RECOLL TIONS OF
. - . •: ,NG LIFE
' ' I, BRG-UGHTOr
VOL. Ill
1822-1829
RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE
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BY LORD BROUGH
JOHN CAM HO FROM HIS PR'
ORTRAITS. IN FOUR VOLUMES VOL. III. 1822—1829
LONDON
IARLE STREET, W
RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE
BY LORD BROUGHTON
(JOHN CAM HOBHOUSE)
WITH ADDITIONAL EXTRACTS FROM HIS PRIVATE DIARIES
EDITED BY HIS DAUGHTER
LADY DORCHESTER
WITH PORTRAITS. IN FOUR VOLUMES VOL. III. 1822—1829
LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
1910
PRINTED BY
HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, T.P., LONDON AND AYLESBURV.
PREFACE
THE very favourable reception accorded by the public to the first instalment of Lord Broughton's Recollections, which appeared in the summer of 1909, and especially the advice I received, of indisputable value, and on which I place implicit reliance, have induced me to continue the publication of these Diaries and Memoirs down to the year 1834.
The interest of the first two volumes was chiefly centred in Hobhouse's personal experience of the events which culminated in the Battle of Waterloo, and in his intimate friendship with Lord Byron.
The leading feature of these two present volumes is the progress of Home Politics, and especially the events which led up to Roman Catholic Emancipation in 1829 and the Reform Bill of 1832.
My father, as a prominent Member of Parlia- ment, and afterwards as a Cabinet Minister, was fully cognisant of all that was passing, even in
VOL. in v b
Vlll PREFACE
the inner circles of the Government, and he took the utmost pains to record his experiences and impressions from day to day.
At a time of political unrest like the present, these records seem to me to be of peculiar value and interest, and I venture to hope that the public also will take this view of them.
These records, however, are not confined to politics, but also throw much new light on the social events and the leading personages of the time.
I have added, as an Appendix, an account of the Destruction of Lord Byron's Memoirs, written by J. C. Hobhouse at the time; also a letter (published for the first time) written by Count Pietro Gamba to Mrs. Leigh and translated from the Italian by J. C. Hobhouse, giving a full account of Lord Byron's last illness and death.
C. DORCHESTER.
April, 1910.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
Visit to Italy — With Byron in Romagna — Death of Canova — Opening of Parliament — William Spencer — Canning's New Ministry — Burke and Sheridan — Lord and Lady Holland — General Lallemand and Napoleon — Affairs in Spain — Ugo Foscolo — A Steamboat Acci- dent— Death of Ricardo — The Emperor Alexander — Newstead — Ouvrard— Pitt and Small Arms pp. 1-32
CHAPTER II
The Greek Committee — Death of Byron — The Last Hours — Mrs. Leigh— Lady Caroline Lamb — A Mad Prank— Byron's Will— The Asiatic Club — John Hanson — Sir Thomas Tyrrwhit — Birthday Verses — Arrival of Byron^'s Body — Fletcher — Stanhope and Byron — Count Gamba— The Funeral pp. 33-71
CHAPTER III
Mr. Dallas — The Greek Loan — Joseph Hume — Sheridan and the Duchess of Devonshire — Lord Grey — Medwin's " Conversations "- The Byron Memoirs — The Catholic Association — At Holland House — Catholic Relief Bill — Proposed Factory Legislation — Debate on Catholic Emancipation — Attitude of the Cabinet — Anecdotes of Burke — Lord Kinnaird — The Combination Bill — Thurlow — London University — Despair about Greece — The Byron Life — Fox and Sheridan — Confusion in the Money Market — Trouble in Russia — Moore and Byron's Life — The Bank Act — Fall of Missolonghi — Proposed Reform of Parliament — Debate on Slavery — Re-elected for Westminster — Count Lavaletet
— Napoleon's Religion pp. 72-144
ix
X CONTENTS
CHAPTER IV
Visit to Germany — Byron's House in Albaro — Byron's Description of Rogers— At Toulon— Chateaubriand— Pere la Chaise— Sir Walter Scott — Opening of Parliament — Canning's Speech on Portugal — Death of the Duke of York — Fitzroy Stanhope — Napoleon's Star — Flahaut — The Russian Mission — A Converted Jew — Sir Francis Burdett's Motion— The Toby-Phillpott Speech— Anti-Catholic Victory — Thomas Campbell and Brougham — Canning, Prime Minister — Copley, Lord Chancellor — Peel's Retirement from Office — " His Majesty's Opposi- tion " — Attacks on Canning — The Westminster Dinner — Cobbett — Joseph Hume— The New Corn Bill . . . .pp. 145-205
CHAPTER V
Moore and Byron's Life — Devonshire House — Peerage offered to Burdett — Canning and the Whigs — " The Mountaineer " — Death of Canning — His Character— Lord Chancellor Lyndhurst — Anecdote of Wellington — Sir W. Grant — Napier's " History of the Peninsular War " — Battle of Navarino — Moore's Life of Byron . . pp. 206-228
CHAPTER VI
Chantrey— The S.S.B.S.— New Ministerial Arrangements — The Literary Fund Dinner — Motion on Navarino — Lord Cochrane — Stories of Pitt, Fox, and Lord North — Canning and Brougham — Stratford Canning — Byron's Religious Opinions — Character of Huskisson — Pension to Canning's Family — Sydney Smith — The Duke of Wellington — Facts about Waterloo— The Derby Dead-heat— Thoughts of Mar- riage— The Duke and Huskisson — Byron Monument Committee — President La Harpe — " Byronicus " — Marriage . . -pp. 229-286
CHAPTER VII
The Villa Diodati — Dinner with Chateaubriand — Cosimo Buonar- rotti — The Lanfranchi Palace — Party at Lafayette's — Talk with Palmerston — End of Continental Tour .... pp. 287-300
CONTENTS XI
CHAPTEK VIII
The King's Speech — Surrender of Peel — The Catholic Question — The Suppression Bill — Strong Anti-Catholic Feeling — Meeting at Marylebone — Westminster Abbey on Fire — The Catholic Relief Bill — Burdett's Disenfranchisement Bill — Anti-Catholic Petition — The Wel- lington-Winchilsea Duel— Catholic Relief Bill passed — The Legis- lative Harvest — O'Connell and the Commons — Coolness with Moore — Cotton Factory Bill — Parliament prorogued . . pp. 301-324
APPENDIX I
Narrative of Events connected with the Destruction of Lord Byron's Memoirs pp. 325-362
APPENDIX II
Count Pietro Gamba's Account of Lord Byron's Last Illness in a Letter to the Hon. Mrs. Leigh pp. 363-374
LIST OP ILLUSTRATIONS
JOHN C. HOBHOUSE, F.R.S. (Photogravure) . Frontispiece
From an engraving in Lady Dorchester's possession.
FACING PAGE
LORD BYRON 70
From a picture given by the late Earl of Lovelace to Lady Dorchester.
VISCOUNTESS MELBOURNE (Photogravure) .... 227
From the picture in the possession of her great-great-grandson the Earl of Arran
Xiii
RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONG LIFE
CHAPTER I
PROM DIARY.
July 24. — Left London and arrived at Dover. 1822.
July 25.— Did not sail until past one, on ac- count of the blowing weather, which would pre- vent the boats reaching the packet in the offing. Got upon Calais pier at four o'clock.
August 9. — Arrived at Heidelberg, where we met Eicardo and family. " Alors beaucoup d'embrassements de part et d'autre." On Ricardo's recommendation we went to Stuttgart, and were much pleased with our visit.
August 22. — Determined to go to Italy instead of Lucerne.
August 30. — We entered Milan. I had hardly time to look about me before my brother Edward came to me with a dreadful story — Lord London- derry's suicide. I cannot say, nor understand, how Lord Londonderry's death affected me. . . . My first impression was that a change of Ministry would take place ; that a change of Ministry
;vould bring on a dissolution of Parliament ; and ;hat I must at once go home. But on second
VOL. Ill 1
2 PISA CHAP. I.
1822. thoughts I dare say that what Burdett has so often said will come to pass, and that though people have heen in the habit of saying the Ministry can't go on a day without Castlereagh, it will go on very well under any man who chooses to undertake the concern. One may he well sorry to lose a courteous opponent, which Castlereagh was. Canning is, I see, talked of for his successor.
September 5. — We left Milan, and stopping at Pavia, Novi, and Genoa, came to Pisa on September 15th.
I went to enquire after Lord Byron, and at first heard he was going, if not gone, to Geneva, but I found him at his Palazzo Lanfranchi. We were soon joined by Leigh Hunt, of the Examiner, to whom and his wife and six children Lord Byron has given apartments in his house. Leigh Hunt was brought out here by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Mr. Shelley was lately drowned in going from Leghorn to La Spezzia,1 and Lord Byron con- sidered Leigh Hunt as a legacy left to him.
Leigh Hunt induced Lord Byron to agree to set up a journal with him,2 but I endeavoured to persuade Lord Byron that he had better not engage in any such partnership, and it appears Lord Byron has managed to give up the scheme.
Byron was going to ride. I left him. He is much changed — his face fatter, and the expres-
1 This is the only i mention made of this tragic and sad event. 8 The Liberal.
CHAP. I. BYRON IN ROMAGNA 3
sion of it injured. For the rest I saw little 1822- difference. We were both at first a little formal. After dinner went to him again and sat with him all the evening. He told me something ahout his proceedings in Romagna. He had regularly joined the Carbonari, was initiated, was to have been one of their deputies, and at the dispersion of them, after the defeat of the Piedmontese and Neapolitans, he recovered, and has got their archives. Upwards of a thousand persons have been exiled from the Papal dominions ; some are in Tuscany, others elsewhere, and every now and then their abode is changed by the Government of Italy.
Count Gamba, Madame Guiceioli's brother, has been sent away from Pisa, for the share he had in the row between the Serjeant-Major of Dragoons and the party of Lord Byron. It appears the Serjeant was struck by a pitchfork by Lord Byron's groom, but he was not found out, so the Tuscan Government punished others. Byron told me that the Pisans disliked him because he would not associate with them and the professors of the University, and because he would not go to a ball given last Christmas. He is now going to Genoa, where Hill has pro- mised to protect him and the Gamba family. It seems Madame Guiccioli and her father and brother lived together in a house apart until the Gambas went to prepare Lord Byron's house at Genoa. This is Italian morality.
4 PISA CHAP. I.
1822. The brother of Madame Guiccioli, Gamba, is a great friend of Lord Byron's, and here in Italy the brother of a lady with whom a man lives is called his cognato, i.e. brother-in-law. — One of the professed objects of the Carbonari is, how- ever, to moralise the marriage state. Byron tells me that the ceremonies of the Carbonari are absurd, but that their objects are pure, and that they have 800,000 associates in Italy, at lodges in every town.
The Pisans do not seem to have liked the Gamba family after the row with the dragoon. They said that Borgia was come down upon them with his Homagnuolas, The Romagnuolas are, indeed, somewhat testy and shabby people, and Byron told me many things of their violences and blood- shed. Yet he confessed they were not fond of regular fighting, and expressed doubts whether they would ever make good soldiers. At Ravenna every one thought Italy would be revolutionised. The children sang "Viva la liberta" in the streets. Even the Secretary of the Government wrote to Byron saying that he too was an Italian, and the Cardinal Governor called on St. Apollinaris for succour. Yet there was a strong party of Papa- lines against the Americani or Liberals, and Lord Byron, amongst others, got placarded as one destined to be put to death.
CHAP. I. BYRON AN ANTI-WHIG 5
Byron tells me that there are 30,000 exiles from 1322. all parts of Italy since the Piedmontese affair.
Lord Byron kept a regular journal of the time which he spent at Ravenna, whilst the projected revolution was brewing. Began it to T. Moore.
The house in which he lives here belonged to the Lanfranchi who conquered Ugolino, and there are dungeons at the bottom of the Palace.
September 16. — Rode with Byron. Caught in a storm of thunder and lightning, and took shelter in a vineyard cottage, where an adventure occurred which gave us no high notion of the morals of the country. Passed the evening with Lord Byron.
September 17. — Rode with Byron. Passed the evening at the Palazzo Lanfranchi. It seemed to us both that we had not been separated for more than a week. We talked over old times and present times in the same strain as usual.
Byron told me he had been against me at my election at first because he knew nothing about the matter; now he was anti-Whig. He was much hurt at the late article against him in the Edinburgh Review. He also told me that my letter to him against " Cain " had made him nearly mad. Madame Guiccioli confirmed this, but Byron confessed I was right.
He read to me something against Wellington in some new Cantos of "Don Juan," and he told me he has written against Castlereagh. I re- commended him to be cautious how he touched
6 PISA CHAP. I.
1822. on his death. He did not quite agree with me.
September 18. — Rode out with Byron. Passed the evening with Byron, who declaimed against Shakespeare, and Dante, and Milton, and said Voltaire was worth a thousand such. (Scherzo.)
September 19. — Went out riding with Byron. He told me several things relative to the state of severity in Italy, particularly Romagna, also of the conduct of the Papal Government in Romagna. Told me that Gamba, the son, and a friend, went out shooting for several days at the very time they expected to rise and revolutionise Italy. It was represented to them that they should not be absent at such a conjuncture, but they resolved to go, and did go, where no letters could reach them.
Byron told me that at Modena the Duke's presence at the theatre drives the audience away. We both sometimes said that the Italians could do nothing, and at other times that they would. It appears that the Bolognese had promised to come forward, but they afterwards kept back and broke up the conspiracy. They had been deceived by the Neapolitans before. This made them hesitate as to the present effort.
We had some talk about his liaison, which it appears he does not wish to continue. It induced him, however, to be one of the Carbonari, and he was actually deputed to Faenza to enquire into the state of the Liberals. Fifteen thousand men,
CHAP. I. CAIN AND ABEL 7
well armed, could have been raised. He had 150 1822. muskets, which those to whom he gave them wanted to bring back to his house, after the defeat of the Neapolitans. This was very shabby, and he refused. He would have been tried, and perhaps assassinated, had not the priests stood his friends. He had been particularly friendly with the priests, and, as he said, always hung out his tapestry when their processions passed.
I dined at home ; as usual passed the evening with Byron.
September 20. — Thunder, and lightning, and rain, prevented our riding, so I sat at home with my friend Byron. He told me how the Duke
of Saxe had been anxious to form his
acquaintance at Pisa, but he had declined. The Duke wrote a sort of memoir of his tour, and headed each chapter with a stanza from " Childe Harold." The task proposed at one of the German Universities is to translate the IVth Canto of " Childe Harold " into German verse.
Byron told me that Walter Scott in his corre- spondence showed himself anything but bigoted. Amongst other scherzi he said that Cain was right to kill Abel, that he might not have the bore of passing 200 years with him.
I dined at home, and then went to Byron, with whom I stayed till between one and two in the morning. He talks of coming to England in the Spring.
We had two or three mutual accusations, half
8 ROME CHAP. I.
1822. in joke, and I tried to persuade him that he should write less. — I remarked to him he had observed the only time in which the House of Commons had shown a disinclination to hear me. He mentioned this twice. . . . He told me he had less feeling than usual in his younger days. He mentioned that T. Moore had told him in a letter, " Hohhouse is praised by everybody, but he is a companion I would sooner praise than live with." Now this arose entirely from my telling him my mind as to the Memoirs of Lord Byron.
We parted on most friendly terms, and his last kind words when he took leave of me were : " Hobhouse, you should never have come, or you should never go."
September 21. — Set out for Florence. September 23. — I went to see Bartolini's studio, and saw the bust of Lord Byron. The latter I thought much better than Morghen's engraving has made it. I told him so, and B. said Morghen had no genius, and had never done anything well that required genius.
October 12. — Arrived at Rome. October 19. — Walked to Canova's studio. Saw some of the masterpieces of this great artist, who appeared to me greater than ever. Just upon taking leave of his workman, I asked how Canova was in health, and was told he was very well indeed, better than formerly. I said he ought to live for ever. " Yes," said the man, " every
CHAP. I. DEATH OF CANOVA 9
one wishes him well." On this very evening, 1322. as I afterwards learnt, his people received news that he was dead ! ! !
The news of Canova's death was told to us on the day I am writing this, October 21st. We felt extremely affected. For my own part, though knowing him but a very little, I could not help feeling as if something that attached me to existence had dropped away for ever. I had been so accustomed to think of Canova and Italy as making part, as it were, of each other. The loss of such a man seemed to take away the interest of the country and the age in which he lived.
PROM BOOK, " RECOLLECTIONS."
I did not on this occasion go further south than Borne. On my return I went to Venice, and had a look at the Congress of Verona. Passing by Paris, where I stayed a short time, I dined with Constant, and met Lafayette at his table. Both my host and the General de- clared, more than once, in very decided language, that the Government of the Bourbons could not maintain itself long in Prance ; but neither of these distinguished politicians said anything of the rumoured invasion of Spain. They confessed that the majority of the Chamber was inclined to make war on the Spanish Constitutionalists, and would try to force the Government to that false move. At the end of January in the next
VOL. Ill 2
10 LONDON CHAP. I.
1822. year appeared the French declaration of war against Spain.
But our Parliamentary Opposition affected to believe that the war would not he undertaken, and Lord Liverpool in the Lords said that he had not abandoned all hope of peace. The Opposition made vigorous, and, for this once, united efforts to assist the patriots of the Peninsula. . . .
PROM DIARY.
1823. February 4. — Meeting of Parliament. Got an amendment in my pocket declaring abhorrence of Holy Alliance and of Invasion of Spain.
"Went to the House. King's Speech by com- mission ; a thin attendance of members — not 250 present. The speech a little better than ex- pected, and Mr. Childe, who moved the Address, very decided against interposition of Prance; so thought better that no amendment should be moved. Lord John Russell and others agreed with me.
February 6. — Dined at Kinnaird's. Met Al- vanley there. He told me that the Duke of York told him, talking of the Catholic Bill, " You had better carry it now, for, by God, you shall not get it in my time." Alvanley knows him well — is one of his household, and talks familiarly with him. He says the Duke has a sort of religious veneration for his father's way of thinking on this subject.
CHAP. I. PITT AND FOX 11
The Duke, I hear, says he considered the 1823. accession of Canning as a virtual dissolution of the Ministry. There is no doubt but that the Chancellor and Peel form a party in the Cabinet against Canning. Canning has contrived to get Vansittart and B. Bathurst out of the House of Commons. Vansittart struggled to get a peerage with remainder to his nephew; he got a peerage without remainder and the duchy of Lancaster. Bathurst gets nothing. I fancy the Whigs of a certain class coquet a little with Canning, and he with them.
February 9. — I dined with the Speaker ; first Opposition dinner. Other sessions Burdett and I asked to the second dinner.
Hume amused us at dinner by talking his poli- tics, particularly against the Church, out loud.
February 11. — Dined with William Spencer alone, at his lodgings. He told me some curious stories of William Pitt. He met Pitt the last year of his life at Lord Aber corn's. Pitt drank three bottles of port wine for his supper.
Pitt asked Spencer what sort of man Pox was in private conversation. Pox asked Spencer just the same question of Pitt. Pitt sat up till three in the morning at Lord Mulgrave's with Colman, punning, and quoting, and laughing.
Spencer told me Pox did not praise at the moment, but would come a day or two afterwards and say, " That was a clever thing you said the other day." He was grumpy. He was much
12 LONDON CHAP. I.
1823. pleased with Tom Moore, particularly with " Corruption and Intolerance," in which the Whigs are attacked ; and delighted in the simile,
" As bees on flowers . . . cease to hum, So settled on good places Whigs are dumb."
It was arranged he should be introduced to Moore. Spencer told him to be aware of not receiving him with a humph, and turning his back, which he sometimes did. Eox promised he would not, but when introduced to Moore did say humph and did turn his back directly.
Spencer complained to Fox immediately, and Eox settled he would repair all by sitting next to Moore at supper. Spencer kept a place. Eox was coming up when Wordsworth, the poet, happened to catch him. Eox talked three-quarters of an hour to Wordsworth, and never sat down nor said a word to Moore.
Spencer told me several very curious anecdotes of his former life. I sat up with him until past eleven, and then went to Brooks 's, where I met Burdett, and walked up and down St. James's Street till near two in the morning with him.
February 12. — At House of Commons. Canning took his seat. Hume wanted to divide the House upon the appointment of Lord Beresford to be Lieutenant- General of the Ordnance. Canning asked him not, Brougham and others asked him not, but he only yielded when Burdett asked him, on the ground that Government should not
CHAP. I. THE KING AT BRIGHTON 13
have supply stopped when all sides called on 1823. them to support Spain.
I dined at Williams's, Kinnaird's partner. Bidwell of the Foreign Office there. Told me that Canning had been doing all he could against war, and that Count Munster and Hanover lay at the bottom of much of England's sub- mission to the Allies. They said, we gave you what you asked for, Hanover, why refuse us to dispose of Genoa ?
