Another Coronation Committee yesterday, and, I am happy to say, the last, for this business is the greatest of all bores. There is a furious squabble between the Grand Chamberlain and the Earl Marshal (who is absent and has squabbled by deputy) about the box of the former in Westminster Abbey. At the last coronation King George IV. gave Lord Gwydir _his_ box in addition to his own, and now Lord Cholmondeley claims a similar box.[6] This is resisted. The present King disposes of his own box (and will probably fill it with every sort of _canaille_); the Lords won't interfere, and the Grand Chamberlain protests, and says he has been shamefully used, and there the matter stands. The Grand Chamberlain is in the wrong. [6] [Lord Gwydir and Lord Cholmondeley filled the office of Lord High Chamberlain for alternative lives as the representatives of the joint claimants of the office.] September 3rd, 1831 {p.188} On Wednesday a Council was held. Very few of the Ministers stay for the Councils; small blame to them, as the Irish say, for we are kept about three times as long by this regular, punctual King as by the capricious, irregular Monarch who last ruled over us. This King is a queer fellow. Our Council was principally for a new Great Seal and to deface the old Seal. The Chancellor claims the old one as his perquisite. I had forgotten the hammer, so the King said, 'My Lord, the best thing I can do is to give you the Seal, and tell you to take it and do what you please with it.' The Chancellor said, 'Sir, I believe there is some doubt whether Lord Lyndhurst ought not to have half of it, as he was Chancellor at the time of your Majesty's accession.' 'Well,' said the King, 'then I will judge between you like Solomon; here (turning the Seal round and round), now do you cry heads or tails?' We all laughed, and the Chancellor said, 'Sir, I take the bottom part.' The King opened the two compartments of the Seal and said, 'Now, then, I employ you as ministers of taste. You will send for Bridge, my silversmith, and desire him to convert the two halves each into a salver, with my arms on one side and yours on the other, and Lord Lyndhurst's the same, and you will take one and give him the other, and both keep them as presents from me.' The Duchess of Kent will not attend the coronation, and there is a report that the King is unwilling to make all the Peers that are required; this is the current talk of the day. September 5th, 1831 {p.189} At Gorhambury since Saturday; the Harrowbys, Bathursts, Frankland Lewes's, Lady Jersey, Mahon, Lushington, Wortleys; rather agreeable and lively; all anti-Reformers, so no quarrelling about that, though Lord Harrowby is ready to squabble with anybody either way, but furiously against the Bill. September 8th, 1831 {p.189}