CHAPTER XXXIII.
Disraeli's Life of Lord George Bentinck—An approaching Storm—Peel's Conduct on the East Retford Franchise in 1830—Death of Mr. Luttrell—Dismissal of Lord Palmerston—Lord Clarendon declines the Foreign Office—Lord Granville takes the Foreign Office—Causes of Lord Palmerston's Dismissal—Effects of the Change—The Complete Story—Lord John negotiates with the Peelites—Whigs and Peelites—Lord Normanby's Relations with Louis Napoleon—Foreign Policy of the Country—Thiers' Account of the Coup d'État—Further Details on Palmerston's Dismissal—Lord Normanby's Recall—Lord John's Explanations—Change of Government—Lord Derby's First Ministry—Lord Palmerston's Position—Discredit of the Derby Government—Disraeli's Speech on the Budget.
London, December 19th, 1851.—Mr. Disraeli has sent me his book, the 'Life of Lord George Bentinck,' which, though principally recording very dry Parliamentary debates, he has managed to make very readable. He does ample justice to his hero, but I think without exaggeration; and he certainly makes him out to have been a very remarkable man, with great ability and a superhuman power of work. It is the more extraordinary because for above forty years George Bentinck was indolent, and addicted to none but frivolous pursuits, though he always pursued his pleasurable occupations in a business-like and laborious manner. The character of Peel in this book is curious, but I do not think it is unfair, and it is in a becoming spirit of seriousness and even respect, fully acknowledging his great qualities, but freely criticising his character and his career. The Jewish episode is amusing, and I like it for its courage.
Something, but I know not what, has happened about Palmerston. This will be no quarrel with Austria, because Buol has dined with Palmerston, and the Emperor has, at last, received Westmorland;[142] but the Duke of Bedford, who is by turns confidential and mysterious, and who delights in raising my curiosity and then not satisfying it, has written to me thus. After a good deal about Lord John's defending Palmerston and his not approving his conduct, in one strain one day and another the next, the Duke said there had been a correspondence between them on the subject, which he was to see. He never said more about it, and to a question I put to him thereon he sent no answer. In another letter I alluded to this, but added that it did not now much signify, on which he writes: 'You attach no importance to the correspondence I told you of, and do not now care to know about it, but if I am not mistaken you will ere long change your opinion.'
London, December 22nd.—A Cabinet has been suddenly called to-day, which is about the matter the Duke alluded to.
I met Disraeli and told him what I thought of his book. It is difficult to know what he is at, for, although he knows my opinion of George Bentinck and of Peel and of Free Trade, he nevertheless wanted me to review his book in the 'Times,' and he made a sort of indirect overture to me for the purpose. Of course I said it was out of the question. Graham is very indignant with Disraeli, and treats his character of Peel as a great and malignant outrage. In my opinion he is quite wrong. I sent him my own sketch, which he says is in a more kindly spirit; but he is evidently not satisfied with it. He tells me one curious anecdote, if it be true. I have criticised Peel's conduct about the East Retford franchise just before the Reform Bill, and said he ought to have gone with Huskisson. Graham says that he wished to do more than Huskisson; that Peel in the Cabinet supported the more Liberal measure, but was overruled, and he yielded to the opinion of the majority, whereas Huskisson took the other side in the Cabinet, but got frightened afterwards, and supported in the House of Commons what he had opposed in the Cabinet. If this be true, it was very disgraceful of Huskisson, but it does not exonerate Peel. On the contrary, I think it makes his case worse. He clearly ought to have resigned rather than take the course he did, if such were his opinions.
DEATH OF MR. LUTTRELL.
