Charles Greville

“ The Government is in a wretched state of weakness, utterly ignorant whether it can scramble through the session, unable to assume a dignified attitude, to investigate with calm deliberation the moral and political condition of the country, and to act upon its convictions with firmness and resolution, tottering and staggering between one great party and one fierce faction, and just able to keep on its legs because both are, for different reasons, willing to wound but afraid to strike. ”

“ The other day at Windsor, when Clarendon was sitting talking with Melbourne, the latter in his lounging way, as if thinking aloud, said, ‘In all my experience, I never remember such a state of things as the present; I never remember, in the course of my political life, anything at all like it; it can’t last—it’s impossible this Government can go on; Palmerston in communication with the Tories—Palmerston and Ashley—’ and then he stopped. Clarendon said, ‘What! you think Palmerston and the Tories will come together?’ To which Melbourne nodded assent. ”

“ The House of Commons uniformly supports the Government, the House of Lords frequently opposes it, but the difference between the two Houses seldom swells to a dispute; it is languidly carried on and carelessly regarded, the country at large not seeming to mind who are in or who are out. The great meteor of the year has been Brougham, who, by common consent, has given proofs of the undiminished force of his wonderful capacity, and who has spoken with as much, if not with greater eloquence than at any previous period of his life. ”

“ Guizot is evidently in great alarm, and well he may be, for there can be no doubt that his Government are in a position of the greatest embarrassment, far from inclined to war, the King especially abhorring the very thoughts of it, and at the same time so far committed that if the four allies act with any vigour and drive Mehemet Ali to desperation, France must either kindle the flames of war, or, after all her loud and threatening tone, succumb in a manner not only intolerably galling to the national pride, but which really would be very discreditable in itself. ”

“ But our Cabinet is a complete republic, and Melbourne, their ostensible head, has no overruling authority, and is too indolent and too averse to energetic measures to think of having any, or to desire it. Any man of resolution and obstinacy does what he will with Melbourne. Nothing was ever so peremptory and determined as John Russell about Poulett Thomson’s peerage, which the others did not at all like, but which he not only insisted upon, but actually threatened to resign unless it was done by a given day. ”

“ Such is the blindness, the obstinate reluctance to the admission of error, which besets even the wisest and the best men; for if the Duke of Wellington could have divested his mind of prejudice, and reflected calmly on the past, or looked over the political map of bygone events with the practical sagacity he usually displayed, he never could have failed to perceive the true causes of them. People often take to themselves unmerited blame, to screen themselves from that which they are conscious they deserve.
On Monday last I went to Windsor for a Council. ”

“ Never was popularity so great and so general, and his death will produce a social revolution, utterly extinguishing not only the most brilliant, but the only great house of reception and constant society in England. His marvellous social qualities, imperturbable temper, unflagging vivacity and spirit, his inexhaustible fund of anecdote, extensive information, sprightly wit, with universal toleration and urbanity, inspired all who approached him with the keenest taste for his company, and those who lived with him in intimacy with the warmest regard for his person. ”

“ In looking back at the past Session, unexampled in duration, the first thing that occurs to one is how uneventful it has been, and how precisely the political state of affairs has ended as it began. The characters of certain conspicuous men have manifested themselves in a very striking manner, but that is all; the Government are still in their places, not a jot stronger than they were, and the Opposition maintain their undiminished phalanx without being at all nearer coming into power. ”

“ The Tories, who see the accumulating difficulties of the Government, and who are aware of the immense importance of letting it dissolve of itself, or be broken up by the defection and opposition of its own supporters, are disposed to be patient and moderate; that is, the more sagacious of them are; but they are always in danger of being prematurely urged on by the violence and impetuosity of their tail. Such is the state of parties at the present moment, and it would puzzle the most sagacious observer and most experienced actor in political life to predict the result of the ensuing session. ”

“ While the American question looks well, the affairs of the East are all unsettled again. The Pasha has, with all humility, declined the conditions of the Sultan’s Hatti-sherif, and the whole thing remains still to be adjusted. Nobody, however, cares or thinks much about it at all, for the Eastern business is become as tedious as a twice-told tale. No more danger to the peace of Europe is apprehended from it; nobody cares a straw for Sultan or Pasha, and still less for the repose of the countries they misgovern or the happiness of the people they oppress. ”

