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his guilt. Yet the one till quite recently was believed to be a spotless hero, and the other an intellectual fiend. The cause of this distinction is obvious. Marlborough never stepped out of his own sphere, or gave his enemies any other handles against him than what they could discover for themselves. Bolingbroke, not contented with the political odium which he had brought upon himself in various ways, drew a hornets' nest about his ears by attacking the clergy. It has been taken for granted that he was an infidel, and it has been just as readily taken for granted that, being an infidel, he was a villain. The world in general, till recently, at least, knew nothing of the Duke of Marlborough but that he won the battle of Blenheim, and nothing of Lord Bolingbroke but that he wrote against the Christian religion. All the good of the one has come down to posterity, and all the evil of the other. Yet if we compare them together coolly and dispassionately, it will appear to most people that the minister was less guilty than the general. The only thing that has ever been imputed to Lord Bolingbroke is, that while a minister of the Crown he intrigued to undo the settlement which had been ratified by Act of Parliament, and to prevent the succession of the Protestant line, by procuring the return of James III. Now on this charge there are three observations to be made. First, that it is by no means certain that he did so intrigue; secondly, that if he did, his moral guilt was slight, compared with that of traitors generally; and, thirdly, that if he was a traitor, his, to borrow Johnson's phrase, was defensive treason. As regards the first, we can only say what Swift says that if Bolingbroke had been engaged in any regular plot for the restoration of the Stuarts, there was nothing to prevent it from succeeding, and that the Treaty of Utrecht seems to have been unfavourable, rather than otherwise, to Jacobite interests. Had Bolingbroke been bent on the restoration of the Stuarts by fair means or foul, had none but selfish considerations dictated his policy, he would assuredly have prolonged the war till after the Queen's death. For in that case the one thing always wanting to the Jacobite cause would have been at once forthcoming-namely, a French army in Scotland, with James at the head of it. The whole of Scotland, under these circumstances, would soon have been in James's hands, and here would have been a base of negotiations which could only have had one conclusion. To throw some light upon the second point, let us quote a passage from Lord Stanhope:

"At that period, so far as we are now enabled to judge, and for many years afterwards, there was a feeling very prevalent in England, though scarce ever publicly avowed, a belief that the restoration of the titular Prince of Wales, like that of his uncle, Charles the Second, would probably in the end take place that it was rather a question of time and of terms. Men who had no

sort of concert or engagement with his partizans, and who looked forward with complacency to the Princess Anne as next heir, were yet unwilling to give any vote, or take any step that should irretrievably dissever them from their eventual Sovereign. Hence the progress of the Bill, in both houses, was marked by some strange fluctuations, and divers pretexts and devices; and there was at work a latent opposition rather felt perhaps than seen."

When this was the state of public feeling, and when, moreover, no treasonable act was meditated towards the reigning sovereign, it is quite clear that a correspondence with the exiled family cannot be ranked with that class of treason which plots the violent subversion of established governments. There was an Act of Parliament forbidding it, no doubt, and legally, of course, it was treason, and would probably have been punished as such if proved. But the moral guilt of an act which, without any wrong to individuals, was in harmony with the national sentiment, and was shared in by thousands of sympathisers, could not be of the blackest dye. We have said, thirdly, that the treason of which ministers were accused was, if it existed, defensive treason. They knew, that is, that their rivals had been assiduously poisoning the mind of the Elector against them, and that if he did come to England, their prospects of governing the country were extinguished for ever. This is no justification; yet with a man like Bolingbroke, conscious of such vast powers, and so delighting in the active exercise of them, to be condemned to opposition for the next twenty years of his life must have seemed little better than banishment. He might have felt, too, that he was very likely to be accused of high treason whether he was innocent or guilty; that if accused, it was a chance whether he got off; and that, therefore, if he was to run the risk of the punishment, he might as well get what advantage he could out of the offence; if he succeeded, his adversaries would then become the traitors. We repeat, we do not believe that he did engage in any regular treasonable conspiracy; but on the hypothesis that he did, so much.

