The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 50, December, 1861: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
History
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 50, December, 1861: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
perfectly willing to sit there until daylight, yet he thought something
was due to the Speaker, (a hale, hearty man, sixteen years his junior,)
and as there was to be a session at noon of that day, he hoped the
debate would be adjourned. The same suggestion had been fruitlessly made
half a dozen times before; but the Premier's manner was irresistible,
and amid great laughter the motion prevailed. The Speaker, with a
grateful smile to the member for Tiverton, immediately and gladly
retired, but the indefatigable leader remained at his post an hour
longer, while the House was sitting in Committee on Supplies.
But his Parliamentary duties by no means fill up the measure of his
public labors. Deputations representing all sorts of interests wait
on him almost daily, his presence is indispensable at all Cabinet
consultations, and as Prime Minister he gives tone and direction to
the domestic and foreign policy of the English government. How much is
implied in these duties and responsibilities must be apparent to all who
speak the English language.
Now what is the secret of this vigorous old age, after a life spent in
such arduous avocations? Simply this, that a constitution robust by
nature has been preserved in its strength by regular habits and out-door
exercise. If I were to repeat the stories I have heard, and seen
stated in English newspapers, of the feats, pedestrian and equestrian,
performed by Lord Palmerston from early manhood down to the present
writing, I fear I should be suspected by some of my readers of offering
an insult to their understanding. I must therefore content myself with
saying that very few young men of our day and country could follow him
in the field or keep up with him on the road.
A word about Lord Palmerston's political antecedents. Beginning as
Junior Lord of the Admiralty in the Duke of Portland's Ministry,
in 1808, he has since been once Secretary of War, five times Prime
Minister, and once Secretary of State. From 1811 to 1831 he represented
Cambridge University. Since 1835 he has represented Tiverton. It may be
safely asserted that no man now living in England has been so long or
so prominently in public office, and probably no man presents a more
correct type of the Liberal, although not Radical, sentiment of England.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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