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290.: STERLING'S THE ELECTION MORNING CHRONICLE, 29 JULY, 1841, P. 5 - The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIV - Newspaper Writings January 1835 - June 1847 Part III

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290.: STERLING’S THE ELECTION MORNING CHRONICLE, 29 JULY, 1841, P. 5 - John Stuart Mill, The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIV - Newspaper Writings January 1835 - June 1847 Part III [1835]

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The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIV - Newspaper Writings January 1835 - June 1847 Part III, ed. Ann P. Robson and John M. Robson, Introduction by Ann P. Robson and John M. Robson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986).

Part of: Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, in 33 vols.

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290.

STERLING’S THE ELECTION

MORNING CHRONICLE, 29 JULY, 1841, P. 5

In a letter dated only “Wedy” (probably 28 July, 1841), Mill wrote to John Black, his father’s old friend, and still editor of the Morning Chronicle: “I have just been reading again that poem I told you of and I liked it so much that I could not help sitting down and scribbling off a hurried notice of it for you. Do with it as you please—I shall be glad to see either that or any other notice of the book in the Chronicle.” (EL, CW, Vol. XIII, p. 482.) The Election was by John Sterling (1806-44), one of Mill’s most beloved friends, whom he met in the London Debating Society as an antagonist, but soon found common ground with, in part on the basis of Sterling’s admiration for Coleridge. The review, in the “Literature” section, is headed “The Election: a Poem, in Seven Books. [London:] Murray, 1841.” It is described in Mill’s bibliography as “A notice of Sterling’s Poem of the Election, in the Morning Chronicle of July 29th 1841”

(MacMinn, p. 53).

now, when the turmoil of real elections is for the present ended,¹ we may venture, perhaps, to solicit attention to a story of an election. Let not the reader look askance at the publisher’s name, and ask, whether any good, on the subject of elections, can come out of Albemarle-street² —for this volume is a proof that even from that place may issue the most biting satire upon Toryism, when, whatever is low-minded and base on the other side of the question is satirized likewise; and when the writer, though wielding satire with the hand of a master, is capable of something better than any satire, and inculcates a still higher thing than hate and scorn of what is bad, namely, love and practice of what is noble. In truth, this little narrative poem is equally remarkable for wisdom and high feeling, and for wit; while in versification it has had no rival in satirical poetry since Byron’s Age of Bronze.³

We quote the opening passage as an average specimen:

- In some high region dwells a muse whose aid
- Helps modern geniuses to drive their trade,
- To circulating libraries imparts
- A spell commanding countless pence and hearts,
- And spreads o’er just three volumes sibylline
- The hero’s coats and passions, woes and wine.
- Could I her influence feel, ’twere mine to show
- How lords and tailors rule this world below;
- How youths at clubs, while sipping coffee, solve
- The questions pedants through long life revolve;
- What love-sick pangs, how bravely borne, convulse
- The newest gold-flowered waistcoats made by Stultz;⁴
- How ghosts in gauze with poisoned fruit-knife stab
- E’en him who drives a coronetted cab;
- And fiends perfumed, not sulphurous, teach despair
- To souls that dine at eight in Belgrave-square.
- But too refined the song that scales the heaven
- Of evening breakfasts, and Hyde-park at seven,
- And dares recount what metaphysic shocks
- Invade the bright world of an opera box,
- And draws its tones of mystical delight
- From well-bred London’s long Walpurgis-night.
- Not Fashion’s muse in lace and pearl awakes
- My rhapsody, but one that brews and bakes;
- A dowdy goddess in a printed gown
- Records the simple tale of Aleborough town.
- With zealous heart I sing, but feeble voice,
- Great Britain’s boast, her sage electors’ choice;
- And those high days when Aleborough proudly sent
- Her man to sit in England’s Parliament.
- Thou muse of shouts and speeches! goddess wise,
- By whom inspired we hit on prosperous lies,
- Inform the song with such diviner sense
- As thou canst give to hustings eloquence;
- And with that downward use of the sublime,
- By critics called the Bathos, aid my rhyme!
- [Pp. 3-5.]

