chance of gaining office and power were to be the measure of success, the outlook was disheartening enough. But standing on the very threshold of a widening sphere of activity, and combining a rare degree of native enthusiasm with carly training in Liberal principles, he saw circumstances enough to relieve the superficial gloom of the political prospect. The period immediately following the Battle of Waterloo was one clearly calling for a reassertion of the views of the Whig party. The very core of their strength consisted in the belief in what has been called "the cause of civil and religious liberty." By this may be understood the belief that, generally speaking, the people will be better able by themselves to manage their own affairs than by any form or outside interference. This, like every other political doctrine, is subject to limitations, determined by the circumstances of time and place. Any person will probably be a more or less zealous Whig, according as his opinions tend to widen or restrict the field of these limitations. But in the first years of Lord John Russell's Parliamentary life, there was evident danger of their so far encroaching upon the principle as to threaten to swallow it up altogether. It was accordingly to the assertion of the doctrines of civil and religious liberty that the life of Lord John was devoted; and the extent of his contribution may be realized by the simple enumeration of the Parliamentary measures of which, during his long career, he was the direct and responsible sponsor; as well as of those which he initiated, although, in several cases, it fell to the lot of others to pass them into law. Parliamentary Reform scarcely in the future to be mentioned without a thought of his name - the Removal of Religious Disabilities, Popular Education, the Abolition of Church Rates, the Better Administration of Ireland, the Reform of Municipal Government, the New Poor Law - these are but a few of the great measures with which his memory is identified. The mere mention of them tells a tale of Parliamentary labor and perseverance remarkable enough in itself; how much more so when we reflect on the delicate health which never ceased to hamper their author throughout the whole of his long career. This circumstance will, no doubt, serve to account for an apparent failure, in many instances, to force his own conclusions on unwilling colleagues, as well as for doubts and hesitations which, especially during the period between 1851 and 1859, im paired his reputation in Parliament and diminished his popularity with the country. At the same time, it cannot fail to excite increased admiration for the courage which alone enabled him to triumph over physical impediments serious enough to have daunted another and a less resolute mind. Courage, bordering, we may say, on rashness, was indeed the key-note to his whole career. Sydney Smith declared him "ignorant of moral fear," and "that he did not know what it was," and -expressing the same idea in a more popular form-he declared that "Lord John, if called upon, would be ready to take command of the Channel Fleet, or perform an operation for the stone." The comic illustrations of the day invariably seize upon this trait in his character. knight, small of stature, he throws down the gauntlet before the giant Russia, for he believes "God will defend the right;' or, in the same spirit, he is seen attacking the hydra-headed monster of corruption; again, we find him as the small boy who chalks up "no popery," and then runs off; or, as the lad who quarrels with his fellow-servants, but cannot quite manage to get his own way from having asked too much. A Of all the exploits of his political life the passage of the first Reform Bill through the House of Commons is without a doubt that with which his name is most strongly associated in the public mind. Yet great as were his achievements with regard to this famous bill, it may be doubted whether even the struggle of 1830-2 forms Lord John Russell's most solid title to fame. His biographer justly claims that the judgment of posterity should be rather based on the performance of the more active period in a man's career than on that of his declining vigor, or of his occasionally energetic old age. A gen. eral concensus of opinion, to which Mr. Gladstone has recently added the weight of his authority, has settled upon the period of Lord John's leadership of the House of Commons during the government of Lord Melbourne, as fulfilling the above conditions even more than that of his first premiership, which may indeed be considered as a rather pale continuation of the Melbourne ministry; certainly far more than his second and short-lived administration. It was not only that his authority in the House and in the country was then at its height, but also that this authority was maintained in the face of a Parliamentary opposition of unrivalled ability, united by a closer political agreement than frequently exists on a front opposition bench, by personal ties which cemented the political alliance, and by the consciousness that they were slowly but steadily gaining ground, and were in fact playing a winning game. Of all Lord John's own colleagues, the ablest sat in the House of Lords, and his colleagues in the lower House were but of scant assistance to him. Thus, nearly the whole burden and heat of the day fell upon him alone. "He is a marvellous little man," wrote Charles Greville, "always equal to the occasion, afraid of nobody; fixed in his principles; clear in his ideas; collected in his manner, and bold and straightforward in his disposition. He invariably speaks well, when a good speech is required from him, and this is upon every important occasion, for he gets no assistance from any of his colleagues, except now and then from Howick." In the House of Lords, again, which at that time was still able in its collective capacity to influence the fate of ministries, the Whig ministry, though well represented, were still, in the face of a