The Cambridge installation went off with prodigious _Èclat_, and the Queen was enchanted at the enthusiastic reception she met with; but the Duke of Wellington was if possible received with even more enthusiasm. It is incredible what popularity environs him in his latter days; he is followed like a show wherever he goes, and the feeling of the people _for him_ seems to be the liveliest of all popular sentiments; yet he does nothing to excite it, and hardly appears to notice it. He is in wonderful vigour of body, but strangely altered in mind, which is in a fitful uncertain state, and there is no knowing in what mood he may be found; everybody is afraid of him, nobody dares to say anything to him; he is sometimes very amiable and good-humoured, sometimes very irritable and morose. About this affair of the Statue, Croker and Trench contrived to work him up to a state of frenzy; he was as near as possible resigning upon it. When Lord John wrote to him the other day in consequence of what passed in the House of Commons, he wrote a long rigmarole of an answer, which Lord John did not read yesterday, but gave the substance of it. All this is very unlike him. Then he is astonishing the world by a strange intimacy he has struck up with Miss ---- ----, with whom he passes his life, and all sorts of reports have been rife of his intention to marry her. Such are the lamentable appearances of decay in his vigorous mind, which are the more to be regretted because he is in most enviable circumstances, without any political responsibility, yet associated with public affairs, and surrounded with every sort of respect and consideration on every side--at Court, in Parliament, in society, and in the country.