Lady Elizabeth Vassall Fox Holland

“ Ld. H. has a quality in common with him that is very serviceable in many ways—a great enduring patience in listening to the arguments of any fool, however great, and of always doing his best to answer them; of never allowing himself to feel, ‘Why exert myself for this fellow?’ Fox says he always likes to hear the opinion of a fool, as he gets by it two opinions, that of the person who gave him the opinion, and his own as he adopts it. ”

“ Of public affairs the changes have been so varied and rapid that it is difficult to recollect the exact position of things. Bonaparte was repulsed from before Acre, and obliged to return with a diminished and dispirited army into Egypt. The circumstance the most humiliating is that his great name should be coupled with that of the bullying bluster of that charlatan, Sr. Sidney Smith, who has obtained the command of some marines and gun-boats against him in Syria. How fickle is the glory of a hero! ”

“ I perceived this during the conversation I had with him, and the points that struck him were merely such as any person at all au courant of common events would make, rather commonplace, tho’ true. His politics are just and temperate; his principles precisely those of a reflecting man, not actuated by any party motives, viewing things not men. He deprecates the inadvertencies of Opposition, as they have rendered themselves so obnoxious that they are dreaded in the country, and have been the means of throwing an unfounded popularity upon King and Ministers. ”

“ Success for her is doubtful, and the misconstruction and chattering of the world against her is certain.’ These worldly maxims revolted my feelings, but convinced me he who could give them was made to thrive, and would not kick at that stumbling-block in the road to ambition which throws many off their course, called genuine honesty, as there is a material difference in the essential properties of that quality. The one he will make use of will help him on. Depraved as men are in a corrupt state of things, they yet like the names of virtues as much as they abhor the practice. ”

“ I shall only say in general that we are still full of confidence. A measure, which I have taken the liberty of strongly recommending to some of my friends among the deputies, will probably be moved in the Cortes this day or to-morrow. It is to pass a decree making it a fundamental law of the state that any King of Spain or Prince of the blood royal who shall marry a foreigner without the consent of the Cortes, shall by that act forfeit his title to the crown. ”

“ GENERAL FITZPATRICK
The General is less remarkable for brilliant repartees than Hare, but all he says shows a profound knowledge of the world, life, manners, and character; his observations are mostly just and expressed in the best and purest language, adorned with an undescribable good taste. His conversation and writings remind me of [59] Addison. Leave out the morality and piety, and the two characters are the same: mild, gentlemanlike, and each possessing chaste humour. The General is by far the better poet of the two. ”

“ Charles to St. Cloud. It was a palace belonging formerly to the Dukes of Orleans, but poor Marie Antoinette liked it, and is accused of having exerted her royal influence to compel the late Duke to sell it, which he did most reluctantly. She was so partial to its beauties that she was profuse in her expense to decorate it. In each taste the First Consul imitates her, as he is so impatient to take possession that the surveyors are obliged to make the men work all night; and he likes it so much that no expense is spared to render it a fit residence for the Sovereign of France. ”

“ I have the strongest hopes that the meeting of the Cortes will produce the most favourable effects. It cannot fail to rouse every dormant energy of the nation; here the enthusiasm is universal, and I am not afraid of its running into any of those horrible excesses which disgraced the French Revolution. The elections have fallen upon persons distinguished [299] for talents, probity, and patriotism; this I know to be the case with respect to those deputies which have been chosen here, and I have reason to believe that it is generally so. ”

“ At one of the dinners given by the Comte d’Artois to Pitt and the Cabinet Ministers, the Cte. expressed his astonishment and indignation to Pitt, that a man possessing such principles as Mr. Tierney does, and uttering all that his turbulent and discontented disposition gives rise to, was allowed to go about; that such a man in a well-regulated Governt. should be confined, and not allowed to be at large to preach politics. Pitt replied that Mr. Tierney was a member of Parliament, a very loyal subject, and respectable in his private character. ”

