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    who by
    his own account had been dying some time with impatience to be
    introduced to us; talked much of _Castle Rackrent_, etc., and of
    Ireland. Of course I thought his manner and voice very agreeable. He is
    much fatter and much less solemn than when I saw him in the Irish House
    of Commons. He introduced us to jolly fat Lady Londonderry, who was
    vastly gracious, and invited us to one of the four grand parties which
    she gives every season: _and_ it surprised me very much to perceive the
    rapidity with which a minister's having talked to a person spread
    through the room. Everybody I met afterwards that night and the next day
    _observed_ to me that they had seen Lord Londonderry talking to me for a
    great while!

    We had a crowded party at Lady Londonderry's, but they had no elbows.


    _April 4_.

    I recollect that I left off yesterday in the midst of a well-bred crowd
    at Lady Londonderry's,--her Marchioness-ship standing at her
    drawing-room door all in scarlet for three hours, receiving the world
    with smiles; and how it happened that her fat legs did not sink under
    her I cannot tell. The chief, I may say the only satisfaction we had at
    Lady Londonderry's, while we won our way from room to room, nodding to
    heads, or touching hands, as we passed,--besides the prodigious
    satisfaction of feeling ourselves at such a height of fashion, etc.--was
    in meeting Mr. Bankes, and Lady Charlotte, and Mr. Lemon behind the door
    of one of the rooms, and proceeding in the tide along with them into an
    inner sanctuary, in which we had cool air and a sight of the great
    Sèvres china vase, which was presented by the King of France to Lord
    Londonderry at the signing of the peace. Much agreeable conversation
    from this travelled Mr. Bankes. We heard from Lady Charlotte that her
    entertaining sister, Lady Harriet Frampton, had just arrived, and when I
    expressed our wish to become acquainted with her, Mr. Bankes exclaimed,
    "She is so eager to know you that she would willingly have come to you
    in worsted stockings, just as she alighted from her travelling carriage,
    with sandwiches in one pocket and letters and gloves stuffing out the
    other."

    Enter Mr. and Mrs. Hope. Mr. Hope, characteristically curious in vases,
    turned me round to a famous malachite vase which was given by the
    Emperor of Russia to Lord Londonderry--square, upon a pedestal high as
    my little table; and another, a present of I forget who. So, you see, he
    has a congress of vases, _en desire-t-il mieux_?

    Many, many dinners and evening parties have rolled over one another, and
    are swept out of my memory by the tide of the last fortnight: one at
    Lady Lansdowne's, and one at Mrs. Hope's, and I will go on to one at
    Miss White's. Mr. Henry Fox, Lord Holland's son, is lame. I sat between
    him and young Mr. Ord, Fanny between Mr. Milman (the Martyr of Antioch)
    and Sir Humphry Davy (the Martyr of Matrimony), Harriet between Dr.
    Holland and young Ord: Mr. Moore (Canterbury) and old-ish Ord completed
    this select dinner. In the evening the principal personages were Lord
    James Stuart and Mrs. Siddons: she was exceedingly entertaining, told
    anecdotes, repeated some passages from _Jane Shore_ beautifully, and
    invited us to a private evening party at her house.

    We have become very intimate with Wollaston and Kater, Mr. Warburton,
    and Dr. and Mrs. Somerville: they and Dr. and Mrs. Marcet form the most
    agreeable as well as scientific society in London. We have been to
    Greenwich Observatory. You remember Mr. and Mrs. Pond? I liked him for
    the candour and modesty with which he spoke of the parallax dispute
    between him and Dr. Brinkley, of whom he and all the scientific world
    here speak with the highest reverence.

    We went yesterday with Lord Radstock to the Millbank Penitentiary, where
    by appointment we were met by Mr. Wilbraham Bootle. We had the pleasure
    of taking with us Alicia and Captain Beaufort. Solitary confinement for
    the worst offences: solitary confinement in _darkness_ at first. There
    are many young offenders; the governors say they are horrid plagues, for
    they are not allowed to flog them, and they are little influenced by
    darkness and solitary confinement: oldish men much afraid of it. The
    disease most common in this prison is scrofula; and it is a curious fact
    that those who work with their arms at the mills are free from it, those
    who work with their feet at the tread-mills are subject to it.

    Adieu. I must here break off, as Mrs. Primate Stuart has come in, and
    left me no time for more. The Primate has recovered, and has set out
    this day with his son for Winchester, to see some haunts of his youth,
    takes a trip to Bath, and returns in a few days, when I hope we shall
    see him.

    _April 6_.

