A Journey to London in 1840. 173 



superb kind than perhaps any man ever did under the same con- 

 ditions. But his taste as to the table seemed to become more 

 dainty as his means of gratifying it increased. His taste as to 

 wines is regarded as particularly delicate, altogether his authority 

 in all these matters is as high and unquestioned as his hospitality, 

 learning, and generosity are. 



As he himself always expected that some snug Government 

 appointment would ultimately be his lot, so his friends and the 

 public thought that no man was so deserving of ministerial 

 patronage and regretted that he had lived so long under apparent 

 neglect. But the excellence of the post which he has at last got, 

 January, 1838, makes ample amends for the late time at which it 

 was conferred on him. He was at the date just mentioned 

 appointed Comptroller of the Queen's Stationery Office, a berth 

 which lasts ad vitam aut culpam without regard to change of 

 Ministers. The income is £600 exclusive of an official residence, 

 coal, and candle, and an allowance for attendance. The situa- 

 tion of the house is as good as any in London, and it is believed 

 that he will ere long get an addition to his salary. His pre- 

 decessor, Mr Church, had frequently applied for an addition to 

 his own income and to that of all the officials under him, but the 

 Treasury had as often refused the application. But Mr M'Cul- 

 loch employed greater tact. He memorialised the Treasury for 

 an increase to the salaries of his inferiors but preferred no peti- 

 tion as to his own income. The Treasury granted the prayer of 

 the memorial and authorised a very considerable addition to the 

 salaries of the functionaries in question, a circumstance for which 

 these persons felt so grateful to the Comptroller that they pre- 

 sented him with two elegant silver claret decanters as a mark of 

 their thankfulness and esteem. Now it can hardly be that after 

 the salary of all the others has been advanced no increase should 

 take place in that of the head of the office — the Comptroller him- 

 self. It is almost certain that the same liberality will be ex- 

 tended to him and that ere very long. But he is happy, exceed- 

 ingly happy in his situation. He is responsible to the Treasury 

 but to no one else, and all the persons in the office, forty or 

 thereabouts in number, are under him. Be.sides the labour is 

 light, not, perhaps, averaging an hour or at most two hours a 

 day, often not five mimites. He is also well pleased with all the 

 persons who are officially connected with him, and so he may, for 



