_January 12th._--From Bowood to Middleton on Saturday, to town on Monday 10th. The morning I left Bowood, Senior showed me the correspondence (not published) between the Bishop of Oxford and Hampden. It is creditable to the latter; the former really very despicable. The Bishop put a parcel of questions to him as to his belief on points of faith and doctrine, some of which were the most ordinary matter of belief, others unintelligible. Hampden said he might have regarded such questions on the most elementary points of doctrine as an insult, but he would accept his assurances that they were put in a friendly spirit (though he must say much of his conduct was at variance with such professions) and would therefore say 'Yes' to all of them. To his last letter announcing his having withdrawn the charges and read his works, Hampden merely sent a dry acknowledgement of having received the letter. _January 17th._--Still this Hampden affair. Kelly got a rule in Queen's Bench, and it will be argued in a few days. Tractarians hope from the known Puseyism of Coleridge and Patteson that the rule may be made absolute; but the lawyers don't expect it and think a _strong_ Court would not have given a rule. However, it shows the anomaly (not to say worse) of the whole ecclesiastical proceeding under the Act of Henry VIII. The High Churchmen, who want a separation of State from Church, though it does not seem clear what it is they contemplate, are all on the _qui vive_, and fancy their projects are put in a fair train by all these proceedings; but though some of my friends think very seriously of these crotchets, I believe they are very despicable and harmless. This morning I got a letter from the Duke of Bedford enclosing one from William Cowper to him, informing him what took place when Hampden was made Regius Professor. William Cowper had given me some account of it at the time, which I inserted in my journal, and I copied it out for the Duke of Bedford during our discussion. I don't find that this more detailed account varies much from the other, though it contains several more particulars, and one relating to the Archbishop's nominees curious enough. His account of the transaction is this, saying he got it from Lord Melbourne, and by reference to letters which passed at the time: 'The Archbishop of Canterbury came to Lord Melbourne to announce the death of Dr. Burton. In the conversation that ensued my uncle requested the Archbishop to send him the names of the persons that occurred to him as best qualified for the situation, and begged him not to confine the list to a small number. The Archbishop sent a list including Pusey, Newman, and Keble; and if it was, as I believe, the list of the Archbishop which is now before me, it contained the names; but it is possible he may have sent only six, and that the other three were added from another quarter. Lord Melbourne sent the nine names to the