1831.

January 2nd, 1831

A DINNER AT THE ATHENÆUM. Came up to town yesterday to dine with the Villiers at a dinner of clever men, got up at the Athenæum, and was extremely bored. The original party was broken up by various excuses, and the vacancies supplied by men none of whom I knew. There were Poulett Thomson, three Villiers, Taylor, Young, whom I knew; the rest I never saw before—Buller, Romilly, Senior, Maule,[9] a man whose name I forget, and Walker, a police magistrate, all men of more or less talent and information, and altogether producing anything but an agreeable party. Maule was senior wrangler and senior medallist at Cambridge, and is a lawyer. He was nephew to the man with whom I was at school thirty years ago, and I had never seen him since; he was then a very clever boy, and assisted to teach the boys, being admirably well taught himself by his uncle, who was an excellent scholar and a great brute. I have young Maule now in my mind’s eye suspended by the hair of his head while being well caned, and recollect as if it was yesterday his doggedly drumming a lesson of Terence into my dull and reluctant brain as we walked up and down the garden walk before the house. When I was introduced to him I had no recollection of him, but when I found out who he was I went up to him with the blandest manner as he sat reading a newspaper, and said that ‘I believed we had once been well acquainted, though we had not met for twenty-seven years.’ He looked up and said, ‘Oh, it is too long ago to talk about,’ and then turned back to his paper. So I set him down for a brute like his uncle and troubled him no further. I am very sure that dinners of all fools have as good a chance of being agreeable as dinners of all clever people; at least the former are often gay, and the latter are frequently heavy. Nonsense and folly gilded over with good breeding and les usages du monde produce often more agreeable results than a collection of rude, awkward intellectual powers.

Roehampton, January 4th, 1831

Called on Lady Canning this morning, who wanted me to read some of her papers. Most of them (which are very curious) I had seen before, but forgotten. I read the long minute of Canning’s conversation with the King ten days before his Majesty put the formation of the Administration in his hands. They both appear to have been explicit enough. The King went through his whole life, and talked for two hours and a half, particularly about the Catholic question, on which he said he had always entertained the same opinions—the same as those of George III. and the Duke of York—and that with the speech of the latter he entirely concurred, except in the ‘so help me God’ at the end, which he thought unnecessary. He said he had wished the Coronation Oath to be altered, and had proposed it to Lord Liverpool. His great anxiety was not to be annoyed with the discussion of the question, to keep Canning and Lord Liverpool’s colleagues, and to put at the head of the Treasury some anti-Catholic Peer. This Canning would not hear of; he said that having lost Lord Liverpool he had lost his only support in the Cabinet, that the King knew how he had been thwarted by others, and how impossible it would have been for him to go on but for Lord Liverpool, that he could not serve under anybody else, or act with efficacy except as First Minister, that he would not afford in his person an example of any such rule as that support of the Catholic question was to be ipso facto an exclusion from the chief office of the Government, that he advised the King to try and make an anti-Catholic Ministry, and thought that with his feelings and opinions on the subject it was what he ought to do. This the King said was out of the question. In the course of the discussion Canning said that if he continued in his service he must continue as free as he had been before; that desirous as he was to contribute to the King’s ease and comfort, he could not in any way pledge himself on the subject, because he should be assuredly questioned in the House of Commons, and he must have it in his power to reply that he was perfectly free to act on that question as he had ever done, and that he thought the King would better consult his own ease by THE DUKE AND MR. CANNING. retaining him in office without any pledge, relying on his desire above all things to consult his Majesty’s ease and comfort. He said among other things that, though leader of the House of Commons, he had never had any patronage placed at his disposal, nor a single place to give away.

