December 13th.—At Windsor yesterday for a Council. My letter 'Carolus' has made a decided hit. Delane told me yesterday that it had certainly produced a considerable effect, as he could tell from the innumerable letters he received about it, some for and some against. The Ministers were for the most part shy of talking to me about it; but John Russell came up to me and said, 'Well, I have derived a great deal of information from your letter. I think it is very good.' I laughed, and said, 'I'm glad you like it; you ought to be pleased, because I have praised you up to the skies, and described your speech as a model of wisdom.' He laughed too, and said, 'Yes, but that was not the part of it I liked the best.'
CONVERSATION WITH LORD PALMERSTON.
I brought Palmerston from the station in my brougham; all very amicable. We talked about Popery and Germany, and agreed very well; he mighty reasonable. I asked him if he had had any conversation with Radowitz. He said none, except of the most general kind. He thought Radowitz had been advised to absent himself from Prussia, and that the King, for the present at least, was entirely with Manteufel. I then asked him what Prince Albert said to the turn affairs had taken. He said Prince Albert was reasonable enough; that he condemned the King of Prussia as much as anybody could; that he had been in favour of strengthening Prussia, and against the old Federation, because he thought the influence of Austria in it was too great, and that it was mischievously exercised; that the condition that no organic change in the Diet could take place there, without a unanimous vote, could not be endured; and that he thought, while the influence of Austria remained paramount, the liberal cause, and all advances in civilisation and general improvement, must be paralysed; and this was to a certain degree true. I said no doubt it was desirable to see changes and improvements, and for various reasons that Prussia should be powerful, if her power was only acquired by fair means, and without trampling on the rights of others, and on all obligations human and divine. He said, 'Exactly, that is the real case; but her conduct has been so wanting in prudence, in consistency, and in good faith, that she has arrayed against her those who wish best to her.' He told me the Pope had expressed great surprise at the effect of his measures, and disclaimed any intention of affronting the Queen or this country. The Pope said he had been induced to take the steps he had done by advice from this country, and Palmerston thinks that Wiseman was probably at the bottom of it all.
I went last night to the Royal Academy to hear an anatomical lecture by a Mr. Green.[129] It was on expression, and very well done. I never heard a man more fluent; he was very lucid in his expositions and illustrations, and really very eloquent.
Bowood, December 26th.—Went on Tuesday in last week to Panshanger, on Saturday to Brocket, Monday to London, and Tuesday here; we were very merry at Panshanger. The house and its Lord and Lady furiously Protestant and anti-Papal; so we had a great deal of wrangling and chaffing; all in good humour and amusing enough. At Brocket nobody but the Bear (Ellice), who talked without ceasing, and told me innumerable anecdotes about Lord Grey's Government, and different transactions in all of which he had himself played a very important part, and set everything and everybody to rights with his consummate wisdom. He is a very good-natured fellow, entertaining and tiresome, with a prodigious opinion of his own savoir faire, vain and conceited, though not offensively so; clever, friendly, liberal, and very serviceable. They put me at Brocket in Melbourne's room, and there I found a MS. book, containing copies of letters written by him to Lord Anglesey, while Lord Anglesey was Lord-Lieutenant and he was Chief Secretary—very familiar and confidential. They were very frank, and giving Lord Anglesey a good deal of advice, which on some occasions he seemed to require. Their good sense struck me extremely. There was a detailed account of the Huskisson quarrel, and the resignations thereupon, but it contained nothing that was new to me. William Lamb (as he was then) thought both the Duke and Huskisson were in the wrong; but he resigned with the others, because, he said, 'he had always thought that it was more necessary to stand by his friends when they were in the wrong, than when they were in the right.' Poking about to see what else I could find, I lit on two very different MS. One was a book which I suspect had belonged to Pen Lamb, containing entries and pedigrees of hounds and horses; and the other was a commonplace book of Melbourne's, which I had not time to examine much, full of quotations, criticisms, comments and translations, exhibiting various and extensive reading, especially of Greek literature. The next time I go there, I will look at it again.
DIFFICULTIES AHEAD.
CHAPTER XXXII.
Difficulties ahead—Lord John Russell resigns—Conduct of the Opposition—Lord Stanley waits on the Queen—Sir James Graham's Views—Ministerial Negotiations—Lord Stanley attempts to form a Ministry—Lord Stanley fails—The Whig Ministry returns to Office—Sir James Graham stands aloof—Dislocation of Parties—Embarrassments arising from the Papal Aggression Bill—Weakness of the Government—Relations of Sir James Graham and the Whigs—Debate on the Papal Aggression Bill—A Measure of Chancery Reform—Lord Stanley at Newmarket—Hostility of the Peelites—Opening of the Great Exhibition—Defeats of the Ministry—The Exhibition saves the Government—M. Thiers in London—Close of the Season—The Jew Bill—Overture to Sir James Graham—Which is declined—Autumn Visits and Agitation—Lord John Russell's Reform Bill—The Creed of a Capuchin—Kossuth's Reception in England—The Kossuth Agitation in England—Mr. Disraeli on Lord George Bentinck—Sir James Graham's Fears of Reform—Dangers from Lord Palmerston's arbitrary Conduct—Case of Greece—Case of Sicily—The Coup d'État of the 2nd December.
London, February 20th, 1851.—I broke off what I was writing two months ago, having been attacked by a severe fit of the gout, which has tormented me on and off ever since, partly deterring and partly disabling me from writing anything whatever. Indeed I have been in a hundred minds whether I should not here and now close my journalising, for I don't feel as if I had, or was likely to have, anything more to say worth writing about. It is perhaps no loss to have omitted any notice of the meeting of Parliament, and what has taken place with reference to the Anti-Papal Bill, and other matters. Are not these things amply narrated in all the newspapers of the day?—and I do not think I have acquired any knowledge or information besides, or at least none of any importance. I shall therefore not attempt to go over the ground or any part of it, that we have been travelling over for the last two months; but I am induced to forego my purpose of shutting up my books and abandoning this occupation, partly from reluctance to quit it entirely, and partly because I think we are in a very precarious and difficult state, and that a crisis seems imminent, fraught with great interest and great danger. In such circumstances I like to write what I know and hear, and to record my own impressions and opinions.