LIFE AND OPINIONS OF EARL GREY.*

Texan is no statesman whose "Life and Opinions" should be more welcome to the people of this country than those of the great Lord Grey. He embodies in his own person all that is most truly vene- rable in the great party which he adorned, and represents principles

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round which the most intelligent classes in the commonwealth are now rallying. The history of party since the accession of George III. may- he variously divided; but to illustrate the above assertion we may divide it into three epochs. The first extending to the death of Mr. Fox in 1806, the second to the passage of the Reform Bill, and the third down to the present time. The first of these was the period of opposition to Toryism in its purest form, i. e. the ac- knowledgment of the king's right to choose his own ministers: without invariably submitting to the decision of the House of Com- mons. The second is the period of opposition to Toryism in its debased form, i. e. the indiscriminate maintenance of abuses. And the third. is a period of transition which is not yet completed; but the termination of which will probably see both Whig- and Tory welded together in a great Liberal-Conservative party. Of these three periods we have on the present occasion but little to do with the first, and nothing with the last. During the lifetime of Mr. Fox, the young,Whig orator acted in loyal deference to the views expounded. by his chief ; and it was not till after that statesman's death that Lord. Grey became responsible for either the opinions or the conduct of the-Whig party. Very shortly after 1832 he retired from public life, disappointed, as some have alleged, with the results of his own handi- work; but, according to others, actuated solely by his love of do- mestic life and country pleasures which at. the age of seventy he had earned a title to enjoy. It is, therefore, between these two periods that his name stands most prominently forward as the representative of Whiggism ; and it will hardly be denied that it is during the same period that. Whiggism itself appears in its most favourable hues. The conduct of Mr. Fox was regulated to & large extent by what is. undoubtedly the one unpopular element of his political creed, the principle of oligarchical government. But Lord- Grey, though every inch a patrician, was by no means an oligarch, and the principles on which lie acted while he remained as the bead of the party were truly as well as nominally. popular. On the other hand, when the success of the Reform Bill had put. the culminating point to his career of improvement, lie became in turn the representative of that Conservative spirit which is now dominant in the country. Every word of the Tamworth manifesto, he was accustomed to say, might have been written by himself. And there is hardly a doubt that the principal measures of Sir Robert Peel's administration. obtained his full concurrence. Thus the past traditions of his party and the pre-- sent spirit of the age possess the fairest exponent in the subject of of these pages, which can hardly, therefore, be scanned without in- terest by the least inquisitive or patriotic readers.

But if we come to the spirit in which this work has been com- posed, we are less satisfied with its merits. It breathes a combative and almost fretful irritability against foes of whose existence we were ignorant. Quit viluperavit ? we are forced to ask, after various elaborate vindications of Lord Grey's honour. An attack on Mr. Fox is not an attack on Lord Grey, and we think our Tory contem- poraries, as well as the press in general, have done fair justice to the character of the latter statesman. Still the anxiety of a. son to dear the memory of a father from aspersions, which are really imaginary, is entitled to our highest respect. And if General Grey has some- times made mountains out of mole-hills, while under the influence of ..his motive, the error is natural and excusable.

The present volume only comes down to 1817, the year of Lord Grey's separation from Lord Grenville, with whom, after the exclu- sion of Fox from the second administration of Mr. Pitt, lie had. acted with the greatest unanimity. tt starts from Lord Grey's first entrance into 'Parliament in 1786, so that it covers a period of thirty-one years, during ten of which Lord Grey was the leader of the Whig party. But though the period in question is rife with in- teresting incidents, in both our parliamentary and our party history, it is, we repeat, not that in which Lord Grey's. rare abilities and dis- interested zeal were of the greatest benefit to his country. Another volume; continuing the life of this eminent statesman down to 1834, is promised us by a brother of the present author, which will probably be more interesting to the general public than the one which now lies before us. In contenting ourselves, therefore, with a brief enumeration of the chief constitutional and party questions which it contains, we shall, we think, be discharging our duty most satisfac- torily to our readers, and adequately to the gallant author who claims their attention.

Some Account of Use Life and Opinions of Charles, Second Earl Greg. By Lieute- nant-402mnd Roo. C Grey. London, Bendel' Charles Grey, "the eldest surviving son. of General Sir Charles Grey, afterwards Earl Grey, was born at Fallodon, the seat of his father, in Northumberland, on the 13th of March, 1764." He was sent at six years of age to a school in Marylebone, of which in after life he always spoke with horror. After three years of this mar-. tyrdom he proceeded to Eton, and finished his education at Cam- bridge. He was an excellent classical scholar, and his verses in the MUM Etonenses attest the elegance of his taste. But he entered. Parliament very early in his twenty-third year, that is, in July, 1786„ as member for Northumberland, and from this moment his time was devoted to public business for & period of forty-eight years. He made his maiden speech in January, 1787, against Pitt's commercial treaty, and created an unusual sensation, as well by the violence of his attack as by the singular eloquence of his language. " Thee' says Lord Stanhope, "were heard the first accents of that most loft and thrilling, and, as it were, most thorough-bred eloquence, whist was not extinguished and scarcely even dimmed after an interval of fifty years." General Grey, indeed, only mentions the eloquence, and says nothing of the bitterness, quoting Mr. Addington as his autho-. rity. But we read in the Cornwallis correspondence that the speeeh was almost abusively violent, while Pitt, " in reply, said many evil things, complimented him on his abilities, and took no notice of the abuse. Fox said that nothing could be handsomer than Pitst's, con- duct on the occasion."