About the time of this conversation Canning was out of humour with the Duke of Wellington, for he had heard that many of the adherents of Government who pretended to be attached to the Duke had spoken of him (Canning) in the most violent and abusive terms. In their opinions he conceived the Duke to be to a certain degree implicated, and this produced some coldness in his manner towards him. Shortly after Arbuthnot came to him, complained first and explained after, and said the Duke would call upon him. The Duke did call, and in a conversation of two hours Canning told him all that had passed between himself and the King, thereby putting the Duke, as he supposed, in complete possession of his sentiments as to the reconstruction of the Government. A few days after Mr. Canning was charged by the King to lay before him the plan of an Administration, and upon this he wrote the letter to his former colleagues which produced so much discussion. I read the letters to the Duke, Bathurst, Melville, and Bexley, and I must say that the one to the Duke was rather the stiffest of the whole,[10] though it was not so cold as the Duke chose to consider it. Then came his letter to the Duke on his speech, and the Duke’s answer. When I read these last year I thought the Duke had much the best of it; but I must alter this opinion if it be true that he knew Mr. Canning’s opinions, as it is stated that he did entirely, after their long interview, at which the conversation with the King was communicated to him. That materially alters the case. There was a letter from Peel declining, entirely on the ground of objecting to a pro-Catholic Premier, and on the impossibility of his administering Ireland with the First Lord of the Treasury of a different opinion on that subject from his own. There was likewise a curious correspondence relative to a paper written by the Duke of York during his last illness, and not very long before his death, to Lord Liverpool on the dangers of the country from the progress of the Catholic question, the object of which (though it was vaguely expressed) was to turn out the Catholic members and form a Protestant Government for the purpose of crushing the Catholic interest. This Lord Liverpool communicated (privately) to Canning, and it was afterwards communicated to the King, who appears (the answer was not there) to have given the Duke of York a rap on the knuckles, for there is a reply of the Duke’s to the King, full of devotion, zeal, and affection to his person, and disclaiming any intention of breaking up the Government, an idea which could have arisen only from misconception of the meaning of his letter by Lord Liverpool. It is very clear, however, that he did mean that, for his letter could have meant nothing else. The whole thing is curious, for he was aware that he was dying, and he says so.

January 12th, 1831

Passed two days at Panshanger, but my room was so cold that I could not sit in it to write. Nobody there but F. Lamb and J. Russell. Lady Cowper told me what had passed relative to the negotiation with Melbourne last year, and which the Duke or his friends denied. The person who was employed (and whom she did not name) told F. Lamb that the Duke would take in Melbourne and two others (I am not sure it was not three), but not Huskisson. He said that it would be fairer at once to say that those terms would not be accepted, and to save him therefore from offering them, that Melbourne would not be satisfied with any Government which did not include Huskisson and Lord Grey, and that upon this answer the matter dropped. I don’t think the Duke can be blamed for answering to anybody who chose to ask him any questions on the subject that he had made no offer; it was the truth, though not the whole truth, and a Minister must have some shelter against impertinent questioners, or he would be at their mercy. An Envoy is come here from the Poles,[11] who brought a letter from Prince CROKER’S BOSWELL. Czartoryski to Lord Grey, who has not seen him, and whose arrival has naturally given umbrage to the Lievens.

January 19th, 1831

To Roehampton on Saturday till Monday, having been at the Grove on Friday. George Villiers at the Grove showed me a Dublin paper with an attack on Stanley’s proclamation, and also a character of Plunket drawn with great severity and by a masterly hand; it is supposed to be by Baron Smith, a judge who is very able, but fanciful and disaffected. He will never suffer any but policemen or soldiers to be hanged of those whom he tries. George Villiers came from Hatfield, where he had a conversation with the Duke of Wellington, who told him that he had committed a great error in his Administration in not paying more attention to the press, and in not securing a portion of it on his side and getting good writers into his employment, that he had never thought it necessary to do so, and that he was now convinced what a great mistake it was. At Roehampton nothing new, except that the Reform plan is supposed to be settled, or nearly so. Duncannon has been consulted, and he and one or two more have had meetings with Durham, who were to lay their joint plans before Lord Grey first, and he afterwards brought them to the Cabinet.

Ellis told me (a curious thing enough) that Croker (for his ‘Boswell’s Life of Johnson’) had collected various anecdotes from other books, but that the only new and original ones were those he had got from Lord Stowell, who was a friend of Johnson, and that he had written them under Stowell’s dictation. Sir Walter Scott wanted to see them, and Croker sent them to him in Scotland by the post. The bag was lost; no tidings could be heard of it, Croker had no copy, and Stowell is in his dotage and can’t be got to dictate again. So much for the anecdote; then comes the story. I said how surprising this was, for nothing was so rare as a miscarriage by the post. He said, ‘Not at all, for I myself lost two reviews in the same way. I sent them both to Brougham to forward to Jeffrey (for the “Edinburgh”), and they were both lost in the same way!’ That villain Brougham!

