WELCOME, SWEET MAY! WELCOME, Sweet May! whose hand has strewn again, O'er bower and plain, Odours and hues, a balmy store, Which breathing lie on Nature's breast; That we, of heaven can ask for her no more. May! who now puttest forth the hawthorn's hue, The harebell, lily cup, and rose ; Wild thyme and eglantine art spreading; To thee the birds now warble through the grove The grateful tribute of their little lays; And shall this gladsome heart from thee withhold, The happy contribution of its praise ? As I from boyhood loved thy beauteous smile, Whose low mellifluous music charmed the while. For I remember how we used to meet, And cowslips sweet I've plucked for thee; daisies and purpling heath, And thy sweet namesake from the flowering thorn, Charged with the balmy fragrance of thy breath. Those days are gone-yet (rail they as they will) As I have loved thee, spite of all they say- SOME CHAPTERS OF THE LIFE OF AN OLD POLITICIAN. CHAPTER I. IMPARTIALITY is what I may term my vanity. I have through life prided myself upon maintaining it: no matter who was concerned, what I really felt, I was in the habit of expressing. If I thought my friends wrong, I said so, and opposed them; if I deemed all parties in error, I was equally sincere, and acted upon my opinion. The result may easily be foreseen,-being of no use as a party man, I was universally decried. The regular politicians called me impracticable, and set me aside in all their calculations. The House listened to me sometimes for amusement, which in various ways I afforded them,— sometimes even for instruction, which, upon difficult occasions, they not seldom fancied I could afford; but still, my advice was never taken. How many times have I heard men exclaim around me, "Upon my soul, I believe the old fellow right, but it is impossible to do what he proposes." Why it was impossible, was what I never could discover. Difficult, disagreeable, not flattering to ministerial or statesmen's vanity,-these attributes I could see belonged often to the course I pointed out; but impossible, never. Still the result was the same; I appeared a beacon, set up to light a path in order that it might be avoided. This quality, however, which thus destroyed all hopes of power or influence, peculiarly fits me to be the gossipping historian of the scenes through which I have passed. I have no party-few personal predilections; I can blame without pain, praise without any feeling of jealousy. I may often be in error; but no one will, I think, have reason to charge me with intending to deceive. In For obvious reasons, much of what is to follow will consist of historical pictures, not actual portraits. Of men whose names have become matter of history, I shall speak openly and without reserve. other instances, I shall describe general characters, give accounts of classes, and not individuals; and thus attain my end of producing a picture of the times without betraying any confidence or wounding any personal vanity. Of myself and my own history, more than a very slight sketch is not needed by way of preliminary. After a life of strange vicissitudes, after sojourning during my youth in many lands, I resolved, and carried out my determination, to establish myself at home, and became an active politician. To this end, I acquired the status of a barrister -added the mere technical lore, which is called a knowledge of English law, to the heap of somewhat undigested information and learning already crammed into my head-ate my terms-spent many months in the chambers of a pleader-took chambers in the Temple-went sessions and circuit-and became acquainted with that vast variety of men and manners which a lawyer's way of life brings before him. Before I rush into politics, let me say a few words of the profession to which I belong, but for which, nevertheless, I have not that regard which success inspires-which a peculiar, profound, though narrow knowledge is but too apt to create. My mind certainly has not been cramped by exclusive attention to legal learning-my regard has not been won by golden acquisitions. In this case, as in most others, I believe I can speak impartially. My besetting vanity here, even, is manifest! It is the fashion, more especially among the political class, to speak of lawyers as narrow-minded, in the words of Mr. Pitt, as "unequal to the grasp of empire." When I run over in my memory the men whom I have seen enacting statesmen-when I gauge their mental capacity, and compare it with that of the class which is thus stigmatized as narrow-minded, I confess myself puzzled and amazed. Nevertheless, the saying, that there is usually some truth at the foundation of all generally-received opinions, holds good in the particular instance. The injustice of the opinion lies in its special and exclusive application. Lawyers are no more unfit for the business of government than any other class. Unfortunately for themselves, their unfitness becomes more apparent to the public, because they are brought more directly and prominently before the public gaze; and being by habit able to talk, they more rapidly than other classes make manifest their ignorance. In our present state of society, success in every station is attended with violent competition. To gain a mere livelihood, whether as a carpenter or a lawyer, requires undivided attention. The physician, who is not to be found at every time of the day and night-the lawyer who is not, with untiring regularity, at chambers and in court-the merchant whose whole soul and time are not devoted to his business and his counting-house-the tradesman whose life is not spent in his shop-will not succeed. There must be no dallying with this, the main business of life. This direful industry does not, indeed, always succeed; but without it, failure is certain. The necessary result of this great necessity is to confine a man's thoughts to a fixed and certain routine. He often within his sphere, under the powerful stimulus of modern competition, acquires an almost supernatural ability; but beyond that sphere he has seldom the wish, still more seldom the capacity, to advance. Any country girl could walk Taglioni or Elsler to death in a day; yet these artistes have, by constant labour, acquired a power almost superhuman: they are unrivaled dancers, but can hardly walk a mile. The labour of a lawyer is, besides, wholly intellectual, and any other mode of intellectual exertion hardly proves a relaxation. With the merchant, the tradesman, artizan, or politician, this is not the case. Much of their labour is routine, and literature may supply them with pleasureable occupation, which serves to unbend their thoughts, and is, in fact, a relief. The mind of a lawyer is, therefore, more completely confined to one mode of action, to one species of knowledge, than that of the other classes of society. This tendency is, however, counteracted, more especially among the men of the common-law bar, by the variety of human transactions with which they are compelled to be conversant-the many classes with whom they come in contact. They are, for the most part, shrewd and active-minded, amusing generally as companions, because of their dexterity in unraveling evidence and detecting the working of human motives in particular cases; but, from the very nature of their employment, unfitted to discover and