'The facts are, that in the earlier stage of that business, before July 23, the Attorney- and Solicitor-General only were consulted, and Sir John Harding knew nothing at all about it. No part of the statement said by Mr. Mozley to have been made to him could possibly be true; because during the whole time in question Sir John Harding was under care for unsoundness of mind, from which he never even partially recovered, and which prevented him from attending to any kind of business, or going into court, or to his chambers, or to his country house. He was in that condition on July 23, 1862 (Wednesday, not Saturday) when the depositions on which the question of the detention of the "Alabama" turned were received at the Foreign Office. Lord Russell, not knowing that he was ill, and thinking it desirable, from the importance of the matter, to have the opinion of all the three Law Officers (of whom the Queen's Advocate was then senior in rank), sent them on the same day, with the usual covering letter, for that opinion; and they must have been delivered by the messenger, in the ordinary course, at Sir John Harding's house or chambers. There they remained till, the delay causing inquiry, they were recovered and sent to the Attorney-General, who received them on Monday, the 28th, and lost no time in holding a consultation with the Solicitor-General. Their opinion, advising that the ship should be stopped, was in Lord Russell's hands early the next morning; and he sent an order by telegraph to Liverpool to stop her; but before it could be executed she had gone to sea.

'Some of the facts relating to Sir John Harding's illness remained, until lately, in more or less obscurity, and Mr. Mozley's was not the only erroneous version of them which got abroad. One such version having been mentioned, as if authentic, in a debate in the House of Commons on March 17, 1893, I wrote to the "Times" to correct it; and in confirmation of my statement the gentleman who had been Sir John Harding's medical attendant in July 1862 came forward, and by reference to his diary, kept at the time, placed the facts and dates beyond future controversy.

[Sidenote: THE QUESTION OF ARBITRATION]

'In the diplomatic correspondence, as to the "Alabama" and other subjects of complaint by the United States, Lord Russell stood firmly upon the ground that Great Britain had not failed in any duty of neutrality; and Lord Lyons, the sagacious Minister who then represented this country at Washington, thought there would be much more danger to our future relations with the United States in any departure from that position than in strict and steady adherence to it. But no sooner was the war ended than new currents of opinion set in. In a debate on the subject in the House of Commons on March 6, 1868, Lord Stanley (then Foreign Secretary), who had never been of the same mind about it with his less cautious friends, said that a "tendency might be detected to be almost too ready to accuse ourselves of faults we had not committed, and to assume that on every doubtful point the decision ought to be against us." The sequel is well known. The Conservative Government consented to refer to arbitration, not all the questions raised by the Government of the United States, but those arising out of the ships alleged to have been equipped or to have received augmentation of force within the British dominions for the war service of the Confederate States; and from that concession no other Government could recede. For a long time the Government or the Senate of the United States objected to any reference so limited, and to the last they refused to go into an open arbitration. They made it a condition, that new Rules should be formulated, not only for future observance, but for retrospective application to their own claims. This condition, unprecedented and open in principle to the gravest objections, was accepted for the sake of peace with a nation so nearly allied to us; not, however, without an express declaration, on the face of the Treaty of Washington, that the British Government could not assent to those new Rules as a statement of principles of international law which were in force when the claims arose.

'While the Commissioners at Washington were engaged in their deliberations, I was in frequent communication both with Lord Granville and other members of the Cabinet, and also with Lord Russell, who could not be brought to approve of that way of settling the controversy. He had an invincible repugnance to the reference of any questions affecting the honour and good faith of this country, or its internal administration, to foreign arbitrators; and he thought those questions would not be excluded by the proposed arrangement. He felt no confidence that any reciprocal advantages to this country would be obtained from the new Rules. Their only effect, in his view, would be to send us handicapped into the arbitration. He did not believe that the United States would follow the example which we had set, by strengthening their Neutrality Laws; or that they would be able, unless they did so, to prevent violations of the Rules by their citizens in any future war in which we might be belligerent and they neutral, any more than they had been able in former times to prevent the equipment of ships within their territory against Spain and Portugal. It was not without difficulty that he restrained himself from giving public expression to those views; but, from generous and patriotic motives, he did so. The sequel is not likely to have convinced him that his apprehensions were groundless. The character of the "Case" presented on the part of the United States, with the "indirect claims," and the arguments used to support them, would have prevented the arbitration from proceeding at all, but for action of an unusual kind taken by the arbitrators. In such of their decisions as were adverse to this country, the arbitrators founded themselves entirely upon the new Rules, without any reference to general international law or historical precedents; and the United States have done nothing, down to this day, to strengthen their Neutrality Laws, though certainly requiring it, at least as much as ours did before 1870.'

[Sidenote: THE COTTON FAMINE]

Lord Russell then held resolutely to the view that her Majesty's Government had steadily endeavoured to maintain a policy of strict neutrality, and so long as he was in power at the Foreign Office, or at the Treasury, the demands of the United States for compensation were ignored. Meanwhile, there arose a mighty famine in Lancashire through the failure of the cotton supply, and 800,000 operatives were thrown, through no fault of their own, on the charity of the nation, which rose splendidly to meet the occasion. All classes of the community were bound more closely together in the gentle task of philanthropy, as well as in admiration of the uncomplaining heroism with which privation was met by the suffering workpeople.

FOOTNOTES:

[39] The Liberation of Italy, 1815-1870, by the Countess Evelyn Martinengo Cesaresco (Seeley and Co. 1895), p. 252.

[40] Second edition, 1892, chap. xcii.



CHAPTER XVI

SECOND PREMIERSHIP

1865-1866

The Polish Revolt—Bismarck's bid for power—The Schleswig-Holstein difficulty—Death of Lord Palmerston—The Queen summons Lord John—The second Russell Administration—Lord John's tribute to Palmerston—Mr. Gladstone introduces Reform—The 'Cave of Adullam'—Defeat of the Russell Government—The people accept Lowe's challenge—The feeling in the country.

LORD JOHN, in his conduct of foreign affairs, acted with generosity towards Italy and with mingled firmness and patience towards America. It was a fortunate circumstance, for the great interests at stake on both sides of the Atlantic, that a man of so much judgment and right feeling was in power at a moment when prejudice was strong and passion ran high. Grote, who was by no means consumed with enthusiasm for the Palmerston Government, did not conceal his admiration of Lord John's sagacity at this crisis. 'The perfect neutrality of England in the destructive civil war now raging in America appears to me almost a phenomenon in political history. No such forbearance has been shown during the political history of the last two centuries. It is the single case in which the English Government and public, generally so meddlesome, have displayed most prudent and commendable forbearance in spite of great temptations to the contrary.' Lord John had opinions, and the courage of them; but at the same time he showed himself fully alive to the fact that no greater calamity could possibly overtake the English-speaking race than a war between England and the United States.

Europe was filled at the beginning of 1863 with tidings of a renewed Polish revolt. Russia provoked the outbreak by the stern measures which had been taken in the previous year to repress the growing discontent of the people. The conspiracy was too widespread and too deep-rooted for Alexander II. to deal with, except by concessions to national sentiment, which he was not prepared to make, and, therefore, he fell back on despotic use of power. All able-bodied men suspected of revolutionary tendencies were marked out for service in the Russian army, and in this way, in Lord John's words, the 'so-called conscription was turned into a proscription.' The lot was made to fall on all political suspects, who were to be condemned for life to follow the hated Russian flag. The result was not merely armed resistance, but civil war. Poland, in her struggle for liberty, was joined by Lithuania; but Prussia came to the help of the Czar, and the protests of England, France, and Austria were of no avail. Before the year ended the dreams of self-government in Poland, after months of bloodshed and cruelty, were again ruthlessly dispelled.

[Sidenote: BISMARCK SHOWS HIS HAND]

One diplomatic difficulty followed another in quick succession. Bismarck was beginning to move the pawns on the chess-board of Europe. He had conciliated Russia by taking sides with her against the Poles in spite of the attitude of London, Paris, and Vienna. He feared the spirit of insurrection would spread to the Poles in Prussia, and had no sympathy with the aspirations of oppressed nationalities. His policy was to make Prussia strong—if need be by 'blood and iron'—so that she might become mistress of Germany. The death of Frederick VII. of Denmark provoked a fresh crisis and revived in an acute form the question of succession to the duchies of Schleswig-Holstein. The Treaty of London in 1852 was supposed to have settled the question, and its terms had been accepted by Austria and Prussia. The integrity of Denmark was recognised, and Prince Christian of Glucksburg was accepted as heir-presumptive of the reigning king. The German Diet did not regard this arrangement as binding, and the feeling in the duchies themselves, especially in Holstein, was against the claims of Denmark. But the Hereditary Prince Frederick of Augustenburg disputed the right of Christian IX. to the Duchies, and Bismarck induced Austria to join Prussia in the occupation of the disputed territory.

