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THE
GREVILLE MEMOIRS
(SECOND PART)
Vol. II.

PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
LONDON

The Greville Memoirs
(SECOND PART)

A JOURNAL OF THE REIGN
OF
QUEEN VICTORIA
FROM 1837 TO 1852
BY THE LATE
CHARLES C. F. GREVILLE, Esq.
CLERK OF THE COUNCIL
IN THREE VOLUMES—VOL. II.

LONDON
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
1885

All rights reserved

[CONTENTS]
OF
THE SECOND VOLUME.

[CHAPTER XI.]

Dissolution of Parliament discussed by Ministers—Death of Mr. Barnes—Impending Dissolution—Mdlle. Rachel in Hermione—Ladies of the Bedchamber—Question of Dissolution—Defeat of the Government—Vote of Want of Confidence—Government defeated on Peel's Resolution—Ascot Races—Dispute of Lord Stanley and Mr. Handley—Impending Elections—Conservative Reaction—The Queen at Oxford—The Queen at Chiswick—Whig Confidence—Parliament prorogued—Lord Campbell made Chancellor of Ireland—The Prince declines to dine at the Waterloo Banquet—Visit to North Wales—Conway Castle—Penrhyn Castle—Carnarvon—Beddgelert and Llanberis—Result of the Elections—Results of the Dissolution—A decided Tory Majority—Wise Conduct of Lord Melbourne—The Speakership—Sir Robert Peel's Liberal Views—Dr. Wiseman—The Queen at Woburn—Lord John Russell's Moderate Views—Judgement on Wood's Will—Last Council of the Whigs page 1

[CHAPTER XII.]

Debate on the Address in the Lords—Conservative Majority in the New Parliament—Sir R. Peel's Audience of the Queen—Auspicious Policy of Peel—Council at Claremont—Change of Ministry—Lord Melbourne's Message to Sir R. Peel—What Sir R. Peel said to the Queen—Lord Melbourne's View of the recent Appointments at Court—The Duke of Wellington on the recent Appointments—A Party at Windsor—Future Course of Events predicted—Visit to Woburn—Junius—Jobbing at the Foreign Office—Contempt for the late Government—Summary—Louis Philippe—Forgery of Exchequer Bills—The Tower Fire—Birth of the Prince of Wales—Delicate Questions—Prince Albert receives the Keys of the Cabinet Boxes—Charles Elliot—Strength of the Government—Lord Ripon and John Macgregor—French Intrigues in Spain page 31

[CHAPTER XIII.]

Anecdotes about the Exchequer Bill Forgery—M. de St. Aulaire Ambassador in London—Morbid Irritability of the Duke—Macaulay on Street Ballads—Sir Edmund Head, Poor Law Commissioner—The Duke's Delusion—The Lord Chief Justice closes the Term—Armorial Bearings of the Prince of Wales—Relations of Ministers with the Queen—Lord William Russell recalled from Berlin—Arbitrary Appointment of Magistrates—Anecdote of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough—Lord Spencer on the Corn Laws—Lord Lieutenancy of Northamptonshire—Visit to Bowood—Mrs. Fanny Kemble—Macaulay's Conversation—Macaulay's Departure—Lord Ashburton's Mission—The Chinese War—Unpopularity of Lord Palmerston—A Diplomatic Squabble—Prussian Treatment of Newspapers—Fire at Woburn Abbey—Duke of Wellington himself again—King of Prussia arrives—Proceedings of the Government—The Duke of Buckingham resigns—Relations with France—Opening of the New Parliament—King of Prussia's Visit—The Speech from the Throne—Lord Palmerston's Hostility to France—The Queen and Her Ministers—Dispute about a Scotch Judge—Corn Laws—A Letter from Jellalabad—The Corn Law Debate—The Battersea Schools—A Calm—Sir Robert Peel's Budget—The Disaster at Cabul—Death and Funeral of the Marquis of Hertford—Sir Robert Peel's Financial Measures—The Whig View of Peel—Archdeacon Singleton—Lord Munster's Death—Colonel Armstrong—Theatricals at Bridgewater House—Summary of the Session—The Occupation of Afghanistan—Lord Wellesley's Opinion—Afghan Policy of the Government—Lord Ashburton's Treaty—The Missing Map page 55

[CHAPTER XIV.]

Visit to Broadlands—The American Treaty—Lord Palmerston on the American Treaty—The Stade Dues—The Withdrawal from Cabul—The Queen at Sea—Woburn—Baroness Lehzen—Lord Ponsonby—Turkey—The Grove, Lord Clarendon—Public Scandals—Bishop Blomfield's Charge—Puseyism—Mr. Thomas Grenville—Anecdote of Porson—Death of Mr. Irby—Anecdote of Lord North—Lord Melbourne ill—Macaulay's Lays of Rome—Canadian Affairs—A Council—Bad State of the Country—Mr. Grenville's Conversation—A Happy Family—The Reform Bill of 1832—End of the China War—Judge and Jury Court—Lord Ellenborough's Proclamation—Lord John Russell on the American Treaty—Madame d'Arblay's Journal—Lord Ellenborough—Manuscript of Antonio Perez—Lord Palmerston and the 'Morning Chronicle'—Moderate Whig Views—The Whigs and O'Connell—The Bedchamber Dispute—Sir David Dundas—Summary of the Year 1842 page 104

[CHAPTER XV.]

The Duke of Wellington on the Afghan War—Charles Buller—Lord Ellenborough's Extravagance—Assassination of Edward Drummond—Nomination of Sheriffs—Opening of the Session of Parliament—Lord Ellenborough's Position—Disclosure of Evidence on the Boundary Question—Debate on Lord Ellenborough's Proclamation—Lord Ellenborough vindicated—Lord Brougham's Activity—Lord Palmerston attacks the American Treaty—Lord Althorp's Accession to Office in 1830—Death of John Allen—Death of the Duke of Sussex—Death of Mr. Arkwright—Death of Lady William Bentinck—Death of Lord Fitz Gerald—Lady W. Bentinck's Funeral—The Temple Church—Racing—State of the Country—The Privy Council Register—Ascot; the King of Hanover—Difficulties of the Government—A Tour on the Continent—The Rothschilds page 137

[CHAPTER XVI.]

Results of this Tour—Ireland—The Irish Church—Decline of Sir Robert Peel's Popularity—Position of Sir Robert Peel—King of Hanover in London—The Duke of Wellington on the Duke of Marlborough—Anecdote of Talleyrand—Debates on Ireland—Parliament prorogued—The Queen's Yacht—Review of the Session—The Queen at Eu—Agreement there—The Queen of Spain's Marriage—Miss Berry and Lord Orford—Ranke and Macaulay at Kent House—A Council on Crutches—Chatsworth—Prosecution of O'Connell—Society—O'Connell—Lord Brougham's Action against Fonblanque—Death of Hon. Edward Villiers—The Irish Trials—Law against Betting—The Education Question—The Duc de Bordeaux's Visit—Lord Melbourne after his Illness—King George II. robbed—Royal Visit to Chatsworth—The 'Times' on the Duc de Bordeaux's Visit—The Westminster Play—Lord Melbourne—Our Relations with Rome—The Dublin Jury Lists—Lord Ellenborough and the Court of Directors—O'Connell's Remedies for Irish Discontent. page 187

[CHAPTER XVII.]

Opening of Parliament—State of Parties—The Duke of Wellington's Health—The Duke's Correspondence with Lord Haddington—Constitution of the Judicial Committee—Debate on the State of Ireland—Lord Hertford's Will—A Pun of Jekyll's—Lord Melbourne—The Irish Church—The Privy Council Bill—Anecdote of Mr. Pitt's Peers—Cambridge—Lord Ellenborough's Recall—Lord Brougham's Hostility—The Factory Bill—Lord Hardinge Governor-General of India—Lord Brougham on Lord Hertford's Case—The Emperor of Russia in London—Government Defeat on the Sugar Duties—Sir Robert Peel resolves to resign—The Opening of Letters at the Post Office—The Case of 'Running-Rein'—Lord Brougham's Privy Council Bill—Summary of Events—The Tahiti Quarrel with France—The O'Connell Judgement—Lord Stanley goes to the Upper House page 222

[CHAPTER XVIII.]

'The Policy of England to Ireland'—Ministers object to the Publication—Could the Book be delayed and published anonymously?—Visit to the Grange—Buckland—Visit to Broadlands—Visit to Woburn—Prince Albert complains of want of Secrecy—Visit to Ampthill—Baron Rolfe—The Master of the Rolls to sit at the Judicial Committee—The Queen knew nothing of the Irish Book—Reconciliation of Thiers and Palmerston—Mr. Gladstone resigns on the Maynooth Endowments—Changes in the Cabinet—Sidney Herbert—Lord Lincoln—Precarious Position of French Ministry—Mr. Gladstone's Resignation transpires—Sensitiveness of the French Government—Debate in the House of Commons—Gladstone's Resignation unintelligible—Mr. Duncombe's Letters—Death of Rev. Sydney Smith—Publication of the 'Policy to Ireland'—Death of Robert Smith (Bobus)—Death of Miss Fox—Visit to Althorp—Effects of the Irish Book—Whig and Tory Opinions—The Maynooth Grant—Meeting of Thiers and Guizot—Debate on the Maynooth Grant—Macaulay's Speech—Divisions in the Tory Party—Possibility of a Whig Government—Break-up of Parties—Birkenhead—Depression—Visits to the Grove and to Broadlands—Lord Melbourne—Opinions on the Irish Book—Sir Robert Peel's Improved Position—Embarrassment caused by the Queen's Absence from England—A Queer Family page 258

[CHAPTER XIX.]

Death of Earl Spencer—His Character—M. Thiers in England—Fever of Speculation—Cabinets on the Corn Laws—'Every Man in his Humour'—Dickens on the Stage—'Alarm' wins a great Stake—Visit to Worsley—Manchester—Death of Lady Holland—Bretby—Southwell—Sherwood Forest—Announcement of the Repeal of the Corn Laws—A Ministerial Crisis—Sir Robert Peel resigns—Lord John Russell sent for—Lord Wharncliffe's account of the Crisis—Proceedings of the Whigs—The Court—Attempts at an Understanding—Sir Robert Peel's Position—Lord Grey disagrees—Communication to Sir Robert Peel—Lord John undertakes to form a Government—Dénouement of the Crisis—Lord Howick refuses—Lord John Russell gives up the task page 295

[CHAPTER XX.]

Sir Robert Peel returns to Office—Death of Lord Wharncliffe—Tory View of the Whig Failure—Views of Sir Robert Peel and his Colleagues—Favourable Position of the Cabinet—Lord Howick's Statement—Lord John defended by his Friends—The Letters of Junius—True Causes of the Whig Failure—The Corn Law Measure under consideration—A Vindication of Peel—Irritation of the Duke of Wellington and the Tories—Lord Melbourne's Vehemence—Lord Granville—Lord Bessborough in favour of Coercive Measures in Ireland—Consequences of Lord John's Letter on Corn Law Repeal—The Peelite Party—Sir Robert's Peel's Speech—Disclosure of Sir Robert Peel's Measure—Lord John's View of it—Sir James Graham's View—The Movement for immediate Repeal—The League press for immediate Repeal—Lord John's Engagement—Hesitation on the subject of immediate Repeal—Lord Stanley's growing Opposition—Mr. Sidney Herbert's Views and Conduct—More moderate Counsels—Approaching Fate of the Peel Ministry—No Dissolution—Inconsistency of Ministers—The Westminster Election—Lord Stanley heads the Protectionist Opposition—Lord John Russell's Inconsistency—Mr. Disraeli leads the Protectionists in the Commons—The Conquest of the Punjaub—Division on the Corn Bill—Lord George Bentinck's Speech—Lord Hardinge blamed page 334

[CHAPTER XXI.]

Signs of the Weakness of Government—The Irish Coercion Bill—Lord John Russell on Ireland—Protectionist Opposition—The Oregon Question—Lord Brougham canvassed—Weakness of the Protectionists—Embarrassments of the Government—Violence of the Protectionists—The Victories in India—Change of Opinion amongst the Farmers—State of Ireland—Intentions of the Government—Lord Palmerston visits Paris—A Scheme of Alliance with the Protectionists—Lord John Russell's Resolution—Lord Stanley's Violence—The Duke of Wellington's Dissatisfaction—Anecdote of the Father of Sir Robert Peel—Sir Robert Peel and Disraeli—Lord Palmerston in Paris—Irish Coercion Bill—The Protectionist Alliance—Conversation with Sir Robert Peel—Conversation with Sir James Graham—The Factory Bill—The last Debate in the Commons on the Corn Bill—Intrigues with the Protectionists—Defeated by Lord John Russell—Meeting at Lansdowne House—Fine Speech of Lord Stanley—'Alarm' wins the Emperor's Cup—Violent Attacks on Sir Robert Peel—The Conduct of Sir Robert Peel to Mr. Canning—Brougham and Stanley in the Lords—Opposition of the Whigs to the Coercion Bill—Anxiety of Lord John Russell to get back to Office—Mr. Disraeli renews the Attack on Peel—Lord George Bentinck and Disraeli worsted by Peel. page 374

[CHAPTER XXII.]

Fall of Sir Robert Peel—Lord John's Interview with Peel—Lord John and the Duke—Lord Clarendon and Lord Aberdeen—Favourable Position of the new Ministry—Lord Melbourne's Disappointment—Smooth Water—Generous Conduct of Lord Aberdeen—Restoration of Magistrates removed from the Commission as Repealers—The Irish Arms Bill—Distrust of Lord Palmerston—The Arms Bill given up—The Bishop of Oxford's Exhortations—Differences with France—An Exchange of Appointments—Squabble between Lord George Bentinck and Lord Lyndhurst—Macaulay on Junius—Lord Chesterfield—Bretby and Woburn—Lord John Russell's Moderation—The Spanish Marriage—Bad Faith of the French Government—Unanimous Censure of the Spanish Marriages—Lord Bessborough in Ireland—Correspondence on the Spanish Marriages—Council of the Duchy—The Annexation of Cracow to Austria—Action of Lewis Ferrand—Strange Intrigue imputed to Louis Philippe—Conversation with Count Jarnac on the Spanish Marriages—The Queen and Sir Robert Peel—M. Guizot's Note on the Spanish Marriages—Decoration of the Peninsular Soldiers—State of Ireland page 401

A JOURNAL
OF THE
REIGN OF QUEEN VICTORIA
FROM 1837 TO 1852.

CHAPTER XI.

Dissolution of Parliament discussed by Ministers—Death of Mr. Barnes—Impending Dissolution—Mdlle. Rachel in Hermione—Ladies of the Bedchamber—Question of Dissolution—Defeat of the Government—Vote of Want of Confidence—Government defeated on Peel's Resolution—Ascot Races—Dispute of Lord Stanley and Mr. Handley—Impending Elections—Conservative Reaction—The Queen at Oxford—The Queen at Chiswick—Whig Confidence—Parliament prorogued—Lord Campbell made Chancellor of Ireland—The Prince declines to dine at the Waterloo Banquet—Visit to North Wales—Conway Castle—Penrhyn Castle—Carnarvon—Beddgelert and Llanberis—Result of the Elections—Results of the Dissolution—A decided Tory Majority—Wise Conduct of Lord Melbourne—The Speakership—Sir Robert Peel's Liberal Views—Dr. Wiseman—The Queen at Woburn—Lord John Russell's Moderate Views—Judgement on Wood's Will—Last Council of the Whigs.

May 7th, 1841.—All the world thinks and talks of nothing but the division next week and its consequences. The Whig masses are clamorous for a dissolution, and are every day growing more so, endeavouring to make out that the gain is sure; some for one purpose and some for another are stimulating the Government to make this desperate plunge. Lord Melbourne, however, is exceedingly averse to it. In the Cabinet, Duncannon, Normanby, and Palmerston are all strongly and unhesitatingly for it. Clarendon, who is against a dissolution, set before Melbourne, the other day, all the reasons for such a measure, in order to elicit his opinion, and see if those reasons shook his previous convictions; but Melbourne said that he could not find anything in them to make him change his mind, and he thought the Crown ought never to make an appeal to public opinion unless there were solid grounds for believing that it would be responded to by the public voice. Yesterday there was a Cabinet, at which the question was fully discussed, and the result was satisfactory and creditable. The general opinion was that nothing should be decided till the state of public opinion in the country was seen, and the most careful investigation had been made into the electioneering prospects of the Government, so that a reasonable and probable conclusion might be arrived at as to the result; and unless it should appear that there is a strong probability of Government acquiring a majority by a fresh election, the notion of a dissolution will be given up. This deliberation is undoubtedly due to the Queen and to the party, and I am assured there is a prevailing disposition to deal fairly with the evidence that will be before them. The Queen, though very unhappy, acquiesces in this view of the matter. From what Lady Palmerston told me last night, Her Majesty is prepared, in the last necessity, to resign herself to her fate.

May 8th.— Mr. Barnes died yesterday morning, suddenly, after having suffered an operation. His death is an incalculable loss to the 'Times,' of which he was the principal editor and director; and his talents, good sense, and numerous connexions gave him a preponderating influence in the affairs of the paper. The vast power exercised by the 'Times' renders this a most important event, and it will be curious to see in what hands the regulating and directing power will hereafter be placed. Latterly it must be owned that its apparent caprices and inconsistency have deprived it of all right and title, and much of its power, to influence the opinions of others, but this has been the consequence of the extraordinary variety of its connexions and the conflicting opinions which have been alternately, and sometimes almost, if not quite, simultaneously, admitted to discharge themselves in its columns. Barnes was a man of considerable acquirements, a good scholar, and well versed in English, especially old dramatic literature.[1]

EDITORSHIP OF THE 'TIMES.'

May 9th.—The debate on the sugar duties began on Friday night by an extraordinarily good speech from John Russell, as was admitted by his opponents, who qualified the praise, as usual, by calling it a good party speech. Handley and Lushington declared against Ministers—one on Corn, the other on Sugar. The certainty of a majority against Government is now generally admitted, and it is expected to be large. The question of dissolution gains ground. The strong supporters of Government are more and more urgent, and they say that they must choose between the dissolution of Parliament or the dissolution of the party; that Ministers had no right to bring forward such measures and then shrink from appealing to the country on them; that if they do not dissolve, many of their old Whig supporters will retire in disgust, and not contest their seats when the dissolution under another Government takes place. I see clearly that all this is making a strong impression, and that the resolution of those who think and feel they ought not to dissolve is waxing faint. Meanwhile the Queen is behaving very well. She is very unhappy at the situation of affairs, and at the change with which she is menaced, but she is acting with dignity and propriety. She says she will express no wish and no opinion; whatever she is advised to do she will do, but she remains perfectly passive, and makes no attempts to urge Melbourne to take any course which his own judgement does not approve. This the Duke of Bedford told me yesterday, and it is to her credit. The Tories will not believe that the Government have any thought of dissolving. Wharncliffe and Ellenborough both told me that they had not the slightest idea of their venturing on such a measure. Besides other objections there is a great technical difficulty in the shape of the sugar duty, which will expire in the beginning of July, before Parliament could meet again. Ellenborough said that the merchants would keep back their sugar (which they would be able to do in great measure), and then pour it in after the day had expired, free of duty, to the loss to the revenue probably of a million, and that the only way to counteract this would be by an Order in Council, which they would never dare pass merely for a party purpose as this would be.

DISSOLUTION OF PARLIAMENT DEBATED.

May 11th.—The question of dissolution is still contested, and the Whigs of Brooks's and the young and hot-headed are making such a clatter, and talking with so much violence and confidence, that they have produced a strong impression that the measure is intended. I have had long conversations with Clarendon, Normanby, and the Duke of Bedford. The second, to my great surprise, talked very reasonably and moderately, and told me distinctly he was opposed to a dissolution; that he saw no way of getting over the difficulty about the sugar duties, and that if they attempted it and failed, they should go out with discredit. From the other two I learned that Melbourne is in a state of great agitation and disquietude, labouring under a sense of the enormous responsibility which rests upon him, embarrassed on one side by the importunities of his friends, and, on the other, alarmed at the danger of taking so desperate a step; and he says very truly and sensibly that in his opinion the Queen should never make an appeal to the people which was not likely to be successful, and that he does not like to take upon himself the responsibility of carrying on the Government (while such important questions are in agitation) during the interval, with the almost certainty of meeting at the end of the term a hostile majority of the House of Commons. Of the Government with different shades of opinion, and each influenced by different motives and considerations, I think the most decided for a dissolution is Palmerston (who has never any doubts or fears, and is for fighting everybody), and the most against it Macaulay. The violent dissolutionists make light of the sugar difficulty, and talk of bringing in a Bill to meet the emergency, which they flatter themselves the Opposition would suffer to pass, because they would not venture, as they call it, to stop the supplies; and I was surprised to hear that John Russell, on whom the idea of the party being broken up seems to have made a great impression, partook of this notion. But in the midst of all this apparent doubt, I have none how it will end, and that they will not venture to dissolve when the moment for decision arrives. They are in fact preparing for resignation, for the Duke of Bedford came to me yesterday morning to consult me as to the course which the Ladies ought to adopt, a matter which is occupying the serious attention both of Melbourne and Lord John; and to do them justice, they seem only anxious to put matters in train for averting any repetition of the embarrassment which proved fatal to Peel two years ago, and which might again be productive of a good deal of difficulty and some unpleasant feeling. They want to make things go on smoothly, and to reconcile the dignity of the Queen with the consistency of Peel. Their own feelings, and those of the Ladies themselves, would suggest resignation, but then they shrink from the idea of deserting the Queen. Nice questions of conduct present themselves, which require much consideration. I told him I did not think the difficulty was now so great, for the question of an exclusively political household had been settled by the recent appointments of Tory Ladies, and that Peel might very well consider the circumstances as having changed, and that he is thereby himself released from the obligation of doing the same thing over again. But I advised the Duke of Bedford to go and talk the matter over with the Duke of Wellington, which he agreed to do. I think this will pave the way to some satisfactory arrangement, and at all events it will show a good disposition on the part of the present Ministers to aid rather than embarrass their successors. I rode with the Duke of Wellington yesterday, and had a little, but very little, talk with him about the present crisis. He does not talk as he used to do, and he struck me as miserably changed. His notion was that they would neither resign nor dissolve, but endeavour to go on as they have heretofore done.

I went to see Mdlle. Rachel make her début last night, which she did in Hermione.[2] As far as I could form an opinion, with my little habitude of French tragedy, and difficulty of hearing and following, I thought her very good—a clear and beautiful voice, graceful, with dignity, feeling, and passion, and as much nature as French tragedy admits of, I wish we had anything as good. The creatures who acted with her were the veriest sticks; and the concluding scene of the madness of Orestes excited the hilarity of the audience far more than Laporte's Mascarille, which came after it, though that was very good. Rachel was received with great applause, and when called on at the end of the piece, was so overcome that she nearly fainted, and would have fallen had not somebody rushed on the stage to support her. Charles Kemble, Young, the actor, and Mrs. Butler were there, and greatly admired her; but the latter told me she would go home and act over there the last scene of Orestes, which tickled her fancy more than Hermione had struck her imagination.

LADIES OF THE BEDCHAMBER.

May 12th.—The Duke of Bedford communicated with the Duke of Wellington yesterday morning through Arbuthnot. After some hesitation, because Melbourne had come to the conclusion that the Ladies had better all resign, the Duke of Wellington said he had never talked upon the subject to Peel, and he could say nothing himself; but he knew that there was an earnest desire to avoid any renewal of the old dispute, and that the circumstances were now in every respect so different, from the Queen's being married and the appointments of Tory Ladies, that he did not think there would be any occasion for it. Indeed, he thought, and so did Peel, that much of what had occurred before had arisen from mistake, and that if John Russell had in the first instance communicated with the Queen, instead of Melbourne, all would have been cleared up. It was agreed that what had passed should be communicated by the Duke of Wellington to Peel, and to Peel only, whenever (if at all) he thought it right and advisable to make the communication. This puts the affair in a good train. Melbourne means to advise the Queen to send for Peel himself at once, and without any intermediate, which is very wise, and will facilitate an amicable adjustment of delicate points. Lord John has written the Queen a letter, setting before her the actual state of the case, but giving no opinion of his own.

May 16th.—The debate was again adjourned on Friday night, having lasted a week, very languidly carried on, and up to the present time with very few good speeches since John Russell's; Sir George Grey, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Labouchere on one side; Gladstone and Stanley the best on the other. All is speculation, and nobody has any certainty what will be done. The Government people say, that everything tends to sanction a dissolution: that the reports from the country are in favour of their measures, and the Anti-slavery cry a failure. But the truth is, there is no great feeling in the country one way or the other, but an extraordinary apathy or indifference. The Whigs persist that Peel would not venture to thwart their attempt to get the necessary supplies passed; the Tories maintain that Peel will never make himself the accomplice of a dissolution under the pretence of not opposing the supplies. But while the majority of the Cabinet seem now not indisposed to dissolve if they can, Melbourne's objections continue the same, and he will have to determine upon his own course, supposing the majority of his colleagues declare for dissolving. It is, I think, impossible that he as Prime Minister should give way upon a point of such vital importance. He must tell the Queen what his opinion is, and then the question will arise, whether she will consent to anybody else attempting to carry on the Government without him, and whether John Russell (the only possible alternative) will undertake it. Probably neither she, nor he, would try the experiment. Of the Government, the man most resolute, and desirous of trying a dissolution, is the Chancellor (Lord Cottenham), and Macaulay the most decided the other way. This is what few uninformed people would imagine, but there is no stronger political partisan than the Chancellor, or any man more prepared to go all lengths for his party.

I talked to Arbuthnot the other day about the Ladies, and the communication he had had with the Duke of Bedford. He said Peel was well disposed to do everything to conciliate the Queen; but now Melbourne has got a notion that he means to insist upon three resignations; and though he means to advise the Queen to consent to them, John Russell is much disturbed at the idea of what he thinks would be mortifying and derogatory to her. The Duke of Bedford told me this, and he fancies that some indirect communication has taken place, through some women, between Melbourne and Peel, by which the former is apprised of the latter's intentions.

DISSOLUTION RESOLVED ON.

May 19th.—They divided yesterday morning at three o'clock; division pretty much what was expected.[3] A very fine speech, three hours long, from Peel, which John Russell said he thought remarkably able and ingenious, but not statesmanlike. He has, however, always a prejudice against his great antagonist, and a bad opinion of him. Palmerston answered him in a speech, of smart, daring, dashing commonplaces, not bad, but very inferior to Peel. Yesterday morning the Cabinet met, and they resolved not to resign, but to make an attempt at dissolution. John Russell had asked Peel the night before to let a day pass, that they might consult before they stated to the House of Commons the course they meant to pursue. Thus Melbourne's weak vacillating mind has been over-persuaded, and he consents to what he so highly disapproves. Clarendon has likewise been brought round, for he was also for resignation, and against dissolution. Feeble resolves, easily overthrown, and here are both, these Ministers consenting to a measure, upon the pretext of its being required by public opinion, when in point of fact it is only insisted upon by the most violent of their own adherents, who think any evil tolerable but that of their party being weakened, and who would create confusion, and stir up excitement merely for the sake of embarrassing their opponents on their accession to office.

