Part 1 (2/2)

[Sidenote: SCHOOLDAYS AT WESTMINSTER]

From Sunbury the motherless boy was sent with his elder brother to Westminster, in 1803, and the same year the Duke married Lady Georgiana Gordon, a daughter of the fourth Duke of Gordon, and her kindness to her stepchildren was marked and constant. Westminster School at the beginning of the century was an ill-disciplined place, in which fighting and f.a.gging prevailed, and its rough and boisterous life taxed to the utmost the mettle of the plucky little fellow. He seems to have made no complaint, but to have taken his full share in the rough-and-tumble sports of his comrades in a school which has given many distinguished men to the literature and public life of England: as, for instance, the younger Vane--whom Milton extolled--Ben Jonson and Dryden, Prior and Locke, Cowper and Southey, Gibbon and Warren Hastings.

He learnt Latin at Westminster, and was kept to the work of translation, but he used to declare somewhat ruefully in after-days that he had as a schoolboy to devote the half-holidays to learning arithmetic and writing, and these homely arts were taught him by a pedagogue who seems to have kept a private school in Great Dean's Yard. Many years later Earl Russell dictated to the Countess some reminiscences of his early days, and since Lady Russell has granted access to them, the following pa.s.sages transcribed from her own ma.n.u.script will be read with interest:--'My education, for various reasons, was not a very regular one. It began, indeed, in the usual English way by my going to a very bad private school at Sunbury, and my being transferred to a public school at Westminster at ten or eleven. But I never entered the upper school. The hard life of a f.a.g--for in those days it was a hard life--and the unwholesome food disagreed with me so much that my stepmother, the d.u.c.h.ess of Bedford, insisted that I should be taken away and sent to a private tutor.' At Westminster School physical hardihood was always encouraged. 'If two boys were engaged to fight during the time of school, those boys who wanted to see the fight had to leave school for the purpose.' At this early period a pa.s.sion for the theatre possessed him, drawing him to Drury Lane or Covent Garden whenever an opportunity occurred; and this kind of relaxation retained a considerable hold upon him throughout the greater portion of his life.

Even as a child he was a bit of a philosopher. In the journal which he began to keep in the year he went to Westminster School is the following entry:--'October 28, 1803.--Very great mist in the morning, but afternoon very fine. There was a grand review to-day by the King in Hyde Park of the Volunteers. I did not go, as there was such a quant.i.ty of people that I should have seen nothing, and should have been knocked down.' Most of the entries in the boy's journal are pithy statements of matter of fact, as, for instance:--'Westminster, Monday, October 10.--I was flogged to-day for the first time.' A few days later the young diarist places on record what he calls some of the rules of the school.

He states that lessons began every morning at eight, and that usually work was continued till noon, with an interval at nine for breakfast.

Lessons were resumed at two on ordinary days, and finished for the day at five. 'All the fellows have verses on Thursdays and Sat.u.r.days. We go on Sundays to church in the morning in Henry VII.'s Chapel, and in the evening have prayers in the school.'

[Sidenote: DR. CARTWRIGHT AND WOBURN]

His 'broken and disturbed' education was next resumed at Woburn Abbey under Dr. Cartwright; the Duke's domestic chaplain, and brother to Major Cartwright, the well-known political reformer. The chaplain at Woburn was a many-sided man. He was not only a scholar and a poet, but also possessed distinct mechanical skill, and afterwards won fame as the inventor of the power-loom. He was quick-witted and accomplished, and it was a happy circ.u.mstance that the high-spirited, impressionable lad, who by this time was full of dreams of literary distinction, came under his influence. 'I acquired from Dr. Cartwright,' declared Lord John, 'a taste for Latin poetry which has never left me.' Not merely at work but at play, his new friend came to his rescue. 'He invented the model of a boat which was moved by clockwork and acted upon the water by a paddle underneath. He gave me the model, and I used to make it go across the ponds in the park.' Meanwhile literature was not forgotten, and before long the boy's juvenile effusions filled a ma.n.u.script book, which with an amusing flourish of trumpets was dedicated to 'the Right Hon. William Pitt, Chancellor of the Exchequer.' A couple of sentences will reveal its character, and the dawning humour of the youthful scribe:--'This little volume, being graced with your name, will prosper; without it my labour would be all in vain. May you remain at the Helm of State long enough to bestow a pension on your very humble and obedient servant, John Russell.'

