(7) "Statesmen," Inquirer, August 4, 1855, pp.
481-482.
Like Bagehot in so many of his political writings, the author of this
first leader refers to Burke, Chatham, Aberdeen, Palmerston, Peel, Russell,
and Gladstone. And as Bagehot does so often in essays both literary and
political, the writer here mentions Plato and quotes Sir Walter Scott. But
what is even more significant in this leading article is the number and
nature of parallel passages. Indeed, so much of the material here anticipates
almost verbatim several passages in Bagehot's famous essay on Sir Robert
Peel, published the following year, that this Inquirer article
looks like a first draft. There is space here for only a few parallels.
For instance, the Inquirer has this (p. 481):
The essence of popular liberty is the persuasion of many persons. The
"gouvernement des avocats," as the Emperor Nicholas called
it, has this for its principle, that the governing power is distributed and
divided, and that if you wish to carry a great measure, or to recommend a
great policy, the appeal is not to Richelieu or Nesselrode, not to a great
statesman sitting in his closet, but to the mass of common people . .
.
In "The Character of Sir Robert Peel,"
National Review, III
(July, 1856), 147, Bagehot wrote:
When we speak of a free government, we mean a government in
which the sovereign power is divided, in which a single decision is not
absolute, where argument has an office. The essence of the "gouvernement
des avocats," as the Emperor Nicholas called it, is that you must persuade
so many persons. The appeal is not to the solitary decision of a single
statesman; not to Richelieu or Nesselrode alone in his closet; but to the
jangled mass of men . . .
The writer in the
Inquirer outlines what average men want (p.
481): "What they desire is a man who will carry out
their
views . . . Such a man they found in Sir Robert Peel . . . The powers of
a first-rate man have seldom been so perfectly united with the creed of a
second-rate man." In his
National Review essay on Peel,
Bagehot wrote (p. 150): "Our people would have statesmen who thought as
they thought. If we wanted to choose an illustration of these remarks out of
all the world, it would be Sir Robert Peel. No man has come so near our
definition of a constitutional statesman—the powers of a first-rate man
and the creed of a second-rate man."
[11] Then, again, the writer in the
Inquirer states (p. 481), "The most harrowing thing to the
intellect is routine; the most confusing is distraction. Now the life of a
Prime Minister is a distracting routine." In his essay on Peel in the
National Review Bagehot writes (p.
160), "The most benumbing thing to the intellect is routine; the most
bewildering is distraction: our system is a distracting routine."
But the National Review is not the only journal of the
day in which we can find Bagehot closely following what was written in
this leader in
the
Inquirer. In "Average Government,"
Saturday
Review, March 29, 1856, p. 429, he thus compresses the material
given above in the first quotation from the
Inquirer: "The
condition of a free government is that you must persuade the present
generation; and the
gouvernement des avocats, as the
Emperor Nicholas called it, has this for its principle—that you must
persuade the average man." More important than that parallel, however, is
a passage in the
Saturday Review which, in its conclusion,
provides an exact parallel to a passage from the
Inquirer not
yet quoted. The
Inquirer states (p. 481): "'Public opinion,
Sir,' said a competent person, 'means the opinion of the bald-headed man
at the end of the omnibus.'" In the
Saturday Review (p. 429)
Bagehot wrote: "'It is all very well,' said an able Whig, 'for the
Times to talk of the intelligence of public opinion . . . public
opinion, Sir, is the opinion of the bald-headed
man at the end of the omnibus.'"
