Here now, for instance, at Walworth, I can look out at a window and see a nice green meadow with sheep and lambs feeding in it, which is some relief in this smutty old place.  London is as smutty as Pittsburg or Wheeling.  It takes a good hour’s steady riding to get from here to West End; so that my American friends, of the newspapers, who are afraid I shall be corrupted by aristocratic associations, will see that I am at safe distance.

This evening we are appointed to dine with the Earl of Carlisle.  There is to be no company but his own family circle, for he, with great consideration, said in his note that he thought a little quiet would be the best thing he could offer.  Lord Carlisle is a great friend to America; and so is his sister, the Duchess of Sutherland.  He is the only English traveller who ever wrote notes on our country in a real spirit of appreciation.  While the Halls, and Trollopes, and all the rest could see nothing but our breaking eggs on the wrong end, or such matters, he discerned and interpreted those points wherein lies the real strength of our growing country.  His notes on America were not very extended, being only sketches delivered as a lyceum lecture some years after his return.  It was the spirit and quality, rather than quantity, of the thing that was noticeable.

I observe that American newspapers are sneering about his preface to Uncle Tom’s Cabin; but they ought at least to remember that his sentiments with regard to slavery are no sudden freak.  In the first place, he comes of a family that has always been on the side of liberal and progressive principles.  He himself has been a leader of reforms on the popular side.  It was a temporary defeat, when run as an anti-corn-law candidate, which gave him leisure to travel in America.  Afterwards he had the satisfaction to be triumphantly returned for that district, and to see the measure he had advocated fully successful.

While Lord Carlisle was in America he never disguised those antislavery sentiments which formed a part of his political and religious creed as an Englishman, and as the heir of a house always true to progress.  Many cultivated English people have shrunk from acknowledging abolitionists in Boston, where the ostracism of fashion and wealth has been enforced against them.  Lord Carlisle, though moving in the highest circle, honestly and openly expressed his respect for them on all occasions.  He attended the Boston antislavery fair, which at that time was quite a decided step.  Nor did he even in any part of our country disguise his convictions.  There is, therefore, propriety and consistency in the course he has taken now.  It would seem that a warm interest in questions of a public nature has always distinguished the ladies of this family.  The Duchess of Sutherland’s mother is daughter of the celebrated Duchess of Devonshire, who, in her day, employed on the liberal side in politics all the power of genius, wit, beauty, and rank.  It