not enter into art with the same intensity as into literature, he had conceived that he would not feel it all. If, however, he could not relish all the beauties-and the more the eye is taught the greater the enjoyment-he at least could perceive bad taste, and carefully condemn the exhibition. He criticises sham abbeys, such as Fonthill; sham ruins, which, like rouge, convict themselves of forgery, which lose all their salt in the absence of reality and the religio loci.' He shuddered at the Pavilion at Brighton. 'An Italian nobleman lives upon a plate of macaroni and a glass of sugar and water, that he may rear a marble palace that will last as long as the world, in a grave, dignified, if not perfectly pure architecture; and this gimcrack is the only monument of the greatest sovereign in Europe.' (Lett. 47.) 6 One word concerning his habit of talking to himself, which contributed not a little to extend his reputation for eccentricity: like many men of studious reflecting turn, he banqueted on his own ideas, and thought aloud. Words clearly were not given him to conceal what was going on within doors.** He told too often the whole truth, which, in polite society, has a tendency to be libellous. He was, in truth, more susceptible of bore than of fog: and fastidious refinement is too often the cause of more misery than enjoyment in this world, where perfection is the exception. Nothing,' observes Petrarch, is so tiresome as conversing with people who have not the same information as oneself.'Lord Dudley,' says Byron, was good when he liked.' He was never absent, never flagged, when pitted against opponents worthy of his steel, the fit audience of his wit and illustration. The anecdotes of his soliloquies are innumerable, 6 - ab uno disce omnes.' He had a particular dislike to be asked to give any one a lift in his carriage, in which he thought over the occurrences of the day, more, perhaps, than half the members of the Royal College of Physicians. An ingenious tormentor of Brookes's begged him to give a cast to a homeward-bound, unconscious victim. It could not be refused. The unhappy pair set out in their chariot, and arrived silently near Mount-street, when Lord Dudley muttered audibly, 'What a bore! It would be civil to say something. Perhaps I had * Talleyrand has the credit of being the first who defined speech as a faculty given to man for concealing his thoughts;' but this sly recreant only twisted into an apophthegm what Young had thrown out [nearly a hundred years before] in very scorn, when speaking of courts 'Where Nature's end of language is declined, We owe this note to the author of a very elegant, learned, and instructive little volume lately published under the title of An Apology for Cathedral Service.' (London, Bohn, 1839.) See p. 121. VOL. LXVII. NO. CXXXIII. I better better ask him to dinner. I'll think about it.' His companion, a person of infinite fancy, and to whom Lord Dudley afterwards took a great liking, re-muttered, after a due pause, 'What a bore! Suppose he should ask me to dinner! what should I do? I'll think about it.' Lord Dudley was not the only pupil of Dugald Stewart who contracted this ventriloquism. The late Lord Ashburton, who, under an odd exterior and eccentric manner, contained a fund of humour and a chaos of ill-digested information, was still more absent. At a large dinner in Modern Athens, being placed high in honour, next to some first-rate lioness, during one of those conversational lulls which will creep over the grandest dinners, thus broke the awful silence- What, in the name of goodness, shall I say to this horrid blue? I'll talk to her about the Edinburgh!" We much doubt if Lord Dudley ever fell into any slip of this sort with a woman. His conduct to the fair sex was ever marked with uniform respect. It was the homage due to the sex, to woman for herself, not to beauty or talent, which attract or amuse the selfishness of man. How delicate is the sentiment expressed in his 23rd Letter: 'I can't imagine how people got into their heads that I was going to marry Lady M. B- Not but what she is a beautiful and accomplished girl, and would do me a great deal of honour by becoming my wife; only the fact ain't* so. I heard of it, however, from twenty people when I was last in England; and perhaps the story gained ground from my being at very little pains to contradict it. marriage is in question, any anxiety to have it contradicted looks like an incivility to the lady.' When a A Frenchman (they have no word for our gentleman) would have boasted and blazoned : Il importait à mon amour propre qu'elle mourût de chagrin de ma perte!' How elevated were Lord Dudley's views of the duties of husband to wife are detailed in his reflections on the painful trial of Queen Caroline. (Letter 43.) He was never married. The first decided symptom of his total aberration was his fancying he was married, or, which is a more common symptom, that he was about to be married. Though he never could make up his mind on that the most difficult of all subjects, he was always in a sort of love; and when he did set his Platonic affections on other men's wives, he never did so by halves. It was difficult *Nothing surprised us so much in this book as the use of this and some other vile would-be colloquialisms in writing by such a purist as Lord Dudley. Absurd in any man's letters, they are peculiarly strange and offensive when mixed up with a rather stiff and formal style like his. to to determine whether he admired them or their husbands the most. me. We shall never forget the expression of his face, when, meeting him one day in unusual spirits, and inquiring the cause, he replied, Only think what a chance has been thrown away on It would have made my fortune as a young man. I have been asked to dinner to-day by Lady Jersey and Lady Cowper.' The man who felt so deeply this honour (and great we admit it to have been) had recently been minister of state; was witty, eloquent, and well-favoured; an earl, with a clear eighty thousand a-year; a man, who, with one smile, would have gladdened all the hearts of all the mothers of all the unmarried daughters of all the four quarters of the globe. The union of beauty and rank was more than his tender aristocratical heart could stand. He was a cavalier of the old modern school, and felt himself honoured by the smallest token of fair ladye's regard. He acknowledged the inferiority of the ancient Grecian system, to which, in his own words, that steady, settled influence of woman upon society was utterly unknown; which has given grace, variety, and interest to private life.' Although no man was ever more susceptible of female charms and influence, his conversation, like his correspondence, was a model of purity. No word, no idea, no allusion ever escaped him which could cause a blush to mantle on the most sensitive cheek. He was singularly modest; his nice tact taught him that want of decency was want of sense; that vice loses half its shame by being stripped of all its grossness. He kept sedulously out of sight all that is thrust forward into disgusting daylight in the manners and literature of la jeune France.' True, indeed, was the remark of the Bishop of Llandaff that 'Lord Dudley exhibited at all periods of his life that most engaging of all compounds, a playful fancy joined with a vigorous understanding and a serious heart.' This seriousness, like a minor key, gave a pathos to his humour, a dignity to his cheerfulness. It was based on the surest foundations. 