Melbourne is a small place ; but Lord Palmerston lends
import- ance to any place which he selects as the site for -uttering his popular tractates on practical affairs ; and whether it be in De- vonshire or Derbyshire,—whether to teach the way in which the stream of Free-trade, or of the Exe, or of Education must run,—for that hoar the ear of the world is to Lord Palmerston, its eye upon the place where he stands. It was simply "local business" that took him there ; as he told the Derby people, impatient to cross- examine the Home Secretary off his guard at a dinner to be got up for the purpose. But Lord Palmerston never is off his guard, and he stuck to Melbourne pure and simple. It was a local mission, and there was a local claim upon him. Melbourne gave the title by which its late owner is reckoned among the popular Prime Min- isters of this country ; bequeathed to Lady Palmerston, it gives her husband a pleasant habitation in Derbyshire, and to Melbourne is given a pleasant lord. Especially is he one who can wield trowel and tongue with equal felicity—just the man that Melbourne wanted. It had established a little institution, economically combining within the same walls an infant school, a mechanics institution, and a savings-bank; and it wanted a patron to lay the first stone. Lord Palmerston was that patron by the droit du seigneur; and Melbourne could not have been better fitted. Many a man, coming from a great position to so contracted a field and so small an office, might have burlesqued the occasion by a pardon- able magniloquence ; or, anxious to improve a suggestive subject, might have introduced "ideas." Lord. Palmerston selected the proper ideas ; of those not already embodied in the place and the institute, he introduced but few—a very few from a proximate group. But the benefits of such institutions to young, adult, and aged—the training of men and women in habits and faculties which will win respect for themselves and good for their country —are truths inscribed on the memory of every soul in Melbourne in language as clear as crystal. And what is said to Melbourne by the lord of the manor is said to middle-class or working-class Rngland by the Home Secretary.