In the midst of all this, and while the decision of Ministers was doubtful, a tracasserie was very near growing out of the communications which have taken place concerning the Ladies. After I had been told by the Duke of Bedford that Peel was going to insist on certain terms, which was repeated to me by Clarendon, I went to Arbuthnot, told him Melbourne's impression, and asked him what it all meant. He said it was all false, that he was certain Peel had no such intentions, but, on the contrary, as he had before assured me, was disposed to do everything that would be conciliatory and agreeable to the Queen.

May 25th.—After the great division the Whigs were all in high spirits at thinking they had so quietly carried their point of dissolution, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer immediately introduced the Sugar Duties without comment and in the regular way. Nothing was said, but all the Tories were desirous of doing something, though the greatest doubt prevailed among them as to the steps it would be proper and feasible to take. They were content, however, to leave the matter in the hands of their leaders, and yesterday morning Peel convened a meeting at his house, made them a speech, in which he told them all the objections there were to meddling with the supplies, and proposed the resolution of which he gave notice last night, which was hailed with general satisfaction.[4]

May 30th.—Having been at Epsom the whole week, I had no time to write, nor could I turn my mind to politics or from the business of the place to any other subject. I never saw greater difference of opinion than exists about Peel's resolution, the debate on which is dragging its slow length along. It was at first supposed (though by no means universally) that he was sure of a majority, and that unless he had such certainty it was a very false move. As the discussion proceeds it seems pretty clear that all the Corn and Sugar Whigs will rally round the Government again on the vote of confidence, and the prevailing opinion is at the present moment that Peel will be beaten by a very slender majority. But people seem now to think that it does not much signify what the result may be. The Whigs are determined to dissolve, and the Tories now aver that they wish for a dissolution as speedily as may be, and they think that this division will prevent the Government from doing what they suspect was their intention, viz. to linger on through the Session and dissolve in the autumn. Then they consider that another great advantage will be obtained from this fight—that of ascertaining once for all whom they are to regard as friends or enemies, and it settles the question of opposition to those Corn Law supporters, who merely went against this Budget, but who have no intention of changing sides altogether.

VOTE OF CENSURE CARRIED.

June 6th.—The division took place on Friday night, and there was a majority of one against the Government. For the last day or two it was a complete toss-up which side won, and it evidently depended on the few uncertain men who might or might not choose to vote. As it was, it all turned on an accident. John Russell wrote to Sir Gilbert Heathcote (who never votes), and begged him to come up on Thursday, and to vote. Sir Gilbert did come, but, as there was no division that night, he went home again, and his vote was lost. They left no stone unturned to procure a majority, and brought down a lord who is in a state of drivelling idiotcy, and quite incapable of comprehending what he was about. This poor wretch was brought in a chair; they got him into the House, and then wheeled him past the tellers. Charles Howard, Melbourne's private secretary, told me he thought it a monstrous and indecent proceeding. The Government people now want them to bring on a debate about Corn, and John Russell is to announce to-morrow what he means to do; but it would be so strong a case to convert the House of Commons into a mere debating society for their party purposes, that I don't think they can attempt it.

June 12th.—All the past week at a place called Harewood Lodge with the Beauforts for Ascot races. Dined at the Castle on Thursday; one hundred people in St. George's Hall; very magnificent, blazing with gold plate and light, and very tiresome. In the evening Mdlle. Rachel came to recite, which she did à trois reprises on a sort of stage made in the embrasure of the window, from 'Bajazet,' 'Marie Stuart,' and 'Andromaque.' It is so much less effective than her acting (besides my unfortunate inability to follow and comprehend French declamation) that it was fatiguing, but it served to occupy the evening, which is always the great difficulty in Royal society. The Queen was pretty well received on the course, and her party consisted in great measure of Tory guests.

On Monday John Russell announced very properly that after the vote last week he should not go on with any business but that which was indispensable, and Peel extorted from him an engagement to dissolve and reassemble Parliament as soon as possible. This latter point was, I think, contrary to their intentions, and that they would have delayed to call Parliament together as long as they decently could if Peel had not urged it. It was a great mistake, after Lord John's announcement on Monday, to bring on the Chancery Reform Bill, on which they got beaten, and suffered a severe and just rebuke from Peel. It was, in fact, inconsistent with their own declaration, and probably merely attempted for the sake of the patronage.

On the other hand, Peel and Stanley each were betrayed into great blunders, very unworthy of them, but each of them curiously illustrative of the characters of the two men. In the debate last week Stanley attacked Handley with great asperity, and, at the moment, with signal success, accusing him of manifold inconsistencies and tergiversations, and how he had at the period of Peel's attempt in '35 consulted him, and attended meetings at his house. Handley afterwards wrote to Stanley, and the correspondence appeared in the newspapers, from which it is clear that Stanley's statement of facts was altogether incorrect. He had dashed it all out from imperfect recollection; doubtless not meaning to say anything untrue, but not giving himself the trouble to verify the accuracy of his recollections, and consequently he is exposed to the mortification of being compelled to acknowledge that his facts and his charges are unfounded. This damages a man like Stanley, and takes from the confidence which his word ought always to inspire. It would not have happened to Peel, who would never have attacked any man without carefully ascertaining that his facts were correctly stated, nor would he have brought forward charges upon any loose and random recollections.

On the other hand, Peel committed a blunder in repeating the absurd charge of the double Budget, which was no doubt put into his head by some of the low hangers-on of his party, and to which, if he had a more generous mind, or a greater knowledge of mankind, or more free communication with other men, he could never have given one moment's credit. It afforded the Government an opportunity once for all of denying this stupid charge, and in a manner which extorted from Peel an expression of his own conviction that it was not true, and this sets the matter for ever at rest. Stanley would not, I think, have fallen into this mistake; he would not have suspected anything of the kind, nor would Peel have got into such a scrape as Stanley.

APPROACHING ELECTIONS.

All the world is now preparing for the elections, and all, as usual, sanguine in their expectations of the result, but I don't believe the Government really expect much gain, and they feel that their days are numbered. Normanby told me the day before yesterday that he expected none, but that they were obliged to pretend to expect it.

June 18th.—Everybody occupied with the approaching elections, but no excitement in the country, no enthusiasm for any party or men, no feeling for any measures, but as far as one can judge (appearances being always fallacious in electioneering matters) the current steadily running in the Conservative interest. There seems every probability of Peel's having a large majority, and it is very desirable that he should, that we may at last have a Government clearly and positively supported by the House of Commons, which can act with something like freedom and confidence instead of living as it were from hand to mouth, never knowing whether Ministers are to be in a majority or minority on any one question. John Russell had a great meeting in the City the other day, was rapturously received, and Jones Lloyd made a very fine speech in proposing him to the meeting as their candidate.

The Queen went to Nuneham last week for Prince Albert's visit to Oxford, when he was made a Doctor. Her name was very well received, and so was the Prince himself in the theatre; but her Ministers, individually and collectively, were hissed and hooted with all the vehemence of Oxonian Toryism. Her Majesty said she thought it very disrespectful to the Prince to hiss her Ministers in his presence; but she must learn to bear with such manifestations of sentiment and not fancy that these Academici will refrain from expressing their political opinions in any presence, even in her own. They will think it quite sufficient to be civil and respectful to her name and her Consort's person, and will treat her obnoxious Ministers just as they think fit.

June 20th.—At Chiswick yesterday morning a party for the Queen and Prince Albert, who wished to see the place. The Duke of Devonshire, who had resolved to give no entertainment on account of Lady Burlington's death last year, only invited his own relations, and Normanby and John Russell, the two Secretaries of State, were the only exceptional guests. It rained half the time and it was very formal.

Duncannon told me that he could not believe in the great Tory gains, for his accounts represented matters as very favourable to his party, and he only wanted to know the truth and not be flattered into any false expectations: in fact, both sides are equally confident, and apparently one upon as good grounds as the other.

June 23rd.—Parliament was prorogued yesterday with a very short speech. Nothing new about the elections, but unabated confidence on both sides, though the Whigs cannot expect to counterbalance the loss of almost all the counties. They start with a loss of fifteen seats, given up without contest. Everybody is wondering at the numerous changes they are making, shuffling their cards at a great rate when the game is all but over, and the greatest disgust is expressed at the removal of Plunket and the appointment of Campbell.[5] Nobody would believe it at first, and when I told Clanricarde of it, he said if it were done and a vote of censure were moved upon it in the House of Lords, he would support the motion. But it is now said that he accepts the office with an engagement not to take the pension. He told Sheil so, but who will believe there is not some juggle in this, or that he would give up a business worth 10,000l. a-year to hold the Irish Seal for two months, and be left without any emolument at the end of that time?

EXCURSION TO NORTH WALES.

Prince Albert would not go to the Duke's Waterloo dinner. The Duke invited him when they met at Oxford, and the Prince said he would send an answer. He sent an excuse, which was a mistake, for the invitation was a great compliment, and this is a sort of national commemoration at which he might have felt a pride at being present.

Chester, June 24th.—Parliament having been dissolved yesterday, all the world are off to their elections, and I resolved to start upon an excursion to North Wales, which I have long been desirous of seeing, and which I can now do with great facility and convenience in consequence of Lord Anglesey's having established himself for a short time at Plas Newydd, so there I am bound. I was induced to make this expedition partly by my wish to see the scenery of North Wales and the Menai Bridge, and partly from a desire to stimulate my dull and jaded mind by the exertion and the object. I think of all the tastes and interests I have ever had, of all sources of pleasure, that which adheres to me the most, which is still the least impaired and dulled, is my pleasure in fine scenery and grand objects whether of nature or art, and it is to rouse me to the contemplation of better things and give if possible a wholesome stimulus to my thoughts that I am making this experiment. I could not procure a companion, but was very near getting Landseer, who would have come with me if he had not been obliged to paint every day this week at the Palace; and I also proposed the trip to Dr. Kay, who was prevented by his avocations from accepting the offer. I started by the six o'clock train and arrived here at three o'clock; set off to Eaton, where I saw the outside of the house only, a vast pile of mongrel Gothic, which cost some hundred thousands, and is a monument of wealth, ignorance, and bad taste. I did not see the gardens, nor the front towards the Dee, which are, I believe, the best part. The woody banks through which the Dee runs and the reach of the river are very pretty. Walked afterwards round the walls and through the arcades, so to call them, of the curious old city, unlike any English town I ever saw, and not unlike Bologna.

Some polyglot poet has cut these lines on the window of the room I occupy in this inn (the Royal Hotel):

In questa casa troverete Toutes les choses que vous souhaitez: Vinum, panem, pisces, carnes, Coaches, chaises, horses, harness.

In the evening Robert Grosvenor[6] came to me, who is here for his own election, and to assist in the desperate contest which they expect between Wilbraham and Tollemache. He told me (which I doubt) that if Palmerston had gone to Liverpool he would certainly have come in.

Plas Newydd, Sunday, June 27th.—Left Chester at half-past eleven on Friday morning, having stopped to hear service at the Cathedral, a poor, but very ancient building, with fine chanting, which I particularly like. A rainy day, nothing particular in the road till Conway, where the Castle is very fine, a most noble ruin, and the old walls of the town, with their numerous towers, so perfect, that I doubt if there is anything like them to be seen anywhere. It presents a perfect fortress of those times (the end of the thirteenth century), and Conway is so well worth seeing, that it alone would repay the trouble of the journey. The Castle appears to have been habitable and defensible till after the Civil Wars, the great epoch of the ruin of most of these ancient edifices. From Conway a fine and striking road along the seashore, and round the base of Penmaen Mawr, a mountain nearly as high as Snowdon; crossed the Menai Bridge at dusk, with barely light enough to see the wonderful work, and arrived at this place between ten and eleven o'clock. Nobody here; Lord Anglesey not yet arrived in his yacht, which was beaten about on her passage by stormy weather. This is a most delightful place on the margin of the Menai Strait, with the mountains in full view, presenting as the clouds sweep round and over them, and as they are ever and anon lit up by the sun, glorious combinations and varieties of light and shade. All day yesterday wasted in looking out for Lord Anglesey (who arrived in the afternoon), or occupied in dipping into travels in, and accounts of North Wales, and in making out excursions for the few days I have to spend here.

PLAS NEWYDD.—PENRHYN CASTLE.

We all went down to-day in the boats of Lord Anglesey's cutter to Bangor to attend the service in the Cathedral, passing under the Menai Bridge, which I had not been able to see well on my way to Plas Newydd. A poor Church at Bangor, Cathedral service, but moderate music. The Church is divided into two, half for the English and half for the Welsh; the nave is made the parish Church, and there the service is done in Welsh. There were very few, if any, of the common people at the English afternoon service; in fact, few of them speak anything but Welsh. It has an odd effect to see the women with their high-crowned, round hats on in church; the dress is not unbecoming. After the service we were followed by a crowd to our boats, and they cheered Lord Anglesey when he embarked.

June 28th.—We walked to the Menai Bridge, where we got into a car and drove to Penrhyn Castle, a vast pile of building, and certainly very grand, but altogether, though there are fine things and some good rooms in the house, the most gloomy place I ever saw, and I would not live there if they would make me a present of the Castle. It is built of a sort of grey stone polishable into a kind of black marble, of which there are several specimens within. It is blocked up with trees, and pitch dark, so that it never can be otherwise than gloomy. We then went to the ferry, and got a boat in which we sailed over to Beaumaris, and went up to Baron's Hill (Sir Richard Bulkeley's), with which I was delighted. The house is unfinished and ugly, but the situation and prospect over the bay of Beaumaris are quite admirable. Nothing can be more cheerful, and the whole scene around, sea, coast and mountains, indescribably beautiful. They compare this bay to that of Naples, and I do not know that there is any presumption in the comparison. Just below the house is the old Castle of Beaumaris, a very remarkable ruin, in great preservation, both the Castle and the surrounding wall. Drove home in another car; these cars are most convenient conveyances and in general use in these parts.

June 29th.—This morning at eight o'clock went with Lord Anglesey in the 'Pearl' to Carnarvon, where he was, as Constable of the Castle, to receive an address. All the town assembled to receive him, and he was vociferously cheered and saluted with music, firing of guns, procession of societies, and all the honours the Carnarvonites could show him. After the ceremony we went to see the Castle, which is much finer and larger, as well as in better preservation, than Conway, but not in so grand a situation. Both Conway and Carnarvon were tenable, if not habitable, till after the Civil Wars, and I do not know why they were suffered to decay any more than Warwick, which has survived the general wreck. Carnarvon must have been much more magnificent than Warwick, but it has no surrounding domain, and is actually in the town. We then sailed about in the cutter, and saw Snowdon and the other Snowdonian mountains very advantageously.

THE WELSH PEOPLE.

July 2nd.—On Wednesday I went on an excursion with Augustus Paget to see the country. We set off at eight in the morning in a boat to Carnarvon, where we breakfasted, got into a car, which took us to Beddgelert, walked to Pont Aberglasslyn and back, then in another car to Llanberis, saw the cascade, changed cars, and went to Moyldon Ferry, where we hired the boat of a slater, in which we were rowed home. We then went all round Snowdon; but the weather got so bad in the afternoon that ascending the mountain was out of the question. Nothing can be finer than the scenery between Beddgelert and Llanberis, and the latter is very wild and picturesque, though I was a little disappointed with the lakes. Yesterday and to-day it did nothing but rain, so any more exploring was out of the question, but I hope to come again into North Wales. I have never travelled in any country which appeared more completely foreign. The road from Beddgelert is perfectly Alpine in character, and the peasantry neither speak nor understand anything but Welsh, so that it is impossible to hold any communication with them. The women, in point of costume, have no resemblance to English women. Besides the round hats which they almost all wear, and which, though not unbecoming, give them a peculiar air, many, though not all of them, wear a sort of sandal on their feet, without soles I believe, but with something bound round their naked feet, the nature and purpose of which I could not exactly make out. The women are generally good-looking, with a vigorous frame, and a healthy cheerful aspect; all the common people are decent in their appearance, and particularly civil and respectful in their manner. The cars, which have in great measure taken the place of postchaises, are very convenient, though, being totally uncovered, are only fit for fine weather. The horses which draw them—one horse—are excellent, and they go very fast; but the charge for them is enormous—a shilling a mile. It is really extraordinary that the English language has not made its way more among the mass of the people. It is spoken at all the inns, but, with the exception of people employed about the house or grounds of a proprietor, very few speak it, and many of those in his actual employment are wholly ignorant of it. A lad of eighteen years old here, who works about the house or on the water, and is in Lord Anglesey's service, cannot speak a word of English. The country seems to be very ill-provided with schools, nor is English taught at all in those which do exist. Nothing can be less advanced than education in these parts. The Welsh are generally poor and wages are low; their food consists principally of potatoes and buttermilk; the average wages of labour is about nine shillings a week. The people, however, are industrious, sober, contented, and well-behaved; they do not like either change or locomotion, and this makes them indifferent about learning English. They would rather remain where they have been accustomed to work, and live upon smaller wages, than go a few miles off to Carnarvon, where they might earn a couple of shillings a week more. The new Poor Law is only in partial operation here. There is a workhouse at Pwlhelly, and there are Boards of Guardians and all the machinery requisite; but the law is unpopular, and it has never been rigidly and universally enforced. The people are extremely averse to its establishment, and the old system works well enough, for which reason its operation has not been much meddled with, and they hope that some expedient will be found to prevent its being carried into effect here.

Llangollen, July 3rd.—Left Plas Newydd this morning, and came to this place, stopping to see Pennant's slate works—a beautiful road, certainly, for the greater part of the way.

London, July 9th.—I slept at Llangollen on Saturday night. On Sunday morning early clambered up to the ruin—a mere heap of rubbish—of the Castle of Dinas Bran, and after breakfast walked to Val Crucis Abbey, where there are inconsiderable remains of a Cistercian convent in a delightful spot. Then set off in magnificent weather, and, travelling through a beautiful country, arrived at Shrewsbury, only stayed there an hour, and slept at the place between that and Wolverhampton. Next morning went on to Newmarket, and got there on Monday night: very pleasant expedition, and in some measure answered my purpose—at least, for the time. However, I have tried travelling and scenery, and I will go again.

DEFEAT OF THE WHIG PARTY.

July 11th.—I find London rather empty and tolerably calm. The elections are sufficiently over to exhibit a pretty certain result, and the termination of the great Yorkshire contest by the signal victory of the Tories—a defeat, the magnitude of which there is no possibility of palliating, or finding any excuse for—seems to have had the effect of closing the contest. The Whigs give the whole thing up as irretrievably lost; and though some of them with whom I have conversed still maintain that they did right to dissolve, they do not affect to deny that the result has disappointed all their hopes and calculations, and been disastrous beyond their worst fears. They now give Peel a majority of sixty or seventy. The most remarkable thing has been the erroneous calculations on both sides as to particular places, each having repeatedly lost when they thought the gain most certain. The Whigs complain bitterly of the apathy and indifference that have prevailed, and cannot recover from their surprise that their promises of cheap bread and cheap sugar have not proved more attractive. But they do not comprehend the real cause of this apathy. It is true that there has not been any violent Tory reaction, because there have been no great topics on which enthusiasm could fasten, but there has been a revival of Conservative influence, which has been gradually increasing for some time, and together with it a continually decreasing confidence in the Government. They have been getting more unpopular every day with almost all classes, and when they brought forward their Budget the majority of the country, even those who approved of its principles, gave them little or no credit for the measure, and besides doubting whether the advantages it held out were very great or important, believed that their real motives and object were to recover the popularity they had lost, and to make a desperate plunge to maintain themselves in office. It was all along my opinion that their dissolution was a great blunder, that they would have consulted their own party interests better, and still more certainly the success of the fiscal measures they advocate, by resigning. But they thought they could get up excitement, and by agitation place matters in such a state that their successors would be unable to govern the country. This their understrappers and adherents kept dinning into their ears, and by urging the Cabinet one day in the name of the Queen, another in that of the Party, and setting before them the most exaggerated and erroneous representations of the state of public opinion, they at last persuaded Melbourne, Clarendon, and the two or three others who were originally against dissolution, to acquiesce in that desperate and, as it has turned out, fatal experiment. They richly deserve the fate that has overtaken them, for their conduct has been weak and disgraceful, and as no Ministry ever enjoyed less consideration while they held power, so none will ever have been more ignominiously driven from it. They have tenaciously clung to office, and shown a disposition to hold it upon any terms rather than give it up; and when at last they have made a formal appeal to the country, and demanded of public opinion whether they should stay or go, they have been contemptuously and positively bid to go. They have done their utmost to make the Queen the ostensible head of their party, to identify her with them and their measures, and they have caused the Crown to be placed in that humiliating condition which Melbourne so justly deprecated when the question was first mooted. In no political transaction that has ever come under my notice have I seen less principle and more passion, selfishness, absence of public spirit, and less consideration for the national weal. Rage for power, party zeal, and hatred of their antagonists have been conspicuous in the whole course of their language and conduct.

August 4th.—It is nearly a month ago that I wrote the above, and in the meantime the elections progressed in favour of the Tories, and ended by giving them a majority of above eighty. Nothing was left for the Whigs but to comfort themselves with reflexions upon the united state of their minority, and hopes of the disunion that would prevail among the Tories; and upon these considerations, and upon the distresses and embarrassment of the country, which they trust and believe will make Peel's Government very difficult, they build their sanguine expectations of being speedily restored to office. Above all, they look to Ireland as a great and constant source of difficulty, and they evidently hope that O'Connell's influence will now be successfully exerted to render the government of Ireland impossible. And they insist upon the certainty, almost the necessity, of the Orangemen being so exigeants that Peel will have as much difficulty in dealing with them as with the O'Connellites, and between both that he will be inevitably swamped. In these fond anticipations I believe they will find themselves egregiously disappointed, especially in what they expect from the Orangemen. My own expectation is that the Orangemen will no longer aspire to an exclusiveness and ascendency which are unattainable, and that with the protection, justice, and equality which they will obtain under a Conservative Government they will rest satisfied, and will not be fools enough to quarrel with Peel, and open a door to the restoration of the Whigs, because he does not do for them what it would be unreasonable to require, and what he never can have the power to do.

LORD MELBOURNE'S ADVICE TO THE QUEEN.

The next thing from which the Whigs hope to derive benefit is the hostile disposition of the Queen towards the Tory Government, and this they do their utmost to foster and keep up as far as writings and speeches go; but I do not believe that Melbourne does any such thing, and he alone has access to the Queen's ear and to her secret thoughts. With him alone she communicates without reserve, and to none of his colleagues, not even to John Russell, does he impart all that passes between them. The best thing she can possibly do is to continue in her confidential habits with him as far as possible, for I am persuaded he will give her sound and honest advice; he will mitigate instead of exasperating her angry feelings, and instruct her in the duties and obligations of her position, and try at least to persuade her that her dignity, her happiness and her interest are all concerned in her properly discharging them. He has faults enough of various kinds, but he is a man of honour and of sense, and he is deeply attached to the Queen. He will prefer her honour and repose to any interests of party, and it is my firm conviction that he will labour to inspire her with just notions and sound principles, and as far as in him lies will smooth the difficulties which would be apt to clog her intercourse with his successors.

August 10th.—The Tories were beginning to quarrel about the Speakership, some wanting to oust Lefevre but the more sensible and moderate, with Peel and the leaders desiring to keep him. The latter carried their point without much difficulty. Peel wrote to four or five and twenty of his principal supporters and asked their opinions. All, except Lowther, concurred in not disturbing Lefevre, and he said that he would not oppose the opinions of the majority. So Peel wrote to Lefevre, and gave him notice that he would not be displaced. The Whig papers, which were chuckling at the prospect of an early schism, were very sulky, and much disappointed at this settlement of the question. It would have been a very bad beginning for Peel if he had been overruled by the violence of the Ultra Tories. If he takes a high line, taking it moderately and discreetly but firmly, if he evinces his resolution to lead and not be driven, to govern the country according to his own sense of its necessities and rights, and to moral and political fitness, he may be a great and powerful Minister; but if the party he leads is so disunited, or so obstinate and unreasonable, that they will not consent to be led on these terms, if they will put forward their wants and wishes, and insist upon his deferring to their notions, prejudices, and desires, contrary to his own judgement, and to the sense and sentiment of the country, his reign will be very short. The party will be broken up, and the Government soon become paralysed and powerless. To this consummation, in full reliance upon his weakness, and the exactions of his party, the hopes of the defeated Whigs are anxiously directed, but I think they will be disappointed. All Peel's conduct for some time past, his speeches in and out of the House of Commons, upon all occasions, indicate his resolution to act upon liberal and popular principles, and upon them to govern, or not at all. That many will be dissatisfied, and many disappointed, there can be no doubt; but on the whole I think the dissidents will, with few exceptions, come into his terms; and as to the conscientious few, who on certain points will inflexibly maintain their opinions or principles, he will be able to afford to lose them. No man ever acquires greatness of mind, which is innate; but a man may acquire wisdom, and one may act from prudence as another would do from magnanimity. Peel's mind is not made of noble material, but he has an enlarged capacity and has had a vast experience of things, though from his peculiar disposition a much more limited one of men. If he takes a correct and a lofty view of his own situation—and to be correct it must be lofty—he will succeed, and the really essential thing is that he should have a deep and determined feeling that possession of office is utterly worthless if it is to be purchased by concessions and compromises which his reason condemns, and that he should enter on the Government with an unalterable determination to stand or fall by the principles he professes.

DR. WISEMAN.

August 12th.—The day before yesterday I met Dr. Wiseman at dinner, a smooth, oily, and agreeable Priest. He is now Head of the College at Oscott, near Birmingham, and a Bishop (in partibus), and accordingly he came in full episcopal costume, purple stockings, tunic and gold chain. He talked religion, Catholicism, Protestantism, and Puseyism, almost the whole time. He told us of the great increase of his religion in this country, principally in the manufacturing, and very little in the agricultural districts. I asked him to what cause he attributed it, if to the efforts of missionaries, or the influence of writings, and he replied that the principal instrument of conversion was the Protestant Association, its violence and scurrility; that they always hailed with satisfaction the advent of its itinerant preachers, as they had never failed to make many converts in the districts through which they had passed; he talked much of Pusey and Newman, and Hurrell Froude whom Wiseman had known at Rome. He seems to be very intimate with Dr. Pusey, and gave us to understand not only that their opinions are very nearly the same, but that the great body of that persuasion, Pusey himself included, are very nearly ripe and ready for reunion with Rome, and he assured us that neither the Pope's supremacy nor Transubstantiation would be obstacles in their way. He said that the Jesuits were in a very flourishing state, and their Order governed as absolutely, and their General invested with the same authority and exacting the same obedience, as in the early period of the institution. As an example, he said that when the Pope gave them a College at Rome, I forget now what, the General sent for Professors from all parts of the world, summoning one from Paris, another from America, and others from different towns in Italy, and he merely ordered them on the receipt of his letters to repair forthwith to Rome. He invited me to visit him at Oscott, which I promised, and which I intend to do.

