Neither the transient success of an " austere
intriguer," nor the official influence of a servile
tergiversator—no! nor " his ribbon, star, and
a that," can quell the indignation of free sub
lects at beholding the highest honours
avished on that incapable Minister whose
craven heart has jeopardised the existence of
one of the noblest armies that ever fought in
fields of fame. Lord ABERDEEN has cursed
our soldiers with his wilful blunder of placing
them under the control of an ignorant Minis-
ter of War. Their hardships, their cruel suf-
ferings, their famine-diet, their unclad bodies
shivering in cold Crimean hills, are all directly
traceable to the dreary designs of that dismal
old man, who would trifle with statesmanship