“ Far different has been the Duke’s own career, for he has, throughout the Session, displayed a dignity, candour, and moderation, without any tameness or indifference or inactivity, which raise him to the highest rank as a statesman and a patriot, and show him equally mindful of his own honour and his country’s good. He alone has moderated the rancour of Lyndhurst, kept in check the violence of Brougham, and restrained the impetuosity and impatience of his party. ”

“ The greatest enigma is how Durham has ever come to be considered of such importance, and what is the cause of the sort of reputation he has acquired; for whatever may be his intrinsic value, he certainly fills a considerable space, attracts a great share of public attention, and is a personage of some consequence in the political world. He is a clever man, can both write and speak well, but he has not been in the habit of saying much, and he has never done anything whatever. ”

“ POLICY OF LOUIS PHILIPPE. The real truth I take to be that the King is the cause of the whole thing. With that wonderful sagacity which renders him the ablest man in France, and enables him sooner or later to carry all his points, and that tact and discernment with which he knows when to yield and when to stand, he allowed Thiers to have his fall swing; and to commit himself with the nation, the King himself all the time consenting to put the country in a formidable attitude, but making no secret of his desire for peace ”

“ It is always easy to get up anti-slavery petitions and to excite a benevolent indignation against slavery in any shape, and Brougham has laid hold of this easy mode of inflaming the public mind in his usual daring, unscrupulous, reckless style, pouring forth a flood of eloquent falsehoods and misrepresentations which he knows will be much more effective than any plain matter-of-fact statements that can be urged on the other side. ”

“ It is, in fact, the remarkable union of naïveté, kindness, nature, good nature, with propriety and dignity, which makes her so admirable and so endearing to those about her, as she certainly is. I have been repeatedly told that they are all warmly attached to her, but that all feel the impossibility of for a moment losing sight of the respect which they owe her. She never ceases to be a Queen, but is always the most charming, cheerful, obliging, unaffected Queen in the world. ”

“ I allude to the noble, the generous, the disinterested, the truly patriotic conduct of the noble Duke in his Parliamentary course. At the opening of the session the country was involved in difficulty, and under very considerable embarrassment; the spirit of faction had crossed the Atlantic; the demon of discord was abroad; one of the most favoured and interesting of our colonies was in revolt. The noble Duke saw this, and seemed at once to decide that it would require all the energies of the mother country to crush the Hydra at its birth. ”

“ Palmerston, the most enigmatical of Ministers, who is detested by the Corps Diplomatique, abhorred in his own office, unpopular in the House of Commons, liked by nobody, abused by everybody, still reigns in his little kingdom of the Foreign Office, and is impervious to any sense of shame from the obloquy that has been cast upon him, and apparently not troubling himself about the affairs of the Government generally, which he leaves to others to defend and uphold as they best may. ”

“ No Opposition was ever more rabid than this is, no people ever treated or spoke of the Sovereign with such marked disrespect. They seem not to care one straw for the Crown, its dignity, or its authority, because the head on which it is placed does not nod with benignity to them. An example of this took place the other day, when at a dinner at Shrewsbury the company refused to drink the health of the new Lord Lieutenant, the Duke of Sutherland (a man not personally obnoxious) , because the Duchess of Sutherland is at the head of the Queen’s female household. ”

“ I asked him in what manner Government would prosecute the inquiry they had promised into the conduct of the Birmingham magistrates? He said what they ought to do was to order the Attorney-General to prosecute them for a corrupt neglect of their duty, a thing they would as soon put their hands in the fire as do. Such is their position, so dependent upon bad men, that they are compelled to treat with the utmost tenderness all the enemies of the Constitution. There can be no doubt that the appointments to the magistracy have been fraught with danger, and made on a very monstrous principle. ”

“ The great mass of the Tories are always fretting and fuming at the Whigs retaining possession of office, and are impatient to assault them in front, and indignant that they do not of their own accord resign, but the wiser and the cooler know that however weak the Whigs may be as a Government, and however insufficient their power to execute all they would like to do, they are fortified in their places by certain barriers which their adversaries are still more powerless to break through ”

