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condition. I do not expect to be able to accomplish more than about sixty acres a year, and at that rate I shall have scope enough for a tolerable number of years to come. I have, however, begun upon my worst bog, and that which was the most troublesome to cultivate, so that my future progress will be more rapid and less expensive. I have been planting bent upon a great tract of blowing sand, and I think with success. I have about 600 acres of that description on the coast, and this year I planted bent on about 140 acres, which only cost me 50%. The bent was taken up from parts where it grows in clusters, and planted closely in rows fourteen feet apart; it is almost all growing, and I see that in another year it will very much stop the sand, and I have no doubt that, by extending my plantation, I shall succeed in covering the greater part of the 600 acres with green bent, and when that has stopped the blowing of the sand it soon gives way to grass, but it is itself very good food for cattle. I have established an infant linen market at Cliffony, held once a month, and have no doubt of its prospering and increasing. I have just got two schools on foot, but am at war with my priest, who, as usual, forbids the people to send their children. I know that if I was resident I should beat him in a moment, and I hope to do so, even though an absentee. I am getting the people to build some houses according to a plan of village which Nimmo and I have laid out; and, as a proof that my tenants and I are not upon very bad terms, I found when I arrived there the other day that one fellow was building a good house, two stories high, and to have a slated roof, and which when finished will not cost him less than 1507., upon a piece of ground of which he has no lease, and of which he is merely tenant at will. Of course, my friend Timon-not of Athens, but of Cliffony-will have his building lease, and, as an encouragement, I have promised to give him the cost of his slates. I have established a lime kiln at the foot of a mountain, where I can make lime at 6d. a barrel, which sells in the neighbourhood for 1s. a barrel; and, by contenting myself with a profit of 4d., I can undersell the others, and supply the people with an article of great importance to them, both for the improvement of their land and the cleanliness of their houses. On the whole, I find a considerable improvement going on in the country, and I trust its progress will be accelerated by the operations I am carrying on. They really are a good and simple-minded people, though they quarrel among each other without end or reason, and get most joyously drunk whenever they lose a relation or friend.

The Catholic and Anti-Catholic war is, however, carried on more vigorously than ever, and the whole people are by the ears, like an undisciplined pack of hounds. It is most marvellous, to be sure, that sensible statesmen should be frightened by the bugbear of foreign interference clashing with domestic allegiance, and should see with calmness and apathy a civil war raging throughout Ireland, engrossing all the thoughts and passions of the people, diverting them from the pursuits of industry, and retarding the progress of national prosperity, and menacing, in the event of foreign hostilities, inconveniences of the most formidable and embarrassing description. I can forgive old women like the Chancellor, spoonies like Liverpool, ignoramuses like Westmoreland, old stumped-up Tories like Bathurst; but how such a man as Peel, liberal, enlightened, and fresh-minded, should find himself running in such a pack is hardly intelligible. I think he must in his heart regret those early pledges and youthful prejudices which have committed him to opinions so different from the comprehensive and statesmanlike views which he takes of public affairs. But the day is fast approaching, as it seems to me, when this matter will be settled as it must be; and in spite of the orgies in this town and Armagh, the eloquence of Sir George Hill and Lord G. Beresford, and the bumpers pledged to the 'Prentice Boys' motto of 'No surrender,' the days of Protestant ascendency I think are numbered. It is strange that in this enlightened age and enlightened country people should be still debating whether it is wise to convert four or five millions of men from enemies to friends, and whether it is safe to give peace to Ireland.

Lord Palmerston had now been for nearly twenty years a member of the Administration, but outside the Cabinet. Strenuous in his work, while not neglecting the claims of society, he yet had been during this long period a comparatively silent member of the House of Commons. Except on matters relating to his own department he had only spoken about a dozen times; and, curiously enough, considering his later career, not so much on foreign as on domestic affairs. Canning used often to complain of his failure to bring that three-decker Palmerston' into action, and his silence was much noticed. It was characteristic of the man, who had no love for display. He was too practical to take pleasure in mere

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declamation, and too busy to indulge in idle repetition of what had been already said by others, while his official position had debarred him from initiating anything beyond the sphere of his proper duties. The estimation in which he was all the same generally held illustrates the maxim, which will be ratified by all keen observers of mankind, that what a man does now and then may get him momentary reputation or applause, but what he does every day will be the basis of his character and ultimate reputation. He was now about to take a more fitting because a more prominent position, preparatory to being called to that post at the head of the Foreign Office with which his name will always be associated.

CHAPTER IV.

MR. CANNING PRIME MINISTER, AND PALMERSTON OFFERED THE CHANCELLORSHIP OF THE EXCHEQUER-ENTERS THE CABINET FINALLY AS MINISTER OF WAR-CANNING DIES-LORD GODERICH PRIME MINISTER-PALMERSTON AGAIN OFFERED THE CHANCELLORSHIP OF THE EXCHEQUER, WHICH THE KING, HOWEVER, SECURES FOR HERRIES-LORD GODERICH SUCCEEDED BY THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.

Ir will be seen from preceding quotations that the partisans of Mr. Canning and those of Lord Eldon were become two factions in Lord Liverpool's Government; that Lord Palmerston had taken his place with the former, and that only an event was necessary to range under hostile standards persons who were already of opposite opinions.

That event came on the death of Lord Liverpool, and the necessity of choosing his successor. The successor, as we know, was Mr. Canning. His ascent to the Premiership is, no doubt, one of the great events of our later history. It broke down for ever the resistant,' or, as it was then termed, Protestant' party, which, under the protection of George III., had held the greatest share of political power since the deaths of Mr. Fox and Mr. Pitt, and brought forward a Liberal party of various colours, in which, after the change in our constitution which took place in 1832, the democratic hue has become gradually more and more predominant.

Lord Palmerston naturally was selected for promotion in this new change. Mr. Canning had, in the first instance, to form his Administration within a very small circle. A large division of the Tories had de

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serted him. It was necessary that some little time should elapse before he could form an open coalition with the Whigs. The Secretary at War was therefore at once summoned to the Cabinet, and his reputation as a man of business suggested the idea of making him Chancellor of the Exchequer. But, on the other hand, Mr. Canning shrewdly foresaw that his present condition could not last long, and that before the ensuing session he must join those as friends whom he had so long faced as opponents. He was not indisposed, therefore, as the necessity of this junction became more and more apparent from the bitterness of his former associates becoming more and more intense, to have as many high offices as possible to dispose of; and he made, though in a very friendly way, two or three offers to Lord Palmerston, which, if accepted, would have removed him from England.

Lord Palmerston thus records these offers:

In February, 1827, Lord Liverpool was taken ill; and in April of that year Mr. Canning was declared Minister, and commanded to form a Government. Upon this the Tories retired in a body. Lord Eldon, the Duke of Wellington, Peel, Lord Bathurst, Lord Westmoreland, Lord Melville, Lord Bexley (who, however, retracted), Wallace, Beckett, Wetherell, Duke of Dorset, Duke of Montrose, Lord Londonderry, all sent in their resignations, leaving Canning alone in his glory.' Canning had, some little time before, desired me not to leave town for Easter without letting him know; and upon this break-up he sent for me, to offer me a seat in the Cabinet and the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer. He said he wished to keep the Foreign Office as Prime Minister, instead of being First Lord of the Treasury; but he found that there were official attributes attached to the first Lord of the Treasury which rendered it necessary that the Prime Minister should be First Lord; that he wished, however, to have a separate Chancellor of the Exchequer, to relieve him both in the Treasury Office and in the House of Commons, and to leave him more leisure for general matters, and should be glad to have my assistance.

I accepted both offers.