Chapter 90
August 29th, 1835 {p.303}
[Page Head: ALTERCATION IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS.]
The House of Lords has become a beargarden since Brougham has been in it; there is no night that is not distinguished by some violent squabble between him and the Tories. Lord Winchelsea directly accused him of cowardice the night before last, to which he replied, 'As to my being _afraid_ to say elsewhere what I say here, oh, that is too absurd to require an answer.' It is nevertheless true. Melbourne does very well; his memory served him happily on this night. Brougham had lashed the Lords into a fury by calling them a _mob_, and Melbourne quoted Lord Chesterfield, who said that _all_ deliberative a.s.semblies were _mobs_. The other day Lord Howick was inveighing pa.s.sionately against the Lords for their mutilations of the Corporation Bill, when Melbourne said, with his characteristic _nonchalance_, 'Why, what does it matter? We have gone on tolerably well for 500 years with these corporations, and we may contrive to go on with them for another year or so.'
On the King's birthday his Majesty had Lord Lansdowne and Lord Melbourne to dine with him at Windsor, and he made some extraordinary speeches, of which various versions are about the town. By-the-bye, I was turning over the 'Annual Register' the other day, and hit upon his speech last year to the bishops, and I was astonished at the eloquence of it. It is said that Phillpotts composed it for him, but there are some internal marks of its emanating from himself. It is certainly remarkably good of the kind, and I think it more probable that he spoke what he thought and felt, and that Phillpotts reported it and made the best of it.
September 1st, 1835 {p.303}
Lord John Russell a.s.sembled his Whigs and Radicals at the Foreign Office yesterday morning, and announced to them the course he proposed to adopt with regard to the Corporation Bill, the amendments he would accept, those he would modify, and those he would decline. Hume made a violent speech, deprecating any concessions, but O'Connell made a very moderate one, recommending a compromise, and saying that great alarm prevailed among many well-meaning and conscientious persons lest Reform should proceed too far; that it was highly expedient to quiet these apprehensions, and upon every account therefore he recommended a moderate and conciliatory course. There were between two and three hundred present at this meeting. Accordingly in the afternoon John Russell stated over again in the House of Commons pretty much what he had said in the morning, and made a very temperate and conciliatory speech. Peel, who had arrived suddenly and unexpectedly in town,[2] rose after him, and, as everybody said (some with joy, others with rage), 'threw over the Lords.' He declared his concurrence in those amendments which John Russell agreed to, and his acquiescence in most of the other provisions without the amendments of the Lords; to the aldermen for life he objected, and to some other particulars, as his speech shows. The only amendment to which he subscribed (and that was objected to by Government) was the exclusion of Dissenters from the disposal of Church patronage, and I was very much surprised to hear him stand out for this upon (as I think) very insufficient grounds. Nothing could exceed the dismay and the rage (though suppressed) of the Conservatives at his speech. He was not a bit cheered by those behind him, but very heartily by those opposite. One silly, noisy fellow, whose princ.i.p.al vocation in the House of Commons is to bellow, came near me under the gallery, and I asked him why they did not cheer, when he sulkily answered, 'he was so well cheered by the other side that it was not necessary.' Lord Harrowby was under the gallery. I asked him what he said to Peel's speech. 'I did not hear it,' he tartly replied, 'but he seems to have given up the aldermen. I have a great affection for the aldermen.' At the 'Travellers' I met Strangford, and asked him the same question. He said, 'I say, Not content.' 'But,' said I, 'you must take the Bill.' 'Not I, for one; the Lords cannot take it, and if we are to be ruined I think we had better be ruined by real Radicals than by sham Tories.' Afterwards I saw Lord Londonderry, who talked in the same strain, not denying that the Duke of Wellington had unwillingly come into the measures which Lyndhurst had adopted, but talking of Lyndhurst's Conservative scruples as a const.i.tutional lawyer, and such stuff as this. The manner in which the Duke has been ousted from the leaders.h.i.+p, and the alacrity with which the Lords have followed Lyndhurst, because he led them into violent courses, is not the least curious part of this business. (It seems they only meant to make Lyndhurst their leader _pro hac vice_.)
