The London omnibuses, though much abused, are vastly superior to similar vehicles in other Continental capitals; but still greater, as compared to the Continental “Post,” or “Schnellwagen,” is the superiority of those public vehicles which run in longer or shorter stages across the country. It is a pity these stage-coaches are being driven off the road by the superior speed of the railways. They are going out rapidly. And yet, how glorious it was to ride on the top of one of them! Their decline destroys all the poesy of travelling amidst the leafy hedge-rows on the splendid English roads, which are more similar to our park-roads than to our “Landstrassen.” What a wholesome, social, adventurous pleasure it was, to sit on the outside of a stage-coach with about twelve travelling companions, male and female, and drawn by four splendid horses, to skim, as it were, over the smiling garden-like country. No Englishman, of the olden time, was too rich or too aristocratic for this mode of travelling; and the occasional driving of such a stage, and the playing the part of coachman to the public at large, was among the “noble passions” of the sporting aristocrats of the time. Since then, the steam-engine has conquered the length and breadth of the country, and he who would enjoy stage-coach travelling, must go in quest of it to the outlying parts of England; for instance, to the Isle of Wight, where the old coach may still be seen in all its glory. Long may it be so, until, in that island, too, it is compelled to yield to the improvements of the age!
We have already, in another place, given an account of the Thames steamers. But in treating of the chief methods of locomotion in London, we ought not to forget the railroads. They are among the peculiarities and sights of London, for no other town in the world is so large that the communications between its various parts are carried on by means of rails and locomotive engines. Here, where the majority of the termini are, if not in the centre, according to Mr. Pearson’s salutary project, at least within the town, the railways which communicate with the interior of the country, and the various seaports, have several stations in the interior of the town, and passengers are conveyed from one town station to another. There are, moreover, railways especially intended for London and the suburbs: among these, are the lines to Greenwich and Blackwall, which communicate with that extraordinary railroad which, forming an enormous semicircle, facilitates the communication between the eastern and the whole of the northern parts of London.
This peripheric line is essentially a London railway; it does not, on any one point, travel beyond the boundaries of that monster town. It is laid out between garden-walls and backyards, between roofs and chimneys; it is bridged over canals and crowded streets, or laid on viaducts for many miles through the poorer quarters, almost touching the houses, and passing hard by the windows of the upper stories. In other places, according to the peculiarities of the ground, the line is carried on through tunnels under the houses, cellars, sewers, and aqueducts. It is a miraculous railway, and one which has been constructed at an enormous outlay of ingenuity and money; but it enables the Londoners to go to the northern suburbs for sixpence, in a first-class carriage too, and in less than twenty minutes. There is no cessation in the traffic of this line; the trains are moving from early morn till late at night; every quarter of an hour a train is despatched from either terminus, and these trains stop at all the intermediate stations.
The journeys being so short, and time, speed, and cheapness the chief objects in view, the railway company have paid little attention to the comfort of the passengers. And here I ought to add, that with the exception of greater speed, which, after all, is the main object, all the English railways are inferior to those of the Continent. In London, and in short journeys, the want of comfortable carriages and convenient waiting-rooms is not a very painful infliction; but woe to the wretch whom fate condemns to go from London to Edinburgh in a second-class carriage at the express speed of fifty miles per hour! It is true it takes him but twelve hours to go that enormous distance; but in those twelve hours he will have ample time and occasion to ponder on the vast difference of second-class accommodation in England and in Germany!
WHITEHALL, PAST AND PRESENT.—DOWNING STREET.—PARIS AND LONDON.—ENGLISH AND FRENCH STATESMEN.—THE DIFFERENCE.—THE ADMIRERS OF FRANCE.—ENGLISH RESPECT FOR THE ARISTOCRACY.
FOUR large streets lead from Trafalgar Square to the East, West, North, and South. This square (village and garden-ground in the days of Edward the Confessor) is, in our own days, one of the central points of London life. Trafalgar Square, which drank the blood and witnessed the agonies of Hugh Peters, Scrope, Jones, Harrison, and many others, who were killed in expiation of the execution of Charles I.—where many hundreds were decapitated, stigmatised, and mutilated, to satisfy the vengeance of the Stuarts and their adherents—forms, in 1852, the peaceable, ever-moving, central point, where the roads from the West meet the roads from the East. Down there, where the equestrian statue of Charles I. stands, the street leads to Whitehall, Westminster, the Houses of Parliament, and the Thames. We will walk in that direction; it leads us to places that are among the grandest and most interesting of which London, or any other city on the face of the earth, can boast.
We are here—as Leigh Hunt says—within the atmosphere of English royalty. Each step in this part of the town awakens the strangest recollections, and reminds one of Wolsey, the gifted, the proud, the terrible—of Henry, the coarse and cruel—Elizabeth, the cunning and quarrelsome—James, the pedant and the clown—Charles, the misguided and melancholic—Cromwell, the harsh and unbending—the contemptible, dissolute second Charles—and the doubly contemptible, dissolute Stuart, who succeeded him, and whose Government robbed Whitehall of its glories. The very air is full of reminiscences of the Tudors and the Stuarts—of their splendour and feasting—of their intrigues and vulgarities—of their despotic rule and bloody punishments; and as we walk through the streets, we cannot divest ourselves of the thought, what a strange and quaint sight it would be, if those princes, and their ministers and courtiers, could, for an hour, return to the sunny light of day! What gravity and merriness, madness and thoughtlessness, guilt, misery, and ingratitude! Visible and invisible, singly and grouped, here are the monuments of the history of English royalty, from the downfall of Wolsey to the downfall of James II. That epoch is grand, important, and instructive, and a fit study for the kings and nations of our own days.
Whitehall, such as it is in 1852, bears little resemblance to the Whitehall of 1652.
Wolsey lived in York Palace. He was most vain, fond of splendour, conceit, and tyranny; but for all that, he was the most remarkable man among the prelates of England. His palace was the richest booty which his downfall procured for his master, who at once settled down in it. Here he married Anna Boleyn; here he died; here did all the great men meet, who flattered that crowned tiger until he consigned them to the hands of the executioner, and impaled their heads on London Bridge. Among them were Cavendish, Thomas Cromwell, and Wolsey. Erasmus, also, and Hans Holbein, whose low degree alone saved them from sharing the fate of the king’s friends and wives. Among these were the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, the Earl of Surrey, Sir Thomas Wyatt the poet, Catharine of Arragon, Anna Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Catharine Howard, Anne of Cleves, and Catharine Parr, the least unfortunate among these unfortunate women; and the children that were to wear crowns—Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth—these were they that passed in and out of York Palace in the days of Henry VIII.
The spirits of the murdered have probably cast a gloomy shadow on those golden walls, for after Henry’s decease his successors avoided Whitehall, and Elizabeth was the first to establish her court there. A change comes over the figures of the past—Cecil and Burleigh, the two Bacons, Drake and Raleigh, Spenser and Shakespere, Sydney and Lee, Leicester and Essex, stand before us. And after them James I. and his darling “Steenie,” and Charles I., Cromwell, and—the executioner.
