Part 6

The French army under Kléber, by a convention between it, Sir Sidney, and the Turks, is to quit Egypt; the Turks are to furnish transports. The Governt. here are incensed against Sir Sidney; they complain of the terms, and wish the French had been necessitated to remain and perish from the plague, etc.[92] The plausible objection is, that the Austrians have just come to be dissatisfied at the augmentation of 17,000 efficient, hardy troops to their enemy just at the beginning of the campaign. The magnanimous Emperor of all the Russias is in a passion; he has written to our Court to insist upon the recall of Sir C. Whitworth,[93] who has committed the unpardonable offence of visiting Count Cobenzel, the Austrian Minister; and his Imperial Majesty has besides withdrawn his Russians in our pay. The high pay may however tempt him to relent.[94] About a month ago he sent to Mr. Pitt, Ld. Grenville, and Mr. Huskisson, 3 crosses of the Order of Malta, of which order he has constituted himself the head, altho’ one of the fundamental rules requires that every knight should be a Catholic and a bachelor. He is of the Greek Church, and husband to a prolific Empress. The great source of his wrath is about the island of Malta, which he wants to possess, and which we will not agree to his having.

Mr. Grey made his annual motion for reform last Friday.[95] He made it so moderate by softening down the rough edges that Wilberforce and Dr. Laurence voted with him. Sheridan, Sir F. Burdett, Jones,[96] etc., were deterred from attending, as he was what they called _too_ moderate. After the debate he came and supped, and slept here. He lamented his own precipitation and bad judgment in urging the measure of secession, and very distinctly declared that whatever blame might attach to it, _he_ was responsible for, as it was pressed upon Mr. Fox against his opinion and inclination. I conveyed to him very cautiously, that his attendance, unless he had an explicit and a sort of public declaration from Mr. Fox that he wished himself to be considered as null, would not be looked upon as fair; he assured me that Fox had oftentimes urged him to attend.[97] I implied that such an assurance was of course all his _conscience_ could require, yet that public opinion demanded more publicity to be given to the wish of Mr. F. than the report of a private conversation; to which he said he never could ask Mr. Fox to declare himself for ever withdrawn from public affairs.

I dined on Saturday, 26th, at L. H. In the morning Ld. Wycombe called upon me; we were standing in the porch just as Ld. Lansdown drove into the iron gate, upon which this dutiful son flew off in a tangent, and exhibited a _scene_ before my servants and his father’s.

The following verses are written by Lewis, a pretty address from Friendship to Youth:--

Turn, Wanderer, turn, and rest with me, Let not yon glittering fane allure you: My temple shall your shelter be, My sacred fire from cold secure you.

Nor scorn it, though your dazzled sight No burst of lustrous flame surprises As with mild warmth and lambent light It gently from the altar rises.

More vivid fires gild yonder shrine, More heat and radiance round them casting, But trust me, Youth, though bright they shine, Their rage is fierce, their power is blasting.

Ah! pilgrim, shun the fatal blaze, Thy forward steps forbear to number; The blaze which on _my_ altar plays Gives genial warmth and gentle slumber.

Here Reason as the priestess stands, Here Tranquil Pleasure often lingers; At Friendship’s fire then warm thy hands, At Love’s thou’lt surely burn thy fingers! ‘Friendship,’

[Sidenote: A PARODY]

I showed them to Tierney, who parodied them almost offhand as an address from a Warming-Pan to Old Age:--

Turn, dotard, turn, and rest with me, Let not yon glittering fane allure you: My presence shall your comfort be, My sacred fire from cold secure you.

Nor scorn it, though your dazzled sight No burst of lustrous splendour meets, As with mild warmth each chilly night It gently glides between the sheets.

More vivid fires gild yonder shrine, Their blaze, ’tis true, more fiercely rages, But, know, they give, unlike to mine, More smoke than heat at certain ages.

Ah! shun then their delusive blaze, Thy forward steps forbear to number, The flame which on _my_ altar plays Gives genial warmth and gentle slumber.

