she was sometimes called in those days, was at home and tripped into the
room with the elastic step of a girl, although she was considerably over
three score years and ten. She was very petite and fair, with a sweet
benignant countenance that inspired at once admiration and affection.
Almost her first words to me were: "What a pity you did not come ten
minutes sooner; for if you had you would have seen Mr. Thomas Campbell,
who has just gone away." I was exceedingly sorry to have missed a sight
of the author of "Hohenlinden" and the incomparable "Battle of the
Baltic," but was quite surprised that he was still seeking much society;
for in those days he was lamentably addicted to intoxicants. On more
than one public occasion he was the worse for his cups; and when, after
his death, a subscription was started to place his statue in Westminster
Abbey, Samuel Rogers, the poet, cynically said, "Yes, I will gladly give
twenty pounds any day to see dear old Tom Campbell stand steady on his
legs." It is a matter of congratulation that the most eminent men of the
Victorian era have not fallen into some of the unhappy habits of their
predecessors at the beginning of the last century. Mrs. Baillie
entertained me with lively descriptions of Sir Walter Scott, and of her
old friend, Mr. Wordsworth, who was her guest whenever he came up to
London. She expressed the warmest admiration for the moral and
political, though not all of the religious, writings of our Dr.
Channing, whom she pronounced the finest essayist of the time. She also
felt a curious interest (which I discovered in many other notable people
in England) to learn what she could in regard to our American Indians,
and expressed much admiration when I gave her some quotations from the
picturesque eloquence of our sons of the forest.

Every American who visited London in those days felt a laudable
curiosity to see the young Queen, who had been crowned but four years
before. I went up to Windsor Castle, and after inspecting it, joined a