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MX? IP, 1655.] THE IEADEB. 471
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fllf THIS DEPARTMENT, AS ALL OPINIONS, I...
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There is no learned man but will confess...
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" THE LEADER" ON MR. SILK BUCKINGHAM'S A...
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[As a matter of course we forwarded Mr. ...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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" The Stranger" In Parliament. [Tho Resp...
about himself ; being effective only when giving ex- * pression to his cherished' disbelief in Lord Ellenborough and exquisite derision- of . Lord Derby . Why will not the public estimate this Lord Derby by the opinion which his class entertain of him ? On Tuesday Lord Grey spoke , with a horror that was humorous , of a Lord Derby governing England and the same chivalric nobleman had to endure the further indignity of Lord Clanricarde—who looks in no ways concerned that the moral leading journals of a moral country have been condemning him of late—testifying that a Tory Government , under a Derby , Ellenborough , and Disraeli , would be too ridiculous . Lord Clanricarde , who knows the
outrages that are the privileges of his class , can stand a good deal ; but he can ' t stand that . Lord Clanricarde can rise in his place without fear of being coughed down by the Bishops , and cannot have a very elevated idea of his country . Yet blase' as he may be as to religion , morality , patriotism , and so on , Lord Clanricarde is too good an Englishman not to be timid of England getting into the hands of a jockey like Lord Derby . Lord Palmerston is thus kept in his placebecause he is better than the only possible alternative . For there is no sign yet that the " Administrative Reform Movement" is moving , and too much
reason to believe that if Mr . Lindsay got into place he would unintentionally drive the fiercest Radical among us into a reactionary love of lords . Lord Palmerston will obtain a fresh look of safety from the divisions next week on Lord Grey's and Mr . Gibson ' s too sensible motions ; and , as to Mr . Xayard , Mr . Layard , with all his vigour , has not the courage to face the fact that the way in which the old Commons governed the Government was bystopping the supplies . Mr . Layard , in a minority in Parliament , does not venture to obey the majority out of doors—dare not provoke the revolution—has too much taste to risk martyrdom . Mr . Layard , therefore , will come to nothing next Thursday .
Not that Lord Palmerston , all this time , is not doing his best to become weak again . He gave the country a taste of old Whiggery on Wednesday on church-rates , and the same evening talked , at the Mansion House , as polite a set of platitudes as you could expect from the oldest old Lord . And Lord John is helping him : Lord John is making the Colonial-office as detestable as ever Lord Grey made it . He is bungling with his Australian bills in a fashion to make Lord Charles weep and Melbourne rebel ; and though Mr . Lowe and Mr . Duffy , speaking in the name of the colony , are warning him of the consequences , he toddles on with his renowned complacency right into the mess : his
absurd sub , Mr . John Ball , squiring him with a frightened obsequiousness and ignorant hazardousness which beautifully illustrate the colonial systemthese two old women admirably representing the Messrs . Mothercountry . Lord John probably thinks that Australian pressure froni without will be a long time reaching him , who wants only the royal assent to be thoroughly " passed " in any future political arrangement ; and meanwhile he is not going to be intimidated by a couple of Radical journalists . It contents him to be proposed at a Mansion House feed as
representative of the House of Commons : —the fact he does not care about : —and he is now so far gone in indifference to public opinion and decency , that ho is not oppressed by the flattery ( the Duke of . Argyle gave the toast ) of a colleague who is one of our rulers and cabinet councillors merely because his mother-in-law is a Lady of the Bedchamber . The governing classes seem to keep in that young Duke by way of a frightful example , to be pointed out on the proper occasion , of the consequences of conceding to the clamour against old Lords I
Lord Panniurc ' s scheme for the consolidation of tlie war departments amounts to this—a new office is created . Of course . When these departments were " consolidated" last session , a new office with 5000 / . per annum salary was created ; and if there is a good pressure from without the governing classes will be very gltid to go on consolidating for the next half century . Lord John Russell , Sir G . C . Lewis , and Sir James Graham , wore holding a quiet council in a quiet corner las ! night : they get together that way every
night : ¦— so wo may soon expect to hoar that Lord John has again obleegod Lady John by upsetting the Cabinet . Why does not Lord Fulmcrston invent another mission for his noblu friend and his noble friend ' s family of thirty-two ? A man with a family of thirty-two must bo the lean man to any CiKsnr . Whenever on Elliott got an appointment , Charles Duller used to sny , " Dear me , that ' s very hard on the Greys : " and the Greys and Cownors , and Lambs nro now doing so well that the ICIliotts are getting disgusted .
