The Sun.
London, England, 1865-10-19 00:00:00

subject of the present sketch ; the younger was
afterwards known as Sir William Temple, the
British Envoy at the Court of Naples.
Not much is known regarding the early life of
Henry John Temple. He was one of the late flower-
ing plants. Always remarkable for his ability, and
generally successful in his undertakings, he rejoiced,
in a splendid constitution, and had to get rid of a
certain excess of animal spirits before his ambition
could rise to the level of his powers. There is a long
period of some five and forty years—considerably
more than the half of a man's life—which Lord Pal-
merston passed in comparative inactivity, and which
is a puzzle to the biographer whose idea of the man
is derived from the later glories of his career. To
account for this anomaly, it; has by some of his eulo-
giks been asserted that he was never at heart a Tory,
that he was out of his element in the Ministry of
Liverpool and Castlereagh, and that he never truly
lived until he escaped from the thraldom of Tory
ideas and joined the friends of liberality and pro-
gress. This theory is quite unfounded. Lord Pal-
merston was at the last what he was at the first. There
is no real difference between Palmerston Secretary-
at-War, Palmerston Foreign Secretary, Palmerston
Home Secretary, and Palmerston Prime Minister.
The explanation of his backwardness lies wholly
on the surface, and is what we have already indi-
cated. He was never what would be called an am-
bitious man ; and, delighting in society, he found,
in the pleasures of private life what, together with
the cares of his particular office, was sufficient in
his hot youth, if not fully to occupy his powers, at
all events to employ his time. Whatever he had to
do he did well, but it is quite evident in his Parlia-
mentary history that he never cared to go out of his
way for work. As Secretary-at-War for some 20
years he hardly ever made a speech except on the
subject of the army, and then only when he was
compelled to do so. As Foreign Secretary for a
period little less, he in like manner confined his at-
tention to the business of his own department. At
a time when he was the most popular statesman in
England, he was content to serve now under his
junior, and now under his rival. On the dissolu-
tion of the Aberdeen Cabinet he consented to serve
even under Lord Derby if certain of his colleagues
could be induced to follow the same course. It was
not until every possible combination had been tried,
and every possible Premier had given up the task in
despair, that, as a last resource, Lord Palmerston
was asked to form a Government. He at once
accepted the position which he had not sought, and
filled with dignity to himself and advantage to the
country an office which, from his never having
grasped at it, persons who measure men, not accord-
ing to their deserts, but according to their demands,
regarded as beyond his power.
In the little that is known concerning the early
life of Lord Palmerston there is not much that is re-
markable. He received his education at Harrow,
at Edinburgh, and at Cambridge. He went to
Harrow a little after Lord Aberdeen, and about the
same time as Sir Robert Peel and Lord Byron.
Thence he proceeded to Edinburgh, to enjoy the
benefit of Dugald Stewart's instruction; and, by
the way, it may be noted as something peculiar that
he was one of the very few Tories who followed the
example of the young Whigs of that generation in
sitting at the feet of the great Whig Professor of
Moral Philosophy and Political Economy. It
certainly does not appear that he entered with
any enthusiasm into the studies which absorbed
every inmate of Stewart's family ; and one might
with some show of reason accept it as a proof of
this apathy that his name is not to be found among
the members of that Speculative Society which was
joined by every man of mark in the University,
and which, besides Lord Lansdowne, Henry
Brougham, Sydney Smith, Francis Jeffrey, Francis
Horner, Walter Scott, and Lord John Russell, in-
cluded Lord Palmeraton's own brother, Sir William
Temple. But he himself stated about two years
ago in one of his speeches, " I passed three years of
my youth in studying at the University of Edin-
burgh, and I will frankly own, without disparage..