G. Lamb said that the King is supposed to be in a bad state of health, and this was confirmed to me by Keate the surgeon, who gave me to understand that he was going the way of both his brothers. He will be a great loss in these times; he knows his business, lets his Ministers do as they please, but expects to be informed of everything. He lives a strange life at Brighton, with tagrag and bobtail about him, and always open house. The Queen is a prude, and will not let the ladies come décolletées to her parties. George IV., who liked ample expanses of that sort, would not let them be covered. In the meantime matters don’t seem more promising either here or abroad. In Ireland there is open war between Anglesey and O’Connell, to whom it is glory enough (of his sort) to be on a kind of par with the Viceroy, and to have a power equal to that of the Government. Anglesey issues proclamation after proclamation, the other speeches and letters in retort. His breakfasts and dinners are put down, but he finds other places to harangue at, and letters he can always publish; but he does not appear in quite so triumphant an attitude as he did. The O’Connell tribute is said to have failed; no men of property or respectability join him, and he is after all only the leader of a mob; but it is a better sort of mob, and formidable from their numbers, and the organisation which has latterly become an integral part of mob tactics. Nothing can be more awful than the state of that country, and everybody expects that it will be found necessary to strengthen the hands of the Government with extraordinary powers to put an end to the prevailing anarchy. O’Connell is a coward, and that is the best chance of his being beaten at last.

Lord Lyndhurst took his seat as Chief Baron yesterday morning, Alexander retiring without an equivalent, and only having waited for quarter day. Brougham has had a violent squabble in his Court with Sugden, who having O’CONNELL ARRESTED. bullied the Vice-Chancellor and governed Lyndhurst, has a mind to do the same by Brougham; besides, he hates him for the repeated thrashings he got from him in the House of Commons, and has been heard to say that he will take his revenge in the Court of Chancery. The present affair was merely that Brougham began writing, when Sugden stopped and told him ‘it was no use his going on if his Lordship would not attend to the argument,’ and so forth.

I met Lyndhurst at dinner yesterday, who talks of himself as standing on neutral ground, disconnected with politics. It is certainly understood that he is not to fight the battles of the present Government, but of course he is not to be against them. His example is a lesson to statesmen to be frugal, for if he had been rich he would have had a better game before him. He told a curious anecdote about a trial. There was a (civil) cause in which the jury would not agree on their verdict. They retired on the evening of one day, and remained till one o’clock the next afternoon, when, being still disagreed, a juror was drawn. There was only one juror who held out against the rest—Mr. Berkeley (member for Bristol). The case was tried over again, and the jury were unanimously of Mr. Berkeley’s opinion, which was in fact right, a piece of conscientious obstinacy which prevented the legal commission of wrong.

Roehampton, January 22nd, 1831

The event of the week is O’Connell’s arrest on a charge of conspiracy to defeat the Lord-Lieutenant’s proclamation. Lord Anglesey writes to Lady Anglesey thus:—‘I am just come from a consultation of six hours with the law officers, the result of which is a determination to arrest O’Connell, for things are now come to that pass that the question is whether he or I shall govern Ireland.’ We await the result with great anxiety, for the opinion of lawyers seems divided as to the legality of the arrest, and laymen can form none.

January 23rd, 1831

No news; Master of the Rolls, George Ponsonby, and George Villiers here. The latter told a story of Plunket, of his wit. Lord Wellesley’s aide-de-camp Keppel wrote a book of his travels, and called it his personal narrative. Lord Wellesley was quizzing it, and said, ‘Personal narrative? what is a personal narrative? Lord Plunket, what should you say a personal narrative meant?’ Plunket answered, ‘My Lord, you know we lawyers always understand personal as contradistinguished from real.’ And one or two others of Parsons, the Irish barrister. Lord Norbury on some circuit was on the bench speaking, and an ass outside brayed so loud that nobody could hear. He exclaimed, ‘Do stop that noise!’ Parsons said, ‘My Lord, there is a great echo here.’ Somebody said to him one day, ‘Mr. Parsons, have you heard of my son’s robbery?’ ‘No; whom has he robbed?’

