turned
into an opera-house; eventually it was burnt down, and so nothing
remains of it.]

The Harnesses and their friend Mr. F---- supped with us. Mr.
Harness talked all sorts of things to try and cheer me; he labored
hard to prove to me that the world was good and happy, but only
succeeded in convincing me that he was the one, and deserved to be
the other.

_Friday, 29th._--On board the Scotch steamer for Edinburgh.... We
passed Berwick and Dunbar, and the Douglases' ancient hold
Tantallon, and the lines from "Marmion" came to my lips. Poor
Walter Scott! he will never sail by this lovely coast again, every
bold headland and silver creek of which lives in his song or story.
He has given of his own immortality to the earth, which must ere
long receive the whole of his mortality....

_Saturday, 30th._--Went to rehearsal.... After dinner Mary Anne, my
maid, knowing my foible, came in with her arms full of two of the
most beautiful children I ever saw in my life.... [These beautiful
children were the daughters of the Duc de Grammont, and were
sharing with their parents the exile of the King of France, Charles
X., who had found in his banishment a royal residence as ruined as
his fortunes in the old Scottish palace of Holyrood. Ida de
Grammont, the eldest of my angels, fulfilled the promise of her
beautiful childhood as the lovely Duchesse de Guyche.] We spent a
pleasant evening at Mrs. Harry Siddons's. Mr. Combe and Macdonald
(the sculptor) were there.

_Sunday, July 1st._-- ... We dined at Mr. Combe's, and had a very
pleasant dinner, but unluckily, owing to a stupid servant's
mistake, my old friend Mr. McLaren, who had been invited to meet
me, did not come. After dinner there was a tremendous discussion
about Shakespeare, but I do not think these men knew anything about
him. I talked myself into a fever, and ended, with great modesty
and propriety, by disabling all their judgments, at which piece of
impertinence they naturally laughed very heartily.

EDINBURGH, July 1, 1832.
DEAREST H----,

We left London on Wednesday at eight o'clock. The parting between
my mother and Dall (who never met again; my dear aunt died in
America, in the second year of our stay there), and myself and my
dear littl