“* * is, I hear, thriving on the repute of a pun which was mine (at Mackintosh’s dinner some time back), on Ward, who was asking ’how much it would take to re-whig him?’ I answered that, probably, ’he must first, before he was re-whigged, be re-warded.’  This foolish quibble, before the Stael and Mackintosh, and a number of conversationers, has been mouthed about, and at last settled on the head of * *, where long may it remain!

“George[97] is returned from afloat to get a new ship.  He looks thin, but better than I expected.  I like George much more than most people like their heirs.  He is a fine fellow, and every inch a sailor.  I would do any thing, but apostatise, to get him on in his profession.

“Lewis called.  It is a good and good-humoured man, but pestilently prolix and paradoxical and personal.  If he would but talk half, and reduce his visits to an hour, he would add to his popularity.  As an author he is very good, and his vanity is ouverte, like Erskine’s, and yet not offending.

“Yesterday, a very pretty letter from Annabella[98], which I answered.  What an odd situation and friendship is ours!—­without one spark of love on either side, and produced by circumstances which in general lead to coldness on one side, and aversion on the other.  She is a very superior woman, and very little spoiled, which is strange in an heiress—­girl of twenty—­a peeress that is to be, in her own right—­an only child, and a savante, who has always had her own way.  She is a poetess—­a mathematician—­a metaphysician, and yet, withal, very kind, generous, and gentle, with very little pretension.  Any other head would be turned with half her acquisitions, and a tenth of her advantages.

[Footnote 97:  His cousin, the present Lord Byron.]

[Footnote 98:  Miss Milbanke, afterwards Lady Byron.]

“Wednesday, December 1. 1813.

“To-day responded to La Baronne de Stael Holstein, and sent to Leigh Hunt (an acquisition to my acquaintance—­through Moore—­of last summer) a copy of the two Turkish tales.  Hunt is an extraordinary character, and not exactly of the present age.  He reminds me more of the Pym and Hampden times—­much talent, great independence of spirit, and an austere, yet not repulsive, aspect.  If he goes on qualis ab incepto, I know few men who will deserve more praise or obtain it.  I must go and see him again;—­the rapid succession of adventure, since last summer, added to some serious uneasiness and business, have interrupted our acquaintance; but he is a man worth knowing; and though, for his own sake, I wish him out of prison, I like to study character in such situations.  He has been unshaken, and will continue so.  I don’t think him deeply versed in life;—­he is the bigot of virtue (not religion), and enamoured of the beauty of that ‘empty name,’ as the last breath of Brutus pronounced, and every day proves it.  He is, perhaps, a little opiniated, as all men who are the centre of circles, wide or narrow—­the Sir Oracles, in whose name two or three are gathered together—­must be, and as even Johnson was; but, withal, a valuable man, and less vain than success and even the consciousness of preferring ’the right to the expedient’ might excuse.