"Awoke a little feverish, but no headach -no dreams neither, thanks to stupor! Two letters; one from ****, the other from Lady Melbourne-both excellent in their respective styles. ****'s contained also a very pretty lyric on 'concealed griefs ;' if not her own, yet very like her. Why did she not say that the stanzas were, or were not, of her composition? I do not know whether to wish them hers or not. I have no great esteem for poetical persons, particularly women; they have so much of the 'ideal' in practics, as well as ethics.

I have been thinking lately a good deal of Mary Duff, &c. &c. &c. &c.1

"Lord Holland invited me to dinner today; but three days' dining would destroy me. So, without eating at all since yesterday, I went to my box at Covent Garden.

“Saw * * * * looking very pretty, though quite a different style of beauty from the other two. She has the finest eyes in the world, out of which she pretends not to see, and the longest eyelashes I ever saw, since Leila's and Phannio's Moslem curtains of the light. She has much beauty, -just enough, but is, I think, méchante.

each other for the circumstances that severed them.

Saturday 27. (I believe-or rather am in doubt,

which is the ne plus ultra of mortal faith.) "I have missed a day; and, as the Irishman said, or Joe Miller says for him, 'have gained a loss,' or by the loss. Every thing is settled for Holland, and nothing but a cough, or a caprice of my fellow-traveller's, can stop us. Carriage ordered, funds prepared, and, probably, a gale of wind into the bargain. N'importe - I believe, with Clym o' the Clow, or Robin Hood, 'By our Mary, (dear name!) thou art both Mother and May, I think it never was a man's lot to die before this day.' Heigh for Helvoetsluys, and so forth!

To-night I went with young Henry Fox to see Nourjahad,' a drama, which the Morning Post hath laid to my charge, but of which I cannot even guess the author. I wonder what they will next inflict upon me. They cannot well sink below a melodrama; but that is better than a satire, (at least, a personal one,) with which I stand truly arraigned, and in atonement of which I am resolved to bear silently all criticisms, abuses, and even praises, for bad pantomimes never composed by me, without even a contradictory aspect. I suppose the root of this report is my loan to the manager of my Turkish drawings for his dresses, to which he was more welcome than to my name. I suppose the real author will soon own it, as it has succeeded; if not, Job be my model, and Lethe my beverage!

“**** has received the portrait safe; and, in answer, the only remark she makes upon it is, indeed it is like'-and again,

indeed it is like.' With her the likeness 'covered a multitude of sins;' for I happen to know that this portrait was not a flatterer, but dark and stern, -even black as the mood in which my mind was scorching_last July, when I sat for it. All the others of me, like most portraits whatsoever, are, of course, more agreeable than nature.

after an interval of many silent and inglorious ages, to awaken the genius of a poet. Full of enthusiasm for those perfect forms of heroism and liberty which his imagination had placed in the recesses of antiquity, he gave vent to his impatience of the imperfections of living men and real institutions, in an original strain of sublime satire, which clothes moral anger in imagery of an almost horrible grandeur; and which, though it cannot coincide with the estimate of reason, yet could only flow from that worship of perfection which is the soul of all true poetry."— Edinb. Rev. vol. xxii. p. 37.]

"Why does Lady H. always have that damned screen between the whole room and the fire? I, who bear cold no better than an antelope, and never yet found a sun quite done to my taste, was absolutely petrified, and could not even shiver. All the rest, too, looked as if they were just unpacked, like salmon from an ice-basket, and set down to table for that day only. When she retired, I watched their looks as I dismissed the screen, and every cheek thawed, and every nose reddened with the anticipated glow.

66

I

Saturday, I went with Harry Fox to Nourjahad; and, I believe, convinced him, by incessant yawning, that it was not mine. I wish the precious author would own it, and release me from his fame. The dresses are pretty, but not in costume ;-Mrs. Horn's, all but the turban, and the want of a small dagger (if she is a sultana), perfect. Inever saw a Turkish woman with a turban in my life nor did any one else. The sultanas have a small poniard at the waist. The dialogue is drowsy - the action heavythe scenery fine- the actors tolerable. can't say much for their seraglio - Teresa, Phannio, or ****, were worth them all. "Sunday, a very handsome note from Mackintosh, who is a rare instance of the union of very_transcendent talent and great good nature. To-day (Tuesday) a very pretty billet from M. la Baronne de Stael Holstein. She is pleased to be much pleased with my mention of her and her last work in my notes. I spoke as I thought. Her works are my delight, and so is she herself, for half an hour. I don't like her politics least, her having changed them; had she been qualis ab incepto, it were nothing. But she is a woman by herself, and has done more than all the rest of them together, intellectually; she ought to have been a man. She flatters me very prettily in her note; but I know it. The reason that adulation is not displeasing is, that, though untrue, it shows one to be of consequence enough, in one way or other, to induce people to lie, to make us their friend :- that is their con

cern.

at

“** is, I hear, thriving on the repute of a pun which was mine (at Mackintosh's dinner some time back), on Ward, who was asking, how much it would take to re-whig him?" I answered that, probably, he must first, before he was re-whigged, be re-warded. This foolish quibble, before the Stael and

[In one of the notes to the Bride of Abydos, Lord Byron had referred the reader to a passage in "De l'Allemagne," on the analogy between painting and poetry.]

