Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. Part 28

[Of this time Mrs. Reeve wrote:--The sun is again ruling the day and the moon the night, to the very great glory of Loch Gair. On Sunday (August 18th) the whole Minard party, seventeen in number, came over to tea, much to the amus.e.m.e.nt of Mr. Dempster, to whom we talked of seclusion, and who did not expect a cabinet minister, a very 'swell' admiral, and sundry fine ladies. Mr. Dempster's was but a short visit, to our regret; and on Monday I took him in the dog-cart to meet the 'Iona' at Ardrishaig.]

_October 2nd_.--Left Loch Gair. Visit to Orde's at Kilmory; then to Invergarry (E. Ellice's) by the Caledonian Ca.n.a.l. Deer shooting. 11th, to Keir; 16th, to Ormiston; then to Abington--shooting there. To town on October 26th.

Miss Handley died in October. She left me the Winkfield portion of the Bracknell estate, which was afterwards confirmed by a decree of the Master of the Rolls.

_November 13th_.--Dined at Sandbach's with the Queen of Holland, Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar, Lady Eastlake, and Bishop Wilberforce. A few other dinners.

_Monday, 25th_.--I have been down to the Van de Weyers at New Lodge, Windsor Forest, from Sat.u.r.day till Monday, a thing I have frequently done of late. Van de Weyer is almost the last survivor of the brilliant London society of thirty or forty years ago, and to his great literary and social experience he unites an unequalled knowledge of the politics of Europe.

During the whole of his reign King Leopold was his own foreign minister; and he succeeded, by his connexion with the Queen of England, and with Louis-Philippe, and with Germany, in creating a most influential position in the world, which he did not impart to his Belgian ministers. But Van de Weyer was the exception. He was the constant channel of communication with the Court of England. The King wrote to him two or three times a week, and he to the King. Their correspondence must be a complete history of the times. Baron Stockmar was to an equal degree in his King's confidence; but Stockmar never had the political position of Van de Weyer, nor do I think he was so able a man. I had hinted, in my review of Stockmar's Life, [Footnote: _Edinburgh Review_, October 1872.] that his oracular powers had been somewhat exaggerated, and that he was rather more attached to the interests of the House of Coburg than to those of England; for which I do not blame him. However, Van de Weyer and some others of Stockmar's friends (including the Queen) dispute this, and probably think I have not done him justice.

For instance, Van de Weyer a.s.serts that when the marriage of the Queen of Spain was on the _tapis_, Leopold and Queen Victoria had it in their power to bring about the Coburg marriage, but that they deliberately refused to do so from respect to their engagements with France. And they acted in this with the full concurrence of Stockmar. The Queen of Spain had established, by private means, a correspondence with Queen Victoria. The letters pa.s.sed through the hands of Mr. Huth, the merchant, and from him to Van de Weyer, who delivered them. Isabella complained in these letters of her desperate and forlorn condition; said she was bullied and threatened by the French, and expressed her abhorrence of the marriage Bresson was urging upon her.

She declared that if Leopold and Queen Victoria would sanction the Coburg marriage, she would throw the French over, and marry Prince Leopold the next day.

The King and our Queen held a solemn conference and deliberation on the subject. Palmerston was informed of the transaction; but the ministers seem to have had no great voice in the matter, for the Queen considered the engagement she had entered into at Eu as a personal promise, and England had consistently declared that 'she had no candidate.' To put forward Leopold at the last hour would have been to forfeit this pledge, which, on the contrary, was most strictly and honourably maintained.

It was the knowledge of this, and the consciousness that a less conscientious policy might have rescued the Queen of Spain from a dreadful fate, that rendered the Queen of England and Stockmar so indignant when it turned out that the French Government had been far less scrupulous, and had not only forced on the marriage of the Queen to a man she detested, but had also married the other Infanta to Montpensier.

This communication of Queen Isabella to Queen Victoria is to this day wholly unrevealed.

