October 4th.—There has been a continual discussion of the Boundary Treaty, kept up by Palmerston's articles in the 'Morning Chronicle,' which have been well replied to in the 'Times,' 'Standard,' and still more the 'Spectator' and 'Examiner.' Palmerston has certainly not acted wisely as one of the leaders of his party. He ought to have felt the public pulse, and ascertained how his own friends would be likely to view the question, before he plunged into such violent opposition to it. It is now evident that he will not carry the public nor even his own party with him. John Russell is satisfied; he thought at first that we had conceded too much, but on further examination he changed his opinion, and he now thinks the settlement on the whole a good one, and this will in all probability be the general opinion. Everybody was alive to the inconvenience of having this question left open, and there was a universal desire to settle our various differences with America upon such terms as would conduce to the restoration of good humour and good will.

October 5th.—There was a very clever letter in the 'Morning Chronicle' yesterday from some Whig, attacking the paper for the line it has taken, which produced a furious defence and retort. This morning I have got a letter from the Duke of Bedford informing me that his brother John has gone back to his original opinion about the Treaty. First, he thought we had made too great concessions, then that we had not, and now he thinks again that we have. It is probable that Palmerston has been at him, and he thinks it better to sacrifice his own opinion than to have a difference with his colleague.

I have been at Woburn for a couple of days. The Duke told me there that all the people he had conversed or communicated with agreed in rejoicing that the question was settled, and were not disposed to cavil at the terms. The Duke is well and wisely administering his estate and improving his magnificent place in every way. I never saw such an abode of luxury and enjoyment, one so full of resources for all tastes. The management of his estate is like the administration of a little kingdom. He has 450 people in his employment on the Bedfordshire property alone, not counting domestic servants. His pensions amount to 2,000l. a year. There is order, economy, grandeur, comfort, and general content.

The Baroness Lehzen has left Windsor Castle, and is gone abroad for her health (as she says), to stay five or six months, but it is supposed never to return. This lady, who is much beloved by the women and much esteemed and liked by all who frequent the Court, who is very intelligent, and has been a faithful and devoted servant to the Queen from her birth, has for some time been supposed to be obnoxious to the Prince, and as he is now all-powerful her retirement was not unexpected. I do not know the reason of it, nor how it has been brought about; Melbourne told me long ago that the Prince would acquire unbounded influence.

I met yesterday Lord Ponsonby and sat next to him at dinner at Palmerston's, for although I have always been so opposed to Palmerston, and he knows it, and no doubt dislikes me, I live with them as much as if we were the greatest friends. Lord Ponsonby is a most remarkable-looking man for his age, which is seventy-two or seventy-three. He exhibits no signs of old age, and is extremely agreeable. His account of Turkey was very different from my ideas about the state of the country, but I fancy all he says is sujet à caution. He describes the Sultan to be intelligent, liberal, and independent, that is, really master, and not in the hands of any party; the Turkish public men as very able, the country improving in its internal condition, especially its agriculture, and its revenue flourishing—five millions a year regularly collected, not a farthing of debt, and the whole military and civil service of the State punctually paid.

October 12th.—The controversy about the American Treaty is vigorously maintained. The letter in the 'Morning Chronicle' was written by John Mill, and now Charles Buller has taken the field (in the 'Globe'). John Russell says 'it is advantageous and honourable to America, but not disadvantageous to us.' But he thinks it has been clumsily managed and that we might have got better terms; that Aberdeen and Everett might have settled it here more favourably for us. This is mere conjecture and worth nothing. The truth is, he does not disapprove, but finds Palmerston has taken such a violent part that he must, out of deference to his colleague, find as much fault as he possibly can. The account of the revenue came out yesterday, and a very sorry account it is.

October 18th.—On Wednesday last I went to the Grove; on Friday to Gorhambury45 to meet the Bishop of London, who came there in the course of his visitation; yesterday back to London. It is always refreshing, in the midst of the cold hearts and indifferent tempers one sees in the world, to behold such a spectacle of intimate union and warm affection as the Grove presents. A mother, with a tribe of sons and daughters, and their respective husbands and wives, all knit together in the closest union and community of affections, feelings and interests—all, too, very intelligent people, lively, cheerful, and striving to contribute to each other's social enjoyment as well as to their material interests. I have always thought Clarendon the least selfish, most generous, and amiable man with whom I am acquainted.

