about him for young men of promise, and his attention was naturally attracted to Mr. Milnes and Lord Palmerston. The ac count in the Autobiography of the ensuing transactions differs slightly from that in the contemporary letters to Lord Malmesbury, as well as from the version orally communicated to friends; but the upshot was that Lord Palmerston had the successive offers of the Chancellorship of the Exchequer and the Secretaryship at War, conditioned in each instance on the prior refusal of Mr. Milnes; and his mode of receiving them manifests a rare degree of self-knowledge and discretion. "I own (he writes to Lord Malmesbury) of course one's vanity and ambition would lead to accept the brilliant offer first proposed; but it is throwing for a great stake, and where much is to be gained, very much also may be lost. I have always thought it unfortunate for any one, and particularly a young man, to be put above his proper level, as he only rises to fall the lower. Now, I am quite without knowledge of finance, and never but once spoke in the House." After describing the interview with Perceval, in the course of which he was told that Mr. Milnes must have the refusal of the Secretaryship of War as well as that of the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, he writes: I "He (Perceval) said that he felt that this preference of Milnes might not appear very flattering to me, but he trusted I should view it in its right light, as proceeding from his great anxiety to secure a doubtful friend who might be of essential service to our cause. assured him that my principal wish was that his Government should receive every possible accession to strength, and that no personal considerations would prevent me from acquiescing in any arrangement which could conduce to that end, but that in point of fact the first offer he had made me of the Exchequer was so very flattering, that, having declined that, I could not in any case object to giving Milnes the preference as to the War Office; and that should he decide to take it, I should very willingly take a seat at the Treasury. Mr. Milnes, after a long conference with Perceval and another with Canning, determined to support Perceval and decline office altogether : "This latter resolution, which surprised me exceedingly, is founded upon real and un affected diffidence. I think it a great pity, both for him and for us, as he would be more useful in office than out of it. The War Ofally, however, upon arrangements I will presfice has consequently come to me, conditionently mention. In the mean time, Perceval having very handsomely given me the option of the Cabinet with the War Office (if I go to it), I thought it best, on the whole, to decline it; and I trust that, although you seemed to be of a different opinion at first, you The office is one which does not invariably, will not, on the whole, think I was wrong. or, indeed, usually go with the Cabinet. A seat there was consequently not an object to me for appearance sake; and considering how young I am in office, people in general, so far from expecting to see me in the Cabinet by taking the War Office, would, perhaps, only wonder how I got there." The office of Secretary-at-War, which he was destined to hold so long, suited and grew upon him. After some weeks' trial, he writes :-"I continue to like this office very much. There is a good deal to be done; but if one is confined, it is some satisfaction to have some real business to do: and if they leave us in long enough I trust much may be accomplished in arranging the interior details of the of fice so as to place it on a respectable footing." In a letter to his sister, after his first official speech in bringing forward the army estimates, he says that, besides the commendations of his friends, which were things of course, the Opposition were civil and complimentary. "Windham was pleased to inake honorable mention of me; and, what I certainly least expected, Whitbread, with whom I had never before exchanged a word, took occasion, as he met me entering the House yesterday, to say some very handsome things about perspicuity and information." One great attraction of this sort of biography, largely composed of personal reminiscences and familiar letters, is that it revives and records, in all their original freshness, many scenes and incidents which are too illustrative to be forgotten, e. g. : "We had last night a most extraordinary display of folly, coarseness, and vulgarity ther, Chairman of the Committee, would not from Fuller, who, because Sir John Anstrutake notice of him, when he several times attempted to rise, in order to put some very gross and absurd questions to Lord Chatham, flew out into such a passion, and swore, and abused the Chairman and the House to such a degree that it became at last necessary to commit him to custody. As he went out he shook his fist at the Speaker, and said he was a d—d insignificant little puppy, and snapping his fingers at him said he did not care that for him or the House either. He is now amusing himself with the sergeant-atarms, and I think was very lucky in not being sent to Newgate or the Tower." The rule or understanding that members of the Government, not being of the Cabinet, are to be chary of their eloquence except when the business of their respective departments is discussed, would have prevented Lord Palmerston from taking an active part in debate during the first eighteen years of his official life had he been possessed with the desire of shining, which he was not. But it did not prevent him from giving marked indications of latent power, nor even from indulging in the same kind of persiflage and humorous retort which was latterly by turns his weakness and his strength. The commencement of his reply to a very formidable assailant, Brougham, before whom most debaters of his standing would have quailed, was in these words :-"The honorable and learned member has made an accusation, which I certainly cannot retort upon that honorable gentleman himself, namely, that he very seldom troubles the House with his observations. I, at all events, will abstain from all declamation, and from any dissertation on the Constitution, and confine myself to the business at present on hand-the Army Estimates of the current year." mand for papers, observed that consider- The death of Perceval in 1812 led to the formation of a