It is impossible to enter here into the merits of the quarrel, much less to describe the course of the struggle or the complicated diplomatic negotiations which grew out of it. Denmark undoubtedly imagined that the energetic protest of the English Government against her dismemberment would not end in mere words. The language used by both Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell was of a kind to encourage the idea of the adoption, in the last extremity, of another policy than that of non-intervention. Bismarck, on the other hand, it has been said with truth, had taken up the cause of Schleswig-Holstein, not in the interest of its inhabitants, but in the interests of Germany, and by Germany he meant the Government of Berlin and the House of Hohenzollern. He represented not merely other ideas, but other methods than those which prevailed with statesmen who were old enough to recall the wars of Napoleon and the partition of Europe to which they gave rise. It must be admitted that England did not show to advantage in the Schleswig-Holstein difficulty, in spite of the soundness of her counsels; and Bismarck's triumph in the affair was as complete as the policy on which it was based was bold and adroit. Lord Palmerston and Lord John were embarrassed on the one hand by the apathy of Russia and France and on the other by the cautious, not to say timid, attitude of their own colleagues. 'As to Cabinets,' wrote Lord Palmerston, with dry humour, in reply to a note in which Lord John hinted that if the Prime Minister and himself had been given a free hand they could have kept Austria from war with Denmark, 'if we had had colleagues like those who sat in Pitt's Cabinet, such as Westmoreland and others, or such men as those who were with Peel, like Goulburn and Hardinge, you and I might have had our own way in most things. But when, as is now the case, able men fill every department, such men will have opinions and hold to them. Unfortunately, they are often too busy with their own department to follow up foreign questions so as to be fully masters of them, and their conclusions are generally on the timid side of what might be the best.'[41]

[Sidenote: AS SCHOOLMASTER ABROAD]

Lord John wrote to Foreign Courts—was Mr. Bagehot's shrewd criticism—much in the same manner as he was accustomed to speak in the House of Commons. In other words, he used great plainness of speech, and, because of the very desire to make his meaning clear, he, was occasionally indiscreetly explicit and even brusque. Sometimes it happened that the intelligent foreigner grew critical at Lord John's expense. Count Vitzthum, for example, laid stress on the fact that Lord John 'looked on the British Constitution as an inimitable masterpiece,' which less-favoured nations ought not only to admire but adopt, if they wished to advance and go forward in the direction of liberty, prosperity, and peace. There was just enough truth in such assertions to render them amusing, though not enough to give them a sting. There were times when Lord John was the 'stormy petrel' of foreign politics, but there never was a time when he ceased to labour in season and out for what he believed to be the honour of England. 'I do not believe that any English foreign statesman, who does his duty faithfully by his own countrymen in difficult circumstances, can escape the blame of foreign statesmen,' were his own words, and he assuredly came in for his full share of abuse in Europe. One of Lord John Russell's subordinates at the Foreign Office, well known and distinguished in the political life of to-day, declares that Lord John, like Lord Clarendon, was accustomed to write many drafts of despatches with his own hand, but as a rule did not go with equal minuteness into the detail of the work. It sometimes happened that he would take sudden resolutions without adequate consideration of the points involved; but he would always listen patiently to objections, and when convinced that he was wrong was perfectly willing to modify his opinion. In most cases, however, Lord John did not make up his mind without due reflection, and under such circumstances he showed no vacillation. No tidings from abroad, however startling or unpleasant, seemed able to disturb his equanimity. He was an extremely considerate chief, but, though always willing to listen to his subordinates, kept his own counsel and seldom took them much into his confidence.

[Sidenote: COBDEN AND PALMERSTON]

The year 1865 was rendered memorable both in England and America by the death of statesmen of the first rank. In the spring, that great master of reason and economic reform, Richard Cobden, died in London, after a few days' illness, in the prime of life; and almost before the nation realised the greatness of such a loss, tidings came across the Atlantic that President Abraham Lincoln had been assassinated at Washington, in the hour of triumph, by a cowardly fanatic. The summer in England was made restless by a General Election. Though Bright denounced Lord Palmerston, and Mr. Gladstone lost his seat at Oxford, to stand 'unmuzzled' a few days later before the electors of South-West Lancashire, the predicted Conservative reaction was not an accomplished fact. Lord Palmerston's ascendency in the country, though diminished, was still great, and the magic of his name carried the election. 'It is clear,' wrote Lord John to the plucky octogenarian Premier, when the latter, some time before the contest, made a fighting speech in the country, 'that your popularity is a plant of hardy growth and deep roots.' Quite suddenly, in the spring of 1865, Lord Palmerston began to look as old as his years, and as the summer slipped past, it became apparent that the buoyant elasticity of temperament had vanished. On October 18 the great Minister died in harness, and Lord John Russell, who was only eight years younger, was called to the helm.

The two men, more than once in mid-career, had serious misunderstandings, and envious lips had done their best to widen their differences. It is pleasant to think now that Palmerston and Russell were on cordial and intimate terms during the critical six years, when the former held for the last time the post of First Minister of the Crown, and the latter was responsible for Foreign Affairs. It is true that they were not of one mind on the question of Parliamentary Reform; but Lord John, after 1860 at least, was content to waive that question, for he saw that the nation, as well as the Prime Minister, was opposed to a forward movement in that direction, and the strain of war abroad and famine at home hindered the calm discussion of constitutional problems. Lord Lyttelton used to say that Palmerston was regarded as a Whig because he belonged to Lord Grey's Government, and had always thrown in his lot with that statesman's political posterity. At the same time, Lord Lyttelton held—even as late as 1865—that a 'more genuine Conservative, especially in home affairs, it would not be easy to find.' Palmerston gave Lord John Russell his active support in the attitude which the latter took up at the Foreign Office on all the great questions which arose, sometimes in a sudden and dramatic form, at a period when the power of Napoleon III., in spite of theatrical display, was declining, and Bismarck was shaping with consummate skill the fortunes of Germany.

[Sidenote: PRIME MINISTER]

The day after Palmerston's death her Majesty wrote in the following terms to Lord John: 'The melancholy news of Lord Palmerston's death reached the Queen last night. This is another link with the past that is broken, and the Queen feels deeply in her desolate and isolated condition how, one by one, tried servants and advisers are taken from her.... The Queen can turn to no other than Lord Russell, an old and tried friend of hers, to undertake the arduous duties of Prime Minister, and to carry on the Government.' Such a command was met by Lord John with the response that he was willing to act if his colleagues were prepared to serve under him. Mr. Gladstone's position in the country and in the councils of the Liberal Party had been greatly strengthened by his rejection at Oxford, and by the subsequent boldness and fervour of his speeches in Lancashire. He forestalled Lord John's letter by offering, in a frank and generous spirit, to serve under the old Liberal leader. Mr. Gladstone declared that he was quite willing to take his chance under Lord John's 'banner,' and to continue his services as Chancellor of the Exchequer. This offer was of course accepted, and Mr. Gladstone also took Lord Palmerston's place as Leader of the House of Commons. Lord Cranworth became Lord Chancellor, Lord Clarendon took Lord John's place at the Foreign Office, the Duke of Argyll and Sir George Grey resumed their old positions as Lord Privy Seal and Home Secretary. After a short interval, Mr. Goschen and Lord Hartington were raised to Cabinet rank; while Mr. Forster, Lord Dufferin, and Mr. Stansfeld became respectively Under-Secretaries for the Colonies, War, and India; but Lord John, in spite of strong pressure, refused to admit Mr. Lowe to his Cabinet.

At the Lord Mayor's banquet in November, Lord John took occasion to pay a warm tribute to Palmerston: 'It is a great loss indeed, because he was a man qualified to conduct the country successfully through all the vicissitudes of war and peace.' He declared that Lord Palmerston displayed resolution, resource, promptitude, and vigour in the conduct of foreign affairs, showed himself also able to maintain internal tranquillity, and, by extending commercial relationships, to give to the country the 'whole fruits of the blessings of peace.' He added that Lord Palmerston's heart never ceased to beat for the honour of England, and that his mind comprehended and his experience embraced the whole field which is covered by the interests of the nation.

The new Premier made no secret of his conviction that, if the Ministry was to last, it must be either frankly Liberal or frankly Conservative. As he had the chief voice in the matter, and was bent on a new Reform Bill, it became, after certain changes had been effected, much more progressive than was possible under Palmerston. Parliament was opened on February 1, 1866, by the Queen in person, for the first time since the death of the Prince Consort, and the chief point of interest in the Speech from the Throne was the guarded promise of a Reform Bill. The attention of Parliament was to be called to information concerning the right of voting with a view to such improvements as might tend to strengthen our free institutions and conduce to the public welfare. Lord John determined to make haste slowly, for some of his colleagues were hardly inclined to make haste at all, since they shared Lord Palmerston's views on the subject and distrusted the Radical cry which had arisen since the industrial revolution. The Premier and Mr. Gladstone—for they were a kind of Committee of Two—were content for the moment to propose a revision of the franchise, and to leave in ambush for another session the vexed question involved in a redistribution of seats. 'It was decided,' states Lord John, 'that it would be best to separate the question of the franchise from that of the disfranchisement of boroughs. After much inquiry, we agreed to fix the suffrages of boroughs at an occupation of 7l. value.'

