The Times Great Victorian Lives

Lord Derby, who ruled in his stead, did not long enjoy power. In about a year the whole of the Liberal party combined, agreed to sink their differences, and to cope with the Tories for victory. By a small majority they won, and Lord Palmerston was installed in office. If, however, one inquires why the Whigs again came in, it would be difficult to show any reason, save that of personal confidence in their chief. Nominally, Lord Derby’s Cabinet was ousted because it was not sufficiently reforming, and because its foreign policy was not safe. But the new Government failed to carry a Reform Bill, and the new Secretary for Foreign Affairs distinctly declared after he got into office that his policy did not differ from Lord Malmesbury’s. As far as we can see, the change of Government is to be explained only in one way. The Italian war broke out; there was an uneasy feeling in the country; and politicians of every shade wished to see the reins of Government in the hands of the most able, the most popular, and the most experienced statesman in the land. So Lord Palmerston was again raised to the chief office in the State. His Government carried us through the danger of the Italian war, united us through the treaty of commerce in a closer alliance with France, carried out reforms in India that led to its comparative prosperity, remodelled our bankruptcy law and our educational system, and steered through the difficulties raised by the American war and by the Polish rebellion. Amid these and other perplexities, which are so recent that they will be in everybody’s recollection, it was constantly apparent that nothing but the personal popularity and adroitness of Lord Palmerston saved the Government from going to wreck in the House of Commons. While he sat on the Treasury Bench everything went on smoothly. Whenever an attack of gout compelled him for an instant to leave the guidance of the House of Commons, even to such an accomplished orator as Mr. Gladstone, defeat and disaster were the consequence. Again and again the Government were saved from ruin only by the marvellous popularity and address of its chief, who has been a Prime Minister for a greater number of years than any man in this century, with the exception of Lord Liverpool.

Nor was it merely his fame, his dexterity, and his good humour that thus succeeded; he worked hard for success even in extreme old age. As a young man he did less than his friends expected of him; as an old one he did far more. It was amazing to see how he could sit out the whole House of Commons in its longest sittings. At 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning he was the freshest and liveliest man there, ready with his joke or a clever explanation to appease the irritability of a worn assembly. Besides the toil of debate and incessant watching in the House of Commons, his office work was enormous. His despatches, all written in that fine bold hand which he desired to engraft upon the Foreign-office, are innumerable. His minutes upon every conceivable subject of interest in the last 50 years would fill many volumes, and it is to be hoped that some of them will be published. Moreover, in private, he was always ready to write for the information of his friends, and he always wrote well. We may add, in a parenthesis, that generally he wrote standing. To get through this immense amount of work he lived during the Session what most men would regard as an unwholesome life. Four days a week, when the House sat at night, he dined at 3 o’clock; on other days at half-past 8. When his dinner was late he took no lunch; when it was early he seldom took any supper. While young men went off from a debate to enjoy a comfortable meal, he sat on the Treasury Bench all night and never budged from it except to get a cup of tea in the tea-room, where he liked a gossip with whoever was there. For, with all his official labours, he kept his hold on society and enjoyed life like a youth. Lord Palmerston – and in this Lady Palmerston resembles him – was in his very nature genial and social. They loved society – not necessarily their own society, but all men and women. In the country, as in town, their hospitality was unbounded. A large family circle continually gathered about them, reinforced by whoever was remarkable for political or literary or artistic eminence, for sport, for travel, for military or naval exploits. All were welcome, and all found in both host and hostess a sympathizing audience. Yet they were never rich until latterly, and even at last their means were as nothing when compared with the opulence of many who never open their doors except to the members of a coterie. All this was the result of a prodigious vitality. Any doubts on that score might be settled by seeing Lord Palmerston at a public dinner – he sat down to it with the zest of an Eton boy; or by seeing him on horseback – when nearly an octogenarian he would ride some 15 miles to cover and think nothing of it. His mind neverlost its interest in whatever was new. He was as keen as any young man about the coming ‘Derby,’ and would rather have won it then gained any political triumph. These things are worth mentioning, for they are elements of political success. Great as Pitt was, he was said to have lost much through deficient sociability. Lord Palmerston lost nothing in this way, but gained a great deal. He owed, indeed, so much to his social tact, that superficial observers have seen in it the whole secret of his power. There is no mistake more common than this. A dark and heavy writer is supposed to be profound; a pompous and reserved statesman gets the credit of wisdom. A clear writer is regarded as shallow, and a light-hearted statesman is said to have nothing in him. We, however, who breathe a religion the Founder of which was set at naught for His social habit, because He came eating and drinking, may learn not to think the less of a statesman because of his geniality, his ready jest, and his open house.

