March 29th.—Great excitement yesterday in the town, particularly at Brooks's. The most interesting event was the City election, and the return, which under the circumstances may be called triumphant, of John Russell, which was made more agreeable to himself and his friends by the defeat of Raikes Currie, who came from Northampton on purpose to turn him out. Up to the last hour John Russell continued to lead at the head of the poll, after which he fell off and only ended third, but still he had 7,000 votes after having been assured by his old adherents (J. Abel Smith in particular) that his success was hopeless, that he would be beaten 'disgracefully,' and probably would have hardly any votes at all.

After this the most interesting events were the defeats of the Manchester men, and generally, though not universally, of the voters for Cobden's motion, Bright and Milner Gibson, Cobden, Ricardo, Layard, all defeated. It seems that Manchester and the other great towns had got tired of their leaders, who had made themselves unpopular by their opposition to the war. I am sorry for the loss of Bright and Cobden, because such able men ought not to be ousted and replaced by mediocrities.

Palmerston's speech at Tiverton was in the same style, but far less offensive and objectionable than his address and his Mansion House harangue. The most remarkable part of it was the total silence which he observed as to his intention upon reforms and domestic questions generally, or rather his positive refusal to say a word on the subject or to pledge himself in any way; he evidently means to meet his Parliament free to take any course his interests may dictate. There was one remarkable speech yesterday, considering what the man is who uttered it. Vernon Smith at Northampton spoke as follows: 'Mr. Disraeli said Lord Palmerston was the Tory chief of a Radical Cabinet. I do not admit the description as regards Lord Palmerston, but I accept the designation as to the Cabinet of which I am a member. A great statesman once said that parties were like fishes (it was snakes, I believe), and their heads were propelled by their tails, and it will very likely be found that the head of the Government will in like manner be propelled by his tail.' The words are not exact, but the meaning is, and it must be owned a remarkable declaration for a Cabinet Minister to make as to his chief, and such a chief. I believe that it will turn out to be the truth. The returns so far as they have gone are frightful, and a deluge of Radicalism and violence will burst out in the House of Commons. There will be a Radical majority prepared to support Lord Palmerston and to keep him in power, but on the condition of his doing their bidding, and consenting to their demands, nor will he be able to help himself. He will no doubt try to do as little as possible, but there will be no strong Conservative party to which he can appeal from and against his own Radical supporters; the Conservatives will be too weak to help him, and probably will not be inclined to help him out of his difficulty if they could. At his age his only object will be to grasp power while he lives. Apr�s moi le d�luge will be his motto, and my expectation is that he will never consent to sacrifice power from scruples or upon principles, and will consent to anything that may be necessary rather than allow himself to be outbid and to see power torn from his hands. The prospect seems to me tremendous. The cry of Palmerston, and nothing but Palmerston, has done very well to go to the hustings on, but having accomplished its purpose, other cries much more serious will soon take its place, and we shall see, as the Prince said, Constitutional Government on its trial with a vengeance.

March 31st.—The elections continue to be unfavourable to the Conservatives, but the people at Brooks's, and the Government generally, are too sanguine when they call everything gain to them where a Conservative is replaced by a Liberal, for in many cases the so-called Liberal is a violent Radical, very likely to give much more trouble to the Government than the Conservative who was turned out. The gains to Government up to this time (and the borough elections are all over) are calculated at 20, making a difference of 40 votes; but the Conservatives do not admit this, and will make other calculations with different results.

There is no denying the fact, however, that a strong sense has been evinced of partiality for Palmerston and resentment against the China vote. The news of the Emperor of China having ordered Yeo to make peace on any terms comes very opportunely, but nothing can be so absurd as the pretence that by so doing the Emperor himself condemns his Viceroy and justifies our conduct at Canton. It only proves that His Majesty is very much alarmed, and wishes to heal the breach as quickly as possible, and on any terms he can. I am bound to say that many people, not extravagant either, maintain that this promises to be a very good Parliament, and by no means so dangerous as my fears have pictured it to myself; still I cannot look upon it as a safe and innocent Parliament. Cardwell's defeat at Oxford proves how low the Peelites are. Frederic Peel's loss of his seat is a great inconvenience to the Government, and one does not see how it is to be repaired, for it is almost impossible in these days to treat any place (if one can be found) as a nomination borough, turn the sitting member out, and put him in instead. The serious part of it is that he has to move the Army Estimates, and nobody else can do it now.

