began to approach the Tories, the object of his constant aversion and contempt; and we knew what civilities passed between the Bathursts and him, and what political coquetries between him and the Duke of Wellington, and how he believed that it was only George IV. who prevented his being invited by the Duke to join him. Then George IV. dies, King William succeeds; no invitation to Lord Grey, and he plunges into furious opposition to the Duke.'

Here again is a mass of misstatement, with the exception of what relates to the speech against Canning and its effects. Any one would suppose that the Whigs went over in a body to Canning; the fact being that Lord Althorpe, Lord Folkestone, Lord Howick, Sir John Hobhouse, and several others, stood aloof with Lord Grey, who was not required to abdicate. If he did abdicate, when and why did he resume the leadership?

:

After the lamentable break-up of Lord Goderich's Government, Lord Grey saw no prospect of any but the Duke's, and was, therefore, unwilling to oppose it, until the Duke crossed the Rubicon by his memorable declaration against Reform. This, not the death of George IV., was the turning-point. We have the best authority for stating, as matter of fact, that Lord Grey never contemplated joining the Duke at any time that no political coquetries passed between them, and that no advance towards a junction was ever made on either side; although it is just possible that feelers may have been put forth by the Duke's friends.* As matter of probability or speculation, if Lord Grey was not only ready to give up the proud position he occupied as leader of the Whig party, but eager to join the Duke of Wellington after refusing to support Canning, all we can say is, he must have been smitten with political blindness of the most unaccountable kind. grand opportunity for which he had patiently waited was obviously at hand; the Tories were getting weaker and weaker; the Reform cry was in the wind; and this is the time when, towards the close of a consistent and honourable career, he was willing (we are assured) to fling principle and consistency to the winds, to coalesce with the objects of his constant aversion and contempt.'

The

There is not, we repeat, the semblance of plausibility in these charges against Lord Grey, nor are they strengthened by what

comes next:

About three years ago the Chancellor, Lyndhurst, was the man in the world he abhorred the most; and it was about this time that I

* Mr. Frankland Lewis (we have heard) sounded Lord Grey and reported that some measure of Reform was a sine quâ non. The Duke had taken his ground on Reform when he broke with Huskisson.

well

well recollect one night at Madame de Lieven's I introduced Lord Grey to Lady Lyndhurst. We had dined together somewhere, and he had been praising her beauty; so when we all met there I presented him, and very soon all his antipathies ceased, and he and Lyndhurst became great friends. This was the cause of Lady Lyndhurst's partiality for the Whigs, which enraged the Tory ladies and some of their lords so much, but which served her turn and enabled her to keep two hot irons in the fire. When the Duke went out Lord Grey was very anxious to keep Lyndhurst as his Chancellor, and would have done so if it had not been for Brougham, who, whirling Reform in terrorem over his head, announced to him that it must not be.'

If Lord Lyndhurst had consented to be Lord Grey's Chancellor he must have adopted Lord Grey's views and become a Reformer, which, by the way, he might have become without more sacrifice of principle than three or four members of Lord Grey's Cabinet who had been as vehement anti-Reformers as himself. It seems agreed on all hands that no offer was actually made to him, and the notion that he would have accepted it, has no better foundation than the language and conduct of his wife. Except when he acted with the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel, there is no act of Lord Lyndhurst's public or political life that can be fairly adduced in impeachment of his consistency.

On April 9th, 1835, the day after Peel's ministry had resigned, Greville sets down :

'Lord Grey is to be with the King this morning. He was riding quietly in the park yesterday afternoon, and neither knew nor cared (apparently) whether he had been sent for or not. His daughter told me (for I rode with them up Constitution Hill) that his family would not wish him to return to office, but would not interfere. She then talked, much to my surprise, of the possibility of a junction between him and Peel.'

The daughter has no recollection of the incident. Lord Grey advised the King to send for Lord Melbourne: all thought of his own return to office had been given up, and nothing of the sort could have been said.

Whatever Greville's judgment may have become eventually, no reliance could be placed upon it during most of the time

'Sept. 24th, 1831.-Dined at Richmond on Friday, with the Lyndhursts. The mari talks against the Bill; the woman for it. They are like the old divisions of families in the Civil Wars.' This was Lord Lyndhurst's first wife, who died in January, 1834. His second wife, whom he married in August, 1837, a woman of sense and spirit, always looked up to him with reverential affection, and, from her devotion to his memory, no one has been more severely wounded by this book. She, like her lamented husband, was one of Greville's most intimate friends, and conversed with him on the subject of his Journal a few hours before his death.

included

included in this publication. He had no insight into character. He saw little or nothing in many of his most distinguished contemporaries until their eminent qualities were recognised by the world. Turn, for example, to his first impressions of Prince Leopold (the King of the Belgians), Lord Auckland, Lord Palmerston, Sir James Graham, the late Earl of Derby, Lord Melbourne, the Duke of Wellington, &c. Although he saw fit to change or modify these impressions before he died, and has left notes or memoranda to that effect, they are not the less a test of his original powers of observation; nor can we accept them as what the editor calls a contemporary record of opinion, honestly preserved.' They are the opinions of a cross-grained individual who differed widely from his contemporaries, and (except perhaps when the progress of a master-mind, a really superior intellect, is to be traced) we see no use in preserving the opinions of an individual when he was confessedly wrong.*

On the formation of Lord Grey's Government, November 20, 1830, he sets down :

'Graham Admiralty, Melbourne Home, Auckland Board of Tradeall bad. The second is too idle, the first is too inconsiderable, the third too ignorant.'

The editor remarks in a note:

'This is a remarkable instance of the manner in which the prognostications of the most acute observers are falsified by events. The value of Mr. Greville's remarks on the men of his time consists not in their absolute truth, but in their sincerity at the moment at which they were made. They convey a correct impression of the notion prevailing at that time.'

