getting rid of these people, whom he dislikes and fears, and that he thinks (justly or not remains to be proved) the translation of Althorp affords him a good opportunity, and such a one perhaps as may not speedily occur again. It is long since a Government has been so summarily dismissed--regularly kicked out, in the simplest sense of that phrase. Melbourne's colleagues expected his return without a shadow of apprehension, or doubt. He got back late, and wrote to none of them. The Chancellor, who had dined at Holland House, called on him and heard the news; the others (except Duncannon, who went to him, and I believe Palmerston) remained in happy ignorance till yesterday morning, when they were saluted at their rising with the astounding intelligence. All the Ministers (except Brougham) read the account of their dismissal in the 'Times' the next morning, and this was the first they heard of it. Melbourne resolved to say nothing that night, but summoned an early Cabinet, when he meant to impart it. Brougham called on him on his way from Holland House. Melbourne told him, but made him promise not to say a word of it to anybody. He promised, and the moment he quitted the house sent to the 'Times' office and told them what had occurred, with the well-known addition that 'the Queen had done it all.' They attribute their fall to the influence of the Queen, and fancy that it is the result of a preconcerted scheme and intrigue with the Tories, neither of which do I believe to be true. With regard to the latter notion, the absence of Sir Robert Peel, who is travelling in Italy, is a conclusive proof of its falseness. He never would have been absent if he had foreseen the remotest possibility of a crisis, and the death of Lord Spencer has been imminent and expected for some time past. I am convinced that it is the execution of a project which the King has long nourished of delivering himself from the Whigs whenever he could. His original dislike has been exasperated to a great pitch by the mountebank exhibitions of Brougham, and he is so alarmed and disgusted at the Radical propensities which the Durham dinner has manifested, that he is resolved to try whether the Government cannot be conducted upon principles which are called Conservative, but which shall really be _bonâ fide_ opposed to the ultra doctrines and wild schemes which he knows are not distasteful to at least one-half of his late Cabinet.