services of Castlereagh. The exertions of his biographer and of the editor of his papers did little at first to improve his reputation, and indeed his fame was rather obscured than served by the epistolary pyramid which the devotion of his brother erected on his grave. The Memoirs and Correspondence' were too staid and massive to be interesting to contemporaries who desired the personalities and anecdotes which make biography acceptable. But, like the pyramids, these memorials have gained in interest with the lapse of time, and have become, at a distance of nigh three quarters of a century, part of the history of the nation. From them the student may judge of the capacity and character which early won the friendship of Wellington and the confidence of Pitt. Tried by the test of time and by comparison with more showy, but less cool and resolute contemporaries, Castlereagh is beginning to take his proper place in the grateful recollection of a people who are learning to recognize how, in the greatest crisis of its fate, 'Far ends in Pitt's deep thought

By him, if rudely, were securely wrought.'

In one part of the United Kingdom, however, it is still otherwise. In Ireland his memory is not forgotten; and in the popular estimate of his character there has been no fluctuation. There the name of Castlereagh has been execrated for a century with a uniformity of unalloyed obloquy. The irreconcilable passion of unchangeable hate,' which, in the language of a modern patriot, is the feeling with which the majority of Irishmen regard England, describes without much exaggeration the attitude of Ireland towards the statesman who suppressed the Rebellion and carried the Union. Even now, in his native land, the character of Castlereagh continues to be assailed with all that wealth of vituperation which is never so lavished by Irishmen as when it is employed to blacken the reputation of one of their own countrymen of an opposite political faction. To them Castlereagh is, in Byron's language

A wretch never named but with curses and jeers.'

O'Connell described him as the Assassin of his country. Moore exults, as he addresses England, in 'The Fudge Family '

That 'twas an Irish head, an Irish heart

Made thee the fall'n and tarnished thing thou art,'

and speaks of the worst infections' of his country as 'all condensed in him.' English poets writing under Irish inspiration are, if possible, even more severe :—

'I met Murder on his way,

He had a mask like Castlereagh,'

said Shelley in his Masque of Anarchy.' Later writers in his own country have compared him to Robespierre, whose memory has about it the faint and sickening smell of hot blood.' These epithets, and a score of others equally uncomplimentary, have caused Castlereagh to assume in the popular imagination the likeness of some fiend, filled with a bloodthirsty animosity to his countrymen, and gloating over the degradation and misfortunes he had himself contributed to inflict upon her. Yet, according to the universal testimony of those who acted with him in public, and were intimate with him in private, no estimate was further from the truth.

The gentler estimate of Irish patriots who knew the man, is entirely forgotten or ignored. No doubt Castlereagh was, in the language of Brougham, 'a bold, fearless man, brave politically as well as personally, who went straight to his point.' And that point was, in the first great episode of his career, the destruction of what are called the liberties of Ireland. Much may on that account be forgiven to the indignant feelings of ardent patriots, who may be excused for an inability to see in the destroyer of their political temples and the gods they adored, anything but a ferocious iconoclast. Yet it is scarcely permissible for even the enthusiasm of angry patriotism to ignore the dispassionate testimony of Castlereagh's political antagonists, and of Irish patriot leaders. When he is accused of having provoked the Rebellion in order to put it down, it is fair to remember that his persistent detractor, Brougham, has not only acquitted him of the charge, but has declared that Castlereagh set himself in opposition to those who procured the retirement of Abercromby, and tried to drive out Cornwallis, as too humane in their treatment of a treasonable conspiracy. When he is charged with the petty jealousy of great patriots, it is not to be forgotten that he prevented the insertion in the Report of the Secret Committee of the House of Commons on the Rebellion, of passages tending to implicate Grattan in the United Irish conspiracy. And when he is represented as ruthlessly trampling on the religious liberties of his countrymen, let it be remembered that he was throughout his career, and often in circumstances when advocacy of the cause was disadvantageous to his own prospects, the steady friend of Catholic Emancipation. The statesman who, even after he joined the Government, retained the affection of Charlemont, cannot have been by nature either a brute or a villain. And no Irishman can refuse to hearken to the testimony

in which the dying Grattan pronounced a eulogy almost as high as, and not less touching than, Johnson's tribute to Goldsmith- Don't be hard on Castlereagh; he loves his country.'

Much light is thrown upon the evolution of political opinion among the Irish aristocracy and upper classes in the closing years of the eighteenth century by following the early career of Castlereagh. It may, therefore, be well to glance briefly at the circumstances of his origin, and the state of the political atmosphere by which he was surrounded when in 1790 he first entered the Irish Parliament as member for the county Down. The father of the future Minister, Robert Stewart, of Mount Pleasant, now Mount Stewart, in the county Down, was himself for many years the representative of the county in which his property was situated. Identifying himself with the popular or Whig interest, in opposition to the great family of the Downshires, the elder Stewart had, by the year 1789, acquired a character for integrity and independence which was not forfeited when, having increased his importance by aristocratic alliances, he was raised to the peerage as Baron Londonderry, probably through the influence of Lord Camden, the father of his second wife. He was the friend and colleague of Charlemont, in whose autobiography Stewart is mentioned as a gentleman of the best character and most patriotic,' and was also an active supporter of the Volunteer movement, representing his county in the Convention of 1783. The first of two great matches by which Robert Stewart accelerated his rise to eminence was his marriage with Sarah Frances, daughter of the first Marquis of Hertford. Of this union Castlereagh was the eldest son. Lady Sarah died while he was still a mere child; but she left her son the inheritance of the stately grace of the Seymours, and of the features and presence which Lawrence was proud to paint, as well as the advantage of a family relationship which powerfully aided him in his political career. The second wife of Robert Stewart was the means of instituting a connexion of even greater value to her stepson. Lady Frances Pratt was the daughter of Lord Chancellor Camden, the friend and colleague of Pitt, and was the sister of the Viceroy under whom Castlereagh first served as Chief Secretary.

