The Canton mail. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 18??-1882, 1875-02-27
LONDON GOSSIP.

LONDON GOSSIP.
Indignant Msjesty-vfctoria's Wrath at
tho Grevtlie Memofrs-Their Effect In
London Unpleasant Portraitures of
Aos aity-The Characters of Brunswicl
Kings.
1t is no secret that the queen has
been very much chagfined by the pub
LEGATION of the now famous Greviile
Memoirs. Her Indignation has been
freely expressed and unmeasured in its
terms. When Thackeray published his
lectures on the -Four Georges, he for
feited the invitation, which it had been
resolved upon to proffer him, to the
palscs His picture of the last George
was such q whitening bit of sarcasm,
not only on George in particular, but
upon Brunswick royalty in general, that
its latest repres entative was naturally
averse from extending hospitality to
the artist. But as Thackeray wss
''only an author" sort of upper class,
but in measure irresponsible Bohe-
milan, royalty could regard his lucubra-
tions with something like contempt
He hal no access to the secret history
OF the sovereigns he described he
never saw or knew OF them neither
could he speak with more authority
as to their vices and failines thsn any
scribolsr who chose to rake up and
boil down the gossipping memoirs OF
the last century. A very different per-
son, In the eyes of royalty, was Charles
G. F. Grev1lle. Esq, clerk to his mai
estyis right honorable privy council.
This gentleman was patrician, every
inch. The bluest blood ran in his
veins; for be was not only
relative OF the Earl of Warwick.
but the grandson of his grace, the
Duke of Norfolk, Premier Peer of Eng
land. Moreover, he occupied for
long period position which gave him
necessarily the greatest intimacy with
sovereigns and statesmen, which in
volved trusts of the most sacred i'm.
portance, and brought him into daily
contact with the utmost Familiarity.
with royal, noble and right honorable
personages. The clerk of the PRIV
council has apartments in the palace.
and Is indispensable to royal business.
Greville used to sit at the council board
just ut his msjestys elbow. It is
An Office which is provided with a
salary of f1,700 (sS, 5000 a year
and perquisites, and is at this
moment occupied by one of the
most elegant writer's and polished
scholars in England, Sir Arthur HELPS.
MIR. Charles @. F. GrevilIe was TINS
creme de la creme, not only of aristoc-
racy, but of circles of royal and politi-
cal society. A keen observer. a con.
hrmed cynic, utterly wanting in the
bump OF veneration, regarding and list
ening to the horse twaddle of the fourth
George with as much supercilious CON-
tempt as he would garrulous jockev.
he used his power and position to |
draw up, in the form of "Me-
moirs," an Indictment against the |
House of Brunswick" compared |
with which thst of Mr.. Charles
Bradlaugh is weak and wishy-wasby.
The sting of the offepse to her majesty |
the queen consists in its having been |
written by patrician and a clerk of |
the council. She sees, just as every |
body else here does, that the book is a |
more serious blow at English royalty
than all bikes demonstrations and |
Bradlaugh's harangues combined. Peo-
pie say: "Here is q man who had
every interest to uphold aristocratic in
situations, who was furtherest from in
duiging in democratic dreams or snb- I
versive schemes, who cared not a ran
for popular rights, and yet who, in the
privacy of his study, jots down that
George Nv. was a contemplate, COW.
ardly, selfish, unfeeling dog; that the
Duchess of Kent (the queens own
mother was ill-humored and WRONG.
headed; that the duke of York was
coarse and indicate; that the rovai
family were in perpetual squabble
and who, in the very last page of his
journal, characterized William ". as a
blackguard ard bufoon. "Indeed
never we're the private affairs of great
Personages 30 plainly, infinitely and
even brutality laid bare. No one can
rise from reading the Gresills Memoirs
without complete disgust at the whole
set OF selfish, registering, fippsnt
princes who ruled England during the
hrsf thirty years of the century. They
are published here in one of Murrav's
traditional heavy thres-volume editions.
yet their sale has been enormous, and
they are the almost exclusive talk. not
only OF the clubs and West End society.
but among classes of people usually roo
busy to iinger over royal gossip. Such
q book from recognized agitator or even
from q radical statesman of the time
would be read with interest for a time
and then thrown aside and forgotten.
Its strength and danger is in the source
from which it has come. Mr.. Henry
Reeve, the Register of the Council"
who has had the courage to edit the
memoirs, will be fortunate if he 80 fsr
escapes the royal wrath as to retain his
cosy office and salary of 81, 100 a year.
His expurgations have avowedIy been
very few and far between; it is difficult
to imagine anything that he could have
left out wore than many passages that
he has left in. In one respect, however,
the book will tell in favor of and not
against the present royal family. 1t
exhibits a very marked contrast bet xeen
royalty as it was and oyalty as it is in
England. The life of the Prince Con-
sort, OF which the frat volume has ap- .
peared, will do much as ccunteraciing
agent to Greville's Memoirs" as ex. ,
hibiting ths home-like simplicity, puri-
~ and grace Of the palace during Vic /,
toria's beneficent reign. There is no =
longer the brilliancy and extravagance,
but virtue, which has never been a !,