As this full, appreciative and observant obituary makes clear, Palmerston was a ‘late flowering plant’ who retained his zest both for life and for politics until his dying day. Latterly he may have been inclined to doze both in the Commons chamber and in Cabinet but in the July of last year of his long life he dissolved Parliament and increased his majority at the subsequent general election. As an Irish peer, who had succeeded to his title in 1802, Palmerston was able to sit in the House of Commons, representing a series of different constituencies for some fifty-eight years. The obituarist is well aware of Palmerston’s widespread rapport with the general public, though he plays down his frequent disagreements over foreign policy with Queen Victoria and, above all, Prince Albert. His mistakes, notably his overt sympathy with the Confederate States during the American Civil War, are played down and there is also no hint of the womanising that inspired his nickname: ‘Lord Cupid’. A twentieth-century Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, described him as ‘undoubtedly the greatest “character” Downing Street has seen…Not all Prime Ministers enjoy the job; few enjoyed it more than Palmerston.’

MICHAEL FARADAY

Natural scientist: ‘Disinterested zeal and lofty purity of life.’

25 AUGUST 1867

THE WORLD OF science lost on Sunday one of its most assiduous and enthusiastic members. The life of Michael Faraday had been spent from early manhood in the single pursuit of scientific discovery, and though his years extended to 73, he preserved to the end the freshness and vivacity of youth in the exposition of his favourite subjects, coupled with a measure of simplicity which youth never attains. His perfect mastery of the branches of physical knowledge he cultivated, and the singular absence of personal display which characterized everything he did, must have made him under any circumstances a lecturer of the highest rank, but as a man of science he was gifted with the rarest felicity of experimenting, so that the illustrations of his subjects seemed to answer with magical ease to his call. It was this peculiar combination which made his lectures attractive to crowded audiences in Albemarle-street for so many years, and which brought, Christmas after Christmas, troops of young people to attend his expositions of scientific processes and scientific discovery with as much zest as is usually displayed in following lighter amusements.

Faraday was born in the neighbourhood of London in the year 1794. He was one of those men who have become distinguished in spite of every disadvantage of origin and of early education, and if the contrast between the circumstances of his birth and of his later worldly distinction be not so dazzling as is sometimes seen in other walks of life, it is also true that his career was free from the vulgar ambition and uneasy strife after place and power which not uncommonly detract from the glory of the highest honours. His father was a smith, and he himself, after a very imperfect elementary education, was apprenticed to a bookbinder named Riebau, in Blandford-street. He was, however, already inspired with the love of natural science. His leisure was spent in the conduct of such chymical experiments as were within his means, and he ventured on the construction of an electrifying machine, thus foreshowing the particular sphere of his greatest future discoveries. He was eager to quit trade for the humblest position as a student of physical science, and his tastes becoming known to a gentleman who lived in his master’s neighbourhood, he obtained for him admission to the chymical lectures which Sir Humphry Davy, then newly knighted and in the plenitude of his powers, was delivering at the Royal Institution. This was in 1812. Faraday not only attended the lectures, but took

