The majority against it being declared, Lord Wharncliffe said "he feared that the determination to which the House had come would lower the respect of the people for their lordships." The Earl of Eldon: "I beg to tell the noble lord that I have given my vote on conscientious grounds, and I am not to be told, by him or any other noble lord, that such a vote will be injurious to your Lordships in the estimation of the people."*

He resolved now to refrain from any effort of public speaking, but he still hoped to serve his country by his counsels; and, if asked, he would not have been unwilling even to take a seat in a Cabinet the principles of which he entirely approved, if such an one should happily again be established before his eyes were closed. A sudden gleam of hope was created by the resignation of Earl Grey, but this was immediately overcast by the appointment of Lord Melbourne to succeed

him, and Whig domination seemed firmly established [AUG. 15, 1834.] under the admirable good sense, discretion, tact, and temper of the new Premier. A most stormy session closed in tranquillity.

For a while our ex-Chancellor forgot his political disappointments, by making another visit to his estate in the county of Durham, and gathering round him all his northern relations. He even talked of having some merry-making beyond the Tyne, observing to his grandniece, "Well, Ellen, when you and I meet in the Newcastle Assembly Rooms, we will open the ball." Ellen: "Yes, uncle; remember, you are engaged to me." Lord Eldon: "I will not forget, and we will call for Jack's alive'—that will be the proper tune-Jack's alive!'"

In a letter to this young lady, on his return into Dorsetshire he said:

"I had a very dull journey from Rusheyford: how should it be otherwise? I had left those I liked to be with, and I had no company except that of an individual now generally spoken of as 'Poor old Eldon.' Here I arrived, however, at last, and got home to my cottage, which, being situated in a deep valley, is not seen till you reach the door of the house. I remember Dr. Warren, when he once came here upon a medical visit, exclaimed, Well, I have got to your den at last!' In that den I have been pretty generally confined since I entered it; I am, however, as well as I can expect to be."

6

While confined to his den, and rather in a desponding state of mind from thinking of the great majorities which the Whigs still commanded. in the House of Commons, and the feeble resistance offered to them in the House of Lords, he was astounded by the intelligence, which he could not for some time believe to be true, that during the recess of Parliament-public affairs being in a state of profound tranquillityKing William had dismissed his Ministers, on the ground that Lord Althorp had succeeded to the title of Earl Spencer. "Now, at last, cried he, "the good old times must be restored, and I must be sent for." He was the more confident in this last expectation because Sir Robert

Peel, not dreaming of changes of Government, was employing himself in viewing the curiosities of the Vatican. But a week having rolled away without summons or communication to him of any sort, in a letter to his grandson, dated Sunday, November 23d, he thus betrays his disappointment: "To the moment I am writing I have had no letter from those who would heretofore have courted my advice, or been civil enough to pretend to ask it." However, having detained the letter till next day, he says in a postscript, "Since I wrote what precedes this, I have had a very civil letter from the Duke of Wellington. It tells me nothing material; and, until Peel comes, it could not tell me any thing material."

He was evidently chagrined at being put off with mere civility, and he had serious misgivings from considering to whose hands the formation of the new Government was to be left; but still he had good hopes of him who had long successfully combated Catholic Emancipation, and, having yielded to it from an overruling necessity, had since partly redeemed his character by a gallant resistance to the Reform Bill, Meanwhile, in writing to his daughter, he thus affected indifference, but disclosed anxiety, respecting what was to happen on the arrival of the Premier-elect:

"The 'Standard' of yesterday contains, in an article from some other paper, that the intended arrangement for the Earl of Eldon has failed. No such arrangement could have failed, for no such was intended; and Lord Eldon is too old, and too wise, again to mingle in ministerial arrangements. I think nothing will be done as to any such, with respect to any body, till Peel comes home."

Lord Eldon was much hurt to find that the Cabinet was filled up without his having the refusal of a seat in it, and without his having had the slightest concern in its formation, more than if he had never gone by the name of the "great Tory cabinet-maker." He now really cared little about place, but he was most seriously alarmed when he read the "Tamworth Manifesto,"* which spoke of acquiescing [A. D. 1835.] in the Reform Bill,-of respecting the rights of conscience, and of relaxing restrictions upon commerce. Doubting whether the reins of government might not almost as well have remained in the hands of Lord Melbourne, who probably never seriously meditated any heavy blow to the Church, and might have been effectually restrained from inflicting any, he inveighed even more loudly against this new Government than he had against the Duke of Wellington's

in 1828.

