CHAP. vi. ] Letter from Hanover. 255 



trot. She runs about the town with me and skips up her 

 two flights of stairs as light and fresh at least as some folks 

 I could name who are not a fourth part of her age. .... 

 In the morning till eleven or twelve she is dull and weary, 

 but as the day advances she gains life, and is quite "fresh 

 and funny " at ten or eleven, p.m., and sings old rhymes, na} r , 



even dances ! to the great delight of all who see her 



.... It was only this evening that, escaping from a 

 party at Mrs. Beckedorff's, I was able to indulge in what 

 my soul has been yearning for ever since I came here a 

 solitary ramble out of town, among the meadows which 

 border the Leine-strom, from which the old, tall, sombre- 

 looking Markt-thurm and the three beautiful lanthorn- 

 steeples of Hanover are seen as in the little picture I have 

 often looked at with a sort of mysterious wonder when a 

 boy as that strtfege place in foreign parts that my father 

 and uncle used to talk so much about, and so familiarly. 

 The likeness is correct, and I soon found the point of view. 

 Yesterday, being the anniversary of Waterloo, there was 

 a great military spectacle here in a large esplanade, where 

 there is erected a tall and very pretty column, with a 

 bronze " Victory " at the top, hopping on one leg. A few 

 guns were fired, a sermon preached, the veil of the statue 

 (shown for the first time) pulled off by the Duke of Cam- 

 bridge, and a good dinner eaten by 350 personages, of 

 which number I had the honour to be one unit, in a vast 

 saloon in the Herrenhauser Palace, about the length, 

 breadth, and height of St. George's Hall, at Windsor, the 

 Duke presiding and giving the toasts, &c., in honour of 

 the Waterloo heroes. The saloon was ornamented most 

 curiously with guns, swords, and pikes, arranged in patterns, 

 and with Waterloo trophies, and a panoramic view of the field 

 of Waterloo in compartments. No ladies were admitted to 

 the table, and (what say you to the gallantry of the Hano- 



