| | | Many persons are for ever demanding a great statesman. | They should be asked, however, what they want him for? | People should consider the use of people. It may be well to | think what manner of man a commanding statesman really is. | The description of such a personage divides itself into two | parts ~~ his disposition and his intellect. What the disposition | of a first-rate practical man naturally is, the reading world | has just had unusual opportunities of learning. Both ancient | and modern times have contributed to its illustration. Mr. | Grote has given us a description of Alexander the Great; and | Napoleon, in his letters to his brother, has left the picture of | himself. Different as were the circumstances and intellect of | the two heroes, one might fancy that, in both cases, it was | the same overbearing character.

“What is the world that | it should strive to contend against me?

was | the motto of both ~~ in both we see the naturalness of the | alliance between imperial talents and an imperious mind. | Men who can govern wish to govern ~~ men who can rule | will rule. A sense of power animates the powerful. Those | who have passed their lives in overcoming enormous | obstacles ~~ to whom

“difficulty is a helper,”

and | whom no adversary can rival ~~ cannot avoid feeling their | strength. It is proved to them by the whole experience of | their lives. An intense self-reliance is natural to men who can | prove an overbearing ability by tangible results ~~ who are | successful in verifiable action. | It may further be asked, what we can do with the imperial | disposition in this country? There are persons who are quite | aware. By one of those curious fatalities which give an | interest to intellectual history, the University of Oxford has for | some years been fertile in novelty and paradox. Such are the | designs of men. The English people wished a centre of | tradition for their ancestral belief ~~ they built quiet cloisters, | they devised dull tutors, they endowed mouldering colleges. | They wanted a place where nothing new would ever be | discovered, and where only what was old would thrive. The | result is a reaction against the past ~~ a marked opposition | to English ideas. It is not within our province to speak of the | theological speculations of the past twenty years; but it is | very material to our present purpose to point out that the last | exposed heresy is a hatred of the English constitution. The | aged Politics of Aristotle have been introduced into the | discussion. A Mr. Congreve has published an edition of them | in which he tells us plainly that our constitutional system is |

“effete”

~~ that

“our governing classes are | incompetent”

~~ that our hope is a despotism popular | with the lower classes, or, as he phrases it,

“a | monocratic dictatorial power supported by the adhesion of | the Proletariat.”

The accomplished gentleman is | possessed with the idea; and in another work, in some | lectures at Edinburgh, he bursts forth in the midst of the | most arid history, with an aspiration for the rule of the great | Protector. We do not know if any gentleman from the banks | of the Isis contemplates commencing the career of a | Cromwell, but surely, if not, the obvious plan is to apply to | Napoleon the Third. He is a shrewd man ~~ he has the | talents for empire ~~ and doubtless he would contract | to fovern England. His taste is lavish, and he might be | a little dear; but what is gold to mind? He would | not reign without governing; and under his vigorous rule, | admirable lecturers might perhaps, be delicately compressed. | But, passing from these original speculations, what place is | there just now for the dictatorial disposition, under the | English constitution? Surely it would be difficult to find. The | English idea is a committee ~~ we are born with a belief in a | green cloth, clean pens, and twelve men with grey hair. In | topics of belief the ultimate standard is a jury.

“A jury,” |

as a living judge once said,

“would decide this, but | how they would decide it, I cannot think.”

As a jury will | discover everything, a board will determine anything, | observed Lord Brougham, .The whole fabric of | English society is based upon discussion ~~ all our affairs | are decided, after the giving of reasons, by the compromise | of opinions. What has the overweening dictator to do here? | He is too clever to give reasons, too proud to compromise | his judgment. He is himself alone. A dictator will not save us | ~~ we require discussion, explanation, controversy. Of | course, at particular crises, all this must be abandoned. At | perilous epochs, we need practically uncontrolled power; | and even an irritable distrust is best allayed by a fresh | confidence in a firm and lofty mind. If, on the 1st of February | last year, there had been a Chatham in the country, | Chatham would have been Prime Minister; but he would not | have been so long. We get tired of being commanded. Long | before January, 1857, he would have become an

| “impracticable man”

~~ an Opposition orator. | The intellect of the enormous statesman is just as unfit for | our circumstances as his disposition. His characteristic is | far-seeing originality. In the recesses of his closet, by the mere | force of his own understanding, he evolves a set of | measures and a course of policy, years before his age, such | as the people about him cannot comprehend, such as only | posterity will really appreciate. Of what use is this in the | House of Commons? That assembly is alive; and though | posterity is going to be born, in the meantime there are the | contemporaries of the great statesman sitting in tedium, | discussing the affairs of the nation. The condition of a free | government is that you must persuade the present | generation; and the gouvernement des avocats, | as the Emperor Nicholas called it, has this for its principle ~~ | that you must persuade the average man. You do not | address the select intellects of the age, or the more | experienced intellect of the next age ~~ but the actual rural | individual ~~ the dreary ordinary being.