Nothing but talk about O’Connell and his trial, and we have more fears he will be acquitted than hopes that he will be convicted. They still burn in the country, and I heard the other day that the manufacturing districts, though quiet, are in a high state of organisation.

January 25th, 1831

Met Colonel Napier[12] last night, and talked for an hour of the state of the country. He gave me a curious account of the organisation of the manufacturers in and about Manchester, who are divided into four different classes, with different objects, partly political, generally to better themselves, but with a regular Government, the seat of which is in the Isle of Man. He says that the agriculturists are likewise organised in Wiltshire, and that there is a sort of free-masonry among them; he thinks a revolution inevitable; and when I told him what Southey had said—that if he had money enough he would transport his family to America—he said he would not himself leave England in times of danger, but that he should like to remove his family if he could.

The King is ill. I hope he won’t die; if he does, and the little girl, we shall have Cumberland, and (though Lyndhurst said he would make a very good King the other night) that would be a good moment for dispensing with the regal office. It is reported that they differ in the Cabinet O’CONNELL’S CASE. about Reform; probably not true. What a state of terror and confusion we are in, though it seems to make no difference.

January 31st, 1831

At Roehampton on Saturday; Lord Robert Spencer and Sir G. Robinson. Agar Ellis had just resigned the Woods, after asking to be made a Peer, which they refused. All last week nobody thought of anything but O’Connell, and great was the joy at the charge of Judge Jebb, the unanimous opinion of the King’s Bench, and the finding of the Grand Jury. Whatever happens, Government are now justified in the course they have taken; and now he has traversed, which looks like weakness, and it is the general opinion that he is beaten; but he is so astute, and so full of resources, that I would never answer for his being beaten till I see him in prison or find his popularity gone. The subscription produced between 7,000ℓ. and 8,000ℓ. It is an extraordinary thing, and the most wonderful effect I ever heard of the power of moral causes over the human body, that Lord Anglesey, who has scarcely been out of pain at all for years during any considerable intervals, has been quite free from his complaint (the tic douloureux) since he has been in Ireland; the excitement of these events, and the influence of that excitement on his nervous system, have produced this effect. There is a puzzler for philosophy, and such an amalgamation of moral and physical accidents as is well worth unravelling for those who are wise enough.

Yesterday there was a dinner at Lord Lansdowne’s to name the Sheriffs, and there was I in attendance on my old school-fellows and associates Richmond, Durham, Graham, all great men now!

Lord Grey was not there, for he was gone to Brighton to lay the Reform Bill before the King. What a man Brougham is; he wants to ride his Chancery steed to the Devil, as if he had not enough to do. Nothing would satisfy him but to come and hear causes in our Court;[13] but as I knew it was only to provoke Leach, I would not let him come, and told the Lord President we had no causes for him to hear. He insisted, so did I, and he did not come; but some day I will invite him, and then he will have forgotten it or have something else to do, and he won’t come. He is a Jupiter-Scapin if ever there was one.

February 6th, 1831

Parliament met again on the 3rd, and the House of Commons exhibited a great array on the Opposition benches; nothing was done the first day but the announcement of the Reform measure for the 2nd of March, to be brought in by Lord John Russell in the House of Commons, though not a Cabinet Minister. The fact is that if a Cabinet Minister had introduced it, it must have been Althorp, and he is wholly unequal to it; he cannot speak at all, so that though the pretence is to pay a compliment to John Russell because he had on former occasions brought forward plans of Reform, it is really expedient to take the burden off the leader of the Government. The next night came on the Civil List, and as the last Government was turned out on this question, there had existed a general but vague expectation that some wonderful reductions were to be proposed by the new Chancellor of the Exchequer. Great, then, was the exultation of the Opposition when it was found that no reductions would be made, and that the measure of this Government only differed from that of the last in the separation of the King’s personal expenses from the other charges and a prospective reduction in the Pension List. There was not much of a debate. Althorp did it ill by all accounts; Graham spoke pretty well; and Calcraft, who could do nothing while in office, found all his energies when he got back to the Opposition benches, and made (everybody says) a capital speech. There is certainly a great disappointment that the Civil List does not produce some economical novelty, and to a certain degree the popularity THE CIVIL LIST. of the Government will be affected by it. But they have taken the manliest course, and the truth is the Duke of Wellington had already made all possible reductions, unless the King and the Government were at once to hang out the flag of poverty and change their whole system. After what Sefton had told me of the intentions of Government about the Pension List, and my reply to him, it was a satisfaction to me to find they could not act on such a principle; and accordingly Lord Althorp at once declared the opinion and intentions of Government about the Pensions, instead of abandoning them to the rage of the House of Commons. There is not even a surmise as to the intended measure of Reform, the secret of which is well kept, but I suspect the confidence of the Reformers will be shaken by their disappointment about the Civil List. It is by no means clear, be it what it may, that the Government will be able to carry it, for the Opposition promises to be very formidable in point of numbers; and in speaking the two parties are, as to the first class, pretty evenly divided—Palmerston, the Grants, Graham, Stanley, John Russell, on one side; Peel, Calcraft, Hardinge, Dawson, on the other; fewer in numbers, but Peel immeasurably the best on either side—but in the second line, and among the younger ones, the Opposition are far inferior.

