hem 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 had a letter
from Lady Melbourne--the best friend I ever had in my life, and the
cleverest of women.

"Not a word from * *. Have they set out from * *? or has my last
precious epistle fallen into the lion's jaws? If so--and this silence
looks suspicious, I must clap on my 'musty morion' and 'hold out my
iron.' I am out of practice--but I won't begin again at Manton's now.
Besides, I would not return his shot. I was once a famous
wafer-splitter; but then the bullies of society made it necessary. Ever
since I began to feel that I had a bad cause to support, I have left off
the exercise.

"What strange tidings from that Anakim of anarchy--Buonaparte! Ever
since I defended my bust of him at Harrow against the rascally
time-servers, when the war broke out in 1803, he has been a 'Heros de
Roman' of mine--on the Continent; I don't want him here. But I don't
like those same flights--leaving of armies, &c. &c. I am sure when I
fought for his bust at school, I did not think he would run away from
himself. But I should not wonder if he banged them yet. To be beat by
men would be something; but by three stupid, legitimate-old-dynasty
boobies of regular-bred sovereigns--O-hone-a-rie!--O-hone-a-rie! It must
be, as Cobbett says, his marriage with the thick-lipped and thick-headed
_Autrichienne_ brood. He had better have kept to her who was kept by
Barras. I never knew any good come of your young wife, and legal
espousals, to any but your 'sober-blooded boy' who 'eats fish' and
drinketh 'no sack.' Had he not the whole opera? all Paris? all France?
But a mistress is just as perplexing--that is, _one_--two or more are
manageable by division.

"I have begun, or had begun, a song, and flung it into the fire. It was
in remembrance of Mary Duff, my first of flames, before most people
begin to burn. I wonder what the devil is the matter with me! I can do
nothing, and--fortunately there is nothing to do. It has lately been in
my power to make two persons (and their connections) comfortable, _pro
tempore_, and one happy, _ex tempore_,--I rejoice in the last
particularly, as it is an excellent man[90]. I wish there had been more
inconvenience and less gratification to my self-love in it, for then
there had been