all
good impulses to fear, as if mortals were more governed by its
influence than by that of love and gratitude.

If conscience is less frequently heard in youth, it is that the
tumultuous throbbing of the heart, and the wild suggestions of the
passions, prevent its "still small voice" from being audible; but in
the decline of life, when the heart beats languidly and the passions
slumber, it makes itself heard, and on its whispers depends our
happiness or misery.

My old acquaintance, Lord Palmerston, has arrived at Paris, and dined
here yesterday, to meet the Duc and Duchesse de Guiche, Count Valeski,
and Mr. Poulett Thomson. Seven years have produced no change in Lord
Palmerston. He is the same intelligent, sensible, and agreeable person
that I remember him to have been for many years.

Lord Palmerston has much more ability than people are disposed to give
him credit for. He is, or used to be, when I lived in England,
considered a good man of business, acute in the details, and quick in
the comprehension of complicated questions. Even this is no mean
praise, but I think him entitled to more; for, though constantly and
busily occupied with official duties, he has contrived to find time to
read every thing worth reading, and to make himself acquainted with the
politics of other countries.

Lively, well-bred, and unaffected, Lord Palmerston is a man that is so
well acquainted with the routine of official duties, performs them so
readily and pleasantly, and is so free from the assumption of
self-importance that too frequently appertains to adepts in them, that,
whether Whig or Tory government has the ascendant in England, his
services will be always considered a desideratum to be secured if
possible.

Lord Castlereagh, Mr. Cutlar Fergusson, and Count Valeski dined here
yesterday. Lord C. has just arrived from England, and is a good
specimen of the young men of the present day. He reminds me of his
uncle, the late Marquess of Londonderry, one of the most amiable and
well-bred men I ever knew. Lord C---- is very animated and piquant in
conversation, thinks for himself, and says what he thinks with a
frankness not often met with in our times. Yet there is no _brusquerie_
in his manners; _au contraire_, they are soft and very pleasing; and
this contrast between the originality and fearlessness of his opinions,
and the perfect good-breeding with which they are expressed, lend a
peculiar attraction to his manner. If Lor