The Sun.
London, England, 1848-11-25 00:00:00

LONDON, SATUIRDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 25, 1848,

" I will, however, enforce the fulfilment of the pledges
given for the security of the rights and liberties of tho
Prussian people; they shall remain intact, as well as
those of all our German brothers.

" Prus.niansf I: rely upon you, that you will stand by
me—that you will avoid all acts of illegality and violence,
and show yourselves worthy of the blessings of liberty.
Ire ep the peace, and I will maintain it also.
" Germans I I rely on you who stand by me, and I
will stand by you. The long wished for object, for which
we are striving, is nearly attained. The labours of the
German Constitution will soon be completed, and our
beautiful Fatherland will then in unity and freedom be
great and powerful.
(Signed)

" THE ARCHDUKE JOHN,
Regent of the Empire.

Countersigned by
" SCHME RUNG, R. MOM,
" BECKE RATH, 1) MEW IT;
" PE UCREIZ.
" The Imperial Ministers."

PRUSSIA.
The Cologne Gazette publishes a declaration from
M. Grabow, in which, after stating that the Gazettes
of Voss and Spener announce that the Prince of
Prussia had, among other things, declared to the
deputation of the city of Berlin on the 6th inst. :
—lst, that even Grabow recognised the crown to be
within its rights ; 2d, that even Grabow had
acknowledged that the measures taken were
the only ones capable of putting a stop to
anarchy in Berlin, he declares that the language
attributed to him by those journals is not exact, and
that the deputation itself only admits that the Prince
of Prussia had said that M. Grabow was of opinion
that putting doWn anarchy was a duty of Govern-
ment. M. Grabow goes on to state, to avoid misap-
prehensions, that he had left Prenzlau on the 11th
notwithstanding his weak state of health, to contri-
bute by his efforts, to an amicable settlement of the
dispute between the Crown and the National As-
sembly. He says :
" In the audience which was granted to me the day
after my arrival, and which is the only one that I have
had of the King, I &eland openly to his Majesty that
the right., of the Crown and,of the Assembly were par-
fcctly (qua!, and principally as regarded the transfer,
prorogation, or dissolution of the Assembly, that I could
only recognise as just and kg-. 1 the principle of mutual
concert adopted by the Assembly and not respected by
the responsible advisers of the Crown."

M. Grabow concludes by declaring that he recom-
mends that the Assembly shall be allowed to sit at
Berlin, and that a Ministry shall be formed which
could secure a compact majority.
COBLENTZ, Nov. 18.—On account of the refusal to
pay taxes having been voted by the National Assem-
bly, a large quantity of flour and some cattle entered
our town this morning without paying the customary
dues.

