and communication with other minds, to enable him to be
a safe and efficient leader in such times as these.

[2] This was very unjust to Macaulay, and not true as to
Sheil; to O'Connell alone applicable.

[In reading over these remarks upon the Duke of Wellington, and
comparing them with the opinions I now entertain of his present
conduct, and of the nature and quality of his mind, I am
compelled to ask myself whether I did not then do him injustice.
On the whole I think not. He is not, nor ever was, a little man
in anything, great or small; but I am satisfied that he has made
great political blunders, though with the best and most patriotic
intentions, and that his conduct throughout the Reform contest
was one of the greatest and most unfortunate of them.--July
1838.]

October 14th, 1831 {p.205}

[Page Head: LORD GREY AND BISHOP PHILLPOTTS.]

The town continues quite quiet; the country nearly so. The press
strain every nerve to produce excitement, and the 'Times' has
begun an assault on the bishops, whom it has marked out for
vengeance and defamation for having voted against the Bill.
Althorp and Lord John Russell have written grateful letters to
Attwood as Chairman of the Birmingham Union, thus indirectly
acknowledging that puissant body. There was a desperate strife in
the House of Lords between Phillpotts and Lord Grey, in which the
former got a most tremendous dressing. Times must be mightily
changed when my sympathies go with this bishop, and even now,
though full of disgust with the other faction, I have a pleasure
in seeing him trounced. The shade of Canning may rejoice at the
sight of Grey smiting Phillpotts. Even on such a question
Phillpotts was essentially in the right; but he lost his temper,
floundered, and got punished. It was most indecent and disgusting
to hear Brougham from the Woolsack, in a strain of the bitterest
irony and sarcasm, but so broad as to be without the semblance of
disguise, attack the bench of bishops. I am of opinion that it
would have been far better never to have let them back into the
House of Lords, but now that they are there I would not thrust
them out, especially at this moment. Lord Grey in this debate
gave no handle certainly, for he interposed in their favour, and
rebuked Lord Suffield, who attacked them first, and told him he
was out of order, and then Phillpotts very foolishly attacked
him.

October 15th, 1831 {p.206}

A furious attack in th