Tuesday 30th [November 1813]
Two days missed in my log-book;—
hiatus
haud
deflendus
. They were as little worth recollection as the rest; and, luckily, laziness or society prevented me from
notching
them.
Sunday
, I dined with the Lord Holland in St. James's Square. Large party—among them Sir S. Romilly
and Lady R'y.—General Sir Somebody Bentham
, a man of science and talent, I am told—Horner
—
the
Horner, an Edinburgh Reviewer, an excellent speaker in the "Honourable House," very pleasing, too, and gentlemanly in company, as far as I have seen—Sharpe— Philips of Lancashire
—Lord John Russell, and others, "good men and true." Holland's society is very good; you always see some one or other in it worth knowing. Stuffed myself with sturgeon, and exceeded in champagne and wine in general, but not to confusion of head. When I
do
dine, I gorge like an Arab or a Boa snake, on fish and vegetables, but no meat. I am always better, however, on my tea and biscuit than any other regimen, and even
that
sparingly.
Why does Lady H. always have that damned screen between the whole room and the fire? I, who bear cold no better than an antelope, and never yet found a sun quite
done
to my taste, was absolutely petrified, and could not even shiver. All the rest, too, looked as if they were just unpacked, like salmon from an ice-basket, and set down to table for that day only. When she retired, I watched their looks as I dismissed the screen, and every cheek thawed, and every nose reddened with the anticipated glow.
Saturday, I went with Harry Fox to
Nourjahad
; and, I believe, convinced him, by incessant yawning, that it was not mine. I wish the precious author would own it, and release me from his fame. The dresses are pretty, but not in costume;—Mrs. Horn's, all but the turban, and the want of a small dagger (if she is a sultana),
perfect
. I never saw a Turkish woman with a turban in my life—nor did any one else. The sultanas have a small poniard at the waist. The dialogue is drowsy—the action heavy—the scenery fine—the actors tolerable. I can't say much for their seraglio—Teresa, Phannio, or ——, were worth them all.
Sunday, a very handsome note from Mackintosh, who is a rare instance of the union of very transcendent talent and great good nature.
To-day
(Tuesday) a very pretty billet from M. la Baronne de Stael Holstein
. She is pleased to be much pleased with my mention of her and her last work in my notes. I spoke as I thought. Her works are my delight, and so is she herself, for—half an hour. I don't like her politics—at least, her
having changed
them; had she been
qualis ab incepto
, it were nothing. But she is a woman by herself, and has done more than all the rest of them together, intellectually;—she ought to have been a man. She
flatters
me very prettily in her note;—but I
know
it. The reason that adulation is not displeasing is, that, though untrue, it shows one to be of consequence enough, in one way or other, to induce people to lie, to make us their friend:—that is their concern.
——
is
, I hear, thriving on the repute of a
pun
which was
mine
(at Mackintosh's dinner some time back), on Ward, who was asking, "how much it would take to
re-whig
him?" I answered that, probably, "he must first, before he was
re-whigged
, be re-
warded
."
This foolish quibble, before the Stael and Mackintosh, and a number of conversationers, has been mouthed about, and at last settled on the head of ——, where long may it remain!
George
is
returned
from afloat to get a new ship. He looks thin, but better than I expected. I like George much more than most people like their heirs. He is a fine fellow, and every inch a sailor. I would do any thing,
but apostatise
, to get him on in his profession.
Lewis called. It is a
good
and good-humoured man, but pestilently prolix and paradoxical and
personal
. If he would but talk half, and reduce his visits to an hour, he would add to his popularity. As an author he is very good, and his vanity is
ouverte
, like Erskine's, and yet not offending.
Yesterday
, a very pretty letter from Annabella
, which I answered. What an odd situation and friendship is ours!—without one spark of love on either side, and produced by circumstances which in general lead to coldness on one side, and aversion on the other. She is a very superior woman, and very little spoiled, which is strange in an heiress—a girl of twenty—a peeress that is to be, in her own right—an only child, and a
savante
, who has always had her own way. She is a poetess—a mathematician—a metaphysician, and yet, withal, very kind, generous, and gentle, with very little pretension. Any other head would be turned with half her acquisitions, and a tenth of her advantages.
Footnote 1:
Sir Samuel Romilly (1757-1818), Solicitor-General (1806-7), distinguished himself in Parliament by his consistent advocacy of Catholic Emancipation, the abolition of the slave-trade, Parliamentary reform, and the mitigation of the harshness of the criminal law. Writing of Romilly's
Observations on the Criminal Law of
England
(1810), Sir James Mackintosh says,
"It does the very highest honour to his moral character, which, I think, stands higher than that of any other conspicuous Englishman now alive. Probity, independence, humanity, and liberality breathe through every word; considered merely as a composition, accuracy, perspicuity, discretion, and good taste are its chief merits; great originality and comprehension of thought, or remarkable vigour of expression, it does not possess."
The death of his wife, October 29, 1818, so affected Romilly's mind that he committed suicide four days later.
