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

[382] about getting an agent. . . . . I shall see Mr. Bates, and I trust settle everything by the end of the week. If I do, it will be a considerable weight off my mind. . . . .

Lord Palmerston and Lord Clarendon both thought there would be a good debate to-night in the Commons. . . . . So I went to the Athenaeum the moment I could get through my troublesome work, . . . . and having dined pleasantly with Merivale, Kinglake, and Hayward, I hurried off to the House. Lord Harry Vane procured me the seat I had last time. But I was too late, or at least too late for what I wanted. D'Israeli had spoken, but not very well. . . . . The subject was India, but there was no excitement; little interest, less indeed than I find everywhere else, for in society people now talk incessantly about the mutiny, or revolt, which some call a revolution, and which may turn out one, though I think not in its final results.

July 29.—. . . . The morning is bright and warm, as the weather has been to a remarkable degree ever since I came to London . . . . I write this just as I am setting off for Twickenham, to breakfast with the Duc d'aumale again.

Evening.—Breakfast was at twelve, and I was punctual. The Duc received me in his library, and carried me through a beautiful conservatory to the salon, where the ladies were with the Prince and Princess de Joinville. We sat down, just twelve, at a round table. The dame d'honneur said to me in a low tone, ‘Madame la Duchesse vous demande à sa gauche.’ The Prince de Joinville sat of course on her right. The whole breakfast was as agreeable and easy as pleasant talk could make one anywhere. Two of the children were present, the mother of the Duchesse,—the Princess of Salerno,—etc. The service was not as recherche as it was when I was there with literary celebrities and no ladies, but it was much like a dinner, . . . . nice as anything can be, with a savoriness to which, somehow or other, no English table reaches.

After breakfast I went to the library again with the Duc, who took down nearly two hundred curious books to show me, concerning some of which—Spanish—I made notes. Then we came back to the ladies, who were now settled at their needlework in the salon, which opened on the beautiful lawn, while the Duc, the Prince, and I sat before the door, and enjoyed an uncommonly nice cigar and much agreeable gossip.

But there is an end to everything human, and I brought this to an end a little sooner than I otherwise should have done, but Hampton Court is not far off, and I wanted very much to see it. . . . . My only