Old Lady Keith is dead, at some prodigious age. She was the 'Queeny' of Dr. Johnson, Mrs. Hale's daughter, and was the last surviving link between those times and our own, and probably the only person surviving who could remember Johnson himself and his remarkable contemporaries, or who had lived in intimacy with them.

CHAPTER XIV.

Results of the Elections—Defeat of Cobden and Bright—The War with China—Death of Lady Ashburton—Lord Palmerston's Success—The Handel Concerts—M. Fould in London—The Queen and Lord Palmerston—The Indian Mutiny—The Prince Consort—Death of General Anson—The State of India—Royal Guests—The Government of India—Temper of the House of Commons—Debates on India—Royal Visits—The Divorce Bill—The Divorce Bill in the House of Lords—Close of the Session—A Dukedom offered to Lord Lansdowne—Death of Mr. Croker—History of the Life Peerages—The Indian Mutiny and the Russian War—The Struggle in India—Reinforcements for India—The Queen's Attention to Public Business—Attacks on Lord Canning—Big Ships and Big Bells—Lord Canning defended—Courteous Behaviour of Foreign Nations—The Capture of Delhi and Lucknow—Difficulties in India—Depression in the City—Speculations on the Contingency of a Change of Government—The East India Company and the Government—Exaggerated Reports from India—A Queen's Speech—The Bank Charter Act.

April 4th, 1857.—The elections are drawing to a close. It is strange that what ought to be a matter of fact is made matter of opinion, for while the Whigs of Brooks's and the Liberals generally claim an immense gain, the Conservatives and the Carlton Club and their organs only admit an inconsiderable loss. There can be no doubt, however, that a great many Conservatives have lost their seats, and a great many Radicals and Palmerstonians have been elected. At Brooks's they insist that it will be a very good Parliament, and they are throwing their caps up at the Government successes; but it seems to me that they are reckoning somewhat rashly, and counting as gains to the Government many men who will be found more troublesome and unmanageable than the moderate men over whose defeats they are exulting. But as to gains and losses, and all calculations, I agree with the late Speaker, Lord Eversley, who said to me the other day that nothing could be so fallacious as all such calculations, and that it is impossible to know the result till Parliament meets, and it is seen how the new members group themselves. The most striking and remarkable feature of this election is the complete rout of the Peelites and of the Manchester men, the Old Leaguers. For a long time past it has been absurd to talk of the Peelites as a Party. There were not a dozen men in the House of Commons who could by any possibility be so designated, and in fact only a few formerly members of Sir Robert Peel's Government or of Lord Aberdeen's, who still kept together, and were called Peelites, because they would not be either Whigs or Tories or Radicals. Now the designation must fall to the ground. Half these men have lost their seats; of the rest, some repudiate the association and announce their independence; some join, or are ready to join, Derby and the Tories; others openly declare their adhesion to Palmerston; and thus in one way or another there are no Peelites left.

The fate of Bright, Cobden, and Co. exhibits a curious example of the fleeting and worthless nature of popular favour. They who were once the idols of millions, and not without cause, have not only lost all their popularity, but are objects of execration, and can nowhere find a parliamentary resting place. No constituency will hear of them. The great towns of Lancashire prefer any mediocrities to Bright and Cobden. It seems that they had already ceased to be popular, when they made themselves enormously unpopular, and excited great resentment, by their opposition to the Russian War, the rage for which was not less intense in Manchester and all the manufacturing district than in the rest of the kingdom. This great crime, as it appeared in the eyes of their constituents, was never pardoned, and their punishment was probably determined while the war was still going on. As the favour of Cobden fell, so that of Palmerston rose, and his visit to Manchester a few months ago raised the favour to a pitch of enthusiasm. When Cobden therefore originated the China motion, he no doubt gave great offence, and he sealed his own condemnation. Bright has been long abroad, and has done nothing lately that any one could take umbrage at, but his opposition to the war has not been forgotten or forgiven, and when Cobden appeared at Manchester as his representative, and made a very able speech in his behalf, it is highly probable that his advocacy was in itself fatal to his re-election. It seems quite clear that another man, Sir Elkanah Armytage, lost his election at Salford solely because he was strongly supported and recommended by Cobden.

