orning it was
inserted. The Whigs affect to hold it very cheap, and to treat it
as an artful but shallow and inefficient production. It is rather
too Liberal for the bigoted Tories, but all the moderate people
are well satisfied with it. Of course it has made a prodigious
sensation, and nobody talks of anything else.

December 24th, 1834 {p.178}

[Page Head: PROSPECTS OF THE MINISTRY.]

Dined yesterday at the Mansion House; never having before seen a
civic feast, I thought this a good opportunity. The Egyptian Hall
is fine enough; the other rooms miserable. A great company, and
all Tories almost. The Lord Mayor boasted of his impartiality,
and how he had invited all parties alike, but none of the Whigs
would go. Peel spoke tolerably, but not so well as I expected;
manly enough and in good tone. In the speeches of the others
there was nothing remarkable. Ward made a violent speech,
attacking Grote and Lushington, though not by name. The loyal
party in the City are making great exertions, and they expect to
bring in three out of the four members, which I doubt, not
because I know anything of the matter, but because they are
generally out in their calculations. In the meantime the vacant
places have been gradually filled up, and generally with Tories
of a bad description--e.g. Roden[1] as Lord Steward, which,
though no political situation, would do harm merely from his name
appearing in the list. It never will be believed that such men as
he--bigoted and obstinate, and virtuous moreover--will consent to
join Peel if he has resolved to act upon principles diametrically
the reverse of those they have ever sustained, and they persist
(the Whigs) in asserting that every fresh appointment of this
kind is a new pledge that he means to govern on Tory principles.

[1] Roden refused on account of his health.--January 4th.

[Page Head: PROSPECTS OF THE ELECTION.]

A few days ago I fell in with Hobhouse, and he walked with me to
my office. He told me that he and his fellow Committee men at
Ellice's, astonished at the confident expectations of the
Carltonians as to the result of a dissolution, went over the list
scrupulously and jealously, and resolved to know the worst; that
after making every allowance they could, and excluding all
doubtful places and all Stanleyites, they found themselves with a
majority of 195 votes, and deducting from that 50 men who might
be Waverers, and on whom it might not be safe to count, t