and one of the ablest
men I know--a perfect Magliabecchi--a devourer, a Helluo of books, and
an observer of men,) has lent me a quantity of Burns's unpublished, and
never-to-be published, Letters. They are full of oaths and obscene
songs. What an antithetical mind!--tenderness, roughness--delicacy,
coarseness--sentiment, sensuality--soaring and grovelling, dirt and
deity--all mixed up in that one compound of inspired clay!

"It seems strange; a true voluptuary will never abandon his mind to the
grossness of reality. It is by exalting the earthly, the material, the
_physique_ of our pleasures, by veiling these ideas, by forgetting them
altogether, or, at least, never naming them hardly to one's self, that
we alone can prevent them from disgusting.

"December 14, 15, 16.

"Much done, but nothing to record. It is quite enough to set down my
thoughts,--my actions will rarely bear retrospection.

"December 17, 18.

"Lord Holland told me a curious piece of sentimentality in
Sheridan.[100] The other night we were all delivering our respective
and various opinions on him and other _hommes marquans_, and mine was
this:--'Whatever Sheridan has done or chosen to do has been, _par
excellence_, always the _best_ of its kind. He has written the _best_
comedy (School for Scandal), the _best_ drama, (in my mind, far before
that St. Giles's lampoon, the Beggar's Opera,) the best farce (the
Critic--it is only too good for a farce), and the best Address
(Monologue on Garrick), and, to crown all, delivered the very best
Oration (the famous Begum Speech) ever conceived or heard in this
country.' Somebody told S. this the next day, and on hearing it, he
burst into tears!

"Poor Brinsley! if they were tears of pleasure, I would rather have said
these few, but most sincere, words than have written the Iliad or made
his own celebrated Philippic. Nay, his own comedy never gratified me
more than to hear that he had derived a moment's gratification from any
praise of mine, humble as it must appear to 'my elders and my betters.'

"Went to my box at Covent Garden to night; and my delicacy felt a little
shocked at seeing S * * *'s mistress (who, to my certain knowledge, was
actually educated, from her birth, for her profession) sitting with her
mother, 'a three-piled b----d, b----d-Major to the army,' in a private
box opposite. I felt rather indignant; but, casting my eyes round the
house, in the next box to me, and the next, and the nex