The Press.
London, England, 1858-02-20 00:00:00

THE PRESS, FEBRUARY 20, 185$.

was to be interpreted in two senses. One
meaning was that it should teach the English
people that the "great Whig party" was as
Protestant as in 1685 ;" but in a second sense
it was not to be understood as being at all
hostile to Roman Catholic pretensions, and
the Irish Whig policy was " to go on as usual "
without regard to demonstrations of "No
Popery" in England ! So that the " Durham
Letter" was at one side of St. George's
Channel to be interpreted as " Hurrah for the
" Whigs and down with Cardinal WisEmax,"
and at the other side it was to be " Hurrah for
the Whigs and up with the Pope." Plain men
thought that this was carrying refined policy
very far, and that it had not much of the "old
English " stamp upon it. But the Irish Roman
Catholic officials were cajoled, and they
smarted severely for it afterwards. When
Lord JOHN RUSSELL accepted office under
Lord ABERDEEN, the Noble Member for the
City never took the least thought about the
Roman Catholic officials, who had stood by
him in Ireland in the face of much clamour.
He allowed Mr. HENRY G. HUGHES. to be
passed over, and Mr. KEOGEI, Mr. BREWSTER,
and Mr. FITZGERALD to be promoted over him !
Was that "old English" policy?
. . .

In his mode of -,joining the" Coalition" and
deserting it, the Noble Lord acted with reck-
lessness as to consequences. He consented
to bit under Lord ABERDEEN, and the whole
Government of Ireland was placed in the
hands of the party who had given Parliamen-
tary opposition to the " Papal Titles Act " of
1851. He allowed JOHN SADLEIR to be made
a Lord of the Treasury, and ho uttered not a
murmur against gentlemen who had reviled
him a few months before being placed high in
office. He pretended to be a chief, when he
was only a subordinate; he affected to be a
leader, when he was really a follower. He
writhed in his bondage, and forgot at the
same time his duty to himself and his country.
The war broke out—the national honour was
in jeopardy ; his colleagues were not men of
experience, but they had been appointed with
the connivance of Lord JOHN RUSSELL. He had
even thought that their ambition was "com-
mendable." The public mind heaved with
anger, and a storm was approaching. Without
a word of notice either to the Prime Minister,
under whom he served, or to his Liberal col-
leagues, Lord LANSDOWNE, or Lord PALMERSTON,
or Lord CLARENDON, the Noble Lord, on Mr.
ROEBUCK holding up his finger, ran from the
peril, and left the Sovereign to find a Cabinet !
Was that " old English" policy ?
_ _ _

Then the Noble Lord, a perf‘ict Marplot in
conduct, with a mouth full of maxims of
magnanimity, took office under Lord PAL-
MERSTQN. He went as Ambassador to Vienna,
and made proposals for a European ponce.
He will not now attempt to deny that he made
peaceful propositions of a definite character.
He then returned, and found English opinion
iu a warlike mood. Keeping silent about what
he had tried to do in Vienna, the Noble Lord
made a vehement speech in Parliament,
echoing the feeling for war. In diplomacy he
had been a fortnight previously an ultra-Aber-
deenite, and in debate the same man was an
ultra-Pulmerstonian, although the eventuali-
ties of the crisis had undergone no change,
and though no leading incident had altered
the statu quo. Was that "old English"
policy ?
And this is the Noble 'Lord who affects an
indifference to prestige ! So well he might,
after conduct that has brought him so low.
Prestige is a favourite phrase on the lips of
Lord CLARENDON, and in a celebrated article
in the Quarterly the late Mr. CHOKER took
objection to the employment of the word
prestige ; but it is to the thing itself th it Lord
JOHN RUSSELL has the most decided aversion.
He once had it, and he deliberately destroyed
it, acting within the last eight years with
double treachery to Protestants and Roman
Catholics at the time of the " Aggression,"
and showing the same recklessness towards
his Liberal colleagues, and to the interests of
his Sovereign, and then doubly deceiving the
Ambassador at Vienna and the people of Eng-
land about peace and war.
Asa private Member of Parliament, and as an
adroit and highly informed debater, Lord
JOHN RUSSELL may still have utility; but as a
Minister he would only embroil parties, and

devise means for " upsetting," not " filo
coach," but the Constitution.

THE INVECTIVE OF SIR CORNEWALL
LEWIS.

- -
IT is always interesting to watch a man of
talent, who has exercised his mind in a par-
ticular manner, attempting a totally new
exercise of his powers. The presumption, in
spite of splendid exceptions to the contrary, i 3
that the poet will not. be an historian, or that
the profound philosopher will not succeed as
a lyrist. The mind, except in peculiar organi-
sationa, acquires a fixed habit, which cannot
be easily altered, and hence there is no part
so difficult to play as that of an omitiA honio.
Yet that is the identical part in which the
present CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER seeks
to win the laurel. In the great India debate
Sir CORNEWALL LEWIS has appeared as an
aspirant to distinction in the line of invective,
and his assaults on the memories of Clays
and HASTINGS would have done honour to
some youthful declaimer in a club stammering
through his first philippic. In fact, the
Chancellor's speech was intended as a
" slashing article " to be printed, instead of
being spoken. Never were so many hard
words, and so much bitter imputation,
uttered with so frigid a deportment. BALZAC,
the E reach fictionist, has teen called " an iced
Thackeray," and Sir CORNEWALL LEWIS assail-
ing the East India Company seemed like a
frozen Sir Philip Francis. His invective was
sedative rather than stimulating; sentences
intended to have stirred the passions were
soporific in their results. It was impossible
not to have felt that the CHANCELLOR of the
EXCHEQUER had been " cramming " from the
speeches of BURKE, the reports of DuNeAs,
and the pamphlets of FRANCIS. He made a
rough digest of what those eminent persons
had thought and said about the Company
seventy years since ; he " macadamised "
their productions, and flung his missiles into
Leadenhall-street, hoping to produce great
effect. But invective, in order to be success•
ful, requires talent for language, a rapid play
of fancy, and not a little of the fire of genius.
Sir CORNEMALL LEWIS watered his rockets
before he tried to let them off, so that the
result was more damping than dazzling, and
his laborious efforts to produce combustion
caused more smoke than flame. He was re-
plied to with great effect by Mr. WHITESIDE in
a brilliant and " telling " speech, which,
though not altogether expressive of our own
views, was thoroughly destructive to Sir
CORNEWALL'S.