Mackintosh, and a number of conversationers, has been mouthed about, and at last settled on the head of **, where long may it remain!

George 2 is returned from afloat to get a new ship. He looks thin, but better than I expected. I like George much more than most people like their heirs. He is a fine fellow, and every inch a sailor. I would do any thing, but apostatise, to get him on in his profession.

"Lewis called. It is a good and goodhumoured man, but pestilently prolix and paradoxical and personal. If he would but talk half, and reduce his visits to an hour, he would add to his popularity. As an author he is very good, and his vanity is ouverte, like Erskine's, and yet not offending.

"Yesterday, a very pretty letter from Annabella 3, which I answered. What an odd situation and friendship is ours! without one spark of love on either side, and produced by circumstances which in general lead to coldness on one side, and aversion on the other. She is a very superior woman, and very little spoiled, which is strange in an heiress- a girl of twenty- a peeress that is to be, in her own rightan only child, and a savante, who has always had her own way. She is a poetess· ―a mathematician -a metaphysician, and yet, withal, very kind, generous, and gentle, with very little pretension. Any other head would be turned with half her acquisitions, and a tenth of her advantages.

"Wednesday, December 1. 1813.

To-day responded to La Baronne de Stael Holstein, and sent to Leigh Hunt (an acquisition to my acquaintance-through Moore of last summer) a copy of the two Turkish tales. Hunt is an extraordinary character, and not exactly of the present age. He reminds me more of the Pym and Hampden times-much talent, great independence of spirit, and an austere, yet not repulsive, aspect. If he goes on qualis ab incepto, I know few men who will deserve more praise or obtain it. I must go and see him again; the rapid succession of adventure, since last summer, added to some serious uneasiness and business, have interrupted our acquaintance; but he is a man worth knowing; and though, for his own sake, I wish him out of prison, I like to study character in such situations. He has been unshaken, and will continue so. I don't

2 His cousin, the present Lord Byron.

3 Miss Milbanke, afterwards Lady Byron.

P

think him deeply versed in life; - he is the bigot of virtue (not religion), and enamoured of the beauty of that empty name,' as the last breath of Brutus pronounced, and every day proves it. He is, perhaps, a little opiniated, as all men who are the centre of circles, wide or narrow the Sir Oracles, in whose name two or three are gathered together must be, and as even Johnson was; but, withal, a valuable man, and less vain than success and even the consciousness of preferring the right to the expedient' might

excuse.

"To-morrow there is a party of purple at the 'blue' Miss ***'s [Berry's]. Shall I go? um! - I don't much affect your bluebottles; - but one ought to be civil. There will be, I guess now' (as the Americans say), the Staels and Mackintoshes — good thes and *** s - not so good the ***s, &c. &c.-good for nothing. Perhaps that blue-winged Kashmirian butterfly of book-learning, Lady * * *, will be there. I hope so; it is a pleasure to look upon that most beautiful of faces.

"Wrote to H.: — - he has been telling that I———. 1 I am sure, at least, I did not mention it, and I wish he had not. He is a good fellow, and I obliged myself ten times more by being of use than I did him, — and there's an end on't.

"Baldwin is boring me to present their King's Bench petition. I presented Cartwright's last year; and Stanhope and I stood against the whole House, and mouthed it valiantly and had some fun and a little abuse for our opposition. But I am not i' th' vein' for this business. Now, had ** been here, she would have made me do it. There is a woman, who, amid all her fascination, always urged a man to usefulness or glory. Had she remained, she had been my tutelar genius.

“Baldwin is very importunate — but, poor fellow, I can't get out, I can't get out said the starling.' Ah, I am as bad as that dog Sterne, who preferred whining over a dead ass to relieving a living mother'-villain -hypocrite-slave-sycophant! but I am no better. Here I cannot stimulate myself to a speech for the sake of these unfortunates, and three words and half a smile of ** had she been here to urge it (and urge it she infallibly would at least she always pressed me on senatorial duties, and particularly in the cause of weakness) would have made me an advocate, if not an orator. Curse on Rochefoucault for being always right! In him a

1 Two or three words are here scratched out in the manuscript, but the import of the sentence evidently is that Mr. Hodgson (to whom the passage refers) had

lie were virtue,—or, at least, a comfort to his readers.

66

George Byron has not called to-day; I hope he will be an admiral, and, perhaps, Lord Byron into the bargain. If he would but marry, I would engage never to marry myself, or cut him out of the heirship. He would be happier, and I should like nephews better than sons.

"I shall soon be six-and-twenty (January 22d, 1814). Is there any thing in the future that can possibly console us for not being always twenty-five?

"Oh Gioventu !

Oh Primavera! gioventu dell' anno. Oh Gioventu! primavera della vita.

