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made at the time, and he is now speaking from memory, after an interval of forty years, of a conversation which he does not even remember to have taken place.

We now turn to the second point adverted to by his Lordship, which is of more importance. Lord Grey objects to our statement that Lord Wellesley wrote to his father on the 21st June, 1834, a very able and important official despatch,' recommending the abandonment of the public meetings' clauses and the court-martial clauses in the Irish Coercion Bill, and he adds that there was no such despatch, but only a private and confidential letter from the Lord-Lieutenant. In point of form Lord Grey is so far right, that we ought not to have applied the term official despatch' to this communication, because, as is well known, the official despatches of the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland are addressed to the Home Secretary and not to the First Lord of the Treasury. Lord Melbourne in his answer on the 18th July took that distinction, and Lord Wellesley himself said in a letter of the 3rd July (which we have before us) that he wrote to Lord Grey expressly for the purpose of keeping his communication out of the official channel, and that he mentioned this to Lord Melbourne on the same day. The term 'official' was therefore improperly applied by us to this remarkable document. The term should rather have been extra-official,' or semi-official.'. But to remove all further doubt as to the nature of this famous letter, we will now print it literatim et verbatim from a copy made by Lord Wellesley's private secretary; and we do so with the more pleasure as it is a paper which does Lord Wellesley the highest honour, and which has no inconsiderable historical importance. It has not before been published.

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'MY DEAR LORD.-Understanding from some communications with Mr. Littleton, that the omission of those clauses in the Protective Act (which confer extensive and extraordinary powers of preventing meettings, etc., on the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland), would facilitate other measures of importance in their progress through Parliament, and would also secure the re-enactment of the other important provisions of the Act, I think it may be convenient to your Lordship to receive an early statement of my sentiments on the subject.

'The objects of that Act were to prevent agitation, as the remote cause of outrage, and to restrain the nightly assemblies of the people, the effect of that cause.

'The powers conferred on the Lord-Lieutenant of prohibiting and suppressing meetings were directed to check the first of these evils; and unquestionably were successful in their first operation; but your Lordship cannot forget that they were found useless during the whole course of the agitation of the Repeal of the Union; and that perhaps the happy result of that agitation is in some respect to be ascribed to the moderation of the Government, in abstaining from the exercise of the powers which it possessed. The question of the Repeal of the Union is quite extinct; and if (as I hope) an efficient Tithe Bill is passed, it

will be impossible to revive agitation unless a clamour can be raised, on some such question as the renewal of great and extraordinary powers of an arbitrary spirit, without evident necessity. Unless, therefore, the necessity is evident, the renewal of the powers would only serve to furnish new ground for agitation and violence.

'I am aware that it is possible, when these powers shall be withdrawn, some meetings, under a different character, but of an equally factious and troublesome spirit, may arise, and that it is not the party of Repeal alone from which mischief is to be apprehended. But I think that the ordinary powers of the law, with the weight of public opinion, would easily defeat such wicked attempts. I cannot, therefore, state, that I consider the preservation of the clauses respecting meetings, as they now stand in the Act, to be essential to the public tranquillity of Ireland, or that the omission of them would endanger the public safety.

"The powers conferred by those clauses of the Act directed against the nightly councils and assemblies of the people, and imposing restraints upon disorderly movements and excesses, may be rather deemed as precautionary moral regulations, than infractions of civil rights; these regulations must be re-enacted; without them it will be scarcely possible to maintain the public peace. If a bill could be framed, continuing to the executive authority the power of enforcing these regulations for three or five years, such an extension of time to this part of the bill, would be an ample retribution for the loss of all its other provisions.

'On a very material branch of this question, I cannot, perhaps, touch, without exceeding the limits of my official duty; but it is so closely interwoven with every part of the subject, that I am certain your Lordship will not disapprove that excess of zeal, however indiscreet. I mean the general necessity of producing to Parliament, in the present crisis, the most temperate measures which the public safety will admit, respecting the condition of Ireland.

'The Act in question must be deemed an exception to the spirit and character of your Lordship's government. It was expressly founded on the necessity of the case; it was stated to be temporary and transient in its nature; and an impatience was felt and signified to be relieved from the burthen of continuing such a law. I think that the demonstration of a fixed aversion to the renewal of any provisions of this law, which cannot be proved to be within the strict necessity of the case now existing, would not fail to produce a most salutary effect in the House of Commons, and in the mind of every liberal man in the country. I think an union is now more necessary than ever to meet the array of the enemy. This I believe would tend greatly to accelerate the Irish Tithe Bill, and other measures, and to bring the session to an early and tranquil conclusion. Your Lordship will perceive that some parts of this letter differ from my letter to Lord Melbourne of the 11th June; but I trust that the change of circumstances since that time will sufficiently justify the difference. In opening the subject of the renewal of this Act to Parliament, I am convinced that your Lordship will render justice to the spirit in which

it has been administered. To the meetings, I have never applied it; I left the frantic project of the Repeal of the Union to destroy itself, by discussion and free reason; where I have applied the law, the cases were irresistible; and it was loudly and repeatedly demanded by the voice of the country. Even then, I applied it reluctantly, and with every precaution; and it has everywhere been attended with complete effect. Your Lordship knows, whether I have sought for the renewal of these tremendous powers (more dreadful perhaps to me, than to the people of Ireland) with less discretion than I have exercised them; and I rely on your Lordship and Lord Melbourne with the fullest confidence for my defence against any assaults, which may be directed, either upon any alleged violence or timidity in the exercise of the powers committed to me by this law, or upon any suggestions which I have offered for its amendment.

