English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century Part 22

Another member of the royal family who frequently figures in the "sketches" is the Duke of Suss.e.x. He was a man of large frame, and as remarkable for the blackness of his whiskers as the Duke of c.u.mberland was conspicuous for the bleached appearance of these hirsute adornments.

At a meeting of the council of the London University, he is reported to have said that for the promotion of anatomical science he should have no personal objection to dedicate his own body after death to the College of Surgeons for the purposes of dissection. This hint was enough of course for HB, and his royal highness accordingly figures in a contemporary satire as _A great Subject_ "_Dedicated to the Royal College of Surgeons_."

SIR FRANCIS BURDETT.

Another prominent personage of HB's time, and a singular instance of the change which frequently takes place in the political convictions of public men, was Sir Francis Burdett. Commencing his career as an ardent radical and reformer intolerant of abuses, he finished it and astonished his former supporters by being returned for Westminster in the Conservative interest. The political conduct of this once celebrated man is of so unusual a character that a short recapitulation of his career seems necessary, in order that the reader may understand the satires we are about to describe. Notwithstanding his expressed views in support of absolute purity of election, his own election for Middles.e.x in 1802-4, is said--what with the expenses and subsequent litigation--to have cost him upwards of one hundred thousand pounds. On the 5th of May, 1807, he was challenged by and fought a duel with Mr. James Paull, on Wimbledon Common, the cause of quarrel being Sir Francis's refusal to act as chairman at a gathering of Paull's supporters at the Crown and Anchor Tavern, Westminster, in April. The duel terminated in both the princ.i.p.als being seriously wounded. The same year he was returned to Parliament to serve as member for Westminster, which const.i.tuency he continued to represent for nearly thirty years. Perhaps the greatest event of his life was his committal to the Tower under the Speaker's warrant for a libellous letter published in _Cobbett's Political Register_, of 24th March, 1810, in which he questioned the power of the House to imprison delinquents. He at first resisted the execution of the warrant, and being a favourite with the mob, a street contest ensued between the military and the people, in which some lives were lost. In 1818, we find him moving for annual parliaments and universal suffrage, when the House divided with the result of 100 to 2, the minority being composed of the mover and seconder--that is to say, himself and Lord Cochrane. In 1820, he was found guilty at Leicester of a libel on Government in a letter to his const.i.tuents reflecting on the Manchester outrage of the preceding year; a new trial was moved for by himself, but this was refused, and he was sentenced the following February to three months' imprisonment, and to pay a fine of 2,000. In March, 1825, his resolutions for the relief of the Irish Catholics were carried by a majority of 247 to 234; but in later life his restless spirit gradually calmed down, and after the appointment of the Melbourne Ministry in 1835, he surprised and disgusted his party by going into opposition, princ.i.p.ally (as he alleged) on account of the court which they paid to O'Connell and his followers in their agitation against the Irish Established Church. For some time previous to the sketch we are about to describe he had absented himself from the House, and otherwise shown his distaste for the persons and principles of the leading men of the party to which he had formerly belonged. The busy-bodies who professed to be the exponents of public opinion in Westminster, pressed him for an explicit statement of his views, and eventually called upon him to resign, and he took them directly at their word. The person brought forward to oppose him was John Temple Leader, then member for Bridgwater, a name which suggested to the artist the pictorial pun of _Following the Leader_, the "followers" being Lord Melbourne, Lord John Russell, Lord Palmerston, Mr. O'Connell, Sir J. Hobhouse, Mr. Hume, and Sir William Molesworth. Notwithstanding the exertions of the ministers and their friends to secure the election of Mr. Leader, that gentleman was not only beaten by a very considerable majority, but lost as a natural consequence his seat for Bridgwater, a fact which suggested to the artist another able sketch, _The Dog and the Shadow_. The election itself forms the subject of _A Race for the Westminster Stakes_, in which the aged thoroughbred (Sir Francis), ridden by Lord Castlereagh, beats the young horse Leader, jockey Mr. Roebuck. Among the backers of the losing horse, Daniel O'Connell and Joseph Hume may be easily detected by the lugubrious expression of their faces. The sketch of _A Fine Old English Gentleman_ was suggested by a remark made by the _Times_ during the progress of the contest, in which it described Sir Francis as "a fine specimen of the old English gentleman." In the left-hand corner of this sketch the artist has placed a picture of the Tower of London, by way of reminder of the days when the baronet was regarded not so much in the light of "a fine old English Gentleman" as a radical of the most advanced type, and as a martyr in the cause of public liberty.

