before. "How can you say so?" said his friend; "why three weeks ago you held the opposite opinion." "Three weeks ago!" replied the Lord Chancellor, with bitter irony, "well, that is a long period to go back. In these times you should inquire what was my opinion in the morning-or perhaps yesterday -but do you really think we can continue in the same mind for three long weeks at a stretch ?"

Sir James Graham, when taunted in the House of Commons with language wholly inconsistent with that which he was then holding, openly defied his accuser "Ask me not," said he, "what I once said. I care not; be content with what I say now," or words to that effect.

Pledges and consistency were thus audaciously repudiated. And, alas! so they continue to be by the statesmen who learnt their lessons in his school. Who would have thought that the statesman who in Parliament in 1835 denounced the policy of Lord John Russell to apply a very small part of the Irish Church revenues to secular purposes-who affirmed "that they had abundant reasons for maintaining that Church, and that if it should be removed, he believed that they would not be long able to resist the Repeal of the Union," who would have thought that he would be the man by the strength of his own right arm to destroy it utterly? But Mr. Gladstone received his education in Sir Robert's school.

"To the evil," says Sir Robert in his Memoir (vol. ii. p. 168), "of severing party connections and of subjecting public men to suspicion and reproach, I was not insensible; but I felt a strong conviction that such evils were light in comparison to the sacrifice of national interests to party attachments, and by deferring necessary precautions against scarcity of food for the purposes of consulting appearances and preserving the show of personal consistency. I feel too that the injury to the character of public men, the admitted evil of shaking confidence in their integrity and honour, would be only temporary; that if a public man resolved to take a course which

if that course were manifestly opposed to his own private and political interests -if he preferred it with all its sacrifices to some other the taking of which would exempt him from personal responsibility, would enable him to escape much obloquy and to retain the good will and favour of his party-I felt, I say, a strong conviction that no clamour and misrepresentation, however sustained and systematic, would prevent the ultimate development of the truth-the acknowledgment that party interests would not have been promoted - the honour of public men would not have been sustained-the cause of constitutional government would not have been served-if a minister had at a critical moment shrunk from the duty of giving that advice which he believed to be the best-and from the incurring every personal sacrifice which the giving of that advice might entail. I felt assured that this ultimate acknowledgment, however tardily made, would amply repair, so far at least as the public interests were concerned, the temporary evil of unjust suspicion and unjust reproach cast upon the motives and conduct of public men."

Such is the reasoning whereby this celebrated statesman contrived to reconcile to himself and to justify to his countrymen the course which he pursued. Now if he had been engaged in the task of governing his country in an office of which he could not divest himself, all this reasoning might be valid; but he assumed two things, which require proof: (1) That the necessary steps to meet the immediate emergency could not have been taken without providing for a distant future. (2) That they could not have been carried out by other statesmen; further, he holds that because he took a course which, he said, "was manifestly opposed to his own private and political interests," therefore his honour could not be impugned. This is sad sophistry. Pledges are binding, although a man may persuade himself that it is against his interest to break them. The maintenance of good faith is not a matter of mere loss or gain; it

either way, by calculations as to personal profit.

To have suspended the law for a time would have been no breach of faith. No pledge whatever could have been given to maintain under any circumstances a law, when maintaining it must have starved the people. To do more was to violate pledges reiterated year by year. Our constitutional government is not so served. No man can serve his country with benefit at the expense of his personal honour. However wise the measure, however just the advantage, it can never compensate to the community at large for the removal or destruction of the great landmarks of right and wrong; and there is no way so effectual for removing those landmarks, as for those in the highest places of trust and honour to think proper to disregard and defy them.

When a friend of Sir Robert's was urging this defence upon the Princess Lieven, and enlarging on the great sacrifice he had made, that lady having patiently listened to the whole argument, quaintly replied, "Quelle dommage qu'on ne peut pas servir sa patrie sans deshonorer soi-même!" Even M. de Jarnac says, "Toute l'affection que j'ai portée a sa personne, toute la vénération que j'ai vouée à sa mémoire, ne sauraient m'aveugler sur l'erreur inconcevable de cette periode critique de sa carrière."

As I have already observed, there was much to admire in the conduct and character of Sir Robert Peel. But the mischief arising from the example which he set has been, and still is, producing baneful effects on the conduct of British statesmen. He was always providing for the means of retreat from the positions which he defended, never feeling confident, in his own mind, that they would long be tenable. And yet, he allowed the crises to come upon him so suddenly, that in spite of having looked forward to them, they found him unprepared, and, even according to his own view, he had to sacrifice either his country or himself.

