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    ginal pieces , puffing away the smoke of cannon , the fumes of brandy , and the intellectual co-operation of a thousand dexterous myrmidons , so as to see how much of the success of the whole thing depended on the sheer brain of the dogged brute who sat alone during the massacre , receiving reports through the half-open door , and stirring the fire with the poker which the mob , had it burst in , would have put to another use P True , in both cases , the success was his ; and this , at least , we

    are bound therefore to say , that , whatever was his own share in determining the conditions , he and the conditions suited each other . The suitability of the man for the conditions of the case , this is what , from the evidence afforded , we are certainly constrained to assert . But what if part of this very suitability consisted , not in intellectual ability , but actually and positively in the reverse—stupidity P

    The social potency of intense stupidity , we repeat , is a thing yet to be investigated . Take a simple case . Have our readers any personal acquaintance with a very stupid man ? We do not mean a silly butterfly kind of imbecile , a creature with small brain of any sort ; but a downright , solid , heavy blockhead , a man with a large quantity of extremely bad brain . If they have , they must know by experience that stupidity is a real power . Just as a very disagreeable man sometimes makes such an impression in society as to become more

    considerable , more largely an object of thought , than persons equally clever and better-conditioned ; so a very stupid man is often a more important personage in the circle of those who know him than a man of mediocre talent . You cannot help thinking about a very stupid man ; his presence is a dull kind of galvanism ; and when he is out of sight , your recollections go breaking against the perpetual image of him , like waves against a rock . Next to the headboys in a class , their schoolfellows retain the most vivid recollection of the dunces : and the

    next most powerful thing to a very able man in society is a man surpassingly stupid . But make the case a little more complex . Suppose a case not of ordinary stupidity , or Btupidity affecting you passively , but of stupidity with a craze or fanaticism , stupidity with an element of friskiness in it , aggressive stupidity , stupidity that butts at you , and bothers you , and deranges you and others in your daily procedure . Suppose , for example , that the most stupid man of your acquaintance were to take it into his confused head , that he was to be the founder of a new religion , and were to go every

    day to Smithfield to preach his botch of a creed . He would , of courso , bo laughed at ; he would become a nuisance ; he would be taken over and over again to the police-oifice ; but if , when he got out , lie regularly went back to his post among the butchers , he would in the end gain adherents , well-to-do-people would drop in among his disciples , and logic itself , in the shape of some dear-headed individual , would come to his rescue . This is the history of Mormonism in America . Joe Smith , so far as we can gather , was a really stupid man ; his doctrines , at any rate , which forn ^ the speculative ; basis of Mormon ism , are , even if we set fraud aside , about as

    stupid a jumble of downright nonsense as the world ever saw ; and yet round this centre of mere intellectual idiotcy have clustered not only elements of social success , but even elements of social respectability , pith , and virtue . Now , positively , the likest thing that wo know of in recent times to the success of . loo Smith

    the Mormon prophet , is the sueeess of Louis Napoleon , the newest . Kinperor of I *' ranee . Both , no far as we see ground i ' or an opinion , are to bo set flown as essentially stupid men ; and in both the power of innate stupidity is to l > o regarded an qualified by fanatieisin . Nay , of the two , Louis Napoleon ! ian had the easier part to perform . Joo Smith made his own fanatieism , and

    diffused it through society from its iirnt . speck onwards ; Louis . Napoleon ' h fanaticism is a fanatieisin of tradition , a fanaticism related to a mnouldering sentiment deep and van ! in the mind of Europe . The most stupid of all the Napoleonida ! , this nephew , or reputed nephew of the JOmperor , seems to have inherited in . a greater degree than any other of them , that sense ; and theory of bin own relation to the rest of the world , which a career like that of ( lm older Nhpoleon was fitted to infuse into the veins of his descendants . That be was to perform u great part ; that ho walked over the world with a label

