Within these few days the hopes of peace have waxed faint. The fatal third point is an insurmountable obstacle, and it seems likely that we shall be condemned to fight it out more fiercely than ever, and without Austria, who, as I all along expected, will not join us in forcing hard conditions on Russia. It remains to be seen whether we or Austria are in fault, assuming the rupture of the negotiations to be inevitable. If Austria recedes from what she had already agreed to, she is; if we require anything more, we are. Drouyn de Lhuys has been here for twenty-four hours, and goes on to Vienna directly to bring things to a conclusion one way or another. Clarendon is pleased with him. The Emperor is to be here in three weeks. Having no public events nor any secret information to record, I must put down my own private concerns, uninteresting as they are. I am busy on the task of editing a volume of Moore's correspondence left to me by John Russell, and finishing the second article upon King Joseph's Memoirs.[1] These small literary occupations interest and amuse me, and, being quite out of the way of politics, and seeing nobody, except Clarendon at rare intervals, who can or will tell me anything, it is well I can amuse myself with them; and now that I am growing old (for I shall be sixty-one the day after to-morrow) it is my aim to cultivate these pleasures more and more, and make them my refuge against the infirmities which beset me, and the loss of youth. My great fear is lest my eyesight should fail, and I earnestly hope I may die before such a calamity should befall me. The war goes languidly on, and I hear Raglan and Canrobert are squabbling instead of acting, and that it seems to be more the fault of Canrobert; but the melancholy truth is that there are two incompetent generals in command, who have no skill or enterprise, and are letting the opportunity for attacking the enemy slip away. A divided command and two independent armies are in themselves an immense drawback, but when they begin to disagree it becomes fatal. We have now an enormous force there, and yet they seem incapable of doing anything and of striking any great and serious blow. [Footnote 1: Mr. Greville wrote the review of the Memoirs of King Joseph Bonaparte which appeared in two successive articles of the _Edinburgh Review_.] THE CATHOLIC OATH.