August 16th, 1834 {p.120}

[Page Head: LORD BROUGHAM.]

At a Council for the prorogation; the first time I have seen all these new Ministers in a bunch—a queer set, all things considered, to be in possession of the Palace. Great change of decoration. Duncannon, Ellice, Hobhouse, Abercromby, Mulgrave, Auckland. The King, who is fond of meddling in the Council business instead of repeating like a parrot what is put in his mouth, made a bother and confusion about a fancy matter, and I was forced to go to Taylor and beg to explain it to him, which I did after the House of Lords. The King was quite knocked up and easily satisfied, for he neither desired nor could have understood any explanations. There were not much more than half a dozen Peers in the House, but many ladies. The Chancellor went down, and, in presence of the ladies, attired in his golden robes (and especially before Mrs. P., to whom he makes love), gave a judgment in some case in which a picture of Nell Gwynne was concerned, and he was very proud of the delicacy of his judgment. There never was anything like his exhilaration of spirits and good-humour. I don't know what has come to him, except it be that he has scrambled through the session and got Lord Grey out. He wound up in the House of Lords by the introduction of his Bill for a Judicial Committee there, which he prefaced by a speech exhibiting his own judicial acts, and undoubtedly making a capital case for himself as to diligence and despatch if it be all true (which I see no reason to doubt), and passing a great eulogium upon the House of Lords as an institution, and drawing comparisons between that House and the House of Commons (much to the disadvantage of the latter), expressing many things which are very true and just and of a highly conservative tendency. He is a strange being whom, with all his inconsistencies, one cannot but admire; so varied and prodigious are his powers. Much more are these lines applicable to him than to his predecessor on the Woolsack:—

Great wits are sure to madness near allied, And thin partitions do their bounds divide.

In a speech the other night, by way of putting his audience on a wrong scent with regard to his correspondence with Lord Wellesley, he assured them that that correspondence was on any subject but politics, and in every language except English; and Lemarchant told somebody that his most difficult employment was to correct and copy out the Chancellor's Greek epigrams to Lord Wellesley, his Greek characters being worse than his English; while Lord Wellesley sent him very neatly written and prettily composed epigrams in return. I should think Lemarchant's occupation very amusing, and that no study could be more curious than that of the mind and actions of this strange specimen of humanity.

August 19th, 1834 {p.121}

At Stoke from Saturday, the 16th, till yesterday; had much talk with old Creevey about the Chancellor. Sefton, his great ally, so resented his conduct to Lord Grey that he was on the point of quarrelling with him, and Brougham miscalculated so far as to chuckle to Sefton himself over the improvement of his own position in the new order of things, telling him that he could more easily manage Melbourne than he could Lord Grey. They are a precious set with their squabbles and tracasseries. It appears that they very well knew what Brougham was from the beginning, especially Grey's womankind, who warned their father against him, but they all flattered themselves they had taken the sting out of him by getting him into the House of Lords. Creevey says that Brougham is devoured with ambition, and what he wants is to be Prime Minister, but that it is quite impossible he should for ever escape detection and not be regularly blown up sooner or later. He now wants to appear on good terms with Lord Grey, and there is a dinner at Edinburgh in contemplation (at which Brougham is to preside) to be given to Lord Grey. His friends want him not to go, but he has a notion that the Scotch have behaved so well to him that he ought not to refuse the invitation. The Chancellor had intended to go junketting on the Rhine with Mrs. P., and this project was only marred by his discovering that he could not leave the country without putting the Great Seal in commission at a cost (to himself) of L1,400. This was a larger price than he was disposed to pay for his trip, so he went off to Brougham instead.

On Sunday I went all over the private apartments of Windsor Castle, and walked through what they call the slopes to the Queen's cottage; all very splendid and luxurious. In the gallery there is a model of a wretched-looking dog-hole of a building, with a ruined tower beside it. I asked what this was, and the housekeeper said, 'The Chateau of Meiningen;' put there, I suppose, to enhance by comparison the pleasure of all the grandeur which surrounds the Queen, for it would hardly have been exhibited as a philosophical or moral memento of her humble origin and the low fortune from which she has been raised.

[Page Head: SPENCER PERCEVAL.]

As I rode into London yesterday morning I fell in with Spencer Perceval, and got off my horse to walk into town with him. He talks rationally enough till he gets on religious topics; he asked me what I thought of the state of affairs, and, after telling him my opinion of the condition and prospects of the Church, I asked him what he thought of them. He said he agreed with me as to the status, but his notion was 'that it all proceeded from a departure from God,' that ours was a backsliding Church, and that God had forsaken it, and that we had only to put our trust in Him, and rely entirely on Him, and He would work out the salvation of His own. We parted in the midst of the discussion, and before I had any time to get from him any explanation of the course he would recommend to those who govern in furtherance of his own theocratical principles.

There has been what is called 'a great Protestant meeting' at Dublin, at which Winchilsea was introduced to the Irish Orangemen and made one of them. It was great in one way, for there were a great many fools, who talked a great deal of nonsense and evinced a disposition to do a great deal of mischief if they can. Winchilsea's description of himself was undoubtedly true, only it is true always and of all of them, 'that his feelings were so excited that he was deprived of what little intellect he possessed.'

August 26th, 1834 {p.123}

On Friday to Hillingdon, Saturday to Stoke; Lord John Russell, Medem, Dedel, Tommy Duncombe, D'Orsay. Lord John and I walked to Bulstrode on Sunday; talked about the Chancellor and the Government. He said that Lord Holland was struck with Brougham's want of tact at hearing him press Lord Grey to go to a public dinner at Edinburgh because he was to be in the chair; that Lord Grey did not think Brougham had been engaged ab initio in a plot to get him out. Lord John talked of the House of Lords, and how it and the House of Commons were to be re-united. He thinks that the obstinacy of the House of Lords and its Tory spirit are attributable solely to the numerous creations of the last thirty or forty years.

Tommy Duncombe is the greatest political comedy going, he is engaged in a mediation between the master builders and the operatives, who have quarrelled about the unions, and an express came to him from Cubitt after dinner.

Sefton told me that Lord Grey, when he was at Windsor, had a long conversation with the King, in which his Majesty expressed no little dissatisfaction at what had recently occurred and at the present posture of his affairs. He told me that Lord Grey certainly would not have continued in office under any circumstances till Parliament met again, and that, in fact, his continual propositions to retire and expressions of consciousness of inability and unfitness had been very embarrassing and annoying both to his colleagues and the King, and that the latter had evidently been tired out by them, as was proved by his not making the slightest effort to induce Lord Grey to remain when he tendered his resignation. Grey acted very handsomely in giving his proxy to Melbourne, and the reason he stayed away from the House of Lords during the latter days of the session was that he was afraid of being compelled to say something indicative of the real state of his mind and feelings with regard to past occurrences.

[Page Head: LORD WESTMEATH'S CASE.]

When I got to town yesterday, to my great astonishment I found that the Vice-Chancellor had been at the office with a peremptory mandate from the Chancellor to bring on the Westmeath case on Friday next, sent up from Brougham Hall. In my absence the summonses had been issued, but I desired them all to be recalled, and the Vice-Chancellor soon after happening to call on me, I told him what had occurred before, and that the Lord President was opposed to the cause being thus hurried on. He acquiesced, and wrote to the Chancellor to say he had heard from me that it could not be; and so it ended, but I dare say the Chancellor will be in a violent rage, which I rather enjoy than not.[3] It is very clear that he intends to exercise paramount authority over the Judicial Committee, and to consider everything connected with it at his disposal. When first he had the Privy Council Bill drawn up by one of his devils, he intended to create a new tribunal, of which he should be the head, and though he was obliged to give up his original design, he still considers himself entitled to deal with the Judicial Committee as he pleases. If the Lord President had more of the spirit that is due to the office over which he presides, he would not suffer him to interfere, and I am resolved if I can to get Lord Lansdowne to assert his own authority. The Chancellor has promised Sefton that when Mr. Blackburn, now a judge at the Mauritius, comes home, he shall be made a Privy Councillor; that Sir Alexander Johnston, who now attends the sittings of the Council, shall be dismissed, and Blackburn invited to attend instead of him, and that he shall have L400 a year (which by the Act he may). This, if it takes place, will be one of the grossest and most barefaced jobs that ever were perpetrated; but I think it can never be. What makes it worse is that Brougham introduced this clause for the express purpose of meeting Blackburn's case; so he told Sefton, but I suppose it means that he made the stipend receivable by an ex-judge in any colony, when the pretext for it was the power of obtaining the assistance of Indian judges.[4]

[3] [In addition to other reasons, which are obvious, against this proceeding, it would have been an unprecedented thing to call on an important appeal for hearing at the end of August, in the midst of the long vacation.]

