Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, vol 1 - George Otto Trevelyan (which ebook reader txt) 📗

my leave, much amused and pleased. The house certainly deserves its reputation for pleasantness, and her ladyship used me, I believe, as well as it is her way to use anybody.

Ever yours

T. B. M.

To Hannah M. Macaulay.

Court of Commissioners,

Basinghall Street: May 31, 1831.

My dear Sister,—How delighted I am that you like my letters, and how obliged by yours! But I have little more than my thanks to give for your last. I have nothing to tell about great people to-day. I heard no fine music yesterday, saw nobody above the rank of a baronet, and was shut up in my own room reading and writing all the morning. This day seems likely to pass in much the same way, except that I have some bankruptcy business to do, and a couple of sovereigns to receive. So here I am, with three of the ugliest attorneys that ever deserved to be transported sitting opposite to me; a disconsolate-looking bankrupt, his hands in his empty pockets, standing behind; a lady scolding for her money, and refusing to be comforted because it is not; and a surly butcher-like looking creditor, growling like a house-dog, and saying, as plain as looks can say “If I sign your certificate, blow me, that’s all.”

Among these fair and interesting forms, on a piece of official paper, with a pen and with ink found at the expense of the public, am I writing to Nancy.

These dirty courts, filled with Jew money-lenders, sheriffs’

officers, attorneys’ runners, and a crowd of people who live by giving sham bail and taking false oaths, are not by any means such good subjects for a lady’s correspondent as the Sculpture Gallery at Lansdowne House, or the conservatory at Holland House, or the notes of Pasta, or the talk of Rogers. But we cannot be always fine. When my Richardsonian epistles are published, there must be dull as well as amusing letters among them; and this letter is, I think, as good as those sermons of Sir Charles to Geronymo which Miss Byron hypocritically asked for, or as the greater part of that stupid last volume.

We shall soon have more attractive matter. I shall walk out to breakfast at Holland House; and I am to dine with Sir George Philips, and with his son the member for Steyning, who have the best of company; and I am going to the fancy ball of the Jew. He met me in the street, and implored me to come. “You need not dress more than for an evening party. You had better come. You will be delighted. It will be so very pretty.” I thought of Dr.

Johnson and the herdsman with his “See, such pretty goats.” [See Boswell’s Tour to the Hebrides, Sept. 1 1773. “The Doctor was prevailed with to mount one of Vass’s grays. As he rode upon it downhill, it did not go well, and he grumbled. I walked on a little before, but was excessively entertained with the method taken to keep him in good humour. Hay led the horse’s head, talking to Dr. Johnson as much as he could and, (having heard him, in the forenoon, express a pastoral pleasure on seeing the goats browsing,) just when the Doctor was uttering his displeasure, the fellow cried, with a very Highland accent, ‘See, such pretty goats!’ Then he whistled whu! and made them jump.”]

However, I told my honest Hebrew that I would come. I may perhaps, like the Benjamites, steal away some Israelite damsel in the middle of her dancing.

But the noise all round me is becoming louder, and a baker in a white coat is bellowing for the book to prove a debt of nine pounds fourteen shillings and fourpence. So I must finish my letter and fall to business.

Ever yours

T. B. M.

To Hannah M. Macaulay.

London June 1, 1831.

My dear Sister,—My last letter was a dull one. I mean this to be very amusing. My last was about Basinghall Street, attorneys, and bankrupts. But for this,—take it dramatically in the German style.

Fine morning. Scene, the great entrance of Holland House.

Enter MACAULAY and Two FOOTMEN in livery.

First Footman.—Sir, may I venture to demand your name?

Macaulay.—Macaulay, and thereto I add M.P.

And that addition, even in these proud halls, May well ensure the bearer some respect.

Second Footman.—And art thou come to breakfast with our Lord?

Macaulay.—I am for so his hospitable will, And hers—the peerless dame ye serve—hath bade.

First Footman.—Ascend the stair, and thou above shalt find, On snow-white linen spread, the luscious meal.

(Exit MACAULAY up stairs.)

In plain English prose, I went this morning to breakfast at Holland House. The day was fine, and I arrived at twenty minutes after ten. After I had lounged a short time in the dining-room, I heard a gruff good-natured voice asking, “Where is Mr. Macaulay?

Where have you put him?” and in his arm-chair Lord Holland was wheeled in. He took me round the apartments, he riding and I walking. He gave me the history of the most remarkable portraits in the library, where there is, by the bye, one of the few bad pieces of Lawrence that I have seen—a head of Charles James Fox, an ignominious failure. Lord Holland said that it was the worst ever painted of so eminent a man by so eminent an artist. There is a very fine head of Machiavelli, and another of Earl Grey, a very different sort of man. I observed a portrait of Lady Holland painted some thirty years ago. I could have cried to see the change. She must have been a most beautiful woman. She still looks, however, as if she had been handsome, and shows in one respect great taste and sense. She does not rouge at all; and her costume is not youthful, so that she looks as well in the morning as in the evening. We came back to the dining-room. Our breakfast party consisted of my Lord and Lady, myself, Lord Russell, and Luttrell. You must have heard of Luttrell. I met him once at Rogers’s; and I have seen him, I think, in other places. He is a famous wit,—the most popular, I think, of all the professed wits,—a man who has lived in the highest circles, a scholar, and no contemptible poet. He wrote a little volume of verse entitled “Advice to Julia,”—not first rate, but neat, lively, piquant, and showing the most consummate knowledge of fashionable life.

