n or Pasha, and still less for the repose of the countries
they misgovern or the happiness of the people they oppress.

Sir Robert Peel has dined at the Palace for the first time since
the Bedchamber quarrel, and this is deemed important. All
domestic interest is absorbed in the blow which has fallen upon
Lord Granville at Paris, in the shape of a paralytic stroke,
which, from the character of the man, his social position, and
the important and unhappy consequences of this affliction to a
numerous class of people, excites a very deep and general
interest.

May 2nd, 1841 {p.390}

The approach of the Newmarket meetings usually absorbs my
thoughts, oppresses me with its complicated interests, and
destroys all my journalising energies. After a month's interval,
I take up my pen to note down the events that have occurred in
it. I went to Newmarket on Saturday before the Craven Meeting,
and on Sunday morning received a letter informing me of the
sudden death of my sister-in-law (Mrs. Algernon Greville), which
obliged me to return to town. This grievous affliction, so heavy
and irreparable to those whom it immediately concerns, matters
but little to the mass of society, who for the most part good-
naturedly sympathised with the sufferers; but the object, so
precious to the narrow circle of her own family, was too
unimportant to the world at large to be entitled to anything more
than a passing expression of regret. I went down to the funeral,
and was unutterably disgusted with the ceremony, with the
bustling business of the undertaker, mixing so irreverently with
the profound grief of the brothers and other relations who
attended, the decking us out in the paraphernalia of woe, and
thus dragging us in mourning coaches through crowds of curious
people, by a circuitous route, that as much of us as possible
might be exhibited to vulgar curiosity. These are things
monstrous in themselves, but to which all-reconciling custom
makes us submit.

[Page Head: LOSS OF THE 'PRESIDENT.']

This is not the only misfortune which has fallen upon individual
heads; but of all occurrences that which has excited the greatest
interest has been the loss, as it must now be concluded, of the
'President' steamer, with, among others, the Duke of Richmond's
young son on board. Day after day people have watched and
enquired with the most intense interest for the arrival or for
news of this vessel, and are only now slowly and reluctantly
abandon