BOOKS.

THE DIARY APT CORRESPONDENCE OF LORD COLCHESTER.. Tins is one of the works that Charles Idamb would have included in his list of books that are not books. Yet "no gentleman's library might to be without it ; " it is full of business detail, fall of dates, memoranda, letters of more or less interest, comments on men, manneiv, political events, and social changes, which are not without value ; and it contains anecdotes which are some- times piquant and amusing. It is, however, as a whole, an aw- fully dull book. Carlyle's ghostly enemy, Dr. Dryasdust, could hardly have produced a heavier work. It abounds in entries recording that there was a finance committee or a drawing-room ; or that the Income-tax was put off; or that the diarist read a re- port, or went to Ramsgate—facts to be noted at the time in MS., but hardly worth perpetuating in print. In the three volumes of which this publication consists, we find no fewer than 1822 pages; some of them extremely superfluous, and not many of them of intrinsic paramount importance. Out of them, no doubt, a volume might be made, which would tell us all we want to know of Charles Abbot, Speaker of the House of Commons, if only Name enterprising cock of the literary walk could be found to spur out the jewels embedded in this rubbish heap. Regarding the three volumes before us, however, as not intended to be read, but only consulted for facts, dates, 8to., we can suppose that it may have a value for book-makers, politicians, and scandal- hunters, which we do not think it can have for ordinary men with common powers of literary digestion. As supplying mate- rial for extension, correction, or corroboration of statement, the 1822 pages may be referred to on occasion with profit and satis- faction. The arrangement of the matter is happily, but neces- sarily, chronological, the facts and events recorded being placed in separate chapters, each chapter comprising its own appropriate year, years, or part of a year. Each volume contains an analyti- cal table of contents, and the whole work is rendered more avail- able by a common index of references. The period included in this Diary and Correspondence falls between 1795 and 1829, and is certainly one of the most important eras in the history of our country, or of Europe. Of this period, about fifteen years (1802- 1817) were passed by Mr. Charles Abbot in the discharge of the duties of Speaker of the House of Commons. The salient points in the history of his life are noted in the memoir prefixed to the first volume of this work. He was the younger of the two sons of the Reverend John Abbot, Rector of All Saints, Colchester, of an ancient Dorsetshire family, and of Sarah, daughter of Jonathan Farr, of Lon- don. Born at Abingdon in Berkshire, on the 14th of October 1757, he was placed with his brother, as a home boarder at Westminster School, under the care of Dr. Markham. 1111775, he was admitted a student of Christ Church Oxford, where he obtained the Univer- sity prize for Latin Verse. His regular residence at Oxford, closing in the summer of 1778, Mr. Abbot went to Switzer- land for the purpose of studying civil law. After a year's absence, ha returned to England, began to keep terms in chambers near Lincoln's Inn, was enrolled in the Temple to bear a musket in Howorth's company, during the Lord George Gordon riots, when Mansfield commanded the entire force ; and, finally, was chosen Venerian scholar (1781), and then fellow, (1788). In Easter Term, 1783, he was called to the Bar by the Middle Temple, com- menced practice in the Court of King's Bench, joining the Oxford and Chester Circuit, but subsequently limiting himself to the Court of Equity. In 1794, renouncing his high professional aspi- rations, he accepted the office of the Clerk of the Rules in the Court of King's Bench, "as a less fatiguing occupation than that of a practising barrister." In June 1795, on the recommendation of the Duke of Leeds, he was elected to serve in Parliament as the representative of the borough of Helston, in Cornwall. In his parliamentary capacity, Mr. Abbot supported the Seditious Assem- blies' Bill, opposed by Fox and his friends in 1795, procured the introduction of certain practical improvements in legislation ; sat as chairman of the Finance Committee appointed by Mr. Pitt in 1797; moved, in 1800, for a Committee, out of whose report arose the Royal Commission for the better arrangement and preserva- tion of the public records of the realm ; and, in 1801, introduced a bill for ascertaining the population of Great Britain with the in- crease or diminution thereof, "the first of those acts which have since been passed decennially, with increased scope of inquiry, fully elucidating questions of statistical knowledge previously but little understood." In December 1796, Mr. Abbot married Miss Elizabeth Gibbea, eldest daughter of Sir Philip Gibbes. On the formation of Mr. Addington's administration, in February, 1801, Mr. Abbot received the appointment of Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, to which was afterwards added the office of Keeper of the Privy Seal. On the 10th of February 1802, succeeding Sir John Mitford, brother of