Page 59.

Lord and Lady John Russell stayed at Bowhill till the 31st of July. They had a grand reception at Selkirk on their way back to Minto--a procession headed by all the magistrates, a band of music, and banners flying. Lord John was given the freedom of the burgh, and was received with enthusiasm by the inhabitants. After a short visit to Minto they went to London, to his house in Wilton Crescent.

BOWHILL, July 29, 1841
I hardly know how to begin my journal again. I wrote the last page as Fanny Elliot; I am now Fanny Russell.... Forgive me, Almighty Father, for the manifold sins, errors, and omissions of my past life, [a life] to which I look back with deep gratitude for its countless blessings, especially for the affection of those with whom I spent it, so far beyond what I deserved. Enable me to think calmly of the Mother whom I have left.... I was, and still am, in a dream; but one from which I hope never to wake, which I trust will only grow sweeter as the bitter days of parting wear away, as I become more and more the companion and friend of him whose heart is mine as truly as mine is his, and in whom I see all the strength and goodness that my weak and erring nature so much requires.
This is a perfect place and the days have flown--each walk lovelier than the last. Much as poets have sung Ettrick and Yarrow, they have not, and cannot, sing enough to satisfy me.... I am so sorry that to-morrow is our last day, though it is to Minto that we go, but I feel as if a spell would be broken--a spell of such enchantment.
Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby
30, WILTON CRESCENT, August 13, 1841
I say nothing of the day we left Minto, which could not help being of that kind that one hardly dares to look back to.... We were received with great honours at Hawick--bells ringing, flags flying, and I should think the whole population assembled to cheer us--it is very agreeable that people should be wise enough to see his merits, particularly as he does his best to avoid all such exhibitions of popular feeling. I like to see his shy looks on such occasions, as it gives him less right to abuse me for mine on many others.

Page 60.

WILTON CRESCENT, August 14, 1841
We arrived here on Thursday evening. Lord John did all he could to make it less strange to me; but how strange it was--and still is. We had a visit from Papa and Henry; my first visitors in my own house. The children arrived from Ramsgate all well. Oh, Father in Heaven, strengthen me in the path of righteousness that I may be a mother to these dear children.
WILTON CRESCENT, August 15, 1841
Dear Baby a great deal with me. She and Georgy call me Mama. It was too much--such a mixture of great happiness, anxiety, novelty, painful recollections, longing to make him happy--impossibility of saying all I so deeply feel from the fear of giving him pain. Oh! I thought I should quite fail.
Oh, what a weight seemed to be taken off my heart when at night, after speaking about the children, he mentioned their mother. Now I feel that the greatest bar to perfect confidence between us is removed. God bless him for the effort.

In August, soon after the meeting of Parliament, Lord Melbourne's Government was defeated on the Address and resigned.

WILTON CRESCENT, August 28, 1841
Lord John dined at Lansdowne House--a last Cabinet dinner.... Letter from the Queen to Lord John, which for a moment overcame him--she does indeed lose a faithful adviser, and deeply does he feel it for his country and her. Oh, I never loved him so well; his mind rises with reverse. It is no small matter for a man whose whole soul is intent on the good of his country to be stopt in his high career--to be, apparently at least, rejected by that country--but no, the people are still and will be more and more with him, and his career will still be great and glorious.... And to me he has never shone so brightly as now--so cheerful, so calm, so hopeful for the great principles for which he falls--and yet, as that moment showed, regretting the event so deeply.

Page 61.

They went down to stay a few days with the Duke of Bedford, and she notes in her diary:

Continued to like Woburn better and better. Some people went and others came, among the last, Lord Melbourne. Lord Melbourne did not, I thought, appear to advantage; he showed little wish for conversation with anybody, but seemed trying to banish the thoughts of his reverse by talking nonsense with some of the ladies.

The elections which followed the defeat of the Melbourne Ministry gave the Tories a majority of over eighty seats. Peel was joined by Lord Ripon, Lord Stanley, and others, who had supported Lord Grey during the Reform Bill. The Whig Party were in a discomfited condition. They did not look back on their past term of office with much satisfaction; they had been constantly in a minority; and although such useful measures as Rowland Hill's Penny Postage had been carried, nothing had been done to meet the most urgent needs of the time.

