,0 
 
 
 V 
 
 t>> rt> O " o - 'r-» 
 
 * < o 
 
 
 
?'.'' 
 
RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 SAMUEL ROGERS. 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 BY 
 
 SAMUEL ROGERS. 
 
 q£^ . ^ lA]iYv>, SVux>vJL-a_3 
 
 BOSTON: 
 BARTLETT AND MILES, 
 
 M DCCC LIX. 
 
7? ^^-^^^ 
 .A4 
 
 RIVERSIDE, Cambridge: 
 
 STEREOTYPED A>'D PRINTED BY 
 H. 0. HOOGHTON AND COMPANY. 
 
 Gift 
 W. L, Shoemakdr 
 7 8 '06 
 
NOTICE BY THE EDITOR. 
 
 ^ HE Recollections which form the 
 M contents of the present volume 
 
 were left by Mr. Rogers in 
 manuscript, but in a state which showed 
 they were intended for publication. 
 
 It appears that from his first entering 
 into Society he noted down the conversa- 
 tion or remarks of those among his intimate 
 friends in whose company he took the great- 
 est pleasure ; and subsequently, as these 
 notes increased, and he felt they might be- 
 come generally interesting, he proceeded, 
 from time to time, to extract and collect 
 those parts which he thought most worthy 
 of perusal by others. 
 
 In some cases the selection of the mate- 
 
VI 
 
 rials, tlioui^h bo^uii liv liiiu, Avas loi't iii- 
 roiuploto at his doath. llo had, ho\vo\iM\ 
 ]HMnti.'il ou[ hv uuMUiM'auda tho namos ot' 
 iho lniH\iihials Avhi^so I'onvorsation he in- 
 triuK'il sluniKl i'ovm tho i'(illortii>n, and tho 
 iM'dor ill Avhioh thov shouKl t^land. 
 
 Thoiv is an ontr\ in liis Ni>to lnH>k, in 
 his (UN n handwritini;', in tho I'ol lowing' words: 
 *' l'\>\, Hnrko. (u'altan, PorstMi. Tooko, 
 TaUovrand, I'.rskino. Wahor Soott, \.o\\\ 
 lnvn\ iUo, Pnko ot" ^^'ollinl;■ton."" l>y this 
 and nuiJiorous i>thor iiiiHoations, ho has snt- 
 tioiontlv shown tho I'onrso ho a\ ishod slundd 
 bo tbUowod ; and a sliort prot"aoo. Avritton 
 hv him as an introdnotion to tho Kooolloo- 
 tions, n\akos oloar his intontion that tlioy 
 shouKl not always roniain nnpnlilishod. 
 
 Ot' tho poi-si>ns aboNO naniod. ^Ir. l^nrko 
 was tlio onlv ono with wlunn Mr. lu^ovrs 
 wa^ not intiniatolv ai'qnaintod, and whoso 
 oonvorsation was not takon down by lun\ 
 from porsonal oonnnimioation. llo only 
 
VII 
 
 knew Mr. Burke as a public man, and was 
 indebted to friends for the Recollections of 
 him included in this work. 
 
 With a view of renderino; these Memo- 
 rials as vahiable as circumstances will al- 
 low, as well as of carrying out Mr. Rogers's 
 apparent design, the Editor has, in addition 
 to tlic extracts which he fnxnd already 
 made from the Diaries, selected some fur- 
 ther passages in connection with the per- 
 sons named which appear of sufficient inter- 
 est to be preserved, and which had probably 
 been omitted owing to the extracts not 
 having been completed. In doing this it 
 is possible he has introduced some parts 
 which ]Mr. Rogers mioht not have thought 
 important enough to be put in print. It 
 is hoped, however, that the Reader will not 
 complain of the introduction of a few sen- 
 tences which the Author may have left out, 
 through accident or extreme caution ; but 
 to which the lapse of time has now given 
 
vin 
 
 a value. The most extensive of tlie addi- 
 tions so made are the anecdotes of Burke 
 by Dr. Lawrence, and a few of the mis- 
 cellaneous remarks by the Duke of Wel- 
 lington, at p. 240, and the following pages. 
 Mr. Rogers, at times, no doubt intended 
 that the Recollections should be published 
 in his lifetime, and perhaps at a period 
 when some of the persons described were 
 living. Accidental circumstances, or fur- 
 ther consideration, however, prevented the 
 fulfilment of this intention ; and caused him 
 to leave to his Executors the ag-reeable task 
 of laying these pages before the Public : a 
 pleasure which has been kindly yielded to 
 the Editor, by his Brother and Coexecu- 
 tor. The Editor therefore feels that, by the 
 course he is now taking, he is only dis- 
 charging a duty which he owes to the de- 
 ceased ; and he believes that the death of 
 all the parties whose conversation is re- 
 corded, and the distance, in time, of the 
 
IX 
 
 events described, will justify the introduc- 
 tion of more than could have been so well 
 admitted at an earlier period. 
 
 Although it may be thought that the 
 following Memorials want the point and 
 interest that so often enliven contemporary 
 memoirs, yet it is hoped they will be 
 valued on other grounds. It will be 
 obvious to all who knew Mr. Rogers well 
 that they are in strict accordance with 
 the best parts of his mind and character. 
 Nothing has been allowed by him to stand 
 that has any approach to personal scandal 
 or to matters of merely temporary interest; 
 excej)t in a few instances, there is but little 
 reference to the politics of the day in which 
 they were written ; many passages, open to 
 objection on some of these grounds, that 
 had found their way into the original 
 notes, were omitted from the corrected 
 copy ; and the Writer, who had the am- 
 plest choice of subjects, has shown by the 
 
Recollections lie has preserved that the con- 
 versation he thought most worthy of being 
 put on record was that connected chiefly 
 with literary subjects, or with incidents and 
 remarks having for other reasons a perma- 
 nent value. The Editor trusts they will 
 be thouo-ht to afford agreeable and faithful 
 pictures of many Individuals with whom 
 the Reader will be glad to be more inti- 
 mately acquainted, 
 
 Mr, Rogers so often referred in conver- 
 sation to these remembrances of the anec- 
 dotes and opinions of his early friends, that 
 many of them have been repeated by 
 others, either verbally or in print, and may 
 at first glance appear familiar to the read- 
 er. But they have been so frequently, 
 and so much, altered in repetition, that it 
 seems not improper to give them entire, 
 in the very words in which they were 
 left, with that truth of expression and in 
 that concise and colloquial style in which 
 
XI 
 
 Mr. Rogers delighted to write his jour- 
 nals. 
 
 It may add to the interest and value of 
 the Kecollections, if, before their perusal, 
 attention is shortly called to some of the 
 principal events and dates in the private 
 life of the writer of them. 
 
 Samuel Rogers was born in the month 
 of August 1763, the third son of a London 
 Banker, whose immediate ancestors were 
 of a Worcestershire family, and members 
 of the Church of England : while throuoh 
 his INIother, he was descended from one of 
 the Ejected Ministers of the reign of 
 Charles the 2d. It is, no doubt, to his 
 maternal descent, that he alludes in the 
 following lines, introduced into the notes 
 on the poem of Italy : — 
 
 " What though his Ancestors, early or late, 
 " Were not ennobled by the breath of kings ; 
 " Yet in his veins was running at his birth 
 " The blood of those most eminent of old 
 
xn 
 
 " For wisdom, virtue — those who would renounce 
 " The things of this world for their conscience' sake." 
 
 ^ ^ "tPt -Tf "TT ^ ^ 
 
 From his Mother, who was taken from 
 him in his early youth, and of whom he 
 always spoke in terms of the greatest ad- 
 miration and affection, he imbibed a love 
 of the intrinsically good which guided him 
 on many an after occasion. And in one 
 of his elder Brothers, Avhom he lost soon 
 after he attained to manhood, and to whose 
 memory he addressed those beautiful lines 
 in the first part of the Pleasures of Mem- 
 ory beginning, 
 
 " Oh thou I with whom my heart w'as wont to share, 
 " From Reason's dawn each pleasure and each care," 
 
 he had an example of vu'tue and good 
 sense which strengthened his character and 
 by which he profited through life. 
 
 His Father and Mother were Dissenters, 
 and he was brought up in their persuasion ; 
 
xm 
 
 and always through life, when occasion re- 
 quired an expression on the subject, he 
 described himself as a Presbyterian ; though 
 he never obtrusively put forward his opin- 
 ions on religion, and often expressed him- 
 self as desirous of forgetting any little dif- 
 ferences of creed, and of uniting with the 
 virtuous of all sects and parties in one re- 
 ligion of Christian Love. 
 
 It is well known that Mr. Rogers was 
 in politics a Whig ; but in choice of friends 
 he did not confine himself to any party ; 
 and from the time when he first became 
 known as a writer, and entered much into 
 society, associated most intimately with per- 
 sons of all parties. 
 
 Although introduced when very young 
 into his Father's business, his love of poet- 
 ry was shown early. Long before he was 
 twenty he had put upon paper many lines 
 which afforded promise of his subsequent 
 performances. His first published poem, 
 
XIV 
 
 tlie " Ode to Superstition," was begun be- 
 fore be was of age ; and the " Pleasures 
 of Memory " appeared wjiile be was still a 
 working partner in the Bank. 
 
 Having lost bis fatber in 1793, wbose 
 deatb-bed be bas toucbingly alluded to in 
 his " Lines written in a Sick Chamber," 
 and, having united with him in business 
 bis younger Brother Henry, he soon after- 
 wards retired from all active management 
 of the affairs of the Banking House, and 
 never resumed it. He quitted his paternal 
 residence at Newington Green, where he 
 was born and had spent the whole of his 
 early life, and, after living a short time 
 in chambers in the Temple, be removed, 
 about 1803, to a house in St. James's 
 Place, looking into the Green Park. This 
 bouse be bad altered and nearly rebuilt 
 according to bis own taste ; and in it be 
 resided until his death, on the 18tli of De- 
 cember, 1855. 
 
XV 
 
 He has been heard to describe how, on 
 some occasion after the death of his Fa- 
 ther, he detected himself making a calcula- 
 tion as to the amount he might expect 
 to accumulate if he continued to devote 
 his whole time to the pursuit of wealth ; 
 and he was so shocked by the idea of be- 
 ing influenced by such motives, that he 
 determined to desist from active business, 
 and to attend to it henceforth only occa- 
 sionally, or when matters of importance 
 made the assistance of his judgment desir- 
 able in the aifairs of the Bank, — a resolu- 
 tion to which he subsequently adhered. 
 
 This resolution gave him leisui'e to adopt, 
 and indulge in, those pm'suits which were 
 more congenial to his taste and judgment; 
 and to foster that love which, in the con- 
 clusion to his poem of Italy, he has de- 
 scribed himself as havino; been gifted with 
 by Nature : — 
 
XVI 
 
 " A passionate love for music, sculpture, painting, 
 
 " For poetry, the language of the gods, 
 
 " For all things here or grand or beautiful, 
 
 " A setting sun, a lake among the mountains, 
 
 " The light of an ingenuous countenance, 
 
 " And what transcends them all, a generous action." 
 
 With what success he profited by these 
 gifts, and improved the advantages which 
 he has thus described, it must be left to 
 others to decide. His pubhshed works, and 
 the reputation he enjoyed through a long 
 life for taste in literature and the fine arts, 
 and for genuine and unobtrusive benevo- 
 lence, will assist in arriving at a correct 
 opinion, which, it is hoped, will not be 
 unfavorable. 
 
 The time occupied in the composition of 
 each of his several works was considerable, 
 as he was always ready to acknowledge. 
 He pursued a practice, which he often re- 
 commended to others, of laying by his 
 poems for a length of time after they were 
 
XVII 
 
 written, in order to reconsider them again 
 and again, before thinking them complete. 
 In illustration of this custom, it may be 
 mentioned, that in his Commonplace-Book 
 is the following entry, giving the dates of 
 publication of his various works, his own 
 age at the time, and the number of years 
 occupied in the composition and revision 
 of each. These particulars are here given 
 in his own words : — 
 
 Date of 
 Publication. 
 
 
 Time. 
 
 Age 
 
 1785 . 
 
 Ode . . . 
 
 . . 2 years 
 
 22 
 
 1792 . 
 
 P. of M. . 
 
 7 " 
 
 29 
 
 1798 . 
 
 Epistle . 
 
 6 " 
 
 35 
 
 1812 . 
 
 Columbus 
 
 . . 14 " 
 
 49 
 
 1813 . 
 
 Jacqueline 
 
 . . . 1 " 
 
 50 
 
 1819 . 
 
 Human Life 
 
 6 " 
 
 56 
 
 1834 . 
 
 Italy . . 
 
 . . 15 " 
 
 71 
 
 From the year 1834, when, as he has 
 thus described, he completed his last im- 
 portant work, until his death, he had 
 2 
 
XVIII 
 
 frequent occupation, while his healtli al- 
 lowed, in preparing for the press the re- 
 peated issues that were called for, almost 
 annually, of his previously published vol- 
 umes. After 1834 he wrote no poem of 
 length, though he often introduced new 
 lines and stanzas, or trifling alterations in 
 the successive editions of liis works. These 
 changes or additions consisted in part of 
 poetry ; but the greater portion of his at- 
 tention in the latter years of his life, as 
 far as related to his own productions, was 
 given to the notes to his " Italy," which he 
 made a medium of recordino; his thouo;hts 
 and sentiments on various subjects in con- 
 nection with the poem. In these notes he 
 took great interest ; and the style of them, 
 and the nature of the information conveyed, 
 may be considered as approved by his ma- 
 ture judgment. 
 
 As a proof of the opinion entertained to 
 
XIX 
 
 a late period of his life of the continuance 
 of his powers of mind, and of his taste and 
 judgment in poetry, it may be mentioned 
 that on the death of Mr. Wordsworth, in 
 the year 1850, the post of Laureate was 
 offered to him by Her Majesty. This offer, 
 made in a letter from Prince Albert, was 
 in such gratifying terms as to require great 
 strength of mind, and self-denial, on the 
 part of Mr. Rogers to refuse it. He felt, 
 however, that his time of life was so ad- 
 vanced, for he was then eighty-seven, as 
 made it imperative on him to decline the 
 honor intended him ; and on this ground 
 alone, and after a considerable struggle, 
 he communicated his refusal to His Royal 
 Highness. The appointment was after- 
 wards conferred by Her Majesty on Mr. 
 Tennyson. 
 
 The following pages are not the produc- 
 tion of that part of Mr. Rogers's life to 
 
XX 
 
 wliicli allusion has just been made ; but, 
 although written at earlier periods, they 
 have the sanction of his later years ; as, 
 until a short time before his death, it was 
 his habit to refer to them frequently, and 
 occasionally to select or arrange parts of 
 them with a view to future publication. 
 They will be interesting as showing who 
 Avere among his most valued friends, and 
 what conversation he thouo;ht most worthv 
 of being remembered, during that time of 
 his life when his faculties were the strono-- 
 est, and Avhen, from his mixing most in 
 society, he had the widest field to gather 
 from. And, although they are but few 
 and short, yet the existence of them in 
 manuscript has been so often made known 
 to his intimate friends, and they are so 
 characteristic of the mind and thoughts of 
 the Writer, that it is believed that the 
 publication of them may be felt as not en- 
 
XXI 
 
 tirely unlocked for ; and it is hoped they 
 may be favorably received as a slight con- 
 tribution to the biography of a generation 
 that has now passed away. 
 
 The extreme conciseness of some parts 
 of the Recollections often seems to render 
 explanation necessary; and the Editor has 
 therefore ventured to add occasional Notes, 
 containing dates or other references, which, 
 it is hoped, may assist in making clear 
 some otherwise obscure passages. These 
 Notes are, however, very imperfect, and 
 additions might be made to them with ad- 
 vantage, as there are still several passages 
 which the Editor has not been able to 
 clear up, but which it is believed that 
 further search, or a more intimate ac- 
 quaintance with parties named, might assist 
 in explaining. For the information con- 
 veyed in several of these Notes he is in- 
 
XXII 
 
 debted to the suggestions of Friends ; an 
 obligation he beo-s to acknowledo-e with 
 gratitude. 
 
 The few Notes by Mr. Rogers are dis- 
 tinguished by his initials, S. R., which he 
 had in many places subscribed to them 
 himself. 
 
 William Sharpe. 
 
 Highbury Terrace, 
 May, 1859. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface by Samuel Rogers 27 
 
 Recollections. 
 
 Charles James Fox 31 
 
 Edmund Burke 105 
 
 Henry Grattan 117 
 
 Richard Porson 139 
 
 John Home Tooke 151 
 
 Prince Talleyrand 177 
 
 Lord Erskine 187 
 
 Sir Walter Scott 195 
 
 Lord Grenville 201 
 
 Duke of Wellington 219 
 
RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 A5> 
 
PREFACE 
 
 (BY SAMUEL EOGERS). 
 
 ^l^^^gORD Clarendon was often heard 
 l^/P'; to say that, next to the blessing of 
 is^i^- 4 Almighty God, he owed all the 
 
 little he knew and the little good that was in 
 him to the friendships and conversation of the 
 most excellent men ; and he always charged 
 his children to follow his example ; protesting 
 that in the whole course of his life he never 
 knew one man, of what condition soever, arrive 
 at any degree of reputation in the world, who 
 delighted in the company of those who were 
 not superior to himself. — Clarendon's Me- 
 moirs of Ins oion Life.^ 
 
 1 Abridged from a passage in the Life of Lord Clarendon, 
 written by himself, 3d edit. vol. i. p. 29. 
 
28 PREFACE. 
 
 That such has been my practice thi-ough life, 
 if not with the same success, these pages can 
 testify. By many they will be thought of little 
 value ; but some may think otherwise. The 
 principal speakers here were men most eminent 
 in their day ; the transactions in which they bore 
 a part have now become history ; and some, who 
 were then unborn, may not be unwilling to pass 
 an hour or two in their company, to hear them 
 talk as they did when they were most at their 
 ease, — in a morning walk or in an evening by 
 the fireside, — and to share in what so few, even 
 of their contemporaries, had the privilege of en- 
 joying- 
 
CHARLES JAMES FOX. 
 
 I am well aware that these scraps of conversa- 
 tion have little to recommend them, but as servinp- 
 to show his playfulness, his love of letters, and his 
 good-nature in unbending himself to a young man. 
 They were read by his Nephew with tears in his 
 eyes. — S. R. 
 
CHARLES JAMES FOX. 
 
 Seen him I have, but in his happier hour. 
 
 P OPE, Epiktf/ue to Satires. 
 
 INED at William Sraith's,i March 
 19th, 1796, with him [Fox], Dr. 
 Parr,^ Tierney,^ Courtney,* Sir 
 iCjf^&) Francis Baring,^ Dr. Aikin,^ Mack- 
 intosh,'' and Francis.^ Sheridan ® sent an excuse. 
 
 1 M. P. for Norwich, and for many years champion of the 
 rights of the Dissenters in the House of Commons. 
 
 2 Rev. Samuel Parr, LL. D. 
 
 3 George Tierney, afterwards a Privy Councillor and Treas- 
 urer of the Navy, and since Master of the Mint. 
 
 4 Probablj' John Courtenay, Secretary to Lord Townshend 
 while Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; a Commissioner of the 
 Treasury in 1806. 
 
 5 Father of Alexander Baring, afterwards Lord Ashbur- 
 ton. 
 
 6, John Aikin, a phj'sician; of liberal politics; author of 
 very numerous works in science and general literature ; 
 principal author of Aikin's General Biography. Mrs. Bar- 
 bauld was his sister. 
 
 "i Afterwards Sir James Mackintosh. 
 
 8 Sir Philip Fi-ancls. 9 Richard Brinsley Sheridan. 
 
32 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 
 
 Delighted with his fine tact, his feeling, open, 
 and gentlemanlike manner ; so full of candor and 
 diffidence, and entering with great ardor and inter- 
 est into the conversation. 
 
 Francis was an idolater of Don Quixote ; Fox 
 said he had not formerly admired it so much. 
 Read Spanish, and had acquired it with great 
 ease, by means of the Italian partly. Had read 
 the other works of Cervantes, and Quevedo, who 
 was very difficult. 
 
 Admired Gray's fragment on Government,^ but 
 not so highly as Courtney, who thought it the 
 jirst 100 lines in the language, and quoted, " Oft 
 o'er the trembling nations." Thought he could 
 find better in the Religio Laici ^ — and the Trav- 
 eller, from which he quoted — " And, wondering 
 man could want a larger pile," ^ &c. — preferred 
 that poem to the Deserted Village. 
 
 Was disappointed by Schiller's Robbers. When 
 
 1 Fragment of an Essay on the Alliance of Education and 
 Government; sent by Gray to Dr. Wharton in a letter dated 
 19th Aug. 1748. See Gray's Memoirs, by Mason. 
 
 2 Dryden. 
 
 3 " And, wondering man could want the larger pile, 
 
 Exults, and owns his cottage with a smile." 
 
 Goldsmiih'' s Traveller. 
 
CHARLES JAMES FOX. 33 
 
 I hinted its having been suggested by Massinger's 
 Guardian, he remembered it instantly, and said 
 he should read it again. 
 
 Thought Massinger underrated and neglected, — 
 had always admired him greatly, and preferred 
 him much to Beaumont and Fletcher. 
 
 Quoted largely from the Hind and Panther,^ 
 and particularly with great emphasis Dryden's 
 " Happy the man, and happy he alone," ^ which 
 he preferred to the original of Horace. Was 
 fonder of Dryden than Pope. 
 
 Thought Pope's Eloisa to Abelard " about half 
 and half; " and particularly disliked " Give all 
 thou canst," &c. ; and " Oh ! make me mistress to 
 the man I love," only a common vulgar sentiment, 
 and not, as it is in her letters, " the wife of Abe- 
 lard." Eloisa much greater in her letters than 
 Pope had made her. 
 
 Liked the Rape of the Lock and Prologue to 
 
 1 Dryden. v 
 
 ^A verse in the paraphrase, by Dryden, of the 29th Ode 
 of the 3d Book of Horace, beginning 
 
 " TyiThena regum progenies." 
 
 In the editions of Dryden's Worlis which I have seen, it is 
 said (erroneously) to be a paraphrase of the 29th Ode of the 
 1st Book. 
 
 3 
 
34 CPARLES JAMES FOX. 
 
 Cato ; but above all the Messiah. Thought the 
 Sylphs the prettiest things in the world. 
 
 Admired the flow of Dryden's vei'se, which 
 does not end with the Rhyme. 
 
 After recording the good as well as the bad 
 qualities of Addison, the last couplet is very 
 faulty — why laugh if there be such a man, why 
 weep if it be Atticus ? — The name cannot add 
 anything to our regi'et.^ 
 
 1 This criticism will be better understood after reading 
 the lines in question, on the character of Addison, in Pope's 
 Epistle to Dr. Arbutlmot, lines 193, &c. ; in which Addison 
 is described under the name of Atticus: — 
 
 " Peace to all such ! but were there One whose fii'es 
 True Genius kindles, and fiiir Fame inspires; 
 Blest with each talent and each art to please. 
 And born to write, converse, and live with ease: 
 Should such a man, too fond to rule alone. 
 Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne, 
 View him with scornful, j-et with jealous eyes, 
 And hate for arts that caused himself to rise ; 
 Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, 
 And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer ; ' 
 
 Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, 
 Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike; 
 Alike reserved to blame or to commend, 
 A tim'rous foe, and a suspicious friend; 
 Dreading ev'n Fools, by Flatterers besieged, 
 And so obligins; that he ne'er obliged; 
 
CHARLES JAMES FOX. 35 
 
 When Francis said that Wilberforce, if it was 
 left to him to decide whether Pitt should go out 
 of office for ten months and the Slave-trade be 
 abolished forever, or Pitt remain in — with the 
 Slave-trade, Avould decide for Pitt — " Yes," said 
 Fox, " I'm afraid he would be for Bax'abbas." 
 
 Mentioned the extreme uneasiness he felt, when 
 he spent even a single day in a town where he 
 did not know the language. " You are imposed 
 upon," says Tierney, " without even the satisfac- 
 tion of knowing it." " Not only that," says Fox. 
 
 He reads all the Novels. 
 
 Thought Iphigenia the English for Iphigenia, 
 as Virgil is for Virgilius. 
 
 " I should not care," said he, " if I was con- 
 demned never to stir beyond a mile from St. 
 Anne's hill for the rest of my life." 
 
 Very fond of the society of boys ; as also Mrs. 
 Armstead.^ They have them over from Eton.^ 
 
 Like Cato, give his little Senate laws, 
 And sit attentive to his own applause; 
 While Wits and Templars ev'ry sentence raise, 
 And wonder with a foolish face of praise — 
 Who but must laugh, if such a man there be ? 
 Who would not weep, if ATTICUS were he? " 
 
 1 Afterwards Jlrs. Fox. 
 
 2" I called yesterday ou Fox at St. Anne's, and found him 
 
36 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 
 
 Dined with him at Serjeant Hey wood's, lOtli 
 Dec. 1706. Present, Lord Derby, Lord Stanley, 
 Lord Lauderdale, "VVm. Smith, Dr. Aikin, * * * 
 Member for Durham, and Brogden. 
 
 I always say, and always think, tliat of all the 
 countries in Europe, England will be the last to 
 be free. Russia will be free before England. 
 The Russians know no better, and knowledge 
 might and would operate on them to good ; but 
 the English have the knowledge and the slavery 
 too. 
 
 Property will always have its influence. Were 
 all the Landed men in the Country to unite in a 
 mass, you will say that they might effect any- 
 thing. Their income is twenty-five millions ; but 
 the King's is the same, and thougli part merges 
 in the intei'est of the debt, still you will grant it 
 has its influence. 
 
 drawing a pond to please an Eton boy, a son of the Bishop 
 of Down. I told him he was committing a double crime, 
 killing the poor fish and ruining Coss, for Coss has a per- 
 petual holidaj' there. He left off, and we had some talk on 
 the times. He has no hope." 
 
 Lord Ersk'ine to S. B., July 17(h, 1798. 
 
 [Dr. Dickson, Bishop of Down and Connor, was an inti- 
 mate friend of Fox. Their intimacy began at Eton, and 
 lasted till the bishop's death in ISOi.] 
 
CHARLES JAMES FOX. 37 
 
 A man must have a grand want of right feel- 
 ing and right thinking, who does not like popu- 
 larity, who does not wish the people about him, 
 and for and with whom he acts, to be in good 
 humor with him.-^ 
 
 I love Tistablishments, and love law, but I detest 
 the priests and the lawyers. 
 
 AVere I to be tried, I vpould as soon be at the 
 mercy of the bishops as the judges ; though the 
 Archbishop of Armagh said to me twenty-five 
 years ago — " Take care. The bishops would 
 burn you if they pould." 
 ' A great man, who knew them both, told me, 
 
 1 " His interest, his power, even his darling popularity." 
 Biirhe, on Mr. Fox^s East India Bill. S. E. 
 
 [I give the sentence entire from Mr. Burke's Speech in 
 support of the Bill (House of Commons, 1 Dec. 1783), in 
 order to show the opinion he then entertained of Mr. Fox. 
 After praising the Bill, and saying he would leave its author 
 to his own noble sentiments but for the unworthy and 
 illiberal language with which he had been treated, he con- 
 tinued thus: — 
 
 " He has put to hazard his ease, his security, his interest, 
 his power, even his darling popularity, for the benefit of 
 a people whom he has never seen. This is the road that 
 all heroes have trod before him, &c." — Pari. Hist, xxiii, 
 1384. 
 
 The Bill was rejected by the House of Lords.] 
 
38 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 
 
 '• The zeal of Kenyon will go as far as the cor- 
 ruption of Buller"^ — but I cannot ascribe to 
 Kenyon zeal alone. 
 
 Treated Political Q^iconomy lightly. Said 
 France had drawn her political knowledge from 
 England. " "We knew nothing on that subject 
 till Adam Smith wi'ote," said Lord Lauderdale. 
 — " Poh," says Fox, "your Adam Smiths are 
 nothing : — But that is his Love," says Fox, 
 speaking of Lauderdale ; " we must spare him 
 there." " I think," says Lauderdale, " it is every- 
 thing." '• That," says Fox, " is a great proof of 
 your affection." ^ 
 
 " I wish I was Member for Westminster," 
 said Lord L. "And I wish I was a Scotch 
 Peer," said Fox. " Why so ? " — "I should then 
 be disqualified." 
 
 Did not admire any of Milton's verse ; thought 
 it inverted and artificial, though the defect is less 
 visible in the o-rand narts ; particularly liked 
 
 1 At this time Lord Kenyon was Chief Justice of the 
 King's Bench, and Buller was a Judge of the Common 
 Pleas. 
 
 - Lord Lauderdale afterwards published a work on this 
 subject: "Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Public 
 Wealth," &c., by the Earl of Lauderdale. Edin. 1804. 
 
CHARLES JAMES FOX. 39 
 
 " Fame, that last infirmity of noble minds," ' and 
 the Sonnet to Skinner.^ 
 
 Admired a poem just published, " The Plead- 
 er's Guide," ^ and wished me to read it. 
 
 In raptures with the Bath Guide, the best and 
 almost only good thing of Anstey ; and spoke of 
 that species of verse as remarkably easy, consist- 
 ing principally of words of three syllables, one 
 of which is dropped in heroic verse, being fully 
 pronounced. 
 
 The French, verse very bad ; as every syllable, 
 except where there is a feminine termination, 
 should be pronounced equally, which cannot be 
 in the French verse ; and therefore it continually 
 tortures the ear. 
 
 1 See Lycidas, line 70, et seq. 
 
 " Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise 
 (That last infirmity of noble mind) 
 To scorn delights, and live laborious days; 
 But the fair guerdon when we hope to find, 
 And think to burst out into sudden blaze, 
 Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears. 
 And slits the thin-spun life." 
 
 2 There are two Sonnets to Cyriack Skinner, the 21st and 
 22d of Milton's Sonnets. 
 
 3 By Christopher Anstey, the author of the Bath 
 Guide. 
 
40 • CHARLES JAMES FOX. 
 
 Admires two songs particularly in Aikin's col- 
 lection/ but could never learn the names (" Now 
 see my Goddess," &c. p. 133, and " 'Tis not the 
 liquid brightness of those eyes.") Never much 
 admired that song of G. Cooper's, "Away, let 
 nought to love displeasing." 
 
 Thought poetry " the great refreshment of the 
 human mind," the only thing after all ; — that not 
 a sum of arithmetic could be cast up at first 
 without the aid of poetry. That men first found 
 out they had minds by making and tasting poe- 
 try. That Lauderdale was the only man he ever 
 knew (he did not mean to pay him a compliment) 
 who thought rightly on many things, without the 
 love of poetry. 
 
 Fox said he would never attack the judicature 
 without Erskine's assistance, as his absence would 
 be urged against him. Nor would he have at- 
 tacked the Array department, if poor Burgoyne ^ 
 had been alive, without his countenance. " The 
 time will come," said Lord L., " when you must 
 
 1 Essays on Song-writing, with a Collection of English 
 Songs, by Dr. Aikin. 
 
 2 General John Burgoyne commanded a part of the 
 English army during the American war; signed the con- 
 vention of Saratoga in October, 1777. M. P. for several 
 years previous to his death, in 1792. 
 
CHARLES JAMES FOX. 41 
 
 fight for your skin, without waiting for any 
 man." — " When those times come, by God, I 
 will do nothing. This I have always said, and 
 will say — ' You will find me suffering and not 
 doing. ^ " 
 
 Everything is to be found in Homer. 
 
