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 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