In Ireland the Government have made a change (the motives of which are not apparent) which will be very unpopular, and infallibly get them into trouble in various ways. They have removed Hart and made Plunket Chancellor. Hart was very popular with the Bar; he was slow, but had introduced order and regularity in the proceedings of the Court. There were no arrears and no appeals. Plunket is unpopular, and was a bad judge in the Common Pleas, and will probably make a worse Chancellor; he is rash, hasty, and imprudent, and it is the more extraordinary as Hart was affronted by Goderich and went with Anglesey, so upon the score of confidence (on which they put it) there is in fact not a pretext for it.
As yet not much can be known of the efficiency of the rest of the Ministers. The only one who has had anything to do is Melbourne, and he has surprised all those about him by a sudden display of activity and vigour, rapid and diligent transaction of business, for which nobody was prepared, and which will prove a great mortification to Peel and his friends, who were in hopes he would do nothing and let the country be burnt and plundered without interruption. The Duke of Richmond has plunged neck-deep in politics, and says he is delighted with it all, and with Lord Grey’s candour and unassuming bearing in the Cabinet. He is evidently piqued that none of his party have followed him, and made a speech in the House of Lords the other night expressing his readiness to defend his having taken office, when nobody attacked him. Knowing him as I do, and the exact extent of his capacity, I fancy he must feel rather small by the side of Lord Grey and Brougham. Graham’s elevation is the most monstrous of all. He was once my friend, a college intimacy revived in the world, and which lasted six months, when, thinking he could do better, he cut me, as he had done others before. I am not a fair judge of him, because the pique which his conduct to me naturally gave me would induce me to underrate him, but I take vanity and self-sufficiency to be the prominent features of his character, though of the extent of his capacity I will give no opinion. Let time show; I think he will fail. [Time did show it to be very considerable, and the volvenda dies brought back our former friendship, as will hereafter appear; he certainly did not fail.]
SIR JAMES GRAHAM. He came into Parliament ten years ago, spoke and failed. He had been a provincial hero, the Cicero and the Romeo of Yorkshire and Cumberland, a present Lovelace and a future Pitt. He was disappointed in love (the particulars are of no consequence), married and retired to digest his mortifications of various kinds, to become a country gentleman, patriot, reformer, financier, and what not, always good-looking (he had been very handsome), pleasing, intelligent, cultivated, agreeable as a man can be who is not witty and who is rather pompous and slow, after many years of retirement, in the course of which he gave to the world his lucubrations on corn and currency. Time and the hour made him master of a large but encumbered estate and member for his county. Armed with the importance of representing a great constituency, he started again in the House of Commons; took up Joseph Hume’s line, but ornamented it with graces and flourishes which had not usually decorated such dry topics. He succeeded, and in that line is now the best speaker in the House. I have no doubt he has studied his subjects and practised himself in public speaking. Years and years ago I remember his delight on Hume’s comparison between Demosthenes and Cicero, and how he knew the passage by heart; but it is one thing to attack strong abuses and fire off well-rounded set phrases, another to administer the naval affairs of the country and be ready to tilt against all comers, as he must do for the future.[4] Palmerston is said to have given the greatest satisfaction to the foreign Ministers, and to have begun very well. So much for the Ministers.
[4] [This opinion of Sir James Graham is the more curious as he afterwards became one of Mr. Greville’s confidential friends, and rose to the first rank of oratory and authority in the House of Commons. As Secretary of State for the Home Department in the great Administration of Sir Robert Peel he showed administrative ability of the highest order, and he was, perhaps, the most trusted colleague of that illustrious chief. The principal failing of Sir James Graham was, in truth, that he was not so brave and bold a man as he looked.]
December 14th, 1830
There is a delay in Lyndhurst’s appointment, if it takes place at all. Alexander[5] now will not resign, though he himself proposed to do so in the first instance. His physician signed a certificate to say that if he went on this Committee it would cost him his life; some difficulty about the pension is the cause, or the peerage that he wants. He is seventy-six and very rich, a wretched judge, and never knew anything of Common Law. If it is not arranged, it will be a bad business for Lyndhurst, for the Duke and his friends are grievously annoyed at his taking the office, having counted on him as their great champion in the House of Lords. Mrs. Arbuthnot told me the other night that they considered themselves released from all obligations to him for the future. However, they have not at all quarrelled, and they knew his deplorable state in point of money. Dined yesterday at Agar Ellis’s with eighteen people. Brougham in great force and very agreeable, and told some stories of Judge Allan Park, who is a most ridiculous man, and yet a good lawyer, a good judge, and was a most eminent counsel.
[5] [The Chief Baron.]
Park is extraordinarily ridiculous. He is a physiognomist, and is captivated by pleasant looks. In a certain cause, in which a boy brought an action for defamation against his schoolmaster, Campbell, his counsel, asked the solicitor if the boy was good-looking. ‘Very.’ ‘Oh, then, have him in court; we shall get a verdict.’ And so he did. His eyes are always wandering about, watching and noticing everything and everybody. One day there was a dog in court making a disturbance, on which he said, ‘Take away that dog.’ The officers went to remove another dog, when he interposed. ‘No, not that dog. I have had my eye on that dog the whole day, and I will say that a better behaved little dog I never saw in a court of justice.’
One of Brougham’s best speeches was one of his last at the Bar, made in moving for a new trial on the ground of misdirection in a great cause (Tatham and Wright) about a will. He said that on that occasion Park did what he thought no man’s physical powers were equal to; he spoke in summing up for eleven hours and a half, and was as fresh at the end as at the beginning; the trial lasted LORD LYNDHURST AND THE WHIGS. eight days. This same evening Lord Grosvenor, who is by way of being a friend to Government, made an amicable attack upon everything, and talked nonsense. Lord Grey answered him, and defended his own family appointments in a very good speech.