Between the years 1805 and 1808 Lord John pursued his education under a country parson in Kent. He was placed under the care of Mr. Smith, Vicar of Woodnesborough, near Sandwich, an ardent Whig, who taught a select number of pupils, amongst whom were several cadets of the aristocracy; and to this seminary Lord John now followed his brothers, Lord Tavistock and Lord William Russell. Amongst his schoolfellows at Woodnesborough was the Lord Hartington of that generation, Lord Clare, Lord William Fitzgerald, and a future Duke of Leinster. The vicar in question, worthy Mr. Smith, was nicknamed 'Dean Smigo' by his pupils, but Lord John, looking back in after-years, declared that he was an excellent man, well acquainted with cla.s.sical authors, both Greek and Latin, though 'without any remarkable qualities either of character or understanding.' He evidently won popularity amongst the boys by joining in their indoor amus.e.m.e.nts and granting frequent holidays, particularly on occasions when the Whig cause was triumphant in the locality or in Parliament.

[Sidenote: SMALL GAME]

Rambles inland and on the seash.o.r.e, pony riding, shooting small birds, cricket, and other sports, as well as winter evening games, filled up the ample leisure from the duties of the schoolroom. One or two extracts from his journal are sufficient to show that, although still weakly, he was not lacking in boyish vivacity and in a healthy desire to emulate his elders. When Grenville and Fox joined their forces and so brought about the Ministry of 'All the Talents' the lads obtained a holiday--a fact which is thus recorded in sprawling schoolboy hand by Lord John in his diary. 'Sat.u.r.day, February 8, 1806.--... We did no business on Mr.

Fox's coming into the Ministry. I shot a couple of larks beyond Southerden.... I went out shooting for the first time with Mr. Smith's gun. I got eight shots at little birds and killed four of them.' On November 5 in the same year we find him writing:--'Eliza's [Miss Smith's] birthday. No business. I went out shooting, but only killed some little birds. I used to shoot much better than I do at present.

Always miss now; have not killed a partridge yet.' Poor boy! But he lived to kill two deer and a wild boar. 'Similarity of age led me,'

states Lord John, in one of his unpublished notes, 'to form a more intimate friends.h.i.+p with Clare than with any of the others, and our mutual liking grew into a strong attachment on both sides. I only remark this fact as Lord Byron, who had been a friend of Clare's at Harrow, appears to have shown some boyish jealousy when the latter expressed his sorrow at my departure for Spain.'

Now and then he turned his gift for composing verses in the direction of a satire on some political celebrity. He also wrote and spoke the prologue at private dramatic performances at Woburn during the holiday season, and took the part of 'Lucy' in 'The Rivals.' A little later, in the brief period of his father's viceroyalty, he wrote another prologue, and on this occasion amused an Irish audience by his a.s.sumption of the part of an old woman.

The political atmosphere of Woburn and Woodnesborough as well as his father's official position, led the boy of fourteen to take a keen interest in public affairs. His satirical verses on Melville, Pitt, Hawkesbury, and others, together with many pa.s.sages in his journal, showed that his attention was frequently diverted from grammar and lexicon, field sports and footlights, to politics and Parliament, and the struggle amongst statesmen for place and power. Although little is known of the actual incidents of Lord John's boyhood, such straws at least show the direction in which the current of his life was setting.

Whilst Lord John was the guest of Mr. Fox at Stable Yard, the subject of Lord Melville's acquittal by the Peers came up for discussion. Next day the shrewd young critic wrote the following characteristic remark in his journal: 'What a pity that he who steals a penny loaf should be hung, whilst he who steals thousands of the public money should be acquitted!'

