66 THE TERM HONEST." 123 stall, high-fed at rack and manger, and on mashes forbye, wi' his mane nicely platted, and ribbons on his tail. But in a' his consular pomp, he's no sic a wonnerfu' animal to the imagination as Lord Althropp. Tickler. His Lordship is not without a certain share of small abilities. Shepherd. Sae the newspapers say-but under a Liliputian bushel he could easily hide his licht. Tickler. His Lordship owes a debt of endless gratitude to the press. Not that the gentlemen of the press flatter him on the score of talents-for with one voice they unanimously and harmoniously proclaim him the weakest Chancellor that ever got his head into Exchequer. North. Yet in the Owl they see a Phoenix. Tickler. And as if they were all knaves themselves, lift up their hands in admiration at sight of an honest man. North. Your severity, Tickler, is unjust; yet the editors, who have joined in that senseless cry, have indeed fairly subjected themselves to such imputation. There is not a more contemptible term in the language, in its vulgar colloquial misuse, than the term-honest; for it denotes a stupid man with a fat face-low brow-heavy eyes-lips that seem rather to have been afterward sewed on to the mouth than an original feature chubby cheeks-double chin-large ears-and voice Tickler. A good hint: and then his speaking, it is neither more nor less than a painful medley of grunt, stutter, gasp, and squeak. Every moment you expect him to break through outright. He hums and haws for three minutes, and then hawks up the very worst of all possible words, and then flounders on for a little, boggling, and hammering, and choking, till he comes to another apparently full stop; then another grand husky blunder, some superlative betise, to tug him out of the rut; and then another short rumble of agonising dulness; and then, having explained nothing but his own hopeless incapacity, down the unhappy lump at last settles, and pulls his hat over the bridge of his nose, and puffing and panting as if he had been delivered of a very large piece of dough-while hear! hear! hear! bursts in symphonous cadence from the manly bass of Graham, and the dignified tenor of Lord Advocate Jeffrey, and the angelic treble of the noble Paymaster of his Majesty's Forces (Lord J. Russell); and Peel smiles--one little benignant dimple; and Holmes is troubled with his old cough; and Mackintosh casts upwards a large grey melancholy eye, as if there were something wrong in the ventilator; and O'Connell folds his brawny arms, and shows his teeth like a sportive mastiff; and the honourable member for Preston thrusts his clean hands into his pockets, and his cleaner tongue into his cheek. Shepherd. What a pictur!" 124 LORD ALTHORP'S GOOD NATURE. Shepherd. "Timmer-tuned-tempered by the beetle." But ye dinna mean to say that's a pictur' o' Lord Althropp? North. No-I do not. I know better what is due to a nobleman and a gentleman. But I do mean to say that some such sort of application of the term "honest" has been unconsciously made in the case of his Lordship-to his political characterby many of his admirers. They extol his good nature. Shepherd. In the Forest a gude-natured man means a quate, useless body, henpecked at hame, and cheated abroad, and for whom every excuse is made when he's seen no verra weel cled at kirk or market, on the grund o' his wife's no bein' contented wi' wearin the breeks, unless she gets haud o' the best pair, in which she sits in velvet. That's a gude-natured man in the Forest, but he may be a different character in the House o' Commons, mair especially when the Leader there, wi’a seat o' coorse in the Cabinet, and, to croon a', Chancellor o' the Exchequer ! North. In Smithfield his Lordship's character is without a stain. But to speak plainly, as a Minister of the Crown, he is the most dishonest that ever received, returned, reaccepted, and retained the seals of office. Shepherd. The maist dishonest! North. Yes! Steeped to the eyes in dishonour-yet all the while superstitiously believing himself "the noblest work of God." Shepherd. Tak time to cool, sir. Though I canna say your face is ony way distorted—which it aye is when you're in a passion, nor that your vice trummles-which it aye does when about to be left to yoursel-yet your words are viciously cuttin-and the sharper the edge because, a' the while you're shearin him doun, you're as cool, calm, and colleckit in your mainner as a cucumber. North. The Chancellor of the Exchequer is often called candid, for stammering out the most blundering admissions to crafty querists, cunningly ensnaring him to commit himself on the most important points, which he, good easy man, has not the sense to think points of any importance at all-mumbling "Yes," when, in common prudence, to say nothing of pride, it should have been "No." Shepherd. And "No," when it should hae been "Yes." Eh? THE REFORM BILL.-THE WHIGS. 