The Lords in the meantime have gone quietly into Committee, and the second reading passed off with tolerable harmony. Melbourne made a good speech, and produced a surplus, but which the Duke of Wellington will take very good care to reduce again to _nil_. This is very easily done on one side, and the contrary on the other; redistribution can accomplish either desideratum--surplus or no surplus. However, the Government seems to be in a pretty state between their moderate and their violent adherents, and though they may scramble through this session, and hustle Parliament to an end, it is difficult to see how they will ever pass the ordeal of another, for they can neither continue in their present course nor adopt any other with safety. I met old Denison (the member for Surrey)--a strong supporter of the Government and an old Whig--coming from the meeting on Friday, and suggested to him what a scrape his friends were in. He owned that it was so, but said that parties were so balanced that Peel could not go on if he came in. I said Peel could not go on if the King turned out the Government as he had done before, or if Peel was instrumental in compelling them to resign; but that if they resigned of their own accord, and because they were themselves conscious that they could not go on, I thought Peel would be supported by a majority even of this House of Commons; for, after all, the country must have a Government, and if Peel took it because it was vacant, and nobody else could be found to occupy it, he could not be refused the trial, which he had in vain asked for before. He owned this was true, and such an admission from such a man was a great deal. The King is evidently waiting with the greatest impatience for the moment when his Ministers must resign. He complained bitterly of my brother-in-law's[4] going abroad, and said it was a time when every Conservative ought to be at his post, which means that every opponent of his Ministers should strive with ceaseless zeal to drive them to the wall. He is a true king of the Tories, for his impatience fully equals theirs. [4] [Lord Francis Egerton.] August 7th, 1836 {p.358} [Page Head: DISSENSION BETWEEN LORDS AND COMMONS.]