of infinite
interest in the House of Lords. The first, I went forwards and
underwent a somewhat high pressure. At the four others sat on a
round transverse rail, very fortunate in being so well placed. Had
a full view of the peeresses. There nine or ten hours every
evening. Read Peel's speech and sundry papers relating to King's
College, which I went to see; also London Bridge. Read introduction
to Butler. Wrote to Saunders. Much occupied in order-hunting during
the morning. Lord Brougham's as a speech most wonderful, delivered
with a power and effect which cannot be appreciated by any hearsay
mode of information, and with fertile exuberance in sarcasm. In
point of argument it had, I think, little that was new. Lord Grey's
most beautiful, Lord Goderich's and Lord Lansdowne's extremely
good, and in these was comprehended nearly all the oratorical merit
of the debate. The reasoning or the attempt to reason,
independently of the success in such attempt, certainly seemed to
me to be with the opposition. Their best speeches, I thought, were
those of Lords Harrowby, Carnarvon, Mansfield, Wynford; next Lords
Lyndhurst, Wharncliffe, and the Duke of Wellington. Lord Grey's
reply I did not hear, having been compelled by exhaustion to leave
the House. Remained with Ryder and Pickering in the coffee-room or
walking about until the division, and joined Wellesley and
[illegible] as we walked home. Went to bed for an hour,
breakfasted, and came off by the Alert. Arrived safely, thank God,
in Oxford. Wrote to my brother and to Gaskell. Tea with Phillimore
and spent the remainder of the evening with Canning. The
consequences of the vote may be awful. God avert this. But it was
an honourable and manly decision, and so may God avert them.

This was the memorable occasion when the Lords threw out the Reform bill
by 199 to 158, the division not taking place until six o'clock in the
morning. The consequences, as the country instantly made manifest, were
'awful' enough to secure the reversal of the decision. It seems, so far
as I can make out, to have been the first debate that one of the most
consummate debaters that ever lived had the fortune of listening to.

V

READING FOR THE SCHOOLS

Meanwhile intense interest in parliament and the newspaper