LITERATURE.
ETI ON E . A Romance of the Days of Pericles.
3 Vols.. By Eliza Lynn.
Although the writer of this remarkable fiction had,
in a great measure, prepared us for the development
of an ambition but seldom found in the heart of even
the most daring authoress, we must nevertheless ac-
knowledge that the character of her present effort has
filled us with no little astonishment. " Azeth" has
been generally reglrded as a bold attempt from the
hand of a female, but the Egyptian story is as nothing
when contrasted with the Grecian story of " Amy-
mone." Miss Lynn has evinced so much genius in
the conception, if not in the composition, of this
classic romance, that we would fain see those
blemishes corrected which have glared upon us
during the perusal of " Amymone," and which have
marred a work that must, otherwise, have been
nothing less than a literary phenomenon. With a
stricter adherence to historical accuracy; with a
more perfected command over an imagination liable
when uncurbed to wander into vagaries; with a
more vigilant attention to the consistencies of a plot ;
with a more subtle appreciation of the mysteries of
the human heart, an appreciation which may be cul-
tivated to almost any extent of excellence where the
mind displays the keen perceptive faculties possessed
by cur romancist ; with a more exacting system of
morality, and a more careful avoidance of that great
fault of novelists which may be termed dogmatism of
sentiment—Miss Eliza Lynn may become one of the
foremost female writers in a literature which already
numbers among its brightest ornaments the names of
Anne Radcliffe, Letitia Landon, Charlotte Smith,
Maria Edgeworth, Jane Porter, Mary Mitford, Feli-
cia Ilemans, and Elizabeth Barrett. It is because
we have recognised so much genius in the opening
chapters of " Ainymone,"and-because we would not
see that genius destroyed by the indulgence of ble-
mishes, such as have ruined the conclusion of the ro-
mance of the days of Pericles, that we are the more
solicitous to enumerate those blemishes, and to point
out what appear to us to be the causes of the ill suc-
cess of " Amymone" as a whole. The first volume
is altogether beautiful—the idea of the narrative
being exquisitely graceful, the tone elevated, the ar-
rangement ingenious, and the general treatment mas-
terly to a degree. With the close of the eleventh
chapter, how ever, when Alcamenes is left standing in
the garden of the Cerameicos, gazing in rapture
on a tress ravished from the perfumed
locks of Chrysanthe, the excellence of the story as a
work of art terminates. The continuation of the nar-
rative is as inferior to the commencement as a chain
of cockle-shells tagged on to the end of a necklace of
diamonds, or as one of the noisiest pot pourris of
Roche Albert after a symphony of Beethoven, or as a
display of Bengal lights after the glories of the aurora
borealis. The key was " pitched " in a lofty and
ambitious strain at the outset, but the energies of the
authoress evidently failed her in the endeavour to
sustain her enthusiasm to the same sublime elevation
throughout. Nor is this surprising when we reflect
upon the daring of a literary adventure which aimed
at the portraiture of Grecian history and Athenian
society in the golden age when Pericles reigned in
Attica ; when Pheidias laboured amidst the marble
splendours of the Parthenon; when Anaxagoras
taught philosophy in the Lyceion, and Socrates
morality under the porch ; when Euripides and
Sophocles vied with each other in the tragic
representations of the Dionysiac Theatre ;
when Lysias breathed forth his eloquence in the
Gymnasium ; when Alcibiades displayed the beauty
of his boyhood among the violet sellers in the Agora;
when Crates and Hermippos bandied witticisms across
the tables of the symposium; when the victors in the
pancratium were crowned in the supreme hall of the
Pnyx ; when the hetairai flaunted their seductive
loveliness in the Cerameicos; and when the genius
of Aspasia was paramount in the city of the Acro-
polis. The principal tendency of the work, as
is avowed, indeed, in the " Preface," is a vindication
Of the character of Aspasia. Hitherto that extra-
ordinary woman has been considered solely as one
of the Milesian hetairai, as the mistress or concubine
of Pericles; and almost every one who has written
upon Grecian history, from Plutarch and Quintillian
downwards, has reviled the famous daughter of
Axicchus as the corrupter of the morals of the
Athenians, as the enervater of the councils of
Pericles, and as the cause of disgrace to the Violet-
Crowned capital through her lasciviousness and
dissipation. Whether Aspasia was really the mistress
or the wife of the great ruler to whom she
was, at least to all appearance, wedded, may remain
for ever a matter of uncertainty ; yet we cannot but
coincide with Miss Lynn in her estimate of Aspasia's
character from a dispassionate consideration of the
effects produced by her union with the immortal
Pericles. If the following axiom enunciated by our
authoress is to be regarded as correct, (and who shall
gainsay its accuracy ?) the assertion that Aspasia's
influence undermined the sentiments of true religion
in Attica falls to the ground:—" Make a nation irre-
ligious, the poet, and the painter, and the statuary,
are no more! "—(Vol. 1., p. 90.) Now it was under
