a million a year. I told him Auckland said it only cost 300,000_l._; he replied, it was not so, and that including indirect expenses it cost a million. The Caffres cost another million, and now that we were going to add to the income-tax, it would only be endured by showing that we had made or would make every practicable reduction, and that we maintained no establishments that were not really necessary. He highly approved of my letter. [Sidenote: A DINNER OF LAWYERS.] _February 18th._--Dr. Sumner, Bishop of Chester, is appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, a great mortification to the Tractarians, and great joy to the Low Church; but he is so excellent a man, and has done so well in his diocese, that the appointment will be generally approved. I went last night to the Lords to hear Lord Lansdowne bring in the Diplomatic Bill (with Rome); he made a very good speech. I could not stay out the debate, being engaged to dine with Chief Justice Wilde, where we had a great party almost all lawyers, Parke, Alderson, Lushington, Talfourd. I sat next to Alderson, and found him a very agreeable man, Senior Wrangler, Senior Medallist, a judge (and really a lawyer), a wit; a life all of law and letters, such as I might have led if I had chosen the good path. I always think of this when I meet such men who have 'scorned delights, and lived laborious days,' and now enjoy the benefit thereof. He told me he had been writing an exercise in the morning for one of his sons at Oxford, a dialogue between Erasmus and More, on the preference of the Latin to the Greek as a universal language. There is a good saying going about of the Court of Exchequer and its Barons; it runs thus--Parke settles the law, Rolfe settles the fact, Alderson settles the bar, Platt settles nothing, Pollock unsettles everything. Campbell is anxious to write again, and talked to me of writing the history of the Reform Bill. I told him I could give valuable materials, but that it is not yet time. He wants me to write memoirs of the last twenty years, and was pleased to say no man was so well qualified to do it. This is not true, but I have some qualifications from personal acquaintance with the actors and knowledge of the events of that period, and I might have had, and ought to have had, much more, but my habits and pursuits have prevented me, and only left me mere snatches of such real knowledge as could be turned to account.