Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. Part 11

The 'Edinburgh' will be out on Thursday. You will find it very Scotch.

The Journal notes:--

We went to Chichester, on a visit to Dr. McCarogher; and from there to Goodwood races.

_August 8th_.--To Scotland by sea. Beached Skibo on the 11th. Shooting on the 12th with Sir Kenneth Mackenzie, Seaforth, and Dempster.

_25th_.--To Brahan. Little old General Kmety there; very good fun; but he does not look a hero.

_To Mr. Dempster_

_Brahan Castle, August 26th_.--We performed our pleasant but slow journey very well, and arrived at five P.M. The weather yesterday was the worst I have seen this year in Scotland. I declined to face the woods, but we got a walk by the Conan in a gleam of suns.h.i.+ne. However, the house and its collections, and their most amusing and hospitable owner, afforded us ample amus.e.m.e.nt. I am sorry, for my own sake, that this country is constantly gaining stronger claims on my affection and regard; for am I not born a dweller by our inglorious southern streams and downs? If, however, there be such a thing as transmigration hereafter, let me hope that I shall come out at last as a Highland laird.

The Journal continues:--

_August 28th_.--To Invergarry, where we lunched with Mr. Peabody; and to Glenquoich--Ed. Ellice's. The Elchos, Sir F. and Lady Grey, and Lowe there.

_31st_.--Excursion from Glenquoich to Loch Hourn. Then by Oban to Glasgow.

Visit to the Belhavens at Wishaw, September 4th, and to Abington. Home on the 10th.

_September 15th_.--Torry Hill. Shooting there for some days.

_17th_.--Mr. Ellice died suddenly [Footnote: Of heart disease and eighty-two years. He was found dead in his bed.] at Ardochy, only a fortnight after we left his house. That excursion to Loch Hourn was his last.

_To Mr. Dempster_

_Torry Hill, September 21st_.--What a sudden and painful loss is this abrupt termination of the life of our kind friend at Glenquoich! It is scarcely three weeks since we left him in his usual health and spirits, and now--as Evelyn says--all is in the dust.... I have had an unpleasant accident, though--thank G.o.d!--not a serious one. Turning round very suddenly to shoot a partridge behind me, without seeing that Lord Kingsdown was on his pony about fifty yards off, a pellet of shot from my gun hit him in the cheek, and another hit his pony in the eye. Conceive my horror!

Fortunately, the wound was very slight, and, indeed, was well in half an hour; but if it had hit him in the eye I never should have forgiven myself.

_From Lord Clarendon_

_The Grove, October 4th_.--I was very glad to hear from you this morning, but very sorry to learn that you have cause for deep anxiety respecting your mother, and I fear, from what you say, that she is hopelessly ill and suffering much. I sympathise with you sincerely. I joined my people at Lathom a month ago, and we returned last week from our peregrinations, all well, except myself, who can't shake off the gout, which is a disappointment after having taken the trouble of a Wiesbaden cure.

On the day of my last bath there I received an urgent request from our Foreign Secretary that I should proceed to Frankfort and observe the conference. I did so, and was interested and amused. It was an opportunity that may never occur again of meeting the sovereigns of Germany, great and small....

The impression made upon me by the E. of Austria was very agreeable. He had none of the proud manner of which at one time we heard so much, but, on the contrary, he was frank and gentlemanlike, and told me the difficulties in which Germany was placed by such an effete inst.i.tution as the Diet, and the advances making by Democracy, which, for the first time, were dangerous, because the people had reason and justice on their side. He told me, also, all the steps he had taken to secure the co-operation of the K. of Prussia, which were straightforward and deferential; and he complained, though without bitterness, of the manner in which they had been misrepresented....

It may be that some good will come, perhaps before the close of the present century, from a public avowal by congregated sovereigns that their subjects had grievances of magnitude, and that delay in redressing them was full of dynastic danger.

One can conceive no more complete diplomatic fiasco than the three great Powers of Europe giving a triumph to Gortschakoff. The mistake originally made was thinking that Russia was weak and in trouble, and would therefore yield to menace. Several months ago I took the liberty of suggesting that, although Russia was powerless for an aggressive war, she would be found as strong and formidable as ever in resisting any attack from without, and that foreign dictation would probably have the effect of uniting all the parties into which Russia was divided. I don't mean to deny, however, that intervention of some kind was inevitable; but the difficulties attending it were either overlooked or not foreseen, and the mode of dealing with them has consequently been unskilful.

Continuing the Journal:--

_October 5th_.--To Aiupthill. On the 17th to the Grove; Odo Russell there.

24th, to Torry Hill, with Christine and Hopie. Met the Roger Leighs there; also the Heads and Sir Lawrence Peel. High jinks on Hopie's twenty-first birthday.

_November 19th_.--To s...o...b..ryness, to see the trial of Sir William Armstrong's 600-pounder gun.

My mother was exceedingly ill during the autumn, and it became apparent that her illness was mortal. She was attended with great a.s.siduity by Dr.

Fyfe. For this reason we remained within reach of London.

_From Lord Westbury_ [Footnote: At this time Lord Chancellor.]

_Basingstoke, November 28th_.--I shall be much obliged to you if, by the application of the whip to the printer, you can get him to strike off a few copies of the notes of my opinion on the appeals in the matter of the 'Essays and Reviews' by Tuesday afternoon, so that a copy may, on the evening of Tuesday, be sent to Lords Cranworth, Chelmsford, and Kingsdown.

The notes are not long, but I am anxious that they should be, as soon as possible, in the hands of the three n.o.ble lords I have named. I hope we shall be able to give judgement about December 15th.

Lord Brougham's next letter refers to one of the few unpleasant pa.s.sages in Reeve's life. In October 1863 the 'Edinburgh Review' had an article on J.

