The first of these two works you will admit to be a work of mercy; the second, in a political man, one of necessity.  Then, like a good brother, I walked under a burning sun to Kensington to ask Fanny how she did, and stayed there two hours.  Then I went to Knightsbridge to call on Mrs. Listen and chatted with her till it was time to go and dine at the Athenaeum.  Then I dined, and after dinner, like a good young man, I sate and read Bishop Heber’s journal till bedtime.  There is a Sunday for you!  I think that I excel in the diary lire.  I will keep a journal like the Bishop, that my memory may

 “Smell sweet, and blossom in the dust.”

Next Sunday I am to go to Lord Lansdowne’s at Richmond, so that I hope to have something to tell you.  But on second thoughts I will tell you nothing, nor ever will write to you again, nor ever speak to you again.  I have no pleasure in writing to undutiful sisters.  Why do you not send me longer letters?  But I am at the end of my paper, so that I have no more room to scold.

Ever yours

T. B. M.

To Hannah and Margaret Macaulay.

London:  August 14, 1832.

My dear Sisters,—­Our work is over at last; not, however, till it has half killed us all.[On the 8th August, 1832, Macaulay writes to Lord Mahon:  “We are now strictly on duty.  No furloughs even for a dinner engagement, or a sight of Taglioni’s legs, can be obtained.  It is very hard to keep forty members in the House.  Sibthorpe and Leader are on the watch to count us out; and from six till two we never venture further than the smoking-room without apprehension.  In spite of all our exertions the end of the Session seems further and further off every day.  If you would do me the favour of inviting Sibthorpe to Chevening Park you might be the means of saving my life, and that of thirty or forty more of us who are forced to swallow the last dregs of the oratory of this Parliament; and nauseous dregs they are.”] On Saturday we met,—­for the last time, I hope, on business.  When the House rose, I set off for Holland House.  We had a small party, but a very distinguished one.  Lord Grey, the Chancellor, Lord Palmerston, Luttrell, and myself were the only guests.  Allen was of course at the end of the table, carving the dinner and sparring with my Lady.  The dinner was not so good as usual; for the French cook was ill; and her Ladyship kept up a continued lamentation during the whole repast.  I should never have found out that everything was not as it should be but for her criticisms.  The soup was too salt; the cutlets were not exactly comme il faut; and the pudding was hardly enough boiled.  I was amused to hear from the splendid mistress of such a house the same sort of apologies which —­ made when her cook forgot the joint, and sent up too small a dinner to table.  I told Luttrell that it was a comfort to me to find that no rank was exempted from these afflictions.