Letters from England | Page 7

Lady Tankerville of the old French family
of de Grammont and niece to Prince Polignac. The next was Lady
Emily de Burgh, the daughter of the Marchioness of Clanricarde, a
beautiful girl of seventeen. She is very lovely, wears a Grecian braid
round her head like a coronet, and always sits by her mother, which
would not suit our young girls. Then came Lord and Lady Ashley, Lord
Ebrington, and so many titled personages that I cannot remember half.

The dinner is much the same as ours in all its modes of serving, but
they have soles and turbot, instead of our fishes, and their pheasants are
not our pheasants, or their partridges our partridges. Neither have we so
many footmen with liveries of all colours, or so much gold and silver
plate. . . . The next morning Mr. Bancroft breakfasted with Dr. Holland
to meet the Marquis of Lansdowne alone. [Thursday] he went down to
Windsor to dine with the Queen. He took out to dinner the Queen's
mother, the Duchess of Kent, the Queen going with the Prince of
Saxe-Weimar, who was paying a visit at the Castle. He talked German
to the Duchess during dinner, which I suspect she liked, for the Queen
spoke of it to him afterwards, and Lord Palmerston told me the
Duchess said he spoke very pure German. While he was dining at
Windsor I went to a party all alone at the Countess Grey's, which I
thought required some courage.
Of all the persons I see here the Marquis of Lansdowne excites the
most lively regard. His countenance and manners are full of
benevolence and I think he understands America better than anyone
else of the high aristocracy. I told him I was born at Plymouth and was
as proud of my pure Anglo-Saxon Pilgrim descent as if it were traced
from a line of Norman Conquerors. Nearly all the ministers and their
wives came to see us immediately, without waiting for us to make the
first visit, which is the rule, and almost every person whom we have
met in society, which certainly indicates an amiable feeling toward our
country. We could not well have received more courtesy than we have
done, and it has been extended freely and immediately, without waiting
for the forms of etiquette. Pray say to Mr. Everett how often we hear
persons speak of him, and with highest regard. I feel as if we were
reaping some of the fruits of his sowing.
Mr. Bancroft sends you a pack of cards, one of the identical two packs
with which the Queen played Patience the evening he was at Windsor.
They were the perquisite of a page who brought them to him. He was
much pleased with the Queen and thought her much prettier than any
representation of her which we have seen, and with a very sweet
expression. Lady Holland had been staying two or three days at
Windsor, and was to leave the next morning. When the Queen took
leave of her at night, she kissed her quite in my Virginia fashion.
Dear Uncle: How much more your niece would have written if to-day

were not packet day, I cannot say. I shall send you some newspapers
and a pack of cards which I saw in the Queen's hands. The American
Minister and Mrs. Bancroft have since played a game of piquet with
them. The Queen's hands were as clean as her smile was gracious. Best
regards to the Judge and Aunt Isaac.
Yours most truly, George Bancroft.

LETTER: To W.D.B. and A.B. LONDON, November 29, 1846

After a long interval I find again a quiet Sunday evening to resume my
journal to you. On Monday we dined at Lord John Russell's, and met
many of the persons we have met before and the Duchess of Inverness,
the widow of the Duke of Sussex. On Tuesday we dined at Dr.
Holland's. His wife and daughter are charming, and then we met,
besides, Lady Charlotte Lindsay, the only surviving child of Lord
North, Mr. and Mrs. Milman (the author of the "Fall of Jerusalem"),
and Mr. Macaulay. Yesterday I went to return the visit of the Milmans
and found that the entrance to their house, he being a prebend of
Westminster Abbey, was actually in the cloisters of the Abbey. They
were not at home, but I took my footman and wandered at leisure
through the cloisters, treading at every step on the tomb of some old
abbot with dates of 1160 and thereabouts.
Nothing could be more delightful than London is now, if I had only a
little more physical vigor to enjoy it. We see everybody more
frequently, and know them better than in the full season, and we have
some of the