    I left off in the Millbank Penitentiary, but what more I was going to
    say I cannot recollect; so, my dear mother, you must go without that
    wisdom. All that I know now is that I saw a woman who is under sentence
    of death for having poisoned her sister. She appeared to me to be
    insane; but it is said that it is a frequent attempt of the prisoners to
    sham madness, in order to get to Bedlam, from which they can get out
    when _cured_. One woman deceived all the medical people, clergyman,
    jailer, and turnkeys, was removed to Bedlam as incurably mad, and from
    Bedlam made her escape. I saw a girl of about eighteen, who had been
    educated at Miss Hesketh's school, and had been put to service in a
    friend's family. She was in love with a footman who was turned away: the
    old housekeeper refused the girl permission to go out the night this man
    was turned away: the girl went straight to a drawer in the housekeeper's
    room, where she had seen a letter with money in it, took it, and put a
    coal into the drawer, to set the house on fire! For this she was
    committed, tried, convicted, and would have been hanged, but for Sir
    Thomas Hesketh's intercession: he had her sent to the Penitentiary for
    ten years. Would you not think that virtue and feeling were extinct in
    this girl? No: the task-mistress took us into the cell, where she was
    working in company with two other women; she has earned by her constant
    good conduct the privilege of working in company. One of the Miss
    Wilbrahams, when all the other visitors except myself had left the cell,
    turned back and said, "I think I saw you once when I was with Miss
    Hesketh at her school." The girl blushed, her face gave way, and she
    burst into an agony of tears, without being able to answer one word.

    Yesterday we breakfasted at Mrs. Somerville's, and I put on for her a
    blue crape turban, to show her how Fanny's was put on, with which she
    had fallen in love. We dined at Mrs. Hughan's, [Footnote: Jean, daughter
    of Robert Milligan, Esq., of Cotswold, Gloucestershire.] niece to Joanna
    Baillie: select party for Sir William Pepys, who is eighty-two, a most
    agreeable, lively old gentleman, who tells delightful anecdotes of Mrs.
    Montague, Sir Joshua, Burke, and Dr. Johnson. Mrs. Montague once
    whispered to Sir William, on seeing a very awkward man coming into the
    room, "There is a man who would give one of his hands to know what to do
    with the other." Excellent house of Mrs. Hughan's, full of flowers and
    luxuries. In the evening many people; the Baillies, and a Miss Jardine,
    granddaughter of Bruce, the traveller. We carried Sir William off with
    us at half-past nine to Mrs. Somerville's, and after we had been gone
    half an hour, Mr. Pepys, a _young_ man between forty and fifty, arrived,
    and putting his glass up to his eye, spied about for his uncle,
    discovered that he was gone, and could not tell how or where! Miss
    Milligan, sister to Mrs. Hughan, told him Miss Edgeworth had carried him
    off. His own carriage arrived at eleven, and carried Mr. Pepys, by
    private orders, not knowing where he was going, to Mrs. Somerville's. We
    had brought Sir William there to hear Mrs. Kater sing and play Handel's
    music, of which he is passionately fond. It was worth while to bring him
    to hear her singing, he so exceedengly enjoyed it, and so does
    Wollaston, who sits as mute as a mouse and as still as the statue of a
    philosopher charmed.

    I forgot to tell you that Lady Elizabeth Belgrave, [Footnote: Daughter
    of the first Duke of Sutherland] as pretty and winning as ever, came to
    see us with Lady Stafford; and yesterday, the third time of calling at
    her door, I was told by a pimpled, red-blotched door-holder that "her
    ladyship was not at home," but after he had turned the card to another
    form out of livery, he said, "My lady is at home to you, ma'am." So up
    we went, and she was very entertaining, with fresh observations from
    Paris, and much humour. She said she was sure there was some peculiar
    charm in the sound of the clinking of their swords in walking up and
    down the gallery of the Tuileries, which the old stupid ones pace every
    day for hours. She says she has met with much grateful attention from
    the royal family, and many of the French whom she had formerly known,
    but cannot give entertainments, because they have not the means. The
    Count d'Artois apologised; he has no separate dinner--always dined with
    the King, and "_very_ sorry for it." Lady Stafford asked us all to
    dinner, but we were engaged to Mr. Morritt. She is to ask again after
    our return from the Deepdene, where we spend Monday and Tuesday with the
    dear Hopes.


    _To_ MRS. RUXTON.

    8 HOLLES STREET, _April 10, 1822._

    The great variety of society in London, and the solidity of the sense
    and information to be gathered from conversation, strike me as far
    superior to Parisian society. We know, I think, six different and
    totally independent sets, of scientific, literary, political, travelled,
    artist, and the fine fashionable, of various shades; and the different
    styles of conversation are very entertaining.

    Through Lydia White we have become more acquainted with Mrs. Siddons
    than I

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