Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay Part 13

As for me, I am for the present a sort of lion. My speech has set me in the front rank, if I can keep there; and it has not been my luck hitherto to lose ground when I have once got it. Sheil and I are on very civil terms. He talks largely concerning Demosthenes and Burke. He made, I must say, an excellent speech; too florid and queer, but decidedly successful.

Why did not Price speak? If he was afraid, it was not without reason; for a more terrible audience there is not in the world. I wish that Praed had known to whom he was speaking. But, with all his talent, he has no tact, and he has fared accordingly. Tierney used to say that he never rose in the House without feeling his knees tremble under him; and I am sure that no man who has not some of that feeling will ever succeed there.

Ever yours

T. B. MACAULAY.

London: May 27, 1835.

My dear Hannah,--Let me see if I can write a letter a la Richardson:--a little less prolix it must be, or it will exceed my ounce. By the bye, I wonder that Uncle Selby never grudged the postage of Miss Byron's letters. According to the nearest calculation that I can make, her correspondence must have enriched the post office of Ashby Canons by something more than the whole annual interest of her fifteen thousand pounds.

I reached Lansdowne House by a quarter to eleven, and pa.s.sed through the large suite of rooms to the great Sculpture Gallery. There were seated and standing perhaps three hundred people, listening to the performers, or talking to each other. The room is the handsomest and largest, I am told, in any private house in London. I enclose our musical bill of fare. f.a.n.n.y, I suppose, will be able to expound it better than I. The singers were more showily dressed than the auditors, and seemed quite at home. As to the company, there was just everybody in London (except that little million and a half that you wot of,)--the Chancellor, and the First Lord of the Admiralty, and Sydney Smith, and Lord Mansfield, and all the Barings and the Fitzclarences, and a hideous Russian spy, whose face I see everywhere, with a star on his coat. During the interval between the delights of "I tuoi frequenti," and the ecstasies of "Se tu m'ami," I contrived to squeeze up to Lord Lansdowne. I was shaking hands with Sir James Macdonald, when I heard a command behind us: "Sir James, introduce me to Mr. Macaulay;" and we turned, and there sate a large bold-looking woman, with the remains of a fine person, and the air of Queen Elizabeth. "Macaulay," said Sir James, "let me present you to Lady Holland." Then was her ladys.h.i.+p gracious beyond description, and asked me to dine and take a bed at Holland House next Tuesday. I accepted the dinner, but declined the bed, and I have since repented that I so declined it. But I probably shall have an opportunity of retracting on Tuesday.

To-night I go to another musical party at Marshall's, the late M.P.

for Yorks.h.i.+re. Everybody is talking of Paganini and his violin. The man seems to be a miracle. The newspapers say that long streamy flakes of music fall from his string, interspersed with luminous points of sound which ascend the air and appear like stars. This eloquence is quite beyond me.

Ever yours

T. B. M.

London: May 28, 1831.

My dear Hannah,--More gaieties and music-parties; not so fertile of adventures as that memorable masquerade whence Harriet Byron was carried away; but still I hope that the narrative of what pa.s.sed there will gratify "the venerable circle." Yesterday I dressed, called a cab, and was whisked away to Hill Street. I found old Marshall's house a very fine one. He ought indeed to have a fine one; for he has, I believe, at least thirty thousand a year. The carpet was taken up, and chairs were set out in rows, as if we had been at a religious meeting. Then we had flute-playing by the first flute-player in England, and pianoforte-strumming by the first pianoforte-strummer in England, and singing by all the first singers in England, and Signor Rubini's incomparable tenor, and Signor Curioni's incomparable counter-tenor, and Pasta's incomparable expression. You who know how airs much inferior to these take my soul, and lap it in Elysium, will form some faint conception of my transport. Sharp beckoned me to sit by him in the back row. These old fellows are so selfish. "Always," said he, "establish yourself in the middle of the row against the wall; for, if you sit in the front or next the edges, you will be forced to give up your seat to the ladies who are standing." I had the gallantry to surrender mine to a damsel who had stood for a quarter of an hour; and I lounged into the ante-rooms, where I found Samuel Rogers. Rogers and I sate together on a bench in one of the pa.s.sages, and had a good deal of very pleasant conversation. He was,--as indeed he has always been to me,--extremely kind, and told me that, if it were in his power, he would contrive to be at Holland House with me, to give me an insight into its ways. He is the great oracle of that circle.

