1819.
January 17th, 1819
I went to Burleigh on the 23rd of December; there was no one there but Irby. The house disappointed me very much, but it is a very fine showplace. I went away on the 27th to Middleton; there were the Culling Smiths, Worcesters, Sir James Mackintosh, Ossulstons, Nugent, &c.; it was very agreeable, and the house extremely comfortable. Lady Jersey[23] is an extraordinary woman, and has many good qualities; surrounded as she LADY JERSEY. is by flatterers and admirers, she is neither proud nor conceited. She is full of vivacity, spirit, and good nature, but the wide range of her sympathies and affections proves that she has more general benevolence than particular sensibility in her character. She performs all the ordinary duties of life with great correctness, because her heart is naturally good; and she is, perhaps, from her temperament exposed to fewer temptations than the generality of her sex. She is deficient in passion and in softness (which constitute the greatest charm in women), so that she excites more of admiration than of interest; in conversation she is lively and pleasant, without being very remarkable, for she has neither wit, nor imagination, nor humour; her understanding is active rather than strong, and her judgment is too often warped by prejudice to be sound. She has a retentive memory and a restless mind, together with a sort of intellectual arrangement, with which she appears rather to have been gifted by nature than to have derived it from the cultivation of her reasoning faculties.
[23] [Sarah Sophia, eldest daughter of John, tenth Earl of Westmoreland, and heiress of Robert Child, Esq., of Osterley Park, her maternal grandfather.]
I went from Middleton to Oatlands. The Duke was not there. We had the Smiths, Worcesters, Alvanley, Stanhope, Rogers, Luttrell, George Dawson, Lord Lauderdale, &c. Lord Erskine was ill, and Lord Lauderdale was taking care of him. The house was very uncomfortable, and the room I was in small, noisy, and inconvenient.
I came to London on Friday last. Parliament having met on the Thursday, it is very full, and is filling more and more every day. The Opposition expect to divide 180 on the Bank question; they talk of re-establishing the dinners which they used to have in Fox’s time.
Rogers is in a nervous state about his poem, and trembles at the reviewers.[24]
[24] [Rogers’ poem entitled ‘Human Life’ was on the eve of publication. The reviewers treated it more tenderly than it deserved, as appears below.]
January 28th, 1819
I went to Gorhambury on the 24th to shoot. The Duke of York was there. We should have had a brilliant chasse, but it rained. We went out at three and killed 105 pheasants.
There has been some skirmishing in the House of Commons, particularly the night before last, on Dr. Halloran’s petition, when the Opposition (Bennet duce) got completely beaten. Many of the new members have spoken, but Mr. Lawson, a soi-disant wit, and Sir R. Wilson have failed lamentably. It is odd enough that Wilson made a reply to an attack which Cobbett had inserted in one of his papers upon him. Cobbett said that he would make a silly speech in Parliament and destroy himself, and it is just what he did. The Opposition were very angry with Sir J. Coffin, who, with the candour of a novice, had made himself informed of the facts of the petition, and finding they were against his friends, said so in the House.
Arbuthnot told me some particulars about Tierney. He began by being a friend of Mr. Pitt, and in one of his speeches on the Southwark or Colchester election he praised him in opposition to Mr. Fox. This latter never liked him, and the Regent assured Arbuthnot he had letters of Tierney in his possession thanking him for having endeavoured to remove Mr. Fox’s antipathy to him. When Addington came in, Pitt advised him to get Tierney, as nobody would be so useful to him. He did accordingly, and so Tierney became a member of the Administration.[25] When Pitt came again into office a negotiation was opened with him through the medium of Charles Long. He was offered the Chief Secretaryship in Ireland, which he wished to have, but he made it a condition that he should not be in Parliament. To this Mr. Pitt would not agree, as he said that he must commit himself with them entirely or not join them at all; he refused, not choosing to commit himself, and the negotiations broke off.