“It is all very | well,”

said an able Whig,

“for the Times | to talk of the intelligence of public opinion ~~ that only | means that the public buy the Times ; public | opinion, Sir, is the opinion of the bald-headed man at the | end of the omnibus.”

|

“Do not tell me of Mr. Pitt,”

said a surviving Tory ~~ |

“Mr. Pitt would have found it a very different thing in | these days. Mr. Pitt, Sir, would have had to persuade Joseph | Hume.”

In truth, one of the dispensations of nature is | the opacity of the average man. Nature has provided against | the restlessness of genius by the obstinacy of stupidity. The | man of genius is an age or two in advance. By incessant | industry, subtle argument, or a penetrating eloquence, he | impresses his new ideas, first, on the highest minds ~~ nest, | on the next highest ~~ and it is only after his death that they | descend to the inferior strata, and become the | property of the world. This exactly disqualifies him from | agreeing with those about him, from forming a party on a | basis of common sympathy, from carrying out what the | people wish ~~ from administering, as a statesman must, the | creed of his time. | These reflections explain a peculiarity of English history. We | have almost always been governed by what Mr. Disraeli has | termed

“Arch-Mediocrities.”

From the days of Lord | Burleigh down to those of Lord Liverpool, we have been | governed, for the longest periods and with the greatest ease, | by men who were essentially common men ~~ men who | never said anything which anyone | in an omnibus could not understand ~~ men who | were never visited by the far-reaching thoughts or exciting | aspirations of ardent genius, but who possessed the usual | faculties of mankind in an unusual degree ~~ men who were | clear upon common points, who knew what people were just | going to know, and who could embody in a Bill exactly what | the commonalty thought should be embodied in a Bill. Of | course, there may be now and then, exceptions; for in this | complicated world, unlimited principles abound in error. A | great man who for years has advocated a great truth may at | times be at last rewarded by carrying it out; and the | punishment of calamity may teach the multitude what, a | short time before, it required a great sagacity to foresee. But | these events are, in their nature, exceptions. Regular | business forms the regular statesman ~~ quiet habits, sober | thoughts, common aims are his obvious characteristics. He | is what other men would wish to be.

“Be as | other men,”

is the precept,

“and you will be above | other men ~~ be ordinary, and you will be great.” |

| Certainly there is nothing at the present moment which | emancipates us from the habitual condition of free | government. There are no special questions just now which | call for the intervention of a man of genius. Our current | domestic questions are a heap of specialities.

“Passing | tolls,” “Registration of Companies,” “County Constabulary,” | “Chancery Reform”

~~ these are the occupations of our | life. Fancy Lord Chatham discussing a toll-bill. What a gulph | from Bonaparte to a policeman ~~ from Alexander to a | master in chancery! The details of the interior,

“the | streets and fountains which we are repairing, and the | battlements which we are whitening”

~~ to borrow from | the historian of Greece the phrase of the Olynthiacs ~~ | cannot afford scope either for the excitable temperament or | for the deep discernment of original genius. | In foreign politics, it is different, and yet the same. We are | pretty well agreed about principles ~~ the difficulties are | difficulties of fact. We know that we ought to rejoice at | freedom, that we should show sympathy with it where it is | likely to be stable, and that we should not allow it, even | when unstable, to be trodden out by neighbouring despots; | but, as the one-armed Captain remarked,

“The bearings | of them observations lies in the application on ‘em.”

We | wish to know in what particular States is real freedom ~~ | where it is likely to be stable ~~ what risk this republic runs | from that despot; and these matters of fact are scarcely fit for | the man of genius, as we abstractedly conceive him. At least, | if we want a genius in foreign policy, it is a genius of | investigation ~~ if in domestic, it is a genius of detail.