February 13. — Went to the Antiquarian Society and heard read an original letter from King Charles I. to the then Governor of Oxford, by which it appears he gave orders for the arrest of Prince Rupert after the loss of Bristol.
February 18. — I dined with Ellice, who told me some curious things of the King's Court at Brighton. His Majesty does not sit very long at dinner. He comes out to a party of about thirty, bows round, followed by Lady Conyngham, and then sits himself down to ecarte, with generally the same party.
The joke at the Pavilion for some time was, that Canning could get no one to be his Under- secretary. In fact, Canning offered the place to Binning, to Hill, and to Ward. The latter took three weeks to consider of it ! ! ! though if he had accepted it he must have gone out of Parliament, for Dawson, Peel's Secretary, would not. Canning knew that the King had been trying to get some- thing for Lord E. Conyngham, who, with all the
14 LONDON CHAP. I
1823. other children, he seems to have adopted, so he offered him the secretaryship, which delighted His Majesty beyond everything and made him give Canning his picture.
February 28. — House of Commons. Brougham asked Canning if Chateaubriand had stated the truth in his speech as to the acquiescence of the Duke of Wellington at Verona in the aggression of France against Spain. Canning said Chateaubriand had mutilated the document alluded to, and had taken for an admission what was put only in contrast.
March 1. — Went down to Whitton, found William Spencer there. He told me that he went once with Philip Francis and Sheridan to Burke at Beaconsfield, on some business relating to Hastings. Burke came out of his garden with a frog under a glass, and entered into a long natural history of the frog, to the great impatience of Francis and amusement of Sheridan. Having done his dissertation he pulled a paper out of his pocket and said, " There is something that will serve your turn if you can understand it." Francis confessed to Spencer that the paper was one of the finest things he had ever seen.
Burke spoke in the highest terms of Mac- kintosh's vindicice gallicce, said 'twas in his own style. Selected particularly the sentence where he speaks of the " undisciplined rabble of argu- ment entered at the breach made by Burke 's eloquence."
CHAP. i. BYRON'S BEST FRIEND 15
I called to-day, for the first time since 1818, 1823. at Lord Holland's, and saw Lord and Lady Holland. She had sent me the drawing of her Napoleon snuffbox. Lord Holland told me he had written to Arguelles,1 begging hard not to recommend a modification of the Constitution. It seems A'Court and Eitzroy Somerset have been attempting to recommend something of the sort at Madrid.
March 8. — I called on Lord and Lady Holland again. They certainly seem to wish well to Canning, and praise the forbearance to him. The Ministers were invited to the dinner given to the Spanish and Portuguese Ministers yesterday, but they declined.
March 13. — I dined at Mrs. Darner's. Met Sir A. and Lady Johnson, Mrs. Tighe, Sam Rogers, Westmacott, and my father.
Sam Rogers told me that Byron told him at Pisa that he, Byron, had only one friend in the world, and that was Tom Moore. " I thought of you" said Rogers. Now this was so truly in
1 Augustin Arguelles, a Spanish statesman (1775-1844). He came on a mission to England, and, returning to Spain soon after the French occupation of Madrid, found that the political leaders had retired to Cadiz, and were occupied in making provisions for a regency and national constitution. Arguelles was called upon to take part in the revision of this project. He was imprisoned by King Ferdinand in 1814, and although acquitted by the judges was condemned by the King to ten years in the galleys. He declined to take part in the revolution in 1820, but on its success was appointed Minister of the Interior. He was deposed for royalist tendencies, and took refuge in England. In 1832 he returned to Spain, became President of the Cortes, and Guardian of the young Queen Isabella. His eloquence gained him the name of Divino.
16 LONDON CHAP. I.
1823. the worthy man's usual style that I was aware what to do, and only said, " I am sure Kinnaird is the best friend Byron ever had in the world."
March 14. — Dined at Colonel Hughes's. Met General Lallemand the elder there.
He told me that he was the only one of Buonaparte's suite at Rochefort who dissuaded him from going on hoard the Northumberland, and tried to get him to go to America. Las Casas was violent for England.
He told me that he was bearer from the French army in July 1815 of a request to Napoleon to put himself at their head. When he arrived at Malmaison he found Napoleon had been gone only two hours ! !
Lallemand is a very quiet, steady, prepossessing man. He told me he never once went to the Imperial Court until Napoleon returned from Elba.
March 16. — Walked to Kensington Palace and called on the Duke of Sussex with Burdett.
General Lallemand called on me this morning, and said that he should not recommend a de- claration of war against France by England ; it would stop any revolution in France ; at least not till hostilities had commenced.
March 18. — At House of Commons. Canning, in answer to a question of Mackintosh's, let out at last that Spain and France were almost sure of war, and that we should not agree in hostilities ! ! So it appears we have all been tricked by Canning. Indeed, Arbuthnot said to Ellice in
CHAP. I. CANNING AND THE BOURBONS 17
the House of Commons, "Now you see the only 1823 difference hetween Castlereagh and Canning is that Castlereagh would have told this at the beginning of the session, and Canning has kept it hack till the Easter holidays."
March 19. — Stayed hut a short time in the House of Commons to hear Wilberforce sermonize against slavery.
March 20. — Lady Holland sent to me the other day some letters to read on the business of O'Meara. . . . Napoleon's character, on the whole, has certainly gained by the various memoirs of his St. Helena life.
March 22. — Dined at Lamb ton's. Met Lady Cochrane there, a pretty young woman. She has been in several actions on board ship.
March 25. — Went to the House of Commons. Lord J. Russell, as a sort of lark (!), asked Canning whether we were bound to support the Bourbons on the throne of Prance. Canning said he could not quite say, being taken on a hurry, but he thought we were bound to support them against Buonaparte and his family, and also that in case of revolution in France we were bound to consult and concert with our allies.
March 26. — At House of Commons. Hume manfully brought forward a petition of M. A. Carlyle's against the excessive fine imposed on her, and opened the whole question of religious persecution. Wilberforce, Acland, and Attorney- General made miserable speeches. Ricardo and
VOL. in 3
18 LONDON CHAP. I.
1823. Burdett did themselves immortal honour, and, on the whole, the cause of religious liberty was crowned with a very signal and unexpected triumph. I did not dare to speak, not having, as Burdett said, character enough ! ! !
Canning to-night confirmed what he said about our stipulations as to the Bourbons.
March 27. — House adjourned for a fortnight.
March 28.— Arrived at Cardington with Burdett.
March 30. — Bode over to Oakley and called on Lord Tavistock, whom we found in a very pre- carious state of health indeed. Persuaded him to give up hunting altogether. His father is apparently dying, and if both were to go off at once the public would sustain a great loss.
April 1. — B/ode to Bolleston and met the Quorn hounds. Bode a horse of Burdett's. Got into a brook, had a good run. Bode to Kirby and put up there.
Dined at Melton with the old club. Lord Molyneux, Sir B. Graham, Mr. T. Moore, and Sir James Musgrave, present. Very good-tempered and gentlemanlike, but not one word except hunting talked about for four hours !
April 3. — Bode sixteen miles to cover, Carlton. Got a bad fall and hurt my shoulder.
April 4. — Bead Las Casas' " Memorial of St. Helena." A great deal of the book belongs to another work, but Napoleon's conversation is highly delightful.
April 5. — Dined at Lord Elcho's, who lives in
CHAP. I. THE AFFAIRS OF SPAIN 19
a hunting-box at Ashfordby with his lovely wife, 1823. a Bingham, whom it appears to me a sin to seclude among the Houyhnhnms. The talk all about broken bones and breaking cover, etc. My Lord, however, is apparently an excellent young man.
Burdett did nothing but declaim against hunt- ing after our visit, and vow, as he had done a thousand times before, that he would give up his stud.
April 13. — Returned to London, and then went with Burdett and Kinnaird to Holland House and dined. A party there : Lord and Lady Lansdowne, the Duke and Duchess of St. Lorenzo, and T. Moore, the poet.
Lord Holland seemed to talk Spanish with great fluency. The Duke of St. Lorenzo talks French, but badly, and no English.
After dinner I had some conversation with him on the affairs of Spain. He talked very de- spondingly on the present issue, but not at all so on the final result. What the Spaniards wanted were arms; 50,000 muskets sent into the galiots would do everything. "Otherwise," said he, "it will cost us much blood to wrestle them from the French."
He said that he was very willing to throw himself at once upon the people, and that as for our Government he had no terms to keep with them. He said that if the money for the arms could be got here, he was willing to give
20 LONDON CHAP. I.
1823. up his estate in pledge for it. He had made up his mind never to live in Spain unless Spain should be free.
He told me that the Duke of Wellington had hehaved very coldly to him, had only left his card, although, as a grandee of Spain and one who owed obligations to St. Lorenzo, he should at least have been civil. Of Canning he said that he was very polite indeed, but that before he left Paris he knew that our Government intended to do nothing.
He told me he hoped the French would march to Madrid, as it would be more prejudicial to Spain if they took up the line of the Ebro for their defence. He said that all the nobles (grandees) in Spain were for the Constitution; at least none of them were for the absolute despotism or belonged to the army of the faith.
April 14. — The details of the manner in which the French army crossed the Bidassoa in the Saturday papers. It appears they had mass said after the passage.
April 18. — At House of Commons. Said a word or two about the British Museum and trans- ferring the Buckingham Palace Library there. It is, I hear, perfectly true that the books are sent away in order that Nash may erect a kitchen in the octagon room.
April 28. — At House of Commons. Debate on papers. Immediately after the amendment was
CHAP. I. DEBATE IN THE COMMONS 21
moved, I rose and spoke an hour and ten minutes. 1823. Although I was far from well and left out some of my best points, I heard afterwards it was the best speech I had ever made. I spoke out for war, at least for preparing war. Almost all the speakers the other side during the three nights made their speeches on mine. Debate adjourned.
April 30. — At House of Commons. Wynne opened adjourned debate. Canning did not rise until eleven, when he spoke just three hours. His speech was civil, part good, but difficult to lay hold of. He was very complimentary to myself, said I had met the question boldly and fairly, etc. He was amazingly applauded.
May 26. — Dined at the Athenaeum Club. A Dr. Luke there told me that Dr. Baillie told him he attended William Pitt the night he died, and all Pitt said was, " What would you have more ? have I not given you all you asked ? " He was in delirium. The story of " Oh, my country ! " was a lie.
June 10. — At Spanish Committee. Agreed on the resolutions for Public Meeting. We have had no encouragement whatever from the grandees. Lord Grey told me he looked upon the cause as hopeless, and that he would not conscientiously recommend others to make sacrifices in such a cause. He talked very despondingly to me of the general complexion of politics all over the world, and at home; wished he had never to
22 LONDON CHAP. I.
1823. put his foot in the House of Lords again, etc., and ended with saying that we were in the old age of our country : everything rotten, corrupt, and worn out. This is the character of Lord Grey, always desponding, always out of spirits unless he thinks he is riding the winning horse.
FROM BOOK, " RECOLLECTIONS."
June 13. — A vast assemblage at the Public Meeting ; hut after a good deal of correspond- ence we discovered that our efforts would be unavailing.
PROM DIARY.
July 9. — Dined with Burdett at Roger Wil- braham's. Lord Crewe there, 81 ; Davenport, M.P., near 70 ; Roger, 79 ; and Adair. All these old men very agreeable and gentlemanlike. Memories fresh about them, and manners, as Burdett observed, certainly superior to the present day.
Wilbraham told that Charles Fox mentioned to him that the first year he came into Parlia- ment, 1769, old Sir - - Mildmay took him up from Kensington, and putting him down at the House of Commons said, " I have not been here since the Hanover succession, and I was then Under-Secretary of State." (Or some such place- man.)
They talked of the dissension between Fox and
CHAP. I. "AN UNLUCKY DOO " 23
Sheridan. Wilbraham mentioned that all observed 1823. Burke altered his style after the Hastings Trial and adopted Sheridan's flowery rhetoric.
August 3. — I think it is Lord Clarendon who says that no man ever made a figure who did not in early life consort with his superiors.
August 10. — Sat up with Smith and Spencer late. Smith told that when the eight English officers were desired by Washington to settle amongst themselves, who should be hanged by way of reprisal for an American officer who had been put to death unjustly, Asgill drew the lot, and said, " I was always an unlucky dog ; I always drew the flogging lot at school." Harry Greville was put to sit up with him, partly to watch, partly to console him, and all he could say was, " Come, never mind." Asgill was to be hanged next day ; but he was not, and the inter- cession of the Queen of Prance finally saved his life.
August 11. — Rode up to London with James Smith, who told me he heard Byron say that he could not enter into the " Maid and Magpie," as he had never been innocent of stealing a silver spoon ! !
August 23. — Poscolo and I took a walk. We had a great discussion at night about poetry. He denied Pope to be a poet except here and there, as at the end of the Elegy to the memory of an unfortunate Lady. He could not feel Dry den. He did not understand Shakespeare,
24 LONDON CHAP. I.
1823. but admired some passages. I quoted the moon- light sleeping on the hank. Poscolo said sleep was too strong f?or Italians ; repose they might say. He said poetry was images. I quoted Pope's description of Caesar's triumph in his Prologue to Cato. " Pooh ! " said he, " it was not so." Now, what had that to do with it ? I think I had the best of it; but, to be sure, Foscolo does not understand English.
Poscolo is an extraordinary man ; he talks poetry. He said Napoleon's dominion was like a July day in Egypt — all clear, brilliant, and blazing ; but all silent, not a voice heard, the stillness of the grave.
August 24*. — W. B,. Spencer told me the other evening at Whitton that he was at Versailles when the Parisians attacked it. He heard the Queen of France herself say to M. Necker, (( What are we to do ? Speak, say a word, it depends on you." Necker sat in a corner ; he was bien poudre, and held a great pocket-handker- chief to his eyes ; he spoke not a word. Spencer mentioned this to Madame de Stael, who said to him violently, " Ne m'en parlez pas, ne m'en parlez jamais."
September 8.— After the session of 1823 I was recommended to travel and amuse myself. After visiting Mr. Hughes at Kinmel, I paid a visit to Lord Grosvenor's at Eaton.
Lady Grosvenor and Lady Elizabeth Belgrave, both very nice people, I think. The latter a
CHAP. I. THE FIRST STEAM-BOATS 25
daughter of the Marquis of Stafford, a piquante 1823. young person, with a very sweet, deep-toned musical voice. Lord Grosvenor, whom I did not know personally, very attentive indeed.
September 12. — Left Lord Grosvenqr's, and went from Liverpool to Glasgow in the Majestic steam- boat.
September 13. — Within six miles of Greenock the pipes of one of the boilers burst, and our vessel stopped immediately. Had this happened last night, we must either have made for Ramsay Harbour or have been lost. I cannot think, after all, that the steam-boats are or can be made secure in a heavy sea off a lee shore. They are very large for their depth. Watt had no idea that his invention could be applied to the sea, and Napier of Glasgow, who made the sea engines, was laughed at, at first. Now three steam-boats leave Liverpool for Glasgow every week. The breeze carried us to Greenock just as the Post Boy steam- boat came up to tow us.
We encountered a great many steam-boats full of passengers, for the intercourse with Argyleshire and the Western Islands, and almost every place on the West Coast of Scotland, is now carried on by steam. This wonderful invention has changed the face of the country, and the manners and aspects of the people in some respects, and it is yet perhaps only in its infancy. The company on board our Majestic were mostly Scotch ; intelli- gent, civil, and well-mannered. One had been a
VOL. Ill 4
26 SCOTLAND CHAP. I.
1823* great deal in Portugal, another in America for twenty-nine years, another in the East Indies. No people travel so much and to such purpose as the Scotch. The American traveller told me that the English were becoming daily more popular in the United States. Since their ships had beaten ours, their jealousies had subsided. Thus good opinion of themselves had begotten kindness towards others : a usual process.
September 15. — Arrived at Lord Glenorchy's, Auchmore, on Loch Tay. I found only one guest, Lord John Hay, a Captain of the Navy, brother of the Marquis of Tweeddale. He has lost an arm in the service. A very intelligent, shrewd man indeed ; a little formal at first. Lord Glenorchy I take to be a man of very good sense, and much spirit.
September 16. — I read in the newspaper an account of the death of my friend David Ricardo. He was of unblemished integrity, both public and private. He was liberal and wise in the expendi- ture of a very large fortune, acquired solely by his own skilful industry. In all the relations of private life he was kind, amiable, and engaging, as well as just and generous. He seemed free from every bad passion, and those who came within the sphere of his gentle but resistless influence felt that he was born for the consolation of those around him, and for the happiness of mankind.
September 19. — A General Turner, with one
CHAP. I. THE EMPEROR ALEXANDER 27
arm, dined with us — a coarse, hard-headed High- 1823. landman. He abused the Spaniards, said that when their whole army ran away before the French at Toulouse, the Duke of Wellington said,
« D fine, beautiful, never saw 25,000 men run
away in my life before ! "
General Turner is the son of a tenant of the Duke of Argyle. He told us that he was in waiting on the Emperor Alexander when he visited the Chelsea military establishment. He particularly remarked that Alexander noticed nothing, but held out his hand behind to be kissed. When Alexander and the King of Prussia visited Portsmouth, Alexander was evidently displeased with the great naval superiority of the English. A small vessel was given to the King of Prussia, who, tapping Alexander on the shoulder, said, " You will not be jealous of my fleet."
The Emperor Alexander kept the Duke of York waiting nearly a whole day at Woolwich, and made no apology at last. He kept the Prince Regent waiting at Portsmouth.
I never heard these things before ; I suppose they are true.
FROM BOOK, " RECOLLECTIONS."
On the 22nd September I left Auchmore and went to Edinburgh. ... I should like to have stayed in this attractive city, but was pressed for time, and went, by Hawick, to Chisholme, the seat of the
28 FABNLEY CHAP. I.
1823. brother-in-law of my friend Edward Ellice. I stayed at Chisholme several days, and went, on the 12th October, by Cambo and Newcastle, to Lamb- ton Castle. From this time dates my intimacy with the late Earl of Durham. The guests were principally racing men; Henry Brougham was there — a little out of his element perhaps, but very agreeable. The chief companion of my walks was a Piedmontese Marquis, San Marsan. He had been aide-de-camp to Napoleon, and knew his Court well.
On October 14th came the news that Cadiz was taken by the French, and the King restored to absolute power.
I visited Farnley, where, besides the family of my friend Mr. Fawkes, I found several guests, and, amongst them, the most celebrated landscape- painter of our time — I mean Turner, who was employed in making designs for a museum in- tended to contain relics of our civil wars, and to be called Fairfaxiana. The walls of one of the large rooms at Farnley were, when I was there, entirely covered with a collection of Turner's water-colour drawings, chiefly sea-pieces and sketches of ships. If they were to be sold for anything like the sums that I have known single pictures of this great artist fetch, they would be a fortune to the owner.
A more agreeable host than Mr. Fawkes I have never seen, and his political recollections were very amusing. He repeated one day a
CHAP. I. NEWSTEAD ABBEY 29
squib which he wrote during his Yorkshire 1823. contest :
What has Lascelles to hope
From this cry of "No Pope ! " Arid his zeal for the Faith's great Defender ?
Since all of us know
That his brother the Beau Has long been the only Pretender.
Lord, commonly called Beau Lascelles, used to dress at and after George IV.
Eawkes said that he was acquainted with Gibbon at Lausanne — that he was pedantic in his con- versation, and talked chiefly of himself. . . .
Erom Farnley I went to Mansfield, and, enquiring about Newstead Abbey, I heard of " Lord Byron's time " as if of an age long past and almost forgotten.
On Tuesday, 28th October, I set off for Notting- ham, and passed by Newstead. ... I found the workmen busy there, and had some difficulty in getting into the house. When I was admitted I was shown up into the old gallery, then refitted, and scarcely to be recognised. It was there that Lord Byron placed the old stone coffin found in the cloisters ; and I well recollected that, passing through the gloomy length of it late one night, I heard a groan proceeding from the spot. I went to the coffin, and a figure rose from it, dressed in a cloak and cowl, and blew out my candle. ... It was my friend C. S. Matthews.
I went into the cloisters, which were also under repair ; the graves which Byron opened in my
30 LONDON CHAP. I.
1823. time, and found the monks lying side by side, were then closed up. ...
Prom Nottingham I went to Melton, or rather to Kirby Gate, and took up my quarters with Sir Fran cisBurdett, and hunted with the Quorn hounds.
FROM DIARY.
1824. February 8, 1824.— Dined at Speaker's, first Opposition dinner. Creevey entertained me all dinner-time by laughing at Mackintosh's mean- looking face and figure. He told me that the story of Mackintosh appropriating to himself the money collected for a poor fellow, who was transported for his political conduct in the be- ginning of the French war, was quite true, and that he had seen Mackintosh's letter of apology, ascribing it to his necessities ; and this is the man who, as Madame de Stael says, is to equal Hume and even to surpass him.
