As the steamer is late this week, I find myself more than commonly at leisure. So I attended to my year’s accounts, and went to the city to complete the Quarterly returns of the contingent fund, the most troublesome of all. As I went into the counting room I found nobody by Mr Baring young, and he was engaged in conversation with a person who I soon saw was an American. He was enquiring about the practicality of investing in Venezuelan bonds. Soon after he left Mr Young told me that it was a Mr Peytno. He himself incidentally said he was from the confederate portion. His manner seemed to me much subdued. Walk in the evening to the Palace Hotel to see Mr Peabody, wh is just coming out of a fit of the gout. He told me that the Steamer had arrived, without important news. We had to dinner Col’ and Mrs Ritchie, and Mr Browning. The latter is talkative and amusing. He gave us some insight into the peculiarities of Mr Thackeray, which made him so little liked in private life. He certainly was very much of a book. But that is not so very uncommon in English society, that it should be especially marked against him.537