Palmerston fought and won his last election in July, 1865, being
then in his eighty-first year, and he died on the 15th of October
next ensuing. On the 19th the Queen wrote as follows to the statesman
who, as Lord John Russell, had been her Prime Minister twenty years
before, and who, as Earl Russell, had been for the last six years
Foreign Secretary in Palmerston's Administration: "The Queen can
turn to no other than Lord Russell, an old and tried friend of
hers, to undertake the arduous duties of Prime Minister and to carry
on the Government."

It is sometimes said of my good friend Sir George Trevelyan that his
most responsible task in life has been to "live up to the position
of being his uncle's nephew." He has made a much better job of his
task than I have made of mine; and yet I have never been indifferent
to the fact that I was related by so close a tie to the author of
the first Reform Bill, and the chief promoter--as regards this
country--of Italian unity and freedom.


II

_LORD RUSSELL_

Lord John Russell was born in 1792, and became Prime Minister for the
first time in 1846. Soon after, Queen Victoria, naturally interested
in the oncoming generation of statesmen, said to the Premier, "Pray
tell me, Lord John, whom do you consider the most promising young
man in your party?" After due consideration Lord John replied,
"George Byng, ma'am," signifying thereby a youth who eventually
became the third Earl of Strafford.