History of Civilization in England, Vol. 1 of 3

782

This great contest was brought to a close in 1771 and 1772; when, as Lord Campbell says, ‘the right of publishing parliamentary debates was substantially established.’ Campbell's Chancellors, vol. v. p. 511, vol. vi. p. 90. For further information respecting this important victory, see Cooke's Hist. of Party, vol. iii. pp. 179-184; Almon's Correspond. of Wilkes, 1805, vol. v. p. 63; Stephens's Mem. of Tooke, vol. i. pp. 329–351; Mahon's Hist. of England, vol. v. p. 290; and, on its connexion with Junius's Letters, see Forster's Life of Goldsmith, vol. ii. pp. 183, 184.

George III., always consistent and always wrong, strenuously opposed this extension of the popular rights. In 1771, he wrote to Lord North: ‘It is highly necessary that this strange and lawless method of publishing debates in the papers should be put a stop to. But is not the House of Lords the best court to bring such miscreants before; as it can fine, as well as imprison, and has broader shoulders to support the odium of so salutary a measure?’ App. to Mahon, vol. v. p. xlviii.; and note in Walpole's George III. vol. iv. p. 280, where the words, ‘in the papers,’ are omitted; but I copy the letter, as printed by Lord Mahon. In other respects, both versions are the same; so that we now know the idea George III. had of what constituted a miscreant.

783

Lord John Russell, in his work on the History of the English Constitution, says: ‘Dr. Jebb, and after him Mr. Cartwright, broached the theory of personal representation;’ but this appears to be a mistake, since the theory is said to have been first put forward by Cartwright, in 1776. Compare Russell on the Constitution, 1821, pp. 240, 241, with Life and Corresp. of Cartwright, 1826, vol. i. pp. 91, 92. A letter in the Life of Dr. Currie, vol. ii. pp. 307–314, shows the interest which even sober and practical men were beginning to feel in the doctrine before the end of the century.

784

On this I have a philological remark of some interest, – namely, that there is reason to believe that ‘the word “independence,” in its modern acceptation,’ does not occur in our language before the early part of the eighteenth century. See Hare's Guesses at Truth, 2nd series, 1848, p. 262. A similar change, though at a later period, took place in France. See the observations on the word ‘individualisme,’ in Tocqueville, Démocratie en Amérique, vol. iv. p. 156; and in the later work, by the same author, L'Ancien Régime, Paris, 1856, pp. 148, 149.

785

Archbishop Whately (Dangers to Christian Faith, pp. 76, 77) says: ‘Neither the attacks on our religion, nor the evidences in its support, were, to any great extent, brought forward in a popular form, till near the close of the last century. On both sides, the learned (or those who professed to be such) seem to have agreed in this, – that the mass of the people were to acquiesce in the decision of their superiors, and neither should, nor could, exercise their own minds on the question.’ This is well put, and quite true; and should be compared with the complaint in Wakefield's Life of Himself, vol. ii. p. 21; Nichols's Lit. Anec. of the Eighteenth Century, vol. viii. p. 144; and Hodgson's Life of Bishop Porteus, pp. 73, 74, 122, 125, 126. See also a speech by Mansfield, in 1781 (Parl. Hist. vol. xxii. p. 265), when an attempt was made to put down the ‘Theological Society.’ The whole debate is worth reading; not on account of its merits, but because it supplies evidence of the prevailing spirit.

786

Coleridge (Lit. Remains, vol. i. pp. 230 seq.) has made some interesting remarks on the vicissitudes of English style; and he justly observes, p. 238, that, ‘after the Revolution, the spirit of the nation became much more commercial than it had been before; a learned body, or clerisy, as such, gradually disappeared; and literature in general began to be addressed to the common, miscellaneous public.’ He goes on to lament this change; though, in that, I disagree with him. See also The Friend, vol. i. p. 19, where he contrasts the modern style with ‘the stately march and difficult evolutions’ of the great writers of the seventeenth century. Compare, on this alteration, the preface to Nader Shah, in Works of Sir W. Jones, vol. v. p. 544. See also, in Harford's Life of Burgess, pp. 40, 41, a curious letter from Monboddo, the last of our really great pedants, mourning over this characteristic of modern composition. He terms it contemptuously a ‘short cut of a style;’ and wishes to return to ‘the true ancient taste,’ with plenty of ‘parentheses!’