Edward Villiers, who is just come from Germany, told me nothing could exceed the disgust excited all over that country by the publication of Lord Hertford's trial,46 and that there was a universal impression there that the state of society in England and the character of its aristocracy were to the last degree profligate and unprincipled. We are mighty proud of our fine qualities, and plume ourselves on our morality; but it must be owned that a German public, which can know nothing of English society but from the specimens it sees of Englishmen, or what it reads in the press of English doings, may well entertain a less exalted idea of our perfections, and we need not wonder at the impressions which we think so unfair, and which are not in fact correct.

The Bishop of London was, and is still, going about his diocese, delivering a very elaborate Charge, which has excited a good deal of notice, and parts of which have been well enough quizzed in the 'Morning Chronicle.' To the surprise of many people, his Charge, like those of the Bishops of Exeter and Oxford, contained some crumbs of compliment to the Puseyites, and an endeavour to prescribe some formal observances half-way in advance towards their opinions. There is an evident desire on the part of these dignitaries to conciliate the Tractarians, probably because they are aware of, and alarmed at, their remarkable superiority in everything which relates to ecclesiastical learning. It is curious, too, to see the 'Times,' which certainly exercises no small or limited influence, become decidedly Puseyite. Its Catholic tendencies are intermingled with its Poor Law crotchets, and both are of a highly democratic character. The present object of attack is the pew system, which certainly appears obnoxious to censure. I asked the Bishop of London what the law was with regard to pews, and he owned that the whole thing was an anomaly, in some respects doubtful, but in many regulated by ancient usage, or by local Acts of Parliament. The Bishop is an agreeable man in society, good-humoured, lively, a little brusque in his manner. He sang a duet with Lady Jane Grimston on Friday evening, when there was no company. Though he is intemperate and imperious, he has always been distinguished for great liberality and a munificent disposition, and from an anecdote I heard of him at the Grove, he must be of a generous mind, and capable of forgiving an enemy, and casting aside feelings of resentment and wounded pride. William Capel, brother of the late Lord Essex, a disreputable, good-for-nothing parson, and Rector of Watford, neglected his clerical duties, and incurred the displeasure of the Bishop, who insisted on Capel's appointing a curate, which he refused to do, on which the Bishop, who became very angry, appointed one himself, and sent him down there. Capel resisted stoutly, and on one occasion the rector and the curate had a race for the reading-desk in church. He refused to receive the curate or to pay him, and forbad him at his peril to execute any clerical function. The end of it was a trial at the Hertford Assizes, when the parson beat the Bishop, who in his angry haste had failed to comply with all the forms which the law requires. The trial cost the Bishop near a thousand pounds, and Capel was triumphant. I don't know what happened in the interim, but a few years afterwards they had become such good friends that the Bishop came down to preach a charity sermon at Watford, when he was the guest of William Capel, dining and sleeping at his house. Upon that occasion such was his want of common decency, that, having the Bishop for his guest, and under circumstances which demanded more than ordinary respect and attention, he came down to breakfast in an old grey dressing-gown and red slippers, much to the surprise and something to the discomposure of his Diocesan. Nobody would believe Capel when he told them that the Bishop was going to be his guest. 'The Bishop of London!' said Clarendon to him, when he told him, 'how on earth did you contrive to get the Bishop of London to come to your house?' 'How,' said the other, 'why I gave him a good licking and that made him civil. We are very good friends now.' The only pity is, that having the quality of generosity and forgiveness of wrongs—for successful resistance is the same as a wrong—those virtues did not find a more estimable subject for their exercise.

