scarcely
been out of pain at all for years during any considerable
intervals, has been quite free from his complaint (the tic
douloureux) since he has been in Ireland; the excitement of these
events, and the influence of that excitement on his nervous
system, have produced this effect. There is a puzzler for
philosophy, and such an amalgamation of moral and physical
accidents as is well worth unravelling for those who are wise
enough.

Yesterday there was a dinner at Lord Lansdowne's to name the
Sheriffs, and there was I in attendance on my old school-fellows
and associates Richmond, Durham, Graham, all great men now!

While some do laugh, and some do weep,
Thus runs the world away.

Lord Grey was not there, for he was gone to Brighton to lay the
Reform Bill before the King. What a man Brougham is; he wants to
ride his Chancery steed to the Devil, as if he had not enough to
do. Nothing would satisfy him but to come and hear causes in our
Court;[13] but as I knew it was only to provoke Leach, I would not
let him come, and told the Lord President we had no causes for him
to hear. He insisted, so did I, and he did not come; but some day
I will invite him, and then he will have forgotten it or have
something else to do, and he won't come. He is a Jupiter-Scapin if
ever there was one.

[13] [At the Privy Council, where the Master of the Rolls
was at that time in the habit of sitting with two lay
Privy Councillors to hear Plantation Appeals.]

February 6th, 1831 {p.110}

[Page Head: THE CIVIL LIST.]

Parliament met again on the 3rd, and the House of Commons
exhibited a great array on the Opposition benches; nothing was
done the first day but the announcement of the Reform measure for
the 2nd of March, to be brought in by Lord John Russell in the
House of Commons, though not a Cabinet Minister. The fact is that
if a Cabinet Minister had introduced it, it must have been
Althorp, and he is wholly unequal to it; he cannot speak at all,
so that though the pretence is to pay a compliment to John Russell
because he had on former occasions brought forward plans of
Reform, it is really expedient to take the burden off the leader
of the Government. The next night came on the Civil List, and as
the last Government was turned out on this question, there had
existed a general but vague expectation that some wonderful
reductions were to be proposed by the new Chancellor o