May 1st.—Parliament met yesterday, the last (Irish) election having ended only a few days before. Denison's election as Speaker went off very quietly. The prevailing opinion now seems to be that this will prove a good Parliament, on the whole safe and moderate, and an improvement on the last. All the news we get from China, or in reference to Chinese affairs, only proves the more strongly how foolish and mischievous the conduct of Bowring was, and what a sound and correct judgement the vote of the House of Commons expressed upon it. It is impossible to conjecture what the result of the war now began will be, but is quite certain that we shall have to wade to our ends through all sorts of horrors and atrocities, which it does not become us to inflict, though the Chinese are a savage, stupid, and uninteresting people, who in some degree deserve the sufferings that will be inflicted on them, though perhaps not at our hands.

George Anson[1] writes to me from India that there is a strange feeling of discontent pervading the Indian Army from religious causes, and a suspicion that we are going to employ our irresistible power in forcing Christianity upon them. It is not true, but the natives will never be quite convinced that it is not, as long as Exeter Hall and the missionaries are permitted to have carte blanche and work their will as they please in those regions.

May 10th.—I passed the last week at Wynnstay for Chester races; a very fine place. The events that have occurred in the course of the last ten days are the opening of the Manchester Exhibition, very successfully; the first proceedings of the new Parliament, which promise a quiet session and a peaceful reign to Palmerston, who has put the House in good humour by promising a Reform Bill next year; the death of the Duchess of Gloster, and, what interests the world still more, the death of Lady Ashburton.[1] Milnes has written a short, but very fair and appropriate notice of her for the 'Times' newspaper, which of course was intended as a eulogy, and not as a character, with the bad as well as the good that could be said of her. Lady Ashburton was perhaps, on the whole, the most conspicuous woman in the society of the present day. She was undoubtedly very intelligent, with much quickness and vivacity in conversation, and by dint of a good deal of desultory reading and social intercourse with men more or less distinguished, she had improved her mind, and made herself a very agreeable woman, and had acquired no small reputation for ability and wit. It is never difficult for a woman in a great position and with some talent for conversation to attract a large society around her, and to have a number of admirers and devoted habitu�s. Lady Ashburton laid herself out for this, and while she exercised hospitality on a great scale, she was more of a pr�cieuse than any woman I have known. She was, or affected to be, extremely intimate with many men whose literary celebrity or talents constituted their only attraction, and while they were gratified by the attentions of the great lady, her vanity was flattered by the homage of such men, of whom Carlyle was the principal. It is only justice to her to say that she treated her literary friends with constant kindness and the most unselfish attentions. They, their wives and children (when they had any), were received at her house in the country, and entertained there for weeks without any airs of patronage, and with a spirit of genuine benevolence as well as hospitality. She was in her youth tall and commanding in person, but without any pretension to good looks; still she was not altogether destitute of sentiment and coquetry, or incapable of both feeling and inspiring a certain amount of passion. The only man with whom she was ever what could be called in love was Clarendon, and that feeling was never entirely extinct, and the recollection of it kept up a sort of undefined relation between them to the end of her life. Two men were certainly in love with her, both distinguished in different ways. One was John Mill, who was sentimentally attached to her, and for a long time was devoted to her society. She was pleased and flattered by his devotion, but as she did not in the slightest degree return his passion, though she admired his abilities, he at last came to resent her indifference, and ended by estranging himself from her entirely, and proved the strength of his feeling by his obstinate refusal to continue even his acquaintance with her. Her other admirer was Charles Buller, with whom she was extremely intimate, but without ever reciprocating his love. Curiously enough, they were very like each other in person, as well as in their mental accomplishments. They had both the same spirits and cleverness in conversation, and the same quickness and drollery in repartee. I remember Allen well describing them, when he said that their talk was like that in the polite conversation between Never Out and Miss Notable. Her faults appeared to be caprice and a disposition to quarrels and tracasseries about nothing, which, however common amongst ordinary women, were unworthy of her superior understanding. But during her last illness all that was bad and hard in her nature seemed to be improved and softened, and she became full of charity, good-will, and the milk of human kindness. Her brother and her sister-in-law, who, forgetting former estrangements, hastened to her sickbed, were received by her with overflowing tenderness, and all selfish and unamiable feelings seemed to be entirely subdued within her. Had she recovered she would probably have lived a better and a happier woman, and as it is she has died in charity with all the world, and has left behind her corresponding sentiments of affection and regret for her memory. I was once very intimate with her, but for a long time past our intimacy had dwindled into ordinary acquaintance.