[4] [No colonial judge has ever been appointed to one of the assessorships of the Judicial Committee, except Sir Alexander Johnston, who had been Chief Justice of Ceylon; but Sir Alexander refused to accept the stipend (L400 a year) attached to the office, and never did receive it.]

September 4th, 1834 {p.125}

At Court yesterday. The King came to town to receive the address of the City on the Queen's return—the most ridiculous address I ever heard. The Queen was too ill to appear. Her visit to Germany knocked her up, and well it might, considering the life she led—always up at six and never in bed till twelve, continual receptions and ceremonies. Errol told me she showed them her old bedroom in the palace (as they call it) at Meiningen—a hole that an English housemaid would think it a hardship to sleep in.

Stanley (not the ex-Secretary, but the Under-Secretary) told me last night an anecdote of Melbourne which I can very easily believe. When the King sent for him he told Young 'he thought it a damned bore, and that he was in many minds what he should do—be Minister or no.' Young said, 'Why, damn it, such a position never was occupied by any Greek or Roman, and, if it only lasts two months, it is well worth while to have been Prime Minister of England.' 'By God that's true,' said Melbourne; 'I'll go.' Young is his private secretary—a vulgar, familiar, impudent fellow, but of indefatigable industry and a man who suits Melbourne. His taste is not delicate enough to be shocked at the coarseness, while his indolence is accommodated by the industry, of his secretary. Then Young[5] knows many people, many places, and many things; nobody knows whence he comes or what is his origin, but he was a purser in the navy, and made himself useful to the Duke of Devonshire when he went to Russia, who recommended him to Melbourne. He was a writer and runner for the newspapers, and has always been an active citizen, struggling and striving to get on in the world, and probably with no inconsiderable dexterity. I know nothing of his honesty, for or against it; he seems good-humoured, but vulgar and familiar. Ben Stanley and I were talking about public men, and agreed that by far the ablest, and at the same time the most unscrupulous, of them are Brougham and O'Connell, and that the latter is probably on the whole the most devoid of principle. Their characters and adventures would be worthy of a Plutarch.

[5] [Tom Young was commonly known as 'Ubiquity Young,' because you saw him in every place you might happen to go to.]

September 5th, 1834 {p.126}

[Page Head: HOLLAND HOUSE.]

At Holland House yesterday, where I had not been these two years. Met Lord Holland at Court, who made me go. The last time I was with my Lady she was so mighty uncivil that I left off my visits, and then we met again as if there had been no interruption, and as if we had been living together constantly. Spring Rice and his son, Melbourne, and Palmerston dined there; Allen was at Dulwich, but came in the evening, and so did Bobus Smith. There was a great deal of very good talk, anecdotes, literary criticism, and what not, some of which would be worth remembering, though hardly sufficiently striking to be put down, unless as forming a portion of a whole course of conversations of this description. A vast depression came over my spirits, though I was amused, and I don't suppose I uttered a dozen words. It is certainly true that the atmosphere of Holland House is often oppressive, but that was not it; it was a painful consciousness of my own deficiencies and of my incapacity to take a fair share in conversation of this description. I felt as if a language was spoken before me which I understood, but not enough to talk in it myself. There was nothing discussed of which I was altogether ignorant, and when the merits of Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Crabbe were brought into comparison, and Lord Holland cut jokes upon Allen for his enthusiastic admiration of the 'De Moribus Germanorum,' it was not that I had not read the poets or the historian, but that I felt I had not read them with profit. I have not that familiarity with either which enables me to discuss their merits, and a painful sense came over me of the difference between one who has superficially read and one who has studied, one who has laid a solid foundation in early youth, gathering knowledge as he advances in years, all the stores of his mind being so orderly disposed that they are at all times available, and one who (as I have done) has huddled together a quantity of loose reading, as vanity, curiosity, and not seldom shame impelled; reading thus without system, more to cover the deficiencies of ignorance than to augment the stores of knowledge, loads the mind with an undigested mass of matter, which proves when wanted to be of small practical utility—in short, one must pay for the follies of one's youth. He who wastes his early years in horse-racing and all sorts of idleness, figuring away among the dissolute and the foolish, must be content to play an inferior part among the learned and the wise. Some instances there are of men who have united both characters, but it will be found that these have had frequent laborious intervals, that though they may have been vicious, they have never been indolent, and that their minds have never slumbered and lost by disuse the power of exertion. Reflections of this sort make me very uncomfortable, and I am ready to cry with vexation when I think on my misspent life. If I was insensible to a higher order of merit, and indifferent to a nobler kind of praise, I should be happier far; but to be tormented with the sentiment of an honourable ambition and with aspirations after better things, and at the same time so sunk in sloth and bad habits as to be incapable of those exertions without which their objects are unattainable, is of all conditions the worst. I sometimes think that it would be better for me, as I am not what I might have been (if my education had been less neglected, and my mind had undergone a better system of moral discipline), if I was still lower than I am in the scale, and belonged entirely to a more degraded caste; and then again, when I look forward to that period which is fast approaching—

When ... a sprightlier age— Comes tittering on to drive one from the stage—

I am thankful that I have still something in store, that though far below the wise and the learned, I am still something raised above the ignorant mob, that though much of my mental substance has been wasted, I have enough left to appear respectably in the world, and that I have at least preserved that taste for literary pursuits which I cling to as the greatest of blessings and the best security against the tedium and vacuity which are the indispensable concomitants of an idle youth and an ignorant old age.

[Page Head: CONVERSATION AT HOLLAND HOUSE.]

As a slight but imperfect sketch of the talk of Holland House I will put down this:—

They talked of Taylor's new poem, 'Philip van Artevelde.' Melbourne had read and admired it. The preface, he said, was affected and foolish, the poem very superior to anything in Milman. There was one fine idea in the 'Fall of Jerusalem'—that of Titus, who felt himself propelled by an irresistible impulse like that of the Greek dramatists, whose fate is the great agent always pervading their dramas. They held Wordsworth cheap, except Spring Rice, who was enthusiastic about him. Holland thought Crabbe the greatest genius of modern poets. Melbourne said he degraded every subject. None of them had known Coleridge; his lectures were very tiresome, but he is a poet of great merit. Then they spoke of Spencer Perceval and Irving preaching in the streets. Irving had called on Melbourne, and eloquently remonstrated that 'they only asked the same licence that was given to puppet-shows and other sights not to be prevented; that the command was express, "Go into the highways," and that they must obey God rather than man.' Melbourne said this was all very true and unanswerable. 'What did you answer?' I asked. 'I said, "You must not preach there."' Then of Cambridge and Goulburn, who is a saint and gave lectures in his room, by which he has caught several young men. Lord Holland spoke of George III.'s letters to Lord North; the King liked Lord North, hated the Duke of Richmond. Amongst the few people he liked were Lord Loughborough and Lord Thurlow. Thurlow was always 'endeavouring to undermine the Minister with whom he was acting, and intriguing underhand with his enemies.' Loughborough used to say, 'Do what you think right, and never think of what you are to say to excuse it beforehand'—a good maxim. The Duke of Richmond in 1763 or 1764, after an audience of the King in his closet, told him that 'he had said that to him which if he was a subject he should not scruple to call an untruth.' The King never forgave it, and the Duke had had the imprudence to make a young king his enemy for life. This Duke of Richmond, when Lord-Lieutenant of Sussex, during the American war, sailed in a yacht through the fleet, when the King was there, with American colours at his mast-head. He never forgave Fox for putting the Duke of Portland instead of himself at the head of the Government in 1782. During the riots in 1780 on account of Admiral Keppel, Tom Grenville burst open the door of the Admiralty, and assisted at the pillage and destruction of papers. Lord Grey a little while ago attacked him about it, and he did not deny it. Such things could not be done now. During the Windsor election they hired a mob to go down and throw Lord Mornington (Lord Wellesley) over Windsor Bridge, and Fitzpatrick said it would be so fine to see St. Patrick's blue riband floating down the stream. They first sent to Piper to know if Lord Mornington could swim. The plan was defeated by his having a still stronger mob. After dinner they discussed women's works: few chefs-d'oeuvres; Madame de Sevigne the best; the only three of a high class are Madame de Sevigne, Madame de Stael, and (Bobus Smith said) Sappho, but of her not above forty lines are extant: these, however, are unrivalled; Mrs Somerville is very great in the exact sciences. Lady Holland would not hear of Madame de Stael. They agreed as to Miss Austen that her novels are excellent. Quintus Curtius is confirmed by Burnes' travels in Bokhara, but was reckoned no authority by the greatest scholars; Lord Melbourne said Mitford had expressed his confidence in him. Of the early English kings there is no reason to believe that any king before Edward III. understood the English language; the quarrel between Beckett and King Henry II. was attributed (by some writers) to the hostile feeling between Normans and Saxons, and this was the principal motive of the quarrel and the murder of the Archbishop. Klopstock had a sect of admirers in Germany; some young students made a pilgrimage from Gottingen to Hamburg, where Klopstock lived in his old age, to ask him the meaning of a passage in one of his works which they could not understand. He looked at it, and then said that he could not then recollect what it was that he meant when he wrote it, but that he knew it was the finest thing he ever wrote, and they could not do better than devote their lives to the discovery of its meaning.