The Duke of Bedford had placed Endsleigh at Lord John's disposal, and next month he travelled down with Lady John to Devonshire. Endsleigh is one of the most beautiful places in Devonshire; it is near the little town of Tavistock, where Drake was born. The house looks down from a height on the lovely wooded slopes of the River Tamar. In letters to his brother Lord John had said of Endsleigh, "It is the place I am most fond of in the world." "I think no place so beautiful for walks and drives." He and Lady John always retained the happiest memories of their life there.

ENDSLEIGH, October 22, 1841
Long delightful shooting walk with Lord John--delightful although so many songs, poems, and sentiments of my greatest favourites against shooting were running in my head to strengthen the horror that I and all women must have of it.
"Inhuman man--curse on thy barbarous art."
Inhuman woman to countenance his barbarity!

Page 62.

ENDSLEIGH, October 26, 1841
Such a day! White frost in the morning, sparkling in the brightest sun, which shone all day. The trees looking redder and yellower from the deep blue sky beyond--the different distances of the hills so marked--the river shining like silver. Oh, what a day! We were prepared for it by the beauty of last night--such that I could scarcely bring myself to shut my window and go to bed. A snow-white mist over all except the garden below my eyes and the tops of the hills beyond, and a bright moon "tipping with silver every mountain head."
ENDSLEIGH, November 11, 1841
With Lord John to hear an examination of the School at Milton Abbot. He gave prizes and made a little speech in praise of master and boys, which made him and, I think, me more nervous than any of the speeches I have heard from him in the House of Commons. I do not know why it should have been affecting, but it was so.... Walk with him in the dusk--his kindness, his tenderness are the joy of my life.

Her marriage had brought her greater happiness than she had thought possible. Writing to her mother from Endsleigh on November 15th, she says:

How little I thought on my last birthday how it would be before my next. I looked in my journal to see about it and found it full of him; but not exactly as I should write now--reproaching myself for not returning the affection of one whose character I admired and liked so much. I should have been rightly punished by his thinking no more about me; but then, to be sure, I should not have known what my loss was. He said a few days ago that he hoped it would be a happy birthday--said it as humbly as he always speaks of his powers of making me so--yet he must know that a brighter could not have dawned upon me, and that he is the cause....
Lord John Russell to Lady Minto
ENDSLEIGH, November 23, 1841
Fanny's own letters will have given you the best insight into her feelings since we came here. It has been the most fortunate thing for us all. Fanny herself, Addy, Georgy, Miss Lister, and indeed all of us, have had means of fitting and cementing here, which no London or visiting life could have given us. I never can be sufficiently grateful for such a blessing as Fanny is to me; and I only feel the more grateful that she reconciles herself so well to the loss of the home she loved so well. Nor is this by loving you or any one she has left at all the less--far from it, every day proves her devotion to you and her anxiety for your happiness.

Page 63.

They could not take a long holiday, although Lord John was now in Opposition. Early in February the great Anti-Corn Law League bazaar was held at Manchester, and a few days later Peel carried his sliding scale: 20s. duty when corn was 57s., 12s. when the price was 60s., and 1s. when it reached 73s. Lord John proposed an amendment in favour of a fixed duty of 8s.

CHESHAM PLACE,²³ February 14, 1842
Beginning of Corn Law debate. Went to hear Lord John. He began--excellent speech--attacked the measure as founded on the same bad principle as the present corn laws; showed the absurdity of any corn laws to make us independent of foreign countries; the cruelty of doing nothing to relieve the distress of the manufacturing districts; the different results of a sliding scale and a fixed duty; the advantages of free trade, even with all countries, especially with the United States, etc., etc.; was much cheered. Answered by Mr. Gladstone, beside whose wife I was sitting.

Lord John's amendment was lost by 123 votes; Villiers' and Brougham's amendments in favour of total repeal by over three hundred. This measure of the sliding scale did not embody Peel's real conviction at the time; its object was to discover how much the agricultural party would stand. Gladstone himself was in favour of a more liberal reduction in the sliding scale; and it appears from his journal that he very nearly resigned the Presidency of the Board of Trade in consequence of Peel's measure. Peel asked Gladstone to reply to Lord John Russell. "This I did," he says, "and with all my heart, for I did not yet fully understand the vicious operation of the sliding scale on the corn trade, and it is hard to see how an eight-shilling duty could even then have been maintained."

