Chapter XIV: Book THE FOURTH (2)

I saw him at that period. Enough transpired, even in those moments of distress, to show that any attempt to relieve him from his embarrassments would have been fruitless, all concert with him for such a purpose impracticable, and any reliance on his assertions hazardous in the extreme. Mrs. Sheridan assured me that in his last illness he professed much contrition for his sins, and Dr. Howley, Bishop of London,[242] unquestionably attended and read prayers to him, while he folded his hands, being unable to speak. Mrs. Sheridan, indeed, related other circumstances in proof of the sincerity of his repentance and earnestness for forgiveness; but the Archbishop’s recollection by no means confirmed them, and her anxious wishes or general knowledge of Mr. Sheridan’s opinion might lead her somewhat hastily to believe them. It is true, however, that he always affected a sense of religion, and if some traits of superstition are proofs of such feeling, he was not exempt from them. The pious love to infer the truth of religion from the compunction of persons of irregular habits on their death-beds. Where the case occurs, religion has a right to such argument as it supplies. It would be unjust to withhold any credible testimony to the fact, when it occurs. I believe Mr. Sheridan died with strong religious apprehensions on his mind; but what does that prove? That a sense of religion may exist, where the moral virtues it inculcates are habitually neglected.

Of the brilliancy of wit and fascination of manner, which made one forget in his society so many and such grievous faults, I have spoken more than once in the preceding chapters and elsewhere. My pen has been reluctantly employed here in tracing the darker shades of his portrait, from an apprehension that the false glitter thrown over them might injure the truth of the more general picture of public men, which I have endeavoured faithfully to delineate.

But let me not close so painful a judgment on a man whose genius has often delighted me, without reminding my readers that no Englishman since the time of Edmund Waller has so indisputably attained excellence in the three branches of conversation, composition, and oratory, as the person whose defects I have been thus compelled to recall. His best speeches recalled in fame and effect those of Mr. Fox, Mr. Pitt, Lord North, or Mr. Canning. If they had not the characteristic excellencies of Mr. Burke, Mr. Windham, or Mr. Grattan, they far surpassed in effect, though not in genius, the happiest efforts of those three eccentric men. Many years after the Begum speech in the House of Commons, Mr. Fox pronounced it to be the best ever delivered within the walls of Parliament, and Mr. Pitt is reported to have been of the same opinion.[243] Indeed, he implied as much, by unexpectedly assenting to the motion with which it concluded. Other speakers of his age have shone in written composition; but what modern orator but Sheridan ever produced a masterpiece in any literature? Burke’s best work holds not the same relation to common political pamphlets or ordinary metaphysical disputations, as the _School for Scandal_ bears to the comedies on our stage. If the conversation of Fox, Windham, or Grattan abounded more with philosophy and knowledge, and if it was occasionally as varied and delightful as Mr. Sheridan’s, yet it was not so well adapted to the taste of all classes, nor so remarkable for playful satire and vivacity, for quick discernment and well-bred exposure of individual character. FitzPatrick, Hare, Lord John Townshend, and others more nearly his rivals in that respect, never aspired to the fame of leading orators or classical authors. It was reserved for Sheridan to be brilliant alike in the club, the theatre, and the senate. If we must acknowledge in some features of Pope’s inimitable portrait of Wharton a resemblance to the prominent blemishes of Sheridan, we may yet with confidence aver that the poet, in recording the genius and versatility of the “wonder of the age,” falls far short of the splendour and variety which dazzled and delighted the theatre, the Parliament, and the public in our own contemporary—Mr. Sheridan.

In this same year of 1816 died another friend, whom I had found in the ranks of Opposition, if not in the party of the Whigs, thirty years before—Charles, third Earl Stanhope. I have spoken of him at length in the first Book of these notes.[244] The House of Lords, in spite of his eccentricities, and I, perhaps in consequence of them, regretted his loss, and missed the originality with which he seldom failed to enliven our debates. It fell to my lot as his legatee and executor to compose the inscription on his monument in Chevening, and I have the satisfaction of thinking that I have there recorded the peculiarity for which he would most like to be distinguished, without wounding the feelings of his family who had some reason to be hurt both at his conduct and his will.[245] The present Lord told me very handsomely that he always read it with pleasure, for there was not a word in it that was not true.

The forwardness in person, character, and understanding of the Princess Charlotte of Wales, and the dread lest her mother might contrive for her or she devise for herself an alliance or something worse, induced the Court to look out for a marriage for her, soon after the proposal of the Prince of Orange had been rejected. The alleged motives of that rejection led to the reasonable preference of a Prince unfettered with any duties which would call him away from England. The Duke and Duchess of York and Lord Anglesey suggested, as I believe, the Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg; and some pardonable contrivances, powerfully aided by the very handsome person of the Prince himself, secured the full acquiescence of the young lady. Much of the curiosity which the story of his courtship might have excited is destroyed by the death of his Royal consort next year, an event which produced a sensation more flattering to the memory of the young Princess than to her surviving relations, and more illustrative of the strength of the passion of hope than of loyalty.

