that he was acquainted with his person. For many days before the murder he was prowling about the purlieus of Downing Street, and the Duke of Buccleuch told me that the day he was expected in town, and when his servants were looking out for him, they observed this man, though it was a rainy day, loitering about near his gate, which is close to Peel's house. If therefore he saw, as he must have done, Drummond constantly passing between Peel's house and Downing Street, and recognised in him the same person he had seen in the carriage in Scotland, and whom he believed to be Peel, he would think himself so sure of his man as to make it unnecessary to ask any questions, and the very consciousness of his own intentions might make him afraid to do so. This appears to afford a probable solution of the mystery, but if it should turn out to be true, it still remains to discover what his motive was for attacking the life of Peel. [Sidenote: DRUMMOND MISTAKEN FOR PEEL.] _January 29th._--The man who shot Drummond, it now appears, acknowledged that it was his intention to shoot Peel, and thought he had done so. He said so more than once. Graham, whom I sat by at dinner yesterday, told me that he considered it a very doubtful case, very doubtful what view the jury would take of the question of his insanity. He has certainly been under a sort of delusion that the Tories have persecuted him, but in no other respect is he mad. If the law as laid down by Chief Justice Mansfield in Bellingham's case, and as it was laid down in that of Lord Ferrers, prevails now, he will not escape; but unfortunately Denman (in ignorance probably of these dicta) laid down very different and very erroneous law in the case of Oxford, and though his authority is worthless when compared with the others alluded to, it is the most recent, and that is by no means unimportant. It will be a very serious thing if he escapes, and Graham agreed with me, that if this happens sooner or later some dreadful catastrophe will occur. Some man or other will be sacrificed of much greater consequence than poor Drummond. It would be a great evil too, as well as a great absurdity, that the law on such an important question should be decided by such a man as Denman, who, though very honest and respectable, has not the slightest authority or weight as a lawyer. There never was in all probability a Chief Justice of the King's Bench held in such low estimation. It is one of the greatest evils of the way in which political influences work in this country, that we have never any security for having the ablest and fittest men promoted to the judicial office. We have seen in this century Erskine, Brougham, and now Lyndhurst, Chancellors; for the latter is _now_ not much more competent than the other two were; and we have a man at the head of the Common Law with hardly a smattering of law in his head, and not looked up to by a single man in the profession.