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

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