gentleman on the Treasury Bench, I trust the House will remember the emergency which has dragged me out to intrude upon their indulgence." Interrupted again, he observed, "I think having sat eighteen years in this House, and never having trespassed on its time before on any one single debate, I may appeal to the past as a proof that I duly weigh the measure of my abilities, and that I am painfully conscious of my proper place in this House."

One passage may be quoted as a specimen of an oration which must be pronounced, on every ground, a remarkable display, and the impression produced by which was great. The speaker concluded with these words:"We have heard a good deal in the course of these discussions about an ancient monarchy, a reformed House of Commons, and a proud aristocracy. Sir, with regard to our ancient monarchy, I have no observations to make; but if so humble an individual as myselfmight be permitted to whisper a word in the ear of that illustrious and Royal personage, who, as he stands nearest, so is he justly dearest, to her who sits upon the throne, I would take leave to say that I cannot but think he listened to ill advice when, on the first night of this great discussion, he allowed himself to be seduced by the First Minister of the Crown, to come down to this house to usher in, to give éclat, and, as it were, by reflexion from the Crown, to give the semblance of the personal sanction of Her Majesty to a measure which, be it for good or for evil, a great majority, at least of the landed aristocracy of England, of Scotland, and of Ireland, imagine fraught with deep injury, if not with ruin, to them,—a measure which, not confined in its operation to this great class, is calculated to grind down countless smaller interests engaged in the domestic trades of the empire, transferring the profits of all these interests-English, Scotch, Irish, and Colonial-great and small alike, from Englishman, from Scotchman, and from Irishman, to Americans, to Frenchmen, to Russians, to Poles, to Prussians, and to Germans. Sir, I

come now to the reformed House of Commons; and, as one who was a party to that great measure, I cannot but feel a deep interest in its success, and more especially in that portion of it

Sir,

which extended the franchise to the largest and the most respectable body in the kingdom, I mean the landed tenantry of England; and deeply should I regret that any large proportion of those members, who have been sent to Parliament to represent them in this house, prove to be the men to bring lasting dishonour upon themselves, their constituencies, and their power, by an act of tergiversation so gross, as to be altogether unprecedented in the annals of any reformed, or unreformed, House of Commons. lastly, I come to the "proud aristocracy. We are a proud aristocracy; but if we are proud, it is that we are proud in the chastity of our honour. If, unassisted in '41 in turning the Whigs out of office, because we did not consider a fixed duty of eight shillings a quarter on foreign corn a sufficient protection, it was with honestness of purpose, and in single-mindedness we did so; and as we were not before the fact, we will not be accomplices after the fact, in the fraud by which the Whig Ministers were expelled from power. If we are a proud aristocracy, we are proud of our honour, inasmuch as we never have been guilty, and never can be guilty, of doubledealing with the farmers of England-of swindling our opponents, deceiving our friends, or betraying our constituencies."

The division followed immediately afterwards; and, in a house of five hundred and eighty-one members, the amendment of the Protectionists was defeated by a majority of ninety-seven, two hundred and forty-two gentleman voting against the Ministerial scheme. The chief support of the Government came, of course, from the opposition benches. By this division the House resolved itself into a Committee to consider the Customs and Corn Acts. now devolved on the Administration to propose resolutions sanctioning their plans which might serve as the basis of future bills.

It

It was the policy of the Opposition to impede the progress of these bills at every step, and for this end Lord George Bentinck worked zealously with his friends. Ample opportunity was afforded them by the fact that the rules of the House necessitated a separate vote on every projected alteration in the tariff. During this discussion, which extended over a fortnight, Lord

George successively defended what he deemed the interests of the various protected classes of the community, whether engaged in agricultural pursuits or in the manufacture of various staple productions, exhibiting, on every subject he successively treated, a mastery of its details, and a skill in using the varied information he had collected, which afforded striking evidence both of his application and his ability.

The Ministerial resolutions being carried, a bill founded on them was introduced, and the 23d of March fixed for its second reading. The debate lasted four nights; and, on the third, Lord George Bentinck delivered an animated speech. The majority in favour of the second reading was 88.