"Romilly," said Lord Lansdowne to Moore (Memoirs, etc., vol. ii. p. 211), "was a stern, reserved sort of man, and she was the only person in the world to whom he wholly unbent and unbosomed himself; when he lost her, therefore, the very vent of his heart was stopped up."
Footnote 2:
Sir Samuel Bentham (1757-1831), naval architect and engineer, like his brother Jeremy, was a strong reformer. He was a Knight of the Russian Order of St. George, and, like Sir Samuel Egerton Brydges, who was a Knight of the Swedish Order of St. Joachim before he was created a baronet (1814), assumed the title in England.
Footnote 3:
Francis Horner (1778-1817), called to the Scottish Bar in 1800, and to the English Bar in 1807, was one of the founders of the
Edinburgh Review
, and acted as second to Jeffrey in his duel with Moore. In the House of Commons (M.P. for St. Ives, 1806-7; Wendover, 1807-12; St. Mawes, 1812-17) he was one of the most impressive speakers of the day, especially on financial questions. When Lord Morpeth moved (March 3, 1817) for a new writ for the borough of St. Mawes, striking tributes were paid to his character from both sides of the House (
Memoirs and Correspondence of Francis Horner
, vol. ii. pp. 416-426), and further proof was given of public esteem by the statue erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey. The speeches delivered in the Lower House on March 3, 1817, were translated by Ugo Foscolo, and published with a dedication
al nobile giovinetto, Enrico Fox, figlio di Lord Holland
.
Footnote 4:
George Philips, only son of Thomas Philips of Sedgley, Lancashire (born March 24, 1766), was created a baronet in February, 1828. He sat for South Warwickshire in the first reformed House of Commons.
Footnote 5:
In a note to
The Bride of Abydos
(Canto I. st. vi.), Byron had written,
"For an eloquent passage in the latest work of the first female writer of this, perhaps of any, age, on the analogy (and the immediate comparison excited by that analogy) between 'painting and music,' see vol. iii. cap. 10, De l'Allemagne."
The passage is as follows (Part III. chap, x.):
"Sans cesse nous comparons la peinture à la musique, et la musique à la peinture, parceque les émotions que nous eprouvons nous révèlent des analogies où l'observation froide ne verroit que des différences," etc., etc.
The following is Madame de Staël's "very pretty billet:"
"Argyll St., No. 31.
"Je ne saurais vous exprímer, my lord, à quel point je me trouve honorée d'être dans une note de votre poëme, et de quel poëme! il me semble que pour la première fois je me crois certaine d'un nom d'avenir et que vous avez disposé pour moi de cet empire de reputation qui vous sera tous les jours plus soumis. Je voudrais vous parler de ce poëme que tout le monde admire, mais j'avouerai que je suis trop suspecte en le louant, et je ne cache pas qu' une louage de vous m'a fait épreuver un sentiment de fierté et de réconaissance qui me rendrait incapable de vous juger; mais heureusement vous êtes au dessus du jugement.
"Donnez moi quelquefois le plaisir de vous voir; il-y-a un proverbe français qui dit qu'un bonheur ne va jamais sans d'autre.
"de Staël."
Footnote 6:
"Byron," writes Sir Walter Scott, in a hitherto unpublished note, "occasionally said what are called good things, but never studied for them. They came naturally and easily, and mixed with the comic or serious, as it happened. A professed wit is of all earthly companions the most intolerable. He is like a schoolboy with his pockets stuffed with crackers.
"No first-rate author was ever what is understood by a great conversational wit. Swift's wit in common society was either the strong sense of a wonderful man unconsciously exerting his powers, or that of the same being wilfully unbending, wilfully, in fact, degrading himself. Who ever heard of any fame for conversational wit lingering over the memory of a Shakespeare, a Milton, even of a Dryden or a Pope?
Johnson is, perhaps, a solitary exception. More shame to him. He was the most indolent great man that ever lived, and threw away in his talk more than he ever took pains to embalm in his writings.
It is true that Boswell has in great measure counteracted all this. But here is no defence. Few great men can expect to have a Boswell, and none ought to wish to have one, far less to trust to having one. A man should not keep fine clothes locked up in his chest only that his valet may occasionally show off in them; no, nor yet strut about in them in his chamber, only that his valet may puff him and his finery abroad.
What might not he have done, who wrote Rasselas in the evenings of eight days to get money enough for his mother's funeral expenses? As it is, what has Johnson done? Is it nothing to be the first intellect of an age? and who seriously talks even of Burke as having been more than a clever boy in the presence of old Samuel?"
Footnote 7:
George Anson Byron, R. N., afterwards Lord Byron.
Footnote 8:
Scott has this additional note on Lewis:
"Nothing was more tiresome than Lewis when he began to harp upon any extravagant proposition. He would tinker at it for hours without mercy, and repeat the same thing in four hundred different ways. If you assented in despair, he resumed his reasoning in triumph, and you had only for your pains the disgrace of giving in. If you disputed, daylight and candle-light could not bring the discussion to an end, and Mat's arguments were always ditto repeated."
Footnote 9:
Miss Milbanke, afterwards Lady Byron.
