especially to the Tories by the occasional flippancy or severity of his attacks upon them, that as it was clear that any Conservative Government must depend upon the great body of the Tory party for support, it was improvident in him to make himself obnoxious to them, and that he would do well to exert his influence over Stanley for the purpose of restraining those sallies in which he was too apt to indulge, and showing him the expediency of conciliating that not very wise but still powerful body. He asked in what way Stanley had offended. I told him generally in the sarcastic or reprobating tone he had used, and particularly in his personal attack on the Duke for holding the offices. He owned there was truth in this, 'but what could you do? it was impossible to change a man's character, and Stanley's was very peculiar. With great talents, extraordinary readiness in debate, high principles, unblemished honour, he never had looked, he thought he never would look, upon politics and political life with the seriousness which belonged to the subject; he followed politics as an amusement, as a means of excitement, as another would gaming or any other very excitable occupation; he plunged into the _mêlée_ for the sake of the sport which he found it made there, but always actuated by honourable and consistent principles and feelings, and though making it a matter of diversion and amusement, never sacrificing anything that honour or conscience prescribed.' I said that this description of him (which I had no doubt was true) only proved what I already thought--that, with all his talents, he never would be a great man. He said he always must be very considerable; his powers, integrity, birth, and fortune could not fail to raise him to eminence. All this I admitted--that nothing could prevent his being very considerable, very important, as a public man--but I argued that one who was animated by motives so personal, and so wanting in gravity, to whom public care was a subsidiary and not a primary object, never could achieve permanent and genuine greatness. He said that Stanley had a great admiration for Peel, without any tincture of jealousy, and that he was quite ready to serve under him, though he could not help doubting whether it would be possible for two such men, so different in character, to go on well together in the same Cabinet. I told him what Wharncliffe had told me, that no man was ever more easy to act with, more candid and conciliatory, and less assuming than Peel in the Cabinet, and Graham said that Stanley was likewise perfect as a colleague, so that it may be hoped there would not be any such incompatibility if they were to come together. I was with him two hours and a half, and we discussed very fully all political contingencies with the freedom of twenty years ago, when we were great friends. April 10th, 1835 {p.251} [Page Head: DISTRESS OF THE KING.]