_J. Opie, R.A. Pinx._

_Emery Walker Ph. Sc._]

Among the marriages of the Royal Family which followed was one between the Duke of Kent and the widowed sister of Prince Leopold. That alliance may in its results revive the importance of Prince Leopold, to all appearance suddenly extinguished in this country in 1817. On his marriage in 1816, an enormous annuity of £50,000 per annum was granted him. He was also given, by an Act of Parliament, all the rights, except that of succession to the throne, which attach to a descendant of the Princess Sophia. He, with over-caution, declined a peerage: George IV. was afterwards little disposed to renew the offer. Personal beauty and circumspection were at that time Leopold’s most vaunted qualifications. The vulgar thought him, in his capacity of needy German Prince, and without much further proof, sordid and rapacious. The visible improvement of his Royal bride, in the course of the few months she was destined to live, gained him the credit of acquiring, by discretion and sagacity, great ascendancy over her mind. Whether his instructions or further experience would ever have enabled her to fulfil the somewhat extravagant expectations entertained by the people may be left to a chapter in that science termed _media scientia_, which the schoolmen describe as inscrutable to the Deity himself.

The great virtues of Princes and Princesses who die young have frequently been the object of pleasantry, and it cannot be denied that the sudden extinction of an existence full of hope, in the person of a young and pretty bride, was well calculated to mislead the best feelings of the country into such an illusion. Yet, in the judgment of sobriety, little had appeared in this young lady to justify the inordinate grief at her death. She was pretty and she was gay; nor had she betrayed any propensities to remind men of her mother. But, on the other hand, she had shown even in the nursery, and still more in the months preceding her marriage, that she inherited, together with the Prince Regent’s quickness of apprehension and feeling, some of his greatest defects, _viz._, a love of exaggeration, if not a disregard of truth, in professions and complaints, a passion for tale-bearers and favourites, and all those petty failings and practices which lead to what the French call _tracasseries_ and which rendered the private Court of her father, whether Heir-Apparent, Prince Regent, or King, the abode of uneasy heartburnings and jealousies and the scene of squabbles and scrapes, embarrassing, indeed, to the progress of State affairs, but almost below the notice of politicians, and quite unworthy of the province of history.

I have thus adverted prematurely to the untimely death of the Princess Charlotte, and to what little I knew from report of her character, when the course of my narrative had only brought me to her marriage. To prevent repetition, I will here mention that on my return to England in November, 1817, three days after her death, everybody I met between London and Dover, including post-boys and turnpike men, bore signs of mourning on their persons. Yet so little was this national affection extended to other parts of the family, that calumnies, representing the Regent and Queen Charlotte as rejoiced at the catastrophe, and even guilty of accelerating it, were very generally credited by the vulgar, and not repelled even in better educated circles with that scorn and contempt which justice and truth required.

The extraordinary sensation produced by her death was, indeed, a stronger indication of the unpopularity of the Prince Regent and his brothers than of the childish affection for Royalty, which the people of England so frequently display. The events which had intervened between her marriage and her death, and the tone assumed by the Prince Regent’s Government thereupon, had soured the lower classes of the community, and sensibly lessened the small stock of popularity which the Prince Regent had ever possessed. Although the Alien Bill had been most unnecessarily renewed in 1816, that Session of Parliament closed without any appearance of disaffection in the country or any symptom of ill-humour in Parliament. A bad harvest ensued; the people were distressed. Lord Sidmouth, who held the Seals of the Home Department, listened with inauspicious complacency to every tale which officious magistrates and designing spies brought of conspiracies and impending tumults. The faction of Levellers, Jacobins, or Radicals, which is never formidable, yet never wholly extinct in England or Scotland, resumed their practice of disseminating seditious and blasphemous handbills. They availed themselves of the elaborate blunders of Major Cartwright,[246] the able mischief of William Cobbett,[247] and the brawling eloquence (_loquentia potius quam eloquentia_) of Hunt,[248] to promote the cry for universal suffrage and annual Parliaments, among a class whose sufferings give to the prospect of change, whatever name it may assume, the pleasing colours of improvement.

The Prince Regent, apt enough to suspect danger, was yet more pleased at encountering it, whether real or imaginary, with arbitrary authority or coercion. Lord Sidmouth, either from sheer credulity or from subserviency, was busy in collecting foolish stories of plots,[249] and earnest in recommending measures of precaution and severity.

On January 28 Parliament met for the dispatch of business. I went down about four o’clock with an intention of reading the King’s Speech (a copy of which is usually lying on the table or the woolsacks, in the interval between its delivery and the resumption of the House) before business began. There were no Lords: there was some difficulty in procuring a copy of the Speech from the Chancellor. He was said to be at dinner, but he was closeted in his own room with Lord Sidmouth. The clerks seemed disconcerted, and everything, if not out of place and in dismay, at a stand and in suspense.

At length the mystery was cleared up. The Duke of Sussex, who arrived before five, told me the Prince Regent had not only been hissed but pelted in his way to and from the House, and he whispered to me significantly, “He himself _pretends_ he was shot at.” Accordingly, on the resumption of the House, before the Select Vestry Bill was moved or the Chancellor had read the Speech from the woolsack, up rose my Lord Sidmouth, and with more than his usual solemnity (sufficient though it be to that or almost any other occasion) stated that the Prince, on his return through the Park, had been grossly insulted and assailed.

