“My common practice in a defensive position was to attack the enemy at the very moment at which he was about to attack our troops.”
Of Madame De Staël, of whom he saw much in London, he has many interesting anecdotes. He enlarges on her facial ugliness, redeemed by an eye of extraordinary brilliancy and meaning, her egotistic eloquence, her dazzling coruscations of wit, and her mannishness with a good deal of vigor. On the whole, Croker was not a great admirer of this brilliant woman, and declares that some of her most pungent sayings were audacious plagiarisms. He writes: “Moore in his lately published ‘Life of Sheridan,’ has recorded the laborious care with which he prepared his bons-mots. Madame de Staël condescended to do the same. The first time I ever saw her was at dinner at Lord Liverpool’s at Coombe Wood. Sir James Mackintosh was to have been her guide, and they lost their way, and went to Addiscombe and some other places by mistake, and when they got at last to Coombe Wood they were again bewildered, and obliged to get out and walk in the dark, and through the mire up the road through the wood. They arrived consequently two hours too late and strange draggled figures, she exclaiming by way of apology, ‘Coombe par ci, Coombe par là; nous avons été par tous les Coombes de l’Angleterre.’ During dinner she talked incessantly but admirably, but several of her apparently spontaneous mots were borrowed or prepared. For instance, speaking of the relative states of England and the Continent at that period, the high notion we had formed of the danger to the world from Buonaparte’s despotism, and the high opinion the Continent had formed of the riches, strength, and spirit of England; she insisted that these opinions were both just, and added with an elegant élan, ‘Les étrangers sont la postérité contemporaine.’ This striking expression I have since found in the journal of Camille Desmoulins.”
Several very funny stories were told him by Sir Walter Scott, as among the traditions of Dr. Johnson’s visit to Scotland, and certainly they well establish the reputation of this great man as a rude and unsocial bear, except when he chose to be otherwise: “At Glasgow, Johnson had a meeting with Smith (Adam Smith), which terminated strangely. John Millar used to report that Smith, obviously much discomposed, came into a party who were playing at cards. The Doctor’s appearance suspended the amusement, for as all knew he was to meet Johnson that evening, every one was curious to hear what had passed. Adam Smith, whose temper seemed much ruffled, answered only at first, ‘He is a brute! he is a brute!’ Upon closer examination it appeared that Dr. Johnson no sooner saw Smith than he brought forward a charge against him for something in his famous letter on the death of Hume. Smith said he had vindicated the truth of the statement. ‘And what did the Doctor say?’ was the universal query: ‘Why, he said—he said—’ said Smith, with the deepest impression of resentment, ‘he said—“You lie!”’ ‘And what did you reply?’ ‘I said, “You are a————!”’ On such terms did these two great moralists meet and part, and such was the classic dialogue betwixt them.
“Johnson’s rudeness possibly arose from his retaining till late in life the habits of a pedagogue, who is a man among boys and a boy among men, and having the bad taste to think it more striking to leap over the little differences and courtesies which form the turnpike gates in society, and which fly open on payment of a trifling tribute. The auld Dominie hung vilely about him, and was visible whenever he was the coaxed man of the company—a sad symptom of a parvenu. A lady who was still handsome in the decline of years, and must have been exquisitely beautiful when she was eighteen, dined in company with Johnson, and was placed beside him at table with no little awe of her neighbor. He then always drank lemonade, and the lady of the house desired Miss S——h to acquaint him there was some on the sideboard. He made no answer except an indistinct growl. ‘Speak louder, Miss S——h, the Doctor is deaf.’ Another attempt, with as little success. ‘You do not speak loud enough yet, my dear Miss S——h.’ The lady then ventured to raise her voice as high as misses of eighteen may venture in the company of old doctors, and her description of the reply was that she heard an internal grumbling like Etna before explosion, which rolled up his mouth, and there formed itself into the distinct words, ‘When I want any, I’ll ask for it,’ which were the only words she heard him speak during the day. Even the sirup food of flattery was rudely repelled if not cooked to his mind. I was told that a gentleman called Pot, or some such name, was introduced to him as a particular admirer of his. The Doctor growled and took no further notice. ‘He admires in especial your “Irene” as the finest tragedy of modern times,’ to which the Doctor replied, ‘If Pot says so, Pot lies!’ and relapsed into his reverie.”
