London, Oct. 5th, 1826.

I have had a most disastrous passage. A squall, constant sea-sickness, forty hours instead of twenty,—and, to crown the whole, striking on a sandbank in the Thames, where we had to lie six hours, till the tide set us afloat again;—such were the disagreeable incidents of our voyage.

It is ten years since I quitted England; and I know not whether I saw all things before with beautifying eyes, or whether my imagination had unconsciously brightened the colouring of the distant picture; but the views on the banks of the Thames appeared to me neither so fresh nor so picturesque as formerly, though superb groups of trees and cheerful pretty villas were frequently in sight. But here, as in North Germany, the lopping of the trees often spoils the landscape; only that the quantity of them in the numerous hedges which enclose the fields, and the preservation of at least the topmost branches, render the effect less melancholy here than in the otherwise so beautiful Silesia.

Among the passengers was an Englishman who had just returned from Herrnhut, and had also visited the baths of M——. It diverted me highly, unknown to him as I was, to hear his opinions of the plantations there. How much tastes differ, and how little, therefore, anybody needs to despair, you may conclude from this,—that he expressed the highest admiration for that gloomy district, solely on account of the immensity of the ‘evergreen woods,’ as he called the endless monotonous pine-forests, which appear to us so insufferable, but which are a rarity in England, where fir-trees are carefully planted in parks, and commonly thrive but ill.

An American was extremely incensed at being sea-sick during this trumpery passage, after having crossed the Atlantic to Rotterdam without being at all so; and a planter from Demarara, who was in a continual shiver, complained even more of the “impolitic” abolition of the slave-trade than of the cold. He thought that this measure would speedily bring about the total ruin of the colonies; for, said he, a slave or a native never works unless he is forced; and he does not need to work, because the magnificent country and climate afford him food and shelter sufficient. Europeans cannot work in the heat, so that nothing remains but the alternative,—colonies with slaves, or no colonies;—that people knew this well enough, but had very different ends in view from those which they put forward with such a parade of philanthropy. He maintained that the slaves were, even for their owners’ interest, far better treated than the Irish peasants,—far better than he had often seen servants treated in Europe:—an exception might be found here and there; but this was not worth considering in a view of the whole subject.

I tried to turn the conversation from a subject so distressing to every friend of humanity, and got him to describe to me the mode of life in Guiana, and the majesty of its primeval woods. His descriptions filled me with a sort of longing after these wonders of nature, in a country where all is nobler, and man alone is baser, than with us.

The ridiculous element of the voyage was an English lady, who with unusual volubility seized every occasion of entering into conversation in French. Though no longer in the bloom of youth, she carefully concealed this defect even on ship-board, by the most studied toilet. At a late hour in the morning, when we all crawled on deck more or less wretched, we found her already seated there in an elegant ‘negligÉe.’

In the middle of the second night we anchored just below London Bridge, the most unfortunate circumstance that can happen to a man. In consequence of the severity of the Custom-house, he is not permitted to take his things on shore before they are inspected; and the office is not opened till ten in the morning. As I did not choose to leave my German servants alone with my carriage and effects, I was compelled to pass the night, almost dressed as I was, in a miserable sailors’ tavern close to the river. In the morning, however, when I was present at the examination, I found that the golden key, which rarely fails, had not lost its efficacy here, and saved me from long and tedious delays. Even a few dozen French gloves, which lay in all innocence open upon my linen, seemed to be rendered invisible;—nobody took any notice of them.

I hastened as quickly as possible out of the dirty city, swarming like an ant-hill, but had half a stage to travel with post-horses before I reached the ‘West end of the town,’ where I put up at my old quarters, the Clarendon Hotel. My former host, a Swiss, had exchanged England for a yet unknown country. His son, however, occupied his place, and received me with all that respectful attention which distinguishes English innkeepers, and indeed all here who live by the money of others. He very soon rendered me a real service; for I had hardly rested an hour before I discovered that, in the confusion of the night, I had left a purse with eighty sovereigns in a drawer in my bed-room. Monsieur Jaquier, ‘qui connoissait le terrain,’ shrugged his shoulders, but instantly sent off a confidential person to the spot, to recover the lost purse if possible. The disorder which reigned in the miserable inn, stood me in good stead. Our messenger found the room uncleared; and to the, perhaps disagreeable, surprise of the people, the purse where I left it.

