than Brougham's flippant _ipse
dixit_ to convince me that the office of Chancellor is such a
sinecure and bagatelle. He had a levee the other night, which was
brilliantly attended--the Archbishops, Duke of Wellington, Lord
Grey, a host of people. Sefton goes and sits in his private room
and sees his receptions of people, and gives very amusing accounts
of his extreme politeness to the Lord Mayor and his cool
_insouciance_ with the Archbishop of Canterbury. The stories of
him as told by Sefton would be invaluable to his future
biographer, and never was a life more sure to be written
hereafter.

March 17th, 1831 {p.129}

The night before last Wynford attacked Brougham's Bill, and got
lashed in return with prodigious severity. He is resolved to
press it, though George Villiers told me he had promised
Lyndhurst to wait for his return to town. Notwithstanding his
vapouring about the Court of Chancery, and treating it as such
child's play, Leach affirms (but he is disappointed and hates
him) that he is a very bad judge and knows nothing of his
business. 'He was a very bad advocate; why should he make a good
judge?'

The Reform Bill is just printed, and already are the various
objections raised against different parts of it, sufficient to
show that it will be pulled to pieces in Committee. Both parties
confident of success on the second reading, but the country
_will_ have it; there is a determination on the subject, and a
unanimity perfectly marvellous, and no demonstration of the
unfitness of any of its parts will be of any avail; some of its
details may be corrected and amended, but substantially it must
pass pretty much as it is.

[Page Head: BROUGHAM AT THE HORSE GUARDS.]

Brougham has been getting into a squabble with the military. At
the drawing-room on Thursday they refused to let his carriage
pass through the Horse Guards, when he ordered his coachman to
force his way through, which he did. He was quite wrong, and it
was very unbecoming and undignified. Lord Londonderry called for
an explanation in the House of Lords, when Brougham made a
speech, and a very lame one. He said he ordered his coachman to
go back, who did not hear him and went on, and when he had got
through he thought it was not worth while to turn back. The Lords
laughed. A few days after he drove over the soldiers in Downing
Street, who were relieving guard; but this time he did no great
harm to the men, and it was not his fault, but these