Charles I. was very active in the improvement of Whitehall. Inigo Jones, the great architect of those days, was employed on it, and Rubens painted the ornaments of the ceiling, for which he received £3000 and the honour of knighthood. It is mere calumny, to say that Cromwell, in puritanic brutality, destroyed the works of art which he found in Whitehall. On the contrary, he made great exertions to save them; we owe it to him that the famous cartoons by Raphael may this day be seen at Hampton Court. But, of course, the Great Protector put a stop to the dissolute and merry life which formerly ruled in the palace. There was no end of praying and preaching in Whitehall; the Barebones Parliament assembled here after the dissolution of the Long Parliament; it was here that Cromwell refused the crown; and here he died, while a dreadful thunderstorm convulsed the heavens. His friends said that nature sympathised with the great man, and his enemies would have it that it was the devil going off to hell with “Old Noll,” his brother.
Richard Cromwell, too, passed his short season of power at Whitehall. He was followed by Monk, who kept the place for Charles II. But the merry olden times were gone for ever; they returned not with the dissolute, gloomy-faced prince, although more money was wasted on the Duchess of Portsmouth—not to mention His Majesty’s other ladies—than ever had been spent on an English queen.
Evelyn, in his memoirs, thus describes one of the closing scenes of royal dissipation:—“I can never forget the inexpressible luxury and prophanenesse, gaming and all dissoluteness, and, as it were, total forgetfullnesse of God (it being Sunday evening), which this day se’nnight I was witnesse of, the king sitting and toying with his concubines—Portsmouth, Cleveland, and Mazarine, etc.; a French boy singing love songs, in that glorious gallery, whilst about twenty of the greate courtiers, and other dissolute persons, were at Basset round a large table; a bank of at least 2000 in gold before them, upon which two gentlemen, who were with me, made reflectious with astonishment. Six days after was all in the dust!”—Evelyn’s Memoirs, vol. i. p. 549.
James II. lived here for a few years, until the mass cost him a crown. His wife fled from the palace on the 6th December, 1688. The king followed eleven days later; and on the 14th February, 1689, the Prince of Orange entered the old palace. It was burnt in 1698.
Let not my readers quarrel with this review of the past. Certain localities are nothing without an occasional glance at the chronicles of olden times; but with those aids to imagination, the very stones become gifted with speech, and proclaim the joys and sorrows, the pageants and horrors which they witnessed in their days.
The remains of Whitehall, like the majority of the buildings which surround them, have been converted into Government offices. Scotland Yard is the central office of the London police, and on the other side of the road is the Admiralty. A little lower down there are two of those splendid Horse Guards, mounted on black chargers, doing duty at the offices of the Ministry of War, and guarding the spot where Elizabeth, in unchaste virginity, and at an advanced and wrinkled age, exacted the homage of her courtiers as Queen of Beauty. We turn the corner of the old Banquet-house and enter a blind alley—it is narrow and deserted. That is Downing Street the famous, where the Colonial and Foreign Offices guide the destinies of the greater part of the globe. It is a curious street, small and dingy, beyond the smallness and dinginess of similar streets at Leipzig, Frankfort, or Prague, and desolate, vacant, deserted—a fit laboratory for political alchemists. At its further end is a small mysterious door, the entrance to the Foreign Office, in the keeping of a red-coated grenadier, with, I doubt not, a couple of newspaper reporters hidden in his cartridge-box, and intent upon ascertaining the names of those that enter the office. But the notes, which the Foreign Office addresses to the Foreign Courts, do not find their way into the English newspapers—so that even the Times has to copy them from the German and French journals—and this is owing to the circumstance, that those who enter or leave the office keep the notes in their pockets; and that the reporters, though clever, cannot see through the morocco of portfolios and the wadding of coats. They manage these matters better in France: a French journalist takes up his quarters in the reticule of Somebody’s lady, or if that cannot be conveniently done, he places himself under the protection of the said lady’s maid. Such things are of rare occurrence in England, owing to the immoral prejudice of the islanders respecting the code of morals in matters of politics and matrimony.
What an amount of idolization have not the German authors of the last ten years wasted on Paris! How great their enthusiasm even now, in praise of the men and women of that capital. But if you ask, what the excellent qualities of Paris really and truly are, they will discourse, at great length, on the charms of the Boulevards, the gracefulness of the women, the deep blue of the Paris sky, and the merry, careless, exciting disposition of the Parisians generally. “Now all this is well and good,” say I to my Paris friend; “and if I understand you, you set down the Parisians as the A 1. of humanity, because their women are clever, and because those clever women have very small feet; because the Boulevards are capital places to lounge in; because Mabile is merrier than Vauxhall. But as for the blue colour of the sky, allow me, dearest friend, to remind you of Naples, Spain, Paris, and China, where, as they say, the skies are much bluer. All those circumstances make a town very agreeable; but I have yet to learn that they are a fair gauge of the moral worth of its inhabitants.” My Paris friend is silent; but after a good long pause, he comes forward with some very general phrases, saying, that there is an unutterable something which embellishes life in Paris, and that there you live in a world of ideas. There is a good deal of truth in this general admission. Life in Paris is charming, more charming than in London and other large towns; but its charms emanate, in many instances, from the darker sides of the Parisian character; and it is absurd to say that the people are entitled to our respect for no other reason, but because we lead a life of pleasure and gaiety in their city.
Why does London produce so much less agreeable an impression than Paris, not only on the passing stranger, but also on those who reside here a considerable length of time? We leave that question for another day. We are now in Downing Street; and, however gloomy the appearance of that street may be—perfidious and egotistical as the Downing Street policy may appear to the Continentals—which, by the bye, proves its popularity here—we can, at least, say in its favor, that it has, within the last twenty years, been less open to corruption by means of money and female politicians, than was the case on the other side of the Channel, in the country of “la gloire,” of blue skies and “unutterable somethings.” Of course the réunions are less interesting; there is not so wide a margin for intrigue; the ambition of roturiers is kept within the limits of decency; the fair sex, with all its followers and appendages, is confined to a narrow sphere of action; and these are the reasons why—- just as in other matters—English politics have a more sober, business-like, respectable, and tedious appearance than politics in France. It is really miraculous that, in a country which is governed by a Queen, and one who inherited the crown at an early age, there has never been made mention of court and other intrigues, which influenced the conduct of public affairs. Say it is merely by accident; say that such accident is partly owing to the coldness of the blood which runs in the veins of English women; or, if you please, think of the olden times, when the women of Whitehall made history in as shameless a manner as any women in the Tuilleries or Versailles. No matter! It has been reserved for the 19th century to create a Woman’s Court, which excludes all love-intrigues. Such a thing is impossible in France; and if possible, the French would not believe it, nor would they put up with it. A government without female interference, quarrels, and corruption! Monstrous, at least to the French, who, rather than live under such a government, would choose to live in an austere Catonian Republic.
The respect for public decency, which in England is sometimes carried to a ridiculous length, is, nevertheless, of great use for the morality of the Government. Corruption, indeed, is an important item in English electioneering tactics; money and drink are lavished on the voters; but this corruption, however shameless, is confined to the lower classes. Honourable members, who are very pathetic on the neglected education of the people, think very little of treating all the inhabitants of their borough to a preposterous quantity of drink, in order to ensure their re-election. But the corrupters themselves are not so corruptible as the men who for the last ten years—for it is not necessary to go back to an earlier date—held the reins of the government in France. The poor are now and then bought in England; more frequently they are intimidated; but in France—the very French confess it—all are venal, from the highest to the lowest. I am not an admirer of corruption in England; but I like it better than I do corruption in France. If rottenness there must be, it had better be partial and one-sided, than a general corruption of the body politic.
