1847] IRISH POOR LAW 63 our being thus obliged to confer upon them advantages which they did nothing for." April 17, 1847.-Went with Mozley and Dasent to the new House of Lords and were much pleased with its magnificence and general effect. Went afterwards to Reeve, thence to Greville, where I saw the Solicitor-General, and thence to call on Lord Aberdeen, who was from home. April 21.-Called on Le Marchant and had a long talk on all subjects, but principally upon the intentions of the Government as to the admission of Jews to Parliament, in which, on Rothschild's behalf, I am interested. On May I Delane saw Greville and Lord Granville, and had a long talk with D. Salamons upon currency and banking. "Saw also Lord Clarendon, and talked about Portugal." Portugal." The correspondence of Lord Clarendon with Delane, which lasted till the death of the former in 1870, would alone fill a volume. of May 3, 1847.-Called on Lord Aberdeen, whom I found, I think, a little tired of inaction, though constantly professing his relief at being out of office. His faith in Guizot is still unabated, and his desire to keep the peace with France as great as ever. In talking of Peel, he said that William IV. had pressed him to accept a peerage in terms altogether unprecedented between a sovereign and a subject, and that in the same manner he had been employed by the Queen to request his acceptance of the Garter, but that Peel had uniformly refused to receive any favour whatever. He praised the Queen greatly for her truly constitutional spirit.' The Government was beaten twice in the House of Lords on the Irish Poor Law, and on May 7 Delane went to see Le Marchant at the Board of Trade to learn the intentions of the Ministry upon their late defeats. 1 Delane's Diary. "Le Marchant had not much to tell, no decided course having being determined on." The next day he writes: Le Marchant called and told me a good deal, among other things that at the break-up of the Whig Government, upon Lord Althorp going to the Upper House, his impression was that Lord Morpeth was the only man to undertake the office of Premier, and told the Queen so. How he has tailed off since! May 12, 1847.-Dined at the Mansion House to meet the Ministers. A large muster, and Sir Harry Smith as the lion. In the course of the year he had made friends with Lord Brougham, and their intimacy continued unbroken till the latter's death in 1868. May 23.-Dined in Park Place. Met Lord de Lisle and Miss Sidney, Mr. Rogers, Macready, Meyer Rothschild, Miss Courtenay, and two or three foreigners. Sat next Miss Sidney, who has written a novel. May 29.-After hurrying home, I had barely time to dress and go to the Temple, where, having been duly arrayed, I was in due form "called." J. Dasent, Foster, and Clark made my call party. G. Loch was called at the same time, and as Reeve was one of his party we together made one, and passed a pretty comfortable evening. Precisely what object Delane had in view in being called to the Bar does not appear, but it is certain that he never practised. He may have been advised to join the profession by Lord Brougham, who had been in his younger days a leader-writer for The Times at a salary, it is said, of £100 a month. Brougham may also have told Delane of his versatility in connection with the press. Lawyer-like in earning a double fee he is said to have written an admirable article for The Morning Chronicle completely 1? The Twisses. 1847] SERJEANTS' INN 65 demolishing one which he had written for The Times the day before. About this time Delane went to live at No. 16, Serjeants' Inn, Temple, in an old house which had a certain quiet dignity of its own from its good panelled woodwork and well-designed staircase. The drawing on th eaccompanying page represents the entrance to the morning-room on the first floor, in which for thirty years Delane was in the habit of receiving his visitors. The house has been much altered in recent years, and some of the rooms, amongst them the dining-room, which has seen so many gatherings of wit and intellect, have been subdivided, but the seventeenth-century woodwork is for the most part still intact.1 Sunday, May 30.-Went for an hour to a party at Macready's, where I saw Carlyle, Buller, etc. June 18.-Called by appointment on the Rothschilds, who are very anxious about the City election and are pressing for support. June 26.-Sat up late and went to Rothschild's house in Piccadilly to assist him in preparing his address. Saw there Sir Anthony and the Baroness. Having finished the address advised him to take Lord John Russell's opinion upon it. June 28.-Saw the Rothschilds again to approve some omissions Lord John Russell had suggested in his address. 1 The larger houses on the south side of this quiet court have also many interesting associations. Built shortly after the Great Fire of London, in most of them the interior fittings and decorations are of a high order, all the principal rooms having massive old mahogany doors with brass hinges. Lord Erskine lived at No. 11 when at the height of his fame, and after procuring the acquittal of Horne Tooke on October 20, 1794, his carriage was dragged here by an admiring crowd. At No. 10 is preserved a staircase of remarkable merit. Lord Chancellor Truro had a house on this side of the inn, and at the back were formerly pleasant gardens abutting on the Temple, of which Serjeants' Inn has always been reckoned as a limb. VOL. I 5 The following letter from Lord Aberdeen referring to the possibility of Sir Robert Peel's return to office will be read with interest: LORD ABERDEEN TO J. T. DELANE HADDO HOUSE, July 12, 1847. MY DEAR SIR, You are right in supposing that I should read with great pleasure the article in The Times which you had the goodness to send me. You have undoubtedly welcomed the Duc de Broglie, and bid adieu to M. de Ste. Aulaire, in the most friendly and cordial manner. But you have said no more than was well deserved by both of them. Having expressed the real gratification I have received from the article in question, you must permit me to say that since I left London I have read a good deal in the same quarter which has produced a very different impression. Indeed, I cannot regard without serious apprehension the persevering and senseless rancour with which the French Government is attacked, and especially the personal hostility to M. Guizot, unquestionably the most friendly to England, and to English interests, of any French Minister since the Restoration. I believe his policy and sentiments to be still unchanged; but nations and governments, as well as individuals, will at length resent repeated insult. We have some weighty matters now impending over us, which we are not likely to bring to any friendly issue, unless we get rid of much of that passion and prejudice by which we have recently been governed. From the great influence which you exercise over publick opinion, I have frequently told you that I thought the peace of the two countries would be materially affected by the course which you should think proper to pursue. I shall watch your language with interest, believing that it will do much to regulate the general feeling of the country; and I suppose that I shall not be wrong in regarding |