speech was very tiresome," and lasted nearly three hours," it was listened to with profound and respectful interest from first to last." The 'Annual Register' for 1847 devotes ten columns to summarising it, and its report concludes as follows:

"The noble Lord then returned to his panegyric on the character of the Irish people, eulogising their patience under the most direful sufferings, and saying that if by his measure he could fill them with good beef and mutton, and their cottages with fine wheat-flour and sound beer, and their pockets with English gold to purchase the blankets of Wiltshire, the fustians of Bradford, and the cotton prints of Manchester, he, though a Saxon, would answer with his head for their loyalty, and would lead them, through their warm hearts and sympathies, not to sever but to cement the union of Ireland with England. The noble Lord concluded a speech which had lasted more than two and a half hours amid cheers from all sides of the House."1

It must also be remembered that all the questions with which Lord George dealt were of colossal magnitude, and that he handled them with the grasp

1 The speech referred to in this extract from the 'Annual Register' was heard from the gallery of the House of Commons by that universal favourite, Dr William H. Russell, who was then a parliamentary reporter. After listening to it with rapt attention, Dr Russell repaired to the Times' office, and told Mr Delane, his editor, that if ever Lord George Bentinck became Prime Minister, the woes of Ireland (Dr Russell's native country) would soon be redressed.-ED.

LABORIOUS LIFE WHILE IN PARLIAMENT. 445

of a master, and on the same scale as his operations on the Turf.

I do not believe that any member of Parliament ever went for so long a period through such laborious days and nights as Lord George Bentinck did. At whatever hour he went to bed-and it was usually 4 A.M. before he laid his head upon the pillow-his breakfast, consisting of one boiled egg and a couple of slices of dry toast, was on the table at 8 A.M. precisely. After reading his enormous correspondence, he began to receive visitors at 9.30 A.M. They called to give him information on all kinds of subjects, and his purse was always open to them. When they left, he plunged into the elaborate correspondence which each day brought, conducting it entirely with his own hand, in a writing so clear and legible as to put to shame the scrawl which nowadays is affected by so many public men. At twelve o'clock (noon) he went down to sit on some Committee, and he only left the Committee-room to take his seat, without touching food, in the House of Commons, which he never quitted until it was adjourned. In the House he never missed an opportunity of enforcing or vindicating his own opinions, and of watching with lynx-like vigilance the conduct by Government of public business. Nothing daunted him nothing exhausted his resources; once convinced that he was in the right, no show of authority, no parade of official experience, no

dread of superior ability, knowledge, or eloquence possessed by an opponent, could make him afraid.

In common with some old friends who think with me and are of the same opinion-to one of whom I am indebted for much valuable information in writing this chapter-I have formed my estimate of the nobility and magnanimity of Lord George's character in consonance with what I have here stated. Personal ambition, conceit, and vanity he had none; but, as he often showed in the racing world, his self-reliance and fearlessness were unbounded, and he would never trust any other man to do what he could do himself. He brought the same self-sacrificing spirit to bear upon politics, and his life was the forfeit. In his opinions he may, or may not, have been mistaken; but that he held them with perfect disinterestedness, and without a thought of self, will be denied by none who knew him as I was privileged to do.

CHAPTER XX.

DEATH OF LORD GEORGE BENTINCK.

It is with a lively sense of pain and grief, which the lapse of more than forty years has not yet extinguished, that I approach the closing scene of a life so prematurely ended at a moment when it was fullest of promise. Mr Disraeli remarks that the labours of Lord George Bentinck had been so superhuman from the day when, in 1845, he had been trying to find a lawyer to compose a speech for him to deliver in Parliament, until the end of the session of 1848, that every one ought to have prognosticated at the latter period that it was impossible for them to be continued much longer upon such an exhausting scale. "No friend," adds the future Prime Minister, "could, however, control his eager spirit. He obeyed the law of his fiery and vehement nature, being one of those men who, in whatever they undertake, know no medium, but will succeed or die, come what may." The two friends parted for the last time on the steps of Harcourt House-the last of

the great hotels of an age of stately manners, with its wings, courtyard, carriage-portal, and huge outward walls. "Lord George," adds Mr Disraeli,

put forth his hand to bid me farewell, and his last words were characteristic of the man, of his warm feelings and ruling passion: 'God bless you! we must work, and the country will come round to us yet.""

It is evident that some foreboding of the coming tragedy must have crossed Mr Disraeli's mind at that final interview, for he immediately proceeds to say: "But why talk or think of death? He goes to his native county and his father's proud domain to breathe the air of his boyhood, and move amid the parks and scenes of his youth. Every breeze will bear health on its wings, and the sight of every hallowed haunt will stimulate his pulse. He is scarcely older than Julius Caesar when he commenced his public career; he looks as high and as brave, and he springs from a long-lived race." Yet if any gloomy presentiment suggested itself on this occasion to Mr Disraeli's thoughts, it can be shown beyond doubt by many irrefutable evidences that Lord George went down to Welbeck full of energy and hope. On arriving at the home of his childhood, he was thought by some of his attached relatives-and never was son or brother more beloved-to be looking worn and pale. Nothing, however, appears to have been said to him on the subject in a family always noted for reticence and