Theodore Martin

“ In the discussions in the House of Lords in 1831 Lyndhurst took a leading part, and his speeches, read by the light of what has since happened, while they prove him to have had the prophetic intuitions of the statesman, are worthy to be read no less for political instruction than for that best eloquence which, having important things to say, says them in the clearest and most emphatic and tersest language. ”

“ So passed the Congress of Vienna—the greatest and most important peace-meeting the world had ever seen. Munster and Osnabrück had settled the fate of Germany, Utrecht that of Spain, Rastadt that of France; Vienna fixed for near half a century that of the whole of Europe. ”

“ Down to the present day the Peace of Westphalia—the title under which the work of the Congress of Münster and Osnabrück is generally known—is blessed by countless thousands, as having put an end to the most terrible series of carnage which has ever devastated Modern Europe. ”

“ In the strongest man there is only a limited power of endurance. If he puts the work of eighty years into forty years, there can be but one result. So it was with the prince. While yet young in years he had done the work of a long life. During the three or four last years of his life signs were not wanting, in recurring attacks of illness, that he was using up his physical resources too rapidly. He had doubtless an inward feeling that this was so, and that the end might not be far off. Shortly before his last illness he said to the queen, ‘I do not cling to life, I set no store by it. ”

“ Every year showed an advance in the mastery of this branch of art. It reached its highest point in two large drawings of Helen Faucit—onestanding as Antigone, the other seated in private dress. These were exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1839, and placed him among the leading water-colour painters of the day. For the next two years he remained in Dublin, fully occupied in painting portraits, true as likenesses, but with the added charm only to be given by the artist gifted with the power of showing the soul behind the face. ”

“ Clive by the originality and shrewdness of her talk held her ground among his most distinguished visitors, male and female, at Strawberry Hill. How well able she was to do so may be argued from what Johnson said of her to Boswell: 'Clive, sir, is a good thing to sit by; she always understands what you say. In the sprightliness of humour I have never seen her equalled.' And she, in no way awed by the great man, used to say of him, 'I love to sit by Dr. Johnson; he always entertains me.' Here is one of her sayings that would have delighted him. ”

“ That great historical event commonly known as the Thirty Years’ War, may be said to have originated the idea of a Congress in the sense in which the word is now generally used.
The Thirty Years’ war was only eighteen years old, but nearly three millions of lives had already been sacrificed, and the whole of Central Europe, from the Vistula to the Rhine, and from the Alps to the Baltic Sea, was devastated by armies, when the first overtures of peace were made at the same time by three of the belligerent parties, the Pope, the Kaiser, and the King of Spain. ”

“ It showed no decline in the strong reason and masculine eloquence with which he had long fascinated the peers; but, though he frequently attended the house afterwards, he was no more heard in debate. The remaining years of his life were happy, if life can be made happy by ‘love, honour, troops of friends,’ and by carrying into the enforced quiet of extreme age the keen appreciation of all that is best in literature and art and human nature, and a living hope of a better life to come. All these Lord Lyndhurst had in an eminent degree. ”

“ The 25th of March, 1642, came, and not a single commissioner made his appearance either at Münster or Osnabrück. The possibility of arranging political and religious dissensions in this novel manner seemed not to be believed as yet at any of the European Courts, and suspicion was still as rife as ever. On the part of the people, however, the cry for peace had by this time become all-powerful; it was twenty-four years now since the most hideous war that the world had seen since Attila’s times had begun to ravage Europe, threatening the destruction of all civilisation. ”

“ Thus all was comfortably arranged at the expense of Italy, Poland, and Saxony; and after these and some minor points had been settled, the real secret working at the Congress was at an end, and the more formal public one had to be gone through. This consisted chiefly in the arrangement of the affairs of Germany, which was soon finished, inasmuch as the great powers were unanimous that the “heart of Europe” should remain in a state of dilapidation. Accordingly, it was settled that Germany should receive a federal organisation, with a central Diet, under the presidency of the House of Austria. ”