Page 64.

During the next ten months Lord and Lady John were less at the mercy of politics than they were destined to be for many years to come. They were constantly together, either at Chesham Place or at Endsleigh. Lord Minto was living near them in London.

Lord Minto to Lady Mary Abercromby
LONDON, March 1, 1843
MY DEAR MARY,--I think you will be glad to have my report of Fanny since I have been established almost next door to her, and the more so as it will be so favourable. For whatever misgivings I may have had from difference of age, or the cares of a ready-made nursery of children, have entirely gone off. I really never saw anybody more thoroughly or naturally happy, or upon a footing of more perfect ease and confidence and equality. I forget if you know Lord John well behind the scenes, but there is a simplicity and gentleness and purity in his character which is quite delightful, and it chimes in very fortunately with Fanny's. She has drawn prizes, too, in the children, who are really as nice a little tribe as can be imagined, and I reckon myself a good judge of such small stock. They are very comfortably housed, much better than I ever hope to be in London, and Fanny seems to govern her establishment very handily. I don't know that she has yet quite brought herself to believe that there is anybody in the world so wicked as really to intend to cheat, or to overcharge, or to neglect her work for their own pleasure, but I suppose she will make this discovery in time....
Adieu, dearest Mary, I have such a craving to see you again that I hardly know how I shall keep myself within bounds on this side of the Channel.
Your affectionate,
MINTO
Lady Minto to Lord John Russell
MINTO, March 5, 1842
You can now be pretty well aware of what my delight will be to see my dear Fanny again, and to know her tolerably well; but you have not lived with her five-and-twenty years, and therefore memory has no place in your affection for her, and you cannot even now comprehend the blank she makes to me. But you can well comprehend the extent of my pleasure in reading her letters, which breathe happiness in every line, and in hearing from everybody of her good looks and cheerfulness. My only fear for her is an anxiety, natural considering the great change, that her cares and occupations may weigh at times too heavily upon her, and that she will not wish you to see she feels it. This is the only thing she would conceal from you; but as I know the sort of feelings she formerly endeavoured to conceal from me, it is but too probable she has the same fault still, and nothing but trying to extract her feelings from her will cure her, or at least mitigate the evil.

Page 65.

The next great event in their lives was the birth of their first-born son, John, afterwards Lord Amberley.

On the 10th of December, 1842, our dear little baby boy was born. He has been thriving ever since to our heart's content. It has been a happy, happy time to me, and to us all. And now I am a mother. Oh, Heavenly Father, enable me to be one indeed and to feel that an immortal soul is entrusted to my care.

On the 10th of December, a year later, she expressed the same thought in the following lines:

Rough winter blew thy welcome; cold on thee
Looked the cold earth, my snowdrop frail and fair.
Again that day; but wintry though it be,
Come to thy Mother's heart: no frost is there.
What sparkles in thy dark and guileless eye?
Life's joyous dawn alone undimmed by care!
Thou gift of God, canst thou then wholly die?
Oh no, a soul immortal flashes there;
And for that soul now spotless as thy cheek--
That infant form the Almighty's hand has sealed--
Oh, there are thoughts a mother ne'er can speak;
In midnight's silent prayer alone revealed.

After Lady John had recovered, they went down to Woburn, and later to stay with Lord Clarendon at The Grove. At both houses large parties were assembled, and Greville notes in his diary that Lord John was in excellent spirits. "Buller goes on as if the only purpose in life was to laugh and make others laugh," and he adds, "John Russell is always agreeable, both from what he contributes himself and his hearty enjoyment of the contributions of others."

Page 66.