[Sidenote: THE CAVE OF ADULLAM]

The House of Commons was densely packed when Mr. Gladstone introduced the measure on March 12, but, in spite of his powers of exposition and infectious enthusiasm, the Government proposals fell undeniably flat. Broadly stated, they were as follows. The county franchise was to be dropped to 14l., and that of the borough, as already stated, to half that amount, whilst compound householders and lodgers paying 10l. a year were to possess votes. It was computed at the time that the measure would add four hundred thousand new voters to the existing lists, and that two hundred thousand of these would belong to what Lord John termed the 'best of the working classes.' Mr. Bright, and those whom he represented, not only in Birmingham, but also in every great city and town in the land, gave their support to the Government, on the principle that this was at least an 'honest' measure, and that half a loaf, moreover, was better than no bread. At the same time the country was not greatly stirred one way or another by the scheme, though it stirred to panic-stricken indignation men of the stamp of Mr. Lowe, Mr. Horsman, Lord Elcho, Earl Grosvenor, Lord Dunkellin, and other so-called, but very indifferent, Liberals, who had attached themselves to the party under Lord Palmerston's happy-go-lucky and easy auspices. These were the men who presently distinguished themselves, and extinguished the Russell Administration by their ridiculous fear of the democracy. They retired into what Mr. Bright termed the 'political cave of Adullam,' and, as Lord John said, the 'timid, the selfish, and those who were both selfish and timid' joined the sorry company.

The Conservatives saw their opportunity, and, being human, took it. Lord Grosvenor brought forward an amendment calling attention to the omission of a redistribution scheme. A debate, which occupied eight nights, followed, and when it was in progress, Mr. Gladstone, in defending his own conduct as Leader of the House, incidentally paid an impressive tribute to the memorable and protracted services in the Commons of Lord John:—

'If, sir, I had been the man who, at the very outset of his career, wellnigh half a century ago, had with an almost prophetic foresight fastened upon two great groups of questions, those great historic questions relating to the removal of civil disabilities for religious opinions and to Parliamentary Reform; if I had been the man who, having thus in his early youth, in the very first stage of his political career, fixed upon those questions and made them his own, then went on to prosecute them with sure and unflagging instinct until the triumph in each case had been achieved; if I had been the man whose name had been associated for forty years, and often in the very first place of eminence, with every element of beneficent legislation—in other words, had I been Earl Russell, then there might have been some temptation to pass into excess on the exercise of authority, and some excuse for the endeavour to apply to this House a pressure in itself unjustifiable. But, sir, I am not Earl Russell.'

In the end, Lord Grosvenor's amendment was lost by a majority equal only to the fingers of one hand. Such an unmistakeable expression of opinion could not be disregarded, and the Government brought in a Redistribution of Seats Bill at the beginning of May. They proposed that thirty boroughs having a population of less than eight thousand should be deprived of one member, whilst nineteen other seats were obtained by joint representation in smaller boroughs. After running the gauntlet of much hostile criticism, the bill was read a second time, but the Government were forced to refer it and the franchise scheme to a committee, which was empowered to deal with both schemes. Lord Stanley, Mr. Ward Hunt, and Mr. Walpole assailed with successive motions, which were more or less narrowly rejected, various points in the Government proposals, and the opposition grew more and more stubborn. At length Lord Dunkellin (son of the Earl of Clanricarde) moved to substitute rating for rental in the boroughs; and the Government, in a House of six hundred and nineteen members, were defeated on June 18 by a majority of eleven. The excitement which met this announcement was extraordinary, and when it was followed next day by tidings that the Russell Administration was at an end, those who thought that the country cared little about the question found themselves suddenly disillusioned.

[Sidenote: FALL OF THE RUSSELL GOVERNMENT]

Burke declared that there were moments when it became necessary for the people themselves to interpose on behalf of their rights. The overthrow of the Russell Administration took the nation by surprise. Three days after Lord John's resignation there was a historic gathering in Trafalgar Square. In his speech announcing the resignation of his Ministry, Lord John warned Parliament about the danger of alienating the sympathy of the people from the Crown and the aristocracy. He reminded the Peers that universal suffrage prevailed not only in the United States but in our own Colonies; and he took his stand in the light of the larger needs of the new era, on the assertion of Lord Grey at the time of the Reform Bill that only a large measure was a safe measure. 'We have made the attempt,' added Lord John, 'sincerely and anxiously to perform the duties of reconciling that which is due to the Constitution of the country with that which is due to the growing intelligence, the increasing wealth, and the manifest forbearance, virtue, and order of the people.' He protested against a niggardly and ungenerous treatment of so momentous a question.

Lord Russell's words were not lost on Mr. Bradlaugh. He made them the text of his speech to the twenty thousand people who assembled in Trafalgar Square, and afterwards walked in procession to give Mr. Gladstone an ovation in Carlton House Terrace. About three weeks later another great demonstration was announced to take place in Hyde Park, under the auspices of the Reform League. The authorities refused to allow the gathering, and, after a formal protest, the meeting was held at the former rendezvous. The mixed multitude who had followed the procession to the Park gates took the repulse less calmly, with the result that, as much by accident as by design, the Park railings for the space of half a mile were thrown down. Force is no remedy, but a little of it is sometimes a good object-lesson, and the panic which this unpremeditated display occasioned amongst the valiant defenders of law and order was unmistakeable.

[Sidenote: 'DISHING THE WHIGS']

Mr. Lowe had flouted the people, and had publicly asserted that those who were without the franchise did not really care to possess it. Forty-three other so-called Liberals in the House of Commons were apparently of the same way of thinking, for the Russell Administration was defeated by forty-four 'Liberal' votes. This in itself shows that Lord John, up to the hour in which he was driven from power, was far in advance of one section of his followers. The great towns, and more particularly Birmingham, Manchester, and Leeds, promptly took up the challenge; and in those three centres alone half a million of people assembled to make energetic protest against the contemptuous dismissal of their claims. The fall of the Park railings appealed to the fear of the classes, and aroused the enthusiasm of the masses. It is scarcely too much to say that if they had been demolished a month earlier the Russell Government would have carried its Reform proposals, and Disraeli would have lost his chance of 'dishing the Whigs.' The defeat of Lord John Russell was a virtual triumph. He was driven from power by a rally of reactionary forces at the very moment when he was fighting the battle of the people.[42] The Tories were only able to hold their own by borrowing a leaf from his book, and bringing in a more drastic measure of reform.

FOOTNOTES:

[41] Life and Correspondence of Viscount Palmerston, by the Hon. Evelyn Ashley, vol. ii. p. 438.

[42] In a letter written in the spring of 1867, Lord Houghton refers to Mr. Gladstone as being 'quite awed' for the moment by the 'diabolical cleverness of Dizzy.' He adds: 'Delane says the extreme party for Reform are now the grandees, and that the Dukes are quite ready to follow Beale into Hyde Park.'—The Life, Letters, and Friendships of Lord Houghton, by Sir Wemyss Reid, vol. ii. pp. 174-5.



CHAPTER XVII

OUT OF HARNESS

1867-1874

Speeches in the House of Lords—Leisured years—Mr. Lecky's reminiscences—The question of the Irish Church—The Independence of Belgium—Lord John on the claims of the Vatican—Letters to Mr. Chichester Fortescue—His scheme for the better government of Ireland—Lord Selborne's estimate of Lord John's public career—Frank admissions—As his private secretaries saw him.

LORD JOHN never relinquished that high sense of responsibility which was conspicuous in his attitude as a Minister of the Crown. Although out of harness from the summer of 1866 to his death, twelve years later, he retained to the last, undiminished, the sense of public duty. He took, not merely a keen interest, but an appreciable share in public affairs; and some of the speeches which he delivered in the House of Lords after his retirement from office show how vigorous and acute his intellect remained, and how wide and generous were his sympathies. The leisured years which came to Lord John after the fall of the second Russell Administration enabled him to renew old friendships, and gave him the opportunity for making the acquaintance of distinguished men of a younger generation. His own historical studies—the literary passion of a lifetime—made him keenly appreciative of the work of others in that direction, and kindred tastes drew him into intimate relations with Mr. W. E. H. Lecky. Few of the reminiscences, great or small, which have been written for these pages, can compare in interest with the following statement by so philosophic a critic of public affairs and so acute a judge of men:—

[Sidenote: MR. LECKY'S REMINISCENCES]

'It was, I think, in 1866, and in the house of Dean Milman, that I had the privilege of being introduced to Lord Russell. He at once received me with a warmth and kindness I can never forget, and from this time till near the end of his life I saw him very frequently. His Ministerial career had just terminated, but I could trace no failure in his powers, and, whatever difference of opinion there might be about his public career, no one, I believe, who ever came in contact with him failed to recognise his singular charm in private life. His conversation differed from that of some of the more illustrious of his contemporaries. It was not a copious and brilliant stream of words, dazzling, astonishing, or overpowering. It had no tendency to monologue, and it was not remarkable for any striking originalities either of language, metaphor, or thought. Few men steered more clear of paradox, and the charm of his talk lay mainly in his admirable terseness and clearness of expression, in the skill with which, by a few happy words, he could tell a story, or etch out a character, or condense an argument or statement. Beyond all men I have ever known, he had the gift of seizing rapidly in every question the central argument, the essential fact or distinction; and of all his mental characteristics, quickness and soundness of judgment seemed to me the most conspicuous. I have never met with anyone with whom it was so possible to discuss with profit many great questions in a short time. No one, too, could know him intimately without being impressed with his high sense of honour, with his transparent purity of motive, with the fundamental kindliness of his disposition, with the remarkable modesty of his estimate of his own past. He was eminently tolerant of difference of opinion, and he had in private life an imperturbable sweetness of temper that set those about him completely at their ease, and helped much to make them talk their best. Few men had more anecdotes, and no one told them better—tersely, accurately, with a quiet, subdued humour, with a lightness of touch which I should not have expected from his writings. In addition to the experiences of a long and eventful life, his mind was stored with the anecdotes of the brilliant Whig society of Holland House, of which he was one of the last repositories. It is much to be regretted that he did not write down his "Recollections" till a period of life when his once admirable memory was manifestly failing. He was himself sadly conscious of the failure. "I used never to confuse my facts," he once said to me; "I now find that I am beginning to do so."