The truth is, that this movement was merely part of that tendency to approximate the different classes of society which was first clearly seen in the eighteenth century, and which influenced not only the style of author, but also their social habits. Hume observes that, in the ‘last age,’ learned men had separated themselves too much from the world; but that, in his time, they were becoming more ‘conversible.’ Essay V., in Hume's Philosophical Works, vol. iv. pp. 539, 540. That ‘philosophers’ were growing men of the world, is also noticed in a curious passage in Alciphron, dial. i., in Berkeley's Works, vol. i. p. 312; and, respecting the general social amalgamation, see a letter to the Countess of Bute, in 1753, in Works of Lady Mary Montagu, edit. 1803, vol. iv. pp. 194, 195. As to the influence of Addison, who led the way in establishing the easy, and therefore democratic, style, and who, more than any single writer, made literature popular, compare Aikin's Life of Addison, vol. ii. p. 65, with Turner's Hist. of England, vol. ii. p. 7. Subsequently a reaction was attempted by Johnson, Gibbon, and Parr; but this, being contrary to the spirit of the age, was short-lived.

787

And the servility was, for the most part, well paid; indeed, rewarded far more than it was worth. During the sixteenth, seventeenth, and early part of the eighteenth century, a sum of money was invariably presented to the author in return for his dedication. Of course, the grosser the flattery, the larger the sum. On the relation thus established between authors and men of rank, and on the eagerness with which even eminent writers looked to their patrons for gratuities, varying from 40s. to 100l., see Drake's Shakespeare and his Times, 1817, 4to. vol. ii. p. 225; Monk's Life of Bentley, vol. i. pp. 194, 309; Whiston's Memoirs, p. 203; Nichols's Illustrations, vol. ii. p. 709; Harris's Life of Hardwicke, vol. iii. p. 35; Bunbury's Life of Hanmer, p. 81. Compare a note in Burton's Diary, vol. iii. p. 52; and as to the importance of fixing on a proper person to whom to dedicate, see Ellis's Letters Lit. Men, pp. 231–234; and the matter-of-fact remark in Bishop Newton's Life, p. 14; also, Hughes's Letters, edit. 1773, vol. iii. p. xxxi. appendix.

About the middle of the eighteenth century was the turning-point of this deplorable condition; and Watson, for instance, in 1769, laid it down as a rule, ‘never to dedicate to those from whom I expected favours.’ Watson's Life of Himself, vol. i. p. 54. So, too, Warburton, in 1758, boasts that his dedication was not, as usual, ‘occupied by trifles or falsehoods.’ See his letter, in Chatham Correspond. vol. i. p. 315. Nearly at the same period, the same change was effected in France, where D'Alembert set the example of ridiculing the old custom. See Brougham's Men of Letters, vol. ii. pp. 439, 440; Correspond. de Madame Dudeffand, vol. ii. p. 148; and Œuvres de Voltaire, vol. xl. p. 41, vol. lxi. p. 285.

788

When Le Blanc visited England, in the middle of the reign of George II., the custom of authors relying upon the patronage of individuals was beginning to die away, and the plan of publishing by subscription had become general. See the interesting details in Le Blanc, Lettres d'un Français, vol. i. pp. 305–308; and for the former state of things, see vol. ii. pp. 148–153. Burke, who came to London in 1750, observes, with surprise, that ‘writers of the first talents are left to the capricious patronage of the public. Notwithstanding discouragement, literature is cultivated to a high degree.’ Prior's Life of Burke, p. 21. This increasing independence also appears from the fact that, in 1762, we find the first instance of a popular writer attacking public men by name; authors having previously confined themselves ‘to the initials only of the great men whom they assailed.’ Mahon's Hist. of England, vol. v. p. 19. The feud between literature and rank may be further illustrated by an entry in Holcroft's Diary for 1798, Mem. of Holcroft, vol. iii. p. 28.

789

In England, the marked increase in the number of books took place during the latter half of the eighteenth century, and particularly after 1756. See some valuable evidence in Journal of the Statistical Society, vol. iii. pp. 383, 384. To this I may add, that between 1753 and 1792, the circulation of newspapers was more than doubled. Hunt's Hist. of Newspapers, vol. i. p. 252.

790

The apparent caprice and irregularity in small numbers arise from the perturbations produced by the operation of minor and usually unknown laws. In large numbers, these perturbations have a tendency to balance each other; and this I take to be the sole foundation of the accuracy obtained by striking an average. If we could refer all phenomena to their laws, we should never use averages. Of course, the expression capricious is, strictly speaking, inaccurate, and is merely a measure of our ignorance.

