title="2"/> London, September 10, 1831.—From Paris letters it appears that the indestructible Bailli de Ferette has at length taken his departure; likewise Madame Visconti, another extraordinary relic of the past.

I hear there have been émeutes of women; fifteen hundred of these horrible creatures made a commotion, and because of their sex the Garde Nationale would not use force. Fortunately, the rain settled the matter.

Yesterday came an express with a rigmarole about Belgium asking that the Dutch should retire still further, that Maestricht should be garrisoned by Dutch alone, expressing impatience at General Baudrand having had direct conversations in private with the English Ministers, and recalling him forthwith. He will not go, however, till after the Drawing-room.

Nothing new about Poland.

The Times tells of the ill-starred attempt in Portugal. A malison on Dom Miguel! What a shame it is that he should have triumphed!

The only news in London is that on the occasion of the coronation,[1] the King allowed the Bishops to lay aside their ugly wigs. This has made them quite unrecognisable for the last week, for they were in such a hurry to avail themselves of the permission that they did not allow time for their hair to grow again. The result was that they cut a very odd figure, and were the delight of all the guests at the King's dinner.

London, September 11, 1831.—Everybody is still talking of nothing but the coronation; the Duke of Devonshire's return on foot all splashed with mud; the acts, words, and appearance of everyone are discussed, embellished, distorted, and reviewed with more or less charity: that is to say, with no charity at all. The Queen alone is left untouched; everyone says that she was perfect, and they are quite right.

I saw the Duke of Gloucester yesterday, and could get nothing out of him except that they had been trying to avoid having Van de Weyer (who makes the Duchess of Saxe-Weimar swoon) at the great diplomatic dinner to-day at Saint James's. They, therefore, hit on the plan of asking, besides ambassadors, only such ministers as are married; I thought this rather stupid.

All the venerable survivals are disappearing; there is Lady Mornington, mother of the Duke of Wellington, who died yesterday at the age of ninety. This event can make little difference to her son.

The Landgravine of Hesse-Homburg and the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen left yesterday by the steamer for Rotterdam; the Duchess of Cambridge leaves to-day for the Hague viâ Bruges. The great preoccupation of them all is to avoid Brussels.

Lady Belfast describes very amusingly the visit of the English yachts to Cherbourg and the welcome they had there. They were received by the authorities, who could not in the least understand what a Gentleman's Yacht Club in which the Government had no concern could be; in fact, they were near taking the members for pirates. However, they gave them a dinner and a ball. Lord Yarborough wished to return their hospitality on board his yacht, but all the provincial fair ladies declared that nothing would induce them to dance on the sea, that they would be certain to be horribly sick, and that the proposal was altogether barbarous. Finally, Lord Yarborough was obliged to yield, and gave his ball in a Cherbourg tavern, where, however, he managed to spend ten thousand francs in a single evening.

London, September 13, 1831.—Yesterday's Drawing-room was more crowded than ever, and consequently so long and fatiguing that Mexico, Spain, and Naples were successively placed hors de combat. The diplomatic ranks were so much thinned by these ladies fainting one after the other that one had to exert oneself more than usual.

Madame de Lieven boldly seated herself on the steps of the throne, whence she passed into the King's room, where she had lunch. She came back and told us that she was neither tired nor hungry. She all but added that our legs should be rested because hers were, and our stomachs satisfied because hers had been stayed.

The peeresses, as a rule, looked well in their robes. One unhappy creature paid dearly for the pleasure of exercising her right as a peeress to be received by the King whether he will or no. Lady Ferrers had been practically kept by her husband as his mistress before he married her, so Lord Howe told Lord Ferrers that the Queen would not receive his wife. Lord Ferrers replied, however, that peeresses had the entrée, and that could not be denied. He was warned, however, that the Queen would turn away as Lady Ferrers passed, and this is what happened. I must observe that even in this the Queen showed her kindness of heart, for she pretended to begin a conversation with the Princess Augusta just before Lady Ferrers came opposite to her. She did not interrupt her conversation, and it was possible to think that the poor woman had passed unperceived and not insulted. I thought it was very nice of the Queen.

The dinner was magnificent, and the exuberance of the King's good humour was really comic; he made several remarkable speeches in French, and I hear that, when the ladies had gone, the grossness of his conversation was beyond belief. I have never seen him so gay. I think that certain despatches from Paris which arrived a little before dinner, and brought to Lord Palmerston and M. de Talleyrand the news that the French troops would begin the evacuation of Belgium on the 27th and would all be back in France by the 30th, had something to do with the Royal hilarity. Lord Grey was radiant about it.

The news of the cholera is bad; it has got to Sweden viâ Finland, and at Berlin in three days thirty out of the sixty sick have died. There has been enough ado about it in Paris for M. Perier to make his appearance there on horseback in his ministerial uniform; his presence had a good effect.

It seems that the Belgian business is definitely settled, and M. de Talleyrand was saying yesterday that he would be in France at the end of October. But I have already seen so many ups and downs in these affairs that I no longer profess to predict anything a week ahead.

Tunbridge Wells, September 16, 1831.—I have just been visiting Eridge Castle,[2] which belongs to a rich and misanthropic octogenarian much persecuted by misfortune. His title is Earl of Abergavenny, but his family name is Neville. He is a cousin of Lord Warwick; the celebrated "King maker" was a Neville, and Eridge Castle was his. At a later date Queen Elizabeth was feasted there.

The foundations of the castle are ancient, and it has been restored in the ancient style, with great care, by the present owner. The effect of the whole is perfectly harmonious, and every detail is rich and elegant. The perfection of the carving and the beauty of the stained glass are wonderful. Lord Abergavenny's own apartments are extremely dismal. The castle occupies a very high point on the top of a hill, with a lake twenty acres in extent at the foot. But the low ground is surrounded by hills which are even higher than the one in the centre, on which the castle stands, and which are all covered with trees so splendid, so numerous, and stretching for so many miles, that they form a veritable forest. I have never seen a prospect so romantically wooded and at the same time so profoundly melancholy. It is not English, still less is it French; it is the Black Forest, it is Bohemia. I have never seen ivy like that which covers