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property should be raffled for! This motion they prudently withdrew before it could be discussed; but the new Committee so far adopted their views as to recommend for the time being the suspension of debates. The House, however, rejected this proposal by a large majority next term public rooms were at last obtained, and the Society entered on a new lease of prosperity.

During the period we have been reviewing the Hon. E. Twisleton (of Junius fame), Mr. Herman Merivale, the Bishop of Durham, Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, and Archbishop Manning were elected to the Presidency, the lastnamed, however, at once resigning it. The Bishop of St. Andrews and Lord (then Sir John) Hanmer filled the Treasurership-Sir John being conspicuous for extreme Tory views in general, and especially for the persevering energy wherewith he endeavoured to convert an unwilling House to the doctrines of Protection. Within the same period a few decisions were given which must necessarily strike us as remarkable, though not so at the time when they were delivered. It was determined, for instance, by a small majority, that the abuses of a bill against cruelty to animals were likely to overbalance its advantages, while a motion in favour of permitting counsel to speak in defence. of prisoners for felony was carried by a single vote only; nor did the late Dr. Wilberforce succeed in persuading the Union that forgery ought not to be visited with death. It is worth observing, as another example of the unconventional opinions held by the future Bishop, that he likewise spoke against "the law and custom of primogeniture."

But with the winter term of 1829 commenced what the present generation look back upon as the heroic age of their Society. During the next four or five years the Presidency was held by Sidney Herbert, Milnes Gaskell, Mr. Gladstone, the late Earl of Elgin (Hon. J. Bruce), the late Mr. Lyall (Advocate-General of Bengal), the late Duke of Newcastle (Earl of Lincoln), Mr. Rickards (counsel to the Speaker), Lord Selborne, Mr.

Cardwell, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Mr. Lowe. Truly, it is not difficult to accept the estimate of the Society formed by a writer in the Oxford University Magazine of 1834 :"We could hardly name any institution in Oxford which has been more useful in encouraging a taste for study and general reading than this juvenile club. It was founded about twelve years ago, and has at all times held a high character in the University. Among its leading members have been many who promise to fill a prominent station in public notice. It has not only supplied a school for speaking to those who intend to pursue the professions of the law and the Church, or to embrace political life; but by furnishing a theatre for the display of miscellaneous knowledge, and by bringing together most of the distinguished young men in the University, it has had a great effect upon the general tone of society."

The Presidents of the Union during this period were, with scarcely an exception, Etonians or Wykehamists. From Eton came Gaskell, Gladstone, Bruce, Lyall, the Earl of Lincoln, and Rickards. They looked upon Lord Lincoln as their leader, but their foremost orator was Gladstone, who made his first speech on Feb. 11th, 1830, and was the same night elected a member of Committee. A month later arose a discussion about the Age, a very scurrilous weekly print, the subject of many a heated debate. Gladstone opposed a motion for its discontinuance; but that conscientious readiness to be convinced with which his well-wishers credit him received thus early its testimony in the following note by Milnes Gaskell, the Secretary :-" This Gentleman having spoken agst voted in favor of y motion." Next term he succeeded Gaskell as second officer of the Society: his minutes are neat; proper names are underlined and half-printed. As Secretary, he opposed a motion for the removal of Jewish disabilities. He also moved that the Wellington Administration was undeserving of the country's confidence: Gaskell, Lyall, and Lord

Lincoln supported; Sidney Herbert and the Marquess (now Duke) of Abercorn opposed him. The motion was carried by 57 to 56, and the natural exultation of the mover betrayed itself in such irregular entries as "Tremendous cheers," "Repeated cheering." The following week he was elected President.

He only spoke thrice more on public business. On the first occasion he joined Tait and Gaskell in defending the results of Catholic Relief. On the second, Sidney Herbert, Roundell Palmer, and Lord Lincoln having supported a vote of want of confidence in Earl Grey's Government, and Lowe, Tait, and Gaskell having argued against this vote, Gladstone moved the following rider :"That the Ministry has unwisely introduced, and most unscrupulously for warded, a measure which threatens not only to change our form of Government, but ultimately to break up the very foundations of social order, as well as materially to forward the views of those who are pursuing this project throughout the civilized world." One can hardly repress a smile; but it is not difficult to prophesy more than forty years after the event; and out of a hundred and thirty young gentlemen of education not fewer than ninety-four echoed these melancholy forebodings.

On June 2nd, 1831, Mr. Gladstone closed a Union career almost as brief as it was brilliant, by proposing, on a motion for the immediate emancipation of our slaves in the West Indies, the following singular "amendment" :"That Legislative enactments ought to be made, and if necessary to be enforced :

"1st. For better guarding the personal and civil rights of the Negroes in our West India Colonies.

"2nd. For establishing compulsory Manumission.

"3rd. For securing universally the receiving a Christian education, under the Clergy and Teachers, independent of the Planters; a measure of which total but gradual emancipation will be the natural consequence, as it was of a

similar procedure in the first ages of Christianity."

