WHO IS ROEBUCK?
An inquiring American mind, seeking the solution of this momentous question, would naturally turn to Appleton's "New Cyclopædia," Vol. XIV., page 131. The inquiring mind would be enlightened in a somewhat bewildering manner by the description there laid down of a little animal, some of whose qualities are thus set forth in the first article on the page indicated above:—
"ROEBUCK. A small European deer of the genus Capreolus.... The skull has a very small, shallow suborbital pit, ... tear-bag indistinct, hoofs narrow and triangular.... The color in summer is reddish brown, in winter olive, with paler shades; inside of the ears fulvous, and a black spot at the angles of the mouth.... It is about four feet long.... The horns are used for knife-handles.... They congregate in small families, but not in herds.... From their strong scent they are easily hunted; though they frequently escape by their speed, doublings, springing to cover, and other artifices.... The roebucks are represented in North America by the Virginia deer."
Inquiring mind, not wishing for researches in the direction of Natural History, albeit the subject of parallelisms is a somewhat curious study and in special cases infinitely amusing, passes on to the next article in the Cyclopædia.
It is sufficiently obvious that it requires neither fame nor greatness to excite public curiosity. A notorious criminal or an unusually eccentric lunatic frequently gives rise to a larger share of newspaper-comment and general discussion than the wisest and most virtuous of mankind. It must be well remembered by those who have read Tom Taylor's Life of Haydon that a dwarf was attracting thousands to the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly, London, while the historical painter, stung to madness by the neglect of the frivolous crowd, committed the hideous and ghastly suicide which threw a tragic darkness over the close of his strange and troubled existence. The desperate and dangerous frequently succeed in placing themselves on a bad eminence, from which they are conspicuous enough; and if to be talked of and pointed at be the sole object of their ambition, they can, of course, be congratulated on their success. Virtue may sit in humble and obscure usefulness at a thousand quiet firesides, while the work of the incendiary may be seen to spread widely, and the tumult of his mischief be heard from afar. And so any public man or politician, whose taste is so morbidly depraved and whose aim in life is so debased as to prefer notoriety to honest, useful service, may revel in the questionable enjoyment of being the especial theme of public debate and private conversation. Hence it happens that so many of our fellow-countrymen are at this moment asking the question with which we head these pages,—"Who is Roebuck?"
An unhappy culprit, who combined with an innocent taste for green peas a thievish method of acquiring their usual savory accompaniment, is reported to have been addressed by an English judge in the following felicitous terms:—"Prisoner at the bar, Providence has endowed you with health and strength, instead of which you go about the country stealing ducks." Providence has endowed John Arthur Roebuck, member of the Parliament of Great Britain, with fair talents and some power of speech, instead of which (to use the accurate judicial ellipsis) he goes about using violent and vulgar words of menace against those who have never offended him, and scattering firebrands as if there were no gun-powder anywhere to ignite and explode. This would be a mean and mischievous occupation for the dullest man; but for one who has proved by his very failures [pg 395] that he is not devoid of intellect or energy, it is a monstrous perversion of mental gifts, even if they are small.
A portion of the fiery heat of his nature may be traced, perhaps, to the fact that he was born at Madras; but as on the mother's side he is descended from the poet Tickell, the friend of Addison, it would not be altogether unreasonable to have expected in him some few of the amenities of the literæ humaniores. He soon, however, exchanged the torrid scenes of Oriental life for the snows of Canada, where he received his education; and when we remember what the bizarre oddities of his subsequent career have been, it might be interesting, if we had the materials for the purpose, to inquire what that education was. The British Provinces, however, were not deemed a sufficiently ample theatre of action for the energy of the capacious soul that dwelt in that not over-capacious body; and so, at the age of twenty-three, he repaired to England and commenced his studies for the profession of the law.
He was called to the bar in 1832. He had, however, by no means paid an exclusive attention to the study of the law, or his success in his profession might have been greater, and the world might have had a good lawyer instead of a bad politician. The period of his Inner-Temple student-life was a very stirring time in England. Old principles were dying out, and wrestling in death-struggle with newer and wider theories of human liberty and human progress. The young East-Indian Canadian rushed with natural impetuosity into the arena, and was one of the most reckless and noisy debating-club spouters of the day. In speaking of the Reform Bill at a meeting at a tavern in London, he said, that, if the bill did not pass, he for one should like to "wade the streets of the capital knee-deep in blood." It was consoling to reflect, even at the time, that the atrocious aspiration was mitigated by the reflection that it would not require a deluge of gore to reach the knees of such a Zacchæus as Roebuck. "Pretty wicious that for a child of six!" said the amiable Mr. Squeers on one occasion; and pretty sanguinary that, say we, for a rising little demagogue of thirty.
