e them those
statesmanlike gifts which accomplished the successful accommodation of a
more varied series of novel and entangled situations than has, perhaps,
fallen to the lot of any other public man within our own memory.
Especially might be named that rare quality of a strong overruling sense
of the justice due from man to man, from nation to nation; that
'combination of speculative and practical ability' (so wrote one who had
deep experience of his mind) 'which peculiarly fitted him to solve the
problem how the subject races of a civilised empire are to be governed;'
that firm, courageous, and far-sighted confidence in the triumph of those
liberal and constitutional principles (in the best sense of the word),
which, having secured the greatness of England, were, in his judgment,
also applicable, under other forms, to the difficult circumstances of new
countries and diverse times.

'It is a singular coincidence,' said Lord Elgin, in a speech at Benares a
few months before his end, 'that three successive Governors-General of
India should have stood towards each other in the relationship of
contemporary friends. Lord Dalhousie, when named to the government of
India, was the youngest man who had ever been appointed to a situation of
such high responsibility and trust. Lord Canning was in the prime of life;
and I, if I am not already on the decline, am nearer to the verge of it
than either of my contemporaries who have preceded me. When I was leaving
England for India, Lord Ellenborough, who is now, alas! the only surviving
ex-Governor-General, said to me, '"You are not a very old man; but, depend
upon it, you will find yourself by far the oldest man in India."' To that
mournful catalogue was added his own name within the brief space of one
year; and now a fourth, not indeed bound to the others by ties of personal
or political friendship, but like in energetic discharge of his duties and
in the prime of usefulness in which he was cut off, has fallen by a fate
yet more untimely.

These tragical incidents invest the high office to which such precious
lives have been sacrificed with a new and solemn interest. There is
something especially pathetic when the gallant vessel, as it were, goes
down within very sight of the harbour, with all its accumulated treasures.
But no losses more appeal at the moment to the heart of the country, no
careers deserve to be more carefully enshrined in its grateful
remembrance.

ARTHUR P. STA