t, were the most
distinguished old and young Babylonians of quality;--so I burst out a
laughing. It was really odd; Lady * * _divorced_--Lady * * and her
daughter, Lady * *, both _divorceable_--Mrs. * *[101], in the next, the
_like_, and still nearer * * * * * *! What an assemblage to _me_, who
know all their histories. It was as if the house had been divided
between your public and your _understood_ courtesans;--but the
intriguantes much outnumbered the regular mercenaries. On the other side
were only Pauline and _her_ mother, and, next box to her, three of
inferior note. Now, where lay the difference between _her_ and _mamma_,
and Lady * * and daughter? except that the two last may enter Carleton
and any _other house_, and the two first are limited to the opera and
b----house. How I do delight in observing life as it really is!--and
myself, after all, the worst of any. But no matter--I must avoid
egotism, which, just now, would be no vanity.

"I have lately written a wild, rambling, unfinished rhapsody, called
'The Devil's Drive[102],' the notion of which I took from Porson's
'Devil's Walk.'

"Redde some Italian, and wrote two Sonnets on * * *. I never wrote but
one sonnet before, and that was not in earnest, and many years ago, as
an exercise--and I will never write another. They are the most puling,
petrifying, stupidly platonic compositions. I detest the Petrarch so
much[104], that I would not be the man even to have obtained his Laura,
which the metaphysical, whining dotard never could.

[Footnote 100: This passage of the Journal has already appeared in my
Life of Sheridan.]

[Footnote 101: These names are all left blank in the original.]

[Footnote 102: Of this strange, wild poem, which extends to about two
hundred and fifty lines, the only copy that Lord Byron, I believe, ever
wrote, he presented to Lord Holland. Though with a good deal of vigour
and imagination, it is, for the most part, rather clumsily executed,
wanting the point and condensation of those clever verses of Mr.
Coleridge[103], which Lord Byron, adopting a notion long prevalent, has
attributed to Professor Person. There are, however, some of the stanzas
of "The Devil's Drive" well worth preserving.

1.

"The Devil return'd to hell by two,
And he stay'd at home till five;
When he dined on some homicides done in _ragout_,
And a rebel or so in an _Irish_ stew,
And sausages made of a self-slain Jew,
And beth