Letters from England | Page 9

to Mrs. Madison give also my best love. Believe
me yours with the highest regard.
E.D. BANCROFT.

LETTER: 2 December

Yesterday we dined at the Prussian Minister's, Chevalier Bunsen's. He
met your father in Rome twenty years since, and has received us with
great enthusiasm. Yesterday at dinner he actually rose in his seat and
made quite a speech welcoming him to England as historian, old friend,
etc., and ended by offering his health, which your father replied to
shortly, in a few words. Imagine such an outbreak upon routine at a
dinner in England! Nobody could have done it but one of German
blood, but I dare say the Everetts, who know him, could imagine it all.

LETTER: To W.D.B. and A.B. LONDON, December 19,1846

My dear Sons: . . . Yesterday we dined at Macready's and met quite a
new, and to us, a most agreeable circle. There was Carlyle, who talked
all dinner-time in his broad Scotch, in the most inimitable way. He is

full of wit, and happened to get upon James I., upon which topic he was
superb. Then there was Babbage, the great mathematician, Fonblanc,
the editor of the EXAMINER, etc., etc. The day before we dined at Mr.
Frederick Elliott's with a small party of eight, of which Lady Morgan
was one, and also a brother of Lord Normanby's, whom I liked very
much. Lady Morgan, who had not hitherto much pleased me, came out
in this small circle with all her Irish wit and humor, and gave me quite
new notions of her talent. She made me laugh till I cried. On Saturday
we dined at Sir Roderick Murchison's, the President of the Geological
Society, very great in the scientific way.
We have struck up a great friendship with Miss Murray, the Queen's
Maid of Honor, who paid me a visit of three hours to-day, in the midst
of which came in Colonel Estcourt, whom I was delighted to see, as
you may suppose. Miss Murray is to me a very interesting person,
though a great talker; a convenient fault to a stranger. She is connected
with half the noble families in England, is the grand-daughter of the
Duchess of Athol, who governed the Isle of Man as a queen, and the
descendant of Scott's Countess of Derby. Though sprung of such Tory
blood, and a maid of honor, she thinks freely upon all subjects.
Religion, politics, and persons, she decides upon for herself, and has as
many benevolent schemes as old Madam Jackson.
I returned the visit of Mr. and Mrs. Leslie, the painter, this week, and
saw the picture he is now painting for the Vice-Chancellor. It is a
sketch of children, a boy driving his two little sisters as horses. One of
the little girls is very like Susie, her size, hair, and complexion. How I
longed to be rich enough to order a copy, but his pictures cost a fortune.
I paid also a visit this week to the Duchess of Inverness, whom I found
in the prettiest, cosiest morning boudoir looking onto the gardens of the
Palace. In short, I do, or see, every hour, something that if I were a
traveller only, I could make quite a story of.

LETTER: To W.D.B. and A.B. LONDON, January 1, 1847

My dear Sons: . . . I wrote my last sheet on the 19th and your father
went on that day to Cambridge to be present at the tri- centennial
celebration of Trinity College . . . He went also the day after the
anniversary, which was on our 22nd December, to Ely, with Peacock,

the great mathematician, who is Dean of Ely, to see the great cathedral
there . . . While he was at Cambridge I passed the evening of the 22nd
at Lady Morgan's, who happened to have a most agreeable set . . . Lady
Morgan's reunions are entertaining to me because they are collections
of lions, but they are not strictly and exclusively fashionable. They
remind me in their composition from various circles of Mrs. Otis's
parties in Boston. We have in this respect an advantage over the
English themselves, as in our position we see a great variety of cliques.
For instance, last evening, the 31st, I took Louisa, at half-past seven, to
the house of Mr. Hawes, an under Secretary of State, to see a beautiful
children's masque. It was an impersonation of the "Old Year" dressed a
little like LEAR with snowy hair and draperies. OLD YEAR played his
part inimitably, at times with great pathos, and then introducing witty
hits at all the doings of his reign, such as exploding cotton, the new
planet, a subject which he put at rest as "FAR BEYOND OUR