791

The temporary political reaction under Anne is well related by Lord Cowper, in his Hist. of Parties, printed in appendix to Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors, vol. iv. p. 411, 412. This able work of Lord Campbell's, though rather inaccurate for the earlier period, is particularly valuable for the history of the eighteenth century.

792

See Reminiscences of the Courts of George I. and George II. by Horace Walpole, pp. lv. xciv.; and Mahon's Hist. of England, vol. i. pp. 100, 235. The fault of George II. was in his bad pronunciation of English; but George I. was not even able to pronounce it badly, and could only converse with his minister, Sir Robert Walpole, in Latin. The French court saw this state of things with great pleasure; and in December 1714, Madame de Maintenon wrote to the Princess des Ursins (Lettres inédites de Maintenon, vol. iii. p. 157): ‘On dit que le nouveau roi d'Angleterre se dégoûte de ses sujets, et que ses sujets sont dégoûtés de lui. Dieu veuille remettre le tout en meilleur ordre!’ On the effect this produced on the language spoken at the English court, compare Le Blanc, Lettres d'un Français, vol. i. p. 159.

793

In 1715, Leslie writes respecting George I., that he is ‘a stranger to you, and altogether ignorant of your language, your laws, customs, and constitution.’ Somers Tracts, vol. xiii. p. 703.

794

Great light has been thrown upon the character of George II. by the recent publication of Lord Hervey's Memoirs; a curious work, which fully confirms what we know from other sources respecting the king's ignorance of English politics. Indeed, that prince cared for nothing but soldiers and women; and his highest ambition was to combine the reputation of a great general with that of a successful libertine. Besides the testimony of Lord Hervey, it is certain, from other authorities, that George II. was despised as well as disliked, and was spoken of contemptuously by observers of his character, and even by his own ministers. See the Marchmont Papers, vol. i. pp. 29, 181, 187.

In reference to the decline of the royal authority, it is important to observe, that since the accession of George I. none of our sovereigns have been allowed to be present at state deliberations. See Bancroft's American Revolution, vol. ii. p. 47, and Campbell's Chancellors, vol. iii. p. 191.

795

See the remarks said to be written by Bishop Atterbury, in Somers Tracts, vol. xiii. p. 534, contrasting the affection Anne felt for the church with the coldness of George I. The whole of the pamphlet (pp. 521–541) ought to be read. It affords a curious picture of a baffled churchman.

796

The ill-feeling which the Church of England generally bore against the government of the two first Georges was openly displayed, and was so pertinaceous as to form a leading fact in the history of England. In 1722, Bishop Atterbury was arrested, because he was known to be engaged in a treasonable conspiracy with the Pretender. As soon as he was seized, the church offered up prayers for him. ‘Under the pretence,’ says Lord Mahon, – ‘under the pretence of his being afflicted with the gout, he was publicly prayed for in most of the churches of London and Westminster.’ Mahon's Hist. of England, vol. ii. p. 38. See also Parl. Hist. vol. vii. p. 988, and vol. viii. p. 347.

At Oxford, where the clergy have long been in the ascendant, they made such efforts to instill their principles as to call down the indignation of the elder Pitt, who, in a speech in Parliament in 1754, denounced that university, which he said had for many years ‘been raising a succession of treason – there never was such a seminary!'’Walpole's Mem. of George II. vol. i. p. 413. Compare the Bedford Correspondence, vol. i. pp. 594, 595, with Harris's Life of Hardwicke, vol. ii. p. 383; and on the temper of the clergy generally after the death of Anne, Parl. Hist. vol. vii. pp. 541, 542; Bowles's Life of Ken, vol. ii. pp. 188, 189; Monk's Life of Bentley, vol. i. pp. 370, 426.

The immediate consequence of this was very remarkable. For the government and the dissenters, being both opposed by the church, naturally combined together: the dissenters using all their influence against the Pretender, and the government protecting them against ecclesiastical prosecutions. See evidence of this in Doddridge's Correspond. and Diary, vol. i. p. 30, vol. ii. p. 321, vol. iii. pp. 110, 125, vol. iv. pp. 428, 436, 437; Hutton's Life of Himself, pp. 159, 160; Parl. Hist. vol. xxviii. pp. 11, 393, vol. xxix. pp. 1434, 1463; Memoirs of Priestley, vol. ii. p. 506; Life of Wakefield, vol. i. p. 220.

