requisite to meet its exigencies. When he once made up his mind that a thing was to be done, he did it with all his might, and did not attempt to screen his inconsistency by half measures, or by taking a faltering or undecided course. In this respect he closely resembled the two other statesmen who have in our own time obtained the greatest share of the confidence of Englishmen; nor is it a little singular that those three men whom the nation has peculiarly delighted to honour should all be strikingly open to the charge of inconsistency. The truth is that was the very thing which created a close sympathy between them and an inconsistent nation. Englishmen - active, energetic, and absorbed by the current business of life-do not look far ahead; and they have no great faith in those who profess to be much wiser than they are themselves. They admire a profound philosopher in his place; and follow a brilliant agitator, also in his place. But when the Government of the country is at stake, the man they like is a safe, steady, wide-awake man of business- - prompt without rashness, strong-willed without obstinacy and possessed of that indescribable talent for affairs and for the management of men which, for want of a better word, we must call tact. Such a man they found in Lord Palmerston, and, having found him, they did not trouble themselves much about the unvarying orthodoxy of his political creed, nor desert him because he could easily be shown to have made half a dozen or half a score mistakes. keeps them under his hand while he jumps through hoops and vaults over leaping bars, but, such as it is, it is well deserved. It would be most unjust to deny that many useful measures, especially of fiscal economical reform, have marked these six years. Nor, although the principal credit of these is due to Mr. Gladstone, should the Premier be deprived of his fair share. It would have been simply impossible to carry them without his hearty and effective support. Economical truths are indeed of that kind which Lord Palmerston's mind was admirably suited to comprehend and to receive. He was an early and we have no doubt a sincere free-trader, and we see no reason to think that he did not go fully with his Chancellor of the Exchequer, whose adventurous and enterprising financing may have reminded him of his own stirring days at the Foreign Office. Upon the achievements of those days we cannot now linger. But if we pass them by it is not because we think them unimportant, or doubt the general soundness of the policy which underlay them. It is easy to say that Lord Palmerston's active propagandism of constitutional principles produced little or no result; and it is true that much of his work turned out to be of a very fragile character. But, on the other hand, we think it is at least equaily clear that he had a large share in keeping alive the hopes and the faith of the Liberal party in Europe, and in checking the encroachments, or preventing the interference of the despotic Powers, who were, thirty years ago, It is as a foreign Minister that Lord both far more formidable and far more disPalmerston will fill the largest place in posed to act in concert than they are at history, although we incline to think that present. To this praise, at all events, we his government of England for the last six are quite convinced the noble lord is enyears was in reality the most remarkable titled — namely, that he thoroughly believed achievement of his life. To checkmate that he was promoting, and that he ardently Talleyrand, to baffle Thiers, to foil Nessel- desired to promote, the cause of liberty. rode, in constant encounters upon every dip- He may have had no great desire to confer lomatic field, both in Europe and Asia, were political power upon the masses; he cergreat things in their way. But not one of tainly had no love for political equality. them was equal in difficulty to the task un- But to that sort of freedom which we have dertaken by his lordship in 1859, and so in England he was, we believe, sincerely atsuccessfully accomplished. Of course, we tached. The Continental despotisms ofdo not, by saying this, mean to imply any- fended alike his good sense and his good thing like an unqualified approval of his feeling. His intellect told him that Divine policy, which we have often had occasion Right was nonsense; and his heart was to censure. But as a piece of government shocked by the cruelties which were perpeand management -as a work of art in trated in its name. If any proof were statecraft-Lord Palmerston's second Pre- wanting that he was strongly moved by the miership will always command the respect- substantial, although he was very indifferful admiration of the political student. The ent to the sentimental, sufferings of manadmiration may be the same in kind as that kind, it would be found in his unwavering which is given to a performer who rides hostility to slavery and the slave trade. four or five horses at the same time, and | For the last thirty years the negro has not been-if ever he was a source of politi- subject than to the speaker. The longest, cal