I must now look back and pick up such scraps worth remembering as I have neglected to notice in the last few months, though they amount to very little. I returned a few days ago from the Grange, where I met Dr. Buckland and Archdeacon Wilberforce; the latter a very quick, lively, and agreeable man, who is in favour at Court,[86] and has the credit of seeking to be Preceptor to the Prince of Wales, an office to which I should prefer digging at a canal, or breaking stones in the road, so intolerable would be the slavery of it. Buckland gave us a great dose of geology, not uninteresting, but too much of it. Lord Ashburton was in great force, and it is droll to see the supreme contempt which he and Palmerston entertain for each other. I went there from Broadlands, where I left the Viscount full of vigour and hilarity, and overflowing with diplomatic swagger. He said we might hold any language we pleased to France and America, and insist on what we thought necessary, without any apprehension that either of them would go to war, as both knew how vulnerable they were, France with her colonies and America with her slaves, a doctrine to which Lord Ashburton by no means subscribes. Before these places I was at Woburn and at Ampthill. At Woburn the Duke of Bedford told me a good deal about his communications with Prince Albert, who seems to talk to him very openly. One day he took him in his carriage to shoot at Bagshot, when he spoke about Ireland, of the long course of misgovernment, and the necessity of doing something, in such a strain that the Duke was convinced Peel has some serious intentions, or the Prince would not have said what he did; and we agreed that when my book came out he should advise the Prince to read it. He told me that Prince Albert complained of the manner in which the proceedings and motions of the Court were publicly known and discussed, and how hard it was; that on the Continent the Government knew by its secret agents what the people were about, but here they knew nothing about other people's affairs, and everybody knew about theirs; that whatever they did, or were about to do, was known. The Duke told him he wondered he had not discovered that everything was and must be known here about them, and that it was the tax they paid for their situation; that the world was curious to know and hear about them, and therefore the press would always procure and give the information, and the only reason why more was known about them than about anybody else, was because there was not the same interest about others, and that, as it was, all conspicuous people were brought into public notice in the same manner. He owned this was true, and seemed struck by it. It is the misfortune of princes never to hear the language of truth and sense. They have men about them whose business it is to bow and smile and agree, and they hardly have any one with independence and force of mind enough to tell them what it would be good that they should hear,