for being so long about it, and leaving a | tion of a lord mayor without his furred safe throne to his more conscientious robe, gold chain, and other ensigns of brother, who bartered it for a Mass. his dignity.

It is almost superfluous to add that, whilst indicating the causes which have happily prevented preceding monarchs Greville was obviously prone to confrom weakening monarchy by their ex-found what he himself said in the course travagance or their eccentricity, we are of conversation with what was said by not blind to the vast increase of strength others, and to mistake a partial agreeit has acquired from a reign like the pres- ment, or a courteous non-denial, for unent, in which the domestic virtues of the equivocal assent. Lord Melbourne may sovereign have been no less eminent than have regretted the loss of the rotten borher enlightened appreciation and observ-oughs, whilst convinced of the impossi ance of the true spirit of our institutions. bility of retaining them. Every sane poliGreville speaks in the same dispara- tician must have felt that it had become ging manner of the great landed aristoc-impossible. Even Canning, their most racy; admitting all the while that they eloquent advocate, must have given them up in 1832.

It is a pity he did not peep into the dining-room to see if covers were laid for two.

Stanley (not the ex-secretary, but the undersecretary) told me last night an anecdote of Melbourne which I can very easily believe. When the king sent for him he told Young "he thought it a damned bore, and that he was in many minds what he should do-be minister or no." Young said, "Why, damn it, such a position never was occupied by any Greek or Roman, and, if it only lasts two months, it is well worth while to have been prime minister of England." "By God, that's true," said Melbourne; "I'll go." 5, Young is his private secretary-a vulgar, familiar, impudent fellow, but of indefatigable industry, and a man who suits Melbourne.

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Lord Grey had formerly declared in r812, that he would be no party to any government which was not formed on the principle of carrying Catholic emancipation.* Canning's government was formed on the neutral or open-question principle, like Lord Liverpool's. The junction with Peel would have confirmed Lord Grey's objections instead of removing them, and to assert that he contended for it is absurd.

What induced him to alter his opinion so decidedly and to become so bitter an enemy to the present arrangements does not appear, unless it is to be attributed to a feeling of pique and resentment at not having been more consulted, or that overtures were not made to himself. The pretext he took for declaring himself was the appointment of Copley to be chancellor, when he said that it was impossiTom Young's manner to-ble to support a government which had made such an appointment.

Lord Melbourne, careless and frank, had a high-bred air which repelled undue familiarity. wards him was invariably respectful: rather that of an upper servant than of an equal or of an intimate member of his society, which, indeed, Young never was. His business was to make himself generally useful. The style of the remonstrance, too, is entirely out of keeping with the character. Greeks and Romans were not at all in Young's line. He began life as a purser; and Greville says he was a writer and runner for the newspapers, which is only half true. He was a runner, not a writer.*

The only statesman or public man of note whom Greville does not systematically depreciate is Canning, a connection through the Bentincks; and the refusal to join Canning was, we fancy, at the bottom of his persistent hostility to Lord Grey.

June 17th, 1827.- Lord Grey is in such a state of irritation that he will hardly speak to any of his old friends, and he declares that he will never set his foot in Brookes's again.

This is sheer fabrication.

More than this, (continues Greville,) when it was the unanimous opinion of all the Whigs who joined Canning, that they could not join an administration of which Peel formed part, this opinion was warmly combated by Lord Grey, who contended that there was no reason why they should not coalesce with Canning and Peel.

Lord Houghton says in his "Monograph of Sydney Smith: "He was, indeed, not given to severe censure, but could convey it under light words when he chose; thus, when he checked the strong old-fashioned freedom of speech in Lord Melbourne, by suggesting that they should assume everything and everybody to be damned and come to the subject." Sydney Smith never addressed Lord Melbourne in this fashion. LIVING AGE. VOL. IX. 450

He could not alter an opinion he never entertained: and he had no need of a pretext for acting on his known and frequently declared views. He, moreover, had distrusted Canning since 1806.

third week of the Reform administra-
We pass on to December 12, 1830, the
tion; when, after expressing his convic-
tion that a more overrated man than the
new premier never lived: that he was
influenced by pride, still more by vanity,
that "anybody who is constantly with him,
caprice, and "a thousand weaknesses:
and can avail themselves of his vanity,
(Lord Durham) is all in all with him"
can govern him;" that “ now Lambton
Greville proceeds:

Everybody remembers how Lord Grey refused to lead the Whig party when Canning formed his junction with the Whigs, and declared that he abdicated in favour of Lord Lansdowne; and then how he came and made that violent speech against Canning which half killed him with vexation, and in consequence of which he meant to have moved into the House of Lords for the express purpose of attacking Lord Grey. quarrelled with his old Whig friends he began Then when he had to approach the Tories, the object of his constant aversion and contempt; and we knew what civilities passed between the Bathursts and him, and what political coquetries between him and the Duke of Wellington, and how he believed that it was only George IV. who prevented his being invited by the duke to join him. William succeeds; no invitation to Lord Then George IV. dies, King

of York, dated Feb. 15, 1812, published in the appendix Letters of Lords Grey and Grenville to the Duke to "The Life and Opinions of Charles, second Earl Grey;" by his son, General Grey.

Grey, and he plunges into furious opposition, and he had been praising her beauty; so when to the duke.

Here again is a mass of misstatement. with the exception of what relates to the speech against Canning and its effects. Any one would suppose that the Whigs went over in a body to Canning; the fact being that Lord Althorpe, Lord Folkestone, Lord Howick, Sir John Hobhouse, and several others, stood aloof with Lord Grey, who was not required to abdicate. If he did abdicate, when and why did he resume the leadership?

we all met there I presented him, and very soon all his antipathies ceased, and he and Lyndhurst became great friends. This was the cause of Lady Lyndhurst's partiality for the Whigs, which enraged the Tory ladies and some of their lords so much, but which served her turn and enabled her to keep two hot irons in the fire. When the duke went out Lord Grey was very anxious to keep Lyndhurst as his chancellor, and would have done so if it Reform in terrorem over his head, announced had not been for Brougham, who, whirling to him that it must not be.

If Lord Lyndhurst had consented to be Lord Grey's chancellor he must have adopted Lord Grey's views and become a Reformer, which, by the way, he might have become without more sacrifice of principle than three or four members of Lord Grey's cabinet who had been as vehement anti-Reformers as himself. It seems agreed on all hands that no offer was actually made to him, and the notion that he would have accepted it, has no better foundation than the language and conduct of his wife.* Except when he acted with the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel, there is no act of Lord Lyndhurst's public or political life that can be fairly adduced in impeachment of his consistency.

After the lamentable break-up of Lord Goderich's government, Lord Grey saw no prospect of any but the duke's, and was, therefore, unwilling to oppose it, until the duke crossed the Rubicon by his memorable declaration against Reform. This, not the death of George IV., was the turning-point. We have the best authority for stating, as matter of fact, that Lord Grey never contemplated joining the duke at any time: that no political coquetries passed between them, and that no advance towards a junction was ever made on either side; although it is just possible that feelers may have been put forth by the duke's friends. As matter of probability or speculation, if Lord Grey was not only ready to give up the proud position he occupied as leader of the Whig party, but eager to join the Duke of Wellington after refusing to support Canning, all we can say is, he must have been smitten with political Lord Grey is to be with the king this mornblindness of the most unaccountable ing. He was riding quietly in the park yeskind. The grand opportunity for which he had patiently waited was obviously at hand; the Tories were getting weaker and weaker; the Reform cry was in the wind; and this is the time when, towards the close of a consistent and honourable career, he was willing (we are assured) to fling principle and consistency to the winds, to coalesce with the objects of his "constant aversion and contempt." There is not, we repeat, the semblance of plausibility in these charges against Lord Grey, nor are they strengthened by

what comes next:

About three years ago the chancellor, Lyndhurst, was the man in the world he abhorred the most; and it was about this time that I well recollect one night at Madame de Lieven's I introduced Lord Grey to Lady Lyndhurst. We had dined together somewhere,

Mr. Frankland Lewis (we have heard) sounded Lord Grey and reported that some measure of reform was a sine quâ non. The duke had taken his ground on reform when he broke with Huskisson.

On April 9th, 1835, the day after Peel's ministry had resigned, Greville sets down:

terday afternoon, and neither knew nor cared (apparently) whether he had been sent for or not. His daughter told me (for I rode with them up Constitution Hill) that his family would not wish him to return to office, but would not interfere. She then talked, much to my surprise, of the possibility of a junction between him and Peel.

incident. Lord Grey advised the king to The daughter has no recollection of the send for Lord Melbourne: all thought of his own return to office had been given up, and nothing of the sort could have

been said.