Not to dwell upon the awkward English and doubtful history of this last clause, one is curious to know what need there was of promoting voluntary emancipation, if compulsory manumission were to be established; and by virtue of what delicate distinction a proposal for compulsory manumission could possibly be an amendment to a proposal for emancipation without delay.

In 1832 the Etonian dynasty expired, and a Wykehamist line occupied the Presidential chair in the persons of three friends, Roundell Palmer, Ward, and Cardwell, to whom may be added, although not a Winchester man, their associate, Tait.

Palmer, the most distinguished scholar of young Oxford, was a high Tory. He assailed the Declaration of Rights of 1789, the "spirit of Democracy," the Duc de Bourdeaux's debarment from the French succession, and the results of Catholic Relief. He also gave notice of a motion, "That the whole Funds of the Society at present in the hands of the treasurer be subscribed to promote the return of Anti-Reform Members to Parliament, and that any deficiency which may occur in consequence be made up by an extraordinary subscription from all the members." This motion he withdrew before discussion but that he could ever have contemplated so glaring an injustice to the Liberal members of the Society argues, to say the least, very strong partizanship. Quantum mutatus ab illo—and for the better! At this period of his life he held that an absolute monarchy was preferable to the constitution proposed by the Bill of '32; that political unions ought to be suppressed; and that the abolition of death for forgery was not called for by "justice, humanity, and expediency."

Mr. W. G. Ward, of Christ Church, afterwards Fellow of Balliol, the second of the Wykehamist triumvirate, was also a strong Tory. In 1844, being in Anglican orders, he made himself famous by the publication of a Romanizing work

entitled "The Ideal of a Christian Church." The University condemned the book, and, holding its contents to be at variance with the religious declaration then required from an M.A., stripped Mr. Ward of his Master's degree. Soon afterwards he joined the Roman Church (as a layman), and has since given no public evidence of the great talents with which his contemporaries at Oxford credited him.

Mr. Cardwell was a reforming and free-trading Whig. We find him moving "That the evils which for the last thirty years have afflicted Ireland have not been ameliorated by the measures of late pursued towards it: " but eighteen months later we learn with satisfaction that in his judgment "the union of conciliatory and coercive measures which has been pursued towards Ireland has been in the highest degree beneficial." That was in October, '33. What does Mr. Cardwell think in October, '73? But, if Mr. Cardwell was a Whig, his Whiggism was certainly not of a progressive character: his party, in fact, left him behind, and in November, 1836 his farewell speech was levelled at the Melbourne Administration.

Archbishop Tait was a moderate but very consistent Liberal. In opposition to Palmer he defended the "spirit of Democracy," and the results of Catholic Relief. He desired to see the Jews freed from all restrictions except those which excluded them from the Bench and Legislature, and his parting utterances were in favour of a Parliamentary provision for the Roman Catholic priesthood in Ireland.

These were the men who succeeded to the Etonian line of Presidents. Lowe was also a Wykehamist, but not on cordial terms with Palmer, Ward, and Cardwell, and in Union matters acted in opposition to them. The winter of 1833

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designated the "Rambler." Such was their reputation that its meetings were immediately thronged, while the attendance at the Union dwindled in proportion; and a waggish "Rambler" thus adapted to President Massie the lines of Cowper :

"I am monarch of all I survey,

My right there is none to dispute;
From the ante-room down to the chair
There is none but the Fowle and the
Brute."

For it so happened that a Mr. Fowle was one of the faithful few; while the other sobriquet, though less pointed, was well understood as referring to a member of not very popular manners.

In this crisis the Committee of the Union took up without delay the position of a "government of combat: they proposed to expel from the Society all members who at the expiration of a week should have their names on the books of the "Rambler." The Union premises not being of sufficient size to accommodate the crowd expected to attend the discussion, the large assemblyroom of the Star Inn (now the Clarendon Hotel) was engaged for the evening. The debate was one prolonged scene. The President coming forward to move the Committee's recommendation, a dispute arose as to the proper occupancy of the chair, in the midst of which (Lowe being chairman at the moment) "Mr. Tait, Balliol, persisting in an attempt to address the Society, was several times called to order, and at last fined 17." Eventually the motion was brought forward by Lowe; a frantic debate followed; and in the end the Rambler faction outvoted their antagonists by 107 to 63. The Secretary, himself one of the defeated party, goes out of his way to minute that "the announcement was received with tremendous cheering," and tremendous it truly was, if we may credit other contemporary records.

For this debate, occupying as it did a position in the history of the Union. analogous to that of the Trojan war in Hellenic legend, was also duly celebrated in heroic strains. A dog-Greek epic,

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Massie, urged by his followers to "support his place of pride" now descends from his chair into the contest :

"Nor vain their call, for, still the same,
He vindicated ancient fame,

And, as in olden time,
He tore his rage to tatters, and
Misused the hat he had in hand,
Nor counted it a crime."