Yesterday I went to Windsor for a Council, and there I found the Duke of Bedford. After the Council I went into his room to have a talk. He gave me an account of the Queen's visit to Woburn, which went off exceedingly well in all ways. She was received everywhere with the greatest enthusiasm, and an extraordinary curiosity to see her was manifested by the people, which proves that the Sovereign as such is revered by the people. I asked him if she was attentive to the Duke of Wellington, but he said that the Duke kept very much in the background, and his deafness, he thought, deterred the Queen from trying to converse much with him. However, though it is clear that she showed him no particular attention, the Duke was highly satisfied, for he told the Duke of Bedford so, and said he thought this progress a very good thing. The Duke had no conversation on politics with Melbourne. He told me that Melbourne had worked hard to reconcile the Queen's mind to the impending change, and to tranquillise her and induce her to do properly what she will have to do; and the Prince has done the same, and that their efforts have been successful. The Ladies mean to resign, that is, the Duchesses of Sutherland and Bedford and Lady Normanby. He gave me to understand with reference to what passed some time ago between Peel, Arbuthnot, and himself, that Peel had had some sort of private communication on the subject, but he would not tell me all he had to say, making the mysterious for no reason that I could discover, and promising a fuller explanation in a short time.

LORD JOHN RUSSELL'S INTENTIONS.

But what was of much greater importance than any questions about these Ladies was a letter which he showed me from his brother John written a day or two before his marriage, in which he told him what his political intentions were. He said that while he would be in his place to support what he considered the good cause (a somewhat vague phrase), he would adhere to a moderate course, and he was aware in so doing that he should run the risk of giving great offence to many of his party, and probably of determining his own exclusion from office. This declaration is in exact conformity with his intentions, when the Tories were on the point of coming in two or three years ago, and when he published his famous Stroud letter. I believe he will adhere to this resolution, which cannot fail to have an important influence upon the prospects and the position of the Opposition party. It proves how fallacious is their reckoning of the union that is to prevail among them, and how much greater elements of disunion exist among the Whigs than among the Tories, though they have not yet of course begun to exhibit the symptoms of it. But Lord John, besides his intention to adopt the passive course of moderation, has a mind to make an attack upon O'Connell. He has been lately reading over O'Connell's speeches at different places, and is so disgusted and exasperated at them that he told the Duke of Bedford he felt exceedingly inclined to attack him in the House of Commons. This, however, the Duke means to dissuade him from doing. It would be unnecessary, and such an open and early schism would throw the whole Whig party into confusion, and excite their indignation, against their leader. But when such are his sentiments, and when the three hundred men who compose the Opposition consist of three distinct sections of politicians,—the great Whig and moderate Radical body, owning Lord John for their leader, the Ultra Radicals following Roebuck, and the Irish under O'Connell,—and when the Whig leader abhors the Roebuck doctrines, can hardly be restrained from attacking O'Connell, and is resolved to be meek and gentle with his Tory antagonists, it does seem as if Peel's difficulties, whatever may be their nature or magnitude, would not be principally derived from the compact union of his opponents. Lord John said that they should leave the country to the Tories in a very good condition, excepting only the financial distress, which their measures would have relieved—a tolerably impudent assertion in both respects.

August 14th.—The letter of John Russell's to which I have alluded was a very amiable and creditable production. As it was written in habitual confidence to his brother, it is impossible to doubt his sincerity. After speaking of his political intentions, and his probable exclusion from office, he proceeded to say that he looked forward with delight to his establishment at Endsleigh and to the opportunity of resuming some long neglected studies, and he said that he should be under the necessity of attending to those domestic economies which he had also not had time to think of; that he cared not for poverty; should have a sufficiency for comfort, and could always by writing and publishing add a few hundreds to his income. I was struck with the calm philosophy and the unselfish patriotism which his letter breathed, and with the grateful feelings he expressed at the happiness which seemed yet to be reserved for him. It is pleasant to contemplate a mind so well regulated, at once so vigorous, honest, and gentle; it cannot fail to be happy because it possesses that salutary energy which is always filling the mind with good food, those pure and lofty aspirations which are able to quell the petty passions and infirmities which assail and degrade inferior minds, and, above all, those warm affections which seek for objects round which they may cling, which are the best safeguard against selfishness, and diffuse throughout the moral being that vital glow which animates existence itself, is superior to all other pleasures, and renders all evils comparatively light.

JAMES WOOD'S WILL.

August 18th.—The day before yesterday the Judicial Committee gave judgement in the great case of James Wood's Will, reversing the whole of Sir Herbert Jenner's judgement both as to the will and the codicil. The surprise was great and general, for everybody expected that the judgement would have been affirmed, and this impression was the stronger, because they had had so little discussion and so few meetings on the matter. They seem to have made up their minds as the cause went on, and they kept the secret so well, that nobody had the least notion what their decision would be, everybody guessing at it from their own opinions, or the circumstance I have alluded to. Brougham was there,[7] and arrived long before the appointed hour. He told me that Lyndhurst would deliver the judgement, and, he concluded, would affirm. Soon after Lyndhurst arrived, when he took Brougham aside, and told him what they were going to do. I never saw a man so pleased. He came up to me and, giving me a great poke in the side, whispered: 'See how people may be deceived; they are going to reverse the whole judgement.' Lord Lyndhurst read the judgement, the delivery of it lasting about an hour. It was, I think, very superficial, and when he reversed so elaborate a judgement as Jenner's, it was due to the character of the Judge below, as well as to the importance of the cause, to go into much greater detail, and to reason the case more, and reply to those legal grounds on which Jenner's judgement was grounded. On these they did not touch at all. Having satisfied their minds that the documents were authentic, and that it was the intention of the testator that the four executors should have his money, they decided accordingly, stepping over the technical objection which arose upon the disjunction of the papers A and B, and discarding from their minds, as they were right in doing, all consideration of the misconduct of the parties interested. But it struck me as very extraordinary that they should not have expressed a stronger opinion on that point, and that they should have allowed Alderman Wood to take his 200,000l., and Philpotts his 40, or 50,000, without one word of animadversion upon their behaviour. The Chancellor had said on the Saturday preceding that he thought the judgement would be reversed.

August 24th.—On Saturday at Windsor for a Council, for the Speech: the last Council, I presume, which these Ministers will hold. Nothing particular occurred. I believe that the Queen is extremely annoyed at what is about to take place, and would do anything to avert it; but as that is impossible, she has made up her mind to it. She seemed to me to be in her usual state of spirits. The truth is, when it comes to the point, that it is very disagreeable to have a complete change of decoration, to part with all the faces she has been accustomed to, and see herself surrounded with new ones. That, however, is a very immaterial matter in comparison with the loss of Melbourne's society, and of those confidential habits which have become such an essential part of her existence.

OPENING OF THE NEW PARLIAMENT.

CHAPTER XII.

Debate on the Address in the Lords—Conservative Majority in the New Parliament—Sir R. Peel's Audience of the Queen—Auspicious Policy of Peel—Council at Claremont—Change of Ministry—Lord Melbourne's Message to Sir R. Peel—What Sir R. Peel said to the Queen—Lord Melbourne's View of the recent Appointments at Court—The Duke of Wellington on the recent Appointments—A Party at Windsor—Future Course of Events predicted—Visit to Woburn—Junius—Jobbing at the Foreign Office—Contempt for the late Government—Summary—Louis Philippe—Forgery of Exchequer Bills—The Tower Fire—Birth of the Prince of Wales—Delicate Questions—Prince Albert receives the Keys of the Cabinet Boxes—Charles Elliot—Strength of the Government—Lord Ripon and John Macgregor—French Intrigues in Spain.

London: August 25th, 1841.—The Duke of Bedford has just come here with an account of the House of Lords last night.[8] Lord Spencer was good; Lord Ripon very good indeed, the best speech he ever heard him make. The amendment to the Address was admirably composed, most skilful and judicious. Melbourne was miserable; he never made so bad a speech, mere buffoonery, and without attempting an answer to Ripon. The Duke of Richmond was strong both in manner and matter, threatening if the new Government did anything, as some said they would, that they would turn them out likewise. The Duke of Wellington complimented Melbourne handsomely on the judicious advice and the good instruction he had given the Queen. Lord Lansdowne was good, and quoted with effect a speech of Mr. Robinson's in favour of a fixed duty. Brougham was very bitter; he voted with the Government, but attacked Melbourne, and taunted him with not having answered Ripon's speech. Lord John had communicated the Queen's Speech to Peel on Monday, in order that he might have time to frame his amendment. He behaved very well about this. He said that it was a very extraordinary occasion: that as the Speech was one which invited an amendment, it was fair to give the other side an opportunity of framing it in the most advisable manner, his great object being that the Queen's dignity and position should be consulted and cared for. Accordingly he proposed to the Cabinet that he should be authorised to send the Speech to Peel, to which they would not agree. On this he took it upon himself to do so, and he wrote to Fremantle, and told him if Peel would like to see the Speech he would send it him. Peel was very glad to have it, so Lord John sent it through Fremantle, and this gave them time to consider their amendment, and excellently done it is. The Duke of Wellington wrote to Lord John during the debates, to offer to adjourn the House till Friday. All these proceedings are decorous and graceful, and when such a spirit animates the Leaders, one feels that the great interests must be safe.

In the other House a very bad debate, Roebuck making a clever speech, and attacking John Russell and the Whigs, which shows how little union there is likely to be in the Opposition. Lord John has been in communication with Lord Stanley for a good while. When he found how the elections were going, and that the Government was virtually at an end, he began communicating with Stanley about certain colonial matters which, he thought, had better be left to the discretion of his successor; and they seem to have been corresponding very amicably on the subject for some time.

The Duke of Bedford has sent in the Duchess's resignation, as he found that Peel meant to require the retirement of the three Ladies of the Household connected with the Government—Sutherland, Bedford, and Normanby.

DEFEAT OF THE GOVERNMENT.

August 28th.—The House divided last night, and gave the Opposition a majority of ninety-one, almost all the Conservatives attending, and some of the others being absent. Peel seems to have spoken out, and to have announced to friend and foe that he will resolutely follow his own course. If he adheres to this and takes a bold flight, he may be a great man. Yesterday morning Arbuthnot told me that the Duke certainly would not come to the Council Office. He does not like it, says he knows nothing of the business, and won't have anything to do with it; but he told me what surprised me more, and that is, that two years ago, when everybody supposed he was to have been President of the Council, he was in fact to have been Secretary for Foreign Affairs; and it would not much surprise me if he were to take the Foreign Office again, for whatever others may think, he fancies himself as fit as ever to do the business of any office.

The answer to the Lords' Address was given yesterday and was satisfactory; but there is some perplexity as to the answer to the Commons, whether Melbourne can give it, or if it must be left to Peel. To show how difficult it is to get at the truth on any subject, Clarendon told me yesterday that John Russell never had proposed to the Cabinet to send the speech to Peel; that it was after the Cabinet on Friday that he (Clarendon) suggested it to Lord John, who at first objected to it, but afterwards did it, and told his colleagues at Windsor that he had done so. Lord John also sent to Peel and offered to bring in the Poor Law Bill for a year, if he liked it. Peel sent him word he was much obliged to him for the offer, but that he must exercise his own discretion in the matter. They thought this very Peelish and over-cautious, but I don't know that he could do otherwise. It is creditable and satisfactory to observe the good tone and liberal feeling mutually evinced between the Leaders. The other night Goulburn made a really excellent speech in reply to Baring, and after the debate Baring came over and shook hands with him, saying, 'You have made an admirable speech to-night.'

September 1st.—On Monday morning Peel went down to Windsor. He was well enough satisfied with his reception. The Queen was civil, but dejected; she repeated (what she said two years ago) the expression of her regret at parting with her Ministers. Peel, with very good taste, told her that, as he had never presumed to anticipate his being sent for, he had had no communications with anybody, and was quite unprepared with any list to submit to her, and must therefore crave for time. It was settled that he should have another audience this morning. Up to this time no appointment is known but that of Lord de Grey as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Peel sent for Francis Egerton and told him that he should have proposed that post to him, had he not known that it would not suit him to go to Ireland; and Francis said he was quite right, and that it was not his wish to take any office. If Peel had any occasion for his assistance, he would readily afford it, but he apprehended that his difficulty would be found rather in the abundance than the lack of candidates for office. Peel shook his head, and said it was so indeed, and added that he had not had a single application for office from anybody who was fit for it. It seems clear that the Duke will hold no office. In June he wrote a letter to Peel urging all the reasons why he should not hold office, but expressing his readiness to do anything he might think most serviceable to his Government. Among other reasons he said that a war was not improbable in the unsettled state of European politics, and in the event of its breaking out he should most likely have to take the command of an allied army in Germany, thus exhibiting his own reliance on his moral and physical powers. I did not know (what I heard yesterday) that last year the King of Prussia sent to the Duke, through Lord William Russell, to know if he would take the command of the Forces of the German Confederation in the event of a war with France. He replied that he was the Queen of England's subject, and could take no command without her permission; but if that was obtained, he felt as able as ever, and as willing to command the King's army against France.

SIR R. PEEL'S LIBERAL POLICY.

It is impossible for Peel to have begun more auspiciously than he has done. I expected that he would act with vigour and decision, and he has not disappointed my expectations. His whole conduct for some time past evinced his determination. Those liberal views, which terrified or exasperated High Tories, High Churchmen, and bigots of various persuasions; those expressed or supposed opinions and intentions which elicited the invectives of the 'British Critic,' or the impertinences of 'Catholicus,' were to me a satisfactory earnest that, whenever he might arrive at the height of power, he was resolved to stretch his wings out and fly in the right direction. He must be too sagacious a man not to see what are the only principles on which this country can or ought to be governed, and that, inasmuch as he is wiser, better informed, and more advanced in practical knowledge than the mass of his supporters, it is absolutely necessary for him immediately to assume that predominance over them, and to determine their political allegiance to him, without establishing which his Government would be one of incessant shifts and expedients, insincere, ineffective, and in the end abortive. I never doubted that, if he had the boldness and the wisdom to take a high line, and assume a high tone at the outset, they would all, bon gré, mal gré, succumb to him, and follow and support him on his own terms. He has now a grand career open to him, and the means of rendering himself truly great. The mere possession of office and the dispensation of patronage can be nothing to him; worse than nothing, to hold office on terms he could not but feel to be humiliating, which would not lead to fame, and would probably in the end entail downfall and disgrace. It is not worth his while, with his immense fortune, high position, and great reputation, to be a mere commonplace Minister, struggling with the embarrassments and the prejudices of his own party. This would be mere degradation and loss of character. He must therefore contemplate the illustration of his administration by the establishment of principles at once sound and popular, combining the essence both of Conservatism and Reform, scrupulously preserving from all assaults the Constitution in all its purity, and carefully extending every sort of improvement and reform that the wants of the people or the imperfections of particular institutions may require. He must reconcile Conservatism with Reform, and prove to the world that instead of their being antagonistic principles, they only appear to be, or are rendered so by the exaggerations and perversions with which interested or bigoted men invest them both. He must satisfy the people of this country, that by the maintenance of the ancient Constitution, and the suppression of Radicalism, their real and permanent interests will be promoted and secured, and animate and invigorate the sentiment of loyalty and attachment to the Crown and Constitution, by teaching the universal lesson, that under its protecting shade the greatest attainable amount of happiness and prosperity may in all human probability be obtained. The Opposition fondly hope that Peel's followers will desert him rather than subscribe to his more liberal and generous maxims of government. I do not believe it. If success attends him, and they see his policy producing prosperity and tranquillity, they will be too happy to 'increase the triumph and partake the gale,' and, after all, their greatest object must be to secure the Constitution from Radical inroads, and exclude from power a Government which they believe could only retain it, if restored, by enormous concessions of a democratic tendency. I think, therefore, Peel is in no danger of being abandoned by the great body of the Conservatives, and if the liberality of some of his measures entails the loss of some Ultra Tories, it will be so much the better for him. What he has to do is to make himself popular with the country—not with 'the uninformed mob that swells a nation's bulk,' but with 'those who are elevated enough in life to reason and reflect, yet low enough to keep clear of the venal contagion of a Court,'—as Burns terms them, 'a nation's strength.'

SIR R. PEEL'S ADMINISTRATION.

September 4th.—Went yesterday to Claremont for the Council, at which the new Ministers were appointed—a day of severe trial for the Queen, who conducted herself in a manner which excited my greatest admiration and was really touching to see.[9] All the Members of the old Government who had Seals or Wands to surrender were there (not Melbourne), and in one room; the new Cabinet and new Privy Councillors were assembled in another, all in full dress. The Household were in the Hall. The Queen saw the people one after another, having already given audience to Peel. After this was over she sent for me to inform her in what way the Seals were to be transferred to the new men. I found her with the Prince, and the table covered with bags and boxes. She desired I would tell her what was to be done, and if she must receive them in the Closet, or give them their Seals in Council. I told her the latter was the usual form, and it was of course that which she preferred. Having explained the whole course of the proceeding to her, she begged I would take the Seals away, which I accordingly did, and had them put upon the Council table. She looked very much flushed, and her heart was evidently brim full, but she was composed, and throughout the whole of the proceedings, when her emotion might very well have overpowered her, she preserved complete self-possession, composure, and dignity. This struck me as a great effort of self-control, and remarkable in so young a woman. Taking leave is always a melancholy ceremony, and to take leave of those who have been about her for four years, whom she likes, and whom she thinks are attached to her, together with all the reminiscences and reflexions which the occasion was calculated to excite, might well have elicited uncontrollable emotions. But though her feelings were quite evident, she succeeded in mastering them, and she sat at the Council Board with a complete presence of mind, and when she declared the President and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland her voice did not falter. Though no courtier, I did feel a strong mixture of pity and admiration at such a display of firmness. The Household almost all came to resign, but as Peel had not got their successors ready, she would not accept their resignations, and she was right. They came to me to know what was to be done. I went to Peel, who wrote down the only people he had to name—Master of the Horse, Steward, and Vice-Chamberlain. I gave the paper to the Queen, and it was settled that Errol and Belfast should alone resign. Lord Jersey kissed hands as Master of the Horse, and the rest continued to discharge their functions as before. Peel told me that she had behaved perfectly to him, and that he had said to her that he considered it his first and greatest duty to consult her happiness and comfort; that no person should be proposed to her who could be disagreeable to her, and that whatever claims or pretensions might be put forward on the score of parliamentary or political influence, nothing should induce him to listen to them, and he would take upon himself the whole responsibility of putting an extinguisher on such claims in any case in which they were inconsistent with her comfort or opposed to her inclination. I asked him if she had taken this well, and met it in a corresponding spirit, and he said, 'Perfectly.' In short, he was more than satisfied; he was charmed with her. She sent to know if any of the new Ministers wished to see her, but the only one who did so was the Duke of Wellington, who had an audience of a few minutes. He told me afterwards that she reproached him for not taking office, and had been very kind to him. He told her that she might rely on it he had but one object, and that was to serve her in every way that he possibly could; that he thought he could be more useful to her without an office than with one; that there were younger men coming on whom it was better to put in place; and in or out, she would find him always devoted to her person in any way in which he could render himself useful to her. So that everything went off very well, plenty of civilities, and nothing unpleasant; but, for all these honeyed words, affable resignation on her part, and humble expressions of duty and devotion on theirs, her heart is very sore, and her thoughts will long linger on the recollections of the past.

LORD MELBOURNE'S MESSAGE TO SIR R. PEEL.

In the evening I dined at Stafford House and met Melbourne. After dinner he took me aside and said, 'Have you any means of speaking to these chaps?' I said, 'Yes, I can say anything to them.' 'Well,' he said, 'I think there are one or two things Peel ought to be told, and I wish you would tell him. Don't let him suffer any appointment he is going to make to be talked about, and don't let her hear it through anybody but himself; and whenever he does anything, or has anything to propose, let him explain to her clearly his reasons. The Queen is not conceited; she is aware there are many things she cannot understand, and she likes to have them explained to her elementarily, not at length and in detail, but shortly and clearly; neither does she like long audiences, and I never stayed with her a long time. These things he should attend to, and they will make matters go on more smoothly.' I told him I would certainly tell Peel, and then I told him how well she had behaved in the morning, and all Peel had said to me, and that he might rely on it Peel wished and intended to consult her comfort in every way, and that he had spoken to me with great feeling of the painful situation in which he was placed, and how impossible it was for any man with the commonest feelings of a gentleman not to be annoyed to the greatest degree at being the instrument, however unavoidably, of giving her so much pain. I told him that I knew Peel, so far from taking umbrage at the continuance of his social relations with her, was desirous that they should not be broken off. Melbourne said, 'That was a very difficult matter, not on Peel's account, for he had never imagined he would feel otherwise, but from other considerations.' This morning I called on Peel and told him word for word what Melbourne had said to me. He said, 'It was very kind of Lord Melbourne, and I am much obliged to him; but do you mean that this refers to anything that has already occurred?' I said, 'Not at all, but to the future.' Melbourne, knowing the Queen's mind better than Sir Robert possibly could, wished to tell him these things in order that matters might go on more smoothly. He said that he had hitherto taken care to explain everything to her, and that he should not fail to attend to the advice. I then repeated to him pretty much of the conversation I had had with Melbourne, and added that I had told him I was sure from what I had heard from others (not from Peel himself), that so far from taking umbrage at any continuance of the social intercourse between him and the Queen, he was perfectly content it should continue. He said that 'it was ridiculous to suppose he could have any jealousy of the kind, that he had full reliance on the Queen's fairness towards him, and besides he knew very well how useless it would be to interfere, if there were any disposition to act unfairly towards him, as he was sure there would not be. Nothing he could do could prove effectual to prevent any mischief, and therefore implicit confidence was the wisest course. People told him that Mr. M—— was a person to be guarded against, but he treated all such intimations with the greatest contempt. The idea of a Prime Minister having anything to fear from Mr. M—, or anybody in his situation, was preposterous.'

SIR R. PEEL'S CONVERSATION WITH THE QUEEN.

He then talked of his communications with the Queen. He said that he had told her that if any other Ministerial arrangement had been possible, if any other individual could have been substituted for him, as far as his personal inclinations were concerned, he should have been most ready to give way to such person; but it was impossible for him not to be aware that no man but himself could form the Government, and that he had taken on himself responsibilities, and owed obligations to his Party, which compelled him to accept the task. The Queen had agreed upon this necessity, and upon the impossibility of anybody else being substituted for him. He said a great deal to me of his own indifference to office, of the enormous sacrifices which it entailed upon him; and as to power, that he possessed enough of power out of office to satisfy him, if power was his object. He had told the Queen that his present position enabled him to make concessions to her which it was impossible for him to do in '39, when he was so weak and in a minority in the House of Commons; that now he could consult her wishes in a manner that was then out of his power, and with regard to her Household she should have no one forced upon her contrary to her own inclination. As to her Ladies, he hoped, under the circumstances, she would take Conservatives, but he had no desire to suggest any particular individuals. Those who were most agreeable to her would be most acceptable to him, and he begged her to make her own selection. As to the men, she had said she did not care who they were, provided they were of good character; but every appointment had been made in concert with her, and it so happened that they were all exactly such as he had wished to make, as well as such as she liked to have. He then repeated that he would not suffer her to be annoyed with the pretensions of any people who would be disagreeable to her. He knew that there were many expectations, and would be many disappointments, but he could not help that, and if Conservatives were not ready to make some personal sacrifices—if for the advantage of having their Party placed in power they would not postpone their claims—he could not help it, and must take the consequences whatever they might be.

He was a good deal disappointed at the Duchess of Buccleuch's refusal to be Mistress of the Robes. Besides the extreme difficulty of finding a fit person for the office, it is awkward and mortifying to have so much difficulty in filling up these high places; and the Duke of Rutland's refusal to be Chamberlain, and the subsequent offer to Lord Exeter (who had not given his answer), made it more mortifying to those candidates to whom no offers are made. He has, in fact, deeply offended and mortified a great many expectants of office, and first and foremost the Duke of Beaufort, who, after having received the Queen at his house, and been distinguished with rather peculiar marks of favour, fully expected that he would have been selected as one especially agreeable to Her Majesty, instead of finding himself in a manner proscribed, he cannot tell why. The Irish lords, Glengall and Charleville, are also furious, and consider Ireland—that is, Orange Ireland—insulted and neglected in their persons; the Beauforts are only sulky. Wilton is another disappointed aspirant; but the Irish lords are open-mouthed and abusive. On the other hand, his Whig enemies accuse him of endeavouring to shift the odium of these exclusions on the Queen, which is certainly not true; but in these times bitterness and disappointment never fail to engender swarms of lies.

With regard to Peel and his conduct, I think he is doing well, and acting a fair, manly, and considerate part. He was wrong, I think, to ask her to name Conservative Ladies. The principle of a mixed household having been admitted, he had better have placed no limitation on her discretion, and she would probably have taken Conservatives. While he was talking to me, I felt some surprise—some at his tone about office and power, some at what he said about M—, and all that. I thought to myself, 'You are a very clever man; you are not a bad man; but you are not great.' He may become as great a Minister as abilities can make any man; but to achieve real greatness, elevation of mind must be intermingled with intellectual capacity, and this I doubt his having. There is a something which will confine his genius to the earth instead of letting it soar on high. I dare say he can be just, liberal, generous and wise, but he has been so long habituated to expedients, to partial dissimulation, to indirect courses, and has such a limited knowledge of the world and human nature, and so little disposition or desire for reciprocal confidence with other men, that I doubt his mind ever expanding into a true liberality and generosity of feeling. However, he has never before been in possession of real and great power, his course has been impeded and embarrassed by all sorts of obstructions and difficulties. It remains to be seen how he will act in his new capacity, and whether he will assert his independence to its fullest extent; above all, whether he will elevate his moral being to 'the height of his great argument.'

CONVERSATION WITH THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.

September 6th.—Yesterday I called on Melbourne and told him what had passed between Peel and myself. We had a great deal of talk about things and people connected with the Court, about the appointments and the exclusions which were producing so much heartburning. The woman the Queen would prefer for her Mistress of the Robes is Lady Abercorn. She said Peel was so shy, that it made her shy, and this renders their intercourse difficult and embarrassing, but Melbourne thinks this may wear off in time. I said it might be eased by his cultivating the Prince, with whom he could discuss art, literature, and the tastes they had in common. After a good deal of loose talk, we parted, he saying that if anything else occurred to him he thought desirable to communicate, he would send to me. So here am I strangely enough established as the medium of communication between the present and the past Prime Ministers, and have got the office of smoothing away the asperities of royal and official intercourse. If I can do any good, and prevent some evil, above all destroy the effects of falsehood and malignity, and assist in making truth prevail, I shall be satisfied.

September 7th.—I fell in with the Duke of Wellington yesterday coming from the Cabinet, and walked home with him. He seemed very well, but totters in his walk. The great difference in him is his irritability, and the asperity with which he speaks of people. Everybody looks at him, all take off their hats to him, and one woman came up and spoke to him. He did not seem to hear what she was saying, but assuming as a matter of course that, she wanted something, he said, 'Do me the favour, Ma'am, to write to me,' and then moved on as quickly as he could. Not that by her writing she would get much, for he has answers lithographed, to be sent to his numerous applicants, which is rather comical because characteristic. I had some talk with him about the applicants, when he told me, in confirmation of what Melbourne had said, that it was the Prince who insisted upon spotless character. He said it was impossible to explain all this, and he was aware how mortified and angry these people are, but he said some means must be found of pacifying them in other ways, and he talked in such terms of Beaufort's capacity that I began to think he was contemplating an embassy for him. They have been very fortunately delivered from the embarrassment of Lord Londonderry by the extravagance of his pretensions. They offered him Vienna, which he rejected with disdain; he wanted Paris, and not getting this, he went off in high dudgeon, and they were too happy to make him their bow and have done with him. In my opinion they were very wrong to offer him anything at all. It was a great blunder six years ago to have proposed to send him to Petersburg. He is neither useful abroad nor dangerous at home, and might very properly be left to his fate and his indignation.