September 7th, 1834 {p.130}

[Page Head: LORD MELBOURNE'S LITERARY CONVERSATION.]

At Holland House again; only Bobus Smith and Melbourne; these two, with Allen, and Lord Holland agreeable enough. Melbourne's excellent scholarship and universal information remarkably display themselves in society, and he delivers himself with an energy which shows how deeply his mind is impressed with literary subjects.

After dinner there was much talk of the Church, and Allen spoke of the early reformers, the Catharists, and how the early Christians persecuted each other; Melbourne quoted Vigilantius's letter to Jerome, and then asked Allen about the 11th of Henry IV., an Act passed by the Commons against the Church, and referred to the dialogue between the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Ely at the beginning of Shakespeare's 'Henry V.,' which Lord Holland sent for and read, Melbourne knowing it all by heart and prompting all the time. Lingard says of this statute that the Commons proposed to the King to commit an act of spoliation on the clergy, but that the King sharply rebuked them and desired to hear no more of the matter. About etymologies Melbourne quoted Tooke's 'Diversions of Purley,' which he seemed to have at his fingers' ends. I forget what other topics were discussed, but after Lady Holland and Melbourne and Allen went to bed, Lord Holland, Bobus, and I sat down, and Lord Holland told us many anecdotes about the great orators of his early days. Fox used to say Grey was the most prudent man he knew, and this perhaps owing to his having got into a scrape early in his Parliamentary life, by attacking Pitt, who gave him a severe castigation; it was about his letter to the Prince being sent by a servant during the Regency discussions. Fox thought his own speech in 1804 on going to war with France the best he ever made. Lord Holland believed that Pitt (the younger) was not so eloquent as Chatham. Grattan said, 'He takes longer flights, does not soar so high.' No power was ever equal to Chatham's over a public assembly, much greater in the Commons than it was afterwards in the Lords. When Sir Thomas Robinson had been boring the House on some commercial question, and introduced the word 'sugar' so often that there was at last a laugh as often as he did so, Chatham, then Mr. Pitt, who had put him up, grew very angry, and at last his wrath boiled over. When Robinson sat down Pitt rose, and with a tone and manner of the utmost indignation began, 'Mr. Speaker, sir—sugar—I say sugar. Who laughs now?' and nobody did laugh. Once in the House of Lords, on a debate during the American war, he said he hoped the King might be awakened from his slumbers. There was a cry of 'Order! order!' 'Order, my Lords?' burst out Chatham, 'Order? I have not been disorderly, but I will be disorderly. I repeat again, I hope that his Majesty may be awakened from his slumbers, but that he may be awakened by such an awful apparition as that which drew King Priam's curtains in the dead of the night and told him of the conflagration of his empire.' Holland regretted much that he had never heard Lord North, whom he fancied he should have liked as much as any of his great opponents; his temper, shrewdness, humour, and power of argument were very great. Tommy Townshend, a violent, foolish fellow, who was always talking strong language, said in some debate, 'Nothing will satisfy me but to have the noble Lord's head; I will have his head.' Lord North said, 'The honourable gentleman says he will have my head. I bear him no malice in return, for though the honourable gentleman says he will have my head, I can assure him that I would on no account have his.'

September 13th, 1834 {p.132}

Dined again at Holland House the day before yesterday; Melbourne, Rice, Lord and Lady Albemarle, and Lord Gosford; rather dull. A discussion about who was the man in a mask who cut Charles I.'s head off; Mackintosh believed he knew. What a literary puerility! The man in a mask was Jack Ketch (whatever his name was); who can doubt it? Where was the man, Roundhead or Puritan, who as an amateur would have mounted the scaffold to perform this office? But the executioner, though only discharging the duties of his office, probably thought in those excited times that he would not be safe from the vengeance of some enthusiastic cavalier, and that it was more prudent to conceal the features of the man by whom the deed was done. Melbourne swore that Henry VIII. was the greatest man who ever lived, and Allen declared if he had not married Ann Boleyn we should have continued Catholics to this day, both of which assertions I ventured to dispute. Allen with all his learning is fond of a paradox, and his prejudices shine forth in every question in which Church and religion are implicated. Melbourne loves dashing opinions.

September 18th, 1834 {p.133}

[Page Head: LORD BROUGHAM'S ABERRATIONS.]

For some weeks past a fierce war has been waged by the 'Times' against the Chancellor. It was declared in some menacing articles which soon swelled into a tone of rebuke, and have since been sharpened into attacks of a constancy, violence, and vigour quite unexampled; all the power of writing which the paper can command—argument, abuse, and ridicule—have been heaped day after day upon him, and when it took a little breathing time it filled up the interval by quotations from other papers, which have been abundantly supplied both by the London and the country press. I do not yet know what are the secret causes which have stirred the wrath of the 'Times.' The 'Examiner' has once a week thrown into the general contribution of rancour an article perhaps wittier and more pungent than any which have appeared in the 'Times,' but between them they have flagellated him till he is raw, and it is very clear that he feels it quite as acutely as they can desire. While they have thus been administering castigation in this unsparing style, he has afforded them the best opportunities by his extraordinary progress in Scotland, and the astonishing speeches which he made at Aberdeen and Dundee, making more mountebank exhibitions than he did in the House of Lords, and exciting the unquenchable laughter of his enemies and the continual terror of his friends. Lord Holland told me that he was trembling for the account of the Edinburgh dinner. That great affair appears, however (by the first half of the proceedings), to have gone off very well. Lord Grey in his speech confined himself to general topics, and he and Brougham steered extremely clear of one another, but Brougham made some allusions which Durham took to himself, and replied to with considerable asperity of tone, avoiding, however, any personalities and anything like a direct collision. Everybody asks, How long will Brougham be permitted to go on playing these ape's tricks and scattering his flummery and his lies? and then they say, But you can't get rid of him, and the Government (dangerous as he is to them) could not get on without him. There would probably be no difficulty; experience has demonstrated to me the extreme fallacy of the notion that anybody under any circumstances is indispensable. Althorp appeared the most indispensable man the other day, but that was only because his friends and the fools in the House of Commons kept bawling out that he was so till they persuaded him, themselves, and everybody else that it really was the case. Who would have dared to say that this Government could have gone on without either Stanley in one House or Lord Grey in the other? But anybody would have been scouted as mad who had argued that it would go on just as well when deprived of both of them. The Chancellor's amazing talents—his eloquence, sarcasm, and varied powers—can never fail to produce considerable effect; but in the House of Lords the field is narrow for the display of these qualities, the audience is cold and unfriendly, and he has excited such a general feeling of personal animosity against himself, and has done such irreparable injury to his character—having convinced all the world that he is desperately ambitious, false, capricious, intriguing, and governed by no principle, and under the influence of no sentiment of honour—that his influence is exceedingly diminished. Those who are charitably disposed express their humane conviction that he is mad, and it probably is not very remote from the truth.[6]

[6] [It is with pain and reluctance that I print these remarks on Lord Brougham, and several passages in the preceding pages of these Memoirs which are equally severe, and in some respects, I think, exaggerated. But I certainly do not feel myself justified in withholding them. They were all revised and corrected by the author himself with great care; and nothing but a true and full account of the sentiments which Lord Brougham's conduct had excited amongst his colleagues and contemporaries at that time can account for the catastrophe which awaited him, and which excluded him for the rest of his life from official life and employment.]

Henry Taylor brought me a parcel of letters to frank to Southey the other day; they are from Newton, Cowper's nephew (I think to W. Thornton), and they are to supply Southey with materials for Cowper's Life, which he is writing. There is one curious fact revealed in these letters, which accounts for much of Cowper's morbid state of mind and fits of depression, as well as for the circumstance of his running away from his place in the House of Lords. It relates to some defect in his physical conformation; some body found out his secret, and probably threatened its exposure.

September 19th, 1834 {p.135}

[Page Head: CANNING AND LORD HOLLAND.]

