Page:Letters from Abroad to Kindred at Home (Volume 1).djvu/83

80 name, by which he transferred to his publisher for ten pounds the copyright of Paradise Lost. Next in interest to this was a portfolio, in which were arranged autograph letters from Pope and Dryden, Washington and Franklin, and several from Fox, Sheridan, and Scott, addressed to the poet himself. Among them was that written by Sheridan just before his death, describing the extremity of his suffering, and praying Rogers to come to him. But I must check myself. A catalogue raisonnéereasoned [sic] of what our eyes but glanced over would fill folios. I had the pleasure at breakfast of sitting next Mr. Babbage, whose name is so well known among us as the author of the self-calculating machine. He has a most remarkable eye, that looks as if it might penetrate science or anything else he chose to look into. He described the iron steamer now building, which has a larger tonnage than any merchant ship in the world, and expressed an opinion that iron ships would supersede all others; and another opinion that much concerns us, and which, I trust, may soon be verified—that in a few years these iron steamers will go to America in seven days!

Macauley was of the party. His conversation resembles his writings; it is rich and delightful, filled