66

II.

177

not uncertain, but impossible." On an- sell them." It is commonly supposed that other occasion he pithily and wisely re- when Wilkes obtained his seat as Member marked: 13 "Let us treat with the liberal for Middlesex, he forgot the cause alike of spirit of freemen and Englishmen. Uncon- the people and of freedom. If those who ditional submission is unconstitutional sub- believe this would but read his speeches mission, and becomes only the slaves of an they might retract the false statements they arbitrary monarch." Commenting on the have made in consequence of their igfollowing words in a speech from the throne, norance. This, however, will not be done Among the unavoidable ill consequences till historians prefer truth to foregone conof this rebellion, none affects me more sen- clusions. sibly than the extraordinary burden which it must create to my faithful subjects," he pointedly and happily said:"How many faithful subjects have lost their lives as well career of Wilkes have been conspicuous Hitherto the writers who have treated the as their fortunes in this destructive quarrel; for their determination to underrate his imyet the loss of their fortunes is what affects portance and to deny his sincerity. That most sensibly! Jason sought the golden the natural friends of loyalty at any price fleece, and cared little for the sheep." To the observations quoted from his speeches regarding America, which the listeners disregarded, but which have proved almost prophetic, the following may be fitly added in conclusion:-"We know that there is no more love of liberty in the French Court than in our own; but I rejoice that liberty will have a resting-place, a sure asylum, in America, from the persecution of almost all the princes of the earth." The man who gave vent to this remark a century ago was prescient beyond those of his contemporaries, who have been praised both for resisting the contest with America and for advocating, as the consequence of an important war, the recognition of its independence.

It would be easy to give quotations from other speeches, demonstrating that the great agitator was a man of sound and enlightened views. He stood up for toleration towards Dissenters and Roman Catholics at a time when both were treated with unjustifiable barshness. He urged on the House the duty of making the British Museum a useful institution, and giving to art and science adequate encouragement, at a time when no man of note thought that Parliament should legislate in the interests of either. He advocated Reform in language which the reformers of later days have not surpassed, approving of the suppression of rotten boroughs, and of the enfranchisement of the dwellers in Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield, and Leeds. Indeed, so just were his ideas on this question that words spoken by him in 1776 might be used even now by the reformers who labour for the suppression of the small and decayed boroughs: The disfranchising of the mean, venal, and dependent boroughs would be laying the axe to the root of corruption and Treasury influence, as well as aristocratical tyranny. We ought equally to guard against those who sell themselves, or whose lords VOL. XI. 432

66

LIVING AGE.

should do this is what might be expected.
But it is surprising that the staunch up-
holders of popular liberties against regal
domination should think it right to vilify
the man who did and suffered more than
any politician of his time in order that the
subject should be able to claim protection
against the injustice of the sovereign. Had
it not been for such a bold man as Wilkes,
half the work of the revolution would have
been undone. George III. had resolved
upon introducing personal government to
an extent which would have rendered him
ultimately independent of Parliament. Many
of the leading statesmen of the day were
ready to sustain him in this nefarious at-
the scheme was defeated. He was not, it
tempt. It was chiefly due to Wilkes that
is true, a man whose moral character can
be held up for imitation; but the censures
which are cast upon him apply equally to
all his distinguished contemporaries. It
would be easy to show that, at the worst,
he was less open to blame than is generally
supposed. This, however, it is unnecessary
to do. A man's vices are as much a part
of himself as his virtues. It does not aid
us in the understanding of his character to
begin by asserting that he was untainted
with vice.

think justly, and act on the principles of
Moreover, a politician may
pure patriotism, even though he should have
had an obscene poem in his possession, and
have been the father of an illegitimate child.
Besides, a man is not necessarily wicked
because he has the misfortune to squint.

drawn

from the life" by Hogarth can be favoura-
No one who has seen Wilkes
A more repulsive portrait was never painted,
bly impressed with his personal appearance.
or rather, no one ever injured his friend
with equal malignity than Hogarth did when
he produced that celebrated caricature.
Nothing puts the injured man in a pleasant-
er light than the manner in which he bore.

