ious to them, and that he would do well to exert his
influence over Stanley for the purpose of restraining those
sallies in which he was too apt to indulge, and showing him the
expediency of conciliating that not very wise but still powerful
body. He asked in what way Stanley had offended. I told him
generally in the sarcastic or reprobating tone he had used, and
particularly in his personal attack on the Duke for holding the
offices. He owned there was truth in this, 'but what could you do?
it was impossible to change a man's character, and Stanley's was
very peculiar. With great talents, extraordinary readiness in
debate, high principles, unblemished honour, he never had looked,
he thought he never would look, upon politics and political life
with the seriousness which belonged to the subject; he followed
politics as an amusement, as a means of excitement, as another
would gaming or any other very excitable occupation; he plunged
into the _melee_ for the sake of the sport which he found it made
there, but always actuated by honourable and consistent principles
and feelings, and though making it a matter of diversion and
amusement, never sacrificing anything that honour or conscience
prescribed.' I said that this description of him (which I had no
doubt was true) only proved what I already thought--that, with all
his talents, he never would be a great man. He said he always must
be very considerable; his powers, integrity, birth, and fortune
could not fail to raise him to eminence. All this I admitted--that
nothing could prevent his being very considerable, very important,
as a public man--but I argued that one who was animated by motives
so personal, and so wanting in gravity, to whom public care was a
subsidiary and not a primary object, never could achieve permanent
and genuine greatness. He said that Stanley had a great admiration
for Peel, without any tincture of jealousy, and that he was quite
ready to serve under him, though he could not help doubting
whether it would be possible for two such men, so different in
character, to go on well together in the same Cabinet. I told him
what Wharncliffe had told me, that no man was ever more easy to
act with, more candid and conciliatory, and less assuming than
Peel in the Cabinet, and Graham said that Stanley was likewise
perfect as a colleague, so that it may be hoped there would not be
any such incompatibility if they were to come together. I was with
him two hours a