I retain one very vivid impression of that most charming of debonair noblemen, Lord Melbourne.  I had the honor of dining at his house once, with the beautiful, highly gifted, and unfortunate woman with whom his relations afterwards became subject of such cruel public scandal; and after dinner I sat for some time opposite a large, crimson-covered ottoman, on which Lord Melbourne reclined, surrounded by those three enchanting Sheridan sisters, Mrs. Norton, Mrs. Blackwood (afterwards Lady Dufferin), and Lady St. Maur (afterwards Duchess of Somerset, and always Queen of Beauty).  A more remarkable collection of comely creatures, I think, could hardly be seen, and taking into consideration the high rank, eminent position, and intellectual distinction of the four persons who formed that beautiful group, it certainly was a picture to remain impressed upon one’s memory.

To return to my school-mistress, Mrs. Rowden; she was herself an authoress, and had published a poem dedicated to Lady Bessborough (Lady Caroline Lamb’s mother), the title of which was “The pleasures of friendship” (hope, memory, and imagination were all bespoken), of which I remember only the two opening lines—­

    “Visions of early youth, ere yet ye fade,
     Let my light pen arrest your fleeting shade.”

Mrs. Rowden, during the period of her school-keeping in London, was an ardent admirer of the stage in general and of my uncle John in particular, of whom the mezzotint engraving as Coriolanus, from Lawrence’s picture, adorned her drawing-room in the Rue d’Angouleme, where, however, the nature and objects of her enthusiasm had undergone a considerable change:  for when I was placed under her charge, theatres and things theatrical had given place in her esteem to churches and things clerical; her excitements and entertainments were Bible-meetings, prayer-meetings, and private preachings and teachings of religion.  She was what was then termed Methodistical, what would now be designated as very Low Church.  We were taken every Sunday either to the chapel of the embassy or to the Eglise de l’Oratoire (French Protestant worship), to two and sometimes to three services; and certainly Sunday was no day of rest to us, as we were required to write down from memory the sermons we had heard in the course of the day, and read them aloud at our evening devotional gathering.  Some of us had a robust power of attention and retention, and managed these reproductions with tolerable fidelity.  Others contrived to bring forth such a version of what they had heard as closely resembled the last edition of the subject-matter of a prolonged game of Russian scandal.  Sometimes, upon an appeal to mercy and a solemn protest that we had paid the utmost attention and couldn’t remember a single sentence of the Christian exhortation we had heard, we were allowed to choose a text and compose an original sermon of our own; and I think a good-sized volume might have been made of homilies of my composition, indited