little spoiled, which is strange in an heiress--girl of
twenty--a peeress that is to be, in her own right--an 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.

[Footnote 97: His cousin, the present Lord Byron.]

[Footnote 98: Miss Milbanke, afterwards Lady Byron.]

"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 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.
Shall I go? um!--I don't much affect your blue-bottles;--but one ought
to be civil. There will be, 'I guess now' (as the Americans say), the
Staels and Mackintoshes--good--the * * * s 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 ----[99]. I am sure, at
least, _I_ did not