Biographical sketches

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BIOGRAPH ICAL

SKETCHES

BY

HARRIET MARTINEAU

NEW YORK
LEYPOLDT & HOLT

TORONTO, CANADA
ADAM, STEVENSON & CO

1869

CT

AUTHOR'S EDITION.

LITTLK, RENNLE & Co., Stereotyyers.
NKW YOUK.

PREFACE.

IT has been suggested to me that these Sketches
should be reproduced in a convenient form for readers
who may wish that they were more accessible than when
hidden in the files of a newspaper. Such a proposal,
made by a judgment which I respect, is gratifying to
me ; and I can have no hesitation in accepting it. I
have therefore collected all the Memoirs I have written
for the Daily News, from my first connection with the
paper in 1852. It is from one of the gentlemen con-
nected with that Journal, Mr. J. R. Bobinson, that the
suggestion has proceeded ; and it was accompanied by
a generous consideration which obviates all difficulty
in complying with it. Aware that my state of health
renders all literary exertion impossible, Mr. Robinson
desired to charge himself with all the trouble and
responsibility, while leaving me all the advantages, of
the publication. I have therefore had nothing to do
but to put the material into his hands, duly arranged ;
and it has been carried through the press, and presented
to the public, under his care and judgment.

As for my own share in the business, it was evident
to me at the first glance over my material that the
Sketches must be presented unaltered. In the few which
relate to persons then living, there may be sentences
or expressions which would have been different if the
Memoirs were to be written now ; but to alter these

vi PREFACE.

now would be to tamper with the truth of the sketch,
and to produce something more misleading than the
forecasts of a time which has gone by.

There is no such question in regard to the nine-tenths
of the Memoirs which relate to the dead. Slight as they
are, they convey the impression which the completed
life left in each case upon my own mind, and, as I
believe, on that of the society of its time. As the
impression was final, the first record of it should
remain untouched in order to remain faithful. I there-
fore simply reproduce the Sketches, making no other
change than in the headings announcing the death, in
each case. For convenience of reference, and for the
sake of something like order in the presentment of
materials so various, the personages are classified. In
each group, however, there is no other precedence than
the date of departure.

These few words of explanation being given, I have
only to leave the Sketches to produce their own impres-
sion, whether on the minds of those who from peculiar
knowledge carry a corresponding picture in their own
breasts, or of those to whom the personages were
historical while they lived. The records are true to my
own impressions ; and, secure in this main particular, I
have no misgiving in offering them to readers whose
curiosity and interest about the distinguished dead of
their time claim such satisfaction as any survivor may
be able to give.

H. M.

THE KNOLL, AMBLESIDE,
December, 1868.

CONTENTS.

I. LITERARY.

PAGE

I. AMELIA OPIE 13

II. PROFESSOR WILSON (" CHRISTOPHER NORTH") 21

III. JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART 28

IV. MARY RUSSELL MITFORD 37

V. CHARLOTTE BRONTE (" CURRER BELL") ... 44

VI. SAMUEL ROGERS 5 I

VII. JOHN WILSON CROKER 60

VIII. MRS. MARCET 7<D

IX. HENRY HALLAM 77

X. MRS. WORDSWORTH 86

XI. THOMAS DE QUINCEY 93

XII. LORD MACAULAY IO2

XIII. MRS. JAMESON 113

XIV. WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR . . . . . . . 121

II. SCIENTIFIC

I. GEORGE COMBE 133

II. ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT .... 146

CONTENTS.
III. PROFESSIONAL.

PAGE

I. BISHOP BLOMFIELD l6l

II. ARCHBISHOP WHATELY ... i .... 169

III. THE MARQUIS OF LONDONDERRY 182

IV. LORD RAGLAN 187

V. THE NAPIERS. — LIUET.-GEN. SIR WILLIAM NA-
PIER, K. C. B. . . - 193

VI. REAR-ADMIRAL SIR FRANCIS BEAUFORT, K. C. B. 207

VII. SIR JOHN RICHARDSON 22$

VIII. LORD DENMAN 232

IX. LORD CHANCELLOR CAMPBELL 241

X. DAVID ROBERTS, R. A 248

IV. SOCIAL.

I. MISS BERRY 259

II. FATHER MATHEW 265

III. ROBERT OWEN 273

IV. LADY NOEL BYRON 282

V. POLITICIANS.

I. THE MARQUIS OF ANGLESEY 295

II. JOSEPH HUME 302

III. LORD MURRAY 309

IV. LORD HERBERT OF LEA 316

V. THE MARQUIS OF LANSDOWNE 329

VI. LORD LYNDHURST 338

CONTENTS.

PAGE

VII. THE EARL OF ELGIN AND KINCARDINE . . . 346

VIII. THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE 360

IX. THE EARL OF CARLISLE 369

— X. LORD PALMERSTON 381

XI. LORD BROUGHAM 392

VI. ROYAL.

I. THE LAST BIRTHDAY OF THE EMPEROR NICH-
OLAS, JULY 6TH, 1854 405

"SII. METTERNICH AND AUSTRIA 415

III. THE DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER 425

IV. KING FREDERICK WILLIAM IV. OF PRUSSIA . 433
V. THE DUCHESS OF KENT 442

I .

LITERARY.

AMELIA OPIE.

DIED DECEMBER 2D, 1853.

ANOTHER of that curious class of English people — the
provincial literary lion — has left us. Mrs. Opie is dead.
The young, and most of the middle-aged, of our day
will say, "What of that?" — or "Who was Mrs. Opie?"
— or will think of her only as a beneficent Quaker lady,
whose conversion to muslin caps and silent meetings
made a noise some good many years ago. But the
elderly generation are aware that a good deal more
than that is connected with the name and fame of
Amelia Opie.

The long wars of George III.'s time largely influenced
the fate of this lady, as they did, indeed, that of most
people in England. One effect of those wars in an in-
sular kingdom like ours was to shut up our towns with
their peculiarities, and to preserve a state of manners
which has disappeared from the world, unless it be in
some remote German districts, or in some primitive
communities in New England. Lichfield is still renowned
for its departed literary coterie, and their conceits and
pedantries : and Norwich was very like Lichfield — only
with less sentimentality, and with some additional
peculiarities of its own. It had its cathedral ; but

One effect of
Ion? 'wars.

AMELIA OPIE.

[I]

Norwich in
the time of
the war.

neither the proverbial dulness nor the all-conquering
High-Churchism of most cathedral towns. The liberality
of good Bishop Bathurst prevented the latter during the
long course of his episcopate : and the manufactures of
Norwich preserved it from stagnation. It is true that
when invasion was expected, the Church and Tory
gentry set a watch upon the cathedral, lest the Dissenters
should burn it for a beacon to ' ' Boney ;" and the manu-
facturers who were of Liberal opinions were not accepted
as volunteers, but were simply intrusted with the
business of providing for the conveyance o£ the women
and children into the interior whenever the French
should land at Yarmouth or Cromer. But still, while
Bishop Bathurst touched his hat to the leading Dissenters
of the place, and Norwich goods were in demand for
the Spanish and Portuguese markets, the old city could
not stagnate, like some other cathedral towns. The
weavers, descended from the Flemish and French im-
migrants who had sought refuge in our Protestant
country, were growing more and more peculiar, narrow,
and obstinate — smaller in mind and body with each
generation, and sure to ruin the trade of the city by
their pedantry about their work, and obstinacy about
wages, whenever the time should come for the world to
be thrown open by a peace. The French taught in
schools was such as was found to be unintelligible when
the peace at length arrived — taught as it was by an aged
powdered Monsieur and an elderly flowered Madame,
driven from France long before, and rather catching
their pupils' Norfolk pronunciation of French than con-
veying the Parisian to them. But it was beginning to
be known that there was such a language as German,
out of the counting-houses, and that Germany was

AMELIA OPIE.

beginning to have a literature : and in due time there was
a young man there who had actually been in Germany,
and was translating ' ' Nathan the Wise. " When William
Taylor became eminent as almost the only German
scholar in England, old Norwich was very proud, and
grew, to say the truth, excessively conceited. She was
(and she might be) proud of her Sayers ; and Dr. Sayers
was a scholar. She boasted of having produced several
men who had produced books of one sort or another
(and to produce a book of any sort was a title to reverence
in those days). She boasted of her intellectual supper-
parties, where, amidst a pedantry which would now make
Laughter hold both his sides, there was much that was
pleasant and salutary : and finally, she called herself the
Athens of England. If Mr. Windham's family could be
induced to publish all of his papers, there would, we
believe, be found some curious lights thrown on the
social condition of old Norwich in the time of the war.
And some lawyers and politicians — Sir James Mackintosh
for one — who went that circuit in their early professional
days, used to talk of the city and its illustrious citizens
in a strain of compliment which had much amusement,
if not satire in it. They kindly brought fresh ideas to
Norwich, and in return were duly venerated, and ex-
tremely amused by so perfect a specimen of a provincial
city up in a corner, which called itself Athens.

Amidst these influences, Amelia Alderson grew up,
to be formed by them, and to renovate them, as far as it
was in the power of a clever woman to do so. She was
the only child of Dr. James Alderson, a physician of no
great mark professionally, but of liberal tastes, and fond
of literary society. Amelia lost her mother in infancy ;
and her childhood and youth were superintended by a

[I]

Norwich
and her
literary
men.

The child-
hood of
Mrs. Ofie.

i6

AMELIA OPIE.

[I]

Her

marriage^
and her
assistance to
herhusband.

Her frst
ivorks.

lady of considerable ability and book-knowledge. While
she was thus training for literary ambition, John Opie,
the painter, was among the tin mines in Cornwall,
sketching with ochre on barn-doors, like Lawrence, and
manifesting the ability which made Dr. Wolcot (P.eter
Pindar) bring him up to London, and prophesy his
turning out one of the greatest painters the world ever
saw. It takes more, however, to make a great painter
than Dr. Wolcot supposed, or than the generality of
persons could imagine before the continental world of
Art was opened to us; and before that happened Opie
was dead. After the few first of his pictures, painted in
London, there appears in almost all of them a remark-
able female face — singular in profile, and, as a front face,
so waggish that when used for tragic purposes it moves
more mirth than sympathy in the observer — a face with
merry twinkling eyes, and a mouth either saucily laugh-
ing or obstinately resolute against a laugh. This is
Amelia Alderson, presently become Mrs. Opie. During
their few years of union, she was at her husband's elbow
at his easel, or sitting for some of his historical person-
ages, or, no doubt, obviating by her own knowledge
some of the mischief arising from his defective education.
We see, by some of his pictures, how much this was
wanted; as, for instance, in the "Jephthah's Daughter,"
where the sacrifice is actually supposed to be performed
by the High Priest, who stands there in full official array,
as if human sacrifices were permitted by the Jewish law !

And now came the time when Amelia Opie was
herself to achieve fame by her tale of the "Father and
Daughter/' The edition on our table (the second) bears
date 1801, and is illustrated by a most woeful frontis-
piece, designed by her husband. Her Poems appeared

AMELIA OPIE.

the next year, adorned in like manner. The most
celebrated of them — and it was very celebrated at the
time— is "The Felon's Address to his Child;" one
cannot but wonder why, in regard to the poems and the
tale alike ; and especially when we see that the motto in
the title-page is taken from Mrs. Barbauld, whose fame
would have been, we imagine, considered at the time
inferior to that of her young friend Amelia. Time has
long rectified the judgment — determining that Mrs. Opie
was a jejune Mrs. Inchbald, while Mrs. Barbauld wrote
the little she did write out of a full and glowing mind,
trained to a noble mode of expression by a sound
classical education. Mrs. Opie had other accomplish-
ments, however, than any manifested by her pen. She
sang finely — ballads sung with heartfelt impulse and
pathos, and without accompaniment. Those who, as
children, heard her sing "Lord Ullin's Daughter," will
never forget it. They cannot now read the "Come
back" of that ballad, without feeling again the anguish
conveyed in those heart-rending tones. The Prince
Regent heard them. He went to a supper somewhere
to hear Mrs. Opie sing — not long before the change
which stopped her singing everywhere but beside her old
father's chair. When she began to grow elderly, Amelia
Opie became devote. Her life had been one of strong
excitements ; and dearly she loved excitement ; and
there was a promise of a long course of stimulation in
becoming a Quaker, which probably impelled her uncon-
sciously to take the decided step which astonished all
her world. During Mr. Opie's life, excitements abounded.
After his death, and when her mourning was over, she
wrote little novels, read them to admiring friends in
Norwich, who cried their eyes out at the pathetic scenes,

Her vocal
ability.

i8

AMELIA OPIE.

[I]

Joins the
Friends.

Her benef-
icent
disposition.

read in her dramatic manner, and then she carried them
to London, got considerable sums by them, enjoyed the
homage they brought to her feet, sang at supper-tables,
dressed splendidly, did not scruple being present at
Lady Cork's and others' Sunday concerts, and was very
nearly marrying a younger brother of Lord Bute. Lord
Herbert Stewart's carriage appeared, and made a great
clatter in the narrow streets of Norwich ; and the old
gentleman was watched into Dr. Alderson's house ; and
the hours were counted which he spent, it was supposed,
at Mrs. Opie's feet. But it came to nothing. For a
while she continued her London visits ; and her proud
father went about reading her letters about her honors.
But she suddenly discovered that all is vanity : she took
to gray silks and muslin, and the "thee" and "thou,"
quoted Habakkuk and Micah with gusto, and set her
heart upon preaching. That, however, was not allowed.
Her Quaker friends could never be sufficiently sure how
much was "imagination," and how much the instigation
of "the inward witness ;" and the privileged gallery in
the chapel was closed against her, and her utterance was
confined to loud sighs in the body of the Meeting. She
tended her father unremittingly in his decline ; she im-
proved greatly in balance of mind and evenness of spirits
during her long and close intimacy with the Gurneys ;
and there never was any doubt about her beneficent
disposition, shown by her family devotedness, no less
than by her bounty to the poor. Her majestic form
moved through the narrowest streets of the ancient city ;
and her bright face was seen lighting up the most
wretched abodes. The face never lost its brightness,
nor the heart its youthfulness and gayety. She was a
merry laugher in her old age ; and even, if the truth be

AMELIA OPIE.

spoken, still a bit of a romp — ready for bo-peep and
hide-and-seek, in the midst of a morning call, or at the
end of a grave conversation. She enjoyed showing prim
young Quaker girls her ornaments, plumes, and satins,
and telling when she wore them : and, when in Paris,
she ingenuously exhibited in her letters to her Quaker
friends the conflict in her feelings when Louis Philippe,
attended by his staff, stopped to converse with her in the
streets of Paris, and when the Queen of the French
requested her to appoint an evening for a party at the
Tuileries. She made a pleasant joke of the staring of
then Parisias at her little gray bonnet ; and sighed and
prayed that she might not be puffed up by all the rest.
She was not really spoilable ; and her later years were
full of grace and kindliness. She suffered much from
rheumatic lameness ; but with great cheerfulness, on the
whole — almost merrily. She was cordially respected,
and will be vividly remembered for life by many who
have long forgotten her early fame, or perhaps had
scarcely heard of it. She was a striking picture in the
childhood of some who are now elderly, when her stately
form was seen, half a century ago, among the old elms
in her father's garden ; and she will ever be a picture in
the minds of such young people as saw her seated, as
upright as ever, but with her crutches behind her, at her
sofa-table in her cheerful room in the Castle Meadow,
any time within the last few years. The Taylors, the
Sayerses, the Smiths, the Enfields — the old glories of the
provincial Athens — have long been gone ; and now, with
Amelia Opie, dies the last claim of the humbled city to
the literary prominence which was so dear to it in the
last century. The period of such provincial glory seems
itself to be passing away. A lady, yet more aged than

[I]

Her

cheerfulness.

The last
of the
Norwich
celebrities.

20 AMELIA OPJE.

[I]

Mrs. Opie, one who had for nearly a century scarcely
left the old city, was of opinion that the depravity of the
age was owing to gaslights and macadamisation. It does
not require her years to show some of us that railways,
free trade, and cheap publications have much to do with
the extinction of the celebrity of ancient Norwich, in
regard both to its material and intellectual productions.
Its bombazine manufacture has gone to Yorkshire, and
its literary fame to the four winds.

II.

PROFESSOR WILSON
" CHRISTOPHER NORTH").

DIED APRIL 30, 1854.

ON Monday morning died Professor Wilson, the "Chris-
topher North" whom probably none of his readers ever
thought of as dead or dying, or losing any of the intense
vitality which distinguishes the ideal " Christopher North"
from all other men. The "Christopher North" and
John Wilson are separated now, and forever. The one
will live very long, if not always, and without losing an
atom of his vigor; but the other, after long sinking,
after grievous depression, and gradual extinction by paral-
ysis, is gone; and none of the many who loved and
worshipped him could wish that he had lived another day
in the condition of his latter years.

Yet he was not very old. He was born at Paisley, in
1788, his father being a wealthy manufacturer there.
He entered Glasgow University at the age of thirteen,
and in four years more went to Magdalen College,
Oxford, where his extraordinary quality was recognized
at once. He was the leader in all sports, from his great
bodily strength, as well as his enthusiasm for pleasure of
that kind ; and he gained the Newdegate prize for an
English poem of sixty lines. On leaving College he

Born
1788.

in

22

PROFESSOR WILSON.

[II]

Kindness of
Sir Walter
Scott.

bought the Elleray estate, on Windermere, which will
ever be haunted by his memory ; for there is not a point
of interest about it or the neighborhood which he has
not immortalized. So early as the beginning of 1812,
we find Scott writing to Joanna Baillie of the extra-
ordinary young man, John Wilson, who had written an
elegy upon "poor Grahame," and was then engaged in
a poem called the "Isle of Palms/' — "something,"
added Scott, curiously enough, "in the style of Southey."
" He seems an excellent, warm-hearted, and enthusiastic
young man ; something too much, perhaps, of the latter
quality places him among the list of originals. " A short
time after this, and in consequence of loss of property, he
studied Law, and was called to the Scotch bar. So early
as that date, before any of the Waverley novels appeared,
the grateful young poet, who deeply felt Scott's kindness
in encouraging his muse, gave him the title of the Great
Magician, by which he was soon to be recognized by all
the world. This was in some stanzas, called the " Magic
Mirror," which appeared in the Edinburgh Annual Regis-
ter. When John Kemble took leave of the stage at
Edinburgh, and was entertained at a very remarkable
dinner, where all the company believed they were taking
leave of dramatic pleasure forever, Jeffrey was in the
chair, and John Wilson shared the vice-presidentship
with Scott. Scott's kindness to his young friend was
earnest and vigilant. We find him inviting Wilson and
Lockhart from Elleray to Abbotsford, the next year, fixing
the precise day when he wished them to arrive ; and the
reason turned out to be, that Lord Melville was to be there ;
and it was possible that something good might turn up in
the Parliament House for the young men in consequence
of the interview.

PROFESSOR WILSON.

For Wilson this sort of aid was soon unnecessary.
He became Professor of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh
in 1820, and had already done more than any one man
toward raising the character of periodical literature by
his marvellous contributions to JBlackwood's Magazine,
and the stimulus his genius imparted to a whole gener-
ation of writers of that class. We all know his selection
from those papers — the three volumes of ' ' Recreations
of Christopher North. " There is nothing in our literature
exactly like them ; and we may venture to say there
never will be. They are not only the most effective
transcription of the moods of thought and feeling of a
deeply thinking and feeling mind — a complete arresting
and presentment of those moods as they pass — but an
absolute realizing of the influence of Nature in a book.
The scents and breezes of the moorland are carried fairly
into even the sick-chamber by that book ; and through
it the writer practised the benevolence of the ancient
rich man, and was eyes to the blind, and feet to the
lame. Mr. Hallam, the calmest of critics, has declared
Wilson's eloquence to be as the rushing of mighty waters ;
and it was no less the bracing of the mountain winds.
His fame will rest on his prose writings, and not on his
two chief poems, the "Isle of Palms" and the "City of
the Plague ;" and of his prose writings, his "Recreations"
will, we imagine, outlive his three novels, "Lights and
Shadows of Scottish Life," the "Trials of Margaret
Lyndsay," and "The Foresters." If the marvel of his
eloquence is not lessened, it is at least accounted for to
those who have seen him, — or even his portrait. Such a
presence is rarely seen ; and more than one person has
said that he reminded them of the first man, Adam ; so
full was that large frame of vitality, force, and sentience.

[HI

The

" Rccrea

tions of

Christopher

North."

Poems and
novels.

PROFESSOR WILSON.

[II]

His tem-
perament
and faults.

His tread seemed almost to shake the streets, his eye
almost saw through stone walls; and as for* his voice,
there was no heart that could stand before it. He swept
away all hearts, whithersoever he would. No less striking
was it to see him in a mood of repose, as when he steered
the old packet-boat that used to pass between Bowness
and Ambleside, before the steamers were put upon the
Lake. Sitting motionless, with his hand upon the rudder,
in the presence of journeymen and market-women, with
his eye apparently looking beyond everything into noth-
ing, and his mouth closed under his beard, as if he
meant never to speak again, he was quite as impressive
and immortal an image as he could have been to the
students of his class or the comrades of his jovial hours.
The tendencies of such a temperament are obvious
enough ; and his faults arose from the indulgence of
those tendencies. A few words from a friendly letter of
Scott's, written when Wilson was a candidate for his
professorship, will sufficiently indicate the nature of his
weaknesses, and may stand for all the censure we are
disposed to offer. "You must, of course," writes Scott
to Mr. Lockhart, ' ' recommend to Wilson great temper
in his canvass ; for wrath will do no good. After all, he
must leave off sack, purge, and live cleanly as a gentle-
man ought to do, otherwise people will compare his
present ambition to that of Sir Terry O'Fag when he
wished to become a judge. ' Our pleasant vices are
made the whips to scourge us, ' as Lear says ; for other-
wise what could possibly stand in the way of his nomi-
nation? I trust it will take place, and give him the
consistence and steadiness which are all he wants to
make him the first man of the age." He did get his
election ; and it was not very long after that he and

PROFESSOR WILSON.

Campbell, the poet, were seen one morning leaving a
tavern in Edinburgh, haggard and red-eyed, hoarse and
exhausted — not only the feeble Campbell, but the mighty
Wilson — they having sat tvte-d-tete for twenty-four hours,
discussing poetry and wine to the top of their bent : a
remarkable spectacle in connection with the Moral Phi-
losophy Chair in any University. But, if the constituents
of such an office crave a John Wilson to £11 it, they must
take him with all his liabilities about him.

His moods were as various as those of the Mother Na-
ture he adored. In 1815, when all the rest of the world
was in the dark about the Scotch novels, he was in ex-
cessive delight at receiving from William Laidlaw the
evidence that Colonel Mannering was Scott himself ; and
deep in proportion was his grief when he saw that ge-
nial mind going out. The trembling of his mighty
voice when he paid his tribute to Scott's genius at the
public meeting after his death moved every heart present.
He could enter into the spirit of Lake scenery deeply
with Wordsworth when floating on Windermere at sunset ;
and he could, as we see by Moore's Diary, imitate Words-
worth's monologues to admiration under the lamp at a
jovial Edinburgh supper-table. He could collect as
strange a set of oddities about him there as ever Johnson
or Fielding did in their City lodgings ; and he could
wander alone for a week along the trout streams, and by
the mountain tarns of Westmoreland. He could proudly
lead the regatta from Mr. Bolton's, at Storr's, as "Admiral
of the Lake/' with Canning, Scott, Wordsworth, Southey,
and others, and shed an intellectual sunshine as radiant
as that which glittered upon Windermere ; and he could
forbid the felling of any trees at Elleray, and shroud him-
self in its damp gloom, when its mistress was gone, leav-

2

[II]

Wihon and
Campbell :
a scene.

His various
moods.

26

PROFESSOR WILSON.

[II]

Wilson in
the Lake
District.

His last
years.

ng a bequest of melancholy which he never surmounted.
The "grace and gentle goodness" of his wife were
bound about his heartstrings ; and the thought of her was
known and felt to underlie all his moods from the time
of her death. She loved Elleray, and the trees about it ;
and he allowed not a twig of them to be touched till the
place grew too mossy and mournful ; and then he parted
with it. He was much beloved in that neighborhood,
where he met with kindness whatever was genuine, while

repulsed and shamed all flatteries and affectations.
Every old boatman and young angler, every hoary shep-
herd and primitive dame among the hills of the District,
knew him and enjoyed his presence. He was a steady
and genial friend to poor Hartley Coleridge for a long
course of years. He made others happy by being so in-
tensely happy himself, when his brighter moods were on
him. He felt, and enjoyed too, intensely, and paid the
penalty in the deep melancholy of the close of his life.
He could not chasten the exuberance of his love of Na-
ture and of genial human intercourse ; and he was cut
off from both, long before his death. The sad specta-
cle was witnessed with respectful sorrow ; for all who had
ever known him felt deeply in debt to him. He under-
went an attack of pressure on the brain some years before
his death ; and an access of paralysis closed the scene.

It is curious that, whereas it is universally agreed that
it is by his prose that he won his immortality, he argued
with Moore that the inferiority of prose to poetry was
proved by the fact that there is no such thing as a school
of prose, while literary history consists of a succession
of schools of poetry. It may be that his prose is some-
thing new in the world. At this moment, under the
emotion of parting from him, we are disposed to think

PROFESSOR WILSON.

27

it is. Nowhere can we look for such a combination of
music, emotion, speculation, comment, wit, and imagi-
nation, as in some of his "Noctes Ambrosianae," and in
hundreds of the pages of "Christopher's Recreations."
In them we rejoice to think the subdued spirit is revived
mat we have seen fail, and the dumb voice reawakened
for the delight of many a future generation.

III.

A man of

note.

Vhh to
Germany.

JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART.
DIED AT ABBOTSFORD, Nov. 25111, 1854.

HE was a man of note on various grounds. He was
an author of no mean qualifications ; he was the son-in-
law of Scott ; and he was the editor of the Quarterly
Review after Gilford. Without being a man of genius,
a great scholar, or politically or morally eminent, he
had sufficient ability and accomplishment to insure con-
siderable distinction in his own person, and his interest-
ing connections did the rest. He was a man of con-
siderable mark.

The younger son of a Glasgow clergyman, he was
destined for the Law — more as a matter of course than
from any inclination of his own ; for he never liked his
profession. He went to school, and afterward to the
University at Glasgow, whence he was enabled to proceed
to Balliol College, Oxford, by obtaining an exhibition in
the gift of the Senatus Academicus. He was subse-
quently called to the Scotch Bar ; but from the first his
dependence was on literary effort ; for his professional
fees never amounted to 5<D/. a year. After the Peace he
went to Germany — a not very common undertaking at
that time — and saw Gothe ; and his account of this
incident seems to have struck Scott, when they who

JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART.

29

were to become so closely related met for the first time
in private society, in May, 1818. A few days after the
dinner-party at which this happened, the Messrs. Ballan-
tyne sent to Lockhart, to propose -that he should under-
take a task which Scott had delayed, and wished to
surrender : the writing the historical portion of the
"Edinburgh Annual Register" for 1816. When he
called on Scott to talk it over, the great novelist, who
was then receiving io,ooo/. a year from the new vein he
had opened, assigned a characteristic reason for giving
up the Register. He said that if the war had gone on,
he should have enjoyed writing the history of each year
as it passed ; but that he would not be the recorder of
Radical riots, Corn Bills, Poor Bills, and the like. These
things, he said, sickened him ; and he thought it fair to
devolve such work upon his juniors. Mr. Lockhart first
saw Abbotsford the next October, when he was sent for
from Elleray, with his friend John Wilson, to meet Lord
Melville, and take the chance of some professional
benefit arising from the interview with the First Lord of
the Admiralty, if their sins in Blackwood could be over-
looked by him. This shows that Blackwood's Magazine
was already rising under the re-enforcement of Wilson's
strength. The strength which raised it was not Lock-
hart's. His satire had, then and always, a quality of
malice in it, where Wilson's had only fun ; and he never
rlacP Wilson's geniality of spirit. Wilson's satire in-
structed the humble, and amused the proud who were
the objects of it ; but Lockhart's caused anguish in the
one case, and excited mere wrath or contempt in the
other. Scott confessed that it might be from com-
placency at Lockhart's account of this visit to Abbots-
ford that he judged so favorably of "Peter's Letters to

[III]

First meet-
ing ivith
Sir Walter
Scott.

BlackivoocTs
Magazine.

JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART.

[Ill]

Lockharfs
marriage.

his Kinsfolk," which appeared a few months afterward.
He called its satire lenient ; but all the Edinburgh Whigs
were up against it as a string of libels; and Lockhart
himself tells us candidly that it was a book which none
but a very young and a very thoughtless person would
have written.

Sophia Scott, the elder daughter of the novelist, and
the one who inherited his genial and amiable spirit, his
good sense, and his royal tendencies, and who was
naturally the delight of his life, had just before mani-
fested singular fortitude for so young a creature, when
her father's fearful malady — cramp in the stomach —
seized him in the country, alone with her and a set of
distracted servants. This was an indication of what she
was to be through her too short life. She married Mr.
Lockhart just a year after that illness of her father's, in
April, 1820; and it was her function for the seventeen
years of her marriage to heal the wounds inflicted by
those less amiable than herself, and to soothe the angry
feelings excited on every hand, sooner or later, by the
conduct of the Quarterly Review when in her husband's
hands. As Scott recovered his strength, after that fear-
ful illness, he busied himself in improving, for the re-
ception of the young couple, a sequestered cottage
within a short ride of Abbotsford ; and he, with his own
hands, transplanted to Chiefswood the creepers which
had hung the old porch at Abbotsford. It was for her
child that he wrote the "Tales of a Grandfather;" and
that precocious boy, who died of spinal disease at the
age of eleven, was the object of as passionate an attach-
ment as Scott had perhaps ever known.

In 1820 Mr. Lockhart published his first novel,
"Valerius, a Roman Story," which immediately took its

JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART.

place among the secondary Scottish novels, as those
were called which would have been first but for Scott's
series. That book was full of interest, and of promise
of moral beauty which was not fulfilled. The influences
then surrounding the author were eminently favorable.
He always said that the happiest years of his life were
those spent at Chiefswood. During those few years of
domestic peace he seems to have had a stronger hold of
reality than either before or after. The inveterate skep-
ticism of his nature was kept down, and he found dearer
delights than that of giving pain. Other novels followed,
—" Reginald Dalton," "Adam Blair," and "Gilbert
Earle." All are more remarkable for power in the
delineation of passion, and for beauty of writing, than
for higher qualities. Carlyle has described Lockhart's
style as "good, clear, direct, and nervous :" and so it is ;
and with genuine beauty in it, too, both of music and
of pathos. And of all he ever wrote, nothing is prob-
ably so dear to his readers as his accounts, in his Life
of his father-in-law, of the pleasures of Chiefswood,
when Scott used to sit under the great ash, with all the
dogs about him, and help the young people with their
hospitable arrangements, cooling the wine in the brook,
and proposing to dine out of doors, to get rid of the
inconvenience of small rooms and few servants. It is a
curious instance of Lockhart's moral obtuseness that,
while writing thus, he could make some most painful
and needless disclosures in regard to Scott himself in
that Life, to say nothing of his foul and elaborate mis-
representation of the Ballantynes throughout. To that
evil deed it is necessary only to refer ; for the confu-
tation immediately published was so complete, and the
establishment of the fair fame of the Ballantynes so

[III]

His novels.

Lockhart's
Life of

Scott.

JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART.

[Ill]

The Ballon-
tynes.

^conference
at Abbots-
ford.

Becomes
editor of the
" Quarterly
Review."

triumphant, that their libeller had his punishment very
soon. Some lovers of literature and of Scott still
struggled to make out that the Ballantynes and their
defenders, as tradesmen, could know nothing of the
feelings, nor judge of the conduct, of Scott as a gentle-
man. The answer was plain : — the Ballantynes were
not mere tradesmen ; and if they had been, Scott made
himself a tradesman, in regard to his coadjutors, and
must be judged by the laws of commercial integrity.
The exposures made by the Ballantynes and their
friends of Scott's pecuniary obligations to them, were
forced upon them by Mr. Lockhart's attacks upon their
characters, and misrepresentation of their conduct and
affairs. The whole controversy was occasioned by Lock-
hart's spontaneous indulgence in caustic satire ; and the
Ballantynes came better out of it than either he or his
father-in-law.

After the publication of his novels, Mr. Lockhart was
summoned, one spring day of 1825, to a conference at
Abbotsford, to which Constable and James Ballantyne
were parties. The project to be discussed was that
memorable one of Constable's, to revolutionize "the
whole art and traffic of bookselling." From that confer-
ence sprang the cheap literature of the last quarter of a
century and one of the first volumes produced under
the new notion was Lockhart's "Life of Burns," which
appeared early in Constable's Miscellany. It was in the
same year, 1825, that he succeeded Gifford in the editor-
ship of the Quarterly Review, and of course removed to
London. If he had not Gifford's thorough scholarship,
he had eminent literary ability, — readiness, industry,
everything but good principle and a good spirit. These
immense exceptions we are compelled to make ; and

JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART.

33

they are not a new censure. All the world was always
aware of the sins of the Quarterly, under Lockhart's
management; and the best-informed had cause to view
them the most severely. Everybody knows what
Croker's political articles were like. Everybody knows
how the publisher was now and then compelled to re-
publish as they had originally stood, articles which had
been interpolated, by Croker and Lockhart (whose
names were always associated in regard to the Review],
with libels and malicious jokes. In their recklessness
they drew upon themselves an amount of reprobation in
literary circles which thin-skinned men could never have
endured. Now, the young author of a father's biog-
raphy was invited by the editor to send him early proof-
sheets, for the benefit of a speedy review, and the
review did what it could to damn the book before it was
fairly in the hands of the public ; and now, the vanity of
some second or third-rate author was flattered and drawn
out in private intercourse, to obtain material for a cari-
cature in the next Quarterly. As an able man, a great
admirer of the literary merits of the Review, and no
sufferer by it, observed, "The well-connected and vigor-
ous and successful have nothing to apprehend from the
Quarterly ; but, as sure as people are in any way broken
or feeble — as sure as they are old, or blind, or deaf, or
absent on their travels, or superannuated, or bankrupt,
or dead — the Quarterly is upon them." It was the
wounds thus inflicted that the gentle wife set herself to
heal, when she possibly could. It was amidst the ex-
plosions of friendships, formed in flattery, and broken off
by treachery — amidst the wrath of every kind and de-
gree evoked by her husband, or under his permission,
that her modest dignity and her cheerful kindliness com-

[III]

The literary
offences of
Croker and
Lockhart.

34

JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART.

[Ill]

Lockharfs
callousness.

A saying of
Allan
Cunning-
ham.

Heavy
griefs.

manded admiration, and won love from those who would
never more meet the reckless editor, who quizzed the
emotions he had excited. His success was all-sufficient,
in his own estimate. The transcendent literary merits
of the Review placed it high above failure ; and he did
not care for censure. It was his own callousness which
made the sensitiveness of others so highly amusing to
.him. Yet there are passages even in his later writings
which make one wonder what he did, in an ordinary
way, with feelings which seem to have dwelt in him —
to judge by their occasional manifestation. For instance,
there is something remarkable in his selection, from
among all Scott's writings, of the passage of most
marked spiritual beauty — that passage of his preface
to "Ivanhoe" in which he accounts for not having
made Rebecca's lot "end happily." Such a choice
seems to show that Lockhart should properly have won
something more than admiration of his accomplishments
as a writer and converser, and fear of him as a satirist.
It seems as if there might have been, but for his own
waywardness, some of that personal respect and con-
fidence, and free and constant friendship, which he
never enjoyed nor appeared to desire. It appears as if
there was truth in the remark made by Allan Cunning-
ham, that there was "heart in Lockhart when one got
through the crust."

The good-will which he did not seek in his happy
days, was won for him by the deep and manifold
sorrows of his latter years. The extraordinary sweep
made by death in his wife's family is a world-wide
wonder and sorrow. Lady Scott went first ; and the
beloved child — Lockhart's intelligent boy, so well known
under the name of Hugh Littlejohn — died when the

JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART.

35

grandfather's mind was dim and clouded. Soon after
Scott's death, his younger daughter and worn-out nurse
followed him ; and in four years more, Mrs. Lockhart.
The young Sir Walter died childless in India, and his
brother Charles, unmarried, in Persia. Lockhart was
left with a son and a daughter. As years and griefs
began to press heavily upon him, new sorrow arose
in his narrow domestic circle. His son was never any
comfort to him, and died in early manhood. The only
remaining descendant of Scott, Lockhart's daughter, was
married, and became so fervent and obedient a Catholic,
as to render all intimate intercourse between the forlorn
father and his only child impossible. He was now op-
ulent. An estate had descended to him through an
elder brother ; and he held an office — that of Auditor
of the Duchy of Cornwall — which yielded him 3007.
a year. He had given up the labor of editing the
Quarterly : but what were opulence and leisure to him
now? Those who saw him in his daily walk in Lon-
don, his handsome countenance — always with a lowering
and sardonic expression — now darkened with sadness,
and the thin lips compressed more than ever, as by pain
of mind, forgave, in respectful compassion for one so
visited, all causes of quarrel, however just, and threw
themselves, as it were, into his mind, seeing again the
early pranks with "Christopher North," the dinings by
the brook at Chiefswood, the glories of the Abbotsford
sporting parties, the travels with Scott in Ireland, and
the home in Regent's Park, with the gentle Sophia pre-
siding. Comparing these scenes with the actual forlorn-
ness of his last years, there was no heart that could not
pity and forgive, and carefully award him his due, as a
writer who has afforded much pleasure in his day, and

[III]

The

forlornness
of his
last years.

36 JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART.

[Ill]

left a precious bequest to posterity in his Life of the
great Novelist, purged, as we hope it will be, of what-
ever is untrue and unkind, and rendered as safe as it is
beautiful.

Mr. Lockhart travelled abroad in 1853, under contin-
ually failing health. He has left a name which will live
in literature, both on his own account, and through his
family and literary connections.

IV.

MARY RUSSELL MITFORD.
DIED JANUARY IOTH, 1855.

Miss MITFORD was old, having been bom in December,
1786. Her decline was so protracted that there could be
no surprise or shock mingled with the sorrow which the
English public could not but feel on the occasion of her
death. After a fall from her pony-chaise in the autumn
of 1852, her life was understood to be very precarious.
The interest which was taken in her state might appear
to be disproportionate to her abilities and her achieve-
ments ; but if so, there must be a reason for it, and the
reason is that she was so genial and so cheerful as to
command the affection of multitudes who would have
given no heed to a much higher order of genius invested
with less of moral charm. There is nothing so popular
as cheerfulness ; and when the cheerfulness is of the
unfailing sort which arises from amiability and interior
content, it deserves such love as attended Mary Russell
Mitford to her grave. Her ability was very considerable.
Her power of description was unique. She had a charm-
ing humor, and her style was delightful. Yet were her
stories read with a relish which exceeded even so fair a
justification as this — with a relish which the judgment
could hardly account for; and this pleasant, compelled

Her

unfailing
cheerfulne.

MARY RUSSELL MITFORD.

[IV]

Dr.

Mitford.

enjoyment was no doubt ascribable to the glow of good
spirits and kindliness which lighted up and warmed
everything that her mind produced. She may be con-
sidered as the representative of household cheerfulness in
the humbler range of the literature of fiction.

Her tendencies showed themselves early. She took
up the pen almost in childhood, and was an avowed
poet, in print, before she was four-and-twenty. How-
ever hard was her filial duty when she was herself grow-
ing old, she had all her own way in her early years ; and
her way seems to have been to write an immense quantity
of verse as the pleasantest thing she could find to do.

She was born at Alresford, in Hampshire. Her father
was a physician, one of the Northumberland family <of
Mitfords. Her mother was the child of the old age of
a Hampshire clergyman, who had seen Pope, and been
intimate with Fielding. Her father was, as it is under-
stood, disliked and disapproved, if not despised, by
everybody but his devoted daughter, whose infatuation
it was to think him something very great and good ;
whereas there seems to be really nothing to remember
him by but his singular and unaccountable extravagance
in money matters, and the selfishness with which he
went on to the last, obtaining, by hook and by crook,
costly indulgences, which nobody else in his line of life,
however independent of creditors, thought of wishing
for. Dr. Mitford ran through half-a-dozen fortunes,
shifted about to half-a-dozen grand residences, and passed
the last quarter of a century of his life in a cottage, where,
humble as seemed his mode of living, he could not keep
out of debt, or the shame of perpetual begging from the
friends whom his daughter had won. His only child
was carried about, before she was old enough for school,

MARY RUSSELL MITFORD.

39

from Alresford to Reading ; from Reading to Lyme, and
thence to London, where, when she was ten years old,
her father was making up his mind to retrench and do
something at last — a resolution which went the way of all
the former ones. It was at that time the well-known in-
cident happened which Miss Mitford related with so much
spirit half a century afterward.

The little girl chose for a birthday present a lottery
ticket of a particular number, to which she stuck, in
spite of much persuasion to change it, and which turned
up a prize of 2O,ooo/. This money soon disappeared,
like some 4O,ooo/., which had vanished before. Her
father put her to school in London, and there she spent
five years, while he was amusing himself with building a
very large house, four miles from Reading, to which she
returned at the age of fifteen, to write poetry, and dream
of becoming an authoress. After 1810 she put forth a
volume almost every year. This was all done for pleas-
ure ; but she was meanwhile giving up to her selfish
father one legacy after another, left to herself by the
opulent families on both sides, after her mother's hand-
some fortune was exhausted ; and hence at length arose
the necessity of her writing for the sake of the money she
could earn.

In their poverty they went to lodge for a summer at a
cottage in the village of Three Mile Cross, near Read-
ing, and there they held on for the rest of Dr. Mitford's
long life. The poetess looked round her, and described
in prose what she saw, sending the papers which, col-
lected, form the celebrated "Our Village," to Campbell
for the New Monthly Magazine. Campbell made the
mistake of rejecting them — an error in which he was
followed by a great number and variety of other editors.

[IV]

A prize in a
lottery.

Becomes an
authoress.

"Our

Pillage."

MARY RUSSELL MITFORD.

[IV]

Father and
daughter.

It was in The Lady's Magazine, of all places, that articles
destined to make a literary reputation of no mean order
first appeared. They were published in a collected form
in 1823 ; and from that time forward Miss Mitford was
sure of the guineas whenever she chose to draw for them
in the form of pleasant stores under her well-known and
welcome signature. Few of her many readers, however,
knew at what cost these pleasant stones were produced.
They seem to flow easily enough ; and their sportive
style suggests anything but the toil and anxiety amidst
which they were spun out. It is observable that each
story is as complete and rounded as a sonnet, and pro-
vided with a plot which would serve for a novel if ex-
panded. Each has a catastrophe — generally a surprise,
elaborately wrought out in concealment. It was for
stories of this kind that Miss Mitford exchanged the
earlier and easier sketches from the Nature around her
which we find in "Our Village;" and the exchange
increased immensely the call upon her energies. But
the money must be had, and the Annuals paid hand-
somely ; and thus, therefore, the devoted daughter em-
ployed her talents, spoiling her father, and wearing
herself out, but delighting an enormous number of
readers. After frittering away the whole day, incessantly
on foot, or otherwise fatiguing herself, at his beck and
call, and receiving his friends, and reading him to sleep in
the afternoons till she had no voice left, the hour came
when she might put him to bed. But her own day's
work still remained to be done. It was not a sort of
work which could be done by powers, jaded like hers,
without some stimulus or relief; and hence the necessity
of doses of laudanum to carry her through her task.
When the necessity ceased by the death of her father,

MARY RUSSELL MITFORD.

her practice of taking laudanum ceased ; but her health
had become radically impaired, and her nervous system
was rendered unfit to meet any such shock as that which
overthrew it at last. Miss Mitford so toiling by candle-
light, while the hard master who had made her his ser-
vant all day was asleep in the next room, is as painful
an instance of the struggles of human life as the melan-
choly of a buffoon, or the heart-break — that "secret
known to all" — of a boasting Emperor of All the Russias.
While this was her course of life, however, she was
undergoing something of an intellectual training, to-
gether with her moral discipline. All this reading to her
father, and the impossibility of commanding her time
for any other employment than reading by snatches
(except gardening), brought her into acquaintance with
a wide field of English literature ; and some of it of an
uncommon kind. The fruits are seen in one of her
latest works — her "Notes of a Literary Life ;" and in her
indomitable inclination to write Tragedies for immediate
representation. Several of her plays were acted ; and
she herself was wont to declare that she should be im-
mortalized by them, if at all ; moreover, there are critics
who agree with her : yet her case certainly appears to us
to be one of that numerous class in which the pursuit of
dramatic fame is a delusion and a snare. In no other
act or attempt of her life did Miss Mitford manifest any
of those qualities of mind which are essential to success
in this the highest walk of literature. It does not appear
that she had any insight into passion, any conception of
the depths of human character, or the scope of human
experience. Ability of a certain sort there is in her
plays; but no depth, and no compass. Four tragedies
and an opera of hers were acted at our first theatres ;

[IV]

Mhs

Mitford's

Plays.

MARY RUSSELL MITFORD.

[IV]

" Charles
/." and
" Crom-

A subscrip-
tion and a
pension.

and we hear no more of Julian, Foscari, Rienzi, or
Charles I. At first the difficulties were imputed to dra-
matic censors, and the great actors, and injudicious or
lukewarm friends ; but all that was over long ago. The
tragedies were acted, and we hear no more of them. It
is true Mr. Colman did refuse his sanction to Charles I.
when it bore the name Cromwell (an amusing incident to
have happened in the reign of poor William IV., whose
simple head was very safe on his shoulders) ; and it is
true that Young and Macready wrangled so long about
the principal characters in her first acted play, that the
tantalized authoress began to wonder whether it would
ever appear : but the plays have all appeared ; and they
do not keep the stage, though Miss Mitford's friends
were able and willing to do all that interest, literary and
dramatic, can do in such a case. All the evidence of
her career seems to show that her true line was that in
which she obtained an early, decisive, and permanent
success — much humbler than the Dramatic, but that in
which she has given a great deal of pleasure to a multi-
tude of readers. Her descriptions of scenery, brutes,
and human beings have such singular merit that she
may be regarded as the founder of a new style ; and if
the freshness wore off with time, there was much more
than a compensation in the fine spirit and resignation
of cheerfulness which breathed through everything she
wrote, and endeared her as a suffering friend to thousands
who formerly regarded her only as a most entertaining
stranger.

Dr. Mitford died in 1842, leaving his affairs in such a
state, that relief for his daughter had to be obtained by
a subscription among her friends and admirers, which
was soon followed by a pension from the Crown. The

MARY RUSSELL MITFORD.

43

daughter inherited or contracted some of her father's
extremely easy feelings about money, and its sources
and uses ; but the temptation to that sort of laxity was
removed or infinitely lessened when she was left alone
with a very sufficient provision. She removed to a
cottage at Swallowfield, near Reading, in 1851 ; and there,
with her pony-chaise, her kind neighbors, her distant
admirers, and the amusement of bringing out a succes-
sion of volumes, the materials of which were under her
hand, she found resources enough to make her days
cheerful, even after the accident which rendered her a
suffering prisoner for the last two years of her life. She
remained to the end the most sympathizing and indul-
gent friend of the young, and the most good-humored
of comrades to people of all ages and conditions. How-
ever helpless, she was still bright : and her vitality of
mind and heart was never more striking or more genial
than when she was visibly dying by inches, and alluding
with a smile to the deep and still bed which she should
occupy among the sunshine and flickering shadows of
the village churchyard. Finally, the long exhaustion
ended in an easy and quiet death.

Though not gifted with lofty genius, or commanding
powers of any sort, Miss Mitford has been sufficiently
conspicuous in the literary history of her time to claim
an expression of respect and regret on her leaving us.
Her talents and her character were essentially womanly ;
and she was fortunate in living in an age when womanly
ability in the department of Letters obtains respect and
observance, as sincerely and readily as womanly character
commands reverence and affection in every age.

[IV]

Her life at

Sivalloio-

feld.

V.

Her con-
scientious-
ness.

CHARLOTTE BRONTE1

("CURRER BELL").

DIED MARCH 3ist, 1855.

" CURRER BELL" is dead! The early death of the
large family of whom she was the sole survivor, pre-
pared all who knew the circumstances to expect the
loss of this gifted creature at any time ; but not the less
deep will be the grief of society that her genius will
yield us nothing more. We have three works from her,
which will hold their place in the literature of our
century ; and but for her frail health, there might have
been three times three, for she was under forty, and her
genius was not of an exhaustible kind. If it had been
exhaustible, it would have been exhausted some time
since. She had every inducement that could have
availed with one less high-minded to publish two or
three novels a year. Fame waited upon all she did ; and
she might have enriched herself by very slight exertion ;
but her steady conviction was that the publication of a

1 In signing her letters, and giving her address, Charlotte spelt her
name Brontl. But on the monumental stone in the church where they
worshipped, where the successive deaths of the whole family are recorded,
the name stands as Bronte ; and this must be considered the established
spelling.

CHARLOTTE BRONTE.

45

book is a solemn act of conscience ; in the case of a
novel as much as any other kind of book. She was not
fond of speaking of herself and her conscience ; but she
now and then uttered to her very few friends things
which may, alas ! be told now, without fear of hurting
her sensitive nature, — things which ought to be told in
her honor. Among these sayings was one which ex-
plains the long interval between her works. She said
that she thought every serious delineation of life ought
to be the product of personal experience and observation,
— experience naturally occurring, and observation of a
normal, and not of a forced or special kind. ' ' I have
not accumulated, since I published ' Shirley/ " she said,
' ' what makes it needful for me to speak again ; and,
fill I do, may God give me grace to be dumb 1" She
had a conscientiousness which could not be relaxed
by praise or even sympathy — dear as sympathy was to
her keen affections. She had no vanity which praise
could aggravate or censure mortify. She calmly read all
adverse reviews of her books for the sake of instruction ;
and when she could not recognize the aptness of the
criticism, she was more puzzled than hurt or angry.
The common flatteries which wait upon literary success
she quizzed with charming grace ; and any occasional
severity, such as literary women are favored with at the
beginning of their course, she accepted with a humility
which was full of dignity and charm. From her feeble
constitution of body, her sufferings by the death of her
whole family, and the secluded and monotonous life she
led, she became morbidly sensitive in some respects ;
but in her high vocation she had, in addition to the deep
intuitions of a gifted woman, the strength of a man, the
patience of a hero, and the conscientiousness of a saint.

[V]

The long
interval
between her
works.

46

CHARLOTTE BRONTE.

[V]

Her pictures
of lift.

Schooldays
and after.

In the points in which women are usually most weak —
in regard to opinion, to appreciation, to applause — her
moral strength fell not a whit behind the intellectual
force manifested in her works. Though passion occupies
too prominent a place in her pictures of Life, though
women have to complain that she represents Love as
the whole and sole concern of their lives, and though
governesses especially have reason to remonstrate, and
do remonstrate, that their share of human conflict is
laid open somewhat rudely and inconsiderately, and
with enormous exaggeration, to social observation, it is
a true social blessing that we have had a female writer
who has discountenanced sentimentalism and feeble ego-
tism with such practical force as is apparent in the
works of "Currer Bell." Her heroines love too readily,
too vehemently, and sometimes after a fashion which
their female readers may resent ; but they do their duty
through everything, and are healthy in action, however
morbid in passion.

How admirable this strength is — how wonderful this
force of integrity — can hardly be understood by any but
the few who know the story of this remarkable woman's
life. The account of the school in "Jane Eyre" is
only too true. The " Helen" of that tale is — not pre-
cisely the eldest sister, who died there — but more like
her than any other real person. She is that sister, "with
a difference." Another sister died at home soon after
leaving the school, and in consequence of its hardships ;
and "Currer Bell" (Charlotte Bronte) was never free,
while there (for a year and a half), from the gnaw-
ing sensation, or consequent feebleness, of downright
hunger ; and she never grew an inch from that time.
She was the smallest of women ; and it was that school

CHARLOTTE BRONTE.

47

which stunted her growth. As she tells us in "Jane
Eyre," the visitation of an epidemic caused a total
change and radical reform in the establishment, which
was even removed to another site. But the reform came
too late to reverse the destiny of the doomed family of
the Brontes.

These wonderful girls were the daughters of a clergy-
man, who, now1 very aged and infirm, survives his wife
and all his many children. The name Bronte (an
abbreviation of Bronterre) is Irish, and very ancient.
The mother died many years ago, and several of her
children. When the reading world began to have an
interest in their existence, there were three sisters and
a brother living with their father at Haworth, near
Keighley, in Yorkshire. The girls had been out as
governesses : Charlotte at Brussels, as is no secret to the
readers of "Villette." They rejoiced to meet again at
home— Charlotte, Emily, and Ann ("Currer," "Ellis,"
and "Acton"). In her obituary notice of her two sis-
ters, "Currer" reveals something of their process of
authorship, and their experience of failure and success.
How terrible some of their experience of life was, in
the midst of the domestic freedom and indulgence af-
forded them by their studious father, may be seen by
the fearful representations of masculine nature and
character found in the novels and tales of Emily and
Ann. They considered it their duty, they told us, to
present life as they knew it ; and they gave us ' ' Wuth-
ering Heights," and "The Tenant of Wildfiell Hall."
Such an experience as this indicates is really perplex-
ing to English people in general ; and all that we
have to do with it is to bear it in mind when dis-
1 1855-

[V]

The Bronte
family.

48

CHARLOTTE BRONTE.

[V]

" Jane
Eyre" and

Charlotte
Bronte,

posed to pass criticism on the coarseness which to a
certain degree pervades the works of all the sisters,
and the repulsiveness which makes the tales by Emily
and Ann really horrible to people who have not iron
nerves.

"Jane Eyre" was naturally and universally supposed
to be Charlotte herself ; but she always denied it calmly,
cheerfully, and with the obvious sincerity which charac-
terized all she said. She declared that there was no
more ground for the assertion than this : she once told
her sisters that they were wrong — even morally wrong — in
making their heroines beautiful, as a matter of course.
They replied that it was impossible to make a heroine
interesting on other terms. Her answer was : "I will
prove to you that you are wrong. I will show to you a
heroine as small and as plain as myself, who shall be as
interesting as any of yours." "Hence 'Jane Eyre,'"
said she, in telling the anecdote : ' ' but she is not my-
self any further than that." As the work went on, the
interest deepened to the writer. When she came to
"Thornfield," she could not stop. Being short-sighted
to excess, she wrote in little square paper books, held
close to her eyes, and (the first copy) in pencil. On she
went, writing incessantly for three weeks ; by which time
she had carried her heroine away from Thornfield, and
was herself in a fever, which compelled her to pause.
The rest was written with less vehemence, and with
more anxious care : the world adds, with less vigor and
interest. She could gratify her singular reserve in regard
to the publication of this remarkable book. We all
remember how long it was before we could learn who
wrote it, and any particulars of the writer, when the
name was revealed. She was living among the wild

CHARLOTTE BRONTE. 49

Yorkshire hills, with a father who was too much absorbed
in his studies to notice her occupations : in a place where
newspapers were never seen (or where she never saw any),
and in a house where the servants knew nothing about
books, manuscripts, proofs, or the post. When she told
her secret to her father, she carried her book in one hand
and an adverse review in the other, to save his simple and
unworldly mind from rash expectations of a fame and for-
tune which she was determined should never be the aims
of her life. That we have had only two novels since,
shows how deeply grounded was this resolve.

" Shirley " was conceived and wrought out in the midst
of fearful domestic griefs. Her only brother, a young
man of once splendid promise, which was early blighted,
and both her remaining sisters, died in one year. There
was something inexpressibly affecting in the aspect of the
frail little creature who had done such wonderful things,
and who was able to bear up, with so bright an eye and so
composed a countenance, under not only such a weight
of sorrow, but such an prospect of solitude. In her deep
mourning dress (neat as a Quaker's), with her beautiful
hair, smooth and brown, her fine eyes, and her sensible
face indicating a habit of self-control, she seemed a per-
fect household image — irresistibly recalling Wordsworth's
description of that domestic treasure. And she was this.
She was as able at the needle as at the pen. The house-
hold knew the excellence of her cookery before they
heard of that of her books. In so utter a seclusion as
she lived in — in those dreary wilds where she was not
strong enough to roam over the hills ; in that retreat
where her studious father rarely broke the silence — and
there was no one else to. do it; in that forlorn house,
planted on the very clay of the churchyard, where the

3

[V]

Domestic
griefs.

CHARLOTTE BRONTE.

[V]

Her

marriage.

graves of her sisters were before her window ; in such a
living sepulchre, her mind could not but prey upon itself;
and how it did suffer, we see in the more painful portions
of her last novel, ' ' Villette. " She said, with a change in
her steady countenance, that she should feel very lonely
when her aged father died. But she formed new ties after
that. She married ; and it is the old father who survives
to mourn her. He knows, to his comfort, that it is not
for long. Others now mourn her, in a domestic sense ;
and as for the public, there can be no doubt that a pang
will be felt, in the midst of the strongest interests of the
day, through the length and breadth of the land, and in
the very heart of Germany (where her works are singularly
appreciated), France, and America, that the "Currer Bell"
who so lately stole as a shadow into the field of contem-
porary literature has already become a shadow again —
vanished from our view, and henceforth haunting only the
memory of the multitude whose expectation was fixed
upon her.

VI.

SAMUEL ROGERS.
DIED DECEMBER i8xH, 1855.

THE author of " The Pleasures of Memory" has died at
his house in St. James's-place, in the ninety-sixth year of
his age.

Samuel Rogers has been spoken of, ever since anybody
can remember, as "Rogers the Poet." It is less as a
poet, however, that his name will live than as a Patron of
Literature — probably the last of that class who will in
England be called a Mecaenas. His life was a remarkable
one, from the great age he attained during a critical period
of civilization ; and his function was a remarkable one —
that of representing the bridge over which Literature has
passed from the old condition of patronage to the new one
of independence. He heard "the talk of the town" (re-
corded by Dr. Adams) on Johnson's Letter to Lord Ches-
terfield ; and he lived to see the improvement of the Copy-
right law, the removal of most of the Taxes on Knowledge,
and so vast an increase of the reading public as has ren-
dered the function of patron of authorship obsolete. No
patron could now help an author to fame ; and every au-
thor who has anything genuine to say can say it without
dreaming of any application to a rich man. Samuel

An English
Mecanas.

SAMUEL ROGERS.

[VI]

Contempo-
rary events.

Rogers lived through the whole period when the publish-
ers were the patrons, and witnessed the complete success
of Mr. Dickens's plan of independence of the publishers
themselves. He was a youth of fifteen or thereabouts
when half "the town" was scandalized at Dr. Johnson's
audacity in saying what he did to Lord Chesterfield ; and
the other half was delighted at the courage of the rebuke.
It was not long before that the "Letters of Junius" had
burst upon the political world ; and Rogers was quite old
enough to understand the nature of the triumph when the
prosecution of Woodfall failed, and the press preserved its
liberty under the assaults of Royal and Ministerial dis-
pleasure. His connections in life fixed his attention full
on the persecution of Priestley and other vindicators of
liberty of speech ; while he saw, in curious combination
with this phase, that kind of patronage which even the
Priestleys of those days accepted as a matter of course :—
Dr. Priestley living with Lord Shelburne, without office ;
and afterward, his being provided with an income by the
subscription of friends, to enable him to carry on his phil-
osophical researches. Then came the new aspect of things,
when the Byrons, the Moores, Campbells, and Scotts,
were the clients of the Murrays, the Longmans, and the
Constables — that remarkable but rather short transition
stage when, as Moore said, the patrons learned perforce,
through interest, the taste which had not been formed by
education. Those were the days of bookselling
monopoly, when the publisher decided what the
reading public should have to read, and at what
price. Rogers saw that monopoly virtually destroyed ; the
greatness of the great houses passing away, or re-
duced to that of trade eminence simply; and authors
and the public brought face to face, or certain to

SAMUEL ROGERS.

53

be so presently. His own function, all the while, was a
mixed one, in accordance with the changes of the time.
He was, in the course of his long life, both client and
patron ; and for a great part of it he was both at once.
His purse was open to the poor author, and his influence
with the great publishers was at his service, while he
himself sat at great men's tables as a poet and a wit,
more even than as a connoisseur in Art; and certainly
much more than as a rich banker. The last character
he kept out of sight as much as possible. When, some
years since, his bank was robbed to so enormous an
amount by the pillage, of a safe that everybody supposed
it must stop payment ; and when it did not stop, and all
his great friends testified their sympathy first, and then
their joy, it was a curious thing to observe the old poet's
bearing, and to hear the remarks upon it. He was won-
derfully reserved, and passed off the whole with a few
quiet jokes, through which was plainly seen his mortifica-
tion at being recognized as a banker, in a sphere where
he hoped he was known as an associate of the great, and
the first connoisseur in pictures in England.

His was not a case of early determination of the
course of life. In his early youth, his father one evening
asked all his boys what they would be. Sam would not
tell unless he might write it down, for nobody but his
father to see. What he wrote was, "A Unitarian min-
ister." He was destined for business, however; but his
love of literature was not thwarted by it. We have seen
Moore die in decrepit old age; yet did Moore, in his
boyhood (when he was fourteen), delight in Rogers's
" Pleasures of Memory" — the poem being then so
common as to have found its way into schools in class-
books and collections. When young Horner came to

[VI]

The poet
and ivit

and banker

54

SAMUEL ROGERS.

[VI]

In middle
age.

London to begin his career, he found Rogers a member
of the King of Clubs, the intimate of Mackintosh (who
was his junior), Scarlett, Sharpe, and others — long gone
to the grave as old men — and one, Maltby, who was a
twin wonder with himself as to years. The last evening
that Mackintosh spent in London before his departure
for India was at Rogers's. " Somewhat a melancholy
evening" we are told it was ; and the host, then between
forty and fifty, must have felt the uncertainty of the party
reassembling, to spend more such evenings as those that
were gone. And some were dead before Mackintosh
returned ; but the host lived to tell, half a century after-
ward, of the sober sadness of that parting converse. It
was Rogers who "blabbed" about the duel between
Jeffrey and Moore, and was the cause of their folly being
rendered harmless ; and it was he who bailed Moore : it
was he who negotiated a treaty of peace between them ;
and it was at his house that they met and^became friends.
Such were his services of one kind to literature — using
his dignity of seniority to keep these young wits in order.
He must have been lively in those days — " the Bachelor,"
as his name was among his friends ; and he never married.
Moore names him as one "of those agreeable rattles
who seem to think life such a treat that they never can
get enough of it." One wonders whether he had had
enough of it fifty years later, when Sydney Smith (one of
"the agreeable rattles") had long laid down his, after
having for some time told his comrades that he thought
life "a very middling affair," and should not be sorry
when he had done with it. There was much to render
life agreeable to a man of Rogers's tastes, it must be
owned. He saw Garrick, and watched the entire career
of every good actor since. All the Kembles fell within

SAMUEL ROGERS.

55

his span. He heard the first remarks on the "Vicar of
Wakefield," and read, damp from the press, all the fiction
that has appeared since from the Burneys, the Edge-
worths, the Scotts, the Dickenses, and the Thackerays.
As for the poetry, he was aghast at the rapidity with
which the Scotts, Byrons, and Moores poured out their
works; and even Campbell was too quick for him, — he,
with all his leisure, and being always at it, producing to
the amount of two octavo volumes in his whole life.
The charge of haste and incompleteness alleged against
his ''Columbus/' in the Edinburgh Revieiv, forty years
since, was very exasperating to him ; and so absurd that
one cannot but suspect Sydney Smith of being the
author of it, for the sake of contrast with his conver-
sational description of Rogers's method of composition.
Somebody asked, one day, whether Rogers had written
anything lately. "Only a couplet," was the reply — (the
couplet being his celebrated epigram on Lord Dudley).
" Only a couplet!" exclaimed Sydney Smith. "Why,
what would you have ? When Rogers produces a couplet,
he goes to bed, and the knocker is tied, — and straw is
laid down, — and caudle is made, — and the answer to
inquiries is, that Mr. Rogers is as well as can be expected."
Thus, while he was cogitating his few pages of verse,
"daily adding couplets," as Moore said, showing a forth-
coming poem in boards, "but still making alterations,"
he was now and then seeing a whole new world of poetical
subject and treatment laid open ; and not seldom helping
to facilitate the disclosure. Moore always said that he
owed to Rogers the idea of "Lalla Rookh." Rogers
had lingered so long over his story of the "Foscari,"
that Byron did it first, to his great distress ; but he re-
ceived the drama with a very good grace. Meantime,

[VI]

His method
of com-
position.

SAMUEL ROGERS.

[VI]

His deeds of
munificence.

The draw-
backs.

he was always substantially helping poor poets. Besides
the innumerable instances, known only to his intimates,
of the attention he bestowed, as well as the money, in
the case of poetical basket-makers, poetical footmen, and
other such hopeless sons of the Muse, his deeds of mu-
nificence toward men of genius were too great to be
concealed. His aids to Moore have been recently made
known by the publication of Moore's Diaries. It was
Rogers who secured to Crabbe the 3,ooo/. from Murray,
which were in jeopardy before. He advanced 5oo/.
to Campbell to purchase a share of the Metropolitan
Magazine, and refused security. And he gave thought,
took trouble, used influence, and adventured advice.
This was the conduct and the method of the last of the
Patrons of Literature in England.

All honor to him for this ! But not the less must the
drawbacks be brought into the account. In recording
the last of any social phase, it is dishonest to present the
bright parts without the shadows ; and Rogers's remark-
able position was due almost as much to his faults as his
virtues. He was, plainly speaking, at once a flatterer
and a cynic. It was impossible for those who knew him
best to say, at any moment, whether he was in earnest or
covert jest. Whether he ever was in earnest, there is no
sort of evidence but his acts ; and the consequence was
that his flattery went for nothing, except with novices,
while his causticity bit as deep as he intended. He
would begin with a series of outrageous compliments, in
a measured style which forbade interruption ; and, if he
was allowed to finish, would go away and boast how
much he had made a victim swallow. He would accept
a constant seat at a great man's table, flatter his host
to the top of his bent, and then, as is upon record, go

SAMUEL ROGERS.

57

away and say that the company there was got up by
conscription — that there were two parties before whom
everybody must appear, his host and the police. Where
it was safe, he would try his sarcasms on the victims
themselves. A multitude of his sayings are rankling in
people's memories which could not possibly have had
any other origin than the love of giving pain. Some
were so atrocious as to suggest the idea that he had a
sort of psychological curiosity to see how people could
bear such inflictions. Those who could bear them, and
especially those who despised them, stood well with him.
In that case, there was something more like reality in the
tone of his subsequent intercourse than in ordinary cases.
The relation which this propensity of his bore to his
position was direct. It placed him at great men's tables
and kept him there, more than any other of his qualifi-
cations. His poetry alone would not have done it. His
love and knowledge of Art would not have done it ; and
much less his wealth. His causticity was his pass-key
everywhere. Except the worship paid to the Railway
King for his wealth, we know of nothing in modern
society so extraordinary and humiliating as the deference
paid to Rogers for his ill-nature. It became a sort of
public apprehension, increasing with his years, till it
ceased to be disgraceful in the eyes of the coteries, and
the flatterer was flattered, and the backbiter was pro-
pitiated, almost without disguise or shame, on account of
his bitter wit. " Rogers amusing and sarcastic as usual;"
— this note of Moore's may stand as the general de-
scription of him by those who hoped, each for himself,
to propitiate the cynic. As age advanced upon him, the
admixture of the generous and the malignant in him
became more singular. A footman robbed him of a

3*

[VI]

His ill-
nature, and
the deference
paid to it.

SAMUEL ROGERS.

[VI]

A curious

human

problem.

large quantity of plate ; and of a kind which was in-
estimable to him. He was incensed, and desired never
to hear of the fellow more, — the man having absconded.
Not many months afterward, Rogers was paying the
passage to New York of the man's wife and family —
somebody having told him that that family junction
might afford a chance of the man's reformation. Such
were his deeds at the very time that his tongue was
dropping verjuice, and his wit was sneering behind backs
at a whole circle of old friends and hospitable enter-
tainers. Such was the curious human problem offered
to the analyst of character, and such is the needful expla-
nation of the mixed character of client and patron which
Rogers sustained to the last.

His celebrated literary breakfasts will not be forgotten
during the generation of those who enjoyed them. They
became at last painful when the aged man's memory
failed while his causticity remained. His hold on life
was very strong. He who was an authority on the
incidents of the Hastings' trial, and who was in Fox's
room when he was dying, — he who saw George III. a
young man, and was growing into manhood when John-
son went to the Hebrides, survived for several years
being run over by a cab of the construction of the
middle of the nineteenth century. His poetry could
scarcely be said to live so long as himself, as it was rather
the illustrations with which it was graced than the verse
itself that kept the volumes on sale and within view.
The elegance and correctness of his verse are beyond
question; but the higher and more substantial qualities
of true poetry will hardly be recognized there. It should
be remembered that there is a piece of prose writing of
his of which Mackintosh said that "Hume could not

SAMUEL ROGERS. 59

improve the thoughts nor Addison the language." That
gem is the piece on Assassination, in his "Italy." In it
may be clearly traced the influence of his early noncon-
formist education. When he wrote it, half a lifetime
ago, worldliness had not quite choked the good seed of
early-sown philosophy ; and the natural magnanimity of
the man was not extinguished by the passions — as strong
as any in their way — which spring from the soil of con-
ventionalism. If Rogers is to be judged by his writings,
let it be by such fragments as that little essay : if further,
by his deeds rather than his words. So may the world
retain the fairest remembrance of the last English
Mecaenas, and the only man among us perhaps who has
illustrated in his own person the position at once of
patron and of client.

[VI]

VII.

Conspicuous
in politics
and
literature.

JOHN WILSON CROKER.
DIED AUGUST loth, 1857.

JOHN WILSON CROKER was a conspicuous man during a
long course of years in politics and literature. He was
widely known as Secretary to the Admiralty — which
office he held for one-and-twenty years ; as a Member of
Parliament for twenty-five years ; as an industrious and
accomplished author ; and, above all, perhaps, as the
wickedest of reviewers, — that is, as the author of the foul
and false political articles in the Quarterly Review, which
stand out as the disgrace of the periodical literature of
our time. His natural abilities, his capacity and inclina-
tion for toil, the mingled violence and causticity of his
temper, and his entire unscrupulousness in matters both
of feeling and of statement, combined to make him a
remarkable, if not a very loveable personage, and a
useful though not very honorable member of a political
party.

He was the son of the Surveyor-General of Ireland,
and was born in that Connaught which was then the
"hell" of the empire. "To Hell or Connaught," was
still the imprecation of the day when Croker was born ;
that is, in 1780. He was always called an Irishman ;
and very properly, as Galway was his native place ; but he

JOHN WILSON CROKER.

61

was of English descent. As for temperament, we do not
know that either England or Ireland would be very anx-
ious to claim him : and he certainly was sui generis — re-
markably independent of the influences which largely af-
fect the characters of most men. He was educated at
Trinity College, Dublin, and was called to the bar in 1802.
His first publication, " Familiar. Epistles to F. E. Jones,
Esq.," shows that his proneness to sarcasm existed
early ; but the higher qualities which once made him
the hope of the Tory party were then so much more
vigorous than at a later time, ' that the expectations
excited by the outset of his public life were justifiable.
It was in 1 807 that he entered Parliament, as Member
for Downpatrick ; and within two years he was Secretary
to the Admiralty. He had by that time given high proof
of his ability in his celebrated pamphlet on the "Past
and Present State of Ireland." The authorship was for
some time uncertain. Because it was candid and pain-
fully faithful, the Edinburgh Review, so early as 1813,
could not believe it to be his ; while, on the other hand,
there was the wonder that the man who so wrote about
Ireland should be so speedily invited to office by the
Government under Perceval. That Irish pamphlet
may be now regarded as perhaps the most honorable
achievement of Mr. Croker's long life of authorship.

Just before this he had joined with Mr. Canning,
Walter Scott, George Ellis, Mr. Morritt, and others, in
setting up the Quarterly Review, the first number of
which appeared in the spring of 1 809. The Edinburgh
Review had then existed seven years ; and while obnox-
ious to the Tory party for its politics, it was not less so
to the general public for the reckless ferocity of some of
its criticism, in those its early days. If the Quarterly

[VII]

His Irish
pamphlet.

The

" Quarterly
Review"

62

JOHN WILSON CROKER.

[VII]

Mac aul ay's
character
of Croker.

proposed to rebuke this sin by example, it was rather
curious that Mr. Croker should be its most extensive
and constant contributor for forty years — seeing that he
carried the license of anonymous criticism to the last
extreme. Before he had done his work in that depart-
ment, he had earned for himself — purchased by hard
facts — the following character, calmly uttered by one ot
the first men of the time:1 — " Croker is a man who
would go a hundred miles through sleet and snow, on
the top of a coach, in a December night, to search a
parish register, for the sake of showing that a man is
illegitimate, or a woman older than she says she is."
He had actually gone down into the country to find
the register of Fanny Burney's baptism, and revelled in
the exposure of a misstatement of her age ; and the
other half of the charge was understood to have been
earned in the same way. He did not begin his Quarterly
reviewing with the same virulence which he manifested
in his later years. That malignant ulcer of the mind,
engendered by political disappointment, at length ab-
sorbed his better qualities. It is necessary to speak
thus frankly of the temper of the man, because his state-
ments must in justice be discredited ; and because justice
requires that the due discrimination be made between
the honorable and generous-minded men who ennoble
the function of criticism by the spirit they throw into it,
and one who, like Croker, employed it at last for the
gratification of his own morbid inclination to inflict pain.
The propensity was so strong in Croker's case, that we
find him unable to resist it even in regard to his old and
affectionate friend Walter Scott, and at a time when that
old friend was sinking in adversity and disease. He

1 Macaulay.

JOHN WILSON CROKER.

reviewed in the London Courier Scott's ' ' Malagrowther
Letters/' in 1826, in a way which called forth the delicate
and touching rebuke contained in Scott's letter to him,
dated March ipth of that year, — a rebuke remembered
long after the trespass that occasioned it was disregarded
as a peice of "Croker's malignity." The latest instance
of this sort of controversy called forth by Mr. Croker's
public vituperation of his oldest and dearest friends, was
the series of letters that passed between him and Lord
John Russell, after the publication of Moore's ' ' Diaries
and Correspondence. " Up to the last his victims refused
to believe, till compelled, that the articles had proceeded
from his pen — well as they knew his spirit of reviewing.
When he had been staying at Drayton Manor, not long
before Sir Robert Peel's death, had been not only hospita-
bly entertained but kindly ministered to under his infirmi-
ties of deafness and bad health, and went home to cut up
his host in a political article for the forthcoming Quarterly
— his fellow-guests at Drayton refused as long as possible
to believe the article to be his ; and in the same way, as
Lord John Russell informed him, Mrs. Moore would not
for a long time credit the fact that the review of the poet's
Life was his, saying she had always understood Mr. Cro-
ker to be her husband's friend. It was in the Quarterly that
the disappointed politician vented his embittered feelings,
as indeed he himself avowed. He declared, when Lord
Grey came into office, that he did not consider his pension
worth three months' purchase ; that he should therefore lay
it by while he had it, and make his income by ' ' tomahawk-
ing" liberal authors in the Quarterly. He did it, not only
by writing articles upon them, but by interpolating other
people's articles with his own sarcasms and slanders, so as
to compel the real reviewers, in repeated instances, to de-

[VII]

Vitupera-
tion of his
oldest
friends.

JOHN WILSON CROKER.

[VII]

In Par-
liament.

mand the republication of their articles in a genuine state
and a separate form.

When he entered Parliament, he was an admirable deba-
ter— ready, acute, bold, well furnished with information,
and not yet so dangerously reckless as to make him feared
by his own party. It is rather strange now to find his name
foremost in the list of parliamentary orators in the books
of foreigners visiting England after the Peace. He was
listened to by the House as an inferior kind of Disraeli,
for the amusement afforded by his sarcasm ; and foreign-
ers mistook this manifestation of the old English bull-bait-
ing spirit for an evidence of the parliamentary weight of the
satirist ; and a House of Commons that enjoys that sort
of sport deserves the French commentary — the imputation
of being led by a Croker. There were occasions, however,
on which he appeared to advantage on other grounds than
his sarcastic wit. It should be remembered that it was he
who, in 1821, before Catholic Emancipation could be sup-
posed near at hand, proposed to enable the Crown to
make a suitable provision for the Catholic clergy. Lord
Castlereagh opposed the motion, which was necessarily
withdrawn ; but Mr. Croker declared that he considered
the principle safe, and should bring forward the measure
till it should be adopted. He was steady to the object,
and in 1825 actually obtained a majority upon it in the
Commons ; and there is no question of his earnestness
in desiring a measure of considerable relief to the con-
sciences and liberties of the Catholic body.

