all admitted principles, no more the property of | bution of praise or blame. It is like asking us to the chancellor's grandson, in respect to publica- give implicit credit to a witness without allowing tion, than Lord Malmesbury's dispatches were of us the test of a personal examination. his grandson. It seems clear that the present earl has not thought of obtaining any such permission or sanction, and for this as well as other reasons we cannot but think that his publication infringes on those ill-defined, but well understood, rules of discretion and delicacy, by the nice observance of which the publication by private hands of official documents can alone be justified.

Upon the whole, however, of these considerations, we fall back to our original position that such publications are of very doubtful propriety, and that in the present instance it has been somewhat premature as regards individuals, and somewhat incautious as affects national interests; and we solicit the attention of the public and the government to the inconveniences which may arise if this practice of dealing with official documents as private property should become-as from the taste of the times, and the activity of the literary trade, we think probable-an ordinary speculation with the sons and grandsons of public servants. Take three or four instances. The Armed Neutrality twice died away; but is another revival impossible, and would the maritime interests of this country be much strengthened by an appeal to Lord Malmesbury's Russian correspondence? Is the union of France and Spain against England so entirely out of the question that some British negotiator may not be told on the authority of Lord Malmesbury, or Lord St. Vincent,(!) that Gibraltar is worthless, or at best

We are satisfied that the noble editor had not the least intention of infringing these rules, and will be surprised at finding that he can, by any illnatured critic, be supposed to have done so. We assure him we are not towards him ill-natured critics; we are satisfied that he was as far as we ourselves should be from publishing anything which he could have imagined to be injurious to the public service or reasonably displeasing to individuals. But in our judginent he has happened to do both; and it is lest the involuntary error of a justly respected nobleman should in these allpublishing days create a dangerous precedent, that we have thus ventured to express our opinion that strictly speaking, the official and confidential -that is, the greater and more important-di- but a counter on the great card-table of Europe? visions of these papers were not his to publish, and that the customary and conventional rights which a sufficient lapse of time confers on the possessor of such documents have not yet accrued to him.

We are sorry to be obliged to pronounce this judgment, which is much against our own private interest and predilections. We have been very much amused by these two latter volumes, and chiefly, we fear, with those parts the publication of which we have thus presumed to criticise. We wish we could, consistently with our duty to the public, encourage this mode of anticipating history: it has great charms. How much more delightful to us must be the sketches of George III. and George IV.-Queen Charlotte and Queen Caroline Pitt and Fox-Canning and Windham -(to say nothing of the minor portraits)-all fresh, as it were, from the hand of a painter, their contemporary, and in some degree ours-than they will be in another generation, when they might be exhibited without offence, and received with indifference! Nor can it be denied that historic truth may gain something by what we have hitherto considered as premature publication. If there be misunderstanding or misrepresentation of facts or of motives, there may probably be those living who will feel an interest in correcting the error and in doing justice to themselves or their party; and when the mention is favorable, there will be many to relish the praise of a well-remembered parent or friend, with a keenness of pleasure that cannot be felt by a more distant progeny. It may be also said that no such publication is ever made without some reserve and delicacy-that even when nothing is added to praise, something is often subtracted from censure, and that traits likely to be offensive to individuals may be easily, and generally are tenderly softened or omitted: and this, we dare say, may be said of the Malmesbury publication. But then this process is likely to destroy the truth and unity of the work: after being strained through such a cullender an author may be no more like himself than a purée to a potato. Unless we have the whole evidence we cannot be satisfied of his veracity, nor appreciate his distri

Will it tend much to exalt our character for honesty and good faith, to have it said that a British minister of the highest rank prided himself on having bribed the menial servant of a friendly sovereign to betray the humble duty of opening or closing the door of his master's closet? Or will European confidence in our national pride and integrity be in any degree confirmed by the fact that pending the Lisle negotiations, we received, not only without indignation, but with complacency, projects of pecuniary corruption, which, if it disgraced our adversaries to propose, it did us no great honor to listen to? In four large volumes, pretty nearly divided between twaddle and gossip, such passages as we have referred to may be overlooked by ordinary readers; but we submit it to graver judgments, and even to public opinion, whetherbe they truly represented, or, as we rather hope, discolored and exaggerated-these arcana are fit to be divulged in the style and for the motives with which they are now presented to the world.

