Lively, well-bred, and unaffected, Lord Palmerston is a man that is so well acquainted with the routine of official duties, performs them so readily and pleasantly, and is so free from the assumption of self-importance that too frequently appertains to adepts in them, that, whether Whig or Tory government has the ascendant in England, his services will be always considered a desideratum to be secured if possible.

Lord Castlereagh, Mr. Cutlar Fergusson, and Count Valeski dined here yesterday.  Lord C. has just arrived from England, and is a good specimen of the young men of the present day.  He reminds me of his uncle, the late Marquess of Londonderry, one of the most amiable and well-bred men I ever knew.  Lord C——­ is very animated and piquant in conversation, thinks for himself, and says what he thinks with a frankness not often met with in our times.  Yet there is no brusquerie in his manners; au contraire, they are soft and very pleasing; and this contrast between the originality and fearlessness of his opinions, and the perfect good-breeding with which they are expressed, lend a peculiar attraction to his manner.  If Lord C——­ were not a man of fashion he would become something vastly better, for he has much of the chivalrous spirit of his father and the tact of his uncle.  Fashion is the gulf in whose vortex so many fine natures are wrecked in England; what a pity it is that they cannot be rescued from its dangers!

Mr. Cutlar Fergusson is a clever and amiable man, mild, well-informed, and agreeable.

The Baron and Baroness de Ruysch spent yesterday with us.  They are an estimable couple, and very pleasant withal.  His philosophy, which has nothing of the ascetic in it, harmonises very well with her vivacity, and her sprightliness never degenerates into levity.  It is the gaiety of a mind at ease, pleased with others, and content with self.  How unlike the exuberant spirits of ——­, which always depress mine more than a day’s tete-a-tete with the moodiest hypochondriac could do!

Nothing can be more dreary and cheerless than the weather; and a second winter’s residence at Paris has convinced me that London is infinitely preferable at this season, except to those who consider gaiety an equivalent for comfort.  The negligence and bad management of the persons whose duty it is to remove the snow or mud from the streets, render them not only nearly impassable for pedestrians but exceedingly disagreeable to those who have carriages.

Previously to the heavy fall of snow that occurred a week ago, and which still encumbers the streets, a succession of wet days occasioned an accumulation of mud that gave forth most unsavoury odours, and lent a damp chilliness to the atmosphere which sent home to their sick chambers, assailed by sore throats and all the other miseries peculiar to colds, many of those who were so imprudent as to venture abroad.  The snow, instead of being swept away, is piled up on each side of the streets, forming a wall that increases the gloom and chilliness that reigns around.  The fogs, too, rise from the Seine, and hover over the Champs-Elysees and streets adjacent to it, rendering a passage through them a service of danger.