We have had some rain, even this last night:  but the weather is fine all day, and quite warm.  I believe it has made an assignation with the Glastonbury Thorn, and that they are to dance together on old Christmas-day.  What could I do with myself in London!  All my playthings are here, and I have no playfellows left there!  Lady Herries’s and poor Mrs. Hunter’s(872) are shut up.  Even the “one game more at cribbage"(873) after supper is on table, which is not my supreme felicity, though accompanied by the Tabor and Pipe,(874) is in the country or, to say all in a word, North Audley-street is in Yorkshire!  Reading composes little of my pastime, either in town or country.  A catalogue of books and prints, or a dull history of a county, amuse me sufficiently; for now I cannot open a French book, as it would keep alive ideas that I want to banish from my thoughts.  When I am tired at home, I go and sit an hour or two with the ladies of Murray,(875) or the Doyleys, and find them conversable and comfortable; and my pessime aller is Richmond.

Monday morning, 11th.

Lysons(876) has been drawing churches in Gloucestershire, and digging out a Roman villa and mosaic pavement near Cirencester, which he means to publish:  but he knew nothing outlandish; so if the newspaper does not bring me something fresh for you presently, this limping letter must set out with its empty wallet.  Mrs. Piozzi is going to publish a book on English Synonymes.  Methinks she had better have studied them, before she stuffed her Travels with so many vulgarisms!(877)

(866) This alludes to some false report of the time.

(867) Lord Viscount Montague was the last male heir of a most noble and ancient family, in a lineal descent from the Lady Lucy Nevill.-E.

(868) Charles Sedley Burdett, second son of Francis Burdett Esq. and brother of Francis, who on the death of his grandfather, Sir Robert Burdett, in 1797, succeeded to the baronetcy.-E.

(869) They insisted on shooting down the, great fall of the Rhine at Schaflhausen in a boat, against the remonstrances of the neighbouring inhabitants and their refusal of every bribe, either to assist or accompany them.  They and their boat were shattered to pieces, and their remains were found some days after, at a considerable distance from the scene of their mad exploit.

(870) Richard Tickell, Esq. author of “Anticipation,” the " Wreath of Fashion,” and other poems.  He was a commissioner of the stamp-office, and brother-in-law to Richard Brinsley Sheridan.-E.

(871) “C’est ici l’asile du sommeil `eternel,” was the republican inscription over all the public cemeteries.  Pache, Hebert, and Chaumette, the leaders of the municipality, publicly expressed their determination to dethrone the King of Heaven, as well as the kings of the earth.  Gebel, the constitutional Bishop of Paris, disowned at the bar of the Convention the existence of a God.