At every toast which the Lord Mayor gave, a sort of master of the ceremonies decorated with a silver chain, who stood behind his chair, called aloud, 'My lords and gentlemen, fill your glasses!' The ladies were frightfully dressed, and with a 'tournure' to match. I was seated next to an American, the niece of a former President of the United States, as she told me,--but I really forget which. It is to be presumed that her red hair and Albino complexion are not common among her countrywomen, or their beauty would not be so celebrated. Her conversation, however, was very clever, and had something of the humour of Washington Irving. At twelve o'clock the ball began. It must have been curious enough, from the motley character of the company: I was, however, so tired with sitting six mortal hours at dinner, in full uniform, that I drove home as fast as I could, and for once went to bed at midnight. _Brighton, April 17th._ In this morning's paper we read the speech of the diplomate I mentioned to you:--N. B. not what it was, but what it ought to have been,--which is often the case. Immediately after breakfast I drove out with Count D----, a very merry, amusing Dane, and spent the evening at Lady ----'s, where I met many of the persons I had seen here before: and Lady ----, whom you remember at Paris as the object of the Duke of Wellington's adorations. A propos of him,--do you read the newspapers? Here is a great crisis in the political world. Canning's appointment as Premier has given such offence to the other Ministers, that seven have resigned, and only three remain in place. It is said that the party will find it difficult to go on without some of them,--for instance, Lord Melville. The Duke of Wellington also loses considerably by the change. He who was all in all, is now declared, with the usual exaggeration of party spirit, "politically dead." There is, however, something magnanimous in thus sacrificing one's personal views to one's opinions. Caricatures rain upon the defeated, and some of them are very witty. The old Lord Chancellor Eldon, who is very unpopular, is particularly ill-treated. So is Earl W----, a singular old man, who has the most preposterous aristocratical haughtiness, looks like a mummy, and spite of his eighty years, is daily to be seen crossing St. James's park on a fast-trotting horse, with the velocity of a bird. _Brighton, April 20th._ To-day I have had full experience how dangerous the fogs here may become. I had not thought of this in London, where the scenes they occasion are generally only ludicrous.