New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1905-04-29

speators of his deeds and to the posterity which
Teafs IN the successes of dplomatst HIS vic
tories made up OF series OF here Gf am an
oSpoTt1ine civty there, Of wise concession at one
of Eeepess tact immovable caimness and patience
that no folly no pT0T tSjnS rc,tne in the exer
else Of excellences such as these. Hst OF such
EXHIBITS lends fascination to narrative.
Writer'S viii not cucumber their pages with a
throng of minute circumstances. when are mol
viduaily trivial though in the aggregaJe tney 6Hect
& s tb and Tade The " result nG5
Dc tounS 20 tb be services OF commander are ceIe
brsted with almost undiminished enthusiasm from
age to age, the services Of diplomaust lade rapid
~ away from a nations memory
There are few students of history who will
not appreciate the justice of those remarks
There are also few who will not see Lord Robert
Cecil before the mirror Of the Marquis of Sails
bury in this portrayal of Castlereagh;
The character of his mind was so different rent, from
lived. by whom he has been succeeded Inat ne
could hardly fail to be ms1uGge1 if fb va" bpbast
order who yet not by that fact forfeit his title
as rule the Imagination or the passions are too
strongly developed to suffer them TO i Eeach the
Something there almost always is that beguiIes
them sW 5S 0 rne Of h world
quently the mass of mankind who have dn a but sI
uncomfortable misgiving when they see genius az
the Clever world is very ntolerant Of plain. prac
teal statesmen. 1t maintains sometimes with very
f is merely because the whole mind stunted too;
and that the claim to practical commonsense is
often only a euphemsm for a narrow intelligence
sratened by abject regard for precedents ana
for routine. AS rule, both sides are right IN Lhe
suspicious they entertain. 1t is rare to meet with
feryid imagnation which IS drilled 70 reserve 1 Is
flights for efforts OF oratory ana 70 give pace EN-
tirely sober faculties in council IL IS sun
rarer to see absolutely unimaginative nina pos
SeSSed OF Inc I tb ties Of troubled period
@ p or xce H produce great and success
full rulers where they occur, and both are APT 10
such combinations Of opposite qualities can exist
Lord Castereagh was good instance or the SeGon4
suffering in the slightest degree from any pas OF
most statesmen Of his time and contemplated
it through mental atmosphere unlimited py the
faintest imaginative hue
! There are many such forecasts Of the Marquis OF
SaIisbury's character and career in Lord Robert
Cecil's interesting pages There was no more
! loyal Kings man" than he, and no more con-
slant champion Of the throne and OF the royaA
family Yet here he scathes the Prince OF
! Wales (the Prince Regent of century ago. as
| bound to his friend Fox "by all the ties that
| unite men who have drunk at the same de-
bauch, and gained at the same tables" and
/ whose income he describes as 1.-The sinews OF
debauchery" In his analysis Of Pitt, disregard
! ing the extreme estimates of Tory and Whig he
| saws 1.-The popularity Of his positiOn-its
| strange and inpregnable strength-lay in the
! contrast between his own character and that OF
his opponents There have been many states
| men with worse characters than Fox, there may
have been some pure as Pitt. But the ex-
tremes have never been contrasted with each
other as they were in that generation. There
never was a time when the reputation of one
rival stood so high while that of the other stood
so low So long as the political and private
characters Of Fox. Sheridan and the Prince OF
Wales remained a foil to his own unim-
peached purity Pitt was unassailable This is
the true key of his unparalleled success" Lord
Salisbury was regarded inveterate and
inexorabIe foe of Russia. Yet Lord Robert, in
one of these essays. makes one of the strongest
arguments ever made in vndication of Rus
sia's conquest of Poland and again he
exerts that terribly effective logic of his
against mere sentimentalists when he recalls
the spoliation Of Russia by Poland and Sweden
| in the early part of the seventeenth century,
| shows that it more wantOn and more cruel
than Russia's later spoliation OF Poland, and
then asks why the world dwells upon the latter
so much while it ignores or forgets the former.
He makes one of the most lucid statements we
have ever seen of the complicated Schleswig-Hol-
! stein controversy, and with more Of the work
| ings Of that cold clear logic-engine" of his
mind he demonstrates that through it all Prus-
STA was moved solely by the desire for self-ag-
grandizement, especially in securing an extend
ed seacoast and thus becoming a maritime
power. Referring to a report made to the Ber-
/
duchies for that purpose. he remarks that "a
more simply formulated reason for stealing
your neighbours property never, perhaps.
before printed in a state paper" No wonder
Bismarck disliked the marquis!
AS a prophet Of events Lord Robert was not
inerrant He was far too optimistic in think
ing that sit is not likely that any future Rus
sian government will renew the barren labor
of attempting by force to 'denationalize' the
TDo1 do he oh yNyney
he said of Germany in January. 1864 in con-
necton with the raid upon Denmark:
One of two alternatives may be safely pre-
| dicted Of the destiny of Germany as a European
| power Either the present subdivision which neu-
tralizes her natural resources will cease and she
the world or elsa far ikelier issue-the present
enthusiasm will exhaust the energies of "A people
suit and Germany will fan back into her old condi-
tion more divided, more stagnant. more impotent
than before, and more helplessly the slave Of Rus
! STA.
Later and only a little later the Marquis Of
Salisbury may well have regretted that Lord
Robert Cecil had penned the parenthetical
phrase in the foregoing quotation. Still, what
prophet has been infallible? Not Aristotle. when
he said slavery would last forever. nor Napoleon,
when he said that within fifty years all Europe
| would be republican or Cossack, nor Meter
MICH when he said Italy would never be any
! thing but a geographical expression, nor Guizot,
when he said there is no morrow for universal
| suffrage nor Rouher. when, just after Montana,
! he said Rome would never become the capital Of
| Italy, Golden, when he said that the con-
version of the world to free trade within fifty
years certain as the rising of the sun,
nor vet Salisbury's famous colleague. DisraeH,
when in 1852 he said: These wretched colonies
will all be independent, too, in few years. and
In any