distress, and gave way at first to
violent bursts of feeling. During the whole of the week he was with
us all day, and was the greatest comfort to us imaginable. He talked a
great deal of our sorrow, and led the conversation by degrees to other
subjects, bearing the whole burden of it himself and interesting us
without jarring with the predominant feeling of the time. I never saw
him appear to greater advantage--never loved him more dearly.

"September 1831.--Of late we have walked a good deal. I remember pacing
up and down Brunswick Square and Lansdowne Place for two hours one day,
deep in the mazes of the most subtle metaphysics;--up and down
Cork Street, engaged over Dryden's poetry and the great men of that
time;--making jokes all the way along Bond Street, and talking politics
everywhere.

"Walking in the streets with Tom and Hannah, and talking about the hard
work the heads of his party had got now, I said:

"'How idle they must think you, when they meet you here in the busy
part of the day!' 'Yes, here I am,' said he, 'walking with two unidea'd
girls. [Boswell relates in his tenth chapter how Johnson scolded Langton
for leaving "his social friends, to go and sit with a set of wretched
unidea'd girls."] However, if one of the Ministry says to me, "Why walk
you here all the day idle?" I shall say, "Because no man has hired me."'

"We talked of eloquence, which he has often compared to fresco-painting:
the result of long study and meditation, but at the moment of execution
thrown off with the greatest rapidity; what has apparently been the work
of a few hours being destined to last for ages.

"Mr. Tierney said he was sure Sir Philip Francis had written Junius, for
he was the proudest man he ever knew, and no one ever heard of anything
he had done to be proud of.

"November 14, 1831, half-past-ten.--On Friday last Lord Grey sent for
Tom. His note was received too late to be acted on that day. On
Saturday came another, asking him to East Sheen on that day, or Sunday.
Yesterday, accordingly, he went, and stayed the night, promising to be
here as early as possible to-day. So much depends upon the result of
this visit! That he will be offered a place I have not the least doubt.
He will refuse a Lordship of the Treasury, a Lordship of the Admiralty,
or the Mastership of the Ordnance. He will accept the Secretaryship
of the Board of Control, but will not thank them for it; and would not
accept that, but that he thin