Chapter XI: Mrs Summerhayes (2)

Earl Grey had taken office pledged to three things,—Retrenchment, Non-intervention in Foreign Affairs, and Parliamentary Reform. Into all these Sir James Graham eagerly threw himself. Returned again without opposition for Cumberland, he took up his residence at the Admiralty, and worked like a slave to keep ahead of the enormous amount of business which devolved upon him. For now his real worth was discovered. What might be wanting in brilliancy he endeavoured to make up by labour; and he held his own, not without a hard fight for it, in the House of Commons. Lord Althorpe, the acknowledged leader of the Ministerial party, was slow and confused. He derived the greatest benefit from the subtle and ambitious promptings of Graham, and often sought for them. Whether the proposal in the first Whig budget to impose a tax on the transfer of stock came from this source does not appear; but the measure, in spite of the eloquence with which Sir James Graham supported it, met with no success, and was withdrawn amid the jeers of the House.

This was a bad beginning, and his speech in defence of the army estimates proved equally unfortunate. The pledge of non-intervention had been thrown over by the Government in the case of Belgium, and an increase to the army was asked for. In advocating this increase, Sir James allowed himself considerable latitude of speech in regard to the condition of Ireland, and O’Gorman Mahon, conceiving that he, among others, had been attacked, called upon the First Lord to retract, or else to give him personal satisfaction. Sir James requested Lord Althorpe to act for him on that occasion, and the quarrel was amicably settled.

The improvements introduced into the constitution of the Admiralty were chiefly these: Sir James abolished the Victualling and Navy Boards as separate establishments; he required the accounts of the office to be kept by double entry; he proposed to throw open the great national asylum at Greenwich to seamen of the mercantile marine; and, failing to accomplish that, he relieved the mercantile marine from the special tax which it had heretofore borne. Nor was he all the while exempt from a full share of the burden of administration in other respects. Earl Grey never lost sight of the pledge which he had given to reform the representative system throughout the United Kingdom, and a committee of four was appointed to investigate the whole subject, and to report upon it to the Cabinet. Lord Durham, Lord John Russell, Lord Duncannon, and Sir James Graham composed that committee, of which no member worked more steadily and with greater zeal than Sir James.

It is not our purpose to tell over again the thrice-told tale of the bloodless revolution of 1831–32. In preparing the scheme which the Government was to bring forward, Sir James Graham appears to have been less extravagant than some of his colleagues. He desired to interfere as little as possible with existing rights in counties, except by adding copyholders and leaseholders to the ancient freeholders. In boroughs he was an advocate for occupancy as a condition to freedom, and was willing that the limit of the pecuniary qualifications should be wide. He objected to the ballot, and to anything like an attempt to establish perfect uniformity of franchise anywhere. Yet such was his infirmity of purpose that he yielded his own opinions to those of men of stronger will, and affixed his signature to a report which recommended the ballot and other arrangements of which he disapproved. It was this weakness, indeed—this apparent inability to arrive at settled convictions and to stand by them—which constituted the great flaw in Sir James Graham’s character as a public man. His biographer, we observe, commends him for the specialty, and endeavours to make what was mere irresolution stand in the light of judicial impartiality. “Half his life,” says Mr Torrens, “was spent in comparing and pondering opposite results, and determining judicially in the silence and solitude of his study on which side the balance lay. ‘Upon the whole’ again and again occurs throughout his private correspondence and public judgments, for judgments they frequently were—a phrase which a statesman of a constitutional country may well employ as eminently expressive of the true candour and humility of wisdom.” Doubtless this is true; but if we find the statesman afterwards going apart from his own conclusions, and falling in with proposals against which he had “on the whole” decided, what can we say of him except that his humility degenerates into weakness, and that, whatever qualities he may possess, firmness of purpose is certainly not one of them?

It is a remarkable fact that not even now could Sir James Graham command the attention of the House. His great attention to business, his value on a committee, and his administrative abilities, were very generally acknowledged, but as a speaker he made little or no impression. Even his advocacy of what may be called his own measure was felt to be feeble—a strange medley of confused discussion and turgid enunciations. But the bill had other sources of strength to depend upon than the logic of its Parliamentary supporters. Political unions and conspiracies out of doors did the work, and the King and the House of Lords were forced to accept their own humiliation. First came the dissolution on the 23d of April 1831, a step into which William IV. was coerced by the overbearing insolence of Earl Grey and Lord Chancellor Brougham. Then followed elections wherein brute force bore down all opposition, and by-and-by such an assembly at Westminster as struck terror into the hearts of the Ministers who had brought it together. On the top of that wave Sir James Graham was again borne into Parliament—a colleague being given to him of opinions far more advanced than his own. So it befell in the borough of Carlisle, so also in the neighbouring county of Westmoreland. It is quite certain that Sir James Graham did not contemplate the crisis, which he had helped to bring on, without alarm. “We have ventured,” he says, speaking of himself and his colleagues, “to drive nearer the brink than any other statesman ever did before; but we did so because aware that if we let go the reins the horses would be maddened into plunging headlong into the abyss, where extrication would be impossible.”

