Chapter XXX (2)

In his next quotation the pamphleteer is intent on giving a blow to his compeers of the English school. Mr Leigh confirms Mr Solly’s view—is questioned, _Q._ 1913: “You say the more chaste works of the Italian school—do you refer to an earlier era?”—“I allude to that particular period so justly referred to in the questions put to Mr Solly.” _Q._ 1914: “Do you mean the historical painters who were contemporaneous or prior to Raffaelle?”—“Yes.” _Q._ 1915: “You prefer these to the schools of Bologna?”—“Yes; it is a school whose works we are exceedingly in want of, to enable us to correct the tendency of the English style towards weakness of design, effeminacy of composition, and flauntiness of colouring.” But Mr Dyce has altogether forgotten his own rule, that it is not to be endured to give a judgment, &c.—that is, to pronounce what is good, what is “best” and “of the best,” and that if proved best, we have nothing whatever to do with that accident. We have just warned the public, by showing the probable number of specimens for this new “Old Curiosity Shop,” to be called our National Gallery. Page 18, Mr Dyce says, “Still, if it be remembered that only fifteen years after the commencement of the Royal Gallery of Berlin it possessed works of all classes, from the rude Byzantine down to productions of the last century, to the number of nearly twelve hundred, we need entertain no great misgiving as to the possibility of forming even a very considerable collection within a moderate period.” The public, we hope, do entertain a very great misgiving of the consequences of so frightful an inundation, especially as it is to begin with the rude Byzantine. But as the “rude Byzantine” may stand as high art, or fine art, in comparison with still more rude beginnings; and as antiquity lore is ever increased as it looks backward, and is not confined to country, there may be cause for misgiving whether there may not be an attempt to ransack China and Japan for new old schools—to discover picture mines in Peru, for monstrosities in paint and design; for all become legitimate sources under the ever-growing chronological mania, this outrageous pedantry of the “The history of Art.” And here the writer of the pamphlet, having perhaps momentary misgivings himself as to the quality of the stuff to be collected, goes backwards and forwards in oscillating contradictions, from best to any specimens, and from any specimens to best, ending in such wise conclusion as he generally comes to, that it is “best” to get the “best” specimens we can, but no matter whether we get them or not, provided we get any. For he insists that the one object is to have “a collection illustrative of the history of the art, and “(in italics)” the formation of it must be undertaken expressly with that view.” Moreover, “secondly, that though it be desirable that all works collected should be of the highest order—that is to say” (he loves to explain himself thus by duplicate) “that every master should be represented by one or more of his best works, yet as such works are not essential to the completeness of the collection, considered as an historical series, but serve rather to enrich it as a mere assemblage of beautiful works,” &c. &c. Can anything show more his contempt of mere beautiful works, as in no way being an object in collecting? In fact, the whole pamphlet is to recommend, if not to enforce, the gathering together an enormous mass of curiosity lumber, and building a labyrinth of “Chambers of Horrors” to hold them. And it must be taken into account that this absurd, this tasteless scheme, is not confined to pictures. It is proposed, in most views of our future gallery, that statues are to be added, and architecture is to claim its due share as one of the Fine Arts; and where are we to begin, and where end? Is statuary to find its rude commencement in the “Cannibal Islands,” its progress in Tartary, its rise and deification in joss-houses, Burmah furnishing “specimens,” even the wheels of Juggernaut moving slowly and majestically to a new enthronement in Kensington Gardens, or wherever our grand, national, amalgamated museum is to be? Pagodas will yield up their deformities to the new idolatry of chronological worshippers; the old monsters of Nineveh will be revived; and to prove Lord Jeffrey to be right, that there is no principle of beauty, many a hideous image will in arrangement claim affinity to the Venus de Medicis and the Apollo Belvidere. Really, all this is but a natural consequence of the first step in the system. It is to be, not art, but a history of art, to be shown by “specimens;” nor will it do to bring a brick even from Babylon as a specimen of its architecture. The public may rejoice in its ruin, or it would have to be brought in bodily, and a hundred or two crystal palaces added to our wonder of the world; as it is, there must be an “_hiatus maxime deflendus_.” We should have architecture, and “specimens” of architects of all the several countries and schools, as of pictures and painters. The English progress would be delightful to see. Holingshed says, that within the memory of many in his days, chimneys were rare; of course we must have “specimens.” We might go on indeed to weary the reader with absurdities, and it would only be following out Mr Dyce’s chronological idea in all its collateral branches; for, getting warm in riding his hobby, his heated imagination looks out for inconceivable vanishing points, which recede as fast as he finds them, till he sees in the unbounded space of art, which he thinks he has himself created, arts and sciences flying about in every direction, and crossing each other like so many dancing comets. The reader must look for a little incomprehensible language and confused utterance when Mr Dyce descends, having breathed the bewildering gas of his extraordinary sphere, to put his thoughts on paper, and thus he writes: “What I was going to say was in substance this—that if the idea of a complete museum of the fine arts involved the illustration of decorative art, and of physical science in its relation to art, to an extent which, though not unlimited, is nevertheless indefinite, if the _vanishing point_” (the italics of Mr Dyce), “so to speak, of such a museum lies somewhere in the region of practical science, one is immediately led to consider whether, as the reverse is true—viz., that practical science finds its vanishing point in the region of fine art—the true idea of a museum of arts would not be that which embraced the whole development of the artistic faculty, and commenced, therefore, on the one hand, with those arts which are solely, or almost solely, dependant on _æsthetical_ science, and terminated on the other with those which are solely or chiefly dependant on _physical_ science. Such an institution would start at the one extreme from physical science, and at the other from fine art; and these two would meet and cross one another, the influence of each vanishing and disappearing towards the opposite extremes.” So that, if there is anything to be understood and unriddled from this confusion of wordy ideas, it is this, that these arts and sciences, æsthetical and physical, do not meet to kiss and be friends, but to cross each other, and, having simply blazed awhile in each other’s faces, to fly off to their own vanishing points, more distant than ever, disappearing beyond the hope of that happy junction which, nevertheless, it had been the whole purpose of Mr Dyce’s pamphlet to bring about, and which, perhaps, he thinks he has brought about, or intends to bring about, unconscious of the impossibility which he has set in their way.