Yesterday at Holland House; nobody there but Melbourne. We were talking of Reform, and Lord Holland said, 'I don't know if we were right about Reform, but this I know, that if we were to propose it at all, we were right in going the lengths we did, and this was Canning's opinion.' Melbourne said, 'Yes, I know it was, and that was mine, and that was the reason why I was against Reform.' Holland then resumed that he had formerly been one of Canning's most intimate friends at college; that at that time—the beginning of the French Revolution—when a general excitement prevailed, Canning was a great Jacobin, much more so than he was himself; that Canning had always hated the aristocracy (a hatred which they certainly returned with interest); that in after life he had been separated from Canning, and they had seen but little of each other. Just before he was going to India, however, Holland called on him, and Canning dined at Holland House. On one of these occasions they had a conversation upon the subject of Reform, when Canning said that he saw it was inevitable, and he was not sorry to be away while the measure was accomplished, but that if he had been here while it was mooted, he could have let those gentlemen (the Whig aristocracy) know that they should gain nothing by it. After dinner we had much talk about religion, when Allen got into a fury; he thundered out his invectives against the charlatanerie of the Apostles and Fathers and the brutal ignorance of the early Christian converts, when Holland said, laughing, 'Well, but you need not abuse them so violently.' They were in high delight at Holland House at the way the Edinburgh dinner went off. It was a very ludicrous incident that the Scotchmen could not be kept from falling to before Lord Grey and the grandees arrived, and when they did come most of the dinner was already eaten up. The Chancellor is said to have made an admirable speech at the meeting of savans, full of dignity, propriety, and eloquence, and the savans spoke one more absurdly than another.

September 23rd, 1834 {p.136}

[Page Head: PALMERSTON AND BROUGHAM.]

On Saturday at Stoke; came up yesterday with Melbourne. We had a great deal of talk. As soon as we got into the carriage he asked me if I thought it was true that Talleyrand had taken such offence at Palmerston that he would not return here on that account, and if I knew what it was that had affronted him, whether any deficiency in diplomatic punctilio or general offensiveness of manner. I told him I had no doubt it was true, and that the complaints against Palmerston were so general that there must be some cause for them, and though Madame de Lieven might be prejudiced against him, all the foreign Ambassadors could not be so. He said it was very extraordinary if it was so, tried to argue that it might not be the case, and put it in all sorts of different ways; he said that Palmerston exhibited no signs of temper or arrogance with his colleagues, but quite the reverse; he owned, however, he was very obstinate. We then talked over the Stratford Canning business; he admitted that it was unfortunate and might lead to serious consequences, both as to our relations with the Emperor and to the question of diplomatic expenses here. I expressed my astonishment that Palmerston's obstinacy should have been permitted to have its own way in the matter, and I should guess, from his own strong opinion on the subject, that an Ambassador would be sent before long. He told me—what I did not know before—that the King of Prussia had desired to have Lord Clanwilliam recalled from Berlin.

He then talked of Brougham, and I found that he knows him thoroughly, and is more on his guard than I thought he was with regard to him. I told him of the change in Sefton's feelings towards him on Lord Grey's account, and also of Brougham's strange want of discrimination and his imprudence in congratulating himself to Sefton on the recent changes, and of his expectations of profiting by Melbourne's advancement to power. I touched lightly on the latter part, because it is never prudent to dwell upon topics which are injurious to a person's vanity, and a word dropped upon so tender a part produces as much effect as the strongest argument. He seemed not a little struck by it, and when I said that I thought there was a taint of insanity in the Chancellor, he said that he thought a great change in him was manifest in the course of the last year, and admitted that he did not think him of sound mind certainly. This he rather implied than expressed, however. He talked of his conduct in Parliament, and observed upon the strange forbearance of the Tories towards him; he thought he had never given stronger evidence of talent than in some of his speeches during the last session. I asked him if the King and Brougham were well together. He shook his head: 'not at all, and the King can't bear these exhibitions in Scotland.' He said the King liked Palmerston, Auckland, Spring Rice, and Mulgrave; had no fancy for any of the rest. (I suspect he likes him (Melbourne), because he appears to talk openly to him, and to express his feelings about the others, and I dare say Melbourne puts him at his ease.) He can't bear John Russell, respects Althorp (and particularly Lord Spencer), but hates Althorp's politics; treats Lord Holland with the familiarity of a connexion,[7] but doesn't like his politics either; he is tenacious about having everything laid before him, often gives his opinion, but is easily satisfied; liked Lord Grey, but was never quite at his ease with him (this accounts for his taking Lord Grey's resignation as quietly as he did); has a very John-Bullish aversion to the French, and the junction of the English and French fleets two years ago was a bitter pill for him to swallow.

[7] [Colonel Fox, Lord Holland's eldest son, having married Lady Mary, the King's eldest daughter, both however born out of wedlock.]

We afterwards talked of Canning and the Duke of Wellington, and the breaking up of the Tory Government. I told him that I believed the Duke and the Tories were aware of Canning's communications with Brougham. Brougham wrote to Canning and made him an unqualified offer of support. When the King asked Canning how he was to obtain support enough to carry on the Government, he pulled this letter out of his pocket, gave it to him, and said, 'Sir, your father broke the domination of the Whigs; I hope your Majesty will not endure that of the Tories.' 'No,' said the King; 'I'll be damned if I do;' and he made him Minister. This Canning told Melbourne himself.

September 25th, 1834 {p.138}

Dined yesterday at Holland House; only Melbourne and Pahlen, and in the evening Senior came. He is a very able man—a conveyancer, great political economist, and author of various works on that subject. He was employed by Government to draw up the Poor Law Bill, and might have been one of the Poor Law Commissioners if he would have accepted the office; his profits in his profession are too great to be given up for this occupation. By a discussion which arose about Bickersteth's merits it was clear that there is a question of his being Solicitor-General. Melbourne said 'he was a Benthamite, and they were all fools.' (He said a doctrinaire was a fool, but an honest man.) I said 'the Austins were not fools.' 'Austin? Oh, a damned fool. Did you ever read his book on "Jurisprudence"?' I said I had read a great part of it, and that it did not appear to be the work of a fool. He said he had read it all, and that it was the dullest book he ever read, and full of truisms elaborately set forth. Melbourne is very fond of being slashing and paradoxical. It is astonishing how much he reads even now that he is Prime Minister. He is greatly addicted to theology, and loves conversing on the subject of religion. ——, who wanted him to marry her (which he won't do, though he likes to talk to her), is the depositary of his thoughts and notions on these subjects, and the other day she told me he sent her a book (I forget what) on the Revelation stuffed with marginal notes of his own. It was not long ago that he studied Lardner's book on the 'Credibility of the Christian Religion,' and compared it with the Bible as he went along. She fancies that all this reading and reflection have turned him into the right way. I can see no symptom of it at Holland House.

After dinner we talked of languages, and Lord Holland insisted that Spanish was the finest of all and the best adapted to eloquence. They said that George Villiers wrote word that nothing could be better than the speaking in the Cortes—great readiness and acuteness in reply—and that a more dexterous and skilful debater than Martinez de la Rosa could not be found in any assembly. 'That speaking so well is the worst thing about them,' said Melbourne. 'Ah, that is one of your paradoxes,' Lord Holland replied.

Allen talked to me about the Harley papers, which were left in a box not to be opened for sixty years; the box was only opened a few years ago at my cousin Titchfield's (the first) desire, and the papers submitted to Mackintosh, with permission to publish them in his 'History of England.' Mackintosh's death put an end to this, and Allen wants me to ask my uncle the Duke of Portland to put them in my hands and let me publish them. I never did so. Macaulay had all Mackintosh's papers, and amongst them his notes from these MSS.

London, November 13th, 1834

[Page Head: REFLECTIONS ON THE TURF.]