The brilliant qualities of Fox made a great impression on the lad, and there can be little doubt that his intercourse with the great statesman, slight and pa.s.sing though it was, did much to awaken political ambition.

He also crossed the path of other men of light and leading in the political world, and in this way, boy though he was, he grew familiar with the strife of parties and the great questions of the hour. Holland House opened its hospitable gates to him, and there he met a young clergyman of an unconventional type--the Rev. Sydney Smith--with whom he struck up a friends.h.i.+p that was destined to endure. The young schoolboy has left it on record in that inevitable 'journal' that he found his odd clerical acquaintance 'very amusing.'

[Sidenote: WITH LORD HOLLAND IN SPAIN]

In the summer of 1807 we learn from his journal that he pa.s.sed three months with his father and stepmother at the English lakes and in the West of Scotland. With boyish glee he recounts the incidents of the journey, and his delight in visiting Inverary, Edinburgh, and Melrose.

Yet it was his rambles and talks with Sir Walter Scott, whom he afterwards described as one of the wonders of the age, that left the most abiding impression upon him. On his way back to Woodnesborough he paid his first visit to the House of Lords, and heard a debate on the Copenhagen expedition, an affair in which, he considered, 'Ministers cut a most despicable figure.' On quitting school life at Woodnesborough, an experience was in store for him which enlarged his mental horizon, and drew out his sympathies for the weak and oppressed. Lord and Lady Holland had taken a fancy to the lad, and the Duke of Bedford consented to their proposal that he should accompany them on their visit to the Peninsula, then the scene of hostilities between the French and the allied armies of England and Spain. The account of this journey is best told in Lord John's own words:--

'In the autumn of 1808, when only sixteen years of age, I accompanied Lord and Lady Holland to Corunna, and afterwards to Lisbon, Seville, and Cadiz, returning by Lisbon to England in the summer of 1809. They were eager for the success of the Spanish cause, and I joined to sympathy for Spain a boyish hatred of Napoleon, who had treacherously obtained possession of an independent country by force and fraud--force of immense armies, fraud of the lowest kind.' There is in existence at Pembroke Lodge a small parchment-bound volume marked 'Diary, 1808,'

which records in his own handwriting Lord John's first impressions of foreign travel. The notes are brief, but they show that the writer even then was keenly alive to the picturesque. The journal ends somewhat abruptly, and Lord John confesses in so many words that he gave up this journal in despair, a statement which is followed by the a.s.sertion that the record at least possesses the 'merit of brevity.'

Spain was in such a disturbed condition that the tour was full of excitement. War and rumours of war filled the air, and sudden changes of route were often necessary in order to avoid perilous encounters with the French. The travellers were sometimes accompanied by a military escort, but were more frequently left to their devices, and evil tidings of disaster to the Allies--often groundless, but not less alarming--kept the whole party on the alert, and proved, naturally, very exciting to the lad, who under such strange and dramatic circ.u.mstances gained his first experience of life abroad. Lord John had, however, taken with him his Virgil, Tacitus, and Cicero, and now and then, forgetful of the turmoil around him, he improved his acquaintance with the cla.s.sics. He also studied the Spanish language, with the result that he acquired an excellent conversational knowledge of it. The lad had opinions and the courage of them, and when he saw the cause of the Spanish beginning to fail he was exasperated by the apathy of the Whigs at home, and accordingly, with the audacity of youth, wrote to his father:--

'I take the liberty of informing you and your Opposition friends that the French have not conquered the whole of Spain.... Lord Grey's speech appears to me either a mere attempt to plague Ministers for a few hours or a declaration against the principle of the people's right to depose an infamous despot.... It seems to be the object of the Opposition to prove that Spain is conquered, and that the Spaniards like being robbed and murdered.' It seems, therefore, that Lord John, even in his teens, was inclined to be dogmatic and oracular, but the soundness of his judgment, in this particular instance at least, is not less remarkable than his st.u.r.dy mental independence. Like his friend Sydney Smith, he was already becoming a lover of justice and of sympathy towards the oppressed.

[Sidenote: THE QUESTION OF A UNIVERSITY]

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