Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. Part 20

From a later note of the Duke's, it appears that Reeve was unable to accept the invitation to the _pa.s.sable cha.s.se,_ which he would have enjoyed, especially as after four years there was no longer a question of the 'loose box' or the 'kitchen dresser.'

The next letter, from Lord Westbury, is in evident answer to one from Reeve about Lord Campbell's 'Lives of Lyndhurst and Brougham,' then newly published, of which a very severe--not, it was thought, too severe--article appeared in the 'Review' for April. The article was not by Reeve; but we may fairly suppose that he--to some extent, at least--inspired it; and that--also to some extent--the inspiration was supplied by Lord Westbury.

_Hinton St. George, January 24th_--I wish you were here for two or three days' shooting before the season closes, as the weather is so mild and beautiful, and I hear that in London it is miserably cold. So tell Mrs.

Reeve that her Zomerzet is a favoured county after all.

As to what you say about the book, I remember a celebrated dinner at the Temple, to which I invited Lyndhurst, Brougham, Campbell, and Charlie Wetherell, when the latter warned Lyndhurst and Brougham of Campbell's design, in terms almost prophetic of what has occurred. 'My biographical friend will excel in exhibiting every little foible; _Hunc tu Romane caveto_.' I cannot describe the whole scene to you, but will some day _viva voce_.

_From the Duc d'Aumale_

Woodnorton, January 31st.

My dear Mr. Reeve,--An absence at Badminton, where I struggled for a few hours' sport, first with the frost and then with hurricanes, has prevented me from sooner answering your letter of the 26th.

I have searched the archives at Monte Ca.s.sino very minutely; I do not know those of La Cava, which have the reputation of being very curious, but more local and of less general interest than those of Monte Ca.s.sino.

The Ca.s.sinesi had a printing press, to which we owe many beautiful publications, some unpublished sermons of St. Augustine's, several works by the eloquent and learned Father Tosti, &c. They had prepared an edition of an unpublished Commentary on Dante, and also of the valuable correspondence of Mabillon, Montfaucon, and other clerics of the Congregation of St. Maur, when, in consequence of the events of 1848, their printing presses were sequestrated. At that time they were suspected of Liberalism. Now, when secularisation has replaced sequestration, it seems to me that the Italian Government ought to continue the literary and archaeological work of the monks, as it has subst.i.tuted itself in their proprietary rights; just as, after the French Revolution, the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres carried on the immense work of the clerics of the Congregation de St.-Maur.

This is my first impulse on reading M. de Circourt's letter. However, we will speak of it further when I have the pleasure of seeing you again, which I hope will be soon. _Mille amities._

H. D'ORLeANS

The Journal notes:--

In London the usual dinners. Dined at Mr. Gladstone's on February 1st. This was the first dinner he gave after becoming Prime Minister. There were present Lord Lansdowne, Clarendon, Hammond, Northbrook, Helps, Kinnaird, Doyle, Hamilton, and Salomons [Footnote: Created a baronet on October 26th of the same year.]--an odd party. He received us in the hall.

_April 9th_--To Paris. 10th, at the Inst.i.tute; saw Guizot, Mignet, St.-Hilaire, Wolowski, Chevalier, &c., there. 18th, Chapel at the Tuileries; saw the Emperor there--I think for the last time. 20th, went to La Celle, [Footnote: La Celle St.-Cloud, about four miles from Versailles, where M. de Circourt lived throughout the evening of his life.] and spent some days there with Circourt. ['Henry,' wrote Mrs. Reeve, 'enjoyed his days in the country with M. de Circourt vastly. We thought it unreasonable to go all three, and a maid, to his small house; so Hopie and I careered about the streets, went to a play, and to a dance at the Chinese Emba.s.sy!--not very Chinese, as the minister is American, so also is his wife, and the guests were mostly his country-folk.']

_23rd--Dined at M. Guizot's. 25th_--Dined with Thiers, and met Mignet, St.-Hilaire, Duvergier, and Remusat.

The Royal Academy Exhibition took place for the first time in Burlington House. I dined with the R.A.s at Pender's.

_From M. Guizot_

_Val Richer, May 13th_--I took up my summer quarters here a week ago, leaving the fifth volume of my 'Memoires' in Paris, ready printed and on the eve of publication. You will receive it next week. It deals entirely with my emba.s.sy to England in 1840. I am anxious to know what will be said of it in England; it will be very kind of you to supply me with the information. You know that I love and honour England sufficiently always to say what I think of her; and what she thinks of me concerns me closely, whether our opinions are or are not the same.

