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СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