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Mr. Moore replied:

SLOPERTON: May 7, 1835.

MY DEAR LORD JOHN,-My first feelings on receiving your most friendly letter yesterday were those of surprise, joy, and thankfulness. I had long given up every little dream that might once have haunted me with respect to my chances of being ever thought of by my great friends, in the way of office or place, partly because time and other circumstances have made me a difficult person to serve, and partly because I began almost to believe that what Swift says in one of his letters might be true: 'I never,' he says, 'knew a Ministry do anything for those whom they had made companions of their pleasures.' Your letter, however, proves that this is not always the case, and I am, from my heart, grateful for your recollection of me in the midst of so many cares and distractions.

With respect to the manner in which you propose to serve me -I mean, by doing something for my poor boys-you have perhaps chosen the only mode of pecuniary aid which I should not at once have declined. I do not know whether I ever told you that, when my father died, Lord Wellesley-then Lord Lieutenant—very kindly, of himself, sent to offer a pension for my mother. But this, coming from a party then adverse to my own in politics, I thought it right to refuse, and the Lansdownes, among others, thought me foolish in so doing. That I want some little help is but too true. I live from hand to mouth, and [am] not always sure that there will be anything in the former for the latter. You may form some notion of my means of getting on when I tell you that for my history just published I received £750, and was two years and a half employed upon it. You should never have been annoyed with this view of the interior but for your kind remembrance of me, so that you see what you have brought upon yourself.

To return to the main point (for it is just post-hour): 'to be

upon the question. But I took no part in the debate. On the following Monday I asked Sir Robert Peel whether it was still intended to persist in the appointment, and upon his reply I applauded Lord Londonderry for the course he had taken. On the following Wednesday, at a ball at Devonshire House, Lord Londonderry spoke to me again, and expressed his surprise at what had occurred. But as he at the same time held out his hand, and I was engaged in other conversation more suited to the time and the occasion, I did not go into any explanation.' Lord John added, 'If private society is to be made the rehearsal of public debate, all its charm and confidence will be destroyed.'

or not to be' a pensioner-that is the question. If myself alone, or even my other self (into the bargain), were concerned, I think I should not hesitate as to my answer, but the responsibility of refusing such timely aid for the poor boys is more than I feel inclined to encounter. All I shall therefore say at this moment is, that I leave the matter entirely in your hands—think for me, feel for me, and act for me in that capacity which you have always shown yourself so worthy to fill, of a true and real friend. I think you may even call into council also Lord Melbourne, whom I have known at least long enough to embolden me to count upon his good-will. Whatever you both think I may do, I will do.-Ever most truly yours, THOMAS MOORE,

Lord Melbourne, to whom Lord John at once wrote, suggested that the pension should be given to Mr. Moore himself, and not to his children; and, in the following August, this arrangement, which was warmly supported by Lord Lansdowne, was carried out, and a pension of £300 a year was awarded to the poet.

The pleasure which this pension gave will be recollected by those who have read Mr. Moore's memoirs. Mrs. Moore, 'in a fever of hope and anxiety,' told her husband that she should thenceforward indulge in butter with her potatoes. And the time came and sooner than might have been anticipated— when illness and grief incapacitated Mr. Moore from all exertion, and the pension had to provide the potatoes as well as the butter. It is pleasant to find, too, Lord John, in editing his friend's memoirs, ascribing to his sovereign the bounty which had been really procured on his own intercession.

Happily for Moore and his partner, they had a certain income derived from the bounty of the sovereign, which flowed on indeed in a stream not exuberant but perpetual. On this income Mr. Moore regulated his expenses, and regulated them so as to incur no debts.

CHAPTER X.

THE SESSIONS OF 1835-1836.

THE Administration formed by Lord Melbourne in the spring of 1835 was destined to remain in office under two sovereigns and in two Parliaments for a period of more than six years. Its achievements and its failures occupy a very striking page in the political history of England during the nineteenth century. Yet the fortunes of the Ministry throughout this time were subjected to great variations. From 1835 to the death of William IV. it was distinguished for its activity, and, with one striking exception, for its success. From the accession of the present Queen in 1837 to the Bedchamber question in 1839, its career was rather one of compromise than of victory; while from its resumption of office in 1839 to its final fall in 1841, it was doomed to inaction, to which it ultimately succumbed. It is remarkable, however, that, as the domestic policy of the Ministry declined in energy, its foreign policy increased in vigour, till, in its closing days, the career of Mehemet Ali was checked by the bombardment of Acre, and a possible advance of Russia in the East was stopped by the occupation of Afghanistan.

During the first of the three periods, which have been thus enumerated, the Whig Ministers were constantly exposed to a vigorous Opposition. The King formed a violent antipathy to his new advisers. He had taken the extreme course of abruptly dismissing them in the previous autumn. He was mortified and annoyed at being forced to recall them to his counsels. Mr. Greville declared, on the authority of Lord Adolphus Fitzclarence, that William IV. abhorred all his Ministers, but that he hated Lord John the most of all.

