aux, Banquier, and I shall not feel your
handwriting the least interesting thing I have to see there.

_Rev. E. Stanley to his niece, Louisa Dorothea Stanley._

RAMSGATE, _June 11th_.

Rapidly went the coach from Canterbury, 17 miles in an hour and a half.
Fair blows the wind over the azure blue billow. "You will breakfast at
Ostend," says the Captain, "to-morrow." "Oh, that Louisa were here!"
says Donald. "She would die of delight," says Uncle, "and does not Uncle
say true?" Conceive the view from Nottingham Castle on the evening we
left Alderley ... a noble precipice, frowning over a magnificent plain,
from the terraces of which we beheld immediately at our feet almost
numberless--for I counted in a second 54--little pets of gardens, each
adorned with a love of a summerhouse to suit; in the corners of the
rocks many excavations and caverns fancifully cut out and carved, into
which each of the proprietors of the above-mentioned gardens might at
leisure retire and become his own hermit. Then how shall I touch upon
the delights of Cambridge? How shall I speak of Edward's beauty in his
cap, all covered with little bows, and a smart black gown? And how shall
I speak of his dinner and his party? Such merriment! Such hospitality!
Only think, Louisa, of dining, breakfasting and supping day after day
with 14 or 15 most accomplished, beautiful, and entertaining young
gentlemen! But no more, lest you expire at the thought! As for London, I
cannot well tell you what I did or saw, such a confused multiplicity of
sights and succession of business have seldom been experienced. At 6
this morning we started in the stage coach, the interior of which we
took, excluding all intruders, and from hence at 3 o'clock on a lovely
night, with an elegant moon, we embarked for Ostend.

(_Continued by Mrs. Stanley._)

I have persuaded Uncle to carry his letter over the water that you may
not have the anxiety of thinking for 2 days about the passage, which a
gentleman who dined with us to-day informed us was the most precarious,
dangerous, and uncertain known.

But I consoled myself with not believing the gentleman in the first
place, and by thinking with Aunt Clinton that as Mrs. Carleton was
drowned so lately at Ostend, it is not likely another accident should
happen at present.

Here we are, waiting for the awful moment of embarkation, which I
consider something like having a tooth out, but I live in hopes that,
having been up early