BOOKS.
LORD PAT MERSTON.* [FIRST NOTICE.]
SIR HENRY SIILWER tells us that his first idea was to sketch Lord Palmerston as he had sketched Mr. Canning in his Historical Character& We wish he had kept to it at least thus far, that he had prefixed or affixed to the somewhat ponderous series of volumes which appears likely to appear under the title of a life of Lord .Palmerston, a really compressed narrative and estimate which might have occupied a single volume, or even as little as half a volume of the series. To know Sir Henry Bulwer's appreciation of the man and the statesman, and to have it accompanied by a narra- tive illustrative of that appreciation, and of course more or less coloured by it, would have satisfied nine-tenths of the world a great deal better than the series of threaded letters and despatches which has appeared, and is appearing under the name of a biography. No doubt, the political data for Sir H. Bulwer's estimate ought to be separately given, and the despatches which he has published have a vivid interest of their own. But we suspect they ought to have been published, like the Duke of Wellington's despatches, in a separate form, instead of being collected into the life. At all events, these first two volumes are full not only of what is very characteristic of Lord Palmerston, —but of what is not character- istic of him at all, and adds exceedingly little to the appreciation of his character and career, though even these latter portions are often not a little interesting to the political historian of the times.
Sir Henry Bulwer considers the first of these volumes as cha- racterizing the man, the second as sketching the first really impor- tant period of the career of the stitesman. But for our own parts, we find more real trace of the higher qualities of the man in the second than in the first. Lord Palmerston's letters to Lord Granville and Sir Henry Bulwer about the quarrel with France in the matter of Mehemet Ali, are twice as good reading, and twice as characteristic of him, as his letters to Mr. Sulivan and his sisters—which are decidedly dull. One of his greatest powers as a statesman was that he was, like almost all thorough Englishmen, so unexcitable and commonplace about ordinary matters, that he hardly gets interested and never gets interesting in dealing with them. Sir Henry Bulwer certainly does not appreciate how very narrow the circle of Lord Palmerston's intellectual interests was. Outside the world of politics, there is not a trace of such a thing as an intellectual interest at all in these volumes, except in his school-boy letter about the "beautiful episode" as to Hector and Andromache, which he had just been reading in his Homer. And even there, very naturally, and, we dare say, very healthily, he is evidently a good deal more interested in the Bologna sausages and Italian oranges, which his corre- spondent was probably eating, and which he himself had once eaten under the Italian skies, than in the "beautiful episode." What on earth a clever man like Sir Henry Bulwer means by talking of "the universality of the man" (Vol. I., p. 113),—for we quite credit him with full sincerity in his expressed intention of not writing a eulogium, but a biography,—it is hard to say. By the context, "the universality of the man" really appears to mean that Palmerston could at one and the same time make a good busi- ness-like speech about the Army Estimates, manage his own property shrewdly and benevolently, enjoy a day's shooting and quiz himself on his own ill success, interest himself in hunting and in the oddities of his hunting costume, take pleasure in a good dance, understand horses and racing, and report war gossip with some shrewd criticism. If this to be worthy of the name of "universality," what must the " universality " of Mr. Disraeli, or Mr. Gladstone, or Mr. Lowe, or Count Bismarck, or M. Guizot, or M. Thiers be? No doubt, many of these gentlemen do not understand horses, and some of them do not shoot, but probably all of them have a range of intellectual interests to which Lord Palmerston's range seems to have been con- tracted. It would have been truer to observe what in relation to the contracted nature of Lord Palmerston's political sympathies Sir Henry Bulwer does observe in another place, that this decided nar- rowness of range probably gave "energy to his policy, and placed him more in sympathy with his country, which recognized at once that he was emphatically English." It is very rare to find a really intellectual statesman so distinct and concentrated in his wishes and policy as was Lord Palmerston, chiefly perhaps because he was not in this sense a thinking or reading man. He beat his adver- saries both abroad and at home by that shrewdness and alacrity * The Life of Henry John Temple, Viscount Palmerston; with Selections from his Correspondence- By the Right Hon. Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer, G.C.B., London: Bentley. 2 Tole.
and unhesitating persistency which are due as much to want of imagination as to strength of will. Sir Cornewall Lewis, who had twice his speculative power as a politician, would have been timid where he was firm. Lord Melbourne, who had twice his sagacity and humour, though Palmerston had plenty of both, no doubt thought that Lord Palmerston's Eastern policy didn't matter half as much as his Foreign Secretary thought it did, only he was too lazy to interfere with an able man who had a line of his own. Mr. Gladstone, again, would have seen, and did see, that Lord Palmerston's policy did matter very much, and did signify what was in some respects mischievous, in a var- iety of different directions to which Lord Palmerston never turned his attention at all. It was in great measure the limitation of his nature, enabling him to act on a few clear considera- tions and to disregard steadily all complexities, which made him.' the able statesman he was. As for "the universality of the man," it is not easy to conceive a man who cared both for politics and pleasure whose pretensions to universality could be smaller. Of any hearty interest in science (even political or economical science), as science, in history, theology, literature, or art, and of any passion with an intellectual tinge to it, such as the passion for natural scenery, there is no trace at all in these volumes.
