Letters from England | Page 7

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 best specimens of English society, too, here just now, as the Whig ministry brings a good deal of the ability of the aristocracy to its aid. The subjects of conversation among women are more general than with us, and [they] are much more cultivated than our women as a body, not our blues. They never sew, or attend, as we do, to domestic affairs, and so live for social life and understand it better.
LONDON, December 2, 1846
My dear Mrs. Polk: you told me when I parted from you at Washington that you would like to get from me occasionally some accounts of my experiences in English society. I thought at that time that we should see very