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MODERN LEADERS:

_BEING A SERIES OF_

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.

BY JUSTIN McCARTHY,
_Author of "Lady Judith: A Tale of Two Continents," etc._

NEW YORK:
SHELDON & COMPANY,
677 BROADWAY and 214 and 216 MERCER STREET.
1872.




CONTENTS.


QUEEN VICTORIA AND HER SUBJECTS.                 7

THE REAL LOUIS NAPOLEON.                        18

EUGENIE, EMPRESS OF THE FRENCH.                 25

THE PRINCE OF WALES.                            35

THE KING OF PRUSSIA.                            45

VICTOR EMANUEL, KING OF ITALY.                  55

LOUIS ADOLPH THIERS.                            66

PRINCE NAPOLEON.                                77

THE DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE.                          85

BRIGHAM YOUNG.                                  96

THE LIBERAL TRIUMVIRATE OF ENGLAND.            106

ENGLISH POSITIVISTS.                           116

ENGLISH TORYISM AND ITS LEADERS.               126

"GEORGE ELIOT" AND GEORGE LEWES.               136

GEORGE SAND.                                   145

EDWARD BULWER AND LORD LYTTON.                 156

"PAR NOBILE FRATRUM--THE TWO NEWMANS."         167

ARCHBISHOP MANNING.                            175

JOHN RUSKIN.                                   183

CHARLES READE.                                 192

EXILE-WORLD OF LONDON.                         202

THE REVEREND CHARLES KINGSLEY.                 211

MR. JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE.                      223

SCIENCE AND ORTHODOXY IN ENGLAND.              234




INTRODUCTION.


The sketches which make up this volume are neither purely critical nor
merely biographical. They endeavor to give the American reader a clear
and just idea of each individual in his intellect, his character, his
place in politics, letters, and society. In some instances I have
written of friends whom I know personally and well; in others of men
with whom I have but slight acquaintance; in others still of persons
whom I have only seen. But in every instance those whom I describe are
persons whom I have been able to study on the spot, whose character and
doings I have heard commonly discussed by those who actually knew them.
In no case whatever are the opinions I have given drawn merely from
books and newspapers. This value, therefore, these essays may have to an
American, that they are not such descriptions as any of us might be
enabled to put into print by the mere help of study and reading;
descriptions for example such as one might make of Henry VIII. or
Voltaire. They are in every instance, even when intimate and direct
personal acquaintance least assist them, the result of close observation
and that appreciation of the originals which comes from habitual
intercourse with those who know them and submit them to constant
criticism.

I have not made any alteration in the essays which were written some
years ago. Let them stand as portraits bearing that date. If 1872 has in
any instance changed the features and the fortunes of 1869 and 1870, it
cannot make untrue what then was true. What I wrote in 1869 of the
Prince of Wales, for example, will probably not wholly apply to the
Prince of Wales to-day. We all believe that he has lately changed for
the better. But what I wrote then I still believe was true then; and it
is a fair contribution to history, which does not consent to rub out
yesterday because of to-day. I wrote of a "Liberal Triumvirate" of
England when the phrase was an accurate expression. It would hardly be
accurate now. To-day Mr. Mill does not appear in political life and Mr.
Bright has been an exile, owing to his health, for nearly two years from
the scenes of parliamentary debate and triumph. But the portraits of the
men do not on that account need any change. Even where some reason has
been shown me for a modification of my own judgment I have still
preferred to leave the written letter as it is. A distinguished Italian
friend has impressed on me that King Victor Emanuel is personally a much
more ambitious man than I have painted him. My friend has had far better
opportunities of judging than I ever could have had; but I gave the best
opinion I could, and still holding to it prefer to let it stand, to be
taken for what it is worth.

I think I may fairly claim to have anticipated in some of the political
sketches, that of Louis Napoleon, for instance, the judgment of events
and history, and the real strength of certain characters and
institutions.

These sketches had a gratifying welcome from the American public as they
appeared in the "Galaxy." I hope they may be thought worth reading over
again and keeping in their collected form.

JUSTIN MCCARTHY.
48 GOWER STREET, BEDFORD SQUARE, LONDON, July 31, 1872.




QUEEN VICTORIA AND HER SUBJECTS.


"And when you hear historians tell of thrones, and those who sat upon
them, let it be as men now gaze upon the mammoth's bones, and wonder
what old world such things could see."

So sang Byron half a century ago, and great critics condemned his verse,
and called him a "surly Democrat" because he ventured to put such
sentiments and hopes into rhyme. The thrones of Europe have not
diminished in number since Byron's day, although they have changed and
rechanged their occupants; and the one only grand effort at the
establishment of a new Republic--that of France in 1848--went down into
dust and ashes. Naturally, therefore, the tendency in Europe is to
regard the monarchical principle as having received a new lease and
charter of life, and to talk of the republican principle as an exotic
forced for a moment into a premature and morbid blossom upon European
soil, but as completely unsuited to the climate and the people as the
banyan or the cocoa tree.