As England was at that time in a seething ferment of excitement, men who were unscrupulous in their language were at a premium in the political market, and the respectable constituency of the pleasant watering-place of Bath, in Somersetshire, elected the fierce little man as their representative in the Imperial Parliament. This was a great start in life for the new-fledged barrister, and, had he moderated his overweening vanity, and studied wisely, and with some self-abnegation and honest adherence to party, he might have risen to some useful position, and been saved, at least, from the indignity of fetching and carrying for the Emperor of Austria, and from the impertinence of intruding himself into the august presence of Mr. Kinglake's amiable and virtuous friend, the Emperor of France. The English nation might then possibly have pointed to his portrait in their historical gallery as that of an efficient public servant who had deserved well of his country, and he might have escaped a ludicrous immortality as the Dog Tear-'em, in the recent admirable sketch in "Punch."
But, in the words of a political song,—
"There weren't no such luck
For John A. Roebuck,
And he thought he would teach the whole nation
That the Tories were fools,
And the Whigs only tools,
But Roebuck was England's salvation."
And he, according to this programme, set himself to reform the Constitution and protect the Colonies.
"Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri,"
he was an eclectic in politics,—acknowledged no leader, had himself no followers. A chief without a party, an apostle without disciples, a critic without the merest ordinary penetration, a cynic whose bitterness was not enlivened by wit or humor, a spouter whose arguments, when he had any, were usually furnished from the mint, John Arthur Roebuck was for many [pg 396] years that impersonation of terrific honesty, glaring purity, and indignant virtue, known in English politics as an INDEPENDENT member of Parliament. When party-spirit runs high, and many party-men are disposed to be unscrupulous in the measures and artifices by which they win or retain place and power, such a position, occupied with judgment and fortified by modesty and good sense, is a most powerful and a most beneficent one; but it is useless when seized on by one whose obtrusive egotism and more than feminine vanity disqualify him for any serious or permanent influence on his fellow-men. When a Pocket-Diogenes rolls his little tub into the House of Commons, and complains that everybody is standing between him and the sun,—why, in an assembly of educated and sensible men the sham is soon discovered, the pseudo-cynic seen through, and his affected misanthropy deservedly gains for him universal derision and scorn. Some years after he entered Parliament, Mr. Disraeli, with whom he had many encounters, in which he was invariably worsted, made the House roar with laughter by taunting Roebuck with his "Sadler's Wells sarcasms and melodramatic malignities," and drew a most amusing picture of him as "a solitary sentinel pacing round the deserted citadel of his own opinions."
"He who surpasses or subdues mankind
Must look down on the hate of those below";
but as Mr. Roebuck has done neither the one nor the other, his only chance of not being utterly forgotten, instead of being feared or hated, by his contemporaries, is to continue his work of mischief, and merely change the object of his puny attacks as one becomes more prominent than another, and as he can manage to maintain his own quasi-importance by attaching his name to great questions. He had no special dislike for this country; so far from that, he admired and praised us, as by an extract from one of his books we will presently prove; but since he has become a self-appointed lackey, has donned imperial livery, and as a volunteer does the dirty work of despots, he must have lost all sympathy with and all regard for an independent, free, and brave people. We hope and believe that this country vastly prefers his censure to his praise, and, as far as it has leisure at the present crisis for any serious consideration of his erratic pranks, would rather have his enmity than his friendship. Non tali auxilio!
But we must recur to his inconsistent and rather uninteresting career, and so satisfy, and perhaps weary, the curiosity of any reader who is still disposed to ask the momentous question, "Who is Roebuck?"