Turn, turn, from love and such repose, Nurse what of life within thee lingers, With me at least thou’lt warm thy toes, With Love thou’lt only burn thy fingers. ‘Warmingpan.’

_5th May._--Last week Ld. H. made a motion in the H. of Lords in favour of the Catholics, to obtain what they call their emancipation.[98] Lord Lansdown, like a sly old politician, was glad of an opportunity of saying something on behalf of the Catholics, mingled with a praise of the Union, so that should the Union fail, he may say, ‘I foresaw that ye measure, without granting the Catholics their demands, would prove a mischievous one’; and if it should succeed he may say, ‘I supported Ministers on it.’ In his speech he made several heartfelt compliments to Ld. H. He said that whenever he differed in opinion from him he doubted the rectitude of his own judgment; for of his excellent abilities, he added, the House were competent to judge, but of the goodness of his heart those only who had the happiness of knowing him in private could estimate the value. He went on in this strain for near ten minutes. The whole debate was flat, none were in spirits; Ld. H. was unwell, and more than usually chilled by the deadness of his audience. Tierney declares that accustomed as he is to act singly in the H. of Commons, yet he could not bear up in the H. of Lords; there is a palsied indifference in the hearers that checks all spirit.

[Sidenote: LORD LANSDOWN]

It was essential to Ld. Lansdown to preserve the attachment of ---- during his Administration. But ---- confided to Ld. L. that his health was injured by an irregularity of life. One should have thought from the austerity of Ld. L.’s manners and private character that he was a singular person to select for such a confidence, but so it was. ‘Indeed, I am not surprised, the calamitous state of the country, the imbecility of Ministers, the augmentation of the debt, and the increased influence of the Crown is such that I own to you very frankly for dissipation I plunge myself into the lowest debauchery.’ He then, after this prelude, administered friendly relief. This is very characteristic of him; the sort of jumble of ideas, and the overstrained civility of adapting his own conduct to that of the person he wishes to please, however repugnant it might be to him in reality.

‘Comment, mon ami,’ cried a wife to her drunken husband. ‘Vous vous perdez, vous laissez toujours votre esprit au cabaret.’ ‘Ne craignez rien, ma chère, j’irais la chercher dimanche.’

People are very much occupied with this Divorce Bill.[99] Ld. H. has felt a shyness in attending the progress of it in the H. of Lords. A Bishop, full of the subject, last week began talking to him; he expressed his approbation of its becoming a criminal proceeding, and added, ‘And do you not think, my Lord, that it would diminish the frequency of the vice, if parties were condemned to imprisonment for five years?’ Ld. H. was, of course, puzzled how to answer. The Bishop was B. of Chichester.

_8th May._--D. of Bedford, who is just returned to town, dined here; Ld. H. was detained at the H. of Lds. Fortunately I had Francis, and the day went off pleasantly. We talked of Mr. Fox’s history, to which he has written the introduction. It was lamented that instead of taking the period of which he could say so much from personal knowledge, he should go to one distant and well known. The Duke said his reason was extreme indignation against Hume, whom he had been reading last autumn; who very artfully pleads the cause of the House of Stuart, and in a way to interest his reader about the private virtues of Charles I., ‘Who, by-the-bye,’ added he, ‘is a most amiable man when viewed in his domestic capacity.’ Upon this Francis, with his usual impetuous vivacity, burst forth against him, denying him every qualification that constitutes a gentleman or a man of feeling. He quoted two stories out of Carte’s _Life of ye D. of Ormond_, a writer who is allowed to have a strong bias to the Stuarts. One was, that in the Palace at Whitehall there were etiquettes, ‘similar to those established by that _fop Louis XIV._,’ about certain apartments, which could only be entered by men of distinguished quality. Hampden, by accident, and through ignorance of these courtly rules, got into one. Suddenly a noise announced the entrance of the King; to conceal himself he sculked behind a screen. His friends with whom he was conversing were in a bustle; the King upon entering perceived their disorder, and insisted upon knowing the cause. He explored behind the screen, and upon finding Hampden, he shook his cane over his head, and threatened to beat him and worse, if he ever broke through bounds again. The other was, his receiving a petition on horseback, which was presented to him by Sir T. Fairfax and a deputation kneeling; he made his horse curvet, kicked the knight, and endangered his life. Clarendon’s style, he said, was _grave and slow_. He told Dr. Parr here at dinner the other day that Swift’s style was _clear and shallow, perfectly pellucid_. The fact is he admires no style but his own, and that is worthy of admiration, as it is much the best now.