One of the principal events which had interested Lady John in the past year had been the secession from the Scottish Church and the establishment of the. Free Church of Scotland. Her feelings about it are expressed in this letter to her sister, Lady Mary Abercromby:

ENDSLEIGH, September 11, 1842
The divisions in the Kirk distress me so much that I never read anything about them now. It is disagreeable to find people with whom one cannot agree making use of the most sacred expressions on every occasion where their own power or interests can be helped by them. You used not to be much of a Kirk woman; but surely you would regret seeing many of her children come over to the English. I have just been reading the Thirty-nine Articles for the first time in my life, and am therefore particularly disposed to prefer all that is simple in matters of religion. They may be true; but whether they are so or not, is what neither I, nor those who wrote them, nor the wisest man that lives, can judge; that they are presumptuous in the extreme, all who read may see. In short, I hate theology as the greatest enemy of true religion, and may therefore leave the subject to my betters.... I need hardly tell you that we are leading a happy life, since we are at Endsleigh and alone. Did I ever tell you that we are becoming great botanists? I have some hopes of equalling you before we meet, as I feel new light breaks upon me every day, and every night too, for I try so hard to repress my ardour during the day for fear of being tiresome to everybody, that my dreams are of nothing else. John, of course, is very little advanced as yet, but he finds it so interesting, to his surprise, that I hope even Parliament will not quite drive it out of his head.

Early in February she was back again in London, where social and political distractions, together with the care of a young family of stepchildren, were soon to prove too much for her strength.

Page 67.

Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby
February 7, 1843
... How you must envy me and how I am to be envied for having my own people within reach. I am hourly thankful for it.... Yet for one thing I envy you--great lady as you are, you lead a quiet life; how far from quiet mine is and always must be, and how intensely I long that it could be more so, how completely worn out both mind and body often feel at the end of a common day, none can imagine but those who have become in one moment mother of six children, wife of the Leader of the House of Commons, and mistress of a house in London. You will suppose that I wish husband and children at the world's end, and you will call me a sinful, discontented creature; you will do anything but pity me, since my only complaint is that I have not as much leisure as so much happiness requires to be enjoyed. Well, say and think what you please; I must let you into my secret follies, in the hope of curing myself in so doing. London, hateful London, alone is at fault. Anywhere else my duties and occupations would be light, and my pleasures would be so not in name only.... How could I beg Mama, as I used to do, to have more parties and dinners and balls! I cannot now conceive the state of mind which made me actually wish for such things. Now I have them in my power without number, and I detest them all. The world has passed its judgment on me. I am reckoned cold, dull, and unworthy of such a husband; and it is quite right, for I never appear anything else. In short, I doubt my capacity for everything except making husband and children happy--that I have not yet begun to doubt. When I do, I will instantly bid them all adieu and "find out some peaceful hermitage." ... Darling Baby was brought in to be seen in his christening dress, the gift of Mama, and such a little love you never saw.... Papa is the best of Grandpapas, as you may imagine from his love of babies, and I delight in seeing him nurse it and speak to it....
Do not think this quite a mad letter. I wrote as the spirit, good or evil, prompted me. I must do so or not write at all....
Ever, my dearest Mary, your most affectionate sister.

Lady Minto was evidently afraid that her daughter was shutting herself up too entirely with her family, and not amusing herself as much as was good for her.

"My dearest Mama," she answers (on July 5, 1843)--... I hope to make you laugh at yourself for your fears about me, and to convince you that the seclusion of Belgravia, though great, is not quite like that of Kamschatka; that John's pleasure is not my pleasure, that the welfare of the children is not my happiness, and that far from constantly devoting my time to them, one whole afternoon this week was devoted to the world and the fine arts in Westminster Hall. I will name to you a few of the friends I met there, by all of whom I was recognized, in spite of my long banishment, my wrinkles, and my grey hair.... [Thirty names follow.]

Page 68.