appreciate the probable effects upon a community of new combinations of circumstances, whether brought about by chance or the direct will of the legislature. To learn from many combined decisions, and from the conflicting, vague, and varying language of Parliamentary law, what the law actually is,-to ascertain whether, in a given case, that law has been violated by one party or the other-this, which is the ordinary business of a lawyer, is a very different thing from prophesying what will be the effect on the well-being of a community from a change in their law or in their general policy. The one office is that of the lawyer; the other, that of the statesman. With a few brilliant exceptions, English lawyers have not shone as statesmen. To those unacquainted with the House of Commons, this failure on the part of lawyers appears wholly unaccountable. The life of a lawyer is passed in speaking. All his success depends, it is supposed, upon his power of winning juries and judges to his view of a subject. He must be ready of resource, endowed with much learning, have facility, at least, of speech; and in instances of great success, he is usually endowed with great eloquence: nevertheless, possessed though he may be of all these, and many other advantages, the most successful advocates have almost invariably been without influence in the House of Commons. Mr. Pitt's sarcastic observation, as above quoted, was made when speaking of the greatest and most successful advocate that ever graced the English bar of Lord Erskine. He, though the most eloquent and effective of advocates, never shone with anything beyond a secondary lustre in Parliament, whether in the House of Commons, or afterwards in the Peers. Any one who has addressed a court and jury, and passed a session in the House of Commons, has felt why this is so; though, perhaps, he may not be quite able to explain the phenomenon. Lawyers usually have passed middle age before they succeed in forcing their way into Parliament. Prudence suggests to the ambi tious barrister that his first great care and duty is to place himself beyond the reach of want. Independence he must attain before he attempts to win political renown. But independence can only be won by years of steady labour, and by great success. By the time that a man is rich enough to venture into politics he has grown grey in the harness of a lawyer; he has become too old to acquire new habits, and cannot unlearn his old ones. He enters the House, perhaps attended by a great legal renown. Much is expected of him; and, on a sudden, the actual moment has arrived in which he is to justify a high-wrought expectation. The probability is, that many a time and oft, while yet the addition of M.P. was but a dim vision of the future, he has indulged in many contemptuous flings at the Honourable House, its mode of proceedings, its doings, and its heroes. He has often vindicated his own superiority in ideal debate; grappled in fancy with the great leaders of party, and shewn a patient and admiring audience how to conduct an argument. The vision of his youth and his ambition has become partly a reality. The occasion for which he has long sighed has at length been granted, and he for the first time in his life sees the finger of the Speaker pointed at himself, and his own name loudly and gravely pronounced by that imposing personage. He looks around :— How different the spectacle which meets his gaze from that to which he has been hitherto accustomed! In place of the calm, grave, and studied attention of the court, its enforced, yet generally bland courtesy,-instead of the obedient, and usually stolid yet respectful jury, he sees before, around, about him, wheresoever he turns his eyes, an expectant, eager, and, in a large section of the assembly, an hostile audience. Quiet and attention are there, because to a stranger prescriptive courtesy always affords both precedence and a willing hearing; but no judicial dignity subdues the real hostility,―no notion of inferiority enforces respectful attention. He feels that he is about to address the most powerful body of men which the world ever beheld assembled. Of these, he knows his friends to be anxious, from the fear of failure, and the hope of his success. His political opponents he perceives upon the watch, with keen looks surveying him. Over their countenances he can detect the passage of a polished yet bitter sneer, as if in the enjoyment of anticipated triumph; and the very cheers by which he is, as a new member, greeted from all parts of the house, create in him a sense rather of inferiority than of ease. The cheers are hearty, intended well; but they are plainly patronising. Away flies all his fancied superiority; fear enters his soul; a mist is over his eyes, and his parched mouth almost refuses to utter the words of customary deprecation with which a new member usually commences. His friends become more anxious; his opponents more full of hope. The cheers on all sides grow louder, and his courage more perceptibly falters. So soon as he begins what is really his speech perfect silence succeeds; and in that strange assembly which he is now addressing he finds a critical acumen far above that possessed by any individual of those composing it. By a species of divination they arrive at a judgment concerning the new speaker. In five minutes have I often beheld new men, coming with a promising reputation, consigned for ever to a hopeless and miserable mediocrity. Received with perfect attention and courtesy for the first minutes, he sees his friends become alarmed, and casting down their eyes, while the patronising pity of his opponents becomes more apparent. The leaders evince, what they make every body perceive to be, a forced attention ; while friends and foes at length equally seek a relief in talking each to his neighbour. For the moment they are evidently talking of the unfortunate member on his legs. This theme is quickly forgotten, and the noise becomes greater; when the Speaker, as if of malice aforethought, but really from pity, cries, "Order! order!" Perhaps an angry, injudicious friend cries "Order !” also, and thus embroils the fray. The hubbub continues, increases. Friends creep, foes stalk away. In parliamentary phrase, the new member" has broken down." From this first decision, which is almost always a just one, there is often an appeal; when by care, real ability, and reiterated efforts, success is attained. But the man who is great elsewhere, the successful advocate, is just the person not to make this effort. His wounded vanity, consoled by forensic success, shrinks from a second attempt. If he speak at all, it is simply on professional subjects, without pretension, and therefore with sufficient effect. Into the great arena of party strife he does not again descend; its dazzling glory he never attempts to gain. He may attain the woolsack without having acquired a states man's renown. I had for some years been admitted to the bar, and was gradually being drawn within the current of its influence, and began to waver in my first and long-cherished resolution to become a politician. The society of my legal brethren was to me in the highest degree agreeable; the honours of my profession appeared within my reach; its emoluments I hoped also to win, and began highly to prize. At this critical |