He held his ground with the chiefs of his own party by
other qualities than his official ability. His command of de-
tail was remarkable ; and so were his industry and his sa-
gacity within a small range. His zeal for party interests was
also. great — a zeal shown in his eagerness to fill up places

JOHN WILSON CROKER.

with party adherents, from the laureateship (which he pro-
cured for Southey) to the lowest office that could be filled
by an electioneering agent ; but he was also a most accept-
able political gossip. It was this which made him a fre-
quent guest at rhe Regent's table, and an inimitable
acquaintance at critical seasons of ministerial change,
when such men as he revel in the incidents of the day,
and in the manifestation of such human vices and weak-
nesses as come out, together with noble virtues, in the
conflict of personal interests. The congenial spirit of the
Beacon newspaper, which made such a noise in 1822,
made him the proper recipient of Scott's confidence on
the matter ; and to him therefore Scott addressed his
painful explanations, as they stand in the Life. It is
probable that the intercourse between him and Scott,
though not without an occasional ruffle, was about the
most cordial that the survivor ever enjoyed. Scott's real
geniality and politic obtuseness to offence enabled him to
bear more than most men would : and, in their literary
relations, he contrived to show himself the debtor. He
avowed that his "Tales of a Grandfather" were suggested
and modelled by Croker's "Stories from the History of
England ;" and he was aided in his "Life of Napoleon"
by Croker's loans of masses of papers. He met Cabinet
Ministers, by the half-dozen at a time, at the Secretary's
table ; and received from him reports of handsome sayings
of the Regent about him. The cordiality could not, on
Croker's side, withstand the temptation to insult a friend
through the press, as he showed at the very time by his
remarks on Malagrowlher ; but on Scott's side it was
hearty. When the political changes of 1827 were going
forward, his first thought seems to have been for Croker.
"I fear Croker will shake," he wrote, "and heartily sorry

[VII]

Croker and
Scott.

66

JOHN WILSON CROKER.

[VII]

The Reform
Bill.

Retiring
from public
life.

I should feel for that." The shaking, however, only
shook Croker more firmly into his place and function.
In 1828 he became a Privy Councillor; and he retained
his Admiralty office till 1830. It was the Reform Bill
that destroyed him politically. It need not have done so.
There was no more reason for it in his case than in that of
any of his comrades ; but he willed political suicide. He
declared that he would never sit in a reformed House
of Commons ; and he never did. He expected revolu-
tion ; and he thought it prudent to retire while he could
yet save life and fortune. His view is shown by his
mournful account in the House of the spectacle of a
Montmorenci rising in the French Constituent Assembly,
to propose the extinction of feudal rights and dignities,
such as his ancestors had earned and been ennobled
by ; and he let fall no word to show that he recognized
any grandeur in the act. He thought that pitiable which
to others appears the crown of the nobleness of the
Montmorencis. He proposed to grant nothing to any
popular demand, because something might at length be
demanded which it would be impossible to grant; and
before the shadows of the possible evils which he con-
jured up, he retired from public life, leaving its actual
difficulties to be dealt with by men of a higher courage
and a more disinterested patriotism. His Political
action, for the rest of his life, consisted merely in the
articles he put forth in the Quarterly Review, — articles
which (to say nothing of their temper) show such feeble-
ness of insight, such a total incapacity to comprehend
the spirit and needs of the time, and such utter reck-
lessness about truth of both statement and principle,
that elderly readers are puzzled to account for the ex-
pectations they once had of the writer. It was the

JOHN WILSON CROKER.

67

heart element that was amiss. A good heart has won-
derful efficacy in making moderate talent available.
Where heart is absent, the most brilliant abilities fail,
as is said in such cases, "unaccountably." Where
heart is not absent, but is not good, the consequences
are yet more obvious ; the faculties waste and decline,
and the life sinks to nothing before death comes to close
the scene. It is impossible to avoid such reflections as
these, while contrasting the strength and goodness of
Croker's early work on Ireland with his latest judgments
on public affairs in the Quarterly Review, and his corre-
spondence with Lord John Russell on the business of the
"Moore's Diaries." It may be observed, by the way,
how such a spirit as his stirs up the dregs of other
people's tempers. Lord John Russell's note, in allusion
to Mr. Croker, in "Moore's Life," appears to be unneces-
sary ; he was moved to it by seeing Mrs. Moore stung
by the review ; and he met speedy retribution. Pain
was inflicted all round ; and Croker was the cause of
it all.

He was the author, editor, and translator of various
works, the chief of which is his edition of " Boswell's
Johnson," a book on which he spent much labor, and
which was regarded with high and trustful favor till
Mr. Macaulay overthrew its reputation for accuracy by
an exposure of a singular series of mistakes, attributable
to indolence, carelessness, or ignorance. That review
(which is republished among Macaulay's "Essays")
destroyed such reputation for scholarship as Mr. Croker
had previously enjoyed, and a good deal impaired that
of his industry. His other works of bulk are the
"Suffolk Papers," the " Military Events of the French
Revolution of 1830," a translation of " Bassompierre's

[VII]

Lord John
Russell's
allusion in
Moore^s
Life.

Croker's
works of
bulk.

68

JOHN WILSON CROKER.

[VII]

Thcdelinea-
tion in
'Coningsby.

Embassy to England," the "Letters of Lady Hervey,"
and " Lord Hervey's Memoirs of the Reign of George II."
Mr. Croker was an intimate of the late Lord Hertford ;
and his social footing was not improved by the choice
of such friendships, and the revelations made on the
trial of Lord Hertford's valet. In brief, his best place
was his desk at the Admiralty ; his best action was
in his office ; and the most painful part of his life was
the latter part, amidst an ignoble social reputation, and
the political odium attached to him by Mr. Disraeli's
delineation of him in ' ' Coningsby. " The virulent re-
viewer found in his old age the truth of the Eastern
proverb — "Curses are like chickens; they always come
home to roost." He tried to send them abroad again —
tried his utmost severity in attacks in the Quarterly on
Disraeli's Budget. But it was too late : and the painter
of the portrait of Rigby remained master of that field in
which the completest victory is the least enviable.

Looking round for something pleasanter on which to
rest the eye in the career of the unhappy old man who
has just departed, we may dwell on the good-will with
which he was regarded by such personal friends as never
were, and never could be, implicated with public affairs,
never tickled his passions, never vexed his prejudices,
and could honestly feel and express gratitude and respect
toward him. There are some who believe him to have
been an "amiable man in private life ;" and there must
have been substantial ground for an estimate so opposite
that which generally prevailed. Again, we may point out
that his name stands honorably on our new maps and
globes. He was Secretary to the Admiralty during the
earlier of the Polar Expeditions of this century ; and it is
understood that the most active and efficient assistance

JOHN WILSON CROKER. 69

was always given by him in the work of Polar discovery.
Long after political unscrupulousness and rancor are
forgotten, those higher landmarks of his voyage of life
will remain, and tell a future generation, to whom he
will be otherwise unknown, that there was one of his
name to whom our great Navigators felt grateful for assist-
ance in the noble service they rendered to their country
and all future time.

[VII]

VIII.

In her got A
year.

MRS. MARCET.
DIED JUNE 28TH, 1858.

As the instructress of an elder generation, Mrs. Marcet
may have dropped out of the view of the busiest part of
society as it now exists ; but it is not fitting that she
should go to her grave without some grateful notice.
The intimation of her death, in her 9Oth year, reminds
us of more than her own good services to Society : it
reminds us of the progress that Society has made since
she began to work for it ; and at a dark season like the
present, when men are everywhere feeling after an organic
state of political and social life, it is cheering and ani-
mating to note the advance made in other departments
— in Science on the one hand, and Education on the
other — toward something better than the loose, uncritical
state they were in when our aged friend (for she was the
friend of the entire elder generation) began her labors
for the promotion of intelligence in the middle classes of
England.

It appears wonderful that our instructress, who seemed
always so up to the time and so like ourselves, should
actually have been born in the year when Ganganelli was
made Pope, and when Hyder Alee was ravaging the
Carnatic, and Paoli flying from Corsica, and Wilkes's

MRS. MARCET.

Middlesex election was convulsing Parliament and people
at home; but so it was. She was born in 1769; and
she was thus a witness to the whole course of existence
of the American Republic. She might very well re-
member the Declaration of Independence, and the birth
of Political Economy, in the form of Adam Smith's
work, at the same date, she being seven years old at the
time ; and 'greatly astonished might she and her friends
have been, if they could have foreknown that before her
death her works would be text-books in many hundreds
of schools, and her pupils be tens of thousands of
young republicans, learning from her the principles of
Political Economy in a State peopled by nearly thirty
millions of inhabitants. Her alert and eager mind was
always picking up knowledge, and entertaining itself with
the interests of scientific society, long years before she
thought of imparting her amusements to the public.
Ancient as her earliest works now appear to the oldest of
us, they were not produced in early life. She was, we
believe, between forty and fifty when she began to write
for the public. Dr. Marcet's high repute as a physician
and a chemist placed her in the midst of scientific and
literary society ; while a constitutional restlessness which
always troubled her existence, and became at last an
insuperable malady, indicated the employment from
which she derived the greatest solace and relief the case
admitted of. It was under her husband's counsel and
guidance that she applied herself to authorship ; and he
witnessed her first successes before his death in 1822.

On the death of her father — Mr. Haldimand, an opu-
lent merchant, Swiss by birth, but settled in London,
who left a considerable fortune to this only daughter —
Dr. Marcet relinquished his appointment in Guy's Hos-

[VIII]

When she
began to
iv rite.

MRS. MARCET.

[VIII]

The " Con-
versa-
tions on
Chemistry^

Her

" Political
Economy"

pital, and the medical profession altogether, and devoted
himself exclusively to experimental Chemistry. His wife's
' ' Conversations on Chemistry" presently opened an en-
tirely fresh region of ideas to the mind of the rising gen-
eration of that day, to whom the very nature of chemical
science was a revelation. We may smile now at the sort
of science offered by that book — the dogmas, the hy-
potheses, the glib way of accounting for everything by
terms which are a mere name for ignorance ; but it was
a valuable book in its day ; and there was nobody else
to give it to us. Mrs. Marcet never made any false
pretensions. She never overrated her own books, nor,
consciously, her own knowledge. She sought informa-
tion from learned persons, believed she understood what
she was told, and generally did so ; wrote down in a
clear, cheerful, serviceable style what she had to tell ; sub-
mitted it to criticism, accepted criticism gayly, and always
protested against being ranked with authors of original
quality, whether discoverers in science or thinkers in
literature. She simply desired to be useful ; and she
was eminently so.

Her other works of the same class were almost as
widely diffused as the Chemistry. In 1817 her "Con-
versations on Political Economy" appeared ; and a sec-
ond edition was called for before the writer had time
to collect criticisms for its improvement. She purposely
omitted some leading questions altogether, as deeper
reasoners than herself were irresolute or at variance upon
them ; but she administered to young minds large sup-
plies of the wisdom of Adam Smith, in a form almost
as entertaining as the "Wealth of Nations" is to grown
readers. Her intimate acquaintance with Say, Malthus,
and other chiefs of that department of knowledge, helped

MRS. MARCET.

73

to enrich her work with some modern developments,
which prevented its becoming so soon antiquated as her
volumes on Natural Science ; and it is perhaps the book
by which she is best known to the present generation,
though her "Conversations on Natural Philosophy" and
on " Vegetable Physiology " came after it.

The grandmammas of our time, however, declare with
warmth, as do many mothers and governesses, that Mrs.
Marcet's very best books are her ' ' Stories for Very Little
Children ;" and certainly, judging by observation of
many little children, those .small volumes do appear to
be unique in their suitableness to the minds they were
addressed to. Mrs. Barbauld's "Early Lessons" were
good ; Miss Edgeworth's were better ; but Mrs. Marcet's
are transcendent, as far as they go. The capital com-
mon sense which little children are obstinate in requiring
in the midst of the widest circuits of imagination; the
simplicity, the apt language, the absence of all conde-
scension, and the avoidance of lecturing, on the one
hand, and of enhancement of the child's importance on
the other, are high virtues, and bring the little reader at
once face to face with his subject. Mrs. Marcet was
never herself offended at any prominence given to her
humblest books ; and we doubt not the willingness of
those who have charge of her memory to accept acknow-
ledgments graduated in the same manner. Her pleas-
ure in this kind of intercourse with childlike minds
somewhat impaired the quality of her later works,
"Mary's Grammar" and "Land and Water," which are
not only in what the Quarterly Review calls "the gar-
rulous form, " but too much of the garrulous order. Her
humbler applications of political economy in "John
Hopkins's Notions," and in other small pieces, were

4

[VIII]

As an
authoress
for children

74

MRS. MARCET.

[VIII]

Mrs.
Marcefs
good sense
and high
motives.

less successful than her earlier efforts. The fact was,
Mrs. Marcet hardly considered herself an author at all.
Full of vivacity, easily and strongly impressed, simple
under the strongest conventional influences, and essen-
tially humble under an appearance of self-confidence,
she was precisely fitted to work under incitement from
her friends, and to be at their command as to the way of
doing it. Flattery set her to work, but did her no real
harm ; for she was too genuine to be seriously befooled.
Criticisms set her to work to mend mistakes, and render
her books as useful as she could make them. Whig
partisans set her to work out of good-natured zeal for
her friends. Philanthropists set her to work by mere
representations of the evils caused by bad political
economy anywhere within reach of the press. It may be
confidently said that vanity never set her to work, nor love
of money, nor jealousy, nor any unworthy motive what-
ever. There were not wanting persons who did their
utmost to spoil her ; and the tractableness with which she
lent herself to their purposes caused many a smile ; but
she was never spoiled. Her nature was above it. This
does not exactly mean that the conventional life she led
produced no effect upon her. She suffered from it in
forming her estimate of life and of persons. Her good
sense was apt to be occasionally submerged in the spirit
of clique, and the prejudices of party, and the atmo-
sphere of complacency and mutual flattery, and bookish
gossip, and somewhat insolent worldliness in which the
Whig literary society which surrounded her revelled
during her most social years. But almost any other
woman of ability and celebrity would have suffered more
than she did. She let herself slide into other people's
management too much ; but yet she was always her own

MRS. MARCET.

75

honest self, humble at heart and generous in spirit, even
when appearing most conventional in her views, and pre-
judiced in her impressions.

No fine speeches from great men could spoil her as a
companion for children ; and the longest course of breath-
ing the atmosphere of Whig insolence never starved out
her sympathies with the sufferers of society. She did not
forget John Hopkins and little Willy in the society of
foreign ambassadors and ex-chancellors.

For some years she had been lost sight of, her ner-
vous malady having grievously prostrated her, it was
understood, in her extreme old age. We must hope that
she was more or less aware of the prodigious start for-
ward that Society had made since she first became its
instructress. In what a host of discoveries have her
chemical doctrines long been merged ! What a new
face has Natural Philosophy assumed ! And how antique
seem already some of the abuses shown up in her Polit-
ical Economy ! The irreversible establishment of Free
Trade in England was a blessing which she deserved to
witness; for she had unquestionably some share in
bringing it on. She hailed our deliverance from the
"gangrene" of the old Poor-law; and she lived to see
the decline, and almost the extinction, of Strikes in
the cotton and woollen districts. She witnessed the timely
relief afforded by the gold discoveries. She enjoyed the
full and free introduction of the subject of popular Educa-
tion into Parliament and general discussion, after having
witnessed in her middle age the abortive efforts of Mr.
Whitbread and other friends of education early in the cen-
tury. If she was aware of a later demonstration still — the
Oxford and Cambridge Middle-class Examinations — she
must have cordially rejoiced at such a sign of the times.

[VIII]

Theprogress
of Society
since she
first

became its
instructress.

MRS. MARCET.

[VIII]

She saw Ireland raised from the dead, as it were : and if
she saw her beloved France — or Paris rather — consigned
to political death, her cheerful confidence would assure
her that there would be a resurrection there too. Most of
her life was spent in London ; but a good deal of it also
at or near Geneva: — the birthplace of her husband and
herself, and the residence of several of her relatives. The
travelled English well knew the hospitable abode of her
brother, Mr. Haldimand, on Lake Leman. One of her
own children also lived there ; but her usual abode was
with her son-in-law and daughter, Mr. and Mrs. Edward
Romilly, at whose house in London she died. Though
we may not regret her death, under her burden of years
and infirmity, we may well be thankful for her life and
services.

IX.

HENRY HALLAM.
DIED JANUARY 2isx, 1859.

BY the death of Mr. Hallam we have lost an eminent
representative of a class of men, few in number, but ines-
timable in value at present — the scholar-author — the Work-
ing Man of Letters. The influences of our time are not
favorable to the training and encouragement of that
sort of mind ; and it will stand on record as one of the
social blessings of the last half-century in England that we
had Henry Hallam among us. He was so constituted in-
tellectually that he could not but delight himself perpet-
ually with literature ; and he was so constituted morally
that he could not but communicate his delight. A singu-
lar disposition to intellectual combativeness joined with a
childlike earnestness, combined with these tastes to make
him the most admirable of critics ; while his vivacious
temperament kept him from idleness under the name of
study. The reader of his weighty (not heavy) works, im-
pressed with the judicial character of the style both of
thought and expression, imagined him a solemn, pale
student, and might almost expect to see him in a Judge's
wig; whereas, the stranger would find him the most
rapid talker in company, quick in his movements, genial

An

admirable

critic.

HENRY HALLAM.

[IX]

Sydney
Smithes
description
of h im.

Domestic
bereave-
ments.

in his feelings, earnest in narrative, rather full of dissent
from what everybody said, innocently surprised when he
found himself agreeing with anybody, and pretty sure to
blurt out something awkward before the day was done —
but never giving offence, because his talk was always the
fresh growth of the topic, and, it may be added, his man-
ners were those of a thoroughbred gentleman. He was1
an admirable subject for his friend Sydney Smith's de-
scription. In a capital sketch of a dinner-party to which
Sydney Smith went late, Hallam was one of the figures :
"And there was Hallam, with his mouth full of cabbage
and contradiction ;" a sentence in which we see at once
the rapid speech and action, and the constitutional habit
of mind. Better still was the wit's account of Hallam in
the influenza, not only unable to rest, but throwing up
the window at every transit of the watchman, to "question"
whether it was "past one o'clock," and again whether it
was "a starlight morning." Such were the vivacious
tendencies of the most accomplished critic, the most im-
partial historian, and the most patient, laborious, and
comprehensive student of Letters of our time. The in-
domitable character of his energies and spirits, and the
strength of the vitality of his mind, were proved by his
endurance of a singular series of domestic bereavements.
He is, perhaps, almost as well known as the father of
Arthur Hallam, celebrated by Tennyson in his ' ' In Me-
moriam," as by his own literary fame. Apparently heart-
broken at the time of each bereavement, he rallied won-
derfully soon, and resumed his habits of life ; and it was
only by the nervous vigilance with which he watched the
health of the children who were left that it was revealed
how he suffered by the loss of those who were gone.
Mr. Hallam was the only son of Dr. Hallam, afterward

HENRY HALLAM.

79

Dean of Bristol; and he was born, we believe, in 1778.
He went to Eton ; and what he did there remains an
honorable record in the pages of the " Musce Elonenses"
in which his name is found connected with some of the
last of those very good and beautiful compositions. His
was exactly the mind to benefit most by sound classical
training ; and we reap the fruits of it in our enjoyment
of his admirable style. He went to Oxford, where we
find he was known by the name of "the Doctor" — in
what sense of the word we know not. He next entered
on the study of the Law in chambers at Lincoln's Inn.
Probably the first mention of him in connection with
literature, after his schoolboy days, is in a letter, in 1805,
from Homer to Jeffrey, in which he says that Hallam
will review " Ranken's History" for the young Edinburgh;
adding, "He is a very able man, full of literature and
historical knowledge ; but I do not know how he will
write." Homer soon found how his friend could write,
and enjoyed the discovery not a little. It is a character-
istic trait that when the question of the Peninsular war
became pressing, and there was bitter political strife
between Hallam's Whig companions and those who would
have left the Spaniards to their fate, he was found studying
Spanish literature — turning his political sympathies, as he
did all his life, into the channel of literature. He lived
in political society from his youth to his death ; and the
single effect seemed to be to qualify him for his historical
works, and his Survey of the Literature of all Europe.

He was rich, and able to follow his inclinations in
regard to his mode of life ; and his choice was, not Law,
but Literature. He married the eldest daughter of Sir
Abraham Elton, a Somersetshire baronet, by whom he
had a large family of children, of whom only one, a

[IX]

Law and
literature.

8o

HENRY H ALLAH.

[IX]

His

" Europe
during the
Middle
Ages" and
" Consti-
tutional
History."

daughter, survived him. Most or all of them, and also
their mother, died instantaneously ; and few men could
have borne the repeated shock as he did. In 1818 he
brought out the work which first gave him his great fame
— his "View of the State of Europe during the Middle
Ages." In the preface to that work, and in that of his
"Constitutional History," he tells us that he found his
subject open to his view, and grow upon his hands so as
to impress him with a sense of presumption in what he
had undertaken. He speaks of it as "a scheme pro-
jected early in life with very, inadequate views of its
magnitude •" and he desisted from the undertaking of
continuing his subject — happily excepting his review of
the Constitutional History of England, from the reign of
Henry VII. to that of George III. It is rather inter-
esting, in a somewhat melancholy way, to look back now
on the reception of this valuable book, the ''Constitutional
History," by the Quarterly Review, and to contrast the
article of 1828 with the subsequent reviews of him, when
his political opinions had become better known. Mr.
Hallam associated with the leading Whigs of the time —
was the intimate friend of Lords Lansdowne and Holland,
and a very constant member in their social meetings.
He used to complain pathetically of the sameness of
luxury at London dinner-tables, and say how necessary
it was now and then to dine at home on a plain joint to
keep up his appetite at all ; and it was at the table of
Whig politicians that he was usually to be found. Judging
from this, and not knowing the man well enough to be
aware that his opinions would be, if not certainly oppo-
site to those of his habitual companions, very particularly
independent of them, the Quarterly Reviewer assailed
that highly Conservative History with a virulence of abuse

HENR Y HALL AM. 8 1

[IX]

Hallam's

truly ludicrous in comparison with the tone of subsequent
articles written after the mistake was discovered. Mr.
Hallam had in 1815 declared himself in favor of the
restoration of the Bourbons ; but it was not till he was
found in 1831 to be a strong anti-reformer, and to be
opposing the Reform Bill at the tables of the authors of
the measure, that the Quarterly began to discover his
merits. After that time it could never sufficiently praise
the celebrated chapter on the Feudal System in his first
great work, and the impartiality, solidity, and dignity of
the second — qualities which indeed deserved all the
praise accorded to them there and elsewhere. It makes
one smile now, as it probably made him laugh at the
time, to read the last sentence of that notorious first
review of a man eminent for impartiality, an enthusiastic
sense of justice, a comprehensiveness which taught him
modesty, and the most genial of spirits. The Quarterly
said of this man that he had, in his History, "the spirit
and feeling of the party to which he has attached
himself,- its acrimony and arrogance, its injustice and
its ill-temper." Hallam attached to a party, unjust,
arrogant, and ill-tempered ! The sentence is valuable,
as showing what the criticism of the time was really
worth.

No better illustration of the true character of Mr.
Hallam's mind could perhaps be offered than the whole
of his conduct and language through life on the strange
but important subject of Mesmerism. He used to tell
how he and Rogers had, long years before anybody in
England had revived the subject, seen in Paris, and care-
fully tested, phenomena which could not possibly leave
them in any doubt of the leading facts of Animal Mag-
netism. He used to tell that they were so insolently

4*

82

HENRY HALL AM.

[IX]

Ha/lam's
opinions on
Mesmerism.

and rudely treated, at friends' tables, on their saying what
they had seen, that there was no course to take, in con-
sideration for the host, but silence ; and then that, as fact
after fact came out, one after another became convinced ;
till, at last, even physicians grew grave and silent.
' ' Rogers and I, " he used to say, ' ' have had the ex-
perience which is too rare to be had so often as once in
a century — that of witnessing the gradual reception, by
a metropolis, of a great new fact in Natural Science."
On fair occasions, he told what he had seen and inquired
into, and was at length listened to with respect, while
Rogers jested or was pathetic, according to the company
he was in ; so that no one knew what he thought ;
whereas Hallam's earnestness left no such doubt in regard
to him. His conclusion was at the service of all
who asked for it. His words, often spoken, and written in
at least one letter, were of great importance, as coming
from him. " It appears to me," he wrote, " probable that
the various phenomena of Mesmerism, together with
others independent of Mesmerism, properly so called,
which have lately been brought to light, are fragments
of some general Law of Nature which we are not yet
able to deduce from them, merely because they are
destitute of visible connection — the links being hitherto
wanting which are to display the entire harmony of
effects proceeding from a single cause." Thus did he
bear witness to Mesmerism in the presence of doctors,
as he criticised the Reform Bill at Holland House or
Bowood.

It is needless to tell what was the promise of his son
Arthur, whose qualities and honors were the joy and
pride of his life. The young man was advanced in his
professional studies, was engaged to a sister of Alfred

HENRY HALLAM.

Tennyson, and had the prospect of the brightest of lives,
when he went on the Continent with his father, for a
tour of recreation. At a German town he was slightly
unwell, with a cold ; and Mr. HaHam went alone for his
afternoon walk, leaving Arthur on the sofa. Finding him
sleeping on his return, he took a book and read for an
hour ; and then he became impressed with the extreme
stillness of the sleeper. The sleeper was cold, and must
have been dead from almost the moment when he had
last spoken. In like manner died the eldest daughter ;
and in like manner the cherished wife — an admirable
woman. These latter bereavements took place while he
was writing his Introduction to the Literature of Europe,
the first volume of which was published in 1837, and the
last in 1839. There is an affecting allusion to his do-
mestic griefs in the leave-taking of the final Preface,
wherein he says that he stands among solemn warnings
that he must ' ' bind up his sheaves " while yet he may.
There was still a son, Henry, but he died too in opening
manhood; and then there was but one daughter, and
she married, to cheer his old age. Yet he seemed always
cheerful. His social disposition, and his love of literature,
and his generosity of spirit, and his kindly sympathies
kept him fresh and bright for many a long year after the
sunshine of his life seemed to be gone. To those who
knew him, and enjoyed his genial qualities as a friend,
or even a mere acquaintance, his last great work will
always be a great solace on his account. There is some-
thing in the ' ' manly amenity " (which the Quarterly
Review justly ascribes to him) of its tone, in the generous
justice to all intellectual claims, and in the subdued
moral and poetical enthusiasm of that long piece of
criticism, which discloses the consoling truth that he was

[IX]

The sudden
death of his
son Arthur,
his eldest
daughter^
and his
wife.

HENRY HALLAM.

[IX]

A represen-
tative of the
scholar-like
race of
authors.

happy while he wrote it, and that he found honest intel-
lectual labor to be its own ' ' exceeding great reward. "
The memoir of Lord Webb Seymour, in the Life of
Homer, was written during the preparation of that ex-
cellent book. It is the last acknowledged piece of
authorship of Mr. Hallam's that we have. Whatever he
wrote will live ; and we trust the memory of the man
will live, vivid as himself. He was the representative, in
a time of much crudeness, of the old scholar-like race of
authors, while keeping up with the foremost men and
interests of his time. He was an honorable gentleman,
disinterested alike in regard to money and to fame, with
a youthful innocence and earnestness unimpaired in old
age, and a manly spirit of justice and independence, which
made him an object of respect as much in his weakest
as in his highest moments. It will not be pretended
anywhere that he was not a gossip ; but his coterie was
the most gossiping perhaps in London ; and in Hallam's
gossip there was no ill-nature, though sometimes a good
deal of imprudence, which came curiously from a man
who was always testifying on behalf of prudence. It
would be amusing to know what he was as a courtier.
He was one of the two or three literary persons who
were invited to the Palace in the early days of the reign ;
and the question was whether that remarkable notice was
owing, like the royal notice of Rogers, to Mr. Hallam's
knowledge of Art ; or to his intimacy with the Queen's
earliest and most favored advisers ; or to his being a
man of large fortune — independent of literature while
illustrated by it. However that may be, we know what
he was to us — a man who represented a fine phase of the
Literary Life, and who was faithful to Literature, its
champion, its worshipper, and its ornament, throughout

HENR Y HALLAM. 85

a half-century whose peculiar influences justified an appre-
hension that such a man and mode of life might appear
among us no more. His name is thus fraught with asso-
ciations which will last as long as his books ; and that
they will be long-lived was years ago settled by the
acclamation of the wise.

[IX]

X.

The sur-
•vivor of
a remark-
able group.

MRS. WORDSWORTH.
DIED JANUARY 17™, 1859.

THE last thing that would have occurred to Mrs.
Wordsworth would have been that her departure, or
anything about her, would be publicly noticed amidst
the events of a stirring time. Those who knew her
well, regarded her with as true a homage as they ever
rendered to any member of the household, or to any
personage of the remarkable group which will be for-
ever traditionally associated with the Lake District;
but this reverence, genuine and hearty as it was, would
not, in all eyes, be a sufficient reason for recording more
than the fact of her death. It is her survivorship of
such a group which constitutes an undisputed public
interest in her decease. With her closes a remarkable
scene in the history of the literature of our century.
The well-known cottage, Mount, and garden at Rydal
will be regarded with other eyes, when shut up, or
transferred to new occupants. With Mrs. Wordsworth,
an old world has passed away before the eyes of the
inhabitants of the District, and a new one succeeds
which may have its own delights, solemnities, honors,
and graces, but which can never replace the familiar one
that is gone. There was something mournful in the

MRS. WORDSWORTH. 87

lingering of this aged lady — blind, deaf, and bereaved
in her latter years ; but she was not mournful, any more
than she was insensible. Age did not blunt her feelings,
nor deaden her interest in the events of the day. It
seems not so very long ago that she said that the worst
of living in such a place (as the Lake District) was its
making one unwilling to go. It was too beautiful to let
one be ready to leave it. Within a few years, the beloved
daughter was gone ; and then the aged husband, and
then the son-in-law ; and then the devoted friend, Mr.
Wordsworth's publisher, Mr. Moxon, who paid his duty
occasionally by the side of her chair ; then she became
blind and deaf. Still her cheerfulness was indomitable.
No doubt, she would in reality have been "willing to
go" whenever called upon, throughout her long life;
but she liked life to the end. By her disinterestedness
of nature, by her fortitude of spirit, and her constitu-
tional elasticity and activity, she was qualified for the
honor of surviving her household — nursing and burying
them, and bearing the bereavement which they were
vicariously spared. She did it wisely, tenderly, bravely,
and cheerfully, and she will be remembered accordingly
by all who witnessed the spectacle.

It was by the (accident so to speak) of her early
friendship with Wordsworth's sister that her life became
involved with the poetic element, which her mind would
hardly have sought for itself in another position. She
was the incarnation of good sense, as applied to the
concerns of the every-day world. In as far as her
marriage and course of life tended to infuse a new
elevation into her views of things, it was a blessing ; and
on the other hand, in as far as it infected her with
the spirit of exclusiveness which was the grand defect

A good
housewife.

88

MRS. WORDSWORTH.

[X]

Strangers
in the Lake
region.

of the group in its own place, it was hurtful ; but that
very exclusiveness was less an evil than an amusement,
after all. It was a rather serious matter to hear the
Poet's denunciations of the railway, and to read his
well-known sonnets on the desecration of the Lake
region by the unhallowed presence of commonplace
strangers; and it was truly painful to observe how the
scornful and grudging mood spread among the young,
who thought they were agreeing with Wordsworth in
claiming the vales and lakes as a natural property for
their enlightened selves. But it was so unlike Mrs.
Wordsworth, with her kindly, cheery, generous turn, to
say that a green field with buttercups would answer all
the purposes of Lancashire operatives, and that they did
not know what to do with themselves when they came
among the mountains, that the innocent insolence could
do no harm. It became a fixed sentiment when she
alone survived to uphold it ; and one demonstration of
it amused the whole neighborhood in a good-natured
way. "People from Birthwaite" were the bugbear —
Birthwaite being the end of the railway. In the summer
of 1857, Mrs. Wordsworth's companion told her (she
being then blind) that there were some strangers in the
garden — two or three boys on the Mount, looking at the
view. " Boys from Birthwaite," said the old lady, in the
well-known tone which conveyed that nothing good
could come from Birthwaite. When the strangers were
gone, it appeared that they were the Prince of Wales
and his companions. Making allowance for prejudices,
neither few nor small, but easily dissolved when reason
and kindliness had opportunity to work, she was a
truly wise woman, equal to all occasions of action, and
supplying other persons' needs and deficiencies.

MRS. WORDSWORTH.

89

In the "Memoirs of Wordsworth" it is stated that she
was the original of

" She was a phantom of delight,"

and some things in the next few pages look like it ; but
for the greater part of the Poet's life it was certainly
believed by some who ought to know that that wonderful
description related to another, who flitted before his
imagination in earlier days than those in which he dis-
covered the aptitude of Mary Hutchinson to his own
needs. The last stanza is very like her ; and her
husband's sonnet to the painter of her portrait in old age
discloses, to us how the first stanza might be so also, in
days'beyond the ken of the existing generation. Of her
early sorrows, in the loss of two children and a beloved
sister who was domesticated with the family, there are
probably no living witnesses. It will never be forgotten
by any who saw it how the late dreary train of afflictions
was met. For many years Wordsworth's sister Dorothy
was a melancholy charge. Mrs. Wordsworth was wont
to warn any rash enthusiasts for mountain walking by
the spectacle before them. The adoring sister would
never fail her brother; and she destroyed her health,
and then her reason, by exhausting walks, and wrong
remedies for the consequences. Forty miles in a day
was not a singular feat of Dorothy's. During the long
years of this devoted creature's helplessness she was
tended with admirable cheerfulness and good sense.
Thousands of Lake tourists must remember the locked
garden gate when Miss Wordsworth was taking the air,
and the garden chair going round and round the terrace,
with the emaciated little woman in it, who occasionally
called out to strangers, and amused them with her clever

[X]

A train of
afflictions.

Words-
worth's
sister
Dorothy.

MRS. WORDSWORTH.

[X]

Words-
worth in his
old age.

Grasmcre
churchyard.

sayings. She outlived the beloved Dora, Wordsworth's
only surviving daughter. After the lingering illness of
that daughter (Mrs. Quillinan), the mother encountered
the dreariest portion, probably, of her life. Her aged
husband used to spend the long winter evenings in grief
and tears — week after week, month after month. Neither
of them had eyes for reading. He could not be com-
forted. She, who carried as tender a maternal heart as
ever beat, had to bear her own grief and his too. She
grew whiter and . smaller, so as to be greatly changed
in a few months : but this was the only expression of
what she endured, and he did not discover it. When he
too left her, it was seen how disinterested had been
her trouble. When his trouble had ceased, she too was
relieved. She followed his coffin to the sacred corner of
Grasmere churchyard, where lay now all those who had
once made her home. She joined the household guests
on their return from the funeral, and made tea as usual.
And this was the disinterested spirit which carried her
through the last few years, till she had just reached the
ninetieth. Even then, she had strength to combat
disease for many days. Several times she rallied and
relapsed ; and she was full of alacrity of mind and body
as long as exertion of any kind was possible. There
were many eager to render all duty and love — her two
sons, nieces, and friends, and a whole sympathizing
neighborhood.

The question commonly asked by visitors to that
corner of Grasmere churchyard was — where would she be
laid when the time came ? the space was so completely
filled. The cluster of stones told of the little children
who died a long lifetime ago ; of the sisters Sarah Hut-
chinson and Dorothy Wordsworth ; and of Mr. Quillinan,

MRS. WORDSWORTH.

and his two wives, Dora lying between her husband and
father, and seeming to occupy her mother's rightful
place. And Hartley Coleridge lies next the family
group ; and others press closely round. There is room,
however. The large gray stone which bears the name of
William Wordsworth has ample space left for another in-
scription ; and the grave beneath has ample space also
for his faithful life-companion.

Not one is left now of the eminent persons who
rendered that cluster of valleys so eminent as it has
been. Dr. Arnold went first, in the vigor of his years.
Southey died at Keswick, and Hartley Coleridge on the
margin of Rydal Lake ; and the Quillinans under the
shadow of Loughrigg ; and Professor Wilson disappeared
from Elleray ; and the aged Mrs. Fletcher from Lan-
crigg ; and the three venerable Wordsworths from Rydal
Mount.

The survivor of all the rest had a heart and a memory
for the solemn last of everything. She was the one to
inquire of about the last eagle in the District, the last
pair of ravens in any crest of rocks, the last old dalesman
in any improved spot, the last round of the last pedler
among hills where the broad white road has succeeded
the green bridle-path. She knew the District during
the period between its first recognition, through Gray's
* ' Letters, " to its complete publicity in the age of railways.
She saw, perhaps, the best of it. But she contributed to
modernize and improve it, though the idea of doing so
probably never occurred to her. There were great people
before to give away Christmas bounties, and spoil their
neighbors as the established almsgiving of the rich does
spoil the laboring class, which ought to be above that kind
of aid. Mrs. Wordsworth did infinitely more good in her

[X]

The Lake
'valleys.

MRS. WORDSWORTH.

'(soft
nplc.

Fruits of her
exam

own way, and without being aware of it. An example
of comfortable thrift was a greater boon to the people
round than money, clothes, meat, or fuel. The oldest
residents have long borne witness that the homes of the
neighbors have assumed a new character of order and
comfort, and wholesome economy, since the Poet's
family lived at Rydal Mount. It used to be a pleasant
sight when Wordsworth was seen in the middle of a
hedge, cutting switches for half-a-dozen children, who
were pulling at his cloak, or gathering about his heels :
and it will long be pleasant to family friends to hear how
the young wives of half a century learned to make home
comfortable by the example of the good housewife at
the Mount, who was never above letting her thrift be
known.

Finally, she who had noted so many last survivors was
herself the last of a company more venerable than eagles,
or ravens, or old-world yeomen, or antique customs.
She would not in any case be the first forgotten. As it
is, her honored name will live for generations in the tra-
ditions of the valleys round. If she was studied as the
Poet's wife, she came out so well from that investigation
that she was contemplated for herself ; and the image so
received is her true monument. It will be better pre-
served in her old-fashioned neighborhood than many
monuments which make a greater show.

XI.

THOMAS DE QUINCEY.
DIED DECEMBER STH, 1859.

IN noticing, on the occasion of his departure from us.
the life and character of De Quincey, none of the doubt
and hesitation occur which render the task generally
embarrassing as to what to communicate to the public
and what to suppress. The " English Opium Eater" has
himself told publicly, throughout a period of between
thirty and forty years, whatever is known about him to
anybody; and in sketching the events of his life, the
recorder has little more to do than to indicate facts
which may be found fully expanded in Mr. De Quincey's
"Confessions of an Opium Eater," and "Autobiographic
Sketches." The business which he has in fact left for
others to do is that which, in spite of obvious impossi-
bility, he was incessantly endeavoring to do himself;
that of analyzing and forming a representation and judg-
ment of 'his mind, and of his life as moulded by his
mind. The most intense metaphysician of a time re-
markable for the predominance of metaphysical modes
of thought, he was as completely unaware as smaller
men of his mental habits, that in his perpetual self-study
and analysis he was never approaching the truth, for the

His

perpetual
self-study.

94

THOMAS DE QUINCE Y.

[XI]

One of eight
children.

simple reason that he was not even within ken of the
necessary point of view. "I," he says, "whose disease it
was to meditate too much, and to observe too little." And
the description was a true one, as far as it went. And the
completion of the description was one which he could
never have himself arrived at. It must, we think, be con-
cluded of De Quincey, that he was the most remarkable
instance in his time of a more than abnormal, of an arti-
ficial condition of body and mind, — a characterization
which he must necessarily be the last man to conceive of.
To understand this, it is necessary to glance at the events
of his life. The briefest notice will suffice, as they are
within the reach of all, as related in his own books.

Thomas De Quincey was the son of a merchant en-
gaged in foreign commerce, and was born at Manchester
in 1786. He was one of eight children, of whom no
more than six were ever living at once, and several of
whom died in infancy. The survivors were reared in a
country home, the incidents of which, when of a kind to
excite emotion, impressed themselves on this singular
child's memory from a very early age. We have known
only two instances, in a rather wide experience of life, of
persons distinctly remembering so far back as a year and
a half old. This was De Quincey's age when three deaths
happened in the family, which he remembered, not by
tradition, but by his own contemporary emotions. A
sister of three and a half died ; and he was perplexed by
her disappearance, and terrified by the household whisper
that she had been ill-used, just before her death, by a
servant. A grandmother died about the same time,
leaving little impression, because she had been little
seen. The other death was of a beloved kingfisher, by
a doleful accident. When the boy was five he lost his

THOMAS DE QUINCE Y.

95

playfellow and, as he says, intellectual guide — his sister
Elizabeth, eight years old, dying of hydrocephalus, after
manifesting an intellectual power which the forlorn
brother recalled with admiration and wonder for life.
The impression was undoubtedly genuine ; but it is im-
possible to read the "Autobiographical Sketch" in which
the death and funeral of the child are described without
perceiving that the writer referred back to the period he
was describing with emotions and reflex sensations which
arose in him, and fell from the pen, at the moment. His
father meantime was residing abroad, year after year, as
a condition of his living at all ; and he died of pulmonary
consumption before Thomas was seven years old. The
elder brother, then twelve, was obviously too eccentric
for home management, if not for all control ; and, looking
no further than these constitutional cases, we are war-
ranted in concluding that the Opium Eater entered life
under peculiar and unfavorable conditions.

He passed through a succession of schools, and was
distinguished by his eminent knowledge of Greek. At
fifteen he was pointed out by his master (himself a ripe
scholar) to a stranger in the remarkable words, ' ' That
boy could harangue an Athenian mob better than you or
I could address an English one. " And it was not only
the Greek, we imagine, but the eloquence too that was
included in this praise. In this, as in the subtlety of the
analytical power (so strangely mistaken for entire intel-
lectual supremacy in our day), De Quincey must have
strongly resembled Coleridge. Both were fine Grecians,
charming discoursers, eminent opium-takers, magnificent
dreamers and seers, large in their promises, and helpless
in their failure of performance. De Quincey set his
heart upon going to College earlier than his guardians

[XI]

His know-
ledge of
Greek.

96

THOMAS DE QUINCE Y.

[XI]

Runs away
from his
tutors
ho.use.

Physical
sufferings in
London.

The resort
to opium.

thought proper ; and, on his being disappointed in this
matter, he ran away from his tutor's house, and was lost
for several months — first in Wales, and afterward in
London. He was then sixteen. His whole life presents
no more remarkable evidence of his constant absorption
in introspection than the fact that while tortured with
hunger in the streets of London for many weeks, and
sleeping (or rather lying awake with cold and hunger) on
the floor of an empty house, it never once occurred to
him to earn money. As a classical corrector of the
press, and in other ways, he might no doubt have ob-
tained employment ; but it was not till afterward asked
why he did not, that the idea ever entered his mind.
How he starved, how he would have died but for a glass
of spiced wine in the middle of the night on some steps
in Soho-square, the Opium Eater told all the world above
thirty years since ; and also, of his entering College ; of
the love of wine generated by the comfort it had yielded
in his days of starvation ; and again, of the disorder of
the functions of the stomach which naturally followed,
and the resort to opium as a refuge from the pain. It is
to be feared that the description given in those extra-
ordinary "Confessions" has acted more strongly in
tempting young people to seek the eight years' pleasures
he derived from laudanum than that of his subsequent
torments in deterring them. There was no one to pre-
sent to them the consideration that the peculiar organi-
zation of De Quincey, and his bitter sufferings, might
well make a recourse to opium a different thing to him
than to anybody else. The quality of his mind, and the
exhausted state of his body, enhanced to him the enjoy-
ments which he called "divine;" whereas there is no
doubt of the miserable pain by which men of all consti-

THOMAS DE QUINCE Y.

97

tutions have to expiate an habitual indulgence in opium.
Others than De Quincey may or may not procure the
pleasures he experienced ; but it is certain that every one
must expiate his offence against the laws of the human
frame. And let it be remembered that De Quincey's
excuse is as singular as his excess. Of the many who
have emulated his enjoyment, there can hardly have been
one whose stomach had been well-nigh destroyed by
months of incessant, cruel hunger.

This event of his life — his resort to opium — absorbed
all the rest. There is little more to tell in the way of
incident. His existence was thenceforth a series of
dreams, undergone in different places — now at College
and now in a Westmoreland cottage, with a gentle suf-
fering wife by his side, striving to minister to a need
which was beyond the reach of nursing. He could
amuse his predominant faculties by reading metaphysical
philosophy, and analytical reasoning on any subject ;
and by elaborating endless analyses and reasonings of
his own, which he had not energy to embody. Occa-
sionally the torpor encroached even on his predominant
faculties ; and then he roused himself to overcome the
habit — underwent fearful suffering in the weaning — began
to enjoy the vital happiness of temperance and health ;
and then — fell back again. The influence upon the
moral energies of his nature was, as might be supposed,
fatal. Such energy he once had, as his earlier efforts at
endurance amply testify. But as years passed on, he not
only became a more helpless victim to his prominent
vice, but manifested an increasing insensibility to the
most ordinary requisitions of honor and courtesy, to
say nothing of gratitude and sincerity. In his hungry
days in London he would not beg or borrow. Five years

5

[XI]

His exist-
ence a series
of dreams.

98

^ THOMAS DE QUINCE Y.

[XI]

Ingratitade
to Words-
ivorth.

later he wrote to Wordsworth, in admiration and sym-
pathy ; received an invitation to his Westmoreland valley ;
went, more than once, within a few miles ; and withdrew
and returned to Oxford, unable to conquer his painful
shyness ; — returned at last to live there, in the very
cottage which had been Wordsworth's ; received for
himself, his wife, and a growing family of children, an
unintermitting series of friendly and neighborly offices ;
was necessarily admitted to much household confidence,
and favored with substantial aid, which was certainly
not given through any strong liking for his manners, con-
versation, or character. How did he recompense all this
exertion and endurance on his behalf? In after years,
when living (we believe) at Edinburgh, and pressed by
debt, he did for once exert himself to write ; and what
he wrote was an exposure, in a disadvantageous light, of
everything about the Wordsworths which he knew merely
by their kindness. He wrote papers which were eagerly
read, and of course duly paid for, in which Wordsworth's
personal foibles were malignantly exhibited with ingenious
aggravations. The infirmities of one member of the
family, the personal blemish of another, and the human
weaknesses of all, were displayed ; and all for the pur-
pose of deepening the dislike against Wordsworth himself,
which the receiver of his money, the eater of his dinners,
and the dreary provoker of his patience strove to excite.
Moreover, he perpetrated an act of treachery scarcely
paralleled, we hope, in the history of Literature. In the
confidence of their most familiar days Wordsworth had
communicated portions of his posthumous poem to his
guest, who was perfectly well aware that the work was to
rest in darkness and silence till after the Poet's death.
In these magazine articles De Quincey — using for this

THOMAS DE QUINCEY.

99

atrocious purpose his fine gift of memory — published a
passage which he informed us was of far higher merit
than anything else we had to expect. And what was
Wordsworth's conduct under this unequalled experience
of bad faith and bad feeling ? While so many anecdotes
were going of the Poet's fireside, the following ought to
be added. An old friend was talking with him by that
fireside, and mentioned De Quincey's magazine articles.
Wordsworth begged to be spared any account of them,
saying that the man had long passed away from the
family life and mind ; and he did not wish to ruffle him-
self in a useless way about a misbehavior which could
not be remedied. The friend acquiesced, saying, "Well,
I will tell you only one thing that he says, and then we
will talk of other things. He says your wife is too good
for you." The old Poet's dim eyes lighted up instantly,
and he started from his seat, and flung himself against
the mantelpiece, with his back to the fire, as he cried
with loud enthusiasm — "And that's true I There he is
right!" and his disgust and contempt for the traitor
were visibly moderated.

During a long course of years De Quincey went on
dreaming always — sometimes scheming works of high
value and great efficacy which were never to exist;
promising largely to booksellers and others, and failing
through a weakness so deep-seated that it should have
prevented his making any promises. When his three
daughters were grown up, and his wife was dead, he
lived in a pleasant cottage at Lasswade, near Edinburgh
— well known by name to those who have never seen its
beauties, as the scene of Scott's early married life and
first great achievements in literature. There, while the
family fortunes were expressly made contingent on his

[XI]

Words-
worth's
exclamatu n
at his
fireside.

100

THOMAS DE QUINCEY.

[XI]

De Quincey
in con-
versation.

abstinence from his drug, De Quincey did abstain, or
observe moderation. His flow of conversation was then
the delight of old acquaintance and admiring strangers,
who came to hear the charmer and to receive the im-
pression, which could never be lost, of the singular figure
and countenance and the finely modulated voice, which
were like nothing else in the world. It was a strange
thing to look upon that fragile form, and features which
might be those of a dying man, and to hear such
utterances as his : now the strangest comments and in-
significant incidents ; now pregnant remarks on great
subjects ; and then, malignant gossip, virulent and base,
but delivered with an air and a voice of philosophical
calmness and intellectual commentary such as caused the
disgust of the listener to be largely qualified with amuse-
ment and surprise. One good thing was, that nobody's
name and fame could be really injured by anything De
Quincey could say. There was such a grotesque air
about the mode of his evil-speaking, and it was so gra-
tuitous and excessive, that the hearer could not help
regarding it as a singular sort of intellectual exercise, or
an effort in the speaker to observe, for once, something
outside of himself, rather than as any token of actual
feeling toward the ostensible object.

Let this strange commentator on individual character
meet with more mercy and a wiser interpretation than he
was himself capable of. He was not made like other
men ; and he did not live, think, or feel like them. A
singular organization was singularly and fatally deranged
in its action before it could show its best quality. Mar-
vellous analytical faculty he had ; but it all oozed out in
barren words. Charming eloquence he had ; but it de-
generated into egotistical garrulity, rendered tempting by

THOMAS DE QUINCEY.

101

the gilding of his genius. It is questionable whether, if
he had never touched opium or wine, his real achieve-
ments would have been substantial — for he had no con-
ception of a veritable standpoint of philosophical inves-
tigation ; but the actual effect of his intemperance was
to aggravate to excess his introspective tendencies, and
to remove him incessantly further from the needful dis-
cipline of true science. His conditions of body and
mind were abnormal, and his study of the one thing he
knew anything about — the human mind — was radically
imperfect. His powers, noble and charming as they
might have been, were at once wasted and weakened
through their own partial excess. His moral nature
relaxed and sank, as must always be the case where
sensibility is stimulated and action paralyzed; and the
man of genius who, forty years before, administered a
moral warning to all England, and commanded the sym-
pathy and admiration of a nation, has lived on, to achieve
nothing but the delivery of some confidences of question-
able value and beauty, and to command from us nothing
more than a compassionate sorrow that an intellect so
subtle and an eloquence so charming in its pathos, its
humor, its insight, and its music, should have left the
world in no way the better for such gifts — unless by the
warning afforded in "Confessions" first, and then by
example, against the curse which neutralized their
influence and corrupted its source.

[XI]

The world
unbenefitcd
by his gifts.

XII.

Rhetorician

and

Essayist.

LORD MACAULAY.
DIED DECEMBER 28TH, 1859,

THE time was when England would have said that in
losing Macaulay she would lose the most extraordinary
man of his generation in this country, the greatest and
most accomplished of her statesmen of the nineteenth
century. Such, and no less, was the expectation enter-
tained of Macaulay when he first came forward as orator
and poet, and on to the time when he had shown what
he could do in Parliament. The expectation has not
been fulfilled ; and for many years it has been in course
of relinquishment. He was not a great statesman, buti
he was the most brilliant Rhetorician and Essayist of his
day and generation, and the most accomplished of that
order of Scholars who make their erudition available
from moment to moment, for illustration and embellish-
ment, for the benefit of the multitude. He was no
statesman, nor philosopher, nor logician, nor lawyer :
but he was so accomplished a Man of Letters, and so
incomparable a speaker and writer in his own way,
that he will be regretfully remembered by his own
generation while they live to miss the treat afforded
from time to time by his suggestive pages and his
enrapturing speeches.

LORD MA CA ULA Y.

103

He was the son of that excellent man, Zachary
Macaulay, whose honored name is inseparably con-
nected with the Anti-Slavery movement of the beginning
of the century. Strange as the saying may seem, there
is in our minds no doubt that his parentage was his
grand disadvantage, and the source of the comparative
unfruitfulness of his splendid powers. Zachary Macaulay
sacrificed fortune, health, time, peace and quiet, and
reputation, in behalf of the great philanthropic enterprise
of his time ; and, instead of his distinguishing qualities
being perpetuated in his son, the reaction from them was
as marked as often happens in the case of the children
of eminent men. We see the sons of remarkably pious
clergymen grow up to be men of the world ; the sons of
metaphysical or spiritual philosophers make a rush to
the laboratory, or wander about the world, hammer in
hand, to chip at its rocks. The sons of mathematicians
turn to Art; and the families of statesmen bury them-
selves in distant counties, and talk like graziers of
bullocks and breeds of sheep. The child of a philan-
thropist, Thomas Macaulay wanted heart : this was the
one deficiency which lowered the value of all his other
gifts. He never suspected the deficiency himself; and
he might easily be unaware of it ; for he had kindliness,!
and for anything we know, a good temper ; but of the
life of the heart he knew nothing. He talked about it,
as Dr. Blacklock, the blind poet, wrote descriptions of
scenery — with a complete conviction that he knew all
about it ; but the actual experience was absent. From
the eclectic character of his mind it has been said that]
Macaulay thought by proxy. This was in the main true ;
but it was more remarkably true that he felt by proxy.
However it might be about his consciousness in the first

[XII]

His

parentage
a dis-
advantage.

Want of
heart.

104

LORD MACAULAY.

[XII]

Honors at
Cambridge.

case, it is certain that in the second he was wholly unaware
of the process. He took for granted that he was made
like other people, and that therefore other people were
amenable to his judgment. Thus it happened that his
interpretations of History were so partial, his estimate of
life and character so little elevated ; and, we may add,
his eclecticism so unscrupulous, and his logic so infirm.
Very early in life he heard more than boyhood can
endure of sentiment and philanthropy ; the sensibilities
of the Clapham set of religionists proved too much for
"the thinking, thoughtless schoolboy ;" and we have no
doubt that it was the reaction from all this that made
him a conventionalist in morals, an insolent and incon-
sistent Whig in politics, 'a shallow and inaccurate his-
torian, a poet pouring out all light and no warmth, and,
for an able man, the most unsound reasoner of his time.
Heart is as indispensable to logic as to philosophy, art,
or philanthropy itself. It is the vitality which binds
together and substantiates all other elements ; without it,
they are forever desultory, and radically unsubstantial
— like the great gifts of the brilliant Macaulay.

He was born in 1800. The first of his long series
of distinctions and honors were those he won at Trinity
College, Cambridge, where he took his Bachelor's degree
in 1822. Very high were those early honors; and
thenceforth many eyes were upon him, to watch the next
turn of a career which could not but be a marked one.
He obtained a fellowship at Cambridge, went to Lin-
coln's Inn to study Law, and was called to the Bar in
1826. His first recorded speech was made in 1824, at
an Anti-Slavery meeting, where the tone he had caught
up from the associates of his life thus far, expressed
itself in a violence and bitterness which, being exceed-

LORD MA CA ULA Y.

105

ingly eloquent at the same time, brought on him the
laudation of the Edinburgh Review and the scoldings of
the Quarterly — the former being the organ of the Aboli-
tionists, and the latter of the West India interest — at
that time very fierce from excess of fear. The Edinburgh
Review placed the speech of this promising young man
above all that had been offered to Parliament, and
reported Mr. Wilberforce's heartsome saying, that his
friend Zachary would no doubt joyfully bear all that
his apostleship brought upon him "for the gratification
of hearing one so dear to him plead such a cause in
such a manner." This was, however, the last occasion,
or nearly so, of the young orator appearing as one of
the Abolitionist party. In the same year he presented
himself as a poet, in Knighfs Quarterly Magazine ; and
not long after obtained high credit even from the Quar-
terly Review, for his fine translation of Filicaia's "Ode
on the Deliverance of Venice from the Turks." The
versification was pronounced to be loftily harmonious,
and worthy of Milman. Thus had he already taken
ground as an orator and a poet; and in 1826 he reaped
his first fame as an essayist, in his article on Milton,
in the Edinburgh Review. Whatever he might think
at the time of the party puffery of that article, he
showed on occasion of its compelled republication long
afterward, that he valued the youthful effort at no more
than its deserts. There was promise enough in it, how-
ever, to add his qualification of essayist to his other
claims to high expectation. Parliament was to be his
next field ; and to Parliament he was returned in the
first days of Reform, becoming member for Calne in
1832, and for Leeds in 1834. He was rendered inde-
pendent in the first instance by his office of Com-
5*

[XII]

M.acaulay 's
first re-
corded
speech.

The essay
on Milton
in the
"Edin-
burgh
Review"

Returned ta
Parliament.

io6

LORD MA CA ULA Y.

[XII]

His early
parlia-
mentary
speaking.

Want of
accuracy.

missioner of Bankrupts, given him by the Grey Govern-
ment ; and then by being Secretary to the India Board.

In Parliament, his success at first did not answer to
ministerial expectation, though it was a vast gain to the
Administration, when their unpopularity began to be a
difficulty, to have Macaulay for their occasional spokes-
man and constant apologist. The drawback was his
[want of accuracy, and especially in the important matter
of historical interpretation. If he ventured to illustrate
his topic in his own way, by historical analogy, he was
immediately checked by some clever antagonist, who,
three times out of four, showed that he had misread
his authorities, or more frequently had left out some
essential element, whose omission vitiated the whole
statement or question. It was this fault which after-
ward spoiled the pleasure of reading his essays in the
form of reviews. Very few could singly follow him in
his erudite gatherings of materials ; but the thing could
be done by the united knowledge of several minds ; and
those several minds found that, as far as each could go
along with him, he was incessantly felt to be unsound,
by the omission or misstatement of some essential part
of the case. When this was exhibited in regard to his
early parliamentary speaking, the defence made was that
he was yet young ; and he was still spoken of by the
Whigs as a rising young man, and full of promise, till
the question was asked very widely, when the " promise"
of a man above thirty was to become fruition. It was
not for want of pains that his success was at first partial.
Those who met him in the Strand or Lincoln's Inn in
those days saw him threading his way unconsciously,
looking at the pavement, and moving his lips as in repe-
tition or soliloquy. ' ' Macaulay is going to give us a

/

L ORD MA CA ULA Y.

107

speech to-night/' the observer would report to the next
friend he met ; and so it usually turned out. The
radical inaccuracy of his habit of thought was decisively
evidenced by his next act in the drama of life. In 1834
he resigned his office and his seat in Parliament to go to
India as member of the Supreme Council of Calcutta, to
frame a Code of Law for India. It was understood that
his main object, favored by the Whig Ministry, was to
make his fortune, in order to be able to pursue a career
of statesmanship for the rest of his life. Ten years
were talked of as the term of his absence ; but he came
back in three, with his health considerably impaired, his/
Code in his hand, and a handsome competence in his
pocket. The story of that unhappy Code is well known.
It is usually spoken of by Whig leaders as merely
shelved, and ready for reproduction at some time of
leisure ; but the fact is, that there is scarcely a definition
that will stand the examination of lawyer or layman for an
instant ; and scarcely a description or provision through
which a coach and horses may not be driven. All hope
of Macaulay as a lawyer, and also as a philosopher, was
over for any who had seen his Code.

After his return in 1838 he was elected by Edinburgh,
on his making the extraordinary avowal that he was
converted to the advocacy of the Ballot, Household
Suffrage, and short Parliaments. For a moment, the
genuine reformers believed that they had gained the
most eloquent man in Parliament to their cause ; but
it was not for long. They soon found how thoroughly
deficient he was in moral earnestness, and how impres-
sible when the interest or impulse of the hour set any
particular view, or even principle, brightly before him.
He did not become a Radical any more than Peel or

[XII]

Spends three
years in
India.

Elected by
Edinburgh.

io8

LORD MA CA ULA Y.

[XII]

Macaulay
as a talker.

Melbourne. When appointed Secretary at War, the year
after, he turned out rather more than less aristocratic
than other reformers to whom fate affords the oppor-
tunity of dating their letters from Windsor Castle, when
sent for to attend a Council.

This was the time of his greatest brilliancy in private
life. As a talker, his powers were perhaps unrivalled.
It was there that he showed what he could do without
the preparation which might, if it did not, insure the
splendor of his essays and his oratory. At the dinner-
table he poured out his marvellous eloquence with a
rapidity equalled only by that of his friend Hallam's
utterance. He talked much, if at all ; and thus it was
found that it did not answer very well to invite him with
Jeffrey and Sydney Smith. Jeffrey could sit silent for
a moderate time with serenity. Sydney Smith could
not without annoyance. Both had had three years of
full liberty (for they did not interfere with each other)
during Macaulay 's absence ; but he eclipsed both on
his return. After some years, when his health and spirits
were declining, and his expectations began to merge in
consciousness of failure, he sometimes sat quiet on such
occasions, listening or lost in thought, as might happen.
It was then that Sydney Smith uttered his celebrated
saying, about his conversational rival: — "Macaulay is
improved ! Yes, Macaulay is improved ! I have ob-
served in him of late flashes — of silence." Meantime,
he was the saving genius of the Edinburgh Review, then
otherwise likely to sink prone after the retirement of
Jeffrey, and during the unpopularity^of the Whig Govern-
ment, all of whose acts it set itself indiscriminately to
uphold. Brougham, with his brother William, Senior,
and Macaulay, with some underlings, wrote up every

LORD MACAULAY.

109

Whig act and design, and made a virtue and success of
every fault and failure ; but it would not all have done
if Macaulay's magnificent articles, in a long and rich
serias, had not carried the Review everywhere, and
infused some life into what was clearly an expiring
organization. The splendid historical, biographical, and
critical dissertations of Macaulay were the most popular
literature of the day; and they raised to the highest
pitch the popular expectation from his History. A History
of England by Macaulay was anticipated as the richest
conceivable treat ; though some thoughtful, or expe-
rienced, or hostile person here and there threw out the
remark that as his oratory was literature, and his literature
oratory, his history would probably be something else
than history — most likely epigrammatic criticism. There
was some further preparation for his failure as well as
success as an historian after his article on Bacon in the
Edinburgh. That Essay disabused the wisest who
expected services of the first order from Macaulay.
In that article he not only betrayed his incapacity for
philosophy, and his radical ignorance of the subject
he undertook to treat, but laid himself open to the
charge of helping himself to the very materials he was
disparaging, and giving as his own large excerpts from
Mr. Montagu, while loading him with contempt and
rebuke. But those who were best aware of Macaulay's
faults were carried away by the delight of reading him.
As an artist, we are under deep obligations to him ; and
in his own walk of Art — fresh, and open to the multi-
tude— he was supreme. The mere style, forceful and
antithetical, becomes fatiguing from its want of repose,
as well as its mannerism ; but his cumulative method
of illustration is unrivalled. It has been, is, and will

[XII]

Saves the

Whig

"Review:

His method
of illustra-
tion unique.

110

L ORD MA CA ULA Y.

[XII]

Rejected at \
Edinburgh.

Absence
from Par-
liament and
satisfaction
at his
return.

be, abundantly imitated, but quite unsuccessfully ; for
this reason — that it requires Macaulay's erudition to
support Macaulay's cumulative method ; and men of
Macaulay's erudition are not likely to have his eclectic
turn ; and, if they had, would make their own path,
instead of following at his heels. In 1842 he published
his "Lays of Ancient Rome," very charming, but eclectic
with a vengeance. He was no poet it was clear, though
he had given us a book delightful to the unlearned. In
1847 he was excluded from Parliament by his rejection
at Edinburgh — on account merely of a theological
quarrel of the time. The citizens compensated this
slight, as far as they could, by promoting his election
to such Scotch honors as could be conferred upon him
— such as being chosen Lord Rector of Glasgow Uni-
versity, and, on the death of Professor Wilson in 1854,
President of the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution.
He was sorely missed in the House, though his speaking
had become infrequent. When at length he returned
with new literary honors accumulated on him, the
eagerness to hear him showed what the privation had
been. From the Courts, the refreshment-rooms, the
Committee-rooms — from every corner to which the news
could spread that Macaulay was "up," the rush was as
if for a matter of life or death.

Meantime, while he was in this parliamentary and
official abeyance, he brought out what were called the
first volumes of his History ; neither he nor any one
else having any doubt that the rest, up to the reign of
George III., would follow regularly and speedily. The
beauty of the book exceeded expectation ; and its popu-
larity was such as no book had met with since the
days of the Waverley novels ; and with regard to some

L ORD MA CA ULA Y.

in

characteristics and some portions of the book, the first
enthusiastic judgment will stand. His portrait of Wil-
liam III., and the portions which may be called the
historical romance of the work, will be read with delight
by successive generations. But the sober decision
already awarded by Time is that the work is not a His-
tory ; and that it ought never to have been so called,
while the characters of real men were treated with so
little regard to truth. Of praise and profit Macaulay
had his fill, immediately and tumultuously ; and openly
and heartily he enjoyed it. But the critical impeach-
ments which followed must have keenly annoyed him,
as they would any man who cared for his honor, as
a relater of facts, and a reporter and judge of the
characters of dead and defenceless men. Failing health
added its dissuasion to industry. He became subject
to bronchitis to a degree which rendered his achieve-
ments and his movements uncertain. He was once
more elected for Edinburgh in his absence ; and it
was on this return to the House that the rush to hear
him was so remarkable a spectacle. He spoke seldom ;
and men felt that their opportunities would henceforth
be few. Before his retirement from the House of
Commons in 1856, he was the mere wreck of his former
self. His eye was deep-sunk and often dim, his full
face was wrinkled and haggard ; his fatigue, in utterance
was obviously very great ; and the tremulousness of
limb and feature melancholy to behold. In 1857 he
was raised to the Peerage; a graceful compliment to
literature.

Macaulay's was mainly an intellectual life, brilliant
and stimulating, but cold and barren as regards the
highest part of human nature. As in his History there

[XII]
The

"History of
England."

Raised
to the
Peerage.

ii2 LORD MACAULAY.

[XII]

is but one touch of tenderness — Henrietta Wentworth's
name carved upon the tree — so in his brilliant and varied
display of power in his life, the one thing wanting is
heart. Probably the single touch of sensibility was in
him, and we should find some bleeding gashes, or
some scars in the stiff bark if we were at liberty to
search ; but hard and rugged it was, while throwing
out its profusion of dancing foliage and many-tinted
blossoms. It was a magnificent growth ; and we may
accept its beauty very thankfully, though we know it
is only fit for ornament, and not to yield sweet solace
for present, or perennial use. If we cannot have in
him the man of soul, heroic or other, nor the man of
genius as statesman or poet, let us take him as the
eloquent scholar, and be thankful.

XIII.

MRS. JAMESON.

, 1860.

DIED MARCH

MRS. JAMESON'S name and works have been so long
before the world that there is a prevalent impression
that she was one of the marked generation who could
describe to us the early operation of the Edinburgh and
Quarterly Reviews, the first days of the Regency, and
the panics on account of the French Invasion. It was
not exactly, so ; nor, on the other hand, did Anna Murphy
rush into print, or into fame, while yet in her teens. She
was born in the last century ; but it must have been very
near the end of it ; for there is a strong character of
youth and inexperience about her first work, though it
was known by her married name as soon as any name at
all was affixed to it. Her father, the artist Murphy,
Painter in Ordinary to the Princess Charlotte, was in the
habit of taking up his abode for a few months at a time
in some provincial town where the inhabitants were dis-
posed to sit for their portraits. In one of those cities
(Norwich) he was living temporarily, when the " Diary of
an Ennuy6e" came out, and was immediately in all the
book-clubs. At a party made for Mr. Murphy, the half-
hour before dinner was beguiled by lively criticism on
the book, in which more or fewer faults were found by

The "Diary
of an

Ennuyee.

114

MRS. JAMESON.

[XIII]

A surprise.

Marriage

and

separation.

every person present. At length, Mr. Murphy was asked
whether he could give any information about the author.
Had he ever met her ? Was he acquainted with her ?
How well acquainted? — for some uneasiness began to
prevail. "She is my daughter/' was the reply, which
plunged the whole company in dismay. Mrs. Jameson
was not a little troubled at the consequences of her mis-
take in that case, of mixing up a real journal with a
sentimental fiction, in order to disguise the authorship.
This mistake of mere inexperience exposed her to charges
of bad faith in regard to her travelling companions, and
to ridicule on account of the pathos of her own fictitious
death. She was anxious to have it understood that there
had been a want of co-operation between herself and
her publishers ; and she wisely withdrew the book in its
first form, revised the best parts of it, and republished it
with various welcome additions, as "Visits and Sketches
at Home and Abroad." In its first form the work
appeared in 1826 : in the second, in 1834. One incident
of the case ought, perhaps, to be considered ; that her
object in putting this journal to press was understood to
be to afford immediate pecuniary aid to Mr. Jameson
under some difficulty of the moment. And here it is
best to say the little that should be said about the mar-
riage of the parties. Mr. Jameson was a man of con-
siderable ability and legal accomplishment, filling with
honor the posts of Speaker of the House of Assembly
of Upper Canada, and the Attorney-General of the
Colony ; and he is spoken of with respect by his per-
sonal friends in England ; but the marriage was a mis-
take on both sides. The husband and wife separated
almost immediately, and for many years. In 1836, Mrs.
Jameson joined her husband at Toronto ; but it was for

MRS. JAMESON.

115

a very short time ; and they never met again. This is
all that the world has any business with ; and the chief
interest to the world, even that far, arises from the effect
produced on Mrs. Jameson's views of life and love, of
persons and their experience, by her irksome and unfor-
tunate position during a desolate wedded life of nearly
thirty years. Mr. Jameson died in 1854.

The energy of Mrs. Jameson's mind became imme-
diately manifest by the courage with which she returned
to the press after the disheartening first failure ; and she
had, we believe, no more failures to bear. She became
a very popular writer ; and to the end of her life she
proved that her power was genuine by the effect of
appreciation upon the exercise of it. She did not dete-
riorate as a writer, but improved as far as the quality of
her mind permitted. She had the great merit of dili-
gence, as well as activity in intellectual labor. She
worked much and well, putting her talents to their full
use — and all the more strenuously the more favor they
found. Another great merit, shown from first to last,
was that she never mistook her function ; never over-
rated the kind of work she applied herself to ; never
undervalued the philosophy to which she could not
pretend, nor supposed that she had written immortal
works in pouring out her emotions and fancies for her
personal solace and enjoyment. Perhaps her own account
of her own authorship may be cited as the fairest that
could be given.

In the introduction to her "Characteristics of Shak-
spere's Women," she says : "Not now nor ever have I
written to flatter any prevailing fashion of the day, for
the sake of profit, though this is done by many who have
less excuse for coining their brains. This little book

[XIII]

Becomes a

popular

•writer.

Her account
of her
authorship

MRS. JAMESON.

[XIII]

The

« Charac-
teristics of
Women"

Enthusias-
tic reception
of the

authoress in
America.

was undertaken without a thought of fame or money.
Out of the fulness of my own heart and soul have I
written it. In the pleasure it gave me — in the new and
varied forms of human nature it has opened to me — in
the beautiful and soothing images it has placed before
me — in the exercise and improvement of my own facul-
ties— I have already been repaid." She could honestly
have said this of each work in its turn, we doubt not.

This book, the "Characteristics of Women," was
apparently the most popular of her works ; and it is
perhaps the one which best illustrates her quality of
mind. It appeared in 1832, having been preceded by
"The Loves of the Poets, "and "Lives of Celebrated
Female Sovereigns." The "Characteristics" appeared
a great advance on the three earlier works ; and it was,
at first sight, a very winning book. Wherever the reader
opened, the picture was charming; and the analysis
seemed to be acute, delicate, and almost philosophical.
After a second portrait the impression was somewhat less
enthusiastic ; and when, at the end of four or five, it was
found difficult to bring away any clear conception of any,
and to tell one from another, it was evident that there
was no philosophy in all this, but only fancy and feeling.
The notorious mistake in regard to Lady Macbeth, to
whom Mrs. Jameson attributes an intellect loftier than
that of her husband, indicates the true level of a work
which is yet full of charm from its suggestiveness, and
frequent truth of sentiment. Mrs. Jameson's world-wide
reputation dates from the publication of this book.

It secured her an enthusiastic reception in the United
States, when she went there on her way to Canada, in
1836. There could hardily be a more "beautiful fit"
than that of Mrs. Jameson and the literary society of the

MRS. JAMESON.

117

great American cities, where the characteristics of women
are perpetually in all people's thoughts and on all
people's tongues ; where chivalric honor to woman is a
matter of national pride ; and sentiment flourishes as it
does in all youthful societies. Mrs. Jameson — pouring
out, with her Irish vehemence, a great accumulation of
emotions and imaginations, about Ireland and O'Connell,
about Shakspere and the Kembles, about German senti-
ment and Art, Italian paintings, the London stage, and
all the ill-usage that women with hearts had received from
men who had none — must have been in a state of high
enjoyment, and the cause of high enjoyment to others.

Fron the genial welcomes of New York and New
England she rushed into a wild Indian life, which she
has presented admirably in the work which followed her
return — " Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in
Canada." In that book appeared with painful distinct-
ness the blemishes which marred much of her writing
and her conversation, as well as her views of life, from
the date of that trip to Canada — a tendency to confide
her trouble to the public, or all from whom she could
hope to win sympathy — and a morbid construction of
the facts and evidences of social life in England.
The courage with which she has frequently spoken for
benevolent purposes on topics of great difficulty and
disgust is honorable to her; and she has said much
that is awakening and stimulating on subjects of deep
practical concern ; but her influences would have been
of a higher order if she had not been prepossessed by
personal griefs, and rendered liable to dwell on the
scenery of human passions in one direction till it became
magnified beyond all reason. But for this drawback, and
that of her unsettled life, which was a perpetual flitting

[XIII]

The work
following
her return.

MRS. JAMESON.

[XIII]

A draw-
back to htr
usefulness.

Her Art

Handbooks,

from place to place, for purposes of Art-study chiefly,
perhaps, but in no small degree from restlessness, and
craving for society and its luxuries, she might have done
more for the security and elevation of her sex than
perhaps any other person of her generation. She did a
great deal by the pen, by discourse, and by the warm
sympathy she gave to the actively great women of the
age. She spread the fame of the chief Sisters of Charity
of our day ; she worked hard to get Schools of Design
opened to women; and she published in 1855 an ex-
cellent Lecture on ' ' Sisters of Chanty Abroad and at
Home." The drawback was in the incessant recurrence
to considerations of sex, whatever the topic, and the
constant conclusion -that the same point of view was
taken by everybody else.

In three very different departments Mrs. Jameson wa's
an active worker : in literature, as we have seen ; in
ameliorating the condition of women in England, by
exposing the disabilities and injuries in the field of
industry and the chance medley of education ; and,
again, in the diffusion of the knowledge of Art. Time
will probably decide that in this last department her
labors have been most effective. Her early readiness
to assume the function of Art-critic gave way in time, in
some measure, to the more fitting pretention of making
Handbooks of Art Collections, and some valuable keys
to Art-types, supplied in an historical form. In regard
to pictures, as to life and men, her point of view was at
first intensely subjective ; and her interpretations were
liable to error in proportion ; so that her knowledge of
Art, was denied by the highest authorities. But she
studied long, and familiarized herself with so extensive a
range of Art, that her metaphysical tendencies were to

MRS. JAMESON.

119

a considerable extent corrected, and she popularized a
great deal of knowledge which would not otherwise have
been brought within reach of the very large class of
readers of her later works. Her "Handbook" to our
public galleries, her "Companion" to our private
galleries (in and near London), are works of real
utility; and there is much that is instructive as well as
charming in her "Legends" of the Monastic Orders,
and of the Madonna. After issuing these works between
1848 and 1852, she returned to her favorite habit of
authorship — collecting " Thoughts, Memoirs, and
Fancies" from her "Common-place Book," and shed-
ding them into the world, under the two divisions
which describe the contemplations of her life — "Ethics
and Character," and "Literature and Art." The im-
pression left is uniform with that of all her works, —
that of a warm-hearted and courageous woman, of indom-
itable sociability of nature, large liberalities, and deep
prejudices.

