I have known in my time a good many very absent-minded men, but never one
that came near to this wit, poet, and diplomat manqué. I knew him at Malta in 1827, and
received much kindness from him. He would dine at the same table and have long talks with
you to-day, and would not know you if you met him in the streets to-morrow. If he called
you by your right name in the morning, he would be pretty sure to call you by a wrong one
in the afternoon or evening. Worse still, he would invite you to dinner, forget all about
it, and have dined, or be dining, when you got to his house at La
Pietà. If anything were told to him that was on no account to be repeated, he was
almost sure to tell it to the first friend or acquaintance he met. His scholarship, his
wit, his poetry, and perhaps most of all his school fellowship with George Canning, got him into diplomacy; the profession for
which, of all others, he was
| CHAP. XIII] | SIR JOHN MOORE | 133 |
He ought to have been a country parson with a good fat living, or the Dean of a Cathedral, though I fear that even in such a post he must have committed himself through his propensity to let his head go a-wool-gathering. The history of his embassy to Madrid, and his conduct there in 1808-09, which completely deceived Sir John Moore, and led to the disastrous retreat to Corunna, cannot be forgotten nor recalled without pain, nor without regret that he should have been diplomatically employed in such a country. In Spain, he was disqualified not only by his absent-mindedness, but by a blind uncalculating enthusiasm for the Spaniards—a malady which his friend Southey shared with him. He was very fond of Spanish literature, particularly its poetry. He had gained great reputation as a youth by a spirited translation of the “Cid”; he took the Spaniards to be as heroical as in the days of the Campeador, and he appears to have taken every Spanish Don or General for a real Cid.
He kept dreaming on, on the banks of the Manzanares, while the English
army, abandoned by his Spanish heroes, was getting into terrible difficulties; and he did
not awake until Moore was killed, and his army
re-embarked for Portugal. It was Frere who, by his
mistaken representations and earnest entreaties, induced our Government to order
Sir John’s advance upon Madrid. This was a responsibility
from which the diplomatist could never be cleared. It was a mistake, a blunder; but
Frere would remain less inexcusable if, after our retreat, he had
not, to cover himself, accused Moore, as brave a soldier as ever drew
sword, of something very like cowardice, as well as of indecision and want of military
ability. This last was a black spot on Frere’s scutcheon, but I
believe the only one that was ever there. When the Duke
took command of our forces in the Penin-
| 134 | JOHN HOOKHAM FRERE | [CHAP. XIII |
Government sent the Duke’s own brother, the Marquis Wellesley; and Frere retired on a comfortable ambassadorial pension, and the honours of a “Right Honourable.” He was never employed again, either diplomatically or otherwise, and never wished to be so. He fell back upon his books, and upon his rhymes, pleasant fancies, jests, and drolleries; and there he had few rivals. Not long after the peace he married the Dowager Countess of Errol, who had a comfortable jointure. Her ladyship soon began to suffer from asthma. After trying many places, she fancied that what suited her best was the island of Malta; and there they fixed themselves, remained many years without once quitting it, and there they both died and lie interred. Numerous were their deeds of charity; and great, and to some extent lasting, was the good done at Malta by Lady Errol and her poet. Her ladyship, in conjunction at first with the Marchioness of Hastings and her daughters, and then with Lady Emily Ponsonby, got together money enough to form a place of retreat for many aged and infirm Maltese, and to establish an industrial school, where children of both sexes were educated and brought up to be useful and gain their own honest livelihood. Lady Errol was the greatest benefactress of these institutions, for she gave to them not only her money but a great deal of her time and attention.
That pest of revolting mendicity and street begging, which had so troubled
all strangers, had begun almost to disappear, when those who founded the almshouses and the
school were recalled to England or removed by death, and when our reforming Whig ministry
persisted in sending out reforming governors and systematizing commissioners, who chilled,
| CHAP. XIII] | HIS LIFE IN MALTA | 135 |
In 1847-48, I thought I saw more beggars in Valetta than I had ever seen there before. One of the most active of Lady Errol’s helpers was poor Lady Flora Hastings, second daughter to the Marquis, who died in his government and was buried in Malta in the year 1826. There were some Maltese not destitute of gratitude, for in 1827 I found, nearly every morning, the grave strewed with fresh flowers.
The Marquis was succeeded by General Sir Frederic Ponsonby, one of the most distinguished of our Waterloo heroes, who remained until 1830, when Ministers, who wanted his place for a Whig, recalled him. With these two Governors the poet and his lady were in the closest intimacy and confidence; and they, as well as the whole island, had a happy time while this régime lasted, and while as yet our reformers had not turned the heads and alienated the affections of the Maltese people by giving them liberty of the Press, the right of choosing their magistrates and judges, and by making other concessions which never should have been made to such a people, placed in such circumstances.
Rose thought that now Frere must be driven home to England—an event which he heartily desired—and that with his strong Toryism he would never be able to stand these new Governors, these Commissioners, and all that Whig and Radical inundation which set in as soon as Earl Grey got to the helm and had command of the sluice-gates.
But Lady Errol fancied she could not
live elsewhere, and the poet took to thinking of something else; not, as I fancy, that he
had ever bestowed very much thought upon politics since quitting diplomacy and his country.
Year after year I continued to receive by letter, or to hear, some account or other of his
eccentricity, absent-mindedness, and
| 136 | JOHN HOOKHAM FRERE | [CHAP. XIII |
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