The literary success of the author of _Tremaine_ was owing to the
worldly experience and means of observation which his official
position gave him; but the sole interest which he possesses in
the eyes of the world arises from his success as an author. As an
office-holder, he was not a mere red-tapist, but one of those able,
hard-working, experienced administrative men, who really carry on
the business of government, and, except in the case of rare ability
and courage in a "chief," are masters of the Ministers, though want
of interest, ambition, or "gift of the gab," retains them in a
subordinate post. As an author, Mr. Ward's temporary success was
greater than his permanent prospects. His subjects were generally
large enough, he was a man of extensive reading, and his tastes took
in a wide range; but he was essentially bounded by the present. His
earlier works, which procured him the patronage of Pitt, and with it a
seat in Parliament and office, were on the Law of Nations: and though
their most attractive part related to a temporary subject, the rights
of belligerents and neutrals, there was enough in that branch of the
subject to secure duration; but who reads them now? how few, indeed,
know of their existence? He cannot be said to have originated the
serio-didactic novel, for Hannah More and others had long cultivated
that field; but he brought to it, what they could not bring, a
well-bred scholarship, a wide knowledge of public and private life,
seen in affairs as well as society, with less of a narrow sectarian
spirit: yet it may be doubted whether _Tremaine_ some thirty years
hence will be more read than _Coelebs in Search of a Wife_. If
Mr. Ward did not found the school of fashionable novelists, he was
certainly among the founders; and he infused into the best of his
works, _De Vere_, a real knowledge of Parliamentary life, a newer and
truer view of statesmen and nobles, though a little _en beau_, and a
great variety of actual characters. The circumstance of Wentworth's
supposed resemblance to Canning, and the accident of publication at
a time when the official conspiracy of the novel seemed acting in
Parliament, gave _De Vere_ a success with the world at large, which
its length and longwindedness might have marred. Mr. Ward's essays
(generally in the form of stories) were not so successful with the
public as his fictions. We think he was by nature designed for an
essayist--naturally given to discuss and expound; but nature had
denied him that penetrating originality of perception, that vigor of
thought, and (as a consequence) that terseness of style, which are
necessary to render the essay attractive and to preserve it. As
Robert Plumer Ward was essentially confined to the present, so he was
dependent on it; he was nothing if not in the mode, and in his later
works he rather fell behind the fashion.
His life as presented in these volumes was not very remarkable or
eventful. His father was a merchant at Gibraltar, and also held the
post of chief clerk of the civil department of the Ordnance in that
garrison: his mother was a Spanish Jewess. Robert Ward was born in
London, in 1765, on a visit of the family to England; and, after an
education at private schools, was sent to Oxford, in 1783. He left the
University in 1787, in debt; and soon after became a student of the
Inner Temple. An affection of the knee-joint sent him to Bareges: he
was speedily cured; but was so attracted by the pleasures of French
society, that he remained in France till the Revolution; from which he
had a narrow escape.
"It happened, unfortunately for him, that another 'Ward,' of
about the same age and personal appearance, had incurred the
suspicion of the Republican party, at a moment when suspicion
lost all its doubts, and death followed close upon the heels
of certainty. To use his own words, 'I was arrested for having
the same name and the same colored coat and waistcoat as
another Ward, guilty of treason; was ordered without trial to
Paris, to be guillotined; and only escaped by their catching
the real traitor: I was, however, banished the republic,
merely for my name's sake.'"
On his return to England he was called to the bar, in June 1790; and
but for a singular circumstance might have passed through life as a
literary barrister, with middling success in law and letters.
