BRITISH PARLIAMENT IN 1835.
NO. III.
THE HOUSE OF LORDS.
Exalted as is the situation of the presiding officer of the House of Lords, particularly when he is at the same time high-chancellor of England, he has not, as speaker, the authority of the same officer in the lower House. The Peers address themselves to the House, and not to the presiding officer, when they rise to speak; this officer has not the power to decide to whom the floor belongs, or to call a member to his seat; the House itself regulates all its internal police.
The mode of their election is the evident cause of this difference in the power of the two speakers; the one is chosen by the Throne, a power unconnected with the Lords; while the House of Commons elects its own speaker.
At five o'clock the presiding officer of the House of Lords appears on the woolsack, escorted by the usher of the black-rod and the mace-bearer. If three Peers be present the speaker can open the session; so that three individuals may form a House of Lords. The votes of two of them may reject a bill that has been passed unanimously by the six hundred and fifty-four delegates of the people!
It is not very unusual to see the House of Lords reduced to this legislative trinity. But let us suppose some important question to be the order of the day—no matter what. The hall will then be full—the majority of the Peers will be in their seats.
Glancing over the numerous heads of the compact crowd below, your attention will be attracted by many even in the centre of the Hall, as it would be by the principal steeples of a great city, of which you caught a birds-eye-view from some neighboring eminence.
The three round wigs of the three clerks of the House, are among the first objects that will catch your eye, seated as they are, at their official table, with their backs turned towards you. Opposite to these, their faces turned to you, are the three uncovered heads of Lord Rolle, the Marquis of Wellesley and Lord Holland; farther on, the two long wigs of the masters in chancery; and beyond, under the golden hangings of the throne, the official and huge wig of the speaker, which raises itself up with all the dignity of the tower of a cathedral, among the belfries of a city.
Let this principal wig, then, be our point of departure; starting from it we will run over the different quarters of the chambers, as in exploring London, we would guide ourselves by the dome of St. Paul. At the present time, the weight of this huge presidential head-dress is not supported by a Chancellor. The great seal is in commission. The individual who sits with that air of noble ease on the woolsack is Lord Denman, the temporary speaker of the chamber, since the overthrow of the whig ministry preceding that of Sir Robert Peel. His manner would quickly inform you that the situation is not a novel one to him. In fact, he has been for many years Chief Justice of England. It was at the very bar of the House of Lords that he began to play an important political part; in 1820, he defended, with Lord Brougham, Caroline, the queen of George IV, against the heavy charges then brought against her by her royal husband. Could he have flattered himself at that period with the hope that he should one day become a Peer himself, and President of that chamber, before which he appeared as an humble advocate? It was not every ambitious lawyer who dared at that day to dream of the 400,000 of francs of salary that appertains to that lordly perruque.
Distinguished as he has been in his profession, it is neither the profound knowledge, nor the great eloquence of Lord Denman that has secured his extraordinary good fortune. It should rather be attributed to an indescribable but harmonious dignity of language, of person, and manner. You would think the senatorial throne had need of just such a man; M. Ravez himself was not more formed by nature for the presiding officer of a deliberative body. But this excellence, a little theatrical, of a majestic carriage and appearance, is not the chief merit of the noble Lord; his highest praise is that he remains the same man under the purple, that he was when dressed in the simple black gown of an advocate. A supreme magistrate, seated on the steps of the throne, he is still the affable and liberal counsellor of the court of chancery.
To the right of the speaker, and on your left, in a recess into which the glass of those folding doors permits but a doubtful light to enter, do you not see a confused mass of wax and ruddy faces, of white robes and black surplices? These are the three crowded benches of bishops and archbishops. Formerly they were not so eager to make use of their legislative privileges. At the present time every man is at his post; the church is supported by all its pillars. The Catholic emancipation has wakened up these millionnaire prebendaries from the lethargic sleep into which the gold with which they are stuffed, had plunged them. They keep strict watch around their heaps of wealth. It will not be their fault if some crumbs from their splendid banquet be thrown to starving Ireland.
If you have only seen these prelates in the House of Lords or in the pulpit in full dress, you have examined but half the picture. You must observe them in private, in their foppish and gallant city dress. Do you ask what dashing personage that is, in a frock of the finest black cloth, his head covered with a hat of the longest beaver fur, with broad brims fastened up by cords of silk, galloping along the pavements of Regent street? A singular cavalier, in fact; and one who will still more astonish you when he leaps from his horse, and enters his club-house, his riding whip in his hand, affording you a better opportunity for observing his masonic-like costume, his high black guetres and black apron. Behold a very noble and very reverend Bishop of England.
And this other person dressed, after the same fashion, who is leaping from that open carriage, filled with young women, whose fair skins and rosy cheeks cannot fail to catch your eye, as we are crossing Westminster place? This, too, is a bishop, whose wife and daughters have just accompanied him to the parliament house.
But let us follow these noble Lords spiritual to their seats in the hall of legislation.
Figure to yourself an old woman with a face yellow and lank; let her bend under the weight of fourscore years; wrinkle her forehead with as many furrows as you can; let her voice be sharp and broken; let her eyes be uncertain, restless and suspicious: would this creature not be a faithful picture of his grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, the first prelate of England, now seated alone on the highest bench of the church? Is it not the very image of superstition itself? Decrepid, crouching, shivering!
