A report has been lately current that Gladstone will become the leader of the Opposition _vice_ Disraeli, a report I thought quite wild and improbable, but I heard the other day something which looks as if it was not so much out of the question as I had imagined. George Byng told me he had met Sir William Jolliffe, who is the Derbyite whipper-in, at Wrotham, and having asked him whether there was any foundation for the above report, he replied that it certainly was not true at present, that he could not say what might or might not happen hereafter, but that he could not at once be accepted as _leader_, and must in any case first serve in the ranks. I do not know what may be the value of Jolliffe's opinions, or what he knows of the intentions of his chief, but he may probably be more or less acquainted with the sentiments of his party, and may be aware that their necessities have modified their extreme repugnance to Gladstone, and that they may now be willing to accept him as leader (eventually), though two years ago they so peremptorily insisted on his entire exclusion from their political society. Meanwhile there is no combination amongst them. Derby is at Knowsley amusing himself, and Disraeli at Paris, doing nobody knows what. There is talk of Lord Granville's resigning the lead and his office and going to Ireland instead of Carlisle, or to Paris instead of Cowley, but he has never intimated the least intention of doing either. Ireland he certainly will not go to; Paris is not so impossible. There seems some doubt whether his health will admit of his going on in the House of Lords, and if they knew how to get Cowley away from Paris without doing him an injustice or an unkindness, I think they would not be sorry, for his position there is unsatisfactory. It is a serious inconvenience to be on such terms with Walewski that they never converse at all except when business obliges them to meet, and the consequence of their relations is that all affairs between the two countries are carried on between Clarendon and Persigny in London, and as little as possible at Paris, because the Emperor now fights rather shy of Cowley, and is by no means on the same terms with him as heretofore, though always very civil and cordial enough when they meet; and His Majesty will not part with Walewski, who, although of a moderate capacity, is clever enough to know how to deal with his master, and make himself agreeable to him, and the Emperor knows that if he were to change his Minister for Foreign Affairs, it would be attributed to the influence of England and be on that account unpopular. The English press has rendered Walewski the incalculable service of making him popular in France, and rendering it impossible for the Emperor to dismiss him, even if he had a mind to do so, which he has not. [Sidenote: DICTATORIAL POLICY TO BRAZIL.]