114 A Century of Family Letters [CHAP, vin 



perhaps he only knows 4 or 5. There was only Mr Ruxton, 

 I am not sure of the name, but he was clever and agreeable. 

 Rogers prophesied that Monckton Milnes would extinguish 

 him, when he should arrive, as he was just come from Madrid, 

 and we should hear nothing but of Spain. This was not 

 quite the case as he seemed to have been much amused by 

 H. Drummond's speech the night before in the House, and 

 he did not seem much struck by Madrid. The Queen is 

 turning out a good-looking woman. Her leisure time is 

 now engaged in copying Raphael's celebrated picture of the 

 Spasimo ! M. Milnes is lively and pleasant but he is plain 

 and common looking, so that he must make his way with 

 Florence [Nightingale] by his mind, and not the outward 

 man. Mrs Sara Coleridge told us his confession to her was 

 that he wished to be in love and could not. 



We called on poor Mrs Sydney Smith on our way back. 

 How untrue was the report that she was giving parties and 

 going out ! She has not dined in company since S.'s death 

 and has given no parties of any kind. She lives but in the 

 thoughts of her past life, and of wishes to transmit some- 

 thing of Sydney to posterity that might show him the gay, 

 kind, good-natured person he was. She said she would show 

 me her manuscripts, what she had collected of his letters, 

 and her own little sketch of her husband's eariv life. But 



w 



as this could not be now, she gave me a few books of MSS. 

 to look over before I quitted town. This was good-natured 

 and the reading of them gave me amusement and pleasure. 

 The day was too bad for Anne Marsh to come, as she had 

 intended, so Sara Coleridge sat an hour or more waiting for 

 her. She [Sara] is not a person that hits my taste, she has 

 I suspect too much of her father in her. The dinner at 

 Bunsen's was a very pleasant one. Besides the family there 

 were three gentlemen and their wives and some other learned 

 men. Bunsen introduced one man, a German (Max Miiller) 

 who was a great Sanscrit scholar. Another, who sat next 

 me, was a great Northern linguist and scholar, I believe he 

 was an Englishman. All the English names I could make 

 nothing of when Bunsen pronounced them. It was very 