[2] Peel gave no notice of his intention to come to town.
Hardinge, who is more intimate with him than most of his political a.s.sociates, was so sure he would not come that he told Bradshaw, who asked him, that he certainly would not be here, and that he (Bradshaw) might go into the country when he pleased.
[Page Head: PEEL'S CONCILIATORY CONDUCT.]
Bingham Baring and I walked away together, and I went with him to Lord Ashburton's house, who was not a little astonished at what we told him, and a.s.serted that Peel was quite wrong about the aldermen. The violent Whigs were rather provoked at the turn things took, and Howick, whom I saw under the gallery, said with great bitterness (mixed with pleasure at Peel's abandonment of the Lords) that he, for one, 'only consented to these alterations, which made the Bill so much worse, with a view to obtain future compensation, and _with interest_.' The English Radicals were very indignant, and Hume, Grote, and Roebuck spoke one after another against the Government concessions, but there was no disposition to listen to them, and an evident satisfaction at the prospect of an amicable termination of the rising dispute. n.o.body apprehends any other termination, for though the Lords will bl.u.s.ter, and fume, and fret, and there will be no small fermentation of mortified pride and vanity, there must be some difference of opinion at least, and the Duke of Wellington is quite sure to exert his influence to bring the majority to adopt Peel's views.
It has always been considered by the Tories an object of paramount importance to keep their party together (this was the pretext of Wharncliffe and Harrowby for joining in that fatal postponement of Schedule A), and if after Peel's speech they were to refuse to accept the fair compromise which is tendered to them, it is impossible to suppose that he would consider himself as belonging to them, or that they could pretend to acknowledge him as their leader, and the Tory party would by this schism be effectually broken up.
I have long considered the breaking up of the Tory party as a grand desideratum, and though I earnestly desire to see a powerful Conservative party in the country and in Parliament, it must be one reconstructed out of materials more various and more Liberal than that which now calls itself Conservative, but which in its heart clings to the narrow notions and loves the exclusive system of bygone days. The dissolution of the Tory party in the House of Lords, by a division of them into a high and a low section, would in itself be a reform of that House, and it is to such a dissolution and fresh modification of parties that we must look for a reform, which without any violent change will redress the balance and enable the machine of government to move without obstruction. I sat next to Senior in the House of Lords, and he was talking of the necessity of a reform of the House of Peers, and he said, 'I can see the steps of it very plainly.' 'What, by making Peers for life, as you suggest in your pamphlet?' 'No, it is too late for that now, but by the election of representatives.
When Scotland was united she sent representative Peers elected from the body; Ireland the same. Now fifty years of Tory rule have given such a preponderance to the Tory interest in the House of Lords, that the balance cannot be redressed but by a creation which would make the House of Peers too numerous for a legislative a.s.sembly. I would therefore begin by creating, in order to equalise the strength of the opposite parties, and then the Peers should elect representatives.' I said, 'All this will be unnecessary, for the Tory party will be broken up, and without a change so startling and extensive the balance will be quietly redressed, and in the natural order of things.' The Duc de Nemours was under the gallery in the House of Commons, but he soon went away, and in the middle of Peel's speech.
September 3rd, 1835 {p.306}
[Page Head: RECONCILIATION.]