We have alluded elsewhere to Sir James Graham’s reconstruction of the departments in the Admiralty. It is creditable to him that he disclaimed all the merit of originality in such reconstruction. He discovered, on acceding to office, that plans of practical reform were already settled, and he had the good sense to accept and act upon them as his own. He found a willing adviser likewise in Lord Melville, who kept back nothing from him when consulted. Having completed this job, he set himself next to devise some means of getting rid of the necessity of impressment, and was again fortunate enough to have brought to him an important letter, addressed by Lord Nelson to Earl St Vincent. The letter in question suggested that there ought to be a registration of seamen, among whom, at the sudden outbreak of war, a ballot should take place, with permission, as in the militia, to find substitutes. But, anxious as he was to accomplish this object, he shrank as a Minister of the Crown from openly striking a blow at the prerogative. When, therefore, Mr Buckingham moved, “That the forcible impressment of seamen for His Majesty’s navy was unjust, cruel, inefficient, and unnecessary,” Sir James Graham resisted the motion. He fought, however, less for the evil itself than for the manner of applying a remedy, and obtained leave of the House to bring in a bill which has many admirable points in it, but which he was not destined to guide through its various stages till it became law.

The years 1833 and 1834 were seasons of sore trial to the Reform Government. They had evoked a power at home which they found themselves ill able to control. They had entered into treaties and engagements abroad, the necessity of acting up to which involved them in heavy expenses. But most of all were they hampered and annoyed by the operations of the Irish party, which, after helping them to carry their great measure, asked for its reward. The Irish Established Church must be sacrificed; and the better to insure a speedy attainment of that object, an agitation was got up for the repeal of the Union. Now, Earl Grey was not a man to endure contradiction calmly; he introduced a stern Coercion Bill into the House of Lords, which his colleagues fought inch by inch in the House of Commons. In order to conciliate their Radical supporters, they proposed at the same time to reduce the number of Irish bishops, and to substitute for church-rate in Ireland moneys to be raised by taxes imposed on all sees and benefices. Finally, after providing, as was assumed, a better method of managing episcopal and chapter lands, a clause in their bill declared “That it should be lawful to appropriate any portion thence accruing to purposes of secular utility, without regard to the religious opinions of persons to be benefited.” This famous clause (the 147th) was warmly debated, and in the end withdrawn. But neither section of the Legislature seemed to be satisfied. Indeed, in the Cabinet itself diversity of opinion was held in regard to that matter, and no great while elapsed ere diversity of opinion led to separation.

The first overt proof of schism in the Cabinet was presented by the opposite sides which Sir James Graham and his colleagues took on Mr O’Connell’s motion of censure upon the Irish judge, Sir William Smith. Sir James stoutly resisted it. Mr Stanley, Lord Althorpe, and Lord John Russell voted for it. On a division, Sir James went out with a minority of 74, and next morning tendered his resignation. He had proved himself, however, too valuable a member of the Administration to be cast adrift, and Earl Grey refused to part with him. Three nights afterwards he committed another crime by acknowledging in his place that the economy effected by his predecessors at the Admiralty was quite equal to his own. Then followed a discussion upon the Corn Laws, which he defended as they stood; whereas Mr Poulett Thompson, Vice-President of the Board of Trade, proposed to substitute a fixed duty for a sliding-scale. And here an incident befell which deserves notice. Mr Poulett Thompson endeavoured to confute his opponent by reading extracts from a pamphlet which had appeared in 1830, and in which the author, under the _nom de guerre_ of a Cumberland Landowner, advocated entire freedom of trade in corn, as in other commodities. Strange to say, Sir James Graham took no notice of the ironical cheers which followed these quotations, and which marked the conviction of the House that the pamphlet had emanated from his pen. Yet such was not the case. The pamphlet was the work of a Mr Rooke, and was acknowledged as such when, four years subsequently, the author gave to the world a volume on the science of geology. Why Sir James Graham did not decline the honour thrust upon him at the moment, we are at a loss to conceive, and his biographer certainly assigns no satisfactory reason for the proceeding.

The Cabinet worked on not very amicably, and Sir James Graham did it what service he could by taking charge of its bill for remodelling the Exchequer Office. But the time was come when he felt that he could serve it no longer. Lord Wellesley’s measure for converting tithes in Ireland into a permanent rent-charge on the land was cumbered by a question from Mr Shiel, drawing from Lord John Russell something like a pledge, that the Government might hereafter consider the propriety of applying a portion of this rent-charge to secular purposes. And a few days later Mr Ward brought forward his motion, “That the Protestant Episcopal Establishment in Ireland exceeds the spiritual wants of the Protestant population, and that, it being the right of the State to regulate the distribution of Church property in such a manner as Parliament might determine, it is the opinion of this House ‘that the temporal possessions of the Church of Ireland, as established by law, ought to be reduced.’” There was no evading a movement like this. The Cabinet must either resist or accept Mr Ward’s motion, and a majority determined to accept it. Now, however Radical Sir James Graham’s views might be on other points, he was then, as he always had been, a consistent Churchman. On many previous occasions he had declared his determination to defend to the uttermost the inviolability of what he regarded as a fundamental institution of the Empire; and the Duke of Richmond, Lord Ripon, and Mr Stanley agreed with him. When, therefore, this Act for confiscating the property of the Church was accepted by the Cabinet as its own, the four Ministers above named felt that only one course lay open to them: they retired from the Administration, and shook it thereby to its base.