This venerable Archbishop, superannuated and unfit for all service as he appears to you, has strength enough to speak the moment that any question in the least touches the revenues of the church. Upon such occasions his speeches invariably commence with many laudable reflections on the advantages of tolerance, and as certainly end by wishing damnation to popery both on earth and in heaven. This is at least the object of these discourses, for it is no very easy matter to seize their exact signification. His grace, who holds his archbishopric of providence, has not however received from the same divine source, the gift of expressing his religious rancor with much ease or elegance. It always costs him a world of labor to put together his anti-Catholic homilies, incoherent and broken as they are. One would not say that gall flows from the lips of this mild prelate; he rather spits it out.
Do you not observe behind his grace, that little yellowish man with the eye of a caged tiger, constantly moving himself about, now leaning forward, now appearing so impatient, playing and jumping about on his bench: it is the bishop of Exeter, one of the sturdy pillars of the fanatic church militant. This man is the most cunning and dangerous foe to liberty; his evil nature clothes itself with all the seduction of the most amiable manners. No one among these noble and holy hypocrites has such exquisite politeness; or such gentle and insinuating address. Never did a cat better conceal its claws under the velvet of its feet.
The bishop of Exeter is not distinguished by the same quickness in replying to an adversary, that he is in attacking him; perhaps, I should rather say, that in his gentle warfare he never permits himself to act on the defensive. Listen to him, as he rises with the greatest humility, his little square black cap in his joined hands; his wallet is filled with denunciations—it must be emptied. Doubtless it grieves him, a man of peace, to have to war against temporal power! But why does temporal power presume to pare down the luxuriant dimensions of spiritual power? Oh! the charitable prelate, hear him! How his treachery smiles upon the lips! how ingenuously it scratches! Never had taunting so much onction—never was aggression so timid. Who is there that would have this trembling modesty in throwing discord in the midst of such an assembly? So soon as they are once struggling together, nothing remains for him to say. Whigs and tories tear yourselves to pieces, the good bishop will not interrupt you; he has discharged his duty as a protestant pastor. Tear yourselves to pieces. He sits down quietly, and contemplates the melée; tranquilly and at his ease, he laughs in his sleeve as he counts the blows that fall upon the minister. God forgive him! I believe his foot keeps time with the blows!
If I were to describe the thirty Protestant Bishops crowded together in this place, I would show you perhaps three or four almost whigs, and who rather more resemble christians, and among these particularly the brother of Lord Grey, the chief of this almost imperceptible spiritual minority; but enough of these specimens of the surplice. We will leave the bishops to our right. The first bench that we encounter after theirs, going towards the bar of the house, is that of the ministers. Here we will pause awhile.
Let us stop before this person in a gray hat, and dark brown riding-coat, carelessly supporting himself on his cane. The heat of the weather is extreme. To be more at his ease, he has, rather unceremoniously, taken off his cravat. If you were to meet him in St. James' Park, his favorite promenade, cantering on horseback, or walking on foot, his large nostrils snuffing the breeze, his head thrown back, his eyes sparkling and full of disdain, with his tall figure, and robust and soldierly appearance, you would take him for some old colonel on half pay, certainly not for the first Lord of the Treasury. Nevertheless this person is Lord Melbourne, the leader of the government.
But examine a little closer and more attentively this physiognomy; the expression of it is complex; it is a mixture of pride, indolence, and irritability. In this you have the whole secret of the talent and the fortune of this minister. It is almost a miracle that his natural indolence should have allowed him the ambition to aspire to the first office of the state; at least, I do not believe that he would have had the energy to have maintained himself long in that position, if it had not been disputed. It is because he had been once thrown out, that he is in office now. In throwing him down, they struck the mainspring of his strength; so he has rebounded, and in consequence has again raised himself to power, and re-established himself more solidly and more obstinately than ever. Such are those natures whose dormant energies require to be awakened by the lash of insult. In 1834, Lord Melbourne was but an inert and powerless whig; in 1835 he is a radical whig; he has made the throne capitulate, he has wounded the church, he threatens the peerage—why is this? Because you have offended him, because you have chased him from office. You alone can diminish his power. His eloquence has no other moving power than that which he derives from obstacles thrown in his way. Suffer him to go on, to speak as he pleases—his words will grow feeble, and his speech drag itself laboriously along; cross his path, throw any thing in his way, he rebels, he is hurried along, he grows heated, he drags you with him, he is eloquent! His whole person, his whole soul is wrapped in his discourse. There is nothing studied, nothing solemn; all is sudden, involuntary. He, who but a moment since, was so grave, so subdued, now clinches his hands, now throws his arms out with violence, now leaps almost from the very floor; his angry declamation, his accents of indignant contempt proceed from the bottom of his entrails. Now his passion suffocates him: he no longer breathes; his discourse is interrupted; a profound silence ensues. At this moment he exhibits the trembling and magnificently impassioned air of Casimir Perier.
