THE CLUMBER EPAMINONDAS.
PRAISE is a dangerous thing. It has made the Duke of New- castle who modestly thought himself only a political Jeremiah, now New- castle, himself a political Messiah : in the fulness of his
heart, he wrote a note to the British nation bewailing the dan- gers of the country; his note was favourably received, and now he vouchsafes a long letter promulgating a plan for saving the country. He is by no means so clever at saving as at bewailing. However, he is as it were the aurochs of political physiology, the last survivor of the primeval Tories ; and if a study of his labours is not very useful as a matter of practical statesmanship, it is in- teresting as a matter of natural history. Unbounded naivete is the most striking characteristic of this epistle from Clumber. The letter contains many instances of that charming- trait, and one of the most notable occurs early. Alluding to his former letter, published in the Standard of 25th March, he con- fesses that he never could have entertained the most remote idea of " the result of that publication "—" I never could have dreamed of the consequences which have followed it." "I believe myself to be so little worthy of public notice, and so inefficient for any useful purpose, that n.ly wonder was unbounded, my astonishment over- powering, but my gratitude inexpressible, when, from all quarters of this great and glorious country, I received the kindest, indeed almost affectionate expres- sions of good-will, attachment, and much more, but which I may not repeat. "I I felt that I had a new being "—" a responsibility was thrown upon me." He apprizes us, his "dear fellow-countrymen," that he has hitherto had, and still has, no adviser: the former letter, as well as the present, was all out of his own head—" alone I did it." "Reviewing the past and looking to the future, I considered that we were living under the perfection of executive rule, a free monarchy, but that we were idly squandering our immense ad- vantages": no one came forward to expose the great public wrong, so he threw himself into the breach ; and, tali auxilio, he already anticipates victory for the country. "Accident has em- barked me with you in a great cause—I now look forward, and so I hope do you, to the regeneration and redemption of our coun- try." He proceeds to the "painful" part of his duty ; which is the dealing "critically and severely with measures and political delinguenctes.freguently emanating from one whose friendship and intimacy I have long enjoyed '3:. this part of his letter being rather a diffuse but not close or complete enumeration, with a running commentary, of Sir Robert Peel's "bad measures "— that is, his Liberal measures—with strictures on them such as have for some time been current with the "Conservative Oppo- sition" to the Premier ; strictures on the majority of the Com- mons for not truly representing the country; and a repeated ex- hortation to the country not to be afraid, although Sir Robert Peel should fulfil his threat of resigning. "Surely we must hope and believe that there is no lack of equally good statesmen
[with the present Ministers] in this kingdom of England, if op- portunity called them forth." He uses severe language- " Everything has been done to abuse humiliate, and impoverish the Church.* j
"My object is to show that one bad precedent begets another; and that this strs- tagem has been systematically pursued, as a sure though unperceived mode of stealing a march, of sapping our morality, undermining our civil and religious in- stitutions and, in fact, of revolutionizing the state." 'The cultivator of the soil is in utter , despondency and alarm "—he " is buffeted about in bewildering uncer- tainty, knowing that he is not protected or encouraged, but milked like his own cows, or shorn like his own sheep, to pay, mayhap, for some Popish endowment or other misapplication of his contributions." The measures he declares are bad and dangerous "because un- called for, and tending to alter the very nature of minds and things"! He especially condemns the new bill to remove the disabilities of the Jews—respecting whom he is "impressed with a persuasion approaching to conviction, that their redemption is nigh at hand" : he would tolerate, but he cannot imagine how a Christian people can intrust authority to those who "continue to deny our Saviour." The Duke [who is not more independent of faction than he is of verbs] then says— "We are now arrived at the Maynooth Bill; and a more daring-attempt to take a nation by storm, and force upon it a measure repugnant to all faithful Protest- ants conscientiously- regarded by them as a criminal deed, an artful decoy to feared apostacy, a Jesuitical entrapment of a deluded few to accomplish by small means a revolution the most formidable and most guilty ever perpetrated by any rulers of a free country."
However, there is balm in Gilead : his " remedy " "is short and simple "—
" I ventured to recommend you to petition; but, if petitioning should fail, you may follow it up by calling upon your Representatives to resign their trusts. Sur pose that they decline: follow this up by strong declaratory resolutions; persist in this course, and try its effect; if unavailing, which I can hardly believe to be pos- sible, still continue a steady and resolute determination. So situated, the Minis- ter may resign: he will calculate that no other Administration can be formed, and that he must be recalled and reinstated; but in this calculation if it should be your pleasure to defeat it, you will do well to act thus. Be, whenever the time arrives, unanimously resolved to elect such Members only as you know to be well affected to the preservation and maintenance of our purely Protestant constitution in Church and State, to the exclusion of all noxious measures."
This project the Duke backs with some excellent advice. To
electors he says-
" The highest talents unless combined with these are more than worthless. Care not for wealth if you can find integrity; refrain from all sordid considerations; banish the very idea of bribery or payment for votes or spending of money." • * • "To Dissenters I would say, what form of religious faith can equal or surpass the pure, the simple, yet sublime and earnest doctrine of the Established Church of England? Join her, if you can, and make one of an united brotherhood; but if you cannot, still give all your support to a Church and State which tolerates all. To those who entertain party views I will say, throw aside party, and act upon principle."
"It may be said that this is an Utopian vision" ; but he re- plies—what does he reply ? With crushing effect he replies,
Why so ? Is it impossible for a nation to be good and great?" He allows that "little short of a miracle may of a sudden consti- tute us such a nation," "but let us make be g." "Should it be," he says to his dear countrymen, etyour disposition to think well of these remarks and adopt them in your practice," he cautions them carefully to study "to expel all fanciful theories and experiments." "We should have but one object in view— the steady maintenance of our Protestant constitution." The body of the letter is dated " April 19 to 23, 1845"; but the writer adds this most naive imstscript- " P.S. Contrary to my first expectation, I have found the task which I had imposed upon myself to be one of extreme delicacy. I commenced and wrote this address between the 19th and 23d of April; and to insure a due consideration of the whole matter of it, instead of issuing it in print, -I have read and re-read it whilst it has remained with me—most anxiously desiring that nothing exception- able should proceed from my pen—nothing, that is, which by indiscretion or im- prudence should injure the great public cause which I desire to serve. I wish I may have succeeded, and that you may not have to blame me for again address- ing you. I find that this address has ran to very much greater length than I think advisable, [from two to three columns of the Times small type,] or than I had anticipated. I tried to condense; but I do not possess the art, and found greater condensation to me impossible.
I now take my leave with every fervent wish for your welfare. N."
And this is what remains of genuine Toryism 1—not that Con- servative dislike of change supposed to be needless, which is now arrayed, with small antagonism, against mere Liberal love of change; not that sentimentalism which actuates Young England or the Post, and would exalt the few to be a kind of political patron saints over the many ; but genuine, old, divine-right Toryism, which presumed all that differed from its own dogmas to be ipso facto wrong. Such was the "wisdom of our fathers." There is a story told of an irreverent young gentleman who answered his Mentor in terms that we only quote out of a scrupulous historical veracity—"You old fellows would have us believe that we young fellows are all fools, and that there were no fools in your time : but, luckily, you are left to prove the contrary." Clearly, if we choose we can throw out Peel and resort to this Clumber project of regeneration. The Duke of Newcastle is quite sure that it is all the country wishes : and he ought to know, for he is in corre- spondence with the nation, and no doubt can give us a certificate of the fact, signed "for self and country." The Duke is evidently "the coming man."
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