66

the affront. Referring to the subject in his the incorrectness of the opinion enunciated notes to Churchill's poems, Wilkes good- in such unqualified terms by Earl Russell. humouredly and wittily wrote; "It must While public declarations signify little, pribe allowed to be an excellent compound vate letters have often a real value. Now, the caricature, or rather, a caricature of what public and private language of Wilkes tally nature had already caricatured. I know so well that he must have been a hypocrite of but one short apology to be made for this inconceivable magnitude to have uniformly gentleman, or, to speak more properly, for persisted in statements intended to deceive, the person of Mr. Wilkes; it is, that he did yet addressed to persons whom he had no not make himself, and that he never was reason for misleading. To Earl Temple he solicitous about the case of his soul (as wrote, while the proceedings relative to the Shakspeare calls it), only so far as to keep North Briton were pending, as well as on it clean and in health. I never heard that other occasions; I have never lost sight he once hung over the glassy stream, like of the great object of the liberty of the another Narcissus, admiring the image in subject at large." "I hope, within the it, nor that he ever stole an amorous look fortnight, to congratulate your lordship and at his counterfeit in a side mirror. His every true lover of liberty on the explicit form, such as it is, ought to give him no declaration of a court of justice in favour pain, while it is capable of giving so much of the liberty of the subject." Again, he pleasure to others. I believe he finds him- showed an accurate perception of the naself tolerably happy in the clay cottage to ture and result of his labours when he said: which he is tenant for life, because he had -"North Briton and Wilkes will be talked learned to keep it in pretty good order, of together by posterity, and the work is, while the share of health and animal spirits I believe, the most just and animated acwhich Heaven has given him should hold count of last year's politics at home." "I out. I can scarcely imagine he will be one have this cause at heart, and I feel the spirit moment peevish about the outside of so pre- of Hampden in it, but I have not his forcarious, so temporary a habitation; or will tune." Though the public fail me, I will ever be brought to own, Ingenium Galba never be wanting to them, and I shall have malè habitat: Monsieur est mal logé." It only to say at the end, Il est grand, il est is certain that a man who could be so beau, de faire des ingrats." "I mean to sprightly and sensible when referring to the lay the present age under a real obligation caricature of Hogarth would not have been in the most darling cause to an Englishman; greatly overcome had he lived to read the and, however I may suffer myself, the faithlanguage in which the late Lord Brougham ful historian's page and posterity will do me thought it good taste to refer to "his inhu- justice. There I keep my eye steadily man squint and demoniac grin." Nor fixed." He did more than write these would he have done otherwise than treated words: he fulfilled his promise; and, beas an ebullition of forensic rhetoric the no- cause he had the courage to suffer many ble lord's statement that he had "prosti- things, others have enjoyed greater freetuted the printing-press to multiply copies of a production that would dye with blushes the cheek of an impure." It may be noticed, in passing, that if Lord Brougham had read the production to which he referred he was singularly favoured, seeing that no authentic printed copy of it is known to exist. If he were misled owing to the perusal of a spurious document, then he did gross injustice to the memory of Wilkes.

Another nobleman of tried liberality in politics has considered it fair to characterise Wilkes as "a profligate spendthrift, without opinions or principles religious or political; whose impudence far exceeded his talents, and who always meant license when he cried liberty." It is not easy to learn what a politician really means, and it may be that Earl Russell has learned, since penning the foregoing words, that the purest motives are liable to misinterpretation. But all the available evidence tends to prove

66

dom. Yet Earl Russell has stigmatised this man as utterly abandoned; and Lord Brougham styled him an "unprincipled adventurer," bent upon compassing his “vile ends!"

Lest it be said that he purposely wrote in a certain strain to Earl Temple, it may be well to quote from his private letters to his daughter. He had no grounds for disguising the truth from her. After Luttrell had been seated for Middlesex in 1770, he wrote: "Lord Chatham was great on Tuesday. I have not yet been at either House, to avoid every pretence of a riot, or influencing their debates by a mob." During an excursion in 1772 he visited Torbay, landing at Brixham, which, he tells his daughter, is "the place where King William landed. I was ready to fall on my knees on the sacred spot; and could scarcely leave the holy steps on which he landed to rescue a wretched people from slavery

appellations from the name of Wilkes is a hopeless task; because, in order to succeed, it would be necessary to annihilate notions which men delight to cherish and resolutely defend when attacked. Those only who read the history of his times as it is written in the journals, diaries, and letters of contemporaries, can understand how great were his services to the State, and how shamefully they have been requited. No one possessing the requisite knowledge, and unbiassed by vulgar prejudices, will assert that John Wilkes was either presumptucus or mistaken in desiring that this simple yet honourable inscription should be engraven on his tombstone-"A friend to liberty."

