1841._

Lord Melbourne presents his humble duty to your Majesty. He received
your Majesty's letter yesterday evening, and cannot express to your
Majesty how much obliged he feels by your Majesty's taking the trouble
to give him so much information upon so many points. Ste Aulaire's
hair-powder seems to make a very deep and general impression.[104]
Everybody talks about it. "He appears to be very amiable and
agreeable," everybody says, but then adds, "I never saw a man wear so
much powder." A head so whitened with flour is quite a novelty and a
prodigy in these times. Lord Melbourne has not yet seen him, but means
to call upon him immediately. Lord Melbourne is upon the whole
glad that the Duke of Beaufort has declined St Petersburg. It is an
appointment that might have been acquiesced in, but would not have
been approved. Bulwer[105] will not be a bad choice to accompany Sir
Charles[106] to Canada. Your Majesty knows Bulwer well. He is clever,
keen, active; somewhat bitter and caustic, and rather suspicious. A
man of a more straightforward character would have done better, but
it would be easy to have found many who would have done worse. Lord
Melbourne is very glad that it has been offered to the Prince to be at
the head of this Commission, and that His Royal Highness has accepted
it. It is an easy, unexceptionable manner of seeing and becoming
acquainted with a great many people, and of observing the mode of
transacting business in this country. The Commission itself will be
a scene of very considerable difference of opinion. Lord Melbourne
is for decorating the interior of the Houses of Parliament, if it be
right to do so, but he is not for doing it, whether right or wrong,
for the purpose of spending the public money in the encouragement of
the Fine Arts. Whether it is to be painting or sculpture, or both; if
painting, what sort of painting, what are to be the subjects chosen,
and who are to be the artists employed? All these questions furnish
ample food for discussion, difference, and dispute. Chantrey says
fresco will never do; it stands ill in every climate, will never stand
long in this, even in the interior of a building, and in a public work
such as this is, durability is the first object to be aimed at. He
says that there is in the Vatican a compartment of which the middle
portion has been painted by Giulio Romano[107] in fresco, and at each
of the ends there is a figure painted by Raphael in oil. The fresco