CHANGES IN POLITICAL OPINION.

A change of opinion however is obviously a necessary incident of political life, and we have ourselves witnessed some remarkable instances of such versatility in our own days. In some cases these changes are only temporary or partial, in others they are radical and complete; sometimes they are dictated by conviction, at others by necessity; occasionally they seem to be the result of absolute caprice; while in not a few instances, I fear, we should not be very far wrong in a.s.signing them to feelings of disappointment or personal or political pique. This tergiversation in public men forms the subject of one of HB's happiest inspirations. In 1837 there appeared at the Adelphi Theatre an American comedian named Rice, the forerunner of the Christies and other "original" minstrels of our day, who sang in his character of a n.i.g.g.e.r a comic (?) song, which, being wholly dest.i.tute of melody, and even more idiotic than compositions of that kind usually are, forthwith became exceedingly popular, being groaned by every organ, and whistled by all the street urchins of the day. This peculiar production, which was known as "Jim Crow," was accompanied by a characteristic double shuffle, while every verse concluded with this intellectual chorus:--

"Turn about, and wheel about, And do just _so_; And every time I turn about, I jump Jim Crow."

In _Jim Crow Dance and Chorus_ (the t.i.tle of the sketch referred to), we find the leading men of all parties a.s.sembled at a ball, engaged in the new saltatory performance initiated by Mr. Rice. In the left-hand corner we notice Lord Abinger, formerly Sir James Scarlett, a Whig, who growing tired of waiting for the advent of his own party to power, changed his political opinions--that is to say "jumped Jim Crow,"--and was made Attorney General by the Duke of Wellington. Next him is Lord Stanley, who commenced life as a Whig and was a member of Lord Grey's Reform administration, but unprepared to go the lengths which his party seemed disposed to take, he too "jumped Jim Crow," deserted them, and joined the ranks of the Opposition. Lord Stanley's _vis-a-vis_ is Sir James Graham; in his early days he had distinguished himself by the strength of his radical opinions, but as a member of Lord Grey's cabinet, he suppressed these sentiments, and "jumped Jim Crow" by confining himself more strictly within Whig limits. Conspicuous amongst the performers is Lord Melbourne! When in office under Mr. Canning he had made several anti-Reform speeches, but afterwards became a member of the Government of Lord Grey by which Reform was carried;--as Prime Minister he went far nearer to the principles of absolute democracy than either Lord Grey or Lord Althorp. Lord Melbourne's face, however, shows unmistakable repugnance at finding that his numerous "wheels about" have brought him face to face with O'Connell, and he turns in disgust from the famous agitator, who, with his thumb to his nose and his left arm stuck in his side, shows that he has no intention of permitting him to enjoy a _pas_ all to himself. O'Connell of course shows himself complete master of the figure which he had danced so frequently; one of the most shifty, unstable men of his day, he can scarcely be called a politician, for like all agitators, the person he really sought to serve was himself alone. He chopped and changed just as it suited his purpose, and is properly introduced by the artist amongst the most adroit and vigorous of the political double shufflers.

The Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel find themselves _vis-a-vis_, in allusion to their conduct with reference to Catholic Emanc.i.p.ation.

Both had originally been consistent opposers of the measure, which was at last carried by the influence of the very men who before had been its most persistent adversaries.

But, if any one had "turned about and wheeled about," it was Sir Francis Burdett, and accordingly the artist introduces him as indulging in a very flourishing _pas seul_; he wears a self-satisfied smirk, and carries his thumbs in his waistcoat, in allusion to his own contention that he had been always consistent. Yet this self-satisfied aristocratic-looking personage not many years before had distinguished himself as the most prominent of radical malcontents, and had been drawn by his enthusiastic dupes through the city of Westminster in a triumphal car, decorated with the symbols of liberty, and preceded by a banner bearing the inscription, "Westminster's Pride and England's Glory."

