The Greville Memoirs Volume I Part 2

Why should we wonder if in Greville's verses Each thought so brilliant and each line so terse is?

For surely he in poetry must s.h.i.+ne Who is, we know, so favoured by the nine.[22]

_THE JOLLY TENS._

Quoth Greville, 'The commandments are divine; But as they're ten, I lay them on the shelf: O could they change their number and be nine, I'd keep them all, and keep them to myself!'

Thus we trifled life away.

[15] A clock tower.

[16] Lady Granville.

[17] E. Montagu.

[18] We gave him this nickname.

[19] Tens, ruinous at macao.

[20] Tens.

[21] The middle pin, a large gain.

[22] _Nines_ are the grand desiderata at macao.

1819.

[Page Head: LADY JERSEY.]

January 17th, 1819 {p.012}

I went to Burleigh on the 23rd of December; there was no one there but Irby. The house disappointed me very much, but it is a very fine showplace. I went away on the 27th to Middleton; there were the Culling Smiths, Worcesters, Sir James Mackintosh, Ossulstons, Nugent, &c.; it was very agreeable, and the house extremely comfortable. Lady Jersey[23] is an extraordinary woman, and has many good qualities; surrounded as she is by flatterers and admirers, she is neither proud nor conceited. She is full of vivacity, spirit, and good nature, but the wide range of her sympathies and affections proves that she has more general benevolence than particular sensibility in her character. She performs all the ordinary duties of life with great correctness, because her heart is naturally good; and she is, perhaps, from her temperament exposed to fewer temptations than the generality of her s.e.x. She is deficient in pa.s.sion and in softness (which const.i.tute the greatest charm in women), so that she excites more of admiration than of interest; in conversation she is lively and pleasant, without being very remarkable, for she has neither wit, nor imagination, nor humour; her understanding is active rather than strong, and her judgment is too often warped by prejudice to be sound. She has a retentive memory and a restless mind, together with a sort of intellectual arrangement, with which she appears rather to have been gifted by nature than to have derived it from the cultivation of her reasoning faculties.

[23] [Sarah Sophia, eldest daughter of John, tenth Earl of Westmoreland, and heiress of Robert Child, Esq., of Osterley Park, her maternal grandfather.]

I went from Middleton to Oatlands. The Duke was not there. We had the Smiths, Worcesters, Alvanley, Stanhope, Rogers, Luttrell, George Dawson, Lord Lauderdale, &c. Lord Erskine was ill, and Lord Lauderdale was taking care of him. The house was very uncomfortable, and the room I was in small, noisy, and inconvenient.

I came to London on Friday last. Parliament having met on the Thursday, it is very full, and is filling more and more every day. The Opposition expect to divide 180 on the Bank question; they talk of re-establis.h.i.+ng the dinners which they used to have in Fox's time.

Rogers is in a nervous state about his poem, and trembles at the reviewers.[24]

[24] [Rogers' poem ent.i.tled 'Human Life' was on the eve of publication. The reviewers treated it more tenderly than it deserved, as appears below.]

January 28th, 1819 {p.013}

I went to Gorhambury on the 24th to shoot. The Duke of York was there. We should have had a brilliant _cha.s.se_, but it rained. We went out at three and killed 105 pheasants.

There has been some skirmis.h.i.+ng in the House of Commons, particularly the night before last, on Dr. Halloran's pet.i.tion, when the Opposition (Bennet _duce_) got completely beaten. Many of the new members have spoken, but Mr. Lawson, a _soi-disant_ wit, and Sir R. Wilson have failed lamentably. It is odd enough that Wilson made a reply to an attack which Cobbett had inserted in one of his papers upon him. Cobbett said that he would make a silly speech in Parliament and destroy himself, and it is just what he did. The Opposition were very angry with Sir J. Coffin, who, with the candour of a novice, had made himself informed of the facts of the pet.i.tion, and finding they were against his friends, said so in the House.

Arbuthnot told me some particulars about Tierney. He began by being a friend of Mr. Pitt, and in one of his speeches on the Southwark or Colchester election he praised him in opposition to Mr. Fox. This latter never liked him, and the Regent a.s.sured Arbuthnot he had letters of Tierney in his possession thanking him for having endeavoured to remove Mr. Fox's antipathy to him.

When Addington came in, Pitt advised him to get Tierney, as n.o.body would be so useful to him. He did accordingly, and so Tierney became a member of the Administration.[25] When Pitt came again into office a negotiation was opened with him through the medium of Charles Long. He was offered the Chief Secretarys.h.i.+p in Ireland, which he wished to have, but he made it a condition that he should not be in Parliament. To this Mr. Pitt would not agree, as he said that he must commit himself with them entirely or not join them at all; he refused, not choosing to commit himself, and the negotiations broke off.

[25] [Right Hon. George Tierney, Treasurer of the Navy and P.C. in 1803. President of the Board of Control in October, 1806, Member of the Mint in 1827.]

January 31st, 1819 {p.014}

I dined with Lady Bathurst yesterday. We talked of the approaching contests in Parliament, and she said that she felt more apprehensive now than ever she had done for the safety of the Government, that it was impossible for Ministers to stay in if they were defeated, as they had occasionally been in the last Parliament, and that if they were defeated she should attribute it all to Vansittart, who is a millstone about their necks. I asked why they did not get rid of him, and she said that it was from good-nature; they had scruples about telling him he was inefficient and must resign. She said that Canning's conduct had been so good towards them, they were very anxious to put him in some more considerable office.