It was thus, as the heir of a nobleman of property and high station, and as a popular young country gentleman, that in the year 1790 Castlereagh came forward as a candidate for the representation of his native county, as the advocate of reform. The interest of Lord Downshire had long been supreme in the county. But the young candidate was warmly supported by the remnant of the Volunteers, and the growing prosperity of

the

the linen manufacture had tended to reduce the importance of the purely territorial influence. On his canvass he was received with a cordiality which was kindled into enthusiasm by his strong expression of attachment to the liberty of his country, his ardour for reform, and his solemn declarations that, if returned, 'he would use all his exertions to attain it.' The effect produced, as well by his sentiments as by the spirit with which he prosecuted his canvass, was such that it was estimated that, had the freeholders been left to an unbiassed choice, nine-tenths of them would have voted in favour of the young Whig patriot. But Castlereagh was attacking in the family stronghold the influence of one of the most powerful peers in Ireland, and it was only after a contest of forty-two days, and at an expense of 60,000l., that, supported by the exertions of the Presbyterian ministers, he won the day.

Castlereagh's intimate correspondence with his brother, the third Marquis of Londonderry, the main authority for the facts of his earlier career, was lost while on its way to India, where Bishop Turner, of Calcutta, had undertaken to write a biography. Consequently little record remains of him for the years that elapsed between his return to Parliament and his appointment as Minister. But a few letters of importance survive which throw a strong light, not merely upon the development of Castlereagh's opinions, but upon the state of parties and politics in Ireland at the period. Shortly after his entrance upon public life Castlereagh proceeded to the Continent, and in 1791 spent several months in France. In a couple of valuable letters, addressed to the old Lord Camden, he gives us the impressions of a young Whig aristocrat of France under the Constituent Assembly. What he then saw accounts, in all probability, for the changes of opinion which followed in his case, as in that of the much older Burke, from a near view of the Revolution in action, and of the second National Assembly. Writing under date, November 11th, 1791, he describes the character and composition of the Legislative Assembly, and details the results of his observation in travelling from Spa to Paris with an insight remarkable in a man of only two-and-twenty. The drift of his comments may be gathered from the following paragraphs :

From what I have said you will not rank me among the admirers of the French Revolution as the noblest work of human

integrity and human wisdom. I really am not. I discover in what they have done much to approve, and much to condemn. I feel as strongly as any man that an essential change was necessary for the happiness and for the dignity of a great people long in a state

of

of degradation . . . If I could do it without seeming to approve the principles professed by their leaders, principles which I shall ever condemn as tumultuous pedantry, tending directly to unsettle government and ineffectual in its creation, I should on all occasions worship and applaud the feeling which led the way to this unparalleled change.'

In the same letter, speaking of Ireland, he observes:

"Your island (Great Britain), thank God, is tranquil, happy and contented. The situation of ours is more precarious. I am inclined to think it will not long remain as it is. The government of it I do not like, but I prefer it to a revolution. There is great room and necessity for amendment, and our connexion would not be weakened by it. The people begin to grow very impatient, the abuses are considerable, and their weight nothing. The Catholics are calling for emancipation. I dread a collision between them and the dissatisfied Protestants. If tumult then should arise, it will be difficult to establish the Government afterwards to their exclusion. I am afraid reform will be postponed until it is too late; and what I particularly lament is, that in Ireland those moderate characters who wish to oppose popular violence, and to employ their weight in repressing tumultuous innovation, have not good grounds to stand on.' Fifteen months later, January 26th, 1793, writing to the same correspondent, he notes how the idea of reform had gained strength, and that it is supported by those immediately interested in resisting it, I mean the great borough proprietors,' who were desirous, since reform was inevitable, to effect it themselves, rather than allow it to fall into other hands.

'Depend upon it, my dear Lord C., you must change your system with respect to Ireland; there is no alternative, now her independence is admitted, but to govern by reason, or to unite her to Great Britain by force. A government of gross corruption, no longer a government of influence-extinguishing every possibility of Parliamentary authority will be no longer quietly endured. Even the opinions of those whose daily bread is the corruption complained of, agree that it would require less force to unite the two kingdoms than to govern as heretofore.

'I am afraid the question for your decision now is, not what instructions you should send to Mr. Hobart, but what orders to my Lord Howe-provided it is your determination to resist and not guide the storm.

'Your policy towards Ireland has been temporizing. You have made it necessary for her to seize systematically an ungenerous moment to carry her object. You have attempted to support a system which your first difficulty compels you to abandon. So far have you pushed matters, that as landlords we have no longer any influence in restraining the exertions of our tenantry to effect that which we cannot seriously tell them should be desired.'