With regard to Leopold's annuity (which I explained in the 'Edinburgh Review'), it was not only secured by act of Parliament, but by treaty; for there was a regular treaty of marriage concluded between Prince Leopold and the Crown of England on his marriage with the Princess Charlotte.

The intrigues going on with reference to Belgium, both in France and in Holland, during the Polignac Ministry have been alluded to in a former page. [Footnote: _Ante_, pp. 111-12.] But it is less generally known that at this same time, the Prince of Orange, afterwards William II., was intriguing to form a party to place him on the throne of France in the event of the overthrow of the Bourbons.

He spent thirty or forty millions of francs in bribing officers of the army and others, which was the cause of his subsequent embarra.s.sment and debts.

The French found the plot out, and demanded of the King of Holland that the Prince should be signally punished. He was accordingly deprived of his command and of his rank in the army, and even for a time arrested and put in confinement. He then found out that his French adherents had only been deluding him to get his money.

_December 4th_.--To Teddesley. Shooting there. Thence to Crewe, to meet Lady Egerton of Tatton.

_12th_.--Henry Greville died. To Farnborough. I determined to publish the Greville Journals.

To Bracknell to see the Winkfield land; and to Timsbury for Christmas.

1873.--At Bournemouth early in January, about the house. To London on January 11th.

_January 25th_.--Lord Lytton's funeral in Westminster Abbey.

_February 14th_.--Dined at Harvie Farquhar's. He was one of C. Greville's executors, and was curious about the Journals.

_To Mr. W. Longman_

_C.O., March 4th_.--Mr. Morris [Footnote: Edward E. Morris, editor of _Epochs of Modern History_.] writes under a complete delusion. I could not possibly write anything for him in less than two years; and I had rather not enter into any agreement. On reflection, I am satisfied that it would not answer my purpose to write a popular 'History of the French Revolution'

for 100 , and to surrender the copyright. An author never ought to surrender a copyright unless he is compelled to do so. If I wrote a History of the French Revolution which became a school book or an educational book, it might become a property of some little value.

But the truth is that the 'Review' suffers when I am too busy to write in it; and I have in my hands and before me literary work and materials of a far more remunerative character, which will suffice to fill the remainder of my life. It would be unwise in me to undertake a fresh task, which could not possibly pay me. Therefore, upon the whole, I think you had better put it in other hands. [Footnote: Eventually the work was written by Mrs. S. R.

Gardiner, though from a point of view very different, we may believe, from that which Reeve would have taken.] O'Connor Morris would do it very well.

I am sorry to alter my mind. My first impulse was to accept from a wish to oblige you, and from interest in the subject; but further consideration says 'NO!'

The Journal notes:--

_March 19th_.--Dined at Goschen's at the Admiralty. Mme. Novikoff there, an active Russian agent.

Mr. Gladstone's Government was beaten by a majority of three. Most of the casual elections this year went against the Government. Gladstone resigned on this occasion, but came in again, which he had better not have done.

_March 31st_.--Dined with Charles Austin--very old and infirm; his last effort. Lord Belper was there.

To Bracknell at Easter, in Miss Handley's house. Took the horses; went to meet of Queen's Hounds; stayed there till April 19th.

_To Mr. W. Longman_

Old Bracknell House, April 13th.

My dear William,--I am glad you have been to see my sc.r.a.p of land. I have taken a great fancy to the spot, and should be very well contented to end my days there, gazing on that magnificent view of the coast and the sea. At present I am spending this vacation in Berks.h.i.+re, and only suffering from the excessive cold.

I am reading with the greatest interest Baron Hubner's 'Promenade autour du Monde,' which was reviewed in the 'Times' two or three days ago. It is a work of extraordinary merit and importance. I shall review it in the next 'Edinburgh,' and I strongly recommend you to publish a translation of it, if you can. I have seldom read so wonderful a book.

Ever yours faithfully,

HENRY REEVE.

The Journal goes on to speak of perhaps the most remarkable 'centenarian'

of the nineteenth century:--

_May 23rd_.--Dined at Lord Stanhope's with the Antiquaries. Dean Stanley proposed Lady Smith's health. She was just 100.