 Admired parts of Paley's Moral Philosophy, 
 and particularly a grand passage or two on Pub- 
 lic Worship. Had looked over his other works 
 but slightly. 
 
 Plad read The Monk, a novel just pubhshed by 
 Lewis ; thought it clever. 
 
 Much pleased with a song of Parnell's, " My 
 days have been so wondrous free," ^ — particularly 
 the first two verses, which he repeated. Missed 
 it in Aikin's Collection. 
 
 Rather liked Roscoe's Life of Lorenzo ; and 
 admired Lorenzo's poetry, who, he said, was cer- 
 
 1 Love and Innocence, a song, by Parnell. 
 
 " My days have been so wondrous free, 
 The little birds, that fly 
 With careless ease from tree to tree, 
 Were but as bless'd as I. 
 
 Ask gliding waters, if a tear 
 
 Of mine increas'd their stream'? 
 
 Or ask the flying gales, if e'er 
 I lent one sigh to them? " 
 
42 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 
 
 tainly a good poet, as well as a great man. 
 Particularly struck with an image of Jealousy ^ 
 in one of his poems, I. 268. 
 
 Talked much of Agriculture, and of the new 
 method of draining lands, by means of boring 
 them. 
 
 Justified Roscoe's " Nearly two centuries ^ 
 saw " as a loose way of writing, and not prop- 
 erly a metaphor. 
 
 Detested such as Johnson's " Existence saw 
 him spurn her bounded reign " ^ — and not less 
 
 1 " Solo una vecchia in un oscuro canto, 
 Pallida, il sol fuggendo, si sedea, 
 Tacita sospirando, ed un ammanto 
 D'un incerto color cangiante havea: 
 Cento ocelli ha in testa, e tutti versan piauto 
 E cent' orecchie la maligna dea: 
 Quel ch' ^, quel che non 6, trista ode e vede: 
 Mai dorme, ed ostinata a se sol crede." 
 
 2 I have not been able to find this expression in Eoscoe's 
 works. Perhaps a more diligent inquirer might be more 
 fortunate. 
 
 3 Prologue spoken by Garrick at the opening of Drury 
 Lane, 1747 ; — written by Johnson : — 
 
 " When Learning's triumph o'er her barb'rous foes 
 J'irst rear'd the stage, immortal Shakspeare rose; 
 Each change of many-color'd life he drew, 
 Exhausted worlds, and then imagin'd new: 
 
CHARLES JAMES FOX. 43 
 
 the second line, " And panting time toiled after 
 him in vain," as not only inelegant, but contrary 
 to our ideas of time, which is generally repre- 
 sented as swift. 
 
 Met him (June, 1798,) on a pony at the park- 
 gate, Penshurst, in a fustian shooting-jacket and 
 a white hat. Mrs. Armstead was in a whiskey. 
 He seemed much pleased with the house ; but 
 had no wish to ride over the park, having seen 
 enough from the road. 
 
 When he first comes to town in Winter, he 
 devotes two or three days to seeing sights and 
 lion-hunting. 
 
 When Courtenay was walking in his garden at 
 St. Anne's, he asked for the kitchen garden ; — 
 " You are now in the midst of it," replied Fox ; 
 it is intermixed with the shrubs and flowers, and 
 plays its part among them. 
 
 Mrs. Armstead, when he returns fretted in an 
 
 Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign, 
 And panting time toil'd after him in vain," &c. 
 I hardly think the world in general confirms Mr. Fox's 
 criticism of these lines. 
 
44 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 
 
 evening, takes down a volume of Don Quixote or 
 Gil Bias, and reads him into tranquillity. 
 
 1802, October 19th, Paris. Walked up and 
 down the Picture Gallery with ]Mr. and Mrs. 
 Fox. He was pleased with Madame Le Brun's 
 portrait of Lady Hamilton, and said it had the 
 true Bolognese tint. 
 
 N. Poussin, the only Painter who purposely 
 omitted to do what he could. In his landscapes, 
 brilliant ; in his historical pictures, dead, — cer- 
 tainly intended them to represent ancient ones. 
 
 Le Sueur's History of St. Bruno.^ Spoke of 
 it with great warmth. — Poussin's deluge ! — Not 
 such an admirer of Claude. — Guercino's circum- 
 cision. Dominichino his great favorite. — Anni- 
 bal Carracci : very fond of him. 
 
 Thought Metastasio's Poem on the death of 
 Abel the best of the last century. 
 
 Read Homer, as Mrs. Fox said, more than any 
 other writer. 
 
 Neither Homer nor Virgil mention the singing 
 of Birds.2 
 
 1 A series of pictures by Le Sueur, of events in the life of 
 St. Bruno. They are now in the Louvre, though probably 
 at the time of Mr. Fox's visit in the Luxembourg. 
 
 2 In a letter to Mr. Rogers, from a much valued friend, 
 
CHARLES JAMES FOX. 45 
 
 Thought the idea of collecting these fine things 
 from all parts of the world a noble one, and be- 
 lieved it was conceived by Bonaparte. Said it 
 was a delightful walk, but by some impulse of 
 the mind, one always looked at the same pictures. 
 Had not been there for three weeks. 
 
 The French had a right to these spoils of a 
 conquered Country. 
 
 Looked out of the Gallery Window, and thought 
 the suii was burning up his turnips. 
 
 Oct. 20th. Mara's concert and the ballet of 
 Psyche at the Opera house. Sat between Mr. 
 and Mrs. Fox : St. John ^ and R. Adair ^ behind. 
 
 — the Honorable Edward Everett, lately ambassador from the 
 United States, — dated 24 Dec.1850, the writer points out that 
 Mr. Fox was here in error, as far as Virgil is concerned; 
 and refers to the jEneid, viii. 456 : — 
 
 " Et matutini volucrum sub culmine cantus." 
 
 1 St. Andrew St. John, younger brother of Henry Beau- 
 champ, Lord St. John of Bletsoe, to which title he succeeded 
 on the death of his brother in 1805, and died in Oct. 1817. 
 Before his accession to the peerage he had sat for many 
 years in Parliament as member for Bedfordshire. He ac- 
 companied Mr. Fox to Paris in 1802. 
 
 2 Robert Adair, a relation of Mr. Fox; minister to 
 Vienna in 1806, and on a mission to Constantinople in 
 
46 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 
 
 Music ; — Portraits ; — wished he had sat only 
 to Sir Joshua Reynolds. Said his sitting so often 
 for his portrait was owing to her [Mrs. Fox], 
 though he liked NoUekens's last bust,^ and thought 
 it the best of all the likenesses. 
 
 Cupid blind not older than the Italians. 
 
 Tired of the ballet. 
 
 Went to a concert afterwards at the Ban- 
 ker's. 
 
 Mrs. Fox said the only fault she could find 
 with him was his aversion to music. The utmost 
 she could say for him was that he could read 
 Homer, while she played and sung to herself. 
 
 Oct. 24th. Dined at Mr. Fox's. Present : Adair, 
 St. John, Fitzpatrick,^ Le Chevalier, &c. 
 
 English tlie most difficult of all languages — 
 an union of many. Found King AYilliam wrote 
 
 1807; — Privy Covmcillor and G. C. B.; died Oct. 1855, 
 aged 92. 
 
 1 See frontispiece to 4to edit, of Hist. James II. 
 
 2 General Eicliard Fitzpatriclc, a very dear and intimate 
 friend of Mr. Fox, who used to address liirn in liis letters 
 by the title " Dear Dick." For many years in Parliament. 
 His sister. Lady Mary Fitzpatrick, married Mr. Fox's elder 
 brother Stephen, Lord Holland. 
 
CHARLES JAMES FOX. 47 
 
 bad French — " Mon toux " instead of " Ma 
 toux." The English articulate very ill. Gib- 
 bon, if anybody, mastered two languages. 
 
 Milton not English — could never forgive him 
 for expecting to interest hini through twelve 
 books, in which there was nothing like nature ; 
 or for writing anything but English — full of 
 inversions and affected phrases. Confessed him- 
 self an anti-Miltonite — acknowledged the beauty 
 of " beat out life," ^ and of his use of little 
 words. 
 
 Virgil remarkable for giving every incident a 
 melancholy ending : — Orpheus and Eurydice ^ — 
 Dido ^ — Nisus and Euryalus ^ — Lausus,^ &c. — 
 A very melancholy man : Homer not so. Virgil 
 wrote beautiful lines — his story has no interest. 
 
 1 See Adam's vision of the sacrifices by Cain and Abel, 
 and the death of Abel : — 
 
 " His offering soon propitious fire from Heaven 
 Consum'd with nimble glance, and grateful steam; 
 The other's not, for his was not sincere ; 
 Whereat he inly rag'd, and, as they talk'd, 
 Smote him into the midriff with a stone 
 That beat out life," &c. 
 
 Paradise Lost, xi. 442, et seq. 
 
 2 Georgics, iv. 454, et seq. 3 ^neid, iv. 651, et seq. 
 4 j:neid, ix. 425, 445, &c. 5 Ibid. x. 815, &c. 
 
48 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 
 
 Pope's comparison in his preface to Homer.-^ 
 When a man writes a preface, he tries only to say 
 an antithesis, and never thinks of the truth. 
 
 Homer — the interview between Priam and 
 Achilles his finest passage ; ^ Priam's kissing the 
 hands of him who had slain his son ! Helen's 
 lamentation over Hector.^ None more mistaken 
 than those who think Homer has no delicacy ; 
 he is full of it. Thought nothing more unlike 
 Homer's similies than Milton's. Did Penelope 
 never name Troy ? He had remarked that delicacy, 
 and also her not mentioning Ulysses by name. 
 
 I said in one respect the French had the ad- 
 vantage of us. He said, indeed in almost every 
 respect. 
 
 Observed of Gibbon's History that if a man 
 was to say, " I can't read it," and was to attempt 
 to acquire the knowledge it contained by any 
 other means, he would find it a hard task. Rob- 
 ertson very superficial in comparison. 
 
 Liked Lafond as well as Talma.* 
 
 1 A comparison of Homer with Virgil runs tln-ougbout 
 the preface. 
 '■2 Iliad, XXIV. 472, &c. 
 
 3 Ibid. 762, &c. 
 
 4 Actors on the French stage. 
 
CHARLES JAMES FOX. 49 
 
 » 
 
 Thought the music of the ancients must have 
 been as superior as their sculpture and poetry. 
 Rose from table with Mrs. Fox. — Coffee. 
 
 Oct. 28th. Met Mr. Fox in the Picture 
 Gallery. 
 
 Oct. 29th. Mr. and Mrs. Fox, St. John, and 
 Fitzpatrick, called and carried me to the Luxem- 
 bourg. Rubens — Le Sueur — Fox pi-eferred 
 the history of St. Bruno -^ to any series of pictures 
 whatever. Fitzpatrick mentioned Poussin's sac- 
 raments. Fox preferred these, and admired 
 particularly that of the messenger from the Pope 
 delivering the letter — the death of the guilty man 
 in the church — and the Preaching. When I said 
 he was the best painter of the white habit, he 
 repeated very pleasantly, Andrea Sacchi, Andrea 
 Sacchi. 
 
 In our way talked of the Abbe de Lille.^ 
 Thought Virgil's Georgics the most difficult 
 thing to translate in the World ; — Milton's Par- 
 
 1 By Le Sueur. See above, p. 44. 
 
 2 Jacques Delille was author of several poetical works on 
 gardening, agriculture, &c. ; he translated Virgil's Georgics 
 and Milton's Paradise Lost into French verse. 
 
 4 
 
50 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 
 
 adise Lost less so. Fitzpatrick mentioned a 
 translatoi' unacquainted with the language of his 
 original, and to whom it was translated by another. 
 Fox said he did not know whether that was not 
 the best way — it would lead to more freedom and. 
 less attention to words. Desirous to know which 
 were the three translations considered by Warton 
 as superior to the originals — Hampton's Poly- 
 bius — Rowe's Lucan — and Melmoth's Pliny. 
 To the French remark that a translator resembled 
 a rope-dancer, he said Pope was an exception. (I 
 suppose he meant as to the risk he ran.) 
 
 Admired the Luxembourg Gardens — the vases 
 and statues — Fitzpatrick cold — walked off to 
 warm himself. 
 
 Oct. 30th. Went to the Gobelins in a cabrio- 
 let — met Fox, St. John, Fitzpatrick, Le Cheva- 
 lier, De Grave.-^ 
 
 Fox admired the Gobelins. 
 
 1 Monsieur de Grave, who had been a Minister under the 
 Republic for a short time, but was " unequal to the fatigues 
 of office." Madame Roland described him as " a good- 
 natured little man, unfit for an arduous situation, — rolling 
 his large blue eyes, and falling asleep over his coffee." — 
 Trotter's Meimirs of C. J. Fox, 245, 246. 
 
CHARLES JAMES FOX. 51 
 
 Said of all pictures which came nearest to 
 perfection in color, and which perhaps united 
 most of the great qualities of the Art, was the 
 St. Peter Martyr by Titian. 
 
 Drove to the Garden of Plants and Museum 
 of Minerals — treasures from which the Painter 
 drew his colors of the rainbow. 
 
 Petrifactions — many from Milan. Here he 
 was very animated — could scarcely bring him- 
 self to believe what he saw — fish in perfection 
 inclosed in stone ! — Birds and Beasts — Had 
 seen these before, but brought General Fitz- 
 patrick, who delighted in curious bii'ds — The 
 little birds — Mrs. F. said that she and Mr. F. 
 spent much of their lime in watching the mo- 
 tions of the little birds, when building, and rear- 
 ing their young. Particularly struck with the 
 jealousy of the bullfinch, the most jealous of all 
 birds. 
 
 Dined with ]\Ii\ and Mrs. Fox, La Fayette, 
 Fitzpatrick, Adair, St. John, De Grave. A very 
 handsome dinner. 
 
 Abbe De Lille's Georgics.-^ 
 
 1 L' Homme des Champs, ou les Georgiques Franpaises, 
 po^me: par Jacques Delille. (Vide supra, p. 49.) 
 
52 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 
 
 Vote for the King's death. Fox said that all, 
 he believed, who were acted upon by fear, voted 
 for it. They were afraid of the pubhc cry. 
 
 La Fayette gave an account of Condorcet's 
 death, who had borrowed some snuff in a paper 
 at Suard's, and left it there.^ 
 
 1803. January. A visit to St. Anne's — a 
 small low white house on the brow of a hill, 
 commanding a semicircular sweep, rich and 
 woody. In the small drawing-room, Sir Joshua 
 Reynold's Girl with tlie mouse-trap. In the 
 hall, books and statues. The library on the first 
 floor — small and unadorned — the books on open 
 shelves. Engraved portraits, principally after 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds, all over the house. In 
 the garden passage a copy in black marble of 
 the Eagle at Strawberry Hill ; and a bust of 
 Hippocrates, with a Latin inscription by Lord 
 Holland, found in Italy. In the eating-room a 
 
 1 The Marquis of Condorcet died in a prison near Paris 
 in March, 1794; he is generally believed to have poisoned 
 himself, to avoid being put to death by Robespierre, against 
 whom he had written, and who had issued a decree of ac- 
 cusation against him in 1793, which had caused Condorcet 
 to lie hid in Paris for nine months. 
 
CHARLES JAMES FOX. 53 
 
 portrait of Lord Holland sitting, carefully painted 
 by Reynolds ; and of Lady Holland sitting, by 
 Ramsey. Several good old pictures. In the 
 garden a handsome architectural greenhouse, and 
 a temple after a design of Lord Nevvburgh, (who 
 also designed Kingsgate,^ and of whose taste he 
 thinks highly,) containing busts of Charles J. 
 Fox, Lord Holland, and a son of Lord Boling- 
 broke, all by NoUekens. The garden laid out 
 in open and shrubbery walks, trees breaking the 
 prospect everywhere. The kitchen gai'den a 
 square, not walled, and skirted by the walk. In 
 the lower part is sometliing in imitation of the 
 Nuneham Flower-garden. There is a terrace- 
 walk, thickly planted, to a neat farm-house ; in 
 which there is a tea-room, the chimney-piece re- 
 lieved with a Fox. The drawing-room prettily 
 furnished with pink silk in panels, inclosed with 
 an ebony bead, and a frame of blue silk ; made 
 of old gowns. 
 
 Had just read Euripides. Alcestis his favorite. 
 Hercules's resolution, " I must do some gi'eat 
 
 1 At Kingsgate, Isle of Thanet, is a house looking on the 
 German Ocean, built by Heniy Lord Holland, who occa- 
 sionally resided there. 
 
54 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 
 
 thing. I have used them ill."^ Heraclides, 
 " And these men wore Greek habits ! " ^ — he 
 repeated these instances twice. 
 
 Thought Sidney Biddulph ^ the best novel of 
 our age. Sheridan denied having read it, though 
 the plot of his School for Scandal was borrowed 
 from it. The close of the second part very 
 excellent. 
 
 The Greek Historians were all true ; the Ro- 
 mans liars, particularly Livy, who never scrupled 
 to teU a story as he pleased. 
 
 The Queen a bad woman — the King distrustful 
 of everybody — not from education only. There 
 is such a thing as a suspicious nature. The Prince 
 quick ; he would not have ventui-ed to treat the 
 
 1 This is a very free translation by Mr. Fox. The words 
 in the original to which he alluded, and from which he took 
 his idea, so shortly expressed in the text, are as follow : — 
 
 'i2 noUa rTiaca Kapdia, tpvxv t' if^V 
 Nvv del^ov, olov Tralda a' r/ Tipvv&ia 
 'HTiEKTpvLjvoc yeivar' ' A?iK/j.rjV7j A«. 
 
 Alcestis Euripidis, 854, et seq. 
 
 2 Here, again, Mr. Fox gives the effect rather than a 
 translation : — 
 
 Kal (iTjv aToTJfjv y' "Wihjva koI (jvd^/xbv ttettTiuv 
 'ExEi.' Ileracluhe Euripidis, 130. 
 
 3 Memoirs of Sidney Biddulph, by Mrs. Sheridan, mother 
 of R. B. Sheridan. She died 1767. 
 
CHARLES JAMES FOX. 55 
 
 Princess as he did publicly, if not encouraged b}' 
 somebody. 
 
 Ministers wish for peace, but have not the 
 courage to be peaceable. 
 
 Robertson's Life of Columbus ivell written. 
 
 Pope's Sylphs are the prettiest invention in the 
 world, but will never do again. 
 
 Lear, Othello, Macbeth, the best plays of Shaks- 
 peare. Fii-st act of Hamlet preeminent — the 
 Ghost the first ever conceived in every respect — 
 Hamlet not really mad. Wonders whether Shaks- 
 peare had ever seen a translation of Euripides — 
 so like him in many places — particularly in 
 Queen Catherine's taking leave of her servants, 
 where he reminds you of Alcestis. 
 
 Metastasio. He wrote indeed in a most poeti- 
 cal language ; but that was not his fault. Titus ; 
 Isacco ! " And am I he ! " ^ Mixture of ode and 
 couplet very pleasing in him. 
 
 1 " Isacco. Ah, Signer, dopo il presagio 
 Dell' Ospite stranier, di cui la madi-e 
 Rider s' udi, dimmi, che avenue ? Ah dimmi 
 Sol questo e parth'o. Abramo. L'evento in breve 
 II presagio avvero. Grave s'intese 
 Sara fra poco il sen. Germe novello 
 In sua stagion produsse. Isacco. Ed io son quelle ? 
 Abramo. Si, figlio," &c. 
 
 Metasfasio's Isacco. Part I. 
 
56 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 
 
 Read Homer more than once a year. 
 
 -^sohylus very difficult. Samson Agonistes 
 said by Bishop Newton to be equal to Euripides ! 
 
 A distant prospect indispensable for a house. 
 
 Wondered I was not partial to rhyme. The 
 ancients could do without it ; but their verse was 
 not superior to it. It is at least equal to ancient 
 verse, and perhaps the most perfect thing yet 
 invented. It is a thing to repose upon, and often 
 suggests the thought. Blank verse is perhaps 
 best for dramatic poetry. 
 
 Vanbrugh almost as great a genius as ever 
 lived. Sir John Brute — " And this woman will 
 get a husband ! " ^ Confederacy,^ from the French ; 
 with so much the air of an original ! Who would 
 have thought it ? 
 
 Josephine a very pleasing woman. 
 
 He loved children. 
 
 The poets wrote the best prose — Cowley's very 
 sweet ; Milton's excepted — more extravagant 
 than his verse, as if written in ridicule of the latter. 
 
 Who do you think the best writer of our time ? 
 I'll tell you who I think — Blackstone. 
 
 1 From the Comedy of " The Provoked Wife," by Sir 
 John Vanbrugh. 
 
 2 Also a Comedy by Sir John Vanbrugh. 
 
CHARLES JAMi^S FOX. 57 
 
 Very candid — Retracts instantly — Continually 
 putting wood on the fire — His Trajan, his Venus, 
 his Mosaics from Tivoli — His attachment to par- 
 ticular books — his commonplace-book — they 
 keep a journal at home and abroad. 
 
 Did not think much of Tickell, junior — pretty 
 well. 
 
 Read aloud one evening in the libi-ary Gray's 
 Fragment,^ " Scent the new fragrance of the 
 breathing rose." It was rather unlucky that the 
 rose blew in the north of Europe. 
 
 If he had a boy, would make him write verses ; 
 the only way of knowing the meaning of words. 
 
 Ghosts and witches the best machinery for a 
 modern epic. 
 
 Priam and Helen ^ — badly copied in Euripides ; 
 worse in Tasso. 
 
 1 " Oft have issued, host impelling host, 
 The blue-eyed myriads from the Baltic Coast." 
 " With grim delight the brood of winter view 
 A brighter day, and heav'ns of azure hue ; 
 Scent the new fragrance of the breatliing rose, &c." 
 
 Gray's Fragment : on the Alliance of Education 
 and Government, supra. 
 2 It is probable Mr. Fox referred to the description of 
 the Grecian chiefs given by Helen to Priam on the walls 
 of Troy; Iliad, iii. 171, et seq. There is a similar de- 
 scription in the Phnenissse of Euripides, line 88, et seq. ; and 
 
58 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 
 
 Johnson's preface to Shakspeare the best thing 
 on the subject. His treatment of Gray, Waller, 
 and Prior abominable ; especially Gray. As for 
 me / love all the ^^oets. 
 
 Lord Lansdowne ^ certainly a magnificent man ; 
 with no remai'kable taste for pictures or fine 
 things, but thinking them fit for a man of his 
 station, and wishing at least to acquire distinc- 
 tion in that way. 
 
 Lord Bute still more a magnificent man than 
 Lord Lansdowne, with more taste, that is, more 
 love for those things. 
 
 Blenheim wanted buildings in the grounds ; 
 admired the private ride round by the water. 
 
 Cowper's Epistle to Joseph Hill, Esq. his best 
 work. Windham brought hira first acquainted 
 with Cowper's works. 
 
 His conversation with Bonaparte misrepre- 
 sented ; who only said, " There are those who 
 think Mr. Windham," " II y a cependant ceux 
 qui pensent," &c.^ 
 
 Tasso has introduced a somewhat simnar passage in his 
 Gerusalemme Liberata, Canto 3. 
 
 1 William, Marquis of Lansdowne, who died in 1805. 
 
 2 Mr. Fox had dined with Bonaparte, and afterwards 
 spent the evening with him in Mrae. Bonaparte's apart- 
 
CHARLES JAMES FOX. 59 
 
 Dryden exquisite — no man reasons like him 
 in verse — his defence of transubstantiation ■■■ — 
 his verses to Congreve admirable,'^ but in gen- 
 eral deficient in feeling and tenderness. 
 
 Pope failed most, I think, in sense — he seldom 
 knew what he meant to say. 
 
 Romeo and Juliet — In the play, Romeo dies 
 before Juliet awakes — not so in the novel, and 
 better, and not now acted so. 
 
 Are there any ancient fables ? 
 
 Nisus and Euryalus ^ — preferred it, he owned, 
 to Ulysses and Dioraed ; * though the last always 
 a favorite. Repeated " Me, me, &c." ^ He had 
 lately written on the subject to Uvedale Price in 
 a critical letter. 
 
 ments in the Tuileries on 1st Sept. 1802. Trotter describes 
 the account given by Mr. Fox the same evening of his con- 
 versation with the 1st Consul, in which account Mr. Fox 
 stated that the 1st Consul had reproached Mr. Windham 
 with having aided the plot of the Infernal Machine ; and 
 that Mr. Fox had given the statement a positive contra- 
 diction. — Trotter's Memoirs of Fox, 316, 317. 
 
 1 In the Hind and the Panther, part i. &c. 
 
 2 Epistle to Mr. Congreve on his comedy called " The 
 Double Dealer." 
 
 3 iEneid, ix. 4 Iliad, x. and xi. 
 5 ^neid, ix. 427. 
 
 4- 
 
60 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 
 
 I have no faith in Bruce. To hear him talk is 
 enough. 
 
 Pope — Eloisa to Abelard is full of passion 
 and beauty, though many things in it might be 
 wished otherwise. 
 
 Congreve rich — wrote little — seldom seen — 
 did not make himself cheap — therefore so highly 
 rated by his contemporaries. 
 
 I write with difficulty. Perhaps with the 
 greater ease a man speaks, with the greater 
 difficulty he writes. I believe so. 
 
 Pictures — I like them. 
 
 Hume — A. D. 1399. "The murder of Glou- 
 cester," &c. to " Authority requisite for the exe- 
 cution of the laws," a very profligate sentiment, 
 and noted in my commonplace-book. 
 
 Trees — birds — nightingales — No ancient and 
 no modern poets except the English mention 
 much the singing of birds.^ Virgil not once in 
 his Georgics — doubts whether Catullus's Passer ^ 
 was more than a little bird. 
 
 Doubtful whether he should introduce notes 
 into his history ^ — had determined against it. 
 
 ^ See the same remark, in different words, above, p. 44. 
 2 " Ad passerem Lesbice " and " Funus passeris." 
 
 Catullus. 
 ^8 History of Reign of James II. 
 
CHARLES JAMES FOX. 61 
 
 Much perplexed how to interweave his new 
 matter from Paris into the text already written. 
 Should he use dashes or not ? Wished much to 
 introduce speeches, but said it would not do. 
 
 Lord Hervey's verses on Pope ^ very good, 
 though Burke did not think so. 
 
 Pope's letters very bad — I think him a foolish 
 fellow, upon the whole, myself — but he has cer- 
 tainly feeling ; and I like him best when not a 
 satirist. 
 
 Gray — no man with that face could have 
 been a man of sense. His Essay on Educa- 
 tion ^ and his Churchyard, his best works. The 
 
 1 Pope, in his Imitation of the 1st Satire of the 2d 
 Book of Horace, published in 1732, had ridiculed Lord 
 Hervey under the contemptuous name of Lord Fanny. 
 And Lord Hervey retaliated in some anonymous verses, 
 entitled, " Letter from a Nobleman at Hampton Com-t to 
 a Doctor of Divinity." These, I suppose, are the verses 
 to which Mr. Fox refers. Pope afterwards replied, in 
 some lines in the Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot (published in 
 Jan. 1734-5), in which he abused Lord Hervey, by the 
 name of Sporus, in most severe and bitter language. And 
 the same description of Satire on Lord Hervey is continued 
 in the Imitation of the 2d Satire of the 1st Book of Horace, 
 and elsewhere in Pope's works. 
 
 2 The Alliance of Education and Government. Vide 
 mpra, p. 32. 
 
62 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 
 
 Nile ! ^ — (when he came to that passage in 
 reading it, his face brightened, his voice rose, 
 and he looked to me,) — a very learned and 
 extraordinary man. 
 
 Repeated with Mrs. Fox that song of Mrs. 
 Barbauld's, " Come here, fond youth, whoe'er 
 thou be " ^ — the first verse full of bad grammar. 
 
 The Italian historians, perhaps the best mod- 
 ern ones ; but I think very well of Hume, I 
 own. 
 
 Marbles — I must have NoUekens's bust of 
 Brutus. 
 
 Shaftesbury and Bolingbroke I have not got — 
 I think little of them I own — though Boling- 
 broke's Essay on History I read with some 
 pleasure the other day at Woburn. 
 
 Gibbon a great coxcomb — his portrait by Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds is over the fireplace at Lau- 
 sanne, and he used to look at it as often as if it 
 
 1 " What wonder, in the sultry climes, that spread 
 Where Nile redundant o'er his summer-bed 
 From his broad bosom life and verdure flings, 
 And broods o'er Egypt with his wat'ry wings. 
 If with advent'rous oar and ready sail, 
 The dusky people drive before the gale." 
 
 The Alliance of Education, <^c. 
 2 Mrs. Barbauld's Works, n. 73. 
 
CHARLES JAMES FOX. 63 
 
 had been his mistress's. — Observed again that if 
 any man were to say, " I don't Hke his history, 
 I will acquire the information another way," 
 he would find it a very hard task. Lausanne 
 a pleasant cheerful place independent of its 
 scenery. 
 
 A Buffon — I wish for one colored. 
 
 Rousseau used Hume very ill.^ 
 
 Temples in gardens — wished for a temple to 
 the Muses — wished any body would let him 
 build him one. Lord Newburgh, a man of great 
 taste, — has built a temple for me ; ^ perhaps 
 there are too many at Stowe. 
 
 Lonesome ^ — Fredly Farm ^ — (never known 
 by him with that name) — Norbury ^ — The 
 Rookery ^ — View from a hill above Godwood. 
 
 Lansdowne Library — always liked it — so 
 vast, so retired — the ancient chimney-piece — 
 always liked the idea of a large room in the midst 
 
 1 Hume had been at great pains to assist Rousseau, who 
 nevertheless, on a most groundless suspicion, renounced 
 Hume's friendship, and rejected his proffered services. 
 
 2 Vide siqira., p. 53. 
 
 ■8 Gentlemen's houses in the neighborhood of Dorliing 
 and Jlickleham, whose beautiful scenery was often visited 
 by Mr. Rogers. 
 
64 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 
 
 of a great city — lighted from the sky and into 
 which you could go and say — "I shut you all 
 out." Saw one at Dublin — belonging to Lord 
 Charlemont. 
 
 Preferred Box Hill to Leith Hill.^ 
 
 Lock ^ must do everything with taste. 
 
 A distance essential to a house. 
 
 Green Park ^ the best situation in London. 
 
 Preferred the Boulevards to Piccadilly, in 
 Spring. 
 
 Alps — Swiss Lakes lovely — Italian lakes 
 much more busy — Returned from Italy very 
 fast — was there with Windham. 
 
 Wondered again whether Shakspeare had ever 
 seen a translation of Euripides.* 
 
 The World very superior to the Adventurer — 
 was very much pleased with it lately. 
 
 Nobody but very young girls could like Love- 
 lace — perhaps they might. 
 
 1 Both in the neighborhood of Dorking. 
 
 2 Then the owner of Norbury Park, near Dorking. 
 
 3 Mr. Rogers had lately bought a house in St. James's 
 Place, looking into the Green Park, and had altered and 
 nearly rebuilt it. In this house he resided till his death, 
 in 1855. 
 
 4 Vide supra, p. 55. 
 
CHARLES JAMES FOX. 65 
 
 Thomas, Lord Lyttelton — a wicked man — a 
 complete rascal, to be sure. Liked his father's 
 verses, " The heavy hours are almost past." ^ 
 
 Always think of what Lord • used to say, 
 
 that nothing is so easy as for young people to 
 make fools of old people whenever they please. 
 