I have found many letters and conversations of yours for 1840. But it was more especially after this, and during the first year of my ministry, that you helped me so effectively in preserving peace and re-establis.h.i.+ng friendly relations between our two countries. I hope you will not object to my saying so....

The Journal mentions:--

_May 22nd._--Visit to Tom Baring's, at Norman Court. [Mr. Baring--wrote Mrs. Reeve--is the head of the house of Baring Brothers; an elderly gentleman and a bachelor, very simple, but very kindly. The house is not large for the park and property, which is, all together, about 7,000 acres; but pictures and china are renowned; so is the cooking; and, with such wealth as is at our host's command, all the details are in perfection.

In the park there are many fine beech and other trees, and the yew grows wonderfully, contrasting its dark tint with the soft, white may. On the slope of the hill, about three miles off, grow service-trees and juniper; and, from the ridge, one sees across the New Forest to the Solent and the Isle of Wight.]

_June 4th_--Went to Windsor to see Mr. Woodward and the Queen's library.

Then to Farnborough for the Ascot week.

_July 2nd._--Watney's water-party to Medmenham Abbey, where we were all photographed.

_13th_--Lucy Duff Gordon died at Cairo. Alexander asked me to write an epitaph, which was put up there.

_From M. Guizot_

_Val Richer, July 14th_--When your letter of the 8th arrived I was on the point of writing to ask you to tell me what is the best History of England from the accession of Queen Anne to that of Queen Victoria. I have the 'Pictorial History of England,' Lord Stanhope's 'Eighteenth Century,' and Mr. Alison's big volumes on the recent revolutionary times. These do not satisfy me; I do not want political or moral appreciations. What I should like would be a book in which all the events of any importance are related in chronological order. I particularly hold to knowing the correct dates.

It is only on this condition that history can be materially known and morally understood. It will be very kind of you to give me the information I want. I amuse myself by relating to my grandchildren, at one time, the history of France, at another, the history of England. They take great interest in it. I want them to know both correctly, and understand them well.

The Journal continues:--

_July 16th_.--Met the Duke of Leinster at Robartes' at dinner. He had made a capital speech in the House of Lords a few days before, which I heard. It lasted only three minutes; but it stated these facts:--That he had given land and houses, with complete success, to priests, Presbyterians, and Episcopalians; that all were grateful, and they lived happily together.

He afterwards told me, at this dinner, that he had not given the houses and glebes to any ecclesiastical persons, but to certain lay members of each congregation, in trust for their respective ministers. This was exactly what I had suggested some little time before. The Duke said that, having called one day to inquire for a very old Catholic priest living in one of these houses, while he was sitting by his bedside, the Episcopalian clergyman came into the room for the same purpose.

_Sunday, 18th_.--Dinner at Lord Granville's. I had not dined with him for some years--since his marriage. The room was rather dark when I went in.

Lord Granville said something, as I understood, about a foreign countess to whom he presented me, but I did not catch her name, and concluded she was some Italian relative of the Marochettis. Lady Granville did not appear, being unwell; and Lady Ailesbury, the only other lady present, did the honours. The party consisted of the Duc de Richelieu (whom I had met the night before at the Clarendons'), the Duca di Ripalta, Lord Clanwilliam, Lord Tankerville, Baron Brunnow, Count Strogonoff, Chief Justice c.o.c.kburn, and myself.

Upon sitting down at table I found myself between the Duc de Richelieu and Lord Clanwilliam, and one removed from the foreign lady, who turned out to be H.I.H. the Grand d.u.c.h.ess Marie of Russia. Strogonoff is the man she married three years after her first husband's death--but she had to wait till Nicholas died too. When Nicholas first observed his daughter's preference for the young officer, he took him by the arm and pointed out from the window the view of Fort George. Strogonoff thought the Emperor's manner strange, but did not take the hint till his brother officers reminded him that Fort George is a State prison; so there was no more love-making till after the Tsar's death.

The Princess is at this time fifty, still extremely handsome, with a long string of enormous pearls round her neck. Nothing could be more lively and agreeable. She first carried on a contest with my neighbour, the Duc, about the Emperor Napoleon; said he was only _trop bon_, and lauded him to the skies. The Duc came out as the pure Legitimist, though he said his own party had not a shadow of a chance; that the Emperor had been going down ever since the fatal Italian campaign; that there were no Orleanists in France, and that the Duc d'Aumale was conspiring against the Comte de Paris, &c. &c.--a tissue of absurdity. Then, _sotto voce_ to me, 'Je voudrais bien jouir davantage de votre societe, mais vous voyez comme je suis place' (i.e. next the Princess). 'Tres conservative dans mes principes, je n'aime pas les princes. Il faut vivre avec ses egaux.' He said this twice. The second time I replied, 'Monsieur, cela est bon pour les ducs--mais nous autres?'

