rdeen joining
him and taking the Foreign Office, we had to tell him that he must
quite discard that idea. He replied, with a sigh, that he would still
try and see him; he had thought of the Duke of Wellington taking the
Foreign Office _ad interim_, but felt that he could hardly propose
that, considering the Duke's age and infirmity; he would make an
attempt to see Lord Canning with the Queen's permission, and
that failing, could only think of Sir Stratford Canning, now at
Constantinople, which the Queen approved.

He still hoped he might get Mr Gladstone to take the lead in the House
of Commons, without which assistance he must not conceal that it was
almost impossible for him to go on. Mr Gladstone was on his way
home from Paris, and he had written to him to see him as soon as he
arrived; till then he could not promise that he would succeed to
form an Administration, and he only undertook it for the good of his
country, but was afraid of ruining his reputation.

To this I rejoined that who tried to do the best by his country need
never be afraid for his reputation.

The Queen showed Lord Stanley Lord John Russell's letter respecting Mr
Disraeli's denial of the truth of Lord John's statement in the House
of Commons yesterday.

Lord Stanley said it had been a very unfortunate misunderstanding,
that he had been sorry Lord John and Lord Lansdowne should have felt
it necessary to say that "he had not _then_ been prepared to form a
Government," as the knowledge of this fact, as long as there was a
chance of his being called back, could not but act injuriously to him
and dispirit those with whom he acted. He would explain all this on
Friday in the House of Lords, and had no objection to sending Lord
John a copy of his letter.

We now came to _Measures_. Lord Stanley hopes to obviate the Papal
Question by a Parliamentary declaration and the appointment in both
Houses of a Committee to enquire into the position of the Roman
Catholic Church in this country; he would diminish the Income Tax by a
million, and exempt temporary incomes; he would allow compounding for
the Window Tax and levy a moderate duty on corn, which he called a
Countervailing Duty, and tried to defend as good political economy, on
the authority of Mr M'Culloch's last edition of "Ricardo." (I had some
discussion with him, however, on that point.)

Returning to the offices to be filled, Lord Stanley said he should
have to propose Mr Disraeli as one of the