August 4th.—It is nearly a month ago that I wrote the above, and in the meantime the elections progressed in favour of the Tories, and ended by giving them a majority of above eighty. Nothing was left for the Whigs but to comfort themselves with reflexions upon the united state of their minority, and hopes of the disunion that would prevail among the Tories; and upon these considerations, and upon the distresses and embarrassment of the country, which they trust and believe will make Peel's Government very difficult, they build their sanguine expectations of being speedily restored to office. Above all, they look to Ireland as a great and constant source of difficulty, and they evidently hope that O'Connell's influence will now be successfully exerted to render the government of Ireland impossible. And they insist upon the certainty, almost the necessity, of the Orangemen being so exigeants that Peel will have as much difficulty in dealing with them as with the O'Connellites, and between both that he will be inevitably swamped. In these fond anticipations I believe they will find themselves egregiously disappointed, especially in what they expect from the Orangemen. My own expectation is that the Orangemen will no longer aspire to an exclusiveness and ascendency which are unattainable, and that with the protection, justice, and equality which they will obtain under a Conservative Government they will rest satisfied, and will not be fools enough to quarrel with Peel, and open a door to the restoration of the Whigs, because he does not do for them what it would be unreasonable to require, and what he never can have the power to do.
LORD MELBOURNE'S ADVICE TO THE QUEEN.
The next thing from which the Whigs hope to derive benefit is the hostile disposition of the Queen towards the Tory Government, and this they do their utmost to foster and keep up as far as writings and speeches go; but I do not believe that Melbourne does any such thing, and he alone has access to the Queen's ear and to her secret thoughts. With him alone she communicates without reserve, and to none of his colleagues, not even to John Russell, does he impart all that passes between them. The best thing she can possibly do is to continue in her confidential habits with him as far as possible, for I am persuaded he will give her sound and honest advice; he will mitigate instead of exasperating her angry feelings, and instruct her in the duties and obligations of her position, and try at least to persuade her that her dignity, her happiness and her interest are all concerned in her properly discharging them. He has faults enough of various kinds, but he is a man of honour and of sense, and he is deeply attached to the Queen. He will prefer her honour and repose to any interests of party, and it is my firm conviction that he will labour to inspire her with just notions and sound principles, and as far as in him lies will smooth the difficulties which would be apt to clog her intercourse with his successors.
August 10th.—The Tories were beginning to quarrel about the Speakership, some wanting to oust Lefevre but the more sensible and moderate, with Peel and the leaders desiring to keep him. The latter carried their point without much difficulty. Peel wrote to four or five and twenty of his principal supporters and asked their opinions. All, except Lowther, concurred in not disturbing Lefevre, and he said that he would not oppose the opinions of the majority. So Peel wrote to Lefevre, and gave him notice that he would not be displaced. The Whig papers, which were chuckling at the prospect of an early schism, were very sulky, and much disappointed at this settlement of the question. It would have been a very bad beginning for Peel if he had been overruled by the violence of the Ultra Tories. If he takes a high line, taking it moderately and discreetly but firmly, if he evinces his resolution to lead and not be driven, to govern the country according to his own sense of its necessities and rights, and to moral and political fitness, he may be a great and powerful Minister; but if the party he leads is so disunited, or so obstinate and unreasonable, that they will not consent to be led on these terms, if they will put forward their wants and wishes, and insist upon his deferring to their notions, prejudices, and desires, contrary to his own judgement, and to the sense and sentiment of the country, his reign will be very short. The party will be broken up, and the Government soon become paralysed and powerless. To this consummation, in full reliance upon his weakness, and the exactions of his party, the hopes of the defeated Whigs are anxiously directed, but I think they will be disappointed. All Peel's conduct for some time past, his speeches in and out of the House of Commons, upon all occasions, indicate his resolution to act upon liberal and popular principles, and upon them to govern, or not at all. That many will be dissatisfied, and many disappointed, there can be no doubt; but on the whole I think the dissidents will, with few exceptions, come into his terms; and as to the conscientious few, who on certain points will inflexibly maintain their opinions or principles, he will be able to afford to lose them. No man ever acquires greatness of mind, which is innate; but a man may acquire wisdom, and one may act from prudence as another would do from magnanimity. Peel's mind is not made of noble material, but he has an enlarged capacity and has had a vast experience of things, though from his peculiar disposition a much more limited one of men. If he takes a correct and a lofty view of his own situation—and to be correct it must be lofty—he will succeed, and the really essential thing is that he should have a deep and determined feeling that possession of office is utterly worthless if it is to be purchased by concessions and compromises which his reason condemns, and that he should enter on the Government with an unalterable determination to stand or fall by the principles he professes.
DR. WISEMAN.
