BOOKS.

LORD STRATFORD DE REDCLIFFE.*

THE Life of Stratford Canning, based on piles of authentic' materials, and well composed in nervous English by Mr Stanley Lane-Poole, will be welcome to all who cherish the memories of great men and desire to know their title-deeds to esteem and fame. It is a monument to one who belonged to. the class of great State servants whose first and last thought is devotion to their country, and it furnishes a lofty example which may be useful at a time when a spirit like that which animated him is so much needed for the guidance of public affairs. The rising generation should, and the risen generz- lion may, profit by the record of solid services which have a large place in history, and draw strength from the contempla- tion of a character the finer qualities of which should be displayed in all circumstances and all time. No wise man looks for-

" The perfect monster whom the world ne'er saw," and Stratford Canning was not he ; but his faults and defects. only make him more human, and even with them he did some good and little evil.

In many respects he is unique ; and although in the very centre of men and things through a long stretch of his life (1786-1880), he was alone as much as a man of such wide. sympathies and glowing enthusiasm could ever be. Far more. than most, he was made great against his will. With an early and distinct bias towards business, and a desire to take part in public life at home, he eagerly quitted Cambridge, still an undergraduate, at the invitation of his famous cousin George, in order to become a precis-writer in the Foreign Office, because he thought it a stepping-stone to the House of' Commons and the Cabinet. He wished to complete his term s- and take his degree, but his cousin pushed him headlong into diplomacy, and from that career, except for a few years, he, could never again escape. The reason seemed to be that George Canning saw that he would not succeed in Parliament,

• The Life of the Eight Honourable Stratford Canning, Viscount Stratford de- Bedcliffe, Q.0 B., etc. From his Memoirs and Private and Official Papers. By Stanley Lane•Poole. With Three Portraits. 2 vols. London : Longman.% and Co.

and that his gifts were such as would carry him far in diplomacy. He was not a born orator ; he was very sensitive ; he was also, though obedient to a superior, yet masterful, and perhaps his cousin detected the disadvantages under which he would labour in a home political career. At any rate, George turned him aside from his grand ambition, and events fixed him in the line of employment from which he wrung such renown. After a preliminary essay in Denmark, he was sent as Secretary to Mr. Robert Adair's mission to Constanti- nople in 1808. That was his initial step in a splendid career. So high was the estimate formed of his character and capa- bilities by Adair and the Foreign Secretary, that when the former quitted the Turkish capital, Stratford Canning found himself a Minister Plenipotentiary at the age of twenty-four, at a moment in European history when Napoleon was the master of the Continent, and Wellington had just entered on his struggle with the French in the Peninsula. Mr. Adair had remarked his "proud and independent spirit," and he could not bear to check even its faults, he said, "for its faults are part of its virtues, all and the whole of which we shall want in the adverse hour that awaits us." - It was a true judgment, and the young man did not fail to fulfil it when the time came. There alone, and for two years, he strove with the French and the Turks; and there it was, as his biographer correctly surmises, that he acquired that "exceeding masterfulness" which was one of the faults Adair would not check. "Of all schools for his nature," says Mr. Lane-Poole, "Constantinople was certainly the very worst. There be was compelled to deal in menace and high-handed authority, and the necessity created a habit ;" but there, also, he laid the bases of that immense power which he wielded so ruthlessly in after-years. Without his high spirit, his suspicion, and shrewdness, he never could have held up against the French and the Porte, nor could he have per- formed the signal service of negotiating the famous Treaty of Bucharest, which, in the nick of time, released the Russian Army in the Principalities, and enabled it to cut in upon the line of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow. The Duke of Wellington has called it "the most important service that it ever fell to the lot of any individual to perform ;" but he ascribed it to his brother the Marquess, who had no hand in it whatever, and, in fact, left Canning without instructions for two years. This great exploit he performed alone, on his own responsibility; and although he succeeded, he still had a powerful reserve in the shape of a conditional subsidy of large amount. It is in the study of this solemn and earnest youth, when pitted against such odds, during his first sojourn at Constantinople, that the key to his character and successes may be found. Lady Hester Stanhope, angry at his inter- ference between her and the French Minister, called him a "political and religious Methodist," and the phrase, in some sort, was not wholly inaccurate, if she meant by Methodist a man who took life as a serious business and had an exalted idea of his duties.

Beginning in the East, whither he was destined to return, and where his chief work was done, he had a wide experience of men and countries ; for he laboured in the settlement of Switzerland, was summoned to Vienna during the Congress period, was for three years Minister at Washington, and shortly after his return home was sent on a mission to St. Petersburg, the Greek Question having become a burning one. He had to find out how the land lay in the Russian capital, and his biographer holds that Canning's discus- sions with Nesselrode and the Czar Alexander "laid the foundation-stone of the edifice of Greek freedom which he afterwards helped to rear." In fact, they prepared the way for the famous Protocol negotiated by Wellington in 1826, when Canning was once more in Constantinople to try what English mediation could effect for Hellas. It failed. In after-years, writing his Memoirs, Lord Stratford felt that success was "a simple impossibility." Then came the col- lective intervention, not rendered easier by Navarino, and ending for the time, so far as negotiation was concerned, in the retirement of the three Embassies from Stamboul. It was during this mission that Mahmud slew the Janissaries. In his Memoirs, Lord Stratford says that "it could hardly be said that their punishment as a body was untimely or undeserved," and he points to the Pnetorians, the Streltzi, and the Janissaries as examples of "the monstrous and un- natural assumption of despotic authority by a soldiery the

very principle of whose existence is subordination to authority.'" Then he goes on to say, and the words mark the man "These reflections, I confess, did not occur to me at the time. I was shocked by the amount of bloodshed and suffering.. Political considerations swayed me less powerfully than the sympathies of humanity." Whatever his domineering charac- ter, on that side of his nature, and at all times, he was ever accessible. The Greek Question was not settled for several years ; but then, Canning had a large share in the work, and the satisfaction of seeing some of his ideas realised when Palmerston had replaced Aberdeen. It is an instructive and interesting story as told in these volumes.

