"Untie the winds, and let them fight 999 Against the churches-to let the yeasty waves The authors of the Reform Bill might call that measure by the name of Reform; but the noble Duke maintained its proper character was that of Republicanism, and following out the idea, he played havoc among a few more figures of rhetoric. "It was,' he said, "the spirit of Republicanism that would be insinuated in the habit and form of the British Constitution. The demon of Republicanism, in all its hideousness, was before them in that bill! He trusted that it would find its final repose in that House-that it would be laid in a Red Sea of rest, no more to fright the isle from its propriety.' His Grace is amazingly fond of quoting Shakspeare in his speeches; but he always, wherever practicable, palms off the borrowed passages as his own. In the scene already referred to between him and Lord Brougham, in the Session of 1834, he passed off the phrase, "drinking potations pottle deep," as his own; and it was only when Lord Brougham put the question to him in a regular home-thrust style, whether he meant to apply the words to him (Lord Brougham) personally, that the noble Duke, for the purpose of averting unpleasant consequences, came out with the admission that the words were from one of Shakspeare's plays. I may here mention, that until his Grace confessed the plagiarism, every one present gave him the credit of their originality. The noble Duke is no bad hand, when he chooses to put forth his strength, at what is called coarse abuse. Take the following specimen from the same speech, in opposition to the second reading of the Reform Bill. Speaking of the frightful evils which would result from the creation of the Metropolitan Boroughs, he said, "They had heard of Paris constituting all France, and they were now to hear of London constituting all England. And what,” he asked, “was London? Were they to look for the purity of representation in the hallowed shades of the Tower Hamlets-in the classical haunts of Billingsgate, and the modest precincts of St. Mary-le-bone? They had heard of Westminster's pride and England's glory, but he believed it would be difficult to bestow an eleemosynary penny in the Strand, without hazarding the appearance of bribing a Westminster elector; and if a short-sighted can didate chanced to overlook a beggar, he might have to mourn over the loss of a vote. Why, the cholera was nothing to the risk of this contamination-the pestilence was nothing to it— and yet this was the way in which the representation of England was to be purified." In politics his Grace is a decided Tory, though one of those who profess to be moderate reformers. When he concluded the speech from which I have culled the above flowers of rhetoric, he gave notice that, in the event of the measure then before the House being rejected, he had a Reform Bill of his own ready, which he meant to propose in its stead. The leading feature of his Grace's measure was to couple the nomination boroughs in the return of members, giving one representative to every pair of those boroughs, and beginning the union by joining Old Sarum and Gatton together. The members who would be excluded by this scheme from Parliament were to be transferred to Manchester, Birmingham, and one or two other large towns, where, in the first instance, due care was to be taken that the qualification should be sufficiently high. The Reform Bill, however, being carried, his Grace's substitute was never brought formally forward. He is a nobleman of considerable influence in the House. He is, indeed, regarded as the head of a certain party in that house, amounting to thirty or forty, and numbering among its members the Duke of Northumberland, the Earl of Arundel, &c. He speaks frequently, but never long at a time. I have already endeavoured to give some idea of the matter of his speeches: his manner is still worse. He works himself, in the majority of cases, into a passion-sometimes into a towering one. In the latter case he raises his voice, which is naturally shrill and penetrating, to such a pitch of loudness, that the sounds are reverberated from the walls and ceiling of the house. The consequence is, if there be not an Irishism in the expression, that sometimes you cannot hear him from the very loudness of his voice. In the Session of 1834, a gentleman belonging to the reporting establishment of a Morning Paper, gravely assigned the reason of his not being able to give his Grace's speech, to the extreme loudness of the tone in which he spoke. His action is correspondingly violent, and has, owing to the unwieldy character of his person, a very awkward effect. One wonders at seeing so much zeal and energy of manner displayed in a man who has reached the sixtieth year of his age. The Duke of Northumberland never speaks in the house. I am not aware that he has for some years past delivered even a single sentence in it. In other words, he is never, according to the usual acceptation of the parliamentary phrase, to be seen 66 'on his legs." And as I have never heard him speak at any public meeting, I am unable to give any information as to what his qualifications as a speaker are,-if he have any. But though the noble Duke never utters a syllable in the house, there are few noblemen whose names are better known to the public. His vast estates, bringing him in, it is said, an annual revenue of nearly £250,000,-being but little under that of any other peer of the realm, and half as