페이지 이미지
PDF
ePub

about ten years ago. He has not of late taken any great part in public affairs, as he has been ever since his first publication* closely employed in studying its meaning, and I hear he has still a great deal to do.

"Mr. HORNER, who is a lawyer and reviewer, might be very useful as Chief of the Commission for securing the Liberty of the Press. No man understands better the art of indulging himself in that liberty, which he represses in others. Indeed, the Edinburgh Review I have always considered as the work in this country most consonant to fhe EMPEROR'S principles, and an admirable model for a Censorship of the Press.

"We have a certain Lord NUGENT here, whose figure would a little startle Madame la Duchesse; but he has notwithstanding a great head. He is the author of a beautiful poem, descriptive of Spain,

• Lord King had published several years before a pamphlet on exchanges and currency.

Buckinghamshire, and the Black Sea, which he called Portugal; and he has been now several years employed in bringing before Parliament the details of a rencontre between two packet-boats, in which one damaged the other's jib-boom. Both his Poem and the Parliamentary Inquiry prove how much he can write and say without making the least progress, and if there was any subject which you might wish to delay sine die, without venturing to abandon it altogether, you might find him very useful.

"Lord STANHOPE might replace De PREAMI NEAU, as Ministre des Cultes. The Emperor himself has scarcely a greater aversion to Bishops than this Peer; indeed, I should say that there is nothing on earth he seems to dislike so much as the Clergy, unless it be the Lawyers. These, you will allow, are valuable antipathies to find in an Englishman. If he should fail as a Minister, he would still be useful at the Vaudeville, as he is a more entertaining • The late Earl Stanhope.

caricature of our country than even JOLY. We English are not very merry, and, least of all English, we Peers of Parliament; but you cannot think how this admirable comic statesman contrives to keep us in a roar.

"As I suppose the Emperor would on no account part with the Duke of OTRANTO, MEHE'E DE LA TOUCHE, OF CARNOT, I know not to what use we could turn Sir FRANCIS BURDETT, Mr. BROUGHAM, or my friend Major CARTWRIGHT; in fact, any open connexion with them could not fail to do his Majesty the greatest injury in this country, and I really do not think they could be better employed than they are here.

"We have a Mr. LYTTELTON,* of whom probably you never can have heard, a county member, and though a silent politician, very facetious in society. This gentleman came into our parliament with great expectations, which have been so utterly disap

• The Hon. W. H. Lyttelton, M.P. for Worcestershire.

pointed, that I suppose he would be very ready to change a situation in which he is quite manqué.' As he is the most impudent man alive when he has no one to oppose him, and owes his success in table jests to this valuable quality, I imagine he might be very powerful in an assembly like yours, where the whole debate might be arranged beforehand, and Members should be forbidden to answer Mr. LYTTELTON's pleasantries, on pain of the Plain of Grenelle.*

"If the Department of the Leman had not been separated from France, Sir S. ROMILLY might, I apprehend, have been Member for Geneva, and would have replaced the Abbé SIEYES, when that worthy old man shall be called to his everlasting reward. I believe Sir SAMUEL to be well versed in the Code Napoleon, and very fertile in theories of law and legislation, suited to the meridian of France.

• The scene of Buonaparte s military executions near Paris.

me.

"I give your Excellency these general hints, and shall be glad to hear what you think of them. Adieu, my dear friend; I embrace the Duchess with all my heart-I never shall forget her goodness to Remember me to FLAHAUT and BIGNON. I fear the foreign negotiations of the latter will not last long but FLAHAUT will gain what BIGNON loses. Tell NEY that I have searched all London, but in vain, for the picture of Judas Iscariot, which was advertised for sale in one of the public papers here, and which he so much wished to have. In fact, I believe it was a mere joke, aimed at TIERNEY, and that no such picture ever existed.

"Believe me to be, my dear Duke,

"With the most entire esteem,

"Your faithful friend and humble servant,

K.

"P. S. April 29.-1 am sorry to say that WHIT

BREAD'S absurd impetuosity has done a great deal of

« 이전계속 »