and the large head which indicated the capacious intellect, equally assisted the caricaturist. It became gradually customary to portray Lord John as a boy, or as a child. Lord John's striking personal characteristics were not, however, seized by the caricaturist at the first. In his earlier pictures of him, Mr. Doyle has concealed, instead of exaggerating, the Minister's peculiarities. In the earliest of them in which Lord John appears,1 a scene from the 'Beggars' Opera,' Lord John is the functionary waiting to lead Sir C. Wetherell off to execution. Two numbers later he is the tailor-a tall tailor-who has fitted John Bull with a pair of 'bra' new grey breeks.' And it was only in 1835 that Mr. Doyle thoroughly seized his characteristics and made himself master of his appearance. Mr. O'Connell's influence with the new Ministers was a tempting subject for the artist: Lord John's commanding position in the Cabinet brought him into the first place in almost every composition; while the Minister's slight frame contrasted with Mr. O'Connell's burly features gave zest to the caricature. Thus Lord John is Little Red Riding Hood to Mr. O'Connell's wolf; he is the very small sheep, while Mr. O'Connell is the wolf in sheep's clothing; he is Hop o' My Thumb in 'The Faggot Cutter and his Seven Sons ;' he is a sleek and small pug in the admirable caricature of Sir E. Landseer's 'Jack in Office;' he sits on Lord Melbourne's lap in the 'Sedan to Vauxhall;' and finally he marches in front in 'The Age of Leetle Men,'

It will be probably clear from this short paragraph that Mr. Doyle had thoroughly realised how much Lord John's diminutive stature could be made to assist his pencil. The later caricaturists of the reign naturally availed themselves of the same peculiarity. But they engrafted on Lord John's slight physique some characteristics which were rather amusing than true. Represented almost always as a boy, or occasionally as a girl, it required only one step to connect him with the mischievous tendencies and the weakness which is inseparable

1 The first caricature of Mr. Doyle's with which Lord John is associated—” The New Lamps for Old '-does not contain his portrait.

from youth. Thus he is the boy who has written' No Popery' on the wall and run away;1 he is the page who is not strong enough for the place; or the nursemaid unable to wheel the perambulator with the baby Reform Bill up the steps of the House of Lords. Probably even Lord John's intimate friends are hardly aware how their own impression of his character and career has been moulded by these amusing pictures.

If Lord John's career was rendered more difficult by the smallness of his frame, he was at a still greater disadvantage from the physical weakness from which he suffered throughout his life. An old writer has said that stomach is everything and everything is stomach. But stomach was the one qualification which Lord John had not. His digestion was possibly weakened by the drastic remedies which our grandparents were in the habit of applying to organs which require a milder treatment. In reading Lord John's boyish diaries, it occurred to the present author that the first day of the week, when no playhouses were open, was reserved by Lord John either for travelling or for medicine. But from the first day of his life to the last days of his Prime Ministership his physical weakness undoubtedly militated against his chances. In the long rivalry between Lord Palmerston and himself, Lord Palmerston owed as much to his admirable organisation as Lord John did to his intellectual power. It has been said of a great modern statesman that the most extraordinary thing about him is not his mind but his body. And perhaps Lord John is the only instance of a man rising to the very highest rank in politics with a physical organisation so defective that it suggested doubt as to his strength for the work allotted to him at almost every stage of his career.

Lord John was able to triumph over these defects of the body, and to survive to an unusual age, because he regulated his life on sensible principles. He was moderate in his diet, regular in his habits, and careful to obtain a sufficiency of

1 Lord Russell admitted to Mr. William Rogers that this caricature was very severe, and did his Government a great deal of harm. He repaid it years afterwards by giving Mr. Leech's son a nomination for the Charter House.

exercise. But, though by these expedients he succeeded in partially overcoming a physical deficiency to which other men would have succumbed, the means which he adopted for doing so placed him under a disadvantage. Instead of consolidating his party by hospitality in Chesham Place, he was seeking rest and health in the seclusion of Pembroke Lodge. It is no doubt a somewhat humiliating circumstance that political success should so frequently be promoted by social pleasures. But those who recollect the careers of Lord John and Lord Palmerston will agree that the one Minister derived no mean advantage from the care with which his wife cultivated the society which the wife of the other Minister was forced to neglect.

It was the common criticism, applied to Lord John in January 1855, that he resigned office without justification. History perhaps will pass an exactly opposite verdict on him, and say that both in 1838 and in 1848 he remained in office without justification. For the reasons which induced him to leave office in 1855-viz., his disapproval of the conduct of the war, and his refusal to resist an inquiry which he thought necessary are at any rate adequate; while it is much more doubtful whether the withdrawal of the Appropriation Clause in 1838 should not have led to the resignation of the Ministry which. was founded on it; and whether the rejection by the Cabinet of Lord John's Irish policy in 1848 should not have logically involved the retirement of the Minister who proposed it.

