to exceeding love
Nursing the young to health. In happier hours,
When idle Fancy wove luxuriant flowers,
Once in thy mirth thou badst me write on thee;
And now I write what thou shalt never see.'

Macaulay's Essay on Byron.] It is not undeserved; but I confess that
I cannot understand the popularity of his poetry. It is pleasant and
flowing enough; less monotonous than most of the imitations of Pope and
Goldsmith; and calls up many agreeable images and recollections. But
that such men as Lord Granville, Lord Holland, Hobhouse, Lord Byron, and
others of high rank in intellect, should place Rogers, as they do, above
Southey, Moore, and even Scott himself, is what I cannot conceive. But
this comes of being in the highest society of London. What Lady Jane
Granville called the Patronage of Fashion can do as much for a middling
poet as for a plain girl like Miss Arabella Falconer. [Lady Jane, and
Miss Arabella, appear in Miss Edgeworth's "Patronage."]

But I must stop. This rambling talk has been scrawled in the middle of
haranguing, squabbling, swearing, and crying. Since I began it I have
taxed four bills, taken forty depositions, and rated several perjured
witnesses.

Ever yours

T. B. M.

To Hannah and Margaret Macaulay.

London: June 7, 1831.

Yesterday I dined at Marshall's, and was almost consoled for not meeting
Ramohun Roy by a very pleasant party. The great sight was the two wits,
Rogers and Sydney Smith. Singly I have often seen them; but to see them
both together was a novelty, and a novelty not the less curious because
their mutual hostility is well known, and the hard hits which they have
given to each other are in everybody's mouth. They were very civil,
however. But I was struck by the truth of what Matthew Bramble, a person
of whom you probably never heard, says in Smollett's Humphrey Clinker:
that one wit in a company, like a knuckle of ham in soup, gives a
flavour; but two are too many. Rogers and Sydney Smith would not come
into conflict. If one had possession of the company, the other was
silent; and, as you may conceive, the one who had possession of the
company was always Sydney Smith, and the one who was silent was always
Rogers. Sometimes, however, the company divided, and each of them had a
small congregation. I had a good deal of talk with both of them; for, in
whatever they may disagree, they agree in always treating me with very
marked kindness.

I had a good deal of pleasant c