the fostering patronage of the Milesian that the glory
of Alcamenes, of Euripides, of Sophocles, and of
Pheidias, were developed! Beyond this Socrates, the
noblest of all the Pagan moralists, the philosopher
who, like Seneca, recognised, as it were instietively,
some of the holiest principles which were subsequently
proclaimed by our Saviour, was the friend of Aspasia.
Nor is this circumstance without its significance, that
that beautiful and most accomplished woman numbered
amongst her adherents, all the worth, and virtue, and
heroism, and wisdom of Athens; while her enemies
eonsisted of the most villannus, the most profligate,
and the most unprincipled persons to be found in the
rabble of Attica. On these accounts we are satisfied
of the correctness of the novel estimate here formed
of the intellect and temperament of Aspasia. In
having dared to pen this vindication, Miss Lynn has
acted nobly, and she will certainly be rewarded by
the sympathy of her more educated readers, a sympa-
thy, full, earnest, and enthusiastic. We have alluded,
however, to the occasional evidence of historical in-
accuracy in the romance of " Amymone." These
perversions of the truth, for we cannot regard them
as mere blunders, are the more surprising from their
being generally of such a palpably fallacious kind.
They consist sometimes of anachronisms so gross as
to amaze the student who has read merely
half a-dozen of the biographies of the Chce
ronean. For example—Lysias, the son of
Cephalos, is described as a young man of twenty-six
years of age at the period of his return from
Thurium, when his return from that colony did not
occur until his forty-seventh year ! if we are to be-
lieve the following authorities—Plue de Orat.—Cic.
de Brut.—Diog. 2:— Quintil. 3, &c. Again Pheidias
is described as having been accused of abstracting a
portion of the gold from the chryselephantine statue of
Minerva after his return from Ells, when it was in
consequence of that accusation that he was banished
to Elis, where he mitigated the sorrows of his exile
by fabricating his wonderful colossal figure of Jupiter
Olympius ! according to. the declarations of Paus. 9.
c. 4.—Strab. B.—Plut. in Per., &c. It is not, how-
ever, in these direct violations of historical exactitude
that the chief blemish of " Amymone "as an
historical romance consists. It is the feeble
delineation of some of the most glorious beings
of that heroic time. Socrates, according to Miss
Lynn's portraiture of him, is a mere prosaic driveller,
wrapped up in a blanket, standing by like the veriest
dullard when everybody else is talking, and being
the very antithesis of the noble sage, such as he is
depicted by his contemporaries. Alcibiades, more-
over, whether as a child or as an epheboi, is generally
described throughout the three volumes as a precocious
little voluptuary, chattering about love when he
ought to have been thinking about sweetmeats, and
acting as a spoilt darling when he ought to have been
rising to the dignity of manhood. Some of the
historical characters introduced into the fiction are,
in fact, mere dummies decked out in appropriate cos-
tumes, and moved by a power analogous to that of
galvanism—as much resembling the originals as the
wax figures at Madame Tussardm'sisbs Lynn h
bear the
asfailedappearance
of vitality. Nevertheless, if
in her delineations of Socrates, Alcibiades, Pheidias,
and some others of their contemporaries, she has
been marvellously happy in
her sketches of
Pericles, Aspasia, Crates,
Hermippos, Euripides,
Sophocles, Lysias, and
historical,
riobaelt,teorr,
A
moreover, are her limnings minor
purely fictitious characters—Amymone, the slave-
born heroine ; Methion, the Persian alien ; Crethon,
the old eupatrid; Cleon, the tanners son;Apnhtoisp,htohne,
the soothsayer; Eudora, the virgin ; Chrysanthe, the
love-sick maiden ; Chelone, the slave ; pam
gate-keeper; Zanthippos, the debauchee ; Lysiades,
the fop ; Glaphyra, the coquette; Zeuxo, the Ihessa-
Han witch ; Pentheus, the demark ; Lysicles, the
cattle-dealer; Eucrates, the flax seller; and Hyper-
bolos, the lamp-maker. They are allinimitable
creations, and, with one exception, of peculiar
freshness and originality. That exception is the
heroine Amymone— the very double of Bulwer
Lytton's Lucretia. Although clad in the robes, and
speaking the language of Greece, Amymone has
throughout more of the nature of Lucretia than of
Clytemnestra. Her very name, like that of
Lucretia, smells of blood. T
They are alike
of distracting beauty, of sublime .intellect, of
inordinate ambition, and of preternatural viciousness.
Amymone is rendered to the reader doubly repulsive
and abhorrent from the circumstance that she is
almost invariably spoken vof by the authoress in a
tone absolutely reverential—as if there were anything
noble in her atrocity, dignified in her hypocrisy, or
bewitching in her pride ! The story opens (I. 93)
in "the first year of the eighty-fifth Olympiad, four
hundred and forty years: before our era, when Cris_
son of Himeria was, for the third time victor in the
foot-race of the Olympia, and when Myrrichides was
erehen." The whole plot may he explained in a few
sentences. Crethon, the patron of ielethion, invites
his client to his farm-house near Athens on the occa-
sion of his marriage with Amymone. While feasting

