That these speeches and addresses were entirely his own ceased to be doubted, as the powers of his mind became more recognised. It is well known that he derived no help from any one in the way of ideas and opinions, though occasionally, and this only in his early time, a few of the sentences would be written by himself in German first, and translated with the help of some trusted friend. In most instances they were spoken, and always with great distinctness and gentle emphasis, without any appearance of assistance from memoranda. On some after-dinner occasions a few pencil-notes, taken from his pocket, were laid on the table by his side, and quietly consulted in intervals of applause. From the first his English was easy and pure; but he greatly expanded in facility and fluency in the last years, and there is no doubt that he would soon have mastered even that most English accomplishment, impromptu speaking. For there is plenty of evidence of his power of expressing himself clearly, even cloquently, and at considerable length, without any previous preparation. At the meetings of the Commission for the Exhibition of 1851, especially, he came into contact with the most practised orators of the day, in debates of no insignificant character, and always maintained his part with conspicuous ability.

no speciality, because every sympathy, made him the most enlightened patron of all other men's specialities. Nature, no less than position, and far more still, had marked this mind out as a centre to others. No man of any particular form of intelligence ever looked back on an interview with the Prince, without feeling that beyond his own especial orbit of interest, he had caught glimpses of a large and consistently working intellectual system. For a time, it is true, each professor of art or science believed that he had found a devotee to his own particular shrine; after a while each knew that the Prince's perfect comprehension of one was but the measure of his knowledge of all.

Even in one department apparently the least congenial with his tastes, we find no exception to the rule. By a curious contrast with the habits of most German princes he cared little for the glitter and tinsel of military externals, but he was deeply versed in the principles of military science. The late Sir Howard Douglas, one of the highest authorities that can be quoted, spoke of the Prince's attainments on that head with equal admiration and surprise. It is well known, too, that the Duke of Wellington-no flatterer of any man-had conceived so high an opinion of Prince Albert's military knowledge and powers of business, as earnestly to recommend him to Her Majesty as his successor as Commander-in-Chief. That the unalterable discretion of the Prince should decline such a post is easily comprehended, now that we see as from a distance-alas! how soon Death has given that !--the far larger sphere of usefulness he filled toward the two objects of his devotion, the Crown and the Country, by holding himself free from direct official life. At the very time that the miserable rant was raised about his interference' at the Horse Guards, he was quietly, like a good genius, giving the army the benefit of his enlight ened judgment. To him was owing the formation of the camp of instruction at Chobham, as stated in the House of Lords by the late Viscount Hardinge.

Thus we have allowed this illustrious mind to speak for itself, feeling that none can follow its multifarious phases, without acknowledging each in turn as a part of a singularly grand and harmonious whole, in which the same life-blood of profound thought circulates from the centre to the uttermost fibre of the mental structure. It would be difficult to cite any instance of the same amount of spoken words so entirely devoid of the element of superficiality. That element would seem to have been foreign and repugnant to the nature of his mind, which we invariably find seeking a point far removed from the surface. There is no need to impute to one who had been an indefatigable student, and always continued a close reader, any substitute for the usual Perhaps the part of the mind most rarely laborious processes of attainment. But hav-seen, in these latter times, in combination ing diligently stored, and being always in the habit of replenishing the cells of the mind, the secret of his clear modes of perception consisted in his invariably rising into that purer atmosphere towards which all sound principles converge. There great things became simplified to him, and small ones fertile. There that balance was gained which allowed no object of interest to be cherished to the exclusion of another. Thus the great fact of his having, in one sense,

with the accurate habits of a profound reasoner, was that which rendered the study and practice of the Fine Arts his favourite recreation. These first offered that supposed neutral ground in public matters on which a royal individual, in a position none ever succeeded in comprehending but himself, could safely tread. The late Sir Robert Peel, who looked with a puzzled yet practical eye upon this grand and anomalous impersonation of Waste Power, gladly hailed the opportunity