October 23rd.—To the Grove on Thursday; came back yesterday to dine with Mr. Grenville; passed the whole morning of Saturday at the British Museum, where I had not been for many years, but where I propose to go henceforward very often. The number of readers is now on an average three hundred a day; in the time of Gray, as may be seen by his letters, it was not half a dozen. I had never dined with Mr. Grenville before, though he has more than once asked me, and I was glad to go there. He is a man whom I have always looked at with respect and pleasure. It is a goodly sight, to see him thus placidly and slowly going down the hill of life, with all his faculties of mind and body, not unimpaired, but still fresh and strong. One would rejoice to procure a new lease for such a man. He may well look round him, as he sits in his unrivalled library and surrounded by his friends, serene and full of enjoyment, and say, like Mazarin, 'Et il faut quitter tout cela!' but no reflexions or anticipations seem to overcast the mild sunshine of his existence. I certainly never saw so graceful and enviable an old age; and though he is eighty-six, and I am forty-eight, I would willingly change lives with him. I would much rather be approaching the end of life as he is approaching it, than live any number of years that I may yet chance to have in store as I am likely to live them. Mr. Grenville is rather deaf, and he complains of loss of memory, but he hears well enough for social purposes, and he is full of recollections of former times and remarkable people. He only laments his own infirmities on account of the trouble or inconvenience they may cause to others; not that he does not hear all that is said, but he pities those who are obliged to exert their voices to make him hear. No old man was ever less selfish and querulous. He told a story of Porson, which I will put in his own words: 'When I was a young man, which is now about seventy years ago, I used to live with Cracherode and other literary men of that day, who were good enough to allow me to come among them, and listen to their conversation, which I used to take great delight in doing, and I remember one day going into the room, and finding Cracherode and another person disputing about language, and whether a certain English word had ever been used by any good authority. In the middle of the dispute, one of them said, "But why do we go on talking here, when that little fellow in the corner can tell us in a moment which of us is in the right?" The little fellow was Porson, who was on his knees poring over a book. They called him up, told him what they were disputing about, and asked if he knew of the word having been used, and by whom. He at once replied, "I only know of one instance, and that is in Fisher's funeral sermon on the death of Margaret of Richmond, the mother of Henry VII., and you will find it about the third or fourth page on the right-hand side;" and there accordingly they did find it.'

October 26th.—Poor Irby died on Monday last at Newmarket, the place where he had passed all the pleasantest hours of his life. He was an honourable, inoffensive man, who never made an enemy, and with whom I have passed my racing life. That was a sort of man who devoted himself to the turf without any misgivings of shame and regret, and he was, accordingly, happy. He strolled through life, without ambition or vanity, was what he seemed, and did not aspire to be thought better or wiser than he was. He had friends to whom he was attached, one sister whom he loved, and few or no other relations to annoy or trouble him. He was affluent in circumstances, respected in character, and contented in disposition: and such a man is to be envied, living or dying.

Yesterday morning I called on Mr. Grenville, and sat with him for an hour, while he told me many old stories of bygone times, and showed me some of his books, particularly his 'Julio Clovio,' which was what I went on purpose to see. He is a remarkable man, with his mind so fresh and firm, and teeming with recollections, a sort of link between the living and the dead, having been forward enough in his youth to mix with the most distinguished characters, literary and political, more than half a century ago, and still vigorous enough to play his part with those of the present time. He had often dined with Horace Walpole at his grandmother's in Grosvenor Square (before it was planted), and he describes him as effeminate in person, trifling in conversation, and much less amusing and piquant than might be expected from his letters. He talked much of Lord North, whose speaking he thinks would not be admired now. It was of a sing-song, monotonous character. His private secretary used to sit behind him, and take notes of the debate, writing down every point that it was necessary for him to answer, with the name of the speaker from whom it proceeded. When he got up he held this paper in his hand, and spoke from it, sometimes blundering over the sheets in a way Mr. Grenville imitated, and which would certainly be thought very strange now, but he had great good humour and much drollery. He told me a story of Lord North and his son Frank, afterwards Lord Guildford, of whom he was very fond, though he was always in scrapes and in want of money. One day, Frank seemed very much out of spirits, and his father asked him what was the matter. With some hesitation, real or pretended, he at last said, 'Why, father, the truth is, I have no money, and I am so distressed that I have even been obliged to sell that little mare you gave me the other day.' To which Lord North replied, 'Oh, Frank, you should never have done that; you ought to have recollected the precept of Horace, "Æquam memento rebus in arduis servare mentem."' Mr. Grenville talked of the elder Pitt, whom he did not admire, but had never heard him except as Lord Chatham. Rigby was a very agreeable speaker, in style not unlike Tierney.

October 29th.—Lord Melbourne has had an attack of palsy, very slight, and he is recovering, but it is of course alarming. He is not himself aware of the nature of the seizure, and asks if it was lumbago. This shows how slight it was. Macaulay's book, which he calls 'Lays of Ancient Rome,' came out yesterday, and admirable his ballads are. They were composed in India and on the voyage home. He showed them to Dr. Arnold, who advised him to publish them, but probably while he was in office he had not time to think about them, and the publication is the result of his leisure. He has long been addicted to ballad-writing, for there is one in the American edition of his works, and there is a much longer one written when he was at Cambridge (or soon after), upon the League, and one of Henry IV.'s battles, which is very good indeed. He is a wonderful fellow altogether.

