BISHOP'S PALACE,NORWICH,August 1st
My dear Ann:How I wish I could transport you to the spot where Iam writing,but if I could summon it before your actual vision you would take it for a dream or a romance,so different is everything within the walls which enclose the precincts of an English Cathedral from anything we can conceive on our side of the water....Some of the learned people and noblemen have formed an Archaeological Society for the study and preservation [of]the interesting architectural antiquities of the kingdom,and [it]is upon the occasion of the annual meeting of this society for a week at Norwich that the Bishop has invited us to stay a few days at the palace and join them in their agreeable antiquarian excursions.We arrived on Friday at five o'clock after a long dull journey of five hours on the railway....Staying in the house are our friends,Mr.and Mrs.Milman,Lord Northampton and his son,Lord Alwyne Compton,and the Bishop's family,consisting of Mrs.Stanley,and of two Miss Stanleys,agreeable and highly cultivated girls,and Mr.Arthur Stanley,the writer of Dr.Arnold's Biography.
After dinner company soon arrived.Among them were Mrs.Opie,who resides here.She is a pleasing,lively old lady,in full Quaker dress.The most curious feature of the evening was a visit which the company paid to the cellar and kitchen,which were lighted up for the occasion.They were build by the old Norman bishops of the twelfth century,and had vaulted stone roofs as beautifully carved and ribbed as a church.
The next day,Saturday,the antiquarians made a long excursion to hunt up some ruins,while the Milmans,Mr.Stanley,and ourselves,went to visit the place of Lady Suffield,about twelve miles distant,and which is the most perfect specimen of the Elizabethan style.Lady Suffield herself is as Elizabethan as her establishment;she is of one [of]the oldest high Tory families and so opposed to innovations of all sorts that though her letters,which used to arrive at two,before the opening of the railway two years ago,now arrive at seven in the morning,they are never allowed to be brought till the old hour....This morning Mr.
Bancroft and the rest are gone on an excursion to Yarmouth to see some ruins,while I remain here to witness the chairing of two new members of Parliament,who have just been elected,of whom Lord Douro,son of the Duke of Wellington,is one.
