A. BOOK OF THE MOMENT.

THE LETTERS OF CHARLES GREVILLE AND HENRY REEVE.

The Letters of Charles Greville and Henry Reeve. Edited by A. H. Johnson. (London : T. Fisher Unwin. 21s. net.) THIS is a book concerned with two men and an epoch which

during the last thirty years has been in the shadow. Already, however, there is an edge of light round the period from '45 to '75, and very soon those years will be as interesting and as stimulating to the new generation as the period from 1800 to 1830 was to us of the 'eighties and 'nineties. Charles Greville was far more than a chronicler of Victorian small beer. He had in him the Saint-Simon touch, though without the bewitching egotism and cinematographic skill of the great Frenchman. But, though Charles Greville gave us hard steel engravings of his great men, instead of scft mezzo- tints with plenty of light and shade, he was always vital.

There is something of the same quality in these letters, though Greville was a better diarist than a letter writer.

To keep up my metaphor, the " burin " of the steel engraver

was less out of place in the diary than in the intimacy of the letter. Mr. A. H. Johnson, the Oxford History Tutor who

endeared himself to a long stream of men reading history, of whom I was one, notes that Louis Philippe, when he was shown some of Greville's letters describing the crisis of 1845,

remarked that they were " Saint-Simon tout pun." Mr. Johnson continues " He hears everything, he records everything. Nothing is too petty or trivial for his pen. Reports, rumours, scandals are collected and alluded to. . . . Though avowedly an Epicurean and a cynic, he is a kindly one, and he was universally popular. In his earlier days he bore the nickname of Punch ' or " The Gruncher.' . . . He was constantly consulted by his friends on delicate matters, and they were always treated sympathetically."

That is a very exact epitome of Greville's life and character.

These essentials were less sympathetically but not less correctly handled in an epigram of the 'fifties :—

" Has a lady made a slip

In morality or scrip, Is a balance to be paid up, Or a quarrel to be made up With the Czar, the Turk, or Devil, Ring the bell and send for Greville."

'Greville as Clerk of the Council, as a high racing authority, and as a man connected by birth with all the most important Whig families, knew the great world through and through. Yet, like so many of the Whigs, he managed to keep a curiously

unprejudiced mind in regard to public matters, and especially to foreign affairs. If he were described as a self-centred apologist for a selfish oligarchy, I admit I should not know how to defend him ; but, at any rate, he was not a snob or a sycophant, and a peep into the royal closet did not intoxicate him as it intoxicated Chatham. The Palace, indeed, always

left him cool. As an example of what a fair-minded man he was, I may note that, though, till he knew him, he had a prejudice against Cobden, he had only to meet the inspired

bagman to be much impressed by his knowledge and sound sense as regards foreign affairs. I must not, however, be supposed to be a thick and thin defender of "The Gruncher." He had a very narrow mind, if a very acute one, and he was often pompous. This pomposity is well illustrated by a .story told in regard to him and Lord Derby. Just as at heart he looked down upon Palmerston as vulgar, so he considered

'" the Rupert of debate " as untrustworthy and dangerous. When, then, Lord Derby became Prime Minister, Greville to mark his disapproval of the new regime did not attend Councils but sent his deputy. A mischief-maker who hated Greville drew Lord Derby's attention to this fact, and tried to awaken the Prime Minister's indignation at what he called a studied insult. Derby's reply was an excellent riposte to " The Gruncher's " thrust. " Doesn't he come to the

Council ? I didn't know that ; but then I confess I never notice whether it is James or Thomas who comes to put coal on my library fire."

Henry Reeve, who conducts the other side of the corres-

pondence, was a younger man than Greville and outlived him by many years. He was first a writer on the Times, then a Civil Servant, and ended by being for many years the editor of the Edinburgh. Greville was a kind of self- appointed liaison officer between the Times and the Whig statesmen of the 'forties or 'fifties, and Reeve was one of his chief instruments in the process of negotiations with the great organ of public opinion. Between them they managed, or tried to manage, the currency of the Press. It is very interesting to see what a monopoly of Press power the Times then possessed and how excited Ministers could become over a chance leader. Ministers were always specially anxious as to the opinion expressed by the Times with regard to foreign affairs. Those were the times when the newspapers made history and the politicians read and trembled.

Reeve, though not a good letter writer on the whole, could occasionally write with great verve and spirit. Take, for example, the second letter in the series written from Paris. It is exceedingly spirited :—

" The ominous concord of the coalition has boon stirred into the most violent strife i the King has 'thrown himself upon that certain life preserver, the vanity of his servants. Yesterday or the day before he threw his arms about Thiers' neck crying 11 me faut un MinisOre,' to which that personage replied that. a fortnight ago it would have been easy, but that now he (Thiers) was severed and cut off from everyleddy who could have joined him then. Lo Marechal (Soult) has had an attaque do nerfs,' which ended in his sobbing out : Messieurs j'ai 70 ans, et 35 ans de grade do Marechal ' : a circumstance which had, however, no effect on the situation. In short, the position of affairs can only be described as le zero plus

de "

I could not give a better example of Greville's style than his account of Cobden's negotiation of the Commercial Treaty with France, and the way in which he managed the Emperor :—

" I mot Cobden on Sunday at dinner and had a good deal of talk with him. What a contrast between this eminent diplomatic success, so quietly and skilfully obtained, and Bright's ridiculous flourishing and bombast ! Cobden assured me that he had told the Emperor ha was as much opposed as over to entangling ourselves in any of his political schemes and joint military operations, and that he wished the union of his two nations to rest mainly on the basis of common interests and free intercourse.

I can hardly credit the fart that I catch myself singing the praises of the Emperor and Cobden. But I despise party and personal prejudices, and, in justice to them both, 1 cheerfully acknowledge that they have accomplished one of the vary greatest achieve- ments of our time and accomplished it single-handed."

Will a few months hence some diarist be recording something similar of Mr. MacDonald ? I wonder. It is very dull of her, but History so often seems bent on repeating herself !

J. ST. LOE STRACHEY.