large as that allowed his Majesty himself,-necessarily make him a person of so much importance as to keep his name continually before the public eye; and the eminence to which his great property and consequent influence have, as a matter of course, raised him, has been largely increased by the circumstance of his having lately filled the important situation of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. In person he is rather above the ordinary height, and of a slender make. His complexion is of a sandy colour. In his countenance there is nothing remarkable; but it is indicative of that illness to which the noble duke has been subject for many years, and which, in addition to bodily suffering, is the source of much inconvenience to him. His appearance and manners are gentlemanly without anything of the haughtiness of the aristocrat. He seldom attends the house-scarcely ever, except when some important question is before it. It was matter of surprise to many of his friends, that, with his bodily indisposition and princely income, he should ever have undertaken the arduous duties of the Viceroyship of Ireland. He merits praise for not neglecting the duties of the office so long as he filled it. It is true that he was not popular with the Roman Catholic part of the population of Ireland; nor was it to be expected, as he went there a decided friend to Protestant ascendency under the auspices of a Tory government. But it is a fact which ought to be mentioned to his credit, that he was, perhaps, as popular a Tory Lord Lieutenant with the Catholics as any Viceroy appointed to the office by the same Tory party for many years past. It is understood he did not feel the situation to be a bed of roses; and it is believed that, whatever future changes may take place in his day in the councils of the King, he will not aspire to any of the offices which the Government may have at its disposal. He is in the fifty-first year of his age. The Duke of BUCCLEUGH must also, from the extent of his estates, which, with the property left him by a relation, are understood to bring him in an annual revenue of 250,000l., always possess considerable influence. His talents, from any indication he has yet given of them, certainly do not hold out any prospect of his ever acquiring much influence by any senatorial exhibitions he is likely to make. He never speaks, or at least but seldom, on any question except those which relate to Scotland. The little he does say is always to the point, but there is never anything in it above the merest commonplace. He seems incapable of penetrating the surface: I doubt if he have ever yet, on any occasion, or on any subject, been the author of a single felicitous idea. His voice is thin, but clear and pleasant. He has so much of the Scottish accent, that before he has uttered a dozen words any English ear would inevitably discover that he is a Scotchman. He talks with considerable ease, but is always cold and monotonous. He has not the slightest animation in his manner, or energy in his action. He is good-looking: his features are small and regular, and wear an expression of mildness approaching to simplicity. His complexion is fair, and his hair is of a sandy colour. He is about the middle height, and rather handsomely made. He is one of the youngest Peers in the House, being only in his thirtieth year. 61 CHAPTER VII. TORY PARTY.-MARQUISES. The Marquis of Londonderry-The Marquis of Wellesley-The Marquis of Salisbury. THE Marquis of LONDONDERRY has made himself conspicuous, both within and without the House, by his extraordinary zeal, on all occasions, on behalf of the most ultra Tory principles. He is undoubtedly the most imprudent advocate in the Upper House of that class of principles. He never wastes a thought on the peculiar circumstances in which either himself personally or his party as a body may be placed by the course he pursues. Toryism is from heaven, and it would make a heaven on earth if it had only fair play. Of all this there can be no doubt. The noble Marquis, at any rate, has no more doubt of it than he has of his own existence. Why then, he argues, not boldly assert Tory principles at all times, in all places, and under all circumstances? The extraordinary zeal he evinced in favour of Tory principles, and against the Reform Bill, when that measure was under discussion in the Upper House, put his life in more than one instance in imminent peril. An infuriated mob on two occasions, at the period I refer to, attacked him in the streets, and he narrowly escaped with his life. Did this induce him to pursue a more moderate, or, to use another term, more prudent course? It did not. He was as vehement the first time. afterwards he entered the house, in his denunciations of the "Revolutionary Bill," and as loud-in his praises of unadulterated Toryism, as before. As respects his party, he has, times without number, done infinite damage to them by the recklessness and imprudence of his political conduct. In fact they have no sooner got themselves-it may be with a world of difficulty-out of one false position in which he had placed them, than he lands them in another. Ofttimes would they give anything to purchase his silence; but, like that of Colonel Sibthorpe, in the other house, it is above all price;-it is not to be purchased. When coaxing-I do not like the word, but I know no better-argument, remonstrance, entreaty, have all been used in vain to induce him to keep his lips sealed, and |