Canadian affairs and Bagot's proceedings have lately occupied the world for want of something better.47 The Whigs are pleased that he has so fully admitted and acted on the principle of Parliamentary control, and carried out practically the theory of the Constitution which they gave the provinces, while the Tories are indignant that he should have been dictated to by men whom they consider disaffected to this country, and who were looked upon as quasi-traitors till a very short time ago, and as they have no taste for the independence and supremacy of a Canadian Parliament, there is no triumph of a principle to console them for what they consider dangerous in practice. But both parties, and everybody without exception, blame the manner in which Bagot has acted, which was indiscreet, undignified, and gives a poor idea of his qualifications for government. He is certainly not a strong man, and he has succeeded one who undoubtedly was. Sydenham turns out to have been a man of first-rate capacity, with great ability, discrimination, judgement, firmness, and dexterity. His whole administration in Canada fully justified the choice which Lord John Russell made of him, and the confidence he reposed in him. It is to the credit of Lord John Russell that he discovered and appreciated the talents of a man who was underrated here; but occasion and circumstance draw out the latent resources of vigorous minds. He was always known to be a man of extraordinary industry, but nobody knew that he had such a knowledge of human nature and such a power of acquiring influence over others as he evinced when he went to Canada. Murdoch, who was his secretary, and himself a very clever man, gave me a remarkable account of him. He was in the habit of talking over the most inveterate opponents of his Government, so much so, that at last it became a matter of joking, and the most obstinate of his enemies used to be told that if they set foot in Government House they would be mollified and enthralled whether they would or no, and so it almost always was. Though of a weak and slender frame, and his constitution wretched, he made journeys which would have appeared hard work to the most robust men. On one occasion he travelled, without stopping, an immense distance, and the moment he got out of his carriage he called for his papers, and went at his business as if he had only returned from a drive. This is something very like greatness; these are the materials of which greatness is made—indefatigable industry, great penetration, powers of persuasion, confidence in himself, decision, boldness, firmness, and all these jumbled up with a finikin manner, and a dangling after an old London harridan; but, as Taylor says so well, 'The world knows nothing of its greatest men,' and half mankind know nothing of their own capacity for greatness. The mistakes made by ourselves and by each other with respect to moral qualities are incessant and innumerable.

November 2nd.—At Windsor yesterday for a Council; almost all the Cabinet went together in a special train. A Whig engineer might have produced an instantaneous and complete change of Government. The Royal consent was given to the marriage of the Princess Augusta with the Prince of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. The Chancellor was there, looking very ill and broken, but evidently wishing to be thought strong and capable.48 He not only affected to be very merry, but very active, and actually began a sort of dancing movement in the drawing-room, which reminded me of Queen Elizabeth and the Scotch ambassador; seventy years of age, ten years of idleness, and a young wife will not do for the labour of the Great Seal. The Ministers are all come to hold Cabinets, and lay their heads together with, God knows, plenty to occupy them. Lord Wharncliffe and Kay Shuttleworth, who are both come from the north, have given me an account of the state of the country and of the people which is perfectly appalling. There is an immense and continually increasing population, deep distress and privation, no adequate demand for labour, no demand for anything, no confidence, but a universal alarm, disquietude, and discontent. Nobody can sell anything. Somebody said, speaking of some part of Yorkshire, 'This is certainly the happiest country in the world, for nobody wants anything.' Kay says that nobody can conceive the state of demoralisation of the people, of the masses, and that the only thing which restrains them from acts of violence against property is a sort of instinctive consciousness that, bad as things are, their own existence depends upon the security of property in the long run. It is in these parts that the worst symptoms are apparent, but there are indications of the same kind more or less all over the country, and certainly I have never seen, in the course of my life, so serious a state of things as that which now stares us in the face; and this, after thirty years of uninterrupted peace, and the most ample scope afforded for the development of all our resources, when we have been altering, amending, and improving, wherever we could find anything to work upon, and being, according to our own ideas, not only the most free and powerful, but the most moral and the wisest people in the world. One remarkable feature in the present condition of affairs is that nobody can account for it, and nobody pretends to be able to point out any remedy; for those who clamour for the repeal of the Corn Laws, at least those who know anything of the matter, do not really believe that repeal would supply a cure for our distempers. It is certainly a very dismal matter for reflexion, and well worthy the consideration of the profoundest political philosophers, that the possession of such a Constitution, all our wealth, industry, ingenuity, peace, and that superiority in wisdom and virtue which we so confidently claim, are not sufficient to prevent the existence of a huge mountain of human misery, of one stratum in society in the most deplorable state, both moral and physical, to which mankind can be reduced, and that all our advantages do not secure us against the occurrence of evils and mischiefs so great as to threaten a mighty social and political convulsion.

