him sage lent weight to his counsels, and reconciled even the reluctant to follow them. The very times in which he lived, our domestic position, the state of Europe and America, combined to bring about a remarkable adaptation of his peculiar powers, qualities, and temperament to rule the destinies of the empire. The privileges due to years, and the prestige of success enabled him to deal with and dispose of difficulties in a manner which would not have been accepted at other hands. He will go down to posterity with the reputation of one of the most successful Ministers who ever governed this country-a reputation founded not so much on what he gained as on what he preserved on what he protected, rather than what he acquired for the nation; but a reputation still second to none as that of a master in the practical science of government.

Of one who was so much and so long before the public, and whose characteristics excited so much personal and peculiar interest, there can be little new to say. Yet as journalists devoted to the support of the principles of the great Liberal party in this country, we should do violence not more to justice than to the feelings of the party, and to our own, were we to pass without our tribute of admiration and gratitude the memory of one who for thirty-five years was in the front of the conflict, and for a long period held in his strong grasp the fortunes of the fight. Before, therefore, we turn the page, and, trying to penetrate the dim obscure, fill the blank canvas with the images of the future, let us attempt to recall the accustomed lineaments, and picture to ourselves the great statesman whom we have just laid in Westminster Abbey, and whom we shall never see again but in history.

Nor is such a retrospect merely a memorial of political gratitude or political sentiment. It is full of interest and instruction. If Lord Palmerston was a type of an Englishman, he was in many both of its every-day and its rarer aspects a model of official life. Nature was lavish to him of many gifts, and it is the lot of few to bring to the public service that strong will, that iron constitution, and that charm of manner which stood him in such stead during more than fifty years of office. But he had other qualities, homelier it is true, but not the less essential to the position which he attained, which, in degree at least, are within the reach of all. There could be no better school for statesmen than the attentive study of Palmerston's rise to greatness.

It has been said that Lord Palmerston's success was due not so much to any surpassing ability, as to a rare combination of ordinary qualities. But the remark, although in some

respects true, is superficial. Probably his greatest intellectual peculiarity was the equipoise of his powers, which gave them an air of complete symmetry, and somewhat baffled the estimate of them in detail. He possessed also a union of qualities which seldom exist together in equal excellence. That a man should be really both gay and grave, both witty and earnest, devoted alike to the routine of an office and to the love of sport and of society-in short, that a statesman should be both merry and wise, shocks the pedantry of the public. And the public are so far in the right that it requires unusual powers to effect the combination; and these Lord Palmerston possessed. This element has led, we think, to an imperfect and perhaps unjust appreciation of his real eminence. He had, it is true, two qualities, ordinary enough in their nature, but which lay at the foundation of much of his success-namely, industry and simplicity of character. The first sprang mainly from the last. There never probably was a man in his elevated position So free from conceit or self-assertion. He was essentially a modest man in his estimate of himself, and woke up comparatively late in life to a consciousness of what his powers could effect. The result of this temperament was to preserve him entirely from that snare of clever men, the notion that he knew anything by intuition. Whether the matter was great or small, he never supposed that he understood it until he had applied himself to master its details; nor did he ever imagine that he knew more of it than another until he had ascertained that he did so. This habit of accurate investigation, pursued during half a century of official life, had not only stored a retentive memory with an immense amount of information, but had given his mind a power of close and rapid generalisation, which he knew he could trust, because it always worked on secure materials. Herein lay one secret of his success; but when he had the materials in his grasp, his rapid power of sifting was of the rarest and most remarkable quality. His mind was supposed to be merely practical, because he only gave out his practical conclusions. But in reality he had great powers subtle analysis, the main distinction between him and reasoners more apparently philosophical being, that with him the process was entirely internal, and he thought the product only worthy of public elucidation.

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A remarkable instance of his characteristic assiduity, which was prominently open to public observation, was the resolution with which in 1855 he set himself to master the forms of the House of Commons and the details of its ordinary business. He had been until then chiefly a departmental Minister, and

when he found himself at the head of the Cabinet and leader of the House, he discovered that even his long experience of that body had not rendered him familiar with many of its usages. Most men, at the age of seventy, would have been content with the general knowledge which they possessed, and to trust the rest to subordinates or to chance. But his sense of duty and his habits of thorough work allowed of no such course. He set himself to learn the routine of his new position with the same patient industry with which, more than forty years before, he had mastered the details of the War Office. Early and late was the Premier in his place: one of the first to come, one of the last to leave. Day after day saw him there before half-past four. Night after night did the summer morning find him still at his post. His first appearance as leader of the House of Commons was not entirely successful; but by the end of the Session of 1855 he had effectually grappled with and overcome the difficulty; he continued the practice he thus commenced throughout the whole period of his Premiership; nor was it until a very few months before the close of last Session that failing health compelled him to relax it.