Her works have been received as happy accidents ;
and, long after they have ceased to be sought and regu-
larly read, some touch of nature in them, some trait of
insight, or ingenuity of solution will come up in fireside
conversation, or in literary intercourse, and remind a
future generation that in ours there was a restless, expa-
tiating, fervent, unreasoning, generous, accomplished
Mrs. Jameson among the lights of the time, by no means
hiding her lustre under a bushel, or being too closely
shut up at home ; a great benefit to her time from her
zeal for her sex and for Art ; but likely to have been a
greater if she could have carried less of herself and her
experiences into her pictures and her interpretations of
life.

[XIII]

Popu-
larizing
knowledge.

Her r$le
in history.

120

MRS. JAMESON.

[XIII]

There is not much to say of the mode of living of one
who lived in pictures and in speech — whose existence
was a pilgrimage in search, or in honor, of the Arts of
Expression. Her circumstances were made easy, after
Mr. Jameson's death, by a tribute from her friends and
admirers, invested for that purpose. She enjoyed life,
whatever had been its troubles and mortifications ; and
the pleasures of the imagination, and the stimulus of
society, were as animating to her as they were necessary,
as disease advanced and strength wasted away.

XIV.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.
DIED SEPTEMBER 17x11, 1864.

THE great age to which Mr. Landor attained affords
some sort of presumption that certain attributes of his
by which he was best known to the multitude were
qualities of style rather than of soul — we do not mean
of literary style only, but style of expression by life and
act, as well as by the pen. Contempt and bitterness are
not conducive to long life. As the ancients said, they
dry up the vital juices. As we moderns say, they fret
the brain and nerves, and intercept the complacent
enjoyment of good-humor and benevolence, which
eminently promotes length of days. As Walter Savage
Landor was bora in 1775, and has only now departed,
it seems that, after all, he had not any fatal proportion
of contempt or bitterness deep down in his nature ; and
the question remains how he came to be so markedly
known by as much as he had. The truth is, he had in
him a strong faculty of admiration ; and a deep, pure,
fresh current of tenderness and sweetness ran under the
film of gall which Nature unhappily shed over his
existence at the fountain. This was one of the con-
tradictions of which this paradoxical being was made
up ; and it is, with the rest, worthy of some contem-

6

Para-
doxical
elements
in his
character.

122

WALTER SAVAGE LAN DOR.

[XIV]

Experience
of the
youthful
scholar In
the perusal
of Landor's
writings.

plation ; not because paradoxical persons or the para-
doxes they produce are choice objects of study in a
striving and practical age like ours, but because Landor
achieved some things that were great, and many that
were beautiful, in spite of the paradoxical elements of
his life and character.

The young of thirty years ago, to whom Literature
was an important pursuit and pleasure, were often seen
in a transport of admiration, amazement, and anger,
when rising from Lander's books. They were quite
sure that nothing so noble, nothing so tender, nothing
so musical was to be found in our language as the ' ' Ima-
ginary Conversations" between Pericles and Sophocles,
between Demosthenes and Eubulides, between Ascham
and Lady Jane Grey, and plenty more. The patriotism,
the magnanimity, and the sweet heroism of the senti-
ments call up the flush or the tear ; and the familiarity
with the ancients, in their habit of mind and speech,
enraptures the youthful scholar. After a time, he
relaxes in his reading of Landor — still declares, when
he is talked of, that his is a grand and beautiful frag-
mentary mind ; but he no longer reads his later volumes ;
and at last grows so weary of his Jacobin doctrines, his
obtrusive spirit, and sententious style, that when the
well-known name in large letters appears in the news-
paper, at the foot of a denunciatory letter, or a curse in
stanzas, it is a signal to turn the leaf. The standard
criticism of the country seems to have undergone some-
thing of the same process as the individual student.
The Quarterly Review once despised everybody who
could stop to notice Landor's faults, and eloquently
described the process of the elevation of his fame, till
it should become transcendent among the worthies of

WALTER SAVAGE LAN DOR.

123

England ; but it may be questioned now whether the
Quarterly Review has any more expectation than the
Edinburgh that the writings of Landor will survive,
except as curiosities in literature. The fact seems to
be that, with some of the attributes of genius, Landor
fell just short of it. He had not the large spirit and
generous temper of genius. His egotism was extreme ;
but it was not that of genius. He has been called a
prose Byron ; and certainly he complained abundantly
of Man and Life, and abhorred tyrants, and lived long
in Italy, and fought for liberty abroad ; and especially,
he was at once a Jacobin or democrat in literature, and
a man of family and fortune ; but there the resemblance
stops. Where Byron moaned, Landor scolded. Landor
had no patience with Royalty, or any rule but the
popular, because it stood between men and their
happiness ; whereas Byron looked upon tyranny as a
mere symptom of human corruptness and misery, and
saw no happiness on the other side of it. Byron was
an embodiment of the growing spirit of his time, which
uttered itself through him because his lips had been
touched with fire ; but Landor's utterances were almost
entirely personal and constitutional — expressed no prev-
alent sentiment or need — not being even the utterance
of a party in politics or literature, but the presentment
of an unchanging egotism, under majestic or graceful
disguises furnished from the stores of his learning or
the resources of his imagination. It is one of the
paradoxes about Landor, not that he should have but
one style — for that might be expected ; but that that
style should have been dramatic. Well as he suc-
ceeded in hitting the mode of thought of many of his
discoursing personages, it was by means of his learning,

[XIV]

Falls short
of genius.

Byron and

Landor.

124

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.

[XIV]

Landor
speaking
in the

" Imaginary
Conversa-
tions. "

and not of his sympathies^ that he did so. They were
all raised from the dead in their habits as they lived ;
but it was in order to be possessed by Landor in every
case — his spirit speaking through their brains, perhaps,
as well as through their lips — but always his spirit and
no other. Hence his failures in the case of Milton, and
partly, even in that of Cromwell ; though there Jie might
have been expected to succeed pre-eminently. Yet more
modern English personages fail more and more con-
spicuously, in comparison with old Greeks, and mediaeval
Italians, and far-away Spaniards ; for the obvious reason
that the former, living amidst modern associations, and
represented by a writer who is too much of an egotist
and a mannerist to have genuine dramatic power, must
be simply Landor himself, cramped and debilitated by
the restraints of his disguise. These are the tokens and
proofs of his falling short of true genius. Yet there
is so genuine a force of Liberalism in his writings,
so constant a vigilance against the encroachments of
tyranny, as may neutralize a large admixture of self-love
and self-will ; and it really is so rare to see the claims of
the democracy so presented, amidst the music and the
lights reverberated and reflected from the classic ages,
that the man who has done that service may be fairly
considered an original of high mark, even if he be too
paradoxical, and too measured an egotist, to be entitled
to high honors of genius.

But paradox carries away others than the inventors
and utterers ; and we have been commenting on the
mind of the vigorous old man who is gone from us,
before we have glanced at his life, which was, from first
to last, as characteristic as his writings ; as characteristic
as his face and form, and everything pertaining to him.

WALTER SAVAGE LAND OR.

125

We may be called paradoxical ourselves if we say (but it
is true), that never was anything more of a piece than
the mind and life, the surroundings, the utterances and
the acts of this wonderfully sane yet thoroughly incon-
sistent being. His tall, broad, muscular, active frame
was characteristic ; and so was his head, with the strange
elevation of the eyebrows, which expresses self-will as
strongly in some cases as astonishment in others. Those
eyebrows, mounting up till they comprehend a good
portion of the forehead, have been observed in many
more paradoxical persons than one. Then there was
the retreating but broad forehead, showing the defi-
ciency of reasoning and speculative power, with the
preponderance of imagination, and a huge passion for
destruction. The massive self-love and self-will carried
up his head to something more than a dignified bearing
— even to one of arrogance. His vivid and quick eye,
and the thoughtful mouth, were fine, and his whole air
was that of a man distinguished in his own eyes cer-
tainly, but also in those of others. Tradition reports
that he was handsome in his youth. In age he was
more. The first question about him usually was why, with
his frame, and his courage, and his politics, and his social
position, he was not in the army. One reply might be,
that he could neither obey nor co-operate ; another was,
that his godfather, General Powell, wished it ; and Landor
therefore preferred something else. As for that something
else — his father offered him 4oo/. a year to study Law,
and reside in the Temple for that purpose, whereas he
would give him only 1507. if he would not; and of
course, he took the 1507., and went as far as he well
could from the Temple— that is, to Swansea. Warwick
was his native place. He was born in the best house

[XIV]

His form

and

features.

Born at
Warwick.

126

WALTER SAVAGE LAN DOR.

[XIV]

Sells

hereditary

estates.

in the city, where the fine old garden, with its noble elms
and horse-chestnuts, might have influenced his imagina-
tion, so as to have something to do possibly with his sub-
sequent abode in Italy. His mother was of the ancient
family of Savage ; and hereditary estates lay about him
in Staffordshire and Warwickshire, which had been in
the possession of the family for nearly seven centuries.
These he sold, to shift himself to Wales ; and nowhere
did his spirit of destructive waywardness break out
more painfully than in the sale of those old estates, and
his treatment of the new. He employed many scores
of laborers on his Welsh estates, made roads and
planted, and built a house which cost him 8,ooo/. He
set his heart upon game-preserving (of all pursuits for a
democratic republican), and had at times twenty keepers
out upon the hills at night, watching his grouse ; but,
with 12,000 acres of land, he never saw a grouse on
his table. His tenants cheated him, he declared, and
destroyed his plantations ; and, though he got rid of
them, he left, not only Wales but Great Britain, in wrath.
Then, the steward in charge of his house cheated him,
when he not only got rid of the steward, but had his
splendid new house pulled down — out of consideration,
he declared, for his son's future ease and convenience,
in being rid of so vexatious a property. His flatterers
called this an act of characteristic indignation. To
others it appeared that his republican and self-governing
doctrines came rather strangely from one who could not
rule his own affairs and his own people ; and who,
finding his failure, could do nothing better than lay
waste the whole scene.

He had obtained some of his scholarship at Rugby,
and somewhat more at Oxford — where, however, his stay

WALTER SAVAGE LAND OR.

127

was short. Having fired a gun in the quadrangle of his
college, he was rusticated ; and, instead of returning,
published a volume of poems, when he was only eighteen.
While at Swansea, he studied, and wrote ' ' Gebir. " On
the invasion of Spain, he determined to be a soldier on
his own account, raised a small troop at his own expense,
and was the first Englishman who landed in aid of the
Spaniards. He was rewarded for this aid, and for a gift
of money, by the thanks of the Supreme Junta, and
by the rank of Colonel on his return to England ; but
he sent back his commission and the record of thanks
when Ferdinand set aside the Constitution. Among
many good political acts, perhaps none was better than
this. At thirty-six years of age he married a French
lady of good family; and a few years after, in 1818,
fixed his residence in Italy, — first in the Palazzo Medici,
in Florence, and when obliged to leave it, in a charming
villa two miles off. That Villa Gherardesca was built
by Michel Angelo. Few British travellers in Italy fail
to go and see Fiesole ; and while Landor lived there
he was the prey of lion-hunters, — as he vehemently
complained on occasion of the feud between him and
N. P. Willis, the American, who lost a MS. confided to
him for his opinion. Such a subordination of the full,
ripe scholar and discourser to the shallow, flippant
sketcher by the wayside, might seem to deserve such
a result ; but it did not tend to reconcile Landor to
lion-hunters. While in Italy, he sent to English news-
papers, and especially to the Examiner, frequent com-
ments on passing events in the political world, in the
form of letters or of verse. He was collecting pictures
all the while ; and when he returned to England to pass
the rest of his days, as he supposed, he left the bulk

[XIV1

Aids the
Spaniards
as a soldier

Marries a
French lady
and resides
in Italy.

128

WALTER SAVAGE LAND OR.

[XIV]

Becomes an
octogena-
rian at
Bath.

His pre-
judices and
his opinions.

of his collection in his villa, for his son's benefit, bringing
only a few gems wherewith to adorn such a modest
residence as he now intended to have in his own country.
That residence was in St. James's-square, Bath, where he
became an octogenarian living for a while in peace and
quiet — still commenting on men and measures through
the Liberal papers, and putting forth, in his eightieth year,
the little volume called "Last Fruit from an Old Tree."
The spectacle of a vigorous, vivid, undaunted old age,
true to the aims and convictions of youth, is always
a fine one ; and it was warmly felt to be so in Lander's
case. His prejudices mattered less, when human affairs
went on maturing themselves in spite of them ; and many
of his complaints were silenced in the best possible way
— by the reform of the abuses which he, with some
unnecessary violence, denounced. He, for his part,
talked less about killing kings ; and his steady assertion
of the claims of the humble fell in better with the spirit
of the time, after years had inaugurated the works of
peace. About many matters of political principle and
practice he was right, while yet the majority of society
were wrong ; and it would be too much to require that
he should be wholly right in doctrine and fact, or very
angelic in his way of enforcing his convictions. Nature
did not make him a logician, and if we were ever disap-
pointed at not finding him one, the fault was our own.
She make him brave, though wayward ; an egotist in his
method, but with the good of mankind for his aim. He
was passionate and prejudiced, but usually in some great
cause, and on the right side of it ; though there was a
deplorable exception to that general rule in the par-
ticular instance of defamation which broke up the
repose and dignity of his latter days, and caused his

WALTER SAVAGE LAN DOR.

129

self-exile from England for the remnant of his life.
This brief notice of the painful fact is enough for truth
and justice. As for the rest, he was of aristocratic birth,
fortune, and education, with democracy for his political
aim, and poverty and helplessness for his clients. All
this would have made Walter Savage Landor a remark-
able man in his generation, apart from his services to
Literature ; but when we recall some of his works — such
pictures as that of the English officer shot at the Pyra-
mids— such criticism as in his Pentameron — and dis-
courses so elevating and so heart-moving as some which
he has put into the mouths of heroes, sages, scholarly
and noble women, and saintly and knightly men, we feel
that our cumulative obligations to him are very great,
and that his death is a prominent incident of the time.
6*

[XIY]

His self-
exile from
England ii
his latter
days.

II.

SCIENTIFIC.

GEORGE COMBE.

DIED AUGUST HTH, 1858.

A MAN must be called a conspicuous member of society
who writes a book approaching in circulation to the
three ubiquitous books in our language — the Bible,
"Pilgrim's Progress/' and " Robinson Crusoe." George
Combe's "Constitution of Man" is declared to rank
next to these three in point of circulation ; and the
author of a work so widely diffused cannot but be the
object of much interest during his life, and of special
notice after death. It seems as if Nature were as
capricious as fortune in appointing the destinies of Man.
George Combe's wide influence over society arose out
of natural causes ; but, as in many similar instances,
there was nothing in the man to account for the emi-
nence of his position. He was a good man, and in
certain directions a wise one ; but he was not a thinker,
nor a poet, nor an orator, nor an enthusiast, nor a quack.
He did not owe his social influence to any of the ordi-
nary sources of that kind of influence, from the loftiest
to the meanest. Of course the solution of the marvel
must be looked for in circumstances chiefly external
to the man ; and there, in fact, the solution is easily
found.

Ubiquitous
book.

134

GEORGE COMBE.

[I]

His parents
and early
training.

The Combes — a family of seventeen, of whom George
and Andrew were the two conspicuous members — were
descended on both sides of the house from respectable
tenant-farmers. Their father was a tall, robust, stanch
Presbyterian, of whom his phrenological sons report
that he could never find a hat that he could get his
head into, and was obliged to have a block to himself.
Their mother was energetic and conscientious, as indeed
the mother of seventeen children had need to be. Neither
parent had much education ; and both seem to have
been excessively strict in the religious discipline of their
family. The want of knowledge and the asceticism
of the well-intentioned parents caused the death of
several of their children, and radically injured the
health of the rest. Such is the testimony of the two
brothers, in their reminiscences of the low, damp situa-
tion of their father's dwelling, at the brewery of Living-
ston's-yards, near Edinburgh, and of its crowded and
ill-aired rooms, and of the dreary Sundays and dismal
sectarian instruction, which was all that their parents
attempted to give them in person. No doubt this
experience tended to turn the attention of the brothers
to the subject of the conditions of health, and 'to deepen
their convictions to the utmost that their nature ad-
mitted. They have done great things for their own
and future generations in spreading practices of clean-
liness, and a demand for fresh air, through a vast pro-
portion of society ; and if they had been men of genius,
or capable of enthusiasm, they would have had "a
mission" and have ranked among the apostles of the
race. The influence of ignorance in degrading and
deteriorating the human body cut out such a mission
as that of restoring its claims long ago ; and the Combes

GEORGE COMBE.

135

might have been the apostles of that mission if nature
had given them genius instead of an order of faculties
which doomed them to triteness in the conception and
expression of their most earnest convictions. •

George Combe (nine years older than Andrew) was
born in 1788. He was bred to the Law, became a
Writer to the Signet in 1812, and took a house in
Bank-street, Edinburgh, to which a sister removed as
housekeeper, and Andrew, for health's sake, and to
pursue his studies in greater quiet than in the over-
crowded old home. In no house in Edinburgh or
elsewhere could Dugald Stewart have then found more
devoted disciples — more ardent admirers of his so-called
Philosophy of Mind. The matter-of-fact George seems
to have been lifted nearer to poetry by his attendance
on Dugald Stewart's lectures than at any subsequent
period of his life. His conscience was kept quiet by
the lecturer's assurance that his Philosophy was founded
on the inductive method ; and as long as George
believed this he was satisfied, though at .times surprised
to find that this Philosophy did not seem to be appli-
cable to any purpose but delighting hearers and readers.
The lecturer was for ever promising magnificent results ;
and George fully anticipating these, tried to obtain them
by operating upon Andrew's mind ; a process which he
afterward described as that of the blind leading the
blind. Such was the state of affairs in Bank-street when,
in 1815, Dr. John Gordon of Edinburgh, an esteemed
lecturer on anatomy and physiology, furnished Jeffrey
with an article for his Review, which was intended to
demolish, and was for a time supposed to have de-
molished, "the Physiognomical System of Gall and
Spurzheim," as the title of that system stands in the

Attends the
lectures of
Dugald
Stewart.

Gall and

Spurzheim's

System.

136

GEORGE COMBE.

[I]

Gall and
Metternich.

books of the time. No one laughed more heartily
than George Combe (as we learn from himself) at the
"thorough quackery," the " impudence, " and what not
of ' ' the Germans" who dared to offer us anything but
Werther sentimentalism. The Review represented Gall as
"bitter," and Spurzheim as "splenetic," and both as vulgar
quacks — a piece of bad policy as well as a mistake.1
It was too late in 1815 to extinguish Gall's discovery
as quackery ; for it had been fairly before the world five
years, and accepted by eminent scientific men abroad.
Metternich, who should have been a Natural Philosopher,
had taken care of that. In 1802, the Government at
Vienna had suppressed Gall's work on the "Functions
of the Brain ;" but Metternich saw its value, and
guaranteed the expenses of its publication in 1810,
when he was Austrian Ambassador at Paris. It soon
became on the continent what it has now long been
in England, the source of new views of the Structure
and Functions of the Brain. As for the "bitterness"
and "spleen" of the German philosophers, the appear-
ance of Spurzheim in Edinburgh presently disposed of
the imputation. Spurzheim was found to be a modest,
amiable, intelligent man, and quite as good a logician
as an observer. He was not a discoverer, but he was
a good teacher. He made some way at once, even as
Dr. Gordon's antagonist on his own ground ; and he
did more for the establishment of his doctrine by a
course of popular lectures, where he was listened to by
a small body of earnest young men. The Combes

I It is understood that Dr. Gordon was not responsible for this
injurious language ; and that he indignantly protested against the
editor's conduct in interpolating the article with expressions as
revolting to the writer's sense of justice as to his taste.

GEORGE COMBE.

137

were among the scoffers outside. They never saw the
Lecturer ; and much less would they have cared to hear
him. One day, however, a brother lawyer met George
in the street, and invited him to his house to see Spurz-
heim dissect a human brain. What he saw there satisfied
him that the human brain is something very unlike
what it seemed to dissectors, who sliced it through and
looked no further. He attended the Lecturer's second
course, and reached a conviction, which determined
the character of his mind and life. He himself tells us
that he was not " led away by enthusiasm/' but won by
the evidence that the doctrine was "eminently practical."
Great was the misfortune to the young man himself,
and yet greater to the world, of his passion for "the
practical." He did not understand the very terms of
true science ; and his mind had no scientific quality
which could give him insight into the bearings of theory
and practice, hypothesis, discovery, and explanation.
In this one bit of science, which he supposed himself
to have acquired, he recognized a practical value in an
application which a schoolboy of the present time would
be above making. He, and Andrew also, thought it
was "practical" to say that such and such a faculty was
too strong for some other — (as if it required phrenology
to say that) ; and that they considered that they had
"explained" a case when they had stated that No. 16
was out of proportion to No. 6 ; and that No. 20 had
no chance under the predominance of No. 5. They
supposed that they thus "accounted for" the character
of people's minds ; and to the end of their lives neither
of them had the remotest conception that the only
meaning of the act of ' ' explaining " (in a philosophical
sense) is referring some particular fact to a general law.

Spurxheini's
lectures.

Combe's
passion for
"the
practical"

138

GEORGE COMBE.

[I]

The opposi-
tion to
phrenology.

Thus, in their published letters, there is something as
painful as ludicrous in the perseverance and unremitting
complacency with which the brothers write of one an-
other's faculties, and their own and other people's ; of
Andrew's "wit" (Heaven help it !) and George's fluency,
and the superior individuality of the one and causality
of the other ; and so on. If this had been the first
excess of an early enthusiasm, it would have mattered
little ; but the men never got an inch beyond it ; and
hence the misfortune to themselves and to the world.
It was not only that they helped to originate a new and
pernicious pedantry; a greater mischief was that they
retarded, as far as in them lay, the development of a
genuine scientific discovery. No power on earth could
stop it. Jeffrey, and other Edinburgh worthies, who
had hastily committed themselves, raised a periodical
scoff and outcry against it. The Editor of the " Encyclo-
paedia Britannica " refused the subject of "Phrenology"
(for the revised edition of that work) to a phrenologist,
and gave it to Dr. Roget to treat (which is like setting
a Romanist to give an account of Protestantism, or a
Hindoo to report of Mohammedanism) ; but in spite of
all opposition, the truthful part of the modern physiology
of the brain has become established. But the Combes,
and especially George, had from the outset probably
done more to damage it in one way than to aid it in
another. George took it up as Spurzheim gave it him
in his young days ; he received it as something compact
and finished ; and he never practically admitted that
there could be anything more in new discoveries than
the Jeffreys and the Rogers recognized in those which
he held ; or even so much, for they, with all the rest of
Edinburgh, at length admitted Gall's anatomy of the

GEORGE COMBE.

139

brain, while rejecting his physiology of the mind. To
George's "practical" eye, the human -brain and mind
appeared as in a map of a completely surveyed country :
whereas he should have seen that only the latitude and
longitude, and vertebral heights and broken coast-lines,
were ascertained, and that wide regions remained un-
explored, and deep recesses unentered. It mattered
nothing to him that a vast proportion of brain was
assigned to a single faculty, while there were faculties
which no numbered organ or mutual action of organs
could account for. It mattered nothing to him that
evidence was offered of the one supposed organ being
a group of many. It mattered nothing to him that
proved developments were made which Gall himself
would have received with rapture. George Combe
looked on unmoved and immovable in his complacency.
He piqued hi-rrtself greatly on his liberality ; which was
indeed perfect in one direction. He saw that opinions
(in the strict sense of the word) are not voluntary ; and
he thoroughly and consistently accepted the correlative
duty of absolute liberality to dissentients. He cordially
and practically admitted every mans' right to his own
views, and he never meddled with other people's opinions,
while carefully impressing his own protest against them.
But he stopped there. He never examined other people's
opinions, nor opened his mind to what they had to say
about them. He never sought other persons' point of
view, nor showed any sympathy in their researches, nor
respect for their attainments, unless they were offered to
him in confirmation of his own "philosophy." This
unprogressive character of mind, in a professed apostle of
a progressive science, was a misfortune, great under any
circumstances, and especially in a case where the social

[I]

George
Combers
complacency.

140

GEORGE COMBE.

[I]

Origin of
the publica-
tion of the
" Constitu-
tion of
Man"

influence was so extraordinary as in the case of George
Combe.

In 1825, the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Know-
ledge was instituted — chiefly for the purpose of supply-
ing good and cheap books to Mechanics' Institutes, where
the want of books, as supplementary to lectures, was
severely felt. Political troubles caused delay ; but the
scheme was resumed in 1826; and in March, 1827, the
issue of the Society's tracts began. Lord Brougham and
his coadjutors had promised means of political, social,
and what may be called personal knowledge. Theo-
logical teaching was wholly excluded ; and morality had
no chance. Now, the thirst of mankind for moral philos-
ophy is unquenchable ; and the refusal or neglect of the
Diffusion Society to give it merely turned the mechanics
of the country loose, to find what they wanted for them-
selves. Six weeks before the appearance of the first of
the Society's tracts, George Combe had read to the
Phrenological Society of Edinburgh the first part of a
work "On the Harmony between the Mental and Moral
Constitution of Man and the Laws of Physical Nature."
This was the first form of his celebrated "Constitution
of Man in relation to External Objects," which was
published in 1828, and read with unexampled eagerness
by almost the entire reading classes of the nation. A
benevolent gentleman, named Henderson, left a sum of
money to be spent in rendering the book as cheap as
possible ; and extremely cheap it was made, so that mul-
titudes possessed it who never owned any other book.
Its circulation had long ago amounted to 100,000 in
Great Britain and Ireland ; and it is in almost every
house in the United States, besides having been trans-
lated into various continental languages. The good

GEORGE COMBE.

141

effects of this book, on the whole, are the best counter-
balance that its author afforded for the damage he in-
flicted on the "science" to which he believed his life to
be devoted. It was a prodigious boon to the multitude,
high and low, to be led to the contemplation of their
frame in relation to the external world ; to obtain the
first glimpse (as it was to them) of Man's position in the
universe as a constituent part of it, subject to its laws
precisely like every other part. Much else there is in
the book which fell in remarkably with the needs and
desires of the time ; and there can be no doubt that the
effect of the work, as a whole, on the health, morality,
and intellectual cultivation of the people, has been some-
thing truly memorable. It is the great work and the
great event of the life of George Combe. He wrote other
works ; but he is known by his "Constitution of Man."
In 1819 he published his "Essays on Phrenology," and
afterward his "Elements," "Outlines," and "System"
of the same subject; and a volume of "Moral Philos-
ophy," and "Lectures on Popular Education," "Notes"
of his travels in America, and a Life of his brother
Andrew ; and, we regret to add, his views on Art after
his visits to Germany and Italy in pursuit of health. The
slightest appreciation of the qualities of his intellect
must show the absurdity of his attempting criticism in
Art ; and it is a curious illustration of the small range of
a professed "practical" judgment that George Combe,
who prided himself on such a judgment, should have
supposed himself a judge of pictures, statues, and archi-
tecture, and have believed that he ' ' explained" anything
in the department of art by his applications of what he
called his Philosophy. Perhaps the most useful thing he
did was translating a part of Gall's writings ; and there

[I]

The useful-
ness of the
•work.

His other
publications.

142

GEORGE COMBE.

[I]

His perti-
nacity in
maintain-
ing the
rights of
Opinion.

can be little doubt that he would have made the very
best use of his time and such taknts as he had, if he had
given us a condensed version of these writings, instead
of lucubrations of his own which have disguised more
han they have propagated Gall's discoveries. In his
great work, the "Constitution of Man," he was preceded
by Spurzheim, whose "Natural Laws" effected for its
readers what Combe's works did for the working classes.
If he had given us the teachings of the Masters them-
selves, we should have been in a better position than
by seeing them represented in the person of a special
pleader who assumes to be their comrade.

The merit of Combe was great in pertinaciously and
effectively sustaining the rights of Opinion, and some
facts of science, in the Phrenological Journal, against an
opposition unsurpassed in violence and dishonesty. For
this he was well fitted by nature and training. His re-
markable self-esteem ; his self-consciousness, rendering
him very faintly impressionable ; his good-nature and
real benevolence ; his shrewdness and caution ; the
absence of all keen sensibility, and the presence of a
constant sense of justice, — all fitted him to hold any given
ground well against unscrupulous and passionate adver-
saries. No romance of duty dazzled him ; no idolatry
of the ideal intoxicated him ; no sympathy with human
passion or devout aspiration put him off his guard.
Standing above the perils of gross selfishness and dis-
honesty, and below those which attend high intellectual
and spiritual gifts, he was the man to hold a certain
ground, and he held it steadily, cheerfully, and well. It
would not be honest, however, to pass over without
notice the snare into which he fell, and into which he
led some of his followers, through his deficiency in the

GEORGE COMBE.

high qualities just referred to. It was not necessary to
have his personal acquaintance to become aware, in the
latter part of his career, that, with all his appearance of
frankness toward the public, he was not in the habit of
really opening his mind on matters of opinion of the
deepest importance. It was all very well for Mr. Hus-
kisson, as an Administrative Reformer, to open his hand,
as he said, by one finger at a time, because the people
or their rulers could not receive a whole handful of the
truth about Free Trade. This is excusable, if not wise,
in a matter of fiscal doctrine ; and Mr. Huskisson, while
waiting his time, never conformed to the sayings and
doings of the Protectionists. But George Combe went
to work, in regard to religion and morals, as Mr. Hus-
kisson did, so far as letting out only by the little finger ;
and he did even this by conforming to established notions
and forms of expressions which, it came out at last, were
in his opinion' false. A collocation of the evidence
afforded by himself in a course of years shows that he
accommodated himself to the popular view and language
on theological and moral subjects, where there was no real
sympathy of opinion. Now and then, when Popular Edu-
cation, or some other cause that he really had at heart,
was in question, he came out boldly against intolerance ;
but otherwise, there is a coaxing quality in his teachings,
a forced character in his sympathy, and a measured and
patronizing tone in his intercourses with thinkers which
point to the truth, that this teacher (believing himself a
philosopher) took the old philosopher's license, to which
he had no sort of right in his place and time, of having
an esoteric and an exoteric doctrine, and organizing a
sect on that ground. The ground proved infirm, of
course. The Phrenologists are no longer a mere sect,

[I]

His reticence
and

apparent
conformity
to estab-
lished
notions.

144

GEORGE COMBE.

[I]

His one

serious

fault.

His

marriage.

and visit to
the United
States.

and they never could be organized as a sect holding
secrets. The result of the attempt was to shake every-
body's confidence in George Combe, from the time when
it became clear that he was appearing to entertain one
set of opinions while holding another. This is, amidst
some foibles, the one serious fault chargeable on George
Combe, in his assumed character of Philosopher and
Teacher. Great virtues attended on that function all the
while ; benevolence, a genial cheerfulness and kindliness;
a large power of liberality in himself, and a virtuous
persistence in requiring the same from others in behalf
of everybody. We do not, indeed, see how the honors
of genius, or of philosophical achievement, or of original
thought, can be awarded to him ; but he was the agent,
if not the author, of a great revolution in popular views,
and in sanitary practices. If he did not advance his
own department of science, but rather hindered its de-
velopment by his own philosophical incapacity, he pre-
pared for its future expansion by opening the minds of
millions to its conception. The world owes him much,
however disappointed it may be that it does not owe
him more.

In 1833 George Combe married Miss Cecilia Siddons.
Four or five years after, he quitted the practice of his
profession, and in 1838 went, accompanied by Mrs.
Combe, to the United States, where he remained, lec-
turing and preparing his journal, till 1840. Dr. Spurzheim
had visited the United States in 1832, and died there in
a few months ; and the disciples he had obtained, wishing
for another master, invited George Combe to go and
lecture to them. The years after his return were varied
by continental journeys, too often rendered necessary by
failing health. The latter period of his life was one of

GEORGE COMBE. 145

very infirm health — the result, as he believed, of the
early adverse influences which turned his own and
his brother's attention so strongly to sanitary subjects.
After more and more shutting up for the winters, and
less and less ability to enjoy the business and pleasures
of life and society within his own home, he died at
his friend Dr.' Lane's hydropathic establishment, at Moor
Park, just as he had completed his threescore years
and ten.

II.

William

•von

Humboldt.

ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT.
DIED MAY 6iH, 1859.

THE remarkable brothers William and Alexander von
Humboldt were descendants of a Pomeranian family.
William made himself a memorable name in Germany,
and Alexander in the whole civilized world. William,
the elder by rather more than two years, was a phi-
losopher in the realms of Literature and Art, while
Alexander devoted himself, not to the study of the
human mind or its productions, but to the medium or
environment in which it lives. William was frankly told
by his friend Schiller that his mind was of too ratiocin-
ative and critical a cast to permit him to produce works
of art, in literature or otherwise ; and his highest achieve-
ments were, accordingly, in the department of philology.
However great these might have been, they could never
have won the heartfelt love with which William von
Humboldt was regarded by some of the best men of his
age. It was his political action which won him that love.
He was ever found asserting the principles of liberty —
earnestly, wisely, and unflinchingly ; and hence it was
certain, as he very well knew, that he would never be a
great man in the Berlin Court sense of greatness, when
once he had been called upon to declare "an opinion

ALEXANDER VON HUMS OLD T.

which differed from that of the Monarch who pretended
to ask his counsel. He filled a succession of diplomatic
and administrative offices for above nineteen years ; but
when it became necessary to remind his Sovereign, in
opposition to Von Hardenberg, of the promise of a con-
stitution made in 1813, the King declined to keep his
promise and his faithful councillor, and preferred losing
his honor and his good Minister in order to retain
power (in the sense in which he understood it), and the
Minister who flattered his love of it. William von
Humboldt had still fifteen years to live. He passed
them in philological and literary studies, and died,
honored and beloved, without doubt or drawback, in
the sixty-ninth year of his age, in 1835. He had signed
the Treaty of Chatillon, and attended the Vienna Con-
gress as the representative of his country. His brother
attended the Congress of Verona in the King's suite.
The elder incurred the royal displeasure by his Liberal
tendencies ; but the younger enjoyed grace and distinction
at Court to the end ; patronage being showered upon
him, without too close an inquiry on the one hand, or
too frank an explanation on the other, in regard to the
principles and practice of government. As William re-
tired to explore the roots and genealogies of language,
and to write the hundred sonnets which were found after
his death, Alexander was displaying more stars on his
coat, and receiving more honors on his head. There
could never be any rational objection to the brothers
taking different lines, as their natural preparation might
indicate. The noticeable point was the descent of Court
honors on the Naturalist, while disgrace fell on the
Statesman ; and a smile went round the circles, both of
philosophy and politics, when Alexander, in laying out

Treatment
of the
brothers by
the Court.

148

ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT.

[II]

Early bent
of Alex-
ander's
genius.

the scheme of his "Kosmos," proposed to omit the
whole subject of Mental Philosophy. The idea of pre-
senting a delineation of the universe, not in mere external
form but as moved by its forces, and omitting the most
marvellous of all manifestations and forces, seemed to
his readers more remarkable for caution than for philo-
sophical wisdom.

William was born at Potsdam in 1767 ; and Alexander
•, as his name stands at full length, Frederick Henry
Alexander von Humboldt — was born at Berlin in 1769,
on the 1 4th of September. Their father died when they
were twelve and ten years old ; but their mother, a cousin
of the Princess Blucher, was a woman of fine capacity
and cultivation ; and the family fortunes were good ; so
that the boys had every educational advantage. Alex-
ander received his academic training at Gottingen and
Frankfort on the Oder, and a part of his scientific in-
struction at the Mining School of Freiburg. Nothing
could be more marked than his early determination
toward Natural Science, and toward travel in pursuit
of his researches. The more he was thwarted and
hemmed in by the obstructions of war, the intenser grew
his desire to explore the heights, depths, and expanses
of the earth, in order to extort the secrets of Nature.
Geology did not yet exist ; and for want of the generali-
zations with which he, more than any other man, has
since furnished us, Natural Science was fragmentary and
confused to a degree scarcely conceivable to students
now entering on that vast field. We complain at present
of the desultory condition of Natural Science from the
speciality of pursuit which is the great disadvantage of
our existing stage ; and from which we must be relieved
ere long by the formation of a new class of philosophers,

ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT.

149

whose business it will be to establish the mutual relations
of all the sciences, and all the departments of each
science ; but when Humboldt was a youth, even the
stage of speciality was scarcely reached. The ardent
mind of the boy seems to have contemplated — as other
boyish minds have done — the exhibition of those relations,
after a due exploration of the details, and generalization
of the results in the various departments. Many are the
youths who have formed this conception, and resolved
upon the work ; but, since Aristotle, Humboldt is the
most remarkable — some might say the only — example of
an approach to the achievement of such a scheme. Our
own opinion is, that others have approached as nearly —
the disadvantages of their times being considered ; and
that Humboldt's achievements, prodigious as they are,
fall short precisely in the points in regard to which his
own expectations were highest. His investigations and
arrangement of details was perfectly marvellous from its
scope and equality of treatment ; his generalization were
so splendid, and so fruitful beyond all estimate, that it is
a reluctant judgment which ranks them below his more
concrete studies, in regard to quality ; but there can be
no difference of opinion about his failure in his highest
effort, as exhibited in his "Kosmos." We have every
reason to believe it impossible, practically speaking, for
the same mind to effect what Humboldt did and what he
failed to do. Whenever (if ever) we have a "Kosmos,"
it will be given us by a man who can immediately and
thoroughly adopt the results of other men's labors as
material for his peculiar faculty of ascertaining relations
between vastnesses and aggregates which are to him
manageable single portions of the great whole. The
discoverer of a Solar System could not possibly be the

[II]

Hisacaieve-
ments in
Natural
Science.

ISO

ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT.

[II]

His

deficiencies.

man who should resolve first to understand the Natural
History of all the constituents of the globe ; but rather
the man who takes up our globe as a planet, and carries
it as a unit into his scheme of planetary study. It is
therefore no wonder that Humboldt is found to halt,
waver, and diverge in his presentment of the great
Scheme of the Universe. Sometimes he quits his own
definition or description ; sometimes he loses the pre-
cision of his great idea in a cloud of words which look
philosophical, but will not bear a plain rendering ; and
often he rambles away from his central point of view
into wide fields of facts, extremely interesting, and mar-
vellously rich, but not directly related to the object they
were cited to illustrate.

Thus much of failure is ascribable to the mere fact
of the limitation and inequality of human faculty. The
other great cause of failure in the most ambitious of
Humboldt's works is of a moral nature. He declines
to speak out on some essential points which, in a scheme
like his, cannot be slighted. His ambition and his
caution are irreconcilable. On the essential topics,
for instance, of Creation, of Spontaneous Generation,
and of the basis and scope of Mental Philosophy, with
some other such ticklish subjects, he either keeps back
his views, or permits them to be discoverable only by
a process of inference of which none but the highly
qualified are capable. In this matter, however, it is
necessary to state that he should not be judged by the
English translations of "Kosmos;" even the best, and
that sanctioned by himself. The word "creation" used
repeatedly for the universe, is misleading, or at least
perplexing to readers who have duly attended to some
preceding passages ; and if they turn to the original

ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT.

they find that Humboldt spoke of the frame of things,
the universe, the collective phenomena of nature, or
the like. But the omission of some prominent philo-
sophical bases, whether through caution or anything
else, renders the " Kosmos" of Humboldt a hybrid
production between poetry and science which is not
the philosophy it pretends to be. It is wealthy in its
facts, and splendid in its generalizations ; but it is not
Kosmos.

Humboldt's preparation for this, which he consid-
ered his crowning work, may be said to have begun
when he became the pupil of Werner, the first Geologist,
at Freiburg, when he was two-and-twenty. He had
already travelled in Holland and England, and even
published a scientific book — on the Basalts of the Rhine.
He was employed as a Director on the Government
Mines ; and, in the course of his travels to explore
the mineral districts of various countries, he lighted
upon Galvani in Italy, and became devoted for a time
to the study of Animal Electricity, and to the obser-
vation of some of the phenomena of the animal frame
which were supremely interesting to him in his latest
days. In 1849 he verified, to his own entire satis-
faction, and that of his philosophical coadjutors, the
fact of the deflection of the needle as a result of human
volition, through the medium of muscular contraction.
"The fact/' he said, in his letter to Arago, the next
year, "is established beyond all question of doubt/'
"Occupied myself for more than half a century in this
class of physiological researches, the discovery which
I have announced has for me a vital interest. It is
a phenomenon of Life, rendered sensible by a physical
instrument. " Thus were his earliest and latest scientific

His prepar-
ation for the
production
of the
Kosmos.

His dh

covery of the
deflection of
the needle.

152

ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT.

His travels

and

researches.

interests linked by the discoveries of the remarkable
age in which he lived ; but what an experience had he
undergone in the mean time ! He had stood on higher
ground than human foot had till then attained. He
climbed Chimborazo to the height of 19,300 feet; an
elevation since then surpassed, but never attained till
that June day of 1802. He went down into the deepest
mines, in pursuit of his geological researches. He
not only visited three of the four quarters of the world,
but explored parts of them which were then completely
savage in the eyes of the civilized world. It was through
no remissness of his own that he did not travel in
Africa. He was at Marseilles, on his way to Algiers
and to the top of Atlas, whence he meant to go to
Egypt, when the war, which seemed to stop him at
every outlet, turned him back. While charing under
his confinement to Europe, he did the best he could
within that prison. When the war raged in Italy, he
travelled with Von Bach in Styria, examining the moun-
tains and their productions. When London was inacces-
sible, he went to Paris, where he made the acquaintance
of his future comrade, Bonpland. When the war came
to Germany, he was off to Spain ; and there, at last,
he met his opportunity. He obtained a passage to
South America, and narrowly escaped imposing upon
us the honor or disgrace, whichever it might be, of
having Alexander Humboldt for our prisoner of war.
He has told in his works of his ascent of the Peak
of Teneriffe (which just enabled him to deny not
baving taken Africa in his course of travel), and of what
be saw and felt among the vast rolling rivers, and grassy
plains, and tropical forests, and overwhelming mountains
of South America. He explored Mexico, landing on

ALEXANDER VON HUMS OLD T.

153

its Pacific side, after having crossed the Andes ; and
then, by way of Cuba, visited the United States, and
lived two months in Philadelphia, in 1804. The world
had never seen such scientific wealth as Humboldt
brought to Havre, in his collections in every branch
of Natural History, illustrated by such a commentary
as he was now qualified to give. He planned an ency-
clopaedic work which should convey in detail all his
discoveries and classified knowledge ; and the issue
of this work was one of the mistakes of his life which
cost him most uneasiness. After twelve years of constant
labor he had issued only four-fifths of this prodigious
series of works ; and it has never been completed,
though portions have dropped out even within a few
years. Before those twelve years were over — that is,
before 1817 — he had been overtaken in research, and
forestalled in publication, by men whom he had himself,
by his example, inspired and trained. In the next
year he broke off from this slavery, and visited Italy.
He was in England in 1826. He was then regarded
as an elderly man — being fifty-seven years old — and
notorious for a quarter of a century. But he was just
about to make trial of a new mode of life ; and there
were, after that, extensive travels before him.

He fixed his abode at Berlin, and immediately became
a royal favorite, and, consequently, a politician. He
was made a Councillor of State, and tried his hand at
diplomacy. But those are not the things by which he
will be remembered ; and nobody cares to dwell on that
part of his life, except those who would fain have
Englishmen see that the foreign method of rewarding
scientific or literary service by political office seems
never to answer well in practice. In most cases the

7*

His plan of
an encyclo-
pedic 'work.

Becomes a
politician.

154

ALEXANDER VON HUMS OLD T.

[H]

In the Royal
suite.

practice is simply the spoiling of two things by mixing
them ; in Humboldt's case, we merely forget the political
part of his career, which was the artificial portion of his
life, as it was the natural portion of his brother's. When
Alexander came to England with the King of Prussia,
on occasion of the baptism of the Prince of Wales, his
appearance in the royal suite gave a sort of jar to
English associations about the dignity of science. It
was felt that that splendid brow wore the true crown ;
and many a cheek flushed when the sage played the
courtier, and had to consult the royal pleasure about
his engagements with our scientific men, as a lacquey
asks leave to go out. It is certain, however, that
Humboldt took kindly to that sort of necessity. He
was a courtier all over. We see it in his over-praise of
all savans whom he names, and by his dexterous
omission of such names as the Court or learned classes
of Berlin did not wish to hear of. We see it in his
cumbrous style, which is more like network to catch
suffrages than a natural expression of what the writer
was thinking about. And we see it in those nebulous
or deficient portions of his "Kosmos," of which we have
spoken above. Those who knew him in his last days
saw it in the contrast between his written and spoken
comments on his contemporaries. After hearing one of
his dramatic descriptions of sittings in the Scientific
Academies of the European capitals, with satirical pre-
sentments of the great men there, his elaborate com-
pliments to the same persons, incessantly issued in one
form or another, have been found very curious reading.
There was no envy or jealousy in this — only an irre-
sistible provocation to amuse himself and others,
through his insight into human nature. He was

ALEXANDER VON HUMS OLD T.

155

thoroughly generous in the recognition and aid of ability ;
or rather, as he was high above all competition, regarding
Science as his home, he looked upon all within that en-
closure as his children. It was with a true paternal earn-
estness and indulgence that he strove for their welfare.
Almost every man of science in Germany who has found
his place has been conducted to it by Humboldt ; and this,
not only by a good use of his influence at Court, but by
business-like endeavor in other directions. Napoleon
and Wellington were born in the same year with him.
Wellington never showed more studious skill in the ar-
rangement of his forces, nor Napoleon a more efficient will
in the distribution of the sceptres of European empires,
than Humboldt, to the very last, in disposing his forces,
and conferring crowns in the interests of the kingdoms of
the higher realm of Nature. He gloried in so long outliv-
ing the achievements of those great contemporaries : and
truly it was a noble sight to see, so many years after the
Great Captain had done his wars, and the Great Despot
had expiated his trespasses, the Monarch of Science still
urging his conquests, and winning his victories, in a career
which cost no tears to others, and left no place for repent-
ance for himself.

The hindrance imposed on his scientific researches by
his political position was very evident on occasion of his
last long journey. By the express desire of the Czar,
he travelled to Siberia, in company with Ehrenberg and
Gustav Rose, in 1829, and explored Central Asia to the
very frontier of China. Yet this journey, which, if he
had set out from Paris, he would have thought worthy
to absorb some years, was hurried over in nine months,
as he happened to set forth from the Court of Berlin.
He did great things for the time — instituting obser-

[in

His pa-
tronage of
men of
science.

His travels
in Central
Ana.

I56

ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT.

[II]

His old
age.

vatories, improving the Russian methods of mining,
kindling intelligence wherever he went, and bringing
home knowledge, more great and various than perhaps
any living man but himself has gained in so short a
time. After his return he spent the rest of his life, with
intervals of travel, in maturing the generalizations by
which he has done his chief service of all — that of
indicating the laws of the Distribution of the forms of
existence, and especially of Biological existence. He
also compiled his * ' Kosmos" from the substance of sixty-
one lectures which he delivered in Berlin in 1827-8.
His frame wore wonderfully ; and there was no sign of
decay of external sense or interior faculty while younger
men were dropping into the grave, completely worn out.
He was the last of the contemporaries of Gothe ; and
as the tidings came of the death of each— philosopher,
poet, statesman, or soldier — Humboldt raised his head
higher, seemed to feel younger, and, as it were, proud of
having outlived so many. If silent, he was kindly and
gentle. If talkative, he would startle his hearers with a
story or scene from a Siberian steppe or a Peruvian river-
side— fresh and accurate as if witnessed last year. He
forgot no names or dates, any more than facts of a more
interesting kind. In the street, he was known to every
resident of Berlin and Potsdam, and was pointed out to
all strangers, as he walked, slowly and firmly, with his
massive head bent a little forward, and his hand at his
back holding a pamphlet. He was fond of the society
of young men to the last, and was often found present
at their scientific processes and meetings for experiment,
and nobody present was more unpretending and gay.
He has been charged with putting down all talk but his
own ; but this was the natural mistake of the empty-

ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT.

157

minded, who were not qualified either to listen or talk
in his presence. There was no better listener than
Humboldt in the presence of one who had anything
worth hearing to say on any subject whatever. Though
he liked praise, he could run the risk of blame on
serious occasions. Though he probably did not say at
Court what he said to his intimates elsewhere, "I am a
democrat of 1789," he used his position and influence
to utter things in high places which would hardly have
been otherwise heard there. It was the impression
among his friends that he was as hearty an anti-Russian
amidst the political complications of 1854 as any man
in Berlin. Whether the king was equally aware of it
there was no knowing. If he was, Humboldt's position
was too well secured to permit any manfestation of
royal annoyance.

It is a great thing for Germany that, at the period
when the national intellect seemed in danger of evapo-
rating in dreams and vapors of metaphysics, Humboldt
arose to connect the abstract faculty of that national
mind with the material on which it ought to be employed.
The rise of so great a Naturalist and initiator of Physical
Philosophy at the very crisis of the intellectual fortunes
of Germany is a blessing of yet unappreciated value ;
unappreciated because it is only the completion of any
revolution which can reveal the whole prior need of it.
If Alexander Humboldt suffered, more or less, from the
infection of the national uncertainty of thought and
obscurity of expression, he conferred infinitely more than
he lost by giving a grasp of reality to the finest minds
of his country, and opening a broad new avenue into the
realm of Nature to be trodden by all peoples of all times.

[II]

His liberal
tendencies.

His influ-
ence on
German
thought.

III.

PROFESSIONAL.

I.

DR. BLOMFIELD.

RESIGNED THE BISHOPRIC OF LONDON IN SEPTEMBER, 1856.
DIED AUGUST 5™, 1857.

THOUGH he had laid down his episcopal title and dignity
some months before his death, Dr. Blomfield will be
known in history as the Bishop of London. Of all the
incumbents of the Metropolitan See since the Reforma-
tion, scarcely any one has held the office in a more
remarkable and critical time for the Church than Charles
James Blomfield. His episcopate was a very long one :
and the period almost exactly comprehended the term of
crisis — as far as that crisis has yet proceeded — in Church
principles and government. If the character and destiny
of any Church are exhibited more or less in the mind
and conduct of its chief dignitaries, the life of Bishop
Blomfield must have an interest, not only for our own
generation, but for others to come.

He was the son of C. Blomfield, Esq. ; and he was
educated at Cambridge, where he obtained, when a
Middle Bachelor, a classical prize in 1809. He was a
Fellow of Trinity College, and in orders in 1810, and
highly distinguished among scholars for his edition of
^Eschylus. and the controversies which it occasioned.
He was permitted by his College to use Person's notes ;

Critical
period of his
episcopate.

His edition
ofJEschylus.

162

DR. BLOMFIELD.

[I]

His liberal
•views in
early life.

Consecrated
Bishop of
Chester.

Opposes
Catholic
Emancipa-
tion.

and the opponents of the Porsonian school castigated
him and his work accordingly. His rival, Mr. Butler,
oddly enough as it seems to us now, accused him in a
pamphlet of being the Reviewer of Butler's "^Eschylus"
in the Edingburgh Review ; and Hermann, in his notice
of Blomfield's edition (in the Weimar Annual, ) says that
it is remarkable for "a great arbitrariness of proceeding,
and much boldness of innovation, guided by no sure
principle. " Adding to this the consideration of vast and
willing toil bestowed upon the work, we have already,
so early as 1810, a disclosure of the mind and character
of the man. In those days, a divine rose in the Church
in one of two ways — by his classical reputation, or by
aristocratic connection. Mr. Blomfield was a fine scholar,
but he was, in early life, a Liberal in politics, and a friend
to religious liberty in the form of Catholic and every
other Emancipation. His views changed, as he himself
professed, after he became tutor in the family of some
near relatives of the Minister of the day ; and he was
soon after in the enjoyment of a living of 4,ooo/. a year
in London, and was next made Bishop of Chester (in
1824), and Clerk of the Closet to George IV., retaining
the emoluments of all these offices at once. He was as
zealous in his opposition to Catholic claims as he had
been, not long before, in advocating them ; and Hansard
can exhibit in his case one of the most curious states of
mind conceivable. He grounded his frequent depreca-
tion of Catholic Emancipation on the sins and errors of
Popery, which were quite as well known to him before,
but which he had formerly thought, very properly, not to
be the question in dispute, but rather whether the errors
of any faith ought to exclude men from civil rights. His
natural impetuosity led him into inaccuracies of statement

DR. BLOMFIELD.

163

which were made the most of by the Liberals of the
time ; their strictures induced him to declare himself a
martyr; his complaints of his severe trials endeared him
to the Duke of York, who was at that time fierce in his
Anti-Catholic politics ; and all the world predicted the
highest honors of the Churcfe for Bishop Blomfield when-
ever the Duke of York should succeed to the throne.
He became Bishop of London, however, in 1828, before
the death of George IV., Bishop Horsley going to
Canterbury. In the true spirit of a Churchman of the
olden time, he was always insisting, up to the moment of
Catholic Emancipation, that the proper remedy for Irish
discontent was the granting, not of rights of conscience,
but bounties on linen and flax, appropriations for public
works, and penalties on absenteeism. His confirmation
as Bishop of London took place at Bow Church on the
1 6th of August, 1828.

While the Bishops were engrossed with political
interests, that disturbance in the interior of the Church
had begun which has gone on increasing to this day ;
and it was the total silence of the Bishops, ou the first
occasion of the subject being brought before Parliament,
which fixed the attention of the public on their position
in the House of Lords ; and which, when contrasted,
some years afterward, with their remarkable act of
throwing out the Reform Bill, raised the temporary cry,
and confirmed the conception of their " release," as it
was called, " from their duties in Parliament." It was in
the year before Dr. Blomfield became Bishop of Chester
that the first symptom occurred of the awakening of the
High Church spirit of domination over faith which has
since roused the clergy — some to an exemplary discharge
of their duties, and others to insubordination. In the

[I]

Appointedto
the See of
London.

Conduct of
the Bishops
in Parlia-
ment.

1 64

DR. BLOM FIELD.

[I]

The Trac-
tarlau Con-
troversy.

Session of 1821, the celebrated Peterborough Questions
— the eighty-seven Questions imposed upon candidates
for orders by Dr. Herbert Marsh, Bishop of Peterborough
— were appealed against in the only place where an
appeal could lodge — in the House of Lords. The
Archbishop of Canterbury had refused to entertain the
subject. The Lords also refused to entertain the subject,
both then and on occasion of another petition the next
year. On both occasions the prominent subject of
remark was the silence of the Bishops on a matter
which vitally concerned the constitution and interests
of their Church. They were taunted with it in the
House, and by Lord Carnarvon especially. But they
were in fact unprepared. The subject of Liberty of
Opinion was coming up before they were aware ; and it
was certainly very plain that they were no more fit to
open their lips upon it than any other set of men in
England.

Just at that time, Dr. Blomfield took his seat among
the Bishops ; and, unaware that his life would be occupied
with the strifes of opinion and the conflicts on the
question of religious liberty, he rushed into politics, and
committed himself early on the wrong and losing side of
the Catholic Question. The uncertainty and obscurity
of his conduct and his views on the great Tractarian
controversy of the time was a singular spectacle to those
who best knew his love of decision, his love of power,
his love of whatever was strong and substantial. We
believe that to the last it was uncertain to everybody
what his Church views really were. While the Oxford
party wde advocating Art as auxiliary to religion, the
Bishop of London refused all countenance to the West-
minster Abbey Festival in 1834, though the Archbishops

DR. BLOMFIELD.

165

of Canterbury, York, and Armagh were in attendance on
the King and Queen at the performances. The Oxford
party advocated popular amusements, and on Sundays,
after service, as much as other days ; and the Bishop of
London proclaimed in the Lords the number of boats
that went under Putney-bridge on Sundays. This was
never forgotten or forgiven ; and the image of the Prelate,
in his purple, sitting in his palace at Fulham, counting
the people who came for fresh air on their only day of
the seven, was often brought forward years after the
Bishop himself was suspected of Tractarianism. The
suspicion arose in the very midst of apparent Low-Church
scruples. When Tractarian practices crept into London
churches, and he was appealed to on their account, his
Charges were looked for with extreme eagerness ; but it
was difficult to learn more from them than that he was
at a loss what to say. His hair-splitting on rubrical
subjects is well remembered ; and his nice distinctions
are on record — his so-called decisions, which decide
nothing, about candles lighted and unlighted, gown and
surplice, bowings, &c., &c. He strove evidently to take
a middle course on a subject which does not admit of it ;
and he had no principle to assign. In one so fond of
power, so haughty to his working clergy, so prone to
decision and arbitrariness, so impetuous and apt to be
possessed by an idea, such weakness was very remarkable,
and not a little interesting as showing what the difficulty
of Church government must at the moment be. The
truth is, Bishop Blomfield was not adequate to his charge
in such a time of crisis, though his really great and good
qualities fitted him for the same position in an organic
period of the Church.

If he was not strong enough in his best days, much

His nice
distinctions.

1 66

DR. BLOMFIELD.

[I]

Unequal to
his position.

less had he any chance of being an ecclesiastical hero —
like the Seven Bishops, to whom he compared himself
in the days of the Catholic Question — when his health
failed, and his spirits were borne down by pressure of
business, and perplexity and irresolution of mind. There
was a time when, of all the prelates on the Bench,
Dr. Blomfield would have been selected, from his
activity, his self-confidence, his devotion to business, and
his habits of authority, to contend with the schism in the
Church, and to take care that, in his own province at
least, all should be orthodox and unquestionable : but
that time was over long ago ; and if the historian of the
struggle were required to point out which of all the
Bishops most disappointed expectation on this one
ground, he would indicate the Bishop of London. Not
the less credit, but perhaps the more, should he have for
his best qualities and his most useful work and example.
Of his conscientiousness no doubt, we believe, was ever
raised. The reputation of his head gave way to that
of his heart on all doubtful occasions. He had what
Sydney Smith called "an ungovernable passion for busi-
ness," and devoted eight hours a day to the administra-
tion of his diocese. He aided in the construction of
the new Poor-law, and manifested as much sagacity and
sound principle as industry in that difficult matter. He
was the author and chief component part of the
Ecclesiastical Commission. He was told that he was
destroying the Church, and that no good Churchman
would join him : he replied that the Church could by
no other means be saved ; and he was not left alone. The
reproach was a remarkable one to be addressed to him
who considered himself and the Church so completely
identified, that, according to Sydney Smith's joke, the

DR. BLOMFIELD.

167

form of his dinner invitations was, "The Church of
England and Mrs. Blomfield request the pleasure, " &c.

But his labors would have been more respected and
more effectual if he could so far have thrown off Church
influences as to divest himself of some of his wealth
and patronage. There were reductions in the Bishop's
incomes; but these incomes were still preposterous,
while he was incessantly and pathetically lamenting the
case of hungry sheep scantily tended. The wealth of
bishops and poverty of curates came to be called "the
sheep and shepherd principle" of Church government ;
and the Church gained no credit by it. Provincial Dean
of Canterbury, Dean of the Chapels Royal, and holding
nearly one hundred livings in his gift, he was not so
respectfully treated in regard to his reforms as his
conscientiousness really deserved.

As in so many other cases, the evil was in the system
more than in the man. Devoted to his business, and
what he conceived to be his duty, charitable (though
highly arbitrary) in his acts, amiable in domestic life,
and agreeable in his social manners, he was regarded
with much affection by those who were once attached to
him. Society wonders what has become of the power
from which the world, and himself especially, anticipated
so much ; and, on the whole, his must be regarded as a
vocation manque. He "came in like a lion and went
out like a lamb. " His power was not only less than all
supposed, but it was unsuited to the time ; and there can
be no doubt that, in the midst of his purple and gold,
and his palaces, and his large domestic circle, he must
have endured many a painful hour, under difficulties that
he could not cope with, and perplexities that he could
not solve. His virtues, his deficiencies, and the prero-

[I]

His Church
patronage.

The system
and the

168

DR. BLOMFIELD.

[I]

gatives and troubles of his lot, alike furnish the lesson to
those who hold the power of appointment to bishoprics,
that Greek scholarship is of little consequence in these
days, in comparison with clear and honest convictions,
ripened judgment in ecclesiastical matters, liberal views,
inflexible courage and decision, and unquestionable dis-
interestedness. Whatever may be the zeal and piety
of any number of individual members of a Church, that
Church cannot stand as an Ecclesiastical Establishment
which shows, like ours at this day, large variations in
the views of its prelates, without any combined action
or consistent administration.

II.

ARCHBISHOP WHATELY.

DIED OCTOBER STH, 1863.

j

WE live in days when the fortunes of Church dignitaries
— in other words, the qualities which raise Churchmen to
dignities — are a pregnant sign of the times. Of this
class of phenomena, none has been more striking to our
generation than the presence of Richard Whately on the
bench of bishops ; and his elevation to the Archbishopric
of Dublin was scarcely more astonishing to Ireland than
it was to the rest of the United Kingdom, — to say
nothing of foreign countries, from Rome to the farthest
West where the Irish immigrant rears his shanty on the
prairie. To those who remember 1830, and knew any-
thing of the dismay of the then young Tractarian party
at Oxford, and of the exultation of the Church Reform
party, of whom Dr. Arnold may be considered a repre-
sentative, when the announcement was made that the
Annotator on Archbishop King's Discourse on Predesti-
nation, the Bampton Lecturer, the author of " Elements
of Logic," the audacious thinker, the outspoken Richard
Whately, was to be the new Archbishop of Dublin, our
words will not appear extravagant. The discontent on
the Liberal side was that the elevation was not sufficiently
great and effective. " But alas !" wrote Dr. Arnold, " for

Hoiohis ele-
vation iv as
received.

170

ARCHBISHOP WHATELY.

[II]

Dr.Arnold's
opinion o
Whately.

His birth,
1786.

your being at Dublin, instead of at Canterbury." In
Ireland, however, where Catholic equality was yet new
and raw, and the two Churches were rapidly exchanging
converts, even Dr. Arnold saw that there was much for a
Liberal prelate to do. " It does grieve me most deeply,"
he wrote, "to hear people speak of him as a dangerous
and latitudinarian character, because in him the intel-
lectual part of his nature keeps pace with the spiritual —
instead of being left, as the Evangelicals leave it, a fallow
field for all unsightly creeds to flourish in. He is a truly
great man, in the highest sense of the word ; and if the
safety and welfare of the Protestant Church in Ireland
depend in any degree on human instruments, none could
be found, I verily believe, in the whole empire, so likely
to maintain it." It is no new thing for the event to
rebuke the discontents and exultations which wait on
portents, or what seem such. The excitement about
this Whig appointment soon subsided ; and the Church
is very much where it would have been if Whately had
devoted his days to logic and political economy in some
country parsonage, or the lecture hall at Oxford. A
certain interest, however, hangs about the personal
history from the early achievements of the man, and the
high expectations he awakened ; and his disappearance
from the Church and the world awakens thoughts and
feelings worthy of heed and of record.

Richard Whately was born in 1786, his father being
a clergyman, who lived at Nonsuch Park, Surrey. Oriel
College was made eminent at that period by the names
of some of its Fellows, and by its being the last refuge
of the study of Logic, and the one school of Speculative
Philosophy in England. Thus it was regarded at the
time ; and strange it is to remember this now, after all

ARCHBISHOP WHATELY.

171

that has happened since. Whately's comrades there were
Coplestone, Davison, Keble, Hawkins, and Hampden,
soon joined in their fellowships by Newman and Pusey.
In 1819 Whately became a Fellow, and in 1822 Principal
of St. Alban's Hall. Of his earliest work (or that which
usually stands first in the list), " Historic Doubts," little
seems now to be remembered, beyond its giving assur-
ance to the world of an independent thinker among the
rising clergy. His Notes to Archbishop King's Sermon
on Predestination appeared in 1821, and proved him to
have that sort of English inclination (as foreigners call
it) which seeks "a craggy subject to break one's mind
on. " The impression at the time was that Archbishop
King's editor failed in logic, though no one could
seriously demand that logic should avail in bringing the
thinker to the desired conclusion. Mr. Whately (as he
was then) was respectfully treated by his theological
critics ; but the weak point in him was declared to be
his logic. Yet had his work on Logic been maturing in
his mind for a dozen years at that very time. Before it
appeared, however, he had become further known to the
Church and the public by "Two Discourses on Obe-
dience to Civil Government," and by his "Bampton
Lectures," delivered in 1822. He published his eight
lectures under the title, "The Use and Abuse of Party-
feeling in Matters of Religion considered." Looking
back upon them now, under the light of the author's
after-life, we smile to see the politico-economical doc-
trines which were already his study applied in a spiritual
sense to theological affairs — the advantages of party-
feeling being exhibited in division of employments and
co-operation in Church matters ; and then we meet with
what compels a sigh. Most rationally, most unanswer-

[II]

His con-
temporaries
at Oxford.

His early
publications

172

ARCHBISHOP WHATELY.

Ill]

His thoughts
on logic.

Publishes
his "Ele-
ments"

ably, he set forth the policy, as well as the beauty, of
candor, gentleness, and modesty in collisions of opinion.
It would have been well if he had always kept his own
lessons in mind.

He declared in 1827 that for fourteen years his mind
had brooded over the leading points of his work on
Logic ; and during all that time the desire had grown
stronger to remedy the state of things by which (to use
his own words) "a very small proportion, even of dis-
tinguished students, ever become good logicians ; and by
far the greater part pass through the University without
knowing anything at all of it." He attributed the de-
ficiency to Logic having never been ennobled by being
made a condition of academical honors. Other people
believed that this was but one of various causes of the
neglect of Logic ; and some were far from desiring to
see the study so eagerly and generally pursued as to
cause a demand for popular teaching, and to open the
most sacred study next to theology to the deterioration
which theology had undergone in Germany, from com-
petitive lecturing, suited to the popular demand for1
excitement. Logic extolled beyond its true scope, or
lowered to purposes of popular entertainment, has its
dangers, serious and formidable ; but these perils form
no case for neglect of it — for such neglect as Whately
took to heart, and did much to remedy. It had become
useless to compel the study of Logic at Oxford ; and the
students hailed with joy the proposal to leave the study
altogether to the option of candidates for honors. The
very name and pursuit seemed doomed to lapse, like
some other studies which the classics and theology had
driven out, when Dr. Whately, then Principal of St.
Alban's Hall, published his "Elements of Logic," and

ARCHBISHOP WHATELY.

173

commanded, by his station and reputation, an opposition
and an advocacy which rescued his favorite science (so
called) from oblivion, and did more for its interests than
Oxford could show for above a century. During the
next ten years, more books on Logic came out than
Oxford had sent forth during the preceding hundred and
thirty. The merits of the work are another question.
They have been abundantly discussed elsewhere. Perhaps
the permanent conclusion has been for some time reached
that the work, and Whately's powers in that direction,
were, as was natural, overrated at the time. Deficiencies
could hardly be avoided under the circumstances of the
case ; but the positive errors charged upon the work by
contemporary and later writers lowered Dr. Whately's
reputation more and more with time. His career has
for some years past shown his warmest admirers that
they were mistaken in their estimate of the logical part
of his construction. He at once perpetually exaggerated
the functions of logic, and occasionally misplaced its
principles and misapplied its art; and long before his
death he had lost the reputation, once almost undisputed,
of being an irrefragable reasoner. It is not the less true
that to him we owe the rescue of Logic from extinction
in our universities.

Between the publication of his ''Elements" and his
being made Archbishop of Dublin, he became Professor
of Political Economy, and published the introductory
lectures of his course. In 1830 he issued his volume,
"The Errors of Romanism traced to their Origin in
Human Nature ;" and we do not know that any of his
works more effectually exhibits the characteristics of his
mind. It has the spirit and air of originality which
attend upon sublime good sense ; and the freshness thus

[II]

Appointed
Professor of
Political
Economy.

174

ARCHBISHOP WHATELY.

[II]

His

career of

intellectual

activity.

cast around a subject supposed to be worn out is a
sample of the vigor which in those days animated
everything he said and did. Its fault was the fault of
its author's life — its want of thoroughness. Its reasonings
and illustrations stop short at the point where their appli-
cation to his own Church would be inconvenient ; and
thus the work was eagerly seized on by the Dissenters,
and its omissions supplied. It is remarkable that the
logician who was believed by his friends, and by a large
portion of the public, to be the most irrefragable reasoner
of his time, should have been subject throughout his
public life to refutation on each special occasion by the
one party most concerned in the argument. But so it
was ; and the result was seen in the virtual closing of
his career twenty years before his death. His consti-
tutional activity was irrepressible ; and no apprehensions
and anxieties during his years of vigor, nor any infir-
mities of his latter days, deadened his inquisitiveness
into the smallest fragments of knowledge, or checked
his discursiveness of mind and conversation : but his
fame stood still from the time when he assumed his
great responsibilities, and he did nothing afterward to
revive it. Not many months after he became Arch-
bishop of Dublin, he one day plucked at his sleeve,
saying, as if in soliloquy, " I don't know how it is ; but
- after we once get these things on, we never do anything
more." It was a severe distress to the friends of his
early manhood that after he had got on his lawn sleeves,
he never did anything more — in the way at least of such
service as was expected from him. They accounted for
the fact in various ways ; but they did not dispute it.
"Where," wrote Dr. Arnold, in 1836, "is the knowledge,
where the wisdom, and where the goodness, which com-

ARCHBISHOP WHATELY.

'75

bine to form the great man ? I know of no man who
approaches to this character except Whately ; and he is
taken away from the place where he was wanted, and
sent where the highest greatness would struggle in vain
against the overpowering disadvantages of his position."
Dr. Arnold would have said, if his generous affections
had not been in the way, that "the highest greatness"
makes its own position of usefulness; and again, that
the headship of the English Church in Ireland is a
position of singular advantage for a true and courageous
Church reformer.

Two causes were concerned in the failure in this case.
Dr. Whately lay under the suspicion of heterodoxy ; and
the knowledge of this fact disheartened him. He was
not a man of the highest moral courage, though his
strong self-will drove him into occasional recklessness.
The story of his connection with Blanco White, from
first to last, is a complete illustration of his character
of mind. A friendship grew up between him and
Blanco White while the latter was, in belief and practice,
a clergyman, and the comrade of the rising clergy of
Oxford. In their passion for logic, and their blindness
to the insufficiency of logic, these two able men thor-
oughly sympathized ; and it is probable that Whately
suffered from nothing more in his whole life than the
spectacle of the failure and wretchedness of the exist-
ence of the best logician he knew, as well as perhaps
the most virtuous man, in purity of heart and con-
scientiousness. Blanco White totally lacked imagi-
nation, and was destitute of science ; so that, on the
one hand, he regarded theological dogmas in a logical
light, ending of course in the surrender of them all ;
while, on the other hand, he was not qualified to

Hisfriend*
ship vvith
Blanco
White.

I76

ARCHBISHOP WHATELY.

[II]

Suspected of
heterodoxy.

ascertain any other standpoint ; and his heart, his
conscience, and his reason were forever craving a
resting-place which they could not find. His published
Memoirs are, we believe, considered by those who know
them the most melancholy book they ever read. If it
is mischievous, in one direction, by its disheartening
exhibition of the pains and penalties incurred by an
avowal of heresy, it ought to be instructive in another,
by its clear admonitions against Blanco White's method
of seeking truth, and reliance upon a narrow and barren
exercise of the reasoning power, without regard to its
true scope and sufficiency of material. This deeply
suffering man was united in a close friendship with Dr.
Whately by their similarity of logical power, and yet
more by their pure goodness of heart, and a liberality in
theology and politics rare among clergymen at that time.
Whately went so far with his friend in the direction of
heterodoxy that his letters, for some time after their
separation, are as curious as anything he ever wrote.
All the resources of his hair-splitting ingenuity were used
(and all were insufficient) to justify his being an arch-
bishop and his friend an outcast, while it was so
exceedingly difficult to point out where their opinions
differed. This was, of course, before Blanco White had
relinquished his hold on Christianity as a revelation,
though after he had, with due delicacy, resigned his
office of chaplain and home in the Archbishop's family.
His friend's unhappiness, as well as his integrity, was a
perpetual pain and eyesore to Whately ; and the pain at
length proved too much for his temper, while it impaired
his usefulness. He carried about with him the con-
sciousness of being under suspicion of heterodoxy ; and
he had not courage or temper to sustain such a trial well.

ARCHBISHOP WHATELY.

177

The imputations on his orthodoxy made him sore, and
everything chafed his mind. He became irritable and
more overbearing than ever, till his suffering exploded in
a burst of anger and calumny on occasion of the publi-
cation of his friend's Memoirs. He asserted widely,
positively, and in black and white, that physicians had
declared his old friend to be insane ; and the assertion
was met by abundant medical testimony that this was
not true. He asserted that the biographer of Blanco
White had made use of private letters of his and his
family's against prohibition and legal warning, and for
the sordid purpose of turning the penny ; and this was
again met by positive proof that the letters in question,
so far from being published, or prepared for publication,
were placed at the Archbishop's disposal, and returned
to him on his first request. As for the imputed sordid-
ness, it was a prominent statement in the book that the
biographer's labor was altogether gratuitous, Blanco
White's will having assigned the entire profits of the
work to his son. These injurious assertions were at first
regarded as an ebullition of temper, and as such would
have been presently forgotten ; but unhappily, the Arch-
bishop, never accessible to explanation, and always
unable to own himself wrong, renewed his statements
after the disproof had been supplied to him, and to the
particular public whom he had misled. His liberality to
his friend in regard to his personal comforts, and the
benevolence of the whole family in this and in all cases
in which they could assist the suffering, were signal ; but
in the department of Opinion, fear and pride bore down
all before them.

In this chapter of his life we find an epitome of his
conduct and experience in his ecclesiastical relations.

8*

[II]

His conduct
on the pub-
lication of
Blanco
White's
Memoirs.

178

ARCHBISHOP WHATELY.

[II]

Antagonism
•with the
Catholics.

The

National

School

system.

The hopes of the Liberal Government, and of the
reforming section of the Church, were disappointed ;
and if no High Church or Low Church scandal ensued
from his being placed at Dublin, neither was there any
approach to a solution of the difficulty of the English
Establishment in Ireland. Dr. Whately had voted for
Peel, at Oxford, in the critical election of 1829 ; yet he
inclined more and more to direct antagonism with the
Catholics from the time he went to Ireland ; and we saw
him in 1852 presiding over the Society for protecting
the Rights of Conscience in Ireland, in defiance of his
long-preached conclusions in political economy, and his
understood neutrality toward the Catholics. The atmo-
sphere of the country, and, it is believed, domestic
influences, drew him in to preside over an Association
for providing employment for the people of one way of
thinking who were out of favor with people of another
faith. A similar difficulty occurred in the department of
the Schools, in which he long rendered inestimable
service. The ladies of his family had a school at their
country-seat, near Dublin ; and one of their classes was
composed of Catholic children for the purpose of having
the Protestant Bible read and expounded to them. The
local priest remonstrated, then threatened to withdraw
the children, and finally appealed to the Board, on whose
interference the practice was discontinued. This was
not the kind of action anticipated when a Whately was
sent to Ireland.

His great service, and that by which he will be hon-
orably remembered, was his support of the National
School system. The Liberal reputation with which he
went to Ireland indicated his place at once, at the head
of the enterprise ; and he worked long, strenuously,

ARCHBISHOP WHATELY.

179

effectively, and with a patience truly wonderful in him,
to keep the doors of the National Schools wide open,
and to provide an education of a high order within.
For more than twenty years he devoted himself to this
great branch of service ; and when at last he gave way
and resigned, on occasion of the dispute about the
Scripture Lessons, the feebleness of age was creeping
over him, and he could not have done much more if no
such trouble had arisen.

Another of his great services was his unanswerable
advocacy of the admission of Jews to Parliament. The
same clear vigor in defence of the liberties of the Jews
which so sorely distressed Dr. Arnold when Whately's
opinions were to find expression in Paliament, was at
the command of the injured sect as often as it was the
Archbishop's season of attendance in the House of
Lords ; and the years when he was present were con-
sidered by the Jews the most favorable to their cause.
If their case had been determinable by reason and
principle, they would long ago have owed their admission
to full political rights to Archbishop Whately.

He rendered other secular services of high value.
He was as largely concerned as the Bishop of London
in the reform of the Poor Laws ; and he did more than
perhaps any other man, unless it were Sir Wm. Moles-
worth, to abolish penal Transportation. His letter to
Earl Grey on Secondary Punishments, published in 1833,
contributed mainly to our change of system. At a later
time, just after the Irish famine, the Statistical Society of
Dublin was formed under his encouragement; and he
hi led the chair and delivered the Inaugural Address.
He fulfilled the same function for the Society for pro-
moting Scientific Inquiries into Social Questions, which

His secular
labors.

i8o

ARCHBISHOP WHATELY.

