Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches - Volume 4 by Thomas Badington Macaulay (e ink ebook reader txt) 📕

man who has rigid principles and a fine sense of decorum? But it is not so. Did that great judge, Sir William Scott, lower his character by entering this House as Member for the University of Oxford? Did Sir John Copley lower his character by entering this House as Member for the University of Cambridge? But the universities, you say, are constituent bodies of a very peculiar kind. Be it so. Then, by your own admission, there are a few seats in this House which eminent judges have filled and may fill without any unseemly condescension. But it would be most unjust, and in me, especially, most ungrateful, to compliment the universities at the expense of other constituent bodies. I am one of many members who know by experience that a generosity and a delicacy of sentiment which would do honour to any seat of learning may be found among the ten pound householders of our great cities. And, Sir, as to the counties, need we look further than to your chair? It is of as much importance that you should punctiliously preserve your dignity as that the Master of the Rolls should punctiliously preserve his dignity. If you had, at the last election, done anything inconsistent with the integrity, with the gravity, with the suavity of temper which so eminently qualify you to preside over our deliberations, your public usefulness would have been seriously diminished. But the great county which does itself honour by sending you to the House required from you nothing unbecoming your character, and would have felt itself degraded by your degradation. And what reason is there to doubt that other constituent bodies would act as justly and considerately towards a judge distinguished by uprightness and ability as Hampshire has acted towards you?

One very futile argument only remains to be noticed. It is said that we ought to be consistent; and that, having turned the Judge of the Admiralty out of the House, we ought to send the Master of the Rolls after him. I admit, Sir, that our system is at present very anomalous. But it is better that a system should be anomalous than that it should be uniformly and consistently bad. You have entered on a wrong course. My advice is first that you stop, and secondly that you retrace your steps. The time is not far distant when it will be necessary for us to revise the constitution of this House. On that occasion, it will be part of our duty to reconsider the rule which determines what public functionaries shall be admitted to sit here, and what public functionaries shall be excluded. That rule is, I must say, singularly absurd. It is this, that no person who holds any office created since the twenty-fifth of October, 1705, shall be a member of the House of Commons. Nothing can be more unreasonable or more inconvenient. In 1705, there were two Secretaries of State and two Under Secretaries. Consequently, to this day, only two Secretaries of State and two Under Secretaries can sit among us. Suppose that the Home Secretary and the Colonial Secretary are members of this House, and that the office of Foreign Secretary becomes vacant. In that case, no member of this House, whatever may be his qualifications, his fame in diplomacy, his knowledge of all the politics of the Courts of Europe, can be appointed. Her Majesty must give the Admiralty to the commoner who is, of all her subjects, fittest for the Foreign Office, and the seals of the Foreign Office to some peer who would perhaps be fitter for the Admiralty. Again, the Postmaster General cannot sit in this House. Yet why not? He always comes in and goes out with the Government: he is often a member of the Cabinet; and I believe that he is, of all public functionaries, the Chancellor of the Exchequer alone excepted, the one whom it would be most convenient to have here. I earnestly hope that, before long, this whole subject will be taken into serious consideration. As to the judges, the rule which I should wish to see laid down is very simple. I would admit into this House any judge whom the people might elect, unless there were some special reason against admitting him. There is a special reason against admitting any Irish or Scotch judge. Such a judge cannot attend this House without ceasing to attend his court. There is a special reason against admitting the Judges of the Queen's Bench and of the Common Pleas, and the Barons of the Exchequer. They are summoned to the House of Lords; and they sit there: their assistance is absolutely necessary to enable that House to discharge its functions as the highest court of appeal; and it would manifestly be both inconvenient and derogatory to our dignity that members of our body should be at the beck and call of the peers. I see no special reason for excluding the Master of the Rolls; and I would, therefore, leave our door open to him. I would open it to the Judge of the Admiralty, who has been most unwisely excluded. I would open it to other great judicial officers who are now excluded solely because their offices did not exist in 1705, particularly to the two Lords Justices, and the three Vice Chancellors. In this way, we should, I am convinced, greatly facilitate the important and arduous work of law reform; we would raise the character of this House: and I need not say that with the character of this House must rise or fall the estimation in which representative institutions are held throughout the world. But, whether the extensive changes which I have recommended shall be thought desirable or not, I trust that we shall reject the bill of the noble lord. I address myself to the Conservative members on your left hand; and I ask them whether they are prepared to alter, on grounds purely theoretical, a system which has lasted during twenty generations without producing the smallest practical evil. I turn to the Liberal members on this side; and I ask them whether they are prepared to lower the reputation and to impair the efficiency of that branch of the legislature which springs from the people. For myself, Sir, I hope that I am at once a Liberal and a Conservative politician; and, in both characters, I shall give a clear and conscientious vote in favour of the amendment moved by my honourable friend.

