——­ and ——­ spent last evening here.  Two more opposite characters could not easily have encountered.  One influenced wholly by his feelings, the other by his reason, each seemed to form a low estimate of the other; and this, malgre all the restraint imposed by good breeding, was but too visible.  Neither has any cause to be vain, for he becomes a dupe who judges with his heart instead of his head, and an egotist who permits not his heart to be touched by the toleration of his head. ——­ is often duped, but sometimes liked for his good nature; while ——­, if never duped, is never liked.

I took Lord John Russell, Mr. Rogers, and Mr. Luttrell yesterday to La Muette to see M. Erard’s fine collection of pictures, with which they were very much pleased.  Our drive to the Bois de Boulogne was a very agreeable one, and was rendered so by their pleasant conversation.

I have presented Mr. Rogers with some acquisitions for his cabinet of antique bijouterie, with which he appears delighted.  I outbid M. Millingen, who was bargaining at Naples for these little treasures, and secured a diminutive Cupid, a Bacchus, and a small bunch of grapes of pure gold, and of exquisite workmanship, which will now be transferred to the museum of my friend, Mr. Rogers.  He will not, I dare say, be more grateful for the gift of my Cupid than his sex generally are when ladies no longer young bestow their love on them, and so I hinted when giving him the little winged god; but, n’importe, the gift may please, though the giver be forgotten.

Lord Pembroke dined here yesterday, he is peculiarly well-bred and gentlemanlike, and looks a nobleman from top to toe.  He has acquired all the polish and savoir-vivre of the best foreign society without having lost any of the more solid and fine qualities peculiar to the most distinguished portion of his countrymen.  Lord Pembroke maintains the reputation of English taste in equipages by sporting horses and carriages that excite the admiration, if not the envy, of the Parisians, among whom he is, and deserves to be, very popular.

The Duke of Hamilton paid me a long visit to-day.  We talked over old times, and our mutual friend Dr. Parr, in whose society we formerly passed such agreeable hours in St. James’s Square.  The Duke is a very well-informed man, has read much, and remembers what he has read; and the ceremoniousness of his manners, with which some people find fault, I have got used to, and rather like than otherwise.  The mixture of chivalric sentiments, Scotch philosophy, and high breeding of the old French school which meet in the Duke, render his conversation very piquant.

He has, indeed, the dignity of his three dukedoms; the fierte of that of Chatelherault, the reserve of that of England, and the spirit of that of Scotland:  witness his dignified reproof to the Duc de Blacas at Rome, when that very unpopular personage, then Ambassador from the court of France, presumed to comment on the frequency of the Duke of Hamilton’s visits to the Princess Pauline Borghese, who, being a Buonaparte, was looked on with a jealous eye by Blacas.