in a letter
from Lamb to Talfourd, which the latter showed to Buckle, but had
considered among the things too personal to be published. Wordsworth
was decrying Shakspeare. "Pooh!" he said, "it is all very easy: I could
write like Shakspeare myself, if I had a mind to!" "Precisely so,"
rejoined Lamb,--"_if you had a mind to_."

Mr. Buckle does not think much of the ancient Egyptian civilization,
differing in this respect _toto caelo_ from Hekekyan Bey, who finds
in the monuments proofs of the existence of an expansive popular
government. Buckle declares that the machines, as figured in the
hieroglyphics, are of the most primitive kind,--and that the learning,
by all accounts, was confined to the priests, and covered a very narrow
range, exhibiting no traces of acquaintance with the higher useful arts.
He says it is a fallacy to suppose that savages are bodily superior to
civilized men. Captain Cook found that his sailors could outwork the
islanders. I remarked, in confirmation, that our Harvard boat-clubs
won the prizes in rowing-matches against all comers. Buckle seemed
interested, and asked for a more particular account, which, of course, I
took great pleasure in giving. C., like a true Englishman, doubted
the general fact, and said the Thames watermen out-rowed their
university-clubs.

For Turkish civilization Mr. Buckle has not the slightest respect,--said
he could write the whole of it on the back of his hand; and here
Hekekyan Bey cordially agreed with him. Buckle is very fond of chess,
and can play two games at once blindfold. He inquired very particularly
about a native here who it is said can play four or six in this manner,
and said he should like to try a game with him. He had seen Paulsen, but
not Morphy.

Mr. Thayer asked him if in England he had been subjected to personal
hostility for his opinions, or to anything like social ostracism. He
said, generally not. A letter from a clergyman to an acquaintance in
England, expressing intense antipathy to him, although he had never seen
the writer, was the only evidence of this kind of opposition. "In fact,"
said he, naively, "the people of England have such an admiration of any
kind of _intellectual splendor_ that they will forgive for its sake the
most objectionable doctrines." He told us that the portion of his book
which relates to Spain, although by no means complimentary to that
country, has been translated and published separately there. T. remarked
that