 Liked to meet with grand houses in wild and 
 desert places — to step from dreariness into splen- 
 did apartments. Chatsworth struck him particu- 
 larly in this way. 
 
 Demosthenes and Cicero. "Wondered why so 
 judicious a writer as Quintilian should think of 
 comparing them,^ as each had what the other 
 wanted. Demosthenes had vehemence — Cicero 
 had playful allusions, beautiful images, philosoph- 
 ical digressions. Admired Demosthenes most; 
 he was certainly the greater orator — but he read 
 Cicero with most pleasure, and that, perhaps, 
 
 1 The fixther's name was George, Lord Lyttelton, author 
 of numerous poems, as well as other works. He died in 
 1773. He was an amiable, honorable, and virtuous man. 
 His son, Thomas, Lord Lyttelton, who is described as the 
 very reverse of his father in moral character and conduct, 
 died suddenly and (as is believed) by his own hand in 
 1779. — General Biography. 
 
 2 Quintilian, Book x. c. 1, passim, but particularly sec- 
 tions 105, 108. 
 
 5 
 
66 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 
 
 was one proof among others why Demosthenes 
 was the better orator. Cicero's letters did indeed 
 fill a great gap in the Roman History — they 
 were almost the whole of it. 
 
 Mickleham the most beautiful valley within 
 two hundred miles of London. 
 
 All roads from town are disagreeable — the Ken- 
 sington road is thought the best, but it must be on 
 account of its setting out through Hyde Park. 
 
 That song,-' " 'Tis not the liquid lustre of thine 
 eyes," perhaps the best ever written. 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds had no pleasure at Rich- 
 mond ^ — he used to say the human face was his 
 landscape. 
 
 A foolish song " When lovely woman stoops to 
 folly " ^ — a bad rhyme to melancholy. 
 
 1 " 'Tis not the liquid brightness of those eyes 
 
 That swim with pleasure and delight; 
 
 Nor those fair heavenly arches which arise 
 
 O'er each of them to shade their light; 
 
 ***** 
 
 But 'tis that gentle mind, that ardent love, 
 
 So kindly answering my desire ; 
 That grace with which you look, and speak, and move, 
 That thus have set my soul on fire," &c. 
 
 Aikin's Essays on Song Writing. 
 
 2 He had a house on Richmond Hill. 
 8 Vicar of Wakefield, c. 24. 
 
CHARLES JAMES FOX. 67 
 
 Approach to Lord Cadogan's, near Reading, 
 very fine. 
 
 Voyage from Henley to Maidenhead bridge. 
 He was one who thought one steep bank suffi- 
 cient, and better than two. 
 
 Raleigli a very fine writer. Lord Surrey too 
 old. 
 
 Always thought Mason to blame for suppress- 
 ing Gray's translations — surely the most valu- 
 able kind of thing to an English reader is a good 
 translation.^ 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds — the grand not his forte. 
 Liked best his playful characters — not even his 
 Ugolino satisfied him — the boys in his Holy 
 Family exquisite. 
 
 Petrarch. — Was never much struck with him 
 — his sonnets the worst of him — liked his let- 
 ters. 
 
 Dante a much greater man — and Boccaccio 
 also, whose sentences are magnificent. 
 
 Revival of letters — Where w-ould you begin ? 
 with the Medici? then you leave those men be- 
 
 1 Two translations by Gray from Propertius, and one from 
 Tasso's Gerus. Lib. omitted by Mason, have since been pub- 
 lished in JIathias's edition of Gray's works, London, 1814; 
 and later in Mitford's Gray. 
 
68 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 
 
 hind you. The middle ages never very dark ; 
 always producing some able men. 
 
 There is nothing more in favor of wine than 
 the many disagreeable substitutes for it which 
 are used in countries where it is not found ; such 
 as betel-root, 02^1 um, «&;c. 
 
 After all Burke was a damned wrongheaded 
 fellow through life — always jealous and contra- 
 dictory. 
 
 No man, I maintain, could be ill-tempered, who 
 wrote so much nonsense as Swift. 
 
 Perhaps the most original character and most 
 masterly in Shakspeare, is Macbeth. It is no- 
 where else to be found — exciting our pity at first, 
 and gradually growing worse and worse — till at 
 last the only virtue that remains in him is his 
 courage. 
 
 I have no idea of Physiognomy and its rules 
 as to the mind ; perhaps right sometimes as to 
 the temper. Lord Redesdale a remarkably silly 
 looking man ; and so indeed in reality. Pitt, I 
 cannot see any indications of sense in him — did 
 not you know what he is you would not discover 
 any.i 
 
 How delightful to lie on the grass, with a 
 
 1 Gray thought otherwise. S. K. 
 
CHARLES JAMES FOX. 69 
 
 book in your hand, all day — Yes — but why 
 with a book? 
 
 Had liked Virgil best in his youth.-' 
 
 1805. July 17. Set out at eleven with Court- 
 ney ^ and a brace of Weymouth trout. Arrived 
 at three. Were met by Mr. Fox in the garden. 
 He wore a white hat, a light colored coat, and 
 nankeen gaiters. 
 
 Gnats very numerous — Cold summer. 
 
 Meant to resume his history in a fortnight. 
 Hitherto much occupied in letter-writing. 
 
 In a letter-writing mood wrote to Dr. Bardsley 
 of Manchester on his pamphlet against bull-bait- 
 ing.^ Not against it himself; thought the outcry 
 against the common people unjust, while their 
 betters hunted and fished. Was decidedly in 
 favor of boxing. 
 
 Was very indulgent to works of taste. 
 
 Had written to Roscoe concerning proper 
 names — disapproved altogether of his pi-actice. 
 
 1 Lord Holland possesses his school Virgil full of praises, 
 and can now account for his having often said — " Virgil is 
 always our first favorite." S. E. 
 
 2 Vide svpra, p. 31. 
 
 3 Samuel Argent Bardsley, M. D. on the Use and Abuse of 
 Popular Sports and Exercises. — 3fem. Manch. Soc. vol. i. 
 
70 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 
 
 His instance of Louis, in the introduction, par- 
 ticularly against hira.-^ 
 
 Hume — his quotations at full length from other 
 writers — sometimes altered in the language for 
 no purpose — as in the case of a passage from 
 Burnet, Avhose language certainly required no 
 alteration. The practice of quoting gave great 
 variety to his style. 
 
 Homer — Iliad and Odyssey — Knight ^ was 
 coming to read his arguments why they were 
 written by different people — Was inclined to say 
 he would not believe it. 
 
 Would not say he would rather have written 
 the Odyssey — but knows he would rather read it. 
 
 1 Roscoe, in his preface to his Life of Leo X., published 
 shortly before the date of this conversation, had justified 
 the practice he had adopted of designating the scholars of 
 Italy by their national appellations; and of his spelling 
 the name of the King of France as Louis XIL (the name 
 he himself recognized,) and not Lewis XIL which latter 
 spelling Roscoe admitted to be the English mode. — Pref. 
 to Leo X. \st edit. It appears by Roscoe's later editions 
 that he was not induced by Mr. Fox's criticism to alter his 
 practice. 
 
 2 Richard Payne Knight; he afterwards published an 
 edition of Homer, with notes containing arguments to the 
 effect here mentioned by Mr. Fox ; he was a near relative of 
 Mr. Rogers. 
 
CHARLES JAMES FOX. 71 
 
 Believed it to be the first tale in the world. That 
 everlasting combat in the Iliad he never could 
 get over. 
 
 Mrs. Barbauld's Life of Richardson admirable — 
 always wished she had written more, and not 
 misspent her time in writing books for children, 
 now multiplied beyond all bounds — though hers 
 were the best. 
 
 Two or three chapters of Paley ^ on Public 
 Worship capital in thought and language. Paley 
 a great temporizer. 
 
 Had just read Gray's two odes ^ — excellent 
 but with some faults. Liked particularly the 
 first two stanzas in the Bard — and that in the 
 other ode, " In climes beyond the Solar road " ^ — 
 This the best of all. 
 
 1 See Book V. Chapters 4, 5, &c. of Paley's Morai Philos- 
 ophy, where the subject of Public Worship is discussed. 
 See also stipra, p. 41. 
 
 - From what follows, it appears Mr. Fox must have in- 
 tended by "Gray's two odes," The Bard and The Ode on 
 the Progi-ess of Poesy; though he mentions other odes of 
 Gray shortly below. 
 
 3 " In climes beyond the solar road, 
 Where shaggy forms o'er ice-built mountains roam, 
 
 The Muse has broke the twilight gloom 
 To cheer the shivering native's dull abode. 
 
72 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 
 
 Had read Euripides with great deliglit.^ 
 
 Tlie Electra of Sophocles his best. 
 
 Shakspeare after all affected him most. I like 
 the three Henrys (in answer to some objection of 
 mine) ; the character of Henry always excellently 
 kept up. 
 
 Liked Pope, but thought him much inferior to 
 Dryden. — Fitzpatrick Avas a great Popist, and 
 would not hear of the Rape of the Lock as his 
 best. Perhaps his Homer should be mentioned 
 as his great work after all. 
 
 Bolingbroke — did not like him. 
 
 It was the fashion to say surgeons were always 
 right. 
 
 Had heard no nightingales here this spring — 
 but many thrushes. 
 
 " And oft beneath the od'rous shade 
 
 Of Chili's boundless forests laid, 
 She deigns to hear the savage youth repeat 
 
 In loose numbers wildly sweet 
 Their feather-cinctured chiefs, and dusky loves. 
 Her track, where'er the Goddess roves, 
 Glory pursue, and generous Shame, 
 Th' unconquerable Mind, and Freedom's holy flume.'" 
 PTogress of Poesy, ii. 2. 
 1 Mr. Fox, in his correspondence edited by Lord John 
 Russell, III. 178, remarks that of all poets Euripides appeared 
 to him the most useful for a public speaker. 
 
CHARLES JAMES FOX. 73 
 
 The only foundation for toleration is a degree 
 of skepticism ; and without it there can be none. 
 For if a man believes in the saving of souls, he 
 must soon think about the means ; and if, by- 
 cutting off one generation, he can save many fu- 
 ture ones from Hell-fire, it is his duty to do it. 
 
 Never heax'd Burke say he was no Christian ; 
 but had no reason to think he w^as one — certainly 
 no papist. 
 
 Hume's best volumes the first volume (quarto) 
 of the Stuarts, and the last of the Tudors : Eliz- 
 abeth, James the First, and Charles the First. 
 Charles the Second's reign, and the Revolution, 
 very briefly and negligently hurried over. The 
 earlier history well enough written ; but not so 
 well. 
 
 Virgil's " O fortunatos, &c." ^ the most beautiful 
 
 1 fortunatos nimiiim, sua si bona norint, 
 Agricolas, quibus ipsa, procul discordibus armis, 
 Fundit liumo facilem victum justissima tellus ! 
 Si noil ingentem foribus domus alta superbis 
 Man6 salutantum totis vomit jedibus uodam; 
 Nee varios inhiant pulchra testudine postes, 
 Illusasque auro vestes, Ephyreiaque ajra : 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 At secura quies, et nescia faliere vita, 
 Dives opum variarura; at latis otia fundis, 
 
74 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 
 
 thing in the world, and with less of his melancholy 
 than usual, which is so apt to break out in every 
 part of him — his " sua si bona " indeed an ex- 
 ception and very melancholy. — Such unaffected 
 tenderness in Virgil ! 
 
 A garden. 
 
 Epicurus's philosojjhy — spoke of it with en- 
 thusiasm as grand and affectingr. 
 
 Quoted Horace — "An vigilare metu exanimem, 
 noctesque diesque." ^ 
 
 Ghosts — No man, however theoretically an un- 
 believer, but practically a believer more or less. 
 
 Knew Gibbon well.^ 
 
 Believes he could repeat all Horace's Odes by 
 to-morrow morning with a little recollection. 
 
 Remembers saying to the Bishop of Down ^ at 
 Oxford — " Come, let us have no more study — 
 Let us read all the Plays we can find." 
 
 Speluncgs, vivique lacus; at frigida Tempe, 
 Mugitusque boum, mollesque sub arbore somni, 
 Non absunt, &c. 
 
 Geargics, ii. 458, et seq. 
 
 1 Satirarum, Lib. i. Sat. 1, 76. 
 
 2 Vide infra as to Mr. Fox's visit to Gibbon at Lausanne, 
 p. 78. 
 
 3 Vide sujjra, p. 36. 
 
CHARLES JAMES FOX. 75 
 
 In hunting a bookseller's shop met with Mas- 
 singer, and was much struck with him. 
 
 Prefers the Traveller to the Deserted Village 
 on the whole. Knew Goldsmith well, but had 
 heai'd nothing of him before the Traveller — he 
 was amazingly foolish sometimes. 
 
 Foote, at the time, was run down as a Writer 
 and an Actor ; but was often excellent in both. 
 So happy in some of his parts. 
 
 At Lord E. Bentinck's table Foote overcame 
 us, though we had resolved to take no notice of 
 him. 
 
 Was Garrick of the original [literary] club ? 
 Malone could tell us. That is just what Malone 
 is good for. — Laughed heartily. 
 
 Laughed at Johnson's saying Lord Chatham 
 would not suffer Lord Camden to sit down in his 
 presence. Burke used to say it might be true in 
 part. Laughed again. 
 
 Herodotus uses us ill m saying he knows 
 more than he will tell us.-^ Then why say so? 
 Laughed. — A charming writer. 
 
 1 Herodotus often follows this course, using some such 
 phrase as the following: " Concernuig these, at the same 
 time that I confess myself sufficiently informed, I feel my- 
 self compelled to be silent." — Herodotus, ii. 171, et scq. 
 
76 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 
 
 The Confederacy ^ better than the Bourgeois 
 Gentilliomme. 
 
 Could repeat Gray's Ode to the Spring, he was 
 sure, and many more. 
 
 Did not like Mickle, and never read his Lu- 
 siad through. — Saw him once and took a dislike 
 to him. 
 
 I am senior member of the club,^ and the only 
 original member, except Bishop Percy. 
 
 Pork is excellent in all its shapes ; and I can- 
 not conceive why it was ever prohibited — it is 
 good in Otaheite, and of course in the East. 
 
 The Chinese an odd people. Political Economy 
 is certainly best understood in China. 
 
 Fairfax's Tasso preeminent — Always wondered 
 at Hoole's presumption in translating after him. 
 
 Hobbes's preface to Thucydides very fine. 
 
 Virgil soothing — I said I loved sedatives. He 
 said, I don't know — agitations have always been 
 considered as the greatest pleasures. 
 
 Sheridan was now all despondence — always in 
 an extreme. Sheridan, when talking of his own 
 
 1 A play by Sir John Vanbrngh. 
 
 2 The Literary Club. S. K. According to Boswell 
 (vol. I.) neither Mr. Fox nor Bishop Percy were original 
 members. 
 
CHARLES JAMES FOX. 77 
 
 superiority, often said that he expected wings to 
 shoot out from his elbows. 
 
 Gorcum, a town in Holland, where nothing 
 was talked but Dutch, and where signs were ne- 
 cessary. Could not remember the name at din- 
 ner — Many minutes afterwards stretched his 
 arm across. the table, and cried out "Gorcum!" 
 How odd it is to be sure, when one is hunting 
 after a word, when you burn, and think you 
 almost touch him, but not quite — if I had not 
 caught him then, I had lost him. 
 
 Often in speaking, when a thing occurs to me 
 and it is not the time to bring it out, I know I 
 shall lose it when I want it, and never fail to do so. 
 
 Grattan : his success in our house. Had heard 
 him in Ireland, and was confident. Grattan him- 
 self was apprehensive. Never was anything so 
 soon decided — in five minutes — though his friends 
 feared, and iiis enemies were sure of his failure. 
 
 Had a great desire to see Lord Spencer's 
 library. 
 
 His History-^ — now very much out of his 
 thoughts. Could get (Mrs. Fox said she be- 
 lieved) £5000 for two volumes. Phillips the 
 
 i Fox's History of the Keign of James II. 
 
78 \ CHARLES JAMES FOX. 
 
 bookseller had written, saying he had heard of 
 an offer of £10,000 — if so, he should make no 
 offer. Thought he might interweave extracts, as 
 Hume had done, but that would not do, alto- 
 gether. How far had he gone ? To the account 
 of Argyle's death and Monmouth's conspiracy. — 
 The last was written, but not written out by Mrs. 
 Fox.i 
 
 Thought Milton was often remarkable for Har- 
 mony, and did not agree with Knight.^ 
 
 Knight's character of Achilles very just. 
 
 La Harpe's seemed a pretty book.^ Had read 
 a little and liked it. 
 
 When at Lausanne, Gibbon came to them at 
 the inn and asked them to dinner — said he would 
 ask some friends the next day, and we found them 
 very agreeable people — the dinner very elegant 
 and quiet, and just as could be wished. Two 
 very pleasant days. 
 
 Found it very hot on the canals in Holland. 
 
 1 The work as published extends to the death of Argyle, 
 and the consph-acy and death of Monmouth. 
 
 2 Richard Payne Knight, in his Analytical Inquiry into 
 the Principles of Taste, writes on this subject. Part ii. 
 ch. i. 
 
 8 Lyc^e, ou cours de litt«^rature ancienne et moderne; 
 published between 1799 and 1805? 
 
CHARLES JAMES FOX. 79 
 
 Fitzpatrick erect and in high spirits at Paris. 
 
 The Prince drank three wineglasses of liqueur 
 here in succession last week. 
 
 Saw a good deal of Hume. 
 
 Liked wood-strawberries best. 
 
 The Bowling-green at Holland-house mown 
 every day — The lawn twice a week — Liked a 
 bowling-green, and lamented he could not make 
 one here. 
 
 Should make more garden still, if he could 
 afford it. Liked a garden. Roses so much per 
 pound. Let us plant roses in the wheat-field, if 
 they will fetch so much per pound. 
 
 Liked the Cuckoo. Nightino-ales at Holland- 
 house. 
 
 Cervantes. His description of an inn-kitchen 
 would suit any country.-^ 
 
 Weston's surprise at Sophia's thinking of any 
 body below her.^ 
 
 1 Mr. Fox must mean tlie laughable and natural account 
 of Sancho's attempt at the Inn to obtain a supper for his 
 master and himself, when the host, after promising that his 
 Inn could furnish " whatever the air, earth, and sea pro- 
 duced, of birds, beasts, or fishes," confessed at last that he 
 could give his guests nouglit but a pair of cow-heels stewed 
 with onions. — Don Quixote^ part ii. ch. 59. 
 
 '^ Fielding's Tom Jones. 
 
80 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 
 
 At Lord Keppel's every body so glad to see 
 him so well — could not conceive why, till he 
 found he had been said in the papers to be dan- 
 gerously ill. 
 
 A Bat's wing very beautiful. 
 
 Burns about as clever a man as ever lived. 
 Lord Sidmouth thought him a better poet than 
 Cowper. I cannot say but that he had a better 
 understanding. 
 
 Did not like Curi'ie's Life of Burns, so affect- 
 edly written. 
 
 Tam o' Shanter his best. Cotter's Saturday 
 Night contains some things best of all. 
 
 Lord Melville's intention to deprive Burns of 
 his place, the worst thing he was ever guilty of. 
 " I feel the gales that from ye blow 
 " A momentary bliss bestow." -^ 
 
 " 'Tis folly to be wise." ^ — 'Tis a misfortune to 
 be knowing, it should be. 
 
 Likes " honied " ' in Gi'ay. 
 
 1 Gray's Ode on Distant Prospect of Eton College. 
 2 " Still is the toiling hand of Care; 
 The panting herds repose ; 
 Yet hark, how thi-ough the peopled air 
 
 The busy murmur glows ! 
 The insect youth are on the wing, 
 
CHARLES JAMES FOX. 81 
 
 Liked Laing ^ better than any Scotchman he 
 ever saw. 
 
 Shenstone's Schoohnistress — he wrote nothing 
 else. 
 
 Every farmer stops his horse in the lane, and 
 talks with him over the pales about the corn and 
 the weather. 
 
 Fitzpatrick not quite so severe a critic as he 
 seems — he makes a face and turns up his brow. 
 
 Hippocrates. Thought all the extracts from 
 him admirable, and determined to read him — had 
 never possessed him — admired particularly his 
 Aphorism, " The second best remedy is better 
 than the best, if the patient likes it best." 
 
 Could not bear the sight of honey-dew. 
 
 Dame's school — I love too much better than 
 enough, as little Edward says. 
 
 Eager to taste the honied spring, 
 And float amid the liquid noon : 
 Some lightly o'er the current skim, 
 Some show their gaily-gilded trim 
 Quick-glancing to the sun." 
 
 Ode on the Spriiiff. 
 
 1 Malcolm Laing, author of a History of Scotland from 
 the Union of the Crowns to the Union of the Kingdoms, a 
 work Mr. Fox prized highly. He was M. P. for Orkney, 
 and attached to Mr. Fox's party. 
 6 
 
82 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 
 
 In Burns, liked the first line to a Mouse,^ with- 
 out understanding it — and those to the Devil.^ 
 
 Frantic Lover and Ode to Poverty were often 
 ascribed to him (Fox), but he did not write them. 
 
 Sheridan denied having read Sidney Biddulph,^ 
 but it was in the heat of an argument. 
 
 Sheridan had always the greatest intolerance 
 for all plagiarism. 
 
 Tickell's verses on Addison's death perfect. 
 Liked much of his Kensington.* 
 
 Could not remember a line of his own speeches. 
 
 " As Gypsies do stolen children " — Sheridan ^ 
 
 1 Lines to a Mouse, beginning 
 
 " Wee, sleeltit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie." 
 
 2 Addi-ess to the De'll, beginning — , 
 
 " thou ! whatever title suit thee, 
 Auld Hornie, Satan, Nicl<, or Clootie, 
 Wha in yon cavern grim an' sootie, 
 
 Closed under hatches, 
 Spairges about the bninstane cootie 
 
 To scaud poor wretches! " 
 
 3 Bj' Mrs. Sheridan, the mother of R. B. Sheridan. 
 ■* Kensington Gai-den, a poem, by Thomas Tickell. 
 
 5 " They may serve your best thoughts as gypsies do sto- 
 len children, disfigm'e them to make 'em pass for their 
 own." — Clitic, Act i. Sc. 1. 
 
CHARLES JA3IES FOX. 83 
 
 took it from Steele ^ and Steele from Wycher- 
 ley.^ 
 
 Nobody dies ! what becomes of all the people ? 
 Inimitable acting of in saying this. 
 
 Three Politicians in Fielding ^ (the first by far 
 too profound to speak) gave Sheridan the idea of 
 Lord Burleigh ; * and he improved upon it. 
 
 " And a great deal more if he had shook his 
 head as I taught him." * — Laughed heartily. 
 
 Lord Nugent ^ — clever ! You would not have 
 thought him so, had you known him. Old 
 
 1 I have not found the expression in Steele. But the two 
 following lines are in Churchill, which are very similar to 
 Sheridan's words : — 
 
 " Like gypsies, lest the stolen brat be known, 
 Defacing first, then claiming for his own." 
 
 Ajjoloffy addressed to Criiical Reviewers. 
 
 2 "He a wit! Hang him; he's only an adopter of strag- 
 gling jests and fatherless lampoons; by the credit of which 
 he eats at good tables, and so, like the barren beggar-woman, 
 lives by borrowed children." — Wycherleif s Plain Dealer^ Act 
 11. Sc. 1. 
 
 8 The Historical Register for 1736, Act i. 
 
 4 The Critic, Act in. Sc. 1. 
 
 5 Robert Craggs, Viscount Nugent; an Irish peer and 
 Member of the English House of Commons. Died 1788. 
 
84 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 
 
 " Remote from Liberty and Truth," ^ as Burke 
 used to call him. 
 
 Epilogue to Semiramis charming. 
 
 " It is our opinion," &c. in the Morning 
 Chronicle — Laughed heartily — Nothing di- 
 verts me more than their opinion — the tone of 
 the Papers ! 
 
 Could conceive no good of James the Second. 
 His seeing Monmouth, if he intended his death, 
 a beastly thing. 
 
 L'Homme au Masque de Fer, was Lewis's 
 brother. 
 
 Tom Jones and Joseph Andrews read by Mr. 
 Trotter to them on the road to Paris. St. John 
 and Fox could not make themselves heard on the 
 pavement. 
 
 Comte de Grammont ^ delightful. Scene at 
 Turin — Visit in disguise — Fleur d'epine ^ de- 
 lightful. 
 
 Duke of Northumberland visited by a tiger, 
 when in the gout at Northumberland House — 
 have heard him tell the story. 
 
 1 A short ode by Lord Nugent " to William Pulteney, 
 Esq." commences with the words " Remote from Liberty 
 and Truth." See his published works. 
 
 2 By Count Antoiue d' Hamilton. 
 
CHARLES JAMES FOX. 85 
 
 Proposed to go on Saturday — Not before 
 Monday at least — We shall have company to- 
 morrow — ' let us have a quiet day before we 
 part. 
 
 Prior's Alma a great favorite — quoted many 
 lines. — Hamilton's Bawn.^ 
 
 Some verses of mine made when a boy, said 
 by Tickell to be borrowed from his grandfather, 
 whom I had never read. Borrowed by both of 
 us from Dryden's Palamon and Arcite.^ 
 
 Warburton's Divine Legation — had never 
 read him — and only upon the sixth ^neid.^ 
 Gibbon's Answer* by no means conclusive. 
 
 Plutarch — one circumstance prevents my 
 \ 
 
 1 " The grand question debated whether Hamilton's Bawn 
 should be turned into a barrack or a malthouse." — A Hu- 
 morous Poem by Swift. 
 
 2 " Then grasp'd the hand he held, and sigh'd his soul 
 
 away." — Palamon and Arcite. 
 " ' Kenna, farewell! ' and sigh'd his soal away." 
 
 TtckeWs Kens. Garden. 
 " Eose on her couch, and gazed her soul away." 
 
 Pleas. Memory, part 1. 
 
 3 Warburton's Dissertation on the 6th JEneid in his Divine 
 Legation of Moses, Booh ii. Sect. 4. V 
 
 4 Critical Observations on the design of the 6th Book of 
 the iEneid. — Gibbon's Miscel. Works, ii. 497. 
 
86 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 
 
 taking any pleasure in his lives — my disbelief 
 of everything he says — Plutarch's credulity 
 incredible. 
 
 Sully tells a story of a Ghost, as not disbeliev- 
 ing it.-^ 
 
 Juvenal a good writer. Wish he was less dif- 
 ficult. 
 
 Gibbon's account of Christianity in his History 
 full of admirable irony. 
 
 Dryden's defence of transubstantiation, the best 
 passage in perhaps the first poem ^ in the world. 
 
 One good trait in him : never but once insolent 
 to fallen greatness. 
 
 His Lady and Leaf — an almost faultless poem. 
 
 Cannot read Black Letter — could never make 
 anything of an act of Parliament. 
 
 Lowth's answer to Warburton contains some 
 good things ^ — Warburton a clever fellow. 
 
 Johnson felt little respect for short poems. 
 
 Boswell I believe to be full of veracity. 
 
 Did anybody in our time remember Johnson 
 
 1 iNIemoires de Sully, liv. x. 
 
 2 Dryden's Hind and Panther. Vide supra, p. 59. 
 
 8 Lowth's " Letter to the Bishop of Gloucester " on Bishop 
 Warburton's " Appendix concerning the Book of Job." See 
 Divine Legation, &c. edition of 1765. 
 
CHARLES JAMES FOX. 87 
 
 in early life before his celebrity ? How did he 
 behave then ? 
 
 Mrs. Carter very heavy in conversation. 
 
 Bishop Shipley a very good writer. 
 
 Sir William Jones drew from a very ample 
 fund. 
 
 I do not like geese upon a Common ; they 
 make a bad soil ; nor do I like a Common too 
 near me. 
 
 Was a famous trap-ball player — beat some 
 Etonians two or three years ago. 
 
 Bonaparte a spoiled child. Berthier, who was 
 much with him, said that when out rabbit shoot- 
 ing, if he missed, and they hit, he did not like it, 
 and grew very cross. 
 
 If an Austrian War takes place, it will be over 
 with Austria, or the war will last many years. 
 
 Czar Peter's dreadful punishment of drawing 
 under the keel. 
 
 Water and all White Wines improved by ice. 
 
 Sir Charles Grandison an ^neas-kind of char- 
 acter. • 
 
 Preferred his Trajan to Townley's. 
 
 Rocks of Meillerie very beautiful. 
 
 Killarney Lake beyond anything of the kind 
 he ever saw. 
 
88 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 
 
 Bond Street bad, and inferior to wliat the 
 Strand used to be, which has suffered in its shops 
 from Bond Street, — Piccadilly on a bright Sunday 
 very fine. Could never believe the streets of Lon- 
 don were so short as they are — particularly Bond 
 Street, which is said to be only half a mile long. 
 
 Thought Gibbon's acacia walk long ; ^ and it 
 was short. 
 
 Knew La Fayette in England. 
 
 Never liked Ranelagh, though one should not, 
 they say, speak ill of the dead.^ 
 
 Alliteration ; I believe it is peculiar to the 
 English, if we except that ridiculous one of 
 Cicero.^ 
 
 Preferred the Spanish Pi'overb to any — " The 
 
 1 The acacia walk in Gibbon's garden at Lausanne, so 
 touchingly connected with his reflections on the completion 
 of his History of the Decline and Fall. — Mhcd. Works, 
 I. 170. 
 
 2 Ranelagh was discontinued in 1802. 
 
 3 Probably Mr. Fox alludes to the lines quoted by Quin- 
 tilian, b. ix. c. 4, as written by Cicero: " fortunatam 
 natam me consule Romam;" though this is not exactly 
 what is now understood by an alliteration. There is an- 
 other, also quoted from Cicero by Quintilian, b. xi. c. 1, 
 which more nearly approaches the modern meaning of the 
 word: " Cedant arma togse, concedant laurea linguse." 
 Which of these two did he consider ridiculous ? 
 
CHARLES JAMES FOX. 89 
 
 biter bit " — how inferior to " He went out to 
 gather wool, and comes home shorn," — quoting 
 the Spanish. 
 
 That a man is young at forty, I always main- 
 tain. 
 
 Voltaire's works. I often look at them on the 
 shelf, and wonder they are really an object for 
 contemplation ! Voltaire repeats himself very 
 often of course, or it could not be. 
 
 The Way of the World,^ a charming comedy. 
 
 The Mourning Bride,^ execrable everywhere. 
 
 Pizarro,^ the worst thing possible. 
 
 When he said he carved ill, and she confirmed 
 it — " Yes, my dear, I thought you would agree 
 with me." 
 
 Speaking of the new room projecting ^ — " Then 
 you'll be always in the new drawing-room — you'll 
 never play again where I am — never more in 
 the poor back room." 
 
 Homer almost always speaks well of women, 
 except in the instance of Penelope's maids, whom 
 he uses rather hardly.* 
 
 1 By Congreve. 
 
 2 By E. B. Sheridan — a translation from tlie German. 
 8 At St. Anne's Hill. 
 
 4 Odyssey, Book xx. 8, et seq. xxii. 424, et scq. &c. 
 
90 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 
 
 Like Telemachus in Helen's speech in the 
 Odyssey ^ — remarked by Lord Grenville. 
 
 Nausicaa exquisite^ — better than anything. 
 