The queer figure in the c.o.c.ked hat is Sir de Lacy Evans, who figures as one of the dancers in allusion to his practice as compared with his professions. In 1833 he obtained a seat for Westminster, triumphing over his opponent Sir J. C. Hobhouse, who for fifteen years had represented that const.i.tuency, both candidates professing to be zealous advocates for the abolition of flogging in the army. Sir de Lacy nevertheless, when commanding the British Legion at St. Sebastian, "jumped Jim Crow"

by flogging his soldiers without mercy. Lord John Russell once sneered at every project of Reform, but his Lordship, as we have seen, "jumped Jim Crow" by repeatedly introducing the Reform Bill into the House of Commons, which was mainly pa.s.sed by his persistent exertions; very properly, therefore, Lord John figures in HB's clever sketch among the most prominent of "Jim Crow" double shufflers.

FOOTNOTES:

[108] These political changes, as we shall presently see, are by no means uncommon. William Cobbett, for instance, in 1801 supported the principles of Pitt, but in 1805, from a "Church and King" man, he became and continued an ardent liberal.

[109] "English Graphic Satire," by R. W. Buss.

[110] _Westminster Review_, June, 1840.

[111] Greville's "Memoirs," ii. p. 303.

[112] This was the idea of all Tories of the day. The terrible effects of the Reform Bill were amusingly predicted by John Wilson Croker to the king himself; they have not of course been fulfilled. See "Journal of Julian Charles Young" (Memoir of Charles Mayne Young, vol. i. p. 231).

CHAPTER XII.

_THE POLITICAL SKETCHES OF_ HB (_Continued_).

LORD JOHN RUSSELL.

Sydney Smith said of little Lord John Russell, that he was "ready to undertake _any_thing and _every_thing--to build St. Paul's,--cut for the stone,--or command the Channel fleet," and this satire of the wit was true. He tried politics and he tried literature, and few people will say that he was entirely successful at either. As a politician, for instance, his general capacity for getting himself and his party into a mess, earned from the most intellectually powerful of his political opponents the enduring t.i.tle of "Lord Meddle and Muddle." He has not been dead very long, yet what reputation has he left behind him as a dramatist--novelist--historian--biographer--editor--pamphleteer, all of which _roles_ he essayed at some time or other of his long and eventful career? His _Nun of Arronca_ (1822) fetches it is true an exceedingly high price, because having been rigidly suppressed by its author it is now exceedingly rare. The best that can be said of Lord John--and that is saying a great deal--is, that he was a consistent Liberal according to his lights, and that to him belongs the honour and glory of bringing about the great measure of Reform, which, as we have seen, was, mainly through his instrumentality, accomplished in 1832.

Lord John, as might have been expected, frequently appears in the "political sketches" of HB. He cuts an amusing figure in one where _Jonah_ (Lord Minto) is about to be thrown overboard by Lords Lansdowne, Palmerston, and Duncannon, by order of the captain (Lord Melbourne), to appease the storm raised by Lords Brougham and Lyndhurst in reference to a rumour that Lord Minto (First Lord of the Admiralty), had instructed British cruisers to stop all Sardinian vessels carrying warlike stores for Don Carlos. Lord John, while clinging to the mast behind, and viewing with terror the impending fate of his colleague, evidently solaces himself with the conviction that his own weight is too insignificant to have any material effect upon the safety of the ship.

Minto owed his safety to the Duke of Wellington, who therefore figures in the sketch as the whale; for, although convinced that his lordship had been imprudent, he successfully resisted Brougham's motion for a copy of the instructions, and thereby succeeded in lodging poor Jonah on dry land.

STAMP DUTY ON NEWSPAPERS.

One of the "sketches" in which Lord John Russell figures reminds us of a remarkable discussion which possesses considerable interest for every reader of the cheap newspapers of to-day. The Chancellor of the Exchequer (the Right Hon. Thomas Spring Rice) in opening his budget on the 6th of May, 1836, showed a disposable surplus of 662,000 only, which he proposed (in the usual way) to apply towards the reduction of taxation. He proposed, in the first place, to consolidate the paper duties and to reduce their amount in a manner which he proceeded to explain; and after accounting for 200,000, the balance of the surplus he intended to apply to the reduction of the stamp on newspapers. The duty minus the discount was fourpence, which he proposed to reduce to a penny, and to give of course no discount. The reader must not suppose from the foregoing, however, that all the proprietors of newspapers of that day paid the duty; on the contrary, the large majority evaded it in every possible way. The measure in fact was intended as much as a protection to the revenue as anything else, for the sale of unstamped newspapers throughout the country had become so extensive that no series of prosecutions was found effectual to put them down. Every sheet, it is true, professed to bear on it the printer's name; but the name so appended was in six cases out of eight a false one. Exchequer processes were issued; all the power of the law was set in motion; in the course of three weeks three hundred persons had been imprisoned for selling unstamped papers in the streets, but without in the slightest degree repressing the illegal sale. The Chancellor argued that the loss which the revenue would sustain in the first instance would be more than compensated by the enormous increase of duty to be obtained from the enlarged circulation; from the additional duty arising from the greater consumption of paper; and from the very large increase which might be expected from the produce of the duty on advertis.e.m.e.nts.

