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1793-1814

POETRY AND POLITICS

889

poems range from 1808 to his early death by drowning in 1822, had a gentler spirit. All human law and discipline seemed to him to be the mere invention of tyrants, by which the instinctive craving of the soul for beauty of form and nobility of life was repressed.

21. Scott and Wordsworth.-On the other hand two great poets, Scott and Wordsworth, upheld the traditions of the ancient order of society. Scott's first great poem, The Lay of the Last Minstrel, appeared in 1805. In 1814 he deserted poetry for the writing of the Waverley Novels. His mind was filled with reverence for the past life of his country, and this he set forth in verse and prose as no other writer has done. Yet Scott's works may be quoted in support of the doctrine that no considerable movement of thought can leave its greatest opponents unaffected, and the better side of the revolutionary upturning, its preference of the natural to the artificial, and of the humble to the exalted, inspired the best work of Scott. His imaginative love for the heath-clad mountains of his country, and his skill in depicting the pathos and the humour of the lowly, stood him in better stead than his

Wordsworth at the age of 28: from a portrait by
Hancock in the National Portrait Gallery.

skill in bringing before his readers the chivalry and the pageantry of the past. As it was with Scott so it was with Wordsworth whose first poetry was published in 1793. The early promise of the French Revolution filled him with enthusiasm, but its excesses disgusted him, and he soon became an attached admirer of the institutions of his country. It was not this admiration, however, which put the stamp of greatness on his work, but his open eye fixed, even more clearly than Scott's, upon the influences of nature

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upon the human mind, and a loving sympathy with the lives of the poor.

22. Bentham.-In politics and in law the same influences were felt as in literature. As the horror caused by the French Revolution cleared away, there arose a general dissatisfaction with the existing tendency to uphold what exists merely because it exists. The dissatisfaction thus caused found support in the writings of Jeremy Bentham, who busied himself from 1776 to his death in 1832 with suggestions of legal and political reform. Like Voltaire and the French encyclopedists, he asked that legislation might be rational, and he sought a basis for rational legislation in the doctrine of utility. Utility he defined to be' that property in any object whereby it tends to produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good, or happiness, or to prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil, or unhappiness to the party whose interest is considered.' The object which Bentham desired, therefore, has been summed up in the phrase the greatest happiness of the greatest number,' and though in pursuit of this Bentham and his disciples often left out of sight the satisfaction of the spiritual and emotional parts of man's complex nature, they undoubtedly did much to clear away an enormous quantity of mischievous legislation. It was in a kindred spirit that Romilly, Mackintosh and Peel urged on the modification of the criminal law, and it was hardly likely that a movement of this kind, when once begun, would be soon arrested.

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Books recommended for the further study of Part X.

LECKY, W. E. H. History of England in the Eighteenth Century. Vol v. p. 154-Vol. vi. p. 137; Vol. vi. p. 456-Vol. viii.

MASSEY, W. A History of England in the Reign of George III. Vol. iv.
MARTINEAU, HARRIET (Miss). History of England, A.D. 1800-1815.
A History of the Thirty Years' Peace. Vol, i-

Vol. ii. p. 125.

WALPOLE, SPENCER. A History of England from the Conclusion of the Great War in 1815. Vol. i.-Vol. ii. p. 158.

LEWIS, SIR GEORGE CORNEWALL. Essays on the Administrations of Great Britain. Pp. 129-432.

NAPIER, SIR W. F. P. History of the Peninsular War.

BRIALMONT, A. Life of Arthur, Duke of Wellington, translated from the French, with emendations and additions by the Rev. G. R. Gleig.

The Political History of England.

Vol. 10 (1760-1801) by Rev. W. Hunt.

Vol. 11 (1801-1837) by the Hon. G. C. Brodrick.