November 17th.—Went to Cromer on Monday week, and returned on Monday last. I am fond of that wild and bleak coast with its 'hills that encircle the sea,' the fine old tower of the church and the lighthouse, whose revolving light it is impossible not to watch with interest. I went one day to Felbrigg,49 and looked into the library—a fine old-fashioned room containing Mr. Windham's books, all full of notes and comments in his own hand, but library and books equally neglected now that they have fallen into the hands of a rough, unlettered squire.

November 18th.—Called on Mr. Grenville yesterday morning. He told me he was eighty-eight, and had never been ill in all his life; had colds, but never been ill enough to keep his bed a whole day since he was born. His memory, he said, failed as to dates and names. He told me a curious anecdote of Wolfe. In Pitt's (Lord Chatham's) administration, when Wolfe was going out to take the command of the army in America, at that time a post of the greatest importance, Mr. Pitt had him to dinner with no other person present but Lord Temple (Mr. Grenville's uncle). After dinner Wolfe got greatly excited, drew his sword, flourished it about, and boasted of the great things he would do with it in a wonderfully braggart style. Lord Temple and Mr. Pitt were horror-struck, and when the General was gone, they lifted up their hands and eyes, and said what an awful thing it was to think that they were about to trust interests so vital to the discretion of a man who could talk and bluster in such a way. Mr. Grenville said he had never liked to repeat this anecdote, and had never done so till very lately, for he had been reluctant to say anything which might, by possibility, throw a slur on the reputation of Wolfe. But I told him it was too curious to be suppressed; curious as a peculiar trait of character, and that the heights of Abraham had secured the fame of Wolfe beyond the possibility of being injured by anything that could now be said.

November 22nd.—At Hillingdon from Saturday till Monday. I never go to that place without looking with envy and admiration at a scene of so much happiness. There is certainly nothing to admire but the result. There are none of the qualities which are generally desirable; but if happiness is the aim and object of life, by which I mean something active, sentient and intelligent, not the happiness of an oyster or an opium-eater, then these people have attained it, subject only to its disturbance from the ordinary and unavoidable accidents and vicissitudes of existence. I suppose that happiness depends on, as wit has been described by, negatives. They are happy because they are without avarice, or ambition, or vanity, or envy. They have no extravagant or unreasonable pretensions, and therefore are not subject to perpetual mortifications and disappointments. They lead an easy, placid, semi-sensual but not vicious life, with a full flow of affection for each other, and a natural ever-springing cheerfulness and content.

Dined yesterday with Lady Holland, John Russell, Charles Austin, and Lady Charlotte Lindsay. Lord John told us some things about the Reform Bill, interesting enough. The first he heard of it was by a letter from Althorp, who told him Lord Grey and he wished him (Lord John) to bring in the Bill although he was not in the Cabinet. He wrote back that he could not agree to bring in the Bill without having a share in its concoction, which they agreed he was entitled to. He came to town and Lord Grey begged him to put himself in communication with Durham. He went to Durham and had a long conversation with him, and they agreed that a Committee should be formed which should meet constantly and settle the terms of the Bill. The first person suggested was the Duke of Richmond, but Lord John objected to him, and then they settled to have Graham and Duncannon. They used to meet at Durham's every day and discuss the details of the Bill. Among these was the question of Ballot, Graham and Durham being strongly for it, John Russell against, and Duncannon neuter. The point was, however, referred to the Cabinet, and immediately negatived. Lord John said that the only chance they had of carrying such a Bill was the preservation of impenetrable secrecy. If once the plan got out, their own friends would be alarmed, and their success infallibly compromised. Accordingly they contrived to keep their plan secret till the last moment. So little did their opponents expect anything of the kind, that Peel, in a speech about a fortnight before, taunted them in these terms: 'You came into power avowedly to promote peace, retrenchment, and reform. Your peace is in the greatest danger of being broken; your estimates are not less than ours were; and as to your reform, I predict that it will be some miserable measure, with all the appearance of a change in the Constitution, without the reality of any improvement.' When the measure came out, many of the friends of Government were exceedingly frightened, and thought it would not fail to be their ruin. Hardinge told Graham in the lobby that 'Of course they had made up their minds to resign.' Allen said that there had always existed a strong opinion that Peel might have crushed it at first, if he had refused leave to bring in the Bill, but Lord John denied that this was feasible. He said, let Peel do what he would, they would have got a debate of several nights, and he had always told his timorous and desponding friends, that when the plan went forth to the country it would be responded to by such great and enthusiastic approval and so supported that it would be impossible for the Opposition to resist it. And this was what happened. The debate of eight nights gave time for the press to act, and the country to declare itself. Allen then said they had done wrong in giving way as they had on some points, particularly as to the freemen; they had gained nothing by that, and had injured the Bill. But Lord John said that they had got all they expected. This sacrifice was made to Lords Harrowby and Wharncliffe, who had in consequence of it carried the second reading in the House of Lords, which could not have been done without them; and this had prevented the creation of Peers. Lord Grey was so determined to make Peers, if the second reading was not carried, that Lord John had himself given notice to some of his Tory friends, that if they wished to prevent this evil, they had better vote for it. We then discussed the communications which afterwards took place between Lord Grey and Palmerston and Harrowby and Wharncliffe, and Lyndhurst's famous motion, which produced such momentous results. I said that Harrowby and his friends had always accused Lord Grey of acting unfairly, but that I had always said that no man could act a more straightforward and consistent part than he did. I told Lord John he ought to write a history of the Reform Bill, which would be a very curious narrative.