August 12th.—The day before yesterday I met Dr. Wiseman at dinner, a smooth, oily, and agreeable Priest. He is now Head of the College at Oscott, near Birmingham, and a Bishop (in partibus), and accordingly he came in full episcopal costume, purple stockings, tunic and gold chain. He talked religion, Catholicism, Protestantism, and Puseyism, almost the whole time. He told us of the great increase of his religion in this country, principally in the manufacturing, and very little in the agricultural districts. I asked him to what cause he attributed it, if to the efforts of missionaries, or the influence of writings, and he replied that the principal instrument of conversion was the Protestant Association, its violence and scurrility; that they always hailed with satisfaction the advent of its itinerant preachers, as they had never failed to make many converts in the districts through which they had passed; he talked much of Pusey and Newman, and Hurrell Froude whom Wiseman had known at Rome. He seems to be very intimate with Dr. Pusey, and gave us to understand not only that their opinions are very nearly the same, but that the great body of that persuasion, Pusey himself included, are very nearly ripe and ready for reunion with Rome, and he assured us that neither the Pope's supremacy nor Transubstantiation would be obstacles in their way. He said that the Jesuits were in a very flourishing state, and their Order governed as absolutely, and their General invested with the same authority and exacting the same obedience, as in the early period of the institution. As an example, he said that when the Pope gave them a College at Rome, I forget now what, the General sent for Professors from all parts of the world, summoning one from Paris, another from America, and others from different towns in Italy, and he merely ordered them on the receipt of his letters to repair forthwith to Rome. He invited me to visit him at Oscott, which I promised, and which I intend to do.
Yesterday I went to Windsor for a Council, and there I found the Duke of Bedford. After the Council I went into his room to have a talk. He gave me an account of the Queen's visit to Woburn, which went off exceedingly well in all ways. She was received everywhere with the greatest enthusiasm, and an extraordinary curiosity to see her was manifested by the people, which proves that the Sovereign as such is revered by the people. I asked him if she was attentive to the Duke of Wellington, but he said that the Duke kept very much in the background, and his deafness, he thought, deterred the Queen from trying to converse much with him. However, though it is clear that she showed him no particular attention, the Duke was highly satisfied, for he told the Duke of Bedford so, and said he thought this progress a very good thing. The Duke had no conversation on politics with Melbourne. He told me that Melbourne had worked hard to reconcile the Queen's mind to the impending change, and to tranquillise her and induce her to do properly what she will have to do; and the Prince has done the same, and that their efforts have been successful. The Ladies mean to resign, that is, the Duchesses of Sutherland and Bedford and Lady Normanby. He gave me to understand with reference to what passed some time ago between Peel, Arbuthnot, and himself, that Peel had had some sort of private communication on the subject, but he would not tell me all he had to say, making the mysterious for no reason that I could discover, and promising a fuller explanation in a short time.
LORD JOHN RUSSELL'S INTENTIONS.
But what was of much greater importance than any questions about these Ladies was a letter which he showed me from his brother John written a day or two before his marriage, in which he told him what his political intentions were. He said that while he would be in his place to support what he considered the good cause (a somewhat vague phrase), he would adhere to a moderate course, and he was aware in so doing that he should run the risk of giving great offence to many of his party, and probably of determining his own exclusion from office. This declaration is in exact conformity with his intentions, when the Tories were on the point of coming in two or three years ago, and when he published his famous Stroud letter. I believe he will adhere to this resolution, which cannot fail to have an important influence upon the prospects and the position of the Opposition party. It proves how fallacious is their reckoning of the union that is to prevail among them, and how much greater elements of disunion exist among the Whigs than among the Tories, though they have not yet of course begun to exhibit the symptoms of it. But Lord John, besides his intention to adopt the passive course of moderation, has a mind to make an attack upon O'Connell. He has been lately reading over O'Connell's speeches at different places, and is so disgusted and exasperated at them that he told the Duke of Bedford he felt exceedingly inclined to attack him in the House of Commons. This, however, the Duke means to dissuade him from doing. It would be unnecessary, and such an open and early schism would throw the whole Whig party into confusion, and excite their indignation, against their leader. But when such are his sentiments, and when the three hundred men who compose the Opposition consist of three distinct sections of politicians,—the great Whig and moderate Radical body, owning Lord John for their leader, the Ultra Radicals following Roebuck, and the Irish under O'Connell,—and when the Whig leader abhors the Roebuck doctrines, can hardly be restrained from attacking O'Connell, and is resolved to be meek and gentle with his Tory antagonists, it does seem as if Peel's difficulties, whatever may be their nature or magnitude, would not be principally derived from the compact union of his opponents. Lord John said that they should leave the country to the Tories in a very good condition, excepting only the financial distress, which their measures would have relieved—a tolerably impudent assertion in both respects.
August 14th.—The letter of John Russell's to which I have alluded was a very amiable and creditable production. As it was written in habitual confidence to his brother, it is impossible to doubt his sincerity. After speaking of his political intentions, and his probable exclusion from office, he proceeded to say that he looked forward with delight to his establishment at Endsleigh and to the opportunity of resuming some long neglected studies, and he said that he should be under the necessity of attending to those domestic economies which he had also not had time to think of; that he cared not for poverty; should have a sufficiency for comfort, and could always by writing and publishing add a few hundreds to his income. I was struck with the calm philosophy and the unselfish patriotism which his letter breathed, and with the grateful feelings he expressed at the happiness which seemed yet to be reserved for him. It is pleasant to contemplate a mind so well regulated, at once so vigorous, honest, and gentle; it cannot fail to be happy because it possesses that salutary energy which is always filling the mind with good food, those pure and lofty aspirations which are able to quell the petty passions and infirmities which assail and degrade inferior minds, and, above all, those warm affections which seek for objects round which they may cling, which are the best safeguard against selfishness, and diffuse throughout the moral being that vital glow which animates existence itself, is superior to all other pleasures, and renders all evils comparatively light.