John Mill is in a rage, and says that they are in a worse scrape than Croker; John Murray says that it is a damned nuisance; and Croker looks across the House of Commons at me with a leer of hatred, which I repay with a gracious smile of pity.
I am ashamed to have said so much about myself.

But you asked for news about me.

No request is so certain to be granted, or so certain to be a curse to him who makes it as that which you have made to me.
Ever yours T.B.MACAULAY.
London: January 9, 1832.
Dear Napier,--I have been so much engaged by bankrupt business, as we are winding up the affairs of many estates, that I shall not be able to send off my article about Hampden till Thursday the 12th.

It will be, I fear, more than forty pages long.

As Pascal said of his eighteenth letter, I would have made it shorter if I could have kept it longer.