SIR G. CORNEWALL LEWIS.
MILE untimely death of Sir Cornewall Lewis may probably 1 cast a less defined gloom over the country than would the loss of any of his three most distinguished colleagues, because such a gloom is measured less by the greatness of a statesman's power than by the diffusion of his personal influence. Sir G. Lewis's personal influence did not extend, like Lord Palmerston's, or Lord Russell's, or Mr. Gladstone's, to the popular imagination, and accordingly the people will scarcely know that they have lost the wisest of their counsel- lors. Yet this we deliberately believe to be the case. The Cabinet has lost more of the elements of true deliberative strength, more wide and discriminating knowledge, more revising wisdom, though not, of course, so much popular con- fidence, in losing Sir Cornewall Lewis, than it would have done by the loss of any other of its members. The vacancy seems less only because so much of his power in the country was exerted through his influence over others, so little, proportionally, by the mere force of his own public efforts. There are said to be substances which though not contributing very much or directly themselves to the life of the body, are yet conditions of the vitalizing power of those that do. This was, to a very large extent, the function of Sir Cornewall Lewis in the Cabinet. He did much, indeed, directly, but more still by the regulating influence of his vast knowledge and lucid exposition of its principles, to give the greatest possible efficiency to the powers of his colleagues. He was a most efficient minister himself, but still more the cause of efficiency in others,—for wherever their knowledge, or their grasp, or their prudence failed, he could come to the rescue, and supply the missing conditions of success. He wanted what many of his colleagues possessed, the vividness of Lord Palmerston, the missionary eagerness of Mr. Gladstone, the curt, emphatic convictions of Lord Russell, qualities some share of which are, perhaps, essential to make a popular impression,—essential, too, to a full appreciation of the strength of popular feelings, and to estimate the fate of popular movements ; but none of them could for a moment approach him in range and aptness of political and historical knowledge,—or, what was of far more importance, the sound- ness and lucid impartiality of his intellectual judgment.
The Conservatives consider, not without considerable show of truth, that in losing Sir Cornewall Lewis they have lost even more than has the party to which he ostensibly belonged. And in some sense this was true. Not that Sir Common Lewis had any of that strength of prejudice for former things which is the backbone of the Tory party as such. But the result of his wide historical knowledge seen, as it was seen, with no prepossessions, no germ of enthusiasm, and a singularly frank intellect, was to make him distrust the benefit of change, though he never clung to the shadow of the past. In his last published work, he concludes, with characteristic caution, "looking back upon the causes of revolutionary movements, and upon the character of their consequences, the practical conclusion which I draw is, that it is the part of wisdom and prudence to acquiesce in any form of Government which is tolerably well administered and affords tolerable security to per- son and property." This probably expressed the root of Sir Cornwall Lewis's intellectual Conservatism,—by no means a Conservatism founded on a high appreciation of things as they are, or on dislike of change ; but on distrust of change,—on a conviction that a " tolerable" state of things is usually as good as you can hope for; that two changes out of every three in what is tolerable now, may result not in making it more, but less tolerable, hereafter. This iron-grey tone of mind on political affairs is evidently not the tone of a highly popular statesman,—not the tone of an energetic reformer,— nor is it, we think, by any means the tone of the highest possible statesman, —inwhom faith would modify the despondent tenden- cies of mere experience. But it is the tone which a wide calm intellect, applied without faith, and with absolute sincerity, to political affairs, is almost sure to produce, and when combined with the kindly nature and genuine simplicity of Sir Cornewall Lewis, and employed, as it was by him, with a single desire to secure the good of the country, is of more value to the national councils than any amount of the most genuine re- forming enthusiasm unrestrained by this single-minded caution. It was his distrust of most political expedients -which gave to so many of his speeches in Parliament, espe- cially in 1860 when he was the principal organ of a reforming Government, a sort of genial and humorous cynicism, as he pointed out the probable inefficiency of the measure he was recommending to the adoption of the House. Yet no one, not even the most eager of the Radicals, ever cared less for the mere
selfish interests involved, or hesitated less to give battle to them, where he could feel really sanguine of success. This, however, lie very seldom was. Hence, while he sup- plied his colleagues with many conditions of success in what they did, and held them back from many things that they otherwise might have done, he himself originated little. It was his natural function to revise and check the plans of others, either to criticize rash schemes in periods of excite- ment, or to lead a Conservative party in quiet times. But his mind was far too wide for mere party-Con- servatism. Far more than any of his colleagues he possessed that instinct of culture which cannot endure to avail itself of a popular fallacy, even where it worked in his own favour. To lead a party that needed rallying by appeals to prejudice and misconception would have been absolutely impossible to him. And it was remarkable that during the two last years of his life, aristocratic as his political sympathies undoubtedly were, he did more to counteract the hasty and superficial view of international law to which the political leanings of almost all the leading members of the House inclined them, than any other of the Cabinet. When Mr. Gladstone had proclaimed the South already a nation, it was Sir Cornewall Lewis who warned us that we could not recognize its independence till after the attempt to subdue the South had been practically abandoned, without a gross breach of international usage— unless, indeed, we were prepared to go much further, and intervene forcibly on its behalf. And to him, there- fore, more than any other Minister, we owe it that, in spite of the bias of the English ruling class, which he very likely shared, there was no swerving from the line of impartial neutrality to which England is pledged.
