ONE:In pursuance of this resolution, Lord John Russell, soon after the meeting of Parliament in 1851, introduced his Jewish Emancipation Bill once more. The usual arguments were reiterated on both sides, and the second reading was carried by the reduced majority of 25. In the House of Lords the second reading was moved by the Lord Chancellor, on the 17th of July, when it was thrown out by a majority of 36. In the meantime Alderman Salomons had been returned as member for Greenwich, and, following the example of Baron Rothschild, he appeared at the bar, and offered to take the oath on the Old Testament, omitting the phrase, "on the true faith of a Christian." The Speaker then desired him to withdraw; but he took a seat, notwithstanding. The order of the Speaker was repeated in a more peremptory tone, and the honourable member retired to a bench behind the bar. The question of his right to sit was then debated. Sir Benjamin Hall asked the Ministers whether they were disposed to prosecute Mr. Salomons, if he persisted in taking his seat, in order to test his legal right. Lord John Russell having answered in the negative, Mr. Salomons entered the House, amidst loud cries of "Order!" "Chair!" the Speaker's imperative command, "Withdraw!" ringing above all. The Speaker then appealed to the House to enforce his order. Lord John Russell then moved a resolution that Mr. Salomons should withdraw. Mr. Bernal Osborne moved an amendment. The House became a scene of confusion; and in the midst of a storm of angry cries and counter-cries, Mr. Anstey moved the adjournment of the debate. The House divided and Mr. Salomons voted with the minority. The House again divided on Mr. Bernal Osborne's amendment, that the honourable gentleman was entitled to take his seat, which was negatived by 229 against 81. In defiance of this decision, Mr. Salomons again entered and took his seat. He then addressed the House, stating that it was far from his desire to do anything that might appear contumacious or presumptuous. Returned by a large constituency, he appeared in defence of their rights and privileges as well as his own; but whatever might be the decision of the House, he would not abide by it, unless there was just sufficient force used to make him feel that he was acting under coercion. Lord John Russell called upon the House to support the authority of the Speaker and its own dignity. Two divisions followedone on a motion for adjourning the debate, and another on the right of Mr. Salomons to sit, in both of which he voted. The latter was carried by a large majority; when the Speaker renewed his order to withdraw, and the honourable gentleman not complying, the Serjeant-at-Arms touched him lightly on the shoulder, and led him below the bar. Another long debate ensued on the legal question; and the House divided on two motions, which had no result. The discussion of the question was adjourned to the 28th of July, when petitions from London and Greenwich, demanding the admission of their excluded representatives, came under consideration. The Speaker announced that he had received a letter from Alderman Salomons, stating that several notices of actions for penalties had been served upon him in consequence of his having[604] sat and voted in the House. A motion that the petitioners should be heard at the bar of the House was rejected; and Lord John Russell's resolution, denying the right of Mr. Salomons to sit without taking the oath in the usual form, was carried by a majority of 55. And so the vexed question was placed in abeyance for another year so far as Parliament was concerned. But an action was brought in the Court of Exchequer, against Alderman Salomons, to recover the penalty of 500, for sitting and voting without taking the oath. The question was elaborately argued by the ablest counsel. Judgment was given for the plaintiff. There was an appeal from this judgment, by a writ of error, when the Lord Chief Justice Campbell, with Justices Coleridge, Cresswell, Wightman, Williams, and Crompton, heard the case again argued at great length. The Court unanimously decided that the words, "on the true faith of a Christian," formed an essential part of the oath; and that, according to the existing law, the Jews were excluded from sitting in either House of Parliament. This judgment was given in the sittings after Hilary Term, in 1852.With "The Battle of the Books" appeared "The Tale of a Tub;" and though these were anonymous, it was soon well known that they were from the hand of Jonathan Swift, a friend of Harley and Bolingbroke, who now assumed a position in the public eye destined to be rendered yet more remarkable. Swift was of English parentage, but born in Dublin in 1667. He was educated at Kilkenny and the University of Dublin. In early life he became private secretary to Sir William Temple, and at this time he wrote his "Tale of a Tub," which cut off all his hopes of a bishopric. He edited a selection from the papers of Temple, and then accompanied Lord Berkeley to Ireland as chaplain. Disappointed of the preferment which he had hoped for, he went over from the Whigs to the Tories in 1710, and thenceforward was an unscrupulous adherent of Harley and Bolingbroke, defending all their measures in the "Examiner," and pouring out his vengeance on all opponents with unflinching truculence. In his political[148] character Swift has been styled the great blackguard of the age, and certainly with too much truth. In spite of rare intellectual power, wit, and sarcasm, no principle or tenderness of feeling restrained him in his attacks on his enemies. If Harley and Bolingbroke are guilty of inflicting the disgraceful peace of Utrecht on the nation, simply to avenge themselves on the Whigs, no man so thoroughly abetted them in that business as Swift. His "Conduct of the Allies," his "Public Spirit of the Whigs," and other political tracts and articles, bear testimony to his unscrupulous political rancour. His "Drapier's Letters," and his treatment of Wood in the affair of the Irish halfpence, show that no means, however base and false, came amiss to him in serving the objects of his ambition. The great work of Swift is his "Gulliver's Travels," a work characterised by a massive intellect and a fertile invention, but defiled by the grossness that was inseparable from his mind, and that equally pollutes his poems, in which there is much wit and humour, but not a trace of pathos or tenderness. There is none of that divine glow of love and human sympathy, mingled with the worship of beauty and truth, which courts our affections in the works of the greatest masters. When we are told that Swift's grossness is merely the grossness of the time, we point to "Robinson Crusoe," to "The Seasons" and "Castle of Indolence" of Thomson, and to the works of Addison, for the most admirable contrast. Swiftwho died in the famous year of the '45was one of the most vigorous writers of the age, but he was one of the most unamiable. He was the Mephistopheles of the eighteenth century.
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