Writing of Mr. Grenville, I must mention an anecdote he told me the other day, illustrating the facility with which Pitt gave peerages to anybody who had a fancy for the honour. Mr. Grenville one day asked his cousin, Lord Glastonbury, what had induced him to get made a peer, for he could not think he had ever cared much for a title. He said, 'God, Devil!' (for such it seems was his queer habit of expressing himself) 'I'll tell you. I never thought of a peerage; but one day I took up the newspaper, and I read in it that Tommy Townshend was made a peer. Confound the fellow, said I, what right had he to be made a peer I should like to know. Why, I am as rich again as he is, and have a much better right. So I resolved to write to Pitt and tell him so. I wrote, and was made a peer the following week.' [Sidenote: THE TEN HOURS BILL.] _March 31st._--I never remember so much excitement as has been caused by Ashley's Ten Hours Bill,[78] nor a more curious political state of things, such intermingling of parties, such a confusion of opposition; a question so much more open than any question ever was before, and yet not made so or acknowledged to be so with the Government; so much zeal, asperity, and animosity, so many reproaches hurled backwards and forwards. The Government have brought forward their measure in a very positive way, and have clung to it with great tenacity, rejecting all compromise; they have been abandoned by nearly half their supporters, and nothing can exceed their chagrin and soreness at being so forsaken. Some of them attribute it to Graham's unpopularity, and aver that if Peel had brought it forward, or if a meeting had been previously called, they would not have been defeated; again, some declare that Graham had said they were indifferent to the result, and that people might vote as they pleased, which he stoutly denies; then John Russell voting for 'ten hours,' against all he professed last year, has filled the world with amazement, and many of his own friends with indignation. It has, I think, not redounded to his credit, but, on the contrary, done him considerable harm. The Opposition were divided, Palmerston and Lord John one way, Baring and Labouchere the other. It has been a very queer affair. Some voted, not knowing how they ought to vote, and following those they are accustomed to follow; many who voted against Government afterwards said they believed they were wrong. Melbourne is all against Ashley; all the political economists, of course; Lord Spencer strong against him. Then Graham gave the greatest offence by taking up a word of the 'Examiner's' last Sunday, and calling it a _Jack Cade legislation_, this stirring them to fury, and they flew upon him like tigers. Ashley made a speech as violent and factious as any of O'Connell's, and old Inglis was overflowing with wrath. Nothing could be so foolish as Graham's taunt; he ought to have known better how much mischief may be