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