_June 12th._--All the past week at a place called Harewood Lodge with the Beauforts for Ascot races. Dined at the Castle on Thursday; one hundred people in St. George's Hall; very magnificent, blazing with gold plate and light, and very tiresome. In the evening Mdlle. Rachel came to recite, which she did _à trois reprises_ on a sort of stage made in the embrasure of the window, from 'Bajazet,' 'Marie Stuart,' and 'Andromaque.' It is so much less effective than her acting (besides my unfortunate inability to follow and comprehend French declamation) that it was fatiguing, but it served to occupy the evening, which is always the great difficulty in Royal society. The Queen was pretty well received on the course, and her party consisted in great measure of Tory guests. On Monday John Russell announced very properly that after the vote last week he should not go on with any business but that which was indispensable, and Peel extorted from him an engagement to dissolve and reassemble Parliament as soon as possible. This latter point was, I think, contrary to their intentions, and that they would have delayed to call Parliament together as long as they decently could if Peel had not urged it. It was a great mistake, after Lord John's announcement on Monday, to bring on the Chancery Reform Bill, on which they got beaten, and suffered a severe and just rebuke from Peel. It was, in fact, inconsistent with their own declaration, and probably merely attempted for the sake of the patronage. On the other hand, Peel and Stanley each were betrayed into great blunders, very unworthy of them, but each of them curiously illustrative of the characters of the two men. In the debate last week Stanley attacked Handley with great asperity, and, at the moment, with signal success, accusing him of manifold inconsistencies and tergiversations, and how he had at the period of Peel's attempt in '35 consulted him, and attended meetings at his house. Handley afterwards wrote to Stanley, and the correspondence appeared in the newspapers, from which it is clear that Stanley's statement of facts was altogether incorrect. He had dashed it all out from imperfect recollection; doubtless not meaning to say anything untrue, but not giving himself the trouble to verify the accuracy of his recollections, and consequently he is exposed to the mortification of being compelled to acknowledge that his facts and his charges are unfounded. This damages a man like Stanley, and takes from the confidence which his word ought always to inspire. It would not have happened to Peel, who would never have attacked any man without carefully ascertaining that his facts were correctly stated, nor would he have brought forward charges upon any loose and random recollections.