Lest the reader think we have needlessly brought in this body of architecture, we must again quote Mr Dyce. He certainly, to do him justice, does admit that specimens of architecture may be too big; but if he enumerates and measures his “fragmentary remains” from the British Museum and elsewhere, “models of whole structures, or models and casts of details,” “adequate to the great purpose of exhibiting the development of architecture, both as it is a science and a fine art, in all the various stages of its history,” and if some genii could bring them all together and throw the brick and plaster down before him, we doubt if his, or any known human agility, would enable him to escape the being buried under the dust that would be made by the deposit.

“But secondly, there is a peculiarity in the case of architecture which deserves to be specially noticed. It is this:—that the examples required to illustrate the history of architectural construction and decoration lead us at once into the province of _practical science_ and of _decorative art_; and thus the door is opened to a more extended view of the contents of a National Gallery of Art.” When he told us in the commencement that extensiveness was one of the characteristics of a National Gallery, we never thought of an extensiveness that should have no termination. The opening of this, his one door, shows a wearying vista—but there are so many doors to open to “complete” his scheme, that it is past all comprehension where he will find door-keepers, or the nation means to pay them.

Let us imagine these ten thousand chronological galleries built, and inhabited by all the arts and sciences. Who could preside over such a seraglio of beauties and uglinesses?—who could possibly know anything about one-half of them? We should doubt even Mr Dyce’s powers to interpret their languages, which would be wanted, considering that the object in view is instruction in their history. And yet Mr Dyce, in his scheme of government for the National Gallery, looks to some one “coming man.” “Some officer should be appointed to take charge of all business relating to the National Gallery, to be responsible for the immediate management, and to whom the public should look for the success or failure of the undertaking.” He must be a very wonderful man indeed: if Mr Dyce has any such in his eye, he ought to have named him; for no one besides ever saw a man on earth equal to so much; and if he is to be general instructor too, he would be wondered at, as when

“——still the wonder grew
That one small head should carry all he knew.”

Yet upon the appointment of this one officer Mr Dyce again insists in the conclusion of his letter, and under the idea of his duty embracing sculpture and architecture, as well as painting, under which heads also are included unlimited and undefined æsthetical and practical arts and sciences.

In our former articles on the National Gallery, we advocated the appointment of one responsible person; in what then, it may be asked, do we differ from Mr Dyce? Simply, that we would confine his attention to one thing which he might be able to know—to the collection of pictures. Even if it were thought desirable to place statues under the same building, we would put them under the direction of a person specially acquainted with sculpture.

The interest of the nation has been now awakened with regard to the National Gallery, to the pictures only, to their collection and preservation. A national museum, such as Mr Dyce and others propose, is far too large a subject, to discuss which seriously would be only drawing away the public mind from that which is a pressing necessity. As the system holds at present, we are neither able to buy pictures properly, nor to preserve them when we have them. Mr Dyce’s own experience in the art qualifies him to speak upon this point, and in justice to him we add, that, excepting the times when the chronological mania is upon him, he writes fairly and sensibly; and we willingly add his modicum of assent to the general opinion, upon the matters which the blue-book has brought before the public. Indeed, in this pamphlet he has two styles of writing: the pages might be well thought the work of two hands. Whatever relates to his chronological scheme is redundant, confused, and ambitiously laboured. He does not appear very clearly to know what he has to say. He is, we suppose, in the midst of his theoretic arrangements, as a painter of eminence visited with some misgivings as to the worthless trash the fulfilment of his scheme would introduce. He writes like one under an adopted whim, against his first instincts, with the verbosity of an untutored and awkward advocate. When he knows clearly what he is writing about, he writes like other people.