[25] [Right Hon. George Tierney, Treasurer of the Navy and P.C. in 1803. President of the Board of Control in October, 1806, Member of the Mint in 1827.]
January 31st, 1819
I dined with Lady Bathurst yesterday. We talked of the approaching contests in Parliament, and she said that she felt more apprehensive now than ever she had done for the safety of the Government, that it was impossible PRINCESS LIEVEN. for Ministers to stay in if they were defeated, as they had occasionally been in the last Parliament, and that if they were defeated she should attribute it all to Vansittart, who is a millstone about their necks. I asked why they did not get rid of him, and she said that it was from good-nature; they had scruples about telling him he was inefficient and must resign. She said that Canning’s conduct had been so good towards them, they were very anxious to put him in some more considerable office.
February 3rd, 1819
I went with Bouverie to Newmarket on Monday to look at the horses. On Wednesday I came to town and went on to Oatlands. Madame de Lieven was there. This woman is excessively clever, and when she chooses brilliantly agreeable. She is beyond all people fastidious. She is equally conscious of her own superiority and the inferiority of other people, and the contempt she has for the understandings of the generality of her acquaintance has made her indifferent to please and incapable of taking any delight in general society. Her manners are very dignified and graceful, and she is extremely accomplished. She sometimes endeavours to assume popular and gracious manners, but she does this languidly and awkwardly, because it is done with an effort. She carries ennui to such a pitch that even in the society of her most intimate friends she frequently owns that she is bored to death. She writes memoirs, or rather a journal, of all that falls under her observation. She is so clever, has so much imagination and penetration, that they must be very entertaining. She writes as well as talks with extraordinary ease and gracefulness, and both her letters and her conversation are full of point; yet she is not liked, and has made hardly any friends. Her manners are stately and reserved, and so little bonhomie penetrates through her dignity that few feel sufficiently attracted to induce them to try and thaw the ice in which she always seems bound.[26]
[26] [A very imperfect character of Princess Lieven, with whom Mr. Greville was at this time but slightly acquainted. But in after years he became one of her most intimate and confidential friends, and she frequently reappears in the course of these memoirs.]
February 5th, 1819
I have finished Madame de Staël’s ‘Considérations sur la Révolution Française.’ It is the best of her works, extremely eloquent, containing the soundest political opinions conveyed in a bold and eloquent style. It is perhaps too philosophical and not sufficiently relieved by anecdotes and historical illustrations. Her defence of her father is written with much enthusiasm and great plausibility, but the judgment of the world concerning Necker is formed, and it is too late to alter it. The effect of her eloquence is rather weakened by the recollection of her conduct to him, for she lived with him as little as possible, because she could not bear the ennui of Coppet.[27]
[27] [In the latter years of Madame de Staël’s life Coppet became one of the most brilliant social resorts in Europe, for she attracted there the Schlegels, B. Constant, Bonstetten, Sismondi, Byron, and a host of other celebrities. Towards her father Madame de Staël expressed the most passionate regard.]
February 9th, 1819
The Opposition are in a state of the highest exultation on account of the division in the House of Commons last night on Brougham’s being added to the Bank Committee. The numbers were 173 to 135. They triumph particularly in this strong minority because the attack upon Brougham in the ‘Quarterly Review’ was deemed so successful by the Ministerial party that they thought he would not be able to lift up his head again. The review is extremely well done, as all allow. It is supposed to be written by Dr. Ireland [it was by Dr. Monk[28]], and that Canning supplied the jokes, but Arbuthnot assured me he had no hand in it.
[28] [Dr. Monk, not Dr. Ireland, was the author of the article. Monk became Bishop of Gloucester in 1830. This passage relates to the celebrated article on the Report of Mr. Brougham’s Committee on the Education of the People which appeared in the ‘Quarterly Review’ of December 1818. The article was a violent one, but it is amusing to see the effects attributed to it at the time. Some controversy has since taken place as to the share Canning had in it. I have myself seen the letters from Gifford (editor of the ‘Review’) to Dr. Monk, in which he speaks of the additions which have been made to the article; and there is the strongest internal evidence that these purpurei panni were added by Canning. The subject is discussed in the ‘Edinburgh Review’ for July 1858.]