[Page Head: PRINCESS LIEVEN.]

February 3rd, 1819 {p.015}

I went with Bouverie to Newmarket on Monday to look at the horses. On Wednesday I came to town and went on to Oatlands.

Madame de Lieven was there. This woman is excessively clever, and when she chooses brilliantly agreeable. She is beyond all people fastidious. She is equally conscious of her own superiority and the inferiority of other people, and the contempt she has for the understandings of the generality of her acquaintance has made her indifferent to please and incapable of taking any delight in general society. Her manners are very dignified and graceful, and she is extremely accomplished. She sometimes endeavours to a.s.sume popular and gracious manners, but she does this languidly and awkwardly, because it is done with an effort. She carries _ennui_ to such a pitch that even in the society of her most intimate friends she frequently owns that she is bored to death. She writes memoirs, or rather a journal, of all that falls under her observation. She is so clever, has so much imagination and penetration, that they must be very entertaining. She writes as well as talks with extraordinary ease and gracefulness, and both her letters and her conversation are full of point; yet she is not liked, and has made hardly any friends. Her manners are stately and reserved, and so little _bonhomie_ penetrates through her dignity that few feel sufficiently attracted to induce them to try and thaw the ice in which she always seems bound.[26]

[26] [A very imperfect character of Princess Lieven, with whom Mr. Greville was at this time but slightly acquainted. But in after years he became one of her most intimate and confidential friends, and she frequently reappears in the course of these memoirs.]

February 5th, 1819 {p.016}

I have finished Madame de Stael's 'Considerations sur la Revolution Francaise.' It is the best of her works, extremely eloquent, containing the soundest political opinions conveyed in a bold and eloquent style. It is perhaps too philosophical and not sufficiently relieved by anecdotes and historical ill.u.s.trations. Her defence of her father is written with much enthusiasm and great plausibility, but the judgment of the world concerning Necker is formed, and it is too late to alter it. The effect of her eloquence is rather weakened by the recollection of her conduct to him, for she lived with him as little as possible, because she could not bear the _ennui_ of Coppet.[27]

[27] [In the latter years of Madame de Stael's life Coppet became one of the most brilliant social resorts in Europe, for she attracted there the Schlegels, B.

Constant, Bonstetten, Sismondi, Byron, and a host of other celebrities. Towards her father Madame de Stael expressed the most pa.s.sionate regard.]

February 9th, 1819 {p.016}

The Opposition are in a state of the highest exultation on account of the division in the House of Commons last night on Brougham's being added to the Bank Committee. The numbers were 173 to 135. They triumph particularly in this strong minority because the attack upon Brougham in the 'Quarterly Review' was deemed so successful by the Ministerial party that they thought he would not be able to lift up his head again. The review is extremely well done, as all allow. It is supposed to be written by Dr. Ireland [it was by Dr. Monk[28]], and that Canning supplied the jokes, but Arbuthnot a.s.sured me he had no hand in it.

[28] [Dr. Monk, not Dr. Ireland, was the author of the article. Monk became Bishop of Gloucester in 1830. This pa.s.sage relates to the celebrated article on the Report of Mr. Brougham's Committee on the Education of the People which appeared in the 'Quarterly Review' of December 1818. The article was a violent one, but it is amusing to see the effects attributed to it at the time. Some controversy has since taken place as to the share Canning had in it. I have myself seen the letters from Gifford (editor of the 'Review') to Dr. Monk, in which he speaks of the additions which have been made to the article; and there is the strongest internal evidence that these _purpurei panni_ were added by Canning. The subject is discussed in the 'Edinburgh Review' for July 1858.]

February 10th, 1819 {p.016}

Wilberforce made a speech last night which reminded one of the better days of the House of Commons. He presented a pet.i.tion from the Quakers against the Criminal Code, and introduced a compliment to Romilly. Castlereagh was in a minority in the Committee concerning the equerries of the Windsor establishment; he wished to keep two more than Tierney proposed; the latter had eight to six in the Committee.[29]

[29] [In consequence of the death of Queen Charlotte in the preceding month of November, the Government visited the Windsor establishment. The Duke of York was appointed _custos personae_ of the King, and received in that capacity 10,000 a year, which had previously been allowed to the Queen. A debate took place on this subject on the 25th of February, which is referred to by Mr. Greville under that date.]

February 14th, 1819 {p.017}

George Lamb has been proposed in opposition to Hobhouse.[30] The latter drew this opposition upon himself by his speech, and still more by the reports of his Committee, in which they abused the Whigs in unmeasured terms. Lambton went to Hobhouse and asked him if he would disavow the abuse of Lord Grey, which his Committee had inserted in the doc.u.ment they printed; he refused, on which the opposition was determined upon and begun. McDonald proposed Lamb, but they would not hear him; Evans seconded him. G. Jones made a very good speech in proposing Cartwright. Burdett and Kinnaird both spoke with moderation in proposing Hobhouse. It is generally supposed that Lamb will win.

[30] [The death of Sir Samuel Romilly in November 1818 caused a vacancy in the representation of Westminster, and another election took place upon the meeting of Parliament. The numbers were: Hon. George Lamb, 4,465; John Cam Hobhouse, 3,861; Major Cartwright, 38.]

Rogers' poem is disliked; the cry is all against it; some of the lines are pretty, but it is not perspicuous enough, and is deficient in novelty and force.

[Page Head: WESTMINSTER ELECTION.]