The Duke of Montrose (Master of the Horse) then related, in a manner somewhat indistinct and confused, that a stroke had been _propelled_ against the carriage in which he was accompanying the Prince Regent _by a force stronger than a man’s arm_. Two holes, he added, were made in the glass, and he described their appearance. Lord James Murray, who was in Waiting, was then called to the bar. His evidence led to the inference that a shot had been aimed from one of the trees in the Park, and he conjectured that an air pistol, for he probably perceived that the concealment of an air gun was somewhat difficult, had been the instrument. Lord Grey cross-examined him, which Lord Grenville whispered to me was injudicious. He, Lord Grenville, soon afterwards spoke, as did Lords Eldon and Sidmouth, with becoming horror of such an outrage; but he did not affect, as the others did, great agitation and alarm at the event, which, in spite of his propriety and decorum, he must have deemed questionable. Lord Sidmouth, to vent his feelings of indignation and alarm with an equal attention to pathos and precedent, had the journals of 1795, when a similar event had occurred, spread out before him; and bade the clerk, when one question was disposed of, _look out what was to be done next_. He was disconcerted at finding that the absence of the Masters-in-Chancery would compel us to convey our horror to the Commons by an inferior servant of the House.

A conference took place. The Houses, as indeed it would appear the conspirators had been also, were strictly regulated by precedent of 1795: the expression of our indignation and the assurances of our loyalty were couched verbatim in the words of the resolution and address of that year, and though the House of Commons did not, as formerly, adjourn the debate on the address, we did. The Prince said, and perhaps thought, it was _a shot_; so said, and so thought, his father in 1795. But when Lord Onslow stooped in the carriage to look for the stone or bullet which had broken the window, George III. reminded him, saying: “Sit up, my Lord; they will say we are afraid.” In this rehearsal of a stale and insipid comedy the only little incident that marked dignity or presence of mind was omitted. On neither occasion was a shot fired. Lord Eldon assured me that he had in his possession the stone which had broken the window in 1795, and which was found at the bottom of the State carriage. He preserved it, with the dagger produced in the Commons by Mr. Burke,[250] as memorials of those strange times, surely not as marks of the sagacity or honesty of those he affects to admire!

The device this time did not greatly assist Ministers. It made little sensation either way. Government, however, in spite of a good but heavy speech from Lord Grey, with which he was more dissatisfied than his [——], and a spirited one from Lord Wellesley, met with ample support from the House and more countenance from Lord Grenville than was of good omen for the preservation of our party. Some approximation between Burdett and Grey was produced by the recurrence of coercive measures. Cobbett and Hunt took occasion, in letters to Lord Grey and interviews with me, to adhere to a declaration of Lord Cochrane,[251] that the endeavours of the people should be directed to the removal of the Ministry and the elevation of the Whigs to power. It has happened more than once in the course of my life that the party called Jacobins, Levellers, or Radical Reformers, after reviling the Whigs and strengthening the High-Church Party by lowering their opponents, have sought in the hour of danger to shelter themselves under the party they have so traduced. The Whigs, and let it [be] spoken with pride, have on such occasions, though smarting from the recent ingratitude of their suppliants, been ever ready from principle and generosity to stretch their protecting hands to persons calumniated or persecuted by power.

I saw Cobbett twice. His upright figure indicated the drill of a soldier, his ruddy complexion and homely accent the subsequent character of a farmer as well as his original condition. Neither countenance nor conversation (at least at this time) were at all of a piece with the sprightliness of his style, the shrewdness of his remarks, or the closeness of his reasoning in written compositions. His objects were, the co-operation of the Whigs in public meetings for a change of Ministry, and their protection and countenance if he wrote in their favour. In such objects I told him Whigs could not but concur, but I avoided all appearance of any closer connection. He was alarmed at the threatened suspension of the Habeas Corpus.[252] He very unaffectedly acknowledged his distrust of his own nerves, and a dread of behaving meanly and basely if arrested; he, therefore, hinted at an intention, which he afterwards executed, of retiring to America. He earnestly asseverated that he never had, and never would, belong to any political Opposition whatever.

No concert, much less union, with this extreme branch of Radicals ensued. Lord Grey, with the full consent of a large meeting of his Parliamentary friends (called February 24, 1817), engaged on an opposition to the suspension of the Habeas Corpus and to sundry coercive measures resorted to by Government, and in which Lord Grenville and his immediate friends, though disclaiming all rupture with the Whigs and professing undiminished regard, openly acquiesced. Burdett soon and rapidly resumed his old personal habits with many Whigs. Good will and communication between the Whigs and him, as leader of reformers, remained uninterrupted, till his deep but often shaded tinge of Toryism,[253] at last, separated him from all the parties and persons with whom he had ever acted in public. Parliamentary Reform, however, was not yet adopted as an indispensable article in the Whig creed; nor did the Burdettites pledge themselves to act as a party in bringing Whigs into power.

Lord Fitzwilliam,[254] from old affections for many and from recent disgust at the system of espionage so unnecessary and so revolting to a generous and honourable mind, sided without hesitation with us. From this period, he and his large connection became active and important members of the popular division of the Whig party. With little talent and less acquirements, he was, throughout life, one of the most considerable men in the country and a striking instance of that most agreeable truth—that courage and honesty in great situations more than supply the place of policy or talent. It was not his relationship to Lord Rockingham, though no doubt an advantage, nor his princely fortune, though a yet greater, which conferred the sort of importance he enjoyed for half a century in this country. He derived it more directly and more certainly from his goodness and generosity, and from the combination of gentleness and courage which distinguished his amiable and unpretending character. Such unblemished purity and such unobtrusive intrepidity, such generosity of feeling, firmness of purpose, and tenderness of heart, meeting in one of high station and princely fortune, commanded the affection and confidence of the public; and Lord Fitzwilliam enjoyed them, beyond even those of his own class who united much greater reach of understanding and more assiduity of business to superior personal accomplishments and advantages.