The evening before I had been without John to a tea at Mr. W. Russell's. To-night we are to dine with the Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch; to-morrow to breakfast with the Duchess Dowager of Bedford; on Thursday go to the Drawing-room and give our banquet; and so on to the end of the session and season. Seriously, dear Mama, if I had more of the pleasures of my age, I should dislike them very much; those of a more tender age suit me better; and if you do not think it unbecoming, I will have a swing and a rocking-horse in our own garden. You ought rather to scold Papa for shutting himself up; he has seen hardly anybody but ourselves, which has been very agreeable for us--so agreeable that I do not at all like his going away, tho' of course I do not try to keep him longer when he so much wishes to go, and you so much wish to have him....
You think I did not know what I was undertaking when we married, and you are right. The hope, humble as it was, of lightening the duties and cheering the life of one--the wish, God knows how sincere, of being a mother to those who had none, outweighed all other considerations. But if I did not know and have sometimes been overpowered by the greatness of my duties, if I have sighed for the repose and leisure with which marriage generally begins, neither did I know the greatness of my rewards--so far beyond what I deserve. The constant sympathy, encouragement, and approbation of John can make everything easy to me; and these I trust I shall always have; these will keep me young and merry, so do not distress yourself about me, my own dear Mama, and believe me ever your most affectionate child,
FANNY RUSSELL

The year 1843 was one of increasing difficulty for the Tories. Peel's followers began to suspect more and more strongly that he was not sound on the question of the corn taxes; outside Parliament, Cobden and Bright were battering Protection at their great monthly meetings in Covent Garden Theatre. The troubles in Ireland were growing acute, and the arrest of O'Connell and the Repeal leaders made matters worse. The Government had been forced to abandon their Bill for the education of factory children through the bitter opposition of Dissenters and Radicals, who thought the Bill increased the already too great influence of the Church. At the beginning of the year the Government had been strong enough to throw out Lord Howick's motion for a committee of inquiry into the causes of distress, which would have entailed a division upon the Corn Laws; but the strength of the Ministry was now seriously diminished. Parliament was prorogued late in August; on the 5th Lord John left London, hoping that he had done with politics till next year. The whole family moved down to Endsleigh, where, soon afterwards, his eldest stepdaughter fell ill of a fever.

Page 69.

Lady John caught the infection. She had been living up to the limit of her energies, and her case proved a grave one. They moved to Minto in October, and never again used Endsleigh as their country house. By the beginning of 1844 she was sufficiently recovered to attend the House of Commons and to hear her husband speak upon the Irish question. In this speech he declared himself in favour of putting Catholics, Anglicans, and Dissenters on an equality; not by disestablishing the English Church in Ireland, but by endowing the Catholics. He summed up the political situation by saying: "In England the government, as it should be, is a government of opinion; the government of Ireland is notoriously a government by force."

February 15, 1844
O'Connell arrived from Dublin--much cheered by the crowd outside and by the Irish and Radical members inside the House. John shook hands with him. O'Connell said: "I thank you for your admirable speech. It makes up to us for much that we have gone through."

Lady John's next Diary was lost, and the first entry in her new Diary was written after serious illness.

LONDON, February 2, 1845
I have found in illness even more than in health how much better I am loved than I deserve to be. To say nothing of the unwearied care and cheerful watching of my dearest John, the children have given me such proofs of affection as gladdened many an hour of pain or weariness. One day, while I was ill in bed, and Georgy by me, I told her how kind it was of God to send illness upon us at times, as warnings to repent of past faults and prepare for death. Upon which she said: "But, Mama, you can't have done anything to be sorry for." No self-examination, no sermon, could have made me feel more humble than these words of a little child.

Page 70.

During the early part of the year, while Lord John was supporting in the House of Commons the endowment of the Maynooth College for priests and the establishment of colleges in other important Irish towns, Lady John was living at Unsted Wood, near Godalming, a house they had taken for the year.

Their constant separation was painful to both, and as soon as Parliament rose they decided to go to Minto. There the state of her health became so alarming that, to be within reach of medical advice, they moved to Edinburgh.

The distress of the poorer classes throughout the country during this autumn was terrible. It was to meet this distress, unparalleled since the Middle Ages, that Lord John wrote from Edinburgh his famous Free Trade letter to his London constituents, urging them to clamour for the only remedy, "to unite to put an end to a system which has proved to be the blight of commerce, the bane of agriculture, the source of bitter divisions among classes, the cause of penury, fever, mortality, and crime among the people."

Shortly afterwards he was called to London by the sudden death of his old friend Lady Holland, and he had hardly returned when the news of Peel's resignation reached him. Peel, thoroughly alarmed, had called a Cabinet Council to consider the repeal of the Corn Laws. Lord Stanley, afterwards Lord Derby, had strongly dissented, and carried several Ministers with him, thus compelling Peel to resign.

Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby
EDINBURGH, December 2, 1845
I wonder what Ralph and William will say to John's letter to his electors. It is what I have long wished, and I am delighted that the chief barrier between him and the Radical part of the Whig party should be knocked down by it. In short, patriotically I am quite pleased, but privately far from it; I dread its being a stepping-stone to office, which, not to mention myself, would kill him very soon. He has already quite as much work as his health can stand, so what would it be with office in addition? However, I do not torment myself with a future which may never come, or which, if it does, I may never see. I forget whether I have written since poor Lady Holland's death, which John felt very much. It is sad that her death should have startled one as only that of a young person generally does; but, old as she was, she never appeared so, and she belonged as much to society as she ever did. Poor woman, it is a comfort that she died so calmly, whatever it was that enabled her to do so.

Page 71.

Lord John had hardly returned to Edinburgh when the event which she had been trying to think remote and unlikely was upon them.

EDINBURGH, December 8, 1845
Evening of utter consternation. A message from the Queen requiring John's attendance at Osborne House immediately.... John set out at ten this morning (December 9th) on his dreary and anxious journey, leaving a dreary and anxious wife behind him. Baby not well towards evening. Sent for Dr. Davidson. Oh, Heavenly Father, preserve to me my earthly treasures, and whatever be my lot in life, they will make it a happy one. Forgive me for such a prayer. The hope of happiness is too strong within me.
Lord John to Lady John Russell
LONDON, December 10, 1845
It is very sad, this moment, when many will think me at the height of my ambition. But when I think of you and your many trials, and the children with their ailments to disturb you, when I cannot share your anxieties--it is all very sad. I doubt, too, of the will of the country to go through with it--and then I shall have done mischief by calling upon them. I saw Mr. Bright at one of the stations. He spoke much of the enthusiasm. God save and preserve us all.
Lord John to Lady John Russell
OSBORNE HOUSE, December 11th, 1845
Well, I am here--and have seen Her Majesty. It is proposed to me to form a Government, and nothing can be more gracious than the manner in which this has been done. Likewise Sir Robert Peel has placed his views on paper, and they are such as very much to facilitate my task. Can I do so wild a thing? For this purpose, and to know whether it is wild or not, I must consult my friends.... There end politics--I hope you have not suffered from anxiety and the desolation of our domestic prospects.... I stay here to-night, and summon my friends in London to-morrow--Ever, ever affly., with love to all,
J. R.

Page 72.

Lady John to Lord John Russell
EDINBURGH, December 13, 1845
I have just read your note which I so anxiously expected from Osborne House. No, my dearest, it is not a wild thing. It is a great duty which you will nobly perform; and, with all my regrets--with the conviction that private happiness to the degree we have enjoyed is at an end if you are Prime Minister--still I sincerely hope that no timid friend will dissuade you from at least trying what you have yourself called upon the country to help you in. If I liked it better, I should feel less certain it was a duty. If you had not written that letter you might perhaps have made an honourable escape; but now I see none.

She wrote again on the 14th:

I am as eager and anxious lying here on my sofa--a broken-down, useless bit of rubbish--as if I were well and strong and in the midst of the turmoil. And I am proud to find that even the prospect of what you too truly call the "desolation of our domestic prospects," though the words go to my very heart of hearts, cannot shake my wish that you should make the attempt. My mind is made up.... My ambition is that you should be the head of the most moral and religious government the country has ever had.
Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby
EDINBURGH, December 14, 1845
DEAREST MARY,--All you say of your dreams for me in days gone by is like yourself. You were always thinking more of my happiness than your own. What a strange world it is, where the happiest and saddest events are so often linked together--for instance, the marriage and absence of those one would wish to have always by one. I certainly never wish either of our marriages undone; but "Seas between us braid hae roared sin auld Lang-syne" more than either of us could have borne to look forward to. If ever I did wish myself freed from my husband, it has been for the last five days, since the highest honour in the land has been within his reach. Oh dear! how unworthy I am of what to many wives would be a source of constant pride, not only for their husband's sake, but their own; whereas, proud as I am of so public a mark of his country's good opinion, and convinced as I am that he ought not to shrink from the post, still to myself it is all loss, all sacrifice--every favourite plan upset--London, London, London, and London in its worst shape--a constant struggle between husband and children, constant anxiety about his health and theirs, added to that about public affairs. But I will not begin to count up the countless miseries of office to those who have, I will not say a love, but a passion for quiet, leisure, and the country.

