of a blind partiality, but of a thoroughly well-grounded and
discriminating esteem.

Not long ago Trevelyan was appointed by him to the Under Secretaryship
for foreign affairs, an office of a very important and confidential
nature. While holding the place he was commissioned to report to
Government on the operation of the Internal Transit duties of India.
About a year ago his Report was completed. I shall send to England a
copy or two of it by the first safe conveyance; for nothing that I
can say of his abilities, or of his public spirit, will be half so
satisfactory. I have no hesitation in affirming that it is a perfect
masterpiece in its kind. Accustomed as I have been to public affairs, I
never read an abler State paper; and I do not believe that there is, I
will not say in India, but in England, another man of twenty-seven who
could have written it. Trevelyan is a most stormy reformer. Lord William
said to me, before anyone had observed Trevelyan's attentions to Nancy:
"That man is almost always on the right side in every question; and it
is well that he is so, for he gives a most confounded deal of trouble
when he happens to take the wrong one." [Macaulay used to apply to his
future brother-in-law the remark which Julius Caesar made with regard
to his young friend Brutus: "Magni refert hic quid velit; sed quidquid
volet, valde volet."] He is quite at the head of that active party among
the younger servants of the Company who take the side of improvement. In
particular, he is the soul of every scheme for diffusing education among
the natives of this country. His reading has been very confined; but to
the little that he has read he has brought a mind as active and restless
as Lord Brougham's, and much more judicious and honest.

As to his person, he always looks like a gentleman, particularly on
horseback. He is very active and athletic, and is renowned as a great
master in the most exciting and perilous of field sports, the spearing
of wild boars. His face has a most characteristic expression of ardour
and impetuosity, which makes his countenance very interesting to me.
Birth is a thing that I care nothing about; but his family is one of the
oldest and best in England.

During the important years of his life, from twenty to twenty-five,
or thereabouts, Trevelyan was in a remote province of India, where his
whole time was divided between public business and field sports, and
where he seldom saw a European gentlema