"Mr. Brassey," we are told, "had ever been a very religious man. His religion was of that kind which most of us would desire for ourselves— utterly undisturbed by doubts of any sort, entirely tolerant, not built upon small or even upon great differences of belief. He clung resolutely and with entire hopefulness to that creed, and abode by that form of worship, in which he had been brought up as a child." The religious element in his character was no doubt strong, and lay at the root of his tender-heartedness and his charity as well as of the calm resignation with which he met disaster, and his indifference to gain. At the time of a great panic, when things were at the worst, he only said: "Never mind, we must be content with a little less, that is all." This was when he supposed himself to have lost a million. The duty of religious inquiry, which he could not perform himself, he would no doubt have recognised in those to whose lot it falls to give their fellow-men assurance of religious truth.
Mr. Brassey's wife said of him that "he was a most unworldly man." This may seem a strange thing to say of a great contractor and a millionaire. Yet, in the highest sense, it was true. Mr. Brassey was not a monk; his life was passed in the world, and in the world's most engrossing, and, as it proves in too many cases, most contaminating business. Yet, if the picture of him presented to us be true, he kept himself "unspotted from the world."
His character is reflected in the portrait which forms the frontispiece to the biography, and on which those who pursue his calling will do well sometimes to look.
A WIREPULLER OF KINGS.
[Footnote: Memoirs of Baron Stockmar. By his son, Baron E. Von Stockmar. Translated from the German by G. A. M. Edited by F. Max Muller. In two volumes. London: Longman's, Green and Co.]
Some of our readers will remember that there was at one time a great panic in England about the unconstitutional influence of Prince Albert, and that, connected with Prince Albert's name in the invectives of a part of the press, was that of the intimate friend, constant guest, and trusted adviser of the Royal Family, Baron Stockmar. The suspicion was justified by the fact in both cases; but in the case of Baron Stockmar, as well as in that of Prince Albert, the influence appears to have been exercised on the whole for good. Lord Aberdeen, who spoke his mind with the sincerity and simplicity of a perfectly honest man, said of Stockmar; "I have known men as clever, as discreet, as good, and with as good judgment; but I never knew any one who united all these qualities as he did." Melbourne was jealous of his reputed influence, but testified to his sense and worth. Palmerston disliked, we may say hated, him; but he declared him the only disinterested man of the kind he had ever known.
Stockmar was a man of good family, who originally pursued the profession of medicine, and having attracted the notice of Prince Leopold of Saxe Coburg, the husband of Princess Charlotte, and afterwards king of the Belgians, was appointed physician in ordinary to that Prince upon his marriage. When, in course of time, he exchanged the functions of physician in ordinary for those of wirepuller in ordinary, he found that the time passed in medical study had not been thrown away. He said himself, "It was a clever stroke to have originally studied medicine; without the knowledge thus acquired, without the psychological and physiological experiences thus obtained, my savoir faire would often have gone a-begging." It seems also that he practised politics on medical principles, penetrating a political situation, or detecting a political disease, by the help of single expressions or acts, after the manner of medical diagnosis, and in his curative treatment endeavouring to remove as far as possible every pathological impediment, so that the healing moral nature might be set free, and social and human laws resume their restorative power. He might have graduated as a politician in a worse school.
He was not able to cure himself of dyspepsia and affections of the eye, which clung to him through life, the dyspepsia producing fluctuation of spirits, and occasional hypochondria, which, it might have been thought, would seriously interfere with his success as a court favourite. "At one time he astonished the observer by his sanguine, bubbling, provoking, unreserved, quick, fiery or humorous, cheerful, even unrestrainedly gay manner, winning him by his hearty open advances where he felt himself attracted and encouraged to confidence; at other times he was all seriousness, placidity, self-possession, cool circumspection, methodical consideration, prudence, criticism, even irony and scepticism." Such is not the portrait which imagination paints of the demeanour of a court favourite. But Stockmar had one invaluable qualification for the part— he had conscientiously made up his mind that it is a man's duty in life to endure being bored.
The favour of a Prince of Saxe Coburg would not in itself have been fortune. A certain Royal Duke was, as everybody who ever had the honour of being within earshot of him knew, in the habit of thinking aloud. It was said that at the marriage of a German prince with an English princess, at which the Duke was present, when the bridegroom pronounced the words: "With all my worldly goods I thee endow," a voice from the circle responded, "The boots you stand in are not paid for." But as it was sung of the aggrandizement of Austria in former days—
"Let others war, do thou, blest Austria, wed,"