The Greville Memoirs, Part 2 (of 3), Volume 1 (of 3): A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852Greville, Charles
History
The Greville Memoirs, Part 2 (of 3), Volume 1 (of 3): A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852
Greville, Charles
Great Britain -- History -- Victoria, 1837-1901
Dined with Brougham the day before yesterday, with whom I am on
mighty intimate terms just now. Sat next to Bellenden Ker (who
drew up his Privy Council Bill), who told me that Brougham said
he was writing sixteen hours a day, and about to bring out two
more volumes of his Paley,[7] and I found the explanation of his
calculations at the Council Board in the fact that he was working
out some problems for the purpose of proving the form of the
structure of honeycombs. In the meantime he has put forth a
pamphlet in the shape of a letter to the Queen, which he half
acknowledges, and of which nobody doubts that he is the author,
as in fact nobody can who is acquainted with the man or his
writings. It makes a prodigious noise in the world and is read
with avidity, but, though marked with all his cleverness, it is a
discreditable production. The tone of it is detestable, the
object mischievous, though by no means definite or clear. After
stripping it of all its invectives and ribaldry, there is no
proposition which can be extracted from it except that of giving
universal suffrage, for, although he does not say so, his
argument cannot be arrested short of such a consummation. It is a
bitter, brilliant, wayward satire and philippic, and, as Johnson
said of Junius, 'if you extract from its wit the vivacity of
impudence, and withdraw from its efficacy the sympathetic favour
of plebeian malignity, if you leave it only its merit, I know not
what will be its praise.' It is, however, marvellously
characteristic of the man, and illustrative of the state of his
mind. His present political conduct, if political it can be
called, is curious enough, for he is doing all he can to keep up
his connexion with the Radicals, and at the same time courting
the Tories, his only fixed idea being to worry the Government. It
is clear to me that he was jealous and displeased at the notion
of Durham's being put at the head of the Radical party, and it
was with evident glee that he told me on Monday how grievously
Durham had offended them by his reply to the Westminster
Association, which they very correctly took to themselves.
Brougham called on Leader on Sunday, where he found Trelawny, and
one or two more Radicals whose names I have forgotten, when
Leader expressed these sentiments to him: he said there was no
sort of necessity for Durham's writing them such a letter, and
that he had evidently seized the opportunity of addressing _them_
in that shape, and of course there was an end of any possibility
of a connexion between him and them. This is very true, for the
fact is that Durham--who since his arrival has had time and
opportunity to find out in what a miserable position he has
placed himself, how feeble and inefficient the Radical party is
as a party, and how entirely he would destroy himself by becoming
their leader, and who moreover has been exceedingly disgusted at
the way in which he was taken up by Molesworth, and provoked to
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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