November 23rd.—A torrent of Indian news and successes arrived almost all at once,50 an important and agreeable budget of intelligence, though without much glory in it. It is a delightful thing to finish the Chinese war anyhow. We were ashamed of our successes, and the reports of victories gained and towns taken never gave any satisfaction, or excited a particle of pride or triumph. We now see our way out of two difficult quarrels which we never ought to have got into. The only good we shall have gained will have been a very imposing exhibition of our power and resources, and it will have cost us many millions of money, and many thousand lives to make it.

November 25th.—I went last night to a place called 'The Judge and Jury Court'—Bingham Baring, Charles Buller, Frederic Leveson, and myself—and there we found several others of our acquaintance who had been attracted to the same place. It is difficult to imagine anything more low and blackguard than this imitation of and parody on a court of justice, and if the proceedings of last night are to be taken as a fair example of the whole it is not very amusing. There is a long low room opposite Covent Garden Theatre, in Bow Street, lit with tallow candles and furnished along its length with benches; opposite these benches is a railed-off space for the Bar and the Jury, and an elevated desk for the Judge. You pay one shilling entrance, which entitles you to a cigar and a glass of rum or gin and water or beer, a privilege of which almost every man availed himself. The room was pretty well filled and in a cloud of smoke, and there was a constant circulation of these large glasses of liquid; smoking and drinking were, indeed, the order of the day. The judge, the counsel, and the jury, all had their cigars and gin-and-water, and the latter, as a recompense for their public services, were entitled to call for what they pleased gratis. Here they try such notorious cases as have been brought in any shape, complete or incomplete, under public notice, and last night we had 'Chesterfield v. Batthyany,' the names being slightly changed, but rendered sufficiently significant to leave no doubt of who and what is meant. Maidstone, for example, was examined as a witness under the title of Lord Virgin Rock, and twenty of the others which, however, I don't remember. The Chief Baron is a big burly fellow, editor of a paper which I never heard of before, called the 'Town,' and the jury are sworn upon The Town. I don't know who the counsel were, but there was one fellow who was a caricature of Brougham, certainly like him, and he attempted an imitation of him in manner, gesture, and voice, which was not very bad, and therefore rather amusing. But though the man had some humour, there was not enough or of sufficiently good quality to support the length of his speech. He opened the case for the plaintiff; the counsel for the defendant seemed very dull, and we would stay no longer. They say the charge of the judge is generally the best part of it. They deal in very gross indecencies, and this seems to amuse the audience, which is one of the most blackguard-looking I ever saw congregated, and they just restrain their ribaldry within such limits as exclude les gros mots. Everything short of that is allowed, and evidently the more the better. On the whole it was a poor performance. It bore, in point of character and decency, about the same relation to a court of justice that Musard's balls do to Almack's.

November 27th.—The Palmerstons came through town the other day in their way to Brocket, and I met them at dinner at Lady Holland's. They are both very much provoked at the Indian and Chinese successes, as their remarks showed; she complained that it was Elliot's fault that all this was not done two years ago, as he had the same instructions and the same means of executing them that Pottinger had, and he harped again upon the old tune of Ellenborough's orders and counter-orders, and tried to make out that it was his fault that the reoccupation of Cabul had been delayed so many months; and the 'Morning Chronicle' has been labouring to make out that all the glory of these successes is due to Palmerston alone.