797

‘The year 1762 forms an era in the history of the two factions, since it witnessed the destruction of that monopoly of honours and emoluments which the Whigs had held for forty-five years.’ Cooke's Hist. of Party, vol. ii. p. 406. Compare Albemarle's Memoirs of Rockingham, vol. ii. p. 92. Lord Bolingbroke clearly foresaw what would happen in consequence of the accession of George I. Immediately after the death of Anne, he wrote to the Bishop of Rochester: ‘But the grief of my soul is this, I see plainly that the Tory party is gone.’ Macpherson's Original Papers, vol. ii. p. 651.

798

Grosley, who visited England only five years after the accession of George III., mentions the great effect produced upon the English when they heard the king pronounce their language without ‘a foreign accent.’ Grosley's Tour to London, vol. ii. p. 106. It is well known that the king, in his first speech, boasted of being a Briton; but what is, perhaps, less generally known is, that the honour was on the side of the country: ‘What a lustre,’ said the House of Lords in their address to him, – ‘what a lustre does it cast upon the name of Briton when you, sir, are pleased to esteem it amongst your glories!’ Parl. Hist. vol. xv. p. 986.

799

Parl. Hist. vol. xxix. p. 955; Walpole's Mem. of George III. vol. i. pp. 4, 110.

800

The accession of George III. is generally fixed on as the period when English Jacobinism became extinct. See Butler's Reminiscences, vol. ii. p. 92. At the first court held by the new king, it was observed, says Horace Walpole, that ‘the Earl of Litchfield, Sir Walter Bagot, and the principal Jacobites went to court.’ Walpole's Mem. of George III. vol. i. p. 14. Only three years earlier the Jacobites had been active; and in 1757, Rigby writes to the Duke of Bedford: ‘Fox's election at Windsor is very doubtful. There is a Jacobite subscription of 5,000l. raised against him, with Sir James Dashwood's name at the head of it.’ Bedford Correspond. vol. ii. p. 261.

801

Charles Stuart was so stupidly ignorant, that at the age of twenty-five he could hardly write, and was altogether unable to spell. Mahon's Hist. of England, vol. iii. pp. 165, 166, and appendix, p. ix. After the death of his father, in 1766, this abject creature, who called himself king of England, went to Rome, and took to drinking. Ibid. vol. iii. pp. 351–353. In 1779, Swinburne saw him at Florence, where he used to appear every night at the opera, perfectly drunk. Swinburne's Courts of Europe, vol. i. pp. 253–255; and in 1787, only the year before he died, he continued the same degrading practice. See a letter from Sir J. E. Smith, written from Naples in March 1787, in Smith's Correspond. vol. i. p. 208. Another letter, written as early as 1761 (Grenville Papers, vol. i. p. 366), describes ‘the young Pretender always drunk.’

802

On the connexion between the decline of the Stuart interest and the increased power of the crown under George III., compare Thoughts on the Present Discontents, in Burke's Works, vol. i. pp. 127, 128, with Watson's Life of Himself, vol. i. p. 136; and for an intimation that this result was expected, see Grosley's London, vol. ii. p. 252.

803

Campbell's Chancellors, vol. v. p. 245: ‘The divine indefeasible right of kings became the favourite theme – in total forgetfulness of its incompatibility with the parliamentary title of the reigning monarch.’ Horace Walpole (Mem. of George III. vol. i. p. 16) says, that in 1760 ‘prerogative became a fashionable word.’

804

The respect George III. always displayed for church-ceremonies formed of itself a marked contrast with the indifference of his immediate predecessors; and the change was gratefully noticed. Compare Mahon's Hist. of England, vol. v. pp. 54, 55, with the extract from Archbishop Secker, in Bancroft's American Revolution, vol. i. p. 440. For other evidence of the admiration both parties felt and openly expressed for each other, see an address from the bishop and clergy of St. Asaph (Parr's Works, vol. vii. p. 352), and a letter from the king to Pitt (Russell's Memorials of Fox, vol. iii. p. 251), which should be compared with Priestley's Memoirs, vol. i. pp. 137, 138.

805

The education of George III. had been shamefully neglected; and when he arrived at manhood he never attempted to repair its deficiencies, but remained during his long life in a state of pitiable ignorance. Compare Brougham's Statesmen, vol. i. pp. 13–15; Walpole's Mem. of George III. vol. i. p. 55; Mahon's Hist. of England, vol. iv. pp. 54, 207.

