The Attorney-General[32] has got into a scrape about his son's election, but it remains to be seen if he will not get out of it; there was a petition against young Jervis, and they gave the petitioners 1,500_l._ to drop it. The bargain was discovered, and other parties presented a petition just in time. Dundas would be thrown into a great embarrassment by anything that removed the Attorney-General; he _could_ not succeed; the Government would not have him, nor would he undertake it; he has no briefs, a thing unheard of for a Solicitor-General, and the Government found him so useless that they ceased to consult him, and desirous of getting somebody more efficient, they proposed to him to be Judge-Advocate, which however he refused: he hardly could have accepted it. He has many good qualities, is agreeable, and I like him; he is honourable, high-minded, proud, charitable, generous, accomplished, well-informed, and clever; but he is weak, timid, fastidious, affected, sentimental and very often absurd, and in no small degree a _humbug_. Altogether he is unfit for rough work and active life, either forensic or political. [Footnote 32: [Sir John Jervis was at this time Attorney-General, afterwards Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. Sir David Dundas was Solicitor-General.]] [Sidenote: LETTER TO MR. COBDEN.] _February 8th._--A fortnight ago on Saturday week I went to the Grotes, at Burnham Beeches; Mrs. Butler and Prandi, a Piedmontese patriot, and formerly refugee, now restored by the adoption of liberal principles in Piedmont. He was condemned to death above twenty years ago, and escaped with great difficulty. He has lived ever since in London. On Monday we received news of the revolution in Sicily, of the concessions extorted from the King, and since of the promulgation of a constitution at Naples. On Saturday week I read in the newspapers the speech Cobden made at Manchester abusing the Duke of Wellington, and scouting the national defences. On Wednesday I wrote a letter to him in the 'Times,' which has had great success.[33] I have received innumerable compliments and expressions of approbation about it from all quarters, and the old Duke is pleased. I had no idea of making such a _hit_, but the truth is, everybody was disgusted at Cobden's impertinence and (it may be added) folly. His head is turned by all the flattery he has received, and he has miserably exposed himself since his return to England, showing that he is a man of one idea and no statesman. [Footnote 33: [This letter is reprinted in the Appendix to this volume.]]