Allen talked of Mackintosh, and of his declaration of religious belief on his deathbed, when he had never believed at all during his life. He said that Mackintosh was not very deeply read in theology. Melbourne, on the contrary, is, and being a very good Greek scholar (which Mackintosh was not), has compared the Evidences and all modern theological works with the writings of the Fathers. He did not believe that Melbourne entertained _any doubts_, or that his mind was at all distracted and perplexed with much thinking and much reading on the subject, but that his studies and reflections have led him to a perfect _conviction_ of unbelief.[4] He thought if Mackintosh had lived much with Christians he would have been one too. We talked of Middleton, and Allen said that he believed he really died a Christian, but that he was rapidly ceasing to be one, and if he had lived would probably have continued the argument of his free enquiry up to the Apostles themselves. He urged me to read Lardner; said he had never read Paley nor the more recent Evidences, the materials of all of which are, however, taken from Lardner's work. Luttrell was talking of Moore and Rogers--the poetry of the former so licentious, that of the latter so pure; much of its popularity owing to its being so carefully weeded of everything approaching to indelicacy; and the contrast between the _lives_ and the _works_ of the two men--the former a pattern of conjugal and domestic regularity, the latter of all the men he had ever known the greatest sensualist. [4] [John Allen was himself so fierce an unbeliever, and so bitter an enemy to the Christian religion, that he was very fond of asserting that other men believed as little as himself. It was almost always Allen who gave an irreligious turn to the conversation at Holland House when these subjects were discussed there.] Yesterday Lyndhurst and Brougham both came to the Council Office to hear the first application for the renewal of a patent, and though there was no opposition, they scrutinised the petition and evidence with the utmost jealousy, which they did in order to intimate that the granting a prolongation of the patent, even when unopposed, was not to be a matter of course. It was a pianoforte invention, and the instrument was introduced into the Council Chamber, and played upon by Madame Dülcken for the edification of their Lordships. December 18th, 1835 {p.325}