hostility to the secret societies and socialist conspirators of the Continent is not viewed by Whig magnates with the uncompromising condemnation which they hurled at it in days when the disenchantment of politicians had not progressed as far as it has now.

6

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with his usual painstaking elaboration; and an additional interest is given to the work by a number of hitherto unpublished letters which he has been permitted to select from the papers of the late Lord Londonderry.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 their partiality is perhaps not out of place as a counterpoise to the efforts of those whose judgments have been warped by a bias more marked and less commendable. His brush opportunely fills in the lights that belonged to a character which so many writers have striven to paint in shadows almost unrelieved.*

Lord Castlereagh filled several important positions, and took part in many great events; but prudent panegyrists will confine their attention to his career as Foreign Secretary during the ten closing years of his life. It is upon them that his title to fame must exclusively rest. The other transactions in which he was mixed up hardly reflect much light upon his name. Whatever he was set to do, he did it well and honestly with all his might; but it was not always that which suited him the best, or in which

* As a second edition will probably be called for at an early period, Sir Archibald will permit us to suggest that the printer has occasionally taken very unwarrantable liberties both with names and dates, and that the proof-sheets therefore require a more than ordinarily careful revision.

the

the greatest credit was to be won. A certain admiration is due to skill in whatever occupation it is displayed, and therefore we cannot refuse to admire the skill with which he effected the Irish Union. But still we should prefer to dwell on any other display of administrative ability than that which consists of bribing knaves into honesty, and fools into common sense. It is perfectly true that we may fairly throw upon his superiors the responsibility of the policy that he was charged to carry out. In emergencies so critical as that which followed the rebellion of 1798, all faithful servants of the Crown were bound to set almost a military value upon the virtue of prompt obedience. And it is also true that we must try even the conduct of his superiors in some degree by a military test. In the supreme struggle of social order against anarchy, we cannot deny to the champions of civilised society the moral latitude which is by common consent accorded to armed men fighting for their country against a foreign foe. It is no reproach to a General on active service that he has used either bribes or spies in furtherance of his operations against the enemy. There are emergencies when the conspirator at home is more dangerous to all that society holds dear than any enemy abroad. No casuistry, however subtle, can draw a tenable line of distinction between the two cases, so that the weapon which is lawful for the soldier shall be forbidden to the statesman. A moment's reflection upon considerations such as these will serve to clear Lord Castlereagh's memory from any imputation in consequence of the part which he took in carrying into effect Mr. Pitt's great idea. The independence of the Irish Parliament was a position from which it was absolutely indispensable to dislodge the enemy if the integrity of the empire was to be preserved. It naturally never occurred to him that he was doing anything contrary to morality or honour in bribing the garrison to open the gates. Still such employments are more inevitable than honourable; and the achievements to which they lead are not held to confer renown. He reaped a reward, richer than renown, in the blessings he conferred on the two nations whom he has made one. This generation, that has watched the growing prosperity of Ireland, and the calamities into which other empires have been plunged by co-ordinate and independent legislatures under one crown, ought to remember rather with gratitude than with cavil the manliness and fidelity with which he performed his distasteful office.

His war administration is another portion of Lord Castlereagh's career which his admirers would wish to pass over with a light hand. His selection of Sir Arthur Wellesley, over the heads of many older officers, to command the Spanish army, in spite of

the

the murmurs of the lovers of routine, was an instance of that intuitive power of measuring men's intellects and hearts which afterwards gave him such a singular ascendency in negotiation. But in the ordinary duties of his office he was not so happy. The Walcheren expedition was a heavy set off on the other side. His strength did not lie in skilful administration. It is a gift possessed but by few, and very rarely possessed in conjunction with any breadth of political view. It was not, however, in such an office as this that his fame was to be won. A War Minister must find his reward in his conscience or his salary: he must not look for fame. It is only a very pale and reflected glory that he will derive from a successful war. All the visible and palpable merit of a victory is the commander's, and few people bestow a thought upon the humble drudge in a London office who has schemed and toiled to furnish him with the materials for his splendid deeds. But, on the other hand, if there be a disaster, the importance of the War Office is immediately remembered. A commander must be strangely deficient in ingenuity if he cannot impute his mishap to some want of men, or money, or warlike materials; and for that want a discerning nation will always hold the War Minister to blame. No one dreams of attributing to Lord Liverpool or Lord Bathurst the faintest share in the triumphs of the Peninsula; but every one is agreed in giving to Lord Castlereagh full credit for the failure of the Walcheren expedition.

