THE LAST VOLUME OF MR. COOKE'S HISTORY OF PARTY.

THIS volume opens with the accession of Lord BUTE to power in 1762, through the favouritism of GEORGE the Third, and closes 'with the passing of the Reform Bill. The intermediate subjects and characters are not only historically great in themselves, but most of them possess an immediate interest from their connexion with existing events and parties. The results of the American war are before our eyes, in the gigantic growth of the United States, spreading its dominion over territory that was ours. Threatened with the loss of Canada through similar folly, both the People and their Representatives might study the history of the origin and progress of that Revolution, with a practical be- 213fit, if either would ever read history with profit. Of the heroes of the French wars many are still living ; most of them are "on our books ;" thousands of us were contemporaries or companions of their exploits; and we feel an existing memorial of their cost, in the shape ofobetween four and five millions of yearly military " dead-weight," and a principal of eight hundred mil- lions of debt. The philosophical genius of BURKE and the brilliant wit of SHERIDAN render us as familiar with their minds as with those of our contemporaries: the names of Pere and Fox are paraded before us as the watchword of factions. Of the party questions which were originated soon after the period when the solume opens, two—the Repeal of the Test Acts, and the Eman- cii ation of the Catholics—have been settled within the memory of all politicians: the third and most important, Parliamentary Reform, is now the question of questions—the true test of the bold and liberal politician, in contradistinction to the feeble, the mercenary, and the self-sufficient, who look upon politics as an aristocratic trade or an aristocratic pastime. This close association' of the circumstances of the narrative with the mind of the reader, has given a greater interest to the present volumes, than the two preceding ones possessed; and it may be consulted as a clearly-arranged and readable account of the party or place-hunting struggles during the reign of the Third and FourthGeoaoss. And as the author prefaces the first entrance of every character with a brief sketch of his life, the book is also a gallery of illustrious men. For any other purpose the work bas little value ; and the opinions we have incidentally expressed on the preceding volumes are confirmed by a survey of the whole. Mr. Cootie is an agreeable but a superficial writer, with an attempt at elevation which lie cannot always sustain. His narrative is clear and correct so far as it goes; but he appears to want the power of seizing upon those circumstances which mark the cha- racter of persons and events. Thus, he omits all account of the party contentions respecting the conduct of the war against NA- POLEON,—unless this were done designedly, to save his friends the Whigs. His judgment upon things that are put palpably and fully before him, is mostly correct ; though better as regards persons than events. He is deficient in discrimination and acu- men ; he cannot penetrate far below the surface, unravel the knotty, or separate the mixed. Nor does his research appear to bare been very considerable : his authorities, at least, are few and Onions. In short, he is a compiler rather than an historian.