experience, uttered at a time when none | reaped chary confidence and scant courtesy dreamt that the hour was fast coming when from the best-should have suffered all that that centre-place at the board would know malice could invent and glib credulity spread him no more, it was said of him-The abroad, and should have been, in common Prince plays with the difficulties of public parlance, unpopular'? We deny the charge, business.' Not that there was anything like on every head, in the name of the Great Pubplay in the matter. The secret of his doing lic and in the name of all men of science, art, better lay in his working harder than most. letters, benevolence, and intelligence. That His practice in public affairs had become the tones of humble and admiring reverence enormous, and his note-book presented a should be hushed, and the voices of vulgar variety and fulness of business engagements detraction loud, were but the natural condiwhich would have daunted most men. Nor tions of the respect and the disrespect which were the smallest things despised by him. governed each party, and the penalty which In one department of business, that connected it is the lot of princes to suffer. But it is not with the Duchy of Cornwall, it is known that within the range of moral possibility that a the Prince, from motives of peculiar kindness, Prince whose death is thus mourned should kept the minutes of the meetings for a time not have been honoured, respected, and bewith his own hand; and they were admi- loved. It is not morally possible that the rably kept. Here, too, one quality, which is tearful prayers which have poured upwards sure to be tested on this tourney-ground of for the Queen should have come from hearts modern spirits, and which bound all his other who did not value what she had lost!—tears, virtues and powers together as with a golden not without self-reproach and a certain tender cord, shone pre-eminently forth-the perfect remorse, such as all know who have lost the equanimity of his temper! None worked loving Head or the strong and true brother, with him without discovering that few men and who feel as if they had never sufficiently in any class ever bore contradiction, and over- valued-nay, as if they had not even been came opposition, with such gentle courtesy just or kind enough to-one they now so and patience.* bitterly deplore.

Nor was the activity of his co-operation confined to meetings and set days. Whoever has had the advantage of perusing his correspondence on any department is well aware what formidable demands were made on his time by letter-writing. No matter how dry the details or pressing the interruptions whether from on board the Royal yacht or in the bustle of Royal receptions-the homeliest business was never neglected. In such autograph letters is found undeniable evidence, if any were needed, of the genuineness of his speeches and addresses. They are all of the same mental family-clear, vigorous, entirely free from mannerism, and abounding in original ideas.

And is it possible that this man, gifted among the gifted, learned among the learned, for scope, balance, and unity of moral and intellectual qualities, unprecedented, at all events, in his generation-who learned our ways and did our service better than those who are born to it-who outstripped all our fond but meagre measure of royal decorum of life, making our Royal residences schools of modesty, order, and intelligence, and giving the lie to every hackneyed proverb of Court corruption--who thus lived and laboured among us for upwards of twenty-one yearsis it possible that such a man should have

*The Prince was President of the St. Martin's Lane Savings Banks, and by his constant attendance and careful management showed his desire to encourage provident habits among the poor.

But the Prince was too wise not to perceive that by the good he was identified with the loving homage paid to the Throne, and the Throne with the gratitude felt for his works. He knew, too, that his detractors knew that he could not, even in idea, be separated and considered apart from the Queen; that their malice was the more levelled at him because of the very sacredness of that higher Head; that he stood as a kind of shield to the illustrious woman whom he served as a subject, and loved and protected as a man. And can it be doubted, with the evidence we have of his mind before us in his words and works, that while he felt his so-called unpopularity -felt it as a man must feel ingratitude and injustice-yet that this was precisely the lot, for better and for worse,' to which this noble and single-hearted Being had from the first most aspired?

6

That the young and royal Consort should immediately have attracted the ill-will of those whom we may call the Vulgar Highthat a party who have looked upon the corruption of princes as their immemorial perquisite-that these should find 'no part in him,' and try to pull down that to which they could not rise-this was the greatest compliment they could pay him. Had he had their vices, had he led an immoral or a spendthrift life, we should have heard none of those tales of his haughtiness and his illiberality, which no honest lips ever repeated but in disgust at their utterers.

