# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lamb, William

​LAMB, WILLIAM, second Viscount Melbourne (1779–1848), second son of Peniston, first viscount Melbourne (1748–1819), by Elizabeth (1749–1818), only daughter of Sir Ralph Milbanke, bart., of Halnaby, Yorkshire, was born 15 March 1779. His father, son of Sir Matthew Lamb [q. v.], inherited a large property, which he promptly squandered. He was member for Ludgershall in the House of Commons from 1768 to 1784, when he was a silent follower of Lord North. He afterwards sat for Malmesbury and Newport, Isle of Wight (1784–93); was created an Irish baron in 1770 by the title of Lord Melbourne of Kilmore, and an Irish viscount in 1781. He was appointed gentleman of the bedchamber to the Prince of Wales in 1784, and created an English peer in 1815. Lady Melbourne (who was married 13 April 1769) was a remarkable woman. Though Horace Walpole thought her affected (Letters, ed. Cunningham, vii. 63), and she was the object of some scandal (Wraxall, Memoirs, ed. Wheatley, v. 370; Hayward, Celebrated Statesmen, p. 336; and Greville, pt. ii. vol. iii. p. 241), Byron on her death, 6 April 1818, called her ‘the best, and kindest, and ablest female I have ever known, old or young’ (Moore, Byron, p. 379; see also p. 206). The rise of the family was due to her brilliant qualities. She was thrice painted by Reynolds; in 1770, mezzotint by Finlayson, and twice in 1771, together with her eldest child, Peniston (born 3 May 1773). The first picture was engraved by Watson; the second, ‘Maternal Affection,’ by Dickinson.
William Lamb was his mother's favourite child, and she set herself to form his character. His childhood was passed at Brocket ​Hall, Hertfordshire, and at Melbourne House, Piccadilly (now the Albany), which was purchased from Lord Holland in 1770, and became an important whig centre. In 1790 he was painted by Reynolds, together with his brothers Peniston and Frederick [q. v.], in the picture ‘The Affectionate Brothers’ (see Haydon, Autobiography, ii. 343, and C. R. Leslie, Autobiographical Recollections, pp. 169, 170). The picture was engraved by Bartolozzi and S. M. Reynolds. He went to Eton in 1790, where he reached the sixth form, and in July 1796 was entered a fellow-commoner of Trinity College, Cambridge, going into residence in the following October. He was also entered at Lincoln's Inn on 21 July 1797. In Michaelmas term 1798 he won the Trinity declamation prize by an oration on ‘The Progressive Improvements of Mankind,’ which was praised by Fox in the House of Commons (Speeches of C. J. Fox, vi. 472). He proceeded to his degree on 1 July 1799, having spent most of his time at Cambridge in private study. He wrote an ‘Epistle to the Editor of the Anti-Jacobin,’ published in the ‘Morning Chronicle’ of 17 Jan. 1798, sharply answered by Canning, and an epilogue to Sheridan's ‘Pizarro,’ performed at Drury Lane on 24 May 1799. In the winter of 1799 he went with his brother Frederick to Glasgow as a resident pupil of Professor Millar. His letters to his mother (Lord Melbourne's Papers, pp. 5–30) show that he worked hard and took a keen interest in literature. At the same time he was rather precocious and an extreme whig in his opposition to the French war. He wrote many verses at this time, contributed to the ‘Bugle,’ a weekly paper, written by the guests at Inverary Castle, under the editorship of ‘Monk’ Lewis (Memoirs of M. G. Lewis, i. 199), and wrote an epilogue on ‘The Advantages of Peace’ for Miss Berry's ‘Fashionable Friends,’ acted May 1802 (see Miss Berry's Journal, ii. 196). Lamb was called to the bar in Michaelmas term 1804, and went the northern circuit. At the Lancashire sessions he was much pleased at receiving a complimentary brief through Scarlett (Lord Abinger). On the death of his elder brother Peniston, on 24 Jan. 1805, he gave up the bar for politics. On 3 June he married Lady Caroline Ponsonby, only daughter of the third Earl of Bessborough, by whom he had been previously rejected [see Lamb, Lady Caroline].