Who killed Cock Robin was a question of the day l » 8 t night , as an Irish member said ; and was debated with solemnity . Who killed Captain Christie ? Being sixty , and looking ninety , it is a possibility
that Captain Christie was killed—somewhat like Byron ' s Irish Gentleman . " Who died of love ( through drink ) last year "less by Mr . Layard , and less by Sir James Graham , than by his age . But it was a good opportunity , in the attempt to bring in a verdict of Captaincide , to worry Mr . Layard $ and but'that Mr . Bright and Mr . Roebuck threw themselves before him , there would have been over again the Mazeppa-ish howling scene of that day fortnight . Mr . Layard escaped with little hurt . But he again produced an
unfavourable impression ; and why ? Because in the House of Commons a member must be a gentleman ; and a gentleman never loses his temper . Whenever any one attacks Mr . Layard , he behaves in sueh a way that one feels sure it would be a relief to him if the Speaker would allow him to swear . He says the House " shan't" bully him . What he may be more certain of is , that he will never be able to bully the House . It is an assembly which the Constitution makes a club ; and in all clubs manners make the member .
Mr . Disraeli is occupied , it is said , in suggesting to the young aristocracy that in this national crisis the land must go in and win , and beat down both Plutocracy and Bureaucracy —which is doubtless the hideous coalition against us people . The result of his counsels is being seen ; for the last four or five weeks young squires and lordlings have been getting up and saving the nation by speeches which are inaudible to the gallery . This is a great mistake : they will ruin their order if they condescend to compete with the more talented classes . There was a Scotch Education Bill on last night ; all the Scotch members who cannot speak English have a variety of amendments to improve this measure . There was a handsome young
member " up" for nearly an hour : with his eyes on the floor ; his hands clutching his coat-tails ; a sentence coming out every now and then—minute-guns signalling distress . It was a fine , clever head : what you could make of the matter suggested strong sense , and the struggle to say it showed honest earnestness . Who was this ? A man of a splendid name , of historic lineage , and broad lands — Sir Archibald Campbell . How shocking that this sort of man should be ruining his comfort by descending to an effort to rival the vulgar adventurers — the Disraelis , Gladstones , Brights , and Lowes , and Layards—who only labour to be talkers , because faculty of talk brings them alongside the Sir Archibald Campbells ! - Saturday Morning . " A Stranger . "
Mx? Ip, 1655.] The Ieadeb. 471
MX ? IP , 1655 . ] THE IEADEB . 471
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Fllf This Department, As All Opinions, I...
fllf THIS DEPARTMENT , AS ALL OPINIONS , IIOTVT 5 VEK EXTREME , ARB ALLOWED AN EXPRESSION , THE EDITOR NECUSSAItlLY HOLDS U 1 MSKI . F RESPONSIBLE FOIt NONE . }
There Is No Learned Man But Will Confess...
There is no learned man but will confess he hath much profited by reading controversies , his senses awakened , and his judgment sharpened . If , then , it be profitable for him to read , ¦ why should it not , at least , betoitraolefor his adversary to write . —Milton .
" The Leader" On Mr. Silk Buckingham's A...
" THE LEADER" ON MR . SILK BUCKINGHAM'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY . ( To the Editor of the Leader . ~ ) Sir , —I have been almost a constant reader and admirer of the Leader , ever since its first establishment , as advocating , illustrating , and enforcing the political and social reforms , to the promotion of which forty of the best years of my life have been devoted ; and for which , as the world well knows , I have been deprived of a handsome fortune , and punished most severely , without trial or conviction , for daring to advocate the very doctrines which it is the avowed purpose of the Leader to sustain . If , therefore , from any paper in England I might have expected at least courteous treatment , it was from it . A protracted and painful illness of many months ' duration , and which unhappily still continues , prevented my seeing even my accustomed papers regularly ; and the one containing your notice of my Autobiography was purposely withheld from me , lest the offensive and contemptuous terms applied to myself and my writings should aggravate my illnoss . Accident , however , has since thrown that number iu my way , and I am less painfully affected by it than my friends apprehended , because I believe its violence and extravagance will have defeated its avowed purpose , and excite , with tho majority of your readers , moro pity for tho writer of the notice than contempt for myself .
