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CHAP. poor negro's rights; and yet, by urging on the fatal step of immediate and unprepared emancipation, he has proved his worst enemy, and thrown back the sable inhabitants of the Antilles centuries in the path of real and lasting improvement. No man saw more clearly, or has expressed more strongly, the decline which would be brought on British agriculture from the unrestrained competition of foreign states; and yet he has been active in the furthering of a series of measures which have rendered Great Britain, in seven years, from being practically self-supporting, dependent on foreign states, in ordinary years for a seventh, in unfavourable ones for a fifth, of the national subsistence.* In two important particulars, however, his labours have been attended with unmitigated good. He has been, through life, the zealous supporter of the cause of general education, although sectarian jealousy has hitherto much impeded the beneficent results of his efforts; and he has devoted his great powers, with equal judgment and success, to the great and difficult subject of Law Reform.

14.

oratory.

His style of speaking, though always energetic and His style of powerful, affords the most striking contrast to that which his taste approves, and which he has uniformly recommended to the imitation of others. The last is condensed even to the confines of dryness; the first diffuse to those of excess. No one feels more strongly, or has expressed more emphatically, the manly simplicity of ancient oratory; and yet no one in his own speeches has deviated more completely from the style of Demosthenes, or overlaid ideas always forcible, often striking, by an overwhelming

-M'CULLOCH, in Encyclopædia Britannica, 9th edit., roce Great Britain.

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deluge of words. It would seem as if in his own style of CHAP. oratory he was desirous, by the process of reductio ad absurdum, of establishing the truths of the general principles on eloquence which he has elsewhere inculcated. This verbose habit is very much to be regretted, for, on the few occasions on which it has been avoided, he has left most striking pieces of oratory. His expressions in each clause of a sentence are generally forcible, often epigrammatic; it is the frequent repetition of the same idea in different expressions, and putting it in different lights, which weakens the force of his oratory. Yet, however widely it may deviate from the standard of ancient eloquence or ideal perfection, if we are to judge from the result, it was well calculated for the persons to whom it was addressed; for he was mainly instrumental in achieving the four great Liberal triumphs of the last half-century-the repeal of the Orders in Council, that of the Income-Tax, the passing of the Reform Bill, and of Negro Emancipation.

15.

merston:

tation.

If there is any British statesman of his age who has acquired a European reputation, it may safely be pro- Lord Palnounced to be LORD PALMERSTON, whose name will his Eurobe for ever associated with the great change in our repu foreign policy, and the substitution of Liberal for Conservative alliances. Foreign nations, not aware of the vital change which the Reform Bill made in our Government, ascribe this change chiefly, if not entirely, to his individual influence; and according as their statesmen and historians belong to the democratic or monarchical party, he is the object either of vehement laudation or of impassioned hatred. In truth, however, he is not the fit object of the praise he has received, or the vituperation with which he has been encountered. In a despotic country, a minister may impress his own principles upon the measures of government; in a constitutional one he must receive it from the legislature. The Reform Bill having vested the government of England in the class of urban shopkeepers,

CHAP. the majority of whom are imbued with liberal principles, XXIII. the carrying out of their wishes into our foreign policy became a matter of necessity, to which every minister, however otherwise inclined, must bend.

1830.

16.

tile talents

ter.

If this change of policy, however, was imposed upon His versa- the country by the Reform Bill, it is equally true that and charac- the character and talents of the Liberal Foreign Secretary, in a prominent manner, fitted him for carrying it through. His abilities are not only of the highest order, but they are of the most marketable description. No man knows better how to address himself in speaking to the prevailing feelings and tastes of his audience, in acting to the inclination and interests of the class in society upon which his influence is rested. Great as are his talents, varied his accomplishments, they are rendered still more powerful by the versatility of their possessor. He can be, when he pleases, all things to all men. He has been a member of every administration, with the single exception of the short one of Lord Derby in 1852, for the last fifty years. He has alternately aided in expelling his former friends from power, and reinstating them in office; yet, strange to say, his character for consistency has not materially suffered from all these changes. The reason is that all men see that, like the Duke of Wellington, his leading principle has always been the advancement of the power and glory of his country; and that he has taken a part in so many administrations, because they successively furnished him with the means of advancing that primary object. He has been through life not so much a statesman as a diplomatic soldier of the State.

17.

ter as a diplomatist

His talents for diplomacy and administration are unHis charac- questionably of a very high order. To immense acquaintance with foreign treaties and conventions he unites the rarer but not less essential knowledge of courts and statesmen, and the prevailing influences by which they are severally governed. As secretary-at-war during

and orator.

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the contest with Napoleon, and home secretary under CHAP. Queen Victoria, his administrative powers have been equally conspicuous; and such are his oratorical talents that no man can with greater certainty alternately keep the attention of the House of Commons awake during a long detail of diplomatic proceedings, or fascinate a popular audience by the beauties of a varied and highly wrought eloquence. Indefatigable in his attention to business, he yet finds time, as men of a similar energetic turn of mind often do, for the pleasures of society; and much of his political influence is owing to the charm which manners of the highest breeding, and courtesy of the most finished kind, lend to a varied and delightful conversation.

18.

The great fault of this accomplished minister—and it is a very serious one, for it has more than once brought His errors. his country to the brink of the most serious danger— is, that he never calculates the means at his disposal for effecting the projects which he has at heart, and engages in designs which he has not the means of carrying through, or stimulates movements in other countries which he has not the means of supporting. Bred in the school of Pitt, and essentially patriotic in his feelings and ideas, he sometimes forgets the difference in the situation and power of the country at different times, and has often held as high language in diplomatic intercourse, when a reformed House of Commons had not left twenty thousand disposable men in the country, or ten ships of the line to form a Channel fleet, as when Lord Castlereagh wielded the power of one hundred and fifty thousand, and one hundred ships of the line bore the royal flag. A sincere friend of freedom, he has sometimes proved its worst enemy, by stimulating movements of the liberal party among the excitable inhabitants of other states, which the people of this country had neither the means nor the inclination to support, and being forced, in consequence, to leave them to be crushed by the military

VOL. IV.

T

CHAP. force of despotic states.

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19.

Russell.

With admirable skill he arranged all the other powers of Europe to check the ambition of France on the Eastern Question in 1840; and it was owing to the influence of his diplomacy that the cordial alliance of France and England was formed which put such a bridle in the mouth of Russia in 1854. But on other occasions his ill-timed assertions of British influence have been attended with the utmost hazard; for they brought us to the verge of a war with France, and once with France and Russia united, at a time when the country was wholly unprepared to maintain a contest with either the one or the other.

If

LORD JOHN RUSSELL has not obtained the same eleLord John vated niche in the temple of fame as Lord Grey and Lord Palmerston; but still the nobleman who carried the Reform Bill through the House of Commons, and has since for years held the highest place in the councils of his Sovereign, or been the leader of the House of Commons, must be regarded as no common man. As an orator he occupies a useful rather than a distinguished place. He seldom aims at the highest flights of eloquence, and his speeches are distinguished by business-like habits, by information on the subject, and acuteness in reply, rather than either genius of conception or cogency of argument. he owed, however, the distinguished position he has so long held in the House of Commons, in the first instance, to family influence, and the prestige of an illustrious name, he has since shown that he was not unworthy of it, by the qualities he has exhibited while discharging its duties. To admirable temper and great tact in debate he unites a thorough acquaintance with the feeling and prevailing inclination of the House, and especially of his own side,— qualities invaluable in the leader of a party, and much more important than the more showy qualities which often dazzle only to mislead. His figure is not commanding, and his voice feeble, so that nature has not endowed him with the physical qualities requisite for