There is a triangular ’Gradus ad Parnassum!’—­the names are too numerous for the base of the triangle.  Poor Thurlow has gone wild about the poetry of Queen Bess’s reign—­c’est dommage.  I have ranked the names upon my triangle more upon what I believe popular opinion, than any decided opinion of my own.  For, to me, some of M * * e’s last Erin sparks—­’As a beam o’er the face of the waters’—­’When he who adores thee’—­’Oh blame not’—­and ’Oh breathe not his name’—­are worth all the Epics that ever were composed.

“* * thinks the Quarterly will attack me next.  Let them.  I have been ‘peppered so highly’ in my time, both ways, that it must be cayenne or aloes to make me taste.  I can sincerely say that I am not very much alive now to criticism.  But—­in tracing this—­I rather believe, that it proceeds from my not attaching that importance to authorship which many do, and which, when young, I did also.  ’One gets tired of every thing, my angel,’ says Valmont.  The ‘angels’ are the only things of which I am not a little sick—­but I do think the preference of writers to agents—­the mighty stir made about scribbling and scribes, by themselves and others—­a sign of effeminacy, degeneracy, and weakness.  Who would write, who had any thing better to do?  ’Action—­action—­action’—­said Demosthenes:  ‘Actions—­actions,’ I say, and not writing,—­least of all, rhyme.  Look at the querulous and monotonous lives of the ’genus;’—­except Cervantes, Tasso, Dante, Ariosto, Kleist (who were brave and active citizens), Aeschylus, Sophocles, and some other of the antiques also—­what a worthless, idle brood it is!

“12, Mezza notte.

“Just returned from dinner with Jackson (the Emperor of Pugilism) and another of the select, at Crib’s the champion’s.  I drank more than I like, and have brought away some three bottles of very fair claret—­for I have no headach.  We had Tom * * up after dinner;—­very facetious, though somewhat prolix.  He don’t like his situation—­wants to fight again—­pray Pollux (or Castor, if he was the miller) he may!  Tom has been a sailor—­a coal heaver—­and some other genteel profession, before he took to the cestus.  Tom has been in action at sea, and is now only three-and-thirty.  A great man! has a wife and a mistress, and conversations well—­bating some sad omissions and misapplications of the aspirate.  Tom is an old friend of mine; I have seen some of his best battles in my nonage.  He is now a publican, and, I fear, a sinner;—­for Mrs. * * is on alimony, and * ’s daughter lives with the champion. _This_ * told me,—­Tom, having an opinion of my morals, passed her off as a legal spouse.  Talking of her, he said, ’she was the truest of women’—­from which I immediately inferred she could not be his wife, and so it turned out.

“These panegyrics don’t belong to matrimony;—­for, if ‘true,’ a man don’t think it necessary to say so; and if not, the less he says the better. * * * * is the only man, except * * * *, I ever heard harangue upon his wife’s virtue; and I listened to both with great credence and patience, and stuffed my handkerchief into my mouth, when I found yawning irresistible.—­By the by, I am yawning now—­so, good night to thee.—­[Greek:  Nohairon].