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so glorious a termination. Lord Londonderry discusses at considerable length Lord Castlereagh's diplomatic movements at Chatillon, and afterwards at Paris and Vienna. That the arrangements entered into by the Congress should have preserved peace so long among the principal European powers is no slight evidence of the good faith of the parties to the contract, and, above all, tells favourably for England and her representative, who was in the proud position of arbiter between contending

nations.

"In the year 1821, on the decease of his father, Lord Castlereagh became Marquess of Londonderry. The political horizon had at this time become overcast. A Congress was to be held at Vienna and Verona on the affairs of Spain; the insurrection of Greece had also rendered the position of England between Russia and the Porte very ticklish and difficult; and the continuance of disturbances in Ireland excited uneasiness. Under these circumstances, the strong mind of Lord Londonderry, harassed by Parliamentary warfare, and worn out by incessant toil, began to break down."

Lord Castlereagh's attention to business was unremitting. He himself wrote the draft of every despatch from the Foreign Office. Towards the end of the Session, his health manifestly declined. It had been arranged that he should represent England at a Congress to be held at Vienna on the affairs of Spain; and labo- . rious as was the duty which this involved, he looked forward to change of scene and occupation as likely to afford relief and recreation. There was over his mind a haunting feeling of some coming illness. He had been suffering from gout at the close of the Session, and apprehended the increase of the disease, if not speedily arrested, as likely to interrupt public business, and interfere with the King's visit to Scotland, and his own attendance at Congress. Medicines were administered for the purpose of lowering the system, but they brought on depression of spirits and nervous fever. His handwriting, in general remarkable for its neatness, was so changed a few days before his death, that the official documents which he wrote or subscribed were scarce legible to those best acquainted with the character of his hand. Still, the thought of his mind being affected did not occur to any one till it was observed, at the same Cabinet council, by the King and the Duke of Wellington. The King wrote to Lord Liverpool on the subject. The Duke communicated with Castlereagh's physician. This was on Saturday. The physician ordered him to the country, and followed him thither the next day. "Early on Monday morning, he was hastily summoned to Lord Londonderry, who was in his dressing-room, but before he could reach it, his patient had committed the fatal act, and life was almost immediately extinct."

Our biographer, before tracing the private character of his brother, calls us for a moment to dwell on that of his father, who appears to have been an estimable country gentleman, living on his own estate, dealing reasonably with his tenants, and assisting the poor in seasons of distress-practising virtues which endeared him to the persons among whom he resided, but which are not, we trust, so rare in Ireland as to distinguish him from a thousand others. His example is described as operating on his son—our Lord Castlereagh-the second Marquess. Some improvements in the town of Castlereagh, from which his title is taken, are described as Lord Castlereagh's work. He assisted in building a Roman Catholic chapel there, and he built one at Strangford. He is described by Lord Londonderry as a munificent patron of letters. He aided the Belfast Academy with his countenance and his money, and wrote papers in its praise in a magazine called the Belfast Athenæum. He helped Bunting to bring out his collection of "Irish melodies ;" and what surprises us very much, "the translations from Carolan [in Bunting's Melodies] were moulded into their present shape by his masterly hand.”

"He was the means of establishing in Dublin a 'Gaelic Society,' the object of which was to encourage writers in the ancient Erse, and translations from scarce works in verse and prose. This Society went on well for some time; and a volume of their proceedings was printed, highly creditable to all who had contributed towards it. Theophilus O'Hannegan was the secretary, a man who was quite a genius, and a scholar of unrivalled attainments, but who possessed not an atom of discretion. The removal of Lord Castlereagh to England withdrew his attention from this local institution, and it was in consequence discontinued. The last service he rendered it was releasing poor O'Hannegan from the sheriff's, where he was confined for a considerable debt."

"A munificent patron of letters." We are not quite disposed to assent to this praise, though we are glad Lord Londonderry has recorded it. It shows ludicrously enough what great men mean when they speak of rewarding letters. Lord Londonderry thinks his brother's patronage of men of genius one of his great claims on the admiration of the public, and he produces as a proof of it that he encourages writers in the ancient Erse, and releases from the sheriff a writer whom he admires. O'Hannegan may have been a fitting object of charity, and to have paid his debts may have proved Lord Castlereagh's consideration for his creditors-for the poor fellow does not seem to have got anything for himself. That this should be solemnly recorded as a proof of a British minister's patronage of genius is too bad.

The following details of his personal habits are worth preserving:

"In his house he was never heard to murmur at anything, nor was he ever known to speak in a harsh or hasty manner to any of his servants, whom he had not changed for years. He was of abstemious habits, often tasting of but few dishes, and taking moderately of wine. He generally dressed himself without assistance. When in the country, and without company, he always retired early to his library, where he usually remained two or three hours, and retired to bed without supper. His usual hour for rising was seven in the winter, and in summer, five in the morning, never omitting to walk before breakfast when the weather admitted of it. He was fond of planting, pruning, and grafting with his own hands, and his parterre of native and exotic flowers at Cray-farm was choice, though not extensive.

"Political despatches, which daily arrived, were disposed of by him with the utmost order, exactness, and regularity, and his visitors scarcely missed his company while he attended to them. At public worship he was a regular attendant, and had prayers read in his family once every day, sometimes in the morning, but oftener in the evening. Field sports he abandoned long before his death; but he had a kennel of pointers and greyhounds. His ear for music was excellent, and though an indifferent player on the violoncello, he would often sit down and take part in a concerto, and join in any music that was going on.