September 8th.—Peel's troubles about the Household are drawing to a close, as he has prevailed on the Duchess of Buccleuch to take the Robes, and most of the others are named—on the whole pretty well, but with some exceptions.

CANDIDATES FOR OFFICE.

September 17th.—A Council at Windsor on Wednesday, the first since the change. It went off very well, all the new Ministers being satisfied with their reception. The Queen was very gracious and good-humoured. At dinner she had the Duke next to her (his deaf ear unluckily) and talked to him a good deal. After dinner she spoke to Aberdeen and then to Peel, much as she used to her old Ministers. I saw no difference in her manner. She talked for some time to Peel, who could not help putting himself into his accustomed attitude of a dancing master giving a lesson. She would like him better if he would keep his legs still. When we went into the drawing-room Melbourne's chair was gone, and she had already given orders to the Lord-in-waiting to put all the Ministers down to whist, so that there was no possibility of any conversation, and she sat all the evening at her round table with Lady De la Warr on one side and Lady Portman on the other, perhaps well enough for a beginning, but too stupid if intended to last. There was no general conversation. The natural thing would have been to get the Duke of Wellington to narrate some of the events of his life, which are to the last degree interesting, but this never seems to have crossed her mind. Peel told me that nobody could form an idea of what he had had to go through in the disposal of places, the adjustment of conflicting claims, and in answering particular applications, everybody thinking their own case the strongest in the world, and that they alone ought to be excepted from any general rule. I take it the examples of selfishness and self-sufficiency have been beyond all conception. A few I heard of: old Maryborough at seventy-nine years old is not content with passing the few years he may have to live in repose, and is indignant that nothing was offered to him. Lefroy, Peel told me, was with him for an hour consuming his precious time, and he had been forced to tell him that he must and would make his judicial appointments according to his own sense of their fitness and propriety. Chin Grant wanting to be Chairman of Ways and Means; everybody, as Peel said, fancying that to any office they had ever held they had a sort of vested right and title, and forgetting that younger men must be brought forward. I told him that he had had a great escape in Londonderry's refusal to go to Vienna, and that the appointment would have done him infinite mischief. The Duke of Beaufort has now applied for the Embassy at Vienna by letter to Peel.

September 22nd.—Peel is going on skirmishing in the House of Commons, where a Whig or a Radical every now and then fires a little shot at the new Government. John Russell is gone into the country. The grand topic of complaint is the refusal of Government to bring forward any measures of relief to the suffering interests, and any financial projects, before the usual period of meeting next year. But the Opposition have made no case, though perhaps Peel would have done wisely to call Parliament together again in November. The appointments are most of them completed, except the diplomatic posts, which are still uncertain, and the Governor-Generalship of India. This was offered to Haddington, who refused it, and it is a curious circumstance that a man so unimportant, so destitute not only of shining but of plausible qualities, without interest or influence, should by a mere combination of accidental circumstances have had at his disposal three of the greatest and most important offices under the Crown, having actually occupied two of them, and rejected the greatest and most brilliant of all. He has been Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, he refuses to be Governor General of India, and he is First Lord of the Admiralty. To the list of the discontented I find one may be added in the person of Chief Justice Burke, who came over here to bargain for his retirement and solicit a peerage. He has held on that a Conservative Government might dispose of his office, and he thinks he has a good claim to be made a peer. But he has not only not got what he wants, but complains that Peel has been wanting in courtesy in not having any personal communication with him. He expected Peel would send for him, but he did not, and the Chief is gone back to Ireland with a strong sense of neglect and ill-usage.

A POLITICAL FORECAST.

September 27th.—Went on Friday to Woburn, and returned yesterday. Nobody there but Sir George Seymour and his wife, and old Lord Lynedoch, who is ninety-six, and just going to Italy for the winter. Not much talk on politics, but, with reference to the sanguine expectations of Palmerston of a speedy restoration to office, the Duke confirmed what I before thought, that, even if the road was again open, the old Government never could be reconstituted, and that, whatever others might do, Lord John never would consent to its restoration tale quale, for example, with Melbourne at its head, with all his vacillation and weakness. But as the Queen has no notion of a Whig Government except that of Melbourne, and cares for nobody else, it would not at all meet her wishes and expectations to propose the formation of a Cabinet with any other Chief. I suspect Lord John would agree to no plan which did not make himself Prime Minister, and he would be quite right. Palmerston would agree to anything which took him back to the Foreign Office; but he would find the Foreign Office under Lord John a very different thing from the Foreign Office under Melbourne; and as the vindictive nature of Palmerston will never forgive Lord John for the part he took in the Eastern business, and as Lord John, though with a strange facility he became reconciled to Palmerston, has no confidence in him, I do not see how they could possibly go on.[10] It is very pleasant to be at Woburn, with or without society, a house abounding in every sort of luxury and comfort, and with inexhaustible resources for every taste—a capital library, all the most curious and costly books, pictures, prints, interesting portraits, gallery of sculpture, garden with the rarest exotics, collected and maintained at a vast expense—in short, everything that wealth and refined taste can supply.

I read there a Diary of John Duke of Bedford (Junius's Duke), which is not at all interesting, but it affords strong evidence to show the injustice of Junius, and that he was a very good sort of man instead of being the monster that Junius represents him. The Duke told me that the intimacy in which Sir Philip Francis had lived with his uncle, and his having been an habitual guest at Woburn, was quite enough to account for his concealing and denying that he was the author. It would certainly have drawn a host of enemies upon him, as all the Russells and Fitzroys would have felt in duty bound to resent the fierce and savage attacks of Junius upon their grandfather and father. He had every motive for concealment, and none for disclosure, and as to his vanity, that must have been amply gratified by the general suspicion and acknowledgement (implied by the suspicion) that he was capable of writing Junius. I never had a doubt that Francis was Junius, and that belief is growing very general.

Nothing new in politics. Lord John is gone to Endsleigh, but Palmerston sticks to his place in the House of Commons. There is a good deal of skirmishing, and Peel's opponents have done him great service by making very feeble and ineffective attacks on him, which just enabled him to make good speeches in reply, and to put forth his case to the country, for the course he is pursuing, in the manner most likely to make an impression. His answer last Friday to a pert speech of Patrick Stewart's was excellent.

September 29th.—Mellish gave me an account, last night, of Palmerston's last doings at the Foreign Office. He created five new paid attachés without the smallest necessity, and all within a few days of his retirement. This was done to provide for a Howard, an Elliot, and a Duff, and a son of Sir Augustus Poster, whose provision was made part of the conditions of another job, the retirement of Sir Augustus to make way for Abercromby, Lord Minto's son-in-law,—all foul jobbing at the public expense, and to all this useless waste the austere and immaculate Francis Baring, Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Cerberus who growls at every claimant on the Treasury, no matter how just his claims may be, gave his consent, complacent to his daring and unscrupulous colleague. Mellish told me another anecdote of Palmerston, that eleven thousand pounds (I put it in letters, because in figures some error might have been suspected) had been spent in one year, at the Foreign Office, in chaises and four conveying messengers to overtake the mail with his private letters, which never were ready in time. Nothing ever equalled the detestation in which he is regarded at that Office; still, they do justice to his ability and to his indefatigable industry, and they say that any change of Government which would take place must include him in the new arrangement.

WEAKNESS OF THE LATE GOVERNMENT.

Last night Charles Buller told me he did not think Peel's Government would last, because he did not go the way to make it last, but that he thought Peel himself had done admirably well in every respect; and he must own the Government, as far as they had gone, had behaved properly and handsomely, especially about the Poor Laws and Canada—better than the late would have done as to the last. It is remarkable that the very people belonging to the late Government had no respect for it and no confidence in it. He owned to me that it was time such a miserable apology for a Government as the late Cabinet was (these were my words, not his) should come to an end: a government of departments, absolutely without a chief, hating, distrusting, despising one another, having no principles and no plans, living from hand to mouth, able to do nothing, and indifferent whether they did anything or not, proposing measures without the hope or expectation of carrying them, and clinging to their places for no other reason than because they had bound themselves to the Queen, who insisted on their continuance in spite of their feelings of conscious humiliation and admitted impotence, merely because she loved to have Melbourne domesticated at Windsor Castle, and she could not have him there on any other terms.

November 8th.—Above a month since I have written anything in this book. I left London the second week in October; went to Burghley, thence to Newmarket, to Thornhill's; Newmarket again, Charles Drummond's, and London this day week. In this interval my history is very brief and uninteresting. The principal events consist of the affair at Canton, and the failure of the Spanish Christina plot, the Exchequer Bill business, the burning of the Tower, and now we are occupied with the approaching delivery of the Queen, and the probable death of the Queen Dowager.

Elliot[11] is expected home any day. There is a mighty clamour against him, but he confidently asserts, and his friends fondly hope, that he will be able to make his case good. The Government will treat him impartially, for Lord Wharncliffe said to me the other day that he was not at all sure it would not turn out that Elliot was quite right in what he had done at Canton; but the disappointment, and disapprobation of the General and the Admiral have naturally damaged him in public opinion here, and people are so sick of this silly, inglorious, but mischievous war, that they are exasperated at any opportunity having been lost of terminating it by a decisive blow.

In the Spanish business Louis Philippe has been intriguing up to the chin, without the participation, but not at least without the knowledge of Guizot. Everybody knows this, and our press has let loose against him without reserve; but we must screen his delinquency as well as we can, and pretend not to see it. It is a marvellous thing that so wise a man can't be a little honest, and, as has been remarked, a striking fact that, notwithstanding his great reputation for sagacity, he is constantly engaged in underhand schemes, in which he is generally both baffled and detected; and it is also remarkable that, though a humane and good-natured man, and both brave and politic, and felt to be necessary to France and Europe, he is both disliked and despised. His history and his character afford materials for a fine moral essay.

The Exchequer Bill business is very disagreeable, coming in the midst of our other embarrassments, and the depth of it is not yet fathomed. The Government were very much dissatisfied with Monteagle,[12] who, they thought, did not evince a disposition to act cordially and effectually with them: not that they suspected him of any improper motive or culpable conduct, but he made difficulties, and stood on absurd punctilios, which provoked and annoyed them; but latterly they have been better satisfied.

BIRTH OF THE PRINCE OF WALES.

The Tower will cost money,[13] but there is no great loss sustained except that of some new percussion muskets, about 11,000. The old arms were useless and unsaleable, so that they are rather glad to have got rid of them.

November 11th.—The Queen was delivered of a son at forty-eight minutes after ten on Tuesday morning the 9th. From some crotchet of Prince Albert's, they put off sending intelligence of Her Majesty being in labour till so late that several of the Dignitaries, whose duty it was to assist at the birth, arrived after the event had occurred, particularly the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord President of the Council. At two o'clock a Council was held, and the usual thanksgiving ordered. Last year the Prince took the chair, which was all wrong; and this time I placed him at the top of the table on the left, the Archbishop next him. None of the Royal Dukes were summoned. 'God save the Queen' was sung with great enthusiasm at all the theatres, and great joy manifested generally. The event came very opportunely for the Lord Mayor's dinner. It was odd enough that the same day Peel had been engaged with two or three more to dine at the Palace, and had been forced to send excuses to the Lord Mayor, though the Queen must have known it was Lord Mayor's Day. Melbourne under similar circumstances would have gone to the Mansion House, but these people are forced to stand rather more on ceremony than he was.

A curious point has arisen, interesting to the Guards. It has been the custom for the officer on guard at St. James's Palace to be promoted to a majority when a Royal Child is born.[14] The guard is relieved at forty-five minutes after ten. At that hour the new guard marched into the Palace Yard, and at forty-eight minutes after ten the child was born. The question arises which officer is entitled to the promotion. The officer of the fresh guard claims it because the relief marched in before the birth, and the keys were delivered over to him; but the other officer claims it because the sentries had not been changed when the child was actually born, his men were still on guard, and he disputes the fact of the delivery of the keys, arguing that in all probability this had not occurred at the moment of the birth. The case is before Lord Hill for his decision.

It is odd enough that there is a similar case involving civic honours at Chester. The Prince being Earl of Chester by birth, the Mayor of Chester claims a Baronetcy. The old Mayor went out and the new Mayor came into office the same day and about the same hour, and it is doubtful which functionary is entitled to the honour. The ex-Mayor was a Whig banker, and the new one is a Tory linendraper.

I find that, during the Queen's confinement, all the boxes and business are transmitted as usual to the Palace, and the former opened and returned by the Prince. He established this practice last year. At first orders were given to the Foreign Office to send no more boxes to the Palace; but two days after, fresh orders were received to send the boxes as usual, and to furnish the Prince with the necessary keys.

November 19th.—Met Captain Elliot at dinner yesterday, who was very amusing with his accounts of China. He seems (for I never saw him before) animated, energetic, and vivacious, clever, eager, high-spirited, and gay. He, of course, makes his own case very good, and, whatever may be the merit or demerit of his conduct, taken as a whole, I am inclined to think he will be able to vindicate his latest exploit at Canton. He casts as much blame on the Admiral and General as they did on him—that is, he treats them, and their notions and censures, with great contempt. He also disapproves of the course we are meditating, and says that we are all wrong to think of waging war with China in any way but by our ships, and, above all, to wish to establish diplomatic relations with her.

LORD RIPON AND MR. MACGREGOR.

All is quiet enough here. The new Ministers tell me they are strong in the country, and that a general feeling of satisfaction and security is diffused by the substitution of a real working Government for the last batch. They are certainly working very hard, and mean to allow themselves no repose. Cabinets have been constantly held, and in the beginning of December they are to meet for the purpose of regular and unbroken consultation. As yet, whatever Peel may contemplate, he has proposed nothing to his colleagues, so that no dissensions can have taken place among them, for the simple reason that there has been no discussion. I asked Lord Wharncliffe what the Duke of Buckingham would do when they came to discuss the Corn Laws, etc. He said he did not know; hitherto he had given no indications, and had, in fact, done nothing but apply to all the Ministers for places, being exceedingly greedy after patronage. He describes him as a very ordinary man, and apparently without any habits of, or taste for, business. Such as he is, however, he is at the head of a powerful interest, and they did well to take him in, end as it may. If Peel proposes Liberal measures, and can prevail on Buckingham to go along with him, his task will be much easier. If he is obstinate, and they turn him out, it will tell well with the country. I never contemplate the other alternative of Peel's succumbing to the Duke of Buckingham and the Corn Law monopolists.

Meanwhile, Lord Ripon's conduct with regard to Macgregor is not calculated to excite favourable expectations with reference to Free Trade,[15] only it may have arisen more from personal than political motives. As soon as he came into office he told Macgregor that, after his evidence (on the Import Duties), he could have no confidence in him, and it was better frankly to tell him so. Macgregor expressed his regret, said that his opinions were unaltered, and that he was confident time would prove their correctness, and that Lord Ripon himself, or whoever might be Minister, would in the end be obliged to adopt the principles he had propounded. Some days afterwards Ripon again spoke to him in the same strain, informed him that he had no confidence in him, and could not, therefore, with any satisfaction transact business with him. To this Macgregor responded that it was better he should once for all make known to his Lordship that he had no intention of resigning, that he should give his best assistance to him as President of the Board of Trade, without reference to any political considerations, and that if he chose to turn him out in consequence of the evidence he had given before the Committee of the House of Commons, he was of course at liberty to do so. This silenced Ripon, and he has never since returned to the subject. The truth seems to be that he wants the place for H. Ellis, and thought he could make Macgregor resign by what he said to him.

My brother writes me word that Louis Philippe has been plunging chin-deep into the Spanish intrigues, and is now furious at having been detected, and at the abuse which is lavished on him. We seem to have taken a very proper course, keeping matters quiet, and without any interference, giving the most cordial and amicable assurances to the Spanish Government. Guizot is supposed to have had no concern in these underhand dealings, but he can hardly avoid being mixed up in them, and he will probably in the end be forced to become an unwilling party to the King's manoeuvres, or to give up his office to Molé, who will be glad to take it on any terms, and the King too happy to have him.

CHAPTER XIII.

Anecdotes about the Exchequer Bill Forgery—M. de St. Aulaire Ambassador in London—Morbid Irritability of the Duke—Macaulay on Street Ballads—Sir Edmund Head, Poor Law Commissioner—The Duke's Delusion—The Lord Chief Justice closes the Term—Armorial Bearings of the Prince of Wales—Relations of Ministers with the Queen—Lord William Russell recalled from Berlin—Arbitrary Appointment of Magistrates—Anecdote of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough—Lord Spencer on the Corn Laws—Lord Lieutenancy of Northamptonshire—Visit to Bowood—Mrs. Fanny Kemble—Macaulay's Conversation—Macaulay's Departure—Lord Ashburton's Mission—The Chinese War—Unpopularity of Lord Palmerston—A Diplomatic Squabble—Prussian Treatment of Newspapers—Fire at Woburn Abbey—Duke of Wellington himself again—King of Prussia arrives—Proceedings of the Government—The Duke of Buckingham resigns—Relations with France—Opening of the New Parliament—King of Prussia's Visit—The Speech from the Throne—Lord Palmerston's Hostility to France—The Queen and Her Ministers—Dispute about a Scotch Judge—Corn Laws—A Letter from Jellalabad—The Corn Law Debate—The Battersea Schools—A Calm—Sir Robert Peel's Budget—The Disaster at Cabul—Death and Funeral of the Marquis of Hertford—Sir Robert Peel's Financial Measures—The Whig View of Peel—Archdeacon Singleton—Lord Munster's Death—Colonel Armstrong—Theatricals at Bridgwater House—Summary of the Session—The Occupation of Afghanistan—Lord Wellesley's Opinion—Afghan Policy of the Government—Lord Ashburton's Treaty—The Missing Map.

November 24th, 1841.—If I do not vary the nature and enlarge the scope of this Journal, I shall very soon be completely aground and have nothing whatever to put down, for I am placed in very different circumstances with the present and the late Government. I have no intimacy or social habits with any of these people, and the consequence is that I know little or nothing of what is going on. I have, for a long time past, accustomed myself to what is, I believe, a very foolish, unprofitable way of writing. I have almost entirely given up entering anything except such scraps of political information as I have picked up by one means or another, and consequently have grown very idle, and my entries have often had long intervals between them. Somebody remarked the other day what innumerable things were lost for want of some curious observer and chronicler, who would be at the trouble of recording and hoarding them in something less voluminous, and therefore more accessible than the columns of a newspaper. I was struck with the truth of this, and thought how many anecdotes, verses, jeux d'esprit, and miscellanies of various kinds I might have rescued from oblivion, but had never thought of doing so, because they had appeared in newspapers. Partly, therefore, because it may be more or less interesting and amusing, and partly because I think I shall have no political facts or circumstances to record, I have resolved to fill my pages with more general matter, although, such is the inveterate force of habit, I am anything but sure that I shall adhere to my resolution.

The other night I heard how the Exchequer Bill affair was first discovered. Some merchant in the City wrote to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and told him that there was some great negligence in the Exchequer Bill Office, for he was in possession of two bills, both of the same number. Goulburn sent for Maule, and told him to go to the Exchequer and enquire into this. He went and told his errand, on which Smith asked him to go with him into the next room. He went, when Smith said, 'The fact is, one of these bills is forged. There has been a system of forgery going on for many years, and I am guilty of being concerned in it.' Maule asked him if he had any objection to repeat this confession in the presence of his clerk, who was below, and he said, none whatever. He might easily have got away, but now they think his confession was a stroke of policy, and that he made it, believing that no law will reach him.

THE FORGERY OF EXCHEQUER BILLS.

Another curious thing has happened. Lord Sudeley went with his brother to some sparring exhibition, where their pockets were picked. The brother had had the precaution to clear his of everything valuable, but Lord Sudeley lost three Exchequer bills of 1,000l. each. He gave notice of his loss, and the usual means were adopted for recovering the bills, the numbers stopped, and so forth. Not long ago a man came into a banker's at Liverpool, and said he was going abroad, and wanted money, and would be much obliged if they would give him some in exchange for an Exchequer bill. He handed the bill in, when the banker, on looking at it, thought it was the same number as one of the advertised bills, and he told the gentleman that such was the case. The man expressed ignorance and surprise, but said that of course he could not expect the money under such circumstances, and begged he would give him back the bill. The other said he was sorry he could not do that, as he was bound to detain it. 'Well, then,' said the man, 'if that is the case, I will call again to-morrow, and you will be able, in the meanwhile, to enquire further into the business.' But the banker replied he could not allow him to go either, and was under the necessity of detaining him as well as the bill. A police-officer was sent for, and the gentleman was led into another room. Having secured his person, they concluded that the other Exchequer bills were probably not far off, and that somebody would call in the course of the day to make enquiry about the person in custody, and for this expected visit they set a watch. In a short time a man did come and enquire, when they told him the gentleman had been obliged to go off to London. The officer followed the enquirer to his lodging and into his room, where he explained the object of his visit. The man said he might make any search he pleased, which he immediately did, but without success. He was therefore preparing to leave the room, but as he passed the bed his eye fell upon a waistcoat, which the man had just taken off and thrown upon it. He had already searched the pockets before the man had taken it off, but nevertheless was tempted to take the waistcoat up again, when suddenly the man flew upon him, and seized him by the throat. A violent struggle ensued, but eventually the officer was able to examine the waistcoat closely, and concealed therein were the other two Exchequer bills. Thus all three were recovered, but they turned out to be all three forged.

I have had a letter from M. Guizot, desiring I would make M. de St. Aulaire's acquaintance, and be civil to him, and St. Aulaire told Reeve that he had been desired by Guizot to cultivate him and me as the two most valuable acquaintances he could make.[16] I have been presented to him, and we had a long palaver the other night, in which he was extremely civil and cordial; but I am so out of the habit of speaking French, that I find myself floundering terribly when I get into great talk, which is very stupid and mortifying. I have written to Guizot, and told him I should be very happy to do anything I could for St. Aulaire, and especially to render any assistance in my power to him, but that I must candidly tell him I do not know half so much of what was going on now as I had done when the late Government were in office.

They tell me that Aberdeen is doing very well, working very hard, taking up every question, writing well on them all, and displaying much greater firmness than he did before.

THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON'S CHATTELS.

The Duke of Wellington is remarkably well. I saw him yesterday for the first time since the Council at Windsor, and he said he never was better. But he is altered in character strangely. He has now a morbid aversion to seeing people, which nearly amounts to madness. Nobody can get access to him, not even his nearest relations. When anybody applies for an interview, he flies into a passion, and the answers which he dictates to letters asking for audiences, or asking for anything, are so brutally uncivil and harsh that my brother Algy constantly modifies or alters them. The Duke fancies he is so engaged that he cannot spare time to see anybody. This peculiarity is the more remarkable, because formerly his weakness was a love of being consulted by everybody, and mixed up with everything. Nobody was ever in a difficulty without applying to him; innumerable were the quarrels, tracasseries, scandals, intrigues, and scrapes which he had to arrange and compose. He has for a long time past kept up a correspondence with Raikes, encouraging him to write at great length, and punctually answering his letters. Raikes came over here to see what he could get, and the Duke interested himself in his favour, and spoke to Aberdeen; but although they have so long been correspondents, Raikes has never been able to obtain an audience at Apsley House, for though he solicited that favour as soon as he came, the Duke has never once admitted him. I was yesterday with Messrs. Sidebottom, in Lincoln's Inn, for the purpose of settling the disputes between Lord de Mauley and Lord Kinnaird, when they told me what had passed about the Duke's personal property, when a bill was brought in, upon Douro's marriage, to settle a jointure on Lady Douro. They urged him to take that opportunity to entail on the title all the curious and valuable things which had been given him by emperors and kings, and to have a clause inserted in the Bill for that purpose. He consented, but when he saw it, he said he did not like it; he thought the enumeration flashy, and he would have it expunged. At last they hit on an expedient, and they introduced a clause to the effect that anything which he should appoint by deed within two years should be entailed on the title for ever, and they prevailed on him to sign the deed on the very last day of the two years. The value of the property is said to amount to half a million, and a great number of things were brought to light which he did not know that he possessed. If his two sons die without issue, which is very probable, the disposal of all these valuables reverts to him.[17]

November 27th.—On Thursday I dined with Milman,[18] to meet Macaulay, Sydney Smith, and Babbage. Pretty equal partition of talk between Sydney and Macaulay. The latter has been employing his busy mind in gathering all the ballads he can pick up, buying strings of them in the streets, and he gave us an amusing account of the character of this species of literature, repeating lines and stanzas without end. The ballad writers, who may be supposed to represent the opinions and feelings of the masses for whose delectation they compose, do not, according to Macaulay, exhibit very high moral sentiments, as they evince a great partiality for criminals, and are the strenuous opposers of humanity to animals. We dined at the Prebendal House, once Ashburnham House, very handsome, and with one of the most elegant staircases I ever saw anywhere, the work of Inigo Jones. Yesterday I dined with Bingham Baring, Henry Taylor, John Mill (son of the historian and a very clever man), and Emerson Tennent, agreeable enough. The day's newspapers announced the sudden death of Chantrey, the most eminent of contemporary sculptors, but not, I suspect, for I am no judge, of a high order of genius. His busts were very happy, but I am not aware of any great work of imaginative art which he has produced, and his two children in Lichfield Cathedral have always been quoted as the greatest proof of his power.[19]

THE DUKE'S DELUSION.

November 30th.—Graham has made Sir Edmund Head Poor Law Commissioner, an appointment very creditable to him. The Government are certainly going on well, and Tufnell, as strong a Whig as any, told me last night he thought their appointments excellent, and that they were doing very well. This appointment of Head is what Normanby was urged, but was afraid, to make. He shrank from it, however, for very poor reasons, not honourable to himself or to others concerned. First of all, John Russell's trying to thrust Rich upon him, a man not for one moment to be compared with Head, and then because Chadwick was against him. Accordingly he left it to the Tories, fully expecting they would appoint Colonel A'Court; but Graham has thrown over all party considerations, and having, after strict enquiry, satisfied himself that Head is the ablest and the fittest man, he has given him the situation.

A correspondence has just appeared in the papers between the Duke of Wellington and the Paisley deputation, which is exceedingly painful to read, calculated to be very injurious to the Government, whom their enemies are always accusing of indifference to the public distress, and which, in my opinion, exhibits a state of mind in the Duke closely bordering on insanity. This deputation is come up to represent the distress prevailing at Paisley, and they ask for an interview to lay the case before the Duke. He refuses to see them, and writes a letter much in the style of his printed circulars, alleging that he has no time, and that he holds no office, and has no influence. They remonstrate temperately and respectfully, still press for the interview, and then he makes no reply whatever. All this is lamentable; it is a complete delusion he is under; he has nothing to do, and he has boundless influence. When we reflect upon his habits at the time he was Prime Minister, still more when he was in Spain, with such weight on his Atlantean shoulders, when he would find time for everything and for everybody's affairs, and when we compare the language of his despatches, and the conduct they exhibit, with his present querulous tone and pertinacious seclusion, we are painfully struck with the great change that has come over his noble spirit, and it becomes impossible not to regret that in his seventy-third year, and after three epileptic fits, he was not permitted to hold himself free from the trammels, cares, and duties of Executive Government. He might and would have been a great amicus curiæ, aiding with his moral influence the Government, adjusting differences and disputes, ready to be appealed to, to advise and assist in any case of necessity, but not wearing himself out by real or imaginary business, and neither committing the Government by his strange fancies, nor injuring his own popularity by his mortifying and almost savage behaviour to the various people who approach him.