June 3rd.—There is really nothing to write about, but it is evident that the session is going to pass away in the most quiet and uneventful manner. Never had Minister such a peaceful and undisturbed reign as Palmerston's. There is something almost alarming in his prodigious felicity and success. Everything prospers with him. In the House of Commons there is scarcely a semblance of opposition to anything he proposes; a speech or two here and there from Roebuck, or some stray Radical, against some part of the Princess Royal's dowry, but hardly any attempt at divisions; and when there have been any, the minorities have been so ridiculously small as to show the hopelessness of opposition. The only men who might be formidable or troublesome seem to have adopted the prudent course of not kicking against the pricks. John Russell evinces no hostility, and accepts Hayter's letters. Gladstone hardly ever goes near the House of Commons, and never opens his lips. There seems to be a disposition in both Houses to work and bring legislative reforms to a conclusion. The House of Lords has been very busy with the Divorce Bill, and there has been a good deal of vigorous debating, particularly among Lyndhurst, the Bishops of Oxford and London, and Campbell and Wensleydale, who hate each other, and have interchanged blows.

June 20th.—All this past week the world has been occupied with the Handel Concerts at the Crystal Palace, which went off with the greatest success and �clat. I went to the first ('Messiah'), and the last ('Israel in Egypt'); they were amazingly grand, and the beauty of the locale, with the vast crowds assembled in it, made an imposing spectacle. The arrangements were perfect, and nothing could be easier than the access and egress, or more comfortable than the accommodation. But the wonderful assembly of 2,000 vocal and 500 instrumental performers did not produce musical effect so agreeable and so perfect as the smaller number in the smaller space of Exeter Hall. The volume of sound was dispersed and lost in the prodigious space, and fine as it undoubtedly was, I much prefer the concerts of the Harmonic Society.

Fould[1] came over from Paris the other day for the purpose of going to see the Manchester Exhibition. He was received with great distinction. The Queen invited him to Windsor for Ascot, and Granville gave him a breakfast here to meet the financial notabilities whom he wanted to talk to. We had the Chancellor of the Exchequer and an ex-Chancellor (C. Wood), the Governor of the Bank, and the ex-Governor of the Bank, cum multis aliis. He said that their financial affairs in France were in a very healthy state, which is contrary to the general impression here.

I met Clarendon in the Park a day or two ago, and had some talk with him in the friendly and intimate tone of former times, which rejoiced my heart, because it proved that though circumstances and accidental habits had impeded our intercourse, there exist still the same feelings of regard towards me in his mind, and if our intercourse was restored again, he would probably fall into the same habit of confidence and communication which formerly existed, but which has lately been completely interrupted. He talked of Palmerston, his position and his health, and his rapports with the Queen, who is now entirely reconciled to him. She treats him with unreserved confidence, and he treats her with a deference and attention which have produced a very favourable change in her sentiments towards him. Clarendon told me that Palmerston had lately been ailing in a way to cause some uneasiness. He had had a bad leg with a sore that it had been found difficult to heal, but he appears to have got over it. This might have been very serious. Clarendon talked one day to the Queen about Palmerston's health, concerning which she expressed her anxiety, when Clarendon said she might indeed be anxious, for it was of the greatest importance to her, and if anything happened to him he did not know where she could look for a successor to him, that she had often expressed her great desire to have a strong Government, and that she had now got one, Palmerston being a really strong Minister. She admitted the truth of it. Clarendon said he was always very earnest with her to bestow her whole confidence on Palmerston, and not even to talk to others on any subjects which properly belonged to him, and he had more than once (when, according to her custom, she began to talk to him on certain things) said to her,'Madam, that concerns Lord Palmerston, and I think your Majesty had better reserve it for your communications with him.' He referred to the wonderful change in his own relations with Palmerston, that seven or eight years ago Palmerston was full of hatred and suspicion of him, and now they were the best of friends, with mutual confidence and good will, and lately when he was talking to Palmerston of the satisfactory state of his relations with the Queen and of the utility it was to his Government that it should be so, Palmerston said, 'And it is likewise a very good thing that she has such boundless confidence in her Secretary for Foreign Affairs, when after all there is nothing she cares about so much.'

