To return, however, to the Duke of Bedford, he thinks O'Connell is extremely puzzled to know what to do next. He sent various civil messages to him through Blake, and he said if the aristocracy had anything to propose, he should be ready to listen to it. The Duke thinks that the Church question is of less importance than the landlord and tenant question, and that, difficult as it is to do anything on the latter, something must be attempted. Both he and Stradbroke, who has lately returned from visiting his Irish estates, told me that, with few exceptions, the absentee landlords were the best in Ireland; and the latter said that his tenants were in the greatest alarm lest he should sell his property, and that they paid him his rents very regularly, because he always threatened to sell it if they did not. The Duke of Bedford thinks that the sooner Lord de Grey quits the Government of Ireland the better, for he is not popular, and his Church appointments are supposed to be influenced by his wife. They have been, at all events, very hostile to the Education system, and in so far very injurious to the Government, who are accused, with some show of reason, of not being hearty in the cause which ostensibly they support. Eliot67 too, though well-meaning and liberal, and not wanting in ability, is timid. He told the Duke that the temper of England would not allow of any provision for the Roman Catholic clergy. A more solid difficulty presents itself in the fact which Stradbroke told me, viz., that the emolument which the clergy derive from voluntary contributions is so large, that no State endowment they could obtain would be anything like an equivalent, and therefore they never would consent to the measure; but it is suggested in reply to this, that in the first place they would accept glebes, and if the State would liberally endow the Church, the people would leave off paying, and the priests would in the end be obliged to acquiesce. Stradbroke said that the priest of his parish told him he got 500l. a year; some get as much as 800l. A great part of their emoluments is made up of marriage fees, and when a rich man is married, the priest gets presents from all the relations, sometimes to the amount of above 100l. There is certainly a wide field open for improvement, enough to do to allay discontent, relieve distress, reform abuses, improve establishments, to mitigate the ferocity and soften the animosities of the people; but the difficulties are enormous, because all the remedies that calm and dispassionate prudence suggest would infallibly raise a storm of antagonist interests and of sectarian hatred, and produce a frenzy of national and religious violence. On the other hand there is a growing disposition to look the great evils of Ireland in the face, and to try some remedies to cure them. Peel's policy appears to me to be in everything continually to advance, but to do so by such slow and insensible degrees, that existing interests, or rather existing powers, may be as little frightened and as little hurt as possible. I do not think, whatever sins he may have committed on former occasions, that he is acting dishonestly now, or that the principle which he has laid down for his own guidance is unwise or unfair. It is not to do nothing, but to do gradually and safely all he can venture to do, to feel his way; not to shock and alarm old prejudices which have long been cherished and deferred to, and old interests which have long been fostered and protected, but to reconcile those prejudices and those interests by degrees to the changes which times and circumstances and the progress of sound systems have put in motion, and the advance of which it is, he well knows, neither desirable nor possible to arrest.

September 15th.—There has just appeared in the 'Quarterly Review' a defence of Peel's policy, supposed to be by Croker, but which is very feeble and ill-done, and has been lashed by the 'Times' with great severity and in a most contumelious tone.

The Queen's visit to Eu went off with complete success, and she left a good impression. On her return she stopped a few days at Brighton and then went off to Ostend. Aberdeen had a great deal of conversation with Louis Philippe and with Guizot, mostly on the affairs of Spain. The King declared that he considered the late revolution and fall of Espartero the greatest evil that could have happened, repudiated the idea of having any purpose of marrying one of his own sons to the Queen, and they came to a regular agreement that neither France nor England should interfere, or endeavour to influence the choice of a husband for her in any way.68 As soon as Aberdeen returned to London, and before he started again for Ostend, he sent for Delane and told him this, for, notwithstanding the hostile and offensive tone which the 'Times' has adopted towards the Government generally, particularly Peel and Graham, this formidable paper is in a sort of alliance with the Foreign Office, and the communications between Lord Aberdeen and Delane are regular and frequent.