    on his breast—a citizen of no country properly , but with a hereditary claim on France ; that he was exempt from all law and rule , save that of force , to obtain what he wanted—these are feelings with which Louis Napoleon was born . 1 ms Napoleonian fanaticism is visible throughout his whole career . And consider to what a feeling in the heart of Prance this fanaticism of . Napoleon ' s nephew corresponded and kept time . Put the two things adequately together—the Napoleonian fanaticism of the man , and the Napoleonian enthusiasm of the nation , and it will

    not seem necessary to allow much intellect as required for any step in the career of Louis Napoleon . It is no disparagement , we should suppose , to the talent of the present Duke of Wellington , to say that he is not nearly so able a man as his father . Yet , - were this son . of the Duke inspired with the fanatical conviction that he was to be a great general , and were he to go about and make known , this fanaticism , and scheme and labour in its behalf , who can predict the extent of the

    commotion he might make in . English aristocratic circles , or the oddity of the social combinations to which his inveterate " Wellingtonianism might in the end lead ? And after all , this , imaginary as it is , is but a faint shadow of the reality in the case of Louis Napoleon . He did not fight his way by intellect and endeavour to his position in France ; he was caught at his first fall on the lap of five millions of votes ; and he lies there still . " What end he serves by lying there is quite a different question from that which we have been discussing .

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    HINTS TO NEW M . P . 'S . THE MANCHESTEE BANQUET . G-entlemen , —A few supplementary hints may serve to point usefully the anticipatory moral of the Manchester Banquet , which all of you of the Free-trade side have promised to attend next week . Manchester Amphitryons manage those occasions with great cleverness . They do everything well in that town ; and their political gastronomy has been cultivated to seductive perfection . There is nothing incongruous in , seeing a [ Radical a gourmet ; for did not " pieces de resistance" come in with the Heign of Terror ? A public dinner at Manchester is as superior to a public dinner in London as a Parisian restaurant to an Old Bailey boiled-beef house ; and though a feed of 2500 " Manchester men" does not present any idea of that quiet refinement which should characterize a symposium , you gentlemen who will be sitting at the champagne table—you lions , to see whom feed will be the object of that intellectual assembly—will experience none of the steamy horrors of the masticatory scuflle below the salt ; with you there will be no

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    " . lingering bottle , Leaving all claretless the unnioistened throttle , Which is objectionable with politics on hand ;" and at a Manchester dinner , suffering from the animal magnetism of 25 < X ) Manchester men , stern with patriotism and port , there is no knowing what the contemplated aryumcntiun ad gulam , on such an occasion , in favour of cheap bread , may effect , or to what cheers you may commit yourselves . Political debutants were wont to bo warned of the pledge given by their presence ; at

    Holland or Lansdowne J louse ; and a Lord ( jl uloseton , who once eatches bis prey at Iuh table , is supposed to own him for ever . And are you to imagine that si party at M anehester does not mean the Manchester party p Surely you know that you are going to a cabinet dinner , given by the president of the council , M r . ( jleorge Wilson ; and that Mr . Bright , sure of his aecuHtomed chorus , will speak for all of you P First boy of the first form of the " school , " what can you " fags" say in opposition to him P And is your ditto to Mr . Burke a matter of eonrso P Before- you set out for Lancashire—that great county , which deserves its pre-eminence , nince it in to . England what . England is to the world—it would bo well to inquire what , you are going to do ; and I doubt if there jh a . man among you who could answer with any distinctness . You are not going to make a demonstration in favour of Kree-trade , since , as ( hero is no danger to that ttyntem , it would be a , proceeding akin in valour to the dauntlessness of . / ion ; who , when heolearly ascertains that . (! ox never lights , pronouiieeH his immortal ' come on , then ! " You are not going intentionally to oil or your adhesion to tho "

    Manchester school , " since there is a Cobden as well as a Bright in that school , and since uncond itional " peace" is supposed in that atmosphere to be the inevitable corollary of " free commerce . " J ^ a you are not going to organize a " movement" frame a policy , since these things are not improvised even by suggestive Mr . Cobden , in unre - served Free-trade Hall . Then what is the object of this grand feast of British Radicalism P

    You cannot intimidate a Minister who neve r meant to face you ; and you cannot purpose to reassure a country which is in no degree alarmed . The object in Manchester is clear enough . There they want to anticipate the debate on the address , and you are needed to make a house , and to keep Speaker Wilson in countenance ; while Mr . Bright , for the amusement of Mr . Disraeli , sets up the imaginary paragraphs , and moves the supererogatory amendments .