Certainly the small English boroughs, with their electioneering tactics and venality, are disgusting; but still there is some difference between the treating and bribing the peasants and small shop-keepers and that nauseous corruption of all classes of society which is so prevalent in France, more particularly since the reign of Louis Philippe. In England, the polling-days have from times immemorial been days of feasting, drinking, and fighting for the lower classes. The want of political cultivation, ignorance of the important questions at issue, the indifference, and, in many instances, the brutality of the lower classes, make it a matter of small moment to them, whether the barrel of beer from which they drink at an election is the gift of charity, or the devil’s retaining fee. No hustings without speechifying—no polling-place without swilling. The witnesses who have been examined by the Election Committees have generally confessed, that the candidate, according “to the old established custom,” behaved like a “gentleman”—that he treated the electors to ale and gin, shook hands with them, gave them money, and hired brass bands for their special gratification. A melancholy proof this of the neglected condition in politics and morals of the lower classes in England.
But far more saddening is the spectacle of corruption, which France has exhibited these many years past. It is not the rude and uncultivated mass which sins from ignorance of its own abandoned condition; corruption there extends its sway over the educated, the learned, the wealthy, the refined. It is the despotism of a cynism of venality, such as the world never saw since the days of the Roman emperors. The French aristocracy, the army, the bourgeoisie, the church, and the press, are all in the market. Eloquent morality solicits corruption with the most impudent eagerness, and drives the hardest bargains. In France corruption has become the fashion; it is the law, the essence of politics, and it has almost become a necessity for the attainment of even honest purposes. The poison pervades all the organs of the body politic; and ever since the commencement of the first revolution, the French nation has been convulsed, and caused convulsions among the neighbouring nations. But never at any one time—no, not among all her changes—was there a single period, however short, in which personal liberty obtained that respect which it commands in England. And although this fact is on record, and though it cannot be contradicted, yet there are German admirers of France (the majority of them know nothing of France except the boulevards of Paris), who believe that the French are the chosen people of liberty, the prophets of the nations, and martyrs for their political salvation. True, the history of France is instructive to those who take a warning from it. True the French are a chosen people; indeed, they are chosen to sound the trumpet of war into the ears of the nations. But there never was any fortress save one, which was conquered by the sounding of trumpets—Jericho, in the land and the age of miracles. Singleness of purpose, and honest perseverance, these alone can in our days ensure the victory of great principles. But the sons of France have always been strangers to those two qualities; and the glory which these can give, they have never coveted. They care not for substantial liberty, for it not only gives rights, but it imposes duties also. Freedom is a treasure which requires the most anxious care; he who neglects it, loses it. France obtained it three times, and thrice she lost it; and now the French say again—“Ça ne durera pas.” But, it is to be hoped, that the phrase will be flung back again, whenever they shall take it into their heads once more to sound the trumpet of alarm to the countries of Europe.
England, with all her political and social blemishes, has at least come to this, that any danger to the personal liberty of her citizens may almost be considered as an absurd impossibility, while the French are, as yet, so ignorant of the rudiments of national liberty, that they still wish for a strong government; that is to say, one which centralises all the resources, and absorbs all the powers of the State. The various parties are all agreed on this point; they differ only with respect to the person who is to preside over this “strong government.” The Legitamists vow that that person must be a Bourbon; the Bonapartists claim the right, as they have established the fact, in favour of a scion of the great Emperor; and the Republicans are eloquent in praise of an elective government; but every one of these partisans reserves to himself a large prospective share of the loaves and fishes, which, as all the world knows, are entirely at the disposal of a “strong government.” The ambition of free self-government, which characterises the English, is altogether unknown to the French. Hence they can die for liberty, but they cannot live for it.
In drawing a parallel between the darker sides of English and French politics, I ought not to forget mentioning one important point. In despite of her free press, the partial degradation of her masses, in despite of her civic self-government, England is the most aristocratic country in the world. Whatever modern reformers may strive for or assert, they cannot deny, nor can they root out, the traditional veneration of the middle and lower classes for everything and everybody connected with the nobility. An Englishman, even though he were a chartist, looks at a scion of the nobility with a very different eye, than at his neighbour, by the grace of God, citizen of London, or of Sheffield, or Manchester. A “lord’s” presence makes him respectful, even though the said “lord” had taken too much port wine, A “lady’s” toilette has a mysterious charm for English women, however bad that “lady’s” taste may be. On the continent, too, the aristocracy are looked up to and imitated and quoted, but not by any means to such an extent as in England. The continental nations want that ingenuousness of veneration, that amiable candour which frankly confesses that it “loves a lord.” Add to this that the adoration of a noble pedigree does not here, as on the continent, move in the sphere of trifles only, which after all, is, in a manner, excusable. For the wealthy aristocrat is a privileged person from his cradle; he is a landed proprietor, and he is not distracted with struggles for sustenance, favour, place, and fortune. Of course he has leisure to cultivate his taste and form his manners, and to imitate him in those respects would be a merit, even in a root and branch democrat. But the Englishman does not stop there. His desire to imitate the nobility, his craving for titles, make him what is commonly called “a snob.” He has greater respect for a cabinet of noblemen than for a cabinet of commoners; he cannot imagine a charitable institution unless it be under the presidency of the Duke of Dumman and the Earl of Tanitary; he judges the character of a Marquis very differently from that of any other man. It requires a very long residence in England and an intimate acquaintance with English society generally to understand and appreciate this weakness in all its bearings. But this weakness is the source of very remarkable monstrosities in the political and social life of England. Their most salient points and corners, indeed, have given way to the progressive tendencies of the age. That progress, though slow, is manifest, and its very slowness is a guarantee against the danger of a relapse.
THE ABBEY.—THE HALL.—AN M.P.’S LIFE.—THE NEW HOUSES.—THEIR STYLE, CORRIDORS, AND LIBRARIES.—THE SUFFERINGS OF THE PUBLIC.—THE SPEAKER.—SIR JOHN AND DR. KEIF IN THE GALLERY.—LADIES AND REPORTERS.—THE TABLE OF THE HOUSE.—THE SERGEANT-AT-ARMS.—PARLIAMENTARY ETIQUETTE.—THE TWO HOUSES.—DISRAELI.—PALMERSTON.—SIR JOHN PRAISETH THE LATTER.—COLONEL SIBTHORP.—LORD JOHN RUSSELL.—PUBLIC SPEAKING IN ENGLAND.
TWO streets running in parallel lines lead from Whitehall to Westminster and the Houses of Parliament. One of these streets is narrow, dark, and gloomy. In it lived Edmund Spenser and Oliver Cromwell, and through it passed Elizabeth, Charles, and the Protector, whenever their presence was required in either of the two houses. The street was large enough for the royal processions of those days, but it became inconveniently narrow when the traffic of the metropolis extended to this point, and they built Parliament-street, one of the most crowded thoroughfares of western London. After passing through Parliament-street you emerge into a wide irregular place, which may justly be called the most venerable, important, and sacred spot in England—where, on your left, on the bank of the Thames, the new Houses of Parliament tower in their splendour, while before you, amidst broad grave-stones and fresh green plots and delightful trees stands the old Abbey. To the right, you see a perfect wilderness of narrow streets with a large gap broken right through them; it leads to Pimlico, Belgravia, St. James’s Park, and Buckingham Palace.
Westminster Abbey is among the grandest and loftiest monuments of ancient architecture; it need fear no comparison, with the vast gothic fanes, finished and unfinished, that stand by the rivers of Germany.
