Sybil by Benjamin Disraeli (epub e reader TXT) 📕

promised to see you; well, what have you got to say?"

The delegates made their accustomed statement; they wished to pledge no one; all that the people desired was a respectful discussion of their claims; the national petition, signed by nearly a million and a half of the flower of the working classes, was shortly to be presented to the House of Commons, praying the House to take into consideration the five points in which the working classes deemed their best interests involved; to wit, universal suffrage, vote by ballot, annual parliaments, salaried members, and the abolition of the property qualification.

"And supposing these five points conceded," said Lord Valentine, "what do you mean to do?"

"The people then being at length really represented," replied one of the delegates, "they would decide upon the measures which the interests of the great majority require."

"I am not so clear about that," said Lord Valentine; "that is the very point at issue. I do not think the great majority are the best judges of their own interests. At all events, gentlemen, the respective advantages of aristocracy and democracy are a moot point. Well then, finding the question practically settled in this country, you will excuse me for not wishing to agitate it. I give you complete credit for the sincerity of your convictions; extend the same confidence to me. You are democrats; I am an aristocrat. My family has been ennobled for nearly three centuries; they bore a knightly name before their elevation. They have mainly and materially assisted in making England what it is. They have shed their blood in many battles; I have had two ancestors killed in the command of our fleets. You will not underrate such services, even if you do not appreciate their conduct as statesmen, though that has often been laborious, and sometimes distinguished. The finest trees in England were planted by my family; they raised several of your most beautiful churches; they have built bridges, made roads, dug mines, and constructed canals, and drained a marsh of a million of acres which bears our name to this day, and is now one of the most flourishing portions of the country. You talk of our taxation and our wars; and of your inventions and your industry. Our wars converted an island into an empire, and at any rate developed that industry and stimulated those inventions of which you boast. You tell me that you are the delegates of the unrepresented working classes of Mowbray. Why, what would Mowbray have been if it had not been for your aristocracy and their wars? Your town would not have existed; there would have been no working classes there to send up delegates. In fact you owe your every existence to us. I have told you what my ancestors have done; I am prepared, if the occasion requires it, not to disgrace them; I have inherited their great position, and I tell you fairly, gentlemen, I will not relinquish it without a struggle."

"Will you combat the people in that suit of armour, my lord?" said one of the delegates smiling, but in a tone of kindness and respect.

"That suit of armour has combated for the people before this," said Lord Valentine, "for it stood by Simon de Montfort on the field of Evesham."

"My lord," said the other delegate, "it is well known that you come from a great and honoured race; and we have seen enough to-day to show that in intelligence and spirit you are not unworthy of your ancestry. But the great question, which your lordship has introduced, not us, is not to be decided by a happy instance. Your ancestors may have done great things. What wonder! They were members of a very limited class which had the monopoly of action. And the people, have not they shed their blood in battle, though they may have commanded fleets less often than your lordship's relatives? And these mines and canals that you have excavated and constructed, these woods you have planted, these waters you have drained--had the people no hand in these creations? What share in these great works had that faculty of Labour whose sacred claims we now urge, but which for centuries have been passed over in contemptuous silence? No, my lord, we call upon you to decide this question by the result. The Aristocracy of England have had for three centuries the exercise of power; for the last century and a half that exercise has been uncontrolled; they form at this moment the most prosperous class that the history of the world can furnish: as rich as the Roman senators, with sources of convenience and enjoyment which modern science could alone supply. All this is not denied. Your order stands before Europe the most gorgeous of existing spectacles; though you have of late years dexterously thrown some of the odium of your polity upon that middle class which you despise, and who are despicable only because they imitate you, your tenure of power is not in reality impaired. You govern us still with absolute authority--and you govern the most miserable people on the face of the globe."

"And is this a fair description of the people of England?" said Lord Valentine. "A flash of rhetoric, I presume, that would place them lower than the Portuguese or the Poles, the serfs of Russia or the Lazzaroni of Naples."

"Infinitely lower," said the delegate, "for they are not only degraded, but conscious of their degradation. They no longer believe in any innate difference between the governing and the governed classes of this country. They are sufficiently enlightened to feel they are victims. Compared with the privileged classes of their own land, they are in a lower state than any other population compared with its privileged classes. All is relative, my lord, and believe me, the relations of the working classes of England to its privileged orders are relations of enmity, and therefore of peril."

"The people must have leaders," said Lord Valentine.

"And they have found them," said the delegate.