In 1835, he was appointed the agent—the paid agent—of the House of Assembly of Lower Canada, during the dispute then raging between the Executive Government and the House of Assembly. As Englishmen especially plume themselves on the fact that the members of their legislative bodies are unremunerated, it is somewhat difficult to understand how this exception was made in John Arthur's favor. As a precedent it is to be hoped that it has not been followed; for it is obvious that such an arrangement, however advantageous or pleasant to individual members, might throw grave suspicions on the purity of public men, and introduce a wholesale venality into public life. If such a system is permitted, any foreign monarch or any foreign government may secure the services of a British senator as his agent and representative. It is quite appalling to think that the chivalrous Earl of Derby or the conscientious Mr. Gladstone should be shocked by the offer of a handsome annual salary paid quarterly, (not deducting the income-tax,) made by the King of Dahomey for an eloquent defence of his humane and enlightened rule, or by an equally munificent donative from the famous and merry monarch of the Cannibal Islands for the support of himself and his loyal subjects in their copious consumption of human flesh. We should be sorry wantonly to raise so dreadful a suspicion; but if British M.P.s are permitted, [pg 397] according to the Roebuck precedent, to be PAID agents, why has not Southern money found its way into senatorial pockets? Greedy Mr. Laird, and unscrupulous, money-loving Mr. Lindsay,[18] always resolutely grubbing for the main chance, are perhaps sufficiently paid by indirect, though heavy gains in shipbuilding. Needy Mr. Roebuck may be salaried by the Emperor of Austria, though there is nothing to prove, except his own open-mouthed and loud-tongued professions of purity, that he is not "paid agent" of the Confederate Government. The indulgence of the evil feelings of malice and uncharitableness may, however, sufficiently recompense him; and to him, perhaps, his virtue may be its own reward. But if paid agencies are not permitted, a very serious suspicion fastens on that hard-mouthed, rising lordling, Robert Cecil, son of the Marquis of Salisbury, and one of the most active and energetic champions of the slave-mongers of the South. The young lord, it is well known, stepped down from the lofty pedestal of a bad pedigree to marry the fair, but portionless daughter of an English judge; his father is proverbially mean and stingy, and the young lord himself proportionately poor; and in the intervals of his strenuous advocacy of the claims of the Rebels to European recognition he laudably ekes out his very narrow income by writing articles for the London newspapers and reviews; and rumor says that he communicates gossiping letters, full of piquant and satirical sketches of the proceedings of the House of Commons to two or three of the provincial papers. He is under these circumstances peculiarly open to suspicion. If the proceeding in question is a usual one, why does he not openly avow it? If it is unusual or improper, why does he not deny the soft impeachment so much credited both in this country and in his own? It is really refreshing to contemplate, that Roebuck, after being the paid agent of the Canadian House of Assembly, should have become such a purist as to drag poor Mr. Isaac Butt before the notice of the Commons, and scream for the censure on him on a mere suspicion that he had touched the yellow and handsome gold coins of one of the innumerable Indian princes and rajahs who come to England with complaints of grievances, sometimes real, and sometimes fictitious, against the British Government.
During the period of the "paid agency" Roebuck was tolerably industrious with his pen; but in literature and journalism he proved his utter incapacity for joining in any combined action. Such was his dogged self-assertion and indomitable egotism that none of the ordinary channels would answer his purpose; and so he issued a series of political papers, entitled "Pamphlets for the People," to which the curious may sometimes refer, but which have now lost all their significance and interest. His quarrels with editors and publishers were notorious; and an altercation with Mr. Black, the well-known editor of the "Morning Chronicle," eventuated in a duel so bloodless as to be ridiculous. David's pebble did not reach Goliath, and Goliath was equally merciful to David. In these pamphlets he violently assailed the whole body of editors, sub-editors, reporters, etc., of most of the papers of any note. And the more accustomed he became to the House of Commons, the greater liberties did he take with the conventional fairness and courtesy of debate. His personality and scurrility were so indiscriminating and excessive that he was perhaps at this time the most unpopular member of the House.
In 1837 he lost his election for Bath, [pg 398] but was reelected in 1841. In a subsequent contest at Bath he was successfully opposed by Lord Ashley, the present Earl of Shaftesbury. On this occasion he exhibited even more than his usual bad temper and bad taste. He declined to accept Lord Ashley's proffered hand; and in the chagrin and vexation occasioned by unexpected defeat he uttered a rabid invective against the Non-Conformist ministers of the place, to whose influence he rightly attributed his rival's success. Lord Ashley was a well-known philanthropist, and his consistent support and patronage of many religious and charitable societies had naturally given him popularity among the Protestant clergy of all denominations,—a popularity heightened in the case of the Evangelical and Calvinistic ministers by his Lordship's strict Sabbatarianism and his belief in cold dinners on Sunday. On the other hand, Mr. Roebuck was openly accused of private professions of skepticism in matters of religion; and this report, so dangerous to the repute of any public man in England, (where theology and politics so frequently cross each other,) considerably damaged his chance of success. Lord Ashley, however, was in no way responsible for the rumor; and the difference between the conduct of the two during the contest was this, that Lord Ashley behaved like a gentleman and Mr. Roebuck did not.
