WILLIAM WILBERFORCE.*
THE Wilberforces have not been very successful editors of the family papers which they have been the means of intro- ducing to the reading world. It was so in the case of the work about the Bishop of Oxford, and, in spite of the in- teresting nature of the subject, we are afraid that a similar verdict may be passed this time also. We cannot say why this should be, unless it be that there is a certain instinct in editing which cannot be imparted in any fashion of which we know. To be able to select wisely in such cases as these, so as neither justly to offend the living nor unfairly to represent the dead, has always been a most difficult matter. And the dead are not always fairly represented by the naked truth, in spite of the theories of Fronde. The weaker sides of a man's character, and all have ,their weaker sides, are sometimes thrown out in quite an undue proportion in letters only intended for the eyes of private friends. Let it be said at once that nothing in the publication before us can affect the unassailable greatness of William Wilberforce's position. He was a fanatic in the best and truest sense of the word, an enthusiast who associated himself with one especial cause, and succeeded as only such men do. Foremost in the ranks of the Abolitionists, he left behind him the name which he would have desired to leave, and reaped the reward he coveted before all others, that of a good man who by goodness became great. For there is nothing in this book, we think, to denote any conspicuous power, or anything like the infinite variety of the son who was to become famous in so different a way. William Wilberforce's private letters to this same son form an important part of the volume, and that to which we presume that readers will most readily refer. They are touching and pretty in their affectionate tone, and in the fervent spirit of religion which inspires them. But there is a curious absence of any shade of lightness and playfulness which jars a little in letters to so young a boy, and make us rather regretful that they should have been published.
• Private Payers of Williallt Wilberforce. Collected and Preface, by A. Al. Wilberforce. London: T. Fisher Unwin. Indeed, the humour which was so attractive a side of Samuel Wilberforce's character seems to have been wanting altogether in his famous father, at least if the picture which these letters present be a faithful one. It is surely somewhat overpowering to tell a good little chap of nine, merely by way of general warning, that he is to reflect in time what a dreadful thing it would be, if he "brought his father's grey hairs in sorrow to the grave." Never did that conventional threat read to us quite so inappropriately. And what are we to say of the collateral warning to another little boy, given through the medium of Samuel, that as he will have to disobey his parents sooner or later, he had better begin by refusing to go to the theatre and the opera, as they had expressed their desire that he would.? "That they are quite hotbeds of vice no one, I think, can deny," the good man goes on, to enforce his thesis from his "Practical view." There is something really new and original, and in spite of ourselves, amusing, in the picture of the good little- boy who won't go to the theatre in spite of all his parents can say. And with all respect to Wilberforce and the "prac- tical view," while fully admitting that his uncompromising opinion has been and is shared by many very good people, we confess to being somewhat startled by the assumption that nobody denies it. There would be a good deal less of con- troversy if that were so. All sides of the theatre are not wholesome or praiseworthy. Nor are all the sides of society or trade. And the talk of its mission is overdone enough. But recreation is of the highest value in the world. Man is a playgoing, and even an acting, animal, as we once had occasion to say that he is a betting one. And this wholesale denuncia- tion of stage-work is as inappropriate as Mr. Gladstone's "bull" against all forms of play as "impious." We are sorry for these manufactured sins in a world where there is wrong enough ; and the stage is one of the greatest of the employers of labour. Are all the poor carpenters and scene-shifters and " supers " to be accounted as wicked? To many reverent minds Shakespeare's example is conclusive. Here was the- greatest man, perhaps, who, after the Prophets, ever lived,. and he was a player and a playwright who worked no harm to any. Yet the gifts that he used were given him "by the same Spirit." It required the audacity of a Carlyle—whose own genius was always dramatic, and often theatrical—to- regret that Shakespeare threw his powers away.
