I was desirous of seeing the Duke to hear what he says to the Portfolio,[6] which makes so much noise here. Peel told me that the Duke was not at all annoyed by it, and that he did not see why Matuscewitz need be either; that Matuscewitz wrote what he thought and believed at the time, as he was bound to do, and long before his intimacy with the Duke began. He said that the letters are certainly authentic, though possibly there may be some omissions. But the Duke's women endeavour to stir up his resentment, and to make him think himself ill-used, though he is disposed to treat the matter with great good-humour and indifference. Of politics I have heard little, and learnt nothing; the Tory houses I have successively been at are all on the alert, and fancy they are to do great things this next session, but I expect it will all end in smoke. [6] [A collection of diplomatic papers and correspondence between the Russian Government and its agents, published about this time by Mr. Urquhart, which was supposed to throw light on the secret policy of the Cabinet of St. Petersburg. They were, in fact, copies of the original documents which had been sent to Warsaw for the information of the Grand Duke Constantine when Viceroy of Poland, and they fell into the hands of the insurgents at the time of the Polish Revolution of 1830. Prince Adam Czartoryski brought them to England, where the publication of them excited great attention.] The law appointments of Pepys[7] and Bickersteth are reckoned very good, and they have certainly been made with especial reference to the fitness of the men to preside over their respective Courts. Pepys's is perhaps one of the most curious instances of elevation that ever occurred: a good sound lawyer, in leading practice at the Bar, never heard of in politics, no orator, a plain undistinguished man, to whom expectation never pointed, and upon whom the Solicitor-Generalship fell as it were by accident, finds himself Master of the Rolls in a few months after his appointment, by the sudden death of Leach, and in little more than one year from that time a peer and Chancellor. I fancy there were considerable difficulties in settling these appointments, and in satisfying disappointed expectants, but of the details of the difficulties I know nothing. They will probably confer some strength on the Government. We came here yesterday, and are comfortably lodged at Wilton's.