lady who, it was stated, was on the eve of becoming Lady John Russell. Madame Durazzo wrote to him on March 30, 1829 It is a pity that the nice girl should be so much younger than yourself. Since you are so bent on matrimony, je souhaite that you may soon meet with the rib that becomes you. I went on thinking la chose faite for a whole month, when a letter came to say A la vérité I felt hurt that you should not have given me intelligence of it, and everybody here wondered. . . . Addio! I wish you happiness, and beg not to be entirely forgotten, while I must ever remain, with sincere friendship, your sincerely affectionate, no. L. DURAZZO. Lord John steeled his heart, and resisted the 'nice girl's fascinations. But he did not abandon his desire for marriage. Before Parliament was prorogued in 1829 he left England, spent a short time at Florence and Genoa, and in August crossed the Alps and settled in Geneva, where his brother, Lord William, was staying. There the society of his brother's family reminded him anew of his own solitary life, and he communicated his feelings to Lady William. For, after he had left Switzerland, his brother wrote to him— Bessy has been ill, but is now better. Heaven knows when we shall get to Italy. These domestic cares are unknown to you. However, I know they do not frighten you from wishing to engage in them. You are quite right. There is no happiness like that derived from wife and children; it makes one indifferent to all other pleasures. But then beware, don't tumble headlong into marriage. Remember, when once in, you can't get out; and, if it don't suit, it is hell upon earth. You are a man of settled pursuits and habits and must have a wife that will take interest in them. A gadding, flirting, dressing, ball-going wife would be the devil. Nor would one of the new-light ladies be quite the thing. A little good sense, a little money, would be better; not too young either. In short, look before you leap is the advice of an old stager and your sincere well-wisher, G. W. R. Fifteen days later, Lord William, writing from Milan, returned to the subject: I hear you are bent upon marrying. Why so? you are perfectly happy. Remember the man who was well, would be better, took physic, &c., &c. Yet, if you can meet with the most amiable of her sex, marry! It is, when happy, the happiest of states. But you can't think how a little money smooths away difficulties and annoyances. Let there be money-in moderation I mean. At all events, nobody wishes you more happiness than your affectionate, G. W. R. Lord John's matrimonial projects were not destined to take any definite shape for some years. The 'nice girl,' to whom Madame Durazzo had alluded in the spring, was married in the following year to a gentleman whose age was more suited to her own; and five years were to pass before Lord John even made the acquaintance of the lady who eventually became his first wife. In the meanwhile his interest in politics did not flag. In 1829 Europe, agitated with the clash of arms, was expecting the apparently inevitable collapse of the Turkish Empire. The treaty signed in London two years before had authorised the contracting powers, France, Russia, and England, to exert all the means which circumstances might suggest to their prudence to enforce an armistice between insurgent Greece and her Mahometan sovereign. Under this treaty the battle of Navarino had been fought, which the Ministers had gone out of their way to describe as an untoward event, but which Lord John Russell, with much truer insight, had declared to be 'a glorious victory, and as honest a victory as had ever been gained since the beginning of the world.'1 It would have been well for Turkey if the Porte could, at the eleventh hour, have taken the lessons of the battle to heart, and have set itself to make terms with the Greeks. Instead of doing so, it ventured on tearing up the treaty with Russia, which it had concluded two years before at Ackermann, and thereby compelled Nicholas to declare war. During this struggle the Tory party was almost unanimous in desiring that the Turks might be enabled to withstand what its members were disposed to regard as a Russian aggression. The Whig party, on the contrary, was divided in its opinions and its sympathies. Some of them agreed with the Tory leader in In the debate on the Address. thinking that British interests demanded the maintenance. of Ottoman dominion on the Bosphorus. Others, on the contrary, declined to admit that British interests could be identified with the infraction of treaties, or with the retention of a brutal autocracy in some of the fairest portions of Eastern Europe. Lord John was much too well informed to share the fears or the prejudices of the Tory party. The researches which he had made while he was writing his Essay on the Establishment of the Turks in Europe, had taught him what Turkish rule meant; and he accordingly watched from the first the progress of the war without any anxiety for its remoter consequences. Writing to him in November 1828, Lady Aberdeen, whose husband was then Foreign Minister, said Will you come and congratulate Madame de Lieven on the taking of Varna, as I suppose you are nearly as glad as she is, though I cannot divine why. And nearly a year afterwards, in October 1829, Lord Holland wrote to him— Dear John,-With nothing to send in return, I must thank you for an excellent letter. It delights the cockles of my heart to find we agree, the more so as the rest of the world is run mad with excessive apprehension of Russia's