There

annoyed me with petty verbal questions and objections. is Lord Robert Seymour just as mad about lunatic asylums, and proh pudor, the Member of the University of Oxford, my excellent friend, Estcourt, spends his time in regulating the domestic affairs of gin-shops and ale-houses!--Certainly, next to a warm bath, a keen razor is the prince of luxuries---by the way, do ladies shave now?--At Lady H's last night, and Mrs. R——, and the Countess Antonio's musical parties, all the spinsters' chins were black-patched. The razor is an awful substitute for the breeches.

30.---Did any body ever here such a sing-song, up and down squall, as that of young Stuart Wortley! He reminded me of a duett between a cock grouse and a curlew. His voice seems to be a compound of the two Wynns'---bubble and squeak---and such a subject, the Tregony election! And such a farrago of stupid precedents--about what nobody cared about, parturiunt montes, &c. He came into the University Club with the air of a Roman general in a triumphal procession; talked of the necessity of a knowledge of the usages as well as the spirit of the constitution to an M. P., till every body laughed at him. He bolted off to Brookes's; Harry Pelham and I followed---found him in warm argument with Althorpe about the exchangeable value of commodities---Milton took a part---every body listened. I awed them all into silence, by gravely remarking, that many of the questions, both in morals and in politics, seem to be of the nature of the problems, de maximis and de minimis in fluxions, in which there is always a point where a certain affection is the greatest, while, on the other side of the point, it gradually diminishes; that I considered the present question was of this nature, and therefore admitted of great latitude of discussion on both sides. This floored Althorpe, and made Wortley look as if he was going to cry. The room murmured assent. I observed a new member, Surrey Pallmer, very attentive; I am sure he takes me for a philosopher. By the way, I saw him and Buxton the other night shaking hands, as if there were no blacks in the world---I don't like these manumissions of Pallmer; he ought to take a decided part, and benefit the country, by manfully exposing quackery and cant. The public is sick ad nauseam of the **** *** of the methodist

**** and abolitionists. They are aware of the hollowness of their "disinterested" statements, and that the East Indians would fain extend their monopoly to sugar and rum, at the ruin of the West Indian planters. Pallmer ought to show, that the question is one of

Our young Senatorial friend should remember that Mr. Pallmer is an independent English County Member, and not the representative of the Colonies. The mistake would not be worth notice, were it not shared by many individuals, who seem to think Mr. Pallmer has nothing to do but to fight the battles of the West Indians. We are here obliged also to omit some strong expressions of our Diarist. Opposed as we are, head and heart, to the measures of the Abolitionists, we cannot forget that their professed object is a respectable one, and that the characters of many of them are above censure. We will not shrink from exposing hypocrisy where we have proofs; but we will not stigmatize the whole for the evil deeds of a few.

Cocker and cant---of interest and ****** *; the feeling in and out of doors would soon be unanimous on the side of justice. I've heard his lukewarmness arises from an unwillingness to oppose Lord Liverpool, to whom he was indebted in his contest with Holme Sumner. I don't believe it. Lord Liverpool has too much English sense, and is too good a Protestant, to be influenced by sectarian ********---besides, to make a bad good pun, Pallmer ought to recollect the motto of the Liverpool family---non sine pulvere Palma, and not rust in idleness.

December 1.---I declare the "female ladies of my acquaintance" so perplex me for franks, that I've not been able to write my own letters. Mem. To answer Fred. Lambe's invitation to Madrid, by his cousin the commodore, who is going to Christmas there. Still bored about that Tregony petition---left the House. I would have voted against Mr. Archibald Mackillop, and Mr. Alexander something else equally Gothic or Celtic, merely on account of his dd name, even if he rode as well as Joliffe. What a d- d ass that Batley was to fall into a passion about a deist's petition! He ought to remember that belief is independent of, and uncontrolable by, the will. William Smith's censure was well uttered, and well deserved, though Chairman Grant said, in the smoking room, it was imprudent. Batley seems to be what Harry Pelham calls a "great creature." By the way, there is a man of the name of Warburton speaks, like philosopher Torrens, on every subject. I asked Euston the reason; he answered with one of my own puns, that Warburton was a timber-merchant, and therefore knowing a good deal, ought to speak on a variety of subjects. Liddell said he was a chip of the old block, and a cousin of Ashley's. Very stupid attempts at punning. Talking of puns---met one this morning in the New Monthly---attributed to old wiggy Dr. Parr---(a bad imitation of the defective points in Dr. Johnson's character), that was actually uttered by Porson, when his copy of the Abbe Du Bos's criticism fell on Hume's Essays---Procumbit Humi Bos. I have no doubt, in the same way, many of my good puns will be claimed by others. I heard a punning anecdote the other day of Lord Eldon, which, by the way, though highly praised, I think as stupid as a legal pun need be. His lordship is fond, it seems, of strong porter at dinner, which he drinks in the orthodox manner of our ancestors, out of a pewter pot. Dining the other day at Wellington's, after, as John says, taking the lining out of a quart of porter, he smacked his lips, and cried out in a transport of pleasurable emotions, "That is noble drink." By writ or tenure, my lord?" said little Croker, with a would-be facetious smile. " By descent, Sir," said old Eldon. Every body says it was an admirable and most witty reply. I don't, nevertheless, see any thing in it. Mem. Met Lord Stanhope, got red in the face when asked whether I had yet read his pamphlet on the corn laws. Must give it to John to-morrow, and order him to bring up the "report" the day after.

