ir arrival, and
asked the gentlemen to join us at dinner, and afterwards in going, in
company with Mr. Buckle, whom Mr. Thayer had previously invited, to
attend a _fantasia_, or exhibition of singing and dancing, by Arab
professionals, at the house of Mr. Savallan, a wealthy French banker,
who has lived a long time in the Levant and has in some degree adopted
Oriental customs. He has lately sold to the Viceroy a tooth-brush, comb,
and hair-brush, for the handsome price of fourteen thousand dollars.
They were doubtless richly set with jewels; but the profit on these
transactions is immense. Mr. B. accepted the invitation for dinner, and
Mr. W. joined us afterwards.

At dinner I was seated next to Mr. Buckle, and thus had an opportunity
for private conversation. He asked about American books, and told me his
opinion of those he had read. He said that Quincy's History of Harvard
University was the latest book on America he received before leaving
England. He preferred Kent's exposition of the United States
Constitution to Story's, although this also he had consulted and used.
He had not seen Mr. Charles Francis Adams's complete edition of the
works of his grandfather, nor Parton's Life of Jackson, both of which I
begged him to read, particularly the chapters in the former in which are
traced the steps in the progress of making the American Constitutions.
He told me about his library in London, which is surpassed (among
private libraries) only by that belonging to Mr. Van de Weyer, the
Belgian Minister, whose wife is the daughter of our Bostonian Mr. Bates,
of Barings. Buckle has twenty-two thousand volumes, all selected by
himself; and he takes great pleasure in them. He spends eight or nine
hundred pounds a year upon his library. He owns copies of all the books
referred to in his History; some of them are very old and rare. He
also possesses a considerable collection, made likewise by himself, of
curiosities in natural history; he has added largely to it in Egypt,
where, in fact, he has been buying with open hands. He said he could not
be perfectly happy in leaving the country, if obliged to go away without
a crocodile's egg, a trophy which as yet he has been unable to obtain.

He told me his plan of travel in America. He will not set out until our
domestic troubles are composed, for he desires to see the practical
working of our institutions in their normal state, not confused and
disturbed by the excitements of war. He