'He has mentioned in his "Recollections" as one of the great felicities of his life that he retained the friendship of his leading opponents, and his private conversation fully supported this view. Of Sir Robert Peel he always spoke with a special respect, and it was, I think, a matter of peculiar pleasure to him that in his old age his family was closely connected by marriage with that of his illustrious rival. His friendship with Lord Derby, which began when they were colleagues, was unbroken by many contests. He spoke of him, however, as a man of brilliant talent, who had not the judgment or the character suited for the first place; and he maintained that he had done much better both under Lord Grey and under Sir Robert Peel than as Prime Minister. Between Lord Russell and Disraeli there was, I believe, on both sides much kindly feeling, though no two men could be less like, and though there was much in Disraeli's ways of looking at things that must have been peculiarly trying to the Whig mind. Lord Russell told me that he once described him in Parliament by quoting the lines of Dryden:—

'He was not one on picking work to dwell. He fagotted his notions as they fell; And if they rhymed and rattled, all was well.'

[Sidenote: HIS EARLY CHIEFS]

'Of his early chiefs, he used to speak with most reverence of Lord Grey. Lord Melbourne, he said, greatly injured his Government by the manner in which he treated deputations. He never could resist the temptation of bantering and snubbing them. Two men who flourished in his youth surpassed, Lord Russell thought, in eloquence any of the later generation. They were Canning and Plunket, and as an orator the greater of these was Plunket. Among the statesmen of a former generation, he had an especial admiration for Walpole, and was accustomed to maintain that he was a much greater statesman than Pitt. His judgment, indeed, of Pitt always seemed to me much warped by that adoration of Fox which in the early years of the century was almost an article of religion in Whig circles. Lord Russell had also the true Whig reverence for William III., and, I am afraid, he was by no means satisfied with some pages I wrote about that sovereign.

'Speaking of Lord Palmerston, I once said to him that I was struck with the small net result in legislation which he accomplished considering the many years he was in power. "But during all these years," Lord Russell replied, "he kept the honour of England very high; and I think that a great thing."

'The Imperialist sentiment was one of the deepest in his nature, and few things exasperated him more than the school which was advocating the surrender of India and the Colonies. "When I was young," he once said to me, "it was thought the work of a wise statesman that he had turned a small kingdom into a great empire. In my old age it seems to be thought the object of a statesman to turn a great empire into a small kingdom." He thought we had made a grave mistake, when conceding self-government to the Colonies, in not reserving the waste lands and free trade with the Mother Country; and he considered that the right of veto on legislation, which had been reserved, ought to have been always exercised (as he said it was under Lord Grey) when duties were imposed on English goods. In Irish politics he greatly blamed Canning, who agreed with the Whigs about Catholic Emancipation, though he differed from them about Reform. The former question, he said, was then by far the more pressing, and if Canning had insisted on making it a first-class ministerial question he would have carried it in conjunction with the Whigs. "My pride in Irish measures," he once wrote to me, "is in the Poor Law, which I designed, framed, and twice carried." Like Peel, he strongly maintained that the priests ought to have been paid. He would gladly have seen the principle of religious equality in Ireland carried to its furthest consequences, and local government considerably extended; but he told me that any statesman who proposed to repeal the Union ought to be impeached, and in his "Recollections," and in one of his published letters to the present Lord Carlingford, he has expressed in the strongest terms his inflexible hostility to Home Rule.

[Sidenote: POLITICAL APPREHENSIONS]

'Though the steadiest of Whigs, Lord Russell was by no means an uncompromising democrat. The great misfortune, he said, of America was that the influence of Jefferson had eclipsed that of Washington. One of her chief advantages was that the Western States furnished a wide and harmless field for restless energy and ambition. In England he was very anxious that progress should move on the lines of the past, and he was under the impression that statesmen of the present generation studied English history less than their predecessors. He was one of the earliest advocates of the Minority Vote, and he certainly looked with very considerable apprehension to the effects of the Democratic Reform Bill of 1867. He said to me that he feared there was too much truth in the saying of one of his friends that "the concessions of the Whigs were once concessions to intelligence, but now concessions to ignorance."

'When the Education Act was carried, he was strongly in favour of the introduction of the Bible, accompanied by purely undenominational teaching. This was, I think, one of his last important declarations on public policy. I recollect a scathing article in the "Saturday Review," demonstrating the absurdity of supposing that such teaching was possible. But the people of England took a different view. The great majority of the School Boards adopted the system which Lord Russell recommended, and it prevailed with almost perfect harmony for more than twenty years.

'In foreign politics he looked with peculiar pleasure to the services he had rendered to the Italian cause. Italy was always very dear to him. He had many valued friends there, and he spoke Italian (as he also did Spanish) with much fluency. Among my most vivid recollections are those of some happy days I spent with him at San Remo.'

Two years before the disestablishment of the Irish Church, Lord John Russell, knowing how great a stumbling-block its privileges were to the progress of the people, moved for a Commission to inquire into the expenditure of its revenues. The investigation was, however, staved off, and the larger question was, in consequence, hastened. He supported Mr. Gladstone in a powerful speech in 1870, and showed himself in substantial agreement with Mr. Forster over his great scheme of education, though he thought that some of its provisions bore heavily upon Nonconformists. The outbreak of war between France and Germany seemed at first to threaten the interests of England, and Lord John introduced a Militia Bill, which was only withdrawn when the Government promised to take action. The interests of Belgium were threatened by the struggle on the Continent, and Lord John took occasion to remind the nation that we were bound to defend that country, and had guaranteed by treaty to uphold its independence:—

'... I am persuaded that if it is once manfully declared that England means to stand by her treaties, to perform her engagements—that her honour and her interest would allow nothing else—such a declaration would check the greater part of these intrigues, and that neither France nor Prussia would wish to add a second enemy to the formidable foe which each has to meet.... When the choice is between honour and infamy, I cannot doubt that her Majesty's Government will pursue the course of honour, the only one worthy of the British people.... I consider that if England shrank from the performance of her engagements—if she acted in a faithless manner with respect to this matter—her extinction as a Great Power must very soon follow.'

[Sidenote: ATTACKS THE CLAIMS OF PIUS IX.]

Lord John's vigorous protest did not go unheeded, and the King of the Belgians sent him an autograph letter in acknowledgment of his generous and opportune words. On the other hand, Lord John Russell resented the determination of Mr. Gladstone to submit the 'Alabama' claims to arbitration, and also opposed the adoption of the Ballot and the abolition of purchase in the Army. The conflict which arose in the autumn of 1872 between the Emperor of Germany and Pius IX. was a matter which appealed to all lovers of liberty of conscience. Lord John, though now in his eighty second year, rose promptly to the occasion, and promised to preside at a great public meeting in London, called to protest against the claims of the Vatican. At the last moment, though the spirit was willing, the flesh was weak, and yielding to medical advice, he contented himself with a written expression of sympathy. This was read to the meeting, and brought him the thanks of the Kaiser and Prince Bismarck. Lord John's letters, declared Mr. Kinglake seem to carry with them the very ring of his voice; and the one which was written from Pembroke Lodge on January 19, 1874, was full of the old fire of enthusiasm and the resolution which springs from clean-cut convictions:—'I hasten to declare with all friends of freedom, and I trust with the great majority of the English nation, that I could no longer call myself a lover of civil and religious liberty were I not to proclaim my sympathy with the Emperor of Germany in the noble struggle in which he is engaged.'

Lord John Russell's pamphlets, published in 1868-9—in the shape of letters to Mr. Chichester Fortescue—show that in old age and out of office he was still anxious to see justice done to the legitimate demands of Ireland. He declared that he witnessed with alarm the attempt to involve the whole Irish nation in a charge of disaffection, conspiracy, and treason. He contended that Englishmen ought to seek to rid their minds of exaggerated fears and national animosities, so that they might be in a position to consider patiently all the facts of the case. 'We ought to weigh with care the complaints that are made, and examine with still more care and circumspection the remedies that are proposed, lest in our attempts to cure the disease we give the patient a new and more dangerous disorder.' In his 'Life of Fox' Lord John Russell maintained that the wisest system that could be devised for the conciliation of Ireland had yet to be discovered; and in his third letter to Mr. Chichester Fortescue, published in January 1869, he made a remarkable allusion to Mr. Gladstone as a statesman who might yet seek to 'perform a permanent and immortal service to his country' by endeavouring to reconcile England and Ireland. If, added Lord John, Mr. Gladstone should 'undertake the heroic task of riveting the union of the three kingdoms by affection, even more than by statute; if he should endeavour to efface the stains which proscription and prejudice have affixed on the fair fame of Great Britain, then, though he may not reunite his party ... he will be enrolled among the noblest of England's statesmen, and will have laid the foundations of a great work, which either he or a younger generation will not fail to accomplish.'

