stances. To shorten sail in a storm, to spread out canvass when the wind abates, is acting according to expediency; but yet neither the one alternative nor the other frees the pilot from the duty of keeping the vessel in her true course, studying the best chart, and fixing his eyes on the stars or on the compass. It is only when expediency is mean and selfish that it is debased; and debased more especially when it resolves itself wholly into personal interests. How far the expediency of which Young England most loudly complains comes within this category, it is for that party and not for us to decide.

The conclusions drawn from English history on their principles, are as extravagant as the principles themselves. Man is only

great when he acts from the passions; never irresistible but 'when he appeals to the imagination.' Going in search of these, it is therefore in the relation between the feudal monarch and his subjects, between the baronial noble and his vassals, that Mr D'Israeli seeks for the true ties of obligation and sympathy. As to our present condition, it seems that we cannot even boast of being governed by a legitimate sovereign. Lord John Manners informs us, that it is at the tomb of the Stuarts

that religion sings

Her requiem o'er our latest rightful kings;'

and he asks despondingly,

‹ Where now is that fond reverence which spread

A holy halo round each royal head,

And show'd the world that more than earthly thing,
The Lord's anointed in a sceptred king?'

Hence, also, Beckett, Wolsey, and Laud, are designated as saints and martyrs-the regular clergy as a staff of holy men;" her once keen sword' is still described as the just attribute of the Church; and we are conjured to imitate those times, when, ' unrestrained by mortmain's jealous laws,' piety was permitted to offer gold and gems,

To deck the forehead of the queen of heaven.'

All that marks the progress of modern times is denounced-
Let wealth and commerce, laws and learning die,

But leave us still our old nobility.'

Nor are these frenzied ideas confined to poetry only. The Revolution of 1688, is denounced as authoritatively in prose as in verse. Our Parliamentary constitution is represented as copied from the Venetian Senate-the representative system as but a happy device of a ruder age, to which it was admirably C adapted; an age of semi-civilization, but a system which now exhibits many symptoms of desuetude.' The happiest expe

dient of the political philosophy of modern times for combining liberty and order, power with responsibility, is scornfully rejected. The only real principle of representation adapted to our era, Mr D'Israeli considers to be public opinion, of which the public Journals are the practical expositors, and which, with the Monarch, is to be supreme.

The state of society is dealt with, as might be anticipated, in quite as extraordinary a manner as our laws and constitution. The middle classes seem to be excluded as unworthy of all consideration. The eyes of Young England can only discover in the body politic, what they consider the head of gold and the feet of clay; the heart, which carries on the circulation, forms no part of that body. For the very lowest class of all the strongest sympathy is professed, and we believe honestly felt, but it is strangely manifested. It is not proposed to improve their condition by the extension of knowledge. On the contrary, those times are spoken of with respect, when

'On them no lurid light had knowledge spread,

But faith stood them in education's stead.'

But though education, law, commerce, and liberty, are proscribed, it may be some consolation to learn, that an equivalent will be found in the unrestrained practice of almsgiving;that all will be set to rights by the re-establishment of monasteries, and the resumption of those happy days,

When good and bad were all unquestion'd fed,

When monks still practised their dear Lord's command,
And rain'd their charity throughout the land."

To accomplish the mighty purposes of political and social regeneration, a holy alliance is recommended between the Crown and the Chartists! The former must be gratified by unrestrained power; the latter soothed by food and sports. Panem et circenses; bread and bulls-Mummers and Morris-Dancers. If these blessings are not speedily communicated to the people, or if, when given, they do not satisfy, we are informed, that The greatest class of all shall know its rights,

And the poor trampled people rise at last.'

Mr Smythe, it is true, seems to suggest a link between the Crown and the People, which, if restored, might do much, according to his Historic Fancies,' to unite them. He would reintroduce the practice of touching for the Evil!-a 'graceful 'superstition,' which operated a direct communication between the highest and the lowest, between the king and the poor. 'Dr Johnson, a man of the people, if ever there was one, was yet 'prouder of having been touched by Queen Anne when he was

A

a child, than he was of all his heroism under misfortune.' further agency, extending over all, is sought for in the Church, altered, however, in its constitution and its principles. It is to be rendered democratic in character. The priests of God are 'to be the tribunes of the people,' observes Mr D'Israeli. The 'church is also to be relieved from its alliance with the state, by being placed above it, and no longer subject to the indignity of having its bishops virtually appointed by the House of 'Commons, now a sectarian assembly.'

