May 23.—­I breakfasted with Chantrey, and met the celebrated Coke of Norfolk,[208] a very pleasing man, who gave me some account of his plantations.  I understand from him that, like every wise man, he planted land that would not let for 5s. per acre, but which now produces L3000 a year in wood.  He talked of the trees which he had planted as being so thick that a man could not fathom[209] them.  Withers, he said, was never employed save upon one or two small jobs of about twenty acres on which every expense was bestowed with a view to early growth.  So much for Withers.  I shall have a rod in pickle for him if worth while.[210] After sitting to Chantrey for the last time, I called on Lady Shelley, P.P.C., and was sorry to find her worse than she had been.  Dined with Lady Stafford, where I met the two Lochs, John and James.  The former gave me his promise for a cadetship to Allan Cunningham’s son; I have a similar promise from Lord Melville, and thus I am in the situation in which I have been at Gladdies Wiel,[211] where I have caught two trouts, one with the fly, the other with the bobber.  I have landed both, and so I will now.  Mr. Loch also promised me to get out Shortreed as a free mariner.  Tom Grenville was at dinner.

May 24.—­This day we dined at Richmond Park with Lord Sidmouth.  Before dinner his Lordship showed me letters which passed between the great Lord Chatham and Dr. Addington, Lord Sidmouth’s [father].  There was much of that familiar friendship which arises, and must arise, between an invalid, the head of an invalid family, and their medical adviser, supposing the last to be a wise and well-bred man.  The character of Lord Chatham’s handwriting is strong and bold, and his expressions short and manly.  There are intimations of his partiality for William, whose health seems to have been precarious during boyhood.  He talks of William imitating him in all he did, and calling for ale because his father was recommended to drink it.  “If I should smoke,” he said, “William would instantly call for a pipe;” and, he wisely infers, “I must take care what I do.”  The letters of the late William Pitt are of great curiosity, but as, like all real letters of business, they only allude to matters with which his correspondent is well acquainted, and do not enter into details, they would require an ample commentary.  I hope Lord Sidmouth will supply this, and have urged it as much as I can.  I think, though I hate letters and abominate interference, I will write to him on this subject.

I have bought a certain quantity of reprints from a bookseller in Chancery Lane, Pickering by name.  I urged him to print the controversy between Greene and the Harveys.  He wished me to write a third part to a fine edition of Cotton’s Angler, for which I am quite incompetent.[212]

I met at Richmond my old and much esteemed friend Lord Stowell,[213] looking very frail and even comatose. Quantum mutatus! He was one of the pleasantest men I ever knew.