s! I believe my very
biscuit is leavened with that impostor's imposts.

"Ly. Me. returns from Jersey's to-morrow;--I must call. A Mr. Thomson
has sent a song, which I must applaud. I hate annoying them with censure
or silence;--and yet I hate _lettering_.

"Saw Lord Glenbervie and his Prospectus, at Murray's, of a new Treatise
on Timber. Now here is a man more useful than all the historians and
rhymers ever planted. For, by preserving our woods and forests, he
furnishes materials for all the history of Britain worth reading, and
all the odes worth nothing.

"Redde a good deal, but desultorily. My head is crammed with the most
useless lumber. It is odd that when I do read, I can only bear the
chicken broth of--_any thing_ but Novels. It is many a year since I
looked into one, (though they are sometimes ordered, by way of
experiment, but never taken,) till I looked yesterday at the worst parts
of the Monk. These descriptions ought to have been written by Tiberius
at Caprea--they are forced--the _philtred_ ideas of a jaded voluptuary.
It is to me inconceivable how they could have been composed by a man of
only twenty--his age when he wrote them. They have no nature--all the
sour cream of cantharides. I should have suspected Buffon of writing
them on the death-bed of his detestable dotage. I had never redde this
edition, and merely looked at them from curiosity and recollection of
the noise they made, and the name they have left to Lewis. But they
could do no harm, except * * * *.

"Called this evening on my agent--my business as usual. Our strange
adventures are the only inheritances of our family that have not
diminished.

"I shall now smoke two cigars, and get me to bed. The cigars don't keep
well here. They get as old as a _donna di quaranti anni_ in the sun of
Africa. The Havannah are the best;--but neither are so pleasant as a
hooka or chibouque. The Turkish tobacco is mild, and their horses
entire--two things as they should be. I am so far obliged to this
Journal, that it preserves me from verse,--at least from keeping it. I
have just thrown a poem into the fire (which it has relighted to my
great comfort), and have smoked out of my head the plan of another. I
wish I could as easily get rid of thinking, or, at least, the confusion
of thought.

"Tuesday, December 7.

"Went to bed, and slept dreamlessly, but not refreshingly. Awoke, and up
an hour before being called; but dawdled three hours in dressing. Whe