‘My dear Friend,—Not hearing from you I began to be afraid that you had been detained at some friend’s house in the North by indisposition. Your letter, therefore, was particularly welcome to me on many accounts. What a remarkable tour you have had! At all times it must be very delightful to spend some time with such excellent and distinguished persons, but just now it must be exciting in the highest degree, and your Conservative visits must have varied your course of conversation instructively.
‘I thank you for your unexpected aid to Mrs. Philips, whom I had prepared to expect that you would be engaged.1
‘Only one word more as to the verses. Pure eloquence will always be somewhat weak. His was rather lofty and noble both in thought and manner.
‘Your last pages were a budget of news indeed, from town, and contained several striking facts, which I had not learnt from Lord Denman, Gurney, or LdAbing1. From the latter I have three long confidential letters,
1 Sharp had written to ask for his votes for a child at the election for the Orphan Working School. |
| 106 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
‘I suppose it never happened before that one Cabinet Minister first hears of his dismissal from a newspaper and another from a man in the street. To me it seems to be quite clear that it has long been settled at Court to get rid of our friends as soon as Lord Spencer died. What a treacherous fellow he must be if this be true!
‘The Tories have the King, the House of Lords, the Clergy, nearly all the officers of Navy and Army, the majority of the landowners, and of the opulent commercial classes. This I firmly believe, but I believe also that these will be far from enough to support them in their struggle against the middle ranks and the Dissenters demanding reform in Church and State. Only think of Ireland too, which will send nearly a hundred Radicals or exasperated Whigs. That shameful Church must go.
‘How lucky our friend Macaulay has been! I am vexed that Robert Mackintosh had not prudence enough to leave his address in town. He lost a commission last year in the same way.
‘I could not help smiling at your account of the reappearances at Brooks’s, where, to say the truth, Ministers could not come without being exposed to indiscretion and some impertinence, but then they had other means of showing that they did not forget their old friends.
‘Next to being purse-proud is being office-proud. The
Comet Brougham is gone to Paris. Why? But
| THE MINISTERIAL CRISIS IN 1834 | 107 |
