Oh! rather would I see this day
 My little Nancy well and merry
 Than the blue riband of Earl Grey,
 Or the blue stockings of Miss Berry.

Margaret tells us that you are better, and better, and better.  I want to hear that you are well.  At all events our Scotch tour will set you up.  I hope, for the sake of the tour, that we shall keep our places; but I firmly believe that, before many days have passed, a desperate attempt will be made in the House of Lords to turn us out.  If we stand the shock, we shall be firmer than ever.  I am not without anxiety as to the result; yet I believe that Lord Grey understands the position in which he is placed, and, as for the King, he will not forget his last blunder, I will answer for it, even if he should live to the age of his father. [This “last blunder” was the refusal of the King to stand by his Ministers in May 1832.  Macaulay proved a bad prophet; for, after an interval of only three years, William the Fourth repeated his blunder in an aggravated form.]

But why plague ourselves about politics when we have so much pleasanter things to talk of?  The Parson’s Daughter; don’t you like the Parson’s Daughter?  What a wretch Harbottle was!  And Lady Frances, what a sad worldly woman!  But Mrs. Harbottle, dear suffering angel! and Emma Level, all excellence!  Dr. Mac Gopus you doubtless like; but you probably do not admire the Duchess and Lady Catherine.  There is a regular cone over a novel for you!  But, if you will have my opinion, I think it Theodore Book’s worst performance; far inferior to the Surgeon’s Daughter; a set of fools making themselves miserable by their own nonsensical fancies and suspicions.  Let me hear your opinion, for I will be sworn that,

 In spite of all the serious world,
 Of all the thumbs that ever twirled,
 Of every broadbrim-shaded brow,
 Of every tongue that e’er said “thou,”
 You still read books in marble covers
 About smart girls and dapper lovers.

But what folly I have been scrawling!  I must go to work.

 I cannot all day
 Be neglecting Madras
 And slighting Bombay
 For the sake of a lass.

Kindest love to Edward, and to the woman who owns him.

Ever yours

T. B. M.

London:  June 17, 1833.

Dear Hannah,—­All is still anxiety here.  Whether the House of Lords will throw out the Irish Church Bill, whether the King will consent to create new Peers, whether the Tories will venture to form a Ministry, are matters about which we are all in complete doubt.  If the Ministry should really be changed, Parliament will, I feel quite sure, be dissolved.  Whether I shall have a seat in the next Parliament I neither know nor care.  I shall regret nothing for myself but our Scotch tour.  For the public I shall, if this Parliament is dissolved, entertain scarcely any hopes.  I see nothing before us but a frantic conflict between extreme opinions; a short