Last week was passed at Goodwood, with fine weather, and the usual _fête_ with the unusual accompaniment of foreign Royalties. First the Comte de Paris for a night, and then the Queen of the Netherlands for two. The young French Prince is good-humoured and unpretending, the Queen is very gay, natural, and pleasing. I renewed an acquaintance I had made with her at Ems many years ago. It is a new feature in the present day the flitting about of Royal personages. Besides these I have named, the Prince Napoleon has been finishing a tour through England and part of Ireland by a visit to Osborne, and the Emperor and Empress are coming to Osborne for a week. Prince Albert has been to Brussels for the marriage of the Princess Charlotte, where he seems to have made his first experiment of the effect to be obtained from his newly-acquired title of 'Prince Consort of England,' as I see that he signed the marriage contract immediately after the Queen Marie Amélie, and before an Austrian Archduke who was present. _August 12th._--I was at Stoke on Saturday and Sunday, and went over to see Bulstrode; surprised to find the place less _délabré_, and more capable of being restored than I expected. I passed the first fifteen years of my life there, and don't know whether the place or myself is the most changed. To feed our curiosity during the intervals between the Indian mails, the newspapers, the 'Times' especially, collect all the letters they can obtain, and publish them day by day. We have had a success in China, but I always tremble for the consequences of our successes there, lest we should be seduced or compelled into making permanent settlements and further extensions of our Empire in the East. Parliament is approaching its close, and the Government ends the session with unimpaired strength, but depending entirely on Palmerston's life, for there is nobody else capable of leading the House of Commons. There are growing symptoms of independence on the part of the House in the shape of adverse votes every now and then, principally on matters of estimates. _August 20th._--I have read over the few preceding pages, and am disgusted to find how barren they are of interest and how little worth preserving. They show how entirely my social relations have ceased with all those friends and acquaintances from whom I have been in the habit of drawing the information which the earlier parts of this journal contain, and consequently my total ignorance of all political subjects. There was a time when I should have had a great deal to say upon passing events of interest or importance, but all that is gone by.