There is indeed , but ono excuso for him , and that is , the ignorance which ho confesses to bo in respecting my history and antecedents ; an lie avows that he knows nothing of me beyond tho general fact t 1 \ at 1 had travelled extensively—had established a sort of club for foreigners , and got into a controversy with Punch . I prosumo from these avowals that the writer of tho notice is a very young man—¦ and still younger as a roviower . Liko most
unqualified beginners , he evidently thought hie " slashing article , " would crush - the literary reputation of his victim for ever ; and that the supposed wit of tj'ing a- wet towel round his head to prepare for some prodigious mental effort , as well as his facetious description of the engraved portrait , would establish his fame as a rising " Jeffrey or Macaulay at least . But age and experience will no- doubt subdue this exuberance—and bring him to a more modest estimate of his own powers . To give him some of the information in which he admits himself to be deficient , I enclose a few papers , which I will thank you to forward to him for quiet and careful perusal ; and I will only add , that when
he shall have devoted his best energies for half the number of years that I have done to the advocacy of political and social reform , and shall have evinced the sincerity of his convictions by sacrificing fortune to maintain principles , and defying all the allurements and threats of power and authority , rather than succumb , to either—my conviction is that he will look back upon the splenetic and contemptuous article in which he has spoken of my writings and character , with a feeling of sorrow , if not of shame , at having so treated an old , faithful , and successful fellow-labourer in the cause of human improvement , having at least an equal claim to the courtesy of a gentleman with himself . I am , Sir , your obedient servant , J . S . Buckingham . Stanhope Lodge , St . John ' s Wood .
[As A Matter Of Course We Forwarded Mr. ...
[ As a matter of course we forwarded Mr . Buckingham ' s remonstrance to the reviewer of the Autobiography . That gentleman has sent us , in return , the subjoined answer : —J
( To the Editor of the Leader . " ) Sir , —Mr . Buckingham ' s letter has just reached me . I find that I have nothing whatever to do with the first paragraph in it—I mean the paragraph in which your correspondent is good enough to say that the Leader is the exponent of his own particular views . It is quite clear that I am not the exponent of Mr . Buckingham ' s views on the subject of Mr . Buckingham ' s Autobiography . The second paragraph states that Mr . Buckingham has been , and continues to be , ill—that my review of
his book was for a time mercifully withheld from him—and that after at length reading it by accident he finds himself none the worse : being sustained by a charitable conviction that nobody will despise him , and that everybody will pity me . I don't object to be pitied ; and I am glad to hear that I have not done Mr . Buckingham any bodily harm . I am inclined to imagine that he is rather toughly constituted ; and that if disrespectful articles could have hurt him , he would have been in a very dilapidated condition indeed , long before my notice of his Autobiography was written . ham
In the third paragraph , Mr . Bucking presumes that I am a very young man ( I am old enough to appreciate that presumption as a compliment ); criticises me as " an unqualified beginner" ( what should I have been if I had praised the Autobiography ?); sniffs at me as emulous of the fame of Jeffrey or Macaulay ( why not ? Why despise the lowly youth who writes these lines for being ambitious of fame ?); and accuses me of designing to crush the literary reputation of my victim for ever . This charge I repel as entirely unfounded . What does Mr . Buckingham ' s literary reputation matter tome ? I don ' t want to crush it : I only disbelieve that he has it . The papers which he has sent for the humane purpose of enlightening my
ignorance on this point have not converted me . I have looked over them , and have found them to bear a strong resemblance to tho papers in which patent medicines are wrapped up . Tho sort of document by which Professor Holloway tries to persuade me that he is a great doctor , ia also the sort of document by which Professor—I beg pardon , I mean Mr . —Buckingham tries to persuade me that lie is an eminent author . But I am not to bo taken in in that way . Young as I am , I was not absolutely born yesterday . I am an unqualified beginner , but 1 think I know a puff when I see it ; and I fancy that I am just capable of distinguishing the diOerenco between u man who scrambles his way to temporary notoriety and a man who wins a literary reputation
The last paragrap h insinuates that I have not treated Mr . Buckingham like a gentleman . He did not come before n . o in that capacity . He presented himself to me as the writer of a vain rambling , foolish book , the dullness of which was relieved hero and there ( as I took good care to mention m my notice ) by one or two pleasant records of traveiling LJiViion ^ When I meet Mr . Buckingham wearing motley in public , 1 laugh at him without ceremony . If I sliouM ever see him in his private costume , ho muy ' rost assured that I shall knowjiow to treat him with " the courtesy of a gentleman . " 1 am . sir , your faithful servant , Tins Youth who Ruvibwed Mr . Buckingham ' s Aoxojiioquai'hy .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), May 19, 1855, page 15, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_19051855/page/15/
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