en they think fit to use them in the shape of
civility and condescension. The great consolation in all this is
the proof that, so far from deriving happiness from their
grandeur, they are the most miserable of all mankind. The
contrast between their apparent authority and the contradictions
which they practically meet with must be peculiarly galling, more
especially to men whose minds are seldom regulated, as other
men's are, by the beneficial discipline of education and early
collision with their equals. There have been good and wise kings,
but not many of them. Take them one with another they are of an
inferior character, and this I believe to be one of the worst of
the kind. The littleness of his character prevents his displaying
the dangerous faults that belong to great minds, but with vices
and weaknesses of the lowest and most contemptible order it would
be difficult to find a disposition more abundantly furnished.

January 16th, 1829 {p.155}

I went to Windsor to a Council yesterday. There were the Duke,
the Lord Chancellor, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Master of
the Mint, Lord President, Lord Aberdeen, Peel, Melville,
Ellenborough. The King kept us waiting rather longer than usual.
He looked very well, and was dressed in a blue great coat, all
over gold frogs and embroidery. Lord Liverpool was there to give
up the late Lord's Garter, and had an audience. He said to me
afterwards that the King had asked him all sorts of questions
about his family concerns, with which he seemed extraordinarily
well acquainted, and to some of which he was puzzled to give an
answer. The King is the greatest master of gossip in the world,
and his curiosity about everybody's affairs is insatiable. I
spoke to Peel about the Council books,[24] which are in the State
Paper Office, and he promised they should be restored to the
Council Office.

[24] [At the fire which took place at Whitehall in 1619
several volumes of the 'Council Register' were lost or
dispersed. Some of these missing volumes were in the
State Paper Office, and two are still in the British
Museum.]

Just before I set off to Windsor I heard from Ireland, and this
is an extract of the letter:--'Lord Anglesey received a letter
from Peel this morning to the effect "that as he had written and
published a letter such as no Lord-Lieutenant was justified in
writing, it was his Majesty's pleasure that Lords Justices should
be