February 9th, 1831

Just got into my new home—Poulett Thomson’s house, which I have taken for a year. The day before yesterday came the news that the French had refused the nomination of the Duc de Nemours to the throne of Belgium, the news of his being chosen having come on Sunday. The Ministers were rayonnants; Lord Lansdowne came to his office and told it me with prodigious glee.

Met with Sir J. Burke on Sunday at Brooks’s, who said that O’Connell was completely beaten by the address of the merchants and bankers, among whom were men—Mahon, for instance (O’Gorman Mahon’s uncle)—who had always stood by him. I do not believe he is completely beaten, and his resources for mischief are so great that he will rally again before long, I have little doubt. However, what has occurred has been productive of great good; it has elicited a strong Conservative demonstration, and proved that out of the rabbleocracy (for everything is in ocracy now) his power is anything but unlimited. There are 20,000 men in Ireland, so Lord Hill told me last night. Hunt[14] spoke for two hours last night; his manner and appearance very good, like a country gentleman of the old school, a sort of rural dignity about it, very civil, good-humoured, and respectful to the House, but dull; listened to, however, and very well received.

February 12th, 1831

The debate three nights ago on Ireland, brought on by O’Gorman Mahon, is said to have been the best that has been heard in the House of Commons for many years. Palmerston, Burdett, Althorp, Peel, Wyse, all made good speeches; it was spirited, statesmanlike, and creditable to the House, which wanted some such exhibition to raise its credit. I saw the day before yesterday a curious letter from Southey to Brougham, which some day or other will probably appear. Taylor showed it me. Brougham had written to him to ask him what his opinion was as to the encouragement that could be given to literature, by rewarding or honouring literary men, and suggested (I did not see his letter) that the Guelphic Order should be bestowed upon them. Southey’s reply was very courteous, but in a style of suppressed irony and forced politeness, and exhibited the marks of a chafed spirit, which was kept down by an effort. ‘You, my Lord, are now on the Conservative side,’ was one of his phrases, which implied that the Chancellor had not always been on that side. He suggested that it might be useful to establish a sort of lay fellowships; 10,000ℓ. would give 10 of 500ℓ. and 25 of 200ℓ.; but he proposed them not to reward the meritorious, but as a means of silencing or hiring the mischievous. It was evident, however, that he laid no stress on this plan, or considered it practicable, and only proposed it because he thought he must suggest something. He said that honours might be desirable to scientific men, as they were so considered on the Continent, and Newton and THE FIRST WHIG BUDGET. Davy had been titled, but for himself, if a Guelphic distinction was adopted, ‘he should be a Ghibelline.’ He ended by saying that all he asked for was a repeal of the Copyright Act which took from the families of literary men the only property they had to give them, and this ‘I ask for with the earnestness of one who is conscious that he has laboured for posterity.’ It is a remarkable letter.

