am not without anxiety as to the
result; yet I believe that Lord Grey understands the position in which
he is placed, and, as for the King, he will not forget his last blunder,
I will answer for it, even if he should live to the age of his father.
[This "last blunder" was the refusal of the King to stand by his
Ministers in May 1832. Macaulay proved a bad prophet; for, after an
interval of only three years, William the Fourth repeated his blunder in
an aggravated form.]

But why plague ourselves about politics when we have so much pleasanter
things to talk of? The Parson's Daughter; don't you like the Parson's
Daughter? What a wretch Harbottle was! And Lady Frances, what a sad
worldly woman! But Mrs. Harbottle, dear suffering angel! and Emma Level,
all excellence! Dr. Mac Gopus you doubtless like; but you probably do
not admire the Duchess and Lady Catherine. There is a regular cone over
a novel for you! But, if you will have my opinion, I think it Theodore
Book's worst performance; far inferior to the Surgeon's Daughter; a set
of fools making themselves miserable by their own nonsensical fancies
and suspicions. Let me hear your opinion, for I will be sworn that,

In spite of all the serious world,
Of all the thumbs that ever twirled,
Of every broadbrim-shaded brow,
Of every tongue that e'er said "thou,"
You still read books in marble covers
About smart girls and dapper lovers.

But what folly I have been scrawling! I must go to work.

I cannot all day
Be neglecting Madras
And slighting Bombay
For the sake of a lass.

Kindest love to Edward, and to the woman who owns him.

Ever yours

T. B. M.

London: June 17, 1833.

Dear Hannah,--All is still anxiety here. Whether the House of Lords will
throw out the Irish Church Bill, whether the King will consent to create
new Peers, whether the Tories will venture to form a Ministry, are
matters about which we are all in complete doubt. If the Ministry should
really be changed, Parliament will, I feel quite sure, be dissolved.
Whether I shall have a seat in the next Parliament I neither know nor
care. I shall regret nothing for myself but our Scotch tour. For the
public I shall, if this Parliament is dissolved, entertain scarcely any
hopes. I see nothing before us but a frantic conflict between extreme
opinions; a short period of oppression; then a convulsive reaction; and
then a tremendous crash of the Funds, the Church, the Peerage, and the
Throne. It