The Easter holidays were now not far distant, and every effort continued to be made to prevent the new Corn Bill being sent up to the House of Lords before the recess. It was with this end that the Protectionists determined to support the Irish Coercion Bill, provided Government would evince their sense of the real need of that measure by giving it precedence over all other business. The object of this condition was, of course, to impede the remaining stages of the obnoxious Corn Bill. In his speech in support of the introduction of the measure, Lord Grey, however, insisted on the necessity of accompanying it with some system of remedial legislation, forcibly contending that there was an intimate nection between agrarian outrage and the poverty of the people."

con

The House adjourned for the holidays before the discussion could be brought to a close; and when it again met, on the 17th of April, the progress of the Coercion Bill was resisted by the Irish members, but the Government eventually carried their point, on the morning of Saturday, the 2d of May, by 274 votes to 125. The Whig and Protectionist leaders were in the majority. Monday, the 4th, was appointed for the House to go into committee on the Corn Bill.

It was confessed by Sir Robert Peel that his views had undergone a material change during the course of the recent debates. He had before deemed the restrictions on the importation of corn 'impolitic;" he now believed them "unjust." This acknowledgment was eagerly seized by Lord George Ben

66

tinck, and made the subject of a powerful invective against the Minister. Commenting with much severity upon the repeated declarations that there was no matter for shame in a change of political opinions, he said:" It may not be humiliating in a private gentleman to acknowledge that for thirty years of Parliamentary life he has been entirely in error in his opinions on a great branch of public policy. But I cannot agree that it is not humiliating to a great Minister, to one who aspires to be a great statesman, to be obliged to confess that the whole course of his public career has been one continued series of errors. Why, what advantage is there in having men at the helm of affairs if not to direct the public judgment? And if he direct it entirely in a wrong course, surely it is humiliating, and surely it cannot be otherwise than a humiliating avowal, that he has governed the country erroneously for a long series of years. Sir, it is the privilege of girls to change their opinions; but even they cannot do so without the risk of a damaged reputation."

Amid a scene of great excitement, the House divided at four o'clock in the morning, of Saturday, the 15th of May; and the third reading of the bill for the repeal of the Corn-laws, was carried by a majority of 98.

The avowed object of pursuit, in the Protectionist section, was sure retribution on the Minister who had abandoned their cause. "Vengeance," says the historian of the party, "had succeeded in most breasts to the more sanguine sentiment, as soon as the large majority, on the first division in the Lords, had extinguished the lingering hope that the Ministerial scheme might yet be defeated." The field was lost; but, at any rate, there should be retribution for those who had betrayed it. Proud in their numbers, confident in their discipline, and elated with their memorable resistance, the Protectionist party, as a body, had always assumed that, when the occasion was ripe, the career of the Minister might be terminated.

How was Sir Robert Peel to be turned out? Here was a question which might well occupy the musing hours of a Whitsun recess.

It was whilst this question was under discussion, that the possibility of

an alliance between Lord George Bentinck and the Whigs, on the formation of a new Cabinet, suggested itself to many minds. The Protectionist leader was the scion of an ancient Whig house, and himself professed to be a Whig of the era of 1688. The leading principles of the party he had long adopted without reservation. He had been foremost in support of the Reform Bill, and, as a disciple of the doctrine of religious liberty, advocated equality between Catholic and Protestant, and the political emancipation of the Jews. On behalf of the farmers of England he was willing to accept a fixed duty; a settlement urged by Lord John Russell, in 1841, and defended by Lord Palmerston in the recent debates. Negociations were pending to effect a junction; but it was found impossible for the Whig leader to recede from the terms of his celebrated Edinburgh letter, written during the Ministerial crisis of 1845, and in which he stigmatised his old proposal of a fixed duty as a compromise no longer worth contending for. The new project for putting an end to the balanced state of parties, and reconstructing a strong Government, was, therefore, reluctantly abandoned.

The only hope of overthrowing the Ministry lay in the prospect of a coalition with the Whigs, or an adverse vote on the Irish Coercion Bill; and to secure this required skilful manageIment, as it was understood that the Liberal party were not prepared to strike until the passage of the Corn Bill was finally secured. The second reading of the Coercion Bill was fixed for the 8th of June, but the division was successfully deferred till the 22d. Bentinck avowed his intention of voting against the measure.

In adopting this course, he defended his consistency, on the ground that the Ministers had not shown themselves in earnest, but allowed it to be inferred that a measure of such an exceptional character was not fully demanded by the exigencies of the case. The bill had been introduced five months before to meet an emergency, now passed away. "Besides," he continued, “I, and the gentlemen around me, refuse to trust her Majesty's Ministers. We have, for good reasons, refused to place any confidence in them. We are of opinion that we cannot, with safety,

entrust them with the charge of so unconstitutional a power as this bill contains. I will not stay to discuss this measure. Is there any one who thinks that the Government mean to carry it through? After such postponements, such obstructions, such delays, with five months suffered to elapse between the first and second reading, we think the session must be over before this bill is dragged through the House of Commons.'

