The Sun.
London, England, 1830-01-18 00:00:00

torating a romlneo, or rather a tale in prose ; but
what romal.ve ottld equal the events—

. . . . vidi
EE quorum pars magna fui.'
" To-day Henry Byron culled on me with my
little cousin Eliza. She will grow up a beauty and
a plsEue ; but in the tuctatime, it is the prettiest
child ! dark eyes, and eye-lashes black and long as
the wing of a raven. I think she is prettier even
than my niece Georg na. Yet, I don't like to think
so, neither; and though older, she is not so clever.
" ' Mena. I must get a toy to-morrow for Eliza,
and the device for the seals of myself and . . .
Mem., too, to call on the Stael and Lady Holland
to-morrow; and on . . who has advised me (with-
out seeing it, by the bye) not to publish ' Zuleika
I believe he is right,. but experience might have
taught him that not to print is physically impossible.
No one has seen it but Hodgson and Mr. Gifford. I
never in my life read a composition, save tollodgson,
and he pays mein kind. It is a horrible thing to do so
too frequently; better print, and they who like may
read, and if they don't like, you have the satisfac-
don of knowing that they have at least purchased
the right of saying so.
" I have declined presenting the Debtor's Peti-
tion, being sick of Parliamentary mummeries. I
have spoken there ; but I doubt my ever becoming
an orator. My first was liked; the second and
third—l don't know whether they succeeded or
not—l have never yet set to it con amore; one
must have some excuse to one's self for laziness or
inability, or both, and this is mine—s company,
villainous company bath been the spoil of me;'
and then I have drunk medicines' not to make
me love others, but certainly enough to make me
hate myself.
" "rwo nights ago, I saw the tigers sup at Ex-
eter Change. Except Veli Pacha's Lion in the
Morea—who followed the Arab keeper like a dog—
the fondness of the hyaena for her keeper amused me
much, Such a conversazione ! There was a' Hip-
popotamus' like Lord L 1 in the face; and the
Ursine Sloth' bath the very voice and manner of
my valet—but the tiger talked too much. The
elephant took and gave me my money again—took
off my hat—opened a door—trunked a whip—
and behaved so well, that I wish he was my
butler. The handsomest animal on earth is one of
the panthers; but the poor antelopes were dead.
I should hate to see one here—the sight of the camel
made me pine again for Asia Minor. 'Oh quando
to aspiciam ?'
• • • • • • •

" ' November 16th.

" ' Went last night with Lewis, to see the play
of Antony and Cleopatra. It was admirably got up,
and well acted—a salad of Shakspeare and Dryden.
Cleopatra strikes me as the epitome of her sex—
fond, lively, sad, tender, teazing, humble, haughty,
beautiful, the devil I—coquettish to the last, as well
with the ' asp' as with Antony. After doing all she
can to persuade him that—but why do they abuse
him for cutting off that poltroon Cicero's head ?
Did not Tully like Brutus, it was a pity to have
spared Antony's, and did he not speak the Philip-
pics ?—and are not tverds things,' and such 'words'
very pestilent 'things' too ? If he had had a hundred
heads, they deserved (from Antony) a rostrum (his
was stuck up there)—a piece—though, after all, he
might as well have pardoned him, for the credit of
the thing. But to resume :—Cleopatra, after se-
curing him, says,' yet go," it is your interest,' &c.
How like the sex;—and the questions about Octavia
—it is woman all over.

" < To-day received Lord Jersey's invitation to
Middlesex—to travel sixty miles to meet Madam
. . I once travelled three thousand to get
among silent people ; and this same lady writes oc-
tavos, and talks folios. I have read her books—
like most of them, and delight in the last; so I want
to hear it as well as read.

" Read Burns to-day. What would he have
been if a patrician? We should have had more
polish—less force—just as much verse, but no im-
mortality—a divine and a devil or two—the which
had he survived, he might have lived as long as
Sheridan, and outlived as much as poor Brinsley.
What a wreck is that man ;—and all from bad pilot-
age; for no one had better gales, though now and
then a little too squally. Poor dear Sherry ! I shall
never forget the day he and Rogers and Moore and
I passed together; when he talked and we listened,
without one yawn, from six till one in the morning.
" Got my seals Have again for-
got a plaything for via petite cousin Eliza; but I
must send for it to-morrow. I hope Harry will
bring her to me. I sent Lord Holland the proof of
the last ' Giaour,' and the Bride of Abydos. He
won't like the latter, and I don't think that I shall
long. It was Written in four nights to distract my
dreams from . . Were it not thus, it had never
been composed ; and had I not done something at
that time, I must have gone mad, by eating my own
heart—bitter diet ! Hodgson likes it better than the
Giaour,' but nobody else will, and he never liked
the fragment. lam sure, had it not Leen for Mur-
ray, that would never have been published, though
the circumstances which are the ground-work make
it . . . heigh ho !
" To-night I saw both the sisters of . .;
my God ! the youngest so like ! I thought I
should have sprung across the house; and am so
glad no one was with me in, Lady H.'s box. I
hate those likenesses—the mockbird, but not the
nightingale—so like as to remind, so different as to
be painful. One quarrels equally with the points of
resemblance and of distinction.

