Athm
7 June
My Dear Constance
London is so full, I hardly ever saw it fuller – On my arrival it took me an hour to find a bedroom, I had to go to 8 or 10 hotels – at last I found one at the Golden Cross Charing Cross, but it was so outrageously noisy that I was fain to decamp the next morning, & Take refuge at the Coberg Hotel in Charles St Grosvenor Square which is very quiet.
Yesterday I visited the grand flower show at the Hospl Gar+dens Kensington, quite late after most of the crowd had dispersed – The gardens are large and fine but unfinished. Still the <Acæncacias?> are already 7 feet high and uninjured by the winter, what will they come to in time? The flower show was very fine, & I have seldom seen a better The pyramids of Azaleas & <Telargeniums?> were beautiful to look at, but in truth they are always the same so I began to look about for novelties – Leptodactylon Californicum was quite new to me, and Lilium giganteum was in flower 6 or 7 feet high. The beautiful Orchid from the Cape of Good Hope <Disa?> grandiflora has not I think appeared in England before or very rarely.
Walking home I met Scrope and he asked me to come and see his house No 1 Princes Gate, Kensington and it is a very nice house indeed, front looking into the Park and back windows onto a large garden.
I send you a letter fm Uncle Wm to amuse You. I called on him today but he is ill in bed with a trachea. I saw Ly I. she told me that the letter written to you, wch came back from Edinb. without finding You, was from her. It came back to her directed,
Mrs Ilchester
Rochester
and on this again was written
Not known at Rochester
try Dorchester.
The letter was to ask you to negotiate with Sir John Watson Gordon, to come to Melbury in the summer, or to London sooner, and paint Uncle Wms portrait.
But Ly I. is going to write to you again now she knows your address, which I gave her. I have not seen her yet, she was not at home.
I go to Paris tomorrow address poste restante Paris if you write by return of post.
Love to all
Your affte
Henry