To my office, then to the House of Lords and heard a discussion on foreign politics; not very amusing; Melbourne not so good as Grey would have been. The Duke spoke, but he looked very ill. Walked from the House with Lord Carnarvon, who is an intelligent man, but a great alarmist and very desponding; he thinks we are going on IRISH TITHE BILL. step by step to an utter subversion of all interests and institutions.
August 7th, 1834
Yesterday I met the Duke of Wellington, who talked to me of Mrs. Arbuthnot; I walked away from my office with Duncannon, who told me that O’Connell’s amendment in the Tithe Bill met with his concurrence (and in fact, though he did not exactly say as much, his connivance). He said he was sure this Bill was the only chance for the Irish Church, which he was very anxious to save and support; expressed great anxiety to make it up with O’Connell by giving him a great judicial situation, is convinced he is sincere (at the moment) in all he says, but that he is so vain and excitable and ambitious that when he returns to Ireland he forgets all he has promised or professed; the demon of agitation regains the ascendant, and he bursts into all those excesses which have made him so odious and formidable; but there is no chance of any arrangement with him, for the majority of the Government would not hear of it. I dined at the ‘Travellers;’ walked to a fire in Edward Street, where I amused myself with the strange figures and groups, the glare, bustle, and noise. There was Duncannon again, a Secretary of State jostling and jostled in the mob.
August 12th, 1834
On Saturday to Hillingdon, and back yesterday; passed the night at the House of Lords, to hear the debate on the Irish Tithe Bill.[1] At a meeting at Apsley House the Tory Lords came to an unanimous resolution to throw out the Bill, and at one or two meetings at Lambeth the bishops agreed to do the same. The debate was heavy; Melbourne very unlike Lord Grey, whose forte was leading the House of Lords and making speeches on such occasions. Ellenborough spoke the best, I think. I hardly ever heard such unbroken fluency, and a good deal of stuff, too, in his speech. Ellice and Spring Rice both told me that this decision was the most fatal and most important that had occurred for years; the latter said that no tithe would be paid, but that there would be no active resistance. Such tithe property as could be seized would not be sold, because there would be no purchasers for it. One thing is clear to me, that those Tories who are always bellowing ‘revolution’ and ‘spoliation,’ and who talk of the gradual subversion of every institution and the imminent peril in which all our establishments are placed, do not really believe one word of what they say, and, instead of being oppressed with fear, they are buoyed up with delusive confidence and courage; for if they did indeed believe that the Church—the Church of Ireland especially—was in danger, and that its preservation was the one paramount desideratum, they would gladly avert, as far as they might, that danger by a compromise involving a very small (if any) sacrifice of principle, and which would secure to the Irish clergy, as far as human prudence, legislative sanction, and the authority of law can secure it, a permanent and a competent provision, free from the danger and the odium which have for a long time past embittered the existence of every clergyman in the country. It is a curious speculation to see what the effect will be of this vote practically in Ireland on the condition of the clergy, and upon public opinion here.
[1] [The Irish Tithe Bill was thrown out by the House of Lords by 189 to 122.]
It is difficult to understand why the Lords did not alter the Bill in Committee and restore it to its original state, that which Ellenborough said he would not have opposed, and which had been already sanctioned by a great majority of the House of Commons upon the report of a Committee. If they had done this, either the Bill must have passed in this less obnoxious shape or the odium of its rejection would have been thrown upon the Commons, and the Lords would undoubtedly have had an excellent case to present to the country. But if there is a wall they are sure to run their heads against it, and if there is none they build one up for the purpose. What puzzles me most is the opposition of the clergy; they are the parties most immediately and most deeply interested in this Bill, and yet the great majority of them appear to be opposed totis viribus to it.
August 13th, 1834
Dined at Roehampton yesterday with Farquhar. Mrs. Norton and Mrs. Blackwood and Theodore THEODORE HOOK. Hook dined there among others. After dinner he displayed his extraordinary talent of improvisation, which I had never heard but once before, and then he happened not to be in the vein. Last night he was very brilliant. Each lady gave him a subject, such as the ‘Goodwood Cup,’ the ‘Tithe Bill;’ one ‘could not think of anything,’ when he dashed off and sang stanzas innumerable, very droll, with ingenious rhymes and excellent hits, ‘his eye begetting occasion for his excellent wit,’ for at every word of interruption or admiration, every look or motion, he indulged in a digression, always coming back to one of the themes imposed upon him. It is a tour de force, in which I believe he stands alone, and it is certainly wonderfully well worth hearing and uncommonly amusing.