September 19th.—I made a mistake about Aberdeen's communication with Delane. The circumstances of this are rather singular. Delane says that instead of an agreement not to meddle with the Queen of Spain's marriage, they had agreed upon the person to whom she should be married, but that he was under an engagement to Lord Aberdeen not to say to anybody who that person is. From all this I should be disposed to infer that Aberdeen and Louis Philippe have pitched upon Don Carlos's son as the future husband of the Queen. I told Clarendon this, who scouts the idea of the Spaniards allowing France and England to dispose of her hand, and, notwithstanding the anarchy and dissension which prevail in that country, their pride is probably unabated, and the whole nation would oppose any such pretension. It is abundantly probable that Aberdeen was cajoled and deceived by the King and Guizot. It seems that Marliani, who was here the other day, saw Aberdeen, who told him what the King had said, and how much he regretted the late revolution. Marliani replied, ' On joue bien la comédie à Paris, et je ne suppose pas qu'on la joue moins bien an château d'Eu.' Why, he asks, did the French Government, if they considered the downfall of Espartero as a misfortune, do all in their power to weaken his Government and undermine his authority? It is certainly curious enough to see that the French Consul Lesseps, who exerted himself to prevent the bombardment of Barcelona when the city was in rebellion against the Regent, shows no such sympathy for the Junta which is opposing the Government of the insurrection.69

On Sunday I went to Richmond to call on Miss Berry,70 and found her in great indignation at Croker's recent article in the 'Quarterly' upon the series just published of Lord Orford's letters to Mann, angry on his account and on her own. Croker says, what has been often reported, that Lord Orford offered to marry Mary Berry, and on her refusal, to marry Agnes. She says it is altogether false. He never thought of marrying Agnes, and what passed with regard to herself was this: The Duchess of Gloster was very jealous of his intimacy with the Berrys, though she treated them with civility. At last her natural impetuosity broke out, and she said to him, 'Do you mean to marry Miss Berry or do you not?' To which he replied, 'That is as Miss Berry herself pleases;' and that, as I understood her, is all that passed about it. She said nothing could be more beautiful and touching than his affection for her, devoid as it was of any particle of sensual feeling, and she should ever feel proud of having inspired such a man with such a sentiment. She is angry with Bentley for having published these two volumes without having them prepared for the press by some competent hand, and his excuse is that it would have been too expensive. The truth is, he thought the letters sufficiently attractive, and did not care about anything but the profit. I think they are at least as amusing, if not more amusing than any of the other volumes, but I agree with Croker in his estimate of the character of the man. It is difficult to believe that he cared a straw about Sir Horace Mann himself, and there is no doubting that though he pressed him to come to England, he was very glad when he found he did not mean to come.

October 16th.—I have been laid up with the gout more or less during the last three weeks, and when that is upon me I am always disinclined to write. Just before I was attacked I went to breakfast with George Lewis to meet Ranke, the author of 'The Popes of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century.' He had got Macaulay, who had reviewed his book, to meet him, Sir Alexander Duff Gordon and his wife (daughter of Mrs. Austin, his translator), and Sir Edmund Head. I went prepared to listen to some first-rate literary talk between such luminaries as Ranke and Macaulay, but there never was a greater failure. The professor, a vivacious little man, not distinguished in appearance, could talk no English, and his French, though spoken fluently, was quite unintelligible. On the other hand, Macaulay could not speak German, and he spoke French without any facility and with a very vile accent. It was comical to see the abundance of his matter struggling with his embarrassment in giving utterance to it, to hear the torrent of knowledge trying to force its way through the impediment of a limited acquaintance with the French language and the want of habit of conversing in it. But the struggle was of short duration. He began in French, but very soon could bear the restraint no longer, and broke into English, pouring forth his stores to the utterly unconscious and uncomprehending professor. This babel of a breakfast, at which it was impossible for seven people to converse in any common language, soon came to an end, and Ranke was evidently glad to go off to the State Paper Office, where he was working every day. After he was gone, Macaulay held forth, and was as usual very well worth listening to.

A day or two after this my gout began, and unluckily I was obliged to go down to attend a Council at Windsor, which was held ostensibly for proroguing Parliament, putting forth a proclamation against the Welsh rioters, and other ordinary matters, little aware of the much more important affair which had brought the whole Cabinet together. I was obliged to go down with my crutches, and to crave the Queen's permission to go into her presence upon them, which Lord Wharncliffe did for me. She was exceedingly gracious, and the Prince very civil. She seemed considerably amused to see me come in on my crutches, and both she and the Prince said some civil things to me, and I flatter myself I contrived to sidle out, so as not to turn my back on Her Majesty, with no inconsiderable dexterity.

