sed to do. I was enraptured with
Ariosto; and I still think of Dante, as I thought when I first read him,
that he is a superior poet to Milton, that he runs neck and neck with
Homer, and that none but Shakespeare has gone decidedly beyond him.

As soon as I reach Calcutta I intend to read Herodotus again. By the
bye, why do not you translate him? You would do it excellently; and
a translation of Herodotus, well executed, would rank with original
compositions. A quarter of an hour a day would finish the work in five
years. The notes might be made the most amusing in the world. I wish you
would think of it. At all events, I hope you will do something which may
interest more than seven or eight people. Your talents are too great,
and your leisure time too small, to be wasted in inquiries so frivolous,
(I must call them,) as those in which you have of late been too much
engaged; whether the Cherokees are of the same race with the Chickasaws;
whether Van Diemen's Land was peopled from New Holland, or New Holland
from Van Diemen's land; what is the precise anode of appointing a
headman in a village in Timbuctoo. I would not give the worst page in
Clarendon or Fra Paolo for all that ever was, or ever will be, written
about the migrations of the Leleges and the laws of the Oscans.

I have already entered on my public functions, and I hope to do some
good. The very wigs of the judges in the Court of King's Bench would
stand on end if they knew how short a chapter my Law of Evidence will
form. I am not without many advisers. A native of some fortune in Madras
has sent me a paper on legislation. "Your honour must know," says this
judicious person, "that the great evil is that men swear falsely in this
country. No judge knows what to believe. Surely if your honour can make
men to swear truly, your honour's fame will be great, and the Company
will flourish. Now, I know how men may be made to swear truly; and I
will tell your honour for your fame, and for the profit of the Company.
Let your honour cut off the great toe of the right foot of every man
who swears falsely, whereby your honour's fame will be extended." Is not
this an exquisite specimen of legislative wisdom?

I must stop. When I begin to write to England, my pen runs as if it
would run on for ever.

Ever yours affectionately

T. B. M.

To Miss Fanny and Miss Selina Macaulay.

Ootacamund: August 10, 1834.

My dear Sisters,--I sent last month a full account of my j