Went yesterday to sit to Wilkie for the picture of the Queen’s First Council. The likenesses are generally pretty good, but it is a very unfaithful representation of what actually took place. It was, of course, impossible to preserve all the details without sacrificing the effect, but the picture has some glaring improprieties, which diminish its interest, and deprive it of all value as an historical piece. There were ninety-seven Privy Councillors present on the occasion, and among them most of the conspicuous men of the time. He has introduced as many figures as he well could, but has made a strange selection, admitting very ordinary men, such as Lord Burghersh and Lord Salisbury, while Brougham and Stanley do not find places. He told me that great anxiety prevailed to be put into this picture, and many pressing applications had been made; and as only vain and silly men would make them, and importunity generally prevails to a great extent, it ends in the sacrifice of the picture by substituting these undistinguished intruders in place of the celebrated persons who are so much better entitled to be there. Then he has painted the Lord Mayor of London and the Attorney-General, who, not being Privy Councillors, could not be present when the Queen was sitting in Council; but they both entreated to be put in the picture, and each asserted that he was actually present. Yesterday I remonstrated with Wilkie, who had no good reason to give; indeed, none, except that they both said they were present, and that the Attorney had described to him what passed. The fact was this: when the Lords assemble they order the Queen to be proclaimed, and when the Proclamation is read the doors are thrown open, and everybody is admitted. The Lord Mayor came in together with several Common Councilmen and a multitude of other persons. When this is over they are all obliged to retire, and I called out from the head of the table that ‘everybody except Privy Councillors would have the goodness to retire.’ WILKIE’S PICTURE OF THE FIRST COUNCIL. It was necessary to clear the room before Her Majesty could hold her Privy Council. The people did retire, slowly and lingeringly, and some time afterwards, espying the fur and scarlet of the Lord Mayor, I requested somebody (I forget whom) to tell him he must retire, and he did leave the room. Shortly after the Queen entered, and the business of the Council commenced. The impossibility of getting the summonses to two hundred and twenty Privy Councillors conveyed in time caused the greatest irregularity in the arrivals, and the door was continually opened to admit fresh comers. In such a scene of bustle and confusion, and in a room so crowded, it is extremely probable that the Lord Mayor and the Attorney-General smuggled themselves back into the apartment, and that they were (very improperly) spectators of what passed; but that forms no reason why they should be represented in an historical picture as actors in a ceremonial with which they had, and could have, no concern. Wilkie was very anxious to have Lord Conyngham in the picture, but both he and Albert Conyngham decided that it would be improper, because not only he was not present, but according to etiquette could not be present, as it was his duty to remain in constant attendance upon the body of the late King up to the moment of his breaking his wand over his coffin.
Yesterday Brougham spoke for four hours and a half in the House of Lords, upon the appeal of ‘Small v. Attwood,’ concurring with the Chancellor in reversing Lyndhurst’s judgement, and evidently bent upon making a display of judicial eloquence which should eclipse that of Lyndhurst himself. This judgement has made a great sensation in the world, especially in the commercial world. I met the Vice-Chancellor, who had come from the House of Lords, and who told me of Brougham’s speech, and the final decree; he said he really knew nothing of the case, but from what he heard he was inclined to believe the reversal was right. Lyndhurst, however, persists in the correctness of his own judgement.
March 30th, 1838
Lord Eliot’s motion about Spain came to a ridiculous end on Wednesday. When the debate was resumed at five o’clock very few people were present; they were chattering and making a noise; nobody heard the Speaker when he put the question; and so they divided 72 to 60, the Ministers (or Minister, for none was present but John Russell) not knowing on which side there would be a majority. The Tories were very angry, and wanted to renew the discussion in another form, but after a little wrangle this project dropped. It was a foolish, useless motion, and deserved no better end.
On Wednesday afternoon I found Downing Street thronged with rival deputations of West Indians and Quakers, which had both been with Melbourne. Out of Brougham’s flaming speeches on Anti-slavery a tempest has arisen, which threatens the West Indians with sudden and unforeseen ruin in the shape of immediate emancipation.[20] It is always easy to get up anti-slavery petitions and to excite a benevolent indignation against slavery in any shape, and Brougham has laid hold of this easy mode of inflaming the public mind in his usual daring, unscrupulous, reckless style, pouring forth a flood of eloquent falsehoods and misrepresentations which he knows will be much more effective than any plain matter-of-fact statements that can be urged on the other side. The West Indians had no notion they were in any danger, and were reposing under the shade of Government protection and in undoubting reliance upon the inviolability of the great arrangement, when they find themselves overtaken all at once with the new question of immediate emancipation which has sprung up into instantaneous life and strength. Their terror is accordingly great. They went to Melbourne, who said he agreed with them, and that the Government was determined to support them, and so they might tell their people, but that he could not promise them to make it so much a Government question as to resign if they were beat upon it. The leaders of the Opposition BIRTHDAY REFLEXIONS. equally took their part, but the question is whether the tails will not beat the heads. I never remember before to have seen any question on which so much uncertainty prevailed as to individual votes. More than one half the members of the House doubted, and probably are at this moment doubting, how they shall vote. The petitions are innumerable, and men are disposed to gratify their constituents by voting as they please on this question, not caring a fig either for the slaves or the West Indians, and reconciling it to their consciences to despoil the latter by assuming that they were overpaid with the twenty millions they got by the Emancipation Act.
[20] [Sir George Strickland moved, on the 30th of March, a resolution in favour of the termination of negro apprenticeship as established by the Emancipation Act of 1834, on the 1st of August of the current year. The motion was defeated by 269 to 205.]
April 2nd, 1838
My birthday. Another year has stolen over me, and finds me, I fear, little better or wiser than at the end of the last. How we wince at our reflexions and still go on in the same courses! how we resolve and break our resolutions! It is a common error to wish we could recall the past and be young again, and swear what things we would do if another opportunity was offered us. All vanity, folly, and falsehood. We should do just the same as before, because we do actually do the same; we linger over and regret the past instead of setting manfully to work to improve the future; we waste present time in vague and useless regrets, and abandon ourselves to inaction in despair instead of gathering up what yet remains of life, and finding a compensation, however inadequate, in resolute industry for our losses. I wonder if anybody has ever done this. Many after damaging their health have become prudent and careful in restoring their shattered constitutions; many more have been extravagant and careless, and ended by being parsimonious and prudent, and so the first have grown strong and the second rich; but has anybody thoroughly wasted his time, frittered away his understanding, weakened the powers of judgement and memory, and let his mind be bare and empty as the shelves of an unfurnished bookcase, and afterwards become diligent, thoughtful, reflective, a hater of idleness, and, what is worse, of indolence, and habitually addicted to worthy and useful pursuits? I do not think I can call to mind any instance of such a reformation.
I went to Newmarket on Saturday. Mutable as this climate is, the greatest variation I ever saw was between Friday and Sunday last. On Friday S.W. wind, balmy air like June, and the trees beginning to bud; on Sunday the ground was completely covered with snow, not a particle of any colour but white to be seen, a bitter N.E. wind, and so it continued till the sun melted away the thin coat of snow, which disappeared as suddenly as if it had been swept away.
The Ministers got a pretty good majority, all things considered, on Friday. Gladstone made a first-rate speech in defence of the planters, which places him in the front rank in the House of Commons, so Fazakerly told me; he converted or determined many adverse or doubtful votes, as did Sir George Grey the day before.