Palmerston's Government does not seem to take root or gain much strength; every day seems to prove the more clearly that he is unfit for the task he has taken on himself. He inspires neither respect nor confidence, and is totally unable to manage the House of Commons; his speeches are feeble and bad, and he is not always prudent and conciliatory, but, on the contrary, pettish and almost offensive. He finds great difficulty in filling the vacant offices, and he evinces much want of tact and good management in his endeavours to do so, offering and retracting his offers in a very loose way. For example, he offered Sir Robert Peel the Clerkship of the Ordnance, which he accepted; and then he found Monsell did not mean to resign it, so he had to withdraw the offer. Then he told him he should be Colonial Under-Secretary if John Russell would consent. John Russell would not consent, and then he offered him a seat at the Admiralty. Sir Robert in some dudgeon demurred, and Palmerston, inferring from his ill humour that he would not take this place, offered it to Henry Brand, who accepted, desired his writ might be moved for, and went to the railway station to go down to the place he represented. Just as he was starting, a messenger arrived with a letter from Palmerston saying Sir Robert Peel had taken the Admiralty, so he could not have it, and the gentleman had to return home without any office at all. This is a sad way of doing business, and will not make him more popular. Grenville Berkeley (whipper-in) told me he thought Palmerston was doing rather better latterly and that there was a better disposition in the House of Commons; but Jonathan Peel, who is a shrewd, dispassionate observer, and tolerably impartial, though with no good will to the present Government, told me a different story. He says the Government is as weak as possible, Palmerston wretched, and the House of Commons ill disposed and unruly, and he thinks it absolutely impossible that this concern can last many weeks. The Derbyites are quite confident of forcing their way to office, and quite determined to do so; but it is their game to damage the present Government as much as possible, and they will do everything in opposition but what may recoil upon themselves after they have got into office, and no other consideration will restrain them. I regard with the utmost dislike the prospect of their return, because I think their conduct so monstrously unprincipled. I hear Gladstone is very much out of humour, and expect soon to see him and his small band in overt opposition to the Government. Many fancy that it will end in his joining Derby, but so do not I. I am not sure that he would be indisposed if a proper occasion presented itself, but I do not believe any consideration or any circumstances whatever would induce the Derbyites to admit him again into their party. Their indignation--that is, of a great many of them--was unbounded at Derby having offered him office the other day,