" November 17th.

" No letter from . .;—but I must not com-
' plain. The reputable Job says----' Why should a
living man complain ?' I really don't know, except
it be that a dead man can't; and lie the Patriarch
did complain, nevertheless, till his friends were
tired, and his wife recommended that piteous pro-
logue, Curse -- and die; the only time I sup-
pose, when but little relief is to be found in swear-
ing.' I have had a most kind letter from Lord
Holland, on The Bride of Abydos,' which he likes,
and so dots Lady H. This is very good-natured in
both, from whom I don't deserve any quarter. Yet
I did think at the time that my cause of enmity pro-
ceeded from Holland House, and am glad I was
wrong, and wish I had not been in such a hurry
with that confounded Satire, of which I would sup-
press even the memory; but people, now they can't
get it, make a fuss, I verily believe out of contra-
diction.

" George Ellis and Murray have been talking
something about Scott and me, George pro Scoto,
and very right too. If they want to depose him, I
only wish they would not sit me up as a competitor.
Even if I had my choice, I would rather be the
Earl of Warwick than all the Kings he ever made I
Jeffrey and Gifford I take to be the monarch-makers
in poetry and prose. The British Critic, in their
Rokeby Review, have presupposed a comparison,
which I am sure my friends never thought of, and W.
Scott's subjects are injudicious in descending to. I like
the man—and admire his works to what Mr.Braham
calls Entusymusy. All such stuff can only vex him,
and do me no good. Many hate his politics (I hate
all politics) ; and here, a man's politics are like the
Greek soul—an 51'6:4001—besides God knows what
other soul ; but their estimate of the two generally
go together.
• • • • • * •
" ' I wish I could settle to reading again—my
life is monotonous and yet desultory.' I take up
books, and fling them down again. I began a
comedy, and burnt it because the scene ran into
reality ;—a novel for the same reason. In rhyme I
can keep more away from facts ; but the thought
always runs through, through . . . yes—yes,
through. I have a letter from Lady Melbourne, the
best friend I ever had in my life, and the cleverest
of women.
• __ • • •• • • • s

" Called on C . . to explain . . She is
very beautiful, to my taste at least; for on coming
from abroad, I recollect being unable to look at any
woman but her—they,were so fair, and unmeaning,
and blonde. The darkness and regularity of her
features reminded me of my 'Jannat al Aden.' But

this impression wore off; and now I can look at a
fair woman without longing for a Houri. She was
very good tempered, and every thing was explained.

" Mr. Murray has ofTered me one thousand
guineas for the Giaour' and the Bride of Abydos.'
I won't—it is too much, though I am strongly
tempted, merely for the say of it. No bad price for
a forttlight's (a week each)—what? the gods know
—it was intended to be called poetry.
" I have dined regularly to-day, for the first time
since Sunday lastthis being Sabbath too. All
the rest tea, and dry biscuits—six per diem. I ►wish
to God I had not dined now ! It kills me with
heaviness, stupor, and horrible dreams; and yet it
was but a pint of bucellas and fish.* Meat I never
court, nor much vegetable diet. I wish I were in
the country to take exercise, instead of being ob-
liged to cool by abstinence in lieu of it. I should
not so much mind a little accession of flesh—tfiy
bones can well bear it. But the worst is, the devil
always comes with it, till I starve him out—and 1
will not be the slave of any appetite. if Ido err,
it shall be my heart at least that heralds the way.
Oh, my head, how it aches !—the horrors of diges-
tion ! I wonder how Bonaparte's dinner agrees
with him. • • • • • . .

" ' Rogers is silent—and, it is said, severe. When
he does talk, he talks well; a.id on all subjects of
taste, his delicacy of expression is pure as his poetry.
If you enter his house—his drawing-room—his
library—you of yourself say this is not the dwelling
of a common mind. There is not a gem, a coin, a
book thrown aside on his chimney-piece, his sofa,
his table, that does not bespeak as almost fastidious
elegance in the possessor. But this very delicacy
must be the nursery of his existence. Oh, the jar-
rings his disposition must have encountered through
life!