That the structure is completed in all its parts, that while we contemplate it we know that the idea of the architect has been carried out in all its details, that we are not shocked by the ruin-like appearance of an unfinished aisle, or choir, or tower, is the more pleasing to us Germans, since in our own country we have come to believe incompleteness to be inseparable from the idea of a large gothic “Dom.” That the reverse is the case in England is creditable to the architects and the nation. Their parliaments have readily granted the sums which were required for the completion of the abbey; and the architect deserves much praise for having, in his original plan, kept within the limits of the probable and possible. With all the liberality of the British nation, who knows whether Westminster Abbey would not still be unfinished, if the architect, instead of tracing a couple of modest though respectable towers, had indulged his fancy in designing two gigantic structures, mountains of stone and fret-work, like those which hitherto exhausted the resources and foiled the perseverance of the people on the other side of the channel.
It is a characteristic trait in the English nation, that here, where so many public buildings are found, they have all been completed. Parishes, landlords, bishops, and the nation itself, limited their building projects in proportion to their resources. They calculated the expense, and consulted their pockets quite as much as the vanity of the architects, who, after all, are not to be trusted in these things; they make the plan, but they are never called on to pay for it.
Westminster Abbey, the venerable, has been much admired for many centuries past. Thousands have believed, that within its walls the worn-out frame finds sweeter rest after the fitful fever of their earthly career; and to this day there are many whose ambition can only be satisfied by a grave and a monument in Westminster Abbey. The nation has set it apart as the pantheon of their illustrious dead. Many blame them for it; others again doubt whether a fitter or more convenient place could be found or created in these latter days. It is hardly necessary to mediate between these two conflicting opinions. A nation that can offer its great minds a fitting sphere of action, will also find the proper mode and manner of burying its great men, honourable to them and the country which gave them birth. The Huns buried their heroes on the field of battle on which they fell; it is quite natural that the religious sense of the English should prompt them to honour their illustrious dead in the most beautiful church of their island-empire.
Sacred as the Abbey itself, are the domains which surround it. Parliament-street is indeed a crowded thoroughfare; the crowds meet and contend in the crossing which leads to Westminster Bridge; carriages rattle along from morning till late at night; above a million and a half of horses go that way annually into Lambeth; but the Abbey stands at a convenient distance from the public road, amidst green grass-plots, shady trees, and broad grave-stones, and near it you feel as calm and peaceful as in the shadow of a village-church. Narrow foot-paths lead to its walls; fat sheep crop the grass; and iron railings protect the sanctuary from the inroads of horses and carriages.
These railings and the wide open street leading to the south, to Vauxhall Bridge, intervene between the Abbey and the Houses of Parliament. When these are completed in this direction, then will the place which holds them, and the Abbey, and other public and private buildings, assume a different and more satisfactory aspect. At present, the workmen are still occupied with the colossal Victoria tower, whose portal is among the grandest monuments of Gothic architecture. At present the northern tower is still incomplete, raw, and ugly, and the whole space in that direction is boarded up, and covered with loose earth, bricks, and mortar. But when all is completed, then will dust, smoke, and fog lend their assistance, and the new buildings will soon be in keeping with the venerable colouring of the old Abbey.
In front of the new, there is an old stone building, with quaint narrow windows, low doors, and curious turrets. It contains some Government Offices, and Courts of Justice, and the famous Westminster Hall, which is said to be the largest of all covered spaces in the world unsupported by pillars.
Here we find the last remains of the walls of old Westminster Palace, such as it was in the days of King Rufus of traditional and fabulous Norman hospitality. The kings of England resided here for 480 years. The conflagration of 1834 destroyed the last traces of the splendour of olden times, and Westminster Hall alone remained to give us an idea of the grand style of Gothic palaces. But it is only an approximating idea, for with the exception of the northern portal and the window above it, all we now see is a creation of later days. More especially since the Hall has been brought into connexion with the new houses, its character has been changed. On the southern side there are at present broad steps, leading to a sort of balustrade, communicating with the corridors and outer halls of the houses. The quaint old window over the chief portal, with its Gothic ornaments and gigantic dimensions, forms a strong contrast with the new window opposite. And in the evening, when the old house is lighted up with gas, the illumination produces a striking mixture of ancient and modern colouring, which, however, far from impairing the effect of the whole, shows parts of the massive ceiling to the greatest advantage.
While we have been looking at the hall, it has been invaded by about two hundred persons, who form in lines through the whole length of it. It is half-past four, the time at which the Members of Parliament make their appearance, and there are always crowds of idle and curious persons, who, whenever they cannot obtain admission to the gallery, will come and wait in the hall, that they may gaze upon the faces of some of the parliamentary grandees.
We are just in time, for the open place in front of Westminster Hall assumes an animated appearance. Half a dozen policemen come, I know not exactly from which quarter, and take up a position near the gate. Old and young representatives of the people arrive from all parts of the town; some dressed in yellow breeches, and black long-tailed dress coats, come in cabs. They carry ponderous club-like umbrellas. Others arrive in heavy coaches, with a retinue of powdered giants; some come on foot, and others on horseback. Some are dressed down to the laid idéal of quakerish plainness; and others are dressed out with a foppish sort of elegance. The majority drive themselves in two-wheeled vehicles to the temple of their eventual immortality. The latter—and, indeed, those who are on horseback—have their grooms to take care of the horses; and though the masters have the appearance of decent civilians, still the number of servants who assemble in front of the building, impart to the scene a tinge of aristocratic colouring. The difference between the English parliament and our defunct German chambers, is at once apparent, even before we enter the house. In Germany, there were but few servants and carriages. But the English parliament is chiefly composed of wealthy men; for not only do the “necessary expenses” of an election represent a large capital, but the members must also prove a property qualification of £300 per annum in land. This law alone would suffice to exclude men of humble resources, but such are still more effectually excluded by the expenses of that position in society which every member of parliament is compelled to assume. Whatever his profession may be, he must sacrifice it for the time being to his parliamentary duties, and that, too, without any pecuniary indemnification, since the English representatives are not paid, as was the case with their ephemeral colleagues in France and Germany. Life in London is expensive to every one, but the expense becomes serious in the case of temporary residents. Add to this, that every member is, in a manner, in duty bound to be attentive and hospitable to the influential among his constituents. Say, Mr. Jedediah Brown goes up to London for eight days or a fortnight; Mr. Jedediah Brown knows what is proper, and would not, on any account go back to St. Alban’s, or Canterbury, Blackburn, Birmingham, or Clitheroe, without calling on the honorable Mr. M. P., the member for the borough, for whom Mr. Jedediah Brown voted at the last election. Mr. Jedediah Brown is an influential person in his own borough; the name of his uncles, aunts, and cousins, is legion; and so is the name of his wife’s uncles, aunts, and cousins. The Brown interest is of the utmost importance at election times, and he who would stand well with the borough should, by all means, conciliate the Browns. There is no help for it. Mr. M. P. cannot do less than ask Mr. Jedediah Brown to dinner, drive him out in his carriage, and offer him a box at the opera. Well and good. Mr. Jedediah Brown cannot always remain in London, but he is followed by Mr. Ebenezer Smith, a wealthy man, and one whom the honourable and learned gentleman cannot afford to offend, for the Smith interest, too, is powerful, and the family very large. And after Mr. Ebenezer Smith, comes George Damson, the popular lecturer, and the Rev. Mr. Jones, Mrs. Jones, and the Misses Jones; and Mr. M. P., is compelled to have them all to dinner, and take them down to the house, and get them seats in the speaker’s gallery, and platform places at Exeter Hall. All this is very expensive. And, if Mr. M. P. is a married man, of course his wife insists on sharing with him the “gaieties” of the London season; she must go to routs, réunions, balls, and drawing-rooms, and these amusements, though innocent, are vastly expensive. Nor is Mr. M. P. allowed to imitate his Continental colleagues, and take his dinner in a chop-house, or at some cheap table d’hôte; the aristocratic laws of decency preclude him from adopting that course. He must dine at a club, or at a first-rate hotel. He is compelled to have a large house, or, at least, to inhabit one of those “splendid drawing-room floors,” which are advertised, as “suitable for members of Parliament and gentlemen of fortune.” In short, he must is in duty bound to be a gentleman of fortune. The income of £300, as required by law, is, after all, a mere formality; and Lord John Russell could, without any tendency to radical reform, move for the abolition of the property qualification, since no one, but a man in a perfectly independent position, would ever think of aspiring to the expensive honour of a seat in the House of Commons.
