The next morning (yesterday) Wharncliffe called on me, and I found that they were prodigiously depressed at this defeat. He said that they had suffered from many unusual casualties, sicknesses, and deaths, and that their people could not be made to attend. He instanced three cases of lukewarmness and indifference. Sir G. Noel remained in the House till twelve o'clock, and then went to bed; Lord John Scott went out of town in the morning of the division, because he was engaged to dine somewhere; and young Lefroy, who had paired with Sheil _until this question_, set off with him to embark for England from Dublin, and turned back from the steamboat because it blew hard, and he said his mother would be alarmed for his safety. Wharncliffe told me that Peel is very much disgusted at such coolness, and that, while he is slaving body and mind in the cause, he cannot even depend upon the corporeal presence of his idle and luxurious followers, who will sacrifice none of their amusements for the cause which they pretend to think is in such danger. On the other hand, the rash and foolish (no small proportion) are dissatisfied with his caution, and the prudence which they call timidity; they are always for doing something desperate. Lyndhurst last year in the House of Lords was the man after their own hearts, and they were quite willing to depose the Duke from his leadership of the party, and put themselves under the guidance of Lyndhurst. When we recollect who and what Lyndhurst was and is, it is curious to see the aristocracy of England adopting him for their chief; scarcely an Englishman (for his father was an American painter[5]), a lawyer of fortune, in the sense in which, we say a soldier of fortune, without any fixed principles, and only conspicuous for his extraordinary capacity, he has no interest but what centres in himself, and is utterly destitute of those associations which naturally belong to an aristocracy. There is probably not a man of the party who is not fully aware of Lyndhurst's character, and they have already experienced the results of his political daring in his famous attempt to interrupt the Reform Bill by the postponement of Schedule A; and with this knowledge and experience they follow him blindly, lead them where he will. Wharncliffe owned to me that he saw no alternative but the compromise, but that he did not know whether his party would be brought to consent to it. I told him that they could not help themselves, and must consent; besides that, if the Tithe Bill is passed they will have got the security for the Church which they require, and the ground of objection to the Corporation Bill would be cut from under their feet. It is remarkable, and rather amusing to a neutral like me, to hear what each party says of the concessions of the other. I see in the 'Examiner' this day that 'the Lords cannot now pass the Bill if they would, without disgracing their party in the