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"these bugs do fear us all." They made you fight, and me (the milkiest of men) a satirist, and will end by making Rogers madder than Ajax. I have been reading Memory again, the other day, and Hope together, and retain all my preference of the former. His elegance is really wonderful-there is no such thing as a vulgar line in his book.-To Mr. Moore, Sep. 5, 1813. Rogers is silent,—and, it is said, severe. When he does talk, he talks well; and, on all subjects of taste, his delicacy of expression is pure as his poetry. If you enter his house-his drawing-room-his library -you of yourself say, this is not the dwelling of a common mind. There is not a gem, a coin, a book thrown aside on his chimney-piece, his sofa, his table, that does not bespeak an almost fastidious elegance in the possessor. But this very delicacy must be the misery of his existence. Oh, the jarrings his disposition must have encountered through life!-Diary, Nov. 22, 1813.

SOUTHEY.

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Do read mathematics. I should think X plus Yat least as amusing as theCurse of Kehama, and much more intelligible. Master Southey's poems are, in fact, what parallel lines might be-viz. prolonged ad infinitum without meeting anything half so absurd as themselves. -To Mr. Harness, Dec. 6, 1811.

Yesterday, at Holland House, I was introduced to Southey-the best-looking bard I have seen for some time. To have that poet's head and shoulders, I would almost have written his Sapphics. He is certainly a prepossessing person to look on, and a man of talent, and all that, and-there is his eulogy.— To Mr. Moore, Sept. 27, 1813.

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Southey, I have not seen much of. His appearance is Epic; and he is the only existing entire man of letters. All the others have some pursuit annexed to their authorship. His manners are mild, but not those of a man of the world, and his talents of the first order. His prose is perfect. Of his poetry there are various opinions there is, perhaps, too much of it for the present generation; posterity will probably select. He has passages equal to anything. At present, he has a party, but no public-except for his prose writings. The Life of Nelson is beautiful.-Diary, Nov. 22, 1813.

SOTHEBY.

Sotheby is a good man, rhymes well (if not wisely) but is a bore. He seizes you by the button. One night of a rout, at Mrs. Hope's, he had fastened upon me, notwithstanding my symptoms of manifest distress, (for I was in love, and had just nicked a minute when neither mothers, nor husbands, nor rivals, nor gossips, were near my then idol, who was beautiful as the statues of the gallery where we stood at the time,)— Sotheby, I say, had seized upon me by the button and the heart-strings, and spared neither. William Spencer, who likes fun, and don't dislike mischief, saw my case, and coming up to us both, took me by the hand, and pathetically bade me farewell; "for," said he, "I see it is all over with you." Sotheby then went away. Sic me servavit Apollo.-Diary, 1813.

MONK LEWIS.

Lewis is going to Jamaica to suck his sugar-canes. He sails in two days; I inclose you his farewell note. I saw him last night at Drury Lane Theatre for the

last time previous to his voyage. Poor fellow! he is really a good man-an excellent man-he left me his walking-stick and a pot of preserved ginger. I shall never eat the last without tears in my eyes, it is so hot. -To Mr. Moore, Nov. 4, 1815.

Lewis was a good man, a clever man, but a bore. My only revenge or consolation used to be setting him by the ears with some vivacious person who hated bores especially-Madame de Stael or Hobhouse, for example. But I liked Lewis; he was a jewel of a man, had he been better set ;-I don't mean personally, but less tiresome, for he was tedious, as well as contradictory to everything and everybody. Being shortsighted, when we used to ride out together near the Brenta in the twilight in summer, he made me go before, to pilot him: I am absent at times, especially towards evening; and the consequence of this pilotage was some narrow escapes to the Monk on horseback. Once I led him into a ditch over which I had passed as usual, forgetting to warn my convoy; once I led him nearly into the river, instead of on the moveable bridge, which incommodes passengers; and twice did we both run against the Diligence, which, being heavy and slow, did communicate less damage than it received in its leaders, who were terrafied by the charge; thrice did I lose him in the grey of the gloaming, and was obliged to bring-to to his distant signals of distance and distress;-all the time he went on talking without intermission, for he was a man of many words. Poor fellow he died a martyr to his new riches-of a second visit to Jamaica.

"I'd give the lands of Deloraine

Dark Musgrave were alive again !"

that is,—

I would give many a sugar cane
Monk Lewis were alive again!

Detached Thoughts.

ERSKINE-CURRAN.

49

ERSKINE.

In 1812, at Middleton (Lord Jersey's), amongst a goodly company of lords, ladies, and wits, there was Erskine-good, but intolerable. He jested, he talked, he did everything admirably, but then he would be applauded for the same thing twice over. He would read his own verses, his own paragraph, and tell his own story again and again; and then the "Trial by Jury !!!" I almost wished it abolished, for I sate next him at dinner. As I had read his published speeches, there was no occasion to repeat them to me.-Journal, 1814.

CURRAN.

I have met Curran at Holland House-he beats everybody;—his imagination is beyond human, and his humour (it is difficult to define what is wit) perfect. Then he has fifty faces, and twice as many voices, when he mimics-I never met his equal. Now, were I a woman, and eke a virgin, that is the man I should make my Scamander. He is quite fascinating. Remember, I have met him but once; and you, who have known him long, may probably deduct from my panegyric. I almost fear to meet him again, lest the impression should be lowered. What a variety of expression he conjures into that naturally not very fine countenance of his! He absolutely changes it entirely. I have done for I can't describe him, and you know him.-To Mr. Moore, Oct. 2, 1813.

Curran Curran's the man who struck me most. Such imagination! there never was anything like it that I ever saw or heard of. His published life-his published speeches, give you no idea of the man-none

VOL. I.

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at all. He was a machine of imagination, as some one said of Piron* that he was an epigrammatic machine. I have heard that man speak more poetry than I have ever seen written,-though I saw him seldom and but occasionally. I saw him presented to Madame de Stael at Mackintosh's ;-it was the grand confluence between the Rhone and the Saone, and they were both so ugly, that I could not help wondering how the best intellects of France and Ireland could have taken up respectively such residences.—Journal.

GRATTAN.

I was much struck with the simplicity of Grattan's manners in private life; they were odd, but they were natural. Curran used to take him off, bowing to the very ground, and "thanking God that he had no peculiarities of gesture or appearance," in a way irresistibly ludicrous, and Rogers used to call him a "Sentimental Harlequin.” -Journal.

SHERIDAN.

In society I have met Sheridan frequently: he was superb! He had a sort of liking for me, and never attacked me, at least to my face, and he did everybody else-high names, and wits and orators, some of them poets also. I have seen him cut up Whitbread, quiz Madame de Stael, annihilate Colman, and do little less by some others (whose names, as friends, I set not down) of good fame and ability.

The last time I met him was, I think, at Sir Gilbert Heathcote's, where he was as quick as ever-no, it was

* Piron was a French poet, dramatist and jester, who died in 1773.

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