The Sun.
London, England, 1844-07-15 00:00:00

LITERATURE

DIARIES and CORRESPONDENCE of LORD
MALIPIESBURY. 2 Vols. Bentley, London, 1844.
James Harris, the first Earl of Malmesbury, who
was engaged in the public service of his country,
chiefly on foreign embassies, for upwards of thirty
years of his life, was the son of the well-known
author of" Philosophical Treatises" and of " Hermes,"
and was born at Salisbury in the year 1746. His
father, who was Secretary and Comptroller of the
Queen's Household, sat in Parliament till his death in
1780; and it is related that when he first took his seat in
the House of Commons, John Townsend asked who he
was, and being told that he had written on Grammar
and Harmony, replied, " Why, then, does he come
here, where he will hear neither ?"—an apt and
ready sarcasm, worthy of Selwyn, or even Sheridan.
The interest which the elder Harris's literary talents
had obtained for him among the leading men of the
time, enabled him to launch his son early into
public life ; and the latter's own undoubted
abilities, combined, with sound practical sense,
perseverance, and inflexible integrity, such as
was by no means common among the statesmen
of his earlier years, raised him subsequently to the
highest diplomatic distinction. "Of his boyhood,"
says his biographer, " I can give no anecdote but the
following one, which was related to me by his kins-
man, Lord Shaftesbury, and proves him to have been
a bold and active lad :—As Mrs. Harris was walking
with some friends, before her house, in the Close of
Salisbury, she descried a person climbing up the spire
of the cathedral, and having obtained a glass, the
better to observe so perilous a feat, imme-
diately dropped it, with the exclamation—' Good
Heavens, it is James ! ' The astonished lady
had identified her only son upon the apex of the
tallest steeple in Great Britain !" In due course young
Harris was sent to Winchester, and afterwards to
Oxford, where he contrived, with exemplary dili-
gence, to learn just as much as gentlemen commoners
usually learn at the Universities—that is to say,
nothing at all. In the autumn of 1767 he was ap-
pointed Secretary of Embassy to the Court of
Madrid, and having, during the absence of the
Ambassador, undertaken upon his own responti-
bility, the affair of the Falkland Islands, on which,
it may be rememembered, one of Johnson's
finest pamphlets was written—he conducted it with
such temper and firmness, as at once established his
diplomatic reputation, and obtained him the post of
Minister at Berlin. At this period Frederick the
Great was in the full vigour of his genius, and Lord
Malmesbury's Diary and Correspondence furnish us
with some amusing accounts of his peculiarities,
which, however, we must receive, cunt grano salis, for
his Lordship's journal clearly shows that he
entertained no very favourable feelings towards
this illustrious Monarch. As an instance of his
meanness, he tells us that at the festival given in
honour of the Prince of Dessan's marriage, " all the
apartments except those immediately dedicated to
supper or cards, were lighted by one single candle!
The supper itself was badly served and without dessert,
the wines were bad, and the quantity of them stinted."
If we remember rightly, the chief cause of the vio-
lent quarrel that took place between Frederick and
Voltaire, was the disgust of the former at the
latter's parsimony. The King had thought fit,
in one of his economical moods, to curtail
his philosophic guest's daily allowance of
coffee, on which the latter in revenge pocketed
all the royal wax-candles on which he could lay his
hands, and was in consequence denounced as an in-
grate and a thief! Lord Malmesbury insists much
on the fact of Frederick's cruelty, adding that " the
most ferocious and brutal are sure of promotion with
him." It is not thus that history speaks of him. He
was a stern man and an inflexible disciplinarian ; but
he was generally just, and could be at times
even magnanimous, and was certainly anything
but cruel in his conduct towards his subjects, or his
death would not have been so universally lamented by
them as we all know it was. On quitting Berlin,
Lord Malmesbury was appointed to the Court of
Catherine the Second, at St. Petersburgh, and his
correspondence at this period is full of interest. As
a matter of course, he saw much of the famous
Prince Potemkin, and bears testimony to the wonder-
ful, and almost tyrannical influence which he
exercised over the mind of his Sovereign.
Favourite after favourite in turn gained the affections
of Catherine, but Potemkin never. once lost his ho:d
on her regard. She consulted him on all cases of
emergency, endured his bold plain-speaking, and
even submitted to his bullying without a murmur.
This is scarcely to be wondered at, when one con-
siders the character of the two individuals. Beth
were sagacious - determined unscrupulous
both were equally devoured by ambition. In the
nature of Potemkin Catherine could not but recognise
the reflection of her own ; she knew, too, that their
interests were in common ; that he, deprived of
her countenance, would be reduced to a mere
cypher, and that she could find no one
else in her dominions so fully capable of sympathising
with, and carrying out, her vast projects of territorial
aggrandisement. While resident at St. Petersburgh,
Lord Malmesbury, among other noted statesmen of
that time, saw a good deal of Count Cobenzel, of
whom he never speaks otherwise than with respect.
The Count, however, was a very overrated diploma-
tist, and history has long since reduced him to his
fitting level. He was familiar with all the forms
of Court etiquette, and a devout idolater of
royalty ; but there was nothing lofty or sa-
gacious in his views; nothing bold or decided
in his character ; he was a mere political
petit-maitre ; and when some years afterwards he
had to transact diplomatic business with Napoleon,
his utter want of skill, spirit, and efficiency were at
once made apparent. The volumes before us close
with the particulars of the split between the Whigs
in the memorable year 1793, when Lord Malmes-
bury, who had then returned to England, joined the
party who, with Burke and several others, seceded
from Fox. His Lordship gives many curious and
amusing personal details relative to this secession ; but
we prefer quoting his graphic sketch of Frederick
the Great:—

