The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-06-30 00:00:00

VISCOUNT PALMERSTON.

Oh ! come (if haply 'tis thy week for looking pale) with
paly cheek ; though more we love thy roseate days, when the
rich rouge pot pours its blaze
" Full o'er thy face, and, amply spread,
Tips e'en thy whisker tops with red,
Like the last tints of dying day,
That o'er some darkling grove delay !"
All hail to thee, incomparable Macassar ! Hail matchless
rouge ! Hail, all hail, ye cosmetics of every description !
Shed, we pray you, your sweetening and fragrant influence
o'er us, so that we may write of the very greatest of your
patrons in a manner befitting his most extraordinary merits.
And thou, too, oh Cupid ! so assist us that we may speak of
thy representative here on earth in a way worthy both of him
and thee.

What intellect does Lord Palmerston possess, and to what
great and mighty objects does he devote it ! Not the affairs
of nations, not the destinies of empires, not the political con-
vulsions which shake monarchies to their centres, not the
overthrow of one kingdom and the aggrandisement of another,
not the dethronement of one sovereign and the establishment
of his successor, not the downfall of one statesman and the
rise of another ;—pshaw ! these, all these, " are trifles light
as air ;" these are matters unworthy of the slightest consi-
deration when put in comparison with those to which Lord
Palmerston devotes all the powers of his lofty mind. The
cut of a coat, the pattern of a waistcoat, the shape of a pair
of pantaloons, the peculiar twist of a curl, the precise shade
of rouge, the proper colour of hair dye, the arrangement of a
whisker, the hue of an eyebrow—these, and ten thousand
others equally important, are the affairs which engross almost
exclusively his lordship's attention. There are, we know,
some plain, plodding, matter-of-fact people, who think that
subjects of such a haracter are below the attention of any
man, and totally out of the sphere of the duties of a statesman.
Little, alas ! do they know of the matter, when they think that
the person filling such an important office as that of Secretary
of State for Foreign Affairs should pay more attention to a
protocol than to the last number of the Gazette of Fashion,
or that he should ponder more deeply over a despatch from a
foreign ambassador than over the last book of patterns of his
tailor, or that he should consider a treaty relating to the
boundaries of kingdoms and the disposal of colonies of greater
consequence than a discussion with his valet respecting the
number and size of the curls he will wear on either side of
his cranium. Good easy souls, they think, forsooth, that
because in the good old times " when George the Third was
King," the Secretary for Foreign Affairs was engaged in the
duties of his office from morning till night, and his mind was
harassed and jaded with the weight and burden of many
cares, the person at present directing the foreign policy of
this great and mighty nation ought likewise to devote some
little attention to the business of his department and manifest
some anxiety respecting it. Oh ! how much people enter-
taining such old-fashioned notions are to be pitied. They
make no allowance for the " march of mind ;" they take not
into consideration " the advancing intelligence of the age ;"
above all, they forget the wide difference between a whig of
the present time and a tory of forty, or thirty, or twenty
years ago. Let them be assured, henceforth and for ever,
that it is perfectly compatible with the duties of a whig-
radical statesman—observe, we say a whiy-radical statesman
—to exhibit 'himself as a block on which may be hung the
well-fashioned garments of his tailor ; and provided his hair
be all of a squash with grease, it is of little or no consequence
whether his head be furnished with brains. If, in short, they
want to know the qualifications of a whig statesman in these
days, let them look at Lord Palmerston, who is, without
excepting even the Marquis of Normanby, the finest specimen
of the fraternity. He is a tall, handsome-looking fellow,
with the " breast of Apollo, and the waist of a giant ; ' he has
small white hands, and gentlemanly-looking feet ; his cheeks
are daubed with paint ; his whiskers are nicely combed ; his
eye-brows are stained with some kind of dye; every hair on
his head is frizzled and twisted with the most becoming of
curls, and perfumed so strongly, that the first sniff of it
takes away one's breath. His coat fits to a nicety ; his
waistcoat is of the most gorgeous pattern, and his satin stock
has not its fellow. Some idea may perhaps be formed of his
appearance, when it is stated that it takes him from about
ten o'clock in the morning till five in the afternoon to dress
himself up for the remainder of the day ; nor is it from per-
sonal appearance alene that Lord Palmerston derives the
greater portion of his celebrity as a statesman. He can make
a bow as gracefully as the best dancing master in christendom ;
he can play a tune on the piano, of sing a song as well as any
man of his years, and his years are not few ; he is well versed
in all the little accomplishments of the drawing room, and is
without exception the first and greatest judge of rouge and
scents and pastes of every description ; he can dance a qua-
drille with all the smiling gaiety of a youth of sixteen, and he
