So ended satisfactorily this notable controversy. Nor was this the only complication of the kind in which the importance thrust on Panizzi served to involve him. To none were his relations closer than to the family of the late Lord Langdale, formerly Master of the Rolls, who, it may be remembered, in 1850, refused the office of Lord Chancellor, offered to him on the retirement of Lord Cottenham.
Panizzi’s acquaintance with Lord and Lady Langdale speedily ripened into a warm intimacy, and of their daughter, the Countess Teleki, he was the especial favourite. On the death of his Lordship, which happened on the 18th of April, 1851, Panizzi wrote as follows to Lord Rutherfurd:—
“Nothing but your own handwriting could have afforded me any real pleasure in the deep grief I feel at the loss of both the friends respecting whom you write. Lord Langdale’s I feel most, as I was often with him, and as he has given me, at all times, and at some particularly of a comparatively recent date, such proof of affection and, what is more, of thorough esteem and regard, as I shall never forget....
Panizzi’s intimacy with the Langdale family was, notwithstanding this great loss, kept up as of old, and to her last days Lady Langdale was a frequent guest at his house. After her husband’s death, she, laudably anxious to perpetuate the memory of so worthy a man, committed the materials for his biography to Mr. (afterwards Sir T. D.) Hardy. The book was published in 1852, and it happened that, as in the former case, Lord Holland had aroused the fears of Lord John Russell, so in the present, for like reasons, was the wrath of Lord Brougham evoked by the “Memoirs of the Right Honourable Henry Lord Langdale.”
It is really difficult to discover anything in Sir T. D. Hardy’s book which could have stirred up the _sœva indignatio_ in Lord Brougham, as expressed in the subjoined letters, still less any aspersions on the memory of Lord Langdale himself.
As you interfered (most unadvisedly I think) respecting that book of Hardy’s, probably at the request of the family, I strongly recommend you to give Lady Langdale advice which may prevent more harm being done. I had not seen the book when I saw you. I have now seen it, though I have not read the whole. I have read quite enough to show me into what scrape Lady L. has gotten herself, by giving his papers to a person who, with the best possible intentions I have no doubt, is so ignorant of everything connected with the subject, except records, that he has fallen into the grossest mistakes.... There are one or two letters of Lord Langdale himself of which both Lord Denman and I are agreed in exceedingly lamenting the publication....