Last night I sat next to Poulett Thomson at dinner, who told me a great deal about Dr. Hampden's appointment,[9] which makes such an uproar among the Tories and High Churchmen. He declares that Melbourne consulted various authorities, and the Archbishop of Canterbury among the rest, who made no objection to the appointment; that when the Oxford remonstrance was sent up the Archbishop wrote a very Jesuitical letter, in which he endeavoured to reconcile his former approbation of the appointment with his present concurrence in the remonstrance. Melbourne sent for him, and asked whether he had any charge to make against Hampden; he replied that he had none; when Melbourne said that he could not, then, cancel the appointment, which had been already notified to him. [This account of Poulett Thomson's was, however, untrue. William Cowper, Melbourne's private secretary and nephew, gave me another, which I doubt not is more correct, and puts the matter in a very different point of view. Melbourne sent to the Archbishop and desired him to give him a list of six names, which he accordingly did; but Melbourne would not take any of them, and without consulting the Archbishop about Hampden, appointed him. He did consult Coplestone and some others, but not the Archbishop. I believe the cry against Hampden to be a senseless cry, and that it is raised by mere bigotry and spite, but I think Melbourne behaved neither prudently nor properly. When he desired the Archbishop to give him a list of six, the latter must certainly have conceived that he would select one out of the number, and would not have divined that he would pass them all over and appoint another man without consulting him at all.--February 28th.] I have read the pamphlet written against Hampden, and though some of his expressions are perhaps imprudent as giving occasion to malicious cavil, it contains no grave matter, and nothing to support an accusation of heterodoxy. If he had been a Tory instead of a Liberal in politics, we should probably have heard nothing of the matter. [9] [This was the appointment of Dr. Hampden to be Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford. He was raised to the See of Hereford in 1848.]