‘Strange that such difference should beTwixt Tweedledum and Tweedledee.’
‘Strange that such difference should beTwixt Tweedledum and Tweedledee.’
‘Strange that such difference should beTwixt Tweedledum and Tweedledee.’
‘Strange that such difference should be
Twixt Tweedledum and Tweedledee.’
The distinction between a great Whig and Tory Lord is laughable. For Whigs to Tories ‘nearly are allied, and thin partitions do their bounds divide.’ So I cannot find out the different drift (as far as politics are concerned) of the ********* and ********* Reviews, which remind one of Opposition coaches, that raise a great dust or spatter one another with mud, but both travel the same road and arrive at the same destination. When the Editor of a respectable MorningPaper reproached me with having called Mr. Gifford a cat’s-paw, I did not tell him that he was a glove upon that cat’s-paw. I might have done so. There is a difference between a sword and a foil. The Whigs do not at all relish that ugly thing, a knock-down blow; which is so different from their endless see-saw way of going about a question. They are alarmed, ‘lest the courtiers offended should be:’ for they are so afraid of their adversaries, that they dread the re-action even of successful opposition to them, and will neither attempt it themselves, nor stand by any one that does. Any writer who is not agreeable to the Tories, becomes obnoxious to the Whigs; he is disclaimed by them as a dangerous colleague, merely for having ‘done the cause some service;’ is considered as having the malicious design to make a breach of the peace, and to interrupt with most admired disorder the harmony and mutual good understanding which subsists between Ministers and the Opposition, and on the adherence to which they are alone suffered to exist, or to have a shadow of importance in the state. They are, in fact, a convenient medium to break the force of popular feeling, and to transmit the rays of popular indignation against the influence and power of the crown, blunted and neutralized by as many qualifications and refractions as possible. A Whig is properly what is called a Trimmer—that is, a coward to both sides of a question, who dare not be a knave nor an honest man, but is a sort of whiffling, shuffling, cunning, silly, contemptible, unmeaning negation of the two. He is a poor purblind creature, who halts between two opinions, and complains that he cannot get any two people to think alike. He is a cloak for corruption, and a mar-plot to freedom. He will neither do any thing himself, nor let any one else do it. He is on bad terms with the Government, and not on good ones with the people. He is an impertinence and a contradiction in the state. If he has a casting weight, for fear of overdoing the mark, he throws it into the wrong scale. He is a person of equally feeble understanding and passions. He has some notion of what is right, just enough to hinder him from pursuing his own interest: he has selfish and worldly prudence enough, not to let him embark in any bold or decided measure for the advancement of truth and justice. He is afraid of his own conscience, which will not let him lend his unqualified support to arbitrary measures; he stands in awe of the opinion of the world, which will not let him express his opposition to those measures with warmth and effect. His politics are a strange mixture of cross-purposes. He is wedded to forms and appearances, impeded by every petty obstacle and pretext of difficulty, more tenacious of the means than the end—anxious to secure all suffrages, by which he secures none—hampered not only by the ties of friendshipto his actual associates, but to all those that he thinks may become so; and unwilling to offer arguments to convince the reason of his opponents lest he should offend their prejudices, by shewing them how much they are in the wrong; ‘letting I dare not wait upon I would, like the poor cat in the adage;’ stickling for the letter of the Constitution, with the affectation of a prude, and abandoning its principles with the effrontery of a prostitute to any shabby Coalition he can patch up with its deadly enemies. This is very pitiful work; and, I believe, the public with me are tolerably sick of the character. At the same time, he hurls up his cap with a foolish face of wonder and incredulity at the restoration of the Bourbons, and affects to chuckle with secret satisfaction over the last act of the Revolution, which reduced him to perfect insignificance. We need not wonder at the results, when it comes to the push between parties so differently constituted and unequally matched. We have seen what those results are. I cannot do justice to the picture, but I find it done to my hands in those prophetic lines of Pope, where he describes the last Triumph of Corruption:—
‘But ’tis the fall degrades her to a whore:Let greatness own her, and she’s mean no more.Her birth, her beauty, crowds and courts confess;Chaste matrons praise her, and grave bishops bless:In golden chains the willing world she draws,And her’s the Gospel is, and her’s the Laws;Mounts the tribunal, lifts her scarlet head,And sees pale virtue carted in her stead.Lo! at the wheels of her triumphal car,Old England’s genius, rough with many a scar,Dragg’d in the dust! his arms hang idly round,His flag inverted trails along the ground:Our youth, all liveried o’er with foreign gold,Before her dance, behind her crawl the old!See thronging millions to the Pagod run,And offer country, parent, wife, or son!Hear her black trumpet thro’ the land proclaim,Thatnot to be corrupted, is the shame.In soldier, churchman, patriot, man in power,’Tis avarice all, ambition is no more!See all our nobles begging to be slaves!See all our fools aspiring to be knaves!All, all look up with reverential aweAt crimes that ‘scape or triumph o’er the law;While truth, worth, wisdom daily they decry:“Nothing is sacred now but villainy.”Yet may this verse (if such a verse remain)Shew there was one who held it in disdain.’
