d.
The delay has been partly, perhaps mainly, owing to the pressure of other
demands upon my time and thoughts. But it has also been due to this, that
an instinct similar to that which made me speak, has made me shrink from
writing. It is enough in conversation to give the most partial and hasty
touches, provided they be not in the main untrue. Those same touches when
clothed in a form of greater assumption have but a meagre and
unsatisfactory appearance, and may do even positive injustice. Most of all
in the case of a character which was not only of rare quality, but which
was so remarkable for the fineness of its lights and shadows. But you have
a right to my recollections such as they are, and I will not withhold
them.

I may first refer to the earliest occasion on which I saw him; for it
illustrates a point not unimportant in his history. On an evening in the
month of January 1835, during what is called the short government of Sir
Robert Peel, I was sent for by Sir Robert Peel, and received from him the
offer, which I accepted, of the under-secretaryship of the colonies. From
him I went on to your father, who was then secretary of state in that
department, and who was thus to be, in official home-talk, my master.
Without any apprehension of hurting you, I may confess, that I went in
fear and trembling. [_Then follows the passage already quoted in vol. i.
p. 124._] I was only, I think, for about ten weeks his under-secretary.
But as some men hate those whom they have injured, so others love those
whom they have obliged; and his friendship continued warm and
unintermitting for the subsequent twenty-six years of his life.

Some of his many great qualities adorned him in common with several, or
even with many, other contemporary statesmen: such as clearness of view,
strength of the deliberative faculty, strong sense of duty, deep devotion
to the crown, and the most thorough and uncompromising loyalty to his
friends and colleagues. In this loyalty of intention many, I think, are
not only praiseworthy but perfect. But the loyalty of intention was in him
so assisted by other and distinctive qualities, as to give it a peculiar
efficacy; and any one associated with Lord Aberdeen might always rest
assured that he was safe in his hands. When our law did not allow
prisoners the benefit of counsel, it was commonly said that the judge was
counsel for the prisoner. Lord Aberdeen was always counsel for the absent.
Doubtless he had