The first chapter in this volume carries us down to 1801, the year of Mr. Pitt's resignation. And during these first fifteen years of his Parliamentary career Mr. Grey seems to have continued a steady adherent of Fox through good report and evil report. Of the part which he took on the great Regency question of 1788 nothing is here- told us; but we may presume from his conduct in.1811 that 'he fully concurred in the views of his own party. In the same year lie was. entrusted with an important branch. of the impeachment of Warren, Hastings. At the outbreak of the French war he adhered to the side- of Mr. Fax, instead- of joining the more conservative section of the- Whigs in their secession to Mr. Pitt. He even went beyond Fox in his ardour for popular principles,, and involved himself rather more• than was prudent with the society called the "Friendsof the People." He used to say afterwards that a word from Fax would have kept him out "of all the mess of the Friends of the People." But Fox. himself "did not like to discourage the young ones," and accordingly- the word was never spoken. On Parliamentary Reform and Roman. Catholic Emancipation his opinions at this period were what they continued to be to the last hour of his existence.

The second chapter, which comprises the period of Mr. Adding- ton's administration, is chiefly remarkable for various expressions of opinion upon Mr. Pitt's return to power in 1804. And on this point it seems to us that Lord Grey was wiser than his son, and than soma other people also who have censured the great Minister's behaviour. Our readers will remember that when Mr.- Addington resigned, a. section of Pitt's old supporters, headed by Lord Grenville, refused. to co-operate with him unless Mr.-Fox were admitted to the Cabinet- It is asserted that Fitt, making a virtue of necessity, affected to urge upon George the Third the propriety of admitting the Whig leaders, but that he did it with so much real lukewarmness as to leave the King's prejudice undiminished, and that, consequently, Fox's ex- clusion was due to Pitt's jealousy more than to the NiT's dislike., which could have been overcome by more vigorous persuasions. Pitt,. of course, was human, and this alleged jealousy may very possibly have influenced his conduct without his being aware of it. himself. But many writers seem to forget what, however, Lord Grey appears to have remembered, that Pitt and Fox were divided_ upon a far- deeper question than that of any particular policy, namely, the fun, damental principle on which the government of the country should. be conducted. The Whigs very properly declined any arrangement which would not give them a majority in the Cabinet. Mr. Pitt, as: it seems to us quite as properly, was unwilling to stultify his whole political career by reconstituting the very system of government, the demolition of which had been the differential feature of his policy- He was ready to accept the Whig leaders as coadjutors ii. the great work. of administration. He was not ready- to let them march into his Cabinet over the ruins of the great Tory principle., It waa im- possible that the Whigs should join him upon these conditions. Yet he cannot be very fairly blamed for not being willing to extend. them. The two parties, indeed, were not yet ripe for coalition. And we do not think it would have been for the public good that a. combination should have taken. place, involving the suppression of opinions, on a point so all-important as the nature of the riortaelrafxe- rogative. The language used by Fox in relation to the f of Pitt proves very clearly what he thought about the latter. And, as he entertained these ideas, we cannot help agreeing with Lord Grey that the failure of the negotiations with Pitt was "a lucky escape for him."

After Mr. Pitt's death, the Grenville section of the Tories, which- corresponds in many particulars with the Peelite section of the Con- servatives, came into office with the Whigs; Lord Grenville being Prime Minister,. and Fox Secretary for Foreign Affairs. In this administration Mr. Grey occupied. the post of First Lord of the Admiralty. This Ministry was formed early in 1806. But the same year which witnessed the death of Mr. Pitt was destined to be fatal also to his great antagonist. On the 13th of August Mr. Fox died, ,and. Mr. Grey became leader of the party, and succeeded Mr. Fox at the Foreign Office. His conduct of this important office. has been fairly vindicated by General Grey; but he had comparatively little- ,opportunity of doingjustice to his abilities in this sphere. In March, 1807, the Grenville. Ministry resigned in consequence of their dit-

ference with the King on the Catholic question ; and the Whigs went back to opposition, which was now again to last for another period of twenty-four years. How far this would have been possible had

