GREVILLE MEMOIRS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 May 1939, Page 6

GREVILLE MEMOIRS

COMPLETE TEXT PUBLISHED QUEEN VICTORIA CRITICISED. GREAT POLITICAL DIARIST. In the short, introduction to the complete edition of the Greville Memoirs, Greville is called “the greatest political diarist that this country has known,” writes Professor C. K. Webster in the “Manchester . Guardian.” However that may be. it is true that every history of this period takes much of its colour from his pen. So abundant and intimate was his information, so full of life his descriptions and comments, that there is no biographer or historian who has noc been influenced by them, and all the text books abound with anecdotes taken from his pages We must be grateful, therefore, for a complete text of the original MSS, now in the British Museum, including the passages in cipher (only a very few) and those scratched out. We have now for the first lime the authentic Greville, and can. fully appreciate both his matter and his style. Several writers had used this . new material, and in particular much of the most interesting part of it was published in 1927 by Mr P. W. Wilson, an American journalist, who used Reeve’s fair copies of the diaries which had strayed to the United States, a fact to which the preface, scarcely does justice. EXTENT OF OMISSION. But Mr Wilson’s extracts were detached from their context and jumbled together in d most confusing way. They were no substitute for the complete text which we now possess. One cannot but regret, however, that the editors did not give some indication of the additions to Reeve’s text. In order to ascertain what he suppressed or altered it is necessary to make a laborious comparison between the two editions. There is not even, except in the most general terms, any estimate of the extent of the omissions or the principles on which they were based. Reeve himself described them as “a few passages and expressions relating to occurrences in private life,” but they go much beyond this. It should surely 'nave been the privilege of the editors to sum up the value of the new material now submitted to the public, even if they had not tackled the more difficult task of testing his revelations by the other evidence which has accumulated since Reeve produced his work. The editorial comments are indeed hardly worthy of the splendid text (in which, however, a few obVious misprints occur), though all historians will appreciate the excellent index of persons, places, and subjects which fills the whole of volume eight. A few notes found in the Windsor copy of the diary, of which the first 10 are by Queen Victoria and the rest by one of her Lord Chamberlains, Lord Sydney, add little of importance. GREVILLE’S RESENTMENT. Greville became more and more aware of the value of his diary as time went on. He planned it as a contribution to the history of his age. Meeting as he did all the principal men of action of his lime, he was painfully conscious of the inferiority of his own position, which was certainly bciow his talents. Sometimes his sense of power was gratified by acting as an intermediary between politicians—occasions on which he generally shqwed discretion and tact. But this was not sufficiently satisfying. “My desire to act a mediatorial part is ho longer what it was,” he wrote in 1836. “ I have not found that I have done myself personally any good with any party or any individual by any of the services, general or particular, that I have at one time or another sought to render.” Undoubtedly the diary it—was a compensation, and that fact in part accounts for many of the bitter comments on individuals with whom Greville liv.ed on terms of friendship. FORCED TO TONE DOWN. There were some things which Reeve had necessarily to omit altogether or tone down by the ' deletion of specially wounding facts or phrases. Chief of these were, of course, the references to the private life of a still reigning monarch, most of which are in Mr Wilson’s book. Queen Victoria was horrified and indignant al Reeve’s publication. What would she have thought if she could have seen the other references to herself, throughout a quarter of a century, from the first description of her as “a short, vulgar child” to the portrayal of the obedient wife who had allowed her consort to obtain complete control of political affairs? “The Queen is not clever,” wrote Greville in 1857, “and everything is done by the Prince, who is to all intents and purposes King.” Obviously such passages could not be printed in 1879 or 1885. There is much else of the most intimate kind, such as the intrigues of Conroy with his mistress, the Duchess of Kent (“How is it possible I can have any confidence in my mother,” the Queen is reported to have said to Melbourne in 1838. “when I know that whatever I say to her is repeated immediately afterwards to that man?")) the Flora Hastings scandal, the education of the Royal children, and the marriage of the Princess Royal. The Prince's strictures - on the Queen's harsh treatment of her children were made to Clarendon and retailed to Greville by that indiscreet friend. SOME HARSH COMMENTS. Reeve also expunged many of the harshest comments on the groat men of the period. We thus now read of Poullett Thomson’s “very bad character in the City,” or Peel's “vulgarity" ("He eats voraciously and cuts cream and jellies with his knife"), that Palmerston “never scruples to tell any lie that suits his own purpose and is capable of every sort of duplicity and deceit,” that Malmesbury’s “incapacity is certainly flagrant and a serious evil,”- that Derby, the Prime Minister, was “avaricious and unscruplous” on the turf, that King Leopold was "a poor creature," and that Lord John Russell's wife was "the banc of his political life." Then, as Reeve confessed, there are the intimate private details, some of which are bowdlerised in his text. We thus find that Lady Cowper was frankly described as Palmerston’s mistress, and Mrs Arbuthnot as the Duke’s, and other mistresses of these two and of Lord Grey are alluded to. Most of these facts, however, we knew from other sources. THE CRISIS OF 1840. More important are new details of events in which Greville himself played a part — often an underhand part. We now learn for the first time the source of important information, generally a Cabinet Minister or an ' Ambassador, and can thus tell whether I

Greville’s account can be trusted. Since he wrote down much that was not true, these additions are. important to the historian. There is much, for example, about the crisis of 1-840, in which Greville himself played a sorry part, which makes his conduct even more treacherous than had hitherto been revealed, and shows that Palmerston’s estimate of him was a true one. There is other interesting evidence on foreign tiffairs, such as Prince Albert’s proposal to send an emissary to the Pope in 1851, an impression of the Franco-Russian secret negotiations in 1859, and the extraordinary attempt of Clarendon to get Greville to write to Princess Lieven to urge her Emperor not to “haggle and bargain” at the Congress of Paris in 1856. The imprudence or calculated indiscretion of Cabinet Minister’s in revealing to Greville and Reeve confidential information occurs again and again. There is also, of course, much about “The Times,” including an admission by Delane that he was in error, a rare enough occurrence. Greville himself grew tired of an association which he had often exploited for his own purposes. “THIS RASCALLY PAPER.” “Nothing is more provoking and vexatious,” he wrote in 1855, “than the impossibility of silencing or confuting this rascally paper with which I am ashamed to have had such slight connection as there has been between me and Delane.” There is indeed much new evidence of the versatility and unscruplousness of Reeve and his editorial masters.

Then there is a good deal about the rascality of the turf, including bitter attacks on Lord George Bentinck, who passed for Greville’s friend. Mr Wilson has published nearly all this, but he hardly mentions the long account of the famous case in which another of Greville’s friends, Henry de Ros, was shown to be a card sharper. Greville had to give evidence in this case, and his distress of mind is vividly depicted. There is little of the obscenity of which Greville was suspected. It is now possible to know exactly what was the “very coarse toast” with which William IV shocked the high company at a Court dinner. The ladies had left the table, but one can quite understand that “Lord Grey was ready to sink into the earth” when he heard it. Even here Greville used cipher (it is true, an easy one), and a similar precaution was taken over another coarse anecdote about Samuel Johnson. There is little more of this kind of matter.

Greville’s reputation as a writer will be increased by the perusal of his complete text, and his sense of curiosity. his power of ridicule, and his ability to handle great men and delicate occasions appear to even greater advantage than before. But, as might be expected, more of the unpleasant side of his character is revealed, and on occasion he might well have applied to his conduct some of the opprobrious terms he so freely bestowed upon others.