The night, unfortunately, was dark, and I could not see the moon with the famous new telescope. I mean not the great telescope through which I had taken a walk, for that is still incomplete, but another of uncommon powers. I saw Saturn, however, and his satellites, very distinctly, and their appearance was very beautiful.
GAY AND ENTERTAINING MR. BUNBURY.
Sept.-I saw a great deal of Mr. Bunbury in the course of this month, as he was in waiting upon the Duke of York, who spent great part of it at Windsor, to the inexpressible delight of his almost idolising father. Mr. Bunbury did not open upon me with that mildness and urbanity that might lead me to forget the strokes of his pencil, and power of his caricature: he early avowed a general disposition to laugh at, censure, or despise all around him. He began talking of everybody and everything about us, with the decisive freedom of a confirmed old intimacy.
“I am in disgrace here, already!” he cried almost exultingly.
“In disgrace?” I repeated.
“Yes,—for not riding out this morning!—I was asked—what Could I have better to do?—Ha! ha!”
The next time that I saw him after your departure from Windsor,[245] he talked a great deal of painting and painters, and then said, “The draftsman of whom I think the most highly of any in the world was in this room the other day, and I did not know it, and was not introduced to him!”
I immediately assured him I never held the honours of the room when its right mistress was in it, but that I would certainly have named them to each other had I known he desired it. “O, yes,”’ cried he, “of all things I wished to know him. He draws like the old masters. I have seen fragments in the style of many of the very best and first productions of the greatest artists of former times. He could deceive the most critical judge. I wish greatly for a sight of his works, and for the possession of one of them, to add to my collection, as I have something from almost everybody else and a small sketch of his I should esteem a greater curiosity than all the rest put together."[246]