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Our readers will form their own judgment as to the public or private character of this communication. The late Earl Grey described it as 'a private and confidential letter '-'an entirely private letter:' we regarded it, and still regard it, as an able and important secret despatch. But the most curious part of this transaction is, that Earl Grey himself, being unconvinced by the arguments in this letter, wholly ignored its existence in his speech of the 1st July, 1834, and on the contrary quoted to the House of Lords on moving the first reading of the bill, the previous despatch of the Lord-Lieutenant of the 18th April, in which the opposite opinion had been conveyed to the Government, although he knew by the letter of the 21st June that Lord Wellesley had altered that opinion. The present Lord Grey relies in the same manner on the previous despatches of the 15th and 18th April, which were laid before Parliament. We can only conclude that he is not aware of the contents and nature of the document to which we have now the honour to call his attention. The existence of that document was not disclosed till the day of his father's resignation; its contents never were disclosed at all; and although strenuous efforts were made in both Houses of Parliament to obtain the production of it, this was successfully resisted on the ground that it was a 'private communi'cation.' Lord Melbourne himself remarked on this very letter that 'the distinctions between what is public and what is private are by no means defined or generally understood.' A communication on public affairs may, of course, be confidential' or 'secret,' but when it relates exclusively to some important public act, and is written, as this was, for an important public purpose, we agree with what Sir Robert Peel said with reference to the correspondence of the Duke of Wellington and Mr. Huskisson in 1823, that the character of the letter depends on the matter it contains, and not on the superscription.' Indeed in this case the copy of the letter in our possession is written on official foolscap, and the superscription is not 'private and confidential,' but 'secret' the term usually employed in despatches of this nature. With the sole exception of the circumstance that it begins, 'My dear

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'Lord' instead of 'My Lord,' it appears to us to have every mark of a secret despatch, though it was not so regarded by Earl Grey. Lord Grey speaks of his father's having brought in the Coercion Bill with the concurrence of the whole Cabinet and of the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, but he is too well-informed not to be aware that this concurrence was formal and most reluctantly given, and that the opinions of the Lord-Lieutenant, the Irish Secretary, Lord Althorp, the Lord Chancellor, and we believe of Mr. Spring Rice, Mr. Abercromby, and Mr. Ellice, if not of other members of the Government, had been opposed to that of the Prime Minister. He fails to show on what grounds his father persisted in his declaration that the bill was necessary to secure the public peace of Ireland,' when he had in his possession the declaration of the Lord-Lieutenant, that he did not consider the clauses respecting meetings, as they stood in the Act, 'essential to the tranquillity' of that island. The contradiction is direct and explicit. Lord Wellesley did not intend to say or do anything in opposition to the wishes and policy of Lord Grey; his sole object in the whole matter was to do what was best for the Government; he therefore intimated in a subsequent letter that he should be satisfied with whatever course the Cabinet chose to adopt, and he did assent to the full renewal of the bill by a regular despatch of the 2nd July. The Cabinet at which it was decided to retain the obnoxious clauses in the bill was held at Holland House on Sunday 29th June. The bill was brought in on Tuesday 1st July. After the discussion of the 3rd July in the House of Commons, and Lord Grey's declaration in the House of Lords on the 4th July, Lord Althorp resigned on the 7th July. We therefore repeat with confidence, that the determination of Earl Grey to retain the obnoxious clauses led to the resignation of Lord Althorp and to his own. No sooner had Lord Melbourne succeeded him, than Lord Althorp and Mr. Littleton resumed their offices, and the bill was passed without the clauses which Earl Grey had deemed essential. We, therefore, see no reason to withdraw or modify any portion of the statements we have made, except in reference to the use of the word 'official.'

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The concluding lines of Lord Grey's communication scarcely admit of a precise answer, but we venture to submit to his Lordship that the public acts of eminent men must be judged of, especially after a considerable lapse of time, by written contemporary evidence rather than by recollection, however distinct. We hope that the whole correspondence relating to these transactions will one day be made available for the purposes of history, and whenever it is published it will corroborate the narrative we laid before our readers.

No. CCLXXIV. will be published in October

THE

EDINBURGH

REVIEW,

OCTOBER, 1871.

No. CCLXXIV.

Translated into English By B. JOWETT, M. A., Professor of Greek in the

ART. I.-The Dialogues of Plato,
with Analyses and Introductions.
Master of Balliol College, Regius
University of Oxford. In 4 vols. Oxford: at the Clarendon
Press. 1871. .

THE

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HE first remark that we have to make on these volumes is, that the ground before them was virtually unoccupied. It may seem strange that Plato should have remained so long untranslated into English, for Plato has, without doubt, exercised a considerable influence on some of the best minds in England, ever since the morning when Lady Jane Grey preferred to sit reading Phædo' in the window at Bradgate, while the rest went hunting in the park. Shakspeare, in more than one passage, exhibits a genuine inspiration from Plato, however derived,—as, for, instance, in his exquisite allusion to the music of the spheres (Merchant of Venice,' act v. sc. i.), and in his reference to the theory of Ideas in the sonnet beginning From you have I been absent in the Spring.' The stately style of Bacon is a good deal to be attributed to the influence of Plato, from whom (though he did not do him justice as a philosopher) he did not disdain to borrow his distinction of Idols and Ideas' in general, and the particular figure of the Idols of the Cavern.' Of the Platonism in Hooker, Spenser, Milton, it is unnecessary to speak. The Cambridge Platonists of the seventeenth century handed down. a tradition through Cudworth, Henry More, Leighton, and other great names, which served as a protest against the extremes of Lockeism, and which was taken up and revived by Coleridge. And yet to read Plato was reserved as a privilege for Greek scholars, and no one seems to have thought of

VOL. CXXXIV. NO. CCLXXIV.

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