take a travelling carriage.  The imperials (which are large, flat boxes, covering the whole top of the carriage, capital for velvet dresses, and smaller ones fitting into all the seats in the carriage, and before and behind) are brought to you the day before.  I am merely asked what dresses I wish taken, and that is all I know of the matter, so thoroughly does an English maid understand her business.  We were shown on our arrival into a charming room, semi-library.

In a few minutes a servant came to show me to my apartment, which was very superb, with a comfortable dressing-room and fire for Mr. Bancroft, where the faithful Keats unpacked his dressing materials, while I was in a few moments seated at the toilet to undergo my hair-dressing, surrounded by all my apparatus, and a blazing fire to welcome me with a hissing tea-kettle of hot water and every comfort.  How well the English understand it, I learn more and more every day.  My maid had a large room above me, also with a fire; indeed, a “lady’s” maid is a very great character indeed, and would be much more unwilling to take her tea with, or speak familiarly to, a footman or a housemaid than I should.  My greatest mistakes in England have been committed toward those high dignitaries, my own maid and the butler, whose grandeur I entirely misappreciated and invaded, as in my ignorance I placed them, as we do, on the same level with other servants.  She has her fire made for her, and loaf sugar in her tea, which she and Cates sip in solitary majesty.  However, she is most conscientious and worthy, as well as dignified, and thoroughly accomplished in her business.  As all these things are pictures of English life, I mention them to amuse Aunty, who likes to know how these matters are managed.

After I am dressed, I join the circle in the library, where I am introduced to Mr. and Madam Van de Weyer, and Louis Buonaparte, the son of Louis, the ex-King of Holland, and of Hortense, Josephine’s daughter.  He was a long time imprisoned in the fortress of Ham, and has not long been free.  There was also Napoleon, son of Jerome Buonaparte, and the Princess of Wurtemberg.  They were most agreeable, intelligent, and amiable young men, and I was glad to meet them.  Lord and Lady Langdale (who have a place in the neighborhood) were invited to dine with us.  He is Master of the Rolls and was elevated to the peerage from great distinction at the bar.  Lady Langdale is a sensible and excellent person.  At dinner I sat between Mr. Bates and Lord Langdale, whom I liked very much.

The next morning we assembled at ten for breakfast, which was at a round table, with a sort of circular tray, which turns at the least touch in the centre, leaving only a rim round the table for plates and cups.  This was covered also with a white cloth and on it were placed all the breakfast viands, with butter, sugar, cream, bread, toast-rack and preserves.  You need no servants, but turn it round and help yourself.  I believe the Van de Weyers introduced it, from a visit in Wales.  Tea and coffee are served from a side-table always, here.  Let me tell Aunty that our simple breakfast dress is unknown in England.  You come down in the morning dressed for the day, until six or seven in the evening, when your dress is low neck and short sleeves for dinner.  At this season the morning dress is a rich silk or velvet, high body quite close in the throat with handsome collar and cuffs, and always a cap.  Madam Van de Weyer wore every day a different dress, all very rich, but I adhered to a black watered silk with the same simple cap I wore at home.

I took a drive through Richmond Park (where Henry the Eighth watched to see a signal on the Tower when Anne Boleyn’s head fell, and galloped off to marry Jane Seymour) to Richmond Terrace, which is ravishingly beautiful even at this season. . . . The next day the gentleman all went to town, and Madam Van de Weyer and I passed the day tête-à-tête, very pleasantly, as her experience in diplomatic life is very useful to me. . . .  Her manners are very pleasing and entirely unaffected.  She has great tact and quickness of perception, great intelligence and amiability and is altogether extremely well-fitted for the rôle she plays in life.  Her husband is charming. . . . They have three children, very lovely.  The eldest, Victor, a fine boy of seven years old, Victoria, a girl of four, for whom the Queen was sponsor, and Albert, to whom Prince Albert performed the same office.  This was, of course, voluntary in the royal parties, as it was not a favor to be asked. . . .  Madam Van de Weyer is not spoiled, certainly, by the prominent part she was called to play in this great centre of the world at so early an age, and makes an excellent courtier.  I could not help pitying her, however, for looking forward to going through, year after year, the same round of ceremonies, forms, and society.  For us, it is a new study, and invaluable for a short time; but I could not bear it for life, as these European diplomatists.  Besides, we Americans really enjoy a kind of society, and a much nearer intercourse than other foreigners, in the literary, scientific, and even social circles.

On Saturday evening Lord William Fitzroy and daughter joined our party with Sir William Hooker and Lady Hooker. . . . Sir William Hooker is one of the most interesting persons I have seen in England.  He is a great naturalist and has the charge of the great Botanical Gardens at Kew.  He devoted a morning to us there, and it was the most delightful one I have passed.  There are twenty-eight different conservatories filled with the vegetable wonders of the whole world.  Length of time and regal wealth have conspired to make the Kew gardens beyond our conceptions entirely. . . . Sir William pointed out to us all that was very rare or curious, which added much to my pleasure. . . . He showed us a drawing of the largest flower ever known on earth, which Sir Stamford Raffles discovered in Sumatra.  It was a parasite without leaves or stem, and the flower weighed fifteen pounds.  Lady Raffles furnished him the materials for the drawing.  I dined in company with her not long ago, and regret now that I did not make her tell me about the wonders of that region.  At the same dinner you may meet so many people, each having their peculiar gift, that one cannot avail oneself of the opportunity of extracting from each what is precious.  I always wish I could sit by everybody at the same time, and I could often employ a dozen heads, if I had them, instead of my poor, miserable one.  From Sir William Hooker I learned as much about the vegetable world, as Mr. Bancroft did from the Dean of Ely on architecture, when he expounded to him the cathedral of Ely; pointing out the successive styles of the Gothic, and the different periods in which the different parts were built.  Books are dull teachers compared with these gifted men giving you a lecture upon subjects before your eyes.

On Sunday we dined with out own party; on Monday some diplomatic people, the Lisboas and one of Mr. Bates’s partners, and on Tuesday we came home.  I must not omit a visit while we were there from Mr. Taylor (Van Artevelde), who is son-in-law of Lord Monteagle, and lives in the neighborhood.  He has a fine countenance and still finer voice, and is altogether one of those literary persons who do not disappoint you, but whose whole being is equal to their works.  I hope to see more of him, as they spoke of “cultivating” us, and Mr. Taylor was quite a protégé of our kind and dear friend, Dr. Holland, and dedicated his last poem to him.  This expression, “I shall cultivate you,” we hear constantly, and it strikes me as oddly as our Western “being raised.”  Indeed, I hear improper Anglicisms constantly, and they have nearly as many as we have.  The upper classes, here, however, do speak English so roundly and fully,