Lord Londonderry especially was impassive: he embarrassed you at once by his sincerity as a minister and çoisRenéhis reserve as a man. He explained his policy frankly, with the iciest air, and kept a profound silence as to facts. He wore an air of indifference to what he said, even as to what he did not say; one could not tell what one was to believe of what he showed or concealed. He would not have budged if you had "caught him in the ear with a sausage," as Saint-Simon says.
Lord Londonderry had a sort of Irish eloquence which often aroused the laughter of the House of Lords and the gaiety of the public; his blunders were celebrated, but he also sometimes attained flashes of eloquence which carried away the crowd, as, for instance, his words relating to the Battle of Waterloo, which I have recalled.
Lord Harrowby[203] was President of the Council; he spoke correctly, lucidly, and as one acquainted with the facts. It would be considered unbecoming in London for a president of the ministers to express himself prolixly or rhetorically. He was, moreover, a perfect gentleman for manner. One day, at the Pâquis, at Geneva, an Englishman was announced: Lord Harrowby entered; I recognised him only with difficulty: he had lost his old King; mine was exiled. It was the last time that the England of my time of grandeur appeared before me.
I have mentioned Sir Robert Peel[204] and Lord Westmorland[205] in the _Congrès de Vérone._
I do not know if Lord Bathurst[206] was descended from or related to that Earl Bathurst[207] of whom Sterne wrote:
"This nobleman ... is a prodigy; for at eighty-five he has all the wit and promptness of a man of thirty. A disposition to be pleased, and a power to please others beyond whatever I knew[208]."
Lord Bathurst, the minister of whom I am telling you, was well-informed and well-bred; he kept up the tradition of the old French manners of good company. He had three or four daughters who ran, or rather who flew like sea-swallows, along the waves, white, tall, and slender. What has become of them[209]? Did they fall into the Tiber with the young Englishwoman of their name?
Lord Liverpool[210] was not, like Lord Londonderry, the principal minister; but he was the most influential and the most respected minister. He enjoyed that reputation of a religious man and a good man which does so much for him who possesses it; one comes to such a man with the confidence which one has for a father; no action seems good if it is not approved by that godly person, invested with an authority far superior to that of talent. Lord Liverpool was the son of Charles Jenkinson, Baron Hawkesbury, Earl of Liverpool[211], the favourite of Lord Bute[212]. Almost all the English statesmen have begun with the literary career, with pieces of poetry more or less good, or with articles, generally excellent, inserted in the reviews. A portrait remains of this first Earl of Liverpool when he was private secretary to Lord Bute; his family is greatly distressed by it: this vanity, puerile at all times, is doubtless much more so to-day; but we must not forget that our most ardent revolutionaries took their hatred of society from natural disgraces or social inferiorities.