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

[152] talkers in London. Dr. Holland came fresh from a professional visit to the Duke of Sussex, whom he had found reading his Hebrew Bible, whose margins were filled with his Highness's notes; a rare instance of royal exegesis, but I apprehend rather a whim of the Duke than the result of very solid learning. Dr. Holland told us a somewhat strange story of the Duke's boyhood, which the Duke had told him this morning.

George III.—as is well known—was strict with his children; and one day when with their tutor, in a sort of regular school-hours, the Duke was seized with that asthma which has pursued him through life, and for which he was—when he related the fact—consulting Dr. Holland for the first time. The disease made his breathing at once audible; and the tutor, mistaking the noise for a voluntary one, ordered the young Duke to be quiet. He replied that he could not, and the noise was continued, until the tutor, after two or three rebukes and threats, called him up and flogged him soundly; a discipline which the Duke assured Dr. Holland was not of rare occurrence. . . . .

We dined in the city, with our excellent friends the Vaughans, where we met Lough, the sculptor, who was quite amusing. He married in Italy, and returning last summer with two or three children, he had much difficulty in reconciling them to the appearance of things in London. When they saw the sun through the fog, they exclaimed, ‘Che brutta luna!’¹ and could not be persuaded to call it anything else.

April 5.—Hallam—by previous arrangement—came to us this morning, and gave us the whole forenoon at the British Museum, of which he is a trustee, and through the whole wilderness of which he carried us, in what is called ‘a private view.’ This is understood to be a considerable favor and distinction, but I must needs say, it proved a truly wearisome one. . . . . Hallam's patience was admirable, and he was agreeable to the end of the almost endless visit.

April 6.—We dined at Hallam's, a party made for us, and it would not be easy to make one more delightful: Whewell and Professor Smyth, of Cambridge; Milman; Sir Francis Palgrave, the historian, and Keeper of the Records at Westminster; Empson, the successor of Sir James Mackintosh; a sister of Hallam, and his young daughter, with one or two more, just enough, and of the most agreeable varieties. The conversation was as various as the people. The only regular talk or discussion was on the German universities,