of Marcus Aurelius at Lord Westminster’s, on which she said, ’I suppose that is not the present Marquis.’  To gouter this, you must know that the extreme vulgar (hackney coachmen, etc.) in England pronounce ‘marquis’ very like ‘Marcus.’

Dec, 11th.—­Went to Savigny’s.  Nobody was there but W. Grimm and his wife and a few men.  Grimm told me he had received two volumes of Norwegian fairy-tales, and that they were delightful.  Talking of them, I said, ’Your children appear to be the happiest in the world; they live in the midst of fairytales.’  ‘Ah,’ said he, ’I must tell you about that.  When we were at Gottingen, somebody spoke to my little son about his father’s Mahrchen.  He had read them, but never thought of their being mine.  He came running to me, and said with an offended air, “Father, they say you wrote those fairy-tales; surely you never invented such silly rubbish?” He thought it below my dignity.’

   Savigny told a Volksmahrchen too: 

’St. Anselm was grown old and infirm, and lay on the ground among thorns and thistles.  Der liebe Gott said to him, “You are very badly lodged there; why don’t you build yourself a house?” “Before I take the trouble,” said Anselm, “I should like to know how long I have to live.”  “About thirty years,” said Der liebe Gott.  “Oh, for so short a time,” replied he, “it’s not worth while,” and turned himself round among the thistles.’

Dr. Franck told me a story of which I had never heard before.  Voltaire had for some reason or other taken a grudge against the prophet Habakkuk, and affected to find in him things he never wrote.  Somebody took the Bible and began to demonstrate to him that he was mistaken.  ‘C’est egal,’ he said, impatiently, ‘Habakkuk etait capable de tout!’

   Oct. 30, 1853.

I am not in love with the Richtung (tendency) of our modern novelists.  There is abundance of talent; but writing a pretty, graceful, touching, yet pleasing story is the last thing our writers nowadays think of.  Their novels are party pamphlets on political or social questions, like Sybil, or Alton Locke, or Mary Barton, or Uncle Tom; or they are the most minute and painful dissections of the least agreeable and beautiful parts of our nature, like those of Miss Bronte—­Jane Eyre and Villette; or they are a kind of martyrology, like Mrs. Marsh’s Emilia Wyndham, which makes you almost doubt whether any torments the heroine would have earned by being naughty could exceed those she incurred by her virtue.

Where, oh! where is the charming, humane, gentle spirit that dictated the Vicar of Wakefield—­the spirit which Goethe so justly calls versohnend (reconciling), with all the weaknesses and woes of humanity? . . .  Have you read Thackeray’s Esmond?  It is a curious and very successful attempt to imitate the style of our old novelists. . . .  Which of Mrs. Gore’s novels are