Arbuthnot says they know that Lyndhurst was intriguing with the Whigs when the Duke was turned out in ’30, and that it had been settled that he was to remain their Chancellor; and so he would have been if Brougham would have consented to be Attorney-General, and had not run restive, and given clear indications of his resolution to destroy the Government if he was left out of it. He says that notwithstanding the duplicity of Peel’s conduct in 1832, he and the Duke are always on good terms, and no great question is ever agitated without Peel’s coming to the Duke and talking it over with him; that Peel is determined to have nothing to do with the Whigs, and told him (Arbuthnot) so very lately, but the High Tories are just as unmanageable as ever. Chandos came to the Duke the other day, and told him he thought they ought to get up petitions against the malt tax. The Duke said he would countenance no such thing; that he thought the revenue of the country should be supported; for if it failed, recourse must be had to a property tax, which would fall on the aristocracy; and so he persuaded him to let the malt tax alone.

January 26th, 1834

I left Belvoir on Friday, the 10th, and went to Mrs. Arkwright’s,[6] at Stoke, where I found nobody but her own family. I was well enough amused for two days with her original conversation and her singing, and her cousin, Miss Twiss, who, with a face of uncommon plainness and the voice of a man, is sensible and well informed. Then they both liked to have me, and that is a great charm; a little agreeableness goes a great way in the Peak, and it is not difficult to procure a triumph to one’s vanity from people who, with a good deal of power of appreciation, have very little opportunity for comparison, and are therefore easily satisfied. Arkwright told me that it was reported by those who were better informed than himself of his father’s circumstances, that he is worth from seven to eight millions. His grandfather began life as a barber, invented some machinery, got a patent, and made a fortune. His son gave him offence by a marriage which he disapproved of, and he quarrelled with him, but gave him a mill. Arkwright, the son, saw nothing of his father for many years, but by industry and ability accumulated great wealth. When Sir Richard served as Sheriff, his son thought it right to go out with the other gentlemen of the county to meet him, and the old gentleman was struck with his handsome equipage, and asked to whom it belonged. Upon being informed, he sought a reconciliation with him, and was astonished to find that his son was as rich as himself. From that time they continued on good terms, and at his death he bequeathed him the bulk of his property.

[6] [Mrs. Arkwright was a Kemble by birth, and had much of the musical and dramatic genius of that gifted family. Her singing was most touching, and some of her musical compositions were full of originality and expression.]

Mrs. Arkwright told me the curious story of Sir Thomas Lawrence’s engagements with her two cousins, the daughters of Mrs. Siddons. They were two sisters, one tall and very handsome, the other little, without remarkable beauty, but very clever and agreeable. He fell in love with the first, and they were engaged to be married. Of course under such circumstances he lived constantly and freely in the house, and after some time the superior intelligence of the clever sister changed the current of his passion, and she supplanted the handsome one in the affection of the artist. They concealed the double treachery, but one day a note which was intended for his new love fell into the hands of the old love, A MURDER NEAR RUNTON. who, never doubting it was for herself, opened it, and discovered the fatal truth. From that time she drooped, sickened, and shortly after died. On her deathbed she exacted a promise from her sister that she would never marry Lawrence, who firmly adhered to it. He continued his relations with her with more or less intimacy up to the period of her death, the date of which I do not recollect.

From Stoke I went on Monday, 13th, to Drakelow, which Sir Roger Gresley has lent to Craufurd, and stayed there two nights. It is a miserable place, with the Trent running under the windows, and Lord Anglesey’s land close to the door. Thence on Wednesday to Runton Abbey—Lord Lichfield’s—who has added to it a farm-house, and made a residence in the midst of his property, where he has the best shooting in England. He and I went out the day after I got there, and killed 41 pheasants, 74 hares, 24 rabbits, 8 woodcocks, and 8 partridges. He is a fine fellow, with an excellent disposition, liberal, hospitable, frank and gay, quick and intelligent, without cultivation, extravagant and imprudent, with considerable aptitude for business; between spending and speculating, buying property in one place, selling in another, and declining to sell in a third, he has half ruined a noble estate.

