Perhaps the reader would take a glimpse at the royal family of Portugal, as seen through the critical glasses of Lord Holland:—
"The king and queen, very opposite in principle, character, and conduct, have a natural abhorrence to one another. They, in truth, have nothing in common but a revolting ugliness of person, and a great awkwardness of manner. He is well-meaning, but weak and cowardly, and so apprehensive of being governed by his ostensible ministers, that he becomes the victim of low and obscure cabals, and renders his councils at all times unsteady, irresolute, and uncertain. The queen's outrageous zeal in the cause of despotism, miscalled legitimacy, is supposed to have softened his aversion to a representative assembly and a constitutional form of government. The queen is vindictive, ambitious, and selfish, and has strong propensities to every kind of intrigue, political or amorous."
What a sensation of awe steals across the mind as we peruse these wholesale sentences of condemnation! What a sublime idea we imbibe of the dignity and intellect of the judge! We need not add further to this portrait gallery, although ample materials are afforded us. The above specimens, we think, will be sufficient to satiate the curiosity of the reader.
Lord Holland, however, had his favourites. Napoleon, as we have seen, was one; and Talleyrand was another. It is rather odd that Lord Holland should have discerned in the latter one pre-eminent and distinguishing quality, for which no one else ever gave him the slightest credit—we mean a high regard for truth.
"Talleyrand," says he, "was initiated into public affairs under M. de Calonne, and learned from that lively minister the happy facility of transacting business without effort and without ceremony in the corner of a drawing-room, or in the recess of a window. In the exercise of that talent, he equalled the readiness and surpassed the wit of his model; but he brought to his work some commodities which the latter could never supply—viz. great veracity, discretion, and foresight."
And again, in a note:—
"My general and long observation of Talleyrand's VERACITY, in great and small matters, makes me confident his relation is correct. He may as much, or more than other diplomatists, suppress what is true; I am quite satisfied he never actually says what is false, though he may occasionally imply it."
It is a pity that an ordinary acquaintance with the significance of terms was not among the accomplishments of Lord Holland. Here we have the two leading elements of falsehood—the suppressio veri, and the suggestio falsi—plainly admitted; and yet we are told in the same breath, that the man who recoiled from neither practice was a person of great veracity! One or two hackneyed and rather poor bon-mots of Talleyrand are quoted in the text, as instances of his remarkable wit;—had he never enunciated anything better, he certainly would not have achieved his great renown as a conversationalist. He appears, however, to have enchanted Lord Holland, who cites his authority on all occasions with an implicit trustfulness which we cannot sufficiently admire.
We must be allowed to remark that, in this instance also, Lord Holland has chosen an odd method of testifying his respect for the memory of a friend. In whatever liberties of speech a famous wit may choose to indulge with reference to his own domestic relations, we are yet sure that he by no means intends these to form part of the common currency of conversation, and that he will not feel peculiarly obliged to any one who gratuitously undertakes to circulate them. The sarcasm of Talleyrand with regard to the intellectual deficiencies of the lady who afterwards became his wife, was not, we presume, intended for repetition, though Lord Holland carefully preserves it. Good taste, we think, would have suggested its omission; but if our scruples upon that point should be thought to savour too much of Puritanism, of this at least we are certain, that no living relative of M. de Talleyrand will feel indebted to Lord Holland for the manner in which the secret history of his marriage is related:—
"It is generally thought that he (Talleyrand) negotiated his return to France through Madame de Stael. He was on intimate terms with her, but had abandoned her society for that of Madame Grand before the peace of 1802, when I saw him again at Paris. It became necessary, on the conclusion of the Concordat, that he should either revert to the habits and character of a prelate, or receive a dispensation from all the duties and obligations of the order. He chose the latter. But Buonaparte, who affected at that time to restore great decorum in his Consular court, somewhat maliciously insisted either on the dismissal of Madame Grand, or his public nuptials with that lady. The questionable nature of her divorce from Mr Grand created some obstacle to such a union. It was curious to see Sir Elijah Impey, the judge who had granted her husband damages in India for her infidelity, caressed at her little court at Neuilly. His testimony was deemed essential, and he was not disposed to withhold it, because, notwithstanding his denial of riches in the House of Commons, he was at that very time urging a claim on the French Government to indemnify him for his losses in their funds. Mr (Sir Philip) Francis, her paramour, then at Paris also, did not fail to draw the attention of Englishmen to the circumstance, though he was not himself admitted at Neuilly to complete the curious group with his judicial enemy and quondam mistress."