particularly with the monied interest, always more alive to alarm than others, and naturally suspicious of a Whig or popular ascendency. The stockholder loves the Tory bolstering system, which put the best face on existing circumstances, and strenuously maintained the doctrine of faith with the public creditor. He trembles at the former republican threats of Lord Althorp, with his pruning-knife and his sponge, though perhaps without much reason, as the maxims of a Whig out of place seldom regulate the practice of a Whig in office. The wand of power makes strange alterations in the feelings and policy of all men. Then the unlucky coincidence, that at this moment two such serious questions as the renewal of the Bank and the East Indian Companies' charters should come into discussion, gives fresh cause for apprehension. The com

mittee of the former is already named, and all the secrets of that massive, establishment will be laid open to public view; and from what I have some reason to know, certain sanguine anticipations of the accumulations of that company may be grievously disappointed. Glad would the Government now be if they could dissolve the political unions, but of this there is little chance; on the contrary, success seems only to have raised their tone, and Lord Grey will find that he has used a dangerous auxiliary, who will only serve under him as long as he will lead them on to further conquest. They have got their reform, what will be their next war cry? The repeal of the corn bill, which will reduce the income from land one-half, will that satisfy them?

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No! Then comes, &c. &c., -annual parliaments, ballot.

Monday, 28th. The King's birthday, and a very full drawing-room. It was remarked that the Duke and Lord Lyndhurst were received with particular attention, and much more noticed than the ministers. The usual state dinners were given; but the King did not dine with the Duke, as was at first intended. Tuesday, 29th. Reports that Lord Grey will resign as soon as the bill has passed through the Lords. The Paris letters mention, that no minister is appointed, and that Louis-Philippe imagines he can act as president of the council himself. The two foreigners most known here are,

Montrond, who must be near sixty-five years old, a protégé of Talleyrand, and constant guest at his table. He has lived through the different scenes of the French Revolution, always keeping up a certain scale of expense, is received into all the best houses in London, and is witty and entertaining, though his ton is rather tranchant. He plays high, and generally wins; is full of anecdotes; tells them well; great epicure and connoisseur at the table; enters into all the gaieties and pursuits of the young English dandies, who look up to him and admire his sallies. He was notorious in Paris as a roué; grand brétailleur; and fought one duel with the elder Greffulhe, which did not end so fatally as some others. He married the Duchesse de Fleury; a beautiful woman with a fortune, which he spent. Old age has now mellowed the more riotous traits in his character; he feels less independent in a foreign country than in his

own; and a life of quiet self-indulgence seems now his only ambition. The other is D'Orsay, very good looking, and gifted with great talents, the son of the General Count D'Orsay, whose mother married Mr. Crawford, well known for many years as a rich collector of pictures and articles of vertù at Paris. His sister, a beautiful person, married the Duc de Guiche, son of the Duc de Grammont, and is now, with her husband, following the fortunes of the exiled royal family, at Holyrood House.

Wednesday, 30th. This day died Sir James Mackintosh, of a lingering disorder, originally caused by a piece of chicken sticking in his throat, when at dinner, which nearly produced strangulation, and affected his health afterwards. He was a man of great learning and abilities, and a staunch Whig, and he will be a great loss to this Government, under which he was President of the Board of Control. His Moral and Political Lectures, many years ago, in Lincoln's-Inn, will be long remembered by those who heard them. The Pitt dinner was attended today, at Merchant Tailors' Hall, by near 500 persons. The Duke in the chair. Though a complete Tory meeting, no discontent was observed in the mob without, and the Duke, on going away, was rather cheered than otherwise. Schedules A. and B. were carried in the Lords with not above five or six peers on the opposition benches.

Thursday, 31st.-Alvanley and Cooke, dining with me, were both very amusing and full of anecdote of

* Count Alfred d'Orsay, who married the daughter of the Earl of Blessington, died at Paris in 1852.

former times. The former, who has lived much with Talleyrand in France, both at Paris and at Valençaye*, gave us some interesting recollections of the prince's Memoirs, which had been occasionally read to him when he was staying in his house. From these it appears that there were two points on which Talleyrand's counsels had been uniformly, but unsuccessfully, opposed to the views of Napoleon, the invasion of Spain, and the elevation of his brothers to the sceptre over foreign states. As far as my memory goes, these were the arguments which he adduced. The error of the first was, that, having already unlimited power in that country, having fascinated the King Charles IV., and bribed the Prince of Peace, who governed the weak mind of the Queen, all the resources, military, naval, and financial, of Spain, were entirely at his disposal. Why then attack by a military invasion the amour-propre of a country, which, though dead to the degradation of its sovereign, would, and must still be alive to the humiliating occupation of a foreign invader? Why draw upon himself the rancour of a priesthood, all powerful in the country, who must be stimulated to oppose his progress by the apprehension of losing, not only their immense property, but also their moral influence over the minds of the people, by the incursion of his armies, and the dissemination of his principles: nation, too, degraded, but loyal, attached to its king, its religion, and its peculiar prejudices, no longer perhaps formidable in the field, but united and desperate

* The Château of the Prince Talleyrand, near Blois.

a

in a partisan warfare, to which its native thickets, mountains, and fastnesses gave advantages unknown and unexpected in modern warfare.

Upon the second point of opposition, that is, with respect to the enthronement of his brothers, the language of Talleyrand to Napoleon was equally strong and cogent. Alvanley proceeded to say, as far as I can accurately recollect of the conversation, "You have," said he, "created a great empire by your own transcendent talents and master mind; but look at your brothers, and observe how little they are gifted with those qualities; make them princes, constables of the empire, or what you will at home; load them with honours, riches, titles; but place them not on an elevated pinnacle abroad, where their weakness may only tend to undermine the prestige of your greatness. Send thither ambassadors, whom you may select for those qualities and merits, which may more effectually promote your purposes and objects, than can be done by crowning weak members of your family, and thereby exciting the jealousy and ill-will of your neighbours."

Talleyrand renders every justice to this great and extraordinary man, as a sovereign and a general; his chief mistake was, to have underrated the credit and resources of England; and as he was tormented by the ver rongeur of ambition, which offered to him no excitement but military conquest, so the resistance which he met with from this country was the source of constant irritation in his prosperity, and of his final ruin in adversity. The Memoirs of Talleyrand, whenever published, must be a valuable acquisition