The severest reproach to a bard you can make.
Have not I then great cause to be proud—
Your objection to mine is they keep you awake.
Ld. H. went to the Levée on Wednesday with Ld. Ossory to congratulate the King upon his escape; he went also on Thursday to the Drawing Room, and on Friday he went in a cap and gown with the Oxford Address. Mr. Marsh came to town as a delegate; he arrived on Thursday and stayed till this morning.
The Ministers have not attempted to convert this mad freak of Hadfield’s into a Jacobinical plot; they let the affair stand plainly as it is. When Erskine heard of the shot from a man in the pit, he said, ‘I thought the Pitt-ites would do the King mischief at last.’ Should the poor lunatic be condemned, I think the King will feel a qualm at signing the warrant, as it is proved that the man was only insane in consequence of a severe wound in his head received while fighting in the King’s cause.[104] As a confirmation of the opinion of the man’s acting without any concert with other people, what happened to Mr. Tierney will acquit the soldier who fired in the Park. On Thursday, riding from hence through the Park, he went by some soldiers who were reviewing, and a musket ball whizzed close by his ear. He told the story to Ford, the justice, and it is clear that the cartridges have been made improperly, that those which used to be for exercising with powder only, and in a particular coloured paper, are now loaded with ball.
The Prince of Wales, Prince Augustus, and a very numerous party dined here on Saturday; it went off very pleasantly. Prince Augustus is much altered from what he was at Rome; his mind and body are thickened.
The Divorce Bill, with the abominable clause, has passed the H. of Lords, the purport of which is to prevent the woman marrying the man on whose account the divorce takes place, and in addition to pecuniary damages to the husband, the offence is to be treated as a misdemeanour, and the punishment of fine and imprisonment rests solely with the judge.
Some persons were boasting before Mr. Fox of the excellence of the English laws, which he said certainly were excellent, but that there were objections at present. ‘How?’ replied the other person. ‘The law is equally open to the peasant and the peer.’ ‘Yes,’ said Fox, ‘so is the London tavern,’ meaning that to benefit by them one must pay dearly.
MR. FOX
The following quotation from Carlyle’s[105] translation of Arabic poetry has been very happily applied by General Fitzpatrick to Mr. Fox, who is the life and soul of the Whig party, both from the opinion entertained by them of his ability, and the esteem and friendship they bear to his person:—