The Press.
London, England, 1854-03-11 00:00:00

232

painfully indiscreet, and committing their
parties by their sallies.
It is very curious that each should have
given to the world such disparaging character-
isation of the other. If asked our opinion as
to the merits of this present controversy, we
should be tempted to say that the three parties
in it appear to disadvantage. Moore's charac-
ter is further darkened by charges of corruption,
and systematic duplicity of conduct being
successfully fastened on him. His own
suicidal journal revealed only a portion of his
petty meanness. On the other hand, it is a
terrible spectacle to witness the truculency of
Mr. Croker in trampling on the grave of Moore.
In such a case,

•
" Thou art dead, Alonzo,
So is mine enmity,"

should be the sentiment of a brave and lofty
nature ; and if self-vindication were needed it
should be performed in a different temper from
that shown by Mr. Croker. With Moore as a
man we have no sympathy, but such a fierce
posthumous assault as that before us is un-
called for. On the other hand, the con-
duct of Lord John Russell is quite inexcusable,
and exhibits his characteristic rashness. With
such an adversary as Mr. Croker he surely
should have been more courteous. The rash-
ness of Lord J. Russell has undoubtedly been
the immediate cause of this unpleasant ex-
posure ; nor can we avoid censuring the pain-
ful vacillation evident in his tone. After first
bitterly assailing Mr. Croker, and then re-
ceiving a contemptuous and rattling reply,
his lordship takes up a tone of apology—" I
" may add an expression of my regret that at
" your age and in your present state of health
" you should have been annoyed by the publi-
" cation of Moore's Diary ; ' and four days
afterwards, in letter No. 4, the noble lord
says in an equivocal manner—" Mrs. Moore has
" several letters of yours to her husband ; of
" course I should not think of publishing
" them without your permission "—to which
Mr. Croker again replies in the language of
contemptuous defiance. Lord John Russell's
whole conduct in relation to the publication
of Moore's Diary has been extremely blame-
worthy. He assisted to bring into circu-
lation a work crowded with offensive pas-
sages, that have given great pain in many
quarters; his lordship never condescended to
peruse them; and he then deprecates allharsh
criticism upon the poet and his proceedings,
lest it should give pain to Moore's surviving
wife !
Of the relation that subsisted between
Moore and Mr. Croker during life, notwith-
standing the correspondence before us, we
might perhaps infer that it was little more
than the conventional kind—half friendship,
half acquaintanceship, that springs up between
literary belligerents in hostile camps. It was
for the advantage of both parties that they should
remain on good terms. More formidable foes
than Mr. Croker had been made to wince
under Moore's pen; and, on the other hand, it
was well for Moore that he should be on amica-
ble terms with an active quarterly reviewer.
Accordingly we find that during life Moore
never satirised Mr. Croker, and, on the other
hand, the Quarterly Review was extremely
lenient to the author of " The Twopenny Post
Bag." It is hard to say on which side the
balance of advantages lay. It is enough to
say that both were under obligations to each
other.
The most remarkable passage in the whole
of the lengthy postscript is the part relating to
Moore's desire of selling his Government
office at Bermuda :
" turning the appointment to more account than T have ever
been able to do hitherto. Would it be possible, do you
think, to procure the office for any unobjectionable
person, who should make it worth my while to resign in
his favour? If this rere possible, it would materially
serve me ; and though I have no right, nor indeed much
inclination, to ask a favour from any of your present
colleagues, yet, if You could manage this matter for me,
I should feel it to be the act of &friend, and be made
easy and comfortable in more ways than one by it."
I have no copy of my answer. I dare say I was unwil-
ling that even a copyist should see such a proposition ;
but it appears from Moore's reply that I endeavoured
—by supposing that he meant an exchange and not a sale
of aeoso—to shut my eyes to the real drift of a pro=l
*0 WNW t• a pawn Pt say Acid situation.

