f his
favourite grassy rides, as we drove together in the park, "Ah! what
pleasant gallops we used to have along there!"' Lord John was seen to
great advantage in his own home and with his children. Even when the
cares of State pressed most heavily on him he always seemed to the
children about him to have leisure to enter with gay alacrity into their
plans and amusements. When at home, no matter how urgent the business in
hand, he always saw them either in the house or the garden every day,
and took the liveliest interest in the round of their life, alike in
work and play. He had conquered the art of bearing care lightly. He
seldom allowed public affairs to distract him in moments of leisure. He
was able to throw aside the cares of office, and to enter with vivacity
and humour into social diversions. His equable temper and placid
disposition served him in good stead amid the turmoil and excitement of
political life.

[Sidenote: A PACKET OF OLD LETTERS]

Sorrows, neither few nor light, fell upon the household at Pembroke
Lodge in the closing years of Lord Russell's life; but 'trials,' as Lady
Russell puts it in her journal, 'had taught Lord John to feel for
others, and age had but deepened his religion of love.' In reply to a
birthday letter from Mr. Archibald Peel, his son-in-law, and nephew of
his great political rival he said: 'Thanks for your good wishes. Happy
returns! I always find them, as my children are so affectionate and
loving; "many" I cannot expect, but I have played my part.' Two or three
extracts from a packet of letters addressed by Lord John to his
daughter, Lady Georgiana Peel, will be read with interest. The majority
of them are of too intimate and personal a kind for quotation. Yet the
whole of them leave the impression that Lord John, who reproaches
himself in one instance as a bad correspondent, was at least a
singularly good father. They cover a considerable term of years, and
though for the most part dealing with private affairs, and often in a
spirit of pleasant raillery, here and there allusions to public events
occur in passing. In one of them, written from Gotha in the autumn of
1862, when Lord John was in attendance on her Majesty, he says: 'We have
been dull here, but the time has never hung heavy on our hands. Four
boxes of despatches and then telegrams, all requiring answers, have been
our daily food.' He refers touchingly to the Queen's grief, and there is
also an allusion to the min