The Express.
London, England, 1857-08-13 00:00:00

THE LATE JOHN WILSON CHOKER.

John Wilson Croker was a conspicuous man during
a long course of years in politics and literature.
He was widely known as Secretary to the Ad-
miralty—which cdos he held for one-and-twenty
years; as a member of parliament for twenty-five
years ; as an industrious and accomplished author ;
and, above all, perhaps, as the wickedest of reviewers;
that is, as the author of tho foul and false political
articles is the Qwartrrly Revisit., which stand oat
as the disgrace of the periodical literature of our
time. His lateral abilities, his capacity and inclina-
tion for toil, the mingled violence and casieticity
his temper, and his entire sasentrilowsnees is
matters both of feeling and of statement, oxabined
to make him a remarkable, if not a very loveable
personage, and an useful, though not very honour-
able member of a political party.

He was the son-of the Surveyor-General of Ire-
land, and was born in that Connaught which was
then the " hell "of the empire. "To Hell or
Connaught," was still the imprecation of the day
when Croke" was born; that MN in 1780. He was
always called an Irishman ; and very properly, as
Galway was his native place ; bat he was of English
descent. As for temperament, we do not know that
either England or Ireland would be very anxious
to claim him : and he certainly was sus purl.—
remarkably independent of the influences which
largely affect the characters of most men. He was
educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and was called
to the bar in 1809. His hie publication, "Familiar
Epistles to F. E. Jones, Esq.," shows that his prone-
ness to sarcasm existed early but the higher qua-
lities which once made him the hope of the Tory
misty were then so much more vigorous than at a
later time, that the expectations excited by the outset
of his public life were fully justifiable. It was in
1807 that he entered parliament, as member for
Downpatrick, and within two years he was Secretary
to the Admiralty. He had by that time given high
proof of his ability in his celebrated pamphlet on the
e Peet and Present State of Ireland." The author-
ship was for some time uncertain. Bootees it was
candid and painfully faithful, the Seliaburgh Ruler,
ge melt' as 1813, could not believe it to be his; while,
is des other hand, there was the wonder that the
man who so wrote about Ireland should be go
=invited to °See by the government under
That Irish may be now re-
gulled as perhaps the mod hmemrable achievement
of Mr. (kahu's long life authorship.
hat blare this he had joined with Mr. Canning,
Wake Beek, George Ellis, Mr. Manitt, and others,
in setting op the Quarterly !beim. the &it number
of which append la the sum e 214911. The Eska-
trures Ronne had the. existed urea years ; and
while obnoxious be the Tory peaty kr its polities, it
was not less mote the gum' gab& he the reckless
ferocity of some of its egleisimkin these its etuiydays.
It the Quarterly proposed to rebuke this sin by
=it was rather curium that Mr. Croker
be its most extensive and constant con-
tributor for forty years--owing that he car-
ried the license of anonymous criticism to
the Wt extreme. Before he had done his
work in that de=neat'he had k 4.
Sub—the following h.
character,l
ate =h 17 by one of the first met of the time :
" Cuba. is a man who wield go a hundred miles
through sleet and snow, an the top of a coach, in a
Deemabar night, to suit* a parish register, for the
eats or 111111111111 that a man is illegitimate, or a
women sidle-thin she says As is." He had
actually gone down into the eonstry to find the
register of Fanny Burney's baptism, and revelled la
the exposure of a mis-statement of her age ; and
the other half of the commentary wee understood to
have been earned in the same way. He did not
begin his Quarterly reviewing with the same vira-
lenses which grew upon him in his later years.
That malignant ulcer of the mind, engendered by
=cal disappointment, at length absorbed his
qualities. It is n to speak thus
frankly of the temper of man because
his statements must in justice be discredited;
and because justice requires that the due
discrimination be made between the honourable
and generous-minded men who ennoble the func-
tion of criticism by the spirit they throw into
it, and one who, like Croker, employed it at last for
the gratification of his own morbid inclination to
inflict pain. The propensity was so strong in
Croker's case that we find him unable to resist it
even in regard to his old and affectionate friend
Welter Soca, and at a time when that old friend
was sinking in adversity and disease. He reviewed
in the London Courser Scott's " Malsgrowther
Letters," in 1826, in a way which called fin th the
delicate and touching rebuke contained in Scott's
letter to him, dated March 19th of that year—a
rebuke remembered loot after the trespass that
called it firth woe disregarded as a piece of " Croker's
malignity." The latest instance of this sort of contra.
Terry ailled forth by Mr. Croker's public vituperation
of his oldest and dearest Mends, was the series of
letters that passed between him and Lord John Rus-
sell, after the publication of Mosinee Diaries and
Correspondence. Up te the last his victims s
to behave, till compelled, that the articles
from his pen—well as they knew
spirit of reviewing. When he had brae
staying at Drayton Manor, not long before Sir
Peel's death, had been not only hospitably
entertained, but kindly ministered to ander his
infirmities of deafness and bad health, and went
home to cut up his host in a political article for the
hrtheogning " Quarterly "—his fellow guests at
Draytee refused as lug as possible to believe the
article to be his ; and in the same way, as Lord John
Resell informed him, Mrs. Moore would not for a
lug time credit the hot that the review of
the poet's " Life" woe his, saying she had
always understood Mr. Croker to be her hus-
band's friend. It was in the " Quarterly" that
the disappointed politician vented his embittered
feelings ; as indeed he himself avowed. He
when Lord Grey came into °Moe, thattardtt
not consider his pension worth three mouths' pur-
-1 chase; that he should therefore lay it by while he
had it, and make his income by ' tomehawking"
liberal authors in the " Quarterly." He did it, not
only by writing articles upon them, but by interpo-
lahng other people'. articles with his own aircume
andslaMen„ so as to compel the real reviewers. in
repeated instances, to demand the republication of
their articles in a genuine state and a separate form.
When he entered parliament, he was an admirable
debater—ready, acute, bold, and well furnished with
iahemation, and not yet spo dangerously reckless as
to make him feared by hie own party. Ills corn-
' mud of Mail was remarkable, and so were his in-
delay sari his sagacity within a small range. Hie meal
for party interests was else great—• seal shown in
his won to fill =with part adherents,
from floathey)
Ito the tweet au mid rimilld by em else-
I though( @gut ;bet be was else a cwt acceptable
I Pollisid rap It was the which made him a fee-
-1 anent at the Revers table, and as inimitable
seeearilease at withal 810/0•111 of adaistariel
amok *Um seek men as he revel in
the et the day, and in the miggifestation of
seek Mem vim .water. as eons eat, to-
gether with mile vhteeer in the conflict of
personal fate reset He declared that he would
sever sit is a rearmed Haase of Cannon";
and he sever did. He expected revelation;
aid he thought it prudent to retire while
he geoid yet eau Eh sad fortune. His view
is shown by hie mosrahl aeseent in the House
of the spectacle eta lhatmegensi Alm in the
Preach Coutiteent Assembly, to propose the ex-
duties of feudal rights aid digaiaes, sash as his
an"n"um hied earned end been ensebled ; end be
ha 10 3,014 tit thaw that 10 teooBliool any
iptegiest in the lot. lie thought that pitiable