architectural antiquities of the kingdom, and [it] is upon the
occasion of the annual meeting of this society for a week at Norwich
that the Bishop has invited us to stay a few days at the palace and
join them in their agreeable antiquarian excursions. We arrived on
Friday at five o'clock after a long dull journey of five hours on
the railway. . . . Staying in the house are our friends, Mr. and
Mrs. Milman, Lord Northampton and his son, Lord Alwyne Compton, and
the Bishop's family, consisting of Mrs. Stanley, and of two Miss
Stanleys, agreeable and highly cultivated girls, and Mr. Arthur
Stanley, the writer of Dr. Arnold's Biography.

After dinner company soon arrived. Among them were Mrs. Opie, who
resides here. She is a pleasing, lively old lady, in full Quaker
dress. The most curious feature of the evening was a visit which
the company paid to the cellar and kitchen, which were lighted up
for the occasion. They were build by the old Norman bishops of the
twelfth century, and had vaulted stone roofs as beautifully carved
and ribbed as a church.

The next day, Saturday, the antiquarians made a long excursion to
hunt up some ruins, while the Milmans, Mr. Stanley, and ourselves,
went to visit the place of Lady Suffield, about twelve miles
distant, and which is the most perfect specimen of the Elizabethan
style. Lady Suffield herself is as Elizabethan as her
establishment; she is of one [of] the oldest high Tory families and
so opposed to innovations of all sorts that though her letters,
which used to arrive at two, before the opening of the railway two
years ago, now arrive at seven in the morning, they are never
allowed to be brought till the old hour. . . . This morning Mr.
Bancroft and the rest are gone on an excursion to Yarmouth to see