S.A. Bent, comp. Familiar Short Sayings of Great Men. 1887.

Lord Palmerston

[Henry John Temple, an English statesman; born in Hampshire, Oct. 20, 1784; educated at Cambridge; became Viscount Palmerston in the Irish peerage, 1802; entered Parliament, 1807; secretary at war from 1812; for foreign affairs, 1830–34, 1835–41, 1846–51; for the home department, 1852; prime minister, 1855–58, 1859–65, in which year, Oct. 18, he died; represented Tiverton from 1835 until his death.]

You may call it the accidental and fortuitous concourse of atoms.

Of the combination of parties led by Mr. Disraeli and Mr. Gladstone. which defeated the Government on the Chinese war, March 5, 1857. (First used in Quart. Rev., 1835, vol. liii. 270.)

When congratulated on persuading the Sultan to liberate Kossuth in 1851, he said, “A good deal of judicious bottle-holding was obliged to be brought into play.”

When asked if he would favor a return to protection, he replied, “The Exe cannot be made to flow back to its source.”

Lord Palmerston’s good humor was a strong element of his character, and contributed materially to his success. It did not desert him during his last illness when his physician mentioned death: “Die, my dear doctor!” he exclaimed, “that’s the last thing I shall do.”

During the attacks of the opposition, against which Lord Palmerston, then secretary for war, kept silence, Canning exclaimed, “What would I give to get that three-decker, Palmerston, to bear down upon them!”

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