ment to any other seat of learning at which I had
the fortune to reside, that I enjoyed greater ad-
vantages in the acquirement of useful knowledge
, and sound principles during the three years' resi-
dence in Edinburgh than I possessed at any other
place." Certainly, the influence of Stewart's training
was at a later period apparent in the strong deter-
mination expressed by Lord Palmerston to maintain
those principles of government of which Huskisson
was the exponent. So long as Huskisson remained
in the Cabinet he felt certain that these doctrines
would be honoured; when Huskisson was ejected
from the Duke of Wellington's Ministry on purely
personal grounds he too seceded, because he had
no guarantee, he said, that these doctrines would
have the weight to which they were entitled. We
may add that it must have been in Stewart's class-
room that a phrase which he often turned to good
account in his speeches, and on one memorable
occasion with most brilliant effect, first caught his
fancy and left upon it an indelible impression--
" The fortuitous concourse of atoms." Having been
inoculated at Edinburgh, where he remained three
years, with these liberal views and his inkling of
philozophy, he turned southward again to the Uni-
versity which Pitt represented in Parliament, and
which was at that time the chief school of thought
in England. Almost all his political contemporaries
who took a leading position, whether in the Whig or
in the Tory ranks, were Cambridge men. If Byron,
Coleridge, and Wordsworth are to be classed among
our greatest poets, it would appear that in other de-
partments than that of politics Cambridge had, at
the beginning of the present century, a pre-eminence
over the sister University of Oxford. Lord Palmer..
ston, who had in the meantime succeeded to his title
through the death of his father, entered at St. John's
College in 1803, and worked in good earnest for
academical success at a time when it was not usual
for a nobleman to present himself for any but an
honorary degree.

The Temples were a family predestined to rule.
Within the space of 50 years Macaulay has counted
among the sons and grandsons of the Countess
Temple alone, and she died in 1752, three First
Lords of the Treasury (Geo. Grenville, W. Pitt, and
Lord Grenville), three Secretaries of Stateordso, two
tliheeeApedrsmiorfalttlyie. PAlritvhyouSgeahl,Laonrdd
Pfaolmur eFrsirtostn L°belrOdsngeodf
to a different branch of the Temple family, he too,
whose father had been a Lord both of the Admiralty
and of the Treasury, looked forward to political
life, and, in 1806, immediately on the death of Pitt,
offered himself to the University of Cambridge as a
candidate to represent it in Parliament. He was
opposed, on this occasion, by Lord Henry Petty,
who had become Chancellor of the Exchequer in
room of the " heaven-born Minister," and who
thus came to the election with a weight of Minis-
terial influence which his rival found it vain to
withstand. That rival, however, was not to be dis-
couraged. He presented himself again as a candb.
date in 1807, when he failed of success by only two
votes ; and in 1811 ho tried his fortune a third
time, in this case attaining the object of his ambi-
tion so unmistakably that he continued to represent
the University until, in IfBo3uln,dhhiesgawveaymoinrttaolpoffarelinae :
Parlia-
ment, to his constituents by joining the In the
meantime,at
fihowever, b
through the pocket borough of Bletch-
m
ingley, and then through the borough of Newport,
in the Isle of Wight. Nor was he long in Parlia-
ment before be enjoyed the sweets of office. The
notorious Ministry of "All the Talents" soon fell
to pieces, and, as if in mockery of that splendid
coalition, a Ministry succeeded to power headed by
a nobleman whose natural incapacity was aided by
a natural indolence, andwhose indolence was aggra-
vated not only by sickness, but also, to make
assurance doubly sure, by continual opiates, under
the influence of which he would fall asleep over his
papers. Not able to touch animal food, not caring
to open his mouth, often found sleeping at his desk,
it would be one of the marvels of government that
the Duke of Portland contrived to keep a Cabinet
together for more than a couple of years, were we
not too well acquainted with the truth of Oxen-
Itiern's commonplace regarding the wisdom of rulers.
t was in this singular Ministry, whose great achieve-
ment was the Walcheren disaster, that Lord Palmer-
ston first entered upon office. He entered on the
office which his father had long enjoyed, as a Lord
of the Admiralty ; and when, on the quarrel of