The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-14 00:00:00

raising, abusive denial is a very valuable art to pos-
sess. It is very difficult to disbelieve in the sincerity
of a man who has really contrived to work himself up
into a rage. But he should not work his powers in
that respect too hard. Mr. Cobden is likely to have
plenty of opportunity for the use of them, especially
now that Mr. Bright has become desperate, and
will let the cat out of the bag upon all occasions. It
must be very aggravating to have a companion
tacked on to you who, like Moliere's L'Etourdi,
always will tell the wrong truth at the wrong mo-
ment. We can pardon some irritability in Mr.
Cobden's mind at the discovery that his colleague's
imprudences have not passed as unobserved as per-
haps he hoped. But he will only damage himself by
such letters as that which he printed in the Daily
News of Wednesday. Like a fish that pulls, he is
only fastening himself further upon the hook. It is
safe, up to a certain point, to count on the well-
known maxim that the British public abhor small
print; and if he would leave them alone, Mr.
Bright's speech might pass quietly into oblivion.
Bat, of course, if he will provoke them to it, a cer-
tain number will refer back to the report of what
took place at Rochdale. Any that do may possibly
admire the courage of Mr. Cobden's denial, but will
not extend their admiration to any other mental or
moral qualities it may display. Whatever discou-
raging reflections may have occurred to Mr.Uobden's
mind, they are no reason for writing a letter full of
Billingsgate. He should take a lesson from his
friends the Yankees, who, if they do occasionally
lose a battle, are never so foolish as to admit it. By
his own and his friend's indiscreet candour, he has
done an injury to his cause which it may be difficult
to repair. But it is only adding folly to folly to
admit his consciousness of his blunder, and of its
disastrous consequences, by such a letter as that
which he has just published.
SPECTATOR.—When Mr. Cobden takes up the
gloves for an old friend and colleague Mr. Bright,
he is not only guilty of a work of supe-
rerogation, but of an error which he, as an
economist, ought to feel more keenly still, a very
mistaken division of labour. In challenging the
Times for his burly fellow-labourer, he not only
goes up, like David, to an unequal battle, but,
unlike David, goes up to his unequal battle on be-
half of a Goliath, and a very willing and able
Goliath, as well as against one. This is a sad mis-
take. There is a kind of intellect which is stimu-
lated and strengthened by the animosities of the
combatant, and there is a finer and more delicate
kind which is paralysed and perturbed by them.
Mr. Bright's is of the former, Mr. Cobden's of the
latter kind. Mr. Bright's intellect is, as it were,
the mere instrument of a very powerful character.
Mr. Cobden's is a delicate scientific apparatus, which
is disordered, or even utterly spoiled, by the excite-
ment of a personal affray. Mr. Bright deals blows
with a heavy hand and takes them with an equal
mind, though not without some perceptible increase
of force in giving back again to his antagonist, at
the first suitable opportunity, "full measure, pressed
down and running over." He seizes the fitting
moment, and speaks of his great enemy in the press
as " Privilege with blatant voice" proclaiming
falsehoods to the British people, and probably the
blow not only took a stinging effect, but is partly
accountable for the certainly very wilful misrepre-
sentation of Mr. Bright's and his colleague's views
on the land question which has excited so deeply
Mr. Cobden's wrath. Mr. Bright's mind is not
ruffled by combat—it is just heated thereby to the
red heat of successful oratory. But Mr. Cobden's
intellect is quite of another kind. More limited, but
far more delicate and flexible than Mr. Bright's
within its narrow limits, it is only deranged and con-
fused by anger. Unlike the cuttlefish, Mr. Cobden
blinds not his pursuer, but himself, by those moral
secretions which a threat or a thrust provokes. His
fine intelligence (which is a certain limited field,
and working under tranquil and unimpassioned
conditions, is almost unrivalled in its way) is
rendered turbid, nay muddy, and worse than useless,
by irritation, and his personal onslaughts are often
made not only without judgment, but without sense.
Ha loses one of his keenest powers, the perception
of reason and consequent, puts forward as the case
of the plaintiff what is really the only excuse for the
defendant, and altogether, not unlike Mr. Winkle,
when volunteering his eager and injudicious evi-
dence for Mr. Pickwick, contrives to strengthen his
opponent's case as much as ill-advised and blunder-
ing zeal can eeer do. Mr. Cobden begins his savage
reply to the Times by protesting with justifiable
indignation against its represeetation of the Roch-
dale orators as advocating a confiscation of the land
of the rich for the benefit of the poor—a protest
which we ourselves were the first to make. He goes
on to say that the pre-eminent unscrupulousness of
the Times, " which places it in mordid contrast with
the rest of the periodical press," is mainly due to
its writers' reliance " on the shield of an impene-
trable secrecy," and then immediately proceeds to
explain that, in the case of the Times, this reliance
is peculiarly foolish, because everybody, in the politi-
cal world at least, knows who is responsible for its
articles. Here we find one of the most acute logicians
in public life, first ascribing a peculiar and " pre-
eminent" unscrupulousness to a privilege which the
7imes shares with all its contemporaries, and then
explaining that every other paper is far more secure
in its possession of that privilege than this pre-
eminent offender. In other words, Mr. Cobden
lays down the premises which would prove all the
press unscrupulous, except perhaps the 7imes, and
t hen appears to congratulate himself on having shown
why all the other papers are so much less unserupa,
lons than their great rival. So keen a logician as
Mr. Cobden could never have written such an argu-
ment as that, if his mind had not been clouded by the
fever consequent on intellectual mosquito-bites. Mr.
