Minor Incidents; Holland House; Sydney Smith; Ecclesiastical Commission Act (1836); Joseph Parkes; Count d’Orsay; Lord Melbourne; Mrs. Norton; Dr. Hampden’s Case; Watts’ Portrait of Panizzi; Lord Holland; Hardy’s Life of Lord Langdale.
Hitherto our work has consisted for the most part of details of important facts: it may, therefore, be well for a time to digress, and to string together some of the minor incidents of Panizzi’s life, without which this could scarcely claim to be a faithful biography. To recount such small traits of character may be deemed simply gossip; yet, on reflection, it is not so, as it is thus that true light is brought to bear on the man’s character, and, by these details, an opportunity is given of judging disposition and intentions, which could not otherwise have been afforded. In presenting the following items, therefore, to our readers, accompanied as our observations are by original correspondence, we simply perform the duty which should be fulfilled by every honest biographer. In a life like Panizzi’s, much importance is attached to what, at first, may appear insignificant, relating in a great degree to the society of which he was a member.
314 Sydney Smith
The name of Holland House has long been notable as the headquarters of one of the most delightful of London coteries, not only for the celebrity in the world of letters of its immediate frequenters, but also for the eminence in political life of many more who resorted thither. Whether or no the Church was adequately represented in the person of that wittiest, and most genial of ecclesiastics, Sydney Smith, certain it is that the society of the place would have been greatly the loser by his absence. Here Panizzi, who, in proportion to the sterling worth of his company, appears ever to have been a welcome guest, very soon after his arrival in London established a footing; and at the time of her marriage, in 1833, the present Lady Holland found him already an habitué of Holland House, in company with such distinguished individuals as Lord Grey, Lansdowne, and Brougham, Moore, Jeffrey, and Allen.
Speaking from personal knowledge of Panizzi, we are inclined, in a great measure, to ascribe his remarkable social successes to that innate and subtle quality with which so few men comparatively are endowed—perhaps happily so; for want of a better term, let us call it personal influence. In this respect he has always seemed to suggest to us a comparison of him with the late Dr. Arnold. The latter was apparently a man of great mental powers and amiable 315disposition; still, in his own peculiar sphere, many of his contemporaries may have equalled, and some even surpassed him.
This may be true to a certain extent; but, considering the talents which this great man possessed, it seems almost absurd to remark that some of his own pupils have attributed to him a deficiency of that sixth sense which is generally regarded as the most judicious controller and regulator of our actions—sense of humour. With men of discernment and of note, there is, however, always some distinguishing quality,—so in the case of Arnold and Panizzi it happened that, whereas the one was calculated to instil into those with whom he came in contact awe, the other was ever welcome, from the congeniality of his disposition. Nor in saying this do we detract in the smallest degree from the mental or moral worth of either. For this quality of personal influence, although, like “reading and writing,” it comes “by nature,” yet is nevertheless dependent for continuous life and maintenance upon genuine merit in its subject.
Like mates not always with like, and the characters of Panizzi and Sydney Smith must have differed very widely; yet, notwithstanding all divergences of mental constitution, it was not long ere an intimate friendship sprang up between them.
In the year 1836 the Ecclesiastical Commission Act, for the supervision and re-adjustment of certain of the revenues and sources of revenue of the English Church, was passed. It must be conceded that this Commission made a pretty clean sweep of not a few offices in the Church hardly worthy the expense of retention, 316as well as of others more venerable for antiquity than valuable in point of usefulness; and for many years it had to bear the brunt of accusations, not always made by those who object to the most moderate reforms. It is only lately, indeed, that we have ourselves listened to some, who might long ago have been wearied of, though truly they were not satiated with, their denunciations of this, to them, wanton act of spoliation, this invasion of the rights of the Church, &c., &c., &c.
On the side of the assailants, Sydney Smith put in a very early appearance. His attack upon the arbitrary power given to the Commission, and on the little protection afforded to, and the little heed taken of, the rights of the poorer clergy, lasted until 1840; in which year a petition, presented by him, in July, against it, was read in the House of Lords by the Bishop of Rochester.
