French Coup d’Etat Predictions.
The late Baron Alderson, in a letter to Mrs. Opie, written just after the intelligence of the Coup d’Etat had arrived, hazards rather a curious speculation with regard to the probable issue of this unexpected crisis. He was just on the point of starting for Paris when the news reached him, and put an end to the expedition:
“I was going there [he writes to Mrs. Opie], but of course do not dream of it now. They seem in a bad way. A nation so unfit for freedom—if that be freedom which requires those who love it to be first wise and good—does not exist. The Celts seem to me to be ‘a bad lot.’ I suppose it will end in Louis Napoleon’s becoming dictator, and then (not unlikely), being shot by an assassin, and the game will begin over again then. The fear is, that the Prætorian guards will make him go to war for their own profit. It is a fearful crisis, I think: and the best that can happen will be for him to be made King or Emperor, and hold his ground in spite of conscience, oaths, and faith which he pledged to the Republic.”
Statesmanship of Lord Melbourne.
Sir Bulwer Lytton, in an eloquent lecture upon the historical and intellectual associations of Hertfordshire, pays this willing tribute to the character of Viscount Melbourne; referring to “the fair park of Brocket, which our posterity will find historical as the favourite residence of one who, if not among the greatest Ministers who have swayed this country, was one of the most accomplished and honourable men who ever attained to the summit of constitutional ambition. And it is a striking anecdote of Lord Melbourne, that he once said in my own hearing—‘He rejoiced to have been Prime Minister, for he had thus learnt that men were much better, much more swayed by conscience and honour, than he had before supposed;’ a saying honourable to the Minister, and honourable still more to the public virtue of Englishmen.”
Lord Melbourne was proverbially a good-natured man; but in his preferences he acted with a sense of duty more stringent than might have been expected. It appears that Lord John Russell had applied to Lord Melbourne for some provision for one of the sons of the poet Moore; and here is the Premier’s very judicious reply:—
“My dear John;—I return you Moore’s letter. I shall be ready to do what you like about it when we have the means. I think whatever is done should be done for Moore himself. This is more distinct, direct, and intelligible. Making a small provision for young men is hardly justifiable; and it is of all things the most prejudicial to themselves. They think what they have much larger than it really is; and they make no exertion. The young should never hear any language but this: ‘You have your own way to make, and it depends upon your own exertions whether you starve or not.’—Believe me, &c.
“Melbourne.”
Ungraceful Observance.
Mr. Torrens M‘Cullagh, in his Life of Sir James Graham, relates the following instance of want of graciousness in this unpopular statesman. In 1837, on the death of King William, Lord John Russell came to the bar of the House of Commons charged with a Message from the Queen. Hats were immediately ordered off, and even the Speaker announced from the chair that members must be uncovered. Every one present complied with the injunction except Sir James Graham, who continued to wear his hat until the first words of the Message were pronounced. His doing so was the subject of some unpleasant remarks in the newspapers; and at the meeting of the House next day he rose to explain that in not taking off his hat until the word Regina was uttered he but followed the old and established custom—a custom which he deemed better than that observed by everybody else in the House. The Speaker then said that Sir James Graham was quite right, that he was strictly within rule in not uncovering until the initiatory word of the Message was delivered. If Sir James Graham had the letter of the law on his side, still there was a stiffness in his conduct which, considering that the message came from a young Queen, and was her first message to her faithful Commons, was not over attractive.