if somewhat out of place in the company of
such productions as "The Mysterious Stranger, or the Bravo of Banff;"
"Away to the Greenwood, a song;" and "Lines on a Window that had been
frozen," beginning with,

"Pellucid pane, this morn on thee
My fancy shaped both tower and tree."

To Hannah and Margaret Macaulay

Bath: June 10, 1832.

My dear Sisters,--Everything has gone wrong with me. The people at Calne
fixed Wednesday for my re-election on taking office; the very day on
which I was to have been at a public dinner at Leeds. I shall therefore
remain here till Wednesday morning, and read Indian politics in quiet. I
am already deep in Zemindars, Ryots, Polygars, Courts of Phoujdary, and
Courts of Nizamut Adawlut. I can tell you which of the native Powers are
subsidiary, and which independent, and read you lectures of an hour on
our diplomatic transactions at the courts of Lucknow, Nagpore, Hydrabad,
and Poonah. At Poonah, indeed, I need not tell you that there is no
court; for the Paishwa, as you are doubtless aware, was deposed by Lord
Hastings in the Pindarree War. Am I not in fair training to be as great
a bore as if I had myself been in India?--that is to say, as great a
bore as the greatest.

I am leading my watering-place life here; reading, writing, and walking
all day; speaking to nobody but the waiter and the chambermaid; solitary
in a great crowd, and content with solitude. I shall be in London again
on Thursday, and shall also be an M. P. From that day you may send your
letters as freely as ever; and pray do not be sparing of them. Do you
read any novels at Liverpool? I should fear that the good Quakers would
twitch them out of your hands, and appoint their portion in the fire.
Yet probably you have some safe place, some box, some drawer with a key,
wherein a marble-covered book may lie for Nancy's Sunday reading. And,
if you do not read novels, what do you read? How does Schiller go on? I
have sadly neglected Calderon; but, whenever I have a month to spare, I
shall carry my conquests far and deep into Spanish literature.

Ever yours

T. B. M.

To Hannah and Margaret Macaulay.

London: July 2, 1832.

My dear Sisters,--I am, I think, a better correspondent than you two put
together. I will venture to say that I have written more letters, by a
good many, than I have received, and this with India and the Edinburgh
Review on my hands; the Life of Mirabeau to be criticised; the Rajah of
Travancore