He had been named of the Committee,[255] but he fearlessly and publicly condemned the evidence which had there been admitted. The suspension of the Habeas Corpus was, nevertheless, carried in the face of Lord Wellesley’s and Lord Grey’s opposition. Cobbett fled to America, and returned, when the Suspension Act had expired, with the bones of Tom Paine and a stronger disposition than ever to indulge in scurrilous language and factious practices. The Radical party had manifestly decreased in numbers, and the unprovoked measures of 1817 seemed invented for the purpose of reviving its malignity and recruiting its force by persecution. They had in my judgment that effect.

The country this year sustained the loss of Francis Horner, a man whose sobriety of judgment and patient application of considerable powers to the best and wisest purposes of a public life would have placed him ere long at the head of the rational friends of liberty (including Whigs and reformers) in the House of Commons. His constitution was weak, and by neglect of it he had brought on symptoms of atrophy. He repaired, by the advice of physicians and at the earnest entreaty of friends, to a milder climate: but it was too late. He died at Pisa on [February 8], 1817.[256] Could anything connected with such a misfortune (which was to me, personally as well as politically, a very great one) be termed gratifying or satisfactory, the expression of regret at his loss in private, in Parliament, and in public, would deserve those epithets. Lord Morpeth, in moving the writ for St. Mawes, paid a feeling and judicious tribute to his solid virtues and rising merit; he was applauded and supported by many of the most respectable members of both sides of the House, including Mr. Manners Sutton and Sir Samuel Romilly, the last too soon, alas! destined to follow the pupil he so feelingly lamented.

That great lawyer and philosopher was himself improving rapidly in Parliamentary oratory, and yet more rapidly advancing in the estimation and confidence of the people. During the Sessions of 1817 and 1818 he mitigated many parts of the coercive bills. His arguments against capital punishment made slow but deep impression on the public, and, though still a lawyer in the greatest practice, he was at that period more nearly the leader of the Whig party in the House of Commons than any other member. Brougham, who, I fear, from motives of jealousy had much derided the tribute paid to the memory of Horner, yet avowed and felt some deference for Romilly.

It was, I think, in 1817 that I moved an inquiry into the treatment of Napoleon at St. Helena. Information derived from Count Montholon and from the Bonaparte family fully justified my statement; but the injudicious and exaggerated reports printed by a _valet-de-chambre_[257] enabled Lord Bathurst,[258] by refuting what I did _not say_ and quoting the publication instead of my speech, to assume the appearance of contradicting what I _did_ say. I did not divide, though Lord Darnley, never deficient in natural generosity, showed some disposition to urge it on the House.

In general, my political friends both in the Lords and the Commons,[259] with the exception of Lord Ebrington[260] and Mr. Abercromby[261] (for I do not reckon such a restless busybody as Sir Robert Wilson), were shy of meddling with a subject which they ignorantly deemed unpopular in the public and positively knew to be offensive at Court. I had and have the satisfaction of believing that my motion, ill-supported as it was, had an effect in alleviating the ill-treatment of a great man: but, having recorded all I know of him in another chapter of this work, I pass to other subjects in this.

I spent the summer and autumn of 1817 in Holland and at Paris. It was remarked to me by Mr. A. Baring,[262] and the remark was confirmed by M. Pozzo di Borgo,[263] that the intense application of the Duke of Wellington to the financial parts of the treaty, combined with his known sagacity in adapting his means to his ends, indicated that his views on returning to England would be directed to the Treasury. He did, in truth, devote his mind most earnestly to the financial Committee, and studied most intensely the questions of currency, resumption of cash payments, taxation, expenditure, and exchanges.

During the recess Lord Sidmouth attempted to justify his silly alarms of revolution by yet more silly prosecutions against writings termed seditious and blasphemous. Hone was indicted for an innocent parody.[264] It was hypocritically represented as intended to bring the Scriptures into ridicule, and the Prince Regent affected much sanctimonious resentment at those who abetted blasphemy and profaneness by charitably subscribing to alleviate the sufferings of a persecuted bookseller. Many of them, and the Duke of Bedford particularly, were distinguished in their stations for their attachment and reverence for religion; but it was pretended that disapprobation of so indecorous an act as the relief of a blasphemer was the motive for preferring Lord Grantham,[265] with neither residence nor property and only an expectancy in Bedfordshire, to the Duke, who had the largest property, and Woburn Abbey, in that county. The Duke was more nettled than became him at being so passed over. He wrote the Prince Regent a letter, which, like most from his pen, was well composed. It met with general applause. Yet to me it seemed, in judgment, defective and, in principle, almost indefensible. Not so thought the public. Truth is, the English people love high spirit combined with high rank. Whenever in assertions, even of unreasonable pretensions, a strong feeling of independence is expressed by a man of station and family, not only the multitude and his own party, but the whole community, are ready to applaud, and even his antagonists to respect and admire him.

The vacancy of [the] Lieutenancy in Bedfordshire in February, 1818, was occasioned by the death of my maternal uncle, John, second Earl of Upper Ossory, a man of taste and philosophy, to whom during childhood and youth I was beholden for tenderness and advice almost paternal, and who left me the estate and mansion of Ampthill[266]—a bequest munificent in itself, and to me beyond all value, from the recollection of those who had inhabited it and of the happy hours, days, months, and years I had spent in their society.