Sir Robert Peel now-as then-tried to soothe him by a civil letter:"Whitehall Gardens, Jan. 1st, 1835.

“DEAR LORD Eldon,

"Your long experience in public life and devotion to your public duties will, I hope, have found an excuse for me, if, under the circumstances under which I was called to England, and the incessant and

* Sir R. Peel's Address to his constituents.

most harassing occupation in which I have been since engaged both night and day, I have appeared deficient, through my silence, in that respect which I most sincerely entertain for you, and which, but for the circumstances to which I have referred, ought to have and would have dictated a much earlier communication to you on the subject of the position of public affairs, and the course which I proposed as the King's Minister to pursue.

"That course has been now sufficiently indicated by the public declarations which I have been called upon to make, and by the appointments which have taken place, on my advice, to the chief offices of the King's Government. It only remains for me, therefore, to apologize to you for a seeming inadvertence and inattention which would be wholly at variance with my real feelings, and to express an earnest hope that the Administration over which I preside will entitle itself by its acts to your support and confidence.

*

*

*

*

*

"Believe me, my dear Lord, with the sincerest respect, and best wishes for your continued health and happiness,

"Most faithfully yours,
"ROBERT PEEL."

The very brief and stiff reply is silent respecting the "appointments" which had taken place by the advice of the Premier, but conveys marked disapprobation of his "public declara. [A. D. 1835.]

tions :".

"DEAR SIR ROBERT PEEL,

"I don't delay acknowledging the receipt of your kind letter, which, being directed to Encombe, did not reach that place till after I had left it, and has been returned from thence.

"If I forbear to enter into any statements respecting the subjects mentioned in that letter, I might be thought disrespectful in delaying my acknowledgments for the kindness and respect you have been pleased to express towards me,- a delay which might not be thought sufficiently apologized for, by observations which could only apply to subjects which I understand you to have been already fully determined upon. I remain, "Yours very faithfully,

"ELDON."

He was consoled, however, by a caricature, meant for the gratification of all true Church-and-King politicians of the old school, which, while he was excluded from the new Cabinet, represented him as the fittest man in England to guide it. To this he refers in a letter to Lord Encombe:-"There is come out a print of Diogenes, with his lanthorn, searching the world for an honest man. He appears highly delighted in finding poor LORD ELDON, whose image he is holding forth in a stronger likeness of that poor old gentleman than I have yet seen."*

* Some may suspect me of maliciously misrepresenting Lord Eldon's wishes at this period of his life, and may believe that he contentedly courted retirement; but a very impartial observer, who knew him well, and cannot be misled by any

Although by no means contented with the present Government,upon a little reflection he pronounced it much preferable to any thing that could be expected from the recall of the Whigs, who were now pressing for Municipal Reform, for a Dissenters' Marriage Bill, and even for the Appropriation of the surplus revenues of the Irish Church to the purposes of General Education. On the day after the meeting of the new Parliament he wrote to Lord Encombe:

"Let any body read the notices of motion given in the Commons last night, and avoid seeing, if it be possible, the dan[FEB. 25, 1835.] ger of negligence about their political duties. I sat last night in the House of Lords till between twelve and one-till all in that House was over. I certainly would much rather have sat by my fireside quietly, and enjoying the comforts of conversation; but as one individual, I will not belong to the assembly of those who look only to personal ease, enjoyment, and comfort, and will not see to what the intentions of some appear to be, as affecting their posterity, and, it may be, themselves ere long."

