ment of extempore discourse, or in pure eloquence and communication of spiritual beauty, with Channing, nor in fulness and sustained flow with Parker."
Margaret's estimate of Martineau is interesting:—
"Mr. Martineau looks like the over-intellectual, the partially-developed man, and his speech confirms this impression. He is sometimes conservative, sometimes reformer, not in the sense of eclecticism, but because his powers and views do not find a true harmony. On the conservative side he is scholarly, acute; on the other, pathetic, pictorial, generous. He is no prophet and no sage, yet a man full of fine affections and thoughts; always suggestive, sometimes satisfactory."
Mr. Fox appears to her "the reverse of all this. He is homogeneous in his materials, and harmonious in the results he produces. He has great persuasive power; it is the persuasive power of a mind warmly engaged in seeking truth for itself."
What a leap did our Margaret now make, from Puritanic New England, Roundhead and Cromwellian to its character, into the very heart of Old England, into that Loudon which, in those days, and for long years after, might have been called the metropolis of the world! Wonders of many sorts the "province in brick" still contains. Still does it most astonish those who bring to it the most knowledge. But the social wonders which it then could boast have passed away, leaving no equals to take their place.
Charles Dickens was then in full bloom,—Thackeray in full bud. Sydney Smith exercised his keen, discreet wit. Kenyon not only wrote about pink champagne, but dispensed it with many other good things. Rogers entertained with exquisite taste, and showed his art-treasures without ostentation, Tom Moore, like a
