The Greville Memoirs A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III

Excerpt

I am going, if not too lazy, to note down the everyday nothings of my life, and see what it looks like.

We dined yesterday at Greenwich, the dinner given by Sefton, who took the whole party in his omnibus, and his great open carriage; Talleyrand, Madame de Dino, Standish, Neumann, and the Molyneux family; dined in a room called ‘the Apollo’ at the Crown and Sceptre. I thought we should never get Talleyrand up two narrow perpendicular staircases, but he sidles and wriggles himself somehow into every place he pleases. A capital dinner, tolerably pleasant, and a divine evening. Went afterwards to the ‘Travellers,’ and played at whist, and read the new edition of ‘Horace Walpole’s Letters to Sir Horace Mann.’ There is something I don’t like in his style; his letters don’t amuse me so much as they ought to do.

A letter this morning from Sir Henry Lushington about Monk Lewis. He is rather averse to a biographical sketch, because he thinks a true account of his life and character would not do him credit, and adds a sketch of the latter, which is not flattering. Lord Melbourne told me the other day a queer trait of Lewis. He had a long-standing quarrel with Lushington. Having occasion to go to Naples, he wrote beforehand to him, to say that their quarrel had better be suspended, and he went and lived with him and his sister (Lady L.) in perfect cordiality during his stay. When he departed he wrote to Lushington to say that now they should resume their quarrel, and put matters in the ‘status quo ante pacem,’ and accordingly he did resume it, with rather more acharnement than before.

Charles Wood came into my room yesterday, and talked of the King’s letter, said he understood the Archbishop had imparted it to the seven Bishops who had voted, that nothing would come of it, for it was a private letter which nobody had a right to take up. I see the Government are not displeased at such an evidence of the King’s goodwill. The King and Taylor both love letter-writing, and both are voluminously inclined. Wood told me that last year Lord Grey got one letter from them (for Taylor writes and the King approves) of seven sheets; what a mass of silly verbiage there must have been to wade through.

[This is not just. The published correspondence of King William IV. and Earl Grey proves that the King’s letters were written by Sir Herbert Taylor with the greatest ability.]

Nothing to put down these last two days, unless I go back to my old practice of recording what I read, and which I rather think I left off because I read nothing, and had nothing to put down; but in the last two days I have read a little of Cicero’s ‘Second Philippic,’ Voltaire’s ‘Siècle de Louis XIV.,’ Coleridge’s ‘Journey to the West Indies;’ bought some books, went to the opera to hear Bellini’s ‘Norma,’ and thought it heavy, Pasta’s voice not what it was. SALUTES TO THE ROYAL FAMILY. Everybody talking yesterday of Althorp’s exhibition in the House of Commons the night before (for particulars of which see newspapers and Parliamentary debates)....