ters as much as he could by joining Lyndhurst and taunting
Melbourne; but when Lyndhurst rose again to call Melbourne to
account for his expressions, Brougham held him down with friendly
violence, and (as he asseverates) was entirely the cause of
preventing a fight between them, first by not letting Lyndhurst
proceed to extremities,[12] and next by giving Melbourne time for
reflection. However this may be, when Lyndhurst asked him, 'if he
meant to say he was not a man of honour,' Melbourne made as ample
a retractation of the offensive expressions as Lyndhurst could
desire, and there the matter ended, not certainly much to the
credit or satisfaction of the Ministers in either House. I think,
however, that the Opposition have obtained a very mischievous and
inconvenient triumph, and that they would have done much better
to leave the question alone. O'Connell and John Russell made
better speeches than Peel and Follett, and the latter seemed to
be oppressed by a consciousness of the narrow, vindictive, and
merely party, if not personal grounds on which the question was
raised. They have dragged the House of Commons into a vote,
which, if it acts consistently, it ought to follow up by an
indiscriminate exercise of its authority and resentment upon all
the writers and speakers who have denounced the Committee system,
and they have procured a resolution declaratory of that being
libellous and scandalous which the public universally believes,
and every member of the House well knows to be true.

[11] The discussion arose out of a question Lyndhurst put
about some young children who had been confined in the
penitentiary, in solitary confinement, &c., _without
notice_. Melbourne fired up at this in a very
unnecessary rage, though Lyndhurst was clearly wrong in
not giving notice. Much more was made of this omission
than need have been.

[12] Lyndhurst was going out of the House to write a hostile
note, but Brougham forced him down and said, 'I insist
on my noble friend's sitting down,' but though he
boasts of having been the peacemaker, Lyndhurst told me
he thought, but for Brougham, Melbourne would not have
said what he did.

February 28th, 1838 {p.070}

I met Lyndhurst yesterday, and had a few minutes' conversation
with him. He told me, as I had conjectured, that Peel was
extremely annoyed at all these