Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and letters of Charles Sumner: volume 1

[328] flagged. Forster¹ was there, whom you well know as the great writer in the ‘Examiner’ and the author of the ‘Lives.’ He is a very able fellow, and is yet young. Landor takes to him very much. His conversation is something like his writing. I had a good deal of talk with him. You must know, also, that our host, Mr. Kenyon, is a bosom friend of Southey and Wordsworth, and is no mean poet himself, besides being one of the most agreeable men I ever met.

Dining at Lord Lansdowne's a few evenings since, I met another literary man, whom I saw with the greatest pleasure. There was Lord Lansdowne, with the blue ribbon of the garter across his breast and the star on his coat, —kind, bland, amiable; Lady Lansdowne,—neat, elegant, lady-like. Next me was the daughter, about nineteen,—pale and wan, but, I am glad to say, extremely well-informed. I conversed with her during a long dinner, and we touched topics of books, fashion, coronation, &c.; and I found her to possess attainments which certainly do her honor. She was kind enough to mention that she and her mother had been reading together the work of a countryman of mine, Mr. Prescott; that they admired it very much, and that the extraordinary circumstances under which it was written² made them take a great interest in the author and desire to see him. During the dinner, I was addressed across the table, which was a large round one, by a gentleman with black hair and round face, with regard to the United States. The question was put with distinctness and precision, and in a voice a little sharp and above the ordinary key. I did not know the name of the gentleman for some time; till, by and by, I heard him addressed by some one,—‘Macaulay.’ I at once asked Lord Shelburne, who sat on my right, if that was T. B. M., just returned from India; and was told that it was.³ At table, we had considerable conversation; and, on passing to the drawing-room, it was renewed. He is now nearly or about forty, rather short, and with a belly of unclassical proportions. His conversation was rapid, brilliant, and powerful; by far the best of any in the company, though Mr. Senior was there, and several others of no mean powers. I expect other opportunities of meeting him. He says that he shall abandon politics, not enter Parliament, and addict himself entirely to literature.

I may say here, that among acquaintances you never hear the word ‘Mr.’ Lawyers at the bar always address each other without that prefix. It is always ‘Talfourd,’ ‘Wilde,’ ‘Follett;’ and at table, ‘Landor,’ ‘Forster,’ ‘Macaulay,’ ‘Senior,’ &c. I did not hear the word ‘Mr.’ at Lord Lansdowne's table, except when he addressed me,—a stranger. My time is hurried and my paper is exhausted, but I have not told you of the poet Milman, and the beautiful party I met at his house,—Lord