to be kept in order; and the bad money, which the Emperor
of the Burmese has had the impudence to send us byway of tribute, to be
exchanged for better. You have nothing to do but to be good, and write.
Make no excuses, for your excuses are contradictory. If you see sights,
describe them; for then you have subjects. If you stay at home, write;
for then you have time. Remember that I never saw the cemetery or the
railroad. Be particular, above all, in your accounts of the Quakers.
I enjoin this especially on Nancy; for from Meg I have no hope of
extracting a word of truth.

I dined yesterday at Holland House; all Lords except myself. Lord
Radnor, Lord Poltimore, Lord King, Lord Russell, and his uncle Lord
John. Lady Holland was very gracious, praised my article on Burleigh to
the skies, and told me, among other things, that she had talked on the
preceding day for two hours with Charles Grant upon religion, and had
found him very liberal and tolerant. It was, I suppose, the cholera
which sent her Ladyship to the only saint in the Ministry for ghostly
counsel. Poor Macdonald's case was most undoubtedly cholera. It is
said that Lord Amesbury also died of cholera, though no very strange
explanation seems necessary to account for the death of a man of
eighty-four. Yesterday it was rumoured that the three Miss Molyneuxes,
of whom by the way there are only two, were all dead in the same way;
that the Bishop of Worcester and Lord Barham were no more; and many
other foolish stories. I do not believe there is the slightest ground
for uneasiness; though Lady Holland apparently considers the case so
serious that she has taken her conscience out of Allen's keeping, and
put it into the hands of Charles Grant.

Here I end my letter; a great deal too long already for so busy a man to
write, and for such careless correspondents to receive.

T. B. M.

To Hannah and Margaret Macaulay.

London: July 6, 1832.

Be you Foxes, be you Pitts,
You must write to silly chits.
Be you Tories, be you Whigs,
You must write to sad young gigs.
On whatever board you are--
Treasury, Admiralty, War,
Customs, Stamps, Excise, Control;--
Write you must, upon my soul.

So sings the judicious poet; and here I sit in my parlour, looking
out on the Thames, and divided, like Garrick in Sir Joshua's picture,
between Tragedy and Comedy; a letter to you, and a bundle of papers
about Hydrabad, and the firm of Palmer and Co., late bankers to the
Niza