rather than not try for an additional vote in his own and Mr Milner Gibson's favour, he will risk increasing that chance by bringing his own representative into the field. If the results of the contest be, as we hope and believe they will be, to insure Mr Raikes's return, the Whigs will have still less reason than he has given them of late to be satisfied with the place which he has worked out for himself in the Liberal party.

It is not our purpose, in the present paper, to dissect, as they deserve to be dissected, the details of Mr Gladstone's extraordinary conduct throughout the whole of this business. Our readers will find that matter thoroughly sifted and discussed elsewhere. But the audacity of some of his statements in the curious speech which he delivered when vouching in the Town Hall of Chester for his son's efficiency, and recommending him to the support of the electors, renders it impossible to be altogether silent on the subject, even though we may be compelled, in part at least, to say over again what has been better said already. Take as the first example of this quality the tenor of his reply to an address by Mr Raikes, in which that gentleman said, with perfect truth, that for the last six years there has been an Administration, but no Government, in this country:—

"Mr Raikes is reported to have said that for the last six years there has been no Government in this country. Well, there has been no Government of the kind Mr Raikes wishes to have. There has been no Government such as there was fifty years ago, when the Corn Laws and Six Acts were passed. There has been no Government of any description, Mr Raikes says; but I submit to you that there has been a Government of some kind or another. Who are the men forming the Government of the country? Lord Palmerston and Lord Russell. Lord Palmerston is a man who has established what I may justly call a world-wide reputation. Almost wherever the name of England is known his name is known along with it; and I

must add that he is a man whose services, whose experience, whose estimable and popular qualities have given the affections of his countrymen. And him a high place in the favour and in yet, forsooth, there has been no Government during the last six years! And what is Lord Russell? Who will write the history of this country for this generation without giving in that history places? It is the practice, gentlemen, to Lord Russell one of the proudest and the just practice, to decorate the breasts of our soldiery with medals and with clasps for the gallant actions in which they may have fought; and if it were the practice likewise to decorate the breasts of statesmen with medals and clasps for the good laws they have passed, and for the benefits they have conferred upon the country, why, the breast of Lord John Russell would be nothing but one blaze of clasps and medals."

Does Mr Gladstone suppose that the people of Chester in particular, and the inhabitants of Great Britain and Ireland in general, have all lost their memories, that they cannot recall the time, not very distant, when of Lord Palmerston his present eulogist declared—

"Sir, I say that the policy of the noble Lord tends to encourage and confirm in us that which is our besetting

fault and weakness, both as a nation and as individuals. If he can, he will quarrel with an absolute monarchy; if he cannot find an absolute monarchy for the purpose, he will quarrel with one that is limited; if he cannot find even that, he will quarrel with a repub lic. He adopts, in fact, that vain conception that we, forsooth, have a mission to be the censors of vice and folly, of abuse and imperfection, among the other countries of the world; that we are to be the universal schoolmasters, and that all those who hesitate to recognise our office can be governed only by prejudice and personal animosity, and should have the blind war of diplomacy forthwith declared against them"?

Are not the electors of Chester and the whole people of England aware that on an occasion still more recent this same Lord Palmerston was charged by Mr Gladstone with "bringing forward a bill and recommending it upon

grounds and with reference to conditions that are not legal, that are not social, that are not even English, but that are purely political" And finally, is it any secret either at Chester or anywhere else, that Lord Palmerston-and Lord Palmerston alone has power to put a muzzle upon his loquacious Chancellor of the Exchequer that the two men meet and consult without entertaining the smallest regard, or reposing one morsel of confidence one in the other? As to Lord Russell, it may suit Mr Gladstone's purpose now to flatter him. Any open show of estrangement between statesmen, both in some degree pledged before the world to Radical measures, would be fatal. But nobody forgets the terms in which the noble Lord was spoken of by Mr Gladstone a few years ago, and nobody can doubt how he and his present laudator will stand towards each other when by-and-by the question arises, which of the two is to take Lord Palmerston's place, or whether both are not to make way for Lord Clarendon, or else for Lord Derby?

