With regard to the Reform Bill, it is being proposed by a large committee of the Cabinet, but George Lewis has the chief management of it. The state of public opinion admits, indeed compels, the utmost moderation, but hitherto the anticipated difficulty has been the sort of pledge which John Russell foolishly gave last year with reference to the franchise, to which it has been supposed he must consider himself bound. But there is reason to believe that he is not taking any active part in the concoction of this Bill, probably on account of his being so absorbed in foreign affairs, and under these circumstances we may not unreasonably expect that a fair Bill will be produced, and the question eventually settled.
A CONGRESS PROPOSED.
The question of still greater and more pressing interest is that of the Congress. The nomination of Hudson met with such opposition in the Cabinet that it was not pressed, and Lord Wodehouse was named instead. He is a clever man, well informed, speaks French fluently, and has plenty of courage and aplomb; his opinions are liberal, but not extravagant. Clarendon, who had him down at the Grove, was pleased and satisfied with him. Granville is much contrari� that Clarendon himself has not been asked to go, thinking justly that he would have much more weight than any other man, and would be far more likely to conduct our affairs in the Congress with credit and success; but Clarendon now tells me he certainly would not have gone if it had been proposed to him. My own conviction was that he would have accepted a proposal, and though for many reasons he would not have liked such a mission, I think he is somewhat mortified that it was not offered to him.
The recent appearance of the pamphlet of 'Le Pape et le Congr�s,'[1] which has produced such a sensation and so much astonishment, has no doubt been a great thing for us, and rendered our diplomatic course much more easy and promising. Clarendon writes to me: 'This last pamphlet of the Emperor's is important and I am sure authentic, as it is simply a developement of what I have heard twenty times from his own lips. It ought of course to have been reserved for the Congress, but as far as we are concerned it is well timed.' It was a bold, but a clever stroke of policy to give notice to the whole world of the sentiments and intentions with which the Emperor enters the Congress, and it renders a good understanding and joint action between France and England feasible and perhaps easy, unless Palmerston spoils everything by some obstinate and extravagant pretensions which he may insist on his plenipotentiaries bringing forward. But if he should be so ill advised, I believe that he would meet with an insuperable resistance in his own Cabinet and at Court, and that Cowley certainly, perhaps Wodehouse also, would decline being made the instruments of such a vicious and mischievous policy.
[1] [The object of the Congress proposed by the Emperor Napoleon was to extricate himself from the embarrassments in which he was placed by the terms of the Peace of Villafranca with reference to the affairs of Italy. The proposal to establish a Confederation of the Italian States was found to be impracticable, and the unification of Italy was a more difficult problem than the conquest and cession to Piedmont of the Milanese territory. M. de Cavour was the only statesman who contemplated the entire realisation of this vast scheme, which was at last accomplished by revolutionary means, without the concurrence of France. His views were shared and supported by Lord Palmerston, Lord John Russell, and Mr. Gladstone.]
DEATH OF MACAULAY.
January 2nd, 1860.—The death of Macaulay is the extinction of a great light, and although every expectation of the completion of his great work had long ago vanished, the sudden close of his career, and the certainty that we shall have no more of his History, or at most only the remaining portion of King William's reign (which it is understood he had nearly prepared for publication), is a serious disappointment to the world. His health was so broken that his death can hardly create any surprise, but there had been no reason lately to apprehend that the end was so near. I have mentioned the circumstance of my first meeting him, after which we became rather intimate in a general way, and he used frequently to invite me to those breakfasts in the Albany at which he used to collect small miscellaneous parties, generally including some remarkable people, and at which he loved to pour forth all those stores of his mind and accumulations of his memory to which his humbler guests, like myself, used to listen with delighted admiration, and enjoy as the choicest of intellectual feasts. I don't think he was ever so entirely agreeable as at his own breakfast table, though I shall remember as long as I live the pleasant days I have spent in his society at Bowood, Holland House, and elsewhere. Nothing was more remarkable in Macaulay than the natural way in which he talked, never for the sake of display or to manifest his superior powers and knowledge. On the contrary, he was free from any assumption of superiority over others, and seemed to be impressed with the notion that those he conversed with knew as much as himself, and he was always quite as ready to listen as to talk. 'Don't you remember?' he was in the habit of saying when he quoted some book or alluded to some fact to listeners who could not remember, because in nineteen cases out of twenty they had never known or heard of whatever it was he alluded to. I do not believe anybody ever left his society with any feeling of mortification, except that which an involuntary comparison between his knowledge and their own ignorance could not fail to engender. For some years past I had seen little or nothing of Macaulay. His own health compelled him to abstain in great measure from going into the world. He bought a house at Campden Hill, from which he rarely stirred, and to which he never invited me, nor did I ever call upon him there. I have often regretted the total cessation of our intercourse, but what else could be expected from the difference of our habits, pursuits, and characters? I have only recently read over again the whole of his 'History of England' with undiminished pleasure and admiration, though with a confirmed opinion that his style is not the very best, and that he is not the writer whom I should be most desirous to imitate; but what appears to me most admirable and most worthy of imitation in Macaulay is the sound moral constitution of his mind, and his fearless