During his retirement into private life, after this defeat in 1847, he wrote his work entitled "The History of the Whig Ministry of 1830,"—a book in the preparation of which he is said to have received considerable and valuable assistance from no less a person than Lord Brougham. Despite the aid that he received, it is amusing to find in his preface a characteristic vaunting of his entire difference with Lord Brougham about the character of King William IV. "Lord Brougham," he writes, "is accustomed to describe William IV as frank, just, and straightforward. We believe him to have been very weak and very false, a finished dissembler, and always bitterly hostile to the Whig Ministry and their great measure of Reform." This is Roebuck all over. He would infinitely rather argue that white was black than quietly coincide in any generally received opinion.
While on the subject of his writings, we will mention the book in which he vouchsafed to praise those whom he now so elaborately vilifies. In 1849 he published an octavo volume of two hundred and forty-eight pages on "The Colonies of England." Speaking (page 84) of the vast and rapid progress made by this country, he says:—
"We are led to inquire by what machinery, by what favoring circumstances, such a result has been brought about. The people, be it remarked, are the same as ourselves,—the original Thirteen States were the work of Englishmen. English heads, English hearts, English hands brought those new communities into existence. No longer connected by government with us, they nevertheless retained the characteristics of the race from which they sprang, and proceeding in the great work to which they were destined, they strode across the continent, the fairest portion of which they could now call their own. In planting new settlements they were aided by our own people,—the very elements out of which we endeavor to frame colonies, and with which we do produce sickly, miserable communities that can only be said to exist, and to linger on in a sort of half-life, without the spirit of a young, or the amenities and polish of an old community, and, above all, without any spirit of independence."
Again, speaking of colonization In this country as opposed to Canada and other English colonies, he writes (page 88):—"Certain adventurous persons, the 'pioneers' of civilization, wishing to make new settlements beyond the boundaries of Pennsylvania and Virginia, upon wild lands belonging to the United States, made formal application to the Government of the United States at Washington, who, being bound to afford all possible facility, thereupon take steps to have the land surveyed and laid out [pg 399] into counties, townships, parishes. The roads are also indicated, and at once the law exists; and security, guarantied by the authority of the United States, immediately follows, both for person and property; and all the machinery known to the Common Law, and needed for the maintenance of this security, and the enforcement of the law's decrees, is at once adopted. A municipal authority comes into existence; a court-house, a jail, a school-room, arise in the wilderness; and although these buildings be humble, and the men who exercise authority in them may appear to be in some degree rude, yet is the law there in all its useful majesty. To it a reverent obedience is rendered; and the plain magistrate, who, in a hunter's frock, may, in the name of the United States, pronounce the law's decree, commands an obedience as complete and sincere as that which is paid to the Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court at Washington, or to the ermined judge who presides in the courts of our Lady the Queen in Westminster Hall."
This in 1849; but what a very different tone has he thought fit to adopt now! Was any agency then expected which has not been forthcoming? Or, having degenerated from being a supporter of liberal opinions in his youth to being the fond and fatuous admirer of autocrats in his old age, does he think that it is absolutely necessary that the firm friend of Austrian despotism should be the malignant assailant of the Government and people of the United States? The man is consistent in nothing but his spiteful vindictiveness and love of mischief. He is now the general object of deserved ridicule and contempt for his flunkyistic attendance at the Tuileries. At the time of Louis Napoleon's visit to London, Roebuck raved and ranted about his "perjured lips having kissed the Queen of England."
