THE CROKER PAPERS.* [SECOND NOTICE.] IT is difficult to know

how to dispose the palm for interest among the different sections of this extraordinarily varied and entertaining collection,—to decide whether it belongs to the diaries and letters written from Paris a fortnight after the battle of Waterloo, to the conversations with the Duke of Wellington, or to the statement by George IV. The last is, indeed, a remark- able document. There is something almost pathetic in the spectacle of the Monarch explaining, through Mr. Croker, what a great and noble spirit he really possessed,—how truthful, how generous, how just, and how faithful to his friends he always

• • The Correspondence and Diaries of the Late Right Ironourable John Wilson Croker, LLD., F.R.S., Secretary to the Admira/to front 1839 to 1830. Edited by Louis J. Jennings. With portrait. 3 vols. London Johu Murray. 1 t. was. Mr. Croker seldom allows posterity the chance of a, smi!e at his expense ; but the intoxication of the Royal confidence waa for once too much for him. Even his admirable style is thrown out of gear, as with breathless excitement he tells us of the King's kindness. "Seeing that I listened with great interest to what he related, he guessed the desire which certainly I should not have ventured to express, and he handed me a sheet of paper, and successively others, and permitted me to make notes of what he said, and he even moderated the flow of his narration when he saw that I had any difficulty in following him." Mr. Grolier

becomes fervent with admiration when he thinks of "the clear- ness, grace, and vivacity," which his notes so ill represent. As for the King's mimetic efforts, in his narration of conversations Mr. Croker had never seen the like, and aware as he was of the King's powers, he has to confess that for so extraordinary a display he "was not eLtirely prepared." The statement is, indeed, full of curious facts ; and were it only possible to trust to it, would be a very valuable source of information. It would not be wise, however, to lay too much stress on its veracity. We must not omit to take into consideration the fact that during the last few years of his reign, when the conversation took place, his Majesty was absolutely convinced that he had led the Guards at Waterloo. That some delusions of the kind may have possessed the Royal mind as regards other actions of his life is an opinion which may be hazarded, though with the extremest diffidence.

The King began by telling Mr. Croker some of the circum-

stances connected with the famous Regency Bill, and of an extraordinary paper drawn up by Burke to be presented to the King on his recovery. The paper was of so violent a kind that Sheridan, when he read it, could only say that, if it ever got pub- lished, people in future, "instead of saying of anything violent that it out.Heroded Herod,' would say that it out-Barked Burke.'" The following is the account of the Regent's last

meeting with Sheridan, some three years after Sheridan's failure :—

"I saw him for the last time on August 17th, 1815. I know the day from this circumstance, that I had gone to pay my brother a visit at Oatlands on his birthday ; and next day, as I was crossing over to Brighton, I saw in the road, near Leatherhead, old Sheridan coming along the pathway. I see him now in the black stockings, and blue coat with metal battens. I said to Blomfield, There is Sheridan ;' but as I spoke he turned off into a lane when we were within about thirty yards of him, and walked off without looking behind him. That was the last time I ever saw Sheridan, nor did I hear of, or from, him for some months; but one morning MacMahon came up to my room, and after a little hesitation and apology for speaking to me about a person who had so lately swindled me and him so shamelessly, he told me that Mr. Vaughan—' Hat Vaughan' they used to call him—had called to say that Sheridan was- dangerously ill and really in great distress and want. I think no one who ever knew me will doubt that I immediately said that his illness and want made me forget his faults, and that he must be taken care of, and that any money that was necessary I desired he would immediately advance."