Government under Lord Liverpool, which Sir H. Bulwer describes as "universally considered the weakest that ever undertook to hold the helm of a great State, but which suffered less from opponents and was more favored by events than almost any other that has conducted the affairs of this country." Certainly the weakest that ever conducted the affairs of this country for fifteen consecutive years, thanks to the prudent moderation of its chief, to whom may be applied the witty remark in the "School for Scandal," that there are "valetudinarians in reputation as in constitution, who, being conscious of their weak part, avoid the least breath of air and supply their want of stamina by care and circumspection." The political capital acquired by the glorious conclusion of the war lasted the Tories the better part of a generation, whilst the Whigs were proportionately discredited by their ineffective and often factious opposition. It was seven years after the peace that we find Lord Byron writing: "Where are the Grenvilles? Turn'd as usual. Where were. Naught's permanent amongst the human race, The ridiculous blunders with which Joseph Hume was wont to diversify his My friends the Whigs? Exactly where they economical statements doubtless gave full effect to this sarcasm :- "He (Lord Palmerston) recollected that he had heard of an ancient sage, who said that there were two things over which even the immortal gods themselves had no power, namely, past events and arithmetic. The honorable gentleman, however, seemed to have power over both." It was not an ancient sage, but a modern orator and wit, Canning, who said that nothing was so misleading as figures, except facts. Hume's matter-of-fact understanding, with his utter insensibility to fancy or humor, besides serving as an armor of proof against the pointed shafts showered upon him, occasionally turned the tables, and produced a telling, because unpremeditated, effect: as when Lord Palmerston, in reply to a de In this (Lord Liverpool's) administration, remarks Sir Henry Bulwer, "Lord Palmerston having refused-before the offer was made to Peel-the Secretaryship for Ireland, maintained, without rise or fall, during fifteen years the post which he had received in 1810 from Mr. Perceval, uniting during this period the pleasures of a man of the world with the duties of a man of business. No one went more into what is vulgarly termed 'fashionable society,' or attended more scrupulously to the affairs of his office; no one made better speeches on the question, whatever it was, that his place required him to speak on, or spoke less when a speech from him was not wanted. His ambition seemed confined to performing his functions with credit, without going out of the beaten track of his office as a volunteer for distinction." To complete the impression of Lord Palmerston's position and habits in early life, it should be added that he had a turn for literature, associated with the wits, and contributed to the "New Whig Guide." Every one has heard the story of Sheridan's dinner-party, at which the sheriff's officers acted as waiters. On its being mentioned at Brockett as apocryphal, "Not at all," exclaimed Lord Palmerston; "I was at it. Sheridan, Canning, Frere, and some. others, including myself, had agreed to form a society (projected, you may remember, by Swift) for the improvement of the English language. We were to give dinners in turn: Sheridan gave the first, and my attention was attracted by the frequent appeals of the improvised servants to Mr. Sheridan.'” "And did you improve the language?" "Not, certainly, at that dinner; for Sheridan got drunk, and a good many words of doubtful propriety were employed." * Nor should Lord Palmerston's conduct as an Irish landlord be forgotten; for in this capacity he acted persistently and conscientiously on the conviction that property has duties as well as rights. There were years when he sacrificed the entire income of his Sligo estates to their improvement, and neither the excitement of politics, nor the attractions of society, ever long diverted his attention from the moral as well as material well-being of his tenantry. Sir Henry Bulwer has printed several letters detailing the steps he took for this purpose, which might still afford use ful hints to proprietors similarly situated. We find him writing from Cliffoney in 1808: "Roads are the first necessity for the improvement of Ireland. In my last ride the day was very fine, and the whole tenantry came out to meet me, to the number, in dif * Charles Surface is described as hitting on the same expedient :: Sir Benjamin Backbite.-"No man lives in greater splendour. They tell me that when he (Charles Surface) entertains his friends, he will sit down to dinner with a dozen of his own securities, have a score of tradesmen waiting in the anterooms, and an officer behind each guest's chair.". The School for Scandal. ferent places, of at least two or three hundred. The universal cry was, 'Give us roads, and no petty landlords.'” He said one day, not long before his death, that he had a thousand tenants who paid less than five pounds each, many under a pound. "But do they pay?" "Not always, they pay when they can: when they sell the pig." Although his oratorical ambition may have been confined to performing his peculiar functions with credit, these were of a nature to elicit his views on leading principles of policy, foreign and domestic; and his defence of a standing army of respectable proportions was based upon the self-same doctrine which he afterwards maintained as Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister, that the prosperity and well-being of the British empire depended upon its influential, nay, proud, position amongst the first-rate nations and communities of the globe. This is a pet doctrine of Sir H. Bulwer's, and he is well entitled to be heard upon it :— "No doubt a great gentleman, let him be the Duke of Devonshire, the Marquis of Salisbury, Mr.Beaumont, Mr. Fortescue, Sir Robert Peel, or any other distinguished peer or commoner, is the same individual, whether he opens his house and keeps up a large establishment, or whether he lodges in a cottage and never offers a glass of wine to a friend; but his influence is different. certain degree of show and hospitality gives influence, quietly, insensibly, but irresistibly. Lord Palmerston himself, in later