Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 49.djvu/474

 of the ‘Scottish Episcopal Review and Magazine.’ To the Edinburgh Cabinet Library he contributed volumes on ‘Palestine,’ 1831, ‘Ancient and Modern Egypt,’ 1831, ‘Nubia and Abyssinia,’ 1833, ‘The Barbary States,’ 1835, ‘Polynesia,’ 1842, and ‘Iceland, Greenland, and the Faroe Isles,’ 1850. For ‘Constable's Miscellany’ he wrote a life of Oliver Cromwell (1829, 2 vols. 8vo). Besides many single sermons and charges, he was also the author of ‘A View of Education in Scotland,’ 1813; ‘Connection of Sacred and Profane History from the Death of Joshua to the Decline of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah,’ 3 vols. 1827, intended to complete the works of Shuckford and Prideaux; ‘Observations on the Advantages of Classical Learning,’ 1830; and a ‘History of the Church of Scotland’ in Rivington's Theological Library, 1834. He published an edition of Keith's ‘Scottish Bishops’ (1824, 8vo), and edited Archbishop Spotiswood's ‘History of the Church of Scotland’ for the Bannatyne Club and the Spotiswood Society jointly (1847 and 1851).

[Gent. Mag. 1848, i. 551–2; Walker's Three Churchmen, 1893; Brit. Mus. Cat.]  RUSSELL, ODO WILLIAM LEOPOLD, first (1829–1884), son of Major-general Lord George William Russell [q. v.], was born at Florence on 20 Feb. 1829. He owed his education chiefly to tutors and largely to the training of his mother, Elizabeth Ann, daughter of the Hon. John Theophilus Rawdon, brother of the Marquis of Hastings. The result was that, while he never became a classical scholar, he could read Dante and speak French, Italian, and German with exceptional purity. The diplomatic career was thus naturally marked out for him, and on 15 March 1849 he was appointed attaché at the embassy at Vienna, then under Sir Arthur Magenis. From 1850 to 1852 he had the advantage of steady work at the foreign office in London under Lord Palmerston, and afterwards under Lord Granville. On 21 Feb. 1852 he was attached to the Paris embassy, but was transferred two months later to his former post at Vienna, where for a short time in 1852 he acted as chargé d'affaires. In September 1853 he became second paid attaché at Paris under Lord Cowley, and in August 1854 first attaché at Constantinople. Here he found himself under a great chief at a great crisis. Lord Stratford de Redcliffe [see ] ruled the embassy at the Porte, and the Crimean war was just beginning. Although a young man, Odo Russell was a steady worker, extremely methodical, and well versed in official forms. Lord Stratford found him a valuable assistant, upon whom he could rely for any pressure of work (, Life of Stratford Canning, ii. 64). During Lord Stratford's two visits to the Crimea in 1855, Odo Russell took charge of the embassy, and had to resist, to the best of his experience and ability, a French intrigue against Lord Stratford's policy (ib. ii. 420). After a brief residence at the legation at Washington under Lord Napier, whom he accompanied to the United States in February 1857, he was given a commission as secretary of legation at Florence, on 23 Nov. 1858; he was to reside at Rome, and thus began a valuable term of diplomatic service in Italy, which lasted twelve years, till 9 Aug. 1870. During this period he was temporarily attached in May 1859 to Sir Henry Elliot's special mission of congratulation to Francis II, king of the Two Sicilies, and in March 1860 his post was nominally transferred to Naples, though he continued to reside at Rome. After the mission was withdrawn from Naples in November 1860, he was still retained at Rome on special service for ten years longer, attaining the rank of second secretary on 1 Oct. 1862. During these years he was practically, though informally, minister at the Vatican at a critical period of Italian history. It was a position of great delicacy and responsibility, and Odo Russell acquitted himself to the satisfaction of his official chiefs.

In 1870 he returned once more to the foreign office at London, where he was appointed assistant under-secretary in August. In November he was sent on a special mission to the headquarters of the German army at Versailles, where he remained till March 1871. His object was to endeavour to secure the countenance of Prussia, as one of the signatory powers of the treaty of Paris, to England's protest against Russia's repudiation of the Black Sea clause in the treaty. The Prussian government, however, had more to gain from a policy of conciliation towards Russia; and, despite his strenuous exertions, Germany preserved a strict neutrality. But the favourable impression produced upon Count Bismarck by Russell's conduct of this difficult mission doubtless formed one of the reasons which led to his appointment, on 16 Oct. 1871, as ambassador at Berlin, where he succeeded Lord Augustus Loftus.

In Germany Russell found himself completely at home. His father had been minister there from 1835 to 1841, and the son was personally on the best of terms