September 19th.—I made a mistake about Aberdeen's communication with Delane. The circumstances of this are rather singular. Delane says that instead of an agreement not to meddle with the Queen of Spain's marriage, they had agreed upon the person to whom she should be married, but that he was under an engagement to Lord Aberdeen not to say to anybody who that person is. From all this I should be disposed to infer that Aberdeen and Louis Philippe have pitched upon Don Carlos's son as the future husband of the Queen. I told Clarendon this, who scouts the idea of the Spaniards allowing France and England to dispose of her hand, and, notwithstanding the anarchy and dissension which prevail in that country, their pride is probably unabated, and the whole nation would oppose any such pretension. It is abundantly probable that Aberdeen was cajoled and deceived by the King and Guizot. It seems that Marliani, who was here the other day, saw Aberdeen, who told him what the King had said, and how much he regretted the late revolution. Marliani replied, ' On joue bien la comédie à Paris, et je ne suppose pas qu'on la joue moins bien an château d'Eu.' Why, he asks, did the French Government, if they considered the downfall of Espartero as a misfortune, do all in their power to weaken his Government and undermine his authority? It is certainly curious enough to see that the French Consul Lesseps, who exerted himself to prevent the bombardment of Barcelona when the city was in rebellion against the Regent, shows no such sympathy for the Junta which is opposing the Government of the insurrection.[69]
On Sunday I went to Richmond to call on Miss Berry,[70] and found her in great indignation at Croker's recent article in the 'Quarterly' upon the series just published of Lord Orford's letters to Mann, angry on his account and on her own. Croker says, what has been often reported, that Lord Orford offered to marry Mary Berry, and on her refusal, to marry Agnes. She says it is altogether false. He never thought of marrying Agnes, and what passed with regard to herself was this: The Duchess of Gloster was very jealous of his intimacy with the Berrys, though she treated them with civility. At last her natural impetuosity broke out, and she said to him, 'Do you mean to marry Miss Berry or do you not?' To which he replied, 'That is as Miss Berry herself pleases;' and that, as I understood her, is all that passed about it. She said nothing could be more beautiful and touching than his affection for her, devoid as it was of any particle of sensual feeling, and she should ever feel proud of having inspired such a man with such a sentiment. She is angry with Bentley for having published these two volumes without having them prepared for the press by some competent hand, and his excuse is that it would have been too expensive. The truth is, he thought the letters sufficiently attractive, and did not care about anything but the profit. I think they are at least as amusing, if not more amusing than any of the other volumes, but I agree with Croker in his estimate of the character of the man. It is difficult to believe that he cared a straw about Sir Horace Mann himself, and there is no doubting that though he pressed him to come to England, he was very glad when he found he did not mean to come.
RANKE AND MACAULAY.
October 16th.—I have been laid up with the gout more or less during the last three weeks, and when that is upon me I am always disinclined to write. Just before I was attacked I went to breakfast with George Lewis to meet Ranke, the author of 'The Popes of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century.' He had got Macaulay, who had reviewed his book, to meet him, Sir Alexander Duff Gordon and his wife (daughter of Mrs. Austin, his translator), and Sir Edmund Head. I went prepared to listen to some first-rate literary talk between such luminaries as Ranke and Macaulay, but there never was a greater failure. The professor, a vivacious little man, not distinguished in appearance, could talk no English, and his French, though spoken fluently, was quite unintelligible. On the other hand, Macaulay could not speak German, and he spoke French without any facility and with a very vile accent. It was comical to see the abundance of his matter struggling with his embarrassment in giving utterance to it, to hear the torrent of knowledge trying to force its way through the impediment of a limited acquaintance with the French language and the want of habit of conversing in it. But the struggle was of short duration. He began in French, but very soon could bear the restraint no longer, and broke into English, pouring forth his stores to the utterly unconscious and uncomprehending professor. This babel of a breakfast, at which it was impossible for seven people to converse in any common language, soon came to an end, and Ranke was evidently glad to go off to the State Paper Office, where he was working every day. After he was gone, Macaulay held forth, and was as usual very well worth listening to.
A day or two after this my gout began, and unluckily I was obliged to go down to attend a Council at Windsor, which was held ostensibly for proroguing Parliament, putting forth a proclamation against the Welsh rioters, and other ordinary matters, little aware of the much more important affair which had brought the whole Cabinet together. I was obliged to go down with my crutches, and to crave the Queen's permission to go into her presence upon them, which Lord Wharncliffe did for me. She was exceedingly gracious, and the Prince very civil. She seemed considerably amused to see me come in on my crutches, and both she and the Prince said some civil things to me, and I flatter myself I contrived to sidle out, so as not to turn my back on Her Majesty, with no inconsiderable dexterity.
It was on a Monday I attended the Council, and the Sunday following I went to Newmarket, where I only stayed two days, for on Wednesday I went to Chatsworth. On Tuesday, however, the newspapers announced the declaration of war against O'Connell in the shape of the Proclamation,[71] much, I must own, to my surprise. This was, of course, the matter which brought all the Ministers together the week before. It seems to have been successful thus far, but whether it will turn out to have been a judicious measure remains to be proved. I am, however, not acquainted with their reasons for doing it when they did, and not doing it before, and I really have no decided opinion about it.
On Wednesday I set off, and reached Chatsworth on Thursday. There my gout began again, and I was only able, and that with difficulty, to get to the new conservatory in the garden, which is very fine in its way, and contains, I suppose, an unlimited collection of curious plants, the value of which I could not appreciate, as I know nothing of such things. Chatsworth is very magnificent, but I looked back with regret to the house in its unfinished state, when we lived in three spacious cheerful rooms looking to the south, which are now quite useless, being gorgeously furnished with velvet and silk, and marble tables, but unoccupied, and the windows closed lest the sun should spoil the finery with which the apartments are decorated. The comfort we had then has been ill exchanged for the magnificence which has replaced it, and the Duke has made the house so large that he cannot afford to live in it, and never remains there above two or three months in the year.
ARREST OF O'CONNELL.
While I was there Lady Georgiana Fullerton gave me to read so much as she has written of the novel she has been for some time about. It is a very extraordinary performance, and if the second part of it is as good as the first, it will be excellent; as it is, it is deeply interesting.[72]
I came to town yesterday, and in a 'Times' which I bought at Derby I read of the arrest of O'Connell and others of his followers. A trial of O'Connell in Ireland seems a desperate measure, and it is not easy to see how a conviction is to be procured from an Irish jury; but I suppose all this has not been done without great deliberation, and the Ministers must fancy they see their own way more clearly than I do.