more merit. We are all selfish--and I believe, ye gods of
Epicurus! I believe in Rochefoucault about _men_, and in Lucretius (not
Busby's translation) about yourselves. Your bard has made you very
_nonchalant_ and blest; but as he has excused _us_ from damnation, I
don't envy you your blessedness _much_--a little, to be sure. I
remember, last year, * * said to me, at * *, 'Have we not passed our
last month like the gods of Lucretius?' And so we had. She is an adept
in the text of the original (which I like too); and when that booby Bus.
sent his translating prospectus, she subscribed. But, the devil
prompting him to add a specimen, she transmitted him a subsequent
answer, saying, that 'after perusing it, her conscience would not permit
her to allow her name to remain on the list of subscribblers.' Last
night, at Lord H.'s--Mackintosh, the Ossulstones, Puysegur, &c. there--I
was trying to recollect a quotation (as _I_ think) of Stael's, from some
Teutonic sophist about architecture. 'Architecture,' says this
Macoronico Tedescho, 'reminds me of frozen music.' It is somewhere--but
where?--the demon of perplexity must know and won't tell. I asked M.,
and he said it was not in her: but P----r said it must be _hers_, it was
so _like_. H. laughed, as he does at all 'De l'Allemagne,'--in which,
however, I think he goes a little too far. B., I hear, condemns it too.
But there are fine passages;--and, after all, what is a work--any--or
every work--but a desert with fountains, and, perhaps, a grove or two,
every day's journey? To be sure, in Madame, what we often mistake, and
'pant for,' as the 'cooling stream,' turns out to be the '_mirage_'
(critice _verbiage_); but we do, at last, get to something like the
temple of Jove Ammon, and then the waste we have passed is only
remembered to gladden the contrast.

"Called on C * *, to explain * * *. She is very beautiful, to my taste,
at least; for on coming home 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.

"To-day, great news--'the Dutch have taken Holland,'--which, I suppose,
will be succeeded by the actual explosion of the Thames. Five provinces
have declared for young Stadt, and th