Lord Liverpool was the prime minister of England for fifteen years, from 1812 (succeeding to Perceval upon the latter’s assassination) to 1827.  He was a man of moderate abilities, but honest and patriotic; this chief merit was in the tact by which he kept together a cabinet of conflicting political sentiments; but he lived in comparatively quiet times, when everybody wanted rest and repose, and when he had only to combat domestic evils.  The lord chancellor, Lord Eldon, had been seated on the woolsack from nearly the beginning of the century, and was the “keeper of the king’s conscience” for twenty-five years, enjoying his great office for a longer period than any other lord chancellor in English history.  He was doubtless a very great lawyer and a man of remarkable sagacity and insight, but the narrowest and most bigoted of all the great men who controlled the destinies of the nation.  He absolutely abhorred any change whatever and any kind of reform.  He adhered to what was already established, and because it was established; therefore he was a good churchman and a most reliable Tory.

The most powerful man in the cabinet at this time, holding the second office in the government, that of foreign secretary, was Lord Castlereagh,—­no very great scholar or orator or man of business, but an inveterate Tory, who played into the hands of all the despots of Europe, and who made captive more powerful minds than his own by the elegance of his manners, the charm of his conversation, and the intensity of his convictions.  William Pitt never showed greater sagacity than when he bought the services of this gifted aristocrat (for he was then a Whig), and introduced him into Parliament.  He was the most prominent minister of the crown until he died, directing foreign affairs with ability, but in the wrong direction,—­the friend and ally of Metternich, Chateaubriand, Hardenberg, and the monarchs whom they represented.

But foremost in genius among the great statesmen of the day was George Canning, who, however, did not reach the summit of his ambition until the latter part of the reign of George IV.  But after the death of Castlereagh in 1822, he was the leading spirit of the cabinet, holding the great office of foreign secretary, second in rank and power only to that of the premier.  Although a Tory,—­the follower and disciple of Pitt,—­it was Canning who gave the first great blow to the narrow and selfish conservatism which marked the government of his day, and entered the first wedge which was to split the Tory ranks and inaugurate reform.  For this he acquired the greatest popularity that any statesman in England ever enjoyed, if we except Fox and Pitt, and at the same time incurred the bitterest wrath which the Metternichs of the world have ever cherished toward the benefactors of mankind.