562 



The Review of Reviews. 



BURKE, WINDHAM, AND PITT. 



The British Museum has acquired a con- 

 siderable portion of Windham's correspondence 

 dealing with the revolutionary period, and his 

 relations with Burke and Pitt, whose administra- 

 tion he joined in July, 1794. 



These letters are described to readers of The 

 English Historical Review by Mr. Holland Rose. 

 Windham on his return from France received 

 from Burke a letter dated September 27th, 1789, 

 in which he says ; — 



That they (the French) should settle their constitution 

 without much struggle, on paper, I can easily believe; 

 because at present the interests of the Crown have no 

 party, certainly no armed party, to support them; but 

 I have great doubt whether any form of government 

 they can establish will procure obedience, especially 

 obedience in the article of taxation. In the destruction 

 of the revenue-constitution they find no difiSculties; 

 but with what to supply them is the o^us. ... It does 

 not appear to me that the national assembly have one 

 jot more power than the king. 



With remarkable insight Burke, even at this 

 stage, detected the weakness of the democratic 

 movement in France. Its champions showed 

 far less ability in construction than zeal in 

 destruction; and their fatal inabiUty to restore 

 order suggested to Burke the well-known pas- 

 sage in the Reflections on the Revolution in 

 France, in which he foretold the advent of the 

 Directory and Bonaparte. A strain of pessim- 

 ism is essential to the mental equipment of a 

 prophet; and certainly Burke, whom Windham 

 describes as " decried, persecuted, and pro- 

 scribed, not being much valued even by his own 

 party, and by half the nation considered as little 

 better than an ingenious madman," had the 

 characteristics and the experiences that befit a 

 seer. 



Other letters deal with the subject of Burke's 

 pension. An annuity of £1,200 a year (" the 

 largest sum which His Majesty is entitled to 

 fix ") was conferred. Regarding it the King 

 wrote to Pitt : — 



I have received Mr. Pitt's note enclosing the letter he 

 has received from Mr. Burke. Misfortunes are the 

 great softeners of the human mind, and has (sic.) in 

 the instance of this distressed man made him owne what 

 his warmth of temper would not have allowed in other 

 circumstances, namely, that he may have erred. One 

 quality I take him to be very susceptible of, that is, 

 gratitude, which I think covers many failings, and 

 niakes nie, therefore, happy at bfeing able to relieve 

 him. His chusing the pension to be settled on his wife 

 I thoroughly approve of, and it will with the better 

 grace enable the other pension to be settled on him. 



For some reason, far from easy to fathom, 

 Pitt did not apply to Parliament for the further 

 pension, but granted from the civil list an 

 annuity of ;i<^2,5oo, which was found to be avail- 

 able. Earl Stanhope suggests that this course 

 averted the possibility of an angry debate. But 



would Fox, Grey, or Sheridan have dared to 

 dispute the propriety of granting pensions to 

 Burke? If any question had been raised, would 

 it not have been as to their inadequacy? Surely 

 the occasion was such as to elicit an almost 

 unanimous assent. 



REMINISCENCES OF JOWETT. 



Jowett's remarkable personality is intimately 

 portrayed by an intimate friend. A, L. S., in 

 these reminiscences in The Blue Book. Anec- 

 dotes are related of the master's rapid judg- 

 ment of character, of his helpfulness, of his grip 

 on the men of his day. The Jowett of legend is 

 always paralysing the undergraduate, if shy, 

 by long silences, or, if sensitive, by caustic 

 criticism. Undoubtedly, Jowett could, on occa- 

 sions, be disconcertingly silent, and on other 

 occasions still more disconcertingly outspoken. 

 Such occasions were a breakfast party, which 

 ended with the remark, " Gentlemen," shyness 

 is not a crime, but it is a misfortune "; another 

 was when, after a long pause, a freshman 

 scholar was suddenly asked, " Do vou write 

 verses, Mr. X.— English verses? " The scholar, 

 now celestial rosy red, admitting that he did,' 

 was told, "That's right, quite right ; burn them, 

 burn them." Again, a youth arriving with him 

 one Sunday at noontide in a country town and 

 hazarding the observation that " there seemed 

 more dogs than men in this place," got the reply 

 that such a remark was hardly worth making. 

 ^^ He had none of Dr. Johnson's instinct to 

 "collar" the conversation. He preferred to 

 sum it up in some final word, sometimes adding 

 a correction or maybe insinuating a protest. An 

 instance of this occurred when, after dinner, Sir 

 Robert Morier was giving some reminiscences 

 of mner life in St. Petersburg that were, as 

 Carlyle puts it, Samoyedic. There were several 

 present to whom the description ingenui vultus 

 puer might have been applied. Taking advan- 

 tage of the first embarrassed pause among the 

 company, Jowett said, with a twinkle in his eye 

 and m his most dulcet tones, " Morier, shall we 

 adjourn this conversation to the drawing- 

 room? " As we trooped out, Sir Robert took 

 M ^ %. ;^^ ^™ and whispered delightedlv, 

 Devihsh clever that of Jowett, devilish good.'" 

 Many a man has had cause to bless the wise 

 mercifulness of Jowett and his refusal to submit 

 to defeat when a soul was a stake. One of the 

 most eminent men of the last generation sent to 

 him this message to cheer him in illnes* : "It 

 was Jowett who saved me from going to the 

 dogs ; or, to be correct, he brought me back 

 when I had already gone there; you may tell 