capital to an English politician. On the most elaborate, and the finest address many occasions the measures adopted for he ever made the defence of his foreign the suppression of the slave trade have policy in the Pacifico debate occupied given rise to serious difficulties, and have five hours in the delivery. But those who gravely embarrassed the Government of read it will find it difficult to determine the day. But whether in office or out of whether it is most remarkable for the clearoffice, Lord Palmerston never ceased to em-ness or the conciseness of its exposition of ploy, or to urge on others, the most ener- a number of complicated subjects. To his getic measures for putting an end to this admirable and attractive personal qualities horrible traffic. the late statesman was, as we all know, Lord Palmerston was almost destitute of largely indebted for the ascendency he poslegislative capacity, but he may claim a sessed. They enabled him to exercise a place in the first rank of administrators. powerful influence over all who came in His industry was unwearied; he was clear-contact with him, and they certainly conheaded, methodical, quick in decision; he tributed largely to his popularity with the was a perfect master of the art of manag- country. He would, however, never have ing men. He was no orator. Unless he gained the confidence with which that popuwas strongly interested in, or excited by his larity was accompanied, unless there had subject, he was deficient in fluency; and been something more substantial behind. although he had a good command of nerv- It is absurd to suppose that any man withous English, and was remarkable for the out many of the attributes of greatness transparent lucidity of his explanations, could have ruled England as he ruled it, or except when he desired to be unintelligible, reign in the hearts of Englishmen as he - his style was always loose and often reigned. If the idol be of clay, what shall awkward. The truth was that he cared we say of the worshippers? The reputalittle for a speech as a speech. Words tion of the nation is involved in that of the and sentences were perfectly indifferent statesman whom it trusted and honoured. to him for their own sake. He only spoke to produce a particular effect or to attain a particular object. In that he rarely failed; for he knew better than any man in the House of Commons the arguments which were likely to have weight with it, and the best mode of presenting them at any given time. He was an admirable debater; nor did any one possess more completely the ear of the House. His speeches were usually short, and even when they were long, the length was due rather to the But it is in no danger - for whatever may have been his faults he loved England dearly; he served her with his whole heart and his whole strength; he strenuously laboured to make her great and prosperous amongst the nations of the earth; and he so governed her as to accomplish this end. We all feel that in him the foremost amongst us has passed away, nor will history refuse him a prominent place in the list of great statesmen and great Englishmen. Aunt Sally's Life. By Mrs. Alfred Gatty. (Bell made to do duty as an "Aunt Sally," for the & Daldy.) IN eighty five brightly-written pages Mrs. Gatty tells the story of a doll's life." The pet of the nursery and the butt of the school-room, this doll endures strange vicissitudes; and after losing her good looks through the barbarous violence of certain boisterous children she is buried in their garden and put out of sight. Even in the grave there is no rest for her. Exhumed by the same hands that interred her, she is stuck upon the stump of a tree, with a cap on her head and a pipe in her mouth, and amusement of a party of boys and girls who throw clubs at her, and laugh heartily whenever she gets a knock on her nose. Instead of resenting such disrespectful treatment, Aunt Sally observes with impertubable good humour, "Well, the new game is a rough one, I know, as I said before, and I get some desperately hard blows now and then; but a loyal heart and a strong body are grand things, and I don't see why one shouldn't be of use as long as there's a scrap of one left." The characters of the story are as good as its moral. LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.-NO. 1123.-9 DECEMBER, 1865. From Macmillan's Magazine. REMINISCENCES OF HARTLEY COLERIDGE. His gestures and movements were peculiar; he had a habit, even in company, of rising from his seat, and laying his hand upon his head, with open fingers, as if measuring its IN the summer of 183-, it was the for- shape and size; and, when he thought that tune of the writer, between leaving school no one observed him, as he walked among and residing at the University, to join an the quiet roads, or on the hills, he would Oxford reading-party in the beautiful val- wave his arms as if reciting poetry or conley of Grasmere. Grasmere was then a versing with the mountains, his companions. . much more sequestered spot than it has His eyes, if memory serves right, were dark since become; there were