The unhappy quarrel with Mr. Canning-of which it may fairly be said that it was due less to the fault of either principal than to the mismanagement of their friends-proved indirectly of great service to Lord Castlereagh's fortunes. Its indirect and ultimate effect was to remove him from the War Office, for which he had little aptitude, to the Foreign Office, which was eminently suited to his peculiar talents. His gift was to manage men, whether as individuals or in masses. He displayed it on a small scale and in a baser sphere when he held office in Ireland. It showed itself in far grander proportions during the period in which, to use M. Thiers's expression, he was England herself in the camp of the Coalition,' and as such held the destiny of the Continent in his hands. It is with the year 1812 that his real greatness begins. It was a greatness of the kind that brings with it more of immediate than of posthumous fame. A diplomatist's services are recognized at the moment they are rendered. When a nation has waited with feverish anxiety for the result of long negotiations or the operations of some loosely-joined alliance, and they are at last conducted to a fortunate issue, the general feeling of relief finds vent in hearty gratitude

gratitude to the successful diplomatist. When Lord Castlereagh returned from Vienna in 1814 the whole House of Commons rose to receive him as he came in. Even Mr. Whitbread's sleepless hostility was hushed for a moment, and he joined his unwilling tribute of admiration to the general applause. He only expressed the general feeling. The nation thoroughly appreciated the services which had brought so terrible a contest to a close; but its gratitude passed away with the enthusiasm of the moment. A diplomatist's glory is the most ephemeral of all the forms of that transient reward. There is nothing in his achievements which appeals to the imagination: nothing which art can illustrate, or tradition retain, or history portray. A military commander is more fortunate in his vocation. All his achievements are a succession of dramatic effects; each of his advantages is gained by one sudden and skilful blow; the effort by which the destinies of whole nations are decided, and which puts to the uttermost test every quality of mind and heart, is concentrated into a few hours. The excitement is contagious to his countrymen who are spectators of his deeds, and to the posterity which reads of them. The narrative of the campaigns of the Great War is almost as fascinating now as it was when every reader felt that it might be his turn next to see his own earthly fortunes staked upon a battle, or to endure all the hopeless ruin which was expressed in the word defeat. But there is nothing dramatic in the successes of a diplomatist. His victories are made up of a series of microscopic advantages of a judicious suggestion here, of an opportune civility there; of a wise concession at one moment, and a far-sighted persistence at another; of sleepless tact, immoveable calmness, and patience that no folly, no provocation, no blunders can shake. But there is nothing exciting in the exercise of excellences such as these. A list of such exploits lends no fascination to a narrative. Writers will not encumber their pages with a throng of minute circumstances, which are individually trivial, though in the aggregate they effect results of vast importance; and readers would not be found to read them if they did. The result is that while the services of a commander are celebrated with almost undiminished enthusiasm from age to age, the services of a diplomatist fade rapidly away from a nation's memory. Lord Castlereagh's performances are therefore incapable, by their very nature, of being fully represented in a narrative. It can only be said of him generally that he found Europe at war and that he left it at peace. The merit was far from being entirely his, and his share would be very difficult to apportion. The heaviest part of the burden fell upon the combatants. He could only pave the way for military triumphs and

put

Yet there can be no

put them to good use when they were won. doubt that, in the operations of the Allies in 1813, 1814, the strategy was the weakest point and the diplomacy was the strongest. Napoleon was not crushed by generalship, but by overwhelming force; and it was to the skill of diplomatists that the concentration of that overwhelming force was due. If the conflict could have been decided by any conceivable exertion of military genius, the hesitating councils and sluggish tactics of the Allies would never have overborne Napoleon; but the disparity of resources was too enormous for any military skill to turn the scale. Drained as France was of men and money, it was a matter almost of calculation that, if the Allies could only be kept together, they must bear Napoleon to the earth at last. Everything depended therefore on the maintenance of the Coalition.

The marvellous victories of Napoleon during his last campaign between the Marne and the Seine sufficiently indicate what would have been the fate of the Allies if any great defection bad considerably reduced the inequality of force. It was a campaign, therefore, which, at least in its later and more decisive portion, turned a great deal more upon the skill of diplomatists than of generals. The battle of European freedom was fought, not in the fields of Montmirail and Vauchamps, but at the head-quarters of the Alliance. And it was a struggle of which the issue was often doubtful, and the maintenance always arduous. On more than one occasion the combination which was the last hope of liberation for Europe was on the point of crumbling to pieces. The Coalesced Powers were at one neither in the material objects they had in view, nor in the feelings with which they pursued the contest. Before the battle of Leipsic a common instinct of self-preservation animated them all. But the intensity of this feeling sensibly diminished as Napoleon retreated from their frontiers. They began then to think more of re-capture than defence, more of what they should take from his weakness than what they should save from his aggression. Each coveted some one particular portion of the spoil, and was ready to risk the fortunes of the whole Alliance to secure it. Bernadotte, at the head of the Swedish forces, wanted Norway for his adopted country in the first instance, and Napoleon's crown for himself in the second. Alexander, whose contribution to the resources of the war fully justified him in claiming the lion's share of the booty, was resolved upon seizing the whole of Poland, and was not disinclined to show a condescending favour to the men of the Revolution and at the same time to secure to himself a lasting influence at the Tuileries, by selecting Bernadotte instead