"Pam"
When Lord "Pam"&#* was born into fashion and fortune, England was still unconvinced that the U. S. existed. He was barely out of school when, as Secretary of State for War, he fought Napoleon (1809). Several months after Abraham Lincoln died, he died— Henry John Temple, Viscount Palmerston,† Prime Minister, the most popular nobleman who ever ruled England, the only Prime Minister who ever swept the polls without better reason than that he was himself.
Few beside his wife (he married when he was 55 and at 79 he rushed up to the gallery to embrace his wife after a debate) ever called him a great man.
He laughed at great men. Yet there was no greater man in public life anywhere when he died. Napoleon, Metternich, Wellington, Peel—he had sent flowers to a thousand notable graves. Gladstone and Disraeli—because he lived, they had to wait. And Bismarck had just begun. The last light of the 18th Century flashed in Palmerston's eyes—eyes which, shaded by a white silk hat, were too weak to catch any glimpse of the 20th Century.
Concerning this amazing character, Philip Guedalla has apparently learned all that a brilliant bio-romancer can learn. U. S. readers will not object if Author Guedalla's treatment of political problems is so trifling as to make him appear lazy when he is not facetious.
The problems, however, are dead. But lively Lord Palmerston is no longer dead—thanks to Mr. Guedalla who writes so incontestably well that even a Fiji-Islander would jump with delight to learn, a fact from every page. For example:
¶ In 1830, Holland and Belgium were separated "by the sudden chemistry of revolution."
¶ In 1834, Palmerston shocked England by opposing compulsory chapel at Cambridge. "Is it either essential or expedient that young men should be compelled to rush from their beds every morning to prayers, unwashed, unshaved, and half dressed; or, in the evening, from their wine to chapel, and from chapel back again to their wine?"
¶ Germans (Queen Victoria's husband was one) muttered:
Hat der Teufel einen Sohn
So ist er sicker Palmerston,**
¶ Austrian customs officials were terrified when they spied a case of knives stamped "Palmer & Son."
¶ "He read everything and wrote an immense quantity"—but deliberately missed appointments including at least one with the Queen.
¶ Queen Victoria laughed at his jokes "'till her gums showed." (This before she married a German and, in sentiment, became one.)
¶ He had to explain to the little Queen what "bureaucratic" meant.
¶ He pronounced guarantee with an unexpected "w" (gwarantee) — it was a new word when Palmerston was 40.
¶ He, 55, married a widow, 52, the same year that Disraeli, 35, married a widow, 50, and Victoria, 21, married Albert, 21.
¶ He thought (surely not seriously) that Protestant life would be more secure in Ireland "if you could hang the Priest of the Parish whenever a murder occurred."