Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 63, No. 389, March 1848Various
History
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 63, No. 389, March 1848
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
Failing Tomkins, we have every reason to be proud of his disciple and
successor, Mr Cobden. In fact, the mantle of our lamented friend has
fallen most gracefully upon his shoulders; and in nothing is the
genuine likeness more displayed, than in the contempt which both of
them have exhibited for the standing army of Great Britain. Yet,
perhaps, in this we may be doing Mr Cobden some little wrong. Tomkins,
we know, had just and natural reason for abhorring the sight of a
red-coat; Cobden, so far as we are aware, has no such motive for
dislike. Of the two, he is the calmer and the cooler man, and very
naturally looks sedulously about him for the means of substantiating
his theories. After all the fine words which Sir Robert Peel bestowed
upon him, to no visible improvement of his parsnips, Mr Cobden very
naturally felt a little uneasy at the non-fulfilment of several of his
prophecies. It is a pity that a man cannot vaticinate in this country
without undergoing a certain risk of subsequent stultification; and
yet, if he does not affect the gift of prophecy, your patriot is
usually at a discount. Our memory is not a very good one, and yet we
have hardly forgotten certain flourishes by Mr Cobden, regarding the
immense amount of employment which was to accrue to this country,
immediately after the passing of his favourite measures. Bread was to
be as cheap as dirt, common luxuries within the reach of every one,
and the whole British nation, through its length and breadth, was to
hold a perpetual jubilee and jollification, to the music of the
engine and the shuttle.
"Wild dreams! but such
As Plato loved; such as, with holy zeal,
Our Milton worship'd. Blessed hopes! awhile
From man withheld, even to the latter days!"
and, were we to add, in the words of Mr Canning's imitation of the
above passage, the concluding line,
"Till France shall come, and all laws be repeal'd,"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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