nd reading; and what then? The
meeting at Ebrington's was flat, nothing agreed on. Hume wanted
to pass some violent resolution, but was overruled. Milton made a
foolish speech, with prospective menaces and present nothingness
in it, and they separated without having done good or harm.

Newmarket, October 1st, 1831 {p.200}

[Page Head: PROSPECTS OF THE REFORM BILL.]

Came here last night, to my great joy, to get holidays, and leave
Reform and cholera and politics for racing and its amusements.
Just before I came away I met Lord Wharncliffe, and asked him
about his interview with Radical Jones. This blackguard considers
himself a sort of chief of a faction, and one of the heads of the
_sans-culottins_ of the present day. He wrote to Lord Wharncliffe
and said he wished to confer with him, that if he would grant him
an interview he might bring any person he pleased to witness what
passed between them. Lord Wharncliffe replied that he would call
on him, and should be satisfied to have no witness. Accordingly
he did so, when the other in very civil terms told him that he
wished to try and impress upon his mind (as he was one of the
heads of anti-Reform in the House of Lords) how dangerous it
would be to reject this Bill, that all sorts of excesses would
follow its rejection, that their persons and properties would be
perilled, and resistance would be unavailing, for that they (the
Reformers) were resolved to carry their point. Lord Wharncliffe
asked whether if this was conceded they would be satisfied. Jones
replied, 'Certainly not;' that they must go a great deal further,
that an hereditary peerage was not to be defended on any
reasonable theory. Still, he was not for doing away with it, that
he wished the changes that were inevitable to take place quietly,
and without violence or confusion. After some more discourse in
this strain they separated, but very civilly, and without any
intemperance of expression on the part of the Reformer.

On Monday the battle begins in the House of Lords, and up to this
time nobody knows how it will go, each party being confident, but
opinion generally in favour of the Bill being thrown out. There
is nothing more curious in this question than the fact that it is
almost impossible to find anybody who is satisfied with the part
he himself takes upon it, and that it is generally looked upon as
a choice of evils, in which the only thing to do is to choose the
least. The Reformers say, You