“ During the twenty years he acted as director, no fewer than some 450 foreign, and some hundred English, pictures were added to the collection, chiefly by purchase. The foreign pictures were classified under his direction according to the different schools, making comparatively easy the study of the progressive development of the painter’s art in Europe from its infancy onwards. All his thoughts and all his time were devoted to the care and development of the gallery. It was a duty to which he sacrificed without a murmur his personal ambition as an artist. ”

“ He was not by any means sanguine that Peel could succeed in forming a ministry that would stand. His advice was: ‘Get, if you can, new men, young blood—the ablest, the fittest—and throw aside boldly the claims of all the “mediocrities” with which we were overladen in the last race. I don't promise that even that will insure success; but it is your best chance.’ Would Croker himself take office? was Peel's first question when they met. Nothing, was his answer, would induce him again to enter the House of Commons. ”

“ The five great Powers,—Austria, England, France, Prussia, and Russia,—were to take in hand the general European concerns, which were to be discussed in separate conferences, aside of the particular committee which had to occupy itself with the affairs of Germany. To the latter were admitted not only the German States, but the representatives of Spain, Portugal, and Sweden, the latter to act as umpires. Next to these two principal divisions for executing the labours of the Congress came the following eight committees, which were to hold sittings whenever time allowed it. ”

“ But nobody came; the idea of a peace-congress being entirely new to the political mind of the rulers of Europe, and even suspected by some as a snare to entangle them into fresh aggressive alliances. France, above all, held the proposed Congress at Cologne to be, as her prime minister expressed it, “un piège pour la séparer de ses alliés;” and to prevent any possible evil effects, the same statesman invited Sweden to a counter meeting at Hamburg, where, after some delay, the representatives of those two powers met in 1638. ”

“ To pursue for a lifetime a political career so arduous demands more than energy and inclination; it demands also that earnest frame of mind which is ready of its own accord to sacrifice mere pleasure to real usefulness.’
Within the next few months Stockmar had the opportunity of observing the prince closely, and he satisfied himself that his mind and character were such that time and training were alone wanted to develop in him the qualities which Stockmar demanded as essential for the high vocation for which the prince's uncle designed him. ”

“ A scene from ‘The Two Foscari,’ produced in 1842, seems to have been Burton’s only genre picture for several years. The demand upon his skill in portraiture kept him fully occupied down to the end of 1857. His portraits were marked by so much subtlety of expression, as well as beauty of execution, that the best people in Dublin thronged his studio, and his portraits became precious heirlooms in their families. ”

“ The whole policy of Europe had, indeed, become changed by the accession of Charles; for, instead of the preponderance of France, it seemed that it was now that of Austria which was chiefly threatening the Balance of Power. Consequently, in less than a month after the death of Kaiser Joseph, overtures for peace were made to Louis XIV., both by Great Britain and Holland; and the preliminary conditions having been accepted by the French monarch, at the beginning of 1711, a general meeting of the belligerent powers was fixed to take place in the course of the same year. ”

“ During a visit of the queen to Sir Robert Peel at Drayton Manor in November, the prince went to Birmingham to inspect some of its chief manufactories. Birmingham was at this time the stronghold of chartism, and some of the ministry sought to prevent him from going there, being alarmed lest his presence might provoke some unpleasant demonstration. But the prince overruled their scruples, and the result showed that he had rightly understood the temper of the people. He was received by crowds that thronged the streets to excess with admirable good humour and the warmest demonstrations of loyalty. ”

“ There is nothing apparently more simple; and yet, unfortunately, history does not inform us of its having been acted on generally. The word Congress does not occur in the annals of Europe till about the beginning of the sixteenth century, when the ambassadors of the Pope, the Kaiser, the kings of France and of Arragonia, and other princes, assembled at Cambray to devise the best scheme for despoiling the flourishing republic of Venice. To make war, therefore, was the first object for which the plenipotentiaries of various States met together in council ”