December 13.—­Letter from Lady Stafford—­kind and friendly after the wont of Banzu-Mohr-ar-chat.[71] This is wrong spelled, I know.  Her countenance is something for Sophia, whose company should be—­as ladies are said to choose their liquor—­little and good.  To be acquainted with persons of mere ton is a nuisance and a scrape—­to be known to persons of real fashion and fortune is in London a very great advantage.  She is besides sure of the hereditary and constant friendship of the Buccleuch ladies, as well as those of Montagu and of the Harden family, of the Marchioness of Northampton, Lady Melville, and others, also the Miss Ardens, upon whose kind offices I have some claim, and would count upon them whether such claim existed or no.  So she is well enough established among the Right-hand file, which is very necessary in London where second-rate fashion is like false jewels.

Went to the yearly court of the Edinburgh Assurance Company, to which I am one of those graceful and useless appendages, called Directors Extraordinary—­an extraordinary director I should prove had they elected me an ordinary one.  There were there moneyers and great oneyers[72], men of metal—­discounters and counters—­sharp, grave, prudential faces—­eyes weak with ciphering by lamplight—­men who say to gold, Be thou paper, and to paper, Be thou turned into fine gold.  Many a bustling, sharp-faced, keen-eyed writer too—­some perhaps speculating with their clients’ property.  My reverend seigniors had expected a motion for printing their contract, which I, as a piece of light artillery, was brought down and got into battery to oppose.  I should certainly have done this on the general ground, that while each partner could at any time obtain sight of the contract at a call on the directors or managers, it would be absurd to print it for the use of the Company—­and that exposing it to the world at large was in all respects unnecessary, and might teach novel companies to avail themselves of our rules and calculations—­if false, for the purpose of exposing our errors—­if correct, for the purpose of improving their own schemes on our model.  But my eloquence was not required, no one renewing the motion under question; so off I came, my ears still ringing with the sounds of thousands and tens of thousands, and my eyes dazzled with the golden gleam offered by so many capitalists.

Walked home with the Solicitor[73]—­decidedly the most hopeful young man of his time; high connection, great talent, spirited ambition, a ready and prompt elocution, with a good voice and dignified manner, prompt and steady courage, vigilant and constant assiduity, popularity with the young men, and the good opinion of the old, will, if I mistake not, carry him as [high as] any man who has been since the days of old Hal Dundas.[74] He is hot though, and rather hasty:  this should be amended.  They who would play at single-stick must bear with patience a rap over the knuckles.  Dined quietly with Lady Scott and Anne.