Whately
and the
Tractarian
party.

was founded in 1852. It would be difficult to overrate
the promise of benefit to Ireland from these associations,
by which the science of the first Economists of the
country is brought to bear on practical questions, and
itself improved by the consultations and co-operation of
the members. For some years past no sensible person
would think of describing or legislating for Ireland
without having studied, as his best material, the papers
issued by these Societies. The name of Archbishop
Whately will be honorably connected with them, as
long as they are heard of. His lively interest in fresh
knowledge of every kind never flagged. Up to the
last, when he was too feeble and infirm to go about
unsupported, the best-informed young people said that
nothing gave them so keen a sense of their own igno-
rance as the presence of the Archbishop, whose in-
quisitiveness left nothing unobserved, or exempt from
being reasoned on. In matters of Science and Natural
History he had the good sense and courage which failed
him in the department of theology and its profession.
In secular matters he did justice to his own admirable
precept — "It is not enough to believe what you main-
tain. You must maintain what you believe, and
maintain it because you believe it."

The reaction against the Tractarian movement, which
set in after 1840, could not pass without notice from a
prelate in his position and of his particular reputation.
In 1841 he published two Essays on Christ and His
Church, in which his faculty of dealing with the claims
of Evidence, and exposing false pretensions of Tradition,
had full play. In 1843, when several Bishops took
courage to charge against the High Church heresy, and
to publish their Charges, Dr. Whately was one of the

ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. 181

number. He went so far as to demand a Convocation,
in view of scandalous tamperings with the formulas, and
mutual recriminations within the Church, and the ruinous
aspect of the institution to those outside the pale. His
demand was not seconded by the Irish Bishops who
spoke their minds at the time ; and it is remarkable that
Whately, who knew better than most men the powers
and shortcomings of authority in matters of faith, and
the small chance of harmony in affairs of administration,
to be found in clerical Councils, should have been the
man to desire a Convocation when the divisions in the
Church had reached their height. As far as we are
aware, his more recent opposition to Puseyism has been
in the form of ridicule of its pretensions, in the pulpit
and in private ; and not in further propositions through
the press. His latest work was a Charge delivered in
the last year of his life. It is directed against the dan-
gers peculiar to the times, inculcating reverence for the
Scriptures, and opposing a spirit of finality in ecclesias-
tical affairs. A few weeks ago it was announced that
the Archbishop was ill, and not likely to recover. His
sufferings, borne with exemplary meekness and fortitude,
were terminated by death on the 8th of October.

[in

His latest
ivork.

III.

Compared
'with Ais
brother
Lord
Castlereagh.

THE MARQUIS OF LONDONDERRY.
DIED MARCH IST, 1854.

As a remarkable man in his way, Lord Londonderry,
ought not to pass to his grave without some exercise of
our judgment on his career.

According to Conservative authorities, he was not re-
markable in Statesmanship and Diplomacy. In the eyes
of Liberals he was very remarkable in those departments
— but not in a favorable sense. Now that he is gone,
we had rather look at other parts of his character and
action, some of which men of all parties can regard with
cordial respect, and others with an amiable amusement.
The world of politics and fashion owes a great deal of
amusement to the departed nobleman ; and those who
smiled oftenest felt a real kindness and regard for him.

Charles Stewart Vane, Marquis of Londonderry, was
brother to the more eminent or notorious Lord Castlereagh
and Londonderry of the beginning of the century. Re-
garding them with the differences of their professions as
Statesman and Soldier, there was a strong family likeness
between them. There was the same high courage ; the
same prodigious self-esteem, joined to genial kindness ;
the same utter insensibility to popular claims, and in-
ability to conceive in the remotest manner of popular
\

THE MARQUIS OF LONDONDERRY.

'83

liberties ; the same delusion about their own greatness,
which gave a taint of vulgarity to their minds and
manners (especially when among the really great); and
the same extraordinary use of the English language,
and other tokens of a defective education. There was a
likeness, too, in their personal accomplishments. Lord
Castlereagh attracted all eyes as he rode in the parks ;
and Charles Stewart is still remembered by old soldiers
as a fine spectacle to troops and civilians when, on his
charger, he led his hussars into the Escurial nearly fifty
years ago. He did fine service in the dark days when
Napoleon himself was pressing Sir John Moore into the
northwest provinces of Spain. Charles Stewart crossed
the Tormes, engaged and defeated the Imperial Guard,
and so covered the retreat of the British. He saw almost
the last man embarked at Corunna before he left the
beach ; and at most of the great battles in Spain he was
among the bravest and heartiest. He was busy in the
politics of warfare, too, keeping Bernadotte faithful to
the allies when he was destined to occupy Berlin, before
the battle of Leipsic, but was known to be wavering
between the old master to whom he owed his crown,
and the English who had clothed and armed his troops.
Charles Stewart went and came, and was busy among the
camps of the allies ; but what good he did was by strong
will and courage. His proper place was the battle-field,
and not the council-board. His best days were, there-
fore, over when the war came to an end, though he
remained as our representative at Vienna till 1823.

From that time he was great in Irish politics, spouting
his remarkable English in county Down, taking for
granted that he was to have his own way about members
of Parliament, tenants, Catholics and Protestants there,

[III]

His services
in the
Peninsula*

i84

THE MARQUIS OF LONDONDERRY.

[Ill]

Pecu-
liarities of
character.

Appointed
ambassador
to Russia j

tut

resigns on
account of
its unpopu-
larity.

as about coals and colliers, and the representation in
the county of Durham, where his other estates lay. He
had an unlimited capacity of astonishment, as appeared
whenever he could not get his own way. He called the
world's attention to the phenomenon when anybody re-
fused to vote for his member, or to work for his wages,
or to accept his terms for farms, or to receive his visits
(as sometimes happened abroad). If the sun did not
shine when he meant to go up a mountain, he thought it
very extraordinary ; and if the roads made his carriage
jolt, he said it was too bad. He became a great traveller,
and published his travels : and very amusing they are,
showing how confidently he supposed himself acceptable
everywhere, and how this was not always the case ; and
how very unmannerly it was of certain Princes not to be
as glad to see him as he would have been to see them at
Holdernesse House or Wynyard. By his travels we learn
too how modest, and how unambitious and peace-loving,
Nicholas, the Emperor of all the Russias, is ; and how
astonishingly he has been ill-treated by " his rebellious
subjects," the Poles. This cordiality of Lord London-
derry toward the Czar marked him out for the
embassy to Russia, when the Peel- Wellington adminis-
tration of 1835 wanted to send a representative there.
The nation, however, thought the appointment, to use
the Marquis's favorite description, "too bad;" and
Parliament let him and the Government know so un-
mistakably the popular opinion of him as a diplomatist,
and of his attachment to the Czar, Don Carlos, Dom
Miguel, and such gentry, that he immediately resigned
his appointment — with his usual astonishment — and,
indeed, with rather more than usual, because the affairs
of Turkey were then very pressing, and it would have

THE MARQUIS OF LONDONDERRY.

185

been so delightful that the British Minister should be of
precisely the same opinions as the Emperor he was to
consult with. By a challenge of his own to the Foreign
Secretary of the day, Lord Dudley, the fact came out
that he had been importunate for a pension, in consid-
eration of diplomatic services ; and that the calm and
moderate Lord Liverpool had written on the back of the
letter of application, ' ' This is too bad. " The Marquis
himself got the story made known ; and he was not
a whit ashamed of it, because, in his view, the people
and their purses were created for the benefit of the
aristocracy. Sir Robert Peel would have maintained the
appointment; but the Marquis ingenuously declared at
once that he saw he could do no good at St. Petersburg
while disowned as a representative by any large number
of the people of England. Those who admired his
manliness only regretted that he could not be made
Russian Minister at the court of London — which post
would have suited him exactly.

All that was nearly twenty years ago. In the interval,
the old soldier has been very busy. His electioneering
correspondence, and his letters to his tenantry, must be
fresh in all minds. He treated his tenants according to
the old methods of managing fractious or well-behaved
children : now he declared himself ashamed of them,
and now he patted their heads. He had . the notion
and habit of command of a mediaeval baron, without the
dignity and composure of aristocratic bearing ; but he
was always ingenuous, always brave, and meaning to be
kind. He bore admirably the destruction by fire of his
noble seat, Wynyard ; and one of our latest recollections
of him is one of the pleasantest — his persevering inter-
cession with the French Emperor for the release of

[III]

His conduct
toivard his
tenantry.

i86

THE MARQUIS OF LONDONDERRY.

[Ill]

His inter-
cession for
Abd-el-
KadeSs
liberation.

His Russian
idol.

Abd-el-Kader. There will be mourning at Broussa when
the tidings of his death arrive there. There will be
regret in many quarters, in the remembrance of his large
hospitalities, and his genuine good-will toward his serfs
on the one hand, his imperial friends on the other, and
all between who would take him as he was. No doubt,
his last view of the world was a stare of astonishment
that his country could go to war with his Russian idol.
He has escaped the yet greater amazement of rinding
his idol vulnerable. One who knew him well remarked,
on finishing his book of travel, that " his heaven is paved
with malachite." It is well that the notion was not
cruelly broken up in an old man's mind ; but the Czar
has lost in him his one English admirer and champion.
As for us, we feel some regret in parting with one of our
last Peninsular heroes, and one who, with all his foibles,
intellectual and social, was never wanting in the frank-
ness and manliness which give its best nobleness to
nobility itself.

IV.
LORD RAGLAN.

SEVEN MONTHS BEFORE HIS DEATH.

THE elevation of Lord Raglan to the rank of Field-
Marshal interests us all, through his past career as well
as his present position. He has earned the. distinction
by hard work in the field and the closet. There is
perhaps no incident of social progression more interest-
ing and more agreeable than the preference manifested
by men of rank, in their own case, to personal merit
over distinction of birth. In all aristocracies, at all
times, there have been individuals whose constitutional
energy has instigated them to social service as arduous
as if they were winning a station in life for themselves
and their posterity ; but the spectacle of almost a whole
generation of noblemen working like middle-class men
in the public service, and taking their chance of success
among middle-class men, is certainly modern ; and surely
it is full of significance. We doubt whether there is a
more remarkable example of this characteristic of our
times than Lord Raglan — a descendant of the proud
Somersets, and himself one of the most quiet and
modest of the true working men of England. A prouder
lineage few men could be conscious of than the Somer-
sets and Seymours, who were of the same stock ; and a

Personal
merit and
distinction
of birth.

1 88

LORD RAGLAN.

prouder man was never seen in England than the Duke
of Somerset of two centuries ago — who had the high-
ways cleared before him, that he might not be looked on
by vulgar eyes, and who rebuked his second wife for
tapping his shoulder with her fan, saying, " Madam, my
first wife was a Percy, and she never took such a liberty. "
For that matter — of pride — we may go back at once to
Cardinal Beaufort, who was of the first generation of the
family, apart from royalty — he being the natural son of
John of Gaunt. There is a better ground of pride in
the family, however, than either royalty or antiquity.
Among the proud Somersets was he who, in early life,
commanded a little army, raised by his father for the
service of Charles I. , and who in after years invented the
steam-engine. It was the author of the "Century of
Inventions" who first applied the condensation of steam
to a practical purpose : though his invention was used
only for raising water, he saw that this method of
creating a vacuum might be extensively applied ; and
therefore is it admitted to be fair to call this Edward
Somerset, Marquis of Worcester, the real inventor of the
steam-engine. He was the last noble who held out in
his castle against Cromwell ; and the stronghold was the
Raglan Castle which gave his title to the Field-Marshal
now commanding our army in Turkey. There was so
far a resemblance between that Marquis of Worcester
and this gallant soldier that they united valor in the
field with strenuous work in the closet. The differ-
ence was that the closet work of the one was the gratifi-
cation of an irresistible taste for the pursuit of Natural
Philosophy and Mechanics ; while that of the other was,
if less exalted, more modest, and strongly impressed
with the character of humble duty, — a characteristic

LORD RAGLAN.

189

which, full of charm always, is eminently so when the
working man is of high birth and of unqualified Toryism
in politics. For the greater part of forty years, Lord
Raglan labored like a clerk at the military organization
of the country ; and we owe to him something more than
the perfect carrying out of the Duke of Wellington's
principles and methods in providing for the Defence of
the country, and for a future safety and glory which
would probably bring him no commensurate fame.

This does not mean that his services, even in that
department, began with the peace. Though he was
then only seven-and-twenty, he had been extemely
useful for some years in the Duke's cabinet, while dis-
tinguishing himself also in action. The youngest son
of the fifth Duke of Beaufort, he was born in September,
1788, and christened Fitzroy James Henry Somerset.
He was a cornet in the 4th Light Dragoons at sixteen,
and rose in military rank, as the boyish sons of dukes
do rise, over the heads of their seniors. He was a
captain at twenty — a thing which we believe and trust
could not happen now, after the sound reforms which he
himself has instituted. He went with the troops to
Portugal, and fought in the first great battle, that of
Talavera, in which the French and English armies fairly
and singly tried their strength against each other. Lord
Fitzroy Somerset was then under one-and-twenty, and
it was not the first conflict he had seen since he landed
in the Peninsula. He learned much of his military
science within the lines of Torres Vedras, and was
severely wounded at the battle of Busaco. By this time
the young soldier had won the notice and strong regard
of Wellington, who made him first his Aide-de-camp
and then his Military Secretary — a singular honor for a

[IV]

His length
of service at
the Horse
Guards.

Hisfrst
battles.

190

LORD RAGLAN.

[IV]

The Duke
of Wel-
lington's
opinion.

Marries a

nieceofWel-

lington's.

man under two-and-twenty. The duties of his various
functions kept him diligently occupied during the whole
of the Peninsular war, and no doubt trained him in that
habit of industry and aptitude for business which has
distinguished his whole life, and made him, in regard to
the military executive, a sort of double of the Duke of
Wellington. He was present and active in every one of
the great Peninsular battles ; and was, in the intervals,
the medium of all the Duke's commands and arrange-
ments. The Duke's avowed opinion was that the suc-
cesses of that Seven Years' War were due, next to him-
self, to his Military Secretary; and that, but for Lord
Fitzroy Somerset, they would not have been obtained.
He became Major in 1811, and Lieutenant-Colonel the
year after. He returned to England after Bonaparte's
abdication in 1814, and met with the honor due to his
intrepidity in the field from those who could not be
aware of his yet more important services in perfecting
the organization and discipline of the Army, which went
out a mass of raw material, or something not much
better, and returned, as Wellington declared, "a perfect
machine." Lord Fitzroy Somerset married in the August
of that year the second daughter of Lord Mornington,
and thus became the nephew by marriage of the Duke
of Wellington. None then dreamed what misfortune
awaited the young bridegroom within the first year of
his marriage. On Napoleon's return from Elba, the
Secretary went out with the Commander-in-Chief ; and
as his Aide, he was on the field during the three days of
June which ended the war. The Duke was wont to
offer to bear the responsibility of an omission in the
battle of Waterloo — the neglecting to break an entrance
in the back wall of the farmstead, La Haye Sainte —

LORD RAGLAN.

191

whereby the British occupants might have been re-en-
forced and supplied with ammunition. It was the want
of ammunition which gave the French temporary posses-
sion of the place ; and that temporary possession cost
many lives, and Lord Fitzroy Somerset his right arm.
He came home to his bride, thus maimed, before he was
seven-and-twenty, but with whatever compensation an
abundance of honor could afford. In his despatch,
Wellington said of him, "I was likewise much indebted
to the assistance of Lieutenant-Colonel Lord Fitzroy
Somerset, who was severely wounded." He was imme-
diately made full Colonel, an extra Aide-de-camp
of the Prince Regent, and Knight Commander of the
Bath.

For nearly forty years afterward it was supposed by
himself and the world that his wars were ended ; and he
devoted himself to official service at home. He entered
Parliament for the borough of Truro in 1 8 1 8, and was a
very silent member, voting invariably with the Tories,
and seldom or never addressing the House. He was
always in request for secretaryships at the Ordnance and
to the Commander-in-Chief. He rose in military rank
at intervals, and became a Lieutenant-General in 1838.
When the Duke of Wellington died, and Lord Hardinge
was made Commander-in-Chief, Lord Fitzroy Somerset
became Master-General of the Ordnance, and was raised
to the peerage by the title of Baron Raglan. But many
good and true soldiers audibly complained that the supple
courtier had been preferred to the man who had the true
interest of the army at heart. It presently appeared that
his wars were not over. During the long interval he had
sent out his eldest son in the service of his country, and
lost him on the field at Ferozeshah in 1845. Nine years

[IV]

His services
atWatcrho.

Enters

Parliament^

1818.

Made
Master-
General
of the
Ordnance,

192

LORD RAGLAN.

[IV]

Appointed
Com-

mander-in-
Chief of
the Army
in the
Crimea.

after this bereavement the stricken father went out him-
self once more ; and this time in full command. When
war with Russia was determined on, there could be no
doubt as to who should be chosen to conduct the English
share of it. With Lord Raglan dwelt the traditions of
his master ; and no one was so thoroughly versed in the
wisdom which had for seven long and hard years won
the successes of the Peninsular war. No one so well
knew the army and its administration ; and no one else
so effectually combined the military and practical official
characters : — a combination which, if always necessary
to make a good general, is most emphatically so in the
country which is the scene of the present war. To
Turkey therefore he went — in much the same temper,
and with much of the same demeanor, as his great
master. He just showed himself enough in London and
Paris, on festal occasions, to prove that he could be
degag'e, as a brave man always can ; but he permitted
no "nonsense." He declined noisy honors where he
could, held serious and rapid counsel with his coadjutors
at Paris and Constantinople, and lost no time. If there
were delays, they were not his. Here again, then, he
stands, in his sixty-seventh year, on the battle-field, first
in command on the part of England, and charged
with the function of carrying forward the old spirit
into the new war, and keeping green the laurels won
by his great master and the nation he represented forty
years before.

V.

THE NAPIERS.

LIEUTENANT-GENERAL SIR WILLIAM NAPIER,
K.C.B.

DIED FEBRUARY I2TH, 1860.

Two generations of Englishmen have rejoiced in the felt
and lively presence of a family who seemed born to per-
petuate the associations of a heroic age, and to elevate
the national sentiment at least to the point reached in
the best part of the Military Period of our civilization,
while our mere talkers were bemoaning the material
tendencies and the sordid temper of our people in our
own century. The noble old type of the British knight,
lofty in valor and in patriotism, was felt to exist in its
full virtue while we had the Napiers in our front, con-
spicuous in the eyes of an observing world. We have
every reason to hope that the type will not be lost,
whatever may be the destiny of Europe as to war or
peace : but the Napiers must pass away, like other
virtues and powers; and now we have lost the last of
the knightly brothers, and nearly the last of the family
group, by the death of Lieutenant-General Sir William
Francis Patrick Napier, K. C. B.

The family have a remarkable ancestry. It seems a
strange jumble of names and characters. Henry IV. of

9

Types of the
ancient
British
knighf

Remarkable
ancestry.

194

LIEUT.-GEN. SIR W. NAPIER.

[V]

The Hon.

George
Napier.

The

mother, and
her be-
trothal to
George III.

France, Charles II. of England, the Dukes of Richmond,
Charles James Fox, and Lord Edward Fitzgerald are
among the relatives on the one side of the house, and
the great Montrose and John Napier, the inventor of
logarithms, were among the forefathers on the other.
The Hon. George Napier, the father of this band of
brothers, was a man of remarkable qualifications in
every way ; and it was a mystery to his children that
he did not attain a higher position in the world than
theirs. Two of his sons inherited his noble personal
presence, and all the five early gave evidence of the
force of character which they believed had marred
their father's fortunes, by exciting jealousy among the
public men of his time. However that may be, Colonel
Napier's want of distinguished success in life gave his
children the great advantage of being reared in what
they call " poverty." It was an advantage to them,
because it was a stimulus, and not an oppression. Their
pride in their father and his name kept them in good
heart; their love for their widowed mother cheered
them in their efforts; and their own individual force
bore them up against all obstacles.

From their mother they inherited the sensibility which
is as conspicuous as force in them all. Her mother, the
wife of the second Duke of Richmond, died of heart-
break within the first year of her widowhood ; and what
the strength and vivacity of Lady Sarah Napier's feelings
were we see by the letters of her son Charles to her
and about her, as they are given in his ' ' Memoirs. " She
was beautiful in youth, and indeed throughout her long
life, and venerable in age ; and . she was an object of
public interest early and late — first as the beloved and
betrothed of George III., and finally as the mother of

LIEUT.-GEN. SIR W. NAPIER.

195

"Wellington's colonels." The early story is well known
— the rejection of the King's addresses by a girl of sev-
enteen, her subsequent acceptance of them on suffi-
cient proof of the sincerity of his attachment, the inevita-
ble breaking-off of the match for political reasons,
and the long lingering of the affection on one side at
least. It seems rather far-fetched to suppose that the
family of Colonel Napier were neglected and discouraged
by the sons of George III., on account of the attach-
ment between the respective parents ; but it is under-
stood that the royal lover was watched with solicitude
for years after all intercourse with Lady Sarah Lennox
was broken off. She became the second wife of Colonel
Napier. To young readers it must appear as if there
must be a mistake in the narrative here — as if a genera-
tion had been dropped out of view. Is it possible that
the man whom we have now lost — whom we all know by
sight — could have heard his mother tell of her engage-
ment to George III.? Even so ; but there was remarka-
ble longevity all round. Lady Sarah was born in 1746.
Her eldest son was born in 1782, and William in 1785,
and he has died in a good old age. One sister of Lady
Sarah was the mother of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and an-
other of Charles James Fox.

The three eldest sons of Colonel and Lady Sarah
Napier were soldiers. Charles, the hero of Scinde, and
of many another scene, was the eldest. George was
the next. He was the well-remembered Governor at
the Cape, where he showed an administrative genius
almost as remarkable as his elder brother's in Scinde.
He was as eminent a soldier, too, and bore a no less
astonishing amount of wounds. Wellington's letter to
Lady Sarah on the occasion of George's loss of an arm

[V]

Longe'vityin
the family.

The three
eldest
brothers in
the Army.

196

LIEUT.-GEN. SIR W. NAPIER.

[V]

Thefourth
in thcNavy.

The

youngest in
the legal
profession.

One quality
in common.

at the storming of Ciudad Rodrigo, is one of the best
remembered of his private despatches. All the three
brothers suffered from their wounds to the end of their
lives; all won high military rank ; all were K. C. B.'s;
all were Governors of dependencies — for William was
Lieutenant-Governor of Guernsey, Alderney, and Sark,
while George was ruling at the Cape, and Charles in
Scinde. The fourth brother, Henry, was in the Navy.
He was like his brothers, in the union of literary ability
with the qualities most eminent in active service. His
voluminous "History of Florence" will be of great
historical value to a future generation. He was even a
greater sufferer than his brothers from the constitutional
sensibility of the family. The early loss of an adored wife
at Florence, broke the spring of his life. He became
subject to cruel suffering from neuralgic disease during
long years, which left their record on his Florentine his-
tory; and he survived his brother Charles only a few
weeks. George died in 1855 ; and then only two re-
mained— the subject of this notice, and Richard, the
accomplished youngest brother, admitted to the bar, but
preferring study to the exercise of his profession. *

Strong as was the family likeness among the five
brothers in all the salient points of intellectual and
moral character, the one quality which chiefly marked
them all, and separated them from the rest of the world,
was their absolute fearlessness of nature. In our age of
caution this characteristic could not but glorify them,
and at the same time fill their lives with strife, unless
they also possessed that repose of nature which ought to
accompany fearlessness. This, as all the world knows,
they had not. They would have been demigods indeed,

1 Died in 1867.

LIEUT.-GEN. SIR IV. NAPIER.

197

if, with all their strength and tenderness, all their genius
and their humanity, their power and their graces, they had
also manifested that serenity which is the true sign of the
godlike. Their "utterances of passion" went for more
than they ever intended ; their wrath was usually on be-
half of the wronged and helpless; their clamor, when
indignant for one another's sake, bore no relation to any
self-regards or low objects; but still they did clamor
and vex the world sometimes with their "passion." It
was a pity : but men are not perfect ; and few are the
men, of any age or race, who, bearing about so strong
a nature, have so little sin of intemperance to answer
for. The world saw little of their nobler nature in the
pugnacity which exhibited itself through the press. In
private life, the gentleness and courtesy of those men,
the faithful tenderness with which they bore with and
alleviated one another's infirmities, their close, mutual
friendship to the end of their lives, their ardent domestic
attachments, and the lofty and pure sentiment which
graced and refined their existence, made the external
quarrels appear to observers like a troubled dream. It
was not a dream, however, but too truly a weakness and
a fault. Great excuse may be pleaded ; and there is
no difficulty in allowing for it ; but the fact remains
that they lived in storm, instead of above the clouds.
Superior as they were to the world of their day in in-
sight, foresight, sense, principle — in short, power — it
would have been wiser, and would have marked a yet
higher order of men, if they had quarrelled less bitterly
with the world for its inferiority in each particular in-
stance. This kind of remark applies to Charles and
William, as the best known brothers, and the virtual
representatives of the family. It is the Napier genius

[VI

Their com-
bati'veness.

198

LIEUT.-GEN. SIR W. NAPIER.

[V]

William
Napier.

which we have been speaking of, and not the weaknesses
of every one of the brotherhood. On the contrary, the
piece of controversy by which Richard is known — his
Defence of Charles against the well-known accusations
of Outram — is distinguished by calmness of temper and
statement. The long and short of the matter is, as re-
gards the warrior trio, that they are of the hero stamp,
and not the sage ; while yet they have so many of the
qualities of the sage that we find ourselves unreasonably
disappointed when the combative character comes upper-
most, and wisdom gives place to valor before the eyes of
the multitude.

William, the third of the warrior brothers, was born on
the iyth of December, 1785, at his father's residence, ten
miles from Dublin. One strange risk which he happily
escaped, was that of being reared at Court as a page.
As no Napier was likely to repay any amount of Court
discipline, the result of such an experiment would prob-
ably have been disgrace of a kind to nourish, rather
than mortify pride. He did much better in entering the
army at the age of thirteen, when he joined a regiment
of Irish artillery. He served afterward in the Cavalry
and the Infantry, and was also on the Staff. He was
present at the siege of Copenhagen with the 43d Regi-
ment ; and at the time there was a story enacted which
brought out the character of the young captain of two-
and-twenty. His company was sorely tempted, by the
incitements and direct calls of a Hanoverian general
officer, to plunder. One man obeyed the call, but was
ordered back by the young captain, who gave the
Hanoverian his opinion of the matter in the open street,
evidently in genuine Napier fashion, and declared his
resolution to lead his company back to the regiment.

LIEUT.-GEN. SIR W. NAPIER.

199

Four hundred prisoners were put under his charge, to be
marched to headquarters — more than three-fourths of
them being women and decrepit men. For three days
they traversed the flats of Zealand ; and whenever a
prisoner pointed to a church on a rising gronud as his
or her village church, leave was given to go horns, till the
party was reduced to sixty able-bodied men, who were
presented at headquarters. This is the first glimpse we
have of William's military life.

At the battle of the Coa, in July, 1810, he was
wounded in the hip, and suffered severely for two
months. On the i4th of March in the next year
Charles was making the best of his way, bandaged for
his own terrible wound in the face, received at Busaco,
when he met a litter of branches, covered with a blanket,
and borne by soldiers. It was his brother George, with
a broken limb. Presently he met another litter. It was
William, declared to be mortally hurt. Charles looked
at the spectacle which met him at the end of a ninety
miles' ride, and rode on into the fight. Wellington might
well relish talking of "my Colonels" the Napiers.
Nearly thirty years afterward we find Charles snatching
time from his anxious business of keeping the Chartists
quiet to explain to William a medical opinion of the
causes of the terrible suffering William was enduring : —
" He said it was the ball pressing upon some large nerve,
or upon the backbone," &c. For three years William
commanded the 4$d in the Peninsula, where he was
wounded four times, and for which he received seven
decorations, and was made K.C.B. He had done and
borne a good deal as a soldier ; but the distinctive work
of his life was not begun, nor as yet dreamed of.

In 1819 he retired on half-pay, and soon settled down

[VJ

Meeting of
the three
'wounded
brothers.

Wei-

colonel s.

2OO

LIEUT.-GEN. SIR W. NAPIER.

[V]

The

" History

of the

Peninsular.
War."

Its effects.

into the literary life by which he has rendered his highest
service — and an immortal service — to the British nation.
It is not because his ''History of the Peninsular War" is
the finest military history ever produced that his labors
should be so spoken of, but because the act of writing
that narrative was a political service of incalculable im-
portance. When he entered on his work Wellington was
unwilling that the melancholy facts of the early part of
the struggle should become known to the world ; and if
he, the conqueror, was unwilling, it may be imagined
what was felt by the obstructive officials who had done
their utmost to crush the commander and his enterprise.
Well as we understand it now, nobody knew at the
close of the war that Wellington's greatest difficulties
lay within the Cabinet and the War Office at home.
Whether we ever should have learned the truth without
Napier's help there is no saying ; but we know that to
him we owe the full and clear understanding that we
have of the true scheme and character of the Peninsular
War, of the ability, temper, and conduct of the Ministry
of the time, and of the merits of our great General.
That History has therefore modified our national policy,
and our views, plans, spirit, and conduct as a people.
There are few books on record which have effected such
a work as this. It is this view of it which explains the
wrath it excited. The raging vindictiveness of the Tory
Government party is faithfully expressed in the Quarterly
reviews (in two successive numbers) of the History.
The political and literary distrust combined found a
mouthpiece in Southey, whose own History of the same
war was naturally annihilated by its military rival. Lord
Wellesley's indignant remonstrances on behalf of his
brother in the House of Lords had been sneered at by

LIEUT.-GEN. SIR W. NAPIER.

201

Ministers and slighted by everybody else, as explosions
of family vanity or natural partiality ; and it was not till
Napier's History appeared that Englishmen were at all
generally aware what a war they had passed through,
and how bad a Government, and how transcendent a
General, had been transacting their affairs. Apart from
the literary merits of the work, it is, and ever will be,
remarkable as a disclosure of the real history of England
during a period otherwise shrouded in thick darkness.
This we understand to be the great and distinctive service
of Sir William Napier's life.

Of the literary quality of the book it is needless to
say more here than that it fired the spirit of our army in
the Crimea. Passages from it were the luxury of the
nights in the trenches, and the weary days in hospital.
After all the fault that can be found by critics, military
and literary, everybody loves and admires the book as
much as ever. Some may pick holes in the narrative,
and some impugn the judgments, and others show that
the style has a dozen faults ; but it all makes no differ-
ence : we read just as eagerly the third time as the first ;
and some of us are haunted by whole passages which
pursue us like strains of music. Such involuntary judg-
ments thrust all ordinary criticism aside, at least while
the author is lying dead ; and we think of the book as
one of the weapons and the honors which should lie on
his coffin with his sword and his spurs, his symbols and
decorations. »

Eighteen years were diligently employed over the His-
tory. His wife was his main helper. She was a niece
of Charles James Fox ; and it may possibly be attribu-
table to her influence and that of Holland House, that
the estimate of Napoleon in the History is so unlike

[V]

The

admiration
'which the
History"
elicits.

His wife a
coadjutor.

202

LIEUT.-GEN. SIR IV. NAPIER.

[V]

His othei

literary

labors

what now appears to us reasonable. The view of the
Spanish, as allies and patriots, which was denounced by
the Government and the Quarterly Review of the time,
has turned out only too correct ; but, making the most
of all modifications introduced from place to place, the
appreciation of Napoleon is certainly essentially false.
If the Fox connection is more or less answerable for this
misfortune, it did great things for the work in other ways.
It gave the historian the wife who was his amanuensis
during that long labor, and who disclosed the contents
of French documents of great importance, transmitted
in cipher, which baffled the penetration of everybody
else. The labor was mere child's play compared with
the anxieties entailed by the work on the devoted wife.
Whether any man was ever so often challenged within a
certain number of months may be a question. What to
do in such a case was a serious embarrassment. We will
not go into the details. The work abides, the quarrels
have gone by, and the author survived to a great age,
amidst increasing honor and admiration.

His other literary works were review articles on military
subjects — as Jomini's "Art of War," and the "Life of
Sir John Moore," in the Edinburgh Review, and the
' ' Wellington Despatches, " in the London and Westminster
Review, of January, 1838; a few political pamphlets;
his Histories of the " Conquest of Scinde," and of "Sir
Charles Napier's Administration of Scinde," partly written
in Guernsey, where he repaired as Governor after con-
cluding his "History of the Peninsular War;" and the
" Life and Opinions" of his brother Charles, in four
volumes, published in 1857. The political pamphlets
are perhaps a fair representation of the political side of
the man, and of his brothers, or some of them. Sir

LIEUT.-GEN. SIR W. NAPIER.

203

Charles Napier's letters and journals while in command
of the northern districts of England, in troublesome
times, are a good family exposition in the same way.
The most commonplace people found it most difficult to
understand the Napier politics. From their connections
and their towering pride they might be expected to be
particularly aristocratic, yet they were exactly the reverse.
They were as Conservative as Wellington in some lights,
and as Radical as Cobbett in others. That they had
quarrels with Tories, Whigs, and Radicals in turn, was,
unhappily, not very wonderful ; but what were their prin-
ciples ? Sir W. Napier's pamphlets on the Poor Law
and on the repeal of the Corn Laws explain a good deal ;
but the best key to their social principles was seeing the
action of their daily lives. The servants, all made friends
of, and living on and on, as in a natural home; the
laboring class, treated with respect and courtesy as long
as they were just and kind in their own walk, but en-
countered as an enemy when guilty of oppression, — these
were evidences of the genuine democratic spirit which
dwelt in those proud hearts, those sincere and just minds.
Sir William's friends can bear witness to the vigilance of
that spirit in him. He never let pass, among his inti-
mates, such expressions as "the lower orders," "common
soldiers," and the like. He was pacified by the explana-
tion that "order" in this sense did not mean difference
of species, as in natural history, but the primitive sense
of " ranges," in which some must naturally find a higher
and some a lower place ; but the other expression he
never would endure. There is no such thing as a common
soldier in England, he declared ; ours are not "common
soldiers," though they may be "privates." He had to
defend himself, some years ago, in a characteristic cause.

[V]

The Napier
politics.

The daily
life of the
Napiers.

204

LIEUT.-GEN. SIR W. NAPIER.

[V]

Curious
trial for
assault.

The family
of Sir. W.
Napier.

His accom-
plishments
as an artist.

An action for assault was brought against him by a man
whom he had thrashed for persistent cruelty to a horse.
The trial is deeply impressed on the minds of all present
by the peculiarity that the only witnesses for the defence
were two deaf-and-dumb youths — Sir W. Napier's only
son and a comrade of his. It was a strange and pretty
sight — the pantomime, the clear account rendered by the
finger-speech, and the father's spirit which shone out in
the youth debarred from the father's eloquence. Every-
where tyrants, small and great, were, in one way or
another, thrashed by the Napiers after obstinate refusal
to desist from oppression. This was the one clear point
about their politics. As for the rest, Sir W. Napier ob-
jected to the principle of our Poor Law, and protested
against its application. He approved of Free Trade in
corn, but protested against the application of the principle
in so factitious a state of society, and under the burden
of such a debt, as ours. Happily he lived to see how
well the true principle worked, and how needless had
been his forebodings.

He had, as we have said, one son. Nine daughters
were born to him, five of whom survive him. His life
was happy in old age. His utterly fearless nature saved
him from the suffering which most of us would undergo
in provoking and sustaining hostile controversies. His
wife, some unmarried daughters, many grandchildren,
and all whom his benign domestic temper had attached
to him, ministered to his ease, and to his intellect as
well ; so that his decline was gentle. Till a late stage of
his life his accomplishments as an artist were a precious
resource to him. Others besides his immediate friends
will remember his statue — the Death of Alcibiades — in
virtue of which he was made an honorary member of

LIEUT.-GEN. SIR W. NAPIER.

205

the Royal Academy. His paintings are no common-
place amateur daubs, but both explain and are explained
by the splendid picture-gallery of his great historical
work.

For many years he was a neighbor of the poet Moore,
at Sloperton ; and the two Irishmen, opposite in almost
every respect but nationality, much enjoyed one another's
society. Napier, the giant, with a head like Jupiter
Tonans (as he appears in the frontispiece of the second
volume of the "Life of Sir C. Napier'), and half-soldier
and half-demigod, contrasted wonderfully with the dapper
little chamber songster. The wine-cup was associated
with love and war in Moore's imagination : while in
Napier's war was associated with famine, torture, and
seas of blood ; but both were Irishmen, both patriots in
their several ways, both lovers of literature ; and they
were good neighbors. Latterly, Sir W. Napier lived at
Clapham, at Scinde House (called by cabmen Shindy
Halt). Thence to the last he studied every turn of
human affairs, watching over his brother's fame as vigi-
lantly as if he were still writing his Life. When the
Indian revolt broke out he pointed out his brother's clear
foresight of the calamity, and of the mode of it. When
the revolt was put down, and reorganization of the
Indian administration began, he made the world observe
how his brother's institutions — despised and destroyed in
a day of presumption — were revived under a better spirit
of government; the Scinde Police, for one, extended
now from State to State ; and the Camel-corps, which
means life or death under circumstances of Indian war-
fare ; and again, the Barracks. With pride the faithful
dying brother told his friends that the soldiers in India
would not call their new airy wholesome barracks by

[V]

Sir W.

Napier
Thomas
Moore.

Watchful
over his
brother's
fame.

206

LIEUT.-GEN. SIR W. NAPIER.

[V]

A theme J "ot
Tradition.

their proper names in different places, but called them
all "Napier barracks."

He has left those behind who will guard his memory
no less well, if indeed any other guardianship is needed
than the national feeling toward the gallant brotherhood
of knights, and the historian of the Peninsular War in
particular. They are gone. We have many gallant men
left, as we always have had, and always shall have ; but
there never have been any, and there never can be any,
like the Napiers. They were a group raised from among
the mediaeval dead, and set in the midst of us, clothed
in a temperament which admitted all the ameliorating
influences of our period of civilization. They were a
great and never-to-be-forgotten sight to our generation ;
and our posterity will see them in the mirror of tradition
for ages to come. We are wont to say that Tradition is
old, and has left off work ; but it is not often now that
Tradition has such a theme as the Napiers. It will not
willingly be let die till Tradition itself is dead.

VI.

REAR-ADMIRAL SIR FRANCIS BEAUFORT,
K.C.B.

DIED DECEMBER

1857.

No pressure of national interests or calamity should
preclude any one of the honors due to the memory of
such a man as Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort, who was
not only a priceless treasure to his country, but a bene-
factor to the world. There are perhaps not many, beyond
the bounds of the scientific class and of his own pro-
fession, who are aware of his claims to such a description ;
for his great age obscured his early services from the
existing generation ; . and his later achievements were of
a kind which it takes time to make known to society at
large. The popular benefits of scientific developments
always bring about a grateful recognition of the originator,
sooner or later ; but such tardy honor is not enough.
Those who understand what society has possessed and
lost in the life and by the death of Francis Beaufort
should say what they know of him, that he may be
mourned as he deserves, and that future generations
may not inquire in vain how so great a citizen lived
and died.

And not only future generations, but distant nations
in our own time. Wherever science is cultivated, there
Francis Beaufort is honored. The contemporary of a

A bene-
factor to tht
world.

208

REAR-ADMIRAL SIR F. BEAUFORT.

[VI]

His labors
in practical
science.

His French
extraction.

great band of philosophers, in a scientific age, he held a
prominent place among them, and was revered by them
all, be they who they might. He lingered so long behind
them, that they could not show the world how to value
his memory ; but in every civilized country there are
heirs of their labors and their tastes, who will be
grateful for any information as to the career and the
immortal claims of the man whose name they have never
heard mentioned but with praise. To his friends he
was venerable as "the best man they had ever known."
It is pleasant to the aged to think of how many men
they have heard this said in the course of their lives ;
but it is rarely said so often in the case of one man as it
is in Francis Beaufort's. His professional career is a sort
of favorite romance in the navy ; but his labors in
practical science form that link between his life and that
of society at large which justifies the title of benefactor
to the world. He has been called so by hundreds of
firesides, and wherever scientific men meet together, in
the few weeks which have elapsed since his death. We
have no doubt that the title will be ratified by all who
may become acquainted with the history of his life.

He was born in 1774, and was an Irishman of French
extraction, as his name testifies. His father, the Rev.
Daniel Augustus Beaufort, was Vicar of Collon, in the
county of Louth, and was directly descended from an
ancient and noble French family. Francis was the
second son, and the heir of some of his father's talents
and tastes, — the best map of Ireland previous to the
Ordnance Survey, and an able memoir on Ireland, being
among the good deeds of the Collon vicar.

Though only thirteen when he went to sea, Francis
had already many of the requisites of an able officer.

REAR-ADMIRAL SIR F. BEAUFORT.

209

On his first voyage, which was with Captain Lestock
Wilson, in the Vansittarl, East Indiaman, as a " guinea-
pig," — that is, in virtue of the payment of a hundred
guineas, — he was remarkable for his skill in observation,
and the amount of his nautical knowledge ; so that he
afforded valuable assistance to his commander in survey-
ing the Straits of Gaspard, in the sea of Java. His
perilous adventures began thus early. The survey was
just completed when the Vansillarl struck upon a rock
off the island of Banca, close by the spot where the
Transit lately went down. A hole was stove, through
which daylight and sea poured in alternately. An
effort was made to keep the ship afloat till the flat
Shore of Sumatra could be reached ; but even the hope
of a landing on Banca was presently given up ; and she
was run aground on an island seven miles from Banca.
The crew escaped in the boats, and, with the loss of six
lives and one boat, reached two English ships after five
days' rowing, with great suffering, in the open sea, close
to the line. This adventure happened in August, 1789.

The young Beaufort's name had already been for two
years on the books of H. M. S. Colossus ; but on his return
from the East he joined H. M. S. Latona, Captain Albe-
marle Bertie; and afterward H.M.S. Aquilon, in which
he was engaged in the memorable action off Brest, of
the ist of June, 1794, in which ten of the enemy's ships
were dismasted ; seven were taken ; three only joined
their Admiral ; and Lord Howe brought into Portsmouth
six French ships of the line, which the King and Royal
Family came to inspect, at the end of the month. They
went on board the Aquilon, to sail round the fleet ; and
thus young Beaufort made, probably, his first acquaint-
ance with Royalty. He was for some years the sole

[VI]

His early
services in
the Navy.

Engaged in
the action
off Brest.

2IO

REAR-ADMIRAL SIR F. BEAUFORT.

[IV]

Captures
the "San

The estab-
lishment of
a line of
telegraphs.

surviving officer of that great battle. He followed his
Captain, the Hon. Robert Stopford, to H.M.S. Phaeton,
in which ship he was serving when Vice-Admiral Corn-
wallis made his celebrated retreat from the French
fleet, on the iyth of June, 1795. In this ship, after-
ward commanded by Captain James Nicholl Morris,
he assisted at the capture and destruction of many of
the enemy's ships, and of nine privateers and other
vessels. It was in May, 1796, that he obtained his rank
of Lieutenant. It was in October, 1800, that his first
great opportunity of distinguishing himself occurred.
While cruising off the coast of Malaga, his commander
observed that a Spanish polacca, the San Josef, and a
French privateer brig, had taken refuge under the fortress
of Fuengirola ; and at night the young Lieutenant was
sent, in command of the Phaeton's boats, to board the
San Josef. The French brig intercepted the launch ;
but the other crews did their work without its aid. The
resistance they encountered was desperate; but they
obtained their prize, with the loss of one man to thirteen
of the enemy — Beaufort, however, receiving no less than
nineteen wounds. This made him a Commander, with
a small pension.

The next two years were spent on shore amidst hard
work, like all the years of his long life. Miss Edgeworth
tells us that they were "devoted, with unremitting zealous
exertion," to establishing a line of telegraphs from Dublin
to Galway ; an object of great importance as long as
the west of Ireland was perpetually liable to invasion
from continental enemies. He received the thanks of
Government for his efforts, declining any other acknow-
ledgment

Once more at sea, he was heard of from the East first,

REAR-ADMIRAL SIR F. BEAUFORT.

211

and then the West. As commander of the Woolwich, 44,
he convoyed from India sixteen Indiamen in 1806. In
1807 he was surveying the La Plata; and he afterward
went to the Cape and the Mediterranean. In 1809 he
was hovering about the enemy's merchantmen on the
coast of Spain and at Quebec, being in command of
the sloop-of-war Blossom. In 1810 he obtained his post
rank, and the command of the Fredericksteen frigate : but
before he joined he was employed in protecting the out-
ward-bound trade to Portugal, Cadiz, and Gibraltar ; in
accompanying two Spanish line-of-battle ships to Minorca ;
and in acting for some months as captain to the Ville de
Paris, a first-rate, in the fleet off Toulon, commanded by
Sir Edward Pellew.

It does not appear to be on record in which year of
his life it was that he so nearly perished by drowning,
and underwent the remarkable experience of the intellec-
tual condition under such a crisis, which he afterward
recorded in a letter, at the request of Dr. Wollaston.
He described himself as "a youngster, at Portsmouth,
in one of the King's ships. " He was not himself im-
pressed as others were by the remarkable character of his
sensations ; but he saw the importance of every such
record, and made it accordingly. Interesting in itself,
the story is extremely valuable as coming from one as
singularly truthful in recording experience as skilled in
detailing it. One of his most striking accomplishments
was his power of saying what he meant. The effect of
this power was seen wherever he went in the harmony he
seemed to establish by the clearness of his ideas, and the
transparency of their presentment. All the little chafings
and perplexities which follow, like yelping curs, at the
heels of men of confused mind and speech, were ex-

[VI]

A re-
markable
incident in
hh life.

212

REAR-ADMIRAL SIR F. BEAUFORT.

[VI]

Description
of hh sen-
sations
•while

tinguished by Beaufort's mere presence. He at once
put his neighbors in possession of their own and each
other's views and objects, leaving no foggy spaces in
which they could run foul of one another. Such a power,
turned in the direction of philosophical observation and
record, is inestimable ; and the deep interest with which
all manner of persons have read the letter to Wollaston,
when they could lay hands on it, is not to be wondered
at. The letter is published in Sir John Barrow's ' ' Auto-
biography," which our readers may not, for the most
part, have seen. As both the incident and the record
are important features in the life of Beaufort, it is our
business to cite the most essential passages of the nar-
rative.

It relates that he capsized a very small boat by stepping
on the gunwale, in an endeavor to fasten her alongside
the ship to one of the scuttle-rings ; that, unable to
swim, he could not reach either the boat or the floating
oars ; that he had drifted to some distance astejrn before
he was observed ; that two of his comrades jumped
overboard to his assistance, and a third followed in a
boat; that, in his violent shouting, he had swallowed a
great deal of water ; and that, before aid reached him,
he had sunk below the surface, and given up all hope of
life. The narrative proceeds :

' ' So far these facts were either partially remembered
after my recovery, or supplied by those who had latterly
witnessed the scene; for during an interval of such
agitation, a drowning person is too much occupied in
catching at every passing straw, or too much absorbed
by alternate hope and despair, to mark the succession of
events very accurately. Not so, however, with the facts
which immediately ensued ; my mind had then undergone

REAR-ADMIRAL SIR F. BEAUFORT. 213

the sudden revolution which appeared to you so remark-
able, and all the circumstances of which are now as
vividly fresh in my memory as if they had occurred but
yesterday. From the moment that all exertion had
ceased — which I imagine was the immediate consequence
of complete suffocation — a calm feeling of the most
perfect tranquillity superseded the previous tumultuous
sensations — it might be called apathy, certainly not
resignation, for drowning no longer appeared to be an
evil — I no longer thought of being rescued, nor was I in
any bodily pain. On the contrary, my sensations were
now of rather a pleasurable cast, partaking of that dull
but contented sort of feeling which precedes the sleep
produced by fatigue. Though the senses were thus
deadened, not so the mind ; its activity seemed to be
invigorated, in a ratio which defies all description, for
thought rose above thought with a rapidity of succession
that is not only indescribable, but probably inconceivable
by any one who has not himself been in a similar
situation. The course of those thoughts I can even now
in a great measure retrace — the event which had just
taken place — the awkwardness that had produced it —
the bustle it must have occasioned (for I had observed
two persons jump from the chains) — the effect it would
have on a most affectionate father — the manner in which
he would disclose it to the rest of the family — and a
thousand other circumstances minutely associated with
home, were the first series of reflections that occurred.
They took then a wider range — our last cruise — a former
voyage, and shipwreck — my school — the progress I had
made there, and the time I had misspent — and even all
my boyish pursuits and adventures. Thus travelling
backward, every past incident of my life seemed to

[VI]

214 REAR-ADMIRAL SIR F. BEAUFORT.

[VI]

glance across my recollection in retrograde succession ;
not, however, in mere outline, as here stated, but the
picture rilled up with every minute and collateral feature.
In short, the whole period of my existence seemed to be
placed before me in a kind of panoramic review, and
each act of it seemed to be accompanied by a conscious-
ness of right or wrong, or by some reflection on its cause
or its consequences ; indeed, many trifling events which
had been long forgotten then crowded into my imagina-
tion, and with the character of recent familiarity.

"May not all this be some indication of the almost
infinite power of memory with which we may awaken in
another world, and thus be compelled to contemplate
our past lives ? Or might it not in some degree warrant
the inference that death is only a change or modification
of our existence, in which there is no real pause or
interruption ? But, however that may be, one circum-
stance was highly remarkable — that the innumerable
ideas which flashed into my mind were all retrospective :
yet I had been religiously brought up ; my hopes and
fears of the next world had lost nothing of their early
strength : and at any other period, intense interest and
awful anxiety would have been excited by the mere prob-
ability that I was floating on the threshold of eternity ;
yet, at that inexplicable moment, when I had a full
conviction that I had already crossed that threshold, not
a single thought wandered into the future : I was wrapt
entirely in the past.

"The length of time that was occupied by this deluge
of ideas, or rather the shortness of time into which they
were condensed, I cannot now state with precision ; yet
certainly two' minutes could not have elapsed from the
moment of suffocation to that of my being hauled up.

REAR-ADMIRAL SIR F. BEAUFORT. 215

"The strength of the flood-tide made it expedient to
pull the boat at once to another ship, where I underwent
the usual vulgar process of emptying the water by letting
my head hang downward, then bleeding, chafing, and
even administering gin ; but my submersion had been
really so brief, according to the account of lookers-on, I
was very quickly restored to animation.

' ' My feelings, while life was returning, were the reverse
in every point of those which have been described
above. One single but confused idea — a miserable
belief that I was drowning — dwelt upon my mind,
instead of the multitude of clear and definite ideas
which had recently rushed through it ; a helpless anxiety,
a kind of continuous nightmare seemed to press heavily
on every sense, and to prevent the formation of any
one distinct thought, and it was with difficulty that I
became convinced that I was really alive. Again, instead
of being absolutely free from all bodily pain, as in my
drowning state, I was now tortured by pain all over
me ; and though I have been since wounded in several
places, and have often submitted to severe surgical
discipline, yet my sufferings were at that time far
greater, at least in general distress. On one occasion
I was shot in the lungs, and after lying on the deck
at night for some hours, bleeding from other wounds, I
at length fainted. Now, as I felt sure that the wound
in the lungs was mortal, it will appear obvious that
the overwhelming sensation which accompanies fainting
must have produced a perfect conviction that I was then
in the act of dying. Yet nothing in the least resembling
the operations of my mind when drowning then took
place ; and when I began to recover, I returned to a
clear conception of my real state. "

[VI]

216

REAR-ADMIRAL SIR F. BEAUFORT.

[VI]

His work
" Kara-
mania"

Seriously
ivounded
in Syria.

His

Admiralty
Charts.

When he took the command of the Fredericksleen, in
1811, he was on the road to fame in authorship. Sir
J. Barrow tells us that Beaufort was selected out of the
whole Mediterranean fleet to survey an unknown portion
of the coast of Syria. The result of this errand was,
not only a capital survey, but an historical review of
the country, as illustrated by its remains of antiquity.
Beaufort's ' ' Karamania" was the great book of travels of
its day — sound, substantial, and learned (thanks to the
good classical education his father had given him), and
full of interest at once for the man of science 'and the
scholar. It was this book, with its discoveries and
verifications of ancient sites, which sent Fellows, and
Spratt, and Forbes, and more recently Charles Newton,
to Asia Minor, to tell us of the works of art which are
extant there, and to bring over the Halicarnassian
Marbles to the British Museum.

After much hazardous service against the pirates in
the Greek waters, Captain Beaufort went to work on the
survey of Syria, in the course of which he underwent
extreme danger. In June, 1812, his party were surrounded
by armed Turks, led by a crazy dervish ; and he was
wounded in the hip-joint so seriously that the wonder
was that he ever walked again. It was a severe struggle
for life itself; and when his ship was paid off, in the
next October, he was still undergoing much pain from
the exfoliation of the bone. He solaced his enforced
leisure by work, preparing for the Admiralty such a set
of charts of the coasts of Asia Minor, the Archipelago,
the Black Sea, and Africa, as had never before been seen
at the Admiralty. They were so drawn, finished, and
arranged as to be fit for transference to the copper
without any aid from the hydrographer or his assistants.

REAR-ADMIRAL SIR F. BEAUFORT.

217

Such is the testimony of Sir John Barrow. Sir John
Barrow naturally recommended him to Lord Melville
for the post of Hydrographer, declaring that Captain
Beaufort had no equal in that line, and very few in most
other branches of science.

This was in 1829. In 1823 Captain Kurd had died;
and Captain Parry was requested by Lord Melville to fill
the post temporarily; which he did twice, if not three
times. After the resignation of the Duke of Clarence as
Lord High Admiral, Lord Melville again became First
Lord ; and one of his objects was to fill the office of
Hydrographer with the best man that could be found,
who should hold it permanently. There were many
applicants ; but by 1829 two names only remained for a
choice — and one of them, at least, was not an applicant
— Captains Beaufort and Peter Heywood. Lord Melville
declined the responsibility of deciding between them,
and requested Sir John Barrow and Mr. Croker to advise
him. Sir John Barrow had, as we have seen, selected
Beaufort out of the whole Mediterranean fleet for the
survey in Asia Minor ; and that survey having issued as
it did, he could but desire to see the office of Hydrog-
rapher filled by the accomplished officer who had thus
distinguished himself. For twenty-six years Beaufort
was at the Admiralty as Hydrographer; and very early
in that period he had made his office the model on
which Paris, Copenhagen, and St. Petersburg constructed
theirs. Everywhere Hydrography took a new form and
existence through the life which he put into his work.
There is not a geographical discoverer, nor a zealous
professional student in any naval service in the civilized
world, who does not feel under direct obligation to
Beaufort for his scientific assistance, given through his

10

[VI]

Appointed
Hydro-
grapher
to the
Admiralty.

218

REAR-ADMIRAL SIR F. BEAUFORT.

[VI]

Apprecia-
tion of hh
iiaorld-'wlde
labors.

Changes
at the
Admiralty.

works, or more special encouragement, by his personal
aid and counsel. Those who remember the enthusiasm
with which Commander Wilkes, of the United States
Exploring Expedition (the unfortunate assailant of the
Trent at the beginning of the late American war), used
to speak of the effectual friendship of Captain Beaufort,
in preparing for that important enterprise, have witnessed
a specimen of the appreciation in which he was held by
his professional brethren of all nations. It has been no
small benefit to the world that the most accomplished
Hydrographer of his own or any time was at our Ad-
miralty for six-and-twenty years, always awake to chances
of increasing the general knowledge, always indefatigable
in furthering such chances, and genial and generous in
assisting every man of any nation who devoted himself
to geographical discovery or the verification of glimpses
already obtained. His name is attached to several
stations in newly discovered lands and seas : for instance,
it will be uttered in all future times by voyagers passing
up either the eastern or western shores of the American
continent to the Polar Sea. But not the less is his name
really though invisibly connected with almost every other
modern enterprise of geographical discovery ; for he gave
a helping hand to every scientific adventurer who applied
to him, — and no one thought of instituting scientific
adventure without applying to him.

When he entered the Admiralty, nearly thirty years
ago, he found his own department a mere map-office.
His friends well remember what a place it was — small,
cheerless, out of the way, altogether unfit and inadequate.
The fact is, nobody but the 'elite of the naval profession
had any conception of the importance — one might almost
say of the nature — of the function of Hydrographer.

REAR-ADMIRAL SIR F. BEAUFORT.

219

Maritime surveying on an extended scale was only be-
ginning. We were not yet in possession of the full
results of the labors of Flinders, Smyth, King, and
Owen ; and Sir Edward Parry's view of his office was,
that it made him the Director of a Chart-Depot for the
Admiralty, and the supporter, rather than the guide or
originator, of maritime surveys. Becoming conscious
that the times were requiring something more than he
could give, he wisely resigned. The manner in which
Captain Beaufort was appointed, without solicitation on
his own part, and simply because the best judges con-
sidered him the fittest man, encouraged him to lay large
plans, and to indulge high hopes. He began a great
series of works, in which he intended to comprise,
gradually and systematically, all the maritime surveys
of the world — our own coasts, still shamefully obscure,
being destined for a thorough exploration in the first
place. He designed and began what Lieutenant Maury
has since achieved. His instructions to surveying officers
show how extensive were his purposes as to deep-sea
soundings so long ago as 1831 ; and the object was never
lost sight of, though he was baffled in the pursuit of it.
Whatever depended on his own energy was done,
throughout his whole term of office ; but he had to
endure the affliction which breaks the heart of every
highly qualified servant of the Government — the destruc-
tion of his aims by failure of sympathy in those who hold
the power and the purse, manifested either in opposition
to useful projects or in parsimony in providing for them.
After Beaufort had so shown what his office might be as
to stimulate every other Government in Europe, he was
compelled to see them all outstrip his own, through the
senseless and needless parsimony of the authorities above

[VI].

His plans.

220

REAR-ADMIRAL SIR F. BEAUFORT.

mm. The Whigs, on their accession to power, felt
themselves pledged to economy, and were so pledged ;
out they did great injustice to the people of England, in
supposing that they grudge money for the support of
national objects and genuine public service. It is quite
right, and will always be inevitable, that every Adminis-
tration, of any politics, will be called to account for
reckless experiments in shipbuilding, and such dockyard
waste as is witnessed from one ten years to another : but
there is not a member of the Legislature, nor an intelli-
gent elector in the kingdom, who would not, on the least
word of explanation, have voted whatever funds were
necessary to the due prosecution of all the Maritime
Surveys desired by such an authority as our late Hydrog-
rapher. But he had to surfer under the evil of the
political tenure of Admiralty office. His establishment
was diminished when it should have been enlarged :
foreign surveys were restricted from year to year ; and at
length the exploration of our own shores was reduced to
something wholly inadequate to the need. It is no small
mortification to compare our Hydrographical Establish-
ment with that at Paris, where the Depot de la Marine
might be taken for the office of the greatest Maritime
Power in Europe ; or with those at St. Petersburg,
Copenhagen, Utrecht, and Washington : but the annual
summary of shipwrecks, and the detail of lives lost
through want of that knowledge which Beaufort would
have established a quarter of a century ago, is a severer
grief. It weighed heavily on his heart ; and it was
probably the most painful experience of his life. Scientific
men bitterly feel the truth of the words uttered from the
Chair of the Royal Society: " The natural tendency of
men is to undervalue what they cannot understand ;" but

REAR-ADMIRAL SIR F. BEAUFORT. 221

the censure should in this case rest on the right parties ;
and those are not the people of England. Scientific
pursuit is the prevailing popular taste in our time ; and
there are no bounds to the popular support which would
be afforded to it, on any fair appeal ; but the misfortune
is, that the supplies voted for such an object as the
Hydrographical Department are lumped together with
others which are justly open to objection — the abortive
shipbuilding, and other mismanagement by which, after
an enormous expenditure, we find ourselves ill supplied
for maritime purposes, while parading the most marvellous
marine that any empire ever possessed.

Captain Beaufort had a remarkable power of discerning
and appropriating ability to its right object, whenever it
came in his way ; and at every turn of his life he was
using this power on behalf of others ; yet he could not
avail himself of it on his own. He was so restricted in
his office, that he had no subordinate who could be a
comrade in his labors ; and all that he had at heart
must be done by his own hand. Disappointed in his
hopes, baffled in his aims, pinched in his official expen-
diture, he turned the full forces of his strong will on
making the best of the hard circumstances of the case.
He now proved himself as true a patriot as when he was
receiving his nineteen wounds in boarding the San Josef,
while the wounds of his hopes were more painful than
those of the body, and there was no praise to be won.
It was not his doing that the virtue was ever known.
His industry, of constitutional origin, and sustained by
principle, appeared something miraculous under this
stress. Day by day, for a quarter of a century, he might
be seen entering the Admiralty as the clock struck ; and
for eight hours he worked in a way which few men even

[VIj

His dis-
cernment.

222

REAR-ADMIRAL SIR F. BEAUFORT.

[VI]

His

benevolence.

His home.

understand. A man who carried his own letter-paper
and pens to the Admiralty for his private correspondence,
was not one to occupy his official hours with other than
official business; and the labors that Captain Beaufort
undertook for benevolent objects were carried on at
home. For many years he rose at five, and worked for
three hours before his official day began. The anecdote
of his connection with the maps of the Diffusion Society
has recently gone the round of the newspapers ; and all
the world knows that, in order to get these maps sold at
sixpence instead of a shilling, he offered to superintend
their preparation. As if he had not enough to do in his
own function, he gave the world that set of maps, — so
valuable as charts that no ship in the United States Navy
is allowed to sail without them ; and it is his doing that
they are in a thousand houses which they would never
have entered but for their cheapness.

This is one of his innumerable charities. There was
no sort of charity in which he was not just as liberal and
as wise. There was no pedantry in his industry any
more than in his knowledge. He never seemed in a
hurry. While too seriously engaged for gossip, he had
minutes or hours to bestow where they could really do
good : he had conscientious thought to spare for other
people's affairs, and modest sympathy in their interests,
and intrepid advice when it was asked, and honest rebuke
when it was deserved and might be effectual. His un-
obtrusiveness was, perhaps, the most striking quality of
his manner to observers who knew what was in him.
His piety, reverent and heartfelt, was silent, as he pre-
ferred that that of others should be. His domestic
affections were unconcealable ; but spoken sentiment
was quite out of his way. His happy marriage (with the

REAR-ADMIRAL SIR F. BEAUFORT. 223

daughter of his first commander, Captain Lestock Wil-
son) ended in a mingling of pain and privilege which
touched the hearts of all witnesses. Never was so much
understood with so little said. She died of a lingering
and most painful disease, making light of it to others
as long as possible, though the full truth was known
to both; she kept her young children about her, with
their mirth wholly unchecked, to the latest possible day ;
and the few who looked in on that sacred scene saw
that it was indeed true that, as she said, she had never
been happier than during that painful decline. As for
him, there was not the slightest remission of outside
duty while the domestic vigilance was that which so
marvellously smoothed the passage to the grave. Now
that both are gone, it is right to present this feature in
the character of the man so long before known as hero
and as savant. He came out from the long trial so much
changed that it seemed doubtful whether he would ever
regain his health and buoyant cheerfulness. He lived,
however, to see his children fulfilling their own career of
labor and honor : one son in the Church, another Legal
Remembrancer (Attorney-General) in Calcutta, and a
third a judge in Bengal. His second marriage, with a
sister of Maria Edgeworth, secured a friend to himself
and his daughters for many of the latter years of his life.

Among his public labors were those of the successive
offices of Commissioner of Pilotage, entered upon in
1835, and of Member of the Committee of the Tidal
Harbors and Ports of Refuge in the United Kingdom
in 1845. In 1846 he became Rear- Admiral on the re-
tired list, rather than surrender his office : but he never
liked his "yellow flag;" and the mortification of his
retirement was but slightly solaced by the honor of the

[VI]

His sons.

224

REAR-ADMIRAL SIR F. BEAUFORT.

[VI]

Hispersonal
appearance.

Knighthood of the Bath, conferred in 1848. The sudden
expansion of railway projects so increased his work that
his health began to fail ; but not till he had reached an
age at which few men think of work at all. Early in
1855 he was obliged to give up, and go home to a sick-
bed for such time as might be left by a painful and
incurable disease. He was the same man to the last,
active and clear in mind, benevolent and affectionate at
heart, and benign in manners. His activity never inter-
fered with his profound quietude and peace ; and his
quietude and peace deepened as his mind brightened.

He must have been personally known, more or less,
to many readers of this record. They will not forget
his countenance. He was short in stature, but his coun-
tenance could nowhere pass without notice. Its astute
intelligence, shining honesty, and genial kindliness re-
vealed the man so truly that, though he never spoke of.
himself, few were so correctly understood. It now occurs
to us that we never heard a fault attributed to him ; and
we cannot say that we ever observed one in him. To
record this is simple truth. He was attended in his last
hours by his adoring children, and died in the midst of
them on the iyth of December, 1857. They and society
should be thankful together that such a man was spared
to them so long.

VII.

SIR JOHN RICHARDSON.

DIED JUNE 6xn, 1865.

i

ANOTHER of our naval heroes — another of the band of

Polar Discoverers, is gone, the mere news of whose
departure revives in some of their own generation the
enthusiasm of early days on behalf of the heroism
which finds its exercise in enterprises of peace more
arduous than those of war. The elders of our time have
not all forgotten the first occasion on which they heard
the name of John Richardson ; it was in 1819, when
Lieutenant Parry was: already exploring among the ice,
and when it seemed probable, as the Admiralty said,
that Parry's object might be promoted by the despatch
of a second expedition to ascertain where the Copper-
mine River fell into the sea, and to trace the shore of
the Polar Sea eastward from it. This second charge
was devolved upon Lieutenant Franklin, with whom
was associated Dr. Richardson, a naval surgeon, de-
scribed as well skilled in Natural History. Partners in
that enterprise, they were friends for life ; and, as none
of us can have forgotten, devoted in death. It would
have been strange to them, ready as they were for the
same fate, to have foreknown how differently they would
end their lives. One died behind the veil, as it were —

Associated
•wit A
Franklin.

226

•S7/e JOHN RICHARDSON.

[VII]

A likeness
and a
contrast.

Enters the
Navy.

nobody knowing where he was, and how it fared with
him — far away among the ice, with the sun circling
round the sky, permitting no night till the night of death
fell on him — amidst damp and dreariness ; discomfort,
if not hunger; obstruction and discouragement, if not
hopelessness ; with only the glare of the sunshine on the
snow, and the blue ice, and the glittering stretches of the
sea. The other died in a happy old age, in the same
month of the year — in so different a scene, and under
such different conditions ! Amidst the richest of summer
verdure, in a still valley near Grasmere, whither he had
just returned from gay intercourse with old friends, and
surrounded by his family, he passed away in the night
without pain. There was but a year of difference in the
age of the two friends ; there was a wonderful likeness in
the most prominent of their experiences ; but a singular
contrast in their way of leaving life.

Sir John Richardson was a native of Dumfries, and
was educated at the Grammar School there. At Edin-
burgh he qualified himself for the medical profession,
and entered the Navy at twenty, as Assistant Surgeon.
He saw something of war ; for he was at the siege of
Copenhagen, and served afterward on the coasts of the
Peninsula. Before he was thirty he took his degree of
M. D. at Edinburgh, and at thirty-one he married the
first of bis three wives. It was in the next year that
he became an object of interest to the public, by his
association with Parry and Franklin's explorations. From
May, 1819, till the next January, he and Franklin re-
mained together ; and then the latter, with Lieutenant
(now Sir George) Back, proceeded on a sort of prepara-
tory trip of several hundred miles to the western end of
Lake Athabasca, while Dr. Richardson was to stay in

SIR JOHN RICHARDSON.

227

winter-quarters at Cumberland House, with Lieutenant
Hood, till the opening of spring should enable them
to advance to the Coppermine River. The physician
explored the vegetation and animal life of the neighbor-
hood, while the lieutenant made acquaintance with the
Indians, sketching them, and joining their hunting
parties.

Spring arrived ; the friends joined forces and pro-
ceeded northward, but everything went wrong. The
winter caught them in August, midway ; no supplies
overtook them, and they had to winter while food and
ammunition were diminishing alarmingly. Lieutenant
Back started southward for supplies, and returned ; but
there were new difficulties at every step ; some of the
worst being caused by jealousies which induced officials
of the North-West Company to detach their servants
from the British officers, so as to leave them helpless in
the wilds. When the party was next heard of in Eng-
land, their story moved universal pity and admiration.
They had navigated the Coppermine, and the sea and
coast for some distance east and west ; they had dis-
covered lead, copper, and coal ; they had seen their
canoes destroyed by the fault of the Canadians who had
charge of them ; and Dr. Richardson had all but perished
in the heroic attempt to swim the icy waters of the Cop-
permine River. He was drawn out apparently dead,
and was revived with great difficulty — to risk his life
again and again in recovering the poor fellows who had
dropped by the way, or overtaking those who had gone
astray in their frenzy of terror and misery. All this was
fearful enough ; but if was worse that their quarters were
found empty ; no supplies, no re-enforcements, no token
of aid was there ; but the only prospect of living on a

[VII]

The expe-
dition to the
Coppermine
River.

228

SfJt JOHN RICHARDSON.

[VII]

His fearful
sufferings.

Fresh ex-
plorations.

diet of old shoes and unwholesome moss till they could
live no longer. Then there was the murder of poor
Hood by an attendant, who so clearly intended to
destroy the two remaining Englishmen, Dr. Richardson
and the seaman Hepburn, that Dr. Richardson very
properly shot the wretch on the first opportunity. The
sufferings of that fearful time, and especially the neces-
sary homicide, left their traces for life on the countenance
of the fearless and devoted explorer. The frequent re-
mark of strangers, to the end of his life, was that his
face had the expression of a man who had suffered to
excess. The relief sent to them by Lieutenant Back
reached the survivors just in time ; and the kindness of
the Indians who brought it, aided their recovery. When
the dreary story was told in England, the news came
with it that Dr. Richardson had brought away some
scientific facts and observations of his own and poor
Hood's, as well as their brave chief's ; and these appeared
in the Appendix to Franklin's Narrative.

Three years had been consumed in this Expedition;
and any man might have been excused from encounter-
rig the risk of such sufferings a second time ; but in
1825 the two friends started again for the same dreary
•egion. They explored the Mackenzie River — the one
he western line of its delta, and the other the eastern,
Dr. Richardson succeeding in coasting along to the
mouth of the Coppermine River, which he ascended as
ar as it was navigable. The friends returned in two
fears, and published in partnership their narratives of
heir explorations. In 1829, and at intervals till 1836,
Dr. Richardson published the work on the Zoology of
he North British American regions which gave him his
ame as a naturalist.

JOHN RICHARDSON.

229

He seemed now to be settled at home, in a repose
which was not likely to be disturbed. In 1838, being
made physician to the fleet, he went to live at Haslar ;
and two years later he became an Inspector of Naval
Hospitals. But there had been domestic changes. The
death of his first wife, from whom his duties had sepa-
rated him for six years of their union, was followed by
a second marriage in 1833, which was ended by death
in 1845. It was in his grief under this bereavement
that he committed himself once more to the work of
Polar Discovery. Under the loosening of his ties to
home and life, he spontaneously promised Sir John
Franklin, when the latter sailed on his final voyage, that
if the expedition did not reappear by the close of 1847,
he would go and try for a meeting on the part of the
Polar coast they had explored in common. In the
interval he married again; and the pledge to Sir John
Franklin must have weighed heavily upon him. One
sign that it did so was that he and his household steadily
insisted on the certainty of Sir John Franklin's return in
the coming February. They refused to admit any doubt
of this happy issue, when all the rest of the world was
disheartened and almost despairing. January passed
without news ; but then, January was not the month for
that news. It would be in February, they had always
said, and not before. February came without news ;
but there might be news in February till February was
gone. At last February was gone ; and there could be
no more resistance to the necessity. He must go ; and
he went with the courageous cheerfulness of a brave and
devoted man. He looked to the bright side — was con-
fident he should soon find Franklin — did not contem-
plate a long absence, called on his friends to admire his

[VII]

Appointed
an Inspector
of Naval
Hospitals.

His promise
to Franklin.

230

SIX JOHN RICHARDSON.

[VII]

Sets out in
search of
Franklin.

Retiresfrom
public life.

provision of furs and eider-down, carried his Shakspere
and his Wordsworth to pass the evenings and dreary
days in the wilds, and, after writing from the last prac-
ticable point, disappeared as completely as if he was
dead. By August, he and his comrade, Mr. Rae, were
on the Polar shore, searching for traces of the Expedi-
tion everywhere between the Mackenzie and Coppermine
rivers. Two other Expeditions were searching west and
east of him ; and it did not appear that he could do
anything more by remaining. He therefore returned
in 1849, Caving Mr. Rae to prosecute inquiries which in
two years more had no result. He returned, to wander
no more, but to live a home-life, partly active and partly
studious, partly professional and partly scientific, while
hearing now of the completion of the discovery of a
Northwest Passage, and now again of the ascertainment
of the fate of Franklin and the doomed Expedition.
Franklin had been dead before his friend started on the
last journey ; and there, it seemed, ended Polar Explo-
ration— at least in our time. They little knew the effect
of their own example, and the influence of such narra-
tives of adventure and glorious suffering as theirs.
Possibly Captain Sherard Osborne's new project, so zeal-
ously supported and admiringly hailed, may have
disclosed to the aged explorer now departed something
more of the effect of such a life as his than he had
hitherto imagined.

For some years more he remained at Haslar, superin-
tending the Museum, and publishing the narrative of his
latest travels, and various communications to scientific
journals, besides discharging his duties as Inspector.
When he drew near the age of seventy he resigned his
post, and retired to the Lake District, where he lived ten

SIR JOHN RICHARDSON.

231

more years in the repose suitable to his time of life. A
healthy activity remained to the end ; he was known all
round the neighborhood, from Windermere to Grasmere,
by his exertions of one kind or another. As, on the
shores of the Polar Sea, in a hut of drift-wood, caulked
with moss, with the sullen waters moaning outside, he
delivered lectures to the hunters and boatmen of the
Expedition on the soils they were to observe and report
on, and the specimens they were to collect, so in the
green valleys, and under the slated roofs of Westmoreland,
he lectured to the country people on natural productions,
and on the pursuit of knowledge. He was happy in his
home, proud of his sons, and among his neighbors, if
grave and still, as if by nature or the discipline of suffer-
ing, still genial at heart, and more so in demeanor, as
time passed on. He was never seen more cheerful, and
even gay, than on the last day of his life, when he went
among the tradespeople, and was visiting friends to
within eight hours of his death. He appeared in perfect
health, and was reading late. A stroke of apoplexy
carried him off before the early summer dawn. After all
the risks to which he subjected his life, and the condi-
tion to which he was repeatedly reduced by cold, pro-
longed hunger, and other hardships, he lived into his
seventy-eighth year.

[VII]

His useful
life. '

VIII.

His early
association
•with
Brougham.

His family.

LORD DENMAN.
DIED SEPTEMBER 220, 1854.

THE death of Lord Denman is an impressive event for
other reasons than the universal reverence and affection
in which he was held, and the rank he obtained in his
profession. There were a few points in his life and
action which will connect him in history with some of
the marked events of his time, and the news of his
decease vividly calls up in many minds the most memor-
able scenes they have witnessed in our London streets,
our country villages, and our Houses of Parliament.
During the exciting summer of 1820 his name was, with
his "brother Brougham's," in every mouth. For long
years after he was a sort of popular saint, through the
virtuous sympathy that our people have the happiness of
being subject to with those whom they clearly under-
stand to have sacrificed worldly objects for something
higher. In the conflict between the claims of law and
Parliamentary Privilege, from 1836 to 1841, he was the
central figure; and with these salient points of the
history of our time the name of Thomas Denman will
ever be associated.

His father, one of the Court physicians in the time of
George III., was the son of a tradesman or farmer at

LORD DENMAN.

233

Bakewell, in Derbyshire ; a locality to which the family
for successive generations has been so attached that the
line of descendants is likely to perpetuate the residence.
Dr. Denman was fond of his farm at Stoney Middleton,
near Bakewell ; and Lord Denman improved the farm-
house into a delightful residence. Dr. Denman had
three children, Thomas, and two daughters, one of whom
was married to Dr. Baillie, and the other to the unhappy
Sir Richard Croft, who attended the princess Charlotte
in her confinement, and, being unable to get over the
shock of her death, committed suicide. It is probably
because he was surrounded by physicians in his family
relations that Lord Denman has been reported to have
been originally intended for the medical profession. This
was not the case, his destination and choice having
always been the bar. He was born in 1779 : and,
not being obliged, like most young barristers, to defer
marriage to middle life, or to plunge their wives into
poverty, he indulged himself with a home at an early
age. He married, in 1804, Theodosia Ann Vevers,
eldest daughter of a clergyman of Saxby, and grand-
daughter of a Lincolnshire baronet. Fifteen children
were the offspring of this marriage, of whom eleven
survived, five sons and six married daughters, when Lady
Denman died in 1852.