'Ah! sous ce rapport je ne fais aucune distinction. Hors des princes, tout est egal.'

A good deal of conversation about the Irish Church Bill which is just now in the crisis of the Lords' amendments. H.I.H. asked me my opinion. I replied that they were now disputing about nothing at all--i.e. the application of a surplus which will not exist for many years. Brunnow said he was of the same opinion.

Lord Clanwilliam and I had a great deal of talk. He had been with Lord Castlereagh at the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818. Spoke a good deal of Metternich, justly. When M. met Guizot in London after 1848, he was struck by the motto G. had adopted--_via recta brevissima_. Lord Clanwilliam said that the shortest way was also the best. 'Yes,' added Metternich, 'and it has also the advantage that on that path you don't meet anybody'--'auf diesen Weg wird niemand begegnet.'

Sitting upstairs after this dinner I had a curious conversation with Brunnow and Lord Granville on the causes of the Crimean War. They agreed that had either Aberdeen or Palmerston been in power alone, the war would have been prevented; but that the combination of the two rendered it inevitable.

Brunnow said that there was, at one moment, a period of about ten days during which the war might have been prevented, if Lord Granville had been sent off on a special mission to St. Petersburg, but the Cabinet refused; and then came Sinope. He declared that he had always told the Emperor that Aberdeen, though averse to war, had not the power to prevent it; and in proof of his own sincerity he caused a million of Russian money which was in the Bank of England to be removed, as early as September 1853, though this was against the opinion of Nesselrode.

After his return to England on the peace, Lord Aberdeen said to him, with great emotion, 'I never deceived you, my dear Brunnow.' To which B.

replied: 'No; my dear lord, you never did.' He said that at Paris in 1856 Walewski had at once told him that the Emperor Napoleon was resolved to have peace.

It was a most pleasant and curious evening, and everyone went away in good humour.

_25th_--Went to Aix with Helen Richardson. Over to Cologne and Kreuznach with the Watneys and Boothbys. Dined with Goldsmid at Bonn. Saw Professor Sybel there.

The following letter, on a subject in which Mrs. Oliphant took much interest, was addressed to Reeve rather in his editorial than his personal capacity. The two were very well acquainted, but do not seem to have corresponded in ordinary course.

Dunkerque, August 14th.

Dear Sir,--You will, I have no doubt, think it extremely womanish and unreasonable on my part to have proposed writing a paper on such a much-discussed subject as Mr. Mill's book, without indicating the manner in which I should treat it; but my object was, first, to know whether it was open, and if you would be disposed, other things harmonising, to entrust it to me. I will not say, as was my first impulse, that your own intention of taking up the subject is quite sufficient answer for me; for, of course, you are the best judge in that respect, and I am really anxious to have an opportunity of saying my say, with gravity and pains, on a matter so important.

I entirely agree with you in your opinion of Mr. Mill's theory of marriage and the relations between men and women. I think it is not only fallacious, but a strangely superficial way of regarding a question which is made only the more serious by the fact that a great deal of suffering and much injustice result, not from arbitrary and removable causes, but from nature herself, and those fundamental laws which no agitation can abrogate.

My own idea is that woman is neither lesser man, nor the rival of man, but a creature with her share of work so well defined and so untransferable, as to make it impossible for her, whatsoever might be her gifts and training, to compete with him on perfectly fair terms. There may or may not be general inferiority of intellect--I have no theory on the subject; but intellect, in my opinion, is not the matter in question. Could the burdens of maternity be transferred, or could a cla.s.s of female celibates be inst.i.tuted, legislation might be able to do everything for them. But beyond this, I do not see how we can go, except in the case of such measures as those you refer to for the protection of the property of married women, which has already been antic.i.p.ated by ordinary good sense and prudence, and thus been proved as practicable as it is evidently needful.

I am disposed to accept gratefully such safeguards of practical justice, and also every possibility of improved education, though I put no great faith in the results of the latter; the great difficulty in the case of every female student being, in my opinion, not the want of power, or perseverance, or energy, but the simple yet much more inexorable fact that she is a woman, and liable, the moment she marries, to interruptions and breaks in her life, which must infallibly weaken all her chances of success. This is the line I should take in any paper on the subject; and as few people could speak more fully from experience, I think perhaps my contribution to the discussion--from within, as it were, and not from without--might be worth having. Believe me, truly yours,

M. O. W. OLIPHANT.

And, on the lines here indicated, Mrs. Oliphant wrote the article on 'Mill and the Subjection of Women' in the October number of the 'Review.'