and situation and in the questions of the day. The hostility of the tories to the first and second Georges caused them often to be democratic in their language, and the whigs, like all parties, are very different in opposition from what they are in office. Yet the whigs were the progressive party in Walpole's time as they are to-day, and the tories then, as they have ever since, opposed change in the institutions of the country. The only exception is the Septennial Act, and that was more a question of passion than of principle. When it began to mean something more, the tories became its warmest supporters. The tories have always been supporters of the royal prerogative, but their attachment to it began when the sovereign was almost certain to prefer them to the whigs, and it has been found to mean little when they were out of favor with the court. Their conduct in 1839 proves this; the conservatives found to their horror that the queen was a whig, and no whig ever opposed the prerogative more vigorously than they did then. It will be remembered that her Majesty refused to part with the ladies. of her court, (who were mostly relatives of whig noblemen,) at the time when the ministry was to be changed. The whigs inconsistently supported her. Upon their past theories the queen's conduct was indefensible; according to all tory maxims, she had merely exerted a very just prerogative. Never, however, was either George the Third or George the Fourth subjected to one-half the violent abuse from the most factious whigs that Queen Victoria had to bear from a portion of the conservative party. We say nothing of the wisdom of the queen's course; the whigs were undoubtedly selfish in placing her in such a position. But the conservatives flung to the winds all their boasted disinterested loyalty in insisting upon the terms which they did, and in the bitterness towards her Majesty which many of them afterwards displayed.

Some of the conservative speakers used the vilest language towards their sovereign, whose sex, as well as her station, should have protected her from attack. One of the worst instances was a speech of a clergyman, which Mr. O'Connell read to the House of Commons. Mr. Disraeli, in his novel of "Sibyl," strongly dissents from Sir Robert Peel's decision on this occasion. It may be questioned, however, whether the queen's course was his real reason for not accepting office.

Twice have conservative ministries carried vital meas

ures of reform in the removal of Roman Catholic disabilities and in the abolition of the corn laws. But this was owing to the agitation for these measures having culminated while they were in power, when the ministers perceived that opposition was no longer possible; and with the assistance of their opponents carried these reforms against their usual supporters. We think it is not unlikely that the conservatives will again be forced to adopt a similar course. A conservative ministry indeed creates agitation. So well is this understood in England that many extreme radicals think more can be obtained from a conservative than from a liberal government. The responsibilities of office open eyes that in opposition are sure to be shut to the most convincing of arguments-necessity. Certain, therefore, as the conservatives are of the support of the opposition on such occasions, the majority which they possess in the House of Lords enables them to carry measures which liberals could only do by using intimidation in order to force the peers to assent to

them.

It is, however, the boast, and justly so, of the conservative party that they pay far less regard to birth and station in selecting their leaders than do the whigs. It has been asserted, also, that the tory aristocracy are less haughty and less exclusive than their liberal brethren, and ingenious reasons have been given for the fact. However this may be, the other assertion, notwithstanding the strenuous denial of whig statesmen, is placed beyond question by an examination of the history of the two parties. Mr. Pitt and Mr. Percival were the younger sons of earls. But we question whether the whigs would not have been shocked at the idea of placing either of them at the head of a whig ministry instead of some Rockingham or Portland. Mr. Addington had no claim to family at all. Since then, among the prominent leaders of all ranks of the conservative party, have been Mr. Canning, Mr. Vansittart, Mr. Huskisson, Sir Robert Peel, Mr. Goulburn, Mr. Herries, Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Disraeli, Sir John Pakington, Mr. Walpole and Mr. Sotheron Estcourt. Two of these were prime ministers, three leaders of the House of Commons, and all of them secretaries of state or chancellors of the exchequer.

The whigs can show no such record.

To go back to Sir

• Somewhere in Moore's Diary and Correspondence there is a conversation between himself and the late Marquis of Lansdowne and Lord Russell, in which he asserts, and they deny, the justice of the statement in the text.

Robert Walpole, he was for a long time kept in a humble position, and upon his return to office, after the bursting of the South Sea bubble, it is doubtful whether his noble colleagues intended him to be much higher than Craggs and Aislabie had been, until they found in him a master. From his time until the rise of Pitt, the ministers were almost all members of the aristocracy. The elder Pitt's life is one long history of aristocratic jealousy and exclusion. George Grenville was the son of a peeress and brother of a peer. Charles Fox was a peer's son and a grandson of a Duke of Richmond; and even he never attained the position of prime minister. The story of Mr. Burke is well known. Mr. Brougham was hardly more than tolerated by the whigs until he became lord chancellor. Mr. Charles Grant, like Mr. Gladstone, came full grown from the tories. Sir Charles Wood and Sir Francis Baring married into the Greys, and the English people have generally considered this their principal claim to office. Mr. Labouchere married a lady of the Howard family. Sir George Lewis deserved everything he ever attained, but we fear that what attracted attention to him for the chancellorship of the Exchequer in 1855 was as much his being brotherin-law of the Earl of Clarendon as his great merit. Mr. Cardwell first rose to importance as a Peelite, and owed his promotion to the terms of the coalition between the Peelites and whigs. Excepting him, the only ministers we now remember to compare with the conservative list are Mr. Windham, Sir James Graham, Mr. Spring Rice, and Sir William Molesworth-all of very high rank among the gentry. None of them ever led the House of Commons. The whigs have had no prime minister since Sir Robert Walpole, or leader of the House of Commons since the first William Pitt, who has not been a peer or son of a peer; and since Mr. Grenville's resignation, a century ago, all their prime ministers have been "lords." Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Tierney, Mr. Poulett Thomson, Mr. Macaulay, Mr. Charles Buller, Mr. Milner Gibson, and many others whom we might enumerate, however serviceable and distinguished they may have been, were early taught that the highest offices belonged to the great families and their connections. At least they never attained them. It looks now as if the liberals could not escape from Mr. Gladstone, at least as their leader in the House of Commons. But eminent as he is, we shall be very much surprised if they do not attempt to confine him to this, and to make him yield the premiership to Lord Clarendon