June 28th.—I went last Saturday week to Strawberry Hill.[1] A large party of people, the Persignys, the Speaker and Lady Charlotte, etc.; it is an enjoyable villa, with its vast expanse of grass, profusion of flowers, and fine trees affording ample shade. Horace Walpole's ridiculous house is unaltered, but furbished up and made comfortable. I regret to hear that Denison does not make a very good Speaker, and that the Government think they made a mistake in putting him into the Chair. It was Palmerston's doing, who would hear of nobody else. There are several men among the Opposition who would probably have been fitter, but with the great majority the Government have they were in a manner compelled to take a man from their own party. Denison says it is owing to the laxity of Palmerston himself if things do not go on so well as they might in the House of Commons.

At Hatchford the past week, and when I got to town I was apprised of the disastrous news from India,[2] the most serious occurrence that has ever been in that quarter, not only from the magnitude of the events themselves as the telegraph conveys them, but because it is quite impossible to estimate the gravity of the case, nor what the extent of it may be. Till we receive the details it is idle to speculate upon it.

The Queen has made Prince Albert 'Prince Consort' by a patent ordered in Council, but as this act confers on him neither title, dignity, nor privileges, I cannot see the use of it. He was already as high in England as he can be, assuming the Crown Matrimonial to be out of the question, and it will give him no higher rank abroad, where our acts have no validity.

July 15th.—For the last three weeks or more all public interest and curiosity have been absorbed in the affairs of India and the great Mutiny that has broken out there, and which has now assumed such an alarming character. I had intended to take some notice of this, and of other matters which time and the hour have brought forth; but, according to my bad custom, I kept putting it off, till at last all other things were driven out of my mind by the news which so unexpectedly reached us on Saturday last of the death of George Anson from a sudden attack of cholera. He was the oldest and most intimate friend I had, and almost the last surviving associate of my youth. I reserve for another moment to say a word or two of a man who, without great abilities or a great career, was too conspicuous a member of society to be passed over without some notice.

The alarm created here by the Indian news is very great, and Ellenborough (reckoned a great authority on Indian matters) does his best to increase it. The serious part of it is that no one can tell or venture to predict what the extent of the calamity may be, and what proportions the mischief may possibly assume. It is certain that hitherto the Government and the East India Company have been in what is called a fool's paradise on the subject. They have been so long accustomed to consider our Empire there as established on so solid a foundation, and so entirely out of the reach of danger, that they never have paid any attention to those who hinted at possible perils, and I don't think anybody ever foresaw anything like what has occurred, and they were disinclined to adopt any of the precautionary recommendations which would have been attended with expense, and the Press, and the public who are always led by the Press, took the same easy view of the subject. While the Russian War was going on a clamour was raised against Government for not calling away all the British troops in India and sending them to the Crimea, and those who went mad about the Crimean War would willingly have left India without a single European regiment, and have entrusted all our interests to the fidelity and attachment of the Native army. Though our Government was willing enough to enter into anything that the passion of the multitude suggested, they were not so insane as all that; but as it is, we may consider it most providential that the mutiny did not show itself during the Russian, or indeed during the Persian war. If it had happened while we were still fighting in the Crimea, we could not have sent out the force that would have been indispensable to save India. At the present moment the interest of the public is not greater than its apprehensions and alarm. Rumours of every sort are rife, generally of the most disastrous kind, and though the mails only come at a fortnight's interval, and it is physically impossible that any intelligence should reach us during those intervals, the public curiosity is fed and excited by continual rumours, which generally circulate stories of fresh disasters and dangers. There is a disposition in some quarters to make if possible poor Anson the scapegoat, and, now that he is dead and cannot defend himself, to attribute to him and to his misconduct or laches the misfortunes that have befallen us. I know not what he may have written home to the civil and military authorities; but, if I may judge by the tenor of his correspondence with me, I should infer that he has warned the Government against leaving India without adequate protection, and constantly urged the expediency of sending out fresh troops. I have long expected that the day would come when we should find reason for regretting our expansive policy and our going on with continual conquests and annexations.

We are overrun with Royalties present and prospective. Besides our Princess Royal's bridegroom, there are here the King of the Belgians' son and daughter, Prince Napoleon, the Queen of the Netherlands, and the Montpensiers as Spanish Princes, in which capacity Persigny has had to pay his court to them, and they have had to receive the Ambassador of Louis Napoleon.