He successfully exonerates the keepers of the National Gallery, those appointed subsequently to Mr Seguier, from much of the blame that had been cast upon them. He shows that the responsibility had been, for the most part, taken out of their hands, with regard to the purchase of pictures; that the trustees superseded the keepers, and were afterwards themselves superseded by the Treasury as to active operations. The Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, from the nature of their appointment, are sure to be more incompetent than the trustees themselves. It is in evidence that the Lords of the Treasury had no confidence in the trustees; nor, perhaps, much in themselves. Therefore, in 1845, when the trustees recommended the purchase of the Guido from Mr Buchanan, the Treasury do not comply with the request unconditionally—they require Mr Seguier to be consulted as to the condition of the picture; and also “two other eminent judges of the merit and pecuniary value of Italian pictures.” They even point out the individuals for selection: “Mr Woodburn and Mr Farrer might probably be selected with advantage for the purpose, or any others whom Mr Eastlake might consider preferable.” The Lords of the Treasury then preferred the opinion of two dealers in pictures to that of the trustees or Mr Eastlake; the latter being more competent than all the others put together to decide upon the subject. The only surprising thing is, that the trustees, upon this slight put upon them, did not resign their appointments, which, if honourable in other respects, were now marked with the character of incompetency. We have already strongly insisted that picture-dealers should in no case be consulted. They are too much interested, and wish to keep up the value (artificial) of pictures; and the world knows too well the nature of their trafficking, to place implicit confidence in their decisions. We say not that a judicious choice might not be made of skilful and honourable men; but looking to all times, and with some knowledge of the temptations of trade, we should be sorry to see the practice of consulting dealers become a habit or a rule. Take the case which has occurred—the Treasury nominate judges; at a subsequent meeting of the trustees these very judges have pictures to be recommended—are other trading judges to be called in? In that case decisions will have to go the round of these dealer judges. They will either be shy of pronouncing against the interests of each other, or be under the temptation to give each other a good turn, or, at any rate, keep up the market, which they themselves supply. The public have of late been let a little too much into the secrets of picture trafficking, and of picture manufacturing. Is there truth in the exposure that an overbaked would-be Raffaelle was spoiled for that master, but would make an admirable Correggio? With all the respect we owe to individuals, we confess that there is a strong resemblance between picture-dealing and horse-dealing. The habit of appointing dealers as judges would certainly end in a council of dealers, who would, in actual operation, supersede all others. The fiat of the Treasury transferred to the fiat of Wardour Street. We are glad to quote Mr Dyce on this subject:—“This, then, is the present state of matters. The right to entertain a proposal to purchase any picture rests with the trustees; the ultimate opinion of its merits, on which the purchase depends, is not theirs, but that of certain ‘eminent judges’ of such points. The trustees decide what may be and shall be purchased, if it be worth purchasing; the eminent judges decide whether it be worth purchasing, and worth the money asked for it. It may be said that this is an extreme and exaggerated case; that the Treasury, though reposing confidence in the recommendation of the trustees, might nevertheless think it desirable, on several accounts, to have this recommendation fortified by the opinions of eminent judges. True: but as it cannot be supposed that the trustees would press a recommendation, in any case, in the face of an adverse opinion given by the judges they had summoned to their assistance—in other words, since they cannot make a recommendation at all without both summoning such assistance, and obtaining a favourable opinion—it is perfectly clear that the favourableness of opinion they have obtained, not their concurrence in it, must be looked upon by the Treasury as the real warrant for adopting their recommendation. Nor, on the other hand, is it refining too much to say that the _ex officio_ trusteeship of the heads of the financial department of the Government, not only annihilates the responsibility of the trustees, but prevents the due exercise of the control which that department ought to have over their proceedings.”... “If the trustees were to be superseded in a matter of such importance, they surely ought to have been consulted, not only as to the manner in which they might, with the greatest advantage, avail themselves of professional assistance, but as to the class of persons who were to afford it. But no discretion was left to them; and who, let me ask, were the ‘eminent judges’ fixed upon by the Treasury? Will it be believed that not only the class of persons, but the very individuals chosen to give an opinion, on which the purchase of pictures was to depend, were those who were in the habit of offering, and _actually at the time were offering pictures to the trustees for sale_? At the very meeting (held February 2, 1846) at which the communication from the Treasury was read, I find the trustees considering a proposal for the sale of a collection of pictures by _Mr Woodburn_, one of the judges nominated by the Treasury. At the next meeting (held March 2, 1846), I find that “the trustees _again_ took into consideration the offer of a picture, by Spagnoletti, for sale by _Mr Farrer_,” the other “eminent judge” recommended by the Treasury. So that, in fact, the “eminent judges” were by turns competitors for the patronage of the trustees, and by turns sat in judgment on one another’s wares.”

