to Ireland he
forgets all he has promised or professed; the demon of agitation
regains the ascendant, and he bursts into all those excesses
which have made him so odious and formidable; but there is no
chance of any arrangement with him, for the majority of the
Government would not hear of it. I dined at the 'Travellers;'
walked to a fire in Edward Street, where I amused myself with the
strange figures and groups, the glare, bustle, and noise. There
was Duncannon again, a Secretary of State jostling and jostled in
the mob.

August 12th, 1834 {p.117}

On Saturday to Hillingdon, and back yesterday; passed the night
at the House of Lords, to hear the debate on the Irish Tithe
Bill.[1] At a meeting at Apsley House the Tory Lords came to an
unanimous resolution to throw out the Bill, and at one or two
meetings at Lambeth the bishops agreed to do the same. The debate
was heavy; Melbourne very unlike Lord Grey, whose forte was
leading the House of Lords and making speeches on such occasions.
Ellenborough spoke the best, I think. I hardly ever heard such
unbroken fluency, and a good deal of _stuff_, too, in his speech.
Ellice and Spring Rice both told me that this decision was the
most fatal and most important that had occurred for years; the
latter said that no tithe would be paid, but that there would be
no _active_ resistance. Such tithe property as could be seized
would not be sold, because there would be no purchasers for it.
One thing is clear to me, that those Tories who are always
bellowing 'revolution' and 'spoliation,' and who talk of the
gradual subversion of every institution and the imminent peril in
which all our establishments are placed, do not really believe
one word of what they say, and, instead of being oppressed with
fear, they are buoyed up with delusive confidence and courage;
for if they did indeed believe that the Church--the Church of
Ireland especially--was in danger, and that its preservation was
the one paramount desideratum, they would gladly avert, as far as
they might, that danger by a compromise involving a very small
(if any) sacrifice of principle, and which would secure to the
Irish clergy, as far as human prudence, legislative sanction, and
the authority of law can secure it, a permanent and a competent
provision, free from the danger and the odium which have for a
long time past embittered the existence of every clergyman in the
country. It is a curious speculation to see what the ef