Upon Our Return We Found The Last Of The Old Harpers, Blind, And
With A Genuine Old Irish Harp, And
After hearing his national
melodies for half an hour, taking a cup of coffee, and enjoying a
little more of
Lady Byron's conversation, we departed, having had a
day heaped up with the richest and best enjoyments. I could not
help thinking, as I was walking up and down the beautiful paths of
Claremont Park, with the fresh spring air blowing about me, the
primroses, daisies, and wild bluebells under my feet, and Lady Byron
at my side, that it was more like a page out of a poem than a
reality.
On Sunday night any Americans who are here come to see us. . . . Mr.
Harding brought with him a gentleman, whom he introduced as Mr.
Alison. Mr. Bancroft asked him if he were related to Archdeacon
Alison, who wrote the "Essay on Taste." "I am his son," said he.
"Ah, then, you are the brother of the historian?" said Mr. Bancroft.
"I am the historian," was the reply. . . . An evening visitor is a
thing unheard of, and therefore my life is very lonely, now I do not
go into society. I see no one except Sunday evenings, and,
occasionally, a friend before dinner.
LETTER: To W.D.B. and A.B.
LONDON, May 24, [1847]
My dear Sons: . . . On Friday we both went to see the Palace of
Hampton Court with my dear, good, Miss Murray, Mr. Winthrop and son,
and Louise. . . . On our arrival, we found, to our great vexation,
that Friday was the only day in the week in which visitors were not
admitted, and that we must content ourselves with seeing the grounds
and go back without a glimpse of its noble galleries of pictures.
Fortunately for us, Miss Murray had several friends among the
persons to whom the Queen has assigned apartments in the vast
edifice, and they willingly yielded their approbation of our
admission if she could possibly win over Mrs. Grundy, the
housekeeper. This name sounded rather inauspicious, but Mr.
Winthrop suggested that there might be a "Felix" to qualify it, and
so in this case it turned out. Mrs. Grundy asserted that such a
thing had never been done, that it was a very dangerous precedent,
etc., but in the end the weight of a Maid of Honor and a Foreign
Minister prevailed, and we saw everything to much greater advantage
than if we had 150 persons following on, as Mr. Winthrop says he had
the other day at Windsor Castle. . . . On our way [home] we met Lady
Byron with her pretty little carriage and ponies. She alighted and
we did the same, and had quite a pleasant little interview in the
dusty road.
Sunday, May 30th
Your father left town on Monday. . . . He did not return until the
27th, the morning of the Queen's Birthday Drawing-Room. On that
occasion I went dressed in white mourning. . . . It was a petticoat
of white crape flounced to the waist with the edges notched.
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