COOKE'S HISTORY OF PARTY.

'THE second, like the first volume of Mr. COOKE'S work, is rather a history of ministries than of parties : whence we infer, that the actions of Whigs and Tories are much more a struggle for place than principles. Waiving this objection, the present volume is superior to the former, both in subject and execution. The cor- ruption of public men is less gross and vulgar than it was under the last STUARTS; their enmities, if equally treacherous, neither so base nor so bloody ; the means by which they aimed at their ends not so revolting and the increasing power of the People, making itself felt in the Legislature, gives a higher practical tone to the • Cemmons, by compelling the assumption of broader views and a professed regard to the interests aid feelings of the many. Either owing to these qualities, or to the improved skill of the author, there is greater attraction in the work. It possesses more unity of parts; the narrative is more continuous, without sameness ; the events and characters are more immediately interesting. In despite of some attempts at finery and force, and occasional impurities of diction, the second volume of the History of Party may be perused with pleasure, as a very readable account of an important period. Its views are of less value. Mr. Como( frequently conies to conclusions which, if true, are not justified by the pre- mises he offers ; and, though far from disposed to overvalue Toryism, we cannot shut our eyes to this author's bias. It does not indeed materially affixt his statements, but it colours his judgments. The Whigs have credit for every favouring effect of chance and necessity, whilst the Tories are debited to the same extent.

The time of the present volume is from 1714 to 1762 ; em- bracing the reigns of the First and Second GEORGES, and the

opening of the Third, till Perfs dismissal. In so long a period, three leading events alone stand out from the party strategies opening of the Third, till Perfs dismissal. In so long a period, three leading events alone stand out from the party strategies and intrigues of the day. (1.) The Peerage Bill; by which a section of the Whigs proposed to destroy the Crown's power of creating Peers, unless in the event of the extinction of

a title; and which scheme fur rendering the Lords both in esse and in posse the dominant power of the state, was defeated by At AL POLE mid his hiends, out of place and in dudgeon, assisted

by the Tories. (c.) The Septeuial Bill; whose tempo' ury neces- sity to preserve the House of Brunswick is admitted by Mr. Comes:, though Le censures the violation of principle by which an unconstitntional pleasure with a temporary object should be rendered permanent; but he qualifies this censure of the (lead

Whigs, by telling the living, that now the thing is of little

"practical impothance," owing to the shorter "average duration of Parliaments!" (3.) The Ministry of the elder Pen; when the People, "rising almost to a man in his defence," forced upon an tam Ming King and an exclusive Aristocracy, an individual without fortune, tank, or high connexion, and gale the first true and unequivocal !bittern of the Democratic power in Englund. With a few exceptions, the characters of this volume are al- most forgotten save by the historical student, or remembered only by the complimentsor the characteristics of POPE. Amongs;

the stake mojores, seven may be enumerated. BouNoseoest the proofs of whose utter want of principle are not indeed new, but appear more striking from being more condensed. WAL- POLE ; who neither rose nor pretended to rise above the morals of his age, but whose principles, such as they were, were con- sistent ; who was not then tainted in his own person with mere mercenary corruptions ; who, excepting PITT, had alone the spirit to be a Minister, and not the mere tool of the Monarch or his minions; and whose rule advanced considerably the physical prosperity of his country. MURRAY, Lord MANSFIELD; wily, cautious, and attentive above all to appearances; never deviating into political vice, never rising into political virtue; and justify- ing, by his cunning course of life, the severe appreciation of .Jurrius. PU ENEY ; eminent for his eloquence, and infamous for his apostasy; thought in truth he did not turn so completely, and hardly so quickly, as ROBERT PEEL, and certainly not so 'often. PITT; figuring in outline, for his glory was the war he 'conducted without being allowed to complete. MARLBOROUGH; personally disliked by the Court, dropping at first into insig- nificance—a soldier in peace, like a chimney in summer—and then sinking into the melancholy which afforded a theme to his two great contemporary moralists. Lastly, that decent man, but despicable Monarch, GEORGE the Third ; who is just shown in his opening career, when he dismissed PITT to substitute Bum and placed the Tories, after a grievous banishment of forty-five years, with a degree of success which might have been the result of accidents, us Mr. COOKE chari- tably conjectures, but which looks as much like a low exercise

WHIGS AND TORIES, PAINTED RV A WHIG.