But as a matter of shame to a people, son; but the knowledge of that example none there is more perhaps to blush for in the con- can take from her or from us. For his sake duct of the Vulgar Low,-those who had no the Queen is already sublimely struggling to vested interests in corruption which his up- fulfil her duties; for his sake shall we not rightness thwarted. When we look back at doubly strive to do ours? We can conceive the rumours which prevailed in the winter no higher human spectacle than that of our of 1853-4, which, like worthless rubbish, Sovereign Lady thus bowing her head to the gathered weight only by accumulation-but will of God, and raising it again by the Disuch weight as to require the condescension vine aid. If we have loved her in her years of the Crown to refute (we mean by the letter of virtuous happiness, shall we not venerate from Lord Melbourne to the Queen, supplied her now? And this, too, will be his doing, to her Ministers) and the interposition of both who has done so much for her, and for us! Houses of Parliament to explain-we feel So that his influence is yet felt in the workhow little secure even this enlightened coun-ings of that sorrow of which we venture to try is against the epidemic of any vile calumny foresee the hallowed uses. which rogues can invent and fools repeat. It seems now incredible that grey statesmen should have had gravely to contradict such unutterable folly as that which brought crowds of credulous and malignant idiots to see the Prince pass on his way to the Tower!

There are many reasons-none of them much less degrading than itself-why such an ebullition could not have taken place in another country. But if less openly spoken against, it may be justly doubted whether Prince Albert would have been as truly valued and appreciated in his own land. He who set little store even by real aristocracy of birth, and whose motto was the Progress and Improvement of the Public, would have found no enviable lot among the 'Kreutz Partei' of an empty and pauperised noblesse, existing only by the exclusion of all other classes save their own. Not even Science, as we have seen, respected him there. The written words of one supposed to be, so enlightened as Humboldt, may well be set against all the voices of the vulgar herd, high and low, here, and are in truth infinitely more to be condemned.

But let us not measure the rewards to such a mind by any standard lower than itself. He suffered injustice; he bore disappointment; but his joy no man taketh from him! Seen by the light which his peerless life has shed upon his position, it now appears the noblest that a noble mind could desire. His not the applause and homage; his not the pomps and the vanities of Sovereignty; but his the wisdom and the forethought, the lofty, manly, Christian devotion which surrounded a woman's crown, as with an earthly Providence. This has been a joint reign in all but the name; and let us pray that it may be so still; for not even death can sever that long intimacy of two hearts and two wills which God has joined together. Alone, the royal widow must bear in time to face her loving subjects; alone, her loving and most deeply-sorrowing subjects must bear to gaze upon her august per

ART. VII.-1. Lives of Lord Castlereagh and Sir Charles Stewart. By Sir Archibald Alison. London. 1861.

He

WE are accustomed in the present day to
strange historical rehabilitations, and to the
reversal of all our traditional ideas upon the
guilt or virtue of the great men of the past.
But it seems hard of belief that this process
should be already necessary in the case of a
statesman whose career is so recent as Lord
Castlereagh's. Yet the mythical mist which
rises under the influence of the strong pas-
sions of party had already gathered round
his name before he had ceased to live.
was even then associated in the minds of a
large part of the community with a cause for
which he had no sympathy; charged with
the responsibility of measures which he had
done his best to avert; and vilified for hos-
tility to the liberties of mankind which it
had been the main work of his life to vindi-
cate. The energies of a whole school of
political writers were devoted to the task of
persuading his countrymen that he was the
English representative of the Holy Alliance,
and an accomplice in every freak of tyranny
that was perpetrated from Warsaw to Cadiz.
Even after his labours in his country's service
had brought his life to a premature and ter-
rible close, the animosity of his enemies did
not relent. They had many things to avenge
which political partisans are slow to forgive.

