prudent, patient, and equitable, and better acquainted
than any other person with the interests and diplo-
matic traditions of Europe; Lord Ellenborough, the
most brilliant of the Tory orators. In the House of
Commons, Lord Stanley, whom the noble leader of the
Whigs, Lord Grey, told me in 1840, that he regarded
as the most direct descendant of the great oratorical
school of Pitt and Fox; Sir James Graham, an emi-
nent administrator, a fertile and animated reasoner,
full of resources in debate; around them a group of
men still young, yet already highly distinguished --
laborious, enlightened, sincere, and devoted, -- Mr.
Gladstone, Lord Lincoln, Mr. Sidney Herbert, Sir
William Follett; behind this political staff, a nume-
rous majority, trained by ten years of conflict, con-
tented and proud of their recent triumph; and at the
head of this powerful party and this great Cabinet,
Sir Robert Peel, an undisputed leader, tried and
accepted by all, surrounded by public esteem, invested
with all the authority of character, talent, experience,
and victory. Never perhaps had a First Minister
united at his accession so many elements and guaran-
tees of a safe and strong government.

But he was called on to perform the most difficult
of tasks -- a task essentially incoherent and contradic-
tory. He was obliged to be at once a Conservative
and a Reformer, and to carry along with him, in this
double course, a majority incoherent in itself, and
swayed, in reality, by immovable and untractable
interests, prejudices, and passions. Unity was want-
ing to his policy, and union to his army. His position

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