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which they called forth that the almost universal impression of Greville's surviving friends and acquaintance was as unfavourable and painful as our own. It may have been-we believe it was the result of some unaccountable misapprehension of instructions or authority on the part of the editor; but be the cause what it may, we have no hesitation in declaring-what we shall presently prove in detail that the publication, taken as a whole, is one which no well-constituted mind can regard without indignation and regret.

Mr. Reeve states in a Preface that Greville left the time of publication to his discretion, merely remarking that Memoirs of this kind ought not, in his opinion, to be locked up till they had lost their principal interest by the death of all those who had taken any part in the events they describe.' Is this not much the same as saying that they ought not to be locked up till those who might be annoyed or injured by them are dead? In, the Preface Mr. Reeve also states (what we fully believe) that, in the discharge of this trust, he has been guided by no other motive than the desire to act in strict conformity with his (Greville's) own wishes and instructions. He himself, it should be said, had frequently revised them with great care. He had studiously omitted and erased passages relating to private persons or affairs, which could only serve to gratify the love of idle gossip and scandal.'

The Journal is contained in ninety-one manuscript volumes, or copy-books. It is broken by frequent chasms (one of eight or ten years), and it was discontinued some years prior to his retirement from his official life. Shortly before his death, he was much troubled in his mind about the Journal: being undecided what to do with it, and apprehensive that portions ought not to see the light during the living generation, or the next, or not at all. He stated repeatedly that he did not feel equal to a complete revisal. He would occasionally take up a volume and make a correction or a note; and we could specify two important erasures suggested by one of the friends to whom the manuscript had been lent. On being reminded that he had been unjust to Lord Lyndhurst (with whom he had always lived in the closest intimacy), he said he really did not remember the passages in question, which (he added) must have been written long ago, and he intimated a wish that they should be struck out; which they would have been had he lived a few days longer. We shall call attention, as we proceed, to many others which could not have escaped the carefully revising hand.

If Greville had lived till 1874, would he have published his Journal as it has been published? Would he have been justified

in so doing? If not, in what respect does the position of his donee or literary representative differ from his own? The responsibility must rest somewhere; and the essential point is not that the journalist is dead, but that the widows, sons, daughters, and other near relatives or attached friends of the persons offensively introduced (in numerous instances the persons themselves) are alive. If (which we doubt) he really meant the publication to take place so soon after his own personal responsibility was removed by death, he would fall strictly within the principle (we do not say, the letter) of the famous sarcasm levelled by Dr. Johnson against Bolingbroke: 'Sir, he was a scoundrel and a coward a scoundrel for charging a blunderbuss against religion and morality: a coward because he had not resolution to fire it off himself, but left half-a-crown to a beggarly Scotchman to draw the trigger after his death.'*

A man cannot bestow or bequeath a legal or equitable right he never possessed. No one, morally speaking, has a right to take notes of the private conversation of another, great or small, without his or her knowledge or consent; much less to publish them, or leave them for publication at any time. Shortly after Colonel Gurwood's death, the Duke of Wellington was informed by Sir Charles Smith that Gurwood had been in the habit of taking notes of conversations with the Duke on military subjects. The Duke expressed great indignation at the unwarrantable nature of the proceeding, and immediately wrote to Mrs. Gurwood requesting that the notes might be given up or destroyed; remarking that her husband was no more justified in taking such notes without his (the Duke's) knowledge than in placing a shorthand writer behind the curtains of his diningroom. It turned out that Gurwood, a fortnight before his death, spontaneously and from the pure spirit of honour, had burned the notes, although, from the limited range of topics, they were as inoffensive as notes could be.

There cannot be a stronger example of the manner in which such questions have invariably been judged. Besides, many of Greville's notes relate to proceedings in Council which he had sworn to keep secret. A privileged or official position, inviting the careless confidence of the great, is one which no man of proper feeling would knowingly abuse; and Mr. Reeve suggests rather an aggravation than a palliation when, after dwelling on the liability of those who fill the most exalted stations to the judgment of contemporaries and posterity, he lays down: 'Every

Boswell's Johnson,' ch. xi. Bolingbroke's Philosophical Works,' edited by David Mallet, were published in March, 1754, a few days before this sarcasm was

uttered.

act,

act, almost every thought, which is brought home to them, leaves its mark, and those who come after them cannot complain that this mark is as indelible as their fame.' Is this a justification for noting down every unguarded word they may let drop, for depreciating nine-tenths of the public men with whom the diarist comes in contact, for imputing the basest motives to statesmen, and heaping the grossest epithets of abuse on kings? If the marks are to be indelible, there ought surely to be a proportionate amount of caution in affixing them.

We begin with a class of notes which it would be difficult to reconcile with official duty, loyalty, or good faith.

'January 12th, 1829.-Lord Mount Charles came to me this morning and consulted me about resigning his seat at the Treasury.

