Yesterday the Privy Council met to hear the London University petition, praying for a charter, and the counter-petitions of Oxford and Cambridge and the medical bodies. The assemblage was rather curious, considering the relative political position of some of the parties. All the Cabinet Ministers were summoned; Lords Grey and Holland were there, the Chancellor, Denman, Lyndhurst, Eldon, the two Archbishops, and the Bishop of London. Old Eldon got a fall as he came into the house and hurt his head. Brougham and the rest were full of civilities and tenderness, but he said 'it was of no consequence, for the _brains_ had been knocked out long ago.' Wetherell made an amusing speech, and did not conclude. It is seldom that the sounds of merriment are heard within those walls, but he made the Lords laugh and the gallery too. There were Allen of Holland House and Phillpotts sitting cheek by jowl to hear the discussion. May 11th, 1834 {p.080} More than three weeks, and _rebus Newmarketianis versatus_, I have written nothing. The debate on the repeal of the Union was more remarkable for the length than the excellence of the speeches, except Spring Rice's, which was both long and good, and Peel's, the latter supereminently so. O'Connell spoke for five hours and a quarter, and Rice for six hours; each occupied a night, after the manner of American orators. The minority was much smaller than was expected. Since that the only question of consequence in the House of Commons has been the Pension List, on which Government got a larger majority than they had hoped for, and such an one as to set the matter at rest for some time. Peel again spoke very well, and old Byng made a very independent, gentlemanlike speech. Independence now-a-days relates more to constituents than to the governing power. Nobody is suspected of being dependent on the Crown or the Minister, and the question is if a man be independent of the popular cry or of his own constituency. The King has been exhibiting some symptoms of a disordered mind, not, however, amounting to anything like actual derangement, only morbid irritability and activity--reviewing the Guards and _blowing up_ people at Court. He made the Guards, both horse and foot, perform their evolutions before him; he examined their barracks, clothes, arms, and accoutrements, and had a musket brought to him, that he might show them the way to use it in some new sort of exercise he wanted to introduce; in short, he gave a great deal of trouble and made a fool of himself. He was very angry with Lord de Saumarez for not attending Keat's funeral, and still more angry because he would begin explaining and apologizing, first at the levee and then at the drawing-room; and he reprehended him very sharply at both places. An explanation afterwards took place through Lord Camden, to whom he said that he was angry because de Saumarez would prate at the levee, when he told him that it was not a proper place for discussing the subject.