I have mentioned Sir Robert Peel[204] and Lord Westmorland[205] in the _Congrès de Vérone._ I do not know if Lord Bathurst[206] was descended from or related to that Earl Bathurst[207] of whom Sterne wrote: "This nobleman ... is a prodigy; for at eighty-five he has all the wit and promptness of a man of thirty. A disposition to be pleased, and a power to please others beyond whatever I knew[208]." Lord Bathurst, the minister of whom I am telling you, was well-informed and well-bred; he kept up the tradition of the old French manners of good company. He had three or four daughters who ran, or rather who flew like sea-swallows, along the waves, white, tall, and slender. What has become of them[209]? Did they fall into the Tiber with the young Englishwoman of their name? [Sidenote: The Earl of Liverpool.] Lord Liverpool[210] was not, like Lord Londonderry, the principal minister; but he was the most influential and the most respected minister. He enjoyed that reputation of a religious man and a good man which does so much for him who possesses it; one comes to such a man with the confidence which one has for a father; no action seems good if it is not approved by that godly person, invested with an authority far superior to that of talent. Lord Liverpool was the son of Charles Jenkinson, Baron Hawkesbury, Earl of Liverpool[211], the favourite of Lord Bute[212]. Almost all the English statesmen have begun with the literary career, with pieces of poetry more or less good, or with articles, generally excellent, inserted in the reviews. A portrait remains of this first Earl of Liverpool when he was private secretary to Lord Bute; his family is greatly distressed by it: this vanity, puerile at all times, is doubtless much more so to-day; but we must not forget that our most ardent revolutionaries took their hatred of society from natural disgraces or social inferiorities. It is possible that Lord Liverpool, who was inclined towards reforms, and to whom Mr. Canning owed his last ministry, was influenced, despite the rigour of his religious principles, by some dislike of recollections. At the time when I knew Lord Liverpool, he had almost reached a Puritan illumination. Habitually he lived alone with an old sister, some miles out of London. He spoke little; his countenance was melancholy; he often bent an ear and seemed to be listening to something sad: one would have said that he was hearing his years fall, like the drops of a winter's rain upon the pavement. For the rest, he had no passions and he lived according to God.