The Sun.
London, England, 1849-04-21 00:00:00

.

LONDON, SATURDAY, APRIL 21, 1849.

Pamphleteers are so generally the mere mouth-
pieces of faction, the partizans of the Government, or
of the Opposition, that it becomes quite refreshing to
encounter a political essayist possessed of that most
effectual talisman against prejudice, the characteristic
of impartiality. More agreeable still are the lucu-
brations of any such publicist, if his theme is no mere
party question, but one embracing the whole range of
those principles, and of that consistency, which con-
stitute the sinews and the symmetry of legislation.
A writer of this character we now welcome,* in the
person of a former critic of that most fallacious of all
financial policies which suddenly raised the Antago-
nist of the Blacklegs into the Leader of the Protec-
tionists. The brochure here submitted to our consi-

deration is a catechism of politics, and a touchstone o.

consistency.

While, however, we are ready to acknowledge un-
conditionally the pervading impartiality of this very
miscellaneous chapter on statesmen and the art of
government, we cannot hut recognise at a glance
that the tendency of each sentence is (with a con-
sciousness, and not only with a consciousness, but
with a purpose on the pa-t of the author) the vindi-

cation of the Right Hon. Baronet the Representative
of Tam worth. RegarLng that eminent man as the
very incarnation of . political consistency, the
pamphleteer occasionally dons the livery of
Peelism, and endeavours to sidle into the sunshine
of Sir RonEaT's popularity- by assuming the attitude
of his avowed Apologist. As it would doubtless be
a must erroneous surmise, we, of course, do not wish
it to be understood that the writer makes a barefaced
" bid" fur the patronage of a future Premier, nor
that he looks forward to the chance of receiving com-
pensation for his panegyrics, neither that he calcu-
lates upon the possibility of acquiring a snug berth
under the next Administration. Such an estimate of
his laborious treatise would be altogether too
invidious. While, nevertheless, we disclaim
any such blunt charges against one who
shields himself under the mask of an anony-
mous bookman, we are compelled to say that
the warmth of the eulogiums passed upon the most
popular statesman in Engla,pd are as suspicious as
the elaborate arguments employed to justify those
encomiums are unnecessary. Sir ROBERT is too
high in the estimation of his fellow countrymen to
require any supplementary glorification : his conduct
has been too vividly patriotic and disinterested to
need the extenuations of commentary.
Infinitely more to our own taste are the generali-
ties with which " Plain-Facts" precedes his sketches
of PITT, CANNING, PEEL, and RUSSELL. In this
port;on of the treatise there is much sound reasoning,
the beauty of which is yet somewhat deteriorated
by a flavour of what we may designate, for want of
a better term, school bred ostentation. After re-
minding us, for about the millionth time, of the political
principles of the Stoics;
and
arepresented in the person
of the inflexible Cxxo, ofthe political principles
of the Academics, as embodied 'ri the voluble and va-
riable CICERO, the writer gives us a hackneyedt
, through
quo-
tation from
IDDLETON, and Mhe
a sententious remark borrowedfrom
Han-
sard, branches off into a review of
nthe
faults of the monarchical system under Louis
XVI., and of the direct and indirect causes of uthse
Great Bevolu'ion. Here it is that the excellence
of the pamphlet really commences, and that the force
of the arguments as to the precise nature of political
consistency becomes discernible.
Of all things, perhaps the one least capable of re-
ceiving.an accurate definition is that same phrase—
Political ComiAency. " When lam told," says the
pamphleteer, "that a man has acted through the
course of a long life in strict attachment to the same
principles of Government, and that he has been an
unswerving friend of his party,' I cannot believe
that that man has always pursued a con-
scientious and deliberate course, nor that his
sole object was to for ward the pros-
perity of his country." Assuredly not : the
test of a man's consistency is the very reverse of such
an instance ; for, as it is certain that no two men were

• " Political Principles, and Political Consistency. By
Plain-Facts." 'Bvo. pp. 68. Loud=
.011ivier, 1848.