'It would be almost an injustice to his memory not to state that a deep and awful sense of religion formed one ingredient of his character, together with a hatred of profaneness in those who profess outwardly a belief in Christianity.' The volume now before us fully bears out these assertions of the editor, who in his own sacred vocation was best qualified to perceive, appreciate, and encourage the development of such sentiments. We would particularly point out to our readers Lord Dudley's estimate of the religion of the Italians:-the injurious effect of Romanism, in dulling the feeling of conscience-the much greater chances of their superstition' I 2 being being succeeded by infidelity than by 'true religion.' (Letter 18.) He satisfied his own mind by a careful examination as to the 'genuineness of the gospels, knowing that if their authenticity were impaired the whole fabric would fall to the ground.' (Letter 30.) We have no space for his able reflections on the 'splendid theological speeches' of Chalmers. (Letter 32.) He opposed everything which could make 'virtue ridiculous, or give dignity to vice.' (Q. R., vol. x. p. 302.) He shrunk in thought, word, and deed, from anything bordering on irreverence, on the mixing up sacred things in common parlance. Even in his moments of sufferance, when his reason was out of tune like sweet bells jangled, his awe of approaching holy ground never left him-nor his trust in the only source of consolation : "This has been one of my very worst days. If I might, without profaneness, borrow the most expressive language, I should say that the iron had entered into my soul deeper than before. A violent paroxysm, however, has been succeeded by comparative tranquillity, and I trust, under Providence, to time and patience for relief.'-Letter 76. We must now conclude this slight sketch of a character which had in it very much to be admired-of a history which had much to be pitied. On the more painful shades of his bodily sufferings we have been silent. Some passages, we learn from the preface, have already been suppressed by the discretion of the editor. Perhaps all allusion to a large portion of what his Lordship retains might have been confined to what appears in the table of contents:- Letters 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, describe his sufferings under hypochondriacal disease.' We could also have desired some suppression, or some condensation, at least, of several letters which immediately follow that black series. They relate to the vacillation which he exhibited when offered the under-secretaryship. In ultimately declining it he acted in diametrical opposition to the advice of one who of all men was the best fitted to be his counsellor on such an occasion-a familiar friend of the same age and rank, a common friend of Canning's, a common opposer of Reform. It is so seldom our good fortune to agree with Lord Melbourne, that we gladly avail ourselves of the opportunity of quoting his inimitable letter: 'Panshanger, Sept. 29, 1822. 'I received your letter this morning alone, destroyed it as soon as I had read it, and have considered its contents as I rode over here from Brockett, and, upon the whole, putting myself in your place, I have little doubt that you should accept the offer: it is one of the pleasantest places under government-necessarily gives an insight into all that is going on, and would be rendered to you particularly agreeable by your Cordial agreement and intimacy with your principal; add to this, that it would have the effect of supporting and assisting Canning at this moment that it might lead to more-that it would give you what you want in occupation and employment-and that, without flattering your abilities and knowledge of the world at home and abroad, it might enable you to be of essential service to the ministry and the country. These are considerations sufficient in my mind to induce you to accept: at the same time do not take it unless you can make up your mind, in the first place, to bear every species of abuse and misrepresentation, and the imputation of the most sordid and interested motives; in the second place, to go through with it if you undertake it, and not to be dispirited by any difficulties or annoyances which you may find in the office; and which you may depend upon it no office is free from. I write in a great hurry, and with a bad pen, but if you can read it you will understand me as well as if I had written three times as much. 'Hon. J. W. Ward. man. Yours very sincerely, 'WM. LAMB.' This letter is a cabinet picture of a rare class; it paints the Here we trace the germ of those eminent qualities which have since rendered Lord Melbourne the charm of Windsor; the sole stay, buttress, and key-stone of Downing-street. The future premier, having well considered the matter alone, makes up his mind at once. His reasons and cautions are stamped with idiosyncracy. The last sentence is a gem-the off-hand, ready composition, the bad (we fancy we see it) pen, the good-natured, gentlemanlike kindness, and thorough knowledge of his man; the suggestive tone, which puts the applicant on the right scent, omitting nothing that is essential, yet leaving to a sensitive mind the credit of working it out. ART. IV.-1. Reports of the Committee of the House of Lords on the State of Ireland. 1839. 2. Reports of the Committees of the Houses of Lords and Commons. 1822, 1824, 1825. 3. Reports of the Committee of the House of Lords on Tithes in Ireland. 1832. 4. L'Irelande; Sociale, Politique, et Religieuse. Par Gustave de Beaumont. Paris, 1839. 5. Ireland in 1834. By Henry D. Inglis. London, 1835. 6. Ribbonism in Ireland; or Report of the Trial of Richard Jones. Dublin, 1840. 7. A Digest of Evidence before Committees of both Houses of Parliament. By the Rev. W. Phelan and the Rev. M. O'Sullivan. London, 1826. 8. Romanism as it Rules in Ireland. By the Rev. Mortimer O'Sullivan and the Rev. Robert J. M'Ghee. London, 1840. 9. Historical |