Brougham was a harder nut to crack. The trouble with him had started soon after Melbourne left office. Brougham had heard that his late colleagues were talking against him; he wrote angrily to Melbourne to ask why. He got a plain answer. “It is a very disagreeable task,” Melbourne said, “to have to say to a statesman that his character is injured in the public estimation: it is still more unpleasant to have to add that you consider this to be his own fault; and it is idle to expect to be able to convince almost any man, and more particularly a man of very superior abilities, and with unbounded confidence in these abilities, that this is true. I must, however, state plainly that your conduct was one of the principal causes of the dismissal of the late ministry; and that it forms the most popular justification of that step.” Brougham demanded details. Not without zest, Melbourne provided them. “You ask for specific charges. Allow me to observe that there may be a course and series of very objectionable conduct, there may be a succession of acts which destroy confidence and add offence to offence, and yet it would be difficult to point to any marked delinquency. I will, however, tell you fairly, that, in my opinion, you domineered too much, you interfered too much with other departments, you encroached upon the provinces of the Prime Minister, you worked, as I believe, with the Press in a manner unbecoming to the dignity of your station, and you formed political views of your own and pursued them by means which were unfair towards your colleagues . . . Nobody knows and appreciates your natural vigour better than I do. I know also that those who are weak for good are strong for mischief. You are strong for both, and I should both dread and lament to see those gigantic powers which should be directed to the support of the State exerted in the contrary and opposite direction.” To soften the blow, he ended his letter on a friendlier note. “I can only add that whatever may be your determination, no political difference will make any change in the friendship and affection which I have always felt and will continue to feel for you.” However, he had already decided not to take Brougham back. “If left out he would be dangerous,” he said, “but if taken in, he would be simply destructive.” Brougham was so obsessedly vain that despite all Melbourne’s home-truths, he was dumbfounded when he actually heard he was not going to get a place. His nose twitching more violently than ever, he strode round to Melbourne’s house, fulminating wrath and demanding redress. “Do you think I am mad?” he kept on shouting furiously, “do you think I am mad?” “God damn you,” said Melbourne, “you won’t get the Great Seal, and that’s the end of it.” Brougham left the house routed.
It was for ever, too. He never got office again; and he proved too crazy and too distrusted to be much danger to the Government in opposition. At last the Arch-Fiend’s bluff had been called. And it had been the easy-going Melbourne who had done it. Here was more evidence that he avoided rows, not because they frightened him, but because he thought them useless. No one could make a row with more thundering effect, when he judged a row was needed.
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The result of his firmness was that the first months of the new Government were the calmest for a long time. And if the calm did not last, the Government did. Though apparently always on the verge of sinking, the leaky, rickety vessel under the command of its flippant and indolent-seeming Captain, kept afloat for six years. It had, it must be admitted, an uncomfortable thwarted voyage. Events followed a recurrent pattern. The Whigs brought in first one and then another measure of reform—the most important were those concerned with Church Finance, Irish tithe, and the reformation of the Municipal Corporations of England and Ireland. Each Bill passed the House of Commons and proceeded to the House of Lords, who either held it up or threw it out. Then followed an interim period in which Melbourne and Peel strove to persuade the extreme members of their respective parties to agree to some compromise. This interim period was marked by crises, sometimes of sufficient intensity to threaten the very existence of the Government. In the end most of the bills were passed, but often in so modified a form as to defeat the intention of their original promoters.
It was not a satisfactory state of things for people who believed in the measures. John Russell in particular was in a continual state of exasperation. Could not they create Peers he said, in order to force the bills through the House of Lords? If this was impossible, then better go out; even opposition was preferable to staying in checked at every turn. Melbourne soothed him. What would be the good of going out, if the other side could not form a Government? Back the Whigs would have to come again. “It is no use popping in and out like a rabbit!” he observed sensibly. Himself, he saw no reason for resigning. In his heart of hearts he was pleased rather than otherwise when a reform was stopped: and he still feared that resignation might lead to a situation in which neither of the great parties could form a Government. “Perhaps it is a chimerical fear,” he told John Russell, “and one which vanity and self opinion very much minister to, and therefore should not be entertained. But I—being somewhat of an alarmist on this side, not having quite the confidence in the stability of popular and constitutional forms of government which others have, and thinking them very likely to break up of themselves and from the exaggeration of their own principles—cannot feel quite free from it.” Do what he might, the spectre of possible civil war and revolution still hovered, dimly menacing, in the hinterland of his mind.