Turning, however, from these speculations, which, though they come too late in this case, may be applicable to others, we proceed to our examination of the contents of these volumes, premising, once for all, that our space will allow us to give a very inadequate summary of so great a variety of transactions, and that we shall chiefly endeavor to bring before our readers topics on which Lord Malmesbury either throws a new light, or gives, in doubtful points, a preponderating evidence.

We left Lord Malmesbury at the close of the last volume separated in politics from Mr. Fox, and united with the Duke of Portland and his section of the whigs in the support of Mr. Pitt and the prosecution of the war with France. An early opportunity was taken, we will not say of rewarding his conversion, but of employing his known abilities and still greater reputation, in the public service. For any diplomatic duty he had certainly at that moment, in public opinion, no competitor; and the policy he was called upon to forward was in full accordance with his own previous opinions.

Towards the close of 1793, the King of Prussia

66

In one of the early letters from Berlin, Lord Malmesbury writes to Lord Grenville what surely ought not to have been yet-if ever-published :My dear lord-The inside of this court is really a subject fit only for a private letter: unfortunately it is so closely connected with its public conduct, and influences it so much, that I wish to give you every information relative to it in my

-under a strange combination of political embar- | sound policy the forming an intimate alliance rassment, private intrigue, and fanatical delusion between his own despotism and the Jacobin demo-exhibited a strong disposition to break off his cracy. defensive alliance with England, and to withdraw from the contest against France-in which he had been, originally, the most zealous and prominent actor. Such a design, and especially the motives that prompted it, were so contrary to good faith, and so full of peril not only to Prussia herself but to all Europe, that Mr. Pitt and Lord Grenville proposed to Lord Malmesbury a special mission to endeavor to counteract this pusillanimous, and in-power. deed, as regarded us, fraudulent policy, and to "The female in actual possession of favor is of induce the King of Prussia to adhere to what was no higher degree than a servant-maid. She is at once his duty to himself, and his engagement known by the name of Mickie, or Mary Doz; and to his allies. Lord Malmesbury had, before his her principal merit is youth and a warm condeparture, an audience of George III. in the stitution. She has acquired a certain degree of closet" the first time since the Regency Bill”— ascendancy, and is supported by some of the inost on which, it will be recollected, Lord Malmesbury inferior class of favorites; but, as she is considered had not behaved with quite so much gratitude and as holding her office only during pleasure, she is duty as might have been expected. His majesty, not courted, though far from neglected, by the however, was very gracious, and gave his lord-persons of a higher rank.

ship some advice on the subject of his mission, "The two candidates for a more substantial which, if only as an additional corrective of the false notions that were so long and so industriously propagated as to the infirmity of his majesty's intellect and judgment, is worth extracting.

there, is perfectly qualified to act the part she has undertaken."-vol. iii., p. 44.

degree of favor are Madlle. Vienk and Madlle. Bethman. The first (I really believe, extremely against her will and her principles) is forced forward by a party who want to acquire consequence; "He began by saying something complimentary and I am told she has the good wishes of Lucon my accepting the Prussian Mission, then went chesini, who thinks he shall be able to lead her. on by saying, A few clear words are better per- Madlle. Bethman plays a deeper game; she acts haps than long instructions. I believe that the from, and for, herself; she professes to love the King of Prussia is an honest man at the bottom, king, but that her principles prevent her giving although a weak one. You must first represent way to it; she is all sentiment and passion; her to him, that if he allows his moral character the aim is to be what his first mistress was, and to same latitude in his explanation of the force of turn to her account all the licentious latitude it is treaties, as he has allowed it in other still more said the illuminés allow themselves. Madlle. sacred ties' (referring to his marriage,) all good Bethman is cousin to the wealthy banker of that faith is at an end, and no engagement can be bind-name at Frankfort, and, from what I have learnt ing. You must then state to him how much his honor is engaged in joining in this business, in not giving up a cause in which he had begun so nobly. Then you should apply to his interest, that the event of the war must either fail or succeed; that if he withdrew himself from the number of coalesced powers, in either case he would suffer from leaving them. In the first case (the failure of the war) he perhaps would be the first to feel the consequence of suffering this Tartarian horde to overrun Europe.ing, raising ghosts, and dealing with the devilIn the second, if we succeed, he certainly might be which devil was of a scale of intellect little above sure that not having contributed his share to the that of his votaries. But the influence of this success, would put him, in respect to the other folly became considerable in the dreamy twilight powers, in a situation of want of consideration and of German metaphysics, and had, at an early consequence, and that he would not be consulted period-even in the time of the philosopher Fredor referred to in the general system of Europe, erick-made its way into the palace of Berlin, when that became a matter of discussion. That if where the twin-sisters-infidelity and superstition you fail on referring him to these three great points-held rival, and yet congenial, courts. Wraxall -his integrity, his honor, and his interest-it will be certain nothing can be done; and although I have the greatest confidence in your skill and abilities, yet I shall rest assured in that case that no skill or any ability would be equal to success."-vol. iii., p. 7.