Nothing could be better than the temper and disposition of the House on Tuesday night, as well as on Monday, nothing more flattering to Peel. John Russell said 'he was anxious that the clause (I forget which) should go forth with the sanction of the right honourable baronet's approbation.' Peel said he spoke only for himself; Lord John said that made no difference, indicating in fact that his opinion was worth more than those of all his followers put together. The Lords in the meantime are tremendously sulky, and though it is impossible to believe they will have the frantic folly to refuse the accommodation that by G.o.d's mercy is offered to them, it is not quite safe, and they are now in grand conclave at Apsley House to determine upon their course. Lord Lansdowne told me at Court yesterday that the day before he went up to Lyndhurst in the House of Lords, to speak to him about some Bill, when Lyndhurst said, 'I was in hopes you were coming to speak to me about the amendments.' 'No; it will be time enough to talk about them when they are again before the House.' 'Well, and what do they say now?' 'They say that the lives of your aldermen are not at a premium.' 'Do they? But they will rise in the market to-morrow, I can tell you.' What satisfies me most in all this is the conduct of the Government, and even that of many of the Radicals--of Hume, for instance--and the general temper and disposition evinced by the House, symptomatic of a more healthy feeling than I ever expected to see displayed. In the division the Radical numbers were contemptible, showing that the Conservative interest, if not broken up by party divisions, and if ever it was roused and connected by the acknowledgment of a common danger, would crush the Radical force in an instant. These are valuable manifestations, and worth a hundred clauses in the Corporation Bill; for what matters it whether aldermen and town clerks are perpetuated or suppressed? and it really is grotesque to fight for these puerilities as if it was a contest _pro aris et focis_, and to hesitate one instant whether a collision should be provoked between the two Houses of Parliament, and the advantages both direct and collateral flowing from Peel's mediation be thrown away, for the sake of maintaining these secondary and questionable objects.
September 6th, 1835 {p.307}
On Thursday there was a great meeting at Apsley House; eighty Peers present, and four hours' deliberation. They kept their resolutions a profound secret, but as I knew what they were on Friday morning, I went to Melbourne and told him, in order that the Government might be prepared, and turn over in their minds how matters might be accommodated. The Tories adhered to the justices and wards, and abandoned the rest. I found Melbourne and Lord John together; the latter said there would be no difficulty about the justices, but the amendment about the wards was impossible.
[Page Head: EFFECTS OF MUNIc.i.p.aL REFORM.]
The debate at night was carried on with extraordinary temper and calmness; Brougham complimented Lyndhurst in very glowing terms.
The matter now stands over till Monday, when the Commons must determine whether to accept the Bill with these alterations or reject it on account of them. There is great
September 8th, 1835 {p.310}
Lord John called another meeting at the Foreign Office yesterday morning, when he proposed, and they agreed to take the Lords'
amendments and finish the business; so this famous Corporation Bill has got through at last. O'Connell and Warburton concurred in accepting it. The only man who violently opposed its being accepted was Tom Duncombe, who made a furious harangue, and boldly a.s.serted that _he knew_ to a positive certainty that if the Commons would hold out the Peers would abandon the justices and wards, and he offered _privately_ to give John Russell a list of Peers sufficient to carry this, and who, he would answer for it, were ready to make the concession. Lord John, however, was too wise to listen to such impudent nonsense, and, though very reluctantly, it was settled that the Commons should give way.
Both parties probably overrate the value of the disputed clauses, and it is to be regretted that the two Houses will not part _amicably_. Government takes the Bill under a sort of engagement to consider it as an instalment, and that they shall try and get the difference next year. This is mere humbug, and a poor sop thrown to the Radicals, but as it answers the immediate purpose it is very well.
September 9th, 1835 {p.311}
[Page Head: THE KING'S HARANGUE ON THE MILITIA.]
