er
dinner, having a decided inclination for solitude in the morning and
society in the evening. I used, however, to look in during the
course of the day, upon whatever circle might be gathered in the
drawing or morning rooms, for a few minutes at a time, and remember,
on this occasion of my meeting Macaulay at Bowood, my amazement at
finding him always in the same position on the hearth-rug, always
talking, always answering everybody's questions about everything,
always pouring forth eloquent knowledge; and I used to listen to him
till I was breathless with what I thought ought to have been _his_
exhaustion.

As one approached the room, the loud, even, declamatory sound of his
voice made itself heard like the uninterrupted flow of a fountain.
He stood there from morning till evening, like a knight in the
lists, challenging and accepting the challenge of all comers. There
never was such a speech-"power," and as the volume of his voice was
full and sonorous, he had immense advantages in sound as well as
sense over his adversaries. Sydney Smith's humorous and good-humored
rage at his prolific talk was very funny. Rogers's, of course, was
not good-humored; and on this very occasion, one day at breakfast,
having two or three times uplifted his thread of voice and fine
incisive speech against the torrent of Macaulay's holding forth,
Lord Lansdowne, the most courteous of hosts, endeavored to make way
for him with a "You were saying, Mr. Rogers?" when Rogers hissed
out, "Oh, what I was saying will keep!"

I have spoken of Macaulay's discourse as a torrent; it was rather
like the smooth and copious stream of the Aqua Paola, a comparison
which it constantly suggested to me; the resonant, ceaseless, noble
volume of water, the great fountain perpetually poured forth, was
like the sonorous sound and affluent flow of his abundant speech,
and the wide, eventful Roman plain, with all its thronging memories
of past centuries, seen from the Janiculum, was like the vast and
varied horizon of his knowledge, forever swept by his prodigious
memory.]

HARLEY STREET, Wednesday, December 29th, 1841.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,

Just imagine my ecstasy in answering your last letter, dated the 24th! I
actually _do up_ the whole of that everlasting bundle of letters, which
is a sort of waking