Lord Melbourne is the most original speaker, and the most peculiar in either house of parliament; perhaps the most impassioned, if not the greatest and the most perfect. As a statesman I have great respect for his moderate character; he is a progressive, bold, and thorough whig; but he is not a whig—an improvident aristocrat, who never inquires to what extremities the principles which he has inscribed on his banner may lead.
The member on the left of Lord Melbourne, of smaller stature than the noble premier, fat, all his limbs well rounded, yet not over large, with a frank and open countenance, is the Marquis of Lansdowne, the president of the council. You know that in England this office does not entitle the person who fills it to any pre-eminence over his colleagues; he is their speaker, and only presides over their deliberations. Their true leader and chief is the first lord of the treasury. The Marquis of Lansdowne plays his part with honor to himself in the House of Lords, and usefully in the cabinet. In a discussion he generally follows Lord Melbourne; his language is masculine and studied, his voice firm and sonorous, but his utterance is heavy and monotonous; he has evidently more words than ideas; he says trifling things, les riens, with too much solemnity; this regular and invariable emphasis destroys the effect of his best efforts. I could wish that he would spare a few of those thundering gesticulations, during which be strikes the clerks' table with such furious violence. It is a vulgar practice that should be left to Lord Londonderry, who sits before him across the table. This style of argument is much more becoming in a pugilist than an orator. I have been present, occasionally, when the noble Marquisses replied to each other with the air of two people trying the strength of their arms, or hammering together on an anvil.
Those who recollect Mr. Pitt, observe a good deal of resemblance between the argument of that great statesman and the style of Lord Lansdowne's speeches. It is from Mr. Pitt that the President of the Council has acquired the habit of embodying a whole argument in one immense period, cut up into a thousand parts; but the supreme tact of Mr. Pitt always enabled him to lead his hearers, with infallible certainty, to the point he had in view, by cross and apparently opposite ways. The Marquis of Lansdowne is but too happy if he can extricate himself in safety from the labyrinths of his own parentheses.
That other angular figure, hipped, with a long stiff neck buried in a thick white cravat, not unlike a French provincial notary, is Lord Duncannon, the first Commissioner of Woods and Forests, and of the Privy Seal. He sits on the right of Lord Melbourne, and is one of the most useful members of the cabinet. Stammerer as he is, he speaks often, and always willingly; he wants words more than thoughts; his sang froid often serves him in the stead of wit, though he occasionally strikes an adversary very happily, and gives double effect to his hits by the air—the most innocent and candid in the world—with which he administers them.
The other Ministers in the House of Lords hardly deserve any particular notice; if of any service in council, they certainly are not on the floor of the House. The long, dark, impassible figure of Lord Auckland is rarely drawn from its retreat; it is only when some question touches the affairs of the admiralty, of which he is the first Lord, that a few bashful words escape him. Lord Glenelg, recently elevated to the Peerage, as rarely suffers himself to be drawn into a debate, if the colonies have nothing at stake. Lord Glenelg has had his days of eloquence, and was much more distinguished in the Commons when simple Mr. Grant. Assuredly he is no longer a young man, for his head is covered with gray hairs, though he looks to be older than he really is. He is completely worn out, both in soul and body, and is one of those mystic sensualists who sacrifice real existence to the mysterious dreams of an opium-eater.
An enormous, round, pale bald head, with great black eyes, and huge white whiskers, resting on broad shoulders, is every thing that remains of Lord Holland, the nephew of Fox, and once an accomplished orator of his uncle's school, and a tolerable writer. Of the rest of his body nothing can be said; the gout has eat him up by little and little, and he ends, absolutely, like a fish. It is only after much time and exertion that his two crutches transport him to the end of the bench on which he sits, opposite Lord Melbourne. Moreover, his chancellorship of the Duchy of Lancaster is not such a sinecure as people have said; he supports his colleagues at least with all the vigor of his lungs, if with no great strength of argument. He assumes the responsibility of applauding their speeches, and acquits himself conscientiously of the duty, for he makes more noise with his cheers and ‘hears’ alone, than all the rest of the Whig party put together. It is quite an amusing spectacle to see this stump of a man, bawling out his applauses, looking for all the world like one of those Chinese toys representing a great fat buffoon, which, loaded at the bottom, and without legs, constantly resumes its upright position, however often it may be thrown to one side or the other.
Literary history will remember Lord Holland, on account of his biography of Lope de Vega. I am reminded by this work of an anecdote of the noble lord, which does much more honor to his politeness than to his generosity. In 1832, a poor refugee Spaniard, whose only property in the world consisted of three unpublished manuscript comedies of the celebrated Castillian poet, determined to go to London for the purpose of selling them to the illustrious whig commentator, whom he thought would naturally give more for them than any other person. However, in the presence of so great a nobleman, the timid emigrant did not dare to speak of any price for them; he simply offered him his three valuable manuscripts. The visit and the present were very graciously received, and in exchange for the one and the other, the stranger received the next morning Lord Holland's card and a copy of the life of Lope de Vega. There are some occasions on which the English are magnificent; but their liberality never exercises itself to any great extent but in public. For example, they would glory in throwing a set of diamonds to an Italian chanteur in a crowded theatre.