Constitutions grow—they are not made. We never knew one from any manufactory, paper-made, that could hold together; yet we go on with the conceit that we have consummate skill in that line; we make ourselves, as it were, sole patentees for all people and nations, and wonder at the folly of those who reject the commodity, and yet we never attempt the thing on a small scale at home, or a large one abroad, but the result is a failure. The School of Design is a parallel case with the National Gallery. The committee of management of that school was in the same relation with the Board of Trade as the National Gallery with the Treasury. The action of the body was stopped if no official representative of the Board of Trade was present; and if present, the council felt themselves to be a nullity. Yet the council could not at once be easily dismissed, for the Parliamentary grant was voted for the council of the School of Design. In 1842, therefore, this constitution is remodelled. The School is put “under the _management_ of a director and of a council, subject to the control of the Board of Trade.” But here again is a failure. The council and director cannot arrange responsibilities. The director resigns, another succeeds: as before, there is no working together. The constitution has to be remodelled again. The Board of Trade takes the management, assisted by the artist members of the old council. This fails also; and at last that is done which should have been done at the beginning—an officer is appointed, “under the authority of the Board of Trade, to superintend and be responsible for the business of the schools.”

In our democratic tendencies we are jealous of one responsible director; and, on the other hand, with our aristocratic tastes and habits, we devolve upon men of rank and wealth, solely on account of their rank and wealth, duties which they are not qualified to perform (and, we think, the greater honour would consist in their declining such positions), and which, if in other respects qualified to perform, they will not, simply because it is not their distinct personal business, and of a paid responsibility. And thus it is that the really qualified persons, eminent for their knowledge in art, science, and habits of business, are ever excluded. Can we be surprised if there be perpetual failures?

The best boon the trustees of the National Gallery can confer upon the nation, is to resign in a body. Surely there is now little to induce them to remain where they are, and as they are. This step would compel the Government to do what they have found it necessary to do in other cases—appoint a paid and responsible minister; and, if it be thought worth while to have a National Gallery at all, to provide liberally the means of obtaining it. It will never do, on every trifling occasion, to have to go to Parliament, and to be met in a huckstering spirit. We must break some of the shackles which the modern utilitarian school is ever imposing; we must learn to view the fine arts as a constitutional part of the liberal arts, which must be treated liberally, if we would have them permanently established.

We must now return for a little space to the subject which, in the commencement of this paper, we proposed to discuss: “What are we to collect?” We shall make a great mistake indeed, if we are led by Mr Dyce as an authority, to pass contempt upon either the works of, or the admiration felt for, the genius of the greatest men in art—if we put chronological series in competition with excellence. He overdoes his part, and can gain nothing by such language as this:—“Turgid, unmeaning panegyrics of Raffaelle, Michael Angelo, Titian, Correggio, and the rest.” These “_and the rest_” are such pre-eminently great masters, that, in some shape or other, we would have their works ever before the public. Where we cannot have originals, we would have copies, and the best that either have been made and can be acquired, or that can now be made. We cannot think a gallery perfect without them. We would have a portion set apart especially for copies of the best works, and also for prints. In them we might have the designs, and the light and shade, the great and beautiful ideas represented: and here we cannot but lament, that the perfection to which the art of engraving has been brought should in this country be given up to inferior and almost to worthless things. Our engravings indicate the public taste, the causes of the low state of which we have already remarked upon. If there be really a desire to instruct the public—and without instruction there will not be an encouragement for a better devotion of that beautiful art—let the collecting the best engravings, whether old or new, be a great object with the purveyors of a National Gallery. Nor would we have the grand works to which we allude put away in portfolios, but glazed, and hung upon walls specially appropriated to them. Let us have, at least, good things—the best originals we can procure, and the next best, copies, and engravings of the best; and not waste time and squander means in searching out for chronological histories, the attenuated deformities of the Byzantine schools, the hideous performances of those predecessors in art, who had not yet acquired the knowledge of drawing with any tolerable correctness.