copious notes of them, which he carefully re-wrote and boldly sent to Sir Humphry, begging his assistance in his desire ‘to escape from trade and to enter into the service of science.’ The trust in Davy’s kindliness which prompted the appeal was not misplaced. Sir Humphry warmly praised the powers shown in the notes of his lectures, and hoped he might be able to meet the writer’s wishes. Early in 1813 the opportunity came. The post of assistant in the Laboratory in Albemarle-street became vacant, and Sir Humphry offered it to Faraday, who accepted it with a pleasure which can be easily imagined, and thus commenced in March, 1813, the connexion between Faraday and the Royal Institution which only terminated with his life. Faraday became very soon firmly attached to Davy. The only instance of a suspension – for it was a suspension and not a breach – of his connexion with the Royal Institution occurred from October, 1813, to April, 1815, during which time he accompanied Sir Humphry as his scientific assistant and secretary in his travels on the Continent. His life after his return was devoted uninterruptedly to his special studies. In 1821, while assisting Davy in pursuing the investigation of the relations between electricity and magnetism, first started by Oersted, he made the brilliant discovery of the convertible rotation of a magnetic pole and an electric current, which was the prelude to his wonderful series of experimental researches in electricity. These investigations procured him the honour of being elected Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences in 1823, and Fellow of the Royal Society in 1825. In 1827 he published his first work, a volume on Chymical Manipulation; and in 1829 he was appointed Chymical Lecturer at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, a post he held, in conjunction with his duties at the Royal Institution, for many years. In 1831 his first paper appeared in the Philosophical Transactions on the subject of electricity, describing his experimental studies of the science, and from that time for many years the Transactions annually contained papers by Faraday giving the method and results of his investigations. These papers, with some others contributed to scientific journals on the same subject, were subsequently collected at different intervals in three volumes under the title of Experimental Researches in Electricity. The first volume appeared in 1839, and contained the contributions to the Philosophical Transactions up to that date. The second volume was published in 1844, and the third in 1855. It is not too much to say that by the experiments thus described Faraday formed the science of electricity. He established the identity of the forces manifested in the phenomena known as electrical, galvanic, and magnetic; he ascertained with exactness the laws of its action; he determined its correlation with the other primal forces of the natural world. While he was still pursuing the brilliant career of investigation which thus proved so successful, the chair of Chymistry was founded at the Royal Institution in 1833, and Faraday was naturally appointed the first Professor. In 1835 he was recommended by Lord Melbourne for a pension of 300l. a year, in recognition of his great distinction as a discoverer. From that time his career has been one of increasing honour. Oxford conferred on him an honorary degree upon the first occasion of the meeting of the British Association at the University. He was raised from the position of Corresponding Member to be one of the eight foreign Associates of the Academy of Sciences. He was an officer of the Legion of Honour, and Prussia and Italy decorated him with the crosses of different Orders. The Royal Society conferred on him its own medal and the Romford medal. In 1858 the Queen most graciously allotted to him a residence at Hampton Court, between which and Albemarle-street he spent the last years of his life, and where he peaceably died on Sunday. The belief in the disinterested zeal and lofty purity of life of the students of philosophy, which was one motive for Faraday’s petition when a lad to Davy to enable him to become a servant in the humblest walks of science rather than to spend his days in the pursuit of trade, was redeemed by Faraday’s whole life. No man was ever more entirely unselfish, or more entirely beloved. Modest, truthful, candid, he had the true spirit of a philosopher and of a Christian, for it may be said of him, in the words of the father of English poetry, ‘Gladly would he learn, and gladly teach.’

The cause of science would meet with fewer enemies, its discoveries would command a more ready assent, were all its votaries imbued with the humility of Michael Faraday.

Faraday, born the son of an artisan near the Elephant and Castle in London, was yet another of the ‘Self Helpers’ so admired by Victorian social moralists. He was not only a first-rate scientist in his own right but also a pioneer populariser of science during a key period of progress in the subject. Faraday was a lucid and much appreciated lecturer at the Royal Insitution in Albemarle Street where, from January to April, weekly lectures and laboratory demonstrations were open to subscribers. He died in his grace and favour residence at Hampton Court. Being a devout member of the Sandemanian sect (founded in Scotland by John Glas) he was interred at Highgate Cemetery rather than being offered a tomb at Westminster Abbey.

