For some days I have vegetated too completely to have much to write to you about. This morning I was not a little surprised to see R----, whom I thought almost with you, enter my room. He had been shipwrecked on his way to Hamburg, and driven back by the storm to Harwich; had passed a whole night in imminent peril, and is so heartily frightened, that he will hear no more of the sea as long as he lives. I therefore send him by Calais, and only write that you may not be uneasy. He has unfortunately lost some of the things he took for you. Hyde Park afforded a new spectacle this morning. The large lake was frozen, and swarmed with a gay and countless multitude of skaters and others, who enjoyed these wintry pleasures, so rare here, with true child-like delight. A few years ago, in weather like this, a strange wager was laid. The notorious Hunt deals in shoe-blacking: a large sort of wagon filled with it and drawn by four fine horses, which the young gentleman his son drives 'four-in-hand,' daily traverses the city in all directions. This young Hunt betted a hundred pounds that he would drive the equipage in question at full speed across the 'Serpentine,' and won his wager in brilliant style. A caricature immortalized this feat, and the sale of his blacking, as is reasonable, increased threefold. My house is grown very musical, for Miss A----, a newly-engaged opera-singer, has come to live in it. The thin English walls give me the advantage of hearing her every morning gratis. I have not been well for some days. The town air does not agree with me, and compels me to follow a 'régime' like that in your song:-- "un bouillon d'un roguon de papillon." _C---- Hall, Feb. 2d._ Lord D----, to whose wife I had been introduced in London, invited me to visit him for a few days at his country house. I accepted his invitation with more pleasure because C---- Hall is the place of which Repton says that he had laboured at its embellishment, together with its proprietor, forty years ago. Indeed it does him the greatest honour; though, from all I saw and heard, it appeared to me that the admirable taste of its Lord was entitled to the largest share of the merit; especially in sparing old trees which Repton would have removed. Nevertheless an honourable feeling of gratitude has dedicated an alcove, commanding a wonderfully beautiful prospect, to the man to whom landscape-gardening is so much indebted. Repton's son, who was with us, had told Lady D---- a great deal about M----; and as she is almost as good a 'parkomane' as myself, we had a very attractive subject in common, and walked about for some hours in the flower-garden, which is still more tasteful than splendid, and is adorned with some graceful marble statues by Canova. I did not see the master of the house, who was suffering from gout, till we came down to dinner, when I met a large company; amongst others Lord M----, who had just been to inspect the ships of war lying in the Thames.