We must here, for the present, take leave of these harebrained speculators; not, however, without acknowledging, that amidst their extravagances we find strong indications of a high-minded and generous spirit. We, in particular, see much to approve and to admire in their sympathy for human suffering, and in their active desire to relieve it, wherever found. But let them love wisely, 'not too well.' It is not by wordy declamations against the New Poor-Law, or in such unjust and unwise interferences with Labour, as were last Session so unanswerably and eloquently exposed by Lord Brougham in the House of Lords, that their duty will be best performed. It is by labouring to free industry from restraint to procure a repeal of all restrictive laws and oppressive duties and not by the empirical nostrums of their present creed, that they will best serve the cause of the labouring poor, and the social interests of their country. We would fain find some apology for their heresies. The stream is as yet near its fountain, and in its shallow bed only bubbles and frets itself into foam. A time may, and we hope will come, when its course will be more calm, and its waters equally pure. We are much inclined to think that their errors may in great measure be ascribed to the disgust felt at the want of all true elevation of purpose on the part of our Rulers and the Legislature? It is from the want of a solid Temple and a true Faith, that men betake themselves to Idois; and we are not without hopes that among the disciples of this errant school, which is not without redeeming characteristics, Truth may yet find some of her most rational worshippers.

ART. VII. 1. Correspondence of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham. 4 vols. 8vo. London: 1840.

2. Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford, to Sir Horace Mann. 4 vols. 8vo. London: 1843-4.

M ORE than ten years ago we commenced a sketch of the political life of the great Lord Chatham.* We then stopped at the death of George the Second, with the intention of speedily resuming our task. Circumstances which it would be tedious to explain, long prevented us from carrying this intention into effect. Nor can we regret the delay. For the materials which were within our reach in 1834 were scanty and unsatisfactory, when compared with those which we at present possess. Even now, though we have had access to some valuable sources of information which have not yet been opened to the public, we cannot but feel that the history of the first ten years of the reign of George the Third is but imperfectly known to us. Nevertheless, we are inclined to think that we are in a condition to lay before our readers a narrative neither uninstructive nor uninteresting. We therefore return with pleasure to our long interrupted labour.

We left Pitt in the zenith of prosperity and glory, the idol of England, the terror of France, the admiration of the whole civilized world. The wind, from whatever quarter it blew, carried to England tidings of battles won, fortresses taken, provinces added to the Empire. At home, factions had sunk into a lethargy, such as had never been known since the great religious schism of the sixteenth century had roused the public mind from repose.

In order that the events which we have to relate may be clearly understood, it may be desirable that we should advert to the causes which had for a time suspended the animation of both the great English parties.

If, rejecting all that is merely accidental, we look at the essential characteristics of the Whig and the Tory, we may consider each of them as the representative of a great principle, essential to the welfare of nations. One is, in an especial manner, the guardian of liberty, and the other, of order. One is the moving power, and the other the steadying power of the state. One is the sail, without which society would make no progress, the other the ballast, without which there would be small safety in a tempest. But, during the forty-six years which followed the accession of the house of Hanover, these distinctive peculiarities seemed to be effaced. The Whig conceived that he could not

*No. CXVIII.

better serve the cause of civil and religious freedom than by strenuously supporting the Protestant dynasty. The Tory conceived that he could not better prove his hatred of revolutions than by attacking a government to which a revolution had given being. Both came by degrees to attach more importance to the means than to the end. Both were thrown into unnatural situations; and both, like animals transported to an uncongenial climate, languished and degenerated. The Tory, removed from the sunshine of the court, was as a camel in the snows of Lapland. The Whig, basking in the rays of royal favour, was as a reindeer in the sands of Arabia.

Dante tells us that he saw, in Malebolge, a strange encounter between a human form and a serpent. The enemies, after cruel wounds inflicted, stood for a time glaring on each other. A great cloud surrounded them, and then a wonderful metamorphosis began. Each creature was transfigured into the likeness of its antagonist. The serpent's tail divided itself into two legs; the man's legs intertwined themselves into a tail. The body of the serpent put forth arms; the arms of the man shrank into his body. At length the serpent stood up a man, and spake ; the man sank down a serpent, and glided hissing away. thing like this was the transformation which, during the reign of George the First, befell the two English parties. Each gradually took the shape and colour of its foe; till at length the Tory rose up erect the zealot of freedom, and the Whig crawled and licked the dust at the feet of power.

Some

It is true that, when these degenerate politicians discussed questions merely speculative, and, above all, when they discussed questions relating to the conduct of their own grandfathers, they still seemed to differ as their grandfathers had differed. The Whig, who during three Parliaments had never given one vote against the court, and who was ready to sell his soul for the Comptroller's staff, or for the Great Wardrobe, still professed to draw his political doctrines from Locke and Milton, still worshipped the memory of Pym and Hampden, and would still, on the thirtieth of January, take his glass, first to the man in the mask, and then to the man who would do it without a mask. The Tory, on the other hand, while he reviled the mild and temperate Walpole as a deadly enemy of liberty, could see nothing to reprobate in the iron tyranny of Stafford and Laud. But, whatever judgment the Whig or the Tory of that age might pronounce on transactions long past, there can be no doubt that, as respected the practical questions then pending, the Tory was a reformer, and indeed an intemperate and indiscreet reformer, while the Whig was conservative even to bigotry. We have