regard to the question of electoral reform. As long as the Whigs corrupted the electoral bodies, the Tories clamoured for change, while the Whigs did not become Reformers until the electoral bodies, under the second Pitt, went over, by tens and by fifties, to the Tories. Such, in all ages, is human nature; and incorruptible patriots as well as arbitrary ministers are subject to its infirmities. But it is fair to own that while the eloquence, the intrepidity, and the loftiness of Bolingbroke's political writings have clothed historical Toryism in borrowed plumes, its pretensions to a more catholic temper than professed Liberalism shows, are not entirely unfounded. It has been said of Walpole, by his most eloquent apologist, that his heart was not desperately wicked, and that when he could not promote his own interests he was willing to promote the interests of his country. The basest faction, in like manner, is never quite destitute of public spirit. And various circumstances have contributed to mitigate the austerity of Toryism. The Whig has his dogmas: the Tory has his traditions. The Whig is a political doctrinaire: the Tory is a political devotee. The Whig believes in the divine origin of 'liberal measures,' and is ever ready to cure 'the something in the world amiss' by morsels of parliamentary reform, doled out with the precision of a parish overseer: the Tory looks more to the spirit than to the letter of the law, and his confession of faith is rather a sentiment than a creed. From this original difference of constitution, many important practical consequences ensue. The Tories, for instance, recruit their ranks from the people; the Whig families keep the government among themselves. The Tories have been led by plebians-Pitt, Addington, Canning, Peel, Disraeli, are the chiefs they have served; but the Whigs have consistently held that only a select tribe, a consecrated caste, can lawfully minister before the Ark of the Constitution. More than seventy years ago, in a letter addressed to Junius, Horne VOL. LXIX. NO. CCCCXIII. Tooke complained warmly that the Rockingham connexion preferred rather to make matches and to extend their family alliances than to add their languid property and feeble character to the ability of a Chatham or the confidence of a public.' Even at this day the reproach (if it be a reproach, and a pure Whig would probably not consider it such) has not been quite wiped away. The Tories, therefore, in common with their antagonists, have done the state some service. But it concerns them to look to their laurels. We do not speak the language of faction, we speak the sense of the nation when we say that it would be matter for regret were the renown and fair fame of a great party to be tarnished. But it is no secret that certain members of the Opposition, by their intemperate spirit and mutinous conduct, are striving to bring this about. The services which Mr. Disraeli has rendered to the Opposition are many and great. He has occupied, for fifteen years, a difficult and embarrassing post. He has had to reconcile a faction with the nation. St. John attempted to do so during the earlier part of the eighteenth century; but he failed; and for seventy years the Whigs governed England. Had Mr. Disraeli not succeeded in weaning the Protectionists from Protection, the official ostracism of the Tories might have been as protracted during this century as it was during the last. In achieving this object, he has had to encounter the prejudices of his followers as well as the taunts of his adversaries. The Tory party contains, at the present moment, several of the ablest and most enlightened politicians of the day; but the Tory party is, and always has been, a city of refuge for the zealots and bigots of political life. These have offered a covert but pertinacious opposition to the policy of their leaders, and have done their utmost to disable the party, and to unfit it for office. They have accused their chief of political infidelity, as if inconsistency were a high crime and misdemeanor, or, as if it were possible RR to remain stationary in a planet which is continually turning. Dryden, during the Commonwealth, wrote an ode to the Protector; after the Restoration, he wrote a panegyric on the King. If he changed,' Doctor Johnson observes, with a wise and lofty tolerance,' he changed with the nation.' They have accused him of political dishonesty, as if political truth were as absolute as moral, or as if political action did not involve prudent compromises, timely concessions, politic forbearance. They give him no credit for the adroitness which he has shown in choosing a position; for the skill with which he has disabled the advocates of innovation; for the skill with which he has crippled the enemies of the Church. Had he obstinately opposed Reform, it is probable that at this moment a fierce and damaging battle might be raging; but, whenever Reform was made an open question, it ceased to be capital for the demagogue. Had he allowed church-rates to be swept away without a struggle, the churchman might now, instead of repelling his assailants from an outwork, have been engaged in defending the citadel. Government by party is the most characteristic feature of our political institutions; or, to speak more accurately, it is the condition under which they flourish. Mr. Disraeli has always been loyal, sincere, straightforward, to his party; but habitual insubordination in the ranks must, sooner or later, make government by party impossible, however skilful or zealous the captains may be. The members of the Conservative party would do well to lay these things to heart. The astute and worthy Sibthorpe suspected the Greeks; but the present breed of country squires are apt to listen to the counsel of their foes. The metropolitan press, like the metropolitan thieves, have somewhat ungraciously taken advantage of the innocent simplicity of rural manners. Could they, indeed, persuade the Tory gentlemen to dispense with Mr. Disraeli's services, they would have good reason to rejoice. The Bentincks and the Newdegates may be unconscious of their helpless ness; but every man who enters the House of Commons must perceive that, without the organizing mind of Disraeli, the Tories are a rabble. So we say to the country gentlemen (and the advice may be accepted the more readily as it proceeds from a thoroughly independent quarter), Have patience, and obey your chiefs. You will get into office one of these days, if you do. Your opponents will be sent for a time to enjoy the invigorating air of the Opposition benches, and, physically and mentally, they will benefit by the change. But if, in the innocence of your hearts, you continue to swallow the