[Page Head: LORD ELDON'S GREAT CAREER.] On Saturday, the day after I came back, I found a final meeting at the Council Office on the lunacy case, the appeal of Grosvenor against Drax. There were Lord Lansdowne, the Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor, Master of the Rolls, Lord Manners, Lord Eldon, and Lord Lyndhurst. The rule is that the President of the Council collects the opinions and votes, beginning with the junior Privy Councillor. This was the Chancellor,[9] who made a sort of apology for his judgment, stating that he had made the order just after two or three very flagrant cases of a similar description had been brought under his notice, and then he went into this case, and endeavoured to show that there was fraud (and intentional fraud) on the part of the Grosvenors, and he maintained, without insisting on, and very mildly, his own former view of the case. Leach then made a speech strongly against the judgment, and Lord Eldon made a longish speech, very clear, and very decided against it, interlarded with professions of his 'sincere' respect for the person who delivered the judgment. The Chancellor did not reply to Lord Eldon, but put some questions--some hypothetical, and some upon parts of the case itself--which, together with some remarks, brought on a discussion between him and Leach, in which the latter ended by lashing himself into a rage. 'My Lord,' said he to the Chancellor, 'we talk too much, and we don't stick to the point.' Brougham put on one of his scornful smiles, and in reply to something (I forget what) that the Vice-Chancellor said he dropped in his sarcastic tone that he would do so and so 'if his Honour would permit.' For a moment I thought there would be a breeze, but it ended without any vote, in the adoption of a form of reversal suggested by Lord Eldon, which left it to the option of the respondent to institute other proceedings if he should think fit. Afterwards all was harmony. Eldon seemed tolerably fresh, feeble, but clear and collected. He was in spirits about the dinner which had just been given him by the Templars, at which he was received with extraordinary honours. He said he hoped never to be called to the Council Board again, and this was probably the last occasion on which he will have to appear in a judicial capacity. It is remarkable that his last act should be to reverse a judgment of Brougham's, Brougham being Chancellor and himself nothing. I could not help looking with something like emotion at this extraordinary old man, and reflecting upon his long and laborious career, which is terminating gently and by almost insensible gradations, in a manner more congenial to a philosophic mind than to an ambitious spirit. As a statesman and a politician he has survived and witnessed the ruin of his party and the subversion of those particular institutions to which he tenaciously clung, and which his prejudices or his wisdom made him think indispensable to the existence of the Constitution.