This book, however, has not been concerned with Lord John's public career alone; it has endeavoured to deal with the man as well as with the Minister; and the author's objects would not be fulfilled if a few words were not added on what Lord John was, in the seclusion of his own home, to his wife, his children, his servants, and his friends.

What Lord John was to his friends may perhaps be inferred from several passages in this memoir. In the society of those whom he liked, there was no better or brighter companion. The cold climate, which played the deuce with votes, was dispelled by the sunshine of Pembroke Lodge.

VOL. II.

2 H

The popular idea of Johnny [wrote Mr. Motley] is of a cold, cynical, reserved personage. But, in his own home, I never saw a more agreeable manner.1

His society [writes Sir W. Harcourt] was singularly attractive. The great memories that gathered round him; his sense of 'humour, as he recounted the stories of the past; his big mind, in a small body, as he walked about at Pembroke Lodge in his large white hat; his true deliberation of spirit, and undaunted pluck; composed a very striking whole.

In fact, his wide reading, his long experience, his hearty -appreciation of all that was good, made him a delightful companion. In conversation, he had the capacity which stood him in such good stead in debate; and Sir James Mackintosh used to cite as an example of a witty saying the definition of a proverb which Lord John gave one morning at breakfast— 'One man's wit, and all men's wisdom."

1 Motley's Correspondence, i. 300.

2 Life of Mackintosh, ii. 473.

12

In his later life Lord Russell was rather jealous of the fact that his claim to be the author of this famous saying was questioned, and, as the controversy respecting its parentage has lately been revived, it is well to show how the error of ascribing it to another arose.

DEANERY, WESTMINSTER: March 3, 1873. MY DEAR LORD RUSSELL,—I heard the other day from Mr. Lecky of a perplexity occasioned to you by an expression in Dean Milman's Essays which I believe I can solve.

In one of these essays there occurs the definition of a proverb as 'One man's wit, and many men's wisdom,' which is quoted as erroneously ascribed to an eminent living statesman."

It so happens that many years ago, when I was at Canterbury, Sir Robert Inglis, speaking of this definition, said (as I understood him) that he had been in the house-wherever it was-when you brought down the definition (if I remember right) to breakfast. Having always had this in my recollection, I asked Dean Milman why he had said 'erroneously.' 'I said no such thing,' he replied, ‘I said "ascribed to an eminent living statesman ;" and "erroneously" was put in by the Editor of the Quarterly.' The Editor, at this time, was Mr. Elwin, and the next time I met him I asked him why he had inserted it. I forget exactly his answer; but it was to the effect that he had a strong impression of having seen the definition in some French writer, I think Montaigne. There the subject dropped. I have thought since that it could never have been in a French writer, because, as I remember Guizot once remarking to me, there is no French word for what we in modern English mean by 'wit.'

But my object in writing was to clear our dear old friend at St. Paul's of any doubt or disregard of the tradition which ascribes the definition to you. Yours sincerely, A. P. STANLEY.

With such qualities as these it was no wonder that Lord John's society was sought and valued. Young and old found an equal welcome at Pembroke Lodge; Lord John's nature, indeed, like good wine, mellowed with advancing age, and 'as he grew old, he took more and more pleasure in the society of all who came to him.'

A great authoress has told her readers that it is better sometimes not to follow great reformers of abuses beyond the threshold of their homes. But, if this be true of other men, it is emphatically untrue of Lord John. It is precisely to Lord John's home that every biographer of Lord John who understands his business must desire to take his readers. it is well to show him

No doubt

When the steam is on,

And languid Johnny glows to glorious John.

But it is still better to see him by his own fireside, or with his wife, his children, and his servants.

What Lord John was to his servants two little incidents may show. (1) Travelling in Switzerland in his old age, he was seized with illness, and his valet explained his anxiety to his medical adviser1 by saying, 'I love every hair of his head.' (2) In the autumn of 1888, his youngest daughter took her old nurse to a local lecture on Mr. Carlyle. The lecturer excused his hero's domestic troubles by declaring that it was natural that great men, whose minds were absorbed by public anxieties, should be sometimes irritable and impatient at home. And the old nurse, who had only known one great man, expressed her indignation that any one should suppose that great men were not great in their home life.

What Lord John was to his wife and his children only they can tell; but the perfect confidence which wife and husband had in one another, the constant happiness which they derived from one another's society, may be, at any rate, inferred by one who has had the privilege of access to their

1 Dr. Anderson of Richmond, who was travelling with the Russells, and who was 'for twenty years the medical adviser and the valued and trusted friend of the family.'