in the house of the generous eupatrid, Methion, at
the instigation of Cleon, forges a will in the name of
Crethon, and Amymone poisons the wine-cup of her
benefactor. The poison not being sufficiently expe-
ditious, Amymone strangles Crethon by grasping his
throat with her own hands, and the close of
this tragic incident, where Amymone ap-
pears at a window of the farm-house, clad
in flowing white, her hair dishevelled, and a
ghastly streak of blood across her forehead, is one of
the most powerful descriptions in the whole of the
romance. Crethon dead, his murderer and her hus-
band live in luxury for eight years, the idols of
Athena and the avowed antagonists of Pericles and
Aspasia. The interest of the narrative arises from
the antagonism of Amymone to Aspasia ; and the
underplots consist of the profligacy of Zanthippos
and Glaphyra, the love passages between Lysias and
Eudora, the passion of Chrysanthe for Pheidias, and the
conspiracy of the comic poets and the demagogues.
As specimens of the skill of our authoress in painting
the different personages comprised in her narrative,
we give the following:—

we may afford some notion by transcribing one of
those passionate outbursts of emotion by which the
first volume is beautified. Aspasia has just spoken.
" Pericles ha!d her to his heart; but save the thick
breath and panting breast, nothing told how deeply her
words had moved him. And nought was needed.
,1
Speech would have been harsh, caresses cold; for earth
has no means which ::hall worthily interpret of heaven,
none save silence. In worship, love, and joy—that joy
which springs from honour and from love—keep silence,
stilly, solemnly. Break not the whispered words of
heaven by earth's cold voice; dull not its glory by
earth's dim shade; let heart breathe out to heart by in-
fluence, not by speech, and the soul interpret of its love
by knowledge, not by word.
" Keep silence before the Throne of God; keep silence
before the altar of nature; flutter not the wings of love
by the rude breath; startle not the reverent soul by the
rough voice; keep silence in the sky; keep silence in the
grove; still, one instant, the loud echo of the world;
still! still! and list what God proclaims through his
messenger of love. Keep silence, oh keep silence!"
Occasionally thoughts as exquisitely emotional as this,
but of a more peculiar brevity, are articulated in the
dialogues or descriptive passages. As when it is said
—" The Ideal is above the Actual as far as heaven is
above earth, the Deity beyond humanity."—l. S 5.
Or when the authoress exclaims from the depths of
her heart, " God bless that sacred power of love !"
111. .55. Or where Pericles, after asking
Panainos if he have sacrificed recently to the
Gods, observes —" For thy talents are the
offering, their exercise the sacrifice, and their aim
Heaven's triumph set up in man l" I. 78. Or yet
again, when the:eupatrid felicitates the alien on his
marriage, saying—" Women, my Methion arelike
the flowers round thy brow ; in the spring of life
they are beautiful and gladdening, the fairest orna-
ment that love can used to honour ; in autumn they
are still sweet, though withered, and are the herbs
which give us health."—l. 29. Such are among the
most remarkable features of this remarkable romance
—a story of fine imaginativeness, although of un-
equal excellence. It is the augury rather than the
perfected emanation of genius, for genius alone could
have produced " Amymone."

