The Whigs returned
to office, but not to power, the Russell Government proving a most
ridiculous concern, and living through only five years of rickety
rule. A spasmodic Tory Government, that discarded Tory principles,
endured for less than a year, not even the vigorous intellect of the
Earl of Derby, seconded though it was by the genius of Disraeli, being
sufficient to insure it a longer term of existence. Then came the
Aberdeen Ministry, a regular coalition concern, a no-party government,
and necessarily so, because all parties but the extreme Tories were
represented in it, and were engaged in neutralizing each other. How
could there be a party government, or, indeed, for long a government
of any kind, by a ministry in which were such men as Aberdeen and
Russell, Palmerston and Grahame, Gladstone and Clarendon, all pigging
together in the same truckle-bed, to use Mr. Burke's figure concerning
the mixture that was called the Chatham Ministry? The coalition went
to pieces on the Russian rock, having managed the war much worse
than any American Administration ever mismanaged one. The Palmerston
Government followed, and has existed ever since, deducting the
fifteen months that the second Derby-Disraeli Ministry lasted; but the
Palmerston Ministry has seldom had a majority in Parliament, and has
lived, partly through the forbearance of its foes, partly through the
support of men who are neither its friends nor its enemies, and partly
through the personal popularity of its vigorous old chief, who is
as lively at seventy-eight as he was at forty-five, when he was a
Canningite.
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