The Sun.
London, England, 1852-02-20 00:00:00

THE FAMILY MINISTRY•

To, M rlicis ruled suorfme in Florence—the
Sforris were the glory of Milan—the Bo.gias were
the curse of Rome. Until lately, however, we never
imagined that the welfare of England could be either
Very materially promoted or very greatly obstructed
by the conduct of any one family in the Peerage.
Blackstone, indeed, has told us a great deal about
the unspeakable importance of hereditary Govern-
ment ; but we suspect that he used the term in a
different sense from that which circumstances
have unfortunately given it in our time —at
any rate he could have known nothing of the Greys.
The accusation brought against Lord John Russell
the other day, that every member of the Cabinet is
a lineal descendant of his great grandmother, is, it
must be confessed, a novel one. To be sure, the
Premier, instead of repelling the charge, declared,
with characteristic gallantry, that " nothing on
earth should prevent him from promoting to the
chief offices of State the issue of his maternal an-
cestor, if be thought they were qualified to fill
them." We have no wish to drive him to any such
painful extremity. We have no wish to exclude
from the Government, like a political Pariah, every-
body
related to so respectable an old lady. All we
wish to insinuate is, that the people of this country
—ascertaining, on the unimpeachable authority of Mr.
Dod, that the whole Russell Cabinet are inti-
mately connected with each other, and having no
equally unquestionable evidence to show that they are
all qualified for their several posts—may be apt to
draw their own conclusions from these two facts ;
and while they would individually give their heads
to be related to such a remarkable family, they may,
collectively object to be governed by them. Sne
certainly must have been a wonderful woman, that
same great-grandmother of Lord John Russell. She
has actually peopled a whole Cabinet—she has lite-
rally given birth to three Administrations. In an-
other generation we shall scarcely know where to find
room for her issue. Even now we are ready to cry
out with Macbeth—
" What! will the lice stretch to the crack of doom?

AA nn od t hy eert —t
the
eig
Another—yet a seventh! We'll see no more—
nth appears, who bears a`glary'
Which shows as many more. horrible sight!,
Oh Cornelia, Cornelia, mother of the Graccbi
you were a proud woman ; but what had you
to boast of, compared with the great-grandmother of
all the Russells ? It i* not, however, the multitude
of her descendants which we so much admire—it
is the extraordinary versatility of their genius.
Every Athenian was by birth an admiral, a politi-
cian, a general, and a philosopher—every Russell
is by nature a L ird of the Treasury, a Secretary
of State, a Postmaster-General, a Privy Seal, and a
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Our pre-
sent rulers have no leisure to learn their business,
because they are always b.trAring their condition.
By the time a Secretary of War has just been able
to read the " Army List " through carefully, he
finds himself whisked away to the Colonies—by
the time a Secretary to the Admiralty base begun
to know something about ships, he is packed off to
the Exchequer. If a friend from the country
seeks to pay his reaptc-s to a Secretary of State, the
chances are that he will be referred to the Horse-
Guards—if a deputation from the north comes
up to wait upon the Commissioners of Woods and
Forests, it is as likely as not that they will catch
him in .the act of crossing over to the Duchy of
Lancaster. Why a Vice-President of the Board
of Trade should necessarily be made a Foreign
Secretary, is hard enough to understand ; but why,
because he is made a Foreign Secretary, another Fo-
reign Secretary should be appointed Vice-President
of the Board of Trade, Is a far more difficult ques-
tion to answer—unless, indeed, we suppose that, in
the present aspect of their affairs, the Ministry have
nothing to do except to play at,that fine old Christmas
game, the chief excitement of which consists in chang-
ing places without letting any one else get into your
seat. There is one peculiarity about their manoeuvres,
however, which deserves notice. They resemble some
of those eccentric packs of cards which the vigilance
of our police force occasionally detects in some of the
less reputable haunts of the metropolis. Shuffle them
as you please—cut them where you like—there
is al ways an Elliot, a Grey, or a Russell at the bottom.
We do not know whether her Majesty's Ministers
have any fixed rule according to which they change
their stations—like men-of-war, or regiments out on
foreign service. ::otne of them nave been all over the
world. Sometimes one of these geniuses will make his
first appearance in the West 'tidies ; then he turns up in
the Home-office ; next, we find him in Ireland ; thence
he passes over to the Colonies; we then follow him to
a Continental embassy ; and perhaps he finally com-
pletes the "grand tour with a trip to India. The
Marquis of Normanb3, for instance, made his debut
as Gavernor of Jamaica—a post for which he bed
proved himself " qualified" by writing two novel..
From Jamaica be went to the Home-office—from
the Hume-office to Dublin—from Dublin to the
Colonial.office—from the Colonial-office to Paris—
and from Paris, we hear, he is about to proceed to
C4lcu'ta. Toe career of Lord G anville has been
a sill more chhquered one. Early in life, he
was mcide Under- Secretary for Foreign Affiirs.
While still a child, he was appointed a Com-
missioner of Railways. As soon as he had
mastered the rudiments of arithmetic, he was
created Paymaster of the Forces and
reasurer of
the Navy. As soon as he had learned to rid. he was
made Master of the Queen's Buckhounds. When the
hunting season broke up be was appointed Vice-
Preeident of the Board of Trade ; and when
Lord Palmerstooe gave up office he b.came
Foreign Secretary. Now just conceive what a vast
variety of " quslificatiiins'. such a man had need»
possess. He otazht to be at once a shrewd ac-
countant, a keeti sportsman, a professed locomotive-
maker, a profound economist, and practised diplo-
matist% All the different accomplishments by which
Mr. Rob=rt Stephenson, Talleyrand, Sir Tatton
S)k-a, and " ['be Tutor's A*sistani," have severally
rendered themselves renowned or useful, ought to be
concentrated in him alone; and, of course, as the Pre-
mier ha.-declared him qualified for anything we can
have nothing to urge against such an authority. Lord
Grey, we are happy
to add, has been a comparative
fir urn during. his political life • but then to palm
him off upon any
department Which had not grown
accustomed to his peculiar eccentriciti-s would be too
bold a proceeding even for Lord John Rn,:sell to
venture on. As for Sir Charles Wood, it would be
difficult to say what he has not been, except a
financier.