where numerous, it has nevertheless had some influence on the proceedings of the House of Commons, owing to the ability of its members in that House. In the House of Lords it is not avowedly represented by more than one lay Peer and a Bishop. But its influence is greater than its numbers, and its organization is on the whole complete. After a curious inspection and enumeration of the limbs and features of a new-born infant, we recollect once upon a time to have heard, that the first observation of a wondering but intelligent child was- Dear baby has got a little of every thing.' So it is with Young England.' It has got a little of every thing ;-a little of history, somewhat more of metaphysics, a small portion of unintelligible theology, expanded and inflated into an enormous bubble, bright in prismatic colours, but bursting at the first touch of a feather; and a very little political economy, almost as bubble-like and inflatednot to mention other smaller accomplishments. As Swift said of the garden of his friend Dr Delany : You scarce upon the borders enter, But we are far from intending or wishing to depreciate the attainments of the Party. There never was one which, for its numbers, has produced so many parliamentary speakers and so many authors. Their inditers of verse are particularly numerous: 'Tam multa genera linguarum sunt in hoc mundo! et ' nihil sine voce est!' Among the chief ornaments of the fraternity are those named at the head of this article. Their works may be said to contain a pretty full exposition of their political creed, and exemplification of their intellectual powers. Both the one and the other appear to us to have been misapprehended in some respects. By themselves and their immediate followers, they have been made the victims of exaggerated encomium. They are possessed by the evil spirit of a coterie, When Mr Smythe dedicates his Historic Fancies' to Lord John Manners, he takes occasion to designate that very amiable young nobleman as the Philip Sydney of our generation;' and, in return, the Poems of this modern Sydney are admiringly as well as affectionately inscribed to his friend.' In Co'ningsby,' the individuals who compose the party are so clearly designated, and some of the likenesses are so striking, that the addition of their names would only be a needless formality; and they are held up to public veneration as the future regenerators of England and of mankind. Being for the most part young men, their historian, Mr D'Israeli, declares war against age, and proclaims that England is alone to be saved by its youth; and he decides with equal confidence, that the very restricted circle of which he is the eulogist, contains all the patriots and apostles who are to produce a new order of things. Thou art the man!' he says to his hero, with all the emphasis of a self-inspired and self-accredited prophet. On the other hand, those who depreciate Young England' represent them as vain, disappointed, and selfish adventurers, with whom the spretæ injuria formæ is the only moving power; and who, if they had been admitted to a share in the distribution of political honours, would have been the panegyrists of much that they are now the loudest to condemn. Had they been made Lords of the Treasury or under Secretaries of State, it is sneeringly suggested we should have heard less of them as authors or moralists. The praise is absurd and exaggerated; but we think the censure still more unjust. There are larger and higher principles appealed to-there are occasionally more generous aspirations to be discovered among them, than can, by any reasonable possibility, be reconciled with low, sordid, or insincere views. And if we shall have occasion to deal somewhat severely with their faults and their mistakes, it is because we think that many members of the party are deserving of better and nobler things than belong to the destiny which they are striving, by fantastic means, to work out for themselves. Their first characteristic is their presumption. Desirous to fix their own statues on the most elevated pedestal, they act as determined iconoclasts,-thinking that to build they must first destroy, and that it is from among ruins only that they can obtain their materials. The time is out of joint, O cursed spite ! That ever we were born to set it right.' They apply these lines with this qualification only, that they never express any aversion to the task, nor any doubt of their ability to perform it. The Whigs,' say they, are worn outConservatism is a sham, and Radicalism a pollution.'-Loyalty ' is dead, and reverence is only a galvanized corpse.' They accordingly conclude that they, and they alone, are called forth, and competent to effect the salvation of the country. Politically connected, whilst in opposition, with the Tory partygiving to that party now in office a general, though occasionally a vituperative support, they must be held as possessing a competent knowledge of what Conservatism is. The following dialogue between the heroes of Mr D'Israeli's very clever, but in some respects very objectionable Novel, describes their feel ings, after the triumph of the Conservative cause, at a successful election for the borough of Cambridge : "By Jove!" said the panting Buckhurst, throwing himself on the sofa, "it was well done-never was any thing better done. An immense triumph-the greatest triumph the Conservative cause has had; and yet," he added laughing, "if any fellow were to ask me what the Conservative cause was, I am sure I should not know what to say." "Why, it's the cause of our glorious institutions," said Coningsby; "a Crown robbed of its prerogatives-a Church controlled by a Commission-and an Aristocracy that does not lead." "Under whose genial influence the order of the Peasantry-a country's pride-has vanished from the face of the land," said Henry Sydney, "and is succeeded by a race of serfs who are called labourers, and who burn ricks." "Under which," continued Coningsby, "the crown has become a cipher, the church a sect, the nobility drones, and the people drudges." "It is the great constitutional cause," said Lord Vere, "that refuses every thing to argument-yields every thing to agitation. Conservative in Parliament, destructive out of doors-that has no objection to any change, provided only it be effected by unauthorized means." "The first public association of men," said Coningsby," who have worked for an avowed end without enunciating a single principle." "And who have established political infidelity throughout the land," said Lord Henry. "By Jove!" said Buckhurst, "what infernal fools we have made ourselves this last week!" Conversations such as this are likely to have taken place at the close of very many elections besides that at Cambridge; and we know well in how many circles, and among how many politicians, this language is now held in bitterness of heart and disappointment. We also know how reluctant is the support given to the present government by men professing such opinions. 