formidable opposition, enjoying all the weight of the great authority of the Duke of Wellington, and, what was perhaps even more efficacious, the benefit of the unscrupulous leadership of Lord Lyndhurst; while on their flank hung Lord Brougham, a remorseless foe, still smarting under the sting of those letters only recently given to the world, in which Lord Melbourne conveyed to his former colleague the decree of perpetual banishment from the woolsack and from office. Ireland was the principal difficulty of the Melbourne government, and Lord John Russell's first administration coincided in point of time with the great famine. The conduct of Lord John in first turning out Sir Robert Peel's government on the Coercion Bill of 1846, and subsequently himself introducing a Coercion Bill without even going through the form of resignation, will always remain one of the most doubtful passages of his long career, especially as this change of front was all the more conspicuous, owing to Sir Robert Peel having resigned at the time when he had executed his own famous volte face in regard to the Corn Laws; asking the queen to send for Lord John, and only consenting to resume office upon the fail ure of the Whig leader to form a ministry. Whig apologists have pointed out, and with a certain degree of truth, that the Charles Greville's Memoirs, i. 294. two Coercion Bills differed in some important particulars; but the reader will probably be of opinion that the real difference lay more in the altered character of the political situation than in any distinction of detail between the clauses of the two proposals. When Sir Robert Peel altered his views on the Corn Laws, there was a compact party in opposition, led by responsible leaders, who presumably would be able to conduct the queen's government. A resignation was consequently no idle form. But when the Whig party altered their views as to the necessity of coercion, not only had the necessity of it become clearer, but there was no party in opposition capable of forming a government. A resignation would consequently have been merely a useless form of wasting time, and might have proved highly injurious to public interests. For Lord John Russell himself, it must be said that he was evidently far more opposed to coercive measures than any of his colleagues. His faith in liberty, and that "fund of genuine indignation against wrong,' that "inexhaustible sympathy with human suffering," which Mr. Gladstone has told us he possessed, made him perhaps the most perfect representative of the hopes of those who held that a steady perseverance in the cause of reform would have the same results in Ireland as it met with in the Highlands of Scotland after 1845. For coercion he had more than once to assume the responsibility. It was, however, evidently to him "a hateful alternative." He declared at Stroud in 1837 that "a Tory ministry had indeed effected a union with Ireland, but not a union of the interests, of the feelings, or of the affections of the people of England and Ireland; but a union bought with money." To this policy Lord John traced the virus of the political situation in Ireland. It was once stated by the late Mr. Isaac Butt, that some communications passed between the members of the Cabinet, at the time of the formation of the first Russell administration, in regard to a plan of Home Rule. No positive evidence of this has yet been adduced; but it is clear that Lord Mulgrave, afterwards Lord Normanby, the lord lieutenant during the greater portion of Lord Melbourne's administration, had strong inclinations in that direction, and in consequence of this the story probably originated. A letter written by him a few years after, when ambassador at Paris, to Lord John, will be read with interest, as showing how, even at that period, the condition of pub lic business in the House of Commons | small tenants, no improvement has been was beginning to excite the apprehensions made. In fact, you might as well propose of public men, and indicating the direction that a landlord should compensate the in which some statesmen were already looking for the remedy :— PARIS, April 3, 1848. rabbits for the burrows they have made on his fand. It must embrace all who have occupied the land for a certain number of years (say five), and must give them something like the tenant right of Ulster. This, I know, is transfer of property, but it is founded on a right acknowledged in the North, the most peaceful and orderly province of Ireland. It has therefore a foundation of custom, which is a great advantage." "It is quite true," he wrote a few days after, "that landlords in England would not like to be shot like hares and partridges by miscreants banded for murderous purposes. But neither does any landlord in England turn out fifty persons at once, and burn their houses over their heads, giving them no provision for the future. MY DEAR JOHN, - In reading your speech the other day upon the state of business in the House, I was more than ever struck with what I have felt for many years is the hope less inefficiency of the legislative machine to work the accumulated business of the country. The period must arise when the doctrine as to the division of labor must be applied to legislation, as it has been to everything else, and laws must be prepared beforehand for the finishing hand of the whole House, instead of, as now, going through so many stages there. It would be very desirable if one could; at the same time, secure the preparation by the House, and in the manner in which most knowledge of details could be procured; if, for instance, the Irish members met in The murders are atrocious, so Dublin two months before the regular Session are the ejectments. The truth is that a for the discussion of purely Irish measures; civil war between landlords and tenants and that laws so prepared should be subject has been raging for eighty years, marked to only one decision, affirmative or negative, by barbarity on both sides." The vioin the