March 8. — Lord Titchfield dead. This young man a great loss to the Liberal side of the House. He had shown considerable talent and more honesty. I know but little of him personally— that little left a very agreeable impression on me.
March 17. — Presented a petition relative to the smuggling of French embroidery under seals of office by King's messengers. A coat of Canning's so smuggled was seized at his tailor's and con- demned at the Custom House and burnt. This was mentioned in the petition. I spoke to Huskisson to tell Canning that I presented the
CHAP. I. OUVRARD, THE CONTRACTOR 31
petition without any hostility to him, and that I 1824. should not move for the printing of the petition.
March 21. — Dined at Mr. Ord's in Berkeley Square. Met there Tom Moore, W. Spencer, Lady C. Lindsay, Lord and Lady King, and Mr. and Mrs. Abercromby. Agreeable party. Lady C. Lindsay the most agreeable of all. W. Spencer the least ; his efforts spoil all his qualities, which are far from brilliant, either moral or intellectual.
April 10. — Dined with Kinnaird. A large party — Lord Alvanley, Duke of Argyle, etc.
Alvanley gave us a humorous sketch of the life of Ouvrard, the great contractor, who furnished the clothing for Napoleon's army at Waterloo, and for the Duke d'Angouleme in Spain. He bought up everything on the Spanish frontier, and when the Duke d'Angouleme arrived at headquarters nothing was to be got except through Ouvrard. His influence turned out the Duke of Belluno. Ouvrard may be considered as having made the Spanish War. His loan for the Regency settled the question.
May 7. — Dined at Holland House. Damont there. Lord Holland, as usual, the most agree- able man at the table. We were talking of the duel of yesterday between Battier and Lord Londonderry.1 Lord Holland said that when Pitt
1 Charles William, 3rd Marquis of Londonderry, was Colonel of the 10th Hussars, and in 1824 fought a duel with Cornet Battier of that regiment. The quarrel arose out of some trivial regimental dispute, and Lord Londonderry was reprimanded, while Battier was dismissed the service.
32 LONDON CHAP. I.
1824. fought Tierney, Lord Harrowby said, " Pitt, take care of your pistol, it is a hair-trigger." Pitt held it up and said, " I do not see the hair ! " Such was his learning as to small arms.
Lord Lauderdale, talking of the late division against the Unitarian Marriage Bill, when the Chancellor heat Lord Liverpool by 39, said that he had asked the Lord Chancellor how he came off so victorious. " Why," said Eldon, " how could it he otherwise ? I had the 39 articles for me ! " Another proof how jocose these pious men can be in private on sacred subjects.
Lord Holland owned to me that Canning and Brougham were disliked by their respective adherents.
May 11. — At House of Commons. Lord Al- thorp's debate on the state of Ireland not over till near three in the morning. Canning made an often-repeated speech about himself, and his reasons for accepting office notwithstanding he could not carry the Catholic question, which he said might be better carried by a divided than a united Cabinet. He then alluded to the impossi- bility of his coalescing with the Whigs, as they would not come in without carrying Reform of Parliament. Old Tierney answered him in his best style jocularly, and gave him a complete dressing, but said Whigs were not pledged to Reform.
CHAPTER II
PROM BOOK, " RECOLLECTIONS."
AT the close of the session of 1823, and the 1824. early part of 1824, I was much employed on the affairs of Greece, and became one of the most active members of the Greek Committee. The Greeks had sent two Deputies to negotiate a loan in England, and with these our Committee was in constant communication. But our chief duty was to correspond with the illustrious poet, who had left Genoa for Greece, and was our agent, or rather representative, in Greece. Whatever there was of Government in that country resided at Missolonghi ; and in that floating capital Lord Byron, after staying some time in Cefalonia, resided, and devoted all his energies to the good cause. The readers of Moore's Life of him are aware of his exertions. Strange to say, whilst others, and more particularly Colonel Leicester Stanhope, a soldier by profession, were occupied in drawing up constitutions and devising forms of government, Byron was bent upon fighting, and had actually resolved upon an attack of the Castle of Lepanto, so soon as he could collect a sufficient body of troops on whom he could depend.
VOL. Ill 33 5
34 LONDON CHAP. II.
1824. Colonel Stanhope studied Bentham, and consulted the "Springs of Action" of that great writer; whilst Byron was providing arms for his soldiers, and concerting schemes for drilling and fitting them for actual war.
The Greek Committee were duly informed of his proceedings, and resolved to second them to the utmost of their power. They had the satis- faction of knowing that Mr. Secretary Canning regarded their efforts with far more favour than those of the Spanish patriots. Indeed, the feeling was universal ; and there seemed little douht that the Greek Deputies would accomplish their mis- sion, and negotiate the projected loan on reasonable terms.
EEOM DIARY.
April 12. — Letters from Greece stating that Lord Byron had been attacked by a serious con- vulsion fit at Missolonghi on [February 15th. He lost his senses for a time, and his face was dis- torted, but he has since recovered, though he is so much shaken that Stanhope says he must retire from Greece, of which he is the life and soul. The Suliotes have behaved very ill, ex- torting all Lord Byron's money, and then refusing to march, which they were to have done, under Lord Byron, against Lepanto. A Suliote being struck by a Captain Says, shot him dead. Stan- hope attributes Byron's illness to these disappoint- ments. I do not. Stanhope says Byron behaved
CHAP, H. BYRON DEAD 35
with great firmness. He always does on emergen- 1824< cies. The news made me very nervous. I could hardly sleep.
May 14. — This morning at a little after eight o'clock I was awakened by a loud tapping at my bedroom door, and on getting up had a packet of letters put into my hand, signed " Sidney Osborne." On the outside were the words " By Express " ; there was also a short note from Kinnaird.
I anticipated some dreadful news, and on opening Kinnaird's note found that Lord Byron was dead. In an agony of grief such as I have experienced only twice before in my life — once when I lost my dear friend, Charles Skinner Matthews in 1811, and afterwards when at Paris I heard my brother Benjamin had been killed at Waterloo, Quatre-Bras — I opened the dis- patches from Corfu, and there saw the details of the fatal event.
The letters were from Lord Sidney Osborne to me, from Count Gamba (Lord Byron's com- panion) to me, from Count Gamba to Lord Sidney Osborne, and from the Count to the English Consul at Zante. Besides these there were letters from Fletcher, Byron's valet, to Fletcher's wife, to Mrs. Leigh, and to Captain George (now Lord) Byron. Also there were four copies of a Greek proclamation by the Provisional Government of Missolonghi, with a translation annexed.
36 LONDON CHAP. II.
1824. The whole of these documents spoke the in- tense grief of everybody at this great calamity. The proclamation described my dear departed friend's illness of ten days — the public anxiety during those days of hope and fear — his death— the universal dejection and almost despair of the Greeks around him. The proclamation next decreed that the Easter festival should be sus- pended; that all the shops should be closed for three days ; that a general mourning for twenty days should be observed; and that at sunrise next morning, the twentieth of April, thirty- seven minute-guns should be fired from the bat- teries of the town to indicate the age of the deceased. He was in his 37th year.
I read this proclamation over and over again, in order to find some consolation in the glorious conclusion of his life for the loss of such a man, but in vain. All our ancient and most familiar intercourse, the pleasure I had enjoyed in looking back to the days of our amusements at home and our travels abroad, the fond hope with which I had contemplated our again— in our own country — renewing the more than brotherly union which had bound us together, all our tokens of regard, nay, even our trifling differences, — all burst upon me and rendered me alive only to the deprivation I was now doomed to endure.
Afterwards I saw the account of his last illness by Metcher in a letter to Mrs. Leigh, which letter she copied for me. The reading this letter
CHAP. II. THE STORY OF BYRON'S END 37
tore my heart to pieces. It showed the boundless 1824. and tender attachment of all about him to my dear, dear friend. I shall keep it for ever. It seems he had but imperfectly recovered from the violent epileptic fit which had seized him on the 15th February ; he had even had a slight return of it ; but his death was owing to his being caught in a hard shower of rain when riding near Missolonghi. A fever ensued ; he refused to be bled, and his physicians, young men, did not press him much, but put it off from day to day. Fletcher says he went on his knees with tears in his eyes and implored him to be bled. At last he consented, but Fletcher says it was then too late. He became delirious, and then for the last twenty-four hours neither spoke nor moved. He died on the nineteenth of April at six o'clock in the evening.
It is most afflicting to think that with good care he might have recovered, and yet it is pos- sible that in his very reduced state he might not have been able to bear bleeding. To fancy that he might have been saved, and was not, doubles our regret. I shall take some calmer moment for recording some of the particulars of this calamity.
I went for Sir Francis Burdett and Mr. Kin- naird, both of whom were much affected. The former kindly undertook the painful duty of informing Mrs. Leigh of the event. The latter transmitted other letters from Lord Sidney
38 LONDON CHAP. II.
1824. Osborne to various correspondents, and went to the evening newspaper office to make the intelli- gence public by the speediest means.
After the first access of grief was over, I determined to lose no time in doing my duty by preserving all that was left to me of my friend — his fame.
I called on Kinnaird, it being agreed that Burdett and I should dine with him. We had a melancholy evening, recalling to mind the various excellencies of our dear friend. I shall never forget this dreadful day.
I should have mentioned, at Mrs. Leigh's desire I called on her ; she was in an afflicting condition. She gave me Fletcher's letter to read, and I could not restrain my sorrow, but again burst out into uncontrollable lamentation ; but when recovered I thought right to engage Mrs. Leigh not to communicate to any but the nearest friends one part of the letter, which mentioned that since Lord Byron's fit on February 15th he had placed on his breakfast table a Bible every morning. This circumstance, which pleased his valet Eletcher, I was afraid might be mistaken for cowardice or hypocrisy, and I was anxious that no idle stories to his discredit should get abroad. I daresay that the Bible was on his table. I have long recollected his having one near him; it was a volume given to him by his sister, and I remember well seeing it on his table at Pisa in 1822, but unless his mind was shaken by disease
CHAP. ii. FLETCHER'S LETTERS 39
I am confident he made no superstitious use of it. 1824. That is to say, I am confident that although he might have a general belief in its contents, he was not overcome by any religious terrors.
He often said to me, " It may be true. It is, as d'Alembert said, a ' grand peut-etre ' " ; but I own that I think he was rather inclined to take the opposite line of thinking when I saw him at Pisa, for when I remonstrated with him on the freedom of some of his latter writings in that respect, he said, "What, are you canting ? " He then protested he would tell his opinions boldly, let what would be the consequences.
Both Burdett and Kinnaird were anxious, as well as myself, that no rumours prejudicial to his fame respecting his last moments should get abroad, and we therefore resolved to know the contents of Fletcher's letters to Mr. Murray and to Fletcher's wife. This we accomplished by giving those letters to the parties ourselves. Mr. Murray read the letter from him to me, and Mrs. Fletcher did the same to Kinnaird. They contained nothing but the expression that my Lord died a good Christian.
Mrs. Leigh seemed to view the subject in the same point of view as myself, and promised to be discreet. Captain George Byron — now, alas, Lord Byron — went down this evening to Becken- ham in Kent to communicate the tidings to Lady Byron.
May 15. — I called on Mrs. Leigh. . . . Captain
40 LONDON CHAP. II.
1824. G. Byron came in to us ; he was much affected. He had seen Lady Byron, and told me she was in a distressing state. She had said she had no right to he considered by Lord Byron's friends, but she had her feelings. She wished to see any accounts that had come of his last moments. I agreed to send my letters down to her by Captain Byron, and I did so.
May 16. — Moore and Kinnaird called. Moore talked of Lord Byron's friendships, and said he had told him in his last letter that he never felt safe when absent from him ; that he feared stones might be suddenly generated in the higher regions of his fancy, and even in the serenest sky might drop down and crush him, Moore. Byron's answer to this was pettish. I told Moore that Byron did not like being suspected.
Sir E. Burdett called. My dear sisters Matilda l and Sophia 2 came. When Burdett was gone I showed them a copy of Fletcher's letter to Mrs. Leigh, and went upstairs. On coming down I found them in floods of tears, such had been the effect of this simple narrative of the last moments of my dear friend on their tender hearts. They continued weeping during their visit. Indeed, I see by the papers that the regret is universal ; the loss is felt to be a national loss. Party feeling is suspended in the contemplation
1 Married Marchese Buancaleoni of Gubbio, Umbria, Italy.
2 Married Boyd Alexander, Esq., of Ballochmyle, Ayrshire, Scotland.
CHAP. ii. BYRON'S GENIUS FOR FRIENDSHIP 41
of the genius of our fellow-countryman, and of 1824. sympathy with him for the great cause to pro- mote which he may fairly be said to have died.
The Times of yesterday announced his death in a manner which is, I think, a fair sample of the general opinion on this event. The writer is, however, mistaken in saying that others may have been more tenderly beloved than Lord Byron, for no man ever lived who had such devoted friends. His power of attaching those about him to his person was such as no one I ever knew possessed. No human being could approach him without being sensible of this magical in- fluence. There was something commanding, but not overawing in his manner. He was neither grave nor gay out of place, and he seemed always made for that company in which he happened to find himself. There was a mildness and yet a decision in his mode of conversing, and even in his address, which are seldom united in the same person. He appeared exceedingly free, open, and unreserved with everybody, yet he con- trived at all times to retain just as much self- restraint as to preserve the respect of even his most intimate friends, so much so that those who lived most with him were seldom, if ever, wit- nesses to any weakness of character or conduct that could sink him in their esteem.
He was full of sensibility, but he did not suffer his feelings to betray him into absurdities. There never was a person who by his air, deportment,
VOL. Ill 6
42 LONDON CHAP. II.
1824. and appearance, altogether more decidedly per- suaded you at once that he was well born and well bred. He was, as Kinnaird said of him, " a gallant gentleman."
FROM BOOK, " RECOLLECTIONS."
How much soever the Greeks of that day may have differed on other topics, there was no differ- ence of opinion in regard to the loss they had sustained by the death of Byron. Those who have read Colonel Leicester Stanhope's interest- ing volume "Greece in 1823 and 1824," and more particularly Colonel Stanhope's " Sketch " and Mr. Finlay's " Reminiscences " of Byron, will have seen him just as he appeared to me during our long intimacy. I liked him a great deal too well to be an impartial judge of his character; but I can confidently appeal to the impressions he made upon the two above-men- tioned witnesses of his conduct, under very trying circumstances, for a justification of my strong affection for him — an affection not weakened by the forty years of a busy and chequered life that have passed over me since I saw him laid in his grave.
The influence he had acquired in Greece was unbounded, and he had exerted it in a manner most useful to her cause. Lord Sidney Osborne, writing to Mrs. Leigh, said that if Byron had never written a line in his life, he had done enough, during the last six months, in Greece,
CHAP. II. THE SAVIOUR OF GREECE 43
to immortalise his name. He added that no 1824| one unacquainted with the circumstances of the case could have any idea of the difficulties he had overcome : he had reconciled the contending parties, and had given a character of humanity and civilisation to the warfare in which they were engaged, besides contriving to prevent them from offending their powerful neighbours in the Ionian Islands. I heard that Sir E. Adam, in a dispatch to Lord Bathurst, bore testimony to his great qualities, and lamented his death as depriving the Ionian Government of the only man with whom they could act with safety. Mavrocordato, in his letter to Dr. Bowring, called him " a great man," and confessed that he was almost ignorant how to act when deprived of such a coadjutor.
EROM DIARY.
His friend Gamba says in his letter to me that, though cut off in the flower of his age, in the midst of his hopes, Byron will always be regarded as the saviour of Greece, always !
May 22. — This morning I was called up to Lady C. Lamb, whom I found waiting for me in my room. She had written to me saying she was perfectly satisfied if her letters were in my hands ; she now added that she could not give up Byron's letters to her, but she would leave them under seal directed to me in case of her dying before me, and she was dying, she said. I found
44 LONDON CHAP. II.
1824. her in a sad state ; but I could not consent to give up any of her letters, the only guarantee against her making a novel out of Byron's letters. I shall give the same answer about Lady Mel- bourne's letters, and all to whom I have spoken agree with me in the propriety of this measure.
May 24. — Went to Crown and Anchor. Numbers at dinner 320, 9 M.P.'s. All dreadfully put to it for speeches. The Greek Deputies were what Canning called the American Minister at Liver- pool, a Godsend ; but I could not allude to Greece as I otherwise would, the very name stuck in my throat. Burdett, in giving the memory of my dear Byron, introduced it by a moving and eloquent address. The Greeks performed what they had to do well. Orlando was in the Greek dress.
May 25. — Lambton and I walked to the House together ; fought the Islington Improvement Bill. Lambton brought on the question of Bucking- ham's treatment in India, did it very well. Canning tried to joke. Called Wellesley and Hastings candid souls, out of Horace. Came poorly off. Lambton's reply very good and ready. He is certainly a very neat, and indeed finished, Parliamentary speaker.
May 27. — Mrs. Leigh and I talking over Lord Byron agreed that his principal failing was a wish to mystify those persons with whom he lived, especially if they were in an inferior condition and of inferior intellect to himself.
CHAP. II. A NEWSPAPER-BIDDEN PEOPLE 45
May 29. — Went with Kinnaird to a villa be- 1824. longing to Lambton at Wimbledon, a beautiful place looking upon Coombe Woods, and as retired and rural as any spot in England. He gave £18,000 for it, expecting to give £25,000. Secre- tary Peel intended to bid against him, but told his bidder not to begin bidding till the sum reached £20,000. It never came so high !
Dined at Lambton's. Denman and Colonel Roberts there. Denman came from Carshalton, where the balloon fell down with Mr. Harris and Miss Stocks. Denman told us that whilst Miss Stocks was lying almost insensible on the bed, four newspaper reporters and four gentlemen of the balloon committee insisted upon being admitted to her ! ! !
Denman also told us that when the Queen was dying he saw two reporters in her antechamber, and Peter Einnerty, reporter for the Chronicle, actually rode on the box of the carriage that carried Denman and Brougham back to London, after they had taken their last leave of the Queen. A newspaper-ridden people we are !
May 30. — Kinnaird and Colonel Young, late Secretary to Lord Hastings in India, called. The Colonel told me some curious news relative to the state of society at Calcutta, and how my excellent brother Henry, who is a great radical in London, takes the high-prerogative line there in the East.
June 2, — Rode to Whitton. Looked over and
46 LONDON CHAP. II.
1824. sorted some of Lord Byron's letters, that is letters to him, with the intention of putting them in readiness to return to the writers.
June 5. — Rode to London. Went to Greek Committee, and mentioned that I had some thoughts of going to Greece. Heard read some letters from Stanhope from Athens and Salona, with short remarks from Lord Byron, in which he expresses himself as fully aware of the diffi- culties around him, hut resolved to do his duty, dear fellow. Stanhope did not hear of Lord Byron's illness and death until he arrived at Salona; where the Congress from Eastern and Western Greece was to meet, and where Lord Byron had promised to be present.
Parry, whom we sent out to superintend the Engineer Department in Greece, is mad at Zante. Colonel Stanhope is ill and coming home; but Blaquiere is arrived with £40,000 of the loan at Zante. A most atrocious piece of folly or villainy has been played off by Lord J. Churchill, com- manding H.M.S. Hinde, in the archipelago. He was at anchor off the Piraeus. He invited the General Ulysses, Ghora, the commandant of Athens, Mr. Trelawny, and twenty or thirty Greek soldiers on board his ship. As they were at dinner some of the Greeks ran down into the cabin to Ulysses, and told him the ship was under weigh. Ulysses, Ghora, and Trelawny rushed on deck and found the ship under press of sail. They drew their swords, cut the tiller ropes and hal-
CHAP. ii. BYRON'S WILL 47
liards, then jumped into the boats and made to 1824. shore.
Trelawny drew up a letter to Captain Clifford, commanding in those seas, but Lord Byron in a short note says he knows not whether it was sent. A large sum of money having been offered by the Turks for the head of Ulysses, the Hinde having just come from Smyrna, the Greeks be- lieved they were seized to be given up. Perhaps it was only a frolic, but such a frolic ! What an influence it might and may have on the future fate of Greece, especially on the connection of England with Greece.
June 10. — This morning I went to Kinnaird's by appointment to meet Hanson, the Hanson. Kinnaird has heard from Genoa from Mr. Barry, Lord Byron's banker, that having carefully looked over all the papers left by my friend in his possession, no will has been found. This made him desire Hanson to bring the will made by Lord Byron in 1815. It had a codicil made in November 1818 at Venice, by which Lord Byron gave £5,000 to his natural daughter Allegra, since dead. The executors of the will are Hanson and myself.
