ics. His kindness and hospitality to me were,
indeed, beyond description, and his wife was as pleasant and friendly as
possible. I liked everything but the hours. We were never up till ten,
and never retired till two hours at least after midnight. Jeffrey,
indeed, never goes to bed till sleep comes on him overpoweringly, and
never rises till forced up by business or hunger. He is extremely
well in health; so that I could not help suspecting him of being very
hypochondriac; for all his late letters to me have been filled with
lamentations about his various maladies. His wife told me, when I
congratulated her on his recovery, that I must not absolutely rely on
all his accounts of his own diseases. I really think that he is, on the
whole, the youngest-looking man of fifty that I know, at least when he
is animated.

His house is magnificent. It is in Moray Place, the newest pile of
buildings in the town, looking out to the Forth on one side, and to a
green garden on the other. It is really equal to the houses in Grosvenor
Square. Fine, however, as is the new quarter of Edinburgh, I decidedly
prefer the Old Town. There is nothing like it in the island. You have
been there, but you have not seen the town, and no lady ever sees a
town. It is only by walking on foot through all corners at all hours
that cities can be really studied to good purpose. There is a new pillar
to the memory of Lord Melville; very elegant, and very much better than
the man deserved. His statue is at the top, with a wreath on the head
very like a nightcap drawn over the eyes. It is impossible to look at
it without being reminded of the fate which the original most richly
merited. But my letter will overflow even the ample limits of a frank,
if I do not conclude. I hope that you will be properly penitent for
neglecting such a correspondent when you receive so long a dispatch,
written amidst the bellowing of justices, lawyers, criers, witnesses,
prisoners, and prisoners' wives and mothers.

Ever yours affectionately

T. B. M.

Lancaster: March 24, 1829.

My dear Father,--A single line to say that I am at Lancaster. Where you
all are I have not the very slightest notion. Pray let me hear. That
dispersion of the Gentiles which our friends the prophets foretell seems
to have commenced with our family.

Everything here is going on in the common routine. The only things of
peculiar interest are those which we get from the London papers. All
minds seem