Chapter XVIII · (continued 2)

August 8th, 1832

Pedro’s expedition, which always has hobbled along, and never exhibited any of that dash which is essential to the success of such efforts, may be considered hopeless; Palmella arrived here a day or two ago, very low, and the Regency scrip has fallen four per cent. Nobody joins them, and it seems pretty clear that, one coquin for another, the Portuguese think they may as well have Miguel. The Dutch affair is not yet settled, but on the point of it; for the fiftieth time a ‘little hitch’ has again arisen. Last night, in the House of Lords, the Chancellor, in one of his most bungling ways, made what he meant to be a sort of amende to Sugden, making the matter rather worse than it was before, at least for his own credit, for he said that ‘he had never intended to give pain, which he of all things abhorred,’ and that he had not been at all in a passion—both false, and the latter being in fact his only excuse. I sat next to Melbourne at dinner, who concurred in the judgment of the world on the whole transaction, and said, ‘The real truth is, he was in a great rage, for he had forgotten all his own evidence and his own speeches, and he meant to have kept the place.’ This evidence from his own colleague and friend is conclusive, and will be a nice morsel for the future biographer of Brougham.

I dined at Holland House yesterday; a good many people, and the Chancellor came in after dinner, looking like an old clothes man and dirty as the ground. We had a true Holland House dinner, two more people arriving (Melbourne and Tom Duncombe) than there was room for, so that Lady Holland had the pleasure of a couple of general squeezes, and of seeing our arms prettily pinioned. Lord Holland sits at table, but does not dine. He proposed to retire (not from the room), but was not allowed, for that would have given us all space and ease. Lord Holland told some stories of Johnson and Garrick which he had heard from Kemble. Johnson loved to bully Garrick, from a recollection of Garrick’s former impertinence. When Garrick was in the zenith of his popularity, and grown rich, and lived with the great, and while Johnson was yet obscure, the Doctor used to drink tea with him, and he would say, ‘Davy, I do not envy you your money nor your fine acquaintance, but I envy you your power of drinking such tea as this.’ ‘Yes,’ said Garrick, ‘it is very good tea, but it is not my best, nor that which I give to my Lord this and Sir somebody t’other.’

Johnson liked Fox because he defended his pension, and said it was only to blame in not being large enough. CHARACTER OF MACAULAY. ‘Fox,’ he said, ‘is a liberal man; he would always be “aut Cæsar aut nullus;” whenever I have seen him he has been nullus.’ Lord Holland said Fox made it a rule never to talk in Johnson’s presence, because he knew all his conversations were recorded for publication, and he did not choose to figure in them.

August 12th, 1832

The House of Commons has finished (or nearly) its business. Althorp ended with a blunder. He brought in a Bill to extend the time for payment of rates and for voters under the new Bill, and because it was opposed he abandoned it suddenly; his friends are disgusted. Robarts told me that the Bank Committee had executed their laborious duties in a spirit of great cordiality, and with a general disposition to lay aside all political differences and concur in accomplishing the best results; a good thing, for it is in such transactions as these, which afford an opportunity for laying aside the bitterness of party and the rancorous feelings which animate men against each other, that the only chance can be found of a future amalgamation of public men. He told me that the evidence all went to prove that little improvement could be made in the management of the Bank.

Dined yesterday at Holland House; the Chancellor, Lord Grey, Luttrell, Palmerston, and Macaulay. The Chancellor was sleepy and would not talk; he uttered nothing but yawns and grunts. Macaulay and Allen disputed history, particularly the character of the Emperor Frederick II., and Allen declared himself a Guelph and Macaulay a Ghibelline. Macaulay is a most extraordinary man, and his astonishing knowledge is every moment exhibited, but (as far as I have yet seen of him, which is not sufficient to judge) he is not agreeable. His propositions and his allusions are rather too abrupt; he starts topics not altogether naturally; then he has none of the graces of conversation, none of that exquisite tact and refinement which are the result of a felicitous intuition or a long acquaintance with good society, or more probably a mixture of both. The mighty mass of his knowledge is not animated by that subtle spirit of taste and discretion which alone can give it the qualities of lightness and elasticity, and without which, though he may have the power of instructing and astonishing, he never will attain that of delighting and captivating his hearers. The dinner was agreeable, and enlivened by a squabble between Lady Holland and Allen, at which we were all ready to die of laughing. He jeered at something she said as brutal, and chuckled at his own wit.

