Thursday, 5th April.—Spoke of Lady Burghersh[428]; Lord Melbourne said, “She is of a great deal of use to us, in a quiet way”; for if he wished to communicate with the Duke of Wellington, he did it through her; he, of course, does not wish me to mention this; but I hope I am discreet and tell but little of what he tells to me. Lady Burghersh is a sensible, clever woman, and has great influence over the Duke.
Friday, 6th April.—Spoke of my ride; rail-roads; that the Steam-Carriage could not be stopped under 150 yards’ distance of an object; I observed that these Steam-Carriages are very dangerous; Lord Melbourne said, “Oh! none of these modern inventions consider human life.” Spoke of Col. Cavendish and Sir George Quentin; of horses; Lord Melbourne said his mare would not be well enough to come down to Windsor, but that he could get a horse from me there, to ride. I observed that Mr. Cowper complained he (Ld. M.) never rode the horses he should ride; “I don’t know, he never got me a horse I liked; I don’t think he is a very good hand at horses.” Lord Melbourne said Mr. Fred Byng[429] got him his present black mare; he hears a horse-dealer has got a horse which he thinks will do for him; the price is 160 guineas, which he says is nothing if the horse is a good one; but a good deal if it is a bad one.... Spoke of Byron, who Lord Melbourne said would not be 50 if he were alive[430]; he said he was extremely handsome; had dark hair, was very lame and limped very much; I asked if the expression of his countenance was agreeable; he said not; “he had a sarcastic, sardonic expression; a contemptuous expression.” I asked if he was not agreeable; he said “He could be excessively so”; “he had a pretty smile”; “treacherous beyond conception; I believe he was fond of treachery.” Lord Melbourne added, “he dazzled everybody,” and deceived them; “for he could tell his story very well....” Lord Melbourne said, “The old King (George III.) had that hurried manner; but he was a shrewd, acute man, and most scrupulously civil.” He added that the King was rather tall, red in the face, large though not a corpulent man; prejudiced and obstinate beyond conception; spoke of the old Duke of Gloucester who, he said, was not a clever man but a good-natured man, though very proud; of the Duchess of Gloucester his wife; Lord Melbourne said that Horace Walpole tells that one day he (I think) gave the Duke of Gloucester a fête at Strawberry Hill; and the Duchess came over before to see that all was right; and when she came there she saw that the host had put up her arms with the Duke’s; she said, “God bless me! this will never do; you must take this down directly, this will never do; the Duke would be extremely angry were he to see this.” The Duchess was a Walpole by birth[431]; she was first married to Lord Waldegrave; her children by that marriage were beautiful; they were Elizabeth, Lady Waldegrave,[432] Lady Euston,[433] and Lady Hugh Seymour, who was mother to Sir Horace Seymour.[434] “People were very fond of her,” Lord Melbourne said....
Sunday, 8th April.—Lord Melbourne looked over one of the Volumes (the sixth) of a Work called “Lodge’s Portraits”; there are portraits of all sorts of famous people in it, with short Memoirs of them annexed to them. Lord Melbourne looked carefully over each, reading the accounts of the people and admiring the prints. I wish I had time to write down all the clever observations he made about all. It is quite a delight for me to hear him speak about all these things; he has such stores of knowledge; such a wonderful memory; he knows about everybody and everything; who they were, and what they did; and he imparts all his knowledge in such a kind and agreeable manner; it does me a world of good; and his conversations always improve one greatly. I shall just name a few of the people he observed upon:—Raleigh, which he thought a very handsome head; Hobbes, who was “an infidel philosopher”; he had been tutor to one of the Earls of Devonshire,[435] he said; Knox—Lord Melbourne observed that those Scotch Reformers were very violent people; but that Knox denied having been so harsh to Mary of Scots as she said he had been; Lord Mansfield, who, he said, “was great-uncle” to the present Lord; Melanchthon, whose name means Black Earth in Greek, and whose head he admired; Pitt, whose print Lord Melbourne said was very like; “he died in 1806 when I came into Parliament.” He (Ld. M.) came in for Leominster. Wesley; Lord Melbourne said the greatest number of Dissenters were Wesleyans; he read from the book that there were (at his death) 135,000 of his followers; Porson,—Lord Melbourne said, “I knew him; he was a great Greek scholar,” and looking at the print, “it’s very like him.” Leibnitz, a great German philosopher, and a correspondent of Queen Caroline, wife to George II.; spoke of her being so learned and her whole court too; “the Tories laughed at it very much”; and Swift ridiculing the Maids of Honour wrote, “Since they talk to Dr. Clark, They now venture in the Dark.” Addison; Lord Melbourne admires his “Spectator,” his “Cato” he also admires, but says it’s not like a Roman tragedy; “there is so much love in it.” Addison died at Holland House; he disagreed very much with his wife, Lady Warwick. Holland House was built, he said, by Rich, Lord Holland, in the reign of Charles 1st.