I have said that Bacon did not deal at all in idle rants "like those in which Cicero and Mr.Shandy sought consolation for the loss of Tullia and of Bobby." Nothing can, as a general remark, be more true, but it escaped my recollection that two or three of Mr.Shandy's consolatory sentences are quoted from Bacon's Essays.

The illustration, therefore, is singularly unfortunate.

Pray alter it thus; "in which Cicero vainly sought consolation for the loss of Tullia." To be sure, it is idle to correct such trifles at a distance of fifteen thousand miles.
Yours ever T.B.MACAULAY.
From Lord Jeffrey to Macvey Napier, Esq.
May 2, 1837.
My dear N.,--What mortal could ever dream of cutting out the least particle of this precious work, to make it fit better into your Review?
It would be worse than paring down the Pitt Diamond to fit the old setting of a Dowager's ring.

Since Bacon himself, I do not know that there has been anything so fine.

The first five or six pages are in a lower tone, but still magnificent, and not to be deprived of a word.
Still, I do not object to consider whether it might not be best to serve up the rich repast in two courses; and on the whole I incline to that partition.