We agreed that Hanson ought to deposit the original will in Doctors' Commons until every search had again been made in Italy for a later will, but I begin to entertain some doubts of any posterior will to that of 1815 and 1818. None was made in Greece, we know. Hanson talked
48 LONDON CHAP. II.
1824, of some early letters of Lord Byron at nine years old, which he said were perfectly characteristic of what he afterwards became.
Kinnaird and I breakfasted and talked over the event that has deprived us of our illustrious friend. We called to mind many traits of his character. Kinnaird told me that Sheridan asked Byron to be his biographer, and said it would be the highest honour that could await him.
The last time but one that Sheridan ever dined out he met Byron and Kinnaird at Sir G. Heath- cote's. He went away very drunk in a hackney coach with both of them. Kinnaird got out first, and then, coming back, found Byron in fits of laughter over Sheridan, who had dropped almost senseless to the bottom of the coach; but when lifted up, and taking leave of them, Sheridan stammered out, " Good-bye, my dear Lord ; may you have a little one just like you " (his wife was then with child), — this showing his habit of finishing with something agreeable, or desiring to make an impression, drunk as he was.
June 14. — Dined with the Asiatic Club, of which I am a member. Sat next to Mr. Wilkins. He is a member of the Literary Club (Johnson's) which meets in the room where we dined. He told me that Charles Eox and Windham owned one day, in his hearing, at the Club, that . they had been wrong in their conduct towards Hastings.
Wilkins told me that Liverpool and Canning,
CHAP. II. MRS. BYRON 49
now members of the Club, are perfectly free with i824i Mackintosh and Lord Holland, and with others, also members, who may differ on politics from them; but neither politics nor religion ever talked.
June 17. — Went to a great assembly at Gros- venor House. Met Wherry, our charge d'affaires at Dresden, who told me anecdotes which show that Canning is not master even in his own department, but is counteracted by the Hertford party.
June 19. — Went to Mr. Hanson's in Chancery Lane, and thence with him to Doctors' Commons, where we deposited Lord Byron's will of 1815 for safe custody. We were accompanied by Mr. Glenarie, partner of Mr. Farquhar of the Commons. By a curious coincidence, Hanson told me that the room in which we delivered in the will was the very one to which he accompanied Lord Byron when my friend applied for his marriage licence. Lord Byron, at that time, said very gravely to the Doctor of the Commons : " Pray, sir, what is the proportion of those who come here first to make marriages, and then afterwards to unmake them ? "
Hanson told me afterwards one or two curious anecdotes of Byron. He knew him since nine years of age, and has many very early letters of his. Hanson talked to me of Mrs. Byron as a very foolish, passionate woman, totally ignorant, never reading anything but a novel or a news-
VOL. Ill 7
50 LONDON CHAP. II.
1824, paper. She used to break out into the most violent fits of passion against her son, and then weep over him and stifle him with caresses. At last Hanson thought it necessary to take Byron away from his mother and place him at school with a Mr. Glennie, at Dulwich. Hanson owned, however, that Lord Eyron was sincerely attached to his mother, and lamented her death.
Hanson said that he was putting together a memoir of his recollections of Lord Byron, which joined with his letters, he thought, would he highly creditable to Lord Byron. He told me at the same time an instance or two of his love of frolic, amounting to teasing.
Hanson says that in his earliest youth Lord Byron showed signs of being a humourist. It is my own opinion that he was peculiarly so, and what is called " very fond of fun." In this way I account for several eccentricities of conduct which I am persuaded arose from his desire to mystify and to quiz certain people about him.
I find that Mr. Barry, his banker of Genoa, has written to Kinnaird a letter with the following paragraph in it :
" You will excuse my mentioning to you rather a singular request that Lord Byron made me when he was on the point of sailing. The eccentricities of a man of his genius may, I hope, be mentioned to a friend valued by him as you were, without giving offence, or appearing childish or imper-
CHAP. ii. BYRON'S BIOGRAPHY 51
tinent. He had kept for a long time three common 1824. geese, for which, he told me, he had a sort of affection, and particularly desired that I would take care of them, as it was his wish to have them at some future time, it being his intention to keep them as long as he or they lived. I will send them to England, if you please."
Now here is a plain case of mystification which succeeded with the worthy Barry.
Hanson told me he had already had two applications made for his materials respecting Lord Byron's biography ; he promised me not to let them go out of his hands. Murray, the book- seller, talked to me yesterday of publishing a volume of Lord Byron's letters, of which he offered me the selection. I told him my objection to having anything to do with memoirs, con- sidering that Moore would then charge me with having wished to destroy his MSS. in order to become biographer myself.
Went to Kinnaird and found the letter from Barry before mentioned, by which also it seems Lord Byron made no will in Italy, though he often talked of it. . . .
Dined with John Williams, M.P. Present, Brougham and others. Brougham and I walked home together. He differed from me in thinking that the people would never have spirit or power to procure a fair Government, and thought the Mechanics' Institutions and other establishments for instructing the lower classes would work out
52 LONDON CHAP. II.
1824. the cure for all political evil, and make the people too strong for the Government. He said he thought Peel coming forward on Friday at the Public Meeting in honour of Watt, and saying he owed everything to the steam engine, would excite an ambition amongst mechanics. I thought that the effect would be that the mechanics would say, " See how a man may rise according even to the present system of Government. Who knows that a Watt or a Peel may not spring from among us ? This consideration, it appeared to me, would retard a real reform. Brougham appears to me daily a more extra- ordinary man the more I see of him.
June 21. — Dined with my father at Lord de Dunstanville's. My lord lost his wife not quite a year ago, and is going to be married in a fortnight to a Miss Lemon.
I sat next to Black Rod, Sir Thomas Tyrrwhit, a merry man. He told me stories of his in- vesting the Emperors and Kings with the Garter. He said he had refused to go to Portugal to give the Garter to King John. He mentioned one or two traits of our present King, amongst others that he was very quick at quoting Latin.
He told us that Lord Grenville, when at Oxford, gutted a man's rooms in four minutes and a half for a wager. Lord Grenville is lingering at Dropmore with a complaint said to belong to his family, a softness of the skull at the top of his head. Tyrrwhit told us that a
BYRON'S FUNERAL 53
certain chandelier at the House of Lords, under 1824. which Lord Grenville usually sat, was, and is, never lighted, out of consideration for his Lord- ship, who cannot hear any heat above his head.
June 22. — Ministers are divided on the South American question. The Marquis of Hertford does not scruple to go about saying that, if Canning goes farther towards recognising the Republics, out he shall go. Ireland also and the Catholic question are points of difference.
June 24. — At House of Commons. Presented petition and made a debate on subject of regu- lations in prisons by visiting magistrates.
June 25. — I had a letter yesterday from Mr. Trelawny, dated Missolonghi, April 30th, giving me particulars of Lord Byron's last days. Too true, his loss has made a void which nothing can fill up. I find it so daily.
I called on Mrs. Leigh, and advised her to write to Lady Byron to ask if she had any wishes respecting Lord Byron's funeral. This night I had her answer, saying if the deceased had left no directions she thought the matter might be left to the judgment of Mr. Hobhouse. There was a postscript saying, " If you like you may show this." The coldness and calculation of so young a woman on such an occasion are quite unaccountable.
June 26. — Dined with Hanbury Tracy, a large party. We had some lively talk on public men. They asked me what my owft motives of action.
54 LONDON CHAP. II.
1824. were : whether the ambition of making a figure was not a prominent one. I said that if I said no, they would think me a sort of Joseph Surface. Western said, "Not a hit of it"; and I then ventured to tell what I believed to be true of my political conduct, namely, that it was prompted by no other desire than that of doing public good in a small way, not now perhaps, but by being an example of political integrity. If I know myself I believe this is true, but perhaps I was a fool for saying so.
June 27.— My birthday ! 38 ! I think of the occurrences of last year, most melancholy indeed to the public and to me. As for myself, I find I have sunk into a complete valetudinarian, so much so that I quite wonder that I have been able to do the little I have done in the House of Commons this year, where I learn that my con- stituents think that I have made progress instead of going back or standing still, and I learn generally that my good Westminster friends are contented with me.
Yet I find everything palls upon me, and the prospect that by the common course of nature, myself, and those of whom I am fond, cannot add, but must lose gradually the capacity for enjoyment, makes me look with distaste upon what may remain of existence. This feeling has been growing upon me strongly of late, and I recollect when I was at Newstead Abbey last year thinking of some rhymes which I afterwards
CHAP. II. VERSES AND MELANCHOLY 55
put upon paper, but most of which I have lost. 1824. Here, however, are some of them :
Youth, health, and pleasure, all are gone,
Gone never to return, And coming life has left alone
To suffer and to mourn.
The powerful charm, the vivid hue,
That all creation wore, When every object still was new,
Adorn it now no more.
Each brilliant hope, each gay desire,
That time and truth dispel, I feel ye one by one expire,
And bid my soul farewell.
Each hour some dear delusion flies,
Some pleasing visions fade, And life's too sad realities
The dreary prospect shade.
When memory doubles each regret,
And hope no promise gives Of happier days, why lingers yet
The weary wretch and lives ?
I added some other verses in answer to the question in the last line, which I will try to recollect some time or the other.
Whilst I am thinking on the return of this sad day, the Greek Deputies call upon me, and remind me that there is a duty still to perform in life, and I also receive a letter from the debtors in Horsemonger Gaol in which the poor fellows thank me for presenting their petition in terms which, if they were justified by my real conduct
56 LONDON CHAP. II.
1824. and character, might reconcile a man fond of praise to the weight of existence. It seems the magistrates have, in consequence, recommended a relaxation in the rules of the prison.
EROM BOOK, " RECOLLECTIONS."
July 1. — I heard that the Florida, with the remains of Byron, had arrived in the Downs, and I went, the same evening, to Rochester. The next morning I went to Standgate Creek, and, taking a hoat, went on hoard the vessel. There I found Colonel Leicester Stanhope, Dr. Bruno, Fletcher, Byron's valet, with three others of his servants. Three dogs that had belonged to my friend were playing about the deck. I could hardly bring myself to look at them. The vessel had got under weigh, and we beat up the river to Gravesend. I cannot describe what I felt during the five or six hours of our passage. I was the last person who shook hands with Byron when he left England in 1816. I recollected his waving his cap to me as the packet bounded off on a curling wave from the pier-head at Dover, and here I was now coming back to England with his corpse.
EROM DIARY.
Poor Eletcher * burst into tears and sobs when he first saw me, and several times when telling
1 Fletcher had been Byron's valet for twenty years, and was with him when he died.
CHAP. it. FLETCHER'S STORY 57
me the sad story of his Lord's last illness and 1824. death, he could not contain his grief. So much real feeling I never saw.
From the beginning Fletcher said he thought Byron very ill, and prayed him to be bled and send for Doctor Thomas, of Zante ; but Lord Byron said he had only a cold, and that his doctors told him so.
"Oh, my Lord," replied Eletcher, "it is not a cold; you are very ill"; but Lord Byron still continued incredulous. Eletcher said the doctors did not press bleeding half enough, except Bruno, and he was overruled. Lord Byron consented when they did urge it, but it was too late.
At last Lord Byron did seem to think himself much worse than usual, and said to Eletcher, " If you think me so ill, send for Doctor Thomas, and spare no expense, and do not let the doctors know, for they do not wish to have any one here but themselves." Still, however, he had no idea of dying, but was afraid of madness, and of a recurrence of his fit which he had in Eebruary, so much so that he told Eletcher he did not care for dying, but that he would not bear madness, at the same time looking at his pistols and dagger, which were lying beside him, and which Eletcher subsequently removed. It was not until the afternoon of the 18th, within half an hour of becoming delirious, that he thought he might die. He then began to be angry with his doctors, and said to Eletcher, "The doctors
VOL. Ill 8
58 LONDON CHAP. II.
1824. have assassinated me, and you are in the plot to assassinate me too." Fletcher burst into tears, and said, " Oh, my Lord, how can you think so ? " at which Byron was moved, and said, " No, Eletcher, I did not mean to say so: come here," and he took his hand and began to talk kindly to him, saying he was sorry he had done nothing for him by his will, but Mr. Hobhouse would be his friend and see him provided for. He then expressed an anxiety to do something for his favourite chasseur, Tita, and his Greek boy, Luca, but Fletcher told him to speak of more important concerns. He still continued angry with the doctors, and particularly with Dr. Millingen, who had all along made light of the disorder. He told the doctor to leave the room, but Doctor Millingen said, " I cannot leave you thus," and wept ; Byron replied, " You have been with me too long." He then said to Eletcher that he believed he was in a dangerous way. "I hope not," said Eletcher, "but the Lord's will be done." "Yes," rejoined Lord Byron, a not mine."
When he became delirious, he showed by what he said that he was trying to give some last directions. He was muttering for half an hour, and then said, " Now I have told you all. I hope you have understood me." Eletcher replied, " My Lord, not a word." On this, poor Byron looked shocked and said, " What a pity ! It is too late now." Shortly after he added, " I want to sleep
CHAP. II. "A GOOD CHRISTIAN" 59
now/' and turned on his back and shut his eyes. 1824. This was at six o'clock on April 18th. Every means was used to rouse him, but in vain. He opened his eyes just at six o'clock on the following evening, and then closed them instantly. The doctors felt his pulse, and he was gone.
PROM BOOK, " RECOLLECTIONS."
I heard, on undoubted authority, that, until Lord Byron became delirious, he was perfectly calm ; and I called to mind how often I had heard him say that he was not apprehensive as to death itself, but as to how, from physical infirmity, he might behave at that inevitable hour. On one occasion he said to me, " Let no one come near me when I am dying, if you can help it, and we happen to be together at the time."
PROM DIARY.
July 2. — Fletcher told me that Dr. Kennedy, of the medical staff at Cefalonia, had tried to convert Lord Byron to Methodism, but had failed. He added, however, that Lord Byron was different in respect to religion from what he had been, and that he was a good Christian. Dr. Kennedy has written to Kinnaird, who handed the letter to me, that although Lord Byron was not what he could wish on points of orthodoxy, yet he was not what the world imagined.
Fletcher told me Byron regretted having written " Cain " and " Don Juan." Colonel Stanhope told
60 LONDON CHAP. II.
1824. me the same, and yet I find seventeen stanzas of a new canto of " Don Juan " amongst his papers.
Fletcher said that Lord Byron used to joke with him about being killed in his intended expedition to Lepaiito. Fletcher said the Greeks would run away and leave him. " Then," said Byron, " you would get my eight thousand dollars and baggage." Another time he said, " Fletcher, if I die in Greece, what will you do with me ? J! " My Lord," replied Fletcher, " what should we do but take you home ? " " Why," said Byron, "it is not worth while to take such a body as this home." But a little afterwards he added, " Perhaps, on the whole, it would be better to do so."
Colonel Stanhope told me a few things on board the Florida which I here set down, but I premise that Stanhope had taken a different view of the proper mode of action in Greece from Byron.
Byron was sorry now and then that he ever came to Greece. He expressed anger at the Greek Committee for publishing his letter from Genoa in which he talked of going, so that when his intention was made known, he thought himself bound to act up to it. At other times he said he was glad he had come, and talked with en- thusiasm of the cause. He would say that it was better being at Missolonghi than going about talking and singing at parties in London, at past forty, like Tom Moore.
He might have taken Lepanto ; the Albanians
CHAP. II. FRIENDSHIPS AND ENMITIES 61
were prepared to give it up ; but he could not be 1824. persuaded to move from Missolonghi, and his influence there, by giving money in all directions, was very great. He was generally idle, but by fits he proposed and projected desperate projects, such as cutting out ships, etc., which he after- wards laughed at.
He quarrelled with Stanhope, but made it up as often, and said, " Give me your honest right hand." He confessed to Stanhope he quarrelled with everybody. " Why," said he, " I quarrelled with Hobhouse." Stanhope told me that he thought the two friends he liked best in the world were Lord Clare and myself. He mentioned Kinnaird also with great affection. Sam Rogers he hated very much indeed. He seemed pleased at any one praising his wife, and talked a great deal of his daughter. I find now that the four- teen stanzas of the 17th Canto of " Don Juan " were written before he came to Greece.
Talking one day of his. eventful life, Stanhope said, " Why do you not write your life ? " Byron replied that his friends could do it as well : Gamba knew all his latter years, and Hobhouse his early time. Stanhope and his friends used to ask him why he did not write more in Greece. He said it would be ridiculous to write poetry whilst engaged in his present efforts for Greece, but on the morning of his birthday he came into the room where Stanhope and others were sitting, and said, " You accuse me of not writing — I have written
62 LONDON CHAP. II.
1824. something, and it is better than the stuff I usually write." He then produced his stanzas on his thirty-sixth birthday, which I have got written in a sort of broken journal of which he wrote a little in Greece.
Count Gamba told me one or two things of my friend worth putting down. On the day before the 18th, Byron said one or two things to Gamba, which made him think Byron knew his danger. Speaking of Greece, he said, " I have given my money and my time for her, and now I give my life." On the day he lost consciousness, he asked if there were any letters for him. There was one from me and two from Kinnaird, which they did not show him ; but Prince Mavrocordato sent to him a letter which he had received from the Metropolitan Ignacius, in which were these words : " Lord Byron enjoys so great a considera- tion, etc., that perhaps you had better open your designs to him." This made Byron look up and say, " Ah, they think to take me in, but I'll be too much for them. Wait till Hobhouse and Napier come out." He evidently believed that Mavrocordato had some designs of his own. He used to talk, too, of my coming out to him. One day reading a letter of mine, in which I advised not to go to the mainland of Greece without great precautions, he said, " Ah, it comes too late ; it is like telling a man to beware of his wife after he has married her."
He was exceedingly well when at Metaxata
CHAP. II. PRINCE MAVROCORDATO 63
in Cefalonia, and very well when he first came 1824. to Missolonghi. Things went smoothly at first, but he soon found that Mavrocordato had promised more than he could perform, and when the Suliotes refused to march against Lepanto, saying they could not fight stone walls, he was very much hurt and vexed. Then he saw Mavrocordato had no power. The captains used to abuse him before Byron; and one day, when a fellow insisted on having a Turk given up to him that Lord Byron had saved, Byron desired Mavrocordato to inter- fere, but Mavrocordato got nothing but hard words, on which Byron drew a pistol, and present- ing it to the fellow's head, walked him out of the room.
Gamba says that occasionally he was afraid Byron's house would be broken into, to obtain his money, which was said to be much more than it really was. The artillery brigade was composed partly to protect him and his dollars. After his death Gamba was obliged, so he says, to make a sacrifice of some 4,000 dollars, in order to save the other : 7,000, which at one time he thought would have been detained. One of the captains encamped without the town offered to march his troops to protect the treasure and goods of the deceased. I think Gamba's account of Lord Byron is a fair one. He appears to me to have known him well.
Stanhope handed me a letter from Dr. Millingen to Bowring in which I find these words :
64 LONDON CHAP. II.
1824> " MISSOLONGHI, April 27, 1824.
" He (Lord Byron) expired in my arms on Monday last after a malady of only ten days' duration. His health had suffered previously very much in consequence of the convulsive fits he fell into February last, hut the immediate cause of his death was a rheumatic fever which attacked him, through getting wet in a shower. The fever was at its outset very strong, and Weeding was proposed, hut the prejudice he entertained against Weeding was insurmountable. He obstinately refused to listen to the urgent remonstrances and entreaties, both of his physician and mine, until the brain was attacked. His answer to all our arguments was : ' The lancet has killed more than the lance.' During the latter part of his complaint two objects seemed to absorb all his thoughts — Greece and his daughter. He at last fell into a comatose sleep, which after twenty -four hours' duration gently terminated his existence."
EROM BOOK, " RECOLLECTIONS."
July 2. — The Florida anchored at Gravesend, and I returned to London. ... On the following Monday I went to Doctors' Commons and proved Byron's will. Mr. Hanson did likewise. Thence I went to London Bridge, got into a boat, and went to London Docks Buoy, where the Florida was anchored. I found Mr. Woodeson, the under- taker, on board, employed in emptying the spirit from the large barrel containing the box that held the corpse. This box was removed and placed on deck by the side of a leaden coffin. I stayed
CHAP. II. THE LAST OF BYRON 65
whilst the iron hoops were knocked off the box, 1824. but I could not bear to see the remainder of the operation, and went into the cabin. Whilst there I looked over the sealed packet of papers belonging to Byron, which he had deposited at Cefalonia, and which had not been opened since he left them there. Captain Hodgson of the Florida, the captain's father, and Fletcher were with me : we examined every paper, and did not find any will. Those present signed a document to that effect.
PROM DIARY.
