probably not be permitted, and where detection and punishment would speedily overtake the offender. It is quite disgusting to see the venerable form of a knight templar or a mitred abbot scarred all over with the base patronymics of Jones and Tomkins, or with a whole alphabet of their initials. July 7th, 1839 {p.224} I came to town yesterday from Basingstoke by railroad; found that Lady Flora Hastings was dead, and a great majority in the House of Lords in favour of an Address to the Crown against the proposed Committee of Council on Education, the Bishop of London having made an extraordinarily fine speech. July 14th, 1839 {p.224} Nothing new; proceedings in Parliament very languid. The Queen has appointed Lady Sandwich very dexterously, for she gets one of the favoured Paget race and the wife of a Tory peer, thereby putting an end to the exclusively Whig composition of the Household. This is a concession with regard to _the principle_. July 19th, 1839 {p.225} [Page Head: DUKE OF WELLINGTON'S ANGRY VEIN.] There have been angry debates in the Lords about the Birmingham riots, chiefly remarkable for the excitement, so unlike his usual manner, exhibited by the Duke of Wellington, who assailed the Government with a fierceness which betrayed him into much exaggeration and some injustice. Lord Tavistock, who, although a partisan, is a fair one, and who has a great esteem and respect for the Duke, told me that he had seen and heard him with great pain, and that his whole tone was alarmingly indicative of a decay of mental power. This is not the first time that such a suspicion has been excited: George Villiers told me, soon after he came over, how much struck he had been with the change he observed in him, and from whatever cause, he is become in speaking much more indistinct and embarrassed, continually repeating and not always intelligible, but his speeches, when reported, present much the same appearance, and the sense and soundness (when the reporters have lopped off the redundancies and trimmed them according to their fashion) seem to be unimpaired. It is, however, a serious and melancholy thing to contemplate the possibly approaching decay of that great mind, and I find he always contemplates it himself, his mother's mind having failed some years before her death. It will be sad if, after exploits as brilliant as Marlborough's, and a career far more important, useful, and honourable, he should be destined for an end like Marlborough's, and it is devoutly to be hoped that his eyes may be closed in death before 'streams of dotage' shall begin to flow from them. The Tories, with whom nothing goes down but violence, were delighted with his angry vein, and see proofs of vigour in what his opponents consider as evidence of decay; his bodily health is wonderfully good, which is perhaps rather alarming than reassuring as to the safety of his mind. July 22nd, 1839 {p.225} [Page Head: RADICAL MAGISTRATES.]