y; Lord Ebrington, Hawkins, Captain Spencer, Stanley,
and two or three more. We all of us congratulated Lord Althorp on his
good health and spirits. He told us that he never took exercise now;
that from his getting up, till four o'clock, he was engaged in the
business of his office; that at four he dined, went down to the House
at five, and never stirred till the House rose, which is always after
midnight; that he then went home, took a basin of arrow-root with a
glass of sherry in it, and went to bed, where he always dropped asleep
in three minutes. "During the week," said he, "which followed my taking
office, I did not close my eyes for anxiety. Since that time I have
never been awake a quarter of an hour after taking off my clothes."
Stanley laughed at Lord Althorp's arrow-root, and recommended his own
supper, cold meat and warm negus; a supper which I will certainly begin
to take when I feel a desire to pass the night with a sensation as if I
was swallowing a nutmeg-grater every third minute.

We talked about timidity in speaking. Lord Althorp said that he had only
just got over his apprehensions. "I was as much afraid," he said, "last
year as when first I came into Parliament. But now I am forced to speak
so often that I am quite hardened. Last Thursday I was up forty times."
I was not much surprised at this in Lord Althorp, as he is certainly one
of the most modest men in existence. But I was surprised to hear Stanley
say that he never rose without great uneasiness. "My throat and lips,"
he said, "when I am going to speak, are as dry as those of a man who
is going to be hanged." Nothing can be more composed and cool than
Stanley's manner. His fault is on that side. A little hesitation at
the beginning of a speech is graceful; and many eminent speakers have
practised it, merely in order to give the appearance of unpremeditated
reply to prepared speeches; but Stanley speaks like a man who never knew
what fear, or even modesty, was. Tierney, it is remarkable, who was
the most ready and fluent debater almost ever known, made a confession
similar to Stanley's. He never spoke, he said, without feeling his knees
knock together when he rose.

My opinion of Lord Althorp is extremely high. In fact, his character is
the only stay of the Ministry. I doubt whether any person has ever lived
in England who, with no eloquence, no brilliant talents, no profound
information, with nothing in short but plain good sense and an excelle