none of the vil- gray, and the expression of his face thoughtlas which have since been built; and, ex-ful and benevolent, with a touch of sadness. cept two or three farmhouses on the borders of the lake, and a shepherd's hut here and there upon the mountains, the neighbourhood of the little village was the very ideal of repose and solitude. Not that this most peaceful of valleys has lost its peculiar tranquillity even now, when its charms have attracted a greater number of inhabitants. It combines, indeed, so many elements of quiet beauty that its character cannot easily be changed. Not so small as to give the sense of compression and confinement to the view, it is yet so bounded by surrounding hills that it has a unity and distinctness of its own. The eye takes in its main expression at a glance; but it needs time to become acquainted with the particular features of the scene, especially to appreciate the extreme gracefulness of the contour of the mountains, among which the lake lies in still beauty, reflecting as in a mirror the trees which grow down to the water's edge, and the island in the centre. In the south-west corner of the churchyard there is a spot which resembles in its sacredness, though so strangely contrasted in its surrounding features, the Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey. Here are two gravestones, inscribed respectively with the names of William Wordsworth and Hartley Coleridge. At the time alluded to both were living-Wordsworth in his house near Rydal; Hartley Coleridge in a cottage just outside the village of Grasmere, on the road that leads to Rydal. The latter was a frequent guest of our party, and companion of our walks. He was then in appearance about fifty years of age, of unusually short, even diminutive, stature; his hair beginning to be gray, his brow broad and intellectual. THIRD SERIES. LIVING AGE. VOL. XXXI. He was a frequent attendant at the church on Sundays; but even there his poetic fancies often seemed to follow him, and it was difficult not to watch his features with wonder and amusement, while he stood up in his pew and looked round on the kneeling congregation, a strange but kindly smile playing on his face, as of one looking down with benevolent interest on children engaged in their devotions. Not that he himself was wanting in decorous attention to the service, for his mind was in its very structure devotional, as his writings testify; and his conversation, though tinged occasionally with satirical or humorous allusions to religious parties, never breathed irreverence: or doubt with regard to Christian truth. Of the impression produced by his conversation it is difficult to give an adequate conception. Young men, it is true, are more susceptible of pleasure from intercourse with a really original thinker than those whose admiration is held in check by larger experience, and perhaps distrust. And it may be partly due to this intense appreciation of what is far-reaching and beautiful in thought and imagery, which is the gift of youth, that the conversation of Hartley Coleridge seems in retrospect so marvellous.. For the minds of the young in the four or five years preceding and following manhood are receptive of ideas to a degree that is never the case in after life. Practical experience, in the vast majority of cases, sets a bar to the imagination, and limits intellectual interests. Even where the latter are still retained, the vivid delight in new thoughts and ideas gives place to a critical habit; we no longer climb the mountains merely for the sake of the unknown views beyond, hut. 1428. choose safe paths that will bring us with the least trouble to our journey's end. The abandon with which we threw ourselves upon the untried regions of thought is gone, never to return. Nor can the mind, that retains to the end most of its first freshness recover the keen delight and the eager admiration with which, in the opening of its powers, it welcomed the utterances of gifted men, and drank in their teaching. always is, a fund of humour, breaking out now in sparks of wit, now in somewhat broad and boyish jests. "What is the charge for asses?" he would suddenly say to the astonished turnpike-keeper on the Thirlmere road, putting his hand in his pocket, and turning to count his companions as they passed the toll-bar. Occasionally, but not frequently, a tinge of bitterness would dash the current of his talk; more often, in a few words of powerful irony he would denounce some popular untruth, and expose its fallacy. Such passages are to be found here and there in his writings, although their prevail indeed, had a strong element of stern and masculine feeling, which did not often rise to the surface, but which, if he had given it ̧ scope, would have made him eloquent and powerful as a moral teacher or a satirist. character Even older men, however, have borne testimony to the remarkable brilliance of Hartley Coleridge's conversation. It was not that it was sprightly, clever, and witty; such conversation is sometimes most fatiguing tone is grace and tenderness. His mind, ing. It was not, as