On Friday last Mr. Luttrell died, at the age of eighty-one, having been long ill and confined to his bed with great suffering. When I first came into the world, nearly forty years ago, he was one of the most brilliant members of society, celebrated for his wit and repartee, and for many years we lived in great intimacy and in the same society. He was the natural son of old Lord Carhampton, but was always on bad terms with his father. He had been a member of the Irish Parliament, and obtained a place, afterwards commuted for a pension, on which he lived. He never took any part in public life, was always in narrow circumstances, and had the air, and I think the feeling, of a disappointed man. He was, in fact, conscious of powers which ought to have raised him to a higher place than that which he occupied in the world. Why he never did advance, whether it was from pride and shyness, or from disinclination, or the unkind neglect of those who might have helped him on, I know not. As it was, he never had any but a social position, but that was one of great eminence and success. He was looked upon as one of the most accomplished, agreeable, and entertaining men of his day; he lived in the very best society, was one of the cherished and favoured habitués of Holland House, and the intimate friend and associate of Sydney Smith, Rogers, Lord Dudley, and all the men most distinguished in politics, literature, or social eminence. Rogers and Luttrell especially were always bracketed together, intimate friends, seldom apart, and always hating, abusing, and ridiculing each other. Luttrell's bons mots and repartees were excellent, but he was less caustic, more good-natured, but in some respects less striking in conversation, than his companion, who had more knowledge, more imagination, and, though in a different way, as much wit. His literary performances were few and far between, consisting of little more than occasional verses, and 'Crockford House,' an amusing but rather flimsy satire. His contribution to the pleasures of society was in talk, and he was too idle and too much of a Sybarite to devote himself to any grave and laborious pursuit. There are, however, so many more good writers than good talkers, and the two qualities are so rarely found united in the same person, that we owe a debt of gratitude to Luttrell for having cultivated his conversational rather than his literary powers, and for having adorned and delighted society for so many years with his remarkable vivacity and wit. It used to be said that he was less amusing, though in the same style, as his father; but of this I cannot judge, as I do not remember Lord Carhampton. Luttrell had excellent qualities, was an honourable, high-minded gentleman, true and sincere, grateful for kindness and attentions without being punctilious or exacting, full of good feelings and warm affections, a man of excellent sense, a philosopher in all things, and especially in religion. For several years past he had disappeared from the world, and lived in great retirement, suffering under much bad health and bodily pain, but cheerful and in possession of his faculties nearly to the last. His death has removed one of the last survivors of a brilliant generation, a conspicuous member of such a society as the world has rarely seen, nothing approaching to which exists at present, and such as perhaps it will never see again.
THE FALL OF LORD PALMERSTON.
December 23rd.—Palmerston is out!—actually, really, and irretrievably out. I nearly dropped off my chair yesterday afternoon, when at five o'clock, a few moments after the Cabinet had broken up, Granville rushed into my room and said, 'It is none of the things we talked over; Pam is out, the offer of the Foreign Office goes to Clarendon to-night, and if he refuses, which of course he will not, it is to be offered to me!!' Well might the Duke of Bedford say I should 'change my opinion,' and soon think this correspondence did signify, for it was on the matter which led to the fall of Palmerston. Granville came to town on Saturday, not knowing (as none of the Ministers did) what the Cabinet was about. On Sunday he received a note from John Russell, begging him not to come to it, and telling him he would afterwards inform him why. This of course surprised him, but after going about amongst such of his colleagues as were here, he arrived at the conclusion that the matter related to foreign affairs, that Normanby was to be recalled, and the Paris Embassy offered to him, or that he was to be sent to Paris on a special mission. We discussed these contingencies together with all other changes of office which occurred to us, but we neither of us dreamt of the truth. It now appears that the cause of Palmerston's dismissal, for dismissed he is, is his having committed the Government to a full and unqualified approval of Louis Napoleon's Coup d'État, which he did in conversation with Walewski, but so formally and officially, that Walewski wrote word to his own Government that ours approved entirely of all that Louis Napoleon had done. Upon this piece of indiscretion, to which it is probable that Palmerston attached no importance, being so used to act off his own bat, and never dreaming of any danger from it, Lord John determined to act. I do not know the details of the correspondence, only that he signified to Palmerston his displeasure at his having thus committed the Government to an approbation they did not feel, and it ended in his turning Palmerston out, for this was in fact what he did. But though this was the pretext, the causa causans was without any doubt the Islington speech and deputations, and his whole conduct in that affair. The Queen had deeply resented it, and had had a discussion with Lord John about it, for he rather defended Palmerston, and accepted his excuses and denials. It is evident that he did this, because he did not dare to quarrel with him on grounds which would have enabled him to cast himself on the Radicals, to appeal to all the Kossuthian sympathies of the country, and to represent himself as the victim of our disgraceful subserviency to Austria. But having thus passed over what would have been a sufficient cause of quarrel, he at once seized upon one much less sufficient, but which was not liable to the same difficulties and objections. In fully approving Louis Napoleon's coup d'état, Palmerston has taken a part against the feelings of the Radicals, and if the cause of the quarrel is made public, their approval will ad hoc be rather with John Russell than with him.