It was on a Monday I attended the Council, and the Sunday following I went to Newmarket, where I only stayed two days, for on Wednesday I went to Chatsworth. On Tuesday, however, the newspapers announced the declaration of war against O'Connell in the shape of the Proclamation,71 much, I must own, to my surprise. This was, of course, the matter which brought all the Ministers together the week before. It seems to have been successful thus far, but whether it will turn out to have been a judicious measure remains to be proved. I am, however, not acquainted with their reasons for doing it when they did, and not doing it before, and I really have no decided opinion about it.

On Wednesday I set off, and reached Chatsworth on Thursday. There my gout began again, and I was only able, and that with difficulty, to get to the new conservatory in the garden, which is very fine in its way, and contains, I suppose, an unlimited collection of curious plants, the value of which I could not appreciate, as I know nothing of such things. Chatsworth is very magnificent, but I looked back with regret to the house in its unfinished state, when we lived in three spacious cheerful rooms looking to the south, which are now quite useless, being gorgeously furnished with velvet and silk, and marble tables, but unoccupied, and the windows closed lest the sun should spoil the finery with which the apartments are decorated. The comfort we had then has been ill exchanged for the magnificence which has replaced it, and the Duke has made the house so large that he cannot afford to live in it, and never remains there above two or three months in the year.

While I was there Lady Georgiana Fullerton gave me to read so much as she has written of the novel she has been for some time about. It is a very extraordinary performance, and if the second part of it is as good as the first, it will be excellent; as it is, it is deeply interesting.72

I came to town yesterday, and in a 'Times' which I bought at Derby I read of the arrest of O'Connell and others of his followers. A trial of O'Connell in Ireland seems a desperate measure, and it is not easy to see how a conviction is to be procured from an Irish jury; but I suppose all this has not been done without great deliberation, and the Ministers must fancy they see their own way more clearly than I do.

October 31st.—I was laid up for two or three days in London, and then went to Riddlesworth for two or three more. I arrived at night, and on going into the drawing-room I found four people playing at whist, eight others at a round game, and one asleep in an armchair. And this is called society; and amongst such people I have lived, do live, and shall live—I who have seen, known, and had the choice of better things. Eating, drinking, and amusement is the occupation of these people's lives, and I am ashamed to say such has been mine. I was reading Charles Lamb's letters in the carriage, and very remarkable they are, among the very best I think I ever read. I was struck by one passage, which I applied to myself: 'I gain nothing by being with such as myself; we encourage one another in mediocrity.' This is it. We go on herding with inferior companions, till we are really unfit for better company. However, this is a sore subject, and I will say no more on it here and now. On Sunday week I went to Newmarket, where there was an unusual quantity of racing. The Queen took it into her head to come to Cambridge that week, but this made no difference to us.

I had some talk with the Duke of Bedford about Ireland. He told me that Lord John and Palmerston were both disposed to approve of the Government measures in Ireland, but thought they had been done in a bungling manner, and that Lord John took much the same view that I do of it, which is, that O'Connell is in all probability highly delighted at what the Government have done, and that it answers his purpose perfectly; but what then? There was not and there could be no collusion with him, but it was very wise to compel him to do what he was dying to do, but did not dare. Clarendon, who knows the man well from Sheil, wrote me word that the clue to all his conduct was his inconceivable cowardice, that he is the greatest coward on earth, and has an indescribable dread of imprisonment, or any sort of coercion or punishment. It is impossible to doubt that he desired nothing so much as to scramble, if possible, out of the scrape he had got himself into. But certainly the conduct of Government has been most extraordinary. It is difficult to imagine why they put off their Proclamation till the eleventh hour, when there was scarcely time to stop the meeting; why they did not prevent the meeting at Tara, and why Lord de Grey and Sugden were both absent. They certainly mismanage their affairs in various quarters. They suffered the Welsh disturbances to go on unchecked, and the grievances there unremedied, when they ought to have interfered with a strong hand long ago; they have made miserable work of the Scotch Church quarrel.73 Nothing is so bad as complimenting away what they believe to be right, and acquiescing in what they believe to be wrong, to meet the prejudices of individuals. This is what they did. Aberdeen, who has been all along almost, but not quite, a non-intrusionist, got into the hands of a few people at Edinburgh who wanted an excuse for not seceding, and who persuaded him to bring in his Bill, which was neither more nor less than an indignity put on the House of Lords. Nobody was more disgusted, or more opposed to this Bill than Lyndhurst. He abused Aberdeen for it, but it is generally believed that the latter threatened, if Government would not support him, to resign, and so they knocked under. Lyndhurst said to Clarendon while Aberdeen was speaking: 'Damn the fellow, what does he bring in such a Bill as this for; I don't see why I should support anything so absurd!' He did, however, support it, and so did Brougham, who had himself been concerned in the Auchterarder judgement, but whose concurrence was obtained by some trifling alteration of detail, which made no difference in the principle of the Bill. The Bill did no sort of good, and only seemed to drag the House of Lords through the dirt. I wonder the Duke of Wellington stood it.

