all round us. Insects
and undertakers are the only living creatures which seem to enjoy the
climate. But, though our atmosphere is hot, our factions are lukewarm. A
bad epigram in a newspaper, or a public meeting attended by a tailor,
a pastry-cook, a reporter, two or three barristers, and eight or ten
attorneys, are our most formidable annoyances. We have agitators in
our own small way, Tritons of the minnows, bearing the same sort of
resemblance to O'Connell that a lizard bears to an alligator. Therefore
Calcutta for me, in preference to Dublin."

He had good reason for being grateful to Calcutta, and still better for
not showing his gratitude by prolonging his stay there over a fourth
summer and autumn. "That tremendous crash of the great commercial houses
which took place a few years ago has produced a revolution in fashions.
It ruined one half of the English society in Bengal, and seriously
injured the other half. A large proportion of the most important
functionaries here are deeply in debt, and accordingly, the mode of
living is now exceedingly quiet and modest. Those immense subscriptions,
those public tables, those costly equipages and entertainments of which
Heber, and others who saw Calcutta a few years back, say so much,
are never heard of. Speaking for myself, it was a great piece of good
fortune that I came hither just at the time when the general distress
had forced everybody to adopt a moderate way of living. Owing very much
to that circumstance, (while keeping house, I think, more handsomely
than any other member of Council,) I have saved what will enable me
to do my part towards making my family comfortable; and I shall have a
competency for myself, small indeed, but quite sufficient to render
me as perfectly independent as if I were the possessor of Burleigh or
Chatsworth." [Macaulay writes to Lord Mahon on the last day of December
1836: "In another year I hope to leave this country, with a fortune
which you would think ridiculously small, but which will make me as
independent as if I had all that Lord Westminster has above the ground,
and Lord Durham below it. I have no intention of again taking part in
politics; but I cannot tell what effect the sight of the old Hall and
Abbey may produce on me."]

"The rainy season of 1837 has been exceedingly unhealthy. Our house has
escaped as well as any; yet Hannah is the only one of us who has come
off untouched. The baby has been repeatedly unwell. Trevelyan