"Sept. 24th, 1831.-Dined at Richmond or Friday, with the Lyndhursts. The mari talks against the bill; the woman for it. They are like the old div sions of families in the Civil Wars." This was Lord Lyndhurst's first wife, who died in January, 1834His second wife, whom he married in August, 1837, a woman of sense and spirit, always looked up to him with reverential affection, and, from her devotion to his memory, no one has been more severely wounded by this book. She, like her lamented husband, was one of Greville's most intimate friends, and conversed with him on the subject of his journal a few hours before his death.

Joseph Hume's line, but ornamented it with graces and flourishes which had not usually He succeeded, decorated such dry topics.

and in that line is now the best speaker in the

Whatever Greville's judgment may have become eventually, no reliance could be placed upon it during most of the time included in this publication. He had no insight into character. He saw little or Lothing in many of his most distinguished Why is the term "inconsiderable" apcontemporaries until their eminent qual-plied to such a man? This is explained ities were recognized by the world. Turn, in the same entry:

House.

of all. He was once my friend, a college intimacy revived in the world, and which lasted six months, when, thinking he could do better, he cut me, as he had done others before. I am not a fair judge of him, because the pique which his conduct to me naturally gave me would induce me to underrate him, but I take vanity and self-sufficiency to be prominent features of his character, though of the extent of his capacity I will give no opinion. Let time show; I think he will fail.

for example, to his first impressions of Graham's elevation is the most monstrous Prince Leopold (the king of the Belgians), Lord Auckland, Lord Palmerston, Sir James Graham, the late Earl of Derby, Lord Melbourne, the Duke of Wellington, &c. Although he saw fit to change or modify these impressions before he died, and has left notes or memoranda to that effect, they are not the less a test of his original powers of observation; nor can we accept them as what the editor calls "a contemporary record of opinion, honestly preserved." They are the opin- If confessedly not a fair judge, why ions of a cross-grained individual who not withhold a judgment? The odd thing differed widely from his contemporaries, about Greville is, that self-examination and (except perhaps when the progress of never acts on him as it does on most a master-mind, a really superior intellect, others. It exercises no restraining, imis to be traced) we see no use in preserv-proving influence on his conduct or his ing the opinions of an individual when he mind. He is like one of the frail dévotes, was confessedly wrong.* of whom we read in Catholic countries, who confess, receive absolution, and start fresh.

On the formation of Lord Grey's government, November 20, 1830, he sets down:

Auckland Board of Trade all bad. The

Graham Admiralty, Melbourne Home, second is too idle, the first is too inconsider able, the third is too ignorant.

The editor remarks in a note : —

This is a remarkable instance of the manner

in which the prognostications of the most acute observers are falsified by events. The value of Mr. Greville's remarks on the men of his time consists not in their absolute truth, but in their sincerity at the moment at which they were made. They convey a correct impression of the notion prevailing at that time.

They do not convey a correct impression of the notion prevailing at that time. We can show from the journal that they do not. Three weeks afterwards (December 12), reviewing Graham's career, he

Reverting to Lord Melbourne, he says: “He has surprised all those about him by a sudden display of activity, vigour, rapid and diligent transaction of business, for which nobody was prepared." No one who understood Lord Melbourne was surprised, and all who saw below the surface would have agreed with Sydney Smith when, after avowing a belief that "our viscount is somewhat of an impostor," he remarks: "I am sorry to hurt any man's feelings, and to brush away the magnificent fabric of levity and gaiety he has reared; but I accuse our minister of honesty and diligence."

