IO DOWNING STREET: May 29, 1878.

DEAR MADAM,-The Queen and her Majesty's Ministers share the public feeling that some national mark of respect should be shown, by an admiring nation, to the illustrious departed.

A public funeral in that Abbey beneath whose shadow his youth was educated, and which subsequently witnessed his great career, appears to be not an unbecoming consummation; but her Majesty has been graciously pleased to remark that nothing should be done without the entire concurrence of yourself and your family, and with complete deference to the known wishes of him whom we have lost.

I have the honour to remain, dear madam, with great consideration and sympathy, yours faithfully, BEACONSFIELD.

The wishes which Lord Russell had expressed in his lifetime did not, however, permit his family to avail themselves of the Prime Minister's offer, and Lord Russell was buried on the Tuesday which succeeded his death in the family vault at Chenies. He lies there amidst the ancestors of the Russells, with his first wife, his son, his daughter-in-law, and their child. But, among all that long array of departed great, though the names of William Lord Russell and Rachel his wife are included in the category, there is none who rendered such services to his country, or conferred such distinction on his family, as the bold, honest, and able statesman, whose career has been imperfectly sketched in the preceding pages.

Three weeks after Lord Russell's death, the Fox Club met for one of their annual dinners. Up to that time only three toasts had been allowed at the club: 'The memory of Charles James Fox;' 'Earl Grey and the late Reform Bill;' 'The memory of the late Lord Holland.' At the meeting in June 1878, Lord Stair, who was in the chair, got up and said, 'Since the last meeting of this club the great leader of the Whig and Liberal party has been taken away, and I believe it is the wish of the club to drink to the memory of Lord Russell.' The toast was drunk in silence, and Lord Stair again rose and said he believed it to be the desire of the club that Lord Russell's memory should be added to the toasts. Mr. Charles Fitzwilliam, who was present, then expressed a hope that he might

propose a slight alteration: that all the great measures carried had been carried by Lord John Russell, the name by which all good Whigs liked to call him, and he suggested that the toast should be to the memory of Lord John Russell. This was at once agreed to.

To this, the tribute of a club, it is only necessary to add one or two extracts from hundreds of letters in the possession of the family.

On the day which preceded Lord Russell's death General Garibaldi wrote

CAPRERA: 27 Maggio 1878. ILLUSTRE E CARO LORD RUSSELL,-Sono spaventato ancora per una notizia sfavorevole sulla vostra salute. Oggi sono assai confortato, e con me Italia tutta che tanto vi deve.

Vogliate darmi vostre notizie, e salutarmi caramente l' amabile vostra famiglia.—Per la vita, vostro G. GARIBALDI.

Two days after his death, Mr. Bright wrote to Lady Russell

What I particularly observed in the public life of Lord John-you once told me you liked his former name and title-was a moral tone, a conscientious feeling, something higher and better than is often found in the guiding principles of our most active statesmen ; and for this I always admired and reverenced him.

On the same day Lord Houghton wrote—

Lord Russell has ever been to me the highest and most complete statesman of my generation. He is the only one whom I have known in whom the worth and dignity of the man never lost by public life and the conduct of national affairs.

EPILOGUE.

If the preceding chapters of this book have failed to describe the character and career of the statesman with whom they have been concerned, it is hopeless for their author to attempt, in the few pages which are still left to him, to give life and distinctness to the portrait. The narrative might at once be closed if it were not necessary to gather up a few dropped or missing threads, and weave them into the story; and if it were not right to offer, in doing so, a few general observations on Lord John Russell's private life and public career.

On public grounds Lord John stands before posterity in a double capacity. He was not merely a distinguished statesman; he was a voluminous author. If, indeed, he had deserted, as he once thought of abandoning, politics for literature, it is not likely that he would have acquired fame. His best works would, no doubt, have brought credit to any writer. But their warmest admirers will hardly number them among the classics. Those of Lord John Russell's books which still survive are read because they were written by Lord John Russell; and the light which the author sheds is lustre borrowed from the eminence of the statesman. It is as a man

of action, and not as a man of letters, that Lord John will descend to posterity; and it is by his achievements in Parlia- + ment, and not by the productions of his pen, that he must ultimately be judged.

The first reflection on his Parliamentary career which will occur to most people is the time over which it extended. He was a member of the Legislature for sixty-five years. No previous statesman of equal eminence had served his

country for anything like the same period; and no period of equal importance had ever before occurred in the history of the world. When Lord John Russell entered Parliament, the power of the first Napoleon was unbroken. When he died the Second Empire was a thing of history. At the beginning of his career Europe was the appañage of sovereigns; at the close of it the fairest parts of it were the heritage of peoples. The modern doctrine of nationality had asserted itself against the principles of the Holy Alliance; and Emperors and armies had given way before the impulse of populations.

In the changes which had thus been accomplished, not merely on the map of Europe but in the Governments of Europe, Lord John had almost uniformly been on the side of liberty. At the beginning of his career he had devoted some of his first literary earnings to the relief of a people whom he had thought oppressed. In the closing years of his official life he had laboured for the cause of Italy with a zeal and with a success which have few parallels in British history. Yet, though the part which he played in foreign affairs was large and notable, his fame must ultimately rest on domestic legislation. During the course of his Parliamentary career a revolution was effected in domestic policy; and in this revolution there can be no doubt that Lord John Russell was the chief actor.

In 1813, when Lord John Russell entered Parliament, the government of the empire was virtually in the hands of a few hundred persons who had seats in the House of Lords, or who nominated the majority of the members who sat in the House of Commons. The chief prizes in State and Church were reserved for the relatives, the friends, or the acquaintances of the ruling class. The narrowest religious prejudices influenced legislation. A Roman Catholic was ineligible both for office and Parliament. A Nonconformist could only hold office because the Legislature was in the habit of annually indemnifying him for breaking the law. A Jew was disabled from acquiring real estate. There seemed no prospect of remedying these disabilities. Public meetings, except those

authoritatively constituted, were held to be illegal; their organisers were frequently subjected to prosecution for high treason. Lord John Russell's first effective speech in Parlia ment was in opposition to the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. He returned to the House in 1819 to oppose the measures by which Lord Liverpool's Administration endeavoured to curb the press and restrict public meetings. The punishments imposed by law were brutal. The criminal code was written in characters of blood, and proved inefficacious to repress crime. Women could still be flogged at the cart-tail; men could still be placed in the pillory; no reasonable secondary punishment had been invented. The modern policeman had not replaced the old Dogberry. My Lord Tom Noddy went to see the latest murderer publicly executed. Her Ladyship probably attended the service in Newgate on the Sunday which preceded his execution. Debtors languished in prison; real estate was not liable for debt. The bull-ring, the prize-ring, and the cock-pit were favourite places of resort among rich and poor. There was no provision for the education of the people. There were no free libraries, no public galleries, no rational amusements for the masses. The commercial legislation of the country was founded on a policy of restriction. Dear corn and low wages were the chief objects of the Legislature. The dwellings of the people were undrained, ill ventilated, and perhaps abutted on a graveyard in which every fresh interment exposed the remains of those who had gone before to the noisome and overcrowded plot which was called God's acre. The Poor Law, instead of promoting thrift, was used to encourage extravagance. The men who had the largest families, the women who had most illegitimate children, were the favourites of the rates. In many parts of England rates were commonly paid in aid of wages.

Such was the England which Lord John Russell found. The introduction of a 'not' into most of the preceding sentences will portray the England which he left. People are apt to dwell on the material progress of the sixty-five years which were covered by his Parliamentary career, and to remind