The Sun.
London, England, 1847-04-12 00:00:00

/ 7&6t ?

N 7 APRIL 12, 1847.

was a variation of hue, more like that of a chame-
lion than that of a turn-coat. His Parliamentary
jacket fluctuated in colour like the " dyes " of an ex-
piring dolphin, and ultimately became as dappled as
the jacket of harlequin. Hence, therefore, does the
Quarterly look thus " darkly, deeply, beautifully
blue:' Such, indeed, was the aptitude of Lord Sid-
mouth for coalition with any Government, that he
was once likened by either Canning or Windham
to the small pox, seeing that every Administration
must " have him once." From the import-
ance of the epoch in which he appeared,
more than from any intrinsic eminence as a states-
man, the career of Sidmouth is one of peculiar inte-
rest. The contemplation of his parliamentary life
throws, moreover, much light upon his renowned
contemporaries. Henry Addington, the eldest son of
Dr. Anthony Addington (a distinguished physician and
an intimate friend of the great Earl of Chatham), was
born May 30, 1755 ; and was educated successively
at Winchester and Oxford. In 1772 he commenced his
legal studies at Lincoln's Inn, and was called to the
bar in 1784. Previously, namely, in 1781, he had
been married, and scarcely four years afterwards was
snugly introduced to the House of Commons by being
elected representative of the pocket-borough of De-
vizes. Upon this latter incident the Quarterly pro-
nounces an eulogium on the old rotten-borough-mon-
gering syilezn—an eulogium as impudent as laugh-
able. "We cannot," says the reviewer, " allow the
itom
old system to b defrauded of the merit of having
intrauge#4o4 .
ouWaoParlkußeEttyheye he,
probably would never otherwise have arrived. T.
instances of any of our eminent statesmen having been
the produce of populous constituencies are very rare."
Surely the West Riding of Yorkshire is forgotten.

Surely the manufacturing districts of Manchester are
forgotten, and the populous district of Stroud, and
scores of other constitueneies ! But if rotten boroughs
were really the only channel through which legisla-
tive genius could flow, then, say we, the Parliament now
sitting is one of the grandest phenomena of the 19th
century. On entering Parliament, however, Adding.
ton took no effort to improve himself by participation
in " the athletic struggles of debate." His tacitur-
nity was confirmed by his nomination to the Speaker-
ship in 1789. " For the chair," says the Quarterly,
"he was eminently well qualified—a commanding
figure, a handsome and dignified countenance, a clear
and sonorous voice, a gracious manner, an imperturb-
able good temper, youth, health, and strength, with
unwearied diligence and patience, and a peculiar
aptitude for that species of formal business in which
the Speaker is so particularly engaged." As the
Reviewer very truthfully acknowledges, this splendid
portrait exactly tallies with the qualifications of the
present Right Hon. the Speaker of the House of
Commons, Charles Shaw Lefevre. A facetious anec-
dote is about this period quoted of Dundas and Pitt
entering the House one evening considerably flushed
with wine. Next day Addington rallied the latter
with having so disturbed the clerk at the table, as to
have given him a violent headache. Pitt replied
thereupon " that he thought it an excellent arrange-
ment that he should have the wine and the clerk the
headache." An anecdote this, enshrined afterwards
in the " Rolliad :"

" P.—l cannot see the Speaker I Hal, can you ?
D.—Not see the Speaker 1 hang it, I see two."