 Read nine Epic Poems aloud to Mrs. Fox, in 
 one winter, (if I could call Lucretius one, which 
 it is not ;) Iliad, Odyssey, Apollonius Rhodius, 
 Eneid, Tasso, Ariosto, Milton's Paradise Lost, 
 and Regained, Fairy Queen. Two of them far 
 the most entertaining to read, whatever may be 
 their other merits — The Odyssey, and Tiie Or- 
 lando Furioso. 
 
 Like a book of Spencer exceedingly, before 
 something else. 
 
 Epistle to Lord Oxford — Parnell's. 
 
 Songs— Fairy Tale— Elegy — "Lowly Bed"* 
 
 — " Here lies Gay." 
 
 Have often thought that if I had a great deal 
 of leisure, I would publish an edition of Dryden 
 
 — with the originals on the opposite page to the 
 Translations. 
 
 Nothing so absurd as not to give Chaucer with 
 the Translations. 
 
 1 Book IV. 138, et seq. * Odyssey, Book vi. 
 
 8 " The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn, 
 No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. 
 
 Grat/s Elet/y in a Country Churchyard. 
 
CHARLES JAMES FOX. 91 
 
 Nothing more absurd than Malone's crowding 
 his prefaces together. 
 
 Broke from a Criticism on Porson's Euripides, 
 to look for the httle pigs. 
 
 Pi'eferred Barry's Romeo to Garrick's. 
 
 Garrick's Othello reminded Quin of a little 
 black boy with a teakettle ; and I always looked 
 for the teakettle. 
 
 Darwin recommended cold bathing for a cold 
 — Coke the worse for it — try again, said Dar- 
 win. 
 
 When Mackintosh reflected on O'Quigley what 
 was the reply of Parr ? " He was an Irishman, 
 and he might have been a Scotchman — He was 
 a Priest, and he might have been a Lawyer — 
 He was a Rebel, and he might have been an 
 Apostate." 
 
 Wasn't it enough to make one cry when the 
 air was so thick last week ? 
 
 Fitz's " Body and SouL" •■■ 
 
 It is always said, " Spend your money while you 
 can enjoy it " — Now, I always thought money of 
 most use in old age, and it is rather hard upon me 
 that I should want it now. 
 
 1 The Soul and the Body, a Dialogue in vei'se, by General 
 Fitzpatrick. 
 
92 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 
 
 Could never forgive Addington for suffering 
 himself to be drawn into the war. 
 
 Abroad and barely nineteen, when chosen into 
 Parliament in 1768. 
 
 Bonaparte, during the peace, I am persuaded, 
 would gladly have consented to fix his dominions 
 as they were. 
 
 Plutarch's lives a most exciting work for a 
 young man who is at all ambitious. With his 
 other works I am unacquainted. All the extracts 
 I have seen are good. 
 
 I can excuse almost everything in Elizabeth 
 but the execution of Mary — Except William the 
 Third she was the best of them — We have not 
 had a good set. 
 
 William had great simplicity of character ; and 
 what is remarkable, the more you know of him 
 the more you like him — his letters are a proof of 
 this. He did nothing perhaps to blame, but in 
 the affair of the massacre of Glencoe ; and then 
 not in the thing itself, for he knew nothing of it, 
 but in pushing too far the maxim, to protect those 
 who only exceed your orders. 
 
 I often think that if Elizabeth had invited 
 Philip the Second, and had got him over here 
 and clapped him into prison on some pretence of 
 
CHARLES JAMES FOX. 93 
 
 treason oi' some such thing, it would have saved 
 her a great deal of trouble. 
 
 Gray's stanza, " Thee the song, the dance 
 obey," -^ certainly suggested by the ballet at Paris 
 — and " Slow melting strains," ^ &c. — refer to 
 the chaconne, and tlie appearance of the principal 
 dancer — Never liked the last line — neither 
 " bloom " nor " purple." ^ 
 
 The Odes to Spring and to Adversity his 
 favorites — the first perhaps without faults — but 
 after all, he liked best the Elegy, which is full of 
 faults — the first stanza very bad, " to darkness 
 and to me." 
 
 Nothing like the former fashion of high car- 
 riages to suit only the young and the active, who 
 least wanted to get into them. 
 
 William the Third justified in hating the French, 
 and perhaps in making England an instrument of 
 his hatred ; but certainly England herself had 
 cause for war. 
 
 1 Progress of Poesy, 3d stanza. 2 ibjd, 
 
 3 " The bloom of young Desire, and purple light of 
 Love." — Ihid. Instead of "neither bloom nor purple," 
 another MS. copy of the Recollections has the words, " Nor 
 the pride, nor ample pinion." These latter words are in the 
 last stanza of the same ode. 
 
94 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 
 
 Hume the most partial of all writers ; 25<ii'ticu- 
 larly through the whole of the reign of Charles 
 the First. 
 
 Waller's speech preserved, and good too.^ 
 
 Lord Strafford's speech on his trial capital.^ 
 
 No dark ages — Hildebrand's as dark as any, 
 yet his rvriting is good. 
 
 Eloisa's letters, what good Latin ! 
 
 Menander's works the greatest loss. 
 
 Whenever I hated chess, it was like a lover. 
 
 Soame Jenyns's style excellent. 
 
 Never read Jortin's Erasmus. 
 
 Turkish and Persian tales authentic. 
 
 Euripides perhaps the most precious thing left 
 us — most like Shakspeare.^ 
 
 The Colon aius perhaps the best of Sophocles, 
 though I like the Electra too. The Greek chorus 
 the prettiest thing in the world. 
 
 Caesar's Commentaries do not entertain me 
 
 1 Two speeches of Edmund Waller's are in Pari. Hist. 
 — his speech in Commons, April 22, 1640, on moving to 
 consider Redress of Grievances before granting Supply; 
 and his speech in Long Parliament, June 11, 1641, against 
 abolishing the Bishops. — Par/. Hist. II. 555, 826. 
 
 2 Howell's State Trials, in. 1462, et seq. 
 8 Vide supra, pp. 55 and 64. 
 
CHARLES JAMES FOX. 95 
 
 somehow. There is a want of thought in them — 
 dry, and affecting to be written briefly and in a 
 hurry — Came here ; went there. His letter to 
 Oppius and Cornelius Balbus ^ the most striking 
 thing to his honor, and seldom mentioned. Had 
 sent for a Cicero and copied it out to transmit it 
 to Bonaparte, when the news of D'Enghien's 
 death ^ arrived and prevented him. 
 
 All serves to convince me that women must 
 have a great influence in Society, do Avhat you 
 will. 
 
 Mr. Ogilvie a chess player of another form. 
 
 Hooke, like Hume, was determined to blacken 
 one side — Hooke did it clumsily, Hume dexter- 
 ously. 
 
 1 Ad Attic, rx. 7. Hooke, iv. 39. S. R. [The letter 
 from Casar to Oppius and Cornelius Balbus was sent by 
 Cicero to Atticus, (inclosed in the 7tli Epistle of 9tli Book 
 of Letters to Atticus,) to show Ctesar's moderation in the 
 midst of great successes. It affords " a noble testimony to 
 Ccesar's wisdom and magnanimity."] 
 
 2 The Duke d'Enghien was shot, by the order of Bonaparte, 
 in the Chateau of Vincennes, in March, 1804, having been 
 treacherously seized in Baden, by French troops, sent across 
 the Ehine to kidnap him. This act, a breach of tlie law of 
 nations, excited the indignation of Europe, and no doubt 
 changed Sir. Fox's sentiments towards Bonaparte, whose 
 guest he had been at Paris but a few months before. 
 
96 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 
 
 Boccaccio — preface to his third or fourth book 
 in favor of love for women, by far the warmest 
 piece of eloquence I ever read — Dryden imitates 
 it in his introduction to Cymon and Iphigenia — 
 " Old as I am, for ladies' love uniit." 
 
 Peti'arch's Latin letters the best of him. 
 
 Dined with Abbe Sieyes ^ — has a very pretty 
 place — a very good dinner — good wines — he 
 talked a good deal, and very well — a very pleas- 
 ant day — near Marly. 
 
 Saw Moreau once — saw Massena — never 
 saw Carnot. 
 
 Saw Voltaire at Ferney — but long ago ; he 
 lived in great elegance there. 
 
 Never saw Rousseau or Condorcet. 
 
 Bonaparte very handsome, and more like Lord 
 Villiers than anybody in England — though cer- 
 tainly not so handsome. The smiles that played 
 about his mouth when he spoke, delightful. 
 
 Have not seen the hills this fortnight. When 
 in the evening it suddenly cleared — " How d'ye 
 do ? " he cried, laughing. 
 
 Thought of his game of chess in the night. 
 Does not play slow, but talks and reasons a good 
 
 1 ]\Iember of the States General in 1789. See mention of 
 him below by Talleyrand. 
 
CHARLES JAMES FOX. 97 
 
 deal while playing. Played eight games with 
 me and won five. 
 
 At Bologna dreamt that Lord Holland, then a 
 boy at school, was dead, and that the letters con- 
 taining the news were lying on the table before 
 him. In the morning Jenkins (the banker at 
 Rome) arrived from Turin, and introduced him- 
 self, saying, " My Lord, I am sorry to inform 
 your Lordship that you are now Lord Holland." 
 In the course of the day two English gentlemen 
 arrived from Geneva, who said that the news 
 had reached Geneva, and that an express was on 
 the road for him from England. At night the 
 express arrived. James Hare (Junior) went out 
 to the express, and returned saying, " All is 
 right." ^ It came on account of the King's illness ; 
 and there were letters from Lord Holland. The 
 express said that he had heard the report in 
 England, but that it was not true. 
 
 Said to himself, on one occasion, that he was 
 sure he was wrong, he had been so positive. 
 
 1 " Mrs. Fox has often told me, (and I think he once did 
 himself,) that when they heard James Hare's step returning, 
 he remarked, ' it must be good by the way he comes up- 
 stairs.' " — Miss Fox to S. R. 
 7 
 
98 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 
 
 April, 1806. 
 
 Called upon him in Stable Yard,^ when ill. 
 Hippocrates lay open before him. 
 
 When I said, speaking of the east wind, I 
 wish the new Administration would get it put 
 down by Act of Parliament, he smiled, and said, 
 (waking as it were, out of one of his fits of tor- 
 por,) " They would find that a difficult thing, — 
 but I believe they would do as much good in 
 that, as they will in anything else." 
 
 ANECDOTES OF FOX BY VARIOUS PERSONS 
 
 FROM COMMONPLACE-BOOK OP 
 
 SAMUEL ROGERS. 
 
 Burke was exceedingly struck with Sheridan's 
 speeches in Westminster Hall. He told Fox 
 that he thought Sheridan had hit upon a middle 
 style, between Prose and Poetry, which was very 
 happy ; and Fox used to say that he thought 
 Burke's taste in composition fell off from that 
 
 1 Mr. Fox, on being appointed Foreign Secretary in Feb. 
 1806, had removed into a house in Stable Yard in St. James's 
 Palace. 
 
CHARLES JAMES FOX. 99 
 
 time. Fox always thought httle of the celebrated 
 " Reflections," and considered the writing of that 
 work to be in a very bad taste. — Fitzpatrick. 
 
 Fox in the progress of his work -^ thought but 
 little of verbal criticisms. Uvedale Price made 
 many, and Fox threw them into the fire. They 
 were not such as he wanted. — Fitzpatrick. 
 
 Mackintosh was considered by Fox as having 
 deserted the party, and at one period of his life 
 he resented such conduct very deeply, but that 
 time was past with him. Before he left England, 
 and after Mackintosh's dereliction, they met at 
 dinner somewhere, and Mackintosh, introducing 
 the subject of the history, made an offer of assist- 
 ance, with regai'd to inquiinng after documents, 
 which offer Fox accepted very cordially, and he 
 would not have done it, if that feeling had been 
 very strong in him. — Fitzpatrick at Foxley, 
 August, 1808. 
 
 When a bitter wind in March blew from the 
 West, and after a time the weathercock shifted 
 to the East — " Yes," he would say, laughing, " I 
 
 1 History of the Reign of James II. 
 
 LOFC. 
 
100 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 
 
 knew it would own itself East at last." — Lord 
 Holland. 
 
 Mr. Fox was once sitting in conversation with 
 Mr. Burke and the Duke of Richmond, when a 
 discussion took place on the comparative mei'its 
 of History, Philosophy, and Poetry. The Duke 
 of Richmond declared for the first two; saying 
 that he was for truth ; that he preferred truth to 
 everything; upon which Mr. Burke observed 
 that there was no truth but in Poetry. My 
 uncle was of the same opinion, and would often 
 say afterwards that he should wi-ite a dialogue 
 on the subject. — Lord Holland. 
 
 I am, as he said of himself, a very painstak- 
 ing man. When he first entered into office, being 
 dissatisfied with his handwriting, he took lessons ; 
 and for some time, when carving, he had a book 
 on the subject open by him. — Lord Holland. 
 
 If I recover, young one, I will never take an 
 efficient office again ;' though I should like to be 
 useful. I will never be so foolish as to take a 
 peerage ; a thing I have often refused. — Lord 
 Holland. 
 
CHARLES JAMES FOX, 101 
 
 My uncle was humorous on sad occasions. 
 When helping him into bed a night or two before 
 he died, I said, " O passi graviora : dabit Deus 
 his quoque finem ; " — he replied, " Aye, young 
 one — but jinem is an awkward word in more 
 senses than one." — Lord Holland. 
 
 Glorious was his course; 
 And long the track of light he left behind him. 
 
EDMUND BURKE 
 
EDMUND BUEKE. 
 
 MEMORANDA MADE BY MRS. CREWE.* 
 
 
 ^^(?3 N this age moi'e respect is shown to 
 i^^H talent than to wisdom — but I consid- 
 f^^l er our forefathers as deeper thinkers 
 
 -^^'^^ than ourselves, because they set an 
 higher value on good sense than knowledge in 
 various sciences ; and their good sense was de- 
 rived very often from as much study and more 
 knowledge, though of another sort ! 
 
 Somebody, who had met Mr. Fox abroad, 
 mentioned his early attachment to France and 
 French manners. Yes, said Mr. B., his attach- 
 ment has been great, and long, and like a cat. 
 
 1 The wife of John Crewe, Esq. created Lord Crewe in 
 1806. It was to this lady that Sheridan addressed the lines 
 entitled " A Portrait," prefixed to his comedy of the School 
 for Scandal. 
 
106 EDMUND BURKE. 
 
 he has continued faithful to the house, after the 
 family has left it. 
 
 Lord Cluitham was a great Minister, and bold 
 in his undertakings. He inspired the people 
 with warlike ardor when it was necessary. He 
 considered Mobs in the light of a raw material, 
 which might be manufactured to a proper stuff 
 for their own happiness in the end. 
 
 Dull Prosers are preferable to dull Jokers. 
 The first require only patience ; but the last har- 
 ass the spirits, and check their spontaneous ac- 
 tion. 
 
 Quizzing a system of terror — the ruin of all 
 social intercourse. 
 
 More indulgence should be shown to Story- 
 tellers. A story to be good, should be a little 
 long sometimes ; and in general, when a man 
 offers you his story, it is the best thing he has to 
 give you. There should be a variety of styles, 
 too, in conversation, as in other amusements. 
 
 Emigrants. It is in human nature, as well as 
 in brute nature, to dislike a fellow-creature in a 
 state of degradation. Dogs will insult a dog 
 with a canister at his tail, and when a boy, I 
 have often played with other boys at a trick to 
 cover one turkey with mud, that we might ob- 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 107 
 
 serve how other turkeys would tease it. Com- 
 passion, like every other feeling, may be worn 
 
 r 
 
 out. He had a great indulgence for the preju- 
 dices which were against the Emigrants. 
 
 A great admirer of Swift's humor, particu- 
 larly in his namby-pamby letters to Stella, which 
 he always praised for their genuine gracefulness 
 and ease. It being observed that many could 
 not relish them in early life, but had grown to 
 like them afterwards, he said : In early life, we 
 have generally a serious turn. It is in youth 
 that the reasoning powers are strongest, though 
 the stock is then too small to make any show 
 with. The imagination becomes strongest after 
 youth ; for however ready it is to come forward, 
 it cannot be exercised without a stock of knowl- 
 edge. 
 
 England is, at all times, a moon shone upon 
 by France. France contains all within herself. 
 She has natural advantages ; she can rise soon 
 after severe blows. England is an artificial 
 country. Take away her Commerce, what has 
 she? 
 
 Education should be considered as improving 
 the heart, as well as the head. Too often men- 
 tioned merely as a school-acquirement. The last 
 
108 EDMUND BURKE. 
 
 may be bought by any rich vulgar parent — the 
 first can only be imbibed from domestic guar- 
 dians, who have themselves a thoi'ough and re- 
 fined sense of true virtue ! ^ 
 
 All colors are blended well by gold. Gold is 
 the color of light, and produces the effect of sun- 
 shine — our very language confesses the pleasure 
 we derive from gilded objects. Many years ago 
 Mr. Fox lamented with me the loss of true taste 
 in England on this point. Gilding was so much 
 the taste of the Ancients, that they gilded their 
 favorite statues ; and remains of it are seen on 
 the Venus de Medici. She was sometimes styled 
 Aurea Venus on this account. The Romans 
 gilded their walls and ceilings more than the 
 Greeks, because they had more gold. 
 
 Disliked the cant concerning the Pooi'. The 
 Poor are not poor, but Men, as we are all born 
 to be. Those who have known luxury and are 
 reduced, meet with most of my compassion ! 
 Fox was of the same mind. Tooke of another. 
 " The rich are born with a right to my labor. 
 
 1 What a reflection on the practice of the upper class ! 
 S. B. 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 109 
 
 If I make a tract of ground produce a hun- 
 dred fold, there are others to claim the ninety- 
 nine." 
 
 Good humor too often confounded with good 
 nature, which has a much less servile character. 
 
 Every farm held by a gentleman, is, in pro- 
 portion to its magnitude, a loss. No gentleman 
 can give his time and attention to such details as 
 are necessary to minute economy, and which no 
 farm can prosper without. 
 
 ANECDOTES OP BURKE BY DR. LAWRENCE,^ 
 
 FROM COMMONPLACE-BOOK OF 
 
 SAMUEL ROGERS. 
 
 Burke sleeps but ill, and often rises at day- 
 break ; makes the tour of his farm, oversees his 
 men at work, and then returns to bed. Walks 
 in his fields with a spud in his hand, making 
 war upon the nettles, and breaking the clods ; 
 and often makes a stop in conversation on the 
 
 1 Dr. French Lavn-ence, M. P. from about 1797 to 1808 
 or 1809, and a frequent supporter of Mr. Fox. He was an 
 intimate friend of Mr. Burke. 
 
110 EDMUND BURKE. 
 
 grandest topic, to dii'ect the lading of a dung 
 cart. 
 
 1 have known him read Savary's Travels ^ to 
 the ladies in the morning, and compare it with 
 Strabo at night. 
 
 After dinner he retires to a nap, but returns to 
 tea, and when the card-table is set, retires again 
 for three, four, or five hours. 
 
 In argument puts out his whole strength, but is 
 ready to listen, and full of inquiry. 
 
 Dined with him and others at the Ton, Bil- 
 lingsgate. At dinner time he was missed ; and 
 was found at a fishmonger's, learning the history 
 of pickled salmon. 
 
 In December, 1794, Windham paid him a 
 visit, and one day after dinner he said, " I have 
 " had a terrible morning. I have been cutting 
 " down some trees in the home-wood, and I was 
 " there last with my son ^ to mark them. This 
 " elm, I said to him, must make way for that old 
 
 i Savary's Letters on Egypt and on Greece. Circa 1785 
 and 1786. ? 
 
 2 Mr. Burke's only son, who had succeeded to the repre- 
 sentation in Parliament of the borough of Malton, on his 
 father retiring from it in 1794; died very shortly after- 
 wards, in August, 1794. 
 
EDMUND BURKE. Ill 
 
 " oak ; here we will open a walk, and there place 
 " an Urn to your Uncle's memory." The recol- 
 lection of it overcame him. 
 
 He farms 500 acres himself, and sells his 
 chickens and rabbits. 
 
 In his youth he wrote and published a didactic 
 poem. The Progress of Literature.^ 
 
 Educated at a small school in Ireland, the mas- 
 ter of which paid him an annual visit for many 
 years at Beaconsfield.^ 
 
 He dictates a good deal to an amanuensis, and 
 corrects repeatedly afterwards, often printing and 
 cancelling. 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds, being fond of the old 
 style of gardening, interceded for a dipt hedge 
 at Beaconsfield, which still stands. He loved to 
 see the footsteps of man about a human habita- 
 tion. 
 
 Markham, Archbishop of York, had a corre- 
 spondence with Burke concerning Junius. Mark- 
 
 1 This poem was probably anonymous ; it does not appear 
 in the ordinary editions of his works. 
 
 2 Mr. Burke, in 1768, purchased a house and a small 
 estate called Gregories, near Beaconsfield in Buckingham- 
 shire, where he resided until his death in 1797, occupying 
 himself much in farming and planting. 
 
112 EDMUND BURKE. 
 
 ham ascribed it to Burke. Biu'ke replied that it 
 could hardly be suspected that he should so far 
 forget his interest, as well as his feelings, as to 
 write in favor of Grenville, whom he had opposed, 
 and write so coolly of his own party. Markham 
 replied, that as he had not denied it, he should 
 still believe it to be his ; and there the correspond- 
 ence and the acquaintance ceased.^ 
 
 Was cheerful on the day of his death. The 
 papers of Addison were often read to him in his 
 last illness, and on that day he heard No. 247 of 
 The Si^ectator. The application of the lines of 
 Ovid^ on a Woman's Tongue, he thought un- 
 fair. 
 
 He drank tea with Erskine at Hampstead, 
 after he had left Parliament, and not long before 
 
 1 Lawrence did not deny it neither, though he inclined 
 against it. When I observed that the styles of Burke and 
 Junius were different: the first vehement and flowing, — the 
 last cold, sarcastic, close, and epigrammatic ; — he replied 
 that Burke could change his style. — S. R. 25 Jan. 1797. 
 
 2 The lines of Ovid (Met. vt. 556) " tell us," (in Addison's 
 words,) " that when the tongue of a beautiful female was cut 
 " out, and thrown upon the ground, it could not forbear mut- 
 " tei'ing even m that posture." — Sped. No. 247. 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 113 
 
 his death.^ " Here," says he, " you are well 
 placed. Here a Reform can do no harm. Wheth- 
 er you plant nettles or roses, is of no importance. 
 The world will not suffer by it." 
 
 JErsMne. 
 
 Thought the Mosaic account [of the creation] 
 most probable — the creation of a man and a wom- 
 an, full grown. How otherwise could mankind 
 have been reared ? Francis. 
 
 What will they think of the Public Speaking 
 of this age in after-times, when they read Mr. 
 Bui'ke's Speeches and are told that in his day he 
 was not accounted either the -first or second 
 speaker 1 ^ Sheridan. 
 
 1 Mr. Burke retired from Parliament in 1794, and died 
 July 8, 1797. 
 
 2 Mr. Grattan remarks, that Mr. Burke's speeches were 
 far better to read than to hear ; and that he was heard with- 
 out much attention. — Infra, p. 124 and 133. 
 
HENRY GRATTAN. 
 
HENRY GRATTAN. 
 
 At Tunbridge Wells, St. James's 
 Place, and Fredley Farm.l 
 
 TRAFFORD an unprincipled man, 
 
 flattering his master to his ruin ; 
 
 with no talent but eloquence. I 
 
 rejoice in his fall when I read of it. 
 
 It was right that Charles should die; he had 
 
 made war on his people ; but the thing was ill 
 
 done. He was put to death by a party, and not 
 
 by a power emanating from the people. 
 
 Old men love society. Hope is the food of 
 solitude ; and young men like to be alone. 
 
 Historians are not contented with telling us 
 what was done, but they pretend to enter into the 
 secret motives of men. 
 
 Windham — never dignified in his eloquence, 
 never pathetic. He despised the people, and 
 talked up the aristocracy. 
 
 Tierney — a very powerful speaker, clear and 
 
 1 The house of Mr. Richard Sharp, near Dorking. 
 
118 HENRY GRATTAN. 
 
 close in his reasoning, concise and simple in his 
 language. Canning fears him more than he fears 
 any one. 
 
 Pitt could not have much knowledge. His 
 father had but little. Burke used to say of 
 Lord Chatham, " His forte was fancy, and his 
 feeble was ignorance." Pitt has ruined his 
 country. 
 
 Grattan entering a cottage with his hat in his 
 hand. " Sir, your most obedient — Now, Sir, 
 how much may you earn in a week ? You eat 
 little or no meat, I suppose." — Anxious to con- 
 fute Forster, who had said that the cottagers 
 about Tunbridge lived worse than those of Ire- 
 land. 
 
 Like Louis XIV. he returns the bow of a child. 
 
 Repeated Pope's lines to Lord Oxford with 
 great enthusiasm. They required courage in 
 Pope.-' 
 
 1 Epistle (in verse) to Robert, Earl of Oxford and Morti- 
 mer, prefixed to Parnell's Poems, published, by Pope in 
 1721. It was sent by Pope to the Earl on 21 October, 
 1721, after his release from imprisonment in the Tower, 
 where he had been confined on a charge of high treason. 
 — Note by Pojje. 
 
HENRY GRATTAN. 119 
 
 Dryden was deficient in pathos and grandeur ; 
 but in weighing tlieir comparative merits, is noth- 
 ing to be ascribed to a virtuous and dignified 
 feeling ? Dryden in some respects a greater 
 poet than Pope, but Pope was a moral man. 
 
 Reasoned on the creation and government of 
 the world. [It is a singular inference to make 
 that because this vvoi'ld is imperfect, he who 
 made it has made a better.] 
 
 Swift was on the wrong side in England ; but 
 in Ireland he was a Giant. 
 
 Gulliver's Travels amusing ; but is there much 
 to be learned from them ? 
 
 Were you twenty years old, and Captain Cook 
 setting sail, would you go round the world with 
 him ? No, I have no wish to see such countries 
 as he saw. I wish to see Rome and Athens, and 
 some parts of Asia ; but little besides. 
 
 Johnson's Lives contain a fine body of crit- 
 icism. 
 
 Auger's translation of Demosthenes ^ admi- 
 rable, and the best translation of any Author I 
 know. 
 
 Demosthenes on the Crown most excellent. 
 
 1 ffiu\Tes Complettes de D^raosth^ne et d'Eschine, tra- 
 duites en Frauvais par I'Abb^ Auger. Paris, 1777. 
 
120 nExnr gratta.y. 
 
 Was shut up when a boy to rend Plutarch's 
 Lives, and could not bear the confinement — used 
 to read five pages, and doze away the rest of the 
 time. Thinks now, however, that Brutus's life 
 is veiy affecting towards the end. 
 
 Would sooner be shot than ascend in a balloon. 
 
 One of the reasons why the affliirs of Nations 
 are not better conducted, is that the consequences 
 of our misconduct are more remote, and less cer- 
 tain, than any false step we may make in private 
 life. A nation may be ruined, but not in our 
 time ; nor will the causes that led to it be so ob- 
 vious as to attach certainly to such or such a 
 person. We may not live to see the tragedy, 
 nor indeed may it ever take place. Our self- 
 interest, in that respect, is therefore less awake, 
 and so also are our consciences ; nor is our imagi- 
 nation so excited by the prospect of evil to many 
 as to one. Our self-interest, as individuals, which 
 is generally short-sighted, counteracts the other 
 too powerfully. 
 
 The three most likely names for Junius's 
 Letters are Gibbon, Hamilton,^ and Burke. I 
 
 1 William Gerard Hamilton, knowm as " Single Speech 
 Hamilton;" he died in 1796. He left a work, published 
 after his death, culled " Parliamentary Logic." 
 
HENRY G RAT TAN. 121 
 
 believe in Burke — Gibbon it could not be — 
 Hamilton would have laid claim to it sooner or 
 later — he wished for fame, and he left a book 
 ill written — he would rather have acknowledged 
 a book well written. 
 
 Were I rich, and could I live as I please, I 
 should have no wish for a fine house or fine fur- 
 niture, (I would rather not have them, I should 
 be afraid of hurting them,) or pictures — they give 
 me no pleasure. I would have no fine gardens 
 or conservatories — I love the fruit ; but I would 
 have no fine gardener to criticize me, and tell me 
 I was doing wrong, or walking awkwardly — I 
 should love a wide expanse — I would have bands 
 of music — I love music — I would have a car- 
 riage for use, and fine horses, but not for riding 
 — I love to go fast — I would cut the air. 
 
 Wealth makes a man sad — he lives for others 
 who don't care for him ; — he becomes a steward. 
 
 My Uncle Dean Marlay ^ was famous for the 
 best little dinners, and the best company in Dub- 
 
 1 Dr. Richard Marlay, afterwards Bishop of Waterford; 
 "a very amiable, benevolent, and ingenious man;" a mem- 
 ber of the Literary Club; died in Dublin, July 2d, 1802, 
 in his 75th year. — Mahne's Notes to Boswells Jvhnson. See 
 also Grallan's Life, by his Son. 
 
122 HENRY G RATTAN. 
 
 lin — but M'hen made a Bishop he enlarged his 
 table, and he lost his fame — he had no more 
 good company — and there was an end of his en- 
 joyment. He had at first about four hundi-ed 
 pounds a year, and his little dinners were delight- 
 ful ; but he had an estate left him, and afterwards 
 came to a Bishopric — he had Lords and Ladies to 
 his table — people of fashion — foolish men and fool- 
 ish women, and there was an end of him and of us. 
 
 He [MarlayJ had much of the humor of Dean 
 Swift. Upon one occasion when the footman 
 was out of the way, he ordered the coachman 
 to fetch some water from the well. The coach- 
 man objected, saying that " It was his business 
 to drive, and not run on errands." " Then bring 
 the coach and four," said he, " and put the pitch- 
 er into it, and drive to the well : " — a service 
 which was performed many times to the great 
 entertainment of the village. 
 
 I cannot bear large and mixed companies ; 
 they make me miserable.^ 
 
 Burke at Beaconsfield^ never failed — he was 
 
 1 Mrs. G. complains that he ought to bear his share in 
 them; but he won't; he has no voice for them. S. R. 
 
 2 Mr. Burke's seat near Beaconsfield. — Supra, p. Ill, 
 note. 
 
HENRY GRATTAN. 123 
 
 always in flow — his taste was good — though 
 he loved Ovid. He loved farming and planting. 
 
 Lord Bolingbroke a very fine speaker, and 
 therefore banished the House.^ His Dedication 
 to his Dissertations on Parties, a very fine imita- 
 tion of that to " Killing no Murder." 
 
 A fine prospect to the visitor or traveller is 
 ever delightful — but possession destroys the 
 pleasure. If I delighted much in a view or a 
 spot, I would wish some other person to live 
 there. 
 
 What is a Ghost ? A dead man alive ? If 
 immaterial, it can be no object of sight. 
 
 Were a man to be offered life, with a foresight 
 of all the evils that attend it, would he not re- 
 ject it ? 
 
 Pitt's faults might arise in some degree from 
 his situation. For twenty years he was an apol- 
 ogist for failure, and an iraposer of taxes : in 
 other woi'ds a humbujr. 
 
 1 When Lord Bolingbroke, who had been attainted by- 
 act of Parliament for high treason, was pardoned in 1723, 
 he was unable to procure a reversal of the attainder, and 
 a restoration of his seat in the House of Lords. Mr. Grat- 
 tan, no doubt, alludes to this when he says he was banished 
 the House. 
 
