et himself right, and to clear his character with a party who
will never forgive him for what he has done, and to whom whatever
he says will be words cast to the winds, he will flounder, and
say something which will elicit from Lord Grey some declaration
that may make matters worse than ever. What I hope and trust is
that the Government and our people will confine themselves to
civil generalities, and pledge themselves _de part et d'autre_ to
nothing, and that they will not be provoked by taunts from any
quarter to depart from that prudent course.

There was another breeze in the House of Lords about Irish
Education, the whole bench of bishops in a flame, and except Maltby,
who spoke _for_, all declared against the plan--Phillpotts in a
furious speech. What celestial influences have been at work I know
not, but certain it is that the world seems going mad, individually
and collectively. The town has been more occupied this week with
Dudley's extravagancies than the affairs of Europe. He, in fact, is
mad, but is to be cupped and starved and disciplined sound again. It
has been fine talk for the town. The public curiosity and love of
news is as voracious and universal as the appetite of a shark, and,
like it, loves best what is grossest and most disgusting; anything
relating to personal distress, to crime, to passion, is greedily
devoured by this monster, as Cowley calls it.

I see
The monster London laugh at me;
I would at thee, too, foolish City,
But thy estate I pity.
Should all the wicked men from out thee go,
And all the fools that crowd thee so,
Thou, who dost thy thousands boast,
Would be a wilderness almost.--_Ode to Solitude._

But of all the examples of cant, hypocrisy, party violence, I
have never seen any to be compared to the Irish Education
business; and there was Rosslyn, an old Whig, voting against;
Carnarvon stayed away, every Tory without exception going against
the measure. As to madness, Dudley has gone mad in his own house,
Perceval in the House of Commons, and John Montague in the Park,
the two latter preaching, both Irvingites and believers in 'the
tongues.' Dudley's madness took an odd turn; he would make up all
his quarrels with Lady Holland, to whom he has not spoken for
sixteen years, and he called on her, and there were tears and
embraces, and God knows what. Sydney Smith told her that she was
b