hich had descended from old time, had
for him a fascination and an awe. In his high sense of the privileges
and the duties of kingship, of aristocracy, of territorial possession,
of established religions, he recalled the doctrine of Burke; and he
resembled that illustrious man in his passionate love of principle, in
his proud hatred of shifts and compromises, in his contempt for the
whole race of mechanical politicians and their ignoble strife for place
and power.

When Lord Derby formed his Government in 1866, on the defeat of Lord
Russell's second Reform Bill, he endeavoured to obtain the sanction of
Lord Shaftesbury's name and authority by offering him a seat in his
Cabinet. This offer was promptly declined; had it been accepted, it
might have had an important bearing on the following event, which was
narrated to me by Lord Shaftesbury in 1882. One winter evening in 1867
he was sitting in his library in Grosvenor Square, when the servant told
him that there was a poor man waiting to see him. The man was shown in,
and proved to be a labourer from Clerkenwell, and one of the innumerable
recipients of the old Earl's charity. He said, "My Lord, you have been
very good to me, and I have come to tell you what I have heard." It
appeared that at the public-house which he frequented he had overheard
some Irishmen of desperate character plotting to blow up Clerkenwell
prison. He gave Lord Shaftesbury the information to be used as he
thought best, but made it a condition that his name should not be
divulged. If it were, his life would not be worth an hour's purchase.
Lord Shaftesbury pledged himself to secrecy, ordered his carriage, and
drove instantly to Whitehall. The authorities there refused, on grounds
of official practice, to entertain the information without the name and
address of the informant. These, of course, could not be given. The
warning was rejected, and the jail blown up. Had Lord Shaftesbury been a
Cabinet Minister, this triumph of officialism would probably not have
occurred.

What I have said of this favourite hero of mine in his public aspects
will have prepared the sympathetic reader for the presentment of the man
as he appeared in private life. For what he was abroad that he was at
home. He was not a man who showed two natures or lived two lives. He was
profoundly religious, eagerly benevolent, utterly impatient of whatever
stood between him and the laudable object of the moment, warmly attached
to thos