LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

PRAED'S POLITICAL POEMS.

[To THE Eprroa OF THE " SPECTAT0/0]

Sin,—The question whether one of the most refined and pleasing of our minor poets was or was not guilty, in public life, of conduct which deserves the very strong terms you have employed to characterise it—that is to say, of "tergiversation," and of "selling himself for fame and position"—may perhaps be worthy of some further consideration. It appeared to me, after careful study of dates, and of the letters from which I have made extracts, that such was by no means the case. If you have taken the contrary view, that may probably be due to imperfect statement or explanation on my part. In any case, I ask your permission to repeat, somewhat more categorically, the grounds of my opinion.

Praed's writings show that, so far from being, as you imply, a member of the Liberal Party so late as 1829, he became, on the formation of Canning's Ministry in February, 1827, his enthusiastic supporter. I have printed, with their dates, poems that show him a year before this to have already arrived at the punetunt indifferens of party politics, which compels a man to—

"think the Whigs are wicked knaves,

And very like the Tories."

Now, no one will deny that (whatever be the case with 1829- 1830) the four years 1826-1830 saw many "changes of circum- stance" which might honestly affect the attitude in politics of a young man of twenty-three to twenty-seven, as, in fact, was the case with many tried statesmen and politicians of the day. I have pointed out, further, that the Liberal foreign policy

of Canning, and his support of Catholic Emancipation, may fairly have earned for him the adhesion of a Liberal like Praed, who never wavered in his opinions on these subjects ; and I might have added that the persistent hostility of Canning to Parliamentary reform very probably was the primary cause of -Praed's admitted change of attitude on that point. I have made no "effort to preserve his reputation for consistency," in the sense of persistency throughout life in the same opinions ; it is only necessary to refer to his own parody of a debate at the Cambridge Union Society, to see that as an undergraduate he was a speaker on the affirmative side, as Macaulay was on the negative side, of the question ; but it is certainly the fact that Parliamentary reform holds an in- significant place in his earlier political poems by the side of the two more imminent questions above-mentioned.

I claim, further, to have made it clear that he was neither deficient in moral sense, nor unduly eager for personal advancement. The very considerable reputation he brought from college he had increased in London, till he was thought by many likely to be Macaulay's equal in public life ; and shortly before the time when he enrolled himself among the followers of Peel, he had been placed in a position, through his introduction to Lord Lansdowne, to expect as good a chance of early entrance into public life from the Whigs if he had remained a Liberal, as he obtained from Peel's friends on their discovering that he preferred to cast in his lot with their..

On the other side, all that is alleged is, that he was still, in 1829, the "bosom-friend of Macaulay, and sprightly satiriser of Lord Eldon and the Tories" (" vehement Reformer" is added, but this cannot be substantiated). Of these, the first fact is obviously insufficient to support a case ; the second, when it is remembered what were the relations, from 1827. onward, between Lord Eldon and the anti-Catholic Tories on. the one hand, and Canning and his supporters on the other, alike fails to support it. Praed's own -defence of his change- of party appears fair and candid—that on the other points at issue Peel's followers had rather come to agree with his views, than he with theirs—while on Parliamentary reform he had indeed changed his attitude, not suddenly or recently, but by degrees, during the eventful years that elapsed between his. taking his degree and his first entrance into public life. Even so, though a keen party man, he never lapsed into the un- compromising opponent of Parliamentary reform, as his part in the debates will show.

Let me add—though it is a minor point—that your quotation„. "Mr. Crazee Ratter, Poet-Laureate of the Tory Party," is no- phrase of Praed's. I have carefully abstained, and still abstain, from expressing any personal opinion as to the correctness of views which led him to enter public life as a Conservative, and not as a Liberal. Although I never knew him, I know he would have felt far more deeply the suspicion of a stain on his character than he would have been gratified by high praise of his verse.-ZI am, Sir, &c.,

GEORGE YOUNG. 115a Sloane Street, S.W., January 9th.

[We can hardly hope to argue Sir G. Young out of his very creditable bias, especially -when he seeks aid against our reviewer in such an obvious misprint as " Crazee Ratter" for " Crazee Rattee," which is a phrase of Praed's (see p. 66,. " era zee Rattee, Esq., H.M.'s Poet-Laureate "), the -point of which, such as it is, lies clearly in the jingle of words. SirG. Young says Praed changed his politics before 1829, because he admired Canning's more liberal policy—a singular reason, by-the-way, for becoming a Tory—and was an anti- Parliamentary Reformer. It may be so. But if so, all the

• in this book is the other way. Otherwise, why did'

he ask in August, 1827, after Canning's death :— "How shall a rotten borough learn

That wrong is never right ?

How shall fair health be sought In the shade of a Upas-Tree ?

Or how shall honest deeds be wrought In Sarum or Tratee?"

Why, too, in September, 1827, does he talk of the impossible-

time when "Tory institutes outlive the chart of Liberty," and in 1828 of- " Abuse which seems to the Tory host

The language of sobriety ;

And cant, which sounds to the Morning Post

Like the tone of truest piety " ? Why did he, even in January, 1829, sing,— "Some King will come in Heaven's good time To the tomb his father came to ;"

and of "bayonets and swords" making "ex-Chancellors merry" ? Why does he describe Hook, the Tory poet, as "extremely dirty," and himself as "fond of talking treason," if he did not still profess Whig principles, and pose as an anti- Tory? Why, too, was it that, while the real Canningites, like Palmerston, were "out," and drifting over to Liberalism, this admirer of Canning in 1830 accepted a seat from Canning's enemies, who were "in,"—Peel, and Bathurst, and Melville, and Ellenborough, each and all of whom he had lampooned since Canning's death P—En. Spectator.]