was in high favour at the Court of Berlin during the entire period of his embassy; and we learn from other sources that he was particularly acceptable to the King.

August 27th, 1830.-At Court the day before yesterday. General Baudrand came and delivered his letter, also a private letter "from the Duke of Orleans to the Duke of Clarence," as the French King called them, anciens amis.'

Both the letters (which are extant in the French King's handwriting) are addressed as from King to King.

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October 25th, 1830.—I told him (Arbuthnot) to give a notion how meanly Aberdeen was thought of, that Alvanley had told Talleyrand not to notice him, but to go at once to the Duke (of Wellington) when he had any important business to transact, and that he (Arbuthnot) might tell the Duke this, if he pleased, but no one else.'

This is a specimen of Greville's half-knowledge. Lord Alvanley had the folly to tell Talleyrand not to notice Lord Aberdeen; but Talleyrand at once repeated what Lord Alvanley had said to the Duke and Lord Aberdeen, accompanying the communication with some caustic remarks on the bad feeling of Lord Alvanley in trying to lower his Sovereign's Minister for Foreign Affairs in the eyes of a foreign Ambassador, and his curious forgetfulness that Talleyrand was intimately acquainted with Lord Aberdeen. If Lord Aberdeen was thought so meanly of, how did he manage to maintain his ground so long in the Foreign Office? How did he become Prime Minister in 1852?

We now come to a class of story which ought never to appear in print at all: a class in which inaccuracy, combined with publicity, is an offence against truth, justice, good feeling, and propriety. After mentioning a forgery case in which Brougham had got a man off who, in Greville's opinion, would have been hanged had Lord Lyndhurst been Chancellor, he sets down, December 12th, 1830:

'This was a curious case, as I have since heard. The man owes his life to the curiosity of a woman of fashion, and then to another feeling. Lady Burghersh and Lady Glengall wanted to hear St. John Long's trial (the quack who had man-slaughtered Miss Cashir), and they went to the Old Bailey for that purpose. Castlereagh and somebody else, who, of course, were not up in time, were to have attended them. They wanted an escort, and the only man in London sure to be out of bed so early was the Master of the Rolls, so they went and carried him off. When they got to the court there was no St. John Long, but they thought they might as well stay and hear whatever was going on. It chanced that a man was tried for an atrocious case of forgery and breach of trust. He was found guilty, and sentence passed; but he was twenty-three and good-looking. Lady Burghersh could not bear

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he should be hanged, and she went to all the late Ministers and the Judges to beg him off. Leach told her it was no use, that nothing could save that man; and accordingly the old Government were obdurate, when out they went. Off she went again and attacked all the new ones, who in better humour, or of softer natures, suffered themselves to be persuaded, and the wretch was saved. She went herself to Newgate to see him, but I never heard if she had a private interview, and if he was afforded an opportunity of expressing his gratitude with all the fervour that the service she had done him demanded.

Lady Burghersh is the Dowager Countess of Westmoreland, by birth a Wellesley and niece of the Great Duke, a lady whose intellectual distinction and personal qualities should inspire respect independently of her connections and her age. Yet this is the person who is deemed the fitting object of a coarse insinuation and a ribald sneer. Her own account of the incident (in a letter to a relative) is so complete a model of clear, terse narrative, that we shall give it without the alteration of a word:

'The account in the Greville Memoirs has a foundation in truth, but much distorted. Lady Glengall and I did go to the Old Bailey, intending to hear the trial of the Quack Doctor. Neither Lord Castlereagh nor any one else accompanied us, as far as I remember. Certainly not the Master of the Rolls. found the trial of the Quack Doctor was put off, and being there, and never having heard a trial, I wished to stay and hear something of what was going on. It was a case of forgery, and the accused, far from being "twenty-three and good-looking," appeared to me a miserable, stupid-looking lad, who seemed half-witted. The penalty at that time was death. I was told that the lad's mother was in court and had fainted.

'I was very intimate at that time with Lord Lyndhurst, and, when I left the court, I drove to his house, and asked if anything could be done to save the life of the wretched boy. He told me he would undertake it if he found it to be possible. I asked him if I might give the hope to the poor mother, and he said "Yes," and I did so.'

Lord Lyndhurst was no longer Chancellor; and, at his suggestion, the case was brought to the notice of Lord Melbourne, then Home Secretary, who reduced the sentence of death to transportation for life. A point that weighed strongly with him was that no one had lost or been injured by the forgery. The slightest inquiry would have made clear that this was not the case mentioned by Lord Brougham.

It would be difficult to surpass the last example of misrepreVol. 138.-No. 275. sentation;

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sentation; but there are entries which run it hard for ill-nature and discourtesy:

August 11th, 1831.-I went to the play last night at a very shabby little house called the City Theatre-a long way beyond the Post Office to see Ellen Tree act in a translation of "Une Faute," one of the best pieces of acting I ever saw. This girl will turn out very good if she remains on the stage. She has never been brought forward at Covent Garden, and I heard last night the reason why. Charles Kemble took a great fancy for her (she is excessively pretty), and made her splendid offers of putting her into the best parts, and advancing her in all ways, if she would be propitious to his flame, but which she indignantly refused; so he revenged himself (to his own detriment) by keeping her back, and promoting inferior actresses instead. If ever she acquires fame, which is very probable, for she has as much nature, and feeling, and passion, as ever I saw, this will be a curious anecdote. [She married Charles Kean, lost her good looks, and became a tiresome, second-rate actress.]'