maritime preponderance and what not. This straightforward administration which, by turning sharp round on the Catholic business, has done so much real good at home, by its byeways and low, not high, ways abroad, has brought us to a pass which is truly pitiable, and if there were no danger would be ̧ laughable. We have somehow or another exasperated the two greatest powers on the Continent, viz., the Cabinet of St. Petersburg and the public opinion of France; and we have done so without serving ourselves or our pretended allies, and without ingratiating ourselves either with those we wished well to, or those who are really benefited by the transactions. Neither Turks nor Greeks have to thank us. Your account of Gordon's position is droll enough, and I believe correct; the Government here is equally perplexed. . . . They sneer at the moderation of Nicholas, and manifestly delight in the diatribes of the press, which all concur in miscalling it treachery, perfidy, 1 Sir Robert Gordon, Lord Aberdeen's brother, had been lately appointed Ambassador at the Porte. encroachment, and what not. If it is really as it appears, it is not only moderation, but moderation run mad-a contradiction in terms, a solecism in language, and a damned blunder in politics. But though I neither partake of the fears, nor agree with the reasonings, of the Philo-Ottoman patriots, I think I can perceive that some of the glittering magnanimity of the Czar is not sterling gold; and I am not so sorry for it as perhaps I ought to be. In a later letter on December 6 he added I hope Nicholas is not dead, though he deserves death for not entering Constantinople; while Lord John himself, in the debate on the Address, complained that the Government had not 'firmly pressed on the acceptance of Turkey,' the 'demands of Russia, which he thought were fair and reasonable;' and, on a subsequent occasion, brought forward a motion for the express purpose of obtaining a more liberal form of government and a wider dominion for the new kingdom of Greece.1 The session in which these speeches were made opened amidst circumstances of grave anxiety. A period of dull trade and agricultural depression was producing an almost universal distress; and riots and disturbances, attributable to suffering, were occurring both in urban and in rural districts. The people looked to Parliament for some remedy for their misfortunes; and Parliament was in a position which made it powerless for good. Both the great parties in the State were suffering from internal divisions and divided counsels. Old-fashioned Tories were angry with the Duke of Wellington and Mr. Peel for emancipating the Roman Catholics; while the Whigs had never recovered from the schism which had sundered their party into two fragments in 1827. One step towards Whig union was indeed taken in 1830. Lord Althorp, who had expressly declined to do so in 1827,2 1 Hansard, xxii. 148, 544. 2 Lord Althorp wrote to Lord John on August 25, 1827 : My dear John, -Tavistock I have always considered a man of excellent judg ment, and certainly quite sane. But I am grieved to find by your letter that he must be quite mad to think that I could be thought of as Leader of the House of Commons. I send you back Holland's letter. I agree with every syllable he says respecting me. I could, however, add many better arguments against Tavistock's proposition.' consented to assume the guidance of the party; which, since 1821, when Mr. Tierney had abdicated the position, had practically remained without a leader. The Whig party in the House of Commons acquired coherence from this circumstance; it gained confidence from the events of the session. Parliamentary Reform was again brought forward, and became a subject of discussion on three separate occasions. In February, Lord Blandford introduced an elaborate scheme for the disfranchisement of rotten boroughs, the enfranchisement of populous places, and other objects. In May, Mr. O'Connell urged the adoption of triennial Parliaments, universal suffrage, and vote by ballot. Lord John, who had given a conditional support to Lord Blandford's motion, met Mr. O'Connell's proposal with a resolution affirming the expediency of extending the basis of the representation of the people. But his effort was not confined, in this critical session, to the discussion of other people's projects. Early in the session he introduced a Bill to enable or allow Manchester, Leeds, and Birmingham to return members to Parliament. The measure was rejected by 188 votes to 140. The Tory members, who secured a temporary triumph, were, happily for their own comfort, unable to foresce that, one year afterwards, the same member, whose moderate proposal they were contemptuously rejecting, would rise with all the authority of office to introduce the great Reform Bill. In fact, the commencement of a new reign was about to open a new era in English history. On June 26, 1830, George IV. died; and Ministers decided on winding up the work of the session in order that the dissolution, which under any circumstances was indispensable, might take place as rapidly as possible. They were not suffered to do so without discussion. Lord Althorp desired, and Lord John supported his wish, that the House should at once proceed to settle the new civil list. The new Parliament-so Lord John contended-would be more likely to show complaisance than the old one, with the fear of an immediate dissolution before it. Ministers, however, had their way. Parliament was at once dissolved; the general election took place at a |