the author of the libellous History of Greece, he was elected to fill the vacant chair of the Speaker of the House of Commons. As Speaker, Mr. Abbot esta- blished a great improvement in the conduct of private bills, as well as in the printing of the votes, by introducing an abstracted form of which, "showing the business done on the preceding day, and also the business to be done on the day of delivery, Members were each morning put in possession of the cur- rent business of the day, instead of having to seek for it as best they might." In September, 1809, on the resigna- • The Diary and Correspondence of Charles Abbot, Lord Colchester, Speaker of Lie House of Commons, 1802-1817. Edited by his Son, Charles, Lord Colchester. In three volumes. Published by Murray. tion of Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Canning, Mr. Abbot de,- dined the seals of Secretai7 of State, offered him by Mr. Percival. Later, we find him acting as First Commissioner for the execu- tion of Public Works carried on by public grants, and directing a Committee for regulating and superintending the establishment of a new General Penitentiary at Millbank. This snperaddition of labour, depriving him of air and exercise, completed the de- struction of his health, and on the 28th of May, 1817, he ten- dered his resignation. A peerage (the Barony of Colchester), a pension of 4000/. a year to himself, and 30001. a year to his next successor in the title, were the rewards conferred upon the re- tiring Speaker. A vote of thanks (which he seems to have well deserved), " for his eminent and distinguished services during the long and eventful period in which he discharged the duties of Speaker, with a zeal and ability alike honourable to himself and, advantageous to the service a the House, was also passed with general concurrence." Prevented from taking any active share in the public business for the two years following his retirement, Lord Colchester passed his winters at Genoa, Rome, and Nice, and his summers in travelling through the principal portions of France and Italy. Returning to England in 1822, he became a constant attendant in the House of Lords serving on Committees, or occu- pying himself in facilitating the general business of the House. Attached to the old Tory notions of the constitution' Lord Col- chester opposed the admission of Roman Catholics to political power, while at the same time he held the liberal opinion that the whole career of civil honours and. emoluments should be laid open to them. In his view, and his view was right as far as it went, "the emancipation required by Ireland was from poverty ; the grant, a means to work, and find. that industry was profit- able. ' On the 16th of February, 1829, he presented a petition, and spoke against the Roman Catholic claims. This was the last time that Lord Colchester addressed "the Lords." In March, his malady confined him to one floor of his house. He lingered on during this and the following month, expiring early on the 8th of May, in the seventy-second year of his age. "His mortal re- mains were buried in the North transept of Westminster Abbey." Lord Colchester seems to have been a man of shrewd, though somewhat contracted, mind, of punctual business-like habits and amiable disposition. Acting with the old Conservative party, he was occasionally disposed to liberal compliance, as when he con- curred in the removal of the Sacramental Test, by which Dis- senters were excluded from office. If he possessed no statesman- like qualities, he saw far into the real condition of Ireland when he avowed his belief that its great want was "a means to work, and find that industry was profitable." His diary evinces a pa- tient, laborious, persevering disposition, and a clear, if not deep, intellect. His notices of men and things indicate acuteness ; and some power of observation. It is interesting to read what he says of Pitt, of Burke, and of Fox even if he gives but an abstract of a speech, as in the case of the former great Minister— "Mr. Pitt opposed the second reading of Mr. Whitbread's bill for enab- ling magistrates to fix a minimum for the wages of labourers in husbandry. He objected that it was either creating an engine of oppression if the magis- trates in the exercise of their power fixed the rate too low, or a source of profusion, if they fixed it too high ; and that, if they had information and ability to adjust it accurately, it was only doing what would happen better by leaving labour to find its own value, which it would do if left unfettered. He threw out, as7a better scheme of policy, the expedieney of facilitating this purpose by Unfettering the poor from the restraints under the present law of settlement, Sm. He suggested also the propriety of giving pecuniary relief only to the impotent, dm ; of giving relief to others, not m money, but in employment, for which they should receive hire; of establishing schools of of industry for educating the children of the poor according to Lord Hale's and Mr. Locke's projects ; and of subjecting the whole to a new system of inspection and Parliamentary control, with an annual report, in the nature of a budget, on the subject.'

