It might be about ten or eleven o’clock when we arrived here.  After the two Englishmen had first given me some breakfast at their lodgings, which consisted of tea and bread and butter, they went about with me themselves, in their own neighbourhood, in search of an apartment, which they at length procured for me for sixteen shillings a week, at the house of a tailor’s widow who lived opposite to them.  It was very fortunate, on other accounts, that they went with me, for equipped as I was, having neither brought clean linen nor change of clothes from my trunk, I might perhaps have found it difficult to obtain good lodgings.

It was a very uncommon but pleasing sensation I experienced on being now, for the first time in my life, entirely among Englishmen:  among people whose language was foreign, their manners foreign, and in a foreign climate, with whom, notwithstanding, I could converse as familiarly as though we had been educated together from our infancy.  It is certainly an inestimable advantage to understand the language of the country through which you travel.  I did not at first give the people I was with any reason to suspect I could speak English, but I soon found that the more I spoke, the more attention and regard I met with.  I now occupy a large room in front on the ground floor, which has a carpet and mats, and is very neatly furnished; the chairs are covered with leather, and the tables are of mahogany.  Adjoining to this I have another large room.  I may do just as I please, and keep my own tea, coffee, bread and butter, for which purpose my landlady has given me a cupboard in my room, which locks up.

The family consists of the mistress of the house, her maid, and her two sons, Jacky and Jerry; singular abbreviations for John and Jeremiah.  The eldest, Jacky, about twelve years old, is a very lively boy, and often entertains me in the most pleasing manner by relating to me his different employments at school, and afterwards desiring me in my turn to relate to him all manner of things about Germany.  He repeats his amo, amas, amavi, in the same singing tone as our common school-boys.  As I happened once when he was by, to hum a lively tune, he stared at me with surprise, and then reminded me it was Sunday; and so, that I might not forfeit his good opinion by any appearance of levity, I gave him to understand that, in the hurry of my journey, I had forgotten the day.  He has already shown me St. James’s Park, which is not far from hence; and now let me give you some description of the renowned

St. James’s Park.

The park is nothing more than a semicircle, formed of an alley of trees, which enclose a large green area in the middle of which is a marshy pond.

The cows feed on this green turf, and their milk is sold here on the spot, quite new.