November 3rd.—A characteristic trait of Brougham has just come under my notice. Full of wrath and vengeance against Fonblanque for his reiterated attacks, he is pursuing the action which he long ago threatened against the 'Examiner.' He is gone off to France, having first arranged everything with Vizard for the cause. He thought it necessary to obtain from Reeve an affidavit about the practice in the Privy Council, by which he might prove that he could not be cognisant of a case before it was judicially brought before him. He desired Reeve to attend at Vizard's office, which he did, and found there an affidavit prepared for him according to Brougham's instructions. When Reeve read it over, he found that there was hardly one word of truth in it, and he said he would not sign it. He then proceeded to explain what the practice is, and what the facts were in this particular case, by which it was evident that Reeve's evidence would be prejudicial instead of serviceable to Brougham. They therefore gave up all thought of getting any affidavit from him; but it seems to have occurred to Brougham's restless mind, that it was just possible the other party might enquire into the practice, and call upon Reeve to make an affidavit, which would suit their purpose very well, though not his. To avert this danger, he had the folly and the baseness to write to Reeve on the eve of his departure, telling him that in case any application was made to him of this nature by the opposite party, he must remember that it was a voluntary act on his part, that he was not obliged to comply, and that it would not be becoming in him to render any assistance to a party in litigation with one of the Judges of the Court to which he belonged. This letter Reeve brought to me, and he said that though it was not very probable they would apply to him, after receiving it he should decline to do anything on his own responsibility, and if called upon, should come to me for instructions. I told him to do so, and I would take it all on myself. This is as thorough a Broughamism as can be found in the history of his strange, discreditable life.

November 7th.—Last night came intelligence from Nice that Edward Villiers was dead. He went there in a hopeless state, was worse after his arrival; then an abscess in his lungs broke, which gave a momentary gleam of hope, but he expired very soon after. I had a great regard for him, and he deserved it. He was a man little known of the world in general, shy, reserved to strangers, cold and rather austere in his manners, and being very shortsighted, made people think he meant to slight them when he had no such intention. He was not fitted to bustle into public notice, and such ambition as he had was not of the noisy and ostentatious kind. But no man was more beloved by his family and friends, and none could be more agreeable in any society when he was completely at his ease. He was most warm-hearted and affectionate, sincere, obliging, disinterested, unselfish, and of scrupulous integrity, by which I mean integrity in the largest sense, not merely that which shrinks from doing a dishonourable or questionable action, but which habitually refers to conscientious principles in every transaction of life. He viewed things with the eye of a philosopher, and aimed at establishing a perfect consistency between his theory and his practice. He had a remarkably acute and searching intellect, with habits of patient investigation and mature deliberation; his soul was animated by ardent aspirations after the improvement and the happiness of mankind, and he abhorred injustice and oppression in all their shapes and disguises with an honest intensity which produced something of a morbid sentiment in his mind, and sometimes betrayed him into mistaken impressions and erroneous conclusions. The expansive benevolence of his moral sentiments powerfully influenced his political opinions, and his deep sympathy with the poor not only rendered him inexorably severe to the vices of the rich, but made him regard with aversion and distrust the aristocratic elements of our institutions, and rendered him an ardent promoter of the most extensive schemes of progressive reform. But while he clung with inflexible constancy to his own opinions, no man was more tolerant of the opinion of others. In conversation he was animated, brilliant, amusing, and profound, bringing sincerity, single-mindedness, and knowledge to bear upon every discussion. His life, though short, uneventful, and retired, was passed in the contemplation of subjects of the highest interest and worthiest to occupy the thoughts of a good and wise man, and the few intimacies he cultivated were with congenial minds, estimable for their moral excellence or distinguished by their intellectual qualities and attainments. The world at large will never know what virtues and talents have been prematurely snatched away from it, for those only who have seen Edward Villiers in the unrestraint and unreserve of domestic familiarity can appreciate the charm of his disposition and the vigour of his understanding. No stranger would have divined that under that cold and grave exterior there lay concealed an exquisite sensibility, the most ardent affections, and a mind fertile in every good and noble quality. To the relations and friends, who were devotedly attached to him, the loss is irreparable and will long be deplored, and the only consolation which offers itself is to be found in the circumstances of his end. He was surrounded by kind and affectionate friends, and expired in the arms of a wife whose conduct he himself described to have been that of a heroine as well as an angel. He was in possession of all his faculties, and was free from bodily pain. He died with the cheerfulness of a philosopher, and the resignation of a Christian, happy, devout, and hopeful, and joyfully contemplating death in an assured faith of a resurrection from the dead.