The

During the continuance of the debate, every effort was made to break up the Protectionist party; and an analysis of the division-list will show with some amount of success. most elaborate calculations of the impending chances were entered into by those who felt that the question really at issue was the continuance or dissolution of the Peel Ministry. The issue was awaited with almost unexampled suspense. The probable fall of a Government in the very hour of its most signal triumph, was a spectacle the most careless politician anticipated with interest and wonder. Thursday, the 25th of June, was come at last. The decision could be averted no longer. Indeed, the occasion for the delay had passed away. The Corn Bill was secured. In the midst of a speech against the Coercion Bill by the late Charles Buller, he was interrupted by messengers from the Lords. Two Masters in Chancery were introduced, bringing bills from the Upper House. The Speaker received their message, and immediately announced, amidst loud cheers, that the House of Lords had agreed to the Corn Importation Bill without any amendment. The Free-trade Premier had triumphed; but the vengeance of his foes was near. At half-past one the galleries were cleared. No one could conjecture the result of the division; and the direction which members took as they advanced to the lobbies was watched with intense interest. More than one hundred Protectionists followed the Ministry; upwards of eighty avoided the division-lobby; and about the same number voted with Lord George. The majority against the Government was ; and the immediate result was the resignation of Sir Robert Peel, and the accession of the Whigs te office.

With this episode of Parliamentar history, the repeal of the Corn-law

and the vengeance wreaked on the Free-trade Minister, the name of Bentinck will be associated. During the period, however, which elapsed between these stirring events and his death, he took a conspicuous part in the discussion on other topics, of which the Currency question, much agitated in connection with the renewal of the Bank Charter Act and the encouragement of railway enterprise in Ireland, may be singled out for mention. For the promotion of the latter object he submitted an elaborate scheme to Parliament, proposing an advance of fifteen millions from the Consolidated Fund, a plan which, although its principle was to some extent afterwards adopted by the Government, the House rejected by a large majority.

Lord George was not without a sense of the bitterness of political disappointment. He had greatly distinguished himself in the arena of debate, but his labours were fruitless of aught but reputation. It was in one of these hours of depression that a friend encountered him in the library of the House of Commons. The news had just reached him that his favourite horse "Surplice," from which he had recently parted, had won the Derby, the highest honour of the turf, and the great object of his ambition during so many years. He asked with a mortified air what he had gained in exchange for the favourite pursuits and pleasures of his earlier life? His friend offered him such consolation as he could. "You do not know what the Derby is," was the only reply. "Yes I do; it is the blue-riband of the turf." "The blueriband of the turf,-the blue-riband of the turf!" muttered the disappointed man, as he sat down to a volume of statistics, and quickly became absorbed in their dry, unattractive details.

The ceaseless labour and deep anxiety of his later life, sapped the foundations of a constitution better fitted for the sports of the field than for mornings spent in the study, and nights in the heated and excited atmosphere of the House of Commons. At the close of the Session of 1847, he left town for his father's seat. Parting from his biographer, Mr. Disraeli, his last words were, "God bless you; we must work, and the country will gather around us.'

A few days passed away, and then England was shocked by the intelli

gence communicated in a late edition of the morning press, that Bentinck was dead. He had gone from his father's house to pay a visit to а friend; had never reached his destination; had been searched for by his groom, and was found stiff and cold by the wayside. Many sympathised with his principles; all respected his sincerity; and a feeling of general gloom was created by his melancholy death.

In the character of Lord George Bentinck there is much we admire. We confess to a great reverence for his earnest activity and his manly outspokenness. He was a favourable specimen of an English gentlemanless in his pursuits than in the frank, sturdy qualities of his mind and heart. It would be too much to affirm that he escaped wholly free from the contagion of political passions. His unrelenting pursuance of Sir Robert Peel must, in some instances, be pronounced unscrupulous. We may point especially to his charge against that statesman of hunting George Canning to death, a charge regarded by the

nation at the time as a lamentable ebullition of political rancour, and confessed by his partial biographer to be unsustainable. But making due allowance for the temptation of his peculiar circumstances and his peculiar temperament, we can but respect his name and drop a tear to his memory.