November 30th.—Ellenborough's Proclamation, which has just appeared, is fiercely attacked by the Whig Palmerstonian press, but the purport of it seems to be pretty generally approved. Ellenborough is certainly not happy in his measures, his manners, or his phrases. He began by his much-abused orders for retreat, he lost no time in quarrelling with his Council and making himself personally obnoxious, and his present Proclamation is very objectionable in many respects, though it appears to me perfectly clear half the world thinks he meant to censure the policy of his predecessor, and though he certainly meant no such thing, he ought not to have left room for any doubt on that point. He enters into reasons for his measures, which is never advisable in such a document as this, and especially in India. In the midst of all our successes, however, the simple truth is that Akbar Khan and the Afghans have gained their object completely. We had placed a puppet king on the throne, and we kept him there and held military possession of the country by a body of our troops. They resolved to get rid of our king and our troops and to resume their barbarous independence; they massacred all our people civil and military, and they afterwards put to death the king. We lost all hold over the country except the fortresses we continued to occupy. Our recent expedition was, in fact, undertaken merely to get back the prisoners who had escaped with their lives from the general slaughter, and having got them we have once for all abandoned the country, leaving to the Afghans the unmolested possession of the liberty they had acquired, and not attempting to replace upon their necks the yoke they so roughly shook off. There is, after all, no great cause for rejoicing and triumph in all this.

On Sunday morning I called on Lord John Russell, and we had an argument about Lord Ashburton and his Treaty, which he abused very roundly, saying all that I had before heard of his writing to his brother against it, but still owning that it was not very injurious. I have a great respect for Lord John, who is very honest and clever, but in this matter he talks great nonsense. Palmerston is much more consistent and takes a clear and broad view of it. He says, 'We are all in the right, and the Americans all in the wrong. Never give up anything, insist on having the thing settled in your own way, and if they won't consent, let it remain unsettled.' But Lord John merely says you might have got better terms if you had held out for them, that he thinks Lord Aberdeen and Mr. Everett would have arranged it here more favourably for us than Lord Ashburton did there; that if Lord Aberdeen had proposed such and such terms to Everett they would have been agreed to in America, and that Lord Ashburton gave up certain things for which he did not obtain a just equivalent—all of which is mere gratuitous assumption, and may be true or maybe false. However, he owned that the public was disposed to be satisfied with the Treaty, and he did not deny any assertion that Palmerston had committed a blunder in attacking it with such violence.

The fifth volume of Madame d'Arblay's journal or memoirs is just come out. I have read the first three volumes, and then could read no more, it was so tiresome; but I returned to the fifth because I found everybody was amused by it. It is certainly readable, for there are scattered through it notices of people and things sufficiently interesting, but they are overlaid by an enormous quantity of trash and twaddle, and there is a continuous stream of mawkish sentimentality, loyalty, devotion, sensibility, and a display of feelings and virtues which are very provoking. The cleverest part of it is the remarkable memory with which she narrates long conversations and minute details of facts and circumstances. It is true she generally makes her people converse in a very ordinary commonplace style, and she hardly ever tells any anecdote or any event of importance or of remarkable interest. Nevertheless her rambling records are read with pleasure, for there is and ever will be an insatiable thirst for familiar details of the great world and the people who have figured in it. Anecdotes of kings, princes, ministers, or any celebrities are always acceptable. I have often thought that my journal would have been much more entertaining if I had scribbled down all I heard and saw in society, all I could remember of passing conversations, jokes, stories, and such like, instead of recording and commenting on public events, as I have often, though irregularly, done. To have done this, however, and done it well, required a better memory and more diligence than I possess, to be more Boswellian than I am. I believe, however, there is and can be no general rule for journalising. Everybody who addicts him- or her-self to this practice must follow the dictates of his taste and fancy or caprice. It is a matter in which character operates and shows itself, for people are open and confidential or reserved with their blank page, in the same way as with their living friends. Some, indeed, will pour forth upon paper, and for the edification or amusement of posterity, what they never would have revealed to living ear; but the majority of those who indulge in this occupation probably only tell what they desire to have known. Few write for themselves only as a sort of moral exercise, or for the refreshment of their own memories, or because they feel a longing to give utterance to, and record the feelings and thoughts that are rising and working and fighting in their minds. It is curious that so many great men, as well as so many small ones, have written journals, and an essay on the subject would be interesting enough if well done. Johnson, Walter Scott, Wilberforce, Windham, Byron, Heber, Gibbon, all kept journals, and many others, no doubt, whom I don't recollect at this moment. I omit Pepys and Evelyn, as men of a different sort.

