Sallied forth in the morning; bought a hat. Met S[ir] W[illiam] K[nighton],[366] from whose discourse I guess that _Malachi_ has done me no prejudice in a certain quarter; with more indications of the times, which I need not set down. Sallied again after breakfast, and visited the Piccadilly ladies.[367] Saw Rogers and Richard Sharp, also good Dr. and Mrs. Hughes, also the Duchess of Buckingham, and Lady Charlotte Bury, with a most beautiful little girl. [Owen] Rees breakfasted, and agreed I should have what the Frenchman has offered for the advantage of translating _Napoleon_, which, being a hundred guineas, will help my expenses to town and down again.
_October_ 19.--I rose at my usual time, but could not write; so read Southey's _History of the Peninsular War_. It is very good indeed,--honest English principle in every line; but there are many prejudices, and there is a tendency to augment a work already too long by saying all that can be said of the history of ancient times appertaining to every place mentioned. What care we whether Saragossa be derived from Caesarea Augusta? Could he have proved it to be Numantium, there would have been a concatenation accordingly.[368]
Breakfasted at Rogers' with Sir Thomas Lawrence; Luttrell, the great London wit;[369] Richard Sharp, etc. Sam made us merry with an account of some part of Rose's _Ariosto_; proposed that the Italian should be printed on the other side for the sake of assisting the indolent reader to understand the English; and complained of his using more than once the phrase of a lady having "voided her saddle," which would certainly sound extraordinary at Apothecaries' Hall. Well, well, Rose carries a dirk too.[370] The morning was too dark for Westminster Abbey, which we had projected.
I went to the Foreign Office, and am put by Mr. Wilmot Horton into the hands of a confidential clerk, Mr. Smith, who promises access to everything. Then saw Croker, who gave me a bundle of documents. Sir George Cockburn promises his despatches and journal. In short, I have ample prospect of materials.
Dined with Mrs. Coutts. Tragi-comic distress of my good friend on the marriage of her presumptive heir with a daughter of Lucien Bonaparte.
_October_ 20.--Commanded down to pass a day at Windsor. This is very kind of His Majesty.
At breakfast, Crofton Croker, author of the _Irish Fairy Tales_--little as a dwarf, keen-eyed as a hawk, and of very prepossessing manners. Something like Tom Moore. There were also Terry, Allan Cunningham, Newton, and others. Now I must go to work.
Went down to Windsor, or rather to the Lodge in the Forest, which, though ridiculed by connoisseurs, seems to be no bad specimen of a royal retirement, and is delightfully situated. A kind of cottage ornée--too large perhaps for the style--but yet so managed that in the walks you only see parts of it at once, and these well composed and grouping with immense trees. His Majesty received me with the same mixture of kindness and courtesy which has always distinguished his conduct towards me. There was no company beside the royal retinue--Lady C[onyngham], her daughter, and two or three other ladies. After we left table, there was excellent music by the Royal Band, who lay ambushed in a green-house adjoining the apartment. The King made me sit beside him and talk a great deal--_too much_, perhaps--for he has the art of raising one's spirits, and making you forget the _retenue_ which is prudent everywhere, especially at court. But he converses himself with so much ease and elegance, that you lose thoughts of the prince in admiring the well-bred and accomplished gentleman. He is, in many respects, the model of a British monarch--has little inclination to try experiments on government otherwise than through his ministers--sincerely, I believe, desires the good of his subjects, is kind toward the distressed, and moves and speaks "every inch a king."[371] I am sure such a man is fitter for us than one who would long to head armies, or be perpetually intermeddling with _la grande politique_. A sort of reserve, which creeps on him daily, and prevents his going to places of public resort, is a disadvantage, and prevents his being so generally popular as is earnestly to be desired. This, I think, was much increased by the behaviour of the rabble in the brutal insanity of the Queen's trial, when John Bull, meaning the best in the world, made such a beastly figure.