The opponents of the measure were of three cla.s.ses: first, those who looked upon the proposal as radical and subversive; secondly, those who because a reduction is suggested in one quarter invariably consider it the correct thing to propose it in another; and lastly, the owners of the established newspapers of the day. The arguments of the first cla.s.s a.s.sumed the following form: "In proportion as any political party approaches more or less towards pure democracy and the right divine of mere numbers, its interests will require that the means should be increased of disseminating among the lower cla.s.ses, and as nearly gratuitously as possible, the exciting and poisonous food which is at last to end in the revolutionary fever."[113] The second cla.s.s, strange to say, rested their hopes in this instance on the singularly slippery basis of _soap_. Sir C. Keightley moved (on the 20th of June) that instead of diminishing the stamp duty on newspapers, the duty on hard and soft soap should be reduced. The reduction of such duty would, he argued, by aiding cleanliness, promote the health and comfort of the people, while the lowering of newspaper stamps would do nothing of the kind, but would tend rather to introduce a cheap and profligate press, "one of the greatest curses which could be inflicted on humanity." He contended, moreover, that it was absurd to argue that the poor were debarred from reading the public prints, when in a coffee shop, for three-halfpence, they could obtain a cup of coffee and a sight of every newspaper published in London. Mr. Barclay, one of the members for Surrey, thought it impossible for any reasonable being to hesitate between the relative virtues of newspapers and soap; and as for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he could not believe for one moment that if left to his own unaided judgment he would hesitate to give his preference to the latter. The Chancellor nevertheless avowed in the plainest terms his preference for newspapers, and his conviction of the advisability of an immediate reduction in the stamp duty; the result, after the lapse of less than forty years, has conclusively proved the wisdom of the measure which he succeeded in carrying.

CURIOUS ARGUMENTS OF THE NEWSPAPER PROPRIETORS.

Newspaper proprietorship was then a monopoly; and the argument by which the rich proprietor, the representative of the third cla.s.s of opponents, sought to maintain his monopoly cannot fail to amuse the newspaper reader of to-day. The monopoliser who, to maintain the character of his paper and to supply the public with the best and earliest information, incurred the expense of procuring parliamentary reports, obtaining foreign intelligence, antic.i.p.ating the arrival of the post by expresses, and by having correspondents in every quarter of the world where matters of interest were going forward, said, that should the measure pa.s.s, he must thenceforth either be content to lower the tone of the public press by not giving the same amount of accurate intelligence, or must carry on the contest with those who went to no expense at all. "The result would be not only the ruin of the property of the newspaper proprietors and the destruction of their property, but it would be something much more fatal to the general interests of the country, for the editors of the present respectable papers would not be able to compete with these predatory publications, and would be compelled to forego that extent of information which was then so accurately given. We should have the newspaper press"--mark this, ye omnivorous readers of to-day, who commence with _The Times_, adjourn to the _Telegraph_, peruse the pages of the _Morning Post_, wander through the columns of the _Daily News_, and finish off with the express edition of the _Globe_ or _Evening Standard_, reserving your _Sat.u.r.day Review_, your _Truth_, and your _Vanity Fair_ for Sunday solatium--"we should have the newspaper press simply reduced to this state: that no longer would there be a regular and correct supply of information to the public respecting the debates of Parliament or _other important matters, but there would be only such an amount and such a description of information as could be furnished upon the inaccurate data of a man who would not go to any expense in the use of the means at present employed_." These were the views of the newspaper proprietors of 1836, as expounded by that respectable but distinctly Tory authority, "The Annual Register."[114]

The measure of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, of which we have attempted the foregoing explanation, appears to have suggested to John Doyle his sketch of _The Rival Newsmongers_, in which the leading men of all parties are represented in the act of endeavouring to force the sale of their own journals. The scene is supposed to be enacted in front of the Elephant and Castle, where we find the "Union Coach" waiting to take up pa.s.sengers,--the three who occupy the roof being a Scotchman, indicated by his bonnet and plaid, Paddy by his shocking bad hat, while in the portly, jolly-looking party next him we have no difficulty whatever in recognising honest John Bull. The three are listening to the appeals of O'Connell, close to whom is Mr. Roebuck, and behind him again Mr. Hume. Sir Roger Gresley addresses himself to the insides, and the person holding up his paper to the special notice of John Bull is the Marquis of Londonderry. The driver of the coach is Lord Melbourne, and the ostler little Lord John Russell.

