le pene e le Delitte (ed i
delitted), acknowledging (it) to proceed from an odd and insatiable
curiosity, and not from a mauvais coeur. In some places I think
there is versification, and a few good lines, and the piece seems to
be wrote by one not void of parts, but who, with attention, might
write much better.(139)

I forgive him his mention of me, because I believe that he does it
without malice, but, if I had leisure to think of such things, I
must own the frequent repetition of the foolish stories would make
me peevish. Alas! I have no time to be peevish. Quand on a le coeur
gros, et serre, comme je l'ai souvent a cette heure, il est rare que
l'on a de l'humeur; l'ame est trop serieusement attaquee et touchee
pour preter attention a de petites choses; chez moi, je suis triste,
je soupire, mais je ne gronde plus, je ne m'emporte pas.

Richard, I hear, goes in about a fortnight. Fish Craufurd thinks, as
I am told, that Lord O(ssory?) should pay his debts; that is, give
him 40,000 pounds from his own children, pour le delivrer des Juifs.
He pays already to one of them out of his 300 pounds a year, which
he meant to have paid to his brother for a more comfortable
maintenance.

I dined on Sunday at the French Ambassador's; a splendid and
wretched dinner, but good wine; a quantity of dishes which differed
from one another only in appearance; they had all the same taste, or
equally wanted it. The middle piece, the demeurant, as it is called,
a fine Oriental arcade, which reached from one end of the table to
the other, fell in like a tremblement de terre. The wax, which
cemented the composing parts, melted like Icarus's wings, and down
it fell. Seventy bougies occasioned this, with the number of persons
all adding to the heat of the room. I had a more private and much
better dinner yesterday at Devonshire House.

(138) "The Diaboliad, a poem dedicated to the Worst Man in His
Majesty's Dominion," London, G. Kearsley, 1777.

(139) "The Diaboliad" was a social satire: in it the devil was
supposed to have grown old, and being anxious to find a successor
for his throne visits London. He appears to a gambling party:--

"With joy and wonder struck the parties rise!
'Hell is worth trying for' . . . cries;
Pigeons are left unpluck'd, the game unplay'd,

And F forgets the certain Bett he made;
E'en S-l-n feels Ambition fire his breast
And leaves half told, the fabricated Jest.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The