July 5. — Mr. Woodeson came into the cabin and told me the body was placed in the coffin, and asked me if I wished to see it. I believe I should have dropped down dead if I had ventured to look at it. He told me, as did the physician, Bruno, that it had almost all the freshness and firmness of life. I remained on board, and continued leaning on the coffin, which I had now covered with a lid and the ship flag. I felt an inclination to take a last look of my friend, just as one wishes to jump down a precipice, but I could not, and I walked away, and then I came back again and rested on the coffin. Lord Byron's large New- foundland dog was lying at my feet. I wished I was as unconscious of my loss as he was.
At intervals Fletcher talked to me of his master. He told me that he had said he loved me better than any man on earth, and yet had never passed twenty-four hours without quarrelling with me.
VOL. in 9
66 LONDON CHAP. II.
1824. FROM BOOK, " RECOLLECTIONS."
After the removal of the corpse into the coffin, and the arrival of the order from the Custom- house, I accompanied the undertaker in the barge with the coffin. There were many boats round the ship at the time, and the shore was crowded with spectators. We passed quietly up the river, and landed at Palace Yard stairs. Thence the coffin and the small chest containing the heart were carried to the house in George Street, and deposited in the room prepared for their reception. The room was decently hung with black, but there was no other decoration than an escutcheon of the Byron arms, roughly daubed on a deal board. . . .
I ascertained from Mrs. Leigh that it was wished that the interment should take place at the family vault at Hucknall in Nottinghamshire.
The utmost eagerness was shown, both publicly and privately, to get a sight of anything connected with Byron. Lafayette was at that time on his way to America, and a young Frenchman came over from the General at Havre, and wrote me a note requesting a sight of the deceased poet. The coffin had been closed, and his wishes could not be complied with. A young man came on board the Florida, and in very moving terms besought me to allow him to take one look at him. I was sorry to be obliged to refuse, as I did not know the young man, and there were many round the vessel who would have made the same request.
CHAP. H. POET-WORSHIP 67
He was bitterly disappointed; and when I gave 1824. him a piece of the cotton in which the corpse had been wrapped, he took it with much devotion and placed it in his pocket-book. Mr. Phillips, the Academician, applied for permission to take a likeness, but I heard from Mrs. Leigh that the features of her brother had been so disfigured by the means used to preserve his remains that she scarcely recognised them.
FROM DIARY.
July 6. — Went down to George Street with Kinnaird. Hanson had just been looking at Lord Byron. He told me he should not have known him, except he had looked at his ear and his foot. I followed Kinnaird into the room, and, drawn by an irresistible inclination, though I expected to be overcome by it, approached the coffin. I drew nearer by degrees, till I caught a view of the face. It did not bear the slightest resemblance to my dear friend. So complete was the change it did not seem to be Byron. I was not moved so much scarcely as at the sight of his handwriting or anything that I knew to be his. I did not remark what Hanson told me he had observed in his life- time, that his left eye was much larger than his right.
July 7. — I wrote a note to Mrs. Leigh, telling her that I should return the £1,000 left to me by Lord Byron to one of her family.
July 11. — Lord Byron's coffin, &c., lay in state,
68 HUCKNALL TOKKAKD CHAP. II.
1824. as it is called, yesterday and the day before. Immense crowds applied for admittance.
July 12. — I attended the removal of my dear Byron's remains, as mourner and executor.
EBOM BOOK, " RECOLLECTIONS."
The newspapers of the day contained a tolerably correct list of those who attended as mourners, and those who sent their carriages, of which there were forty-seven. Lord Carlisle, Lord Morpeth, and Lord Aberdeen were the only persons not belonging to the Whig Opposition who sent their carriages. Mr. George Leigh, Captain Richard Byron, Mr. Hanson, and myself were in the first carriage ; Sir Francis Burdett, Mr. Kinnaird, Mr. Ellice, and Mr. Michael Bruce, Colonel Leicester Stanhope, and Mr. Trevanion, were in the second and third ; Mr. Moore, Mr. Rogers, Mr. Campbell, and Orlando the Greek Deputy, were in the last mourning-coach. An immense concourse attended; and the windows were full of people in decent mourning. In about an hour the procession came to the stones-end, the carriages turned homewards ; the hearse took the road to Nottingham.
PROM DIARY.
July 12. — On the whole, as much honour was done to the deceased as circumstances would admit of. He was buried like a nobleman, since we could not bury him as a poet.
CHAP. II. REMINISCENCES OF BYRON 69
July 15. — Went to Lord Rancliffe's at Bunny, 1824. and found what he had promised, a hearty wel- come from this kind and excellent old man.
Strolled ahout Bunny. Saw the little school- house which C. S. Matthews and I had remarked in 1809. C. S. Matthews and I left Newstead on foot, and walked to London. Byron came up in his carriage. I recollect his passing us on the road, near the hut-gate of Newstead Park, and we gave him a hurrah. I am the survivor of the three; how long I shall be is another matter. Of the five that often dined at Byron's tahle at Diodati, near Geneva — Polidori, Shelley, Lord Byron, Scrope Davies, and myself — the first put an end to himself, the second was drowned, the third killed by his physicians, the fourth is in exile !
Dr. Attenborough, a surgeon of Nottingham, dined with us. He told me what I never heard before, and what I doubt whether my friend Byron knew : that the village and glen of Papple- wick, near Newstead, was the scene of one of Ben Jonson's pastoral dramas, in which is the character of Mad Madge of Papplewick ; also that Mrs. Radcliffe lived at Nottingham, and probably drew some of her romantic pictures from the old Abbey.
PROM BOOK, " RECOLLECTIONS."
July 16. — Went with Lord Rancliffe to Notting- ham. The town was crowded in every street leading to the inn in which the coffin lay, and
70 NOTTINGHAM CHAP. TL
1824. much feeling and sympathy were exhibited by all classes. Hodgson, translator of Juvenal, afterwards Provost of Eton, whom Byron had much befriended, and Colonel Wildman, owner of Newstead, attended as mourners. The Mayor and Corporation of Nottingham joined the funeral procession. It extended about a quarter of a mile, and, moving very slowly, was five hours on the road to Hucknall. The view of it as it wound through the villages of Papplewick and Lindley excited sensations in me which will never be forgotten. As we passed under the hill of Annesley, " crowned with the peculiar diadem of trees " immortalised by Byron, I called to mind a thousand particulars of my first visit to Newstead. It was dining at Annesley Park that I saw the first interview of Byron, after a long interval, with his early love, Mary Anne Chaworth. The churchyard and the little church of Huck- nall were so crowded that it was with difficulty we could follow the coffin up the aisle. The contrast between the gorgeous decorations of the coffin and the urn and the humble village church was very striking. I was told afterwards that the place was crowded until a late hour in the evening, and that the vault was not closed until the next morning.
EROM DIARY.
July 16. — I had been so long familiarised to the contemplation of the irreparable loss of my
LORD BYROX.
From a picture given by the late Earl of Lovelace to Lady Dorchester, p. 70]
CHAP. II. THE FREEDOM OF NOTTINGHAM 71
friend, that the seeing him huried was no source 1824. of more profound grief to me ; but I felt stunned and unahle to lament.
PROM BOOK, " RECOLLECTIONS."
I returned to Bunny Park. The Corporation of Nottingham offered me the freedom of the town, but I had no inclination for the ceremonies with which the acceptance of the honour would have been accompanied; I therefore declined it.
CHAPTER III
FROM BOOK, "RECOLLECTIONS."
1824. I DO not wish to recall to mind the conduct of one or two persons from whom I expected better things; hut I must mention the fact that their proceedings gave me, in my character of executor of Lord Byron, a great deal of unnecessary annoy- ance. I allude principally to the attempt made by Mr. Dallas, a connection of Captain George Byron, who had become Lord Byron by the death of his cousin, to publish some private letters of Byron's to his mother and others. Mr. Dallas was the gentleman to whom Lord Byron had made a present of the two first cantos of " Childe Harold," and I had some acquaintance with him. Accordingly I wrote a letter to him, remonstrating on the inexpediency of publishing these private letters without the previous inspection of the family. I also called on Mr. Knight, the book- seller, to whom Mr. Dallas had made over the letters. Mr. Knight said he believed Mr. Dallas could prove his right to the letters by a letter from Lord Byron to him, Mr. Dallas. Mr. John Williams and my friend Henry Bickersteth advised me, in case the permissive letter was not forthcoming, to apply for an injunction and stop
72
CHAP. III. A GREEK LOAN 73
the publication. I did, with some trouble and 1824. delay, procure the injunction, and the letters were not published; but Mr. Dallas revenged himself by publishing a volume, called " Recollec- tions of Lord Byron," in which he was pleased to speak of me in terms which I hope relieved him of some of his bile. . . .
The death of Byron made it necessary to appoint some one who might alleviate that loss, or, at least, attempt to do so. Mr. Hume, on the 7th July, did his best to persuade me to be the person, and Colonel Stanhope called the next day upon me, and urged many arguments to second the proposal.
On July 26th I had a letter from my friend Edward Ellice, saying that the Greek Deputies were to have a meeting with him that evening, at Mr. Loughman's, the contractor for the loan, and that, if I consented to go to Greece as manager for the loan, they would make suitable arrangements to that effect, besides sending arms and ammunition to Napoli di Romania immedi- ately. I answered the note by saying that " I would go, if alive, and if Mr. Hume and Mr. Loughman made no difficulties." I also wrote the following letter to the Greek Committee, in order that they might clearly understand the principal object of my journey :
"WHITTON PARK, HOUNSLOW, "July 29, 1824.
"My DEAR SIR,
" Previously to setting out for Greece, it seems right that I should state one point on which
VOL. Ill 10
74 LONDON CHAP. III.
1824. I am sure that the Greek Committee will have the kindness to excuse my being anxious to he clearly understood. I must beg then to say that I pro- pose to enter upon that journey with one precise object, and one object only, namely, to deliver over to the Greek Government, if any such Govern- ment may be found actually to exist, that portion of the Greek loan now at Zante, and also an additional sum now proposed to be sent out in the Florida. If the Commissioners deputed for that object should be so fortunate as to accomplish it immediately on their arrival at the seat of government, I shall think myself at liberty im- mediately to return, as having done all I had undertaken to attempt. I shall be most happy to convey the sentiments of the Committee on other points connected with the welfare of Greece ; but I shall do so merely as their organ, and with- out venturing to hazard any interference of my own.
"Having premised this much, I have only to add that I shall do my best to forward whatever instructions the Committee may choose to honour me with during the short period that I shall be able to remain in Greece. " I am, my dear Sir,
" Your most faithful servant,
"JOHN C. HOBHOUSE. "jPo JOHN Bo WRING, ESQ."
I sent this letter to the Greek Committee, and prepared for going to Greece. ... On August 4th I received my instructions from the Greek Loan contractors and from Messrs. Ellice and Hume. I saw from the instructions that Mr. Hume differed from friend Ellice, and also from the contractors. Thereupon I immediately wrote a
CHAP. III. JOSEPH HUME 75
letter saying that I would not go unless the 1824, three — Ellis, Hume, and Loughman — were agreed as to the instructions. . . . Mr. Hume's objection was, that the instructions were confined to one object, which was exactly the point on which I had insisted as the condition of my under- taking the mission. He also added a clause which I said was not in the original contract. This caused a great deal of discussion between us, and on August 7th I had a note from Ellice saying that after all that had passed he could not advise me to go to Greece. The Greek Deputies wrote telling me they suspected it had been determined in certain quarters that I should not undertake the mission. My own opinion was that, although Hume would have preferred an agent of his own who would obey his orders and disperse his speeches in Greece, he would not try any underhand tricks to obtain that object.
Joseph Hume was of great service, previously to passing the Reform Bill, in sifting and ex- posing occasionally the estimates; and, being a man of indefatigable industry, collected a vast mass of materials, which he could sometimes skilfully employ. He, like Sir James Graham, Sir Robert Inglis, and one or two others, was essentially a part of the House of Commons for many years ; and I recollect a saying of Sir Robert Peel, that he could not conceive a House of Commons without a Joseph Hume.
76 WHITTON CHAP. III.
1824. The Greek affairs were fatal to more than one reputation, and Hume for a time was much damaged by his dealings in the loan. After I had abandoned the mission, I had the satisfaction of hearing that Mr. Henry Bulwer and Mr. Hamilton Browne had consented to go overland to Greece.
FROM DIARY.
August 23. — At Whitton. Lady Cork told us some anecdotes of herself and friends. She men- tioned the old story, " That is, dearest, because you are a dunce," and talked a great deal of Dr. Johnson.
She told us that she, first of anybody, intro- duced Sheridan to Devonshire House. She carried Mrs. Sheridan home from a party where she had charmed everybody by her singing. Next day she called and found her making puddings, or some dish, for her husband's dinner.
When she brought Mrs. Sheridan to Devon- shire House the Duchess said, " She should be glad to see Mrs. Sheridan, but what to do with the awkward man her husband, the son of a player," etc., etc. ! ! Half a year afterwards Lady Cork went to Bath, and found two houses taken for the Duchess of Devonshire and her party. They were kept for her two months. At last she came. When she saw Lady Cork she told her that she had been leaving Chatsworth every day for two months, but that Sheridan kept her.
CHAP. III. LADY CORK AND SHERIDAN 77
"Ah," said Lady Cork, "d'ye recollect the 1824 awkward man.'" The Duchess told her that Sheridan was the most agreeable man in the world ; she could not live without him.
Lady Cork told us a great deal of the sports at Lord Crewe's, in which it appears all the great men of the day joined. They were such as our children would enjoy in their holiday time. Lady Cork is a very singular personage. She is seventy-six years of age, and has all the vivacity of sixteen. Her memory seems very accurate, but whether she recollects or makes stories I will not pretend to say. Having lived with the most distinguished people of the last age, her conversation, or rather her narratives, are very entertaining.
PROM BOOK, " RECOLLECTIONS."
I left Whitton Park and went with two of my sisters for a short tour in the Midlands. . . . We visited Chisholme. The only guest there besides myself was Lord Howick, of whom I formed an opinion which subsequent experience has fully justified. He was only twenty-one years of age, but he appeared to have an original and decisive turn of mind, and never hesitated to express his dissent from any opinion with which he did not coincide. He seemed well informed, as far as I was able to judge. His political opinions appeared to be very liberal and worthy of his father. I thought little of
78 CHILLINGHAM CHAP. III.
1824. him when I first saw him, hut ten days developed a character which I did not conceive him to have possessed. He had nothing hoyish about him. This was not amiable, but promised perhaps future distinction.
We left Chisholme on October 9th and walked
to Wilton Lodge, near Hawick ; thence by Kelso
and Coldstream to Chillingham Castle. No one
was there except Lord and Lady Tankerville and
Sir Henry Bouverie, except also a beautiful child,
now a beautiful woman — for such Lady Malmes-
bury is, and will be always ; " age cannot harm
her." I had scarcely any previous knowledge
of our host and hostess, but had a very kind
and agreeable reception from them. I did not,
as may be imagined, talk Erench politics to a
daughter of the Due de Gramont ; but I did
venture to condemn, very sincerely, the law which
divides the property of a deceased parent between
all the children. In this Lady Tankerville agreed
with me, and I suppose it was to this that I
owed the favourable report which I afterwards
heard her ladyship had made of the M.P. for
Westminster; or perhaps I owed this friendly
notice to my bad political character, for she wrote
to Lambton Castle that she was " agreeably
surprised to find me so mild and moderate in
my talk, when she expected to have met with
a Radical, positive and furious " —as she said,
"a la Bennett."
We took leave of Chillingham on the 12th
CHAP. III. LORD GREY 79
October, and walked to Falloden, the seat of 1824 General Henry Grey. We passed a very agreeable time there. I still look back upon it with much pleasure. . . . We came to Lambton Castle on the 16th October. Few of the racing party had arrived, but Lord and Lady Wilton, Lord Grey, and Lady Elizabeth came before dinner.
Of Lord Grey I shall speak hereafter; but I cannot refrain from recording here that I did not see much pretence in him. He was, it is true, reserved and cautious in his talk, and never uttered a sentiment unbecoming a man of high honour and of scrupulous purity ; nor did he trifle on serious subjects, nor give you the slightest reason to suspect his sincerity. As to his political character, what Sir Erancis Burdett said to me of him is very true : " He should not have been a patriot ; he should have been a minister ; that was his line." To myself, owing probably to his acquaintance with my father, he was, on this occasion, particularly kind, and talked on political subjects without reserve. He told me that George III. changed his tone and manner to the Whig ministers of 1806 the moment that Mr. Fox died, and began to dis- tinguish Lord Grenville from the Whigs of the Cabinet. He added that the King, when he saw that Lord Grenville did not enter into his views, was more attentive to him (Lord Grey), and spoke of him as one who always treated him with respect, and was ready and punctual with
80 LAMBTON CASTLE CHAP. HI.
1824. all his official details. Lord Grey told me that Grenville was deceived, and thought that the King had resolved to do something for the Catholics. Grey was not deceived. Lord Chan- cellor Erskine, said Lord Grey, came one day to him, after a long audience with His Majesty, and told him that " he had quite convinced the King of the propriety of conceding Catholic Emancipation," and Erskine was in high glee at the success of his eloquence. A little while afterwards Lord Grenville had an audience of the King, who said to him, " What ! what ! what's all this ahout, that the Lord Chancellor has heen saying to me ? What is it all about ? " When the racing hegan, the party at Lamhton Castle became more numerous. Lord and Lady Londonderry arrived ; also Mr. Creevey. I cannot say I formed a favourable opinion of this gentleman from his visit to Lambton. He seemed to me a very wag, and one who would let no principle of any kind stand in the way of his joke. When he had no jest to excite laughter he tried grimaces. He spared no one, and he fell foul of Lambton's pedigree, which our host had indiscreetly left on the library table. One of his constant topics was the absurdities of Michael Angelo Taylor, with whom he lived more than with any other man. All this is true ; but of Creevey's superior abilities there can be no doubt. He had a strong and a quick memory, and that lively perception of the
CHAP. III. RACING 81
ridiculous which goes far to make an entertain- 1824. ing man. Raillery of the present and detraction of the absent were his weapons for general talk ; but when serious he showed sound and honest views, both of public and private duties, and discovered qualities which might adorn a higher character than he had endeavoured to acquire. He was in the habit of keeping up an active correspondence with several persons, to whom he communicated the gossip of the house where he happened to reside; and I know that he favoured them with portraits of the guests and amusements at Lambton.
I saw quite enough of private racing parties at Lambton to be convinced of the truth of what Lord Grosvenor said to me at Eaton, when show- ing me the pictures of some of his favourite horses. " Yes," said he, " the racehorse is a beautiful animal ; but I would not advise any one to go on the turf. It is not a fit amuse- ment for a gentleman."
FROM DIARY.
October 17. — Prom what I could see of Lord Grey during this visit of a week, I should think him to be very kind and affectionate and sensibly behaved towards his family. He has little or none of the spirit of society about him. He seems melancholy and discontented, and he several times talked to me with great despond- ency on the want of public spirit in England.
VOL. in 11
82 LONDON CHAP. III.
1824. October 20. — A party of 40 at dinner. Lord and Lady Londonderry joined us. The Marquis has the bewildered air of an insane person, the Marchioness looks like a young Lady Holland without her talents. She had a tall young fellow, an Italian in a hussar dress, waiting on her, and her freaks were the subject of much pleasantry at table, and even on the race ground. She carries her jewels about with her, and showed them to the ladies after dinner to the amount, they thought, of £100,000.
October 25. — I left Lambton Castle with Mr. John Mills, who told me some singular anecdotes of his campaigning in Spain, when an officer of the Coldstream Guards. He said when the Duke of Wellington saw the slaughter of his soldiers, whose bodies lay in heaps on the breach at Badajoz, he wept like a child. The sacrifice had been altogether uncalled for, and Picton took the place by a false attack.
October 31. — Arrived in London.
November 1. — Went by appointment to Mel- bourne House, and had a talk of two hours with Lady Caroline Lamb. She is in the utmost rage at Medwin's " Conversations " representing her as not having been the object of Byron's attachment, and she showed me a very tender letter of his which she wishes to publish.
She gave me a ridiculous account of the attempt lately made to confine her as a mad woman, and mentioned that she had sent 16
CHAP. III. LADY CAROLINE LAMB 83
quarto volumes of journals kept by her since 1806 1824. to Godwin, the author, to do what he would with. She also opened a communication with the newspapers. This frightened Mr. Lamb and the family. She said Godwin returned the journals. I saw the first volume ; it was funny enough.
November 11. — I dined with Kinnaird. A large party, amongst whom was a Count Salvo and Prince Cimitile.
Cimitile told me that Prince Metternich had laughed at him at the Congress of Vienna for talking of the Emperor of Russia as inclined towards Liberal opinions. He had them when they were a la mode, he said; now he has aban- doned those errors. He told me that Metternich's hatred of Napoleon arose from Napoleon having publicly insulted him, by telling him he filled his dispatches with billets-doux, and at another time calling him a " coquin."
