I came here yesterday, and am with a large party at the house of a very 'fashionable' lady. The house is as tastefully and richly adorned as possible, but too stately and too portentous in its beauty to be truly agreeable, at least to me. Besides, there is a certain L---- here, a patent witling, whose every word the extremely good-natured company holds itself bound to admire: people affect great liking for him, from fear of his evil tongue. Such intellectual bullies are my mortal abhorrence; especially when, like this, to a repulsive exterior they unite all the gall and acrimony of satire, without any of its grace. They appear in human society like venomous insects, whom, from some pitiable weakness, we assist in feeding on the blood of others, so that they do not suck our own. The still life about me speaks more to my heart than the human beings; especially the sweet flowers which are placed in pretty vases and receptacles of all sorts in all the apartments. Among the pictures, I admired a Joseph leading the little Jesus, by Morillo. In the beautiful child lies the germ of the future greatness and god-like nature of the Redeemer: as yet it slumbers dimly, but is wonderfully expressed in the prophetic beaming of the eye. Joseph appears a plain simple man, in the full vigour of middle age, betraying dignity of character though not of station:--the landscape is wild and original, and cherubs' heads peep sweetly forth out of the dark clouds. The picture, the owner told me, cost him two thousand and five hundred pounds. I was much pleased with a conservatory for palms, built almost entirely of glass,--so transparent that it looks like a house of ice. The country life here is in some respects too social for my taste. If, for instance, you wish to read, you go into the library, where you are seldom alone:--if you have letters to write, you sit at a great common writing table just as much in public; they are then put into a box with holes, and taken by a servant to the Post. To do all this in your own room is not usual, and therefore surprises and annoys people. Many a foreigner would like to breakfast in his own room; but this he cannot well do, unless he pleads illness. With all the freedom and absence of useless ceremonies and tedious complimenting, there is yet, for a person accustomed to our habits, a considerable degree of constraint, which the continual necessity of speaking in a foreign tongue renders more oppressive. _London, April 12th._ I took my leave of ---- Park this morning just as an April storm was clearing off, breathed the spring air with delight, and looked with ecstacy at the brilliant green and the bursting buds,--a sight of which I am never weary. Spring indemnifies our northern climes for all the discomfort of their winter; for this awakening of young Nature is accompanied with far less coquetry on her part in the South.