LORD BROUGHAM.

The public man who perhaps of all others earned and deserved his place in the pictorial satires of the nineteenth century was emphatically Brougham. The verdict of posterity on this restless but unquestionably brilliant man of genius must of necessity be a somewhat disappointing one; he aimed at being nothing less than an Admirable Crichton, and such a character in the nineteenth century, when every public man must be more or less talented, more or less brilliant, would be an impossibility even to a genius. A rival lawyer and political opponent, Sir Charles Wetherell is reported to have said of him that he knew a little of everything but law; and although this statement was spiteful and untrue, there is no doubt of the truth of Mr. Greville's remarks, that his duty as Chancellor was confined to appeals which _must_ come before him, lunacy and other matters over which he had sole jurisdiction, and that "n.o.body ever thought of bringing an original cause into his court."[115]

We think we may even go farther than this, and say that no lawyer of the present day would dream of relying on Lord Brougham's decisions.

O'Connell said of him, "I pay very little attention to anything Lord Brougham says. He makes a greater number of foolish speeches than any other man of the present generation. There may be more nonsense in some one speech of another person, but in the number, the mult.i.tude of foolish speeches, Lord Brougham has it hollow. I would start him ten to one--ay, fifty to one--in talking nonsense against any prattler now living."

Some amusing examples of his restless anxiety to figure on all occasions in the character of an Admirable Crichton are given by Mr. Charles Greville, whose "Memoirs" stand in much the same relation to the graphic satires of the nineteenth century as the "Odes" of Dr. Walcot do towards the caricatures of James Gillray. "Dined," says Mr. Greville (under date of 7th June, 1831), "with Sefton yesterday, who gave me an account of a dinner at Fowell Buxton's on Sat.u.r.day to see the brewery, at which Brougham was the _magnus Apollo_. Sefton is excellent as a commentator on Brougham; he says that he watches him incessantly, never listens to anybody else when he is there, and _rows_ him unmercifully afterwards for all the humbug, nonsense, and palaver he hears him talk to people.... They dined in the brewhouse and visited the whole establishment. Lord Grey was there in star, garter, and ribbons. There were people ready to show and explain everything. But not a bit.

Brougham took the explanation of everything into his own hands; the mode of brewing, the machinery, down to the feeding of the cart-horses.

After dinner the account books were brought, and the young Buxtons were beckoned up to the top of the table by their father to hear the words of wisdom which flowed from the lips of my Lord Chancellor. He affected to study the ledger, and made various pertinent remarks on the manner of book-keeping. There was a man whom Brougham called 'Cornelius' (Sefton did not know who he was), with whom he seemed very familiar. While Brougham was talking he dropped his voice, on which 'Cornelius' said, 'Earl Grey is listening,' that he might speak louder and nothing be lost. He was talking of Paley, and said that 'although he did not always understand his own meaning, he always made it intelligible to others,'

on which 'Cornelius' said, 'My good friend, if he made it so clear to others, he must have some comprehension of it himself;' on which Sefton attacked him afterwards, and swore that 'he was a mere child in the hands of "Cornelius;" that he never saw anybody so put down.' These people are all subscribers to the London University,[116] and Sefton swears he overheard Brougham tell them that 'Sir Isaac Newton was nothing compared to some of the present professors,' or something to that effect. I put down all this nonsense because it amused me in the recital, and is excessively characteristic of the man, one of the most remarkable that ever existed. Lady Sefton told me that he went with them to the British Museum, where all the officers of the Museum were in attendance to receive them. He would not let anybody explain anything, but did all the honours himself. At last they came to the collection of minerals, when she thought he must be brought to a standstill. Their conductor began to describe them, when Brougham took the words out of his mouth, and dashed off with as much ease and familiarity as if he had been a Buckland or a Cuvier. Such is the man, a grand mixture of moral, political, and intellectual incongruities."[117]

If the part which Brougham's position as attorney-general to Queen Caroline obliged him to take at the memorable period of the "Bill of Pains and Penalties" had not closed the door of professional advancement against him, he had most effectually locked it against himself so long as her husband lived by the intemperate and ill-judged language in which he alluded to that event in the speech which he delivered at Edinburgh on the 5th of April, 1825.[118] But Brougham was constantly on the watch for its being opened, and on the very day when George the Fourth died, that is to say on the 20th of June, 1830, he spoke in the House of Commons in eulogistic terms of the new sovereign, praising him for allowing the Speaker to take the oaths at an unusually early hour in order to suit the convenience of members, a graceful act, which Mr.