November 14th.—I broke off to go and attend my poor aunt's funeral, who was buried in the most private way possible at Kensal Green. I never saw the place before, and liked the appearance of it, for I have never seen any reason why none but gloomy images and symbols should be accumulated round the graves of our departed friends. I am not surprised that people who go to visit this spot, and see the cheerfulness and the beauty it exhibits, feel a longing to take their last rest in it. Such was her case, poor soul. A more kind-hearted being never lived, one more inoffensive, or who passed a more uneventful and innocent life. She was one of the

and so much the better for her. I suppose few people ever had fewer sins to repent of, none probably, unless some infirmities of temper amounted to such. For the last two years she was afflicted with a cancer, and under the exhaustion produced by this disease she at last sank. She died full of devout sentiments, and uttering that language, at once self-accusing, humble, and grateful, which the orthodox forms of religion indiscriminately prescribe. God only can judge how far they are sincere.

November 25th.—We are all occupied with the trials in Ireland. It was very generally thought by the lawyers here that the plea of abatement put in by O'Connell would be admitted, and the indictment quashed; but the judges unanimously admitted the demurrer, and overruled the plea. Baron Parke told me on Saturday last that the plea was certainly good, and that was Rolfe's opinion also. The majority of the lawyers, though there was much difference of opinion, I believe inclined that way, and the Irish judges seem to have decided it rather in conformity with the practice of their predecessors, than upon their own construction of the statutes. There are many speculations as to the duration of the trial, various calculations from a fortnight to two years, and a strong belief that there is small chance of a conviction. However, as far as the business has gone, the measures taken by the Government seem justified by the results, and public opinion goes with them.

It is now decided, I suspect after much doubt and discussion, that the Queen is not to receive the Duc de Bordeaux, which will give rise to a great deal of chatter and abuse and many conflicting opinions.74 I have always thought she ought to receive him, and think so still. The Whigs are provoked, at least some of them, at the Queen's visit to Peel, and try hard to persuade themselves and others that it is no mark of favour to him, and that she is still very fond of them. It won't do, however; they will persuade nobody else, if they can themselves; she cares really for nobody but her husband. The Tories have got fast hold of him, and through him of her, and this provokes the Whigs to death.

A rascally attorney has brought actions against a parcel of people for penalties for excessive gaming under an old statute of Anne, which has never been acted upon, at least as to bets on horse-races. The penalties are laid at a great amount, and the object is supposed to be vindictive. They have threatened me, but not served me with a writ. All the lawyers say that it is necessary to bring in a Bill to repeal the Act, or as much of it as may be necessary, and quash the proceedings. I suppose there is no doubt of its passing, but there will be found people to oppose it, and who would think it right to leave jockeys and bettors to their fate, under any circumstances, in order to put down gambling, and, if it were possible, horse-racing itself, although it is the policy of the Legislators to encourage the latter, and it does so by annual votes of money for prizes to be run for.

November 29th.—Yesterday Lord Wharncliffe told me the present state of the Education question, and the intentions of Government. They will not burn their fingers with any more bills, but are going to extend the present system and dispense more money. But they are quarrelling with the British and Foreign School Society, who kick at the appointment of an inspector independent of themselves, and claim that he shall be removeable at their pleasure. The Government, in order to conciliate them, have removed Mr. Tremenheere, who is an excellent man, but who was on bad terms with them; but the fact is, they are not to be conciliated. Their success in defeating the Government measure last session has increased their notions of their own consequence, and nothing will satisfy them now but being put on a level with the Church. I have for some time past expected that the Government would be driven to cast themselves entirely on the Church, and it would be no bad thing for them if they were. With fair and liberal intentions, they give satisfaction to no party at present; they would then at least act on an intelligible principle, and would have the support of the most powerful and influential interest there is. Wharncliffe is mightily pleased with his own management of the Council Office, the principal part of which is the Education Department. He really has reason, for he has taken great pains, and has shown fairness, liberality, and, I believe, firmness too. His intentions are certainly good, and I am inclined to think that justice is done to him. He really too does the business himself.

