January 24.—­The King grants the favour asked.  To be perfect I should have the books [out] of the room, but this seems to [hurt?] Monsieur Delicteriis as he, kind and civil as he is, would hardly [allow] me to take my labours out of the Studij, where there are hosts of idlers and echoes and askers and no understanders of askers.  I progress, however, as the Americans say.  I have found that Sir William Gell’s amanuensis is at present disengaged, and that he is quite the man for copying the romances, which is a plain black letter of 1377, at the cheap and easy rate of 3 quattrons a day.  I am ashamed at the lowness of the remuneration, but it will dine him capitally, with a share of a bottle of wine, or, by ’r lady, a whole one if he likes it; and thrice the sum would hardly do that in England.  But we dawdle, and that there is no avoiding.  I have found another object in the Studij—­the language of Naples.

Jany. 2[5?].—­One work in this dialect, for such it is, was described to me as a history of ancient Neapolitan legends—­quite in my way; and it proves to be a dumpy fat 12mo edition of Mother Goose’s Tales,[511] with my old friends Puss in Boots, Bluebeard, and almost the whole stock of this very collection.  If this be the original of this charming book, it is very curious, for it shows the right of Naples to the authorship, but there are French editions very early also;—­for there are two—­whether French or Italian, I am uncertain—­of different dates, both having claims to the original edition, each omitting some tales which the other has.

To what common original we are to refer them the Lord knows.  I will look into [this] very closely, and if this same copiator is worth his ears he can help me.  My friend Mr. D. will aid me, but I doubt he hardly likes my familiarity with the department of letters in which he has such an extensive and valuable charge.  Yet he is very kind and civil, and promises me the loan of a Neapolitan vocabulary, which will set me up for the attack upon Mother Goose.  Spirit of Tom Thumb assist me!  I could, I think, make a neat thing of this, obnoxious to ridicule perhaps;—­what then!  The author of Ma Soeur Anne was a clever man, and his tale will remain popular in spite of all gibes and flouts soever.  So Vamos Caracci!  If it was not for the trifling and dawdling peculiar to this country, I should have time enough, but their trifling with time is the devil.  I will try to engage Mr. Gell in two researches in his way and more in mine, namely, the Andrea Ferrara and the Bonnet piece.[512] Mr. Keppel Craven says Andrea de Ferraras[513] are frequent in Italy.  Plenty to do if we had alert assistance, but Gell and Laing Meason have both their own matters to puzzle out, and why should they mind my affairs?  The weather is very cold, and I am the reverse of the idiot boy—­

    “For as my body’s growing worse,
    My mind is growing better."[514]