Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. Part 9

I am in constant expectation of a paper from a great mathematician, to which will be added, by B. Ker, artistic matter on monuments. It will be all sent to you, in the hope that it may a.s.sist whoever you have put on the monument question.

_Cannes, March 17th._--I am extremely sorry to find that, after all, I cannot finish you the Cambridge article on Newton, to be used at your discretion, or that of your contributor; for Mr. Routh has no less than five wranglers, including the senior, as his pupils, and this has entirely occupied him, to the exclusion of all other work. I trust it will not prevent the article. In truth, my discourse at Grantham contains all the learning on the subject, and it may be used without any acknowledgement whatever, and I shall never complain of the plagiarism.

The Journal records:--

_April 4th._--Breakfast to the Philobiblon at home. There came the Due d'Aumale, Van de Weyer, Milman, Lord Taunton.

_To Mr. Dempster_

_Exeter, April 25th_.--If that providence which shapes our ends will but finish those I rough-hew, I trust that the second week in October, or perhaps a few days earlier, will see us at Skibo. We hope to start straight for the far North as soon as ever my autumnal egg is laid....

We have hit on an Easter ramble, original and agreeable. I sent down my horses to my father's-in-law, in Dorset, and for the last week Christine and I have been riding gently along the coast of South Devon. Yesterday we went to see Sir John Coleridge's place at Ottery St. Mary, and he drove us also round the neighbourhood. To-day we have been at Lady Rolle's, at Bicton, on our way from Sidmouth, to see her gardens and arboretum, which are really marvels of beauty and growth. To-morrow we shall saunter on to Dawlish, and so at last reach Plymouth, I believe. I want to get out of the way of the Exhibition opening, which bores me. At Torquay we expect to find the Fergusons of Raith and the Scotts of Ancrum.

I hear that other literary entrepreneurs have been as much struck as I am by the power and judgement there is in all that is written by a certain young author of our acquaintance.[Footnote: See ante, vol. i. p. 374.]

To write as well as that is a gift; but it is more for it cannot be done without infinite practice, labour, and good sense.

At Devonport they saw Mount Edgc.u.mbe and the ironclad frigate 'Warrior'

then still a novelty, and unquestionably the most powerful s.h.i.+p of war afloat. The Journal adds: 'Back to town on May 3rd.'

_From Lord Brougham_

_Cannes, April 22nd_.--I have just got the new number, and hasten to say how much I am pleased with the only article I have had time to read with care, the Alison.[Footnote: 'Alison's Lives of Lord Castlereagh and Sir C.

Stewart,' April 1862.]Nothing can be more able or more triumphant, and it is quite fair and candid towards Castlereagh, and much more than fair towards Ch. Stewart, Indeed, if the letter to me deserves half what is said in its praise,[Footnote: _Sc_.' one of the most caustic and successful pamphlets that have appeared in defence of an unpopular cause.'] he never could have written it himself; and his gross stupidity in construing what I have said of his brother, and affixing a meaning which none but himself ever did, or could, was at the time admitted by his friends, whom he had consulted, and in spite of whom he had published--among others, Strangford, from whom I heard what had pa.s.sed. I have a copy of my own, which I should like the author of the article to see, and shall send it through you when I return, for it is out of print. One of the blockhead's follies was the not perceiving how great a panegyric I had bestowed on his brother's speaking in the H. of Commons, after fully stating its defects. In fact, he had much greater weight as leader than Canning, who, by the way, is too much praised in the article. Such a book as Alison's is almost incredible for its badness of all kinds; but the author (on p. 521, line six from foot) gives him a pull or two as to style by 'ineligible for election'--though that is a trifle. The care with which the whole subject is treated, and the gross errors--partly from ignorance, partly from adulation--exposed is quite admirable.

I have naturally been attracted to the Monument article, but have not had time fully to profit by it; only I am greatly indebted to the learned author for what he says of my Grantham address.[Footnote: 'Public Monuments,' April 1862, p. 550.] However, I should have been far better pleased had he left me out altogether, and dwelt at more length on the disgrace of the country never having erected a monument to the greatest man she ever produced--indeed, the greatest [that has] ever been. He seems not to be aware of the one in Westminster Abbey having been raised by his niece's family, and not by the public.