of kingcraft as any thing upon record,—displaying not even the art of' a back-stairs courtier, but only the cunning of a valet or a waiting-woman, which no mind of average expansion could guard against, because it could not stoop to conceive it. Looking over the whole of the actions narrated in this volume, we cannot say that they lead us to any lofty opinion of the public men of' the earlier half of the last century. The sole struggle of the Tories was to get place, and of the Whigs to keep it. As soon as the former saw there was no likelihood of office through the exiled STUARTS, so soon did they disavow them ; calling JAMES a tyrant, lauding the " Glorious Revolution," and broach• ing doctrines akin to those of LYNDHURST and D'Isamstt in the present day, but falling back to pure Jacohitism the moment that they promised a chance of power, though at the expense of a foreign invasion and a civil war. So far as relates to the prin. ciples of the Glorious Revolution, the position of the Whigs gave them a degree of consistency ; for had they broached to a Bruns. wick dynasty any doubts upon the subject, out they must have gone. Apart from this, they sounded every note of the political gamut. Their politics were personal, and touched only upon questions concerning shares of the spoil. Even the point of ho. nour of an earlier and a later date, that of fidelity to a party, seems unknown. The only faithfulness exhibited resembled the per- sonal honour of banditti dividing booty ; and a Cynic might attri• bute some of this to a regard for personal consequences. The arguments of Mr. COOKE in excuse for WaeroLE's corrupt management and his maintenance of the Septennial Act, is the old excuse of necessity. The nation, says he, were Tories, and could only be induced to return a majority of Whigs by an appeal to the touch; and had this appeal been made often, it would have exhausted the means of patriots. (May not similar argu- ments sometimes be heard in this third session of the second Reformed Parliament ?) The respective stations of the parties is given in this picture of Of these factious. the Tories were at that time, although broken and inactive, the most numerous .:;hroughout the nation. A very large majority of the agri. cultural portion of the population has always adhered to this party. The land. holders saw, in the power which they themselves exercised over their tenantry,a miniature representation of Tory government. The feudal feeling, which ex. piled without leaving a trace of existence among the inhabitants of towns, was little more than modified among the cultivators of the fields. The descendant of the feudal lord succeeded to his possessions, and almost to his power ; his tenantry derived front their fathers an hereditary loyalty to his house ; they claimed an interest in the honour of its representatives. This was an instance of that patriarchal state which, under favouring ciicumstanees, the Tories have delighted to eulogize. It is not suprising that the possessor of such influence should look with horror upon principles calculated to disturb it, should declare war against a system which promised, man:illy, to make those who were then, upon all political subjects, the mere doers of his will, reasoning men and nide- pendent agents. There were few of this class of taco who were numbered among the Whigs, but these exceptions were generally found among thme who were most eminent for wealth and intellect. Those whose possessions were of sufficient extent to gi% e theta importance in the higher !louse of Legislature, could, as they niii.gled in the world, correct the prejudices imbibed during their childlmod. It required, however, honesty as well as intelligence to disavow errors which gave them power. I le ee we may pelhaps draw the reason, that the small landholder was ord.. versally a Troy. The clergyman whom he patronized was a Tory by education, almost by profession, since, the smaller benefices being generally in the handl of second-rate landowners, the inferior clergy were compelled to adopt the poli- ties of the patron to whom they looked for preferment. The tenantry were Tories, because they were habituated to the influence of the landlord, rind were accustomed to receive, as incontrovertible truths, the political sermons of the rector : they were Tuties, also, because they were sunk m ignorance, and knew no other creed, because not one in ten of them could read, and the-e few who possessed this rare acquirement Lever thought of exercising it upon the sub. pet of politics. Political pamphlets never penetrated to the remote dwellings of tie agi iculturist : their sphere of circulation was confined to cities. While the villages and smaller towns were monopolized by Tories, the larger eitio, the manufacturing districts, and the ports of commerce, formed the strong holds of the Whigs. Here there existed no shadow of that hereditary connexion between landlord and tenant, so powerful in the country ; here the usual pursuits of handicraft or commerce required some rudiments of educa. two, or at least some mental exertion. The facilities for acquiring the that ele- ments of knowledge were incalculably greater : no guide was present, upon whom the mind was accustomed indolently to lean, and from whom it was thought heretical, nay atheistical, to dissent. The press was at work : it pro- duced nothing but coutroversy t society was more general, the clash of opinions was more frequent. Here, where all were contending, every man must think for himself; and it mind once accustomed to independence would naturally pre- fee a system essentially progressive, whose action was bounded only by the con- fines of a rational moderation, to one which was fettered by precedents and en- closed within dogmas. The Tories of the manufacturing and populous districts were usually these whom some connexion with a Tory government, or some family infloeuce, bad directed in the choice of a party, or those who, having acquired great wealth, thought only of its preservation, and dreaded the slightest departure from ancient rule, as subversive of the rights of property. The class which formed the strength of the Whig party had greatly increased in consequence and resources siuce the expulsion of James. The wars by which Englaud had wiped away the accumulated degradation she had suffered from France, had given an impetus to commerce, and had called into being a new class of persons, whose interest was distinct from that of the landholder. The Ministers of William and Anne had mortgaged the land and the industry of the kingdom for the supply of its immediate exigencies. That powerful body, which soon became known as the monied interest, was the immediate offspring of the expedient, and increased in influence as the debt became aug- mented. The merchants, who gained by the vast expenditure of these years, co llllll only became the holders of the national mortga,ges, and gradually began to rival in wealth and influence those who drew their income and honours from the possession of land. This circumstance greatly increased the power of the Whig party. There is truth in the opening of the following character of M ARLBOROUGH —prettiness in the second part. From all we know of the hero, "a fancied life in others' breath" was about the last thing he cared for. Like his successor WELLINGTON, be was a man for the substantials ; and WELLINGTON, like him, seems never to have " been governed by any theoretical preference for a peculiar principle of government."

