to Lord Lansdowne that evening, and told him he need not come to Windsor on Friday, which letter he received just as he was going to set off. The Tories and the Radicals are equally puzzled, perplexed, and disgusted, and do not know what to say. They accordingly solace themselves with such inventions and falsehoods as it suits their several purposes to circulate. Clarendon received a letter from Cowley while I was with him, in which he said he sent him a paper tending to show that the Emperor of Russia was bent upon the destruction of Turkey, and prepared to run every risk, and encounter any enemy, in the pursuit of that object. This is, I think, very likely; and what is equally likely that, _per damna per coedes_, and with much danger and damage to himself, he will accomplish the ruin of the Turk. But all speculation must be vague and fallacious as to the results of such a war as is now beginning. _January 3rd_, 1854.--I returned from Bowood on Saturday, having had no conversation whatever on politics with Lord Lansdowne--and of course I sought none. News came there that the Turks had accepted the proposal of the Allied Powers to enter into a negotiation, and we are now waiting to see what the Emperor of Russia will be disposed to do; but almost everybody thinks he will refuse to treat, and certainly he will never admit, as the preliminary condition of negotiation, that no former treaties shall be revived. The Cabinet meets to-day for the purpose, I conclude, of resuming the consideration of the Reform Bill. The only thing Lord Lansdowne did say to me was, that he had had several conversations with John Russell when he was at Bowood, and that he thought he had made an impression on him; he evidently expected that Lord John would make concessions in his Bill which might satisfy, or partly so, him and Palmerston. PREPARATIONS FOR WAR. _January 5th._--I dined on Tuesday with the Chancellor, Lord Cranworth: an array of lawyers, the Chancellor of Ireland (a coarse, vulgar-looking man, with twitchings in his face), Lord Campbell, Alderson, Coleridge, and the Solicitor-General (Bethell); besides these Aberdeen, Graham, and one or two more men.