tution of the comic illustrated newspaper' has now made the tour of the world; the United States furnish abundant specimens; Germany and Italy toil manfully in the wake of France and England; we have even seen political caricatures from Rio de Janeiro nearly as good as the ordinary productions of either. But it is impossible to follow a subject so greatly widening in its dimensions; and as cheapness of execution, while it extends the popularity of this class of compositions, diminishes the labour expended on them, we have not to expect for the future either productions of so much interest, or artists of such celebrity, as some of those dealt with in this article.

ART. IX.-1. Speeches of Mr. Bright at Blackburn, Birmingham, and Rochdale, November and December, 1865, and January, 1866. Times' Newspaper. London.

2. An Essay on the History of the English Government and Constitution. By John Earl Russell. New Edition. London, 1865.

HE task which the Parliament that is to meet next month will be called upon to perform falls little short in difficulty of any that has ever been imposed upon a similar assembly. It is true that the material condition of the country furnishes no cause for anxiety. Our wealth is overflowing, our commercial prospects are unclouded, save by the excess of our own activity; and nothing seems likely to disturb either the peace of Europe or the profound contentment which this island is enjoying. Those who recognise no political barometer except the returns of the Board of Trade and the budgets of Chancellors of the Exchequer may well disbelieve that there can be any cause for anxiety upon an horizon of such unbroken brilliancy. There certainly is no probability that this Parliament will be called upon to pacify any violent political excitement, or to relieve the depression of any great national interest. But there are responsibilities greater even than those of providing against present disorder or distress. The task of reconstructing the institutions from which all our prosperity and all our tranquil freedom flow is heavier than any other that could be laid upon English legislators; and its weight is terribly aggravated by the fact that the Parliament which must bear it is a Parliament without a leader, and without a purpose. The leader whom it would have followed, and the mission it was charged to fulfil, have alike been removed by the hand of death. It was returned to keep Lord Palmerston in office: and Lord Palmerston is gone.

Whatever

Whatever object it now accomplishes, into whatever legislation it may blindly stumble, it cannot give any effect to the political feelings which called it into existence. That he has left no successor to carry out his ideas, and maintain his political combinations, is due to the peculiarity of the position he had formed for himself. He commanded the affection of his countrymen more than any Minister since the days of Chatham, and he received political support from them in no grudging measure. But the support was given to the man, and not to his ideas. Politicians of pure breed-those who subordinate every other motive of action to their political convictions,—rather acquiesced in him than followed him. Those who, during the last ten years of his life, rendered to him an earnest and enthusiastic allegiance, which never flinched or faltered, were the great non-political mass of the nation. It is quite true that the principle upon which his government was carried on-the combination of Liberal profession and Conservative practice-represented the genuine state of mind of a large portion of the educated classes, imbued to a greater or less extent with Liberal theories, but unable to conceal from themselves that those theories in the laboratory of the world's experience were working out very unsatisfactory results. But the same would have been true whatever the dominant opinions of the day had been. Partly from a sensitiveness to the contagion of opinion, but more from political pliability, Lord Palmerston, in the course of an eventful life, was always found steering in much the same direction as the majority of his countrymen, to whatever quarter the humour of the moment might happen to be carrying them. But this was not the quality which enabled him to establish so firm a hold on the affections of the nation. Suppleness is not a passport to English popularity, as some who have tried to plagiarise Lord Palmerston's character have found. In his earlier years it may have been useful in raising him to a conspicuous position, for it is a quality convenient in subordinates. But the enthusiasm which followed his later years was directed to a very different portion of his character. It was given by people whose political preferences were feeble to the sterling vigour and manliness which events gave him the opportunity of exhibiting during his later years. Opinions among his supporters, so far as they formed any, very often have differed widely concerning the policy he was pursuing; but the homage they rendered was to qualities, not opinions. The bold patriotism of his language when many politicians of all schools were inclined to truckle to the Peace party; the courage with which, unaided by any single leading man, he took up the Crimean war at its most disastrous period, and worked it out to victory;

victory; the brave front he showed to the most formidable par· liamentary combinations in defence of subordinates, near or distant, even when they were most utterly in the wrong; the contempt of ease with which, in spite of extreme age, he clung to a laborious office-these were characteristics which may not in all cases assist the historian in pronouncing a favourable judgment upon the policy of his administration, but they appealed directly to the heart of the English nation. If any great disaster had happened under his administration, or if any wild political storm had crossed his path, these claims might not have availed him; but in the profound repose of political feeling which it was his chief aim to foster, they secured for him a personal attachment almost universal throughout all classes of the nation, and which grew stronger and stronger up to the last hour of his life.

The fact that his supremacy was personal, and not political, explains why it is that, powerful as he was for so many years, he has left no successor and no school. Castlereagh and Canning were formed under Pitt, and lived faithfully to carry out his ideas. Peel left behind him a group of statesmen, deeply imbued with his political philosophy, and in more than one instance singularly gifted with the talents needed to carry it out. But the third great statesman of the century leaves behind him no single man of mark whose opinions can be described by his name, or to whom the nation can transfer the affection with which it clung to him. Lord Russell and Mr. Gladstone have their own claims to prefer for the support of their partisans; but though they succeed for the moment to the majority which was returned to keep him in office, they are in no sense heirs to the popular feeling upon which his strength was based.