125 North. He afterwards sees his errors-that is, when he is insultingly told of them—and then he again falls back on his character for candour, and frankly-that is, foolishly-confesses that he had said more than he meant, or the reverse of what he meant; and the crafty, having so far obtained their object as to make him ridiculous, and consequently powerless, cry Hear! hear! hear! and the morning papers are next day filled with honest eulogiums on honest Lord Althorp, who looks next evening in his place as well pleased as a fozie turnip after a shower. Shepherd. You'll please me, sir, by mentionin shortly a few dizzen instances o' his dishonesty. North. I could mention five hundred-but "Lo! in the lake soft burns the star of eve, And the night-hawk hath warned your guests to leave, Shepherd. Ae dizzen. North. What has the entire system of the Whig Government been from first to last, but a complicated and ravelled web of falsehood? Almost every clause in the Reform Bill, as it now stands, enacted a measure, which every man in power (Lord Grey excepted-and Lord Durham, when Mr Lambton), who could wag a tongue or hold a pen, however impotently, had all their political lives resisted and scorned. The Reform we have now got they had continued for many years to denounce as revolution, in speeches, pamphlets, books, without beginning, middle, or end; and the Bill they at first proposed to bring in was founded on principles of conservatism, which almost all moderate men might have in much approved. Wellington and Peel themselves would not have objected to them, though they had too much sense to introduce as Ministers, at such a crisis, any Reform at all. Whether they were wrong or right is not the question-the question is, were the Whigs honest men ?—and the answer has been given by the voice of the country, Radicals and all, that they were, politically speaking, knaves-and conspicuous among them, with his enthusiasm for the tricolor, was my Lord Althorp. Shepherd. But will ye no alloo a man to eat in a few o' his words, sir? North. No a very few indeed, eat in, are sufficient to choke 126 an honest man. POLITICAL UNIONS. But the Whigs re-ate all they had ever spewed on Reform-nor seemed, James, to scunner at the halfdigested gobbets. Shepherd. Coorse. North. Does the Shepherd believe that Lord Althorp in his heart loved and admired-as he said he did-the Political Unions-composed, according to Lord Brougham, of the philosophical classes of Brummagem, and bright with the scientific splendour that holds all the great manufacturing towns of England in perpetual illumination? Shepherd. Na. North. He is not so simple. Shepherd. And yet, to my cost, I'm simple aneuch. North. Once seated in places of power, the Whigs were not slow to denounce Political Unions-which were good, they said—and constitutional for purposes of national agitation to carry the great measure, but bad and unconstitutional, they had the audacious ingratitude to declare, after Reform had established a Liberal Government, for then that it was time for the Philosophical and Political Unionists to resume their aprons —and that the smith must thenceforth be contented to แ stand at his anvil-thus, with open-mouth, swallowing a tailor's news." Shepherd. I canna be angry for lauchin. North. Place himself was degraded into a newsmonger— the very tailor who had invited himself, at the head of a kindred deputation, to a conference with the Premier, to show him how he should cut his cloth-with what suit he should leadwhat measures adopt for the use and ornament of the body politic-while a number of Jews remained at the bottom of the stair, with bags in which to carry off the State's old clothes. Shepherd. You're real wutty, sir, the nicht. North. But did my Lord Althorp, or any other of the timeserving, place-seeking Whigs, ever explain to the Political Unions on what principle they were either encouraged or denounced? The kind of crisis at which they were a blessing -the kind of crisis at which they became a curse? To have done that even slovenly would have required an abler and an honester man. But his ability and his honesty were on a par, and far below par-and now stand at zero. SEVERITY OF THE WHIG GOVERNMENT. 127 Shepherd. I never saw Mr Tickler listenin sae attentively before-and yet he's no asleep. North. That no connection could be imagined to subsist between Political Unions and Trades' Unions, is even yet, James, the Whig cry. They have fed, do feed, and will feed one another; and thousands, and tens of thousands, and hundreds of thousands of poor men have rued, do rue, and will rue, the base arts of their betrayers, the Whigs, who, in the lust of power and place, seduced them to uplift the banners of sedition, misnamed of patriotism by tyrants who changed freemen into slaves, by first pretending to knock off from their limbs fetters that were never forged, and then grinding their faces in the dust, and shipping some of the misguided wretches, now not only useless but dangerous, to expatriation and death. Shepherd. A Psalm-singing Methody or twa, wha had taken and administered unlawfu' oaths, and some half-dizzen ne'erdoweels, wha micht hae been stappin doun about this time frae the tredd-mill. North. All the reasonings of the Liberals against Combination Laws were false, foolish, and futile, as I proved a few months ago, in a paper which the impartial press declared conclusive and unanswerable; and the severities which the Government inflicted, legal as they were, were shocking to the sense of justice, seeing that they came from the hands of men who had selfishly laboured to spread wide the delusion under which those poor ignorant creatures sinned and suffered. Shepherd. Wasna Lord Melbourne then Home Minister? North. He was, and more shame to him; but my honest Lord Althorp had been a far more flaming reformer than he, and should have shown some bowels of compassion to the poor, who, I fear, are now the greatest part of the people. Such cruelties-tender mercies according to the Whig creedsoon cease to be remembered by the rich and noble,—for though the revengeful Whigs have long memories for the slightest injuries done to themselves, the best among them have memories even shorter than their wits for the sufferings of others, and, with all their cant and slang about secondary punishments, prefer them to the capital, because, barbarous as they often are, the nation does not shudder at their inflic |