He has, on some occasions, put himself prominently forward, and in such a way as to make himself an influential member of Parliament. He moved the vote of confidence in the Whig Government in 1850, when the great debate ensued in which the late Sir Robert Peel made his last speech, and they were kept in office by a poetical majority of nine. But the speech with which Roebuck introduced the motion was entirely eclipsed by the magnificent declamation of Sir Alexander Cockburn, the present Lord-Chief-Justice of England. On another great occasion, in January, 1855, he brought forward in the House of Commons a motion for inquiry into the conduct of the Crimean War. Lord Aberdeen's Government was defeated by an immense majority, and, of course, resigned. Mr. Roebuck was chairman of the Committee of Inquiry; but the cabinet that came in discreetly declined to give him any official post in their ranks. They knew too well the terrible uncertainty and inconsistency of the man's conduct. They could place no reliance either on his temper or his discretion. In 1855 he was one of the numerous candidates for the chairmanship of the Metropolitan Board of Works, but failed to inspire the electors with any confidence in his capacity for the post. In the following year he became the chairman of the Administrative Reform Association, and although the league had at first been highly successful, and aided much in awaking public attention to the miscarriages and mismanagement in the Crimea, yet, under this fatal presidency, it became speedily and ingloriously defunct. This was his last great failure, before abdicating all his early liberal principles. He has of late years endeavored to solace himself for the now irretrievable blunders of his career by an exaggerated indulgence in his idiosyncratic waywardness, paradox, and eccentricity. He is proud of being considered the acquaintance of the Emperor of Austria, and rather pleased than otherwise at being assailed on this account. He affects the society and friendship of conservative members of the House of Commons. He has become tolerant of lords. He may be seen sitting next to Lord Robert Cecil, indulging in ill-natured jocosities, from which his Lordship probably borrows when [pg 400] he indites ill-natured articles for the misguided "Saturday Review."[19] He hates the Manchester school of politicians, because their liberality and their sympathy with the cause of freedom and civilization in this country remind Roebuck of his own deflection from the right path.
His private undertakings have not been more fortunate than his public acts. He was chairman of a bank, which was unsuccessful, to say the least of it. He has been connected with other enterprises, which soon courted and obtained failure.
What he has recently said and done in reference to this country is too fresh in our memories to require that we should recite or recapitulate it here. His past career, as we have reviewed it, may account for the now intolerable acerbity of temper and the ludicrous vanity which disgrace him. Never was a Nemesis more just than that which has for the present consigned him to a melancholy obscurity. The political extinguisher has certainly dropped upon his head, and this burning and shining light has gone out with an unpleasant odor into utter darkness.
In summing up his character, it is evident that excessive vanity is his besetting sin. He is not too clever or too honest to act in union with other people, but he is too vain. He is by no means too good for the rest of the world; but he is too conceited and self-opinionated to condescend to coöperate with them. As, at some of the minor theatres, a single actor may play an army, so, in the House of Commons, Roebuck is a host in himself,—is his own party, and leads it. His occasional popularity in his own country is due to the fact, that, in his own character, he, to a certain extent, represents and crystallizes a few of the good and many of the bad qualities of Englishmen. He has their courage and audacity, their independence and pride, their generally defiant front to the rest of the world; but he is also vain, obstinate, bigoted, prejudiced, narrow in his views, and boastful in his language. His vulgar swagger, for instance, about the navy sweeping the seas, would have been condemned here, if it had been addressed by the most violent of demagogues to the most ignorant of Irish mobs.
We have heard him speak in the House of Commons in his palmier days, before he was as decrepit in mind as he is in body. He had great fluency, some power of invective, and a vast stock of assurance. We listened to him upon one occasion, when, without the slightest provocation, he used the most undignified personalities to the late Sir Robert Peel,—to which Sir Robert, very wisely, never replied.
We cannot say that we feel any profound interest as to his future. He has compared himself to a dog,—but, on behalf of that faithful and valued companion of man, we protest against the similitude. He has the kind of pugnacity which prompts a cur or a puppy to attack a Newfoundland or a mastiff. He has not the fidelity and many other good qualities of the canine race. At any rate, he has become a mischievous dog,—and a dull dog,—and will soon be a "sad dog."
We would venture to suggest, that he should at once be raised to the peerage, under the title of Baron Tear-'em. He might then aid the good cause of the slave-mongers of the South, and act in unison with that just, generous, moral, and virtuous nobleman, the Marquis of Clanricarde.
We ought to apologize to our readers for so lengthy an account of so undeserving a person,—but, at any rate, they ought by this time to know "Who is Roebuck?"
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