"He was, early in 1794, leaving his chambers in the Temple
for the purpose of paying a visit in the Northern outskirts
of London. Upon crossing Fleet Street he had to traverse Bell
Yard; and as he passed a watchmaker's shop his attention was
attracted by a placard in the window, of a very revolutionary
character, convening a meeting of a certain society, that
evening, at the watchmaker's. Many a man would have passed it
unnoticed, or contented himself with a feeling of regret or
indignation at the prevalence during that period of similar
views: not so was it with young Ward; he was fresh from
all the horrors which the success of such principles in a
neighboring country had entailed; he at once determined to
enter the watchmaker's shop and provoke a discussion with
him. For two hours did the young student contest with the
Republican the justice of his sentiments; for two hours did he
labor to impress upon him, not only by argument but by his own
experience, the horrors to which success must lead; but at
the end of that time he was obliged to leave him, apparently
unmoved, or at all events unconvinced. He paid his distant
visit, and late in the evening returned homeward through the
same alley. Desparing of success, he paid no second visit
to the disputant of the morning, though he did remark with
pleasure that the revolutionary placard had been withdrawn.
Hardly, however, had he passed the shop twenty yards, when
he heard some one running after and calling to him. He looked
back and beheld the Republican watchmaker. The manner of the
man was changed from the dogged imperturbability with which he
had listened to Mr. Ward's arguments in the morning to a frank
and eager confidence. 'I have called you in,' said he, 'to say
I have done nothing but think over your words: I feel their
truth; I shudder at the precipice on which I stood, at the
evil I was about to do; and am now as anxious to communicate
and prevent as I was before to conceal all our schemes.' He
then communicated to him the existence of a most fearful
plot against the Government, which, with his newly-awakened
feelings, he longed to frustrate by immediately informing the
authorities, if he who had convinced would also accompany and
support him.
"They went to the Chief Magistrate, Sir Richard Ford; who
attached so much importance to the communication, that the
three were at once ushered into the presence of Pitt and his
colleagues, assembled with Macdonald and Scott, the Attorney
and Solicitor-General. The singular history was duly narrated
in detail; the arguments carried on by the young Mentor, the
misgivings of the Republican, and then the details of the
impending danger. The countenance of Pitt was turned with
interest on the young lawyer, who seemed not only to share
that horror of revolutionary movements with which he was
himself so strongly imbued, but who had so gallantly acted
upon it. 'What was your motive, young gentleman,' he inquired,
'for thus entering the shop?' 'I, Sir,' answered young Ward,
'am not long returned from France, and have there seen in
practice what sounds so fine in theory.'"
Though, according to report, Pitt was not the man to overlook rising
talent or lose sight of a useful adherent, eight years elapsed before
much came of this singular introduction; during which the young
barrister published two books or pamphlets on the Laws of Nations,
married a sister of Lady Mulgrave, and was slowly working his way
at the bar. In 1802, Pitt, in a stiff enough letter, offered Mr.
Ward a seat for Cockermouth, one of the Lowther boroughs; and when
he returned to power, his protégé became Under-Secretary of State
for the Foreign Department, (his brother-in-law, Lord Mulgrave,
being Principal Secretary,) _after_ he had published a pamphlet
in justification of Pitt's highhanded seizure of the Spanish
treasure-ships. Of course he went out on the accession of All the
Talents after Pitt's death; and came in again on their expulsion,
as a Lord of the Admiralty, still under Lord Mulgrave. In 1812, he
was moved to the Ordnance, as "Clerk." In 1823, he quitted office,
withdrew from Parliament, and began novel-writing as an amusement, at
fifty-eight. He died in 1846, in his eighty-second year; having lived
long enough to see his son, the present Lord High Commissioner of the
Ionian Islands, Secretary to the Admiralty under a Whig Ministry. He
was thrice married, and each time advantageously. His first wife, as
we have seen, was a sister-in-law of Lord Mulgrave; the second, whom
he wedded at the age of sixty-three, was the widow of Mr. Plumer
of Gilston Park, which became his through the marriage; his third
alliance, when he was nearly seventy, gave him the advantage of a
jointure of 1,000l. per annum allowance as guardian, and a couple of
mansions. His writings would lead to the notion that Robert Ward was
everything tender and amiable; and so he might be as long as he was
pleased; but he would seem to have had a quiet implacability, that was
offended on slight grounds, and obdurate in displeasure. He quarreled
with his son on account of his politics: he received some slight from
an official friend and repulsed all attempts at explanation, till a
letter written when Ward was seventy-two and his correspondent turned
of seventy produced a reconciliation rather dry on his part. It would
have been satisfactory to know that some relenting, some interest
beyond a "suspicion" of the writer, had been shown on the receipt
of the following manly letter, written after the publication of
_De Vere_. After alluding to the internal traits by which he had
identified the author, the anonymous correspondent continues:
"It surprises me, I confess, that the feeling, judgment, and
sagacity, which sufficed to produce the work that I have been
commending, should have suffered the golden opinions of me,
which you entertained, to be filched and adulterated by mere
traducers, whose reports the hearer's own experience could
have almost refuted, and whose testimony was so obviously
liable to be warped by prejudice.