124 HENRY G RAT TAN. 
 
 Standing under the limes — " Now what are 
 " these Senators about ? A great bumblebee 
 " is now addressing them — they are now in a 
 " Committee." It was June, and the limes were 
 full of bees. He used to say in a morning, 
 " Shall we visit those Senators ? " -^ 
 
 Burke's speeches far better to read than to 
 hear. They are better suited to a patient reader, 
 than to an impatient hearer.^ 
 
 Cicero better to read than to hear ; particularly 
 in his speech against Milo,^ perhaps his finest 
 to read, though very tedious to hear. The best 
 speaker is to be found among the most enlight- 
 ened people. Cicero would not have pleased at 
 Athens. 
 
 1 Mr. Rogers has introduced this subject, and that on the 
 following page, into his poem of Human Life: — 
 
 " A Walk in Spring — Gkattan, like those with thee 
 By the heath-side (who had not envied me?) 
 When the sweet limes, so full of bees in June, 
 Led us to meet beneath their boughs at noon ; 
 And thou didst say which of the Great and Wise, 
 Could they but hear, and at thy bidding rise, 
 Thou wouldst call up and question." 
 
 2 See Sheridan's remark on Burke's speeches. — Supra, 
 p. 113. 
 
 8 Probably a mistake for Cicero's Oration " Pro T. Annio 
 Milone." I do not find any oration against Milo in Cicero. 
 
HENRY GRATTAN. 125 
 
 A woman in a red cloak passed us with her 
 chattels on her back — " That woman is to be 
 " envied. She has nothing to lose, and every- 
 " thing to gain — She has therefore hope — no 
 "thoughts of invasion — none of taxes." 
 
 Fox had no curiosa felicitas in expression, 
 though much of it in his arrangement. He 
 would never have written " simplex munditiis." ^ 
 
 He seems not to have admired Fox's speaking 
 towards the last ; thinking that he fell off as his 
 infirmities gained ground upon him. 
 
 [Poetry transfused into prose, no plagiarism — 
 difficult to give it a prose flow, and to melt it into 
 the sentence.] 
 
 Raphael and Adam ; their interview in Para- 
 dise Lost, a model of high breeding.^ 
 
 Liked Spa, where all the great people in 
 Europe met in dishabille. 
 
 Which would you rather pass a day with, 
 Alexander, Caesar, or Bonaparte ? Caesar, as I 
 am much interested about his time. I would ask 
 him, (and here he enumerated many questions 
 about his campaigns,) what were the real char- 
 acters of many of his contemporaries — and I 
 
 1 Horat. Od. Lib. i. 5. 2 Paradise Lost, Book v. 
 
126 HENRY GRATTAN. 
 
 would ask him, but I would not press the ques- 
 tion, (he might answer it or not as he pleased,) 
 what part he took in the Catiline conspiracy. 
 
 In travelling, I should like the lower oi'ders of 
 the people better than the middle ones, for my 
 companions — I would rather be in a heavy coach 
 than in one that carried four. 
 
 Of all men, if I could call up one, it should 
 be Scipio Africanus. Hannibal was perhaps a 
 greater Captain, but not so great and good a man. 
 Epaminondas did not do so much. Themistocles 
 was a rogue. 
 
 Modern times have not furnished such men. 
 It required the competition in little states. 
 
 In modern times, Washington, I believe, was 
 the greatest man, and next to him, William the 
 Third. 
 
 Came to the ruins of a cottage — Hinted at 
 untold crimes committed there — the skeleton of 
 a man. " Yes," says he, entering into the joke, 
 " but the most extraordinary thing of all was the 
 " situation of the woman." 
 
 Talked again of the disadvantages of posses- 
 sion. 
 
 Decorated himself with lime blossoms, and 
 
EENRX G RAT TAN. 127 
 
 stood again under the lime-trees. Found a 
 winged ant carrying a caterpillar. 
 
 Would you wish to call up Cleopatra ? Not 
 much — her beauty would make me sad, and she 
 would tell me nothing but lies. 
 
 Priam very well bi'ed, particularly towards 
 Helen. 
 
 Hume right in saying, that not a page in 
 Shakspeare was without glaring faults.^ In 
 Othello he seems to have indulged in an East- 
 ern style of speaking. 
 
 I think Pitt right in saying, if he did so, that 
 he would rather possess the speeches of Boling- 
 broke than the lost Decades of Livy.^ I confess, 
 however, I attempted to read the Patriot King,^ 
 about three years ago; and I could not get on. 
 It tired me. The style was excellent ; but I 
 could not give my attention to the book. 
 
 Sheridan's faults, like those of most men of 
 
 1 See Hume's character of Shakspeare in Appendix to 
 Reign of James I. 
 
 2 Lord Grenville told Mr. Rogers that he did not think Mr. 
 Pitt admired Bolingbroke much. — See Recollections of Lord 
 Grenville, infra. 
 
 8 " Letters ou the Spirit of Patriotism, and the Idea of a 
 Patriot Kinp;," bv Lord Bolingbroke. 
 
128 HENRY GRATTAN. 
 
 genius ; which are ahnost all of a poetical char- 
 acter — the excesses of the generous virtues. 
 
 What a slavery is office — to be subject to the 
 whims of those above you, and the persecutions 
 of those beneath you — to dance attendance on 
 the great — to be no longer your own master. — 
 No, give me a cottage and a crust — plain fare 
 and quiet, and small beer, and, he added, lower- 
 ing his voice, and smiling with his usual archness, 
 " Claret." 
 
 Mrs. Anne Pitt, Lord Chatham's sister, a very 
 superior woman. — She hated him, and they lived 
 like dog and cat. She said he had never read 
 but one book — The Fairy Queen. He could 
 only get rid of her by leaving his house, and 
 setting a bill upon it, " This house to let." 
 
 Every sentence [of Fox] came rolling like a 
 wave of the Atlantic, three thousand miles long. 
 
 Burke was so fond of arbitrary power, he could 
 not sleep upon his pillow, unless he thought the 
 King had a right to take it from under him. 
 
 Lord Chatham made his son read to him, a 
 day or two before he died, the conclusion of 
 
HENRY GRATTAN. 129 
 
 Pope's Homer, describing the death of Hector ; ^ 
 and when he had done he said, " Read it again." 
 
 Stella ^ used often to visit my aunt, and sleep 
 with her in the same bed, and weep all night. 
 
 She was not very handsome. Miss V ^ was 
 
 handsome. 
 
 There is now a state religion — not a Christian 
 religion. 
 
 Beauty is the best thing going. To Beauty 
 we owe Poetry, to Poetry Civilization, to Civil- 
 ization every art and science. 
 
 Two artists have contributed not a little to the 
 popularity of Charles the First, Vandyke and the 
 Headsman. 
 
 Milton I like best of them all.* He is much 
 more poetical than Shakspeare ; and if any- 
 body would be a public speaker, let him study 
 
 1 Iliad, Book xxii. &c. 
 
 2 Mrs. Johnson, whom Swift has celebrated under the 
 name of Stella; and to whom he was privately married. 
 
 8 Miss Vanhorarigh, whom Swift called Vanessa. 
 4 How dififerent was Mr. Fox's opinion of Milton is seen 
 supra, pp. 38, 47, 56, &c. 
 9 
 
130 HENRY G RAT TAN. 
 
 his prose and his poetry, — his prose is often an 
 admirable model for the majestic style of speak- 
 ing. 
 
 To be a good shot is useful. It makes a brave 
 man braver, a timid man half brave ; and all 
 men are born cowards. But it makes a bad man 
 worse than it found him — a bully. 
 
 Who was the best speaker you ever heard ? 
 Fox, during the American War — Fox in his 
 best days ; about the year 1779. 
 
 Using the word disloyalty in the sense it has 
 been used in, makes the King the law. 
 
 Lord Chatham. " I don't inquire from what 
 " quarter the wind cometh, but whither it goeth ; 
 " and if any measure that comes from the Kight 
 " Honorable Gentleman tends to the Public Good, 
 " my bark is ready." ^ — "I stand alone — I 
 " stand like our first ancestor — naked, but not 
 ashamed." ^ 
 
 1 "On another occasion he [Lord Chatham] said, 'It is 
 not for us to inquire whence tlie wind bloweth, but where it 
 tendetli. If its gales are for tlie public advantage, although 
 they come from the quarter of the noble lord, my bark is 
 ready.' " — Grattari's Life and Times, by his Son, Ed. 1849, 
 I. 237. 
 
 2 "In his [Lord Chatham's] speech on the Stamp Act 
 
HENRY G RAT TAN. 131 
 
 The finest passage in Cicero is his panegyric 
 on Demosthenes.^ 
 
 Lord Chatham, I think, delivered finer things 
 than Demosthenes ; but he had a greater theatre, 
 and men are made by circumstances. " Amer- 
 " ica has resisted. I rejoice, my Lords." ^ 
 This passage, I think, excels any in Demos- 
 thenes. 
 
 I was at Paris in 1771 — for three months — 
 and delighted — though I made no acquaintance 
 but with an Abbe, and a Swindler. I went 
 with two other Templars to study in France, by 
 
 [for America], being abandoned by his friends, he said, 
 ' My Lords, I rise lilie our primeval ancestor — naked but 
 not ashamed.' " — Ibid. i. 234. 
 
 1 See Cicero's " Brutus; " where he says of Demosthenes, 
 " a doctis oratorum est princeps judicatus; " or perhaps his 
 " De Oratore, Dialogi tres." 
 
 2 The speech was not in the Lords, but in the Commons, 
 on 14th Jan. 1766, in the debate on the Address to the 
 throne; the sentence, part of which Mr. Grattan quoted, 
 is thus reported : " The Gentleman tells us America is ob- 
 stinate — America is almost in open rebellion. I rejoice 
 that America has resisted. Three millions of people, so 
 dead to all feelings of liberty as voluntarily to submit to be 
 slaves, would have been fit instruments to make slaves of the 
 rest." — Pari. Hist. xvi. 104. 
 
132 HENRY GRATTAN. 
 
 Havre, taking Coke upon Littleton — but settled 
 nowhere. 
 
 Castle-building is a bad habit. It leads to 
 disappointment. 
 
 Solitude is bad. I have tried Tinnehinch ^ for 
 twenty years. — It leads to melancholy — to a sort 
 of madness — you think of your vexations, your 
 age. — Society should always be in your power. 
 
 An old man cannot enjoy solitude. He has 
 learnt the secret — He has found out the rogueries 
 of Fortune. Nor will reading supply the want. 
 I would live in a house full of society, to which 
 I might escape from myself. 
 
 I was called the Spirit of the Dargle.^ I found 
 out (he said, laughing) that a man's worst com- 
 panion is himself. 
 
 The King (Charles the First) had made war 
 on the people — but the death of Strafford ^ was 
 less to be justified. — Though a thief, a robber, he 
 was no traitor. He had committed every crime 
 but that for which he was condemned to die. 
 
 Of what use is it ? (Lycidas), says Johnson.* 
 
 1 Mr. Grattan's residence in the county of Wicklow. 
 
 2 A glen, near Tinnehinch. 
 
 3 Vide supra, on Strafford, p. 117. 
 
 4 See Johnson's criticism of Lycidas, in his Life of 
 
HENRY GRATTAN. 133 
 
 These things — they take the mind out of the 
 dirt, as it were. 
 
 The French poets I read with little pleasure ; 
 and am glad when I have done. Boileau per- 
 haps — but such is their homage to the great, we 
 are the worse for them. 
 
 A wife should be of a modest character. She 
 should sing. 
 
 Burke's best things: On the payment of the 
 Nabob of Arcot's debts — Descent of Hyder Ally 
 on the Carnatic.-^ He was heai'd without much 
 attention. 
 
 We should always have the appearance of 
 narrative, not of description. 
 
 O'Connor^ and his beggar-girl — her regi- 
 mentals. 
 
 Milton, where he speaks of it as without nature, and with- 
 out truth; its diction as harsh, its numbers as unpleasing, 
 and its form as disgusting. 
 
 1 See his speech in the House of Commons in support of 
 Mr. Fox's motion for papers on the subject of the Nabob 
 of Arcot's debts, 28 Feb. 1785. 
 
 2 Possibly Mr. Arthur O'Connor is here alluded to. 
 Mr. Grattan was very intimate with him; and in April, 
 1798, went from Tinnehinch to England to give evidence 
 at Maidstone Ln favor of O'Connor, on the trial of the 
 latter for high treason, when he was acquitted. — State 
 
134 HENRY GRATTAN. 
 
 Dislikes the clergy and all humbugs. 
 
 [His forte in conversation is sketching a char- 
 acter, with a gentle voice, and many pauses ; but 
 with a delicate irony, a great archness of look 
 and manner ; beginning, as you would think, 
 with something like praise, and ending with a 
 roll of the person .and a turn of the head, in a 
 coup de Patte. It is very delightful to see him 
 with Miss Fox. The enjoyment she feels en- 
 courages him. S. R.] 
 
 Pitt would be right nineteen times for once 
 that Fox would be right; but that once would 
 be worth all the i-est. The heart is wiser than 
 the schools. 
 
 In conversation, said Plunket, he gave results ^ 
 rather than processes, of reasoning. Every sen- 
 tence was a treasure. 
 
 When Dr. Lucas, a very unpopular man. 
 
 Trials, vol. xxvii. But what is meant by " his beggar- 
 girl, and her regimentals? " 
 
 1 As I can say of all the eminent men I have known, 
 and from them, generally speaking, I have learnt more 
 than from books, what they said making a deeper impres- 
 sion. S. R. 
 
HENRY GRATTAN. 135 
 
 ventured on a speech in the Irish Parliament, 
 and failed altogether, Grattan said, " He rose 
 " without a friend, and sat down without an 
 " enemy." 
 
 Of he said : " He was a coward in the 
 
 "field, and a bully in the street." 
 
KICHARD PORSON 
 
RICHARD PORSON. 
 
 E is not more remarkable for his 
 learning, than for acuteness and 
 cori'ectness of thought. Through 
 his whole life, whether in his 
 morning or his evening hours, he has never 
 been heard to utter a mean or licentious sen- 
 timent. He came to town with nothing but 
 his fellowship to support him ; ^ and that was 
 soon to expire, in consequence of his refusal to 
 enter the Church. A lay-fellowship fell vacant. 
 He applied for it to Dr. Postlethwaite, the Mas- 
 ter of Trinity ; but was civilly refused. Another 
 offered itself, and again he applied by letter, but 
 with the same success. The Master had again 
 promised it to a young relation, whose fellowship 
 
 1 He was a member of Trinity College, Cambridge, where 
 he obtained a fellowship in 1781, and took the degree of 
 M. A. m 1785, 
 
140 RICHARD PORSON. 
 
 was not within three years of its expiration ; and 
 "I now found myself a private gentleman, with 
 no visible means of support, and with nothing 
 but my animal spirits to feed and clothe me." 
 Two thousand pounds had been expended on his 
 education ; but he had now nothing. By his let- 
 ters to Travis -^ he had eax'ned only thirty pounds. 
 A copy was sold at Farmer's sale — he never 
 ventured to ask the price it fetched, but often 
 mentioned it with some degree of anxiety ; and 
 observed that if it often passed under the ham- 
 mer at a low rate, he should become the constant 
 purchaser, and consign it to the fire. 
 
 When Dr. Postlethwaite came to town, to 
 attend the Westminster Examination, Porson 
 called upon him. " I am come. Sir, to inform 
 you that my fellowship will become vacant in a 
 few weeks, in order that you may appoint my 
 successor." " But, Mr. Porson, you do not 
 mean to leave us?" "It is not I who leave 
 you, but you who dismiss me. You have done 
 me every injury in your power. But I am not 
 come to complain or expostulate." " I did not 
 
 1 Letters to Archdeacon Travis in answer to his defence 
 of 1 John V. 7. 
 
RICHARD PORSON. 141 
 
 know, Mr. Porson, you were so resolved." 
 "You could not conceive, Sir, that I could 
 have applied for a Lay-fellowship to the detri- 
 ment of some more scrupulous man. if it had 
 been my intention to take orders." 
 
 In September, 1792, the Greek Professor- 
 ship^ fell vacant, and Dr. Postlethwaite wrote 
 to acquaint Porson with the circumstance. He 
 returned the following answer : — 
 
 Sir, — 
 When I first received the favor of your letter, 
 I must own that I felt rather vexation and 
 chagrin, than hope and satisfaction. I had 
 looked upon myself so completely in the light of 
 an outcast fi-om Alma Mater, that I had made 
 up my mind to have no further connection with 
 the place. The prospect you held out to me 
 gave me more uneasiness than pleasure. When 
 I was younger than I now am, and my disposi- 
 tion more sanguine than it is at present, I was 
 in daily expectation of Mr. Cooke's resignation, 
 and I flattered myself with the hope of succeed- 
 ing to the honor he was going to quit. As hope 
 
 1 Porson was elected Greek Professor at the University of 
 Cambridore in 1793. 
 
142 RICHARD P ORSON. 
 
 and ambition are great castle-builders, I had 
 laid a scheme, partly, as I was willing to think, 
 for the joint credit, partly for the mutual ad- 
 vantage, of myself and the University. I had 
 projected a plan of reading lectures, and I per- 
 suaded myself that I should easily obtain a 
 grace, permitting me to exact a certain sum from 
 every person who attended. But seven years' 
 waiting will tire out the most patient temper ; 
 and all my ambition of this sort was long ago 
 laid asleep. The sudden news of the vacant 
 Professorship put me in mind of poor Jacob, 
 who, having served seven years in hopes of be- 
 ing rewarded with Rachel, awoke, and behold it 
 was Leah. Such, Sir, I confess, were the first 
 ideas that took possession of my mind. But 
 after a little reflection, I resolved to refer a 
 matter of this importance to my friends. This 
 circumstance has caused the delay, for which I 
 ought before now to have apologized. My 
 friends unanimously exhorted me to embrace the 
 good fortune, which they conceived to be within 
 my grasp. Their advice, therefore, joined to 
 the expectations I had entertained of doing some 
 small good by my exertions in the employment, 
 together with the pardonable vanity which the 
 
RICHARD P ORSON. 143 
 
 honor annexed to the office inspired, deter- 
 mined me ; and I was on the point of troubling 
 yon, Sir, and the other Electors with notice of 
 my intentions to profess myself a candidate, 
 when an objection, which had escaped me in 
 the hurry of my thoughts, now occurred to 
 my recollection. 
 
 The same reason which hindered me from 
 keeping my fellowship by the method you oblig- 
 ingly pointed out to me, would, I am greatly 
 afraid, prevent me from being Greek Professor. 
 Whatever concern this may give me for myself, it 
 gives me none for the public. I trust there ai'e, 
 at least, twenty or thirty in the University, 
 equally able and willing to undertake the office, 
 possessed of talents superior to mine, and all of 
 a more complying conscience. This I speak 
 upon the supposition, that the next Greek Pro- 
 fessor will be compelled to read lectures ; but if 
 the place remains a sinecure, the number of 
 qualified persons will be greatly increased. And 
 though it were even granted, that my industry 
 and attention might possibly produce some bene- 
 fit to the interests of learning and the credit of 
 the University, that trifling gain would be as 
 much exceeded by keeping the Professorship a 
 
144 RICHARD P ORSON. 
 
 sinecure, and bestowing it on a sound believer, 
 as temporal considerations are outweighed by 
 spiritual. Having only a strong persuasion, not 
 an absolute certainty, that such a subscription is 
 required of the Professor Elect, if I am mis- 
 taken, I hereby offer myself as a candidate ; 
 but if I am right in my opinion, I shall beg of 
 you to order my name to be erased from the 
 boards, and I shall esteem it a favor conferred on, 
 Sir, 
 Your obliged humble Servant, 
 
 R. PORSON. 
 
 Essex Court, 
 
 6 October, 1792.1 
 
 Had I a carriage, and did I see a well-dressed 
 person on the road, I would always invite him 
 in, and learn of him what I could. 
 
 Louis XIV. was the son of Anne of Austria by 
 Cardinal Richelieu. The man in the iron mask 
 was Anne's eldest son — I have no doubt of it. 
 
 Thanked Heaven he could at any time go 
 without a meal cheerfully — breakfast, dinner, 
 or supper. 
 
 1 This letter the writer put into my hands, unasked, and 
 when I begged to keep it, he said I might take a copy of it; 
 and I thought it was his wish that I should. S. K. 
 
RICHARD P ORSON. 145 
 
 Two parties must consent to the publication of 
 a book, the Public as well as the Author. 
 
 Mr. Pitt conceives his sentences before he 
 utters them. Mr. Fox throws himself into the 
 middle of his, and leaves it to God Almighty to 
 get him out again. 
 
 When Prometheus made man, he had used 
 up all the water in making other animals ; so he 
 mingled his clay with tears. 
 
 Porson would almost cry when he spoke of 
 Euripides. " AVhy should I write from myself, 
 while anything remains to be done to such a 
 writer as Euripides ? " 
 
 When repeating a generous action from an- 
 tiquity, or describing a death like Phocion's, his 
 eyes would fill and his voice falter. 
 
 Of Mackintosh : He means to get Interest for 
 his Principal. 
 
 Of Sheridan : He is a promising fellow. 
 
 All wit true reasoning. 
 
 History of the Grand Hum in a 100 Volumes 
 folio. 
 
 I love an octavo ; the pages are soon read — 
 the milestones occur frequently. 
 
 If I had £3000 per ann., I would have a 
 person constantly dressed, night and day, with 
 10 
 
146 RICHARD P ORSON. 
 
 fire and candle to attend upon me. (He is an 
 uncertain sleeper.) 
 
 I had lived long before I discovered that Wit 
 was Truth. 
 
 A conqueror at the Olympic Games applied 
 to Pindar for an Ode — The poet required 
 twenty guineas. — "I could buy a statue for the 
 sum." " Then buy a statue." Again he ap- 
 plied and consented to the poet's terms. The 
 Ode begins thus : — Unlike a statue, which re- 
 mains fixed forever to its pedestal, this Ode 
 shall fly over Greece, every bark on the -35gean 
 Sea, every carriage along its shores, shall trans- 
 port it.^ 
 
 Did he catch this mania of Burney ? ^ No, he 
 has it in the natural way^ I believe. 
 
 1 must confess to have a very strong prejudice 
 against all German original Literature. 
 
 In drawing a villain we should always furnish 
 him with something that may seem to justify 
 himself to himself. 
 
 1 This ode of Pindar was on a victory at tlie Nemean 
 Games. See the 5th Nemean Ode. 
 
 2 Probably Dr. Burney, the friend of Johnson, and 
 father of the authoress of Evelina: — author of the History 
 of Music. 
 
RICHARD PORSON. 147 
 
 Like Simonides, I carry all I have about me, 
 pretty neai'ly.-" 
 
 Electricity, Electrura ; the quality of Anaber ; 
 because Amber attracts substances. 
 
 Virgil has everywhere arranged his words 
 naturally and properly as in prose. No vio- 
 lent transpositions or inversions ; every word is 
 precisely where it ought to be. 
 
 " I cannot dig ; to beg I am ashamed." "^ 
 Who from that day to this, has seen a Jew 
 who was a beggar or an agriculturist ? 
 
 Authority should serve to excite attention, 
 and no further. 
 
 Wit is in general the finest sense in the 
 world. 
 
 We all speak in metaphors. Those who ap- 
 pear not to do it, only use those which are 
 worn out, and are overlooked as metaphors. 
 The original fellow is therefore regarded as 
 only witty ; and the dull are consulted as the 
 wise. 
 
 i See the story in Phsedrus, Lib. iv. Fab. 21, entitled, 
 Naufragium Simonidis. The poet was shipwrecked, and 
 to his anxious fellow-passengei-s, who inquired of him why- 
 he did not endeavor to save some of his goods, he replied, 
 " Mecura mea sunt cuncta." 
 
 2 St. Luke, XVI. 3. 
 
JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 
 
 His present maimers and conversation remind 
 me of a calm sunset in October. S. R. 
 
JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 
 
 HE Italians were certainly not from 
 Troy ; but from the North of Eu- 
 rope. The Italian language is as 
 copious as our own. 
 Lucca an object of great curiosity. St. Ma- 
 rino of none. 
 
 Shei'idan better formed to captivate the vul- 
 gar; Fox's manner of reasoning far grander 
 and profounder. Much struck with Sheridan's 
 speech, January 5, 1795.-^ 
 
 Take the first man in Europe, and condemn 
 him to live alone on his Estate. He would 
 soon be devoured by the insects engendered 
 there. He would cry out, " Save me from my 
 Estate." What would he be but for the lower 
 classes of Society ? 
 
 1 For the repeal of the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act, 
 and on the subject of the late trials of Hardy, Tooke, and 
 Thelwall. 
 
152 JOHN EORNE TOOKE. 
 
 At home it is his custom to relax and be 
 happy with his friends in the afternoon. He 
 had no society in tho Tower ^ — and therefore 
 rose at four, and went to bed very early, that 
 he might miss it less. 
 
 No man can reason out from Avhat he knows. 
 Paine ^ knew but little, and is therefore only to 
 be trusted within his own sphere of observation. 
 
 No metaphysical ideas. 
 
 If you travelled through France, you would 
 find the language gradually turnnig into Span- 
 ish as you approached the Pyrenees, and Ital- 
 ian as you approached the Alps. 
 
 An illiterate people is most tenacious of their 
 language. In traffic the seller learns that of 
 the buyer before the buyer learns his. A bull 
 in the field, when brought to town and cut up 
 in the market, becomes boeuf, beef; a calf, 
 veal ; a sheep, mouton ; a pig, pork ; — because 
 there the Norman purchased, and the seller 
 soon learnt his terms ; while the peasantry re- 
 tained their own. 
 
 1 He was committed to the Tower on a charge of high 
 treason, May, 1794. — Vide infra, p. 161, &c. 
 
 2 Thomas Paine, author of " Eights of Man " and 
 " Common Sense." 
 
JOHN BORNE TOOKE. 153 
 
 On sea-bathing — suppose a fish physician 
 were to order his patients ashore. 
 
 Plays and histories lead to error, as they give 
 too much consequence to individuals. Were 
 the Triumviri the proper objects of vengeance ? 
 Each had his party in the Senate, and united 
 with the rest to avail himself of theirs — the 
 Senate should therefore have been cut off. 
 When Ciesar fell was Liberty restored ? 
 
 A woman's infidelity is then only a dishonor 
 to her husband, when he sits down under it. 
 
 Women have more feeling than men, and 
 you may almost always hit the degree of regard 
 or aversion they feel for men, when in their 
 company- 
 Love at first sight to be acted upon. An 
 open temper discovers itself at once, and re- 
 quires no study. 
 
 Reasoning is only addition and subtraction. 
 Read few books well. We forget names and 
 dates ; and reproach our memory. They are 
 of little consequence. We feel our limbs en- 
 large and strengthen ; yet cannot tell the din- 
 ner or dish that caused the alteration. Our 
 minds improve though we cannot name the au- 
 thor, and have forgotten the particulars. 
 
154 JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 
 
 I converse better than I write ; I write with 
 labor. 
 
 Nor wealth nor power can compensate for 
 the loss of that luxury which he has, who can 
 speak his mind, at all times and in all places. 
 
 A great frequenter of the theatres and cof- 
 fee-houses, long after he received pleasure from 
 any of them. He would sit an act at a thea- 
 tre, and then adjourn to a coffee-house, and 
 then to the theatre, listless and cheerless ; and 
 yet a slave to the habit of attending them ; and 
 on his return home, when he sat up to read 
 with delight, he would reproach himself for his 
 folly in having thrown away his evening. At 
 last he met with insults in the coffee-houses, 
 and relinquished them entirely. He then re- 
 tired to Wimbledon.^ 
 
 Can any of them tell what sleep is, what 
 brings on sleep, or what part of us sleeps ? I 
 never dream but when disordered ; and when I 
 dream I am conscious of dreaming. 
 
 [I would never take a beautiful woman for 
 ray wife. She would be studious to be admired 
 
 1 He spent the latter part of his life at Wimbledon in 
 Suri-ey, and died there in 1812. 
 
JOHN nORNE TOOKE. 155 
 
 by others, and to please anybody more than her 
 husband.] 
 
 A child is fluent because it has no wish to sub- 
 stitute one word for another. 
 
 Those who know nothing of Education, think 
 there is a magic in it, when in fact it does little 
 for us. Plain common sense plainly expressed is 
 worth all it has to show. 
 
 I wish women would purr when they were 
 pleased. 
 
 [When you bow and subscribe yourself " your 
 humble servant," your conscience does not fly in 
 your face. Why then so scrupulous about other 
 forms ?j 
 
 Plays and Epic poems mislead us. A leader 
 is often led. He has a thousand opinions to 
 struggle with. 
 
 Pieces of money are so many tickets for sheep, 
 oxen, &c. 
 
 When a pension is given, or a salary, a draft is 
 issued on the tiller of the soil. 
 
 There was a motion in the House to punish 
 adultery with death. Levens, an old sinner, 
 seconded the motion. He had never failed but 
 when distrusted — the sex might afterwards rely 
 on his not betraying their weakness. 
 
156 JOHN HORNE TOOKE.' 
 
 Reads all books through ; and bad books most 
 carefully, lest he should lose one good thought, 
 being determined never to look into them again. 
 A man may read a great deal too much. 
 
 The Italian Literature very rich — the French 
 have borrowed all they have from it, but could 
 not take it all. 
 
 Burke as metaphysical as he can be, with all 
 his abuse of metaphysics. 
 
 Admired Naples most, but would prefer living 
 at Pisa. Venice, Rome, and Vesuvius exceeded 
 all his expectations ; everything else fell below 
 them. 
 
 Was nine months in France before he could 
 talk tolerably, though he labored very hard. 
 
 Thoujiht there was little difference in organi- 
 zation between man and man. 
 
 We are fond of a miracle ; and if we cannot 
 find one we make one. What is clear and nat- 
 ural we are apt to despise. 
 
 We talk of the mind and body as of two per- 
 sons — but what do we mean ? All knowledge 
 passes into us through the senses. We know of 
 none that is not derivable through those channels, 
 and may therefore fairly conclude there is none. 
 The senses of some men are quicker and more 
 
JOHN BORNE TO ORE. 157 
 
 discriminating than others ; and there lies the 
 difference, but it is very small. One man, a 
 little better off in this respect, and with great 
 industry, will soon leave another out of sight. 
 His superiority increases in arithmetical pro- 
 gression ; as a small number, used frequently 
 as a multiplier, will soon produce a greater sum 
 total than a larger number used less often. Some 
 are said to collect facts without the power to use 
 them. It is because their senses cannot convey 
 to them the nature of those facts. They cannot 
 arrange and apply them. They are like an ig- 
 norant man collecting curiosities. A man may 
 have too many of these. Your room may be 
 so full of furniture, that you cannot lay your 
 hand on what you want. 
 
 We improve by exercise of all kinds — a man 
 may be getting on while sitting still in a coffee- 
 house, or standing in the street. 
 
 A slave-captain says to King Tom — " You go 
 eat that man, but I will give you six oxen for 
 him." "Will you?" "An ox is fatter than a 
 man." " Agreed. — What fool that man ! " 
 But somebody whispers " No ! by a man he can 
 get more than sixty oxen." " How so ? " " By 
 working him." " Indeed ! then I no more eat 
 
158 JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 
 
 my men. I make them work." Such is the 
 policy in Europe. The tyrant no eat his slave, 
 he works him. 
 
