The other day I met John Russell in the Park as he was going to Apsley House by appointment with the Duke. He said he was going on important business (it was about the Indian appointments), and he asked me if I thought he had better say anything to him or not about the Statue.[20] I said 'Better not.' The Duke of Bedford told me after that it was very fortunate advice I gave Lord John, for if he had said anything there would have been an explosion. The Duke said to Arbuthnot, when Lord John wrote to say he wished to see him, 'What can he want? what can he be coming about? do you think it is about the Statue?' and then he went off on that sore subject, and said he should place his resignation in Lord John's hands! However, Lord John said nothing about it, and the Duke was put into great good humour by being consulted about the Indian affairs; and he said afterwards that he only wished they would get the pedestal made, put the Statue up, and have done with it. But it is curious, as showing how sensitive and irritable he is become, how the strong mind is weakened. He is, however, very happy on the whole, in excellent health, and treated with the greatest deference and attention by everybody. The Queen is excessively kind to him. On Monday his grand-daughter was christened at the Palace, and the Queen dined with him in the evening. She had written him a very pretty letter expressing her wish to be godmother to the child, saying she wished her to be called Victoria, which name was so peculiarly appropriate to a grand-daughter of his. All these attentions marvellously please him. [Footnote 20: [About this time the proposal was made, chiefly by Sir Frederic Trench, to place the equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington (by Wyatt) on the top of the archway opposite Apsley House. Most people thought that it was absurd and in bad taste to place a statue there. It was, however, agreed to erect it provisionally; but, once there, the Duke showed great irritation at the idea of removing it, which he declared would be an indignity: so there the statue stood until it was removed to Aldershot in 1884. It was the first instance of an equestrian statue erected in London to a subject.]]