‘But ’tis the fall degrades her to a whore:Let greatness own her, and she’s mean no more.Her birth, her beauty, crowds and courts confess;Chaste matrons praise her, and grave bishops bless:In golden chains the willing world she draws,And her’s the Gospel is, and her’s the Laws;Mounts the tribunal, lifts her scarlet head,And sees pale virtue carted in her stead.Lo! at the wheels of her triumphal car,Old England’s genius, rough with many a scar,Dragg’d in the dust! his arms hang idly round,His flag inverted trails along the ground:Our youth, all liveried o’er with foreign gold,Before her dance, behind her crawl the old!See thronging millions to the Pagod run,And offer country, parent, wife, or son!Hear her black trumpet thro’ the land proclaim,Thatnot to be corrupted, is the shame.In soldier, churchman, patriot, man in power,’Tis avarice all, ambition is no more!See all our nobles begging to be slaves!See all our fools aspiring to be knaves!All, all look up with reverential aweAt crimes that ‘scape or triumph o’er the law;While truth, worth, wisdom daily they decry:“Nothing is sacred now but villainy.”Yet may this verse (if such a verse remain)Shew there was one who held it in disdain.’
‘But ’tis the fall degrades her to a whore:Let greatness own her, and she’s mean no more.Her birth, her beauty, crowds and courts confess;Chaste matrons praise her, and grave bishops bless:In golden chains the willing world she draws,And her’s the Gospel is, and her’s the Laws;Mounts the tribunal, lifts her scarlet head,And sees pale virtue carted in her stead.Lo! at the wheels of her triumphal car,Old England’s genius, rough with many a scar,Dragg’d in the dust! his arms hang idly round,His flag inverted trails along the ground:Our youth, all liveried o’er with foreign gold,Before her dance, behind her crawl the old!See thronging millions to the Pagod run,And offer country, parent, wife, or son!Hear her black trumpet thro’ the land proclaim,Thatnot to be corrupted, is the shame.In soldier, churchman, patriot, man in power,’Tis avarice all, ambition is no more!See all our nobles begging to be slaves!See all our fools aspiring to be knaves!All, all look up with reverential aweAt crimes that ‘scape or triumph o’er the law;While truth, worth, wisdom daily they decry:“Nothing is sacred now but villainy.”Yet may this verse (if such a verse remain)Shew there was one who held it in disdain.’
‘But ’tis the fall degrades her to a whore:
Let greatness own her, and she’s mean no more.
Her birth, her beauty, crowds and courts confess;
Chaste matrons praise her, and grave bishops bless:
In golden chains the willing world she draws,
And her’s the Gospel is, and her’s the Laws;
Mounts the tribunal, lifts her scarlet head,
And sees pale virtue carted in her stead.
Lo! at the wheels of her triumphal car,
Old England’s genius, rough with many a scar,
Dragg’d in the dust! his arms hang idly round,
His flag inverted trails along the ground:
Our youth, all liveried o’er with foreign gold,
Before her dance, behind her crawl the old!
See thronging millions to the Pagod run,
And offer country, parent, wife, or son!
Hear her black trumpet thro’ the land proclaim,
Thatnot to be corrupted, is the shame.
In soldier, churchman, patriot, man in power,
’Tis avarice all, ambition is no more!
See all our nobles begging to be slaves!
See all our fools aspiring to be knaves!
All, all look up with reverential awe
At crimes that ‘scape or triumph o’er the law;
While truth, worth, wisdom daily they decry:
“Nothing is sacred now but villainy.”
Yet may this verse (if such a verse remain)
Shew there was one who held it in disdain.’