can go through the Cachuca without making one false step.
" He knows the time, the man of lore !
It takes to chalk the ball room floor ;
He knows the time, too, well-a-day !
It takes to dance that chalk away."
Although we have said so much of Lord Palmerston's
statesmanlike qualifications as exemplified in the graceful-
ness of his figure, and the elegance of his attire, we cannot
help fearing that there will be some of our readers who will
consider that he is not exactly the fittest wan that could be
found to watch over the foreign relations of such an empire
as ours. Notwithstanding our professed admiration for the
man when he is fully and completely rigged in all his finery,
we must confess that it would perhaps be a little more busi-
ness-like if he could contrive to reach the Foreign Office
before five o'clock in the afternoon, and if be would punc-
tually attend to the appointments he makes with the Ambas-
dors of Foreign Courts, instead of keeping them as he gene-
rally does, dancing attendance upon him for two or three
hours at a time. Thinking, as we have already intimated,
that one of the first and greatest qualifications for a whig-
radical statesman of the year of grace 1840, is dandyism and
puppyism, and knowing that Lord Palmerston possesses
both these in the most eminent degree, we consider it un-
necessary on the present occasion to enter into a minute de-
fence of his foreign policy, which has lately been rather se-
verely attacked. We therefore content ourselves by stating
that from the woful condition of our foreign relations, with
war staring us in the face in every corner of the globe, with
our country, instead of being the dread and terror of sur-
rounding nations, the object of scorn and contempt and de-
fiance by the bitterist of states, the most insignificant of
kingdoms, it is clear that Lord Palmerston is the most weak
and wavering and incompetent of statesmen, unpossessed of
the slightest talent or ability, with no discrimination, no
firmness, no fixed principles of conduct, blusteureinsgigoitnioisretrrhese..
weak, overbearing to the helpless, cringing to the strong,
favouring to the egnal, contemptible to all. Good heavens !
Mr. Compositor, what can you mean by putting together
such an ugly sentence as that? But never mind, you must
letTitlestaHondn,sfe of or. Commons
there is no time
,t alter it.
is not very frequently favoured
by the presence of the sweetly-scented Viscount. The heated
atmosphere which he would there have to breathe, would
make his curls lose their crispness, and become limp and
flabby ; and moreover the fumes of tobacco, and onions and
porter from the Irish members, would prove particularly dis-
agreeable to so " dainty a gentleman. Besides all this, he
has another reason for absenting himself from the house.
Certain members arc apt to put very awkward g
lating to matters in his department, and he always thinks it
better to be out of earshot of such impertinent itri
When therefore any particularly pertinacious member is
desirous of having the noble foreign secretary before him, he
is under the necessity of giving formal notice that he will on
a certain day put such and such questions relating to such a
matter. Palmerston is then obliged to be in attendance, or
he would lay himself open to the decideduch censure
a speaker.nstireofParluia;
ment. The noble Viscount is not m
can deliver a string of sentences glibly enough,
.certainly but they are
ea ries
for the most part mere ands, ands, n
very little intellect in them. He has the tact never to con-
asenttot on his foreignheproductionof policy. Whenpaers,inw any such ihiclimigitl: papers efoun ded
n attack are
asked for, he gets up, chatters some time about inconve-
nience to the public service by producing the papteres,h"ouas.nd
house.
He on that account to decline laying them before h
He then sits down and congratulates himself on his wonder-
ful ingenuity, or, as some people consider it, extraordinary
assurance.
Viscount Palmerston has been several years in office. He
commenced life as a tory, and filled several subordinate
offices under several tory administrations. He continued to
stick to place with wonderful tenacity until " The duke"
found out that he was a fellow of no tact or likelihood, and
thereupon sent him adrift. Since then he has joined the
whigs ; but if the tones were to come in to-morrow he would
support them, provided they would accept of his services.
In conclusion we beg to lay before our readers a few lines
descriptive of the subject of our sketch, which have been ex-
tracted, with a few trifling alterations, from the works of
veracious little gentleman, Thomas Moore, Esq., of Lans-
downe House :

" And now gentle readers, come listen to me
For only one short moment, as soon you shall see,
While I sing of Palmerston (a fig for his railers)
The shop-board's delight ! the Mecwnas of tailors !
" Derry down, down, down, Derry down.
" Some statesmen take round-about ways into note,
But his short cut to frame is—the cut of his coat !
Philip's son thought the world was too small for his soul,
While Palmerston finds room in a lac'd button-hole.
" Derry down, down, down, Derry down.
" Look through Europe's statesmen, I say by the deuce.
Not one of them all is such a friend to the goose ;
So may the " young whig" keep in place, pay, and renown,
And be ever the be,t-fitted man about town.
" Derry down, down, down, Derry down.