The "dry light" of his intellect rendered it, in fact, impossible for him to take any side so warmly as to ignore the debit side of the account. In the last characteristic essay, on " The Best Form of Government,"—characteristic both for its conclusion that there is no best form, and for the singular candourof its reason- ing, he states the case for a genuine democracy with at least as much vigour as for any of the other constitutions. One great cause, both of the width, and of the singu- larly little popular character of his intellect, was that he lived apart in the world of his acquirements, think- ing much of the various shades of certainty and un- certainty he had reached, very little of the use to which lie could turn his conclusions. Knowledge was not to him valuable as "power," but simply as knowledge ; lie did not instinctively grasp at the knowledge he could utilize, but utilized only incidentally that at which he had already grasped. And this kind of intellect, taken alone, is always separating rather than uniting ; it surrounds a man with a dense individual atmosphere, warding off the temporary currents of popular influence by which power over others is gained and sympathy with others most distinctly realized. Yet the kind of knowledge in which Sir Cornwall Lewis had attained so unrivalled an eminence was one of the most powerful instruments a statesman could wield, and he wielded it very ably. Unlike those literary men who have risen to eminence by the faculty for " happy generalization" which creates a destiny for English newspaper writers and French statesmen, Sir Cornewall Lewis was attracted in the other direction,— towards what we may call, if we may coin a word, happy particularization. That is, he cared more to see how general forms of government worked themselves out in striking par- ticular instances, than to draw any uncertain general conclu- sions from them. For example, his very latest contribution to political literature, published in the last number of .Arotes and Queries, is a wide survey of the manner in which the principal political nations of Europe have provided for the presidency of their deliberative assemblies. It is highly characteristic of the exact technical tendencies of his in- tellectual interests. He explains how, in the Greek Re- public and Roman Senate, an executive officer was usually also the formal head of the Assembly ; how, for in- stance, the Roman Consul asked each senator his opinion, and the process for polling the entire Senate was called perragare sententias, — how, later, this process was modi- fied even in Rome,— how and why the modern political nations have been forced to change this practice, and appoint from their own body presiding officers of their own. Nothing could be more characteristic of the tendency of Sir C. Lewis's intellect, or better show the power it gave him in advis- ing practical English statesmen and politicians. He had numberless practical illustrations in his head for almost every department of polities, and had been accustomed to consider not what vague general conclusions might be drawn from facts, but how the aptest legislative and administrative machinery had actually worked itself out under the hands of sagacious men. History, caught at the point at which it is getting tame and crystallizing into practical institutions, giving birth to technical language and fixed modes of action, is the most powerful educational instrument which the mind of a great statesman can wield ; and this was exactly the province in which Sir Cornewall Lewis was unrivalled.
Since, with such acquirements, a judgment singularly sound, and an understanding, though not very rapid, exceediuglylucid, Sir Cornewall Lewis possessed a kindly simplicity of manner which did not appear to know what assumption meant, and a certain dry humour which chiefly showed itself in a keen sense of the freaks of language, we need not wonder at the very rapid influence which he acquired in the House of Commons, notwithstanding the absence of, and, perhaps, something like contempt for, oratorical power. Though he was sometimes thought cynical in his estimate of the ethics of political life, no man ever stood higher above any imputation of interested ..motives, or even the bias of party feeling; and it is no small calamity to have lost the one statesman who at once com- manded the whole field of political experience, and was abso- lutely unable to distort the teaching so gained for either private or party ends. Let us regret him sincerely while we can. Time fills up all blanks but too rapidly. Of even private losses, the poet has said with a pathetic kind of despair that " we forget because we must, and not because we will." And assuredly _ of public losses, grateful as we may be, this is still truer. It is but a fashion of speaking when we say solemnly to each other that a statesman—except, perhaps, in the rarest possible circumstances, such as Cavour's,—will be "long missed." He may be long needed, but no statesmen is long missed. And, therefore, it is not less a duty than a privi- lege to seize the moment when a great man's loss is really and keenly felt to express our profound gratitude for his services, and our sorrow for his sudden and untimely death.
Previous page
