giving poor * * a world
of advice about this mistress of his, who is plaguing him into a
phthisic and intolerable tediousness. I am a pretty fellow truly to
lecture about 'the sect.' No matter, my counsels are all thrown away.

[Footnote 5: "As much company," says Pope, "as I have kept, and as much
as I love it, I love reading better, and would rather be employed in
reading than in the most agreeable conversation."]

"April 19. 1814.

"There is ice at both poles, north and south--all extremes are the
same--misery belongs to the highest and the lowest only,--to the emperor
and the beggar, when unsixpenced and unthroned. There is, to be sure, a
damned insipid medium--an equinoctial line--no one knows where, except
upon maps and measurement.

"'And all our _yesterdays_ have lighted fools
The way to dusty death.'

I will keep no further journal of that same hesternal torch-light; and,
to prevent me from returning, like a dog, to the vomit of memory, I tear
out the remaining leaves of this volume, and write, in
_Ipecacuanha_,--'that the Bourbons are restored!!!'--'Hang up
philosophy.' To be sure, I have long despised myself and man, but I
never spat in the face of my species before--'O fool! I shall go mad.'"

* * * * *

The perusal of this singular Journal having made the reader acquainted
with the chief occurrences that marked the present period of his
history--the publication of The Corsair, the attacks upon him in the
newspapers, &c.--there only remains for me to add his correspondence at
the same period, by which the moods and movements of his mind, during
these events, will be still further illustrated.

* * * * *

TO MR. MURRAY.

"Sunday, Jan. 2. 1814.

"Excuse this dirty paper--it is the _pen_ultimate half-sheet of a
quire. Thanks for your book and the Ln. Chron., which I return. The
Corsair is copied, and now at Lord Holland's; but I wish Mr.
Gifford to have it to-night.

"Mr. Dallas is very _perverse_; so that I have offended both him
and you, when I really meaned to do good, at least to one, and
certainly not to annoy either.[6] But I shall manage him, I
hope.--I am pretty confident of the _Tale_ itself; but one cannot
be sure. If I get it from Lord Holland, it shall be sent.

"Yours," &c.

[Footnote 6: He had made a present of the copyright of "The Corsair" to
Mr. Dalla