grounds; thus, Mill was returned for Westminster at the head of the poll, and Mr. Gladstone, whose Convervatism was now a thing of the past, was driven from Oxford to South Lancashire. But, in the main, the victory at the polls was purely Palmerstonian, and, so far as it had any bearing on domestic legislation, it implied that the subject of Parliamentary Reform should be shelved altogether.

Still, before and during the election there was a great deal of agitation on behalf of Parliamentary Reform. On this question Lowe had already taken his stand in the House, particularly in the great debate on Mr. Baines's Borough Franchise Bill. Just before the general election, in a short letter to the Rev. Canon Melville, he explained his position with remarkable conciseness.

Robert Lowe to Canon Melville.

34 Lowndes Square: May 27, 1865.

My dear Melville,-It is of no use putting my hand to the plough and looking back. I have adopted the inductive method for what seemed to me good reasons. The first principle is to start unprejudiced, and abandon yourself wholly to the teaching of experience. The end being good government (in which, of course, I include stable government), before I give my assent to the admission of fresh classes. I must be satisfied (not on à priori, but on experimental, grounds) that their admission will make the government better or more stable. I am not at present convinced of this, and till I am, I shall not say a word in favour of it. The truth is, this change is desired, not for any good it will do, but to help people to get out of their pledges-see they to that!

Always yours very truly,

R. LOWE.

For some years the position of Lord Palmerston had been almost as truly national as that of Pitt. By the ascendency of his personal popularity he had practically dissolved our party system. We now know that from 1860 to 1865 Lord Derby, the leader of the Conservatives, simply assisted Palmerston to uphold our honour abroad regardless of differences as

to domestic legislation. In those frank communications with which Lord Derby used to favour Lord Malmesbury, in which sport and politics so oddly commingle, there is a passage which all later chroniclers have seized upon as the key to these last five years of the Palmerston régime.

I think (he writes) that in your communications with Palmerston you cannot be too explicit. He is a gentleman, and will know that you and I are dealing with him de bonne foi, and will not suspect a 'dodge' if we make any exception to our promise of support. I should, however, be quite. ready to assure him that, though we might in debate object to some of the 'sayings and doings' of the Foreign Office (and chiefly the sayings or rather writings), we would not countenance any movement on the subject of foreign policy calculated to defeat the Government, unless it were on the impossible supposition that they should desire us to take an active part in an attack by Sardinia and France on Venetia. I cannot believe that the Government would be so mad as to sanction such a policy; but an exception made in such a case from our promise of support will rather serve to strengthen than to shake a belief in the sincerity of our general profession.

This passage occurred in the letter dated December 26, 1860; and from that date until his death it may be said that Lord Palmerston's political enemies were chiefly those of his own household.

Without going into the general history of the period more than is absolutely necessary, it may be pointed out that Lord Derby had at this time not only absolute sway over his own party, which was essential to the carrying out of such an unauthorised undertaking with his political opponents, but by his own magnanimous and truly princely conduct in a nonpolitical sphere that of the cotton-famine in Lancashirehad secured for himself a position only second to Palmerston's own in public esteem. In the admirable monograph by Mr. George Saintsbury, a section is devoted (and very properly) to Lord Derby's action in regard to this national calamity, which should be read by those who may marvel at his achievement of governing England en société anonyme with Lord Palmer

1

ston.' It is against all our knowledge of political human nature to suppose that the placemen, or even the rank and file, of the Conservative party approved of this policy of effacing themselves for the sake of Lord Palmerston and the good of their country; but Lord Derby had only to threaten to resign his leadership and all murmuring and disquietude at once ceased. It was, indeed, from a party point of view, as the general election of 1865 showed, a policy of Conservative selfeffacement; but, for this very reason, the great Liberal majority of 1865 was in reality a Palmerstonian and not a mere party triumph.

This unacknowledged alliance was merely between the leaders; the two parties might at any moment renew the conflict, and would inevitably do so on the death of Palmerston. The following letter, written by Robert Lowe to his Tory brother, the Squire of Oxton, refers to this general election, and has some characteristic touches:

Robert Lowe to Henry Sherbrooke of Oxton.

Sherbrooke July 26, 1865.