J. M. W. TURNER.

ONE of the greatest landscape painters that England, and in saying so the world is included, ever produced. RICHARD WILSON did not commence the study of that branch of the art in which he so much excelled till his thirty-sixth year; but from that time till his death, a period of thirty-three years, he reigned pre-eminent in landscape. Another great painter king, regnant in a style

Which he was born to introduce,

Refined it first, and showed its use, has but lately gone down to the grave; and yet, between the fate of the two, what a discrepancy exists; in everything is it different, but in the empty bubble, Fame.

Of the ancestors of great men, especially of those who are great from their own intrinsic genius or talent, and from no fortunate and fortuitous

circumstances, few care to know. And yet the biographer feels it his duty to collect what few memorabilia there are, as if life were to be counted by the point that it contains, and the paragraphs it will work up into. Thus a correspondent of the Daily News, of January 12th, gravely tells us that he "can state, from indisputable authority, that the eminent deceased's (ie., Turner's) father was the second son of William and Rebecca Turner, of Southmolton, Devonshire, which place he left at an early age, and settled in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, London, as a barber."

Having, then, with the precision of that useful historian, John Bernard Burke, of the Peerage, established the fact that the eccentric artist had a grandfather, we may go on to state that, in the year 1775 (enthusiastic men have searched for the month without success), at the house of this barber-father, No. 20, Maiden Lane, was born Joseph Mallord William Turner.

Covent-garden, in those days, was a favourite residence for painters, and the air of the neighbourhood might possibly have inspired our hero. On the north side of Covent Garden, Sir Peter Lely, Sir James Thornhill, and Sir Godfrey Kneller had lived, honourable painters, and honoured, too, by a knightly accolade,

Which laid

Right worshipful on shoulder-blade. And on the same side also, poor Richard Wilson, coming from Italy, takes up his residence; might not the rumour thereof penetrate to the neighbouring Maiden Lane, and float gently round the barber's shop, when Saturday customers came in to have their chins scraped, and their wigs powdered? The little Turner doubtless playing about the shop, and, it may be, assisting his father, as barbers' sons are wont, in chin service, hears these wonders, and is stirred to become a painter himself! There have been less probable conjectures.

From what one may guess, this barbering and queue - making business was a prosperous one; besides shaving at home, the "pater Eneas" of Turner visited the gentlemen's houses in the garden and its neighbourhood, leaving the puer Ascanius at home to pass his time in sketching and in drawing. Who often reads, will some day wish to write,

says Cowper; and, carrying out the simile, we may say, that he who often writes will some day wish to print; and he who often sketches will at last wish to exhibit. So it was with young Turner; and at a very early age indeed, namely, fifteen, we find his name in the catalogue of the Royal Academy. This was in 1790, and the subject was, "A View of the Palace at Lambeth," in water colours. The first picture of the great artist was exhibited in the room which corresponded to the present Architectural Room of the gallery, at that time sculpture being superadded. What

emotions he or his father felt at his maiden success, we are left to conjecture, for Turner was of a taciturn disposition; Dickens relates that he turned into the dim old courts of Westminster with tears in his eyes, at the glory of being first in print. The taciturn Turner has left no such record of his early triumph.

This silence and secresy of his doings (for the artist never talked of himself) continued through life; at the very place of his death, in Chelsea, he was known by another name, to which hangs this tale :

On applying to the landlady of the lodgings which struck his fancy, Turner was, naturally enough, asked his name: ""Tis no matter," retorted he in reply. "Pray, madam, what is yours? "Mrs. Brooks, sir," was the widow's reply. "Indeed," he answered; "then I'm Mr. Brooks;" and under that name he lived and died. The story also adds, that, being asked for a reference, he took from his pocket some gold and notes, for a deposit, paying his rent in advance, and saying that was reference enough. Genius sometimes plays strange tricks with its possessor, but that genius which piles up eccentricity on eccentricity, and rudeness upon morosity, partakes too much of the mens insana, and is as much to be condemned as a horse of the best blood which, however, will neither bear bit or saddle.

From the year 1790, Turner was a constant contributor to the Royal Academy. In 1791, his contribution was of "The Palace of Eltham; in 1792, amongst others, "The Pantheon, in Oxford-street, the morning after the fire;" and in 1793, a drawing of "St. Augustine's Gate, at Canterbury," and