“How much less adroit was Dizzy, too, than Lord Derby at ‘reform.’ The plain assertion that it was a measure only to be approached after due and weighty consideration was enough; but Dizzy must go on to say why, if they should touch it, they were the best of all possible reformers. The palpable want of tact reveals in this man how the absence of the true ‘gentleman element’ can spoil a great intellect. “And, since I sent off my O’D. on ‘The American Alliance,’ I have read Lord Derby’s speech, full of complimentary things to the Yankees and plainly indicating the wish to draw closer to them. I think my paper will be well-timed--that is, if it has reached you, for I despatched it ten days ago by F. O., and have heard nothing of it since. “I cannot write to Bulwer, nor indeed to any one, about myself. Three or four of the present Cabinet know me well enough, and what I’m good for; and if they do not improve the acquaintance, it is because they don’t want me. “I own to you I think it hard--d------d hard; but I have grown so used to see myself passed by donkeys, that I begin to think it is the natural thing. If I were not old and pen-weary, with paroxysms of stupidity recurring oftener than is pleasant, and a growing sense besides that these disconnected links of muddle-headedness will one day join and become a chain of downright feebleness,--if not for all this, I say, ‘I’d pitch my blind gods to the devil’ (meaning Ministers and Sees. of State), and take my stand by the broadsheet, and trust to my head and my hands to take care of me. “I like Lord Derby’s allusion to Ireland. Let him only discard the regular traders on party,--disconnect himself with the clique who, so to say, farmed out Ireland for the benefit of a party,--and he has a better chance of _governing the country_--I mean real government--than any of his predecessors. “Spenser [‘Fairy Queen’ Spenser) once said, ‘No people love Justice more than your Irish.’ Probably because it was always a rarity. If Lord D. will ignore religious differences,--not ask more than each man’s fitness for office, and appoint him,--he will do much towards breaking down that terrible barrier that now separates the two creeds in the island. “It is lucky for you that I’m at the end of my paper, or you were ‘in’ for a ‘sixteenthly.’ But, oh where, and oh where, is my Yankee paper gone? I want the sheets of ‘Sir B.’ collectively from the part where the last missive ended. I am re-reading and pondering. “I half suspect my old friend Whiteside must be in some tiff with the Cabinet. He has not resigned, and yet men are canvassing for his seat for the University. It all looks very odd. It may be that he is bargaining for the Chancellorship, which he is certainly _not_ fit for. I might as well ask to be Mistress of the Robes,--and old Lefroy will not resign unless his son be promoted to the Bench! And this is the man they accuse of senility and weak intellect!