The services of the great lady to the great statesman extended far beyond the creation of a salon. What superficial observers mistook for indiscretion, was eminently useful to him. She always understood full well what she was telling, to whom she was telling it, when and where it would be repeated, and whether the repetition would do harm or good. Instead of the secret that was betrayed, it was the feeler that was put forth; and no one ever knew from or through Lady Palmerston what Lord Palmerston did not wish to be known. His death was a terrible shock, from which she slowly recovered. She afterwards expressed her belief that it had actually prolonged her life. She was haunted by the fear that his strength and faculties would break down without his being conscious of the decline. She sat up for him every night when he attended the House of Commons, and she was wearing herself away with anxiety.

Subsequently to Lord Palmerston's death, her domestic circle was almost exclusively confined to her family and connections; and a most agreeable society it was, comprising a more than ordinary amount of accomplishment and charm. She rightly counted her children and grandchildren among the choicest blessings that Providence had bestowed upon her: her heart was large enough for all: she had no favourites among them: the presence of each inspired the same pure, unselfish pleasure; and it was by being constantly surrounded by objects of interest and affection, that she was enabled to bear up against a bereavement which must have proved fatal had it condemned her to solitary grief.

She undertook the entire management of the household at Brocket, Cambridge House, and Broadlands, as well as that of her own property; personally inspecting the accounts, and leaving nothing to agents, stewards, or head servants but what fell strictly within their respective departments. The consequence was, that she was admirably served, and that an air of ease and comfort pervaded each of her establishments. She kept a journal, which, some time or other, may furnish valuable aids to history.

She had read a good deal in a desultory way, and, when roused to the exertion, could talk on a wide range of subjects with a vigour and accuracy which would have astonished those who had only seen her trifling gracefully with the Cynthia of the minute, the floating rumour or gossip of the hour. She possessed a keen insight into character, and was singularly happy in conveying a trait by an epithet or a graphic sketch by a phrase; letting fall her felicitous touches with an ease and spontaneity that showed her unconscious of the gift.

She was rigidly just in her fixed estimates of character: chary, with rare exception, of her preferences: mild, yet firm, in her disapproval: warm, but not extravagant, in her praise. Above all, she never indulged in that false enthusiasm for books, pictures, or persons which so often tries to pass current for the cream of amiability and taste. Her name will live, her memory will endure, indissolubly blended with one of the most brilliant episodes of the social life of England, with many a sweet scene of domestic happiness,

with many a glowing image of conjugal and maternal love, with many a delightful hour of social pleasure, ill exchanged for power'-with all that is winning, high-minded, warm-hearted-with nothing that is petty, ungenerous, ungraceful, uncharitable, or false. It has been confidently predicted that the days of the grande dame of France, the great lady of England, have passed away as out of keeping with the age. It is certainly only by a happy accident that the loss we are now lamenting will be replaced. But should an attempt be made to ascend the vacant throne by any duly qualified aspirant, she will hit upon no surer mode of advancing her pretensions than by treading in the footsteps of her admired, beloved, and universally regretted predecessor.

359

LORD LANSDOWNE.

(FROM THE SATURDAY REVIEW, FEBRUARY 7, 1863.)

THE death of Lord Lansdowne is one of those events which, although long anticipated with their consequences, are never thoroughly appreciated till they occur. On the morning of Sunday last, all men more or less connected with the world of politics, fashion, science, literature, or art, felt that they had lost something more than a sagacious counsellor, a courteous and liberal host, a valued friend, a cultivated companion, or a munificent patron. A link was simultaneously broken in the chain which binds men of intellectual mark together for high and useful purposes, and in that which connects the leading minds of the present generation with the past.

Placed by birth from boyhood in the position which others, destitute of that advantage, spend years in struggling for, Lord Lansdowne eagerly profited by his opportunities. He could relate how he had listened to Burke in one of his most excited moods at Beaconsfield, and how he had strolled in the garden or turnipfield at St. Anne's Hill

'When in retreat Fox lays his thunders by,
And Wit and Taste their mingled charms supply.'

Having encountered Pitt in actual debate, he could repeat, with the emphasis of conviction

'Stetimus tela aspera contra,

Contulimusque manus. Experto credite, quantus
In clypeum assurgat, quo turbine torqueat hastam.'

He was showing only the other day at Bowood a copy of Boswell's Johnson presented to him from the Author;' and one of the most valuable contributions to the Johnsonian Urn' is his letter describing his visit to Mrs. Piozzi whilst she was busy with Retrospection' in 1799.1 His manhood and old age were passed, like his youth, among all that was gifted or famous, learned, accomplished, refined, or elevatingattracted round him far more by his unaffected sympathy and congenial habits than by his rank. He did not extend a haughty or condescending patronage to men of talent or genius. He claimed brotherhood with them: he sought them out as his natural associates; and his value as their common centre is the measure of their loss. There is no longer a house at which the celebrities of all nations may be sure ofm eeting, as on the tableland of which D'Alembert holds out a prospect in some future state; and the richest store of varied and instructive reminiscences existing in our time is gone with the deceased nobleman to the grave.

Although his fortune came from Sir William Petty through a female, he was lineally descended in the male line from the Fitzmaurices, Earls of Kerry. He

Addressed to me and printed in Autobiography, Letters, &c., of Mrs. Piozzi, vol. i. p. 345, 2nd. ed.