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2.- Sorry Moore is doing Byron's life; I wanted Cam Hobhouse, who half promised. There is no man living fit to do it justice but Sir W. Scott---but for his toryism, which I fear will, with too much

haste, dish his Life of Napoleon. Moore cannot write prose: his life of poor Richard Brinsley Sheridan is miserable;-every sentence finishing with some far-fetched unmeaning simile---like the enchanted gardens of Armida---like the hanging garden of Badgdad---like an ousel, and very like a whale. He even does not tell any of Sheridan's good ones. Sheridan was unrivalled in reply. Medwin's account of Sheridan's set-to with Monk Lewis is the best thing in his too highly puffed, and too lowly condemned, book. My father, from whom I inherit my wit, and who has said more good things than Brummell, tells anecdotes of Sheridan, that fell within his knowledge, which for wit and readiness exceed any I have elsewhere heard or read of that extraordinary man. I must collect them. One which my father occasioned is particularly good. My father objected in a Committee of Ways and Means, in the year 1796, to some financial resolutions of Mr. Pitt. Mr. Pitt was chafed, and compared, with considerable warmth, my father and his party to a drag chain on the wheels of the Government---impeding its progress. Tierney and my father were both concerting a reply, when Sheridan suddenly rose, and said, "For the first time in his life he would compliment the " right honorable gentleman on the happiness of his allusion. The drag-chain was a felicitous simile; the rather, as it never could be "used but when the machine was going down the hill." "The shouts "of laughter," says my father, nearly split the roof of the house,

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"Pitt's skull, and Tierney's sides."

That Calcraft thinks a great deal of himself---assumes great airs. Only think of him last night saying, he felt it his duty, though opposed in politics, to give the Duke of York a character of fairness! I whispered Portman, that his Royal Highness must have done something for the Calcrafts. I had scarcely said the word, when Calcraft declared his motive for rising was to acknowledge the many promotions the Duke of York dealt out to his sons; in other words, begging the Commander-inChief to make all the Captain and Major Calerafts colonels and generals. And yet Calcraft wished the House to believe (credat Judæus Apelles) that he was disinterested!!

It is a pity, my excellent and sensible friend, and fellow Harrowman, Peel, is so affected in his general manner. His attitudes are those of a posture-master---so different from the "carelessly diffused grace" of his colleague, Canning; and his voice and language are painfully studied and unharmonious. Why does he pronounce the word, rise---rice? A rise of prices, from his mode of pronouncing it, appears to be a rice of prices. I did not understand him at first last night; but Glenorchy told me it was "his wont in the afternoon." Why does not Wynn get himself shaved? he is rivalling Lord Lauderdale in dirt and alienation from soap. He is for ever scratching his head; why does he not get his groom to curry-comb it, before he goes down to the House? I would not sit beside him for the Mint. Talking of Lauderdale, he is doing St. Albans out in the amiable to Mrs. Million Coutts. I never meet the widow without her fidus Achates dirty This is to be found in the Parliamentary Debates.

"Maitland," as my father baptized him at school. These moral Scotchmen make a shrewd guess as to the locality of Exchequer Bills and good securities.

3.---Received a copy of Lady Foley's novel," Almack's." I am sure very stupid. I am d d if I try. She is an age (nearly, if not all out, 10 years) behind the fashion; her book therefore can be valuable only to the Society of Antiquaries. I, however, must get somebody to read it, as I am to have some good shooting at Foley's next week. Leinster tells me he is also going. Euston wants me to bet on Jem Ward. Ward is a prime bit of flesh, but not to be depended upon. Tom Cribb, besides, says there is nothing manly and fair going on now in the ring---all crosses. I would back Ward ---I have seen him spar with Berkeley---I will venture 1007. upon him.