When the Quarterly, by-the-way, indulges in
panegyrics upon the extraordinary genius of William
Pitt, we can freely sympathise in those panegyrics,
though we must, of course, mourn the egregious
misapplication of such vast intellectual powers ; re-
membering well, as Byron has said, that
" Pitt, too, had his pride,
And, as a high-soul'd minister of state, is
Renown'd for ruining Great Britain gratis."
But when the Quarterly grovels down into absolute
idolatry (p. 502), and strives to aid in apotheosising its
idol, the gorge rises. Influenced by the atmosphere
of ceremonial that always surrounds, Mr. Speaker
Addington gradually acquired a pomposity of speech
and demeanour that clung to him ever afterwards. It
"was in 1798 that he so far forgot his duty, as to
connive at the duel between his friend Pitt and Mr.
Tierney, who then exchanged shots on Wimbledon Com-
mon. And, towards the conclusion of the year 1800,
he and Pitt met for the last time " in the unleavened
cordiality .of private friendship?' Ambition and vanity
then began to estrange them from each other, and
their jealousies were consummated by differences
respecting the Roman Catholic question. From the
animosity of George 111. to any concessions in that
quarter, it is notorious that Pitt resigned, and that
Addington was, in 1801, called upon to form an
administration. Here it was that the new first Lord
of the Treasury received the memorable nick-
name of THE DOCTOR from Canning,—Addington
having earned his diploma by recommending a pillow
of hops as a soporific for the mad old king. Never
was such nepotism as that of the Doctor, on grouping
together his ministerial colleagues : such cramming in
of cousins and brothers-in-law, and uncles, and what-
not : suck snug family arrangements as to the emolu-
ment derivable from sinecures ! Among others there
were, Hiley Addington, Bond, Golding, Adams, and
Bragge, afterwards known as Bathurst. In sarcasm
at once of this favouritism in the distribution of the
sugar-plums of office, and of the stumbling delivery
of the unfortunate Doctor, Canning sung—
" Cheer him when he hobbles vilely,
Brother Bragge and Brother Hiley
Cheer him when his audience flag,
Brother Hiley—Brother Bragge !"

From the other facetiae and pasquinades perpetrated
by the witty Canning upon the Addington Adminis-
tration, the reviewer selects three : we transcribe
them for the amusement of our readers, with two at-
tributed to Pitt.

"In allusion to those specious orations with which
Addington used to captivate the country gentlemen,
Canning quoted do remember an apothecary . . .
gulling of simples!' On another occasion, when Ad-
dington was loftily enumerating his various measures of
national defence, Canning interjected, loud enough to be
heard, Oh, most forcible Feeble!' The relative merits
of Addington,' he said, might be determined by the
Rule of Three inverse:—

.Pitt is to Addington—
As London is to Paddington!'
And we have half forgotten a French epitaph which
concluded—

Ministre par hasard et Mideein—jmislig're lui.'
Mr. Pitt himself would in private indulge a smile at his
successor's somewhat prosy orations. We heard very
lately from one of the company still happily surviving,
that about this time Pitt, who was expected to a dinner-
party, did not come in till the second course, 'begging
pardon for being so late, as he was obliged to hear Ad-
dington out; and the Doctor, you know, travels with his
own horses!' As we are on these light matters, we may
add another specimen of that quiet, dry humour which
Mr. Pitt possessed, but seldom indulged in. On his
Additional Force Bill,' in 1805, he had a meeting of
country gentlemen—militia colonels, we think—to con-
sider the measure. One of these gentlemen objected to
a clause for calling out the force, which be insisted
should not be done except in case of actual invasion.
Pitt replied, That would be too late;' but the gentle-
man still insisted on the case of actual invasion. By and
by they came to another clause, to render the force more
disposable; the same gentleman objected again, and in-
sisted very warmly that he never would consent to its
being sent out of England—' except, I suppose,' rejoined
Pitt, in case of actual Invasion.

The latter anecdote is as familiar as No. I. of
Joseph Miller, and it has not even the credit
of being neatly told. About this period of Addington's
biography the writer gives an account of the official
labours and industrious regularity of King George
111., which it may be interesting to extract:—

"The King saw his Ministers once a week at levee, when
those who had any business that could be transacted ver-
bally went into the closet; and on any emergency he was
always accessible; but the greater part of his communi-
cations with tht m was in writing. The Minister sub-
mitted the matter in the third person, and a simple form :
as, Mr. Pitt transmits for your Majesty's consideration,'
&c.—or Mr. Addington submits for your Majesty's ap-
proval;' and the King replied invariably (or nearly so)
in a similar style: ' The King has received'—or, The
King returns the warrant'---.4 The King is much pleased'
—or, The King regrets, and signed without any supple-
mentary words, ' George 11.; or' G. 11,'
" His Majesty was very methodical and punctual in
his arrangements, and he expected ordinary-business to
be transmitted in dispatch-boxes over night, to be ready
for his inspection at a fixed and early hour of the
morning. Boxes from the Home and Foreign Offices

i PitCt SD.