London is now so utterly dead as to elegance and fashion, that one hardly meets an equipage; and nothing remains of the ‘beau monde’ but a few ambassadors. The huge city is, at the same time, full of fog and dirt, and the macadamized streets are like well-worn roads; the old pavement has been torn up, and replaced by small pieces of granite, the interstices between which are filled with gravel; this renders the riding more easy, and diminishes the noise; but, on the other hand, changes the town into a sort of quagmire. Were it not for the admirable ‘trottoirs,’ people must go on stilts, as they do in the Landes near Bourdeaux. Englishwomen of the lower classes do indeed wear an iron machine of the kind on their large feet.

London is, however, extremely improved in the direction of Regent Street, Portland Place, and the Regent’s Park. Now, for the first time, it has the air of a seat of Government (Residenz), and not of an immeasurable metropolis of ‘shopkeepers,’ to use Napoleon’s expression. Although poor Mr. Nash (an architect who has great influence over the King, and is the chief originator of these improvements) has fared so ill at the hands of connoisseurs,—and it cannot be denied that his buildings are a jumble of every sort of style, the result of which is rather ‘baroque’ than original,—yet the country is, in my opinion, much indebted to him for conceiving and executing such gigantic designs for the improvement of the metropolis. The greater part too is still ‘in petto,’ but will doubtless soon be called into existence by English opulence and the universal rage for building. It’s true, one must not look too nicely into the details. The church, for instance, which serves as ‘point de vue’ to Regent Street, ends in a ridiculous spire, while every part seems at variance with every other. It is a strange architectural monster. There is an admirable caricature, in which Mr. Nash, a very small shrivelled man, is represented booted and spurred, riding spitted on the point of the spire. Below is the inscription “National (sounded nashional) taste.”

Many such monstrosities might be mentioned. Among others, on a balcony which adorns the largest mansion in the Regent’s Park, there are four figures squeezed flat against the wall, whose purpose or import is extremely mysterious. They are clad in a sort of dressing-gown, whence we gather that they are at least designed for human figures. Perhaps they are emblems of an hospital; for these apparent palaces, like that at Potsdam, have unity and grandeur in their faÇade alone. They are often, in fact, only a conglomeration of small houses dedicated to the purposes of trade, manufacture, or what not.

Faultless, on the other hand, is the landscape-gardening part of the park, which also originates with Mr. Nash, especially in the disposition of the water. Art has here completely solved the difficult problem of concealing her operations under an appearance of unrestrained nature. You imagine you see a broad river flowing on through luxuriant banks, and going off in the distance in several arms; while in fact you are looking upon a small piece of standing, though clear, water, created by art and labour. So beautiful a landscape as this, with hills in the distance, and surrounded by an enclosure of magnificent houses a league in circuit, is certainly a design worthy of one of the capitals of the world; and when the young trees are grown into majestic giants, will scarcely find a rival. In the execution of Mr. Nash’s plan many old streets have been pulled down, and during the last ten years more than sixty thousand new houses built in this part of the town. It is, in my opinion, a peculiar beauty of the new streets, that, though broad, they do not run in straight lines, but make occasional curves which break their uniformity.

If ever London has quays, and St. Paul’s Church is laid open, according to the ingenious project of Colonel Trench, she will excel all other cities in magnificence, as much as she now does in magnitude.

Among the new bridges, Waterloo Bridge holds the first rank. The proprietors are said to have lost 300,000l. feet in length, and enclosed between solid balustrades of granite, it affords an agreeable and almost solitary walk, and commands the finest river view, in so far as the fog will permit it to be seen,—in which palaces, bridges, churches, and vessels, are proudly blended.