"We live in a strange world. Before my feelings and
dispositions had changed from wavering and transient to
permanent and fixed,--before the desultory ramblings, which
almost became our age, had terminated in a path, and that,
I trust, a right and honorable one, and from which, with
moderate allowance for human inferiority, I have not deviated
since,--before my principles had attained their vigor, and
generated those correct habits which it was their province
to produce,--in short, while, like most young men, I might
be said to have as yet 'no character at all,' I obtained your
friendship. How I lost it, I have already told you. When,
remains to tell you. I lost it when any fruits which my youth
may have promised had appeared; lost it all at once, under
circumstances scarcely more annoying to my feelings than
revolting to my sense of what was right and just.
"I am not seeking to penetrate what is to me, indeed, no
secret; neither do I form the unavailing wish that our expired
intercourse should revive. C'en est fait. A knot which has
been loosened or untied may be formed again, but this knot has
been cut. Accordingly, I neither address you by your name nor
subscribe my own. My hand-writing, though not disguised, is,
like yourself, much changed; and, though this were not the
case, you could not, after the lapse of so much time, have
recognized it.
"My regard you continue to possess, though I am not certain
of your title to retain it. But you have, by means of your
estrangement, sustained a loss. In ceasing to entertain a
feeling of esteem and cordiality toward me, you have lost that
which is a source of soothing gratification to the mind in
which it is cherished, and which, I flatter myself, I as well
deserved to have retained with regard to me as any other of
your early friends, be that other who he may. Again: though
you have not lost a friend, (for my sentiments toward you
continue friendly,) you have elected to lose the usual and
not unpalatable fruits of friendship in my case: and this at
a time of life (for we are much of the same age) when old
friends can the less be spared, because new friendships are
rarely formed.
"When our earliest meetings and the commencements of a
bygone friendship are called up before me by the letter which,
I scarcely know why, I am writing, I feel myself softened
as well as depressed by the recollection; and, as I write
farewell, it gives me pain to think that I might add to it
the words--probably forever. God bless you."
There is nothing in Robert Ward's life or literary eminence to require
or even justify so large a space as his nephew has bestowed upon it.
Strictly speaking, indeed, the biography occupies but a small portion
of these bulky volumes, which are chiefly filled with remains or
correspondence; and much of that little is not distinguished for
matter or character. The correspondence is indifferent. The latter
portion of it is mainly devoted to literary criticism, or compliments,
having for subject the author's works or those of his praisers; and is
weak and flimsy to a degree. The earlier portion principally relates
to politics, especially to the intrigues carried on by Canning and
Malmesbury during the Addington Ministry to procure Pitt's premature
return to office. To this Lord Mulgrave was judiciously opposed; and
although there is nothing very new or particular in the account, and
the letters are rather flat, it gives the Mulgrave version of the
business. The most valuable part of the book, and which was, indeed,
well worthy of separate publication, is a diary that Mr. Ward kept
through a considerable portion of his official life, beginning in
June 1809, and continuing with a short interruption till the death
of Perceval, when it ceased till 1819; after which it was maintained
to a later period than Mr. Phipps thinks it proper to publish it.