February 13th, 1831

The Budget, which was brought forward two nights ago, has given great dissatisfaction; Goulburn attacked the taxation of the funds (half per cent. on transfer of stock and land) in the best speech he ever made, Peel in another good speech. The bankers assailed it one after another, and not a man on the Government side spoke decently. Great of course was the exultation of the Opposition, and it is supposed that this will be withdrawn and a Property Tax laid on instead. There is a meeting to-day in Downing Street, at which I suspect it will be announced. The Budget must appear hurried, and nothing but the circumstances in which they are placed could have justified their bringing it on so soon. In two months, besides having foreign affairs of the greatest consequence on their hands, they have concocted a Reform Bill and settled the finances of the nation for the next year, which is quite ludicrous; but they are obliged to have money voted immediately, that in case they should be beaten on Reform or any other vital question which may compel them to dissolve Parliament, they may have passed their estimates and be provided with funds. Their secrets are well kept—rather too well, for nobody knew of this Budget, and not a soul has a guess what their Reform is to be. At present nothing can cut a poorer figure than the Government does in the House of Commons, and they have shown how weak a Government a strong Opposition may make.

I have just been to hear Benson preach at the Temple, but I was so distant that I heard ill. His manner is impressive, and language good without being ambitious, but I was rather disappointed. Brougham was there, with Lord King of all people!

February 15th, 1831

Yesterday morning news came that O’Connell had withdrawn his plea of not guilty and (by his counsel, Mr. Perrin) pleaded guilty, to the unutterable astonishment of everybody, and not less delight. Sheil wrote word that his heart sank at the terror of a gaol, and ‘how would such a man face a battle, who could not encounter Newgate?’ Everybody’s impression was that it was a compromise with the law officers, and that he pleaded guilty on condition that he should not be brought up for judgment, but it was no such thing; he made in the preceding days several indirect overtures to Lord Anglesey, who would listen to nothing, and told him that after his conduct he could do nothing for him, and that he must take his own course. He comes to England directly, and will be brought up for judgment (if at all, which I doubt) next term. He gives out that he was forced to do this in order to hasten to England and repair in the House of Commons the errors of O’Gorman Mahon. There is no calculating what may be the extent of the credulity of an Irish mob with regard to him, but after all his bullies and bravadoes this will hardly go down even with them. Sheil says ‘O’Connell is fallen indeed.’ I trust, though hardly dare hope, that ‘he sinks like stars that fall to rise no more.’ It is impossible to form an idea of the astonishment of everybody at this termination of the law proceedings, which have ended so triumphantly for Lord Anglesey and Plunket. Lord Anglesey, however, wrote word to Lady Anglesey that no one could form an idea of the state of that country: that fresh plots were discovered every day, that from circumstances he had been able to do more than another man would, but that it was not, he firmly believed, possible to save it.

There was a meeting at Althorp’s on Sunday, when he agreed to withdraw the Transfer Tax, and that there should be no Property Tax. A more miserable figure was never cut than his; but how should it be otherwise? A respectable country gentleman, well versed in rural administration, in farming and sporting, with all the integrity of 15,000ℓ. a year in possession and 50,000ℓ. in reversion, is all of a sudden LORD ALTHORP’S BUDGET. made leader in the House of Commons without being able to speak, and Chancellor of the Exchequer without any knowledge, theoretical or practical, of finance. By way of being discreet, and that his plan may be a secret, he consults nobody; and then he closets himself with his familiar Poulett Thomson, who puts this notable scheme into his head, and out he blurts it in the House of Commons, without an idea how it will be received, without making either preparations for defending it or for an alternative in case of its rejection. If Althorp and Poulett Thomson are to govern England, these things are likely to happen. The Opposition cannot contain themselves; the women think they are to come in directly. Goulburn said to Baring as they left the House on Friday, ‘Mr. Baring, you said last year you thought my Budget was the most profligate that any Chancellor of the Exchequer had ever brought forward; I think you will now no longer say it was the most profligate.’ Last night Praed[15] made his first speech, which was very good.

February 17th, 1831

The day before yesterday Duncannon called on me, and told me O’Connell had got up an opposition to him in Kilkenny; that he was of opinion that the recent events would diminish neither his power nor his popularity, and that in fact he was infallible with the Irish mob. As Richard says, ‘if this have no effect, he is immortal.’

The Duke of Wellington called on my family yesterday; he says the Reform question will not be carried, and he thinks the Government cannot stand, that things are certainly better (internally), and that the great fear is lest people should be too much afraid.

