anach des Gourmands. What
a mistake! His lordship is luxurious, indeed, but in quite a different
way. He is a true Englishman. Not a dish on his table but what Sir Roger
de Coverley, or Sir Hugh Tyrold, [The uncle of Miss Burney's Camilla.]
might have set before his guests. A huge haunch of venison on the
sideboard; a magnificent piece of beef at the bottom of the table;
and before my Lord himself smoked, not a dindon aux truffes, but a fat
roasted goose stuffed with sage and onions. I was disappointed, but
very agreeably; for my tastes are, I fear, incurably vulgar, as you may
perceive by my fondness for Mrs. Meeke's novels.

Our party consisted of Sharp; Lubbock; Watson, M.P. for Canterbury; and
Rich, the author of "What will the Lords do?" who wishes to be M. P.
for Knaresborough. Rogers was to have been of the party; but his brother
chose that very day to die upon, so that poor Sam had to absent himself.
The Chancellor was also invited, but he had scampered off to pass his
Christmas with his old mother in Westmoreland. We had some good talk,
particularly about Junius's Letters. I learned some new facts which I
will tell you when we meet. I am more and more inclined to believe that
Francis was one of the people principally concerned.

Ever yours

T.B. M.

On the 29th of January, 1833, commenced the first Session of the
Reformed Parliament. The main incidents of that Session, so fruitful in
great measures of public utility, belong to general history; if indeed
Clio herself is not fated to succumb beneath the stupendous undertaking
of turning Hansard into a narrative imbued with human interest.
O'Connell,--criticising the King's speech at vast length, and passing in
turns through every mood from the most exquisite pathos to downright and
undisguised ferocity,--at once plunged the House into a discussion on
Ireland, which alternately blazed and smouldered through four livelong
nights. Shed and Grattan spoke finely; Peel and Stanley admirably;
Bulwer made the first of his successes, and Cobbett the second of
his failures; but the longest and the loudest cheers were those which
greeted each of the glowing periods in which Macaulay, as the champion
of the Whig party, met the great agitator face to face with high, but
not intemperate, defiance.["We are called base, and brutal, and bloody.
Such are the epithets which the honourable and learned member for Dublin
thinks it becoming to pour forth against the party to which