Footnote 103: Samuel, son of William Wilberforce, at this date Archdeacon of Surrey, and chaplain to Prince Albert; afterwards, in 1844, appointed Bishop of Oxford, and eventually translated to the See of Winchester.
Viscount Melbourne to Queen Victoria.
MELBOURNE'S ADVICE
South Street, 1st October 1841.
Lord Melbourne presents his humble duty to your Majesty. He received your Majesty's letter yesterday evening, and cannot express to your Majesty how much obliged he feels by your Majesty's taking the trouble to give him so much information upon so many points. Ste Aulaire's hair-powder seems to make a very deep and general impression.104 Everybody talks about it. "He appears to be very amiable and agreeable," everybody says, but then adds, "I never saw a man wear so much powder." A head so whitened with flour is quite a novelty and a prodigy in these times. Lord Melbourne has not yet seen him, but means to call upon him immediately. Lord Melbourne is upon the whole glad that the Duke of Beaufort has declined St Petersburg. It is an appointment that might have been acquiesced in, but would not have been approved. Bulwer105 will not be a bad choice to accompany Sir Charles106 to Canada. Your Majesty knows Bulwer well. He is clever, keen, active; somewhat bitter and caustic, and rather suspicious. A man of a more straight-forward character would have done better, but it would be easy to have found many who would have done worse. Lord Melbourne is very glad that it has been offered to the Prince to be at the head of this Commission, and that His Royal Highness has accepted it. It is an easy, unexceptionable manner of seeing and becoming acquainted with a great many people, and of observing the mode of transacting business in this country. The Commission itself will be a scene of very considerable difference of opinion. Lord Melbourne is for decorating the interior of the Houses of Parliament, if it be right to do so, but he is not for doing it, whether right or wrong, for the purpose of spending the public money in the encouragement of the Fine Arts. Whether it is to be painting or sculpture, or both; if painting, what sort of painting, what are to be the subjects chosen, and who are to be the artists employed? All these questions furnish ample food for discussion, difference, and dispute. Chantrey says fresco will never do; it stands ill in every climate, will never stand long in this, even in the interior of a building, and in a public work such as this is, durability is the first object to be aimed at. He says that there is in the Vatican a compartment of which the middle portion has been painted by Giulio Romano107 in fresco, and at each of the ends there is a figure painted by Raphael in oil. The fresco painting has been so often repaired in consequence of decay, that not a vestige of the original work remains; while the two figures painted by Raphael in oil still stand out in all their original freshness, and even improved from what they were when first executed....
Lord Melbourne dined and slept on Wednesday at Wimbledon.108 He met there Lord and Lady Cottenham, Lord109 and Lady Langdale, Lord Glenelg and his brother, Mr Wm. Grant, who was his private secretary, and is an amusing man. Lord Melbourne is going there again to-morrow to stay until Monday. The place is beautiful; it is not like Claremont, but it is quite of the same character, and always puts Lord Melbourne in mind of it. The Duchess has many merits, but amongst them is the not small one of having one of the best cooks in England.
Footnote 104: Madame de Lieven wrote to Aberdeen, 12th September 1841: "Ne jugez pas cet Ambassadeur par son exterieur; il personnifie un peu les Marquis de Molière.... Passez-lui ses cheveux poudrés, son air galant et papillon auprès des femmes. He cannot help it."
Footnote 105: Sir Henry Bulwer, afterwards Lord Dalling.
Footnote 106: Sir Charles Bagot.
Footnote 107: He was a pupil of Raphael, celebrated for (among other works) his "Fall of the Titans."