 What is thinking but thing-ing, (res, reor) the 
 operation of something upon you ? Do not then 
 animals think ? 
 
 When I first read the first book of Locke, I 
 was enchanted. It seemed to me a new world 
 
 — when I proceeded I stept into darkness. 
 While he collected the scattered rays of light 
 he had found already, he wrote like a great man 
 
 — but, when he attempted to pi'oceed, it was all 
 confusion. He puzzled about Power, &c. as 
 some strange things which he could not define, 
 thinking these words an authority for the exist- 
 ence of these things. If he had gone into their 
 derivations, the difficulty would have vanished. 
 
 Hermes particularly stupid about " God is." -^ 
 That voice is the best, which is not heard; 
 which draws no attention to itself. All voices, 
 bass, treble, tenor, may be pleasant in speaking, 
 as in sino-ing. 
 
 1 See remarks on the verb " Is," and on " God is," 
 " Truth is ; " that is, on the meaning of the word " Is " 
 when applied to the Deity. — Harris's Hermes, ohap. vi. 
 pp. 89 to 92. 
 
JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 159 
 
 Women value themselves on their chastity. 
 Men on their courage. Why ? Because of the 
 rarity and difficulty of these virtues. They are 
 both contrary to nature. 
 
 Thinks all books should be read by the student ; 
 all places seen by the traveller — as the best books 
 and most curious places may not be recommended 
 to you ; and vice versa. 
 
 All men rank the dead languages thus — Latin, 
 Greek, and Hebrew — and trace them upwards 
 in that order — because they learnt them in 
 that order in the schools, and have ever since 
 kept up the association. Latin a compound of 
 Greek and Gothic. 
 
 Ridicule is no mean test of truth. If a thins, 
 to be made ridiculous, must be distorted, then are 
 we sure it is an object of respect. It is remark- 
 able that by no writei', of any age or nation, was 
 it ever attempted to make the Roman character 
 ridiculous. 
 
 Bacon, Hooker, and Milton — great writers, 
 and the best we have. Temple a paltry one. 
 
 [Could never forget the pleasure he felt in 
 often retiring to read The Adventurer at the 
 age of seventeen.] 
 
 If a man has a single fact or observation to 
 
160 JOHN HORNE TO ORE. 
 
 communicate, he writes a book on the whole 
 subject of which that is a part. Hence the mul- 
 tipHcity of books. 
 
 Hume's Essays he read at first Avith delight, 
 one by one, as they came out — and still reads 
 them with it, they are so sweetly written. One 
 of the first writers of any country ! His pupil, 
 Smith,^ far, very far below him — his theory of 
 Moral Sentiments nonsense — his Wealth of Na- 
 tions full of important facts, but written with a 
 wicked view. 
 
 Hume's history bad in its tendency. He first 
 wrote the History of the Stuarts falsely ; and 
 then wi-ote the others to justify and accord with 
 it. 
 
 Spoke with contempt of Gibbon's history, 
 though he called him a superior man. Instead 
 of writing because he had something to say, he 
 began life Avith a determination to write a book 
 of some kind or other. Admired his letter on 
 the Government of Berne, I. 388.^ 
 
 How clearly has Gibbon revealed his char- 
 acter ! A man of bad principles, either pri- 
 
 1 Adam Smith. 
 
 2 Letter from Gibbon to * * * on the Government of 
 Berne. — Appendix to Memoirs of his Life, vol. i. 388. 
 
JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 161 
 
 vate or public, had better let his bitterest 
 enemy write his life than venture to do it him- 
 self. 
 
 Would you do evil, that good might come ? 
 No. But what is evil ? — I would put an in- 
 nocent man to death, to save the lives of many 
 innocent men. 
 
 A team of horses should not draw me to a 
 duel ; and yet, I would rather receive a shot 
 than a blow. From a shot I might recover — 
 but a blow is an ugly thing. If I could sit 
 down under it, the peace of my life would be 
 gone ; for a thousand rascals would strike me, 
 where one would call me into the field. 
 
 I attend to the derivation of such words as 
 right, wrong, power, &c., but the names of 
 towns deserve little notice. Such knowledge 
 may assist Chronology ; but that is of little use. 
 If a man knew the circumstances of C?esar's 
 assassination, and placed it a hundred yeai'S 
 sooner or later, what would it signify ? The 
 line between Europe and Asia runs somewhere 
 in the Turkish dominions — I don't know where, 
 perhaps nobody knows ; but of what use would 
 it be to know it ? 
 
 When Dr. Beadon met me in St. Paul's 
 11 
 
162 JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 
 
 Churchyard, and said he was to be Bishop of 
 Gloucester, "Then," said I, "I suppose I must 
 never call you Dick again." " Why," replied 
 Beadon, pausing at every word, " I don't — ex- 
 actly — see the necessity — of that." ^ 
 
 A man with a little mind will educate his 
 son below himself, and keep him there ; that 
 he may say, " What a wise man my father is ! 
 my father is a rich grocer." 
 
 The more wretched a people are, the se- 
 verer necessarily are the punishments : a sol- 
 dier and sailor are punished for mutiny and de- 
 
 1 Dr. Richard Beadon, afterwards Bishop of Gloucester, 
 is one of the parties between whom the imaginary dialogue 
 in Tooke's Diversions of Purley is held. Tlie extreme in- 
 timacy between Home Tooke and Dr. Beadon, and the 
 very high opinion tlie Bishop entertained of his friend, 
 are shown in the evidence given by the Bishop on Home 
 Tooke's Trial for High Treason, 20 Nov. 1794: evidence 
 highly creditable to both parties : — 
 
 " Tooke. I beg your Lordship to say how long we have 
 been acquainted? 
 
 Answer. I think it is just forty years now. 
 
 Tooke. Was that acquaintance slight, or affectionate and 
 confidential ? 
 
 Atiswer. For many years certainly not a slight acquaint- 
 ance, but very confidential and very intimate," &c. &c. 
 Gurney''s Trial of J. H. Tooke, ii. 160, et seq. 
 
JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 1G3 
 
 sertion with stripes and deatli ; because the sit- 
 uation they would escape from, is so very ter- 
 rible. And you may always judge of the com- 
 fort or misery of a people by the severity of 
 their penal laws. 
 
 An affected man cannot be a moral man. 
 The whole study of his life is to cheat you. 
 
 The borough-mongers govern the country. 
 When measures fail, and the people grumble, 
 a few, who fill some responsible places, go out 
 for awhile ; and the people are satisfied ; but 
 the government continues the same. 
 
 I would rather at any time lose a cause than 
 be condemned to hear Adair gain it for me.^ 
 
 There are men who pretend they come into 
 the world, booted and spurred to ride you. 
 
 I have made a point of reading all the dra- 
 matic writings in every language I know. 
 
 I read constantly the Arabian Nights over once 
 in two years, and often once a year, in French. 
 
 When in the Tower, I read Tom Jones and 
 Gil Bias again, and some other novels, which a 
 warder's wife lent me. 
 
 [In the Tower he was without the privilege 
 
 ' Serje:int Adair was oue of the counsel for the Crown, 
 on the trial of Home Tooke for high treason, in 1794. 
 
164 JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 
 
 of reading or writing for a fortnight.^ They 
 then sent him three volumes — one of Locke — 
 one of Chaucer^ — and Wilkins's Essay.' These 
 
 1 This period of a fortnight appears, by Home Tooke's 
 MS. note copied below, to be an error, at least as to the 
 volume of Chaucer. 
 
 2 In the volume of Chaucer thus taken to him — an old 
 black-letter copy which he afterwards gave to Mr. Rogers 
 — he made, while in the Tower, many notes in pencil, 
 with reference to the subject of his work, Tlie Dlrersions 
 of Purity. Among these is the following note in the 
 margin of the first book of Boecius, de Consoladone Philoso- 
 phice. " Tuesday, May 20, 1794. I began to mark this 
 " translation of Boethius, in the Tower, with my pencil, 
 " being denied the use of pen and ink. I was apprehended 
 " at Wimbledon, Friday, May 16, conducted to the Tower, 
 " Monday, May 19, 1794, without any charge; nor can I 
 " conjecture their pretence of charge. Mr. Dundas, Sec- 
 " retary of State, told me in the Privy Council, that ' It 
 " was conceived that I was guilt}' of treasonable practices.' 
 " He refused to tell me by whom it was conceived. I 
 " offered to be examined, to any extent, if the Chancellor 
 " or Dundas would declare that there was any information 
 " upon oath against me for any treason. The Chancellor 
 " said, that I seemed to object to the legality of the war- 
 " rant ; but that I might object to that hereafter, in another 
 " place." Home Tooke remarks that he afterwards learnt 
 that at that very moment a bill was brought into the 
 House of Commons to legalize this warrant, and to indem- 
 nify the Ministers for issuing it. 
 
 8 Essay towards a Real Character, and a Philosophical 
 
JOHN nORNE TOOKE. 165 
 
 were found on his table (at Wimbledon) and 
 he was supposed to be reading them.] 
 
 Dryden a more universal writer than Vol- 
 taire. His prose very fine. His Don Sebastian 
 the best play extant. 
 
 It is best to let children read what they like 
 best, till they have formed a taste fox* reading ; 
 and not to direct what books they shall read. 
 When young, and long afterwards, I read with- 
 out method. 
 
 Was at Paris several times, but saw little of 
 the society there, having few letters. I saw few 
 men of letters, for I was then anything but a 
 man of letters. 
 
 Never dream but when not well. Now sel- 
 dom sleep above two hours together. 
 
 The taxes at Genoa were sold to individuals ; 
 so that the prosperity of the State, making them 
 more productive, only enriched the purchasers. 
 A nobleman, Griffoni, with immense possessions, 
 retired early and lived most penuriously, to the 
 great indignation and contempt of his fellow- 
 citizens. At last, in his old age, he came out, 
 sacrificed his fortune and its accumulations to 
 
 Language, by Dr. John Wilkius, Bishop of Chester; pub- 
 lished 1668. 
 
166 JOHN HORNE TO ORE. 
 
 the redemption of the taxes, and relieved the 
 people from the intolerable burden. What was 
 the consequence ? The Government went to war 
 again, and laid on more. Such would be the 
 consequence here. The redemption of our debt 
 would be a great calamity. The difficulty of 
 extorting money checks the abuse of power. 
 War begets poverty, poverty peace. 
 
 When bad times come, I shall take to my 
 garret-window. I shall take no part in them 
 but as a looker-on. When the Surgeons are 
 called in, the Physician retires. 
 
 " Do as you would be done by," is a scoun- 
 drel and paltry precept. A generous man goes 
 beyond it. 
 
 No man should be allowed to bequeathe his 
 property to any descendant unborn. What af- 
 fection can he feel for such an heir ? What 
 relationship is there between a man and his 
 grandson ? Do you set any value on a cucum- 
 ber, because it sprung from your own excrement "i 
 A man has little or no friendship for any human 
 being ; and he determines to lock up his prop- 
 erty ; he therefore leaves it to the offspring of 
 his brother's youngest child. Would you allow 
 such a thing in a state ? No, surely. 
 
JOHN BORNE TOOKE. 167 
 
 "What does Godwin mean by the perfectibility 
 of Man ? ^ That limb is perfect which is fitted 
 to perform all its functions ; and that body is 
 perfect which answers all its purposes. He talks 
 errant nonsense. 
 
 There is an old French proverb that must 
 now and then occur to an observer in the present 
 day : " Beaucoup de mal, peu de bruit ; Beaucoup 
 de bruit, peu de mal." 
 
 Wilkes desired that his tomb should be in- 
 scribed, " J. W. a friend to Liberty." I am 
 glad he was not ashamed to show a little grati- 
 tude to her in his old age ; for she was a great 
 friend to him.^ 
 
 In a dispute between father and son, I have 
 almost always sided with the father. The son's 
 extravagance is generally the cause ; and it is 
 
 1 See Godwin's Polit. Just. I. ch. 5, where the author uses 
 the word " perfectible " to express the faculty of receiving 
 perpetual improvement; not as capable, but incapable, of 
 attaining to perfection. 
 
 2 John Wilkes, famous as the editor of the "North 
 Briton," and as the opposer of general warrants, which, 
 through his perseverance, were judicially declared to be 
 illegal. He obtained, late in life, the lucrative office of 
 City Chamberlain, through his notorietj- as a liberal poli- 
 tician. 
 
168 JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 
 
 Lard that the father should suffer for the folly of 
 two youths — his son's and his own. 
 
 When I was travelling through Italy, the post- 
 boy cursed all the saints in Paradise, and five 
 miles round. " Why five miles round ? " " Be- 
 cause some of them may be at their country- 
 houses." When Bonaparte comes to England, his 
 curse, therefore, will not reach me at Wimbledon. 
 
 Power, said Lord to Tooke, should fol- 
 low property. Very well, he replied, then we 
 will take the property from you, and the power 
 shall follow it. 
 
 When in company at College, a general ques- 
 tion arose among the young men — what were 
 their fathers ? When it was Tooke's turn to 
 answer it, he said, his was " a Turkey Mer- 
 chant." He was a poulterer in Clare Market. 
 
 No man can bring himself to believe that he 
 shall die. My bx^other, who left me £100 a year, 
 and pronounced himself at the point of death, 
 desired that such and such things might be 
 returned to him if he recovered. 
 
 Prophecies are thrown about like grain — and 
 some strike and take root — The rest are lost and 
 forsotten. 
 
JOHN nORNE TOOKE. 169 
 
 I believe in a first cause, because every other 
 supiDosition is more absurd. 
 
 [He who sacrifices his good fame to his sense 
 of right, has still his conviction that some cir- 
 cumstances will lead hereafter to a justification 
 of his conduct, at least with those among whom 
 he would wish to build a memory.] 
 
 His son had just returned from India, dis- 
 missed from some military situation for miscon- 
 duct. He called in the evening at his father's 
 gate. Tooke was fortunately from home, and has 
 since refused to see him. He has now enlisted 
 as a private into the dragoons. Tooke spoke of 
 it as a great calamity. Three years ago he felt 
 uncommonly well, and promised himself a happy 
 summer ; but something, he thought, must hap- 
 pen to prevent it ; he was so pei'fectly free from 
 trouble. His daughters in vain endeavored to 
 dissuade him from it. In April ^ he was appre- 
 hended, and confined. The same presentiment 
 for the same reasons had now returned, and had 
 just been fulfilled. 
 
 1 If this refers to his arrest for high treason, the word 
 April is a mistake for May. Vide supra, p. 164. 
 
170 JOHN BORNE TOOKE. 
 
 The great use of Education is to give us con- 
 fidence, and to make us think ourselves on a level 
 with other men. An uneducated man thinks there 
 is a magic in it, and stands in awe of those who 
 have had the benefit of it. It does little for us. 
 No man, as Selden says, is the wiser for his 
 learning. 
 
 When children read to you what they do not 
 understand, their minds are exercised in affixing 
 ideas to the words. At least it was so with me. 
 
 "So I understand, Mr. T., you have all the 
 blackguards in London M'ith you," said O'Brien 
 to him on the hustings at Westminster.^ " I 
 am happy to have it, Sir, on such good author- 
 ity." 
 
 " Now, young man, as you are settled in 
 town," said my uncle, " I would advise you to 
 take a wife." " With all my heart. Sir ; whose 
 wife shall I take?" 
 
 [As to the prisoners under sentence, it is but an 
 unhappiness for a few days — not one of them 
 but wishes that he had died last week. 
 
 1 Mr. Tooke was twice candidate for Westminster — in 
 1790 and 1796 — but was unsuccessful on each occasion. 
 
JOHN BORNE TO ORE. 171 
 
 Think nothing of style as style. Truth is all 
 I wish for.] 
 
 Man is a little kingdom, and if he makes one 
 passion a favorite at the expense of the rest, he 
 must be miserable. The rest will demand satis- 
 faction. 
 
 I have always least to say in the company of 
 pretty women, for it is then that I am most 
 anxious to recommend myself. 
 
 Upon his acquittal,^ a young woman intro- 
 duced herself to him, as the daughter of one of 
 his Jury. " Then give me leave. Madam," he 
 said, " to call you Sister, for your Father has just 
 given me life." 
 
 " The Law," said Judge Ashurst in a charge, 
 "is open to all men, to the poor as well as the 
 rich." — And so is the London Tavern. 
 
 On my first visit to Paris, I dressed myself a 
 la mode, and very soon called upon D'Alembert 
 with a letter of introduction. D'Alembert re- 
 ceived me very civilly, and talked a little on the 
 topics of the day, on operas, comedies, suppers. 
 I withdrew disappointed, for I saw he thought 
 
 1 On his trial for high treason, 1794. 
 
172 JOHN EORNE TOOKE. 
 
 little of me, and was followed out of the room by 
 an Englishman in a plain suit, who had sat 
 silent during the conversation. " I beg your 
 pardon, Sir," said the stranger, " but M. D'Alem- 
 bert has mistaken your character. He believes 
 you to be a petit maitre." I took the hint, and 
 threw off my finery. The stranger was David 
 Hume. 
 
 Hume wrote his history, as witches say their 
 prayers — backwards.^ 
 
 If such be their measures, let us resist (mur- 
 murs of disapprobation) as the anvil to the ham- 
 mer. 
 
 In England the people believe once a week — 
 on a Sunday. 
 
 The hand of the Law is on the Poor, and its 
 shadow on the Rich. 
 
 You and I, my dear brother, have inverted 
 one of the laws of Nature : for you have risen by 
 your gravity, and I have fallen by my levity.^ 
 
 1 He published the History of the Stuarts first, and then 
 the earlier reigns. Vide supra, p. 158. 
 
 2 In Thos. Moore's Memoirs, edited by Lord John Russell, 
 vol. VII. p. 181, Moore attributes this saying, on the author- 
 ity of Mr. Shiel, to an Irish baiTister, Keller, Moore's god- 
 father, addressing some judge. Mr. Roger's record must 
 have been the earlier in date. 
 
JOHN EORNE TOOKE. 173 
 
 "If I was compelled (I said somewhere pub- 
 licly) to make a choice, I should not hesitate 
 to prefer despotism to anarchy." " Then you 
 would do," replied Tooke, " as your ancestors 
 did at the Reformation. They rejected Purga- 
 tory, and kept Hell." \_Lord Grey, 1837.] 
 
TALLEYRAND. 
 
TALLEYRAND. 
 
 "HEN I arrived at Paris on my re- 
 turn to France,^ Madame de Stael 
 was very anxious to serve me, and 
 I was introduced by her to Barras,^ 
 who gave me an invitation to his country house 
 near Marly. I arrived there very early in the 
 day, and was sitting there alone, when two young 
 men entered the room, and began a discussion, 
 saying. Shall we go, or shall we not? At last 
 they cried, " Allons ! " and away they went. 
 Not long afterwards there was great distress in 
 the house. They had gone to bathe in the 
 Seine, and one of them, a natural son of Barras 
 
 1 Talleyrand returned to France from America about 
 1796. 
 
 2 Barras had been a Member of the Convention; and 
 when Talleyrand was introduced to him through the in- 
 fluence of Madame de Stael, in 1797, he was one of the five 
 Directors. 
 
 12 
 
178 TALLEYRAND. 
 
 (query) bad been drowned. Barras was incon- 
 solable, and all my endeavors to console him, 
 such as they were, (for I i-eturned with him in 
 his carriage to Paris,) were of no avail ; but they 
 gave him such an impression in my favor, that 
 he rendered me every service he could afterwards, 
 and as long as he lived. He introduced me to 
 Napoleon, and I came into office almost imme- 
 diately.-' He always spoke of my kindness on 
 that occasion with a warmth that affected me. 
 
 That dispatch which Bonaparte published on 
 his retreat from Moscow, was it written by 
 himself? By himself, certainly. 
 
 Which is the best portrait of him ? That which 
 represents him at Malmaison. It is done by 
 Isabey. The bust I gave Alexander Baring, 
 done by Canova, is excellent. It stands too 
 low at present. 
 
 Did he shave himself? Always; though he 
 
 1 Madame de Stael says that it was through her influence 
 that Talleyrand got into office, in the Department of Foreign 
 Affairs. She adds, " M. de Talleyrand avoit besoin qu'on 
 I'aidat pour arriver au pouvoir; rnais il se passoit ensuite 
 txhs bien des autres pour s'y maintenir." 
 
 Cansid. sur la Revol. Franc. 
 
TALLEYRAND. 179 
 
 was long about it, shaving a little, and then con- 
 versing, if any body was with him. A King by 
 birth, said he, smiling, is shaved by another. He 
 who makes himself Roi shaves himself. 
 
 Sieyes ^ was the first man in the Revolution — 
 " Le premier horame dans la Revolution." To him 
 indeed we owe it entirely. He, it was, who ac- 
 complished these three measures : the abolition 
 of the three estates, the enrolment of the National 
 Guard, and the division of France into depart- 
 ments. I was walking one day with him in the 
 Champs Elysees, when an officer of the Mar^- 
 chauss^e overset a poor woman's basket, con- 
 taining les plaisirs des dames (wafers). " This 
 can never be," said he, " when the National 
 Guard is established." — March 22, 1833, at 
 Lord Holland's. 
 
 1 L'Abb^ Sieyes, a member of the States-General in 
 1789. Though a clergyman he was a deputy of the Tiers- 
 Etat, and he proposed the decree which constituted that 
 order, the National Assembly of France; and thus, in effect, 
 annihilated the power of the two other orders in the assem- 
 bly. Madame de Stael remarks, " Ce d^cret passa, et ce 
 decret 6toit la revolution elle-meme." 
 
 Consid. sur la Revol. Franc. 
 
180 TALLEYRAND. 
 
 Again at Lord Holland's in Bur- 
 lington Street. 
 
 He [Bonaparte] was with the army of Eng- 
 land at Boulogne,-' when he heard of Mack's 
 being at Uhn. " If it had been mine to place 
 him, I should have placed him there." In an 
 instant the army was in full march,^ and he in 
 Paris. I attended him to Strasburg,^ and was 
 alone with him in the house of the Prefet — in one 
 of the chambers there — when he fell, and foamed 
 at the mouth, " Fermez la porte," he cried, and 
 from that moment lay as dead on the floor. Ber- 
 tier came to the door. " On ne pent pas entrer." 
 The Empress came to the door. " On ne peut 
 pas entrer." In about half an hour he recovered ; 
 but what would have been my situation if he had 
 
 1 The army and flotilla he had assembled at Boulogne, 
 M'ith the intention of invading or threatening England. 
 
 2 Napoleon broke up the flotilla and army at Boulogne 
 in the beginning of Sept. 1805, and ordered the march of 
 the army towards the Danube, where the Austrian armies 
 were. 
 
 8 Napoleon reached Strasburg on 26 Sept. 1805. 
 
TALLEYRAND. 181 
 
 died ? ^ Before daybreak he was in his carriage, 
 and in less than sixty hours, the Austi-ian army 
 had capitulated.^ 
 
 They lived together. "Were they married? 
 Pas tout a fait. 
 
 Of Lady F S 's dress : II commence 
 
 trop tard, et finit trop tot. Comme vous voyez. 
 
 Of Robert Smith : ^ C'etoit done votre pere 
 qui n'etoit pas si bien. 
 
 Vous savez nager, je crois.^ 
 
 1 The story of Napoleon's illness at Strasburg I repeated 
 to Lucien, who listened to it with great sang-froid. " Have 
 you ever heard it before V " "Never. It is an infirmity to 
 which many great men have been subject — Caesar among 
 others. My brother was once before attacked in the same 
 way, but then (he said with a smile) he was defeated I be- 
 lieve." S. R. 
 
 2 The Austrian army at XJlm, under General Mack, about 
 30,000 strong, laid down their arms before Napoleon on 17 
 Oct. 1805, and shortly afterwards the French army entered 
 Vienna. 
 
 3 On his praising the beauty of his mother. Mr. Rob- 
 ert Smith was the brother of the Reverend Sidney 
 Smith; he was familiarly known by the name of Bohus 
 Smith. 
 
 4 In answer to a lady who asked, if she and another 
 lady were both in danger of drowning, which he would 
 help first. 
 
182 TALLEYRAND. 
 
 I have committed one mistake in life. Et 
 quand finira t'elle? 
 
 I suffer the torments of Hell. Deja? 
 
 Talleyrand, in the summer of 1834, arriving 
 at Holland House, and entering the library, 
 where many of the ministers were sitting apart, 
 here and there, in vai'ious places, thus addressed 
 them, "Messieurs, vous parlez a I'oreille. II 
 faut aller au club pour apprendre ce que c'est." 
 And so, said Lord Grey, he went to the Trav- 
 eller's and learnt it all. — Lord Grey at Howick. 
 Oct. 1834. 
 
 Charles the Tenth requested the last Pope to 
 absolve him from his coronation oath, and was 
 I'efused. He I'equested the present Pope, and 
 was absolved. — Talleyrand to Bohus Smith. 
 
 Talleyrand is still alive, and will continue to 
 live, parceque le Diable en a peur. — Pozzo di 
 Borgo. 
 
 When Lord Londonderry attacked Talleyrand 
 in Parliament, and I defended him, saying, in 
 
TALLEYRAND. 183 
 
 everything as far as I had observed, he had 
 always been fair and honest, Talleyrand burst 
 into tears, saying, " II est le seul homme qui a 
 jamais dit de bien de moi." — The Duke of 
 Wellington to S. R. 
 
THOMAS LORD ERSKINE. 
 
THOMAS LORD ERSKINE 
 
 The First Brief. Greenwich Hospital Cause} 
 
 N a Sunday in June 1778,^ I was 
 engaged to dine with Agar in New 
 Norfolk Street, who had become 
 acquainted with me at Tunbridge- 
 wells ; but I was persuaded by a young man, 
 "William Lyon, an attorney, to walk as far as 
 Enfield Chase and dine with Mr. Barnes, a 
 wine-merchant in St. Mary Axe, remarkable for 
 
 1 This was an application to the Court of King's Bench 
 for a Criminal Information against Capt. Thos. Baillie, 
 Lieutenant-Governor of Greenwich Hospital, for a libel 
 contained in a printed case and memorial addressed to the 
 Governors of the Hospital, in which he exposed serious 
 abuses in that Hospital, and reflected severely on the con- 
 duct of the parties having the management of it. 
 
 Howell's State Trials, vol. xxi. 
 
 2 This was shortly before he was called to the Bar, which 
 took place on 6 July, 1778. See below, p. 189. 
 
188 THOMAS LORD ERSKINE. 
 
 the excellence of his claret. When half way, he 
 challenged me to leap over a ditch hy the road- 
 side. I leaped over it ; but, in returning, the 
 bank gave way, and I fell and sprained my 
 ankle. The expedition was over ; I could pro- 
 ceed no farther, and returned in a stage-coach. 
 
 I had left Kentish town and was then living in 
 Red Lion Passage, while a house, which I had 
 taken in Serjeants Inn, was painting and white- 
 washing. My wife was confined at the time, and 
 at her suggestion I resolved to keep my engage- 
 ment at Agar's. She said I was properly pun- 
 ished, and I felt that I was. 
 
 When I arrived the dinner was begun. A tall 
 man drew his chair aside, and I went into tlie gap. 
 He talked much about the pictures, and so did I, 
 though I knew little of the subject, turning that 
 little to as good an account as I could. When 
 dinner was over, he drew Agar aside, and asked 
 who I was. Agar said I was a lawyer, and said 
 much in my favor. " Could he be prevailed 
 upon to take a brief from my brother ? " " Per- 
 haps he could," said Agar in his pompous manner. 
 I knew nothing of this conversation, but on 
 my return home next day, my servant, John 
 Nicholls, who had served under me in the 
 
THOMAS LORD ERSKINE. 189 
 
 Royals/ and who, when he set my books in- 
 order, used always to place the Bible a-top, as 
 that, he said, was the best book ; told me when 
 he opened the door, that I must be in another 
 scrape, for a cross ill-looking man, in a large 
 gold-laced cocked hat, had been twice inquiring 
 for me. " He insists, Sir, upon seeing you, and 
 is at this moment waiting for you in Bloomsbury 
 Square Coffee-house." 
 
 I went there, and there I found an old seaman 
 with a furrowed face. He was sitting gloomily 
 in one of the boxes, with a small red trunk on 
 the table before him, and his sword lying on the 
 trunk. I mentioned my name. He said " There 
 are my papers. Will you read them over ? " It 
 ended in my taking them home. 
 
 I was called to the bar in a few days (6th of 
 July) ; and at a consultation held on the 1st 
 of November, Bearcroft, Peckham, and Murphy ,'^ 
 
 1 The Koyals, or First Eegiment of Foot, in which Lord 
 Erskine had been a Lieutenant before studying for the 
 bar. 
 
 2 These were three of the counsel retained, with Erskine, 
 for the defendant. They were probably surprised at a 
 mere novice venturing to express an opinion contrary to 
 that of his leaders. 
 
190 THOMAS LORD ERSKINE. 
 
 were for consenting to a compromise ; our client 
 to pay all costs. " My advice, Gentlemen," I 
 said, " may savor more of my late profession 
 " than my present, but I am against consenting." 
 " I'll be damned if I do," said Baillie, and he 
 hugged me in his arms, crying, " You are the 
 man for me." " Then the consultation is over," 
 said Bearcroft. " It is," I replied. " Let us 
 walk in the gardens." 
 
 When the cause came on ^ the senior counsel 
 exhausted the day, and the patience of the Court. 
 It grew dusk and my tui*n arrived ; when Lord 
 Mansfield adjoui'ned. I began next morning, 
 fresh, and before a fresh audience ; and when it 
 was over,^ all crowded round me. Sir Archi- 
 bald McDonald ^ had known me at school. Lee * 
 had known my father at Harrowgate. And that 
 
 1 On the 23d Nov. 1778, in the King's Bench, before 
 Lord Mansfield. The tliree counsel, above named, spoke 
 for the defendant on that day, and Erskine spoke on 
 the following morning, after which the counsel for the 
 prosecutors replied. 
 
 2 The defendant was successful, the application for leave 
 to prosecute him being refused, with costs. 
 
 3 A leading barrister at the time, subsequently Solicitor- 
 General and Attorney-General. 
 
 4 A leading barrister, afterwards Solicitor-General. 
 
THOMAS LORD ERSKINE. 191 
 
 night I went home and saluted my wife, with 
 sixty-five retaining fees in my pocket. 
 
 Had I not taken a nobleman's degree of M. A, 
 I could not have been called to the bar till two 
 years afterwards.^ I was then in my twenty- 
 ninth year, having been born on the 21st of 
 January, 1749.^ 
 
 The Geranium Avas mine. Not so the Birth 
 of the Rose, a Poem ascribed to me. 
 
 Dictated hy him to me as I sat with 
 my pen in my hand after dinner in St. 
 James's Place, in 1816. S. R. 
 
 Often was I employed to establish a Will, and 
 the history of one of them I can never forget. 
 
 Two old Maids in a country town, being 
 quizzical in their dress and demeanor, were not 
 unfrequently the sport of the idle boys in the 
 
 1 He had taken a degree of M. A. at Cambridge, iu 
 June, 1778. 
 
 2 In Lord Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors, it is 
 said that Lord Erskine was born in January, 1750. Lord 
 Erskine possibly gave the date of his birth accoi'ding to 
 the old style, and Lord Campbell, according to the new 
 style, introduced in 1752. This would reconcile the dif- 
 ference in their statements. 
 