Clearing the table of the ushers, at one leap, we find ourselves in the very head quarters of the tory opposition. Here are the ministers, belonging to the House of Lords, of the late conservative administration. All of them are past middle age, and (like the present whig ministers) are between fifty and seventy, the greater part being over sixty.
Let us proceed at once to the generalissimo, seated in the centre, on the second bench, his arms folded over his breast. He is asleep, I suppose; he breathes with difficulty, his body being pressed in by the black coat closely buttoned; but they wake him; he takes off his hat hurriedly, and exposes his white hair cut close to his head. Observe that thick chin which protrudes itself and works without ceasing, those retreating lips, that great crooked nose, those brilliant and steady blue eyes, that face yellow and bronzed; is it not the very countenance of Punch, only not quite so rubicund? Does not that lank and bony body resemble some wooden automaton, some old jointed doll?
Who would not be seized with surprise at the sight of this man? Behold the man of the most extraordinary good fortune of the age! Behold the man who conquered Napoleon, and who has lived twenty years on his laurels! It is not only in war that he has succeeded; peace has not been less profitable to him; he has ruled in the council as in the camp; his caprice has, for a long time, governed an intelligent and free people. He is the king of the last aristocracy in the world. Happy man! what honors has he failed to obtain that he ever desired to possess? He finds himself suddenly a learned man, without having ever studied any thing. Law and theology have decreed him their honors—the universities have made him their chancellor. Even more, the exclusive circles of the West End themselves, have recognized his supremacy. He has seen generations of dandies decay and fall every autumn, while he, their patriarch, remains as firm as ever. The inconstant winds of fashion have not torn a single leaf from his crown; he has continued in fashion for the quarter of a century. If you follow him this evening to some rout in Grosvenor Square, you will see him throned on a couch. Around him a swarm of belles and grandams flutter, each one endeavoring to catch a word, or a smile, or a look from the hero. You will see, (for the hero is deaf, and there is no familiarity which is not permitted to him,) you will see the most favored among them in his arms, his black wrinkled hands resting on their white shoulders. Happy man! It is true that you may read on the buckle of the garter that surrounds the leg of the Septuagenarian, in letters of diamond—“Honi soit qui mal y pense,” the motto of his order. Happy man! and by what mysterious power have you been thus enabled to succeed every where and with all persons? Oh! I know not! Perhaps to the small share of patient prudence and of inert common sense, that a narrow ball-proof forehead may contain, your success may be due. Perhaps to the beneficent rays and the partiality of that capricious star which so mysteriously lights the way of the predestined!
But look—who speaks—it is the Duke of Wellington! What labor! he tosses about his head! he grasps with his withered fingers the back of the bench that is before him! he seems as if he would drag from every place around him ideas which he cannot otherwise possess himself of. At last he draws from his brain some fragments of incoherent phrases and unconnected reasoning. All this, good and bad, ends in a sort of speech not very unreasonable; he enables you to guess for yourself what he wished to say, though he has not himself said it. He is an orator and a statesman, as he is a great coxcomb and a great general,—by destiny.
The tories of the House would be ungrateful if they forgot that it is the Duke of Wellington alone who has for a long time preserved them, by the vigorous and almost military discipline by which he has regulated their intemperate fury. He cannot be disobeyed with impunity. In the beginning of this very session Lord Londonderry was severely reprimanded for having engaged in a skirmish which the general had not authorized. At present, however, the evil spirits of the party seem to grow weary of the wise moderation of their chief. At least, if he does not quickly reduce them to obedience, they will, in spite of him, engage in a conflict with the people. But let his grace beware; should his soldiers induce him even to head his forces in this unequal combat, he will not find the same good luck that attended him at Waterloo.
An expression of silly and impotent ferocity characterizes the face on the left of the Duke of Wellington; not a hair upon his head, but on each side enormous whiskers perfectly white. One would say it was some old Turk of the carnival or the theatre, who had lost his turban; but you should see this grotesque creature standing erect. It is so badly placed on its long legs, as to be unable to move without stumbling. You might upset it by your breath. Very constant in its attendance at the House, it is always busy when there. You are incessantly annoyed by the squeaking, scolding voice that proceeds from this great body: not that he often speaks, but excels all others in his applauses of tory speeches. He is the counterpart of Lord Holland, and it is his duty to counteract the ‘hears’ and ‘hurrahs’ of the latter. You would not have supposed that this was a very illustrious personage—illustrious at least by birth, as Lord Brougham once very irreverently remarked: nevertheless, it is a Royal Highness—it is the eldest brother of the king who plays the part of an impudent applauder of the incendiary speeches of an unpopular aristocracy. It is a prince of the blood who degrades his rank in this impotent farce. Truly, this Duke of Cumberland is badly advised; his military glory does not entitle him to play the tricks of a bully! and as his conscience must often recall to his memory certain private and public peccadilloes, he would be wise not to remind the world of them quite so often by his bravadoes. The public have not forgotten that strong suspicions of violent murder, of the basest seduction, and of incest, have stained an existence, which nothing but its adventitious rank has, perhaps, saved from the vengeance of the law. The Grand Master of the Orange Lodges is also sufficiently well known in Ireland. There is but little chance that he will ever have occasion to assert his rights to the throne. But would it not be wise to anticipate the possibility? In these times of popular sovereignty legitimacy does not always ensure a crown.
