George Ticknor, Life, letters and journals of George Ticknor
George Hillard, Ed.

[370] hours, and I shall hope to find them just a moment, to thank them. Afterwards I went to see the Lyells, for they go off to-morrow, and I do not want to take leave of them in the midst of a great party, where I am to meet them to-night. I need not tell you I was sorry to bid them good by. They have been as kind and true as they always are . . . .

I then went first to General Fox's,¹ where I found the same sort of hearty kindness I always have, and where I took one of the party I found lounging there and went to a grand matinee at Holland House. . . . . Nothing of the sort could well be finer. The wind had come round to the north, so that it was cool enough; and, passing through the house, . . . . the company came out into the park, where all the fashionable society of London seemed collected in picturesque groups under the magnificent old oaks, and in the open glades and fine gardens, which are scattered over that superb domain,—a true country scene, such as is found in the rich, quiet parks of the inland counties, brought to the very borders of crowded, bustling, noisy London. Tables were spread with all kinds of refreshments in the open air, and in one of the buildings appropriate to such a spot . . . . a Neapolitan confectioner, with his attendants, making ices and screaming out their qualities and excellences in rhyme and in his native dialect. . . . . Elsewhere there was music, and a little dancing, but not much, though enough to enliven a scene that was the most riant that can be imagined . . . . The cynosure indubitably was Mad. de Castiglione, a Sardinian lady, with all the attributes of Italian beauty added to an English complexion of purest red and white,—generally seeming as unmoved as if she were of marble, but warming to a very beautiful smile when I told her I had lately been at Turin . . . . . She was dressed with good taste, no doubt, but in the extravagance of the French fashion, and looked as if she had just walked out of Watteau's pictures of a garden scene in the time of Louis XV . . . . . Everybody stared at her, and yet, they say, she does not think she is admired here so much as at home, and rather complains of it.

Lady Theresa asked for my arm, and I walked round with her and saw everybody and everything in the most agreeable manner, and gossiped and heard gossip of all kinds, such as belongs to London fashionable society when the season is the fullest, and the movement of everything, like the weird dance in Tam O'Shanter, grows fast and furious.

. . . . At half past 11 Twisleton, Ellen, and I reached Lord