Matters in politics remain much as they were. There has been a constant interchange of letters between Lord John Russell and his leading friends and adherents, and conversations and correspondence between these and Palmerston, the result of the whole being a hopeless state of discord and disagreement in the Liberal party, so complete that there appears no possibility of all the scattered elements of opposition being combined into harmonious action, the consequence of which can hardly fail to be the continuance in office of the present Government. The state of things may be thus summed up: Lord John Russell declares he will take no office but that of Premier, considering any other a degradation; but he says he does not want office, and if a Liberal Government can be formed under anybody else he will give it his best support. He resents greatly the expressed sentiments of those who would put him by and choose another Prime Minister, and this resentment his belongings foster as much as they can. Palmerston professes _personal_ regard for Lord John, but declares he will never again serve _under_ him, though he would _with_ him, and his great object has been to induce Lord Lansdowne to consent to put himself at the head of a Government (if this falls) under whom he would be willing to serve, and he would consent to Lord John's leading the House of Commons as heretofore. This he communicated to the Duke of Bedford in conversation at Brocket, and he afterwards wrote a detailed account of that conversation to Lansdowne himself, which was an invitation to him to act the part he wished to allot to him. Lord Lansdowne wrote him an answer in which he positively declined to put himself at the head of a Government, stating various reasons why he could not, and his conviction that John Russell was the only man who could be at the head of one hereafter. With regard to other opinions, Graham is heart and soul with Lord John, and decidedly in favour of his supremacy. The Whig party are divided, some still adhering to him; others, resenting his conduct in the past Session and distrusting his prudence, are anxious for another chief, but without having much considered how another is to be found, nor the consequences of deposing him. The Radicals are in an unsettled and undecided state, neither entirely favourable nor entirely hostile to Lord John; the Peelites are pretty unanimously against him, and not overmuch disposed to join with the Whig party, being still more or less deluded with the hope and belief that they may form a Government themselves. Graham has always maintained (and, as I thought, with great probability) that it would end in Palmerston's joining Derby, and at this moment such an arrangement seems exceedingly likely to happen. There were two or three articles not long ago in the 'Morning Post' (his own paper), which tended that way. I have just been for two days to Broadlands, where I