I do not, for myself, quite agree in this view of the aspect of affairs.
Of course, if one were inclined to discuss the question fairly, he must
begin by asking what people mean when they talk of the republican
principle. What is the republican principle? When you talk of a
Republic, do you mean an aggressive, conquering, domineering State,
ruled by faction and living on war, like the Commonwealth of Rome? or a
Republic like that planned by Washington, which should repudiate all
concern in foreign politics or foreign conquest? Do you mean a Federal
Republic, like that of the United States, or one with a centralized
power, like the French Republic of 1848? Do you mean a Republic like
that of Florence, in which the people were omnipotent, or a Republic
like that of Venice, in which the people had no power at all? Do you
mean a Republic like that of Switzerland, in which the President is next
to nobody, or a Republic like that of Poland, which was ornamented by a
King? In truth, the phrase "republican principle" has no set meaning. It
means just what the man who uses it wishes to express. If, however, we
understand it to mean, in this instance, the principle of popular
self-government, then it is obvious that Europe has made immense
progress in that direction since Byron raged against the crimes of
Kings. If it means the opposite to the principle of Divine Right or
Legitimacy, or even personal loyalty--loyalty of the old-time,
chivalric, enthusiastic fashion--then it must be owned that it shows all
over Europe the mark of equal progress. The ancient, romantic,
sentimental loyalty; the loyalty which reverenced the Sovereign and was
proud to abase itself before him; the loyalty of the Cavaliers; the
loyalty which went wild over "Oh, Richard! Oh, mon Roi!" is dead and
gone--its relics a thing to be stared at, and wondered over, and
preserved for a landmark in the progress of the world--just like the
mammoth's bones.

The model Monarchy of Europe is, beyond dispute, that of Great Britain.
In England there is an almost absolute self-government; the English
people can have anything whatever which they may want by insisting on it
and agitating a little for it. The Sovereign has long ceased to
interfere in the progress of national affairs. I can only recollect one
instance, during my observation, in which Queen Victoria put her veto on
a bill passed by Parliament, and that was on an occasion when it was
discovered, at the last moment, that the Lords and Commons had passed a
bill which had a dreadful technical blunder in it, and the only way out
of the difficulty was to beg of the Queen to refuse it her sanction,
which her Majesty did accordingly, and the blunder was set right in the
following session. If a Prime Minister were to announce to the House of
Commons, to-morrow, that the Queen had boxed his ears, it would not
create a whit more amazement than if he were to say, no matter in what
graceful and diplomatic periphrasis, that her Majesty was unwilling to
agree to some measure which her faithful Commons desired to see passed
into law.

Nothing did Mr. Disraeli more harm, nothing brought greater contempt on
him than his silly attempts last session to induce the Commons to
believe, by vague insinuations and covert allusions, that the Queen had
a personal leaning toward his policy and himself. So long ago as the
time of the free trade struggle, the Tories, for all their hereditary
loyalty, complained of and protested against the silent presence of
Prince Albert in the Peers' gallery of the House of Commons, on the
ground that it was an attempt to influence the Parliament improperly,
and to interfere with the freedom of debate. No one has anything to say
against the Queen which carries any weight or is worth listening to. She
is undoubtedly a woman of virtue and good sense. So good a woman, I
venture to think, never before reigned over any people, and that she is
not a great woman, an Elizabeth, a Catherine of Russia, or even an
Isabella of Castile, is surely rather to the advantage than otherwise of
the monarchical institution in its present stage of existence. Here,
then, one might think, if anywhere and ever, the principle of personal
loyalty has a fair chance and a full justification. A man might
vindicate his loyalty to Queen Victoria in the name of liberty itself;
nay, he might justify it by an appeal to the very principle of
democracy. Yet one must be blind, who, living in England and willing to
observe, does not see that the old, devoted spirit of personal loyalty
is dead and buried. It is gone! it is a memory! You may sing a poetic
lament for it if you will, as Schiller did for the gods of Hellas; you
may break into passionate rhetoric, if you can, over its extinction, as
Burke did for the death of the age of Chivalry. It is gone, and I firmly
believe it can never be revived or restored.

