as
particularly valuable. When the prayer after the sermon was concluded,
my informer said the King was gone, when, to my utter disappointment, I
beheld my Hero still standing in the Gallery, and discovered I had
pitched upon a wrong person, and wasted all my observations on a face
that it did not really signify whether it looked merry or sad, and
entirely missed the sight of the real King, who was in the next pew.

Nothing but his sending to offer Edward a Chaplaincy in Berlin for his
excellent sermon can possibly console me, except, indeed, the _honour by
itself_ of having preached before a King of Prussia, which can never
happen again in his life.

...The Duchess of Oldenburg took all the merchants by surprise the other
day. They had no idea she was coming to their dinner; she was the only
lady, and she was rather a nuisance to them, as they had provided a
hundred musicians, who could not perform, as she cannot bear music.[36]
She was highly amused at the scene and with their "Hip! Hip!"

MONDAY, _June 23, 1814_.

At our dinner Mr. Tennant came in late, with many apologies, but really
he had been hunting the Emperor--waiting for him two hours at one place
and two hours at another, and came away at last without seeing him at
all.

He said, in his dry way, that "Have you seen the Emperor?" has entirely
superseded the use of "How do you do?"

In the morning he had gone into a shop to buy some gloves, and whilst he
was trying them on the shopman suddenly exclaimed, "Bluecher! Bluecher!"
cleared the counter at a leap, followed by all the apprentices, and Mr.
Tennant remained soberly amongst the gloves to make his own selection,
for he saw nothing more of his dealers.

Rooms are letting to-day in the City at 60 guineas a room, or a guinea a
seat for the procession. Tickets for places to see it from White's to be
had at Hookham's for 80 guineas; 50 have been refused.

Your letter revived me after five hours' walking and standing, and
running after reviews, &c.

I did see the King of Prussia, to be sure, and the Prince, and the
people climbing up the trees like the grubs on the gooseberry bushes,
and heard the _feu de joie_, whose crescendo and diminuendo was very
fine indeed, but altogether it was not worth the trouble of being tired
and squeezed for.

At the reception at Sir Joseph Banks's house last night the most
interesting object of the evening was a sword come down from heaven on
purpose for the Emperor