Mr. Denman's position at the bar became early a very
honorable one ; and his name was connected especially
with causes and trials in which the liberty of the press
was concerned. He appears on almost every occasion
in the records of the prosecutions for political libels,
blasphemy, and sedition, so frequent during the Tory
Administrations of the early part of the century ; and
so late as 1841, when a London publisher was prose-

[VIII]

His

marriage
and

numerous
offspring.

At the bar.

234

LORD DENMAN.

[VIII]

Returned as

M.P.for

Wareham.

His

popularity.

cuted for the publication of Shelley's "Queen Mab" in
the collected works of the poet, Lord Denman, as Chief
Justice, repeated the conviction which he had been
wont to avow as a young barrister. In summing up, he
remarked that it was better to subvert objectionable
opinions and sentiments by reason and argument than
to suppress them by persecution of the pfomulgators.
The circumstances of this latest trial showed him, in a
way which must have been highly agreeable to his liberal
mind, the progress that society had made since his early
days. The prosecution was instigated by a Free-thinker
who had undergone the penalties of an earlier time, to
prove the absurdity of the consequences of carrying out
the law.

Mr. Denman was introduced into Parliament in 1818,
by Mr. Calcraft, who had him returned for the borough
of Wareham. He immediately distinguished himself
by his earnest advocacy of popular freedom — side by
side with Brougham and Lambton — on all the many
occasions furnished by the troubled years of 1819 and
1820. In those times of a Manchester massacre, a
Cato-street conspiracy, Burdett letters, and prosecution
of authors and printers, Mr. Denman was always found
vigilant and eloquent in opposing Seizures of Arms Bills,
Seditious Meetings Bills, Blasphemous and Seditious
Libels Bills, and doing his best to spoil the whole
machinery of moral torture and intellectual restriction
framed by the Eldons, Sidmouths, and Castlereaghs of
those unhappy days. His popularity was already great
when his advocacy of the cause of Queen Caroline, on
her return to England in 1820, made him the idol of
more than "the populace," with whose admiration he
was taunted so scornfully. He accepted the office of

LORD DENMAN.

235

Solicitor-General to the Queen — at a sacrifice, he well
knew and everybody knew, of his fair professional pros-
pects. From the hour that, as one of her Commis-
sioners (Mr. Brougham being the other), he met the
Duke of Wellington and Lord Castlereagh as the King's
Commissioners, it was felt that he had ruined himself,
if professional advancement was the object of his life.
Not only were all the high offices of the law closed to
him during the reign of the King, who was not yet
crowned ; but the royal brothers, who were in the course
of nature to succeed him, were almost as virulent as
the King against all aiders and abettors of the Queen's
claims. Mr. Denman suffered, as he knew he must, a
long abeyance of professional advancement; but the
English nation were not likely to allow this to last for-
ever; and Thomas Denman was their Chief Justice at
last. No one could wonder at the strength of the
popular feeling in his favor who heard, or even saw,
his pleading on behalf of his injured client. His noble
features and majestic form were all alive with emotion ;
his utterance was as natural as that of any kindly citizen
who was pitying the Queen by his own fireside : and the
strength of his feelings roused his intellect and warmed
his eloquence to a manifestation of power greater than
appeared before or after. All England was in tears at
that pathetic saying of his about the omission of the
Queen's name in the Liturgy, — that if she was prayed
for at all, it was in the prayer "for all that are desolate
and afflicted." All England exulted when he drove
home the charge of the prosecution against the Royal
Husband himself in the felicitous quotation from "Para-
dise Lost :"

[VIII]

Out of
favor at
Court.

His defence
of Queen
Caroline.

A felicitous
quotation.

236

LORD DEN MAN.

[VIII]

His recep-
tion at
Chelten-
ham.

Common
Sergeant
of London.

"The other Shape —

If shape it might be called that shape had none ;
Or substance might be called that shadow seemed ;
For each seemed either : . . . what seemed his head
The likeness of a kingly crown had on."

Before the case was decided, and during an interval
of adjournment, Mr. Denman went to Cheltenham, to
obtain some repose after the excessive fatigues of the
summer — the hottest of summers. His reception there
was a fair indication of the feeling of the country
toward him. The clergyman had refused permission
to have the bells rung on his arrival. The inhabitants
drew his carriage to his lodgings, and when he had retired
from the window, whence he briefly thanked them, they
demolished the clergyman's windows, broke open the
church, and rang a merry peal till late into the night.
The Corporation of London chose him their Common
Sergeant ; and whatever dignity could be conferred, out-
side the political and professional pale which he had
declined to enter unworthily, was awarded him by popu-
lar reverence and gratitude. One of the finest of his
productions was the discourse at the opening of the
Aldersgate-street Mechanics' Institute, in 1828, when
such associations had existed only five years. In the
concluding passage of that address he urged the view
of applying literary enlightenment to the pursuit of
social duty, and the wise and conscientious discharge of
political obligation ; and he who had himself so turned
his enlightenment to account had a right to the enthu-
siasm with which his hearers received his exhortation to
a virtuous use of the suffrage.

The period of exclusion was how, however, drawing
to an end. When the Grey Ministry was formed in

LORD DENMAN.

237

1830 he was made Attorney-General, and knighted for
the office, according to custom. The Nottingham people
returned him to Parliament with high pride and delight.
The Duke of Clarence, who had joined in the persecu-
tion of the Queen, had now laid aside old controversies ;
and he made the Liberal Attorney-General a peer in
1834, and Chief Justice of the King's Bench. In two
more years, Lord Denman pronounced the decision that
brought on the perilous quarrel between the Law Courts
and Parliament. The history of the controversy need
not be given here, as it may be found in the chronicles
of the time, and seen to involve much more than Lord
Denman's share in the business. It was he who brought
on the struggle by his decision, in November 1836, that
the authority of Parliament could not justify the pub-
lication of a libel ; whereas the House of Commons
could not surrender their claim to publish what they
thought proper, in entire independence of the Law
Courts. The Hansards were bandied about between law
and privilege ; the Sheriffs of London were imprisoned,
quizzed, pitied, and caricatured ; but thoughtful men
felt that the occasion was one of extreme seriousness ;
and Lord Denman had to bear the responsibility of
having perilously overstrained one of the indispensable
compromises of the Constitution. He was confident
throughout that he was right, and patriotically employed
in vindicating the liberty of the subject from oppression
by Parliament : and Parliament was equally convinced
that the national liberties depended on their repudiating
the control of the Law Courts. A more difficult ques-
tion can never occur under a Constitutional Govern-
ment ; and it is sure to come up, from time to time,
like that of State Rights in America, when some earnest

[VIII]

Attorney-
General

and Chief
Justice.

The

struggle
betiueen
Parliament
and the
Law Courts.

238

LORD DENMAN.

[VIII]

His noble
appearance.

man sees his own side to be right without being able to
perceive that the other may not necessarily be wrong.
In the controversy opened and conducted by Lord
Denman, the respective claims were left unsettled ; and
nothing was done but doubtfully providing for the
single case of the publication of Parliamentary Reports.
Lord Denman's service in the case was depositing in
the armory of the Law Courts a quiverful of argu-
ments for the use of successive combatants, whenever
the battle shall be renewed. Perhaps the only good
result of the whole affair was a lesson of caution to
others than the narrow-minded and superficial how they
stir the great questions which, while they are the roots
of our growing and flourishing Constitution, are inca-
pable of definition and circumscription. They are not
a matter of ordinary party politics ; for aristocratic and
democratic institutions are alike troubled with them ; as
indeed it might be said, in a large way, that all methods
of human association in fact are.

It was Lord Denman's business to preside in the
House of Peers, as its Lord High Steward, on occasion
of the absurd trial of the troublesome and quarrelsome
Lord Cardigan in 1841, for a "felonious attempt" to
fight a duel. The Earl was acquitted through a mistake,
accidental or otherwise, in the name of the person chal-
lenged. The waste of time, money, and solemnity on
such a farce was vexatious enough ; but the treat of the
occasion was the noble-looking Judge. To the last day
of his sitting in his own Court, strangers thronged in to
gaze on that majestic and benevolent countenance. It
was in 1850 that his intimate friend, Lord Campbell
(who made his way through life very easy by calling
everybody he had to do with his " friend"), discovered

LORD DENMAN.

239

that Lord Denman was too old for his office, — though
two years younger than Lord Campbell himself. Lord
Campbell urged so forcibly upon everybody the decline
in his friend's powers, that people who had not perceived
it before- began to think it must be so. Lord Denman
declared himself perfectly up to his work ; and his affec-
tionate friend shook his head, and stirred up other people
to appeal to Lord Denman's patriotism to retire before
his function should surfer further from his weight of years.
Hurt, displeased, and reluctant, Lord Denman resigned
his office, and his brisk senior nimbly stepped into it,
and enlivened with jokes the tribunal which had been
graced by his predecessor's sweetness and majesty.
Whether Lord Denman's powers were failing, men were
not agreed ; but there was no dispute about whether
Lord Campbell was the proper person to effect his
removal. The tributes of respect and affection offered
by the bar and the public to the retiring judge were
truly consolatory to his ruffled feelings, and as richly
deserved as any honors ever offered to an aged public
servant.

In his retirement he was tenderly cheered, and in due
course nursed by his affectionate children, and especially
by his eldest son, who was his Judge's Associate when
he was on the bench. He interested himself much in
the Slave Trade question, in favor of the maintenance
of our squadron of cruisers off the African coast, in
which service his second son, Captain Denman, distin-
guished himself. As long as he could attend Parliament
Lord Denman spoke annually on the subject ; and then
he wrote upon it. His feelings were considered to be
better than his reasonings in the case : but it was cheer-
ing to see that while the gloom of age and infirmity was

[VIII]

Lord

Campbell's

suggestion.

Retirement
from office.

His views
on the Slave
Trade.

240

LORD DEN MAN.

[VIII]

The patrht
and the

gathering round him, the beacon light of human rights,
which had guided his whole course, still shone for him
and fixed his earnest gaze. The best part of him lasted
longest and wore well. While well qualified as a lawyer,
he was not made for eminence by that qualification, if
unsupported by others. He was of a higher order as a
patriot ; and highest as a man and a neighbor. So,
when he had retired from his professional career, he
commanded respect for his unimpaired solicitude for the
public weal, and a tender reverence for his personal
virtues and graces. He leaves so numerous a posterity
that his name will be a source of domestic pride in
many homes, for generations to come ; and, however
long the tradition may run, the record of History will
run parallel with it. In no relation is there any fear
that the name of Thomas Denman should be forgotten.

IX.

LORD CHANCELLOR CAMPBELL.
DIED JUNE 230, 1861.

SUCH was the dignity arrived at by the skilful man who |
delighted in telling us, with the half-innocent, half-face-
tious face that he put on as he spoke the often-repeated
words, that he was only " Plain John Campbell," the
humble son of a humble Scotch minister, while all his
hearers knew all the while that there was not such a man
for getting on in the three kingdoms. The public heard
less, and his own friends heard less, in the latter part of
his life, about his plainness and humility, and the paternal
manse ; but he had exhibited these things so often in his
electioneering speeches and official addresses that he was
best known as Plain John Campbell to the last.

The paternal manse was in Fifeshire ; and there John
was born in 1781. He was educated at St. Andrews,
where he took the degree of M.A. He repaired to
London to pursue his legal studies, poor in purse, but
with a source of income in his pocket in the shape of a
letter to Mr. Perry, of the Morning Chronicle, who em-
ployed him both as theatrical critic and as a parliamentary
reporter. His industry was extraordinary ; and he studied
law as effectually in the mornings as if he had not been
at work half the night. His jocose humor lightened all
the labors of his life to himself and his comrades.

ii

His self-
dubbed
cognomen*

At St.
Andrews.

Employed as
a reporter.

242

LORD CHANCELLOR CAMPBELL.

[IX]

Called to the
bar, 1806.

Employed
in the
Melbourne
and Stock-
dale cases.

He was called to the bar in 1 806, after completing his
studies under Mr. Tidd, the author of the celebrated
"Tidd's Practice." His first employment was reporting
Lord Ellenborough's judgments at Nisi Prius, — a very
high service, as is known to all who are aware of the use
made of those judgments as authorities ; and their value
is enhanced by the notes of the reporter. Mr. Campbell
rose rapidly through the drudging stages of his profession,
became leader on the Oxford Circuit and at Nisi Prius,
and in 1821 married the daughter of Mr. Scarlett, after-
ward Lord Abinger. His professional income, already
large, became enormous ; and the best care was taken of
it. In 1 827 he was made King's Counsel, and in 1832
Solicitor-General. In 1834 he was Attorney-General,
and in that capacity obtained great professional triumphs,
in the two cases of the Melbourne and Stockdale trials.
In the Melbourne case, no doubt, his feelings were really
and deeply interested, and his conviction of the mistake
involved in the prosecution was entire. In the Stockdale
case he enjoyed his work, from the perplexity and ludi-
crous features of the affair. He argued on behalf of
Parliament against his friend Denman and the Court of
Queen's Bench, and quizzed the poor innocent reluctant
Sheriffs in their quizzical imprisonment, with keen relish.
He was, moreover, not at all sorry to turn public notice
away from a political false step of his own, which he
found, in the autumn of 1839, to be no j°ke, though he
tried to make it one. Chartism was rife, as we all re-
member, toward the close of 1838. The Ministry and
Parliament were willing to be merciful, in consideration
of much recent popular suffering ; and it does not appear
that their indulgence was misapplied, except in the case
of Frost, about whose official position and doings there

LORD CHANCELLOR CAMPBELL.

243

was some of that mistake of fact which characterized the
inexperienced Whig rule of those days. The Attorney-
General was naturally and excusably complacent about
the wisdom of the Government in abiding by the ordinary
law, when the Conservatives were crying out for coercion ;
but he let his complacency get the better of his prudence ;
and at a public breakfast given in his honor at Edin-
burgh, after the riots of the summer of 1839, boasted
that Chartism was extinct. He, as the first Law Officer
of the Crown, had misled the Ministers by similar as-
surances ; and he had also encouraged the Chartists, by
showing them that Government was off its guard. On
the 3d of November occurred the Newport insurrection ;
and Sir John Campbell (as he had become by that time)
had to bear something more than raillery on his not
having the second-sight of his country, nor even the use
of common eyes.

His next promotion was not effected under kindly and
graceful influences. Just before the Whig Government
went out in 1841, and when the event was clearly fore-
seen by everybody, while struggled against by the holders
of power, a Bill was brought in, and urged forward with
extreme haste, to provide two new Judgeships in the
Court of Chancery ; it being universally understood that
Sir John Campbell was to step into one of them when
obliged to resign the Attorney-Generalship. Remon-
strance was made against the intention to put a Common
Law practitioner, however eminent, into an Equity
Judgeship ; and on other accounts also the measure was
found impracticable ; and it was thrown up. The Chan-
cellor of Ireland, Lord Plunket, was then written to, in
'the same week, to request him to resign the seal to
Sir John Campbell. Lord Plunket indignantly refused,

[IX]

The

Chartist
riots in 1839

Chancellor
of Ireland.

244

LORD CHANCELLOR CAMPBELL.

[IX]

Chancellor
of the
Dncuy of
Lancaster.

The ministerial newspapers then presented paragraphs
about his age and infirmities, and his long-felt wish to
retire. He openly contradicted this news, declared him-
self quite well, and denied having ever said a word about
retiring. He was pressed more urgently by his minis-
terial correspondents, and reminded of the Bishopric of
Tuam having been recently given to his son, and of other
patronage of which he had obtained the fruits ; and he
obeyed at last, avowing in his farewell address the facts
of the case. He carried with him his title to a retiring
pension of 4,ooo/. a year ; and Plain John, stepping into
his seat, anticipated the same. But the delays had put
the matter off rather too long. Lord Campbell, sat as
Chancellor of Ireland for only a single day, after having
received his peerage for the purpose. His wife had been
a peeress for some years, owing to the curious fact that
his services in the Commons could not be dispensed with
by the Whig ministry. His wife was therefore made
Lady Stratheden, with descent to her son ; and Sir John
was promised a peerage at a future time ; that time
arriving when he filled his alienated friend's seat for
one day.

On leaving Ireland, and giving up his claim for a
retiring pension, Lord Campbell became a Cabinet
Minister as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.
His energy now devoted itself to literature ; and he
began to bring out his "Lives of the Chancellors." In
that work he has described himself better than any one
else could describe him. The style is entertaining, the
facts anything that he chose to make them, and the
spirit depreciatory to the last degree. The late Sir
Harris Nicolas, the highest possible authority in anti-
quarian memoirs, accidentally examined some old MSS.,

LORD CHANCELLOR CAMPBELL.

245

which expressly contradicted Lord Campbell's painful
account of Sir Christopher Hatton ; and was so struck
by the easy style of statement in Lord Campbell's Life
of that Chancellor that he made further investigations
among State papers, and established and published a
case of malversation of materials which will not easily
be forgotten. The same process was afterward carried
on, with the same result, by the Westminster Review,
which entirely overthrew the value of the work as His-
tory or Biography, while stamping upon it the imputation
of libel on the reputation of personages long gone
where the voice of praise or censure cannot reach them.
Lord Campbell certainly saw Sir H. Nicolas's exposures ;
for he omitted a few statements, qualified others, and
inserted "it is said" in yet other instances ; leaving,
however, a considerable number uncorrected, to pass
through successive editions, and become History if no
vigilant curator of the fame of the dead does not take
measures to preclude an evil so serious.

Literature was not, however, sufficient to occupy the
energies of this industrious lawyer; nor his office to
satisfy his ambition. As might easily have been antici-
pated, he found another judge who might be persuaded
that he was too old and infirm for office, and had better
resign in his favor. His old friend, Lord Denman, two
years younger than Lord Campbell, was pronounced in
1849 so infirm that he ought to resign the Chief Justice-
ship. Lord Denman protested, as Lord Plunket had
done, that he was perfectly well able to go through his
duties : but Lord Campbell thought otherwise ; and im-
mediately the newspapers began to bewail Lord Den-
man's weight of years, and to predict that his sprightly
senior would soon be in his seat ; and early in 1850 the

[XI]

His "Lives
of the Lord
Chan-
cellors," and
its misstate-
ments.

Lord Den'
man and
"Plain
John."

246

LORD CHANCELLOR CAMPBELL.

[IX]

Lord
Brougham
and Lord
Campbell in
the Lords.

Appointed

Lord

Chancellor.

event took place accordingly. When the spectators who
saw him take his seat for the first time remarked on the
"green old age" of the vivacious Judge, they asked one
another, with mirth like his own, who would ever be
able to persuade him that he was too old for office.
Would he meet with a successor who would take no
denial on that point, as he had taken none from the two
old friends whom he had superseded ? If he had over-
heard the whisper, he would have laughed with the specu-
lators. His drollery was as patent as ever. Ever since
he had entered the Lords he had joined with Lord
Brougham in enacting perpetual scenes for the amuse-
ment of the peers and readers of the debates. The
sparring of the two Law Lords was the severest ever
known to pass between persons who persisted in calling
one another "friend." The noble and learned "friends"
said the most astonishing things of and to each other,
without ever coming to blows. There was no danger of
that ; for Lord Campbell could bear anything, and did
not care enough to lose his temper seriously. The same
facetiousness manifested itself on the Bench, without
being aggravated by the same opposition. Of all the
Chief Justices whose lives he in course of time wrote,
no one probably could surpass him in the amusement he
afforded to the bar, the witnesses, the culprit, and the
audience ; sometimes at moments when tears would have
come, unless driven back by one of the Judge's puns.
In 1859 he attained the highest honors of his profession
in the Lord Chancellorship.

In his judicial office in the House of Lords he was
extremely diligent, and eminently serviceable. As a
lawyer, his abundant reading and unfailing assiduity justi-
fied the success which his indomitable determination to

LORD CHANCELLOR CAMPBELL.

247

get on would probably have obtained at all events. He
was not a scholar ; nor were his countenance and voice
prepossessing, nor his manners good. He was pleasant
and good-humored in Court and in the drawing-room ;
and the consideration he obtained thus, and by his wealth
(understood but not manifested), and by his rank, and
especially by his success, was enough for him. Heartfelt
respect and intimate friendship were not necessary to
xhim ; and he would probably have been quite content
with the knowledge that, after his death, he would be
held up as an example of the social success obtainable
in our fortunate country by energy and assiduity, steadily
reaching forward to the prizes of ambition.

He was not called on to endure the weaknesses of age
which he was so acute in recognizing in men younger
than himself. In full possession of his powers, he at-
tended a Cabinet Council the day before his death, and
afterward entertained a large party at dinner, retiring to
rest after midnight, without any tone of fatigue in his
"good-night." In the morning he was found dead in
his chair. As his life had been gay and fortunate, his
death was quiet and easy. Such welfare as he had, need
not be grudged to him. Much of it he earned for him-
self ; and some of it was a poor substitute for blessings
and enjoyments relished with even a greater keenness
than his by poorer, more modest, refined, and honored
men.

[IX]

His charac-
ter and
career.

X.

His travels.

His

speciality.

DAVID ROBERTS, R. A.
DIED Nov. 25x11, 1864.

THE death of Mr. Roberts will excite interest and regret
over a wider area than the loss of perhaps any other
Artist of the present generation in our country ; for no
other is familiarly known in so many countries of Europe,
and beyond it. He spent his cheerful life in travelling
through them, with a keen and studious eye and a busy
hand, and in imparting to the world, with eminent
fidelity, what he had seen. He published his impres-
sions in so many ways, gave out so many of them, in
so various and in such accessible forms, that the people
of many countries know what his services have been to
their own architectural monuments, their picturesque
towns, their characteristic scenery, and the aspect and
ways of their inhabitants. His pictures have been en-
graved for works of a wide range of character and
circulation at home and abroad, from the superb folio
illustrating the Holy Lands of the East in 246 subjects,
to the pretty little Annuals in their early days. The
impression he produced was probably very much the
same in all the countries and all the societies in which
he was known through his works. His speciality is
always assumed to be architectural delineation ; and in

DAVID ROBERTS, R.A.

249

this he will long be regarded as supreme among us,
because his genius opened his eyes to the noblest
aspects of noble edifices, subordinating, but not neglect-
ing, the minor characteristics, and so infallibly per-
ceiving the distinctive splendor and beauty of each of
many cathedrals, temples, Eastern pyramids and bazaars,
and old Western towns, with their castles and municipal
buildings, as to show to the residents more in the
edifices before their eyes than they had ever seen
for themselves. It is, doubtless, as a painter of archi-
tecture that he will be spoken of in the many lands in
which he will be regretted ; but yet it is difficult to show
that his landscapes are not as true and distinctive, as
broadly viewed and as faithfully presented, as the edifices
winch they surround. An equal excellence may, for the
most part, be recognized in the figures which animate
either the one or the other. Such a variety of lines of
practice, and such industry and facility, are rare in
themselves, and very rarely recognized by such a multi-
tude of admirers as in Mr. Roberts's case ; and the
sorrow for his death will be in proportion to the influ-
ence of his life and works. The best appreciation of
his truth is to be found among persons who know the
scenes, either as residents or as travellers. His pictures
may be seen to be very variously estimated by a suc-
cession of visitors in the same day and the same hour ;
but the difference lies in the knowledge or ignorance of
the scene or its main conditions, on the part of the
gazers. One of his pictures of an Egyptian temple may
bring out from an untravelled observer a remark on the
opaque color, and the wildly unnatural hues of moun-
tain, sand, river, and sky : and at the same moment a
Nile voyager may be feeling, at the first glance, and

[X]

His

•versatility.

II

250

DA VI D ROBERTS, R.A.

A native of
Edinburgh.

more and more as he gazes, a thrill such as he has not
felt since he first saw a sunset in the desert. The
coloring is true, except in as far as it is necessarily
subdued to meet the requirements of Art, as it is under-
stood in England; and the opacity is, to the travelled
eye, the special transparency of such climates as that of
Egypt, where the clearness of the atmosphere confounds
space and distance, and concentrates color in a way
incomprehensible to the inhabitants of misty countries.
That Mr. Roberts should have conveyed these pecu-
liarities of Egyptian and Arabian scenery, and the char-
acteristics of his own dear Scotland, and of Moorish
Spain, and of half-Eastern Austria, and of bright France,
and of dim London, manifests a versatility which, in
combination with his steadiness of purpose, must be
recognized as genius.

This is not the less true for his owing some of his
facility to a very unusual early training. He served his
apprenticeship to a house-painter, which might not have
much to do with it ; but he was afterward a scene-
painter ; and if he escaped the dangers of such a mode
of early practice, he was sure to derive advantage from
it. In the humbler occupation he had for a comrade
Hay, who became a true artist in the province of house-
decoration ; and his fellow scene-painter at Drury Lane
was Stanfield.

David Roberts was a native of Edinburgh. He was
born on the 24th of October, 1796, and was therefore
sixty-eight at the time of his death. While still an
apprentice to the house-painter, he was admitted to the
Trustees' Academy, where Wilkie, Allan, and others
began to learn their art. Roberts, however, attended
only once, when he made a study of a hand. The first

DA VID ROBERTS, R.A.

251

clear view now to be had of him is in his twenty-seventh
year, when he was working, with Stanfield as a comrade,
for the Drury Lane stage. Two years later, he and an
illustrious company of brother artists instituted the
Society of British Artists ; and Roberts was Vice-
President of this Society for some time. He exhibited
in it the first pictures that we hear of; one of Dryburgh,
and two of Melrose Abbey. Thus he began with archi-
tectural painting, which was the great object of his life
and art to the end.

In 1825 he had evidently been beginning his travels ;
for he showed to the world what he had seen at Dieppe
and Rouen. In the following year he exhibited for the
first time at the Royal Academy. He seems, however,
to have been happier with the Society, for he exhibited
regularly there, while appearing only once for eight years
at the Academy. He was travelling and painting during
the interval, and the most noticeable work of the period
was the picture which he painted for Lord Northwick,
and which is now in Sir Robert Peel's collection, "The
Departure of the Israelites from Egypt. " He had not yet
been in Egypt ; but neither had he been in India, and
we find him painting the Ellora Cave. He worked from
a sketch by Captain Grindlay.

For some years the variety of his subjects seems now
as wonderful as his industry. We find in the list Scotch,
Dutch, English, and Rhenish towns, from studies of his
own. There is a Portuguese one ; but that is from a
sketch of Charles Landseer's. He was in Spain, how-
ever, in 1834; and thence he sent the "Geralda at
Seville," painted on the spot, and the work which fixed
his rank as a great painter — "The Cathedral at Burgos."
It may be seen in the National collection, as Mr. Vernon

[X]

One of the
founders of
the Society
of British
Artists.

Exhibits at
the Royal
Academy.

The multi-
plicity of his
subjects.

252

DA VID ROBERTS, R.A.

[X]

His contri-
butions
to the
Annuals.

His

" Sketches
in the Holy
Land."

immediately purchased it. Mr. Sheepshanks afterward
secured the two others which appear in the National
Gallery — "The Crypt at Rosslyn Chapel," and the
' ' Spanish Scene on the Davro, at Grenada. "

For four years at this time he contributed largely to
the Annuals which were the fashion of the period ; and
to these, perhaps, he owed his first celebrity beyond his
own island ; for, by the illustrated publications of the
day the continental people learned to know the scenery
of their own and one another's countries. The foreign
engravings from his views in the Landscape Annual, and
in illustration of "The Pilgrims of the Rhine," and
his lithographed "Spanish Sketches," were a complete
novelty to half the Continent. The grand achievement,
however, was the "Sketches in the Holy Land," and in
neighboring countries — one of the largest illustrative
works in existence, and no less eminent for its fidelity
and its character of vitality than for its splendor. It
was while he was studying these scenes on the spot that
he was made an Associate of the Royal Academy in
1839. In 1841, he became an Academician; and in the
following year the great folio work began to appear —
Louis Haghe being the engraver, and Dr. Croly the
contributor of the letterpress. The whole required the
labor of eight years on the part of the artist and the en-
graver.

That is above twenty years ago ; and the production
of his wealth of that sort has never ceased — scarcely
paused — from that time to this. We look back with won-
der on such a production of works of such quality —
the "Baalbec," the "Jerusalem from the Mount of
Olives," "The Temple of the Sun at Baalbec," which
our readers will remember at the International Exhibi-

DAVID ROBERTS, R.A.

253

tion of 1862; "The Destruction of Jerusalem;" the
picture painted by royal command of "The Opening
of the Exhibition of 1851 ;" and the great panoramic
picture of Rome, presented by Mr. Roberts to his
native city. Edinburgh had before given him the free-
dom of the city; and she was not left unrepresented
amidst the old capitals which he illustrated in long
succession. Rome, Venice, Vienna, and many more,
and finally London, were so painted by him as to secure
to future generations a clear conception of what the great
cities of Europe looked like (as regards their most promi-
nent features) in our century.

Those pictures of London, as seen from the Thames,
are the latest memorials we have of David Roberts.
He was employed on two of them at the time of his
death. It was nevertheless an old scheme. Turner
once told him that he had thought of painting London
from points of view on the Thames ; but he decided that
the scheme was too wide for him. When he relinquished
it, David Roberts seems to have taken it up; and he
accumulated a mass of materials for it which it is mourn-
ful to think of, now that he is gone. Our readers must
have a vivid remembrance of the fine rendering of St.
Paul's, as presented in the pictures in the Academy Ex-
hibition. The series was painted for Mr. Charles Lucas,
who has hung them together. One of the unfinished
pictures is a view of St. Paul's from Ludgate Hill ; the
other, nearly finished, is the Palace of Westminster seen
from the river.

He leaves a rich legacy of professional treasures, be-
sides these incomplete pictures. He parted with very
few of his water-color sketches and drawings made in the
countries he travelled through. He rarely parted with,

Picture* of
London
from the
Thames.

254

DAVID ROBERTS, R.A.

[X]

Hh

geniality.

an original sketch ; and we may all conceive what a
number there must be of them. There is also a com-
plete series of an interesting order of memoranda. It
was his habit to make a pen-and-ink etching of every
picture he painted, with notes recording the size and other
conditions of the work. This is not only a precious lega-
cy to his descendants, but a valuable record for the world
of Art.

He was a very cheerful man. This must have been
evident to all who had any acquaintance with him ; for
his genial temper manifested itself in his face, and his
voice, and the mirth of his conversation. He had the
enjoyment which belongs to the inclination and habit of
industry, without the drawback of the stiffness, and nar-
rowness, and restlessness which too often attend it. In
the last autumn of his life, when he was absent from
his regular work, and staying at Bonchurch with his
daughter and son-in-law and their family, he occupied
himself with cleaning and renovating his old sketches,
conversing gayly all the while. His health was good ;
his fame was rising, as appeared by the constantly in-
creasing prices given for his works ; he was blessed in
family affection, and rich in friends. He was passing in-
to old age thus happily when he was struck down by a
death which spared him the suffering of illness, infirmity,
and decline. On the 25th November he went out from
his own house in apparent health, and cheerful as usual.
He staggered and fell in the street ; and died at seven the
same evening.

All the world knew of his energy and industry. All
his acquaintance were aware of his liberality of views
and of temper on all the great subjects which usually
divide men by their very interest in them. No man was

DAVID ROBERTS, R.A.

255

the worse with David Roberts for any opinions con-
scientiously formed and honestly held ; and he asked
no leave for holding his own convictions. Some, but
not many, knew what his munificence was to the needy
members of any department of Art, and how generous
his support of all good schemes for the benefit of artists.
His eye, and heart, and hand were open to discern, and
sympathize with, and foster ability in his own line of
life, or in any other. David Roberts, the Royal Acade-
mician, will be regretted far and near, and his death
recorded as one of the grave losses of a grave period ;
but as the generous patron, the hearty friend, and the
beloved father and grandfather, he is mourned as deeply
as any man who never ran any risk of being spoiled by
fame, or filled with the pride of his conquest over the
disadvantages of his early life, and his achievement of
such a position as he held. He had made himself a
man of mark ; and he was one of few who, having
energy for such a feat, have preserved heart, and
simplicity, and gentleness enough not to be the less
happy for it.

[X]

His

benevolence.

IV.
SOCIAL.

MISS BERRY.

BORN MARCH i6xH, 1763. DIED Nov. 2OTH, 1852.

An event has occurred which makes us ask ourselves
whether we have really passed the middle of our century.
In the course of Saturday night, November 20, one died
who could and did tell so much of what happened early
in the reign of George III., that her hearers felt as if
they were in personal relations with the men of that
time. Miss Berry was remarkable enough in herself to
have excited a good deal of emotion by dying any time
within the last seventy years. Dying now, she leaves as
strong as ever the impression of her admirable faculties,
her generous and affectionate nature, and her high accom-
plishments, while awakening us to a retrospect of the
changes and fashions of our English intellect, as ex-
pressed by literature. She was not only the Woman of
Letters of the last century, carried far forward into our
own — she was not only the Woman of Fashion who was
familiar with the gayeties of life before the fair daughters
of George III. were seen abroad, and who had her own
will and way with society up to last Saturday night : she
was the repository of the whole literary history of four-
score years ; and when she was pleased to throw open
the folding-doors of her memory, they were found to be

A link ivith
the fast
century.

260

MISS BERRY.

[I]

The Miss
Berrys and
Horace
Walpole.

mirrors: and in them was seen the whole procession of
literature, from the mournful Cowper to Tennyson the
Laureate.

It was a curious sight — visible till recently, though now
all are gone — the chatting of three ladies on the same
sofa — the two Miss Berrys and their intimate friend,
Lady Charlotte Lindsay. Lady Charlotte Lindsay was
the daughter of Lord North; and the Miss Berrys had
both received, as was never any secret, the offer of the
hand of Horace Walpole. It is true he was old, and
knew himself to be declining, and made this offer as an
act of friendship and gratitude; but still, the fact re-
mains that she who died last Saturday night might have
been the wife of him who had the poet Gray for his
tutor. These ladies brought into our time a good deal
of the manners, the conversation, and the dress of the
last century ; but not at all in a way to cast any restraint
on the youngest of their visitors, or to check the inclina-
tion to inquire into the thoughts and ways of men long
dead, and the influence of modes long passed away. Ifr
was said that Miss Berry's parties were rather blue, and
perhaps they were so ; but she was not aware of it ; and
all thought of contemporary pedantry dissolved under
icr stories of how she once found on the table, on her
return from a ball, a volume of "Plays on the Passions,"
and how she kneeled on a chair at the table to see what
he book was like, and was found there — feathers and
satin shoes and all — by the servant who came to let in the
vinter morning light ; or of how the world of literature
was perplexed and distressed — as a swarm of bees that
lave lost their queen — when Dr. Johnson died ; or of
low Charles Fox used to wonder that people could make
uch a fuss about that dullest of new books — Adam

MISS BERRY. 261

[I]

contempo-

Smith's "Wealth of Nations." He was an Eton boy
just promised a trip to Paris by his father, when Miss
Berry was born ; and Pitt was a child in the nursery, ranu
probably applauded by his maid for his success in learn-
ing to speak plain. Burns was then toddling in and out,
over the threshold of his father's cottage. Just when she
was entering on the novel-reading age, "Evelina" came
out ; and Fanny Burney's series of novels were to that
generation of young people what Scott's were to the next
but one. If the youths and maidens of that time had
bad fiction, they had good history ; for the learned Mr.
Gibbon gave them volume after volume which made them
proud of their age. They talked about their poets ; and,
no doubt, each had an idol in that day as in ours and
everybody's. The earnestness, sense, feeling, and point
of Cowper delighted some ; and they reverently told of
ihe sorrows of his secluded life, as glimpses were caught
of him in his walks with Mrs. Unwin. Others stood on
tiptoe to peep into Dr. Darwin's "chaise" as he went his
^professional round, writing and polishing his verses as he
went ; and his admirers insisted that nothing so brilliant
had ever been written before. Miss Berry must have
well remembered the first exhibition of this brilliancy
before the careless eyes of the world ; and she must
have remembered the strangeness of the contrast when
Crabbe tried his homely pathos, encouraged to do so by
Burke. And then came something which it is scarcely
credible that the world should have received during
the period of Johnson's old age, and the maturity of
Gibbon, and Sir Wm. Jones, and Burns — the wretched
rhyming of the Batheaston set of sentimental pedants.
In rebuke of them, the now mature woman saw the theory
of Wordsworth rise : and in rebuke of him she saw the

262

MISS BERRY.

[I]

What she
saiu of
literature.

and of

political
changes.

young and confident Jeffrey and his comrades arise ;
and in rebuke of them saw the Quarterly Review arise,
when she was beginning to be elderly. She saw Joanna
Baillie's great fame rise and decline, without either the
rise or decline changing in the least the countenance or
the mood of the happy being whose sunshine came from
quite another luminary than fame. She saw the rise of
Wordsworth's fame, growing as it did out of the reaction
against the pomps and vanities of the Johnsonian and
Darwinian schools ; and she lived to see its decline when
the great purpose was fulfilled, of inducing poets to say
what they mean, in words which will answer that purpose.
She saw the beginning and the end of Moore's popu-
larity ; and the rise and establishment of Campbell's.
The short career of Byron passed before her eyes like a
summer storm ; and that of Scott constituted a great
interest of her life for many years. What an experience
— to have studied the period of horrors, represented by
Monk Lewis — of conventionalism in Fanny Burney — of
metaphysical fiction in Godwin — of historical romance
in Scott — and of a new order of fiction in Dickens,
which it is yet too soon to characterize by a phrase.

We might go on for hours, and not exhaust the history
of what she saw on the side of Literature alone. If we
attempted to number the scientific men who have crossed
her threshold — the foreigners who found within her doors
the best of London and the cream of society, we should
never have done. And of Political changes, she saw
the continental wars, the establishment of American
Independence, the long series of French Revolutions :
and again, the career of Washington, of Napoleon, of
Nelson, of Wellington, with that of all the Statesmen
from Lord Chatham to Peel — from Franklin to Webster.

MISS BERRY.

263

But it is too much. It is bewildering to us, though it
never overpowered her. She seemed to forget nothing,
and to notice everything, and to be able to bear so long
a life in such times ; but she might well be glad to sink
to sleep after so long-drawn a pageant of the world's
pomps and vanities, and transient idolatries, and eternal
passions.

Reviewing the spectacle, it appears to us, as it probably
did to her, that there is no prevalent taste, at least in
literature, without a counteraction on the spot, preparing
society for a reaction. Miss Berry used to say that she
published the later volumes of Walpole's Correspon-
dence to prove that the world was wrong in thinking him
heartless ; she believing the appearance of heartlessness
in him to be ascribable to the influences of his time. She
did not succeed in changing the world's judgment of her
friend ; and this was partly because the influences of the
time did not prevent other men from showing heart.
Charles James Fox had a heart ; and so had Burke and
a good many more. While Johnson and then Darwin
were corrupting men's taste in diction, Cowper was
keeping it pure enough to enjoy the three rising poets,
alike only in their plainness of speech — Crabbe, Burns,
and Wordsworth. Before Miss Burney had exhausted
our patience, the practical Maria Edgeworth was grow-
ing up. While Godwin would have engaged us wholly
with the interior scenery of Man's nature, Scott was
fitting up his theatre for his mighty procession of cos-
tumes, with men in them to set them moving ; and Jane
Austen, whose name and works will outlive many that were
supposed immortal, was stealthily putting forth her un-
matched delineations of domestic life in the middle classes
of our over-living England. And against the somewhat

[I]

Her opinion
of Horace
Walpole.

MISS BERRY.

[I]

The close of
her ninety
years.

feeble elegance of Sir William Jones's learning there was
the safeguard of Gibbon's marvellous combination of
strength and richness in his erudition. The vigor of
Campbell's lyrics was a set-off against the prettiness of
Moore's. The subtlety of Coleridge meets its match, and
a good deal more, in the development of Science ; and
the morose complainings of Byron are less and less
echoed now that the peace has opened the world to
gentry whose energies would be self-corroding if they
were under blockade at home, through a universal con-
tinental war. Byron is read at sea now, on the way to
the North Pole, or to California, or to Borneo ; and in
that way his woes can do no harm. "To everything
there is a season ; " and to every fashion of a season
there is an antagonism preparing. Thus all things have
their turn; all human faculties have their stimulus,
sooner or later, supposing them to be put in the way
of the influences of social life.

It was eminently so in the case of the aged lady who
is gone from us ; and well did her mind respond to the
discipline offered by her long and favorable life of ninety
years. One would like to know how she herself summed
up such an experience as hers — the spectacle of so
many everlasting things dissolved — so many engrossing
things forgotten — so many settled things set afloat again,
and floated out of sight. Perhaps those true words
wandered once more into her mind as her eyes were
closing :

" We are such stuff

As dreams are made of; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep."

Twenty

II.

FATHER MATHEW.

DIED DECEMBER STH, 1856.

*

A FEW years ago the death of Father Mathew would

have caused a sensation as deep, as wide, and as pathetic
as the death of any man of his generation. As it is, he
slips away quietly, his departure awakening some in-
teresting reflections, but causing no such agitation as
would have attended it twenty years since. Ours is an
age when personal qualities are much less concerned in years 'ago.
the influence and popularity of public men than they
were in a prior stage of civilization ; and ours is a
country in which men of mark become so, generally
speaking, as representatives of some social principle or
phase, rather than through their idiosyncrasy. One Wel-
lington in a generation or a century may keep alive the
old sentiment of heroism and enthusiasm for personal
greatness, while ten men to that unit may create a greater
rage for the hour, and be followed by a larger multitude.
An O'Connell and a Father Mathew may appear for a
time greater than the greatest man of their age ; but it is
because they ride the surging wave of some popular
sentiment during a single tide of social destiny ; and
when the ebb comes they are stranded, or at best carried
back to the level whence they arose. Theobald Mathew
was a benevolent, earnest, well-deserving man in his way ;

12

266

FATHER MATHEW.

["I

His earnest
benevolence.

but his prodigious temporary influence was wholly due
to the time and circumstances into which he was cast.
Another man would have done much the same work if
Father Mathew had been living in Spain or Italy instead
of Ireland ; and he would himself have passed through
life without notice if he had been born half a century
earlier or later, or if his parentage had been of another
nation. From the large space which, however, he actually
occupied in the panorama of the time, he will not pass
to his grave without more or less notice and regret from
the whole existing generation of his countrymen.

Theobald Mathew was descended from a good old
Roman Catholic family in Ireland, and was born at
Thomastown in 1790. Becoming an orphan very early,
he was adopted by an aunt, who gave him the best educa-
tion she knew of — first at the lay Academy at Kilkenny,
and then, on his showing an inclination for the priest-
hood, at Maynooth. He appears not to have manifested
any quality, intellectual or moral, that was remarkable,
except benevolence. He had no enlarged views, no
deep moral insight, no great executive power ; but he
was earnestly, devoutly, and devotedly benevolent about
any object which was immediately presented to his mind
in such a way as that he could grasp it. He could not
have originated the Temperance movement, or any other;
and he failed utterly under any stress — as, for instance,
in the presence of American Slavery, before the difficul-
ties of which his courage, his principle, his reputation,
and even his benevolence melted away, like ice, instead
of gold in the fiery furnace. This is no matter of cen-
sure. He was, in some sort, an apostle at home ; but
he was not so made .as to be, a confessor or marty/
abroad, on behalf of those human liberties of which it

FA THER MA THE W.

267

is absurd to expect any monk but Luther to have any
vivid conception.

Father Mathew, having early taken the vows as a
Capuchin, followed the leadings of his heart in minister-
ing among the poor in Cork, when he left Maynooth.
His reputation, both as a popular preacher and minister
among the city poor, was considerable, and daily rising,
when the Temperance movement, begun in the United
States, was propagated into Ireland through Belfast.
Dr. Edgar, of Belfast, was pondering, in the summer of
1829, the best means of improving the popular morals
of the town, when he was visited by Dr. Penny, from
America, who reported to him the institution and pro-
gress of Temperance Societies in the United States.
Dr. Edgar put forth, in August, the first proposal of
Temperance Associations on this side the Atlantic ; and
during the next year, four travelling agents spread his
facts and his tracts all over Ireland. It then became
known that six millions a year were spent on proof-spirits
in Ireland ; and that four-fifths of the crime brought up
for judgment, and three-fourths of the Irish beggary of
that day, were directly due to intemperance. Evidence
of these facts began to flow in from every kind of author-
ity, medical, judicial, pastoral, and other. Societies
were formed here and there ; in New Ross first, by a
clergyman of the Establishment, the Rev. George Carr ;
and in Cork by some good men who had the wisdom to
enlist Father Mathew in the cause. Four citizens, a
clergyman, a Quaker, a slater, and a tailor, appealed to
the Capuchin Friar (by that time a Superior of the Order),
and Father Mathew at once threw his good heart and
his inestimable experience into the crusade against the
popular vice.

His minis-
trations in
Cork.

The origin
of the Tem-
perance
societies
in Ireland.

Father
Mathetu's
services
enlisted.

268

FA THER MA THE W.

[II]

scious agent
of 0'Ccn-
nell.

Superstition
among the
people.

The Political Apostle of the day had the sagacity which
was not remarkable in the Moral Reformer. O'Connell
made Father Mathew his unconscious agent ; and hence
some of the success, which, to those who did not discern
all the springs of the movement, appeared miraculous.
O'Connell's aim was to keep up a state of vigilant expec-
tation among the people ; and it is certain that the two
millions who were presently pledged by Father Mathew
believed, generally speaking, that some mighty political
event was at hand, for which they must hold themselves
ready in a state of soberness. Most of them believed
that Dan was to be King of Ireland; many, that the
Temperance medal was to be their badge of safety in
the day of conflict ; and all believed that it was their
token of salvation. It was commonly believed that
Father Mathew could work miracles, and even that he
had raised a person from the dead. When inquired of
about his action in regard to these superstitions, he
wrote a letter containing a few sentences so charac-
teristic, that they almost preclude the necessity of
describing his mind. "If I could prevent them," he
says of these superstitions, "without impeding the
glorious cause, they should not have been permitted ;
but both are so closely entwined, that the tares cannot
be pulled out without plucking up the wheat also. The
evil will correct itself; and the good, with the Divine
assistance, will remain and be permanent." Such an
agitator was the very man for O'Connell. His gatherings
trained the people to marching in physical sobriety and
moral enthusiasm. With their bands of music and their
organization — nearly approaching to the regimental —
they were amused for the time, and convinced that some
ulterior work was preparing ; and an immense revenue

FA THER MA THE W.

269

was levied from the sale of the shilling medals — a fund
which was never accounted for. Nobody ever supposed
that Father Mathew pocketed one of those shillings.
He gave many of them to the relief of the poorest of
the crowd ; but he and his relatives became bankrupt by
the movement — his brother by the ruin of his distillery,
and himself by the loans and advances required of him
by the urgency of the movement. Of his perfect dis-
interestedness there never was any question. He handed
over his life insurance to his creditors ; and the pension
of 300/. a year from the Crown was all spent in keeping
up that insurance. While the millions who had rushed
into a condition of temperance under his ministration
were kissing his feet, and making him happy in the
belief that he had been the appointed means of saving
so many souls, the movement was looked upon with
diverse kinds of interest by observers, near and distant.
The political agitators of Ireland saw at their disposal a
mighty army of water-drinkers, as resolute and fanatical
as Cromwell's Ironsides — drilled, trained, looking for the
day of the Lord, wherein their own safety was secured ;
and singularly united by the spirit which breathed
through their brass band harmonies, and their cheers in
the field, when either of their idols was present. More
distant observers, who could form a judgment of the
case, apart from political or moral intoxication, feared
as much as they hoped from the movement. The pro-
digious power of self-control shown by the breaking off
of a vicious habit by almost an entire nation was a firm
ground of hope for the future destinies of the Irish
people ; but there was a melancholy adulteration of the
good with superstition and other delusion. A check to
vice would no doubt be given by the shutting up of

Becomes a
bankrupt by
the move-
ment.

Different
•views of the
movement.

270

FA THER MA THE W.

PI]

His ivonder-
ful progress
in Ireland.

His recep-
tion in
England,

distilleries, by the disinfecting of dwellings of the smell
of whisky, and by the solemn impression made on the
minds of a whole generation of young people. But the
habit of self-restraint is too deep and serious a matter
to be trusted to any movement either mechanical or
impulsive; and the Temperance movement was both.
Sober moralists feared failure in the end, and that the
last state of many would be worse than the first. Sooner
or later, Father Mathew must die ; and it was even too
probable that his influence would die before him. There
must be relapse, to some considerable extent; and
relapse in moral conduct is fatal. These misgivings
were but too well grounded. O'Connell and the other
political agitators are gone, and their schemes have
completely evaporated ; but the other class of observers
now see their anticipations fulfilled, both as to the good
and the evil.

Father Mathew finished his triumphal progress through
Ireland, sometimes administering the pledge to 50,000
persons in a day, and pledging between two and three
millions altogether during the paroxysm of enthusiasm ;
and he then came to England. His success would have
been called miraculous but for the greater marvel just
witnessed in Ireland. Here there could not be equal
solemnity or enthusiasm ; and there was occasionally a
manifest levity which must have been painful to the good
priest, as it certainly was to some who were neither
Catholics nor ascetics. There was too much of patron-
age exhibited on the hustings by men who revelled in
luxury at home, and made jokes in the evening over
medals that they had reverently received in public in the
morning. The effects of the English crusade were soon
effaced when Father Mathew was gone to America.

FA THER MA THE W.

271

In America he failed, as abler men have failed,
through the mistake, invariably fatal on that soil, of
ignoring the monster vice of Negro Slavery while
warring with some other. By this, a long series of
philanthropists failed before him, and Kossuth after
him. Under the notion of propitiating good-will to the
Temperance cause, Father Mathew gave himself wholly
into the hands of the slave-owners, and lost his object.
Of all people, the Americans themselves most vehemently
despise such a policy ; and no apostle of any cause has
any chance among them who shows want of spirit in this
particular form, who proves himself unable to meet this
test. What Mitchel and Meagher have lost by recreant
speech, Father Mathew lost by recreant silence. By
courage and honesty he could but have very partially
failed in his own enterprise, while giving great aid to
another of yet more solemn importance. As it was, he
lost character, destroyed his influence, and incurred
simple failure. But he was not the man to meet such a
test; and he was also in failing health. It was there, if
we remember rightly, that he sustained his first paralytic
seizure: and he returned, in 1851, a drooping invalid.
He returned to find his enterprise not only drooping,
but utterly sunk. The chapel projected for him at Cork
is only too faithful a type of the great work of his life.
That beautiful chapel stands lialf finished, broken off
before the loftiness of its pillars and the grace of its
arches are developed. There are props and coverings ;
but they will not make it grow, nor long save it from
ruin by wind and weather. It may be said that the
good friar's work, like his chapel, was stopped by the
famine and the fever. But the truth is, the temperance
he taught was enforced by poverty during that crisis ;

Father
Matheiv
and the
slave
owners.

His return.

272

FA THER MA THE W.

and with the return of prosperity the intemperance has
returned. Of this there is no doubt whatever ; and it is
just what might have been expected. The seed had no
root, and the plant has withered away. It will not be
a friar who will work moral regeneration in our day ; nor
will moral reform endure any admixture of superstition.
We must look to sound knowledge and the cultivation of
the higher parts of Man's nature to cast out the grosser
vices. Vows and mechanical association will not do it.
Sumptuary and inhibitive laws will not do it. As far
as law can go, there is nothing for it but perfect
fredom of sale of all that comes under the name of
beverage. If our duties on French wines and tea and
coffee were removed to-morrow, and our licensing system
abolished, we should find once more, what is always true,
that men cannot be made virtuous by Act of Parliament.
We must give them — what Father Mathew dreaded as
much as the whisky — knowledge, and intellectual and
moral freedom, by means of education, arming them
against, not only the spirit of drink, but the whole legion
of devils, by giving every man the entire possession of
himself, in all his faculties. Not understanding this, the
good friar drooped and sank amidst the ruins of his
cause. He suffered under repeated attacks of paralysis,
and died.

He did the best he could for his fellow-men. What-
ever he knew, he did : whatever he had, he gave. He
was devoted and disinterested ; and that is much. His
memory will be held in sincere though somewhat limited
respect ; and he will afford to the future historian a
curious and instructive study, in his connection with one
of the most remarkable social phenomena of his time.

III.

ROBERT OWEN.
DIED NOVEMBER 17x11, 1858.

WITH Robert Owen dies out one of the clearest and
most striking signs of our times. 1 He was a man who
would have been remarkable at any period for the
combination that was so strong in him of benevolence
and inclination to ordain and rule ;3 but these natural
dispositions took form under the special pressure of
the time. So entire was the suitability, thus far, of
the man to his age, that \there can be little doubt that
if he had been gifted with the power in which he was
most deficient — reasoning power — he would have been
among the foremost men of his generation./ As it was,
his peculiar faculties so far fell in with the popular need
that he effected much for the progress of society, and
has been the cause of many things which will never
go by his name. During his youth and early manhood,
at the end of the last century, ignorance, poverty, and
crime abounded, under the pressure of a long and hard
war ; at the same time, the old methods of society had
been brought into question, in a very radical way,
where they were not overthrown, by the French Revo-
lution ; and the combined benevolence and adminis-
trative power of Robert Owen, applied to social dif-

His

facuhie
and his
time.

274 ROBERT OWEN.

[Ill]

The Nciv
Lanark

ment.

faculties, made him a political theorist. \ ^As for the
result, he could assert dogmatically, and he could prove
his convictions, to a considerable extent, by act ; but he
could not reason. If he could have reasoned, he might
have achieved what he was constantly expecting, and have
changed the whole aspect of civilization^ J

He must have been an extraordinary child, judging
by his own amusing account of himself as a teacher
in a school from the age of seven. He was under-
master at nine. He maintained himself as a shopman
for a few years, being always treated with a considera-
tion and liberality which testify to there having been some-
thing impressive about him. Arkwright's machinery
was then coming into use ; and at the age of eighteen,
Robert Owen became a partner in a cotton-mill where
forty men were employed. He was prosperous, and rose
from one lucrative concern to another, till he became the
head of ^he New Lanark establishment, which included a
farm of 150 acres, and supported 2,000 inhabitants. j The
ordinary notion of Robert Owen among those who have
not examined his operations is, that he was that kind of
"amiable enthusiast" who is always out at the elbows, and
making his friends so ; but nothing could be further from
the truth, i He was a consummate man of business ; never
wrong in concrete matters, however curiously mistaken
in his abstract views. He made many fortunes, and
enabled others to make them ; and if he had been
selfish and worldly, might have died the wealthiest of
cotton lords, or a prodigious landed proprietor. No
one could go over any of his successive establishments,
in Scotland, America, or England, without being con-
vinced, in the first place, of the economy of associa-
tion, and, in the next, of Mr. Owen's remarkable

ROBERT OWEN.

275

ability in the ordination and conduct of the machinery
of living. His arrangements for the health of an
aggregate multitude, for their comfortable feeding,
clothing, leisure, and amusement ; the methods of
cooking, warming, washing, lighting ; the management
of the mill and the farm, the school and the ball-room,
everything requiring the exercise of the economic and
administrative faculties, was of a rare quality of excel-
lence under his hand. In ten years, while all the world
was expecting his ruin from his new-fangled schemes, he
bought out his partners at New Lanark for eighty-four
thousand pounds. His new partners and he realized;
in four years more than one hundred and fifty thousancl
pounds profit ; and he bought them out for one hundred
and fourteen thousand pounds. These are facts which,
ought to be known^ |

Those New Lanark mills were set up when Owen
was a boy, in 1784, by Arkwright, in conjunction with
the benevolent David Dale, of Glasgow, whose daughter
became Robert Owen's wife. How they were managed
by Owen we have seen. In 1816, he found himself at
liberty to try his own methods with his work-people ;
and his social and educational success was so striking
that many of the great ones of the earth came to him to
learn his method. \In spite of his Liberalism, emperors
and kings and absolute statesmen went to Lanark, or
invited Mr. Owen to their Courts. In spite of his infidel-
ity, prelates and their clergy, and all manner of Dissent-
ing leaders, inspected his schools. In spite of the
horror of old bigots and new economists, territories were
offered to him in various parts of the world on which to
try his schemes on a large scale.^ Metternich invited him
to a succession of interviews, and employed Government

[HI]

His admin-
istrative
ability.

Success of
the New
Lanark
Mills.

Owen and
Metternich.

276 ROBERT OWEN.

[Ill]

clerks for many days in registering conversations and
copying documents ; and there was less absurdity than
some people supposed in Mr. Owen's sanguine expecta-
tion that his "new system of society" would soon be
established in Austria. Though he did not see it, there
was much in his method of organization which might be
turned to excellent purpose by an arbitrary government ;
and whenever the Prussian system of education, with its
fine promises, its sedulous administration, and its heart-
less results, is brought under our notice, our remembrance
travels back to New Lanark, with its dogmas, its discipline,
the mild and beneficent solitude which brooded over it,
and its dependence for genuine liberty and free individu-
ality on the personal character of the administrator. The
discipline in the 'two cases might be different, and the
dogmas opposite ; but the educational system had strong
resemblances. This ought to be easily conceivable when
it is remembered that Metternich was a pupil of Owen's,
and the Mexican Government his patron, and Southey
his eulogist *In 1828, our own Cabinet sanctioned and
furthered his going out to Mexico, to see about a district
which was offered him there, 150 miles broad, including
the golden California of our day. j There must have
been something in Mr. Owen's doings to cause such
incidents as these. The "amiable enthusiast" himself
steadily believed that it was the love of humankind which
was the bond between himself and all these potentates ;
but wise men saw, and the event has proved, that the
temptation lay in the opportunity his schemes afforded for
training men to a subserviency which he was very far from
desiring. ...

\ Robert Owen was the founder of Infant Schools.

ROBERT OWEN.

277

Many had conceived the idea, but he was the first to
join the conception and the act. \ De Fellenberg had
instituted education in connection with agricultural in-
dustry, but had not particularly contemplated infants
in his scheme. Others had in theirs : but it was not
.till Henry Brougham had reported to his parliamentary
and other friends in London what was actually done at
New Lanark, and they had consulted with Mr. Owen,
and borrowed his schoolmaster, that Brougham, Romilly,
Ben Smith, Zachary Macaulay, and Lord Lansdowne
set up an Infant School in Westminster. This was in
1819, when Owen's school had been in operation three
years.] As usual in such cases, the immediate benefit
was obvious enough, before the attendant mischiefs
began to show themselves. Robert Owen was extremely
happy in having surrounded these babes with "happy
circumstances," amidst which they could not but grow
up all that he could wish ; and less sanguine men than
he gloried and rejoiced in the prospect of the redemption
of the infant population of our towns. It did not
occur to them that the mortality among the children
might be in proportion to their removal from the natural
influences of the family, and of a home where no two
members of the household are of the same age, or at
the same stage of mind. The disproportionate mortality
from brain disease which has since taken place in In-
fant Schools was the dark side of the picture which
Owen did not see — the warning given out by the
experiment, which he did not hear. The bright part
of the result was the proof that education could go
on well — and better perhaps than ever before — with-
out rewards and punishments; or, we may rather say

[nil

Founder of

Infant

Schools.

278

ROBERT OWEN.

[Ill]

Owen's
disciples.

Want of
vitality in
his schemes.

(as Mr. Owen's benign presence and approbation were
a constant reward), without any arbitrary visitation what-
ever.

And what has come of all the noble promise held
out by a man so good, and in many respects so capable,
as Robert Owen?\ He once made nearly 3,000 people
an example of comfort, decent conduct, and unusual
cultivation, at a time when poverty, crime, and ignorance
made all good men's hearts sad. \ Where are the results ?
The results lie in the improved views and conduct of
a very large number of descendants from Owen's pupils ;
and yet more in the impulse that he imparted to the
Co-operative principle. The Christian Socialists are
his disciples, politically, though not religiously ; and
the Secularists are his disciples, philosophically, though
not as of course politically. He is, and will sooner or
later be admitted to be, the father of the great social
changes which are preparing, and already going forward,
as the evidence of the Economy of Association becomes
more clear. But his own special schemes failed — one
and all ; and if he had lived two centuries, scheming
at his own nimble rate, his enterprises would never have
succeeded, because they were founded on an imperfect
view of the Human Being for whose benefit he lived,
and would willingly have died, j In 1824 he formed
a group of communities in America, having purchased
the Harmony Estate, consisting of a village and 30,000
acres of land, from the Rappites, who were emigrating
westward. The community, including several thousand
persons, improved in mind, manners, and fortunes;
but there was still the something wanting which was
essential to permanence. Duke Bernard of Saxe Weimar
stayed there for a week or two, and, amidst all his

ROBERT OWEN. 279

respect and admiration for Mr. Owen, saw that it would
not do ; and in that case the experiment was not a long
one. The account given by the Duke of Mr. Owen's
expectations is so precisely true, at all periods of his life,
that it may stand as a general description of the philan-
thropist's state of mind for seventy years: "He looks
to nothing less than to renovate the world, to extirpate
all evil, to banish all punishments, to create like views
and like wants, and to guard against all conflicts and
hostilities/JlAnd so he went on to the end. At every
moment, his "plans" were going to be tried in some
country or other, which would bring over all other
countries. Everybody who treated him with respect
and interest was assumed to be his disciple ; and those
who openly opposed or quizzed him were regarded with
a good-natured smile, and spoken of as people who had
very good eyes, but who had accidentally got into a
wood, where they could not see their way for the trees.j
He was the same placid happy being into his old age,
believing and expecting whatever he wished ; always
gentlemanly and courteous in his manners; always on
the most endearing terms with his children, who loved
to make him, as they said, " the very happiest old man
in the world ;"\ always a gentle bore in regard to his
dogmas and his expectations; always palpably right in
his descriptions of human misery; always thinking he
had proved a thing when he had asserted it, in the force
of his own conviction ; and always really meaning some-
thing more rational than he had actually expressed. \ It
was said by way of mockery that "he might live in
parallelograms, but he argued in circles;" but this is
rather too favorable a description offbne who did not
argue at all, nor know what argument meant, i His

[III]

His aims

and

"flans."

280

ROBERT OWEN.

[Ill]

His belief
in spirit-
rapping.

His personal
character.

Both truth
and error
in his
speculations.

mind never fairly met any other — though at the close
of his life he had a strange idea that it did, by means
of spirit-rapping. He published sundry conversations
held in that way with Benjamin Franklin and other
people ; and in the very same breath in which he insisted
on the reality of these conversations, he insisted that
the new-found power was "all electricity."

It must be needless to add that, whatever reception
his doctrines and plans may deserve or meet with,
his life and conduct were virtuous and benign. No
censure attaches to him in his domestic relations, in
his personal habits, or in his ordinary social dealings.
He was a beloved and faithful husband and father, '
pure and simple in his way of life, and upright in his
transactions. : There was therefore no solid ground for
the horror expressed by the Quarterly Review, in the
name of its constituents, when they heard of Robert
Owen from a new place. When they were expecting,
as they declared, to hear of his being in Bedlam, they
heard of his being at Court, introduced to the young
Queen by her Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne. \ Many
have been introduced there who were quite as wide
of the mark in speculation, and quite as complacent
in their mistakes; while there can hardly have been
many so self-governed, so true to their convictions, so
thoroughly superior to the world, so impartial and
disinterested, and so devoted to the welfare of the
people, individually and collectively. As long as the
name of Robert Owen continues to be heard of, there
will be some to laugh at it, but there will be more to
love and cherish it. \The probability seems to be that
time will make his prodigious errors more palpable
and unquestionable; but that it will at least in equal

ROBERT OWEN. 281

proportion exalt his name and fame, on account of
some great intuitive truths which are at present about
equally involved with his wildest mistakes and his
noblest virtues.!

He died wEere he was born, at Newtown, in Wales.
He had gone on a visit ; but death overtook him there,
in the eighty-ninth year of his age.

[Ill]

Her un-
foreseen lot.

IV.

LADY NOEL BYRON.

She was born in 1792; married in January, 1814; returned
to her father's house in 1816; and died on the i6th of
May, 1860.

'.

WHEN the only child of Sir Ralph and Lady Milbank

was born, it would have been considered a strange
prophecy if any seer had told how that infant should
be in character simply a good and true woman, without
genius or any remarkable intellectual qualities, without
ambition or vanity, and that yet she should twice
become an object of deep interest to the English
people — her name on the tongues of millions, and her
merits discussed, once with party heat, and again, after
a lapse of more than forty years, with the warmth of
well-grounded popular gratitude. Such, however, has
been the lot of that quiet, beneficent, true-hearted
Englishwoman, Lady Noel Byron. Her life began with
sunshine ; then it was shaken by a fearful storm, which
clouded the rest of her life ; but she, sitting in the shade,
sent a multitude into the sunshine, and patiently wore
away the last two-thirds of her life in making others
happier than she could be herself.

While everybody assumes to know Lady Byron's his-
tory, none but her intimate friends seem to have any
notion of her character. The chief reason of this is

LADY NOEL BYRON.

283

that Lord Byron gave forth two irreconcilable accounts
of it ; one when he first lost her, and another when it
suited him to set up a case of incompatibility of temper.
The long tract of time over which she has passed since
his death would have settled the matter in all minds if
Lady Byron had desired that it should. But she desired
only quiet ; and it is by her benefactions that the
chief part of her life has been recognized and will be
remembered.

Her childhood was spent for the most part at Seaham,
in Durham, where Sir Ralph Milbank's estate was
situated. She preserved such love for the place, up to
her latest years, that a pebble from its beach was an
acceptable present to her. She was carefully reared,
and, for the time in which she lived, well educated.
Mr. Moore and Lord Byron could have known but
little of the education of girls at the opening of the
century, and must have been bad judges of the minds
and manners of sensible women, if they were sincere in
their representations of Miss Milbank, as a "blue," as
a "mathematical prude," and so forth. Moore, . who
had no vigorous intellectual tastes, might have been
sincere; and he no doubt was so in the plainness of
his avowal that he "never liked her." Lord Byron
knew better than he pretended. He knew that she
was impulsive, affectionate, natural in her feelings and
manners when he first offered to her; and none knew
so well as he what she proved herself to be capable of
under trial — how passionately she loved him, and how
devoted she would have been, through good and evil
report, if he had made her companionship possible.
When he first offered to her, she was, in her girlishness,
evidently taken by surprise. She refused him, but

[IV]

The repre-
sentations
of Moore
and Lord
Byron*

Refuses

Byron'sfirst

offer.

284

LADY NOEL BYRON.

The second
proposal.

desired not to lose him as a friend. When he offered
himself again she knew nothing (how should she?) of
the profligate spirit in which the deed was done.
Moore's account, in his "Life of Byron," of the way
in which the second proposal was brought about, and
the circumstances under which the letter was dis-
patched, was the first that most people knew about
it. When that book came out, every one saw how wise
and how good was the silence which the injured woman
had preserved. Her enemies were then convicted
on their own confession. To say nothing of what the
women of England felt, there was not a man with an
honest heart in his breast who did not burn with
indignation over the shameless narrative of how the
trusting, admiring, and innocent girl, whom the poet
had wooed before, was now made sport of among
profligate jesters, and deliberately proposed as a
sacrifice to the bare chances of the libertine's self-
restraint.

What her father was about, to permit his child to
enter into such a marriage, seems never to have been
explained. The less his child knew of Byron's moral
entanglements, the more vigilant should her father have
been over her chances of domestic peace; and the
more generous she was sure to be about the poverty
of her lover, the more should her parents have taken
care that she should not leave them for a home which
was to be broken into by nine or ten executions in the
first year. Never was a young creature led to the
altar more truly as a sacrifice. She was rash, no
doubt ; but she loved him, and who was not, in
the whole business, more rash than she? At the
altar she did not know that she was a sacrifice : but

LADY NOEL BYRON.

285

before sunset of that winter day she knew it, if a
judgment may be formed from her face and attitude
of despair when she alighted from the carriage on the
afternoon of her marriage-day. It was not the traces
of tears which won the sympathy of the old butler
who stood at the open door. The bridegroom jumped
out of the carriage and walked away. The bride alighted,
and came up the steps alone, with a countenance and
frame agonized and listless with evident horror and
despair. The old servant longed to offer his arm to
the young, lonely creature, as an assurance of sympathy
and protection. From this shock she certainly rallied,
and soon. The pecuniary difficulties of her new home
were exactly what a devoted spirit like hers was fitted
to encounter. Her husband bore testimony, after the
catastrophe, that a brighter being, a more sympathizing
and agreeable companion, never blessed any man's
home. When he afterward called her cold and mathe-
matical, and over-pious, and so forth, it was when public
opinion had gone against him, and when he had dis-
covered that her fidelity and mercy, her silence and
magnanimity, might be relied on, so that he was at full
liberty to make his part good, as far as she was
concerned.

Silent she was, even to her own parents, whose feel-
ings she magnanimously spared. She did not act rashly
in leaving him, though she had been most rash in
marrying him. As long as others called him insane,
she was glad to do so too ; and when she left him for
her father's house, she regarded him as mad. When
Dr. Baillie and other physicians whose opinions were
asked (not by her) declared him sane, she still abstained
from acting on her own impulses or judgment. As the

[IV]

Her treat-
ment on the
wedding-
day.

Her reason
for leaving
Byron.

286

LADY NOEL BYRON.

[IV]

Her noble
silence.

unauthor-
ized defence

published correspondence made known, the case was
submitted, in an anonymous * form, to Dr. Lushington
and Sir Samuel Romilly ; and the unhesitating decision
of these two great lawyers and good men was that the
wife — whoever she might be — must never see her hus-
band again. When they knew whose case it was, they
did not swerve from their first judgment, but declared
that they would never aid or countenance Lady Byron's
return to her husband. Under the circumstances, the
general sympathy was with the wife, to whose wifely
merits the husband had borne such strong testimony
at his most trustworthy moment, and who had herself
preserved so complete a silence under the insult and
contempt with which he afterward endeavored to
overwhelm her. If her attachment to him had been
more superficial, or if she had been vain or egotistical,
or weak, or timid, she would have said something —
something which would have let the public into the
privacy of her griefs, and have broken down, more or
less, the sacred domestic enclosure. All that was said,
however, was said by him ; and there were always just
and generous people enough to remember that they had
only Byron's story ; and that Byron's stories were not
apt to be over and above true. Great was the dis-
appointment of such people when there appeared, in
1836, in the New Monthly Magazine, a sort of disclosure,
offered in the name of Lady Byron. The first obvious
remark was that there was no real disclosure ; and the
whole affair had the appearance of a desire on the
part of Lady Byron to exculpate herself, while yet no
adequate information was given. Many who had re-
garded her with favor till then, gave her up, so far as
to believe that feminine weakness had prevailed at last.

LADY NOEL BYRON.

287

But she, on this occasion, gave another proof of her
strength. The whole transaction was one of poor
Campbell's freaks. He excused himself by saying it
was a mistake of his — that he did not know what he
was about when he published the paper, and so forth.
Lady Byron's friends knew, all the while, that she had
no concern whatever in the transaction. The world did
not know it ; for she refused to recognize the world's
interference in her affairs. She had made no explana-
tions hitherto ; and she made none now. She suffered,
perhaps, as a weaker woman would have done ; but she
did not complain. Many years after she wrote to a
friend who had been no less unjustifiably betrayed —
"lam grieved for you, as regards the actual position.
But it will come right. I was myself made to appear re-
sponsible for a publication by Campbell most unfairly,
some years ago ; so that if I had not imagination enough
to enter into your case, experience would have taught
me to do so." We are not disposed to countenance the
cant of the time about ours being an age of materialism
in comparison with others ; but if any one case could
bring us to such a conclusion, it would be this. All can
honor the women, of any age, who have borne the
racking of the' limbs rather than speak the word which
would release them : but few have fitly honored this
long endurance, through forty years, of the racking of
the tenderest feelings, rather than gain absolution by
the simplest disclosure. The source of this strength
was undoubtedly her love for her husband. She
loved him to the last with a love which it was not
in his own power to destroy. She gloried in his
fame ; and she would not interfere between him and
the public who adored him, any more than she would

[IV]

Her letter
to a friend.

Her love f 01
Byron.

288

LADY NOEL BYRON.

admit the public to judge between him and her.
As we have said, her love endured to the last. It was
her fortune which gave him the means of pursuing his
mode of life abroad. He spent the utmost shilling of
her property that the law gave him while he lived ; and
he left away from her every shilling that he could
deprive her of by his will ; and what the course of
life was which he thus supported, he himself has left on
record. Yet, after all this, the interview which she had
with his servant after his death, shows what a depth of
passion lay concealed under the calm surface of her
reserve. It will be remembered that when Byron knew
himself to be dying he called to his man Fletcher and
desired him to "go to Lady Byron, and — " .... Here
his utterance became unintelligible, till he said, "You
will tell her this ;" and Fletcher was obliged to reply,
"I have not heard one syllable that you have been
saying." "Good God I" exclaimed the dying man ; but
it was too late for more. Fletcher did "go to Lady
Byron ;" but, during the whole interview, she walked up
and down the room, striving to stifle her sobs, and
obtain power to ask the questions which were surging in
her heart. She could not speak ; and he was obliged to
leave her.

Since that time there have been many who have
believed and said that no one person in England was
doing so much good as Lady Byron. It was not done,
as her husband gave out, by attending charity balls,
or dispensing soups, and blankets, and maudlin senti-
ment. Among the multitude of ways in which she did
good, the chief and the best was by instituting and
encouraging popular education. We hear at present
(and glad we all are to hear it), much about the teaching

LADY NOEL BYRON.

289

of- "common things;" but years before such a process
was publicly discussed, Lady Byron's schools were
turning the children of the poorest into agriculturists,
artisans, seamstresses, and good poor men's wives.
She spent her income (such as her husband left of it),
in fostering every sound educational scheme, and every
germ of noble science and useful art, as well as in
easing solitary hearts, and making many a desert place
cheerful with the secret streams of her bounty. There
was a singular grace in the way in which she did these
things. For one instance : — A lady, impoverished by
hopeless sickness, preferred poverty with a clear con-
science, to a competency under some uncertainty about
the perfect moral soundness of the resource. Lady
Byron, hearing of the case, wrote to an intermediate
person to say that the poor invalid could never be a
subject of pity, as the poverty was voluntary ; but that
it seemed hard that the sufferer's benevolent feelings
should be baulked ; and she had, therefore, ventured to
place at her call in a certain bank, ioo/. for benevolent
purposes ; and in order to avoid all risk of unpleasant
remarks, she had made the money payable to this inter-
mediate correspondent. This was her way of cheering
the sick-room ; and the same spirit ran through all her
transactions of beneficence.

No one could be more thoroughly liberal toward
other people's persuasions, while duly valuing her own.
No one could be further from pedantry, while eagerly
and industriously inquiring after all new science and
literature, — in order to learn, and by no means to dis-
play. When we say, as we truly may, that her life was
devoted, after family claims, to the silent promotion of
public morality (without the slightest mixture of cant or

13

[IV]

Grace in her
beneficence.

devotion of
her life.

290

LADY NOEL BYRON.

[IV]

Her love for
her grand-
children.

dogmatism), of science, of education, of human and
especially of domestic happiness, wherever she could
confer her blessings, we may ask how a much-tried
woman's life could be better spent? and, perhaps, how
many women so tried could so have spent their lives ?
What domestic life might and should have been to her
all must feel who saw her devotion to her daughter, not
only in youth, but yet more in 'attendance on the slow
dying of that one child ; and even more still in her
labors and sacrifices for her grandchildren. It might
have been said that she lived for them, if she had
not at the same time been doing so much for the world
beyond. Those who are gifted with insight and with a
true heart might also see by other tokens what domestic
life might and should have been to her. They might
see it in the countenance, so worn, while so calm, steady,
and thoughtful. They might see it in the wretched
health which made her living from year to year a wonder
even to her physicians; and in the restlessness which
indisposed her to have a settled home, after the name of
home had been spoiled to her; and in the few and
small peculiarities which told of strained affections and
of irremediable loneliness in life. They might see it,
too, in the love which she won and unconsciously com-
manded ; and especially in the solace and the care which
surrounded her in her decline, and the love and gratitude
which watched by her pillow as her life ebbed away.
This one child of a happy home grew up almost uncon-
scious of anything beyond it. In her youth she found
herself suddenly the subject of the world's conversation,
if not of the interest of all England ; and she could not
but know, when dying, that, notwithstanding her love of
privacy, and the steadfast silence of a long life, she

LADY NOEL BYRON.

