has
suffered a good deal, and is kept right only by occasional trips in a
steamer down to the mouth of the Hooghly. I had a smart touch of fever,
which happily stayed but an hour or two, and I took such vigorous
measures that it never came again; but I remained unnerved and exhausted
for nearly a fortnight. This was my first, and I hope my last, taste of
Indian maladies. It is a happy thing for us all that we are not to pass
another year in the reek of this deadly marsh." Macaulay wisely declined
to set the hope of making another lac of rupees against the risk, to
himself and others of such a fate as subsequently befell Lord Canning
and Mr. James Wilson. He put the finishing stroke to his various
labours; resigned his seat in the Council, and his Presidentships of the
Law Commission and the Committee of Public Instruction; and, in company
with the Trevelyans, sailed for England in the first fortnight of the
year 1838.

To Mr Thomas Flower Ellis.

Calcutta: December 16, 1834.

Dear Ellis,--Many thanks for your letter. It is delightful in this
strange land to see the handwriting of such a friend. We must keep up
our spirits. We shall meet, I trust, in little more than four years,
with feelings of regard only strengthened by our separation. My spirits
are not bad; and they ought not to be bad. I have health; affluence;
consideration; great power to do good; functions which, while they are
honourable and useful, are not painfully burdensome; leisure for study;
good books; an unclouded and active mind; warm affections; and a very
dear sister. There will soon be a change in my domestic arrangements. My
sister is to be married next week. Her lover, who is lover enough to
be a knight of the Round Table, is one of the most distinguished of our
young Civilians.

I have the very highest opinion of his talents both for action and for
discussion. Indeed, I should call him a man of real genius. He is also,
what is even more important, a man of the utmost purity of honour, of
a sweet temper, and of strong principle. His public virtue has gone
through very severe trials, and has come out resplendent. Lord William,
in congratulating me the other day, said that he thought my destined
brother-in-law the ablest young man in the service. His name is
Trevelyan. He is a nephew of Sir John Trevelyan, a baronet; in Cornwall
I suppose, by the name; for I never took the trouble to ask.

He and my sister will live with me during my stay her