Thus he sneers, however, at the "Conservatives," whom he evidently considered as little better than Whigs:

"The new Ministers certainly have the credit, if that be creditable, of being inclined to get as much popularity by what are called reforms as their predecessors; and if they do not, at present, go to the full length to which the others were going, they will, at least, make so many important changes in Church and State, that nobody can guess how far the precedents they establish may lead to changes of a very formidable kind hereafter."*

party bias, writes to me:-" His love of power, and even office, survived the pardonable age. Even when the Duke of Wellington was called on to form his Administration in 1828, and very early communicated on the matter with Lord E., the latter (I have good grounds to believe) offered to resume the Great Seal, saying something very disparaging of his eminent successor. This is a point, however, on which I write with some restraint, by reason of its delicacy. I strongly surmise that this was a principal cause of the want of further communication from the Duke on this occasion, of which he loudly complained.

"He certainly entered immediately with zeal into the bitterest counsels of the most infuriate Tories.-counsels marked not only by rashness and indiscretion, which were discreditable in very young men, but were positively disgraceful in

a veteran.

"I know that Lord Sidmouth resisted his urgent solicitations to join him in this opposition after the great event of 1829, even to the extent of almost quarrelling with him. The revolution (as I call it,-the reform, as you, by a pleasant euphemism, are pleased to designate it) of 1831-32 was the fruit of this fatal policy,policy, for which few men were so deeply answerable as Lord E. Considering the great and habitual deference paid to him by all the Tory lords, we cannot doubt that he might have calmed the suicidal frenzy which marked all their conduct from February, 1829, to the same month in 1831, when even they could blind themselves no longer to the destructive consequences of their madness.

"A year or two after the Reform Act passed, he and a younger member of the aristocracy expressed together something like indignation against Sir R. Peel for having spoken of that Act in Parliament as one which it would be folly to attempt to repeal, and to which, therefore, it was necessary that practical statesmen should accommodate their views."

* Letter to Lady F. Bankes, March, 1835.

During the residue of "the hundred days," things remained very quiet in the House of Lords while the deadly struggle was going on in the House of Commons. This was terminated by the majority of thirty-three in favour of Lord John Russell's motion for "a committee of the whole House to consider the tempora[APRIL 8, 1835.] lities of the Church of Ireland,"-which led to the resignation of Sir Robert Peel, and the formation of Lord Melbourne's second Ministry.

"He

Lord Eldon now enjoyed the consolation of voting steadily against all Ministerial measures, although he had the mortification to find that some of them, which he most severely condemned, were supported or but feebly opposed by a large section of "Conservatives." The Municipal Reform Bill, which had passed the House of Commons with applauses from Sir Robert Peel, was the object of his special abhorrence. protested loudly against it in private, with feverish alarm, as leading directly to confusion. Its interference with vested rights shocked his sense of equity even more than the sweeping clauses of the Reform Act. To set at naught ancient charters as so many bits of decayed parchment, and destroy the archives of town-halls, seemed in the eyes of the old magistrate, for so many years the guardian of corporate rights, a crowning iniquity. Pale as a marble statue, and confined to his house in Hamilton Place by infirmity, he would deprecate equally the temerity of Ministers and the madness of the people; and his vaticinations, like the prophet's scroll, were full to overflowing with lamentations and wo. His correspondence, for some years previously, had borne marks of the troubled gloom with which he viewed the changes gradually darkening over all he had loved and venerated, till he felt almost a stranger to the institutions of his native land."*

Thus he described to Lord Encombe what he considered the iniquitous proceedings of the Upper House in passing the Muni

cipal Reform Bill, the operation of which is univer- [Aug. 31, 1835.] sally allowed to be very salutary :

"I found, with hardly any exceptions, that the House of Lords, notwithstanding all I could say for the information of those who formerly would have listened to my humble advice, were determined to pass the bill, such as it has now become; and,—though I admit that Lyndhurst's amendments do him great credit,-to the shame of the House of Lords, the bill furnishes us one of the worst precedents, and as dangerous at least a precedent as any, to be found in the Journals of the proceedings of that House. They may call it, if they please, a bill for the Improvement of Corporations. I must maintain that it is no other than a bill of Pains and Penalties passed by the House of Lords in its judicial and legisla tive character, without any evidence before it, whether we consider the King's commission appointing commissioners of inquiry into corporations as legal or illegal. If the commission was illegal, evidence taken before commissioners under an illegal commission could never, according to law, be considered as legal testimony any where. If the com

* Townsend, 490.