Brougham declared he hailed as a happy omen of the commencement of an auspicious reign. The astute K. C.'s object did not escape the penetrating eye of HB, who forthwith represented him as _The Gheber Worshipping the Rising Sun_, in whose smiling face we recognise the unmistakable lineaments of William the Fourth. The sun proved not unmindful of the attention; for, on the formation of Earl Grey's ministry in 1830, Mr. Brougham was made Lord Chancellor, with the t.i.tle of Baron Brougham and Vaux. The appointment took the nation by surprise; for although a consistent upholder of Whig principles, he had always maintained a peculiar and independent position with his party, and was expected to prove rather an embarra.s.sment than otherwise. These expectations were fully realized, and there can be no doubt that the sentiments which Lord Brougham's bearing as Chancellor excited among his colleagues and contemporaries, excluded him for the remainder of his life from all official life and employment.

With all his wonderful powers, however, Lord Brougham could make, as O'Connell a.s.serted of him, as inconsiderate a speech as any man. One of these speeches, which was delivered on the 14th of August, 1833, in a debate on the bill for the abolition of slavery in the West Indies, suggested to HB a happy subject. His lordship is reported to have said that, "the object of the clause [then under discussion] was to make the black, from the moment that he arrived on the sh.o.r.es of this country, a free man in all respects: to make him eligible to sit in Parliament, either in the House of Lords, if it should be his Majesty's pleasure to give him a t.i.tle to a seat, or in the other House if he should be elected." HB, with his usual facility for seizing an idea, took his lordship at his word, and forthwith elevated the emanc.i.p.ated "n.i.g.g.e.r" to the woolsack, clothing him in the wig and gown of Lord Chancellor Brougham, and giving him the features of the n.o.ble and learned lord himself: this sketch bears the t.i.tle of _A Select Specimen of the Black Style_.

The House of Lords was a lively place whilst my Lord Chancellor Brougham was in office, and in the "scenes" in which he figured, and which drew down upon him the hatred and resentment of his contemporaries, he not unfrequently displayed a want of judgment which was nothing less than lamentable. We might give many instances of these regrettable scenes, but one shall suffice. On the 29th of September, 1831, the Lord Chancellor made the following answer to a question put by the Marquis of Londonderry:--"My lords," he said, "I beg to state to you once for all, that I will not sit here to be _bothered_ with questions which emanate from the ridiculous ideas of certain absurd individuals who cannot or will not see anything, however clear, and seem lamentably incapacitated by nature from comprehending what is going on. Moreover, I beg to state to the n.o.ble marquis, that for the future I will answer no question of his,--will give him no information whatever." The amazed patrician said in reply, "As to the language which the n.o.ble and learned lord has ventured to apply to me here, I will only say that I shall wish those words to be repeated in another place." The Lord Chancellor rejoined that he had said nothing which he was not prepared to repeat elsewhere; and here the matter appears to have ended, for strange to say it was the Marquis of Londonderry and not the irascible Brougham who subsequently apologised, a circ.u.mstance which occasioned the artist's satirical and telling sketch of _The Duel that did Not Take Place_. These scenes do not appear to have been the result of any mere ebullition of temper; on the contrary, Brougham would seem to have delighted in these undignified exhibitions. "The Chancellor, who loves to unbosom himself to Sefton, because he knows the latter thinks him the finest fellow breathing, tells him that it is nuts to him to be attacked by n.o.ble lords in the Upper House, and that they had better leave him alone if they care for their own hides. Since he loves these a.s.saults, last night," continues Mr. Greville, "he got his bellyful, for he was baited by a dozen at least, and he did not come out of the _melee_ so chuckling and happy as usual."[119]