To-day at Court, when his Majesty made one of his most extraordinary harangues, and much more lengthy than usual. It was evidently got up with great care and previous determination. The last article on the Council list was one for the reduction of the militia, and it was upon this that he descanted with great vehemence. He gave a historical account of the militia from the year 1756, when he said it was increased against the inclination of George II., who was not so well acquainted with the country as his successors have been, 'when there was a Whig Administration, as there is now.' He declared his conviction that the safety of the country demanded a numerous and effective militia, that nothing should have induced him to consent to the present reduction but the necessity of making some changes which had become indispensable owing to the culpable conduct of colonels of the militia who had neglected their duty, but whose names he would not expose; that agitators in Ireland and political economists here wished to reduce this force, in order, under the pretext of economy, to leave the country defenceless; but he never would consent to this, and only agreed to the present measure upon a clear understanding that early in the next session the matter was to be brought forward in Parliament with a view to render the militia more efficient; that nothing but the militia justified the smallness of our military establishments as compared with those of other nations; and he finished by saying that the state of our relations with Russia made the maintenance of this force of paramount importance, as it was impossible to say what dangers we might not be menaced with from that quarter, or how soon we might be called upon to face them, and that the advisers of the Crown would incur a deep responsibility if any mischief arose from the undue reduction of this force. He ended a very long speech (of which I can only put down an outline) with this strange denunciation against Russia, and then said, 'One word more. I have spoken thus in the presence of many Lords who are connected with the militia, either immediately or through their friends, because I wish that my sentiments should be thoroughly and extensively promulgated.' This is a very brief outline of his oration, which was delivered with great energy.
At the levee I had some talk with Hobhouse, who expressed himself well satisfied with the termination of the Corporation contest; he said that the King was delighted, and added (in which I think he flatters himself) that he was in high good-humour in consequence, and that though he disliked them politically, he liked them very well personally, and that if the Irish Church question could be arranged, he would be quite content with them, and they should be excellent friends.
Lord Howick, who is the bitterest of all that party, and expresses himself with astonis.h.i.+ng acrimony, talked in his usual strain, and I could not refrain from giving him a bit of my mind.
He talked of 'the Lords having played their last trump,' of 'the impossibility of their going on, of the hostility towards them in the country, and the manner in which suggestions of reforming the House of Lords were received in the House of Commons,' and expressed his conviction that 'that House as an inst.i.tution was in imminent danger.' I told him I did not believe that such sentiments pervaded the country, that I had not yet seen sufficient evidence of it, and asked if such a spirit really was in activity, did he not think he was bound to set about resisting and counteracting it? He talked of 'its not being resistible;' he said that 'the Lords must give way or a collision would be the consequence,' and 'he knew who would go to the wall.' I said that 'it was such sentiments as those, uttered by such men as himself, which most contributed to create the danger the existence of which he deplored.' To this he made no answer; but who can feel secure when a Minister of the Crown, in the palace of the King, within three yards of his person, while he is there present exercising the functions of royalty, holds language the most revolutionary, and such as might more naturally be uttered at some low meeting in St. Giles's or St. Pancras' than in such a place? In spite of my disposition to be sanguine, it is impossible to shake off all alarm when I hear the opinions of men of different parties (opinions founded on different data and bia.s.sed by opposite wishes) meeting at the same point, and arriving by different roads at the same conclusion.
[Page Head: THE KING AND THE d.u.c.h.eSS OF KENT.]
Lyndhurst (who called on me the day before yesterday about some business) talked over the Corporation Bill, which he considers to be nearly as important as the Reform Bill. He says it must give them all the corporate boroughs, for he a.s.sumes as an undoubted fact that the new councils will be Radical, and that their influence will radicalise the boroughs. He said there was no chance of the House of Lords surviving ten years, that power must reside in the House of Commons, as it always had, and that the House of Commons would not endure the independent authority of the other House; so that Howick and Lyndhurst are not far apart in their calculations. It is certainly true, what Lyndhurst said to me the other day in George Street, that 'they know the Bill accomplishes their purpose.' Melbourne said to me at Court that 'it was a great _boulevers.e.m.e.nt_, a great experiment, and we must see how it worked.' I met him in St. James's Park afterwards, and walked with him to the Palace. He told me the King was in a state of great excitement, especially about this militia question, but that the thing which affected him most was the conduct of the d.u.c.h.ess of Kent--her popularity-hunting, her progresses, and above all the addresses which she received and replied to. He told me what the King had said at dinner on his birthday about her. 'I cannot expect to live very long, but I hope that my successor may be of full age when she mounts the throne. I have great respect for the person upon whom, in the event of my death, the Regency would devolve, but I have great distrust of the persons by whom she is surrounded. I know that everything which falls from my lips is reported again, and I say this thus candidly and publicly because it is my desire and intention that these my sentiments should be made known.' Melbourne told me that he believed Lord Durham is not in favour with the d.u.c.h.ess of Kent, who has discovered that he had made use of her for his own ends, and she has now withdrawn her confidence from him. I asked him who her confidants were, but he either did not know or would not tell me.
