234 ^ Century of Family Letters [CHAP, xvi 



last year, and says himself that he has not felt BO well for 

 six years. 



The two nights of the struggle on the second reading 

 of the Reform Bill, Fanny [Mackintosh] went down to 

 Mrs Robert Grant's, which is in George Street just by the 

 House of Commons, to be at hand to hear the result, and 

 to receive bulletins from the Thorntons in the ventilator. 

 It was amusing to see how interested even Mrs R. G.'s 

 servants were the housemaid coming in "if you please 

 ma'am John has just been over, and Lord Mahon was 

 speaking against." I sat up for them at home as long as 

 I could, but could not last till 4 in the morning; but even 

 at that hour there was a crowd about the House of Com- 

 mons who cheered the reform members as they came out. 

 I have never seen near so much of Mrs Rich before and I 

 like her very much. She must once, I am sure, have been 

 a very lively person, and now is one of the most agreeable 

 people in a tete-a-tete I ever saw. She is quite cheerful 

 and talks more before her father than she used to do. She 

 has her own line of acquaintance among whom she is very 

 much engaged. She has taken me four Fridays to hear Mr 

 Scott 1 (whom she delights in) preach in Miss Farrer's 2 

 drawing room. I now despair of much liking him, which 

 I should like to be able to do as much as she does; but he 

 seems to me to try too much to put things in an uncommon 

 point of view, and to get into regions that we can know 

 nothing about. He prays, and reads a chapter and then 

 speaks his discourse, which is certainly a very striking piece 

 of oratory. Another little society of five or six ladies that 

 Mrs Rich belongs to meet once a week to read the Bible 



1 Alexander John Scott (1805 1866) had been a minister of 

 the Scotch church, and at one time an assistant of Edw ard Irving. 

 He was ejected from the pastorate of the Scotch church at Woolwich, 

 but remained there some years preaching to a little congregation of 

 his own disciples. Later he became the first Principal of Owens 

 College, Manchester. He was a man of great mental power, great 

 learning, and a singularly impressive personality, as we know from 

 the testimony of various notable persons, Carlyle, Bunsen, Frederick 

 Maurice, George Macdonald, Fanny Kemble, and others. 



2 Aunt of the first Lord Farrer. 