We may safely pass by, as requiring no notice at our hands, Mr Gladstone's elaborate defence of Mr Cobden's French Treaty. On more than one occasion of late we have shown how it has acted on British industries; and the paper-makers, the ribbon-makers, the the watchmakers of England, will to a man vouch for the accuracy of our statements. But the peculiar logic in which he recommends his son to the favourable consideration of the electors of Chester is too charming to be overlooked. And first let us, without hesitation or circumlocution, confess our astonishment that Mr Gladstone, a member of her Majesty's Cabinet and the undisputed aspirant after the highest place in it, should have so far forgotten himself as anywhere, and under any circumstances, to make an electioneering speech in support of any candidate whatever. We very much

doubt whether the act be not as unconstitutional as it is indelicate; and we have not forgotten that it was once so regarded by Mr Gladstone himself. When declining, and properly declining, to become a member of Mr Stuart Mill's electioneering committee, he put upon record sentiments which conveyed a just and dignified rebuke to the Westminster demagogues. But if to plead the cause of a stranger would have been indiscreet, much more flagrant is the breach of delicacy when his own son becomes the object of his encomium, and his encomia take the particular turn which has been given to them. For what right has Mr Gladstone to train up a son not for public life only, but for office! What right has he to assume and to proclaim to the world that the youth whom he is putting forward as a candidate for the representation of Chester will, as a matter of course, attain to place, and work his way, with or without aid from higher quarters, to power and eminence in the Government of the country? The first Sir Robert Peel did an act of questionable propriety, when on his knees, and in the privacy of his counting-house, he dedicated his first-born son to the service of his country. But the first Sir Robert Peel's proceeding was at best a modest one. He intended only that young Robert should become a Parliament man rather than a manufacturer. Here, however, is a Chancellor of the Exchequer who seems to believe that place and honour ought to be hereditary in his family; and he has the wretched taste to ask the electors of Chester to give his first start to the destined inheritor of a father's honours. Nor is this all. He reminds the electors that Pitt, Fox, Canning, Lord Macaulay, Lord Russell, and Lord Palmerston, all entered Parliament very young; and all achieved high position among English statesmen. Pitt, Fox, Canning, and Macaulay, certainly entered Parliament young; so did Lord

Russell, so did Lord Palmerston. But Pitt, Fox, and Canning, were sought out by the leaders of their respective parties, just as Mr Gladstone himself was sought out by the Tories in 1832, because of the brilliancy of their brief careers, and the high expectation which these created. Lord Macaulay, likewise, was taken up by a party; Lord Russell and Lord Palmerston came in through the pocket-boroughs of which their families were possessed. But what great party has taken up Mr Gladstone the younger; and what has he done to fix upon him the eyes of other party-leaders than his father? True, but he will do great things yet. He has been admirably trained. "I have advised him to declare himself among you an adherent of Liberal principles, not to measure too nicely or too strictly the application of these principles, but to take the principles themselves." This is plain speaking, at any rate. It agrees well with the general tone of the celebrated manifestoes which the eloquent electioneerer put forth last year, once at least in the House of Commons, and repeatedly in the provinces. And the father becomes voucher for the son, on the ground that the son will follow the father to the utmost limits of Liberalism, expecting to rise to place and power on the shoulders of that great party of which Mr Bright, Mr Baines, Mr Milner Gibson, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself, are the accepted leaders. What says the University of Oxford to all this? Is it prepared to be represented again in Parliament by one who, to work out his own purpose, misstates facts and proclaims himself the champion of Liberal principles, measured neither too nicely nor too stringently in their application?

While Mr Gladstone is thus trying to connect his own name with measures which he took no part in passing, and to associate his policy with that which he resisted till pressure from without, and the

change of mind in his own leader, swept him away, other speakers and writers to the constituencies, more cautious than he, do their best to conciliate public favour by declaring that, if sent to Parliament, they will give Lord Palmerston an independent support. Now, this is a cry the absurdity of which cannot be too plainly and unreservedly exposed. Lord Palmerston will never again ask for or require the support of any statesman.