Pleasance Reeve, Lady Smith, widow of Sir James Smith, the botanist and founder of the Linnaean Society, was born on May 11, 1773, and christened on the following day at Lowestoft, where her baptismal register still exists. On May 13, 1873, having just completed her hundredth year, she caused a dinner to be given to the hundred oldest persons in Lowestoft, whose joint ages averaged seventy-seven years, and public rejoicings were held in the town. On May 24th I went down with my daughter to see her, and spent the best part of three days with her. Married in 1795 to Dr. Smith, afterwards Sir James, she had been the intimate friend, in Norwich, of my grandfather and grandmother. On my father's marriage in 1807, he took a house in Surrey Street, next door to the Smiths, and their intercourse was perpetual. I have myself no earlier recollection than that of her kindness to me and attachment to my mother. We used to sit in their pew at the Octagon Chapel, Norwich; and the first evening party I can remember was at her house, when Mrs. Opie and William Taylor were present--the latter I think rather drunk!

We found Lady Smith at Lowestoft on this 24th of May, sitting in her chair, looking extremely well, though shrunk; her voice was firm and unchanged; no deafness; no dulness of sight; and when they served a little collation she had ordered for us, she got up, moved to the table, and did the honours.

She complained, however, that the excitement of the last two or three weeks had impaired her strength and taken away her appet.i.te, I told her that the evening before, when I was dining at Lord Stanhope's with the Antiquaries, her health had been proposed in a graceful speech by the Dean of Westminster. The venerable Society drank the most venerable lady. This affected her, and she exclaimed, 'You must not tell me such things as these. They drive me mad. I find it harder to support the many marks of kindness and distinction I have received than to bear the burden of a hundred years.'

I asked her what was the first thing she remembered. She said she was confident she remembered being taken to her aunt's at Saxmundham as an infant of nine months old, and still saw her eyes, the crocuses in the border, and the flutter of the fringe on her own robe. Of political events she thought the first in her memory was the taking of the Bastille, and she enlarged on the extraordinary enthusiasm excited by the French Revolution.

I said the American war came before the Revolution of 1789; and she replied 'Yes, no doubt I remember hearing the American war talked about;' and then quoted the lines (Dr. Aikins' she said):--

See the justice of Heaven! America cries; George loses his senses, North loses his eyes.

When first they provoked me, all Europe could find That the Monarch was mad and the Minister blind.

But the date of this epigram must be somewhat later. Lord North became blind in 1787 [and the King's insanity was not publicly known till November 1788].

She remembered Mr. Windham as one of the most graceful and fascinating of men. Lady Morley [Footnote: Frances, daughter of Thomas Talbot, of Wymondham, Norfolk, married Lord Boringdon, afterwards Earl of Morley, in 1809.] (the present Earl's grandmother) was staying with the Smiths when she came out, and was equally remarkable for her wit, her beauty, and her fine hair. Her mother, Mrs. Talbot, was very ugly. We then talked over all the old Norwich families, Gower, Taylors, Aldersons, Bathurst, &c. She said she thought my mother a much finer character than Mrs. Austin, and, she added, a fine understanding too.

Her interest in all the events of the day--the last spider discovered by Dr. Carpenter at the bottom of the ocean and the last improvement at Burlington House--is as keen as the recollection of the past. 'Punch' and the 'Ill.u.s.trated News' and the other newspapers bring it all before her.

_May 28th_.--Gladstone presided at the Literary Fund dinner. I took Meadows Taylor, who was staying with us.

_From Lady Smith_

_Lowestoft, May 31st_.--Many thanks, dear Mr. Reeve, for sending me the handsome present of turtle soup, which came on Thursday evening and made the best part of my dinner on Friday. My intellectual treat has been the speeches by the Premier and others at the Literary Fund dinner, and I much admire the eloquence of the several talented gentlemen. I write so badly I will spare you, and only send my affectionate regards to Mrs. Reeve and dear Hopie, and to yourself. I am very sincerely yours,