It is wonderful, however, how easily the diarist lays aside his philosophic tone to take up the more congenial rôle of a spy upon the kings whose names are so ostentatiously displayed on his title-page, and from whose service alone he derived all the consideration he had.
On January 12, 1829, Lord Mount Charles comes to him for some information. Thereupon, under the guise of friendship and confidence, he avows with a curious shamelessness that he proceeded to interrogate his visitor about George IV.’s private life and habits. When he has got all he wants out of the unsuspecting Mount Charles, he sets it down in his journal and winds up with this reflection, everywhere quoted: “A more contemptible, cowardly, selfish, unfeeling dog does not exist than this king.” These were strong words to apply to a sovereign whose bread he was eating, and who had always personally treated him with marked confidence and kindness. Perhaps those who read Mr. Greville’s journal with attention, and note the slow portrait he therein unconsciously draws of himself, will be better able to judge where the terms more aptly apply. As a work of art, indeed, the journalist’s picture of himself is far superior to anything else in his book. Touch by touch he elaborates his own character. It is not a flattering one; it was never revealed to the artist. How pitiably does this coarse generalization of Greville’s compare with the fine but vigorous and indelible strokes of Saint-Simon’s pencil in his portrait of Louis XIV.! It is not a character, but a gross and clumsy invective.
But Mr. Greville had already plumbed a lower depth of baseness in his prurient eagerness for details.
August 29, 1828.—“I met Bachelor, the poor Duke of York’s old servant, and now the king’s valet de chambre, and he told me some curious things about the interior of the palace. But he is coming to call on me, and I will write down what he tells me then.” On the 16th of September he sent for Bachelor, and had a long conversation with him, drawing out all he could from the valet about his master’s habits.
May 13, 1829.—“Bachelor called again, telling me all sorts of details concerning Windsor and St. James.”
What a picture for the author of Gil Blas! It reminds one of some of those Spanish interiors the novelist has so deftly painted, where valet and adventurer put their heads together, scheming how best to open some rich don’s purse-strings, or ensnare his confidence before beginning some villanous game at his expense. If these be the springs of history, Clio defend us against her modern sister!
What makes all this prying the more indefensible is that Mr. Greville was without need of it even for the composition of these Memoirs. Elsewhere he boasts of the “great men” he has known. And it is true that he knew them; and had his ability equalled his opportunity, enough sources of information were honorably open to him to have made his journal valuable and interesting. But the truth is, Mr. Greville loved to dabble in dirty waters, as he has elsewhere plainly shown in his book.
A large part of these volumes—the major part of them, indeed—is taken up with political gossip. It would not be correct to give it any higher title. Its weight as a contribution to history, to use La Bruyère’s illustration, would be about two ounces. It consists chiefly of what he gathered at the council-table. But disloyal as this tampering with his oath may have been, his singular inaptitude to gather what was really important hardly offers even the poor excuse of interesting his readers in its results. The consideration of the eccentricities and sarcasms of his bête noir, the chancellor (Lord Brougham), during a large portion of the time covered by this journal, generally puts to flight in Mr. Greville’s mind all other topics. The rest of his political reminiscences are made up of conversations with the actors in the parliamentary scenes here presented; but even these lose the greater part of their value from his inveterate habit of confounding his own opinions and language with those of the person he happens to be “interviewing.” This confusion in Mr. Greville’s mind between what he thought and said and what others thought and said has been fully exposed by the numerous letters which have been drawn forth in England from the survivors of the persons named in his Memoirs or from their friends. Mr. Greville adds very little to our knowledge of the events of the period he treats of. Nearly everything of importance in his journal has been anticipated. The correspondence of William IV. and Lord Grey, the life and despatches of Wellington, and the lives of Denman, Palmerston, and others, have left little to be supplied of this era of English history.
One of the most curious features—we might almost say the distinguishing feature—in a work full of curious traits of levity, conceit, and immature judgment, is the universal tone of depreciation in which the author speaks of the men of his acquaintance. This is not confined to ordinary personages who lived and died obscure, but embraces, as we have heretofore said, a large number of the names most illustrious in statesmanship and diplomacy in his times. Lord Althorpe, Melbourne, the late Earl Derby, Graham, Palmerston, O’Connell, Guizot, Thiers—one scarcely picks out a single name of eminence that he has not attempted to belittle. His opinions and prophecies have been in every instance flatly contradicted by events. Of Palmerston especially—of his stupidity, his ignorance, his lightness, his general want of capacity, and the certainty that he would never rise to be anybody—he is never done speaking slightingly. It is true that the late English premier passed through many years of obscurity in office, making, perhaps, some sort of excuse for Mr. Greville’s blindness; but this example is not an isolated one. The late Lord Derby comes in for an almost equal share of it, although he is allowed the possession of some brains—a claim denied to his after-rival. Mr. Greville is equally impartial in discoursing about crowned heads and plain republicans. His neat and finely-pointed satire stigmatized the king whose paid servant he was as a “blackguard,” a “dog,” and a “buffoon”; and he held his nose, as in the case of Washington Irving, did any “vulgar” American democrat come “between the wind and his nobility.”
Those of Mr. Greville’s subjects who have virtues are imbeciles; those who have talent are adventurers or knaves. He appears to have centred all the admiration of which he was capable upon Lord de Ros, a young nobleman absolutely unknown outside a small English circle. Mr. Greville seems, in fact, to have been one of those men who seek, and sometimes gain, a certain reputation for sagacity by depreciating everybody around them. Of the late Lord Derby he says: “He (Stanley) must be content with a subordinate part, and act with whom he may, he will never inspire real confidence or conciliate real esteem.” In another place, in summing up a conversation with Peel, he accuses him (Stanley), by direct implication, of being “a liar and a coward,” although he puts these ugly words in another’s mouth. How far these predictions and this estimate were just history has already decided. High and low all dance to the same music in Mr. Greville’s journal. On September 10, 1833, speaking of a speech of William IV.—not very wise, perhaps, but natural enough under the circumstances—he says: “If he (William IV.) was not such an ass that nobody does anything but laugh at what he says, this would be important. Such as it is, it is nothing.”