or Lord Grenville-a pupilage to which we trust he will

never consent.

Since the disappearance of Pitt and Fox from the scene, the five most prominent statesmen of England have been Lord Castlereagh, Mr. Canning, Sir Robert Peel, Lord John Russell, and Lord Palmerston. Castlereagh may be considered as representing the policy which ended in the overthrow of Napoleon; Canning the policy which separated Great Britain from the Holy Alliance, and began to carry liberalism into foreign affairs; Peel the present financial system; Russell, the author of the Reform Bill, the reform era; and Palmerston the present period of domestic repose, and the policy which has encouraged constitutionalism on the Continent. Three others have attained almost equal prominence-Lords Grenville, Grey, and Derby; but they have not exerted equal influence with the five, or engrossed so large a share of public attention. Lord Liverpool was not much more than the presiding officer of his cabinet; and the fame of the Duke of Wellington, Lord Brougham, and Lord Lyndhurst, is, after all, principally professional.

Castlereagh, whose misfortune it has been to be the most unpopular of all, and to be generally depreciated, was a man of higher character, and more worthy of public regard, than has been generally acknowledged. If in pure intellectual qualities his rank is not high, his moral qualities fully justify the great place he filled in England and Europe. He possessed excellent common sense, dauntless courage, great firmness, great industry, and great tenacity of purpose. The real secret, however, of his success, we think, lies in this fact: that his views displayed remarkable agreement and sympathy with the opinions and feelings of the English people on the absorbing topic of the day, the war with France. It is immaterial whether or not that war was a necessary one on the part of England; there can be no doubt that the great body of the people regarded it as a life-and-death struggle; that success was essential not only to their maritime supremacy, but to their national existence; and Castlereagh fully shared these opinions. An abler man might have wavered; he might have been appalled at the terrible cost and burden which the war entailed; his mind, more comprehensive, would have foreseen the evils sure to follow upon success. Castlereagh had no such fear; he never for a moment wavered; his narrow mind, excluding everything else, saw nothing but the danger from the ascen

dency of France. Such narrow-mindedness is at times no inconsiderable power. It shuts out from view consequences which would make a statesman of broad views hesitate, and thus renders any particular policy upon which its possessor is bent more distinct, more positive, and more determined, while it keeps a minister in accord with public opinion, which generally dwells upon only one thing at a time. In these ways it was of the greatest service to Lord Castlereagh. He represented the English people, not because he was particularly skilled in fathoming their feelings, but because he felt with them; and they perceived this sufficiently to repose confidence in him and to support him. The success which crowned his policy was the beginning of his difficulties. As he had succeeded where a greater man might have failed, so now he failed from want of those higher intellectual qualities which before might have injured him. His mind was warped by the great struggle in which he had been engaged, and his fears of France sadly trammelled him at Vienna, and too often made England the tool of the Holy Alliance. He was by no means illiberal in domestic matters. It is now well known that, so far from being responsible for the enormities committed in Ireland during the rebellion, he did all that the could to stay the violence of the dominant party. He supported the emancipation of the Roman Catholics, and doubtless, had it become necessary, would have cheerfully introduced a reform bill. For the severities of the administration after the peace, Lord Sidmouth and Lord Eldon were responsible. The gravest charge that can be brought against Castlereagh respecting them is that of indifference. The last years of his life must have been anything but happy; at home, public distress and public discontent were rampant; abroad, his policy had involved him in inextricable difficulties, and he found his hands tied when at length his eyes were opened to the selfishness, faithlessness, and dangerous policy of the allied sovereigns, whom he had done so much to strengthen. The fact, too, that he was looked upon by the populace as an odious tyrant, responsible for the sins. of the whole cabinet, and for the public distress, must have greatly preyed upon his spirits. Had he lived, his policy must have been substantially the same as Mr. Canning's; but anxiety and disappointment meanwhile overthrew his strong mind, and led to a tragical termination of his career, at the height of his unpopularity, and when his failures were most apparent.