ARMORIAL BEARINGS OF THE PRINCE OF WALES.

December 3rd.—I dined again with Bingham Baring yesterday and met Lord FitzGerald, with whom I had a long talk, the first time I have seen him since he came into office. We discussed the Duke of Wellington's Paisley correspondence, and he fully confirmed my impression of the vexation it would cause the Government. It is clear enough that they would be very glad to be without him; and after talking of the unhappy and increasing infirmity of his temper, he expressed his apprehension of the probable consequences in the House of Lords,[20] and that the Government may be seriously compromised by some imprudent or intemperate expressions of the Duke; that, last year, nothing but the extreme forbearance of Brougham, and his good-nature, had prevented some disagreeable results of this kind; and it was now the more serious, when the Duke was to be the organ of the Government, and from his habits and his deafness it would be impossible for anybody to check or restrain him, Lyndhurst placed afar off on the woolsack, and the Duke sitting with his head buried in his chest, and neither consulting with, nor attending to, anyone. In 1835, he said, it had been the Duke's wish to do what he is now doing—to lead the House of Lords without a place; but Peel had then thought this was open to constitutional objections. Why he did not raise the same objections now, I don't know, unless it was that he found the Duke bent on forming part of the Government, and that he would have insisted on the Foreign Office again, if he was not permitted to lead without one. This, however, is mere conjecture. FitzGerald owned that it would have been better if he had retired, and kept aloof from Government. It has been his great misfortune never to have people about him who ventured to oppose his opinions, and he has always liked the society of those who applauded to the skies everything he said and did. As long as his faculties were unimpaired, it is difficult not to believe that if he had had candid and intelligent friends he would have listened to and considered their opinions, for his obstinacy is not the result of pride or vanity, from both of which he is singularly free, but arises from the habit, become inveterate, of trusting entirely to himself and to his own judgement. FitzGerald told me that he had never been more struck by anything than by the despatches and State-papers of Lord Auckland, and that he had no sort of idea he was so able a man; that he was, with the sole exception of John Russell, by far the ablest man of his party. His views most statesmanlike, and his government of India particularly just. I never heard a warmer panegyric than he passed upon Auckland.[21]

There has been a great sensation in the courts of law, in consequence of Lord Denman's suddenly closing the term, on the last day of it, in consequence of the absence of the counsel. He did it in a passion, and though there is much difference of opinion, on the whole he is blamed for it. The evil required a remedy, and the Judges would have done right to lay down some rules for the future; but they have punished the innocent suitors by what they did, and most people think it was wrong in the Chief Justice to vindicate the dignity of his court at their expense.

December 5th.—The difficulties and trouble that may be caused by trifles may be well illustrated by a matter which is now pending. Peel sent for me the day before yesterday, to talk to me about the armorial bearings of the Prince of Wales, a matter apparently very simple and insignificant, but not at all so in fact. The Queen and Prince are very anxious to allot to this baby his armorial bearings, and they wish that he should quarter the arms of Saxony with the Royal arms of England, because Prince Albert is alleged to be Duke of Saxony. The Queen gave the Princess Royal armorial bearings last year by warrant, but it is conceived that more formal proceedings are necessary in the case of the Heir Apparent. The last precedent is that of 1714, when George the First referred to the Privy Council the question of the Prince of Wales's arms, who reported to His Majesty thereupon. On that occasion the initiative was taken by the Deputy Earl Marshal, who transmitted to the Council a draft, which was afterwards approved. Then, however, the case admitted of no doubt; but now the Heralds, and others who have considered the matter, think that the Saxon arms ought not to be foisted upon the Royal arms of England. It is Her Majesty's predilection for everything German which makes her insist on this being done, and she wants it to be done offhand at the next Council without going through the usual forms of a reference and report. Peel, however, is not disposed to let the thing be thus hurried over; he thinks that it is a matter in which the dignity of the Crown is concerned, and that whatever is done should be done with deliberation, and that if the Privy Council are to advise, they ought to advise what is right and becoming, and not merely what she and the Prince wish. The difficulty, therefore, is, how to set the matter going. The Earl Marshal will not stir without an order to do so. If the Home Office order him to submit a draft of the armorial bearings of the Prince of Wales, they can only order him to make out what is right according to the rules and laws of heraldry, and the Earl Marshal is of opinion that what the Queen and Prince wish to be done is inconsistent with those rules. The matter therefore remains in suspense. I have sent to Lord Wharncliffe, by Peel's desire, to come up from Wortley to meet Graham, in order that they may put their heads together and settle this delicate and knotty affair. Melbourne would have made very light of it; he would have thought it did not signify a straw, which, in fact, it does not, and that any fancy the Queen had should be gratified in the most summary way.

THE QUEEN AND THE NEW MINISTRY.

December 8th.—This foolish business of the coat of arms has cost more trouble than many matters a thousand times more important. Peel has had to write at least a dozen long letters about that and the alteration in the Liturgy, and whether His Royal Highness should be inserted before Prince of Wales. Yesterday Wharncliffe, Graham, and I had a conference at the Home Office, when Graham produced a letter from Peel, with one from the Queen to him, pressing for the speedy arrangement of the affair, and treating it as a thing settled. Graham said it was not worth while to squabble about it, and better to gratify her, and he proposed to take it on himself, and let the Council have nothing to do with it, but, on his own responsibility, order the Earl Marshal to draw out a coat of arms, with the achievement according to her wishes, no matter whether right or wrong. We agreed this was the best way. Peel had written to me about the Liturgy, and I wrote him word that when Prince Albert's name was inserted, the Archbishop particularly desired there might be no 'Royal Highness,' and so it was left out.

December 9th.—I saw Graham again yesterday about this business. They have gazetted the child 'Duke of Saxony,' which is very absurd, and at Lady Holland's, last night, the precedence given to that title over the English titles was much criticised. It was amusing to hear Lady Palmerston finding fault, and when I told her it was a particular fancy of the Queen's, to which she clung very tenaciously, she said 'that it was the duty of the Ministers to tell her it was wrong, but they had not the courage to do so.' I asked Graham how they were going on with the Queen. He said, 'Very well. They sought for no favour, and were better without it. She was very civil, very gracious, and even, on two or three little occasions, she had granted favours in a way that was indicative of good will.' He said that they treated her with profound respect and the greatest attention. He made it a rule to address her as he would a sensible man, laying all matters before her, with the reasons for the advice he tendered, and he thought this was the most legitimate as well as judicious flattery that could be offered to her, and such as must gratify her, and the more because there was no appearance of flattery in it, and nothing but what was fit and proper. He said Ellenborough had immediately ingratiated himself with her, by giving her very good summaries of Indian intelligence, and explaining everything to her in his own very good style, so that the moment Peel proposed him to go to India, she said he was the fittest man he could select. I told him that Ellenborough might thank me for this, for I had advised him, the day we went to Windsor, to do so, and told him that she liked to have this done.

Woburn Abbey: December 15th.—Came here last Thursday. A foolish party of idle people; no serious man but Lord Spencer, who came the day before yesterday. I had some talk with the Duke about Lord John's speech at Plymouth, which he does not approve of any more than I do, but he can't venture to say so; also about his other brother William, who is very angry at being recalled from Berlin, though so far from being angry, he ought to be ashamed of himself for not having resigned, for with his violent politics and his bitterness against, and abuse of, the present Government, he ought not to have thought of staying there. Aberdeen has treated him with great civility, and has accompanied his recall with many expressions of regret and personal kindness, for which he ought to be grateful. Palmerston had ordered all his diplomatic tribe to stick to their places, but William Russell should have felt in his case that it was impossible. The Duke of Bedford, however, disapproves of his conduct, and thinks he should have resigned when the Government was changed.

THE DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH'S LETTERS.

I have seen here a correspondence between the Chancellor and Lord Carrington about the appointment of Buckinghamshire magistrates, which is very discreditable to the former, and exhibits an example of authority exercised directly in the teeth of all the principles laid down by the Tories in a case very analogous three years ago. On this occasion the Chancellor, almost immediately after he got the Great Seal, peremptorily appointed fifteen magistrates, which Carrington of course knew very well was a list of the Duke of Buckingham's. He was very angry, and expressed his resentment, but the Chancellor would not give way, and could not satisfy him. Three years ago Lord Howard complained, in the House of Lords, of Lord Cottenham for appointing eight magistrates at Leeds. On that occasion the Duke of Wellington made a speech, in which he laid down what the Lord Chancellor ought to do, and what he ought not to do, and if he had made it in reference to this case, it could not contain a stronger and more applicable censure of the conduct of Lord Lyndhurst. The circumstances, too, make this a much stronger and more odious case than the other.

I have been employed in reading the Duchess of Marlborough's correspondence with her two granddaughters, successively Duchesses of Bedford, and most amusing it is. I have urged the Duke to publish it, and, if Lord John, who is going to publish a volume or more of Bedford papers, does not choose to take the Duchess of Marlborough's letters in hand, to let me arrange them for the press, which he has promised to do. I hardly ever read any letters more expressive of character, and more natural than these, and they abound in shrewd observation and knowledge of human nature, besides a very good sprinkling of anecdotes, some very entertaining. I took Lord Spencer down with me to the librarian's room to look at them, when he told me two anecdotes of John Spencer, her grandson, to whom, after quarrelling with him violently, as she did with everybody else, she left all the property at her disposal.[22] The first was about the cause of their quarrel. She gave a great dinner on her birthday to all her family, and she said that 'there she was, like a great tree, herself the root, and all her branches flourishing round her;' when John Spencer said to his neighbour that 'the branches would flourish more when the root was under ground.' This produced great hilarity, which attracted the notice of old Sarah, who insisted on knowing the cause, when John Spencer himself told her his own bon mot, at which—and no wonder—she took great offence. She afterwards forgave him, and desired him to marry. He expressed his readiness to marry anybody she pleased, and at last she sent him a list, alphabetically arranged, of suitable matches. He said he might as well take the first on the list, which happened to be letter C, a Carteret, daughter of Lord Granville's, and her he accordingly married. Lord Spencer told me that his father and mother had destroyed a good many papers of old Lady Spencer's, some of which he much regretted, particularly a series of gossiping letters of old Lord Jersey's, who was a great friend of hers, and wrote to her all that was passing in the world every day. He has kept all his own correspondence while in office, and, since he went out, that with Brougham on various subjects, which he says is very voluminous, and will be very curious. It is, however, all in confusion at present.

We talked a little about Corn Laws and politics. He said that he had always been persuaded, and was still, that the present Corn Laws could not be maintained, but that he thought the prevailing distress would pass away. He had been surprised that no stronger Anti-Corn Law spirit had been got up during the elections, but people had been indifferent about it, and still were so. They did not think the distress was owing to these laws, or that their repeal would bring relief; and though he thinks Peel must be conscious that in the end they must go, the fact of there being no pressure on him for change, and very considerable pressure for standing still, will prevent his doing anything considerable.

A PARTY AT BOWOOD.

Bowood:[23] December 20th.—Came to town on Saturday, and here to-day. Saw Graham yesterday and told him what a scrape the Chancellor has got into about the Buckinghamshire magistrates, and discussed the whole matter with him, not mincing my opinion. He owned it was bad, but had no better excuse to suggest than that Lord Cottenham had established a bad principle, and they must therefore carry it out. He said he should tell Peel. I found they are not going to give the Northamptonshire Lieutenancy to Lord Spencer, but to Lord Exeter, who lives in a corner of the county, takes no part in its affairs, and is already Lieutenant of Rutlandshire. The party would without doubt have been offended if Lord Spencer had had it, but the question, was whether so good an opportunity might not and ought not to be taken to relax the rigorous practice of conferring these appointments always on political adherents. I found a very different party here from what I left at Woburn. There nothing but idle, ignorant, ordinary people, among whom there was not an attempt at anything like society or talk; here though not many, almost all distinguished more or less—Moore, Rogers, Macaulay, R. Westmacott, Butler and Mrs. Butler, Dr. Fowler and his wife, Lady H. Baring, Miss Fox. Mrs. Butler read the three last acts of 'Much Ado about Nothing,' having read the first two the night before. Her reading is admirable, voice beautiful, great variety, and equally happy in the humorous and the pathetic parts.

December 23rd.—Three days passed very agreeably. Charles Austin came yesterday, Dundas and John Russell to-day. Last night Mrs. Butler read the first three acts of the 'Hunchback,' which she was to have finished to-night, but she ran restive, pretended that some of the party did not like it, and no persuasion could induce her to go on. Another night, Moore sang some of his own Melodies, and Macaulay has been always talking. Never certainly was anything heard like him. It is inexhaustible, always amusing and instructive, about everybody and everything. I had at one time a notion of trying to remember and record some of the conversation that has been going on, and some of the anecdotes that have been told, but I find it is in vain to attempt it. The drollest thing is to see the effect upon Rogers, who is nearly extinguished, and can neither make himself heard, nor find an interval to get in a word. He is exceedingly provoked, though he can't help admiring, and he will revive to-morrow when Macaulay goes. It certainly must be rather oppressive after a certain time, and would be intolerable, if it was not altogether free from conceit, vanity, and arrogance, unassuming, and the real genuine gushing out of overflowing stores of knowledge treasured up in his mind. We walked together for a long time the day before yesterday, when he talked of the History he is writing. I asked him if he was still collecting materials, or had begun to write. He said he was writing while collecting, going on upon the fund of his already acquired knowledge, and he added, that it was very mortifying to find how much there was of which he was wholly ignorant. I said if he felt that, with his superhuman memory and wonderful scope of knowledge, what must ordinary men feel? He said that it was a mistake to impute to him either such a memory or so much knowledge; that Whewell and Brougham had more universal knowledge than he had, but that what he did possess was the ready, perhaps too ready, use of all he knew. I said what surprised me most was, his having had time to read certain books over and over again; e.g. he said he had read Don Quixote in Spanish, five or six times; and I am afraid to say how often he told me he had read 'Clarissa.' He said that he read no modern books, none of the novels or travels that come out day after day. He had read 'Tom Jones' repeatedly, but 'Cecil a Peer,' not at all; and as to 'Clarissa,' he had read it so often that, if the work were lost, he could give a very tolerable idea of it, could narrate the story completely, and many of the most remarkable passages and expressions. However, it would be vain, nor is it worth while, to attempt to recollect and record all his various talk. It is not true, as some say, that there is nothing original in it, but certainly by far the greater part is the mere outpouring of memory. Subjects are tapped, and the current flows without stopping. Wonderful as it is, it is certainly oppressive after a time, and his departure is rather a relief than otherwise. Dundas, who is very agreeable, and very well informed, said to-day that he was a bore; but that he is not, because what comes from him is always good, and it comes naturally, and without any assumption of superiority. Perhaps the most extraordinary thing is the quantity of trifling matter which he recollects. He gave us verses of James Parke's,[24] and others of Laurence Peel's,[25] ludicrous lines, written on different occasions. His memory treasures up all sorts of trash and nonsense, as well as the most serious and most important matter; but there is never any confusion.

SOCIETY AT BOWOOD.

December 26th.—Macaulay went away the day before Christmas Day, and it was wonderful how quiet the house seemed after he was gone, and it was not less agreeable. Rogers was all alive again, Austin and Dundas talked much more than they would have done, and Lord Lansdowne too, and on the whole we were as well without him. It does not do for more than two or three days; but I never passed a week with so much good talk, almost all literary and miscellaneous, very little political, no scandal and gossip. And this is the sort of society which I might have kept instead of that which I have. I have had all the facilities I could desire for adopting either description of society, for spending my time among the cultivated and the wise, or among the dissipated, the foolish, and the ignorant; and with shame and sorrow I must admit that by far the largest proportion of my time has been wasted on and with the latter.[26]

January 2nd, 1842.—On Monday last I left Bowood, Rogers and I together, and went to Badminton, where I found a party and habits as diametrically opposite as possible from that which we left behind. The stable and the kennel formed the principal topic of interest. On Saturday came to town.

January 8th.—Lord Ashburton's appointment to America[27] to settle all our disputes was much praised at first, but now the public mind is changed, and there is a general disposition to find fault with it. People reflect on his vacillation and irresolution, and think age and absence from affairs are not likely to have cured the defects of his character; however, it is creditable to him to make the sacrifice.

Accounts from China of fresh successes, but the capture of Amoy is like an operation in a pantomime rather than in real war. Nobody is killed or wounded, nothing found in the place, which was directly after evacuated. Sir George Grey,[28] who called on me yesterday (and though a ridiculous-looking, not at all a stupid man), said that we had now gone so far, and made such an exposure of the weakness of the Chinese Government, that we had no alternative, and must proceed to the conquest of China, and the foundation or establishment of another Indian Empire; for if we did not, some other Power (probably the French) infallibly would. I hope this prediction will not prove true, but it is worth recording. The only chance, he said, was the timely submission of the Emperor, and the sagacity of the Chinese Government being sufficient to enlighten them as to the magnitude and imminence of their danger.

January 11th.—I dined with Lady Holland on Sunday, and had a talk with Dedel, who said that Palmerston had contrived to alienate all nations from us by his insolence and violence, so that we had not now a friend in the world, while from the vast complication of our interests and affairs we were exposed to perpetual danger—of which much is true, but it is not true that we are without friends absolutely. We are very well with Spain and with Austria. Yesterday I saw Bidwell,[29] who agreed with Dedel about Palmerston, for all the Foreign Office abhor him. He said that Palmerston's tone on every occasion, and to every Power, not only had disgusted them all, but made it very difficult for his successor to adopt another tone without some appearance of weakness. However, Aberdeen is doing well, avoiding Palmerston's impertinence of manner, and preserving his energy as to matter. He has taken a very fair and impartial part in the squabble between Salvandy and Espartero, and is urging the latter not to insist upon what is untenable, and contrary to precedent. He is also trying to get Austria to send a Minister to Madrid, and would probably have succeeded but for this French quarrel.

QUARRELS IN SPAIN.

January 13th.—While waiting for the greater interest to be excited by the meeting of our Parliament on the 3rd of next month, all Europe is thrown into a state of agitation, and the gravest statesmen are occupied with the quarrel between Espartero and Salvandy, or rather Louis Philippe, for there seems no doubt that it originates with him, animated by spite and hatred of the Spanish Regent. This mighty and important question is neither more nor less than whether the French Minister shall deliver his credentials to the Regent at once, or whether he shall deliver them to the Infant Queen, by her to be placed in the hands of the Regent. On this momentous difference the political and diplomatic world is divided, a vast deal of irritation is produced, and, in consequence of it, very important negotiations are suspended and delayed. Aberdeen is vainly attempting to negotiate a compromise, and has opposed the pretensions of Espartero (after disapproving of the original demands of France) in a manner to draw down a very bitter and able attack upon him, evidently from the pen of Palmerston, in the 'Morning Chronicle' yesterday. To this the 'Times' has responded this morning very well, and the contest will be carried on between these not very unequal antagonists. Besides the question of Salvandy, it embraces several minor and collateral points. It is impossible for an attack to be more virulent, bitter, and contemptuous than that of Palmerston upon Aberdeen, and it becomes rather amusing when we recollect Aberdeen's approbation and support of Palmerston's anti-Gallican policy in the Syrian campaign. All Aberdeen's predilections are anti-French, and he never forgets his old connexion with the Allies, but this does not save him from the lash of Palmerston, and from the most sarcastic gibes upon his supposed subserviency to France. It certainly surprises me that Aberdeen should have adopted the French rather than the Spanish view of the question, for I cannot but think Espartero in the right, and the argument in his favour appears to me unanswerable. I agree in this with Palmerston: the appointment of a Regent presupposes the incapacity of the Sovereign to discharge the functions of Royalty, and the Regent is consequently invested with all the authority of the Crown. All its rights, privileges, and duties appertain to the Regent, who can and must do everything which the Sovereign would do if of full age. The age of the Sovereign can make no difference; the incapacity must be absolute, and the rule, whatever it be, equally applicable to a baby in arms and to a person within a month of her majority. It is impossible to determine that the infant Sovereign becomes at some indefinite period capable of discharging one or more specific acts, but no others; for who is to decide what acts the infant can do, and what not, and at what particular age the incapacity shall partially cease? Supposing the Queen of England now to die, and Prince Albert become Regent, no Foreign Minister could commit the absurdity of insisting upon delivering his credentials into the hands of the Prince of Wales, who is barely two months old; yet the same principle must be applied in both, and in all cases of minority. It is true that matters of etiquette admit of great variety, and different precedents more or less analogous may be brought to bear on the question; but in this, the last precedent ought to be conclusive, and that is the practice during the Regency of Christina, when no difficulty was ever made, and the Ministers presented their credentials at once to her. It is clear that this could not be in virtue of her own Royal dignity, for that can have nothing to do with it. Espartero, or whoever may happen to be Regent, be his rank whatever it may, is entitled to the same privileges, and to be treated exactly in the same manner as the Queen Dowager of Spain. Whatever she did, and whatever was done to her, was done in and to her character of the representative of the Crown, and had no reference to her own status. But whatever may be the result, there is no danger of our quarrelling with Spain on the question, for the Spanish Government know that we are trying to assist them in a much more important affair, their recognition by the three Great Powers, which we should probably have brought about already, but for this untoward dispute. It is not very clear that Palmerston (though partly well-informed) is aware of this; but his hatred of Guizot is so great, aggravated by his refusal to sign the Slave Treaty with him, and signing it immediately after with Aberdeen,[30] that he could not resist any opportunity of flinging out his venom against France. However, the war that is waged by him, and against him, is very entertaining; he is an adversary well worth battling with, a magnus Apollo of newspaper writers.

A BLUNDER AT BERLIN.

A ridiculous thing happened the other day. B—, who corresponds with the editor of the 'State Gazette' at Berlin, sent him a very bitter philippic against Palmerston, and a severe critical examination of his modus operandi in the Foreign Office. The article hinted at a project of his, under certain contingencies, to stay in office with a Tory Government and a Whig Household, and talked of doing this with the aid of 'a woman not less able and ambitious than himself,' evidently alluding to Lady Palmerston. When the article was translated into German and appeared, it produced a great sensation, but Burghersh, who does not understand German, and to whom it was translated, very stupidly fancied that the woman meant the Queen, and he hurried off to make his complaints of the audacity and insolence of the article. A great hubbub ensued, and, to satisfy the English Minister, the order for the dismissal of the editor was signed; but in the meantime the matter was brought before the King, who had the good sense to see at once what the real meaning was, put a stop to the proceedings, and exonerated the editor. Burghersh had, however, written home on the subject, and told the story to the Foreign Office. The next day (at Berlin) a softener appeared in the 'State Gazette,' with some civilities to Palmerston, and the article has fortunately never found its way into our newspapers.

January 19th.—Went on Friday to Woburn. Charles Austin, Charles Buller, Le Marchant, Standish, and myself in the train. The house had been very nearly burnt down the night before, and was saved by a miracle. It happened in a maid-servant's room. A gown was ignited (as they supposed); the chair on which it hung was burnt, but the fire did not reach bed or window-curtains, only attacked the floor. The smoke was so dense they could not penetrate into the room, but the servants threw buckets of water in, which went to the right place, and extinguished the fire. Curiously enough, just before we came away on Monday morning, there was another alarm from a chimney being on fire. This was in the librarian's room, where, by accident, I had gone with some of the men to show them the manuscripts, and while we were there we discovered it, otherwise there is no saying what damage might not have been done, for the chimney communicated with others. However, in half an hour all danger was over. Lord John was there in great force. He is arranging the Bedford papers for publication, but he has persuaded the Duke not to let the Duchess of Marlborough's correspondence be published, because it is so personal and abusive, which is a very superfluous piece of squeamishness, for it is just what people enjoy, and as all the objects of her venom, and their immediate descendants, have long been dead, it can't signify. It was very agreeable, for Austin, Buller, Clarendon, and Lord John made excellent society.

THE KING OF PRUSSIA ARRIVED.

Came to town on Monday, and yesterday saw the Duke of Wellington. He came into my brother's room while I was there, and took me into his own. He was in excellent health, spirits, and humour; talked about the Spanish quarrel, but did not say much to the purpose, only that both parties had gone too far, and that with patience and good sense it might finally be settled. I told him about Lyndhurst and Carrington, and he spoke like himself. He blamed the Chancellor without reserve, repeated what he had said before in his speeches, said nothing should induce him to contradict himself and hold language different from what he had held before, therefore he should hold his tongue, and the Chancellor must get out of his scrape as he could. He told me he never himself made a clergyman a magistrate if he could help it.

January 24th.—The King of Prussia landed on Saturday at Greenwich,[31] and was met by the Duke of Wellington in Prussian field-marshal uniform, with the Black Eagle. The King instantly seized both his hands and said, 'My dear Duke, I am rejoiced to see you. This is indeed a great day.'

Met Graham yesterday and walked with him; talked about different things. He said he thought they were going on well, but trade was very bad and distress very great, the people very enduring and well-behaved. He talked of Ireland, and said the Government were resolved to act upon liberal and impartial principles; that the idea of restoring the old Orange or any other domination was impossible, and he only regretted that they had not got some offices of profit that they might now bestow upon Catholics. They are reproached for diminishing the number of stipendiary magistrates, but they are strong enough on that point. As to the Lieutenancy of Northamptonshire, he said he thought Exeter was the best man on the whole; that Cardigan was very angry that he had not got it. I told him I thought Exeter was not a good man, took no part in the business of the county, and merely lived at a corner of it. 'To whom would you have given it?' I said, 'To Lord Spencer; by far the fittest man omnium consensû.' He said it was impossible; the party would not have stood it; the Whigs had never done any such thing when they were in office. A low view of the matter; but if they are not strong enough to act more wisely and liberally than their opponents, if they cannot, under any circumstances, appoint men with reference to their fitness, instead of to their political connexion, and if the former consideration must invariably prevail over the latter, why, all one can say is, that they are to be pitied, and we must hope the time may come when better maxims and practices can be established.

Met Sutton Sharpe the other night, who told me some amusing stories of Lord Ellenborough and his treatment of counsel. A man was opening his speech, and said, 'My Lord, my unfortunate client,' and then repeated the words again. 'Go on, sir,' said Lord Ellenborough, 'the Court is with you so far.' Another man said, 'And now, if your Lordship pleases, I will proceed so and so.' 'Sir, we sit here not to court, but to endure arguments.'

