On this page

• Text (1)

  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.

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • 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.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    6 th February . —Mr . Shiel and Lord Althorp . —The House of Commons have availed themselves of this affair to pay largely that peculiar tribute to virtue , which vice , according to the old proverb , loves to render . They have made a truly edifying exhibition of rigid morality . Mr . Shiel ' s fate is a great moral lesson ; he has * been made a signal example of the

    inconveniences of being found out . If Mr . Shiel be guilty of what is laid to his charge , a high-minded man might look down upon him ; but how , in reason , is it possible that the present House of Commons should do so ? ] So one does or can despise in another person his own vices : and contemptible as a man ' s conduct may

    be in itself , we can never without the since rest pity see one man singled out from a multitude , and mercilessly immolated for * being proved to have done what all the others are known to do ; made the scapegoat of those whose only advantage over him is that of Lady Bellaston in the novel , that nobody calls them what every body knows they are .

    Who , that knows any thing of the sentiments and conversation of public men , is not aware , that there is hardly one of them who has the slightest scruple in doing what is imputed to Mr . Shiel , —voting and speaking contrary to his private opinion , for the sake of retaining his seat ? There were many present that evening , who could have pointed at the instant to at least

    two hundred members , and said to each of them , ' On such a day you did so . ' It is a thing so perfectly understood , that allowances are made for it as for any other necessite de position : men talk of it to each other as they would of the most innocent or laudable act of their lives . There is indeed a tacit understanding that these thiners are not to be mentioned in the hearing- of the

    reporters : hut when such conduct is spoken of m private to their own circles , the only thing which could excite surprise or offence would be , to pretend to be shocked at it ; that would be resented , iis an attempt to impose upon themselves , to overreach the fraternity . But the public are fair game . If all who hear and are disgusted at such conversation were as

    indiscreet as Mr . Hill , how many a curious tale would bo revealed ! In the last Session it was reported to us , on undoubted authority , that an English county member , of far greater weight iu the country and in Parliament than Mr . Shiel , after having voted on an important division decidedly on the wrong side , ( which for once happened to be against the Ministry , ) said to an

    acquaintance , * That vote was the dirtiest I ever gave ; but my constituents in * * * compelled me to it . ' We do not believe that this member thought he had done wrong ; it was something i > i his favour , that he was evidently conscious of having done what he would willingly have avoided . We would on no account do the injustice to another which has been done to Mr . Shiel ; and we should not give publicity to this anecdote , if we were not

    Untitled Article

    Mr . Shiel and Lord Althorp . 165

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1834, page 165, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2631/page/5/