291

would be mourned from end to end of the kingdom ;
and that her death would create a sensation wherever
our language is spoken, and would be referred to with
tenderness in all future time, when popular education,
and the power of woman to bless society with all gentle
and quiet blessings, engage the attention of lovers of
their kind.

[IV]

V.
POLITICIANS.

THE MARQUIS OF ANGLESEY.

DIED APRIL 28x11, 1854.

i

At the moment when we are beginning a new war we
have to announce the death of one of the heroes of
our last great struggle. Field Marshal the Marquis of
Anglesey died on the 28th of April, in his eighty-sixth
year.

If any sense of relief mingled with the regrets for
the death of Wellington, it was that the Waterloo Ban-
quets came to an end. As more and more of the
Waterloo heroes dropped off, the ceremony came to
have more of mourning than of cheerfulness in it. The
drinking to the memory of those who were gone was
done in a more and more solemn silence ; and no doubt
it sometimes crossed the minds of those present that
the Duke himself might possibly be the last survivor.
There was some comfort in its not being so. Here is
another of the band, now gone, who kept one anniversary
of Waterloo in his own mind, and perhaps liked that
banquet better than the brilliant one at Apsley House.
The issue of the institution (as we may call it) of the
Waterloo Banquet reminds one irresistibly of that club
of the last century, the members of which (all old friends)
pledged themselves to keep their anniversary meeting as

The Water-
loo Ban^

quet.

296

THE MARQUIS OF ANGLESEY.

[I]

The Mar-
quitatWd-
lington's
funeral.

long as any of them lived. The numbers dwindled till
there were four gray old men to play the rubber, and sit
round the now small supper-table. Next year there were
three, and they played dummy. When there were but
two, they refused the cards, and sat talking with their
feet on the fender. At last there was but one, and he
faithfully fulfilled his pledge — spent the evening alone
with his bottle of port, in the old room, listening to the
fall of the cinders, which was the only break in the
silence. Wellington was not left to this survivorship,
which was not much relieved by the presence of un-
qualified and younger men ; and it is well that his
imposing club is broken up with him. He left one
senior — the old friend who has now followed him. The
most interesting personage, perhaps, at the funeral of
the Duke was the aged Marquis of Anglesey. When,
just after daybreak on that November morning, his car-
riage, surrounded by an escort of the Blues, entered the
Park, a manifest thrill pervaded the assembled multitude
— every man of whom- knew how fiercely and how long
he had suffered for his gallantry in the last of England's
European battles; and probably every one felt, as he
must have himself felt, that he would ere long take his
place in the train of funerals which are sanctified by the
glories of Waterloo. The gray, shattered, tremulous old
comrades who stood looking down into the crypt at
St. Paul's were an affecting spectacle, and among them
the Marquis of Anglesey was conspicuous, as bearing
the Field Marshal's baton of the deceased. It seemed
to be his own farewell to the public, — and so it has
proved.

The public interest in this most distinguished member
of the Paget family began with the battle of Waterloo.

THE MARQUIS OF ANGLESEY.

297

He was a brave soldier before — from his youth up — had
fought in Flanders, and had served under Sir John Moore
in the Peninsula ; but it was his brilliant conduct and
effectual aid, during the three days of Waterloo, that
marked him a national hero. He commanded the
cavalry as lieutenant-general ; and on the i yth the
French cavalry followed him while the British army was
changing its ground, and found the consequences serious
enough. The Earl of Uxbridge — as Lord Anglesey
then was — charged them with the First Life Guards,
and fairly rode over them : "upon which occasion," as
Wellington reported, in his moderate language, "his
Lordship has declared himself to be well satisfied with
that regiment." On the great i8th he and his cavalry
did gallant things ; and they believed the conflict over,
when a ball carried off the general's leg. "The Earl
of Uxbridge," wrote Wellington again, "after having
successfully got through this arduous day, received a
wound by almost the last shot fired, which will, I am
afraid, deprive his Majesty for some time of his services."
From that day Lord Anglesey was subject to neuralgic
pains, which made his life a long torture, with short
intervals of respite. That he could live so long under
such a liability was the wonder of all who knew
his sufferings. As all the world knows, his leg was
buried on the field, and has the honor of a monu-
ment.

Like his illustrious friend, he found that political life
had its temptations, when there was no more work to
be done in the field. When the Duke of Wellington
ceased to be Master-General of the Ordnance, in 1827,
Lord Anglesey succeeded him ; and when the Duke
became Premier, to his own amazement and that of the

His services
atWaterloo.

His political
life

298

THE MARQUIS OF ANGLESEY.

[I]

Appointed
Lord-Lieu-
tenant of
Ireland.

world, at the beginning of 1828, Lord Anglesey became
Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. His appointment took
place in February, and he was recalled before the year
was out. The absurd transaction which occasioned his
recall is an amusing evidence of the soldierly simplicity
of the two gallant statesmen, who were together no
match for O'Connell, and excellent subjects for him to
make a ridiculous spectacle of. The celebrated Clare
election took place in that summer of 1828, and the
Catholic Association was rampant. It showed its power
in the absolute extinction, for the moment, of crime in
Ireland, and in its successful repression of Catholic pro-
cessions, under the extreme provocations offered by the
revived Orange Clubs. Lord Anglesey and his Govern-
ment were perfectly quiet till October, when he put
forth a proclamation against such assemblages as had
already yielded to the influence of the Catholic Asso-
ciation. Presently after, the titular Catholic Primate of
Ireland, Dr. Curtis, who had been an intimate friend
of Wellington's ever since the Peninsular war (when he
held office in the University of Salamanca, and was able
to render good service to the British), wrote a letter to
the Duke on the state of Ireland. The Duke's reply
found its way to O'Connell and to the Catholic Associa-
tion, who chose to interpret it as a promise of emancipa-
tion. The Duke was for burying the subject in oblivion
(of all odd proposals), on account of the circumstantial
difficulties which surrounded it. When the Lord-Lieu-
tenant saw the letter, and Dr. Curtis's reply, his advice
was that agitation should be continued, with the view,
no doubt, of thereby removing the obstacles that embar-
rassed the principle which he supposed the Duke to hold
as well as himself. It appeared, however, as if he was

THE MARQUIS OF ANGLESEY.

299

acting and speaking in opposition to the head of the
Government; and a stranger thing still was, that he
seemed to know no more than anybody else of the views
or intentions of Government on the greatest question of
the day. "Your letter," he wrote to Dr. Curtis, "gives
me information on a subject of the highest interest. I
did not know the precise sentiments of the Duke of
Wellington on the present state of the Catholic ques-
tion." Here was a theme for O'Connell ! Here was a
fine subject for declamation ! Either the Catholic ques-
tion was a matter of indifference to Government, or the
Viceroy was not in the confidence of the Ministers.
Lord Anglesey added some expressions of regret at find-
ing, from this same letter, that there was no apparent
prospect of emancipation being effected during the
approaching session of Parliament. This letter was
also read to the Catholic Association : and it may be
imagined how it was received, and how its writer was
applauded for "his manliness and political sagacity."
Such attributes were out of place at the moment, how-
ever, in a Privy Councillor and Viceroy of Ireland ; and
the next English packet brought his recall. One wonders
what his next meeting with the Duke was like. Both
were pets of the Catholic Association — while the Duke
was recalling the Marquis because the Marquis had in-
volved the Duke in an inextricable difficulty. As it
turned out, the Viceroy was recalled for desiring and
promoting what the Premier was about to do. Catholic
emancipation was the necessary and speedy result of the
strange transaction ; and it was believed that it might
and would have been delayed some time longer but for
the singular simplicity of the Marquis of Anglesey. He
was succeeded by the Duke of Northumberland, but

[I]

His recall.

THE MARQUIS OF ANGLESEY.

[I]

His re-

appoint-

and popu-
larity.

became Viceroy again at the close of 1830, under Lord
Grey's Administration.

In 1831, matters went worse than ever. That was
the year of the great trial of strength between the Vice-
roy and O'Connell ; the titular ruler of Ireland issuing
proclamations against a certain order of public meetings
and the virtual ruler disobeying, undergoing trial, plead-
ing guilty, and so getting off harmless as to induce the
report and impression, never afterward entirely got
rid of, that there .was compromise, and even collusion,
between the Agitator and the Whig Government. In
Moore's Memoirs it appears that the poet thought the
Viceroy extremely nervous about the state of Ireland.
But in public there was never any appearance of dis-
composure. Those who saw him mobbed in Dublin
streets, as sometimes happened, can well remember the
smiling good-humor, the look of amusement, with which
the lame soldier, alone and armed only with his umbrella,
used his weapon to rap the knuckles of the noisy Paddies
who laid hands on the bridle of his pony. He was very
popular, in the midst of his proclamations and coercion.
His bearing suited the temper of the Irish ; and there
really was a good deal of love between them. The
Coercion Acts that he called for were, however, fatal to
Lord Grey's government. The one he obtained in 1833
was severe. Lord Grey thought it ought to be renewed,
with the omission of the provision for martial law. Others
thought not ; and Lord Grey went out upon it. There
was misunderstanding in the cabinet, causing a renewal
of the complaint of underhand dealings with O'Connell,
while O'Connell declared himself tricked; and Lord
Grey's retirement was the consequence. Thus it appears
to have been Lord Anglesey's remarkable lot to have

THE MARQUIS OF ANGLESEY.

301

precipitated Catholic emancipation by his first short
tenure of the viceroyalty, and the breaking up of the
Grey cabinet by the second. The pacification of Ireland
since the death of O'Connell must have been an inter-
esting spectacle to Lord Anglesey ; and, whatever he
and others thought of his own administration there, with
its legal severity, its private and personal good-humor,
and unbusiness-like misunderstandings — whatever he and
others might think of the subsequent failures of Lords
Wellesley and Normandy, there could be no doubt of
the satisfaction to his kindly heart of seeing Ireland at
length at rest from political agitation, and released
from the worst of her destitution.

Lord Anglesey became Master-General of the Ordnance
on the formation of Lord John Russell's Administration
in 1846; and he held that office till Lord Derby came
into power, in March 1852. He was succeeded by Lord
Hardinge, under that ministry, and Lord Raglan under
the present. His infirmities were for many years so
great, through the pressure of neuralgic pain, that none
but a hero could have courted duty under such a load.
It is well that there was an interval of repose from office
before his last rest.

[I]

Appointed
Master-
General of
the Ord-
nance.

II

Mr. Hume's
education.

JOSEPH HUME.

On occasion of the Presentation to MR. HUME of his Portrait,
in recognition of his Public Services, Aug. 5th, 1854.

FOR twenty years past, if the words "veteran reformer"
were caught by any ear, the hearer took for granted that
Joseph Hume was the subject of discourse. His name
has been identified with Reform for nearly forty years ;
and a glance over the facts of his life is, in a manner,
called for by the observances of last week. His father
was the master of a vessel trading from the port of Mon-
trose, where Joseph, who was a younger member of a
large family, was born in 1777. On the death of his
father, which happened in his early childhood, Joseph
was placed at a school where the then superior Scotch
method and amount of education qualified him for a
professional training. His mother, who supported her
family, apprenticed Joseph to a surgeon at Montrose.
He went through the regular course of study at the
University of Edinburgh, and was admitted a member
of the College of Surgeons there in 1796. Having no
means on which he could sit down and wait for practice
at home, he began his professional career as a naval
surgeon, in the service of the East India Company. If
his politics were not constitutional, his industry was ;

JOSEPH HUME.

303

and he rose rapidly by means of his own merits in his
own profession. In three years he was on the medical
establishment of Bengal ; and no sooner was he there
than the qualities which made him the reformer par
excellence began to manifest themselves. He used his
opportunity for observing the defects of the Company's
management and service, and was particularly struck
with the ignorance among those servants of the native
languages; and he set to work to study them. In 1803,
when he was serving in the Mahratta war (when Joseph
Hume was distinguishing himself at the moment that
Arthur Wellesley was gaining the battle of Assaye), he
found the advantage of his knowledge of the dialects of
India, and joined the office of interpreter to that of
surgeon ; rinding time and energy to discharge also the
duties of paymaster and postmaster of the troops under
Major-General Powell. As he was never known to
neglect any duty to which he had pledged himself, this
combination of offices shows what his health and habits
must have been— that in such a climate he should be
able to get through properly the work of three or four
men. The secret was, no doubt, that his power of
intercourse with the natives gave him a command of
assistance which other Englishmen could not make use
of. The same facilities enabled him to improve his
fortunes by speculation ; and he returned to Calcutta, at
the end of the war, a wealthy man. He concluded his
service in India in 1808, and permitted himself a period
of repose and foreign travel before entering upon a new
career. He travelled through all the Mediterranean
countries on the European side, and visited the Ionian
Islands, Malta, and Sicily, accumulating knowledge all
the while, according to his wont. It is desirable that

[in

Oft the medi-
cal estab-
lishment
of Bengal.

His capacity
for work.

His :~ave/s.

304

JOSEPH HUME.

[II]

Returned to
Parliament
forWey-

mouth.

His services
in the cause
of education.

Returned
for Mon-

hese facts about the early years of Mr. Hume should
be recalled, because it is the practice of his enemies to
represent him as a man of no breadth of knowledge — a
small-souled Scotchman, who could conceive of nothing
beyond the routine of a plodding life like that of his
later years ; whereas, few men have travelled so much,
or learned so much from their travels, as Mr. Hume up
to the time when he was five-and-thirty.

He sat in Parliament first for Weymouth ; and it was
loyal Weymouth — the bathing-place of the royal family

which found Joseph Hume a seat. During the six
subsequent years that he was out of Parliament he was
an East India Director, and showed something of his
later and best tendencies by the attention and labor he
devoted to the promotion of popular education, by the
Lancasterian method — which was the first form the
movement took. Mr. Whitbread must ever be regarded
as the first to treat the subject in a statesmanlike manner :
but no one has ever taken it up in a more earnest and
disinterested spirit than Joseph Hume. He began with
aiding the contrivance of children teaching each other ;
he proceeded with the Wilberforces, Romillys, and Whit-
breads of the time to encourage adult schools ; and he
never relaxed in his efforts, nor ceased to rise in his aims,
till he had got the British Museum, Hampton Court, and
other places thrown open to the whole public, — adult
schools as superior to those of forty years ago as Hume
the veteran Reformer was a higher man than Hume at
the beginning of his political career.

When he re-entered Parliament, in 1818, it was as
Member for Montrose. The earliest notices that we
have of his action in the House indicate the course of
the rest of his life. In 1817, the Finance Committee,

JOSEPH HUME.

305

which was thoroughly ministerial, had reported in favor
of army reductions ; and yet the reductions had not
taken place after a lapse of four years. Mr. Hume
moved an amendment on the Estimates, framing his
motion on the very words of the Finance Committee's
Report. The members of that Committee voted with
the majority against Mr. Hume and their own recom-
mendation, without attempting explanation. They were
silent to a man. The Edinburgh Review had by this
time discovered Mr. Hume's value ; and we find him
spoken of already as a man whose persevering industry
was above all praise, and who must command the good
will of all but those to whom the preservation of abuses
was dearer than the welfare of their country. Lord
Castlereagh on this occasion instituted the course of
abuse which attended Mr. Hume henceforth, by at-
tempting to caricature him to the House as Harlequin
and Clown. Lord Palmerston and Mr. Huskisson were
against him ; and his propositions about saving the
public money, though founded on their own words, were
treated by them as some monstrous quackery, with which
the House had no concern but to be amused at it. It is
instructive and very cheering to contrast this tone of
public men in 1821 with what it was thirty years later,
while Mr. Hume was yet present to enjoy the satis-
faction. While observing him during his later years in
Parliament, and seeing the unfeigned and cordial respect
with which the veteran was regarded by leading members
of all sorts of politics, it was an impressive thing to
remember that he was called names by Walter Scott.
Scott might have been glad to feel, as Hume could, that
he had refused office and salary, and spent as much
as would make a good fortune in the service of the

en]

His early
labors in
the House.

Sir Walter
Scott and
Mr. Hume.

306

JOSEPH HUME.

[II]

Exposing
abuses, and
advocating
cause of
the poor.

public, besides all the anxiety and toil of a long life,
— receiving as his recompense the abuse and ridicule
of men who thought it genteel and refined to live at
ease on the national funds. What a commentary does
time make on such a judgment ! — the critic not saved
from debt and poverty even by his large drafts on the
public purse, and the man he scorned having spared
many thousands of his own earned money to do unre-
quited public services. While Scott was begging franks
for his correspondence with his gossips, or the trans-
mission of his lucrative proof-sheets, Joseph Hume was
paying 5/. in a day for letters, which it was all toil and
no profit to receive or despatch. And he had his share
— perhaps no less then Scott — in promoting intellectual
recreation and holiday solace. Let any one stand in the
British Museum on Easter Monday, and he will see
something of what Joseph Hume did for the pleasure of
the multitude. If he had been allowed his own way,
he — the plodder of Parliament — would have been called
the Prince of Holiday-makers in merry England. His
advocacy of Canadian interests was thorough, and, on
the whole, wise. In the Reform struggle, he poured out
his strength and his money like water. He was accused
by the Boroughmongers of sending off candidates by
coach, properly addressed and forwarded to certain con-
stituencies— half-a-score in a day : which meant that, in
the grand difficulty of the time — the finding candidates
for liberal constituencies — Mr. Hume was the centre of
influence, information, and energy. The Whigs then
earned the value of the troublesome Radical member,
who was always exposing abuses and pleading the poor
man's cause : and from that time Mr. Hume's standing
n Parliament was one which no one dared to despise, or

JOSEPH HUME.

307

attempted to underrate. Up to 1830 he sat for Montrose,
and again after 1842. In the interval he was once
Member for Middlesex, and, for one Parliament, Member
for Kilkenny. Since the dissolution of parties conse-
quent on the repeal of the Corn Laws he has been the
leader of the more liberal members who would consti-
tute a party. He has refused office ; he never dreamed
of title ; he never spared his purse ; and he has really
seemed to have no personal desires at all. There has
been nothing that anybody could do for him but to
further his objects — to improve popular education — to
foster the popular health and pleasure — to purify our
political institutions and methods — and guard the bless-
ings which have made us the happiest nation upon
earth. We do not know that more than this could be
said in honor of one who has not pretended to be any-
thing that he was not. We do not know that more
could be said of a man who devoted himself, without
self-regards, to a life which is usually called a career of
ambition. Without ambition, he worked harder than
any aspirant of his time. While called "niggard" he
has spent his private means without requital. He has
worked partly with express benevolent designs, and
partly for the gratification of his own strong and well-
directed faculties. What his disinterestedness has been
we know by merely opening our eyes upon his career.
What his services are, it is for a future generation to
appreciate, when they find how far their Joseph Hume
introduced virtue into the administration of govern-
ment ; strictness into the routine of business ; truth and
purity (in theory at least) into our parliamentary repre-
sentation ; the light of intelligence into the mind of the
ignorant ; and innocent pleasure into the life of the

[HI

His disin-
terestedness.

JOSEPH HUME.

[II]

Posterity
•will value
hh labors.

working man. Joseph Hume is not the man of whom
studied eulogists prophesy immortality while he pores
over his prosaic labors ; but it is not improbable that
his name will be familiar and pleasant to men's ears
when many a genius idolized by others or by himself
shall have gone down into darkness and silence.

P.S. Mr. Hume lived and labored but a few months
longer, — dying on the 2Oth of February, 1855.

LORD MURRAY.

DIED MARCH yiH, 1859.

LORD MURRAY, the last of the remarkable coterie of
Scotch lawyers whose fame has gone forth over all the
world, was the John Archibald Murray who was so
beloved by Horner, and by a multitude of persons who
never saw him, for Horner's sake. Various honors fell
to him in the course of his life; but the highest was,
unquestionably, the place he fills in Horner's ' 'Memoirs. "
There may be, and there must be, to the readers of that
book, some surprise that the fine promise of the youthful
J. A. Murray came to so little as it did in public life;
but the image, as there fixed, is a very interesting and a
very beautiful one ; and the charm hung about his name
and fame to the last. He, Horner, and Lord Webb
Seymour were bound in the closest friendship in their
early youth, and till death parted them. The other two,
born in 1778 and 1777, died in 1817 and 1819 ; and all
the many years since has the third lived, not only carry-
ing about a vivid remembrance of his lost comrades,
but inspiring the same remembrance in others by his
presence. He, too, is gone at last ; and the fame of that
remarkable set of men is turned over to the tongue of
tradition and the pen of history.

The last of a
remarkable
coterie of
lawyers.

His friend-
ship ivith
Horner and
Lord Sey-
mour.

3io

LORD MURRA Y.

[Ill]

His birth.

His early
tastes.

John Archibald Murray was the second son of a Judge
of the Court of Session, Lord Henderland. His eider
brother, William, who never married, remained in close
friendship with his more widely known, but perhaps not
abler younger brother, through the whole of their very
long lives. John was born in 1 780, and was, therefore,
two years younger than Francis Horner. By the early
letters of the latter we find that Murray was a member
of the Literary Society in Edinburgh University at the
age of fifteen — that same Literary Society where, at that
date, "our friend Brougham" was already making a noise.
Metaphysical disputation was the field for the lads —
Dugald Stewart being at the height of his fame ; but they
all saw that Brougham meant to do something else
than split hairs in metaphysical fashion for the rest of
his days ; and eager was the speculation as to what that
something would be. At that early time there was not
so very much difference between Brougham's, Horner's,
and Murray's treatment of their common topics ; and it
would have required a keen insight to perceive how the
two survivors would diverge — the one into abortive ex-
travagance and inconsistency, and the other into simple
mediocrity, while the sound, genuine, fruitful ability was
in him who died in his fortieth year.

Our first clear view of the young Murray is during this
University season, when Horner was proposing to him
that they should "be the Beaumont and Fletcher of meta-
physics ;" when they spent their holidays in George-street
or at Murrayfield, arguing about Volition, and took long
walks in session-time, " describing" the " sensations which
constitute the uneasiness of metaphysical perplexity."
As they grew older they joined with Jeffrey, Dr. Thomas
Brown, Lord W. Seymour, and others in a scheme for

LORD MURRAY,

translating the political and philosophical writings of
Turgot, thus beginning their diversion from metaphysics
by political economy; a study which had such charms
for them that we find them interposing it as a treat
between classics and chemistry, history and poetry.
Out of all this naturally grew the Edinburgh Review, to
which Murray was a copious contributor at the begin-
ning, when he was only twenty-two. Nothing that he
ever wrote or did afterward, however, makes anything
like the impression caused by his correspondence with
Horner. The earnestness without vehemence, the con-
scientiousness, the effective thoughtfulness, the gentle,
quiet fertility of his intellect, together with the constant,
vigilant affectionateness of his temper, make up the most
charming image of his early manhood, and set the reader
speculating on what must have been the confidence, joy,
and hope with which a good father must have contem-
plated such a son. It is truly strange that out of such
a company of fellow-students, most of them devoted to
political subjects, and pursuing the legal profession, not
one good statesman should have been produced. Horner
would have been a great statesman, no doubt, if he had
lived a few years. But of Brougham's statesmanship
nothing need be said ; and Jeffrey and Murray failed
utterly in political life. We suspect that the metaphysics
may be considered answerable for this, in great part ;
and that the rest is due to the close coterie character of
the early association of these remarkable young men,
who reached a certain degree of eminence in law and
literature, and then stopped short — nobody could well
say why. While the Tories were in command of the
State, it was supposed that opportunity was wanting ; but
when the opportunity came, from 1830 onward, there

[III]

A contrtbu'
tor to the
Edinburgh
Review.

His fellow-
students.

312

LORD MURRAY.

[Ill]
Studies law.

Hi* labors
for the
Whigs.

was no one of the coterie surviving who had not his fair
trial, and did not disappoint expectation.

Murray studied law, and entered upon the practice of
his profession at Edinburgh. At the time of the renewal
of the war, in 1803, we find him full of military zeal, like
the other young lawyers of the day. Horner went to
drill every day ; Mackintosh wrote the glorious address
of the Merchants and Bankers of London ; Brougham
put out ' ' weekly incitements to patriotism ;" and Murray
helped him with something called "The Beacon," now
forgotten. They tried to stir up Campbell to produce
some lyrics ; and Horner wrote to Murray to advise an
appeal of the same sort to Walter Scott, whose "border
spirit of chivalry" already marked him out for that ser-
vice. Murray, however, soon subsided into the function
which might be called that of his life, — that of furthering
Whig elections and other interests, in Scotland first,
and elsewhere when he could. In 1806 we find him
busy canvassing in favor of Lord Henry Petty's Cam-
bridge election, among the Cambridge graduates who
had formerly been at Edinburgh, or the students who
were there at that time. Electioneering was a serious
business in days when a man like Homer could say to
his familiar friend, "Write to me often, my dear Murray :
one has no pleasure in dwelling upon any public subjects
while the liberties and wealth of England are molder-
ing away, and the institutions of Europe stiffening into
barbarism : but the gratifications of private affection are
untouched by these revolutions ; and though they give a
sadder cast to one's conversation, they cannot impair
our confidence and freedom." In upholding the Whig
interests in Edinburgh, Murray was not only a diligent
guardian of those interests, but distinguished, while

LORD MURRA Y.

313

young, as a light popular orator, in days of fierce con-
tention and of every kind of discouragement to the
Liberal side. The chief aberration of the Edinburgh
Whigs, their advocacy of Bonaparte, was fully shared by
Murray. In their detestation of the reimposition of
the Bourbons upon the French they fell back upon
Napoleon, as the only alternative, and exalted him to a
degree which, as is well known, damaged the influence
of their Review, and impaired public confidence in them
as champions of popular liberty. The readers of Scott's
Life are aware how the Quarterly Review thence arose ;
and also how, when the question was settled by time, —
when Napoleon was dead, and it was not foreseen that
the Bourbons would be again cast out, — the irate feelings
of the politicians of Edinburgh gave way, and they met
occasionally like neighbors and friends, in forgetfulness
for the hour of the politics of their lives. There is a
passage in Scott's Diary about a dinner at Murray's in
the winter of 1827, which is interesting now when the
host himself is gone. "Went to dine with John Murray,
where met his brother (Henderland), Jeffrey, Cockburn,
Rutherford, and others of that file. Very pleasant,
capital good cheer, and excellent wine : much laughter
and fun. I do not know how it is, but when I am out
with a party of my Opposition freinds, the day is often
merrier then when with our own set. Is it because they
are cleverer? Jeffrey and Harry Cockburn are, to be
sure, very extraordinary men ; yet it is not owing to that
entirely. I believe both parties meet with a feeling of
something like novelty. We have not worn out our
jests in daily contact. There is also a disposition on
such occasions to be courteous, and, of course, to be
pleased. " Murray's sense and achievement of hospitality

[III]

Scotfs
opinion of
the Whig
coterie.

LORD MURRA Y.

[Ill]

Murray's
marriage,
1828.

His hospi-
tality.

were always remarkable. This capital dinner was given
the year before his marriage. In 1828 he married Miss
Rigby, the daughter of a Lancashire merchant (then
living in Cheshire), and the niece of Sir George Phillips
of Manchester. His tea-table at St. Stephen's, when he
was Lord Advocate — that remarkable tea-table presided
over by Lady (then Mrs. ) Murray — is well remembered
by those who were weekly guests at it. It was a long
table, with an enormous and excessively rich Edinburgh
cake in the centre — and such a company round it !
When Sydney Smith was in town he was sure to be
there ; and the Jeffreys and Dundases, and all the
Scotch, with plenty of English celebrities. The Lord
Advocate's chambers were under the same roof with
the House of Lords : and in the intervals of the
debate, Lords -and Commons used to come dropping
in for tea, and that unique cake, and chat, till the
summons to a division called them away, rushing and
scrambling like shoolboys at the last stroke of the
bell. As a contrast, there was the Murrays' country-
house at Strachur, on Loch Fyne. There, in the depth
of Highland seclusion, the guests were expected to
make themselves perfectly at home, and be as free as
the winds. There were guides always at hand for
strangers : there was the lake steamer at command, to
carry them up to Inverary. At breakfast, there was
every sort of fish yielded by the waters of the region ;
and at dinner, everything that could be got from
mountain or flood — red deer soup, salmon, game pies,
grouse, &c. The hospitality of the Murrays was re-
markable everywhere ; and their desire to see others hap-
py deepened the concern of their friends at the sorrow
which clouded their house. Their only child died early ;
and with him their bright enjoyment of life went out.

LORD MURRAY.

Mr. Murray's first office was that of Clerk of the Pipe
— a sinecure in the Scotch Exchequer, given him when
the Whigs came in. The office is now abolished. In
1834 he was made Lord Advocate, and held the appoint-
ment for five years, without distinguishing himself, or
being able to carry his measures. He was evidently
not qualified for political life ; and he was removed, as
early as practicable, to the Court of Session, where he
held a judgeship till his death. As a mark of attention, on
account of prior services, he was made a baronet at the
same time as a judge, that his wife might be titled also.
They spent the remaining years of his long life chiefly in
Edinburgh, and at their country-seat ; and there were few in
the populous parts of Scotland to whom the bland coun-
tenance and white hair of the old judge were unknown.

We may seem to have devoted a disproportionate
space to our notice of a man who failed to distinguish
himself when his opportunity came, and whose ability
seemed really to be in a course of evaporation from early
manhood onward. But he was the last of a remarkable
set of men who have produced a good deal of effect
(though much less than they might have done) on their
century. The pall of John Archibald, Lord Murray,
covers more than the one last departed. It hides the
final glimpse we had of the brilliant period and hopeful
company in which this last survivor bore his part, when
that life opened before him which disappointed him
so strangely. The mighty Edinburgh Whigs who set
up the Review are now a tradition; and, it is natural
to linger and gaze to the last as the pall is finally spread
over what was so full of vitality and promise, and so
ever present to the successive political generations of
a period of sixty years.

[Ill]

Appointed

Lord

Advocate.

Last of the
Edinburgh
Whigs.

IV.

His rela-
tionship to
Count

LORD HERBERT OF LEA.
DIED AUGUST 41 H, 1861.

WHEN the Empress Catharine of Russia sent her ambas-
sador, Count Woronzoff, to London, neither she nor her
ambassador imagined that, though he would live for
nearly fifty years, he would scarcely see Russia again.
He was not ambassador all the time, but he lived in
England as a private gentleman when not in the service
of his sovereign. When the Emperor Paul made his
crazy friendship with Napoleon, Count Woronzoff re-
signed his office ; but he resumed it on the accession of
Alexander. When he died, his grandson, the Lord Her-
bert of Lea whom we have just lost, was entering upon
political life, and exciting expectation beyond his own
family that he would become distinguished in the political
history of his time. The mother of the young Sidney
Herbert, M.P. for South Wilts in 1832, was the only
daughter of Count Woronzoff, and the wife of the late
Earl of Pembroke, of whom Sidney was the second son.
It is not very unusual for our old families to have some
intermixture of foreign marriage in their history ; but
there is something peculiar in such a connection with
Russia. The Woronzoffs were very like English people,
certainly. The Count remained here chiefly for the

LORD HERBERT OF LEA.

object of an English education for his children ; but
some singular interests arose from time to time which
must have strongly influenced the minds of his English
descendants. For instance, when Count Michael, Sidney
Herbert's uncle, was appointed Governor of New Russia
and Bessarabia, and from year to year developed the
resources of that country, and opened its grain produce
to the world, the spectacle must have been to his nephew
very unlike what it could have been to any other boy at
Harrow. There were many young men who, at the hero-
worshipping age, were in high admiration of Schamyl,
during his struggle with successive Russian generals and
governors in the Caucasus ; but much keener must have
been Sidney Herbert's interests when his mother's
brother was charged with the subjugation of the Circas-
sians, in conjunction with his government of Southern
Russia. The Count was made prince on the occasion,
supplied with vast forces, and armed with obsolute power.
He did not conquer Schamyl ; but he did everything else
that could be expected of him ; and this Russian Prince-
ruler was an uncle for a young man of any nation to be
proud of. The singularity of the case became most
marked, of course, when the Russian war broke out, and
the nephew was Secretary at War in the country which
was invading his uncle's territory, and his very estates.
No doubt, the scenery of the Crimea, and especially the
region between the wooded heights and the sea, was the
fairyland of the boy's childhood, when nobody knew
more of the Crimea than its dim classical history. He
must have known by description every step in the Woron-
zoff gardens and palace there, before it had entered any-
body's imagination that we should besiege Sebastopol ;
and strange must have been the sensation to the War

[IV]

Singularity
of events.

LORD HERBERT OF LEA.

[IV]

Distrust of
him on ac-
count of his
Russian
connections.

Returned as
M.P.for
South Wilts.

His maiden
speech.

Minister in London when, among the camp news, came
accounts of excursions made by officers to the WoronzofF
estate, with minute descriptions of the walks and steps
in the rocks, and the apartments of the mansion which
he knew so well by family tradition. There was some
natural distrust, for a time, at his holding any office in
the Government under the circumstances ; and his inter-
courses with his Russian relations were jealously watched.
But Prince Woronzoff was permitted by the Czar to
retire into private life during the term of the war, and
afterward, for the short remainder of his life; and
this obviated all difficulty to his nephew, who was a
thorough Englishman, and as completely satisfied of
the justice and necessity of the war as any man in the
country.

On leaving Harrow he had gone to Oxford ; and it
was simply a matter of course that he should enter Par-
liament as soon as he was old enough. He was born in
1 8 10 ; and he took his seat for South Wilts in December
1832. For some months he was regarded as a graceful
and accomplished young Tory, an ornament to a party
then in disgrace and under chastisement ; and any air
of pertness which there might be about the young mem-
ber was far from surprising under the circumstances.
His slim figure, and his countenance, bright and amiable,
gave to strangers no impression of power ; but he was
evidently active-minded ; and there were rumors about
of the considerable expectations of those who knew him
well. He was not in any haste to put himself forward,
his first speech being in June, 1834. It was the speech of
a very young man, though a strong Conservative ; and it
excites strange emotions to read it now. He seconded
Mr. Estcourt's amendment, against the claims of the

LORD HERBERT OF LEA.

Dissenters to admittance to the Universities. Mr. Her-
bert's apprehension was that the clergy would desert the
Universities if the Dissenters entered them ; and his
proposal was that the Dissenters should have Universities
of their own. They would then find that Churchmen
would not desire to enter dissenting Universities, and
of course, Dissenters would cease to wish to enter the
national ones. Such was Sidney Herbert's first essay in
the National Council !

For some years he was a constant opponent of the
Melbourne policy ; but he was chiefly distinguished by
his vindication of the Corn Laws. There was an impres-
sion that he would be one of the young recruits engaged
by the Tories whenever they should come in again ; and
nobody was surprised when he became Secretary to the
Admiralty on Sir R. Peel's return to power in 1841. He
did not at first appear to justify the expectations of his
party ; for he had not yet found the art of giving an
animating account of the expenditure of a public depart-
ment. He was conscientiously minute, and very anxious,
and his manner and speech were desultory and hesitating ;
but the spring of fluency was about to be opened up,
and from year to year his speaking awoke more interest ;
for he was undergoing a change of opinion which he had
to account for and to vindicate, and which impelled him
to utter himself from his conviction and his heart. He
was following Peel in his study of the effects of the Corn
Laws. The process was a slow one ; for so late as the
session of 1845 we find Mr. Herbert announcing to the
House that the Government would give a direct negative
to Mr. Cobden's proposal of a Select Committee to
inquire into the causes of Agricultural distress and into
the operation of the Corn Laws. He declared that the

[IV]

Appointed
Secretary
to the
Admiralty.

320

LORD HERBERT OF LEA.

[IV]

Advocates
the repeal
of the
Corn Laws.

farmers had "very susceptible nerves, and would stop
business at once if they perceived Mr. Cobden's drift —
of 'blowing up the protective system."' Some years
later he deprecated, and very reasonably, the practice,
ill suited to our time, of ransacking Hansard for proofs
of inconsistency in public men. We are quite of his
opinion that consistency (in the sense of immutability of
opinion) is not the greatest of virtues in our age of pro-
gress ; and we will, therefore, say no more of the contra-
dictions of his utterances at various times. It is enough
that they were not referable to greed of any kind ; and
that they were converted into continuous progress, after
he had made a fair avowal in Parliament of the fact of
the change. He was as yet rather saucy, and hasty, and
superficial, jeering at Mr. Cobden for a sympathy with
the agricultural interest, which he did not understand,
and therefore assumed to be a false pretence ; but he
learned better afterward, and gave credit for sincerity to
others, as he claimed it for himself, in advocating free
trade in corn while representing a constituency mainly
agricultural.

It was in February, 1846, that he advanced this claim,
when he, in his turn, had been jeered by a Protectionist
member. It was in the midst of that memorable out-
burst of party fury which followed upon the contest for
power between Peel and Russell, and the pertinacious
declaration of the Times ^ repeated amidst clamorous
denials, that Sir R. Peel was going to repeal the Corn
Laws. Mr. Herbert had become Secretary at War, with
a seat in the Cabinet, in 1845 ; and at the beginning of
the session of 1846 he was the member of the Govern-
ment who gave an exposition of the policy of his chief,
and vindicated it till they went out of office together,

LORD HERBERT OF LEA.

321

ostensibly on the Irish defeat of the Coercion Bill, but
really on account of the repeal of the Corn Laws, the
bill for which passed the Lords on the same night that
Sir R. Peel's Government received its doom in the
Commons.

During the years of his absence from office Mr. Her-
bert was as energetic in action as ever. He was remark-
ably furnished with all appliances and means for doing
what he thought proper ; and if he had been undistin-
guished in political life, he would always have been busy
in some benevolent scheme. He was wealthy ; he had
unbounded influence in his own neighborhood and
connection ; and in 1846 he married a woman of tastes
and energy congenial to his own. She was Miss A'Court,
a daughter of General A'Court and niece of Lord Hey-
tesbury. The mere mention of her brings up recollections
of an extensive emigration of laboring families, and
especially of young women, to colonies which suffered
most from the inequality of the sexes. Mr. and Mrs.
Herbert used all their influence to promote such emigra-
tion, superintended the outfit of many hundreds, and
went on board the departing ships to start the people
cheerily. We heard at the same time, or soon after,
of a Model Lodging-house for agricultural laborers,
which they had built, and furnished and filled, at Wilton.
They have built a church there, which is considered a
singularly beautiful specimen of Italian ecclesiastical
architecture.

Meantime he ranked with the Peelites in the House —
Lord Lincoln (as he was then) and Mr. Gladstone — the
three being just of the same age, and all being supposed
likely to return to office, though their great chef was
holding a position higher than office could give. Mr.
14*

[IV]

His mar-
riage.

Benevolent
efforts for
the agricul-
tural poor.

322

LORD HERBERT OF LEA.

[IV]

His conduct
as War
Secretary
during the
Crimean
War.

Herbert spoke occasionally — now sketching the state of
affairs abroad in 1848 as actual bondage under the
appearance of license; and now, in 1849, insisting that
no distress had arisen from -free trade. In the great
Midsummer debate of 1850, on the foreign policy of
Lord Palmerston's Government, Mr. Herbert spoke
strongly on the Opposition side. It was a question of
confidence; and no one more emphatically declared
want of confidence than he, in his review of Lord
Minto's errand in Italy, and his representation of the
unpopularity of England abroad. That debate is con-
secrated to all parties now by its being the last in which
the voice of Peel was heard.

After his death the group of rising statesmen who
were distinguished by his name continued in opposition
during the remaining Administration of Lord J. Russell,
and the short term of Lord Derby, some of them coming
in again on Lord Aberdeen's accession to power at the
close of 1852. Mr. Herbert was then again Secretary
at War.

Reluctant as Lord Aberdeen was to go to war with
Russia, it is probable that his War Secretary was not
less so. We may remember the jealous inquiries of the
public at that time as to what his Russian relatives were
about, and what he and they had to say to each other.
He was as thoroughly patriotic on the occasion, however,
as any other man in the Ministry ; and, as he was
incapable of concealment, everybody was presently
satisfied of his trustworthiness. This was the great point
in his life. He and the Duke of Newcastle, when the
functions of the War Office were divided between them,
did all they could, and suffered severely. There is no
need to describe what the system was which they had to

LORD HERBERT OF LEA.

323

work at the end of a long peace. It may be doubted
whether the strongest of men could have brought good
results out of a system overgrown with abuses : and
these were not very strong men. They were morally
strong, and altogether devoted ; but they had not
intellectual vigor nor force of will sufficient to create
an adequate organization in the presence of events, or
to bear down the oppositions of aristocratic conceit and
selfishness. They saw our first army perish miserably,
and had to bear the spectacle of the people taking it
into their own hands to save the second, with vast waste,
and by means improvised by their own zeal. They saw
their order thoroughly frightened by the disclosure of
the abuses and lapses of their own department, and were
aware that, in spite of their utmost zeal in remedying
mischiefs, the aristocracy lost a step in the esteem and
the affections of the nation which they could never
regain.

Both were men on whom such a lesson was sure not
to be lost : men honest, devoted, and sincerely patriotic.
The Duke of Newcastle was the special victim of the
national indignation. He lost nothing in regard to
character, but was merely set aside as inadequate to
the working out of his own excellent wishes. Mr. Her-
bert left the War Office, and undertook the Colonial
Secretaryship under Lord Palmerston. He held that
office, however, for only a fortnight, resigning, with
Sir James Graham and Mr. Gladstone, when it appeared
that the Sebastopol Committee was to be proceeded
with, notwithstanding the retirement of Lord Aberdeen.
It was a demonstration of want of confidence which
left Mr. Herbert no choice but to resign. His countenance
and voice, when he made the announcement, on the

[IV]

Leaves the
War Office.

324

LORD HERBERT OF LEA.

[IV]

His reforms
in the army.

22d of February, 1855, showed how he had suffered
under the painful experience of the preceding year, and
the crisis of the winter. He was manifestly ill ; and
he retired from his work under a depression as deep
perhaps as his nature admitted.

He was, however, incapable of permanent discourage-
ment. He was too active, too full of resources, and,
above all, too disinterested to be subdued by failure or
mortification. While out of office, he was in training,
consciously or unconsciously, for the real work and final
honors of his political life. While Lord Panmure
and General Peel were administering the affairs of the
War Office, Mr. Herbert was preparing himself to
become the best friend that the British soldier has
ever had.

He had already been a great benefactor to the army.
The soldier's condition had been cared for in certain
respects for some years ; and the remission of the lash
and institution of the Regimental School had marked a
tage in our military history. Mr. Herbert had promoted
whatever was good and contended against what was bad
throughout; and he had obtained for the army in the
East the attendance of Florence Nightingale and her
nurses. None of us can have forgotten the characteristic
letter in which he pressed the scheme upon her. The
letter was furtively copied and published, without the
knowledge of writer and receiver ; but, except that the
treachery brought some undeserved blame upon them, it
is difficult to be sorry for the publication. In acknow-
ledging the blessing he brought upon the country by
engaging Miss Nightingale in that particular service, we
must bear in mind that her services have never since
been intermitted. When our second army was saved,

LORD HERBERT OF LEA.

325

and it had been proved how high an average of health
may be attained in a camp in an enemy's country, Miss
Nightingale went on — as she is going on at this day —
securing conditions of health of body and mind for the
soldier such as the world has never seen before.

When Mr. Herbert returned to the War Office in 1859,
he was well furnished for great reforms. It will not be
forgotten how strenuously he had labored at the head
of the Army Sanitary Commission, and in the Barrack
and Hospital Commission, nor what a mass of irresistible
evidence he presented us with of the sufferings of our
soldiers, and the way to preclude them. We have seen
the soldiery already in great part relieved of the curses
of bad air, disgusting food, irksome clothing, unhealthy
habits, and intolerable ennui. We have seen a good
beginning made in rescuing our military service from the
vagabonds and thieves who long constituted a great pro-
portion of its recruits ; and a few years will show what
has been done in winning to the service the sort of men
most desirable in regard to character and position. We
have seen the beginning of a regeneration of the lot of
the soldier in India. Our force in China, with its fine
health and high spirit, showed us what Mr. Herbert and
his coadjutors had been doing for the British and Indian
soldier. His own view of the work to be done, and its
urgency, appears in an article signed with his initials
in the Westminster Review of April, 1859 — a few weeks
before his return to the War Office. That article shows
us in part what he had set himself to do ; and the world
will have evidences, for many years to come, how he
did it. In the province of the treatment of the soldier
he has had no equal in the military experience of his
country.

[IV]

Appointed
War
Minister,
1859.

326

LORD HERBERT OF LEA.

[IV]

His

'weaknesses.

In other departments of his office he was not quite so
successful. It is true, his deserts are not all apparent
yet. He saw the need of a thorough reorganization of
the War Office ; and he saw how it ought to be done.
It is understood that a very comprehensive, sensible,
practical scheme has been for many months under the
consideration of the Government, for securing the object.
If any justice is to be done to his memory, that scheme
must be inquired after, and its purposes insisted on, in
Parliament and out of it. From it we have yet to learn
some of Mr. Herbert's merits in his office. But it is too
true that alongside of such merits his characteristic de-
fects have appeared very plainly. He had not strength
of will to carry through his own projects ; and yet worse,
he was incessantly impelled, by his ardent, generous,
sanguine spirit, to pledge himself for more than he was
sure of accomplishing, and to assume responsibilities
belonging to others whom he could not control. There
is no need to go into the proof of these weaknesses.
They have not, we believe, been denied ; and his most
devoted friends have always said — not that his defects
did not exist, but that in a world where nobody is perfect
it is wiser to support a Minister who is not very strong,
but who has actually accomplished more for our military
system than any other, than to heap difficulty and dis-
credit upon him, so as to make him give way to some
man who is pretty sure to have worse faults and fewer
virtues. Death has settled this now. He is gone, with-
out redeeming all his pledges about the Purchase System
and other matters, and without justifying his chivalrous
assumption of the responsibility of appointments, in
regard to which it is well known that he was subject to
be overruled.

LORD HERBERT OF LEA.

327

While struggling with obstruction without and weak-
ness within, his health was giving way. It requires
prodigious vigor of body and mind to work at the
reform of any public department, amidst contempt and
apathy from above and defiance from below. But this
was an undertaking in addition to the business of his
office, rendered overwhelming by absence of all proper
organization. For many months he worked on, with
unabated spirit; but it became evident last Christmas
that he must give up either his office or his attendance in
the House of Commons. He would fain have remained
in the House. The sacrifice of office was the lesser of
the two. But he yielded to the entreaties of some who
dreaded any check to the course of reform in the War
Office, and accepted a peerage, in order to continue his
work as Minister.

It was too late, however. He was worn out before he
was fifty with excessive toil, and the wear and tear which
a spirit like his must go through in a career of political
responsibility. He had less to suffer than many Ministers
have from hostility and misrepresentation ; for he was as
winning in manners as he was frank in temper. Every-
body felt good-will toward him, more or less ; and his
personal friends were devoted to him. We may hope
and believe that he had many and keen enjoyments in
his political career, as he certainly had eminent blessings
in his private life. He was made to be a happy man ;
and we may fully believe that he was so. But yet he
suffered enough to break him down prematurely ; and to
his country he has sacrificed many years of home inter-
courses, an old age reposing on manly sons and womanly
daughters, and a long term of married happiness. His
eldest son is only eleven ; and one of the happiest

[IV]

His ch<va~
tion to the
peerage.

His sacri-
fices for the
public
interest.

328

LORD HERBERT OF LEA.

[IV]

His services
a claim on
his suc-
cessors.

homes in England is made desolate by his sacrifice of
himself.

Such sacrifices and services must not be in vain.
They were a gift to the nation ; and the nation must use
them as a claim on his successors, and on every Adminis-
tration they belong to, for the complete fulfilment of his
purposes. We must not wait longer for a thorough War
Office reform because Lord Herbert is gone; and no
Minister must reckon on even so much indulgence as he
had in regard to the disposal of patronage, and the recti-
fication of the principle of promotion. Any successor
must do as much as he did for the army, and the honor
of England in connection with it, before he can expect
any mercy for even such weaknesses as showed them-
selves in him. If he did not do all that a Minister of
War might be conceived able to do, he did so much as
may justify a new criterion of the merits of the Minister,
and should render irresistible the popular demand for
reforms, which he sanctioned in the proposal, but did
not live to achieve.

He was half-brother and presumptive heir of the Earl
of Pembroke ; and his title of Lord Herbert of Lea
merely lifted him in the interval out of the fatigues of
one House of Parliament into the leisure of the other.
It is fitting that a new peerage should exhibit in his
descendants his claims to honor and national gratitude ;
but he will be remembered, politically and privately, as
Sidney Herbert ; for under that name he won something
better, and far dearer to him, than any peerage.

V.

THE MARQUIS OF LANSDOWNE.
DIED JANUARY 3151, 1863.

WITH the Marquis of Lansdowne has passed away a
political spectacle peculiar to this country, — that of an
aristocratic gentleman of moderate abilities, and politics
which might be called accidentally liberal, being con-
nected with the entire political history of his time by the
force of consistency alone. Consistency is, from the
character of the time, not only so out of fashion, but for
most people so out of the question, that any one signal
instance of it fixes as much attention at the present day
as conversion and innovation did in a former one.
Lord Lansdowne remained steadfast while the Welling-
tons and Peels were changing on the one hand, and the
Burdetts and the Broughams on the other; and every-
body is interested in seeing how this happened. The
first suggestion in the case is, that it could not have
happened if he had not been of high and ancient family.
It could not have happened if his early course had not
been determined in a liberal direction ; nor if he had
not been of sound reputation ; nor if he had been a
man of genius, or of any vigorous ability. A brief
survey of his career will make the case plain. It cannot
be other than one of great interest.

His con-
sistency of
character.

330

THE MARQUIS OF LANSDOWNE.

[V]
Hit

ancestry.

His edu-
cation.

. The ancestors of Lord Lansdowne figure in Irish
history as Barons of Kerry for several hundred years.
His father was the celebrated Lord Shelburne, the first
Marquis of Lansdowne ; and the late Marquis was the
son of a second marriage. He was never, nor were his
elder brothers, the pupils of Dr. Priestley, as is supposed
by many people. Dr. Priestley was never a tutor in the
family at all, but resident, nominally as librarian to Lord
Shelburne, but really as a friend and a scholarly com-
panion. Lord Shelburne had a dread of public schools,
and his two eldest sons were educated at home; but
Henry, the subject of this notice, so earnestly desired a
public-school education, that he was sent to Westminster.
It really appears as if his lifelong solicitude on behalf of
education began with his own. From Westminster he
went to Edinburgh, and was one of the band of youths,
since become statesmen, who debated at the Speculative
Society, and worshipped Dugald Stewart. The judgment
of his comrades on him was, as Horner tells us, that he
was "distinguished by a cool, clear-thinking head, and a
plain, firm, manly judgment." One would like to know
whether, in the presence of the Speculative Society, he
manifested the inaptitude for speculation and the pro-
pensity to detail which distinguished his mind in after-
life. It was a joke of the season, forty years after, when
he and Sydney Smith, with a companion or two, went
incognito to Deville, the phrenologist in the Strand, to
have their characters read from their skulls, and were
most perversely interpreted. Lord Lansdowne was pro-
nounced to be so absorbed in generalization as to fail in
all practical matters, and Sydney Smith to be a great
naturalist — "never so happy as when arranging his birds
and his fishes." "Sir," said the divine, with a stare of

THE MARQUIS OF LANSDOWNE.

comical stupidity, "I don't know a fish from a bird ;"
and the Cabinet Minister was conscious that "all trie
fiddle-faddle of the Cabinet" was committed to him,
on account of his love of what he called practical
business.

In 1 80 1, when Lord Henry Petty was just of age, he
graduated at Cambridge. After travelling on the Con-
tinent with Dumont, he took his seat for Calne, the
family borough, and he sat for two sessions silent, as
he thought became his youth, but diligent in attendance,
and earnest in his study of the chief orators of the time,
— Fox being his great admiration. His maiden speech
was on a politico-economical subject — the effect on
Ireland of the working of the Bank Restriction Act.
The remark at the time was that this young Lord Henry
Petty justified his descent from Sir William Petty, who
had that to say in Cromwell's time which caused him to
be called the father of Political Economy in England.
The first very strong impression made by the young
member was, however, on the 8th of April, 1805, in
the Melville business, when, in addition to the discretion
and good sense which were noted as remarkable in a
man of five-and-twenty, he showed a power which never
reappeared. Fox declared it the best speech that was
made that night. When Parliament was prorogued, he
went to Ireland with Dumont, to explore it politically,
beyond the bounds of the family property. On the
opening of the session of 1806, he was to have moved
the Amendment on the Address — that amendment which
was given up because Pitt was dying. By that time, the
first Marquis was dead, and was succeeded by Lord
Henry's half-brother, who afterward died without issue,
devolving the title and estates on him.

[VI

Returned as

M.P.for

Calne.

332

THE MARQUIS OF LANSDOWNE.

[V]

Appointed
Chancellor
of the
Exchequer.

On Pitt's death, Lord Henry Petty came in for Cam-
bridge University, over the head of the young Palmerston,
who was a grave and modest youth in those days. Fox
used to say in private that he looked upon Petty as his
political successor ; but still, in the notices of the time,
it is always the gravity, consistency, and diligence of the
young man that we find extolled, and not any power of
a higher order. He was made Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer at once, in the Grenville Administration ; and
he brought forward a financial scheme which was pro-
digiously admired by his colleagues, who were but too
like Fox in their aversion to Adam Smith and the subject
of his book ; but Lord Henry Petty 's financial scheme
would not bear examination. His operations ended in a
great increase of the assessed taxes and the property
tax ; and there are caricatures yet in our libraries in
which Fox and Petty are seen as bear and dog, taught
to dance by Lord Grenville as trainer ; and again, as
taxgatherers, bearding John Bull. Already we find him
busy in doing what he delighted in doing through life,
helping people to a position, or fitting people and places
to each other. The last entry in Horner's journal bears
date June, 1806, and it relates to a negotiation set on
foot by Lord Henry Petty for bringing his friend Horner
into Parliament under the auspices of Lord Kinnaird.
A few months afterward the Grenville Administration
went out, letting the .Tories into power for nearly a quarter
of a century. Cambridge would have no more of the
young Liberal ; but he indulged himself in a "last act"
of patronage, or propitiation of patronage, enven at that
moment. He got Professor Smyth, the "amiable and
accomplished," as his friends called him, appointed to
the chair of Modern History. It was, like most of Lord

THE MARQUIS OF LANSDOWNE.

333

Lansdowne's appointments, an act of kindness to the
individual, but scarcely so to the public. There is no
saying what benefit might have accrued to British states-
manship if a man of more vigor, philosophy, and com-
prehensiveness of mind than Professor Smyth had been
appointed to so important a chair.

In 1808 Lord H. Petty married Lady Louisa Emma
Strangeways, his cousin, — a woman who had, without
seeking it, everybody's praise. She was beautiful ; and
every advantage of natural ability was improved by
education, and sanctified and endeared by the finest
moral qualities. They lived together to an old age. The
year after their marriage, the second Marquis died, and
they began, at Bowood, the long series of hospitalities
which made that abode as celebrated in its own way as
Holland House was in a somewhat different one. The
difference lay in the hostesses ; and it was wholly to
the advantage of Bowood. It is amusing to see, in
Moore's "Diary," an account of consultations between
the visitors of the two houses — Rogers, Tierney, Barnes,
and Moore — about which of the noblemen was the more
aristocratic in his habit of feeling, Lord Holland or
Lord Lansdowne — the impression of those who knew
them best being that neither could be more so than the
other, while both were blinded to it in themselves, as
superficial observers were, by the genuine benevolence
which was the prevailing mood of each. As to the
ladies — there is no need to describe the hostess of
Holland House. Lady Lansdowne had her aristocratic
tendencies, as was natural ; but they were less than the
shyness of her manners led some to suppose ; and they
were subdued to perfect harmlessness by her personal
humility and all-pervading modesty. The hospitalities

[V]

His mar-
riage.

Hh hospi-
tality at
Eotuood.

Contrasted
'with Lord
Holland.

334

THE MARQUIS OF LANSDOWNE.

His labors
in Parlia-
ment.

of Bowood, so conducted, might well form, as they did,
a social feature of the time.

During the quarter century of Tory rule, Lord Lans-
downe was steady in his advocacy of the great questions
of his youth, and, we may now add, of his old age. He
was ranked with Lords Grenville and King as a leader
of the Political Economy School. He never let slip an
opportunity of advocating popular education*; as when,
for instance, he said about Scotland, which Lord Liver-
pool called "the best-conditioned country upon earth,"
that such, welfare as it had was wholly ascribable to its
parochial schools, which had counteracted the mischiefs
of its political system. He sustained the Catholic
claims, quietly and steadily ; and he defended coalitions
during the whole interval from the first he joined in
1806 to the last in 1852. He declared them to be not
only just, but necessary in a free country, as a defence
against the encroachments of the Court ; and that their
principle was the same as that of Party — concession all
round, for the sake of combined action. In 1820 he
took a noble stand in reprobation of the proceedings
against the Queen, and also made a very effective Free-
trade speech. In 1821 his friends began to tell him that
he was becoming a Parliamentary Reformer : and so he
was ; but not so fast as his political comrades. When
the King took it into his head, at that time, to court
the Opposition, and had some of them to dinner at
Brighton, the courtesy of Lord Lansdowne's behavior
was remarked in contrast with the ill manners of some
others — his habitual moderation here standing him in
good stead. His advocacy of the independence of the
South American Republics prepared some minds for his
act, so much disapproved by others, of joining Mr.

THE MARQUIS OF LANSDOWNE.

335

Canning in May, 1827. Steady as he had ever been in
asserting the virtue of coalition, he was -anxious and
uneasy in his new position in the Cabinet ; declared that
he was powerless, was complained of for being too
mild with the Opposition when they were hunting
Canning to death ; and was deeply afflicted by that
rancorous and yet most pathetic speech of his friend
Lord Grey which is believed to have broken Canning's
heart. In October he was Home Secretary in the
Goderich Cabinet ; but not even the recess enabled
the coalition to work ; and the Duke of Wellington
was Premier in a few weeks. It is rather amusing to
find how Lord Lansdowne was beset as the place-
procurer during his very short tenure of power, and
how he complained in private of the worry of this ;
while he had really very little patronage — what there
was not being at his own disposal. It is clear that
now, as later, this sort of business was devolved upon
him by his colleagues, under the idea that it suited
him better than the larger labors of statesmanship.

When Lord Grey came into power Lord Lansdowne
was President of the Council — an office which suited
him and the Council admirably, He continued in
office with the Melbourne Ministry — going out when
Sir R. Peel was sent for to Rome in November, 1834,
and returning on the breaking up of the Peel Adminis-
tration in the next April. After Lord Grey's retirement
he was the leader, when nesessary, of the Opposition
in the Lords, and during the Russell Administration,
of Government ; and it was during that long course of
years that his finest qualities appeared — his moderation,
his courtesy, his knowledge of, and deference for,
parliamentary forms and usages ; and better, his sincere

[V]

Appointed
President of
the Council.

336

THE MARQUIS OF LANSDOWNE.

[II]

His labors
in the cause
of educa-
tion.

Gose of a is
official life.

zeal in causes which bore least relation to party
warfare. As a Parliamentary Reformer, no one expected
much from him ; and he had done his duty long before
by questions of liberty of conscience, in the case of
the Catholics and the Dissenters. He consistently, but
mildly, advocated Free Trade ; but it was in the business
of Education that he distinguished himself most. Little
that has as yet been done in that cause, that little has
been done by Government; and Government, in this
case, meant originally, and always meant chiefly, Lord
Lansdowne. After all that can be said, and truly, about
the Committee of Council on Education giving him work
of detail to do and superintend, and many places to give
away, it remains a certainty that here began the work
of Popular Education by the State ; that Lord Lansdowne
gave his zeal, his interest, and his pains to it ; and that
the nation ought to be grateful to him accordingly.

In 1836 he lost his elder son, the Earl of Kerry, who
left a widow and one son ; and in 1851 the Marchioness
of Lansdowne died. He had a son and a daughter left ;
but every one felt, as he did, that his life was drawing
toward that closing period which should be one of
repose. He took leave of active, and, as he thought, of
official life, when Lord John Russell made way for Lord
Derby in the spring of 1852. No speech that he ever
made won him so many hearts, and so much respectful
sympathy, as that in which he declared that, though he
should appear in his place in Parliament on occasion, he
was then taking his leave of active public life. When
the Coalition Ministry under Lord Aberdeen came into
power, Lord Lansdowne reluctantly consented to take
a seat among them — without office — to afford the Gov-
ernment the benefit of his character of Conservative

THE MARQUIS OF LANSDOWNE.

337

Whiggism, of his dignified presence in Parliament, of his
urbane and moderating influence in council, and of his
experience in the business of statesmanship. This was
understood to be only another form of that farewell to
public life which he had announced, rather more ex-
pressly, on the occasion of the Derby Ministry.

Lord Lansdowne had been gradually declining for
some months, when his death was hastened if not
actually occasioned by an accident. The venerable
nobleman, while walking on the terrace at Bowood,
stumbled and fell ; and in falling cut his head severely.
The shock was too much for his enfeebled frame, and
after gradually sinking for some days he expired on the
evening of January jist.

[V]

His death.

VI.

His Ameri-
can birth.

His family

staunch

Royalists.

LORD LYNDHURST.
DIED OCTOBER I2TH, 1863.

JOHN SINGLETON COPLEY, Baron Lyndhurst, would have
been remarkable, even if he had been a much less able
man than he was, as an imported statesman and lawyer ;
imported, too, from a Democratic Republic. No censure
is intended in this statement of a fact. He was no
political renegade. He was born before the separation
of the American colonies, and never had the least ten-
dency to republicanism in him. He was Tory to the
heart's core. His being born so far from the focus of
royalty was a mistake of Nature, which she rectified by
bringing him at last to be the keeper of the King's con-
science in that mother-country to which the family clung
with true royalist zeal.

The first revolutionary act, clear and determinate, of
the American colonists was throwing a certain notorious
cargo of tea into Boston harbor, to prevent the pay-
ment of duty on it. The Consignee of the tea would
not promise to send it back to England. He was sup-
ported by the Governor, of course. The citizens placed
a guard over the tea, that it might not be stolen ; and
when no other means could avail, to prevent its being
landed, a band of them, disguised, threw it into the sea.

LORD LYNDHURST.

339

The tea-merchant in this case was Richard Clarke, the
grandfather of Lord Lyndhurst. He was so stanch a
royalist that he removed to England on the establish-
ment of American independence. His daughter had
married Copley, the artist, in Massachusetts ; and when
the Copleys also came to England, their son, John, was
about nine years old. He was bom in or about 1770.
His father was not much liked by anybody ; but his
mother was amiable, generous, and tender-hearted. When
John, as a young lawyer, went over to his native country
about some land buisness for his father, his townsmen at
Boston admired his appearance, his manners, and his
talents, and foretold his being a great man ; but they
pronounced him to be more like his father than his
mother in character. He inspired little trust, and was
fond of money.

He was destined to get on, both by his better and his
worse qualities ; by his energy, courage, and resource, as
well as by his Tory leanings. It was not at once that he
found his place, though perhaps the means he took were
the best for bringing him into it. He denounced the
Liverpool, Castlereagh, and Sidmouth Ministry so ably
and vigorously that he was worth propitiating; in 1818
he entered Parliament for a Government borough, and
immediately rendered service on the subject of the Alien
Bill, when he answered Romilly, and was answered by
Mackintosh. It was a position for an honest politician
to be proud of, and for an unsound one to dread. But
John Copley dreaded nothing. He was then Mr. Serjeant
Copley, with a rich practice. The next year we find him
Sir John Copley, Knight, and Solicitor-General. In 1823
he was Attorney-General, and in 1826 Master of the
Rolls. In 1827 he appeared as a "Canningite" in the

[VI]

His birth,
1770.

Enters Par-

liamentj

1818.

Appointed
Master of
the Ro/Ist
1826.

340

LORD LYNDHURST.

[VI]

Appointed
Lord Chan-
cellor,

Opposes the

Reform

Bill.

short Administration of the dying statesman ; but there
was no fear of his being at all better disposed toward
the Catholics than his predecessor, Lord Eldon. He
was made Baron Lyndhurst, and took his seat on the
Woolsack ; but he was one of the three (the two others
being Lords Bexley and Anglesey) who were cited as
security that the Canning Cabinet would not propose
Catholic emancipation. He had very recently declared
that if the parliamentary oath which excluded the
Catholics was necessary in 1793, it was necessary still.
He was looked to for good service in reforming the
Court of Chancery, having at first proposed some small
reforms, and then accelerated the business there by the
appointment of an additional judge, and having again
brought in a bill with that object during the short interval
of his being Master of the Rolls. The bill was lost by
the illness of Lord Liverpool breaking up the Govern-
ment. He remained on the Woolsack during the various
changes of Administration of 1827 and 1828, and de-
scended from it only to yield the seat to Lord Brougham
on the advent of the Grey Ministry. It ought to be
remembered that Lord Lyndhurst, during this first period
of his Chancellorship, set on foot the inquiries out of
which grew such reform in the case of Lunatics as we
have yet obtained. He issued a circular, which required
from all keepers of Lunatic Asylums of every sort an
exact return of their patients, and their class and condi-
tion in regard to their malady. The replies to this circular
first brought in the information which was necessary for
further action.

His great deed, that which exhibited at once his
courage and his convictions, was throwing out the Re-
brm Bill, by his . ingenious motion to postpone the

LORD LYNDHURST.

disfranchisement to the enfranchisement proposed by the
bill. On this motion he united the Conservatives and
the Waverers in the Lords ; and thus he obtained a
majority of thirty-five. This was on the celebrated 7th
of May, 1832 ; and thereupon the Political Unions
assembled at Birmingham, plighted their faith, and sang
their hymn. Lord Lyndhurst thus overthrew the Min-
istry, and showed his determination to consider the
House of Lords as "the Citadel of the Constitution,'1'
as the Quarterly Review was then declaring it, and to
preserve it, with all its ancient rights and abuses, or
forfeit the Monarchy altogether. Of course, he was im-
mediately the most unpopular man in England. He
bore his evil fame with great resolution, aided therein
by his profound contempt for popular opinion, as much
as by his strong Conservative tendencies. The amaze-
ment among his American relations and acquaintances
was unspeakable; and the contempt felt by democratic
republicans toward one who had gone forth from among
them as if on purpose to shut the doors of Parliament
against a nation, was quite as strong as the rage of
English reformers. Both the rage and contempt were of
more weight than they otherwise would have been from
the absence of respect for the man, who about this time
exposed himself to so much doubt and disrepute that his
reception in private society was no more flattering to
his feelings than that which he met in the streets. The
apparent indifference with which he accepted any di-
versity of treatment inspired some sort of respect for his
courage, in the midst of all the reprobation. The com-
monest saying about him at that time was, that if ever
there was a brow of brass, it was his. Reform, however,
was carried in spite of him ; and he was not only on

[VI]

His unpopu-
larity re-
sulting
therefrom.

342

LORD LYNDHURST.

[VI]

His energy
and ability
as a lawyer.

the Woolsack again before the end of 1834, but that
extraordinary transaction had taken place which finally
overthrew Lord Brougham's political reputation. Lord
Brougham, when dismissed from the Chancellorship,
wrote to Lord Lyndhurst to offer that they should change
places, Lord Lyndhurst having before been Chief Baron
of the Exchequer. No answer could be given till Sir
R. Peel arrived from Rome ; and before that happened
Lord Brougham had been made aware, by the public
indignation, of his mistake, and had withdrawn his re-
quest. From that time, however, his Toryism is usually
dated; and his ostentatious, boisterous, and indecorous
show of intimacy with Lord Lyndhurst deepened the
disrepute of both. When they were amusing themselves
with ill-concealed romping in the House of Lords, the
popular impression was very strong that Lord Lyndhurst
was a second time humoring an infirm brain for his own
purposes. In his place both as Lord Chancellor and as
mere peer, he was diligent and consummately able in
business. He was the greatest lawyer in the country ;
and he was capable of vast labor. In Appeal cases he
rendered most valuable services; and he was certainly
the most formidable enemy the Whigs had in the Lords'
House — not even excepting his friend Brougham. The
two together were overwhelming. On the dissolution of
the Peel Ministry of 1835 the Great Seal was in Com-
mission, till it was given to Lord Cottenham, some months
after. The two ex-Chancellors, both men of extraordinary
powers of vituperation — both shameless and in close
alliance — made the Woolsack their target, and nearly
drove the Whig Ministers mad by their speeches and
heir sarcasms. In August, 1836, Lord Lyndhurst made
the speech which is perhaps the best remembered of any

LORD LYNDHURST.

343

he ever made — that in which, reviewing the results of
the Session, he exposed the incapacity of the Whigs, and
certainly covered them with shame. In 1839, tne con~
junction of the two critical ex-Chancellors was again
too much for the Government. Lord Melbourne had
dropped, in his own singular way, an opinion that the
legal studies pursued by many of our statesmen had a
narrowing effect on their minds. Such an opinion was
not a very propitiatory one. Lord Durham's Canada
business was at hand for a theme. Lord Durham was
personally hated by Lord Brougham. So the friends put
forth all their strength, and they succeeded in quelling
Lord Melbourne's courage and overpowering his fidelity
to an absent colleague ; and they broke Lord Durham's
heart. There was certainly, as Lord Lyndhurst boasted,
no lack of power on the Opposition side of the Lords'
House, with these two lawyers to lead the fray, at a time
when every question became a fray.

In 1841 he was appointed Chancellor for the third
time, and remained so till the breaking up of the Peel
Ministry after the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846. The
High Stewardship of Cambridge University had been an
object of ambition to him, and he was elected to the
office in 1840, having a majority of nearly five hundred
votes over his opponent Lord Lyttelton. He was now
growing old ; and, though he was still the handsomest
of Lord Chancellors, infirmity was creeping upon him.
After he left office he was blind for a considerable time,
from cataract ; but his sight was restored ; and he came
forth again, at nearly eighty years of age, as if he had
taken a new lease of life. He enjoyed the opportunity
afforded by the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill for opening out
once more against the Catholics. He excused his assent

[VI]

Elected
High

Steward of
Cambridge
University.

344

LORD LYNDHURST.

[VI]

His aristo-
cratic ten-
dencies.

His last
labors in
the House of
Peers.

His personal
charac-
teristics.

to the Relief Bill of 1829 on the ground that he desired
to see toleration all round ; but he contended that, such
toleration not sufficing Rome, he would go no further.
The true principle of religious liberty which excludes
" toleration," and requires total exemption from all juris-
diction whatever, never, probably, entered his mind at
all — even before his mind was "narrowed," as Lord
Melbourne said, by his legal studies. He was too
thoroughly aristocratic by temperament to be capable of
any generous conceptions of human liberty, even though
he came from America. One would think that his clay
had been kneaded from the dust of the old high-born
Governors of the Plantations, and his mind fed on the
obsequious addresses of the colonists to a long series of
Kings and Queens. He was best employed on Law
Reform, in which he took an evident interest, and which
caused less stirring of the Tory spirit in him than politics,
or perhaps any other pursuit.

Two powerful speeches — one on the policy of Prussia
during the Russian war, and one on Earl Clarendon's
policy in 1856 — belong to the last era of Lord Lynd-
hurst's public life. His last great efforts were in defence
of the privileges of the House of Lords, supposed to be
infringed by the creation of Lord Wensleydale's peerage
for life, and the Paper Duty Repeal Bill.

If Lord Lyndhurst had not the peculiar grace and
urbanity which belong to aristocratic birth in an old
country, he had very agreeable manners. With a fine
person, eminent ability, vast information, a cool temper,
much natural energy and cheerfulness, he was a delight-
ful companion to those whom his qualities could satisfy.
When the interest of old age was added, his faults
met with gentle treatment, if not forgetfulness. Still, his

LORD LYNDHURST. 345

greatest admirers will not deny that their feeling is admi-
ration more than esteem. The Americans would have
wished that, if they were to send us a statesman, it
should have been one of a different quality; and the
Liberal party in England would have preferred one who
did not throw the whole force of his genius into the
losing cause of middle-age feudalism. But we must
take men as they are. Here was an aristocratic self-
seeker drifted over to a European shore, where he
throve and showed what he could do. On the whole,
we are of opinion that Lord Lyndhurst had the best of
it in his migration hither. He gained more by making
himself an Englishman than the English people can
ever feel that they owe to him. He did some of their
work very well ; but he was not their friend. He will
be remembered for the remarkable incidents of his
history and his influence ; but he is not, and never
will be, regretted, except by the partisans of old English
Toryism.

[VI]

VII.

A trio of
friends.

THE EARL OF ELGIN AND KINCARDINE.
DIED DECEMBER I2TH, 1863.

LORD ELGIN has done more in his half century of life
— has, as we may say, had and enjoyed more life than
most men who die at last of old age : yet it is with keen
regret that his country sees his -career closed twenty
years before its time ; and those who have any knowledge
of his personal circumstances cannot but suffer bitter
pain in seeing at what sacrifice he has been fulfilling the
perilous duty of governing India.

James Bruce, the eldest son of the Scotch Earl of
Elgin who gave us the marbles in the British Museum,
was born in 1811. Eton was his school, and Christ-
church, Oxford, was his college. There must be many
men now living who can remember the trio of friends
associating at college, so unconscious of any peculiarity
in their destiny, but preparing, in fact, to present a re-
markable spectacle to the world. Bruce was the elder,
a year older than the other two. Ramsay was Scotch,
like Bruce; and both were sons of earls. The third
was the son of a commoner, but with reason to be as
proud of his name as any other man, for his father was
George Canning. No doubt these three youths all had
their aspirations, and had already chosen public life for

EARL OF ELGIN AND KINCARDINE.

347

their field of action ; but what would have been their
emotions — with what solemn feelings would they have
gazed on each other, if they could have known that they
were to be the three successive rulers of India during
the transition period of British government there !
Ramsay, as Lord Dalhousie, the last before the Mutiny ;
Canning the overruler of the Mutiny; and Bruce, as
Lord Elgin, the first who went out as Viceroy after the
Indian Empire was brought under the government of
the Crown. It is less than a year (nth of February
last) since Lord Elgin himself said, after presiding over
the consecration of the well at Cawnpore, "It is a
singular coincidence that three successive Governors-
General should have stood in this relationship of age
and intimacy." He said this on occasion of the opening
of the East Indian Railway to Benares, now carried to
within a few miles of Delhi. At the opening of a former
portion of the line, Lord Canning had proposed the
health of Lord Dalhousie ; and now Lord Elgin was
grieving over the death of his friend Canning ; and we,
in recalling what took place within this present year,
have now to mourn that the survivor of last February
is himself gone, before he had well entered upon his
task of governing India. They co-operated well for
India, each in his day ; and their names will be remem-
bered together in the history of that empire. When
Canning arrived at Government House, at Calcutta,
Lord Dalhousie handed him the telegram which told
that all was going right in the newly-annexed territory
of Oude ; and Canning took care of that and all other
bequests of his predecessor, as soon as the subsidence
of the Mutiny gave him power to do so. For his part,
in the darkest hour of doubt about the issue of the

[VII]

Dalhousiet
Canning,
and Elgin.

348

EARL OF ELGIN AND KINCARDINE.

[VII]

LordElgin's
help in the
Indian
Mutiny.

His earlier
days.

Mutiny, he too knew what it was to have a friend and
old comrade come to Government House with cheer
in his face and on his lips. While the Cannings sat,
brave and calm, but in utter uncertainty whether every
European in India would not have been murdered
within a month, Lord Elgin appeared, bringing the
regiments which had been given him for his mission in
China. Learning en route what was happening in India,
and receiving from Lord Canning an appeal for aid,
he decided to sacrifice his own object, and to diverge
from his instructions, by taking his soldiers to Calcutta.
Always and everywhere welcome from his genial spirit
and his unfailing cheerfulness, he might well have the
warmest welcome from the Cannings when he brought
them the first relief in their fearful strait. When he
stood, in the sight of the vast multitude, on the well at
Cawnpore last winter, he had other mournful thoughts
than of the victims who lay below. He and his wife
had visited the grave of Lady Canning at Calcutta ;
and they knew that her husband was now lying in
Westminster Abbey — both of them victims to the
conditions of their Indian life — its diseases in the one
case, and its toils and responsibilities in the other.
And now, the survivor has followed — another victim,
we must fear, to those toils and responsibilities.

In following out this singular bond which united the
three college friends, we have passed far beyond their
college days ; and we must return. Each followed the
path of public life which opened to him. We have here
only to do with Lord Elgin's.

He left Oxford adorned with honors ; and a few
years later he appeared in Parliament as member for
Southampton. This was in 1841. In the next year he

EARL OF ELGIN AND KINCARDINE.