But Mr. COOKS is also open to the heavier charge of partisan- ship—lie writes more like a pleader than a judge. The Whigs can hardly do any thing wrong—the Tories nothing right. We acquit the writer of any alteration of facts, though he can only escape from the charge of supression at the expense of his judg- ment. But in assigning motives, lie always attributes to the Whigs the best that the case will bear—the worst invariably to the Tories. As regards actions, be lets his censure fall as mildly as possible upon the Whigs; a similar deed of .their opponents is magnified into an atrocity. In passing judgment, the Tories are condemned to the last penalty ; the Whigs dismissed with panegyric, except upon their exclusiveness towards the men of genius of their party, their toadeatiug subserviency to their nobility, and their final Reform Bill. Stripping Mr. COOKE'S thoughts of the phrases in which he wraps them, his judgment 'upon this last measure is judicious enough. As passed, or even as planned, he thinks the Reform Act did not accomplish its avowed intention. On the contrary, it modified and popularized, but in reality strengthened Toryism, by substituting in boroughs the appearance of popular election for the odium of individual -nomination, and extending in counties the influence of the Aris- tocracy. Now, so far from agreeing with Mr. COOKE in his general cons elusions, we can really see very little difference in the conduct of the respective parties, unless it be that the Tories excel in impudence, and the Whigs in hypocritical pretence. From natural virtue or party honour, or, as in the case of Fox and SHERIDAN, from some insurmountable personal objection at court, individuals of the Whig party have exhibited instances of firmness to their prin- ciples in times of difficulty. In the great body of the party itself, however, we trace nothing of this fidelity, but, on the contrary, a strong disposition to curry court favour, and get into place on any terms. At the outset of GEORGE the Third's reign, it may suit it partisan to classify certain measures as emanating from Whigs or Tories; but in reality there were no well-defined parties. The intel- lectual pride and patriotic character of CHATHAM preserved his con- sistency; the principles of the rest varied as they sat upon Oppo- sition or Treasury benches. The American war was originated by the GRENVILLE Stamp Art; and though it may be all very well for party purposes to call GRENVILLE a Tory, he was deemed a Whig both before and after. The subsequent position of Bean, as leader of the Opposition (for the view was contrary to the tem- perament of the man) drove him to take up the cause of American freedom, and impart something like a principle of action to the members on the left of the Speaker's chair. This, however, was soon lost sight of, when GEORGE the Third took advantage of Lord ROCKINGHAM'S death to dismiss the Whigs from office, in which Lord NORTH'S disastrous conduct of the American war had placed them. Without any coy reluctance or delay, CHARLES J AMES Fox, EDMUND BURKE, and the whole batch of displaced W higs, coalesced with Lord Noavw,whom they had so long stigmatized as the enemy of his country and the author of its woes ; and they signalized their accessiorr to power by the bold stroke of the India Bill, which was intended to have given them place for life. IVIien the French Revolution and " the dangerous democratic projects of persons at home," furnished an excuse for a profitable junction with the Tories, over to the Ministerial benches went BURKE, Wvrentrast, the Duke of PORTLAND, Lord FITZWILLIAM, and the rest of the clique. The few who remained sometimes mustered 41, and sometimes a few more ; and for many of these sojourners sufficient reasons might be found to account for their consistency, in their fate or their cir- cumstances. Fox and SHERIDAN, by their connexion with the Prince, had "thrown away the scabbard." TIERNEY was new ; GREY and WHITBREAD were both new and wealthy—though it must be said that mere mercenary motives or the sordid vanities of place would never have swayed either of these last men ; and tried against most of his contemporaries, TIERNEY "shone fiery off indeed."

Nor do individuals escape from a critical ordeal much better than the parties they represent. With two exceptions, the politicians since the Restoration seem the puniest and most corrupt in history,—whether it be their position which forced them to fight under false colours, making the People, or the Sovereign, the pretence for battles which were really struggles between two factions for objects limited to themselves,—or whether the fuller information we possess respecting their personal motives and conduct brings them to a test which scarcely any individual could bear with effect. The men of the ancient world professed to address a nation of freemen. Their ulterior purposes might be as sordid as those of more modern politicians, but the pelf was to come afterwards and indirectly : the actual matter of contention was command—its means military power, or intellectual supremacy ; and the candidates struggled for their objects, often at the risk of exile, and sometimes of death. The contests of the middle ages, however barbarous, were redeemed from baseness by battle ; for men have always a certain elevation attached to them if they meet their opponents on the field, and can only gain their

objects by fighting for them and braving the roe victis! But

the means of a later civilization, though less fearful or savage, are sadly deficient in loftiness. To minister to the vices or pre- judices of a king—to stoop to court the favour of his minions or mistresses—strips off the pompous exterior by which the rhetori- cal arts of living statesmen imposed upon the world ; and the craft of a political manager who effects his purposes by arranging din- ners, contriving jobs, and " conciliating" men and their little interests, though necessary, and, all things considered, not very vicious perhaps, are accomplishments that confer no honour on any one. How few, too, of the politicians of the last century and a half arc free from the charge of inconsistency, or some other quality which is only tolerable when practised at a loss, or at least with- out the hope of gain. Fox started as a rampant Tory and a place-

man ; it was not till NORTH had dismissed him that he disco- vered the beauties of BURKE'S Whiggism ; and the Coalition, that monument of Whig disgrace, arose at best from anger and lust of office. As a politician, SHERIDAN was an intriguer and an ad- venturer; not only deficient in any thing like political views, but

devoid of public principle, or any principle whatever, save a spaniel-like fidelity to the profligate Prince, who subsequently

abandoned him to destitution. Even BURKE himself shows morally little, if we " compute the morn and evening to the day." At starting, the pensioner of Single-speech HAMILTON; when private secretary of ROCKINGHAM, the instrument of the Miniss

terial negotiations with the reprobate Wimens; and at the close of his career, breaking with his personal friends, and desert- ing his party, and reduced to depend for pecuniary relief upon a

Minister whom he had frequently characterized by harsh and con- temptuous epithets. " Let the end try the man :" and if the end of the politician be action, how little did they all accomplish! BURKE'S achievements were limited to some economical reform..