    Xet it is clear that the new members , who are seeking baptism at Manchester as the radical preliminary to confirmation in Westmins ter , could make this banquet an Olympiad for the party to date from if they would avail themselves of the opportunity to ask their sponsors for an exposition of the creed supposed to be embraced . Manchester has never yet in Manchester been asked , " What do you mean P" and if there is any one among you gentlemen desirous , at the ri ght time , of making a great maiden speech in that ante-room of the Senate—the Free-trade

    Hall—I would advise you , after Mr . Bright has delivered his impetuous formula of things to be done , to rise and put that very proper question of the day—" How , Sir , do you propose to work out this programme in the House of Commons P " Of that , be assured , Mr . Bright does not think it incumbent on him to have the least idea , and the ripest scholar of the accomplished school would fail to perceive the absurdity of having a great political banquet the day before Parliament meets , while not one measure has been taken by the guests for converting the well-arranged

    pressure from without into a Parliamentary organization . Manchester proposes ; and Westminster disposes . Manchester goes to Parliament as a curious spectator — en philosophe ; and never conceives that it is part of Parliament . JN " ay , Mr . Bright will think it , in a week or two , an excellent joke to sneer at the compact organization of the Ministerial phalanx , and will he excessively humorous on their clever management at the elections . As if , whatever the y ilTany of the system , it were not insufferably insane to neglect to make the most of that system .

    Attend the banquet by all means , gentlemen : but attend it with a thorough comprehension of what this Manchester party amounts to , and what this new demonstration can tend to . There will be one hundred or more M . P . ' s seated at the upper table ; and that will be an imposing sight ; for that will be tho " people ' s party" of England , and Scotlandand Ireland : and at a political

    , dinner , hope comes in with the bad walnuts . What may not one hundred members do PA new M . P . would answer " everything : " Mr . Hume would say " much . " And seeing that the people need a party , would it not bo a great idea if some rash and fresh M . P . were , in virtue ot ins greenness , to break through the irregular routine of truorilhi rnAicnVwrn and sucirest the expediency

    of an enrolment , P Many Manchester banquets and Manchester conferences have been held m that Free-trade Hall since 1847 : numberless great speeches have been made , and magnificent resolutions have been passed ; but what JiftH ln f the resultP A regular Parliamentary party ior specific aims has never yet been organized ; and n oonsequenoo , Manchester orators have been unadornedly eloquent , altogether in tho abstrac t The estimates of 'U 5 , Peace , Household hullrnLO , the Ballot , Abolition of the Irish State W" \ Ti ™' Abolition of the Knowledge Ta xes—where lum these questions been after the gas had becu » ir " off , and the unadorned ones had bookea JOuston-squareP The celebrated echo of the iv would answer with her usual emp hasis .

    The Manchester party in Parliament « a always been a melancholy Hpeofaclo of ]«<>» . and Ineflieicney . Jfs motions , tho results o » ^ vidual , uneonsulting impulse , and its < liv ^ good and bad , matters of accident . 1 " « ' , f ehester programme includes ix chovaux-iKi-S _ j " points of eqmdly warranted chmt <) i'H , ¦ Manchester preHentH itself to every M unsU't ^ fche bullying demand— everything or » ol ' lllll fc ; of that programme arc at least a certain numu

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    1040 THE L E ADj ^ R . ESatprday ,

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 30, 1852, page 1040, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1958/page/12/