“Dined yesterday with R., Mackintosh, and Sharpe. Sheridan
could not come. Sharpe told several very amusing anecdotes of
Henderson, the actor. Staid till late, and
came home, having drank so much tea, that I did not get to sleep
till six this morning. R. says I am to be in this
Quarterly—cut up, I presume, as they
‘hate us youth.’ N’importe. As
Sharpe was passing by the doors of some Debating Society (the
Westminster Forum) in his way to dinner, he saw rubricked on the walls, Scott’s name and mine—‘Which the best poet?’ being the question of the
evening; and I suppose all the Templars and would bes took our
rhymes in vain, in the course of the controversy. Which had the greater show of hands, I
neither know nor care; but I feel the
| A. D. 1814. | LIFE OF LORD BYRON. | 507 |
“W. W. called—Lord Erskine, Lord Holland, &c. &c. Wrote to * * the Corsair report. She says she don’t wonder, since ‘Conrad is so like.’ It is odd that one, who knows me so thoroughly, should tell me this to my face. However, if she don’t know, nobody can.
“Mackintosh is, it seems, the writer of the defensive letter in the Morning Chronicle. If so, it is very kind, and more than I did for myself.
“Told Murray to secure for me Bandello’s Italian Novels at the sale to-morrow. To me they will be nuts. Redde a satire on myself, called ‘Anti-Byron,’ and told Murray to publish it if he liked. The object of the author is to prove me an Atheist and a systematic conspirator against law and government. Some of the verse is good; the prose I don’t quite understand. He asserts that my ‘deleterious works’ have had ‘an effect upon civil society, which requires, &c. &c. &c,’ and his own poetry. It is a lengthy poem, and a long preface, with a harmonious title-page. Like the fly in the fable, I seem to have got upon a wheel which makes much dust; but, unlike the said fly, I do not take it all for my own raising.
“A letter from Bella, which I answered. I shall be in love with her again, if I don’t take care.
“I shall begin a more regular system of reading soon.