FROM BOOK, "RECOLLECTIONS."
During this autumn I wrote an article for the Quarterly Review, exposing Medwin's "Conver- sations." Mr. Murray engaged to insert it, and kept it some time with him, but afterwards in- formed me that he could not publish it in his Review, adding that he and Mr. Gilford had much difficulty in preventing an article defamatory of
"Journal of the Conversations of Lord Byron noted during a residence with his Lordship at Pisa in the years' 182,1 and 1822." By Captain Thomas Medwin.
84 LONDON CHAP. III.
1824. Byron from being put into the Quarterly. I was a good deal surprised at this ; hut I soon guessed the cause of it when I saw a most violent attack on my friend from the pen of Mr. Southey.1
FROM DIARY.
December 15. — Thomas Moore called to talk apparently about Southey 's attack on Byron, and also to tell me that he had " become a convert to my opinion about the propriety of destroying all the Memoirs" and not making extracts as he had proposed. He then asked me to leave some record or the other as to Lord Byron's wish about these Memoirs. He told me that his conduct had been often attacked even by friends, but that he had silenced them by saying that Byron told me his wishes that the Memoirs should not be published. After some more talk on Byron, and his saying several times, " You were much more his friend than I can pretend to have been/' he went away.
December 20. — Found a note of Lord Byron's on Southey, when he (Byron) consented to cancel the dedication to " Don Juan " attacking Southey vehemently. This was done at my request.
1825. January 30. — Dined with Brougham. John Smith told us that Dr. Parr was dining at his house when Perceval was shot. He told Parr the news. Parr said, "The Lord's will be done."
1 The substance of Mr. Hobhouse's article appeared in the Westminster Review in 1825. Southey's article did not appear in the Quarterly.
CHAP. in. NAPOLEON'S WILL 85
Brougham mentioned that Montholon brought 1825- Napoleon's will to him one night quite unex- pectedly, together with his fortune in notes. One was a letter of credit by Lafitte, which began, " This will be delivered to you by the Emperor Napoleon, of whose fame all Europe has heard," or in some such style. Brougham kept the will a night, copied it, and next morning took it to Lushington, who lodged it in the Commons.
Brougham has just completed a work on the education of the lower classes,1 which he told me had abridged an hour of his nightly rest for some time.
Sir Francis Burdett brings forward the Catholic Petition this Session. His Irish servant, in reply to a question as to his attendance in Parliament, said, " It depended upon the frost."
PROM BOOK, " RECOLLECTIONS."
Parliament was opened on February 3 by Commission ; and the Speech denounced the Catholic Association and recommended an aug- mentation of the army.
On February 10 Mr. Goulburn moved for leave to bring in his Bill for putting down the Catholic Association. The debate was continued through the following day, when Plunket made a great, and, for the most part, successful effort. He would have left a great impression on the House
" Practical Observations upon the Education of the People ; addressed to the Working Classes and their Employers." 1825.
86 LONDON CHAP. in.
1825, if he had not been answered by Tierney in his very best style. The House roared with laughter at his exposure of the Ministers ; and the parties concerned — Canning, Plunket, and Goulburn — could not help joining in the laugh.
We divided twice upon an adjournment. I then moved it a third time ; and Mr. Canning said that if Brougham would give him the names of the Irish members who, he said, wished to speak, he (Mr. Canning) would give way. Brougham laughed aloud, and Mr. Canning then said, " I presume, then, the honourable Member for Westminster is in possession of the House, and opens the debate on Monday." I said, " I had not any objection to announce myself if Mr. Canning would do the same."
The adjournment was carried without a division. As I was walking down the House, Mr. Canning touched me on the shoulder, and said, " It is too bad of you, Mr. Hobhouse, to adjourn the House, and not engage for a speech. There will be no- body here, and nothing done on Monday." Goul- burn, who was near us, said, " There will be plenty of speeches ready before Monday." I added, " I am quite disinterested ; I ]eave it to the Irish."
EEOM DIARY.
February 12. — Dined at Scarlett's. Present, amongst others : Tierney, Burdett, John Williams, Ellice, and Lambton. Tierney said of Sheridan
CHAP. III. " SO POOR A SET OF JUDGES " 87
that one of his great propensities was to show 1825. his wit as a witness. He did this with great effect on Hardy's trial, hut Scarlett told that he certainly was the cause of Lord Thanet's con- viction. When asked hy Law whether he would swear that to the hest of his helief there was no plot to rescue the prisoner, Sheridan appealed to the judge and asked whether he was obliged to answer the question. The judge said no, but the jury caught the impression from that appeal which caused their verdict. Burdett, who was present at the meeting where the rescue was talked of, said Sheridan ought to have said no, for there was no such intention. Some one had mentioned a rescue in a joke, but nothing further was said.
Scarlett told me the other day that the business of the King's Bench is diminishing; that there never was at any time so poor a set of judges, and that yet the Ministers were about to propose an increase of their salaries. He said he hoped some one would oppose this, though he could not.
FROM BOOK, " RECOLLECTIONS."
The debate on the Catholic Association was adjourned on February 14 On February 15 Mr. W. Lamb spoke, and was followed by Sir Francis Burdett, who carried the House completely with him.
Mr. Canning rose after Sir Francis, but, by common consent, he was not happy in his reply.
88 LONDON CHAP. III.
1825. Defending himself in regard to his conduct to- wards the Catholics, he told us a great secret— that for their sakes he had sacrificed the first wish of his heart, the representation of Oxford. Saying this, he laid hold of Peel's shoulder awkwardly, and wished him "a long possession of the mistress he had lost." Peel, who was apparently not prepared for the familiar wishes of his colleague, shrugged his shoulder and looked uncomfortable.
Brougham spoke next, and was, I thought, disconcerted by Canning's allusion to his " immense abilities," adding " experto credited The conse- quence was, Brougham did not make an effective speech when he might have made an effective one. Tierney said he would have given fifty pounds to have had the opportunity of replying to Canning. As it was, Mr. Canning came off well, with an unanswered apology for his whole conduct in regard to the Catholics.
We divided— 127 to 278 — at half-past three in the morning. I believe no man alive recollected a debate so protracted on leave to bring in a Bill recommended by a King's Speech. I never re- collected the House so attentive to every speech during the whole discussion.
But I soon found that we had not done with the Catholic Association ; for, on Friday, February 18, Brougham presented a petition from that body, and a violent debate ensued, in which Peel, although much applauded in the outset of his
CHAP. III. MINISTERS UNCOMFORTABLE 89
speech, got into a lamentable scrape before he sat 1826, down by calling Hamilton Rowan an " attainted rebel " ; whereupon C. Hutchinson made a gallant defence of Rowan and some of his associates, and Brougham afterwards showed the respect in which Rowan was held by the King's Government in Ireland, being, moreover, a magistrate and re- ceived at the Castle. Some one handed up to me a note, mentioning that Rowan was received by the King in 1821 ; but Lord Althorp advised me not to -hand it to Brougham, as it might put him out, and his case was already quite strong enough. I regret, however, I did not forward the note, and so did Brougham, when I told him of it ; but, to be sure, never did Minister get such a whipping, as the Americans call it. Peel looked so red and so silly, and all those who had cheered him looked so red and so silly, and we so roared and cheered our champion, that a bystander would have thought the Opposition certain of a majority; yet when Ministers came to divide, after this exposure of their Secretary, they had a majority of 220 and upwards to 89.
I find this debate commented upon in my Diary in these terms : " Certainly Ministers have never been so completely exposed, one after the other, as on this occasion; and, were the Opposition in possession of the confidence of the country, such is their intellectual superiority, that the admin- istration must succumb ; or, at least, the seven illiberals in the Cabinet must give way. There
VOL. in 12
90 LONDON CHAP. III.
1825. is little or no cordiality between the two parties in power. Robinson, the Chancellor of the Ex- chequer, said to Henry Drummond, coming out of the House, ' I thought how it would be when I heard Brougham begin to praise Peel.' Strange as it may seem, Peel actually came up to Brougham, and told him he was much gratified by his speech, although he, of course, felt what he said respecting Rowan. This is scarcely credible, but Burdett explained it by saying he supposed Peel was so stunned and stupefied by the blow, that he scarcely knew what he said or did. I remarked that the newspapers conveyed no impression of the effect produced by Brougham's speech on the House. Indeed, generally speaking, they do not represent the transactions of Parlia- ment in their nicer traits."
EROM DIARY.
February 20. — Burdett and I dined at Lord Holland's. Lady Holland has been and is still very ill. She is in great alarm, and was much comforted by some sympathy from me derived from my own case. Her face is much altered, and she is so much aware of it that she has shades before the candles, so as to throw her into the dark.
She told me that she had heard the speeches on the late debate ranked thus : Plunket's, Burdett's, Tierney's, and afterwards Brougham and Canning, neither of whom she said was thought to have succeeded.
CHAP. III. CATHOLIC ASSOCIATION BILL 91
Lord Holland was, as usual, full of delightful 1826. conversation. He rather contradicted Burdett's story of the intention of arresting Charles Eox in the days of terror. He told us that it was very difficult to find authority for the law against blasphemy. He had looked and could trace it only to a comparative recent date.
Lord Holland told us that Ellenhorough was highly indignant at the King interposing against the relief of the Catholics,1 proposed hy the Cabinet of 1807. That a great national measure should he opposed by the " tohim, the caprice, and the crochet of one man," said he ; but afterwards, when he saw how the land lay, he altered his tone, and talked of the conscientious scruples of the King. Lord Holland mentioned the rage of Erskine at losing his office " for an absurd religion."
February 25. — On third reading of the Catholic Association Bill we were less than 100 minority. Thus ended these protracted debates on this Bill, in which the Ministers had been, each of them, exposed in his turn, and in which the superiority of the Opposition speakers had been manifested in a very striking degree, always excepting Plunket.
March 1. — At House of Commons. Burdett presented the Catholic Petition without a com- ment, except that it was signed by 100,000 names. He then introduced his resolutions, which it had
1 This was afterwards carried in 1817.
92 LONDON CHAP. III.
1825. been agreed should be the same as those of Plunket in 1821. Burdett's speech was not of the highest order, but it was well fitted for the purpose. Lambton thought he went too far in the eulogistic line, but his speech was much applauded by all who followed, even by Peel. Canning had been and was ill, and spoke leaning on a crutch, shortly but excellently, and then retired, having paired off. The remarkable sentence of his speech was that two lines of de- marcation distinguished the political world, that between Catholic and Protestant, and that of British and Foreign influence (or interest). He would extinguish the one, and make the other as marked as possible. He would say, (e efface the line of separation which divides the inhabit- ants of the British Islands into two classes, and strengthen the line of demarcation which separates British from foreign influence."
It was an anxious moment when we divided. The rumours had been that we should be beaten, but as we thronged into the lobby it soon appeared we had a majority. Our numbers were 247 to 234, and were announced with cheers.
March 4. — Went at ten o'clock to Mr. Murray's house party at Whitehall Place. T. Campbell, Milman, Sheil, the orator and poet, D'Israeli, and almost all the literary folk of the day, or at least of Mr. Murray's acquaintance, there.
W. Bankes talked to me a great deal of Byron's regard for me. He approved of the destruction
CHAP. III. THE DUKE OF SUSSEX 93
of the Memoirs, and said Byron's best friends could always recur to his poetry and conceal his life. This is my own opinion ; that is, if all is or ought to he told in the biography of celebrated men.
March 5. — Called on the Duke of Sussex, who showed me his gallery and other library rooms, filled with books all collected by himself in fifteen years, and which he intends to leave to Trinity College, Cambridge. He talked to me a great deal on the Catholic Association and the Catholic question, and showed me a curious book of 1514, by which it appears that in 1514 there were sixty bishops in Ireland.
March 9. — Burdett is preparing, in conjunction with O'Connell and Plunket, the Catholic Bill. The greatest harmony reigns between the three, and also the great Whigs. Burdett dines with the Duke of Norfolk, the Duke of Devonshire, and at other houses, to meet the delegates, and all confess that he is the best man to deal with they ever met. But difficulties arise : Lord Grey, who is just come to town, is angry or alarmed at the talk of depriving the forty-shilling freeholder of his franchise. Lord Sefton, Creevey, Sir B». Wilson, and Lamb ton join in the cry. Burdett told me that he considered Lord Holland as his great shield against the petulance of Lord Grey.
FROM BOOK, " BECOLLECTIONS."
If the introduction of the Catholic Relief Bill
94 LONDON CHAP. III.
1825. caused a serious division in the ranks of the Ministerialists, it was also very nearly breaking up the Opposition. In order to reconcile some waverers and general opponents to Emancipa- tion, two other measures were introduced, one for a disfranchisement of a certain portion of the forty- shilling freeholders, the other for the partial payment of the Roman Catholic clergy. Both of these proposals were perhaps defensible, hut they gave rise to much difference of opinion amongst the supporters of the principal bill.
PROM DIARY.
March 12. — There is great talk that the Catholic question will be carried in the Lords ; bets even, and Lord Fitzwilliam has bet Lord Grey twenty to one it will ! 1 1
March 13. — I dined with a party at Aber- cromby's. O'Connell there. Abercromby very dull, but O'Connell very pleasant, natural, and easy. He is not what is called a man of the world, or with the airs of a town -bred gentleman. He wears a curly wig (black), and in the street a furred mantle. The Irish tell me he is vain, and likes the " dicier hie est," but all confess him to be a most powerful speaker, and a very learned lawyer, and a most diligent student. He rises very early in the morning.
March 15. — I dined with Ellice, where I met a large heterogeneous party : Lords Grey, Dudley, Lowther, Mr. John Mills, Sir P. Burdett, etc.
CHAP. III. POPULARITY AND WHISKEY 95
Very dull indeed. Burdett said to me, " If that is good company, I like bad company."
Lord Grey told me that he came into Parlia- ment in 1786, when twenty-two years of age. I expressed surprise at this. "What!" said he, " you think it time for me to have done ? " He is always thinking of himself and his failures in life, so I imagine.
March 20. — Burdett and I went to Lord Holland's. My lady very gracious. I gave Lord Holland his and Lady Holland's letters which I had found amongst Byron's papers. This I did, having promised Lord Holland so to do last year ; but I am sorry I so promised.
Lord Lansdowne told me that, at the St. Patrick's dinner the other day, he was struck with the great popularity of the Chancellor of the Exchequer ; but that his popularity was lost in the tumultuous applause that followed the Duke of Leinster's drinking a glass of whiskey ! !
March 21. — Spoke to Peel privately respecting the abridgement of the hours of labour for children in the Cotton Factories. He referred me to Huskisson ; Huskisson referred me to Phillipps of Manchester, and Phillipps to the Chamber of Commerce at Manchester. The poor operative deputies from Manchester have been often with me, trying to induce me to bring in a Bill for them. I want some one to do it more likely to succeed than myself.
March 26.— Greville told me that the Duke
96 LONDON CHAP. III.
1826, of York told him that he knew O'Connell had the drawing of the Catholic Bill, for he heard Lady Jersey say so out loud to the deaf Duke of Devonshire at dinner. This is a fine way of keeping a state secret.
EBOM BOOK, " RECOLLECTIONS."
On April 19 Sir Francis Burdett moved the second reading of his Bill ; but it soon appeared that we had gained little by what Cobbett called the " wings " of the Bill.
On April 21 the debate on the Catholic Relief Bill was resumed. Mr. Canning made a magnifi- cent speech, but was obliged to withdraw before the division, having the gout in both feet. Peel spoke well ; but Canning had anticipated some of his arguments, and answered them. Brougham spoke shortly, and embroiled the debate by a violent disclaimer of the two new Bills. We divided 268 to 241. There was no cheering at our majority, and on the whole we were disap- pointed. As to myself, I was uncertain what course I ought to take ; I had a great dislike of the Disfranchisement Bill, but, at the same time, I was very averse from doing anything that might risk the passing of the Relief Bill.
To add to our difficulties, the Duke of York declared in the House of Lords the night before, and called God to witness, " that he never would assent to the Catholic claims, and that no English monarch could assent to them so long as the
CHAP. III.
THE CATHOLIC RELIEF BILL
97
Coronation Oath stood as it did on the Statute Book."
On April 26 Brougham made a most vehement speech against the Bill, hut, to the infinite sur- prise of many of us, finished hy saying he did not like to oppose it. Plunket made a most masterly and energetic answer to Brougham, beating him at his own weapons, and showing how much his own heart as well as his head was in the cause. I had my doubts what to do. I did not like to appear to abandon Burdett, especially after Brougham's speech, but I could not support the principle of the Disfranchising Bill.
Sir Francis Burdett rose after Grattan, and made a most powerful declamatory appeal to all the friends of Catholic Emancipation. He derided the scruples of Brougham, and said it was impossible to act with such impracticable men. He declared the Bill to be inseparably connected with Catholic Emancipation, and added that it had nothing whatever to do with Parliamentary Reform. He spoke with the great- est feeling and highest eloquence, and carried the House with him. I was forced, however, and much against my inclination, to come to the conclusion that he had given no solid proof of these assertions, and that he had given promises of support from which he would not swerve, and was resolved to keep them at all hazards. He concluded his speech by magnificent eulogies on
VOL. Ill 13
1825.
98 LONDON CHAP. III.
1825. Plunket and Brownlow, and sat down amidst thunders of applause.
I reluctantly left the House, and did not vote at all. Littleton's Bill was carried by a majority of 233 to 185.
On April 29 the measure for giving a provision to the Catholic clergy was carried by a majority of forty.
This Session I began my labours in regard to shortening the hours of infant labour in cotton mills. It had been agreed that the Bill should be brought in without discussion; but, unfor- tunately, Mr. John Smith said something about extending the provisions of the Bill to children in other employments. This induced Peel to speak, and the reporters mistook his arguments for a disposition to oppose my measure, which most certainly was not the case.
The debate on the third reading of the Catholic Bill came on on May 10. There was great anxiety among us when we divided. We were only 248 to 227. The minority cheered, and well they might, for we had fallen off wofully in our numbers. Little was gained and something was lost by the sacrifices made by Burdett and his friends.
A day or two afterwards I met Mr. Dawson, the Under-Secretary of State, and when I told him I supposed he triumphed in our small majority, he said, " Not at all — more especially as we owed it to the shabby conduct of your friends."
CHAP. III. LADY GRANTHAM 99
I could not help thinking that Dawson, and 1825. Peel too, would have been glad if the measure had heen carried by a larger majority. Such was my conjecture at the time, and subsequent events showed I was right.
On May 11 Brougham, Sir John Newport, and many others, carried the Catholic Relief Bill to the Lords.
PROM DIARY.
May 13. — Dined at Lord Belgrave's; sat be- tween Littleton and Tom Smith. Littleton told me that Lord Granville told him that, when he came into a room at Paris where foreign diplo- matists were talking, the whole party shut up at once. They looked on him as an enemy of the Holy Alliance. The beautiful Lady Grantham was there; a most extraordinary person for her time of life.
May 16. — At House of Commons, where I read my Cotton Mills Regulation Bill a second time. Peel recommended me to confine my Bill to making his father's Bill operative.
BOOK, " RECOLLECTIONS." On May 17 the second reading of the Catholic Relief Bill came on in the Lords. I went amongst a great crowd of women, under the Throne, and heard part of the Bishop of Chester's speech. . . . Lord Liverpool, the Prime Minister, spoke vio- lently against the Bill and the framers of it, his
100 LONDON CHAP. III.
1825. own colleagues ; although I heard for a fact, at the time, that Lord Wellesley, a little before, had told Plunket the Bill would pass. The division took place at half-past five in the morning, and the majority against the Bill was forty-eight ! ! Of course, nothing more was heard of the " wings." Had it not heen for the judicious efforts and conciliatory manners of Sir Erancis Burdett and Mr. O'Connell, I do not think the Bill would have passed the Commons ; hut nohody anticipated that the final majority against it in the Lords would he so formidable. Who could have dreamed that Catholic Emancipation, in four years' time, would be carried in the same House of Lords by a majority of forty ? I never looked over the lists of their Lordships' House on either occasion, but I presume the squadrone volante in lawn sleeves mainly contributed to the change. These were never very constant friends nor persevering enemies, and I recollect well the anecdote told me at the time of the struggle on the Association Bill. Lord Chancellor Eldon, commenting to Earl Grey on the differences observable in the Liberal party, said, "You shall see how my Bishops will behave." On the third reading of the Bill in the Lords, six Bishops voted one way and six the other way; whereupon Lord Grey said to Lord Eldon, "Well, Lord Chancellor, what do you think of your Bishops now ? "
The reply was, " G them ; I wish they
were all in ! " Lord Grey himself told me
CHAP. III.
EPSOM RACES
101
this just after it happened. It will be believed 1825. by those who remember the expletives put into the mouth of Lord Thurlow in the " Probationary Odes."
