“Liberty’s in every blow;
    Let us do or die!”

Poor Rob Burns! to tack thy fine strains of sublime patriotism!  Better take Tristram Shandy’s vein.  Hand me my cap and bells there.  So now, I am equipped.  I open my raree-show with

    Ma’am, will you walk in, and fal de ral diddle? 
    And, sir, will you stalk in, and fal de ral diddle? 
    And, miss, will you pop in, and fal de ral diddle? 
    And, master, pray hop in, and fal de ral diddle?

Query—­How long is it since I heard that strain of dulcet mood, and where or how came I to pick it up?  It is not mine, “though by your smiling you seem to say so."[365] Here is a proper morning’s work!  But I am childish with seeing them all well and happy here; and as I can neither whistle nor sing, I must let the giddy humour run to waste on paper.

Sallied forth in the morning; bought a hat.  Met S[ir] W[illiam] K[nighton],[366] from whose discourse I guess that Malachi has done me no prejudice in a certain quarter; with more indications of the times, which I need not set down.  Sallied again after breakfast, and visited the Piccadilly ladies.[367] Saw Rogers and Richard Sharp, also good Dr. and Mrs. Hughes, also the Duchess of Buckingham, and Lady Charlotte Bury, with a most beautiful little girl. [Owen] Rees breakfasted, and agreed I should have what the Frenchman has offered for the advantage of translating Napoleon, which, being a hundred guineas, will help my expenses to town and down again.

October 19.—­I rose at my usual time, but could not write; so read Southey’s History of the Peninsular War.  It is very good indeed,—­honest English principle in every line; but there are many prejudices, and there is a tendency to augment a work already too long by saying all that can be said of the history of ancient times appertaining to every place mentioned.  What care we whether Saragossa be derived from Caesarea Augusta?  Could he have proved it to be Numantium, there would have been a concatenation accordingly.[368]

Breakfasted at Rogers’ with Sir Thomas Lawrence; Luttrell, the great London wit;[369] Richard Sharp, etc.  Sam made us merry with an account of some part of Rose’s Ariosto; proposed that the Italian should be printed on the other side for the sake of assisting the indolent reader to understand the English; and complained of his using more than once the phrase of a lady having “voided her saddle,” which would certainly sound extraordinary at Apothecaries’ Hall.  Well, well, Rose carries a dirk too.[370] The morning was too dark for Westminster Abbey, which we had projected.

I went to the Foreign Office, and am put by Mr. Wilmot Horton into the hands of a confidential clerk, Mr. Smith, who promises access to everything.  Then saw Croker, who gave me a bundle of documents.  Sir George Cockburn promises his despatches and journal.  In short, I have ample prospect of materials.