"He was very tenacious of all his early friendships. The Earl of Bristol and the late Mr. Holford were the most dear to him. His mind was much fixed on putting upon record the history of the Union, and the events which immediately preceded it-in fact, of his own administration in Ireland. It was a project which I know he had very much at heart, and it was often talked of to some gentlemen of reputation as men of letters in Ireland. One of these, a particular friend of Lord Castlereagh's, declined the undertaking, because he could not conscientiously, and as he thought, satisfactorily execute it in the sense of the minister-and yet their friendship continued uninterrupted.

"In stature he was nearly six feet high, and his manners were perfect, his features commanding. His appearance, when full-dressed, was particularly graceful; and at the coronation of George the Fourth he was remarked for the graceful dignity of his mien and manner, which, as I have heard it more than once observed, might well have caused him, when in the robes of the Garter, to be mistaken for the Sovereign. Although a courtier, yet in private life no man could be less assuming, and his affability at once dissipated that timidity which intercourse with high rank sometimes produces."

An exceedingly interesting part of Lord Londonderry's work is that in which he replies to Lord Brougham's account of Lord Castlereagh in his "Statesmen of the reign of George the Third." Among the many infelicitous sketches in that very amusing book perhaps that which is of least value is that of Lord Castlereagh. By him Castlereagh is represented as a man of the meanest powers, of the most vulgar and arrogant pretensions. The passages which

Moore and Byron have hitched into rhyme as specimens of his oratory are put forward with all the gravity of a witness. We suppose there was ground enough for such jokes, and the ground being once laid jokes enough would be perpetrated; but Lord Castlereagh was, on the whole, a graceful and effective speaker; and it is to be remembered that the task of inculpation is always an easy one, and even where the means of defence are most perfect there must be often reasons for silence that can scarcely be fittingly assigned, and that this often places a Cabinet Minister in a situation of such perplexity that it may be even a dexterous escape from worse dangers to expose himself to the arrows of the witlings. In Brougham's sketch there is one important acknowledgment that all the personal imputations of cruelty against Lord Castlereagh in Ireland were mere calumny. Lord Londonderry has published a number of very interesting letters, to show the estimate in which Lord Castlereagh was held by the greatest men of his time. We wish we could abridge these letters, but so much depends on the very words in which they are written, that could even the facts recorded be preserved, the impression which they leave of the affection with which this great statesman was regarded by his friends would be lost.

In one letter of Lord Wellesley, he dwells on the aid given by Lord Castlereagh to sustain him in his Indian policy, and refers to his despatches from India in support of this statement.

"But I must add," he says, "one circumstance which does not appear in these despatches. During the whole of my administration he never interfered in the slightest degree in the vast patronage of our Indian empire, and he took especial care to signify this determination to the expectants by whom he was surrounded and to me. In his published despatches many examples occur of great abilities and statesman-like views, and they are all written in a style more worthy of imitation than of censure.

"From the year 1812 I had no intercourse with your brother until the close of the year 1821, when I was called to undertake the arduous charge of Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. On that occasion I had repeated private interviews with your brother, whose sentiments on the subject of Ireland were of the most liberal description, most favourable to all the just views and interests of our Roman Catholic fellow-subjects, and most practically beneficial to the general welfare, happiness, and prosperity of Ireland. He was thoroughly conversant with every circumstance relating to Irish affairs, and he was most sincerely and faithfully attached to the cause of Ireland."

Sir Walter Scott and Alison are quoted, and each expresses that high admiration of Lord Castlereagh which will soon become the fixed conviction of all sober-judging men, of whatever party. A sentence of Mr. Croker's describes him well:

"Of Lord Londonderry [Castlereagh] Mr. Wilberforce seemed

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at first to have formed a very low, and we need not add, a very erroneous opinion; but when his Lordship's situation became more prominent, and his character better defined, that polished benevolence, that high and calm sense of honour, that consummate address, that inflexible firmness, and that profound and yet unostentatious sagacity, won the respect and confidence of Wilberforce, as they did of reluctant senates at home, and of suspicious cabinets abroad."

A letter of Lord Ripon's-too long for us to quote-gives a very striking proof of Lord Castlereagh's presence of mind and instant decision, in a case of considerable difficulty. To his insisting on reinforcing Blücher after his first march to Paris, with two corps of Russians and Prussians, belonging to Bernadotte's army, without a communication with Bernadotte, Lord Ripon attributes the success of the battle of Laon. The difficulty was regarded as insurmountable. "He was at the council when the matter was discussed. The moment he understood that, militarily speaking, the proposed plan was indispensable to success, he took his line. He stated that, in that case, the plan must be adopted, and the necessary orders immediately given; that England had a right to expect that her allies would not be deterred from a decisive course by any such difficulties as had been urged; and he boldly took upon himself the responsibility of any consequences as regarded the Crown Prince of Sweden. His advice prevailed; Blücher's army was reinforced in time; the battle of Laon was fought successfully; and no further efforts of Buonaparte could oppose the march of the Allies on Paris, and their triumphant occupation of that city."

How he was appreciated by his colleagues in the Cabinet, we learn from a letter of Sir Charles Wetherall.

"I remember as well as yesterday meeting Eldon the morning when the despatches came over giving an account of the battle of Laon. I met him in the passage near the Chancellor of the Exchequer's house in Downing Street, going into the Park. We walked together through the Park; he was in the highest spirits, and said, 'I have been in the Foreign Office, on purpose to read over the Despatches at my leisure.' He then said, with the energy which you will recollect he used when his mind was intent on any idea, We are indebted to Castlereagh for everything. I verily believe that no man in England, but Castlereagh could have done what he has.'"

We cannot omit the words of Sir Robert Peel:-" I doubt whether any public man, (with the exception of the Duke of Wellington,) within the last half century, possessed the combination of qualities, intellectual and moral, which would have enabled him to effect, under the same circumstances, what Lord