ounging, sauntering, passively
receptive species; he went forward in a sedulous process of import and
export, a mind actively at work on all the topics that passed before it.

At the beginning of the year 1836 he was invited to pay a visit to
Drayton, where he found only Lord Harrowby--a link with the great men of
an earlier generation, for he had acted as Pitt's second in the duel
with Tierney, and had been foreign secretary in Pitt's administration of
1804; might have been prime minister in 1827 if he had liked; and he
headed the Waverers who secured the passing of the Reform bill by the
Lords. Other guests followed, the host rather contracting in freedom of
conversation as the party expanded.[71]

VISIT TO DRAYTON

I cannot record anything continuous, Mr. Gladstone writes in his
memorandum of the visit, but commit to paper several opinions and
expressions of Sir R. Peel, which bore upon interesting and
practical questions. That Fox was not a man of settled, reasoned,
political principle. Lord Harrowby added that he was thrown into
opposition and whiggism by the insult of Lord North. That his own
doctrines, both as originally declared, and as resumed when finally
in office, were of a highly toned spirit of government. That
Brougham was the most _powerful_ man he had ever known in the H. of
C.; that no one had ever fallen so fast and so far. That the
political difficulties of England might be susceptible of cure, and
were not appalling; but that the state of Ireland was to all
appearance hopeless. That there the great difficulty lay in
procuring the ordinary administration of justice; that the very
institution of juries supposed a common interest of the juror and
the state, a condition not fulfilled in the present instance; that
it was quite unfit for the present state of society in Ireland.
Lord Harrowby thought that a strong conservative government might
still quell agitation. And Sir B. Peel said Stanley had told him
that the whig government were on the point of succeeding in putting
a stop to the resistance to payment of tithe, when Lord Althorp,
alarmed at the expense already incurred, wrote to stop its
collection by the military. We should probably live to see the
independence of Poland established.

The Duke of Wellington and others arrived later in the day.