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up a proper memorial. They had begun to feel still more aggrieved at the action of the protectorate. Two despatches, written by the lord high commissioner Sir John Young, had been published in the Daily News. These recommended the abandonment of all the islands except Corfu, which might be made a military station or fortress. It was then that the legislative assembly (on the 27th of January, 1859) proposed the annexation of the republic to Greece. When Mr. Gladstone received the report or petition of the committee he despatched to the queen the intelligence that the simple and unanimous will of the Ionian people was for their union with the Kingdom of Greece. The petition was not at once granted, however. Sir Henry

Storks was sent out as lord high commissioner, and Mr. Gladstone returned to England. But the agitation among the people continued, and at length (in 1864), after the Greeks had got rid of King Otho, and a Danish prince had accepted the Hellenic throne, the islands were formally handed over as a part of the kingdom, and the British protectorate came to a peaceful end.

Sir Edward Lytton was not long enough in office to prove his practical statesmanship, but he had given evidences of his ability to settle down to earnest work in an office requiring assiduous attention, and he had succeeded in sustaining his reputation, or rather in adding to a literary reputation which was already world-wide, the claim to be an orator and an able politician. Strictly speaking he was neither one nor the other. He had for some time past been taking a forward part in parliament, and it was pretty well known that on the accession of the Derby party to power he would have some office in the government. His speech on the Reform Bill was, as we have seen, a great success, and even moved the admiration of Disraeli-nay, it was received by the house with a tempest of applause, and the cheering was twice renewed. Doubtless the speech was admirable in construction and illustration, and the declaration "the popular voice is like the grave: it cries 'give, give,' but like the grave it never returns what it receives," was hailed with enthusiastic

appreciation, but the words were heard with difficulty, or were not heard at all by listeners at a distance.

It is recorded by a writer who was in the house on that occasion, that the sentence that reached him was "the popular yah! is like the grah! it cries 'yah! yah!' but like the grah! it never returns." The speaker was not only deaf, but suffered from defective articulation, the result, perhaps, partly of impediment and partly of the remains of a former fashionable drawl. By the time Sir Edward had reached the end of a sentence his voice had as it were dropped under the table, and its sounds had become almost inarticulate except to those within a few feet of it. But at this time Lytton had determined to add to his achievements that of a parliamentary success, and this he accomplished in spite of physical disqualifications, and, it may be added, without having professed or adopted any pronounced political creed. He had, as we have already noted, begun life somewhat as Disraeli did, as a sentimental Radical, and indeed it was he who had introduced Disraeli and O'Connell. Before the passing of the Reform Bill he represented St. Ives, afterwards he sat for Lincoln till 1841, when he was defeated and remained out of parliament till July, 1852. It was well, perhaps, that he had these ten years to devote to literature, or, at all events thousands of readers all over Europe and in America may well have thought so, for with almost unbounded industry he had produced some of his most striking novels during that period. His fame had already been established, but it was not consolidated until after the early days, when, in common with many of the young aspirants of his time, he was equally noted as a dandy and an author. At oneand-twenty (in 1826) he had left Cambridge, whither he had gone without any of the intermediate rough discipline of a public school. The appearance that year of a volume of poems entitled Weeds and Wild Flowers meant very little; his first novel, Falkland, which was published anonymously in 1827, caused some curiosity; and when in 1828 Pelham appeared, it at once established the author's success. That was a remarkable year in which

SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON.

Pelham and Vivian Gray both appeared to mark the first important step in the lives of two young men who were afterwards to occupy such prominent places in the story of political and intellectual progress. But Disraeli made politics his career, while Bulwer, after several years in which parliamentary duties were not allowed to prevent his advance in the world of letters, was in 1844 removed from the necessity of becoming a politician by profession, in consequence of his succession to the Knebworth estates by the death of his mother. He had been created a baronet by Lord Melbourne in 1835, and his social rank no less than his attainments had marked him for the honour. Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer was the son of General William Earle Bulwer of Heydon Hall, Norfolk, and his mother was the only daughter and heiress of Richard Warburton Lytton of Knebworth in Hertfordshire, so that on his succeeding to that property, which was worth about £12,000 a year, he took the maternal name, and became known as Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton; a change which provoked a good deal of jesting in Punch and other humorous publications. Sir Edward must have been pretty well accustomed to the comic satirists, however, for his name was continually in their mouths for the period between 1845 and 1860. Certain references to the "truthful" and the "beautiful," and several rather inflated modes of expression in some of his works, were considered fair subjects for burlesque, and his personal peculiarities of dress and manner did not escape laughing criticism, while his own satirical writings, including the polished and brilliant verses of St. Stephen's and the later hits of The New Timon provoked repeated attacks and reprisals.

