_January 30th._--Yesterday Lord Wharncliffe told me he had a secret to tell me. This was Gladstone's resignation, which has been in agitation nearly a year, ever since Peel gave notice that he would do a great deal more for Irish education and improve Maynooth. Nor does Gladstone really object to these measures; but he thinks that he has so deeply and publicly committed himself by his books to the opposite principle that he cannot without a great appearance of inconsistency be a party to them.[89] His resignation, just after Stanley's removal to the House of Lords, is a serious loss to the Government, and they have endeavoured to repair it by means which appear very inadequate. Sidney Herbert and Lord Lincoln come into the Cabinet, and Dalhousie becomes President of the Board of Trade, not in the Cabinet. They proposed to Sandon to be President of the Board; but he declined, I suppose not thinking it worth while to vacate his seat at Lord Harrowby's age. Sidney Herbert is a smart young fellow, but I remember no instance of two men who had distinguished themselves so little in Parliament being made Cabinet Ministers.[90] Herbert has done very neatly the little he has done; Lincoln is a sensible man enough, but rather priggish and solemn, with very little elasticity in him, and it appears a great absurdity that the Commissioner of Woods should be in the Cabinet and the President of the Board of Trade not, especially when there are no reasons of personal distinction to account for such an incongruity. But they mean to get Knatchbull out as soon as they can, and then to bring in Dalhousie; meanwhile no Government ever was weaker in point of speakers in the House of Commons, nor was there ever a Cabinet in my recollection so staffed with mediocrity. They have lost Stanley, Gladstone, and Follett, and the whole weight will fall on Peel and Graham. It remains to be seen what Sidney Herbert and Cardwell can do. In the Cabinet there are fifteen men (much too numerous), of whom four able, Peel, Graham, Stanley, and the Chancellor. The Duke must be considered as a man by himself, always great, _clarum et venerabile nomen_; and then comes a mass of mediocrity and rubbish--some men fair, sensible, and competent for the routine of business, not brilliant, but respectable; and some very ordinary, and admitted Heaven knows why into the Cabinet.[91] Buccleuch, Knatchbull, and Lincoln[92] are more than useless; Wharncliffe, Aberdeen, Haddington, and Goulburn respectable, the latter a very good man of business; Granville Somerset, hard-headed, narrow-minded, and better adapted to the second rank than the first; Ripon always inefficient when wanted. The reason assigned for putting Lincoln in the Cabinet was that they could not put in Sidney Herbert without putting him in also, which seems a very bad one. [Sidenote: CHANGES IN THE CABINET.]