The noble editor is rather at a loss to explain what the tenets of this religious or irreligious freemasonry of Illuminés were, and we cannot much help him. All that we know is, that it was a deep secret-and a very safe one withal-for we strongly suspect they did not know it themselves. Their principal rites seem to have been muddling, smok

tells us that the quondam hero Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick abandoned himself to the doctrines and reveries of the Illuminés till they reduced his once powerful mind to a state of imbecility. "It will hardly be believed," says Wraxall, “that prior to 1773 he was so subjugated by them as "And this," says Lord Malmesbury, "his frequently to pass many hours of the nights in majesty delivered with great perspicuity and cor-churchyards, engaged in evoking and endeavoring rectness;" and then he went on to an explanation to raise apparitions." Old Frederick was forced without which the first article of these oral instruc- to dismiss the poor visionary general from his pubtions, as to the King of Prussia's moral conduct, would appear very strange-" The King of Prussia," he said, "was an illuminé;" and, as Lord Malmesbury afterwards found, persuaded himself-under the influences of that mysterious sect-that he might reconcile with strict morality the having a wife and three mistresses, and with

lic employments; but was not, it seems, able to check the growth of the mischief in his own family. We ourselves have heard, from indisputable authority, that the king whom Lord Malmesbury visited, (in addition to the moral or rather immoral illumination which we have mentioned,) was so preternaturally enlightened as to confound the

garden of Charlottenburgh with the garden of Gethsemane, and would reverentially take off his hat when he fancied that he met our Saviour in his walks.

joy this change of place to Lord Grenville, together with a new project, by which Austria was to be left altogether out of the question; and we were to have the great advantage of reducing our subsidy from 800,000l. to only 750,000l.-a prodigious sav

But throughout this negotiation with Lord Malmesbury the Prussian monarch, however vis-ing of one sixteenth, but accompanied by this slight ionary-mad he might be in the garden, was in a very matter-of-fact state of mind in his cabinet; and the whole affair appears to have been on his part a greedy and unprincipled scheme to obtain the largest possible number of English guineas for services in which England had an interest-strong, no doubt, as part of the general cause against France, but exceedingly inferior and remote compared with that of Prussia herself. The Prussian cabinet insisted on having their whole army of 100,000 subsidized! And when England was so liberal, or as we think extravagant, as to propose a sum of 2,000,000l. for the annual subsidy of that power, to be paid, 2-5th or 800,000l. by England, 1-5th by Austria, 1-5th by Holland, and the other 1-5th to be charged to Prussia herself, Prussia refused to contribute this quota, and insisted that her army should be fed and foraged into the bargain. And when this monstrous pretension was rejected, another still more monstrous was produced, as a conciliatory expedient forsooth-that Prussia would bear her quota, provided the subsidy was raised to 2,500,000l.-only a more impudent mode of reasserting that she would pay nothing at all. In the mean while Austria, most naturally, we think, declined to take any part of the expense of the Prussian army on her shoulders, and great distrust and acrimony arose between the courts of Vienna and Berlin, for which Prussia and her minister Lucchesini (probably sold to the French)

were most to blame.

The negotiation was in this nearly hopeless state, when, as appears by the correspondence, the Prussian minister, Haugwitz, proposed to transfer it to the Hague. The editor states, in a note from the Malmesbury Papers, that this was an artful suggestion of Lord Malmesbury to get the negotiation out of the influence of Lucchesini and the French. We believe this is a mistake. In his private diary, Lord Malmesbury says that Haugwitz proposed and he accepted the change: and we cannot discover what possible motive Lord Malmesbury could have had for such a move. Haugwitz's is obvious-it relieved the King of Prussia from the presence of Lord Malmesbury, and the personal embarrassment of having to bear the brunt of the most infamous escroquerie that was ever attempted—it removed Lord Malmesbury from the capital, where the appearance of the court and the army contradicted the professions of extreme penury, on which the whole Prussian case rested-it removed him also from the auxiliary influence of the cabinet of Vienna-and finally, it threw him into Holland, where the pressure of the immediate danger and the necessity of the Prussian protection would be most severely felt. It was Lord Malmesbury's fortune, on this occasion, as it seems to have been all through life, to be baffled and bamboozled, or, to use the more modern, and, we suppose, politer term, mystified, and then, like a very able diplomatist, as he no doubt was, he suggests, though he does not venture to affirm, that it was all a subtle device of his own "cleverness." And truth obliges us to say -though it be said of the great Earl of Malmesbury-that a more goosy dispatch never met our eyes than that in which he announces with great

