Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 December 1884 — AN ENGLISH WEBSTER. [ARTICLE]

AN ENGLISH WEBSTER.

The Marquis of Salisbury tn the Bouse Of Lords. A very big English gnn is my lord the Marquis of Salisbury. He is today a Daniel Webster in English politics. Opponents style him a political wrecker, and characterize him as haughty, bitter, and aristocratic; yet all concede his surpassing abilities, especially as a parliamentary debater. When Salisbury is pitted against Gladstone—and when are they not pitted against each other?—we have a contest worth looking at. I saw Salisbury in the House of Lords; and, in wandering through the magnificent rooms of his grand old baronial hall, Hatfield House, his face, with the faces of a long line of his famous ancesters, looked down upon me from their walls. This man is idolized—almost deified—by a wide circle of English Conservatives; and his receptions at the great Conservative rallies in Parliament out of session are grand affairs. Stately committees meet him, made up of the most powerful lords of the district; and horses are dragged from his carriage by men who consider it an honor to take their places. His speeches are strong, eloquent, full of will, life, and living interest. Not long ago he held forth to a rally of many thousands at Plymouth. In front of the balcony from which he harangued, Shakspeare spoke thus in letters of blue upon a gold ground: Lift up thy noble brow, renowned Salisbury, And with a great heart heave away this storm; For honorable rescue, and defense, Cries out upon the name of Salisbury. It was from this bal cony that Salisbury uttered a peroration in defense of his course on the Egyptian question which possesses a burning eloquence hard to match anywhere: “I stand in a town which has witnessed and been partner in the glorious deeds of England for centuries back. You have seen the greatness of England built up as it were brick by brick. It has cost many sacrifices, the pouring out of much precious blood, the squandering of abundance of treasure, and the supreme efforts of many noble minds. Do you imagine that this is a mere chimera we have followed all these centuries, as we are sometimes told ? Do you imagine that we should be the England that we are if our forefathers had not done the deeds which we admire, and which I am now exhorting you to imitate? Do you think that if you had never conquered India, or if you had never resisted Napoleon, you would be a happier, a more peaceful, a more prosperous, a more contented nation? [‘No!’ ‘No!’and cheers.] It is no mere chimera that you follow. No doubt the impulse which leads men to heroic deeds, and which leads people to great exertions and great sacrifices; is not founded on calculation; it is the peculiarity of heroic sentiments and noble characters. But it is a false philosophy to say that it is a thin and shadowy sentiment. Sentiment is a noble thing in itself. Sentiment in itself makes men better citizens—the belief that they belong to a great empire, with great traditions, with great hopes, ornamented by distinguished names and splendid exertions; that belief, I think, makes every citizen himself work better in his own sphere, and impresses and purifies the national character, by which we all exist. But it does more than this. Undoubtedly we should avoid anything like an unnecessary, intermeddling, adventurous policy. But your empire, if we mean it to live, must grow, must steadily grow. If it ceases to grow it will begin to decay. [Loud cheers.] That empire rests not merely on the vainglorious spirit of a hollow imagination,' but it rests upon the sound basis of the extension of intercourse between the civilized and the uncivilized portions of the world, and it is the foundation and the necessary condition of that commercial prosperity and of that industrial activity which are the bread of life to millions of our people.”— Cor. Boston Commercial Bulletin.