ready quoted. Lord John Russell's speech was a great success. Lord Palmerston's was, even in the estimation of his closest friends, a failure. Far different, indeed, was the ef fect it produced from the almost magical influence of that wonderful speech on the "Don Pacifico" question, which had compelled even unconvinced opponents to genuine admiration. Palmerston seemed to have practically no defence. He only went over again the points put by him in the correspondence already noticed; contended that, on the whole, he had judged rightly of the French crisis, and that he could not help forming an opinion on it, and so forth. Of the Queen's memorandum he said nothing. He did not even attempt to explain how it came about that, having received so distinct and severe an injunction, he had ventured deliberately to disregard it in a matter of the greatest national importance. Some of his admirers were of opinion then, and long after, that the reading of the memorandum must have come on him by surprise; that Lord John Russell must have sprung a mine upon him; and that Palmerston was taken unfairly and at a disadvantage. But it is certain that Lord John Russell gave notice to his late colleague of his intention to read the memorandum of the Queen. Besides, Lord Palmerston was one of the most ready and self-possessed speakers that ever addressed the House of Commons. During the very reading of the memorandum he could have found time to arrange his ideas, and to make out some show of a case for himself. The truth, we believe, is that Lord Palmerston deliberately declined to make any reply to that part of Lord John Russell's speech which disclosed the letter from the Queen. He made up his mind that a dispute between à sovereign and a subject would be unbecoming of both, and he passed over the memorandum in deliberate silence. He doubtless felt convinced that, even though such discretion involved him for the moment in seeming defeat, it would in the long-run reckon to his credit and his advantage. Lord Dalling, better known as Sir Henry Bulwer, was present during the debate, and formed an opinion of Palmerston's conduct which seems in every way correct and far-seeing. "I must say," Lord Dalling writes, "that I never admired him so much as at this crisis. He evidently thought he had been ill-treated; but I never heard him make an unfair or

irritable remark, nor did he seem in anywise stunned by the blow he had received, or dismayed by the isolated position in which he stood. I should say that he seemed to consider that he had a quarrel put upon him which it was his wisest course to close by receiving the fire of his adversary and not returning it. He could not, in fact, have gained a victory against the Premier on the ground which Lord John Russell had chosen for the combat, which would not have been more permanently disadvantageous to him than a defeat. The faults of which he had accused him did not touch: his own honor nor that of his country. Let them be admitted, and there was an end of the matter. By-and-by an occasion would probably arise in which he might choose an advantageous occasion for giving battle, and he was willing to wait calmly for that occasion."

Lord Dalling judged accurately so far as his judgment went. But while we agree with him in thinking that Lord Palmerston refrained from returning his adversary's fire for the reasons Lord Dalling has given, we are strongly of opinion that other reasons too influenced Palmerston. He knew that he was not at that time much liked or trusted by the Queen and Prince, Albert. He was not sorry that the fact should be made known to the world. He thoroughly understood English public opinion, and was not above taking advantage of its moods and its prejudices. He did not think a statesman would stand any the worse in the general estimation of the English public, then, because it was known that he was not admired by Prince Albert.

But the almost universal opinion of the House of Commons and of the clubs was that Lord Palmerston's career was closed. "Palmerston is smashed!" was the common saying: of the clubs. A night or two after the debate Lord Dalling met Mr. Disraeli on the staircase of the Russian Embassy, and Disraeli remarked to him that "there was a Palmerston.": Lord Palmerston evidently did not think so. The letters he wrote to friends immediately after his fall show him as jaunty and full of confidence as ever. He was quite satisfied with the way things had gone. He waited calmly for what he called, a few days afterward, "my tit-for-tat with John Russell," which came about, indeed, sooner than even he himself could well have expected.