Sir James sat below the gangway, on the Ministerial side of the House, while those gyrations went on which ended in shaking Earl Grey out of the Premier’s chair, and Lord Melbourne into it. With Mr Stanley, and the half-dozen friends who adhered to him, Sir James kept aloof from each of the rival parties, becoming one of the company who, as Mr O’Connell described it, “travelled by themselves in the Derby Dilly.” It is not for us to inquire into the motives which animated the little band at that time. But considerations of delicacy towards old friends were surely rated above their just value when they induced Mr Stanley and Sir James Graham, a few months subsequently, to decline taking office under Sir Robert Peel. Had they met his advances as frankly as they deserved, the Conservative Government of 1835 would have probably stood its ground; and though it be difficult to conceive, looking both at things present and things past, how the commercial system, now in the ascendant, could have been pushed aside, still the progress of that system would have been probably more gradual; it certainly might have achieved its triumph at a sacrifice less costly than the disruption of the great Tory party, which followed on the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846.

Sir James was coldly looked upon by the Liberals for abandoning Earl Grey’s Administration, and a cabal was got up to resist his re-election for East Cumberland in the event of his taking office with Sir Robert Peel. He refused to take office, as we have shown, and defended himself well at the hustings against the attacks which were made upon him. East Cumberland chose him again to be its representative, and he again took his seat below the gangway on the Ministerial side of the House. As an independent member, however, he stood aloof from the struggle between Sir Robert Peel and the Whigs, till Lord John Russell brought forward his famous motion “For the appropriation to secular purposes of a portion of the Church property in Ireland.” Then Sir James Graham threw over all party scruples. He delivered against the motion one of the most telling speeches which he ever uttered in Parliament, and went out into the gallery with that gallant band which failed to keep their chief in office by twenty-five votes only. From that moment his severance from the Whigs became a mere question of time, and the bitterness with which the Municipal Reform Bill was argued hurried it on. Sir James had never desired to swamp the poorer voters, either in counties or boroughs, and voted against the extinction of the class of freemen. Having gone out with the Tories, he was preparing to cross the House to his old seat, when a storm of derisive cheering greeted him, accompanied by shouts of “Stay where you are!” He stopped, looked angrily at the benches whence the sounds proceeded, and then sat down with a smile of scorn on his lips on one of the Opposition benches.

For the part which he took in resisting the extension to Ireland of the municipal changes which were effected in England and in Scotland, Mr Torrens severely censures Sir James Graham. This is natural enough. Going far beyond his hero in Radical propensities, Mr Torrens dispenses blame where men of moderate views would award praise. He seems to forget that all legislation for Ireland was undertaken in those days with a twofold purpose only—to conciliate Mr O’Connell, and to humble the House of Lords. The Melbourne Ministry, however, rode their hobby too fast. Not a few of the most distinguished of the old reformers fell off from them. Indeed, to such a height was the spirit of alienation carried, that not Sir James Graham only, but likewise Lord Brougham, Sir Francis Burdett, and Lord Stanley, withdrew their names from Brookes’s, into which Mr O’Connell had been received as a member.

From this date up to the death of William IV. in 1837, party spirit prevailed in Parliament and out of it, with a bitterness which has no parallel in modern times. The Ministers, existing by the breath of Mr O’Connell and the Radicals, seemed indifferent to the consequences of the measures which they proposed. The great body of the Opposition, carried away by personal dislike to their opponents, fought more than one battle which it would have been wise to avoid, and compelled their more judicious leaders to fight with them. On the whole, however, the Duke in the House of Lords and Sir Robert Peel in the Commons managed matters well; and it is only just to Sir James Graham to add, that they found in him a hearty as well as a prudent coadjutor.

The accession of her present Majesty led, of course, to a dissolution, and Sir James Graham had the mortification to find himself opposed in East Cumberland by Major Aglionby, formerly his fastest friend. He received, on the other hand, but a doubtful support from the Conservatives, and on the day of nomination the mob refused to hear him. Naturally proud, and perhaps a little dissatisfied with himself, he quitted the hustings, and went to the poll in bad heart. He was defeated by a majority of upwards of 500 votes, and withdrew, full of indignation, to Netherby. He had suffered not long before this a heavy domestic affliction in the death of his mother; and mortified ambition, coming on the back of private sorrow, wellnigh broke him down. He took no further part in county business; he shut himself out from county society, and spent his time chiefly in reading every new book that came out, and corresponding on important subjects with Sir Robert Peel. It was the interval between his defeat for East Cumberland and his return to Parliament as member for the Welsh borough of Pembroke which made him, what he ever after continued to be, a Peelite to the backbone.

In 1838 Sir James Graham was elected Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow, in opposition to the Duke of Sussex. He delivered an inaugural address, which is probably still remembered in consequence of the uproar which it called forth by certain allusions to the necessity of keeping the Church in alliance with the State; for then the fever of Free-Kirk folly was at its height in Scotland. But in 1839 he had graver matters to attend to. That systematic agitation against the Corn Laws having already begun of which Mr Charles Villiers, and not Mr Cobden, was the author. Sir James spoke in his place against interference with the sliding-scale; at the same time he guarded himself from the charge of desiring to secure a monopoly in the corn-market for the English landowner, and went out of his way to warn the House that nothing could be more perilous to English interests than that monopoly in the supply of cotton which had been conceded to America. He was anxious even then that steps should be taken to encourage the better cultivation of the plant in India, and pressed upon the President of the Board of Control the wisdom of originating such a scheme. Words of warning which, disregarded at the moment, come back upon us now with a melancholy echo!

