The ladies were in full dress, which here in England means always a dress which exposes the neck and shoulders.  This requirement seems to be universal, since ladies of all ages conform to it.  It may, perhaps, account for this custom, to say that the bust of an English lady is seldom otherwise than fine, and develops a full outline at what we should call quite an advanced period of life.

A very dignified gentleman, dressed in black velvet, with a fine head, made his way through the throng, and sat down by me, introducing himself as Lord Chief Baron Pollock.  He told me he had just been reading the legal part of the Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and remarked especially on the opinion of Judge Ruffin, in the case of State v. Mann, as having made a deep impression on his mind.  Of the character of the decision, considered as a legal and literary document, he spoke in terms of high admiration; said that nothing had ever given him so clear a view of the essential nature of slavery.  We found that this document had produced the same impression on the minds of several others present.  Mr. S. said that one or two distinguished legal gentlemen mentioned it to him in similar terms.  The talent and force displayed in it, as well as the high spirit and scorn of dissimulation, appear to have created a strong interest in its author.  It always seemed to me that there was a certain severe strength and grandeur about it which approached to the heroic.  One or two said that they were glad such a man had retired from the practice of such a system of law.

But there was scarce a moment for conversation amid the whirl and eddy of so many presentations.  Before the company had all assembled, the room was a perfect jam of legal and literary notabilities.  The dinner was announced between nine and ten o’clock.  We were conducted into a splendid hall, where the tables were laid.  Four long tables were set parallel with the length of the hall, and one on a raised platform across the upper end.  In the midst of this sat the lord mayor and lady mayoress, on their right hand the judges, on their left the American minister, with other distinguished guests.  I sat by a most agreeable and interesting young lady, who seemed to take pleasure in enlightening me on all those matters about which a stranger would naturally be inquisitive.

Directly opposite me was Mr. Dickens, whom I now beheld for the first time, and was surprised to see looking so young.  Mr. Justice Talfourd, known as the author of Ion, was also there with his lady.  She had a beautiful antique cast of head.

The lord mayor was simply dressed in black, without any other adornment than a massive gold chain.

I asked the lady if he had not robes of state.  She replied, yes; but they were very heavy and cumbersome, and that he never wore them when he could, with any propriety, avoid it.  It seems to me that this matter of outward parade and state is gradually losing its hold even here in England.  As society becomes enlightened, men care less and less for mere shows, and are apt to neglect those outward forms which have neither beauty nor convenience on their side, such as judges’ wigs and lord mayors’ robes.