192 THOMAS LORD ERSKINE. 
 
 market place, and being once so beset on their 
 way to Church, a young Curate, who had been 
 just appointed there, reproved the urchins as he 
 passed by in his gown and cassock, and, offering 
 an arm to each of the ladies, conducted them 
 triumphantly into their pew near the pulpit. 
 
 A great intimacy followed, and, dying not 
 long afterwaxds, they left him all they had. The 
 will was disputed, and, when I rose in my place 
 to establish it, I related the story, and said, 
 " Such, Gentlemen, is the value of small cour- 
 tesies. In my first speech here I was brow- 
 beaten by the Judge upon the bench, and honest 
 Jack Lee ^ took my part. When he died he left 
 me this bag, and I need not say how much I 
 value it. It shall serve me while I live, and 
 when I die I will be buried in it." — After dinner 
 at Holland House. 
 
 1 See Lord Erskine's mention of Lee, supra, p. 190. 
 
WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 13 
 
WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 Feb. 1834. 
 Mt dear Sir/ 
 
 I OU asked me not long ago if I could 
 recall any of his [Walter Scott's] 
 conversation. Happy should I be 
 if I could ; but, with a single ex- 
 cei)tion, I can only remember generally the 
 charm which he threw around him wherever he 
 came. That exception is however at your ser- 
 vice. 
 
 Sitting one day alone with him in your house, 
 (it was the day but one before he left it to em- 
 bark at Portsmouth for Malta,) I led him, among 
 other things, to tell me once again a story of 
 himself which he had formerly told me, and 
 which I had often wished to recover. When I 
 
 1 This letter and the following anecdote were communi- 
 cated by Mr. Rogers to Mr. Lockhart, and are printed in 
 LocTthart's Life of Scott. 
 
196 WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 returned home I wrote it down, as nearly as I 
 could, in his own words ; and here they are. 
 
 The subject is an achievement wortliy of 
 Ulysses himself, and such as many of his school- 
 fellows could, no doubt, have related of him ; 
 but, I feai', I have done it no justice, though the 
 story is so very characteristic that it should not 
 be lost. The inimitable manner in which he told 
 it — the glance of the eye, the turn of the head, 
 and the hght that played over his faded features 
 as, one by one, the circumstances came back to 
 him, accompanied by a thousand boyish feelings 
 that had slept perhaps for years — these no lan- 
 guage, not even his own, could convey to you ; 
 but you can supply them. Would that others 
 could do so, who had not the good fortune to 
 know him ! S. R. 
 
 To his Son-in-Law, John Lockhart. 
 
 " There was a boy in my class at school who 
 stood always at the top ; nor could I with all my 
 efforts supplant him. Day passed after day and 
 still he kept his place, do what I would ; till at 
 length I observed that, when a question was 
 asked him, he always fumbled with his fingers at 
 a particular button in the lower part of his 
 
WALTER SCOTT. 197 
 
 waistcoat. To remove it, therefore, became expe- 
 dient in my eyes ; and in an evil moment it was 
 removed with a knife. Great was my anxiety 
 to know the success of my measure ; and it suc- 
 ceeded too well. When the boy was again ques- 
 tioned, his fingers sought again for the button, 
 but it was not to be found. In his distress he 
 looked down for it ; it was to be seen no more 
 than to be felt. He stood confounded, and I 
 took possession of his place ; nor did he ever 
 recover it ; or ever, I believe, suspect who was 
 the author of his wrong. 
 
 " Often in after-life, has the sight of him smote 
 me as I passed by him ; and often have I resolved 
 to make him some reparation; but it ended in 
 good i-esolutions. Though I never renewed my 
 acquaintance with him, I often saw him ; for he 
 tilled some inferior office in one of the courts of 
 law at Edinburgh. Poor fellow ! He took early 
 to drinking, and I believe he is dead." 
 
 Friday, Oct. 21, 1831, <^e day but one 
 before he set off for Naples. 
 
LOKD GRENVILLE 
 
LORD GRENVILLE. 
 
 Dropmore, Sept. 1823. 
 m^ HAVE often heard Mr. Pitt talk 
 "IfM about Bolingbroke, but do not think 
 -t^4M lie admired him much.^ 
 
 ^ ' He [Mr. Pitt] ascribed his own 
 fluency to the following circumstance. At 
 Hayes,^ where they lived in great seclusion, it 
 was his custom in the morning to construe his 
 author, Virgil or Livy, to his tutor, Mr. Wilson ; 
 and in the evening, after tea, to translate the 
 same passage freely, with the book open before 
 him, to his father, and the rest of the family. He 
 often mentioned this to me as the way he thought 
 he had acquired his fluency in public speaking ; 
 
 1 See Mr. Grattan's statement as to Mr. Pitt's, wish to 
 possess the speeches of Bolingbroke. — Ante, p. 127. 
 
 2 Hayes, in Kent, the seat of Mr. Pitt's father, William, 
 Earl of Chatham, whose wife was the sister of Lord Gren- 
 ville's father. 
 
202 LORD GRENVILLE. 
 
 and it is remarkable that in conversation, when 
 an ancient writer was quoted, he always turned 
 the passage into English (for his own use, as it 
 seemed) before he appeared completely to enter 
 into it; a habit I ascribe to this practice.^ 
 
 Mr. Fox's speeches were full of repetition. 
 He used to say that it was necessary to hammer 
 it into them ; but I rather think he could not do 
 otherwise. His speech on the "Westminster Scru- 
 tiny ^ was the best I ever heard him make. It 
 was a wonderful display of eloquence. I did not 
 hear him latterly. 
 
 Once in my holidays, when I passed ten days 
 at Hayes, Lord Chatham was confined to his bed 
 with the gout. When I was going away he sent 
 
 1 Redhead Yorke mentions his being present when some- 
 body quoted the following passage from the " De Claris 
 Oratoribus " [of Cicero] to Mr. Pitt: "Est cum eloquentia 
 sicut flamraa: materie alitur, motfi excitatur, et urendo 
 clarescit." It was observed that it was untranslatable; on 
 which Mr. Pitt immediately replied, " No, I should trans- 
 late it thus: — 'It is -with eloquence as with a flame. It 
 requires fuel to feed it, motion to excite it, and it brightens 
 as it burns.' " — Note in Comnwnplace-Book of Samuel Rogers. 
 
 2 In Ho. of Com. 8th June, 1784. — Pari. Hist. xxiv. p. 
 883, &c. 
 
LORD GRENVILLE. 203 
 
 for me to his bedside, and among other questions 
 asked me what book I was reading. When I 
 answered, " Virgil," he said, " A good book ! 
 you cannot read a better. In what part are you ? 
 Do you remember these lines ? 
 
 ' Tuque prior, tu parce, genus qui ducis Olympo; 
 Projice tela manu, sanguis meus.' " i 
 
 I quoted them in a speech on the American War. 
 " A great Poet, and no greater Poet than States- 
 man, has told you how you should act on this 
 occasion." 
 
 Nothing more shows the malice ofl some of 
 Milton's biographers, than the pleasure they take 
 in relating that Milton suffered corporal punish- 
 ment at college.^ It was then and long afterwards 
 
 1 iEneid, vi. 834. 
 
 2 The story is said to have been first told by Aubrey in 
 his short MS. notes on the Life of Milton, (see John Au- 
 brey's Lives of Eminent Men, vol. ii. p. 444, of " Letters of 
 Eminent Persons, &c. Lond. 1813,") where the author says 
 of Milton, " His first tutor there [at Cambridge] was Mr. 
 " Chapel], from whom receiving some unkindness (whipt 
 " him), he was afterwards transferred to the tuition of one 
 " Mr. Towell." The words " whipt him " appear inter- 
 lined in the MS. This statement of Aubrey's is quoted. 
 
204 LORD GRENVILLE. 
 
 in constant use in both Universities ; nor would 
 it Lave been anything unusual, if he had received 
 it ; but it is nowhere said that he had. The 
 lines quoted from him by Johnson ^ are followed 
 by others from which it may be clearly inferred 
 that he suffered rustication,^ and therefore not 
 corporal punishment. A good life of Milton is 
 much wanted. No man ever acted up to his 
 belief of what was right, more conscientiously 
 and firmly. 
 
 and believed by Thos. Warton, in his Life of Dean Bath- 
 urst, p. 153, and in his " Minor Poems of Milton," p. 
 418. It is alluded to by Johnson in his Life of Milton, 
 who relates it, but not apparently with pleasure. He 
 says, " I am ashamed to relate what I fear is true, that 
 Milton," &c. Even if this be thought " the insult of 
 aflfected concern," as Symmons calls it, yet is it not con- 
 cern or shame for the University rather than for Milton? 
 
 1 The lines quoted by Johnson in his Life of Milton : — 
 
 " Nee duri libet usque minas perferre magistri, 
 Cpeteraque ingenio non subeunda meo," 
 are interpi-eted by him as probably signifying the inflic- 
 tion of corporal punishment. Hayley, in his Life of Mil- 
 ton (p. 16), interprets the above lines as meaning threats 
 only of punishment, which he conceives was not inflicted. 
 
 2 Symmons considers it as proved by the College Regis- 
 ter that Milton was not rusticated, and did not lose a term, 
 as Johnson had thought probable. — Summons's Life of 
 Milton. 
 
LORD GRENVILLE. 205 
 
 Lord Chatliam, according to Mrs. A. Pitt, was 
 always reading Spencer.' " He who knows 
 Spencer," says Burke, " has a good hold on the 
 English tongue." 
 
 Gibbon's notes are delightful. 
 
 Locke an extraordinary man, though in meta- 
 physics he blundered about ideas, and though in 
 politics he believed in an original compact ; (how 
 can a man bind his grandchild unborn ? ) In the- 
 ology I am told, by those who understand those 
 matters, that he erred most of all. 
 
 I think that the three greatest men that Eng- 
 land has produced, were Bacon, Newton, and 
 Milton. 
 
 Sheridan's speech on the Begums in the House 
 of Commons^ admirable — in Westminster HalP 
 contemptible, I heard both. 
 
 Burke's draft of a petition for the Peers, in one 
 of his latter volumes, perhaps his greatest effort 
 of eloquence. 
 
 1 Mrs. Anne Pitt told Mr. Grattan that Lord Chatham had 
 never read but one book — The Faery Queene. Vide supra, 
 p. 128. 
 
 2 On 7 Feb. 1787, on the charge against Warren Has- 
 tings. — Pari. Hist. xxvi. p. 274, et seq. 
 
 8 On 3 June, 1788, and later days. 
 
206 LORD GRENVILLE. 
 
 Earl St. Vincent a great man. He enforced 
 discipline at the expense of his popularity. Not 
 rewarded as he deserved ; but the late King 
 had many prejudices ; his was perhaps the nar- 
 rowest mind I ever knew. 
 
 The more we know of King William the 
 Third, the more we must admire him. How 
 superior to his ministers, as we learn more par- 
 ticularly from the Shrewsbury Papers. The 
 House of Orange produced three very great 
 men : William the first Prince,^ Prince Maurice,^ 
 and William the Third. Compared with these, 
 how insignificant the Idol of the French, Henry 
 the Fourth. 
 
 July, 1825. 
 
 He sits, summer and winter, on the same sofa, 
 his favorite books on the shelves just over his 
 head. 
 
 Roger Ascham's style labored and artificial- 
 Yet I often read him. Here he is just above me. 
 
 Milton always within reach. 
 
 1 Prince of Orange; Stadtholder of Holland from about 
 1577 till his assassination in June, 1584. 
 
 ■•2 Maurice of Nassau; Prince of Orange, and Stadtholder 
 of HoUand from 1584 to 1625. 
 
LORD GRENVILLE. 207 
 
 Lord Bathurst left us while we were walking. 
 " Lord Bathurst," I said, " is gone to his busi- 
 ness." " I would rather he was there than L 
 If I was to live my life over again," he con- 
 tinued with a sigh, " I should do very differ- 
 ently." 
 
 We sat down to rest in the Pinery seat, 
 inscribed 
 
 " Pulcherrima pinus in hortis," l 
 
 and the clock of the stables struck twelve. Few 
 things, he said, affect me more than a clock — 
 its duration — its perseverance — the same voice, 
 morning, noon, and night. There is somewhere 
 a good account of a castle-clock in the Mysteries 
 of Udolpho. " That old fellow crowed through 
 the siege, and is crowing still." ^ Yes, says he, 
 (the clock was then striking,) that voice will be 
 heard long after I am in my grave and forgot- 
 ten. [Not forgotten, S. R.] 
 
 Dugald Stewart, in his Philosophical Essays, 
 p. 420, gives a good description of a clock. He 
 
 1 Virgil. Eclog. vii. 65. 
 
 2 Mysteries of Udolpho, chap. 34. 
 
208 LORD GRENVILLE. 
 
 gives it as another's, but he owned it to be his, 
 when I mentioned it to him.^ 
 
 The passage I admire most in the Odyssey is 
 where Menelaus mentions his affection for Ulys- 
 ses ; and Telemachus weeps.^ 
 
 I once said to Mr. Pitt, not at all in the way 
 of flattery, " How came you to speak with a 
 fluency and correctness so much beyond any of 
 us?" "Why," he replied, "I have always thought 
 "that what little command of language I have, 
 " came from a practice I had of reading off in 
 " the family after tea some passage in Livy or 
 " Cicero, which I had learnt in the morning." 
 And to this practice, said Lord Grenville, I think 
 it was owing that whenever a sentence from the 
 classics was quoted, he always translated it aloud 
 
 1 Dugald Stewart quotes it as from Bailly's Histoire de 
 I'Astronomie Moderne ; he speaks of the attention of the 
 Astronomical Observer being drawn, among other secon- 
 dary things, " to tlie silent lapse of time interrupted only 
 by the beats of the Asti'onomical Clock." In a subsequent 
 note he says he finds he has not quoted correctly ; and 
 appears to admit tliat it was not to be found in Bailly's 
 work. 
 
 2 Odyssey, iv. 100, &c. 
 
LORD GRENVILLE. 209. 
 
 to himself before he went on further. (Tliis an- 
 ecdote Lord Grenville related to me, the last 
 time, of his own accord, when we were sitting 
 by ourselves one day after dinner ; and I have 
 put it down again, on account of the way in 
 which he introduced it. S. E.) 
 
 Mr. Pitt used often to repeat with pleasure 
 the six or eight lines added by Mrs. Rowe to 
 Rowe's Lucan. 
 
 You have not named the best style in its 
 way : — Blackstone's.^ 
 
 Raleigh's " O eloquent, just, and mighty 
 Death," one of the finest, if not the finest, pas- 
 sage in English prose.^ 
 
 Mitford, in his account of Xenophon's place 
 of retirement/ struck me exceedingly. 
 
 1 Mr. Fox makes the same remark. — Supra, p. 56. 
 
 ' eloquent, just, and mighty Death ! whom none could 
 advise, thou hast persuaded, what none have dared, thou 
 hast done ; and whom all the world hath flattered, thou 
 only hast cast out of the world and despised ; thou hast 
 drawn together all the far-stretched greatness, all the 
 pride, cruelty, and ambition of man, and covered it all 
 over with these two narrow words, Hic jacet. — Raleigh's 
 History of the Wm-ld, Part I. Book v. p. 669. 
 
 3 See Mitford's Greece, iii. c. 28, s. 9. The place was 
 Scillus, in the Peloponnesus. 
 14 
 
210 LORD GRENVILLE. 
 
 I have seldom been so vexed, as when I in- 
 troduced the present King of France, Charles 
 the Tenth,-"^ to the old King.^ He had desired 
 to be presented, and it was not to be refused, 
 and the audience was necessarily a private one. 
 When I announced him in the closet, the King 
 began a conversation running from topic to 
 topic. He was often at a loss ; but was un- 
 walling to come to a conclusion, till I re- 
 minded him that Monsieur was at the door. 
 The King spoke French very ill, and was al- 
 w^ays embaiTassed on receiving a foreigner. As 
 for the Bourbons, he hated them all, and indeed 
 had no reason to love them. 
 
 At first, I understand, he spelt ill when writ- 
 ing Enghsh ; but improved afterwards. 
 
 Castlereagh ignorant to the last, with no prin- 
 ciple or feeling, right or wrong. Befoi-e he 
 spoke, he would collect what he could on the 
 subject, but never spoke above the level of a 
 
 1 Then Monsieur, the brother of Louis XVIII. 
 
 2 George III. 
 
LORD GRENVILLE. 211 
 
 newspaper. Had three things in his favor: tact, 
 good humor, and courage. 
 
 Liverpool^ indolent in the extreme. Has no 
 speaker on his side. If the Chancellor (Lord 
 Eldon) speaks, it is generally to oppose him. 
 
 Never was such a thing done, as sending a 
 cabinet minister ^ to Vienna to act as he pleased, 
 one who was irresponsible, one who knew noth- 
 ing, and who had never looked into a map. 
 
 Gibbon's best work, his review of the Roman 
 Empire in the first volume, his only instance of 
 generalizing. 
 
 Mr. Pitt used often to repeat the beginning of 
 the Preface to Eikonoclastes,^ quoted by Sym- 
 raons : " To descant on the misfortunes of a per- 
 son fallen," &c. I. 401. 
 
 He always spoke of Lord Chatham with affec- 
 tion, and no wonder ; for there never was a father 
 more partial to a son. How well I remember 
 
 1 The Earl of Liverpool was then (1825) Prime Minister. 
 
 2 Lord Castlereagh, who attended the Congress of Vienna, 
 in 1815. 
 
 3 By Milton : quoted in Symmons's Life of Milton. 
 
212 LORD GREN VILLE. 
 
 the hornets' nest mentioned in Lord Chatham's 
 letter ! (See Bishop Prettyman's Life.^) I was 
 at Hayes at the time. 
 
 The two speeches, and the only ones (I believe 
 I may say it confidently from my intimacy with 
 him), which he [Mr. Pitt] himself corrected, 
 were those on the Sinking-Fund^ and on the 
 answer to Bonaparte's Letter.^ The first was a 
 very indifferent speecli. 
 
 He read the Poets, and had certainly imagina- 
 tion. Once, when the subject for the Prize at 
 Oxford was given out, I observed, " What an 
 impossible subject for a Poem ! What can the 
 poor boys make of it ? " "A good deal," he re- 
 plied ; and, walking up and down the room, he 
 recited in his prose a poem on the subject. I 
 have often regretted that I did not go up-stairs 
 and write it down. 
 
 In his earlier life he was gay and delightful 
 in conversation. At last his temper clouded. 
 
 1 Letter from Lord Chatham to Mr. Pitt, dated Hayes, 2 
 Sept. 1774. — TomUii's Life of Pitt, voL i. pp. 15, 16. 
 
 2 The sinking-fund was proposed by Pitt to Parliament on 
 29 March, 1786. — Pari. Hist. xxv. 1294, et seq. 
 
 3 On Bonaparte's letter to George IIL making overtures 
 for a general peace : 22 Jan. 1800. — Pari. Hist, xxxiv. p. 
 1301, et seq. 
 
LORD GRENVILLE. 213 
 
 Dr. Addingtori ^ ruined his liealtb. Port wine 
 was Addington's great remedy ; and at Hayes I 
 used to wonder at the bumpers they were drink- 
 ing, confined as I was to water. Afterwards it 
 became necessary to liim ; and tliough never 
 more affected by it than others in genei-al, he 
 certainly drank freely. 
 
 He was fond of Holwood,^ and showed taste 
 in the planting ; ^ but be mismanaged the water 
 sadly ; and laughed when I remonstrated against 
 his levelling, as he did, part of the fortification 
 in the Roman camp there. All the Roman re- 
 mains among us, and whatever related to Gothic 
 or ancient times, he held in no great respect. 
 
 No man could wish more to preserve peace 
 with France. His heart was set upon peace, 
 and upon financial improvements. The war was 
 forced upon him. 
 
 I once sent a shorthand writer to take notes 
 of his speeches ; but the notes were so imperfect 
 that the scheme failed. All the reporters were 
 
 1 A physician; the father of Viscount Sidmouth. 
 
 2Holwood, near Bromley, in Kent; Mr. Pitt's residence. 
 
 3 When a boy, he [William Pitt] used to go a birdnesting 
 in the woods of Ho] wood, and it was always, he told me, his 
 wish to call it his own. — Lord Bathurst to S. B. 
 
214 LORD GRENVILLE. 
 
 against us ; and their misrepresentations were 
 with us a constant source of complaint. 
 
 When Bishop Prettyraan sent me part of his 
 Memoirs, containing little more than extracts 
 from Woodfall's Parliamentary Register, I told 
 him frankly how wrong it was in a confidential 
 friend of Mr. Pitt to lend his countenance to 
 such misrepresentations. He returned me an 
 unsatisfactory answer, and I declined reading 
 any more. 
 
 I had no great respect for Pope, but was sor- 
 ry for the destruction of his garden.^ There was 
 an old summer-house of Burke's at Beaconsfield 
 pulled down ; and I have often regretted that I 
 did not buy it and set it up somewhere at Drop- 
 more. 
 
 What a crime did Lord Verulam commit ! I 
 have often looked at him in the House of Lords 
 as he sat there in his insignificance, and have 
 said to myself, "That is the man who pulled 
 down Bacon's house." ^ 
 
 1 At his villa at Twickenham. See an account of the 
 altered state of the garden in William Howitt's Haunts and 
 Homes of British Poets, vol. i. p. 171, &c. 
 
 2 Gorhambury House, near St. Albans, and within the 
 
LORD GRENVILLE. 215 
 
 Jan. 21, 1834.1 
 
 To him may be applied what Cicero says of 
 Pompey. — " Non possum ejus casum non dolere : 
 hominem enim integrum et castura et gravem 
 cognovi." Ad. Att. xi. ep. 6. — Lord Holland, 
 to S. R. 
 
 NOTE BY SAMUEL ROGERS. 
 
 In a walk round Hyde Park with Mr. Thomas 
 Grenville,^ in August, 1841, he said, — 
 
 '' My father lived at Wotton ; ^ and, if I re- 
 bounds of Old Verulam. A few ruins of the mansion re- 
 mained when Mr. Basil Montagu visited the spot in 1829. 
 Lord Bacon had lived there when a child, and there when 
 a child Queen Elizabeth first noticed him. It had been the 
 residence of his father, Sir Nicholas Bacon. — Montagu's 
 Life of Lord Bacon, ccccxlix. 
 
 1 Lord Grenville died 12 Jan. 1834. 
 
 2 Mr. Thomas Grenville was one of the elder brothers of 
 Lord Grenville. He was bom in 1755, second son of the 
 Right Honorable George Grenville, and younger brother 
 of George, afterwards Marquis of Buckingham. Richard, 
 Earl Temple, was his iincle. Mr. T. Grenville left his 
 valuable library to the British Museum. 
 
 3 At Wotton, Bucks. 
 
216 LORD GRENVILLE. 
 
 member right, it was in 1767, when I was in 
 my twelfth year, and my brother George and 
 myself (Eton boys) were at home for the Mid- 
 summer holidays, that Lord Chatham ^ and Lord 
 Temple ^ came there on a visit. We dined at 
 three o'clock, and at half-past four sallied out to 
 the Ninepin Alley; where Lord Chatham and 
 Lord Temple, two very tall men, the former in 
 the 59th, the latter in the 57th, year of his age, 
 played for an hour and a half; each taking one 
 of us for his partner. The ladies sat by, look- 
 ing on, and drinking their coffee ; and in our 
 walk home we stopped to regale ourselves with 
 a syllabub under the Cow. 
 
 " The ninepins were larger and heavier than 
 any I have seen since ; and it was our business 
 as youngsters, to set them up at the conclusion of 
 every game. 
 
 " My brother William (Lord Grenville) was 
 not present, being only eight years old." ^ 
 
 1 William Pitt, created Earl of Chatham 1766, and died 
 1778. 
 
 2 Richard, Earl Temple, who died 1779. His sister was 
 the wife of William, Earl of Chatham. 
 
 8 Loi'd Grenville was born in 1759. 
 
DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 SPA.IN. 
 
 ^^^3^::j>0 NAP ARTE, in my opinion, com- 
 0^'o«5iK!?\ ™itted one of his gi-eatest eiTors 
 M ' «^^^1 when he meddled with Spain ; for 
 f«.^?r^^\£ ^jjg animosity of the people was un- 
 conquerable, and it was almost impossible to get 
 us out of that corner. I have often said it would 
 be his ruin ; though I might not live to see it. 
 A conqueror, like a cannon-ball, must go on. 
 If he rebounds, his career is ovei*. 
 
 [Bonaparte was certainly as clever a man as 
 ever lived, but he appears to me to have wanted 
 sense on many occasions.] 
 
 At one time I expected him there [in Spain] in 
 person, and him by himself I should have re- 
 garded at least as an accession of 40,000 men. 
 
 Clausel was the best General employed against 
 me there. He gave me a great deal of trouble ; 
 
220 DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 for every night he took a good position, and every 
 mornino; I had to turn and dislodge him. 
 
 Once I thought I had him ; but it pleased a 
 young gentleman of ours to go and dine at a cab- 
 aret in the valley a mile or two off. Clausel's 
 reconnoitring party fell in with him, and Clausel 
 took the alarm and was gone. He was then a 
 young man, and is now (1824) in disgrace and 
 in America. If there was a war we should hear 
 of him again. 
 
 In Spain, and also in France, I used continually 
 to go alone and reconnoitre almost up to their 
 piquets. Seeing a single horseman in his cloak, 
 they disregarded me as some subaltern. No 
 French General, said Soult, would have gone 
 without a guard of at least a thousand men. * 
 
 Everywhere I received intelligence from the 
 peasants and the priests. The French learnt 
 nothing. 
 
 At Vittoria they were hourly expecting Clausel 
 with reinforcements, and I was taking my meas- 
 ures accordingly, when Alava brought me an 
 innkeepex', who said, "Make yourself easy, Sir; 
 he is now quietly lodged for the night in my 
 house six leagues off." So saying, he returned 
 to attend upon him, and I lost no time. 
 
DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 221 
 
 t 
 
 Gordon (afterwards killed at Waterloo) passed 
 
 the night in an osteria with some French officers, 
 and no sooner were they asleep than a Spanish 
 child in the room made gestures to Gordon, 
 drawing the edge of his hand across his throat. 
 — " And why . so ? " said Gordon in the morn- 
 ing when they were gone. — " Because I knew 
 you to be an Englishman by your sword and 
 your spurs." 
 
 " Don't drink of that well," said a Spanish 
 woman to an English soldier. " Is it poi- 
 soned ? " — " Some Frenchmen are there," she 
 replied, " and more than you can count." 
 Whenever a Frenchman came and looked into 
 it, she sent him in, headlong. 
 
 The French were cruel to their guides. One, 
 whom we found dead in the road, had conducted 
 them within sight of the Castle they were in 
 search of; and no sooner had he pointed to it 
 on the hill than he received a bullet from a pistol 
 at the back of his head. We found him an hour 
 afterwards lying on his face where he fell, and 
 learnt in a neighboring village that he had been 
 hired there. They wished to conceal their move- 
 ments from us ; but why not detain him for a 
 day or two ? 
 
222 DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 We were blockading Pampeluna when Bo- 
 naparte sent Sonlt from Dresden to relieve if. 
 " II a la meilleure tete de tons pour la guerre," 
 said he ; and Soult came with an immense army, 
 having collected all he could. Our blockading 
 force was small, but I knew of the intention , 
 and, assembling our troops from all quarters as 
 fast as possible, I rode on before them to show 
 myself to the blockadei's, and also to the en- 
 emy. The first received me with three shouts, 
 for they knew that I should not come alone ; 
 and by the last, even if not so announced, I was 
 sure to be discovered, for I was almost within 
 gunshot. ^ 
 
 There was a spy in the habit of going from 
 camp to camp. We called him Don Uran de la 
 Kosa ; and he dined with us and the French 
 alternately. " Who is he and what is he ? " 
 said Alava when he saw him at table. " A 
 
 1 This is mentioned by Napier, as on 27 July, 1813, 
 the day befoi-e the first battle of Saurorcn, in the Pyre- 
 nees. The shout was first raised by one of the Portuguese 
 battalions under General Campbell, and, being caught up 
 by the next regiments, swelled as it ran along the line. 
 
 Napier's Peninsular War, vi. 130. 
 
DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 223 
 
 Spaniard, an Andalusian," they replied. — " No 
 Spaniard," said Alava ; " he may be Cagliostro, 
 or anybody else, but no Spaniard." 
 
 He was forever talking as Frenchmen are, 
 and always at my elbow. He had just left the 
 French, and he said to me when I was recon- 
 noitring, " Do you wish to see Marshal Soult ? " 
 " Certainly." " There he is, then ! " I looked 
 through my glass, and saw him distinctly ^ — so 
 distinctly as to know him instantly when I met 
 him afterwards in Paris ; as I did several times, 
 though never to exchange ten words with him. ^ 
 He was sitting on his horse, and writing a de- 
 spatch on his hat ; while an aide-de-camp waited 
 by him ; to Avhom, when he had done, he deliv- 
 ered it, pointing with much earnestness in one 
 direction again and again. " I see enough," I 
 replied, and gave the glass to another, saying to 
 him, " Observe which way that gentleman goes." 
 He galloped off as directed ; and I knew at once, 
 as I thought, where the attack was to be made. 
 
 1 Napier mentions this circumstance. — Pen. War vi. 130. 
 
 ^ I met them afterwards together at a small tea-party in 
 London, and the respect of Soult for the Duke was very- 
 remarkable. S. R. 
 
224 DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 "That is my weakest point," said I to myself; 
 and I prepared accordingly ; of such use, as I 
 had always maintained, are glasses. 
 
 He [Soult] looked much lustier than now, and 
 just as his son now does. I beat him thoroughly 
 the next day ^ or the day after, and drove him 
 back into France. I should have done still 
 more but for an accident. A trooper or two of 
 his fell in with some stragglers of ours, and, 
 snatching them up behind them, galloped oif to 
 the camp, that Soult might gather from them 
 what he could.^ 
 
 The name of this fellow [the spy] was Ozille. 
 Latterly I would not let him come near me, 
 and had him always observed. So he could not 
 shift his quarters. [When I was Ambassador at 
 Paris, he came and begged me to make interest 
 with Soult for the settlement of his accounts- 
 " How can I ? " I said, laughing, " when we 
 
 1 The 1st battle of Sauroren, or of the Pyrenees, on 28 
 July, 1813, and subsequent battles on the 30 July and fol- 
 lowing days. — Napier^ s Peninsular War, vi. 136, et seq. 
 
 2 This happened on 31 July, 1813, while Wellington was 
 waiting near Elizondo to surprise Soult, who was at San 
 Estevan in his retreat from Pampeluna into France. — Ibid. 
 VI. 156. 
 
DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 225 
 
 made such use of you as we did ? " They were 
 settled, however, if we could believe him.] 
 
 After the battle of Toulouse ^ I went to Paris, 
 and was on my return to the array when Soult 
 and I met half way. Each of us had six horses 
 to his carriage, and the postilions, as usual, 
 stopped on the road to change. I was fast 
 asleep, and knew nothing of the matter ; but 
 Soult, learning from my courier who I was, 
 came to the front of my carriage, as I was 
 afterwards told, and during the operation ob- 
 served me through his glass as I lay there. At 
 Paris I knew him immediately, though I had 
 only seen him through mine.^ IMassena, I re- 
 member, was at the same dinner, and said to me, 
 " Vous m'avez rendu les cheveux gi'is." 
 
 When Massena was opposed to me, and in the 
 field, I never slept comfortably. 
 
