May 28th.—Gladstone dined at The Club. Six present; interesting.
June 3rd.—Excursion to Greenwich to see the telegraph works. Great dinner at the Ship afterwards.
8th.—All to Norwich, to stay with Dean Goulburn at the Deanery. I had scarcely been there for fifty years. Dr. Jessop, Canon Heaviside, and Canon Robinson to dinner—very pleasant.
9th.—Communion in Norwich Cathedral. 10th, drove to Costessy (Lord Stafford's); 11th, to Spixworth; 12th, to Ely, on a visit to Dean Merivale; 13th, to Peterborough; 14th, back to town.
June.—Very hot weather. 26th, dinner of the Antiquaries at Lord Carnarvon's.
July 5th.—Lady Northcote's garden party. Helen Blackett there, looking ill. I never saw her again. [Footnote: See post. p. 265.]
July 13th.—To Foxholes. Gout prevented me from going to Paris, where the exhibition was going on, and to La Celle.
To Mr. T. Longman
Foxholes, July 15th.—I send just a line to say that no part of the article on 'The Constitution and the Crown' is written by me. I thought it due to the writer to leave it untouched, and I don't think it is too severe.
The article in the 'Quarterly' was certainly not written by Dr. Smith, and I have reason to know that he is a good deal ashamed of it. Nobody seems to know who wrote it. I do not expect they will reply upon us; but nothing is more beneficial to the two Reviews than a little controversy, especially when serious principles are concerned. This question is precisely the crux or test of Whig and Tory principles; it is the old fight of parliamentary power against prerogative. There has not been in England, for a hundred years, a minister so indifferent to Parliament and so subservient to the Court as Lord Beaconsfield.