TOPICS OF THE DAY.
OUR MINISTERS.
IT is an exasperating thing, it might make the spectator of a cricket-match turn misanthrope through contempt for his species, to see a player miss a fine ball; but to see him do it time after time, and never hit-to see all his colleagues do the same-pro- vokes a just indignation against such disgrace to their kind. You cannot witness the scene and abstain from picking to pieces the character of the players. Now surely no set of men ever had such an innings as the present Ministers-such a clear field, such fine blowing weather, such capital balls : yet every stroke is a miss. They play a timid game, and venture only when there is nothing to be gained by it, Accordingly, you pick to pieces the character of the men-excellent men, no doubt, in the bosom of their families,. but exasperating performers on a public ground. And the review of the men quite accounts fur the failure of theparty.
Look at the leader, Lord John Russell; a most estimable man, whose character is patent to all the world. Lord John is a model of an English gentleman-only without anyJohn-Bullishness of contour, and therefore without many things that belong to that exterior. He is intelligent, highly educated, well versed in Eng- lish history-he has written some first-class exercises on that theme-spirited, sensitive, and kind-hearted. He can read you a page in history with due emphasis and discretion, after the most received plan, and will compose you a theme upon it that would extort the highest certificates from the College of Preceptors. He is very proud to find the House of Bed- ford mentioned so often; and he is thoroughly convinced that the country which produced the said House of Bedford must be the finest country in the world-the prize country, rewarded by its own virtue in the possession of that house. He is a stanch advo- cate of the free institutions which have produced% the House of Bedford. He is a revolutionist on occasions, and goes along with the noble Barons who extorted the Charter from King John ; nay, with the Country Gentlemen who dictated the Bill of Rights : but in matters of revolution he draws the line at Barons and Country Gentlemen. The House of Bedford, in his person, completed the political trinity by vouchsafing the Reform Bill- event enough for this age. There he rests his political fame. It is most disgusting to see the vulgar ingratitude which makes men impatient to get beyond that ; but the " ardor prava jubentium civium " is a classic text for historical theses. Lord John is a kind man and a philosopher, and he forgives his fellow country- men. Patience is the great political virtue. Let the rabble. bawl freely, and it will change its tale ; the ebb-tide will restore the balance disturbed by the flood. Nothing more is wanted. England is a glorious nation : it has produced Queen Elizabeth, Lord Bacon, John Milton, and Lord William Russell; John Hampden, and Dr. Hampden, mitred by a Russell ; Charles James Fox, and Francis Duke of Bedford, whose statue is in Russell Square : it is swayed by Queen Victoria, and governed by Lord John Russell, assisted by Earl Grey, son of the late Earl Grey, and Sir George Grey, nephew of the late Earl Grey. The English are a free people ; and discussion, being quite free, is very animated. Ireland is very poor and turbulent : she always has been so. All these facts are history : it is thus Lord John reads it. Persons who don't read history, but only the newspapers, are for going faster, or going back, or going on one side. Lord John smiles. Demagogues fall in with those wild ideas ; so do some statesmen. The Duke of Wel- lington says that men not used to good society are not suited to hold commissions in the Army, because the unaccus- tomed wine at mess gets into their heads : Lord John sees that men who are elevated to the rank of statesmen, without being well born, are liable to have their heads affected. It is a sign of plebeian birth. He is never so. Other men are : they are not members of the House of Bedford, or of any other "house," except the House of Commons. But he is proud to see how our free in- stitutions enable the man of humble origin to attain the highest posts of the state, and it is with magnanimity that he encounters the consequences of that freedom which the House of Bedford has done so much to maintain. Lord William Russell suffered for it at the block, and Lord John Russell would do the same; only that nowadays we are too polite to use such filthy modes of enforcing noble responsibilities. All these troublesome incidents of statesmanship are history : it always has been so, and always ought to be. The wise statesman sits on high and moderatea all : Lord John is doing so : it only requires 41 the application from time to time of plans suited to the occasion " ; and there is always somebody at hand to provide a little plan when it is wanted. People blame him : great statesmen always are blamed; their country is always ungrateful : but these things do not move him, at least not much ; he looks to posterity to do him justice, and to the future historian of the lives of British statesmen. That is all : there is nothing else going forward in the world, nothing extra- ordinary-only another volume of history brewing, just like the whole set.
Of course there is no moving such a man : you might as well invite Sheriff Alison to compose a New Atlantis or a third vo- lume to Cosmos. Headed by Lord John, the Cabinet is set to go by the week, like an eight-day clock.
He has excellent lieutenants. Sir George Grey, nephew of the late Earl Grey, is a most respectable Minister, and a great speaker. He can pour out all the usual reasons for any usual measure, with surprising fluency, in a very agreeable voice, with the oratory of i a perfect gentleman. He is at once a sound Liberal—a Whig strong in language and careful in conduct, and a sound lawyer— who can imagine no departure from the rule of lawyers.