Fox and SHERIDAN did nothing. In the whole muster-roll, two names alone are conspicuous for greatness—CHATHAM and WIL- LIAM PITT. The gigantic genius of CHATHAM, towering over all his

contemporaries, raised him above the party squabbles, and would

not allow him to stoop to the mercenary politics of his time. The proud reserve and cold temperament of PITT served instead of

the colossal mind of his father ; and circumstances favoured them both. Called to office when timidity and its consequent mismanagement had reduced the affairs of the country to the

lowest ebb, CHATHAM evoked the spirit of England, and wielded the power he had conjured up, till France and Spain were pros- trate at his feet. The peaceful administration of his son was suc- cessful and prosperous, though as a war minister be was only a foil to his father: but it is not so much on Ministerial measures that the character of WILLIAM PITT depends ; his reputation

rests on his boldness and resolute will—on the firmness with

which be opposed apparently overwhelming enemies, and consoli- dated his power in spite of them. When GEORGE the Third called

him to the Premiership, the Whig Aristocracy was strong in the Lords, and apparently omnipotent in the Commons. The Oppo- sition treated his accession to office as a joke; but in the end they found it none. Bearding his opponents, and appealing to the

People, he dissolved their strength in the Lower House. But PITT was not satisfied with a temporary triumph ; nor, Tory as he

turned, did he follow the old commonplace plan of striving to gain this family or cement that alliance, and then deem that his poli- tical work was done. He saw that a new element—the middle class—had arisen; and this he gained by good practieul measures during peace. When the difficulties of war came, he made this element his own, by a gigantic system of influence, organizing traders, corporations, church, law, army, navy, and civil govern- ment, into a vast Ministerial engine; whilst, by a continual crea- tion of " Pitt Peers," he dealt a blow which they never could re- cover against his opponents—the ancient nobility of the land. The morality and mischief of this system we will not inquire into: it was neither mean nor little—and it was successful. He fixed

his power upon so broad a basis, that it has endured to the pre- sent day, notwithstanding the incapacity of his successors; and it will yet arise again. The present generation has seen a Minis- ter so favoured by fortune, as to have the means of achieving a patriotic success far greater than the elder Pm's, and creating an influence not less broad, and far purer, than his son's. But the man was unequal to the oceasien. The first burst of the national voice, which would have emboldened PITT and have stirred CHAT- HAM like a trumpet-sound, frightened old Giu and struck the puny whip stern by whom he was surrounded " all of a heap." They cried fur help against the "pressure from without." In the sixty years over which the volume before us travels, the incidents yielding a political literal are many. We con- fine ourselves to a brief allusion to one; awl that is the rapid growth of minorities arguing for justice—the delusive nature, the transient strength, of were Parlicmcuttlry ma- jorities, when they rest not on the approbation of the People,— or, what is much the same, on some bar,d, consistent, intelligible principle of 'action, or on the innant.J,lo principles of right. ti hen 11 utE succeeM Cit.airl m, lie was emphatically a court javourite—a very minion of CLoi:nz the Third ; on the first division against him, the Opposition could only muster 63 to 227. In liule wore than a twelvemonth he was driven from office with every disgrace. ID 1;79, during the height, of the disastrous American war, the Whigs could only bring together 44 votes on the first of a string of resolutions condemnatory of the Canada expedition ; and Fox, in a paroxysm of anger, tore up the re- mainder, and declared he would not make another motion. Be- fore a twelvemonth, the popular feeling, the march of events, and BURKE'S great exertions on economical reform, raised this scanty minority to an equality with Lord NORTH S majority. To the second reading of Buaita's bill they dared not oflin. an objec- tion ; in committee the dis isions fluctuated to and fro. On DUNNING'S celebrated resolution, that the " influence of the Crown has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished," the once haughty Minister was in a minority : by the arts of per- sonal corruption, he postponed his fall long enough to dissolve the existing Parliament and call a fresh one, which precipitated him from power. In 1821, Mr. LAMSTON, now the moderate Lord DUR- HAM, brought forward a plan of Parliamentary Reform, in which Household Suffrage and Triennial Parliaments were included ; but he could only find a House of 98 Members to listen to him. And tho minorities on the Stamp Act, which sowed the first seeds of the American war, never rose higher than 33 or 40. Let the People note the division-lists on the Canada question, and ponder. In selecting extracts, we need not aim at conveying any speci- men of Mr. Comex's style, or presenting a view of any consecutive parts of his history : we shall be content with a few fragments picked out here and there.

