Lord John Russell Part 19

[Sidenote: HIS GREAT QUALITIES]

Lord Shaftesbury wrote in his journal some words about Lord Russell which speak for themselves. After recording that he had reached the ripe age of eighty-six, and that he had been a conspicuous man for more than half a century, he added that to have 'begun with disapprobation, to have fought through many difficulties, to have announced, and acted on, principles new to the day in which he lived, to have filled many important offices, to have made many speeches, and written many books, and in his whole course to have done much with credit, and nothing with dishonour, and so to have sustained and advanced his reputation to the very end, is a mighty commendation.'

When some one told Sir Stafford Northcote that Lord John was dead, the tidings were accompanied by the trite but sympathetic comment, 'Poor Lord Russell!' 'Why do you call him poor?' was the quick retort. 'Lord Russell had the chance of doing a great work and--he did it.'

Lord John was not faultless, and most a.s.suredly he was not infallible.

He made mistakes, and sometimes was inclined to pay too little heed to the claims of others, and not to weigh with sufficient care the force of his own impetuous words. The taunt of 'finality' has seldom been less deserved. In most directions he kept an open mind, and seems, like Coleridge, to have believed that an error is sometimes the shadow of a great truth yet behind the horizon. Mr. Gladstone a.s.serts that his old chief was always ready to stand in the post of difficulty, and possessed an inexhaustible sympathy with human suffering.

It is at least certain that Lord John Russell served England--the country whose freedom, he once declared, he 'wors.h.i.+pped'--with unwearied devotion, with a high sense of honour, with a courage which never faltered, with an integrity which has never been impeached. He followed duty to the utmost verge of life, and--full himself of moral susceptibility--he reverenced the conscience of every man.

FOOTNOTES:

[44] _History of the War in the Crimea_, by A. W, Kinglake, vol. ii.

sixth edition, pp. 249-50.

Lady Russell states that Lord John used to smile at Kinglake's rhetorical exaggeration of the scene. Her impression is that only two of the Cabinet, and not, as the historian puts it, 'all but a small minority,' fell asleep. The Duke of Argyll or Mr. Gladstone can alone settle the point at issue.

[45] Amongst those who a.s.sembled in the drawing-room of Pembroke Lodge on that historic occasion were Mr. Henry Richard, M.P., Mr. Samuel Morley, M.P., Mr. Edward Baines, Sir Charles Reed, Mr. Carvell Williams, M.P., who came on behalf of the Protestant Dissenting Deputies. The Congregationalists were represented by such men as the Rev. Baldwin Brown and the Rev. Guinness Rogers; the Baptists by Dr. Underhill; the Presbyterians by Dr. McEwan; and the Unitarians by Mr. Middleton Aspland.

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