Palmer rises next teeming with angry utterances; but "Minerva, gliding from the sky," assumed the form of one of his friends, and "Soft counsel whisper'd." per'd." Thereupon Palmer

"Knit his dark brows and loath obey'd the word,

And, while his breast disdain and choler fill'd,

Words sweet as honey from his lips distilled." He professes an equal affection for both societies: :

"Ardent my wish in both alike to share, Both clubs my pride, and both debates my

care."

The other bard thus extols the suasive oratory of the future Lord Chancellor:"great Palmer rose,

The wonder he of friends and foes,
All, all admir'd his eloquence,
His talent fraught with common sense,
One party smil'd, the other winc'd,
For who can hear him unconvinc'd?"

Both our chroniclers, by a stretch of poetic licence, transfer "classic Tait" from the preliminary skirmish to the main battle

"with thund'ring sound Tait shook his tassell'd cap, and sprang to ground,

(The tassell'd cap by Juggins' hands was made, Or some keen brother of the London trade, Unconscious of the stern decrees of fate, What ruthless thumps the batter'd trencher

wait,)

Dire was the clang, and dreadful from afar,
Of Tait indignant, rushing to the war.
In vain the chair's dread mandate interfer'd,
Nor chair, nor fine, the angry warrior fear'd.
A forfeit pound th' unequal contest ends,
Loud rose the clamour of condoling friends."

The account given of the mighty din" which followed the announcement of the numbers is beyond question graphic, but its length forbids repetition. Of the original dog-Greek epic the title and first few lines may be cited as : a specimen "Uniomachia CaninoAnglico-Græce et Latine ad codicum fidem accuratissime recensuit; annotationibus Heavysternii ornavit; et suas insuper notulas adjecit, Habbakukius Dunderheadius, Coll. Lug. Bat. Olim. Soc. etc. etc. Oxon.-Veneunt apud D.A. Talboys MDCCCXXXIII." Then follow mottoes from Thucydides, Livy, and Butler's Hudibras. The poem itself opens with a simile descriptive of the discordant clamours with which the fray commenced.

ΗΥΤΕ τομκάττων κλαγγὴ περὶ γάρρετα σύνδει Οἵτ ̓ ἐπεὶ οὖν ἀλδμαῖδ ̓ ἔφυγον, βρούμαν τε μέλαιναν

Κοιμῶνται ῥούφοισι δόμων τερπναῖσι γύναιξιν,

"Sicut cattorum clangor circum attica sonat, Qui postquam scilicet anum effugerunt, et broomam nigram,

Dormiunt domorum roofibus cum charis wifis ;"

2. anduaîd'. Pessime hoc verbum vertit Paunchius quasi instrumentum ex fenestra detrusum. Melius noster Heavysternius_pro ano id accipiendum putat: Gallice. UNE VIEILLE PUCELLE; Anglice OLD MAID."

So much for the Rambler debate. The Ramblers remained in the Union; but, until Massie's presidency had expired, not one of their leaders spoke in public business, and Palmer withdrew altogether. Next term Tait appealed to the House against his fine, but could not obtain its remission; and the late Chancellor of the Exchequer can boast to his dying day that he has made the Archbishop of Canterbury pay twenty shillings for disorderly behaviour.

On the expiration of Massie's period of office, Lowe was elected to fill the chair ad interim for a week, at the end of which a conciliatory president was chosen, and finally the Rambler party returned to power. The "Rambler" itself had been dropped very soon after its foundation; but out of it grew an agreeablo metropolitan debating society,

the " Vernon," embracing both Oxford and Cambridge men, which met for tea and discussion at the British Hotel in Cockspur Street, and dined once a year at Blackwall. It came to an end in 1840 or 1841.

To return to Mr. Lowe. Of all the men of his time he was the most Liberal, and not the least bitter in his Liberalism. We find him, strange to say, opposing a motion for the immediate abolition of slavery. But he defended the Revolution of 1830, argued against the expediency of punishing sheep-stealing with death, moved that the king should create new peers to pass the Reform Bill, moved also that all taxes on knowledge ought to be repealed, supported the Ballot, and " ardently desired the ascendancy of popu lar principles in the event of a general movement in Europe." It should be added that he was not only the most democratic of the great ones of his what he still is,

generation; he was, their finest orator.

The limits of the present paper will not permit a detailed account of opinions which received the Union stamp within the memorable period we have just been surveying; but it may be of interest to observe the attitude of the Society during the Reform agitation, together with some of the circumstances attending their discussion of that question.

was

In January, 1829, then, the Union allowed by a small majority that the existing system of representation " corrupt in practice and imperfect in theory, and required a constitutional reform." But exactly twelve months later Archbishop Manning moved that "there was as great an infusion of popular power in the House of Commons as was consistent with the spirit of the Constitution ;" and of seventysix present only three voted "no." March, 1830, a member ventured to suggest that "Leeds, Manchester, and Birmingham ought to be represented in Parliament." It may be difficult to believe that Milnes Gaskell, and thirteen other young men presumably possessed of reason and a conscience, united to

In

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