The Letters of Queen Victoria
Chapter 82 : Sir Robert Peel presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and begs to be permitted to s

Sir Robert Peel presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and begs to be permitted to submit for your Majesty's consideration a suggestion which has occurred to Sir Robert Peel, and which has reference to the communication which he recently addressed to your Majesty on the subject of the promotion of the Fine Arts in connection with the building of the new Houses of Parliament.

Sir Robert Peel would humbly enquire from your Majesty whether (in the event of your Majesty's being graciously pleased to approve of the appointment of a Royal Commission for the further investigation and consideration of a subject of such deep importance and interest to the encouragement of art in this country) your Majesty would deem it desirable that the Prince should be invited in the name of your Majesty to place himself at the head of this Commission, and to give to it the authority and influence of his high name, and the advantage of his taste and knowledge.

Sir Robert Peel will not of course mention this subject to any one, until he has had the honour of receiving from your Majesty an intimation of your Majesty's opinions and wishes on this subject.

[Pageheading: DIPLOMATIC APPOINTMENTS]

_Viscount Melbourne to Queen Victoria._

SOUTH STREET, _28th September 1841._

... The diplomatic appointments are as well as they could be made.

At least Lord Melbourne thinks so--at least as much in consequence of those whom they exclude, as of those whom they admit. The Duke of Beaufort will do better for Petersburg than for Vienna. He is hardly equal to the place, which requires a clever man, it being more difficult to get information there, and to find out what is going on, than in any other country in Europe.... But Lord Melbourne does not much regard this, and the Duke of Beaufort possesses one advantage, which is of the greatest importance in that country. He is a soldier, was the Duke of Wellington's Aide-de-Camp, and served during much of the Peninsular War. He will therefore be able to accompany the Emperor to reviews, and to talk with him about troops and man[oe]uvres. Sir Robert Gordon and Sir S. Canning will do very well.[102]

Lord Melbourne is very glad to hear that your Majesty was pleased and impressed with Archdeacon Wilberforce's[103] sermon and his manner of delivering it. Lord Melbourne has never seen nor heard him. His father had as beautiful and touching a voice as ever was heard. It was very fine in itself. He spoiled it a little by giving it a methodistical and precatory intonation.

Hayter has been to Lord Melbourne to-day to press him to sit to him, which he will do as soon as he has done with Chantrey. Chantrey says that all Lord Melbourne's face is very easy except the mouth. The mouth, he says, is always the most difficult feature, and he can rarely satisfy himself with the delineation of any mouth, but Lord Melbourne's is so flexible and changeable that it is almost impossible to catch it.

[Footnote 102: For Vienna and Constantinople.]

[Footnote 103: Samuel, son of William Wilberforce, at this date Archdeacon of Surrey, and chaplain to Prince Albert; afterwards, in 1844, appointed Bishop of Oxford, and eventually translated to the See of Winchester.]

[Pageheading: MELBOURNE'S ADVICE]

_Viscount Melbourne to Queen Victoria._

SOUTH STREET, _1st October 1841._

Lord Melbourne presents his humble duty to your Majesty. He received your Majesty's letter yesterday evening, and cannot express to your Majesty how much obliged he feels by your Majesty's taking the trouble to give him so much information upon so many points. Ste Aulaire's hair-powder seems to make a very deep and general impression.[104]

Everybody talks about it. "He appears to be very amiable and agreeable," everybody says, but then adds, "I never saw a man wear so much powder." A head so whitened with flour is quite a novelty and a prodigy in these times. Lord Melbourne has not yet seen him, but means to call upon him immediately. Lord Melbourne is upon the whole glad that the Duke of Beaufort has declined St Petersburg. It is an appointment that might have been acquiesced in, but would not have been approved. Bulwer[105] will not be a bad choice to accompany Sir Charles[106] to Canada. Your Majesty knows Bulwer well. He is clever, keen, active; somewhat bitter and caustic, and rather suspicious. A man of a more straightforward character would have done better, but it would be easy to have found many who would have done worse. Lord Melbourne is very glad that it has been offered to the Prince to be at the head of this Commission, and that His Royal Highness has accepted it. It is an easy, unexceptionable manner of seeing and becoming acquainted with a great many people, and of observing the mode of transacting business in this country. The Commission itself will be a scene of very considerable difference of opinion. Lord Melbourne is for decorating the interior of the Houses of Parliament, if it be right to do so, but he is not for doing it, whether right or wrong, for the purpose of spending the public money in the encouragement of the Fine Arts. Whether it is to be painting or sculpture, or both; if painting, what sort of painting, what are to be the subjects chosen, and who are to be the artists employed? All these questions furnish ample food for discussion, difference, and dispute. Chantrey says fresco will never do; it stands ill in every climate, will never stand long in this, even in the interior of a building, and in a public work such as this is, durability is the first object to be aimed at. He says that there is in the Vatican a compartment of which the middle portion has been painted by Giulio Romano[107] in fresco, and at each of the ends there is a figure painted by Raphael in oil. The fresco painting has been so often repaired in consequence of decay, that not a vestige of the original work remains; while the two figures painted by Raphael in oil still stand out in all their original freshness, and even improved from what they were when first executed....