Lord Ossory had not that force of mind which public life demands or creates, nor the habits of intense application to any object of ambition or vanity. He had too much respect, not to say awe, of the opinion of the world to make any strong or lasting impression; but he was far from being a common man. In all branches of taste his perceptions were quick and just, and on every question, private and public, his judgment was sound and his expression of it distinct and sincere. No less a person than David Hume predicted of him, when a young man at Paris, that he would distinguish himself as much as Charles Fox. Perhaps the very qualities which captivated that great philosopher, _viz._, an unusual calmness of judgment, blended with some distrust of anything approaching to vehemence or enthusiasm, extinguished all ambition in Lord Ossory, and taught him to seek refuge in a tame and inglorious, but not unlettered or irrational, life in the country. He was, though not _ingenti perculsus amore_, a genuine worshipper of the Muses, and far from insensible to the charms of literature or unskilled in the pursuit of many branches of natural philosophy. Not many days before his death, he, to my great satisfaction, expressed, with a warmth unusual in him, his approbation of the tone of indignation and scorn in which I had spoken in the Lords of the hypocrisy of the prosecution against Hone. Such testimony, from a person little disposed to palliate the excesses of the press or to sympathise in the exaggerations of a party, was a proof that Government had assumed the attitude of hostility to the current of popular feeling. To that obvious error much subsequent discontent, as well as many difficulties we had to encounter for years afterwards, were mainly attributable.

During the Session of 1818, and especially on the Indemnity Bill,[267] I acquired by practice more fluency in public speaking than I had hitherto possessed, and got the ear of the House to a degree that placed me higher in the rank of speakers than I had hitherto aspired to be or perhaps could ever really deserve.

That Session commenced in January, 1818. The Ministers, questioned by me, announced an intention of repealing the Suspension Act[268] before the address was moved; and, on the motion of it, Lord Stanhope,[269] the very opposite of his father in political principle and greatly inferior in talent and knowledge, but, like him, suspicious and eccentric, delivered a speech, good in language but strange in conception, in which he lamented that the first sentence in Cæsar had not been made the leading article of the treaty of Peace (_Gallia omnis divisa est in partes tres_), and much of a like tendency and taste.

Lord Liverpool boggled at the epithet he should use in alluding to his oration, and after some hesitation designated it, as “certainly a remarkable speech.” As Stanhope had called France “a conquered, abject, and despicable country,” it made more sensation in Paris than London. It is said the French Ambassador remonstrated with Lord Liverpool for calling Lord Stanhope his “Noble friend.” It hurried Lady Stanhope from France, where she was then residing, and it required, according to rumour, the good office of friends, as well as some discreet compliances on the part of Lord Stanhope to which his nature had no particular repugnance, to protect him from all personal indignity from French bravos who would be patriots.

The earnest and repeated debates on the Indemnity Bill had some effect on the country, none whatever within the walls of Parliament. The divisions were bad, the Whig party dispirited and disunited. At the close of the Session some little spirit was raised on the renewal of that odious measure, the Alien Act. A method of evading its provisions, by purchasing stock in the Scotch Bank, under an Act of George I., was, at the instigation of Lord Lauderdale (the last expedient, I fear, his ingenuity ever exerted in favour of popular rights) resorted to by General Flahault.[270] A more factious attempt to defeat this manœuvre by an _ex post facto_ clause, moved by Lord Melville, was baffled by myself and others prolonging the debate on the third reading in [the] Lords till the House of Commons was up. There was no time for getting through the formalities of agreement on our amendments without deferring the Commission and the Prorogation, and in the choice of disasters the Government submitted to the dreadful one of having a French officer a naturalised subject of the kingdom in which his wife was a native and a peeress. On this Alien Bill Sir Samuel Romilly had taken a very prominent part, and on the ensuing dissolution he was chosen, against a virulent opposition both of Tories and Radicals, for Westminster: thus commencing to all appearance a career in politics as brilliant as that he had run in his profession. But all these expectations terminated in a scene of distress and horror, such as may, indeed, [have] been found in the theatre or in romance, but rarely in the tragedies of real life. His wife had died after much bodily suffering in the Isle of Wight, and he, being brought up with great difficulty to London in a state of deep melancholy, put an end to his existence two or three days after his arrival in Russell Square.

_J. Hoppner, R.A. Pinx_

_Emery Walker Ph. Sc._]

Mr. Dumont,[271] who accompanied him on his journey, and who endeavoured to relieve him by exciting his tears, told me that on being reminded in passing Holland House that his children were there, he betrayed some symptom of emotion, but rapidly relapsed into the deep depression of spirits which betokened his despair and should have admonished his friend of the consequences of it. It is singular, but true, that an epitaph recording the sudden death[272] (probably the suicide) of an uncle of the same name following that of his wife, was discovered on a tombstone in one of the churches of London.

