There has been nothing remarkable in either House of Parliament but an attack made by Londonderry on Plunket, who gave him so terrific a dressing that it required to be as pachydermatous as he is to stand it. He is, however, a glutton, for he took it all, and seemed to like it. I dined with Madame de Lieven a day or two ago, and was talking to her about politics and political events, and particularly about the memoirs, or journal, or whatever it be, that she has written. She said she had done so very irregularly, but that what she regretted was not having kept more exact records of the events and transactions of the Belgian question (which is not yet settled), that it was in its circumstances the most curious that could be, and exhibited more remarkable manifestations of character and ‘du cœur humain,’ as well as of politics generally, than any course of events she knew. I asked her why she did not give them now. She said it was impossible, that the ‘nuances’ were so delicate and so numerous, the details so nice and so varying, that unless caught at the moment they escaped, and it was impossible to collect them again.
March 9th, 1832
Went to Lord Holland’s the other night, and had a violent battle with him on politics. Nobody so violent as he, and curious as exhibiting the opinions of the ultras of the party. About making Peers—wanted to know what Harrowby’s real object was. I told him none but to prevent what he thought an enormous evil. What did it signify (he said) whether Peers were made now or later? that the present House of Lords never could go on with a Reformed Parliament, it being opposed to all the wants and wishes of the people, hating the abolition of tithes, the press, and the IRISH NATIONAL EDUCATION. French Revolution, and that in order to make it harmonise with the Reformed Parliament it must be amended by an infusion of a more Liberal cast. This was the spirit of his harangue, which might have been easily answered, for it all goes upon the presumption that his party is that which harmonises with the popular feeling, and what he means by improving the character of the House is to add some fifty or sixty men who may be willing to accept peerages upon the condition of becoming a body-guard to this Government.
The ‘Times’ yesterday and the day before attacked Lord Grey with a virulence and indecency about the Peers that is too much even for those who take the same line, and he now sees where his subserviency to the press has conducted him. In the House of Commons the night before last, Ministers would have been beaten on the sugar duties if Baring Wall, who had got ten people to dinner, had chosen to go down in time.
The principal subject of discussion this last week has been the Education Board in Ireland, the object of which is to combine the education of Catholics and Protestants by an arrangement with regard to the religious part of their instruction that may be compatible with the doctrines and practice of both. This arrangement consists in there being only certain selections from the Bible, which are admitted generally, while particular days and hours are set apart for the separate religious exercises of each class. This will not do for the zealous Protestants, who bellow for the whole Bible as Reformers do for the whole Bill. While the whole system is crumbling to dust under their feet, while the Church is prostrate, property of all kind threatened, and robbery, murder, starvation, and agitation rioting over the land, these wise legislators are debating whether the brats at school shall read the whole Bible or only parts of it. They do nothing but rave of the barbarism and ignorance of the Catholics; they know that education alone can better their moral condition, and that their religious tenets prohibit the admission of any system of education (in which Protestants and Catholics can be joined) except such an one as this, and yet they would rather knock the system on the head, and prevent all the good that may flow from it, than consent to a departure from the good old rules of Orange ascendency and Popish subserviency and degradation, knowing too, above all, that those who are to read and be taught are equally indifferent to the whole Bible or to parts of it, that they comprehend it not, have no clear and definite ideas on the subject but as matter of debate, vehicle of dispute and dissension, and almost of religious hatred and disunion, and that when once they have escaped from the trammels of their school, not one in a hundred will trouble his head about the Bible at all, and not one in a thousand attend to its moral precepts.
March 10th, 1832
Yesterday morning Wharncliffe came to me to give me an account of the conversation the other day between him and Harrowby on one side and Lords Grey and Lansdowne on the other. Harrowby was headachy and out of sorts. However, it went off very satisfactorily; the list was laid before Grey, who was satisfied, and no Peers are to be made before the second reading; but he said that if the Bill should be carried by so small a majority as to prove that the details could not be carried in Committee, he must reserve the power of making Peers then. At this Harrowby winced, but Wharncliffe said he thought it fair; and in fact it is only in conformity with the protocol that was drawn up at the last conversation. They entered into the details, and Lord Grey said the stir that had been made about the metropolitan members might raise difficulties, and then asked would they agree to this, to give members to Marylebone and throw over the rest? To this Harrowby would not agree, greatly to Wharncliffe’s annoyance, who would have agreed, and I think he would have been in the right. It would have been as well to have nailed Grey to this, and if Harrowby had not had a headache I think he would have done so. With regard to the 10ℓ. clause, Wharncliffe thinks they will not object to a modification. Grey spoke of the press, and with just wrath and indignation of the attacks on himself. On the whole this was good. The capture of Vandamme was IRISH TITHES. the consequence of a bellyache, and the metropolitan representation depended on a headache. If the truth could be ascertained, perhaps many of the greatest events in history turned upon aches of one sort or another. Montaigne might have written an essay on it.
March 12th, 1832
Durham made another exhibition of temper at the Cabinet dinner last Wednesday. While Lord Grey was saying something he rudely interrupted him, as his custom is. Lord Grey said, ‘But, my dear Lambton, only hear what I was going to say,’ when the other jumped up and said, ‘Oh, if I am not to be allowed to speak I may as well go away,’ rang the bell, ordered his carriage, and marched off. Wharncliffe came to me yesterday morning to propose writing a pamphlet in answer to the ‘Quarterly Review,’ which has got an article against his party. I suggested instead that an attempt should be made by Sandon (who has been in some communication with the editor about this matter) to induce the ‘Morning Herald’ to support us, and make that paper the vehicle of our articles. This he agreed to, and was to propose it to Sandon last night. We have no advocate in the press; the Whig and Tory papers are equally violent against us. Yesterday I saw a letter which has been circulated among the Tories, written by young Lord Redesdale to Lord Bathurst, a sort of counter-argument to Lord Harrowby’s letter, although not an answer, as it was written before he had seen that document; there is very little in it.