Disraeli called on me a day or two ago, when we had a political chat. He talked with much contempt of the present Government, except of George Lewis, of whom he spoke in the highest terms. He said Palmerston's popularity was of a negative character, and, rather more from the unpopularity of every other public man than from any peculiar attachment to him; he talked bitterly of Derby's having declined to take the Government in 1855, which he seemed to consider as an irreparable blow to his party. He is evidently not without hopes that the Government may find themselves in some inextricable difficulty about their Reform Bill, and thinks they will be incapable of concocting an India Bill which will go down with the country. He does not appear to have made up his mind what course to take on the Indian question, and it is evident that at present the Tory party have decided on nothing. The Cabinet has committed the scheme of Reform to a select number of its members, as was done in 1830, but what they are doing about India I do not know. There is certainly a difference of opinion amongst them, as there no doubt is about Reform, but as little doubt that they are all agreed upon not letting their conflicting opinions break up the Government. _December 21st._--I called on George Lewis the day before yesterday and had a long talk with him. He told me that Palmerston had given notice to the Chairs that the Government had come to the resolution of bringing in a Bill to put an end to their dominion, and that the plan was to have an Indian Secretary of State with a Council, and the Council to have the distribution of the patronage. I was surprised to hear him say that he saw no difficulty in the settlement of the Indian question, either in passing it through Parliament or in producing a good measure which would work better than the present system, and he said he wished the other great question they had upon their hands, that of Reform, was as easy, but that the more they went into it, the more difficult it appeared. I need not enter into the details which we discussed, as the Bill is not yet settled, and in a few weeks more it will come forth. He said that the great misfortune was their having thrown out Locke King's motion this year, for if they had done what they had originally intended with regard to it, they should in all probability have laid the question at rest for ten years longer at least, and he then told me a curious anecdote on this matter, giving an example of strange levity and incapacity on the part of the Government. When Locke King brought forward his motion, it was considered in the Cabinet, and they came to a unanimous resolution to let his bill be read a second time, but to oppose the amount of his franchise in Committee and raise it from 10_l._ to 20_l._, which they had no doubt they should carry. On the very night on which the question was to be moved Lewis went down to the House of Commons with this understanding,