ng, thinks his capacity first-rate; that it
approaches to greatness from his enlarged views, disdain of
trivialities, resolution, decision, confidence, and above all his
contempt of clamour and abuse. She told me that Madame de Flahault
had a letter written by Talleyrand soon after his first arrival in
England, in which he talked with great contempt of the Ministers
generally, Lord Grey included, and said there was but one statesman
among them, and that was Palmerston. His ordinary conversation
exhibits no such superiority; but when he takes his pen in his hand
his intellect seems to have full play, and probably when engaged
exclusively in business.

August 13th, 1836 {p.360}

On Monday last I was riding early in the Park and met Lord
Howick. We rode together for some time. He said that 'he supposed
they should be out after this session, and they ought to be out,
as they could carry none of their measures, and the Lords
rejected Bill after Bill sent up from the other House; that since
the Tories chose to go on in this way, they must make the
experiment and carry on the Government if they could, but they
must look for every opposition from his friends and his party. It
was quite impossible things could go on upon their present
footing; the country would not stand it, and the Lords must look
to those changes which their own conduct rendered indispensable.'
I said to Howick that the appropriation clause made the great
difficulty of the Whigs; that I believed they were, on the whole,
a very Conservative Government, but why struggle for this
absurdity, and why not bring forward a measure at once of real
relief and pay the Catholic clergy? He said they could not do it;
their own friends would not support them; that the Tories might
have done it, but that the Whigs could not. 'So,' I replied,
'both parties are in such a position that no Conservative
measures can be carried but by the Whigs, and no Liberal ones but
by the Tories.'

Since this there has been a free conference, and the Lords have
been bowling down Bills like ninepins. This certainly cannot go
on; either the Tories must come into power again, or the Whigs
must do something to control the House of Lords, or the Lords
must lower their tone and adopt more moderate counsels. The
latter would be the best, as it is the least probable, of the
three alternatives.

His Majesty was pleased to be very facetious at the Council the
other day, though not very refined.