In other respects you are right: one must not throw away good and bad together; and it is better to conceal many defects and limitations of the ground by skilfully-planned paths and plantations, than to make disproportionate sacrifices to them. My horses are safe on board, and sail to-day; though the beautiful Hyperion behaved like mad, dashed the box in which he was enclosed into pieces like glass, and burst all the halters and straps that confined him. He was within an inch of falling into the river, and will probably give them a good deal of trouble on the passage, though we have bound him like a wild beast. One can't blame the poor animal for being frightened when the crane, like a giant's arm, seized him and bore him into the air. Many, however, take it very quietly, for even among horses there are Stoics. There is nothing which needs really detain me now in London; but Lady ---- is still here in the solitude,--and she is so attractive. To quit such a friend were a sin,--the more so, as I have not the least idea of falling in love with her. But is not the true unmixed friendship of a charming woman something very sweet? I have often remarked how men destroy all friendship with women, because they always think it incumbent on them to play the adorer; they thus alarm their delicacy, and check at once that unsuspecting confidence and ease which might otherwise subsist between them. I am well contented with the mere friendship of an amiable woman, especially when I can read it in her soft blue eyes, hear it from a mouth of pearl and coral, and feel it in the kind pressure of a velvet hand. To this portrait you have only to add the innocent look of a dove, long dark-brown curling hair, a slender form, and the most beautiful English complexion, and you have Lady ---- before your eyes. _Doncaster, Sept. 16th._ I might almost have dated from London, so rapidly have I skimmed over these hundred and eighty miles; and yet I have had time to get a sight of two celebrated houses of the time of Elizabeth, though a transient one. The first, Hatfield, which belonged to herself, and which she frequently inhabited, is less magnificent than the second, Burleigh House, which was built by her great minister Cecil. Hatfield is built of brick; only the eyebrows of the windows, the corners, &c. are of stone. The proportions are good and grand. There is nothing remarkable in the park and garden, but a fine avenue of oaks, which are reported to have been planted by the Queen herself.