“ In future times when this little island shall have fallen into its natural insignificancy, by being no longer possessed of a fictitious power founded upon commerce, distant colonies, and other artificial sources of wealth, how puzzled will the curious antiquary be when seeking amidst the ruins of London vestiges of its past grandeur? Acres now covered by high, thin walls of brick, making streets tirés à cordon, divided into miserable, straitened, scanty houses, will, when decayed, crumble into a vast heap of brick-dust. ”

“ He extols Whitbread to the skies, and makes him believe no man can serve the country with equal talents and honesty, and that nothing but Ld. Grey’s envy at his superiority could have kept him out of the highest offices in the late Administration. He has composed a virulent libel against the late Governt., which he circulates about the country, and boasts of his forbearance, that out of consideration to Mr. Whitbread’s affection for Ld. Grey that he does not publish it. It is particularly offensive to Grey, and the subject most urged is the failure of the negotiation. ”

“ On Tuesday I went to Money Hill; Miss Fox, Drew, and Charles went with us. I returned on Friday. The two mornings I passed there we drove about in the sociable to see the country.
We drove through Cassiobury, Lord Essex’s; to The Grove, Ld. Clarendon’s, and so on to Russell Farm, the Ladies’ Capel. Pretty ground and fertile country. Ld. H. fished, and caught a few trout. Beauclerk did not articulate ten words; he seems happy, but it is the bliss of torpor. She resides reluctantly in the dignified solitude of a guinguette in the skirts of a petty town. ”

“ Ld. Castlereagh, though labouring under many heavy charges for his conduct towards the Irish Catholics, has still maintained a sort of integrity of reputation for private honour; he also has the advantage of being a person whom the Prince would prefer if any junction were to be made with new men, and his ambition is of a limited nature, as he would confine himself to his department and only promote persons either from goodwill towards them, or for the general advantage of the Administration to which he belonged. ”

“ His respectability, high name, and integrity of character carries great weight, and will add much to the slender forces of a disjointed, disbanded Opposition. The D. of Bedford pledges himself to nothing, but his inclination leads him to attend and would conquer, but for Ld. Lauderdale’s jokes, who is always telling him he delights in making a long prose to the House of Lords, for which he never indulges himself on any question but on those that would make Cicero or Fox prose, scarcity, poor laws, enclosures, etc., etc. ”

“ Don’t think of it!’ ‘Aye, but I will divide!’ cried Ld. H. ‘If I am single I will have a division’; when, to his great surprise and pleasure, the Duke of Somerset and Ld. Mansfield divided with him, besides King and Bessborough. Ld. Camelford did the same, but pique against Ld. Grenville explains his conduct.
From several conversations I had alone this summer with the D. of Somerset I collected that he was, tho’ not disposed towards Opposition, yet averse to Ministers. He is a sensible man, inclined to act upon his own judgment: his manner, from shyness, is against him. ”

“ Whatever mischief may have arisen from the freedom of discussion, I think many now living will outlive the practice, as there is an anti-conspiracy to that of which the philosophers are accused now making among the rich and powerful—one that, if pursued with the ardour I see many enter into it with, will inevitably be the ruin of all taste, literature, and civil liberty. The young men of fashion and birth are bit with a military mania; they all aim at attaining a martial air, and a reputation for strictness in their Militia discipline. ”

“ Fox, writing of Lord Henry in 1802, says, ‘I never did see a young man I liked half so much. Whatever disappointments Lansdown may have had in public life, and of a still more sensible kind in Lord Wycombe, he must be very unreasonable if he does not consider them all compensated in Lord Henry.’
[123] Mme. de Staël mentions Bonaparte’s visit to her father in her Considérations sur la Révolution française, but does not allude to having seen him herself. Bourrienne quotes Napoleon’s opinion of her: ‘I do not like women who make men of themselves, any more than I like effeminate men.... ”