went almost every night ;—from other departments as
occasion required. Once a week he had returns of the
state and distribution and movements of every ship and
regiment of the navy and army in particular forms,
which he examined and observed upon, and certain of
them were retained for his own use. These and other
routine communications from the various departments
usually, we believe, reached the King on Thursday
morning, because, as the levee was on Wednesday, he
might there receive any verbal communications explana-
tory of the papers that were to be looked at next day.
He was very careful never to cause any unnecessary de-
lay, and in order, we presume, to prevent the possibility
of his dispatch-boxes being delayed in their transit for
any undue purpose, he carefully noted the hour and
minute-that he received and sent them. Business extra-
ordinary or of any immediate interest was received at all
hours, and dispatched with like regularity and celerity.
No clerk in a public office or banking-house was ever
more assiduous or accurate in the daily discharge of his
duties than King George III."
With all his constitutional idiotism and bigotry
the old monarch was exact in public buiness, even to
punctilio. As everybody knows, the most memorable
transaction of the Addington Cabinet was—The
Peace of Amiens ; but, as everybody does not know,
the rupture of that famous treaty by thepresentation
of the celebrated message of the Bth March, 1803
(announcing the pretended hostile preparations of
France, and calling upon Parliament for additional
means of resistance), was effected in a grotesque
manner. Canning smiled upon the presentation of
the message, and Addington, without explaining the
cause of Canning's merriment, complained of the cir-
cumstance to Lord Malmesbury. We well remember
the cause of that merriment, says the writer in the
Qriarterly Review--i-wstets4W

" When Addington brought down the message-

whether he had happened to-be with the King aßehad
not time to change his dress, or whether, as was thought
at the time, he meant to give more pomp and solemnity
to the occasion prese❑ted himself at the bar in tne
WINDSOR UNIFORM, and marched with the message up
the House with a peculiarly erect and military air. In
this sportive exhibition Cenning's eye caught' the pride,
pomp, and circumstance of glorious war;' and he made
himself and others very merry with the Doctor—Doctor
Cams—in his belligerent character."
Shortly afterwards the Doctor's administration
was falling to pieces, and the Doctor appealed to his
predecessor to combine with him in forming another
Cabinet—Pitt taking a subordinate position. " Pitt!"
exclaims the Reviewer, in a paroxysm of just indig-
nation, "Pitt ! who at five-and-twenty had refused
any secondary place—Pitt! who had been twenty
years First Minister—Pitt ! to become a subordinate,
and that, too, in a rickety Ministry, of which, with
an inferior share of authority, he was to bear all the
burden! " Oh ! the impudence of the Doctor! Such
was the decadence of power with the Addingtonians,
that, on the Naval Inquiry Bill the division was 130
for the Opposition, 201 for the Ministers. The
writer hereupon gives us another pleasant anecdote :
" The Scotch Members dividing against Addington
on this occasion," says he, "Sheridan, on entering
the House, addressed him in a stage whisper, altering
only one syllable in the despairing ejaculation of
Macbeth—' Doctor! the Thanes the from thee.' "
On the 10th of May, 1804, Addington was no longer
Prime Minister. After Pitt's death, on the 23il
of January, 1805, Addington organised the
famous " piebald Administration, called All the
Talents." Previously, on the formation of Pitt's last
administration, Addington had been elevated to the
peerage as Viscount Sidmouth. On the demise of
Pox, Sept. 14, 1806, Sidmouth again changed office.
and in the following spring the fabric of the Talents
was in ruins. It is amusing to find the Quarterly
sneering at the Dean of Norwich for, inasmuch as he
justifies the antagonism of Lord Sidmouth to the
second Copenhagen expedition in 1807, by quoting
Mr. Jefferson, and then to find this same hypercritical
Quarterly giving a counter-quotation half way down
the very same page, from whom on earth does the
reader imagine ? Why, from Citizen Fouche !
Fouche, a wretch we would not believe on his solemn
oath, sworn upon the four Gospels, on his deathbed !
We were prepared to hear the Reviewer characterise
Lord Sidinouth's whole political life as " a
whirl of inconsistencies," but we were scarcely
prepared to find him the deliberate apologist
of the Peterloo massacres ! Having recorded
that Henry Addington otherwise Lord Sid-
mouth, otherwise the doctor, died on Thursday
the 15th of February, 1844, we shall close this epi-
tome of his career. The biography which we have
just noticed at such length is altogether a delightful
gossiping paper, and breathes as much of the spirit
as of the intelligence of the,Quarterly Review.