Went to Lady Dudley Stewart’s last night; a party; saw a vulgar-looking, fat man with spectacles, and a mincing, rather pretty pink and white woman, his wife. The man was Napoleon’s nephew, the woman Washington’s granddaughter. What a host of associations, all confused and degraded! He is a son of Murat, the King of Naples, who was said to be ‘le dieu Mars jusqu’à six heures du soir.’ He was heir to a throne, and is now a lawyer in the United States, and his wife, whose name I know not, Sandon told me, was Washington’s granddaughter. (This must be a mistake, for I think Washington never had any children.)[16]

February 24th, 1831

At Newmarket for three days, from Saturday till Tuesday; riding out at eight o’clock every morning and inhaling salubrious air. Came back the night before last and found matters in a strange state. The Government, strong in the House of Lords (which is a secondary consideration), is weak in the House of Commons to a degree which is contemptible and ridiculous. Even Sefton now confesses that Althorp is wretched. There he is leading the House of Commons without the slightest acquaintance with the various subjects that come under discussion, and hardly able to speak at all; not one of the Ministers exhibits anything like vigour, ability, or discretion. As Althorp cannot speak, Graham is obliged to talk, or thinks he is, and, as I predicted, he is failing;[17] with some cleverness and plenty of fluency, he is unequal to the situation he is placed in, and his difference with Grant the other night and his apology to O’Gorman Mahon have been prejudicial to the Government and to his own character. The exultation of the Opposition is unbounded, and Peel plays with his power in the House, only not putting it forth because it does not suit his convenience; but he does what he likes, and it is evident that the very existence of the Government depends upon his pleasure. His game, however, is to display candour and moderation, and rather to protect them than not, so he defends many of their measures and restrains the fierce animosity of his friends, but with a sort of sarcastic civility, which, while it is put forth in their defence, is WEAKNESS OF THE GOVERNMENT. always done in such a manner as shall best exhibit his own authority and his contempt for their persons individually. While he upholds the Government he does all he can to bring each member of it into contempt, and there they are, helpless and confused, writhing under his lash and their own impotence, and only intent upon staving off a division which would show the world how feeble they are. Neither the late nor any other Government ever cut so poor a figure as this does. Palmerston does nothing, Grant does worse, Graham does no good, Althorp a great deal of harm; Stanley alone has distinguished himself, and what he has had to do has done very well. It is not, however, only in the House of Commons that the Government are in such discredit; the Budget did their business in the City, and alienated the trading interest. It is a curious circumstance that both Goulburn and Herries have been beset by deputations and individual applications for advice and assistance nearly as much since they left office as when they were in it by merchants and others, who complain to them that it was quite useless to go to Lord Althorp, for they find that he has not the slightest acquaintance with any of the subjects and interests on which they addressed themselves to him, and one man told Herries this, at the same time owning that he was a Whig in principle, and had been an opponent of the late and a supporter of the present Government. The press generally are falling off from the Government, which is an ominous sign. While the Government is thus weak and powerless the elements of confusion and violence are gathering fresh force, and without any fixed and loyal authority to check them will pursue their eccentric course till some public commotion arrives, or till the Conservative resources of the country are called into action and the antagonistic principles are fairly brought to trial.

The King went to the play the night before last; was well received in the house, but hooted and pelted coming home, and a stone shivered a window of his coach and fell into Prince George of Cumberland’s lap. The King was excessively annoyed, and sent for Baring, who was the officer riding by his coach, and asked him if he knew who had thrown the stone; he said that it terrified the Queen, and ‘was very disagreeable, as he should always be going somewhere.’

