On Saturday at Stoke; came up yesterday with Melbourne. We had a great deal of talk. As soon as we got into the carriage he asked me if I thought it was true that Talleyrand had taken such offence at Palmerston that he would not return here on that account, and if I knew what it was that had affronted him, whether any deficiency in diplomatic punctilio or general offensiveness of manner. I told him I had no doubt it was true, and that the complaints against Palmerston were so general that there must be some cause for them, and though Madame de Lieven might be prejudiced against him, all the foreign Ambassadors could not be so. He said it was very extraordinary if it was so, tried to argue that it might not be the case, and put it in all sorts of different ways; he said that Palmerston exhibited no signs of temper or arrogance with his colleagues, but quite the reverse; he owned, however, he was very obstinate. We then talked over the Stratford Canning business; he admitted that it was unfortunate and might lead to serious consequences, both as to our relations with the Emperor and to the question of diplomatic expenses here. I expressed my astonishment that Palmerston’s obstinacy should have been permitted to have its own way in the matter, and I should guess, from his own strong opinion on the subject, that an Ambassador would be sent before long. He told me—what I did not know before—that the King of Prussia had desired to have Lord Clanwilliam recalled from Berlin.
He then talked of Brougham, and I found that he knows him thoroughly, and is more on his guard than I thought he was with regard to him. I told him of the change in Sefton’s feelings towards him on Lord Grey’s account, and also of Brougham’s strange want of discrimination and his imprudence in congratulating himself to Sefton on the recent changes, and of his expectations of profiting by Melbourne’s advancement to power. I touched lightly on the latter part, PALMERSTON AND BROUGHAM. because it is never prudent to dwell upon topics which are injurious to a person’s vanity, and a word dropped upon so tender a part produces as much effect as the strongest argument. He seemed not a little struck by it, and when I said that I thought there was a taint of insanity in the Chancellor, he said that he thought a great change in him was manifest in the course of the last year, and admitted that he did not think him of sound mind certainly. This he rather implied than expressed, however. He talked of his conduct in Parliament, and observed upon the strange forbearance of the Tories towards him; he thought he had never given stronger evidence of talent than in some of his speeches during the last session. I asked him if the King and Brougham were well together. He shook his head: ‘not at all, and the King can’t bear these exhibitions in Scotland.’ He said the King liked Palmerston, Auckland, Spring Rice, and Mulgrave; had no fancy for any of the rest. (I suspect he likes him (Melbourne), because he appears to talk openly to him, and to express his feelings about the others, and I dare say Melbourne puts him at his ease.) He can’t bear John Russell, respects Althorp (and particularly Lord Spencer), but hates Althorp’s politics; treats Lord Holland with the familiarity of a connexion,[7] but doesn’t like his politics either; he is tenacious about having everything laid before him, often gives his opinion, but is easily satisfied; liked Lord Grey, but was never quite at his ease with him (this accounts for his taking Lord Grey’s resignation as quietly as he did); has a very John-Bullish aversion to the French, and the junction of the English and French fleets two years ago was a bitter pill for him to swallow.
[7] [Colonel Fox, Lord Holland’s eldest son, having married Lady Mary, the King’s eldest daughter, both however born out of wedlock.]
We afterwards talked of Canning and the Duke of Wellington, and the breaking up of the Tory Government. I told him that I believed the Duke and the Tories were aware of Canning’s communications with Brougham. Brougham wrote to Canning and made him an unqualified offer of support. When the King asked Canning how he was to obtain support enough to carry on the Government, he pulled this letter out of his pocket, gave it to him, and said, ‘Sir, your father broke the domination of the Whigs; I hope your Majesty will not endure that of the Tories.’ ‘No,’ said the King; ‘I’ll be damned if I do;’ and he made him Minister. This Canning told Melbourne himself.
