residence in London in 1831 he married Lady Caroline
Montagu, a daughter of the Earl of Sandwich, but she
did not live long. I remember calling upon him in St.
James's Place, and seeing cards of invitation for Lady
Grey's assemblies stuck in his glass. The fact is he
was wonderfully handsome and agreeable, and soon became
popular in London society.]

January 19th, 1831 {p.105}

To Roehampton on Saturday till Monday, having been at the Grove
on Friday. George Villiers at the Grove showed me a Dublin paper
with an attack on Stanley's proclamation, and also a character of
Plunket drawn with great severity and by a masterly hand; it is
supposed to be by Baron Smith, a judge who is very able, but
fanciful and disaffected. He will never suffer any but policemen
or soldiers to be hanged of those whom he tries. George Villiers
came from Hatfield, where he had a conversation with the Duke of
Wellington, who told him that he had committed a great error in
his Administration in not paying more attention to the press, and
in not securing a portion of it on his side and getting good
writers into his employment, that he had never thought it
necessary to do so, and that he was now convinced what a great
mistake it was. At Roehampton nothing new, except that the Reform
plan is supposed to be settled, or nearly so. Duncannon has been
consulted, and he and one or two more have had meetings with
Durham, who were to lay their joint plans before Lord Grey first,
and he afterwards brought them to the Cabinet.

[Page Head: CROKER'S BOSWELL.]

Ellis told me (a curious thing enough) that Croker (for his
'Boswell's Life of Johnson') had collected various anecdotes from
other books, but that the only new and original ones were those
he had got from Lord Stowell, who was a friend of Johnson, and
that he had written them under Stowell's dictation. Sir Walter
Scott wanted to see them, and Croker sent them to him in Scotland
by the post. The bag was lost; no tidings could be heard of it,
Croker had no copy, and Stowell is in his dotage and can't be got
to dictate again. So much for the anecdote; then comes the story.
I said how surprising this was, for nothing was so rare as a
miscarriage by the post. He said, 'Not at all, for I myself lost
_two reviews_ in the same way. I sent them both to _Brougham_ to
forward to Jeffrey (for the "Edinburgh"), and _they were both
lost in th