July 19th.—Although it is impossible that any fresh accounts should have come from India, reports are rife of fresh insurrections and of all sorts of evils. Amidst all the bad news from India the good fortune is that so many of the Native troops, and not only the military, but the whole population of the Punjaub, have shown so much fidelity and attachment to the British Government. It is the strongest testimony to the wisdom and justice of our rule, and of the capacity of the natives to appreciate the benefits they derive from it, for beyond all question the introduction of European civilisation into the East, and the substitution of such a government as that of England for the cruel, rapacious, and capricious dominion of Oriental chiefs and dynasties, is the greatest boon that the people could have had conferred upon them. Our administration may not have been faultless, and in some instances it may have been oppressive, and it may have often offended against the habits and prejudices of the natives, but it is certainly very superior in every respect, and infinitely more beneficent than any rule, either of Hindoos or Mahometans, that has ever been known in India. However, people much more civilized and more sagacious than the Indians do not always know what is best for them, or most likely to promote their happiness, so it will not be surprising if these disorders should continue to increase, supposing the means of immediately and effectually suppressing them should be found wanting.

For the last week the House of Commons has presented a more animated appearance than during the preceding months of this dull and passive session. Gladstone has reappeared and proved that his oratorical powers have not been rusted by his retirement, and John Russell has come forth showing his teeth, but not yet attempting to bite the Government. Palmerston, evidently nettled by these two, as well as by Roebuck and Disraeli, has spoken with considerable asperity, and with an insolent air of superiority and defiance, which has hitherto not been usual to him, and which has given no little offence. There are evident symptoms of an approaching cessation of that humble and deferential submission to his will which has hitherto distinguished his servile majority, and though it is not clear in what way they will assert their independence, those who watch the symptoms think that he will not find the same passive disposition in the next session, and if anything should go seriously wrong there would be open and general rebellion. Up to the present time, however, there is nothing to be seen but a certain amount of restlessness and a disposition to find fault, and the Government seem still to command the same enormous majorities, and Palmerston to be as powerful as ever, if he is not quite so popular. A violent effort is made by a number of Liberals in the House of Commons to renew the contest with the House of Lords for the admission of the Jews (the newspapers contain all the details of this attempt), which cannot be pursued without mischievous results, and will fail in its object.

August 2nd.—The Civil War in India, for such it may be called, supersedes every other object of interest, and the successive mails are looked for with the utmost impatience. The Government, though anxious and nervous, are not disheartened, and as far as we can judge the authorities in India have not been deficient in the emergency. Canning writes in good spirits, and all accounts agree in reporting that he has done his work hitherto very well. The discussions in Parliament have been on the whole creditable. Disraeli came down to the House of Commons with a long set oration, in which he entered at great length into the causes of the present confusion, and the misgovernment and bad policy which had engendered it, and although his speech was able, and probably contained a great deal that was true, it was deemed (as it was) mischievous and ill-timed, and very ill received by the House. He was rebuked with some asperity by Tom Baring, his own political adherent, and by Lord John Russell, who declared it to be the duty of the House to give every support to the Government in such a crisis. In the House of Lords Ellenborough was as mischievous and ill-disposed as Disraeli in the Commons, and was no better received. Granville administered to him a severe lecture, by no means ill done, and the House of Lords went with Granville.

Last week was passed at Goodwood, with fine weather, and the usual f�te with the unusual accompaniment of foreign Royalties. First the Comte de Paris for a night, and then the Queen of the Netherlands for two. The young French Prince is good-humoured and unpretending, the Queen is very gay, natural, and pleasing. I renewed an acquaintance I had made with her at Ems many years ago. It is a new feature in the present day the flitting about of Royal personages. Besides these I have named, the Prince Napoleon has been finishing a tour through England and part of Ireland by a visit to Osborne, and the Emperor and Empress are coming to Osborne for a week. Prince Albert has been to Brussels for the marriage of the Princess Charlotte, where he seems to have made his first experiment of the effect to be obtained from his newly-acquired title of 'Prince Consort of England,' as I see that he signed the marriage contract immediately after the Queen Marie Am�lie, and before an Austrian Archduke who was present.