W. F. RAE.

From The Economist. THE CLASS FEELING OF IRISH TENANTS.

and the Stuarts. I was provoked to find no pyramid, obelisk, nor the least public memorial, on such a spot; but I hope the memory of that event is engraven on the hearts of the people, who seem to me in that part of Devonshire very staunch to the cause of liberty." These expressions appear hyperbolical now, but they could be spoken in all sincerity a century ago. To a firm believer in monarchy, as Wilkes was, and to one who, at the same time, desired the freedom of the people, nothing could be more pleasing than the reflection that the Stuarts had been banished without the throne having been overturned. He was the reverse of a republican. Hence he could say with truth that he for one had never been a Wilkite. In the last of his public speeches he protested alike against an absolute monarchy and a republic, declaring his preference "for limited monarchy a monarchy which is not above law, WHAT reason is there for placing the rebut is founded upon law, and secures free- lations of Irish landlords and tenants on a dom to the subject." Many who supported different footing from those which exist in him thought that he had at heart the sub- England? and to what extent should legislaversion of the constitution, whereas he al- tive alteration be carried? These questions ways laboured in order that it might be must have been suggested to many people preserved. The revolutionists of his day by the murders at Ballycohey. The tenants were to be found in the ranks of the minis- of Mr. Scully revolted at exceptionally hard try and on the steps of the throne. Had treatment; they could hardly help thinking Wilkes succumbed they would have tri- that to force on them a lease, permitting umphed, and another battle would have been eviction at twenty-one days notice, and othnecessary in order to uphold the law in de-erwise subjecting them to galling restricfiance of royal prerogative. tions, really showed an intention to disIf it availed anything, it might be shown possess them if they would not be serfs. that as a scholar the position of Wilkes was But the exclamation-"We might as well high; that as a polished gentleman his su- be dead as alive," and other circumstances, periority was acknowledged; that his fame indicate an undercurrent of feeling with as a wit was merited and wide-spread. But which we are not familiar. Starving men, all his claims to the admiration of the pub-if they feel they are oppressed, will always lic are now prejudged, owing to his having be dangerous, but Mr. Scully's tenants once successfully led the people and braved plainly thought they were not only opthe ill-will of the sovereign. It is forgotten pressed but that some just right was inthat not all his cleverness would have suf- terfered with. What this feeling among ficed had his cause been less just. What-Irish tenants is has been frequently exever a man's ambition, and however extra-plained, but nowhere we think with such ordinary his talents, his impotence is soon force or distinctness as in the second volmanifested should he attempt to rouse Englishmen to resist constituted authority, if the authorities have right on their side. Wilkes blundered sadly when he anticipated that the faithful historian's page and posterity" would do him justice. Towards such a man as he the historian is rarely impartial, and posterity is nearly always unfair. A politician who neither inherits a peerage, nor is ennobled before his death, is certain to be distrusted as an adventurer and reviled as a demagogue, even though he should have proved himself the faithful servant of the people and a true lover of his country. To dissociate the obnoxious

ume of Mr. Senior's Journals and Conversations relating to Ireland. The book is altogether remarkably entertaining and readable, and useful in this way that it impresses on the reader the point of Irish difficulties. Mr. Senior has virtually acted like a self-constituted Select Committee on the state of Ireland, with the additional advantage of examining the witnesses on the spot, and his conversations present the telling parts of the evidence with more force than if embedded in the voluminous minutes of a Committee. The evidence he has collected on the Church question for instance -on the craving for equality among Irish

But

crops of those who do not pay-you may even
evict them. These things the people are accus-
tomed to - these things they will bear.
there is one thing which you must not do. You
must not be what is called an improving land-
lord-you must not throw farms together—
you must not add to your demesne; in short,
you must not diminish the number or the extent
of the holdings in your estate; there must be
as much land left for tenants, and for as many
tenants as there is now."