[436] Madame de Staël, whose print he thought very like; “she had good eyes, she was very vain of her arms.” She was over here in ’15, and died in ’17, aged 51; she disliked dying very much; Lord Melbourne also knew her daughter the Duchesse de Broglie; he said, “Louis Philippe dislikes her as much as Napoleon did her Mother.” Lord Melbourne saw Madame de Broglie for a moment when he was at Paris for the last time in 1825. He read from the book, with great emphasis, the following passage, what Napoleon said of Madame de Staël: “They pretend that she neither talks politics nor mentions me; but I know not how it happens that people seem to like me less after visiting her.” Queen Elizabeth; spoke of her, and that her Mother must have been very handsome. Lady Holland, he told me, has the greatest fear of dying; spoke of pictures; Lord Melbourne does not admire Murillo much, nor Rubens; he so greatly prefers the Italian Masters to any others; spoke of subjects for painting; of the Holy Family being constantly painted; “After all,” he said, “a woman and child is the most beautiful subject one can have.” He is going down alone to Brocket; I told him his sister thought Brocket so cold, and that she wanted him to put up stoves, which he said would “burn down the house.” “I reduced the grates,” he continued, “because I thought they gave heat enough; and so they do, if they make large fires; but they don’t know how to make fires.” He can’t bear Brocket in winter. He was going home and did not feel tired any more. He spoke of my riding very kindly. Stayed up till a ¼ p. 11. It was a most delightful evening.
Monday, 9th April.—I showed him letters of thanks from Lords Fitzwilliam and Dundas and Captain Sykes, relative to my having repaid to the two first-named the debt incurred by my poor father and owing to their late fathers; and to the latter the debt owing to himself, accompanied by gifts. Lord Melbourne observed my sleeves (which were very long) with astonishment, and said “Amazing sleeves!...”
Monday, 16th April.—Lord Melbourne told me that there were very strange accounts of Lord Brougham and all he was saying and doing at Paris; his having gone to see Louis Philippe at 11 o’clock at night, when the Swiss Guard were (as they always are) asleep on the staircase; they stopped him (Brougham), saying the King was gone to bed; upon which Brougham observed that their King had “very rustic habits.” Spoke of him, his visiting Lady Fitzharris[437]; Lord Melbourne spoke of Brougham and his oddities; of this Review which he (B.) has written and which Lord Melbourne thinks “well done.” He thinks Queen Charlotte and George III. very harshly handled in it, and Queen Caroline amazingly puffed up; the Duke of York’s character he thinks the best done; he says there is a great deal which Brougham seems not to know; spoke of George IV.’s character, not being understood; of Sir William Knighton’s Memoirs which are just published, and which Lord Melbourne thinks it very wrong in Lady Knighton[438] to have published; of George IV. being so completely in the hands of Knighton, &c., &c. I felt very unhappy at dinner, in spite of my being gay when I spoke, and I could have cried almost at every moment; so much so, that when I got into bed, my nerves (which had been more shaken by the loss of dearest Louis,[439] than I can express, and by the struggle when in company to overcome grief which I felt so acutely) could resist no longer, and more than half an hour elapsed, in tears, before I fell asleep. And before I was asleep I saw her, in my imagination, before me, dressed in her neat white morning gown, sitting at her breakfast in her room at Claremont; again, standing in my room of an evening, dressed in her best, holding herself so erect, as she always did, and making the low dignified curtsey so peculiar to herself; and lastly on her death-bed, pale and emaciated, but the expression the same, and the mind vigorous and firm as ever! These were the images I beheld as I lay in bed! Yet, mingled with my grief were feelings of thankfulness that her end was so peaceful—so happy!...
