_December 23rd._--Three days passed very agreeably. Charles Austin came yesterday, Dundas and John Russell to-day. Last night Mrs. Butler read the first three acts of the 'Hunchback,' which she was to have finished to-night, but she ran restive, pretended that some of the party did not like it, and no persuasion could induce her to go on. Another night, Moore sang some of his own Melodies, and Macaulay has been always talking. Never certainly was anything heard like him. It is inexhaustible, always amusing and instructive, about everybody and everything. I had at one time a notion of trying to remember and record some of the conversation that has been going on, and some of the anecdotes that have been told, but I find it is in vain to attempt it. The drollest thing is to see the effect upon Rogers, who is nearly extinguished, and can neither make himself heard, nor find an interval to get in a word. He is exceedingly provoked, though he can't help admiring, and he will revive to-morrow when Macaulay goes. It certainly must be rather oppressive after a certain time, and would be intolerable, if it was not altogether free from conceit, vanity, and arrogance, unassuming, and the real genuine gushing out of overflowing stores of knowledge treasured up in his mind. We walked together for a long time the day before yesterday, when he talked of the History he is writing. I asked him if he was still collecting materials, or had begun to write. He said he was writing while collecting, going on upon the fund of his already acquired knowledge, and he added, that it was very mortifying to find how much there was of which he was wholly ignorant. I said if he felt that, with his superhuman memory and wonderful scope of knowledge, what must ordinary men feel? He said that it was a mistake to impute to him either such a memory or so much knowledge; that Whewell and Brougham had more universal knowledge than he had, but that what he did possess was the ready, perhaps too ready, use of all he knew. I said what surprised me most was, his having had time to read certain books over and over again; _e.g._ he said he had read Don Quixote in Spanish, five or six times; and I am afraid to say how often he told me he had read 'Clarissa.' He said that he read no modern books, none of the novels or travels that come out day after day. He had read 'Tom Jones' repeatedly, but 'Cecil a Peer,' not at all; and as to 'Clarissa,' he had read it so often that, if the work were lost, he could give a very tolerable idea of it, could narrate the story completely, and many of the most remarkable passages and expressions. However, it would be vain, nor is it worth while, to attempt to recollect and record all his various talk. It is not true, as some say, that there is nothing original in it, but certainly by far the greater part is the mere outpouring of memory. Subjects are tapped, and the current flows without stopping. Wonderful as it is, it is certainly oppressive