I walked home with Lord Sandon last night, and had much talk about the state of parties, particularly about Peel and the events at the close of the last session. He talked upon the usual topic of Peel's coldness, uncommunicative disposition, want of popular qualities, and the consequent indifference of his followers to his person. With respect to last year, he said that Peel had arranged with the Duke of Wellington and Lyndhurst the course that it would be advisable to adopt with regard to the Corporation Bill, and that he was put exceedingly out of humour by the House of Lords adopting a different line; that the leaders of the Lords found their party impracticable, and they were compelled (or thought themselves so) to give way to the prejudices of the majority. But Peel did not understand this _knocking under_ to violence and folly, and his pride was mortified, because it was a sort of renunciation of his authority as leader and chief of the whole party. Accordingly it was with reference to these proceedings that Peel spoke with great bitterness to Sandon, and said that 'he never would be the tool of the Lords,' He left town in high dudgeon, and was probably not sorry to display his resentment at the same time with his power, when he suddenly returned and made his speech on the Lords' amendments. Sandon confirmed the statement of his having done this without any communication with the Duke and Lyndhurst, in which he thinks he was to blame. I think he ought to have seen the Duke, and have imparted to him his intentions and his motives; but with Lyndhurst he probably felt very angry for the part he took. He has now, however, put himself more openly and decidedly at the head of the party, and Sandon considers that Stanley already virtually belongs to it, inasmuch as they sit together and consult together, and the other day when he went to Peel's house he found Stanley there. February 21st, 1836 {p.341} There is a mighty stir about the appointment of Dr. Hampden to the Regius Professorship of Divinity at Oxford, on the ground of his having put forth doctrines or arguments of a Socinian tendency. The two Archbishops went to Melbourne with a remonstrance, but he told them the appointment was completed, and that he had not been aware of any objections to Dr. Hampden, and had taken pains to ascertain his fitness for the office. It will give the Churchmen a handle for accusing Melbourne of a design to sap the foundations of the Church and poison the fountain of orthodoxy; but he certainly has no such view. February 23rd, 1836 {p.341}