We have been tempted into this controversy by the estimate which, we regret to say, we cannot help forming of Wilberforce upon minor points — apart from the sterling value of his great life and work—from confessions such as these. We wonder if, out of the weaknesses of mankind, his association with his great cotemporary and political opponent, Sheridan, had anything to do with his wrath against the drama. In spite of ourselves, the story of poor Brinsley in his cups,. asked for his name and stammering out, "William Wilber- force," comes back to us with contrasted force. From the earlier portion of these private papers, which deal with the lead- ing lights with whom Wilberforce was associated, and include many letters to them and from them, we are still unable to- avoid the conclusion that apart from his especial greatness he was in no sense great. That Pitt and others set high store by his opinion and advice is clear enough, and there is no doubt of the influence which in many ways he exercised. But in his own sketch of Pitt, published among the contents of the volume, we find curiously little to shed any new light whatever upon the character and career of the most famous. of English Prime Ministers. That Pitt, "seen in his most inartificial and unguarded moments, nevertheless appeared as a man of extraordinary intellectual and moral powers," is surely a discovery which it needed no ghost, come from the grave, to make for us. "Mr. Pitt's intellectual powers," Wilberforce adds at once, "were of the highest order, and in private no less than in public, when he was explaining his sen- timents in any complicated question and stating the arguments on both sides, it was impossible not to admire the clearness of his conceptions, the precision with which he contemplated every particular object, and a variety of objects, without con-
fusion There never was a fairer reasoner, never any one more promptly recognising and allowing its full weight to every consideration and argument which was urged against the opinion he had embraced." The picture is cold and un- descriptive, to our thinking, for an original of so marked a.
Edited, with a personality, and not to be ranked for expression with Lord
Rosebery's spirited monograph. But there is something very quaint and startling in the information that, on account of the disordered stomach and gouty tendencies with which Pitt had always to contend, he drank port from his earliest youth, "as a day or two of indulgence in French wines would at any time produce the pains in the extremities." That was a day of true patriotism from the drinker's point of view. It is curious in studying this little sketch of Pitt to find how hard it is to read, and how entirely vague and impersonal is the impression of its subject which it leaves. A vivid stroke or two from a master would outweigh the whole of it. One of Pitt's letters to Wilberforce at once gives us a more effective picture of Wilberforce himself :—
"Forgive me if I cannot help expressing my fear that you are deluding yourself into principles which have but too much tendency to counteract your own object, and to render your virtues and your talents useless both to yourself and mankind. I am not, however, without hopes that my anxiety paints this too strongly. For you confess that the character of religion is not a gloomy one, and that it is not that of an enthusiast. But why then this pre- paration of solitude which can hardly avoid tincturing the mind either with melancholy or superstition? If a Christian may act in the several relations of life, must he seclude himself from them all to become one ?"
With the purpose of discussing this question thoroughly Pitt called upon Wilberforce the day after writing the letter, when they conversed for two hours, and Wilberforce "opened him-
self completely He tried to reason me out of my
convictions, but soon found himself unable to combat their correctness if Christianity were true." Lord Rosebery says of this interview :—" Surely a memorable episode, this heart- searching of the young saint and the young minister. They went their different ways, each following their (sic) high ideal in the way that seemed best to him. And so it went on to the end, Wilberforce ever longing to renew the sacred conversation." Yes, it was characteristic enough, as is Wilberforce's state- ment that he had so completely the best of the argument.
Pitt, no doubt, thought that Wilberforce had completely the worst of it. We cannot resist a certain sense of irritation against the "cocksure" attitude of mind, though it may be part of the equipment of the saint, a word which we are always a little loth to use of any man, applicable though it undoubtedly was to Wilberforce more than to all his com- peers. For he lived in a careless circle under the constant conviction of the beyond. It does not, for instance, commend itself to us to hear him speak of England as "invested with a moral glory never before enjoyed,by any nation upon earth." One is apt to lose sight of the patriotism of such a claim when confronted with its uncomfortable assertiveness. There have been other very good men, belonging to other very good peoples, who have most conscientiously thought otherwise. We dare not speculate on what the German Emperor would say to it. A sad and curious comment upon England's moral glory is to be found in a letter of the Duke of Wellington's writing about Wilberforce and the slave-trade. "The truth is that we mix up our party politics with our philanthropy and everything else, and I suspect we don't much care what object succeeds or fails provided it affects the Ministers of the day." That is the juster estimate, we fear. The moral glory is of the man, not of the nation, and no one will ever grudge or question Wilberforce's place among the rarest, beat, and most unselfish of the good men of the world. But for the lesser causes we have indicated we are not much in love with the contents of the present volume. There are letters to be found in it from Marshal Blucher and from Hannah More, and from others whose personalities serve to make them interesting, while the Duchess of Gordon provides us with a kind of lighter foil. So shocking, thoroughly good woman though she was, did she make Wilberforce think the world of fashion (what did he want everybody to do ?), that he urged all his friends to give it up, and we absolutely find poor Lord Calthorpe writing to him in deep contrition, "0, how subtle are the devices of the enemy of our peace, and how weak our natural means of defence," because he had spent a Sunday with the Duchess. There is a want of pro- portion about all this which perplexes and disappoints us even when most we wish to reverence and admire.
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