I dined at Holland House yesterday; a good many people, and the Chancellor came in after dinner, looking like an old clothes man and dirty as the ground. We had a true Holland House dinner, two more people arriving (Melbourne and Tom Duncombe) than there was room for, so that Lady Holland had the pleasure of a couple of general squeezes, and of seeing our arms prettily pinioned. Lord Holland sits at table, but does not dine. He proposed to retire (not from the room), but was not allowed, for that would have given us all space and ease. Lord Holland told some stories of Johnson and Garrick which he had heard from Kemble. Johnson loved to bully Garrick, from a recollection of Garrick’s former impertinence. When Garrick was in the zenith of his popularity, and grown rich, and lived with the great, and while Johnson was yet obscure, the Doctor used to drink tea with him, and he would say, ‘Davy, I do not envy you your money nor your fine acquaintance, but I envy you your power of drinking such tea as this.’ ‘Yes,’ said Garrick, ‘it is very good tea, but it is not my best, nor that which I give to my Lord this and Sir somebody t’other.’

Johnson liked Fox because he defended his pension, and said it was only to blame in not being large enough. CHARACTER OF MACAULAY. ‘Fox,’ he said, ‘is a liberal man; he would always be “aut Cæsar aut nullus;” whenever I have seen him he has been nullus.’ Lord Holland said Fox made it a rule never to talk in Johnson’s presence, because he knew all his conversations were recorded for publication, and he did not choose to figure in them.

August 12th, 1832

The House of Commons has finished (or nearly) its business. Althorp ended with a blunder. He brought in a Bill to extend the time for payment of rates and for voters under the new Bill, and because it was opposed he abandoned it suddenly; his friends are disgusted. Robarts told me that the Bank Committee had executed their laborious duties in a spirit of great cordiality, and with a general disposition to lay aside all political differences and concur in accomplishing the best results; a good thing, for it is in such transactions as these, which afford an opportunity for laying aside the bitterness of party and the rancorous feelings which animate men against each other, that the only chance can be found of a future amalgamation of public men. He told me that the evidence all went to prove that little improvement could be made in the management of the Bank.

Dined yesterday at Holland House; the Chancellor, Lord Grey, Luttrell, Palmerston, and Macaulay. The Chancellor was sleepy and would not talk; he uttered nothing but yawns and grunts. Macaulay and Allen disputed history, particularly the character of the Emperor Frederick II., and Allen declared himself a Guelph and Macaulay a Ghibelline. Macaulay is a most extraordinary man, and his astonishing knowledge is every moment exhibited, but (as far as I have yet seen of him, which is not sufficient to judge) he is not agreeable. His propositions and his allusions are rather too abrupt; he starts topics not altogether naturally; then he has none of the graces of conversation, none of that exquisite tact and refinement which are the result of a felicitous intuition or a long acquaintance with good society, or more probably a mixture of both. The mighty mass of his knowledge is not animated by that subtle spirit of taste and discretion which alone can give it the qualities of lightness and elasticity, and without which, though he may have the power of instructing and astonishing, he never will attain that of delighting and captivating his hearers. The dinner was agreeable, and enlivened by a squabble between Lady Holland and Allen, at which we were all ready to die of laughing. He jeered at something she said as brutal, and chuckled at his own wit.

Shepperton, August 31st, 1832

I came here last Sunday to see my father, who (my mother wrote me word) had been unwell for a day or two. I got here at four o’clock (having called on Madame de Lieven at Richmond on the way), and when I arrived I found my father at the point of death. He was attacked as he had often been before; medicines afforded him no relief, and nothing would stay on his stomach. On Saturday violent spasms came on, which occasioned him dreadful pain; they continued intermittingly till Sunday afternoon, when as they took him out of bed to put him in a warm bath, he fainted. From this state of insensibility he never recovered, and at half-past twelve o’clock he expired. My brothers were both here. I sent an express for my sister, who was at Malvern, and she arrived on Tuesday morning. Dr. Dowdeswell was in the house, and he stayed on with us and did all that was required. This morning he was buried in the church of this village, close to the house, in the simplest manner, and was followed to the grave by my brothers and brother-in-law, Dowdeswell, Ives, the doctor who attended him, and the servants. He had long been ailing, and at his age (nearly 70 years) this event was not extraordinary, but it was shocking, because so sudden and unexpected, and no idea of danger was entertained by himself or those about him. My father had some faults and many foibles, but he was exposed to great disadvantages in early youth; his education was neglected and his disposition was spoilt. His father was useless, and worse than useless, as a parent, and his mother (a woman of extraordinary capacity and merit) died while he was a young man, having been previously separated from her husband, and having ANECDOTES OF PRINCESS CHARLOTTE. retired from the world.[11] The circumstances of his marriage, and the incidents of his life, would be interesting to none but his own family, and need not be recorded by me. He was a man of a kind, amiable, and liberal disposition, and what is remarkable, as he advanced in years his temper grew less irritable and more indulgent; he was cheerful, hospitable, and unselfish. He had at all times been a lively companion, and without much instruction, extensive information, or a vigorous understanding, his knowledge of the world in the midst of which he had passed his life, his taste and turn for humour, and his good-nature made him a very agreeable man. He had a few intimate friends to whom he was warmly attached, a host of acquaintance, and I do not know that he had a single enemy. He was an affectionate father, and ready to make any sacrifices for the happiness and welfare of his children—in short, he was amiable and blameless in the various relations of life, and he deserved that his memory should be cherished as it is by us with sincere and affectionate regret.

[11] [Mr. Charles Greville, senior, was the fifth son of Fulk Greville of Wilbury, by Frances Macartney, a lady of some literary reputation as the authoress of an ‘Ode to Indifference.’ She was the daughter of General Macartney. Horace Walpole speaks of her as one of the beauties of his time. She died in 1789. Mr. Greville may have inherited from her his strong literary tastes.]

September 18th, 1832

I have been in London, at Shepperton, and twice at Brighton to see Henry de Ros; came back yesterday. The world is half asleep. Lord Howe returns to the Queen as her Chamberlain, and that makes a sensation. I met at Brighton Lady Keith [Madame de Flahaut], who told us a great deal about French politics, which, as she is a partisan, was not worth much, but she also gave us rather an amusing account of the early days of the Princess Charlotte, at the time of her escape from Warwick House in a hackney coach and taking refuge with her mother, and of the earlier affair of Captain Hess. The former escapade arose from her determination to break off her marriage with the Prince of Orange, and that from her falling suddenly in love with Prince Augustus of Prussia, and her resolving to marry him and nobody else, not knowing that he was already married de la main gauche in Prussia. It seems that she speedily made known her sentiments to the Prince, and he (notwithstanding his marriage) followed the thing up, and had two interviews with her at her own house, which were contrived by Miss Knight, her governess. During one of these Miss Mercer arrived, and Miss Knight told her that Prince Augustus was with the Princess in her room, and what a fright she (Miss Knight) was in. Miss Mercer, who evidently had no mind anybody should conduct such an affair for the Princess but herself, pressed Miss Knight to go and interrupt them, which on her declining she did herself. The King (Regent as he was then) somehow heard of these meetings, and measures of coercion were threatened, and it was just when an approaching visit from him had been announced to the Princess that she went off. Miss Mercer was in the house at the time, and the Regent, when he came, found her there. He accused her of being a party to the Princess’s flight, but afterwards either did or pretended to believe her denial, and sent her to fetch the Princess back, which after many pourparlers and the intervention of the Dukes of York and Sussex, Brougham, and the Bishop of Salisbury, her preceptor, was accomplished at two in the morning.