re probably would be if he was less abundantly stored with the
riches of the minds of others. We had yesterday a party well
composed for talk, for there were listeners of intelligence and a
good specimen of the sort of society of this house--Macaulay,
Melbourne, Morpeth, Duncannon, Baron Rolfe, Allen and Lady
Holland, and John Russell came in the evening. I wish that a
shorthand writer could have been there to take down all the
conversation, or that I could have carried it away in my head;
because it was curious in itself, and curiously illustrative of
the characters of the performers. Before dinner some mention was
made of the portraits of the Speakers in the Speaker's House, and
I asked how far they went back. Macaulay said he was not sure,
but certainly as far as Sir Thomas More. 'Sir Thomas More,' said
Lady Holland, 'I did not know he had been Speaker.' 'Oh, yes,'
said Macaulay, 'don't you remember when Cardinal Wolsey came down
to the House of Commons and More was in the chair?' and then he
told the whole of that well-known transaction, and all More had
said. At dinner, amongst a variety of persons and subjects,
principally ecclesiastical, which were discussed--for Melbourne
loves all sorts of theological talk--we got upon India and Indian
men of eminence, proceeding from Gleig's 'Life of Warren
Hastings,' which Macaulay said was the worst book that ever was
written; and then the name of Sir Thomas Munro came uppermost.
Lady Holland did not know why Sir Thomas Munro was so
distinguished; when Macaulay explained all that he had ever said,
done, written, or thought, and vindicated his claim to the title
of a great man, till Lady Holland got bored with Sir Thomas, told
Macaulay she had had enough of him, and would have no more. This
would have dashed and silenced an ordinary talker, but to
Macaulay it was no more than replacing a book on its shelf, and
he was as ready as ever to open on any other topic. It would be
impossible to follow and describe the various mazes of
conversation, all of which he threaded with an ease that was
always astonishing and instructive, and generally interesting and
amusing. When we went upstairs we got upon the Fathers of the
Church. Allen asked Macaulay if he had read much of the Fathers.
He said, not a great deal. He had read Chrysostom when he was in
India; that is, he had turned over the leaves and for a few
months had read him for two or three hours every morning before
breakfast; a