Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/582

 574 LETTERS OF TIPTOFT AND NEVILLE October communis vniuersitatis causa consumpserim. Verebar enim et vehementer formidabam ne, cum ceteris rebus, tot excellentissimi libri, tot summorum sudores atque vigilie perirent.^ Conati autem sumus quantum in nobis Jxt cetera omnia volumina que ille hie habuerit cogere ; que autem in Hybernia sunt nostre potestati baud subiecta existunt. Ceterum cum hec fecissem, parum desiderio meo satisfecisse videbar nisi pariter prouiderem vti libri quibus istud studium donauerit tute vniuersitatis nuntio cum vestris optatis, tum vel maxime ista animi in perquirenda scientia affec- tione, credantur. Precantes Dominum optimum maximumque vt vberes inde diuturnosque fructus capiatis. Valeat vniuersitas vestra feliciter. Cursim ex domo nostra iuxta Westmonasterium quintodecimo kalendas Decembris. Totus vester G. Eboracensis. Wellington at Verona It has been taken for granted by many writers on the period of the congress of Verona that the failure of English diplomacy at that meeting could be ascribed to the incapacity of the English repre- sentative, Wellington. To the charge of incapacity Lord Acton,^ Martin,^ and Lamartine* have added that of disloyalty to Canning, and an ingeniously modified form of this charge has been put for- ward by Mr, J. E. S. Green in a paper read before the Royal Histo- rical Society in November 1917,® and in a more recent article.^ Mr. Green's theory is briefly this : that Wellington was, during November 1822, gradually won over by Metternich to a policy of supporting Austria, that during the latter part of the congress he worked hand in glove with Metternich, disregarding both his written instructions and Canning's known wishes, and that this disloyalty towards his official superior was justified in his own eyes by George IV's strong desire that England should continue to act with the alliance, and by his own distrust of Canning's policy and fear of its probable results. There are, however, difficulties in the way of accepting this theory of Wellington's conduct, and the most serious difficulty is not that dealt with in Mr. Green's article in this Review. To begin with there is the fact that Wellington had played a considerable part in putting Canning in office.' By no process of quibbling could he have persuaded himself that it was fair to add to the already con- ' Tlie Rylands copy inserts jHtrte. ■' pp. 200 f. above. » See the letter of George IV to Wellington, 5 Septeiuber 1822 ( Wellington Dispatches, sec. n, i. 273) ; and Wellington to George IV, 7 September 1822 {ibid. 274-6).
 * Ante, iii. 800 ; review of J. F. Bright, History of England.
 * Martin, Histoire de France depuis 1789, iv. 308.
 * Lamartine, Histoire de la Restauration, vii. 106.
 * Royal Hist. Soc. Tramactions, 3rd Ser., xi, 1917, ]). 59.