years, gained much by a conspicuous mansion and constant dinners and assemblies. It is all very well to sneer at these things; they affect us in spite of our philosophy. A "As three or four servants in livery and a large house place a man in this world of ours higher than he would be placed, inhabiting a small lodging with a dirty maid to open the door, so a nation has its servants in livery, its large house, its large establishments-things not absolutely necessary to its existence, but the accompaniments of its position, and without which its position would not be duly represented and sustained. I may be mistaken, but I believe every Englishman has a certain pride and interest in the figure made by the English nation. He likes that it should be the great nation,' and appear the great nation.' All that seven-eighths of us ask is, that the proper effect should be obtained without needless or improper cost." Speaking of Lord Palmerston's position so late down as 1822, Sir H. Bulwer calls attention to the circumstance that, though good, it was still an isolated one :— "His private friends were never such as could be called political friends. Mr. Sullivan, his brother-in-law, and Sir George Shee, whom he made afterwards Under Secretary of State, were the only men with whom he could be said to be intimate. Neither did he belong to any of the particular sections which divided the House of Commons and the Tory party. He was not then an adher ent of Canning, never having followed that statesman out of office; nor was he an adherent of Lord Eldon, nor even of Lord Liverpool, for he had voted, since 1812, in favor of concessions to the Catholics. He certainly was not a Whig, and yet he lived chiefly with Whig society, which, since the time of Mr. Fox, was the society most in fashion. George IV. always disliked him. No one, therefore, had a very lively interest in him, or felt a strong desire to make his parliamentary position more important. (To be concluded.) London Society. FROM THE BATTLE FIELD. GOOD NIGHT. ARE you watching for me, darling-are you looking out for me? And the welcome in your glances which your shy lips seldom speak. I can close mine eyes and see you in the mellow evening gleam, Ah! I see you looking downward at that slender golden ring, On the field of a lost battle, all, save dead and dying, gone: My passion has been silent; we have only been true friends. May they turn to you in blessings-may my darling never know Who will tell her of my fate? I am dying here, alone, I thought to bring back honor, and lay it at your feet; I thought to win a glorious name, and whisper, "Share it, sweet!”— But dying eyes see clearly; I never won your heart Well, better so, far better-it is easy now to part! There are many moaning round me, but my wounds have ceased to pain; I hardly hear the night-wind or feel the chilling rain. They will find me here to-morrow, and bury me where I lie In a nameless grave, without a prayer-and I am young to die! But it must be so, my darling; if you were by my side You would kiss me a good-night"--the last before I died,— Farewell! God shield you, dearest! and sometimes think of me As you sit in your sunny window beside the sparkling sea! CHAPTER IX. MIMI. St. Pauls. THE FISHERMAN OF AUGE. MIMI FAYEL was sitting in her brother's cottage at Auge-the black tulle veil she had been sprigging so deftly lay in her lap, her hands were idle, and her eyes were looking, not at her work, but were bent on the distant expanse of sea that showed through the open door-way. Mimi had learned her own secret since Désiré's return from Italy. She knew now that the vague unrest and discontent that had possessed her since Madame Lelièvre's death were signs and tokens of love. The first sight of the young soldier had told her this. Mimi had grown very thin and pale lately. She had been able to look frankly into her old playmate's face and to congratulate him on his happiness, and she had done this sincerely; for Mimi could not have spoken an untrue word. But the bitter struggles, the sharp heartwrenches of agony that had come first, were all hidden away in the young girl's heart, only betrayed outwardly by scalding tears as she knelt in her little bed-room before the rude crucifix Désiré's mother had given her years ago. But Mimi's was not a selfish love. "If Désiré is happy, I must be happy too," she said, "or I am no better than the wicked woman in the Breton tale, who ate her son's heart because he loved his wife better than his mother. It is all very well of Jacques to mock at Marie Triquet; but she must be good as well as pretty, or Désiré would not love her." Poor faithful Mimi! Her idol could not do wrong in her eyes. Yesterday Jacques Fayel had brought home the news that Marie had broken her engagement with Désiré, and was promised to Auguste Leroux. This news had kindled Mimi's anger. But her heart was large; small feelings did not seem at home there. All she thought of now was Désiré's sorrow. As yet, of course, he knew nothing, for Le. Callac seemed to Mimi a distant country. And then, as her work fell from her hands, and she sat thinking, searching with her tired eyes the far distant shadowy cloudline that melted into the sea, an idea presented itself—a way of escape from this sorrow for Désiré. Marie was very young, two years younger than she herself was. Might it not be possible that the girl had been over-persuaded by her mother, and, in Désiré's absence, had not sufficiently valued the treasure she was yielding up? If any friend of Désiré's pleaded for him, would not Marie listen? And strong temptation whispered to Mimi, "No; it is best as it is. If she does not value him, she could never make him happy." And a look of joyous hope broke forth on the pale truthful face. Mimi rose up and laid aside her work. It seemed to her she must fling away this sudden joy with all her strength, or it would master her and make her wicked. She crossed herself devoutly, and then she knelt down and prayed for Marie, and. for Désiré, and for herself. She rose up paler than ever, but with a settled look on her face. "I will go to Caen," she said. "I have often wished to see Marie Triquet; I will see her, too, when her mother is not by, and I will make her promise to keep true to Désiré. She must tell him what has happened with Auguste Leroux of course. She must not keep a secret from her husband |