He has seen the King's letter to Lord Grey, respecting the Garter; or at least has authentic information about it. It is a happy stroke of policy, and will, they say, decide many wavering votes in the House of Lords. The King, it seems, requests Lord Grey to take the order, as a mark of royal confidence in him "at so critical a time;"--significant words, I think.

Ever yours

T. B. MACAULAY.

To Hannah More Macaulay.

London: May 30, 1831.

Well, my dear, I have been to Holland House. I took a gla.s.s coach, and arrived, through a fine avenue of elms, at the great entrance towards seven o'clock. The house is delightful;--the very perfection of the old Elizabethan style;--a considerable number of very large and very comfortable rooms, rich with antique carving and gilding, but carpeted and furnished with all the skill of the best modern upholsterers. The library is a very long room,--as long, I should think, as the gallery at Rothley Temple,--with little cabinets for study branching out of it.

warmly and snugly fitted up, and looking out on very beautiful grounds.

The collection of books is not, like Lord Spencer's, curious; but it contains almost everything that one ever wished to read. I found n.o.body there when I arrived but Lord Russell, the son of the Marquess of Tavistock. We are old House of Commons friends; so we had some very pleasant talk, and in a little while in came Allen, who is warden of Dulwich College, and who lives almost entirely at Holland House. He is certainly a man of vast information and great conversational powers.

Some other gentlemen dropped in, and we chatted till Lady Holland made her appearance. Lord Holland dined by himself on account of his gout.

We sat down to dinner in a fine long room, the wainscot of which is rich with gilded coronets, roses, and portcullises. There were Lord Albemarle, Lord Alvanley, Lord Russell, Lord Mahon,--a violent Tory, but a very agreeable companion, and a very good scholar. There was Cradock, a fine fellow who was the Duke of Wellington's aide-de-camp in 1815, and some other people whose names I did not catch. What however is more to the purpose, there was a most excellent dinner. I have always heard that Holland House is famous for its good cheer, and certainly the reputation is not unmerited. After dinner Lord Holland was wheeled in, and placed very near me. He was extremely amusing and good-natured.

In the drawing-room I had a long talk with Lady Holland about the antiquities of the house, and about the purity of the English language, wherein she thinks herself a critic. I happened, in speaking about the Reform Bill, to say that I wished that it had been possible to form a few commercial const.i.tuencies, if the word const.i.tuency were admissible.

"I am glad you put that in," said her ladys.h.i.+p. "I was just going to give it you. It is an odious word. Then there is _talented_ and _influential_, and _gentlemanly_. I never could break Sheridan of _gentlemanly_, though he allowed it to be wrong." We talked about the word _talents_ and its history. I said that it had first appeared in theological writing, that it was a metaphor taken from the parable in the New Testament, and that it had gradually pa.s.sed from the vocabulary of divinity into common use. I challenged her to find it in any cla.s.sical writer on general subjects before the Restoration, or even before the year 1700. I believe that I might safely have gone down later. She seemed surprised by this theory, never having, so far as I could judge, heard of the parable of the talents. I did not tell her, though I might have done so, that a person who professes to be a critic in the delicacies of the English language ought to have the Bible at his fingers' ends.

She is certainly a woman of considerable talents and great literary acquirements. To me she was excessively gracious; yet there is a haughtiness in her courtesy which, even after all that I had heard of her, surprised me. The centurion did not keep his soldiers in better order than she keeps her guests. It is to one "Go," and he goeth; and to another "Do this," and it is done. "Ring the bell, Mr. Macaulay." "Lay down that screen, Lord Russell; you will spoil it." "Mr. Allen, take a candle and show Mr. Cradock the picture of Buonaparte." Lord Holland is, on the other hand, all kindness, simplicity, and vivacity. He talked very well both on politics and on literature. He asked me in a very friendly manner about my father's health, and begged to be remembered to him.

When my coach came, Lady Holland made me promise that I would on the first fine morning walk out to breakfast with them, and see the grounds;--and, after drinking a gla.s.s of very good iced lemonade, I took my leave, much amused and pleased. The house certainly deserves its reputation for pleasantness, and her ladys.h.i.+p 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 n.o.body 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 pa.s.s 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 Va.s.s'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 s.h.i.+llings 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 ent.i.tled "Advice to Julia,"--not first rate, but neat, lively, piquant, and showing the most consummate knowledge of fas.h.i.+onable life.