Shepperton, August 31st, 1832

I came here last Sunday to see my father, who (my mother wrote me word) had been unwell for a day or two. I got here at four o’clock (having called on Madame de Lieven at Richmond on the way), and when I arrived I found my father at the point of death. He was attacked as he had often been before; medicines afforded him no relief, and nothing would stay on his stomach. On Saturday violent spasms came on, which occasioned him dreadful pain; they continued intermittingly till Sunday afternoon, when as they took him out of bed to put him in a warm bath, he fainted. From this state of insensibility he never recovered, and at half-past twelve o’clock he expired. My brothers were both here. I sent an express for my sister, who was at Malvern, and she arrived on Tuesday morning. Dr. Dowdeswell was in the house, and he stayed on with us and did all that was required. This morning he was buried in the church of this village, close to the house, in the simplest manner, and was followed to the grave by my brothers and brother-in-law, Dowdeswell, Ives, the doctor who attended him, and the servants. He had long been ailing, and at his age (nearly 70 years) this event was not extraordinary, but it was shocking, because so sudden and unexpected, and no idea of danger was entertained by himself or those about him. My father had some faults and many foibles, but he was exposed to great disadvantages in early youth; his education was neglected and his disposition was spoilt. His father was useless, and worse than useless, as a parent, and his mother (a woman of extraordinary capacity and merit) died while he was a young man, having been previously separated from her husband, and having ANECDOTES OF PRINCESS CHARLOTTE. retired from the world.[11] The circumstances of his marriage, and the incidents of his life, would be interesting to none but his own family, and need not be recorded by me. He was a man of a kind, amiable, and liberal disposition, and what is remarkable, as he advanced in years his temper grew less irritable and more indulgent; he was cheerful, hospitable, and unselfish. He had at all times been a lively companion, and without much instruction, extensive information, or a vigorous understanding, his knowledge of the world in the midst of which he had passed his life, his taste and turn for humour, and his good-nature made him a very agreeable man. He had a few intimate friends to whom he was warmly attached, a host of acquaintance, and I do not know that he had a single enemy. He was an affectionate father, and ready to make any sacrifices for the happiness and welfare of his children—in short, he was amiable and blameless in the various relations of life, and he deserved that his memory should be cherished as it is by us with sincere and affectionate regret.

September 18th, 1832

I have been in London, at Shepperton, and twice at Brighton to see Henry de Ros; came back yesterday. The world is half asleep. Lord Howe returns to the Queen as her Chamberlain, and that makes a sensation. I met at Brighton Lady Keith [Madame de Flahaut], who told us a great deal about French politics, which, as she is a partisan, was not worth much, but she also gave us rather an amusing account of the early days of the Princess Charlotte, at the time of her escape from Warwick House in a hackney coach and taking refuge with her mother, and of the earlier affair of Captain Hess. The former escapade arose from her determination to break off her marriage with the Prince of Orange, and that from her falling suddenly in love with Prince Augustus of Prussia, and her resolving to marry him and nobody else, not knowing that he was already married de la main gauche in Prussia. It seems that she speedily made known her sentiments to the Prince, and he (notwithstanding his marriage) followed the thing up, and had two interviews with her at her own house, which were contrived by Miss Knight, her governess. During one of these Miss Mercer arrived, and Miss Knight told her that Prince Augustus was with the Princess in her room, and what a fright she (Miss Knight) was in. Miss Mercer, who evidently had no mind anybody should conduct such an affair for the Princess but herself, pressed Miss Knight to go and interrupt them, which on her declining she did herself. The King (Regent as he was then) somehow heard of these meetings, and measures of coercion were threatened, and it was just when an approaching visit from him had been announced to the Princess that she went off. Miss Mercer was in the house at the time, and the Regent, when he came, found her there. He accused her of being a party to the Princess’s flight, but afterwards either did or pretended to believe her denial, and sent her to fetch the Princess back, which after many pourparlers and the intervention of the Dukes of York and Sussex, Brougham, and the Bishop of Salisbury, her preceptor, was accomplished at two in the morning.

Hess’s affair was an atrocity of the Princess of Wales. She employed him to convey letters to her daughter while she used to ride in Windsor Park, which he contrived to deliver, and occasionally to converse with her; and on one occasion, at Kensington, the Princess of Wales brought them together in her own room. The Princess afterwards wrote him some letters, not containing much harm, but idle and improper. When the Duke of York’s affair with Mrs. Clark came out, and all the correspondence, she became very much alarmed, told Miss Mercer the whole story, and employed her to get back her letters to Hess. She accordingly wrote to Hess (who was then in Spain), but he evinced a disinclination to give them up. On his return to England she saw him, and on his still demurring she threatened to put the affair into the Duke of York’s hands, which frightened him, and then he surrendered them, and signed a paper declaring BELGIUM, SPAIN, FRANCE. he had given up everything. The King afterwards heard of this affair, and questioning the Princess, she told him everything. He sent for Miss Mercer, and desired to see the letters, and then to keep them. This she refused. This Captain Hess was a short, plump, vulgar-looking man, afterwards lover to the Queen of Naples, mother of the present King, an amour that was carried on under the auspices of the Margravine at her villa in the Strada Nova at Naples. It was, however, detected, and Hess was sent away from Naples, and never allowed to return. I remember finding him at Turin (married), when he was lamenting his hard fate in being excluded from that Paradiso Naples.

