132-009.xml

Title: [1819 Mar 30 + + B To Erskine]

Description: 1819 Mar 30 + + B

To Erskine

Letter I

Conclusion

1

9

Such {being} the flowers themselves, remains how to employ them in the manner most worthy of them, and to best advantage.

At the great School of Westminster, sixty years have not blotted out of my remembrance the use of Dolphin indexes, but of them we made darts, some without points, some with points, sharp as Helens consonants, or Martial’s epigram. Fierce raged the war between Upper Third and Under ... Behold /See/ a prophecy: in these missiles your Lordship’s flowers vituperative. – Behold A vision! A Hustings rises to my view. A net, as in a tennis court, divides the compatants[?]. On one side I see the noble Defender of the Whigs: on the other side, the Cock of the Rump, each with a quiver-full of his own missiles. See how they fly aloft! the air is darkened with them ... But in that climate I must leave them.

Who was wounded by what a dart, and on what part, that I must leave to some future Homer, or some future Swift. Unfinished are left all Epic wars: by Homer the war of Troy; by Virgil the war of Rutula[?]; by Butler the war of Round-heads: by me must be the war of Epithets.

To p. 10

From p. 10 Remain the flowers laudatory or laudative. While beset by Athenian enemies, the band of Spartans occupied the island of Sphague + as sheep do a butchers cellar – a paste of honey and poppy flower – imported by divers, without a clearing-bill or permitt, served them for daily bread. In this Sphague I see Brooke’s. Substantials removed, remains the desert. In the chair The Whig Lord High Chancellor: before him the sweet compound in a lofty pile: how much in flowers, how much in letters, as whilom the sacred gingerbread consecrated by the name of Parliament, let the Confectioners declare. On the right Earl Grey; on the left M r Perry. The noble and learned Chairman indefatigable, serving out right and left the Whig ambrosia – Sceptre in one hand, dice-box in the other, concealed from profane view[?] by a cloud of his own words, aspect half sympathy half envy, the dead man […?] the God of Whig Idolaters, looks down and blesses the repast.

132-011.xml

Title: [1819 Mar. 30 + + C To Erskine]

Description: 1819 Mar. 30 + + C

To Erskine

Lett. I Plan

Conclusion

I Whig Merits

7

11

On this occasion, as on every other, so far as the state of my opinion will allow my representation of them to take a favourable direction, that direction it will always take with pleasure.

1. First then as to Whig Merits: Of these I see in Your Lordship’s account a good dozen. As yet a dozen and no more, but these a sample of the rest. Now for my poor opinion: of the […?] intimation has been given already. Good deeds all, or thereabouts: merits, none. Now as to the grounds of it. Merit, if in effect as well as in intention, it requires two things: service rendered, and sacrifice more or less made: sacrifice of immediate self-regarding interest. As to Merit in intention, that indeed may have place without actual service rendered. Now then as to Whigs. That of which, neither in these, nor in any other of their good deeds have I ever been able to discover any the least particle of, is this same sort of thing called self-sacrifice. So far as in their view of the matter, the pursuit of the people’s interest has coincided with that of the interest of the party, the party has pursued the people’s interest: in so far as, in their view of the matter, the pursuit of the people’s interest would have led their course into a direction adverse to the interest of the party, the direction pursued by it has been that which has been conducive to the interest of the party, adverse accordingly to the peoples interest.

Such being my opinion, yet do I not find myself necessitated – and, not being necessitated, neither am I disposed to decry and apply to my own use, and cast back upon your Lordship’s Whigs, any of the contents of the dark-coloured packet of Your Lordship’s flowers. If they have not been better, than others would have been – the Tories for example – in the same situation, yet neither have they been worse. Considering men in the abstract – whether taken in bodies or taken singly, conduct depends on situation, that is on the state of interests: on the state of their supposed interests; and thence, in so far as nothing appears to make an exception, on the state of their real interests. Such, my Lord, is my creed. This creed I have already confessed /justified/, and as above applied. This in a word entituled Plan of Parliamentary Reform &c A o 1817, to which I may have further occasion to make reference. But, the work having no eloquence in it, Your Lordship notwithstanding the scene it gave rise to in Honourable House, never knew of its existence: and now it is out of print.

132-020.xml

Title: [[copyist’s hand] 1819 Mar. 20]

Description: [copyist’s hand]

1819 Mar. 20

To Erskine

Lett 1.

4.

These being found to be your Lordship’s positions, my next search has been for Your Lordship’s proofs. These I find to be of two sorts – flowers of rhetoric and argument.

The strength of Samson lay in his hair. Rhetoric being your Lordship’s favourite art, the strength of your Lordship’s “system” seems to be in these flowers. With these then I shall commence. What I have done with them is the best which my weak eyes and awkward hands could do. I have gathered them up as they lay scattered: I have tied them up, and made two bouquets of them. I have ticketed them, flowers laudative and flowers vituperative. Who they were respectively destined for can be no secret: laudative for the Whigs your Lordship’s clients: vituperative for those who go beyond the Whigs: for the Ultra-Whigs say some, for the Peoples-men say others: for the people simply say I here: hoping to be allowed to say so all along, were it only for shortness sake. The collection I have thus made – the fruit of my humble labour – I proceed in the first place to lay upon the Table. It may be seen in the next page.

Thus much for the flowers. Taking up now the arguments, I view them under three heads. The heads being mentioned short so in this place shall be the intimation given of the answers.

I Whig Merits. Short answer – Good deeds many: merits none.

II. People’s Errors: under which head I find a supposed fundamental error – an error that regards influence. Short answer – Error yes: but not exactly on that side

III. In all things, and in particular as to parliamentary reform the Whigs the people’s true and only friends. Theirs is and ever has been and ever will be, the sincere desire to give existence and effect to the only

desirable