This diary consists of gossip, anecdote, on dits, and confidential
communications made to Mr. Ward on various occasions and at critical
times, together with his own observations and reflections on affairs,
or remarks on characters. As he was much in the confidence of
Perceval, saw a good deal of the Duke of Wellington, (Master-General
of the Ordnance during the era of the Manchester massacre and
Sidmouth's spy doings,) and was continually behind the scenes, the
diary is both curious and amusing. Allowance must of course be made
for the writer's position as a partisan, and some of his later
notions are those of the "laudator temporis acti," speaking without
responsibility; but it is sufficiently interesting to raise a desire
for the whole, published as a diary, and not mixed up with other
matters to which it has small relation.
The diary begins with Canning's intrigue against Castlereagh; and
Canning is occasionally brought forward in the earlier period,
and painted with a good deal of shadow, (he was then in a sort of
opposition to Perceval,) and altogether a very different personage
from the Wentworth of _De Vere_. Lord Palmerston, then a "very fine
young man," and a promising candidate for place, with no other faults,
in Mr. Ward's estimation, than what he has certainly got rid of long
since--nervousness and modesty!--also figures in the pages, and at a
critical conjuncture of his fortunes.
"Lord Palmerston came to town, sent for by Perceval. He was
so good as to confide to me that three things were offered to
him,--the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, Secretaryship at
War, or a seat at the Treasury, by way of introduction to the
seals, if he was afraid of entering upon them at once. These
offers were, however, in the alternative of there being any
of them declined by Milnes (Member for Pomfret), to whom they
were made in the first instance. Lord P. consulted me very
frankly upon them, and asked if I thought he would be equal
to the seals either in Cabinet or Parliament, particularly the
latter, where he had barely made his début. I told him, and
was most sincere, that in common with all his friends whom I
had ever heard speak on the subject, I thought him quite equal
to them in point of capacity, but as to nerves in Parliament,
(of which he seemed most to doubt,) nobody could judge but
himself. He said, Petty (whom I had mentioned) had come
forward after having felt his way and got possession of
himself in the House, and that if he had done the same, he
perhaps would not hesitate. As it was, he inclined to the
second place, but had written to Lord Malmesbury. We walked up
to Hyde Park discussing the subject. Among other topics which
I urged, one seemed to impress him much; which was, the great
difference there would be in his situation and pretensions
upon a return to office, in the event of our going out, if
he retired as a Cabinet Minister instead of a subordinate
capacity. He allowed it much flattered his ambition, but
feared the prejudice it would occasion to his own reputation
and the interest of his friends if he failed. I left him
inclining to the Secretary at War; and admired his prudence,
as I have long done the talents and excellent understanding,
as well as the many other good qualities as well as
accomplishments, of this very fine young man."
One portion of the diary relates to the Regency. New facts are
scarcely advanced, but we think some freshness is given from the
light and coloring of the author. Unless Sheridan really persuaded
the Prince to throw over the Whigs, out of revenge for Whig hauteur,
his Royal Highness would seem to have acted entirely from himself.
The arrogance of Grey and Grenville comes out very strongly in the
painting of his opponent. After all, however, it is doubtful whether
they _could_ have come in. The Tories would have been strong in
Opposition; the Whigs could scarcely form a Government without the
Canning votes, and the hatred with which the old Whigs regarded their
leader rendered that junction impossible: what was more than all,
their cowardly anti-national policy would have rendered their position
one of great difficulty with the country. The fact is, that poor in
point of talent as the Perceval Ministry was, it best represented the
opinion of the country; as the Whigs now are in a similar position.
Some of these points are well put in this report of a conversation in
the House of Commons; which will also give an idea of the manner of
the diary.
