[18] We gave him this nickname.

[19] Tens, ruinous at macao.

[20] Tens.

[21] The middle pin, a large gain.

[22] Nines are the grand desiderata at macao.


1819.

January 17th, 1819

I went to Burleigh on the 23rd of December; there was no one there but Irby. The house disappointed me very much, but it is a very fine showplace. I went away on the 27th to Middleton; there were the Culling Smiths, Worcesters, Sir James Mackintosh, Ossulstons, Nugent, &c.; it was very agreeable, and the house extremely comfortable. Lady Jersey[23] is an extraordinary woman, and has many good qualities; surrounded as she LADY JERSEY. is by flatterers and admirers, she is neither proud nor conceited. She is full of vivacity, spirit, and good nature, but the wide range of her sympathies and affections proves that she has more general benevolence than particular sensibility in her character. She performs all the ordinary duties of life with great correctness, because her heart is naturally good; and she is, perhaps, from her temperament exposed to fewer temptations than the generality of her sex. She is deficient in passion and in softness (which constitute the greatest charm in women), so that she excites more of admiration than of interest; in conversation she is lively and pleasant, without being very remarkable, for she has neither wit, nor imagination, nor humour; her understanding is active rather than strong, and her judgment is too often warped by prejudice to be sound. She has a retentive memory and a restless mind, together with a sort of intellectual arrangement, with which she appears rather to have been gifted by nature than to have derived it from the cultivation of her reasoning faculties.

[23] [Sarah Sophia, eldest daughter of John, tenth Earl of Westmoreland, and heiress of Robert Child, Esq., of Osterley Park, her maternal grandfather.]