What strikes one in reading them, is the great uniformity of the character from boyhood upwards, the sharp distinctness of purpose, the coolness and caution,—never was an absurder mistake than the representation of Lord Palmerston as a firebrand,—the courage which always goes with coolness and caution, the good-humour which usually accompanies cour- age, and the uniform good sense, though by no means good sense up to the point of profound sagacity. He replied at the age of thirteen to a schoolfellow (of the same age) who had written to him denouncing marriage on account of "the many faults and vices of women," "I cannot agree with you about mar- riage, though I should be by no means precipitate about my choice,' and this old-fashioned caution of temperament, which led him to give so reserved an opinion to his young correspondent, and to insist only on the danger of precipitancy, seems to have clung by him through life. Indeed, he was probably more cautious as a young man than in his maturity, having leas confidence in him- self. When first offered high office,—a seat in the Cabinet was placed at his disposal as early as 1809, when he was just 25, though he did not take his place in it till 1827,—he declined it, saying to Lord Mahnesbury, who had been his guardian, "Of course one's vanity and ambition would lead to accept the brilliant offer just proposed, but it is throwing for a great stake, and when 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." So when, under Lord Goderich's government, there is talk of making him leader of the House of Commons—he was now nearly 43— he says, "There are very few things indeed in this world I should so much dislike, even if I felt that I was fit for it. But in various ways I should be quite unequal to it. To go no further than one point, the person so placed must be in a perpetual state of canvas ; and of all irksome elaveries, there is none more diffi- cult to me than that ; besides the character of the Government is, as it were, identified with the debating success of the indivi- dual." Even on Lord Althorp's resignation in 1831, when Lord Palmerston was 50, and Lord Melbourne asked him if he would lead the House, he replied, "It would be inconvenient to me to take the lead with my official business, but I would do it if the Government wished." Indeed there is exceedingly little trace of personal ambition in Lord Palmerston, and it is probably one reason for his slow rise. Yet once engaged in a duty or plan, he never could bear to be beaten. When he was first made Secretary at War under Mr. Perceval, he almost immediately got into collision with Sir D. Dundee, the Com- mander-in-Chief, as to the relative positions of the Secretary ak War and the Commander-in-Chief, and he went so thoroughly into the matter, that he presented a very elaborate and lucid historical digest of their relative positions from the time of James II. downwards, showing the independent authority of the Civil office on all matters to which it related. What looked like. ambition in Lord Palmerston was much more tenacity of purpose than personal ambition. He always knew his own mind ; scarcely ever changed it ; and loved to win. But for personal power he seems to have cared less than nine men out of every ten in his. position would have cared. He was not disposed even to resent, slights, and on one or two occasions showed what might have been. called a want of spirit, which was rather real indifference to the slight.
He was a keen observer so far as the signs of the day went, but was hardly a man of large foresight. Even while acting with the Tories, he spoke in his private correspondence of his colleague Lord Eldon as an "old woman," of his chief Lord Liverpool as a " spoony," of Lord Bathurst as a "stumped-up Tory," and of Peel as the only man among them with liberal and enlightened views. He appreciated and laughed at the petty political intrigues of George IV. who appears to have hated Lord Palmerston. He appreciated with a good deal of en- joyment the smaller signs of political feeling and anxiety, narrating when Huskisson wanted to make his peace with the Duke of Wellington's Government, how Peel "tossed up his bead, and said, 'It is now too late " how Lord Dudley, who was .compelled to go out with the Canningites, but went out sorely against his own will, "stroked his chin, counted the squares of the carpet three times up and down, and then went off in an agony of doubt and hesitation." He gives very amusing accounts of the Duke of Wellington's discordant Cabinet Councils, evidently animated by no sort of respect for the political genius of the Duke, attributing a good deal of his Russian policy to the Duke's personal dislike of Madame Lieven, and summing up the story of a good many of these Cabinets thus :—" The Cabinet has gone on for some time past as it had done before, differing upon almost every question of any importance that has been brought under consideration,—meeting to debate and dispute, and separating without deciding."
But his shrewdness is seldom real political foresight. He thinks in 1827, on a slight rapprochement of the Whigs and Tories, that -" Whig and Tory will soon be erased from our vocabulary." He was one of those, says Sir Henry Bulwer, who, when the Reform sill was passed, rather expected never to see a Tory government again. When the Duke of Wellington recalled Lord Anglesey from Ireland, in 1829, M. de Talleyrand said that he saw at once that the Duke had determined on giving the Irish Catholics emancipation, and that he had recalled the friend of Emancipa- tion because he did not mean any one else to have the credit of it. Lord Palmerston, on the contrary, who had had plenty of oppor- tunity of studying the Duke, interpreted the recall as the deter- mination of the Duke not to grant but to refuse concession. So, again, though Irish politics really interested him, and he always showed good sense about them, he had no really subtle apercu as to their tendencies and drift. He prophesied in his speech on the Emancipation Bill that the passing of the Bill was to form -" the true mark which is to divide the shadow of morning twilight from the brilliant effulgence of the rising sun,"—thus, in the old- fashioned formal oratory of the day, Lord Palmerston put it. Though a statesmat of plain, strong sense, there was, in fact, little of true delicacy or deep sagacity in his discrimination of political sympathies. We must reserve, however, till next week our review of the volume of despatches on foreign affairs. The first volume might certainly with great advantage have been vastly condensed and curtailed.
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