LONDON,December 16,1847
My dear Uncle and Aunt:...On Saturday Mr.Hallam wrote us that Sir Robert Peel had promised to breakfast with him on Monday morning and he thought we should like to meet him in that quiet way.So we presented ourselves at ten o'clock,and were joined by Sir Robert,Lord Mahon,Macaulay,and Milman,who with Hallam himself,formed a circle that could not be exceeded in the wide world.I was the only lady,except Miss Hallam;but I am especially favored in the breakfast line.I would cross the Atlantic only for the pleasure Ihad that morning in hearing such men talk for two or three hours in an entirely easy unceremonious breakfast way.Sir Robert was full of stories,and showed himself as much the scholar as the statesman.
Macaulay was overflowing as usual,and Lord Mahon and Milman are full of learning and accomplishments.The classical scholarship of these men is very perfect and sometimes one catches a glimpse of awfully deep abysses of learning.But then it is ONLY a glimpse,for their learning has no cumbrous and dull pedantry about it.They are all men of society and men of the world,who keep up with it everywhere.There is many a pleasant story and many a good joke,and everything discussed but politics,which,as Sir Robert and Macaulay belong to opposite dynasties,might be dangerous ground.
After dinner we went a little before ten to Lady Charlotte Lindsay's.She came last week to say that she was to have a little dinner on Monday and wished us to come in afterwards.This is universal here,and is the easiest and most agreeable form of society.She had Lord Brougham and Colonel and Mrs.Dawson-Damer,etc.,to dine....Mrs.Damer wished us to come the next evening to her in the same way,just to get our cup of tea.These nice little teas are what you need in Boston.There is no supper,no expense,nothing but society.Mrs.Damer is the granddaughter of the beautiful Lady Waldegrave,the niece of Horace Walpole,who married the Duke of Gloucester.She was left an orphan at a year old and was confided by her mother to the care of Mrs.Fitzherbert.
She lived with her until her marriage and was a great pet of George IV,and tells a great many interesting stories of him and Mrs.
Fitzherbert,who was five years older than he.
