I am glad that some of those who showed us hospitality and kindness in England should have come so soon to Ireland, that we may have some little opportunity of showing our sense of their attentions. Lord Carrington, who franks this, is most amiable and benevolent, without any species of pretension, thinking the best that can be thought of everything and everybody. Mr. Smith, his son, whom we had not seen in London, accompanies him, and his tutor, Mr. Kaye, a Cambridge man, and Lord Gardner, Lord Carrington's son-in-law, suffering from the gouty rheumatism, or rheumatic gout--he does not know or care which: but between the twitches of his suffering he is entertaining and agreeable. We have just seen a journal by a little boy of eight years old, of a voyage from England to Sicily: the boy is Lord Mahon's son, Lord Carrington's grandson. [Footnote: Philip Henry, afterwards fifth Earl Stanhope, the historian.] It is one of the best journals I ever read, full of facts: exactly the writing of a child, but a very clever child. It is peculiarly interesting to us from having seen Dr. Holland's letters from Palermo. Lord Mahon says that the alarm about the plague at Malta is much greater than it need be--its progress has been stopped: it was introduced by a shoemaker having, contrary to law and reason, surreptitiously brought some handkerchiefs from a vessel that had not performed quarantine. You will nevertheless rejoice that Dr. Holland did not go to Malta. How you will regret the loss of the portmanteau of which that vile Ali Pasha robbed him. Mr. Fox dined with us to-day, and was very agreeable. Lord Carrington and his travelling companions were at Farnham, where they were most hospitably received. They had no letters of introduction or intention of going there; but, finding a horrid inn at Cavan, they applied for charity to a gentleman for lodging. The gentleman took them to walk in Lord Farnham's grounds. Lord and Lady Farnham saw and invited them to the house, and they are full of admiration and almost affection, I think, for Lord and Lady Farnham: they are so charmed by their hospitality, their goodness to the poor, their care of the young Foxes, their magnificent establishment, their neat cottages for their tenants, and, as Lord Gardner sensibly said, "their judicious economy in the midst of magnificence." _August 9._ I like Mrs. Elizabeth Hamilton better than ever upon further acquaintance. She is what the French would call _bonne à vivre_: so good-humoured, so cheerful, so little disposed to exact attention or to take an authoritative tone in conversation, so ready to give everybody their merits, so indulgent for the follies and frailties, and so hopeful of the reformation of even the faults and vices of the world, that it is impossible not to respect and love her. She wins upon us daily, and mixes so well with this family, that I always forget she is a stranger.