62 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 



thing. Buckle was a great talker, and I listened to him say- 

 ing hardly a word, nor indeed could I have done so for he 

 left no gaps. When Mrs. Farrer began to sing, I jumped up 

 and said that I must listen to her ; after I had moved away 

 he turned around to a friend and said (as was overheard by 

 my brother), ''Well, Mr. Darwin's books are much better than 

 his conversation." 



Of other great literary men, I once met Sydney Smith 

 at Dean Milman's house. There was something inexplicably 

 amusing in every word which he uttered. Perhaps this was 

 partly due to the expectation of being amused. He was talk- 

 ing about Lady Cork, who was then extremely old. This was 

 the lady who, as he said, was once so much affected by one 

 of his charity sermons, that she borrowed a guinea from a 

 friend to put in the plate. He now said " It is generally be- 

 lieved that my dear old friend Lady Cork has been over- 

 looked," and he said this in such a manner that no one could 

 for a moment doubt that he meant that his dear old friend 

 had been overlooked by the devil. How he managed to ex- 

 press this I know not. 



I likewise once met Macaulay at Lord Stanhope's (the 

 historian's) house, and as there was only one other man at 

 dinner, I had a grand opportunity of hearing him converse, 

 and he was very agreeable. He did not talk at all too much ; 

 nor indeed could such a man talk too much, as long as he al- 

 lowed others to turn the stream of his conversation, and this 

 he did allow. 



Lord Stanhope once gave me a curious little proof of the 

 accuracy and fulness of Macaulay's memory : many his- 

 torians used often to meet at Lord Stanhope's house, and in 

 discussing various subjects they would sometimes differ from 

 Macaulay, and formerly they often referred to some book to 

 see who was right ; but latterly, as Lord Stanhope noticed, 

 no historian ever took this trouble, and whatever Macaulay 

 said was final. 



On another occasion I met at Lord Stanhope's house, 

 one of his parties of historians and other literary men, and 



