song; now, at the request of Dr. Chalmers, speaks at a public meeting in
favour of church extension. At one time we hear of long solitary rides
over field and fell, during which the thoughts and feelings that stirred
in him would take the shape of a sonnet or a poem, to be confided to one
of his sisters; at another time he is keeping up a regular correspondence
on abstruse questions of philosophy with his brother Frederick, still at
Oxford.

In these pursuits, as well as in the somewhat harassing occupation of
disentangling the family property from its embarrassments, be was
preparing himself for future usefulness by the exercise of the same
industry and patience, the same grasp both of details and of general
purpose, which be showed in the political career gradually dawning upon
him. It was observed that, whatsoever his hand found to do, he did it with
all his might, as well as with a judgment and discretion beyond his years,
and a tact akin to genius. He was undergoing, perhaps, the best training
for the varied duties to which he was to be called--that peculiarly
British 'discipline of mind, body, and heart' to which observers like
Bunsen attribute the effectiveness of England's public men.

As early as 1834, when he had barely completed his twenty-third year, he
published a Letter to the Electors of Great Britain, with the view of
vindicating the policy and the position of the Tory leaders, more
especially of the Duke of Wellington. A similar motive, the desire of
protesting against a monopoly of liberal sentiments by the Whigs, and
showing in his own person that a Tory was not necessarily a narrow bigot,
impelled him to offer himself as a candidate at the election of 1837, on
the occurrence of an unexpected vacancy in the representation of
Fifeshire. But, coming forward at a moment's warning, he never had any
chance of success, and was defeated by a large majority.