olstein, not in the interest
of its inhabitants, but in the interests of Germany, and by Germany he
meant the Government of Berlin and the House of Hohenzollern. He
represented not merely other ideas, but other methods than those which
prevailed with statesmen who were old enough to recall the wars of
Napoleon and the partition of Europe to which they gave rise. It
must be admitted that England did not show to advantage in the
Schleswig-Holstein difficulty, in spite of the soundness of her
counsels; and Bismarck's triumph in the affair was as complete as the
policy on which it was based was bold and adroit. Lord Palmerston and
Lord John were embarrassed on the one hand by the apathy of Russia and
France and on the other by the cautious, not to say timid, attitude of
their own colleagues. 'As to Cabinets,' wrote Lord Palmerston, with dry
humour, in reply to a note in which Lord John hinted that if the Prime
Minister and himself had been given a free hand they could have kept
Austria from war with Denmark, 'if we had had colleagues like those who
sat in Pitt's Cabinet, such as Westmoreland and others, or such men as
those who were with Peel, like Goulburn and Hardinge, you and I might
have had our own way in most things. But when, as is now the case, able
men fill every department, such men will have opinions and hold to them.
Unfortunately, they are often too busy with their own department to
follow up foreign questions so as to be fully masters of them, and their
conclusions are generally on the timid side of what might be the
best.'[41]

[Sidenote: AS SCHOOLMASTER ABROAD]

Lord John wrote to Foreign Courts--was Mr. Bagehot's shrewd
criticism--much in the same manner as he was accustomed to speak in the
House of Commons. In other words, he used great plainness of speech,
and, because of the very desire to make his meaning clear, he, was
occasionally indiscreetly explicit and even brusque. Sometimes it
happened that the intelligent foreigner grew critical at Lord John's
expense. Count Vitzthum, for example, laid stress on the fact that Lord
John 'looked on the British Constitution as an inimitable masterpiece,'
which less-favoured nations ought not only to admire but adopt, if they
wished to advance and go forward in the direction of liberty,
prosperity, and peace. There was just enough truth in such assertions to
render them amusing, though not enough to give them a sting. There were
times when Lord John was the 'st