*

Always think of what Lord * * used to say, that nothing is so easy as for young people to make fools of old people whenever they please.

Liked to meet with grand houses in wild and desert places to step from dreariness into splendid apartments. Chatsworth struck him particularly in this way.

Demosthenes and Cicero. Wondered why so judicious a writer as Quintilian should think of comparing them,' as each had what the other wanted. Demosthenes had vehemence-Cicero had playful allusions, beautiful images, philosophical digressions. Admired Demosthenes most; he was certainly the greater orator-but he read Cicero with most pleasure, and that, perhaps, was one proof among others why Demosthenes was the better orator. Cicero's letters did indeed fill a great gap in the Roman History-they were almost the whole of it.

Mickleham the most beautiful valley within two hundred miles of London.

All roads from town are disagreeable—the

1 Quintilian, Book x. c. 1, passim, but particularly sections 105, 108.

Kensington road is thought the best, but it must be on account of its setting out through Hyde Park.

That song,

," "Tis not the liquid lustre of thine eyes," perhaps the best ever written.

Sir Joshua Reynolds had no pleasure at Richmond3 he used to say the human face was his landscape.

A foolish

song, "When lovely woman stoops to folly❞—a bad rhyme to melancholy. Approach to Lord Cadogan's, near Reading, very fine.

Voyage from Henley to Maidenhead bridge. He was one who thought one steep bank sufficient, and better than two.

2" "Tis not the liquid brightness of those eyes
That swim with pleasure and delight;

Nor those fair heavenly arches which arise
O'er each of them to shade their light;

But 'tis that gentle mind, that ardent love,
So kindly answering my desire;

That grace with which you look, and speak, and move,
That thus have set my soul on fire," &c.

Aikin's Essays on Song Writing.

3 He had a house on Richmond Hill.

4 Vicar of Wakefield, c. 24.

Raleigh a very fine writer. Lord Surrey too old. Always thought Mason to blame for suppressing Gray's translations-surely the most valuable kind of thing to an English reader is a good translation.1

Sir Joshua Reynolds-the grand not his forte. Liked best his playful characters—not even his Ugolino satisfied him-the boys in his Holy Family exquisite.

Petrarch.-Was never much struck with him -his sonnets the worst of him-liked his letters. Dante a much greater man-and Boccaccio also, whose sentences are magnificent.

Revival of letters-Where would you begin? with the Medici? then you leave those men behind you. The middle ages never very dark; always producing some able men.

There is nothing more in favour of wine than the many disagreeable substitutes for it which are used in countries where it is not found; such as betel-root, opium, &c.

After all Burke was a damned wrong-headed

1 Two translations by Gray from Propertius, and one from Tasso's Gerus. Lib. omitted by Mason, have since been published in Mathias' edition of Gray's works, London, 1814; and in Mitford's Gray.

fellow through life—always jealous and contradictory.

No man, I maintain, could be ill-tempered, who wrote so much nonsense as Swift.

Perhaps the most original character and most masterly in Shakespeare, is Macbeth. It is no where else to be found-exciting our pity at first, and gradually growing worse and worse till at last the only virtue that remains in him is his courage.

I have no idea of Physiognomy and its rules as to the mind; perhaps right sometimes as to the temper. Lord Redesdale a remarkably silly looking man; and so indeed in reality. Pitt, I cannot see any indications of sense in him-did not you know what he is you would not discover any.2

How delightful to lie on the grass, with a book in your hand all day-Yes-but why with a book?

Had liked Virgil best in his youth.3

2 Grey thought otherwise. S. R.

3 Lord Holland possesses his school Virgil full of praises, and can now account for his having often said—"Virgil is always our first favourite." S. R.

1805. July 17. Set out at eleven with Courtney1 and a brace of Weymouth trout. Arrived at three. Were met by Mr. Fox in the garden. He wore a white hat, a light coloured coat, and nankeen gaiters.

Gnats very numerous-Cold summer.

Meant to resume his history in a fortnight. Hitherto much occupied in letter-writing.

In a letter-writing mood wrote to Dr. Bardsley of Manchester on his pamphlet against Bull-baiting. Not against it himself; thought the outcry against the common people unjust, while their betters hunted and fished. Was decidedly in favour of boxing.

Was very indulgent to works of taste.

Had written to Roscoe concerning proper names-disapproved altogether of his practice. His instance of Louis in the introduction, particularly against him.3

1 Vide supra, p. 7.

2 Samuel Argent Bardsley, M.D. on the Use and Abuse of Popular Sports and Exercises.-Mem. Manch. Soc. vol. 1.?

Roscoe, in his preface to his Life of Leo X., published shortly before the date of this conversation, had justified the practice he had adopted of designating the scholars of