We had a crowded party at Lady Londonderry's, but they had no elbows.
April 4.
I recollect that I left off yesterday in the midst of a well-bred crowd at Lady Londonderry's,—her Marchioness-ship standing at her drawing-room door all in scarlet for three hours, receiving the world with smiles; and how it happened that her fat legs did not sink under her I cannot tell. The chief, I may say the only satisfaction we had at Lady Londonderry's, while we won our way from room to room, nodding to heads, or touching hands, as we passed,—besides the prodigious satisfaction of feeling ourselves at such a height of fashion, etc.—was in meeting Mr. Bankes, and Lady Charlotte, and Mr. Lemon behind the door of one of the rooms, and proceeding in the tide along with them into an inner sanctuary, in which we had cool air and a sight of the great Sèvres china vase, which was presented by the King of France to Lord Londonderry at the signing of the peace. Much agreeable conversation from this travelled Mr. Bankes. We heard from Lady Charlotte that her entertaining sister, Lady Harriet Frampton, had just arrived, and when I expressed our wish to become acquainted with her, Mr. Bankes exclaimed, "She is so eager to know you that she would willingly have come to you in worsted stockings, just as she alighted from her travelling carriage, with sandwiches in one pocket and letters and gloves stuffing out the other."
Enter Mr. and Mrs. Hope. Mr. Hope, characteristically curious in vases, turned me round to a famous malachite vase which was given by the Emperor of Russia to Lord Londonderry—square, upon a pedestal high as my little table; and another, a present of I forget who. So, you see, he has a congress of vases, en desire-t-il mieux?
Many, many dinners and evening parties have rolled over one another, and are swept out of my memory by the tide of the last fortnight: one at Lady Lansdowne's, and one at Mrs. Hope's, and I will go on to one at Miss White's. Mr. Henry Fox, Lord Holland's son, is lame. I sat between him and young Mr. Ord, Fanny between Mr. Milman (the Martyr of Antioch) and Sir Humphry Davy (the Martyr of Matrimony), Harriet between Dr. Holland and young Ord: Mr. Moore (Canterbury) and old-ish Ord completed this select dinner. In the evening the principal personages were Lord James Stuart and Mrs. Siddons: she was exceedingly entertaining, told anecdotes, repeated some passages from Jane Shore beautifully, and invited us to a private evening party at her house.
We have become very intimate with Wollaston and Kater, Mr. Warburton, and Dr. and Mrs. Somerville: they and Dr. and Mrs. Marcet form the most agreeable as well as scientific society in London. We have been to Greenwich Observatory. You remember Mr. and Mrs. Pond? I liked him for the candour and modesty with which he spoke of the parallax dispute between him and Dr. Brinkley, of whom he and all the scientific world here speak with the highest reverence.
We went yesterday with Lord Radstock to the Millbank Penitentiary, where by appointment we were met by Mr. Wilbraham Bootle. We had the pleasure of taking with us Alicia and Captain Beaufort. Solitary confinement for the worst offences: solitary confinement in darkness at first. There are many young offenders; the governors say they are horrid plagues, for they are not allowed to flog them, and they are little influenced by darkness and solitary confinement: oldish men much afraid of it. The disease most common in this prison is scrofula; and it is a curious fact that those who work with their arms at the mills are free from it, those who work with their feet at the tread-mills are subject to it.
Adieu. I must here break off, as Mrs. Primate Stuart has come in, and left me no time for more. The Primate has recovered, and has set out this day with his son for Winchester, to see some haunts of his youth, takes a trip to Bath, and returns in a few days, when I hope we shall see him.
April 6.
I left off in the Millbank Penitentiary, but what more I was going to say I cannot recollect; so, my dear mother, you must go without that wisdom. All that I know now is that I saw a woman who is under sentence of death for having poisoned her sister. She appeared to me to be insane; but it is said that it is a frequent attempt of the prisoners to sham madness, in order to get to Bedlam, from which they can get out when cured. One woman deceived all the medical people, clergyman, jailer, and turnkeys, was removed to Bedlam as incurably mad, and from Bedlam made her escape. I saw a girl of about eighteen, who had been educated at Miss Hesketh's school, and had been put to service in a friend's family. She was in love with a footman who was turned away: the old housekeeper refused the girl permission to go out the night this man was turned away: the girl went straight to a drawer in the housekeeper's room, where she had seen a letter with money in it, took it, and put a coal into the drawer, to set the house on fire! For this she was committed, tried, convicted, and would have been hanged, but for Sir Thomas Hesketh's intercession: he had her sent to the Penitentiary for ten years. Would you not think that virtue and feeling were extinct in this girl? No: the task-mistress took us into the cell, where she was working in company with two other women; she has earned by her constant good conduct the privilege of working in company. One of the Miss Wilbrahams, when all the other visitors except myself had left the cell, turned back and said, "I think I saw you once when I was with Miss Hesketh at her school." The girl blushed, her face gave way, and she burst into an agony of tears, without being able to answer one word.