born in 1762; married in 1795 Susan, a daughter of the
Marquis of Stafford.]

Burghley, January 28th, 1834 {p.053}

Came here yesterday, and found Lady Clinton, Lady Frederic
Bentinck, Lyne Stephens and Irby, not amusing. Captain Spencer
came to-day. I had almost forgotten the house, which is
surprisingly grand in all respects, though the living rooms are
not numerous or handsome enough. I just missed Peel, who went to
Belvoir yesterday. I heard wonderful things of railroads and
steam when I was in Staffordshire, yet by the time anybody reads
what I now write (if anybody ever does), how they will smile
perhaps at what I gape and stare at, and call wonderful, with
such accelerated velocity do we move on. Stephenson, the great
engineer, told Lichfield that he had travelled on the Manchester
and Liverpool railroad for many miles at the rate of a mile a
minute, that his doubt was not how fast his engines could be made
to go, but at what pace it would be proper to stop, that he could
make them travel with greater speed than any bird can cleave the
air, and that he had ascertained that 400 miles an hour was the
extreme velocity which the human frame could endure, at which it
could move and exist.

February 1st, 1834 {p.054}

Lord Wharncliffe has been here and is gone. He, like Harrowby, is
very dismal about the prospects of the country, and thinks we are
gravitating towards a revolution. He says that the constituency
of the great towns is composed of ultra-Radicals, and that no
gentleman with really independent and conservative principles can
sit for them, that the great majority of the manufacturers and of
the respectable persons of the middle class are moderate, and
hostile to subversion and violent measures, but that their
influence is overwhelmed by the numerical strength of the low
voters, who want to go all lengths. He says that he has received
greater marks of deference and respect in his own county, and
especially at Sheffield, where a short time ago he would have
been in danger of being torn in pieces, than he ever experienced,
but that he could no more bring a son in for Sheffield than he
could fly in the air. Sir John Beckett is just gone to stand for
Leeds, and certainly the catechism to which he was there forced
to submit is very ominous. A seat in the House of Commons will
cease to be an object of ambition to honourable and independent
men, if it can only be obtained by cringing and s