Thackeray in the Yellowplush Papers introduces Sir Wedwad-Lytton-Bullwig as one of the guests at the dinner where the literary footman waited at table; and it will be long before Tennyson's vigorous retort upon the author of The New Timon for an attack upon him will be forgotten by those who read it at the time of its publication, and noted the bitter scornful references to the assumption of the name of the rugged satirist by "the man

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who wears the stays"-the lion "who shakes a mane en papillotes." But these sarcasms did not obliterate the appreciation of Lytton's genius; nor had his contemporaries forgotten the ringing lines in which, in 1846, in the same poem, he had referred to Lord Stanley ·

"The brilliant chief irregularly great,

Frank, haughty, rash-the Rupert of debate. Nor gout nor toil his freshness can destroy, And time still leaves all Eton in the boy. First in the class, and keenest in the ring, He saps like Gladstone, and he fights like Spring." Spring was, of course, the famous "Tom Spring," a well-known champion light-weight boxer, of gentlemanly manners, who for some time kept a famous coaching tavern on Holborn Hill, and was something of a dandy. It is curious to note that "The Rupert of Debate" afterwards became a common expression as applied to the Earl of Derbymore remarkable still, that the term was really originated by Disraeli, who, in 1844 (nearly two years before The New Timon was published), in the discussion which followed the charges brought against Sir James Graham by Mr. Ferrand, had said of Lord Stanley: "The noble lord in this case, as in so many others, first destroys his opponent, and then destroys his own position afterwards. The noble lord is the Prince Rupert of parliamentary discussion; his charge is resistless; but when he returns from the pursuit he always finds his camp in the possession of the enemy." Disraeli said few better things than this. But Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer Lytton, for that was his full denomination, had outlived much and achieved much, before he again returned to parliament in 1852. Not that he had altogether outlived remarkable peculiarities which at one period seemed likely to be developed into mental extravagances if not aberrations, but he had succeeded in establishing a second reputation. His romantic novels, and especially Ernest Maltravers, The Pilgrims of the Rhine, and The Last Days of Pompeii, had been read and translated all over the world. His dramas of The Lady of Lyons and Money were to keep the stage and to be popular through repeated revivals. He had long left sentimental Radicalism behind, and had

developed into a Conservative so moderate that he might have passed into office with the Whigs, since he concurred with the general policy of Lord Derby, would have readjusted the income-tax, mitigated the duties on malt, tea, and soap, had given up "the ballot" because of its alleged inefficiency in France and America, supported education on a religious basis, and would vote for a repeal of the Maynooth grant.

We have said he had achieved a second success. In 1850 he entered on a new literary career by the publication of The Caxtons, and in that and one or two succeeding works will be found those vivid pictures of contemporary life and manners with which his later reputation came to be chiefly identified. At the time of the Derby administration of 1859 he had also lost much that was singular in his appearance, though he could never lose that strange eager plaintive look that bespoke a highly strung organization, nor the worn expression, which, with his meagre frame, told of poor health and perhaps of an overwrought imagination. But there were other anxieties. Like Lord Melbourne he was not altogether happy in his marriage. Between him and Lady Lytton, who was the daughter of Mr. Francis Massey Wheeler, of Lizzard Connel, Limerick, there had arisen differences, which he accounted for on the ground of his wife's mental aberration. They were at all events sufficient to lead to a separation, and it was no light addition to the troubles of weak health, increased deafness, and nervous disorder, that Lady Lytton was the most merciless and denunciatory of all his critics, and assailed him in novels and sketches with persistent invective.