February 10th, 1819
Wilberforce made a speech last night which reminded one of the better days of the House of WESTMINSTER ELECTION. Commons. He presented a petition from the Quakers against the Criminal Code, and introduced a compliment to Romilly. Castlereagh was in a minority in the Committee concerning the equerries of the Windsor establishment; he wished to keep two more than Tierney proposed; the latter had eight to six in the Committee.[29]
[29] [In consequence of the death of Queen Charlotte in the preceding month of November, the Government visited the Windsor establishment. The Duke of York was appointed custos personæ of the King, and received in that capacity 10,000ℓ. a year, which had previously been allowed to the Queen. A debate took place on this subject on the 25th of February, which is referred to by Mr. Greville under that date.]
February 14th, 1819
George Lamb has been proposed in opposition to Hobhouse.[30] The latter drew this opposition upon himself by his speech, and still more by the reports of his Committee, in which they abused the Whigs in unmeasured terms. Lambton went to Hobhouse and asked him if he would disavow the abuse of Lord Grey, which his Committee had inserted in the document they printed; he refused, on which the opposition was determined upon and begun. McDonald proposed Lamb, but they would not hear him; Evans seconded him. G. Jones made a very good speech in proposing Cartwright. Burdett and Kinnaird both spoke with moderation in proposing Hobhouse. It is generally supposed that Lamb will win.
[30] [The death of Sir Samuel Romilly in November 1818 caused a vacancy in the representation of Westminster, and another election took place upon the meeting of Parliament. The numbers were: Hon. George Lamb, 4,465; John Cam Hobhouse, 3,861; Major Cartwright, 38.]
Rogers’ poem is disliked; the cry is all against it; some of the lines are pretty, but it is not perspicuous enough, and is deficient in novelty and force.
February 18th, 1819
Yesterday Lamb was only seven behind Hobhouse on the poll; everybody thinks he is sure to win, even if Burdett should come forward with money. The day before there was great uproar and much abuse on the hustings. Burdett made a shameful speech full of blasphemy and Jacobinism, but he seems to have lost his popularity in a great measure even with the blackguards of Westminster. Hobhouse yesterday was long and dull; he did not speak like a clever man, and if the people would have heard Lamb, and he has any dexterity in reply, he must have crushed him—it was so answerable a speech.
I went to the Berrys[31] in the evening, where the blues and the wits were assembled; as Sidney Smith said, ‘the conversation raged,’ but there was nothing remarkably entertaining.
[31] [Miss Berry’s well-known salon, No. 8 Curzon Street, which was for more than a half a century the resort of the best company in London.]
