e morning, which was decisive on the question.
The Duke, after his extraordinary speech in the House of Lords,
when he mounted the old broken-down hobby of the Coronation Oath
and cut a curvet that alarmed his friends and his enemies,
assembled the Tories at Apsley House, and there, resuming his own
good sense, though not very consistently, made them a speech, and
told them that some such measure must be passed, for nothing else
could save the Irish Church: that there were things in this Bill
that he did not approve of at all, but he could not resist its
going into committee, and he finished by announcing that he should
either vote for it or not vote at all, according to circumstances.
Lyndhurst goes on the circuit on Wednesday, so that though there
will be a division there will be a large majority for the Bill,
which is the best thing that could happen. Stanley said there
would be a great speech from Lord Grey, talked of his power in
that line, thought his reply at five in the morning on the
Catholic question the most perfect speech that ever was made. He
would rather have made it than four of Brougham's. He gave the
following instance of Lord Grey's readiness and clear-headed
accuracy. In one of the debates on the West India question, he
went to Stanley, who was standing under the gallery, and asked him
on what calculation he had allotted the sum of twenty millions.
Stanley explained to him a complicated series of figures, of terms
of years, interest, compound interest, value of labour, etc.,
after which Lord Grey went back to his place, rose, and went
through the whole with as much clearness and precision as if all
these details had been all along familiar to his mind. It is very
extraordinary that he should unite so much oratorical and
Parliamentary power with such weakness of character. He is a long
way from a great man altogether.

[Page Head: DUKE OF WELLINGTON AND THE BONAPARTES.]

I met the Duke in the evening at the Duchess of Cannizzaro's,
talked of Napier's affair, at which he was extremely amused,
though he thinks it a very bad thing, and not the least bad part
of it that Napier should be lost to the service, so distinguished
as he is. It was he who in 1803 (I believe) was the cause of the
capture of a French squadron by Sir Alexander Cochrane. The
English fell in with and cleared the French fleet, but Napier in
a sloop outsailed the rest, and firing upon the stern of the
French Admiral's flagship, so d