February 1st.—For the last week the King of Prussia and his activity have occupied the world. He has made a very favourable impression here. In person he is common-looking, not remarkable in any way; his manners are particularly frank, cordial, and good-humoured; he is very curious, and takes a lively interest in all he sees, and has, by all accounts, been struck with great admiration at the conduct and bearing of the people, as well as the grandeur and magnificence he has found both at Court and elsewhere. Whether the order, and more especially the loyalty, he has witnessed, will induce him to entertain with more complacency the idea of a free constitution for his own kingdom, remains to be seen, not that what he finds here ought necessarily to imply that results equally happy would follow the concession of liberal constitutions in Prussia. He has been in London almost every day from Windsor, one day breakfasting with Peel, who collected the men of letters and science and the most distinguished artists to meet him. On Sunday he went to church at St. Paul's, and then lunched with the Lord Mayor. Another day he went to Westminster Abbey, when he evinced great curiosity to learn all the local details of the Queen's coronation. Yesterday he went in the morning and paid a visit to Mrs. Fry, with whom he went to Coldbath Fields prison; in the evening to Drury Lane. He wanted to see one of Shakespeare's plays, and had no other opportunity, so he got the play acted at six instead of seven, and made the Duke of Sutherland, with whom he was to dine, have his dinner at nine. He asked for 'Macbeth,' but they told him it would take a month to get it up. They gave him the choice of the 'Merchant of Venice' or the 'Two Gentlemen of Verona,' and he took the latter. Nothing could exceed the magnificence of the fête the Duke of Sutherland gave him, dinner and party after it.

THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM RESIGNS.

But an interest greater than any which the King of Prussia could make was produced by the intelligence of the Duke of Buckingham's resignation. I had been dining at Wharncliffe's Sheriffs' dinner, where all the Ministers were, except the Duke of Wellington and Aberdeen (who both dined at Stafford House), Goulburn, who was ill in bed, and the Duke of Buckingham. I was rather surprised at his absence, for which no excuse was made, but nobody said anything about it. They had been concocting the speech all the morning, and as soon as we had done with the sheriffs, they made me and my colleague withdraw, and resolved themselves into a Cabinet. Still I suspected nothing; but the moment I got to Stafford House I heard the news, and immediately understood the cause of his absence from the dinner, and saw that it must be true; and directly after it was confirmed. The time, however, is so near for the Ministerial announcement of their intentions, that it is not worth while to torment one's self with speculation. A few hours will show what it is the Duke can't swallow. All that is now known is that he has not resigned angrily, and that he promises his general support and continued goodwill. For a long time speculation has been rife as to the intentions of Peel, and the Government secret has been so well kept that not a single person seems to have been apprised of them; indeed, the matter was not, in all probability, definitively settled before yesterday. The Opposition papers have been labouring to persuade the world that Peel, though not unwilling, had proved himself unable to do anything, and that what they called the Buckingham or landed interest had prevailed. I never thought this, and a few words that casually fell from Wharncliffe one day, convinced me it was not true. So thought most of the sensible men on both sides, when they were staggered by the intelligence that Lord March was to move the address, which, after the Duke of Richmond's hot speech last year, was taken as a proof that nothing serious in the Anti-Corn-Law line could be contemplated. This fact, now followed by the Duke of Buckingham's resignation, sadly perplexes men's minds, and everybody asks what it can be at which the Duke of Buckingham strains, but which the Duke of Richmond swallows. The Duke of Bedford, however, thinks that the Duke of Richmond does not know what is meant, for it is certain Lord Abercorn, who moves the Address in the House of Lords, does not. He asked Aberdeen to give him some hints from which he might frame his speech, and he told him he was unable to do so.

The Dublin election has gone off with remarkable quiet. Dan was not very violent, and some say he did not wish Morpeth to succeed where he had failed. The worst thing that has happened lately is the exhibition of bad feeling towards us in the French Chamber. Guizot has spoken admirably well, and magnificently defended himself, but he was obliged to allude coldly to us, and to disavow any intimacy between the two countries. The close alliance with France is therefore at an end, and we must count upon her readiness to seize any occasion that may present itself of injuring our interests and crippling our power. This we owe to Palmerston's famous diplomacy, who, thinking it a fine thing to gain a diplomatic advantage over a rival and hostile Government, overlooked the consequence of exasperating a powerful, susceptible, jealous, but not then unfriendly nation. He did what neither man, woman, or nation can forgive: he deeply wounded their vanity and their pride.

THE KING OF PRUSSIA IN ENGLAND.

February 5th.—Parliament met on Thursday: a great crowd, and the Queen well enough received. The King of Prussia went down in state, and sat in the House of Lords on a chair near the woolsack. On Friday he went away, having made a short but uncommonly active visit, mightily pleased with his reception by Queen and all classes of people, from highest to lowest; splendid entertainments from the rich, and hearty acclamations from the poor. All the world has been struck with his intelligence, activity, affability, and appetite, for since Louis XIV. I have never heard of a monarch who eats so copiously and frequently. The oddest thing he did was to go and lunch with Mrs. Fry, and the way of going not less odd, but that was the vagary of his rude, unmannered attendant, Lord Hardwicke. After visiting some prison, Mrs. Fry asked him to lunch at her house some four or five miles off, through the City, and he agreed. The coachman represented that the horses could not accomplish this jaunt, when it was proposed to send for post-horses; but Hardwicke would not have four, and insisted on a pair being attached as outriggers to the Queen's coach-horses, to the unspeakable disgust of the coachman, who, if the spirit of Vatel had been in him, would have cast himself from his box rather than submit to such an indignity. They say that nothing has struck the King so much as the behaviour of the people, their loyalty, orderly, peaceable demeanour, and he is naturally gratified at the heartiness and cordiality of his own reception. Some think that what he has witnessed will incline him to grant a free constitution to his own subjects; but as he can't create the foundations on which our constitutional system rests, and the various and complicated safeguards which are intertwined with it, he will hardly be induced to jump to any such conclusion. He made magnificent presents at parting to all the officers of the Royal Household: snuff-boxes of 500 guineas apiece to the Lord Chamberlain, Master of Horse, and Lord Steward; boxes and watches to others, and he left 1,500l. with Charles Murray to be distributed among the three classes of servants at the Palace.

The Queen's speech was much like all others, but derived an interest from the notice about Corn.[32] The secret of the measure has been so well kept, that up to this time nobody knows what they are going to propose. The Opposition, people affect to consider it a great triumph for them, and that the Government are disgraced by the adoption of measures so similar to those by which their predecessors fell; but they treat the question as if nothing else had ever been laid to the charge of the late Government, and pass over (as they are quite right, in a party sense, to do) the fact that they were at their last gasp when they flung down their Budget, and that there were plenty of other causes for turning them out. It must be owned, however, that what is now going to happen is another exemplification of what I have long seen to be an established fact in politics—viz. that the Tories only can carry Liberal measures. The Whigs work, prepare, but cannot accomplish them; the Tories directly or indirectly thwart, discourage, and oppose them till public opinion compels them to submit, and then they are obliged to take them up, and to do that which they can do, but the Whigs cannot do. Francis Baring, who is come over from Paris to see Lord Ashburton before he goes, tells me that if Palmerston had continued for a year or two more at the Foreign Office, nothing, he is persuaded, could have prevented a war between us and France, for that he intrigued against France in every part of the world, and with a tenacity of purpose that was like insanity; he was constantly engaged in thwarting, counteracting, and insulting her, so that the exasperation against him and against this country was so great and universal that a collision would have been inevitable.

SIR R. PEEL'S CORN BILL.

February 11th.—On Wednesday night Peel produced his modification of the Corn Law in an elaborate speech (which bored everybody very much) of nearly three hours long.[33] The expectation, raised by the Duke of Buckingham's resignation, had been already brought down by a few words which Peel said on Tuesday, when he was taunted with adopting all the late Government's measures. His plan was received with coldness and indifference by his own people, and derision by the Opposition, and they all cried out that it was altogether useless, and would in reality effect no change at all. There are, however, a great many very different opinions on the subject, the result of the whole being that the measure is preferable to the present scheme; that it will be quite harmless to the producer, and may be of some service (but not much) to the consumer; that the settlement of the question is as remote as ever, this being no approximation to one. That inasmuch as it satisfies the landed interest it will keep Peel in office, but that eventually repeal either total or with a fixed duty must come, but in how many years must depend on the chapter of accidents, the course of events, and the temper of the people. Wharncliffe owned to me that it was a mountain producing a mouse, and that he thought it must end in a fixed duty, but that it would have been absolutely impossible for Peel to do anything more now, and that time must be given to bring round the minds of the landed interest to acquiesce in further measures. Macgregor, who is a man of violent opinions, told me he considered this plan worse than the present one. Charles Villiers said it was worthless and not so good as Canning's in 1827. Brougham said it was worth something as an instalment, an improvement on the old Corn Law, and might and must be taken as an instalment. Peel's did not seem to me a good speech; it was too long, and wearied his hearers; too highly coloured, and the speech of an advocate rather than of a statesman. But if he could speak his mind, he would no doubt admit that he was arguing against his own opinion and convictions.

Last night I met Melbourne at dinner, whom I had never seen since our conversations at Stafford House and at his own home. I asked him what he knew of the state of matters between the Queen and her Ministers. He said he believed they were going on very well, that he knew nothing to the contrary. They seemed to pay great court to the Prince, whom the Queen delights to honour and to elevate, and that he would probably acquire greater influence every day. Of all the Ministers she likes Aberdeen the best. She likes the Duchess of Buccleuch extremely, and Charles Wellesley is a great favourite. By his account she prefers her present great officers to their predecessors. Melbourne then talked to me about Palmerston, of the aversion he had inspired not only in France, but in all Germany, and said that his notion had been that everything was to be done by violence; that by never giving way or making any concession, and an obstinate insistence, every point was sure to be gained. This was à propos of the French refusal to ratify the Slave Treaty, and Guizot having delayed to sign it, because he would have nothing to do with Palmerston.

Last night, in the House of Commons, John Russell exposed himself miserably and unaccountably in an attack he made on Bushe and Lord Corehouse on their retirement from the Bench. He got a severe retort from Peel, and cut a disreputable figure.

THE RETREAT FROM CABUL.

February 12th.—The Opposition were silly enough to renew the question of the Scotch judge last night. It was Fox Maule's doing, I fancy, for John Russell was not there.[34] There is but one opinion among his own friends of the folly of his conduct. Ben Stanley told me so, and said he did it ex mero motu, and he could not imagine what induced him. Nothing weakens the authority of a leader so much as any exhibition of want of tact and judgement. Castlereagh would never have made such a blunder as this, but he was reckoned the best leader any party ever had. I have a great liking for Lord John, but have for some time discovered that with high qualities and great abilities he is not a great man or anything like it. But where are we to look for great men? The generation of them has passed away.

The Corn Law question seems already beginning to settle down into an admission that this is only the advance of a stage, and that we are and must be progressing to final repeal. Such is Lowther's opinion: a Tory, an interested party, but a shrewd and cool observer.

February 16th.—John Russell made a very good speech on Monday night, and so did Gladstone. The Government declare that their plan is well received in the country, and the Opposition assert that it has excited great indignation. The landed interest are certainly satisfied.

I read yesterday a letter from Mrs. Sale, at Cabul,[35] to her husband, the General, with an account of the events there, and the heroic conduct of Captain Sturt: a most remarkable letter, exhibiting an interesting mixture of masculine courage and understanding of military details, with touches of feminine nature. The agony of apprehension, apparent in the despatches, and the pressing entreaties to Sale to march back to their relief, show the magnitude of the danger they were in. The feelings of the General must have been bitter when he could not obey the summons, and was obliged to refuse to make any attempt to relieve his comrades and his wife.

February 19th.—The Corn Law debate closed very successfully for the Government; a greater majority than anybody expected, and an excellent speech from Peel, putting the whole question in the best possible form, taking the right tone, and giving the right reasons for doing what he has done, and as he has done it. Palmerston made a good slashing speech, and Roebuck a very clever one. The question is now considered by everybody to be settled for a few years; but how many, and when another change will take place, depends on a thousand contingencies, idle to argue upon. Everybody admits that it is in a state of transition, and though the landed interest will fondly hope that the next steps never will be taken, the prudent among them (a great minority, I fear) will open their eyes to the reality of their position, and act accordingly.

I went on Wednesday with Lord and Lady John, Charles Howard and Macaulay, to the Battersea Schools, Robert Eden's and Dr. Kay's. We put forward Macaulay to examine the boys in history and geography, and Lord John asked them a few questions, and I still fewer. They answered in a way that would have put to shame most of the fine people's children. These schools are admirable, and the wonderful thing is, that when people see what can be done by good management at small expense, and by setting about the work of education in earnest, they do not turn their thoughts to the adoption of a similar scheme for the upper classes, who go through a certain process miscalled education, which leaves boys at the end of it nearly as ignorant as at the beginning, with the exception of the rudiments of Greek and Latin. At Eden's school they learn reading, writing, arithmetic, drawing, history, geography, and certain matters connected with statistics. At Dr. Kay's the same things, with the higher branches of mechanics, and especially music, in which they are great proficients. There is one striking contrast between the boys at Eden's school, and the aristocratic schoolboys: while the latter consider learning as an irksome employment, going to school an event full of misery and woe, and never think of anything but how to shirk their lessons, and find time for play and idleness, the poor boys rejoice in their school, love the instruction they receive, and no punishment is so great to them as exclusion from the schoolroom. Much of this may be accounted for by the difference of their circumstances and condition of life, but the necessary result is a far greater aptitude to learn on the part of the poor than the rich.

SIR R. PEEL'S BUDGET.

March 5th.—Nothing written for many days, principally because I had nothing particular to say. If I wrote a Journal, and chose to insert all the trash of diurnal occurrences, the squabbles of the Jockey Club, and things which had better be forgotten, because they ought not to happen, I might fill books full in no time, but I can't and won't do this. There have been no political events. The Government goes on quietly and safely enough, with no storm in the horizon at all threatening their political existence. The most alarming circumstance in our position is the state of affairs in India, where we are expecting every hour to hear of some catastrophe; but as the Government are not responsible for this, it will do them no damage, however disastrous it may be to the country.

March 13th.—On Friday night in the midst of the most intense and general interest and curiosity, heightened by the closeness and fidelity with which the Government measures had been kept secret, Peel brought forward his financial plans in a speech of three hours and forty minutes, acknowledged by everybody to have been a masterpiece of financial statement. The success was complete; he took the House by storm; and his opponents, though of course differing and objecting on particular points, did him ample justice. A few people expected an income tax, but the majority did not. Hitherto the Opposition have been talking very big about opposing all taxes, but they have quite altered their tone. It is really remarkable to see the attitude Peel has taken in this Parliament, his complete mastery over both his friends and his foes. His own party, nolentes aut volentes, have surrendered at discretion, and he has got them as well disciplined and as obedient as the crew of a man-of-war. This just measure, so lofty in conception, right in direction, and able in execution, places him at once on a pinnacle of power, and establishes his Government on such a foundation as accident alone can shake. Political predictions are always rash, but certainly there is every probability of Peel's being Minister for as many years as his health and vigour may endure. Only a few weeks ago I heard from my Whig friends of nothing but his weakness and embarrassments, and of all the difficulties his own supporters would cause him, what a poor figure he cut, &c.; but now they have not a word to say, and one of them who had been loudest in that strain brought to the Travellers', where I was dining, an account of Peel's speech, and said, 'One felt, all the time he was speaking, "Thank God, Peel is Minister!"' There can be no doubt that he is now a very great man, and it depends on himself to establish a lasting reputation. Wharncliffe told me that the principle of their measure, the imposition of an income-tax, was settled six weeks after they came into office, which makes the wonder greater that nothing of it got out.

March 14th.—The manner in which Peel's measure was received was creditable to the Opposition; but they are beginning to recover from their quiescent state, to ask one another what they think of it, to suggest objections, and to speculate on its unpopularity. There is, however, a general disposition to accept the measure, and to acknowledge that Peel is entitled to a fair trial of what must be considered a great political and financial experiment. Labouchere owned this to me last night, though he thinks that he might have taken another and a better course; he might have raised a revenue, according to their plan, out of sugar, timber, and corn, not have made so great a sacrifice for Canadian timber, and have found means to get all the rest that they wanted by some tax less odious than his income-tax. Great differences of opinion of course there will be, and it remains to be seen how the country will take it. The press has been hitherto almost universally acquiescent. All men now admit Peel's power, and his superior fitness as a Minister. He has taken a very high line, and acted his part with great dignity as well as dexterity; he is also singularly favoured by fortune, for the misfortunes which are now befalling us, the disastrous events in India, are useful to his political power. In times, too, of difficulty, men feel the mighty advantage of having a strong Government with a real efficient head to direct its energies, and predominate in its councils; and the perpetual contrast which presents itself between the present and the late, both as to the leaders, composition of the Cabinets and condition of the parties by which each was supported, extends and strengthens the impression in favour of Peel. It will be necessary for him to make some changes. Gladstone has already displayed a capacity which makes his admission into the Cabinet indispensable, and he must find some means of getting rid of Knatchbull. The very look of the man, which is that of a twaddler approaching to the ridiculous, is enough to make his exclusion an object, and as he is entirely useless and has fallen into universal contempt in the House of Commons, the sooner some decent retreat is found for him, the better for himself as well as for the Government.

THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON ON CABUL.

The great interest excited by the Budget has in some degree absorbed that which the melancholy Indian news would otherwise produce, and we are still so imperfectly informed of the history of these transactions that we know not what to think of them. The Duke of Wellington told me at Court on Friday that there must have been either the grossest treachery, or the most inconceivable imbecility, and very likely a mixture of both, as they often go together. Auckland, who writes, as is natural, in great despondency, says that the whole thing is unintelligible to him, for, as far as they know, the 5,000 British troops at Cabul were never assailed by above 10,000 or 12,000 Afghans, irregularly armed with matchlocks and spears, while our force was provided with artillery, and all the appurtenances of war. According to all our notions and all former experience, a British force could always put to flight or destroy native tribes ten times more numerous. The Duke said that the captivity of the women would produce an effect from one end of Asia to the other, such as Europeans would form no idea of. But what reflexions this event gives rise to as to the uninterrupted current of our past successes, which has been so great that we had got to fancy no reverse of any sort, or in any quarter, could possibly befall us! It is a grievous thing to lose 5,000 men, cut off by a sudden insurrection and perishing, because circumstances beyond the control of man prevented their obtaining succour; but when we hear that such a disaster as this has not befallen us for above fifty years, and we think of all the tremendous defeats, wholesale destructions of men, and miseries inflicted on other lands and other nations, we may well, instead of repining, feel grateful for the impunity we have enjoyed from the evils and afflictions which have been so abundantly poured upon almost every other nation in the world.

DEATH OF LORD HERTFORD.

March 19th.—This day Lord Hertford[36] is buried at Ragley, a man whose death excited much greater interest than anything he ever did in his life, because the world was curious to learn the amount of his wealth, and how he had disposed of it. A pompous funeral left Dorchester House three days ago, followed by innumerable carriages of private individuals,[37] pretending to show a respect which not one of them felt for the deceased; on the contrary, no man ever lived more despised or died less regretted. His life and his death were equally disgusting and revolting to every good and moral feeling. As Lord Yarmouth he was known as a sharp, cunning, luxurious, avaricious man of the world, with some talent, the favourite of George IV. (the worst of kings) when Lady Hertford, his mother, was that Prince's mistress. He was celebrated for his success at play, by which he supplied himself with the large sums of money required for his pleasures, and which his father had no inclination to give him, and the son had none to ask of him. He won largely, not by any cheating or unfairness, but by coolness, calculation, always backing the best players, and getting the odds on his side. He was a bon vivant, and when young and gay his parties were agreeable, and he contributed his share to their hilarity. But after he became Lord Hertford and the possessor of an enormous property he was puffed up with vulgar pride, very unlike the real scion of a noble race; he loved nothing but dull pomp and ceremony, and could only endure people who paid him court and homage. After a great deal of coarse and vulgar gallantry, generally purchased at a high rate, he formed a connexion with Lady Strachan, which thenceforward determined all the habits of his life. She was a very infamous and shameless woman, and his love after some years was changed to hatred; and she, after getting very large sums out of him, married a Sicilian. But her children, three daughters, he in a manner adopted; though eventually all his partiality centred upon one, Charlotte by name, who married Count Zichy-Ferraris, a Hungarian nobleman. She continued to live with Hertford on and off, here and abroad, until his habits became in his last years so ostentatiously crapulous that her residence in his house, in England at least, ceased to be compatible with common decency. She was, however, here till within a week or ten days of his death, and her departure appears curiously enough to have led to the circumstances which immediately occasioned it. There has been, as far as I know, no example of undisguised debauchery exhibited to the world like that of Lord Hertford, and his age and infirmities rendered it at once the more remarkable and the more shocking. Between sixty and seventy years old, broken with various infirmities, and almost unintelligible from a paralysis of the tongue, he has been in the habit of travelling about with a company of prostitutes, who formed his principal society, and by whom he was surrounded up to the moment of his death, generally picking them up from the dregs of that class, and changing them according to his fancy and caprice. Here he was to be seen driving about the town, and lifted by two footmen from his carriage into the brothel, and he never seems to have thought it necessary to throw the slightest veil over the habits he pursued. For some months or weeks past he lived at Dorchester House, and the Zichys with him; but every day at a certain hour his women, who were quartered elsewhere, arrived, passed the greater part of the day, and one or other of them all the night in his room. He found the presence of the Countess Zichy troublesome and embarrassing to his pleasures, and he made her comprehend that her absence would not be disagreeable to him, and accordingly she went away. He had then been ill in bed for many days, but as soon as she was gone, as if to celebrate his liberation by a jubilee, he got up and posted with his seraglio down to Richmond. No room was ready, no fire lit, nevertheless he chose to dine there amidst damp and cold, drank a quantity of champagne, came back chilled and exhausted, took to his bed, grew gradually worse, and in ten days he died. And what a life, terminating in what a death! without a serious thought or a kindly feeling, lavishing sums incalculable on the worthless objects of his pleasures or caprices, never doing a generous or a charitable action, caring and cared for by no human being, the very objects of his bounty only regarding him for what they could get out of him; faculties, far beyond mediocrity, wasted and degraded, immersed in pride without dignity, in avarice and sensuality; all his relations estranged from him, and surrounded to the last by a venal harem, who pandered to the disgusting exigencies lassatæ sed nondum satiatæ libidinis. He left vast sums to the Strachan family, a considerable legacy to Croker, to whom he had been formerly under obligations, largely provided for his servants, and, with the exception of a few bequests to his executors and one or two other people, and a very large property to an old mistress (formerly Lady Strachan's maid), he left everything to his son Lord Yarmouth, with whom he had always been on very moderate terms.

THE WHIGS ON PEEL'S MEASURES.

March 20th.—Peel's financial measures are, of course, discussed in every quarter, but the general feeling in the country about them is not yet known. The Opposition, who, at first, had not made up their minds what to do, have now resolved to oppose the whole scheme, and they took the field in force on Friday night, and flatter themselves, so John Russell told me, that they had the best of the debate. The 'Times' opposes the income-tax and supports the tariff. Various objections are raised in different quarters with more or less reason, the principal one with regard to the income-tax being the unfairness of taxing incomes derived from temporary to the same extent as those which are derived from permanent sources, and there is a great disposition to criticise his measure with regard to timber, and the sacrifice he has made for the sake of Canadian timber. As to sugar, it is pretty clear that he is preparing for a great measure, and if it succeeds, it will be a very fine stroke of policy. He will make a treaty with the Brazils, imposing conditions (which they will not keep) for the abolition of slavery, and then let in their sugar. This will give him all the advantage of the plan of the late Government, without compromising his own consistency or the character of the country.

March 23rd.—Dined on Sunday at Lady Holland's, with Melbourne and a number of Whigs. Much talk about Peel and his measures, and what would be the conclusion. Melbourne, to do him justice, is destitute of humbug, does not see things through the medium of his wishes or prejudices, but thinks impartially, and says what he thinks. He said Peel would carry all his points, and that there would be no serious opposition in the country, for if any public meetings were called, the Chartists would be sure to outvote any resolution against the income-tax. Then he thought the regular war which the Opposition had declared was very useful to him, as it was the very thing which would keep his own party together, silence their objections, and make them come down and vote steadily with him. The rest would not gainsay this, though they don't like such a view of the state of the case. They all said Peel lost his temper the other night, and so he seems to have done. He has certainly taken a very imposing attitude, but he ought carefully to avoid any appearance of domineering, and to keep his temper under constant restraint. They will do all they can to provoke him. On Monday night the Opposition were very troublesome and factious, but that, however inconvenient to public business, will do him no harm, and he was so well aware of it that he never lost his self-command.

Death has been busy here of late, sweeping away men of very different estimation, and leaving behind them very unequal regrets. A few days ago died Archdeacon Singleton, a man who will be more remembered as the correspondent of Sydney Smith in his inimitable letters on Church Reform than for any acts of his own; but he was nevertheless a very excellent and valuable man. He was the intimate friend and counsellor of the Duke of Northumberland; and if that dullest of all bores was enabled to get through the Irish Lieutenancy with credit, it was because Singleton's sense informed him, and directed every act of his official career.

On Sunday Lord Munster[38] shot himself. He had been in low spirits for some time, and was tainted with the hereditary malady. He was a man not without talent, but wrongheaded, and having had the folly to quarrel with his father, and estrange himself from Court during the greater part of his reign, he fell into comparative obscurity and real poverty, and there can be no doubt that the disappointment of the expectations he once formed, together with the domestic unhappiness of a dawdling, ill-conditioned, vexatious wife, preyed upon his mind, and led to this act. The horror of the deed excited a momentary interest, but he will be soon forgotten.

Last night died very suddenly Colonel Armstrong, a man who will leave many social regrets behind him. He was formerly A.D.C. to the Duke of York, and equally a favourite of his and of the Duchess. He had very little general knowledge, and had never received much education, but he was very quick and intelligent, with a strong turn for humour and drollery, and perfectly good-humoured, inoffensive, and well-bred. Nobody ever heard him say a spiteful or ill-natured thing, and he was always lively and agreeable without ever being obtrusive in society. He was an excellent specimen of a man of the world, who lived upon its passing events without mixing himself up in its malignities and its quarrels, and who was universally respected and esteemed. The regrets of the world are of a very light and transitory nature, but Armstrong leaves a void in the society which he frequented, and this is all the sensation which anybody without public importance can expect to produce.

DEATH OF COLONEL ARMSTRONG.

June 5th.—I have not written one line since March 23—a longer interval, I think, than has ever passed since I first began to journalise. The principal reason for this cessation has been that my mind has been disquieted and unsettled. The racing and racehorses, and all things appertaining thereto, the betting, buying, selling, the quarrels and squabbles, the personal differences and estrangements, the excitement and agitation produced by these things, have had the effect on my mind of withdrawing my attention from public affairs, from literature, from society, from all that is worth attending to and caring for, from everything that is a legitimate object of interest, and wasting my thoughts, faculties, and feelings on all that is most vile, most worthless, and most morally and mentally injurious. This is the confession that I am obliged to make, for this is the true cause why I have left unnoticed and unrecorded every event or circumstance that has occurred for many weeks past. It is also, in some degree, owing to the circumstance of my knowing very little of what is going on. While the late Ministry were in office, my intimacy with so many of them or their near connexions put me in the way of information; but I have no intimacy with any of these people, and consequently I know nothing but what everybody else knows. The history of the last two months may be very briefly told, and a short sketch will suffice for all that is essential of it.