[Sidenote: NEW BILLS]

D. of B. means to go down about this new Divorce Bill; he is very eager against it. He says it will reverse the present system, for if a circumstance of the sort occurs to a husband who is high-spirited, he generally fights the lover, whereas the lover will now threaten the husband by saying, ‘If you make an _éclat_ and get me whipped at the cart’s tail, by G----, I will kill you.’

A Bill is to be brought forward in the H. of Commons by Sir H. Mildmay to check the increase of Catholicism, by preventing the nuns at Winchester from giving the veil. An attempt to make a proselyte will become penal. Mr. Fox, when he heard of these Bills, the one against celibacy and the other, said, ‘Aye, the poor women, they will not let them do one thing or the other.’

_11th May._--Parr entertained us uncommonly; he was in full force. We gratified him highly by going into the room into which he retreated to smoke. His vanity is such that the slightest attention elates him, and more particularly, when it comes from a person whom he would denominate a woman of quality. Mr. Knight’s love of pedantry got him too frequently upon verbal criticism, and when they did fall upon a doubtful Greek word, they pulled at it like hungry curs. When they returned to the library he talked upon literature. His praise of Middleton’s style was that a man of strong feelings and vigorous conceptions ought to study it to abate the ardour and rigidity of style, and he recommended it to Bobus. He asserted that Middleton was an unbeliever in Christianity, and read several passages, which put it out of all doubt, from his _Defence of the Free Enquiry_. Of Warburton he expressed the utmost admiration; his opponents, he said, who had attacked him, were snarling hounds; ‘mine was the froth of a mastiff.’ He said of Burke’s first book upon the French Revolution that it was ‘the effervescence of rage’; the second was ‘the bitter sediment of malignity.’

On Tuesday I went to Money Hill; Miss Fox, Drew, and Charles went with us. I returned on Friday. The two mornings I passed there we drove about in the sociable to see the country.

We drove through Cassiobury, Lord Essex’s; to The Grove, Ld. Clarendon’s, and so on to Russell Farm, the Ladies’ Capel. Pretty ground and fertile country. Ld. H. fished, and caught a few trout. Beauclerk did not articulate ten words; he seems happy, but it is the bliss of torpor. She resides reluctantly in the dignified solitude of a _guinguette_ in the skirts of a petty town. From Beauclerk’s practice one should think his precept was that conversation spoilt society; he rarely incurs that _risque_. It is to be regretted, as he has a most acute perception, and an uncommon degree of subtilty in his argument. No person is clearer on the _obscure_ subject of abstract metaphysics; his definitions are ingenious and brilliant. Finance is also a branch of political economy he is profound in, and had he entered Parliament he would have distinguished himself. At present he is lost; shyness, indolence, and a sort of content deprive society of his exertions and his friends of his company.