The King proceeded to say that he placed 2500 at once at Mr.. Vaughan's disposal for the purpose of relieving Sheridan's con- dition. The dreadful end has been described before; but it may not be out of place to quote the King's account of the matter, as could it be corroborated, it would do a great deal to relieve George IV.'s character from the charge of heartlessness. The following is the description of how Sheridan and his wife were discovered," both in their beds, both apparently dying, and both starving" :—

"When he entered the house be found all the reception-rooms bare, and the whole house in a state of filth and stench that was quite in- tolerable. Sheridan himself he found in a truckle bed in a garret with a coarse blue and red coverlid, such as one sees used as horse- cloths, over him ; out of this bed he had not moved for a week, not even for the occasions of nature, and in this state the unhappy man had been allowed to wallow, nor could Vaughan discover that any one had taken any notice of him except one old female friend—whose name I hardly know whether I am authorised to repeat—Lady Bess borough, who sent £20. Some ice and currant-water were sent from Holland House—an odd contribution ; for if it was known that he wanted these little matters, which might have been had at the con- fectioners, it might have been suspected that he was in want of more- essential things. Yet, notwithstanding this misery, Sheridan, on seeing Mr. Vaughan, appeared to revive : he said he was quite well, talked of paying off all his debts, and though be had not eaten a morsel for a week, and had not had a morsel to eat, he spoke with a certain degree of alacrity and hope. Mr. Vaughan saw, however, that this was a kind of bravado, and that be was in a fainting state, and he immediately procured him a little spiced wine and toast, which was the first thing (except brandy) that he had tasted for some days."

The King ended his relation by explaining the means by which Mr. Vaughan relieved the distress of the Sheridans ; and how in.

the end the money which he had expended was all returned by Mrs. Sheridan's friends. The end of the foresaken worldling is always lamentable enough. But perhaps it is easier to keep patience when the case is that of a mere fop like Beau Brummel, than when it is that of the man who had said the best things, written the best plays, and made the best speeches of his age.

Paris wore a strange aspect when Mr. Croker visited it in July, 1815. The Boulevards were being patrolled by the Life Guards. In the Carrousel were encamped 2,000 Prussians. "Picturesque and savage" they seemed to the observer, for in those days people thought of Prussians as we do now of Cossacks. Certainly their General, Bbicher, did nothing to alter the notion when he demanded a contribution of 100 millions from the city, shut up the Bourse, arrested all the bankers, and did his best to blow up the Pont de Jena. To an Englishman, not the least interesting sight was, of course, the encampment of the English troops in the Bois de Boulogne,—the whole thing looking, however, more like a fair than a camp. Strange were the scenes to be witnessed on all sides. The

gambling-houses on the Palais Royal were thronged with officers of all nations. The levees of the Emperors of Austria and Russia

vied with those of the Bourbon King, who one day held his Court surrounded by the Napoleonic Marshals, and the next received the English officers to congratulate them "on their glory, and thank them for their generosity towards his poor subjects."

The dinners of diplomatists were perpetual. At first it caused the Englishmen some wonder to find themselves at the same table with Pouch& "who, to be sure," says Mr. Croker, "looks very like what one would naturally suppose him to be—a sly old rogue ; but I think he seems to feel a passion of which I did not expect to find him capable ; I mean shame, for he looks conscious and embarrassed." Mr. Croker, while in Paris, was officially occupied with the capture of Napoleon. He gives, in his journal-letter to his wife, a curious account of an interview with General Becker, "the officer who was charged with the surveillance of Buonaparte :"—

" Becker showed us a copy of Buonaparte's letter to the Prince Regent, in which he says that, driven out of home by internal factions and foreign enemies, he came, like Themistocles, to sit on the British hearth, and to claim the protection of our laws from the 'plus puissant, plus constant, et plus genereux de sea ennemis.' In read- ing this, when I came to Tlantistocle, who certainly was the last person I expected to meet there, I could not help bursting out into a loud laugh, which astonished the French, who thought all beautiful, but Themistocle sublime and pathetic. I called the whole letter a base flattery, and said that Buonaparte should have died rather than have written such a one. The only proper answer to it would have been to have enclosed him a copy of one of his Moniteurs, in which he accused England of assassination and every other horror. La Place said that Buonaparte ought to have died, if not by his own hand (which, however, he seemed to think would be better than not dying at all), at least in battle. I said he preferred living like a Grecian to dying like a Roman. They all seemed to agree that he had no heart, either in the sense of magnanimity or feeling ; and M. de Gancourt told us a saying, un mot, of his mother,—' Et pour le coeur, Napoleon il en voulut.' She meant to say that he had disposition to feel, just enough to make him wish that he had had a heart. Madame la Princesse said she had heard him say that he had /e mar a la tete, on some particular occasion, and that one who was by said afterwards that he was glad he had it anywhere."