Peel's government has been acquiring fresh power and solidity every day till now; there is hardly any opposition to it in Parliament or out. The whole country is prepared, if not content, to take his measures, and let him have his own way without let or hindrance. For the last few weeks bribery and fancy balls have excited much greater interest than income-tax and tariff. The distress in the country does not diminish, but its miseries are neither seen nor felt amidst the 'fumum et opes, strepitumque Romæ;' and as nobody thinks that the 'sanguine cloud' has 'quenched the orb of day,' that it arises from any other than temporary and accidental causes, the world waits patiently for some beneficial change.

Last week the Queen was shot at, very much in the same manner and on the same spot as two years ago. She was aware that the attempt had been meditated the day before, and that the perpetrator was at large, still she would go out, and without any additional precautions. This was very brave, but imprudent. It would have been better to stay at home, or go to Claremont, and let the police look for the man, or to have taken some precautionary measures. It is certainly very extraordinary, for there is no semblance of insanity in the assassin, and no apparent motive or reason for the crime. This young Queen, who is an object of interest, and has made no enemies, has twice had attempts made on her life within two years. George III., a very popular king, was exposed to similar attempts, but in his case the perpetrators were really insane; while George IV., a man neither beloved nor respected, and at different times very odious and unpopular, was never attacked by anyone.

The night before last, the play of 'The Hunchback' was acted at Bridgewater House by Mrs. Butler, Adelaide Kemble, Vandenhoff (instead of Sheridan Knowles, who was to have done it), my brother Henry, and some other amateurs. The dining-room made but a middling theatre, the actors and audience being too near each other. This materially injured the effect, still it went off well, and Mrs. Butler acted as well as Fanny Kemble did ten or twelve years ago, but, with all her power, genius, and voice, she is not a first-rate actress.

REVIEW OF THE SESSION.

Last night I went to Hullah's choral meeting, at Exeter Hall, where the Queen Dowager appeared. It was fine to see, and fine and curious to hear; but the finest thing was when the Duke of Wellington came in, almost at the end. The piece they were singing stopped at once; the whole audience rose, and a burst of acclamation and waving of handkerchiefs saluted the great old man, who is now the idol of the people. It was grand and affecting, and seemed to move everybody but himself.

September 1st.—During the whole of the past Session, besides having been occupied with other things than politics, I have had no communication with politicians, and have seen nothing of public affairs. My knowledge, therefore, is no greater than that of any casual observer, and all I could have done was to note and record the various floating opinions which have come across me in my intercourse with society.

Peel began the Session with his great financial measures, which were received, on their first appearance, with considerable applause by the Opposition, and with a sulky acquiescence on the part of the Tories. The former, however, soon began to change their note and to pick holes, but probably this rather was of service to him than otherwise, for the semblance of an Opposition—and it was no more—kept together the masses of the Government party, and the tone of superiority and even supremacy which he assumed from the beginning has imposed upon both friend and foe, and enabled him to get through a very laborious and troublesome session without any serious difficulty. John Russell not only showed no disposition to lead his party in regular attacks on the Government, but he very soon became impatient to go and seek rural recreation, and some time before the close of the session he abandoned them to their fate. Before his departure, however, a sort of guerilla warfare had begun, which afterwards became more desultory, but more brisk and incessant. Charles Buller, Tom Duncombe, Hawes, and Vernon Smith took different departments, and, Palmerston taking the post of leader, they all kept up an incessant fire upon the Treasury Bench. The Whigs were exceedingly provoked with Lord John for quitting his post, and equally delighted with Palmerston for retaining his with such constancy and for taking so active a part. Nothing, however, occurred very remarkable in the way of debate till the last night of the session, when Palmerston made a grand attack upon the Government, à la Lyndhurst, in a speech of great ability, as his opponents themselves allow. Peel, however, replied to him in a still abler speech, and, with this brilliant single combat, which took place in a very empty House, the session ended.

Parliament was no sooner up, than the riots broke out,[39] sufficiently alarming but for the railroads, which enabled the Government to pour troops into the disturbed districts, and extinguish the conflagration at once. The immediate danger is over, but those who are best informed look with great anxiety and apprehension to the future, and only consider what has recently happened as the beginning of a series of disorders. It is remarkable that whilst England and Scotland have been thus disturbed, Ireland has been in the profoundest tranquillity, and when everybody, themselves included, feared that Ireland would be hardly governable under Tory rule, they have not had the slightest difficulty in that quarter. O'Connell has been much quieter since Peel came into office than he was before, and is evidently doing all he can to keep the country quiet. The Queen, too, is to all appearance on just as good terms with the present Government as she was with the last. There is no such intimacy with anybody as there was with Melbourne, but she is very civil to all her Ministers, invites them constantly to her house, and, what is curious, hardly ever takes any notice of those members of the late Government and Household whom she appeared not to be able to live without; even Melbourne is very rarely a guest either at Windsor or Buckingham House.

WITHDRAWAL FROM AFGHANISTAN.

September 3rd.—One of the topics on which Palmerston attacked the Government with the greatest bitterness was the supposed abandonment of Auckland's policy with respect to Afghanistan, and the withdrawal of the troops from that country. He asserted that such was Lord Ellenborough's intention, but that he had been compelled to change or suspend it, by instructions from home, and then he thundered away on the disgrace of a retreat, the advantages of a permanent occupation, and asked, but without eliciting any reply, what Government really meant to do. Just after this speech and the close of the session, Lord Auckland arrived in England. He had an interview with Peel, with which both seemed satisfied. Auckland said that Peel received him with great civility and cordiality; and Graham told me that Peel had found Auckland by no means disposed to adopt and countenance all Palmerston's views and opinions; that he had been very guarded, and said nothing indicative of any difference of opinion between himself and his political friends, but that he had spoken like an honest man, looking to the true interests of the country under actual circumstances, and not to any mere party purpose. It was the impression of Peel, clearly, that Auckland does not contemplate the reoccupation of that country, unless it be merely for the purpose of recovering our honour and restoring our supremacy. A few days ago I met Sir Charles Metcalfe, the greatest of Indian authorities. He was decidedly opposed to the expedition originally, and he told me he never could understand how Auckland could have been induced to undertake it. But, he thinks that we have now no alternative, and must reoccupy Cabul, and re-establish our authority. When we have done so, he says, we ought to leave to the Afghans the choice of their ruler, and then make a treaty with him, whoever he may be, and such a one as it is his interest to keep, for he will not keep any other. The Opposition continually taunt the present Government with having approved of Auckland's policy, when it appeared likely to be successful, and now finding fault with it, when unexpected failure and disaster have occurred. Graham, however, told me that his party had all along disapproved of it, that the four greatest authorities on Indian affairs had been opposed to it; viz. the Duke of Wellington, Lord Wellesley, Sir Charles Metcalfe, and Mountstuart Elphinstone, and that he had got up the whole question with the intention of bringing it before the House of Commons, and had only been prevented by the Duke of Wellington, who would not suffer it to be done. The Duke, who, from the moment when any question has assumed a national character, sets aside every party object, said that we had now gone so far, and the country was so completely committed in this measure, that nothing must be done calculated to mar its execution, and that it would produce a very serious and prejudicial effect if a large minority of the House of Commons should pronounce a condemnation of it. Accordingly Graham was obliged to be silent, and the consequence of that silence is, to afford the Opposition a fair pretext for saying that their policy met with no opposition and no objections, while success appeared likely to crown it. When Graham was getting up this case, he saw Lord Wellesley two or three times, who on one occasion had dressed himself with great care, and delivered a very eloquent oration on the subject, which lasted upwards of two hours, and was very good indeed. This is what he delights in doing. He continually talks of taking his seat in the House of Lords, and of the speeches he will make there, but it is only talk. In his own room he will hold forth, and though he requires a great deal of preparation and getting up, all those who hear him say that he exhibits wonderful ability and remarkable powers of memory in these tête-à-tête displays, for he never makes his speeches to more than one auditor at a time.

THE TREATY OF WASHINGTON.

September 11th.—A day or two after I wrote the above, I dined with Auckland to meet General Ventura, the General of Runjeet Singh, where there was a great deal of Indian talk. Ventura thought that if Pollock had pushed on at once to Cabul after he had joined Sale, he would have occupied the place without resistance, and met with no obstacles in his march; but Willoughby Cotton, who was there, said they could not move for want of camels, and that it was quite impossible for any force to proceed without the means of transport, which were totally wanting. Auckland differs with Metcalfe, and thinks we ought to reoccupy Cabul with the intention of establishing our authority permanently in these countries. The Whig papers are attacking Ellenborough with the greatest asperity, and doing all they can to divert public attention from the original expedition and its subsequent disasters, and to fix the general indignation upon him for the policy he is disposed to adopt. It is still, however, very little known to the world what has occurred, and what is meditated, but I cannot doubt from the tenor of the few observations I have heard from both Graham and FitzGerald, that Government have made up their minds to renounce all idea of permanent conquests and establishment in Afghanistan. The English public will be satisfied if we get back the prisoners, which is what they think most about, and though they will be dissatisfied and disappointed if some sort of vengeance is not executed upon Akbar Khan, they will on the whole be happy to be extricated from such an embarrassing and expensive scrape.

There is a very general feeling of satisfaction at the termination of the boundary dispute with the Americans,[40] and it will be impossible for Palmerston, who is ready to find fault with everything the Foreign Office does, to carry public opinion with him in attacking this settlement. He showed his disposition in a conversation he had lately with M. de Bacourt (just come over from America), to whom he said that we had made very important concessions. But Charles Buller, who was with me when M. de Bacourt told me this, said he for one would defend Lord Ashburton's Treaty, let Palmerston say what he would. He never would quarrel with any tolerable arrangement of such a question as that. I heard yesterday a curious thing relating to this matter. Lemon, of the State Paper Office, called on me, and told me that about three months ago they were employed by the Foreign Office in searching for documents relating to the original discussions on the Boundary question. There was a great deal of correspondence, much of which was copied for the use of Government. While thus occupied, he recollected that there was an old map of North America, which had been lying neglected and tossed about the office for the last twenty-five years, and he determined to examine this map. He did so, and discovered a faint red line drawn all across certain parts of it, together with several pencil lines drawn in parallels to the red line above and below it. It immediately occurred to him that this was the original map supposed to be lost (for it never could be found), which was used for marking and settling the Boundary question, and he gave notice to the Foreign Office of what he had discovered. The map was immediately sent for and examined by the Cabinet, who deemed it of such importance that they ordered it to be instantly locked up and that nobody should have access to it. First, however, they sent for the three most eminent and experienced men in this line of business, Arrowsmith and two others, and desired them to examine closely this map and report their opinions, separately and without concert, upon certain questions which were submitted to them. These related principally to the antiquity of the red and pencil lines, and whether the latter had been made before or after the former. They reported as they were desired to do. They all agreed as to the age of the line, and they proved that the pencil marks had been made subsequently to the red line. I forget the other particulars, but so much importance was attached to the discovery of this map, which was without doubt the original, that an exact account of its lines and marks was made out for Lord Ashburton, and a messenger despatched to Portsmouth with orders to lay his hands on the first Government steamer he could find, no matter what her destination or purpose, and to go off to America forthwith. As soon afterwards as possible the Boundary question was settled, and it is certainly reasonable to suppose that this discovery had an important effect upon the decision.

THE MISSING MAP.

CHAPTER XIV.

Visit to Broadlands—The American Treaty—Lord Palmerston on the American Treaty—The Stade Dues—The Withdrawal from Cabul—The Queen at Sea—Woburn—Baroness Lehzen—Lord Ponsonby—Turkey—The Grove, Lord Clarendon—Public Scandals—Bishop Blomfield's Charge—Puseyism—Mr. Thomas Grenville—Anecdote of Porson—Death of Mr. Irby—Anecdote of Lord North—Lord Melbourne ill—Macaulay's Lays of Rome—Canadian Affairs—A Council—Bad State of the Country—Mr. Grenville's Conversation—A Happy Family—The Reform Bill of 1832—End of the China War—Judge and Jury Court—Lord Ellenborough's Proclamation—Lord John Russell on the American Treaty—Madame d'Arblay's Journal—Lord Ellenborough—Manuscript of Antonio Perez—Lord Palmerston and the 'Morning Chronicle'—Moderate Whig Views—The Whigs and O'Connell—The Bedchamber Dispute—Sir David Dundas—Summary of the Year 1842.

Broadlands: September 17th, 1842.—I came here on the 14th, to meet Rogers and Baron Rolfe. Palmerston complains that our Foreign affairs are all mismanaged from first to last, and that we give up everything; universal concession the rule of action, and that there can be no difficulty in settling questions if we yield all that is in dispute. He is particularly dissatisfied with the Boundary Treaty, in which he says we have been over-reached by the Americans; that Lord Ashburton was a very unfit man to send there, having an American bias, besides a want of firmness in his character. He thinks the territorial concessions we have made very objectionable and quite unnecessary, and that we had already proved our right to the disputed land; that since the King of Holland's award, evidence (which was then wanting) has been adduced, which clearly establishes our rights. It is evident that he means to fall foul of this arrangement upon the first suitable occasion. He also complains of the treaty with the King of Hanover, and says we have allowed him to levy duties twice as high, as he has any right to.[41] Lady Palmerston talked to me for a long time about the old disputes on the Syrian question, and lauded his wonderful equanimity and good humour during those stormy and difficult times. She said Lord Holland's death was in great measure attributable to the vexation and excitement he underwent, and the recollection of the opposition Palmerston met with still rankles deeply in her mind. She declares that he is very happy out of office, and in no want of occupation; on the contrary, has his hands full of business, private and public. There is a very beautiful specimen of old Norman architecture in the church at Romsey, in very good preservation and of great antiquity.

THE AMERICAN TREATY.

September 24th.—From Broadlands I went to Canford[42] through the New Forest, which I never saw before. There I stayed two nights, having had some curiosity to see a place the creation of which has caused violent family quarrels, which I have been engaged in making up. On Monday I came to London, which contains a good sprinkling of people for this time of year, who congregate generally at Lady Holland's.

The 'Morning Chronicle' opened a fire upon the American Treaty in the beginning of last week, which has been well sustained in a succession of articles of very unequal merit. To these the 'Times' has responded, and in my opinion successfully. It was amusing to me to read in the columns of the 'Chronicle' all that I had been hearing Palmerston say, totidem verbis; his articles were merely a repetition of his talk, and that as exactly as if the latter had been taken down in shorthand. As far as I can judge, he will, however, fail to carry public opinion with him; he will not be entirely supported by the writers on his own side, nor by his political adherents. Sir James Kemp, an excellent authority, both civil and military, approves of the Treaty and attaches no importance to the objections that are urged against it. The 'Examiner' writes in its favour. The Ministers think they stand on very strong grounds, and the fact is that Palmerston's determination to find fault with everything that is done in the Foreign Office, and the indiscriminate abuse which he heaps upon every part of our foreign policy, deprives his opinion of the weight which it would be entitled to, if he was only tolerably impartial. I never saw so much political bitterness as that which rankles in the hearts of himself and his wife. He abuses the acts of the Government, but he always does so with an air of gaiety and good humour, and, to do him justice, he never expresses himself with any coarseness or asperity, never so as to make social intercourse impossible, or even disagreeable, between him and his opponents, but under this gay and gallant exterior there burns a fierce hostility, and a resolution to attack them upon every point, and a more unscrupulous assailant never took the field. She talks a great deal more than he does, and it is easy to see, through her graceful, easy manner and habitual urbanity, how impatient they are of exclusion from office, and how intolerant of any dissent from or opposition to his policy and opinions. They have never forgiven Lords Holland and Clarendon for having thwarted him on the Syrian question. She alluded, at Broadlands, to the supposed desire of the latter to supplant him at the Foreign Office, which she said she did not believe, though she evidently does, and she said that Clarendon had done himself an injury which he would never get over. She talked of their opposition as if they had been the only dissentients in the Cabinet, and then, forgetting this, she discussed the conduct of others, particularly of Melbourne, and John Russell, both of whom she described as alarmists, and the former as all along disinclined to the bold course which Palmerston was pursuing.

THE STADE DUES.

Besides the American Treaty, Palmerston is venting his indignation on the Stade Treaty with Hanover, and his conduct with reference to that matter is very illustrative of the manner in which he carries on the war. He told me at Broadlands that the King of Hanover had not a shadow of right to the duties which he levied, though he had to much smaller duties, the amount of which was regulated by an old treaty with Denmark, and that, instead of formally conceding to him what he had no right to require, we ought to resist his claim, and compel him by force, if remonstrance failed, to abandon it. The case is this. Hanover has no right to the tolls she takes, but she has levied them for above 100 years, and has thus acquired a prescriptive or quasi right. Complaints were formerly made, but George III. refused to give them up, so did George IV. William IV. was the first king who was disposed to make any sacrifice. He died before anything was settled, and King Ernest succeeded. Fresh discussions arose, and the Whig Government were willing to purchase of him the abandonment or modification of his claims, and Palmerston made a formal proposal to Ompteda[43] to that effect. But when he found he was going out of office, a very little while before their resignation, he put forth a protest against the King of Hanover's claims, and this he did (as I am told and as seems highly probable) for the express purpose of embarrassing the question, and rendering its settlement more difficult to his successor, besides providing himself with materials for attacking such an arrangement as he foresaw would probably be made, and which he would have made had he remained in office.

The other topic on which they are most eloquent and indignant is Ellenborough's order to retreat from Cabul, of the real truth of which very little is at present known. FitzGerald, however, told me the other day, he did think Ellenborough had not acted discreetly in the outset of his administration. He avers, however, distinctly, that it was Auckland's intention to withdraw the troops after the massacre at Cabul, which was what Peel alluded to in his speech. Auckland apparently does not admit this, and both parties are anxious to enlist his opinions and intentions on their side.

We had a Council at Windsor yesterday, where I met Peel for the first time since his return from Scotland. We now go to the Council and return to town after it, instead of being invited to remain there, which is a very great improvement. This custom has gradually superseded the other without the appearance of anything offensive or uncivil, and is no doubt much more agreeable to the Queen, who has no mind to have more of the society of her present Ministers than she can help. Peel described the Scotch tour as very nervous, inasmuch as they went through all the disturbed districts, but that loyalty and interest in seeing the Queen triumphed over every other feeling and consideration, and all went off as well as possible.[44]

Adolphus FitzClarence told me nothing could be more agreeable and amiable than she was, and the Prince too, on board the yacht, conversing all the time with perfect ease and good humour, and on all subjects, taking great interest and very curious about everything in the ship, dining on deck in the midst of the sailors, making them dance, talking to the boatswain, and, in short, doing everything that was popular and ingratiating. Her chief fault, in little things and in great, seems to be impatience; in sea phrase, she always wants to go ahead; she can't bear contradiction nor to be thwarted. She was put out because she could not get quicker to the end of her voyage, and land so soon as she wished. She insisted on landing as soon as it was possible, and would not wait till the authorities were ready and the people assembled to receive her. An hour or two of delay would have satisfied everybody, and though it might be unreasonable to expect this, as Peel said it was, it would have been wise to have conceded it. Adolphus says there was very alarming excitement in the town for a little while, and much discontent among the crowds who had come from distant parts, and who had paid large sums for seats and windows to see her go by.

THE QUEEN'S VOYAGE TO SCOTLAND.

October 4th.—There has been a continual discussion of the Boundary Treaty, kept up by Palmerston's articles in the 'Morning Chronicle,' which have been well replied to in the 'Times,' 'Standard,' and still more the 'Spectator' and 'Examiner.' Palmerston has certainly not acted wisely as one of the leaders of his party. He ought to have felt the public pulse, and ascertained how his own friends would be likely to view the question, before he plunged into such violent opposition to it. It is now evident that he will not carry the public nor even his own party with him. John Russell is satisfied; he thought at first that we had conceded too much, but on further examination he changed his opinion, and he now thinks the settlement on the whole a good one, and this will in all probability be the general opinion. Everybody was alive to the inconvenience of having this question left open, and there was a universal desire to settle our various differences with America upon such terms as would conduce to the restoration of good humour and good will.

October 5th.—There was a very clever letter in the 'Morning Chronicle' yesterday from some Whig, attacking the paper for the line it has taken, which produced a furious defence and retort. This morning I have got a letter from the Duke of Bedford informing me that his brother John has gone back to his original opinion about the Treaty. First, he thought we had made too great concessions, then that we had not, and now he thinks again that we have. It is probable that Palmerston has been at him, and he thinks it better to sacrifice his own opinion than to have a difference with his colleague.

I have been at Woburn for a couple of days. The Duke told me there that all the people he had conversed or communicated with agreed in rejoicing that the question was settled, and were not disposed to cavil at the terms. The Duke is well and wisely administering his estate and improving his magnificent place in every way. I never saw such an abode of luxury and enjoyment, one so full of resources for all tastes. The management of his estate is like the administration of a little kingdom. He has 450 people in his employment on the Bedfordshire property alone, not counting domestic servants. His pensions amount to 2,000l. a year. There is order, economy, grandeur, comfort, and general content.

The Baroness Lehzen has left Windsor Castle, and is gone abroad for her health (as she says), to stay five or six months, but it is supposed never to return. This lady, who is much beloved by the women and much esteemed and liked by all who frequent the Court, who is very intelligent, and has been a faithful and devoted servant to the Queen from her birth, has for some time been supposed to be obnoxious to the Prince, and as he is now all-powerful her retirement was not unexpected. I do not know the reason of it, nor how it has been brought about; Melbourne told me long ago that the Prince would acquire unbounded influence.

I met yesterday Lord Ponsonby and sat next to him at dinner at Palmerston's, for although I have always been so opposed to Palmerston, and he knows it, and no doubt dislikes me, I live with them as much as if we were the greatest friends. Lord Ponsonby is a most remarkable-looking man for his age, which is seventy-two or seventy-three. He exhibits no signs of old age, and is extremely agreeable. His account of Turkey was very different from my ideas about the state of the country, but I fancy all he says is sujet à caution. He describes the Sultan to be intelligent, liberal, and independent, that is, really master, and not in the hands of any party; the Turkish public men as very able, the country improving in its internal condition, especially its agriculture, and its revenue flourishing—five millions a year regularly collected, not a farthing of debt, and the whole military and civil service of the State punctually paid.

THE FAMILY AT THE GROVE.

October 12th.—The controversy about the American Treaty is vigorously maintained. The letter in the 'Morning Chronicle' was written by John Mill, and now Charles Buller has taken the field (in the 'Globe'). John Russell says 'it is advantageous and honourable to America, but not disadvantageous to us.' But he thinks it has been clumsily managed and that we might have got better terms; that Aberdeen and Everett might have settled it here more favourably for us. This is mere conjecture and worth nothing. The truth is, he does not disapprove, but finds Palmerston has taken such a violent part that he must, out of deference to his colleague, find as much fault as he possibly can. The account of the revenue came out yesterday, and a very sorry account it is.

October 18th.—On Wednesday last I went to the Grove; on Friday to Gorhambury[45] to meet the Bishop of London, who came there in the course of his visitation; yesterday back to London. It is always refreshing, in the midst of the cold hearts and indifferent tempers one sees in the world, to behold such a spectacle of intimate union and warm affection as the Grove presents. A mother, with a tribe of sons and daughters, and their respective husbands and wives, all knit together in the closest union and community of affections, feelings and interests—all, too, very intelligent people, lively, cheerful, and striving to contribute to each other's social enjoyment as well as to their material interests. I have always thought Clarendon the least selfish, most generous, and amiable man with whom I am acquainted.

Edward Villiers, who is just come from Germany, told me nothing could exceed the disgust excited all over that country by the publication of Lord Hertford's trial,[46] and that there was a universal impression there that the state of society in England and the character of its aristocracy were to the last degree profligate and unprincipled. We are mighty proud of our fine qualities, and plume ourselves on our morality; but it must be owned that a German public, which can know nothing of English society but from the specimens it sees of Englishmen, or what it reads in the press of English doings, may well entertain a less exalted idea of our perfections, and we need not wonder at the impressions which we think so unfair, and which are not in fact correct.

The Bishop of London was, and is still, going about his diocese, delivering a very elaborate Charge, which has excited a good deal of notice, and parts of which have been well enough quizzed in the 'Morning Chronicle.' To the surprise of many people, his Charge, like those of the Bishops of Exeter and Oxford, contained some crumbs of compliment to the Puseyites, and an endeavour to prescribe some formal observances half-way in advance towards their opinions. There is an evident desire on the part of these dignitaries to conciliate the Tractarians, probably because they are aware of, and alarmed at, their remarkable superiority in everything which relates to ecclesiastical learning. It is curious, too, to see the 'Times,' which certainly exercises no small or limited influence, become decidedly Puseyite. Its Catholic tendencies are intermingled with its Poor Law crotchets, and both are of a highly democratic character. The present object of attack is the pew system, which certainly appears obnoxious to censure. I asked the Bishop of London what the law was with regard to pews, and he owned that the whole thing was an anomaly, in some respects doubtful, but in many regulated by ancient usage, or by local Acts of Parliament. The Bishop is an agreeable man in society, good-humoured, lively, a little brusque in his manner. He sang a duet with Lady Jane Grimston on Friday evening, when there was no company. Though he is intemperate and imperious, he has always been distinguished for great liberality and a munificent disposition, and from an anecdote I heard of him at the Grove, he must be of a generous mind, and capable of forgiving an enemy, and casting aside feelings of resentment and wounded pride. William Capel, brother of the late Lord Essex, a disreputable, good-for-nothing parson, and Rector of Watford, neglected his clerical duties, and incurred the displeasure of the Bishop, who insisted on Capel's appointing a curate, which he refused to do, on which the Bishop, who became very angry, appointed one himself, and sent him down there. Capel resisted stoutly, and on one occasion the rector and the curate had a race for the reading-desk in church. He refused to receive the curate or to pay him, and forbad him at his peril to execute any clerical function. The end of it was a trial at the Hertford Assizes, when the parson beat the Bishop, who in his angry haste had failed to comply with all the forms which the law requires. The trial cost the Bishop near a thousand pounds, and Capel was triumphant. I don't know what happened in the interim, but a few years afterwards they had become such good friends that the Bishop came down to preach a charity sermon at Watford, when he was the guest of William Capel, dining and sleeping at his house. Upon that occasion such was his want of common decency, that, having the Bishop for his guest, and under circumstances which demanded more than ordinary respect and attention, he came down to breakfast in an old grey dressing-gown and red slippers, much to the surprise and something to the discomposure of his Diocesan. Nobody would believe Capel when he told them that the Bishop was going to be his guest. 'The Bishop of London!' said Clarendon to him, when he told him, 'how on earth did you contrive to get the Bishop of London to come to your house?' 'How,' said the other, 'why I gave him a good licking and that made him civil. We are very good friends now.' The only pity is, that having the quality of generosity and forgiveness of wrongs—for successful resistance is the same as a wrong—those virtues did not find a more estimable subject for their exercise.

BISHOP BLOMFIELD AND WILLIAM CAPEL.

October 23rd.—To the Grove on Thursday; came back yesterday to dine with Mr. Grenville; passed the whole morning of Saturday at the British Museum, where I had not been for many years, but where I propose to go henceforward very often. The number of readers is now on an average three hundred a day; in the time of Gray, as may be seen by his letters, it was not half a dozen. I had never dined with Mr. Grenville before, though he has more than once asked me, and I was glad to go there. He is a man whom I have always looked at with respect and pleasure. It is a goodly sight, to see him thus placidly and slowly going down the hill of life, with all his faculties of mind and body, not unimpaired, but still fresh and strong. One would rejoice to procure a new lease for such a man. He may well look round him, as he sits in his unrivalled library and surrounded by his friends, serene and full of enjoyment, and say, like Mazarin, 'Et il faut quitter tout cela!' but no reflexions or anticipations seem to overcast the mild sunshine of his existence. I certainly never saw so graceful and enviable an old age; and though he is eighty-six, and I am forty-eight, I would willingly change lives with him. I would much rather be approaching the end of life as he is approaching it, than live any number of years that I may yet chance to have in store as I am likely to live them. Mr. Grenville is rather deaf, and he complains of loss of memory, but he hears well enough for social purposes, and he is full of recollections of former times and remarkable people. He only laments his own infirmities on account of the trouble or inconvenience they may cause to others; not that he does not hear all that is said, but he pities those who are obliged to exert their voices to make him hear. No old man was ever less selfish and querulous. He told a story of Porson, which I will put in his own words: 'When I was a young man, which is now about seventy years ago, I used to live with Cracherode and other literary men of that day, who were good enough to allow me to come among them, and listen to their conversation, which I used to take great delight in doing, and I remember one day going into the room, and finding Cracherode and another person disputing about language, and whether a certain English word had ever been used by any good authority. In the middle of the dispute, one of them said, "But why do we go on talking here, when that little fellow in the corner can tell us in a moment which of us is in the right?" The little fellow was Porson, who was on his knees poring over a book. They called him up, told him what they were disputing about, and asked if he knew of the word having been used, and by whom. He at once replied, "I only know of one instance, and that is in Fisher's funeral sermon on the death of Margaret of Richmond, the mother of Henry VII., and you will find it about the third or fourth page on the right-hand side;" and there accordingly they did find it.'

MR. THOMAS GRENVILLE.

October 26th.—Poor Irby died on Monday last at Newmarket, the place where he had passed all the pleasantest hours of his life. He was an honourable, inoffensive man, who never made an enemy, and with whom I have passed my racing life. That was a sort of man who devoted himself to the turf without any misgivings of shame and regret, and he was, accordingly, happy. He strolled through life, without ambition or vanity, was what he seemed, and did not aspire to be thought better or wiser than he was. He had friends to whom he was attached, one sister whom he loved, and few or no other relations to annoy or trouble him. He was affluent in circumstances, respected in character, and contented in disposition: and such a man is to be envied, living or dying.

Yesterday morning I called on Mr. Grenville, and sat with him for an hour, while he told me many old stories of bygone times, and showed me some of his books, particularly his 'Julio Clovio,' which was what I went on purpose to see. He is a remarkable man, with his mind so fresh and firm, and teeming with recollections, a sort of link between the living and the dead, having been forward enough in his youth to mix with the most distinguished characters, literary and political, more than half a century ago, and still vigorous enough to play his part with those of the present time. He had often dined with Horace Walpole at his grandmother's in Grosvenor Square (before it was planted), and he describes him as effeminate in person, trifling in conversation, and much less amusing and piquant than might be expected from his letters. He talked much of Lord North, whose speaking he thinks would not be admired now. It was of a sing-song, monotonous character. His private secretary used to sit behind him, and take notes of the debate, writing down every point that it was necessary for him to answer, with the name of the speaker from whom it proceeded. When he got up he held this paper in his hand, and spoke from it, sometimes blundering over the sheets in a way Mr. Grenville imitated, and which would certainly be thought very strange now, but he had great good humour and much drollery. He told me a story of Lord North and his son Frank, afterwards Lord Guildford, of whom he was very fond, though he was always in scrapes and in want of money. One day, Frank seemed very much out of spirits, and his father asked him what was the matter. With some hesitation, real or pretended, he at last said, 'Why, father, the truth is, I have no money, and I am so distressed that I have even been obliged to sell that little mare you gave me the other day.' To which Lord North replied, 'Oh, Frank, you should never have done that; you ought to have recollected the precept of Horace, "Æquam memento rebus in arduis servare mentem."' Mr. Grenville talked of the elder Pitt, whom he did not admire, but had never heard him except as Lord Chatham. Rigby was a very agreeable speaker, in style not unlike Tierney.

October 29th.—Lord Melbourne has had an attack of palsy, very slight, and he is recovering, but it is of course alarming. He is not himself aware of the nature of the seizure, and asks if it was lumbago. This shows how slight it was. Macaulay's book, which he calls 'Lays of Ancient Rome,' came out yesterday, and admirable his ballads are. They were composed in India and on the voyage home. He showed them to Dr. Arnold, who advised him to publish them, but probably while he was in office he had not time to think about them, and the publication is the result of his leisure. He has long been addicted to ballad-writing, for there is one in the American edition of his works, and there is a much longer one written when he was at Cambridge (or soon after), upon the League, and one of Henry IV.'s battles, which is very good indeed. He is a wonderful fellow altogether.

GOVERNMENT OF CANADA.

Canadian affairs and Bagot's proceedings have lately occupied the world for want of something better.[47] The Whigs are pleased that he has so fully admitted and acted on the principle of Parliamentary control, and carried out practically the theory of the Constitution which they gave the provinces, while the Tories are indignant that he should have been dictated to by men whom they consider disaffected to this country, and who were looked upon as quasi-traitors till a very short time ago, and as they have no taste for the independence and supremacy of a Canadian Parliament, there is no triumph of a principle to console them for what they consider dangerous in practice. But both parties, and everybody without exception, blame the manner in which Bagot has acted, which was indiscreet, undignified, and gives a poor idea of his qualifications for government. He is certainly not a strong man, and he has succeeded one who undoubtedly was. Sydenham turns out to have been a man of first-rate capacity, with great ability, discrimination, judgement, firmness, and dexterity. His whole administration in Canada fully justified the choice which Lord John Russell made of him, and the confidence he reposed in him. It is to the credit of Lord John Russell that he discovered and appreciated the talents of a man who was underrated here; but occasion and circumstance draw out the latent resources of vigorous minds. He was always known to be a man of extraordinary industry, but nobody knew that he had such a knowledge of human nature and such a power of acquiring influence over others as he evinced when he went to Canada. Murdoch, who was his secretary, and himself a very clever man, gave me a remarkable account of him. He was in the habit of talking over the most inveterate opponents of his Government, so much so, that at last it became a matter of joking, and the most obstinate of his enemies used to be told that if they set foot in Government House they would be mollified and enthralled whether they would or no, and so it almost always was. Though of a weak and slender frame, and his constitution wretched, he made journeys which would have appeared hard work to the most robust men. On one occasion he travelled, without stopping, an immense distance, and the moment he got out of his carriage he called for his papers, and went at his business as if he had only returned from a drive. This is something very like greatness; these are the materials of which greatness is made—indefatigable industry, great penetration, powers of persuasion, confidence in himself, decision, boldness, firmness, and all these jumbled up with a finikin manner, and a dangling after an old London harridan; but, as Taylor says so well, 'The world knows nothing of its greatest men,' and half mankind know nothing of their own capacity for greatness. The mistakes made by ourselves and by each other with respect to moral qualities are incessant and innumerable.

DISTRESS IN THE COUNTRY.

November 2nd.—At Windsor yesterday for a Council; almost all the Cabinet went together in a special train. A Whig engineer might have produced an instantaneous and complete change of Government. The Royal consent was given to the marriage of the Princess Augusta with the Prince of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. The Chancellor was there, looking very ill and broken, but evidently wishing to be thought strong and capable.[48] He not only affected to be very merry, but very active, and actually began a sort of dancing movement in the drawing-room, which reminded me of Queen Elizabeth and the Scotch ambassador; seventy years of age, ten years of idleness, and a young wife will not do for the labour of the Great Seal. The Ministers are all come to hold Cabinets, and lay their heads together with, God knows, plenty to occupy them. Lord Wharncliffe and Kay Shuttleworth, who are both come from the north, have given me an account of the state of the country and of the people which is perfectly appalling. There is an immense and continually increasing population, deep distress and privation, no adequate demand for labour, no demand for anything, no confidence, but a universal alarm, disquietude, and discontent. Nobody can sell anything. Somebody said, speaking of some part of Yorkshire, 'This is certainly the happiest country in the world, for nobody wants anything.' Kay says that nobody can conceive the state of demoralisation of the people, of the masses, and that the only thing which restrains them from acts of violence against property is a sort of instinctive consciousness that, bad as things are, their own existence depends upon the security of property in the long run. It is in these parts that the worst symptoms are apparent, but there are indications of the same kind more or less all over the country, and certainly I have never seen, in the course of my life, so serious a state of things as that which now stares us in the face; and this, after thirty years of uninterrupted peace, and the most ample scope afforded for the development of all our resources, when we have been altering, amending, and improving, wherever we could find anything to work upon, and being, according to our own ideas, not only the most free and powerful, but the most moral and the wisest people in the world. One remarkable feature in the present condition of affairs is that nobody can account for it, and nobody pretends to be able to point out any remedy; for those who clamour for the repeal of the Corn Laws, at least those who know anything of the matter, do not really believe that repeal would supply a cure for our distempers. It is certainly a very dismal matter for reflexion, and well worthy the consideration of the profoundest political philosophers, that the possession of such a Constitution, all our wealth, industry, ingenuity, peace, and that superiority in wisdom and virtue which we so confidently claim, are not sufficient to prevent the existence of a huge mountain of human misery, of one stratum in society in the most deplorable state, both moral and physical, to which mankind can be reduced, and that all our advantages do not secure us against the occurrence of evils and mischiefs so great as to threaten a mighty social and political convulsion.

November 17th.—Went to Cromer on Monday week, and returned on Monday last. I am fond of that wild and bleak coast with its 'hills that encircle the sea,' the fine old tower of the church and the lighthouse, whose revolving light it is impossible not to watch with interest. I went one day to Felbrigg,[49] and looked into the library—a fine old-fashioned room containing Mr. Windham's books, all full of notes and comments in his own hand, but library and books equally neglected now that they have fallen into the hands of a rough, unlettered squire.

November 18th.—Called on Mr. Grenville yesterday morning. He told me he was eighty-eight, and had never been ill in all his life; had colds, but never been ill enough to keep his bed a whole day since he was born. His memory, he said, failed as to dates and names. He told me a curious anecdote of Wolfe. In Pitt's (Lord Chatham's) administration, when Wolfe was going out to take the command of the army in America, at that time a post of the greatest importance, Mr. Pitt had him to dinner with no other person present but Lord Temple (Mr. Grenville's uncle). After dinner Wolfe got greatly excited, drew his sword, flourished it about, and boasted of the great things he would do with it in a wonderfully braggart style. Lord Temple and Mr. Pitt were horror-struck, and when the General was gone, they lifted up their hands and eyes, and said what an awful thing it was to think that they were about to trust interests so vital to the discretion of a man who could talk and bluster in such a way. Mr. Grenville said he had never liked to repeat this anecdote, and had never done so till very lately, for he had been reluctant to say anything which might, by possibility, throw a slur on the reputation of Wolfe. But I told him it was too curious to be suppressed; curious as a peculiar trait of character, and that the heights of Abraham had secured the fame of Wolfe beyond the possibility of being injured by anything that could now be said.

THE REFORM BILL OF 1831.

November 22nd.—At Hillingdon from Saturday till Monday. I never go to that place without looking with envy and admiration at a scene of so much happiness. There is certainly nothing to admire but the result. There are none of the qualities which are generally desirable; but if happiness is the aim and object of life, by which I mean something active, sentient and intelligent, not the happiness of an oyster or an opium-eater, then these people have attained it, subject only to its disturbance from the ordinary and unavoidable accidents and vicissitudes of existence. I suppose that happiness depends on, as wit has been described by, negatives. They are happy because they are without avarice, or ambition, or vanity, or envy. They have no extravagant or unreasonable pretensions, and therefore are not subject to perpetual mortifications and disappointments. They lead an easy, placid, semi-sensual but not vicious life, with a full flow of affection for each other, and a natural ever-springing cheerfulness and content.

Dined yesterday with Lady Holland, John Russell, Charles Austin, and Lady Charlotte Lindsay. Lord John told us some things about the Reform Bill, interesting enough. The first he heard of it was by a letter from Althorp, who told him Lord Grey and he wished him (Lord John) to bring in the Bill although he was not in the Cabinet. He wrote back that he could not agree to bring in the Bill without having a share in its concoction, which they agreed he was entitled to. He came to town and Lord Grey begged him to put himself in communication with Durham. He went to Durham and had a long conversation with him, and they agreed that a Committee should be formed which should meet constantly and settle the terms of the Bill. The first person suggested was the Duke of Richmond, but Lord John objected to him, and then they settled to have Graham and Duncannon. They used to meet at Durham's every day and discuss the details of the Bill. Among these was the question of Ballot, Graham and Durham being strongly for it, John Russell against, and Duncannon neuter. The point was, however, referred to the Cabinet, and immediately negatived. Lord John said that the only chance they had of carrying such a Bill was the preservation of impenetrable secrecy. If once the plan got out, their own friends would be alarmed, and their success infallibly compromised. Accordingly they contrived to keep their plan secret till the last moment. So little did their opponents expect anything of the kind, that Peel, in a speech about a fortnight before, taunted them in these terms: 'You came into power avowedly to promote peace, retrenchment, and reform. Your peace is in the greatest danger of being broken; your estimates are not less than ours were; and as to your reform, I predict that it will be some miserable measure, with all the appearance of a change in the Constitution, without the reality of any improvement.' When the measure came out, many of the friends of Government were exceedingly frightened, and thought it would not fail to be their ruin. Hardinge told Graham in the lobby that 'Of course they had made up their minds to resign.' Allen said that there had always existed a strong opinion that Peel might have crushed it at first, if he had refused leave to bring in the Bill, but Lord John denied that this was feasible. He said, let Peel do what he would, they would have got a debate of several nights, and he had always told his timorous and desponding friends, that when the plan went forth to the country it would be responded to by such great and enthusiastic approval and so supported that it would be impossible for the Opposition to resist it. And this was what happened. The debate of eight nights gave time for the press to act, and the country to declare itself. Allen then said they had done wrong in giving way as they had on some points, particularly as to the freemen; they had gained nothing by that, and had injured the Bill. But Lord John said that they had got all they expected. This sacrifice was made to Lords Harrowby and Wharncliffe, who had in consequence of it carried the second reading in the House of Lords, which could not have been done without them; and this had prevented the creation of Peers. Lord Grey was so determined to make Peers, if the second reading was not carried, that Lord John had himself given notice to some of his Tory friends, that if they wished to prevent this evil, they had better vote for it. We then discussed the communications which afterwards took place between Lord Grey and Palmerston and Harrowby and Wharncliffe, and Lyndhurst's famous motion, which produced such momentous results. I said that Harrowby and his friends had always accused Lord Grey of acting unfairly, but that I had always said that no man could act a more straightforward and consistent part than he did. I told Lord John he ought to write a history of the Reform Bill, which would be a very curious narrative.

SUCCESSES IN THE EAST.

November 23rd.—A torrent of Indian news and successes arrived almost all at once,[50] an important and agreeable budget of intelligence, though without much glory in it. It is a delightful thing to finish the Chinese war anyhow. We were ashamed of our successes, and the reports of victories gained and towns taken never gave any satisfaction, or excited a particle of pride or triumph. We now see our way out of two difficult quarrels which we never ought to have got into. The only good we shall have gained will have been a very imposing exhibition of our power and resources, and it will have cost us many millions of money, and many thousand lives to make it.

November 25th.—I went last night to a place called 'The Judge and Jury Court'—Bingham Baring, Charles Buller, Frederic Leveson, and myself—and there we found several others of our acquaintance who had been attracted to the same place. It is difficult to imagine anything more low and blackguard than this imitation of and parody on a court of justice, and if the proceedings of last night are to be taken as a fair example of the whole it is not very amusing. There is a long low room opposite Covent Garden Theatre, in Bow Street, lit with tallow candles and furnished along its length with benches; opposite these benches is a railed-off space for the Bar and the Jury, and an elevated desk for the Judge. You pay one shilling entrance, which entitles you to a cigar and a glass of rum or gin and water or beer, a privilege of which almost every man availed himself. The room was pretty well filled and in a cloud of smoke, and there was a constant circulation of these large glasses of liquid; smoking and drinking were, indeed, the order of the day. The judge, the counsel, and the jury, all had their cigars and gin-and-water, and the latter, as a recompense for their public services, were entitled to call for what they pleased gratis. Here they try such notorious cases as have been brought in any shape, complete or incomplete, under public notice, and last night we had 'Chesterfield v. Batthyany,' the names being slightly changed, but rendered sufficiently significant to leave no doubt of who and what is meant. Maidstone, for example, was examined as a witness under the title of Lord Virgin Rock, and twenty of the others which, however, I don't remember. The Chief Baron is a big burly fellow, editor of a paper which I never heard of before, called the 'Town,' and the jury are sworn upon The Town. I don't know who the counsel were, but there was one fellow who was a caricature of Brougham, certainly like him, and he attempted an imitation of him in manner, gesture, and voice, which was not very bad, and therefore rather amusing. But though the man had some humour, there was not enough or of sufficiently good quality to support the length of his speech. He opened the case for the plaintiff; the counsel for the defendant seemed very dull, and we would stay no longer. They say the charge of the judge is generally the best part of it. They deal in very gross indecencies, and this seems to amuse the audience, which is one of the most blackguard-looking I ever saw congregated, and they just restrain their ribaldry within such limits as exclude les gros mots. Everything short of that is allowed, and evidently the more the better. On the whole it was a poor performance. It bore, in point of character and decency, about the same relation to a court of justice that Musard's balls do to Almack's.

LORD ELLENBOROUGH'S PROCLAMATION.

November 27th.—The Palmerstons came through town the other day in their way to Brocket, and I met them at dinner at Lady Holland's. They are both very much provoked at the Indian and Chinese successes, as their remarks showed; she complained that it was Elliot's fault that all this was not done two years ago, as he had the same instructions and the same means of executing them that Pottinger had, and he harped again upon the old tune of Ellenborough's orders and counter-orders, and tried to make out that it was his fault that the reoccupation of Cabul had been delayed so many months; and the 'Morning Chronicle' has been labouring to make out that all the glory of these successes is due to Palmerston alone.

November 30th.—Ellenborough's Proclamation, which has just appeared, is fiercely attacked by the Whig Palmerstonian press, but the purport of it seems to be pretty generally approved. Ellenborough is certainly not happy in his measures, his manners, or his phrases. He began by his much-abused orders for retreat, he lost no time in quarrelling with his Council and making himself personally obnoxious, and his present Proclamation is very objectionable in many respects, though it appears to me perfectly clear half the world thinks he meant to censure the policy of his predecessor, and though he certainly meant no such thing, he ought not to have left room for any doubt on that point. He enters into reasons for his measures, which is never advisable in such a document as this, and especially in India. In the midst of all our successes, however, the simple truth is that Akbar Khan and the Afghans have gained their object completely. We had placed a puppet king on the throne, and we kept him there and held military possession of the country by a body of our troops. They resolved to get rid of our king and our troops and to resume their barbarous independence; they massacred all our people civil and military, and they afterwards put to death the king. We lost all hold over the country except the fortresses we continued to occupy. Our recent expedition was, in fact, undertaken merely to get back the prisoners who had escaped with their lives from the general slaughter, and having got them we have once for all abandoned the country, leaving to the Afghans the unmolested possession of the liberty they had acquired, and not attempting to replace upon their necks the yoke they so roughly shook off. There is, after all, no great cause for rejoicing and triumph in all this.

MADAME D'ARBLAY'S JOURNAL.

On Sunday morning I called on Lord John Russell, and we had an argument about Lord Ashburton and his Treaty, which he abused very roundly, saying all that I had before heard of his writing to his brother against it, but still owning that it was not very injurious. I have a great respect for Lord John, who is very honest and clever, but in this matter he talks great nonsense. Palmerston is much more consistent and takes a clear and broad view of it. He says, 'We are all in the right, and the Americans all in the wrong. Never give up anything, insist on having the thing settled in your own way, and if they won't consent, let it remain unsettled.' But Lord John merely says you might have got better terms if you had held out for them, that he thinks Lord Aberdeen and Mr. Everett would have arranged it here more favourably for us than Lord Ashburton did there; that if Lord Aberdeen had proposed such and such terms to Everett they would have been agreed to in America, and that Lord Ashburton gave up certain things for which he did not obtain a just equivalent—all of which is mere gratuitous assumption, and may be true or maybe false. However, he owned that the public was disposed to be satisfied with the Treaty, and he did not deny any assertion that Palmerston had committed a blunder in attacking it with such violence.

The fifth volume of Madame d'Arblay's journal or memoirs is just come out. I have read the first three volumes, and then could read no more, it was so tiresome; but I returned to the fifth because I found everybody was amused by it. It is certainly readable, for there are scattered through it notices of people and things sufficiently interesting, but they are overlaid by an enormous quantity of trash and twaddle, and there is a continuous stream of mawkish sentimentality, loyalty, devotion, sensibility, and a display of feelings and virtues which are very provoking. The cleverest part of it is the remarkable memory with which she narrates long conversations and minute details of facts and circumstances. It is true she generally makes her people converse in a very ordinary commonplace style, and she hardly ever tells any anecdote or any event of importance or of remarkable interest. Nevertheless her rambling records are read with pleasure, for there is and ever will be an insatiable thirst for familiar details of the great world and the people who have figured in it. Anecdotes of kings, princes, ministers, or any celebrities are always acceptable. I have often thought that my journal would have been much more entertaining if I had scribbled down all I heard and saw in society, all I could remember of passing conversations, jokes, stories, and such like, instead of recording and commenting on public events, as I have often, though irregularly, done. To have done this, however, and done it well, required a better memory and more diligence than I possess, to be more Boswellian than I am. I believe, however, there is and can be no general rule for journalising. Everybody who addicts him- or her-self to this practice must follow the dictates of his taste and fancy or caprice. It is a matter in which character operates and shows itself, for people are open and confidential or reserved with their blank page, in the same way as with their living friends. Some, indeed, will pour forth upon paper, and for the edification or amusement of posterity, what they never would have revealed to living ear; but the majority of those who indulge in this occupation probably only tell what they desire to have known. Few write for themselves only as a sort of moral exercise, or for the refreshment of their own memories, or because they feel a longing to give utterance to, and record the feelings and thoughts that are rising and working and fighting in their minds. It is curious that so many great men, as well as so many small ones, have written journals, and an essay on the subject would be interesting enough if well done. Johnson, Walter Scott, Wilberforce, Windham, Byron, Heber, Gibbon, all kept journals, and many others, no doubt, whom I don't recollect at this moment. I omit Pepys and Evelyn, as men of a different sort.

December 6th.—The general and impartial opinion of Lord Ellenborough's Proclamation is, that he is quite right to have withdrawn the army from Afghanistan, and to have announced a pacific policy for the future, but that he is much to blame in having adopted such a tone as the paper is couched in, to have cast an indirect slur on the policy of Auckland, and condemned in such unqualified terms the errors of men who are not alive to defend themselves, or of the survivors who are going to be tried by a court of enquiry. On the whole Ellenborough has not given satisfaction to any party or set of men. Conservatives complain of him as well as Whigs. He has given personal offence in India, and political offence here, and the appointment, from which such great things were expected, has turned out ill. The Duke of Wellington, however, is perfectly satisfied with what he has done, and as the Government meant to support him before all these successes, much more will they do so now.

December 8th.—I saw Emily Eden[51] yesterday, and found they were full of bitterness against Ellenborough, and no wonder. In the first place, he and Auckland had always been friends. When Ellenborough came into office, he wrote to Auckland a friendly letter, in which he said what was tantamount to an invitation to him to stay in India. On his arrival at Calcutta, he was Auckland's guest for the first three days, till he was sworn in, and then Auckland was his, and when Auckland's sisters wanted to leave Government House and go and pay a visit to a friend of theirs, Ellenborough would not hear of it, and made such a point of their remaining there till their departure that they did so. He lived with them morning, noon, and night, on terms of the greatest cordiality, and repeatedly expressed his regret that they were going away. This renders his Proclamation particularly odious, and the more so because she told me that during the last months of his Government, Auckland had done everything he could not to compromise or embarrass his successor, and had taken great pains to provide for any future military operations on which he might determine, which was a matter of considerable financial difficulty. All this makes them feel very sore, and they are besides of opinion that it is a grievous fault for a Governor to proclaim to the world that errors have been committed, and that the policy of the Indian Government is going to be altered. I am not so surprised at Ellenborough's animus, knowing that when he was at the Board of Control he never lost an opportunity of letting the Queen know his opinion as to the errors and blunders of his predecessor and his colleagues.

A MANUSCRIPT OF ANTONIO PEREZ.

December 9th.—Francis Baring told me yesterday a curious anecdote relating to a Spanish MS. which would be interesting to bibliomaniacs. Sampayo, a half Portuguese, half Englishman, at Paris, was a great book-collector, particularly of Spanish and Portuguese, both books and MSS. He was aware of a MS. of Antonio Perez, relating to the wars of Granada, in the public library at Seville, and he desired Cuthbert, who has been living at Seville for some time, to ask leave to have it copied, and if he could get leave to find somebody to copy it. He got leave, and it was copied in a fair round hand for some sixteen dollars. After the copy was made, the librarian said to Cuthbert, 'You may take away which you please, the copy or the original.' He jumped at the offer, and sent the original MS. to Sampayo. His library was sold the other day, and Francis Baring said he believed this MS. was bought by the Royal Library of France, and it probably fetched a great deal of money.[52]

December 14th.—At Windsor for a Council on Saturday. Sir Robert Peel is staying there, but nobody else was invited. Ellenborough's Proclamation is still occupying general attention. My brother writes me word from Paris that it is generally blamed there, for the same reasons that it is here; and the Duke of Bedford tells me that Lord Spencer's political apathy has been excited very highly, and that he is so full of indignation that he talks of coming down to the House of Lords to attack it. They speak of it as a document deserving impeachment, which is going to very absurd lengths. The Palmerstonians are still screaming themselves hoarse in their endeavours to get the credit of the success. Lady Palmerston wrote to Madame de Lieven (dear friends who hate one another cordially) in a rage, because the latter said to her that she was sure, setting all party feelings aside, as a good Englishwoman, she must rejoice at the successes in the East. The other lady replied, that she did not know what she meant, and that all the merit of the success was due to Palmerston and the late Government. To this Madame de Lieven responded as follows: ' Je vous demande bien pardon de ma légèreté, mais je vous assure que moi et toutes les personnes que je vois, ont été assez niaises pour croire que les grands succès de l'Orient étaient dus à Sir Robert Peel et à son gouvernement. Apparemment nous nous sommes trompés, et je vous demande mille excuses de notre légèreté.'

LORD PALMERSTON AND THE PRESS.