Romilly was a man of strong sensibility and as strong opinions, indulgent even to tenderness to those he loved. He had neither vanity nor guile; but he was not perhaps entirely exempt from that gall which intense pursuit of an object engenders in a proud and ardent but pure and affectionate mind. His powers of reflection and reasoning were of the very highest order, and he was capable of unbounded devotion to a cause. There have been seasons and countries, in which the elements of which his head and heart were composed would have fermented into zeal and fanaticism. His early admiration of Rousseau, though afterwards checked by the practice of a subtle, discriminating, and distrustful profession on one hand, and counteracted by the more grovelling and selfish maxims of his friend Bentham on the other, had wellnigh moulded his genuine philanthropy into something of that shape and appearance, but did, in fact, leave nothing but the traces of gentle, refined, and over-nice sensibility and extensive philanthropy, more engaging and exemplary perhaps than practicable. Yet no advocate was more apt to persuade himself that his client’s cause was the best in the world, and none certainly was more eager and earnest in enforcing that opinion. In spite of his great legal aptitude of understanding, he formed a striking and honourable exception to the pliability of principle so often and so justly objected [to] in our legal politicians. Far from being too temporising or too accommodating, he was more fixed and invariable in his private and public principles, on both great and small occasions, than is either common or convenient or perhaps desirable in a practical public man.

He has left memoirs of himself; I was permitted to read them in 1835.[273] The portrait, drawn by his own pen, of a mind struggling with adversity and panting not so much for distinction or celebrity as for the reward of self-applause from an approving conscience, forms a valuable and curious piece of biography. Over-scrupulous tenderness for his memory induced his family for a time to withhold it from the public, a production which must raise his moral character and intellectual powers in the estimation of the good and thinking part of mankind. It was the project of Mr. Brougham and others to place him at the head of the party on the meeting of Parliament. It was defeated by the stroke of death. The inconvenience of a mixed and undisciplined band without any positive commander in the Commons was obvious; and our active friends in the House and the busybodies at Brookes’ concerted an offer of the lead to Mr. Tierney.[274] Of this step Lord Sefton[275] and Lord Althorp[276] were, I think, the chief promoters, the members of the House of Cavendish the most earnest, and those of the House of Russell very willing and active supporters.

After some hesitation (for it was hardly in his nature to take any step without some previous hesitation or some subsequent misgivings) he accepted it. His oratory, though of no elevated, commanding, or even brilliant kind, was perhaps the most popular and the most agreeable, and certainly by far the most original, then left in Parliament. His long experience of the House, his conciliatory temper, and above all his shrewdness, sagacity, and diligence seemed to fit him admirably for the station he thus assumed. It was, however, obvious that the general deference to his judgment and the confidence in his principles bore a very unequal proportion to the affection, good will, and delight, with which his conversation and speeches were regarded. Those who loved him best foresaw too clearly that in the essential qualifications of decision and judgment he might prove deficient, and those less aware than his intimate friends of his inflexible integrity not unnaturally attributed the low standard, at which he too frequently rated the public virtue of other politicians, to some crying defect in his own, although the real cause was the inordinate fear he felt of being outwitted and, above all, laughed at for presumption or simplicity.[277]

In truth, his irresolution was fed, if not engendered, by that very sense of humour which enabled him to discern so keenly and to expose so admirably whatever was ridiculous in other public men. His pleasantry and easy manners shed a charm over all intercourse with him, even on the driest matters of business and detail. He meant to be, and he was, courteous to all, and friendly and serviceable to his followers and partisans. He had, moreover, other qualities, or rather an exemption from other qualities, which seemed peculiarly adapted to win the affections of independent men. Though not destitute of spirit, and though his physical courage was redundant rather than deficient, he had perhaps less pride and certainly far less vanity than any man of equal talents and acquirements whom I ever had an opportunity of observing. I must own, however, that in his capacity of leader of a party he was sometimes too readily offended at insignificant deviations, and disproportionately alarmed at the indiscretion of individuals. He was, in truth, always striving to be more circumspect in conducting other men than is compatible with preserving any authority over them at all; and yet by a contradiction not uncommon in the caution which has its source in timidity, he was occasionally so enamoured of some crotchet or refinement of his own that he was hurried into courses hazardous and even rash.

Little incidents and shades of differences at meetings held during 1819 at Burlington House,[278] and attended by most of the Whigs, but not by Mr. Lambton[279] (who had some private quarrel with Lord G. Cavendish), disconcerted Mr. Tierney exceedingly. He was much keener in discerning the existence and foreboding the consequences of accidental dissensions, unavoidable in large bodies of men, than expert in concealing and healing them; and the character of some members of his party, especially Mr. Brougham, was sure to bring these disqualifications into action and notice. They were, however, hardly perceptible to the public during the first part of the Session of 1819.

Several brilliant debates, in which he and Sir James Mackintosh shone greatly, and which were followed by successful divisions, though on matters of small importance, seemed fully to justify the choice which had fallen upon him and promised his leadership no little _éclat_. But debates under his guidance were too much trials of strength, and too little a manifestation of the conflicting principles of the parties engaged. He always laboured more to obtain wavering votes than to enforce the views or particular course of action recommended by his party. So enamoured was he of such a line of policy that, in an evil hour, he determined to bring the relative strength of Government and Ministry to a direct issue, and on May 18, 1819, he moved a Committee on the state of the nation—a motion equivalent to one for the dismissal of Ministry, and in the then state of parties justly remarked by Lord Castlereagh to convey two distinct propositions: the first, that the Ministry in office had _not_, and the second, that the gentlemen in Opposition _had_ the confidence of the House. To neither of these propositions was the House, though far from satisfied with the state of public affairs, prepared to assent; and when convinced that the last was virtually involved in the first, did not hesitate to reject the motion by an overwhelming majority. Mr. Tierney was much disconcerted at this result, and it was not, I think, long ere he renounced the leadership which he had assumed.