For two months nearly that I have been in this country I have not written a line, having had nothing worth recording to put down. It is not worth my while to write, nor anybody else's to read (should anybody ever read these memoranda), the details of racing and all that thereunto appertains, and though several disagreeable occurrences have ruffled the stream of my life, I have no pleasure in recording these; for if their consequences pass away, and I can forget them, it is better not at any future time to awaken 'the scorpion sting of griefs subdued.' Of public events I have known nothing but what everybody else knows, and it would have been mere waste of time to copy from the newspapers accounts of the conflagration of the Houses of Parliament or the Durham dinner at Glasgow. My campaign on the turf has been a successful one. Still all this success has not prevented frequent disgusts, and I derive anything but unmixed pleasure from this pursuit even when I win by it. Besides the continual disappointments and difficulties incident to it, which harass the mind, the life it compels me to lead, the intimacies arising out of it, the associates and the war against villany and trickery, being haunted by continual suspicions, discovering the trust-unworthiness of one's most intimate friends, the necessity of insincerity and concealment sometimes where one feels that one ought and would desire to be most open; then the degrading nature of the occupation, mixing with the lowest of mankind, and absorbed in the business for the sole purpose of getting money, the consciousness of a sort of degradation of intellect, the conviction of the deteriorating effects upon both the feelings and the understanding which are produced, the sort of dram-drinking excitement of it—all these things and these thoughts torment me, and often turn my pleasure to pain. On arriving in town I went to Crockford's, where I found all the usual set of people, and soon after Sefton came in. Lord Spencer's death had taken place the day before; he knew nothing of the probable arrangements, but he told me that he supposed Althorp would go to the Admiralty and Auckland to India. But what he was fullest of was that Mrs. Lane Fox's house was become the great rendezvous of a considerable part of the Cabinet. The Chancellor, Melbourne, Duncannon, and Mulgrave are there every day and all day; they all dine with her, or meet her (the only woman) at each other's houses, as often as they can. It certainly is a droll connexion. The squabbles between Brougham and Durham seem to have resolved themselves into a mere personal coldness, and there is no question now of any hostilities between them. I never thought there would be, though some people apparently did; but they both would much rather rail than fight.

November 14th, 1834 {p.140}

Went down to the Council Office yesterday, and found them in the middle of Lord Westmeath's case—Lord Lansdowne, the Vice-Chancellor, Parke, Erskine, and Vaughan. Lushington was for Lady Westmeath, and Follett (with a civilian) for him. After the argument there was a discussion, and well did Westmeath do, for they reduced the alimony from L700 to L315 a year, and the arrears in the same proportion. Thus Westmeath succeeded in great measure in his appeal, which he would not have done if the Chancellor had contrived to lug on the case as he wished; for Erskine was all for giving her more, the others did not seem averse, and but for Parke, who hit off the right principle, as well as what best accorded with the justice of the case, she would certainly have got a much larger award.

[Page Head: RECENT LAW APPOINTMENTS.]

The Vice-Chancellor afterwards told me the history of the recent legal appointments. There never was any difference of opinion between Brougham and Melbourne on the subject of either. Campbell accepted the Attorney-Generalship on the express condition that he should not expect to succeed as a matter of right to any vacancy in the Courts, but on Leach's death he did instantly urge his claims. Brougham wrote to Melbourne, and speedily followed his letter to London, and they both agreed not to listen to this claim, and to promote Pepys. I don't know how they disposed of Horne's claim. Bickersteth[8] refused to be Solicitor-General on account of his health, and not choosing to face the House of Commons and its work. Shadwell told me that he wrote to Brougham and suggested Rolfe when the vacancy occurred, that he had not been in great practice, but was a good lawyer and excellent speaker, and that the Chancellor and Melbourne had likewise concurred in this appointment. Nothing is settled about the new arrangements rendered necessary by Lord Spencer's death, but Melbourne went to Brighton yesterday. Rice has worked hard to master the Colonial business, and probably will not like to be translated to the Exchequer; besides, it is supposed that his seat at Cambridge would be in great peril. People talk of their not going on; how can any others go on better?

[8] [Mr. Bickersteth refused to be Solicitor-General because the offer was made to him by the Lord Chancellor, and not by the Prime Minister. At that time he was personally unacquainted with Lord Melbourne, but he consented to call on him at Lord Melbourne's request, and the offer was repeated, but not accepted. The real reason of his refusal was his profound distrust of Lord Brougham, which amounted to aversion, and he thought it unworthy of himself to accept the office of a law officer of the Crown under a Chancellor with whom he could not conscientiously act. I have read a MS. narrative of the whole transaction by Lord Langdale himself, in which these sentiments are very strongly expressed.]

Lord Lansdowne has just returned from Paris, where, he told me, he had frequent conversations with the King. The new Ministry is a wretched patched-up affair; but the Government of France is centred in the King, and it is his great power and influence in the Chambers, and not the ability of his Ministers (be they who they may), that keeps the thing going. This influence appears to be immense, and without enjoying any popularity, there is an universal opinion that Louis Philippe is indispensable to France. He told Lord Lansdowne that he had always been against the appointment of Marshal Gerard as President of the Council, although he had a high opinion of him, but that he was aware he had not tact and judgment sufficient for that post, and he had told his Ministers that he would consent to the appointment if they insisted on it, but that he warned them that it would break up the Government. Whatever may be the instability of this or any other Administration, it is said that nothing can be more firm and secure than the King's tenure of his crown. He appears, in fact, to be the very man that France requires, and as he is in the vigour of life and has a reasonable prospect of a long reign, he will probably consolidate the interest of his family and extinguish whatever lingering chance there might be of the restoration of the old effete dynasty.



CHAPTER XXV.

Fall of Lord Melbourne's Government—History and Causes of this Event—An Intrigue—Effect of the Coup at Holland House—The Change of Government—The two Camps—The King's Address to the New Ministers—The Duke's Account of the Transaction—And Lord Lyndhurst's—Difficult Position of the Tories—Their Policy— The Duke in all the Offices—Negotiation with Mr. Barnes—Power of the 'Times'—Another Address of the King—Brougham offers to be Lord Chief Baron—Mr. Barnes dines with Lord Lyndhurst—Whig View of the Recent Change—Liberal Views of the Tory Ministers—The King resolved to support them—Another Account of the Interview between the King and Lord Melbourne—Lord Stanley's Position—Sydney Smith's Preaching at St. Paul's— Lord Duncannon and Lord Melbourne—Relations of the four Seceders to Peel—Young Disraeli—Lord Melbourne's Speeches at Derby—Lord John Russell's Speech at Totness—The Duke of Wellington's Inconsistencies and Conduct.

November 16th, 1834 {p.143}

[Page Head: A STRANGE INTRIGUE.]

Yesterday morning the town was electrified by the news that Melbourne's Government was at an end. Nobody had the slightest suspicion of such an impending catastrophe; the Ministers themselves reposed in perfect security. I never saw astonishment so great on every side; nobody pretended to have prophesied or expected such an event. Thus it befell:—On Thursday Melbourne went to Brighton to make the arrangements necessary on Lord Spencer's death. He had previously received a letter from the King, which contained nothing indicative of the fate that awaited him. He had his audience on Thursday afternoon, and offered his Majesty the choice of Spring Rice, Lord John Russell, or Abercromby to lead the House of Commons and fill the vacant office. The King made some objections, and said he must take time to consider it. Nothing more passed that night, and the next day, when Melbourne saw the King, his Majesty placed in his hands a letter containing his determination. It was couched in terms personally complimentary to Melbourne, but he said that, having lost the services of Lord Althorp as leader of the House of Commons, he could feel no confidence in the stability of his Government when led by any other member of it; that they were already in a minority in the House of Peers, and he had every reason to believe the removal of Lord Althorp would speedily put them in the same situation in the other House; that under such circumstances he felt other arrangements to be necessary, and that it was his intention to send for the Duke of Wellington. Nothing could be more peremptory and decisive, and not a loophole was left for explanation or arrangements, or endeavour to patch the thing up. The King wrote to the Duke, and, what is rather droll, the letter was despatched by Melbourne's carriage, which returned to town. It is very evident that the King has long determined to seize the first plausible pretext he could find for getting rid of these people, whom he dislikes and fears, and that he thinks (justly or not remains to be proved) the translation of Althorp affords him a good opportunity, and such a one perhaps as may not speedily occur again. It is long since a Government has been so summarily dismissed—regularly kicked out, in the simplest sense of that phrase. Melbourne's colleagues expected his return without a shadow of apprehension, or doubt. He got back late, and wrote to none of them. The Chancellor, who had dined at Holland House, called on him and heard the news; the others (except Duncannon, who went to him, and I believe Palmerston) remained in happy ignorance till yesterday morning, when they were saluted at their rising with the astounding intelligence. All the Ministers (except Brougham) read the account of their dismissal in the 'Times' the next morning, and this was the first they heard of it. Melbourne resolved to say nothing that night, but summoned an early Cabinet, when he meant to impart it. Brougham called on him on his way from Holland House. Melbourne told him, but made him promise not to say a word of it to anybody. He promised, and the moment he quitted the house sent to the 'Times' office and told them what had occurred, with the well-known addition that 'the Queen had done it all.'

