Part 28 (1/2)

_September_ 28, 1863

I hope you will excuse my taking the liberty to write you a line of admiration and satisfaction at Lord Russell's speech at Meiklour [in Scotland], which I have just read. I take so deep and lively an interest in the great American question and all that concerns it that I looked forward to the authorized exposition of English policy by the Foreign Secretary with the greatest anxiety. Lord Russell's speech, will, I am sure, be of immense service both to Europe and to America. It has the _juste milieu_, and withal does not suppress the sympathy which every good man must feel for the cause of freedom, in a manner which more than ever justifies the Loch Katrine boatman's opinion of his ”terrible judgment.”

I cannot help feeling that this speech has for the first time publicly placed the position of England in its true light before the world, and I with many another one am very grateful for it.

Among all Lord Russell's many t.i.tles to fame and to public grat.i.tude, the manner in which he has steered the vessel of the State through the Scylla and Charybdis of the American War will, I think, always stand conspicuous.... Now I am going to ask a great favour. I saw at Minto a copy of verses written for the summer-house at Pembroke Lodge, of which I formed the highest opinion. May I have a copy of them? I should really be most sincerely grateful and treasure them up amongst the things I really value.

These are the lines referred to by Mr. Harcourt:

To J.R. PEMBROKE LODGE, _June_ 30, 1850

Here, statesman, rest, and while thy ranging sight Drinks from old sources ever new delight Unbind the weary shackles of the week, And find the Sabbath thou art come to seek.

Here lay the babbling, lying Present by, And Past and Future call to counsel high; To Nature's wors.h.i.+p say thy loud Amen, And learn of solitude to mix with men.

Here hang on every rose a th.o.r.n.y care, Bathe thy vexed soul in unpolluted air, Fill deep from ancient stream and opening flower, From veteran oak and wild melodious bower, With love, with awe, the bright but fleeting hour.

Here bid the breeze that sweeps dull vapours by, Leaving majestic clouds to deck the sky, Fan from thy brow the lines unrest has wrought, But leave the footprint of each n.o.bler thought.

Now turn where high from Windsor's h.o.a.ry walls, To keep her flag unstained thy Sovereign calls; Now wandering stop where wrapt in mantle dun, As if her guilty head Heaven's light would shun, London, gigantic parent, looks to thee, Foremost of million sons her guide to be; On the fair land in gladness now gaze round, And wish thy name with hers in glory bound.

With one alone when fades the glowing West, Beneath the moonbeam let thy spirit rest, While childhood's silvery tones the stillness break And all the echoes of thy heart awake.

Then wiser, holier, stronger than before, Go, plunge into the maddening strife once more; The dangerous, glorious path that thou hast trod, Go, tread again, and with thy country's G.o.d.

F.R.

WOBURN ABBEY, _August_ 18, 1864

My dear, dear husband's birthday. [He was seventy-two.] I resolved not to let sad and untrustful thoughts come in the way of grat.i.tude for present happiness, and oh! how thankfully I looked at him with his children around him. They made him and me join them in a match at trap-ball that lasted two hours and a half. He, the boys, Johnny and Agatha rode, Mademoiselle and I drove in the same direction. He and his cavalcade were a pleasant sight to me. He looked pleased and proud with his three sons and his little daughter galloping beside him. The day ended with merry games.

In September, 1864, came the news of Lord Amberley's engagement to Lord Stanley of Alderley's daughter. He was at that time only twenty-one. Lady Russell's feeling about it is shown in the following letter:

_Lady Russell to Lady Georgiana Russell_

NORTH BERWICK, _September_ 21, 1864

MY DEAREST GEORGY,--Your long and dear letters were a great pleasure to me, showing how you are thinking and feeling with us about this event, so great to us all. Whatever pangs there may be belonging to it, and of course there are some, are lost and swallowed up to me in great joy and grat.i.tude. We might have wished him to marry a little later, to have him a little longer a child of home. But, on the other hand, there is something to me very delightful in his marrying while heart and mind are fresh and innocent and unworldly, and I even add inexperienced--for I am not over-fond of experience. I think it just as often makes people less wise as more wise. There is more real truth in their ”Ideale” than in what follows.... G.o.d bless you, dear child.

Your very loving MAMA

In July, 1865, Parliament was dissolved, the Ministry having held office for six years. They had lost prestige over the Schleswig-Holstein negotiations. Lord Derby, with justification, denounced their policy as one of ”meddle and muddle,” and Palmerston only escaped a vote of censure in the Commons by being able to point to the prodigious success of the Ministry's finance. His personal popularity and ascendancy, however, were as great as ever; the Liberals were returned by a majority of sixty-seven.

Although this majority must have been more than they looked for, the election disappointed Lord Russell in two respects: Gladstone lost his seat at Oxford and Lord Amberley was beaten at Leeds. Before Parliament met Palmerston fell seriously ill.

PEMBROKE LODGE, _October_ 19, 1865

Letter from the Queen at Balmoral to John telling him she means to ask him to carry on the Government in case of Lord Palmerston's death. Dearest John very calm and without the oppressed look and manner I always dread to see.

On the 18th of October Palmerston died. Had he taken the precautions usual at the age of eighty, he might have lived longer, but in private as in public life, he despised caution. He was one of those statesmen whom modern critics, on the watch for the partially obsolete and with the complexity of present problems always before them, tend to depreciate. He had the first quality which is necessary for popularity: he was readily intelligible. In addition he was prompt, combative, and magnanimous; shrewd, but never subtle; sensible, but not imaginative. He had no ideas which he wished to carry out; he did not like ideas. He wanted England to dominate in Europe and to use her power good-naturedly afterwards; to be, in fact, what a n.o.bleman may be in his home-country, where he is universally looked up to and ready to take immense trouble to settle fairly disputes between inferiors. Opposition from a direction making it savour of impertinence he stamped upon at once, without imagining the provocation or ideas from which it might possibly spring; he could not understand, for instance, that there might be two sides to the Chinese War. It is probable, too, that had not the Prince Consort intervened to soften the asperity of the Government's protest against the seizure of the Confederate emissaries on board the _Trent_, we should have had war with the Northern States. This menacing, peremptory att.i.tude in diplomacy served him well, till Bismarck crossed his path. In the encounter between the man with a great idea to carry out, who had taken the measure of the forces against him, and the man who had only, as it were, a dignified att.i.tude to support in the eyes of Europe, the odds were uneven, and Palmerston was beaten.

Lord Russell, though he must have been among the few who knew the Prime Minister had been failing lately, writes that his death came with a shock of surprise, he was so full of heart and health to the last.

Lord Russell now became Prime Minister, and Lord Clarendon took his place at the Foreign Office.

PEMBROKE LODGE, _November_ 2, 1865

John to town at twelve, back at half-past five, having taken leave of the dear old Foreign Office and left Lord Clarendon there.