us chanted and
performed is my _beau ideal_ of religious worship--simple,
intelligible, and grand, appealing at the same time to the reason
and the imagination. I prefer it infinitely to the Catholic service,
for though I am fond of the bursts of music and the clouds of
incense, I can't endure the undistinguishable sounds with which the
priest mumbles over the prayers.

I heard yesterday that there has been a breeze between Duncannon
and Melbourne, arising out of his speech at Derby. This was in
answer to an address they voted him, and it was exceedingly
temperate and reserved. In the course of it he said that 'he had
no personal cause of complaint.' A warfare has been raging
between the 'Standard' and the 'Chronicle' about what passed, and
the articles in the latter have been supplied by Duncannon or
some of them; these are at variance with Melbourne's avowal, and
they are very angry with him for what he said, and want him to
make some statement (or to authorise one) of a different kind and
more corresponding with their own declarations and complaints.
This he refuses to do, and they have been squabbling about it
with some vivacity. All this induces me the more to think that
Melbourne has never told his colleagues how very easily and
contentedly he gave up the reins of Government, not intending to
deceive them, but from a desire to avoid exasperating people whom
he found so much disturbed and so bitter.

December 2nd, 1834

[Page Head: LORD LYNDHURST'S DINNER TO MR. BARNES.]

Dined with Lord Lyndhurst yesterday; the dinner for Mr. Barnes. He
had collected a miscellaneous party, droll enough--Mrs. Fox, Baron
Bolland, Follett, Hardinge, &c. The Duke and Lord Chandos were to
have been there. Barnes told Hardinge there was a great cry
getting up in the country against the Duke. After dinner I had a
long conversation with Hardinge, on the whole satisfactory. He
said that he had been instrumental in bringing the Duke and Peel
together again, after a considerable coldness and estrangement had
existed between them; that after the failure in May 1832, when
Peel refused to have anything to do with the concern, he had
called upon him and insisted upon taking him to Apsley House and
spontaneously consulting with the Duke how he should withdraw from
the business; that with great difficulty he had persuaded him, and
together they went, from which time the Duke and he have again
become friends. He is convinced that Peel will