6 In another and more serious passage, we are informed on the same authority, that Conservatism is an attempt to carry on af 'fairs by substituting the fulfilment of the duties of office for the performance of the functions of government; and to maintain this negative system by the mere influence of property, repu 'table private conduct, and what are called good connexions. Conservatism discards prescription, shrinks from principle, dis avows progress: having rejected all respect for antiquity, offers no redress for the present, and makes no preparation for 'the future.' This, to a certain extent, we admit to be true, and it is the result of the false position in which the government has placed itself. They fear to acknowledge boldly the principles on which they are acting; and they dare not act on the prin ciples which they so long openly professed, or permitted their friends to profess on their behalf.ado peace. Such is the estimate formed of the Conservative leaders by a section of that body. The results of their system of government is described in terms not more flattering, by another of their accredited organs: The misery of the lower orders was never in any country more universal or more intense. Our 'foreign relations are unstable and precarious. An income-tax has been resorted to, for the first time, in a season of The House of Commons has stultified itself on two occasions. "The House of Lords, virtually abdicating in 1832, has become little more than a mere chamber of registry.' This, again, is an exaggerated picture; but it must be borne in mind that it comes from the pen of no opposition writer, but from that of a supporter of the very government whose acts are censured in such unmitigated terms. The fact, we believe, is, that Young England, like a much larger and more important portion of the public, are indignant because they have been deceived. They feel the want of some fixed political faith, or of some strong and binding political attachments. The government neither avows any distinct political creed, nor commands any personal sympathies. The elements of strength which depend on respect and on attachment, are alike wanting. Cold and apathetic indifference-the most fatal symptoms of a political paralysis-are visible both in and out of Parliament. 6 The second failing of this party is almost as much opposed to their usefulness and success as the first. Presumption is invariably productive of exaggeration. Rejecting all experience, separating themselves from all the great parties, their opinions become singular and forced. If the Whigs take the road through Hyde Park, and the Tories the Hammersmith road,' said Grattan, you will be sure to see Harry Bankes creeping ' along the Park wall on his hands and knees.' This applies to Young England in all respects, except in the submissive attitude of creeping. On the contrary, they are professed posturemasters. We must be permitted to call their affectation of singularity and exaggeration, a vulgarism. To excite surprise is no such very difficult task. It is done more certainly by a monster than by an Apollo. For one painter who can emulate the delicate and transparent skies and distances of Claude, a hundred pretenders to art may be found to parody the blood-red sun and inky mountains of Martin. Every sound with this school becomes a shriek, every attitude a distortion. A few extracts will disclose the tone of the School, and at the same time exemplify the phraseology of their principal author. The preparation for a first meeting between an Eton schoolboy and a somewhat formidable uncle, is there described as denoting that despera tion which the scaffold requires. His face was pale; his hand 'was moist; his heart beat with tumult.' The attachment of schoolboys is depicted in this piece of fantastic jargon :-' At 'school, friendship is a passion. It entrances the being; it tears the soul. All love of after life can never bring its rapture or its wretchedness; no bliss so absorbing; no pangs of despair so keen: what insane sensitiveness; what frantic sensi'bility; what earthquakes of the heart and whirlwinds of the 'soul are confined in the single phrase a schoolboy's friendship!' The only resemblance that we have ever met to this, is in a description said to have been given by an American citizen of his favourite horse. He is a thunder and lightning creature, with a dash of the earthquake in him.' In another passage, a storm in a forest induces Mr D'Israeli at once to borrow and to deform one of the most exquisite passages in Mr Taylor's noble Poem of Edwin the Fair.' The wind howled, the branches of the forest stirred, and sent forth sounds like an incantation. The various voices of the mighty trees were distinguishable as they sent forth their terror or their agony. The oak roared, the beech shrieked, the elm sent forth its deep and ' long-drawn groan, the passion of the ash was heard in moans of thrilling anguish.’ These passages are not to be viewed as merely exemplifying vices of style. In fact, they do much more. The same absurd inflation, as already noticed, extends to principles and opinions. The politics of the school are founded on the rejection of all experience; its philosophy on a contempt for all experiment. Great 'men never want experience,' is the dogma of Mr D'Israeli; and upon this theory he argues that youth alone can perform great or good actions, and that the age of thirty-seven is the fatal bound which neither patriotism nor genius can pass. The inutility of experience he seeks to prove by a long catalogue, in which are whimsically united as inexperienced men, Raphael and Grotius, Ignatius Loyola and John Wesley, Luther and Lord Clive, Innocent III., William Pitt, and Don John of Austria. This is abundantly ridiculous. The men with whom we are dealing delight in rejecting all common sense as the type and evidence of vulgar expediency. To shun the expedient and the good pursue,' they take as their motto. But they never condescend to distinguish between that low and selfish principle of action which is misnamed expediency, and that generous and enlarged expediency which is but another word for wisdom. True expediency is but the application of a just principle to practice ;-not by any sacrifice of the principle, but by applying it with a wise adaptation to circum |