The progress of the struggle, which ended in the withdrawal of the Appropriation Clause and the passing of the Irish Municipal Reform Bill through both Houses of Parliament, is of too recent date to require that we should speak of it in detail. So is the contest which arose about softening down some of the clauses in the New Poor-Law, of which Sir James, though advocating the law itself, was a strenuous advocate. His speech on that occasion, as well as his censure of the job which pensioned Sir John Newport and raised Mr Spring Rice to the peerage, more and more drew towards him the sympathies of the Conservative party, which indeed had already begun to look to him as one of its future leaders. He was equally efficient in his attacks on the Whig mismanagement of affairs in India and in China, and certainly did not spare his old friends when stirred by their rebukes into invective. At last the collapse came, and in 1841 the country declared against the Whigs. A new Administration was formed, with Sir Robert Peel at its head. Sir James Graham accepted the seals of the Home Office, and for five years public affairs were carried on, if not smoothly in all respects, with remarkable success upon the whole. No doubt, Lord Aberdeen’s legislation in the matter of the Church of Scotland proved unfortunate, and there was little in Sir James Graham’s manner to reconcile the discontented portion of the Scottish clergy to the law as it stood. Indeed, it is a remarkable fact, that almost all the failures in Sir Robert Peel’s policy occurred on points of which the management devolved upon Sir James Graham. To him, in a great degree, was attributed the disruption in the Scottish Church. His bill for the amendment of the Factory Act of 1833 hung fire, and was withdrawn; while his attempt to reform the ecclesiastical courts in England utterly broke down.

In 1843 the difficulties of the Administration really began. Ireland was the rock ahead which they found it impossible to weather. They brought in one bill, which they ultimately abandoned, and were content to appoint a Commission, with Lord Devon at its head, to inquire into the state of the country with a view to future legislation. To some of their adherents, moreover, they appeared to be shaken in their adhesion to the sliding scale of duties on the importation of foreign corn; and day by day the great fact became more obvious that Parliamentary government, based on a widely-extended suffrage, is scarcely compatible with the continuance of monarchy. Fortunately, perhaps, for them, Mr O’Connell chose this moment to reawaken the demand in Ireland for the dissolution of the Union, and to inflame the passions of the people by his monster meetings. Great, we should now say unnecessary, forbearance was exhibited in dealing with this movement; but at last a manifesto appeared, which, besides calling upon the masses to assemble at Clontarf, invited the “Repeal cavalry” to attend in troops of twenty-five,—each under its own officers. The Lord-Lieutenant and Lord Chancellor of Ireland happened both to be in London at the time. They met Sir James Graham at the Home Office with the law officers of the Crown, and that decisive step was taken which not only dispersed the meeting of Clontarf, but shut up Mr O’Connell in jail.

We believe that Sir James Graham did nothing more than his duty to the Crown and to the country throughout these proceedings. He contrived, however, to concentrate all the bile of the Opposition on his own head, and a manner, not always very gracious, repelled, if it did not positively disgust, not a few of the supporters of the Administration. It so happened also, that his bill for limiting the hours of labour in the factories did not meet the views either of the mill-owners or of Lord Ashley (the present Lord Shaftesbury) and his friends. The result was, that being defeated on one point by Lord Ashley, and on another by the mill-owners, he withdrew his measure, and sustained, as unsuccessful legislators usually do, some loss of character from the process. But the most damaging event in the course of his Administration was his having authorised, by warrant, the letters of Mazzini and other refugees to be opened at the General Post-Office. A dead set was made at him; and though he showed clearly enough that the law bore him out, he escaped by a majority of only forty-two in a full House—a narrow one, considering the state of parties—the mortification of having his conduct inquired into by a committee of the House of Commons. It is not for us to say why Lord Aberdeen maintained a profound silence in the House of Lords when the subject came to be discussed there. His Lordship was never famous for excess of pluck; and it was generally believed at the time, and is indeed highly probable, that Lord Aberdeen, being Minister for Foreign Affairs, had at least as much to do with the transaction as the Home Secretary. The truth, however, is, that a great deal too much was made of the matter. Lord John Russell and Mr Macaulay, with other leaders of the Opposition, supported Tom Duncombe in his demand; while Sir Robert Peel resisted it, though with his usual caution. At last, on the suggestion of Sir James himself, a committee was named to inquire privately, when it came out that there had not been a Secretary of State for the last hundred years but had signed warrants similar to that issued by Sir James, and that, in doing as he had done, he acted upon precedent, with, as it happened, more than common moderation.

