He has this morning received your Majesty's letter of the 10th inst., and is glad to infer from it that your Majesty and the Prince are both well and in good spirits.
With respect to the Oxford affair, your Majesty is aware that for a long time a serious difference has been fermenting and showing itself in the Church of England, one party leaning back towards Popery, and the other either wishing to keep doctrines as they are, or, perhaps, to approach somewhat nearer to the dissenting Churches.

This difference has particularly manifested itself in a publication, now discontinued, but which has been long going on at Oxford, entitled _Tracts for the Times_, and generally called the Oxford Tracts.

The Professorship of Poetry is now vacant at Oxford, and two candidates have been put forward, the one Mr Williams, who is the author of one or two of the most questionable of the Oxford Tracts, and the other Mr Garbett, who is a representative of the opposite party.

Of course the result of this election, which is made by the Masters of Arts of the University, is looked to with much interest and anxiety, as likely to afford no unequivocal sign of which is the strongest party in the University and amongst the clergy generally.

It is expected that Mr Garbett will be chosen by a large majority....
[Pageheading: THE MORNING CHRONICLE] _Viscount Melbourne to Queen Victoria._ SOUTH STREET, _17th January 1842._ Lord Melbourne presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and begs to acknowledge your Majesty's letter of the 15th, which he has received here this morning.
Lord Melbourne does not think this Puseyite difference in the Church so serious or dangerous as others do.