September 28th, 1832

At Stoke from the 22nd to the 26th, then to the Grove, and returned yesterday; at the former place Madame de Lieven, Alvanley, Melbourne; tolerably pleasant; question of war again. The Dutch King makes a stir, and threatens to bombard the town of Antwerp; the French offered to march, and put their troops in motion, but Leopold begged they would not, and chose rather to await the effect of more conferences, which began with great vigour a few days ago. What they find to say to each other for eight or ten hours a day for several consecutive days it is hard to guess, as the question is of the simplest kind. The King of Holland will not give up the citadel of Antwerp, nor consent to the free navigation of the Scheldt; the Belgians insist on these concessions; the Conference says they shall be granted, but Russia, Prussia, and Austria will not coerce the Dutchman; England and France will, if the others don’t object. A French army is in motion, and a French fleet is off Spithead; so probably something will come of it. Nothing has damaged this Government more than these protracted and abortive conferences.

Four days ago there was a report that the King of Spain was dead, accompanied with a good many particulars, and all the world began speculating as to the succession, but yesterday came news that he was not dead, but better. Pedro and Miguel are fighting at Oporto with some appearance of spirit; Miguel is the favourite. The French Government is represented to be in a wretched state, squabbling and feeble, and nobody is inclined to be Minister. Dupin was very near it, but refused because Louis Philippe would not make him President of the Council. The King is determined to be his own Minister, and can get nobody to take office on these terms. They think it will end in Dupin. The present Government declares it cannot meet the Chambers until Antwerp is evacuated by the Dutch and the Duchesse de Berri departed out of France or taken. This heroine, much to the annoyance of her family, is dodging about in La Vendée and doing rather harm than good to her cause. The Dauphiness passed through London, when our Queen very politely went to visit her. She has not a shadow of doubt of the restoration of her nephew, and thinks nothing questionable but the time. She told Madame de Lieven this. I talked to Madame de Lieven about war, and added that if any did break out it would be the war of opinion which Canning had predicted. She said yes, and that the monarchical principle (as she calls the absolute principle) would then crush the other.

I came up with Melbourne to London. He is uneasy about the state of the country—about the desire for change and the general restlessness that prevails. We discussed the different members of the Government, and he agreed that John Russell had acted unwarrantably in making the speech he did the other day at Torquay about the Ballot, which, though hypothetical, was nothing but an invitation to the advocates of Ballot to agitate for it; this, too, from a Cabinet Minister! Then comes an awkward sort of explanation, that what he said was in his individual capacity, as if he had any right so to speak. Melbourne spoke of Brougham, who he said was tossed about in perpetual caprices, that he was fanciful and sensitive, and actuated by all sorts of littlenesses, even with regard to people so insignificant that it is difficult to conceive how he can ever think about them; that he is conservative, but under the influence of his old connexions, particularly of the Saints. His friends are so often changed that it is not easy to follow him in this respect. CONVERSATION WITH LORD MELBOURNE. Durham used to be one; now he hates him; he has a high opinion of Sefton! of his judgment!! What is talent, what are great abilities, when one sees the gigantic intellect of Brougham so at fault? Not only does the world manage to go on when little wisdom guides it, but how ill it may go on with a great deal of talent, which, however, is different from wisdom. He asked me what I thought of Richmond, and I told him that he was ignorant and narrow-minded, but a good sort of fellow, only appearing to me, who had known him all my life, in an odd place as a Cabinet Minister. He said he was sharp, quick, the King liked him, and he stood up to Durham more than any other man in the Cabinet, and that altogether he was not unimportant; so that the ingredients of this Cabinet seem to be put there to neutralise one another, and to be good for nothing else; because Durham has an overbearing temper, and his father-in-law is weak, there must be a man without any other merit than spirit to curb that temper. He talked of Ireland, and the difficulty of settling the question there, that the Archbishop of Canterbury was willing to reform the Church, but not to alienate any of its revenues. ‘Not,’ I asked, ‘for the payment of a Catholic clergy?’ ‘No, not from Protestant uses.’ I told him there was nothing to be done but to pull down the edifice and rebuild it. He said you would have all the Protestants against you, but he did not appear to differ. To this things must come at last. Melbourne is exceedingly anxious to keep Lord Hill and Fitzroy Somerset at the head of the army, from which the violent of his party would gladly oust them, but he evidently contemplates the possibility of having occasion for the army, and does not wish to tamper with the service or play any tricks with it. It is curious to see the working and counterworking of his real opinions and principles with his false position, and the mixture of bluntness, facility and shrewdness, discretion, levity and seriousness, which, colouring his mind and character by turns, make up the strange compound of his thoughts and his actions.