[Sidenote: IRISH PROPOSALS]

The proposals Lord John Russell made in the columns of the 'Times,' on August 9, 1872, for the better government of Ireland have been claimed as a tentative scheme of Home Rule. 'It appears to me, that if Ireland were to be allowed to elect a representative assembly for each of its four provinces of Leinster, Ulster, Munster, and Connaught, and if Scotland in a similar manner were to be divided into Lowlands and Highlands, having for each province a representative assembly, the local wants of Ireland and Scotland might be better provided for than they are at present.' Lord John went on to say that the Imperial Parliament might still retain its hold over local legislation, and added that it was his purpose to explain in a pamphlet a policy which he thought might be adopted to the 'satisfaction of the nation at large.' The pamphlet, however, remained unwritten, and the scheme in its fulness, therefore, was never explained. Evidently Lord Russell's mind was changing in its attitude towards the Irish problem; but, as Mr. Lecky points out in the personal reminiscences with which he has enriched these pages, though in advance of the opinion of the hour he was not prepared to accept the principle of Home Rule. Although Mr. Lecky does not mention the year in which Lord John declared that any statesman who 'proposed to repeal the Union ought to be impeached,' Lord Russell himself in his published 'Recollections' admits that he saw no hope that Ireland would be well and quietly governed by the adoption of Home Rule. In fact, he makes it quite clear that he was in sympathy with the view which Lord Althorp expressed when O'Connell demanded the repeal of the Union—namely, that such a request amounted to a dismemberment of the Empire. On the other hand, Lord John was wont in his latest years to discuss the question in all its bearings with an Irish representative who held opposite views. There can be no doubt that he was feeling his way to a more generous interpretation of the problem than that which is commonly attributed to him. His own words on this point are: 'I should have been very glad if the leaders of popular opinion in Ireland had so modified and mollified their demand for Home Rule as to make it consistent with the unity of the Empire.' His mind, till within a few years of his death, was clear, and did not stand still. Whether he would have gradually become a Home Ruler is open to question, but in 1874 he had gone quite as far in that direction as Mr. Gladstone.

Lord John, though the most loyal of subjects, made it plain throughout his career that he was not in the least degree a courtier. His nephew, Mr. George Russell, after stating that Lord John supported, with voice and vote, Mr. Hume's motion for the revision of the Civil List under George IV., and urged in vigorous terms the restoration of Queen Caroline's name to the Liturgy, as well as subscribing to compensate an officer, friendly to the Queen, whom the King's animosity had driven from the army, adds: 'It may well be that some tradition of this early independence, or some playful desire to test the fibre of Whiggery by putting an extreme case, led in much later years to an embarrassing question by an illustrious personage, and gave the opportunity for an apt reply. "Is it true, Lord John, that you hold that a subject is justified, under certain circumstances, in disobeying his Sovereign's will?" "Well," I said, "speaking to a Sovereign of the House of Hanover, I can only say that I suppose it is!"'[43]

[Sidenote: IMPULSIVE BUT CHIVALROUS]

Looking back in the autumn of last year on the length and breadth of Earl Russell's public career, the late Earl Selborne sent for these pages the following words, which gather up his general, and, alas! final impressions of his old friend and colleague: 'I have tried to imagine in what words an ancient Roman panegyrist might have summed up such a public and private character as that of Lord Russell. "Animosa juventus," and "jucunda senectus," would not inaptly have described his earlier and his latter days. But for the life of long and active public service which came between, it is difficult to find any phrase equally pointed and characteristic. Always patriotic, always faithful to the traditions associated with his name, there was, as Sydney Smith said, nothing which he had not courage to undertake. What he undertook he did energetically, and generally in a noble spirit; though sometimes yielding to too sudden impulses. As time went on, the generosity and sagacity of his nature gained strength; and, though he had not always been patient when the control of affairs was in other hands, a successful rival found in him the most loyal of colleagues. Any estimate of his character would be imperfect which omitted to recognise either his appreciative and sympathetic disposition towards those who differed from him, even on points of importance, when he believed their convictions to be sincere and their conduct upright, or the rare dignity and magnanimity with which, after 1866, he retired from a great position, of which he was neither unambitious nor unworthy, under no pressure from without, and before age or infirmity had made it necessary for him to do so.'

Lord Selborne's allusion to Lord John's sympathetic disposition to those who differed from him, even on points of importance, is borne out by the terms in which he referred to Lord Aberdeen in correspondence—which was published first in the 'Times,' and afterwards in a pamphlet—between himself and Sir Arthur Gordon over statements in the first edition of 'Recollections and Suggestions.' Lord John admitted that, through lapse of memory, he had fallen into error, and that his words conveyed a wrong impression concerning Lord Aberdeen. He added: 'I believe no man has entered public life in my time more pure in his personal views, and more free from grasping ambition or selfish consideration. I am much grieved that anything I have written should be liable to an interpretation injurious to Lord Aberdeen.' It is pleasant in this connection to be able to cite a letter, written by Lord Aberdeen to the Duke of Bedford, when the Crimean War was happily only a memory. The Duke had told Lord Aberdeen that his brother admitted his mistake in leaving the Coalition Government in the way in which he did. Lord Aberdeen in his reply declared that he did not doubt that Lord John entered the Government on generous and high-minded motives, or that, in consequence of delay, he might have arrived at the conclusion that he was in a somewhat false position. Any appearance of lack of confidence in Lord John, Lord Aberdeen remarked, was 'entirely the effect of accident and never of intention.' He hints that he sometimes thought Lord John over-sensitive and even rash or impracticable. He adds: 'But these are trifles. We parted with expressions of mutual regard, which on my side were perfectly sincere, as I have no doubt they were on his. These expressions I am happy in having this opportunity to renew; as well as with my admiration of his great powers and noble impulses to assure you that I shall always feel a warm interest in his reputation and honour.' Lord Stanmore states that his father 'steadily maintained that Lord John was the proper head of the Liberal party, and never ceased to desire that he should succeed him as Prime Minister.' Rashness and impatience are hard sayings to one who looks steadily at the annals of the Coalition Government. Lord Aberdeen and the majority of his Cabinet, were, to borrow a phrase from Swift, 'huge idolators of delay.' Their policy of masterly inactivity was disastrous, and, though Lord John made a mistake in quitting the Ministry in face of a hostile vote of censure, his chief mistake arose from the 'generous and high-minded motives' which Lord Aberdeen attributes to him, and which led him to join the Coalition Government.

[Sidenote: RELATIONS WITH POLITICAL OPPONENTS]

His personal relations with his political opponents, from the Duke of Wellington to Lord Salisbury, were cordial. His friendship with Lord Derby was intimate, and he visited him at Knowsley, and in his closing years he had much pleasant intercourse with Lord Salisbury at Dieppe. His association with Lord Beaconsfield was slight; but one of the kindest letters which Lady Russell received on the death of her husband was written by a statesman with whom Lord Russell had little in common. Sir Robert Peel, in spite of the encounters of party warfare, always maintained towards Lord John the most friendly attitude. 'The idea which the stranger or casual acquaintance,' states his brother-in-law and former private secretary, Mr. George Elliot, 'conceived of Lord Russell was very unlike the real man as seen in his own home or among his intimates. There he was lively, playful, and uniformily good-humoured, full of anecdote, and a good teller of a story.... In conversation he was easy and pleasant, and the reverse of disputatious. Even in the worst of his political difficulties—and he had some pretty hard trials in this way—he had the power of throwing off public cares for the time, and in his house retained his cheerfulness and good-humour.... In matters of business he was an easy master to serve, and the duties of his private secretary were light as compared to others in the same position. He never made work and never was fussy, and even at the busiest times never seemed in a hurry.... Large matters he never neglected, but the difficulty of the private secretary was to get him to attend to the trifling and unimportant ones with which he had chiefly to deal.'

The Hon. Charles Gore, who was also private secretary to Lord John when the latter held the Home Office in the Melbourne Administration, gives in the following words his recollections: 'Often members of Parliament and others used to come into my room adjoining, after their interview with Lord John, looking, and seeming, much dissatisfied with their reception. His manner was cold and shy, and, even when he intended to comply with the request made, in his answer he rather implied no than yes. He often used to say to me that he liked to hear the laugh which came to him through the door which separated us, as proof that I had been able to soothe the disappointed feelings with which his interviewer had left him. As a companion, when not feeling shy, no one was more agreeable or full of anecdote than Lord John—simple in his manner, never assuming superiority, and always ready to listen to what others had to say.' This impression is confirmed by Sir Villiers Lister, who served under Lord John at the Foreign Office. He states that his old chief, whilst always quick to seize great problems, was somewhat inclined to treat the humdrum details of official life with fitful attention.

FOOTNOTES:

[43] Contemporary Review, vol. 56, p. 814.



