The Press.
London, England, 1853-06-11 00:00:00

♦s Homer had his Zoilus, so Wellesley had
Radicalism railing at his glory. It was not
until front to front, army to army, and hero to
hero, he met and overthrew his giant adver-
sary, that a full chorus of national enthusiasm
rewarded the inspired sagacity and invincible
soul of

"The man of men—the Prince of Waterloo."
As against the Jacobites of Scotland in
1702, so against the Jacobins and Papists in
Ireland, in 1801, the remedy was the same—
LEGISLATIVE UNION. Hence the "Catholic
claims " were introduced into our politics, and
hence those black pages in the " Annals of
Party" that record the scandalous statesman-
ship from whose blunders we are still suffering.
V. (From Waterloo to the Papal Aggression
iK 1850-I.)—This was an ERA of INTERNAL
CHANGE and CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM, in which
many triumphs were won, and perils eneoun
tered, from which we are not yet free. Chief
amongst the last has been the diminution in
the moral power of Parliament, which has re-
sulted, not from the bill of '3l (a measure that
was inevitable after the misconduct of '29),
but from public honour being violated. The
precept of Burke, " So to be patriots as not
to forget that we are gentlemen," was deli-
berately despised by those who, having de-
serted Mr. Canning on false pretences in '27,
as soon us his eorse was cold in the Great
Abbey, carried the very measure upon which
they had affected to secede. The excuse for
this conduct was as discreditable as the deed.
Necessity, the plea of the tyrant and the
coward, was invoked to gloss over a tergiversa-
tion as had as the Fox-North Coalition, and
worse than the flight in '46, that repeated
the policy of renegadoes. Well might the
philosophical historian have said in his place
in Parliament, " One such change as that of
1829 was one too much in the life of any public
man."*
The " Annals of Party" record no such po-
litical scandal as the censurable manner in
which claims denied to justice were conceded
to clamour. Deaf to the prophecies of Burke,
to the joint requests of Fox and Pitt, to the
soul-stirring appeals of Grattan, and the sober
sense of Lord Grenville, ay ! stone-deaf to
the eloquent wisdom of the gifted chiefs of two
generations, the ears of Sir Robert Peel re-
mained open only for the roar of the rabble.
He hailed au O'Connell as his conqueror in
'29, as he crowned Mr. Cobden his victor in
'46 ! Not all the daggers of all the Peelites, nor
the claspknife of the " Cumberland yeoman,"
could erase the stains from that. blackest page
in our annals of party.
Ambition ! If thy dazzled votaries felt in
early life the pangs attendant on thy worship,
they would shun thy idolatry, and, flying thy
baleful lustre, would reverence sonic less ma-
lignant star. Oh ! for that pen which described
the dying Wolsey, to paint for our instruction
the mental torment racking the spectral form
of Canning, as the expiring statesman lay on
his death-bed, in the very room of that classic
villa of the princely Cavendishes where
Fox, too, disheartened and discomfitted, had
breathed his last ! Life ebbs—the body sinks
—the prize,—the fatal Premiership,—drops
from his relaxing grasp. Yes ! the Peelites
have said he shall not keep it, though the
united voices of Sovereign and People had
railed him to power. Ah ! he has clutched it
again ! He will yield it only with life—'t was
the bright dream of his youth—'t was the
coveted guerdon of his manhood-1 is now
the torment of his excruciating death-bed !
'T is gone ! The last gasp has heaved, and
Canning has soared into History. Count his
torments and his triumphs—weigh the immor-
tal name of that being of genius against the
broken heart of that persecuted statesman—
say, now, will ye covet his agony and glory !

Well ! these things must be left to the
moral indignation of History, and to the
" reading and thinking few" who form poste-
rity. But let us mark for public instruction
the fatal consequences that have flowed from
neglecting the morals of party, and those tra-
il taenal eentitnents of honour in which Eng-
lish gentlemen respire.
The desertion from Canning in '27. and the

• )Ir. Allicau