"J.W. Ward told me what he called a bon mot, and seemed much
to enjoy, of Lady ----'s. He had said there was a difficulty
in getting people to accept of offices just now; she answered,
she thought Lord Grenville would be not unwilling to accept
them _all_ in his own person. Oh strange union, where this,
by one of their party, is thought characteristic and told
with glee! I understand, however, that Tierney has confessed
a difficulty. The Prince, it seems, wants them to accept, and
they are afraid to accept. They are therefore reduced to tell
the Prince, We would accept if it were to do ourselves good;
but not when it is inconvenient, though to do you good.
The remarkable part of the evening was a conversation with
Brand, who came over to sit by me. Though he had spoken, and
strongly, against us in the debate, he opened immediately upon
the merits of Perceval; he admired his conduct and ability
so much, that if he had ever given him a vote in his life, he
said, he would have supported him on these questions; that
his character had enabled him to commence the stand he had
made, and character had attached his party so much to him as
to continue the majority all through; that this sentiment
was not peculiar to him in the Opposition, but partaken
by many--indeed, all without exception admired him; that
this would give him extraordinary influence as the head of
an Opposition, which must give great trouble, to the new
Government when it was formed: nevertheless, he thought we
were not going out, it was too dangerous to come in; probably,
he added, laughing, the Regent will keep Perceval three months
as his father's Minister, and then 'fall so much in love with
him' (that was the expression) that he will continue him
as his own. He then entered much on the comparison between
him and Canning; the latter of whom, he said, spite of his
abilities, was discarded by all parties; that he could tell
me it was finally resolved not to admit him in the new
Government, into which some on account of those abilities
had wished to introduce him. I may say, he observed, that I
had some share in the rejection: I protested against such a
junction whenever it was talked of; I told my friends it would
ruin that without which they never could make a Government,
character; that the eyes of a great number whom they could by
no means command were upon them: I bade them look at the back
rows on the side of Opposition, and asked them if they could
count such men as Nicholson, Calvert, Halsey, Coke of Norfolk,
&c., &c., as their regular supporters, unless it was from
an esteem for their character--and if that character would
not sustain a deep wound in the outset--if, for the sake of
power, they allied themselves with a man who had deserted all
alliances he had ever made; that he had deserted them before,
after a treaty made, and had then deserted Perceval, after
endeavoring to undermine Castlereagh; his conduct to whom had
injured himself with the public in the most serious manner,
in having allowed him to retain his office and undertake that
melancholy expedition, five months after he had declared
him so incapable that he put his own resignation upon his
dismissal, that to ally with such a man could be only lowering
themselves in public esteem without gaining anything but a
hollow support. I would inform Canning myself, he added, that
this was my protest, if he asked me."
The heads of the "great Whig families," however, were more sanguine,
and hoped, or at least were occupied, to the last. Their treatment
by the Prince was characteristic; and one can fancy the magnates at
Adam's announcement in the following extract:
"What most offended them was the manner in which the Prince
announced his resolution. They were in the very act of forming
the Administration, filling offices, &c., &c., when Adam came
in from the Prince. They said they could not be disturbed;
he said he must disturb them, for he had a message from the
Prince: they replied that it was for the Prince they were at
work, for they were making the Government; Adam told them to
spare all trouble, for no Government was to be made. This was
on Friday the 1st, in the evening; and what affronted them
was, that after having had such a task committed to them, the
Prince should have presumed to take a counter resolution by
himself without first consulting them."
This is a characteristic trait of the Duke of Wellington's way of
getting through, business.
"He was fond of relating, that soon after the Duke's
appointment, he was leaving his office at the usual hour,
when, on coming out at the Park entrance, he perceived his new
chief just in the act of getting on horseback. He went up to
the Duke, and mentioned that there were some matters connected
with the department on which he would like to communicate
with him when he had time. 'No time like the present,' said
the Duke, and, at once dismissing his horse, returned with
Mr. Ward into the Ordnance Office. There, then, he remained
closeted with the Duke till past eight, listening to and
answering his pertinent queries upon manifold points connected
with the department. From that moment the Duke appeared to be
au fait of the business in hand, and ready to cope with the
details as they from time to time presented themselves."
