The King came to town yesterday for a Council, at which the meeting of Parliament on the 6th of December was settled. The proclamation against the unions (which was not ready, and the King signed a blank) and some orders about cholera were despatched. Lord Grey told me that the union had already determined to dissolve itself. My satisfaction was yesterday considerably damped by what I heard of the pending negotiation concerning Reform. Agar Ellis at Roehampton talked with great doubt of its being successful, which I attributed to his ignorance of what had passed, but I fear it is from his knowledge that the Government mean, in fact, to give up nothing of importance. George Bentinck came to me in the morning, and told me he had discovered from the Duke of Richmond that the concessions were not only to be all one way, but that the altered Bill would be, in fact, more objectionable than the last, inasmuch as it is more democratic in its tendency, so much so that Richmond is exceedingly dissatisfied himself, for he has always been the advocate of the aristocratic interest in the Cabinet, and has battled to make the Bill less adverse to it. Now he says he can contend no longer, for he is met by the unanswerable argument that their opponents are ready to concede more. I own I was alarmed, and my mind misgave me when I heard of the extreme satisfaction of Althorp and Co.; and I always dreaded that Wharncliffe, however honest and well-meaning, had not calibre enough to conduct such a negotiation, and might be misled by his vanity. He bustles about the town, chatting away to all the people he meets, and I fear is both ignorant himself of what he is about and involuntarily deceiving others too; he is in a fool's paradise. I spoke to Henry de Ros about this last night, who seemed by no means aware of it, and it is difficult to believe that Lyndhurst and Harrowby should not be perfectly alive to all the consequences of Wharncliffe's proceedings, or that they would sanction them if they had really the tendency that George Bentinck gives me to understand.