1;

My dear Henry,-You are very Delphic in your revelations. Why can't you tell me who is to succeed Barrow? If you can do anything as regards my reversionary views on the Northern Division I hope you will. Denison is sure, I think, of being elected by the new Parliament.2 I am much pleased with the elections; indeed, well I may be, for they are quite in my sense. The party gain has been to the Liberals. It could hardly have been otherwise after. Lord Derby's escapade in the House of Lords on the Oaths Bill besides, he has run from his own position just as the country had come round to it. What I said six years ago has exactly come to pass. The Liberals have so managed matters that the country is Conservative, and the Tories have so managed matters that the country, although Conservative, would rather be governed by Whigs than by Tories. If I come to you at all it will be the end of August, but my movements are so uncertain on account of my wife's health that I can settle nothing beforehand. You had better come and see I don't think Derby will come in, and if he does he won't go

me.

The Earl of Derby. George Saintsbury (Sampson Low). 2 As Speaker.

VOL. II.

R

at the Church. Charles Wood is very ill. If you Tories had stuck to your principles, what a grand position you would have been in It is the Nemesis that always follows rogues.

now.

Your affectionate brother,

R. LOWE.

Lord Palmerston had long passed the Psalmist's allotted span, and hardly were the elections over when he expired at Brockett Hall, October 18, 1865.

His death marks the close of the aristocratic epoch in English parliamentary history and the birth of the new democratic era.

In a letter to Mrs. Billyard, written the day before the old Prime Minister passed away, Robert Lowe observed:Lord Palmerston is very ill,-indeed, dangerously so; last Monday night he was not expected to live. So that we are on the eve of stirring events. There is some news to tell the Governor the next ride you take with him; I am glad he has laid my speech to heart, he and I used to be very good friends.'

After his retirement from the Education Department, Lowe did not again serve under his old chief; but their personal relations to the end were increasingly cordial and appreciative. Writing again to Mrs. Billyard a year after Palmerston's death, he spoke of his party being like an arch with the keystone taken out of it.' In the same letter, he gave his correspondent a brief account of the funeral at Westminster Abbey, and, in a sentence or two, summed up Lord Palmerston as a statesman in a manner which will, at this lapse of time, be recognised as historically true.

'I was at Lord Palmerston's funeral. It was rather tedious till the end, when there came a very heavy storm, which darkened all the Abbey and had a most solemn effect.

'I think he was more admired by the middle and lower

1 Sir John Young, afterwards Lord Lisgar, whom Sir Henry Parkes (Fifty Years of Australian History) describes as one of the very best governors who ever appeared in Australia.'

classes than by the upper classes, and that he will leave behind him a renown by no means equal to his reputation during life. He has outlived the foreign policy which made his fame, and has left his party without tradition, chart or compass, to drift on a stormy sea on which their only landmark was his personal popularity. We may anticipate stormy times, and I confess I am glad of it; poor Macleay used to say I was always fond of hot water, and lately it has not only been cold, but stagnant.'

This was Lord Sherbrooke's opinion of Palmerston the statesman; what he thought of Palmerston the man must also be given in his own words. Speaking at Romsey on July 22, 1876, Lord Sherbrooke paid this tribute to the great personal qualities of his former chief:

Greatly as we all admired Lord Palmerston's intellectual power, there was one thing in him that I admired even more- -his inexhaustible and indomitable industry and perseverance in the discharge of his duties. At eighty years of age Lord Palmerston was by far the most regular attendant in the House of Commons of any of his Ministry. He came at 4 P.M., and for four nights of every week he stayed, if necessary, till 2, never stirring from his place except, perhaps, for the purpose of taking a cup of tea. There he was, always accessible to everybody, always courteous to everybody, friend or opponent; no reverse, no taunt, none of those accidents to which public life is subject, not the weight of years, not the laborious exertions which he felt called upon to make, ever ruffled his temper or disturbed his good humour, nor did he even seem to think it wonderful that at his age he should be able to undergo these labours. I say, then, that he was not only a great political leader, but a great Englishman. When he undertook a duty, he did it thoroughly, he never spared himself. He, who had the best society in Europe at his command, left it all when work was to be done.

These two portraits are in no sense contradictory, but are complementary of each other. Lord Sherbrooke, as he says, did not consider Palmerston a great statesman in the sense of a man whose political work would endure to future time, and mould or change the history of his country to wise and beneficent ends; but, on the other hand, he regarded him, as