806

See some good remarks by Lord John Russell in his Introduction to the Bedford Correspondence, vol. iii. p. lxii.

807

In a motion for reform in Parliament in 1782, he declared that it was ‘essentially necessary.’ See his speech, in Parl. Hist. vol. xxii. p. 1418. In 1784 he mentioned ‘the necessity of a parliamentary reform,’ vol. xxiv. p. 349; see also pp. 998, 999. Compare Disney's Life of Jebb, p. 209. Nor is it true, as some have said, that he afterwards abandoned the cause of reform because the times were unfavourable to it. On the contrary, he, in a speech delivered in 1800, said (Parl. Hist. vol. xxxv. p. 47): ‘Upon this subject, sir, I think it right to state the inmost thoughts of my mind; I think it right to declare my most decided opinion, that, even if the times were proper for experiments, any, even the slightest, change in such a constitution must be considered as an evil.’ It is remarkable that, even as early as 1783, Paley appears to have suspected the sincerity of Pitt's professions in favour of reform. See Meadley's Memoirs of Paley, p. 121.

808

In 1794 Grey taunted him with this in the House of Commons: ‘William Pitt, the reformer of that day, was William Pitt, the prosecutor, ay and persecutor too, of reformers now.’ Parl. Hist. vol. xxxi. p. 532; compare vol. xxxiii. p. 659. So, too, Lord Campbell (Chief-Justices, vol. ii. p. 544): ‘He afterwards tried to hang a few of his brother reformers who continued steady in the cause.’ See further, on this damning fact in the career of Pitt, Campbell's Chancellors, vol. vii. p. 105; Brougham's Statesmen, vol. ii. p. 21; Belsham's History, vol. ix. pp. 79, 242; Life of Cartwright, vol. i. p. 198; and even a letter from the mild and benevolent Roscoe, in Life of Roscoe, by his Son, vol. i. p. 113.

809

Such was the king's zeal in favour of the slave-trade, that in 1770 ‘he issued an instruction under his own hand commanding the governor (of Virginia), upon pain of the highest displeasure, to assent to no law by which the importation of slaves should be in any respect prohibited or obstructed.’ Bancroft's American Revolution, vol. iii. p. 456: so that, as Mr. Bancroft indignantly observes, p. 469, while the courts of law had decided ‘that as soon as any slave set his foot on English ground he becomes free, the king of England stood in the path of humanity, and made himself the pillar of the colonial slave-trade.’ The shuffling conduct of Pitt in this matter makes it hard for any honest man to forgive him. Compare Brougham's Statesmen, vol. ii. pp. 14, 103–105; Russell's Mem. of Fox, vol. iii. pp. 131, 278, 279; Belsham's Hist. of Great Britain, vol. x. pp. 34, 35; Life of Wakefield, vol. i. p. 197; Porter's Progress of the Nation, vol. iii. p. 426; Holland's Mem. of the Whig Party, vol. ii. p. 157; and the striking remarks of Francis, in Parl. Hist. vol. xxxii. p. 949.

810

That Pitt wished to remain at peace, and was hurried into the war with France by the influence of the court, is admitted by the best-informed writers, men in other respects of different opinions. See, for instance, Brougham's Statesmen, vol. ii. p. 9; Rogers's Introduction to Burke's Works, p. lxxxiv.; Nicholls's Recollections, vol. ii. pp. 155, 200.

811

The mere existence of such a party, with such a name, shows how, in a political point of view, England was receding during this period from the maxims established at the Revolution. Respecting this active faction, compare the indignant remarks of Burke (Works, vol. i. p. 133) with Albemarle's Rockingham, vol. i. pp. 5, 307; Buckingham's Mem. of George III. vol. i. p. 284, vol. ii. p. 154; Russell's Mem. of Fox, vol. i. pp. 61, 120, vol. ii. pp. 50, 77; Bedford Correspond. vol. iii. p. xlv.; Parr's Works, vol. viii. p. 513; Butler's Reminiscences, vol. i. p. 74; Burke's Correspond. vol. i. p. 352; Walpole's George III. vol. iv. p. 315; The Grenville Papers, vol. ii. pp. 33, 34, vol. iii. p. 57, vol. iv. p. 79, 152, 219, 303; Parl. Hist. vol. xvi. pp. 841, 973, vol. xviii. pp. 1005, 1246, vol. xix. pp. 435, 856, vol. xxii. pp. 650, 1173.