Of the charges brought against the Duke of Marlborough some seem conclusively established; of the rest, some have been refuted, and others shown to rest on very unsatisfactory evidence. That his muster-rolls were fraudulently made up, and that he pocketed money in the names of men long since dead, is an accusation which rests only on the authority of a pamphleteer, who abuses with equal rancour both William and Mary. The worst charge of all, namely, that he betrayed to the French Government in 1694 our project for attacking Brest, whereby the expedition was defeated and hundreds of lives sacrificed, has been examined by an acute critic, who materially shakes its credibility, if he does not entirely destroy it. It is rather remarkable that Lord Stanhope should consider Mr. Paget beneath his notice. He can scarcely fail to be aware that the charge which he repeats in this volume was

assailed by that gentleman more than twelve years ago with so much success, that in the absence of any further testimony, we are almost under the necessity of believing that the real traitor was Godolphin. On the other hand, it is true that Marlborough corresponded with James and assured him of his undiminished loyalty, while he was in William's service; and likewise that he sent over a sum of money in 1715, to assist the chevalier in his invasion. And these two acts are worse in kind than anything imputed to Bolingbroke. Thus, if we take the most favourable estimate of Marlborough, and the most unfavourable one of Lord Bolingbroke, as public men, the balance, slight as it may be, is in favour of St. John. Our judgment of their private characters will depend on our comparative estimate of the harsher and the softer vices. Both were brave, beautiful, and fascinating. Both, perhaps, were equally unscrupulous. But there the resemblance terminates. Bolingbroke was impetuous; generous, to prodigality; a faithful friend, and a vindictive enemy; a frank libertine and a false husband. Marlborough was cautious, avaricious to a crime; and if he had any friendships, such as those which hound together the circles of Twickenham and Dawley, history has forgotten them. His jealousy of rising merit has been generally attested. The very amours of his youth bear the taint of pecuniary transaction; and the only bright spot which can be shown against all these dark ones is abject devotion to his wife. Stronger contrasts can hardly be imagined, and it is curious that both those virtues and vices which seem most natural to the soldier are here found in the statesman, while those we should have expected in the statesman greet us in the soldier.

Such were the two great leaders of the Whig and Tory parties during the period now before us. For though Marlborough had begun life a Tory, he became a pure Whig soon after the accession of the Queen, and never changed his principles afterwards; though it seems probable, indeed, that Bolingbroke, who had a generous admiration for the duke, might have regained him to his former friends in 1711, had it not been for the influence of Lord Oxford. It is, indeed, to the last-mentioned statesman that much of the "crookedness" of the Tory policy is attributed by Lord Stanhope, and, where admitted, by Bolingbroke. He was, indeed, in one sense the ruin of the Tory party. But Bolingbroke's complaint of him, as well of the queen, in whom he notes "the fatal irresolution inherent in the Stuart race," seems all to point to the existence of some great designs to which she and Oxford were the main obstacles. What these could have been, if not designs for the restoration of the old line, it is difficult to imagine. But to return to the thread of our discourse. Such being the real leaders, what were the fortunes and conduct of the two great connections who looked up to them, and how far can we trace a resemblance between them and their

political descendants? Lord Stanhope considers they have changed places. He made this assertion in his "History of England,” and was taken to task for it by Lord Macaulay. But he repeats it here; and as we cannot bring ourselves to agree with it, though not for Lord Macaulay's reasons, we shall briefly record our own.

