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[Page Head: DEBATE ON THE CORPORATION BILL.]

On Wednesday the Lords commenced proceedings on the Corporation
Bill. The Ministers were aware that they meant to throw it out,
for Lord John Russell and Lord Lansdowne both told me at the
levee that they had heard such was the intention of the Tories.
However, they never had such a design, and the second reading
passed without a division; on Thursday they went into Committee,
and the freeman's clause was carried against Government by a
majority of 93--130 to 37--the debate being distinguished by
divers sallies of intemperance from Brougham, who thundered, and
menaced, and gesticulated in his finest style. When somebody
cried, 'Question,' he burst out, 'Do you think to put me down? I
have stood against 300 of the House of Commons, and do you think
I will give way to _you_?' This was uttered with all imaginable
rage and scorn.[17] This amendment was always anticipated, and
though the Government object to it, Lord Lansdowne told me that
as the rate-paying clause had passed without opposition, he did
not care for the other alterations, but the minority appeared to
everybody bordering upon the ridiculous; a Minister who could
only muster thirty-seven present, and who was in a minority of
three to one, presented a novel spectacle. Nobody could account
for the carelessness of their muster, for many Peers were absent
who might easily have been there, and several who belong to
Government by office or connexion. It did not, however, occur to
anybody that they would feel themselves compelled to resign upon
it, except perhaps to a few Tories, who hinted their notion that
Melbourne could not go on with such a majority against him,
which, however true it may be in the long run, signifies nothing
as to any immediate change.

[17] Brougham had some reason to be angry. Lyndhurst did not
reply to him on Wednesday, when he might have done so,
pleading the fatigue of late hours and his own
indisposition, and on Thursday he attacked him when he
was absent; he therefore gave him good ground of
complaint. Brougham's insolence and violence have done
great injury to the House of Lords by lowering the
style and character of their debates and introducing
coarseness and acrimony such as never were known there
before. Hardly a night passes without some
discreditable scene of squabbling an