Note 29 — LORD CASTLEREAGH.

One evening, while thus engaged, to the utter abstraction from all surrounding circumstances, we had arrived at “Hark, I hear the toll of the bell,” when a sudden crash of all dissonant sounds produced as sudden a suspension of our own somewhat heteroclite harmonies. Tambourines, triangles, pokers, tongs, and shovels, were all pressed into the service. The ladies of the party, thus armed for discord, had encircled us; and they added a general chorus of inextinguishable laughter, ad libitum, to the instrumental accompaniment they volunteered to Lord C.’s vocal performances. At the head of the band was Lady Castlereagh herself.