The Sun.
London, England, 1863-11-02 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

SPECTATOR.—It may seem at first sight a fan-
ciful analogy, and yet there is something by no
means fanciful in the subtle connection between
utility and art in Mr. Gladstone's political nature.
The whole school of so-called Peelites, including the
late Sii Robert Peel, the late Sir James Graham,
the late Lord Herbert, Mr. Cardwell, and others of
less note, as well as the one great survivor of the
school, who in art, at least, far surpasses them all
—were, in a very remarkable degree, men apt and
graceful in the minor political utilities—what were
then called administrative reformers even more than
statesmen. All politics, though justice is their first
law, must, to a certain extent, be also utilitarian ;
and in large departments of political duty states-
men must study human happiness and convenience
first—greatness or beauty of design only in the
second place. But there are departments of states-
manship which resemble architecture in the magni-
tude and grandeur of their scope, and also those
which are more akin to the art of the potter—
which shape the smaller political industries with
more or ices of skill and more or less of artistic
power. It was to the latter region of politics that
the disciples of the late Sir Robert Peel chiefly de-
voted themselves—the abler of them to the art of
political pottery, the feebler to that of political
pottering. There was always in that school a pre-
ference for inventing comparatively small and
neatly adapted political instruments—the greatest
want, no doubt, of our age, which had launched its
greater schemes of legislative policy fairly before
they came upon the stage. So Sir James Graham
recast—looking to the result, we can, perhaps,
scarcely say, reformed—the Admiralty ; Lord Her-
bert, the War Office ; and the late Sir Robert Peel
himself, whose statesmanship was, however, a good
deal more than administrative, the finance. Mr.
Gladstone's genius is of the same kind, though it
shows less breadth and strength, but higher art than
his master's; it is at once artistic and utilitarian,
evinces a real preference for the pacific and genial
humanities of statesmanship, a thorough dislike to
any appeal to broad popular passions, but is chiefly
remarkable for combining taste for useful detail with
a most subtle dexterity and sense of beauty. There
is something thoroughly classical about his work-
manship, though he works in English clay, and
usually on a very moderate scale. If he has to make
a statement about the malt credits, there is a finish
in his description which makes promissory malt
duties seem for the time something ideal; if he has
to speak of Italian progress, his thoughts fall into
shapes of almost statuesque grace. As he says of
Mr. Wedgwood's works, we may say of almost all
his speeches on finance, " they are so tasteful that
they would not disgrace a cabinet, so plain that they
would suit a counting-house. They have no preten-
sion—all his works, from the lowest upwards, abhor
pretension." He tells us that Mr. Wedgwood sel-
dom coloured highly, but preferred a somewhatcold
grey ; " the general character of his colouring may
be justly described as a strict sobriety, derived from
and strictly following the antique." There is the
same effect about Mr. Gladstone's own political
thought and speeches—a careful avoidance of high
colour, a sobriety in strict accordance with his wish
to fix the eye first on the clear outline of his
thought. But the chief resemblance of Mr. Glad-
stone's own political art to the subject-matter of his
eulogy lies, as we have said, in the mixed utilita-
rianism and gracefulness—the taste for economy
governing the taste for harmony—in his mind es-
pecially in relation to minor politics. He lives in
the "intermediate region" of polities between that
of pare principle and that of pure practice—in a
world prolific of reconciling theories—which is
neither close to the fountain head of politics nor
limited to its final practical field. His political cha-
racter is of the Lancashire clay moulded and elabo-
rated at Oxford—and in all his writings and speeches
you see that the minor adaptations are more original
and perfect than the constitution of the whole. In
all his books, from the "Church Principles consi-
dered in their Results" down to the " Homer," you
see the great muitiplicity of detail in his mind, and
the great superiority of his artistic workmanship on
smaller questions to the art of his workmanship on
large. Mr. Gladstone is not a wonderful piece of
political architecture, but he is a very wonderful
museum of minor political art. No one could sur-
paes him in his treatment of technical politics,—
his view of the charities,—his various expositions
of the financial situations,—his application of a
principle like non-intervention to single foreign
questions,—but as a general statesman there is
some want of grasp, largeness, and tenacity. In what
Mr. Gladstone calls " the homely sphere of simple
utility" he is not at home. " A dustman," he says,
"cannot be expected to move with the grace
of a fairy, nor can his cart be constructed
on the flowing lines of a Greets chariot at
war." So we may say that a political Secretary
to the Treasury, a Hay ter or a Brand, who has to
look after the political clusthole, cannot be expected
to move with the grace of a Gladstone, nor would
the Chancellor of the Exchequer be eminently fitted
perhaps to the homely drudgery of work like Mr.