The manner in which Sir CORNEWALL LEWIS
treated the memories of CLIVE and HASTINGS
was singularly maladroit, inasmuch as he over-
stated the case against them, and thereby
gave a handle to vilifiers of the English name.
The truth as to the characters and conduct of
those remarkable men lies between the furl.
bund wrath of BURKE and his school, and the
ttnderness with which they have been treated
by Lord MACAULAY. The remark of Mr. Ross
MANGLES iS true, that " the political morality
" of the age in which they lived should be
" recollected by persons sitting in judgment
" on CLIVE and HASTINGS." The Member for
Guilford referred to the slave trade as an
example of his remarks, but ho might have
gone further. The middle of the last century
SAW Sir FRANCIS DASHWOOD a Chancellor of the
Exchequer, and the times in which a man like
WHAKEs was accepted as a popular leader
could not have been very scrupulous or moral.
Penal laws of the most exaggerated character
were in force against Roman Catholics of un-
doubted loyalty, and the times in which Lord
GEORGE GORDON produced a ferment were not
those in which we could expect examples of
high proconsular virtue in our colonial rulers.
One of the most zealous impeachers of HAST-
INGS was the owner of a landed estate, which
he got from a relative who had " informed ~
against the hereditary holder as being "a
Roman Catholic." The private lives of Fos
and SHERIDAN would shatter public repute.•
tions in our time, and the universal feeling
against a recent Ministerial appointment

Proves the great changes in public feelings on
I„any questions involving personal conduct.
Seeing the lengths to which our forefathers
went in imposing " taxation wit rout repre-
sentation " on the Americans, we must be more
measured than Sir CORNEWALL LEWIS in the
expressions of our opinions about Indian
statesmen of the last century. The laws of
morality itself are immutable and cannot be
altered, but in applying them to the conduct
of mortals wo must remember the force of
circumstances.
There ought to be a great difference be-
tween the utterances of a public writer or a
brilliant essayist like Lord MACAULAY, or even
of a public speaker at a convened meeting, and
what proceeds from the lips of a Minister of
State. In the latter case it is obvious for
many reasons that expressions in the Senate,
even of retrospective censure, should be dis-
erectly guarded, if it were for no other purpose
than to prevent the publicists of foreign
countries exciting national feelings against the
English nation and name, and using us
evidence the rhetorical exaggerations of
" Ministers on their legs." Both Sir JAMES
GRAHAM and Sir CHARLES WOOD showed sin-
gular facility in recalling violent expressions
which had fallen from them while ranting
before certain " popular" audiences, and Sir
CORNEWALL LEWIS might yet feel that his tone
against the chief founders of our Indian
empire was not very prudent or discreet.
Sir CORNEWALL LEWIS'S speech shows that he
wants the practical mind required for a Cabinet
Minister. He is a phi tosopher spoiled with a good
deal of pedantry ; he is not a skilful adminis-
trator ; and, although an excellent scholar and
an accomplished man of letters, the last part
in which Sir CORNEWALL LEWIS could excel
would be that of a leading debater to a Cabi-
net in difficulties.

LORD PALNIERST ON ON
"A GENTLEMAN."
THE question, " What is a guinea?" has
long perplexed political economists. The
question, " What is a gentleman ?" has equally
perplexed social philosophers. Lord PAL-
MERSTON, there is no denying, is continually
addressing himself to its solution, if not with
the most logical acumen, nt least with the
most laudable pertinacity. During the India
debate, a few nights ago, he made a fresh ad-
vance in this direction. He then described
Indian patronage as distributed between two
grades—between " the sons of gentlemen and
" the sons of the middling classes." There
was no possibility that a member of the middle
class could be a gentleman. It was a thing
not to be thought of. Now, we cordially ac-
quiesce in the Premier's antagonism to that
class of politicians who would recur to the
humble level of social evality which con-
tented itself with the ostracism of the sans-
culottes. But there is something incongruous
in the manner in which the chosen chief of
the " ten-pounders " acquits himself of his
magnificent contempt for the " middling
classes." Lord PALMERSTON'S only appreciable
approximation to this question is to pronounce,
not " what is a gentleman," but what he is not.
The truth is that, in our mixed Constitution,
gentility, like relationship, expires imper-
ceptibly. But the Liberal Minister's logic
succumbs to no such difficulty. He seizes
his vanishing point in the " middling classes."
It is not long since the Prime Minister, in
his place in Parliament, threw a similar
damper on the social vanity of the whole body
of officers of her Majesty's Commissariat.
" It is in the Commissariat," retorted the
Noble Viscount to the Administrative Re-
formers, " that your military system has
" brokea down ; and nobody pretends that the
" officers in the Commissariat are the sons of
" gentlemen." The notion was too prepos-
terous to be argued. The "gentlemen "of the
Commissariat vainly expostulated with Lord
PANII ORE. The infelicitous appeal from an
Irish peer to a Scottish thane was but equal
to the inversion of discipline in accusing a
Prime Minister to a Secretary of State. But
neither PAM nor PAN were able to master this