drawback, that the force to be supplied for it was diminished in a rather larger proportion-from 100,000 to 60,000 men, or about seven sixteenths. But even this would have been better than what was really obtained, for Lord Malmesbury signed, on the 19th April, a treaty, by which Prussia was to place 62,400 men at the disposal of England and Holland, at the price of 50,000l. a month, with 17. 12s. per man per month for bread and foragein all 150,000l. a-month; besides 300,000l. for putting them in motion, and 100,000l. more at the end of the year for sending back again: so that, instead of getting 100,000 men for 800,000l. per annum, as at first proposed, we had eventually to pay near 1,200,000l. for 62,400, for six months nominally, but not for one day in reality. The intention was to employ these troops on the Dutch frontier in connexion with our own army then in Flanders under the Duke of York; but it soon became clear that Lord Malmesbury had been again deceived, for the Prussians seem never to have had the remotest idea of executing any part of the treaty, except pocketing the money. The editor very naturally wishes to palliate this discomfiture of his grandfather; and-Lord Malmesbury having been invited to bring to England for the consideration of the ministers the opinion of the Duke of York and of the Dutch government, as to the best mode of employing the subsidiary army-the editor states,

"It appears that this ill-judged recall contributed much to the success with which the French party, taking advantage of treachery and national prejudices, contrived through Lucchesini to stultify the Treaty."-p. 93.

We cannot see how this recall was ill-judged, or what Lord Malmesbury's quitting the Hague for a visit to London of three weeks-after the treaty had been signed-could have had to do with French intrigues at Berlin or Lucchesini's negotiations at Vienna. When Lord Malmesbury returned to the Hague-he had been in London only from the 6th to the 24th of May-he was met by complaints from the Prussians that the money, without which their army could not move, had not yet come; and Malmesbury, in his Diary under date of the 2d of June, complains in very bitter terms against the English ministers that the first instalment under this prodigious treaty had not yet arrived, as if such sums as hundreds of thousands of pounds in a particular coin could be collected at a few day' notice. It turned out that the first instalment of 300,000l. had been already remitted from the British treasury on the 27th of May. For the few days that the remittance was on the road nothing could exceed the complaints of the Prussian ministers at the delay. Prussian army could not and would not move a mile without the money, and Lord Malmesbury was very well inclined to join in all their prognostics of mischief from this supposed delay. In the midst of all these complaints the money arrived ;the complaints ceased-but not a Prussian marched. The monthly subsidies were to commence on a most appropriate and auspicious day-the first of April; and they were regularly paid in Prussian coin procured for the purpose; yet we find Lord

The

Malmesbury confessing that for these "immense | reasoning, as it would be childish to resent it; sums," as he justly calls them, the Prussians had but it is impossible not to be deeply affected when not moved a step;-nor did they ever; but exaggerating the effects of a trifling skirmish which they had with the French near Keyserslautern, which even the exemplary modesty of the French military writers hardly notices, and complaining beyond all credibility and truth of their own loss, they at last got up a kind of mutiny in the army against a compliance with the treaty, and having received 1,105,000l. up to September, out of the gullibility of Lord Malmesbury and the too prodigal confidence of the British ministry, the whole bubble burst-and then Lord Malmesbury writes home, with the most wonderful self-complacency, that he is not at all ashamed of the failure of his treaty, because it

obligations of duty and the closest ties of blood. | his own personal gallantry and political opinions, And in addition to the general question of right, under the humiliating certainty of the ruin that a one cannot help being struck, on the first view of false step would entail on his family and his this case, by manifest breaches of delicacy and good taste. The parties to that unfortunate alliance have left a numerous and illustrious kindred (to say nothing of private friends and servants) still living, whose feelings cannot but be painfully affected by some of Lord Malmesbury's revelations -which seem indeed to compromise his lordship's own character, for many of the memoranda are such as a gentleman, if obliged by his duty to make them, ought to have destroyed before his death, or at least taken effectual measures for their subsequent destruction.