employments,
and finally succeeded Mr. Herman Merivale as permanent Under-Secretary
for the Colonies. It is a great post, but one of which the work is done
for the most part out of sight. Colonial Secretaries in Parliament come
and go, and have the credit, often quite justly, of this or that
policy. But the public know little of the permanent official who keeps
the traditions and experience of the department, whose judgment is
always an element, often a preponderating element, in eventful
decisions, and whose pen drafts the despatches which go forth in the
name of the Government. Sir Frederic Rogers, as he became in time, had
to deal with some of the most serious colonial questions which arose
and were settled while he was at the Colonial Office. He took great
pains, among other things, to remove, or at least diminish, the
difficulties which beset the _status_ of the Colonial Church and
clergy, and to put its relations to the Church at home on a just and
reasonable footing. There is a general agreement as to the industry and
conspicuous ability with which his part of the work was done. Mr.
Gladstone set an admirable example in recognising in an unexpected way
faithful but unnoticed services, and at the same time paid a merited
honour to the permanent staff of the public offices, when he named Sir
Frederic Rogers for a peerage.

Lord Blachford, for so he became on his retirement from the Colonial
Office, cannot be said to have quitted entirely public life, as he
always, while his strength lasted, acknowledged public claims on his
time and industry. He took his part in two or three laborious
Commissions, doing the same kind of valuable yet unseen work which he
had done in office, guarding against blunders, or retrieving them,
giving direction and purpose to inquiries, suggesting expedients. But
his main employment was now at his own home. He came late in life to
the position of a landed proprietor, and he at once set before himself
as his object the endeavour to make his estate as perfect as it could
be made--perfect in the way in which a naturally beautiful country and
his own good taste invited him to make it, but beyond all, as perfect
as might be, viewed as the dwelling-place of his tenants and the
labouring poor. A keen and admiring student of political economy, his
sympathies were always with the poor. He was always ready to challenge
assumptions, such as are often loosely made for the convenience of the
well-to-do