s not the first to dissolve that sacred
bond: in short, a real Englishman is one that performs more than he
promises; in company he is rather silent, extremely prudent in his
expressions, even in politics, his favourite topic. The women are not
quite so reserved; they consult their glasses to the best advantage;
and as nature is very liberal in her gifts to their persons, and even
minds, it is not easy for a young man to escape their glances, or to
shut his ears to their softly flowing accents.

As to the state of learning in this city, you know I have not been
long enough in it to form a proper judgement of that subject. I don't
think, however, there is as much respect paid to a man of letters on
this side of the water as you imagine. I don't find that genius, the
'rath primrose, which forsaken dies', is patronized by any of the
nobility, so that writers of the first talents are left to the
capricious patronage of the public. Notwithstanding discouragement,
literature is cultivated in a high degree. Poetry raises her
enchanting voice to Heaven. History arrests the wings of Time in his
flight to the gulf of oblivion. Philosophy, the queen of arts, and the
daughter of Heaven, is daily extending her intellectual empire. Fancy
sports on airy wing like a meteor on the bosom of a summer cloud; and
even Metaphysics spins her cobwebs, and catches some flies.

The House of Commons not unfrequently exhibits explosions of eloquence
that rise superior to those of Greece and Rome, even in their
proudest days. Yet, after all, a man will make more by the figures of
arithmetic than the figures of rhetoric, unless he can get into the
trade wind, and then he may sail secure over Pactolean sands. As to
the stage, it is sunk, in my opinion, into the lowest degree; I
mean with regard to the trash that is exhibited on it; but I don't
attribute this to the taste of the audience, for when Shakespeare
warbles his 'native woodnotes', the boxes, pit, and gallery, are
crowded--and the gods are true to every word, if properly winged to
the heart.

Soon after my arrival in town I visited Westminster Abbey: the
moment I entered I felt a kind of awe pervade my mind which I cannot
describe; the very silence seemed sacred. Henry VII's chapel is a very
fine piece of Gothic architecture, particularly the roof; but I am
told that it is exceeded by a chapel in the University of Cambridge.
Mrs. Nightingale's monument has not been praised beyond its merit