December 7th.—There has been a great botheration about the Duc de Bordeaux. When he came here the question arose whether the Queen should receive him or not, and most people thought she ought, for his friends declared that he came without any political object or pretension, merely to amuse and inform himself. When the Queen was at Eu, the Duke's intended visit to England was known and discussed, and at that time Guizot told Aberdeen that, so far from objecting, it was their wish that every civility should be shown him. But it subsequently appeared that, whether with or without his cognisance, his adherents intended to make his residence in London instrumental to a great political demonstration, and they had previously endeavoured to negotiate for his reception by the Emperor of Russia at Berlin through M. de St. Priest, who went there for that purpose. This entirely changed the nature of the case, and Guizot wrote to Aberdeen, stating these facts, and expressing a wish that under such circumstances the Queen would not receive him, and it was decided that she should not. The Prince began by a tour in the provinces, and a visit to Alton Towers, where he was very royally treated. He went to Chatsworth and Trentham to see the places, and wrote his name in the books of visitors as Henri de France, which might mean anything or nothing. About a week ago he arrived in London, and at the same time every Carlist in France, to the number of several hundred, flocked over to attend his Court. The town has ever since swarmed with monstrous beards of every cut and colour, and every night he receives a succession of them. A few days ago three hundred gentlemen waited on old Chateaubriand, and harangued him through the Duke de FitzJames, whom they unanimously elected as their mouthpiece. He began in these terms: 'These gentlemen who have been to render their homage to the King of France,' &c. Soon after this ceremony was concluded, the Duc de Bordeaux came into the room, and made a speech, in which he talked of looking towards the throne of his ancestors, and if he did so, it was for the good he might do to France. Such language as this was sure to make a great sensation; it showed what the pretensions and objects of these very foolish people were, and how indispensable it was that the Queen should have nothing whatever to say to him. The French Court were well pleased that they had thrown aside the mask, and committed him and themselves so entirely, and they immediately resolved to attack such of the Carlist faction as are members of the Chamber of Deputies, as soon as the Chambers shall meet. St. Aulaire told me this the other night at Lady Holland's, where I had a long conversation with him on the whole subject, and Guizot took the trouble to write a letter to Reeve of two sheets of paper, in which he went at great length into the conduct of the party, and the feelings and intentions of the French Government in regard to it. St. Aulaire told me that the Queen is annoyed at the Duc de Bordeaux's having come here without her consent, and at his making London the theatre of this absurd Carlist drama.

December 13th.—Here I am laid up with the gout again, never having been free from it for nearly three months. I dined with Lady Holland the other day, and met Melbourne for the second time only since his illness. He looked tolerably well in the face, but was feeble and out of spirits. He had been at the Queen's party at Chatsworth, which excited him, and was bad for him. At first he attempted to talk in his old strain; but it was evidently an effort, he soon relapsed into silence, and was in a hurry to get away the moment dinner was over. I have no doubt he chafes and frets under the consciousness of his decay. Duncannon was there, and talked of Ireland and the trial. Melbourne, by the way, justified the Government, and said, 'I must say they have been consistent, they always said it was a conspiracy; they said so to me in the House of Lords. I used to hold that there could be no conspiracy where there was no concealment, which was a mistake. I was quite wrong about that, and acted on that principle.' 'Why did you?' said Lady Holland. 'Oh, I don't know, it was a blunder.' There was a sort of candour in all this, like Melbourne and peculiar to him. He is a great disdainer of humbug, and values truth quand même, as the French say.

Duncannon said the popularity of O'Connell, the Liberator, as they all call him, is unbounded, and the Rent this year will be 25,000l. He asked the people in his neighbourhood what they were making the great fires for, and they said. 'Because the Liberator has bet the Attorney-General.' He asked them why they wished for Repeal, and they said, 'Because the Liberator said it would be a great thing for them.'

