Volume II Part 12 (1/2)

At Epsom all last week for the races at a house which Lord Chesterfield took; nobody there but the three sisters[4] and their two husbands Rode out on the downs every , and enjoyed the fine country, as beautiful as any I have seen of the kind After the races on Friday I went to Richmond to dine with Lord and Lady Lyndhurst, and was refreshed by his vigorous mind after the three or four days I had passed He thinks the state of things very bad, has a great contempt for this Government, is very doubtful ill happen, thinks Lord Grey will not stand, and that Brougham will be Chancellor and Prime Minister, like Clarendon; he talked of the late Governton and Peel; he said that the forn Affairs, which he conducted entirely; that he understood theain would be Foreign Secretary; that in the Cabinet he was always candid, reasonable, and ready to discuss fairly every subject, but not so Peel He, if his opinion was not adopted, would take up a newspaper and sulk Lyndhurst agreed with usted instead of conciliating people; he said that when any of his friends in Parliaed or assisted them, but answered with a dry 'Do you?' to their notification of a wish or intention He said that this Bill was drawn up by Lanorantly and inefficiently, that they were obliged to send for Harrison, who, in conjunction with the Attorney-General, drew it up afresh; that when John Russell brought it forward the Bill was still undrawn[5] He says that there is not the least doubt they never had an idea of bringing forward any such measure as this till they found the but a popular cry and Radical support could possibly save them It is very remarkable e look back to the ham was in the House of Coh unknoas so dreaded, and which turns out to have been ham was offered the Attorney-Generalshi+p by a note, which he tore in pieces and stamped upon, and sent word that there was no answer; that he has long aspired to be Chancellor, and wished to get into the House of Lords He ridicules his pretensions to such wonderful doings in his Court and in the Bills he has announced; says that he has decided no bankruptcy cases, and, except soot rid of hardly any arrears; and as to his Bills, the Bankruptcy Bill was objectionable and the Chancery Bill he has never brought on at all; that he knows he affects a short cut to judicial e he cannot adreat acuteness and rapid perception may often enable him at once to see the merits of a case and hit upon the important points This he said in reply to what I told hiham's trumpeter Sefton, who echoes from his own lips that 'the Court of Chancery is such a sinecure and mere child's play'

[4] [Lady Chesterfield, Mrs Anson, and Miss Forester]

[5] [Compare the details of the preparation of the Reform Bill published by Lord Russell in the last edition of his 'Essay on the British Constitution' Much of this conversation of Lord Lyndhurst's is extremely wide of the truth, but it is retained to shoas said and believed by competent persons at the tiuidly on, and are now nearly over; contrary to the prognostications of the Tories, they have gone off very quietly, even in Ireland not ht at all; except in Shropshi+re they are dead-beat everywhere

Northamptonshi+re the sharpest contest, and the one which has made the ood deal of violence; elsewhere the Reformers have it hollow, no matter what the characters of the candidates, if they are only for the Bill Calcraft and Wellesley, the forrace, have beat Bankes and Tyrrell

Lowther had not a chance in cuot into another scrape, for in an impertinent speech he e and froy Formerly, when a man made use of offensive expressions and was called to account, he thought it right to go out and stand a shot before he ate his words, but now-a-days that piece of chivalry is dispensed with, and politiciansscurrilous one day and humble the next Hyde Villiers has been appointed to succeed Sandon at the Board of Control as a Whig and a Reformer He was in a hundred minds what line he should take, and had written a pa Ministers seats in both Houses (as in France), which he has probably put in the fire I ah his opinions were not very decided before, he has always been anti-Tory, and has done nothing discreditable to get it, and it was offered to hi manner

May 28th, 1831 {p146}

Yesterday Lord Grey was invested with the blue ribband, though there is no vacancy; the only precedent is that of Lords Liverpool and Castlereagh (which was thought wrong), but it was on the occasion of the peace after Bonaparte's overthrow and when Castlereagh returned with such _eclat_ from Paris that the whole House of Commons rose and cheered hiht, who said it was certain that the King was full of regrets at the extent of the measures into which he had been hurried, when I told him of Lord Grey's Garter, and asked him what he said to that, and how that bore out the assertion of the King's regrets The fact is that although on one side a 's na that is not asserted with equal confidence about 'his difficulties and his scruples'