"His character," said Macaulay to me one day, may be summed up in three words, Caution without foresight.' He assuredly had little foresight, and his deficiency in this quality prevented his caution serving him as it might have done.

It is pleasant, however, to think that the Comte de Jarnac most justly describes as "magnifique, le discours sur la politique étrangère de l'Angleterre prononcé la veille même de sa mort."

Assuredly, the last words which he ever uttered in the House of Commons laid down the soundest principles by which the foreign policy of this country ought to be guided; and it is gratifying to one who is not blind to his faults, to reflect that this, as it were his last legacy to his country, was worthy of a British statesman.

As a judicious and liberal patron of the arts, and for his generosity to poor artists, Sir Robert deserves every commendation. M. de Jarnac is much struck with "les murs couverts des chefs d'oeuvres de Rubens et de Reynolds, soit à Londres, soit à Drayton Manor." But there is one picture by a painter whom he does not name (Sir Thomas Lawrence) to which a curious story attaches. It is a life-like portrait of the Duke of Wellington, which was being painted at the same time with one of Mr. Canning, which likewise formed part of Sir Robert's collection. The two sat for their portraits on different days, and when the Duke's portrait was half finished, he was represented as holding a watch in his hand, waiting for the Prussians at Waterloo. One day when Mr. Canning came to sit, we found that a telescope had been painted over the watch. watch. On inquiring the reason, Sir Thomas said that as soon as the Duke understood what the watch was intended to indicate, he observed: "That will never do. I was not waiting' for the Prussians at Waterloo. Put a telescope in my hand, if you please, but no watch." And the telescope now appears in the present Sir Robert's gallery.

CHAPTER XXV.

AFTER her last night's reflections, Bride was quite ready to acquiesce goodhumouredly, when her brother suggested at breakfast that the journey to London, on which they were to have started the following day, should be postponed till the end of the week, to give their guests time to settle in comfortably, before they were left to Lesbia's care. She was longing for change, for her health and spirits had suffered much from the winter's hard work, but she saw that her consent to remain was received as a great boon by him, and that reconciled her to waiting. She reflected that it might not be long that the granting or refusing favours, on which John's heart was set, would remain in her hands. Her anxiety to gratify him extended so far as to make her take every opportunity that occurred of being with Ellen, and she tested her own generosity by speaking a good deal of John, and taking care that when the cabins were visited and the arrangements for distributing food among the starving people were discussed, all the good results due to his foresight and capacity for administration should be pointed out. She could not speak of John without praising him, but hitherto it had not been her practice to speak often of him; the partnership between them had been too close; she would have felt it like praising herself. Now her sense of proprietorship in him was passing away, she had fairly seen that the joy of his good deeds and the pride of his talents might come to be another's treasure, even more than her own. It was, perhaps, a help that Ellen did not seem in any hurry to take possession.

It was not till she and Bride were returning from the village, where they had spent the greater part of the morning in going from cabin to cabin, that she grudgingly made her first admission.

"You are good managers; there is not nearly so much misery here as in the hovels round Eagle's Edge, and yet you have only used the same means to meet the distress that you have supplied to me. You must have put more thought and care into it, somehow."

"And authority," put in Bride.
"Yes," hesitated Ellen.

"Don't be afraid of saying exactly what you feel," said Bride, noticing a shade of disapproval in Ellen's face.

"Well, don't be vexed at my saying it, but, necessary or unnecessary, I would not have said what you did to Biddy Flanaghan for throwing those few grains of Indian meal to her chickens."

"Few grains! It was a handful. What did I say?"

"You said it was sheer dishonesty ; that she was stealing bread from the mouths of her neighbours' starving children."

"So she was; all waste of food is robbery of the starving just now."

"But it hurt Biddy dreadfully. She has the kindest heart in the world, and would do anything for her neighbours if she thought of it, and she has always been famous for honesty. She was crying under her shawl all the time you were looking about."

"I was looking about to ascertain if the precautions against the fever we insist upon had been properly carried out. If she has such a kind heart as you say, and cares for her neighbours, she will show it better by attending to the rules

than by crying at a word. I am afraid her tears won't prevent her wasting part of the next measure of Indian meal served out to her, and coming back clamouring for more before the proper time."

'No, because, you see, she does not believe what you said; she only thinks you very unjust. She knows she is neither cruel nor dishonest, and she looks upon Indian meal as a sort of horrible stuff sent here in unlimited quantity by government to punish them somehow for their potatoes having failed. She will throw away the next basinful she can lay her hands on with energy, as a protest against the injustice of your opinion of her."