Lord Grey still remained in the House of Commons is a doubtful point. His presence kept the party together, and might have pre-

vented the outbreak of those dissensions between the moderate and the more vehement members of it, which destroyed its prestige with the public and its own confidence in itself. But six months after the resignation of Lord Grenville, Mr. Grey was summoned to the Upper House by the death of his father, which took place on the 16th of November ; and his supporters in the Lower House soon began to run into extremes of which he entirely disapproved. During the three following years there is nothing in the career of Lord Grey which calls for any special notice, except perhaps his opinions on the Peninsular war, which were unfavourable to the prosecution of that contest. But he always acknowledged in after years that he had underrated the genius of Lord Wellington when he opposed the adoption of his advice. But on this point it may fairly be doubted if Lord Grey's sentiments were not secretly shared by Government, only one member of which seems to have appreciated the greatness of the English General, and the far-seeing wisdom of his plans. This member was Mr. Canning. But he was feebly sup- ported in the Cabinet, which, either from conviction or from Parlia- mentary weakness, gave but a lukewarm support to the inheritor of Marlborough's laurels.

In the negotiations which took place on the death of the Duke of Portland, in 1809, Lord Grey played an honourable part. The nego-

tiations were again a failure from pretty much the same cause as in 1804; and the Perceval ministry came in. In 1810 Lord Grey dis- tinguished himself in the House of Lords by an able protest against

the more violent section of the Whigs, who, under the guidance of Sir Francis Burdet, were carrying the question of Parliamentary Reform beyond the limits which Lord Grey considered safe. In 1811 the Regency difficulty once more arose, and once more the Whigs, as in 1788, found themselves committed to a " high doctrine," while the Tories were supporting what seemed to be the more popular view. Of course, in one sense, it was so, because it referred to Parliament what the Whigs asserted to be a claim of hereditary right. Yet we may be quite certain that whichever party had happened to be out of office would have acted as the Whigs did. And it is also to be observed that the Whig doctrine of the Regency residing, by law in the person of the heir apparent, scarcely affects the ques- tion of the divine right of kings, which it was sarcastically alleged to favour. The celebrated "restrictions" of Mr. Pitt, in 1788, were in reality the product of a pure Tory sentiment ; i.e. the desire to show all possible reverence to the person of the reigning sovereign, and to provide that when he recovered his reason he should find things just as he had left them. The Whig doctrine could not have been sub- stantially more monarchical than this, however it might have seemed formally. There are only two noticeable points in this controversy-as far as Lord Grey is concerned. The first, that he preserved intact his alliance with Lord Grenville who was, of course, pledged to the Tory doctrine of '88, notwithstanding the different votes which they gave in the House of Lords. The second is the truly dignified part which he played in the communications which passed between the Houses of Parliament and the Prince Regent, when the Prince rejected the answer drawn up by Lords Grey and Grenville in reply to the address of the two Houses, for another one drawn up by Sheridan, conceived in worse taste, and expressed in worse language. Here it is curious to observe that George the Fourth, in spite of his long connexion with the Whigs, seems to have been a real Tory at heart. He could not endure the lofty attitude assumed towards him by the great nobles; and took refuge with a boozy wit of low extraction rather than succumb to the hereditary ppretensions of the Whig aristocracy. Whether the remonstrance addressed to him by Lords Grey and Grenville, in consequence of the slight we have described, had any hand in persuading the Prince to retain Mr. Perceval in office, is a mere matter of conjecture. But to the intense disgust of the Whigs he did so, and henceforth the Whig opposition assumed a more popular form and was relieved of the odium of supporting the son against the father.

We have now nearly exhausted the political contents of this volume. All that remains to be told is the separation of the Whigs from the Grenvillites. Lord Grenville had not served under Mr. Pitt ten years for nothing. The old traditions and practices of that grand ministry remained deeply impressed upon his mind. In the moderate opposition which he, in common with Lord Grey, offered to the French war, Lord Grenville no doubt believed that he was fol- lowing out the convictions of his old leader ; but when it came to the repression of sedition at home, he found all the old Pitt tradition upon the side of Government. He accordingly tendered his fullest support to the Cabinet of Lord Liverpool in all that long series of coercive measures which followed the bad harvest of 1816. At this point his departure from Lord Grey took place. Here it was that the schools of Pitt and Fox, which had run in the same channel for more than ten years, divided into separate streams never to be again reunited. The leaders of each section could not well have acted otherwise; and we have ample reason for believing that both acted in obedience to sincere and to reasonable convictions.

At this point the "Life and Opinions" of the present volume ter- minate. A short biographical sketch is given separately, which dis- plays the domestic virtues of the great statesman in the most amiable light; and a few drafts of the correspondence between various noble lords and right hon. gentlemen on great Cabinet crises are thrown in as an appendix illustrative of the previous history. It is all very creditable to Lord Grey; and his son and biographer has done a real service to the public by bringing together these materials for a good portrait into such small and manageable dimensions.