My own thoughts about myself. Mr. Sterling, whom I met at dinner the other day (son of Sterling, of the ‘Times’[14]), said that Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, and Keats were all greater poets than Dryden, that they had all finer imaginations. He compared ‘The Vision of Kubla Khan’ to ‘Lycidas’ for harmony of versification!!
[14] [This was Mr. John Sterling, whose life has been written by Thomas Carlyle, and again by Julius Hare, though it was a short and uneventful one. Few men left a deeper mark upon his own contemporaries, not less by the grace and purity of his character than by the vigour of his intellect. It is hard to think that of so bright a promise of life and thought so little remains after him. Sterling was sometimes paradoxical, and he worshipped Coleridge, which may account for the incident related in the text.]
July 3rd, 1838
I was at the ball at Court last night to which hundreds would have given hundreds to go, and from which I would have gladly stayed away: all was very brilliant and very tiresome.
July 4th, 1838
A great exposure of Durham in the House of Lords on Monday night,[15] Brougham chuckling over it yesterday morning. The impression left by Melbourne’s speech was, that Durham had actually assured him he had no intention of appointing Turton, and it was either so, or Melbourne had desired him not to do so, and he went off without sending any answer. The former discussion about Turton took place while Durham was at Portsmouth. Everything blows over, so probably this will, but it is calculated to produce a very bad effect both here and in Canada, and to deprive Durham of all the weight which would attach to him from the notion of his being trusted and trustworthy; besides, the bitter mortification to his pride (by receiving this rap on the knuckles at the outset of his career) will sour his temper and impair his judgement. Brougham says that if he finds his difficulties great and his position disagreeable, he will avail himself of Melbourne’s speech and resign. It is universally thought that he must send Turton home whatever he may do himself.
[15] [Lord Durham took with him to Canada, on his staff, besides Mr. Charles Buller (an unexceptionable appointment), Mr. Turton, of the Calcutta Bar, and Mr. Edward Gibbon Wakefield, gentlemen against whose private character much had been not unjustly said. Some of these appointments were strongly objected to in Parliament.]
July 8th, 1838
Lord Duncannon told me yesterday that Melbourne went to Lord Durham when he heard he was going to take out Turton, and told him that the odium of such an appointment would be so great that it was impossible he could consent to it, and it must not take place. Durham sulked over it for two days, but finally acquiesced, and engaged that Turton should only go out as his private friend. Duncannon added that Durham was much mistaken if he thought Melbourne would endure this disobedience and breach of engagement. Durham had made his entry into Quebec on a white long-tailed charger, in a full general’s uniform, surrounded by his staff, and the first thing he did was to appoint Sir John Doratt (his doctor, whom he had got knighted before he went) Inspector-General of Hospitals, superseding all the people there.