id him justice as an excellent man of
business. His great fault is want of punctuality, and never
caring for an engagement if it did not suit him, keeping
everybody waiting for hours on his pleasure or caprice. This
testimony is beyond suspicion, and it is confirmed by the
opinions of his colleagues; but it is certain that he cut a very
poor figure in Parliament all the time he was in office before.

At the Travellers' yesterday I fell in with Buelow, who is just
come back from Berlin to resume his mission. He told me that he
was on such terms with Palmerston that it was impossible for him
to stay here, and that for some time past he had given up
communicating with him except upon the most indispensable matters
and in the most formal way. He then gave me an account of the
reception of the news of the change of our Government at Berlin,
where the Emperor of Russia happened to be at the time. The
Empress had come there on a visit to her father, and the Emperor
(who is supposed to have preserved his conjugal fidelity
immaculate) had rushed from Moscow without any notice to see her,
and was still there when news of this great event arrived. There
is something very characteristic in the first impression which the
intelligence produced, at once manifesting the secret wishes of
the party and their ignorance and apparent incapacity of
comprehending the nature of our Constitution, and the limited
extent of the power of the King of England. The Emperor
immediately conceived that the whole system of the late Government
would be reversed at home and abroad, that Leopold would be driven
from Belgium, the Dutch dominion restored, and the Quadruple
Alliance dissolved. Buelow, who has been in England long enough to
know better the real state of things, endeavoured to undeceive
him, and succeeded, though not without great difficulty; but when
he proceeded to explain to him that the new Government would very
likely not be able to keep their places, and that at any rate they
would be compelled to conduct the Government upon the principle of
Reform which the late Government had established, the Emperor
could not by any means comprehend it, nor why or how there could
be any difficulty in keeping their places if the King was resolved
to support them, and had appointed them at his own pleasure. It
would seem as if they had never read the last two or three years
of our history, or, having read it, as if the habits of unbounded
power in whic