“ After we had finished our dinner Ld. Morpeth came to dine. He arrived in town only the preceding evening.
The immense price of sugar has defeated the avarice of the proprietors of it; various experiments have been made, first, to extract sugar from saccharine vegetables, and then to grow it in different climates. In Prussia they obtain 8 lbs. weight of good sugar from 100 lbs. of beet root. In America a settlement called the Notches, above the river Ohio, has grown a large quantity from the sugar cane. The price is only kept up by some commercial artifice winked at by the Government. ”

“ News of the recapture of Buenos Ayres believed by the Government. It rests upon the declaration of a Portuguese Captain, who reached Lisbon in 43 days from Pernambuco; he says a Spanish schooner came in there dismasted, who was the bearer of dispatches to Old Spain, giving an account of the retaking of the town after a severe contest. It must be highly gratifying to Ld. Howick that he should have made his manly exposition of Sr. Home Popham’s improper conduct before this news, when the shabby people will be as ready to cry against the business, as they have been ready to praise it. ”

“ THE KING’S ILLNESS
The jokers say that the K. reigns upon the sense of taste and touch, having outlived the others. On Saturday he had a lucid interval; he asked what had been done, for ‘I know my situation!’ Poor, wretched man, these returns of reason are most melancholy. Ld. Moira was hurt and angry at not being sent for; he wrote up to C. H. to know the reason. He was answered that the P. had neither written nor sent to anybody. Such is Court favour! For who so favoured as he was? Ld. ”

“ In this state of the negotiation, d’Oubril, who a few days before had reminded Mr. Fox of the expression of ‘piano piano,’ which he had used in his letter to Czartorisky upon the Grand Confederacy forming last year, signed the peace, the outline of which I have just noted. His excuse for this conduct is said to be the danger to which Russia would be exposed, if they were to persuade Turkey and compel Austria to join in a coalition against her. Austria is so much reduced that she must comply with whatever France demands, and French influence domineers at Constantinople. ”

“ He is fond of maintaining paradoxes; at a dinner lately he began by attacking Sir Isaac Newton’s philosophy, Bonaparte’s military talents, and Virgil as a poet. He is often obscure, a mystical species of platonic philosophy, which he dresses up according to his own metaphysical taste, and calls the mind. A new theory he descants upon at length, and in his exposition of it absorbs the whole conversation. I have heard of him from various persons; Campbell, the poet, furnished me with the latter particulars. ”

“ Sicily is left exposed to the French without a stipulation in its favour. No provision of any sort is made for the ex-King of Naples, nor is there any allusion to him in the Treaty, except a declaration on the part of the French that they have no objection to the King of Sicily et sa femme (they will not call her Queen) finding an asylum wherever they can. By a secret article, Minorca, Majorca, and Iviza are to be transferred from Spain to the D. of Calabria, on condition that the ports of these islands shall be shut against the English. ”

“ This huge and monstrous act of ingratitude was known publicly last Saturday, and Pitt on Monday, in his place, announced his resignation, and Ld. Grenville last night in the House of Lords spoke to the same effect. Nothing is yet known certainly as to the new Ministry; many of the places cannot be filled, and the opinion is they cannot hold together a month. Ld. Carlisle refused; at least he was sounded. Ld. Macartney refused. Jekyll said an Administration, formed out of the dregs of the old one and leaving Pitt out, was like getting up The Beggar’s Opera without the character of Macheath. ”

“ Ld. Thanet quitted his captivity on Monday last; he is delighted at regaining his freedom, but a little annoyed at walking the streets where he is shown as a sight, ‘There he goes: aye, that is him.’ He says all rooms appear immense, his eye having been so long accustomed to the straitened little apartment he occupied. Madame Bonawitz latterly shared his confinement: she is reckoned clever, she writes English verses.
Our planet must have got out of its orbit and flown off further from the sun, as the cold is very remarkable. ”