whole House. Some proposal having lence of the extreme Tory faction, which some such basis would satisfy all that was legitimate in the desire for home legislation had hitherto dominated Ireland, was tryin Ireland, but would preserve the supremacy ing in the extreme; almost equally so was of the Imperial Parliament. Ever yours, the scurrility of O'Connell and his followers. "But can we wonder at such things?" said Lord John, when reproached At the time, however, to which we are in Parliament with the faults of tone and now alluding, it was to reforms, political temper of the Irish leaders; "your opand social, especially in regard to the ten-pression taught them to hate - your conure of land, that Lord John looked for a cessions to brave you; you exhibited to permanent remedy. them how scanty was the stream of your bounty and how full the tribute of your fear." Sometimes he almost despaired. "In England," he once said, "I hope it may be true that there is no wrong without a remedy; in Ireland all is wrong and nothing a remedy."§ These, however, were but passing moments of despondency, and with the determination characteristic of the man, he returned, with an undaunted if heavy heart, to his labors in Writing in regard to the stringent measures proposed in 1851, he said that "the new suppression of the violent symptoms of a disease which had continued from 1760 to the present time was an aggravation rather than a cure of the organic disorder. It satisfied the landlord class, and they were thereby encouraged to worse Whence," he continued, "this enmity? [of the people of Ireland]. From the mischievous cus. tom of growing potatoes and paupers on the soil, and from the violent means taken by the landlords to extirpate this evil." As a remedy for this condition of affairs, Lord John proposed a plan, the principal feature of which anticipated the legislation of 1870 and 1881. "It is clear to me," he wrote to Lord Clarendon, that 66 you do not meet the evil by the best law possible, giving tenants compensation for improve ments. Lord Lansdowne says very truly that in the greater number of cases of atrocities than before." 66 * Walpole, ii. 96. the cause of Irish reform. He was, in fact, a great believer in perseverance and pluck, and in respect of these qualities no Parliamentary leader of modern times has surpassed him. He also possessed a natural power of epigram and repartee of great value in debate, which his literary training strengthened and polished. In one of his earliest productions a letter on Parliamentary corruption addressed to Lord Althorp — the Walpole, i. 463. 66 following passage occurs: "A gentleman | been brought forward by the Liberal comfrom London goes down to a borough of mittee to oppose him, apparently with which he scarcely before knew the exist- every prospect of success. Lord John ence. The electors do not ask his polit- summoned a meeting of the Liberal electical opinions; they do not inquire into his ors as a counterpoise to the action of the private character; they only require to be Liberal committee. "If a gentleman," he satisfied of the impurity of his inten- said to them, "were disposed to part with tions." * I cannot see any reason," he his butler, his coachman, or his gamewrites in regard to the condition of public keeper, or if a merchant were disposed to school education prior to recent reforms, part with an old servant, a warehouseman, "why our boys should not, while they or a clerk, or even a porter, he would say have the advantage of their schools, at to him: John [here the audience began the same time be taught to do a rule-of- to laugh], I think your faculties are somethree sum, and make themselves masters what decayed, you are growing old, you of the fact that James I. was not the son have made several mistakes; and I think of Queen Elizabeth." † "There is no of putting a young man from Northampton wonder," he said in 1848, "Brougham [his auditors laughed still more] in your thinks he knows something of the naviga- place.' I think a gentleman would betion laws, as he has been fishing for seals have in that way to his servant, and thereso long." "England," he declared in by give John an opportunity of answering. Parliament during the Crimean war, "it That opportunity was not given to me. has been said, cannot make a little war. The question was decided in my absence; However this may be, I am sure she and I come now to ask you and the citi ought not to make a large war on a little zens of London to reverse that decision." scale." § "There is nothing so conserva- This witty retort turned the tables on his tive as progress; "Rest and be thank- assailants, and he sat down amid a roar of ful;" even our old friend "Peace with honest enthusiasm which proved the herald honor are found to have Lord Russell's of victory.* mint mark upon them. Sir Francis Bur- His letter to the remonstrating bishops dett having deserted the creed of his ear- in regard to Dr. Hampden's appointment lier days, and been returned for North to the See of Hereford, in which he unanWilts as a Tory, and thought fit to attack swerably shows that the representatives his old leader for talking "the cant" of of a university who prided themselves on patriotism, brought down on himself a their loyalty to the crown above all things, crushing rejoinder, which has been pro- had by their protest against the appointnounced by high authorities to rank ment, unconsciously claimed as their own amongst the most brilliant pieces of Par- the hitherto undisputed prerogatives of liamentary debating of the century. "I the crown, and that several of the remonquite agree with the honorable baronet," Lord John replied, "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." || Mr. Walpole establishes his claim to the authorship of that celebrated definition of a proverb, "One man's wit and all men's wisdom." Once he saved his seat for the City of London by a happy witticism, when in great danger, owing to the unpopularity of his conduct in opposing Lord Palmerston's Chinese policy in 1857. Mr. Raikes Currie, who had formerly sat for Northampton, and enjoyed a wide personal popularity, had strants against Dr. Hampden's heresy had, since signing the memorial, themselves deserted the Church and joined the Communion of Rome, is a masterpiece of irony. His reply to the Duke of Westminster, who had suggested that the Whig government were actuated by less pure motives than their opponents in the distribution of the peerages, is another model of terse and vigorous writing.