the very gate of office; and after the Whigs had retained office a year longer, in February, 1852, the Conservative chief, who, meanwhile, had succeeded his father as fourteenth Earl Derby, accepted the responsibilities of office, and constructed a cabinet. Having succeeded in unravelling the tangled web-so says an aristocratic admirer-of government difficulties, financial and diplomatic, created by his predecessors, he was obliged to retire before the usual combination of Whig and Radical partisans.

In 1852, on the death of the Duke of Wellington, Lord Derby was elected Chancellor of the University of Oxford.

On the fall of the coalition cabinet, in 1855, the earl declined to undertake the duties of government, on the ground that the only ministry he could have formed would have been dependent for existence on the forbearance of his foes.

His lordship was ably supported by Mr. Disraeli, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, whose extraordinary eloquence in debate, and influence in the cabinet, obtained for him the lead of the House of Commons; and by Mr. Walpole, who, as Home Secretary, if without the more brilliant qualifications of his colleague, showed that he was well fitted for office, and that his character was strongly marked by honesty of purpose, and devotion to his duties. The Lord Chancellor was Sir F. Thesiger; the President of the Council, Marquis of Salisbury; Foreign Secretary, Lord Malmesbury; Colonial Secretary, Lord Stanley; War Department, General Peel; President of the Board of Trade, Mr.. Henley; President of the Board of Control, Earl of Ellenborough; Lord Privy Seal, Earl of Hardwicke ; Board of Works, Lord John Manners, famed all the world over for his unfortunate couplet

"Let learning, laws, and commerce die,

But save, oh save our old nobility."

The First Lord of the Admiralty was Sir John Pakington, an amiable and excellent man, a sound churchman, a fair debater-nothing inore.

Next to Mr. Disraeli, Lord Stanley is the most able of the new ministry-the one most esteemed and respected in the House or out. His lordship, the eldest son of Earl Derby, was born in 1826; and was educated at Rugby, and Trinity College, Dublin, where he was first-class classics, besides taking mathematical honours, and gaining a declamation and other prizes. While travelling in America, he was elected Lord George Bentinck's successor, as member of parliament for the borough of Lynn; and having returned to England, he delivered, in the House of Commons, during the summer of 1850, a speech on the subject of the sugar colonies, which was highly praised by Lord Palmerston and Mr. Gladstone. Lord Stanley, with a laudable anxiety to prepare himself, by study and travel, for the work of the state, and the walfare of the senate, next paid a visit to the East; and was still in India when nominated, in March, 1852, Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in the Derby ministry; and in the spring of 1853 (having, in the meantime, resigned with his party), he submitted to the House of Commons a motion, which had for its ultimate object a more complete reform of Indian affairs than that contemplated by the coalition cabinet. It is chiefly, however, as a social reformer, and to his indefatigable exertions out of parliament, for the intellectual improvement of the great body of the people, that Lord Stanley is mainly noticeable. He has the reputation of being by far the ablest scion of the aristocracy that has entered parliament since the era of the Reform Bill. In the establishment of baths and washhouses, of mechanics' institutions, of public libraries, of improved dwellings for the labouring classes, he has taken an active part. When, in 1855, the death of Sir W. Molesworth created a vacancy in the Colonial Office, Lord Palmerston, sensible of Lord Stanley's talents and popularity, offered him the seals of that department; but he declined the office. The offer of the Colonies," said a writer in a paper at the time, "was alike honourable to Lord Palmerston and Lord Stanley. It was a recognition, on the Premier's part, of Lord

Stanley's known talents, and of another of his qualities still rarer-we mean his studious devotion to statesmanship as the business of his life. Everything here has been so long rated by the parliamentary standard only, that statesmanship proper scarcely exists. We have debaters in plenty, but no Metternichs and Chesterfields; while, of the higher and more philosophical class of statesmen-men who study history, and, at the same time, their age as part of history-a specimen is as rare as the capercailzie is in Scotland. Without the pedantry of a doctrinaire, Lord Stanley has the speculative seriousness of a student, and unites with that a most attentive observation to the living time, without which no man can be worth a straw as a practical politician. It is an unquestionable honour to him to have been so selected by a veteran judge of men like Lord Palmerston, whose forte is, probably, his knowledge of mankind."

In a little while, the new administration was strengthened in the acceptance, by Sir Bulwer Lytton, of the Colonial Secretaryship, vacated by Lord Stanley for that of India. Sir Edward had acquired unusual fame as a novelist, dramatist, poet, and historian: his numerous works have placed him foremost among the sterling writers of the age. As the representative of one of the most ancient families in England, and as a member for an influential county, he re-entered parliament with all the prestige which a popularity that embraced all ranks could confer. He soon made it apparent, that among the attainments by which he had been so bountifully gifted, he possessed eloquence of the highest order. Having, in this way, raised himself to the first rank of parliamentary oratory in the estimation both of friends and opponents, he accepted office. His untiring attention to the business of his department; his numerous lucid, yet elaborate, expositions of every question of policy he was required to defend; and the sound discrimination he displayed in the appointment of subordinates, point him out as one of the most efficient Secretaries of State that has held office since the establishment of our colonial empire. Sir Lytton (now Lord Lytton) is the son of General Bulwer, of Heydon Hall, Norfolk; and was born in 1805. After having spent his boyhood at private schools, and under the care of two tutors, young Bulwer went to Cambridge, where he signalised himself by his luxury, and by his carrying off the Chancellor's prize medal with his English poem of Sculpture. In 1827, he appeared as a novelist. In 1831, he was returned to the House of Commons, as member for St. Ives; and became conspicuous in the ranks of the English Radicals. He strove, in his senatorial capacity, to link his name still closer with literature by his exertions in favour of a law for the protection of dramatic copyright, and of measures for relieving the newspaper press from the burden of the stamp laws. When Sir R. Peel took office in 1835, Bulwer published a pamphlet, entitled The Crisis, which ran rapidly through more than twenty editions, exercised no inconsiderable influence on the elections, and is said to have won for its author a baronetcy. In 1842, he was rejected by the borough of Lincoln, which he had long represented in parliament. From that date, for several years, he was out of parliament. In 1851, when parties had been broken up and re-cast, he-having meanwhile inherited Knebworth, with the estates of his maternal ancestors, and assumed, by royal license, the name of Lytton-again entered the political arena with a pamphlet, in the form of Letters to John Bull, recommending a settlement of the protection question on terms of mutual compromise; and when parliament was dissolved in 1852, he was a successful candidate for the county of Hertford, and took his seat in the House as a Conservative, and a supporter of Lord Derby.

The position of the new Premier was one of remarkable difficulty. Our relations with France, and the state of our affairs in India, rendered uncertainty in the government perplexing and injurious. On the 1st of March, Lord Derby made, in the House of Lords, his expected statement as head of the new government. He said that the recent victory in the Commons, with the displacement of the ministry, was unexpected; that it found him unprepared for taking office; that on attending the summons of the queen, he besought time to consider; and only accepted the