Saturday, 21st April.—I showed Lord Melbourne the plans for changing the Slopes and making a new walk, and we looked over them for some time together. We then spoke of what might have happened when the Duke of York married; for who could foretell, Lord Melbourne observed, that the Duchess of York would have no children?—and that the late King should lose the two he had? This led us to speak of the whole Royal Family, their characters, of the Princesses marrying so late; of George III.’s dislike to their marrying, which Lord Melbourne did not know; of their beauty; he always thought Princess Sophia (when young) very pretty, though very like a Gipsy; spoke of the singular instance of both George III.’s and Queen Charlotte’s being very plain and all their children very handsome; spoke of all the Princes and Princesses, of the two little Princes, Octavius and Alfred, who died; Lord Melbourne said, George III. said when he felt he was to be unwell (which he always forefelt) he dreamt and thought of Octavius. Lord Melbourne said Queen Charlotte had fine hands and feet, a good bust, and a pretty figure.
Sunday, 22nd April.—I spoke to him of what I was to write to Uncle relative to Soult’s nomination[440]; Soult, he told me, is a large, tall man; looks more “like the Purser of a ship” than an officer; a very distinguished officer risen from the ranks, and a man of great abilities besides. Lord Melbourne knew him when he was in Paris. I asked Lord Melbourne when he was first at Paris; in 1815 he said, which was the first time he was ever on the Continent. “We went,” he said (which “we” implies himself and Lady Caroline, his wife) “to Brussels immediately after the Battle of Waterloo, to see Fred. Ponsonby[441] who was desperately wounded.” This was in June 1815, and he went to Paris in August, and stayed there September and October and came back in November. He saw Uncle Leopold there then, and said he was extremely handsome.
Monday, 23rd April.—Lord Melbourne looked into the newspapers and said there was nothing in them; he read (in the papers) a denial from Lady Charlotte Bury[442] of her having written the book called Diary of the Reign (I think) of George IV.; Lord Melbourne spoke of Lady Hertford, though he of course could not remember her in her great beauty; he said, “My nurse nursed Lord Hertford,[443] so that I used to hear a great deal about her.” The present Lord Hertford’s wife, he said, was a natural daughter of the Duke of Queensberry, called Mmé. Fagniani[444]; she is still alive at Paris, but Lord Hertford has long been separated from her; Lord Yarmouth, he said, is very clever, but always lives abroad....[445]
Wednesday, 25th April.—In speaking before of Mrs. Baring,[446] who, I said, from having been the most affectionate of mothers, latterly never asked after her children,—Lord Melbourne said with the tears in his eyes, “That’s a sure sign that all is over; when people intermit what they have been in the habit of doing.” He mentioned that when William III. was dying they brought him some good news from abroad, but he took no notice of it whatever, and said, “Je tire à ma fin....”
Friday, 27th April.—I showed Lord Melbourne two pictures of Lord Durham’s children; spoke of the beautiful boy Lord Durham lost, who would now be 20. Lord Melbourne said, that boy’s death was the cause of a dreadful scene between Durham and Lord Grey in one of the Cabinets. Spoke of this Flahaut[447] business, and of the wish at Paris to throw the blame of the whole on Uncle Leopold; spoke of Flahaut; Lord Melbourne said he (Flahaut) was first noticed by Napoleon, in the Russian Retreat, when in all that cold and misery he heard a young officer singing, and appearing quite gay; that was Flahaut; Napoleon said, “That is a fine young fellow,” and placed him on his Staff.... Spoke of Lady Campbell[448] (Pamela Fitzgerald) who Lord Melbourne has not seen again, but from whom he has had a long letter....