CHARLES DICKENS

Novelist: ‘There was always a lesson beneath his mirth.’

9 JUNE 1870

WE FEEL SURE that a thrill of sorrow as well as of surprise will be felt by our readers when they hear of the sudden death of Mr. Charles Dickens. On Wednesday evening he was seized with a fit, at his residence, Gad’s Hill-place, Higham, near Rochester, between 6 and 7 o’clock, while at dinner. Mr. Stephen Steele, a surgeon at Strood, was sent for, and promptly arrived. He found Mr. Dickens in a very dangerous state, and remained with him for some hours. A physician was summoned from London yesterday morning, and Mr. Steele was also in attendance. Unfortunately, there was no improvement in the patient. In the afternoon Mr. Steele was again summoned from Strood. The reports in the after part of the day were discouraging, and shortly after 6 o’clock the great novelist expired.

There is no one, we are sure, of the men of the present day whose name will live longer in the memories of English readers, or will be more thoroughly identified with the English language, than the inimitable author of Pickwick. But the story of his life is soon told. The son of Mr. John Dickens, who held at one time a position in the Navy Pay Department, Charles Dickens was born at Portsmouth in the month of February, 1812. The duties of his father’s office obliged him frequently to change his residence, and much of the future novelist’s infancy was spent at Plymouth, Sheerness, Chatham, and other seaport towns. The European war, however, came to an end before he had completed his fourth year, and his father, finding his ‘occupation gone,’ retired on a pension and came to London, where he obtained employment as a Parliamentary reporter for one of the daily papers. It was at first intended that young Charles should be sent to an attorney’s office; but he had literary tastes, and eventually was permitted by his father to exchange the law for a post as one of the reporters on the staff of the True Sun, from which he subsequently transferred his services to the Morning Chronicle then under the late Mr. John Black, who accepted and inserted in the evening edition of his journal the first fruits of the pen of Charles Dickens – those ‘Sketches of English Life and Character’ which were afterwards reprinted and published in a collective form under the title of Sketches by Boz in 1836, and the following year.

These Sketches at once attracted notice, and the public looked with something more than curiosity for the time when the successful author should throw off his mask and proclaim himself to the world. To adopt the phrase of an epigram which appeared in the Carthusian,

‘Who the Dickens “Boz” could be

‘Puzzled many a learned elf;

‘But time unveiled the mystery,

‘And “Boz” appeared as Dickens’ self.’

Almost simultaneously with these Sketches appeared a comic opera from his pen, entitled The Village Coquettes.

The graphic power of describing the ordinary scenes of common life, more especially in their more ludicrous aspects, did not escape the notice of Messrs. Chapman and Hall, then of the Strand, but now of Piccadilly, and they accordingly requested ‘Boz’ to write for them a serial story in monthly parts; the result was the publication of the Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. It is said that a portion of the rough outline of the work was the result of a suggestion thrown out by Mr. Hall, one of the firm above-mentioned; but be that as it may, the subject was treated by ‘Boz’ in a manner at once so easy, so graphic, and so natural, and yet with such a flow of genuine humour, that the author found himself raised almost at a single step to the highest pinnacle of literary fame. Illustrated at first by poor Seymour, and afterwards by Mr. Hablot K. Brown (‘Phiz’), the Pickwick Papers found an enormous sale from their first appearance, and Mr. Charles Dickens presented himself to the world as their author in 1838.

The great success of Pickwick naturally led to offers being made to Mr. Dickens by the London publishers; but the author wisely consulted his own reputation, and confined himself to the production of Nicholas Nickleby in a similar style and form. The work was written to expose in detail the cruelties which were practised upon orphans and other neglected children at small and cheap schools, where the sum charged for the board of hungry and growing lads, with everything included, ranges from 16l. to 20l. a year. Mr. Dickens tells us, in the preface to this book, as it stands republished in the collective edition of his works, that it was the result of a personal visit of inspection paid by himself to some nameless ‘Dotheboys’-hall’ amid the wolds of Yorkshire; and the reader who has carefully studied it will with difficulty be persuaded that Mr. Squeers and Mr. John Browdie are not taken from living examples. The work was published in 1839.

