lity. But, for all this, I would much rather
be quietly walking with you; and the great use of going to these fine
places is to learn how happy it is possible to be without them. Indeed,
I care so little for them that I certainly should not have gone to-day,
but that I thought that I should be able to find materials for a letter
which you might like.

Farewell.

T. B. MACAULAY.

To Hannah M. Macaulay.

London: June 3, 1831.

My dear Sister,--I cannot tell you how delighted I am to find that my
letters amuse you. But sometimes I must be dull like my neighbours.
I paid no visits yesterday, and have no news to relate to-day. I am
sitting again in Basinghall Street and Basil Montagu is haranguing about
Lord Verulam, and the way of inoculating one's mind with truth; and
all this a propos of a lying bankrupt's balance-sheet. ["Those who are
acquainted with the Courts in which Mr. Montagu practises with so much
ability and success, will know how often he enlivens the discussion of
a point of law by citing some weighty aphorism, or some brilliant
illustration, from the De Augmentis or the Novum Organum."--Macaulay's
Review of Basil Montagu's Edition of Bacon.]

Send me some gossip, my love. Tell me how you go on with German. What
novel have you commenced? Or, rather, how many dozen have you finished?
Recommend me one. What say you to "Destiny"? Is the "Young Duke" worth
reading? and what do you think of "Laurie Todd"?

I am writing about Lord Byron so pathetically that I make Margaret cry,
but so slowly that I am afraid I shall make Napier wait. Rogers, like
a civil gentleman, told me last week to write no more reviews, and to
publish separate works; adding, what for him is a very rare thing,
a compliment: "You may do anything, Mr. Macaulay." See how vain and
insincere human nature is! I have been put into so good a temper with
Rogers that I have paid him, what is as rare with me as with him, a very
handsome compliment in my review. ["Well do we remember to have heard a
most correct judge of poetry revile Mr. Rogers for the incorrectness of
that most sweet and graceful passage:--

'Such grief was ours,--it seems but yesterday,--
When in thy prime, wishing so much to stay,
Twas thine, Maria, thine without a sigh
At midnight in a sister's arms to die,
Oh! thou wast lovely; lovely was thy frame,
And pure thy spirit as from heaven it came;
And, when recalled to join the blest above,
Thou diedst a victim