was afflicted with partial insanity, especially if he used strong liquors, to which, like others with that unhappy tendency, he was occasionally addicted.  In 1814[214] he became quite insane, and, at the risk of my life, I had to disarm him of a pair of loaded pistols, which I did by exerting the sort of authority which, I believe, gives an effectual control in such cases.  His friends, who were respectable, placed him in the York Asylum, where he pined away and died, I think, in 1814 or 1815.[215] My patronage in this way has not been lucky to the parties protected.  I hope poor George Huntly Gordon will escape the influence of the evil star.  He has no vice, poor fellow, but his total deafness makes him helpless.

March 11.—­This day the Court rose after a long and laborious sederunt.  I employed the remainder of the day in completing a set of notes on Captain Maitland’s manuscript narrative of the reception of Napoleon Bonaparte on board the Bellerophon.  It had been previously in the hands of my friend Basil Hall, who had made many excellent corrections in point of style; but he had been hypercritical in wishing (in so important a matter where everything depends on accuracy) this expression to be altered for delicacy’s sake,—­that to be omitted for fear of giving offence,—­and that other to be abridged for fear of being tedious.  The plain sailor’s narrative for me, written on the spot, and bearing in its minuteness the evidence of its veracity.

Lord Elgin sent me, some time since, a curious account of his imprisonment in France, and the attempts which were made to draw him into some intrigue which might authorise treating him with rigour[216].  He called to-day and communicated some curious circumstances, on the authority of Fouche, Denon, and others, respecting Bonaparte and the empress Maria Louise, whom Lord Elgin had conversed with on the subject in Italy.  His conduct towards her was something like that of Ethwald to Elburga, in Joanna Baillie’s fine tragedy[217], making her postpone her high rank by birth to the authority which he had acquired by his talents.  Dinner was usually announced for a particular hour, and Napoleon’s business often made him late.  She was not permitted to sit down to table, an etiquette which was reasonable enough.  But from the hour of dinner till the Emperor appeared she was to be in the act of sitting down; that is to say, he was displeased if he found her engaged with a book, with work, or with anything else.  She was obliged to be in a state of absolute “being about to sit down.”  She seemed a good deal genee by something of that kind, though remembering with pride she had been Empress, it might almost be said of the world.  The rest for to-morrow.

March 12.—­Resumed Woodstock, and wrote my task of six pages.  I was interrupted by a slumberous feeling which made me obliged to stop once or twice.  I shall soon have a remedy in the country, which affords the pleasanter resource of a walk when such feelings come on.  I hope I am the reverse of the well-known line, “sleepy myself, to give my readers sleep.”  I cannot gurnalise at any rate, having wrought my eyes nearly out.[218]