In my neighbourhood this feeling exists no longer; there is more land than they want.' Does it still prevail,' I asked, ' in any other part of Ireland?"

·

priests, the denial of which helps to make | ance- - you may distrain the cattle and seize the them disaffected and teach disaffection is exceedingly important. But the land difficulty is the great one, after all-the one on which it is becoming most necessary to have sound information. The nature of the evidence then is to this effect that the class feeling among Irish tenants is against permitting landlords to have any thing to do with farms besides receiving rent. A landlord must not improve; he must not meddle with the land in any way; above all, he must not diminish the number of holdings or extent of ground held by tenants; he may evict for non-payment of rent, but the tenant should be compensated Certainly,' answered O. In many parts for any value he has put into the land. of the North, from whence there has been but This is the feeling among the tenant class little emigration, it is undiminished. in Ireland, the bulk of the Irish population, Bateson was beaten to death in Monaghan last and with this feeling legislation must deal. summer, for having turned into a model farm It is an unfortunate theory to hold and in-two or three farms the tenants of which he had sist on with passion, and no one can hope ejected.' much for the future of Ireland who does not look forward to its ultimate extinction; but the fact that the theory is held is to be I can tell you another story of the same recognised and acted on. It is useless kind,' said O., and of a rather later date. An forcing a different theory on a whole pop- acquaintance of mine, a Mr. M., has a property ulation, and you may convert opinion in Tipperary. He wished to enlarge his demesne, sooner by abolishing pretexts for griev- by taking into it half-a-dozen acres near his ance. Natural laws and circumstances gate. They were occupied by a tenant-at-will will operate more quickly where prejudices whose family had long held under the M's. M. are not offended.

This is the general reason for altering somewhat the Irish law of landlord and tenant. But before discussing it, we may show by a few extracts how strong the feeling is. The first passage we take is a conversation between the author and C. O., one of the Irish Poor-Law Inspectors, who had property in Tipperary :

When I was a lad,' said O., ‘I saw a good deal of a squireen, half farmer and half agent, who used to go out with me shooting and fishing. He was a man of strong sense and will, but hard character, and, both as landlord and as agent, did things which seemed to me harsh, and even oppressive.

When he was dying he sent for me, and said: "I have long been connected with your family, I have received much kindness from them, and before I die I wish to tell you the means by which I have passed a long life engaged in the management of property in a disturbed district, without having ever been attacked, or even threatened. It was by knowing what I could do, and what I could not do, and that knowledge I will now give to you. You may let your land at its utmost value-you may require your rents to be paid-you may refuse to make any deduction for bad seasons you may refuse to give your tenants any assist

Poor

I remember,' I said, his nearly falling what similar conduct a dozen years ago.' a victim to the resentment occasioned by some

told his tenant what he wanted to do, and offered him 51. an acre for the goodwill, and a better farm as soon as one became vacant.

The

tenant was delighted. "Sure," he said, "it is
to accommodate you without the goodwill!"
your own, and we should have been happy
Some months after, a farm fell in. It was
much better than the one in question. M. of-
fered it to his tenant, who was all gratitude.
"Sure," he said, "I never thought to have

had such a fine farm." M. therefore made his
arrangements: pulled down his wall (every
Irish park is surrounded by a high wall, partly
for security and partly because paling would be
stolen), and began to rebuild it so as to include
the proposed addition. But the tenant showed
no indications of removal. M. sent for him, and
complained that the workmen were delayed.
"Why, in truth," said the tenant, "it is the
old woman; she cannot bear to leave the old
place." "Nonsense!" said M., "you should
have told me this before she will be better off
in the new place. I will not hear such stuff.
You are a man of sense- - you can manage your
wife. If you can't, I think that I can. I shall
go and talk to her, and tell her that she must
be off in a week." The tenant looked round to
see that no one could overhear them.
truth," he said, "it is not the old woman, nor
it is not me. It is the Boys." "What Boys?"
Why, the Boys all round, your honour.
They won't let me go. They say the demesne
shan't be made larger, and the tenants' lands

66

"In