“ Just before I went, the Duke of Bedford called on me; he was just come from Woburn, where he had had a great party—Melbourne, like a boy escaped from school, in roaring spirits. They anticipate an easy session, and all Melbourne’s alarm and despondency are quickly succeeded by joy at having got out of a scrape, and confidence that all difficulties are surmounted and all opposition will be silenced. But it now comes out that of all who were opposed to Palmerston’s policy, not one—not even [358] Lord Holland—was in his heart so averse to, and so afraid of it, as Melbourne himself ”

“ George Villiers, who came from Windsor on Monday, told me he had been exceedingly struck with Lord Melbourne’s manner to the Queen, and hers to him: his, so parental and anxious, but always so respectful and deferential; hers, indicative of such entire confidence, such pleasure in his society. She is continually talking to him; let who will be there, he always sits next her at dinner, and evidently by arrangement, because he always takes in the lady-in-waiting, which necessarily places him next her, the etiquette being that the lady-in-waiting sits next but one to the Queen. ”

“ In such a manner does one bold, unscrupulous, and able man predominate over his colleagues, one of whom is John Russell, not less bold at times, and as able as himself; but of a quiet disposition, shrinking from contest, controversy, and above all, I take it, from the labyrinth of underhand dealing which he must thread and disentangle, if he insists upon a regular settlement of accounts with Palmerston. There is no other way of accounting for his acquiescence in the latter’s proceedings. ”

“ Nothing herein is more to be deplored than that any mistaken zeal should misrepresent the conduct, or any hasty impression misconstrue the motives, of the Duke of Wellington. His whole life has been a continual manifestation of loyalty and of superiority to petty purposes, and unworthy inducements; but his notions of loyalty are of a nature which mere courtiers are unable to comprehend, because he always considers the honour and the interests of the Crown, in preference to the personal inclination of the sovereign. ”

“ While we have a Cabinet in which there is not one man who inspires confidence, and in which, with the exception perhaps of John Russell (who is broken in health and spirits) , there is not one deserving to be called a statesman,—to this Cabinet is committed the awful task of solving the many difficult questions of domestic, colonial, and foreign policy which surround and press upon us; while the Duke of Wellington and Peel are compelled ‘to stand like ciphers in the great account.’ The great characteristic of the present time is indifference: nobody appears to care for anything ”

“ Ce n’est pas assez; pour que le succès vienne à la raison, il faut qu’on m’aide. Deux sentiments sont ici en présence, le désir de la paix et l’honneur national. Je l’ai souvent dit à Londres, je le répète de Paris. Le sentiment de la France—je dis de la France, et non pas des brouillons et des factions—est qu’elle a été traitée légèrement, qu’on a sacrifié légèrement, sans motif suffisant, pour un intérêt secondaire son alliance, son amitié, son concours. Là est le grand mal qu’a fait la Convention du 15 Juillet, là est le grand obstacle à la politique et à la paix. ”

“ If there was such a thing as a strong public opinion alive to national interests, intent upon national objects, and deeply sensible to the necessity of calling to the national councils all the wisdom and experience that the crisis demands, its voice would be heard, the two parties would cease to hold each other at bay, there would be either a great change or a fusion in some reasonable spirit of compromise, and we should see a Government with some energy, independence and power, and this is what we want. ”

“ It is impossible to overrate the privation, the blank, which it will make to the old friends and associates, political and personal, to whom Holland House has always been open like a home, and there cannot be a sadder sight than to see the curtain suddenly fall upon a scene so brilliant and apparently prosperous, and the light which for nearly half a century has adorned and cheered the world, thus suddenly and for ever extinguished. ”

“ The Conservatives besides have the inestimable advantage of an alliance with the ‘Times,’ the most vigorous and powerful agent which the press ever produced. The effect of its articles, stinging as they are, is irresistible on the public mind, and the Government have nothing to oppose to such a torrent. It is impossible however, while admiring the dexterity of Peel in the elaboration of his offensive measures, to overlook the selfish and unpatriotic spirit which the great body of the Tories have manifested throughout the proceedings. ”