Mr. Gladstone he did not wholly approve the compromise under which Lord Palmerston submitted to the loss of the Paper Duties Bill; and he disliked the expenditure on fortifications on which Lord Palmerston insisted.1 From these circumstances, rumours circulated in London of the approaching disruption of the Ministry; and Lord Derby took the unusual course of intimating to Lord Palmerston that, if Lord John and Mr. Gladstone retired from the Government, the Ministry should receive Conservative support. But the disruption of the Government was not so near as Lord Derby supposed. Lord Palmerston could not afford to dispense with Mr. Gladstone's assistance, and Lord John's resignation was never even dreamed of. Hardly ever a day passed in which he did not receive long and confidential commuuications from the Prime Minister, and no thoughts of separation can be traced in any of these letters.

During the autumn of 1860 Lord John accompanied the Queen on a visit which she paid to Germany. At Coburg, where the Court stayed for some time, Lord John had a day's

1 He wrote to Lord Palmerston

PEMBROKE LODGE: May 20, 1860.

MY DEAR PALMERSTON,-I cannot but think much more seriously of the proposed vote of the Lords than you appear to do. No one can deny the right of the Lords to throw out the Paper Duty Repeal Bill, any more than they can deny the right of the Crown to make a hundred peers in one day, or of the Commons to reject the Mutiny Bill. But the exercise of a right which has lain dormant since the Revolution must give a great shock to the constitution. Even as a matter of convenience our finances cannot bear two Chancellors of the Exchequer making their Budget in the two Houses. The advantage of having a million added to the revenue of the year I do not deny; but it will be too dearly purchased if the Lords are to put in a claim, which they can never sustain, of imposing taxes directly and indirectly. However, although I cannot agree in your premises, I shall endeavour to come to the same conclusion. There is no need of precipitating a quarrel between the two Houses, though the Lords seem to think there is. There would be great mischief in doing so in the present state of affairs both at home and abroad. The House of Commons are much stronger than the Lords, and are sure to win at any time. -Yours truly,

J. RUSSELL.

Mr. Gladstone was a little less yielding than Lord John; and Lord John two months afterwards told the Duke of Bedford that 'Gladstone's speech [was] magnificently mad on the Privilege question.'

wild boar shooting; and, to the Prince Consort's amusement, killed his boar. If it were true that he was the first Prime Minister who had ever been out deer-stalking, it was probably also true that he was the first Foreign Secretary who had ever killed a wild boar. But, attached as he was to the Queen, life in Court was always distasteful to him; and he regretted every little incident of the journey that delayed his return to Lady John and his children. The autumn, after his return home, was spent chiefly at Richmond; till, at the end of January, the family moved up to Chesham Place for Society, Cabinets, and Parliament,

Politically, the year 1861 has little interest. The Conservative policy of Lord Palmerston reflected the mood of the country; and the session hardly produced any changes which are worth recording. One great struggle, indeed, arose at the end of May, on the repeal of the Paper Duty; which was supposed for some weeks to portend a crisis in the Ministry, and the defeat of the Government. But, after a somewhat remarkable debate, Ministers-on the last day but one of the month -obtained a sufficient majority, and during the rest of the session no serious attempt was made to disturb them,1

But in a personal sense the year was more eventful. In April Lord John's second daughter, Victoria, was married to Mr. Villiers, the eldest son of the then Bishop of Durham. Mr. Villiers, who had recently taken holy orders, is now well known as the incumbent of St. Paul's, Knightsbridge.

This

'Oh, did he?'

1 Lord Malmesbury says that, at a concert at the Palace on June 28, Lord John joined Lord Derby and him, Lord Derby exclaimed, 'How do you do, Lord John? You have got into very bad company.' He looked round on us all with a grim smile and said, 'I see I have;' when Lord Derby, looking at him attentively, observed that he was incorrectly dressed, having his levée uniform instead of the full dress which he ought to have worn. Lord John said, 'I know I am wrong, and the porter wanted to turn me out.' exclaimed Lord Derby; 'Thou canst not say I did it.' Of course all round laughed at the apt quotation from Shakespeare, and no one more than Lord John himself. (Memoirs of an ex-Minister, p. 543.) Early in 1859 Lady John happened to be placed at dinner at Buckingham Palace between Lord Clarendon and Lord Malmesbury. As she sat down she said, 'I am between the past and the present.' Lord Malmesbury added, 'Yes, and you are the future.'

was the first marriage among Lord John's own children, and the parting created some natural regrets. Ten days before it Lady John addressed the following verses to her stepdaughter:-.

