topped, and asked him
if he had seen a paragraph in that morning's 'Times' about the Pope.
'What!' exclaimed Carlyle, 'the Pope, the Pope! The back of ma han' for
that auld chimera!'

Lady Russell says: 'As far as I recollect he never but once worked after
dinner. He always came up to the drawing-room with us, was able to cast
off public cares, and chat and laugh, and read and be read to, or join
in little games, such as capping verses, of which he was very fond.'
Lord John used often to write prologues and epilogues for the
drawing-room plays which they were accustomed to perform. Space forbids
the quotation of these sparkling and often humorous verses, but the
following instance of his ready wit occurred in the drawing-room at
Minto, and is given on the authority of Mr. George Elliot. At a game
where everyone was required to write some verses, answering the question
written on a paper to be handed to him, and bringing in a word written
on the same, the paper that fell to the lot of Lord John contained this
question: 'Do you admire Sir Robert Peel?' and 'soldier' the word to be
brought in. His answer was:

'I ne'er was a soldier of Peel,
Or ever yet stood at his back;
For while he wriggled on like an eel,
I swam straight ahead like a _Jack_.'

Mr. Gladstone states that perhaps the finest retort he ever heard in the
House of Commons was that of Lord John in reply to Sir Francis Burdett.
The latter had abandoned his Radicalism in old age, and was foolish
enough to sneer at the 'cant of patriotism.' 'I quite agree, said Lord
John, 'with the honourable baronet that the cant of patriotism is a bad
thing. But I can tell him a worse--the _re_cant of patriotism--which I
will gladly go along with him in reprobating whenever he shows me an
example of it.'

[Sidenote: LORD DUFFERIN'S RECOLLECTIONS]

Lord John Russell once declared that he had no need to go far in search
of happiness, as he had it at his own doors, and this was the impression
left on every visitor to Pembroke Lodge. Lord Dufferin states that all
his recollections gather around Lord John's domestic life. He never
possessed a kinder friend or one who was more pleasant in the retirement
of his home. Lord Dufferin adds: 'One of his most charming
characteristics was that he was so simple, so untheatrical, so genuine,
that his existence, at least when I knew him, flowed at a very high
level of thought and feeling, but was unmarked by anythin