ame, and the advantage
of his taste and knowledge.

Sir Robert Peel will not of course mention this subject to any
one, until he has had the honour of receiving from your Majesty an
intimation of your Majesty's opinions and wishes on this subject.

[Pageheading: DIPLOMATIC APPOINTMENTS]

_Viscount Melbourne to Queen Victoria._

SOUTH STREET, _28th September 1841._

... The diplomatic appointments are as well as they could be made.
At least Lord Melbourne thinks so--at least as much in consequence
of those whom they exclude, as of those whom they admit. The Duke of
Beaufort will do better for Petersburg than for Vienna. He is hardly
equal to the place, which requires a clever man, it being more
difficult to get information there, and to find out what is going on,
than in any other country in Europe.... But Lord Melbourne does not
much regard this, and the Duke of Beaufort possesses one advantage,
which is of the greatest importance in that country. He is a soldier,
was the Duke of Wellington's Aide-de-Camp, and served during much of
the Peninsular War. He will therefore be able to accompany the Emperor
to reviews, and to talk with him about troops and man[oe]uvres. Sir
Robert Gordon and Sir S. Canning will do very well.[102]

Lord Melbourne is very glad to hear that your Majesty was pleased and
impressed with Archdeacon Wilberforce's[103] sermon and his manner of
delivering it. Lord Melbourne has never seen nor heard him. His father
had as beautiful and touching a voice as ever was heard. It was very
fine in itself. He spoiled it a little by giving it a methodistical
and precatory intonation.

Hayter has been to Lord Melbourne to-day to press him to sit to him,
which he will do as soon as he has done with Chantrey. Chantrey says
that all Lord Melbourne's face is very easy except the mouth. The
mouth, he says, is always the most difficult feature, and he can
rarely satisfy himself with the delineation of any mouth, but Lord
Melbourne's is so flexible and changeable that it is almost impossible
to catch it.

[Footnote 102: For Vienna and Constantinople.]

[Footnote 103: Samuel, son of William Wilberforce, at this
date Archdeacon of Surrey, and chaplain to Prince Albert;
afterwards, in 1844, appointed Bishop of Oxford, and
eventually translated to the See of Winchester.]

[Pageheading: MELBOURNE'S ADVICE]

_Viscount Melbourne to Queen Victoria._

SOUTH STREET, _1st October