G. Phillimore's 'Reign of George III.,' in which the book was somewhat roughly handled. That the comment was honest is quite certain; that it was just would probably be the opinion of most historical students; but Mr.

Phillimore thought that it was neither one nor the other, and being--as the 'Sat.u.r.day Review' described him--one whose 'normal position was that of a belligerent,' he replied to the review by a studiously offensive and personal pamphlet, [Footnote: This sensitiveness to literary criticism was, perhaps, a family failing. Some forty years before, Phillimore's uncle, Sir John Phillimore, was fined 100. for bludgeoning James, the author of the _Naval History_, for some unflattering remarks on the discipline of the 'Eurotas' whilst under his command.] bearing the t.i.tle 'Reply to the Misrepresentations of the "Edinburgh Review."' According to this, the article was a spiteful attack made by 'Mr. Reeve' himself; it was mainly noticeable for its ignorance, its malice, its time-serving toadyism of Lord Stanhope, and should be contrasted with another article in the same number of the 'Review' on 'Austin on Jurisprudence,' which was outrageously belauded because Austin was 'Mr. Reeve's' uncle. In point of fact, the article on Phillimore was written by the present Judge O'Connor Morris, and that on Austin by John Stuart Mill, neither of whom was an intimate friend of the editor's. Phillimore did not notice, or was not sufficiently acquainted with Reeve's family history to appraise yet another article on 'Tara: a Mahratta Tale,' by Captain Meadows Taylor--Reeve's cousin. If he had, he would certainly have made it the subject of some more scurrilities.

_Cannes, January 7th_.--I have only a moment before the post goes to write, and it may be too late another day. Pray allude to Phillimore's pamphlet, and give some explanation on certain parts of it. I have not read the whole of it, but friends here who borrowed it of me have, and they tell me that some explanation is required. They are a good deal prejudiced, however, owing to your having praised Stanhope's book, of which they have a very bad opinion. I myself rather agree with them, though not going to the same length. Of Phillimore, I only know that he did good service in the Commons for a public prosecutor, and was very shabbily supported by the friends of Law Amendment. But I had a very poor opinion of the book, though he is a very clever man, and the Yankees considered him the first man in the House of Commons.

Reeve's letters for several months had been leading up to the next sad entry in the Journal. For a woman of seventy-five, a serious and prolonged illness could scarcely have any other issue.

My mother's illness was approaching its melancholy end. On January 8th I sat up all night at Brompton. On the 9th she was speechless. On Sunday, the 10th, at 3 P.M., she died. On the 16th she was buried in the Brompton Cemetery. Edward James Reeve read the service. Arthur Taylor, John, Richard, John Edward, and Fairfax Taylor, Sir A, Gordon, P. Worsley, W.

Wallace, J. P. Simpson, R. Lane, Dr. Fyfe, and John c.o.x attended.

On the 17th I went to Ess.e.x Street Chapel, where Madge preached her funeral sermon. He had preached my father's funeral sermon just fifty years before.

My mother survived my father nearly fifty years. This is not the place to comment on her singular virtues!

We went to Boulogne on the 18th for the first period of mourning, and visited Amiens and Abbeville. Home on the 25th.

_To Mr. Dempster_

62 _Rutland Gate, January 11th_.--Your long kindness and friends.h.i.+p tell me how much I may rely on your sympathy. My dear mother expired yesterday afternoon, in perfect serenity. However long one may have antic.i.p.ated such a stroke and, as I told you in July, I knew it was impending--one cannot realise it till it falls. As Gray said to Mason, 'A man has but one mother;' it is a blank that cannot be filled up. But I have the consolatory thought that my dear mother's life was complete in its usefulness, its energy, its unquenchable zeal for the good of others, its Christian endurance of sorrow and of pain; and no one ever lived in this world more fitted to enter upon another. Christine was with her to the last.

_From the Duc d'Aumale_

_Orleans House_, 11 _Janvier_.--Helas! cher Monsieur; je n'ai pas de consolation a vous offrir; je ne puis que vous a.s.surer de ma profonde sympathie. Je juge de ce que vous devez souffrir par ce que je ressentirais a votre place. Mon coeur est avec le votre. H. D'ORLeANS.

_From Lord Clarendon_

January 11th.

My Dear Reeve,--I heard to my great regret a little while ago that the day of your affliction was fast approaching, and I knew at once by your envelope this afternoon that the hour had come. I thank you for your kind thought of not allowing me to hear by public report an event that so deeply affects your happiness; and I know from my own sad experience how to feel for you in this trial--the loss of a mother's never-failing love and sympathy, and of one's own daily occupation, that real labour of love, in ministering to her comfort and soothing the ills of declining years. You have the consolation, and it is one to be grateful for, my dear Reeve, that your last impressions are of a calm and painless pa.s.sage from this life, such as you would have most desired for her whom you have so loved and can never forget. Lady Clarendon and my daughters desire me to send you their kind regards and the expression of their sincerest sympathy.

Believe me, my dear Reeve,

Ever yours truly,

CLARENDON.

_To Madame de Tocqueville_

Boulogne-sur-mer, January 20th.

My dear Madame de Tocqueville,--One's own sorrows bring back with increased vivacity the sorrows of others and the melancholy recollections of other years, for at each successive blow a great gap is made in life, and one feels that another record of the past is closed. We have come to this place for a few days to regain a little health and spirits after the long and anxious year we have pa.s.sed by my dear mother's sick bed. All our cares have unhappily been vain, and about ten days ago she breathed her last. I cannot express how great a loss this is to me, or how deeply I feel it.

Your dear and ever-lamented husband was one of those who appreciated the exquisite simplicity and energy of my mother's character, and the words he let fall from time to time about her are very precious to me.