The interior of the Houses of Parliament is grander and more imposing than the exterior. This does not apply to the rooms where the sittings are held, but rather to the entrance hall and corridors. As you enter you come at once into a hall, long enough and high enough to suit any second sized Gothic dome. High Gothic windows, Mosaic floors, palm-tree ceilings, heavy brass candelabras in the old church style, and marble statues on ponderous blocks of stone—such are the chief characteristics of the corridor which leads to the interior of the sanctuary. Doors of solid oak, with massive plate-glass windows, heavy brass handles, and neat ornaments, open from this corridor into a round airy hall, with a number of other corridors opening into all the other parts of the building. This hall is, so to say, the centre of the whole; and the two Houses if we may say so, are on either side of it—the Commons to the north, and the Lords to the south. The other corridors communicate with sundry other parts of the building, with the refreshment-rooms, the library, etc. The Gothic style is adhered to, even in the minutest details, and contrasts strangely with the busy life of the nineteenth century.
The refreshment-rooms, of course, abound in all imaginable creature-comforts. But it is a strange fact, that the Restaurant is even more exorbitant in his charges than the common herd of London hotel-keepers. The legislators of England are shockingly imposed upon in their own house; they are far more effectually fleeced than is the case in the hotels on the Rhine, or in the Apennines. Every drop of sherry and every ounce of mutton is charged as if it were worth its weight in gold. There have been grievous complaints in the House, but the unpatriotic landlord sticks to his prices; he taxes the legislators with as little compunction as those gentlemen show in taxing him and the whole fraternity of licensed victuallers.
The libraries of the House—one for the Lords and one for the Commons—are splendid in all their appointments, and useful, comfortable, and elegant in their arrangements; large fires burning brightly in massive grates, and surmounted by gigantic marble chimneys. Sardanapalian arm-chairs that invite you to read, ponder, and doze; costly carpets; servants in livery waiting upon the Members; large tables covered with portfolios, paper, envelopes, and all imaginable writing materials; splendidly bound books in massive book-cases; and gas-lights most advantageously placed—all combine to make this the most desirable retreat. Two librarians preside over the rooms. Existence is more delightful in these reading-rooms than in the House itself. The debates are sometimes very long, and malicious persons say that now and then they are not very interesting. It is, therefore, but natural that many of the chosen of the people prefer the arm-chairs in their library to their seats on the stuffed benches of the House. Here they may sit and doze or write, even more comfortably than in their clubs; and if a member wishes to indite a letter to his constituents or creditors, he has the accommodation of a special parliamentary post-office within the walls of the building. All this shows that the honourable and learned gentlemen have very correct ideas, and an acute perception of what is truly comfortable.
But even perfection itself is imperfect in this world of ours. A small matter has been neglected in the building of this palace, which has already cost the nation above two millions of pounds. It is the old story. The Houses proper, the saloons in which the sittings are held, are altogether bad in the plan, in their arrangements and appointments, with respect to acoustics, optics, rheumatics, catarrh, and gout.
In the Lords these faults are less obtrusive. The architect’s task was easier, and there are in the Lords scarcely ever so many visitors, that the artist, as in the case of the Commons, had to provide for the accommodation of six hundred members, with galleries for ladies, reporters, and the ordinary and extraordinary public, while the room was required to be of moderate dimensions, and comfortable as the old-established domestic English parlour. In the House of Lords the red morocco seats are marvellously comfortable, even for those who cannot boast of a coronet. The high, small, and painted windows admit but of little light; but the men who meet in this room do not care much whether or not they see one another very distinctly. They meet after the sitting in the brilliant saloons of the Earl of Woburn, or the Marquis of Steyne, where they can contemplate one another to their hearts’ content. In some parts of the room you cannot very well hear what is said; but even that does not matter: in the first instance, because generally what is said is not worth hearing; in the second, because many noble lords cannot, or will not, speak distinctly; and, in the third, because the reporters help one another whenever they lose the thread of the debate, so that the speeches make quite a figure in the newspapers. Certain very modest lords rely greatly on the talents of the reporters; they mutter, and stutter, and leave out half sentences, and next morning at breakfast it is quite a pleasure to see what a lucid, reasonable, and consistent speech (thanks to the reporters!) they have managed to make in last night’s debate.
Twice in the course of the year, a great many persons are anxious to obtain admission to the Lords, and to see and hear everything that is done or said. This is on the occasion of the Queen’s opening and proroguing parliament. But on such days, the London sun, loyal throughout, volunteers some extra service, and the Queen speaks more deliberately and distinctly than the majority of the old gentlemen who, on ordinary days, are “but imperfectly heard.” And lastly, the Queen’s speech is usually printed before it is delivered. The optical and acoustical shortcomings of the room are, for these reasons, by no means striking. The saloon itself, with all its gilt carvings, looks splendid, if not tasteful.
Originally, it was the architect’s intention to execute the saloon in which the Commons sit in a very elaborate style; indeed, the ceiling was already covered with paintings and gilt ornaments, when the Commons proved contumacious, and opposed the plan. Speeches were made on that occasion, which would have done honour to an assemblage of Spartans. Indignant remonstrances, which savoured of Puritanism and democratic prudery, were hurled at the head of the unfortunate architect. All this was very natural. Ever since the burning of the old Houses of Parliament, the Commons had sat in some provisional locality. It was a wretched place, with narrow doors, and little windows; the floor was covered with an old carpet; the walls presented a mixture of yellow, grey and black; the stairs were narrow and ricketty; the galleries, corridors, and committee-rooms, impressed the beholder with the idea that they formed part of some very poor provincial theatre. In short, everything was exquisitely rough shabby, and dirty. We are all creatures of habit; and in the course of time we become attached, even to nuisances. The members of the old house felt comfortable in their ricketty provisional booth; they liked the stairs, the dark corridors, and the narrow cloak-room; they liked the benches—everything suggested reminiscences, and they clave unto the old house. But they had no choice left. It was impossible to promote their provisional abode to the rank of a permanent dwelling. But then, they insisted that the new house should not be much more splendid than the old.
