Mr. O'CONNELL: I do not do so, feeling the compliment that has been paid to me by the Honourable Member for Knaresborough. Dr. BALDWIN: But the other Irish Members do feel it. I call upon the Honourable Member to explain the expression ruffianise. Colonel PEEL: The Honourable Member, I am sure, will withdraw the expression; but I appeal to the Honourable Gentleman opposite whether the tone in which he has conducted this debate is not calculated to call forth angry expressions (hear, hear, from the Opposition Members). Mr. RICHARDS: As it appears to me I must have been under a mistake, in the application of the word kennel, I am at once ready to withdraw the expressions objected to. Mr. O'CONNELL: I was arguing upon three points introduced into his speech by the Honourable Member for Berkshire; one on the Poor-laws, the other the Church, upon which he has voted against his colleagues; the third is the real question before the House, and I was proceeding to comment upon it, when I was called to order by the Honourable Member for Wigan, who was very disorderly in doing so, and who sat down extremely quietly, as he usually does when he is in the wrong (laughter). I was then next called to order by the Honourable Member for Knaresborough, who got into that species of language which is so familiar that, until it was proved to him, he did not know it was improper (hear, hear! laughter and cries of " Order!") Mr. SCARLETT rose to order. He really considered this manner of arguing a question, and this species of conduct, was the best excuse that could be offered for the repeal of the Union (hear, and cheers from the Opposition Members). He appealed to Honourable Gentlemen sitting on the other side whether it was possible that language of this description could be permitted to be used; when an Honourable Gentleman in speaking used language which was repudiated by the House, he was immediately told it was language so familiar to him that he did not know it was improper (hear! and cheers from the Opposition Members). He called upon the Speaker. He begged for his interposition, and to use his authority at a time when he perceived that Honourable Members were becoming disorderly. Mr. O'CONNELL: Behold! a third advocate. Another cause for congratulation to the Honourable Member for Berkshire! I do not believe a fourth could really be found in this House (laughter). The Honourable Member for Knaresborough makes ase of offensive expressions, I say that I do not require any apology for them, whereupon the Honourable Member for Northwich Mr. GOULBURN: It is not for the purpose of making a commentary that I now rise o order, but I submit to you, Sir, whether if, this species of discussion is continued it s calculated to ensure respect to this House (cries of "Order, order"). Mr. O'CONNELL: I have done with the subject. I thought, indeed, that a fourth could not be found. I forgot the Right Honourable Gentleman. I forgot that in his House a fourth could be found (laughter, and cries of "Order"). If any gentleman alls me to order I shall immediately sit down-to find a fifth is impossible (hear! aughter, and cries of "Order"). And now, Sir, I hope I may be allowed to go on. Mr. Sergeant JACKSON here rose to order. Mr. O'CONNELL (pointing to Mr. Sergeant Jackson): Oh, oh! (loud laughter, and heers.) Mr. Sergeant JACKSON, having waited for the cheers and laughter to subside, said hat he took the liberty of submitting to the Speaker whether such conduct as this hould be persevered in (cries of "Order"). If it was he should certainly move that he House should adjourn the debate. Lord JOHN RUSSELL: I must agree in what has fallen from the Right Honourable Gentleman, that any personal expression is, in itself, irregular, and ought not to be persevered in (hear, hear!). No interruption of the kind ought to be permitted, but. the debate should be allowed to proceed. Now I cannot help remarking that the last time the Honourable Member for Kilkenny met with an interruption it appeared to me that he was about to proceed with what is the proper subject for discussion (hear, hear!") Matters were at length smoothed down, and the debate was permitted to be resumed. But what shall be said of such a scene in a House which arrogates to itself the credit of being the first assembly of gentlemen in the world? Why the proprietor of a pot-house, if not abso lutely ashamed of it, would be afraid, were it to occur on his premises' of its causing him the loss of his license. And yet the Commons, in the face of such scenes, call themselves a deliberative body. Was ever term more glaringly misapplied? Deliberation indeed! Truly if it be, it is an Irish kind of deliberation. We admit that there is a great deal of cleverness-much of quick and happy retort, in some of the scenes of this kind which so often take place on the floor of St. Stephens. A better piece of broad farce is not often to be met with than that afforded by the exhibition to which we have just called the attention of our readers. But then it is to be recollected that we do not select our representatives for the purpose of displaying their capabilities at broad farce, or at any other sort of farce: we send them to Parliament for the