DISCOMFITURE still attended the English in America, and though fresh troops with fresh leaders were sent off to wipe out the disgrace, they only got wiped out themselves in a most unceremonious manner. On the continent of Europe, too, poor Britannia was at a sad discount; for Austria, Saxony, Sweden and Russia had all thrown themselves into the arms of France, for the purpose of counteracting the influence of the arms of England. It was only in Indian ink that the creditable part of our country's annals belonging to this period should be written, for in India alone were any of our achievements entitled to some of those epithets we are so fond of bestowing on our own actions. The British Lion had, in fact, retired from the Continent to the Himalaya mountains, where he remained on the majestic prowl as the protector of British interests.
There was a natural jealousy between England and France on the subject of their relative influence in that country, whose native princes were honoured by the protection of both, and who were always mulcted of a slice of their dominions by way of costs, for the expense incurred in the alleged support of their interests. If the aggressor of one of the Indian rulers happened to succeed, he took at once what he had been fighting for; while if a defender of some unhappy rajah or nabob was victorious, the native prince was made to pay all the same for the protection afforded him.
By this sort of assistance rendered to the Indians, the English and French had succeeded in helping themselves to a good share of territory, and while the former had already obtained possession of Calcutta and Madras, the latter had got at Pondicherry, a very respectable establishment under Monsieur Duplex, whose duplicity was, of course, remarkable. By espousing the causes of a set of quarrelsome nabobs, Soubahdars, and other small fry, who had taken advantage of the death of Nizam-ul-Mulk to raise a contest for the throne of the Deccan, the English and the French had found plenty of excuses for quarreling, and we are compelled to confess that in this part of the world the Gallic cock had good reason for crowing over the British bull-dog.
Things might have continued in this unsatisfactory condition, had not Captain Clive, a civilian in the Company's service, exchanged a pen for a sword—a piece of barter that turned out extremely fortunate for English interests. With a small body of troops he took the Citadel of Arcot, nabbed the nabob, and prevented Duplex from setting up a creature of his own—a disagreeable Indian creature—in that capacity. After this achievement, Clive had gone home for his health, and was drinking every morning a quantity of Clive's tea, when in 1755 he accepted a colonelcy, and returned to the scene of his former glories. Here he was rendered very angry by a pirate of the name of Angria, whom however he quickly subdued; and he had heard from Madras that a mad-rascal named Suraja Dowlar was in the neighbourhood of Calcutta, and was threatening to settle the settlement. This news came like a thunder-clap on Clive, who determined on giving Dowlar such a dose as he would not easily forget; and he commenced by conveying secretly to one of his officers, Meer Jaffier—a mere nobody—an offer of the throne. The scheme completely succeeded, and Meer Jaffier became the tool, or rather the spade, for giving a dig at poor Dowlar, who fell to the ground very speedily.
Matters had now happily taken a favourable turn, and in America Wolfe distinguished himself, but unfortunately extinguished himself also at the siege of Quebec; for he died at the moment of victory.
Things were mending very perceptibly in all directions, and English honour, which had been for some time at an unusual discount, was once more looking up, when the king, who had been speculating on the rise, was suddenly deprived of all chance of sharing in its advantages. He had made his usual hearty breakfast of chocolate, new-laid eggs, devilled kidneys, tea-cake, red herrings, and milk from the cow, when, as he was preparing to take a walk in Kensington Gardens, he suddenly expired, on the 25th of October, 1760. George the Second was in his seventy-seventh year, and the thirty-fourth of his reign, during the whole of which he had been a Hanoverian at heart, and he had nothing English about him, except the money. His manners were rather impatient and overbearing, for he had not a courteous style of speaking; and it was said at the time, that "no one could accuse him of being mealy-mouthed; for though he was not civil spoken, he was temperate in his living, and thus the term mealy-mouthed could in no sense be applied to him."
In forming an estimate of the characters of the sovereigns who have come before us for review, we have found ourselves fortunate in possessing an independent judgment of our own; for if we had been guided by precedent, we should have been puzzled to know what to think of the different kings and queens, all of whom have had witnesses on both sides, to censure and to praise with a want of unanimity that is really wonderful. George the Second has furnished a subject for this division of opinion, and his eulogist has complimented him rather oddly on his old age, a compliment that might as well be paid to an old hat, an ancient pun, a venerable bead, or any other article that has arrived at a condition of antiquity. The reasons given by his panegyrist for praising him are few and insignificant on the whole, though his severer critic founds his strictures on a tolerably substantial basis. We learn from this authority that George the Second was ignorant, stingy, stupid, ill-tempered, and obstinate. His predilection for Hanover has, we think, been unjustly censured; for there is nothing very discreditable, after all, in a love for one's own birth-place, though it may be what is termed a beggarly hole in the strong language of detraction. The native of Lambeth has been known to pine with a sort of mal du pays after the cherished sheds and shambles of the New Cut, and we have heard the plaintive accents of "Home, sweet Home," issuing from the lips of the exiled sons and daughters of Houndsditch. If George the Second was still faithful in his love for Hanover, in spite of the superior attractions of England, we may question his taste, but we must admire his constancy; which presents an honourable contrast to young Love's notorious desertion of the coal and potato shed, when Poverty, in the shape of a man in possession, stepped over the doorway.