Of Whitbread, Lord Colchester tells a pleasing as well as amusing anecdote

" In the course of this debate (that on Sir Francis Burdett), Sir Joseph Yorke angrily called Whitbread a brewer of bad porter.' There was a vio- lent uproar in the House. I saw Whitbread instantly took the thing with good humour, and I refused to let anybody else speak till the uproar sub- sided. He then rose and said, Mr. Speaker, I rise as a tradesman to com- plain of the gallant officer for abusing the commodity which I sell;' upon which the whole House burst into laughter and approbation at the self- command and good humour with which Whitbread put an end to the fury of his friends."

In an agreeable account of an afternoon's conversation with Fox, who drank tea in Mr. Abbot's room, we are told that Fox main- tained that the dark ages were not so very dark as we were apt to represent them, instancing the architectural monuments, and the spirited and learned style of Pope Hildebrand ; that he greatly admired Livy's speeches, but looked on his history as in the main little better than a beautiful romance ; while he con- sidered the Greek historians (Herodotus included) to possess greater appearance of diligent search for truth, and to have more verisimilitude.

"In talking of books upon political economy, he said (as I have often heard him say in:debate), that he had but little faith in Adam Smith, or any of them, their reasons were so plausible, but so inconclusive. That theology had occupied a large share of the acutest intellects among the best writers of this country ; whereas in Greece, arts and arms engrossed the whole effarts of the human mind ; and their progress and eminence in those pur- suits had probably been the greater for their abandonment of all other pur- suits, such as engaged modern nations in commerce, manufactures, he., ho. In this desultory talk, he was extremely pleased, and appeared to please himself. N.B.—This was the last, or very nearly the last, time of Mr. Fox attending the House of Commons." Another famous personage mentioned in this diary is Edmund Burke. In 1796, appeared his "Letter to the Duke of Bedford," written, says Mr. A bbot, "in his best style of imagery and inree- tive against. sanseulotte dukes," and amusingly described by his Grace of Leeds as "Billingsgate in Buskins." At this time, Burke's history happened to be the subject of conversation at two houses where Abbot was present, the Archbishop of York's, and Edward Law's, afterwards Lord. Ellenborough. We quote the passage which relates to the pecuniary resources of Burke. It may be read in connexion with the remarks made on that "penni- less adventurer," in the last number of the Spectator.

"The Solicitor-General said he knew that Burke started in life with 19,0001. He was first employed under the Duke of Northumberland, when Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland ; and wrote all the papers of that time extremely well ; he was afterwards brought into Parliament by Lord Verney ; and Charles Townsend, the then Minister, complimented him on his first speeches, and proposed to his friends, as his circumstances were narrow, a seat at the Board of Customs or Excise, which would have excluded him from Parlia- ment. He gave 21,0001. for Gregory, at Beaconsfield; i.e. he paid 11,000/. and mortgaged the estate back for 10,000/. It consisted of house, 200 acres of park and farms besides, producing a rental of 4501.

We sometimes find letters in these volumes worth reading for their historical information ; as those of Lord Redesdale, or for the sketches of contemporary men and manners which they con- tain, as those of Mr. Jackson in 1801. The latter gentleman, describing society in Paris, asks his friend-

" What do you think of Lord Cornwallis, with all his dignity of decorum, dining the other day at a table of thirty covers with the kept mistresses, and being obliged ex officio, to hand out the ugliest and frailest of them, because she was in keeping of the Minister for Foreign Affairs. I am going to dine today he adds with Fouche de Nantes, the ingenious andhumane inventor of the Marines Republicains under Robespierre. He is now Minister of Police." [It is, we believe, to Carrier and not to Fouche, that the merit of this matrimonial invention should be ascribed.]

A few years after this, an investigation into the conduct of the Duke of York was instituted in the House of Commons, ac- companied by a discussion on "undue and immoral influence." We read in this diary of the dismissal of the last favourite, Mr. Carey, and we are told with a reference to Mrs. Clarke, how the joke in the streets among the people was not to cry "Heads and Tails," when they toss up halfpence,. but "Duke and Dar-

fn 1821, Lord Colchester

"Arrived at Pesaro where the Queen of England, when Princess of Wales, hired a villa upon the hill beyond the town. She bought another, and gave it to Mademoiselle Victoire, a little daughter of Bergamo's and called it Villa Vittoria. She has since bought it back Bergamo lives in the town of Pesaro, in a house upon the bastion to the left of the gate on entering from Fano. It was once a convent, sold by the French to a per- son of Modena, and purchased by Bergamo for 3000 scudi. He goes every day to superintend the works at the Queen's villa, and returns to the town before noon. He is conspicuous by his moustaches, and a carriage drawn by piebald horses. He has lately bought property at San Marino, belonging to his wife's relations, the Bellucci, and in right of that possession is be- come a Chevalier di San Marino. He appears on the Corso, and at the opera of an evening."

Reaching Venice at the beginning of Tune, Lord Colchester re- marked that the Venetian women, before marriage, do not go out, and inserted in his diary an amusing account of the expedient to which the Austrian mothers resorted, when invited to bring their unmarried daughters to a ball given by "the wife of the last Austrian Governor."