We are earnest to make this protest against the chronological scheme, and we hope it will be dissipated by the general voice, because Mr Dyce’s pamphlet seems to have found favour in the eyes of the commissioners. They almost adopt his language—or at least, with little variation of phrase, his argument, and his illustration. They too speak of an “intelligent public,” which has no existence as to art, and is but the translation of Mr Dyce’s Latin quotation, “docti artis rationem intelligunt.” With him, they snub the admirers of “Raffaelle, Titian, and Correggio,” and adopt his literary illustration, and a very bad illustration it is, for the rubbish of books in the world is even greater in bulk than the picture rubbish. Some of the book rubbish may indeed bear affinity to art, and come within the scope of the scheme’s arrangement. The woodcuts of our earliest spelling-books, of Jack the Giant-killer, of Pilgrim’s Progress, and the “specimens” heading last dying speeches and confessions, may yet be discovered with some pains, and no very large cost, if a Parliamentary commission would bespeak Mr Dyce’s acceptable labours. How gratifying to such collectors would it be to trace the rise and progress of that particular branch of the art now so much in fashion, from the earliest “specimens” of designs in popular editions of Æsop’s Fables, to Mr Landseer’s last costly print. Nor should the old glazed picture tiles, that used to amuse our early childhood, when the glow of fire-light illuminated the “animali parlanti,” warmed our young affections, and heated our incipient imaginings, be omitted. The “intelligent public” might perhaps hence learn not only a little in the history of art and its progress, but somewhat also of the history and progress of cruelty, when they see how much artistic labour has been bestowed, and what a large price is given, in our modern improvement days, in getting up and in the sale of that “perfect specimen,” Mr Landseer’s “Otter Hunt,” where the poor creature is writhing upon the spear of the huntsman, and the howling brute dogs are in sympathetic delight with the human bigger brute than themselves. It will be then not uncreditable if the “intelligent public” retrograde in their taste, and for once agree with Mr Dyce in rather admiring the attenuated and ill-drawn deformities, which, after all that can be said against them, were a less libel upon man and brute than some later and more perfect “specimens.” To this extent the chronological idea must go for completion, for Mr Dyce, the favourite of connoisseurs and dilettanti, will not allow them to stop short of it. “Notwithstanding appearances,” he says, “I do not imagine the trustees of the National Gallery ever seriously contemplated the establishment of an _index expurgatorius_ of pictures.” Such opinions he considers obsolete. We must have all “specimens,” however bad; for he says, in emphatic italics—“_The collection can aim at no lower object than to exhibit the whole development of the art of painting; the examples of which it consists must therefore range over its whole history!_” The “ςηματα λυγρα” of Zellerophon were not of a more deadly character than would the contemplated collection be to all true notions of the Beautiful in art—the collection of inhumanities, the doleful horrors of saints and demons, and worse and more awful representations which preceded perceptions of the Beautiful.

We ought to be glad to learn from any who know better than ourselves, but we very much question if our perpetual appeal to the practice of foreign galleries, in the way in which it is made, is at all a healthy sign. We are not sure that some of the examples we seek may not rather be warnings. It is a confession of imbecility and mistrust in themselves of trustees and commissioners. Foreign architects, foreign directors, and foreign galleries, bear too prominent a part in our blue-books and our pamphlets. We are confident in our own men, if not in the “intelligent public.” We have men quite able to devise galleries, and to know how to fill them. The misfortune has been, not that we lack men of ability, but we do not employ them. And why? Our governments have no better taste, no better knowledge, no better desires, with regard to the arts, than the “intelligent public.” They have never entertained serious views upon the subject. In conclusion, we would ask if the series of Hogarth’s pictures have been removed from our National Gallery, on which they conferred an honour and importance of a kind that no other gallery in Europe can boast of possessing, with the object of forming a chronological series of the British school. We hope to see them transferred to their old places. Our National Gallery should not be deteriorated, to give a grace to Marlborough House, however much it may want it.

THE REFORM BILLS OF 1852 AND 1854.

The postponement of the second reading of Lord John Russell’s new Reform Bill, until a later, and it may be a protracted period of the Session, is suggestive of some important considerations. It shows, in the first place, that even the author of the bill is by no means confident in his power of carrying it through the House of Commons, else we may be perfectly certain that no departure from the original arrangements would have taken place. It shows, moreover, that other members of the Cabinet—or, we should rather say, the members of the Cabinet collectively—do not consider the provisions of this measure of so much importance as to justify them in allowing it to interfere with the more immediate exigencies of the state. In one sense of the word, Lord Aberdeen and his colleagues are thoroughly conservative. They want to keep their places; and they have no idea whatever of sacrificing themselves through the impulse of Quixotic gallantry, or of allowing Lord John Russell’s pledges to imperil their tenure of office. But they have an obstinate and pragmatical man to deal with, and cannot afford to affront him. Without Lord John Russell, the Coalition could not stand, and therefore, in some matters, they are compelled to allow him more license than is agreeable to their own inclination, or in accordance with the interests of the country. Thus, they not only permitted him to prepare his measure during the recess, but they gave it real importance, by introducing it as a material part of the ministerial programme, as announced by her Majesty from the throne. At that time there was no more probability of a pacific settlement of the Eastern question than exists just now; so that every objection to the measure, founded on the impropriety of exciting internal agitation at such a crisis, must have been foreseen. There was still time before the development of the measure, and the publication of its intended details, to have postponed it without any loss of credit. No one would have blamed the Ministry had they done so—even the most ardent reformer could scarcely have maintained that they were bound to force it through Parliament, just as if no war were expected, or as if the country emphatically demanded it. But Lord John Russell would not consent to that. He was determined that the whole details of his project should be laid before the public; and he accordingly did so in a speech which fell flat on the ear alike of the House and of the country. He fixed a day for the second reading; but before that day arrived, postponed his bill until a later period of the Session, with a statement that, even then, it would depend upon circumstances whether he should proceed with it or not.

