When a necessary reform of the Judicature resisted on the ground
of expense, he said:

"If you cannot afford to do justice speedily and well, you may
as well shut up the Exchequer and confess that you have no right
to raise taxes for the protection of the subject, for justice is
the first and primary end of all government."

Those are the echoes of a remote past. My own recollections of
my uncle begin when he was Foreign Secretary in Lord Palmerston's
Government, and I can see him now, walled round with despatch-boxes,
in his pleasant library looking out on the lawn of Pembroke Lodge--the
prettiest villa in Richmond Park. In appearance he was very much
what _Punch_ always represented him--very short, with a head and
shoulders which might have belonged to a much larger frame. When
sitting he might have been taken for a man of average height, and
it was only when he rose to his feet that his diminutive stature
became apparent.

One of his most characteristic traits was his voice, which had
what, in the satirical writings of the last century, used to be
called "an aristocratic drawl," and his pronunciation was archaic.
Like other high-bred people of his time, he talked of "cowcumbers"
and "laylocks"; called a woman an "oo'man," and was much "obleeged"
where a degenerate race is content to be "obliged."

The frigidity of his address and the seeming stiffness of his manner
were really due to an innate and incurable shyness, but they produced,
even among people who ought to have known him better, a totally
erroneous impression of his character and temperament.