I was invited again to dinner at the Duchess of St. A----'s country-house, where a very agreeable surprise awaited me. I arrived late, and was placed between my hostess, and a tall very simple, but benevolent looking man of middle age, who spoke broad Scotch,--a dialect anything but agreeable; and would probably have struck me for nothing else, had I not soon discovered that I was sitting next to--the Great Unknown. It was not long ere many a sally of dry, poignant wit fell from his lips, and many an anecdote, told in the most unpretending manner, which, without seeming brilliant, was yet striking. His eye, too, glanced, whenever he was animated, with such a clear, good-natured lustre, and that with such an expression of true-hearted kindness and natural feeling, that it was impossible not to conceive a sort of love for him. Towards the end of dinner he and Sir Francis Burdett told ghost-stories, half-terrible, half-humorous, admirably, one against the other. This at last encouraged me to tell your famous key story, which I embelished a little in the 'dénouement.' It had great success; and it would be droll enough if you were to find it in the next romance of the prolific Scotchman. He afterwards recited a curious old inscription which he had recently discovered in the churchyard of Melrose Abbey. It was as follows: "The earth goes on the earth, glittering in gold, The earth goes to the earth sooner than it would; The earth builds on the earth castles and towers, The earth says to the earth--All this is ours." When translated, something like this: "Erd' geht auf Erde glänzend in Gold, Erd' geht zur Erde früher denn wollt'; Erd' baut auf Erde Schlösser von Stein, Erd' sagt zur Erde--Alles ist mein!' True enough; for earth we were, are, and shall be. A little concert concluded the evening; in which the very pretty daughter of the great bard,--a healthy-looking Highland beauty,--took part; and Miss Stephens sang nothing but Scotch ballads. It was not till late in the night that I reached London and enriched my book of memoranda with a sketch of Sir Walter Scott--very like, for which I am indebted to the kindness of my hostess. As none of the engravings I have seen resemble him, I shall send you a copy with this letter. _April 27th._ The 'trouble' of this day was very monotonous; only a dinner at the Spanish ambassador's furnished me with one agreeable recollection. A Spanish girl, full of fire and beauty, sang boleros in such a manner that they awakened a completely new musical sense in me. If I may judge from them, and from a fandango I once saw danced, Spanish society must be very different from ours, and far more 'piquante.' Yesterday I was invited 'to meet the Dukes of Clarence and Sussex,' declined the honour for the sake of meeting Mademoiselle H---- at our friend B----'s. I had not seen her, and great and small are now at her feet.