Assuming that Greville's estimates, Confessedly superficial and unsound, convey the popular impression of the time, this would prove him an accurate foolometer at best. A collection of vulgar errors may have its uses, but the praise of a "most accurate observer" can hardly be claimed for the collector who believes in each of them till it is corrected by

events.*

If Greville's estimate of the Reform ministry had been correct, they must have speedily broken down from sheer incapacity. He says of the Duke of Richmond, that "his understanding lies in a nutshell, and his information in a pin's head;" of Stanley, the late Earl of Derby, the political Rupert, that "he does not appear to be a man of much moral or political firmness and courage, a timid politician, ignavus adversum lu

532

With the exception of Lord Grey, the fact. Then comes the broad general constatesman whom Greville most persever-clusion, which is to annihilate Sir Robingly vituperates is Peel:

ert:

December 15th, 1836. It is very true (what I am not sure that I have stated these octhey say Peel said of him, the Duke of W.) currences exactly as they were told me. There that no man ever had any influence with him, may be errors in the order of the interviews only women, and those always the silliest. and pourparlers, and in the verbal details, but But who are Peel's confidants, friends, and the substance is correct, and may be summed parasites? Bonham, a stock-jobbing ex-mer-up to this effect: that Peel, full of ambition, chant, Charles Ross, and the refuse of society but of caution, animated by deep dislike and of the House of Commons. jealousy of the duke (which policy induced him to conceal, but which temper betrayed), thought to make Manners-Sutton play the part he fancied that he could gain in political char of Addington, while he was to be another Pitt;

Peel was constantly on the look-out for rising men of talent, who became his attached followers and friends. The late Duke of Newcastle, the late Lord Her-acter, by an opposite line of conduct, all that bert of Lea, Mr. Gladstone, and Lord Cardwell, are prominent examples.

the duke would lose; and he resolved that a government should be formed the existence of which should depend upon himself. Manners

In reference to the ministerial interregnum after the resignation of the Re-Sutton was to be his creature; he would have form cabinet, Greville writes:

dictated every measure of government; he would have been their protector in the House of Commons; and, as soon as the fitting moment arrived, he would have dissolved this miserable ministry and placed himself at the head of affairs. All these deep-laid schemes, and constant regard of self, form a strong contrast to the simplicity and heartiness of the duke's conduct, and make the two men appear in a very different light from that in which they did at first. Peel acted right from bad motives, the duke wrong from good ones.

May 17th, 1832. The first impression was that the Duke of Wellington would succeed in forming a government with or without Peel. The first thing he did was to try and prevail upon Peel to be prime minister, but he was inexorable. He then turned to Baring, who, after much hesitation, agreed to be chancellor of the exchequer. The work went on, but with difficulty, for neither Peel, Goulburn, nor Croker would take office. They then tried the speaker (Manners-Sutton), who was mightily tempted to become secretary of state, but still How (if this were true) could Peel be doubting and fearing, and requiring time to said to have acted right, in any sense? make up his mind. At an interview with the That he should have formed such a duke and Lyndhurst at Apsley House he declared his sentiments on the existing state of scheme, that he should have deemed Manaffairs in a speech of three hours, to the unut-ners-Sutton equal to the emergency, that terable disgust of Lyndhurst, who returned home, flung himself into a chair, and said that "he could not endure to have anything to do with such a damned tiresome old bitch.

If Lord Lyndhurst did use such an expression, he had high authority for it. "What's the matter with the auld bitch next?" said an acute metaphysical judge, though somewhat coarse in his manners, aside to his brethren. "This is a daft cause, Bladderscate . What say ye till't, ye bitch? "* Sir Walter adds, in a note, that "tradition ascribes this whimsical style of language to the ingenious and philosophical Lord Kaimes."

he should have entertained a momentary hope or thought of keeping such a man prime minister long enough to play the part of Addington to his Pitt — all this is so widely improbable, so out of keeping with his admitted sagacity, that Greville should at least have looked closely to his facts; but from a subsequent entry (January 3rd, 1833) it is clear that the suggestion to propose the premiership to Manners-Sutton came from Vesey Fitzgerald, not from Peel; the pith of the sweeping charge against Peel being that it was he who wanted to place Sutton in a position to serve as his warming-pan.

66

"It is remarkable," concludes Greville, The subject of the Tory failure to form "that this story is so little known." a government is resumed in an entry of Which story? for we have been told two October 26, i.e. after an interval of six or three. Story! God bless you, I have months, during which Greville had renone to tell, sir." We knew long ago all cently "picked up" a good deal from that could be known or was worth knowArbuthnot (described as very garruing about these negotiations, namely, lous "), which he sets down as undoubted that some of the Tory leaders tried to form a government, which the more sapos;" of Lord Althorpe, that "he would certainly go gacious among them felt to be an imposout in a few months, and that he would go on the turfsibility from the first: that there were

"Redgauntlet," chap. i.

66