encourage eloquence and statesmanship in others. They could bestow seats in Parliament without the costs of an election they could endow their able but needy clients with offices, sinecures, and pensions; and could use their talents and ambition in all the arduous affairs of state. Politics became a dazzling profession, a straight road to fame and fortune. It was the day-dream of the first scholars of Oxford and Cambridge, Eton, Harrow, and Westminster. Men of genius and eloquence aspired to the most eminent positions in the government: men of administrative capacity, and useful talents for business, were gratified with lucrative but less conspicuous places in the various public departments. Such men were trained, from their youth upwards, to parliamentary and official aptitude; and were powerful agents in the consolidation of parties. Free from the intrusion of constit uents, and the distractions and perils of contested elections, they devoted all their talents and energies to the service of their country, and the interests of their party. Lord Chatham, the brilliant "cornet of horse," owed the beginning of his great career to the mythical borough of Old Sarum. Mr. Burke was indebted to Lord Rockingham for a field worthy of his genius. William Pitt entered Parliament as the client of Sir James Lowther, and member for the insignificant borough of Appleby. His rival, Mr. Fox, found a path for his ambition, when little more than nineteen years of age, through the facile suffrages of Midhurst. Mr. Canning owed his introduction to public life to Mr. Pitt and the select constituency of Newport. These and other examples were adduced, again and again,—not only before but even since the Reform Act, in illustration of the virtues of rotten boroughs. Few men would now be found to contend that such boroughs ought to have been spared; but it must be admitted that the attraction of so much talent to the public service went far to redeem the vices of the old system of 1 He was nineteen years and four months old, and spoke before he was of age. Lord J. Russell's Mem. of Fox, i. 51. - parliamentary government. Genius asserted its mastery; and the oligarchy of great families was constrained to share its power with the distinguished men whom its patronage had first brought forward. An aristocratic rule was graced and popularized by the talents of statesmen sprung from the people. Nay, such men were generally permitted to take the foremost places. The territorial nobles rarely aspired to the chief direction of affairs. The Marquess of Rockingham was by his character and principles, as well as by his eminent position, the acknowledged leader of the Whig party,1 and twice accepted the office of premier; but the Dukes of Grafton and Portland, who filled the same office, were merely nominal ministers. The Earl of Shelburne was another head of a great house, who became first minister. With these exceptions, no chief of a great territorial family presided over the councils of the state, from the fall of the Duke of Newcastle in 1762, till the ministry of the Earl of Derby in 1852. Even in their own privileged chamber, eminent lawyers and other new men generally took the lead in debate, and constituted the intellectual strength of their order. How far How different would have been the greatness and glory of English history, if the nobles had failed to associate with themselves these brilliant auxiliaries! favorable to Their union was a conspicuous homage to freedom. The public liberties were also advanced by the conflicts of great minds and the liberal sympathies of genius. freedom. 1 Rockingham Mem., ii. 245; Lord J. Russell's Life of Fox, i. 319. 2 Earl Grey was the acknowledged leader of the Whigs, irrespectively of his rank. 3 On the 29th March, 1859, Mr. Gladstone, in an eloquent speech upon Lord Derby's Reform Bill, asked, "Is it not, under Providence, to be attributed to a succession of distinguished statesmen, introduced at an early age into this House, and, once made known in this House, securing to themselves the general favor of their countrymen, that we enjoy our present extension of popular liberty, and, above all, the durable form which that liberty has assumed?" "-Hans. Deb., 3d Ser., cliii. 1059. An able reviewer has lately said that "historians will recognize the But it must not be forgotten that the system which they embellished was itself opposed to freedom; and that the foremost men of the dominant party, during the reigns of the two last Georges, exercised all their talents in maintaining principles, which have since been condemned as incompatible with the rights and liberties of the people. Nor can it be doubted that without their aid, the effete aristocracy, whose cause they espoused and whose ranks they recruited, would have been unable to hold out so long against the expanding intelligence and advancing spirit of the times. Effects of suppression of rotten bor parties. The prizes of public life were gradually diminished: pensions and sinecures were abolished: offices reduced in number and emolument; and at length, the oughs upon greater part of the nomination boroughs were swept away. These privileged portals of the House of Commons were now closed against the younger son, the aspiring scholar, and the ambitious leader of a university debating club. These candidates were now supplanted by men of riper age, by men versed in other business and disinclined to learn a new vocation, by men who had already acquired fame or fortune elsewhere, by men to whom Parliament was neither a school nor a profession, but a public trust. Such men looked to their constituents and to public opinion, rather than to the leaders of parties, of whose favors they were generally independent. In parties composed of such materials as these, the same discipline and share which a privileged and endowed profession of politics had in the growth of English freedom and greatness, between the accession of the Hanoverian dynasty and the Reform Bill."