After his resignation of office in the late summer of 1841, Lord Melbourne disappears almost entirely from the history and politics of England. He had always been a somewhat indolent man, or at any rate a man with no devouring passion for work, no insatiable ambition of towering above his fellow-men. Moreover, he was now getting elderly, and there had been much in the last few years to make him weary of political distinction. Having ceased to be a Minister of the Crown, he turned his position as a member of the House of Lords to but little account. Casting the load of politics from his shoulders, for which, in [Illustration: SIR ROBERT PEEL.] spite of his long official experience, he seems never to have had any warm regard, he passed the remainder of his days as a sort of recluse, fond of literature, and disposed to fleet away the time in studies which were elegant rather than profound. He had long been a widower; his only child, a son, had some years before died unmarried at the early age of twenty-nine; and the broken statesman had now few companions of a very intimate character. Whether his latter years were as lonely as some have represented, may be doubtful; but it is too likely that they were not cheered by the highest or the best kind of social intercourse. He died on the 24th of November, 1848, a little under seventy years of age; and the title soon afterwards became extinct. Whatever his faults, it is generally acknowledged that Lord Melbourne had many amiable qualities. But his position in the history of England, though in some respects interesting, can never be regarded as illustrious. In the new Administration, Sir Robert Peel was First Lord of the Treasury, Lord Lyndhurst Lord High Chancellor, Sir James Graham Home Secretary, Mr. Goulburn Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Earl of Aberdeen Foreign Secretary, Lord Stanley Secretary for the Colonies, Sir Henry Hardinge Secretary [Illustration: MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFORD, FROM THE CHERWELL.]