The contrivance for checking the toll-receivers was new to me. The iron turnstile through which you pass, and which is in the usual form of a cross, is so contrived that it describes each time only a quarter of the circle, just as much as is necessary to let one person through; and at the moment when it stops, a mark falls in an enclosed case under the bridge. There is a similar contrivance for carriages; and the proprietors have only to count the marks in an evening, to know accurately how many foot and horse-passengers cross the bridge daily. The former pay a penny, the latter three-pence, by which it was expected that three hundred pounds a day would be taken, instead of which the receipts seldom exceed fifty.

October 7th.

What would delight you here is the extreme cleanliness of the houses, the great convenience of the furniture, and the good manners and civility of all serving people. It is true that one pays for all that appertains to luxury (for the strictly necessary is not much dearer than with us), six times as high; but then one has six times as much comfort. In the inns everything is far better and more abundant than on the Continent. The bed, for instance, which consists of several mattrasses laid one upon another, is large enough to contain two or three persons; and when the curtains which hang from the square tester supported on substantial mahogany columns, are drawn around you, you find yourself as it were in a little cabinet,—a room, which would be a very comfortable dwelling for a Frenchman. On your washing-table you find—not one miserable water-bottle, with a single earthen or silver jug and basin, and a long strip of a towel, such as are given you in all hotels and many private houses in France and Germany; but positive tubs of handsome porcelain, in which you may plunge half your body; half-a-dozen wide towels; a multitude of fine glass bottles and glasses, great and small; a large standing looking-glass, foot-baths, &c., not to mention other anonymous conveniences of the toilet, all of equal elegance.

Everything presents itself before you in so attractive a guise, that as soon as you wake you are allured by all the charms of the bath. If you want anything, the sound of your bell brings either a neatly dressed maid-servant, with a respectful curtesy, or a smart well-dressed waiter, who receives your orders in the garb and with the air of an adroit valet; instead of an uncombed lad, in a short jacket and green apron, who asks you, with a mixture of stupidity and insolence, “Was schaffen’s Ihr Gnoden?” (What is it, your Honour?), or “Haben Sie hier jeklingelt?” (Was it you, here, that rung?), and then runs out again without understanding properly what is wanted. Good carpets cover the floors of all the chambers; and in the brightly polished steel grate burns a cheerful fire, instead of the dirty logs, or the smoky and ill-smelling stoves to be found in so many of our inns.

If you go out, you never find a dirty staircase, nor one in which the lighting serves only to make darkness visible. Throughout the house, day and night, reign the greatest order and decency; and in some hotels every spacious set of apartments has its own staircase, so that no one comes in contact with others. At table, the guest is furnished with a corresponding profusion of white table linen, and brilliantly polished table utensils; with a well-filled ‘plat de mÉnage,’ and an elegance of setting out which leaves nothing to wish for. The servants are always there when you want them, and yet are not intrusive: the master of the house generally makes his appearance with the first dish, and inquires whether everything is as you desire;—in short, the best inns afford everything that is to be found in the house of a travelled gentleman, and the attendance is perhaps more perfect and respectful. It is true the reckoning is of a piece with the rest, and you must pay the waiters nearly as much as you would a servant of your own. In the first hotels, a waiter is not satisfied with less than two pounds a-week for his own private fees. Such gifts or vales are more the order of the day in England than in any other country, and are asked with the greatest shamelessness even in the churches.

I visited the bazaars to-day. These establishments have come very much into fashion within the last few years, and afford great facilities to buyers. The so-called horse bazaar is built on a very large scale, and daily draws together a very motley assemblage. It includes several extensive buildings, where hundreds of carriages and harness of every kind, new and old (the latter made to look like new), are exposed to sale, at all prices, in a very long gallery. In other rooms are porcelain wares, articles of dress, glass mirrors, ‘quincaillerie,’ toys, and even collections of foreign birds and butterflies, all for sale. At length you reach a coffee-room in the centre of the establishment, with a glazed gallery running round an open space. Here, while comfortably seated at breakfast (in rather mixed company it is true), you see a number of horses led out from the extensive stables where they are well taken care of, and to which any one who has a horse to sell may send it for a certain fee. They are then put up to auction. When a horse is warranted sound by the auctioneer, you may buy it with tolerable safety, since the proprietor of the establishment is responsible for the warranty. The best are certainly not to be found here, but the cheapest are; and to many this is a great recommendation: perhaps a still greater is the being able to get all one wants in the same place. There are already, as I said, several of these bazaars, and they are worth a visit. The convenient walking on the excellent ‘trottoirs,’ the gay and ever-changing groups, and the numerous splendid shops, make the streets of London, especially in the evening, a very agreeable walk to a foreigner.