I do not mean to say that there are many persons in England who feel any
strong objection to the Monarchy, or warmly desire to see a Republic
substituted for it. I know in England several theoretical
republicans--they are to be met with in almost any company. I have never
met with any one Englishman living in England, who showed any anxious,
active interest in the abolition of the Monarchy. I do not know any one
who objects to drink the usual loyal toasts at a public dinner, or
betrays any conscientious reluctance to listen to the unmeaning eulogy
which it is the stereotyped fashion for the chairman of every such
banquet to heap on "Her Majesty and the rest of the Royal Family." But
this sort of thing, if it ever had any practical meaning, has now none.
It has reached that stage at which profession and practice are always
understood to be quite different things. Every one says at church that
he is a miserable sinner; no one is supposed really to believe anything
of the sort. Every one has some time or other likened women to angels,
but we are not therefore supposed seriously to ignore the fact that
women wear flannel petticoats, and have their faults, and are mortal. So
of loyal professions in England now. They are understood to be phrases,
like "Your obedient servant," at the bottom of a letter. They do not
suggest hypocrisy or pretence of any kind. There is apparently no more
inconsistency now in a man's loyally drinking the health of the Queen,
and proceeding immediately after (in private conversation) to abuse or
ridicule her and her family, than there would be in the same man
beginning with "Dear Sir," a missive to one whom he notoriously
dislikes. Every one who has been lately in London must have heard an
immense amount of scandal, or at all events of flippant joking at the
expense of the Queen herself; and of more serious complaint and distrust
as regards the Prince of Wales. Yet the virtues of the Queen, and the
noble qualities of the Prince of Wales are panegyrized and toasted, and
hurrah'd at every public dinner where Englishmen gather together.

The very virtues of Queen Victoria have contributed materially toward
the extinction of the old-fashioned sentiment of living, active loyalty.
The English people had from the time at least of Anne to our own day a
succession of bad princes. Only a race patient as Issachar could have
endured such a line of sovereigns as George II., George III., and George
IV. Then came William IV., who being a little less stupidly obstinate
than George III., and not so grossly corrupt as George IV., was hailed
for a while as the Patriot King by a people who were only too anxious
not to lose all their hereditary and traditional veneration. Do what
they would, however, the English nation could not get into any sincere
transports of admiration about the Patriot King; and they soon found
that any popular reform worth having was to be got rather in spite of
the Patriot King, than by virtue of any wisdom or patriotism in the
monarch. Great popular demonstrations and tumults, and threats of
marching on London; and O'Connell meetings at Charing Cross, with
significant allusion by the great demagogue to the King who lost his
head at Whitehall hard by; the hanging out of the black flag at
Manchester, and a general movement of brickbats everywhere--these seem
to have been justly regarded as the persuasive influences which
converted a Sovereign into the Patriot King and a Reformer. Loyalty did
not gain much by the reforms of that reign. Then followed the young
Victoria; and enthusiasm for a while wakened up fresh and genuine over
the ascension of the comely and simple-hearted girl, who was so frank
and winning; who ran down stairs in her night-dress, rather than keep
her venerable councillors waiting when they sought her out at midnight;
who openly acknowledged her true love for her cousin, and offered him
her hand; who was at once queenly and maidenly, innocent and fearless.

But this sort of thing did not last very long. Prince Albert was never
popular. He was cold; people said he was stingy; his very virtues, and
they were genuine, were not such as anybody, except his wife and family,
warmly admires in a man; he was indeed misunderstood, or at all events
misprized in England, up to the close of his life. Then the gates of the
convent, so to speak, closed over the Queen, and royalty ceased to be an
animating presence in England.

The young men and women of to-day--persons who have not passed the age
of twenty-one--can hardly remember to have ever seen the Sovereign. She
is to them what the Mikado is to his people. Seven years of absolute
seclusion on the part of a monarch must in any case be a sad trial to
personal loyalty, at least in the royal capital. A considerable and an
influential section of Queen Victoria's subjects in the metropolis have
long been very angry with their Sovereign. The tailors, the milliners,
the dressmakers, the jewellers, the perfumers, all the shopkeepers of
the West End who make profit out of court dinners and balls and
presentations, are furious at the royal seclusion which they believe has
injured their business. So, too, are the aristocratic residents of the
West End, who do not care much about a court which no longer contributes
to their season's gayety. So, too, are all the flunkey class generally.
Now, I am sure there are no three sections of the population of London
more influential in the spreading of scandal and the nursing of this
discontent than the shopkeepers, the aristocrats, and the flunkeys of
the West End. These are actively and demonstratively dissatisfied with
the Queen. These it is who spread dirty scandals about her, and laugh
over vile lampoons and caricatures of which she is the object.

Every one knows that there is a low, mean scandal afloat about the
Queen--and it is spread by the clubs, the drawing-rooms, the shops, and
the servants'-halls of the West End. I am convinced that not one of
those who spread the scandal really believes it; but they like to spread
it because they dislike the Queen. There can be no doubt, however, that
much dissatisfaction at the Queen's long seclusion is felt by persons
who are incapable of harboring any motives so mean or spreading any
calumnies so unworthy. Most of the London papers have always found fault
rather sharply and not over decently with the royal retirement. Mr.
Ayrton, representative of the Tower Hamlets--the largest constituency in
England--openly expressed this sentiment at a public meeting; and though
his remarks were at once replied to and condemned by Mr. Bright, they
met with a more or less cordial response from most of his audience.

There is or was in the House of Commons (the general election has got
happily