Great astonishment has been excited by the appointment of a Mr. Bickersteth as Bishop of Ripon, against whom nothing can be said, nor anything for him, except that he is a very Low Churchman. All the vacant sees have now been filled with clergymen of this colour, which is not very fair or prudent, as it will exasperate the moderate High Churchmen and set them strongly against a Government which appears determined to shut the door of ecclesiastical preferment against all but the Lowest Churchmen, and such a policy will most likely have the effect of encouraging the advocates of those extreme measures of an anti-Catholic or a puritanical character which always give so much trouble and embarrassment when they are brought forward in Parliament. _December 12th._--The Conference to which Clarendon told me he would not agree is going to take place after all, but everybody is ridiculing what is notoriously a got-up comedy with a foregone conclusion, devised to solve the difficulty into which all the great actors had got themselves, but it is not yet quite clear what the _modus operandi_ is to be. From what I have picked up here and there I gather that Sardinia is to be induced to give a casting vote against Russia, leaving France still at liberty to fulfil her original engagement and vote with her, while we obtain the object for which we have stood out, and by such a _dodge_ to bring the dispute to an end. When Parliament meets there will be plenty to be said about this affair and about Naples, and no doubt the Opposition or the malcontents will be able to bombard the Government and vent their spleen, but that will be all, for Palmerston is perfectly invulnerable and may commit any blunders with impunity. [Sidenote: LEADERSHIP OF THE OPPOSITION.]