The guidance of the party thus devolved to the guidance of three or four men of weight (such as Lords Althorp and Tavistock) and others stimulated by Brougham, or to that of chance itself. Parliament was prorogued in July, 1819. During the recess which followed frequent meetings were held in London and other populous towns. The avowed object was to petition against grievances and for Parliamentary Reform, and the representations of magistrates induced Lord Sidmouth, ever on the alert to flatter that consequential class of personages, to press for a sudden meeting of Parliament. His colleagues declined to adopt that inconvenient course. He redoubled his activity in communicating with the busy magistracy and in impressing on their minds the importance of vigilance against riot and sedition. Hence, some from party spirit, and more from that pompous bustle in which provincial authority delights to revel, fed him with idle tales of plots and insurrections, and courted that official applause which he seldom failed to administer.

Atkins, the Lord Mayor, a foolish and violent man, at the risk of provoking a real riot, arrested a brawling parson of the name of Harrison in the very act of talking nonsense to a multitude.[280] This silly zeal was magnified as a feat of prodigious vigour and decision. Many a justice of the quorum waxed emulous of the fame of a Lord Mayor, who, according to his own version of the matter, modestly reported that he had defeated a conspiracy “to burn the Metropolis and to murder the inhabitants.”

At Manchester the magistrates, instigated by one of the name of Fletcher, resolved to eclipse the triumph of Smithfield and arrest Mr. Hunt himself, the demagogue of the day, even before he had uttered a word. He substituted for constables a body of Yeoman Cavalry. They were suddenly let loose on a defenceless multitude of 4,000 men, women, and children to execute the warrant.[281] The crowd, unarmed, had collected in a square near St. Peter’s Church. They were hemmed in by the soldiery, and on the slightest appearance of tumult would have been at the mercy of a military, but irregular and somewhat exasperated, force. As it was, excesses were committed and blood was shed, though more might well have been apprehended. The carnage was probably exaggerated, and could perhaps hardly warrant the designation, given of it to this day by the people, of the “Massacre of Peterloo.” But it was an act of violence, odious, illegal, revolting, unprovoked, and unnecessary. This may be collected from a narrative in my possession, written by Mr. Stanley,[282] afterwards Bishop of Norwich, who surveyed the whole scene from the roof of the houses, and is much too conscientious a man to set down aught in malice, though less willing than many of his cloth to extenuate the excesses of authority. The intemperate eagerness, or, to use Lord Grosvenor’s phrase, the breathless haste of the Home Office in thanking the magistrates for shedding the blood of the people before it had ascertained whether it was in observance or in breach of the law and the nature of the force employed, riveted the recollection of this outrage in the minds of the Manchester public. It rankled for many years. The consequences were very sensibly felt at the time of the Reform Bill; and the name of the “Massacre of Peterloo,” together with those of the persons who were most forward in it, are not forgotten to this day.

The Parliament, however, as then constituted, had no sympathy with the sufferers; and when convened in November passed several angry and restrictive laws without repugnance and even without the formality of inquiry. The Whigs in the Lords resisted these unconstitutional laws in speeches and protests (several of which I wrote); but Lord Wellesley, who on recent occasions had taken a popular view of all such questions, somewhat abruptly reverted to his old anti-Jacobin courses, and Lord Grenville vindicated the exercise of authority against democratic and tumultuous agitation with an earnestness and gravity which too plainly indicated an entire separation from the party with whom he had acted for fifteen years. His speech was elaborate and able—one of his best: and among the last he ever delivered. He touched with feeling on the differences subsisting between him and the reforming Whigs, and rescued himself with great spirit and close logic from all imputation of inconsistency, acknowledging and lamenting that he foresaw that practices would be resorted to and defended by the eager friends of liberty, to which he could never reconcile himself as compatible either with the institutions of the country or the preservation of necessary authority. It was, in short, clear that there subsisted a fundamental difference of principle between the Fox and Grenville schools of politics, and the course of events had brought into action these conflicting opinions.

This was virtually the close of Lord Grenville’s public life, though he lived many years. It was painful that so honourable a career should end by a separation from many connected with and attached to him. The termination, however, like the course of it, was manly and direct. There was nothing sordid, nothing personal, nothing even inconsistent in it on either side. I, for one, feel that among the rare gratifications of a public life the reflection of having known and acted with such a man as Lord Grenville is not the least. Soon after a reluctant attendance on Queen Caroline’s Bill and a speech upon it that added little to his reputation as an orator, logician, or judge, his health declined; he lived chiefly in the country, and devoted himself almost exclusively to literature, philosophy, and gardening. I had the satisfaction of occasional correspondence with him on these topics, and also of giving his proxy for the repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts in 1828. He died in 1833.[283]

Non potui ejus mortem non dolere. Hominem enim, castum,
integrum, et gravem cognovi.

Mr. Fox gave me his true character in one word, in 1805, when he said, “I like Lord Grenville very much indeed. He is a _direct_ man.”

