Most agreeable dinner here yesterday; the _convives_ were: Dr.
Lushington, Mr. Andrews; Mrs. Andrews at the last sent a regret--ill in
bed with a headache. Honora came in her stead. Mr. Macintosh and Miss
Carr; Dr. Lushington beside Fanny, and carving remarkably well and most
entertaining and agreeable; he raised the heart's laugh frequently, and
the head's by fresh, not old-faded-London-diner-out bon-mots, anecdotes,
and facts worth knowing, all with the assistance of Mr. Andrews, so
remarkably agreeable and gentlemanly a gentleman; they played into each
other's hands and mine delightfully, and Fanny's, and Honora's, and the
ball came to everybody pat, in turn. The ball did I say? Boomerang I
should have said, for it came back always nicely to the thrower.
I must tell you an anecdote I heard yesterday from Mr. Kenyon, brother
of Lord Kenyon's, a saying of Mrs. Brooke, sister of Baron Garrow, who,
notwithstanding his bullying manner in court, was a man easily swayed in
private, always influenced by the last thing said by the last person in
his company--all which was compressed by Mrs. Brooke into: "With my
brother _presence is power_."
_To_ MRS. R. BUTLER.