LORD PALMERSTON.

It is reported of Lord Palmerston, the late prime minister of England, that whenever he engaged a new cook, he used to say to him:

"I wish you to prepare what is called a good table for my guests; but for me, there must always be a leg of mutton and an apple-pie."

This remark partly explains how it came to pass that a man nearly eighty-two years of age could perform the duties of chief ruler of an empire containing three hundred millions of people. An English prime minister is as much the ruler of the British empire as the President is of the United States; for, although everything is done in the queen's name, and every document of any importance requires her signature, still this is mere form; all the work is done by the minister, and he is far more responsible to parliament than to the sovereign. Besides performing the duties of minister, he also sits in parliament, where he has to defend his policy against the attacks of an eager and able opposition. Parliament assembles every afternoon at four o'clock, and often sits very late. It is not uncommon for the session to continue until two or three in the morning, and sometimes the sitting is prolonged until after sunrise. From the heat and excitement of parliament, the minister goes home, and, at ten the next morning, he is at his office in Downing Street to transact business.

A life like this Lord Palmerston led for fifty-seven years, supporting the animal man on such fare as roast mutton and apple pie. He could not have done it on turtle and venison, still less on our American hot bread, buckwheat cakes, and

fried meat. He took plenty of exercise too. When he was past seventy, he thought no more of a thirty-mile gallop of an afternoon, than a New York merchant does of walking home from Broad Street to Union Square. Often, when parliament was expected to sit late, he would dismiss his carriage, and, coming out of the house after midnight, would walk home alone, a distance of two miles, and "do" the distance in thirty minutes. There never was a brisker old gentleman. In the hunting season he usually went into the country, where he would follow the hounds as vigorously and as long as the youngest buck of them all.

I delight to mention these things, for there is nothing our keen business men more need to be reminded of than the necessity of taking care of the animal part of their nature. If a man wishes to keep a clear head, a good temper, a sound digestion, let him take a hint from Lord Palmerston, Commodore Vanderbilt, and Dr. Spring. It is not necessary to have a five-hundred-guinea hunter or a twenty-thousand-dollar trotting horse, or any horse at all. A game of ball, or a ramble with the children, will answer every purpose.

I saw Lord Palmerston in the House of Commons twenty years ago. That House presents a scene exceedingly different from an American legislative body, every member of which has a comfortable arm-chair, and a desk at which he writes his letters, his editorials, his pamphlets, or his speeches. In the House of Commons, the members sit on benches or settees; the ministerial members on one side, and the opposition members on the other; each division facing one another, and separated by a broad isle. The benches are arranged in long rows, each a little higher than the one before it, so that the members on the back seats can see over the heads of those in front. Every member sits with his hat on, which he removes only when he rises to speak, or when he has occasion to walk across the floor. The spectator in the gallery, therefore, looks down on a moving sea of black hat-crowns, instead of the distinguished countenances which he is anxious to examine. The gallery was then a small pen, at the back of the house, high up near the ceiling. It would hold about one hundred persons; and no one could

get admittance except upon the written order of a member; and a member could only grant one of these orders each evening. This was a great plague to the American minister, to whom Americans in London apply for these orders, and who could seldom get as many as were wanted. Some of our free and easy countrymen would plant themselves in the passage by which members enter the house, and there accost the first goodnatured looking gentleman who passed along, and ask him for an order, which he would generally get. I saw O'Connell stopped for this purpose. He took a card from his pocket, and his remarkably broad-brimmed hat from his head, and wrote the order on the crown. O'Connell at that time, with his round, red face, and his large-skirted brown coat, looked the very picture of an Irish farmer, come to town to sell his crop of potatoes.