independence of thought, never sacrificing truth to any prejudice, interest, or preconceived opinion whatever. Above all he was no hero worshipper, who felt it incumbent on him to minister to vulgar prejudices or predilections, to exalt the merits and palliate the defects of great reputations, and to consider the commission of great crimes, or the detection of mean and base motives, as atoned for and neutralised by the possession of shining abilities and the performance of great actions. Macaulay excited much indignation in some quarters by the severity with which he criticised the conduct and character of the Duke of Marlborough, and the Quakers bitterly resented his attacks upon Penn. He was seldom disposed to admit that he had been mistaken or misinformed, and I thought he was to blame in clinging so tenaciously to his severe estimate of Penn's conduct after the vindication of it which was brought forward, and the production of evidence in Penn's favour, which might have satisfied him that he had been in error, and which probably would have done so in any case in which his judgement had been really unbiassed. I always regretted, not for the sake of Penn's memory, but for the honour of Macaulay himself, that he would not admit the value and force of the exculpatory evidence, and acknowledge, as he very gracefully might, the probability at least of his having been in error. But the case of the Duke of Marlborough is very different, and reflects the highest honour on his literary integrity and independence. Undazzled by the splendour of that great man's career and the halo of admiration which had long surrounded his name, he demonstrated to the whole world of what base clay the idol was made and how he had abused for unworthy ends the choice gifts which Nature had bestowed upon him. Macaulay no doubt held that in proportion to the excellence of his natural endowments was his moral responsibility for the use or abuse of them, and he would not allow Blenheim and Ramillies to be taken as a set-off against his hypocrisy, perfidy, and treason. Macaulay's History is the best ethical study for forming the mind and character of a young man, for it is replete with maxims of the highest practical value. It holds up in every page to hatred and scorn all the vices which can stain, and to admiration and emulation all the virtues which can adorn, a public career. It is impossible for anyone to study that great work without sentiments of profound admiration for the lessons it inculcates, and they who become thoroughly imbued with its spirit, no matter whether they coincide or not with his opinions, will be strengthened in a profound veneration for truth and justice, for public and private integrity and honour, and in a genuine patriotism and desire for the freedom, prosperity, and glory of their country.
THE AFFAIRS OF ITALY.
January 7th.—In a letter from Clarendon yesterday from the Grove he says: 'Cowley came over here last night. I had a long talk with him; he is low and unhappy, and does not see his way out of the labyrinth; he is not for the Congress meeting now, but still does not think we should abandon the Emperor altogether in his Italian policy. The fact is, we are in a great difficulty. If we had from the first taken the wise part of saying that as we had had nothing to do with the war or the peace, and should therefore not interfere with the arrangements the Emperor thought proper to make, we should now be on velvet; but from the moment we knew of the Villafranca arrangement we have been thwarting the Emperor, and goading him on further than he wished to go, and encouraging the Italians to persist in their own ideas, till at last when he does what we want, and is prepared to throw over the Pope and asks to be backed by us, it is rather awkward to break away and declare we only wanted the credit of recommending a fine liberal policy, but that we don't mean to be at any trouble or expense about it.' All this is undoubtedly true, but it is the old inveterate habit of Palmerston's policy, united with John Russell's crotchets, which has brought it to this pass. Palmerston has always been Conservative at home and Revolutionary abroad, and the gratification of a silly spite against Austria has always been paramount to any other consideration and object. While the enemies of the late Government accused them, very unjustly as the documentary evidence has shown, of having unduly favoured Austria during the recent conflict, and therefore having been neutral only in name, it is true that the present Government, i.e. Palmerston and John Russell, have gone out of their way to interfere in an underhand manner, and have been constantly patting on the back the insurgent Italians, and, as Clarendon says, urging the Emperor to go further than he wishes, or than he can do consistently with the engagement he has entered into. When Cowley was here some months ago, I remember his telling me that one day when he met Cavour, either at Compi�gne or Paris, I forget which, when it was the question of the Congress before the war, Cavour said to him, 'So you are going to have a Congress.' 'Yes,' said Cowley, 'thanks to you and all you have been doing in Italy.' 'Thanks to me!' cried Cavour, 'I like that; why don't you say thanks to your own Minister at Turin, to Sir James Hudson, who has done ten times more than ever I did?'
Hatchford, January 12th.—Clarendon writes to me (on the 10th): 'Cowley dined here on Saturday and did the same at Pembroke Lodge on Sunday. He is on very good terms with John Russell, but hardly understands what he would be at, and for the good reason probably that Johnny does not know himself. There is a Ministerial crisis going on at this moment about Italy, the three confederates wanting of course to do more than the sober-minded majority can agree to. I suppose it will be decided at the Cabinet to-day, and that some middle course will be discovered, as I shall not believe, till it is a fait accompli, that Palmerston will allow the Government to break up on a question which will not carry the country with him. The people dislike Austria and wish well to the Italians, but they want not to interfere in the affairs of either, and I doubt if they would give a man or a shilling to help Palmerston in blotting Austria out of the map of Europe and giving Sardinia a much larger slice of the map. That twofold object amounts to monomania now with Palmerston, and I believe he would sacrifice office to attain it, which is the highest test of his sincerity. The three confederates are Palmerston, John Russell, and Gladstone.