These various considerations conditioned his outlook on political affairs during these years. In general, he was for standing still. “I am for holding the ground already taken, but not for occupying new ground rashly,” he announced to his colleagues. He set himself to act as a brake in the machinery of government. The words “delay,” “put off,” “postpone,” echo through his letters and speeches like a series of Wagnerian leit-motifs. Of course, if the Radicals got dangerously restive, it was right to pacify them by some concessions: in practice, Melbourne showed himself surprisingly ready to do this. But he did not like doing it; and always felt bound to justify himself on the ground that it was the only means of keeping things quiet. He even grew irritated with John Russell for mentioning the Reform Bill without saying it was a necessary measure. “If it was not absolutely necessary,” he remarked sharply, “it was the foolishest thing ever done.” As for encouraging people to bring forward new reforms, it was simply laying up trouble for the future. They would get the habit of asking for more and more; in the end they would have to be stopped; by which time it would be an almost impossible task. “My esoteric doctrine,” he proclaimed, “is that if you entertain any doubt, it is safest to take the unpopular side in the first instance. Transit from the unpopular, is easy . . . but from the popular to the unpopular the ascent is so steep and rugged that it is impossible to maintain it.” So far as specific measures were concerned he approved of them only in so far as they seemed likely to make things calm. He was against the secret ballot, for example, because he suspected that it would encourage subversive persons to express their preferences more boldly than before. He was against admitting nonconformists to the University as he thought it would put Anglicans in a bad temper. He was against schemes for popular education because they seemed likely to create a new class of semi-educated discontented people. “You may fill a person’s head with nonsense which may be impossible ever to get out again,” he said. He also thought such schemes were futile in themselves. For one thing, no one could ever agree what form they should take. “All are agreed about the benefits of education, but are unable to agree as to the means of carrying them into effect,” he told the House of Lords, “I am afraid this will afford those satirists, who disparage human nature, some matter on which to plume themselves.” Besides, only the intelligent in Melbourne’s view, were susceptible to real education, and surely the intelligent always educated themselves. Anyway, he sometimes wondered if education was really of any use, so far as success in life was concerned. The careers of his acquaintance seemed to indicate the reverse. “I do not know why there is all this fuss about education,” he once rema
rked to Queen Victoria, “none of the Paget family can read or write and they do very well.”
On the other hand, he was not against the act that proposed reforming the municipal councils. For one thing, he thought there was a strong feeling in the country in favour of it: and he considered, as he had over the Reform Bill, that a wise statesman defers to such a feeling even if he does not happen to share it, in order to keep things peaceful. Secondly, the Bill seemed likely to give more local influence to the middle classes. Melbourne rightly judged that the middle classes, whether or not they called themselves liberal, were a conservative-minded body who would dislike dangerous changes. Even so, he did not feel enthusiastic about the measure; and was not upset when the House of Lords threw it out the first time it was introduced there. “What does it matter?” he said. “We have got on tolerably well with the councils for five hundred years. We may contrive to go on with them for another few years or so.” And when at last it did go through, “It is a great bouleversement, a great experiment,” he remarked doubtfully, “we must see how it works!” Certainly he did not feel sure that the Whigs were especially efficient at running local affairs. The Tories in the House of Lords made an attack on some magistrates who had recently been appointed by the Home Secretary. Out of loyalty to a colleague, Melbourne defended these appointments. But after the debate was at an end, he strolled over to the other side of the House to speak to an opponent. “Have we really been so bad in our appointments?” he unexpectedly asked him.
