Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century

by James Richard Joy

When the nations ope for thee their queenly circle,
As a sweet new sister hail thee,
Shall these lips be sealed in callous death and silence
That have known but to bewail thee?

Shall the ear be deaf that only loved thy praises
When all men their tribute bring thee?
Shall the mouth be clay that sang thee in thy squalor
When all poet's mouths shall sing thee?

Ah, the harpings and the salvos and the shoutings
Of thy exiled sons returning!
I should hear though dead and moldered, and the grave-damps
Should not chill my bosom's burning.

Ah, the tramp of feet victorious! I should hear them
'Mid the shamrocks and the mosses,
And my heart should toll within the shroud and quarter
As a captive dreamer tosses.

I should turn and rend the cere-clothes round me,
Giant sinews I should borrow,
Crying, "Oh, my brothers, I have also loved her,
In her loneliness and sorrow.

"Let me join with you the jubilant procession,
Let me chant with you her story;
Then contented I shall go back to the shamrocks
Now mine eyes have seen her glory."

X

LORD BEACONSFIELD

[The speech which most endeared Disraeli to the Tories was delivered in the House of Commons January 22,1846. Peel had just declared his conversion to free trade and his intention to repeal the Corn Law duties, when Disraeli rose and in behalf of the unconverted Tory protectionists poured his fire into the face of the Prime Minister.]

Sir, I rise with some feeling of embarrassment to address the House at this stage of the debate, as it is only since I have entered the House that I have had the advantage of reading her Majesty's speech; and I had understood that the great question which now agitates the country was not to be discussed on the present occasion…..I should have abstained from intruding myself on the House at the present moment, had it not been for the peculiar tone of the right honorable gentleman (Sir Robert Peel). I think that tone ought not to pass unnoticed. At the same time I do not wish to conceal my opinions on the general subject. I am not one of the converts. I am, perhaps, a member of a fallen party. To the opinions which I have expressed in this House in favor of protection I adhere. They sent me to this House, and if I had relinquished them, I should have relinquished my seat also. I must say that the tone of the right honorable gentleman is hardly fair towards the House, while he stops discussion upon a subject on which he himself has entered and given vent to his feelings with a fervency unusual to him. Sir, I admire a minister who says he holds power to give effect to his own convictions. These are sentiments that we must all applaud. Unfortunate will be the position of this country when a minister pursues a line of policy adverse to the convictions which he himself entertains. But when we come to a question of such high delicacy as the present, we may be permitted to ask ourselves what are the circumstances which require one so able, and one so eminent, to enter upon the vindication of himself, and to rise in this House, amid the cheers of his former opponents, to place himself in a position of an apologetical character to those who were once of his own party? I have no doubt that the right honorable gentleman has arrived at a conscientious conclusion on this great subject. The right honorable gentleman says that it is not so much by force of argument as by the cogency of observation that he has arrived at this conclusion. But, sir, surely the observation which the right honorable gentleman has made might have been made when he filled a post scarcely less considerable than that which he now occupies, and enjoyed power scarcely less ample than that which he now wields in this House. I want to know how it is that the right honorable gentleman, who certainly enjoys the full maturity of manhood, should not have arrived at this opinion, which I deplore, although conscientious, at the moment when his present government was formed! What, sir, are we to think of the eminent statesman who, having served under four sovereigns; unable to complain of want of experience or royal confidence; who, having been called on to steer the ship on so many occasions, and under such perilous circumstances, has only during the last three years found it necessary entirely to change his convictions on that important topic which must have presented itself for more than a quarter of a century to his consideration?