The life and correspondence of Henry John Temple, viscount Palmerston

PARENTAGE AND BOYHOOD-HARROW-GOES TO EDINBURGH CAMBRIDGE-STANDS FOR CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY-DEFEATED, AND COMES INTO PARLIAMENT FOR HORSHAM; BUT IS UNSEATED -BECOMES JUNIOR LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY-STANDS AGAIN FOR CAMBRIDGE-AGAIN DEFEATED, BUT IS RETURNED FOR NEWTOWN

-JOURNAL.

THE most distinguishing quality of the eminent Englishman whose career we are about to follow, was a nature that opened itself happily to the tastes, feelings, and habits of various classes and kinds of men. Hence a comprehensive sympathy, which not only put his actions in spontaneous harmony with the sense and feeling of the public, but by presenting life before his mind in many aspects, widened his views and moderated his impressions, and led him away from those subtleties and eccentricities which solitude or living constantly in any limited society is apt to generate.

In the march of his epoch he was behind the eager, but before the slow. Accustomed to a large range of

observation over contemporaneous events, he had been led by history to the conclusion that all eras have their peculiar tendencies, which a calm judgment and an enlightened statesmanship should distinctly recognise, but not prematurely adopt or extravagantly indulge. He did not believe in the absolute wisdom which some see in the past, which others expect from the future; but he preferred the hopes of the generation that was coming on to the despair of the generation that was passing away. Thus throughout a long political life there was nothing violent or abrupt, nothing that had the appearance of going backwards and forwards, or forwards and backwards. His career went on in one direction gradually but continuously from its commenccment to its close, under the impulse of a motive power formed from the collection of various influences-some modifying others and not representing in the aggregate the decided opinion of any particular party or class, but approximating to the opinion of the English nation in general. Into the peculiar and individual position which in this manner he by degrees acquired, he carried an earnest patriotism, a strong manly understanding, many accomplishments derived from industry and a sound early education, and a remarkable talent for concentrating details. This last, indeed, was his peculiar merit as a man of business, and wherein he showed a masterly capacity. No official situation, therefore, found him unequal to it; whilst it is still more remarkable that he never aspired to any situation prematurely. Ambitious, he was devoid of vanity; and with a singular absence of effort or pretension, found his foot at last on the topmost round of the ladder he had been long unostentatiously mounting.

Born on October 20, 1784, at Broadlands, the family seat in Hampshire, he succeeded his father in 1802, and took his degree at Cambridge University in 1806. The ascending steps of a prosperous life, towards the end of which he reached the summit of public distinction, were as follows:

It must be admitted, however, that he engaged in public affairs with advantages which are great at all times and in every country, but which were especially great in England during what may now be called the old régime.' He was of a good family, with a wellknown name, and a fair fortune.

The Temples were gentlemen in the reign of Henry VIII. They boasted their descent from the Saxon Algar, Earl of Mercia, and one of their branches is represented by the ducal house of Buckingham and Chandos. At the opening of the seventeenth century some of the Temples established themselves in Ireland. A Sir William Temple was the secretary of Sir Philip Sidney, and afterwards of the unfortunate Earl of Essex. He seems to have been a man of letters, with the chivalric temperament that characterised his age. His son Sir John held posts of confidence and authority in Ireland, having been Master of the Rolls and Vice-Treasurer; and Sir John's son was the celebrated diplomatist who had William III. for his friend, and Swift for his dependent. Lord Palmerston descended directly from a younger brother of the great diplomatist; this brother rising to be Attorney-General and Speaker of the Irish House of Commons. His son Henry, created a Peer of Ireland in 1722, was for several years a member of the English Parliament. The heir to his title died young, but left issue, and thus the second Viscount was grandson to the first. He was known as an accomplished and fashionable gentleman, a lover and appreciator of art, and a friend of Sir Joshua Reynolds, who bequeathed to him one of the

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The life and correspondence of Henry John Temple, viscount Palmerston, Volum 1