His attitude to Irish affairs was of a piece with his attitude to English. The Irish question was not so troublesome as usual, for John Russell, with Melbourne’s tacit connivance, had negotiated an unwritten pact with O’Connell by which the Repeal campaign in Ireland was to be called off in return for promises to administer Ireland in a more pro-Catholic spirit than before.10 Melbourne did not object to doing this. He had always thoroughly disliked the Irish Protestants. His tolerant spirit was especially irritated by their bland assumption that, because they owned most of the property in the country, their church had a right to be supported by money wrung from the pockets of a poverty-stricken peasantry who thought them heretics. “Religious establishment,” he said with unusual bitterness, “is for population not property. Its existence is for the poor and needy, not for the opulent who have the means to provide spiritual instruction for themselves.” All the same, the moment that pro-Catholic action showed signs of seriously annoying people in England, Melbourne hung back from it. John Russell, as before, proposed a bill to reform the Protestant Church in Ireland and to strip it of some of its revenues. Uncertain and unwilling, Melbourne agreed. “I am afraid the question of the Irish Church,” he said, “can neither be avoided nor postponed. It must therefore be attempted to be solved.” However, when the House of Lords threw out this bill, he wanted to drop it. He was the more reluctant to proceed in the matter because growingly he doubted that it, or any other bill, could do much to solve the Irish question. The more he saw of the Irish the more he was confirmed in his conviction that their discontent arose from something born in them. “I never thought,” he said, “that their crimes and outrages had much to do with former misgovermnent and present politics. I believe them to arise from the natural disposition of the people and the natural state of society, which would have been much the same under any dispensation.”
As a matter of fact Melbourne did not play much part either in planning or initiating the positive legislation activities of his Government. He left such work to John Russell. Not only did his conservatism of spirit make him dislike new legislation, but it was mostly concerned with administration; and he was still as bored by administration as ever. It needed more than four years as a Minister of the Crown to turn Melbourne into a man of action. The old Melbourne, like the young Melbourne, was interested less in getting things done than in studying why they happened. In so far as active politics did provide a field for his talents, it was on their personal side; in the opportunity they offered him to use his gift for managing individuals. This opportunity involved quite as much work as Melbourne liked. He found his hands full keeping his colleagues together and the King in a good humour. Even over this he was careful to expend his energy economically. He prudently refused to remove from South Street to the Prime Minister’s official residence in Downing Street. The last thing he wanted was to be in the thick of things, with his colleagues bursting in at any moment of the day or night, asking awkward questions and urging quick decisions. Nor did he think it the Prime Minister’s business to take a hand in the detailed running of every department in his administration. Canning, he noted, always maintained that a Government worked best in which each Minister was allowed to do his own job independently, and where the Prime Minister only intervened if any specially critical situation arose. Melbourne was pleased to find that his opinions and his inclinations alike led him to agree with Canning. “The companion rather than the guide of his ministers,” so he was described; and he kept just sufficient eye on their activities to notice if they seemed likely to do anything unusually foolish. This, however, with a team like his and the situation so precarious, entailed the exercise of an incessant and vigilant diplomacy. He conducted it in his customary unofficial, undress sort of way—by means of a casual word dropped in the card room of Brooks’s Club or over the port wine at a dinner party; and also by letters. Every day a stream of notes proceeded from South Street; pithy, racy, conversational notes counselling moderation and good sense, couched in a tone that artfully combined subtle tact with an air of friendly frankness. Now and again a glint of his paradoxical humour showed itself; and also his love of bold generalization. “Political dinners are very good things when you can be sure of apparent unanimity,” he will say, “when great differences are found, they are dangerous.” Or, “People are very fond of stating others to be dead or in a hopeless state and are very much disappointed to find them alive or not so bad as they gave them out to be.” Sometimes such sentences disconcerted his correspondents; so much so as to undo the effect of his tact. He realized this. “I observe,” he confessed sadly, “that these speculative letters, especially if they are written in an impartial or conciliatory tone, give the greatest offence.” The English party system has much to be said for it: but it does not provide a natural home for the detached thinker.