An interval of home-life succeeded. Lord Palmerston in 1832 named Canning Ambassador to St. Petersburg, and it was then that the Czar, without assigning any reason, refused to receive him. The insult, the "outrageous piece of arro- gance," as Palmerston called it, left a sting behind ; but although Canning, when he went again to Stamboul in 1842,

crossed the path of Nicholas, it does not appear that he allowed his private feelings, justifiable as they were, to in- fluence his public conduct. If he forgave, which is doubtful,.

he did not forget, for we found him alluding scornfully to the Czar's professions of moderation "in his Sunday character as- a gentleman and a man of honour." Nothing but the full' narrative of Canning's sayings and doings from 1842 to 1835

can give a fair idea of the extraordinary edifice of power which he built up in Constantinople, and the use which he made of it. He became literally a ruler, or the ruler, of Turkey, beside the Sultan and the Porte, and set himself the colossal and impossible task of saving, by reforming, the Ottoman Empire, and paving the way for that ring-fence of independent States between Russia and Turkey which to some

extent has been erected in our day. The fight with the Turks: was more arduous than that with the Russians ; but he waged it with a vigour and relentlessness which none can comprehend

without reading the amazing story in detail. He fascinated, the young Sultan, Abdul Medjid, and terrorised the Porte

and although he left behind a mass of abuses, nevertheless he did gain much, broke down many barriers, secured some rights, and may be said to have succeeded in his task as far as it was possible to achieve the impossible. What he did attain was attained by sheer hard work and imperious- ness. Never before, or since, has a Christian exercised such a sway or held such a place as he did in the Moslem Empire, and his iron rule, as it is described in these volumes, leaves a.

powerful impression of his strength, resolution, sagacity, and lofty conception of his duties. He had a violent temper, and was not always wisely angry ; but he bore no malice, and his. servants, who suffered from these outbreaks, did not quit his- service. How he treated the Porte an anecdote will indicate. Colonel, afterwards Sir Lintorn, Simmons, ordered on boundary business, was delayed by the laziness of his Turkish colleague.

He complained to the Ambassador, who instantly rushed on foot to the Porte ;—

" The Grand Vizier received his visitors with politeness, and offered the customary pipes and coffee. 'I have not come here to smoke pipes, but to do business,' said the Elchi ; and I think it would be well if the Sultan's servants smoked less and worked more. Why is not the Turkish Commissioner ready ?' In a few minutes the matter was settled, and by the following morning the dilatory official was on his way to the scene of negotiation."

When Kossuth and his comrades fled to Turkey, Canning, on. his own responsibility, exhorted the Porte to resist the demand for their surrender ; and they did, in fear and trembling. "The. dishonour [of yielding] would have been ours," he wrote Lord Palmerston, "for every one knows that even Reshid himself,. with all his spirit and humanity, would not withstand the

torrent without us." It is a measure of his self-reliance. The story of the origin of the Crimean War is well if somewhat lengthily told; but full details were required to, show the part played by the Ambassador, who did what he

could to secure peace, and did not use his influence to bring on war. He said he was neither for peace nor war; he was for- the Question, and the question was to win as much as possible for the populations and provinces without enabling Russia to gain her exorbitant aims. The subject is too vast for more than-bare allusion ; but Lord Stratford's conduct in the matter is fairly stated by his biographer, and in his pages must be- sought the story of the struggle, which has a strong beating on the present situation of the East.

One extract, out of many which might be taken, will illus-.

trate the character of the Ambassador in relation to his assistants, and with that we must close this notice of these fascinating volumes. Mr. Hay, afterwards Sir John Drum- mond Hay, was his private secretary, and both, after working for thirty hours, thought fit to go to bed. A special courier was expected, and the chief intimated that the secretary must prepare the papers. Hay, however, was bent on sleep, and told his servant that he would shoot any one who called him before 6 o'clock p.m. The messenger came, the secretary was not called, and the papers were not prepared :-

"At six he [Mr. Hay] dressed, and very soon a message came that his Excellency commanded his presence. He found Sir Stratford in no amiable mood. 'What is the meaning of this, Mr. Hay ?' and the Ambassador indignantly recounted the messenger's story [of the threat to shoot]. The attache explained that after thirty hours of unremitting work, he could really not keep his eyes open. 'D—n your eyes !' burst from the Elchi's lips before he could control himself. Mr. Hay was not the man to be backward at such an invitation. Gracefully combining respect with the expletive, he replied, ` D—n your Excellency's eyes ! ' Upon this, Sir Stratford became very grave and stately. am sending off despatches this evening, Mr. Hay,' he remarked with studied politeness, 'and you shall convey them to England. I shall inform the Foreign Secretary that I shall have no further need for your services.'—` I shall be ready to start, Sir,' replied the attache, and left the room. While he was hastily packing up for his journey, Lady Canning, who ever acted the part of peace- maker, came and besought him to apologise, or at least to go and say good-bye to the Ambassador. After much persuading, he consented to bid his Excellency farewell. Hardly had he entered the room, when Sir Stratford had him by the hand, saying, My dear Hay, this sort of thing will never do : what a very bad temper you have !' The two were firmer friends than ever after this, and Sir John Hay now looks back with pride and gratitude to the training he received at the hands of the kind, if passionate, Ambassador."