Lord Palmerston spoke that evening. He was then sixty years of age, and looked thirty-eight. His figure was rather slight and extremely elegant. There was nothing of the bluff, round, beer-drinking Briton in his appearance, and he was invariably dressed with care, even to dandyism; which, I suppose, was the reason why he was called "Old Cupid." In this particular, he presented a contrast to his colleague, Lord John Russell, who, being very short, and having on clothes much too large for him, looked like a boy who had just put on his first frock-coat, which a prudent mother had insisted should allow for his growth. In the House of Commons there is seldom heard what we call oratory, no vehemence, no flights of rhetoric, no sweeping gestures, no appeals to the feelings. The members simply converse together. That is to say, they speak in the tone and manner of conversation. If any one should get up in the House of Commons and try to show off his oratorical powers, he would very soon be informed, by coughs and satirical outcries, that he had brought his wares to the wrong market. Lord Palmerston was asked a question respecting a treaty with Portugal, with regard to the duty on wines. He rose, took off his hat, spoke ten minutes in a low tone, gave the information sought, made a little joke inaudible in the

gallery, at which the members laughed, then resumed his seat and put on his hat.

One great secret of his power was, that he could always make the house laugh. He had a quiet, homely way of joking, which no British audience could resist. Many of his comic illustrations were drawn from the "ring," all the slang and science of which he knew. I have no doubt that if he had been attacked in one of his midnight walks, by three unarmed men, not prize-fighters, he would have been able to knock down the first assailant, damage the second, and put to flight the third. I remember, in one of his speeches, a passage like this:

"Gentlemen on the other side remind me of another sort of encounter familiar to us all. Tom Spring, hard pressed, cries out, You strike too high!' Bob Clinch changes his tactics; whereupon Tom roars, You strike too low!' I have the same ill luck: Let me strike high or low, I cannot please honorable members opposite."

If a party of Englishmen were afloat on a raft in the middle of the ocean, and no ship in sight, they could hardly help laughing at a comparison of that kind. Palmerston could always turn the laugh upon his opponents by some such rough joke, couched in the language of gentlemen.

He made a capital hit in 1853, when the cholera was ravaging the continent, and was expected to break out in England in the following spring. The situation, in fact, was precisely what it was in 1867; every one in Great Britain and America was fearful of the coming epidemic. In these circumstances, the clergy of Scotland united in petitioning the government to appoint a day of fasting and prayer, in order to avert the dreaded visitation. Lord Palmerston refused to grant the petition. He told the clergy of Scotland that the world was governed by natural laws, ordained of God, which must be obeyed; and that, therefore, it was useless to pray against the cholera while the Scottish towns were reeking with the filth which was the natural cause and nourishment of cholera. He advised them to go to work and purify those towns, especially the dwellings of the poor. His

words were so appropriate to our circumstances at all times that we will quote them:

"Lord Palmerston would therefore suggest that the best course which the people of this country can pursue to deserve that the further progress of the cholera should be stayed, will be to employ the interval that will elapse between the present time and the beginning of next spring, in planning and executing measures by which those portions of their towns and cities which are inhabited by the poorest classes, and which, from the nature of things, must most need purification and improvement, may be freed from those causes and sources of contagion which, if allowed to remain, will infallibly breed pestilence, and be fruitful in death, in spite of all the prayers and fastings of a united but inactive people."

The common sense of the people sustained him in this bold and wise reply. It is greatly to be hoped that we also may be wise enough, "between the present time and the beginning of next spring," to act upon Lord Palmerston's suggestion.

What a prodigious sum of experience lies buried in the grave of this old minister! Born in 1784, just as the

American revolution had closed, he could remember the later phases of the French revolution, which grew out of ours. He was at school with Lord Byron. When, as a young man of twenty-one, he entered parliament, Napoleon had not yet reached the summit of his career. As secretary of war, he assisted to conduct the vast military operations which ended in the battle of Waterloo, and the final overthrow of Napoleon. He served four British sovereigns, and terminated his career by holding, for six years, the highest post a subject can reach. At the time of his death he was still the most popular man in England.

He was very far, indeed, from being a great man; but he was an exceedingly skilful politician. No man knew better than he when to resist public opinion and when to yield to it. He owed his long success in public life chiefly to this