For the rest, Melbourne’s working day was occupied with routine activities; leading the House of Lords and dispensing patronage. He was still only moderately successful in the House of Lords. It was not in him to assume that stately and formidable public personality by which a born Leader of the House like Grey awes his opponents and rallies his noble supporters. Melbourne’s was incurably a private face. Because the debates bored him he tended to leave the management of many bills to his deputy, Lord Duncannon; when he did it himself he was often listless and perfunctory.
His individuality showed itself more happily in the dispensing of patronage. The letters he wrote on the subject are some of the most entertaining in his correspondence. Nowhere do the diverse strains in his nature exhibit themselves more curiously. His judgment was extremely detached. The fact that a man had attacked him did not in the least bias him against giving him an honour. And he had an acute eye to perceive genuine merit. On the other hand, he thought it foolish as a rule to waste an honour on a man who could do nothing to help the Whig cause. This disinclined him to reward literary achievement. “Literary men are seldom good for anything,” he said. He also had an aristocratic distaste for rewarding successful business men. “Never mind the clamour of the magnates in the city,” he told Lord Holland, “they grunt like pigs unless everything is done to suit their convenience.” This did not stop Lord Holland pressing for an honour to be given to a Mr. Goldsmith whom, he assured Melbourne, was not a vulgar commercial type of man. Melbourne replied, “I wish you would not press Goldsmith upon me. I hate refined Solomons. God knows I hate doing something for these Stock Exchange people; there are as many refined Christ
ians as Goldsmith; and, after all, there is not so much merit in being a Jew as to cause him on that account to be selected in a manner which must provoke much clamour and discontent.” The Holland family were a great nuisance to Melbourne where honours were concerned. Lady Holland was so importunate as to come in for an incisive rebuke on the subject. “You seem to have one fixed principle,” Melbourne told her, “and that is to choose the man with the worst character in the list of candidates.” Certainly none of his friends and colleagues were considerate of him when they wanted a job done for a friend. John Russell himself forgot to be conscientious if there was a chance of promoting the advance of a member of his own family. “The Duke of Bedford and John Russell,” Melbourne exclaims on one occasion, “plague me for William Russell, a snuffling Methodist and a foolish fellow. No one has the least sense where their own connections are concerned, and a large family is a greater impediment than riches to a man’s entry into the Kingdom of Heaven.” And the obscure were just as clamorous as the great. “Turn round,” Melbourne whispered hurriedly to a companion when they were riding in Rotten Row, “is not that Dacres coming? There is no bore so great to a Prime Minister as a country gentleman.” All the same—and in spite of the bother that it involved him in—Melbourne got a great deal of amusement out of his job as patron. It was so delightfully revealing of human absurdity and vanity. Who, for instance, could have known that so many men wanted to be baronets? “I did not know that anyone cared any longer for these sort of things,” he said. “Now I have a hold on the fellows!” He was also entertained by the self-confident tenacity with which the Scotch nobility claimed honours for themselves. “Give him the Thistle!” he remarked about a notably half-witted Scottish Peer, “Why, he’d eat it!” Not that the English Peerage were much better. An Earl came to him demanding to be made a Marquess. “My dear sir,” replied Melbourne, “how can you be such a damn fool!”—and about an insatiable applicant, “Confound it! Does he want a Garter for his other leg?” Sometimes it seemed to him as if people demanded rewards precisely in proportion as they were undeserving of them. “The list of applications which I have,” he writes to John Russell about candidates for the Civil List pensions, “comprises Mrs. James, widow of the writer of The Naval History; Leigh Hunt, distinguished writer of seditious and treasonable libels; Colonel Napier, historian of the war in Spain, conceited and democratic Radical and grandson of a duke; Mr. Cary, translator of Dante, madman; Sheridan Knowles, man of great genius but not old nor poor enough for a pension. Say what would you think ought to be done.” It is to be noted that several of the names on this list did in fact get their pensions. Melbourne’s lack of illusions served, if anything, to increase his ironical tolerance. It also had the advantage of making him impervious himself to the temptations to which he perceived so many of his countrymen were susceptible. William IV urged him to accept the Garter; but, said Melbourne, “a Garter may attract to us somebody of consequence which nothing else can reach. But what is the good of my taking it? I cannot bribe myself!”
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