Nothing changes

A little pressed for time this morning but I could not resist another quote from the very first edition of The Spectator, July 5th, 1828.  Here they are quoting from Blackwood's Magazine:

"The disposition of a genuine Briton is to make up his mind upon what he ought to do, and having once determined that, to adhere to his resolution with a fixedness of purpose, which more frequently proceeds to the lengths of obstinacy, than deviates into vacillation and uncertainty.  Now this is a character quite opposite to that of the Liberals, and much to be preferred before it; for while the Briton of the old school may possibly carry his principle to an extent which is not right, he of the new or Liberal school will most probably tumble through sheer weakness into  what is wrong.  In the Liberal there is a total absence of the sound healthy firmness, which is absolutely essential to eminent usefulness; he yields this; he concedes that; he compromises the other thing; he winds, and twists, and hesitates; and when he wants to accomplish a thing, chooses rather to do it by a trick or a stratagem, than by candour and plain speaking.  You are never sure of him; you are doubtful as to his object, and quite uncertain as to the means he will adopt."

Well, I think that more or less sums up Clegg & Co., even if the description is nearly 200 years old.

 

Comments

[dearieme]

There was an earlier Spectator, scribblings from which you must have studied at school. Steele and Addison were the main essayists, if my memory serves (which all too often it doesn't). Jolly good they were, too.

[A K Haart]

dearime is right, but that Spectator only lasted from 1711-12. I have them all and they are a good read, if a tad dated.

[David Duff]

"must have studied from school"! DM, I didn't study anything of much at my school. Not its fault, I hasten to add, mine entirely. I only discovered The Speccie in the early '80s.

THanks, AK, that has saved me a search through Wiki.