[Sidenote: THE KING SHOT AT]

The papers on Friday announced a singular accident which happened to the King at the Review on Thursday in Hyde Park; a musket ball wounded a Mr. Ongley standing near him. The question was whether it was from design or chance--the chance of an unloaded musket. When I came home, the first question I asked the porter in getting out of my carriage was whether there was anything new; he replied with eager alarm that the King had been shot at from a pistol at the play. I thought this story an exaggeration of the former one, but to my surprise found that the evening of the day on which he had escaped the bullet, he was deliberately aimed at from the pit. The ball lodged in the upper boxes, and the King escaped unhurt. His behaviour was like that of a hero of antiquity; he was in full possession of all his faculties, and was cool enough to tell the Queen, who was not in the box when the pistol was fired, that the report was from a squib. He remained on during the play with the utmost sang-froid. He told a person that he observed the fiddlers expected another shot as they covered their heads with their cremonas. The enthusiasm was boundless; additional verses were added by Sheridan to _God Save the King_.[100] The King was so delighted with Sheridan’s behaviour to the Princesses, for he prevented them going into their box by saying that a pickpocket was taken in the pit which made a riot and his presence was required, and begged their R.H. to wait in the room. He shall feel gratitude to the latest hour of his life, he says, to him for this sensibility. Sheridan, Mrs. S., and Tom are all to go to Court, both to-morrow and Thursday. Mr. Fawkener[101] dined with us on Friday; he had attended the examination of the man at the Privy Council, and he said he was certainly mad. He was dismissed the army for insanity a few months ago, and he has since worked as a silver-smith; his name is Hadfield. I was vexed at not being present. I never much liked Money Hill, but this has disgusted me, for had I been at home I should have gone in my own box, from where I should have seen the whole _representation_, and with safety.

Ld. Morpeth was to have come to Money Hill on Wednesday; he came to tell me on Saturday that his carriage was at the door at one o’clock to convey him thither, but that he was at White’s, not returned from _Tuesday evening’s_ occupation; he owned to losing two thousand pounds. He will grow a decided gambler.

My old friend and admirer, Ld. Berkeley, gave Lord Chesterfield a reproving repartee. Ld. B. has killed two or three highwaymen, and it is known that he is distressed when the occurrence is alluded to. Ld. C., meaning to annoy him, asked him ‘When he had last killed a highwayman?’ ‘It was, my Lord, as well as I can recollect, just at the time when you hung your tutor,’ alluding to the unfeeling and wicked transaction about Dr. Dodd, who, though deserving of punishment, should not have met with it from his pupil, who from youth and gratitude ought to have felt more indulgence for the errors of Dodd.[102]

The Prince of Wales has notified his Royal pleasure of dining here. He grew quite angry at not being invited; he even spoke to my mother about it. He comes on Saturday, and Prince Augustus.[103] The latter came home to England without the knowledge and against the consent of their Majesties. He arrived at the house of Lady Augusta.

[Sidenote: MRS. FITZHERBERT]

I went last night to the Opera. The Princess of Wales glanced many an inquiring look towards Mrs. Fitzherbert’s box, in which the Prince was as usual. This old amour is revived. The opinion of the world is so whimsical. Every prude, dowager, and maiden visited Mrs. F. before, and the decline of her favour scarcely reduced her visitors; but now they all cry out shame for doing that which she did notoriously five years ago. There is a sort of morality I can never comprehend.

Ld. H. took a fancy for about a week to write me some verses every night after he went to undress; I complained of his keeping me up late, he wrote immediately:--

That his labours have set you asleep, is allowed The severest reproach to a bard you can make. Have not I then great cause to be proud-- Your objection to mine is they keep you awake.

Ld. H. went to the Levée on Wednesday with Ld. Ossory to congratulate the King upon his escape; he went also on Thursday to the Drawing Room, and on Friday he went in a cap and gown with the Oxford Address. Mr. Marsh came to town as a delegate; he arrived on Thursday and stayed till this morning.

The Ministers have not attempted to convert this mad freak of Hadfield’s into a Jacobinical plot; they let the affair stand plainly as it is. When Erskine heard of the shot from a man in the pit, he said, ‘I thought the _Pitt-ites_ would do the King mischief at last.’ Should the poor lunatic be condemned, I think the King will feel a qualm at signing the warrant, as it is proved that the man was only insane in consequence of a severe wound in his head received while fighting in the King’s cause.[104] As a confirmation of the opinion of the man’s acting without any concert with other people, what happened to Mr. Tierney will acquit the soldier who fired in the Park. On Thursday, riding from hence through the Park, he went by some soldiers who were reviewing, and a musket ball whizzed close by his ear. He told the story to Ford, the justice, and it is clear that the cartridges have been made improperly, that those which used to be for exercising with powder only, and in a particular coloured paper, are now loaded with ball.

