else, and if he came into office again would
be Foreign Secretary; that in the Cabinet he was always candid,
reasonable, and ready to discuss fairly every subject, but not so
Peel. He, if his opinion was not adopted, would take up a
newspaper and sulk. Lyndhurst agreed with me about his manners,
his coldness, and how he disgusted instead of conciliating people;
he said that when any of his friends in Parliament proposed to
speak in any debate, he never encouraged or assisted them, but
answered with a dry 'Do you?' to their notification of a wish or
intention. He said that this Bill was drawn up by Lambton himself,
but so ill done, so ignorantly and inefficiently, that they were
obliged to send for Harrison, who, in conjunction with the
Attorney-General, drew it up afresh; that when John Russell
brought it forward the Bill was still undrawn.[5] He says that
there is not the least doubt they never had an idea of bringing
forward any such measure as this till they found themselves so
weak in the House of Commons that nothing but a popular cry and
Radical support could possibly save them. It is very remarkable
when we look back to the moment of the dissolution of the late
Government, when Brougham was in the House of Commons armed with
his Bill, which, though unknown, was so dreaded, and which turns
out to have been mere milk and water compared with this. He said
Brougham was offered the Attorney-Generalship by a note, which he
tore in pieces and stamped upon, and sent word that there was no
answer; that he has long aspired to be Chancellor, and wished to
get into the House of Lords. He ridicules his pretensions to such
wonderful doings in his Court and in the Bills he has announced;
says that he has decided no bankruptcy cases, and, except some
Scotch appeals in the House of Lords, has got rid of hardly any
arrears; and as to his Bills, the Bankruptcy Bill was objectionable
and the Chancery Bill he has never brought on at all; that he
knows he affects a short cut to judicial eminence, but that
without labour and reading he cannot administer justice in that
Court, although no doubt his great acuteness and rapid perception
may often enable him at once to see the merits of a case and hit
upon the important points. This he said in reply to what I told
him of Brougham's trumpeter Sefton, who echoes from his own lips
that 'the Court of Chancery is such a sinecure and mere child's
play.'

[4] [Lady Chesterfield, Mrs. An