in the
matter of the Glasgow cotton-spinners, he received Wakley, and as
he returned (through my room) from the interview, he said, 'Do
you know who that was? It was Wakley. He would have felt your
head if he had stopped, for he is a great phrenologist. He
examined all the heads of the Glasgow men, and he said they had
none of them the organ of destructiveness except one.' 'Oh,' said
I, 'then that man would have committed murder.' 'No,' said he,
'for the organ of benevolence was also strongly developed.' He is
in extraordinary good humour; in a state of furious mental
activity, troubled neither with fear nor shame, and rejoicing in
that freedom from all ties which renders him a sort of political
Ishmael, his hand against everybody, and everybody against him,
and enables him to cut and slash, as his fancy or his passion
move him, at Whig or Tory, in the House of Lords.

[Page Head: LORD JOHN OPPOSES THE BALLOT.]

To return from Brougham to the Ballot. It is not so much the
number of 200 who voted for it that demonstrates the greatness of
its progress as the circumstances which attended the discussion.
There can be no doubt that John Russell's strenuous declaration,
besides annoying the Radicals, greatly embarrassed the Whigs, who
had either wholly or partially committed themselves on the
hustings to its support, and the consequence has been to place
the Government in a false position, for while the opposition to
the Ballot has been called a Government measure (and William
Cowper told me the evening before the division that nobody could
keep his place and vote for Ballot), and many have been induced
to sacrifice their opinions or act against their professions upon
the ground of the necessity of supporting the Government; many
others in office, who were too deeply pledged to, or too much
afraid of their constituents to vote against it, either voted
with Grote, or, what is very nearly the same thing, absented
themselves, and will have done so with impunity, for the
Government cannot turn people out for voting or non-voting on
such a question as this; the proscription would be too numerous
as well as too odious. They are much too weak for any such
stretch of authority and severity; besides, the Cabinet itself is
probably neither unanimous nor decided in its opposition to the
Ballot. John Russell had, however, spoken out with such
determination, that his honour was irretrievably committed
against it, and accordingly the