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INDEX.

Absalom and Achitophel of Dryden, character of it.

Absolute government, theory of.

Absolute rulers.

Academy, the French, its services to literature.

Addington, Henry, formation of his administration. His position as Prime Minister. Resigns. Raised to the peerage.

Aeschines, compared by Mr Mitford to Demosthenes.

Aeschylus, his works, how regarded by Quintillian.

Agesilaus, depressed by the constitution of Lycurgus.

Ajax, the prayer of, in the Iliad.

Aldrich, Dean, his mode of instructing the youths of his college. Employs Charles Boyle to edit the letters of Phalaris.

Alfieri, Vittorio, character of his works. His great fault in his compositions.

Anatomy Bill, Speech on.

Antinomian barn preacher, story of the.

Approbation, love of.

Aristocratical form of government. See Oligarchy.

Aristotle, his unrivalled excellence in analysis and combination. Value of his general propositions. His enlightened and profound criticism.

Arnault, A.V., Translation from.

Arras, cruelties of the Jacobins at.

Arrian, his character as a historian.

Arts, the fine, laws on which the progress and decline of depend.

Athenian Revels, scenes from.

Athens; disreputable character of Peiraeus. Police officers of the city. Favourite epithet of the city. The Athenian orators. Excellence to which eloquence attained at. Dr Johnson's contemptuous derision of the civilisation of the people of. Their books and book education. An Athenian day. Defects of the Athenians' conversational education. The law of ostracism at Athens. Happiness of the Athenians in their term of government. Their naval superiority. Ferocity of the Athenians in war. And of their dependencies in seditions. Cause of the violence of faction in that age. Influence of Athenian genius on the human intellect and on private happiness. The gifts of Athens to man. Character of the great dramas of Athens. Change in the temper of the Athenians in the time of Aristophanes.

Atterbury, Francis, his birth and early life. Defends Martin Luther against the aspersions of Obadiah Walker. Enters the church and becomes one of the royal chaplains. Assists Charles Boyle in preparing an edition of the letters of Phalaris. His answer to Bentley's dissertation on the letters of Phalaris. Bentley's reply. Atterbury's defence of the clergy against the prelates. Created a D.D. and promoted to the Deanery of Carlisle. His pamphlets against the Whigs. Appointed to the Deanery of Christ Church. Removed to the Bishopric of Rochester. His opposition to the Government of George I. His private life. His taste in literature and literary friends. Thrown into prison for treason. Deprived of his dignities and banished for life. Calls Pope as a witness to his innocence. Goes to Paris, and becomes Prime Minister of King James. Retires from the court of the ex-King. Death of his daughter. Induced by the Pretender to return to Paris. His defence of the charge of having garbled Clarendon's History of the Rebellion. His death.

August, lines written in.

Bacon, Lord, his description of the logomachies of the schoolmen. And of the Utilitarian philosophy. His mode of tracking the principle of heat.

Barbaroux, the Girondist, his execution.

Barere, Bertrand, Memoires de, of Carnot and David, review of the. Barere's true character. His lies. His talents as an author. Sketch of his life. Votes against the King. His federal views and ultra Girondism. His apparent zeal for the cause of order and humanity. His motion for punishing the Jacobins. Defeat of the Girondists. Retains his seat at the Board of the Triumphant Mountain. His infamous motion against the chiefs of the Girondists. Moves that the Queen be brought before the Revolutionary Tribunal. Regales Robespierre and other Jacobins at a tavern on the day of the death of the Queen. Formation of his peculiar style of oratory. His Carmagnoles. Effect produced by his discourses. Seconds Robespierre's atrocious motion in the Convention. Becomes one of the six members of the Committee of Public Safety. The first to proclaim terror as the order of the day. Recommends Fouquier Tinville to the Revolutionary Committee of Paris. His proposal to destroy Lyons and Toulon. His opposition to the personal defence of Danton. His support of the wretch Lebon. His war against learning, art, and history. His sensual excesses. Becomes a really cruel man. His morning audiences and mode of treating petitions. His orders against certain head-dresses. Nicknames given to him. Obtains a decree that no quarter should be given to any English or Hanoverian soldier. M. Carnot's defence of this barbarity. Barere's support of Robespierre's fiendish decree. His panegyric on Robespierre. His motion that Robespierre and his accomplices should be put to death. Destruction of the power of the Jacobins. Report on his conduct voted by the Convention. Condemned to be removed to a distant place of confinement. His perilous journey. Imprisoned at Oleron. Removed to Saintes. Escapes to Bordeaux. Chosen a member of the Council of Five Hundred, which refuses to admit him. His libel on England. The Liberty of the Seas. His flight to St Ouen. Sends a copy of his work to the First Consul. Allowed by Bonaparte to remain in Paris. Refuses; becomes a writer and a spy to Bonaparte.