y renders all other travelling irksome and tedious
by comparison. It was peculiarly gay at this time, because there
was so much going on. There were all sorts of people going to
Liverpool races, barristers to the assizes, and candidates to
their several elections. The day was so wet that I could not see
the town of Liverpool.

This is a very large place, the house immense, with no good room
in it but the dining room. The country is generally flat, but
there are fine trees and thriving plantations, so that it is
altogether sufficiently enjoyable. It is a strange thing to see
Stanley here; he is certainly the most natural character I ever
saw; he seems never to think of throwing a veil over any part of
himself; it is this straightforward energy which makes him so
considerable a person as he is. In London he is one of the great
political leaders, and the second orator in the House of Commons,
and here he is a lively rattling sportsman, apparently devoted to
racing and rabbit-shooting, gay, boisterous, almost rustic in his
manners, without refinement, and if one did not know what his
powers are and what his position is, it would be next to
impossible to believe that the Stanley of Knowsley could be the
Stanley of the House of Commons.

Just before I left London, the Proclamation of the King of
Hanover appeared, by which he threw over the new Constitution.
Lyndhurst told me of it, before I had seen it, with many
expressions of disappointment, and complaining of his folly and
of the bad effect it would produce here. The Government papers
have taken it up, though rather clumsily, for the purpose of
connecting this violent measure with the Tory party; but it is a
great folly in the Opposition, and in the journals belonging to
them, not to reject at once and peremptorily all connexion with
the King of Hanover, and all participation in, or approbation of,
his measures. Lyndhurst told me that the King had all along
protested against this Constitution, and refused to sign or be a
party to it; that he contended it was illegal, inasmuch as the
States by which it had been enacted had been illegally convoked;
that he was _able_ to do what he has done by his independence in
point of finance, having a great revenue from Crown lands. The
late King was very anxious to give this up, and to have a Civil
List instead; but when this was proposed, the Duke of Cumberland
exerted his influence successfully to defeat the project, and it
was a