They attribute their fall to the influence of the Queen, and fancy that it is the result of a preconcerted scheme and intrigue with the Tories, neither of which do I believe to be true. With regard to the latter notion, the absence of Sir Robert Peel, who is travelling in Italy, is a conclusive proof of its falseness. He never would have been absent if he had foreseen the remotest possibility of a crisis, and the death of Lord Spencer has been imminent and expected for some time past. I am convinced that it is the execution of a project which the King has long nourished of delivering himself from the Whigs whenever he could. His original dislike has been exasperated to a great pitch by the mountebank exhibitions of Brougham, and he is so alarmed and disgusted at the Radical propensities which the Durham dinner has manifested, that he is resolved to try whether the Government cannot be conducted upon principles which are called Conservative, but which shall really be bona fide opposed to the ultra doctrines and wild schemes which he knows are not distasteful to at least one-half of his late Cabinet.

His resentment against these people has been considerably increased by the discovery (which he believes he has made) of his having been grossly deceived at the period of Lord Grey's retirement and the formation of Melbourne's Administration. The circumstances of this part of the business I know only imperfectly, so much so as to leave a good deal that requires explanation in order to make it intelligible; but I was told on good authority yesterday that at that time Sir Robert Peel and the Duke of Wellington were quite prepared to undertake the formation of a Government if it had been proposed to them, and that he had every reason to believe they had been betrayed by 'that scoundrel H——,' who had been employed by some of the other party to find out what their intentions and dispositions were upon that point; that H—— had gone to them and asked them the question, and having at that time entire confidence in him, they had told him if it was offered to them they certainly would undertake it; that he had never told them or given them any reason to believe that he was commissioned to find out their resolution, and they think he returned to his employer and told him that they must take care how such an offer was made to the Tories, as they would certainly accept it if it was offered. Melbourne was no party to this transaction, but the consequence of it was that the King was given to understand that it would be useless to propose to them to form a Government, for they were not prepared to do so, and he was advised to make the proposal of a coalition, which was made, and which they of course rejected. The King, it appears, subsequently discovered what their disposition had been at the time, and that he had been misled and deceived, and this made him very indignant.

I should like to know this story more in detail, for it would be curious to learn who were the agents in the intrigue, and, above all, what could induce H—— to sacrifice the interests of the Duke of Wellington (with whom he had great influence and to whom he had great obligations) and of the party from which alone he could expect any solid advantages to those of the Whigs, from whom he could derive no benefit sufficient to compensate him for the danger as well as treachery of the transaction. I never liked this fellow, and always thought him a low blackguard, and, however shrewd and active, a bad confidant and 'fidus Achates' for the Duke to have taken up; but the folly and shortsightedness of this proceeding seem so obvious (to say nothing of its villany) that I cannot without strong proofs yield my belief to the story, though Peel is not a man to harbour such strong suspicions on slight grounds.

This morning Lord Lansdowne wrote me word that the Duke had accepted, but it is probable that nothing can be done till Peel returns from Italy. He will accept no post but that of Prime Minister, though the King would prefer to put the Duke there if he would take it.

November 17th, 1834 {p.147}

[Page Head: EFFECT OF THE COUP AT HOLLAND HOUSE.]

It is only bit by bit that one ascertains the truth in affairs like these. It is true that the King imparted his resolution to Melbourne in a letter, but not true in the sense in which that fact is intended to be taken. I went to Holland House yesterday, but my Lord and my Lady were gone to town. I met the heavy chariot slowly moving back through Kensington, and stopped to talk to them. They seemed in tolerably good spirits, all things considered; like the rest, they had not a suspicion of what was going to happen. Melbourne was to have dined there on Friday, but did not arrive. At eleven o'clock everybody went away, without any tidings having come of Melbourne; the next morning Lord Holland read in the 'Times' that the Government was at an end. Allen swore that it must be a hoax, and it was only upon receiving a summons to the Cabinet at twelve instead of two that Holland began to think there was something in it. He told me that the King had two long conversations with Melbourne, in which he explained his opinions, motives, and intentions, and finally gave him the letter, that he might show it to his colleagues. It would now appear that no definite arrangements were proposed to him at all; nothing, in fact, could be settled till it was ascertained what Althorp would do—whether he would continue in office, and what office he would take—but they intended that Lord John Russell should be the leader in the House of Commons, or what they call 'try it.' This must have been peculiarly distasteful to the King, who dislikes Lord John, and thinks him a dangerous little Radical, and Melbourne is well aware of this antipathy. On the Friday night Melbourne, with a party of his colleagues—Mulgrave, Ben Stanley, Poulett Thompson, and one or two more—were at the play just opposite to me; the piece was the 'Regent,' and it was full of jokes about dismissing Ministers and other things very applicable, at which Melbourne at least (who does not care a button about office, whatever he may do about power) was heartily amused. To-day the King came to town to receive the resignations, for he is resolved to finish off the whole affair at once and make maison nette; they have been ordered therefore to attend at St. James's and give up their seals.

[Page Head: THE TORIES IN OFFICE.]

Five o'clock.—Just returned from St. James's. In the outer room I found assembled the Duke of Wellington, Lyndhurst, Rosslyn, Goulburn, Hardinge, the Speaker, Jersey, Maryborough, Cowley, whom the Duke had collected in order to form a Privy Council; in the Throne Room the ex-Cabinet congregated, and it was amusing to watch them as they passed through the camp of their enemies, and to see their different greetings and bows; all interchanged some slight civility except Brougham, who stalked through looking as black as thunder and took no notice of anybody. The first question that arose was, What was to be done about the prorogation? The Duke thought they might as well finish that business to-day, and I went on an embassy into the other room to propose it; but they declined to have anything to say to it and evinced great anxiety to take no part in any proceedings of this day. Accordingly Lord Lansdowne explained to the King that the presence of a Lord President was not necessary, and that there was a sufficiency of Tory Lords to form a Council, so his Majesty consented to the late Ministers going away. As I thought the company of those who were coming in would be more cheerful and agreeable than that of those who were going out, I passed my time in the outer room, and had a good deal of conversation with the Duke and Lyndhurst, from whom I gathered everything that I did not know before. After the Whigs had made their exit we went into the Throne Room, and the King sent for Lyndhurst, who only stayed with him a few minutes, and then the Duke and all the Privy Councillors were summoned. After greeting them all, and desiring them to sit down, he began a speech nearly as follows:—'Having thought proper to make a change in my Government, at the present moment I have directed a new commission to be issued for executing the office of Lord High Treasurer, at the head of which I have placed the Duke of Wellington, and his Grace has kissed hands accordingly upon that appointment. As by the Constitution of this country the King can do no wrong, but those persons are responsible for his acts in whom he places his confidence—as I do in the Lords now present—it is necessary to place the seals of the Secretary of State for the Home Department in those hands in which I can best confide, and I have therefore thought proper to confer that office likewise on his Grace, who will be sworn in accordingly.' Here the Duke came round, and, after much fumbling for his spectacles, took the oath of Secretary of State. The King then resumed, 'It is likewise necessary for me to dispose of the seals of the other two Secretaries of State, and I therefore place them likewise for the present in the same hands, as he is already First Lord of the Treasury and Secretary of State for the Home Office.' Then, turning to me, he asked if there was any business, and being told there was none, desired me to retire. When I was gone he began another harangue, to the effect that he had endeavoured, since he had been upon the throne, to do for the best, and that he could not fill up any of the other offices at present.

Now for what I learned from the Duke and Lyndhurst. The former told me that he was just going out hunting when the messenger arrived; that the letter merely said that the King wished to see him, to consult with him as to the steps he should take with regard to the formation of another Government. He went off directly, and at once told the King that the best thing he could do was to send for Sir Robert Peel, and that until he arrived he would undertake to carry on the Government by a provisional arrangement, and would do nothing more until Peel's return. So the matter accordingly stands, and no other appointment will be made except that the Great Seal will be transferred to Lyndhurst, without, however (at present), his becoming Chancellor. He talked a great deal about the state of the late Government, and what passed between Melbourne and the King, but I heard this still more in detail from Lyndhurst afterwards.

[Page Head: POLICY OF LORD LYNDHURST.]