THE WHIGS PAINTED AT A FRIEND.

The policy pursued by the Rockingham Ministry was of a temporizing character, calculated to awaken no enthusiasm either in their frieuds or their enemies, but rather to lessen the activity of both. As honourable and inde. pendent men, they scorned the trammels of the courtiers; they would not hear of the party which called its members the King's friends; but made the attempt to break their corps, to discountenance their doctrines, and to revive connexions of a different kind ; to restore the principles and policy of the Whigs, and to reanimate the cause of liberty by Ministerial countenance. But there was no energy in the body to effect the intention: the Cabizet was funned from the rear-guard of the Whigs • men who were timorous and suspicious of their own principles, held them bound in the chains of aristocratic expediency and per- sonal interest, and dared not to loose them because they knew nut their power or their ultimate tendency. • • • • The cause of the early overthrow to the Rockingham Administration was s want of energy and decision : they were too much Whigs to be welcome to the Court, too little to be objects of interest to the People. The King, who had re- ceived them unwillingly, parted with them with pleasure : the news was heard with indifference.

CONSTITUTIONAL PRACTICES OF GEORGE " THE GOOD."

Alderman Townehend said, that the doctrine of Lord Mansfield was only part of a system, and that the influence of the King was directly exercised to control the judicial decisions of the Judges. He related, as moot, a revelation lately made, upon his deathbed, by Sir Joseph Yates. "A late Judge," he

said, "equally knowledge for his ilowledge and integrity, was tampered with by the Administration. He was solicited to favour the Crown, in certain trials which were then depending between it and the subject. I hear some d "og me to name the Judge, but there is no necessity for it. The fact is known to several members of this House; and if I do not speak truth, let those who can contradict me. I call upon them to rise, that the public may not be abused— but all are silent, and can as little invalidate w hat I have said as what I ant going to say. This great, this honest Judge, being thus solicited in vain, what

was now to be done: What was the last resource of Willed iiiInstice? That was learned from a short conversation that passed between him and some friends, a little before his death. The last and most powerful engine was employed. A letter was sent Lim directly from a great personage! but, as he too‘peeti4 it to contain something dishonourable, he sent it back unopened. Is not this a subject that deserves inquiry ?" The Ministers, at the meution of this letter, stated upon each other, but made 110 reply.

TUE FIRST AND BEST PRACTICE OP TLEDGEs. The elections to this Parliament (that of 1774) present us with early in. stances of the practice of exacting pledges from the candidates. At a meeting. of the freeholders of Middlesex, Air. Wilkes and Sergeant (ikon s:gned a paper, engaging their utmost endeavours to promote bills fur :ening the duration of Parliaments, fur the exclusion of placenien and pensioners from the House of Commons, for a mote fair and equal icpreseutatiou of-the People, for vindicating the injured rights of the freeholders of that county, and, through them, of all the electors of the kingdom ; and for repealing the recent acts which had been passed to control the spirit of resistance in America. Similar tests were proposed and subscribed in London and sonic other populous con- stituencies ; but the leaders of the Wliiys disclaimed ail such obligatious, as derogatory to their characters as senators and restrictive of their rli;lits as men.

TORT AND PURE WHIG NuTIONS ON THE AMERIcA Ns.

INO one among the Tories, and scarcely any one among the Whigs, appears to have entertained any suspicion of the power of the Americans. The Tories always spoke of them with the greatest contempt. In the debate upon the address to the King to have recourse to active measures to put d ,wo the rebel- lion, CulOnel Graut said be had served in America, and knew the Americans well ; he was certain they would not tight. They %%mild never dale to lace an English army, and did nut possess any of the qualifications tiece,s;.1.y to make a good soldier. Ile proceeded to amuse the Louse by ridiculing alt it dialect, their religious observances, and their customs; and his appeared highly to relish his mimicry. Thus did the 'furies animate each :igainst their fellow subjects, by mutual calm& tations that their victims el.,• incapable ef resistance. They prevailed, upon the.divisioo. by a majority 01' ill to :,•.'; and their descendants at this day feel the effects of their suss ; ii. y it iu the existence of a powerful lira!, instead of a giatend hereditary but .ieu of a hi:a:List:it hdi:ious of natioa debt.

