Whigs in Clover

MELBOURNE (450 pp.) -Lord David Cecil-Bobbs -Merrill ($5).

"The first Whig was the devil!" exclaimed Dr. Samuel Johnson in 1778. The good Tory doctor had reason to be vehement, for nothing like the Whig aristocracy had existed in England before. Whig families owned most of the land, dwelt in "homes with 60 bedrooms," gambled away whole fortunes in a night, and lived and governed England with "an animal recklessness at once terrifying and exhilarating." Whig men believed that chastity was a dangerous thing; it gave a man the gout, they said. Fortunately, Whig women did their best to keep the boys gout-free.

William Lamb, Second Viscount Melbourne, was England's last big Whig. In 1939 Lord David Cecil wrote the first part of Lamb's tale, The Young Melbourne, a biography that rated as one of the finest of the decade. Now Author Cecil has finished the job by carrying his story up to Melbourne's death in 1848. The complete book is superb.

Under the Dish, a Dish. Melbourne entered the world "free from the tiresome inhibitions that are induced by a sense of inferiority." He had no need to feel inferior; he was rumored not to be the son of the first Lord Melbourne--a dull fellow--but of his mother's favorite lover, Lord Egremont. The dashing Egremont, the story went, had had to pay -L-13,000 when he "bought" her from another lover, Lord Coleraine (lover and mistress, it was said, shared the proceeds).

It was his "capacity for compromising genially with circumstances" that gave Melbourne his first principle&151:to let people alone. "If we are to have a prevailing religion," Melbourne told the world urbanely, "let us have one that is cool and indifferent." He opposed popular education because, he said, "You may fill a person's head with nonsense which may be impossible ever to get out again." When he became Prime Minister, he never made a political or religious appointment until he was obliged to, and was annoyed when death forced his hand. "Damn it! Another bishop dead!" he would sigh. "I believe they die to vex me."

But like many an indolent, skeptical fellow, Melbourne was fatally attracted by vigorous, strong-willed women. His wife, Caroline Ponsonby (known in Whig circles as "the Fairy Queen"), was fond of her amiable husband, but fonder, it was said, of such rare thrills as being "carried [into dinner] concealed under a silver dish cover, from which she emerged on the dinner table stark naked.

A Snack of Glass. When "Queen" Caroline met Lord Byron, even the robustest Whig was rocked by the resulting drama. Caroline dressed up as Poet Byron's page boy in a silver-laced jacket and scarlet pantaloons, bit large pieces out of her wine glass when she saw him talking to another woman. But Melbourne stood staunchly by his Fairy Queen, watching her glittering hysteria degenerate into madness. She died in 1828, leaving him the father of a half-witted boy.

In 1834 Melbourne became Britain's vaguest, strangest Prime Minister. Years later, even his old friends in the Cabinet were shocked when, after at last reaching agreement on the price of bread, they heard their Premier calling after them down the stairs: "Stop a bit! What did we decide? Is it to lower the price . . . or isn't it? It doesn't matter which, but we must all say the same thing."

How to Lick Bad Habits. In 1837 the young Queen Victoria ascended the throne, and the aging Whig skeptic was handed the unusual task of explaining the basic principles of faith and politics to an innocent girl. The young Queen all but fell in love with him. "Dear Lord M" (as the Queen called him in her diary) could explain anything, from the martial conquest of Canada to the marital conduct of Henry VIII ("Those women bothered him so," he told her). He was always so reassuring about everything. "If you have a bad habit," he said, "the best way to get out of it is to take your fill of it." Complicated matters, such as the monarchical history of Scotland, he summed up with fine brevity ("There are too many Jameses and all murdered. The Scottish are a dreadful people'').

For a few brief years, the last of the Regency Whigs held the hand of the first of the Victorian moralists. But the heyday of the Whig aristocracy was over. When the young Queen married her stern, respectable Prince Consort, Melbourne found himself in the doghouse. For a while Lord M fought the changing order, and his aged voice could be heard crying: "This damned morality will ruin everything!" But at last he retired to the country. "The fire is out," he told his friends bluntly. "The fire is out."

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