The Duke seems to have been more alarmed at the state of the nation
about 1819 than the nature of the case justified; deceived, probably,
by the official "reports" of Messrs. Castles and Co. The following
remark, however, exhibits his penetration:
"He said, if the rising broke out anywhere, it would be
at Glasgow and Paisley; where many rich merchants and all
they supported would be sure to suffer, while no one could
certainly foretell how soon it might be put down. This led
him to his favorite notion, that the loyal should be taught
to rely more upon themselves, and less upon the Government,
in their own defense against the disloyal. It was this, he
thought, that formed and kept up a national character: while
every one was accustomed to rely upon the Government, upon a
sort of commutation for what they paid to it, personal energy
went to sleep, and the end was lost: that in England, he
observed, every man who had the commonest independence, one,
two, five or six hundred, or a thousand a year, had his own
little plan of comfort--his favorite personal pursuit, whether
his library, his garden, his hunting, or his farm, which he
was unwilling to allow anything (even his own defense) to
disturb; he therefore deceived himself into a notion that if
there was a storm it would not reach him, and went on his own
train till it was actually broke in upon by force. This led
to supineness and apathy as to public exertion; which would in
the end ruin us: the disposition therefore must be changed,
by forcing them to exert themselves; which would not be if
Government did everything in civil war, they nothing: hence
his wish for a volunteer force. All this was exceedingly
sound, and showed the reach of his reflecting mind as an
observer of human nature, as well as a statesman and soldier,
more than anything I have yet seen."
There is a curious passage touching Pitt's dying moments.
"At the time Mr. Ward accepted the post of Under-Secretary of
State, (resigning that of Welsh Judge,) it had been promised
him that the apparent risk of such a step to the future
prospects of his family should be guarded against by the grant
of a pension, to commence when he should cease to hold office.
He had been but a year in the post thus accepted, and amid
the pressure of other matters the contemplated arrangement
had never been completed. More than once in his last illness
did Pitt allude to his unfulfilled promise, and speak with
kindness of him to whom it had been made. Later on, when he
could no longer continuously articulate, he made the name
'Robert Ward' audible, and added signs for paper and ink.
His trembling hand having feebly traced a number of wandering
characters, and added what could be easily recognized as
his well-known signature, he sank back. The precious paper
(precious, whatever may have been its unknown import, as a
proof of remembrance at so solemn a moment) was afterward
handed over by the physician in attendance, Sir Walter
Farquhar, to Mr. Ward; and many a time did he declare, as he
displayed it to me, that he would give anything he valued most
in the world to be able to decipher its unformed characters."
Some posthumous compositions of Mr. Ward are appended to the Memoirs.
They consist of "characters," similar to those of Chesterfield and
other writers, and of "sketches" and essays; these last being set in
a species of framework, intended to connect them into a series. They
are not the best specimens of the author's composition; and perhaps
were hardly worth publication. Allowance is to be made, as Mr. Phipps
remarks, for their unrevised state; and revision might have removed
crudities and imparted more closeness and strength. It would not,
however, have altered their main defects; which may be summed up
by saying that they belonged to another age, without reaching the
peculiar force and finish which alone can give interest to an obsolete
mode.
[Footnote 3: Memoirs of the Political and Literary Life of Robert
Plumer Ward, Esq., Author of "The Law of Nations," "Tremaine," "De
Vere," &c. With Selections from his Correspondence, Diaries, and
unpublished Literary Remains. By the Honorable Edmund Phipps. In two
volumes. Published by Murray.]
* * * * *
THE BAGPIPE.--In Gothic sculpture and tracery angels are sometimes
portrayed practising on the bagpipe. It was occasionally used in
churches before the introduction of the organ, which occurred early
in the fifteenth century. Written music came into use about the same
time, and both were loudly denounced by many of the old school-men as
unnecessary and vain innovations.
* * * * *