r daughter
behaves to her with kindness and attention but has rendered
herself quite independent of the Duchess, who painfully feels her
own insignificance. The almost contemptuous way in which Conroy
has been dismissed must be a bitter mortification to her. The
Duchess said to Madame de Lieven, 'qu'il n'y avait plus d'avenir
pour elle, qu'elle n'etait plus rien;' that for eighteen years
this child had been the sole object of her life, of all her
thoughts and hopes, and now she was taken from her, and there was
an end of all for which she had lived heretofore. Madame de
Lieven said that she ought to be the happiest of human beings, to
see the elevation of this child, her prodigious success, and the
praise and admiration of which she was universally the object;
that it was a triumph and a glory which ought to be sufficient
for her--to which she only shook her head with a melancholy
smile, and gave her to understand that all this would not do, and
that the accomplishment of her wishes had only made her to the
last degree unhappy. King William is revenged, he little
anticipated how or by what instrumentality, and if his ghost is
an ill-natured and vindictive shade, it may rejoice in the sight
of this bitter disappointment of his enemy. In the midst of all
her propriety of manner and conduct, the young Queen begins to
exhibit slight signs of a peremptory disposition, and it is
impossible not to suspect that, as she gains confidence, and as
her character begins to develope, she will evince a strong will
of her own. In all trifling matters connected with her Court and
her palace, she already enacts the part of Queen and mistress as
if it had long been familiar to her.

August 8th, 1837 {p.016}

[Page Head: CONSERVATIVE REACTION.]

At Goodwood since this day week till Saturday, when I went to
Petworth;--to town yesterday. The county elections have produced
an endless succession of triumphs to the Conservatives, of which
the greatest was that over Hume in Middlesex. The Whigs are
equally astonished and dismayed at this result, for they had not
a notion of being bowled down as they have been one after
another. If the others had known their own strength, they might
have done a great deal more; Bingham Baring[8] could have brought
in another man with him for Staffordshire; Henry Windham could
have won Sussex had he chosen it, and was very near being brought
in without his own consent, and against the wishes of Lord
Egremo