DEATH OF LOltD MELBOURNE.
We received at a late hour last night, by electric
telegraph, the intelligence of Lord Melbourne's death.
For more than seven years the deceased Peer was First
Lord of the Treasury—a tenure of office much beyond
the average duration of Ministries in the I9th century;
for the Addington, the Grenville, the Portland, the Per-
covet, the Canning, the Goderich, the Wellington, the
Grey, and the Peel Governments—though apparently
based on broadi foundations—were, in fact. composed of i
less durable materials than was that of Viscount Mel-
bourne. Apart, however, from the fact that he was at
the head of the Administration during a certain num-
ber of years, there are connected with his name and cha-
racter a vast variety of traits, incidents, and occurrences
greatly calculated to diversify that which may be called
—without any great violation of propriety—the " life
and adventures" of William Lamb—a man who, in spite
of grave failings,' will now be remembered with approba-
tion for many estimable qualities; whose mirthful sallies
excited the applause of every circle that he entered, and
whose reputed indolence, carelessness, and procrastina-
tion rendered him one of the most tempting objects of
banter that the whole range of political society pre-
sented.
He was born at Melbourne Reuse, London, on the
15th of March, 1779, and was therefore at the time of
his death in the 70th year of his age. His university
education he received, first, at Trinity College, Cam.
bridge, and secondly, at Glasgow, where he studied ju.
risprudence and politics in the class of an eminent
teacher. Professor Millar. In a debating society at-
tached to the class, Mr. Lamb was distinguished amongst
his contemporaries for historical knowledge, consider-
able classical attainments, strong common. sense, and
great pleasantry. At that period of his
,lite he, like
most young men brought up among the IN lugs, was a
prodigious admirer of Mr. Fox, and an acknowledged
disciple of his political school. In return Mr. Fox
warmly patrenz?d Mr. Lamb even before he left Cam-
bridge. He entered as a student at Lincoln's Inn on
the 21st of July, 1797, and was called to the bar on the
23d of November, 1804. Within seven months
from that time he married the Lady Caroline Pon-
sonby. This event took place at the house of the third
Lord Besborough, in Cavendish-square, on the 3d of
June, 1805, the Noble Viscount being in the 28th year
of his age, and his consort in her 21st. The Ponsonbys
are not only a more ancient, but a more dignified, house
than that from which Lord Melbourne was descended,
and the history of his family may be set forth within a
very narrow compass.
Matthew Lamb, of Brocket Hall, in the county of
Hertford, was nephew and joint-heir of Peniston Lamb,
of Lincoln's Inn, and was created a baronet on the 17th
of January, 1755. This worthy personage married
Charlotte, daughter of the Right Hon. Thomas Coke, of
Melbourne, in Derbyshire; the eldest son springing from
this marriage was Sir Peniston Lamb, who married the
only daughter of Sir Ralph Milbanke; and those were
the parents of the Peer to whose memoirs these columns
have been assigned. Sir Peniston was elevated to
the Peerage of Ireland on the Bth of June, 1770, as
Baron Melbourne, and created a Viscount on the
11th of January, 1781. His Lordship received a peerage
of the United Kingdom on the 11th of August, 1815,
and having died on the 22d of July, 1828, he was suc-
ceeded in his title and estates by the Noble Lord whose
sayings and doings now snore immediately engage our
attention.

The matrimonial alliance which Mr. Lamb formed
with Lady Caroline Ponsonby bore every appearance of
an union likely to be crowned with permanent happi-
ness; but in the course of a few years differences of a
very painful kind arose, which ended in a separation.
Lady Caroline Lamb died on the 25th of January, 1828;
and her son, the lion. G. A. F. Lamb, followed her to
the grave on the 27th of November, 1836.
In the year 1805 Mr. Lamb entered the House of
Commons and joined the Whig party, which then car-
ried on the trade of Opposition under the leadership
of the celebrated Charles Fox. He came into Parlia-
ment with very little reputation, and ho never acquired
much fame in the Lower House. Reputed to be indo-
lent, he rarely took any trouble to disprove common
rumour; the appreciation of his talents was therefore
left to " th© discerning few," who when he became
Prime Minister, but not until then—proclaimed that he
had been a great man from his!youth upwards. In justice
to the Whig party, as it existed in 1805, it is only fair
to say that they showed no indisposition to bring for-
ward Mr. Lamb. In 1806 they permitted him to move
the address in answer to the King's Speech ; but
throughout the quarter of a century that followed that
occurrence they never once enjoyed a similar opportunity
of obliging any of their young friends. During this
time, it may be inquired, what was Mr. Lamb about?
He lived a life of fashionable gaiety, yet ho found
some time for politics and reading, but the re-
sults of his labours are not very conspicuous, for
he made no remarkable speeches, nor did he display any
peculiar aptitude for the business of legislation. He re-
presented first the borough of Leominster, in 1805, then
the llacldington district of burghs in 1806, Portarling-
ton in the Parliament of 1807, Peterborough in 1816
and 1818, Hertfordshire in 1819, and again in 1820;
thus, in the short space of 15 years, he found it neces-
sary to seek the suffrages of five different electoral
bodies. He was a sort of semi•liberal, and showed a