Croker was in Paris during the days after Waterloo, just subsequent to the accession of the Bourbon dynasty, and he is full of anecdotes of the people he met there, among others Talleyrand and Fouché.
“July 17th.—We dined yesterday at Castlereagh’s with, besides the Embassy, Talleyrand, Fouché, Marshal Gouvion St. Cyr, and the Baron de Vitrolles, Lords Cathcart, Clancarty, Stewart, and Clive, and two ladies, the Princesse de Vaudemont, a fat, ugly old woman, and a Mademoiselle Chasse, her friend, a pretty young one. At so quiet a dinner you may judge there was not much interesting conversation, and accordingly I have not often been at a dinner of which I had less to tell. The wonder was to find ourselves at table with Fouché, who, to be sure, looks very like what one would naturally suppose him to be—a sly old rogue; but I think he seems to feel a passion of which I did not expect to find him capable; I mean shame, for he looks conscious and embarrassed. He is a man about 5ft. 7in. high, very thin, with a grey head, cropped and powdered, and a very acute expression of countenance. Talleyrand, on the other hand, is fattish for a Frenchman; his ankles are weak and his feet deformed, and he totters about in a strange way. His face is not at all expressive, except it be of a kind of drunken stupor; in fact, he looks altogether like an old fuddled, lame, village schoolmaster, and his voice is deep and hoarse. I should suspect that at the Congress his most natural employment would be keeping the unruly boys in order. We dined very late—that is, for Paris, for we were not at table till half-past six.”
Macaulay hated Croker bitterly, on account of the latter’s severe critiques on him in The Quarterly, and in no way was any love lost between the two men. This personal quarrel is described in an amusing way. Croker, by the way, was just as bitterly hated by Disraeli: though the former had been a highly esteemed friend of Disraeli the elder, author of the “Curiosities of Literature.” Among the amenities of the Macaulay squabble we have the following:
“Macaulay, as it clearly appears from his own letters, was irritated beyond measure by Croker; he grew to ‘detest’ him. Then he began casting about for some means of revenge. This would seem incredible if he had not, almost in so many words, revealed the secret. In July, 1831, he wrote thus: ‘That impudent, leering Croker congratulated the House on the proof which I had given of my readiness. He was afraid, he said, that I had been silent so long on account of the many allusions which had been made to Calne. Now that I had risen again he hoped that they should hear me often. See whether I do not dust that valet’s jacket for him in the next number of the Blue and Yellow. I detest him more than cold boiled veal.’ From that time forth he waited impatiently for his opportunity to settle his account with Mr. Croker.
“In the previous month of March he had been looking out eagerly for the publication of the ‘Boswell.’ ‘I will certainly review Croker’s “Boswell” when it comes out,’ he wrote to Mr. Napier. He was on the watch for it, not with the object of doing justice to the book, but of ‘dusting the jacket’ of the author. But as his letters had not yet betrayed his malice to the world, he gravely began the dusting process by remarking, ‘This work has greatly disappointed us.’ What did he hope for, when he took it up, but precisely such a ‘disappointment?’ ‘Croker,’ he wrote, ‘looks across the House of Commons at me with a leer of hatred, which I repay with a gracious smile of pity.’ He had cultivated his animosity of Croker until it became a morbid passion. Yet it is conceivable that he did not intend posterity to see him in the picture drawn by his own hand, spending his time in the House of Commons straining his eyes to see if there was a ‘leer’ on Croker’s countenance, and returning it with gracious smiles of pity.”
Among the budget of anecdotes so profusely strewn through the book, the following may be given at random. The following is from a letter of Lady Ashburton to Croker, and reflects severely on one of the suave defects of Sir Robert Peel, then recently returned from office: “I must tell you an anecdote of Sir Bobby. If you read the list of people congregated to see his pictures, you will have seen there, not only all the artists, drawing-masters, men of science, but reporters and writers for journals. Thackeray, who furnishes the wit for ‘Punch,’ told Milnes that the ex-Minister came up to him and said, with the blandest smile: ‘Mr. Thackeray, I am rejoiced to see you. I have read with delight every line you ever wrote,’ Thackeray would have been better pleased if the compliment had not included all his works; so, to turn the subject, he observed that it must be a great gratification to live surrounded by such interesting objects of art. Sir R. replied: ‘I can assure you that it does not afford me the same satisfaction as finding myself in such society as yours!!!’ This seeking popularity by fulsome praise will not succeed.”