'He then talked to me about Knighton, whom the King abhors with a detestation that could hardly be described. He is afraid of him, and that is the reason he hates him so bitterly. When alone with him he is more civil, but when others are present (the family, for instance) he delights in saying the most mortifying and disagreeable things to him. He would give the world to get rid of him, and to have either Taylor or Mount Charles instead, to whom he has offered the place over and over again, but Mount Charles not only would not hear of it, but often took Knighton's part with the King. He says that his language about Knighton is sometimes of the most unmeasured violence-wishes he was dead, and one day when the door was open, so that the pages could hear, he said, "I wish to God somebody would assassinate Knighton." In this way he always speaks of him and uses him. Knighton is greatly annoyed at it, and is very seldom there. Still it appears there is some secret chain which binds them together, and which compels the King to submit to the presence of a man whom he detests, and induces Knighton to remain in spite of so much hatred and ill-usage. The King's indolence is so great that it is next to impossible to get him to do even the most ordinary business, and Knighton is still the only man who can prevail on him to sign papers, &c. His greatest delight is to make those who have business to transact with him, or to lay papers before him, wait in his anteroom while he is lounging with Mount Charles or anybody, talking of horses or any trivial matter; and when he is told, "Sir, there is Watson waiting," &c., he replies, "Damn Watson; let him wait." He does it on purpose, and

likes it.'

We need hardly say (although Mr. Reeve could not have been aware of the identity) that Lord Mount Charles is the present Marquis of Conyngham. He comes to consult Greville about a personal matter, and then drops into familiar conversation, in the course of which he tells things which he most assuredly would not have told could he have suspected or guessed that they would

be

be noted down and the worst possible interpretation put upon them. The diary proceeds :

'This account corresponds with all I have before heard, and confirms the opinion I have long had, that a more contemptible, cowardly, selfish, unfeeling dog does not exist than this King, on whom such flattery is constantly lavished.'

Greville was actually engaged in collecting charges against the Conyngham family, in the least defensible manner, about the very time when he was encouraging the blind confidence of Lord Mount Charles. Henri Heine (in reference to the familiar axiom). said that a hero is not a hero to his valet, because the valet is a valet, not because the hero is not a hero.* But Greville seems to think that the valet point of view is the best for forming a due appreciation of a king:

:

'August 29th, 1828.-I met Bachelor, the poor Duke of York's old servant, and now the King's valet de chambre, and he told me some curious things about the interior of the Palace; but he is coming to call on me, and I will write down what he tells me then.'

On the 16th of the following month he sends for Bachelor and has a long talk. On the 13th of May, 1829, Bachelor called and sat with him an hour, telling all sorts of details concerning the interior of Windsor and St. James.' The old valet must have been given to repetition, and the diarist to forgetfulness, for many of these are printed twice over. A single specimen will suffice:

"The influence of Knighton and that of Lady Conyngham continue as great as ever; nothing can be done but by their permission, and they understand one another and play into each other's hands. Knighton opposes every kind of expense, except that which is lavished on her. The wealth she has accumulated by savings and presents must be enormous. The King continues to heap all kinds of presents upon her, and she lives at his expense; they do not possess a servant; even Lord Conyngham's valet de chambre is not properly their servant. They all have situations in the King's household, from which they receive their pay, while they continue in the service of the Conynghams. They dine every day while in London at St. James's, and when they give a dinner it is

This saying is attributed to Mr. Carlyle in 'Social Pressure,' by the Author of Friends in Council.' This thoughtful and agreeable book contains an essay on ‘Over-Publicity,' which concludes by saying that this extreme publicity is a snare and a temptation for the great; that it tends to destroy the just privacy of private life; that it furnishes a worthless occupation for mankind in general; and that it is unwholesome, tedious, detractive, indelicate, and indecorous.' We know no more flagrant case of over-publicity than these Greville Memoirs. At all events, it will be a satisfaction to Her Majesty to know that the present Clerk of the Privy Council is not likely to imitate the bad practices of his predecessor.

cooked

cooked at St. James's and brought up to Hamilton Place in hackney coaches and in machines made expressly for the purpose; there is merely a fire lit in their kitchen for such things as must be heated on the spot.'

These details, like the story of the loaded waggons leaving Windsor every night, are a palpable exaggeration of a current scandal which it could serve no useful purpose to revive. We are subsequently told, on the authority of the Duke of Wellington, that when the King died, they found 10,000l. in his boxes, and money scattered about everywhere; that there were above 500 pocket-books, of different dates, and in every one money-guineas, one-pound notes, one, two, or three in each; there never was anything like the quantity of trinkets and traps they found.' We should have thought that the contents of these pocket-books would have been more tempting and available objects of plunder than the bulky articles which it required waggons to convey. There was a caricature representing a stout lady engaged in removing a stuffed camelopard, which is not much more improbable than the conveyance of the dinners in hackney-coaches and machines.

The day after Greville had received a special mark of kindness from the King, he sets down :—

He sleeps very ill, and rings his bell forty times in the night. If he wants to know the hour, though a watch hangs close to him, he will have his valet de chambre down rather than turn his head to look at it. The same thing if he wants a glass of water; he won't stretch out his hand to get it. His valets are nearly destroyed.'

This is cited as a conclusive proof of the King's selfishness: yet it was notorious, from the nature of his complaints, that there were times when the slightest exertion or change of position would bring on an access of pain. What is the use of royal establishments of servants, if they are to do nothing which their master might do for himself? Why should they not be used as what they are superfluities? As for the ringing of the bell forty times in the night, and the valets being nearly destroyed, these must be classed among those exaggerations of language which so constantly inspire distrust.

Let it be observed that Greville, on one occasion, sends for the King's valet, and on another calls upon him, for the purpose of collecting these details. What would be thought of a gentleman in private life who should send for the valet of a friend with the view of ascertaining and noting down that friend's maladies and weaknesses? Yet where is the difference between the cases? except, indeed, to the disadvantage of the diarist, who, besides

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