On the brae the bonnie primrose, the violet in the wood,
Yet once again have found thee, my lassie fair and good;
But the bud upon the hawthorn gars a mist come o'er my e'e,
For before the blossom whitens thou'lt be far far frae me.
The mavis and the lav'rock, hark! how blithe and sad they sing,
Farewell to thee, farewell, lassie, and welcome to the spring;
But when once more the nightingale from yonder favourite beech
To the gloamin' grey shall pour his lay, thine ear it will not
reach.

Oh, sweet and holy is the tie that sae long has bound us twa,
And well I know it ne'er can break tho' thou art far awa';
But a mightier chain is round thee and will not let thee bide,
And thou deemest all too slow the hours that for me too swiftly
glide.

So a bonnie blink o' sunshine from our home for ever goes ;

From the garland, round us twining, there drops a bonnie rose. But thy step is light, thine eye is bright, e'en thro' the starting

tear :

God speed thee, and watch o'er thee then; thy haven is not here !
To meet new joys that beckon thee thy heart is bounding fast,
Yet fold around it lovingly the memories of the past;
They'll keep it fresh and green beneath the brightness of thy sky,
Like dew in blossoms lingering when the noonday sun is high.
Our help no longer needest thou thy web of life to weave,
And a lonesome spot within our hearts, dear lassie, thou wilt leave.
But to him we yield thee trustfully whose love hath bid thee go,
And to God we pray to be thy stay for aye thro' weal or woe.

Three weeks after his daughter's marriage, Lord John was summoned hastily to Woburn, in consequence of his brother the Duke's serious illness. The Duke died on May 14. Lord John was much overcome with the death of his brother, with whom, throughout his life, he had been on terms of intimate affection, and whose loss snapped the last link between him and his distant childhood. By the Duke's death Lord John at once entered on the Ardsalla estate; and his income, which

had so often proved too narrow for the calls upon it, was thereby increased. His improved position justified him in seeking relief from the late hours of the House of Commons in the quiet of the House of Lords. Lord John, indeed, knew well that the bracing air of the former chamber was far preferable to the enervating atmosphere of the latter. But his sixty-nine years of life were steadily reminding him that there were sixty-nine good reasons for the change he was making. In an excellent caricature, Punch made old Lord Brougham receive him at the door of the Peers' chamber with the exclamation, 'Oh, Johnny, ye'll find it mighty dull here;' while, as a matter of fact, Lord Derby greeted him with the opposite dictum 'Oh, Johnny,' he said, as he shook hands with him, 'what fun we shall have here!'

It was at first supposed that Lord John would take the title of Lord Ludlow,1 the origin of the Ardsalla estate accounting for the suggestion. But, as a matter of fact, Lord John became Earl Russell of Kingston Russell, and Viscount Amberley of Amberley and Ardsalla.

Mr. Disraeli wrote to him on this occasion

July 22, 1861.

I congratulate you and your family on the great honours which deservedly await you. But I cannot congratulate the House of Commons or myself; for I feel the House will lose very much of its authority by your retirement from it, and that I shall lose an opponent whom it was yet permitted to respect and regard, and with whom it was a distinction to contend.

D.

1 This title suggested Mr. Punch's lines :

John Russell, Earl Ludlow, John,
When we were first acquent,
You would have scorned the haven
On which, you now are bent.

The House of Lords, I fear, Jolin,
You'll find uncommon slow,
And for the Commons, gipsy-like,

You'll sigh, when Earl Ludlow, &c.

Mr. Gladstone wrote

July 24, 1861.

MY DEAR LORD J. RUSSELL,-I cannot despatch, as I have just done, the Chiltern Hundreds for you without expressing the strong feelings which even that formal act awakens. They are mixed as well as strong; for I hope you will be repaid in repose, health, and the power of long continuing service for the heavy loss we suffer in the House of Commons.

Although you may not hereafter have opportunities of adding to the personal debt I owe you, and of bringing it vividly before my mind by fresh acts of courage and kindness, I assure you the recollection of it is already indelible.—Believe me, most sincerely yours, W. E. GLADSTONE.