Modern Leaders: Being a Series of Biographical SketchesMcCarthy, Justin
History
Modern Leaders: Being a Series of Biographical Sketches
McCarthy, Justin
Biography
What is to be the effect upon England of the reign of the Prince of
Wales? Will England and her statesmen endure the rule of a profligate
sovereign? No country can have undergone in equal time a greater
revolution in public taste and sentiment at least, if not in morals,
than England has since the time of George the Fourth. No genius, no
eloquence, no political wisdom or merits could now induce the English
people to put up with the open and undisguised excesses of a Fox; nor
could any English statesman of the rank of Fox be found now who would
condescend to pander to the vices of a George the Fourth. Thirty years
of decorum in the Court, the Parliament, and the press have created a
public feeling in England which will not long bear to be too openly
offended by any one. But, although I may seem at first to be enunciating
a paradox, I must say that all this is rather in favor of the chances of
the Prince of Wales than against them. It will take so small a sacrifice
on his part to satisfy everybody, that only the very extravagance of
folly could lead him long astray on any unsatisfactory course, when once
he has become directly responsible to the nation. We are not exacting in
England as regards the private conduct of our great people. We only ask
them to be publicly decorous. Everywhere in English society there is a
quite unconscious, naive sort of Pharisaism, the unavowed but actual
principle of which is that it matters very little if a man does the
wrong thing, provided he publicly acts and says the right thing. I am
perfectly satisfied that the great bulk of respectable and Philistine
society in England would regard Robert Dale Owen, with his pure life and
his views on the question of divorce, as a far more objectionable person
than the veriest profligate who did evil stealthily, and professed to
maintain the theory of a rigid marriage bond. The Prince of Wales will
therefore need very little actual improvement in his way of life, in
order to be all that his future subjects will expect, or care to ask. No
one wants the Prince to be a man of ability; no one wishes him to be a
good speaker. If Albert Edward were to rise in the House of Lords some
night, and deliver a powerful and eloquent speech, as Prince Napoleon
has often done in the French Senate, the English public would be not
only surprised but shocked. Such a feat performed by a Prince would seem
almost as much out of place, as if he were to follow the example of
Caligula or Nero and exhibit himself in the arena as a gladiator. Of
course the idea of the Prince of Wales fulminating against the policy of
the Crown and the Government, after the fashion of Prince Napoleon,
would be simply intolerable to the British mind of to-day--a thing so
outrageous as indeed to be practically inconceivable. The Prince of
Wales's part during the coming years, whether as first subject or as
ruler, is as easy as could well be assigned to man. It is the very
reverse of Bottom's; it is to avoid all roaring.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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