Maberley gave Alderman Waithman a great shaking last night. Waithman seems to be rough handled on both sides; fights without backer or bottle-holder: does not seem to want pluck so much as training. He is the beau ideal of a shop-keeper (not a cockney) M.P. Heygate is the cockney M.P.---pert, mincing, presuming, and obsequious. It is plain that it is resolved Brogden is to be rescued from the hands of the "lean and unwashed artificer." It is short policy in Brogden not to refund the 10477., his share of the spoil; for he will be apt to lose a place of 2000l. a-year for it. He may not have been privy to the fraud; but now that the fraud is evident, and that he admits he could be only entitled to the money from the sale of shares he never paid even deposit upon, and never ordered to be sold, he ought at once to refund, and let it be a drawn bet. Sir W. Congreve seems to have been playing his cards to some purpose25007. is his share. Waithman, it seems, is a countryman of theirs--all from the terra levis, as Camden calls Wales---meaning thereby the land of Levi. A good pun that, worth delivery. [Mem. to deliver it the first convenient extempore opportunity.] I felt for Waithman: it is a most painful situation to fill---that of bringing a charge of dishonesty against a member of the House, unbacked by friends, and unsupported by influence of birth or station; the more so, if he persuaded himself he is acting from. a sense of moral honor and public duty. No cheers, no countenance; every thing chilling and mortifying. Waithman is not perhaps wanting in pluck, information, bronze, or words; but he wants manner, tact, and above either, the urbane deportment of a gentleman, in the pure and best sense of the word. I never saw a man have so much of what Leveson Gower calls Kleinstadtigkeitishness, or countrytownishness, of manner. He cannot walk apparently with ease to himself; and when he rises, he seems bewildered from the incumbrance of his hands; and to mend the matter, he does not speak from a seat as every body else does, but from the fissure passage to them. In Augustus Berkeley's slang, he is a most lamentably unhappy man. Talking of Gower---I see the Marchioness of Stafford has succeeded in procuring the second peerage for the family. Lady Grosvenor being the mother of two earls, annoyed her beyond measure: the more so, as the King refused

a dukedom at the instigation of that clever woman, the Marchioness of Conyngham, My aunt L. has volumes of anecdotes of their intriguing for titles. Belgrave warmly contradicted to me a report ripe at Brookes's---that his father offered his family support to Lord Liverpool for a marquisite, and the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland. He justly remarked on the folly of the application, as His Majesty could never forget Lord Grosvenor's saying," that if he were Arch"bishop of Canterbury, he would have flung the Bible in the King's "face for asking him to expunge the Queen's name from the Liturgy." I am attached to Leveson Gower, as well for his intellect, as for his relationship to the Stanley family. When I left him at Paris, he was cherishing a most formidable pair of whiskers, and writing sonnets to his wife and her parrot. The worst of him is, that nothing goes down with him but Faust and Goëthe.

5.---Said a good thing last night at that notorious blue stocking's, Lady D. After a great deal of opera chat, the conversation turned on Talma. I maintained that his style was stiff, when not ranting--always unnatural; and that he was only effective in half lines and abrupt transitions. Clanricarde said he was of the Roman, Euston of the Grecian, school. I replied that he was of neither; that he was hereditarily of the Tuscan, as his father and grandfather were dentists. Great laughing. (Clanricarde seems fretted by that d-d gambling transaction. I scarcely pity him; he had always a hankering after low company, and this may cure him. Mr. Canning has not seen him since*.) By the way, he humbugged Lady D. in very good style-that is, I believe he was humbugging. She was talking of the wonderful effects of music in wild beasts and fishes, and of instincts, and other such subjects, which furnish the lovers of the marvellous with divers anecdotes-not one of which I believe; when Clanricarde told her, and appealed to Leinster, another wag, for the truth of his story,-that he usually catches trout and pike by merely smearing his hands with marjoram and other strong scented substances, and immersing them in the water; for, that the fishes are so intoxicated with the delight of the smell, that they are unable to swim away, and are taken in handfuls. The young ladies of both sexes listened with wonder and delight; and Lady D. said she readily credited the story, for that Pliny, in his fourth and fifth books, and Aristotle, in the second of his Natural History, tell us, that the sense of smell to certain species of fish is so powerful an inlet of pleasure, as to prove fatal to them from its very perfection-in the manner told by Clanricarde!! I could with great difficulty refrain from laughing in her face---the more so, as Devonshire's St. Petersburgh friend, Rus verum et barbarum, received it all for gospel. I asked Lady C. M., an out and out Cerulean, how she liked our Russian friend? Hugely!" (a neat phrase for a spinster): "there is a hyperborean "desultoriousness of manner, that at once testifies the ardour of his "mind, and that his birth is gentilitious." Match me that speech in

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* It is perhaps unnecessary to remind the reader, that the noble Marquis has since cleared his character, seen Mr. Canning, and been presented to the King.