"She is very ungrateful, then, to think more of my opinion of herself than of all the efforts she sees us making for her solid benefit. She ought to put aside any harshness there may seem to be in my words (which after all only call things by the right names), and trust us from seeing what we do. That is what I should call reasonable."

"Ah, but we are not made like that," cried Ellen, "we Irish people. English or Scotch people may be reasonable enough to thrive on solid food, given with heart wounds and stabs to their pride along with it, but we can't."

"Do you mean that you can't take either medicine or food unless it is sweetened by flattery?"

"We cannot thrive on it if it is soured with disregard and contempt. But please excuse me; I did not mean to apply that to anything you have done. I have been looking on all the morning amazed at your kindness, and the people ought to be grateful. My thoughts flew off to larger questions as you spoke, and I was wondering how it is that this foreign charity food is so bitter to those that eat it. Why, we long so that we could have been fed with the abundance of corn our own land brings forth, and that seems, by some machinery we can't understand, to be spirited away from us."

the Nation newspaper, and goes in for its politics, does he not?"

"Yes, and you are not the person to quarrel with a sister for being of the same opinion as her brother," said Ellen, smiling.

Bride could not quarrel with the smile, it was so sweet, though there was a gleam of mischief in it. “I won't quarrel with you," she answered; "but, putting politics aside, I should like to persuade you to modify your last statement. Surely, it is very unsafe to make pride and sentiment the gauge of acceptable benefits. They are dangerous guides, and might lead us to throw away the truest affection and most earnest kindness, labouring for one's highest good, if prejudice came in the way."

She was thinking of Pelham Court, but Bride of course did not know that, and there was a pained gravity in the tone in which she answered "I am sorry to hear you say that," which puzzled Ellen.

They had reached the garden gate by this time, and Ellen stood still to look at the house. The outside, though it had undergone some repairs, was little changed; and just at the moment there was a bustle going on in the court-yard, and a sound of rising voices that brought back old happier times to Ellen's memory. Lesbia's handsome new phaeton had been brought out of the coach-house to be washed, and a concourse of ragged boys and men from the roadside, where they had been working, had collected to watch the operation and assist with suggestions and the occasional more active contribution of a shower of water energetically thrown over wheels or cushions,

CHAPTER XXV.

AFTER her last night's reflections, Bride was quite ready to acquiesce goodhumouredly, when her brother suggested at breakfast that the journey to London, on which they were to have started the following day, should be postponed till the end of the week, to give their guests time to settle in comfortably, before they were left to Lesbia's care. She was longing for change, for her health and spirits had suffered much from the winter's hard work, but she saw that her consent to remain was received as a great boon by him, and that reconciled her to waiting. She reflected that it might not be long that the granting or refusing favours, on which John's heart was set, would remain in her hands. Her anxiety to gratify him extended so far as to make her take every opportunity that occurred of being with Ellen, and she tested her own generosity by speaking a good deal of John, and taking care that when the cabins were visited and the arrangements for distributing food among the starving people were discussed, all the good results due to his foresight and capacity for administration should be pointed out. She could not speak of John without praising him, but hitherto it had not been her practice to speak often of him; the partnership between them had been too close; she would have felt it like praising herself. Now her sense of proprietorship in him was passing away, she had fairly seen that the joy of his good deeds and the pride of his talents might come to be another's treasure, even more than her own. was, perhaps, a help that Ellen did not seem in any hurry to take possession.

It

It was not till she and Bride were returning from the village, where they had spent the greater part of the morning in going from cabin to cabin, that she grudgingly made her first admission.

"You are good managers; there is not nearly so much misery here as in the hovels round Eagle's Edge, and yet you have only used the same means to meet the distress that you have supplied to

me.

You must have put more thought and care into it, somehow."

"And authority," put in Bride.
"Yes," hesitated Ellen.

"Don't be afraid of saying exactly what you feel," said Bride, noticing a shade of disapproval in Ellen's face.

"Well, don't be vexed at my saying it, but, necessary or unnecessary, I would not have said what you did to Biddy Flanaghan for throwing those few grains of Indian meal to her chickens."

"Few grains! It was a handful. What did I say

"You said it was sheer dishonesty ; that she was stealing bread from the mouths of her neighbours' starving children."

"So she was; all waste of food is robbery of the starving just now."

"But it hurt Biddy dreadfully. She has the kindest heart in the world, and would do anything for her neighbours if she thought of it, and she has always been famous for honesty. She was crying under her shawl all the time you were looking about."

"I was looking about to ascertain if the precautions against the fever we insist upon had been properly carried out. If she has such a kind heart as you say, and cares for her neighbours, she will show it better by attending to the rules