A AvIIIG ON svills; EXcLU!iiVI:Nn•.F.

The Whigs reentered the Cahinet in.,:er the lead: rshi, o: the :11:s of ; who returnci to the po-t In•f‘a ho:-. and : at. the. ilivis:on the spoil. This iiivision striiii!d •: a-ive. and

aristocratic spirit which was so lop tlio id the Eh: Whigs

t,pUllSe the Cause at' the hut th.! fa: must be left bliolly to them ; they alone nand be the 1e: ens, tl:e: 1. e Lever to aspire: hovond tile tanks. Ti-e ss the . they were general.ly to weak to be exclu=ive ; and i icy o .i• • io shard their tyranny with any one wk.) would aid the:a in tLeir •Ileriee the reason why the latter faction has so ufim recruited its wasted vaent from the middle crusts ; why so many brilliant men, who made their first c ini:raign with the Whip, spent their life with tile Tot ies. Disgusted at rmiling, among a popular patty, a battier of aristiizracy wiiieh they could nut pass, they cull• founded the party with their piinciples, mat discarded both. Under the new arrangement, Edmund Burke, who had borne all the labour of the long contest—who hail for sortie time, alone, sustained it—N1,1,1 LA11 been fur many sessions the acknowledged healer of the Oppositioa—and who. although now joined by a colleague of equal power, cool i plead that he had supported the cause even against him who now elvt1111111711Cd it —Edmund Burke was excluded from the Cabinet, receiving only the post of Paymaster of the Forces.

In the earlier part of GEORGE the Third's reign, as in all pre- ceding time, reporting was Out allowed : the Houses mostly debated. with closed doors; and when strangers were admitted, the press was driven to various arts in the publication of what an individual auditor could carry away. Of CHATHAM'S speeches no report exists; nor, it is said, an exact report of any single passage ex- cept the celebrated one commencing "An Englishman's house is his castle," whose force perhaps imprinted it on the memory. Here, however, is a fragment, which, if mutilated, still bears marks of a colossal style: it was on the subject of the Americas war at its beginning— “Resistance to your acts,” lie said, was necessary as it Vils1:14:: and your vain declarations of the omnipotence of Parliament, and your imperious doc- trines of the necessity of submission. will be found equally impotent to convince or to enslave your fellow subjects iu America ; who feel that tvianny, whether atubitioned by an individual part of the Legislattne, ur the 'mho who compost it, is equally intolerable to lIsitisli subjects. " This resistance to your arbitrary system of taxation night have been foreseen: it was obvious, front the nature of things and of mankiloi ; and above all from the Whiggish spirit flourishing in that com' y. The spirit which now resists your taxation in America is the same which formerly opposed loans, benevolences, and ship-money in England ; the same spirt) which called all England on its legs, and, by the Bill of Bights, vindicated the English Constitution—the same spirit which established the great fundamental, essential maxim of your liberties—that no subject of England shall be taxed

but by his own consent." • • • ei

This country superintends and controls their trade and navigation; but they tax themselves ; sad this distinction between external and internal control is sacred and insurmountable. It is involved in the abstract nature of tillages

Property is private, individual, absolute. Trade is an extended and coniplb eated consideration ; it reaches as far as ships can sail or whale can blow ; it h a great and various machine. To regulate the numberless movements of its several parts, and combine them into effect for the gond of the whole, requires the superintendence, wisdom, and energy of the supreme power in the empire. But this supreme power has no effect towards internal taxation, for it does not exist in that relation; there is no such thing—no such idea in this constitution, as a supreme power operating upon property. Let this distinction, then, remain for ever anertniued. Taxation is theirs—commercial regulation is ours. As an American I could recognize to England her supreme right of regulating commerce and navigation ; as an Engiishinan by birth and principle, I recog. 'she to the Americans their supreme unalieuable right in their property, a right which they are justified in the defence of to the last extremity. To maintain this principle is the common cause of the Whigs on the other side of the Atlantic and on this. "Tis liberty to liberty engaged.' That they will defend them- selves, their families, and their country. In this great cause they are immove- ably allied ; 'tis the alliance of God and Lature—inonutable, eternal—faxed as the firmament of heaven."