† These productions cannot fail to suggest the idea that had Lord John been able to give time to authorship, he could not have failed to excel, as the faults which most disfigure his published works are in these cases absent.‡ It was once pointed out to Lord Russell by a colleague that a foreign royalty, who at the moment was indicated by public opinion as the best occupant of a vacant throne, had "a very stupid head." Lord Walpole, ii. 290. ↑ Walpole, i. 478. Ibid., p. 457. Russell tersely replied: "A very good tended more and more to limit the intershape of head for a constitutional sov-ference of the sovereign, two great departereign." As already related in the pages ments of affairs long escaped ministerial of this review, an illustrious personage control in a greater degree than others. once asked him: "Is it true, Lord John, Relics may still be traced in the reports of that you hold that a subject is justified officers of ancient date, of a belief, widely under certain circumstances in disobeying prevalent at the period to which we refer, his sovereign? "Well,” replied Lord that the army is to be regarded as the John, "in speaking to a sovereign of the "army of the queen," in some peculiar house of Hanover, I can only say that I sense in which the navy is not the suppose it is." It is curious that the " queen's navy." To this order of ideas the minister credited with this reply, the rep- mismanagement of the Crimean war was resentative of a party which owes its very destined to deal a mortal blow. In the being to resistance to royal prerogative, Foreign Office and diplomatic service also should, in the great struggle with the there remained a field in which, for obvicrown regarding the conduct of foreign ous reasons and often with good results, affairs, which occupied so large a space the personality of the sovereign was able, in the middle period of his career, have more than elsewhere, to make itself felt. appeared as the champion of the rights of But the evil results of George III.'s interthe crown; while Lord Palmerston, orig- ference in the American war, so long as inally reared in the traditions of the op- he was able to interfere, followed by the posite party asserted the Whig doctrine. period of the regency and by the reigns of The history of this struggle is to be found George IV. and William IV., when the in the first chapter of Mr. Walpole's sec- crown was in the hands of sovereigns little ond volume. With the fairness of the able to bring the weight of either knowlnarrative little fault can be found. It is edge or experience to the discussion of based, however, upon an historical as- public affairs, while the Foreign Office sumption which Mr. Walpole, like the was entrusted to men of great energy and biographer of the prince consort, fails to ability, had tended, by the time the queen perceive begs the whole of the very ques- ascended the throne, to weaken the pertion at issue. Sir Theodore Martin sonal hold of the sovereign on the course speaks of the existence as an unques- of diplomacy. Lord Palmerston evidently tioned fact of a "constitutional rule, that desired to weaken it still further. The the ultimate control of the Foreign Office prince consort, on the other hand, anxious rested with the premier, and that the to reassert, whenever opportunity offered, despatches submitted for the queen's the dormant rights of the crown, and in approval must therefore pass through the any case determined to avoid their still hands of the premier, who, if he should further limitation, possessing, moreover, think they required material change, an able and congenial adviser in Baron should accompany them with a statement Stockmar, soon found himself in collision of his reasons.' 19 Now, as a matter of with Lord Palmerston, and being himself fact, the character of the relations between in knowledge of foreign affairs almost his the sovereign and his ministers in regard match, a struggle naturally ensued. Strict to the transaction of certain classes of rule and theory were perhaps on the side public business, has varied considerably of the crown, though even here something at different periods of English history, the may be said to qualify the historical accupersonal control of the sovereign tending racy of the exact claims of the crown as to become more and more limited, and in interpreted, at the time to which we allude, many departments of public business hav- by the prince and Baron Stockmar. These ing become gradually lost altogether. claims were that the secretary of state for Theoretically, the rights of the crown are foreign affairs was in reality the subordiprecisely the same in regard to all the ad- nate of the prime minister, and conseministrative services of the country. In quently that all despatches should not only this respect there is no difference or dis- be sent to the sovereign before transmistinction. The army, the navy, the civil sion abroad, but should be sent to her and the diplomatic services, are the army, through the prime minister. Now, in the navy, and the civil and the diplomatic answer to this view, it would be easy to services of the crown.- But notwithstand- show that it is a rule of the Constitution ing the growth of the Whig doctrines, that the secretary of state for foreign afwhich ever since the Revolution of 1688 fairs, both in virtue of his office and also as a privy councillor, has the right of direct personal access to the sovereign; *Life of the Prince Consort, ii. 53. |