According to the same authority, the monarch's only interval of pleasure 'was during the Devonshire election, when he was delighted at John Russell's defeat.' With these opinions the King not merely used his influence to oppose the policy of his Ministers. He treated them, for many months after they first took office, both in public and private, with a discourtesy which is hardly credible. He declined to give any dinnerparties because he could not do so without inviting them, and he declared that he would rather see the devil than any one of them in his house. His language towards them in the Council Chamber was occasionally, to use the Prime Minister's word, 'outrageous;' and though his letters were usually written by Sir Herbert Taylor, and couched in the courteous language which characterised all Sir Herbert's productions, he occasionally scrawled some hurried note with his own pen, in which he made no attempt to conceal his feelings. 2

1 Greville Memoirs, iii. 265.

2 Mr Greville has recorded the violent language which the King used to Sir C. Grey on July 1, 1835, at a Council at which he was present (Memoirs, vol. iii. 272, and cf. p. 276). Lord Melbourne wrote to Lord John on July 5: 'The affair of last Wednesday at the Privy Council begins to assume a serious and awkward aspect. After the Cabinet yesterday Glenelg came and showed me a letter from Taylor, declaring upon the part of the King that he did allude to Glenelg. . . . We can therefore no longer conceal from ourselves what we know to be the truth, and the question is whether such outrageous conduct can be passed over without further observation. . . . .. Censuring a Minister before others for confidential advice given a month ago; condemning the Secretary of State to the individual who is about to act under the Secretary of State's orders; giving verbal instructions for which no one is responsible, and which may conflict with those for which the Secretary of State is responsible-form altogether a mass of muddle and impropriety such as never probably was equalled before.' The Cabinet drew up a minute of remonstrance, which it was decided that Lord Melbourne should lay before the King. Lord Melbourne wrote to Lord John: 'I stated to the King all that was in the minute which we had prepared. He heard me with great patience and attention, and then said that he had been so angry with Glenelg for what he had said to him about Canada, and that it had rested so much upon his mind, that he could not restrain himself; but that he admitted the full force of all my observations, and felt that he had said more than he ought to have said. I could, of course, push it no further.' A week after this incident Lord John himself received his first holograph letter from his Majesty. It ran as follows (the 'individual' referred to in it was Major Stanhope, son-in-law to the Duke of Leinster, whom Lord Mulgrave

But the King's dislike gradually wore away. His correspondence with Lord John in 1835 commences with frequent intimations of his disapproval; as the autumn advanced it contains constant expressions of concurrence and satisfaction; till at last the monarch, who was naturally the most hospitable of men, ceased to be inhospitable; and on the 15th of November ordered Sir Herbert Taylor to tell Lord John that he expected that those of his Ministers who aitended his Council would 'do him the pleasure of dining with him.'

The King's hostility to the new Government was only one of the difficulties which Ministers had to encounter. In the House of Lords, they had to face a majority led by Lord Lyndhurst, who did not scruple to mutilate their measures and to embarrass their movements. The attitude of the Lords was hardly compensated by the confidence of the Commons.

had selected to succeed Sir C. Vernon as Usher of the Black Rod in the Order of St. Patrick. The italics are the King's): The King yesterday received from Ulster King of Arms a Requisition to swear in, at the Chapter of the Order of St. Patrick, an Individual as Usher of the Black Rod. H. M. never having heard from the Home Secretary of State of such an appointment, commands Lord John Russell to write without loss of time to inquire into the conduct of the Earl of Mulgrave in thus passing over the previous sanction of the Sovereign, and neglecting his duty to the King.' Poor Sir Herbert Taylor, the most courteous of men, ordered to dispatch this abrupt communication to the Minister, enclosed it in a note in which he endeavoured to remove the impression which his master's letter was calculated to make. Lord Mulgrave sent a full explanation of his conduct through Lord John. But the King was not satisfied, and complained publicly at the levee that Major Stanhope's appointment was the most outrageous insult ever offered to a monarch. The King's little speech found its way into the papers; and Lord Mulgrave, on July 28, wrote to Lord John to know whether it was true, and if so, what he should do. He was with difficulty persuaded by Lord Melbourne and Lord John to do nothing, on the ground that he only fared like his fellows. About the same time (July 26) Lord John received the following letter from the King on the subject of a proposed reduction of the militia staff, on which the Ministry had resolved: 'The King has, of course, received Lord John Russell's communication respecting the intended reduction of the staff of the militia, on which his Majesty conceives it to be his bounden duty to state his entire disapprobation of the measure, as highly dangerous to the Crown and the interests of the empire at large.' The King ultimately gave way, but he gave way on conditions which he thought proper publicly to announce in his Council Chamber in a speech, which was duly entered by the Clerk of the Council in his diary.-Greville Memoirs, iii. 311.

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