February 25th, 1819
The debate on the 10,000ℓ. to the Duke of York on Monday produced four very good speeches—Peel and the Solicitor-General on one part, and Tierney and Scarlett[32] on the other. This latter spoke for the first time, and in reply to the two former. The Opposition came to Brookes’ full of admiration of his speech, which is said to be the best first speech that ever was made in the House of Commons. I, who hear all parties and care for none, have been amused with the different accounts of the debate; one man says Peel’s speech was the best of the night and the finest that has been made in the House for a length of time; another prefers the Solicitor-General’s; then on the other side it is said that Tierney was excellent, Mr. Scarlett beyond all praise. The friends of Government allow great merit to the two latter speakers, but declare that Peel was unanswerable, besides having been beautifully eloquent, and that Scarlett’s speech was a fallacy from beginning to end. Again I am told Peel was not good; his was a speech for effect, evidently prepared, showy, but not argumentative; Scarlett triumphantly refuted all his reasoning. Thus it is that a fair judgment is never formed upon any question; the spirit of party influences every man’s opinions. It is not extraordinary that each individual of a party connected by general similarity of opinion should adhere to the great body, even in cases where he may not happen to agree with them, and excellent reasons may be adduced for his sacrificing his own PARTY SPIRIT. view for the great object of unanimity; but it is very improbable that on a particular question, unconnected with any general system, where arguments are adduced from opposite sides, and submitted to the enlightened judgment of an assembly, the same arguments which are looked upon as satisfactory and unanswerable by one set of men should be deemed without exception utterly fallacious by another. If any proof were requisite of the mighty influence of party spirit, it would be found in a still stronger light in the State trials in the House of Lords. I have in my mind the trial of Lord Melville; when each Peer had to deliver his judicial opinion upon the evidence adduced in a matter so solemn, and in the discharge of a duty so sacred, it might be imagined that all party feelings would be laid aside, and that a mature judgment and an enlightened conscience would alone have regulated the conduct of every individual. Yet either by an extraordinary accident or by the influence of party spirit we beheld all the Peers on the Ministerial side of the House declaring Lord Melville innocent, and all those of the Opposition pronouncing him guilty.
[32] [Sir James Scarlett, afterwards Lord Abinger and Lord Chief Baron. It is remarkable that his first speech in the House of Commons was delivered on the Whig side of the House. He afterwards became a decided Tory.]
March 5th, 1819
George Lamb was to have been chaired on the day he was elected, but the mob was outrageous and would not suffer it. They broke into his committee room, and he and McDonald were forced to creep out of a two pair of stairs window into the churchyard. His partisans, who assembled on horseback, were attacked and pelted, and forced to retreat after receiving many hard knocks. In the evening the mob paraded the town, and broke the windows of Lord Castlereagh’s and Lord Sefton’s houses.
The other night Sir James Mackintosh[33] made a splendid speech on the Criminal Laws; it was temperate and eloquent, and excited universal admiration. The Ministerial party spoke as highly of it as the Opposition themselves. Last night Canning moved the thanks to Lord Hastings, and they say it was the finest speech he ever made, in the best taste, the clearest narrative, and the most beautiful language.
[33] [Sir James Mackintosh’s motion for the appointment of a Committee on Capital Punishments was carried against the Government on the 2nd of March by 148 to 128.]
June 12th, 1819
I have been at Oatlands for the Ascot party. On the course I did nothing. Ever since the Derby ill fortune has pursued me, and I cannot win anywhere. Play is a detestable occupation; it absorbs all our thoughts and renders us unfit for everything else in life. It is hurtful to the mind and destroys the better feelings; it incapacitates us for study and application of every sort; it makes us thoughtful and nervous; and our cheerfulness depends upon the uncertain event of our nightly occupation. How anyone can play who is not in want of money I cannot comprehend; surely his mind must be strangely framed who requires the stimulus of gambling to heighten his pleasures. Some indeed may have become attached to gaming from habit, and may not wish to throw off the habit from the difficulty of finding fresh employment for the mind at an advanced period of life. Some may be unfitted by nature or taste for society, and for such gaming may have a powerful attraction. The mind is excited; at the gaming-table all men are equal; no superiority of birth, accomplishments, or ability avail here; great noblemen, merchants, orators, jockies, statesmen, and idlers are thrown together in levelling confusion; the only pre-eminence is that of success, the only superiority that of temper. But why does a man play who is blessed with fortune, endowed with understanding, and adorned with accomplishments which might ensure his success in any pursuit which taste or fancy might incite him to follow? It is contrary to reason, but we see such instances every day. The passion of play is not artificial; it must have existed in certain minds from the beginning; at least some must have been so constituted that they yield at once to the attraction, and enter with avidity into a pursuit in which other men can never take the least interest.
