The Bee-Hive. — 1876-02-19 (London, England)

THE LATE LORD PALMERSTON.  The Life of Lord Palmerston, begun by Lord Balling, has been completed by Mr. Evelyn Ashley, chiefly by means of letters and other documents. The letters have the gaiety and perfect naturalness of the writer, and, as all would expect, full of practical point, and of sound sense, good humour, homely illustration, and plain English. He hated French words in British despatches, and counselled young diplomatists to avoid them. One such he described as a bad retriever that would not let go his game without getting a rap on the nose. Another was a backbiter, but he made up for disparagement of others by praises of himself. Of the Turks, he once said, "What energy can be expected from a people  with no heels to their shoes ? " "The Austrians," he told Lord Ponsonby, "were the greatest brutes that ever called themselves civilized men." He regarded many of the Irish priesthood as instigators to murder, denouncing by name particular persons, and making the people think the deed a holy one instead of diabolical. "I trust," he wrote, "that some of these murderers will be taken; and, if we could but get a priest in the lot it would be like a ptarmigan in a bag of grouse, or a pied, or a ring-necked pheasant in a battue."  Of the late Emperor Louis Napoleon, he writes to Lord Cow Thy, "The Emperor's mind seems as full of schemes as a warren is full of rabbits, and, like rabbits, his schemes go to ground for the moment to avoid notice or antagonism." His trueness to the cause of negro liberty was shown in a letter to Lord John Russell. "No First Lord and no Board of Admiralty," he said, "have ever felt any interest in the suppression of the slave trade, or taken of their own free will any steps towards its accomplishment; and whatever they have done in compliance with the wishes of others they have done grudgingly and imperfectly. If there was a particularly old, slow-going tub in the navy, she was sure to be sent to the coast of Africa to try to catch the fast-sailing American clippers; and, if there was an officer notoriously addicted to drinking, he was sent to a station where rum is a deadly poison. Things go on better now; but still there is at the Admiralty an invincible aversion to the measures necessary for putting down the slave trade. These prejudices are so strong with the naval officers of the Board, that the First Lord can hardly be expected not to be swayed by them." Of this thorough Englishman's last days, his biographer gives a touching account. "One morning, about a fortnight before he died, I witnessed an incident very characteristic of the man. There were some high railings immediately opposite the front door, and, coming out of the house without his hat, ho went straight up to them after casting a look all round to see that no one was looking. Ho then climbed deliberately over the top rail down to the ground on the other. side, turned round, climbed back again, and went indoors. It was clear he had come out to test his strength and find out how far he was gaining or losing ground. Not that he had any excessive dread of death, for, as he put it one day, in homely fashion, to his doctor when pressing for a frank opinion as to his state, When a man's time is up, there is no use in repining.' The most touching and characteristic feature of his bearing was his solicitude to avoid adding to Lady Palmerston's anxiety. Indeed, consideration for others was, as in life so in death, one of his finest qualities. Only a few days before his end, when he appeared as ill as a man could be when about and at work, Lady Palmerston, at breakfast, alluded to the cattle plague, then making great havoc. He remarked that all the symptoms were described by Virgil, and repeated some eight lines out of the Georgics descriptive of the disease. A chill caught, while out driving, brought on inflammation of the kidney?,; and on the 18th of October, 1865, within two days of completing his eighty-first year, he closed his earthly career. The half-opened cabinet-box on his table, and the unfinished letter on his desk, testified that be was at his post to the last."