(one day that I met him)
with great bitterness against Peel. I asked him, 'What do you
mean to do?' 'Oh, God knows; pass the Bill, I suppose, there's
nothing else left for us to do.' Wharncliffe, while bewailing the
schism, and the bad effect of its manifestation, attributed
Peel's reserve to temper, and some remains of _pique_ at what had
previously passed about the Privilege and China questions. But
whatever was the cause, Peel was quite right not to oppose this
Bill, unless he was prepared with a better measure, and to take
office with the intention of acting upon a different principle,
and he distinctly said that he had nothing better to suggest. The
subsequent conduct of the Duke throughout the whole proceeding in
the House of Lords was curiously indicative of the actual state
of his mind, of his disposition, and his faculties. His
disposition is become excessively excitable and irritable, his
faculties sometimes apparently weakened, and at others giving
signs of all their accustomed vigour. He came down to the House
and attacked this Bill with an asperity quite inconsistent with
his abstaining from throwing it out. He loaded it with every sort
of abuse, but allowed it to pass almost without any alteration.
In thus doing to the measure all the moral damage he could, he
gave way to his passion, and acted a part which I am convinced he
would not have done in his better days, and which was quite at
variance with the patriotic spirit by which he is usually
animated. His violence not unnaturally encouraged his equally
ardent but less prudent followers, to a more practical attack,
and Hardwicke gave notice of his motion. The Duke, however, was
fully alive to all the consequences that would result from the
rejection of a Bill to which Peel had given an unqualified
support in the House of Commons, and he resolved to exert all his
great authority to restrain the zeal that his own speeches had so
highly inflamed. He accordingly summoned the Lords to Apsley
House, and made them a speech in which he stated all the reasons
for which it was desirable not to throw out the Bill; and
Aberdeen told Clarendon that in his life he had never heard a
more admirable statement. It required, however, all his great
influence to restrain them, and though they acquiesced (as they
always do at his bidding) with surprising docility, they did so
with the greatest reluctance.

[10] [This was a Bill for dealing with the Canada Clergy