"When it comes to a push they will follow their nobility," said Lord Valentine.

"Will their nobility lead them?" said the other delegate. "For my part I do not pretend to be a philosopher, and if I saw a Simon de Montfort again I should be content to fight under his banner."

"We have an aristocracy of wealth," said the delegate who had chiefly spoken. "In a progressive civilization wealth is the only means of class distinction: but a new disposition of wealth may remove even this."

"Ah! you want to get at our estates," said Lord Valentine smiling; "but the effort on your part may resolve society into its original elements, and the old sources of distinction may again develope themselves."

"Tall barons will not stand against Paixhans rockets," said the delegate. "Modern science has vindicated the natural equality of man."

"And I must say I am very sorry for it," said the other delegate; "for human strength always seems to me the natural process of settling affairs."

"I am not surprised at your opinion," said Lord Valentine, turning to the delegate and smiling. "I should not be over-glad to meet you in a fray. You stand some inches above six feet, or I am mistaken."

"I was six feet two inches when I stopped growing," said the delegate; "and age has not stolen any of my height yet."

"That suit of armour would fit you," said Lord Valentine, as they all rose.

"And might I ask your lordship," said the tall delegate, "why it is here?"

"I am to represent Richard Coeur de Lion at the Queen's ball," said Lord Valentine; "and before my sovereign I will not don a Drury-Lane cuirass, so I got this up from my father's castle."

"Ah! I almost wish the good old times of Coeur de Lion were here again," said the tall delegate.

"And we should be serfs," said his companion.

"I am not sure of that," said the tall delegate. "At any rate there was the free forest."

"I like that young fellow," said the tall delegate to his companion, as they descended the staircase.

"He has awful prejudices," said his friend.

"Well, well; he has his opinions and we have ours. But he is a man; with clear, straightforward ideas, a frank, noble, presence; and as good-looking a fellow as I ever set eyes on. Where are we now?"

"We have only one more name on our list to-day, and it is at hand. Letter K, No.1, Albany. Another member of the aristocracy, the Honourable Charles Egremont."

"Well, I prefer them, as far as I can judge, to Wriggle, and Rip, and Thorough Base," said the tall delegate laughing. "I dare say we should have found Lord Milford a very jolly fellow, if he had only been up."

"Here we are," said his companion, as he knocked. "Mr Egremont, is he at home?"

"The gentlemen of the deputation? Yes, my master gave particular orders that he was at home to you. Will you walk in, gentlemen?"

"There you see," said the tall delegate. "This would be a lesson to Thorough Base."

They sat down in an antechamber: the servant opened a mahogany folding-door which he shut after him and announced to his master the arrival of the delegates. Egremont was seated in his library, at a round table covered with writing materials, books, and letters. On another table were arranged his parliamentary papers, and piles of blue books. The room was classically furnished. On the mantelpiece were some ancient vases, which he had brought with him from Italy, standing on each side of that picture of Allori of which we have spoken.

The servant returned to the ante-room, and announcing to the delegates that his master was ready to receive them, ushered into the presence of Egremont--WALTER GERARD and STEPHEN MORLEY.


Book 4 Chapter 6


It is much to be deplored that our sacred buildings are generally closed except at the stated periods of public resort. It is still more to be regretted that when with difficulty entered, there is so much in their arrangements to offend the taste and outrage the feelings. In the tumult of life, a few minutes occasionally passed in the solemn shadow of some lofty and ancient aisle, exercise very often a salutary influence: they purify the heart and elevate the mind; dispel many haunting fancies, and prevent many an act which otherwise might be repented. The church would in this light still afford us a sanctuary; not against the power of the law but against the violence of our own will; not against the passions of man but against our own.

The Abbey of Westminster rises amid the strife of factions. Around its consecrated precinct some of the boldest and some of the worst deeds have been achieved or perpetrated: sacrilege, rapine, murder, and treason. Here robbery has been practised on the greatest scale known in modern ages: here ten thousand manors belonging to the order of the Templars, without any proof, scarcely with a pretext, were forfeited in one day and divided among the monarch and his chief nobles; here the great estate of the church, which, whatever its articles of faith, belonged and still belongs to the people, was seized at various times, under various pretences, by an assembly that continually changed the religion of their country and their own by a parliamentary majority, but which never refunded the booty. Here too was brought forth that monstrous conception which even patrician Rome in its most ruthless period never equalled--the mortgaging of the industry of the country to enrich and to protect property; an act which