The conduct of the new Government, so far as it has been open to public view, betrays a consciousness that they hold Lord Palmerston's legacy by a precarious tenure. They did not feel, as he did, that their own merits were sufficient to ensure support. They began casting about immediately for new strength in quarters and by means that to some of them must have been galling. The first thing to be done was to mark the victims who were to make the vacancies; and in doing so they felt that a selection could hardly be made without indicating the policy that they intended to pursue. And it must be admitted that both in selecting the officials to be turned out, and the aspirants that were to be let in, they succeeded in symbolising with great distinctness the political camp to which they were about to carry their hitherto somewhat neutral banner. If the rumours that were given to the world by a provincial paper of authority may

be

be credited, their first impulse was to seek for aid among Conservative, or semi-Conservative statesmen. Rebuffed in this quarter, and despairing of any secure support from the combination that had upheld Lord Palmerston, they resolved that there was no course left to them but to surrender themselves entirely to the Radicals. Mr. Bright's speeches at Blackburn and at Birmingham -probably the heartiest he ever delivered on behalf of any Ministry -show how thoroughly he is satisfied with the overtures they have made. The credit must be given to them of having displayed great skill in proclaiming their new policy by their new appointments, without the indecency of anticipating the Queen's speech of next February. The two subordinates selected for slaughter may be said to have been typical of the frailties in the Palmerston Government, which were most obnoxious to the extreme left. Sir Robert Peel was a fair type of a moderate Conservative, animated by no special dislike of change, but cherishing a very decided objection both to the encouragement of democracy and the overthrow of established churches. Mr. Hutt represented the negative side of the Palmerston Government. He was a Liberal, instinct with that kind of Liberalism which can only be kept afloat by the agitations of opposition, but speedily subsides in the repose of office. He should have been the special favourite of the Minister who at a time when Reform seemed very hopeless adjured the English people to rest and be thankful; for Mr. Hutt rested profoundly from the Radicalism of his former days, and was not unthankful for the results of his tranquillity. His dismissal was a sufficient prognostic of a more active policy than has been recently pursued. But the appointments by which these two places were filled up left no doubt upon the subject. Mr. Goschen and Mr. Forster were undoubtedly the two ablest of the Radicals, always supposing that the courage of the Cabinet was not equal to the admission of Mr. Bright. But they are not only able; they have been singularly outspoken. They have not concealed the objects towards which their desires and efforts tend, and they have pledged themselves beyond recall to views so strong upon subjects so vital, that it can hardly be supposed that they have joined any Ministry in whose policy upon those points they have not good reason to confide. In the case of Mr. Goschen, perhaps, this view must be taken with some modification. If we were really to find grounds for believing that he had made the acceptance of his ecclesiastical views a condition of his adhesion, it would follow that a very serious conflict was impending between the Church and the party now dominant in the State. Mr. Goschen has spoken more strongly against religious teaching, in the sense in which the phrase has

been

been understood by every Christian Church, than any other public man. His argument for admitting Dissenters to University offices, delivered only last June, rested upon the principle that Oxford was a layUniversity, and that doctrinal instruction was not wanted by the laity. This is a principle which, worked out by Mr. Goschen's logical mind, will carry far. It is the bold enunciation of that new form of belief, or unbelief, which asserts that religion is something wholly apart from dogmas, and that its requirements may be equally satisfied, whether a man holds to any creed or no. Our plain-spoken fathers would have called such a theory infidel. We make things pleasanter now, and call it 'unsectarian.' But, by whatever name it may be called, it would, if carried into effect, be the negation of every part of religion except a morality founded upon sentiment. It would sweep utterly away, as a matter without interest for human souls, the distinct system of dogma which has formed the most prominent part of Christianity ever since it came into the world, and would make the enunciation of it as needful to salvation a wornout prejudice. To the ecclesiastical institutions of this or any other country Mr. Goschen's principle must, of course, be fatal. It is quite clear that a revelation, in which it is of no importance that the laity should be instructed, may be put aside as an historical curiosity; and when this principle is sufficiently established, the practical corollary will not be slow to follow. Institutions which exist for the purpose of teaching this revelation, which is nobody's concern, ought to be swept away with as little scruple as if they existed for the propagation of astrology.

There is every ground to believe that Mr. Goschen was absolutely sincere, and that he will not fail to press to their legitimate conclusion the principles he has so boldly laid down; and if it followed from his taking office, that his views were adopted by his superiors, the Church's death-grapple with her enemies would be at hand. But though Mr. Goschen's appointment indicates indifference upon this subject in the leaders of the Ministry, it can scarcely be assumed to prove any absolute sympathy with his opinions. Ecclesiastical questions have been, to some extent, open questions in Governments for some time past. The arrangement is not very easy to account for. It seems strange that statesmen should insist on uniformity of opinion upon many matters of transient interest, and yet should agree to differ upon a question that even in its purely secular aspect is among the most momentous with which a legislature can deal. But so by a tacit tradition it has been allowed to stand. No stronger instance of the practice can be adduced than the conduct of Mr. Gladstone, who consents to be the main support of a party which habitually