o better than the Trachiniae,--and
if, on the other hand, only seven pieces of Euripides had come down to
us, and if those seven had been the Medea, the Bacchae, the Iphigenia in
Aulis, the Orestes, the Phoenissae, the Hippolytus, and the Alcestis, I
am not sure that the relative position which the two poets now hold in
our estimation would not be greatly altered.

I have not done much in Latin. I have been employed in turning over
several third-rate and fourth-rate writers. After finishing Cicero, I
read through the works of both the Senecas, father and son. There is
a great deal in the Controversiae both of curious information, and of
judicious criticism. As to the son, I cannot bear him. His style affects
me in something the same way with that of Gibbon. But Lucius Seneca's
affectation is even more rank than Gibbon's. His works are made up of
mottoes. There is hardly a sentence which might not be quoted; but to
read him straightforward is like dining on nothing but anchovy sauce.
I have read, as one does read such stuff, Valerius Maximus, Annaeus
Florus, Lucius Ampelius, and Aurelius Victor. I have also gone through
Phaedrus. I am now better employed. I am deep in the Annals of Tacitus,
and I am at the same time reading Suetonius.

You are so rich in domestic comforts that I am inclined to envy you. I
am not, however, without my share. I am as fond of my little niece
as her father. I pass an hour or more every day in nursing her, and
teaching her to talk. She has got as far as Ba, Pa, and Ma; which, as
she is not eight months old, we consider as proofs of a genius little
inferior to that of Shakespeare or Sir Isaac Newton.

The municipal elections have put me in good spirits as to English
politics. I was rather inclined to despondency.

Ever yours affectionately

T. B. MACAULAY.

Calcutta: July 25, 1836.

My dear Ellis,--I have heard from you again, and glad I always am to
hear from you. There are few things to which I look forward with more
pleasure than to our meeting. It is really worth while to go into
banishment for a few years for the pleasure of going home again. Yet
that home will in some things be a different home--oh how different a
home!--from that to which I expected to return. But I will not stir up
the bitterness of sorrow which has at last subsided.

You take interest, I see, in my Greek and Latin studies. I continue to
pursue them steadily and actively. I am now reading Demosthenes with
inte