1838]

REVIEW OF THE SESSION.

127

length, and though always on civil, would never be on intimate terms with him. 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. His abstinence from opposition exceedingly provoked his followers, for, with the exception of the question of the appointment of magistrates by the Chancellor, upon which he treated the latter with considerable asperity, and blamed his conduct severely, he displayed uniform leniency and forbearance; at the end of the session, indeed, he supported Brougham in his attack upon Durham, though not by any means joining in it with the same animus. Melbourne, very soon after the commencement of the session, openly, avowedly, and intentionally quarrelled with Brougham and set him at defiance. However unequal to him on the whole, he came off tolerably well in the little skirmishes which constantly took place between them, and he derived a strength and security from the Duke's forbearance or support, which enabled him to jog on without sustaining any material damage from Brougham's terrible assaults. None of his colleagues were of much use to him, and Glenelg got so cruelly mauled at first, that he had afterwards no mind to mingle more than he could help in the fray.

In the House of Commons the debates have been much less interesting and exciting than in the House of Lords. John Russell has continued steadily to advance in public estimation as a speaker and political leader, and Morpeth and Sir George Grey have taken higher places, while Rice and Thomson have lost ground, and Hobhouse has sunk into utter insignificance. Peel has, throughout the Session, acted a moderate, cautious part, and Stanley and Graham have said and done little or nothing, both parties, as if by

common consent, keeping each other at bay, and alike conscious that their relative strength is too equal to admit of any great triumph on either side. This balance of parties keeps the Ministers in place, but keeps them weak and nearly powerless either for good or for evil. It has not, however, had the effect of exalting the third party (the Radical), which has, on the contrary, sunk in numbers, reputation, and influence. The conduct of the ultra-Radicals in the House of Commons, on the outbreak of the Canadian insurrection, revealed their real disposition and disgusted the country, and, for the present, nothing can be lower than the Radical interest, or more feeble and innocuous than the revolutionary 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; for they have the cordial, undoubted support of the Queen, they are the Ministers of her choice, and they have a majority (a small but a clear and a certain majority) in the House of Commons. A great Tory principle therefore coalesces with a great Whig principle to maintain them in office; for the Tories,-who were indignant at what they considered an invasion of the King's prerogative in 1835, when the House of Commons would not let him choose his own Ministers, or, which is the same thing, so continually thwarted the Ministers of his choice as to compel them to resign, and left him no alternative but that of taking back those whom he had dismissedthe Tories could not with any consistency deny to the Queen the exercise of the same authority sanctioned by the support of the House of Commons, which they claimed for King William even against the declared opinion of the House. Nothing is left for them, therefore, but a sulky acquiescence in the present state of things; but they indemnify them

1838]

OPPOSITION IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS.

129

selves by placing the House of Lords in the new position of an assailant of the Queen's Government, and the Peers, without daring to assert any co-ordinate authority with the House of Commons as to the choice of Ministers, evince their disapprobation of that choice by frequently thwarting their most important measures. It is curious that none of them not even Lyndhurst himself, perhaps not the Duke of Wellington-seems to perceive that in the midst of their horror of innovation and dread of great constitutional changes, they have themselves made a great practical change in the constitutional functions of the House of Lords; that it is a departure from the character and proper province of that House to array itself in permanent and often bitter hostility to the Government, and to persist in continually rejecting measures recommended by the Crown and passed by the Commons. When the House of Lords opposed and thwarted the Ministers during the last two years of King William's reign, they may have justified themselves on their own Tory principle, and (assuming as a fact that the King was in the hands of a faction, from whose bondage he could not release himself), that they were only supporting the Crown when they opposed the Ministers whom the House of Commons had forced upon him, and therefore, both as Tories and as Conservatives, they were taking a consistent, constitutional, and prudent course; but even if this was true then, it is certainly not true now, and it is, I believe, the first time that there is no party in the House of Lords supporting the Crown, nor any individual acting upon that principle, but all are either Whigs or Tories arrayed against each other and battling for power.

VOL. I.

K

CHAPTER IV.

The Queen and Lord Melbourne-The Battersea Schools-A Council at Windsor-A Humble Hero-Lord Durham's Resignation-Duke of Wellington's Campaigns-The Grange-Lord Durham's Return-Death of Lord Sefton-Lord Durham's Arrival-His Reception in the CountryPosition of the Radicals-A Visit to Windsor Castle-Lord Brougham's 'Letter to the Queen '-Lord Durham repudiates the Radicals—A Lecture at Battersea-Dinner at Holland Honse-Curran and George Ponsonby-Prospect of the New Year-The Petition of the Serjeantsat-Law-Reconciliation with Lord Durham-Murder of Lord Norbury— The Corn Laws attacked-Lord Palmerston and the 'Portfolio-The Serjeants' Case-Brougham and Lyndhurst 'done up'-Opening of the Session Resignation of Lord Glenelg State of Parties-Lord Durham's Report-Lord Glenelg's Retirement-Lord Normanby, Colonial Minister -Corn Law Repeal-Sir Francis Bond Head-Gore House-Lady Blessington.

September 7th, 1838.-Nothing to record of any sort or kind: London a desert; I went to-day to Windsor for a Council, was invited by the Queen (through Melbourne) to stay and dine, but made an excuse on the score of business, and luckily had a plausible one to make.

September 12th.-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. It is not unnatural, and to him it is peculiarly interesting. I have no doubt he is passionately fond of her as he might be

1838]

THE QUEEN AND LORD MELBOURNE.

131

of his daughter if he had one, and the more because he is a man with a capacity for loving without having anything in the world to love. It is become his province to educate, instruct, and form the most interesting mind and character in the world. No occupation was ever more engrossing or involved greater responsibility. I have no doubt that Melbourne is both equal to and worthy of the task, and that it is fortunate she has fallen into his hands, and that he discharges this great duty wisely, honourably, and conscientiously. There are, however, or rather may be hereafter, inconveniences in the establishment of such an intimacy, and in a connexion of so close and affectionate a nature between the young Queen and her Minister; for whenever the Government, which hangs by a thread, shall be broken up, the parting will be painful, and their subsequent relations will not be without embarrassment to themselves, nor fail to be the cause of jealousy in others. It is a great proof of the discretion and purity of his conduct and behaviour, that he is admired, respected, and liked by all the Court.

Yesterday I went to Battersea and dined with Robert Eden, the Rector,' and he took me before dinner to see his lions, and introduced me to scenes very different from those which I am used to see. We went to different manufactories, a saw-mill, a pottery, to the lunatic asylum, to the workhouse, and we visited several poor people at their cottages, when he enquired into the circumstances of the sick or the indigent; but what struck me most forcibly was the school (upon Bell's system) and the extraordinary acquirements of the boys. Eden examined them, and invited me to do so, in arithmetic, geography, English history, and the Bible, and their readiness and correctness were really surprising. I doubt whether many of the children of the rich, who are educated at a vast expense at private or public schools, could pass such an examination as these young paupers who are instructed at the cost of about one guinea a year. The greatest punishment that can be inflicted on one of these boys is to banish him from school, such delight do they take 1 Afterwards Bishop of Bath and Wells.