November 12th, 1829
At Roehampton at Lord Clifden’s from Tuesday, the 10th, till to-day; Sir James Mackintosh, Moore, Poodle Byng,11 and the Master of the Rolls. It was uncommonly agreeable. I never was in Mackintosh’s society for so long before, and never was more filled with admiration. His prodigious memory and the variety and extent of his information remind me of all I have heard and read of Burke and Johnson; but his amiable, modest, and unassuming character makes him far more agreeable than they could either of them (particularly Johnson) have been, while he is probably equally instructive and amusing. Not a subject could be mentioned of which he did not treat with equal facility and abundance, from the Council of Trent to Voltaire’s epistles; every subject, every character, every work, all were familiar to him, and I do not know a greater treat than to hear him talk.
Mackintosh said he was a great reader of novels; had read ‘Old Mortality’ four times in English and once in French. Ellis said he preferred Miss Austen’s novels to Scott’s. Talked of the old novelists—Fielding, little read now, Smollett less; Mackintosh is a great admirer of Swift, and does not think his infamous conduct to Vanessa quite made out. Talked of the articles of our religion, and said that they were in almost exact conformity with certain doctrines laid down in the Council of Trent. The Jansenists differ very little from our Church, except as to the doctrine of the Real Presence. Speaking of India, Mackintosh said that it was very remarkable that we had lost one great empire and gained another in the same generation, and that it was still a moot point whether the one really was a gain or the other a loss. Called America the second Maritime Power. Franklin wept when he quitted England. When he signed the treaty at Paris, he retired for a moment and changed his coat. It was remarked, and he said he had been to put on the coat in which he had been insulted by Lord Loughborough at the English Council Board. Madame de Staël, he said, was more agreeable in tête-à-tête than in society; she despised her children, and said, ‘Ils ne me ressemblent pas.’ He told her she did not do them justice, particularly her daughter. She said, ‘C’est une lune bien pâle.’ She took an aversion to Rogers, but when she met him at Bowood, and he told her anecdotes, she liked him. She had vanquished Brougham, and was very proud of those conquests.
Moore told several stories which I don’t recollect, but this amused us:—Some Irish had emigrated to some West Indian colony; the negroes soon learnt their brogue, and when another shipload of Irish came soon after, the negroes as they sailed in said, ‘Ah, Paddy, how are you?’ ‘Oh, Christ!’ said one of them, ‘what, y’re become black already!’
Moore, without displaying the astonishing knowledge of Mackintosh, was very full of information, gaiety, and humour. Two more delightful days I never passed. I could not help reflecting what an extraordinary thing success is in this world, when a man so gifted as Mackintosh has failed completely in public life, never having attained honours, reputation, or wealth, while so many ordinary men have reaped an SIR PHILIP CRAMPTON’S STORY abundant harvest of all. What a consolation this affords to mediocrity! None can approach Mackintosh without admiring his extraordinary powers, and at the same time wondering why they have not produced greater effects in the world either of literature or politics. His virtues are obstacles to his success; he has not the art of pushing or of making himself feared; he is too doucereux and complimentary, and from some accident or defect in the composition of his character, and in the course of events which have influenced his circumstances, he has always been civilly neglected. Both Mackintosh and Moore told a great many anecdotes, but one morning at breakfast the latter related a story which struck us all. Mackintosh said it was enough to furnish materials for a novel, but that the simple narrative was so striking it ought to be written down without exaggeration or addition. I afterwards wrote it down as nearly as I could recollect it. It was Crampton, the Surgeon-General, who told it to Moore, and Crampton loquitur.
‘Some years ago I was present at a duel that was fought between a young man of the name of MacLoughlin and another Irishman. MacL. was desperately wounded; his second ran up to him, and thought to console him with the intelligence that his antagonist had also fallen. He only replied, “I am sorry for it if he is suffering as much as I do now.” I was struck by the good feeling evinced in this reply, and took an interest in the fate of the young man. He recovered, and a few years after my interest was again powerfully excited by hearing that he had been arrested on suspicion of having murdered his father-in-law, his mother’s second husband. He was tried and found guilty on the evidence of a soldier who happened to be passing in the middle of the night near the house in which the murder was committed. Attracted by a light which gleamed through the lower part of the window, he approached it, and through an opening between the shutter and the frame was able to look into the room. There he saw a man in the act of lifting a dead body from the floor, while his hands and clothes were stained all over with blood. He hastened to give information of what he had seen; MacLoughlin and his mother were apprehended, and the former, having been identified by the soldier, was found guilty. There was no evidence against the woman, and she was consequently acquitted. MacLoughlin conducted himself throughout the trial with determined calmness, and never could be induced to acknowledge his guilt. The morning of his execution he had an interview with his mother; none knew what passed between them, but when they parted he was heard to say, “Mother, may God forgive you!” The fate of this young man made a deep impression on me, till time and passing events effaced the occurrence from my mind. It was several years afterwards that I one day received a letter from a lady (a very old and intimate acquaintance) entreating that I would immediately hasten down to the assistance of a Roman Catholic priest who was lying dangerously ill at her house, and the symptoms of whose malady she described. Her description left me doubtful whether the mind or the body of the patient was affected. Being unable to leave Dublin, I wrote to say that if the disease was bodily the case was hopeless, but if mental I should recommend certain lenitives, for which I added a prescription. The priest died, and shortly after his death the lady confided to me an extraordinary and dreadful story. He had been her confessor and intimate friend, and in moments of agony and doubt produced by horrible recollections he had revealed to her a secret which had been imparted to him in confession. He had received the dying confession of MacLoughlin, who, as it turned out, was not the murderer of his father-in-law, but had died to save the life and honour of his mother, by whom the crime had been really committed. She was a woman of violent passions; she had quarrelled with her husband in the middle of the night, and after throwing him from the bed had despatched him by repeated blows. When she found he was dead she was seized with terror, and hastening to the apartment of her son, called him to witness the shocking spectacle and to save her from the consequences of her crime. It was at this moment, when he was lifting the body and preparing to TOM MOORE remove the bloody evidence of his mother’s guilt, that the soldier passed by and saw him in the performance of his dreadful task. To the priest alone he acknowledged the truth, but his last words to his mother were now explained.’
Notes
11 [Hon. Frederick Byng, formerly of the Foreign Office, universally known at this time as ‘The Poodle,’ probably because he once kept a fine animal of that breed.]