THE PRESS.

however, did not at all appreciate the indelicacy of his
proposal, or the delicacy of my evasion. His reply was
as follows :

" Friday, 22nd December, 1809.
"My dear Croker,—T feel most gratefully the readiness
with which you answered my letter, and should not write
now to tease you with my importunities, but that you
mistook a little the manner in which I wished you to as-
sist me. I had by no means the audacity to expect
to exchange my Bermuda appointment for another at home.
What I wanted to know was simply this—whether if the
deputy I should appoint would make it worth my while to
resign in his favour (i.e., in plain placemen's language,
would consent to purchase the appointment), you could
have interest enough to get him nominated my successor,
as by that means I should get rid of the very troublesome
medium of a deputation, and have a good large sum at
once in my pocket, without waiting for the slow process
of annual remittances, accounts, &c. J know this sounds
very like one of those transactions which we Patriots cry out
against as unworthy o f the great Rumen and Algernon Sydney."
These latter allusions to " the great Russell
and Algernon Sydney" read with great comic
effect. The rest of the correspondence con
tains petty proofs of the insincerity of Moore
towards Mr. Croker. But we were already in
possession of his own journal, which has given
literally volumes of evidence of his utter
levity of character and absence of principle.
Here in the sixth volume of his memoirs is a
passage recording his opinions of the Whigs :
The insight I got into the views and leanings of the
party during my last visit to town has taken away much of
my respect for them as a political body, and changed my
opinion of some as private men. I am convinced that
there is just as much selfishness and as much low party
spirit among them generally as among the Tories ; with-
out any of that tact in concealing the offensiveness of these
qualities which a more mellowed experience of power and
its sweets gives to the Tories. There are a few men
among them who have the public weal, I believe, most
sincerely at heart ; and these are easily numbered,—Lord
Grey, Lord Althorp, Lord John Russell, and Lord Lana-
downe ; but even these are carried headlong through a
measure, of which in their hea.-Is they must see the danger,
by an impulse of party spirit which supersedes too much
every other consideration; and as to the herd of their
followers, any few grains of patriotism there may be among
them are so mixed up with an overflowing portion of se(f as
to be diluted away to nothing.

Yet the writer was the person who was then
vilifying the Tories, of whom he knew little,
although he thought so meanly of the Whigs,
with whom he lived habitually! He says
again, elsewhere :
I spoke pretty freely my opinion of our friends the
Whigs; of their vile practice of canvassing enemies and
friends. As for myself, I said, so long had it

neglecting _
been manifest to me that this was their system, that I had
for many years (luckily for my own peace of mind) given
up all hopes of their ever thinking of doing me a service.
So far did this pocacurastimin of theirs extend, that, even
in the trifling article of franking, not one of them ( though
knowing how much I had to do with printers in the way
of transmitting prook &c.) ever offered, when in office,
to be of any service to me ; and I have always gone on
(when I could) with my old frankers : with Croker while
the Whigs were last in, and with Greville during their
present Ministry.
And there is another strange passage in
which ho expresses at length his fears of
Reform :

The people have received an impulse (I might have added
received it in a great measure from this bill ): and there
never yet has been an instance known of a people stopping
in such a career where they ought to stop; " a downhill
reformation (as Dryden says) rolls on fast." Taking this
view, whether right or wrong, of the present course of
affairs. I certainly cannot help feeling grave at the prospect
that is before us. Were I a young man, it would only
brisken up the spirit of adventure within me, as I might
then hope to outlive the storm, and enjoy the advantage
of the calm ; but not being young, and wishing the
remainder of my course to continue on the same level as
heretofore, I cannot bring myself to dance down these
first steps of the precipice so gaily and sanguinely as I see
others do.
Here we have a voluptuous indifference to
principles candidly. expressed, and these latter
passages from his journal confirm the charges
of want of high personal honour and dignity of
character brought home to the poet by Mr.
Croker.

