She complained, however, that the excitement of the last two or three weeks had impaired her strength and taken away her appetite, I told her that the evening before, when I was dining at Lord Stanhope's with the Antiquaries, her health had been proposed in a graceful speech by the Dean of Westminster. The venerable Society drank the most venerable lady. This affected her, and she exclaimed, 'You must not tell me such things as these. They drive me mad. I find it harder to support the many marks of kindness and distinction I have received than to bear the burden of a hundred years.' I asked her what was the first thing she remembered. She said she was confident she remembered being taken to her aunt's at Saxmundham as an infant of nine months old, and still saw her eyes, the crocuses in the border, and the flutter of the fringe on her own robe. Of political events she thought the first in her memory was the taking of the Bastille, and she enlarged on the extraordinary enthusiasm excited by the French Revolution. I said the American war came before the Revolution of 1789; and she replied 'Yes, no doubt I remember hearing the American war talked about;' and then quoted the lines (Dr. Aikins' she said):-- See the justice of Heaven! America cries; George loses his senses, North loses his eyes. When first they provoked me, all Europe could find That the Monarch was mad and the Minister blind. But the date of this epigram must be somewhat later. Lord North became blind in 1787 [and the King's insanity was not publicly known till November 1788]. She remembered Mr. Windham as one of the most graceful and fascinating of men. Lady Morley [Footnote: Frances, daughter of Thomas Talbot, of Wymondham, Norfolk, married Lord Boringdon, afterwards Earl of Morley, in 1809.] (the present Earl's grandmother) was staying with the Smiths when she came out, and was equally remarkable for her wit, her beauty, and her fine hair. Her mother, Mrs. Talbot, was very ugly. We then talked over all the old Norwich families, Gower, Taylors, Aldersons, Bathurst, &c. She said she thought my mother a much finer character than Mrs. Austin, and, she added, a fine understanding too. Her interest in all the events of the day--the last spider discovered by Dr. Carpenter at the bottom of the ocean and the last improvement at Burlington House--is as keen as the recollection of the past. 'Punch' and the 'Illustrated News' and the other newspapers bring it all before her. _May 28th_.--Gladstone presided at the Literary Fund dinner. I took Meadows Taylor, who was staying with us. _From Lady Smith_