That fat Lord, with his chin graciously reposing on his well gloved hand, and a bouquet of red pinks in his button hole, is the father of Viscount Castlereagh, and was in his day a distinguished dandy. He retains all the elegance that is compatible with a large belly and sixty years. You can still admire his form in spite of his fatness, which threatens to burst at every point through his riding coat. The good taste which distinguishes his toilette, and contends even against the advances of old age, does not unfortunately characterize the legislative conduct of Lord Londonderry. He is the most indiscreet speaker in this House, in which all extravagance or violence is rare. The habit of interrogating ministers, and especially on all matters connected with Spain, in which country he formerly served as a colonel of huzzars, is almost a disease with him. Good a tory as he is, he has too much zeal; and I am entirely of the opinion of M. de Talleyrand, that nothing can be more unfortunate than too much of that quality. This rashness of the old huzzar brings down upon him, now and then, severe rebuffs from the generalissimo. O'Connell has perfectly described the old marquis, when he called him half-maniac—half-idiot. He is not a bad man; but nature has rather liberally endowed him with that sort of broken eloquence which supplies the want both of language and thought, by the profusion and vehemence of gesture. He is always too much pleased to display his cambric handkerchief in public. In my opinion, the whigs would have gained as much as the tories, by suffering him to have departed on his embassy to St. Petersburg.
We must pass by Lord Aberdeen, Lord Wharncliffe and Lord Ellenborough, whom you see seated around the Duke of Wellington; they are his principal aids-de-camp, and were formerly ministers with him. They are prudent and cunning tories, if not moderate ones, and express themselves well; but we have not room to give full length portraits of them. An epic catalogue does not describe every soldier of the two armies, not even every officer; and our article is more modest than an Iliad. For the best reasons then, we must content ourselves with pointing out with the finger the chief heads of our assembly.
To complete the review, we must finish our tour of the Chamber, with the ranges of benches to our left. Do you observe up there on the third row of benches, with its back against the wall, that figure of a monkey dressed in a light colored wig, with its mouth awry, and looking as if it was employed in cracking nuts? Far as this noble Lord is seated from the head quarters of the tories, he is nevertheless one of their most important and redoubtable captains. He has been twice Lord High Chancellor, and held that office in the late cabinet of Sir Robert Peel; this person is Lord Lyndhurst. Like Lord Brougham, he passed from the bar, through the House of Commons, to the woolsack. His extreme ugliness has nothing about it that can be considered vulgar; on the contrary, he is the only lawyer I have ever seen who had the air of a man of the world, and the polished manner of one who had been a courtier. He is more than a lawyer; he is a most finished orator, always clear, pithy, skilful, well-disciplined, and never tedious, but concise and agreeable. His voice is full, grave, and generally calm, but always capable of raising itself to the occasion; he only grows warm when some personal but secret vexation disturbs him. He is not troubled with a conscience; the privilege of dispensing with which, he retains as a lawyer, though he has in other respects managed to throw off the peculiarities of his profession. Formerly he was an ultra whig. At heart he is still only an advocate, though interested with the aristocracy, and affecting their polished good breeding. He is a tory just now, because toryism has paid him liberally for his pleadings. To-day, if the reformers could offer him higher distinctions, he would discover, I am afraid, in his bag, an abundance of arguments for reform.
Before turning the corner of the extreme left, let us pause a moment to observe three personages, who centre in themselves all the ultra toryism of the House. They are seated by the side of each other, at the end of the last bench on this side.
The first, with a long, rough body, with a white cravat, dressed in tawdry clothes, coarsely built, and looking like a clown, is the Duke of Newcastle. Observe that dull, sottish eye—those long, erect ears. See with what interest he listens! what attentive stupidity! Nevertheless, you may rest assured that he does not understand a word of what he hears. The words of a speaker have to knock a long while at the door of his dull brain; he never fully comprehends an idea but after a week's mature deliberation. Generally, at the end of a session, he begins to understand the speech of the king, pronounced at its opening. A sort of brutal and furious hatred against every thing that he conceives to savor of reform, serves him in lieu of any other understanding. The rough lessons which the indignation of the people have beaten into him, have not been able to teach any prudence to his blind instincts. All his recriminations are impressed with the dullness of his slow mind. The peerage might be killed and buried this winter—it would not be sooner than the next spring that his Lordship would order his horses, and drive to the House of Lords to argue against Catholic emancipation.
The other two persons, are those of two noblemen in great credit with the church, even more of fanatics than tories. Neither of them is deficient in a certain oratorical fury, which, however, savors much more of the pulpit than the Parliament.
In the first place, that fanatical looking figure which is watching you with a fiery black eye, playing with the ruffles of his shirt, with the knobs of his umbrella, is Lord Winchelsea; an honest man, probably, and a furious, but sincere protestant. There is an appearance of conviction in the intemperate homilies that he improvises for the House of Lords, or the columns of the Standard, which in some measure palliates their haughty intolerance. This noble zealot, even while he is preaching up the persecution of popery, persuades himself, I am confident, that his own apostleship will secure him martyrdom.
