Saint Mary's beacon. [volume] (Leonard Town, Md.) 1867-1983, 1869-07-15

THE Earl OF DERBr-Tt may seem
parsio1ical, but I at least am unable tn
get ont Of my mind the conviction that
-ttrere is solid basis Of stupidity in the
mind Of the great Conservative Chief.
Lord Darby. Let me explain what I
mean. The Earl of Derby is in one sense
highly accomplished man He i.a good
classical scholar. aud can make speech
in Latin. He has produced some very
spirited translations from Horace aud |
like his version of he Iliad better on the
whole than any other | know He is a
spIended deb,ter-Afacanlay sail very
truly that with Lord De by the science
of debate was an instinct. tie will roll
out resonant. rotund. verbose sentences
by the hour, by the yard he is great at
making hits and points; he has immense
power e reply and rce,rtee-a certain
easy and obvious kind his voice is fne,
his manner i. noble. his invective is pow
erFu. But he has no ideas. The light
he throws out is polariz,d light. He
adds nothing new to the political thought
of :he age. | have heard many of his
finest speeches: and | can remember that
they were then very telling, in Par
llamentary point of view: but cannot
remember anything he said He is al
ways interpretive into eloquent and effec-
tive words the Commonplace Phili.tine
notions, the hereditary conycntionalities
Of his party-aud nothing more. His
mind Is not open to new impressions. and
he is not able to appreciate the cause.
the purpose or the tendancy Of change
This | hold to be the essential charac-
teri>tic of stupidity; aud this is an attti-
butte of Lord Derby, with all his Greek,
his Latin, his impetuous rhetoric. his de-
batting skill aud his audacious blunders,
which sometimes almost deceive one into
thinking him a man of genius. The
Earl of Derby is the greatest Tory living;
and if | have fairly described the highest
type of Tory, one can easily form some
conception Of wat the average Tory must
be. Every Que likes Lord Derby, and
fully believe it to be the fact that those
who know him best Ike him best. can
not imagine Lord Derby doing msan
thing cannot imagine him naughty to
poor man, or p'trouslngly offensive to
tlalt visitor of humble birth. look at
l. lrd Derby through the wrong end OF the
intellectual telescope and you have the
average British Tory. The Tory's knowl-
edge IS confined to classics aud ii I'D sports
when he knows anything. Even Lord
Derby has been guilty of the most flag
rant mistakes in geography and modern
history. People are never tired of allC-
ding to q famous bluuder of his about
Tamboy in Russia. 1t is also told of him
That h. once spoke in Parliament of
Demerara a, an island aud when one of
his colleagues afterward demonstrated
with him on the mistake, he a,kcd with
ingeniousucss aud naivete How on earth
was | to know that Demerara was not an
island Z" He once, at public meeting,
spoke of himself very frankly as having
been born in the pre-sclentifc period y
the period but too recently closed, when
English Universities aud high class schools
troubled themselves only about Greek
and Latin, and thought it beneath their
dignity to show much interest in such
vulgar, practical studies as chemistry aud
natural history, to say nothing OF that
ngentlemanly and ungencrous study,
the science of political economy. The
average British Tory is official habits and
political expcrience.-JusrIN MCCAR-
THY, in May Galaxy.