This is not such conduct as the country has a right to expect from the ministers of the Crown. They were entreated, both by friends and opponents, not to bring forward their measure in the midst of warlike preparations, and in the total absence of any demand on the part of the country for an immediate change in the representation. Those entreaties were met by silly, bombastical, and vapouring speeches about the sublime spectacle which Great Britain would afford to the world, if, while waging war abroad, she applied her energies to the remodelment of the constitution at home! We need not pause now to demolish that most pitiful pretext. It has virtually been given up by the Ministry; for they now acknowledge, that the time originally fixed for the second reading of the English bill was not seasonable; and they indicate, that if we should be actively engaged in war on the 27th of April, the bill will not be proceeded with; so that the notion of the “sublime spectacle” is thrown aside, whilst the cause of the irritation, made worse by the divulgence of the scheme in detail, is still continued.

No really united cabinet would have ventured to act in such a manner. It is in vain to tell us of concert and cordiality, when the public measures of one week belie the bragging language used in that which immediately preceded it—when bluster is followed by postponement, and extreme recklessness by an affectation of patriotic caution. The prevalent opinion is, that the bill will not be proceeded with; and if the Ministry had said even so much as that, there would have been no occasion for any further discussion; but they will not say it. Lord Aberdeen, on the 9th of March, when urged by Earl Grey to withdraw the bill altogether, is reported to have replied, that “the second reading of the bill had been postponed by Lord John Russell till the 27th of April, _in sincerity and good faith_. Whether it would then be proceeded with, depended upon the state of Europe; for no one could tell what a day or an hour would bring forth. Government, however, would act consistently with the interests of the country, and with a due regard to their own honour.”

We cannot predict what the Government may do hereafter, but we know what they have already done with respect to this matter; and it is our humble but deliberate opinion, that they have neither consulted the interests of the country nor their own collective credit. We should have been very glad, indeed, had they allowed the subject to drop; for we should then have been spared the necessity of criticising their conduct. But, threatened as we are, though by no means agitated or alarmed by the suspension of a most clumsy weapon over our heads, we must take the liberty of reviewing the proceedings of these Dionysians.

Let us assume, which we really believe and devoutly hope to be the case, that, notwithstanding the professions about sincerity and good faith, this bill has been absolutely sent to limbo. Let us look upon it in the light of a scheme abandoned. That, however, cannot acquit Ministers from the serious charge of having played fast and loose with the country, by embodying in the Queen’s speech, at the opening of Parliament, a distinct recommendation of internal organic change, when war was staring us in the face. They knew then perfectly well that there existed no probability of the settlement of the Eastern dispute without a direct appeal to arms; and it was their bounden duty to have interdicted the mooting of such a question at such a time. We maintain, that no cabinet has a right to countenance this species of deception. No specific measure should be announced by a Ministry, much less recommended by the Crown, unless it is seriously intended that it shall be carried through, not at some indefinite future period, but in the course of the existing session. This is not the first time that the country has been annoyed by this indecent and reprehensible practice, introduced, we believe, by Lord John Russell, of rash ministerial pledges. We do not think that even a premier is entitled, towards the close of one session, to announce distinctly the ministerial policy of the next, or to bind himself by a specific pledge; for even a premier is not allowed by our constitutional custom to act autocratically—he must carry along with him at least the majority of the Cabinet. He cannot accurately predict who may be his colleagues at the opening of the ensuing session—he cannot foresee what events may occur or causes arise to render a change of the intended policy not only expedient, but necessary. If a premier is not entitled to do this, still less is a subordinate like Lord John Russell; and yet we see him, session after session, blabbing about future schemes, and pledging himself unconditionally to their introduction. This is really intolerable, and it is full time that the nuisance should be abated. If the noble lord is of opinion that, notwithstanding all which we have heard and seen, he has still power and reputation enough to head an independent party—let him leave the Cabinet, and then, as a plain member of Parliament, he may pledge himself to his heart’s content. But while he remains a minister and servant of the Crown, he is bound to maintain the dignity of his position, and preserve a due decorum, instead of acting like a popularity-hunter and a partisan. Of late he has let himself down woefully. We are not accustomed, in this country, to see ministers, while in office, engaging in literary squabbles—and exposing themselves to damaging rejoinders by petulant paragraphs and absolutely deplorable sneers. Their duty is, not to write or edit gossip and scandal, but to devote themselves, heart and soul, to the affairs of the nation and the service of their sovereign; and, if they are not willing to abandon their favourite pursuits, they ought at once to withdraw. With less than this the nation will not be satisfied; and we really think we are acting a friendly part to Lord John Russell to tell him so, in as many words. If he doubts our sincerity, let him ask the opinion of his colleagues upon the point; and we are ready to stake our existence that they will be unanimous in their agreement with us. We believe also, that, if the question were fairly put them, they would be unanimous in recommending him, for the future, so long as he is a member of the Cabinet and acting along with them, to abstain from that system of specific pledging, the result of which, in the present instance, has by no means tended to raise them in the estimation of the country.

