Still chilly and unpleasant. My customary duty of writing draughts of Despatches which kept me busy most of the day. The news from America not quite satisfactory, and a tendency visible639 in Parliament to show spite whenever a chance offers. I had a pleasant visit from Professor Goldwin Smith who has done us much service in writing strongly and clearly several times in the course of our troubles. He is one of a number who have of late made the University noted for a liberal and reforming spirit that bids fair to bring round great changes of opinion both in church and State. It is impossible, in spite of the present moment of apparent reaction not to see the steady growth and progress of republican opinions in both. This threatens the integrity of the Church, first of all in this respect resembling the movement of opinion on the slave question in America. Walk. Dinner at home, but in the evening with my daughter and Henry to a reception to a reception at Lady Stanley’s of Alderley. Much talk of a burlesque of the conference which appeared in the morning Post as taken from the Owl, an unknown Journal. It was very droll, and in style become very unusual here. Hayward says the thing is a bubble, and very quietly assumes the Danish nation substantially wiped out as a political element. Such is the Epicurean philosophy of Lord Palmerston!