A strange place I have visited to-day! A church called the Areopagus, in which a clergyman, the Rev. Robert Taylor, preaches _against_ Christianity, and permits anyone publicly to oppose him. He has retained only one thing of the Anglo-Christian church--to make you pay a shilling for your seat. Mr. Taylor has some learning, and is no bad speaker, but as passionate a fanatic for the destruction of Christianity as some others are for its support. He says strong things--sometimes true, often false; sometimes witty, and sometimes utterly indecorous. The place was thronged with hearers of all classes.--In a nation which is at so very low a point of religious education, it is easy to understand that a negative apostle of this sort may attract a great concourse. In Germany, where the people are far advanced in the rational path of gradual reform, an undertaking of the kind would fill some with pious horror, would attract nobody, and would justly disgust all,--even if the police did not render such an exhibition impossible. The first Almack's ball took place this evening: and from all I had heard of this celebrated assembly, I was really curious to see it; but never were my expectations so disappointed. It was not much better than at Brighton. A large bare room, with a bad floor, and ropes around it, like the space in an Arab camp parted off for the horses; two or three small naked rooms at the side, in which were served the most wretched refreshments; and a company into which, spite of the immense difficulty of getting tickets, a great many 'Nobodies' had wriggled; in which the dress was generally as tasteless as the 'tournure' was bad;--this was all. In a word, a sort of inn-entertainment:--the music and the lighting the only good things. And yet Almack's is the culminating point of the English world of fashion. This overstrained simplicity had, however, originally a motive. People of real fashion wished to oppose something extremely cheap to the monstrous 'faste' of the rich 'parvenus;' while the institution of Lady-patronesses, without whose approbation no one could be admitted, would render it inaccessible to them. Money and bad company (in the aristocratic sense of the word) have however, forced their way: and the only characteristic which has been retained is the unseemly place, which is not unlike the 'local' of a shooting ball in our large towns, and forms a most ludicrous contrast with the general splendour and luxury of England. _May 1st._ At E----'s this morning I found Prince S----, who is just come from the coronation at Moscow by way of Brazil; (such is the ease and rapidity of travelling in our times.) For natural beauty, he gave the preference to the island of Madeira, over every country he had seen. He was but just eight days in coming from thence to London, which has set me longing to make the excursion as soon as the season is over.