Besides the brilliant gas-lights, there are large globes of glass in the druggists’ shops, filled with liquid of a deep red, blue, or green colour, the splendid light of which is visible for miles, and often serves as a beacon, though sometimes as an ‘ignis fatuus,’ if you are unlucky enough to mistake one for another.

Of all the shops, the most attractive are those in which the beautiful English crystal is sold. Real diamonds can scarcely glitter more dazzlingly than the far-gleaming collections of some manufacturers. I observed too some articles of rose or other coloured glass, but I was surprised to see how little the forms were changed. The crown lustres, for instance, are just the same as ever; and yet I should think that they might be made in the form of suns with diverging rays, or of bouquets of flowers, instead of this eternal crown; or that small lustres of gay colours, set like ‘bijous’ of various gems, and fixed against the walls of rooms of appropriate, perhaps oriental, decorations, would produce a new and striking effect.

Other very interesting shops contain all the newest implements of agriculture and the mechanic arts, from huge drilling machines and an apparatus for uprooting old trees, to small delicate garden shears, all set out in extensive premises, all arranged with a certain elegance, which is universal, even among the dealers in meat, fish and vegetables. The shops of ironmongers and dealers in lamps well deserve a visit; affording, as they do, a display of the new and the useful, which it would not be easy to find on the whole Continent, either to the same extent or in the same exact perfection. The traveller, however, who confines himself to the ‘salons’ and the like, and who wants to see only genteel sights, had better stay at home.

I closed the day with a walk to Chelsea, the hospital for invalid soldiers, where one rejoices to see the old warriors well taken care of, inhabiting a palace, and enjoying gardens with the most beautiful smooth-mowed ‘bowling-green’ and lofty avenues of horse-chestnut trees, of which a little sovereign might be proud.

I dined at the —— ambassador’s at eight o’clock. The dinner was remarkable not only for the amiability of the host, but for genuine Metternich-Johannisberg; for which nectar, even the most inveterate liberal must allow justice to be done to the great minister. At table I found friend B——, the youth of forty, who charged me with abundance of compliments to you. He is the same as ever, and entertained me with a long conversation about his toilet; he declared that he had grown dreadfully thin in England from ennui.

I must here give you notice that I can say nothing about London society till a longer residence and ‘the season’ have enabled me to speak with more confidence on the subject. So long as London remains desert as Palmyra, as to the fashionable world, I shall confine myself to a description of places.

October 10th.

A few days ago I took advantage of rather brighter weather to visit Chiswick, a villa of the Duke of Devonshire’s, which is esteemed the most elegant specimen of garden decoration, of its kind, in England. I had seen it some years ago at a fÊte given by the Duke but only superficially. I could not, even now, see the pictures, as the house was inhabited by a visitor.

I found the garden much altered, but not I think for the better; for there is now a mixture of the regular and the irregular which has a very unpleasant effect. The ugly fashion now prevalent in England, of planting the ‘pleasure-ground’ with single trees or shrubs placed at a considerable distance almost in rows, has been introduced in several parts of these grounds. This gives the grass-plats the air of nursery-grounds. The shrubs are trimmed round, so as not to touch each other, the earth carefully cleared about them every day, and the edges of the turf cut into stiff lines, so that you see more of black earth than of green foliage, and the free beauty of nature is quite checked. Mr. Nash, however, adheres to a very different principle, and the new gardens of Buckingham Palace are models to all planters.

The most favourable circumstance to English gardeners is the mildness of the climate. Common and Portuguese laurels, azaleas, and rhododendrons are not injured by the frost, and afford the most beautiful luxuriant thickets, summer and winter, and, in their respective seasons, the richest blossoms and berries.