But it may be asked, why, when the Ministry have postponed for the present, and may abandon, the Reform Bill, we should harp upon a string not intended, for some time at least, to vibrate in the ear of the country? To that we reply that we have many good reasons for doing so. The vibration has already been made. If a man is told that it was intended, by virtue of a parliamentary act for which Ministers were to be responsible, to make some decided change in his property or condition, but that, in respect of certain external circumstances, it was deemed expedient to allow him a respite—surely he is entitled to use the interval in examining into the nature of the proposed change; and, if need be, in preparing his defence. It would perhaps be too strong a phrase to say that we know what is to come—for Lord John Russell is such an experimentalist, so entirely dependent upon suggestions from others, and so utterly devoid of any fixed principles to guide his own judgment, that no one can venture to predict what his views may be six months from the present moment. As a constitution-monger, the Abbé Sièyes was, in reality, less erratic. But we know this—that his lordship in 1852 brought forward a bill for amending the representation, which bill, owing to certain circumstances which we need not recapitulate, went to limbo; and that in 1854 he has brought forward another, bearing in no respect any likeness to the former one. Indeed the issue of Banquo and of Macbeth could not have been more dissimilar. No. 3, however, is a great deal more sweeping in its innovations than No. 2 (for we must recollect that more than twenty years ago the noble lord carried No. 1); and No. 4 may be still more progressive. Heaven only knows what we shall have proposed, when the number of his Reform Bills equals that of his Jew Bills, or the volumes of his _Biography of Moore_! He seems to think that the story of the Sybilline books was written expressly for his guidance and conduct, and that he is entitled, after each successive failure and rebuff, to charge the constitution with an additional per centage of radicalism by way of penalty. He becomes louder and broader in his demands whenever they are negatived or postponed, and seems in the fair way to adopt some of the views of the Chartists.

We do not say this lightly—by way of banter—or in regard of general political disagreement. We never, at any time, reposed much faith in the judgment or sagacity of Lord John Russell; and, of late years, our opinion of him, in these respects, has, we confess, materially declined. We have been, in our own sphere of action, engaged in most of the political struggles which have taken place within the memory of the present generation; and we trust that these have not passed by without some wholesome lessons. To change of opinion, where honestly induced and through conviction, every one is bound to be fair and lenient; because, undeniably, in our own day there has been a great unravelment of social questions, and mere party prejudice is no longer allowed to be paramount. Perhaps the only living statesman of eminence, who cleaves to the old system, and is inveterate in his addiction to party intrigue, and what he calls “tradition,” is Lord John Russell. Put him into Utopia, and his first thought would be how he might establish the exclusive supremacy of the Whigs. He is so much and so inveterately a party man, that he seems to care little what becomes of the country, provided only that he, and his, sit at the receipt of customs. He showed that long ago—not in the days of his hot youth, but in those of his pragmatic manhood. He—the Whig Constitutionalist—characterised the opinion of the Upper House as “the whisper of a faction;” and did not disdain the violent and frantic sympathy of mobs when such demonstrations tended to his own particular purpose, or aided the ascendancy of his party. Ever since he has pursued the same course. No man can tell when he is in thorough earnest, or when he is not. He invited, by word and deed, Papal aggression; and, when the aggression came, he started up at once, as an indignant Protestant champion, and flung down his diminutive gauntlet, in name of Great Britain, to the Pope! And yet, at the bidding of the Irish Roman Catholic phalanx, we find this second Luther a strenuous supporter of Maynooth, and of the nunneries! Had his ancestor John, the first Lord Russell—who in 1540, and 1550, obtained grants from the Crown of the possessions of the Abbey of Tavistock and the Monastery of Woburn—been equally zealous for the protection of convents, he probably would have remained, as he was born, an utterly unacred gentleman.

The proposed Reform Bill of 1852 did not attract a large share of the public attention, and that for two reasons. In the first place, the country was quite apathetic on the subject; and in the second place, it was introduced at a time when the Whigs were tottering to their fall. Nevertheless, it is a remarkable document, inasmuch as we may conclude it to embody the experiences and observation of Lord John Russell upon the working of our representative system during a period of exactly twenty years. That there should have been some defects in the machinery of the engine which he invented in 1832, is not wonderful; nor can we call him rash for essaying, after so long an interval, to remedy these defects according to the best of his judgment. His position in 1852 was this:—He told the House, that he, the mechanist of 1832, was now prepared, from the results of twenty years’ observation, to introduce certain improvements which would have the effect, for a long time coming, of preventing the necessity of any further change. The improvements he proposed were these:—The qualification in towns was to be reduced from £10 to £5; and in counties from £50 to £20. Every man paying 40s. a-year of direct taxes was to be entitled to vote. There was to be no disfranchisement of boroughs, but the smaller ones were to receive an infusion of fresh blood by the incorporation of adjoining villages. No property qualification was to be required for members, and the parliamentary oaths were to be modified, so as to allow the admission of Jews and other unbelievers in the Christian faith. Such were the chief features of the proposed measure of 1852, as laid before the House of Commons by Lord John Russell, then Prime Minister. Wise or unwise, they were the conclusions which he had formed as to the change necessary to be made in the English representative system; and we must assume that he had not formed them without due thought and matured investigation. That both the necessity for, and the nature of the change were seriously considered by him and his colleagues in the Cabinet, it would be unfair and irrational to doubt; and we must therefore hold that the provisions of the bill were regarded by them not only as wise and salutary, but as the very best which their collective wisdom could devise.