" The chief amusement of the Ring of Prussia is
playing on the flute, which he does in a masterly manner.
I had an opportunity of hearing him for a long time, as
I was waiting in his antechamber, to be presented to him.
Though no person is ever permitted to be present at his
concerts but the performers, and some very few others,
yet so afraid is he of playing false that when he is to
try some new piece of music, he shuts himself up some
hours beforehand in his closet to practise it, and even
then when he begins it with the accompaniments he
always trembles. He has a very fine collection of these
instruments, and is particularly nice in the keeping of
them. He has appointed a man who has nothing else
to do but look after them, and preserve them dry or
moist as the season requires. They are all made by the
same man, and he pays a hundred ducats for each flute.
In the last war, when he distributed false money to
every one, he took care that his flute-maker should be
paid in good coin, fearing that otherwise he would im-
pose upon him, and give him bad instruments.
" Great contradictions in the character of this mo-
narch—profusion of expense in some articles, and the
most niggardly economy in ethers. As a proof of the
first, the sum of money sunk in erecting the Chateau
Neuf, near Sans Souci, where every room is fur-
nished in the most expensive manner, and that not in
taste, but with loads of gilding and tawdry furniture.
This edifice is his own architecture, and I think will not
do him honour. It is built of the most flaming coloured
brick, intermixed with stone pillars and niches, which
are crowded, not with single statues, but whole groups,
and these not after antiques, but according to the fancy
of the workmen The disposition of the rooms in the
inside is very bad, full of doors—four in the room de-
signed for his bed-chamber. One would imagine that in
his buildings he has imitated Louis XIV. Like him,
who preferred the bottom of Versailles to the terrace of
St. Germains, he has given a preference for the situa-
tion of this new palace to a marshy meadow, before the
side of a hill close by—like him, he has instituted
Une Ecole Militaire, an HOpital des Invalides,' &c.
As proofs of his meanness, one might cite the smallness
of his pay to all about his court, and employed by
him; but above all, the economy that is attended to in
all manner of festivities given at his expense. On these
occasions, he suffers no one to interfere, but orders
everything, down to the quantity of wax candles, him-
self. I had frequent opportunities of observing this at
the feast given in honour of the Prince of Dessau's
marriage, at which I was present. All the apartments,
except those immediately dedicated to supper or cards,
were lighted by one single candle. The supper itself
was badly served, and without dessert—the wines bad,
and the quantity of them stinted. I asked, after dancing,
for some wine and water, and was answered, The wine
is all gone, but you may have some tea.' It must be
observed, that these are not public entertainments where
all mankind is admitted, and where these sort of restric-
tions are allowable, but those to which only people of a
certain rank, foreign ministers and strangers, are
suffered to come. I saw the King myself directing his
servants in the lighting up the ball-room, and telling
them where and how they should place the candles.
While this operation was performing, the Queen, the
royal family, and company, were waiting, literally in the
dark, as his Majesty did not begin this ceremony till
supper was finished, and no one dared to presume to
give orders to have it done. When I was to be presented
to him, his Grand Marechal, by mistake, carried me into
a wrong room in the great apartment, instead of that
appointed by the Kiug upstairs in his own. When he
passed by, he would not suffer me to be presented that
day."

WRANGELL'SSIBERIA AND POLAR SEA.

Madden, London, 1844.
The expedition to the Polar Sea, of which the nar-
rative is contained in this duodecimo volume, was
undertaken in 1820 and the three following years, by
Admiral Wrangel], of the Russian navy, and the
work is now brought out under the superintendence
of Lieutenant-Colonel Sabine, R.A. It is an in-
teresting record of privations and difficulties in
the regions of intense cold and barrenness, manfully
struggled against and finally overcome, by a hardy
band of adventurers ; but in other respects it can
scarcely he called en attractive work, for we know
almost all about the Polar Seas that we are ever
likely to know, considering that nature seems to have