349

began his long course of colonial rule by going -out to
Jamaica — having by this time succeeded to his Scotch
earldom by his father's death. He carried his young
wife out with him ; they underwent shipwreck ; and his
wife was saved only to die a year later. The daughter
she left him was one of the bridesmaids of the Princess
of Wales. Lord Elgin's four years' administration in
Jamaica confirmed the expectations of the Government
which had appointed him, and won the confidence of
that which succeeded it, as appears from a conversation
in the House of Lords which our readers may remember,
in which Lord Derby and Lord Grey contended for
the honor of having first appointed him to office.
It was Lord Grey who did it, while some of the first
official intercourses of the young statesman were with
Lord Derby.

In four years he was wanted to govern Canada ;
and a more arduous charge a Colonial Governor could
hardly have. The method of responsible government
was new there ; the provinces were still reeking with the
smouldering fires of rebellion ; the repulsion of races
was at its strongest ; the deposed clique who had
virtually ruled the colony were still furious, and the
depressed section suspicious and restive. It was just at
the time, too, when, between English and American
legislation, the Canadians were suffering from the evils
of Protection and Free-trade at once. Believing them-
selves to be made sport of or neglected at home, they
were more strongly tempted to join the United States,
or at least to cross the frontier and become republican
citizens, than they ever were before, or have been since.
Lord Elgin was thoroughly aware what he was under-
taking in accepting the government of a society so

[VII]

Appointed
Governor of
Jamaica,

Governor-
General of
Canada.

35°

EARL OF ELGIN AND KINCARDINE.

[VII]

His career
in Canada.

disturbed. He was supported in his task by domestic
sympathy of a peculiar character. In the autumn of
1846 he married Lady Mary L. Lambton, the eldest
surviving daughter of the Earl of Durham. She had
lived in Canada during her father's short administration ;
she had understood the case enough to have the warmest
interest in his policy, its principle, method, and aim.
As Lord Elgin's wife, she now saw that policy carried
through with vigor, justice, kindliness, and success ;
she fulfilled the duties which had been her mother's, as
hostess and leader of society; and she sustained her
husband, as she had seen her father sustained, by in-
telligent sympathy. On occasion there was no little
need of fortitude, as when the Parliament Houses at
Montreal were burned down, in 1849. The " British
party," as they styled themselves, had to yield to the
conditions of impartial government, and to go into
opposition when their turn came round. To them it
naturally seemed as if the world was coming to an end.
The Opposition, or " French party," made use of their
first opportunity to obtain an indemnity for the losses of
such inhabitants of Lower Canada as had suffered in
property during the rebellion. The Rebellion Losses
Bill passed with the approbation of all dispassionate
persons; and Lord Elgin, in giving it the requisite
sanction, finished a transaction which had spread over
several years, and employed the anxious care of five
commissioners appointed to estimate the damages, and
ascertain the innocence of the claimants of all participa-
tion in the rebellion. The "British" mob, however,
stoned the carriage of the Governor-General as he left
the House, and then, while members were yet sitting,
broke the windows and burned the building. They met

EARL OF ELGIN AND KINCARDINE.

to petition the Queen for the recall of Lord Elgin on the
ground that he had been favoring the claims of her
Majesty's enemies ; but the better spirit prevailed in the
legislature, in which a vote of confidence in the
Governor-General, and attachment to the authority he
represented, was carried by a large majority. It was
in October of the same year that the discomfited mal-
contents organized an agitation for annexation to the
United States, on the ground of their sufferings from
the opposite trade policy of the mother country and
of their nearest neighbors. Amidst these agitations
Lord Elgin pursued a calm and temperate course,
industriously applying himself to the development of
the country and its resources, by every possible aid
that he could afford to all parties. He enjoyed the
confidence of each successive Colonial Secretary, as
six entered upon the department, and opened corre-
spondence with him ; and he won his way in the
colony itself so effectually that his successor found the
worst discontents appeased, and the internal perils of
Canada at an end. So strong was the impression at
home of the dignified character of his neutrality, amidst
the conflicts of extreme parties, that some surprise and
amusement were caused by his speech at the banquet
which was given in his honor, on his return in 1855.
Perhaps it was the first time for many years that he had
been able to speak as a man speaks at home and among
friends ; certainly he was a man of a frank, genial
temper ; and, when he spoke at all, he said exactly what
he thought. But he was not a rash or intemperate
speaker. In his most frank, fluent, and lively utterances
he said nothing which he had any reason afterward
to regret. This character of his oratory was at once

[VII]

Approvals/
his adminis-
tration by
the Cana-
dian Legis-
lature.

Effects of
his govern-
ment.

352

EARL OF ELGIN AND INCARDINE.

[VII]

Informal
manner of '
his speeches.

His embassy
to China.

His explo-
rations and
observations
there.

appreciated at Calcutta, contrasting as it did with the
reserve of his two predecessors. While men there
were full of astonishment at the informal and friendly
character of the first public address of the new Viceroy,
acute observers remarked that there were no indiscreet
disclosures in the speech, nothing that need be wished
unsaid ; and nothing, therefore, that was undignified.
In the event, the frankness won confidence and good-
will with singular rapidity, both from Europeans and
natives, while experience taught them that there were
more kinds of dignity than one ; and that to command
deference equal to that shown to Lord Dalhousie and
Lord Canning, it was not necessary to have their
reserve of temper and unbending style of manner.

But between Canada and India were interposed
singular scenes of political life. In 1857 Lord Elgin
was sent to "China, to try what could be done to repair,
or to turn to the best account, the mischiefs done by
Sir John Bowring's course, and by the patronage of it
at home, in the face of the moral reprobation of the
people at large. We all remember his success, and the
openings which he achieved for the commerce of Europe.
With the same energy which determined him to make
an opportunity to study the American .Republic before
he left Canada, he now resolved to learn for himself
what he could about China as it is. He went up the
great river to Hankow, studying the country and people
as he went, and bringing home narratives and impressions
which showed his friends, better than any diplomatic
transactions ever can, how true and generous wero his
sympathies with the simple people of that vast empire,
under the perils and sufferings of its decay. He was
quick to detect any common ground of instinct or

EARL OF EL GIN AND KINCARDINE. 353

feeling — moral or other — between the people whom we
usually treat with ridicule and ourselves. Amidst hi:
keen enjoyment of the fine scenery of the Yang-tse
kiang, some of which warmed his heart by its resem
blance to his own Scotch Highlands, his eye and hi«
mind were everywhere, discerning indications of manners,
and reflecting on the uses to be made of new oppor-
tunities. He learned lessons both by being attacked
and by being courted by the imperialist and rebe
people along the river. Whenever his ship grounded
he was presently exploring on shore, amidst fields or
villages, or entering solitary houses wherever a welcome
was offered. In the same spirit of activity he went up
the hills and followed up the valleys of the island of
Formosa, using every hour he could command, wherever
he went, in learning everything within reach of the
country and people whom he was endeavoring to
connect with his own in intercourse and good feeling.
What he did in Japan is at this hour the foundation of
the hope of many of us who would otherwise give up all
idea of any sort of Japanese alliance or reciprocity.
Lord Elgin was no visionary. His quick sympathies and
cheerful views did not impair his good sense, or dim the
impressions of his experience. He was not the man to
go and see the Japanese in a fit of glamor, and come
home and report of them in a paroxysm of enthusiasm.
As he, a man of long-proved good sense, moderation,
tact, and vigilant conscience, believed that Britain and
Japan might and ought to be a blessing to each other,
many of us hold on to the hope, notwithstanding all
that has come to pass since he was there. It is true,
he may not have supposed possible such an act as
the destruction of Kagosima — an act which could

[VII]

His dlplo-

tn

macy
Japan.

354

EARL OF ELGIN AND KINCARDINE.

[VII]

Acknow-
ledgment of
his services
in the City.

Again sent
to China.

never have been proposed in his presence, or under
his management; but still — considering his acuteness
of insight into character, and his practical judgment
and experience — it is rational perhaps to believe that,
managed as he would have managed it, our intercourse
with Japan may yet be what he suggested and believed
he foresaw.

What he saw of China and the Chinese on his first
visit enabled him to appreciate the extent of what he
gained by his negotiation better than anybody at home,
outside of the circle of merchant princes, could appreciate
it. It could not be expected that the world should
believe on the instant that China really was thrown
open to the European commerce, or that the value of the
change should be at once understood. The merchants
of London, however, did themselves honor by the
thoroughness of their acknowledgment of Lord Elgin's
services. Those who were witnesses of the presentation
to Lord Elgin of the freedom of the City saw him in
one of the happiest hours of his life. He was not a
man who required the stimulus of praise, or even sym-
pathy, to keep him to his work. He loved work for its
own sake, and of course for its appropriate and special
results; and he would have worked on for life, appre-
ciated or overlooked ; but he whose sympathies were
always ready and warm himself enjoyed being under-
stood and valued: and that welcome in the City was
very cheering to him after his long experience of
English indifference about Canada and what he had
done there.

He held the office of Postmaster-General till the
hostile acts of the Chinese Government toward the
English and French ministers in China rendered it

EARL OF ELGIN AND KINCARDINE.

355

necessary that Lord Elgin should go out again, and
accomplish the indispensable object of opening Pekin
to our diplomatists, as ports and rivers had been opened
to our merchants. To secure this, and to obtain repa-
ration for the recent insult to the European ministers,
was the errand of Lord Elgin and Baron Gros, who
went out together, early in 1860, while forces were
gathering in China, to accompany them up to Pekin.
Lord Elgin had had but too much experience of ship-
wreck before ; and now he had it again, when their ship,
the Malabar, was lost upon a reef in Galle harbor. In
the midst of the terror and confusion on board, and
while the fate of all in the ship was utterly uncertain,
the two ambassadors sat together, tranquil and cheerful ;
their calm courage assisting materially in restoring order
and saving life. They refused to enter the boats till all
the other passengers were landed; and a few minutes
after they and their suites left the ship's side she sank.
Not only the decorations and state dresses of the am-
bassadors, but their credentials went to the bottom,
whence they were fished up by divers. If this had not
been possible, the whole course of affairs in China might
have been different, through the delay caused by waiting
for fresh credentials, and the consequent loss of the
season in the Chinese seas. As it was, the plenipoten-
tiaries arrived off the Peiho, ready for their work, in
July. By November their work was done. The
convention was signed at Pekin on the 24th of October,
and ratified on the 5th of November.

One of the favoring circumstances of the mission
was the cordial understanding which existed throughout
between the British and French ambassadors. If they
had been short of friendly, fatal mischief might have

[VIII

Ship-
wrecked in
Galle har-
bor.

His

thorough
co-operation
tvitA Baron
Gros.

356

EARL OF ELGIN AND KINCARDINE.

[vn]

Xtalaof

» * * ,-£••

arisen out of the dangerous conjunction of the military
forces of the two countries. We know something of
what happened about the sack of the Summer Palace,
and on other occasions of collision. But the two am-
bassadors prevented all serious mischief by their
confidence, their united action, and the
prudence and silence with which they treated
vexations. Lord Elgin was the very man for such a
function of conciliation ; and especially where France is
concerned. In him were united some of the higH^t
characteristics of both nations. If in his unconscious
courage, his steadfastness of purpose, his idea and habit
of domestic life, and the nature of his political ambition,
he was altogether a Briton, he might have been a
Frenchman for his gayety of temper, his incessant
activity, and his quick and ready tact and sympathies.
His mission required a cultivation of French good-will,
as much, perhaps, as of Chinese confidence; and he
succeeded thoroughly with both. He returned, as
sensible as ever to the shock of the feilure of his first
expedition, which he had always pointed out as the
probable consequence of his being vexatiously prevented
from going up to Pekin ; but now satisfied that his work
was realy and effectually done. Not only was English
diplomacy established in Pekin, but a genuine intercourse
was carried on with the GoTernment of China, Lord
Elgin was in no way responsible for our former doings
in China, nor for the position in which they kft us. The
duty of raising our relations with that empire to a higher,
firmer, and more open ground must be done ; he under-
took it, and there seems to be no question on any hand
that he did it well He and his coadjutor, Baron Gros,
certainly left a strong impression behind them of their

EARL OF ELGIN AND KINCARDINE.

357

frank wisdom and scrupulous honor, as men and as
plenipotentiaries.

Even before his arrival at home early in 1861, he was
fixed upon by the public expectation as the successor
of Lord Canning in India. It was never without a
pang that his wife heard of this ; and her dread of that
appointment never relaxed. As for him, he prepared
for his new work with his characteristic alacrity, and was
ready with the personal sacrifices which were a matter of
course with him when duty required them. There were
four young sons to be left behind ; and this was not all.
At Christmas, 1846, he had left his bride at home, to
spare her the worst cold of Canada ; and now he left his
wife behind, to spare her the extreme heat of India.
Together they visited the Queen at Osborne, in the first
weeks of her widowhood — a circumstance which may
now be dwelt on with a true though mournful satisfaction :
and then the husband and father went on alone. His
boys had seen him for the last time. His wife and little
daughter went out to him as soon as permitted, in
November of last year. Before she reached him he
had been ill — from the Calcutta atmosphere, of course.
It was soon evident that, if he was to remain at all fit
for work, he must (as every new comer must) avoid
Calcutta, and " wander about, " as carping observers say,
or contrive to get meetings of the Council in some
central place where Europeans can both live and work.
For the summer he went to the Hills, according to
custom ; and it was at Simla that he received the news
of the death of his third son — a fine boy of ten. This
was something more than the first break in the happy
family circle. It shook all confidence about the rest,
during the long years of separation yet to be fulfilled.

[VII]

Appointed
Viceroy of
India.

358

EARL OF ELGIN AND KINCARDINE.

[VII]

His prema-
ture death.

When the necessity for moving came, the effect of
travelling in the hill ranges was salutary. The splendors
of nature there were at once rousing and soothing ; and
it is a satisfaction now to think what his latest pleasures
were. It has been suggested that the ascent of the
Jilauri pass, 13,000 feet above the plains, may have been
fatally injurious to him ; but those about him spoke of
him as well at a later time. The spectacle of the vast
icy range, as seen between the openings of mountains
loftier than we ever see, gratified in the highest degree
his love of natural beauty; and it is a consolation to
think that such was the picture which was last received
into his mind, and that it remains in the heart of her
whose friendship was the best blessing of his life.

They were on their way to other and very different
scenes of grandeur. We know what the great assem-
blage in the Northwest Provinces was to be, over
which he was to preside. We turn away from the
thought of it now. His death puts away the whole
pageant, and even the serious interests implicated with
it, to the furthest horizon of our imagination. We can
attend only to what is nearest, and especially to the
thought of the enormous sacrifice at which the service
of such men is obtained for the nation to which they
belong. It cannot be said that, but for his toils, his
exposure to many climates, and his overwhelming re-
sponsibilities, Lord Elgin might have not lived to the
natural period of the life of man. As it is, he is gone at
fifty-two. When we think of the young daughters, of the
boys deprived of him just when arriving at the need of
his care, and of other interests, private and public, we
feel as if there must be crime somewhere, that such
sacrifices have been repeated so often. It seems scarcely

EARL OF ELGIN AND KINCARDINE.

359

possible to say more than has been long and often said
about the perils of Calcutta. We know that the mere
climate of India is not dangerous, but that there is in
Calcutta, and in almost every station, an assemblage of
every evil condition, which requires only the application
of heat to be rendered murderous. The highest func-
tionaries cannot altogether escape these conditions ;
and they have, besides, their perils of overwork and
anxiety. In such a position a man may die without
any one of the four or five maladies which carry off
thousands of our soldiers and civilians there. Any
predisposition may be fatally wrought upon ; the weakest
part of the frame gives way ; and another great man goes
down early to his grave.

There rest now the three friends — living so much the
same life with such different qualities and powers,
charged finally with the same great duty and destiny,
and dying the same death. In the noble line of rulers
of India they will, in their order, form a group of singular
interest, standing on the boundary-line of the old and
the new systems of Indian rule. Thus they will always
be remembered together, and regarded as apart.

[VII]

Similarity
in the career
of three
Viceroys.

His death a

political

misfortune.

VIII.

THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE.
DIED OCTOBER iSiH, 1864.

No statesman of our time has won a more universal
respect and regard than the Duke of Newcastle ; and
few Ministers of any period could be more missed and
mourned than he will be by good citizens of all parties
and ways of thinking. That such a Minister should be
cut off before we began to think of age in connection
with him, and when we might have hoped for a dozen or
twenty years' more public service from him, is one of
the grave political misfortunes which every generation
has to bear in its turn. Each generation knows what
it is to suffer that sinking and heaviness of the heart
which is caused by the news that the admired statesman
or the trusted minister is struck down by disease — lost
in political or actual death. Living men can recall but
too many of such calamities ; and if there was a stronger
shock in the case of Canning, and a deeper anguish
in that of Peel, there could never have been a sincerer
or more general concern throughout England than when
the announcement spread that the Duke of Newcastle
had sustained an attack which must close his public
career, and could not allow him a much longer term
of life. Still, hope will linger ; and we were unwilling

THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE.

361

to acquiesce in having lost him till his death showed us
that we ought not to have desired him to live after the
usefulness, which was the desire of his life, was at an end.

We need not describe his father. We all remember
the Duke of Newcastle who had no doubts about doing
what he would with his own. His son was old enough
when that was said to be strongly impressed by the
sensation it made. To have originated a good proverb
is as high an honor as can befall a man ; and in this
singular case of having started a saying so monstrous
as to have become a proverb, the disgrace could not
but be deeply felt by any son and heir of the name.
There is no judging how much of the late Minister's
characteristic consideration of other men's rights, and
modesty about his own, may have been owing to the
impressions he early derived from the national reception
of his father's claims upon his tenants, in their political
capacity.

The late Duke, Henry Pelham Clinton, Lord Lincoln
by courtesy, was born in 1811. His early characteristics
seemed to have been the same as those the world now
knows so well. At Eton and Christ-church he manifested
the sound, substantial, but not brilliant quality of mind
which made him for thirty years one of the most useful
of public servants. He was a remarkable illustration
of the operation of the moral on the intellectual nature.
It was his conscientious activity, his moral energy, that
set his faculties to work, at all times, and wherever he
went ; and it was his personal disinterestedness, his
public spirit, his power of subordinating his own feelings
to other people's interests which enabled him to keep
his faculties at work, in defiance of discouragements
which would have daunted many a man of higher original

16

[VIII]

His father.

His early
character-

362

THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE.

[VIII]

Sir Robert
Peel's polit-
ical band.

Appointed
Chief Secre-
tary for
Ireland.

capacity. It was probably on account of these moral
qualities that Sir Robert Peel adopted Lord Lincoln, as
he did Sidney Herbert, into his political band. The
young man entered upon office at three-and-twenty, on
the first opportunity that occurred. He was made a
Lord of the Treasury during the short Administration of
Sir Robert Peel, from December, 1 834, to the next April.
He had then been in Parliament two years, sitting for
South Nottinghamshire. During the interval till the
return of Sir Robert Peel to power in September, 1841,
Lord Lincoln won upon the expectation of the House and
the notice of the country, so that when his opportunity
arrived, he scarcely answered to the idea formed of him.
His ability and his reach of political view were as yet
in no proportion to his activity and readiness ; and that
activity and readiness were easily mistaken for self-suffi-
ciency in a man yet so young. He was only First
Commissioner of Inland Revenue ; and he could hardly
show what was in him to any one but his chief and
master. Peel understood him rightly, and by his support
enabled him to become what we have since seen.

In January, 1846, he seemed to have obtained scope
to show what he could do in real statesmanship. He
became Chief Secretary for Ireland ; but the Ministry
went out in July, on the discomfiture of their Coercion
Bill for Ireland, which was understood to be an act
of vengeance caused by the repeal of the Corn Laws.
During the five years more that he remained in the
Commons, as member for the Falkirk boroughs, because
his father spoiled his chances in his own county of Not-
tingham, he was one of Sir Robert Peel's most trusted
lieutenants, and one of the securities that a Peel party
would exist which, however small in numbers, should

THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE.

363

compensate by its character for some of the dangers
attending the disintegration of parties which the policy
of its chief had necessarily effected. From time to
time, Lord Lincoln showed that he was not idle, though
in opposition, and, as all the world knew, unhappy in
the domestic relations in which, of all men, he seemed
the most likely to deserve and obtain happiness. His
marriage in 1832 had issued in great misery, and he
obtained a divorce in 1850. His father's treatment of
him was the world's wonder for hardness and absurdity
of wrath, considering that the ground of parental dis-
pleasure was merely difference of political opinion.
Lord Lincoln worked away at such work as he could
find or make, keeping silence on his filial injuries — about
which, indeed, the Duke took care that the public should
be sufficiently informed by himself. One of the ablest
speeches made by Lord Lincoln in this interval was
in 1847, on emigration from Ireland as a means of relief
during and after the famine, and the disorganization of
affairs which it must occasion. While witnessing such
an emigration as is going on at this day, we ought to
remember how sorely such a relief was needed and
desired when the Irish were far greater in numbers and
far poorer in food and work than now.

At the beginning of 1851 Lord Lincoln succeeded
to the dukedom, and left the House of Parliament in
which he had laid the groundwork of the general expec-
tation of good service from him. The next year intro-
duced him at last to such office as would show what he
could do. He became Colonial Secretary under Lord
Aberdeen at the close of 1852, little imagining what
responsibilities and labors he was undertaking. The
charge and government of half a hundred colonies

[VIII]

Unhappi-
ness in his
domestic re-
lations.

Succeeds to
the duke-
dom.

Made

Colonial

Secretary.

364

THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE.

[VIII]

Appointed
Secretary
for War.

The

Crimean

War.

His speech
on resigning
office.

has long been considered an absurdly onerous task for
one member of an administration ; but to this was in
those days added the virtual management of war in
its distant operation. When war with Russia was declared
in March, 1854, the Duke was relieved of his colonial
duties, which were undertaken by Sir George Grey ; and
the new Secretaryship for War was filled by the Duke.
We all remember but too well what followed — the
suffering and mortality among our troops in the East,
and the too natural popular impression that the War
Ministers must be to blame, and the wrath, and cavil,
and ostentatious disparagement with which those two
men — the Duke and his friend Sidney Herbert — were
treated, while they were working their frames and facul-
ties day and night as few men have worked before, and
effecting achievements in the mere neutralizing of other
men's blunders and deficiencies, which from another
point of view would have excited admiration and grati-
tude. It was not their fault that our soldiers suffered
and died ; and it was their doing that many more did
not perish. No speech of the Duke is probably so
well remembered as that which he delivered at the
opening of the session of 1855, in which he made a
clean breast of it in resigning his office of Minister for
War. He was deeply moved himself, and he moved
everybody else. Nobody after that speech thought of
imputing to him indolence, indifference, levity, &c.,
which had been here and there heard of before; but
still there was something said of incapacity. This
charge he had noticed with the others, saying the only
thing that a sensible man can say on that personal charge
— that he was the last man who could discuss it, and
that the question must be left to time. He made some

THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE.

365

brief and modest disclosures of his toil and anxiety, and
of the special interest he had in the good conduct of
the war, from two sons of his own being in the army
and navy. These won him much sympathy; but the
interest amounted to enthusiasm when he declared, in
his honest way, that the greatest relief and pleasure
he could have would be in the better fortune of his
successor, whoever he might be, in his official achieve-
ments, and his enjoyment of that national confidence
and sympathy which he himself had failed to obtain.
Now, under the emotion of the hour, his colleagues
.began to bear testimony to his official merits; but it
was too late. The conduct of the war was to be inquired
into; and the Duke's continuance in office could not
be proposed to him.

As soon as he was at liberty to go abroad, he went
to the Crimea and the Black Sea, to examine into many
things that can only be taken on credit at home. The
proceeding was to himself the most natural thing in
the world; but it did him good at home. His mind
was wont to dwell on subjects which he had been led
or compelled to study. He moved Parliament on Irish
Emigration, after having ceased to be Chief Secretary
in Ireland ; he moved Parliament on Vancouver's Island
and the Hudson's Bay Company, after having ceased to
be Colonial Secretary ; and now, he went to the East, to
explore the scenes of the war, after having given up his
charge of its concerns. The people at home, however,
saw in this something which rebuked their hasty judg-
ment. The late Minister did not keep himself before
the public eye, asserting his capacity, and justifying his
methods. He quietly went away, to learn what he could,
on the very spot where he must be convinced of his

The emotion
produced by
the speech.

His travels
in the East.

366

THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE.

[VIII]

Lord Pan-
mure* s testi-
mony.

Again ap-
pointed
Colonial
Secretary^
and accom-
panies the
Prince of
Wales to
America.

own errors, if he had really committed them. Mean-
time, Lord Panmure was not slow to do the requisite
justice to his predecessor. He lost no opportunity of
testifying to the" admirable state in which he found the
Department, and producing the evidences of wisdom and
skill, as well as zeal and devotedness, which he had
found there. The faults had taken deep root before the
Duke's time ; and any man — even a heaven-born Minis-
ter— must have found them insuperable in the first year
of a war, after a peace of forty years. It is a testimony
due to the Minister for War of ten years ago to say that
after all that has been done, there is more still yet to
do, from the obstructive and perverse power of the
Horse Guards overriding the War Office.

The Duke joined Lord Palmerston's Cabinet in June,
1859, m tne rnidst of the excitement of the Italian war.
He was again Colonial Secretary, as he was till his final
resignation. It was in this capacity that he was naturally
chosen to attend the Prince of Wales in his Canadian
travels; but, apart from that particular fitness, he was
the very man to discharge the office of temporary
guardian in so responsible a case. There is no need
to describe to the existing generation what the guardian's
qualities were found to be on a trial so unusual and so
stringent. Political wisdom and firmness were requisite,
as well as the sense, temper, and manners needed in
the guide, friend, and companion of the young heir to
the throne. It is enough to mention the Orangemen of
Canada to show what this means. As to his manage-
ment of his share of the American intercourses, it is
not too much to say that the disposition to peace be-
tween the two countries may owe as much to the exem-
plification the Duke presented of the English gentleman

THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE.

367

and statesman as to the genial and hospitable temper
with which the American people welcomed and enter-
tained the Prince and his guardian.

Some of our first thoughts, in losing so untimely such
a statesman and citizen as the Duke of Newcastle, are
with the Prince of Wales. It seems as if he, on reaching
manhood, was fated to lose his best and most needed
personal friends. He has lost his father, and General
Bruce, his Governor ; and now the guardian and com-
panion of his first travels. Perhaps it is thoroughly
true of them all, that they died prematurely from being
worn out. In any position this would probably have
been the fate of the Duke of Newcastle; and, as he
was a statesman, it was sure to be so. Statesmanship
allows no option — no sanitary security — to earnest and
conscientious men ; and when, as in the present case,
there is a natural tendency to hard work to start from,
there is really no escape from that form of patriotic
martyrdom. This is not one of the pupil's dangers.
He has nothing to beware of in regard to the causes
to which his teachers and guardians have fallen victims.
His part is to feel the nobleness of such self-denial and
devotedness as theirs, and the seriousness of the work
of government, when not only the functions concerned
in it, but the work of training rulers, and carrying on
the unseen business of the Sovereign's home and family,
may call for the sacrifice of valuable lives.

Those who were personally acquainted with the Duke
of Newcastle must ever feel that the impression he made
on them was more peculiar than can be easily accounted
for from his type of character ; and yet those who did
not know him may truly believe that with the mind's
eye they see him very much as he was. Frank, honest

[VIII]

His type of
character.

368

THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE.

[VIII]

unassuming, with a genuine sense of human equality
always overriding any consciousness — or rather remem-
brance— of his rank, hereditary or official, he was easy
to know and to understand from afar. Those who were
nearest to him were subject to frequent surprises from
his simplicity, his unconcealable conscientiousness, and
abiding sense of fellowship with all sincere people, who-
ever they might be. As a nobleman of aristocratic
England, he was in this way a great blessing and a
singularly useful example. When we think of his can-
dor in his place in Parliament, his diligence, and
ever-growing knowledge, and practised sense in his de-
partment, and the national confidence he had thus won,
we feel that the public loss is irreparable. He never was
and never would have been a great political philosopher,
or sage, or leader. That was not in his line. But while
we need no less a staunch upholder of the natural and
honorable welfare of our country, a patriotic promoter
of its dignity and lustre, and a devoted servant of the
Commonwealth, from the Sovereign on the throne to
the poorest adventurer landing in a distant colony, we
shall miss and mourn the late Duke of Newcastle, and
anxiously watch the rising generations of "the govern-
ing classes," to see if we may hope for more like him.

IX.

THE EARL OF CARLISLE.
DIED DECEMBER 5111, 1864.

THE Earl of Carlisle lies dead at Castle Howard. Such
regret as is felt at the departure of this nobleman is
something rare in the case of a man who has not
rendered himself necessary to his country by his states-
manship, nor commanded homage by his genius, nor
established or continued a great family. George
William Frederick Howard, who was born in 1802, the
eldest of the twelve children of the sixth Earl of Carlisle,
filled no higher political office than that of Lord Lieu-
tenant of Ireland, was never married, and left no great
enduring work behind him to make him known to future
generations, or to illustrate his own time ; yet the sorrow,
the enthusiasm for the man, the recoil from the thought
of his death, which were manifested when he became
virtually dead to society, were such as the greatest states-
men, and the heads of the noblest households of sons
and daughters, might covet. It was his exquisite moral
nature, together with the charm of intercourse which
grew out of it, which created this warm affection in all
who approached him ; and through them the rest of the
world received the impression of a man of rare virtue
being among them — of singular nobleness of spirit, and

1 6*

His birth,
1802.

His moral
qualities.

THE EARL OF CARLISLE.

[IX]

His intro-
duction into
public life.

Made Irish
Secretary.

gentleness of temper, and sympathy as modest as it was
keen and constant. His function in the world of states-
manship seemed to be to represent and sustain the
highest magnanimity, devotedness, and benevolence,
properly distinctive of that which is called ' ' the govern-
ing class" in this country. He could not overawe by
commanding ability, or by power of will ; but nothing
ungenerous or flippant could be said in his presence ;
and he saw men and things in a brighter light than
others do — less through any optimism of his own than
because his own presence raised and refined everybody
about him. It is an encouraging thing, we sometimes
say, that all of us can tell of somebody that is not only
the best person we have ever known, but the best
that we can believe to be in the world. This is a
pleasing evidence of the commonness of a high ojder
of goodness. Common as it is, we believe that, among
those who were personal observers of Lord Carlisle,
every one of them would probably say that he was one
of the best men they had ever known.

His father was himself in public life, and early intro-
duced his son into it. The son of the Lord Privy Seal
of that day entered Parliament as member for Morpeth.
He had distinguished himself at Eton and Oxford,
whence he brought away prizes and honors, and that
love of literature which was to the end of his life his
refuge and refreshment under the pressure of State cares.
He had a near view of official life when his father was
in the Cabinet first, and in Ireland just before the
passage of the Reform Bill ; and he was first heard of
in that career when he was Secretary under Lord
Ebrington's administration of Ireland. That was the
time when a hearty and sustained attempt was made to

THE EARL OF CARLISLE.

37i

regenerate Ireland by the very best order of government
— by absolute justice and impartiality, together with such
considerateness and helpfulness as the dependent quality
of the Irish mind required. Lords Ebrington and Nor-
manby (the latter then Lord Mulgrave) each answered
to the ideal of a popular Viceroy; and Lord Morpeth
was supposed to supply the substance of good govern-
ment while his chief was engrossing the public eye and
haranguing the public ear. In course of time it became
understood that it was Mr. Drummond who inspired into
the administration of Ireland the vigor which distin-
guished the period, and which had disposed the English
public to see in Lord Morpeth a reserve of future states-
manship for the service of the Imperial government.
But though Thomas Drummond was really the great
man to whom Ireland owed the best government ever
seen there, Lord Morpeth was excellent in his post, and
more equal to cope with Orangemen, as Orangemen
were then, than anybody had suspected. It was in his
time that Mr. Drummond's saying about property having
its duties as well as its rights was regarded by Irish
landlords as a revolutionary manifesto ; and he stoutly
supported the new and strange doctrine of his friend.
It was Lord Morpeth who signified to Colonel Verner,
the representative of the Orangemen in Parliament, his
removal from his office of Deputy Lieutenant of Tyrone,
for giving the toast of "The Battle of the Diamond" at
an election dinner. On such occasions the reasons were
given very fully, and the tone was always dignified and
courteous; but the rage of the Protestant zealots when
they found that not only poor men were dismissed from
their humble offices for rampant Orangeism, but that
the most powerful leaders of the faction were dealt with

[IX]

His deal-
ings with
Orangemen.

372

THE EARL OF CARLISLE.

[IX]

The election
in 1841.

in precisely the same manner, exceeded all bounds.
Their hatred to the Government found expression every
day, in all sorts of provoking ways ; but they encountered
in the members of the Administration not only good
manners, but a spirit as bold as their own, and much
more manly. In the short time between 1838 and 1841
Lord Morpeth established such relations between the
Irish people and himself as forecasted his future desti-
nation, and theirs, as far as it depended on him. It was
the Government of which he formed a part which fairly
tried the experiment — regarded at the time as too rash
— of ruling Ireland by the power of the ordinary law,
agitated as was the country from a variety of causes,
and especially by the mortification and wrath of the
Orange faction after the exposure of their designs in
England, on behalf of the Duke of Cumberland, in the
prospect of the female succession which everybody else
supposed to have been settled past dispute.

In 1841 he went out of office, together with the whole
Whig Administration. One of the imputations on the
outgoing Ministry of Lord Melbourne was its ill-treat-
ment of Lord Plunket at the instigation of Lord
Campbell — then Sir John Campbell, Attorney-General.
The restless, ambitious, intriguing "Plain John Camp-
bell " coveted the Irish Chancellorship ; and Lord
Plunket was to be the sacrifice. The attempt, with other
mistakes, brought down the Ministry, and the Irish col-
leagues of Lord Plunket among the rest. None who
can look back to 1841 can have forgotten the sweep
that was made at the election of that summer among
the supporters of the Whig Ministry and its policy.
O'Connell himself was thrown out at Dublin, and Sir
De Lacy Evans at Westminster ; but the strongest sen-

THE EARL OF CARLISLE.

373

sation of dismay on the one side and of triumph on the
other was created by the defeat of the present Earl
Grey, then Lord Howick, in Northumberland, and of
Lord Morpeth and Lord Milton in the West Riding.

There are many Yorkshiremen who say at this day
that Lord Morpeth's speech after his defeat has never
been equalled in the history of elections. Some of us
who did not hear the address, but only read the Report
of it, are almost disposed, even while reminded of Burke
at Bristol, to agree to anything that the actual hearers
can say. It was a natural occasion for the magnanimity
of the man to appear ; and its effect on the election
crowd was just what it was every day on those who
lived in its presence. The feeling of many hearers was
that it was a happier thing to endure a defeat, even of a
ministerial policy, in such a spirit of enlightenment and
philosophy, than to enjoy the most unexpected triumph,
merely as a triumph.

Released from office, Lord Morpeth seized his oppor-
tunity for travel. He went to the United States and the
West Indies ; and thus, besides contemplating society
generally in those regions, he studied slavery, slave-
holders, and abolitionists to great advantage. Anti-
slavery opinions and sentiments were at that time in
deep disrepute in the United States : they were
"vulgar;" and those who held them were not noticed
in society, and were insulted and injured as often as
possible by genteeler people and more complaisant re-
publicans. On Lord Morpeth's arrival he saw at once
how matters stood, and he acted accordingly. He made
no secret of his own anti-slavery opinions ; and he
formed friendships with the leading abolitionists at least
as readily as with anybody else. It happened that the

[IX]

Lord Mor-
peth's de-
feat.

His travels.

His conduct
in America.

374

THE EARL OF CARLISLE.

[IX]

Again
enters the
Cabinet.

Succeeds to
the earl-

(then) annual Anti-slavery assemblage, to hold its Fair,
took place, on the part of Massachusetts, while Lord
Morpeth was at Boston. To the astonishment of ' ' the
elile of intellectual Boston," as they called themselves,
Lord Morpeth went to that Fair every day, and stayed a
long while. In no other way, perhaps, could he have
done so much good without doing any harm. Now
that the whole people of the North, genteel or otherwise,
are anti-slavery, it is remembered that Lord Carlisle, the
friend of the North in its struggle for national existence,
did what he could twenty years before to warn the
citizens of the retribution which they were incurring by
their wrong course on the Slavery question. What
seemed in him fanaticism or whim at the time, they now
see to have been a wisdom which it was not for them to
despise.

In 1846, Lord Morpeth entered the Cabinet with
Lord Russell's Administration. His office was the
Woods and Forests ; and he presently after succeeded
Lord Campbell as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.
In the next year he became Lord Lieutenant of the East
Riding of Yorkshire, on his father's resignation of the
office ; and in yet another year he succeeded to his
ather's title and the possession of Castle Howard. He
was looked on with some wonder and curiosity by certain
of his peers when he entered the Upper House, because
tie had been a subscriber to the fund of the Anti-Corn
Law League. That act had been regarded at the
moment as the strongest evidence which had then ap-
peared of the power and security of the movement.
Our readers may perhaps remember the efforts that were
made to explain away or discredit the fact of Lord
Morpeth having joined the League. Some said that

THE EARL OF CARLISLE.

375

the money was in fact for the purchase of votes ; and
others scoffed at so paltry a subscription as five pounds.
It may be remembered how he, poor in purse, but rich
in good-humor, noticed these insults, saying in his
speech that if he had been buying favor by his dona-
tion, his enemies must at least allow that he had got it
cheap. In a little while he had nothing more to do
with elections ; but he appeared a dreadful revolutionist
to some of the Lords for his share in the repeal of the
Corn Laws.

In February, 1855, on the change of ministry at the
end of the war, he went to Ireland as Lord Lieutenant.
It was a time of severe trial to Government. During the
Crimean war the gallantry of the Queen's Irish soldiers
won honor for themselves, and sweetened the temper
of their friends; and when they returned home, and
local festivals were instituted in their honor, it really
seemed as if political and religious feuds were forgotten
in the patrjo^p emotions of the hour. But the good
understanding did not last long. In September, 1857,
the Belfast riots took place, which never ceased to
astonish us till those of 1864 eclipsed them. It is
remarkable that in 1857 the outbreak was preceded by
the erection of a statue of O'Connell in Limerick. As
it was the first monumental honor paid to him during
the ten years since his death, it excited a strong sen-
sation. The quarrelsomeness of July had also been
very lively that year, so that all was ready for an
outbreak, even in a prosperous and enlightened place
like Belfast, when a few Protestant preachers obstinately
refused to leave off preaching in the streets, in the face
of the plainest and most fearful risks. The Govern-
ment placed the town under the Crime and Outrage

[IX]

His con-
nection ivith
the Anti-
Corn Law
League.

Appointed
Lord Lieu-
tenant of
Ireland.

Unsettled
state of the
country. .

376

THE EARL OF CARLISLE.

[IX]

Succecdedby

Lord

Eglinton.

Again
appointed
Viceroy of
Ireland.

His labors
to develop
the resource:
of the
country.

Act, and issued a Commission to inquire into the causes
of the riots. It was of no great use, as the arms were
put where they could be easily got at ; and the investi-
gation of the nature of the mischief did nothing toward
curing it. The Executive gained no force; and the
amount of murder perpetrated in the latter months of
that year tried the courage of every member of the
Government. To such cares Lord Eglinton succeeded
in 1858, when the Derby Ministry came in. There was
some idea that the office of Lord Lieutenant would be
abolished at that time ; and the proposal to that effect
discussed in Parliament was negatived amidst expressions
of belief, on all hands, that Ireland must ere long be
governed by a Secretary of State. Lord Carlisle was,
however, to be Viceroy again. He used the interval of
his being out of office to travel in the East ; and on his
return he published his ' ' Diary in Greek and Turkish
Waters."

In the summer of 1859 he resumed the Viceroyalty,
with Mr. Cardwell as Chief Secretary, on Lord Palmer-
ston's return to power. Ireland had been prosperous
under a series of fine seasons ; and there was hope of a
diminution of crime — of the crime which recedes or
gains ground according to the welfare or suffering of the
agricultural population. But there was now a succession
of bad agricultural years to be gone through, and the
condition of the people was more obviously declining
from 1860 to 1863 than at any time since the famine
and fever. Lord Carlisle devoted his efforts to improve
the agriculture of the country. By exhibitions, by
central and local meetings, by every aid that his
presence, his eloquence, and his earnest support could
give, he tried to give a wise direction to the spirit, and

THE EARL OF CARLISLE.

377

the capital, and industry of the country, during three
years of disheartening adversity and decline. When
these were over, and fine weather brought good crops
to light once more, the small farmers and the better
order of laborers were leaving the country as fast as
"they could. Lord Carlisle stoutly and indefatigably
maintained that the emigration, painful as it was to
witness, was unavoidable under the relative conditions
of the United States and Ireland ; and that it was,
under these circumstances, a benefit to those who re-
mained behind, as well as to those who went forth.
He had the most necessary qualification for a ruler of
Ireland in his indomitable hopefulness.

All other Irish interests had his good-will and best
assistance, as well as agriculture. He watched over
the Queen's Colleges, and the course of the National
Schools, and the increase of manufactures, and their
introduction into all the provinces. His hospitality, and
the genial cheerfulness of his Court and society, were all
that the discontented could lay hold of in the way of
complaint or ridicule : but in Ireland popularity is a real
governing power ; and as long as nothing better is sacri-
ficed to it, it is a power in the hands of an accomplished
and cheerful-tempered man which he has no right to
neglect or despise. Nothing that was done and enjoyed
at the Castle impaired the spirit of the Executive in
dealing with the rancor of bigots, or the insolence of
factious magistrates, or the outrages of agrarian conspi-
rators. Lord Carlisle's reign was not signalized — any
more than former viceregal terms — by success in extir-
pating Ribbon Societies, and in fortifying the loyalty of
the rural population to the law : but there were no
special causes in the Viceroy or his course of policy or

[XI]

Hisvieivson
the exodus.

378

THE EARL OF CARLISLE.

[IX]

Presides at
the Ter-
centenary
Shaksperc
Festival.

manners to blame for this. He was unable to do what
nobody has been able to do yet, and what will probably
be done at last by other agencies than that of any one
man, or set of men in office. The charge against him
was that he governed Ireland by words — by speechifica-
tion. The question is, how far is it requisite for a good
ruler of Ireland to be eloquent ; and it may be remarked
that after 1829, O'Connell himself did nothing for Ireland
but speak, though he had the mind and heart of Ireland
thus under his hand.

When the hoped-for change in the fortunes of Ireland
set in — when the crops improved, and the farmers began
to recover their means, and the emigration showed signs
of slackening, — Lord Carlisle's connection with Ireland
was dissolving. During the early part of this year
speech was becoming difficult to him, through a partial
paralysis, which did not show itself otherwise. He had
engaged to preside at the Tercentenary Shakspere Fes-
tival at Stratford-on-Avon ; but when April arrived his
physicians remonstrated against his purpose of fulfilling
his engagement. It did appear hazardous in the extreme
to put to risk his scarcely recovered powers of speech ;
but the festival seemed to be in danger of failure, several
pledged visitors had drawn back, and he was resolved
not to fail. There are many who can testify what his
address was, in matter and manner. The archbishop
by his side — Archbishop Trench — an anxious listener,
declared afterward that Lord Carlisle's speech was not
only as good, but as finely delivered, as any he had ever
heard from him. Others who were unaware how critical
was the occasion, were of the same opinion. The effort
seemed to have no bad effect. He returned to Dublin
better rather than worse. After a time, however, the

THE EARL OF CARLISLE.

379

affection returned ; and the whole right side became
paralyzed. He was in this state when the O'Connell
Statue celebration occurred in Dublin, and the conse-
quent faction-fight took place in the form of the Belfast
riots. Severe reflections were uttered, in private and in
print, about Lord Carlisle's absence at such a time. To
be sure it was "for his health/' as duly announced ; but
a man's health should wait on such a crisis as that was.
While such things were said Lord Carlisle was at Castle
Howard, helpless and dumb ; not only speechless, but
unable to hold the pen. His public life was closed.
He would never speak again, and he would never again
be seen in Ireland, or anywhere out of his own home.

His private life, however, had never been more beau-
tiful and beloved than now. Instead of the irritability
and depression which usually accompany the disease,
even where the intellect remains unaffected, there was in
him a serenity, and even cheerfulness, as unmistakable
as the clearness of his mind. He was as willing as ever
to receive what others said, without manifesting any
harassing need to reply. His drives, in the fine autumn
days, among the woods at Castle Howard, were a keen
pleasure to him as he watched the changing beauty of
their foliage. Sad as it was, his decline was so much
less grievous and terrible than it must have been in a
man of a lower moral nature that it was endurable even
to those who loved him best. When it became known
.that his career was closed, the echoes of his old elo-
quence must have awakened in many minds ; — in the
minds of the West Riding electors who had heard his
best-remembered speech; of the Leeds mechanics, to
whom he had spoken as a lecturer on Pope ; and of the
Americans and the Irish, to whom he had spoken frankly

[IX]

His serious
illness.

His last Jays
at Castle
Howard.

380 THE EARL OF CARLISLE.

[IX]

and affectionately on the interests of their country ; and
finally, of the lovers of Shakspere, who heard his last
public utterances, and could perceive through them how
much poetry had contributed to the happiness of a
thoroughly cheerful life. Literature was indeed a solace
and delight to him from the opening of his reason,
through all the labors and trials of life, and at last in
his decline, when all but mental pleasures had become
extinct for him.

He will not be remembered as a great statesman ; but
the tradition of him will remain as of the best and most
beloved man in the company of statesmen of his day
and generation.

X.

LORD PALMERSTON.

DIED OCTOBER iSiH, 1865.

HENRY JOHN TEMPLE, known since the age of eighteen
as Lord Viscount Palmerston, was born in October, 1784,
at the family seat of Broadlands, Hants. The peerage
is Irish, and his father was the second viscount. The
third, the subject of this notice, was early sent to Harrow,
where Dr. Drury was head master. He was among the
young men, of all politics, who were attracted to Edin-
burgh at the opening of the century by the fame of
Dugald Stewart ; and he spent three years under him
before going to Cambridge. He had just taken his
degree at Cambridge, and come of age, when he was
brought forward to represent the University. He lost
his election to Lord Henry Petty, the Lord Lansdowne
of our time. His failure was owing, Wilberforce said,
to his modesty and prudence about declaring himself an
abolitionist, which he really was, while he was taken to
be the opposite. So many of the records of the time
agree in ascribing modesty and prudence to the "lad,"
as his friends called him, that we are bound to suppose
that there was a time when Lord Palmerston was the
humble, serious, cautious personage who answered to
that title fifty years ago. He was clever, and evidently

His birth,
1784.

His defeat
in the
Cambridge
election.

382

LORD PALMERSTON.

[X]

First enters
Parliament
in 1806.

His contem-
poraries.

resolved to devote himself to political life; and his
opinions were speculated upon with interest, and his first
words in Parliament eagerly listened to. He took his
seat in the National Council at Christmas, 1806, when
affairs were in such a state that no recess could be
allowed. It is affecting now to think by whom he was
surrounded on his entrance into public life. Canning
was in his sauciest vigor. Mr. Grey, become Lord
Howick, was beginning to be acknowledged for what he
was, through the merits of his speech on the Address.
Mr. Perceval, hitherto only known as a violent partisan
Attorney-General, was making his first attempt at states-
manship. Romilly, as Solicitor-General, was fixing all
eyes and commanding all good hearts, by the nobleness
of his principles of legislative justice and mercy. In
the group of young men, entering like Palmerston upon
their career, were William Lamb, of whom the world
was to hear so much as Lord Melbourne ; Horner, who
was to disappear in a few years ; Ward, the able, accom-
plished, and eccentric Lord Dudley of a later time ; and
the Henry Petty, who had already put forth pretensions
as a financier. Among these sat the young Lord Pal-
merston, the gravest, the most diffident and cautious of
them all. He had not found out his own chief talent —
the ingenuity which was to be his distinguishing ability
through life ; a kind of ability which is perhaps the most
unalterable of all — imperishable, but never rising to
greatness, obtaining constant admiration, but never com-
manding the homage due to genius. What a disclosure
would have been, at the meeting of that Parliament, the
future of its leading members ! — the perishing of so
many by murder, suicide, madness, disease, and pre-
mature death induced by political care, while the grave

LORD PALMERSTON.

383

and prudent youth who came up from Broadlands and
Cambridge was to be there half a century afterward,
more gay and boyish, more easy and venturesome than
the youngest of his comrades whom his seriousness
seemed to reprove !

He ranged himself with the Ministerialists, and was
made one of the Lords of the Admiralty in 1807, under
the Portland Administration. In two years more he was
Secretary at War ; and in 1 8 1 1 obtained his desire to
represent his University. He was then only seven-and-
twenty. When five-and-twenty he actually consulted
that very small political gossip, Plumer Ward, as to
whether he was likely to prove competent to either of
the offices proposed to him — that of Secretary at War,
and of Chancellor of the Exchequer ; or whether it
would be more prudent to take only a seat at the
Treasury Board, in preparation for more arduous office.
He doubted both his capability in the Cabinet, and his
nerve in the House. His friend doubted only the nerve,
and went home to pen the patronizing judgment, "Ad-
mired the prudence, as I have long done the talents and
excellent understanding, as well as the many other good
qualities as well as accomplishments, of this very fine
young man." Such was Lord Palmerston in 1809, at
five-and-twenty. For nineteen years after he made his
choice, he filled the office of Secretary at War, — that is,
till the breaking up of the Wellington Cabinet in 1828.
During the first two Administrations comprised within
this period he was a Tory, as a matter of course, under
Mr. Perceval and Lord Liverpool. But, holding the
same office in all the three Administrations of 1827, his
Toryism was clearly giving way. He had always been
an advocate for Catholic Emancipation, with Canning ;

[X]

Made

Secretary at
/Far, 1 809.

Plumer
Ward's
opinion of

LORD PALMERSTON.

[X]

His speech
in favor of
Catholic
Emancipa-

Appointtd
foreign
Secretary,
1830.

and he was becoming a Free-trader with Huskisson. He
stood by Huskisson manfully the next year, when the
complication occurred about the East Retford Bill.
With the rest of the Canningites — Lord Dudley, Lord
Melbourne, and Lord Glenelg — he went out when Hus-
kisson resigned.

He worked well on behalf of the Duke's Adminis-
tration, in the memorable strife of 1829; and his speech
on behalf of the Catholic Relief Bill was pronounced
by the Edinburgh Review to be worthy of his great
ancestor, Temple, in sense, and superior to him in elo-
quence. That speech was a great act at a time when
words were deeds. He felt the admiring sympathy that
every man of any sensibility felt for Sir Robert Peel, in
his loss of his University seat on that occasion ; but the
time was near when he had a similar forfeiture to un-
dergo. When he supported Lord J. Russell's Reform Bill,
in 1831, Cambridge rejected him, as Oxford had dis-
missed Sir Robert Peel. He had sat for Cambridge
two-and-twenty years ; and, 'no doubt, felt the mortifi-
cation of his loss ; but he got over his mortification
better than anybody else ; for no one else, perhaps, of
genuine ability had so large and ready a self-complacency.
He represented in succession, Bletchingley, South Hants,
and Tiverton.

In 1830 opened the chief phase of Lord Palmerston's
life. He became Foreign Secretary, the capacity in
which he will be remembered best at home and wholly
abroad. He held the office for eleven years, with the
exception of the five months of the Peel Ministry in
1834-5. From 1841 to 1846 he was out of office, and
then returned to the Foreign Office for five years. The
first great question that occurred after his entrance upon

LORD PALMERSTON.

385

his function in 1830 was, what should be done with
Holland and Belgium, which had been united by de-
spotic authority fifteen years before, but longed for a
divorce. Politicians who judged by the map thought it
a pity that a union formed on so many conveniences of
boundary, rivers, and so forth — so perfect a manage dt
convenance — should be broken up ; but Lord Palmerston
took a profounder and more generous view of the case,
and countenanced the separation. There can be no
doubt that Lord Palmerston greatly increased the im-
portance of the Foreign Office by his administration of
its affairs. He had the ambition to make the influence
of England felt everywhere ; and in a certain sense he
succeeded. Foreign governments positively feared him :
and in the eyes of a large class of his countrymen this
of itself was an achievement to be proud of. But this
feeling was unaccompanied by any growth of confidence
in him on the part of the Liberals of Europe. In his
speech in March, 1830, he developed Canning's idea of
the necessity of increased sympathy on the part of Eng-
land with the cause of struggling nationality abroad;
but twenty years afterward he would not have felt
flattered by the judgment which the continental repre-
sentatives of that cause were everywhere passing on
him. At home the effects of a foreign policy which was
always irritating and unfruitful raised up a strong feeling,
resulting in the parliamentary conflict of 1850 on the
conduct of Lord Palmerston in regard to Greece, which
was condemned by a deliberate vote of the Peers. The
review of his policy by the best men in both Houses,
and especially by Sir Robert Peel in the last speech he
ever made, will not be forgotten either by contemporaries
or in history ; nor the defence, more able and admirable

17

[X]

His admin-
istration of
foreign
Affairs.

His policy
ondemned
bythePeerS)
1850.

386

LORD PALMERSTON.

[X]

His speech
in defence.

His

triumph.

The coup
d'etat in
France.

than convincing, of the statesman whose political ex-
istence depended on the result. His position was an
appeal to parliamentary magnanimity : the vote of the
House of Commons was in his favor; and he and his
partisans made a triumph of the occasion. But opinions
remained much what they were before. The most
striking result to observers of the man was that he
evinced so much more sensibility — so much more need of
sympathy than had been supposed. A great banquet at
the Reform Club celebrated what was called his victory ;
but the feeling still existed that he was standing on his
defence. The English Liberals, grieved and indignant
at the course of continental reaction in 1849, made use
of this occasion for holding meetings which should
answer at once the various purposes of manifesting
their own sympathies, encouraging the suffering patriots
abroad, and attaching Lord Palmerston decisively and
irrevocably to the right side. So thought the requi-
sitionists of those meetings ; but almost before they
were over their expectations were disappointed as re-
garded Lord Palmerston. He hastened to express to
Louis Napoleon his approbation of his coup d'etat; and
uch a forfeiture of general expectation precipitated his
retirement from the Foreign Office. He resigned the
seals in February, 1851. Before long the feeling which
had been kindled against him gave place to regret.
After all, as Sir Robert Peel said, Englishmen were "all
proud of him/' and felt an inability to give him up, and
a persuasion that if he could not keep despots in awe,
nobody could. The public were willing, in spite of long
experience, to take the word of the despots for it that
he was the worst foe on earth to what they called Order
and Paternal Government.

LORD PALMERSTON.

387

On many questions of domestic policy he pursued a
course that was very honorable to him. He did capital
service to the right on occasion of the repeal of the
Com Laws. Being appointed Home Secretary in the
Aberdeen Ministry in 1852, his prompt and effective
action in every part of his charge was a relief and comfort
to the whole kingdom. He attended to everything —
heard what could be said by well-informed persons on
every subject — denounced smoke, damp, fog, cesspools,
noisome churchyards, and all manner of nuisances, with
effectual vigor as well as extreme relish. The country
had just begun to feel that he was in his right place,
when it became known that he was in disagreement with
his colleagues. That quarrel was made up ; and he
went on again, and remained until the break-up of the
Aberdeen Ministry, in 1855. It was then that a new
bond was formed between Lord Palmerston and the
nation, and that he took a place in its regard which
he never lost. The mistakes, failures, disappointments,
and sufferings which had marked the progress of the
Crimean war, had sorely tried the heart of England.
It was believed that these were traceable partly to defects
of administration, and partly to a want of unity and
decision in the councils of the Government.

The country felt that it wanted for its leader an
energetic statesman of simple, definite aims and firm
will. Everybody saw in Lord Palmerston an able
administrator, and a statesman who always knew his
own mind. He became Premier, an office to which
he may be said to have been called by the public
voice, and the nation grew calmer as it saw a cheer-
ful, self-possessed, business-like man at the head of
its affajrs.

[X]

His domestic
policy.

Becomes

Prime

Minister.

388

LORD PALMERSTON.

[X]

His policy
during the
Crimean

and to-
ivard the
French
Empire.

As far as the event depended on the Prime Minister,
the war closed with credit. It was believed by many
of those who had an insight into the interior movements
of the political forces, that if some one else than Lord
Palmerston had been at the head of affairs, the war
would have continued a short time longer, with a some-
what different conclusion. There might have been a
more thorough humbling of Russia, a more just distri-
bution of the honors of the war between the English
and the French, and a treaty of peace more stringently
secured from any tampering in the future, if not more
effective in its immediate provisions. Lord Palmerston
was a good representative of his countrymen in his
indifference to the "glory" which is the idol of French-
men ; and he and they were good-humored together
under the sacrifice made to French convenience, self-
will, and complacency, under the closing of the conflict
at the precise moment when the English forces were
sure of carrying all before them, and those of the French
were at their lowest point of depression. The peace of
1856 was arranged without obstruction or much remon-
strance on the part of the people of England ; but the
popular distrust of Lord Palmerston's relations with the
lead of the French Empire was kept alive ; and it was
again prophesied that mischief would yet arise out of
the strange sympathy between a constitutional Minister
and the representative at once of the Revolution and
absolute rule. In this direction people looked for the
Minister's fall, if his fortunes should ever change ; but,
as far as appeared, he had no misgivings about either
lis wisdom or his political prospects. His confidence
was so far justified as that he issued triumphantly from
his appeal to the country against an adverse vote of the

LORD PALMERSTON.

389

House of Commons on the subject of the war with
China in 1857. The censure proposed by Mr. Cobden
was ratified by the House; but the country, unwilling
to lose a Minister so able and so popular, excused him
for the fault of going too far in support of the English
official in China who created the quarrel. Such a fault,
it was said, was an error on the right side ; and the
consequences in the existing case would be a warning
to all ministries to come, to choose their servants better,
and keep them in better order. So Lord Palmerston
found himself stronger than ever in the new Parliament.
But he showed no signs of having gathered wisdom from
his recent danger. His temper and manners were less
genial and amiable than before ; and he suffered by his
imprudence in letting it be seen that there were topics
and persons before which his serenity and dignity gave
way, either in irritation or unseemly arrogance. Thus
was he preparing for himself his last and greatest morti-
fication. On occasion of the Conspiracy Bill, Parliament
and the country separated themselves from the Minister
who was acting more as the tool of the French Emperor
and his generals than as the Prime Minister of England,
and Lord Palmerston fell. He tried an appeal to the
country, and conspicuously failed ; and there was some
doubt throughout 1858 whether his day was not over.

Every sort of crisis, however, brought the gallant
political soldier to the front. In the general alarm
about the war in Italy in 1859, everybody remembered
what Lord Palmerston had been to us at the time of
the latter stage of the Crimean war, and of the Indian
Mutiny, and by acclamation Lord Derby's weak Min-
istry was warned to make way for their abler rivals.
From that day Lord Palmerston has conducted the

[X]

The China
'war in 1 8 5 7

His defeat
in the Con-
spiracy Bill.

Again
appointed
Prime
Minister.

390

LORD PALMERSTON.

fXJ

Revieiv of
his char-
acter and

affairs of the country. Some of us believe that there
is much to regret in the fact, and that the consequences
will be rued by the next generation, as well as the
present. It is admitted by some who consider the
admission bold and hard, but required by truth, that
he cannot be credited with any great measure, or any
substantial, well-defined, wise, or beneficent policy. But
the case is graver than this. He never inspired, in
any sort of mind, any belief in him, beyond confidence
in his ability to avert evil, or to get out of mischief.
The more important the principle involved in any
affair, the more airy and jocose was he. The effect
was not good finally on his own position in the House
and before the country ; for there were many who had
no mind for jesting, and longed for earnestness on
serious occasions. This was a small matter, however,
compared with the feeling which was growing up against
him as the man who, so far from using his popularity
to restore and establish the principle and method of
government by parties, employed his influence in
weakening all political principle, and melting down the
whole substance of political conviction, by his treat-
ment of all great questions, and his tone in regard to
the gravest, as well as the most transient interests which
lay under his hand. By his levity he made many things
easy ; by his industry he accomplished a vast amount
of business ; by his gay spirits he made a sort of holi-
day of the grave course of the national life. But he
has done nothing to fit his country, or his party, or
even his nearest associates, for a wise conduct of
national affairs in the time to come. One reason
of the general sorrow for his death is the general
misgiving as to what is to come next. We find our-

LORD PALMERSTON.

selves adrift, without party, principle, or purpose by
which to direct our thought and our action. Experi-
ence, more or less painful, will remedy the evils which
our popular Minister has wrought in us, and for us ;
but, at the moment, we find ourselves with the most
unpromising of all new Parliaments, and with no states-
man to guide our destinies, and no such political training
as is needed to bring out such statesmanship as may
exist, or to supply its place, if absent, with the conscience,
the earnestness, the thoughtful habit, and the temper
of deference to human nature and human interests which
go far to supply the need of genius for public affairs.
Lord Palmerston will be remembered with much admira-
tion and affection ; but for national gratitude there will
be, perhaps, less occasion and less room as the years
pass on.

He did not claim the peculiar reverent consideration
usually paid to old age ; but it will not be forgotten
that he worked on to the eighty-second year of his
life, with little relaxation of power, and none of will.
He did his best for his country ; and the country, always
sensible of his services, is not ungrateful now.

[X]

In his

eighty-
second year*

XI.

Forty years
ago.

LORD BROUGHAM.
DIED MAY 7x11, 1868.

THE time was — and not very long ago — when the thought
that Henry Brougham would die some day was depress-
ing and terrible. It seemed as if a great light must then
go out — as if one of the strong interests of life must then
be extinguished. But the light so far waned during his
latter years, and the interest has so long merged in a sort
of pathetic curiosity, that his death is found to be a
much more endurable event than it could once have
been supposed.

And yet, when we read the political memoirs of the
last half century, and when we think what were the
hopes and the admiration entertained of the rising states-
man of forty years since, we turn once more to the good
words he spoke and the good things he planned in evil
days, and feel once again something of the emotion that
the name of Henry Brougham used to excite — something
of the gratitude attendant upon social services, which
we would fain cherish as the abiding sentiment con-
nected with his remarkble image. Now that he

gone
he was

is
it is fitting: that we should recall what he did when

young ; and the more, if it is impossible to

forget how he disappointed us when he was old.

LORD BROUGHAM.

393

The first glimpse we have of Brougham is as a student
of the University of Edinburgh, and a member of the
Juvenile Literary Society, established by the students for
purposes of literary exercise and debate. He and his
friend Francis Horner were distinguished members when
they were only fifteen. In 1796 he instituted the Edin-
burgh Academy of Physics; and in the following year
he and Horner were admitted together to the Speculative
Society. He seems to have been the vivida vis of all these
clubs and of some others, being the great speaker on all
manner of subjects, physical, metaphysical, political, and
what not. Horner early describes him as "an uncom-
mon genius of a composite order" "uniting the greatest
ardor for general information in every branch of know-
ledge, and, what is more remarkable, activity in the
business and interest in the pleasures of the world, with
all the powers of a mathematical intellect. " This might
stand as a description of him through life. In those
early days he was preparing, not only his habits of mind,
but his topics for future labors. In 1799 there was a
capital debate between him and Jeffrey on Colonial
Establishments, which appears to have occasioned his
first work — still by some considered his best — on Colonial
Policy. It appeared in 1803.

Meantime, that is, about February 1802, three of the
young company of philosophers — Jeffrey, Sidney Smith,
and Horner — had projected the Edinburgh Review. It
was not long before Brougham was invited to join. He
approved of the plan at first ; soon changed his mind,
and withdrew ; changed again, and wrote those articles
which gave the Review the early character so well ex-
pressed by Romilly at the time: "The editors seem to
value themselves principally upon their severity ; and

17*

[XI]

His early
and varied
accomplish-
ments.

Joins the

Edinburgh

Reviewers.

394

LORD BROUGHAM.

[XI]

Enters Par-
liament^
1810.

they have reviewed some works seemingly with no other
object than to show what their powers in this particular
line of criticism are." Sydney Smith used to tell, with
some playful exaggeration no doubt, how they enjoyed
their power over the irritable nerves of authors. "I
remember/' said he, "how we got hold of a poor little
vegetarian, who had put out a silly little book ; and how
Brougham and I sat one night over our review of that
book, looking whether there were a chink or a crevice
through which we could drop" (here suiting the action to
the word) "one more drop of verjuice." Sydney Smith
made a noble statement (Preface to his Works) of the
virtue and usefulness of the establishment of the Review
during the days of misgovernment which overclouded
the beginning of the century ; but there is no doubt that
these young advocates of freedom indulged in much
tyranny, and that the most vehement denouncers of
oppression inflicted dreadful pain. But they were young ;
and the times were hard, even exasperating to men enter-
ing life on the hopeless Liberal side in politics and
political philosophy.

In 1804 Jeffrey wrote to Horner that Brougham had
"emigrated." " So he writes me, but with what view he
does not explain." The emigration was to London ;
and his view was the practice of the Law and political
life. He entered Parliament in 1810, by the assistance
of Lord Holland. His friends entertained the very
highest expectations of what he would achieve there;
but the more prudent of them were not sorry that he
was likely to pass some years in Opposition, that his
tendency to caprice might be chastened, and that he
might have a chance of learning prudence in the safest
school. If he could but be steadied, they said his life

LORD BROUGHAM.

395

would be one of infinite service to liberty and Liberal
principles. They seem not to have inquired where the
steadiness was to come from, in the case of a man
of constitutional want of balance. These expectations
being ill-grounded, though generous, the ultimate dis-
appointment was unjust. His alienation from his old
friend Horner, as soon as they met in Parliament, and
might become rivals, showed where the weakness lay
which paralyzed, in after days, the action of his noble
intellectual powers. Even then the vanity was apparent
which became the devouring vice of his mind and
character. He occasionally drew near to his uncon-
scious rival afterward, and bore testimony, now and
then, to his powers and his virtues; but the old com-
rades could never be again as they were before egotis-
tical passion had begun to rule the heart of him who
was to survive. Brougham's first signal triumph in the
House was in his speech on the Droits of the Admiralty,
in January, 1812. It was an important subject; and
that speech did much to put an end to the notion that
the Droits of the Admiralty were the private patrimony
of the Sovereign ; but what Brougham enjoyed was the
opportunity for inveighing against royal vices, which
were quite bad enough at that time to make it appear
good patriotism to expose them. This was a function
of patriotism which suited Brougham exactly, and he
seized every opportunity of exercising it. At the end
of the same year, on occasion of the trial of the Hunts
Yor libel, he had a fine field for his vituperative powers,
and he so applied and harped upon the words "effemi-
nacy" and "cowardice" that Lord Ellenborough, the
Judge, lost all temper, declared that the defendant's
counsel was inoculated with all the poison of the libel,

[XI]

Brougham
and Horner.

His first
triumph in
the House.

396

LORD BROUGHAM.

[XI]

His services
to the
Opposition.

The defence
of Queen
Caroline.

and charged the jury that the issue they had to try was
whether we were to live for the future under the dominion
of libellers. The taste for vituperation grows by what
it feeds on ; and the Opposition soon found that their
splendid young advocate went too far. In 1816, when
there was every chance of the Ministry being left in a
minority, and going out on the question of the increase
of an Admiralty salary, Brougham spoiled all by an
outrageous attack upon the Regent, which emptied the
House of many of the best supporters of Opposition.
He was so vehemently reproached on that occasion that
his personal friends began to exhibit and insist upon his
services to many good causes ; and truly those services
were already great. Wilberforce called him "a laborer
in the vineyard," on account of his effective attacks
on West India slavery. He denounced the wrongs of
Poland, so as to trouble the peace of the despots of
Europe ; and he had begun that series of appeals on
behalf of popular education which will ever be his best
title to grateful remembrance.

It was before this time that Mr. Brougham had entered
into peculiar and personal opposition to the Regent,
by espousing the cause of the Princess of Wales. When
the Princess Charlotte ran away to her mother to Con-
naught House, and the perplexed mother drove to the
House to consult her advisers what to do, Mr. Brougham,
as her legal adviser, returned with her, and was engaged
till three in the morning, with the Dukes of York and
Sussex and Lord Eldon, in persuading the young Prin-
cess to go back to Carlton House. When the child-
less mother returned in 1820 as Queen Caroline, Mr.
Brougham was still her adviser as her Attorney-General,
and her spokesman and advocate in Parliament. He

LORD BROUGHAM.

397

went to meet and escort her on the Continent ; and he
supported her cause, as did his friend Denman, with an
intrepidity and disinterestedness which secured them
hearty honor from the English people. The Dukes of
York and Clarence voted for the Bill against the Queen :
and Messrs. Brougham and Denman were therefore fully
aware that they were rendering their professional advance-
ment impossible for two or three reigns to come ; yet
they fearlessly brought upon themselves the vindictive
displeasure of the Court and Government for a term too
long for calculation. The elder Duke soon died ; but
the younger, when king, never got over his dislike and
dread of Brougham, but was precipitated by it into
some very strange political action. Meantime, the in-
trepid lawyers had received their due, and were enjoying
the professional honors of which capable men cannot
long be deprived, in a free country, by the mere dis-
countenance of royalty. The excitement of the occa-
sion brought out all Brougham's powers and showed his
intellectual claims to honor to be as signal as the moral,
in regard to this business. Lord Dudley (then Mr.
Ward) wrote of him, in an enthusiasm very rare with
him: "The display of his power and fertility of mind
has been quite amazing ; and these extraordinary efforts
seem to cost him nothing."

Between that time and his accession to the Chancellor-
ship, Mr. Brougham achieved his greatest works — the
wisest and most beneficent acts of his life. He largely
aided the establishment of Mechanics' Institutes, begun
by Dr. Birkbeck ; and to him we owe the London Univer-
sity and the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Know-
ledge. The latter has turned out, in its direct operation,
a failure, from the forfeiture, on the part of Brougham

[XI]

Displeasure
of the Court.

His labors
in the cause
of popular
education.

398

LORD BROUGHAM.

[XI]

The pin-
nacle of his
fame.

especially, of the original promise that political philo-
sophy and morals should be a prominent subject. Even
his own devoted Edinburgh Review slid in a hint, in
the midst of much gratulation on the usefulness of the
Society: — "We trust, however, that the appearance of
the ethical and political treatises will not be unneces-
sarily delayed." They never appeared, and the classes
addressed by this Society found experimentally that
their own Harry Brougham, as well as other Liberal
leaders, had not faith enough in them to intrust them
with political knowledge, but preferred putting out, in
the most critical period of the nation's history, treatises
on physical science, as a tub to the whale. From that
time forward it was a deep popular persuasion that the
Whigs wished to withhold political knowledge from the
people ; and the effect of the persuasion was keenly felt
by the Whig Government, after the passage of the
Reform Bill. As to other results of the institution of
the Useful Knowledge Society, they were highly bene-
ficial. Those publications drove a vast amount of bad
literature out of the field, and stimulated other associa-
tions to vast improvement.

Ten years after Mr. Brougham had endangered his
political prospects by his advocacy of the Queen's cause,
he received the highest honor of his life. Under the
excitement of the French Revolution of 1830, and of
the accession of a new Sovereign at home, and in the
joy of having carried Catholic Emancipation, the men
of Yorkshire made Brougham their representative. He
said himself that he had now arrived at the pinnacle of
his fame ; and so he had. Amidst all the popular delight
and admiration, there was no great confidence that he
would fulfil the expectations generally avowed. It was

LORD BROUGHAM.

399

beginning to be understood that antagonism was his
element ; and it was suspected that, as usually happens
with that class of minds, there was a strong personal
Conservatism at bottom. There were men at that time
who doubted whether Brougham would not die a Tory,
and whether he would fulfil any of his virtual pledges to
the people. His services were so undeniable, that men
were ashamed of their doubts ; but the doubts existed,
and they were justified by the evidences of passion, of
jealousy, of vanity, of thorough intemperance of mind,
which manifested themselves more and more. Now,
however, he was at the head of the representation of
Great Britain, and it would be seen at last what he
could and would do. It was not long before all the
world agreed with him that the day of his election for
Yorkshire was, as he said, that of his highest glory.

When the announcement was made, the next Novem-
ber, that Brougham was to be the Lord Chancellor in
the Grey Administration, everybody laughed. Much of
the laughter was pleasant, with exultation in it, as well
as amusement ; but curiosity and amusement prevailed.
He had said that he would not take office, and that he
was no Equity lawyer ; so the anti-reformers quizzed him
on account of his new trammels, and said it was a pity
the 'new Lord Chancellor had no law ; for then he would
know a little of everything. His appointment was ex-
cused only on the ground of political exigency ; but he
disappointed expectation as much on the political as he
possibly could on the legal grounds. He was Chancellor
for four years ; and during those four years he made no
available attempts to accomplish any of the popular
objects about which he had said so much before he was
able to act. In the autumn of 1834, he ruined his

[XI]

Made Lord
Chancellor.

4OO

LORD BROUGHAM.

[XI]

His persecu-
tion of Lord
Durham.

Deserts the
Whigs.

political reputation and his prospects for life by a series
of eccentricities during a journey in Scotland. He
mortally offended the King, and made a declaration at
a public dinner at Edinburgh against strenuous reform
which overthrew the last hope of his admirers. At that
dinner began his feud with Lord Durham, whom he
persecuted to death. No sort of excuse has ever, we
believe, been attempted for his conduct toward that
faithful reformer, nor for the temper and language which
he thenceforth indulged in toward his old friends and
colleagues. So vindictive and fierce were that temper
and language that even Lord Melbourne, with his easy
good-humor, was cowed ; and the whole Ministry were
fairly bullied by Lord Brougham into desertion of Lord
Durham, after having upheld and thanked him for the
very acts for which they extinguished him at the bidding
of his cruel foe. It was a shameful chapter in the
history of the Whig Government ; and Lord Brougham
was ever after without political character and social
influence. He incurred universal reprobation by the
strange offer he made to take the office of Chief Baron
under Lord Lyndhurst as Chancellor. He pleaded that,
as he should not take the salary, he should thus save the
country i2,ooo/. a year; but the plea was a new offence.
It supposed that the nation cared more for i2,ooo/.
a year than for the political integrity and consistency of
its high legal functionaries. Brougham had, however,
already gone over to the Tories. He was on the most
intimate terms with Lord Lyndhurst and the other Con-
servative leaders : and it was natural, for they made
much of him, and nobody else did now.

His Law reforms were thenceforth his only titles to
honor ; and very great honor they deserve. We owe

LORD BROUGHAM.

401

to him much of the reform which has taken place in th
Court of Chancery ; he gave us those local courts which
go some good way toward bringing justice to every
man's door. It is with these .reforms that posterity, in
a mood of gratitude and good-nature, will connect the
name of Henry Brougham. For the last twenty years
or more of his life he sighed for that simple name as for
a great good that he had thrown away. He longed, as
he said at public meetings, and far more pathetically in
private, to "undo the patent of his nobility;" but if he
could have become a Commoner again, he could never
have recovered the popular confidence and admiration
which endeared to him the days which he had spent in
Opposition.

When he was still a youth, his friend Horner requested
a correspondent's opinion of his physiognomy. That
singular physiognomy was soon familiar to all the world,
in all civilized countries. Those who saw it alive and
at work could not doubt that his faults had a consti-
tutional origin which it would have required strong
moral force to overcome. That moral force he had not.
One of the noblest traits in his character was his attach-
ment to his venerable mother. She deserved everything
from him ; and he never failed in duty and affection to
her. During the busiest days of his Chancellorship he
wrote to her by every post. Happily, she died before
his deepest descents were made. He married a widow
lady, Mrs. Spalding, by whom he had two children — one
of whom died in early infancy, and the other, a daughter,
in early youth, after a short life of disease. His peerage
and estates, therefore, pass to the family of his brother,
William Brougham, late Master in Chancery ; the former
under special remainder in the Patent of Creation.

[XI]

His Laio
Reform.

His singular
physiog-
nomy.

402

LORD BROUGHAM.

[XI]

A blur in
the picture.

Lord Brougham was at his chateau at Cannes when
the first introduction of the daguerreotype process took
place there; and an accomplished neighbor proposed
to take a view of the chateau, with a group of guests in
the balcony. The artist explained the necessity of
perfect immobility. He only asked that his Lordship
and friends would keep perfectly still ' ' for five seconds ;"
and his Lordship vehemently promised that he would
not stir. He moved about too soon, however ; and the
consequence was — a blur where Lord Brougham should
be ; and so stands the daguerreotype view to this hour.
There is something mournfully typical in this. In the
picture of our century, as taken from the life by History,
this very man should have been a central figure; but
now, owing to his want of steadfastness, there will be for-
ever— a blur where Brougham should have been.