In his journey home from Paris, Mr. Grolier visited the field of Waterloo. His description of its appearance so soon after the battle, when" the marks of trampling, .Szc., were still visible," and the whole field was "strewed with the cartridges and waddings of the cannon," is very curious. He seems to have noticed what has so much struck observers of modern battle-fields,—that the ground was .strewed with letters. Mr. Cioker describes these as "thrown out of the pockets of the killed and wounded." More sentimental observers have found them of pathetic interest,—the latest words from home of wives or sweethearts that the dying men had drawn out to look at once more.

Various conversations with the Duke of Wellington are scattered throughout the book ; but the notes of most import- ance are those taken at Sndbourne in 1826. On this occasion the Duke of Wellington, speaking of Talleyrand, said :—

" It may seem odd to confess, but I never could discover on what grounds Talleyrand's great reputation as a Minister was built. I never found him a man of business, nor, I must say, able in affairs. When things were returning after the anarchy to a more settled state, the Directory were glad to get anyone of the old school who had any reputation to give a kind of respectability to their administration. Buonaparte did the same. To have been a member of the Constituent Assembly, and to have outlived the Revolution, was itself a merit in those days. The Revolution was a kind of Tontine; and Talleyrand, Fouche, and half-a-dozen others accumulated all its advantages on their own heads by mere benefit of survivorship. It is easy enough to be a successful Minister of Foreign Affairs to a Government which has military possession of Europe. As to his Ministry under Buonaparte, it was almost a sinecure ; the chef de l'etat major was the real Minister of Foreign Affairs, and what he did not do Buonaparte did himself, and Talleyrand often received applause and censure for things that he never saw nor heard of till they were brought to him for signature."

The opinions expressed by the Duke of Wellington in regard to other Generals are well worthy of notice. Mr. Croker asked him whether the Archduke Charles was really a great officer,-

" 'A great officer ? Why, he knows more about it than all of us put together.'—Croker. What, .than Buonaparte, Moreau, or yourself ?— Aye ! than Buonaparte or any of us. We are none of us worthy to fasten the latcheta of his shoes, if I am to judge from his books and his plans of campaign. But his mind or his health has, they tell me, a very peculiar defect. He is admirable for five or six hours, and whatever can be done in that time will be done perfectly ; but after that he falls into a kind of epileptic stupor, does not know what he is about, has no opinion of his own, and does whatever the man at his elbow tells him."

To Mr. Croker the Duke of Wellington confirmed the curious story that he risked there being a ford in the river at Assye, because be saw a village on each bank, and guessed that they must communicate by a ford, or they would not have been built thus :—

" On that conjecture, or rather reasoning in defiance of all my grades and informants, I took the desperate resolution, as it seemed, of marching for the river,—and I was right. I found a passage, crossed my army over, had no more to fear from the enemy's cloud of cavalry, and my army, small as it was, was just enough to fill the space between the two streams, so that both my flanks were secure, and there I fought and won the battle of Assye, the bloodiest for the numbers that I ever saw ; and that was all from my having the common-sense to guess that men do not build villages on opposite sides of a stream without some means of com- munication between them. If I had not taken that sudden resolu- tion, we were, I assure you, in a most dangerous predicament."

With this curious fact in connection with that Indian battle and its fierce cannonade, of which the Duke of Wellington was always so proud, we must conclude our notice of this most entertaining and valuable collection of papers ; but we may add a wish that Mr. Jennings will continue his labours. Could be not edit a selection from Mr. Croker's literary and historical essays ? It seems a pity that so much of value and interest should not be more accessible to the general reader.