F. Peel's. On the other hand, the highest reach of
statesmanship, the " pure thought" of Burke, the
firm audacity of Cavour, the aristocratic loftiness of
Ricasoli, is also beyond him. It is in the interme-
diate world that his wonderful fertility of resource
and flexibility of talent shows itself—in inventing
all kinds of graceful forms and moulds for ideas of
secondary political importance—not always secon-
dary at least, but secondary in critical times. The
Peelite party always used to strike us as con-
sisting more or less of minor political utilities
aefteneci by grace of form—" earthen vessels" moulded
some to honour, and some at least to but little
honour, like the late Sir J. Graham—though never
mere political utensils, like the sons of the late Sir
R. Peel. Mr. Gladstone is something a good deal
more than this—not only a graceful political
" vessel," bat a graceful political artist, who has
turned the Treasury into a perfect Etruria of beau-
tiful utilities, and stowed away figures and finance
in shapes of the most exquisite form. Yet he re-
mains a politician of the same stamp—of adaptive
administrative ingenuity—moulding dull subjects to
comely forms, uniting the maximum of beauty with
the maximum of utility. In him the earthen vessel
is almost transfigured by its classical symmetry into
political power of another order. His tamer Peelite
colleagues might almost say, with regard to him
and his flowing silver oratory, " though he has lien
among the pots,yet has he the Wings of a dove, that
is covered with silver wings, and her feathers like
gold."
SATURDAY REVIEW.—Mr. Beecher's speeches on
English platforms will have accomplished some
practical good, if the applause which he has re-
ceived so far propitiates his vanity es to induce him
to discontinue, on his return to America, his agita-
tion against England. The classes which are in-
fluenced by philanthropic declaimers are the same
in both countries, but it is only in the United States
that they possess political influence. If all the
hundreds of thousands who have listened to Mr.
13eecheres speeches had been Parliamentary electors
they would nevertheless fail to secure the reproduc-
tion in the House of Commons of the fallacies which
they expect and admire in the congenial sphere of
Exeter Hall, The aristocratic element in English
institutions has been preserved chiefly by the tradi-
tional habit of choosing educated representatives,
Popular clamour is accordingly forced to express
itself through channels which effectually modify its
character. The nonsense of the hustings dies away
in the House, not because it is arbitrarily repressed
but through dread of the ridicule and moral disap-
probation which await sentimental exaggeration or
dishonest claptrep. Mr. Bright himself acknow-
ledges the validity of the unwritten Parliamentary
law,and the wholesome constraint almost raises him,
for the time, from a demagogue to a statesman. The
feminine reasoning and effeminate passion of poli-
tical preachers such as Mr. Beecher are happily im-
possible where competent critics have the oppotu-
nity of reply ; and the arguments and opinions
which are not good enough for Parliament are with-
out operation in public affairs. The very shop-
keepers, and perhaps even the Dissenting ministers
who crowded Mr. Beecher's meetings, would rather
be governed by men of the world than by irrespon-
sible spouters, In England the national conscience
instinctively repudiates the loose morality of the
sectarian pulpit, but it seems that the distribution
of power in America is wholly different, although
the practical effect of popular rhetoric may perhaps
be exaggerated by foreigners. Mr. Beecher can
scarcely have influenced the judgment of any Eng-
lishman on American affairs, but at home he has
disciples who may possibly have it in their power
to inflame or to check the national fury against the
unoffending mother country. Having hitherto
used his utmost efforts to stimulate the
vulgar clamour, Mr. Beecher will new pro-
bably be inclined to attribute the success of his
own speeches to the friendly feelings of English-
men ; and for some time to come he will suspend his
demands for the best blood of England to be shed in
compensation for the surrender of Mason and Slidell.
It is the fault of clerical participators in secular con-
troversies that they seldom find it possible to be tho-
roughly in earnest. Accustomed to vague plati-
tudes, to conventional dogmatism, and to the entire
absence of opposition, they fail to understand that,
in legal or financial discussions, truth and error are
of serious importance. An ingenious theory of the
motives of Jeroboam, or a pleasant fancy sketch of
the private life of Hezekiah, amuses devout idlers,
while it leaves the foundations of morality unin-
jured ; but even Mr. Beecher might reflect that the
issues of peace and war might be hereafter affected
by a deliberate falsification of the history of the
seizure of the Trent. A popular preacher is probably
ineapetble of apprehending the real question which