On 31 Jan. 1806 Lamb was returned for Leominster in the whig interest. Soon afterwards he inscribed some passable lines on the pedestal of the bust of Charles James Fox. On 19 Dec. 1806 he made his maiden speech as mover of the address. In the following March he began to keep a diary, which he continued during the two following years. It records the downfall of the ‘Talents’ administration, in defence of whose conduct Lamb on 9 April seconded a resolution moved by Mr. Brand. At the general election he was returned for Portarlington (23 May 1807). He had now lost his boyish zeal for Napoleon, and took a deep interest in the success of the Peninsular war. Though he rarely spoke, he was selected on 31 Dec. 1810 to move an amendment to the Regency Bill. His speech was commended by Canning, whom, in spite of early prejudices, he had already begun to follow. In consequence of this, when Lamb lost his seat in 1812 for his support of catholic emancipation, Brougham wrote to Grey that his defeat at the polls was not to be regretted (Brougham's Life and Times, ii. 25, 64).
Lamb was out of parliament for four years. In 1813 his wife's temper led him to attempt a separation, which was not, however, carried out till 1825. From certain entries in his commonplace-book, quoted in ‘Lord Melbourne's Papers’ (pp. 71, 72), it may be gathered that the husband and wife were from the first an ill-assorted couple. Lamb was certainly a kind, if too indulgent, husband. He sought distraction from domestic troubles in sport, society, and literature. He was an excellent shot, and something of a field naturalist. But literature was his chief solace, and his commonplace-book contains a record of his studies, which embraced the greater part of the classics and many English historians. No record of his theological reading has been preserved. His reflections on society, suggested by his studies, are couched in a very cynical vein. In spite of his learning, however, he shrank from authorship, though he was an occasional contributor to Jerdan's ‘Literary Gazette’ (Jerdan, Autobiography, ii. 284–6, where a poem of Lamb's is identified), and wrote a sketch of the early part of Sheridan's political life, which in 1819 he handed over to Moore (Moore, Diary, ii. 306, 308). Lamb subsequently regretted the step (Mrs. Norton, in Macmillan's Magazine, vol. iii.)
Lamb was returned to the House of Commons on 16 April 1816 as member for Northampton, and on 29 Nov. 1819 was elected one of the members for Hertfordshire, but retired from a contest for Hertford borough in 1825, because the electors preferred the uncompromising radicalism of Thomas Duncombe [q. v.] He had made little mark as yet, though Castlereagh and the regent and others foresaw his future eminence. He was a lukewarm whig, and though in 1819 he supported Lord Althorp's motion for an inquiry into the ​state of the country, he voted against his party for the Suspension of the Habeas Corpus Acts in 1816, and supported the Six Acts in 1819–1820. His commonplace-book shows that he was in favour of catholic emancipation and against reform. When Canning became prime minister in 1827, a vacancy was found for Lamb at Newport, Isle of Wight (24 April), and he was appointed Irish secretary, taking his seat for Bletchingley on 7 May. His tenure of office was unimportant, though he was a popular secretary, and though a memorandum, dated 19 Sept. 1827, exhibits a considerable knowledge of affairs (Torrens, i. 241–6). O'Connell hoped that he would ‘un-orange Ireland,’ and was anxious to secure his return for Dublin (O'Connell's Correspondence, ed. Fitzpatrick, i. 148–9). After the departure of Wellesley, the lord-lieutenant, early in December, he carried on the government of the country, and had to face the renewal of the agitation for emancipation. Lamb left Ireland in January 1828, and consented to retain office under the new prime minister, the Duke of Wellington. His letters to the home secretary, Sir R. Peel, favoured the administration of Ireland through the ordinary law (Peel, Memoirs, pt. i. pp. 24–46). In April, however, after more than one ministerial crisis, he and the other Canningites resigned in consequence of the division on the East Retford Bill. Lamb had voted with the government, but followed his friends into opposition ‘because he thought it was more necessary to stand by them when they were in the wrong than when they were in the right’ (Greville, pt. ii. vol. iii. p. 376). George IV communicated through Bulwer (Lord Dalling) his especial wish that Lamb should remain, but he declined (Bulwer, Palmerston, i. 272). Upon his father's death Melbourne took his seat in the House of Lords on 1 Feb. 1829, and on the 24th spoke on the bill for the suppression of the Catholic Association. In the Michaelmas term he appeared before the court of king's bench as co-respondent in an action for divorce brought by Lord Brandon, but the case was non-suited, and in the ecclesiastical court it was withdrawn. On 1 Feb. 1830 he spoke on the Portuguese question, but his speech was a failure, owing to his limited knowledge of the subject (Greville, i. 277). In July 1830 overtures to rejoin the government were made to Melbourne and the other Canningites, but they had thrown in their lot with the whigs.
