O'CONNELL, LEADER OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.
Jr the most able and influential Member of the House of Com- mons is the best fitted to lead it, then we need not despair of find- ing a successor to Lord ALTIIORP. Mr. O'CONNELL, " that elo- quent and distinguished personage," to use Lord BROUGHAM'S language, "who is looked up to with reverence by so large a por- tion of his fellow countrymen," must be the very man. He is gifted in a remarkable degree with the highest qualifications for leadership—quickness, tact, extensive information, uncommon powers of conciliation, habits of command, eloquence unrivalled in the House, joined to great physical powers, and wonderful industry. He moreover possesses, and has held for years, the confidence of the Irish millions, which no other statesman has discovered the art of retaining. All these advantages have recently enab!ed him to defeat the Government on important questions; and in point of fact, it is he who has led the House.
To commonplace intellects and d tillobservers, O'CONNEL l.'s ver- satility and inconsistency may seem an insurmountable objection. But this very defect in his character as a patriot, will be found highly serviceable in a Minister. Look at Lord ALTHORP, the idol of the House : is he not versatile and inconsistent to a marvel? Has he not "chopped and changed about" since he became leader of the Ministerial party, with a quickness and effrontery which we question whether even Mr. O'CONNELL could surpass, adept as he undeniably is in the art of political evolution ? Did Sir ROBERT PEEL lose the confidence of his majorities, when he turned his back on his old principles, and carried the Catholic Relief Bill, and re- pealed the Test Act ? Was not the dear Duke a Tory, then a Liberal, now a Tory again ; and is he not the dear Duke still ? Look at Lord Mono's/tie, the master-mind of Europe, who con- tradicts himself every other night, relying, as he says, implicitly on his memory, and defying the uniformity of newspaper reports, —look at this formidable politician and intriguer, who mouths in favour of and against the same measures and the same men (O'CONNELL among them) during the same week : has he lost credit with any except a few disappointed newspaper editors, who, as his Lordship intimates in the last Edinburgh Review, have their own reasons for their sulkiness and abuse? Certainly not. Then why make such a fuss about O'Costsvens's want of political prin- ciple and consistency ? lie is no worse than ALTHORP and BROUGHAM, WELLINGTON and PEEL. III fact, he is no worse than most men; for, as POPE says, when speaking of mankind
general,
" Manners with fortunes, humours turn with climes, Tenets with books, and principles with times."
If, however, there should be a few unaccommodating spirits yet in existence, who have an old-fashioned and sincere contempt for trickery, and an admiration for straightforward conduct in public life, we must admit that they will hardly be pleased at the exal- tation of the Agitator to the Leadership. But we are not now dealing with persons of this troublesome description, but with a more pliable species of men—the Representatives of the People in Parliament assembled ; the majority of whom have voted all sorts of ways on all sorts of measures with Lord ALTHORP. It would be too absurd to refuse to be led by the foremost man among them, because he has occasionally been rather profligate in his politics. And, in truth, we do not anticipate any serious objections on that score. So, if Mr. O'Ciarestem. will only be a little more cautious and circumspect, and manage the House as we saw him managing the Committee on the Inns of Court the other day, that is, with tact and temper,—if, in short, he will only call to his aid a little more of fashionable dissimulation and coolness,—we shall not be surprised to find him on the Treasury Bench, at the head of a triumphant majority ; who will make the old walls of St. Stephen's reecho with loud and long-continued cheering, and "immense laughter," at the wit, drollery, and sarcasm of their Leader.
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