I asked the Duke if he had seen the 'Times' this morning. He said 'No,' and I told him there appeared in it a considerable disposition to support the new Government, and I thought it would be very advisable to obtain that support if it could be done. He said he was aware that he had formerly too much neglected the press, but he did not think the 'Times' could be influenced. I urged him to avail himself of any opportunity to try, and he seemed very well disposed to do so. Lyndhurst, whom I afterwards talked to for a long time, went into the whole business. He said that it was very desirable that the public should know the truth of what had taken place between the King and Melbourne, both in conversation and by letter, because it would be seen that the former was in no way to blame. [This case, such as Lyndhurst described it to me, was afterwards put hypothetically in the 'Times,' to which it was furnished probably by Scarlett, but the Whigs emphatically declare that it is not correct, and that it will be found, when Melbourne states the truth (as he will require the King's permission to do), that his Majesty had no case at all. In the midst of these conflicting assertions time must show.—November 26th.] Melbourne told him that, as he had only undertaken to carry on the Government in consideration of having the assistance of Althorp in the House of Commons, his removal made it necessary to adopt a new organisation altogether, that some considerable concessions to the principle of Reform were judged to be necessary, and the appointment of a successor to Althorp, who should carry them into effect; that he was of opinion that without these the Government could not go on, and at the same time it was necessary to state that there were members of the Cabinet who did not coincide with these views, and who would retire when Parliament met if they were adopted. These were Lord Lansdowne and Spring Rice; Lord John Russell was to lead in the House of Commons, but the loss of Rice would be a severe blow to them. The concessions related principally to Church reform. The disunion of the Cabinet being thus exhibited, it was clear the Government could not go on without some material alteration in its composition. The King urged this and asked Melbourne from what quarter the necessary accession of strength was to be procured, and whether he could hope for it from the Conservative interest. He owned that nothing was to be expected from that quarter. It remained, then, that it was only from the more extreme party that their ranks could be recruited. To this the King would not consent, and he therefore imparted to him his resolution of placing the Government in other hands.[1]

[1] [This account of the transaction is confirmed in almost every particular by the statement drawn up by King William himself (or by his directions) for the information of Sir Robert Peel, and first published in Baron Stockmar's 'Memoirs' in 1872.]

Lyndhurst then went off upon the difficulties of their position. I told him that the Duke had said to me, 'If the King had been a very clever man, he would probably have played a more adroit game, by letting them go on till Parliament met, and then taking the opportunity which would soon present itself of breaking them up;' that I disagreed with the Duke, and thought it infinitely more convenient that this change should take place while Parliament was not sitting, to which Lyndhurst fully agreed. He said that they must dissolve as soon as Peel came home, that they had no alternative; that it would not do to try this Parliament, to run the chance of a failure and dissolve after having experienced it, that this would be too great a risk. He said that they had several seats quite safe in consequence of their superior management about the registration, such as Leeds and Ripon, where they were sure of both members. He then talked of the tactics to be used, and said they must direct their hostility against the Whigs rather than the Radicals, and make it their principal object to diminish the number of the former. I said I thought this a very perilous game to play, and that if it was avowed and acted upon, it would infallibly produce a reunion between the Whigs and Radicals, who would coalesce to crush their Government; that the Radicals were now very angry with the Whigs, who they thought had deserted the principles they professed, and it should rather be their care to keep Whigs and Radicals asunder than provoke a fresh alliance between them. He said the Whigs were certain to join the Radicals. I asked him if he had seen the 'Times,' said what had passed between the Duke and me, and told him he would do well to endeavour to obtain its support. He said he desired nothing so much, but in his situation he did not like personally to interfere, nor to place himself in their power. I told him I had some acquaintance with Barnes, the editor of the paper, and would find out what he was disposed to do, and would let him know, which he entreated I would. The Duke had said, laughing, 'I hear they call me a Reformer.' I said, 'They think you will make as good a Reformer as the present men, if, as Brougham said in Scotland, they would have done less this session than they did the last.' I asked Lyndhurst if he had seen or heard of the Duke's letter to the Oxford people, and told him that it was very desirable that credit should be given them for intending to carry on their government upon principles as liberal as that letter evinced, that I hoped there would be no foolish declarations fulminated against Reform, and that they would all be convinced now that matters had been brought to such a state (no matter how and by whom) that the old principle of hostility to all reforms must be abandoned. He said that Peel would, he trusted, be flexible, that if such declarations were made, and such principles announced, they must be upset, but the Tories would be difficult to manage, and discontented if there was not a sufficient infusion of their party; and, on the other hand, the agricultural interest had assembled a force under Lord Chandos, a sort of confederation of several counties, and that Chandos had told him that he and the representatives of their counties would not support any Ministry that would not pledge itself to repeal the malt tax; that they would agree to re-enact the beer tax, but the malt tax must cease.

[Page Head: LYNDHURST ON BROUGHAM.]

Brougham had written to Lyndhurst saying he should be ready to resign the Great Seal in a few days, and only wished first to give some judgments, that he was rejoiced at retiring from office and at the prospect of being able to do what was his great delight—devote himself to State affairs without being trammelled and having to fear the imputation of imprudence and indiscretion. 'He will be,' Lyndhurst said, 'the most troublesome fellow that ever existed, and do all the mischief he can.' I said, 'What can he do? he was emasculated when he left the House of Commons.' 'Yes,' he said, 'he knows that, but he will come down night after night and produce plans of Reform upon any subject; he will make speeches two or three hours long to very thin Houses, which will be printed in all the newspapers or published by himself and circulated—in fact, a series of pamphlets.' I said that he had damaged himself so much that I did not think he could do a great deal of harm, with all his speeches and pamphlets. He said he had damaged himself in more ways than one. He then went off upon his admirable social qualities and his generous conduct to his family, both of which may most justly be praised, and said what a melancholy thing it was to see a man with such fine talents mar their effect by his enormous errors in judgment.

Lord Holland, who came out last of all his colleagues, upon his crutches, stopped in great good-humour and said to the Duke, 'you can't get me out, I can tell you, without going into Lancashire, for my seal is there.'

The Duke told me that he did not mean to make the slightest alteration in the transaction of the current business in the different offices, which would go on as usual through the under-secretaries, whom he should request to continue at their posts for the purpose. As, however, a disposition was evinced on the part of the late Cabinet not to afford him any facilities, he began to think that this might not impossibly extend to the subordinates, and he said that at all events he would have two people ready to put into the Treasury to transact the business there. I told him if he was in any difficulty he might make any use he pleased of me. There can hardly be any difficulty, however, when there are permanent under-secretaries in all the offices.

Thus ended this eventful day; just four years ago I witnessed the reverse of the picture. I think the Whigs upon this occasion were much more angry and dejected than the Tories were upon that. They had perhaps some reason, for their case is one of rare occurrence—unceremoniously kicked out, not resignations following ineffectual negotiations or baffled attempts at arrangement, but in the plenitude of their fancied strength, and utterly unconscious of danger, they were discarded in the most positive, summary, and peremptory manner. Great, therefore, is their indignation, mortification, and chagrin, and bitter will no doubt be their opposition. They think that the new Government have no chance of getting a House of Commons that will support them, and certainly if they do not, and if the Tories are compelled after a fruitless struggle to resign, miserable will be the condition of the King and the House of Lords, and not very enviable that of any Government that may succeed them.

To speculate upon probabilities is impossible; the new Government at present consists of the Duke, Lyndhurst, and Peel, and till it shall be seen of what materials the complete structure is composed, and what principles they enunciate, it is idle to discuss the matter. Lyndhurst and I agreed cordially that all the evils of the last four years—the breaking up of their Government, and the Reform Bill that was the consequence of that catastrophe—were attributable to the High Tories. Whatever may be their wishes now, they can hardly play the same game over again; they must support this Government, even though it shall not act upon the highflying principles which they so fondly and obstinately cherish. Their salvation and that of all the institutions to which they cling require that they should support the Duke and Peel in carrying on the government upon those principles on which, from the circumstances of the times and the events which have occurred, an Administration must act in order to have a shadow of a chance of being tolerated by the House of Commons and the country. Lyndhurst is sensible of this; I wish Peel may be so likewise. If they both are I have little fear for the Duke.

November 19th, 1834 {p.154}

[Page Head: DUKE OF WELLINGTON IN OFFICE.]

Laid up these two days with the gout in my knee, so could not go out to hear what is going on. The Duke, I find, after the Council on Monday (losing no time), repaired to the Home Office and ordered the Irish papers to be brought to him, then to the Foreign Office, where he asked for the last despatches from Spain and Portugal, and so on to the Colonial Office, where he required information as to the state of their department. I have no doubt he liked this, to play the part of Richelieu for a brief period, to exercise all the functions of administration. They complain, however, and not without reason, of the unceremonious and somewhat uncourteous mode in which without previous notice he entered into the vacant offices, taking actual possession, without any of the usual preliminary civilities to the old occupants. Duncannon, who had been in the Home Office up to the time of the Council on Monday, and whose papers were unremoved, if he had returned after it, would have found the Duke seated in his still warm chair, issuing directions to Phillips, the under-secretary, while Macdonald, Duncannon's private secretary, was still at his vocation in the adjoining room. Pretty much the same thing he did in the other three offices. He has fixed his head-quarters at the Home Office, and occasionally roves over the rest. All this is unavoidable under existing circumstances, but it is enough to excite merriment, or censure, or suspicion, according to different tastes and tempers. The King offered to make Melbourne an earl and to give him the Garter, but he declined, and begged it might be given to the Duke of Grafton.

