It has been during the last two months that the rage for railroad speculation reached its height, was checked by a sudden panic in full career, and is now reviving again, though not by any means promising to recover its pristine vigour. I met one day in the middle of it the Governor of the Bank at Robarts', who told me that he never remembered in all his experience anything like the present speculation; that the operations of '25, which led to the great panic, were nothing to it, and that there could not fail to be a fearful reaction. The reaction came sooner than anybody expected, but though it has blown many of the bubbles into the air, it has not been as yet so complete and so ruinous as many of the wise men of the East still expect and predict. It is incredible how people have been tempted to speculate; half the fine ladies have been dabbling in stocks, and men the most unlikely have not been able to refrain, from gambling in shares, even I myself (though in a very small degree), for the warning voice of the Governor of the Bank has never been out of my ears. Simultaneously with all this has grown up to a gigantic height the evil of the potato failure, affecting in its expected consequences the speculations, and filling with fear and doubt every interest.[105] That the mischief in Ireland is great and increasing is beyond a doubt, and the Government are full of alarm, while every man is watching with intense anxiety the progress of events, and enquiring whether the Corn Laws will break down under this pressure or not. [Sidenote: THE POTATO FAILURE.] There have been Cabinets held, with long and anxious consultations, and (as it is believed) debates,[106] but as I do not know what passed with anything approaching to certainty, I shall say but little about them. It has been said that Peel was not indisposed to take this opportunity of doing away with the Corn Laws, and again that he was resolved not to abandon his sliding scale; that Aberdeen was the strongest of any against the Corn Laws; the Duke most determined to support them. I am inclined to believe the two latter suppositions to be true, and I lean to the belief that Peel is waiting for a case sufficiently strong to lay before his agricultural friends, before he tells them that he must throw the ports open. There have not been wanting circumstances significant of Peel's disposition, especially a speech which Dr. Buckland made at Birmingham of a very Free Trade complexion; and he went there from Drayton, and has since been made Dean of Westminster. However it is idle to speculate on intentions, which a short time must develop and explain.