About the same time he commenced in the pages of Bentley’s Miscellany, of which he was the first editor, a tale of a very different cast. Oliver Twist lets the reader into the secrets of life as it was, and, perhaps, still is, to be found too often in workhouses and in the ‘slums’ of London. When finished it was republished as a novel in three volumes, and in that shape too enjoyed an extensive sale. The following year Mr. Dickens undertook the production of a collection of stories in weekly numbers. The series was entitled Master Humphrey’s Clock, and it contained, among other tales, those since republished under the names of The Old Curiosity Shop – famous for its touching episode of ‘Little Nell,’ – and of Barnaby Rudge, which carries the reader back to the days of the Gordon Riots.

The pen of Mr. Charles Dickens was henceforth almost incessantly at work. About the time of the publication of Master Humphrey’s Clock appeared his Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi, the celebrated Clown, almost his only production which deals with the plain prose of facts, and with everyday life divested of all imagination. Though much interest attaches to the work, we shall not be suspected of any intention of depreciating the author’s reputation when we say that his imaginative powers rank far higher than his skill as a biographer. In fact, while Pickwick and Nickleby live, Grimaldi is forgotten. After completing Master Humphrey’s Clock Mr. Dickens visited America, where he was received with extraordinary honours. On his return, in 1842, he published the materials which he had collected in the United States under the title ‘American Notes for General Circulation.’ Many of its statements, however, were controverted by American pens in a book entitled Change for American Notes.

In 1844 he published Martin Chuzzlewit in numbers, like Pickwick and Nicholas Nickleby, and in the summer of the same year visited Italy and Rome. An account of much that he saw and heard in this tour he gave afterwards to the world in the columns of the Daily News, of which he became the first editor. Its first number appeared on January 1, 1846; but after a few months Mr. Dickens withdrew from the editorship, and returned to his former line of humorous serial publications, varying, however, their monthly appearances with occasional stories of a more strictly imaginative cast, called ‘Christmas Books.’ Of these the first, A Christmas Carol, was published so far back as 1843; the second, the Chimes, appeared at Christmas, 1845; the third, the Cricket on the Hearth, followed in 1846; the fourth, the Battle of Life in 1847; and the fifth, the Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain, in 1848.

Besides these Mr. Dickens has published Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son, the History of David Copperfield, Bleak House, Little Dorrit, A Tale of Two Cities, Our Mutual Friend, the Uncommercial Traveller, Great Expectations, and last of all the Mystery of Edwin Drood, of which only three numbers have appeared. In 1850 Mr. Dickens projected a cheap weekly periodical which he called Household Words, and which was published by Messrs. Bradbury and Evans;but, difficulties having arisen between author and publisher, it was discontinued in 1859, and Mr. Dickens commenced in its stead its successor, All the Year Round, which he continued to conduct to the last.

Mr. Dickens was one of the founders of the Guild of Literature, and was an ardent advocate of reforms in the administration of the Literary Fund. He was also an accomplished amateur performer, and often took part in private theatricals for charitable objects. Of late years he had frequently appeared before the public as a ‘reader’ of the most popular portions of his own works, of which he showed himself to be a most vivid and dramatic interpreter. He retired from this work only in March last, when his reputation stood at its highest. His renderings of his best creations, both humorous and pathetic, of his most stirring scenes and warmest pictures of life, will not readily be forgotten. Men and women, persons and places, we knew all before in the brilliant pages of his novels; but the characters lived with a new life, and the scenes took the shape of reality in the readings of the master. America had an opportunity of appreciating his powers in this direction on the second visit he paid to that country in 1868. That is all over now; but Mr. Dickens, in bidding his last audience farewell, consoled them with the promise that his retirement would be devoted all the more to his original and higher art. His words have scarcely had time to allow of their fulfilment in the way and in the degree in which, doubtless, he hoped to be able to fulfil them. It may be well here to place on record his parting speech on the occasion of his last reading at St. James’s-hall:-