“. . . Nothing has transpired as to the D[uke] of Wellington’s] intentions about Ireland, for a very good reason, I believe—viz., that he has no intentions whatever on the subject. The reports about the
conversation, and there has been no person of rank, talent and importance in any way who did not procure introduction to them. All that was passing in the world, they had it fresh as it arose, and in four hours’ conversation with Miss Ponsonby one day, and three the next, I found that she knew everything and everybody, and was, at the age of 80, or nearly so, a most inexhaustible fund of entertaining instruction and lively communication. The cottage is remarkable for the taste of its appropriate fitting up with ancient oak, presented by different friends, from old castles and monasteries, &c., none of it of less antiquity than 1200 years [!]. She declared to me that during the whole fifty years she never knew a moment that hung heavy upon her, and no sorrows, but from the loss of friends” [Smiles’s Memoirs of John Murray, ii. 304]. |
| 1828.] | CREEVEY’S INDISCRETION. | 187 |