We breakfasted on very good coffee, and very good tea, and very good eggs, butter kept in the midst of ice, and hot rolls. Lady Holland told us her dreams; how she had dreamed that a mad dog bit her foot, and how she set off to Brodie, and lost her way in St. Martin’s Lane, and could not find him. She hoped, she said, the dream would not come true. I said that I had had a dream which admitted of no such hope; for I had dreamed that I heard Pollock speak in the House of Commons, that the speech was very long, and that he was coughed down. This dream of mine diverted them much.

After breakfast Lady Holland offered to conduct me to her own drawing-room, or, rather, commanded my attendance. A very beautiful room it is, opening on a terrace, and wainscoted with miniature paintings interesting from their merit, and interesting from their history. Among them I remarked a great many,—thirty, I should think,—which even I, who am no great connoisseur, saw at once could come from no hand but Stothard’s. They were all on subjects from Lord Byron’s poems. “Yes,” said she; “poor Lord Byron sent them to me a short time before the separation. I sent them back, and told him that, if he gave them away, he ought to give them to Lady Byron. But he said that he would not, and that if I did not take them, the bailiffs would, and that they would be lost in the wreck.” Her ladyship then honoured me so far as to conduct me through her dressing-room into the great family bedchamber to show me a very fine picture by Reynolds of Fox, when a boy, birds-nesting. She then consigned me to Luttrell, asking him to show me the grounds.

Through the grounds we went, and very pretty I thought them. In the Dutch garden is a fine bronze bust of Napoleon, which Lord Holland put up in 1817, while Napoleon was a prisoner at St.

Helena. The inscription was selected by his lordship, and is remarkably happy. It is from Homer’s Odyssey. I will translate it, as well as I can extempore, into a measure which gives a better idea of Homer’s manner than Pope’s singsong couplet.

For not, be sure, within the grave

Is hid that prince, the wise, the brave; But in an islet’s narrow bound,

With the great Ocean roaring round,

The captive of a foeman base

He pines to view his native place.

There is a seat near the spot which is called Rogers’s seat. The poet loves, it seems, to sit there. A very elegant inscription by Lord Holland is placed over it.

“Here Rogers sate; and here for ever dwell With me those pleasures which he sang so well.”

Very neat and condensed, I think. Another inscription by Luttrell hangs there. Luttrell adjured me with mock pathos to spare his blushes; but I am author enough to know what the blushes of authors mean. So I read the lines, and very pretty and polished they were, but too many to be remembered from one reading.

Having gone round the grounds I took my leave, very much pleased with the place. Lord Holland is extremely kind. But that is of course; for he is kindness itself. Her ladyship too, which is by no means of course, is all graciousness and civility. But, for all this, I would much rather be quietly walking with you; and the great use of going to these fine places is to learn how happy it is possible to be without them. Indeed, I care so little for them that I certainly should not have gone to-day, but that I thought that I should be able to find materials for a letter which you might like.

Farewell.

T. B. MACAULAY.

To Hannah M. Macaulay.

London: June 3, 1831.

My dear Sister,—I cannot tell you how delighted I am to find that my letters amuse you. But sometimes I must be dull like my neighbours. I paid no visits yesterday, and have no news to relate to-day. I am sitting again in Basinghall Street and Basil Montagu is haranguing about Lord Verulam, and the way of inoculating one’s mind with truth; and all this a propos of a lying bankrupt’s balance-sheet. [“Those who are acquainted with the Courts in which Mr. Montagu practises with so much ability and success, will know how often he enlivens the discussion of a point of law by citing some weighty aphorism, or some brilliant illustration, from the De Augmentis or the Novum Organum.”—

Macaulay’s Review of Basil Montagu’s Edition of Bacon.]

Send me some gossip, my love. Tell me how you go on with German.

What novel have you commenced? Or, rather, how many dozen have you finished? Recommend me one. What say you to “Destiny”? Is the “Young Duke” worth reading? and what do you think of “Laurie Todd”?

I am writing about Lord Byron so pathetically that I make Margaret cry, but so slowly that I am afraid I shall make Napier wait. Rogers, like a civil gentleman, told me last week to write no more reviews, and to publish separate works; adding, what for him is a very rare thing, a compliment: “You may do anything, Mr.

Macaulay.” See how vain and insincere human nature is! I have been put