_August 25._ I lose not a moment, my dearest aunt, in communicating to you a piece of intelligence which I am sure will give you pleasure: Lord Longford is going to be married--to Lady Georgiana Lygon, daughter of Lord Beauchamp. You will be glad to see the letter Lord Longford wrote upon the occasion. Everybody is writing and talking about Lord Byron, but I am tired of the subject. _The all for murder, all for crime_ system of poetry will now go out of fashion; as long as he appeared an outrageous mad villain he might have ridden triumphant on the storm, but he has now shown himself too base, too mean, too contemptible for anything like an heroic devil. Pray, if you have an opportunity, read Haygarth's poem of "Greece." I like it much, I like the mind that produced it; the poetry is not always good, but there is a _spirit_ through the whole that sustains it and that elevates and invigorates the mind of the reader. _September_ 18. You know, my dear aunt, it is a favourite opinion of my father's that _things come in bundles:_ that _people_ come in bundles is, I think, true, as, after having lived, without seeing a creature but our own family for months, a press of company comes all at once. The very day after the Brinkleys had come to us, and filled every nook in the house, the enclosed letter was brought to me. I was in my own little den, just beginning to write for an hour, as my father had requested I would, "let who would be in the house." On opening the letter and seeing the signature of Ward, I was in hopes it was the Mr. Ward who made the fine speech and wrote the review of _Patronage_ in the _Quarterly_, and of whom Madame de Staël said that he was the only man in England who really understood the art of conversation. However, upon re-examining the signature, I found that our gentleman who was waiting at the gate for an answer was another Ward, who is called "the great R. Ward"--a very gentlemanlike, agreeable man, full of anecdotes, bon-mots, and compliments. I wish you had been here, for I think you would have been entertained much, not only by his conversation, but by his character; I never saw a man who had lived in the world so anxious about the opinions which are formed of him by those with whom he is conversing, so quick at discovering, by the countenance and by _implication_, what is thought of him, or so incessantly alert in guarding all the suspected places in your opinion. He disclaimed memory, though he has certainly the very best of memories for wit and bon-mots that man was ever blessed with. Mr. Ward was Under-secretary of State during a great part of Pitt's administration, and has been one of the Lords of the Admiralty, and is now Clerk of the Ordnance, and has been sent to Ireland to reform abuses in the Ordnance. He speaks well, and in agreeable voice. He told me that he had heard in London that I had a sort of Memoria Technica, by which I could remember everything that was said in conversation, and by certain