Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, vol 1 by George Otto Trevelyan (reading the story of the TXT) 📕

thronged up to the table, and all the floor was fluctuating with heads like the pit of a theatre. But you might have heard a pin drop as Duncannon read the numbers. Then again the shouts broke out, and many of us shed tears. I could scarcely refrain. And the jaw of Peel fell; and the face of Twiss was as the face of a damned soul; and Herries looked like Judas taking his necktie off for the last operation. We shook hands, and clapped each other on the back, and went out laughing, crying, and huzzaing into the lobby. And no sooner were the outer doors opened than another shout answered that within the House. All the passages, and the stairs into the waiting-rooms, were thronged by people who had waited till four in the morning to know the issue. We passed through a narrow lane between two thick masses of them; and all the way down they were shouting and waving their hats, till we got into the open air. I called a cabriolet, and the first thing the driver asked was, “Is the Bill carried?”

“Yes, by one.” “Thank God for it, Sir.” And away I rode to Gray’s Inn,—and so ended a scene which will probably never be equalled till the reformed Parliament wants reforming; and that I hope will not be till the days of our grandchildren, till that truly orthodox and apostolical person Dr. Francis Ellis is an archbishop of eighty.

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 passed 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. Fanny, 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 ladyship 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 Yorkshire. 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 passed 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 passages, 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 glass 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 nobody 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 constituencies, if the word constituency were admissible. “I am glad you put that in,”

said her ladyship. “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 passed from the vocabulary of divinity into common use. I challenged her to find it in any classical 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 glass of very good iced lemonade, I took