decided leaning towards the political views of Mr. Can-
ning, with the single exception of Parliamentary Reform;
theywerelully agreed on free trade, the South Ameri-

can Republics, and-the government of Ireland; therefore

.
Mr. Lamb, though remaining in opposition, frequently
gave the benefit of his vote to Lord Liverpool's Ministry.
Hence it was to have been expected that when Mr.
Canning was commissioned to form a Cabinet, be should
have made overtures to Mr. Lamb, and other Whigs of
. _

the same stamp. Under Mr. Canning, accordingly, he
accepted the office of Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieu-
tenant of Ireland, and in that country the Roman Ca-
tholic party hailed the' advent of sueh a man as William
Lamb with a degree of triumph which was almost ab-
surd. The sort of temporary alienation from the ex-
treme which Mr. Lamb underwent during the years
1827, 1828, and 1829, appears to have reconciled him to
a still closer intercourse with the Tories; and be not only
accepted office under Mr. Canning, but did not desert
Lord Goderich, nay, even remained with the Duke of
Wellington himself. Ho had the sagacity to conjec-
ture that the Duke would soon be under a neces-
sity of treating the Dissenters with " liberality,"
and the Roman Catholics with " conciliation ;" Mr.
Lamb, therefore, perceived that he might not only retain
his office, but act upon his professed principles, thus ac-
complishing the difficult task of reconciling duty with
inclination, and at the same time of securing to himself
the negative enjoyment, which he vastly prized, of
avoiding trouble. But about this period the movement
party both in France and England showed symptoms of
approaching insubordination, and the well-remembered
proposition for disfranchising East Retford came before
the house of Commons. Lord Palmerston, Mr. Grant
(now Lord Glenelg), Mr. Huskisson, and Mr. Lamb
could not, with any show of consistency, refuse to sup-
port this first step in Parliamentary reform; and as the
military Premier never tolerated mutiny Mr. Lamb is
found once more a member of his Majesty's Opposition,
and about the same time he ceased to be a Member of
the House of Commons.

As a speaker, nothing could be more unfortunate than
his early efforts. Ho was, therefore, for many years
flung aside into the mob of incapables, and pronounced
by ordinary observers to be a young man whose case
was hopeless. But the few who knew him intimately
contended that he was one of those who never task their
faculties to the work of dealing with matters of small
moment. It, was said by his admirers—" Place the club
in his hand, and he will become a Hercules; give him
the distaff, and ho makes sad work. Let Wiliam Lamb
only be called to a great undertaking, and he will be-
come s. great man." Neither adverse critics nor partial

friends appear to have anticipated the true character of
his career.
But it was not until he bad obtained a beat in the
Upper House that he ascended to the rank of a political
chieftain. The death of his father and that of his wife
occurring in the course of the same year rendered neces-
sary a more than ordinary degree of attention to his pri-
vate interests, but a new aspect of public affairs speedily
revived his ancient habits, and awoke his slumbering
ambition. The Duke of Wellington having in 1830 de-
clared war against the Reformers, and having expressed
himself unatle to comprehend how the King's Govern-
ment was to be carried on if the representative branch of
the Legislature u:Alerwent any alteration whatever, he
threw up office, and Lord Grey reigned in his stead.
Thereupon Lord Melbourne accepted the seals of the
Home Department, but, fortunately for that department,