Lord Melbourne dined and slept on Wednesday at Wimbledon.[108] He met there Lord and Lady Cottenham, Lord[109] and Lady Langdale, Lord Glenelg and his brother, Mr Wm. Grant, who was his private secretary, and is an amusing man. Lord Melbourne is going there again to-morrow to stay until Monday. The place is beautiful; it is not like Claremont, but it is quite of the same character, and always puts Lord Melbourne in mind of it. The d.u.c.h.ess has many merits, but amongst them is the not small one of having one of the best cooks in England.

[Footnote 104: Madame de Lieven wrote to Aberdeen, 12th September 1841: "Ne jugez pas cet Amba.s.sadeur par son exterieur; il personnifie un peu les Marquis de Moliere....

Pa.s.sez-lui ses cheveux poudres, son air galant et papillon aupres des femmes. He cannot help it."]

[Footnote 105: Sir Henry Bulwer, afterwards Lord Dalling.]

[Footnote 106: Sir Charles Bagot.]

[Footnote 107: He was a pupil of Raphael, celebrated for (among other works) his "Fall of the t.i.tans."]

[Footnote 108: The word is almost illegible. Wimbledon was at that time in the occupation of the Duke of Somerset.]

[Footnote 109: Master of the Rolls.]

[Pageheading: PEERS AND AUDIENCES]

_Sir James Graham to Queen Victoria._

WHITEHALL, _2nd October 1841._

Sir James Graham with humble duty begs to lay before your Majesty two letters, which he has received from the Earl of Radnor,[110] together with the copy of the answer which Sir James Graham returned to the first of the two letters.

If the presentation of Pet.i.tions were the sole subject of the Audience, it might be needless to impose on your Majesty the trouble incident to this mode of receiving them, since they might be transmitted through the accustomed channel of one of the Secretaries of State; but Sir James Graham infers from a conversation which, since the receipt of the letters he has had with Lord Radnor, that the Audience is asked in exercise of a right claimed by Peers of the Realm.

The existence of this right is not recognised by Statute; but it rests in ancient usage, and is noticed by Judge Blackstone in his Commentaries on the Laws of England in the following terms:--

"It is usually looked upon to be the right of each particular Peer of the Realm to demand an Audience of the King, and to lay before him, with decency and respect, such matters as he shall judge of importance to the public weal."

The general practice on the part of the Sovereign has been not to refuse these Audiences when Peers have asked them....

The above is humbly submitted by your Majesty's dutiful Subject and Servant,

J. R. G. GRAHAM.

[Footnote 110: William, third Earl, formerly M.P. for Salisbury.]

_Queen Victoria to Sir James Graham._

WINDSOR CASTLE, _3rd October 1841._

The Queen has received Sir James Graham's communication with the enclosures. She thinks that it would be extremely inconvenient if Audiences were to be granted to Peers for the purpose of presenting Pet.i.tions or Addresses. The Queen knows that it has always been considered a sort of right of theirs to ask for and receive an Audience of the King or Queen. But the Queen knows that upon several occasions Lord Melbourne and Lord John Russell wrote to the Peers who requested Audiences, stating that it would be very inconvenient for the Queen, particularly in the country, and that they had better either put off asking for it, till the Queen came to town, or send what they had to say; communicate in writing--which was complied with.

If, therefore, Sir James Graham would state this to Lord Radnor, he may probably give up pressing for an Audience. Should he, however, urge his wish very strongly, the Queen will see him in the manner proposed by Sir James. The Queen would wish to hear from Sir James again before she gives a final answer.

[Pageheading: THE CHINESE CAMPAIGN]

_Lord Ellenborough to Queen Victoria._