As to that other personage—that huge and deformed colossus, whom you would take for a chosen cuirassier discharged from service in consequence of excessive fatness—though his protestant mysticism may be of rather larger calibre, I should be inclined to put less faith in his relics. This Lord Roden—for it is Lord Roden—was in his youth a miscreant, who acknowledged neither God nor Devil, and worshipped only his dinners and his debaucheries. But in the middle of one of those nights of excess, he had a vision somewhat like that which cried out to Swedenbourg—You eat too much. From that moment, submissive to supreme advice, the Earl of Roden reformed his diet and his irregular habits, and he has become by degrees, the evangelical and political preacher that he is at the present time. In other respects this conversion has in no degree diminished his embonpoint; and his new piety does not prevent his being a most furious Orangist, ever ready, if permitted, to sacrifice to his monarch a magnificent hetacomb of Irish Catholics.
Let us, for the present, cross the chamber, in giving a coup d'œil to the benches ranged before the bar, and facing the throne. These are called the independent benches. The majority of the peers whom you observe seated there have been ministers. The greatest, both in personal appearance and public fame, is Lord Grey. Observe his tall person, how thin, frail, and bent it seems! After his seventieth year he was unable to give himself up any longer to public affairs; he wanted physical strength to continue the arduous labor of reform. He himself placed the load on shoulders which he had accustomed to bear it; and finally resigned both power and the active part he formerly took in parliamentary discussion. Let justice be rendered to him while still living; he has been a bold and loyal statesman; as soon as he found the helm entrusted to his hands, he steered the ship of state on principles that he had for thirty years recommended. He has not proved a miserable traitor to his promises and his past history, as the perjured ministers of revolutionary origin in France, the worthless product of that gloriously useless revolution of July. He is the first whig who ever dared to carry into practice his own principles. Assuredly, it required something more than ordinary determination to open to reform that wide gate, which he knew could never again be closed.
In addition to this, he was no common speaker. The impression of his dignified, convincing and penetrating oratory, is still deeply impressed on the recollection of those who were accustomed to hear him; the air and manner of a great nobleman, which always distinguished him, gave additional force to his authority. The noble affability of his manners would remind you of the old Duke of Montmorency-Laval. There is this difference between them, that Lord Grey did not succeed in forming and supporting his ministry alone by the influence of his fine manners, as the ci-devant plenipotentiary of Charles X at Vienna, did in respect to his embassies.
The other nobleman of coarse appearance, still fresh and blonde, is the Earl of Ripon, politically better known by his second title of Viscount Goderich. He also was raised for a moment to the top of the ministerial ladder; but it does not appear that he has made up his mind to remain in private life, into which situation his incapacity made him so soon fall back. However, if he aspires to reascend, he has not taken the right road to accomplish his designs; it is no longer the period when one may balance between two opinions, or feed on two political parties. It would be a double mistake in him to persist in his attempts to reseize the reins of supreme authority. The confusion of his reasoning as well as of his ideas, when he attempts to speak, proves very clearly that he does not possess the clear and firm head necessary to manage the furious horses of the chariot of state.
The Duke of Richmond has never raised himself to the same sublime elevation; he is one of those poor nobles whose liberalism must be maintained by high and lucrative employments. He is one of those aristocratic worthies, always ready for any sort of military or civil work, and all sort of salaries. Lieutenant General and aid-de-camp of the king, his grace has not hesitated to stoop to manage the mails, and to become a member of a whig cabinet. At the present moment, he has the bearing of one who flatters himself with the chimerical hope of a juste-milieu administration, of which he would be a member. Louis XVIII would have placed him in his upper house. The noble duke, remarkable for a false air of Parisian elegance, which distinguishes his carriage from that of our great men, usually so full of stiffness and formality; yet I do not think that any of the modern great men of France have ever, as the Duke of Richmond often does, crossed their legs and raised their feet higher than the level of their heads, in full session, for the purpose of better viewing themselves in their polished boots.
Excepting the Duke of Wellington, we have not yet met a single nobleman who can call himself truly fashionable. Ah! but see here is Lord Alvanley. Yes, this little man, erect, bloated, swollen, breathless, careless, ill-dressed, with nothing recherché about him but his yellow gloves, and looking as if he had just come from a debauch to which he was anxious to return, is one of the chief representatives of modern fashion in the House of Lords. Formerly he was a whig; now he is a tory, or rather he is a bon convive, and belongs to the party which gives the best dinners and suppers. As the tories are distinguished for their sumptuous entertainments—therefore he is a tory. He ought not to have waited until he was ruined to have become a conservative. No matter! having eaten up his own property, he now helps others to do the same thing; he pays with his company and his gaiety. He has, in fact, a rich vein of humor; one might make a large volume of his witticisms. He is always sober at the House. It was his evil genius which inspired him on one occasion to grapple with O'Connell; the contest was unequal; the agitator wields the most deadly repartee. Fashionable and witty as Lord Alvanley is, he will nevertheless retain, during his life, graved on his forehead, the title of bloated buffoon, inflicted on him by the rude adversary whom he so imprudently attacked.
