Drumour. Thence, sending the two younger children to Minto, Lord and Lady John proceeded with the two elder ones to the Dowager Duchess of Bedford at The Doune in Invernesshire. Lady John wrote John had a very pretty reception here. A number of people ranged along both banks of the Spey at a ferry by which we cross to this place, who hurrahed with all their might, while bag-pipes played. An address was presented. We crossed, stepped out on a Gordon plaid, and were received by the Duchess and her sons and daughters in a most cordial way. Sir Edwin Landseer, who was very intimately acquainted with the Duchess, and who was staying at The Doune, availed himself of the opportunity to make the slight sketch of Lord John's two children (Lord Amberley and Lady Victoria Villiers) which still hangs on the walls of Pembroke Lodge. After staying a few days at The Doune, Lord and Lady John paid a series of visits to the Duke and Duchess of Leeds, General Duff, and others; passed a fortnight on their way South at Minto; and finally reached Pembroke Lodge on the 16th of October, in time to celebrate his step-daughter's (Miss Lister) birthday. Lord John had happily the capacity for enjoyment which almost always accompanies a capacity for work. He went North with the panoply of a sportsman and with the ardour of a boy. There are still carefully preserved, among his other more important papers, a note from the Speaker, no mean authority on such a subject, advising him not to waste his time by trying to shoot capercailzie with a rifle, but to use his gun and load it with cartridges; and a letter from his shower, and took refuge in a cottage. The good wife, to quote Lady Russell's account, gave the children some excellent milk. Her husband on his return home said nothing till the Russells were leaving, when he inquired of Lady John, Is that no Lord John Russell?' His old wife asked him what he was saying. Why, it's Lord John Russell-the biggest man in the kingdom!' She did not seem as much impressed as he expected. 'My belief is that she knew nothing of Lord John Russell, but was surprised, as she looked at him, to hear her husband call him the biggest man in the kingdom.' History telleth not how the old man recognised Lord John. Perhaps, if he had been asked, he would have answered, as the Welsh postman is said to have answered Lord Palmerston, 'Seen your picture in Punch, my lord!' I do not know whether it is necessary to remind my younger readers that in I cousin, Mr. William Russell, giving him directions, which his own experience suggested, for his behaviour while deer-stalking. Yet, though Lord John worked hard and late, nature, which had so freely endowed him with many qualities, had not given him the steady hand and quick eye which make a good shot. A Scotch gillie-Lord Lansdowne is responsible for the story-said of him, 'Forbye it hadn't pleased the Lord to make him a sportsman, he was a very decent body.' And at the Black Mount, at Taymouth, and at Braemar, Lord John failed. At last, at General Duff's, to the old General's great joy, he succeeded in repeating the achievement of the previous year, and brought down his stag. After his return from his two months' holiday, Lord John threw himself into the many anxious affairs which will be related in the following chapter. Here it may be well to add that he saw the old year out and the new year in at Woburn. Miss Lister and his own son acted in one of the little plays which Mr. Stafford was in the habit of writing for the amateur troupe at the Abbey. No one enjoyed these performances more, or laughed more heartily at them, than the Prime Minister. And perhaps on the present occasion he was vividly reminded of his own youth. For the epilogue to 'The Eggs of Gold '-the title of the play-was spoken on New Year's Eve by his own boy, who had played the part of a page. Ladies and gentlemen, at your desires, Not your great wisdom, but his little wits. The old year dies! Oh! may the new year smile May it be like Dame Good-luck's wondrous goose, That they are blest, and to make others so. 1850 breech-loaders had not been invented, and muzzle-loaders were painfully loaded with powder and shot. But, even in 1850, the shot was occasionally separately enclosed in a cartridge, and was supposed to carry further and hit harder than when merely rammed down with wadding. To boys and girls new toys and pretty stories; CHAPTER XXII. THE FALL OF THE WHIGS. DURING his long administration, Lord John was chiefly occupied with the various questions which had their origin in Irish distress and continental revolution. But he was concurrently attending to other matters of great significance; and among these there was none to which he attached more importance, or in which he took a deeper interest, than the state of the English Church. Lord John had always regarded with deep distrust the progress of the great religious movement which is associated with the names of Cardinal Newman and Mr. Pusey. Its votaries, he thought, were not merely traitors to the Church, but guilty of shocking profanation.' They were, consciously or unconsciously, initiating a movement which was leading to Rome, and they were simultaneously turning a service of remembrance into an offensive spectacle.' Holding such opinions, Lord John used his influence during the Ministry of Lord Melbourne, and during his own administration, to secure the promotion of men free from all taint of Tractarianism to the highest offices of the Church. It so happened that, in the years which succeeded his accession to office, the vacancies on the bench were more than usually numerous. Lord John appointed, in 1847, an Archbishop of York; in 1848, an Archbishop of Canterbury; he filled up, in the first four years of his administration, the sees of St. Asaph, Sodor and Man (twice), Hereford, Manchester, Chester, Norwich, and Llandaff. The men whom he selected for these posts were Drs. Sumner, Musgrave, Short, Shirley, Eden, Hampden, Lee, Jackson, Hinds, and Ollivant. During the same period he sent Dr. Tait, the future Primate, These words are taken from Recollections and Suggestions, to the Deanery of Carlisle, Dr. Milman to the Deanery of St. Paul's; and he offered Dr. Stanley (the late Dean of Westminster) high preferment. It is needless to add that most of these men were remarkable for the depth of their learning; while all of them were distinguished for the breadth of their views. It is not impossible that the marked preference which Lord John was displaying for men of comprehensive opinions stimulated the very movement which he wished to defeat. The High Church party displayed increased activity; and the Bishop of Exeter declined to institute a clergyman, Mr. Gorham, to a living in his diocese, on the ground that he held heretical views on the subject of baptismal regeneration. The Bishop's decision was upheld by the Court of Arches, and Mr. Gorham appealed to the Privy Council. This tribunal reversed the judgment of the Ecclesiastical Court (in the language of Pembroke Lodge), 'to the satisfaction of all friends of liberty of conscience.' But, however satisfactory the judgment might be to moderate and reasonable people, it was eminently distasteful to a party in the Church. The Bishop of London declared that a question of doctrine should not be decided by a court composed chiefly of laymen. But the following letters will show the Bishop's opinion, as well as Lord John's: February 25, 1850. My dear Lord,-What I think essential to the Queen's supremacy is that no person should be deprived of his rights unless by due interpretation of law. If the Supreme Court of Appeal in heresy were formed solely of the clergy, their opinions would probably be founded on the prevailing theological opinions of the Judicial Bishops, which might be one day Calvinistic and the next Romish. Especially if three senior bishops and two Divinity Professors were to form part of the tribunal, we might have superannuated bishops and university intolerance driving out of the Church its most distinguished ornaments. If your Lordship will speak to the Archbishop, he will inform you what I think might be done.I remain, &c., The Rt. Rev. the Lord Bishop of London. J. RUSSELL. |