I went into the Ship tavern, gave my horse to the hostler, and was shown into a very neat little room with a balcony projecting over the Thames, under which the fish were swimming which I, merciless human beast of prey, was about to devour. The river was enlivened by a hundred barks; music and song resounded cheerfully from the steam-boats passing by; and behind the gay scene, the sun, blood-red, and enveloped in a light veil of mist, declined towards the horizon. As I sat at the window, I gave audience to my thoughts, till the entrance of various sorts of fish as variously prepared, called me to more material pleasures. Iced champagne, and Lord Chesterfield's Letters, which I had put into my pocket, gave zest to my repast; and after a short siesta, during which night had come on, I remounted my horse and rode the German mile and a half to my home through an unbroken avenue of brilliant gas lamps, and over well-watered roads. It was just striking midnight when I reached the house, and a coffin hung with black passed me on the left like an apparition. _July 5th._ B---- gave me your letter at Almack's, and I immediately hastened 'home' with it. How greatly have your descriptions rejoiced me! I was near weeping over the venerable trees that called to me, through you,--"Oh, our master and lord, hearest thou not the rustling of our leafy tops, the home of so many birds?" Ah, yes, I hear it in spirit, and shall have no true enjoyment till I am once more therewith my truest friend, and the plants that are to me as loving children. I thank you cordially for the leaf of cinq foil; and as the horse of the accompanying Vienna postillion, the bearer of a thousand blessings, has lost his tail on the road, I have replaced it by this leaf, which gives him a genuine Holy Alliance look. Here my old B---- interrupted me with the question whether he might stay out for the night, promising to be back by eight in the morning. I gave him leave, and asked, laughing, what adventure he had in hand? "Ach!" said he, "I only want for once to see how they hang people here, and at six o'clock in the morning five men are to be hanged at once." What a discord rang through my whole being, just filled with joyous tumult! What a contrast between the thousands, wearied with the dance, and sated with multiplied amusements, returning home at that hour to their luxurious couches, and those wretched beings who are condemned to pass through anguish and pain into eternity! I exclaimed again with Napoleon, "Oh, monde, monde!" and for a long time, after a day wasted in frivolity, could not go to sleep; I was pursued by the thought that at that very moment perhaps these unhappy ones were called to take so fearful a leave of the world and its joys; not excited and elevated by the feeling of being martyrs to some good or great cause, but the victims of vulgar, debasing crime. Men pity those who suffer innocently: how much more pitiable do the guilty appear to me!