Magnolias are seldom covered, and even camellias stand abroad in peculiarly sheltered spots, with only the protection of a matting. The turf preserves its beautiful freshness all winter; indeed at that season it is usually thicker and more beautiful than in summer, when I remember, in dry weather, to have seen it worse than ever I saw it in the Mark. The present is just the season in which the whole vegetation is in its utmost magnificence.

A pretty effect is produced at Chiswick by a single lofty tree, the stem of which has been cleared up to the very top, and from beneath which you command a view of the whole garden and a part of the park;—a good hint to landscape gardeners, which I advise you to profit by at M——. The cedars here (which unfortunately will not thrive with us) are celebrated, and grow to the size of old fir-trees. Colossal yew hedges also show how long this estate has been an object of extraordinary care. The new conservatories do more credit to the taste of the present possessor than the pleasure-ground. It is strange enough that orange-trees nowhere reach any great size in England. They are very ‘mÉsquin’ here. On the other hand, the flower-gardens are magnificent. The beds are so thinly planted that each separate plant has room to spread, excepting in those beds which are entirely filled with one sort of flower. In them, the chief aim is the perfection of the whole, and they are consequently by far the most beautiful. In the pinery I saw, for the first time, the great Providence pines, specimens of which have been produced of twelve pounds weight.

There is a menagerie attached to the garden, in which a tame elephant performs all sorts of feats, and very quietly suffers anybody to ride him about a large grass-plat. His neighbour is a lama, of a much less gentle nature; his weapon is a most offensive saliva, which he spits out to a distance of some yards at any one who irritates him; he takes such good aim, and fires so suddenly at his antagonist, that it is extremely difficult to avoid his charge.

Chiswick has unfortunately only stagnant slimy water, which is sometimes so low that the elephant, if he were thirsty, might drink it up at a draught.

Passing through a continued series of pretty villas and country-houses of every kind, amid the whirl of horsemen, stage-coaches, travelling-carriages, and coal-wagons drawn by gigantic horses, with occasional pretty glimpses of the Thames, I reached Hyde-Park Corner, after an hour’s quick driving, and buried myself anew in the labyrinth of the huge town.

The next day I visited the City, accompanied by my ‘laquais de place,’ a Swiss, who had travelled in Egypt, Syria, Siberia, and America; had published a Russian Post-book; brought the first intelligence of the taking of Hamburg, together with an actual specimen of a live Cossack, to London; bought Napoleon’s coronation robes at Paris, and exhibited them here; and speaks almost all the European languages. I think all this is not dear at half-a-guinea a day. He may be useful, too, as a physician, for he has collected so many secrets and recipes in his travels, that he has a domestic remedy for every disorder, and moreover, as he maintains, is in possession of a thousand different receipts for making punch. Under the conduct of this universal genius, I entered the Royal Exchange for the first time.

In other cities the Exchange has merely a mercantile air—here it has a completely historical one. The imposing statues of English sovereigns around, the most remarkable among whom are Henry the Eighth and Elizabeth, combined with the antique and stately architecture, excite a poetical feeling, to which the thought of the boundless commerce of which London is the centre gives a still deeper significancy. The men, however, who animate the picture soon draw one back into the region of common-place, for selfishness and avarice gleam but too clearly from every eye. In this point of view, the place I am describing, and indeed the whole city, have a repulsive sinister aspect, which almost reminds one of the restless and comfortless throng of the spirits of the damned.

The great court of the Exchange is surrounded by covered arcades, on which inscriptions point out to the merchants of every nation their several places of assembling. In the centre stands a statue of Charles the Second, who built this edifice. Its port and bearing precisely express the man whom history describes; not handsome, but somewhat graceful, and with an inveterate levity of features, composed, as if in mockery, to seriousness: a levity which nothing could correct, because it sprang from mediocrity, and which made this king as agreeable and careless a ‘rouÉ’ as he was a worthless ruler. In niches above stand the busts of other English sovereigns. I have already mentioned Henry the Eighth and Elizabeth. They would be striking, independently of all associations;—- Henry, fat and contented, and with an expression of wanton cruelty: Elizabeth, with an air of masculine greatness, and yet of feminine spite. The busts are doubtless copied from the best originals by Holbein. On this story is the celebrated Lloyd’s Coffee House, the dirtiest place of the kind in London, which exhibits few traces of the millions daily exchanged in it.