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I. Questions at Issue. Liverpool's Prime Ministership two questions had been coming into prominence the one that of Catholic emancipation by the admission of Catholics to Parliament and to offices of state; the other that of Parliamentary reform, with a view to diminish the power of the landowners over elections to the House of Commons, and to transfer at least part of their power to enlarged constituencies. Of the leading statesmen Wellington and Peel were opposed to both the proposed changes; Canning was in favour of Catholic emancipation, but opposed to Parliamentary reform; whilst the Whigs, the most noteworthy of whom were Earl Grey in the House of Lords, and Lord Althorp and Lord John Russell in the House of Commons, were favourable to both.

1827. During the latter years of

2. Canning Prime Minister. 1827.-Before Liverpool left office a resolution in favour of Catholic emancipation was defeated in the House of Commons by the slight majority of four, and almost imme diately afterwards Canning, who had spoken and voted for it, was appointed Prime Minister. Seven of the former ministers, including Wellington and Peel, refused to serve under him. On the other hand he obtained the support of the Whigs, to a few of whom office was shortly afterwards given. The Whigs had been long unpopular, on account of the opposition which they had offered to the war

with France even whilst Wellington was conducting his

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great campaigns in

Canning from Stewardson's portrait.

the Peninsula; but they had now a chance of recovering public favour by associating themselves with domestic reforms. There can hardly be a doubt

that Canning's ministry, if it had lasted,

could only have maintained itself by a more extended admission of the Whigs to power. Canning's health was, however, failing, and on August 8 he died, having been Prime Minister for less than four months.

3. The Battle of Navarino and the Goderich Ministry. 1827.Canning was succeeded by Goderich, who had formerly, as Mr. Robinson (see p. 886), been Chancellor of the Exchequer. His colleagues quarrelled with one another, and Goderich was too weak a man to settle their disputes. Before the end of the year news arrived which increased their differences. On July 6, whilst Canning still lived, a treaty had been signed in London between England, France, and Russia, binding the three powers to offer

1827-1828

NAVARINO

893

mediation between the Turks and the Greeks, and, in the event of either party rejecting their mediation, to put an end by force to the struggle which was going on. Instructions were sent to Codrington, the admiral commanding the Mediterranean fleet, to stop supplies coming into Greece from Turkey or Egypt, but to avoid hostilities. On September 9 a fleet composed of Turkish and Egyptian ships, laden with men and supplies, reached Navarino, close to the ancient Pylos, in the south-west of Peloponnesus. Codrington arrived two days later, and was afterwards joined by French and Russian squadrons. The combined fleet compelled the Turkish and Egyptian fleet to remain inactive. On land, however, Ibrahim (see p. 884), who commanded the army transported in it from Egypt, proceeded deliberately to turn the soil of Peloponnesus into a desert, slaying and wasting as he moved. On October 20, the allied admirals, unwilling to tolerate the commission of such brutalities, entered the Bay of Navarino, in which twenty-two centuries before Athenians and Lacedæmonians had contended for the mastery. A gun was fired from a Turkish ship, and a battle began in which half of the Egyptian fleet was destroyed, and the remainder submitted. The victory made Greek independence possible. There can be little doubt that Canning, if he had lived, would have been overjoyed at the result. Goderich and his colleagues in the ministry could not agree whether Codrington deserved praise or blame. There were fresh quarrels amongst them, and, on December 21, 'Goody Goderich,' as the wits called him, went to the king to complain of his opponents. George IV. told him to go home and take care of himself. It is said that on this the Prime Minister burst into tears, and that the king offered him his pocket handkerchief to dry them. On January 9, 1828, Goderich formally resigned.

4. Formation of the Wellington Ministry. 1828.-The Duke of Wellington became Prime Minister, and Peel again became Home Secretary and the leading minister in the House of Commons. The new ministry, from which the Whigs were rigorously excluded, was to be like Lord Liverpool's one, in which Catholic emancipation was to be an open question, each minister being at liberty to speak and vote on it as he thought fit. Those who supported it, of whom Huskisson was one, were now known as Canningites, from their attachment to the principles of that minister. It was, however, unlikely that the two sections of the ministry would long hold together, especially as the question of Parliamentary reform was now rising into importance, and the Canningites showed a disposition to break away on this point

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