Ever yours

T. B. M.

To Hannah M. Macaulay.

London:  January 4, 1834.

My dear Sister,—­I am now buying books; not trashy books which will only bear one reading; but good books for a library.  I have my eye on all the bookstalls; and I shall no longer suffer you, when we walk together in London, to drag me past them as you used to do.  Pray make out a list of any which you would like to have.  The provision which I design for the voyage is Richardson, Voltaire’s works, Gibbon, Sismondi’s History of the French, Davila, the Orlando in Italian, Don Quixote in Spanish, Homer in Greek, Horace in Latin.  I must also have some books of jurisprudence, and some to initiate me in Persian and Hindostanee.  Shall I buy “Dunallan” for you?  I believe that in your eyes it would stand in the place of all the rest together.  But, seriously, let me know what you would like me to procure.

Ellis is making a little collection of Greek classics for me.  Sharp has given me one or two very rare and pretty books, which I much wanted.  All the Edinburgh Reviews are being bound, so that we shall have a complete set, up to the forth coming number, which will contain an article of mine on Chatham.  And this reminds me that I must give over writing to you, and fall to my article.  I rather think that it will be a good one.

Ever yours

T. B. M.

London:  February 13, 1834.

Dear Napier,—­It is true that I have been severely tried by ill-health during the last few weeks; but I am now rapidly recovering, and am assured by all my medical advisers that a week of the sea will make me better than ever I was in my life.

I have several subjects in my head.  One is Mackintosh’s History; I mean the fragment of the large work.  Another plan which I have is a very fine one, if it could be well executed.  I think that the time is come when a fair estimate may be formed of the intellectual and moral character of Voltaire.  The extreme veneration, with which he was regarded during his lifetime, has passed away; the violent reaction, which followed, has spent itself; and the world can now, I think, bear to hear the truth, and to see the man exhibited as he was,—­a strange mixture of greatness and littleness, virtues and vices.  I have all his works, and shall take them in my cabin on the voyage.  But my library is not particularly rich in those books which illustrate the literary history of his times.  I have Rousseau, and Marmontel’s Memoirs, and Madame du Deffand’s Letters, and perhaps a few other works which would be of use.  But Grimm’s Correspondence, and several other volumes of memoirs and letters, would be necessary.  If you would make a small collection of the works which would be most useful in this point of view, and send it after me as soon as possible, I will do my best to draw a good Voltaire.  I fear that the article must be enormously long,—­ seventy pages perhaps;—­but you know that I do not run into unnecessary lengths.