He had not only excluded them for many | to do in office precisely that which they most years from power, but he had succeeded in loudly decried in opposition, has not failed to spite of the prophecies of evil with which dog the footsteps of Lord Castlereagh's dethey had pursued his policy. He had attained tractors. Since the Whigs have passed Irish the objects which they had declared imprac- Arms Acts and suspended the Habeas Corpus ticable, and carried through to a glorious Act, their partisans have been less keen to triumph the measures which they had stig- infer from similar measures an inveterate hosmatised as imbecile. Forced to admit the tility to freedom. And after the exposition success of his policy, they were driven to which the model Republic has presented to the avenge themselves upon his motives. Against world of the duty of the friends of freedom criticism of this kind a statesman who has in the presence of domestic revolt, we shall the foreign policy of an empire to conduct is probably hear less for the future of Lord Casalmost defenceless. The obscurity in which tlereagh's milder measures of repression. diplomatic transactions are necessarily shroud- Facts also have told heavily in his favour. ed will probably conceal from the public eye Recent events have indisposed the mass of the circumstances upon which his justification writers on the Liberal side to formulate so rests. The necessity of sparing the feelings precisely as of old the wickedness of Transof powerful monarchs or ministers elsewhere, alpine powers interposing in the internal poliand of hiding the faults and follies of men tics of Italy. No one now dreams of prowhom it would be injurious to English inte- fessing that sympathy for the extinguished rests to offend, often forces him to be silent, nationalities of Norway and Genoa, which where silence is interpreted by his enemies as formed the basis of so many bitter invectives confession. Lord Castlereagh was not the against him five-and-forty years ago. man to jeopardise the meanest English inte- after the experience of many revolutions, his rest for the sake of refuting some calumnia- hostility to the secret societies and socialist tor of his own good name. The tyranny of conspirators of the Continent is not viewed the Southern monarchies, and the assump- by Whig magnates with the uncompromising tions of the Holy Alliance, had aroused an condemnation which they hurled at it in days abundance of bitter and resentful feeling when the disenchantment of politicians had among educated Englishmen. It was easy to not progressed as far as it has now. persuade men that the minister who always, as became his office, spoke in public with courtesy of the Allies of England, shared their maxims of government, and acquiesced in their policy to secondary states. The impression was strengthened by the measures of domestic repression which it fell to him to defend in the House of Commons, and which, even when levelled against assassination-plots, are always unpopular in England. Thus the belief that Lord Castlereagh was the arch enemy of freedom all over the world was widely spread, and came to be almost an article of faith with the school of writers and public men who prepared the English soil for the Reform Bill, and reaped its earliest fruits. A lie, however, according to the Chinese proverb, has no legs, and in course of time this article of popular belief began to lose its footing. Those who once despairingly considered a Whig administration to be about as probable as a thaw in Zembla,' have since by force of habit come to look on themselves as possessing a kind of tenant-right to office. And this improvement in their political climate has effected an evident thaw in their sentiments. They feel towards calumniators of administrations and critics of foreign policy much as usurpers are said to feel to the tyrannicides to whom they owe their thrones. Moreover, the just Nemesis which generally decrees that partisans shall be forced

We are inclined, therefore, to hope that Sir Archibald Alison is right in believing that the period is a favourable one for clearing up the delusions that prevail in respect to Lord Castlereagh's character and motives. It is time to substitute for the popular myth a juster estimate of the merits of the great statesman who bore the chief part in rescuing Europe from the modern scourge of God.' Sir Archibald has many qualifications for the task. The study of a lifetime has made him familiar with the period of history to which it relates; and since his History was composed, a considerable mass of new materials have been given to the world. There was room for a narrative which should work up the Castlereagh correspondence in a connected form, and present in an English dress the matter which M. Thiers's industry has disinterred from the archives at Paris. These documents he has welded into his biography with his usual pains-taking elaboration; and an additional interest is given to the work by a number of hitherto unpublished letters which he has been permitted to select from the papers of the late Lord Londonderry. An impartial biographer he cannot with accuracy be called, for his mind could hardly have escaped bias from the feelings with which he regarded those to whom Lord Castlereagh was dear. But his labours have all the heartiness of a labour of love, and