WE feel that the length of the above heading to this, the concluding chapter of the volume, will be sufficient to provoke the legal reader into making a charge for "perusing title and examining same," but we promise to make our clauses as pertinent as the magnet to the loadstone. Having already, in the course of preceding chapters, touched upon most of the subjects noticed in the abstract of title to which we allude, it will be unnecessary to hold the reader very long by the button; but perceiving him getting ready to run away, as the curtain falls upon George the Second, we cannot help exclaiming, "Stop a minute or two, we've got just half a dozen more words to say to you!"
The constitution is the first topic on which we have still to touch, and that is a theme which every true patriot loves to dwell upon. We have no hesitation in saying that our beloved country must have the constitution of a horse, to have gone through one-half the severe trials it has experienced. It is apparently peculiar to the soil; for, though the prescription for making it up has been given to other nations, and has been accurately prepared by some of the ablest political druggists, it has never been swallowed abroad, or, if rammed down the throats of rulers or people, it does not seem to have agreed very well with either one or the other. The British constitution is a thing sui generis, like the delicious bun of Chelsea, the acknowledged brick of Bath, and the recognised toffy of Everton. It is vain for other nations to hope that they may have their own materials made up into the pattern they so much admire; for the attempt would be quite as abortive, and almost as unwise, as the effort to make a genuine Romford stove away from Romford, Epsom salts half a mile out of Epsom, Windsor Soap beyond the walls of Windsor, and the genuine Brighton rock anywhere in the world but in the very heart of Brighton. The British constitution must be like home-brewed beer, and even more than that, it must be enjoyed where it is brewed; or, in other words—to draw off one more figure from the cask—it must be "drunk on the premises." The most eloquent of foreign nations cannot come and fetch it, as it were, in their own jugs, however they may foam and froth about it in their own mugs when they carry it in their mouths by making it the subject of their speeches.
The durability of the British constitution, its fitness for wear and tear, has been exemplified in the wonderful manner in which it has survived the rubs that from the hands of party it has experienced. This reflection naturally brings into our mind the terms Whig and Tory, into which politicians were divided, until modern statesmanship introduced us to a new class of principles, that may be called, concisely and comprehensively, the Conservative-Whig-Radical.
The words Whig and Tory came into use, and into abuse also, about the year 1679, and their own origin has been traced with wonderful ingenuity, for the derivation has nothing to do with the derivative, according to these ingenious speculations; and if we may trust Roger North—a little too far north for us, by-the-bye—Tory is allied to Tantivy, without the smallest apparent reason for the relationship. It would, perhaps, save a great deal of trouble to keep a register of philological next-of-kin; and we are sure that if something a little nearer than Tantivy could come forward to claim affinity with Tory, the noun, verb, or any other part of speech it might chance to be, would "hear of something to its advantage." The word Whig seems to be utterly without orthographical heirs-at-law, for no attempt has been made to get at its pedigree.
National Industry advanced materially during the period we have just described, and among other things, the glass, which had been hitherto imported chiefly from France, began to be seen through by the English manufacturer.
Literature and the Arts flourished in the reigns we have lately gone through; and Architecture took very high ground, or indeed any ground it could get, for the execution of its projects.
Periodical Literature rose in great brilliancy at about the time we have described, and the union of such writers as Steele, Addison, and Swift, in one little paper, must have formed a combination that should have been kept back until the days of advertising vans and gigantic posting-bills, enabling the parties interested to make the most of the "concentration of talent," which might have been the cry of every dead wall in the metropolis.
The manners and customs of the period were not particularly attractive, being, under the two Georges at least, far more German than Germane to our English notions of refinement. In dress, there was somewhat of an approach to the costume of our own days; and the scarcity of hair on the head began to be supplied by that friend of man, the horse, from whom the Barrister had since prayed a tales to furnish the wig, which is considered essential to his forensic dignity.
The military costume of the time of George the Second is chiefly remarkable for the hats worn by the soldiers, which were something in appearance between the fool's cap and the bishop's mitre, as we find from one of Hogarth's drawings.
The condition of the people was not very enviable in the seventeenth or even the eighteenth centuries; and indeed all classes were very ill-conditioned; for morality was lax, education was limited, poverty was abundant, extravagance was very common, and wealth extremely insolent.
Such being the state of the people and the country at this period, we cannot be sorry to get out of their company, though it is not without some regret that we bid farewell for a time to our History. In the course of this work we have rowed in the same galley with Cæsar, stood up to our ankles in sea-water with Canute, run after the Mussulman's daughter with Gilbert à Beckett, wielded a battle-axe with Richard on the field of Bosworth, smoked a pipe and eaten a potato with Sir Walter Raleigh, danced with Sir Christopher Hatton on Clerkenwell Green, and sailed round the bay that bears his name with honest Bill Baffin: all these adventures have we enjoyed in imagination, that beau ideal of a railway, with nothing to pay and no fear of accidents.
We have at length arrived at a station, where we stop for the purpose of refreshment; but we hope to resume our journey, and proceed in the ordinary train, touching by the way at all stations, high and low, to the terminus we have set our eye upon.