THE fairies were very kind to Henry John Temple as
he lay in his cradle in October 1784, One wished him
brains and another zest for using them; a third added
optimism and kindliness, a fourth bestowed a powerful
constitution in a powerful physique. Yet another came
forward to endow him with ancient lineage and an assured
position in society -- the more assured in being backed by a
title and sufficient, if not superabundant, wealth. Again,
early initiation into a world where gaiety ran hand in hand
with intellectual and artistic: achievement was assured the
infant through a father who enjoyed a comfortable footing
there; while wise guidance in his early years was guaran-
teed through a mother in whom sense and maternal affection
were combined. Nor was this all that the fairies brought
by any means. For extraordinary opportunity was laid
before this child of fortune in the very time chosen by
Providence for his birth. Before him stretched a great
period of experiment and discovery in politics. English
statesmen and their parties, shaken already in some of their
traditional convictions by events that had transpired in
India, Ireland, and America, awakening gradually to the
presence of new ideas in the air, and commencing to adjust
themselves to a changing economic world, were about to
find their beliefs and policies subjected to the still more
searching tests produced by the era of the French Revolu-
tion and the first Napoleon. Already there were new

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