This young man of a handsome form, gracious in his appearance, and of striking mien, going out of the House, is the Earl of Errol. He votes with the ministry, although he is almost a member of the royal family. He is, in fact, a son-in-law, sous-officiel, of William IV, having married one of the illegitimate daughters of his Majesty. I should be glad to show you his brother-in-law, the Earl of Munster, the illegitimate issue of the same illustrious parent; but he rarely attends the sittings of Parliament. High and profitable sinecures have been showered upon these noble Earls. You see that in this age of constitutional governments, calling themselves moral and economical, sovereigns still shower, after the manner of Louis XIV, wealth and honors on their bastards.
You would hardly ask the name of that old man, so withered by age, whose slender legs are pushed into those old fashioned boots, with his twisted queue leaping about on the shining and powdered collar of an old blue frock. You would say it was some old French emigrant, forgotten in 1814 by the Restoration, and left on this side of the water. Observe how he moves to and fro; it is his constant motion. The eighty years of the Earl of Westmoreland do not prevent his being the most stirring and active tory in the House. He has been a member of the cabinet; and occasionally, at distinct intervals, he will still raise his old voice in defence of his old cause. Immediately on the adjournment of the House, you may see him mount an old horse, as lank as himself, and gallop off. It is perhaps a mere fancy, but it seems to me that on the day the old Earl and his horse fail to return, toryism will be no more. In spite of myself I am accustomed to embody in this old man, all that remains of energy and strength in that dying party. He looks like the last living and moving form in the midst of the inanimate skeletons of this aristocracy, so fast crumbling into dust.
If you have observed that other old man, so nimble and busy, with his spectacles thrown back on his forehead, and looking in every direction around him with his large fish-like eyes, you have remarked that he runs incessantly from bench to bench, finding something to whisper in every one's ear; and have doubtless taken him for one of the ushers of the House, for he has on the same dress that they are accustomed to wear—a black French coat, and a wig-bag of black taffeta. That is Lord Shaftesbury, a descendant of the celebrated earl of that name, one of the first essayists in the English language; a writer whose works are distinguished equally for the classical character of their style, and the wit and spirit that characterize them. The merits of the present Earl of Shaftesbury are not of the same exalted species; he is an active and industrious man. When toryism was in power (for he is a strong tory) he managed to secure the profitable office of president of the committees, and in that situation he exhibited all the patient and practical intelligence which the office demanded. He is also one of the vice-speakers of the House, and occasionally he exhibits his little black person on the red woolsack; but as he is only allowed to figure in that situation in his ordinary, unimposing costume, the honor is a rare one; it is only in the last extremity that he enjoys it, when there is no other possible speaker. An English Chamber does not consider that it is presided over with sufficient dignity, or even legally, unless it be by a wig and gown.
Thanks to St. George, we are now beyond the crowd of tories, and have doubled the second angle of the bar; returning towards the throne, passing by the benches on the left, we find ourselves among the whigs, who will not delay very much our progress, for the ranks are not very close on this side. Alas! how many vacancies. A glance at some of these generous, solitary peers, and our tour will be ended: we shall then have finished our long voyage around the Chamber.
The Earl of Radnor is one of the small number of disinterested whigs, who advocate reform for itself, and not as a means of securing themselves a seat at the feast of power; he discharges his duties as a liberal peer, actively, conscientiously, and with that rectitude and firmness which you would anticipate from his erect, nervous, and inflexible bearing. He is not a very flowery speaker; but it is necessary to listen to him when he rises; he has the tone of hardy and vigorous honesty, which constrains the attention of an audience.
With more diffidence and timidity in his manner of speaking, the same virtues of sincere and free devotion to public liberty, distinguish the Marquis of Clanricarde. There is about this young nobleman a sort of mental grace, which veils the deformity of his features; his flat nose, sunken eyes, and cadaverous complexion, do not disgust you; you have never seen extreme ugliness so becoming; it is a death's head, smiling and perfectly agreeable. The Parisian world is sufficiently well acquainted with the Marquis of Clanricarde. Thanks to the caustic wit of his lady, the daughter of Canning, who amused herself the last year with so much cruelty, at the expense of its bourgeois, pedantic, and quasi-legitimate aristocracy.
We are now entering the head quarters of the little army of whigs. In the rear is Lord Plunket, a member of the administration, though without a seat in the cabinet. Truly, Ireland, of which he is Chancellor, has more than one cause of bitter complaint against her unnatural child. The ungrateful wretch! he betrayed his country to provide for himself and family; he preferred fortune to renown; and paid his own honor for the honors with which he has clothed himself! But Cobbett and the patriot Irish have chastised him rudely enough. Ireland is like all other mothers; she opens her arms to all her misled children that are disposed to return to her bosom.
Then let there be full pardon for the wealthy old lawyer; let his faults be forgotten, since he recalls his honorable youth, and once more volunteers in the service of the holy cause. The assistance of such an intellect as that of Plunket is not to be despised; age has not obscured in the least the matchless clearness of his powerful reason; there is not a dark corner in the most obscure question that he does not exhibit as clear as noonday; and it is not only by this power of lucid argument that he is distinguished. Weak and good natured, and crippled by the gout, as he appears, forced, whenever he rises to speak, to support himself with one hand on his cane, he has that fierce and sturdy determination which enables him to throw in the face of toryism all its humiliating truths, and is never disconcerted by even the most violent interruptions: his irony wounds and overwhelms the more that it is always concealed under an air of the most country-like simplicity.
