142 A Century of Family Letters [CHAP, xi 



have any ; and at 2 or half -past we take our dowager drive, 

 and we read and work in the evening. We have seen no 

 one, and it is well it was so, for I have been too deaf and 

 uncomfortable for anything but the quiet life we have been 

 leading living in the past and having nothing to do with 

 the present. Sydney's correspondence with Lady Holland 

 .is very amusing, so full of fun and gaiety, telling her 

 truths, and in so playful a way that could not offend. 

 There are two or three quarrels in which Sydney main- 

 tains his dignity and shews her that he will not suffer 

 impertinence. There is a very curious scene between 

 Ld. Melbourne and Sydney, in which the former cuts 

 a poor figure after a most outrageous outbreak and breach 

 of good manners, in which Ld. M. says to him in a crowded 



assembly, ' ' Sydney, you always talk d d nonsense, and 



when you write you are worse." Sydney's letter on the 

 following morning is excellent and very severe, which 

 makes Lord M. wince. He tried to make it up afterwards 

 but in vain. And then his correspondence with Charles 

 James of London [Bishop Blomfield]is very curious, telh'ng 

 him boldly what his opinions are, and what he hears and 

 knows of the unpopularity of the Bishops from their in- 

 solence and tyranny to the lower clergy. The Bishop cuts 

 a worse figure in his correspondence than even Lord Mel- 

 bourne does in his. . . . 

 



On July 30th, my father and mother spent a week with 

 Erasmus Darwin at his house in Park Street, in order to 

 see the Exhibition. My father enjoyed it intensely. My 

 brother George and I were also taken, but I, at any rate, 

 did not make much of it, and remember deciding not to go 

 again, but to stay at home and scrub the back-stairs, as being 

 better fun. Fanny Allen gives the following account of 

 how little other children enjoyed it. " Bro and Erny too 

 came from Kugby yesterday for a couple of days' lark. 

 They are all gone to the Hyde Park Exhibition this morn- 

 ing in three cabs, as every child is gone. I believe it is 

 Erasmus's generosity that treats the children, otherwise 

 they never would be so foolish as to take them a second time. 

 All the children whom I have seen there look wretched 



