Viscount Melbourne to Queen Victoria.
HISTORICAL STUDIES
Brocket Hall, 20th October 1842.
Lord Melbourne presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and begs leave respectfully to acknowledge your Majesty's of the 15th inst., which he received here the day before yesterday.
Lord Melbourne is very glad to hear that your Majesty is reading with the Prince. Hallam's work94 certainly requires much consideration and much explanation, but it is a fair, solid, impartial work, formed upon much thought and much reading. St Simon's95 is an excellent work; he has some prejudices, but was a good honest man, and his book is full of useful information. If your Majesty wishes for a book relating to what passed from one hundred to two hundred years ago, Lord Melbourne would strongly recommend the Private Memoirs of the Lord Chancellor Clarendon (Edward Hyde), not the great work, The History of the Rebellion, though that is well worth reading, but the Memoirs, and Bishop Burnet's History of his own time. The reigns of Charles II., James II., and the Revolution are very curious in the latter. During Queen Anne's reign the Bishop was not so much consulted, and his work is therefore not so interesting. If your Majesty wishes to turn your attention to more recent events, Professor Smyth's96 lectures upon Modern History, and particularly upon the French Revolution, seem to Lord Melbourne sound, fair, and comprehensive. Lord Mahon's97 is also a good work, and gives a good account of the reigns of George I. and George II. He has been thought by some in his last volume to have given too favourable a character of the Chevalier, Charles Edward Stuart.
Lord Melbourne is much touched by what your Majesty says of the Princess Royal, and the delight and comfort which your Majesty finds in her, as well as by the whole picture which your Majesty draws of your domestic happiness. When your Majesty refers to what passed three years ago, your Majesty may be assured that it is with no small pleasure that Lord Melbourne recalls any share which he may have had in that transaction, and congratulates himself as well as your Majesty and the Prince upon results which have been so fortunate both for yourselves and for the country. Lord Melbourne ventures to hope that your Majesty will convey these feelings to the Prince, together with the assurance of his respectful remembrance.
Footnote 94: The Constitutional History, published in 1827.
Footnote 95: Louis Rouffroy, Duc de Saint-Simon, author of the celebrated Mémoires, published 1829-30.
Footnote 96: William Smyth (1765-1849), Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge.
Footnote 97: Afterwards fifth Earl Stanhope: the book referred to is his History of England from the Peace of Utrecht to the Peace of Versailles.