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
Went on Friday to Battersea to hear Robert Eden deliver a lecture
in the school-room--one of a course he is delivering upon
anatomy, or rather upon different parts of the human body--and
demonstrating the utility of cleanliness, the danger of
drunkenness, and mixing precept with information for the benefit
of as mixed an audience as ever was assembled, but who seemed
much interested and very attentive. There were many of the gentry
of Battersea, male and female, the tradespeople, workmen, the
boys of the school, and a rough, ragged set of urchins, labourers
on the railroad--in all about 300 people. The lecture, which was
upon the arm, was very fluently given; the lecturer is not
sufficiently master of his subject to make his explanations very
lucid and perfectly intelligible, but he conveys good general
notions, and introduces such a mixture of anecdote and
illustration as makes it sufficiently entertaining. The
undertaking is highly laudable; it is carried on with great zeal
and spirit, very considerable ability, and, as far as it has
gone, with complete success.
Dined yesterday at the Hollands': Normanby, Melbourne, and
Luttrell; pretty good talk. Melbourne, rather paradoxical,
asserted that 'men with quick feelings were always the worst men;
that he could not work out the proposition metaphysically then,
but that he should do.' It was the assertion of Brougham's having
quick feelings which elicited the saying, though certainly
Brougham is not the _worst_ of men: far from it, nor did he mean
to say so. Brougham denies this pamphlet, and says he cannot be
the author for this reason: the pamphlet reasserts something
about Melbourne which he had asserted in one of his articles in
the 'Edinburgh Review.' Melbourne, when he read that article,
wrote to Brougham, and told him that as he was sure he did not
wish to misrepresent him, he informed him that he had never
entertained the opinions nor given the vote there ascribed to
him. Brougham replied, admitting his error, and promising to
correct it, offering to do so at Melbourne's option in another
number of the 'Edinburgh Review,' or _in some other work_ (I
forget what). Melbourne wrote back, in rather a jocular strain,
that he thought it would be preferable to have the correction in
the same publication as the statement, to which Brougham sent a
good-humoured answer, and there it ended. After this, he says
that he could not by possibility repeat the very same thing in
another work that he had already engaged to recall, and this is
certainly strong. At the same time there are things in it which
no other man could have written. Just before it came out he was
preparing something for the printer, for he came into my room
with a parcel of proof-sheets in his hand, which I fancied were
for me to frank to Macvey Napier, and I said so; when he replied,
'Oh no, they are going to the printer here.' It is after all not
improbable that it was a joint production--his and Roebuck's--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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