We come now to the Peel policy of 1845, the renewal of the income-tax and the “further lightening of the springs of industry,” by striking out 430 out of 813 articles on which customs duties still continued to be levied. It would be satisfactory to know what share Sir James Graham had in the inauguration and adoption of that policy. Suspicion was rife at the moment, and it still remains, that he took a very active part in pressing its adoption on the Cabinet. But Mr Torrens throws no light whatever upon the subject. He reminds us, indeed, of some witty sayings uttered on the occasion, such as “that the old leaven of Holland House would work till it produced a thorough fermentation,” &c., and chronicles the beginnings of Mr Disraeli’s influence, by quoting his cutting remarks, “that Protection in 1845 was in the same position with Protestant ascendancy in 1828;” and that “a Conservative Government was an organised hypocrisy.” But not a line is given of private correspondence to show what Sir James’s opinions really were with reference to the present or the past. So it is when Mr Torrens comes to describe the course of legislation which led to the permanent endowment of Maynooth, and the setting up of what Sir Robert Inglis called “Godless Colleges” in Ireland. We have a not uninteresting digest of each debate as it occurred, the names of the speakers on both sides being duly recorded; but of Sir James Graham is said no more than of Mr George Bankes or of Mr Ward, or of others even less worthy of notice than the latter gentlemen. This is the more to be regretted that Mr Torrens speaks feelingly of the enormous amount of labour which the subject of his biography underwent, and which, we may venture to add, from our own personal knowledge of the man, the biographer has by no means overrated. The fact is, that Sir James Graham was what has been termed a glutton of work. Such was the constitution of his mind, that before deciding upon any point, whether practical or theoretical, he looked round and round for argument on both sides, and not unfrequently continued to doubt after he had arrived at a judgment. One thing, however, is certain: he had already, in 1845, become a convert to the doctrines of free trade, and was very urgent in his recommendations to the chief of the Cabinet to inaugurate an entire change of system. Now, Sir Robert Peel, as his famous Elbing letter showed, scarcely stood in need of such pressure. Thrown by mere accident into the Tory party, he never made common cause with it, and seemed to rejoice that the time was at length come for humbling the aristocrats who had so long made use of his talents while affecting socially to look down upon him.

We need not stop to repeat the thrice-told tale of the anti-corn-law agitation, or of the potato blight in the autumn of 1846, and its consequences. Enough is done when we state, that from the first appearance of that disease Sir James Graham saw but one remedy for the evil. In the discussions which ensued he ranged himself with Lord Aberdeen and Mr Sidney Herbert on the side of the Premier, and never, as he subsequently declared, gave a vote with greater satisfaction in his life than that which broke up the Peel Government, and dislocated the great party which it had taken years to consolidate. Not very popular at any time either with the Whigs or their rivals; disliked by the former for his desertion on the Irish Church question; distrusted by the latter because of the political creed of his youth,—he now drew down upon his own head an amount of obloquy, more enduring, if not, for the moment, more intense, than that with which the recreant Tory chief was overwhelmed; and the time shortly arrived when, partly on this account, partly because his proud heart rebelled against the dictates of his contemporaries, public life, especially official, if not Parliamentary life, became to him intolerable.

We must hurry over what remains to be told of this versatile yet vigorous statesman. When Lord Aberdeen formed his Coalition Cabinet, Sir James Graham returned to the Admiralty, where the Crimean war took him by surprise, as it did all the other members of the Administration. Sir James, however, put a bold face upon the matter, and having selected Sir Charles Napier to command the worst-found and worst-manned fleet that ever quitted the English shores, he sent him, at the worst season of the year, to try what could be done for the destruction of Russian power in the Baltic. It was unfortunate, both for the First Lord and for the Admiral, that the Reform Club chose to give the latter a dinner. The speeches uttered on that occasion, and especially Sir James Graham’s speech, resembled more the pæans of victors after the strife, than the statements of men about to incur the hazard of a campaign; and the abortive issue of the expedition covered both with ridicule. It did more, however, than this. A bitter quarrel ensued, which was prosecuted not very decorously, sometimes in the House of Commons, sometimes through the press, and which had no other result than to damage both parties very seriously in the estimation of the public.

The break-up of the Aberdeen Cabinet—to which, by the by, Sir James greatly contributed—may be said to have brought his public life to a close. He retained, indeed, his seat in Parliament—Carlisle having returned him as a good Radical member on two separate occasions. And though he seldom spoke, it was always in angry opposition to the Conservative party, once more reunited under Lord Derby and Mr Disraeli. Private sorrows, however, began to tame him down. In 1857 Lady Graham died—a terrible blow, from which he never recovered; and the death of Lord Herbert in August 1861 affected him deeply. To that excellent man, and at heart most Conservative politician, Sir James Graham was much attached. It seemed, indeed, as if to him had been transferred the entire stock of love and respect of which Sir Robert Peel, while living, had engrossed the larger share; and now, when the grave closed over Lord Herbert, life appeared to have no more interest for Sir James Graham. He made a long journey, in very inclement weather, to attend the funeral of his friend at Wilton, and, returning immediately afterwards to the north, scarcely smiled again. Our latest recollection of him is in church—a tall, handsome, yet shattered man, earnest in his devotions, but bearing upon his brow the cloud which was never to be raised on this side the grave. He died at Netherby, surrounded by his children, on the 25th of October 1861.

It has been said of Sir James Graham that he narrowly escaped being a great man. Certainly he possessed some of the qualities which contribute to build up greatness. He was patient, for example, of labour; careful in coming to conclusions; not at all over-scrupulous in changing or retaining opinions; and a first-rate administrator. But there was not a touch of genius about him, nor one shade of originality. His moral timidity was greater than the world supposed it to be. He often shrank from taking a step which his deliberate judgment approved; he often did what he had resolved not to do, and repented afterwards. Such a man was not fit to lead; and the inward consciousness of his own weakness, perhaps, hindered him from ever aspiring to become the head of an administration. His usefulness, on the other hand, as the second or confidential supporter of a great minister, cannot be over-estimated. He had much improved in later years as a speaker, and commanded the attention of the House; but the style of his oratory continued to the last in perfect accord with his intellectual organisation. On ordinary occasions it was stiff, perhaps pedantic; when anything occurred to ruffle or excite, it became sharp and personal—more, perhaps, than the speaker intended it to be. Taking all this into account, we arrive at the conclusion, that the position which he achieved among the statesmen of the passing age was exactly that which nature intended him to fill. He stood neither in the front rank nor perhaps in the second, but took a very prominent place in the third. In private life he was highly estimable, possessing, however, few of those qualities which gather round their owner troops of devoted friends. His manners were reserved, except with those who knew him intimately; his nature was proud, but he was kind-hearted, charitable, and deeply religious—being free from the two extremes of silly mannerism on the one hand, and pharisaical austerity on the other. He was buried in the churchyard of his own village, only the members of his family and a few old friends following him to the grave.

THE INEXHAUSTIBLE CAPITAL.[3]

Footnote 3:

‘Roba di Roma.’ By William W. Story. 2 vols. London, 1863.

If, at some future day, perhaps still remote, when the present wearer of the triple tiara shall have descended into the tomb, and when the power of some who now support him shall be numbered with the things that were, Rome, in compliance with the wishes of Italy, shall become the capital of that fairest of European kingdoms, there will be one class of persons who, although they may not regret it, will be losers by the change, and those are the foreigners, especially English, who, for six months of the year, take possession of all that is best in the papal metropolis. In addition to its garrison of French troops, that renowned city has now for many years submitted—with a far better will than it does to the presence of Gallic legions—to a foreign occupation of a more agreeable and profitable description. Combining more varied attractions than any other city in the world, Rome has become the first watering-place in Europe. Its waters of Trevi are as fascinating to votaries of pleasure and lovers of art as the most salutary springs to seekers after health. Its galleries and antiquities offer years of occupation, even to the most sedulous of visitors, before these can say that they have sufficiently seen and studied them; its winter gaieties and amusements are abundant to satisfy the greediest of such enjoyments; during its long spring (and much of what is winter elsewhere is spring at Rome) lovers of pleasant rides and delightful scenery discover that in such does the Campagna abound. But still, to that majority of its foreign visitors which soon become sated with pictures and statues and classical remains, Rome’s chief attraction is unquestionably the pomps and ceremonies, the splendour and the shrines of that Church whose headquarters the Italians so earnestly desire to see transported beyond the limits of Italy. Remove the Pope, and of course there is an end to the grand solemnities in which he is the most prominent figure; to the magnificent _funzioni_ of Holy Week, to witness which thousands annually flock to Rome, filling to the roof every hotel and lodging-house; to gorgeous ceremonials, brilliant processions, and high festivals; to the chairing of the Pontiff and the feeding of the beggars; the washing of feet and the sounding of silver trumpets and the benediction from the balcony, with its magnificent scenic effect, with the golden chair and the peacock fans, and the rest of the sumptuous and dazzling paraphernalia. All this must of course depart whenever the Italian Government takes its seat at Rome, unless there should then be found some member of the college of cardinals willing to accept the Pontiff’s spiritual heritage without his temporal sway, and to retain his chair at the Vatican whilst a King of Italy thrones it at the Quirinal. The installation of a commonplace lay government could hardly fail to diminish Rome’s present attractions for foreigners. Everything is now done to render it pleasant to them in all ways. The utmost consideration and regard for their comfort and convenience are shown by the government whose capital they enrich, and by the people, who look upon them as their principal source of profit. Rome has little industry or commerce to live by; what prosperity she still enjoys is due solely to the _forestieri_; and, as these are chiefly heretics, the anomaly ensues that the heretic is made much more of in the city of the Pope than in any other capital. For him the best places everywhere—the utmost possible immunity from police annoyances—the blandest smiles of doorkeepers and guardians of galleries—the convenient place of public worship, still denied to him in that bigoted Spain which out-herods Herod, and is more papist than the Pope; and, to crown all these advantages, should death overtake him whilst sojourning in Rome, he has the satisfaction of being buried amongst hundreds of his countrymen, some of them of no mean repute, in one of the prettiest flower-grown English cemeteries that can anywhere be found. The favour shown to him is a standing joke in Rome. “I am off to the Sistine, to hear the music,” says Marforio to Pasquin. “Spare yourself the trouble,” is the reply; “the Swiss and the noble guards will not let you in.” “Never fear,” answers Marforio; “I have turned heretic.” There is truth in the jest. To heretics, Rome is indeed the most tolerant of cities, as the Romans are the most supple and complaisant of hosts.

It seems incredible that, in the second half of the nineteenth century, it should be found possible to write two copious volumes about Rome, in which most persons, even of those who fancied they knew the place thoroughly, might find not only much to interest and amuse them, but also a great many novel facts and much original appreciation of things and topics which they thought had long since been worn threadbare. A book, too, neither critical nor political; neither playing the cicerone through Roman galleries, nor meddling, otherwise than by such passing allusions as sufficiently show the author’s sympathies with the much-discussed Roman question. Since there still remained so much to be written on so attractive a theme, how can we explain its not having been done years ago, by some of the many English of literary tastes who annually abide in Rome? The answer is soon found. The English in Rome—or, it may truly be said, in Italy generally—do not, except in very rare cases, get below the superficial crust which veils from them the richness of the mine beneath. They work in a beaten track, and he who arrives to-day does neither more nor less than he who yesterday departed. They may conscientiously visit every object mentioned in their guide-book—they may reiterate those visits until they can tell you from memory the place of every picture or statue in the Vatican or elsewhere, and until they can fairly say that they have thoroughly “done” Rome in the vulgar acceptation of the word. Still they have explored, and seen, and heard but a portion of what lies at their disposal, and would well repay research; they have scrutinised the Rome of the past, but are ignorant of the Rome of the present; they have pondered over the graves of the dead, but of the living they know little or nothing. To a real knowledge and enjoyment of Rome, two things are essential—familiarity with the language and intercourse with the people—the former being, of course, indispensable to the latter. Comparatively few of the thousands of English who annually pass several months in the shadow of St Peter’s—many of them returning year after year to that which is undeniably the most seductive of Continental residences—obtain familiar admission to the highest circle of Roman society; and still fewer care to seek an entrance into any other, or to trouble themselves to converse with natives of lower degree. They treat Rome as they would an extremely agreeable watering-place in England;—they go there to see the lions, to enjoy a delightful climate and pleasant environs, and to give each other dinners and balls. They form an English colony, according to the usage of our countrymen; and their circles are often as exclusive in their way as that of the Roman princes, to which only the highest connections or most potent recommendations insure access. Very few, indeed, are the Italians who find admission into the many pleasant English houses each winter sees opened in Rome. The English live amongst themselves; they have their own quarter (the best, as usual, in the city), their own club, hotels, shops, and habits; the men scarcely ever enter an Italian _osteria_ or _café_, where they might glean some notion of the manners and customs of the natives, but they appropriate two or three establishments of the kind, which they Anglicise to the utmost extent possible in those latitudes, and which the Romans soon learn to shun, scared by the foreign invasion and by the fancy prices charged for base imitations of British viands. Not one in a hundred of the English who visit Rome are there after May or before November; they see the place and people only in their winter and spring aspects; summer and autumn are unknown to them. Many complete their five or six months’ term of residence without acquiring even a smattering of Italian; and when they leave, all they know of the people is what they may have learned from lying _ciceroni_, or from native servants and shopkeepers possessed of sufficient English to gull the _forestieri_. Now, let us suppose a contrary case—that of an Englishman (or American) of more than average intelligence and cultivation, with a keen appreciation of art, a quick perception of the characteristic, and a warm love for Rome, who should abide for six years in that city and its environs, not invariably flying north from summer heats, but contenting himself with temporary retreats to one of the charming nooks the neighbouring hills afford, and who, thoroughly familiar with the language, should lose no opportunity of mingling and conversing with the people, chatting with all he met—with the peasant in the field, the mendicant by the road-side, the itinerant musician who played beneath his window, as well as with the physician, the lawyer, the trader, and the artist, with whom he might more frequently and naturally be brought in contact. Such a man, we apprehend, would be well qualified to write a fresh and pleasant and instructive book concerning a city whose fame must live for ever, and which may appropriately be surnamed the Inexhaustible as well as the Eternal.

Nobody who visited the great Exhibition of 1862 will have failed to observe and admire two pieces of sculpture which the most competent critics declared to be second to none, even if they were equalled by any of those there collected together. The author of ‘Roba di Roma,’ the foreign and fantastical name of a very English and sensible book, might have placed upon its title-page, had it so pleased him, “by the author of ‘Cleopatra’ and the ‘Lybyan Sybil,’” and the advertisement would have been no bad one; for everybody who had admired the sculptor’s beautiful statues would have been curious to see if he were as clever with the pen as he was cunning with the chisel. Mr Story, however, was above seeking any such side-wind of popularity, and proposed allowing his literary labours to stand upon their own merits. This they are well able to do. As pleasant reading, his book at once takes its place in the foremost rank of its class, whilst the information it contains gives it a more solid and permanent value than can be attained by a work intended for mere amusement. Without being in any degree a guide-book, it contains a vast deal which every visitor to Rome would be glad to find in one. There exists a series of Red Books, much more generally studied than the Blue ones, and with which every Englishman is familiar who pushes his Continental explorations beyond Paris. Unequal in degree of merit, the Briton abroad yet can ill do without the worst of them. Amongst the best must be reckoned that for Rome—a work performed conscientiously and _con amore_ by a genial and accomplished citizen of the world, to whom the Eternal City has become almost a second _patria_. But the very best of handbooks cannot exhaust its subject, when that subject is Rome; and so we counsel every visitor to the papal capital to associate with his Murray Mr Story’s ‘Roba.’

“Every Englishman,” says this gentleman, “carries a Murray for
information and a Byron for sentiment, and finds out by them what he
is to know and feel at every step. Pictures and statues have been
staled by copy and description, until everything is stereotyped, from
the Dying Gladiator, with his ‘young barbarians all at play,’ down to
the Beatrice Cenci, the Madame Touson of the shops, that haunts one
everywhere with her white turban and red eyes. Every ruin has had its
score of _immortelles_ hung upon it. The soil has been almost
overworked by antiquarians and scholars, to whom the modern flower was
nothing, but the antique brick a prize. Poets and sentimentalists have
described to death what the antiquaries have left, and some have done
their work so well that nothing remains to be done after them. All the
public and private life of the ancient Romans, from Romulus to
Constantine, is perfectly well known. But the common life of the
modern Romans—the games, customs, and habits of the people—the
everyday of to-day—has been only touched upon here and
there,—sometimes with spirit and accuracy, as by Charles M‘Farlane;
sometimes with grace, as by Hans Christian Andersen; and sometimes
with great ignorance, as by Jones, Brown, and Robinson, who see
through the eyes of their courier and the spectacles of their
prejudices. There may be, among the thousands of travellers that
annually winter at Rome, some to whom the common out-door pictures of
modern Roman life would have a charm as special as the galleries and
antiquities, and to whom a sketch of many things, which wise and
serious travellers have passed by as unworthy their notice, might be
interesting.”

This last reflection suggested itself to Mr Story as he drove into Rome, somewhat more than six years ago, on his third visit to that capital, which has been his residence ever since; and, as he is evidently a man who likes to carry out a good idea, he at once commenced to hoard his observations for future use and public benefit. The impression made upon us by his two copious volumes is, that they have been composed _con amore_, and at perfect leisure—conditions eminently conducive to success in authorship. That Mr Story loves Rome he need not tell us; his attachment is manifest in his pages. Who, indeed, that has dwelt there long enough to fall under its fascination, does not love it and desire to return thither? Everybody would fain visit Rome, but those only who have been there can fully appreciate the charm it exercises. There are places whose attractions imagination is apt to overcolour, and which consequently disappoint on near acquaintance; but if there be persons who thus find Rome fall short of their expectations, they usually are wise enough to keep it to themselves, and so avoid the charge of extravagance. Doubtless those whose mind, education, and previous pursuits and studies enable them fully to appreciate and enjoy the treasures of art, and of classical and historical associations there heaped up, are few compared to the visitors who form but an imperfect and superficial estimate of what they behold, and who soon are glad to fall back upon less intellectual pleasures. Of these there is no lack. Agreeable society, pleasant promenades, carnival diversions—theatres which, if not uniformly good, at least are sufficiently attractive to audiences which go as much to talk as to listen—the vicinity of a picturesque country, tempting to excursions, which may be compressed into a day or extended to weeks, according as one keeps within the present limits of the Papal territory, or stretches out into Umbria, to Terni and Narni, Perugia and Spoleto,—these varied resources and advantages combine to make Rome delightful, at least in winter and spring, to almost every class of visitors. Considering how many who have visited it have also written about it, it seems scarcely possible, at this time, for anybody to fill seven hundred close pages with matter relating to it without becoming prolix. That, however, is a reproach no one can address to Mr Story. His work shows extensive reading, happily made use of, close observation, and the eye of a true artist. It admits of a broad division into two parts—one of these comprising solely what he himself has seen, heard, and thought; the other including much for which he is indebted to many books, studied to good purpose. As a specimen of the last-named portion, we may cite the chapter entitled “The Colosseum”—the romantic chronicle of that marvellous structure. Its opening is a good specimen of the author’s vivid, rapid manner of placing before us pictures painted in words:—

“Of all the ruins in Rome, none is at once so beautiful, so imposing,
and so characteristic as the Colosseum.[4] Here throbbed the Roman
heart in its fullest pulses. Over its benches swarmed the mighty
population of the centre city of the world. In its arena, gazed at by
a hundred thousand eager eyes, the gladiator fell, while the vast
_velarium_ trembled as the air was shaken by savage shouts of
‘_Habet_,’ and myriads of cruel hands, with upturned thumbs, sealed
his unhappy fate. The sand of the arena drank the blood of African
elephants, lions, and tigers—of _Mirmilli_, _Laqueatores_, _Retiarii_,
and _Andabatæ_—and of Christian martyrs and virgins. Here emperor,
senators, knights, and soldiers, the lowest populace and the proudest
citizens, gazed together on the bloody games, shouted together as the
favourite won, groaned together fiercely as he fell, and startled the
eagles sailing over the blue vault above with their wild cries of
triumph. Here might be heard the trumpeting of the enraged elephant,
the savage roar of the tiger, the peevish shriek of the grave-rifling
hyena; while the human beasts above, looking on the slaughter of the
lower beasts beneath, uttered a wilder and more awful yell.
Rome—brutal, powerful, bloodthirsty, imperial Rome—built in its days
of pride this mighty amphitheatre, and, outlasting all its works, it
still stands, the best type of its grandeur and brutality. What St
Peter’s is to the Rome of to-day, is the Colosseum to the Rome of the
Cæsars. The baths of Caracalla, grand though they be, sink into
insignificance beside it. The Cæsars’ palaces are almost level with
the earth. Over the pavement where once swept the imperial robes now
slips the gleaming lizard; and in the indiscriminate ruins of those
splendid halls the _contadino_ plants his potatoes, and sells for a
_paul_ the oxidised coin which once may have paid the entrance fee to
the great amphitheatre. The golden house of Nero is gone. The very
Forum where Cicero delivered his immortal orations is all but
obliterated, and antiquarians quarrel over the few columns that
remain. But the Colosseum still stands; despite the assault of time
and the work of barbarians it still stands, noble and beautiful in its
decay—yes, more beautiful than ever.”

Footnote 4: