of a paradox, and his prejudices shine
forth in every question in which Church and religion are
implicated. Melbourne loves dashing opinions.

September 18th, 1834 {p.133}

[Page Head: LORD BROUGHAM'S ABERRATIONS.]

For some weeks past a fierce war has been waged by the 'Times'
against the Chancellor. It was declared in some menacing articles
which soon swelled into a tone of rebuke, and have since been
sharpened into attacks of a constancy, violence, and vigour quite
unexampled; all the power of writing which the paper can
command--argument, abuse, and ridicule--have been heaped day
after day upon him, and when it took a little breathing time it
filled up the interval by quotations from other papers, which
have been abundantly supplied both by the London and the country
press. I do not yet know what are the secret causes which have
stirred the wrath of the 'Times.' The 'Examiner' has once a week
thrown into the general contribution of rancour an article
perhaps wittier and more pungent than any which have appeared in
the 'Times,' but between them they have flagellated him till he
is raw, and it is very clear that he feels it quite as acutely as
they can desire. While they have thus been administering
castigation in this unsparing style, he has afforded them the
best opportunities by his extraordinary progress in Scotland, and
the astonishing speeches which he made at Aberdeen and Dundee,
making more mountebank exhibitions than he did in the House of
Lords, and exciting the unquenchable laughter of his enemies and
the continual terror of his friends. Lord Holland told me that he
was trembling for the account of the Edinburgh dinner. That great
affair appears, however (by the first half of the proceedings),
to have gone off very well. Lord Grey in his speech confined
himself to general topics, and he and Brougham steered extremely
clear of one another, but Brougham made some allusions which
Durham took to himself, and replied to with considerable asperity
of tone, avoiding, however, any personalities and anything like a
direct collision. Everybody asks, How long will Brougham be
permitted to go on playing these ape's tricks and scattering his
flummery and his lies? and then they say, But you can't get rid of
him, and the Government (dangerous as he is to them) could not get
on without him. There would probably be no difficulty; experience
has demonstrated to me the extreme fallacy of the notion that
_anybody_ und