Ever yours

T. B. M.

To Hannah M. Macaulay.

Library of the House of Commons

July 26, 1831.

My dear Sister,—­Here I am seated, waiting for the debate on the borough of St. Germains with a very quiet party,—­Lord Milton, Lord Tavistock, and George Lamb.  But, instead of telling you in dramatic form my conversations with Cabinet Ministers, I shall, I think, go back two or three days, and complete the narrative which I left imperfect in my epistle of yesterday.

[This refers to a passage in a former letter, likewise written from the Library of the House.

“‘Macaulay!’ Who calls Macaulay?  Sir James Graham.  What can he have to say to me?  Take it dramatically: 

Sir J. G. Macaulay!

Macaulay.  What?

Sir J. G. Whom are you writing to, that you laugh so much over your letter?

Macaulay.  To my constituents at Caine, to be sure.  They expect news of the Reform Bill every day.

Sir J. G. Well, writing to constituents is less of a plague to you than to most people, to judge by your face.

Macaulay.  How do you know that I am not writing a billet doux to a lady?

Sir J. G. You look more like it, by Jove!

Cutlar Ferguson, M.P. for Kirkcudbright.  Let ladies and constituents alone, and come into the House.  We are going on to the case of the borough of Great Bedwin immediately.”]

At half after seven on Sunday I was set down at Littleton’s palace, for such it is, in Grosvenor Place.  It really is a noble house; four superb drawing-rooms on the first floor, hung round with some excellent pictures—­a Hobbema, (the finest by that artist in the world, it is said,) and Lawrence’s charming portrait of Mrs. Littleton.  The beautiful original, by the bye, did not make her appearance.  We were a party of gentlemen.  But such gentlemen!  Listen, and be proud of your connection with one who is admitted to eat and drink in the same room with beings so exalted.  There were two Chancellors, Lord Brougham and Lord Plunket.  There was Earl Gower; Lord St. Vincent; Lord Seaford; Lord Duncannon; Lord Ebrington; Sir James Graham; Sir John Newport; the two Secretaries of the Treasury, Rice and Ellice; George Lamb; Denison; and half a dozen more Lords and distinguished Commoners, not to mention Littleton himself.  Till last year he lived in Portman Square.  When he changed his residence his servants gave him warning.  They could not, they said, consent to go into such an unheard-of part of the world as Grosvenor Place.  I can only say that I have never been in a finer house than Littleton’s, Lansdowne House excepted,—­and perhaps Lord Milton’s, which is also in Grosvenor Place.  He gave me a dinner of dinners.  I talked with Denison, and with nobody else.  I have found out that the real use of conversational powers is to put them forth in tete-a-tete.  A man is flattered by your talking your best to him