Close by is the vast and beautiful building, the Bank of England, containing a number of rooms of various dimensions, generally lighted from above, and destined to the various offices. Hundreds of clerks are here at work, and mechanically conduct the gigantic business, at which the ‘nil admirari’ becomes a difficult matter to a poor German; especially when he is admitted into the Bullion Office where the ingots are kept, and gazes astounded on the heaps of gold and silver which appear to him to realize the wonders of the Arabian Nights.

From hence I proceeded to the Town-House (Guildhall), where the Lord Mayor was just in the act of administering the law. The present Lord Mayor is a bookseller, but cut a very good figure in his blue gown and gold chain, and assumed a truly monarchical dignity. I do not think that he acquitted himself at all worse than a regular officer of justice;—ever since Sancho Panza’s time, it is admitted that a sound understanding often discerns the right more truly than learned subtlety.

The scene of action was a moderate-sized room, half-filled with the lowest populace. The matter in hand was the most frequent and ordinary theme in England—a theft; and as the culprit, who appeared equally indifferent and ‘ennuyÉ’, after a little hesitation, confessed the offence, the drama soon came to a close.

Further still did we wander on in the tumultuous ‘City,’ where you may be lost like a flitting atom, if you do not pass on to the right or left according to rule; where you seem to be in continual danger of being spitted on the shaft of a cabriolet driving too near the narrow ‘trottoir,’ or crushed under the weight of an overloaded and tottering stage-coach edifice. At length we reached an extremely dark and mean-looking coffee-house, called Garroway’s, where estates and houses of enormous value are daily put up to sale. We took our seat with great gravity, as if we had been desirous of making some important purchase, and admired the uncommon suavity of manner and incredible address with which the auctioneer excited the desire to purchase among his audience. He was very well dressed in black, with a wig, and stood with all the dignity of a professor in his chair. He pronounced a charming oration on every estate, and failed not to season it with various jokes and witticisms, at the same time eulogizing every object in so irresistible a manner that one would have sworn that all the property went for an old song.

How could I leave the city without visiting the true ‘Lion,’ (the English expression for anything extraordinary)—the sovereign—in a word, Rothschild?

I found him, too, in a poor obscure-looking place, (his residence is in another part of the town,) and making my way with some difficulty through the little court-yard, blocked up by a wagon laden with bars of silver, I was introduced into the presence of this Grand Ally of the Holy Alliance. I found the Russian consul in the act of paying his court. He is an acute, clever man, perfect in the part he has to play, and uniting the due respect with a becoming air of dignity. This was the more difficult, because the very original aristocrat of the city did not stand much on ceremony. On my presenting my letter of credit, he said ironically, that we were lucky people who could afford to travel about so, and take our pleasure; while he, poor man, had such a heavy burthen to bear. He then broke out into bitter complaints that every poor devil who came to England had something or other to ask of him. “Yesterday,” said he, “here was a Russian begging of me” (an episode which threw a bitter-sweet expression over the consul’s face); “and,” added he, “the Germans here don’t give me a moment’s peace.” Now it was my turn to put a good face upon the matter. After this, the conversation took a political turn, and we both of course agreed that Europe could not subsist without him;—he modestly declined our compliment, and said, smiling, “Oh no, you are only jesting—I am but a servant, who people are pleased with because he manages their affairs well, and to whom they let some crumbs fall as an acknowledgment.”

All this was said in a language quite peculiar to himself, half English, half German—the English part with a broad German accent, but with the imposing confidence of a man who feels such trifles to be beneath his attention. This truly original language struck me as very characteristic of a man who is unquestionably a person of genius, and of a certain sort of greatness of character.