Sir Charles Wood, son-in-law of the late Earl Grey, is Lord John's Chancellor of the Exchequer : a most useful and creditable col- league ; a sterner man than Sir George, and less pleasing in speech ; more hard-spoken, as befits a hard-headed man; quite up, too, in political economy and parish thrift ; able to " answer" anybody with a crushing commonplace, and always well informed as to the last price of stocks : quite a financier. It was edifying to see how Mr. Cobden's sub-imaginative budget was dashed to pieces as it was borne by the stream of time against the pier-head of Sir Charles's moveless officialism. A safe man is Sir Charles, no bolter; though he will "dress up" a budget as well as any Chancellor for the House, and speak as Liberal a speech at public dinner or hustings as Mr. Coppock or Mr. Prout. Earl Grey—ay, there's the rub. Earl Grey, son of the late Earl Grey, must be iu the Ministry, and he is. He is one of the family party. He is a very constitutional man, although he does talk Liberalism, or has talked it, with the best. His temper, in- deed, is infirm ; but that seems to be a constitutional infirmity— in the medical, not the political sense of " constitutional." Lord Grey is by some accounted arrogant ; but then he is Earl Grey of How ick. Occasionally lie has extravagant projects ; but he always retracts them. He looks very impracticable, but he is much more negative than he looks; yet he speaks boldly, and could ill be spared in the House of Lords, if it were only to be pitted against Lord Stanley. And Lord Stanley's high Tory politics are truly useful to Lord Grey, especially in Colonial topics ; they enable him to seem still quite Liberal. Some inconvenience arises when the head of an active depart- ment is confined to the House of Lords, as he is then obliged to have a spokesman in the chamber where public business is chiefly transacted : disqualified for admission to the Commons, Lord Grey must have his proxy there ; and the increased exigences of Colonial affairs have dragged that proxy into unexpected promi- nence. Mr. Hawes was a leading inhabitant of Lambeth ; then Member for his native place, and rather formidable to mere Whig Ministers from a certain Dissenting turn, which gave; him influence : he was invited to take office, and has fallen in well with established modes. He has taken a very intelligent view of the understanding on which he was invited, and knows all the difference between being Member and Minister : Lambeth wanted certain things, and he supplied them ; Lord Grey wants other things, and Mr. Hawes supplies them. He suits his mer- chandise to his market : he knows better than to go to a brick chapel among the factories of Lambeth, and to court, in the same costume. He is Lord Grey's Under Secretary; and Lord Grey is well pleased with him on the whole, though he does bully him now and then. It is an awkward circumstance, that when it is necessary for the House of Commons to believe what Mr. Hawes says, it has to be repeated by Sir George Grey : but Mr. Hawes is a very honourable man, though not of any " house" except a commercial house in Lambeth ; and he is always faithful to his trust. The country may not trust him, but Lord Grey does.
Lord Palmerston's position is peculiar—it is merely personal. That he is the ablest diplomatist in Europe, is proved by the fact that he alway,s puts the affairs with which he has to deal in the same state. It is like that popularly called a "state of hot water" —a sort of simmering ferment, threatening an explosion. His is a temperament which likes to balance on the edge of a precipice—to enjoy a repose spiced by the surprise in the countenances around ; his chosen bed is a tight-rope, he expatiates " stens pede in uno" amid the flash of rockets ; he sets one state against another, plays with revolution, dallies with treason, and brings Europe about his ears ; and when you think that he is lost in the crash, hey presto ! like Herr Cline after a struggle with the attraction of gravitation, he stands before you in an attitude of graceful and ostentatious aplomb. He would not play these tricks, he would not tamper with the affairs of nations, if he gravely cared for the weal of his kind and country : but they are life to him. As tight-rope dancers can only get along while the band makes a noise, so he cannot manoeuvre unless there is a stir. It is his way. It keeps Lord Grey in a fidget ; and Lord Grey, who is a man of old traditions—for his own crotchets are a mere morbid twitching, which passes off—cannot see the ne- cessity for admitting the noble adventurer to the family party. But Lord Palmerston is too adroit to be spared.
The Marquis of Lansdowne's position is still more peculiar. As principal Minister in the House of Lords, it falls to his lot to answer for Lord Palmerston ; and the venerable Marquis is a man of still older and more steadfast traditions than Earl Grey. Besides, he has antiquated ideas as to the dignity of statesman- ship. Accordingly, he cannot frame his lips to talk Palmerston- isms in his capacity of extra Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs ; and so the incohesive state of the Cabinet often appears through Lord Lansdowne's candour. Lord Lansdowne uneasily remembers the days of strong Ministries, and cannot conceal his present dis- comfort. Political death would evidently be a happy release to him ; but he has not the heart to shut the door against the sons of old friends who used to enjoy the hospitalities of Lansdowne House ; although the young fellows do sometimes bring strange new companions. The Government is formed of these and thilike incongruous materials. The analysis of the personnel expla the history of its administration : unconstructed itself, but ont yieced together, it cannot construct. It brings in "bills," according to form, but they are only the simulacra of bills ; there is no power in the en- gine to form a measure of substance. A review of tlr personnel is a review of the session thus far, as it has been of Trreee sions, and will be of the rest of the session, and of futut‘N sesiions for the Ministry will last for ever.
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