ed to stir, nor
changed a muscle of his countenance. At length they divided, and
there was a majority of eighty; sixteen more than on the same
question last year.

The next morning (yesterday) Wharncliffe called on me, and I
found that they were prodigiously depressed at this defeat. He
said that they had suffered from many unusual casualties,
sicknesses, and deaths, and that their people could not be made
to attend. He instanced three cases of lukewarmness and
indifference. Sir G. Noel remained in the House till twelve
o'clock, and then went to bed; Lord John Scott went out of town
in the morning of the division, because he was engaged to dine
somewhere; and young Lefroy, who had paired with Sheil _until
this question_, set off with him to embark for England from
Dublin, and turned back from the steamboat because it blew hard,
and he said his mother would be alarmed for his safety.
Wharncliffe told me that Peel is very much disgusted at such
coolness, and that, while he is slaving body and mind in the
cause, he cannot even depend upon the corporeal presence of his
idle and luxurious followers, who will sacrifice none of their
amusements for the cause which they pretend to think is in such
danger. On the other hand, the rash and foolish (no small
proportion) are dissatisfied with his caution, and the prudence
which they call timidity; they are always for doing something
desperate. Lyndhurst last year in the House of Lords was the man
after their own hearts, and they were quite willing to depose the
Duke from his leadership of the party, and put themselves under
the guidance of Lyndhurst. When we recollect who and what
Lyndhurst was and is, it is curious to see the aristocracy of
England adopting him for their chief; scarcely an Englishman (for
his father was an American painter[5]), a lawyer of fortune, in
the sense in which, we say a soldier of fortune, without any
fixed principles, and only conspicuous for his extraordinary
capacity, he has no interest but what centres in himself, and is
utterly destitute of those associations which naturally belong to
an aristocracy. There is probably not a man of the party who is
not fully aware of Lyndhurst's character, and they have already
experienced the results of his political daring in his famous
attempt to interrupt the Reform Bill by the postponement of
Schedule A; and with this knowledge and experience they follow
him blindly, lead them where he will. Wharncliffe owned