Your letter was very welcome and its introduction heartily accepted. In this city & nation of pomps, where pomps too are solid, I fall back on my friends with wonderful refreshment. It is pity, however, that you should not see this England, with its indiscribable material superiorities of every kind; the just confidence which immense successes of all pasts have generated in this Englishman that he can do everything, and which his manners, though he is bashful & reserved, betray; the abridgment of all expression, which dense population & the roar of nations enforces; the solidity of science & merit which in any high place you are sure to find (the Church & some effects of primogeniture excepted) but I cannot tell my story now. I admire the English I think never more than when I meet Americans—as, for example, at Mr Bancroft’s American Soiree, which be holds every Sunday night.—Great is the self-respect of Mr Bull. He is very shortsighted & without his eyeglasses cannot see as far as your eyes, to know how you like him, so that he quite neglects that point. The Americans see very well, too well, and the traveling portion are very light troops. But I must not vent my ill-humour on my poor compatriots. They are welcome to their revenge & I am quite sure have no weapon to shave me if they too are at this hour writing letters to their gossips. I have not gone to Oxford yet, though I still correspond with my friend there, Mr Clough. I meet many young men here, who come to me simply as one of their School o£ thought, but not often in this class any giants. A Mr [J. D.] Morell who has written a History of Philosophy, and [J. J. G.] Wilkinson who is a Socialist now & gone to France, I have seen with respect. I went last Sunclay for the first time to see [Charles] Lane at Ham & dined with him. He was full of friendliness & hospitality has a School of 16 children, one lady as matron, then Oldham, that is all the household. They looked just comfortable. Mr Galpin, tell the Shakers, has married. I spent the most of that day in visiting Hampton Court & Richmond & went also into Pope’s Grotto at Twickenham, & saw Horace Walpole’s Villa of Strawberry Hill.

Ever your friend,
Waldo E.