Cobden's imagination and theoretic power are only
fit for acting impartially on very simple matters, of
which he really holds the key or fundamental prin-
ciple in his own mind. When he attempts to apply
the same method to his own personal pangs, he only
makes a really fine intellect ridiculous, and a femi-
nine temperament sore to disease.
LONDON RETIEW.—Mr. Cobden's quarrel with
the 7imes is another instance of those faults of
temper which disfigure the political career of him-
self, of Mr. Bright, and of their friends. The re-
cent speeches of the two great Free-traders hap-
pened to contain a considerable quantity of unplea-
sant and ugly complaints directed against the
owners of landed property. Show Mr. Bright or
Mr. Cobden a great landowner, and it is like show-
ing a bull a red flag. They cannot abide the sight,
and make no scruple of saying so. The remarks
made by both gentlemen at Rochdale were reported
at great length in the leading journal, and with
unimpeached accuracy. Two long articles followed
the next day and the day after, devoted to a criti-
cism of the opinions propounded at the meeting.
Exception was taken by the writer to Mr. Cobden's
and his friend's attack on the present system of
tenure, as meaning nothing more or less than
anarchy or revolution. "Is nut your language,"
said the Times, "an incentive to working men to
look over the fence of the neighbouring proprietor
and learn to think that they have a natural right to
a slice of the soil ? When coupled with political
appeals in favour of reform, is it not holding cut an
agrarian law as the result to be gained by a reduc-
tion of the franchise ?" Such was the argument of
the Times. It is possibly not altogether conclusive,
because Mr. Bright and Mr. Cobden would pro-
bably reply that they did not mean that landed
property ought to change hands violently, but that
the law should put facilities in the way of its
changing hands more easily. Though not conclu-
sive, the argument was not, however, unfair or in-
appropriate, because the masses whom Mr. Bright
and Mr. Cobden work upon are, perhaps, not logical
enough to draw fine distinctions, and often accept
inflammatory language for more than it is worth.
It was, in fact, a forcible and rhetorical way of put-
ting the dangers and absurdities of such a mode of
working mob. Finally, lest injustice should be
done, the Times invited Mr. Bright and Mr. Cobden
to explain themselves more clearly if they did not
wish to be misunderstood. The first thing to be
remarked is that Mr. Bright and Mr. Cobden, who
object to strong language when applied to them-
selves, do not seem to mind applying it to others.
What the 7imes said of these gentlemen may or may
not be plain and rough speaking, but it is certainly
not a bit more plain or more rough than the lan-
guage they are themselves in the habit of dealing
out to those whom they dislike, at large meetings
in Birmingham, in Rochdale, and at similar places.
Rhetoricians who use invectives as a kind of French
polish for their political victims must expect to be
treated upon the same system ; and that throwing
of stones is a mode of warfare not altogether uncon-
genialabus to Mr Cobden, is plain from the heawrtayr
d pre-
he gives the 7imes. He cannot henceforward
Secondly,
tend with decency to be mealy-
ndman-
luoitnaendnooczepnllit:
we must observe that Mr. Cobdameen:
if the Times has naturally
personal corruption
columns to accusations
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Yahoo,
i names.
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usual po Ica con roversy to
agers. It is not
charged directly upon its.
to be found in
Connell
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sc
aa
it was possible for IV Years
have gone by since
impute motives
Mr. Disraeli
to describe Davie
lima Vipers
wholesale,.
co
,c o n
l
and snakes and r f
jns
.are only
authors of the age of =us. It is commonly and
rightly understood that there are limits within
whieu those who wish their letters to a news-
paper to aPPear must confine
their
powers of
denunciation. The next remarkable fact con-
nected with Mr. Cobden's communication is that
it is pure invective and
not discuss the question rhnothing more. He does
ether the interpretation
deliberately put o
111 Mr. Bright's speech be the true
one or not. He simply retorts with a polite spe-
cies of cursing and
swearing. All this is done
" without co • mmunicating with Mr. Bright him-
self." Now, there are occasions on which it is right