The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-01-11 00:00:00

PORTRAITS OF THE LATE DUKE

The portraits of Wellington, in his declining years, give
a most imperfect idea of his noble countenance : to make
bum look sagacious, they make him look wily ; all the
grandeur is gone. The sketches published since his death
are an insult to his memory ; they exhibit nothing but an
exaggeration of decrepitude, totally pervert the physiog-
nomy of the statesman and the warrior, and offend the
eye, as much as they vex the memory. The best likeness
of Wellington, the man, is the portrait by Lawrence,
Painted soon after his return from Waterloo ;—a fine,
animated, and intelligent full face ; half length, the dress
a simple •
P e cloak; the general expression equally speaking
the man
of high life and the hero.

WHIG PATRONAGE OF LITERATURE.
It may excite some men fond of problems to start the
inquiry, why Toryism, with all its virtues, is partial to
dullness—never opens its friendships, feelings, or services,
to the young talents which it ought to honour, and is
satisfied with establishing an aristocratic barrier against
all the rising accomplishments of the age. The Whigs
have always been wiser in their generation—have always
remembered their exclusiveness tends to stupidity—that
a circle of dowager lords is one of the most striking
emblems of political decrepitude ; and that Holland House
brought more recruits of talent to Whiggism, than all the
temptations, even of the Treasury, brought to its rival
powers. By some fatalitY, all the wits of London have
been Whigs for the last hundred years--all the showy
writers have dipped their wings in Whig libations ; even
all the brilliancy of fashion, and the grace of manners,
have glittered round the mansions of Whiggism; while, if
a man of talent,ddestitute of the " fourteen quarterin s "
-doors of Toryism, it
within the folding g ,
has been suffered
is quoted as a condescension. As to the Peel dynasty,i
there was no
help for enduring that accession from the
loom ; parliamentary workmen must be had, at whatever
price ; but even that dynasty rapidly contrived to adopt
.
the old Torystyle, and be as solemn, exalted, and exclusive, from the Conquest.
as if they had been all barons dating
The number concludes with an ably-written politi-
cal essay on the recent
'
" Defeat of the Ministry,"
from which we give the subjoined description of

The Peel THE LEADING PEELITES.
party, since the death of its greatlead er, has
had no recognised head, at least in the House of Com-
mons. The few able men
insignificance, are as nearlyintel-
lect, on a par with each other.
as have rescued it from
possible, in point.of
Graham from this estimate, as a dWe exclude Sir James
adventurer, who fights for his own hand.
and determined
But between
Goulburn, Gladstone, and Herbert,eateer
affinity. The first has the least originality, and
training,
thea s t leastrong
ability of the three ; but he has had the
and the most extensive parliamentary experience
stone is undoubtedly a man of mark, but his talents have enormously overrated. He has not, and he never
had, had, a single spark of genius. He can do nothing in the
way of invention, though in fault-finding he displays con.
siderable ingenuity; and he is never capable of appreciating
high qualities of mind in another, because he never yet
has known his own. He has moulded himself on the
model of Machiavelli, but his intellect is muddy compared
with that of the subtle Florentine. Mr. Sidney Herbert
is more impulsive, and the occasional warmth of his
speeches contrasts agreeably with the frigidity and ob-
scurity of his friends; but he has neither depth, nor power,
nor steadfastness of purpose sufficient to raise him above
the rank of a good debater. The three, however, are
notables in an age when notabilities are rare; and, being
subjected to no control, they allow themselves consider-
able license.

The writer indulges in hopes for the future, the
more pleasing from the Conservatives being rid of