The architect, in his turn, could not conveniently either create dirt, or erect a wooden booth in the centre of the Gothic palace. He adopted a middle course. He removed the more glaring among the ornaments and gildings; the saloon was grained in oak colour; the ceiling was laid in oak-panels; he shut out the light by narrowing and painting the windows; and he made a saloon which is neither old nor new; neither grand nor comfortable; neither modern nor antique; neither simple nor highly ornamental; and neither clean-looking nor dirty; a saloon, in fact, which looks as if it were made of gingerbread.
But the artist, foiled in his attempt at decoration, took his revenge secretly, but terribly. He ventilated the place. Towers were built, which would have served as church steeples, but which, in the present instance, were intended to conduct the atmospheric air upwards, to press it downwards, and finally, to smuggle it into the lungs of honorable members. A steam-engine was erected for the purpose of creating artificial currents of air. He built and pulled down, in order to build and pull down again. All this was very bad. The steam-engine was soon stopped, for the saloon, surrounded as it is by long corridors, has the advantage of such powerful currents of air, that they would serve to create colds, ague, and rheumatism, for all the inhabitants of the United Kingdom. The ceiling had to be brought down, because it interfered with the laws of acoustics. The artificial system of lighting the place had to be reduced to a more simple apparatus, for it endangered the safety of the members, and of the public in the galleries. The currents of air, through the artificial air-holes in the floor, were at once shut out, because they blew up the dust. In this manner, was the much vaunted system of ventilation demolished by bits, until nothing was left except the palpable uncheerfulness of the room itself. But let us enter, and pass the evening within its sacred precincts.
The grand corridor, which leads from Westminster-hall to the Central Hall shelters a great many persons, who sit, walk, or stand about. Many of them look weary and impatient. Who are they? They are the British public. They have orders to the gallery of the House, and wait until their turn comes. Each member is entitled to give an order. There are about six hundred members, and six hundred orders may be issued for every night. But the gallery cannot accommodate more than seventy or eighty persons. Those who come first are first admitted; and when the gallery is full, there is no help for it, the rest must wait. Their turn is, however, sure to come; sometimes much sooner than they had a right to expect. The debates are in many instances so dry and uninteresting that the galleries get emptied almost as soon as they are filled. But on an important night, when the leaders of the house are expected to speak, it may now and then happen that an unfortunate “stranger” waits from three P.M. until past midnight without gaining admission. It is, however, perfectly absurd that, in the construction of the new Houses, no adequate accommodation was made for the public.
As for ourselves, we are in no danger of waiting for admittance, because we had the good fortune to obtain orders for the Speaker’s gallery, a place in front of, and a little below, the stranger’s gallery. The right of admission to this place is confined to the Speaker; and since that dignitary is not too lavish in his favours, the lucky possessors of orders can be quite certain of ample and convenient accommodation.
It is five o’clock, and we take our seats. At the further end of the room, just opposite to us, we see the Speaker reclining in a comfortable leather-covered arm-chair with a case of solid wood, open in front, and bearing a strong resemblance to an academical pulpit. The Speaker is in his official costume, that is to say, he has a powdered wig and a black silk cloak. But in spite of these venerable attributes, he is by no means staid and majestic, and reclines with the greatest carelessness in his easychair, shutting his eyes as if he were going to sleep and again opening them and looking at papers, or talking to some of the members who have sauntered up to the chair. The whole house follows the Speaker’s example; the members stand in groups of twos and threes, talking, or they sit on the broad, stuffed benches, with their legs stretched out and their hats on their heads. They seem intent upon nothing but killing time. The sitting has commenced, but the fact is, that one of the clerks is reading a paper, the contents of which are pretty well known to every one, but which, according to the rules of the House, must be read.
Our friend, Dr. Keif, who, by some malicious contrivance of his own, has managed to get a full mastery over the English language, and who speaks that language with a correctness which is altogether scandalous in a ‘foreigner’—our friend Dr. Keif, I say, sits leaning over the gallery, with his hands behind his ears and his mouth wide open, anxious to know what the clerk is reading. But even he gives it up in despair.
“Impossible!” says he. “The men down below talk and laugh and chat as schoolboys do when the schoolmaster is away. What’s the good of that wigged fellow reading when no one listens to him? I’d like to throw my gloves down in order to awaken in those members some respect for the galleries. They are not by any means polite. I can’t say I like their manners. Am I indeed in an assembly of English gentlemen, most revered and respectable Sir John?”
Sir John is quite an habitué in the house, and as such, he informs the Doctor, that these are mere preliminaries, and that everybody will be quiet enough when the debate has once commenced. Very well. We must have patience. And while waiting, we shall have plenty of time to examine all the parts of the house.
We are, as has been mentioned, in the Speaker’s gallery. Behind us is a small and crowded place devoted to the English public, and at its side is the members’ gallery. The reporters’ gallery is opposite to us, and above it, something like a gilt cage, in the shape of a shut-up verandah, in which a couple of ladies have found a temporary asylum. We cannot see them, but Sir John will have it that one of them is Lady John Russell. A true John Bull is lynx-eyed in matters aristocratic. But what pleasure the ladies can take in being in that gallery, is a mystery to me. They cannot see, they cannot hear, and, what is much worse, they have no chance of being seen.
Dr. Keif cares not for the ladies. All his attention is devoted to the reporters. He is astonished to find them much graver and older-looking, and withal much more ennuyés than the reporters of our extinct German parliaments. There are among them men who have grown old and grey in the profession, and who are likely to belong to it as long as they can hold a pencil.
A few yards from the Speaker’s arm-chair there is a table. Who has not heard of that famous article of furniture? It is the table of the House, on which all parliamentary documents are laid. That table has no affinity to the Presidents’ bureaux, such as we have seen them in the chambers of Germany and France; it stands on the floor, like any common table, and is covered with green cloth. Seated at this table, their backs turned to the Speaker, are the clerks of the House. They are wigged and powdered, and have heaps of papers and petitions before them, together with some bulky volumes in leather bindings. In short, the table has the appearance of the common domestic writing-table of the study or office. But there is something on the table which at once distinguishes it from all similar articles of furniture, viz., a heavy golden mace or sceptre. So long as this sceptre remains in its place, it is considered that the sitting continues; its removal signifies that the House is adjourned or that it has resolved itself into a committee.
Look there! just by the door is an arm-chair, and seated in it a gentleman in a dark uniform-coat with embroidered collar, knee breeches, black silk stockings, and a small sword. He is the Sergeant-at-Arms, the only armed person in the House; in a manner, the warden and chief door-keeper of the House, whose duty it is to execute the Speaker’s warrants against members of Parliament and others who are guilty of a breach of privilege. Such persons are taken into custody by the Sergeant-at-Arms, who confines them in some very snug retreat within the precincts of the Parliamentary palace. While under his protection they are well taken care of, and provided with all the necessaries and luxuries of life, at prices which are by many considered exorbitant.
This man with the sword—whose income, by-the-bye, is about double the “gage” of a German general—has just risen from his comfortable seat. He is moving towards the table. On his arrival in the middle of the room, he stops and bows to the Speaker. He proceeds a few yards, and makes another bow—a few yards more, and bows again; and having thus arrived at the table, he makes a very low bow indeed.
Dr. Keif is quite flushed with excitement and curiosity. “What is that man after?” says he. “He dances and jumps about, as if he were asking the Speaker to join him in a minuet!”