In the Grey ministry Melbourne was appointed home secretary (19 Nov. 1830). Greville's first opinion was ‘Melbourne too idle,’ but he soon became quite enthusiastic in his favour, and a similar view is to be found in Sydney Smith's second letter to Archdeacon Singleton (Sydney Smith, Works, p. 625). In dealing with a country on the verge of revolution, he relied upon the ordinary law as administered by the magistrates, especially in the north. In the south, where rick-burning was prevalent, he declined to employ spies, but the machinery-breakers of Hampshire were suppressed by military force, and a special commission brought one thousand individuals to justice at Winchester. The Bristol rioters were treated in the same fashion. He had great difficulty in persuading William IV that special legislation was unadvisable in the case of political unions, such as that of Birmingham. But he dissuaded Burdett from taking part in the National Political Union at Westminster, and induced the other leaders to abandon a monster meeting which had been fixed for 7 Nov. The union was pronounced an illegal body on 22 Nov., but continued its proceedings. Melbourne only supported the Reform Bill because he felt it to be inevitable. Though opposed to a creation of peers, he took little interest in the attempt of the waverers to arrange a compromise (Greville, ii. 254). When the bill passed he thought that its result would be ‘a prevalence of the blackguard interest in parliament’ (Papers, p. 146). On the appointment of the factory commission of 1833, Melbourne, after they had been at work for two months, insisted on their reporting in a week. Meanwhile disturbances continued in the agricultural districts, and in 1834 the conviction and transportation of the six Dorsetshire labourers for administering illegal oaths aroused great indignation. The trades unions of London got up a monster demonstration (21 April), which presented itself at Whitehall as a deputation demanding the recall of the labourers. Melbourne calmly refused to receive it, and the unionists were persuaded to march on to Newington. As home secretary Melbourne was the cabinet minister responsible for the administration of Ireland. Though he was at first willing that O'Connell should be master of the rolls, he soon saw that no terms were to be made with him, and approved of the suppression of his meetings and of his arrest. He also instructed Anglesey, the lord-lieutenant, to enforce with vigour the law for the collection of tithe, and was a strong advocate of the Coercion Bill of 1833. On the resignation of Anglesey he declined the lord-lieutenancy. He appears to have been averse to the subsequent modifications of the Tithe Bill, and wished the Coercion Bill to be reintroduced in its integrity. Hence he was very angry when Wellesley, ​the lord-lieutenant, acting on the private advice of Brougham, recommended the abandonment of the clauses for the suppression of meetings (19 June 1834), especially as the letter was addressed to the prime minister, not to himself. The ministry resigned over the misunderstanding thus produced, and Melbourne never forgave Wellesley or Brougham.
On the resignation of Grey, Melbourne was summoned by the king, and obeyed, having ascertained that Lansdowne would not be premier. He declined to form a coalition with Wellington, Peel, and Stanley, and reconstructed the old ministry, placing Duncannon, with a seat in the lords, at the home office, and making Hobhouse first commissioner of woods and forests (Letter to the king of 15 July 1834 in Melbourne Papers). A coercion bill was passed minus the meetings clauses, the lords threw out the Tithe Bill, and parliament was prorogued on 15 Aug. It was evident that the government was fast breaking up. O'Connell, whom Melbourne thought irreconcilable, published a violent attack on the whigs; Lansdowne threatened resignation because of blunders connected with the Irish poor-law commission; and Brougham raised a storm of criticism by his tour in Scotland and public altercation with Durham. Lord John Russell also quarrelled with Durham, and, without consulting Melbourne, obtained from the king permission to vindicate himself in parliament. Hence the king was evidently prejudiced against the ministry, and when Althorp's removal to the upper house necessitated a reconstruction of the cabinet, he readily availed himself of Melbourne's hint that he was ready to resign. An audience at Brighton on 14 Nov., at which the king expressed alarm at the inquiry into the Irish church, and thought that Russell would make ‘a wretched figure’ as leader of the commons (Stockmar, i. 329), was followed by a letter dismissing the ministry. Melbourne bore the summons to Wellington, and wrote that night to Grey: ‘I am not surprised at his (the king's) decision, nor do I know that I can entirely condemn it.’ Incensed by Brougham's communication to the ‘Times,’ the king insisted on the resignation of the ministry before their successors were appointed. His conduct in that instance was high-handed, but throughout the crisis he acted less unadvisedly than is stated in most histories.