CHAPTER XVIII

PEMBROKE LODGE

1847-1878

Looking back—Society at Pembroke Lodge—Home life—The house and its memories—Charles Dickens's speech at Liverpool—Literary friendships—Lady Russell's description of her husband—A packet of letters—His children's recollections—A glimpse of Carlyle—A witty impromptu—Closing days—Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone—The jubilee of the Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts—'Punch' on the 'Golden Wedding'—Death—The Queen's letter—Lord Shaftesbury's estimate of Lord John's career—His great qualities.

PEACE with honour—a phrase which Lord John used long before Lord Beaconsfield made it famous—sums up the settled tranquillity and simple dignity of the life at Pembroke Lodge. No man was more entitled to rest on his laurels than Lord John Russell. He was in the House of Commons, and made his first proposals for Parliamentary redress, in the reign of George III. His great victory on behalf of the rights of conscience was won by the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts in the reign of George IV. He had piloted the first Reform Bill through the storms of prejudice and passion which had assailed that great measure in the reign of William IV. He was Home Secretary when Queen Victoria's reign began, and since then he had served her Majesty and the nation with unwearied devotion for almost the life-time of a generation. He was Secretary for the Colonies during a period when the expansion of England brought delicate constitutional questions to the front, and was Minister of Foreign Affairs when struggling nationalities looked to England, and did not seek her help in vain. Twice Prime Minister in periods of storm and stress, he had left his mark, directly or indirectly, on the statute-book in much progressive legislation, and, in spite of mistakes in policy, had at length quitted office with the reputation of an honest and enlightened statesman.

Peel at the age of fifty-eight had judged himself worthy of retirement; but Russell was almost seventy-four, and only his indomitable spirit had enabled him to hold his own in public life against uncertain health during the whole course of his career. In this respect, at least, Lord John possessed that 'strong patience which outwearies fate.' He was always delicate, and in his closing years he was accustomed to tell, with great glee, those about him an incident in his own experience, which happened when the century was entering its teens and he was just leaving his own. Three physicians were summoned in consultation, for his life appeared to be hanging on a thread. He described how they carefully thumped him, and put him through the usual ordeal. Then they looked extremely grave and retired to an adjoining room. The young invalid could hear them talking quite plainly, and dreaded their return with the sentence of death. Presently the conversation grew animated, and Lord John found, to his surprise, they were talking about anything in the world except himself. On coming back, all the advice they gave was that he ought to travel abroad for a time. It jumped with his mood, and he took it, and to the end of his days travel never failed to restore his energies.

[Sidenote: IN SYLVAN RETREAT]

'For some years after his retirement from Ministerial life,' says Mr. Lecky, 'he gathered round him at Pembroke Lodge a society that could hardly be equalled—certainly not surpassed—in England. In the summer Sunday afternoons there might be seen beneath the shade of those majestic oaks nearly all that was distinguished in English politics and much that was distinguished in English literature, and few eminent foreigners visited England without making a pilgrimage to the old statesman. Unhappily, this did not last to the end. Failing memory and the weakness of extreme old age at last withdrew him completely from the society he was so eminently fitted to adorn, but to those who had known him in his brighter days he has left a memory which can never be effaced.'

Pembroke Lodge, on the fringe of Richmond Park, was, for more than thirty years, Lord John Russell's home. In his busiest years, whenever he could escape from town, the rambling, picturesque old house, which the Queen had given him, was his chosen and greatly loved place of retreat. 'Happy days,' records Lady Russell, 'so full of reality. The hours of work so cheerfully got through, the hours of leisure so delightful.' When in office much of each week was of necessity passed at his house in Chesham Place, but he appreciated the freedom and seclusion of Pembroke Lodge, and took a keen delight in its beautiful garden, with its winding walks, magnificent views, and spreading forest trees—truly a haunt of ancient peace, as well as of modern fellowship. There, in old age, Lord Russell loved to wander with wife or child or friend, and there, through the loop-holes of retreat amid his books and flowers, he watched the great world, and occasionally sallied forth, so long as strength remained, to bear his part in its affairs.

Lord John Russell in his closing years thoroughly distrusted Turkish rule in Europe. He declared that he had formerly tried with Lord Palmerston's aid to improve the Turks, but came to the conclusion that the task was hopeless, and he witnessed with gladness the various movements to throw off their control in South-Eastern Europe. He was one of the first to call attention to the Bulgarian atrocities, and he joined the national protest with the political ardour which moral indignation was still able to kindle in a statesman who cherished his old ideals at the age of eighty-four. Two passages from Lady Russell's journal in the year 1876 speak for themselves:—'August 18. My dearest husband eighty-four. The year has left its mark upon him, a deeper mark than most years ... but he is happy, even merry. Seventy or eighty of our school children came up and sang in front of his window. They had made a gay flag on which were written four lines of a little poem to him. He was much pleased and moved with the pretty sight and pretty sound. I may say the same of Lord Granville, who happened to be here at the time.' Two months later occurs the following entry: 'Interesting visit from the Bulgarian delegates, who called to thank John for the part he has taken. They utterly deny the probability of civil war or bloodshed between different Christian sects, or between Christian and Mussulman, in case of Bulgaria and the other insurgent provinces obtaining self-government. Their simple, heart-felt words of gratitude to John were touching to us all.'

History repeats itself at Pembroke Lodge. On May 16, 1895, a party of Armenian refugees went thither on the ground that 'the name of Lord John Russell is honoured by every Christian under the rule of the Turk.' It recalled to Lady Russell the incident just recorded, and the interview, she states, was 'a heart-breaking one, although gratitude for British sympathy seemed uppermost in what they wished to express. After they were gone I thought, as I have often thought before, how right my husband was in feeling and in saying, as he often did, that Goldsmith was quite wrong in these two lines in "The Traveller":

'How small of all that human hearts endure That part which laws or kings can cause or cure!

He often recited them with disapproval when any occurrence made him feel how false they were.'

[Sidenote: KINGLAKE'S DESCRIPTION]

Lord John's manner of life, like his personal tastes, was simple. He contrived to set the guests who gathered around him at his wife's receptions perfectly at their ease, by his old-fashioned gallantry, happy humour, and bright, vigorous talk. One room in Pembroke Lodge, from the windows of which a glorious view of the wooded valley is obtained, has been rendered famous by Kinglake's description[44] of a certain drowsy summer evening in June 1854, when the Aberdeen Cabinet assembled in it, at the very moment when they were drifting into war. Other rooms in the house are full of memories of Garibaldi and Livingstone, of statesmen, ambassadors, authors, and, indeed, of men distinguished in every walk of life, but chiefly of Lord John himself, in days of intellectual toil, as well as in hours of friendly intercourse and happy relaxation.

Charles Dickens, speaking in 1869 at a banquet in Liverpool, held in his honour, over which Lord Dufferin presided, refused to allow what he regarded as a covert sneer against the House of Lords to pass unchallenged. He repelled the insinuation with unusual warmth, and laid stress on his own regard for individual members of that assembly. Then, on the spur of the moment, came an unexpected personal tribute. He declared that 'there was no man in England whom he respected more in his public capacity, loved more in his private capacity, or from whom he had received more remarkable proofs of his honour and love of literature than Lord John Russell.' The compliment took Lord Russell by surprise; but if space allowed, or necessity claimed, it would be easy to prove that it was not undeserved. From the days of his youth, when he lived under the roof of Dr. Playfair, and attended the classes of Professor Dugald Stewart in Edinburgh, and took his part, as a protege of Lord Holland, in the brilliant society of Holland House, Lord John's leanings towards literature, and friendship with other literary men had been marked. As in the case of other Prime Ministers of the Queen's reign, and notably of Derby, Beaconsfield, and Mr. Gladstone, literature was his pastime, if politics was his pursuit, for his interests were always wider than the question of the hour. He was the friend of Sir James Mackintosh and of Sydney Smith, who playfully termed him 'Lord John Reformer,' of Moore and Rogers, Jeffrey and Macaulay, Dickens and Thackeray, Tyndall and Sir Richard Owen, Motley and Sir Henry Taylor, Browning and Tennyson, to mention only a few representative men.

[Sidenote: LITERARY FRIENDSHIPS]

When the students of Glasgow University wished, in 1846, to do him honour, Lord John gracefully begged them to appoint as Lord Rector a man of creative genius, like Wordsworth, rather than himself. As Prime Minister he honoured science by selecting Sir John Herschel as Master of the Mint, and literature, by the recommendation of Alfred Tennyson as Poet Laureate. When Sir Walter Scott was creeping back in broken health from Naples to die at Abbotsford it was Lord John who cheered the sad hours of illness in the St. James's Hotel, Jermyn Street, by a delicately worded offer of financial help from the public funds. Leigh Hunt, Christopher North, Sheridan Knowles, Father Mathew, the widow of Dr. Chalmers, and the children of Tom Hood are names which suggest the direction in which he used his patronage as First Minister of the Crown. He was in the habit of enlivening his political dinner parties by invoking the aid of literary men of wit and distinction, and nothing delighted him more than to bring, in this pleasant fashion, literature and politics to close quarters. The final pages of his 'Recollections and Suggestions' were written in Lord Tennyson's study at Aldworth, and his relations with Moore at an earlier stage of his life were even more intimate.