Duncannon in the evening told me the story of George II.'s robbery in Kensington Gardens, which I had heard before, but remembered imperfectly. He was walking with William IV., he said, in Kensington Gardens one day, and when they got to a certain spot the King said to him, 'It was here, my Lord, that my great-grandfather, King George II., was robbed. He was in the habit of walking every morning alone round the garden, and one day a man jumped over the wall, approached the King, but with great respect, and told him he was in distress, and was compelled to ask him for his money, his watch, and the buckles in his shoes. The King gave him what he had about him, and the man knelt down to take off his buckles, all the time with profound respect. When he had got everything, the King told him that there was a seal on the watch-chain of little or no value, but which he wished to have back, and requested he would take it off the chain and restore it. The man said, 'Your Majesty must be aware that we have already been here some time, and that it is not safe for me to stay longer, but if you will give me your word not to say anything of what has passed for twenty-four hours, I will place the seal at the same hour to-morrow morning on that stone,' pointing to a particular place. The King promised, went the next morning at the appointed hour, the man appeared, brought the seal, and then jumped over the wall and went off. 'His Majesty,' added King William, 'never afterwards walked alone in Kensington Gardens.' His Majesty's attendants must have been rather surprised to see him arrive at the palace minus his shoe-buckles!

All the people who have been at the Royal progress say there never was anything so grand as Chatsworth; and the Duke, albeit he would have willingly dispensed with this visit, treated the Queen right royally. He met her at the station and brought her in his own coach and six, with a coach and four following, and eight outriders. The finest sight was the illumination of the garden and the fountains; and after seeing the whole place covered with innumerable lamps and all the material of the illuminations, the guests were astonished and delighted when they got up the following morning not to find a vestige of them left, and the whole garden as trim and neat as if nothing had occurred. This was accomplished by Paxton, who got 200 men, set them to work, and worked with them the whole night till they had cleared away everything belonging to the exhibition of the preceding night. This was a great exploit in its way and produced a great effect. At Belvoir the Prince went hunting, and acquitted himself in the field very creditably. He was supposed to be a very poor performer in this line, and, as Englishmen love manliness and dexterity in field sports, it will have raised him considerably in public estimation to have rode well after the hounds in Leicestershire.

It is amusing to see the sensation which the article in the 'Times' a few days ago on the Duc de Bordeaux has made both here and in France. Every French newspaper copied it in extenso, and, considering the prodigious number of people who take their opinions ready made from that paper, there is little doubt that it will have put an extinguisher upon him here. Great effects these, and if the world could but see and know what the machinery is which produces them, how such crushing philippics are planned and executed, they would be surprised. The article was written by Henry Reeve, and when he was presented to the King shortly afterwards at the Tuileries, Louis Philippe, who had been told by M. Guizot that the article was written by Reeve, said to him, 'I regret, Mr. Reeve, that I cannot more fully express in this place the obligation which I feel for the service you have done us.' The English circle at the French Court looked on with amazement when this speech was made.

December 20th.—On Monday night I went to the Westminster Play, 'Phormio,' admirably acted by three of the boys. It was very amusing, much more than I thought possible on reading the play. It is the work of an accomplished playwright, full of good situations and replete with stage effect. They ought to leave off the vile custom of encoring the prologue and epilogue. We had to listen to ninety-six lines of the latter repeated twice over, when the audience was tired and, however well entertained, impatient to disperse.

Broadlands, December 29th.—I came here to-day, having passed the previous week at Brighton with the Granvilles; found nobody but Melbourne and the Beauvales; the former in pretty good force, more grave, more silent than formerly, but with intervals of talkativeness in his usual tone and manner. Things drop from him now and then, curious or interesting. We were talking about newspapers and their contributors, and he told us that the famous article in the 'Times' about bludgeons and brickbats during the rage of the Reform Bill was written by Lord Dover, and that nothing was too strong for him to put in a newspaper. I asked him about a thing he had once before told me, which is the connexion which subsisted between our Government and the Court of Rome, and a particular appointment which he had solicited the Pope not to confer. It was that of Dr. M'Hale as Archbishop of Tuam. Melbourne caused a request to be made to the Pope not to sanction it, but the Pope would not comply, and appointed M'Hale. He observed on that occasion, that ever since the Relief Bill had passed, the English Government never failed to interfere about every appointment as it fell vacant. On another occasion Melbourne begged the Pope to confer some piece of preferment on a priest, whose name I forget, who had supported the Government candidate very zealously in some election. This state of things and such communications between the Holy Father and the English Minister are curious. Palmerston said that there was nothing to prevent our sending a Minister to Rome; but they had not dared to do it, on account of their supposed Popish tendency; Peel might. Talking about the Corn Laws, Melbourne said he had prevented any measure being proposed for above three years, and that if he had done it sooner his Government would have fallen sooner. Many were earnest in favour of a proposition; John Russell particularly; Thomson, though the most strenuous free trader, was against it, foreseeing the consequences.