Page 73.

As I said before, I am so convinced that he ought to make the trial, unless the difficulties are much greater than I have wisdom to see, that I should be positively disappointed if I found he had given it up.
Besides, I see many bright sides to it all. You will think I have lost all my old patriotism, but it is not so; and the prospect of seeing my husband repeal the Corn Laws, and pacify and settle Ireland, is one that repays me for much private regret. You see, if he does undertake to govern, I expect him to do it successfully, and this in spite of many a wise friend. He went off looking so miserable himself that I long to hear from somebody else how he looks now. You cannot think what a thunderbolt it was to us both. We were reading aloud, about an hour before bedtime, when the messenger was announced--and he brought the Queen's fatal letter. Oh! how difficult I found it not to call the man every sort of name! The next morning John was off, and though he flattered himself he would be able to come back to me in any case, I flatter myself no such thing.
Poor baby made his resolution falter that morning--he would not leave him for a moment, clinging round his neck and laying his little cheek on his, coaxing him in every possible way. He does not conceal either from himself or me how entire the sacrifice must be of private happiness to public duty, of which this parting was the first sample; and he writes of the desolation of domestic prospects in so sad a way that I am obliged to write like a Spartan to him.

What her feelings were at this time the above letter shows. What was happening in London may be gathered from Lord John's letters and the following letter from Macaulay to his sister²⁴:

Page 74.

"... Lord John has not consented to form a Ministry. He has only told the Queen that he would consult his friends, and see what could be done. We are all most unwilling to take office, and so is he. I have never seen his natural audacity of spirit so much tempered by discretion, and by a sense of responsibility, as on this occasion. The question of the Corn Laws throws all other questions into the shade. Yet, even if that question were out of the way, there would be matters enough to perplex us. Ireland, we fear, is on the brink of something like a civil war--the effect, not of Repeal agitation, but of severe distress endured by the peasantry. Foreign Politics look dark. An augmentation of the Army will be necessary. Pretty legacies to leave to a Ministry which will be in a minority in both Houses. I have no doubt that there is not a single man among us who would not at once refuse to enlist, if he could do so with a clear conscience. Nevertheless, our opinion is that, if we have reasonable hope of being able to settle the all-important question of the Corn Laws in a satisfactory way, we ought, at whatever sacrifice of quiet and comfort, to take office, though only for a few weeks. But can we entertain such a hope? This is the point; and till we are satisfied about it we cannot positively accept or refuse. A few days must pass before we are able to decide.
"It is clear that we cannot win the battle with our own unassisted strength. If we win it at all, it must be by the help of Peel, Graham, and their friends. Peel has not seen Lord John; but he left with the Queen a memorandum, containing a promise to support a Corn Bill founded on the principles of Lord John's famous letter to the electors of London."
Lord John to Lady John Russell
CHESHAM PLACE, December 14, 1845
Well, my friends agreed with me that, unless I could have a very good prospect of carrying a grand measure about corn, I had better decline the Queen's Commission. So we are to have all the old Cabinet men here on Tuesday, and try to ascertain whether we are agreed on a measure, and whether Sir Robert Peel would support such a measure as we should propose. On Wednesday evening, or Thursday, I hope the matter will be cleared up, and if you ask me what I think, I should say it is most probable that we shall be made into a Ministry. How very strange and incomprehensible it seems; and much as I have had to do with public affairs, I feel now as if I knew nothing about them, and was quite incompetent to so great an office--to rule over such vast concerns, with such parties. With so many great things and so many little things to decide it is quite appalling.
Many of our friends say I ought to decline; but I feel that to do so would be mean and dastardly while I have a prospect of such great good before me--possible if not probable, but I think even probable. It would seem that most of the Cabinet thought I should have a better chance of preventing bitter attacks than Peel would. This may be so, or not.

Page 75.

