e Park, and the
latter, waiving personal ambition, told him that, though he could say
nothing decisive for the moment, he thought he should accept office
under him. On the morrow Lord Aberdeen was summoned to Osborne, and
accepted the task of forming an Administration. Next day her Majesty
wrote to Lord John announcing the fact, and the letter ended with the
following passage: 'The Queen thinks the moment to have arrived when a
popular, efficient, and durable Government could be formed by the
sincere and united efforts of all professing Conservative and Liberal
opinions. The Queen, knowing that this can only be effected by the
patriotic sacrifice of personal interests and feelings to the public,
trusts that Lord John Russell will, as far as he is able, give his
valuable and powerful assistance to the realisation of this object.'
This communication found Lord John halting between two opinions.
Palmerston had declined to serve under him, and he might, with even
greater propriety, in his turn have refused to serve under Aberdeen. His
own health, which was never strong, had suffered through the long strain
of office in years which had been marked by famine and rebellion. He had
just begun to revel, to quote his own words, in 'all the delights of
freedom from red boxes, with the privilege of fresh air and mountain
prospects.'

[Sidenote: 'SHOEBLACK' TO ABERDEEN]

He had already found the recreation of a busy man, and was engrossed in
the preparation of the 'Memoirs and Journal' of his friend, Thomas
Moore. The poet had died in February of that year, and Lord John, with
characteristic goodwill, had undertaken to edit his voluminous papers in
order to help a widow without wounding her pride. In fact, on many
grounds he might reasonably have stood aside, and he certainly would
have done so if personal motives had counted most with him, or if he had
been the self-seeker which some of his detractors have imagined. Here
Lord Macaulay comes to our help with a vivid account of what he terms an
eventful day--one of the dark days before Christmas--on which the
possibility of a Coalition Government under Aberdeen was still doubtful.
Macaulay states that he went to Lansdowne House, on December 20, on a
hasty summons to find its master and Lord John in consultation over the
Queen's letter. He was asked his opinion of the document and duly gave
it. 'Then Lord John said that of course he should try to help Lord
Aberdeen: but how? There