They do not convey a correct impression of the notion prevailing at that time. We can show from the Journal that they do not. Three weeks afterwards (December 12), reviewing career, he says:

Graham's

'Time and the hour made him master of a large but encumbered estate and member for his county. Armed with the importance of representing a great constituency, he started again in the House of Commons; took up Joseph Hume's line, but ornamented it with graces and flourishes which had not usually decorated such dry topics. He succeeded, and in that line is now the best speaker in the House." Why is the term 'inconsiderable' applied to such a man? This is explained in the same entry :

*Speaking of Guizot in 1830, he described him as unused to and unfit for official business.' This Mr. Reeve terms' a curious estimate, taken at the time of the man who for the next eighteen years had a larger share of official life and business than any other Frenchman.'

'Graham's

'Graham's elevation is the most monstrous of all. He was once my friend, a college intimacy revived in the world, and which lasted six months, when, thinking he could do better, he cut me, as he had done others before. I am not a fair judge of him, because the pique which his conduct to me naturally gave me would induce me to under-rate him, but I take vanity and self-sufficiency to be prominent features of his character, though of the extent of his capacity I will give no opinion. Let time show; I think he will fail.'

If confessedly not a fair judge, why not withhold a judgment? The odd thing about Greville is, that self-examination never acts on him as it does on most others. It exercises no restraining, improving influence on his conduct or his mind. He is like one of the frail dévotes, of whom we read in Catholic countries, who confess, receive absolution, and start fresh.

Reverting to Lord Melbourne, he says: 'He has surprised all those about him by a sudden display of activity, vigour, rapid and diligent transaction of business, for which nobody was prepared.' No one who understood Lord Melbourne was surprised,. and all who saw below the surface would have agreed with Sydney Smith when, after avowing a belief that 'our Viscount is somewhat of an impostor,' he remarks: 'I am sorry to hurt any man's feelings, and to brush away the magnificent fabric of levity and gaiety he has reared; but I accuse our Minister of honesty and diligence.'

Assuming that Greville's estimates, confessedly superficial and unsound, convey the popular impression of the time, this would prove him an accurate foolometer at best. A collection of vulgar errors may have its uses, but the praise of a 'most accurate observer' can hardly be claimed for the collector who believes in each of them till it is corrected by events.*

With the exception of Lord Grey, the statesman whom Greville most perseveringly vituperates is Peel :

'December 15th, 1836.-It is very true (what they say Peel said of him, the Duke of W.) that no man ever had any influence with him, only women, and those always the silliest. But who are Peel's confidants, friends, and parasites? Bonham, a stock-jobbing ex-merchant, Charles. Ross, and the refuse of society of the House of Commons.'

Peel was constantly on the look-out for rising men of talent,

If Greville's estimate of the Reform Ministry had been correct, they must have speedily broken down from sheer incapacity. He says of the Duke of Richmond, that his understanding lies in a nutshell, and his information in a pin's head;' of Stanley, the late Earl of Derby, the political Rupert, that he does not appear to be a man of much moral or political firmness and courage, a timid politician, ignavus adversum lupos;' of Lord Althorpe, that, he would certainly go out in a few months, and that he would go on the turf.'

who

who became his attached followers and friends. The late Duke of Newcastle, the late Lord Herbert of Lea, Mr. Gladstone, and Lord Cardwell, are prominent examples.

In reference to the Ministerial interregnum after the resignation of the Reform Cabinet, Greville writes:

May 17th, 1832.-The first impression was that the Duke of Wellington would succeed in forming a Government, with or without Peel. The first thing he did was to try and prevail upon Peel to be Prime Minister, but he was inexorable. He then turned to Baring, who, after much hesitation, agreed to be Chancellor of the Exchequer. The work went on, but with difficulty, for neither Peel, Goulburn, nor Croker would take office. They then tried the Speaker (MannersSutton), who was mightily tempted to become Secretary of State, but still doubting and fearing, and requiring time to make up his mind. At an interview with the Duke and Lyndhurst at Apsley House he declared his sentiments on the existing state of affairs in a speech of three hours, to the unutterable disgust of Lyndhurst, who returned home, flung himself into a chair, and said that "he could not endure to have anything to do with such a damned tiresome old bitch."

If Lord Lyndhurst did use such an expression, he had high authority for it. What's the matter with the auld bitch next?' said an acute metaphysical judge, though somewhat coarse in his manners, aside to his brethren. 'This is a daft cause, Bladderscate What say ye till't, ye bitch?'* Sir Walter adds, in a note, that 'tradition ascribes this whimsical style of language to the ingenious and philosophical Lord Kaimes.'

The subject of the Tory failure to form a Government is resumed in an entry of October 26th, i. e. after an interval of six months, during which Greville had recently picked up' a good deal from Arbuthnot (described as 'very garrulous'), which he sets down as undoubted fact. Then comes the broad general conclusion, which is to annihilate Sir Robert :

'I am not sure that I have stated these occurrences exactly as they were told me. There may be errors in the order of the interviews and pourparlers, and in the verbal details, but the substance is correct, and may be summed up to this effect: that Peel, full of ambition, but of caution, animated by deep dislike and jealousy of the Duke (which policy induced him to conceal, but which temper betrayed), thought to make Manners Sutton play the part of Addington, while he was to be another Pitt; he fancied that he could gain in political character, by an opposite line of conduct, all that the Duke would lose; and he resolved that a Government should be formed the existence of which should depend upon himself. Manners Sutton was to be his creature; he would have dictated every measure of

*Red Gauntlet,' chap. i.

Government;