The object of the early meeting being accomplished by the enactment of the Restrictive Laws, the Parliament was adjourned over the month of January, 1820. On the 23rd of that month died Edward, Duke of Kent. He, as well as his brothers, had been married on the suggestion of Government in the year 1818, with the view of securing the succession. The pregnancy of his Duchess, who was a Princess of Saxe-Coburg and widow of Duke of Leiningen, was announced early in 1819, when he and she were in Germany. They were desirous, for obvious reasons, that their child should be born in England; but the Prince Regent had no inclination to facilitate that object by offering any pecuniary assistance. They had not enough for their journey, and a generous loan of several thousands from Lord Fitzwilliam (not repaid, I believe, till Victoria’s accession) extricated them from their dilemma. To that circumstance the present Queen and her subjects are indebted for the satisfaction of maintaining a native, as well as parliamentary and constitutional, sovereignty. The Regent, not content with the above gratification of malice rather than stinginess, perversely objected to the child, when born, receiving the name of Charlotte. The Emperor Alexander was to be godfather. But the Regent discovered some rule of etiquette which forbade the combination of his mother’s name with that of a foreign Crowned Prince. He wished the name to be Alexandrina, only from a spiteful hope that it might be unpopular; but such a design was successfully frustrated by that of Victoria being also adopted.

Living as we are, while I am writing this, under the Princess of that name, there may be some increased curiosity concerning the character her father bore among his contemporaries. I can furnish little to satisfy it, from such slight communication as I had personally with him, and I fear such report of his peculiarities as I can conscientiously repeat from others, will not augment any regret at an untimely death, which bequeathed to others the duty of forming the character of his far more illustrious daughter. His exercise of authority both in Canada and Gibraltar was liable to no exception on the score of negligence, but it was deemed so harsh and vexatious that it rendered his removal from both desirable.[284] His domestic life, though far from being dissolute or indecorous, was not exemplary nor abounding in any very amiable traits of disposition.

The state of the Royal Family at the period of Princess Charlotte’s death had been singular enough. We had a King and Queen greatly advanced in years, and with no less than seven sons and five daughters alive, and all beyond forty years of age; and yet from the want of grandchildren there was no small prospect of the succession devolving on some foreign Prince. While the means of supplying this defect by marrying the King’s sons was in contemplation, it was, no doubt, remarked in every company throughout the kingdom that the robust frame and abstemious diet of the Duke of Kent marked him out as the survivor of all his Royal relatives then living. Yet he died before them all, leaving an infant daughter, destined to succeed to the Crown, in the cradle. He was, indeed, if such terms can agree, regular to excess in all his habits. Household and family were more strictly disciplined than a regiment or a convent, and the duties, the occupations, and the amusements of every branch of his establishment recorded, docketed, and preserved, with a minuteness I hardly venture to recount. His life was clockwork, and some ludicrous instances which his brother, George IV., loved to relate were such as might have rescued Sterne in his delineation of Mr. Shandy from all charge of extreme improbability. This observance of form and details, and above [all] this restless love of business which it caused, produced other results less creditable to his memory and far more vexatious to those connected or acquainted with him. It involved him in correspondence with many low characters of doubtful repute, and he was suspected (I fear with too much reason) of having indirectly countenanced and disseminated the calumnies, and even fomented the plots, against the Duke of York in the memorable business of Mrs. Clarke.

He certainly kept up a mysterious intercourse with almost every discontented officer in the army, and he is much belied if he did not secretly remunerate clerks in public offices, and inmates and servants in private families, for what he deemed curious information. It is to be hoped that he never earned, but he certainly obtained from his brothers, the nickname of Joseph Surface: and the practices I have mentioned, combined with assiduous attendance at public dinners, a specious talent of speaking there, a plausible manner in society, and a formal and dignified demeanour everywhere, gave some colour to uncharitable imputations of very mischievous designs. Some certainly have thought it fortunate that he did not live long enough to dabble in the troubled waters, and prosecute the mysterious cabals which shortly after his death harassed and degraded the Royal family, and went nigh to disturb the peace of the country.

Of course, I do not allude to the horrid plot for murdering the Ministry, which was about this time conceived and nearly perpetrated by a ferocious enthusiast and resolute assassin of the name of Thistlewood.[285] That was detected and punished in the ensuing month, but had no countenance nor connection with any man of rank or indeed of public character whatever. But there were certain consequences resulting from the death of his father, in which the Duke of Kent, had he been alive, might have acted, if not a conspicuous, a very important part.

George III. expired on January 30,[286] the anniversary of the execution of Charles I., to whom he had been so often compared. It might have been expected that after a King had reached the age of eighty-one, and had been secluded for near ten years both from affairs and society, nothing but a mere change of titles and names would have marked his descent to the grave. But his son who was actually possessed, as well as successor, of his prerogatives was so childishly averse to admitting of some formal consequences of the demise of the Crown that he involved himself, his Ministry, Parliament, and country in perplexity; which diverted all attention from the real interests of the nation, threatened much internal disturbance and calamity, and ripened, if it did not sow, seeds of what fortunately became wholesome reforms, but might well have been confusion, vengeance, and disorder. The reports of all that led to, and all that occurred on, what is called the _Queen’s Trial_ are so voluminous and for the most part so correct, and the subject is altogether so revolting to good taste and so discreditable to the Government and the nation, that I may be spared the mortification and disgust of doing more than touching on such effects as it had on the state of political parties, and on a circumstance here or there relating [to] the individuals, which escaped the scrutinising curiosity awakened by that scandalous scene.

The Prince Regent had all along dreaded lest, on his Accession, the wife whom he detested would return to England, claim her dignity and station, and expose him to mortification and embarrassment. Long before his father’s death he would willingly have instituted proceedings for separation and divorce. He was constantly nibbling at that bait, but he found no man of influence in his councils or in Parliament bold enough to engage in so hazardous an undertaking.