_October_ 21.--Walked in the morning with Sir William Knighton, and had much confidential chat, not fit to be here set down, in case of accidents. He undertook most kindly to recommend Charles, when he has taken his degree, to be attached to some of the diplomatic missions, which I think is best for the lad after all. After breakfast went to Windsor Castle, met by appointment my daughters and Lockhart, and examined the improvements going on there under Mr. Wyattville, who appears to possess a great deal of taste and feeling for Gothic architecture. The old apartments, splendid enough in extent and proportion, are paltry in finishing. Instead of being lined with heart of oak, the palace of the British King is hung with paper, painted wainscot colour. There are some fine paintings and some droll ones; among the last are those of divers princes of the House of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, of which Queen Charlotte was descended. They are ill-coloured, orang-outang-looking figures, with black eyes and hook-noses, in old-fashioned uniforms.
We returned to a hasty dinner [in Pall Mall], and then hurried away to see honest Dan Terry's house, called the Adelphi Theatre, where we saw the _Pilot_, from the American novel of that name. It is extremely popular, the dramatist having seized on the whole story, and turned the odious and ridiculous parts, assigned by the original author to the British, against the Yankees themselves. There is a quiet effrontery in this that is of a rare and peculiar character. The Americans were so much displeased, that they attempted a row--which rendered the piece doubly attractive to the seamen at Wapping, who came up and crowded the house night after night, to support the honour of the British flag. After all, one must deprecate whatever keeps up ill-will betwixt America and the mother country; and we in particular should avoid awakening painful recollections. Our high situation enables us to contemn petty insults and to make advances towards cordiality. I was, however, glad to see honest Dan's theatre as full seemingly as it could hold. The heat was dreadful, and Anne was so very unwell that she was obliged to be carried into Terry's house,--a curious dwelling, no larger than a squirrel's cage, which he has contrived to squeeze out of the vacant spaces of the theatre, and which is accessible by a most complicated combination of staircases and small passages. Here we had rare good porter and oysters after the play, and found Anne much better. She had attempted too much; indeed I myself was much fatigued.
_October_ 22.--This morning Drs. Gooch, Shaw, and Yates breakfasted, and had a consultation about wee Johnnie. They give us great hopes that his health will be established, but the seaside or the country seem indispensable. Mr. Wilmot Horton,[372] Under Secretary of State, also breakfasted. He is full of some new plan of relieving the poor's-rates by encouraging emigration. But John Bull will think this savours of Botany Bay. The attempt to look the poor's-rates in the face is certainly meritorious.
Laboured in writing and marking extracts to be copied from breakfast to dinner, with the exception of an hour spent in telling Johnnie the history of his namesake, Gilpin.
Mr. William and Mrs. Lockhart dined with us. Tom Moore[373] and Sir Thomas Lawrence came in the evening, which made a pleasant _soirée_. Smoke my French--Egad, it is time to air some of my vocabulary. It is, I find, cursedly musty.
_October_ 23.--Sam Rogers and Moore breakfasted here, and we were very merry fellows. Moore seemed disposed to go to France with us. I visited the Admiralty, and got Sir George Cockburn's journal, which is valuable.[374] Also visited Lady Elizabeth and Sir Charles Stewart. My heart warmed to the former, on account of the old Balcarres connection. Sir Charles and she were very kind and communicative. I foresee I will be embarrassed with more communications than I can well use or trust to, coloured as they must be by the passions of those who make them. Thus I have a statement from the Duchess d'Escars, to which the Bonapartists would, I dare say, give no credit. If Talleyrand, for example, could be communicative, he must have ten thousand reasons for perverting the truth, and yet a person receiving a direct communication from him would be almost barred from disputing it.
"Sing tantararara, rogues all."
We dined at the Residentiary-house with good Dr. Hughes,[375] Allan Cunningham, Sir Thomas Lawrence, and young Mr. Hughes. Thomas Pringle[376] is returned from the Cape, and called in my absence. He might have done well there, could he have scoured his brain of politics, but he must needs publish a Whig journal at the Cape of Good Hope! He is a worthy creature, but conceited withal--_hinc illæ lachrymæ._ He brought me some antlers and a skin, in addition to others he had sent to Abbotsford four years since. Crofton Croker made me a present of a small box of curious Irish antiquities containing a gold fibula, etc. etc.