In consequence of what passed between Lyndhurst and me concerning the 'Times' (at St. James's) I made Henry de Ros send for Barnes (who had already at his suggestion adopted a conciliatory and amicable tone towards the embryo Government), who came and put on paper the terms on which he would support the Duke. These were: no mutilation of the Reform Bill, and the adoption of those measures of reform which had been already sanctioned by votes of the House of Commons last session with regard to Church and corporations, and no change in our foreign policy. I have sent his note to Lyndhurst, and begged him to call here to talk the matter over.

Powell, a Tory solicitor and ame damnee of the Speaker's, has just been here; he declares that the Tories will be 420 strong in the new Parliament, which I mention for the purpose of recording their expectations and being able to compare them hereafter with the event. They have already put themselves in motion, despatched messengers to Lord Hertford and Lowther, and probably if ever these men could be induced to open their purse strings, and make sacrifices and exertions, they will do it now.

Six o'clock.—Lyndhurst has just been here; he had seen the Duke, who had already opened a negotiation with Barnes through Scarlett. I offered to get any statement inserted of the causes of the late break-up, and he will again see the Duke and consider the propriety of inserting one. He said, 'Why Barnes is the most powerful man in the country.' The 'Standard' has sent to offer its support; the Duke said he should be very happy, but they must understand that the Government was not yet formed.

November 21st, 1834 {p.156}

To-day there was a Council at St. James's, at which Lyndhurst was sworn in Chancellor. Brougham took leave of the Bar this morning, and I hear did it well. The King speechified as usual, and gave them a couple of harangues; he said it was just four years since he had very unwillingly taken the Seal from Lord Lyndhurst, and he now had great pleasure in restoring it to him. He was all King to-day—talked of having 'commanded the ex-Ministers to retire;' 'desired Lord Brougham to give up the Seal,' which is true, for the Duke wrote to him for it, and instead of surrendering it in person Brougham sent it to Sir Henry Taylor. The King compared this crisis with that which befell his father in 1784, when he had placed the government in the hands of the Marquis of Rockingham; he said that the present was only a provisional arrangement, but that there was this difference, that the country was now in a state of excitement and disquiet, which it was free from then, but that he had full reliance on the great firmness of the Duke (here the Duke bowed); that the Administration which was then formed had lasted seventeen years (of course he meant that of Pitt, which succeeded the coalition), and he hoped that this which was about to be formed would last as long, although at his time of life if it did he could not expect to see the end of it.

November 22nd, 1834 {p.157}

I read Brougham's speech on quitting the Court of Chancery this morning, and admirable it is—not a syllable about himself, but with reference to the appointment of Pepys, brief, dignified, and appropriate. Si sic omnia, what a man he would be.

November 23rd, 1834 {p.157}

This morning I received a note from Henry de Ros enclosing one from Barnes, who was evidently much nettled at not having received any specific answer to his note stating the terms on which he would support the Duke. Henry was disconcerted also, and entreated me to have an explanation with Lyndhurst. I accordingly went to the Court of Exchequer, where he was sitting, and waited till he came out, when I gave him these notes to read. He took me away with him, and stopped at the Home Office to see the Duke and talk to him on the subject, for he was evidently a little alarmed, so great and dangerous a potentate is the wielder of the thunders of the press. After a long conference he came out and gave me a note the Duke had written, saying he could not pledge himself nor Sir Robert Peel (who was to be the Minister) before he arrived, and eventually I agreed to draw up a paper explanatory of the position of the Duke, and his expectations and views with regard to the 'Times' and its support. This I sent to him, and he is to return it to me with such corrections as he may think it requires, and it is to be shown to Barnes to-morrow.

[Page Head: BROUGHAM ASKS FOR THE CHIEF BARONSHIP.]

On the way Lyndhurst told me an incredible thing—that Brougham had written to him proposing that he should be made Chief Baron, which would be a great saving to the country, as he was content to take it with no higher salary than his retiring pension and some provision for the expense of the circuit. He said he would show me the letter, but that he had left it with the Duke, so could not then. He knows well enough that, whatever may be the fate of this Government, he has no chance of recovering the Great Seal, but I own I do not comprehend what object he can have in taking this appointment, or what there is of importance enough to induce him to apply for it to his political opponents, and incur all the odium that would be heaped upon him if the fact were generally known. He would not consider himself tongue-tied in the House of Lords any more than Lyndhurst was, for though the former took the situation under a sort of condition, either positive or implied, that he was to observe something like a neutrality, he considered himself entirely emancipated from the engagement when the great Reform battle began, and the consequence was that the secret article in the treaty was also cancelled, and Denman got the Chief Justiceship instead of him. I imagine that the King would not agree to Brougham's being Chief Baron even though the Duke and Lyndhurst should be disposed to place him on the bench. There might be some convenience in it. He must cut fewer capers in ermine than in plaid trousers. [As might have been expected, this intended stroke of Brougham's was a total failure. Friends and foes condemn him; Duncannon tried to dissuade him; the rest of his colleagues only knew of it after it was done. Duncannon told me he neither desired nor expected that his offer would be accepted.—November 30th.]

November 24th, 1834 {p.158}

I sent Lyndhurst a paper to be read to Barnes, which he returned to me with another he had written instead, which certainly was much better. The Duke's note and this paper were read to him, and he expressed himself quite satisfied, was much gratified by an offer Lyndhurst made to see him, and proposed a meeting; so, then, I leave the affair. I took a copy of Lyndhurst's paper, and then returned it and the note to him.

At night I went to Holland House, where I found Brougham, Lord John Russell, and Lord Lansdowne. Lady Holland told me that she had been the channel of communication by which the arrangement of giving the Chief Baronship to Lyndhurst had been carried on, and she declared that there was no secret article in it. I believe, however, that there was one concluded between Brougham and Lyndhurst, when they met to settle it in Burlington street. Leach brought the original message from Alexander, who offered to resign in favour of Lyndhurst. I hear of nothing but the indignation of the ex-Ministers at the uncourteousness of the Duke's conduct towards them; but though there is too much truth, there is also some exaggeration in the complaints. It is necessary to be on one's guard against what one hears, as I verified yesterday in a particular case.

November 26th, 1834 {p.159}

[Page Head: THE WHIGS ON THE RECENT CHANGE.]

Barnes is to dine with Lord Lyndhurst, and a gastronomic ratification will wind up the treaty between these high contracting parties. I walked home with Duncannon last night; he declared to me that though he could not tell me what did pass between the King and Melbourne, what is stated to have passed is not the truth. I heard elsewhere that the Whigs insist upon it there was no disunion in the Cabinet, and that Lord Lansdowne and Rice had seen the Irish Tithe Bill (the Irish Chancellor being the supposed subject of disunion), and that they both agreed to its provisions. Duncannon said that if the King had insisted upon the dismissal of Brougham, and had consented to go on with the rest, he would have put them in a grand dilemma, for that such a requisition would have met the concurrence of many of their friends and of the public. He thinks Brougham would not have resigned even then, and that it would have been very dangerous to turn him out. All this speculation matters little now. He is thoroughly convinced that the present appearances of indifference and tranquillity in the country are delusive, and that the elections will rouse a dormant spirit, and that the minor differences of Reformers and Liberals of all denominations will be sunk in a determined hostility to the Government of Peel and the Duke. He says that the Irish Church must bring the question between the two parties to an immediate and decisive test; that if the new Government are beaten upon it, as he thinks inevitable, out they must go; that the return of the Government just broken up will be out of the question, and the King must submit to receive one of still stronger measures. Duncannon does not conceal the ultra-Liberal nature of his opinions, and he would not regret the accomplishment of his predictions. It cannot be concealed that there is nothing very improbable in them, although I am far from regarding the event as so certain as he does; still less can I partake of the blind confidence and sanguine hopes of the Tories. One thing is, however, very clear, that the Whigs and the Radicals will join (as Lyndhurst said they were sure to do), and that they will both declare war to the knife against the Tory Government. The best hope and chance is that a number of really independent men, unpledged, may be returned, who will hold something like a balance between the extreme parties, resist all violent propositions, protect the King from insult and peremptory dictation, and afford the new Government a fair trial, and on the other hand declare at once and without reserve their determination to continue without interruption the course of rational and effectual reform, making a virtual abandonment of High Tory maxims and acquiescence in the desires of the country with respect to the correction of abuses the indispensable conditions of the present Government's retention of office.