ly are
alarmed. Last week the Arbuthnots were at Cheveley, and I had a
curious conversation enough with him. I told him that I was
desirous of the success of the Duke of Wellington's Administration,
but felt strongly the necessity of his getting rid of many of his
present Cabinet, who were both inefficient and odious, that I
thought one great misfortune was that he had nobody to tell him
the truth, and very few men with whom he was on terms of
confidential cordiality. He owned it was so, but said that _he_
never concealed from him disagreeable truths--on the contrary,
told him everything--and assured me that at any time he would tell
the Duke anything that I thought he ought to know. I told him to
give him a notion how meanly Aberdeen was thought of, that
Alvanley had told Talleyrand not to notice him, but to go at once
to the Duke when he had any important business to transact, and
that he might tell the Duke this if he pleased, but no one else.
He said he would, and then he began to talk of Peel, lamenting
that there was nothing like intimate confidence between the Duke
and him, and that the Duke was in fact ignorant of his real and
secret feelings and opinions; that to such a degree did Peel carry
his reserve, that when they were out of office, and it had been a
question of their returning to it, he had gone to meet Peel at
Lord Chandos's for the express purpose of finding out what his
opinions were upon the then state of affairs, and that after many
conversations he had come away knowing no more of his sentiments
and disposition than before they met. I said that with a Cabinet
like this, and the House of Commons in the hands of Peel, I could
not imagine anything more embarrassing; he owned it was, and then
complained of Peel's indisposition to encourage other men in the
House of Commons, or to suffer the transaction of business to pass
through any hands but his own; that the Duke had been accused of a
grasping ambition and a desire to do everything himself, whereas
such an accusation would be much more applicable to Peel. All this
proves how little real cordiality there is between these two men,
and that, though they are now necessary to each other, a little
matter would sever their political connection.

Here we have an American of the name of Powell, who was here
nineteen years ago, when he was one of the handsomest men that
ever was seen, and lived in the society of Devonshire House.
Three years of such a life