_March 3rd._--It would be difficult to say what the feeling of the House of Commons really is on the subject of the Government Reform Bill. The night it came out everybody who spoke spoke against it. The Ultra-Reformers, from Bright down to John Russell, naturally express nothing but abhorrence and contempt for such a measure; half-and-half Reformers, who consider Reform a necessity, and who would be glad to have the question settled for the present on such easy terms, do not venture to say much in its favour; and the Whigs generally, particularly at their head-quarters, Brooks's, discuss with much variety of opinion whether the second reading ought to be resisted or not, the prevailing opinion being that the principle of the Bill (which is the equalisation of town and county franchise) is so inadmissible that it ought to be rejected, and they come to that conclusion the more readily because they think its rejection in that stage would put an end to the Government. On the other hand, Derby brought together two hundred of his supporters the day after the Bill appeared, and obtained their assent to it, and an engagement to support it. The resignations of Henley and Walpole have been prejudicial to the Government. Their explanations, which were full of half-suppressed bitterness towards their colleagues, were considered damaging, and to have revealed trickery on the part of Derby, though they seem to me to have rather exhibited weakness on the part of the retiring Ministers. But what they have clearly shown is the extreme penury of the party in point of intellectual resources, when they can find no man of any weight or reputation to fill up the vacancies. But if the Government is weak, and their position very precarious, the state of the Opposition is at least as deplorable, for there is no union or agreement amongst them, and Granville acknowledged to me last night that if Derby should fall on the second reading, and Palmerston be sent for, as it may be expected he would be, by the Queen, that it is impossible to see how another Government could be formed. This state of affairs and the magnitude of the embarrassment will probably at last make some of those who so obstinately insisted upon their being right in resigning last year after the Vote of Censure, begin to think that they would have done better to accept the rebuke and stay in. All that is now occurring serves to confirm my own opinion upon that point. Since Cowley's arrival at Vienna nothing has been heard of his mission, but there is nothing apparent tending to lead to the conclusion that he has been able to do any good, and the general impression is that the Emperor Napoleon is only endeavouring to gain time, and making a tool of Cowley in hopes of thereby committing this country in some degree to his ulterior designs, and there are not wanting persons who believe that it will after all be against this country that his arms will be turned, and not against Austria.