H2 A Century of Family Letters [CHAP, vm 



composed of duet talking. The Bishop of Exeter 1 looked the 

 very personification of the evil serpent, gliding about and 

 whispering in deep conversation with the Baron, all with 

 reference to his plot against Hampden. Soon after he sat 

 down to dinner he poured much civility on me. He made 

 me half-a-dozen set speeches, invitations to Torquay and 

 Devonshire, with much formality, and I guess little sincerity. 

 I wanted to have Mr Maurice 2 as my companion, but I got 

 H. Milman. 3 He praised Jane Eyre exceedingly, so if you 

 want to order a book get that, the writer is unknown. He 

 and his wife had been at Paris lately and I asked him about 

 the Bulls, that you have been laughing at my version of. 

 They are brazen he said, and he should think their height 

 was about 12 feet; and instead of 12 Bulls for England, 

 he said there were a great many more so I suppose there 

 are twenty bulls, and I transferred the numbers. Mrs 

 Henry Milman was exquisitely dressed. 



Friday I dined at Mrs Sydney Smith's. This was a 

 melancholy contrast to the dinners when Sydney presided. 

 Mrs Sydney was low and seemed to feel the striking differ- 

 ence. Everything was as handsome and elegant as in 

 Sydney's time, but the soul was wanting, which Mrs S. 

 seems to feel every moment. I heard no news there, except 

 great praise of Jane Eyre. Fanny [Hensleigh] called for me 

 at \ past nine to go to Mrs Thompson's literary soiree, which 

 consisted of about 1 8 or 20 people, most of them very black. 

 We had some singing and a little dancing. Sir Edward L. 

 Bulwer's son 4 was there, the most affected young gentleman 



1 The famous " Gorham Case " was just now beginning, in which 

 Phillpotts, the combative and crafty Bishop of Exeter, was trying to 

 keep a clergyman out of a benefice to which he had been presented, 

 on the ground that he was not sound on the question of " baptismal 

 regeneration." The Bishop was a militant Tory of the fiercest type. 

 His wife was a niece of Mr Surtees. 



2 Frederick Denison Maurice (b. 1805, d. 1872), Chaplain of Lin- 

 coln's Inn. He may be said to be the inspirer of the movement 

 generally called " Broad Church." He also founded the Working 

 Men's College, the pioneer in the cause of the higher education of 

 working men. Gladstone after his death called him " that spiritual 

 splendour," quoting the phrase used by Dante about St Dominic. 



3 Henry Milman, the historian, afterwards B^n of St Paul's. 



4 The 1st Earl of Lytton, born 1831. 



