112             A Century of Family Letters    [chap, viii

composed of duet talking. The Bishop of Exeter^ looked the
very personification of the evil serpent, ghding about and
whispering in deep conversation with the Baron, all with
reference to his plot against Hampden. Soon after he sat
down to dinner he poured much civility on me. He made
me half-a-dozen set speeches, invitations to Torquay and
Devonshire, with much formahty, and I guess little sincerity.
I wanted to have Mr Maurice^ as my companion, but I got
H. Milman.^ He praised Jane Eyre exceedingly, so if you
want to order a book get that, the writer is unknown. He
and his wife had been at Paris lately and I asked him about
the Bulls, that you have been laughing at my version of.
They are brazen he said, and he should think their height
was about 12 feet; and instead of 12 Bulls for England,
he said there were a great many more—so I suppose there
are twenty bulls, and I transferred the numbers. Mrs
Henry Milman was exquisitely dressed.

Friday I dined at Mrs Sydney Smith's. This was a
melancholy contrast to the dinners when Sydney presided.
Mrs Sydney was low and seemed to feel the striking differ¬
ence. Everything was as handsome and elegant as in
Sydney's time, but the soul was wanting, which Mrs S.
seems to feel every moment. I heard no news there, except
great praise of Jane Eyre. Fanny [Hensleigh] called for ine
at 4 past nine to go to Mrs Thompson's hterary soiree, which
consisted of about 18 or 20 people, most of them very black.
We had some singing and a little dancing. Sir Edward L.
Bulwer's son^ was there, the most affected young gentleman

1  The famous ** Grorham Case " was just now beginning, in which
Phillpotts, the combative and crafty Bishop of Exeter, was trying to
keep a clergyman out of a benefi.ce to which he had been presented,
on the ground that he was not sound on the question of " baptismal
regeneration." The Bishop was a militant Tory of the fiercest type.
His wife was a niece of Mr Surtees.

2  Frederick Denison Maurice (b. 1805, d. 1872), Chaplain of Lin¬
coln's Inn. He may be said to be the inspirer of the movement
generally called " Broad Church." He also founded the Working
Men's College, the pioneer in the cause of the higher education of
working men. Gladstone after his death called him " that spiritual
splendour," Quoting the phrase used by Dante about St Dominic.

3  Henry Milman, the historian, afterwards Dean of St Paul's,

4  The 1st Earl of Lytton, born 1831.