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from Lord Byron, not even to accompany her daughter, who went abroad, whenever she went at all, with Mrs. Somerville.
Her whole appearance and conversation gratified me very much, it was so entirely suited to her singular position in the world.
We dined with my friend Kenyon1 very agreeably, meeting Mr. Robinson,2 a great friend of Wordsworth, and a man famous for conversation; Mr. Harness, a popular and fashionable preacher, who has lately edited one of the small editions of Shakespeare very well; and five or six other very pleasant men. It was a genuinely English dinner, in good taste, with all the elegance of wealth, and with the intellectual refinement that belongs to one who was educated at one of their Universities, and is accustomed to the best literary society of his country.
July 15.—I dined with Mr. T. Baring, and a small party, fitted to his fine bachelor's establishment, where nearly every person was a member of the House of Commons.
The two persons I liked best, whom I had not seen before, were Sir George Grey, the principal Under Secretary for the Colonies, and Mr. Bingham Baring, eldest son of Lord Ashburton, of opposite politics, but both very intelligent men. Labouchere was there, and Wilmot, whom I had known as Secretary of Legation to Mr. Addington.
The talk was chiefly on English party politics, which were discussed with entire good-humor and some raillery, the company being nearly equally divided on the points that now divide the nation.
From dinner I went with Mrs. T. to Mrs. Buller's in Westminster, one of the leading old English Tory families, in which they have now both a bishop and an admiral, besides two members of the House of Commons; the youngest of whom, representing Liskeard, has lately made a speech in favor of the ballot, which has created quite a sensation. . . . The party was small, and the most interesting persons in it were Mrs. Austin, the translator, who seems to have a strong masculine mind,. . . . and the famous O'Connell, a stout gentleman, with
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1 In another passage of the Journal Mr. Ticknor says: ‘Mr. Kenyon is a man of fortune and literary tastes and pursuits, about fifty years old, whom I knew on the Continent in 1817. He has travelled a great deal, and though a shy man and mixing little in general society, is a man of most agreeable and various resources. Three or four years ago he printed, without his name, a volume called “A rhymed Plea for Tolerance,” which was much praised in the “Edinburgh Review,” and contains certainly much poetical feeling, and a most condensed mass of thought.’
Boston, J. R. Osgood and company, 1876.
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