August 12th.—I was at Stoke on Saturday and Sunday, and went over to see Bulstrode; surprised to find the place less d�labr�, and more capable of being restored than I expected. I passed the first fifteen years of my life there, and don't know whether the place or myself is the most changed. To feed our curiosity during the intervals between the Indian mails, the newspapers, the 'Times' especially, collect all the letters they can obtain, and publish them day by day. We have had a success in China, but I always tremble for the consequences of our successes there, lest we should be seduced or compelled into making permanent settlements and further extensions of our Empire in the East. Parliament is approaching its close, and the Government ends the session with unimpaired strength, but depending entirely on Palmerston's life, for there is nobody else capable of leading the House of Commons. There are growing symptoms of independence on the part of the House in the shape of adverse votes every now and then, principally on matters of estimates.

August 20 th.—I have read over the few preceding pages, and am disgusted to find how barren they are of interest and how little worth preserving. They show how entirely my social relations have ceased with all those friends and acquaintances from whom I have been in the habit of drawing the information which the earlier parts of this journal contain, and consequently my total ignorance of all political subjects. There was a time when I should have had a great deal to say upon passing events of interest or importance, but all that is gone by.

The visit of the Emperor Napoleon at Osborne seems to have been spent in discussing the affairs of the Principalities and patching up the quarrels of the Ambassadors at Constantinople. As far as outward appearances go we do not appear to have played a very brilliant part, and the Opposition papers think they have got a good case on which to twit Palmerston, but as I do not know what has really taken place, I abstain from expressing any opinion upon the conduct of our Government.

The session of Parliament has been prolonged beyond all expectation by the vehement and acrimonious debates upon the Divorce Bill in the House of Commons, which has been very ably and vigorously fought by Bethell on one side cum quibusdam aliis, and Gladstone, Walpole, and Heathcote on the other. The Opposition hoped by constant obstructions to wear out the patience of Palmerston and to get the Bill put off till next session. Palmerston, however, was firmly resolved not to submit to this, and when they found that he was so determined, they contented themselves with insisting upon certain amendments, which Palmerston thought it prudent to consent to, and the spirit of compromise and concession which the Government have lately evinced has softened in some degree the asperity of the debates, and at last enabled the Government to carry the Bill. Bethell, who has fought the battle with great ability, is not a little disgusted at the concessions to which he has been forced to consent, and has done so with a solemn protest and warning with regard to the exemption clause for the clergy, which the Government have very reluctantly consented to, but on which Granville assures me they had no option, and that if they had refused to give way they would have infallibly been beaten upon it. I dined at Richmond with Lord Lansdowne yesterday, to meet the Duchess of Orleans and the Comte de Paris. I had never seen her before. She is plain, but pleasing, and with very good manners.

August 21st.—The Divorce Bill having passed the House of Commons, went up to the House of Lords yesterday, when Lord Redesdale attempted to strangle it by a dodge, which he was obliged to give up in consequence of the vigorous attacks made upon him by the Ministerial side, who were supported even by St. Leonards, and particularly by an indignant and effective speech, made by Lord Lansdowne, who, in spite of weakness and gout, from which, he was actually suffering, spoke with extraordinary spirit. If Redesdale had persisted, and gone to a division, the Government would probably have been beaten, and the labour of half the session would have been thrown away. As it is, there is to be a fight on Monday next, the result of which depends on which side can get the greatest number to come up from the country to vote.

September 6th.—Went to Worsley on Thursday last, in order to go from thence to see the Manchester Exhibition, which is very pretty, but appears diminutive after the London and Sydenham Exhibitions. Its principal attraction is in the excellent collection of pictures; it will be a failure in a pecuniary point of view, but there are plenty of rich people in Manchester able and willing to bear the expenses. The session closed very quietly, though not without some grumbling. Some complained that Parliament should not continue to sit while the Indian troubles are going on with undiminished force, others that the Queen should go to Scotland; but the Government have brought their labours to a close very prosperously, and Palmerston continues as powerful and as secure as ever. There is no longer the same enthusiasm there was for him, but there is a universal impression that he is indispensable, and on the whole a feeling of satisfaction and confidence in his administration. Even I myself am compelled in candour to acknowledge that he does at least as well as anybody else would be likely to do, and no complaints can justly be made against the Government of any supineness in sending out adequate reinforcements to India. Lewis told me, just as Parliament was prorogued, that they were thoroughly impressed with the gravity of the case, and conscious of the danger, and that they were going to send out every man they could muster here or in the Colonies, and they have already despatched troops in great numbers with remarkable celerity.