September 25th, 1834
Dined yesterday at Holland House; only Melbourne and Pahlen, and in the evening Senior came. He is a very able man—a conveyancer, great political economist, and author of various works on that subject. He was employed by Government to draw up the Poor Law Bill, and might have been one of the Poor Law Commissioners if he would have accepted the office; his profits in his profession are too great to be given up for this occupation. By a discussion which arose about Bickersteth’s merits it was clear that there is a question of his being Solicitor-General. Melbourne said ‘he was a Benthamite, and they were all fools.’ (He said a doctrinaire was a fool, but an honest man.) I said ‘the Austins were not fools.’ ‘Austin? Oh, a damned fool. Did you ever read his book on “Jurisprudence”?’ I said I had read a great part of it, and that it did not appear to be the work of a fool. He said he had read it all, and that it was the dullest book he ever read, and full of truisms elaborately set forth. Melbourne is very fond of being slashing and paradoxical. It is astonishing how much he reads even now that he is Prime Minister. He is greatly addicted to theology, and loves conversing on the subject of religion. ——, who wanted him to marry her (which he won’t do, though he likes to talk to her), is the depositary of his thoughts and notions on these subjects, and the other day she told me he sent her a book (I forget what) on the Revelation stuffed with marginal notes of his own. It was not long ago that he studied Lardner’s book on the ‘Credibility of the Christian Religion,’ and compared it with the Bible as he went along. She fancies that all this reading and reflection have turned him into the right way. I can see no symptom of it at Holland House.
After dinner we talked of languages, and Lord Holland REFLECTIONS ON THE TURF. insisted that Spanish was the finest of all and the best adapted to eloquence. They said that George Villiers wrote word that nothing could be better than the speaking in the Cortes—great readiness and acuteness in reply—and that a more dexterous and skilful debater than Martinez de la Rosa could not be found in any assembly. ‘That speaking so well is the worst thing about them,’ said Melbourne. ‘Ah, that is one of your paradoxes,’ Lord Holland replied.
Allen talked to me about the Harley papers, which were left in a box not to be opened for sixty years; the box was only opened a few years ago at my cousin Titchfield’s (the first) desire, and the papers submitted to Mackintosh, with permission to publish them in his ‘History of England.’ Mackintosh’s death put an end to this, and Allen wants me to ask my uncle the Duke of Portland to put them in my hands and let me publish them. I never did so. Macaulay had all Mackintosh’s papers, and amongst them his notes from these MSS.
London, November 13th, 1834
For two months nearly that I have been in this country I have not written a line, having had nothing worth recording to put down. It is not worth my while to write, nor anybody else’s to read (should anybody ever read these memoranda), the details of racing and all that thereunto appertains, and though several disagreeable occurrences have ruffled the stream of my life, I have no pleasure in recording these; for if their consequences pass away, and I can forget them, it is better not at any future time to awaken ‘the scorpion sting of griefs subdued.’ Of public events I have known nothing but what everybody else knows, and it would have been mere waste of time to copy from the newspapers accounts of the conflagration of the Houses of Parliament or the Durham dinner at Glasgow. My campaign on the turf has been a successful one. Still all this success has not prevented frequent disgusts, and I derive anything but unmixed pleasure from this pursuit even when I win by it. Besides the continual disappointments and difficulties incident to it, which harass the mind, the life it compels me to lead, the intimacies arising out of it, the associates and the war against villany and trickery, being haunted by continual suspicions, discovering the trust-unworthiness of one’s most intimate friends, the necessity of insincerity and concealment sometimes where one feels that one ought and would desire to be most open; then the degrading nature of the occupation, mixing with the lowest of mankind, and absorbed in the business for the sole purpose of getting money, the consciousness of a sort of degradation of intellect, the conviction of the deteriorating effects upon both the feelings and the understanding which are produced, the sort of dram-drinking excitement of it—all these things and these thoughts torment me, and often turn my pleasure to pain. On arriving in town I went to Crockford’s, where I found all the usual set of people, and soon after Sefton came in. Lord Spencer’s death had taken place the day before; he knew nothing of the probable arrangements, but he told me that he supposed Althorp would go to the Admiralty and Auckland to India. But what he was fullest of was that Mrs. Lane Fox’s house was become the great rendezvous of a considerable part of the Cabinet. The Chancellor, Melbourne, Duncannon, and Mulgrave are there every day and all day; they all dine with her, or meet her (the only woman) at each other’s houses, as often as they can. It certainly is a droll connexion. The squabbles between Brougham and Durham seem to have resolved themselves into a mere personal coldness, and there is no question now of any hostilities between them. I never thought there would be, though some people apparently did; but they both would much rather rail than fight.