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DISRAELI AND BOLINGBROKE . A PROSPECTIVE REVIEW . Although history may not , as a despairing philosophy has sometimes dreamed , repeat itself , although no two characters are alike really , yet certain broad and coarse resemblances may be traced between epochs , as between men . Thus the English and [ French revolutions , the characters of Charles and Louis , Cromwell and Napoleon , have been laid out in parallel lines , but neither the events nor the characters have any resemblance except that the revolutions were resolutions ; that the kings were kings who died on tho scaffold ; tho usurpers great and successful soldiers . Thus , also , there is a similar shadowy likeness between Louis XIV . and the Czar Nicholas ; between tho wars of William and Mahlborou g ii , and tho present contest . Both monarchs were aggressive ; both found thomselves face to face with Europe , or nearly so ; both were served by astute Ministers ; both were opposed by a
Disraeli And Bolingbroke
confederacy , in which England played a conspicuous part . But there the shadowy analogy ends ; so far , nothing is fancy , but i fact ; we neither can nor desire to carry it farther . The Marlbobougui of the modern grand alliance has not yet appeared on the scene ; and if he had , it is not our function to predict his victories . * A kind of parallel more fanciful , more capricious , more serious , yet infinitely trivial , claims our notice . In the war of the Succession , Mablborough won all the victories , and brought the Grand Monarque more than once upon his knees , but Hable y and Boi . ingbroke made the peace . And what peace , good reader , was it , but the peace of Utrecht ?—the ox > probriuni of English history . We have remarked that our Maelborouoii has not yet stepped forth from the ranks ; but our Bolingbroke is already in silent evolution ; is already . learning his part ; already anxiously rehearsing in private life the preliminaries of a peace of Utrecht for the nineteenth century . Yes ; there is among the pretenders to British statesmanship and national leadership one who takes Bolingbroke for his model—one who sets up Henry St . John oh a pedestal , and worships at its base . ^ The mim most anxious to wield the war with Russia , so far as England is concerned , the man most anxious to have an active finger in the making of the peace with Russia , Mr . Benjamin Disraeli , is fain to believe himself the Bolingbroke of the nineteenth century ; m short , the latest edition of Henry St . John , bound in the Toryism of the Desert . Mr . Disraeli has attempted to portray a great variety of heroes . He has painted Alroy ; he has lyrically sketched Contjinni Fleming ; he has idealised Baron Rothschild and Lord John Manners ; he lias rhapsodised Lord George Eentinck . The " Young Duke" was not beneath him ; nor , as ho thought , was Sir Robert Peel above him . But these were the " fancies of a wasted youth ; " these were the capricious preludes of the grander strain that his manhood would elaborate . True , it was not his to write the " Revolutionary Epic " after all ; it was not his to be tho prophet of Young England ; it was not his to be the improvised squire of all the- squires—the head and front of the bovine policy . Far higher destinies were reserved for the Ar " ab who made his way into the councils of tho Anglo-Saxon ; Fato had given him a commission to write , not a new decalogue from some Welsh Sinai—but another novel , of which tho hero should be BOLINGBROKE . We confess we were alarmed when avc heard it . And with reason . For does not Disraeli propose to become one of our rulers , and to have a hand in concluding peace with Russia ? What statesman is t . lio idol of his heart—Chatham ? No ; but the author of the peace of Utrecht ; tho man who helped most to break up tho European confederacy against Louis XIV . by basely abandoning our allies ; the man who bartered hi \ s country ' s honour for a mesa of pottage . If you wero to pick out two men who made tho name of England tho synonym of treachery on tho Continent in tho eighteenth century , they would be Bolinobroke and Bute . Yet the former is tho idol of Mr . Disiiakm . For our part , at this timo of day , we are not inclined to discuss the merits and demerits of tho treaty . It was tho manner in wlm-h tho English Ministers mndo tho treaty that showed tho characters of the Ministers themselves . " Whatever judgment wo may l > o ( Unp ' oscd to form , " says Mr . Hnllum , " » a to tho political luvosuity of leaving Spain and America in the nonunion of Fhllip , It is impossible to justify tho course ol
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examinations , third class men very good ones ; and any one who visits the schools may obr serve that three of the examiners are looking over papers while the fourth examines— -a clear proof that the result is not to tell for much in their common judgment . It is to ijh&pass examination , where the object simply is to ascertain whether the candidate knows anything about a certain book , that the real usefulness of the system is confined . There , in cool and experienced hands , it may serve good ends both of justice and of mercy , by probing cunning plausibility and helping out knowledge which has been imperfectly expressed on paper . For some " pass" men are sly enough to cloak their ignorance on paper in a mist of words , while others , from being totally out of the habit of writing , are almost destitute of the power of literary expression . We need scarcely say that candidates for the civil appointments ought to be able to express themselves on paper , and ought to get no marks for any knowledge which is not intelligibly expressed . The apprehension that if the examinations are not conducted publicly the examiners will be earwigged and corrupted , is perfectly preposterous , if the examiners are men of any character and position . And even if such a danger really existed , viva , voce examination would not obviate it ; since , in the first place , it would be easy to cog the questions without the slightest risk of discovery ; and , in the second place , as the result must be made up of two elements , the " paper work" and the " vivd voce" thejs % il £ Vjnt public could never be sure whetherlihe element which they had seen was or was not altered by that which they had not seen . The attempt to use so imperfect and fallacious a test of an examiner ' s fairness would only lead to groundless jealousies and unjust imputations . The better way would be , giving the questions on paper as at present , to keep the papers , and lay them open to inspection in case of any appeal against the results of the examination . But the best way of all is to appoint trustworthy men as examiners , and then to trust them . It will not do to be poisoning everything with suspicion . Mr . Blackett ' s letter to the Times upon the subject reminded us a little of a certain Athenian who , in a highly excited state of public feeling , discovered a plot for burning the arsenal by sending in a water-gnat with a lamp wick . But an " Oxford Examiner , " answering Mr . Blackett in the same journal , throws doubt upon the whole system of examination for public appointments . According to him , it is not the men who acquit them selves creditably in examinations that are fit for appointments in India or elsewhere , but the non-reading men—the pride of the cricketfield , the leader of the college steeplechase , the priceless treasure of the college boat . Success in examinations appears , according to this witness , to be more a test of self-sufficiency than of anything else . This is rather alarming evidence . But if it is true , the first consequence is that the " Oxford Examiner , " and the whole By stem of which he is a part ' , are an expensive and pestilent imposture , and ought to be abolished with all speed . Nothing has been more discreditable to the Oxford Dons in all the controversies in which they have been recently involved , than the hatred they have shown for the claims of intellect , even as tested by their own examinations . They seem to forget that they are thereby repudiating their duty , which is to recognise intellect , and train it for the service of the State . Their selfexposure becomes offensive . We wonder what sort of advice the "Oxford Examiner " gives his pupils , and whether he bids them aim at success in the university
examinations , or success in the college steeplechase , as the proper object of their expensive residence at Oxford ? Muscular strength is not to be confounded with practical vigour . . The priceless treasure of the college boat is often a mere human bullock ; the pride of the cricket-field a beer-barrel with strong arms and a--quick eye ; the winner of the college steeplechase a bullet-headed individual of the jockey species , with as little intellect as nature can put into a man . Sent to India , or any other place of intellectual employment , they would sink iuto abject indolence and brutal selfindulgence . If your young civil servant has a strong body as well as a strong head , . all the better : he may stick pigs in India , though he will find rowing and cricketing rather at a discount in the tropics . But the strong head is the essential thing ; and this , and all generous ambition , as well as conscientious industry , are to be found , in nineteen cases out of twenty , among the reading men . To give a list of great statesmen , Indian or others , who have not been athletes , would be superfluous till we are furnished with a list of those who have . A clear-headed and ambitious boy , though he may not have a literary turn , will be sure to acquire the literary knowledge which is required for an appointment , and which is thereby made a practical object to him . Great men are cited who knew very little , and , therefore , would have failed in examinations . They knew very little , because nothing was required of them . The Duke of Wellington , perhaps , did not know the first book of Euclid ; but will anybody tell us that if the first book of Euclid had stood in the Duke of "Wellington's way at the entrance of his profession , he would not have surmounted it ? Of course we do not deny that , there are such things as mere bookworms who succeed in examinations but are destitute of practical power , thanks , in great measure , to our neglect of physical education . But surely there is common sense enough even in the heads of parents to prevent a purblind Dominie Sampson from frequently becoming a candidate for political employment . Even if we get two or three occasionally , special work may be found for them . The government at Calcutta probably has employment for a few pundits . A mere animal , on the other hand , is good for nothing . And , therefore , it is not on that account that we would give up the test of examination . We will give it up only when we find one more perfect in itself , and equally free from the influence of nepotism and corruption .
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««* THE LEAME . . [ No . 284 ., Satubbay ,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 1, 1855, page 838, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2104/page/10/
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