 Soult was much affected by appearances. 
 Once, before the battle of the Pyrenees, when 
 I was preparing for action, our men happened to 
 
 1 Which took place on 10 April, 1814, between Welling- 
 ton and Soult, and was followed by an armistice and 
 peace. 
 
 2 Before the battle of Sauroren in the Pyrenees. — Vide 
 supra, p. 222. 
 
 15 
 
226 DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 shout, and I said, " Soult will not come out to- 
 day." Nor did he ; for he thought we had re- 
 ceived some great reinforcement.^ 
 
 Whether Soult, at his age, [March, 1831] 
 would now serve in case of a war I cannot say. 
 He is a great man in the Administration of War ; 
 but less in battle, less in what are called " Les 
 Stratagemes de la Guerre." In the battle of the 
 Pyrenees he made many desperate attacks ; but 
 I was everywhere prepared for him. 
 
 Marmont throws the fault on others, but I 
 think he was to blame at Salamanca ; - for he 
 spread his army, thinking that we Avished to 
 make off; and with my whole force I made a 
 sudden attack on his centre, in front and in rear. 
 It was said, and said truly, that we defeated forty 
 thousand men in forty minutes. He was, how- 
 ever, a very excellent officer. 
 
 In Spain I never marched the troops long. 
 
 1 Napier relates this circumstance from hearsay some- 
 what differently though to the same effect. — Pen. War, vi. 
 130. 
 
 2 Fought 22 July, 1812. 
 
DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 227 
 
 Twenty-five miles were the utmost. They set 
 off, usually, at five or six in the morning, and 
 took their ground by one. In India they could 
 go farther. Once in one day I marched them 
 seventy-two miles. Starting at three in the 
 morning, they went twenty-five miles, and halt- 
 ed at noon. Then I made them lie down to 
 sleep, setting sentinels over them ; and at eight 
 they started again, marching till one at noon the 
 next day ; when we were in the enemy's camp. 
 In Europe we cannot do so much. For in Eng- 
 land we send them by a canal into the interior, 
 and along the coast by a smack. In India they 
 must walk. 
 
 I look upon it that all men require two pounds 
 weight of food a day ; the English not more 
 than the French. Vegetable food is less con- 
 venient than animal food, the last walking with 
 you. 
 
 The elastic woven corselet would answer well 
 over the cuirass. It saved me, I think, at Or- 
 thez ; ^ where I was hit on the hip. I was never 
 struck but on that occasion, and there I was not 
 
 1 In Spain. 
 
228 DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 wounded. I was on horseback again the same 
 day.i 
 
 In Spain I shaved myself overnight, and 
 usually slept five or six hours ; sometimes, in- 
 deed, only three or four, and sometimes only 
 two. In India I never undressed ; it is not the 
 custom there ; and for many years in the Pen- 
 insula I undressed very seldom ; never for the 
 first four years. 
 
 Enghsh horses are the best of all for military 
 service ; and mares are better than geldings. 
 They endure more fatigue, and recover from 
 it sooner. 
 
 War in Spain is much less of an evil than in 
 other countries. There is no property to destroy. 
 Enter a house, the walls are bare ; there is no 
 furniture. 
 
 , when at our head-quarters in Spain, 
 
 wished to see an army, and I gave directions 
 that he should be conducted through ours. 
 When he returned, he said, " I have seen 
 
 1 Sir Wm. Napier, in a letter to Lord John Russell, says 
 that the Duke was twice hit; once at Salamanca, and a 
 second time at Orthez. — Memoirs of Moore, viii. at end, as 
 a note to Vol. v. 57. 
 
DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 229 
 
 nothing — Nothing but here and there httle clus- 
 ters of men in confusion ; some cooking, some 
 washing, and some sleeping." " Then you have 
 seen an army," I said. 
 
 I should like much to tell the truth ; but if 1 
 did, I should be torn to pieces, here or abroad. 
 I have indeed no time to write, much as I might 
 wish to do so ; and I am still [December, 1827] 
 too much in the world to do it. There is a his- 
 tory of the Campaign in Spain of 1808 or 9, 
 in English with French notes, that is admira- 
 ble as to the French movements, and was writ- 
 ten most probably by some Irisliman, then with 
 Soult. 
 
 Napier has great materials, and means well ; 
 but he is too much influenced by anything that 
 makes for him, even by an assertion in a news- 
 paper. 
 
 I do not think much of Southey. 
 
 The Subaltern ^ is excellent, particularly in the 
 American Expedition to New Orleans. He de- 
 scribes all he sees. 
 
 1 By G. E. Gleig: first published anonymously in Black- 
 wood's Magazine, 1825, 1827. 
 
230 DURE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 After the battle of Vittoi-ia the Spaniards said, 
 " You came over the Enghsh Menden," — a 
 basque Avord for a chain of hills — " Your 
 Black Prince came over them, and there he 
 fought for Don Pedro the Cruel. At that old 
 Castle he had his head-quarters." It agrees 
 with the account in Froissardt.^ 
 
 He [the Duke] would often come into my 
 room M'hen he rose, and converse for a few 
 minutes. But once (it was during the Siege of 
 Burgos) he came and walked about and said 
 
 1 The battle of Navarretta, near Vittoria, in Spain, 
 fought on 3 April, 1367, by the Black Prince and Don 
 Pedro the Cruel against Henry de Transtaraare, King of 
 Castille, and Don Tello, in which the Black Prince was 
 victorious. — Frohsardf, i. c. 241. General Napier states 
 the name of " Englishman's Hill " to have been given to 
 a neighboring liill, not in commemoration of the Black 
 Prince's victory, but on account of the gallant defence 
 of the spot against the Spanish by some English Knights, 
 and two hundred men, (a part of the Black Prince's army,) 
 who, after holding it long against superior numbers, were 
 there all slain. This agrees with Froissardt's account, who 
 describes the defence of the hill as happening a short time 
 before the battle of Navarretta. — Froissardt, i. c. 239. Na- 
 pier's Pen. War, v. 580. 
 
DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 231 
 
 nothing. At last he opened the door, and said 
 as he went out, " Cocks ^ was killed last night." 
 F. Ponsonhy.^ 
 
 WATERLOO. 
 
 When Bonaparte left Elba for France, I was 
 at Vienna and received the news ft'om Lord 
 Burghersh, our Minister at Florence. The instant 
 it came I communicated it to every member of 
 the Congress, and all laughed ; the Emperor of 
 Russia most of all. " What was in your letter to 
 his Majesty this morning," said his physician ; 
 " for when he broke the seal, he clapped his hands 
 and burst out a laughing ? " Various were the 
 conjectures as to whither he was gone ; but none 
 
 1 Somers Cocks, killed at the siege of Burgos on 7 Oct. 
 1812. He had distinguished himself in the first assault 
 (as Major Cocks) on the 19th Sept. for which he was pro- 
 moted to the rank of Colonel; and lost his life while gal- 
 lantly repulsing the French from the British trenches, 
 within so short a time after his promotion. — Napier'' s Pen. 
 War. 
 
 - The Honorable Frederick Cavendish Ponsonby, son 
 of the Earl of Besborough, Lieut. Colonel in 12th Dra- 
 goons.(?) He was afterwards wounded at the battle of 
 Waterloo. 
 
232 DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 would heai' of France. All were sure that in 
 France he would be massacred by the people, 
 when he appeared there. I remember Talley- 
 rand's words so well : " Pour la France — Non ! " 
 
 Bonaparte I never saw ; though during the 
 battle [Waterloo] we were once, I understood, 
 within a quarter of a mile of each other. I regret 
 it much ; for he was a most extraordinary man. 
 To me he seems to have been at his acme at the 
 Peace of Tilsit, and gradually to have declined 
 afterwards. 
 
 [He would have done better, I think, to have 
 stood on the defensive. Six hundred thousand 
 men would have gathered round him, and the 
 jostling of so many would have been terrible. If 
 he had waited for his moment and attacked when 
 and where he pleased from the centre, his success 
 in one instance might have been fatal to the rest.] 
 
 At Waterloo he had the finest army he ever 
 commanded ; and everything up to the onset, 
 must have turned out as he wished. Indeed he 
 could not have expected to beat the Prussians, as 
 he did at Ligny,^ in four hours. 
 
 1 Fought two days before the battle of Waterloo. See Sir 
 Henry Hardinge's Memoranda, p. 237, infra. 
 
DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 233 
 
 But two such armies as those at Waterloo, have 
 seldom met, if I may judge from what they did 
 on that day. It was a battle of giants ! a battle 
 of giants ! 
 
 Many of my troops were new ; but the new 
 fight well, though they manoeuvre ill ; better per- 
 haps than many who have fought and bled. 
 
 As to the way in which some of our ensigns 
 and lieutenants braved danger — the boys just 
 come from school — it exceeds all belief. They 
 ran as at cricket. 
 
 Very early in the day the Nassau Brigade were 
 shifting their ground from an orchard ; and when 
 I remonstrated with them, they said in their ex- 
 cuse that the French were in such force near 
 them. It was to no purpose that I pointed to 
 our Guards on the right. It would not do ; and 
 so bewildered were they, that they sent a few 
 shots after me as I rode off. " And with these 
 men," I said to the Corps Diplomatique who were 
 with me, " And with these men I am to win the 
 battle." They shrugged their shoulders. 
 
 How did they behave in the action ? Well 
 enough ; and it should be remembered that, as 
 they had never served with us, we had not ac- 
 
234 DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 quired their confidence. They had come over to 
 us at Bayonne,^ having formed the rear-guard of 
 the French army in Spain ; and knowing as they 
 now did, that Bonaparte was in the field, their 
 dread of hiin must have borne some proportion 
 to the courage with which he had formerly in- 
 spired them. 
 
 I never saw the narrative of Lady de Lancy ; 
 [I should like much to see it.^ I never saw her. 
 I heard she went through a good deal.] De 
 Lancy was with me and speaking to me when he 
 was struck. We were on a point of land that 
 overlooked the plain, and I had just been warned 
 off by some soldiers ; (but as I saw well from 
 it, and as two divisions were engaging below, I 
 had said " Never mind,") when a ball came leap- 
 
 1 On 10 Dec. 1813, after the battle of Barrouilhet, near 
 Bayonne. — Napier's Pen. Wai; vi. 387. 
 
 '^ All interesting account in MS. by Lady de Lancy, of 
 her attendance on her dying husband, Sir William de 
 Lancy, in a peasant's cottage at Waterloo, for seven or 
 eight days after the battle, where he had been severely 
 wounded, and had at tirst been reported as killed on the 
 spot. Lady de Lancj'' was a sister of Captain Basil Hall. 
 Mr. Rogers, in a note, says that the Duke saw her narra- 
 tive afterwards. 
 
DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 235 
 
 ing along en ricochet, as it is called, and striking 
 him on the back, sent him many yards over the 
 head of his horse. He fell on his face, and 
 bounded upward and fell again. 
 
 All the Staff dismounted, and ran to him ; and 
 when I came up he said, " Pray tell them to 
 leave me, and let me die in peace." 
 
 I had him conveyed into the rear; and two 
 days afterwards when, on my return from Brus- 
 sels, I saw him in a barn, he spoke with such 
 strength that I said, (for I had reported him 
 among the killed,) "Why, De Lancy, you will 
 have the advantage of Sir Condy in Castle Rack- 
 rent ; you will know what your friends said of you 
 after you were dead." " I hope I shall," he re- 
 plied.^ Poor fellow ! We had known each other 
 
 1 The following remarks are in the original manuscript : 
 "He said the cannon-ball was not spent, but came from 
 quite close at hand, and could not have touched. It was 
 the wind of the shot that wounded him, no skin being 
 broken; and mentioned another instance of a man close 
 beside him in the trenches at in India killed 
 
 without being touched. A horse will wince when a ball 
 makes a noise like this [imitating the sound], but when he 
 hears it the danger is past." It does not appear clear 
 whether the Duke was here speaking of what he saw, or 
 was only reporting what Sir William de Lancy had said 
 to him. 
 
236 DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 ever since M'e were boys. But I had no time to 
 be sorry ; I went on with the army and never 
 saw him again. 
 
 When all was over, Blucher and I met at La 
 Maison Rouge. It was midnight when he came ; 
 and riding up, he threw his arms round me, and 
 kissed me on both cheeks as I sat in the saddle. 
 I was then in pursuit ; and, as his troops were 
 fresh, I halted mine, and left the business to 
 him. 
 
 [In the day I was for some time encumbered 
 with the Corps Diplomatique. They would not 
 leave me, say what I would.] We supped after- 
 wards together between night and morning, in a 
 spacious tent erected in the valley for that pur- 
 pose. Pozzo di Borgo was there among others ; 
 and, at my request, he sent off a messenger with 
 the news to Ghent, where Louis XVIII. break- 
 fasted every morning in a bow-window to the 
 street, and where every morning the citizens 
 assembled under it to gaze on him. 
 
 When the messenger, a Russian, entered the 
 room with the news, the King embraced him ; 
 and all embraced him, and one another, all over 
 the house. 
 
DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 237 
 
 An Emissary of Rothschild was in the street ; 
 and no sooner did he see these demonstrations 
 than he took wing for London. Not a syllable 
 escaped from his lips at Bruges, at O^^tend, or 
 at Margate ; nor, till Rothschild had taken his 
 measures on the Stock Exchange, was the in- 
 telligence communicated to Lord Liverpool. 
 
 On that day I rode Copenhagen from four in 
 the morning till twelve at night. [And when I 
 dismounted he threw up his heels at me as he 
 went off.] If he fed, it was on the standing corn, 
 and as I sat in the saddle. He was a chestnut 
 horse. [I rode him hundreds of miles in Spain 
 and at the battle of Toulouse.] He died, blind 
 with age (28 years old), in 1835, at Strathfield 
 Saye, where he lies buried within a ring fence. 
 
 \_Sir Henry Hardinge.'] 
 
 Before the battle of Ligny, in which I lost 
 
 my arm about noon, Blucher, thinking that the 
 
 French were gathering more and more against 
 
 him, requested that I would go and solicit the 
 
238 DUKE OF WELLING T OX. 
 
 Duke for some assistance. I set out ; but I had 
 not proceeded far for the purpose, when I saw a 
 party of horse coming towards me ; and observ- 
 ing that they had short tails, I knew at once 
 that they were English, and soon distinguished 
 the Duke. He was on his way to the Prussian 
 head-quarters, thinking that they might want 
 some assistance ; and he instantly gave direc- 
 tions for a supply of Cavalry. " How are they 
 forming ? " he inquired. " In column, not in 
 line," I replied. " The Pi-ussian soldier, says 
 Blucher, will not stand in line." " Then the 
 Artillery will play upon them and they will be 
 beaten damnably." So they were. 
 
 At the last Waterloo dinner, when my health 
 was drunk as usual, and as usual I rose to re- 
 turn thanks, I stated briefly this occurrence, and 
 the Duke when I alluded to it, cried " Hear, 
 Hear." — Sir Henry Hardinge, at Gladstone's, 
 Saturday, June 24, 1843. 
 
 Two days before the battle of Waterloo the 
 Duke came in to Lady Mornington's room at 
 Brussels, saying, " Napoleon has invaded Bel- 
 gium ; order horses and wait at Antwerp for 
 further instructions." 
 
DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 239 
 
 When they were there [at Antwerp] Alava 
 entered theii' room, waving a bloody handker- 
 chief, and informed lier that a Victory was 
 gained and that they must return forthwith to 
 Brussels. 
 
 She and her daughter had not been there [q. 
 Brussels] half an hour when the Duke arrived, 
 and walking up and down the apartment in a 
 state of the greatest agitation, burst into tears, 
 and uttered these memorable words: "The next 
 greatest misfortune to losing a battle is to gain 
 such a Victory as this." ^ — Note hy Smmiel 
 Rogers. 
 
 1 Mr. Rogers has preserved in his Commonplnce Book 
 a similar remark made by the Duke at another time. 
 "What a glorious thing must be a victory, Sir!" said 
 * * * to the Duke. " The greatest tragedy in the world, 
 Madam; except a defeat." 
 
240 DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS REMARKS AND ANECDOTES 
 BY THE DUKE OP WELLINGTON. 
 
 The French King, when he goes from Chapel, 
 speaks to everybody, and different rooms have 
 different ranks. 
 
 I have often dmed with the King of the 
 Netherlands. The Northern Kings admit sub- 
 jects and strangers to dine with them. The 
 Bourbons never did, I believe, at Paris, except 
 in my instance. At Ghent, perhaps, the eti- 
 quette was departed from ; but I believe I am the 
 only person who has dined with Louis XVIII. 
 at Paris. I have dined often with him. He sat 
 at six ; and when dinner was announced, was 
 wheeled in from the room in which he had re- 
 ceived me. The table was large, and he sat 
 between the two ladies, the Duchesses of Berri 
 and of Angouleme. I sat between Monsieur 
 and the Duke d' Angouleme. They were waited 
 upon by Gentlemen — I by a servant ; and, of 
 course, best served. The dinner was exquisite. 
 We sat down at six, and rose at seven ; and 
 
DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 241 
 
 then all sat and talked with the King till eight, 
 avoiding all political subjects. The King eat 
 freely, but mixed water with his wine, which was 
 champagne. The King will not now go out 
 in the carriage but on great occasions. They 
 have contrived a machine to lift him into it by; 
 but his indolence, or his fear of the caricaturists, 
 or both, keep him at home. He is fond of 
 mots, and full of esprit rather than sensible ; 
 and did not at first consent to read the speeches 
 prepared for him by his ministers, preferring to 
 speak d'ahondance. — At Wohurn Abbey and Aps- 
 ley House, April and June, 1821. 
 
 [ The Duke of Wellington has, naturally, a 
 great gayety of mind ; he laughs at alrtiost 
 everything, as if it served only to divert hira. 
 Not less remarkable is the simplicity of his 
 manner. It is, perhaps, rather the absence of 
 everything like affectation. In his account of 
 himself he discovers, in no instance, the least 
 vanity or conceit, and he listens always readily 
 to others. His laugh is easily excited, and it is 
 very loud and long, like the whoop of the whoop- 
 ing-cough often repeated. S. R.] 
 16 
 
242 DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 Moscow, I am very sure, was burnt down by 
 the irregulai'ity of his [Bonaparte's] own sol- 
 diers. That pamphlet, published by the Gover- 
 nor of Moscow, states what, I am persuaded, 
 was the truth. 
 
 If he had stopt, and had contented himself 
 with organizing Poland, and established Ponia- 
 towski there, it had been well for him. After 
 his Austrian marriage, Metternich was sent to 
 Paris to see him, and to report upon his char- 
 acter, and to discover whether he meant to be 
 quiet. His answer, as he told me, was in three 
 words : " He is unaltered." He had then re- 
 solved to invade Russia. — At Lady Shelley's, 
 Berkeley Square, 8 3Iay, 1823. 
 
 ■ I hear nothing by my left ear. The drum is 
 broken, and might have been broken twenty 
 years ago, for aught I know to the contrary. 
 A gun discharged near me might have done it. 
 Strange impressions come now and then after 
 a battle ; and such came to me after the battle 
 of Assaye in India.^ I slept in a farm-yard ; and 
 
 1 Fought September, 1803. 
 
DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 243 
 
 whenever I awaked, it struck me that I had lost 
 all my friends, so many had I lost in that battle. 
 Again and again, as often as I awaked, did it 
 disturb me. In the morning I inquired anxiously 
 after one and another ; nor was I convinced that 
 they were living till I saw them. 
 
 I speared seven or eight wild boars in a forest 
 in Picardy — an Eastern practice. The largest 
 struck the sole of my foot with his tusk, when I 
 thrust my lance into his spine, and was turning 
 my horse off at the instant, as I always did. 
 The rest of the party set np a shout, and I be- 
 lieve it gave me more pleasure, this achievement, 
 than anything I ever did in my life. Lord Hill 
 killed one on foot, but the difficult thing was to 
 kill one on horseback. Whoever threw the first 
 lance into a boar claimed it as his. 
 
 Never saw but one royal tiger wild. Never at 
 a tiger hunt. 
 
 Elephants used always in war [in India], for 
 conveyance of stores or artillery. I had once oc- 
 casion to send my men through a river upon some. 
 A drunken soldier fell off, and was carried down 
 by the torrent till he scrambled up a rock in the 
 middle of the sti'eam. I sent the elephant after 
 
244 DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 him, and with large strides he obeyed his driver. 
 When arrived, he could not get near the rock, 
 and he stiffened his tail to serve as a plank. 
 The man was too drunk to avail himself of it, 
 and the elephant seized him with his trunk, and, 
 notwithstanding the resistance he made, and the 
 many cuffs he gave that sensitive part, placed 
 him on his back. — Cassiohury, 2 and 3 Oct. 
 1824 
 
 They want me to place myself at the head of a 
 faction, but I say to them, I have now served my 
 country for forty years — for twenty I have com- 
 manded her armies, and for ten I have sat in the 
 Cabinet — and I will not now place myself at the 
 head of a faction. 
 
 When I lay down my office to-morrow, I will 
 go down into my county, and do what I can to 
 restore order and peace. And in my place in 
 Parliament, when I can, I Avill approve ; when I 
 cannot, I will dissent, but I will never agree to be 
 the leader of a faction. — At Arhuthnofs, over the 
 Jire. Sunday evening, 21 Nov. 1830.-^ 
 
 [Having met Lord Grey again and again at 
 
 1 This was at the moment of Earl Grey's accession to 
 office, on the resignation of the Dulse of Wellington. 
 
DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 245 
 
 my table, and knowing our intimacy, he meant 
 that these words should be repeated to him ; 
 and so they were, word for word, on that very 
 night. S. R.] 
 
 Scott's Life of Napoleon is of no value. The 
 tolerable part of it is what relates to his retreat 
 from Moscow. I have thought much on that 
 subject, and have made many inquiries concern- 
 ing it. I gave him my papers. He has used 
 some, not all.^ 
 
 "Wolf Tone was a most extraordinary man, 
 and his history is the most cui'ious history of 
 those times.^ With a hundred guineas in his 
 pocket, unknown and unrecommended, he went 
 to Paris in order to overturn the British Govern- 
 ment in Ireland. He asked for a large force ; 
 
 1 The following note, by Sir Walter Scott, appears in 
 Lockliart's Life of Scott, vi. 387. "16 Nov. 1826. At 
 eleven, to the Duke of Wellington, who gave me a bundle 
 of remarks on Bonaparte's Russian Campaign, written in 
 his carriage, during his late mission to St. Petersburg. It 
 is furiously scrawled, and the Russian names hard to dis- 
 tinguish; but it shall do me Yeoman's service." 
 
 2 Theobald Wolf Tone, a leading man in the Irish Re- 
 bellion in 1798. 
 
246 DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 Lord Edward Fitzgerald for a small one. Lord 
 Edward was for assistance only, and was afraid 
 of their control. They listened to Tone, but 
 when their fleet arrived in Bantry Bay, the 
 Irish would not rise to join them.. Then it was, 
 I believe, and for that purpose, that their relig- 
 ious feelings were worked upon ; and from that 
 time the dissension was religious. Before, it 
 was political. — At Talleyrand's, 13 March, 
 183L 
 
 In Poland an army can keep the field from 
 June till February. In February the thaw be- 
 gins, and the rivers become impassable ; nor are 
 they navigable till June. In that interval, too, the 
 roads are axle-deep. Diebitsch^ began in Feb- 
 ruary [1831], urged on, probably, by the Emper- 
 or ; and, failing in his first attempt, was obliged 
 to throw his troops into cantonments. These 
 the Poles attacked, with a terrible slaughter. 
 Diebitsch must have lost there above 30,000 
 men. The Russians will now, ^ I think, settle 
 
 1 Field Marshal Diebitsch, the commander of the Russian 
 forces against the Poles in 1831. 
 
 2 July 1831. The Polish Revohition was finally put down 
 by the Russians in September 1831. 
 
DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 247 
 
 the matter ; and yet a revolutionary war is the 
 most difRcult to manage of any. Military tactics 
 are there of httle service. 
 
 The Poles, I think, have no chance if the 
 Russian army is true ; and it is only when in 
 their quarters that troops grow mutinous and 
 desert ; not in the field. 
 
 Bonaparte began his campaign there [in Po- 
 land] in June, when he fought the battle that 
 ended in the peace of Tilsit.^ He was slow in 
 Paris, but swift enough when he took the field. 
 — July 5, 1831. 
 
 A tax on the transfer of stock was three times 
 proposed to me from Cambridge by a Professor. 
 I sent them the clause in the Act of Parliament 
 against it, and heard no more of it. — Apsley 
 House. March 1, 1832. 
 
 On the 18th June, 1832 — Monday — I rode 
 to Pistrucci, in the Mint. He had made a bust 
 of me, but wished for another sitting. So I 
 went without giving him notice, on tliat day at 
 
 1 The Treaty of Tilsit was concluded 1 July, 1807. 
 
248 DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 9 o'clock, and mounted my horse at half-past 10 
 to leave him ; when I found a crowd at the 
 gate, and several groaned and hooted. Some 
 cried, " Bonaparte forever ! " I rode on at 
 a gentle pace, but they followed me. Soon a 
 magistrate (Ballantine) came and offered his 
 services. I thanked him, but said I thought I 
 should get on very well. The noise increased, 
 and two old soldiers, Chelsea Pensioners, came up 
 to me. One of them said he had served under 
 me for many a day, and I said to him, " Then 
 keep close to me now ; " and I told them to 
 walk on each side ; and whenever we stopt, to 
 place themselves, each with his back against the 
 flank of my horse. Not long afterwards I saw 
 a policeman making off, and I knew it must be 
 to the next station for assistance. I sent one of 
 my pensioners after him ; and presently we got 
 another policeman. We then did pretty well, 
 till I reached Lincoln's Inn, where I had to call 
 at an Attorney's Chambers [Maule'sJ. Sugden 
 and many others came out of the Chancery 
 Court to accompany me, and a large reinforce- 
 ment of police came from Bow Street.^ The 
 
 1 This adventure is told in the Annual Register, and in 
 
DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 249 
 
 conduct of the citizens affected me not a little. 
 Many came out of the shops to ask me in. Many- 
 ladies in their carnages were in tears, and many 
 waved their handkerchiefs from the windows, 
 and pointed downwards to a^k me in. 
 
 I came up Holborn by the advice of a man 
 with a red cape. At first I thought it might be 
 a snare, but found him to be a City Marshal. 
 I was foi'ty minutes in coming from the Mint to 
 Lincoln's Inn. A young man in a buggy did 
 me great service, flanking me for some time, and 
 never looking towards me for any notice. — At 
 my house, Friday, June 22, [q. 1832.] 
 
 The French in Algeria should have done as 
 we have done in India. They should have re- 
 spected everywhere private property, and the cus- 
 toms and habits of the people. They have intro- 
 
 the newspapers of the day, with the omission of several of 
 the details. The Annual Register states that the Duke 
 took shelter in the chambers of Sir Charles Wetherell, in 
 Stone Buildings, Lincoln's Inn, until a body of police ar- 
 rived. Wetherell had been Attorney-General under the 
 Duke's Government in 1828, and perhaps it is to him the 
 Duke referred, as "an Attorney;" or he may have had 
 to call on Mr. Maule, then Solicitor to the Treasury, whose 
 chambers were also in Stone Buildings, Lincoln's Inn. 
 
250 DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 ducecl a system of spoliation and plunder, that 
 sets every man against them ; a system that is 
 now too strong to be checked by the Govern- 
 ment at home. They parcel out the land, plant- 
 ing wheat where there was rice, and changing 
 the face of the country. Their soldiers, too, I 
 suspect, are not what they were. 
 
 What is that rara avis — Common Sense ? It 
 is, I believe, a good understanding, moderated 
 and modulated by a good heart. — Ellis's Hotel, 
 March 20, 1838. 
 
 [As he said these words his voice dropped, 
 and I never knew him speak with more feeling. 
 S. R.] 
 
 Clausel made no mistake at Constantinc. The 
 failure was occasioned by the badness of his 
 army. He could not depend upon his officers ; 
 they were so worthless a set. — 21 July, 1838. 
 
 The Chinese show more sense and knowledge 
 than I thought they, possessed. They reason 
 well, and they fight our ships better than I 
 thought they would. But of this I am sure, we 
 must make them sensible of our power. They 
 
DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 251 
 
 are now constructing vast gongs, and preparing 
 to frighten us with terrifymg noises. The Por- 
 tuguese ordered their soldiers to attack us with 
 ferocious countenances. — At Lord Wilton^s, June 
 5, 1840. 
 
 I was on my way to Fontainebleau with 
 Charles X., then Monsieur, and the Duke of 
 Fitzjames, when passing in the carriage through 
 the street in which Henry IV. had been assas- 
 sinated ; and Charles pointed out to me the very 
 place where, according to tradition, it had hap- 
 pened. Charles spoke of him with great admi- 
 ration, and dwelt much on his merit in changing 
 his religion for the good of his country, con- 
 trasting his conduct with that of James II. 
 Fitzjames of course, took the part of his ancestor, 
 and long was the argument, while I sat still, 
 leaving the combatants to themselves. At last 
 they came to the same opinion, agreeing that 
 Henry was right in becoming a Catholic, and 
 James in continuing one. 
 
 Had Caesar's Commentaries with me in India, 
 and learnt much from them, fortifying my camp 
 every night as he did. I passed over the rivers 
 
252 DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 as he dill, by means of baskets and boats of bas- 
 ket-work ; only I think I improved upon him, 
 constructing them into bridges, and always for- 
 tifying them, and leaving them guarded, to return 
 by them if necessary. — 24 Nov. 1840. 
 
 He [the Duke] had a high idea of Moore's ^ 
 talents, and always said that all he wanted was 
 practice in the command of a large body of troops. 
 At the treaty of Cintra ^ he said to Moore, " You 
 and I, Moore, are now the only men ; and if you 
 are to command, I am ready to serve under you." 
 Told me hy Arhuthnot, at Beckcfs, Downing 
 Street, Nov. 14, 1826. S. R. 
 
 Walking some years ago [about 1838 or 1839] 
 through the Park with the Duke of Wellington, I 
 [S. R.] said to him among other things, " What 
 an array there is in the House of Commons against 
 Lord John Russell ; — Peel, Stanley, Graham, 
 &c. ! " " Lord John is a Host in Himself." 
 
 1 Sir John Moore. He fell gloriously under the walis 
 of Corunna on 16 January, 1809. 
 
 2 The convention of Cintra was concluded on 22 August, 
 1808. 
 
DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 253 
 
 It was in vain that the Duke of "Wellington 
 said, " You must not cross the Indus I For, 
 sure as you are to conquer, you can nowhere 
 establish yourselves." We crossed it, and go 
 where we would, disaster followed us wherever 
 we went. Yet never to the last has he suffered 
 the least allusion to it in Parliament. " Were 
 the subject to be revived it would lessen us," he 
 says, '• in the eyes of all Europe." And when 
 Sir James Graham gave notice of a motion con- 
 cerning it, he sent his friend Arbuthnot to say 
 to him, " You must not make it." 
 
 THE END. 
 
-5.-' ':^*c:' > ^ *i.!oL'* <^ aO 
 
 
 
 
 
 '^0^ 
 
 
 0' 
 
 .^' 
 
 r o_ 
 
 4 o^ 
 
. "J)- c o " e , <^. 
 
 .^"^ /.^5^,<' \, S sr 
 
 W^^ N. MANCHESTER, 
 W*^ INDIANA