We have not hesitated to express our opinion that throughout the whole of this particular dispute Lord Palmerston was in the wrong. He was in the wrong in many, if not most, of the controversies which had preceded it; that is to say, he was wrong in committing England, as he so often did, to measures which had not had the approval of the Sovereign or his colleagues. In the memorable dispute which brought matters to a crisis, he seems to us to have been in the wrong not less in what he did than in his manner of doing it. Yet it ought not to have been difficult for a calm observer, even at the time, to see that Lord Palmerston was likely to have the best of the controversy in the end. The faults of which he was principally accused were not such as the English people would find it very hard to forgive. He was said to be too brusque and high-handed in his dealings with foreign states and ministers; but it did not seem to the English people in general as if this was an offence for which his own countrymen were bound to condemn him too severely. There was a general impression that his influence was exercised on behalf of popular movements abroad; and an impression nearly as general that if he had not acted a good deal on his own impulses and of his own authority he could hardly have served any popular cause so well. The coup d'état certainly was not popular in England. For a long time it was a subject of general reprehension; but even at that time men who condemned the coup d'état were not disposed to condemn Lord Palmerston overmuch because, acting as usual on a personal impulse, he had in that instance made a mistake. There was even in his error something dashing, showy, and captivating to the general public. He made the influence of England felt, people said. His chief fault was that he was rather too strong for those around him. If any grave crisis came, he, it was murmured, and he alone, would be equal to the occasion, and would maintain the dignity of England. Neither in war nor in statesmanship does a man suffer much loss of popularity by occasionally disobeying orders and accomplishing daring feats. Lord Palmerston saw his way clearly at a critical period of his career. He saw that at that time there was, rightly or wrongly, a certain jealousy of the influence of Prince Albert, and he did not hesitate to take advantage

of the fact. He bore his temporary disgrace with well-justified composure. "The devil aids him, surely," said Sussex, speaking to Raleigh of Leicester in Scott's "Kenilworth," "for all that would sink another ten fathom deep seems but to make him float the more easily." Some rival may have thought thus of Lord Palmerston.

CHAPTER XXIII.

BIRTH OF THE EMPIRE; DEATH OF "THE DUKE."

THE year 1852 was one of profound emotion and even excitement in England. An able writer has remarked that the history of the Continent of Europe might be traced through the history of England, if all other sources of information were destroyed, by the influence which every great event in Continental affairs produces on the mood and policy of England. As the astronomer infers the existence and the attributes of some star his keenest glass will not reveal by the perturbations its neighborhood causes to some body of light within his ken, so the student of English history might well discover commotion on the Continent by the evidence of a corresponding movement in England. All through the year 1852 the national mind of England was disturbed. The country was stirring itself in quite an unusual manner. A military spirit was exhibiting itself everywhere, not unlike that told of in Shakspeare's "Henry the Fourth." The England of 1852 seems to threaten that “ere this year expire we bear our civil swords and native fire as far as France." At least the civil swords were sharpened in order that the country might be ready for a possible and even an anticipated invasion from France. The Volunteer movement sprang into sudden existence. All over the country corps of young volunteers were being formed. An immense amount of national enthusiasm accompanied and acclaimed the formation of the volunteer army, which received the sanction of the Crown early in the year, and thus became a national institution.

The meaning of all this movement was explained some years after by Mr. Tennyson, in a string of verses which did

more honor perhaps to his patriotic feeling than to his poetic genius. The verses are absurdly unworthy of Tennyson as a poet; but they express with unmistakable clearness the popular sentiment of the hour; the condition of uncertainty, vague alarm, and very general determination to be ready at all events for whatever might come. "Form, form, riflemen, form!" wrote the Laureate; "better a rotten borough or two than a rotten fleet and a town in flames." "True that we have a faithful ally, but only the devil knows what he means." This was the alarm and the explanation. We had a faithful ally, no doubt; but we certainly did not quite know what he meant. All the earlier part of the year had witnessed the steady progress of the Prince President of France to an imperial throne. The previous year had closed upon his coup d'état. He had arrested, imprisoned, banished, or shot his principal enemies, and had demanded from the French people a Presidency for ten years—a ministry responsible to the executive power-himself alone and two political Chambers to be elected by universal suffrage. Nearly five hundred prisoners, untried before any tribunal, even that of a drum-head, had been shipped off to Cayenne. The streets of Paris had been soaked in blood. The President instituted a plébiscite, or vote of the whole people, and of course he got all he asked for. There was no arguing with the commander of twenty legions, and of such legions as those that had operated with terrible efficiency on the Boulevards. The first day of the new year saw the relig ious ceremony at Notre Dame to celebrate the acceptancè of the ten years' presidency by Louis Napoleon. The same day a decree was published in the name of the President declaring that the French eagle should be restored to the standards of the army, as a symbol of the regenerated military genius of France. A few days after, the Prince President decreed the confiscation of the property of the Orleans family and restored titles of nobility in France. The birthday of the Emperor Napoleon was declared by decree to be the only national holiday. When the two legislative bodies came to be sworn in, the President made an announcement which certainly did not surprise many persons, but which nevertheless sent a thrill abroad over all parts of Europe. If hostile parties continued to plot against him, the Presi