- Edinb. Rev., April 1861, p. 368. 1 It is by no means true that the general standard of instruction and accomplishment was superior under the system of nomination. Wraxall says, "Mr. Pitt, who well knew how large a part of his audience, especially among the country gentlemen, were little conversant in the writings of the Augustan age, or familiar with Horace, always displayed great caution in borrowing from those classic sources.".... "Barré usually condescended, whenever he quoted Latin, to translate for the benefit of the county members."-Hist. Mem., iii. 318. unity of purpose could not be maintained. Leaders sought to secure the adherence of their followers, by a policy which they and their constituents alike approved. They no longer led regular armies; but commanded bodies of volunteers. This change was felt less by the Conservatives than by the Liberal party. Their followers sat for few of the large towns. They mainly represented counties and boroughs connected with the landed interest: they were homogeneous in character, and comprised less diversities of social position. and pretensions. Their confederation, in short, resembled that of the old régime. These circumstances greatly aided their cause. They gained strength by repose and inaction: while their opponents were forced to bid high for the support of their disunited bands, by constant activity, and by frequent concessions to the demands of the extreme members of their party. A moral cause has further favored the interests of the Conservatives. Conservatism is the normal state of Conservamost minds after fifty years of age, resulting not tism of age. so much from experience and philosophy, as from the natural temperament of age. The results of a life have then been attained. The rich and prosperous man thinks it a very good world that we live in, and fears lest any change should spoil it. The man who has struggled on with less success, begins to weary of further efforts. Having done his best to very little purpose, he calmly leaves the world to take care of itself. And to men of this conservative age belongs the great bulk of the property of the country. under the old and new sys Whatever the difficulties of directing parties so constituted, the new political conditions have, at least, con- Statesmen tributed to improved government, and to a more vigilant regard to the public interests. It has been tems. observed, however, that the leading statesmen who have administered affairs since the Reform Act, had been trained under the old organization; and that as yet the representatives of the new system have not given tokens of future emi nence. Yet there has been no lack of young men in the House of Commons. The Reform Act left abundant opportunities to the territorial interest for promoting rising talent; and if they have not been turned to good account, the men, and not the Constitution, have been at fault. Who is to blame, if young men have shown less of ambition and earnest purpose, than the youth of another generation if those qualified by position and talents for public life, prefer ease and enjoyment to the labors and sacrifices which a career of usefulness exacts? Let us hope that the resources of an enlightened society will yet call forth the dormant energies of rising orators and statesmen. Never has there been a fairer field for genius, ambition, and patriotism. Nor is Parliament the only school for statesmanship. Formerly, it reclaimed young men from the race-course, the prize-ring, and the cockpit. Beyond its walls there was little political knowledge and capacity. But a more general intellectual cultivation, greater freedom and amplitude of discussion, the expansion of society, and the wider organization of a great community, have since trained thousands of minds in political knowledge and administrative ability; and already men, whose talents have been cultivated and accomplishments acquired in other schools, have sprung at once to eminence in debate and administration. But should the public service be found to suffer from the want of ministers already trained in political life, leaders of parties and independent constituencies will learn to bring forward competent men to serve their country. Nor are such men wanting among classes independent in fortune, and needing neither the patronage of the great, nor any prize but that of a noble ambition. Patronage an It has been noticed elsewhere, that while the number of places held by members of Parliament was being instrument of continually reduced, the general patronage of the government had been extended by augmented es party. 1 Sir John Walsh's Pamphlet on the Reform Bill, 1860. |