Those who doubt or question his powers of acute analysis would do well to study--for some of them are stored with comprehensive views, as well as valuable information-his speeches on the international questions which from time to time have been discussed in the House of Commons since the close of the

Crimean war. He evinced in these discussions a grasp of general principle, a perspicacity of reasoning, which the greatest lawyers in the House might have envied, and which in point of power and cogency gave his views a value far beyond those of any of the other lay members of that body. If these speeches are ever collected they will be found to constitute a repertory of public law, cleared of all technicality of language or of thought, but replete with maturity of reflection, and applied with simplicity and force to the actual cases which

arose.

Another popular impression in regard to Lord Palmerston is that he was inclined to treat matters of grave import with levity. This was especially the key-note of those who desired to disparage him during the last year of the Crimean war. The public, however, very soon discovered that no accusation could be more unjust. The critics could not distinguish between the subject itself and their own views in regard to it; nor could they see that while the Premier contented himself with launching a witty javelin against assaults he thought worthy of no more solemn refutation, he at the same time.

thought deeply on topics which he conceived them not qualified to handle. In Palmerston's views of the service he owed to the Queen and the country there was not a tinge of levity. He was eminently a man with an earnest sense of duty; and underneath his gay and insouciant exterior, he bore about with him a never-ceasing and conscientious impression of the deep responsibility of his office. He knew all its affairs. Probably no Premier ever ruled this country who was better informed from day to day even of the minor details relative to the different departments of his government.

Two other traits of his inner political character we may mention, elements very necessary to a great leader of men. He was entirely fearless, and he never deserted a subordinate. He came to his convictions deliberately. His well-balanced mind and temperament had little in it of the impulsive. He thought without excitement and without passion; but the conviction once attained, the resolution once taken, he never looked back. He might be swayed by the public voice before his determination was made, but never afterwards. And having himself a strong sense of the responsibility of office he had sympathy for all under him; and his counsel in difficulty and his support under imputation were never failing--the only sure way to obtain hearty and zealous service.

Such were some of the less salient characteristics of the great statesman. We mention them because they teach the lesson that there is no Royal road to greatness; and that even the unexampled experience which it was his good fortune to enjoy of public affairs, his great abilities, and his eminent position, never led him to disregard the humbler means without which distinction is rarely, if ever, attained.

On a review of his career, the first thought naturally is how enviable was his lot! Was there anything wanting which successful ambition could desire? Length of days, unceasing honour, a name endeared to his countrymen and renowned throughout the world-a distinguished part in all the great events of half a century, and a life closing at last at the extreme of our allotted span, in the zenith of power not equalled by that of any subject in Europe, were surely all a student's day dreams could shadow forth. He did not die like Chatham, with the clouds which were to dismember the Empire hovering over him. He did not die like the younger Pitt, all but despairing of his country. He did not die like Fox, called too late to rule. He did not outlive his fame, his popularity, his faculties, or his enjoyment of life. He went down in his full brightness of glory, without a stain on his escutcheon,

and with scarcely a defeat to chronicle. He left the country which he had served so faithfully and so long, on a pinnacle of prosperity and greatness which she had never reached before, to pay its tribute of affectionate reverence to the Minister whose hand had steered it safe through many an anxious day. There may have been greater, there never was a more successful or fortunate Minister-fortunate in his life-happy even in the circumstances of his death.

By what steps a public man who entered the House of Commons before Wellington entered Spain, and who died Prime Minister nearly sixty years afterwards, attained this position, cannot fail to be an inquiry partaking of romance. When he was seen in the House of Commons contesting the ring with young and old alike, exchanging hard knocks, and seldom foiled in the encounter, it was a strange thought that would come over the spectator- that man was a Minister when 'Napoleon the Great was Emperor.' Sixty years! They had seen Napoleon culminate and set-they had seen the Bourbons restored and ejected-they had seen a new French Monarchy -a new French Republic-a new French Empire: they had seen Castlereagh and the Holy Alliance-Canning and the dawn of European liberation-Grey and Russell and the Reform Bill-Cobden and Bright, and the abolition of the Corn Laws: yet there he was. He had his part in all; had belonged to Perceval and Liverpool and Canning-to Grey, and Melbourne and Russell as his chiefs: yet there he was fresh and buoyant, pugnacious and defiant, as if Time could not touch him, as lively as and not more assuming than the newest and youngest hope of the House. Men reverenced his ability, bowed to his experience, but never had any temptation to treat him with the tolerance due to old age. To the last he fought as a cotemporary, claiming no favour and requiring none. Yet that man had been in office in the days of their grandfathers, and almost ever since!

It detracts nothing from the loyalty of our tribute to his memory that his lot was originally cast among the politicians of the school of Pitt. Indeed if we forgave that to Canning, as we did-if we have forgiven it to Gladstone, as we cordially do we might well forgive it to Palmerston. But indeed we are by no means sure that this very circumstance had not the greatest influence on the liberal opinions of his subsequent career. He was Secretary at War in 1812; he was still Secretary at War in 1826, when Lord Liverpool died; he was still Secretary at War when he followed Mr. Huskisson and the Grants in 1829. He knew the Holy Alliance; he had