Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and letters of Charles Sumner: volume 2

[34] is the immortal picture of Edmund Burke, by Sir Joshua Reynolds; that which has been perpetuated by so many engravings. The artist Osgood has taken a copy of this picture for Governor Everett, which is pronounced very good indeed.

I have given you some of my experience in fox-hunting. Change we our story. When I last wrote I had been enjoying Oxford. On my way to Milton I passed four or five days at Cambridge,—deeply interesting and instructive, —during which I saw most of the persons eminent at the university, and visited the various colleges. Dined with Whewell,¹ and met a large company; next day dined in hall at Trinity, and then repaired to the Combination room of the Fellows; next day again in hall at Trinity, and went to what is here called ‘a wine party,’ at one of the tutor's; afterwards, at ten or eleven o'clock in the evening, had supper at young Lord Napier's,² an undergraduate; next day dined in hall with the Fellows of Caius;³ breakfasted with Whewell, Henslow, and Peacock.⁴ So you will see I met all kinds and degrees of persons, and saw every variety of social entertainment. Oxford is more striking as a whole, but less so in its individual features. I am delighted to find that there is much study done here; and that the examinations for degrees are serious, so that it is impossible for one who is entirely lazy or stupid to obtain a degree.

Athenaeum Club, Dec. 28, 1838.

Again in town and in this glorious apartment, where I look upon the busts of Milton and Shakspeare, of Locke and Burke, of Bacon and Newton! It was not long since I saw Bulwer writing here; and when he threw down the pen he had been using, the thought crossed my mind to appropriate it, and make my fortune by selling it to some of his absurd admirers in America. But I let the goose-quill sleep. What a different person I have just been conversing with for three hours or more!—Basil Montagu; one of the sweetest men, with honeyed discourse, that I ever met. His mind is running over with beautiful images and with boundless illustration and allusion. He has known as bosom friends Mackintosh, Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Lord Eldon; and he pours out his heart, as I freely mention their names, like water. He has just published a charming little book, entitled, ‘Essays and Selections;’ and he has given me a copy, in which he has written my name, ‘with the affectionate good wishes of Basil Montagu.’ I have been amused at what was told me to-night with regard to my admission to the Athenaeum. I am an Honorary Member, admitted as a ‘foreigner of distinction,’ a title which it made me shrink to see applied to my name. But it seems I was nominated last July, and rejected, as was said, by the vote of Croker, whereat Milman was in great anger. Croker's objection was that I was