fables which the Saturday Review tells you about your leaders, and if you find that your naturally virtuous inclinations cannot resist the seductions of that moral and intellectual fop, the sooner you return to your constituencies the better. Satis beatus ruris honoribus. "It humbly appears to me,' said the Commodore, whose forces had been fairly scattered at first by the Parthian tactics of the Doctor, 'that two blacks don't make a white.' A general defensive position which the Doctor did not appear to have anticipated, and which none of us were prepared to dispute. The Commodore, though nearly outflanked, had gallantly recovered his ground. But enough of this. I have contrived to wander from woodland politics and the fancies of poetry, into the wide arena of public life. For, somehow, do what I may, go where I will, I cannot abstract my regards from those who remain in the great world outside. The lark is building her nest in the cloverfield, and the cushat is crooning in the elm-tree; the while, from afar, come echoes to which I cannot choose but hearken-the noise of battles and the counsels of statesmen. As I listen to these mighty echoes, I cease to hear the songs of the woodside. I am carried away in imagination to the tents which whiten the plain of the Eider and the valleys of Virginia-to the greyheaded generals and the grey-headed diplomatists who are leading armies and nations to Victory and to Defeat. THE INFANT BRIDAL, AND OTHER POEMS.* It is. De vere published a volume of poetry, entitled The Waldenses, or whilst with others it may be otherwise. If Mr. De Vere's poems were to be classified as Wordsworth classified his, the poems of reflection would be found the most numerous; then would come, in successive degrees of frequency, the poems of fancy, of sentiment, of description (not to mention those which refuse classification), all and each in sufficient abundance; and of each there are many specimens to be found in this volume, and from the selected number in each kind, we shall make it our business to select. The Infant Bridal,' which, being a longer poem than the rest, leads the way, and gives a name to the volume, is not, however, peculiarly characteristic of its contents; nor, indeed, could any one poem be so designated, the strains and moods being so many. This is not in the highest of them, but to some readers it may find its way more easily than any. The subject is one of those occasions on which, in the Middle Ages, hostile nations were reconciled by the espousals of royal children. The children were in this case the heirs to the respective thrones left vacant by the death of both fathers, who had been killed in single combat each by each. While the young bride in triumph home was led, That pomp approaching woodland villages, Or shadowing convents piled near rivers dim, And golden cross and snowy choir serene *The Infant Bridal, and other Poems. By Aubrey De Vere. London and Cambridge: Macmillan and Co. 1864. Lo! where they stand in yon high, fan-roofed chamber- Like fire-topped reeds, from their aërial station Beneath the blessing of that constellation Small was the ring, and small in truth the finger! And won from Heaven a perdurable crown. A germ of love, at plighting of that troth Into each bosom sank; and grew there with its growth. The ladies held aloft the bridal pair: They on each other smiled, and gazed around Their infant brows with golden circlet bound: Home to the palace, still in order keeping, That train returned; and in the stateliest room The children grew up good,-that is, not naughtier than children must be and ought to be; they quarrelled but seldom, and they were the bet ter no doubt for the following grave and politic admonition addressed to them by an ancient dame,' their nurse: The turtle, widowed of her mate, no more Monarch or Knight beside his lady lies: 'Rachel not less, and Ruth, whereof men read Loved her own husband each, in word and deed, And Orpheus too, and Pyramus men say, Though Paynim born, lived true, and so shall live for aye. These also draw the people to revere With stronger faith their King and Sovereign Lord. The evidence to be found in this poem of a faculty for picturesque and fluent narrative, suggests the wish that Mr. De Vere would write a romantic poem on a larger scale, with the like antique simplicity of manner, and the same lightness of movement, but with a structure so far more complex as to admit of a growing interest in many successive stages of an eventful story. For though, as a general rule, it is well that what is light should be short, yet if the movement be easy, grace ful, and elastic, and the effects thrown in by the fancy be rich and romantic, without being redundant, the longer story may not be the less light, and will have an accruing and cumulative charm. With 'The Infant Bridal,' however, those who love brevity may be content; it has a bright softness and a quaint rich ness which they may prefer to find within narrow limits; and for our own part, though not ignorant of the privileges of criticism, we have never been disposed to quarrel with a gem for not being a necklace. The next which we have to present, we could not wish to be other or longer than it is: A SKETCH. Made up of Instincts half, half Appetites, To please was what they promised; not to stay: Do we not know that lady? Do we not see her? The touches are few and light, but distinct and determinate. We pass to a poem of a very different strain, a sermon condensed in a sonnet: Count each affliction, whether light or grave, Then lay before him all thou hast; allow Of mortal tumult to obliterate The soul's marmoreal calmness. Grief should be, Confirming, cleansing, raising, making free, Strong to consume small troubles, to commend Great thoughts, grave thoughts, thoughts lasting to the end. Half-an-hour in the pulpit might not be ill-spent in dilating, without too much diluting, the thoughts which rise in this sonnet, and those which may rise out of it: for it is in truth a very pregnant exhortation. And it may fitly lead the way to a poem occasioned by a great national affliction. It is rarely that poems struck out by public and passing events have been very impressive; whether it be that the poetical imagination tends to reject the real and the present for its theme, or that the mind of the reader, preoccupied by fact, does not lend itself easily to impressions from poetry. It is possible, however, that poems of the occasional kind may be eminently poetical. Milton's on the Piedmontese Massacre is one instance; Southey's on the Funeral of the Princess Char- THE YEAR OF SORROW. Fall snow, and cease not! Flake by flake An end of blasphemies and woes. Last friend, the sleeping draught is given; |