told them that it was mine. Do you remember it? It is in some lines
called the Political Georgics, which I sent to the Times about three
years ago. They made me repeat the lines, and were vociferous in praise
of them. Tom Moore then said, oddly enough:

"There is another poem in the Times that I should like to know
the author of;--A Parson's Account of his Journey to the Cambridge
Election." I laid claim to that also. "That is curious," said Moore. "I
begged Barnes to tell me who wrote it. He said that he had received it
from Cambridge, and touched it up himself, and pretended that all the
best strokes were his. I believed that he was lying, because I never
knew him to make a good joke in his life. And now the murder is out."
They asked me whether I had put anything else in the Times. Nothing, I
said, except the Sortes Virgilianae, which Lord John remembered well.
I never mentioned the Cambridge Journey, or the Georgics, to any but
my own family; and I was therefore, as you may conceive, not a little
flattered to hear in one day Moore praising one of them, and Campbell
praising the other.

I find that my article on Byron is very popular; one among a thousand
proofs of the bad taste of the public. I am to review Croker's edition
of Bozzy. It is wretchedly ill done. The notes are poorly written, and
shamefully inaccurate. There is, however, much curious information in
it. The whole of the Tour to the Hebrides is incorporated with the Life.
So are most of Mrs. Thrale's anecdotes, and much of Sir John Hawkins's
lumbering book. The whole makes five large volumes. There is a most
laughable sketch of Bozzy, taken by Sir T. Lawrence when young. I never
saw a character so thoroughly hit off. I intend the book for you, when I
have finished my criticism on it. You are, next to myself, the best read
Boswellite that I know. The lady whom Johnson abused for flattering
him [See Boswell's Life of Johnson, April 15, 1778.] was certainly,
according to Croker, Hannah More. Another ill-natured sentence about
a Bath lady ["He would not allow me to praise a lady then at Bath;
observing, 'She does not gain upon me, sir; I think her empty-headed.'"]
whom Johnson called "empty-headed" is also applied to your godmother.

Ever yours

T. B. M.

To Hannah M. Macaulay.

London: July 6, 1835.

My dear Sister,--I have been so busy during the last two or three days
that I have found no time to write to you. I have now good news for you.
I spok