his administration of its affairs did not continue much

beyond three years.
During the session of 1834 the King sent for Viscount

V

( Melbourne, and on the 14th of Jniy, 1834, his Lordshili-.,
' announced that he had been authbrised to reconstrugt
the Ministry. But in the month Ofial-ovenibetilie-Ringli
rather unceremoniously called upoti-Ualfinioitrne io
retire from office. Under the advice of the Duke of
Wellington, his Majesty summoned Sir Robert Peel from
Italy, and a very promising attempt was made to form a
Conservative Administration. But " the masses" de-
manded a movement still further in advance; a new
Parliament decided against the sew Government, and
Lord Melbourne was restored. A Government was
thus formed which, in a certain sort of way, held its
ground from April, 1835, till September, 1841, and
during that period Viscount Melbourne was First Lord
of the Treasury.
Lord Melbourne possessed many requisites as a public
speaker. He was once a very handsome man, and
he enjoyed at all times the advantages of a most
prepossessieg appearance, a mellow and flexible voice,
a cheerful temper, and a cordial frankness of
manner, which, notwithstanding that it some-
times degenerated into coarseness, acquired for
him, on the whole, much popularity. But he was
an immethodical speaker; the bubbling current of his rhe-
toric was at best but a turbid stream; his narratives
were unskilful, and his expositions obscure; yet for many
years he contrived with a certain degree of success to
flounder through the business of Ministerial leader in
the House of Lords. The admirers of Lord Grey might
well address Lord Melbourne, and exclaim—" Our
leader carried the Reform Act, abolished negro slavery,
and carried the new Poor-law." The followers of the
Duke of Wellington might show Lord 'Melbourne's
friends the Catholic Relief Act, and reproach his me-
mory with having done nothing to rival it. Those who
admired the Duke's predecessors might point to the
commencement of an enlarged commercial policy, and a
new colonial system; going still further back, they might
boast of cash payments resumed, public credit sustained,
and twenty years of warfare ending in triumph. Against
these the partisans of the easy-minded Viscount may set
off the introduction of a penny postage, a pseudo re-
form in the Irish corporations, an Irish Poor-law, such
as it was, au Irish Tithe Composition Act, the union of
the Canadas, and an abortive attempt to repeal those
corn-laws which his immediate successor abolished in 1846.
On the 22d of June, 1836, an action for crim. con.
was tried in the Court of Common Pleas, the deceased
Peer having been the defendant. The verdict of the
jury was recorded in favour of Lord Melbourne, and
with this brief reference to the fact we resume the nar-
rative of his public life.
His Ministerial career naturally divides itself into two
parts—that which belongs to the reign of William IV.,
and that which was passed under the dominion of Queen
Victoria. Tbo commencement of the new reign, there-
fore, imposed upon Lord Melbourne a novel and rather
a difficult series of duties. That he accomplished his
task with consummate address is attested by the evidence
of facts and the concurrent opinion of all observers. But
his Lordship is entitled to still higher praise, for he
spared no pains to imbue the mind of her Majesty with
a deep sense of the responsibilities attaching to the regal
office; he availed himself of all fitting opportunities to
instruct her in the various duties of her high station; and
as far as it was possible for a Whig of his school, he pre-
sented to her view the leading principles of the British
constitution.
But, though he stood high in the confidence of the
Queen, he was by this time rapidly losing ground in the
estimation of Parliament. The proceedings of that ses-
sion which began in the spring of 1841 decreed the
downfall of his Administration, and even brought the
public career of Lord Melbourne himself to an unex-
pected close. It was thought that many years of vigorous
existence still remained to him, and that when he re-
signed office he intended to place himself at the head of
a formidable Opposition. But, after a few slight efforts,
he ceased to be regular in his Parliamentary attendance;
his health declined, and when be reappeared towards
the close of the session of 1845, he was only the shadow
of his former self, emaciated, feeble, listless, silent ; and,
although in the summer of that year he attended a pub-
lic dinner, where he felicitated his friends on the fact
that Sir Robert Peel was obliged to govern the country
upon those principles which had wrecked the Melbourne
Ministry, he was evidently too indolent or too
cautious to create an opportunity for making
that assertion in the House of Lords. But
his character, and his doctrines, his defeats and his
triumphs, have at length become matters of history.
His jests have grown stale, his principles of action are
exchanged for attractive novelties, his enemies have
learned to forgive—his friends to forget him. Every
one, however, will acknowledge, that with many faults
he combined many good qualities. Although there were
features in his character which the most indulgent of
mankind must condemn, yet his faults might easily have
been carried much further, and aggravated to a far
more vicious excess. It is true that he sometimes mis-
understood and mismanaged important affairs; but he
might have applied to them a perverted and dishonest
ingenuity. He was indolent—he might have been cor-
rupt. He was a man of easy virtue—he might have
been a reckless profligate. He was lavish of titles, but
he did not quite swamp the House of Lords. So, that
though a long list of public men might be produced of
far superior deserts, yet it must be acknowledged that
there have been many worse Ministers and many worse
men than the second Viscount Melbourne.