Just before I got there a murder had been committed close to his house under very curious circumstances, of which some notice appeared in the newspapers. A soldier in the Artillery got a legacy of 500ℓ., with which he bought his discharge, went down to the village near Runton, and took a very pretty girl of indifferent character to live with him. He gave her shawls and trinkets, and spent a good deal of money on her. Having addicted himself immoderately to drink, he soon spent all his money, and, to supply himself with the means of getting drunk, he began robbing his mistress of the articles he had given her. It happened that about this time somebody in the village who had been robbed consulted a cunning man of great repute in the neighbourhood, and so alarmed was the thief at the bare idea of what this oracle might utter, that the stolen property was secretly restored. The girl upon hearing of this restitution resolved to have recourse to the cunning man, and invited her lover to escort her to his abode. After endeavouring in vain to dissuade her they set out together, but he was so overcome with terror as he went along that he stopped short in the road and refused to proceed. On this the girl said that it was easy to see who was the thief, and that the reason he would not face the conjuror was that he was conscious of his own guilt. Upon this they fell to high words, then to blows, and he finished by murdering her. He did not attempt to escape, but repaired to a public-house, where he was soon after taken into custody. He acknowledged the crime, and said he was weary of life, and deserved to be hanged. Here is an example of the miserable effects of good fortune upon a man who was unfit to use it, and of the strange superstition of the common people. The murderer will be tried at the next assizes.

I stayed at Runton till Sunday, 19th, when I came here,[7] where there was nobody but the family and Ralph Sneyd. The place is exceedingly beautiful, and arranged with excellent taste. It has been very agreeable. Lady Harrowby is superior to all the women I have ever known; ‘her talk is so crisp,’ as Luttrell once said of her. She has no imagination, no invention, no eloquence, no deep reading or retentive memory, but a noble, straightforward, independent character, a sound and vigorous understanding, penetration, judgment, taste. She is perfectly natural, open and sincere, loves conversation and social enjoyment; with her intimate friends there is an abandon and unreserved communion of thoughts, feelings, and opinions which renders her society delightful. Of all the women I ever saw she unites the most masculine mind with the most feminine heart. Lord Harrowby[8] has all the requisites of disagreeableness, a tart, short, provoking manner, with manners at once pert and CHARACTER OF LORD HARROWBY. rigid; but he is full of information, and if made the best of may yield a good deal of desirable knowledge. Though not illiberal in politics, he has fallen into the high Tory despondency about the prospects of the country, and anticipates every evil that the most timid alarmist can suggest. Still, justice should be rendered to Lord Harrowby; a purer and more disinterested statesman never existed. He was always devoid of selfishness and ambition, honourable and conscientious to a degree which rendered him incapable of a sordid or oblique action. Always acute, but sometimes crotchety, he had the same fault in politics which was the reproach of Lord Eldon in law—indecision; and this in no small degree impaired both his efficacy and his authority. His great idol was Pitt, and, after him, he was the friend and admirer of Perceval. Bred in their school, and a Tory by taste, by habit, and in opinion, it is not a little to his honour that he was able to comprehend the mighty changes which time and circumstances had effected, and to perceive that an inflexible adherence to high Tory maxims was dangerous, because their practical operation was no longer possible; but justice must be rendered to him hereafter, for he will never obtain it in his own time. By endeavouring to steer between two great and exasperated factions he became thoroughly obnoxious to both. After having refused the post of Prime Minister, no one can doubt the sincerity of his desire to retire from public life, and in the consciousness of rectitude, the disgust of parties, and a calm and dignified philosophy, he finds ample consolation for all the obloquy with which he has been assailed.

[7] [This must have been written at Sandon, Lord Harrowby’s seat in Staffordshire, but the entry is not dated.]

[8] [Dudley Ryder, second Baron and first Earl of Harrowby, born in 1762; married in 1795 Susan, a daughter of the Marquis of Stafford.]