After this introduction, the tale begins with the following passage, of which the first eight lines are in the best style of Pope, while those which follow remind us of Crabbe:⁵

- Cox represented Aleborough, patriot pure,
- On whose tried firmness Europe leant secure.
- But, woe to manufactures, land, and stocks!
- Europe and Aleborough could not rescue Cox.
- At London’s Mansion-house, the Poultry’s pride,
- Cox in his country’s service dined, and died.
- One cook by turtle slew a man, whom ten
- With all their art could not revive again.
- The sun was setting o’er the old church tower,
- That glittered softly while it pealed the hour;
- And smoke, from many a chimney curling slow,
- Marked where the black tea-kettle steamed below:
- The aproned workman, tools in hand, sought out
- Some nook for meditation and brown stout;
- Small idle groups were chatting here and there,
- These near the Lion, those beside the Bear,
- Each heart by some grave theme alike possessed,
- The maid’s new ribbons, and the man’s old jest,
- The last fresh murder, and the price of hay,
- And how Ned Scroggs’ apprentice ran away.
- Break off, ye triflers! Hark, a distant hum,
- And then a clatter, tells the coach is come.
- Two dames within, five dusty shapes above,
- A red-faced coachman, grand as thundering Jove,
- Dash through the admiring street, and crowding round
- Come ostlers, waiters, loiterers tow’rd the sound.
- Soon spreads the direful rumour unconfined—
- Cox—dead—our member! Horror strikes mankind;
- Shrugs, whispers, open mouths, and then, alas!
- Huge joy breaks out like flaring streams of gas.
- A new election! Glory to the town!
- For all there’s profit, and for some renown.
- The Lion opes his hungry jaws and springs,
- And the Black Bear seems dancing as he swings.
- [Pp. 5-6.]

Two candidates present themselves: Mogg, the Conservative; and Vane, the Liberal. The author has worked up into the portrait of Mogg all the features of a prosperous Tory chairman of quarter sessions, of which the following, from the description of his Oxford career, is one of the most characteristic:

Too wise to doubt on insufficient cause,
He signed old Cranmer’s lore⁶ without a pause;
And knew that logic’s cunning rules are taught
To guard our creed, and not invigorate thought,
As those bronze steeds, at Venice kept for pride,
Adorn a town where not one man can ride.
[P. 8.]

The exemplifications of vice and folly on the Liberal side, are in the persons of some of the candidate’s chief supporters; the candidate himself being a man after the author’s own heart; and the history of his previous life, together with a love story in which he is involved, and which is not unskilfully connected with the election, form the serious interest of the tale. It would be impossible to give any just idea of this by extracts; and we shall, therefore, confine our quotations to the satirical portion of the poem, taking them chiefly from the hustings speech of the Conservative candidate, which contains, almost prophetically, the quintessence of most of the Tory speeches since delivered at the elections which have just concluded:

- “Our boast is ‘British freedom;’ no one here
- Need learn, work, dress, or eat, from slavish fear.
- The rich their daily joint in freedom carve;
- The poorest men in equal freedom starve;
- And he who, naked, in a ditch expires,
- Yet dies with freedom, like his freeborn sires.
- Be this our pride! and be it ours to guard
- The sacred rights that fools would fain discard.
- I ask, has earth a spot where laws abound,
- So many, curious, ample, and profound?
- Where lawyers never strain their private wit
- To ask what’s reason, but proclaim what’s writ?
- Where else are all men equal, save that one
- Has lands and houses, and another none?
- A difference betwixt the mean and great,
- Which Heaven itself forbids to violate.
- “I also love the church that claims our awe
- Tow’rds holy truth by force of statute law,
- And helps free grace to gain the soul’s assent,
- And cleanse our sins by act of Parliament:
- A loyal church, that keeps the rich and poor
- Duly apart, nor blends the lord and boor.
- ’Tis sweet to witness pews nor mean nor scant
- For those who pay—free seats for those who can’t;
- To hear a priest, too polished to be proud—
- A gentleman set up to teach the crowd,
- Not puffed by rabble votes to Wisdom’s chair,
- But by superior judgment settled there,
- And so discreetly teaching all to choose
- The path their betters fain would have them use.”
- [Pp. 67-8.]