_Cannes, April 27th_.--I have a complaint to make of the 'E. R.' last number. In the learned and able article on 'Jesse's Richard III.,' at p.

307, Lingard is referred to as having quoted the commission of the High Constable. I have scanned every line and every word of Lingard and find no such commission. But in a note to the third volume of Hume, note R, the commission is given verbatim from Rymer. Jock Campbell used to hold that a false reference was an offence that ought to be made penal. I don't go so far, but the evil is very great. I have lost three or four hours in consequence. Therefore, pray have inquiry made of your contributor whether or not I am right; and if not, where in Lingard the quotation is.

Reeve referred the 'complaint' to Hayward, the writer of the article, who replied:--

I believe B. is right, for when I corrected the proof I looked in vain in Lingard, although I was firmly convinced that he had quoted the doc.u.ment.

But pray remind his lords.h.i.+p that, when Campbell spoke of a false reference, he meant one with volume and page.

Lord Brougham's answer to this defence is not given, but it is impossible to allow it to pa.s.s without protest; for, whatever Campbell may have meant, it is very certain that a false reference, with volume and page cited, by which the falsehood is at once made manifest, is a venial offence in comparison with a false reference given vaguely, which may keep the victim hunting for it for hours, as this one actually did keep Lord Brougham.

_From Lord Brougham_

_Cannes, May 7th_.--I wish to suggest to you the positive duty of taking care that justice is done upon the trumpery, and one-sided, and altogether insignificant Life of Pitt by Stanhope. Murray having published it, of course the 'Quarterly' has puffed it, and done so with an entire ignorance of the subject which is hardly conceivable. Therefore take great care before you commit the subject to any unsafe hands.

_To Lord Brougham_

_62 Rutland Gate, May 11th_.--As I have lived for many years on terms of personal friends.h.i.+p, and indeed intimacy, with Lord Stanhope, and am indebted to him for many acts of kindness, it would be quite impossible for me to attack his book, even if I thought as ill of it as you do. I shall, therefore, content myself with recording the very different view which I entertain of the success of Mr. Pitt's administration. I think it may be shown that both in peace and in war he was one of the most unsuccessful ministers who ever exercised great power.

On these lines Reeve himself wrote the article, which was published in the 'Review' of July, and brought him the following:--

_From Lord Stanhope_

Grosvenor Place, July 17th.

My dear Mr. Reeve,--Allow me to say how very much I have been gratified in reading the article on my 'Life of Pitt' in the new number of the 'Edinburgh.' Had the criticism been hostile I a.s.sure you that I should not have felt that I had the smallest reason to complain; nor should I have inquired or even wished to know the writer's name. But as the matter stands, I would ask to convey to him through you my acknowledgement for his very indulgent appreciation of myself, as well as for the perfect fairness and honourable candour with which the public questions at issue between us are discussed. It would be a pleasure to me if either now or at some time hereafter he would permit me to become acquainted with the name of a critic who is evidently so accomplished as to render the praise of no slight or mean account. Believe me,

Very faithfully yours,

STANHOPE.

It does not appear that Lord Stanhope ever knew who the writer was.

Meantime the Journal notes:--

This was the year of the second Great Exhibition.

_May 15th_.--The Binets came to see us. On the 21st the Duc d'Aumale's _fete_ to the Fine Arts Club; took Binet there. Went to the Derby with Binet and Stewart Hodgson. Xavier Raymond came.

_July 22nd_.--Dined at the Clarendon with the Comtes de Paris and Chartres, on their return from the American war. Prince Edward of Saxe Weimar and the Due d'Aumale were there.

_July 31st_.--Left London for Germany. By Ostend and Cologne to Wiesbaden, where the Boothbys and Hathertons were. Then to Nuremberg, Munich, Salzburg, and through the Tyrol to Venice. Stayed there till the 24th.

_August 25th_.--Went to Arqua to see Petrarch's house and tomb. Milan; Italian lakes. Back over the St. Gothard, Lucerne, Paris. Home, September 9th.

_To Lord Brougham_

_C. O., September 11th_.--Your very kind letter of last month would certainly not have remained so long unanswered if I had been in England.

