I dined that day with a party of zealous Churchmen, and supporters of the S. P. G.; and, in the evening, went to an ecclesiastical conversazione at Willis’ Rooms. We drove, in a private carriage, through Hyde Park and St. James’s, and were set down at “Almack’s” as superbly as if we had come on as gay an errand as is the more usual one of its visitors. But those brilliant rooms were now thronged with a graver company, the object of the festivity being to do honour to foreign ecclesiastics and pastors, who might be in London on occasion of the Jubilee and the Crystal Palace. I was presented to the Primate, who conversed with a simplicity of manner the most impressive, and invited me to Lambeth with a sort of cordiality, the very reverse of that stateliness and etiquette which it was not unnatural to expect in the address of one so exalted in station. I was much pleased with his venerable appearance, and accepted the kind appointment of an hour, which he named, for my visit to the Archiepiscopal palace, with peculiar pleasure. His Grace was surrounded by his brother Bishops, among whom I saw, for the first time, the Archbishop of Dublin; a prelate of acknowledged talent, but whose gifts would have better fitted the Academy than the throne of a Primate. An Oriental Archimandrite completed the group in this quarter; and other parts of the rooms swarmed with solemn looking men, talking German and French with their English entertainers, or vainly essaying civilities in Low Dutch and Danish. One of these personages, who looked as if he might have figured, with credit to himself, at the Synod of Dort, attacked me in the dialect of the Flemings, to my utter consternation. I could only stammer out a little gibberish, as a reply, and precipitately sounded a retreat, in utter distrust of my ability to sustain a further conversation with my unknown colloquist to mutual satisfaction. I soon afterward made the acquaintance of the Chevalier Bunsen, with whom, as one of the curiosities of the age, I was not sorry to have this opportunity of exchanging a few words. The Chevalier is at home on every subject, and I found him communicative on the favourite topic which I ventured to start, by referring to a common friend, whom he had known very well in Rome. One after another I encountered, during the evening, many eminent and agreeable personages, among whom were officers of the army, dignitaries of the Church, several Bishops, and the Earl of Harrowby. The company was altogether a brilliant one, in spite of the polemical figures who constituted so important a part of it; and the stars and decorations of the nobility, and of foreign officials, were quite conspicuous, among the white neckerchiefs and black broadcloth of the ecclesiastics and pastors.