Ever yours

T. B. M.

To Hannah M. Macaulay.

London:  August 29, 1831.

My dear Sister,—­Here I am again settled, sitting up in the House of Commons till three o’clock five days in the week, and getting an indigestion at great dinners the remaining two.  I dined on Saturday with Lord Althorp, and yesterday with Sir James Graham.  Both of them gave me exactly the same dinner; and, though I am not generally copious on the repasts which my hosts provide for me, I must tell you, for the honour of official hospitality, how our Ministers regale their supporters.  Turtle, turbot, venison, and grouse, formed part of both entertainments.

Lord Althorp was extremely pleasant at the head of his own table.  We were a small party; Lord Ebrington, Hawkins, Captain Spencer, Stanley, and two or three more.  We all of us congratulated Lord Althorp on his good health and spirits.  He told us that he never took exercise now; that from his getting up, till four o’clock, he was engaged in the business of his office; that at four he dined, went down to the House at five, and never stirred till the House rose, which is always after midnight; that he then went home, took a basin of arrow-root with a glass of sherry in it, and went to bed, where he always dropped asleep in three minutes.  “During the week,” said he, “which followed my taking office, I did not close my eyes for anxiety.  Since that time I have never been awake a quarter of an hour after taking off my clothes.”  Stanley laughed at Lord Althorp’s arrow-root, and recommended his own supper, cold meat and warm negus; a supper which I will certainly begin to take when I feel a desire to pass the night with a sensation as if I was swallowing a nutmeg-grater every third minute.

We talked about timidity in speaking.  Lord Althorp said that he had only just got over his apprehensions.  “I was as much afraid,” he said, “last year as when first I came into Parliament.  But now I am forced to speak so often that I am quite hardened.  Last Thursday I was up forty times.”  I was not much surprised at this in Lord Althorp, as he is certainly one of the most modest men in existence.  But I was surprised to hear Stanley say that he never rose without great uneasiness.  “My throat and lips,” he said, “when I am going to speak, are as dry as those of a man who is going to be hanged.”  Nothing can be more composed and cool than Stanley’s manner.  His fault is on that side.  A little hesitation at the beginning of a speech is graceful; and many eminent speakers have practised it, merely in order to give the appearance of unpremeditated reply to prepared speeches; but Stanley speaks like a man who never knew what fear, or even modesty, was.  Tierney, it is remarkable, who was the most ready and fluent debater almost ever known, made a confession similar to Stanley’s.  He never spoke, he said, without feeling his knees knock together when he rose.