After the turmoil of Parliament, where I had been a good deal occupied with my Factory Bill and Quarantine Bill and opposition to the Window Tax, I was not sorry to get out of London, on a visit to my friend W. Denison, at Denbies. Whilst there I rode over to Epsom, and saw the running for the Derby and Oaks races. I remarked then, and have remarked since, that if you bet, you may be ruined; if you do not bet, you must be dull. But —
The People, sure, the People are the sight.
I have seen many great crowds, in several parts of the world, but never saw anything like the crowd on Epsom Downs on a Derby Day.
Our Westminster friends had some apprehension that the annual dinner of this year would be turbulent and lead to difficulties. But our fears were groundless. Everything went off well. The party broke up early, apparently much pleased with the proceedings of the day; and I went to an assembly at Lady Jersey's, where I had not been since my difference with her Whig friends in 1818. Her ladyship was all kindness and congratulation.
In the May of this year I was first introduced to several persons of some note, such as Professor
102 LONDON CHAP. III.
1825. Smyth, Mr. Sotheby, Miss Lydia White, and the Miss Berrys; and it was at a dinner at Miss White's that I first formed an acquaintance with Mr. Sydney Smith. Apropos of the rejection of our Relief Bill, he told me he had had a con- versation with Dr. Doyle, who had assured him there was "no fear of tranquillity in Ireland." "My lord/' said Sydney, "you have taken a great load off my mind. I was afraid the activity of the cotton trade might do mischief."
EROM DIARY.
May 25. — Lord Nugent called to tell me he had just heard from the Duke of Buckingham that something decisive was determined upon in the Cabinet respecting the Catholic question. Nothing could be more contemptuous than the expressions of Eldon and the Lord Chancellor towards the Grenvillites, and particularly towards Plunket. Eldon called Brougham and Plunket Jesuits, and said they were great lawyers in their own estimation. Liverpool said the conduct of the House of Commons was disgraceful. Plunket was on the steps of the throne during the whole debate, and when Liverpool made some assertion respecting Catholic confession, he turned round to Frederick Ponsonby and said, "The only answer to that is that it is altogether false."
May 26. — At House of Commons. Debate lan- guishing. Lord John Russell called up Robinson, from whom it soon appeared there was to be no
CHAP. III. CANNING AND HIS COLLEAGUES 103
resignation of office, though Robinson said he 1825- would resign if it would carry the question. Canning spoke much to the same tune, saying he could not quit office without dangerous consequences.
May 27. — Lord Nugent told me what had occurred in the Cabinet. His informant was the Duke of Buckingham, and the Duke's I pre- sume to he Charles Wynne.
Canning told his colleagues assembled that the question divided itself into two branches, of which one might be subdivided into two also. The first, grant the Catholic question ; that the one party would not do. Second, perpetually exclude the question from agitation ; that the other party in Cabinet would not do, but the last point might be diminished into making minor concessions. Eldon and Peel said they had taken their stand ; they had no minor concessions to make. Then said Mr. Canning, f( There is the alternative of our retiring from office and breaking up the Cabinet ? " This was received with silence. Can- ning repeated the phrase ; still not a word said ; when, after a pause, Canning added, " which would be very detrimental considering the present state of Ireland." This remark was received also in silence ; but Canning, without observing upon the silence, continued, "And now I shall make my stand. If, in consequence of refusing the Catholic claims, Ireland should be agitated at any future time, and it should be asked to
104 LONDON CHAP. III.
1825. create fresh penal enactments, I will not give my consent; sooner than do so I will retire from office." Thus ended the conference.
It is evident Canning's stand is as much like a fall as possible.
May 28. — Dined at Beefsteak. A small party. Brougham in the chair. Brougham told us some- thing of his first interview with Charles Fox, and his alarm at Fox's shy manner. Brougham sang us a song in French, " The Pipe of Tohacco." He was in high force. He told us he always gets up every morning at seven, let him go to bed when he will, and that he is a good sleeper. He is a most extraordinary man.
May 30. — Dined at Lansdowne House; first time since political squabbles in Westminster. A large Wiltshire party. Lord Lansdowne as usual agreeable, but he told the same story about Liverpool and Calonne which I heard him tell years ago at his own table, when I met Romilly there.
June 5. — I went to Brooks's, and heard from Lord Carnarvon and Lord Cowper some anecdotes of Burke.
Lord Carnarvon asked his father to introduce him to Burke just after the schism between Burke and the Whigs, indeed when Burke was writing his appeal from the new to the old Whigs. Lord Carnarvon's father said he did not know how Burke would receive any overture from a Whig, but he would do as his son wished. Burke desired
CHAP. m. EDMUND BURKE 105
Lord Porchester to call on him in Duke Street, 1825. St. James's, where he then was. Lord Porchester went, and was met at the door by Burke in a night-gown and a pen in his hand (Lord Carnarvon said, like a mad poet) . His first exclamation was : " Let no youth enter here ; I am polluted, tainted, infected," and other words in the same strain allusive to the proscription of him by the Whigs. Afterwards he was very civil, and appointed a day for Lord Porchester to call and walk with him in Kensington Gardens. Lord Porchester went, but before they set out the Archbishop
of A , an emigrant, came in and began to talk
of the late campaign against the Erench Repub- licans. The Archbishop happened to say that the fault of non-success was attributed partly to the measures of the Royalists not being well taken, on which Burke threw himself back in his chair, and stretching out his hands, remained silent and in that posture till the Archbishop took his leave, without Burke saying a word. After this Burke said, " Now we will walk." Accordingly the two set out, and Lord Porchester had a most agreeable walk. He did little but listen, but by so doing he impressed Burke with a high opinion of his sense, and accordingly, when Burke gave him a letter of introduction to a friend on his going abroad, he found that letter couched in terms of most extravagant praise, not only of the foreigner but of himself. On returning from abroad Lord Porchester wrote a letter to Burke.
VOL. Ill 14
106 LONDON CHAP. III.
1825. For a long time Burke took no notice of it ; he had lost his son, and was otherwise in a most depressed state of mind. At last he wrote a note to Lord Porchester, telling him he had found his letter amongst a heap of others unanswered, and would be glad to see him. When they met Burke happened to allude to the letter of intro- duction given by him to Lord Porchester, and there being something which reminded him of his late son he burst into tears. This happened more than once afterwards, and Lord Porchester found Burke too much overcome for company. He went away, and never saw him again.
Lord Carnarvon told me that Burke 's son was an ill-mannered, disagreeable person. He was very short-sighted, and went about peering with his glass at people's noses. Burke thought him something more than mortal.
Lord Cowper said that Fox told him that Burke' s famous speech on reconciliation with America was spoken very nearly as it afterwards appeared in print. He told me that Burke used to commit many indiscretions when a member of the Whig party; so much so, that one day, when he was speaking from where Bankes sits, after his rupture with the Whigs, Fox said to Fitzpatrick, " What a pleasant thing it is not to have to answer for Burke." Fox and the Whigs wished, however, to be reconciled to Burke. Burke never wished it ; he had quarrelled on purpose.
Lord Carnarvon and Lord Cowper both joined
CHAP. III. LORD COWPER 107
in saying that Sheridan was full of hatred, envy, 1825. and jealousy ; he could not hear a joke, though perpetually jesting on others.
Lord Cowper dined with him when Treasurer of the Navy. The dinner was most magnificent, and everything in the highest taste and style. The hell-rope happened to he broken : one of the servants made a run and jumped up to catch the top of the rope. Lord Thanet exclaimed : " The Harlequin from Drury Lane, by God ! "
I take Lord Carnarvon and Lord Cowper to he both of them very good authority for anything they narrate. They are both men exactly to my mind. Lord Cowper is called a dull man. I know not why ; I never saw a man less dull in my life. He has a slow pronunciation, and a slow gait and pace. Lady Emma Bennett, a beautiful young creature, said to me the other day : "I do not know how to talk with what they call the gay, clever young men. Por my part, I con- verse easiest with Lord Cowper, whom they call a dull man."
June 8. — Dined at R. Gordon's, where met a mixed party, and amongst others the Attorney- General (Copley) and his wife, both singular in their way, the latter very much so, flighty and coquettish, but still with some talent. The Attorney is her second husband. She is hand- some, and has intelligent black eyes. Her passion, as she says, leads her to the universe of clever men only. The Attorney is a talking man,
108 LONDON CHAP. III.
1825. having been a Whig before he was a law officer of the Crown. He looks with indifference at politics and politicians, and cares but little if that indifference should be manifest to all. He does not seem to me to have much information out of his profession, and in the course of conversation I found that he knew nothing about the plague question, although probably he had been concerned in drawing the new Quarantine Bill. He was not even aware that for fifty years after the great plague of 1665 we had no quarantine and no plague. He has a " tranchant " decisive way of talking, without much regard to facts. This I had seen before in the House of Commons, and I think it true of him in private. We talked of Brougham's speech of last night. Copley said that what Brougham said of Gifford, the Master of the Rolls, as one of the Chancery Commission, was
"D d blackguard." It was not true that Gifford
had been a counsel of no practice when made Solicitor- General, nor that his promotion was due to the Lord Chancellor — quite the contrary. He added that Gifford was a harmless, inoffensive man, and deserved other treatment. Copley told us that the Chancellor, meeting Gifford this morning, joked him on getting into Brougham's hands, saying, " Thank God they have turned from me to you."
June 9. — Went to dine at Lord Robert Spencer's. Saw for the first time that most agreeable and
CHAP. III. A DISINTERESTED LOVER 109
fine old lady, Lady R,. Spencer. She talked to me of the politicians of Mr. Pox's time. Lord Robert Spencer is certainly as taciturn as I have heard that he was, though Burdett tells me he is a great talker now, in comparison with what he formerly was.
I went down to the House, and thence to a rout at Lady Grosvenor's, where, as it had been a drawing-room day, many of the ladies were in feathers.
June 15. — First stone of London Bridge laid to-day.
June 24. — Dined at Mrs. Cuthbert's. Sat next to Mrs. Twisleden, who, having been a fine lady about London for thirteen years or so, is going to take up with a Saxon Baron, who marries her for her £10,000. He asked young Cuthbert whether it was a custom for fathers to pay down their daughters' portions, or only to give income. Also if they gave 10 per cent. The disinterested lover dined with us.
June 25. — Saw Lord Kinnaird in bed, one eye shut and his mouth distorted. I did not remark any failure of intellect, but how changed from the most lively, gay, agreeable man in Europe. He had, however, now and then, something like his own smile on his features, and he said one or two things that reminded me of his former style. He said, "Well, Hobhouse, they have diddled me at last. I am done." I said, " Pooh, nonsense/' " What," said he, "do you think I
110 LONDON CHAP. III.
1825. can recover?" I told him that I had called before, but that the people below had recom- mended me not to come up. He was hurt at this, and said, " I would rather see you than anybody."
June 27. — Thirty-nine ! ! My birthday. I have no reflexions to make on the return of this day — at least no reflexions that are worth recording, or that differ from those suggested by the pre- vious recurrence of this anniversary.
I have taken a much less active part in public politics this year than the last, but I have been more employed in private business connected with my constituents than at any former period. My silence on the Catholic question will account for the former fact. My colleague, Burdett, has, on the contrary, spoken oftener and attended more than I ever recollect him to have done before. As for my intellect, it is certainly de- caying, either from bad habits of living, or from my total neglect of any literary studies that might tend to brace and invigorate my mind ! ! I do not, however, quite despair of being able to recover in a great degree the tone of my brain (such as it used to be). If I could but set myself down seriously to reading and writing during the approaching vacation ; yet I confess to myself that, by losing my friend Byron, I have lost one of the most powerful motives to exertion, and that I grow daily more careless of what I may do, or what may be said of my doings.
CHAP. III. THE COMBINATION BILL 111
I have written a short inscription for a monu- 1825. mental tablet, which is now placed over Byron in Hucknall Church.
FROM BOOK, " RECOLLECTIONS."
Burdett and myself made a stout fight against the Combination Bill, brought in by Government. We had at first resolved to let the Bill pass quietly, but some persons had wished to make it penal for workmen to insult or molest their fellow- workmen. We struck out the word " in- sult," but were beaten when dividing against the word " molest." On June 27 I presented a petition from certain workmen, praying to be heard against the Bill, and I made a speech at the same time — a custom usual in those days, but since wisely abolished. A long debate ensued. . . . We divided against bringing up the report. Hume and I told, and we had only Sir Francis and Sir Robert Wilson to tell. How- ever, we got some material amendments made in the Bill, such as an appeal from the summary process to the Sessions ; also a reduction of the arbitrary fine of £20, and, what was more important still, the masters as well as the work- men were included in the penalties.
PROM DIARY.
June 30. — Dined at Berkeley Square. A large party. Lady Copley made me promise to visit and dine with her and the Attorney -General at
112 LONDON CHAP. III.
1826. Wimbledon, but I do not think of going because I may be obliged to oppose him in the House of Commons, and I hate saying hard things of a host. July 1. — I did not go to the House of Commons, which was this day adjourned till Tuesday, pre- paratory to prorogation. I rode to Holland House. Lady Holland very ill, Lord Holland in the gout, but, as usual, full of life and anec- dote. Tierney there. We talked of Lord Thurlow, the Chancellor. Both Tierney and Lord Holland said he was the grossest impostor and greatest humbug that ever lived : no lawyer, no scholar, not a well-read man, and with no intellectual quality, but a humorous turn of mind, which he employed in brow-beating and sarcasm. His large eyebrows made him look awful indeed, and Charles Eox used to say of him, "To be sure no man was ever so wise as Thurlow looks." He was, they said, a complete charlatan, and always studied effect. When at Woburn he wore a large broad-brimmed hat at breakfast, under pretext of fear of catching cold. Notwithstanding this, however, the Lords held him in great veneration, and he affected a superiority which was readily granted to him. Pepper Arden1 he treated like the scum of the earth, but Pepper's judg- ments are now preferred to Thurlow 's. Lord Loughborough had one day made a flowery, classical speech on the question whether General
1 Richard Pepper Arden (1745-1804), Master of the Rolls 1788, Lord Chief Justice 1801 ; created Baron Alvanley.
CHAP, in- CRITICISM BY THUKLOW 113
Burgoyne, being on his parole, should vote, and 1826 told the story of Regulus. Thurlow, in reply, said with a sneer, " As for the case of Hegulus, which my learned friend has laid so much stress on." Lord Holland told us that, when he first went into the House of Lords, he heard Thurlow open a speech hy talking very contemptuously of Coxe's Life of Walpole, which was then just published. After he sat down, Lord Holland asked him how he came to think so lightly of the best book Coxe ever wrote, and one which was far from uninstructive. Thurlow said, " I do not think lightly of it, I like it very much; it is certainly the best that Coxe ever wrote ;
but pardon my frailty, I saw that d fellow
Sydney sitting opposite to me, and knowing Coxe was his dearest friend, I could not help abusing him." Now, for a man to feel in this way, and to act upon such feelings, and to confess such feelings, betrays a depravity of nature which I never met with. I told Burdett this story afterwards, and he, who knew Thurlow well, was surprised at the anecdote.
Tooke and Thurlow became intimate in their latter days, and Tooke was pleased with Thurlow, who seemed anxious to make up for having ob- structed the progress of Tooke in his early days.
EROM BOOK, " RECOLLECTIONS."
On July 1 the great public meeting took place in the City of London Tavern for instituting the
VOL. Ill 15
LONDON CHAP. III.
1826 London University. The Lord Mayor was in the chair. Brougham made a good speech, amusing, and much to the purpose, except, however, when he talked about religion : when on that topic he was sometimes on the verge of unbecoming pleasantry, sometimes on the brink of hypocrisy ; and he added to my pre- vious conviction, that no man, whatever may be his talents, can, out of the pulpit, handle that subject fairly and well.
FROM DIARY.
July 6. — Deposited Byron's letters and MSS. in two tin boxes at Kinnaird's bank, also his snuff-boxes in a mahogany case; deposited the papers relative to Byron in Berkeley Square.
PROM BOOK, " RECOLLECTIONS."
Parliament was prorogued on July 6 by Com- mission, and I left London for the season, taking up my abode at Whitton Park.
This summer was noted for hotter weather than had been known for thirty years, and being stopped from out-of-door exercise I read and wrote a little more than usual — not, however, of much significance to any one except myself.
EROM DIARY.
July 31. — Dined at Wilbraham's with my father. Eogers told me that he called on Canning a few days before the debate on second reading of
CHAP. III. THE GREEK DEPUTIES 115
Catholic Bill in the Lords this year, and said 1825. to him, " Well, you have done pretty well in the Commons, but I suppose the Lords will reject your Bill." Canning said, " I don't know that," and expressed himself as in hopes that the Bill would be carried.
PROM BOOK, " RECOLLECTIONS."
Calling on the Greek Deputies in London, I found them almost in despair of Greece. They asked me what I thought of Sir B>. Wilson, and whether sending him with a body of hired troops would save their country ? I told them what I thought of Wilson — " a brave heart and a weak head, but better than nobody." . . .
We proposed sending Lord Cochrane. He did not pretend that he would fight for nothing, and asked for a salary of £4,000 a year, and a pension on retirement or death of £2,000 for his widow. The remuneration was high, no doubt, but it was almost impossible to rate the services of this great seaman too highly. . . .
At last, however, it was finally decided that all our efforts should be devoted to the naval expedition commanded by Lord Cochrane, and we took measures for getting the war-steamers ready for sea. Just at this time the British Government issued a proclamation against inter- ference on behalf of Greece. This did not tally with anything we had yet heard of Mr, Canning's policy. . . .
116 RAMSBURY CHAP. III.
1825. FROM DIARY.
August 6. — Went to Burdett's at Ramsbury.
August 11. — The Meyricks dined at Ramsbury. Dr. Meyrick told me that the poor never showed the slightest apprehension of dying. He had never seen but two instances of fear, and that was in two men who were shot poaching.
August 12. — I rode over to Devizes, and dined with the Bear Club, where I have not dined for twenty years. Lord Lansdowne in the chair, and a large party about us. Saw Dr. Sainsbury of Corsham, a lapsed acquaintance of more than thirty years' standing ; also other friends half forgotten.
August 13. — Began putting together my notes and my illustrations of Canto IV. of " Childe Harold."
August 18. — Murray asked me to edit Lord Byron's works and write a Life. I declined, or rather put off the request. I will not write his Life, but I will contradict the falsehoods his other biographers may tell of him.
September 2. — I finished this day Mr. Coventry's essay on the author of Junius. To me it is quite clear that Lord Sackville l was Junius. I wonder I ever thought Erancis the man. I did not know that Lord Sackville had been so considerable a person as an orator and statesman.
1 Lord George Sackville, son of the Duke of Dorset (1716-1785) ; distinguished himself at battle of Fontenoy, but was dismissed the service for his conduct as Commander of the Cavalry at Minden ; assumed the name of Germain ; created Viscount Sackville 1782,
CHAP. Ill, THE HOTTEST PLACE 117
September 8. — Took leave of my friends at 1825. Bamsbury, and went to Kemble, near Cirencester, the house of R. Gordon, M.P. for Cricklade. There I found a shooting party assembled. Gordon lives most hospitably, and is as merry as the day is long.
September 13. — I rode over to Easton Grey and saw Mrs. Smith. She is recovering from a severe illness. I have not seen the place since the death of J. Smith; everything was as neat and as smiling as when he was alive. I recollected every step ; not a style nor gap in the hedge which I have scrambled over in my shooting rambles but recalled old times of health, and youth, and happiness.
September 15. — Rode through Lord Bathurst's park. The avenues of oak which Pope talks of are not to be seen, but the avenues are fine. Gordon tells me the Bathurst family are much beloved in the neighbourhood and exercise much hospitality.
September 16. — Colonel Belli of the 16th Hussars came, a friend of Henry's in India, and a very agreeable man. He told us that the Bishop of Calcutta in his sermon said, " Eor my Christian brethren India is a very hot place; indeed it is the hottest place I ever heard of." Apropos of the frailty of human life.
September 19. — Left Gordon's and went to Blenheim. Eound the Duke alone in his vast palace, and more wretched tjian last year. HQ
118 SOUTHILL CHAP. III.
1825. gave me some strange accounts of the Duchess and himself.
September 21. — Left Blenheim and went to Wormsley, to John Pane's, M.P.
September 23. — Went walking in the woods. The echoes very loud in the deep vales here, so that Mr. Pane tells me they make all the hulls wild by frightening them with their own roaring.
September 24. — Left "Wormsley for Southill. Pound Whitbread and his wife with no one in their large house but Garrard, the cattle sculptor, an ingenious, lively old man, who says Chantrey is a promising person.