The Sergeant, however, standing in front of the table, mutters a few words, which none but the initiated can understand. He takes the sceptre, removes it from the table, and puts it on something like a stool under it. Next, his face still turned towards the Speaker, he walks backwards, bowing at intervals, gains the door, and introduces two men with wigs on their heads, who, with many low bows, advance into the centre of the room. They are officers of the House of Lords, with some document or message, for which no one cares, because the majority of the members know all about it. Of course we take no interest in the message which has just been delivered to the Commons. The two Houses observe in their intercourse a great many ceremonial laws, the exact details of which are familiar to the older members, while no one else cares for them, but which, nevertheless, are observed by either House with a scrupulous punctilio. The two messengers from the Lords had to be duly announced; they were obliged to bow to the Speaker; they were not allowed to enter while the House was sitting, and for that reason the sitting was adjourned by the removal of the sceptre; they had to walk backwards to the door, looking at and bowing to the Speaker; and after the door had closed upon them, and not before, the Sergeant-at-Arms placed the sceptre again on the table, and the debate was resumed.
All these ceremonies strike a stranger as exquisitely comical; and they are enough to puzzle even an Englishman, who witnesses them for the first time, accustomed though he be to the quaint formalities and observances which are still prevalent in the Law Courts. Certain it is, that most of the continental states would long since have abolished all these traditional ceremonies. The Continentals would have been ashamed of the wigs and silk cloaks; they would have declared, that those old-fashioned attributes of official dignity were an insult to the spirit of the age, and they would have consigned them to the lumber-room; they would never for one moment have stopped to think that dangerous conflicts might possibly result from the condemnation of those insignificant and harmless formalities. Such things have happened in France, and in Germany, too. In the revolutions of either nation, much energy and valuable time has been wasted in an onslaught on mere outward forms and petty abuses, on diplomas of nobility, orders of knighthood, upper chambers, church privileges, and prerogatives of the crown. But there never was a compact majority, which, looking only at the chief points, sought to reconcile the lesser among the conflicting opinions, for the purpose of obtaining those results which every revolution should aim at—personal liberty, and the promotion of the national prosperity. These gained, the rest must follow. When every individual citizen and the nation altogether are interested in the maintenance of the liberties and improvements they have acquired, there can be no idea of a reaction. No person, no class is injured; and peaceful progress, and slow and sure reformatory action, are not only possible, but also necessary and unavoidable.
Even the radicals among the English have an instinctive appreciation of the above truths. The House of Commons has never made war upon the Lords, because the wives of the Lords wear coronets, or because the Queen performs the ceremony of opening and proroguing parliament in the House of Lords. Instead of attacking their harmless privileges, the Commons have driven the iron into the very heart of the Upper House—they have sapped its marrow, and reduced it to a mere shadow of its former self. Nor have the Commons ever attacked certain prerogatives which are essential to the crown, and which insure it its political position, its governmental functions, and its imperial splendour. Just the reverse. Not all the mailed knights and barons of olden times, nor gartered Dukes nor belted Earls, would have defended the dignity of the crown with so much zeal and devotion as the Commons have done for many years past. They are most anxiously scrupulous in their professions and marks of respect for the head of the state. They gave the king his due, freely and fully. But did they ever consent to a curtailment of their own rights? Have they resigned the smallest and least significant of their own prerogatives? Is not their vote the full and firm expression of popular opinion? And did they ever make concessions to the crown at the expense of the people’s rights? Never! Those who know the history of modern England, know also how marvellously the Commons have grown in strength, political ability, and power. Indeed, so great is their power, that, magnified by distance, it imposes upon the Continentals, who are led to believe that the head of the British empire is a mere Marionette figure. This opinion is altogether erroneous; for a large amount of power remains still in the hands of the crown. The monarchy of England stands on a firmer basis in 1853 than it did in 1753, when the cry for innovations had not yet been raised on the other side of the channel; it will always remain firm so long as it respects the balance of power among the various estates of the realm. The crown is aware of this, and keeps within its limits even in the face of temptation. And the people in their meetings, and in the press—two engines which are generally terrible to crowned heads—stand by the side of the throne as trusty monitors, but they are not opposed to it. The government avoids anything like a conflict with public opinion; the people do not make opposition for opposition’s sake, and the political engine works well from session to session and from year to year.
And, after all, what harm is there in the Speaker’s wig, or the Queen’s speech addressed to the Lords, and in all the quaint ceremonies and observances? What does it all matter? And why waste even a thought on the reform of such trifles, so long as reform is needed in matters of greater importance?
These arguments, which are strongly redolent of the German constitutionalists of Gotha, are in fact the property of Sir John, who threw them at Dr. Keif’s head, when that learned man ridiculed the sergeant-at-arms. They descended to Sir John as an heir-loom from his great grandfather. May they descend from him to his children and the children of his children!
The house has meanwhile got full. A man of elegant appearance has taken his seat to the right of the speaker on the front bench, next the table. He is neither tall nor is he short; he is rather thin than stout; his forehead is high, round, and smooth; he has black eyebrows; brown clear eyes; high cheek-bones; lips firmly set; a pointed chin and black curly hair, with one of the curls drooping right over his forehead. What Englishman but knows that curl which Doyle has so often caricatured in Punch? The possessor of that curl is Disraeli, Benjamin Disraeli, at the time we saw him the Right Honourable Benjamin Disraeli, her Majesty’s Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the Commons.
Few portraits of this gifted man have hitherto been published; and Punch may claim the merit of having first introduced his face to the public at large. But Punch’s caricature, though clever, is apt to mislead one, and those are very much mistaken who imagine the real Disraeli as a hollow-eyed, round-backed, philosophically shabby-looking, Jewish youth. The real Disraeli has a refined and aristocratic appearance. His neckcloth may now and then be tied in a startling knot—the curl on his forehead, is somewhat romantic—but in all other respects Disraeli answers to the beau ideal of a well-dressed English gentleman. And there he sits, throwing his right leg over his left and now his left over his right, talking to his next neighbour, the Right Honourable Sir John Pakington, her Majesty’s Secretary of State for the Colonies, or turning to some member of the party behind him. There he sits, taking papers from his pockets or from the table, but generally busily engaged in trimming the nails of his white hands. Such as he sits, with his hat pulled over his face and to all appearance lost in deep thought; or, starting up, taking off his hat and answering a question in a smiling, cutting, sarcastic manner; or leaning over listening to a speech and taking notes:—such as he sits on the ministerial bench, this Right Honourable Benjamin Disraeli, of plebeian Jewish descent, but at present Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Leader of the House of Commons, must be an object of interest to every one, no matter whether he be a gifted sage or a gifted humbug.
His talents shine with transcendent brightness in opposition; and it is not too much to say, that he is the only capable man of whom his party can boast. He has compelled them to acknowledge him as their leader; he has left them no choice: they must either take him or perish. He is the great Protector of the Conservatives; and the Liberal party are free to confess, that they have suffered much from his antagonism. When Disraeli, rising from his seat, doffs his hat, and prepares to speak, the House is all silence and attention. The very reporters, who have just sat out their turn, hasten back to the gallery to hear him, for they all, even those attached to the liberal journals, feel a special interest in Disraeli, the author—the member of their guild. He is not an agreeable speaker. His voice is harsh and jarring; his manner is rather repulsive than winning; but his sneers, his sarcasms, his malicious attacks, are sure to tell, for he never aims at generalities, but hurls his scorn directly at certain men and sets of men in the House. At such moments, he looks in every direction but the one in which he has launched his arrow. Disraeli’s sarcasms have raised him a host of enemies, and justly too, as every one must confess, who reads his Parliamentary speeches since his first Arabian razzia upon Sir Robert Peel.