Both Toryism and Whiggism represent certain methods of government, which are or were supposed to be combined together in the British constitution. These are not the principles of liberty and authority, which correspond to a different division: but two methods of government-the one an hereditary sovereign, the other a great patrician council. That these should never be evenly balanced in practice was only to be expected. Under the Plantagenets the patricians had rather the best of it. Under the two succeeding dynasties, the balance was in favour of the crown. It then reverted to the nobility, who, with some well-known intervals, retained it down to the Reform Bill. But both were necessary to the constitution as it then was; and it was the allotted task of the Tories to maintain the royal prerogatives, as it was of the Whigs to maintain the authority of Parliament. It cannot be said that either the one or the other was the more or the less useful and dignified part to play in the political drama. But both alike require two things to be in existence, without which both become meaningless. There must be a prerogative which makes itself felt in politics. And there must be a powerful House of Lords controlling, by some kind of machinery or another, the action of the House of Commons. Under this combination we know what Whig and Tory mean. And as long as it lasted we cannot for the life of us see that either Whig or Tory departed from his original principles. What the Whigs were in the reign of Anne, that they were in the reign of George the Fourth. The principle on which the Dukes of Newcastle and Devonshire coerced Queen Anne; the principle on which the Duke of Bedford expostulated with George the Third, till his majesty nearly choked with wrath; the principle on which Lord Grey declined to form a government in 1812; and the principle on which the same statesman acted towards the same sovereign fifteen years afterwards; were all essentially the same in every case. It was not always insisted on with equal severity. But the point was always the same, and that was, what share, when the Whig party was called to the councils of the sovereign, the Crown was to have in the formation of the ministry: and how far personal preferences were to outweigh party obligations. And what St. John was to Queen Anne, and Lord North and Mr. Pitt to George the Third, that, mutatis mutandis, were Liverpool, Canning, and Wellington to George the Fourth the supporters of that element of the constitution which the Crown represented against what were considered the unjust encroachments of the other. The Whig and Tory tradi

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tions were handed down intact from the Revolution to the Reform Bill, and a Tory of the latter period could not have been the same thing as a Whig of the former. Lord Stanhope falls into the mistake of confusing measures with principles. Measures are an accident, not the essence, of political parties. And mere Conservatism no more resembles genuine Toryism, than a titled banker resembles a feudal baron.

The creation of twelve new peers to secure in the Upper House a vote in favour of the Peace, has often been condemned as a mischievous strain on the constitution. Before joining in the censure which has been so freely bestowed upon it, we should at least recall to mind the circumstances under which it occurred. It is commonly supposed that the Whigs at this time had a majority of the House of Lords. But this was not the case. And the means which they adopted to gain a victory over Government, go a long way to justify the means by which Government gained a victory over them. Then, as now, each party had its extreme section; but the Whigs, being in opposition, had composed their dif ferences for the moment. A Tory "cave," however, of no inconsiderable dimensions, had been founded by the Earl of Nottingham, at the head of a compact band of malcontents, who professed to think the Church in danger. The favourite measure of this party from the commencement of the Queen's reign had been what was called the Occasional Conformity Bill, a measure directed against persons who, having complied with the conditions of the Test Act. for the sake of office, should during their continuance therein attend chapels or conventicles. Though this Bill had been carried through the House of Commons, the Whigs and the more moderate Tories had hitherto been strong enough in the House of Lords to prevent it from becoming law, and for some years past it had been dropped. Now, however, the ultra-Tories saw their chance. They had it in their power to perform a great service to the Whigs, and they might fairly ask a large price. The Whigs, thirsting for revenge, readily agreed to their terms, and the bargain was at once struck. The Cave was to oppose the Peace. The Whigs were to support the Bill against Occasional Conformity. Thus was effected that majority against the Treaty of Utrecht which has generally been supposed to have consisted of pure Whigs. No coalition in our history has rivalled in infamy the coalition between Nottingham and Marlborough. However, as far as the Whigs were concerned, it was a crime perpetrated in vain, for the treaty was ultimately approved by a sufficient majority. The Tories got their price: for the Occasional Conformity Bill was carried through the Lords, contrary to the wishes of the Government, and readily adopted by the House of Commons. T. E. KEBBEL.

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