Doncaster, September 15th, 1835 {p.314}
Left London on Sat.u.r.day morning with Matuscewitz; I had a good deal of conversation with him about the state and prospects of this country, in the course of which he told me that Louis Philippe had consulted Talleyrand about the maintenance of his intimate connection with England, and that Talleyrand had replied, 'When you came to the throne four years ago, I advised you to cultivate your relations with England as the best security you could obtain. I now advise you to relinquish that connection, for in the present state of English politics it can only be productive of danger or embarra.s.sment to you.' Having omitted to put it down at the time, I can't recollect the exact words, but this was the sense, and _I think_ Matuscewitz said that Louis Philippe had told him this himself.
[Page Head: PRINCESS VICTORIA AT BURGHLEY.]
We dined at Burghley on the way, and got here at two on Sunday; read Mackintosh's Life in the carriage, which made me dreadfully disgusted with my racing _metier_. What a life as compared with mine!--pa.s.sed among great and wise men, and intent on high thoughts and honourable aspirations, existing amidst interests far more pungent even than those which engage me, and of the futility of which I am for ever reminded. I am struck with the coincidence of the tastes and dispositions of Burke and Mackintosh, and of something in the mind of the one which bears an affinity to that of the other; but their characters--how different! their abilities--how unequal! yet both, how superior, even the weakest of the two, to almost all other men, and the success of each so little corresponding with his powers, neither having ever attained any object of ambition beyond that of fame.
All their talents, therefore, and all their requirements, did not procure them content, and probably Burke was a very unhappy, and Mackintosh not a very happy, man. The suavity, the indolent temperament, the 'mitis sapientia' of Mackintosh may have warded off sorrow and mitigated disappointment, but the stern and vindictive energies of Burke must have kept up a storm of conflicting pa.s.sions in his breast. But I turn from Mackintosh and Burke to all that is vilest and foolishest on earth, and among such I now pa.s.s my unprofitable hours. There seems to me less gaiety and bustle here than formerly, but as much villany as ever. From want of money or of enterprise, or from greater distrust and a paucity of spectators, there is very little betting, and what there is, spiritless and dull. There are vast crowds of people to see the Princess Victoria, who comes over from Wentworth to-day, and the Due de Nemours is here. I am going to run for the St. Leger, which I shall probably not win, and though I am nervous and excited, I shall not care much if I lose, and I doubt whether I should care very much if I won; but this latter sensation will probably be for ever doubtful. There is something in it all which displeases me, and I often wish I was well out of it.
Burghley, September 21st, 1835 {p.315}
I did lose the St. Leger, and did not care; idled on at Doncaster to the end of the week, and came here on Sat.u.r.day to meet the d.u.c.h.ess of Kent. They arrived from Belvoir at three o'clock in a heavy rain, the civic authorities having turned out at Stamford to escort them, and a procession of different people all very loyal. When they had lunched, and the Mayor and his brethren had got dry, the d.u.c.h.ess received the address, which was read by Lord Exeter as Recorder. It talked of the Princess as 'destined to mount the throne of these realms.' Conroy handed the answer, just as the Prime Minister does to the King. They are splendidly lodged, and great preparations have been made for their reception.
London, September 27th, 1835 {p.315}
The dinner at Burghley was very handsome; hall well lit; and all went off well, except that a pail of ice was landed in the d.u.c.h.ess's lap, which made a great bustle. Three hundred people at the ball, which was opened by Lord Exeter and the Princess, who, after dancing one dance, went to bed. They appeared at breakfast the next morning at nine o'clock, and at ten set off to Holkham.