Lord John to Lady John Russell
CHESHAM PLACE, December 17, 1845
I want a security that I shall be able to carry a total repeal of the Corn Laws without delay, and that security must consist in an assurance of Sir Robert Peel's support. Unless I get this, I give up the task.
Lady John to Lord John Russell
MINTO, Sunday, December 21, 1845
It is difficult to write while our suspense lasts.... It does not seem unlikely that Lord Grey²⁵ will have yielded, and all be smooth, or smoother, again. Papa tells me not to wish it even on public grounds. On private ones I certainly do not; but I should be ashamed if at such a time my anxieties were not chiefly for you as a statesman, not as my husband, and for my country more than for myself. If it turns out that the interests of the statesman and the country and the wife agree, why then let us be thankful; if not, why then let us be thankful still that we can make some sacrifice to duty. You see that my "courage mounteth with occasion"; and though I have low and gloomy fits when I think of my ill-health and its probable consequences, I am sure that, on the whole, I shall not disgrace you. Oh, what a week of toil and trouble you have had, and how gladly I would have shared them with you to more purpose than I can do at this terrible distance.... It is so pleasant to write to you. When I have finished my letter I always grow sad, as if I was really saying good-bye to you. How have you been sleeping? and eating? and have you walked every day? ... Good-bye, Heaven bless you, my dearest love. I trust that this has been a day of rest to you, and that God hears and accepts our prayers for one another.

Lord John wrote daily to his wife, and the following three letters to her show what he felt during this anxious time:

CHESHAM PLACE, December 19, 1845
It is all at an end. Howick [Lord Grey] would not serve with Lord Palmerston as Foreign Secretary, and it was impossible for me to go on unless I had both. I am very happy ... at the result. I think that for the present it will tend much to our happiness; and power may come, some day or other, in a less odious shape.

Page 76.

CHESHAM PLACE, December 20, 1845
I write to you with a great sense of relief on public affairs. Lord Grey's objection to sitting in a Cabinet in which Palmerston was to have the Foreign Office was invincible. I could not make a Cabinet without Lord Grey, and I have therefore been to Windsor this morning to resign my hard task. The Queen, as usual, was very gracious.... I have left a paper with her in which I state that we were prepared to advise free trade in corn without gradation and without delay; but that I could support Sir Robert Peel in any measure which he should think more practicable.
CHESHAM PLACE, December 21, 1845
The desponding tone of your letter, yesterday, although I do not believe it was otherwise than the effect of weakness, makes me rejoice at my escape a thousand times more than I should otherwise have done. I reflect on the misery I should have felt with every moment of my time occupied here in details of appointments, while my thoughts were with you.... The Queen and the Prince have behaved beautifully throughout.
Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby
MINTO, December 24, 1845
You will not be surprised that a great deal of the time which I meant to devote to you this morning has run away in talk to my husband. You will see by the Times what the cause of the failure is: Lord Grey's refusal to belong to the Ministry if Lord Palmerston was at the Foreign Office--a most unfortunate cause, we must all agree, but in the opinion of Papa and many other wise people, a most fortunate occurrence on the whole, as they considered it next to impossible that such a Ministry as John could have formed would have been strong enough to be of use to the country.
My husband, who is no coward, sees it differently, and thinks that with a united Cabinet he might have gone on successfully and carried not only Corn Law Repeal, but other great questions; though the probability was that they would only have carried that and then gone out. But even that would have been something worth doing, and better and more naturally done by Whigs than Tories. One good thing is that John has returned in excellent spirits. All his personal wishes and feelings were so against taking office at present, and the foretaste he had of it in this lonely and most harassing fortnight was so odious to him that his only feeling at first when he gave it all up was pure delight; and he slept, which he had not been able to do before. It certainly was a terrible prospect to us both--one immovable in Edinburgh, the other equally immovable in London--and it required all my patriotism to wish the thing to go on.

Page 77.

If it had gone on, the name of Lord John Russell would be now more often on men's lips. Peel's popular fame rests upon the abolition of the Corn Laws, Lord John's upon the first Reform Bill. It was but an accident--Lord Grey's objection to Palmerston at the Foreign Office--which prevented the name of Lord John Russell from being linked with those of Cobden and Bright, and imperishably associated with both the great measures of the nineteenth century.