Melbourne refused an earldom and the Garter, and retired to Melbourne House. At Derby he made two speeches in explanation of his position, the second of which was considered by Greville to be a retractation of the first, compelled by the menaces and reproaches of Duncannon (Greville, iii. 170). But the speech does not bear out this conclusion. Before Christmas he was in the neighbourhood of London, and in correspondence with Grey and Holland. Holland was eager for an immediate attack on the Peel government. Melbourne hesitated, being afraid of radical violence, and unable to see his way to a coalition with Stanley. He was determined, however, that Brougham, Durham, and O'Connell should be excluded from a future liberal government, and explained his reasons to the first in remarkably plain terms. He was also strongly opposed to the negotiations with O'Connell, of which Duncannon was the agent, and which had issue in the so-called Lichfield House compact. But he acquiesced in the opposition to the re-election of Manners Sutton as the speaker, though he found the rival claims of Spring Rice and Abercromby difficult to adjust, and appears to have raised no objections to the Appropriation resolution, on which Peel was forced to resign (8 April 1835).
Melbourne was again summoned, together with Lansdowne, after Grey had declined to form a ministry, and once more refused to form a coalition government. The great seal was placed in commission in order to soothe Brougham's feelings, but Melbourne was unsuccessful in persuading Grey to accept, and Palmerston to relinquish, the foreign office. At the same time he had some difficulty in disposing of the king's objections, which embraced any attempt to meddle with the Irish church, or to alter the royal household. On 18 April, however, the arrangements were complete, and Melbourne's second government began, supported only by a small majority in the commons, and opposed by the pronounced hostility of the king and a strong majority in the House of Lords. Lord Mulgrave's viceregal entry into Dublin, at which banners bearing inscriptions in favour of repeal were freely displayed, gave great offence. The lords rejected the appropriation clauses of the Irish Tithe Bill, and the measure was lost after Melbourne had made an important speech in its favour (Hansard, 20 Aug. 1835). The legislative measure of the session was that for the reform of the municipal corporations, which became law in spite of the profuse amendments of Lyndhurst, and though the king wished to proceed by granting new charters rather than by act of parliament. The king's anger also found vent on the occasion of Durham's mission to St. Petersburg, and Sir Charles Grey's appointment as member of the Canadian commission. On the first occasion Melbourne manfully took the blame ​blame upon himself, and on the second a ministerial remonstrance against his reflections on Glenelg, the colonial secretary, was read to the king by the premier. The king also objected strongly, in a letter to Melbourne of 19 Oct., to the reception of O'Connell at the table of the lord-lieutenant, more especially after his crusade against the House of Lords in the north of England and Scotland. Melbourne exonerated Mulgrave at his own expense. He was more successful in gaining the king's consent to the promotion of Pepys to the chancellorship, and compensation of Campbell by the elevation of his wife to the peerage (January 1836). In spite of the success of the Irish administration, the Irish Tithe Bill and the Irish Municipal Corporation Bill were again rejected by the Lords, and the debates on the Orange lodges damaged the government. On the other hand, the English Tithe Bill was passed and the marriage law reformed. As a whole, the session was a failure, and the appointment of Renn Dickson Hampden [q. v.] to the regius professorship of divinity at Oxford was most unpopular. On 22 June, too, Melbourne appeared as co-respondent in the case Norton v. Lord Melbourne in the court of common pleas. The verdict was for the defendant, and the king expressed his satisfaction (Torrens, ii. 188–92; Lord Campbell, Life, ii. 82–5; Hayward, Celebrated Statesmen, i. 379–80, where Melbourne is said to have twice reiterated his denial of the alleged adultery; see also Norton, Caroline Elizabeth Sarah). At the close of the session Lyndhurst delivered a terrific attack on the ministry, and at a cabinet meeting of 9 Aug. Melbourne owned that it was doubtful if they could go on. There was a fresh quarrel with the king on the subject of Canada, as William IV was very unwilling to admit the electoral principle into the constitution of the lower province. William also raised serious objections to the enlistment of the British legion in the service of Spain. In Ireland the creation of the National Association by O'Connell aroused the protestants to a great indignation meeting at Dublin, and Melbourne with difficulty dissuaded Mulgrave from dismissing Lords Downshire and Donoughmore from their lieutenancies. In spite of the strong objections of the king, the Church Rates Bill was introduced on 3 March; but it received feeble support, and ministers had nothing but defeat before them, when on 20 June William IV died. Melbourne, who had managed him throughout with the utmost tact, declared him to have been ‘a being of the most uncompromising and firmest honour that ever it pleased Divine Providence to set upon the throne.’
