_June 28th._--I went last Saturday week to Strawberry Hill.[1] A large party of people, the Persignys, the Speaker and Lady Charlotte, etc.; it is an enjoyable villa, with its vast expanse of grass, profusion of flowers, and fine trees affording ample shade. Horace Walpole's ridiculous house is unaltered, but furbished up and made comfortable. I regret to hear that Denison does not make a very good Speaker, and that the Government think they made a mistake in putting him into the Chair. It was Palmerston's doing, who would hear of nobody else. There are several men among the Opposition who would probably have been fitter, but with the great majority the Government have they were in a manner compelled to take a man from their own party. Denison says it is owing to the laxity of Palmerston himself if things do not go on so well as they might in the House of Commons. At Hatchford the past week, and when I got to town I was apprised of the disastrous news from India,[2] the most serious occurrence that has ever been in that quarter, not only from the magnitude of the events themselves as the telegraph conveys them, but because it is quite impossible to estimate the gravity of the case, nor what the extent of it may be. Till we receive the details it is idle to speculate upon it. The Queen has made Prince Albert 'Prince Consort' by a patent ordered in Council, but as this act confers on him neither title, dignity, nor privileges, I cannot see the use of it. He was already as high in England as he can be, assuming the Crown Matrimonial to be out of the question, and it will give him no higher rank abroad, where our acts have no validity. Footnote 1: [Strawberry Hill was the residence of the Countess of Waldegrave, to whom it had passed on the death of her second husband, the Earl of Waldegrave. It was then, and continued to be until her death in 1879, the most hospitable villa in the neighbourhood, and the constant resort of all that was distinguished in politics and in letters.] Footnote 2: [The Indian mutiny broke out at Meerut on Sunday, 10th May, but the details were not known in England till nearly six weeks later. General Anson died at Kurnaul on the 27th May.] [Sidenote: THE MUTINY IN INDIA.]