“It is singular how soon we lose the impression of what ceases to be constantly before us:  a year impairs; a lustre obliterates.  There is little distinct left without an effort of memory. Then, indeed, the lights are rekindled for a moment; but who can be sure that imagination is not the torch-bearer?  Let any man try at the end of ten years to bring before him the features, or the mind, or the sayings, or the habits of his best friend, or his greatest man, (I mean his favourite, his Buonaparte, his this, that, or t’other,) and he will be surprised at the extreme confusion of his ideas.  I speak confidently on this point, having always passed for one who had a good, ay, an excellent memory.  I except, indeed, our recollection of womankind; there is no forgetting them (and be d—­d to them) any more than any other remarkable era, such as ‘the revolution,’ or ’the plague,’ or ‘the invasion,’ or ‘the comet,’ or ‘the war’ of such and such an epoch,—­being the favourite dates of mankind who have so many blessings in their lot that they never make their calendars from them, being too common.  For instance, you see ‘the great drought,’ ‘the Thames frozen over,’ ‘the seven years’ war broke out,’ ’the English, or French, or Spanish revolution commenced,’ ’the Lisbon earthquake,’ ‘the Lima earthquake,’ ‘the earthquake of Calabria,’ ‘the plague of London,’ ditto ‘of Constantinople,’ ’the sweating sickness,’ ‘the yellow fever of Philadelphia,’ &c. &c. &c.; but you don’t see ‘the abundant harvest,’ ‘the fine summer,’ ’the long peace,’ ‘the wealthy speculation,’ ‘the wreckless voyage,’ recorded so emphatically!  By the way, there has been a thirty years’ war and a seventy years’ war; was there ever a seventy or a thirty years’ peace? or was there even a DAY’S universal peace? except perhaps in China, where they have found out the miserable happiness of a stationary and unwarlike mediocrity.  And is all this because nature is niggard or savage? or mankind ungrateful?  Let philosophers decide.  I am none.

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“In general, I do not draw well with literary men; not that I dislike them, but I never know what to say to them after I have praised their last publication.  There are several exceptions, to be sure, but then they have either been men of the world, such as Scott and Moore, &c. or visionaries out of it, such as Shelley, &c.:  but your literary every-day man and I never went well in company, especially your foreigner, whom I never could abide; except Giordani, and—­and—­and—­(I really can’t name any other)—­I don’t remember a man amongst them whom I ever wished to see twice, except perhaps Mezzophanti, who is a monster of languages, the Briareus of parts of speech, a walking Polyglott and more, who ought to have existed at the time of the Tower of Babel as universal interpreter.  He is indeed a marvel—­unassuming, also.  I tried him in all the tongues of which I knew a single oath, (or adjuration to the gods against post-boys, savages, Tartars, boatmen, sailors, pilots, gondoliers, muleteers, camel-drivers, vetturini, post-masters, post-horses, post-houses, post every thing,) and egad! he astounded me—­even to my English.