"After some hesitation, she was answered by a joint note from the mothers, that they could only come on one condition ; namely, that a grating was erected in the ball-room, behind which they might sit and see the rest of the company dance. The grating was actually erected, and the young ladies came and sat all the evening to look through the grating and see their mothers dance."

Fancy the bright eyes and beaming faces, the happy, amiable feelings, and sweet childlike content, with which the young ladies of England, when invited to some ducal ball, would "come and sit all the evening to .look through the grating, and see their mothers dance!"

Some curious intimations or assertions will be found scattered through these volumes. Thus, Mr. Abbot says—" From Burton, I learned that the Reverend Mr. Burt, of Twickenham, actually mar- ried the Prince of Wales to Mrs. Fitzherbert, and received 500/. for doing it as he himself declared to his family on his deathbed." So again we read that Wellesley Pole showed one a letter from the Duke of Wellington to himself [written a few days after the victory of Waterloo], describing the battle as "the hardest he had ever fought:" "that he was never in his life so near losing a battle : " mentioning his loss as immense in that most valuable of all in- struments—British infantry, &c."

• Commenting on Lord Cochrane's case in 1814, the editor states, and states truly, that he had been convicted of being an accom- plice in his uncle's guilt. The circumstances under which that conviction was procured are now fully ascertained ; and, as the subject was recently discussed in a notice of Lord Dundonald's autobiography, in the Spectator, we shall not refer to it in this place, further than to say, that the conviction was more discredit- able to Lord Ellenborough than it was to the great English sea- man and pure patriot whom it was supposed to disgrace. Among the mere Parliamentary portions of the Diary, which will be found to have some interest, is that which relates to Mr. Spencer Stanhope's motion respecting the expediency of Lord Cochrane's judge, Lord Ellenborough, as Chief Justice of the King's Bench, being a member of the Cabinet; when it was argued in the House that this junction of offices would put the functionary himself "into the situation of having to try the very prosecutions he might not only have examined, but might have advised, and thereby render himself suspected of being counsel for the prosecution instead of the prisoner, and, as it were, both party and judge." The papers and letters relating to China, Maynooth, and Em- mett's conspiracy, supply details that will engage the attention of the casual reader, as well as of those who refer to them for some special purpose. Illustrations of life, manners, and scienti- fic invention, will also be found dispersed through the pages of this diary. Some will read with a smile of the fête at Carlton House, where the Prince had. a long table, (not less than 200 feet long, which had a river of water,) and little gudgeons swimming about in its entire length. Mr. Abbot, who was present, thought his children would have been amused by it. All the grown chil- dren, he tells us, were, except Mr. Tierney, who didn't admire "that Sadler's Wells' business of the rivulet, and the swimming fishes." Among the scientific inventions which Mr. Abbot notes down, are Bramah's hydraulic engine for taking up trees by the roots (A.D. 1813), and. Dr. &Chi& apparatus for unrolling the papyri from Herculaneum (1817). On the 28th of March, 1817, he notes that State Lotteries were generally condemned, but that the question for this year (their produce being half-a-million) was got rid of by the previous question. In an extract of a letter from Mr. Booke 'Wilbraham occur some curious facts about the quan- tity of gunpowder used in various actions and sieges—Lille, be- sieged, 1793, six days, 4000 barrels ; St. Sebastian, 5579; Copenhagen, 1800; Waterloo, 569; Algiers, 2000.

French knowledge of English nomenclature and pedigree in 1821 seems to have been pretty much on a par with what it is in 1861, unless we suppose our neighbours to have greatly improved of late. Think of a Frenchman asking the Duke of Bedford forty years since, his grace being the "Lord John" of that day, Are you of the same family with the celebrated Tom John (meaning Tom Jones) ? "The Duke told, this anecdote himself to Lady Davy."

We shall give but one more extract from these volumes. It illustrates the simple piety and shrewd observation which his ad- mirers commend in" Good King George the Third." On the 29th of October, 1795, the King was insulted on his way to the House of Lords. There was an immense mob, cries were heard of "Down with tyrants," "No King," &c. ; stones and dirt were thrown at the State carriage ; and one of the coach-glasses was pierced by a stone or bullet,

"When the shot was fired, Lord Westmoreland and Lord Onslow, who were in the coach with the King, were extremely agitated, but the King bade them be still : afterwards, he said, 'My lords, you are supposing this and proposing that, but there is one who disposes of all things, and in Him I trust. When a stone was thrown at one of his glasses in returning home, he said, That is a stone,—you see the difference from a bullet.' When another stone was thrown, which lodged in his sleeve, he gave it to Lord Onslow, and said, My lord, keep this as a memorandum of the civilities which we have received.' "