It is very painful to have the spectacle of
such meanness revealed in one who like
Moore was amongst our modern► literary
celebrities. From contemplating the paltri-
ness of his worldly nature, how cheering it is
to turn to the example of modest worth and
pure existence afforded by a man like Southey,
toiling in comparative poverty to the last, nei-
ther grovelling like a parasite towards the peer-
age, nor pandering to the party passions of the
hour!

•••=I••••

SATURDAY,

Public Works in India: their Importance:
with Suggestions for their Extension and
Improvement. By Lieutenant-Colonel A.
Cotton. London : Allen and Co.
Ix is quite impossible for us, in the narrow
space assignable to a topic far less interesting
than it ought to be to the English people, to
attempt a full criticism, or even an analysis,
of Colonel Cotton's admirable treatise. Me-
thodical, concise, full of detail, yet dealing
conclusively with the largest questions of
principle intelligible to all readers however
ignorant of Indian finance, and capable of in-
structing those most familiar with its working,
the writer has not only thrown new light on
his subject, but furnished a model of the style
and manner of handling best adapted to the
treatment of complicated social questions.
The moral of the book is twofold—first, to
enforce the spending of more money on Indian
public works ; secondly, to direct attention to
the necessity of care and science in its invest-
ment. Colonel Cotton complains, with truth,
that, though particular local improvements
have been eulogised, or the want of them de-
plored, by previous authors, no man has
attempted to deal with the question as a
whole—the only way in which it can ever be
satisfactorily settled. He instances the Cal-
cutta Railroad as a sample of the haste with
which projects of the greatest moment are
carried out under directorial sanction. A cer •
tain amount of traffic is reckoned on—Colonel
Cotton thinks reasonably—the railway is laid
down, and it has been forgotten or overlooked
that, when complete, it can only carry one-
seventh of the tonnage on which profit has
been calculated. An oversight so glaring as
this we can hardly suppose to be real ; but it
is actually the fact that, as our author com-
plains, " railroads have blinded the Govern-
ment." The idea of rapid passage communica-
tion along a few great lines has been taken up
at the cost and to the utter neglect of the
humbler but more productive task of opening
innumerable minor roads. In this instance,
as in a hundred others, the radical vice of an
alien Government is felt. The English func-
tionaries who plan improvements think, first,
of the pleasure of being able to reach the
Himalayas in six or seven days from Calcutta;
secondly, of the military advantages of rapid
transit ; and only in the last place, and as a
means of part paying the expense which such
an undertaking necessarily involves, of the
result producible upon the trade and agricul-
ture of the country. Works of this kind are
decreed and proceeded with, the cost being
thrown on the general revenue, so that no
clear return of profit and loss can be made
out. Frequent changes of Administration in-
terrupt their progress ; it is nobody's interest
in particular that they should be done well ;
and the result is, as in Madras, that three or
four times the necessary amount is expended.
from sheer apathy, ignorance, and deficiency
of proper supervision. Then comes a reaction :
the Governor-General, or the Board of Control,
or the Directors, seeing a waste going on, and
seeing no other means to stop it, stop the work
too. It is not thus that an empire should be
administered. Colonel Cotton urges the es-
tablishment of a department of public works
—the commencement of these on a great
scale—the borrowing of money for that pur-
pose, or at least the non-repayment of money
already borrowed (it being manifestly unfair
that the present generation should pay the
whole cost of works intended to last for all
time)—and, lastly, the keeping of an account
by this department altogether separate from
the general revenue and expenditure account
of India, that thus the public may more
clearly know what is being done, and under-
stand the profitable nature of the operation.
He laughs to scorn the idea that we are re-
lieving India by taking off taxes with money
which ought to go in enabling her to pay
equal or increased burdens, and illustrates his
meaning quaintly as follows :
With respect to the notion, that there is no way of re-
lieving the country but by paying off the debt, let ns suppose
that we met a poor famished coolie fainting under a load o
201b5., from want of food, and we have it in our power either
to carry his load for him, or by feeding him restore him to
his full strength, and enable hiin to carry 801bs. with ease ;
which woltia be the beet thing to do for bim ? leen if we were