His race is run; his public career is ended. We have good reason to believe that he would have retired into private life two months ago had not the desperate state of his party constrained him to retain office. In all human probability he will not meet the new Parliament as a Minister of the Crown at all. But whether he meet the new Parliament as Minister or not, it is physically impossible that he should go through the wear and tear of a single session more. They, therefore, who talk of going into Parliament to support him, are making professions of the hollowness of which they cannot be ignorant. Let no elector who is unprepared to go all lengths with Mr Gladstone and the ultra-Liberal segment of the present Administration, be taken in by any such declaration. Constituencies must consider now, not so much to what particular hands they would be willing to intrust the management of public affairs, as what line of policy holds out the best assurance of keeping the honour and interests of the country from damage. If they mean to accept the six-pound borough franchise, and to be let down by it to universal suffrage-if they desire to push free-trade notions to such an extent as to throw all the burthen of the State on realised property-if, as farmers, they approve of the malttax, and are willing as manufacturers and mechanicians to put themselves under the control of trades' unions, then let them be imposed upon by

this cuckoo cry, and send to Parliament the individuals who raise it. But if none of these prospects please them if they wish to keep the Church in union with the State-the representation of the country with men who have a stake in it-to widen without lowering the franchise to maintain tranquillity at home and honourable peace abroad-then let them ascertain exactly what each candidate means before they vote for him, and vote for those alone who tell them plainly that such shall be their objects in the House of Commons. For look to what the restless spirit of the age, and the want of an efficient Government, is bringing us. Austria will enter into no commercial treaty with us. France is outstripping us in those very fabrics in which, but a few years ago, we beat the whole world. And not France only, but Belgium likewise, bids fair to become henceforth the source whence we shall derive our steam machinery, as we are now getting it from our friends across the Channel. Meanwhile we are eating dirt, day after day, in order to propitiate, if we can, the wrath of the Americans, and looking back with vain regret on opportunities presented and thrown away of delivering ourselves and our children after us, from all ground of apprehension in that quarter. The war in New Zealand drags its dull length along. The army and

navy cost us enormous sums, without anything to show that they are worth the outlay. Notoriously we have neither cannon for our batteries and ships of war, nor firearms in the hands of our troops, capable of contending on equal terms with those of other nations. And all this because, as Mr Raikes justly stated," there has been an Administration, but no Government, for the last six years in the country." We cannot go on thus much longer without suffering disasters at home and abroad, the very thought of the possible occurrence of which may well fill us with dismay. To vote at the coming elections, therefore, for Lord Palmerston's candidate, is to vote for a delusion. There is no such thing in existence; there cannot be. Lord Palmerston is, to all intents and purposes, off the stage. And the choice submitted to the constituencies, therefore, is between Lord Derby on the one hand, and Mr Gladstone on the other. For, cordially as they dislike, and entirely as they distrust him, the Whigs can scarcely hope to keep Mr Gladstone down many weeks after a Liberal majority shall array itself at his back in the new House of Commons; and woe to the nation when to him its destinies shall be committed with such a Cabinet as he is morally pledged, and, we honestly believe, heartily disposed to gather round him!

Ir may seem a hardship, but, not improbably, it is in its way an alleviation, that we are never involved in any of the great trials in life, without having to deal with certain material embarrassments, questions of vulgar interest which concern our pockets and affect our finances.

Poor Lendrick's was a case in point. He was about to leave his country -to tear himself from a home he had embellished-to separate from his children that he loved so dearly, to face a new life in a new land, friendless and alone; and with all these cares on his heart, he had creditors to satisfy, debts to insure payment of by security, and, not least of his troubles, his house to re-let. Now the value the world sets on that which is not for sale is very unlike its estimate for the same commodity when brought to market. The light claret your friend pronounced a very pleasant little wine at your own table, he would discover, when offered for purchase, to be poor, washy, and

VOL. XCVIII.—NO. DXCVIII.

acrid. The horse you had lent him, and whose performance he had encomiumised, if put up to auction, would be found spavined, or windgalled, or broken down. Such a stern test is money, so fearfully does its coarse jingle jar upon all the music of flattery, and make discord of all compliment. To such a pitch is the process carried, that even pretty women, who as wives were objects of admiration to despairing and disappointed adorers, have become, by widowhood, very ordinary creatures, simply because they are once more "in the market."

It is well for us that Heaven itself was not in the Price current, or we might have begun to think lightly of it. At all events we'd have higgled about the cost, and tried to get there as cheaply as might be.

From the day that the Swan's Nest appeared in the Dublin papers "to be let furnished, for the three years of an unexpired term," Lendrick was besieged by letters and

K