Lord John Russell was twice married: first, on April 11, 1835, to Adelaide, daughter of Mr. Thomas Lister, of Armitage Park, Staffordshire, the young widow of Thomas, second Lord Ribblesdale; and second, on July 20, 1841, to Lady Frances Anna Maria Elliot, second daughter of Gilbert, second Earl of Minto. By his first wife he had two daughters, the late Lady Victoria Villiers, and Lady Georgiana Peel; and by his second three sons and one daughter—John, Viscount Amberley, the Hon. George William Gilbert, formerly of the 9th Lancers, the Hon. Francis Albert Rollo, and Lady Mary Agatha. Viscount Amberley married, on November 8, 1864, the fifth daughter of Lord Stanley of Alderley. Lord Amberley died two years before his father, and the peerage descended to the elder of his two sons, the present Earl Russell.

Lady Russell states: 'Our way of life during the session, from the time we first settled in Pembroke Lodge till John ceased to take any active part in politics, was to be there from Wednesday to Thursday and from Saturday to Monday. This made him spend much time on the road; but he always said the good it did him to snatch all he could of the delight of his own quiet country home, to breathe its pure air, and be cheered by the sight of his merry children, far outweighed the time and trouble it cost him. When he was able to leave town tolerably early, he used sometimes to ride down all the way; but he oftener drove to Hammersmith Bridge, where his horse, and such of our children as were old enough to ride met him, and how joyfully I used to catch the first sight of the happy riders—he on his roan "Surrey" and they on their pretty ponies—from the little mount in our grounds! He was very fond of riding, and in far later days, when age and infirmity obliged him to give it up, used often to say in a sad tone, pointing to some of his favourite grassy rides, as we drove together in the park, "Ah! what pleasant gallops we used to have along there!"' Lord John was seen to great advantage in his own home and with his children. Even when the cares of State pressed most heavily on him he always seemed to the children about him to have leisure to enter with gay alacrity into their plans and amusements. When at home, no matter how urgent the business in hand, he always saw them either in the house or the garden every day, and took the liveliest interest in the round of their life, alike in work and play. He had conquered the art of bearing care lightly. He seldom allowed public affairs to distract him in moments of leisure. He was able to throw aside the cares of office, and to enter with vivacity and humour into social diversions. His equable temper and placid disposition served him in good stead amid the turmoil and excitement of political life.

[Sidenote: A PACKET OF OLD LETTERS]

Sorrows, neither few nor light, fell upon the household at Pembroke Lodge in the closing years of Lord Russell's life; but 'trials,' as Lady Russell puts it in her journal, 'had taught Lord John to feel for others, and age had but deepened his religion of love.' In reply to a birthday letter from Mr. Archibald Peel, his son-in-law, and nephew of his great political rival he said: 'Thanks for your good wishes. Happy returns! I always find them, as my children are so affectionate and loving; "many" I cannot expect, but I have played my part.' Two or three extracts from a packet of letters addressed by Lord John to his daughter, Lady Georgiana Peel, will be read with interest. The majority of them are of too intimate and personal a kind for quotation. Yet the whole of them leave the impression that Lord John, who reproaches himself in one instance as a bad correspondent, was at least a singularly good father. They cover a considerable term of years, and though for the most part dealing with private affairs, and often in a spirit of pleasant raillery, here and there allusions to public events occur in passing. In one of them, written from Gotha in the autumn of 1862, when Lord John was in attendance on her Majesty, he says: 'We have been dull here, but the time has never hung heavy on our hands. Four boxes of despatches and then telegrams, all requiring answers, have been our daily food.' He refers touchingly to the Queen's grief, and there is also an allusion to the minor tribulation of a certain little boy in England who had just crossed the threshold of school-life. Probably Lord John was thinking of his own harsh treatment at Westminster, more than sixty years before, when he wrote: 'Poor Willy! He will find a public school a rough place, and the tears will come into his eyes when he thinks of the very soft nest he left at home.'

Ecclesiastical affairs never lost their interest to the author of the Durham Letter, and the following comments show his attitude on Church questions. The first is from a letter written on May 23, 1867: 'The Church has been greatly disturbed. The Bishop of Salisbury has claimed for the English clergy all the power of the Roman priests. The question whether they are to wear white surplices, or blue, green, yellow, or red, becomes a minor question in comparison. Of course the Bishop and those who think with him throw off the authority of our excellent Thirty-nine Articles altogether, and ought to leave the Church to the Protestant clergy and laity.' England just then, in Carlyle's judgment, was 'shooting Niagara,' and Disraeli's reform proposals were making a stir in the opposite camp. In the letter above quoted Lord John says: 'Happily, we are about to get rid of the compound householder. I am told Dizzy expects to be the first President of the British Republic.' Mr. Gladstone, according to Lord Houghton, seemed at the same moment 'quite awed with the diabolical cleverness of Dizzy.' The second bears date Woburn Abbey, September 29, 1868: 'Dr. Temple is a man I greatly admire, and he has become more valuable to his country since the death of our admirable Dean of St. Paul's. If I had any voice in the appointment, Temple is the man I should wish to see succeed to Milman; but I suppose the "Essays and Reviews" will tell heavily against him.' 'We lead a very quiet life here and a very happy one. I sometimes regret not seeing my old political friends a little oftener.' 'In June [1869] I expect Dickens to visit us. We went to see him last night in the murder of Nancy by Sikes, and Mrs. Gamp. He acts like a great actor, and writes like a great author. Irish Church is looming very near in the Commons, and, in June, in the Lords. The Archbishops and Bishops do not wish to oppose the second reading, but Lord Cairns is prepared to hack and hew in committee.'

[Sidenote: LADY GEORGIANA PEEL]

The recollections of Lord John's children reveal, by incidents too trivial in themselves to quote, how completely he entered into their life. Lady Georgiana Peel recalls her childish tears when her father arrived too late from London one evening to see one of the glorious sunsets which he had taught her to admire. 'I can feel now his hand on my forehead in any childish illness, or clasping mine in the garden, as he led me out to forget some trifling sorrow.' She lays stress on his patience and serene temper, on his tender heart, and on the fact that he always found leisure on the busiest day to enter into the daily life of his little girls. Half heartedness, either in work or play, was not to his mind. 'Do what you are doing' was the advice he gave to his children.

One of the elder children in far-off days at Pembroke Lodge, Mrs. Warburton, Lord John's step-daughter, recalls wet days in the country, when her father would break the tedium of temporary imprisonment indoors by romping with his children. 'I have never forgotten his expression of horror when in a game of hide-and-seek he banged the door accidentally in my elder sister's face and we heard her fall. Looking back to the home life, its regularity always astonishes me. The daily walks, prayers, and meals regular and punctual as a rule.... He was shy and we were shy, but I think we spoke quite freely with him, and he seldom said more than "Foolish child" when we ventured on any startling views on things. Once I remember rousing his indignation when I gave out, with sententious priggishness, that the Duke of Wellington laboured under great difficulties in Spain caused by the "factious opposition at home;" that was beyond "Foolish child," but my discomforted distress was soon soothed by a pat on the cheek, and an amused twinkle in his kind eyes.' Lord Amberley, four days before his death, declared that he had all his life 'met with nothing but kindness and gentleness' from his father. He added: 'I do earnestly hope that at the end of his long and noble life he may be spared the pain of losing a son.'

Mr. Rollo Russell says: 'My father was very fond of history, and I can remember his often turning back to Hume, Macaulay, Hallam, and other historical works. He read various books on the French Revolution with great interest. He had several classics always near him, such as Homer and Virgil; and he always carried about with him a small edition of Horace. Of Shakespeare he could repeat much, and knew the plays well, entering into and discussing the characters. He admired Milton very greatly and was fond of reading "Paradise Lost." He was very fond of several Italian and Spanish books, by the greatest authors of those countries. Of lighter reading, he admired most, I think, "Don Quixote," Sir Walter Scott's novels, Miss Evans' ("George Eliot") novels, Miss Austen's, and Dickens and Thackeray. Scott especially he loved to read over again. He told me he bought "Waverley" when it first came out, and was so interested in it that he sat up a great part of the night till he had finished it.'

[Sidenote: THE FRIENDSHIP OF BOOKS]

Lady Russell states that Grote's 'History of Greece' was one of the last books her husband read, and she adds: 'Many of his friends must have seen its volumes open before him on the desk of his blue armchair in his sitting-room at Pembroke Lodge in the last year or two of his life. It was often exchanged for Jowett's "Plato," in which he took great delight, and which he persevered in trying to read, when, alas! the worn-out brain refused to take in the meaning.'

Lord John was a delightful travelling companion, and he liked to journey with his children about him. His cheerfulness and merriment on these occasions is a happy memory. Dr. Anderson, of Richmond, who has been for many years on intimate terms at Pembroke Lodge, and was much abroad with Lord John in the capacity of physician and friend, states that all who came in contact personally with him became deeply attached to him. This arose not only from the charm of his manner and conversation, but from the fact that he felt they trusted him implicitly. 'I never saw anyone laugh so heartily. He seemed almost convulsed with merriment, and he once told me that after a supper with Tom Moore, the recollection of some of the witty things said during the course of the evening so tickled him, that he had to stop and hold by the railings while laughing on his way home. I once asked which of all the merry pictures in "Punch" referring to himself amused him the most, and he at once replied: "The little boy who has written 'No Popery' on a wall and is running away because he sees a policeman coming. I think that was very funny!"' Dr. Anderson says that Lord John was generous to a fault and easily moved to tears, and adds: 'I never knew any one more tender in illness or more anxious to help.' He states that Lord John told him that he had encountered Carlyle one day in Regent Street. He stopped, and asked him if he had seen a paragraph in that morning's 'Times' about the Pope. 'What!' exclaimed Carlyle, 'the Pope, the Pope! The back of ma han' for that auld chimera!'

