THE AGE OF PITT AND FOX
HAS the same literary qualities as Ireland and its Rulers; but the
matter is altogether different, and deficient. In the last-named work, the writer appeared to have been an observer if not an actor among the scenes and persons described ; he had evidently acquired a great amount of floating knowledge not yet committed to print. The subject, besides, had a good deal of contemporaneous freshness, and better bore
an article-like expansion ; at least at starting—for the last volume gave indications of a theme run down. About " the age of Pitt and Fox " this writer knows no more than anybody else : so that he can tell us nothing new in substance ; and if he strikes out a juster thought on what has been called the independence of Ireland under Grattan, or gives it -mere prominence, yet the main characteristic of the book, and, it would seem, the writer's main dependence, is the ars scribeudi. A vigorous sketch of political " characters," in the manner of Macaulay and some- times with Macaulay's matter, a good summary of Parliamentary debates, with here and there some just estimates of politicians and their conduct, form the beat features of the book. These, however, are often expanded into mere phrases ; and the space is eked out by dogmatic opinions, where a pomp of style vainly attempts to disguise a poverty of matter. The Age of Pitt and Fox is a sort of claptrap title. The preface informs us that the history of this country between the close of the American and the commencement of the Peninsular war (1782-1808) is the subject of the work. The first volume, however, comes no further down than 1785, and is solely devoted to the history of politics and the characters of politicians ; dealing with the Rockingham, Shelburne, and Coalition Ministries, that so rapidly fell to pieces ; and just leaving Pitt firmly seated in power, but failing, through Irish folly, to carry his commer- cial measures in favour of that country. As the three years dismissed bear no proportion in the greatness of events or the interests at stake to the five-and-twenty which follow them, we are at a loss to perceive how the work can be confined within the announced three volumes. Even if the Revolutionary war be altogether thrown overboard and the narrative limited to politics, we do not see how Pitt's commercial and financial measures—the debates on the Regency—the fierce contentions on the French Revolution, and the home Corresponding Societies, which broke up the Whig party—the impeachment of Hastings—the Irish Rebellion and Union—with Pitt's resignation, Addington's Ministry, and the last governments and deaths of Pitt and Fox—are to be tucked up into a couple of volumes—not upon the same scale, for that is impossible, but upon the same style of composition, with the same sort of mind. And this remark touches the essence of the book. Its subject is history: the author wants the historical genius—his class is the smart, flashy, swag- gering, self-satisfied Edinburgh Reviewer.
These qualities, indeed, might have rendered the whole attractive or readable, had not the matter often been so wiredrawn. Even as it is, there are many passages with the sort of power and partial truth belong- ing to the school, more especially where the characteristics of men or of parties have to be delineated. Here is an example, in the account of the Rockingham and Shelburne Whigs ; though, perhaps, with a bias to the Shelburne branch.
" Lord Rockingham's followers were what might be called the Family Compact Whigs—representing the principles of prescriptive Wliiggery. Lord Shelburne's faction had originally been formed by Lord Chatham, and affected to act inde- pendently of party ties; they were Whigs of progression, and stoutly combated the leading article of the Rockingham creed—" that the great Revolution families should govern England." One party was an oligarchy with a historical fame, and confederated under hereditary leaders —its Russells, Cavendishes, and Bentincks, and a swarm of minor Whig families, being all bound together by ancient recol- lections, habitual intercourse, and family alliances. They formed a vast junto, of great ambition, and prodigious power. Their politics had been elaborately digested into a system by the genius of Burke; who gave them a political code, and who furnished them with a variety of maxims, and general principles so hap- pily expressed as to seem suited for the Rockingham creed alone. They were ready to defend the theory of Monarchy, and were desirous of keeping the Sove- reign their creature. They were eager to espouse the popular cause—provided the people were ready to remain their clients. They wished to introduce into political life new men of genius, who were to exhibit their talents, adorn the party—but should not aspire to sitting in the Cabinet. " The Shelburne party, on the other hand, cherished the tenets of Whiggery,but it applied them ar a different fashion from the Rockingham school. They thought that England should be governed by a much larger and even more for- midable junto than the arat Revolution families; they cordially acknowledged the existence of a power which was only superciliously recognized by the Rocking- ham Whigs; in short, the Shelburne party thought that the true idea of the Re- volution of 1688 was, that the English public should govern, and not a collection of great families The support of the Shelburne system distinguished between a public and a populace, as they discriminated between a Whig party and a faction of families. Laughing at the divine right of kings, they spurned the principle that the Dukes of Bedford or Devonshire should parcel out the empire between them. They thought that the King had a right to choose his Ministers from the host of public men in Parliament; and they boldly claimed the right of men of commanding talent to sit in the Cabinet even though fortune had not given them ancestors ' who (in the graceful catchwords of the Rockinghams) had bled with Ham en in the field or died with Sydney on the scaffold.' They went to the Kin s Hampden in as his Ministers; they did not comport themselves as his masters, ordemean themselves (like Lord North and his colleagues) as if they were his servants. A manly Sovereign would not be thrown upon his mettle by the Shel- burne system of politics, nor would a despotic Monarch select his tools from men bred in that school. To both King and people their conduct was more truly re- spectful than that of the Rockingham party."
