The Press.
London, England, 1853-10-22 00:00:00

ON DIT.

StNM the Pope has taken to billiards he has become shockingly loose
in his language. He c•nllK the Coalition Ministry a capital " fluke,"
says that he shall " pot" GLADSTONE, and " cannon" off Lord ST.
GIRMASK. If he invites a Cardinal to be seated, he simply says " Spot
yourself."

OCTOBER 22, 1853.

SKETCHES OF RADICALS.
4. THE RADICAL IIIsTORIAN.
I HATE little doubt that my maulers must have remarked with me
an artful feature of Radical tactics—now (like other artful features)
getting rather overdone. I allude to the productions for the
people," histories "for the people," songs for the people,- down to
shirts "for the people," and there is no saying what. The amiable
object of all this is to effect a thorough separation between classes, to
imprcas on the masses the idea that their interest is one and that of
the upper class another. A body of busybodies work at this objeet in
a thousand ways, and then raise a complaint that. the upper class don't
sympathise with the many ! The knowing fellows themselves. mean-
while, take right good care that no sympathy shall exist that they can
prevent.
Now these, like all mankind, have a tendency to picture in the past
their own ideas and affections. History, to most people, is a great-
grandmother's looking-glass, in which, however antique the object,
you see your own face ! And hence we have " Histories for the
People," " Popular History of King-craft' " The Oligarchy in Time,"
" The British Aristocracy, a Picture," by Ribald Mumps, Esq., and so
on, eul nauseam, and further ! I shall fling together a few remarks On
the general characteristics of this school in the present paper.
The great and leading feature of such a history is naturally the
measuring of all past time by the present standard of things. A kind
of civilisation and " enlightenment" (which is inure knowing than
deep) spreads itself over the surface of the world ; and, by the notions
of good, easy, trading people in towns, the historian tries the Middle
ages, the Crusades, the Church, the gentlemen of Queen Elizabeth's
time, and similar phenomena. His favourite illustration is " light "
the " light" of knowlege, diffusion of " light." Now, to adopt his
image, I admit the enormous increase in the consumption of mutton-
fat dips ; but I deny that we have any more of the sun than our
ancestors. In plain language, we have largely improved in material
comforts; but in downright manhood and nobility of character, in
great-heartedness, reverence, and such qualities, the advance is not SO
apparent. But you know the Radical historian must insist on the ad-
vance—must calumniate the past. And why? Because the past is
full of Government, full of Kings, and Aristocrats, and Churches. To
pull down the present institutions he must assail their history. Ile
wishes to try everything by the nineteenth-century standard, the
growths of fifteen centuries by the notions of one. Radicalism Proper
is the negation of history. I have heard and read schemes of abolition
and uprooting—about as sensible as it would be, if you thought your
chimney smoked, to pull it down ; and (to adopt an image which I in
tend to stick in the ribs of Hawker) schemes of reform on a par with
an old proposal to clean the chimney by sending a live goose
down a ln fact, we must, by degrees, induce the Radical
to remember that the institutions of Europe are a gradual unconscious
growth from a thousand forces, a FOREST, my dear Rugby, where you
may lop, if required, hero and there, but which you must not with
remorseless axe reduce to stumps for enlightened orators to harangue
upon.
One notion I remember I used to derive from the " great work of
Bugby" was, that a piddle merlin!, had once been held in which our
ancestors appointed a king, nobles, priests, divided time country into
shares, and, after giving a vote of thanks to the chairman (at respectable
Saxon of the middle class), returned to their ordinary occupations.
This was the Bugbeian ideal. And how had that charming form of
life been broken in upon ? By the machination of the aristocrat, was
the stern answer of Rugby. 1 need scarcely say that the further
inquiry I have made the less I have believed in the Bugbeian ideal.
The notion of that historian is curiously at variance with anything that
can be gathered front the Palgraves and Kembles. To expose the
Normans to the hatred of the nod.), our friend and his party absurdly
concocted an ideal out of the Saxon period—when masses of his
friends were in the position of Uncle Tom—when you could have
killed Rugby's ancestor, at a rate of compensation much lower than
that of one of the " governing classes."
However, there remains to him the consolation of asserting that the
nobility got uppermost by "brute force." " Brute force, sir !" says he.
" But, my dear Rugby, all over Europe, how small the body in com-
parison !" " They had the arms," grunts Rugby. " How the deuce
did they get the arms? Push it where you will, people must have
behered in them somehow." " Bodily bulk," says the laconic II
" But what if in the early development of races mental and physical
energy go together? Charlemagne, William the Norman, Robert
the Bruce, were each men of the highest bodily advantages ; yet I will
venture to say they haul each of them some brains!" Here the
name of William makes our friend furious : he hates William ; yet he
makes a fuss about our organisation, our " blue books." Where is
there a blue book to compare with " Domesday" ?

589

A history written from the point Of view I have been illustrating
is not a cheerful performanee. Neither the life nor the tote of old
times is to be found in it ; and it is contradicted by arehiteeture,
by ballads, and by the tnulitionary feeling of the country. What a
gloomy picture to see a middle-aged gentleman of commercial ten-
&mica taking the Plantagenets to task, like a police magintrate
examining the noisy youth about town, of last night, and judging of
everything about an age aeeording to the imports ! When we ask for
the moral upshot of the Elizabethan age, we are told that they had
not forks to use. Who doesn't approve of forks? 0110101 I have
known a Reformer show a disagreeable preference for the use of the
knife at times); but, thankfully acknowledging the use of every prong,
1 must put in a plea, for the heroes of the time, and its energetic
noble life, too. In the same way, why make such a fuss about the
tournaments, hawkings, fierce sports, and the rest of it ? . . . These
old gentlemen overflowed with life and energy, in their play us in
their serious pursuits. That comparative indifference to suffering
even is by no means so terrible to a thinker as to a mere agitating
jabberer! When life was universally hardier, pain was a less regarded
thing, too; and when did the bum% shrink from his sham of it, my
moat philosophical of Radicals?
Do I scorn a comfortable arm-chair? Am I indifferent to cheap
sugar—penny postage—the Ostend boat —and the Timex newspaper at
breakfast? Far from it. lint shall 1 therefere admit Rugby to be
the equal of Sir John Chanties?
I wish him, only, to 44, a little more justice to Sir John Chandos,
and to the ancestors of that distinguished gentleman and his friend,.
Europe had many things to do lwfore it could produee cheap sugar,
penny postage, the Times newspaper at breakfast, and an enlightened
Rugby! Races had to find their places ; orders of men to be shaken
into order ; land parcelled out on p4,rinanent principles; Parliament
constituted ; laws fixed ; life reduced into harmony, unffer the name
of manners." From Alfred and Charlemagne to Sidney and
Raleigh, the nobles of Europe took the kill in this. The scowl of
Mawker, announcing dud " the whole thing is exploded now," must
not terrify us,—may pobsibly call forth some observations on the sub-
ject by-and-bye.