"Sunday, December 5. |

"Dallas's nephew (son to the American Attorney-general) is arrived in this country, and tells Dallas that my rhymes are very popular in the United States. These are the first tidings that have ever sounded like Fame to my ears to be redde on the banks of the Ohio! The greatest pleasure I ever derived, of this kind, was from an extract, in Cooke the actor's life, from his journal, stating that in the reading-room at Albany, near Washington, he perused English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. To be popular in a rising and far country has a kind of posthumous feel, very different from the ephemeral eclat and fête-ing, buzzing and party-ing compliments of the well-dressed multitude. I can safely say that, during my reign in the spring of 1812, I regretted nothing but its duration of six weeks instead of a fortnight, and was heartily glad to resign.

"Last night I supped with Lewis ;—and, as usual, though I neither exceeded in solids nor fluids, have been half dead ever since. My stomach is entirely destroyed by long abstinence, and the rest will probably follow. Let it I only wish the pain over. The leap in the dark' is the least to be dreaded.

"The Duke of ** called. I have told them forty times that, except to half-a-dozen old and specified acquaintances, I am invisible. His Grace is a good, noble, ducal person; but I am content to think so at a distance, and so — I was not at home.

"Galt called. - Mem. to ask some one to speak to Raymond in favour of his play. We are old fellow-travellers, and, with all his eccentricities, he has much strong sense, experience of the world, and is, as far as I

been revealing to some friends the secret of Lord Byron's kindness to him.

Ær. 25.

MR. GALT.

them.

"The Bride of Abydos was published on Thursday the second of December; but how it is liked or disliked, I know not. Whether it succeeds or not is no fault of the public, against whom I can have no complaint. But I am much more indebted to the tale than I can ever be to the most partial reader; as it wrung my thoughts from reality to imagination-from selfish regrets to vivid recollections - and recalled me to a country replete with the brightest and darkest, but always most lively colours of my memory. Sharpe called, but was not let in- which I regret.

Saw** yesterday. I have not kept my appointment at Middleton, which has not pleased him, perhaps ; and my projected voyage_with ** will, perhaps, please him less. But I wish to keep well with both. They are instruments that don't do, in concert; but, surely, their separate tones are very musical, and I won't give up either.

first;

"It is well if I don't jar between these great discords. At present I stand tolerably well with all, but I cannot adopt their dislikes;-so many sets. Holland's is the every thing distingué is welcome there, and certainly the ton of his society is the best. Then there is Madame de Stael's there I never go, though I might, had I courted it. It is composed of the * *s and the family, with a strange sprinkling, orators, dandies, and all kinds of Blue, from the regular Grub Street uniform, down to the azure jacket of the Littérateur. Το see ** and ** sitting together, at dinner, always reminds me of the grave, where all distinctions of friend and foe are levelled; and they the Reviewer and Reviewée the Rhinoceros and Elephant-the Mammoth and Megalonyx-all will lie quietly together. They now sit together, as silent, but not so quiet, as if they were already immured.

211

"I did not go to the Berrys' the other night. The elder is a woman of much talent, and both are handsome, and must have been beautiful. To-night asked to Lord H.'sshall I go? um!—perhaps.

'Morning, two o'clock. "Went to Lord H.'s-party numerous — milady in perfect good humour, and consequently perfect. No one more agreeable, or perhaps so much so, when she will. Asked for Wednesday to dine and meet the Stael - asked particularly, I believe, out of mischief to see the first interview after the note, with which Corinne professes herself to be so much taken. I don't much like it; she always talks of myself or herself, and Í am not (except in soliloquy, as now,) much enamoured of either subject especially one's works. What the devil shall I about De l'Allemagne ?' I like it prodigiously; but unless I can twist my admiration into some fantastical expression, she won't believe me; and I know, by experience, I shall be overwhelmed with fine things about rhyme, &c. &c. The lover, Mr. ** [Rocca], was there to-night, and C✶✶ said it was the only proof he had seen of her good taste.' Monsieur L' Amant is remarkably handsome; but I don't think

more so than her book.

say

"C** [Campbell] looks well,- seems pleased, and dressed to sprucery. A blue coat becomes him, - so does his new wig. He really looked as if Apollo had sent him a birthday suit, or a wedding-garment, and was witty and lively. He abused Corinne's book, which I regret; because, firstly, he understands German, and is consequently a fair judge; and, secondly, he is first-rate, and, consequently, the best of judges. I reverence and admire him; but I won't give up my opinion-why should I? I read her again and again, and there can be no affectation in this. I cannot be mistaken (except in taste) in a book I read and lay down, and take up again; and no book can be totally bad which finds one, even one reader, who can say as much sincerely.

66

Campbell talks of lecturing next spring; his last lectures were eminently successful. Moore thought of it, but gave it up,-I don't know why. ** had been prating dignity to him, and such stuff; as if a man disgraced himself by instructing and pleasing at the same time.

“Introduced to Marquis Buckingham 1saw Lord Gower 2. he is going to Holland;

1 [Now Duke of Buckingham.]

2 [George-Granville Leveson Gower, the present Duke of Sutherland.]