ADDITIONAL PARTICULARS.
His Lordship expired at ten minutes after six o'clock
on Friday evening, and was conscious up to the last
moment, the following relatives being present at his dis-
solution—Viscount and Viscountess Palmerston, Lord
and Lady Beauvale, the Hon. Mrs. George Lamb, and
Miss Cuyler. The noble deceased had been attacked
about three weeks or a month since by what was con-
sidered a bilious complaint, and was for some days at-
tended by his ordinary medical adviser, Mr. Thomas, of
Hatfield, but symptoms having betrayed themselves of
rather an alarming appearance, Dr. Holland was sent
for from London on the 10th inst., and after that emi-
nent physician making two or three professional visits to
Brocket, he informed the members of the Noble Vis-
count's family of his fears that his Lordship's illness
would prove fatal, although the noble patient might
linger for some weeks.

The deceased William Lamb, Viscount and Baron
Melbourne, of Kilmore, county Cavan, in the peerage
of Ireland; and Baron Melbourne, of Melbourne, county
Derby, in the peerage of the United Kingdom, and a
Baronet of Great Britain, was second son (his elder bro-
ther, the Hon. Peniston Lamb, dying in 1805), of Peniston,
first Viscount Melbourne, and Elizabeth, daughter of
Sir Ralph Milbanke, Bart., of whom Byron (the poet)
expresses such warm regard for her talents and beauty,
as he writes that Lady Melbourne was " the best friend
I ever had in my life, and the cleverest of women;" and
in another part of his works, pronounces her to have
bee❑ so talented that he had " never met with a woman
with half her talent."

The wife of the deceased nobleman acquired muck ce-
lebrity for her literary works, among the best known
was her" Glenarvon," and obtained an equal renown in
the fashionable world. Viscount Melbourne succeeded
to the large estates and title of his father on the death
of that noblemau in July, 1828. The deceased was
educated at Eton College, and afterwards removed to
Trinity College, Cambridge, to complete his studies.
He was then highly distinguished for his clasical attain-
ments, and his cultivated taste for polite literature.
At his entrance in life he was favoured with the friend-
ship of Charles James Fox, who was highly impressed
with his abilities, and gave great expectations of his
future political career, for he was destined by his father
for the senate. Those sanguine anticipations have cer-
tainly not been borne out by subsequent events, nor have
those high opinions been justified from the circumstance
of the deceased Viscount having been Premier, for his
name can never be placed in the same niche of fame as
those of Pitt, Canning, or Peel. _

The late Viscount is succeeded by his brother Lord
Beauvale, the late Ambassador at Vienna. Viscountess
Palmerston was only sister of the deceased.
The families of the Earl and Countess Cowper, Vis-
count and Viscountess Jocelyn, Lord and Lady Ashley,
the Earl of Besborough, Viscount and Viscountess Pal-
merston, Lord de Manley, the Earl Fitzwilliam, the non.
Mrs. Lamb, &c. are placed in mourning by the decease
of the Noble Viscount.