At the general election the whigs were confirmed in power, and Melbourne assumed the position of adviser to the youthful sovereign, than which, as Greville remarked, ‘none was ever more engrossing, or involved greater responsibility.’ He spent the greater part of his time at Windsor, where he discharged the duties of the queen's secretary, and contrived to make his unconventional manners conform to a somewhat rigid etiquette (see especially, Greville, pt. ii. vol. i. pp. 145–9; and Stockmar, Memoirs, i. 377–391). ‘I wish,’ said the Duke of Wellington, ‘that he was always there.’ Meanwhile, rebellion was imminent in Canada, and Lord Howick (the present Lord Grey) strongly remonstrated with Melbourne for his apparent apathy (27 Dec. 1837). After the rebellion had been crushed, Lord Durham was sent out on a special mission, and Melbourne was compelled to remonstrate with him for giving appointments to men of damaged character like Turton and Gibbon Wakefield, as well as for the ordinance by which he banished some of the rebels and sentenced others to death. Hence he could only make a weak defence when Durham's conduct was attacked by Brougham in the House of Lords. The excuse he gave for his silence on one occasion to Russell was: ‘The fellow was in such a state of excitement that if I had said a word he would have gone stark, staring mad.’ Towards Durham after his resignation he was disposed to be more conciliatory (November 1838) than most of his colleagues. At the same time he was not afraid of him or his friends. ‘He should be alarmed,’ he wrote, ‘at the prospect of a stand-up fight with Cribb or Gully, but not of a set-to with Luttrell or old Rogers.’ Though at first averse to giving constitutional government to the French in Lower Canada, he finally consented to the union of the provinces, which was carried out by Poulett Thomson (Lord Sydenham).
Meanwhile, Melbourne's government had gained some credit by passing the Irish Poor-law Bill, in spite of O'Connell's denunciation of the measure (July 1838), which was neutralised by the abandonment of the Irish Corporation Bill, and of the appropriation clauses of the Irish Tithe Bill, which had hitherto been the cardinal principle of the administration. At the beginning of the session Melbourne had intentionally set Brougham at defiance, and, in the opinion of Greville, came out of the ordeal with tolerable success. In spite of the open mutiny of the radicals, the political state of affairs ​ended as it had begun. But the establishment of O'Connell's ‘Precursor Association,’ followed by the murder of Lord Norbury, produced the resignation of Mulgrave, and the reconstruction of the ministry did not add to its strength. In January 1839 Roden carried a motion for an inquiry into the Irish administration, in spite of Melbourne's declaration that he should consider the motion a pure censure on the government; but the vote was reversed in the House of Commons. On 7 May the ministry resigned, having obtained a bare majority of five in the commons on the Jamaica Bill. Peel, however, failed to form a government, in consequence of the bedchamber question, and Melbourne, ‘unwilling to abandon his sovereign in a situation of difficulty and distress,’ resumed office. In so acting he was constitutionally wrong, but was averse from placing an inexperienced sovereign in a difficult position until the feeling of the country had been decisively declared. He also thought of ‘the poor fellows who would have to give up their broughams.’ He had little sympathy with the education scheme, which was carried in a modified form before the close of the session, and threw cold water on the proposal to establish a liberal morning paper. During the remainder of its career his ministry was divided and discredited, and the premier himself was involved in the Lady Flora Hastings affair [see Hastings, Lady Flora]. Before the meeting of parliament, 16 Jan. 1840, the government had committed itself to wars with Persia, Afghanistan, and China, while the discontent of the working classes had found vent in the chartist riots at Newport and Birmingham. They escaped Buller's vote of want of confidence by 308 to 287, but the management of the questions connected with Prince Albert's allowance and precedence did not gain them much respect (Stockmar, ii. 24–46; Early Years of the Prince Consort, pp. 251, 263). The Irish Municipal Bill was passed after Melbourne had induced Russell to forego his opposition to Lyndhurst's amendments.
During the summer the cabinet was of divided mind on the Syrian question, in which Palmerston's diplomacy seemed about to commit us to a war with France. Greville has much contempt for Melbourne's conduct during the crisis. But his letters show that, though he was intensely anxious to prevent resignations, particularly that of Russell, he consistently supported Palmerston, and argued that by yielding to the threats of France we should lose influence, and encourage the French in a menacing policy, likely to end in war. He is even said by Hayward to have terminated the crisis by addressing a strong remonstrance to Louis Philippe through the king of the Belgians (Celebrated Statesmen, i. 41). There can be no doubt that some such communication was written (Raikes, Journal, ii. 262).
