“I intended to go to Lady Hardwicke’s, but won’t. I always begin the day with a bias towards going to parties; but, as the evening advances, my stimulus fails, and I hardly ever go out—and, when I do, always regret it. This might have been a pleasant one;—at least the hostess is a very superior woman. Lady Lansdowne’s to-morrow—Lady Heathcote’s, Wednesday. Um!—I must spur myself into going to some of them, or it will look like rudeness, and it is better to do as other people do—confound them!
“Redde Machiavel,
parts of Chardin, and Sismondi, and Bandello,—by starts.
Redde the Edinburgh, 44, just come out. In
the beginning of the article on ‘Edgeworth’s Patronage,’ I have gotten a high compliment, I perceive. Whether this
is creditable to me, I know not; but it does honour to the editor, because he once
abused me. Many a man will retract praise; none but a high-spirited mind will revoke its
censure, or can praise the man it has once attacked. I have often, since my return to
England, heard Jeffrey most highly commended by
those who know him for things independent of his talents. I admire him for this—not because he has praised me (I have
been so praised elsewhere and abused, alternately, that mere habit has rendered me as
indifferent to both as a man at twenty-six can be to any thing), but because he is,
perhaps, the only man who, under the relations in which he and I
stand. or stood, with regard to each other, would have had the liberality to act
| A. D. 1814. | LIFE OF LORD BYRON. | 509 |
“Lord Erskine called to-day. He means to carry down his reflections on the war—or rather wars—to the present day. I trust that he will. Must send to Mr. Murray to get the binding of my copy of his pamphlet finished, as Lord E. has promised me to correct it, and add some marginal notes to it. Any thing in his handwriting will be a treasure, which will gather compound interest from years. Erskine has high expectations of Mackintosh’s promised History. Undoubtedly it must be a classic, when finished.
“Sparred with Jackson again yesterday morning, and shall tomorrow. I feel all the better for it, in spirits, though my arms and shoulders are very stiff from it. Mem. to attend the pugilistic dinner—Marquis Huntley is in the chair.
“Lord Erskine thinks that ministers must be in peril of going out. So much the better for him. To me it is the same who are in or out;—we want something more than a change of ministers, and some day we will have it.
“I remember*, in riding from Chrisso to Castri (Delphos) along the sides of Parnassus, I saw six eagles in the air. It is uncommon to see so many together; and it was the number—not the species, which is common enough—that excited my attention.
“The last bird I ever fired at was an eaglet, on the shore of the Gulf of Lepanto, near Vostitza. It was only wounded, and I tried to save it, the eye was so bright; but it pined, and died in a few days; and I never did since, and never will, attempt the death of another bird. I wonder what put these two things into my head just now? I have been reading Sismondi, and there is nothing there that could induce the recollection.
“I am mightily taken with Braccio di Montone, Giovanni Galeazzo,
* Part of this passage has been already extracted, but I have allowed it to remain here in its original position, on account of the singularly sudden manner in which it is introduced. |
| 510 | NOTICES OF THE | A. D. 1814. |