ever seen whose features were exactly alike, so it is 1
certain that no two men ever existed whose opinions /
upon every subject invariably
in tallied.
[The
two DROMIOS existed only
the
imaging-
tion of the Great Comic Dramatist.] The one
would be as astounding a miracle as the other ; and,
this being the case, it is quite manifest that any one
continually and implicitly following the dictation of
his "party" must, instead of being a consistent
politician,
be a most egregious partisan. Better
to us are the derided Trimmers, of whom HALI-
FAX was the ornament, than the eulogized
Tantivies, amongst whom COLLIER was con-
spicuous. Better to us the yielding policy of a
FERRETTI, which delayed the calamities of a Revolu-
tion, than the stubborn system of a GUIZOT, which
provoked a general bouleversement of society. It was
because of the independence of his votes, when a
representative in Parliament, that COBBETT was at last
being perpetually rated as an example of inconsistency
and tergiversation. It is because of his disregard to
men and "parties" that ROEBUCK—now taunting the
Whigs, now scoffing at the Tories, now har-
rying the Radicals, and now again discharging
the whole torrent of his sparkling sarcasms at
the Conservatives—has been charged with
the same shortcomings and traduced as a
merely hybrid politician. Yet we rather think
that the impartial biographer of either of those two
men would be unable to say otherwise than that COB-
BETT and ROEBUCK strove underiatingly to forward
the progress of reform, and to diffuse wider and
wider the blessings of civil and religious freedom
among the mass of the population. Those who most
deserve the title of Consistent Politicians are generally
the very persons who are most abused for their incon-
sistency; while those who have splintered the
mirror of their conscience on their servility—
these who play over again in the House
of Commons the degrading pastime of " Fol-
low the Leader " are the individuals most
flattered with the covetted designation. What says
Mr. MACAULAY, in one of his " Essays " upon an-
other of those blemishes which disentitle any one to
these panegyrics for political eminence and purity ?
We well remember that in delineating the character
of Sir WILLIAM TEMPLE, one of the most respect-
able names in our History, he mentions, with just
opprobrium, that timidity which is more culpable
than temerity, that " habit of coddling," which is
more contemptible than the most glaring inconsis-
tency. "He never," sass the future historian,
speaking of TEMPLE, " he never put himself pro-
minently before the public eye except at con-
junctures, when he was almost certain to gain,
and could not possibly lose, at conjunctures when
the interests of the State, the views of the Court,
and the passions of the multitude all appeared for an
instant to coincide." This we take to be an indirect
eulogium upon the daring of the policy adopted in
1846 by Sir ROBERT PEEL—an eulogium written
nearly ten years before the possibility of its applica-
tion to the Right Hon. Baronet—and deliberately
enunciated by the most illustrious writer whose
name has yet been inscribed on the roll of Whig
statesmen. Nobler such moral courage as that spoken
of by Mr. MACAULAY and evidenced by Sir ROBERT
PEEL than the dolce far niente habitudes which,
in moments of danger and dilemma, induced
TEMPLE to " retire to his library, and his
orchard, and, while the nation groaned under
oppression, or resounded with tumult and with the
din of civil arms, to amuse himself by writing me-
moirs and tying up apricots." With such time-
servers the business of life appears to be a masquerade
in the midst of rose-bushes and fountains. They
would seem to chaunt together that luscious verse of
old RABELAIS—

" Saulter, dancer, faire des tour•,
Et boyre yin blanc et vermeil;
Et ne mire rien tousles lours
Qua compter escutz au sot el."

So great is the Whig Historian's detestation of this
political pusillanimity that he says of Sir WILLIAM
TEMPLE, that, although he had been brought before
DANTE'S infernal tribunal, though " he would not
have been condemned to the deeper recesses of the
abyss, though he would not have been boiled with
DUNDEE in the crimson pool of Bulicame, or hurled
with DANBY into the seething pitch of Malebolge, or
congealed with Cutincumr. in the eternal ice of
Guidecca : he would perhaps have been placed in
the dark vestibule next to the shade of that inglo-
rious Pontiff—' Chefece per vitiate it gran n:fiuto! '"
In regard to this, what says the Government ?

Nothing, we plainly see, but the peremptory inter-
ference of Parliament will save the public from the
impudent domination of Fanatacism. The saints
have set their hearts so entirely on the acquisition of
despotic authority on all Sundays, that the multitude
will soon have the alternative before them of open
riot, or of the assistance of the Legislature. There
is no longer any mistake about the matter. Each
day brings ti!e belligerents nearer and nearer ; the
struggle will soon be hand to band; and it is quite
evident from the previous conduct of the Pharisees of
Scotland, that they at least are resolved upon giving
no quarter. So be it. We are prepared to encounter
these redoubtable physical force moralists upon their
own footing, with their own choice of weapons, and
with the common understanding that the battle is to
be no make-believe, but one whose close shall be de-