There is a truth in the following remark upon Shelburne's submission to the Coalition, and consequent downfal, which is applicable to another Whig Lord.
"At that time, the confederacy was too strong for Pitt to dissipate it. The House divided against Ministers, 207 to 192. The Earl of Shelburne at once showed that he was not fit for the emergency. He resigned. He thought, as the House had decided against him, he was bound, in conformity to constitutional practice, to resign. He thought wrongly. An English Minister is not to be the creature of the House of Commons. When such a confederacy as that of Fox and North menaced the prerogative, it was his duty to have battled with it through the session, and advised the Crown, at its conclusion, to dissolve Parliament, and appeal to the country to decide. But he reeled before the coalition, and sunk to rase no more.
"His ease shows that talents and training of a superior order do not make an English Minister. There must be also that native resolution of character, prior to and paramount over mere education and acquirements."
The writer is stronger upon Irish than Eaglish ground ; or the soil is less exhausted. This character of the Earl of Clare is a powerful piece of writing; though the implied comparison with O'Connell is some- what forced, and artificially introduced.
" FitzGibbon, afterwards Earl of Clare was perhaps the ablest of the great bad men produced by modern Ireland. He was the son of an eminent barrister, who had amassed a large fortune, and who had changed his religion daring the time of the penal laws. At school young FitzGibbon displayed all the features that were afterwards prominent in his character. A bad temper, a coarse and selfish ambition, and an implacable spirit of vengeance, were visible in the young despot. Among his schoolfellows was Grattan; with whom he maintained a rivalry in College; in which, after a protracted contest for honours, FitzGibbon became the victor. Without the imagination of Grattan, totally deficient in moral sen- sibility, he possessed a stronger understanding and a greater capacity for affairs than his illustrious rival. To hard knowledge of the worst parts of human nature he united all the boldness and ferocity needed by a depraved adventurer, resolved on ascending, by any means to the pinnacle of power. Arrogant, morose, repulsive, he delighted in wounding the feelings of those whom it would have been policy to court. Of transcendent arrogance, he grasped power and station as his rights; he scorned to accept them as favours. Of varied and solid legal ac- quisitions—bold in his carriage, voluble if not eloquent in speech, with a mind and nerves not to be broken by labour—he soon dashed all competitors aside; and, in an age when the Irish bar was crowded with men of ability—Yelvertons, Currans, Burghs—he stood, not the most brilliant, but confessedly the most formidable and successful man in the profession. "An observer at that time might have paused todetermine whether such a man was more suited to be the tool of the English Government or the slave and ally of the Irish populace; whether he was fitter to work his way to Imperial authority, by the arts of a reckless placehunter, or play the part of a popular 'patriot,' and levy black mail from the people. But though he had the requisite baseness, he had not the peculiar kind of pravity required for a thorough Irish demagogue. For, in the first place, he was no liar: not that he loved truth for its own sake, but his temperament and personal audacity prevented him from playing the hypocrite. He was not suited for the cajolery of the miserable rabble; for be could do any- thing rather than flatter, as Nature had given him a tongue to drop poison on his foes, rather than slaver for his followers. Besides, with all his bad qualities, he had a certain respect for intellect; he was not ready to abase his whole nature mental as well as moral; and though never willing to concede to others the rights of opinion, he could never allow others to dictate his modes of thinking. His nature was that of a desperado, who, if other means had failed him, would rather have sought to repair his fortunes as a corsair, by hoisting the black flag and defying the British Navy, than have embarked as a sordid merchantman upon the passions of the Irish populace. "Thus, though a bad man, of desperate ambition, he was not a grovelling animal. 'He owned no masters; he sought no patron; he laid no snares: for lie was as incapable of concealing his fell purposes and his ferocious nature, as the shark of masking his jaws, or the hymns of mufilingits wild shriek."
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