It may easily be supposed, however, that Lord Lytton himself was often "incompatible," and those who knew him could trace in his temperament, just that peculiar sensitiveness which might easily lead to extreme nervous irritability. His imagination, also, showed occasional signs of an irregularity, which, with his tendency to dwell on the preternatural, was likely to degenerate into occasional superstitions. Readers of "Zanoni" or of "A Strange Story," which appeared in Dickens' All the

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"Lord Lytton was very fond of whist, and he and I both belonged to the well-known Portland Club, in which were to be found many of the celebrated players of the day. He never showed the slightest disposition of a gambler. He played the game well, and without excitement or temper, and apparently his whole attention was concentrated upon it; but it was curious to see that at every interval that occurred in the rubbers, he would rush off to a writing table, and with equally concentrated attention proceed with some literary work until called again to take his place at the whist table. There was a member of the club, a very harmless, inoffensive man, of the name of Townend, for whom Lord Lytton entertained a mortal antipathy, and would never play whist whilst that gentleman was in the room. He firmly believed that he brought him bad luck. I was witness to what must be termed an odd coincidence. One afternoon when Lord Lytton was playing, and had enjoyed an uninterrupted run of luck, it suddenly turned, upon which he exclaimed, 'I am sure that Mr. Townend has come into the club.' Some three minutes after, just time enough to ascend the stairs, in walked this unlucky personage. Lord Lytton, as soon as the rubber was over, left the table and did not renew the play."

From the same book we learn that Lytton was extremely interested in criminal investigations. "I could always obtain his attention," says Mr. Ballantine, "when I related any of those in which I had myself been engaged, and in novels that he had written previous to my acquaintance with him he had used the records of crime in their construction. The history of a person named Wain

SIR H. CAIRNS-MR. ROBERT LOWE.

wright had furnished incidents very similar to those related in the novel of Lucretia.

He told me himself that the charac

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any rate, his tall commanding figure, added to great tact and command of language and gesture, gave effect to what, in a less accom

ter of the banker in The Disowned was sug-plished speaker, would have failed to arrest gested by Fauntleroy."

The Wainwright here referred to was the famous "Janus Weathercock," who poisoned friends and relatives in order to procure the money for which he had induced them to insure their lives, the policies having been made over to himself.

But Lord Lytton's scholarship and his best literary faculty were still in the ascendant during the time that we are now considering. He had been elected Lord Rector of the Glasgow University in 1856, and, as we have said, had then (in his fiftieth year) entered into a second career of fame and of influence in the domain of thought if not in the arena of politics.

Sir Hugh M'Calmont Cairns, whose support of the Derby Reform Bill had been mentioned with such deep appreciation by Disraeli, had already so distinguished himself, that his appointment to the office of solicitor-general under the Conservative administration had been generally expected. He represented Belfast, which had returned him in 1852, so that his parliamentary distinction was rapid, and was afterwards completed by his becoming attorney-general in 1866, a peer and lord-justice in 1867, lord high-chancellor in Disraeli's first administration in 1868 and again in 1874, and an earl in 1878. It need scarcely be said that his eloquence was already famous in the house before his appointment to the solicitor-generalship in 1858, for at about that time Bulwer wrote of him in metaphor sufficiently stilted

"Still when Cairns rises, tho' at break of day, The sleepers wake and feel rejoiced to stay, As his clear reasonings in light strength arise, Like Doric shafts admitting lucent skies."

Sir Hugh Cairns possessed the eminently desirable faculty of stating a case with remarkable clearness and accuracy, and his knowledge of the law was believed by his friends to be profound and extensive. At

so much attention, and Sir Hugh M'Calmont Cairns was regarded not only as a man on the road to great honours, but as the strength of the Conservative government.

The name of Mr. Robert Lowe1 has already been mentioned, and it had became familiar to commercial politicians in connection with the resolution introduced by Mr. Collier and passed in 1854, pledging parliament to a modification of the law of partnership, which would enable persons to embark in commercial enterprise without assuming a liability for an amount larger than their interest in the undertaking. This resolution and its result in the bill which was passed on the 14th of August, 1855, limiting the liabilities of shareholders in joint-stock companies, changed the entire aspect of a large number of important enterprises, and found a powerful friend and advocate in Mr. Lowe, who, though he had warned Lord Derby that he would not be able "to stem the tide of democracy," had not distinctly attached himself to either party in the house. He had held no place in the ministry, but it was evident that he would soon occupy a prominent position in parliament, where he had taken office almost immediately after his election for Kidderminster in 1852. Mr. Lowe was a man who was sure to be marked for official life, for he had come-with a reputation already made-from Australia, where he had successfully practised as a barrister, and sat in the council of the colony from 1843 to 1850. But he had been known as a scholar long before he left Oxford to go to the Antipodes. His father was the Rev. Robert Lowe, rector of Ringham in Nottinghamshire, and he was educated for Oxford, where he graduated in high honours in 1833 when he was twenty-two years of age. In 1835 he was elected a fellow of his college and became a private tutor, but was called to the bar in 1842, and at once set out for

1 Now Lord Sherbrooke.

Australia. From December 1852 to January 1855 he was one of the joint secretaries of the Board of Control, after which he occupied the position of vice-president of the Board of Trade and paymaster-general, retiring from which in 1858 he became vice-president of the Education Board in 1859, when he had exchanged the representation of Wiltshire for that of Colne. He was then coming more decidedly into the active political life of parliament, and we shall presently hear of him, and of the eccentric course which he more than once pursued in relation to prominent questions.

The Duke of Argyle, who had held the office of postmaster-general from 1855 to 1858 and now as lord privy-seal took his place in the ministry of Lord Palmerston, had been more distinguished in the world of letters than in that of practical politics; but his intellectual training and a certain faculty for incisive criticism well fitted him for taking a prominent part in the consideration of some important questions which were occupying attention. He had been Chancellor of the University of St. Andrews in 1851 and Rector of Glasgow University in 1854, and before the earlier of these dates had published an able essay on "The Ecclesiastical History of Scotland since the Reformation," which was followed by several other pamphlets on religious or ecclesiastical subjects. It is needless to say that the position held in the country by George John Douglas Campbell represented a wide social influence, if not a strong political following. The time had perhaps gone by when the descendant of Diarmid and MacCallum More was powerful, because he was the chief of a great clan; but to be the hereditary head of a large and influential family, of historical rank and distinction, was still sufficient to command an important place in the state, especially when the holder of the title had given proofs of remarkable ability for taking his part in the council of the nation.

In 1844 his grace married the charming and accomplished Lady Elizabeth Georgiana Leveson Gower, eldest daughter of the Duke

of Sutherland, and this union, of the hereditary master of the royal household in Scotland with the daughter of the beautiful Duchess of Sutherland, mistress of the robes, may naturally have brought the family of the Campbells into that intimate domestic relation to the children of the queen, which resulted in the alliance of the Princess Louise and the Marquis of Lorne. This, however, belongs to a later date, and is mentioned here chiefly because it has been believed that the peculiar position occupied by the Duke of Argyle has necessarily, or at least properly, acted in restraint of his taking so prominent a place in the political arena as he might otherwise have assumed.

There were three Campbells in the field in 1859, for the venerable lord chief-justice was still living, and the young law student of Lincoln's Inn-who, in the year 1800, had helped out his small allowance by reporting for the Daily Chronicle, was now lord-chancellor at eighty years of age, with an untarnished reputation for clear judgment and extraordinary acuteness, and a passion for work which had enabled him to devote his brief leisure to the production of two remarkable books, The Lives of the Chief Justices and The Lives of the Lord Chancellors. Lord Campbell was still vigorous, and intellectually capable of taking one of the highest and most responsible offices in the realm. His only rivals, both in vigour and intensity at an advanced age, were the venerable Lord Lyndhurst, who was still full of fire, though he had to lean on the back of the seat in front of him when he rose to speak in the House of Lords:-and Lord Brougham, who was yet to be seen walking across the lobby, not to the House of Commons but to the Lords, with his looselyhanging, ill-fitting clothes, his hat pulled tight down over his great prominent forehead. Old he certainly looked, for he had passed his eighty-first year, but to the friend on whose arm he hung he talked volubly enough.

He still had the wonderful faculty not only of knowing something about everything, but of being able to talk about anything, and he still possessed the power of sleeping at will,

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