At the extremity of this bench, which touches that of the ministers, you have recognized Lord Brougham; he is the very living caricature of whom the printshops in the Strand have shown you so many portraits. Observe his long face, his long legs, his long arms, the whole incoherent mass of his person. The expression of his countenance has something ferocious about it; there is certainly in this brain a small grain of madness; his small piercing eyes sparkle from the bottom of their sockets; a convulsive motion opens and shuts incessantly his enormous mouth; you would be alarmed did not the good nature of that thick, cocked-up nose, reassure you.
Do not be alarmed that the learned lord starts and appears so violently agitated—he is on a gridiron; he is tortured, because others are speaking, and he is constrained to be silent. To speak is to do an injury to Lord Brougham.
But the speaker is now seated; Lord Brougham has leapt from his seat; he is on his feet; he has regained the floor; he retains it, and will not easily part with it; he has declared that he has but two words to say; if you have any business to attend to, go about it; at the end of two hours you may return, you will find him in the midst of his argument. It is much to be regretted that long experience of the bar and the parliament have not moderated a mind of this temper. He has just uttered a most cutting sarcasm—observe how he dulls its effect by reiterating and expanding it. He has perfectly established the impregnable strength of an argument; he proceeds to overthrow it himself, that he may build up others upon its ruins; it is thus his indiscretion injures the best cause and deforms his ablest discourses. Like an imprudent æronaut, he bursts his balloon and falls with it to the earth, in consequence of having filled it too full. We who are hearers, like well enough to be convinced by an argument, or to smile at a piece of irony; but we can comprehend an allusion. We are mortified at having every thing explained so elaborately. The more you persist in it, the more weary we become. Your obstinacy in doubting our intelligence—wounds and vexes us.
This excess of pedantry is the principal defect in the oratory of Lord Brougham. He has been well called the school-master. I do not deny his extraordinary gifts as a learned debater, always caustic and indefatigable; but these extravagant discourses are out of all proportion, above all in the House of Lords, which treats all questions in a summary way, and in some degree after the fashion of the drawing room. It is a great want of tact not to suit oneself to one's audience. The manner of Henry Brougham was much more suitable to the House of Commons, where discussions are more full, and where one is less prepared to come to an early conclusion; he still retains the lawyer. He has never been able to throw off the violent and comic gestures of the gown, storming and thundering, in reciting a date or a section of a law. Without doubt his harangues fatigue him as much as they do those who listen to him; he does not spare himself, bawling and gesticulating without any regard to his own person; he bends and twists himself like a posture master; he dances and leaps with his words; he perspires and grows heated, but he leaves the hearer cold; his is not the eloquence which inflames the blood.
I would censure Lord Brougham more severely as a writer than as a speaker; for Lord Brougham is also a writer, and a good deal too much of one. The melancholy activity which distinguishes him, pushes him on incessantly to fill the reviews with his economical, political, scientific, historical, and theological essays, and to heap up pamphlet on pamphlet; if his writings were characterized by a finished style or new ideas, the evil would not be half so great; there is, however, eternally the same excessive flood of words; and on paper, where they cannot evaporate, it becomes even more intolerable. Though on his own part it has not been an interested speculation, I cannot pardon him for having been the father of that leprous, cheap literature, which, pretending to diffuse useful knowledge, has only displayed false opinions, ignorance, and bad writing. In France, where this disastrous invention has been so quickly perfected, there is good cause to curse in all sincerity its author. It is not his fault however, that the French have permitted their worthless laborers to infect, as they have done, all their literary field, with these tares which threaten to choke the promising harvest of their young poetry.
Let us examine Lord Brougham as a politician. Here we find him still more imperfect. I acquit him of the charge of having offered his support to the conservatives, on the condition of their securing him his chancellorship; this is a calumny of his enemies. I wish he had never had any thing to do with toryism. It is not his fault however, that he has not again become a whig officer. It is said that it is the whigs who object to his joining their ministry, and who have refused him the seals. Experience has proved that he is less dangerous as an enemy than as a friend. He is neither tory nor whig; nor is he a radical; he is however at present among the radicals. He is of no party, if it be not his own, the party of Lord Brougham.
The case of Lord Brougham ought to afford a salutary example to M. Dupin, his friend. There are many curious analogies between these two celebrated lawyers; they resemble each other strikingly in their countenances, in their fortune, in their inconsistencies, and in their extravagancies. M. Dupin does not preside more soberly over the Chamber of Deputies, than Lord Brougham did over that of the Lords. He is also a lawyer who fills the speaker's chair, and speaks himself much more willingly than he accords the permission to another. I grant you that his eloquence is of better metal, more powerful, more solid, more triumphant; that his blows are heavier and more mortal; but should he ever succeed in reaching the power after which he aspires, I doubt if his temperament will allow him to sustain himself half the time that the petulance of our ci-devant chancellor remained seated on the woolsack.