“There’s one point more that must not be forborne:
My friends! I’m not at all for foreign corn.
Let those who like it go abroad to eat
French rolls; to me a quartern loaf is sweet;
And while my shilling helps the farmer here,
I will not try to fatten thin mounseer.
It is no doubt a taking cry to bawl
‘Cheap Bread!’ But what’s so dear as none at all?
As milliners, perhaps, the French are good;
But I’ll not trust them for my daily food,
Lest, when they see our bakers’ empty shelves,
They keep their musty flour to feed themselves,
And poor John Bull, who left his fields unsown,
Must kneel to them for crumbs, or munch a stone;
And dying children’s cries our bosoms wrench,
And beg in vain for victuals from the French.”
[P. 64.]

We have only room for one more extract; it is a satirical portrait of a different kind:

- She well became her fortune; handsome yet,
- With lineless brow, smooth cheeks, and hair of jet:
- A face, that plainly told two score of years,
- Had scarcely brought her eyes as many tears.
- A girl accomplished, graceful, calm, and fair,
- She seemed a pure wax-light in Grosvenor-square,
- Until beneath St. George’s fateful porch
- The virgin taper blazed as Hymen’s torch;
- A wife in highest vogue, correct, admired,
- In lauding whom the virtuous never tired;
- And who, could worth be caught from looks and tones,
- Had done more good than all the martyrs’ bones.
- In fine, a pattern, wont in all to show
- Her moral right to every good below.
- Once by a concert singer’s drapery brushed,
- The spotless heart with indignation blushed,
- And dropping on the floor the cashmere woof,
- Preferred self-sacrifice to just reproof.
- But free from bigot pride, without a pang,
- She heard the songs of love the culprit sang;
- And when, at last, she left the shawl behind,
- These words alone expressed her hallowed mind—
- “It cost me fifty guineas: I declare
- The law should make such people take more care.”
- Mild on the surface, though severe within,
- She never frowned except at vulgar sin;
- But still with soul of brass pursued her way,
- Nor e’en one hasty moment went astray.
- And she was cold to every wrong desire,
- As Alpine ice-peak to the lightning’s fire;
- While, not so circumspect, the neighbouring tree
- Admits the blaze and dies like Semele.
- In short, Diana shone on life’s frail stage
- The ideal Proper Person of her age;
- Her life was blazon’d Proper, and it bore
- Additions due of argent and of or.
- The goddess of Propriety could find
- No fitter Sybil to convert mankind;
- And as to blaming aught Diana did,
- Or daring anything by her forbid,
- One might almost as well maintain that we
- Can learn at all from lands beyond the sea,
- Or e’en that truth is not for man below,
- A wine once made, but like the vine must grow.
- The Christian Year of poems pleased her most;
- Of journals nothing but the Morning Post.⁷
- [Pp. 81-3.]

We venture to promise to any one whom our extracts may tempt to read the volume, a fund both of amusement and of highest interest, of which these extracts are no more than a fair sample.

[1 ]The elections ended on 12 July, giving the Conservatives under Peel a majority.

[2 ]The firm of Murray, in its famous offices at 50 Albemarle Street, publisher of the Tory Quarterly Review, was headed by John Murray (1778-1843), assisted in these years by his son, the second John Murray (1808-92).

[3 ]The Age of Bronze; or, Carmen seculare et annus haud mirabilis (London: Hunt, 1823), by George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824), the Romantic poet rarely praised by Mill.

[4 ]Of Stulz, Wain & Co., tailors, 10 Clifford St., Bond St., London.

[5 ]George Crabbe (1754-1832), English poet noted for narrative power and character evocation.

[6 ]I.e., subscribed to the Thirty-nine Articles, based on the forty-two largely drafted by Archbishop Cranmer in 1553.

[7 ]Those of Tory views were fond of the cycle of poems, The Christian Year, 2 vols. (Oxford: Parker, 1827), by John Keble, one of the “Oxford Theologians” (see No. 291), and favoured the Morning Post, the long-established fashionable conservative paper.