Sydney Smith was warmly rebuked, for that he, a professedly consistent Whig, should have borne himself with so much hostility towards the rulers of his party. However, his correspondence on the subject during these four years was extensive, and a letter written by him to Panizzi, criticising the conduct of the Bishops, is certainly worthy of reproduction:
“21 December, 1836.
Combe Florey.
“My dear Panizzi,
Various Bishops, of whom the Archbishop of Canterbury is at the head, on the Ecclesiastical Commission, combine in recommending that the revenues of their various churches should be seized, the patronage confiscated, and the numbers abridged. Now, the Archbishop, at his consecration, took a solemn oath that he would preserve the rights, revenues, 317and property of his Cathedral; moreover, in the debates on the Catholic question, the said Archbishop laid a great stress upon the King’s oath at his Coronation, so did the Bishop of London. I have no books here; would you do me the favour to look into the debates on that subject, and extract any short passage from the speeches of either of the prelates on the sanctity and importance of this oath. You will find what has been said, of course, in Hansard. I shall be much obliged to you to do this for me.
Ever yours truly,
Sydney Smith.”
Fortunately even the power of Sydney Smith’s opposition failed to hinder the carrying out of a reform, perhaps the least revolutionary that could have been devised for the administration of the property of the Church.
In the same proportion as diversity of topics enters into a series of correspondence, will, as a rule, be the amount of amusement to be derived by the public from its perusal. But one more letter from Sydney Smith to Panizzi is in our possession, and this, so far as it goes, and in conjunction with the letter already quoted, sufficiently fulfils the above condition. It certainly treats of no grave question of ecclesiastical or other politics, but is concerned with nothing mean or unimportant, since it relates to an invitation to dinner sent by the writer to the recipient, and is eminently characteristic of its author:—
“23 April, 1844,
“My dear Panizzi,
I wrote to you two or three times inviting you to dinner for the 26th. Receiving no answer, I concluded you were dead, and I invited your executors. News, however, came that you were out of town. I should as soon have 318thought of St. Paul’s or the Monument being out of town, but as it was positively asserted, I have filled up your place. I hope to be more fortunate on another occasion.
Yours, &c., &c.,
Sydney Smith.”
During this part of his career—as indeed so long as he could himself write—Panizzi’s general correspondence was too voluminous to allow of much selection; for the notes and explanations thereon, when at hand or to be obtained, would inordinately increase the bulk of this work. We, therefore, subjoin but a few specimens, which mostly speak for themselves:—
“Westminster,
Dec. 4, 1842.
“Dear Panizzi,
What a d—— fellow you are; a man of taste and accomplishment to write such a cursed illegible hand, that only the devil himself could decipher you. The truth is that when you spoke to me about your note, I really did not see the point of its contents. I opened it in my office full of angry Jew creditors of a client. I just ran through it, could not decipher half, and seeing it was on literature, no business, I interred it alive in a box—the mausoleum of my merely private correspondence—waiting leisure to peruse it. It so happened that I never opened the said box till to-night, when I took up your body. Really an illegible handwriting ought to be a statutory crime, and shall be when I get into Parliament. I can’t now decipher two of your words till daylight in the morning. The next time you send me an illegible note I will return it to you, not prepaid, to be copied by your secretary.
So good night, and I could not sleep without giving you this cat-o’-nine-tails. I never was so put to it in my life as when you accosted me in the club, for thought I to myself, 319I will be hanged if I know the subject matter of his note; what can I feign?
Yours nevertheless truly,
J. P.”[O]
O. Joseph Parkes, Lawyer and Politician, died 1865.
The next is to the Editor of the Edinburgh Review, and relates to certain articles written therein by Panizzi:—
“Saturday, British Museum,
(1844).