" Southey, I have not seen much of. His ap-
pearance is Epic; and he is the only existing en-
tire man of letters. His manners are mild, but not
those of a man of the world, and his talents of the
first order. His prose is perfect. Of his poetry,
there are various opinions : there is perhaps too
much of it for the present generation ; posterity
will probably select. ►le has passages equal to any
thing. At present he has a party but no public—
except for his prose writings. The Life of Nelson
is beautiful.

. . . is a Litarateur, the Oracle of the
Coteries, of the . . .'s, L— W— (Syd-
ney Smith's Tory Virgin'), Mrs. Wilmot (she at
least is a swan, and might frequent a purer steam)4
Lady B-- and all the Blues, with Lady C— at
their head—but I say nothing of her—' look in her
face and you forget them all,' and every thing else.
Oh,:that face l—by ' te Diva patens Cypri,' I would,
to be beloved by that woman, build and burn
another Troy.

" ' M—e has a peculiarity of talent, or rather
talents—poetry, music, voice, all his own; and an
expression in each which never wag, nor will be
possessed by another. But he is capable of still
higher flights in poetry. By-the-bye, what humour,
what—every thing in the Post Bag !"lhere is
nothing M—e may not do, if he will but seriously
set about it. In society he is gentlemanly, gentle,
arid altogether more pleasing than any individual
with whom lam acquainted., For his honour,
principle, and independ,nce,hii conduct to . . .
speaks trumpet-tongued ! He has but one fault—
and that one I daily regret—lie is not here. . .

" 12 Mazze Notte.

" Just returned from dinner with Jackson (the
Emperor of Pugilism), and another of the Select
at Crib's, the Champion's. I drank more than 1
like, and have brought away some three bottles of
very fair claret—for I have no head-ache. We had
Tom . . up after dinner ;—very facetious,
though somewhat prolix. He don't like his situation—
wants to fight again—pray Pollux (or Castor if he was
the miller) he may ! Tom has been a sailor—a coal-
heaver—and some other genteel profession before
he took to the cestus. Tom has been in action at
sea, and is now only three-and-thirty. A great
man ! has a wife and a mistress, and conversations
well—bating some sad omissions and misapplications
of the aspirate. Tom is an old friend of mine; I
have seen some of his best battles in my nonage.
He is now a publican, and, I fear a sinner ;—for
Mrs. . . is on alimony, and S. .'s daughter
lives with the Champion. This . . told me.—
Tom, having an opinion of my morals, passed
her off as a legal spouse. Talking of her, he said,
' she was the truest of women ;' from which I im-
mediately inferred she could not be his wife, and so
it turned out.

"' These panegyrics don't belong to matrimony;
for, if ' true,' a man don't think it necessary to say
so; and if not, the less he says the better. . .
is the only man, except . . . . I ever heard
harangue upon his wife's virtue; and I listened to
both with great credence and patience, and stuffed
my handkerchief into my mouth when I found yawn-
ing irresistible. "
• a • • • • •

Redde the Ed. Review of Rogers. He is
ranked highly—but where he should be. There is
a summary view of us all—Moore and me among
the rest; and both(thefirst justly) praised—though
by implication (justly again) placed beneath our
memorable friend. Mackintosh is the writer, and
also of the critique on De Steel. His grand Essay
on Burke, I hear, is for the next number.
• • * • •
" Tuesday, 30th.
" Sunday I dined witlAthe Lord Holland, in St.
James's-square. Large party—among them Sir S.
Romiily and Lady It., General Sir Somebody Ben-
tham, a man of science and talent I am told—Horner
—the Horner, an Edinburgh Reviewer, an excellent
speaker in the ' Honourable House,' very pleasing,
too, and gentlemanly in company as far as I have
seen—Sharpe—Phillips of Lancashire—Lord John
Russell, and others, good men and true.' Hol-
land's society is very good ; you always see some
one or other in it worth knowing. Stuffed myself
with sturgeon, and exceeded in champagne and wine
in general, but not to confusion of head. When I
do dine, I gorge like an Arab, or a Boa snake, on
fish and vegetables, but no meat. lam always bet-
ter, however, on my tea and biscuit than any other
regimen—and even that sparingly.
" 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 abso-
lutely 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 etched their

looks as I dismissed the screen, and every cheek
thawed, and every nose reddened with the antici-
pated glow.
" Sunday, a very handsome note from Mackin-
tosh, who is a rare instance of the union of very
transcendant 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—at least her having
changed them ; had she been palls ab incepto, it
were nothing. But she is a woman by herself, and
has done more than all the rest of them together, in-
tellectually—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 concern?'
• •
•

" ' Les% is called : It is a good and good humoured
man, but pestilentially 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
ouverle, like Erskine's, and yet not offending.
" Wednesday, Dec. Ist, 1813.
" ' To-day responding to la Baronne de Stael Hol-
• He had this year so far departed from his strict plan
of diet, as to eat Ash occasionally.