purpose of legislating for the benefit of the nation, and not to figure as actors of farces. When we want to see a farce performed we go to Drury Lane or Covent Garden, or some other place specially appropriated for such exhibitions; but we have no wish to witness the antics or the humours of Irish Tritons," on the floor of the House of Commons. A few nights after the occurrence of the scene to which we have referred, another of a rather hostile nature took place between Colonel Sibthorp and Sir John Cam Hobhouse. We cannot afford space for it; but there is something which so strikingly exhibits the deliberative character of the representatives in the one which occurred between Mr. Kearsley and some others, on Monday the 20th, that we cannot refrain from giving a part of it: Mr. Roebuck having denounced the Times, the Age, and John Bull, and strongly advocated the repeal of the taxes on newspapers, Mr. KEARSLEY said, The speach of the Member for Bath was the most disgusting one he ever heard. The CHAIRMAN (Mr. Bernal) was quite sure the Honourable Member could not be aware of the word which had just fallen from him [a voice from the Ministerial side of the House, Make an apology"]. 46 Mr. KEARSLEY: Sir, I am quite aware that I might have used language stronger than the circumstances required. I admit that the language was strong; but I must say, that a more disgusting speech I never heard (loud cries of "Order, order !"). The CHAIRMAN: I am really very sorry to call the Honourable Member's attention again to the words which he made use of, but I must beg to repeat it, and in doing so I am in the hands of the committee, to be corrected if I am wrong, that the language which fell from the Honourable Member was such as was never permitted to be used in this House (loud cheering). Mr. KEARSLEY: I am very sorry that the Honourable Member for Bath having charged me with what is not true, I cannot characterize his speech by other terms (loud cries of "Order! Chair, chair!"'). Mr. ROEBUCK then rose, and, as well as we could hear, said: I trust the House will permit the debate to proceed, and make allowance for what must be looked upon as an infirmity of the Honourable Member opposite (cries of "Hear, hear!" and "Order!" "Chair!"). Mr. METHUEN rose, amid loud cries of "Order," and "Chair!" I think, said the Honourable Member, it is due, not only to this House but to the country, that the Chairman should declare whether the language of the Honourable Gentleman opposite (Mr. Kearsley) is such as should be addressed to this House, or such as it is becoming in us to hear without reprehension (cries of "Order!" and "Oh, oh!"). I come here to do my duty to my constituents, and not for the purpose of listening to language which is unbecoming the dignity of this House (cries of "Chair!" and "Oh, oh!"). Mr. BERNAL rose, and, after saying a few words to those near him which were not audible in the gallery, resumed his seat. Mr. KEARSLEY then rose, and assuming an extremely grave and earnest air, and placing his glass to his eye with one hand, and putting his hat under his left arm, looked very stedfastly across the House at Mr. Methuen, and exclaimed: Sir, when the Honourable Member for North Wiltshire thinks proper so precipitately to interrupt me. I am tempted to exclaim, " Paul, Paul, why persecutest thou me!" (Here the whole House was convulsed with laughter, which continued for several minutes, and which was much increased when the Hon. Member left his seat on the second row of the Opposition benches, and walked down quietly to the floor of the House, where, after bowing twice, in a style the solemnity of which made it irresistibly ludicrous, he made two efforts to retire, but, being stopped at the bar, came back to his place amidst renewed shouts of laughter, and cries of" Chair and order"). The Chairman and Dr. Baldwin rose together. The Chairman gave way, and Dr. BALDWIN proceeded to address the House in reprehension, as we understood, of the disrespectful conduct of the Honourable Member for Wigan, but scarcely an observation which fell from the Honourable Member could be heard in the gallery, from the loud cries of (“Order and Chair"). The Chairman and Mr. Walter then rose. There were loud cries for Mr. Walter, and the Chairman sat down. Mr. WALTER said that he felt it his duty to address the House on a subject upon which he could give some practical information. A scene of this kind continued for about ten minutes longer, when Mr. Kearsley eventually withdrew the offensive expressions he had made use of. We believe that any thing in the shape of comment on the above, is unnecessary. We congratulate ourselves on the reform of the House of Commons, which the spirit of the age has extracted from the iron grasp of Tory corruptionists; verily there is much need of yet further reforms. There must be a Radical reform in the individual conduct of many of the leading Members before the House can expect that respect from the people of this country which it exacts of them. The Speaker has much in his power to prevent such discreditable exhibition. If he had only the energy to exert the authority with which he is vested by the House, it would be an easy matter to crush such scenes in the bud. MR. SERGEANT TALFOURD'S TRAGEDY.