The Prince of Wales, Prince Augustus, and a very numerous party dined here on Saturday; it went off very pleasantly. Prince Augustus is much altered from what he was at Rome; his mind and body are thickened.

The Divorce Bill, with the abominable clause, has passed the H. of Lords, the purport of which is to prevent the woman marrying the man on whose account the divorce takes place, and in addition to pecuniary damages to the husband, the offence is to be treated as a _misdemeanour_, and the punishment of fine and imprisonment rests _solely_ with the judge.

Some persons were boasting before Mr. Fox of the excellence of the English laws, which he said certainly were excellent, but that there were objections at present. ‘How?’ replied the other person. ‘The law is equally open to the peasant and the peer.’ ‘Yes,’ said Fox, ‘so is the London tavern,’ meaning that to benefit by them one must pay dearly.

[Sidenote: MR. FOX]

The following quotation from Carlyle’s[105] translation of Arabic poetry has been very happily applied by General Fitzpatrick to Mr. Fox, who is the life and soul of the Whig party, both from the opinion entertained by them of his ability, and the esteem and friendship they bear to his person:--

With conscious pride I view the band Of faithful friends that round me stand, With pride exult that I alone Can join these scattered gems in one; For they’re a wreath of pearls, and I The silken cord on which they lie.

’Tis mine their inmost souls to see, Unlocked is every heart to me, To me they cling, on me they rest, And I’ve a place in every breast; For they’re a wreath of pearls, and I The silken cord on which they lie.

Lord Wycombe has never passed the threshold of our doors since the day he saw his father drive into the gates, whilst he was in the porch. Whether he imagined the _rencontre_ was the effect of design or that he chooses to have the air of appearing to think so, I cannot guess; but the effect, from some cause or other, has been his absence.

The campaign does not advance as swimmingly as was expected by the allies. Melas, when he took the Bocchetta, expected Genoa could not hold out long after the loss of that important pass, but Masséna is determined to maintain himself till the last gasp, and now he is certain of being relieved, as Bonaparte has taken the command in person of the army of Italy.[106]

_30th May._--The last date of his dispatch was ye 18th of May at Martigny, but Berthier with the advanced division has crossed the Mt. of St. Bernard, and has reached Aost. The French have a _pied-à-terre_ only at Genoa and Savona; Mantua, Milan, etc., are at present in the possession of the Austrians. Melas has taken Nice, but must quit it immediately to meet Bonaparte in Piedmont. Moreau has advanced to within a short distance of Ulm. Knay, the Austrian commander, is very obstinate, and strongly addicted to the old system of carrying on war by _posts_.

The Emperor Paul is grown quite mad. The French have made a caricature of him with _order_ in one hand, _counter-order_ in the other, and on his head _dis_order. Sir Charles Whitworth will feel happy when fairly off his territory, as he is capable of proceeding to personal violence against those with whom he is incensed. The English who inhabit Petersburg are detained as hostages for his 15,000 men in Jersey and Guernsey. Woronzow,[107] the Russian Minister, who has resided in this country many years, is suddenly recalled, as his dispatches have not been sufficiently abusive of this Government to please the Imperial taste; he is quite wretched, for besides breaking up all his old habits, he is not without apprehension of some punishment being inflicted upon him when he returns.

Parr says of the Bishop of Rochester’s sermon, which was quoted so ludicrously and well by the Duke of Clarence, that it contains ‘the precepts of the Koran, conveyed in the language of the Stews.’[108] The sermon was preached at the Magdalen, and Mr. Grey assured me without any joke that the doctrine and the language are both so extraordinary that no modest woman would read it, or own to having done so.

[Sidenote: LADY GEORGINA CAVENDISH]