I had begun my day, very appropriately for England, with the Royal Exchange, the resort of merchants, and ended it with Exeter ‘Change, where I saw the representatives of the colonies,—the wild beasts. Here I found another lion, and this time a genuine one, called Nero, who besides his tameness, has the rarer merit in our northern latitude, of having presented England with six generations of young lions. He is of enormous size and dignified aspect, but now rests upon his laurels and sleeps royally nearly all day long. If he wakes in an ill humour, however, he makes the old wooden house and all the herd of subject beasts tremble. These consist of elephants, tigers, leopards, hyÆnas, zebras, monkeys, ostriches, condors, parrots, &c. It is curious that they are not upon the ground floor, but up one or two pair of stairs, so that one can ride on a tame elephant which stands always ready saddled, and enjoy a fine extensive prospect. The variety is great, and the price moderate. The ambassador of the late King of WÜrtemburg had, as I well remember, more occupation here than in St. James’ and Downing Street; and, indeed, I know that he was for a considerable time in fear of losing his post on account of a strange enormous dead tortoise.

On the way home to my hotel we passed a house which furnished my cicerone with an occasion of telling the following interesting story. If it is ‘brodÉ,’ I beg of you to blame him and not me.[10]

October 13th.

Fatigued by my tour the day before yesterday, I passed the following morning in my own room. In the evening I visited the English Opera. The house is neither large nor elegant, but the actors very good. There was no opera, however, but hideous melo-drames; first, Frankenstein, where a human being is made by magic,—a manufacture which answers very ill; and then the Vampire, after the well-known tale falsely attributed to Lord Byron. The principal part in both was acted by Mr. Cooke, who is distinguished for a very handsome person, skilful acting, and a remarkably dignified, noble deportment. The acting was, indeed, admirable throughout, but the pieces so stupid and monstrous that it was impossible to sit out the performance. The heat, the exhalations, and the audience were not the most agreeable. Besides all this, the performance lasted from seven to half-past twelve,—too long for the best.

The next day I drove to Hampton Court to visit the palace, the stud, and my old friend Lady ——. Of all three I found the first the least altered, and the celebrated vine laden as usual with grapes. It had considerably above a thousand bunches, and completely covered a hot-house of seventy-five feet long by twenty-five wide. In a corner stood, like the dim progenitor of a haughty race, its brown stem, as lost and obscure as if it did not belong to the magnificent canopy of leaves and fruit which owe their existence to it alone.

Most of the rooms in the palace have still the same furniture as in the time of William the Third. The torn chairs and curtains are carefully preserved. The walls are hung with many interesting and admirable pictures;—above all, the celebrated Cartoons of Raphael, which, however, are soon to be transferred to the King’s new palace. I must only mention two fine portraits,—that of Wolsey, the haughty founder of this palace, and that of Henry the Eighth, his treacherous master. Both are admirable and highly characteristic. You remember that fat lawyer whom we had such difficulty in getting rid of; with an animal expression of countenance, sensual, bloodthirsty as far as the present times render it possible to be so, clever, subtle, full of talent and of craft, with boundless haughtiness, and yet a resistless tendency to the vulgar, and, lastly, utterly and frankly devoid of all conscience;—give the picture of Henry a green frock-coat and pearl buttons, and you have a most faithful portrait of him.

Nature continually repeats herself in different ‘nuances,’—they vary according to the state of mankind and of the world.

In the night I was very nearly suffocated. The Jocrisse I imported, who had probably been too hospitably entertained by some English acquaintance, thought proper to take the coals out of the fireplace while I was asleep, and left them standing in my room in a lackered coal-scuttle. A frightful smoke and infernal smell fortunately awoke me just as I was dreaming that I was a courtier of Henry the Eighth, and was paying my court to a French beauty at the Champ du Drap d’Or; otherwise I should have gone to meet the fair one of my dream in heaven.

Almost like that heaven, as distant and as lovely, appears to me the place where you are dwelling, my truest friend: and thus I send you the kiss of peace across the sea, and close my first English letter, wishing you health and every blessing.

Your devoted L——.