But we have been travelling for the last five weeks in the Tyrol and the north of Italy; my letters were not forwarded, and I only received that which you had been good enough to address to me on my return to London yesterday. There is probably no living opinion upon the character and administration of Mr. Pitt so enlightened and valuable as your own, and I am gratified in the highest degree to find that my attempt to place the leading acts of his administration in a somewhat new light meets with your approval. The chief defect in Lord Stanhope's book is, in my opinion, that it does not present any connected view of Mr. Pitt as a statesman at all; and this the reader of the article may infer from every page of it. I began to write with a disposition to place Mr. Pitt rather higher than he had been placed before in the 'Review;' but upon a careful survey of his conduct on each of these questions, I found the ground crumble away under me.

As to the state of the army from 1783 to 1803, it was deplorable. Did you ever see Sir Frederick Adam's notes on what the army was when, at the age of 14, he entered it.[Footnote: In 1795. These notes do not seem to have been published.] When the Duke of Wellington first went to the Peninsula, he gives a wretched account of the forces--ignorant officers and rascally men. One of the grandest services the Duke rendered to his country was that he raised the character of the army and made it a most admirable instrument. But that was long after the days of Pitt.

The present Duke of Wellington tells me he is very well pleased with the article on his father's supplementary despatches in the last number of the 'Review,' and I think it is fairly done. They are a ma.s.s of most interesting and instructive materials, but very few persons will master them, whilst the trash that Thiers calls history circulates broadcast in Europe. I heard in Paris on Sunday that 65,000 copies of his 20th volume are already sold.

_To Mr. Dempster_

_C. O., September 12th_.--We returned to England on Tuesday, after a pleasant tour, but the weather drove us from the mountains to the plains, and instead of preparing ourselves to graduate in the Alpine Club, we loitered in the galleries of Munich, Venice, and Milan, or amongst the remains of Padua and Verona. On the Lago Maggiore we met the Speaker [Footnote: Mr. Denison, afterwards Lord Ossington.] and Lady Charlotte, and with them crossed the St. Gothard to Lucerne.... We still hope, if it suits you, to come down to you when I have got quit of the 'Review.' I shall be engaged in London till October 7th, and then we are going for a few days to Raith... but I hope about the 12th or 13th we may reach the far North.

_From Lord Brougham_

_Brougham, September 14th_.--I can well believe that Wellington is satisfied with the review [Footnote: "Wellington's Supplementary Despatches," July 1862.] of his father's correspondence. It is very ably and very fairly done. But I wish it had reprimanded the Duke for making the publication nearly useless by giving no table of contents. When I complained of this, he said it had been considered, and that an index would have been hardly possible. My answer was that I did not want an index, but only a dozen of pages giving the dates and the t.i.tles of the letters in succession. As it is, one can find no letter without turning over the whole of a volume.

Well, what shall we now say of the Disunited States? My last letter from J. Parkes,[Footnote: Probably Joseph Parkes, the well-known agent of the Liberal party. He died August 11th, 1865, but none of the obituary notices mention his wife.] who is married to a Yankee, and in correspondence with many men of note in the North, represents the feeling to be growing for mediation, but mediation on the ground of a re-uniting of the South, which means no mediation at all. But he says that the real feeling of the Americans, both N. and S., is of great respect for England, and pride in their descent from and connexion with us. The tone of the press, however, shows that this feeling dares not be shown, and that the popular clamour--that is, the mob-cry--is t'other way.

The Journal has:--

_September 12th_.--To Torry Hill; shooting for ten days.

_22nd_.--Rode over to Leeds Castle with Lord Kingsdown. Farnborough, Stetchworth, Chorleywood (W. Longman's).

_October 8th_.--To Raith, with Christine and Hopie. Mrs. Norton there.

Then by Elgin and Burgh Head to Skibo. Shooting there. To Novar; back to Edinburgh and Kirklands, October 26th. Then to Abington on the 29th, and to Brougham--amusing visit. I was asked to read Lord B.'s Memoirs, and dissuade him from publis.h.i.+ng them. To Ambleside to see Harriet Martineau.

Thence to Badger Hall [Cheney's], November 8th. Went over Old Park iron works. Home on November 11th.