A PORTRAIT.

Since the accession of George the First, Marlborough had been treated with at outward courtesy and real neglect. While levelling the colossal power of

Louis the Fourteenth, and scattering and pursuing hia armies, Marlborough had been so oureasonable as to postpone to the interests of Europe the peculiar inte- rests of the electorate of Hanover. This want of deference to the Elector, the King of England never could forgive. It was necessary to respect the national admiration, and to retain him in public employment, but he was allowed no particle of influence. So little was he consulted, even upon subjects supposed to be immediately under his control, that he was unable to nominate to a vacant lieutenancy. If he wished to obtain for another a favour from the Crown, he was compelled to make the application through a private friend having less die. tincticn and more influence; but "Don't say it is for me, or you are sure to be

refused," was his invariable and necessary injunction. * * * As a political chief, we have seen Marlborough the leader and mainstay of each party alternately. In this character we must record his acts, but it would be vain to attempt to trace them to any principles of government. The early part ot' his life was spent in working out the fortune of a courtier : so long as lie strove only to attain this object, or to preserve it when attained, he continued a Tory. Did niatthood was spent in building up the fame of a soldier. War— the prostration of France—was his object ; and, as the Whigs alone were

heartily inclined to second him in this, Marlborough became a Whig. I be- lieve it was the bitter hatred he conceived fur Oxford, the persecution he suffered from the 'forks, and the controlling influence of the musculine mind of his dotclass, strong, even when yoked with that of a hero, that preserved his party ,cousistency. lean remember no proof that he was ever governed by any theo- retical preference fur a peculiar principle of government.

A FANCY PIECE.

Disgusted by such unworthy treatment, and unable, after having ruled so absolutely in the court and cabinet, to recommence the arts of an expectant courtier, Mailborough retired entirely from public life. In the magnificent do- main of Blenheim, the splendid testimonial of his country's gratitude, lie could fly from the present to the future; he could anticipate the time when his name would still be familiar, and his deeds still fresh is the memory of all, when the acts of his cuotempotaries had ceased to interest and their names were with difficulty remembered. NeitInr the neglect of a court, nor the more tormenting tyrannyof an ignoble vice, could render In:happy a man Who had such a refuge. If, during the declining, days of Marlborough, the present was dim and cheerless, lie could, while reason yet remained, look back upon acts whose brightness even the treachery and meanness of Lord Churchill could not destioy, and forwald into fields of time, where his glories should only be more widely diffused as the deeds whence they radiated became more dis:ant.

WALPOLE'S CLOSING srneccr.r..

On the 21st, the Government Members were startled upon entering the House of Commons to find ilk: Opposition benches ctowded with the whole strengtii of the party. It oas evident that no effort had been spared to bring tip every vore at their command ; cripples had been brought in upon their clutches, and sick men, Enveloped in hall,.ages and nightcaps, proclaimed the importance of an oc- casion which had drawn them from their beds. Meanwhile, hi) well had the secret been kept, that the Government benches were empty.. and no business of impoi lance had been expected. The appearance of the !louse was explained, when Pultelley ruse, and in a specell of great power arraLned the conduct of the Minister in the prosecution of the war. lie concluded with a motion, to refer thitsti papers relating to the suh.iect, which had been produced, to a Secret Coolmittrs. Upon this deinonsfratitin messengers were, of noun se, 41.1. Itched in all dilections. As the debate was industriously drawn out, the Ministerial retainers gradually ai rived, and. although so completely °umlaut:enema in the first instance, Walpole compensated by his diligenee for his want of prepa-

ration. a When each party hail ready every vote they could hope to muster, the debate leas concluded, and the must extraordinary artifices were adopted to influence the division. The Pm ince of Wales, who was present, astmoslied at the num- ber of invalids who were being carded into the House, extilaimel to General Churchill, who sit Hear hint, "'they have gut together the lame, and the halt,

and the blind. ' " Yes, the lame uu our aide, the blind on your was the reply. Two of these invidids, and a gentleman who had recently lost a relation, anti could not apio•ar with decency for want of a snit of mourning, had linen Impressed by Lord Walpole, and kept in a room opening into the House, which he held as Auditor of the Exchequer. Some Opposition Mt:a:hers getting infor- mation of this, stuffed the key-hole of the door with sand. At the critical mo- ment the key was found useless, and three votes were thus lost. Upon the division, the defection of two Tory members turned the scale, giving Walpole the majority of two, which would otherwise have been ngaiost