In the House of Commons Committee on the Parliament Offices they are making the whole thing ridiculous by the sort of reductions they suggest. Hume proposed to cut down the President of the Council to 1,000ℓ. a year, on which Stormont moved he should have nothing, and this (which was intended to ridicule Hume’s proposal) was carried, but will probably be rescinded. There is no directing power anywhere, and the sort of anarchy that is fast increasing must beget confusion. Nobody has the least idea how reform will go, or of the nature of what they mean to propose, but the King said to Cecil Forrester yesterday, who went to resign his office of Groom of the Bedchamber, ‘Why do you resign?’ He said he could not support Government or vote for Reform. ‘Well, but you don’t know what it is, and you might have waited till it came on, for it probably will not be carried;’ and this he repeated twice. Lord Durham has volunteered to give up his salary as Privy Seal, which is no great sacrifice, considering how long he is likely to enjoy it, and everybody gives him credit for having suggested the relief to coals for his own interest. Lady Holland, who has got a West Indian estate, attacked him about the sugar duties, and asked him if they would not reduce them. He said ‘No.’ She retorted, ‘That is because you have no West Indian estate; you have got your own job about coals done, and you don’t care about us.’ In the House of Lords they have it all their own way. The other night, on Lord Strangford’s motion about the Methuen treaty, Brougham exhibited his wonderful powers in his very best style. Without any preparation for the question, and after it had been exhausted in a very good speech of Goderich’s, he got up, and in answer to Strangford and Ellenborough banged their heads together, and displayed all his power of ridicule, sarcasm, and argument in a manner which they could not themselves help admiring. The next night he brought forward his Chancery LADY JERSEY AND LORD DURHAM. Reform measure in a speech of three hours, which, however luminous, was too long for their Lordships, and before the end of it the House had melted away to nothing. But, notwithstanding this success, he must inwardly chafe at being removed from his natural element and proper sphere of action, and he must burn with vexation at seeing Peel riot and revel in his unopposed power, like Hector when Achilles would not fight, though this Achilles can never fight again, but he would give a great deal to go back to the field, and would require much less persuasion than Achilles did.

February 25th, 1831

A drawing-room yesterday, at which the Princess Victoria made her first appearance. I was not there. Lady Jersey made a scene with Lord Durham. She got up and crossed the room to him and said, ‘Lord Durham, I hear that you have said things about me which are not true, and I desire that you will call upon me to-morrow with a witness to hear my positive denial, and I beg that you will not repeat any such things about me,’ or, as the Irishman said, ‘words to that effect.’ She was in a fury, and he, I suppose, in a still greater. He muttered that he should never set foot in her house again, which she did not hear, as after delivering herself of her speech she flounced back again to her seat, mighty proud of the exploit. It arose out of his saying that he should make Lady Durham demand an audience of the Queen to contradict the things Lady Jersey had said of her and the other Whig ladies.

I saw Lady Jersey last night and had a long conversation with her about her squabbles. She declares solemnly (and I believe it) that she never said a syllable to the Queen against her quondam friends, owns she abused Sefton to other people, cried, and talked, and the end was that I am to try to put an end to these tracasseries. She was mighty glorious about her sortie upon Lambton, whom she dislikes, but she is vexed at the hornets’ nest she has brought round her head. All this comes of talking. The wisest man mentioned in history was the vagrant in the Tuileries Gardens some years ago, who walked about with a gag on, and when taken up by the police and questioned why he went about in that guise, he said he was imprudent, and that he might not say anything to get himself into jeopardy he had adopted this precaution. I wonder what Lambton would say now about appointing others instead of Palmerston and Co. if they should go out, which he talked of as such an easy and indifferent matter. What arrogance and folly there is in the world! I don’t know how long this will last, but it must end in Peel’s being Prime Minister. What a foolish proverb that is that ‘honesty is the best policy!’

I am just come home from breakfasting with Henry Taylor to meet Wordsworth; the same party as when he had Southey—Mill, Elliot, Charles Villiers. Wordsworth may be bordering on sixty; hard-featured, brown, wrinkled, with prominent teeth and a few scattered grey hairs, but nevertheless not a disagreeable countenance; and very cheerful, merry, courteous, and talkative, much more so than I should have expected from the grave and didactic character of his writings. He held forth on poetry, painting, politics, and metaphysics, and with a great deal of eloquence; he is more conversible and with a greater flow of animal spirits than Southey. He mentioned that he never wrote down as he composed, but composed walking, riding, or in bed, and wrote down after; that Southey always composes at his desk. He talked a great deal of Brougham, whose talents and domestic virtues he greatly admires; that he was very generous and affectionate in his disposition, full of duty and attention to his mother, and had adopted and provided for a whole family of his brother’s children, and treats his wife’s children as if they were his own. He insisted upon taking them both with him to the drawing-room the other day when he went in state as Chancellor. They remonstrated with him, but in vain.