Sefton told s that were said thatwrite to Lord Grey (he saw the letter) and tell hireatest inal ard and of his satisfaction with the whole of his conduct It is, I believe, true that the King felt some alarm and some doubt about the dissolution, but I do not believe that he has any doubts or fears at present Indeed, how should he not have suffered himself to be led away by these people and to becoiven him an ample share of the praise of it; they assure him it will be eminently successful; he sees his have gone it has been successful, for the elections have gone on and gone off very peaceably, and the country in expectation of the passing of the Bill is in a state of profound tranquillity

June 5th, 1831 {p147}

[Page Head: THE KING AT ASCOT]

All last week at Fern Hill for the Ascot races; the Chesterfields, Tavistocks, Belfasts, George Ansons, Montague, Stradbroke, and Brooke Greville were there The Royal Fae_--eight coaches and four, two phaetons, pony sociables, and led horses--Munster riding on horseback behind the King's carriage, Augustus (the parson) and Frederick driving phaetons The Duke of Rich's caleche and Lord Grey in one of the coaches The reception was strikingly cold and indifferent, not half so good as that which the late King used to receive William was bored to death with the races, and his own horse broke down On Wednesday he did not coain Beautiful weather and unprecedentedwas reater nuiven to Lord Grey as he returned, which he just acknowledged and noasked a crowd of people frohbourhood We arrived at a little before seven; the Queen was only just coht

Above forty people at dinner, for which the rooh; the dinner was not bad, but the room insufferably hot The Queen was taken out by the Duke of Rich folloith the duchess of Saxe Wei seven or eight at a time After dinner he drops asleep We sat for a short tiood band, not nued instruments

The Queen and the whole party sat there all the evening, so that it was, in fact, a concert of instrue's Hall and the ball roo lamps to show the proportions, for it was not lit up The whole thing is exceedingly nificent, and the manner of life does not appear to be very forreeable but for the bore of never dining without twenty strangers The Castle holds very few people, and with the King's and Queen's immediate suite and _toute la batardise_ it was quite full The King's four sons were there, _signoreggianti tutti_, and the whole thing 'donnait a penser' to those who looked back a little and had seen other days We sat in that room in which Lyndhurst has often talked to , when the Catholic Bill hung upon his caprice Palmerston told me he had never been in the Castle since the eventful day of Herries'

appoints have happened since What a _changee IV, capricious, luxurious, andbut the society of listeners and flatterers, with the Conynghan Aentle his doors to all the world, with a nuners, and no toad-eaters at all Nothing can beat him one sees how soon this act will be finished, and the saed for another probably not less dissis,[6] all will disappear, and God knohat replaces them Came to town yesterday, and found a quarrel between Henry Bentinck and Sir Roger Gresley, which I had to settle, and did settle as--they are _les bienvenus_, which they were not before--_July 1838_

June 7th, 1831 {p148}

[Page Head: DINNER AT HANBURY'S BREWERY]

Dined with Sefton yesterday, who gave me an account of a dinner at Fowell Buxton's on Saturday to see the brewery, at which Broughanus Apollo' Sefton is excellent as a coham; he says that he watches him incessantly, never listens to anybody else when he is there, and _rows_ hi, nonsense, and palaver he hears him talk to people They were twenty-seven at dinner

Talleyrand was to have gone, but was frightened by being told that he would get nothing but beefsteaks and porter, so he stayed away They dined in the brewhouse and visited the whole establisharter, and ribband

There were people ready to show and explain everything, but not a bit--Brougha into his own hands--theof the cart horses After dinner the account books were brought, and the young Buxtons were beckoned up to the top of the table by their father to hear the words of wisdom that flowed from the lips of er, and

There was a ham called 'Cornelius' (Sefton did not knoho he ho he dropped his voice, on which 'Cornelius'

said, 'Earl Grey is listening,' that heof Paley, and said that 'although he did not always understand his own ible to others,' on which 'Cornelius' said, 'My good friend, if he made it so clear to others he must have had some comprehension of it himself;' on which Sefton attacked him afterwards, and swore that 'he was a mere child in the hands of ”Cornelius,”' that 'he never saw anybody so put down' These people are all subscribers to the London University, and Sefton swears he overheard Brougha co to that effect I put down all this nonsense because it amused me in the recital, and is excessively characteristic of the man, one of the most remarkable who ever existed Lady Sefton told me that he ith them to the British Museum, where all the officers of the Museum were in attendance to receive the, but did all the honours himself At last they caht he an to describe theham took the words out of his mouth, and dashed off with as much ease and familiarity as if he had been a Buckland or a Cuvier Such is the rand ruities

June 10th, 1831 {p150}