Parliament was dissolved on the 15th of August, 1834, and by that time his party, the king, and everybody else, had grown pretty well tired of Lord Chancellor Brougham. His head would seem to have been almost turned by his success; for he employed the recess which followed the prorogation in making a sort of royal progress through Scotland, parading the Great Seal on his way, to the great disgust of the king, who seriously thought he had taken leave of his senses, and protested against it being carried across the border. In the course of this strange progress he reached Inverness in the beginning of September, 1834, and was presented by the magistrates with the freedom of their city. In returning thanks for this honour, Lord Brougham said he was conscious "that it was not owing to any personal merits that he had received this mark of distinction at their hands. First of all he owed it to the circ.u.mstance that he had the honour of serving a monarch who lived in the hearts of his subjects. He had enjoyed the honour of serving that prince for nearly four years, and during that time he had experienced from his Majesty only one series of gracious condescension, confidence, and favour. To find that he lived in the hearts of his loyal subjects in the ancient and important capital of the Highlands, as it had afforded him (Lord Brougham) only pure and unmixed satisfaction, would, he was confident, be so received by his Majesty, when he (Lord Brougham) told him, _as he would by that night's post_ (cheers), of the gratifying circ.u.mstances."[120] So far, however, from being gratified, the bluff sailor king was tremendously annoyed. These fulsome adulations, and the ridiculous manner in which his eccentric and embarra.s.sing Chancellor tortured any personal attention to himself (Brougham) into a personal compliment to his royal master, thoroughly disgusted him. For some weeks previously _The Times_ had attacked the eccentric Chancellor with a constancy and vigour of satire quite unexampled; the tide of ridicule was swelled by contributions from the London and provincial press; Brougham made some foolish speeches at Aberdeen and Dundee, which excited the laughter of his enemies and the alarm of his friends. "Those who are charitably disposed," remarks the unfriendly Greville, "express their humane conviction that he is mad, and it probably is not very remote from the truth."

Intellectually strong as he was, a Chancellor so eccentric as this was an _incubus_ to be got rid of at the first convenient opportunity. In May, 1834, Mr. Stanley, Sir James Graham, the Earl of Ripon, and the Duke of Richmond, seceded from the ministry; but the Whig party, in spite of these resignations and the subsequent one of Lord Grey in July, continued in office under Lord Althorp till the following November, when the latter being called (by the death of his father) to the Upper House as Earl Spencer, the king seized the opportunity which he had so long desired of placing a less embarra.s.sing and self-willed Chancellor on the woolsack. This circ.u.mstance prompted the clever sketch of the _Fall of Icarus_. Icarus in this instance is of course Brougham, who, flying in defiance of the injunctions of Daedalus too near the sun--that is to say, William the Fourth--the wax of his mechanical wings melted and he fell into the sea. That there may be no mistake as to the artist's meaning, the wings aforesaid are labelled with the t.i.tles of various publications which were loudest in sounding the praises of the King and of the "n.o.ble and learned lord," and to which he himself, with the questionable taste which distinguished him, was reputed (with justice) to be a contributor.

Whether my Lord Chancellor Brougham caught the infection from his client, Queen Caroline, we know not; but his conduct, whether in or out of office, appears to have been of the most undignified character.

Ignoring the fact that his party were no longer in power, there is no doubt whatever that he wrote a letter to his successor, Lord Lyndhurst, actually suggesting his own nomination to Lyndhurst's vacant office of Chief Baron of the Exchequer, thereby (as he pointed out) saving to the public his own pension of ex-Chancellor. What his real motive may have been is of little consequence; it was certainly a most undignified proceeding, made the more undignified, if possible, because the proposal was not accepted. It suggested to the artist one of his pictorial puns, _The Vaux and the Grapes_, and to the Rev. Richard Harris Barham the following amusing verses, which we have extracted from a contemporary poetical skit:--

"Then in Great Stanhope Street The confusion was great In a certain superb habi-tation, Where seated at tea, O'er a dish of Bohea, Brougham was quaffing his 'usual potation'

(For you know his indignant ne-gation, When accused once of jollifi-cation), Down went saucer and cup, Which Le Marchant picked up, Not to hear his lord mutter 'd--n-ation.'

But this greatest of men Soon caught hold of a pen, And, after slight delibe-ration, No longer he tosses His flexile proboscis About in so much exci-tation;[121]

But scribbling with great ani-mation, He sends off a communi-cation:-- 'Dearest Lyndhurst,' says he, 'Can't you find room for me When constructing your adminis-tration?