clothes, when I saw him, were all brown. He seemed to believe in
everything which was to others utterly incredible. He said one
day to me, "Why don't you give up your fiddle-faddle of geology
and zoology, and turn to the occult sciences!" The historian,
then Lord Mahon, seemed shocked at such a speech to me, and his
charming wife much amused.

The last man whom I will mention is Carlyle, seen by me several
times at my brother's house, and two or three times at my own
house. His talk was very racy and interesting, just like his
writings, but he sometimes went on too long on the same subject.
I remember a funny dinner at my brother's, where, amongst a few
others, were Babbage and Lyell, both of whom liked to talk.
Carlyle, however, silenced every one by haranguing during the
whole dinner on the advantages of silence. After dinner Babbage,
in his grimmest manner, thanked Carlyle for his very interesting
lecture on silence.

Carlyle sneered at almost every one: one day in my house he
called Grote's 'History' "a fetid quagmire, with nothing
spiritual about it." I always thought, until his 'Reminiscences'
appeared, that his sneers were partly jokes, but this now seems
rather doubtful. His expression was that of a depressed, almost
despondent yet benevolent man; and it is notorious how heartily
he laughed. I believe that his benevolence was real, though
stained by not a little jealousy. No one can doubt about his
extraordinary power of drawing pictures of things and men--far
more vivid, as it appears to me, than any drawn by Macaulay.
Whether his pictures of men were true ones is another question.