VI.
ROYAL.

THE LAST BIRTHDAY OF THE EMPEROR
NICHOLAS, JULY 6TH, 1854.

DIED MARCH 20, 1855.

THE birthday of the Czar is just over; and surely it
must have been the most anxious and dismal of his
birthdays, grave as the vicissitudes of his life have been.
He was born on the 6th of July (new style), 1796, and
already, while only fifty-eight, he is worn, broken, — older
in constitution and appearance than most men who have
lived ten or fifteen years longer. His most eager enemies
cannot look on such a spectacle as the decline of this
man and his fortunes without a sort of grief in the midst
of their satisfaction and thanksgiving : — grief that powers
so considerable, and a morale that once had much that
was fine in it, should have carried the man into a mis-
sion no higher than one of warning, after he and many
others had believed it would be one of retrieval and
amelioration.

There is no need to say that he was unhappy in his
descent. The grandson of Catherine and the son of

Celebration
of the Em-
peror's last
birthday.

His

parentage.

4o6

THE LAST BIRTHDA Y OF

m

Nicholas
tutors.

Ocfective
tducation.

Paul claims our pity at the outset. The mischief was,
however, simply constitutional, for he was too young
at the death of both to suffer by their example. He
was four months old when the Empress died ; and under
five years when his wretched father came to his untimely
end. He was therefore exempt from the horrible impu-
tation which rested on his elder brothers — that they knew
what was doing on the night of Paul's murder, and con-
sented to it as the only means of saving their own liberty
and even life. Alexander was then four-and-twenty :
but the child Nicholas, then a spirited and clever boy of
four and a half, was one of the last who received a
loving word and kiss from his doomed father. On that
fatal evening, Paul was in one of his amiable moods ;
and he went to the Empress, — that ingenuous German
girl who found the greatness which had at first astonished
her a miserable change from the freer and more modest
life in her father's castle; — her husband went to her
drawing-room that evening ; spoke affectionately to her,
and took the baby into his arms, and played with the
little Nicholas. The widowed mother did the best she
could for the boy, in the way of education. General
Lausdorf superintended it : Adelung taught him lan-
guages, and Councillor Stork instructed him in political
economy — to no great purpose, judging by the results.
He was more inclined to military studies than any other ;
and was almost as fond of fortification as Uncle Toby
himself. He was fond of music too ; and united the two
tastes by composing military marches. Though his con-
stitutional industry manifested itself in the pursuit of
such studies as he liked, he issued from the educational
process, ignorant — really ignorant of what it became,
not only a prince, but a gentleman to know; and not a

THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS.

407

few of the wisest men in Europe attribute his fatal errors
and misfortunes to this cause, above all others.

During his youth, he was extremely unpopular. His
irascibility was so great, that no one cared to approach
him unnecessarily. His manners were excessively rude,
and the contrast was daily pointed out, by those who
dared speak to each other, between him and the affable
Alexander. When he was twenty, he came to England,
after the peace. He was then a tall youth, said at the
time to be a stern likeness of his brother the Czar.
On his return he explored his own country, and lived
for some time in each of the chief provincial cities. It
was then that he became interested in the condition
of the lower orders of the people ; and it was probably
at that time that he conceived the idea of emanci-
pating the serfs, after an interval of ameliorated con-
dition. This was his brother's aim; and there are
some enlightened Russians who believe that Alexander
died broken-hearted on account of the "ingratitude"
with which his efforts for his people's welfare were
repaid. The words "ingratitude" and "repayment"
are commonly used on such occasions ; but in this
case, we imagine, the hostility was on the part of one
class, on account of the indulgence shown to another.
It did not, and it never will, suit the nobles (in their
own judgment) to have their serfs emancipated ; and a
somewhat recent instance of the calamities which may
ensue on giving anything like hope of freedom and
progress to any of the Czar's largest class of subjects,
seems to explain one of the marked changes in the
character and conduct of Nicholas. Seeing, as he did,
that every hope held out by Alexander led to violence
among the serf population — that when once assured

Unpopular
in his youth.

408

THE LAST BIRTHDA Y OF

[I]

His mar-
riage.

that they were regarded and pitied, they began to cut
their masters to pieces, or flay them alive — he gave
up the idea of regenerating the policy of the empire ;
and his course as Emperor shows that it suits him
better to make himself a type of Russian empire, and
the fufiller of the law of his predecessors, than the
imitator of Alexander, in trying to make something very
fine out of a mixture of the milk and honey of the
Gospel with the gall and brimstone of Muscovite
domination. Alexander had, however, something more
to trouble him than the failure of his benevolent
schemes. In the year 1817, when Nicholas was marry-
ing the Prussian princess who is now nursing him in
his premature old age, a secret society was formed in
Russia which left not an hour's peace to Alexander
for the rest of his life. For nine years he lived in
the knowledge that a great conspiracy existed, the
object of which was to form a federal union of
Sclavonic republics, extending from the North Sea to
the Adriatic — that object of course including the depo-
sition of the Romanhoff family. No means, either of
fraud or force, were of any use in putting down this
conspiracy ; and for nine years did Alexander walk
about with this fearful ghost at his heels, never know-
ing when the moment would come for him to feel its
grasp. This society intended to reform the political
condition of Russia altogether, and to reinstate Poland.
The conspiracy was a direct consequence of the war ;
and it is astonishing that Nicholas, who must know
this very well, has not deferred to the last possible
moment the sending his armies forth in European
warfare. He knows very well that the first secret
society, the Alliance of the Sons of the Fatherland,

THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS.

409

was conceived of and formed by young officers who
had picked up ideas of a better government than the
Russian in foreign countries, and yet he offered to send
his forces into Hungary on behalf of Austria, and finds
that the same thing happens again ; that the officers
and even the common soldiers have returned with some
notions in their heads which make his intervention in
Hungary more a loss to him than a gain.

The military men who returned home after the peace
inoculated the young nobility, and the disaffection spread
through the whole class. It is an old story. The des-
potic monarch and unenfranchised people are one party,
and the aristocracy another, and the two are in constant
antagonism in all despotisms. It is the natural operation
of this necessity which explains every Russian problem,
past and present, and will explain every future one, as
long as despotism exists there. The singularity and
fatality of the Russian case lies in the extreme depres-
sion, brutal ization, and helplessness of the popular class.
This peculiarity seems to point to a most disastrous
issue; and nothing in all the wayward conduct of the
present Czar so justifies the suspicion of his insanity as
his precipitating so unnecessarily the catastrophe which
sooner or later must come. It must be remembered,
however, that he is ignorant. He has no philosophical
insight into the principles of interpretation of history,
and he little suspects how the students and philosophers
of his day can read his horoscope, and tell his future,
or that of his family and empire, as confidently as if
they were prophets. By his best qualities, — his courage,
his energy, and devotion to a present purpose, — he
crushed the hostile enterprise at the time; and now,
nearly thirty years after, he is doing his utmost in his

18

[I]

Disaffection
among the
nobility.

4io

THE LAST BIRTH DA Y OF

[I]

Alexander's
decree as
to the

succession.

ignorance to revive it. One secret society after another
was discovered in Alexander's time, but, under the
appearance of suppression, each merged in the great
one which could not be traced. It spread south and
north, comprehending nearly the whole class of nobles ;
some of whom were democratic republicans, while others
limited their demands to reform, and the deposition of
the reigning family. It is a well-known fact that not
one distinguished family of nobles in the whole empire
was unconnected with the conspiracy. The Czar's Com-
mittee of Inquiry ascertained this, and with it the other
all-important fact that the immense majority were the
oligarchists, and the men who desired change without
any desire to help in inducing it; men who eschewed
the doctrinal consideration, while ready to avail them-
selves practically of the issue. In other words, the
majority were found to be manageable by means of
self-interest ; and nothing could be more skilful for the
moment than the young Czar's management of them.

The first step of the conspirators was to create con-
fusion as to the succession. Alexander's will decreed
that Nicholas should succeed him, and Constantine's
Act of repudiation of the crown was sealed up with
the will. So the conspirators declared for Constantine.
But the habit of Russian perfidy is too strong for such
dangerous occasions ; and while the conspirators were
making progress in St. Petersburg, and gaining over
the soldiers in battalions, their chief and dicator was
taking the oaths to Nicholas. It was not safe to inflict
much punishment. Only five men were executed, and
no more than 121 sent to Siberia. The wisest of the
five declared to the last that nothing but a total reno-
vation of the empire, and the adoption of a free consti-

THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS.

tution, could save Russsia from violent dismemberment.
When Poland arose, five years after this execution, the
Poles celebrated the death of the Russian martyrs, carry-
ing five coffins through the streets of Warsaw, inscribed
with their names. Perhaps this may be done again, in
the same streets, when that prophesied dismemberment
of Russia is accomplished.

Though that revolution did not take place, another
did, far less expected. Nicholas became apparently a
totally altered man. The strength of his will has never
shown itself more marvellously than in the restraint
which he instantly put upon his temper and manners,
and maintained for a long course of years. Those who
happen to have watched the insane know that the most
fearful of their peculiarities, in many cases, is the in-
stantaneous transition from the brutal to the human
state. You catch their eye, and are horrified at its
expression of ferocity and cruelty ; and before you can
withdraw your gaze, it is gone, and all is bland and
gracious. Thus was it with Nicholas, from the moment
when his foot touched the step of the throne. Stern
but no longer irascible, distant but never ill-mannered,
the brute part of him, known to be so largely inherited
from his ancestors, seemed to have been cast out. There
were always many who knew that it was not so ; and of
late, it is understood, his self-control has given way, and
his temper and manners are like those of his youth.

What his government of his dominions has been there
is no need to describe. The more hopeless he became
of doing effectual good at home, the more he has in-
clined to the policy of Peter and Catherine. He is
aware that the nobles regard the existing system as
doomed, and only expect or desire it to last their time.

Alteration
in the de-
meanor of
Nicholas.

Inclination
of his policy
to that of
Peter and
Catherine

412

THE LAST BIRTH DA Y OF

[I]

Mixture of
fanaticism
and laxity
in. his
character.

His family
relations.

He is aware that the host of slaves who worship him are
no power in his hand, but a mere burden. A man might
as well be king in a wilderness peopled by sheep and
wolves as in Russia ; and no one knows this better than
Nicholas. He is aware that he cannot reckon on the
honesty of any one functionary of his whole empire. He
has invited and pensioned savans and men of letters, and
instituted schools, and toiled harder than his own slaves,
and he perceives that society grows no better, but rather
worse. So he has recourse to schemes of territorial exten-
sion ; and there the same evils follow : — his ships are
rotten ; his cannon-balls are turned into wooden bowls ;
his quinine is found to be oak bark ; and while he is
paying enormous bread bills, his soldiers are perishing
under a bran and straw diet.

Of his fanaticism one does not know what to say.
His Empress turned Greek in a day to marry him ; and
this no doubt seemed to him all right and natural. But
when he wanted his daughter Olga to marry the Arch-
duke Stephen, he offered that she should turn Romish
in a day — should embrace the faith of those nuns of
Minsk who were so very displeasing to his orthodoxy.
It is probably in his case the mixture of fanaticism and
laxity which is so disgusting in the history of all Churches
at any time dominant, and involved with the State.

In his family, he is no less unhappy than in other
relations. His faithful wife, who has borne with much
from him, partly because there was no helping his
passions, and partly because he carried on his attention
to her through all his vagaries, has been wearing out for
many a dreary year under the fatigues of the life of
empty amusement which he imposes on all his family.
One favorite daughter is dead. Another is the widow

THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS.

of the Due de Leuchtenberg ; and the youngest is
Princess Royal of Wurtemberg. The two eldest sons
are always at variance, their ideas and tempers in regard
to government being wide as the poles. Their father
long repressed their feud ; but it has, like his other mis-
fortunes, become too much for him ; and the scandal is
fully avowed.

Thus has the proud man, the Emperor of All the
Russias, passed his fifty-eighth birthday, sitting among
the wreck of all his idols. They are of clay ; and it is
his own iron will that has shivered them all. Instead of
achieving territorial extension, he has apparently brought
on the hour of forcible dismemberment of his empire.
Instead of court gayety, his childish vanity has created
only the mirth which breaks the heart and undermines
the life. Instead of securing family peace by the com-
pressive power of his will, he has made his sons the
slaves, instead of himself the lord, of their passions.
Hated by his nobles ; liked only by an ignorant
peasantry who can give him no aid, and receive no
good from him ; drawn in by his own passions to
sacrifice them in hecatombs, while they fix their eyes on
him as their only hope ; tricked by his servants all over
the empire ; disappointed in his army and its officers ;
afraid to leave his capital, because it would be laid waste
as soon as his back was turned ; cursed in all directions
for the debts of his nobles, the bankruptcy of trade, and
the hunger of his people ; conscious of the reprobation
of England and France, whose reprobation could be no
indifferent matter to Lucifer himself; finding himself out
in his count about Austria, and about everybody but his
despised brothers of Prussia and (as an after-thought)
Naples ; and actually humbled before the Turk — what a

The results
of his
despotism.

414 THE LAST BIRTHDA Y OF NICHOLAS.

PI

position for a man whose birthday once seemed to be an
event in the calendar of the universe ! Be it remembered
the while, that he is broken in health and heart. He
stoops as if burdened with years; he trembles with
weakness because he cannot take sufficient food. The
eagle glance has become wolfish. The proud calm of
his fine face has given way to an expression of anxiety
and trouble. Let him be pitied, then, and with kind-
ness. He is perhaps the greatest sufferer in Europe,
and let him be regarded accordingly. But, as we need
not say, he is totally unfit for the management of human
destinies. We have nothing to do with the relations
between himself and his subjects ; but we must see that
he never again lays the weight of even his Tittle finger
on the destinies of any people beyond his own proper
bounds. We have done him some harm, in the course
of years, by our supineness and credulity ; and we must
regard ourselves, therefore, as not unconcerned in his
present abasement. We must sin no more in the same
way. Having thus resolved, — having made up our
minds that this common foe shall do no more hurt
to anybody but his own subjects, — we are at liberty
to compassionate, freely and kindly, the wretched man
who has declined into every other abyss before he
reaches that of the grave.

II.

METTERNICH AND AUSTRIA.

1854.

THE world begins to see now that Austria is very in^
comprehensible; and if, in order to comprehend her,
people look back through her history for half a century,
they find her proceedings more and more difficult to
understand, while the evidences of her utter untrust-
worthiness multiply. We know of but one way of
getting any light in this manner — to review the life of
Metternich, which is the real thread of Austrian history,
from the beginning of the century — a thread now and
then snapped or worn, but knotted together again, for
more pearls of policy to be strung on. Metternich is
very old — eighty-one ; and he is not in office : but, if
not in office, he is well understood to be in power ; and
it may possibly be of some use to the world to see how
it has gone on while Prince Metternich was in power —
avowedly or virtually. He has been the foremost of
the Ministers of modern times in regard to the power
lodged in his hands. His means of working out his
views have been practically unlimited ; and an estimate
of what he has done for human welfare, and of his suc-
cess in governing on his own principles, cannot but be

MetternicK'i
policy the
real thread
of Austrian
history.

4i6

METTERNICPI AND AUSTRIA.

[II]

His birth ;
and intro-
duction to
Court.

His mar-
riage.

Sympathies
'with Bona-
parte and
Alexander.

instructive to us in the present moment of obscurity in
regard to Austrian policy.

Prince Metternich was born at Coblentz, in 1773,
and appeared at Court when he was seventeen, in the
character of Master of the Ceremonies, at the corona-
tion of Leopold II. He saw England for the first time
when he was one-and-twenty ; at which early age he was
appointed Austrian Ambassador at the Hague. In the
next year he married the granddaughter of Kaunitz.
He went from Court to Court in Germany ; and then to
Paris in 1806. He saw, with his own eyes, the state of
the peoples of Germany and France during the conflicts
occasioned by the aggressions of Bonaparte ; he wit-
nessed some of the noblest movements ever exhihited
by nations in their hour of tribulation and peril ; he.
saw spectacles which stirred every other heart with
admiration and joyful trust ; but he brought away from all
he saw the one impression, ever deepening, that monarchs
were to rule in every particular of the lives of all their
subjects. His mind is narrow ; and it does not let his
heart have play. So, the rally of Prussia in the expec-
tation of invasion ; the enterprise of England in carry-
ing the war into the Peninsula ; the virtuous efforts of
Sicily before her betrayal by the Castlereagh Govern-
ment; the valor of the Swedes and the theory of the
Swiss, — all appeared evil in the eyes of the wise man
of Vienna. His sympathies were with Bonaparte (apart
from France) on the one hand, and with Alexander of
Russia on the other; and when those two were such
loving friends, on the raft in the middle of the river at
Tilsit, he could have embraced them both at once, as
fine specimens of the rulers of nations. It was he who
gave an Austrian archduchess to Bonaparte. It was he

METTERNICH AND A USTRIA.

417

who was cognizant of the secret article in the Treaty of
Vienna which the Bonaparte family conveniently dis-
covered when they met to hear that Josephine was to
be divorced ; and it was Metternich who, with indecent
haste and eagerness, carried the Archduchess to France,
and gave her to Bonaparte within four months of poor
Josephine's quick apprehensions taking their first alarm.
By no one act did Austria ever lose so much, in the esti-
mation of Europe, as by the eagerness with which this
alliance was formed ; and it was Metternich who con-
ducted the whole proceeding, and infused the eagerness
into it. On the other hand, there was the other pattern
sovereign, the Czar. Alexander's Holy Alliance was
exactly the scheme for Metternich, and he turned it to
purposes of oppression and repression, which made it the
hated and despised thing it was. His admiration of Bona-
parte's power and despotism did not, however, mitigate
the Austrian's dread of the revolutionary French people ;
and whenever Bonaparte became in any way the repre-
sentative of the nation, he became at the same moment
odious and formidable to the man who had procured
him his wife. It was Metternich who proposed an armis-
tice in the summer of 1813, when Bonaparte appeared
unable to follow up his victories, won at the beginning
of the campaign ; and it came out afterward that Metter-
nich always intended that Austria should join the allies,
from the time that he knew that the allies were pledging
themselves to prosecute the war with vigor — England
furnishing the means. He and the crafty Alexander,
and the double-minded Frederick William of Prussia,
were using the armistice for the maturing of their plans ;
and Metternich was preparing the Austrian declaration
of war while inducing Bonaparte to protract the interval
1 8*

PI]

Proposes the
armistice
of 1813.

4i8

METTERNICH AND AUSTRIA.

[II]

Metternich

outwits

Napoleon.

by an offer on the part of Austria to negotiate terms of
peace. The conference was delayed to the last moment ;
and the enemy was kept hanging on till the 9th of
August, when, there being no more time to lose, Bona-
parte wrote his conclusions. They were received a few
hours after the expiration of the armistice ; and Metter-
nich declared them to have arrived too late, unless the
Czar should choose to reopen the Conference. On the
Czar's refusal, Metternich produced the Austrian decla-
ration of war. There it was — all ready! Bonaparte
himself, who was as well up to a trick as any man, found
himself cheated by the three knaves with whom he had
been treating; and dire was his wrath. The lesson for
the French and English to learn from the transaction is
— to be on the watch when the Czar, and a King of
Prussia, and an Austrian (and especially Metternich) are
negotiating, and Austria has not declared what side she
will take.

After the first day's battle at Leipsic, the next October,
Bonaparte sent a secret offer in the night to Metternich,
who was at hand, to retire beyond the Rhine, if his
father-in-law would procure him terms. No answer was
returned, and on the field, after the second battle,
Metternich was made a prince of the Austrian empire.
His master thus honored and rewarded his minister for
having outwitted his son-in-law, — a highly moral and
genial state of things to precede the Holy Alliance ! A
pretty set of people to exemplify the principles and pre-
cepts of the Gospel in their way of ruling the nations !
Still, both master and man held themselves ready for
any cheating that might be desirable on the other side.
While the Treaty of Chatillon was hanging on, Austria
was so undecided and incomprehensible — not choosing,

METTERNICH AND AUSTRIA.

419

in fact, either to lose the French throne for the Austrian
branch, nor to leave the allies while Bonaparte might
yet be dangerous — that Lord Castlereagh himself was
out of patience, and urged Blucher and his Prussians
forward while the great Austrian army was actually
retiring. When Bonaparte had abdicated, and his wife
and son were actually on their way to him to share his
fortunes, as they ought, the Emperor of Austria was
enlightened as to the policy of taking them home to his
own Court ; and the weak and shallow-minded wife
was so enlightened during the journey in regard to
her husband's infidelities, that she let her horses' heads
be turned by the hand of the real ruler of Austria, and
turned her back also on the man of sunken fortunes. She
went to Vienna, and her husband never saw her again.

Metternich aided in the Treaty of Paris, and signed it.
His next honor was an Oxford degree, bestowed when
he came to England in 1814. For a short time — while
Bonaparte was preparing his return from Elba — Metter-
nich was in secret league with the Bourbons and the
Duke of Wellington against the Czar and the King of
Prussia, who seemed likely to break the Treaty of Paris.
But the return from Elba cut short all that ; and we
next find Metternich supreme at the Vienna Congress,
and entering upon that term of despotism which was
comparable only to the reigns of Wolsey and Richelieu,
till Canning broke it up, and gave the nations space to
breathe again.

When Metternich received (before anybody else), on
the yth of March, 1815, the news of Bonaparte's
landing, he was under a signed engagement on the one
hand to an "indissoluble alliance" with Russia and
Prussia; and, on the other hand, was in confidential

One of the
signers of
the Treaty
of Paris.

The " indis-
soluble
alliance."

420

METTERNICH AND AUSTRIA.

[II]

At the
height oj
his power,
1815-1822

Really a
•weakness
in the
Austrian
administra-
tion.

league with England and France against those " indis-
soluble allies" of his, who wanted to annex Saxony to
Prussia. There is another generation now in Prussia,
and something like it at St. Petersburg (for Nicholas is
twenty years younger than Alexander): and thus Prince
Metternich may be able to look them in the face; a
thing which must have been rather difficult if these little
secrets had come out during the lifetime of their pre-
decessors.

Thus was the Prince Metternich at the height of his
power. His period of glory was from 1815 to 1822;
and it will ever be cause of shame to England that
her statesmen were during that interval the mere instru-
ments for carrying out his policy, — a policy which has
really no one characteristic of wisdom, or greatness of
any sort. It is not possible that any but the despots of
Europe and their tools should point out any virtue what-
ever in the European policy (which was Metternich's)
that prevailed from the peace till the Italian outbreaks
of 1822.

Nor, with all its rigor, was there ever any strength in
the Austrian administration, while he was at its head.
His permitting Russia to endanger the Austrian prov-
inces in the Turkish war was either from partiality for
the despotic side, or from fear; and either way it was
weakness. He allowed the Czar to possess himself of
the mouths of the Danube without opposition from the
power which is dependent on the Danube.

When the French revolution of 1830 broke out, the
unhappy necessity arose for Austria to take some part —
to declare some opinion. For years past the Emperor
and his accomplished minister had had safe and solemn
employment in playing the jailer to the revolutionists

METTERNICH AND AUSTRIA.

421

at home — in decreeing the precise badness of the air,
food, and clothing of the Pellicos and Confalonieres ; and
studying how to increase their torments, how to soften
their brains, and break down their minds without abso-
lutely killing their bodies. Now they must say something
abroad as well as order things at home. They became
more affectionate than ever with the Czar and his
Prussian spaniel till a new light broke in upon Metter-
nich. His master had cried aloud, when the news from
Paris reached him, "All is lost I" But when Metternich
saw that the French had taken a king after all, and that
that king was as cunning and managing as himself, he
took heart, and hoped that all was not lost. His passion
for centralization was gratified by the functionarism of
France under Louis Philippe; and he evidently hoped
that that restless nation, put to such a school, would
come out as childish and automatic as the Austrians
themselves — those dear children whom their Father
Francis used to pat on the back as long as they had no
ideas of their own, but whom he tied by the leg, or hung
up by the neck, as soon as he caught them thinking.
While the French were being put to school, Metternich
was hard at work to prevent their restlessness spreading.
He helped Don Carlos with money — even money, which
is the scantiest of all good things in Austria. He put on
Mrs. Partington's pattens, and really made her broom do
wonderful service about his own door till the tide drove
him in. He had now completely pledged himself to the
retrograde policy of which England and France were his
chief opponents. There had been a time when he had
discussed the restoration of Poland ; but after this he
gave way no more to any ideas of improvement. In
1810, he had enabled Gall to publish his philosophy—

[II]

His retro-
grade policy

422

METTERNICH AND AUSTRIA.

[II]

His agree-
ment ivitA
Robert
Oiven.

his view no doubt being that that philosophy would be
capital, if true, as a means of managing men. Some
years after he gave a gracious welcome to Robert Owen,
bestowed several hours on him, and employed his secre-
taries for some days in copying Mr. Owen's documents.
Here was centralization in its utmost perfection. Every-
body laughs at the coupling of the names of Prince
Metternich and Robert Owen ; but, for our part, it
seems to us that the men are precisely alike in their
central aim, however otherwise differing in quality.
Both desire to render mankind happy by transacting
all their affairs for them, and pressing their minds
through a mould, so that they may come out all alike.
As for the rest, the one is as benevolent as the other is
selfish. They differ as to what to do with the children,
the one smiling upon them all, and the other frowning
and punishing the best of them fearfully ; but both agree
upon the great practical point, — that they two are to
treat all other people as children. In his countenance
of the Poles, as in his graciousness to Gall and Owen,
the Prince saw, for the instant, some feature available
for his use. The Polish insurrection was, in his eyes,
not a popular revolution, but a military rising for the
restoration of aristocratic privileges. As soon as Metter-
nich saw that it was one of the movements which
threatened despotism, as well as a particular despot, he
made all possible haste to the feet of the Czar, hoping
that it had not been observed that he had turned
his back for a moment in that presence. Graced with
the smiles of all despots, obeyed by the Emperor
Francis, invested with all the power that could be given
to a minister, he yet accomplished none of his aims,
and lost instead of augmenting his power. He utterly

METTERNICH AND AUSTRIA.

423

failed to amalgamate the 'elements of the Austrian
empire. If he had desired to fit them for splitting
asunder, he could not have done the work better. He
has not made the Austrian portion of the people wise,
strong, manly, virtuous, or happy ; and what the Italians
and Hungarians are, as portions of the Austrian empire,
no man living needs to be told.

At length came the year 1848. The Pope and his
reforms had been a terrible preparatory trial — poor Pio
Nono was so spoiling the Italian states ! Austria gained
nothing by the Ferrara movement ; and when the revo-
lutions of 1848 came, there was nothing to be attempted
but to keep down Milan and Venice by force of arms.
The docile children, or repressed slaves of a despotism,
are the victims or the demons of a day of revolution ;
and such were the citizens of the Austrian towns and
the peasants of Gallicia when Vienna was up. Metter-
nich's one idea, in the midst of his panic, was that he
must keep himself ready to go on, whenever regular
government should be restored. The Archduke John
assured the people (through their deputation) that Prince
Metternich would resign. The Prince assured them he
should not. The Archduke repeated his assurance ; and
Metternich retired, muttering about ingratitude for his
fifty years of service ! He fled for a time, and returned
ere long to his estates and his old haunts, under cover
of quietness, and pretence of helplessness through ex-
treme age. But there he is, alive and busy, though
without office. If Austria is hesitating in her policy of
to-day, it is because Metternich is feeling her way. If
Austria is obscure, it is because Metternich is scheming.
If she takes the side of the Western Powers, it will be
because Metternich sees it to be the winning one ; and

Obliged to
retire in
1848.

His Machi

avell'ian

policy.

424

METTERN1CH AND AUSTRIA.

Metternich
the repre-
sentative
of Austrian

policy.

if she wheels round to the side of Russia, it will be
because Metternich's old eyes will fancy they see the
bird of victory descending toward the Muscovite Jove
whom he adores.

The question for all Englishmen to ask is whether
they choose the settlement of the Eastern question to
be in any way materially affected by the influence of an
old man who is no sage — who has never succeeded in
his own object, amidst every facility that could be given
him — who has never manifested any comprehensiveness
of views, any intellectual depth, any moral nobleness,
any great quality whatever of statesmanship or manhood.
The day will come which will show whether Francis
Joseph is worth more than his predecessors ; but, while
Metternich lives, Austria is Metternich ; and history
holds up to us, for our warning, the picture at full length
of Metternich as an ally.

III.

THE DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER.
DIED APRIL 3OTH, 1857.

THE death of the last of the fifteen children of
George III. carries back all minds over a large space
of time, and would create an historical interest in con-
nection with the death of the Duchess of Gloucester,
if there had been much less than there is of personal
interest attending the character of the amiable Princess
who has just departed. Her birth, and her title by
marriage, recall some associations which it may be useful
to revive, under the altered circumstances of a new
century and generation. The discontents which existed
for a time between the father and the father-in-law of
the deceased Princess produced consequences on her
life — and that of most of her family — and on public
morals and welfare, which ought not to be forgotten in
a review of her character and position, and which are
not yet extinct in regard to the existing generation.

George III. married, in 1761, the Princess Charlotte
of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. He was not satisfied with
pleasing himself in his own marriage, but fully expected
that his brothers would please, not themselves, but him,
in their marriages. They did not do so ; and when he
was a sober married man, with half-a-dozen children, he

Historical
interest con-
nected with
her death.

426

THE DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER.

[Ill]

Pro-visions
of the Royal
Marriage
Act.

was excessively scandalized at the discovery that the Duke
of Cumberland had married Mrs. Horton, and the Duke
of Gloucester the Countess Dowager of Waldegrave.
There were immediate political consequences arising
from the family quarrel— the Opposition rinding their
spirits and forces at once revived; but a more per-
manent, and far more serious consequence was, that
the Royal Marriage Act was devised by the King, and
carried through Parliament with a high hand, in the
midst of protests and remonstrances from Burke, Lords
Cam den and Rockingham, and others, and many fore-
bodings of the mischief it would cause. Under this Act
no descendant of George II. could marry under the age
of twenty-five without the King's consent ; nor after
that age otherwise than after applying to the Privy
Council (in case of the Sovereign's disapprobation), and
waiting a year to see whether either House of Parlia-
ment would address the King against the marriage —
which, in that case, could not take place. It was too
late now, happily, to overthrow the Duke of Gloucester's
marriage, which had taken place five years before. It
was declared at Court in the autumn of 1772, the same
year that the Royal Marriage Act passed. The fanaticism
of the German Queen for royal quarterings, which even
exceeded the passion of the King for prerogative, was
necessarily mortified this time; but both were resolved
that it should be the last. Their children should marry
royalty, or not marry at all. They never doubted
whether they could enforce their decision when once
they had the law on their side. Certain other, prior, and
greater laws of human nature they made no account of.

After the birth of two daughters, the discountenanced
pair had a son, who remained the only one. He was

THE DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER.

427

bom at Rome, on the i5th of January, 1776; and all
the English in Rome were present at his baptism, the
next month. On the 2 5th of the following April was
born the eleventh child of George III.— the Princess
Mary, who was to be the wife of the little cousin at
Rome. The event was signalized by a rather remark-
able address presented (on the day of the baptism) by
the Lord Mayor and the Corporation of London — an
address which contained a sermon on laws, liberties, and
the glorious Revolution, which did not seem to have
much to do with the infant Princess, and which got a
very short answer from the King. That was the time
when the Americans were preparing their Declaration
of Independence, which was promulgated on the 4th of
the next July; and when M. Necker was put at the
head of French finance — a time at which King George
did not want to hear anything about liberties and revo-
lutions, and when accordingly all manner of people
were seizing every opportunity of preaching to him
about them.

During the long course of years in which many of
the other members of the family were involved in the
penalties and perplexities of their rank, with regard to
love and marriage, it was believed that the Princess
Mary and her cousin, the Duke of Gloucester, were
attached. She was interested in his Cambridge life (his
education being finished there); and she gloried in his
receiving the General's thanks in the field, when he was
fighting in Flanders, so early as 1794. He proved him-
self both a gallant and able soldier, and really won his
rank, which rose to that of Field-Marshal in 1816.
When the young people were one-and-twenty, the Prin-
cess Charlotte was born ; and as it soon became under-

[III]

Her birth,

428

THE DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER.

[Ill]

General
favorite
•with all.

stood that there would be no heir apparent if the
Princess of Wales lived, the necessity was admitted of
keeping the Duke of Gloucester single, to marry the
presumptive heiress of the throne, in case of no eligible
foreign prince appearing for that function. For twenty
of their best years the Duke and the Princess were kept
waiting, during which interval (in the year 1805) he
succeeded to the title on his father's death. Everybody
liked and loved the Princess Mary, who was a pattern
of duty and sweetness through all the family trials she
had to witness and share in ; and the Duke, though not
a man of much political ability, was in that part of his
life a Whig, and on the generous and liberal side of
almost every question. We are obliged to say "almost,"
because he supported with his whole force the exclusion
of Dissenters from the Universities, when he was Chan-
cellor of the University of Cambridge, after the death of
the Duke of Grafton. On the anti-slavery question he
was as earnest in his own way as Wilberforce in his,
and kind and helpful in all matters of charity that came
before him. Romilly tells us a curious thing of him —
that he volunteered, in a tele-d,-iete with Sir S. Romilly,
his declaration that Queen Caroline was innocent, and
that her accusers were perjured. He latterly became a
Tory; but, for the greater part of his life, the same
genial spirit of liberality and personal unassumingness
distinguished him and the Princess Mary. As for her,
she pleased old and young alike. Lord Eldon used to
tell with delight a joke of Queen Charlotte's — about the
last person in the world whom any one would suspect of
jesting. Her Majesty used to charge the Lord Chan-
cellor with flirting with her daughter Mary; and the
Chancellor used to reply that he was not emperor, king

THE DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER.

429

or prince, and that, moreover, he was married already —
a reply which reminds us of that reported by Charles
Lamb of six Scotchmen, who, on somebody wishing that
Burns was present, all started forward on their seats to
declare that that was impossible, because Burns was
dead. But we must suppose that Lord Eldon, who
really had humor in his way, considered the above as
near an approach to jocularity as could be permitted in
the presence of royalty.

In 1814, when the Prince of Orange was in England,
and his father announced his approaching marriage with
the Princess Charlotte, Princess Mary looked bright and
happy. Lord Malmesbury recorded in his Diary what
her manners were like when the charm of youth was
past, and the character of womanhood was marked. He
said she "was all good-humor and pleasantness;"
adding, ' ' her manners are perfect ; and I never saw or
conversed with any princess so exactly what she ought
to be." And no one living, perhaps, knew more
princesses, or more of what they really were, than the
old diplomatist. The Prince of Orange went away, and
Princess Mary drooped. Everybody was saying that the
Duke of Gloucester must be the Princess Charlotte's
bridegroom after all. But a few months more put an
end to the long suspense. When the Princess Charlotte
descended the great staircase at Carlton House, that
May evening after the ceremony of her marriage, she
was met at the foot with open arms by the Princess
Mary, whose face was bathed in tears. The Duke and
Duchess of Gloucester were married in a few weeks —
on the 2$d of July, 1816. The bride's demeanor was
so interesting and affecting that it opened the sluices of
Lord Eldon's ready tears, which he declared ran down

[III]

Lord

Malmes-
bury^s
opinion of
the Princess
Mary.

Her mar-
riage.

THE DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER.

[Ill]

Death of
the Duke.

his cheeks ; but the Chief Justice, Lord Ellenborough,
also present, must have been in another mood. Some
persons were talking in a corner of the crowded room ;
and the Chief Justice called to them, in the midst of the
ceremony, "Do not make such a noise in that corner —
if you do, you shall be married yourselves." It is rather
pathetic now to think of the details of that marriage — the
crowded saloon — the royal mother and sisters on one
side the altar, and the royal brothers on the other— the
bride, though no longer young, "looking very lovely," in
a remarkably simple dress ; to remember how the scene
was related at every fireside in England ; and then to
think that none of the family, and probably no one who
was present, survives.

No application was made to Parliament for an increase
of income in this case. The benevolent habits of the
Duke and Duchess had taught them in a practical way
the value of money ; and they arranged their plan of life
so as to make their means suffice, and leave enough for
much support of schools, and aid to many a good cause.

They lived together eighteen years — the Duke dying
in November, 1834. It surprised no one that his wife
proved herself the most assiduous and admirable of
nurses during her husband's decline. After his death,
she lived in as much retirement as her rank admitted,
doing good where she could, and universally beloved.
She saw the last of her immediate relatives drop from her
side, and herself left the survivor of that long family
train that used to look so royal and so graceful when
returning the admiring salutations of the public on the
terrace at Windsor. All that long series of heart histories
was closed. The wretched avowed marriages, and the
wretched, or happy, or chequered secret marriages, and

THE DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER.

the mere formal state marriages, which took place in
consequence of the Princess Charlotte's decease, had
been alike dissolved by death. What a world of misery
could this survivor have told of, arising from the law-
made incompatibility between royalty and the natural
provision for the domestic affections ! The elaborate
and public preparation required by the Marriage Act
in her own case, by which her marriage was made an act
of the State, was painful enough ; but her lot, with its
one steady affection, long in suspense and late gratified,
was a happy one in comparison, perhaps, with that of
any other member of the family ; and many a painful
meditation must she have had on that piece of enforced
legislation of her father's early and headstrong years.
Those various love stories are hidden now in the grave ;
and she who was the depositary of so many of them has
followed them thither. There, then, let them rest.

But the lesson they yield should not be neglected.
There was a strong hope that when our young Queen
Victoria, who was at full liberty, as Sovereign, to please
herself in marriage, had made her choice, this wretched
and demoralizing Marriage Act, always reprobated by the
wisest and best men of the time, would be repealed.
There were then none left of the last generation who
could be pointed at, or in any way affected, by such a
repeal ; and it was thought that it would be wise to do
the thing before there was a new generation to introduce
difficulty into the case. The opportunity has almost been
allowed to slip from us. The royal children have ceased
to be children, at least the elder ones. Meantime, there
is, as we all know, a strong and growing popular dis-
trust, in our own country and in others, of the close
dynastic connections which are multiplying by means of

[III]

Lesson to be
learnt from
the 'working
of the Royal
Marriage
Act.

432

THE DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER.

[Ill]

Necessity
for the re-
peal of the
Act.

the perpetual intermarriages of a very few families.
The political difficulties recently, and indeed constantly,
experienced from the complication of family interests,
involving almost every throne in Europe, are a matter of
universal feeling and conversation. There is no chance
for the physical and intellectual welfare of coming
generations when marriages take place among blood
relations; and there is no chance for morality and
happiness when, under legal or state compulsion, young
people love in one direction and marry in another. No
evils that could possibly arise from marriages out of the
royal pale can for a moment compare with the inevitable
results of a royal marriage law like ours, perpetuated
through other generations than the unhappy one that is
gone. Royalty will have quite difficulties enough to
contend with, all through Europe, in coming times,
without the perils consequent on this law. Its operation
will expose all the intermarried royal families in Europe
to criticism and ultimate rejection by peoples who will
not be governed by a coterie of persons diseased in body
through narrow intermarriage, enfeebled in mind, — strong
only in their prejudices, and large only in their self-
esteem and in their requirements. There is yet time to
save the thrones of Europe — or at least the royal palaces
of England — from the consequences of a collision be-
tween the great natural laws ordained by Providence,
and the narrow and mischievous artificial law ordained
by a wilful King of England. That King is in his grave,
and the last of his children is now gone to join him
there. Let the time be laid hold of to bury his evil work
in the tomb which is now to be sealed over him and his
forever ; and the act will be gratefully acknowledged by
a long line of future princes and princesses, who will b^

THE DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER. 433

spared the bitter suffering of those who have gone before.
It can never be, as was said by wise men eighty years
ago, that royal personages who are declared of age at
eighteen will have no will of their own, in such a matter
as marriage, at five-and-twenty. Marriage is too solemn
and sacred a matter to be so treated as a piece of state
politics : and the ordinance which is holy in the freedom
of private life may be trusted with the domestic welfare
of prince and peasant alike.

'9

[III]

IV.

Prussia an
artificial,
not a natu-
ral state.

KING FREDERICK WILLIAM IV. OF
PRUSSIA.

DIED JANUARY 20, 1861,

KING FREDERICK WILLIAM IV. of Prussia is dead
after a long period of disease of body and mind. He
had become a painful spectacle in the eyes of all Europe ;
and at a moment when we are all disposed to regard
his life and reign in the spirit of justice rather than of
criticism, it is natural to review the conditions which
rendered his career a disappointment to himself and
his people, and a byword among the nations.

Every Prussian monarch ascends the throne under the
evil condition that the Prussian State in its present form
is a wholly artificial one. Why the Prussia of our
geographies exists as a European state, no one seems
able to say. There are no natural reasons — like those
of structure and conformation. On the map, Prussia
looks like the Mr. Nobody of the nursery — all limbs
and no trunk — all outline and no mass. Never before
was there such a frontier to such a paucity of square
miles. The natural weakness of Prussia in a territorial
sense is a most depressing condition in the fortunes of
its ruler. The population is as much an aggregation of
shreds and patches as their abode. There is no domi-

KING FREDERICK WILLIAM IV. OF PRUSSIA. 435

nating sense of unity among them, and the heir of any
throne which is based on a loose rubble of popular ma-
terials, instead of on a sound nationality, is much to be
pitied. Prussia in her present limits is an artificial state,
constructed for the convenience of other states ; and it
cannot be well governed, nor its rulers prosperous, till
some one of them shows genius of that high order which
can create a nationality by animating all hearts by a
common impulse. The man who can kindle such a fire
of patriotism as will consume all the discrepancies which
make Prussia the political riddle of the world, may make
her a bond fide state, and bring her into some capacity of
being well governed ; but this was not done ready to the
hand of Frederick William IV.; and he. was not the
man to do it ; and whether any man can do it is as yet
questionable. Thus far, therefore, to say that any King
of Prussia has not made a good ruler is simply to say
that he was not a genius of the highest order ; and it
would be hard to blame any man for that.

Again, the late King was born in 1795; and during
the most impressible years of his life he was in the
constant habit of hearing of the protracted fears, with
short alternations of hope, in which the princes of
Germany lived during the brilliant years of Bonaparte's
sway. The boy lived in an atmosphere of panic. He
was ten years old when the Prussian court was trimming
between Bonaparte and Alexander of Russia, and keep-
ing England quiet, and Mr. Pitt exhilarated, by promises
of alliance ; while the only certainty in the case was that
Prussia, having deceived all parties, would be punished
by whichever of them should be victorious. The boy of
eleven must have shared more or less in the distress of
his parents and the court when the true object of the

.[IV]

His birth,
1795-

436 KING FREDERICK WILLIAM IV. OF PRUSSIA.

[IV]

Flight with
his parents
from Berlin.

Confederacy of the Rhine was revealed, and when it was
discovered that Prussia was despised by every govern-
ment in Europe, and delivered up by them all to the
mere rapacity of France. He fled with his parents when
the French swept on toward Berlin ; and he never forgot
the misery of renewing the flight with every fresh arrival
of bad news till they reached Memel, and held them-
selves ready for exile beyond the frontier. There, news
was incessantly arriving of the seizure of fortresses and
stores by the enemy, and at length that seven of the
ministers of state had sworn allegiance to Bonaparte.
The little Prince probably witnessed that pathetic scene
between his parents and the Czar Alexander at Memel,
in the next April, when they embraced, and kissed, and
mingled their tears, and promised each other to devote
their lives to the task of humbling their foe. He probably
witnessed, too, the behavior of the Czar to his parents
at Tilsit but a few weeks afterward, when his father was
insulted in his daily rides, in the face of the assembled
multitude, by the two Emperors, and when Napoleon
quailed before the indignation and grief of the spirited
mother of this twelve-year-old boy — so early instructed
in the instability of states, and the folly of putting trust
in princes. It was a melancholy childhood, it must be
owned ; but, in the midst of our compassion, we cannot
but wish that the boy had learned to shun instead of to
follow the example of untrustworthy princes. When he
returned to Berlin, his father's singularly pathetic procla-
mation, releasing the inhabitants of hj$ lost provinces
from their allegiance, was everywhere before his eyes ;
and the French language was everywhere in his ears,
from the French garrisons which were stationed all over
the country. But he was still very young when the

KING FREDERICK WILLIAM IV. OF PRUSSIA.

437

cheering rally took place which showed what the people
were made of, and opened some brightness of prospect
to their future king. His father sent him into the field
while he was yet too young for command. He had
studied military science under Scharnhorst and Knese-
beck ; and he was present in most of the great battles
of 1813 and 1814.

He had been meantime instructed in philosophy and
literature, which suited him much better than practical
military matters. He had not nerve, practical judgment,
or decision enough for action ; yet he must have been
endowed with some high qualities, for his tutor, Niebuhr,
when the royal pupil was nineteen, declared that he never
met with a finer nature. It is true, Niebuhr speaks more
of feeling and fancy than of principle and judgment ;
but he declares him full of the noblest gifts of nature.
The "dream" of the Crown Prince in those days (and
there was never a time when he did not dream) was of
being the ruler of Greece, "in order to wander among
the ruins, dream, and excavate." What a pity that he
was born to the throne of Prussia !

He was a member of the Council of State when the
question of the time was the granting of a parliamentary
representation. It was a bad training for him to have
heard the reasons for giving a constitution, if reasons
there were, or to have seen what was yielded to fear, if
fear was the cause of the promise ; and then to have wit-
nessed the long delay, and the final breach of promise
on the part of his father, which must have deeply injured
either his principles or his sensibilities. Even Niebuhr,
who disliked the movements on behalf of popular free-
dom, never, in the days of his highest and latest con-
servatism, pretended to countenance the conduct of the

[IV]

Niebuhr**
opinion of
his pupil.

Hi s political
training.

438

KING FREDERICK WILLIAM IV. OF PRUSSIA.

[IV]

His mar-
riage.

Princes of Germany, who promised constitutions, and
then withdrew or never bestowed them. The late King
seemed, however, radically unable to understand what
the purpose of a constitution really was. He said he
would never allow a bit of paper to interpose between
him and his people ; and he evidently thought that tears,
and kisses of the hand, and processions and demonstra-
tions in the streets, were of far more weight and efficacy
than constitutional provisions. He saw inscribed in the
statute-book his father's promise in 1815 to develop the
national representation, as soon as peace should be
secured ; and he heard his father say, in 1817, and thence-
forth at intervals till 1840, that "not every time is the
right time ;" and that he had never mentioned the date at
which he would do it. Such was the political training of
the Crown Prince. It is no wonder that when he had
married, in 1823, a Bavarian princess, he turned from
politics to art, literature, and speculative philosophy.
Niebuhr, on returning from Rome, met him again, a year
after this marriage, and thought him "improved beyond
description" — with a mind full of knowledge, and a
heart full of fine sensibilities. Yet at this time the Crown
Prince's notion of European politics comprehended little
more than the old jealousy of Austria ; and the worship
of Russia, as the only stout bulwark against Austrian
supremacy. There were occasional paroxysms of fear of
revolution in 1830, for instance, and whenever reform
was anywhere heard of; and there were occasional
scrapes, arising from meddlings with Protestant sects, or
getting into quarrels with the Pope and the clergy —
scrapes incurred by the third Frederick, and affording a
curious training for the fourth of the name ; but, on the
whole, the Prince lived for art and literature, for dreams

KING FREDERICK WILLIAM IV. OF PRUSSIA.

439

and sentiment, till he came to the throne in 1840. His
presence in this country in the beginning of 1842, and
his far-famed breakfast with Mrs. Fry, and the high hope
and laudation thereby created among the Quakers, are
remembered by most of our generation. He came
over to stand sponsor to our Prince of Wales. He had
just done a good act in issuing an amnesty for political
offences, and in recalling the Grimms, Professor Arndt of
Bonn, and other scholars who had been driven abroad,
or displaced from their functions for political reasons.
His minister at our court was then the Chevalier Bunsen,
whose politics were more liberal than his own ; his appa-
rent intention was to give his people their promised
parliament ; and nothing had occurred since he became
king to test the genuine worth of his sentiments ; so that
•he was welcomed at our court, and in some degree by
the nation, as something more than a political ally. The
thought was in many minds that there might hereafter be
intermarriages between royal children in our country and
in his; between our Queen's children and his nephews
and nieces (for he was himself childless). If times had
continued quiet, and there had been no troublesome
peoples to perplex royalties, such a friendship and such
schemes might have prospered : but the nineteenth
century is one which demands and imposes action ; and
the exposure of the weakness of the poor King of Prussia,
caused by the events of 1848, left no option to any who
knew him about respecting or despising him. Ministers,
friends, family, people could not help being ashamed of
their master, friend, relative, or sovereign, after knowing
the true story of March, 1848. Those who saw him in
the streets of Berlin on the 2ist of that March had no
more hope of him.

[IV].

Godfather to
the Prince of
Wales.

His weak-
ness in 1848

440

KING FREDERICK WILLIAM IV. OF PRUSSIA.

[IV]

Parallel-
isms luith
the Stuarts.

There had been passages in his conduct, from the day
of his accession, which had reminded historical politicians
of the Stuarts, though the likeness was " with a difference."
No Stuart would have spontaneously promised the people,
however vaguely, that their privileges should be confirmed
and their institutions developed ; and the King did this,
on occasion of his sentimental journey through his do-
minions after his father's death. But when the states of
Prussia Proper took him at his word, and thanked him
for his purpose of fulfilling the promises of his father, he
backed out of his engagements in true Stuart style. From
the time of his letter to the States, reprimanding them
for their expectation, his political reputation was gone.
It is true he called together the provincial Estates at
Berlin in 1847 ', but that was because he could not help
it. He had impoverished himself by the vast military
expenditure by which he hoped to keep down the people,
and secure to himself the support of a great army,
and he had given away money with both hands to Don
Carlos and other hopeful followers of the Stuart example.
And he wanted something else besides money. He was
more thin-skinned than the Stuarts ; and he was wretched
under the contempt and dislike of his people. The par-
liament of 1847 was ms method of recovering his popu-
larity ; and he boasted of having conceded all manner of
valuable things, while begging the Estates to observe
that he had "not surrendered one right of his crown."
Well as his game of see-saw was now understood, his
''beloved Berliners" were really surprised at his proclama-
tion of the 1 8th of March, 1848, whereby he appeared
to put himself in the very front of the revolutionists of
Europe. His proposal to abolish the confederation of
German States, and all the restrictions imposed by that

KING FREDERICK WILLIAM IV. OF PBUSSIA.

441

scheme, and to constitute one German federal state, was
almost as confounding to his own court as it must have
been to Austria. The citizens assembled before his palace
to cheer him for his concessions ; but, unfortunately, the
soldiery were brought up by the King's order ; and, un-
able to bear some popular jeers, they rode in among the
crowd, and killed above sixty persons. The groaning
and moaning proclamation of the King on the occasion
declared that the sabres were meant to be sheathed, and
that the guns of the infantry went off of themselves.
That proclamation was not the only address to the
"beloved Berliners." The same dedication was inscribed
in chalk by night over the bullet sent into a post in the
square by one of those guns, no doubt, which went off
of themselves.

The next morning was that on which the King and
Queen were compelled by the assembled friends of the
murdered citizens to come down into the courtyard of
the palace, and with uncovered heads to view the corpses,
and be told that they beheld their own work. There
was some difficulty in getting the Queen down ; but her
visitors would not depart without seeing her. Her
husband trembled as excessively as she did. But it was
not this which overthrew the last remains of respect in
the minds of manly observers. It was the demeanor of
the King on the 2ist, when he rode through the streets
of the city, and provoked the universal remark that he
had lost his senses. He kissed his hand and gesticulated
like a madman, forswore all personal aims and desires,
called Heaven to witness, in the attitude of taking an
oath, that he desired nothing but the unity of Germany
and the supremacy of popular interests. He declared
that he added another to the list of mighty princes and

19*

[IV]

A humilia*
ting scene.

442

KING FREDERICK WILLIAM IV. OF PRUSSIA.

[IV]

Reactionary
policy.

dukes who had carried the banner of freedom at the
head of the nation ; and that liberty and progress were
the one thought that rilled his mind. He liberated the
Polish and other state prisoners, and declared that this
day would be the great day of Prussia in future history ;
and in one sense, the last ; as the name of Prussia should
henceforth merge in that of Germany. He said nothing
of who was to be emperor of this united Germany ; but
there were plenty of contemptuous spectators who saw
that he intended to be carried into that seat of power on
the shoulders of insurrectionary Germany. He declared
that the people of Berlin had behaved so nobly and
generously toward him as the population of no other
city in the world would have done. Yet in another year
he called (by the mouth of his minister) this movement
"a street riot, disgraceful to Berlin and Prussia/' and
had already committed himself to the strong though
shallow current of reactionary policy, checked now and
then by his hankering after the Imperial crown, which he
fancied to be indicated by an old monkish prophecy as
reserved for him. Before the Eastern question took
form, and brought in new complications, he sympathized
with Austria in dread of revolution, and in precautionary
and repressive measures, which secured to him the hatred
of his beloved Berliners ; while his occasional senti-
mental snatches at the crown of federal Germany pre-
vented any cordial friendship with Austria. In this kind
of employment, varied by continual attempts to retain
the name of a parliament and a press while not per-
mitting the real existence of either, and by worshipping
Russia, and meddling with religion, and fiddle-faddling
with art, literature, military shows, and demonstrations of
other sorts, the feeble King filled up the interval between

KING FREDERICK WILLIAM IV. OF PRUSSIA.

443

his escapade of 1848 and the full development of the
Eastern question.

In one of his characteristics the deceased King was
unlike the Stuarts ; and this quality would have entitled
him to deep and pure compassion, if it had not been
denied by a bad admixture. His fair family affections
so implicated him with Russia that all possible allowance
would have been made for him in his difficulties during
the great Russian war, if his fair family attachments had
not been implicated with his unfair ambition and jealousy
with regard to Austria. The difficulty of his position
was indeed extreme. His people feared and abhorred
Russia, while every affection and sentiment of his own
disposed him in favor of the Romanoffs, with whom his
sister had become one. He did the worst thing possible
in that hard position ; for duplicity is the lowest resource
of all : and, hard as must have been his sacrifices in any
course, the sacrifice of his integrity and royal good faith
is that which the most lenient must find it most difficult
to make allowance for. He was sufficiently punished —
punished by the loss of that public opinion of Europe
which his vanity craved ; by the contempt of the Czar,
which was revealed in the secret correspondence between
Nicholas and the British Government ; by his own exclu-
sion from the councils of the Allies ; and by the indigna-
tion of his own people, which would have dethroned
him if he had ruled over any but unpractical Germans.
There is little doubt that it cost him his life, for he seems
to have sunk under his pain of mind. In this country
great injustice has been done to the late King in respect
of his personal habits — and especially about the nature
and amount of his intemperance. With irritable nerves
and a feeble brain, he was in a manner intoxicated by

[IV]

His affection
for the
Romanoffs.

444

KING FREDERICK WILLIAM IV. OF PRUSSIA.

[IV]

The close of
his reign.

every sort of stimulus, as well as by wine. He was
drunk at the spectacle of a moving work of art, at the
sound of acclamations or execrations in the streets, at
every one of the scenes which he was so fond of getting
up ; at pious letters from the Russian court, or at
inditing one himself; at being called "the angel of peace"
by the Czar Nicholas ; and at the exhibition of the
Czar's old uniform ; at everything which in any way
stimulated his sensibilities. He was truly pitiable in his
latter days. He had alienated his best friends and ser-
vants ; and when Bunsen, and Usedom, and Humboldt
held aloof from him, after long forbearance, he found
himself dependent on a Manteuffel, a Gerlach, and a
Niebuhr, the younger — fit comrades of the Russian
creatures who swarmed at his court. He could scarcely
keep on decent terms with his brother and his brother's
son — his two next successors. He was nicknamed by
every court in Europe ; and cursed, as he knew, by his
people, to whom he had promised the rank of a first-class
European nation. He who above all men craved sym-
pathy on every hand, found himself a despised outcast
in the crisis which an able monarch would have employed
for the establishment of his kingdom in a higher position
than it had ever held. He was pitiable as every man is
who finds himself in the wrong place, and has no power
to get in a fitter. He was not "a square man in a
round hole ;" and so far was he from being what the
Germans so prize, "a many-sided" man, that he was not
even that fewest-sided thing, a triangle in a square hole.
If he had been a private citizen, he might, with his
sensibility, his cultivation, and his intellectual tastes,
have led a blameless, and perhaps a beneficent and
happy life. He could not have been even a country

KING FREDERICK WILLIAM IV. OF PRUSSIA. 445

gentleman, in the continental sense, because his defi-
ciency of will must have caused failure in the very
smallest function of administration ; but as an opulent
citizen, with his library, and chapel and music-room,
and museum of antiquities, he might have fulfilled the
anticipations of his old tutor, Niebuhr; but evil was
the destiny which made him a ruling Prince in our
revolutionary nineteenth century.

One good may live after him. He may serve as a
warning to his successors. It is to be hoped that they
are not Stuarts too — unable to take warning. The time
for Stuarts will soon be over on the Continent as com-
pletely as it has long been in England. The Prussian
people are so deficient in political education that their
political qualities have as yet been of no use to them :
but the qualities exist, and the training will come, in one
fashion or another. They will not let their Prince play
fast and loose with them for ever, nor allow their loyalty
and generosity to be made their snare in the future as
they have in the past.

[IV]

Lessons to
be learnt
from his
lift.

V.

Her birth,
Aug. 17,
1786.

THE DUCHESS OF KENT.
DIED MARCH i6xH, 1861.

THIS Princess, the object of the hearty respect of the
British nation as a high source of the virtues of their
Sovereign, has been so exclusively regarded as the mother
of the Queen as to have been little known outside of
that relation. For many years she has been observed
only as moving with the court — to Frogmore when the
Queen was at Windsor, and to Abergeldie during the
autumn holiday of the royal family at Balmoral. Yet
hers was a long life of strong interests, anxieties, and
responsibilities ; and if we could know her experiences,
we might find more romance lying between childhood
and old age than is often found in the life of princes.

The Princess Maria Louisa Victoria was born on the
same day that Frederick the Great died, August 17, 1786.
Daughter and sister of Dukes of Saxe-Cobourg Saalfeld,
she was brought up in the dulness of a little German
court — as little German courts were in those days, when
the invasion of French ideas, issuing from the court of
Frederick, was only beginning to influence the German
mind, and to create a new literary period. The small
territory in which the Duke's seven children grew up (of
whom the lady now deceased was the voungest but one,

THE DUCHESS OF KENT.

447

and the King of Belgium the youngest), resounded with
the din of industry, but was otherwise profoundly quiet.
Ironworks and forges, spinning-wheels and looms at
which the well-known Saxony cloths and linens were
produced, saluted one sense ; while others were greeted
by fumes from chemical and dye works and tanneries.
With perpetual industry of this kind before their eyes,
and a pretty country around them, and a plain and quiet
domestic life within the chateau, these children grew up
in the acquisition of the practical sense which has since
distinguished them in life. Just at the time of the
Princess's birth there was great dread in the minds of
the Opposition in our Parliament lest England should be
too much implicated with the smaller German states,
which would have jeopardized her position with the
greater Powers ; and just when the infant who was to be
mother to a British Queen was seeing the light, Mr. Pitt
was agreeing with Fox as to the danger, but declaring
that it was as Elector of Hanover only that George III.
had joined the princes' league for the preservation of
the liberties of Germany. Either statesman would have
been surprised to know how near an interest would be
established between the great empire they served and
one of the smallest of the German duchies.

The Princess's first close interest in England came
through her younger brother, Leopold, who caused some
anxiety to his family by the susceptibility of his heart.
He was at Paris when he was three-and-twenty, as aide-
de-camp to the Grand Duke Constantine ; and there he
fell in love with a young English lady, whose relatives
invited him to London, whither he came in the train of
the Allied Sovereigns in 1814. Supposing himself dis-
tinguished by the Princess Charlotte, he proposed, and

[V]

Her brother
Prince

Leopold,

448

THE DUCHESS OF KENT.

[V]

Marriage of
Prince
Leopold to
the Princess
Charlotte.

Death of the

Princess

Charlotte.

was refused. Attending the sovereigns to Vienna, he
was observed to be again occupied in the same way with
a new object before the close of the year ; but in the
interval the Princess Charlotte had become free from her
engagements with the Prince of Orange, and an inti-
mation reached Prince Leopold from a friend in London
that it was against his interest to be so open in his
attentions to the German lady. His return to London
decided the fate of other German princes and princesses
as well as his own. At the time of his marriage to
the Princess Charlotte, in May, 1816, nothing could be
further from the imagination of his sister, next above
him in age, than that she should become more nearly
connected with the British crown than his brother,
whom all the world regarded as a favorite of fortune.
She was then thirty years of age, and just two years a
widow, having married in 1803 the Prince Enrich Charles,
of Leiningen. Her son had been declared of age at
nine years old, and had succeeded his father in the
Principality of Leiningen at ten. The mother was occu-
pied in superintending his education, and that of his
sister, a year younger ; little imagining that her present
life was a rehearsal of the lofty function of preparing
another heir for a greater throne.

Then followed the apparent overthrow of the family
prospect, as far as the English throne was concerned.
The dream of greatness was dissolved in tears ; and the
widower of our beloved Princess Charlotte was sympa-
thized with by all, and, no doubt, eminently by his sister,
as the sport, after having seemed to be the favorite, of
fortune. But a few weeks proved that new entrances
into our royal family were opened by the change in the
prospect of the succession. The Princess Charlotte died

THE DUCHESS OF KENT.

449

in November, 1817; and within six months no less than
four marriages were announced to Parliament, as ap-
proved by the Regent, on behalf of his brothers and one
£ister — the Princess Elizabeth. The Duke of Cumberland
•thad been married three years, and his elder brother of
York long before. The Dukes of Clarence, Kent, and
Cambridge now announced their engagements ; and the
most immediately popular was undoubtedly that of the
Duke of Kent. That of the Duke of Clarence was
declared to be broken off, on account of the unwilling-
ness of Parliament to grant him a larger income than
his brothers ; and one effect of this incident was to turn
general attention to the Duke of Kent, as not only a
probable successor to the throne, but the father of the
future line. It soon appeared, however, that the Clarence
marriage was to take place, which it did on the I3th of
July, 1818. The Duke of Kent was married on the
2 Qth of May, and the Duke of Cambridge on the ist of
June.

If the Duke of Sussex was the most popular in the
political world for his comparative liberalism, his brothers
of Kent and Cambridge were most generally beloved for
their interest in benevolent projects and informal kind-
liness, of the "true British" character, in which the
Regent was remarkably deficient. There was a strong
impression abroad, too, that the good-natured Prince
Edward had been neglected first, and oppressed after-
ward, by his obstinate and prejudiced father ; and when
to these causes of interest was added that of his wife
being a sister of Prince Leopold, with whom all England
was still mourning, it was natural that the heart of the
nation should especially follow his fortunes. There was
no disposition on this account to vote him more money

[V]

Marriage
'with the
Duke of

450

THE DUCHESS OF KENT.

[V]

Re-mar-
riage accord
ing to the
rites of the
English
Church.

than the small income given to his brothers. Parliament
had refused to give io,ooo/. a year to the Duke of
Clarence ; and now they were all to have an addition of
6,000!., and no more. Hence the load of debt which
weighed upon the Duchess of Kent for many years. The
Duke had shown the same lavish tendencies which made
the family generally so unpopular in Parliament ; and he
had no opportunity of rectifying his affairs before he
died. His income somewhat exceeded 30,0007. after
his marriage ; but certain loans from the Admiralty
Droits had remained unpaid for above ten years ; and
the interest of these, and his great amount of private
debts, so far hampered him that neither he nor his widow
could ever have felt at ease about pecuniary affairs.
Hence, perhaps, the care with which their child was
trained in habits of rectitude and punctuality in money
matters which have made her a noble exception to all
family tradition in that branch of morals.

The Duke and Duchess came to England, to be re-
married according to the rites of our Church, and were
received by Prince Leopold at Claremont, on the ist of
July. For the sake of economy they presently returned
to the residence of the Princes of Leiningen, at Amor-
bach, where they lived in retirement. Lord Eldon, being
consulted on behalf of one or other of the royal duchesses,
gave it as his opinion that it was not necessary that the
expected infants should be born in England ; and it was
at Hanover therefore that the present Duke of Cambridge
was born, on the 26th of the next March, and that a
daughter to the Duke of Clarence was born and died the
next day ; while the present King of Hanover was born
at Berlin in May. But the Duke and Duchess of Kent
desired that their child should be a native of England,

THE DUCHESS OF KENT.

and came over in April, 1819, the Princess Victoria being
born at Kensington Palace, on the 24th of the next
month. The year 1819 was full of public distress and
disturbance from end to end ; but it removed all appre-
hension about heirs of the crown in the next generation.
There was no longer a fear that we should be governed
by a succession of childless old men.

For the sake of a mild winter for the infant, the Duke
removed his household to Sidmouth in November. On
the 1 3th of January he took a long walk with Captain
(afterward Sir John) Conroy, and both got their feet wet.
Captain Conroy entreated the Duke to change his boots,
but he was playing with his infant, -and delayed too long.
He was ill at night, in a high fever the next morning, and
died on the 23d of pulmonary inflammation. For five
nights the Duchess never left his bedside, and from the
second day of the illness she was supported and aided by
Prince Leopold, who went to her at once, and relieved
her afterward of all external cares, till she was again
settled at Kensington Palace. By the Duke's will, her
duty was laid out for the best years of her life. ' ' I do
nominate, constitute, and appoint my beloved wife
Victoire, Duchess of Kent, to be sole guardian of our
dear child, the Princess Alexandrina Victoire, to all
intents and for all purposes whatever." When she
received, by deputations, the addresses of condolence
offered by the two Houses of Parliament, the infant was
in her arms ; and the study of her life from that day
forward was to establish a mutual understanding and
accord between the people of England and the Princess
who would probably stand in the closest possible relation
to them hereafter.

This was a task of extreme and extraordinary difficulty,

[V]

Birth of the
Princess
Victoria^
1819.

Death of the
Duke, 1820.

The Duchess
appointed
guardian of
the Princess
Victoria.

452

THE DUCHESS OF KENT.

[V]

Difficulties
of the task.

Death of
George III.

owing to the complications and uncertainties of the case.
If it is difficult in a case of presumptive heirship in
private life to decide how to educate a boy, whether for
probable wealth or possible poverty ; it is infinitely more
so when the question is between the possession of a
crown and the dull and aimless life of a subject Prince —
and yet more, Princess. In the former case it may be
said, "Educate your son thoroughly for the lower career,
and he will do very well in the higher ;" but to reign over
a kingdom requires a training so special as to unfit the heir
to enjoy the private life of princes. For many years the
lot of the Princess was in suspense ; and seldom has a
mother undergone such wear and tear of anxiety and
responsibility as the Duchess of Kent sustained on this
account. The question of the succession was simplified
from time to time : but it was not till within a few months
of her accession that there was anything like security
that the Princess would ever be Queen of England.

The old King died six days after the Duke of Kent ;
and there was an immediate revival of the rumors
about George IV. getting a divorce after all. In ' ' Lord
Eldon's Life" (ii. 305), we are shown, by a letter of
the Prince Regent's, how eager he was for this divorce
within two months of his daughter's death. His vehe-
ment self-will about "unshackling himself" brought
matters to such a pass in 1820, that there were few
people in England who did not fully expect to see
Queen Caroline put away, and the King married again
in the course of the year. There was, in fact, a majority
of nine in favor of the Bill (which was one of divorce
as well as degradation); but even the King did not
venture to proceed upon this. It was only for a few
months that the matter seemed settled \ for the Queen

THE DUCHESS OF KENT.

453

died in August of the next year, and the marriage of
the King was repeatedly rumored, before popular ex-
pectation turned to the royal brothers. At the end of
1820, another daughter, who was named Elizabeth, in
consideration of her prospects, was born to the Duke of
Clarence, but the child died in infancy. In 1827 the
Duke of York died ; and in 1830, the King.

This ushered in a new period in the function of the
Duchess of Kent. For the first ten years of her child's
life she had lived retired, and had provided for the
physical health and educational training of the Princess
with all simplicity as well as completeness. All that was
known was that the Princess was met, even on cold and
windy days, dressed and in exercise in good pedestrian
style — crossing a heath perhaps, with her young com-
panions, in thick shoes and stout duffle cloak — and that
she was reared in as much honesty and care about
money matters as any citizen's child. It became known
at Tunbridge Wells that the Princess had been unable to
buy a box at a bazaar, because she had spent her money.
At this bazaar, she had bought presents for almost all her
relations, and had laid out her last shilling, when she
remembered one cousin more, and saw a box, priced
half-a-crown, which would suit him. The shop-people
of course placed the box with the other purchases ; but
the little lady's governess admonished them, by saying,
" No ; you see the princess has not got the money, and
therefore, of course, she cannot buy the box." This
being perceived, the next offer was to lay by the box till
it could be purchased; and the answer was, "Oh, well,

if you will be so good as to do that ;" and the

thing was done. On quarter-day, before seven in the
morning, the Princess appeared on her donkey to claim

[V]

The train-
ing of the
Princess
Victoria.

454

THE DUCHESS OF KENT.

[V]

The Regency
Bill pro-
vides for
the Duchess
being
Regent.

her purchase. Anecdotes like these, apparently small,
have large meanings ; and in such traits people saw
promise of the rectitude and elevated economy which
have made the mother of our large royal family respected
by the people whose need and convenience she has so
admirably respected.

She was eleven years old when William IV. sent his'
first message to Parliament, in which there was no
allusion to the appointment of a regency. In case of
his death without such a provision being made, she
would have been sovereign, with full powers at once, as
the minority of a sovereign is not recognized by our
laws. There was another consideration which must
have aggravated the anxiety of the watchful mother —
that the next eldest uncle was the Duke of Cumberland.
Little as could be said about this, the thought was in
almost all minds that the Princess would not be alto-
gether safe in her seat without the protection of a
regency. The only apparent exceptions were the
ministers, who said a great deal about the excellent
health and probable long life of their master — an infirm
old man of sixty-five. The danger was allowed to exist
till the new parliament met in November, when a Regency
Bill provided that, in the event of no posthumous issue
of the King appearing, in which case the Queen was to
be regent, the Duchess of Kent should be regent (unless
she married a foreigner) till the Princess Victoria came
of age. Still there were uncertainties. The King might
have children ; and mysterious dangers seemed to impend
from the Duke of Cumberland, the extent of which be-
came revealed to the astonished nation in 1835, when
a committee of inquiry, obtained by Mr. Hume, brought
to light a scheme for setting aside the succession, which

THE DUCHESS OF KENT.

455

it would be scarcely possible to believe now, but for the
substantial documentary evidence which remains in our
hands. The Orange leaders had got it into their heads
that the Duke of Wellington meant to seize the crown,
and that the right thing to be done in opposition was to
make the Duke of Cumberland king. Letters were pro-
duced which proved that the notion of certain friends
and tools of the future King of Hanover was that it
would be necessary to declare King William insane, and
the Princess disqualified for reigning, by being a minor
and a woman. Under the explosion of loyalty thus
caused on behalf of a good-natured old king and a
fatherless princess, Orangeism and its leader promised
whatever was required, and disappeared from public
notice. All was safe after 1836 ; but the preceding five
years must have been heavily weighted with care to the
guardian of the presumptive heiress of the throne.

The Princess was now becoming known, more or less,
to her future people. She had not appeared at the last
coronation ; and the plea was that her health required
her residence in the Isle of Wight at that time, when she
was indeed too young for a scene where she must have
filled so conspicuous a station. It was believed, too,
that she had but recently become aware of her regal
destination. But her guardian perceived that the time
had arrived for procuring for her the advantages of travel,
and of intercourse with superior minds. In 1831 began
a series of tours — the first comprehending the oldest of
our cities, Chester, several cathedrals, some noblemen's
seats, and, finally, the University of Oxford. By degrees
she became thus accustomed to the gaze of a multitude,
and the homage of strangers, and formalities of proces-
sions, addresses, and, generally, the observances which

[V]

Introduction
of the Prin-
cess into
public life.

456

THE DUCHESS OF KENT.

[V]

Burdens
incurred by
the Duchess,

Honorably
discharged
by the
Princess.

must occupy a large portion of her life. At the same time
the Duchess adopted the practice of inviting to Kensing-
ton travellers and voyagers, men of science, and other
persons distinguished in the intellectual world, from whom
the Princess might gather various information more
freshly than from books — an experiment sometimes found
rather awkward at the moment by all parties, but well
intended, and probably of more or less use. The
few years of the preceding reign were industriously
employed.

They were not free from heavy and various cares.
The expenses of such a method were so great that the
debts of the Duchess became almost as onerous as those
of her husband. Encroachments were made which she
thought it more politic to yield to than to resist, and
the petitions for subscriptions for everything, from blind
asylums to racing-cups, would have exhausted an income
ten times more royal. The Duchess's reliance (after-
ward justified) was that the Queen would pay the debts
incurred in her preparation for sovereignty. After her
accession, and when nobly portioned for a maiden Queen,
the dutiful daughter paid off her father's debts in the
first year, in the joint names of the Duchess and her-
self, and her mother's in the next. But there were
troubles more wearing than those of insufficient income.
It was a matter of extreme nicety to claim due obser-
vance for the Princess without insisting on too much ;
and it was inevitable that some parties, and probable
that all, would be displeased. There was the same
danger about the exercise of authority over the Princess
herself ; and a long series of troubles hence arose. The
free and easy style of life in the King's family, where the
King and Queen and all the Fitzclarences disliked for-

THE DUCHESS OF KENT.

457

mality, and lived very much like quiet people of other
ranks, did not always suit the notions of the Duchess of
Kent as to the observance which her daughter's presence
should command : and hence coolness arose which
could not be concealed from the public. We, however,
have only to bear in mind, in reviewing the life of the
Duchess of Kent, that she had much to suffer in the
discharge of a function by which the nation has largely
benefited. When her task seemed to be closed, and
she might have hoped to rest on the result of her labors
and her anxieties, she had some bitter griefs to endure,
some few dreary years to pass before she tasted that
repose which she had so well earned ' and in which her
latter years were passed.

The day at last dawned for which she had lived so
devotedly for so many years ; and it found her wakeful
and prepared. The early sun was shining in, that Mid-
summer morning — it was before five o'clock on the 2Oth
of June — when the doors of the palace were thrown open
to admit the Primate, the royal physician, and the Lord
Chamberlain, who came to greet the Princess as Queen.
The Duchess and her daughter were standing ready for the
announcement, and prepared for the trying transactions of
the day. From the day when Prince Albert entered upon
the scene, and, yet more, from the hour when Sir Robert
Peel assumed Lord Melbourne's place as the Queen's
chief adviser, everything brightened to the Duchess of
Kent. The Queen has never been more heartily cheered
than when, instantly after the first of the silly pistol-shots
which were at one time discharged at her by stupid boys
to make themselves famous, she altered the course of
her drive, and went to inform her mother of the attempt
in person, before she could be alarmed by the rumor of

[V]

The morn-
ing of the

Accessiou,

458

THE DUCHESS OF KENT.

[V]

Happiness
of her latter
years.

it. That was in 1840. The latter years of the vene-
rable Duchess have been filled with interest and with
cheerfulness by the arrival of a long succession of grand-
children, by their growth and expansion into promise of
various kinds, and by the early settlement in life of the
eldest. At the marriage of the Princess Royal, her
grandmother was observed to be much altered, and to be
in very delicate health. She had sustained the. shock of
her son's death a year or two before, and her life had
been on the whole one of wear and tear which rendered
it somewhat surprising that she should have passed the
old threescore years and ten. She accomplished, with
little flagging, the periodical removals to Scotland, the
Isle of Wight, Windsor, and London, which were as
regularly established for her as for the court ; and, bodily
suffering apart, her old age was a happy one, many of its
hours being passed in her royal daughter's presence, and
many more cheered by the affectionate attentions of her
grandchildren. As for 'the people of England, they re-
ceived her with manifest respect, wherever she appeared ;
and she must have been almost tired of hearing, for
many years before her death, that that respect was offered
as her due for the boon she had conferred on the nation
in the virtues of her daughter. The same thing must be
told once more, however, though her ear is now dead to
human praise. It must be told in history,

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The Ideal in Art.

By H. TAINE, author of " Italy," etc. .Cloth. $1.50.

" It is a classic upon its subject, and ought to be not merely read, but
mastered and made familiar by all who wish to have the right to form
opinions of their own on the productions of the arts of design." — N. Y.
Evening Post.

(S*,e notices (J/TAINE'S ITA.LY on another page.}

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119

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Martineau, Harriet

Biographical sketches

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CARDS OR SLIPS FROM THIS POCKET

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY