and a she of the same race who saves one the trouble of putting them.  But for this same plague—­yellow fever—­and Newstead delay, I should have been by this time a second time close to the Euxine.  If I can overcome the last, I don’t so much mind your pestilence; and, at any rate, the spring shall see me there,—­provided I neither marry myself, nor unmarry any one else in the interval.  I wish one was—­I don’t know what I wish.  It is odd I never set myself seriously to wishing without attaining it—­and repenting.  I begin to believe with the good old Magi, that one should only pray for the nation, and not for the individual;—­but, on my principle, this would not be very patriotic.

“No more reflections—­Let me see—­last night I finished ‘Zuleika,’ my second Turkish Tale.  I believe the composition of it kept me alive—­for it was written to drive my thoughts from the recollection of—­

‘Dear sacred name, rest ever unreveal’d.’

At least, even here, my hand would tremble to write it.  This afternoon I have burnt the scenes of my commenced comedy.  I have some idea of expectorating a romance, or rather a tale in prose;—­but what romance could equal the events—­

            ’quaeque ipse ...vidi,
    Et quorum pars magna fui.’

“To-day Henry Byron called on me with my little cousin Eliza.  She will grow up a beauty and a plague; but, in the mean time, it is the prettiest child! dark eyes and eyelashes, black and long as the wing of a raven.  I think she is prettier even than my niece, Georgina,—­yet I don’t like to think so neither; and though older, she is not so clever.

“Dallas called before I was up, so we did not meet.  Lewis, too,—­who seems out of humour with every thing.  What can be the matter? he is not married—­has he lost his own mistress, or any other person’s wife?  Hodgson, too, came.  He is going to be married, and he is the kind of man who will be the happier.  He has talent, cheerfulness, every thing that can make him a pleasing companion; and his intended is handsome and young, and all that.  But I never see any one much improved by matrimony.  All my coupled contemporaries are bald and discontented.  W. and S. have both lost their hair and good humour; and the last of the two had a good deal to lose.  But it don’t much signify what falls off a man’s temples in that state.

“Mem.  I must get a toy to-morrow, for Eliza, and send the device for the seals of myself and * * * * * Mem. too, to call on the Stael and Lady Holland to-morrow, and on * *, who has advised me (without seeing it, by the by) not to publish ‘Zuleika;’ I believe he is right, but experience might have taught him that not to print is physically impossible.  No one has seen it but Hodgson and Mr. Gifford.  I never in my life read a composition, save to Hodgson, as he pays me in kind.  It is a horrible thing to do too frequently;—­better print, and they who like may read, and if they don’t like, you have the satisfaction of knowing that they have, at least, purchased the right of saying so.