January 14th, 1844.—Everybody is full of the trial of O'Connell in Dublin—this unhappy trial, which has been one continual course of blunders and mismanagement from first to last. There is now an immense uproar about the jury list, and, as if fate had determined that the worst appearance should be given to the whole proceeding, Shaw the Recorder is implicated in a manner which can easily be made to look very suspicious. The Sheriff sent a list of some seventy-eight names to the Recorder; instead of remaining in Dublin, as he ought to have done, he must needs come to England to visit Lord Talbot. He went over for one day to Drayton, and it happened that on the same day he received the Sheriff's list; he returned it, but by some mistake did not return two slips, as they are called, containing sixty and odd names. The list, therefore, from which the jury was taken was an imperfect list, and they will say, and all the Irish will believe, that the mutilation was a concerted affair between Peel and Shaw. They also affirm that the excluded were mostly Catholics, which is, I believe, the reverse of the truth. This was an accident, but it was an awkward blunder to add to the long list of those already committed. Then the striking off all the Catholics from the jury is inveighed against here as an act of madness, there as of intolerable injustice and insult. It does appear to me an enormous blunder, and none of the excuses made for it seems even plausible. The Government ought to look far beyond the event of this trial. It would be a thousand times better to have O'Connell acquitted by a mixed jury than convicted by one all Protestant. I do not know whether such an acquittal would not be on the whole the best result; if he should be convicted, the whole process would be considered as a monstrous outrage against justice, and Government will be terribly puzzled to know how to deal with him. His conviction would produce the worst possible effect in Ireland, and render the exasperation and hatred of the people more bitter and unappeasable. If he is acquitted by a Protestant jury the triumph of the Catholics will be much greater, their resentment not less, and in England his acquittal by a jury formed of both persuasions would only be attributed to the determination of the Catholics not to convict him; supposing that a strong case is really made out, and Ministers should appear to be justified in requiring any fresh powers they thought necessary, they would find it difficult to ask for any if he was acquitted by a Protestant jury—in short, it is an inextricable mess, and how they will get out of it, God only knows. They have missed the great opportunity that was afforded them of giving a convincing proof to the Irish people that they wish O'Connell to have a fair trial. If they had begun by doing this, and then exhibited to the world a good case, they might have felt easy enough as to the result. If the Catholic jurors had cast their mantles over him, it would soon have been known; the Irish might have sung universal jubilations and lit bonfires on every hill; but it would have been no real triumph, and the value of a moral conviction in the eyes of the people of England would have been unappreciable. All this has been overlooked in a stupid, narrow-minded, shortsighted, professional eagerness to ensure a conviction.

Yesterday Lord Wharncliffe showed me a despatch from Lord Ellenborough to Lord Ripon, on the subject of his position with respect to the Secret Committee of the Directors, which is admirable, both in sentiment and expression. I knew already that the Court and the Government were at variance about his Indian policy, and that the Duke of Wellington not only strongly supported him, but wrote to him (I saw one of his letters) in cordial terms of approval and encouragement; but I did not know that the differences between Ellenborough and the Court were so serious as it appears they were, and I suppose are. The Secret Committee passed a resolution condemnatory of his proceedings in Scinde, couched in very strong and even offensive language, and to this resolution he responds in terms full of dignity and determination. He tells them that ever since he took the Government in India, which was at a time of unparalleled difficulty, they had thrown every obstacle in his way, and embarrassed his course by their want of co-operation and encouragement. He asks why, if such was their opinion, they did not exercise the power with which they are invested, censure and recall him; that he should not be provoked to resign, because he believed that his doing so at this moment would be productive of more evil than his endeavouring to administer the Government with such crippled means as they left to him, and he should therefore cast upon them the whole responsibility of withdrawing him if they pleased, and continue to discharge his duty, fully relying upon his possessing the confidence of the Crown, though he might not possess theirs. I believe he is doing well in India now. How, by the by, in all his letters, the Duke of Wellington inveighs against 'the licentious Press' both in India and here! He hates the press everywhere, but he knows that here it is, if an evil, a necessary and unavoidable evil; but in such a country as India, he cannot forgive those who introduced the pernicious anomaly of a free press, and in this I entirely agree with him. It was done by Sir Charles Metcalfe, a man of extraordinary ability, and considered as one of the greatest authorities, if not the greatest, on Indian affairs.