Mrs. Charles Kean lives surrounded by friends, who will be surprised to learn that she ever ceased to be a favourite with the public, or lost more of her good looks than (eheu fugaces!) will vanish with youth. Old play-goers will be equally surprised to hear that she was never brought forward at Covent Garden, where she was one of the greatest attractions of the theatre during the seasons of 1829-31,* under Charles Kemble's management. The base of the story falling, the superstructure falls with it, but we give her refutation in her own distinct emphatic language in a letter dated Dec. 16th:

It is only very recently that I was told of the passage relating to Mr. Kemble and myself, and I feel as indignant as either of his daughters can be. There is not the shadow of a foundation for Mr. Greville's calumnious insinuation. The grossness was in Mr. Greville's mind, not in Mr. Kemble's conduct, who ever treated me with the utmost kindness and the utmost respect.'

The Covent Garden season had closed when Greville saw her at the City Theatre, then under the management of her brotherin-law, Mr. Chapman. The oldest frequenters of the Green Room of the Garrick have no recollection of this scandal in the most evanescent shape, but the faintest surmise would be enough for Greville to build upon. If he had been present at the con

In 1829, she transferred her services to Covent Garden, and made her first appearance as Lady Towneley in "The Provoked Husband." For her benefit she played "Romeo" to Miss Fanny Kemble's "Juliet," and her success was so great that the manager (Kemble) entrusted to her the heroine in Miss Kemble's play of "Francis the First."-Men of the Time: containing Biographical Notes of Eminent Characters of both Sexes, 1872.

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versations in the School for Scandal,' he would have noted down as facts that Miss Letitia Piper had been brought to bed of twins, and that Miss Nicely had pressing reasons for marrying her footman.

There is one of our expectations from this Journal which has not been disappointed. Its popularity is largely owing to the style. The vigour and idiomatic flow of the language give a delusive plausibility to the statements, and a false look of philosophy to the reflexions. It seldom or never occurs to the common run of readers that a man who writes so well, so energetically, with such an air of decision and superiority, can be wrong in fact or inference, can think he is thinking when he is indulging in paradox or commonplace. He thus speculates on happi

ness:

'I wonder the inductive process has not been more systematically applied to the solution of this great philosophical problem, what is happiness, and in what it consists, for the practical purpose of directing the human mind into the right road for reaching this goal of all human wishes. Why are not innumerable instances collected, examined, analysed, and the results expanded, explained, and reasoned upon for the benefit and instruction of mankind?'

He proceeds to announce as a discovery that 'healthy body, healthy appetite, healthy feelings, though accompanied by mediocrity of talent, will outstrip in the race for happiness the splendid irregularities of genius, and the most dazzling successes of ambition.' Who ever doubted that they would? But how is this enviable mediocrity to be reached? How are the higher natures to be brought down or the lower natures to be elevated to it? How are we to make sure of the sound mind in the sound body? His Golden Mean or Happiness Made Easy may pair off with the philosopher's stone or the elixir of youth. His contrivance for attaining this goal of all human wishes' is about as feasible as that for catching sparrows by putting salt upon their tails.

He is not more happy when he generalises on gaming and the turf:

'How anyone can play who is not in want of money, I cannot comprehend; surely his mind must be strangely framed who requires the stimulus of gambling to heighten his pleasures.'

There is no frame of mind so common, as he had only to look round him to be aware. The majority of the rich and noble friends with whom he played whist and betted were not in want of money, and obviously required the stimulus.

His meditations on moral or intellectual subjects want depth :

his mind, like heated amber, attracted and fixed the feathers and flies that float or flutter on the surface of society: it never penetrated to the undercurrents of thought and feeling which were in silent operation when he wrote. It would be amusing, therefore, were it not irritating, to hear his book hailed from the pulpit as a proof that the generation of which it treats were deficient in high aims and purposes; as if these were wanting to the men who carried the great measures of civil and religious liberty, who voted twenty millions for the abolition of slavery, who reformed the poor law, simplified the administration of justice, humanised the criminal code, and laid the foundation of all that has been done since to diffuse education and improve the condition of the labouring class.*

The rapid changes of mood which occur so frequently in his journal may be traced to his impressibility. He was the slave of impulse. With him the present, the immediate, excluded both the future and the past. He seldom pauses to compare, to inquire, to investigate; but dashes down the impression or conclusion without thinking or caring whether it agrees with what goes before or is to come after it. His fondness for

generalisation is another fruitful source of error and inconsistency. He draws a broad conclusion from an insulated speech or action, and within an incredibly short time draws an opposite one from equally insufficient premises. Thus the Duke of Wellington is a very great man and a very little man by turns. It never occurs to Greville that conduct may vary, or intellectual power fluctuate, without any essential change in character or capacity. Aliquando bonus dormitat Homerus. If he had found Homer napping, he would have written him down a dull, sleepy, heavy-headed fellow, and have forgotten all about his genius till reminded of it by happening to take up the Iliad or fall in with Mr. Gladstone.

It follows, that Greville shows to most advantage in narrative and description. What can be more vividly sketched than the memorable scene in the House of Commons (May 1832), when the hopes of the waverers and anti-Reformers were scattered to the winds: when Baring hurried to Apsley House and told the Duke that he would face a thousand devils rather than such a House? Or, again, than the banquet in St. George's Hall during the Ascot week of 1831; or the first meeting of the Council on the accession of the Queen? His Italian Tour is

We allude to the Sermon of the Bishop of Manchester, mentioned in the 'Times' of Dec. 15th. The right reverend prelate most erroneously assumes that Greville's description of the society in which he lived is accurate. Canon Liddon has fallen into a similar error.