December 6th.—The general and impartial opinion of Lord Ellenborough's Proclamation is, that he is quite right to have withdrawn the army from Afghanistan, and to have announced a pacific policy for the future, but that he is much to blame in having adopted such a tone as the paper is couched in, to have cast an indirect slur on the policy of Auckland, and condemned in such unqualified terms the errors of men who are not alive to defend themselves, or of the survivors who are going to be tried by a court of enquiry. On the whole Ellenborough has not given satisfaction to any party or set of men. Conservatives complain of him as well as Whigs. He has given personal offence in India, and political offence here, and the appointment, from which such great things were expected, has turned out ill. The Duke of Wellington, however, is perfectly satisfied with what he has done, and as the Government meant to support him before all these successes, much more will they do so now.

December 8th.—I saw Emily Eden51 yesterday, and found they were full of bitterness against Ellenborough, and no wonder. In the first place, he and Auckland had always been friends. When Ellenborough came into office, he wrote to Auckland a friendly letter, in which he said what was tantamount to an invitation to him to stay in India. On his arrival at Calcutta, he was Auckland's guest for the first three days, till he was sworn in, and then Auckland was his, and when Auckland's sisters wanted to leave Government House and go and pay a visit to a friend of theirs, Ellenborough would not hear of it, and made such a point of their remaining there till their departure that they did so. He lived with them morning, noon, and night, on terms of the greatest cordiality, and repeatedly expressed his regret that they were going away. This renders his Proclamation particularly odious, and the more so because she told me that during the last months of his Government, Auckland had done everything he could not to compromise or embarrass his successor, and had taken great pains to provide for any future military operations on which he might determine, which was a matter of considerable financial difficulty. All this makes them feel very sore, and they are besides of opinion that it is a grievous fault for a Governor to proclaim to the world that errors have been committed, and that the policy of the Indian Government is going to be altered. I am not so surprised at Ellenborough's animus, knowing that when he was at the Board of Control he never lost an opportunity of letting the Queen know his opinion as to the errors and blunders of his predecessor and his colleagues.

December 9th.—Francis Baring told me yesterday a curious anecdote relating to a Spanish MS. which would be interesting to bibliomaniacs. Sampayo, a half Portuguese, half Englishman, at Paris, was a great book-collector, particularly of Spanish and Portuguese, both books and MSS. He was aware of a MS. of Antonio Perez, relating to the wars of Granada, in the public library at Seville, and he desired Cuthbert, who has been living at Seville for some time, to ask leave to have it copied, and if he could get leave to find somebody to copy it. He got leave, and it was copied in a fair round hand for some sixteen dollars. After the copy was made, the librarian said to Cuthbert, 'You may take away which you please, the copy or the original.' He jumped at the offer, and sent the original MS. to Sampayo. His library was sold the other day, and Francis Baring said he believed this MS. was bought by the Royal Library of France, and it probably fetched a great deal of money.52

December 14th.—At Windsor for a Council on Saturday. Sir Robert Peel is staying there, but nobody else was invited. Ellenborough's Proclamation is still occupying general attention. My brother writes me word from Paris that it is generally blamed there, for the same reasons that it is here; and the Duke of Bedford tells me that Lord Spencer's political apathy has been excited very highly, and that he is so full of indignation that he talks of coming down to the House of Lords to attack it. They speak of it as a document deserving impeachment, which is going to very absurd lengths. The Palmerstonians are still screaming themselves hoarse in their endeavours to get the credit of the success. Lady Palmerston wrote to Madame de Lieven (dear friends who hate one another cordially) in a rage, because the latter said to her that she was sure, setting all party feelings aside, as a good Englishwoman, she must rejoice at the successes in the East. The other lady replied, that she did not know what she meant, and that all the merit of the success was due to Palmerston and the late Government. To this Madame de Lieven responded as follows: ' Je vous demande bien pardon de ma légèreté, mais je vous assure que moi et toutes les personnes que je vois, ont été assez niaises pour croire que les grands succès de l'Orient étaient dus à Sir Robert Peel et à son gouvernement. Apparemment nous nous sommes trompés, et je vous demande mille excuses de notre légèreté.'