They have made some Peers, of whom the most conspicuous is Macaulay, and I have not seen or heard any complaints of his elevation. Lord Lansdowne has declined the offered Dukedom, which I rather regret, for such a public recognition of his character and services during a long life would have been graceful and becoming, and the report of it elicited from all quarters expressions of satisfaction at such an honour having been so worthily conferred.

While Macaulay is thus ascending to the House of Peers, his old enemy and rival Croker has descended to the grave, very noiselessly and almost without observation, for he had been for some time so withdrawn from the world that he was nearly forgotten. He had lived to see all his predictions of ruin and disaster to the country completely falsified. He continued till the last year or two to exhale his bitterness and spite in the columns of the 'Quarterly Review,' but at last the Editor (who had long been sick of his contributions) contrived to get rid of him. I never lived in any intimacy with him, and seldom met him in society, but he certainly occupied a high place among the second-rate men of his time; he had very considerable talents, great industry, with much information and a retentive memory. He spoke in Parliament with considerable force, and in society his long acquaintance with the world and with public affairs, and his stores of general knowledge made him entertaining, though he was too overbearing to be agreeable. He was particularly disliked by Macaulay, who never lost an opportunity of venting his antipathy by attacks upon him.

Holwood, September 10th.—I came here on Tuesday on a visit to the Chancellor.[1] This beautiful place formerly belonged to Mr. Pitt, and abounds in local recollections of the great Minister in the shape of 'Pitt's Oak,' 'Pitt's Well,' &c. It is close to Hayes, where his father, the great Lord Chatham, lived and died. Nobody is here but Pemberton Leigh.

I asked the Chancellor what was the real history of the Life Peerage last year, and he told me that it originated in his finding great inconvenience from himself and Lord St. Leonards frequently sitting together in the House of Lords without any third, and as St. Leonards invariably opposed his view of every case great injustice was often done to suitors, and he urged on Palmerston the expediency of giving them some assistance. Palmerston said it would be a good opportunity for making some Life Peers. Wensleydale was willing to retire from the Bench and to accept a Life Peerage, so it was determined to create him a Peer for life only, and they did this without the slightest idea that any objection would be made in any quarter. He owned that he regretted this design had not been abandoned at once when the storm of opposition began. I told him that I had no doubt there would have been no opposition if he had imparted the intentions of Government to some of the Law Lords, and obtained their acquiescence, for Lyndhurst would certainly not have objected, having himself told me that he meant to comply with Parke's request to him to introduce him to the House of Lords. The Chancellor said this was very likely true, but that he had never liked the attempt to force it through the House of Lords. He thought the opposition had originated with Campbell, who had probably forgotten that he had recorded his own opinion, in his 'Lives of the Chancellors,' that Life Peerages would be advisable in certain cases.

September 22nd.—I am just returned from Doncaster, Bretby, and Wilby. The Indian mail arrived on Monday last, just as I was starting for Doncaster. The news it brought at first appeared rather good, but when it all came out it seemed so chequered with good and evil, that it produced great despondency. Still it is a curious circumstance (which I have heard no one else remark) that, with all the deep interest universally felt on account of this Sepoy war, not only as it regards our national interests, but out of feeling and sympathy for the vast numbers of our countrymen and women exposed to its horrors and dangers, it does not produce the same degree of enthusiasm as the Crimean War did, in which we had no real interest concerned, and which was only a gigantic folly on our part. People are very anxious about this war, and earnestly desire that the mutiny may be put down and punished, but they regard the war itself with aversion and horror, whereas they positively took pleasure in the war against Russia, and were ready to spend their last guinea in carrying it on. A subscription has been set on foot, but although there never was an occasion on which it might have been expected that vast sums would be subscribed, the contributions have been comparatively small in amount, and it seems probable that a much less sum will be produced for the relief of the Indian sufferers than the Patriotic Fund or any of the various subscriptions made for purposes connected with the Crimean War. I was so struck with the backwardness of the Government in rewarding General Havelock for his brilliant exploits, that I wrote to George Lewis and urged him to press his colleagues to confer some honour upon him and promote him.

I am on the point of starting for Balmoral, summoned for a Council to order a day of humiliation.