“G—d d—n you, I tell you I can’t give you the Great Seal, and there’s an end of it!” When Brougham was a second time disappointed of place, he is reported to have said to his former chief, who was very anxious not to hurt his feelings more than could be helped:
“Why don’t you say again what you said before, and damn me for wanting the Seal?”
On one occasion Melbourne went with Lady Grant Duff, Mrs. Norton, and Henry Reeve to see “Every Man in his Humour,” and before the curtain rose he remarked that it would be a dull play with no kudos in it. Between the acts he exclaimed in a stentorian voice, heard across the pit:
“I knew this play would be dull, but that it would be so damnably dull as this I did not suppose!”
These things Melbourne had to alter; he had to soften his laugh, keep a guard upon his tongue, and sit uprightly in his chair; all of which he accomplished, though it is recorded that when in 1846 Peel made a volte face on the repeal of the Corn Laws, Melbourne, though seated at the Queen’s table, burst out with:
“It’s a damned dishonest act, Ma’am, a damned dishonest act.” One account of this relates that the Queen only laughed, while the others around the table did not know how or where to look, as the Court was in favour of Repeal and Peel was its trusted Minister; but another story goes that Melbourne was so excited that Her Majesty had to say firmly:
“Never mind, Lord Melbourne; we will discuss this at another time.”
This change of opinion on the part of Peel, by the way, caused many hard words to be showered upon him, the Duke of Wellington saying, with a side allusion to the Irish famine:
“Rotten potatoes have done it; they put Peel in his damned fright”; while Lord Alvanley declared that Peel ought not to die a natural death.
It is probable that Melbourne’s upright regard for his own principles attracted Victoria more sincerely than some of his other good qualities, for her rank never inclined him to assent to her wishes if he thought them injudicious.