I have not been so happy and amused for a long time as here. In the morning I make excursions in the beautiful country, or drive in lady D----'s little one horse phæton about the fields and park, without road or path; and in the evening I, like the rest, take only just so much part in the conversation as I like. Yesterday after dinner we all sat (nine persons) at least a couple of hours together in the library, reading,--each, of course I mean, in his own book,--without one single word being spoken. At which peripatetic silence we at last, all by common consent, laughed. We thought of the Englishman at Paris, who maintained 'que parler c'étoit gâter la conversation.' After visiting the Lancasterian school I mentioned,--where one person teaches sixty girls, some of whom come from the remotest parts of Lord D----'s estate, many miles, daily--I rode to Rochester to see the fine ruin of the old castle. What has not been destroyed by violence stands like a rock, from the time of William the Conqueror. The remains of the eating-hall, with its colossal pillars united by richly ornamented Saxon arches, are singularly fine. The stone ornaments were all carved in Normandy, and sent hither by water. I mounted the highest point of the ruin, whence I had a noble view of the union of the Thames and the Medway, the towns of Rochester and Chatham, with the dockyards of the latter, and a richly cultivated country. At dinner our company received an addition,--Mr and Mrs P----, Mr M----, and a nephew of Lord D----'s. Mrs P---- told a good anecdote of Kemble the actor. On a professional tour in the provinces, he acted in a piece in which a camel is introduced. He told the 'décorateur' that, as he had just seen, there was a camel actually in the town, and that he had better therefore go and look at it, that he might make his artificial one as like it as possible. The man seemed extremely annoyed, and replied, he was sorry gentlemen in London thought people in the country were so ignorant; for his part, he flattered himself that, without going to look at any thing, he should produce a more natural camel this evening than any that was walking about the streets. The following day we rode out, and this time in company with the ladies, after which we went on the water in Lord D----'s elegant yacht. I was to drive the party down to the Thames, four-in-hand, in which I have had so little practice of late years, that at a crossway the leaders, in spite of my efforts, ran their heads against a stage-coach driving across us:--this occasioned a scream in both the carriages, which greatly incensed old Child, who looks upon me as his pupil.