To be witty is not, after all, so very difficult for those who care not to what extent they wound the feelings of their adversaries. But look at the man on the Speaker’s left hand—there! on the further end of the first bench—he that holds a handkerchief in his hand. That man does these things with greater finesse. He is quite as witty as Disraeli, and he, too, has a telling answer to every question; but, withal, he does not get personal and offensive. That man is a general favourite, and every one is silent when he rises. That is Lord Palmerston, the notorious Lord Firebrand; he who, according to the opinion of the continental politicians, thinks of nothing but the most convenient means of overthrowing all the thrones in Christendom.
“This, then,” whispers Dr. Keif, imitating his great enemy Kappelbaumer, the spy of the imperial and royal police at Vienna—“this is that my Lord von Palmerston, the evil genius of all reasonable European Cabinets! That’s the man, with his white, innocent-looking little whiskers, his delicate features, the striped neckcloth, and the brown trousers, which, I dare say, were presented to him by Mazzini. But do tell me the truth, is it really that tall old gentleman, lying on the bench rather than sitting, and talking to his neighbours, exactly as if he were in the ale-house? Well, by Metternich! this Herr von Palmerston has such a pleasing appearance, that I could never have believed in his atrocious wickedness, if I had not been a reader of the German newspapers these many years past. What astonishes me most is, that those people down there have not the decency to avoid talking to him, for, after all, he is a convicted rebellion-monger, whom no well-disposed citizen of Vienna or Berlin would like to be seen with in the street. But no, as I said before, there’s nothing in the appearance of the man to frighten one. Really, there’s nothing exciting, or rebellious, or conspiratory, that I can see! And only think, what a mass of very uncivil notes he has written!”
“That’s because he is a great diplomatist!” rejoins Sir John, with marvellous unction. “For the very reason that you hate him we like him. He is exactly what a Foreign Secretary ought to be, popular at home and unpopular abroad. Eh, sir! catch that man standing up to advocate the cause of a continental despot, or conduct himself in a manner which would justify his enemies in calling him the minister of such and such a king or emperor at the court of St. James’s. Why, sir, what’s a chief of the Foreign Office good for, if he does’nt do the bull-dog’s duty—barking and showing his teeth, to frighten the housebreakers and such like wretches! And was’nt Lord Palmerston a capital bull-dog? Did’nt he bark with a loud voice, to the terror of the whole neighbourhood? And was there any one bitten by him? Certainly not, he merely offered to bite—showed his teeth—and the Continentals knew what it meant. But, of course, they don’t like him any the better for it.”
“I do wish he’d make us a speech,” said Dr. Keif. “How does he speak?”
“Just as I like it!” responded Sir John. “His is a frank and open address—no pathos, no excitement—reasonably, intelligibly, mannerly, as an English gentleman should speak. It’s his nature; he could’nt be rude, even if he were to try, excepting, always, when he sits down to correspond with the foreign powers. In the House, he never on any account is guilty of a personal attack; but he is so clever, that he can with the greatest ease provoke a laugh at the expense of those who ask idle and impertinent questions.”
Sir John, thus singing the praises of Lord Palmerston, is interrupted by shouts of laughter proceeding from the body of the House. What is the matter? Colonel Sibthorp has come in, and, after bestowing a look of sublime contempt on Mr. Roebuck, who entered at the same moment, the gallant colonel, though scarcely above a minute in the House, has taken part in the debate, and uttered one of those profound and gentle remarks, the fame of which will be for ever connected with his name. Colonel Sibthorp’s portrait in “Punch” is true to the life; in his short speeches, there is a good deal of common sense and natural shrewdness; but there is a comicality in his diction which makes them rather amusing than impressive. His remarks on this particular occasion are for the benefit of Lord John Russell, who is just speaking of the Militia. Colonel Sibthorp intimates to the noble Lord, that certain persons know nothing whatever of certain matters; but the ex-premier is not to be put out of countenance by such like soft impeachments, accustomed as he is to hear them from the lips of the gallant colonel. The House, too, after laughing at the sally, gives its undivided attention to the great orator. For Lord John is generally allowed to be a good speaker; his friends assert it, and his enemies do not deny it. In Paris he would make fiasco; in England he commands admiration. His mode of speaking is simple, pointed, and reasonable. He talks as a man of business to men of business; his exposition is practical; he enters largely into details, and provokes contradiction. He is a little broad-shouldered man, with clever eyes, wrinkled cheeks and forehead; he has a short neck and high shirt-collars, thin lips, and a sallow complexion; little boots, tight checked trousers, and holds his preposterously large hat in his hand. So he stands before us, with one of his hands stuck into his trousers’ pockets.
His speech will be found in the parliamentary intelligence of the morning papers. It is one o’clock, A.M., and no one seems yet to think of adjourning the debate. Sir John would have no objection to see the debate close; but Dr. Keif reminds him of the family who are waiting at home. “We shall have no chance of a cup of hot tea,” says he, “unless we go at once.” Thus exhorted, we return home, take our tea by the parlour fire, and talk at great length of English speeches and orators, and of the parliamentary system generally.
There is a good deal of peculiarity about public speaking in this country. A certain monotony, and an utter absence of passionate emotion, are among the chief qualities of a good parliamentary orator. Such a speaker appears cold and dry in the eyes of a foreigner; but whenever he does not succeed in remaining unimpassioned, whenever he gets violent, the impression he produces is decidedly disagreeable. The same may be said of the action of the hands. Every Englishman who takes the platform at a meeting, every member who rises from his seat in Parliament to address the House, shows at once that he is firmly resolved to make no movements with his hands and arms. He secures his hands to keep them out of harm’s way; and the positions he takes for that purpose are not by any means æsthetic or pathetic. One man puts his hands in his trousers’ pockets; another hooks his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat; some put their hands behind their backs; and others cross their arms over their chests à la Napoléon. In this manner do they begin their speeches; but since the speeches are long, it stands to reason that the speaker cannot always remain in the same position. Besides, as he proceeds with his subject, he warms to it, and then commences the most astonishing action of the arms and the body generally. One man moves his hand up and down as if he were the leader of a band presiding over the performance of a gallopade; another stands with his hands clenched, and makes a rowing motion; and the third moves his right hand in circles, each circle ending with a sort of push at the audience. Others—for instance, Lord Dudley Stuart—beat time on the table; and others—for instance, Lord Palmerston—swing their bodies to and fro in imitation of a pendulum.
All these attitudes are not by any means elegant; but it is customary in England for public speakers to conduct themselves with all possible nonchalance, and to address their hearers as merchants do in a conversation on mercantile affairs. Besides, there is no tribune in the House of Commons, and it is, therefore, quite natural that the members are at a loss what to do with their hands. Public speaking, in fact, is by no means an easy matter; and to be an efficient Member of Parliament requires the whole of a man’s time and energies. Committees in the morning, debates from four o’clock in the afternoon until after midnight, the speaking and the listening to speeches, surely these fatigues are enough to shake a man’s health. Who would find fault with the most conscientious Member of Parliament for his desire to escape from town in August, and recruit his strength in the Highlands? And then think of the Ministers, who, besides attending the sittings, have to superintend their offices and departments. Dr. Keif is right when he says, “I’d rather be impelled into Germany than be a minister in England. Sir John! Vivat Germania! Germany for ever!”