Melbourne was always opposed to any tampering with the corn laws. It was with much reluctance that he consented to a low fixed duty being made an ‘open question’ in 1838, as he ‘could not but doubt whether a large labouring population, dependent in any considerable degree upon foreign corn, was in a safe position.’ In 1841 he agreed to its being brought forward as a government proposal. After the cabinet dinner, at which the resolution was taken, he is said to have called from the stairs to his departing colleagues: ‘Stop a bit! Is it to lower the price of bread, or isn't it? It doesn't much matter which, but we must all say the same thing.’ The government were defeated by ten votes on the sugar duties, and on 27 May by one on a direct vote of want of confidence proposed by Peel. Much against Melbourne's better judgment, recourse was had to a dissolution, with the result that the government candidates were generally unsuccessful. The retirement of Plunket from the Irish chancellorship in favour of Campbell (Life of Lord Plunket, ii. 333), which was effected by pressure put upon Plunket by Melbourne, added to the unpopularity of the ministry. They were defeated in both houses on the address, and Melbourne announced their resignation on 30 Aug. The queen parted with him with the utmost regret, and after his resignation he did his best to establish cordial relations between her majesty and Peel (Greville, pt. ii. vol. ii. 39–43).
Melbourne continued to lead the opposition until after an attack of paralysis on 23 Oct. 1842, when he left the leadership to Lansdowne, and seldom afterwards ventured to speak. He was very indignant with Peel's conversion to free trade, and broke out at Windsor with ‘Ma'am, it's a damned dishonest act’ (Greville, pt. ii. vol. ii. p. 351). But he attended a meeting of the peers at Lansdowne House on 23 May 1846, and advised them not to oppose the abolition of the corn laws (Mr. Gladstone, in Nineteenth Century, January 1890). He continued to cling to the idea that he would be minister again, and was mortified when no place was offered him in the Russell ministry of 1846, though he acknowledged that he was too ill to accept office (Papers, p. 528). The statements that Melbourne, in his old age, was neglected by his friends have no foundation. He gave ​his last vote upon the Jewish disabilities question on 25 May 1848, and died on 24 Nov. of the same year, leaving no child.
Melbourne's manners were unconventional, and his talk interlarded with oaths. His conversation was a piquant mixture of learning, shrewdness, and paradox (for specimens see especially Greville, pt. i. vol. iii. pp. 129–33, Haydon, Life, ii. 350–405 passim; Leslie, Autobiography, i. 169 et seq.) Thus he said that Croker would dispute with the Recording Angel about the number of his sins, and of the results of the Catholic Emancipation Bill—‘the worst of it is, the fools were in the right.’ At the same time his was a peculiarly pensive and solitary mind. As a statesman he has been thought wanting in purpose and firmness. But Lady Palmerston declared that earnestness was the essential element of his character, and he was certainly firm enough with Brougham and William IV. The truth seems to be that he was a genuine liberal on many points, notably that of religious equality, and a conscientious supporter of the programme bequeathed to him by Grey. Further than that he was not inclined to go, and opposed an invariable ‘Why not leave it alone?’ to the proposals of the radical section of his party. As the instructor of a young sovereign he won universal approbation.
[Torrens's Memoirs of Lord Melbourne, 2 vols.; Lord Melbourne's Papers, edited by Lloyd C. Sanders, with preface by Earl Cowper; Queen Victoria's Letters, 1837–1861, ed. Esher and Benson, 1907; Hayward's Essay on Lord Melbourne (a reprint, with additions, from the Quarterly Review for January, 1878), in his Celebrated Statesmen and Writers; Greville Memoirs, especially pt. ii. vol. iii. pp. 241 et seq.; Sir H. Taylor's Autobiography; Miss E. J. Whately's Life and Correspondence of Archbishop Whately; Lord Houghton, in the Fortnightly Review, vol. xxix.; Earl Cowper in the Nineteenth Century, vol. xv.; Spencer Walpole's Life of Lord John Russell and Hist. of England, vol. iii.; Sir D. Le Marchant's Memoir of Lord Althorp; Sir T. Martin's Life of the Prince Consort, vol. i.; Dunckley's Lord Melbourne (Queen's Prime Ministers Ser.)]
L. C. S.