The victorious Liberals managed their affairs very ill. Instead of resting satisfied with a victory which must have been decisive (for after all the House of Commons had affirmed the principle of admitting the Dissenters by so large a majority, neither the House of Lords nor the University would have ventured to oppose it), they imprudently pressed on another division[1] in which they were beaten, though by a small majority, and this of course does away with a good deal of the effect of the first division. Between the recent changes which were universally distasteful, and his extraordinary maladroitness in these questions, Lord John is fallen prodigiously in public favour and opinion, and while he is, or has been till very recently, dreaming of again being Prime Minister, it is evident that he is totally unfit to be the leader of the Government in the House of Commons even in a subordinate post. He communicates with nobody, he has no confidence in or sympathy with any one, he does not impart his intentions or his wishes to his own political followers, and does not ask to be informed of theirs, but he buries himself at Richmond and only comes forth to say and do everything that is most imprudent and unpopular. The House of Commons is in a state of complete anarchy, and nobody has any hold on it; matters, bad enough through John Russell, are made worse by Aberdeen, whose speech the other night has made a great, but I think unnecessary clamour; and Layard, who is his bitter enemy, took it up in the House of Commons, and has given notice of a motion on it which is equivalent to a vote of censure. Almost at the same moment Aberdeen, with questionable prudence and dignity, gave notice in the Lords that on Monday he should explain the speech he made the other night. Layard's design can hardly be matured, because they never can permit a speech made in one House of Parliament to be made the subject of a motion and debate in the other. It is, however, incontestable that clamour and misrepresentation have succeeded in raising a vast prejudice against Aberdeen, and that he is exceedingly unpopular.