ire a beaucoup d'esprit. Mais il est
devot, et, ce qui pis est, devot honteux. Il va se cacher dans quelque
hameau pour faire ses Paques." This was a curious remark from a Bishop.
He told several stories about the political men of France; not of any
great value in themselves; but his way of telling them was beyond
all praise,--concise, pointed, and delicately satirical. When he had
departed, I could not help breaking out into admiration of his talent
for relating anecdotes. Lady Holland said that he had been considered
for nearly forty years as the best teller of a story in Europe, and that
there was certainly nobody like him in that respect.

When the Prince was gone, we went to bed. In the morning Lord John
Russell drove me back to London in his cabriolet, much amused with what
I had seen and heard. But I must stop.

Ever yours

T. B. M.

To Hannah M. Macaulay.

Basinghall Street: July 15 1831.

My dear Sister,--The rage of faction at the present moment exceeds
anything that has been known in our day. Indeed I doubt whether, at the
time of Mr. Pitt's first becoming Premier, at the time of Sir Robert
Walpole's fall, or even during the desperate struggles between the
Whigs and Tories at the close of Anne's reign, the fury of party was so
fearfully violent. Lord Mahon said to me yesterday that friendships of
long standing were everywhere giving way, and that the schism between
the reformers and the anti-reformers was spreading from the House of
Commons into every private circle. Lord Mahon himself is an exception.
He and I are on excellent terms. But Praed and I become colder every
day.

The scene of Tuesday night beggars description. I left the House at
about three, in consequence of some expressions of Lord Althorp's which
indicated that the Ministry was inclined to yield on the question of
going into Committee on the Bill. I afterwards much regretted that I had
gone away; not that my presence was necessary; but because I should have
liked to have sate through so tremendous a storm. Towards eight in
the morning the Speaker was almost fainting. The Ministerial members,
however, were as true as steel. They furnished the Ministry with the
resolution which it wanted. "If the noble Lord yields," said one of
our men, "all is lost." Old Sir Thomas Baring sent for his razor, and
Benett, the member for Wiltshire, for his night-cap; and they were both
resolved to spend the whole day in the House rather than give way. If