his father's is described, an eloquent, rapt monologue: there was nothing in it obscure and misty, no oracular pretension, no dark profundities. Yet few ever exemplified more strongly the inborn difference between genius and talent. Beau- And yet, notwithstanding the varied play tiful ideas seemed to be breathed into his of his intellect, and a certain childlike enmind perpetually, as if they came to him joyment of his gifts, the whole impression from the mountain breezes, or welled up in left on the mind by intercourse with him his heart and mind from an inexhaustible was one of sadness and pity, mingled with reservoir within. There was nothing like admiration. There was cause enough for effort, nothing like that straining after bril- this, unhappily, in his life, in facts which liance which wearies while it amuses: all this is not the place to dwell on - - which, was simple, unaffected, spontaneous. Per- indeed, it is no concern of ours to dwell on haps the fact that his companions were at all. Inheriting in a high degree his fa younger than himself, and glad to listen to ther's genius, he inherited something of his the poet's words, encouraged the unrestrain- defect of will. One unhappy weakness ed flow of his thought. Among equals there marred, without staining, a is apt to be rivalry, or at least reserve; ap- which was in its substance singularly innopreciation and sympathy from younger men cent, benevolent, pure, and childlike. Few often unlock stores of thought, and draw men could have done less harm; few men out its treasures. And in Hartley Coleridge of such diversified genius have written these were vast and varied to his young- so much of unmixed good. But the coner hearers apparently inexhaustible. A sciousness of great power combined with wide and diversified range of reading, espe- any degree of moral weakness, of lofty and cially in poetry, philosophy, and biography, immortal gifts, lifting their possessor above had supplied him with abundant material, common men, while in strength of will and which his original and-ever active mind was self-control he feels himself unequal to them, continually shaping. Nor, although evident- must create a sadness, deep and bitter, in ly pleased to pour out his reflections, did he proportion to the intrinsic worth and purity monopolize the conversation, as some great of the heart. This sadness was a prevailing talkers are wont to do. A question or re- feature in Hartley Coleridge's mind; it was mark from any of his younger hearers would expressed in his features, it underlay his engage him in a new train of thought, and conversation, it is the key-note to much of he would listen to their arguments with per- his poetry. That it never issued in defiance, fect courtesy and patience, and without any or in unjust anger, or irreverence; that it of that self-conscious superiority which some- never tempted him, as it has tempted so times makes the conversation of clever men many others, to call good evil, and evil good; so oppressive. that it is always humble, self-accusing; still more, that in its deepest and most regretful moments it is always hopeful: this marks his character, in our judgment, as one worthy of all sympathy and love. It must not be supposed that the only topics that interested him were poetry and literature. His remarks on politics, and Church questions, or other subjects of the day, were keen and original, often humorous or satirical. There lay in his mind, as in that of men of imaginative genius there Few poets have left a more distinct impress of their mind and heart upon their works than Hartley Coleridge. Much of them belongs to that kind of poetry which is wrung by sorrow from the soul of genius. Nothing can exceed the melancholy of some of his sonnets; as of that deeply touching one "Once I was young, and fancy was my all, My love, my joy, my grief, my hope, my fear, Unravel all the complex web of age Be clean effaced from my memorial page I thank my God because my hairs are gray." In mere music and rhythm, his sonnets often come nearer to Shakspeare's than those of any modern poet, not excepting Wordsworth. The English language contains few more exquisite ones than that on the lack of great poets in this age: "To greet the pressure of immaculate feet," Hartley Coleridge is a consummate artist. But the characteristic of his poetry, throughout, is its unaffectedness. There is no straining after effect, no staring, startling, epithets, no elaborate and artificial simplicity. All is graceful, tender, beautiful- the growth of a mind in which grace and beauty were native elements. Whether his genius was capable of a sustained flight it is hard to say. The longest poem in his first volume (that published in his lifetime) is not the most striking; but that called the "Prometheus" (in the posthumous volume) though a fragment, is in itself a gem of exquisite beauty. It is an adaptation of some of the many mysterious ideas which cluster round the story of the benevolent, suffering, unbending Titan. In no modern poet can we point to a more beautiful passage than that in which the |