June 14th, 1819
The other night in the House of Commons on the Foreign Enlistment Bill Sir James Mackintosh made a brilliant speech; all parties agree in commending it. Canning answered him, but not successfully. The Duke of Wellington PERSIAN AMBASSADOR AND THE REGENT. told me on Friday that there was a good debate in the House of Lords the night before on the Catholic question, but he thought his side had the worst of it; he acknowledged that Lord Grey’s speech had done much to shake his opinion, and that he had not conceived that his propositions would have been framed in so unobjectionable a manner.[34]
[34] [On the 10th of June Earl Grey submitted to the House of Lords a Bill to relieve Roman Catholics from taking the declaratory oaths against Transubstantiation and the Invocation of Saints. On this occasion, for the first time, Lord Grenville supported the Catholic claims. But the Bill was thrown out by 141 to 92.]
June 25th, 1819
The Persian Ambassador has had a quarrel with the Court. He wanted to have precedence over all other Ambassadors, and because this was not allowed he was affronted and would not go to Court. This mark of disrespect was resented, and it was signified to him that his presence would be dispensed with at Carlton House, and that the Ministers could no longer receive him at their houses. On Sunday last the Regent went to Lady Salisbury’s, where he met the Persian, who, finding he had given offence, had made a sort of apology, and said that illness had prevented him from going to Court. The Regent came up to him and said, ‘Well, my good friend, how are you? I hope you are better?’ He said, ‘Oh, sir, I am very well, but I am very sorry I offended your Royal Highness by not going to Court. Now, sir, my Sovereign he tell me to go first, and your Congress, about which I know nothing, say I must go last; now this very bad for me (pointing to his head) when I go back to Persia.’ The Regent said, ‘Well, my good friend, never mind it now; it does not signify.’ He answered, ‘Oh yes, sir; but your Royal Highness still angry with me, and you have not asked me to your party to-morrow night.’ The Regent laughed and said, ‘I was only going to have a few children to dance, but if you like to come I shall be very happy to see you.’ Accordingly he went to Carlton House, and they are very good friends again.
August 11th, 1819
The Vice-Chancellor was going to Italy, but his journey is stopped, as he says, because the Prince Regent has desired him to stay in England in consequence of the approaching return of the Princess of Wales.
August 30th, 1819
I am just returned from Oatlands; we had an immense party, the most numerous ever known there. The Duchess wished it to have been prolonged, but there were no funds. The distress they are in is inconceivable. When the Duchess came down there was no water in the house. She asked the reason, and was informed that the water came by pipes from St. George’s Hill, which were stopped up with sand; and as the workmen were never paid, they would not clear them out. She ordered the pipes to be cleared and the bills brought to her, which was done. On Thursday there was a great distress, as the steward had no money to pay the tradespeople, and the Duke was prevailed on with great difficulty to produce a small sum for the purpose. The house is nearly in ruins.
December 24th, 1819
The Duke of Kent gave the name of Alexandrina to his daughter[35] in compliment to the Emperor of Russia. She was to have had the name of Georgiana, but the Duke insisted upon Alexandrina being her first name. The Regent sent for Lieven and made him a great many compliments (en le persiflant) on the Emperor’s being godfather, but informed him that the name of Georgiana could be second to no other in this country, and therefore she could not bear it at all.
[35] [The Princess, afterwards Queen, Victoria, born 24th of May, 1819.]
The frost is intense. The town is empty. I returned from Whersted last Wednesday se’nnight, and went to Oatlands on Thursday; there was nearly the same party. Prince Leopold came and dined there on Saturday. He is very dull and heavy in his manner, and seems overcome with the weight of his dignity. This Prince will not succeed here; everybody is civil to him from the interest he excited at the time of the Princess’s death—an interest which has not yet subsided. There seems to be no harm in him, but everybody contrasts his manners with those of the Duke of York, and the comparison is not to his advantage. ILLNESS OF GEORGE IV. The Duchess likes the society of men of wit and letters; more, I think, from the variety of having them around her than from any pleasure she takes in their conversation. Lord Alvanley is the man in whom she takes the greatest delight.