There was a good debate on Monday in the House of Commons on the Irish Tithes Bill. Peel made a very clever speech, attacking the Commission with great felicity, and John Russell made an excellent speech in reply, failing to excuse the Commission, which is inexcusable, but very good upon the question. Both he and Ellice spoke out. I was at the Abbey on Tuesday and yesterday for a performance and a rehearsal of the ‘Messiah.’ The spectacle is very fine, and it is all admirably managed—no crowd or inconvenience, and easy egress and ingress—but the ‘Messiah’ is not so effective as I expected, not so fine as in York Minster; the choruses are admirably performed, but the single voices are miserable—singers of extreme mediocrity, or whose powers are gone; old Bellamy, who was at Handel’s commemoration as a singing boy, Miss Stephens, &c.
June 27th, 1832
Lord William Russell told me last night that his brother John has frequently offered to resign, and they never would let him; at last he said he must speak out on this Church appropriation question, or positively he would not stay in, so that his speech was not blurted out, as I supposed, but was the result of a fixed resolution. This alters the case as far as he is concerned, and it can’t be denied that he was right in thinking it better that Government should make itself clearly understood, and that a break-up was preferable to going on without any real cordiality or concurrence amongst each other and the Administration an object of suspicion to all parties. William Russell said that Government were quite aware that Peel and the Duke could turn them out when they would, but that they would not know what to do next.
Don Carlos is coming to town to Gloucester Lodge. When they told him the Spanish Ambassador (Miraflores) was come to wait upon him, he replied, ‘I have no Ambassador at the Court of London.’ He will not take any money, and he will neither relinquish his claims to the Spanish throne nor move hand or foot in prosecuting them. ‘If chance will have me king, why let chance crown me, without my stir.’ (He was meditating evasion at this time, and got away undiscovered soon after.) They say he can get all the money he wants DON CARLOS ON HIS WAY TO SPAIN. from his partisans in Spain, and that there is no lack of wealth in the country. Strange infatuation when men will spend their blood and their money for such a miserable object. If he had anything like spirit, enterprise, and courage, he would make a fine confusion in Spain, and probably succeed; his departure from the Peninsula and taking refuge here has not caused the war to languish in the north. Admiral Napier is arrived, and has taken a lodging close to him in Portsmouth. Miraflores paid a droll compliment to Madame de Lieven the other night. She was pointing out the various beauties at some ball, and among others Lady Seymour, and asked him if he did not admire her. He said, ‘Elle est trop jeune, trop fraîche,’ and then, with a tender look and squeezing her hand, ‘J’aime les femmes un peu passées.’
July 4th, 1834
The other night Stanley made a fierce speech on Irish tithes, and plainly showed that no reconciliation between him and the Government is feasible. Last night Littleton made a melancholy exhibition with O’Connell. Formerly a Minister must have resigned who cut such a figure; now it is very different, for no matter how unfit a man may be, it is ten to one nobody better can be found to replace him. A more disgraceful affair never was seen; the Tories chuckled, the Government and their friends were disgusted, ashamed, and vexed; Durham sat under the gallery and enjoyed the fun.
I was at Woolwich yesterday to see the yacht in which the Queen is to sail to the Continent. Such luxury and splendour, and such gorgeous preparations. She will sail like Cleopatra down the Cydnus, and though she will have no beautiful boys like Cupids to fan her, she will be attended by Emily Bagot, who is as beautiful as the Mater Cupidinum. She will return to her beggarly country in somewhat different trim from that in which she left it, with all her earls and countesses, equipages, pages, valets, dressers, &c. The Duke of Wellington gave a great ball the other night, and invited all the Ministers. The Chancellor was there till three or four o’clock in the morning, and they say it was very amusing to see the Duke doing the honours to him. The Tories have had a great disappointment in the Finsbury election, which they fancied Pownall was sure of carrying the first day, but Tommy Duncombe beat him hollow the second. It is certainly a great exhibition of Radical strength in that metropolitan district, and may serve to sober the Tories a little, and bring some of them down from their high horses.
July 6th, 1834
When I wrote the above I had not read Stanley’s speech, and had only heard he had used very strong language. I was greatly astonished when I did read it, and fully concur in the nearly universal opinion that, however clever and laughable it may have been, it was a most injudicious and unfortunate exhibition, and is calculated to do him a serious and lasting injury. (This was the famous ‘thimblerig’ speech.) I do not know when I have read or heard so virulent and coarse an invective, and it is rather disgusting than anything else to see such an one fired off at the men with whom he has been acting for some years (up to three weeks ago), with whom he declared his entire concurrence on every other question, from whom he expressed the liveliest regret at separating, and to whom he was individually bound by the strongest ties of friendship and regard. (It will be seen that he made similar professions when he separated from Peel’s Government in ’46, and instantly rushed into a similar opposition.) The Tories cheered him lustily; and what must he on reflection think of such cheers, and of his position in the House—to be halloa’d on by the party which he has hitherto treated with the greatest contempt, and which he thinks the very essence of bigotry and prejudice, at least on all secular matters, against his old friends and colleagues, to whom he is still allied in opinion upon almost every great question of foreign or domestic policy? He availed himself of his knowledge that there was nobody on the Treasury Bench who could answer him to fling out this spiteful and intemperate invective. If Brougham could have been thrown for half an hour into the House, ‘like an eagle into a dovecot,’ what a grand opportunity there would have been for his tremendous sarcasm to vent itself. As it was, Stanley went away unscathed, for though Althorp was STANLEY’S THIMBLERIG SPEECH. not bad in the few words he said with great good-humour, and Littleton made a very tolerable speech, the former twaddled, and the latter has been too much damaged to allow of his saying anything with effect; besides, he quoted a speech of Stanley’s against him (at all times a poor argument) and did not quote the whole of it. I dare say Peel was not very sorry to hear Stanley’s speech, and justly estimated the value of the cheers with which it was hailed. It places him at an immeasurable distance below Peel, and puts an end to any pretensions of rivalship, if he ever entertained any. If a junction is to take place between them, Stanley must be content with a subordinate part; and, act with whomsoever he may, he will never inspire real confidence or conciliate real esteem. I entertain this opinion with regret, and could have wished he had cut a better figure. I dined with a Tory at the ‘Travellers’ yesterday, and he said, ‘Of course we cheered him as loudly as we could; we want to get him, but I must own that it was a very injudicious speech and very unbecoming.’ These are the sort of events in a man’s life which influence his destiny ever after; it is not that his political career will be marred, or that anything can prevent his talents rendering it on the whole important, and probably successful, but there is a revulsion in men’s minds about him, which cannot fail to produce a silent, but in the end a sensible effect upon his fortunes. It is remarkable that Lord Derby, who is a very shrewd and sagacious old man, never would hear of his grandson’s superlative merits, and always in the midst of his triumphs questioned his ultimate success.