September 25.— Read a good deal of Mrs. Hutchinson's Memoirs, a delightful book, the best on the times of which it treats. We see how great a man Cromwell was ; how superior to all his competitors in talents, and to many in virtue. Also how much the patriots of the Long Parliament have been belied ; but how little it makes one feel to read of such great and good people as the Hutchinsons. It makes one despair of approaching such models, and therefore is not so useful as the study of the lives of the common and mixed characters.
September 26. — Whitbread told me a trait of Lord Holland, which confirms my opinion of that person. When Pox was on his death-bed he requested Lord Holland to provide for Mr. Neave, the present rector of Warden and Southill. The
CHAP. III. RELIGION AND MUTTON 119
living destined for him was the one now possessed 1825. by Sydney Smith. Neave was preparing to go down to he inducted, when Lady Holland hegged him to give up his claim to Sydney Smith : he should have the next piece of preferment. Neave consented, and from that day to this has never got anything from the Hollands, though he has applied.
October 2. — Left Southill and went to Cam- bridge. Put on a gown and went to Trinity College. I was told that when W. Bankes first came down to Cambridge he had no idea of success ; but canvassing Creswell of Trinity, my old tutor, Creswell asked him how he stood as to the Catholics. "Oh," says Bankes, "against them." "Well then," answered Creswell, with a sneer, " put forth an advertisement and say you are for establishments in Church and State." Bankes took his advice seriously, and the con- sequence was he polled more votes than Pitt in the days of his glory.
October 3. — Travelled to Snettisham. Put up at a house hired by my friend Edward Ellice.
October 5. — The evenings here are dull, except when enlivened by my lady's squabbles with her husband about religion, human happiness, and tough mutton. My friend is imperturbable; me it would drive mad.
October 14. — Dr. Davy, my old college friend, dined here. He thinks that all language may be traced to the sounds suggested by the motion
120 SNETTISHAM CHAP. III.
1825. either of air or water. I know nothing of this, but he told me some curious speculations of his in etymology, which seemed well founded.
October 15. — I took a delightful ride in beautiful weather by the seaside, far out in the sands, beyond Hunstanton Cliff. There is something in the sea that always charms and soothes me, and fills me with no unpleasing melancholy. I like this relaxation much better than toiling after partridges at the trail of two dogs; also I like being alone during the morning.
October 21. — My friend E. Ellice gone to London. A strange scene in the evening with her Ladyship, which no farce or comedy ever exceeded in extravagance.
October 23. — Read a Life of Sir William Jones, extracted from Lord Teignmouth's ; also Sir W. Jones's dissertation on Asiatic poetry. If genius be as Sir W. Jones seems to think it, a capacity for application and acquirement, he was one of the most stupendous geniuses that ever lived.
October 30. — "We all went over and visited Houghton; the interior decorations and arrange- ments and the general stability, as well as splendour of the building, do great credit to Sir R. Walpole. Lord Cholmondeley has not lived there for three years, and wishes to sell it.
November 2. — Had a note from my friend, Sir E. Burdett, and walked over to Kirby, where I took up my quarters. My host more attractive than ever.
CHAP. III. THE LIFE OF THE GREEN-ROOM 121
November 3. — Burdett and I talked of Tom 1825. Moore's Life of Sheridan. He thought of it, if possible, less than myself.
He told me that Fox had such a distrust of Sheridan, that he (Burdett) having proposed once to bring Sheridan over to St. Anne's Hill, to discuss the propriety of a motion on the conduct of the war which ceased at Peace of Amiens, Pox wrote that he should be glad to see Burdett, but begged him not to bring Sheridan.
When Pox was dying Sheridan wanted to see him. Pox consented, but begged that Lord Thanet and Lord Holland, who were in the room at the time, would not leave it.
November 14. — I dined with Kinnaird, and went with him behind the scenes at the Hay- market Theatre, where I saw Liston act Paul Pry. I was introduced to Liston, and Liston introduced me to Kenney, the author of Raising the Wind. A cold and wretched life that of the green-room.
The house was crowded in every part, the average receipts £270 nightly ; in common times £150, or not so much. Liston the only attraction. Kenney owned to me that an author writing for the stage was obliged to write for the favourite actor only.
November 15. — In Canova's Memoirs there is a curious account of his interviews with Napoleon when modelling him in 1810. Napoleon tried to keep Canova in Paris. The interviews were chiefly
VOL. Ill 16
122 LONDON CHAP. III.
1826. at breakfast; nobody present but the Empress Maria Louisa. One day Canova and Napoleon were talking of the Tuscan origin of the Buona- parte family, when Maria Louisa turned round saying, " Non siete Corso ? " like a ninny.
November 16. — I dined with D. Kinnaird. A large party. Learn that Tom Moore's Life of Sheridan is generally disapproved. Lord John Russell has since told me that Tom Moore had said to him, "At least everybody must say that it is an honest book " ! ! !
November 21. — I dined at Asiatic Society. Sat next to old Dr. Eleming. He had served under Warren Hastings. Sir W. Jones died in his arms. He told me that Jones showed no religious feeling whatever when dying, and that he (Eleming) said to Lord Teignmouth at the time, " Now mind that you do not make an edifying story of the religious end of this great man." Lord Teignmouth only remarked in his biography that it would have been serviceable to the cause of religion if Jones had made a pious end.
November 23. — Went by the coach to Bedford, walked to Oakley, and took up my abode with Lord Tavistock. Eound S. Whitbread and Lady Whitbread there, Lord John Russell, and Duberly. Lord J. Russell very good company indeed ; rather slow, but enjoue.
December 1. — Lord John Russell left us; an amiable man indeed. He has very weak health. A night or two ago he fell down in a sort of fit ;
CHAP. III. TROUBLE IN THE MONEY MARKET 123
his face was a little distorted, but he recovered 1825. immediately. His brother did not show any great anxiety, and he told us that Lord John did not like to have these attacks noticed.
Lord John has a good memory and a happy recollection, which enables him to play a good part in conversation when roused to talk, which, it must be owned, is seldom the case. I think he has a high sense of honour and propriety.
December 2. — I find Moore's Life of Sheridan much condemned here, even by Lord John, the friend of the biographer. Tavistock told me that in his last illness Sheridan wrote to the Duke of Bedford asking him to lend him £200. The Duke returned for answer he did not lend such sums to his friends, but that whilst he had £200 at his banker's, it was always at Sheridan's service. Sheridan took the money, and never thanked the Duke. Compare this with what Moore says of the desertion of Sheridan by his great friends.
December 7. — There has been a most frightful confusion in the money market. All London in an uproar. A general bankruptcy expected.
December 19. — We have been in consider- able alarm for Bath affairs, as the country is now in the same uproar as the city was, before the late meeting of merchants at the Mansion House.
Dined at Asiatic Society. Sir J. Malcolm in the chair. He gave me some notion of the miserable mode in which Indian politics are
124 LONDON CHAP. III.
1825. conducted between the Board of Control and the Court of Directors.
1826- January 11. — Constantino I. resigned the throne of Eussia to Nicholas I. There is some disturb- ance amongst the soldiery at Petersburg. All these Russian affairs in a most obscure state as yet.
January 18.— Wrote a great many letters to different people, asking them to form part of a Committee for raising a monument to Lord Byron. I was chiefly impelled to this by a letter from a Mr. Paternoster, of Madras, sending £42 for this purpose.
I took this opportunity to answer a letter from Tom Moore, in which he requested me to assist him in writing a joint Life of Lord Byron. I refused being a party to any such work, saying I saw no good end that could be produced by it. I told him he would make a clever and a saleable work, but not answer any of the higher ends of biography. I know that by taking this line I do right.
January 20. — Tom Moore thanks me for my frank negative. He does not like the word "saleable," but owns that he thinks as I do about the Life, and that his necessities alone compel him to write. He says he trusts this to my confidence and feeling to tell or not as I like. Of course I shall not tell, but I wish he would not make a confidant of me.
January 27. — Sir Walter Scott sends me a very
CHAP. Ill THE BANK ACT 125
kind assent to the proposal respecting the monu- 182«. ment. Lord De La Warr refuses in a very cold, unfeeling way. J. Drummond refuses, but says he will subscribe ; also Merivale. Lord Lans- downe assents conditionally, if the scheme be not too aristocratical . Queer enough this to me.
February 5. — The following persons have con- sented to be of the Monument Committee :— J. "W. Bankes, Burdett, T. Campbell, Lord Clare, Duke of Devonshire, Lord Holland, Lord Jersey, D. Kinnaird, Lord Lansdowne, T. Moore, S. E/ogers, Sir W. Scott, Lord Sligo, Lord Tavistock, Trevanion, Wildman.
February 10. — At House of Commons. Great debate on the Bank Act and the expediency of repressing £1 and £2 county notes. Young Maberley showed considerable powers of thinking and of speech. I have tried to understand this great question, and think the Ministers right. I shall support them.
February 13. — House of Commons. Adjourned debate on Currency. All Ministers spoke. Peel, Canning, C. Grant, and Brougham concluded by supporting Ministers. Divided on Baring's amend- ment for doing nothing. Sir J. Wrottesley prefaced his opposition with stating that he was an interested man, a banker, and therefore entitled to the usual kindness of the House. What a picture ! What a notion of Parliament !
February 16. — Dined at Roger Wilbraham's. He told me that he very well recollected
126 LONDON CHAP. III.
1826. "W. Windham saying Burke was mad, when he first declaimed against Prance. He was looking out of a window at Holkham, and said it to Wilbraham himself.
Wilbraham asked Lady Spencer her opinion of Windham. She said, the most consummate hypo- crite she ever knew. " This/' said Wilbraham, "was his real character." He was a great pretender to morals, and yet a complete Joseph Surface, as some one once told him.
He went over from Fox as soon as he found out that the King had resolved Pox should never come in. As for the Spencers and that class, Lady Spencer once confessed to Wilbraham that they were cajoled.
Wilbraham's stories are worth recording when they relate to any important events, for I never knew a more accurate and rigidly faithful narrator of anecdotes.
February 17. — Went to dine with Hudson Gurney, who showed me a letter from Robinson, Chancellor of the Exchequer, by which it appeared Government had agreed to give up the point relative to the issue of £1 Bank of England notes, which they had before refused to Gurney.
Gurney told me that the Norwich bankers had been that morning to Lord Liverpool's, and had said they would draw out £500,000 of sovereigns immediately from the Bank of England unless this measure was complied with.
February 23, — Went to House of Commons.
CHAP. III. JACOBINISM EVERYWHERE 127
Wilson of London and the City folk had been 1826 attacking Ministers for not issuing Exchequer Bills, the distress now seeming to return with double force. Williams of Lincoln was making a very violent speech in seconding Ellice's motion for enquiry into the silk trade. Huskisson replied in a speech of two hours and ten minutes, the most masterly I ever heard him or any one else ever make. We were all delighted on our side, and cheered to the echo. Debate adjourned.
February 24.— Attended adjourned debate. Can- ning made a flourish against the dread of innova- tion, and attacked poor John Williams, already down, more than was seemly. Canning laughed at the terms of those who saw Jacobinism in every improvement. He compared the admirers of Pitt's errors to those barbarians who never worshipped the sun except in an eclipse, when they beat drums, etc. Now the cymbals were played to " aid the labouring moon," as Pope has it, and the savages beat drums to frighten away the great dragon that comes to swallow the sun; but I never heard of the sun being worshipped in an eclipse. He made a flashy and successful speech, but I do not think a good one. We divided 222 against 40.
March 2. — At House of Commons. Voted with Denman for condemning the conduct of the Duke of Manchester for executing certain slaves in Jamaica. A good debate. Minority 63 to 104. Brougham spoke with more force than he has
128 LONDON CHAP. III.
1826. done this session, for there is something the matter with him. H. Stephenson says he is in love !
March 5. — Dined with Kinnaird. A large party. Lord Grey was there, and told me anecdotes about Sheridan's treachery to the Whigs. It seems Sheridan was distrusted not only by Eox, but even by the Prince (George IV.), for the Prince once said to Lord Grey, " Do not leave the room till Sheridan goes."
March 10. — At House of Commons. Voted with Hume against flogging soldiers. Sir George Murray made a remarkably flashy, foolish, and intemperate speech.
March 14. — At House of Commons. Spoke in favour of Lord John Russell's Bill against bribery and corruption ; also against flogging in the army.
March 22. — Went to a dinner at Sir A. Johnson's. A large, dull party, except Prince Cimitile, who is an accomplished man. He said Mackintosh was the most extraordinary man he had ever seen.
April 6. — News came of the fall of Missolonghi. After the prolonged existence of this important post, nothing can be more discouraging than such an event; but Greece is not lost yet.
April 7. — Dined at General Eergusson's. Met Admiral Fleming and Mr. Stewart, who shot Sir A. Bos well. Mr. Stewart came up to London in the mail with the Lord Provost of Edinburgh,
CHAP. III. REFORM OF PARLIAMENT 129
one Trotter, an upholsterer. At Ferrybridge Mr. 1826. Trotter put his head out of the coach and said, " Is my servant here ? " " Yes, my lord" said the servant, who opened the door for his noble master. My lord is come up to give evidence before the Committees of Parliament, and hopes to be made a knight.
April 9. — Dined at W. Ord's. An agreeable party. Lord Dudley, Hookham Frere, G. Lamb, Hallam, Sharpe, etc.
Frere told us that he was at a dinner where Windham introduced Cobbett to Pitt, and Cobbett behaved perfectly well. Frere mentioned that from the beginning of the French successes to their disasters in Spain, he and most politicians were in constant apprehension of the subjugation of England by France.
Frere heard Fox's speech for Reform of Parlia- ment, which made the greatest impression of any he ever heard. It turned solely on the superiority of a democracy for conquering or resisting con- quest. France was a democracy, and the only way to fight her on even terms was to make our own Government more and wholly popular.
FROM BOOK, " RECOLLECTIONS."
On April 10 a debate arose on the salary of the President of the Board of Trade. I opposed bringing up the Report, and in the course of my speech used these words : "It was said to be very hard on His Majesty's Ministers to raise
VOL. in 17
130 LONDON CHAP. III.
1826. objection to this proposition. For my own part, I think it is much more hard on His Majesty's Opposition." (A laugh.)
Mr. Secretary Canning said, " The honourable member has demanded two or three times why do you bring forward this measure at the present moment ? Why do you take so unfavourable an opportunity to introduce it ? Now, the fact is, that the opportunity was not selected by His Majesty's Government, but by those whom the honourable gentleman has designated His Majesty's Opposition." (A laugh.)
Mr. Tierney said, " An honourable friend near him had called the Opposition the King's Opposi- tion. The propriety of this appellation had been recognised by gentlemen on the other side, and, indeed, it could not be disputed. My honourable friend," continued Mr. Tierney, " could not have invented a better phrase to designate us than that which he has adopted, for we are, certainly, to all intents and purposes, a branch of His Majesty's Government. Its proceedings for some time past have proved that, although the gentlemen opposite are in office, we are in power. The measures are ours, but all the emoluments are theirs. (Cheers and laughter.) On a division the numbers were — for bringing up the Report, 87 ; against it, 76. Mr. Hobhouse was one of the tellers for the minority."
Mr. Secretary Canning said he should not pro- ceed in the measure ; on which Mr. Tierney rose,
CHAP. III. HORNE TOOKE 131
" with heartfelt pleasure, to assure His Majesty's 1826- Government that they had by this act justly earned the approbation of His Majesty's Opposi- tion." (A laugh.) l
I, have been more particular than usual in attributing this pleasantry, such as it was, to the rightful author, because Mr. Hume, in the happy spirit of blundering which frequently used to beset him, gave it to Mr. Tierney, and the mistake was adopted by one of the newspapers.
EROM DIARY.
April 20. — Peel gave notice that the Alien Act would not be renewed. I made a complimentary speech, and some of my friends remonstrated with me afterwards ; so I resolved to take an opportunity of explaining why I felt grateful to Ministers when they did right. It is only because I feel their omnipotence, and how completely Parliament would stand by them even if they did wrong.
April 21. — I dined at R. Wilbraham's. Met Rogers and Sharp, who talked much of Home Tooke. Both said he was not sound when he destroyed his third volume of the " Diversions of Purley." He said he had in that volume made a discovery respecting the verb. " What is it ? " said Rogers. " Aye," said Tooke, " that's telling." Burdett, however, remarked to me that it was
1 Hansard's "Parliamentary Debates," New Series, vol. xv., pp. 135, 137, 149.
132 LONDON CHAP. III.
1826. no secret. Tooke had found out that the verb was in fact " action," substance put into motion, and so it is.
EROM BOOK, " RECOLLECTIONS."
On April 27, in this Session, Lord John Russell made his expected motion for Reform in Parlia- ment. Mr. Denison, M.P. for Newcastle, answered him, then Mr. Ross and I rose together. The Speaker called on me, hut I gave way. Lord Glenorchy then spoke, and the House was going to divide, hut I rose and spoke for an hour and a half — met with complete success — complimented by all friends and many foes. Lord John Russell said in his reply respecting it, " that it would be now, and for ever, of service to the great cause of Reform." The speech was published as a separate pamphlet.
EROM DIARY.
April 29. — Dreadful riots in the North. Men starving by thousands. A brigade of guards ordered there.
April 30. — Lord Tavistock sat with me. Dis- cussed our old subject, Reform, and heard again of my speech as being universally praised.
Dined with Lord Dudley. A large party. He dines in the foreign style. There is something kind and attentive, but rather unquiet, in his manner.
I met there for the first time Dr. Holland, an agreeable but a " precieux " man.
CHAP. III. THE CORN QUESTION 133
May 2. — At House of Commons. Proposal made 1826. by Ministers relative to bonded corn, and to giving Ministers a power of opening the ports and admitting corn with a protecting duty of 12s. The Opposition were divided ; Althorp and Calcraft, and even Lord Milton, against Ministers ; Brougham and Abercromby, etc., for them. Cer- tainly this is opening the corn question, and stultifying the proceedings of the House on Whitmore's motion.
William Lamb owned to me it was a good exemplification of what I had said on the Reform question ; but Lord Liverpool, they say, is fright- ened lest there should be a bad harvest. The country gentlemen in the meantime are furious, and the Tory Ministerialists in the other House call for vengeance on the head of Huskisson. They say Lord Westmorland is the only sensible man in the Cabinet.
May 3. — Dined at Lord Belgrave's. The hostess very charming ; also Lady Ebrington, looking pale, but a lovely woman.
May 4. — Dined at Mr. R. Walpole's. Mr. Taylor, member for Wales, told me that he was sitting with Ministerialists during my Reform speech, and heard them say, " Wonder how Ministers like this ! ! " I wish I could fancy that I should do any permanent good by this exposure.
Went down to the House. Eound Ministers had given up one measure, the unlimited intro-
134 LONDON CHAP. III.
1826. duction of foreign corn, and determined on having only 500,000 quarters.
May 11. — It appears to me that the landowners are foolish in making an outcry at what will not, at present, injure them much. The blow does affect the present Corn Laws it is true, hut then it is certain these laws must be repealed one day or the other, and this first infringement is so trifling the landed interest ought not to cry out as if they were crushed. On the other hand, the Ministers have been most shuffling, and this measure is not half so good as the settlement of the question which they might have made on Whitmore's motion. Yet a man has nothing to do but vote with them as far as they go.
May 14. — Tom Moore called by appointment. After some words I asked him how he went on. He told me he was writing a Life of Byron, but found it difficult, as he expected. I told him I wished it was not necessary for him to write such a thing, but that the next best thing to no Life was a short Life.
Moore owned very frankly to me that he would make a book to get the money he wanted, but not a book of real merit as a Life of Lord Byron. On the whole, I think he looks at the subject fairly, except that he believes he has some claim on account of his share of the destruction of the manuscript, which he has not.
Our conversation turned on other matters. He told me he found London quite altered ; people
CHAP. III. MOORE AND BYRON'S LIFE 135
thought and talked of nothing but Vivian Grey 1826. and the Age, and whether they were in these scandalous pictures.
I am sorry that circumstances have made this interview necessary, but as I feel that Byron certainly intended a benefit to Moore, I cannot but assist him in some degree to gain his £2,000 out of Lord Byron's memory. That is his motive ; he has no other.
May 19. — Went to the House and sat out the long debate on Slavery. We divided only 38 against 100. The smallness of both numbers discouraging to the anti-slavery people. Indeed, notwithstanding the great mass of petitions, I do not think their cause gaining ground amongst the really influential part of the community, and in the House of Commons it is losing ground.
May 26. — At House of Commons. Whilst there, Lord J. Russell brought on his resolutions about bribery and corruption at elections.
May 28. — T. Moore called, and informed me that Messrs. Longmans had released him from the supposed necessity of publishing with them, and that he was free to publish at Murray's. I promised not to throw any impediment as executor, but rather to assist him as far as looking over his book went. He discussed his friend Rogers' passion for " those little people called the great," but agreed with me that