* THE national literature of our own day, however high its reputation on some accounts may be, is not of an imaginative or poetical character. The calculating matter-of-fact element of the English character, the selfish money-getting principle which binds us down to a vulgar common-place existence, seems to have given a stamp to the literature, and to have bound down its votaries with the same chains that confine the rest of society. So few are the real children of song in our land that we feel almost justified in saying that English poetry has ceased to exist. The harps of Keats and Coleridge are for ever silenced by death; Wordsworth and Southey have long retired from their minstrelsy, contented with their well-earned fame; and the high behests of poetry-poetry in its highest and purest sense we meanare but ill answered by the inferior qualifications of younger aspirants to the honours of the Muse. One exception, and only one, would we make to this seemingly sweeping assertion: we mean Miss Mitford, who, to an intimate acquaintance with the charming ties and more humble pleasures of social life in a modern age, unites a perfect knowledge of those high and turbulent passions whose true portraiture constitutes one of the criteria of consummate poetic skill. The exalted talents of this lady, whose social virtues in private life adorn her no less really than her mental accomplishments before the world, have not, as we think, been so highly valued and respected as they deserve; and it is a source of grateful pleasure to the writer of these few remarks that he is here enabled to pay a slight tribute of praise and respect to the authoress of Rienzi, a Drama equalled by only one or two, and second to none, that has been produced in England during the last quarter of a century. Such was the train of thought that a short month ago we should fearlessly have expressed, and which the state of our literature would have fully justified. The appearance of the Tragedy of Ion, when announced as coming from the pen of the accomplished Sergeant Talfourd, was hailed by us with exclamations indicating our high and zealous expectations, -expectations which on the day of publication and representation were so far from being disappointed that we experienced from the perusal a very high and unlooked-for pleasure, in which we are desirous that our readers should participate. The Tragedy of Ion belongs decidedly to the classique order, and carries us back to a state of society widely different from our own, as different as mingled associations belonging to the manners of the Teutonic nations were from those of the dwellers in Southern Europe, or as the florid architecture of the Normans differs from the chaste columns and entablature of a Grecian temple. It is not for us here to descant on the comparative merits of these two descriptions of dramatic literature. To produce a successful model of either requires a degree of talent that would gain for its possessor a high rank among Ion; a Tragedy, in Five Acts, by Thomas Noon Talfourd. the poets of any day; but the ability to produce a sublime representation true to nature of the tragic features of an ancient and destinygoverned life, particularly when the author is confined within the narrow limits assigned to a poet of the classic tragedy, marks Mr. Talfourd as the just claimant of the highest meed of praise that can be given to any child of song. The play before us is fully worthy of all the praise that our contemporaries have bestowed on it. It is a production teeming with life and poetry, with life, as it marks so truly and emphatically the strong and resistless passions of human nature when exposed to the vicissitudes of an all-compelling destiny, and with poetry as those passions are expressed not only with truth but delicacy, and with all the embellishments that can be furnished by a lively fancy and powerful imagination. While it never sinks from the dignity of the tragedy of high life, it convinces us of its faithfulness of conception by the tacit comparison which every intelligent reader must institute with the feelings of his own breast. The story of the Tragedy carries us back to that half-mystic period of Grecian history when the Dorian tribes were struggling to free themselves from the despotism of single rule. The city of Argos, ruled by the iron sway of Adrastus, one "of a race of rightful monarchs," but whose tyranny had disgusted his subjects with the very name of monarchy, is afflicted with a pestilence which priestcraft and superstition alike attribute to the wrath of Apollo, whose oracle accordingly, at Delphi, is consulted respecting the cause and remedy of the national misfortune. Meanwhile, however, the high priest of the Argive Apollo deems it fit to warn the proud, profligate, God-defying king; but the hazardous honour of unbidden meeting the tyrant's glance is successfully requested by Ion, a foundling youth (as it would appear), under the high priest's protection. This request, and his parting with his aged guardian, are thus beautifully expressed : Ion O Sages, do not think my prayer Ion. Medon. Forgive me if I seem'd Thus boldly for the mission. |