“My Dear Sir,
I direct to Edinburgh, as I suppose you either are or will soon be back there. I am glad we agree about the ‘Jesuits.’ The ‘Post-Office’ article will be longer than I thought; there is a great deal important unsaid that we must say. The Jesuits shall follow; both by the middle of September shall be ready.... There is no article on any subject of immediate, striking, and now exciting interest. For instance the ‘Post-Office Espionage’ is one of them; Algiers and French ambition is another. The Jesuits is a third, and that is why I chose them. Any article on Ireland, or sugar and free trade, or the slave trade, or Puseyism, &c., &c., would be welcome to general readers. Puseyism, I know, you have touched upon, but, with the Dublin Review on the one hand and Newman’s publication on the other, you might pay off these two inveterate enemies of yours most capitally. Then, although I know your difficulties about it, as it is a serious review, you want light, amusing articles, anecdotes of shooting, fishing, and of old Highlanders and robbers (or gentlemen who took what they wanted), travels, &c. As I put down at random what, I think, may illustrate what I mean, the number is, in fact, too good for this age of light reading; we are impatient if we don’t get on in reading, as we do travelling by steam.
Ever yours truly,
A. Panizzi.”
320A letter from Count d’Orsay, on a curious fact in natural history, will be read with interest. Panizzi’s answer to this is not forthcoming, but it may be doubted if he succeeded in conveying any very valuable information to the Count’s mind on the subject:—
“Gore House,
Mardi.
“Mon cher Panizzi,
Je suppose que vous avez un Buffon dans votre établissement, qui pourra nous éclairer sur le sujet d’un animal presque fabuleux, qui vient de jouer le r?le à Van Diemen Land, que Racine fit jouer à celui, qui causa la mort d’Hippolyte.
“Miss X—— à re?u aujourd’hui une lettre de sa mère annon?ant que le même jour qu’elle écrivait, elle allait voir un tigre marin qu’on avait tué avec une grande difficulté, et qui avait poursuivi sur terre plusieurs personnes—c’était la terreur des environs, on le nommait aussi Sea-Devil, il résista à quatre coups de feu, et après un combat acharné on lui ouvrit le crane, d’un coup de hache. Ainsi donc comme la poste est partie avant qu’on ai vu ce monstre nous sommes très anxieux de savoir si vos naturallistes connaissent ce personnage.
Votre tout dévoué, &c.,
C. D’Orsay.”
The following, from Lord Melbourne to Panizzi, conveys the notion that the former discovered the beauties of Ovid’s Metamorphoses rather late in life:—
“South Street, Feb. 27, 1846.
“My dear Mr. Panizzi,
I have lately been looking at the Metamorphoses of Ovid, a book in which I find much beautiful poetry and more curious matters. Burman, in his note upon the title of the poem (Vol. II. of his edition, p. 7) says that the poem was founded upon an ancient Greek poem by the writer, of the 321name of Parmenius Chius. What is Burman’s authority for this Parmenius, and where are the traces of his poem? I do not remember ever to have read his name, and I cannot find it in the Index to Quinctilian, who, I thought, had mentioned every poet of any eminence, Greek or Latin.
Yours faithfully,
Melbourne.”
A letter from the Hon. Mrs. Norton, on the subject of Lord Melbourne’s friendship for Panizzi (to which a second on the same subject is added), must be quoted, though it is not without something of melancholy interest:—
“Chesterfield Street,
(November, 1845) Friday evening.
“Dear Mr. Panizzi,
I met Lord Melbourne at dinner to-day, and mentioned to him having seen you and Mr. Thackeray. He begged me to write, for him, to ask you if you would dine with him on Monday, and Mr. Thackeray also. Will you let me know, as soon as convenient, and will you, who are an old friend of Lord Melbourne’s, explain anything that may seem odd and blunt in his mode of inviting without introduction, though indeed he persists very obstinately that Mr. Thackeray is a clergyman, with whom he is, or ought to be, acquainted. I said I did not think it clerical to write about the Bishop of Bullocksmithy, and that I did not think Mr. Thackeray was a clergyman at all. But this is not of im............