If, in 1852, this bill had been rejected by a majority of the House of Commons, Lord John might either have remodelled it, so as to meet the more obvious objections, or have again introduced it, without alteration, for the consideration of another parliament. But it was not rejected by the House, and its merits were never thoroughly discussed throughout the country. It was, as we have said, introduced at a time when the Whig ministry were obviously in the death throes, and in February of that year they tendered their resignation. The bill accordingly fell to the ground before judgment could be pronounced upon it. The public at large seemed to care nothing about it. There was no enthusiasm manifested at its introduction, and no disappointment expressed at its withdrawal.

The scheme, therefore, of 1852, was not only untried but uncondemned. Nothing had occurred that could reasonably shake the confidence of the deviser in its prudence, correctness, or aptitude for the necessities of the country; unless we are to suppose that he felt somewhat disappointed by the exceedingly cold and indifferent nature of its reception. That, however, could not be taken as any distinct criterion of its merits. We are not to suppose that Lord John Russell, in framing that bill, merely looked to the popularity which he and his party might attain thereby, or the future advantages which it might secure to them. We are bound, on the contrary, to assume that he, being then Premier, and in the very highest responsible position, was acting in perfectly good faith, and had embodied in the bill the results of his long experience and observation.

Now, mark what follows. In 1853, he again pledges himself to introduce a measure for the amendment of the Parliamentary representation; and redeems his pledge by bringing out, early in 1854, a measure totally different from that which he recommended in 1852! The great points of difference are these: By the one, the boroughs were to be preserved, and in some cases enlarged; by the other, they are to be disfranchised to the amount of sixty-six members. The bill of 1852 maintained the distinction between town and county qualification—that of 1854 abolishes such distinction. The first proceeded upon the plain principle that majorities alone were to be represented—the second, in special cases, assigns a member to minorities. In short, the two bills have no kind of family resemblance. They are not parallel, but entirely antagonistic schemes; and it is almost impossible, after perusing them both, to believe that they are the productions of the same statesman.

Nothing, it will be conceded on all hands, has occurred during the last two years, to justify such an extraordinary change of sentiment. We have had in the interim a general election, the result of which has been that a Coalition Ministry, numbering Lord John Russell among its members, is presently in power. Trade, we are told, is in the highest degree flourishing; and the prosperity of the country has been made a topic of distinct congratulation. Search as closely as you please, you will find no external reason to account for so prodigious a change of opinion. The potato-rot and famine were the visible reasons assigned for Sir Robert Peel’s change of opinion on the subject of protective duties—but what reasons can Lord John Russell propound for this prodigious wrench at the constitution? He cannot say that the proposals in _both_ his bills are sound, safe, and judicious. The one belies and utterly condemns the other. If his last idea of disfranchising and reducing sixty-six English borough constituencies is a just one, he must have erred grievously in 1852 when he proposed to retain them. So with the other provisions. If he intends to maintain that he has now hit upon the true remedy, he must perforce admit that he has acquired more wisdom in 1853 than was vouchsafed him during the twenty previous years of his political career. He must admit that he was totally and egregiously wrong in 1852; and he has no loophole for apology on the ground of intervening circumstances. Really we do not believe that there is a parallel instance of a British minister having voluntarily placed himself in such a predicament. How is it possible that he can expect his friends, independent of the mere official staff, to support, in 1854, a measure diametrically opposite to that which was propounded in 1852? No wonder that Earl Grey and other influential Whigs are most desirous to have the measure withdrawn without provoking a regular discussion. Some of them may not have approved of the former bill; but those who did so, or who were at all events willing to have let it pass, can hardly, if they wish to be consistent, give their sanction to the present one. It is not Lord John Russell alone who is compromised; he is compromising the whole of his party. If they thought him right in 1852, they must think him wrong in 1854; for he cannot point to the smallest intervening fact to justify his change of principle. And if they think him wrong, how can they possibly support him? We do not believe that he can reckon on the support of the high-minded Whigs of England. They have principle and honour and character to maintain; and we think it exceedingly improbable that they will allow themselves to be swept into the howling Maëlstrom of Radicalism. Rather than that, we venture to predict that they will toss the rash little pilot, whose incapacity and want of knowledge are now self-confessed, overboard, and trust to the direction of an abler and more consistent member of the crew.

Be that as it may, we must try if possible to ascertain what cause has operated to produce this singular and rapid change in the opinions, or rather convictions, of Lord John Russell on the subject of Parliamentary Reform. As we have said already, there are no external circumstances, either apparent or alleged, to account for it. The boroughs have done nothing to subject them to the penalty of disfranchisement; the counties have done nothing to entitle them to a considerable addition of members. To use diplomatic language, the _status quo_ has been rigidly observed. Well, then, in the absence of any such tangible reason, we must necessarily fall back upon motives, the first of which is the advice and representation of confederates.