Went to Newmarket on Tuesday and came to town on Wednesday; found it very empty and no news. Lord Chatham died the day before yesterday, which is of no other importance than that of giving some honours and emoluments to Melbourne to distribute.
The papers are full of nothing but O'Connell's progress in Scotland, where he is received with unbounded enthusiasm by enormous crowds, but by no people of rank, property, or character. It is a rabble triumph altogether, but it is made the most of by all the Ministerial papers. The Opposition papers pour torrents of invective upon him, and he in his speeches is not behindhand with the most virulent and scurrilous of them; he is exalted to the bad eminence at which he has arrived more by the a.s.saults of his enemies than by the efforts of his friends. It is the Tories who are ever insisting upon the immensity of his power, and whose excess of hatred and fear make him of such vast account that 'he draws the rabble after him as a monster makes a show.' However mean may be his audiences in Scotland, he has numbers to boast of, and that will serve his purpose; he will no doubt render this reception instrumental to the increase of his authority in Ireland. He now avows that he has abandoned Repeal, and all other projects, in order to devote himself to the great task of reforming the House of Lords.
[Page Head: SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH.]
I have finished Mackintosh's Life with great delight, and many painful sensations, together with wonder and amazement. His account of his reading is utterly incomprehensible to me; he must have been endowed with some superhuman faculty of transferring the contents of books to his own mind. He talks in his journals of reading volumes in a few hours which would seem to demand many days even from the most rapid reader. I have heard of Southey, who would read a book through as he stood in a bookseller's shop; that is, his eye would glance down the page, and by a process partly mechanical, partly intellectual, formed by long habit, he would extract in his synoptical pa.s.sage all that he required to know.
(Macaulay was, and George Lewis is, just as wonderful in this respect.) Some of the books that Mackintosh talks of, philosophical and metaphysical works, could not be so disposed of, and I should like much to know what his system or his secret was. I met Sydney Smith yesterday, and asked him why more of the journals had not been given. He said because the editors had been ill advised, but that in another edition more should be given; that Mackintosh was the most agreeable man he had ever known, that he had been shamefully used by his friends, and by none more than by Brougham.
So, I said, it would appear by what you say in your letter. 'Oh no,' he said, laughing and chuckling, and shaking his great belly, 'you don't really think I meant to allude to Brougham?'
'Mackintosh's son,' he said 'is a man of no talents, the composition (what there is of it) belongs to Erskine, his son-in-law, a sensible man.' To be sure there are some strange things said by Mackintosh here and there; among others, that Lord Holland only wanted voice--not to be impeded in his utterance--to be a greater orator than Canning or Brougham! If he had not been a man 'whom no sense of wrongs could rouse to vengeance,' he would have flung the India Board in Lord Grey's face when he was insulted with the offer of it.[3] What are we to think of the necessary connection between intellectual superiority and official eminence, when we have seen the Duke of Richmond invited to be a member of the Cabinet, while Mackintosh was thrust into an obscure and subordinate office--Mackintosh placed under the orders of Charles Grant! Well might he regret that he had not been a professor, and, 'with safer pride content,' adorned with unusual glory some academical chair. Then while he was instructing and delighting the world, there would have been many regrets and lamentations that such mighty talents were confined to such a narrow sphere, and innumerable speculations of the greatness he would have achieved in political life, and how the irresistible force of his genius and his eloquence must have raised him to the pinnacle of Parliamentary fame and political power. Perhaps he would have partaken in this delusion, and have bitterly lamented the success which had deprived him of a more brilliant fortune and a loftier fame; for it may reasonably be doubted whether all his laborious investigations of the deepest recesses of the human mind, and his extensive acquaintance with the theory of mental phenomena, would have enabled him accurately to ascertain the practical capabilities of his own mind, and to arrive at those just conclusions which should indicate to him that path of life on which it was most expedient for him to travel, with reference to the strength of his understanding, and the softness, not to say feebleness, of his character.
[3] Sir James Mackintosh was a member of the Board of Control under Lord Grey's Government. He never held any other office in England.
CHAPTER x.x.x.