Lady Russell says: 'As far as I recollect he never but once worked after dinner. He always came up to the drawing-room with us, was able to cast off public cares, and chat and laugh, and read and be read to, or join in little games, such as capping verses, of which he was very fond.' Lord John used often to write prologues and epilogues for the drawing-room plays which they were accustomed to perform. Space forbids the quotation of these sparkling and often humorous verses, but the following instance of his ready wit occurred in the drawing-room at Minto, and is given on the authority of Mr. George Elliot. At a game where everyone was required to write some verses, answering the question written on a paper to be handed to him, and bringing in a word written on the same, the paper that fell to the lot of Lord John contained this question: 'Do you admire Sir Robert Peel?' and 'soldier' the word to be brought in. His answer was:

'I ne'er was a soldier of Peel, Or ever yet stood at his back; For while he wriggled on like an eel, I swam straight ahead like a Jack.'

Mr. Gladstone states that perhaps the finest retort he ever heard in the House of Commons was that of Lord John in reply to Sir Francis Burdett. The latter had abandoned his Radicalism in old age, and was foolish enough to sneer at the 'cant of patriotism.' 'I quite agree, said Lord John, 'with the honourable baronet that the cant of patriotism is a bad thing. But I can tell him a worse—the recant of patriotism—which I will gladly go along with him in reprobating whenever he shows me an example of it.'

[Sidenote: LORD DUFFERIN'S RECOLLECTIONS]

Lord John Russell once declared that he had no need to go far in search of happiness, as he had it at his own doors, and this was the impression left on every visitor to Pembroke Lodge. Lord Dufferin states that all his recollections gather around Lord John's domestic life. He never possessed a kinder friend or one who was more pleasant in the retirement of his home. Lord Dufferin adds: 'One of his most charming characteristics was that he was so simple, so untheatrical, so genuine, that his existence, at least when I knew him, flowed at a very high level of thought and feeling, but was unmarked by anything very dramatic. His conversation was too delightful, full of anecdote; but then his anecdotes were not like those told by the ordinary raconteur, and were simple reminiscences of his own personal experience and intercourse with other distinguished men. Again, his stories were told in such an unpretending way that, though you were delighted with what you had heard, you were still more delighted with the speaker himself.'

The closing years of Lord Russell's career were marked by settled peace, the consciousness of great tasks worthily accomplished, the unfaltering devotion of household love, the friendship of the Queen, the confidence of a younger race of statesmen, and the respect of the nation. Deputations of working men found their way to Pembroke Lodge to greet the old leader of the party of progress, and school children gathered about him in summer on the lawn, and were gladdened by his kindly smile and passing word. In good report and in evil report, in days of power and in days of weakness, the Countess Russell cheered, helped, and solaced him, and brought not only rare womanly devotion, but unusual intellectual gifts to his aid at the critical moments of his life, when bearing the strain of public responsibility, and in the simple round of common duty. The nation may recognise the services of its great men, but can never gauge to the full extent the influences which sustained them. The uplifting associations of a singularly happy domestic life must be taken into account in any estimate of the forces which shaped Lord John Russell's career. It is enough to say—indeed, more cannot with propriety be added—that through the political stress and strain of nearly forty years Lady Russell proved herself to be a loyal and noble-hearted wife.

There is another subject, which cannot be paraded on the printed page, and yet, since religion was the central principle of Lord John Russell's life, some allusion to his position on the highest of all subjects becomes imperative. His religion was thorough; it ran right through his nature. It was practical, and revealed itself in deeds which spoke louder than words. 'I rest in the faith of Jeremy Taylor,' were his words, 'Barrow, Tillotson, Hoadly, Samuel Clarke, Middleton, Warburton, and Arnold, without attempting to reconcile points of difference between these great men. I prefer the simple words of Christ to any dogmatic interpretation of them.' Dean Stanley, whom he used to call his Pope—always playfully adding, 'but not an infallible one'—declared shortly before Lord Russell's death that 'he was a man who was firmly convinced that in Christianity, whether as held by the National Church or Nonconformist, there was something greater and vaster than each of the particular communions professed and advocated, something which made it worth while to develop those universal principles of religion that are common to all who accept in any real sense the fundamental truths of Christianity.'

[Sidenote: MR. SPURGEON'S BLESSING]

Mr. Spurgeon, in conversation with the writer of these pages, related an incident concerning Lord John which deserves at least passing record, as an illustration of his swift appreciation of ability and the reality of his recognition of religious equality. Lord John was upwards of sixty at the time, and the famous Baptist preacher, though the rage of the town, was scarcely more than twenty. The Metropolitan Tabernacle had as yet not been built. Mr. Spurgeon was at the Surrey Music Hall, and there the great congregation had gathered around this youthful master of assemblies. One Sunday night, at the close of the service, Lord John Russell came into the vestry to speak a kindly word of encouragement to the young preacher. One of the children of the ex-Prime Minister was with him, and before the interview ended Lord John asked the Nonconformist minister to give his blessing to the child. Mr. Spurgeon never forgot the incident, or the bearing of the man who came to him, amid a crowd of others, on that Sunday night.

In opening the new buildings of Cheshunt College in 1871, Lord John alluded to the foundress of that seat of theological learning, Lady Huntingdon, as a woman who was far in advance of her times, since, a century before the abolition of University tests, she made it possible to divinity students to obtain academical training without binding themselves at the outset to any religious community.

During the early months of 1878 Lord John's strength failed rapidly, and it became more and more apparent that the plough was nearing the end of the furrow. His old courage and calmness remained to the end. Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone called at Pembroke Lodge on April 20, and he sent down word that he wished to see them. 'I took them to him for a few minutes,' relates Lady Russell. 'Happily, he was clear in his mind, and said to Mr. Gladstone, "I am sorry you are not in the Ministry," and kissed her affectionately, and was so cordial to both that they were greatly touched.' He told Lady Russell that he had enjoyed his life. 'I have made mistakes, but in all I did my object was the public good!' Then after a pause: 'I have sometimes seemed cold to my friends, but it was not in my heart.' A change for the worse set in on May 1, and the last sands of life were slipping quietly through the glass when the Nonconformist deputation came on the 9th of that month to present Lord Russell with an address of congratulation on the occasion of the jubilee of the Repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts.[45] Lady Russell and her children received the Deputation. In the course of her reply to the address Lady Russell said that of all the 'victories won by that great party to which in his later as in his earlier years Lord John had been inseparably attached,' there was none dearer to his memory at that moment than that which they had called to remembrance. 'It was a proud and a sad day,' is the entry in Lady Russell's journal. 'We had hoped some time ago that he might perhaps see the Deputation for a moment in his room, but he was too ill for that to be possible.'

A few days later, there appeared in the columns of 'Punch' some commemorative verses entitled 'A Golden Wedding.' They expressed the feeling that was uppermost in the heart of the nation, and two or three verses may here be recorded:—

The Golden Wedding of Lord John and Liberty his love— 'Twixt the Russells' House and Liberty, 'twas ever hand and glove— His love in those dark ages, he has lived through with his bride, To look back on them from the sunset of his quiet eventide.

His love when he that loved her and sought her for his own Must do more than suit and service, must do battle, trumpet blown, Must slay the fiery dragons that guarded every gate On the roads by which men travelled for work of Church and State.

Now time brings its revenges, and all are loud to own How beautiful a bride she was, how fond, how faithful shown; But she knows the man who loved her when lovers were but few, And she hails this golden wedding—fifty years of tried and true.

Look and listen, my Lord Russell: 'tis your golden wedding-day; We may not press your brave old hand, but you hear what we've to say. A blessing on the bridal that has known its fifty years, But never known its fallings-out, delusions, doubt, or fears.

[Sidenote: VICTORIOUS PEACE]

The end came softly. 'I fall back on the faith of my childhood,' were the words he uttered to Dr. Anderson. The closing scene is thus recorded in Mr. Rollo Russell's journal: 'May 28 [1878].—He was better this morning, though still in a very weak state. He spoke more distinctly, called me by my name, and said something which I could not understand. He did not seem to be suffering ... and has, all through his long illness, been cheerful to a degree that surprises everybody about him, not complaining of anything, but seeming to feel that he was being well cared for. About midday he became worse ... but bore it all calmly. My mother was with him continually.... Towards ten he was much worse, and in a few minutes, while my mother was holding his hand, he breathed out gently the remainder of life.' Westminster Abbey was offered as a place of burial, but, in accordance with his own expressed wish, Lord John Russell was gathered to his fathers at Chenies. The Queen's sympathy and her sense of loss were expressed in the following letter:—