There is some perverse quality in the mind that seems to take an active pleasure in destroying the amusement it promises to itself. It never fails to baffle my expectations; so sure as I propose to my imagination an agreeable conversation with a person where past experience warrants the hope, so sure am I disappointed. I feel it perpetually, for example, with Dumont; with him I have passed very many cheerful hours. This knowledge tempts me to renew our walks, the consequence is we both yawn. I can only account for it from a mutual effort to revive the same topics, or that we both endeavour to infuse a liveliness equal to what we remember pervaded our past conversations; and where there is labour there is always failure. It is now got over; we have ascertained that we each vary in agrément, either from condition, weather, or other circumstances; and we have made up our minds to it, and are four times in five highly gratified. I am convinced there is a period in all intimacies where that feeling takes place. I am so persuaded of the impracticability of arranging, ‘Now we will be pleasant,’ that I shun settling a meeting: chance does favourably what method would destroy. He possesses a fund quite inexhaustible of amusement, literature, anecdotes, lively observation, disquisition upon grave subjects; all this combined with a good heart and temper. He spends his leisure too much upon an occupation that I should doubt repaying him with fruit equal to the labour. He is translating and elucidating a metaphysical system upon legislation, jurisprudence, etc., of Bentham’s. His imagination appears better calculated to adorn the belles lettres with just criticism than to define the Penal Code. But no person of abilities finds out exactly their excellence. Boccaccio despised the only work which makes him immortal. He never showed his friend Petrarch his Decamerone, tho’ upon second thoughts Petrarch must have known parts at least of the work, as he tells him in their letters he frequently reads Griselda, but never without shedding tears. Beautiful as the Griselda is in ye Italian, I am almost disposed to prefer our Chaucer’s English version; there is a pathetic simplicity that touches the heart. The expressions are very natural where one can understand the language.
The day before we left Bowood Mr. Jekyll came. He is never so pleasant where Ld. L. is, as elsewhere; he aims at being the grave senator, and becomes pompous, didactic, and, with his merry little figure, one may add ridiculous.
MR. FOX’S ACCIDENT
On Tuesday we left Bowood. Our long conversations and disputes upon Stonehenge and the Druidical worship made us desirous of seeing that remarkable place: we therefore went by it to London. It is, to be sure, a most wonderful edifice, let it be raised by who it may. I shall transcribe great part of the description of its situation, etc., from Gough’s edition of Camden’s Britannia.
We arrived that night at Basingstoke, and arrived here on Wednesday. We found Ste. in perfect health and spirits; he is fat and ugly, but very merry and strong. His head is beautifully shaped; his ears are as pretty as his father’s; he will be darker than Charles. In the eve. Ld. H. went to see his uncle Mr. Fox, who was confined in town under the care of two surgeons. A gun burst in his hand and shattered his fingers. There was for some time a danger of his losing one of them. Hamilton came and stayed a night. There is a great perplexity in the family about his brother’s name, whether it is to be Douglas or Clydesdale.[31] The Chancellor has started the difficulty, but Scotch etiquettes are a mer à boire. The late Duke made no will, but left bonds to a great amount, for which his personal property must answer; thus the fine pictures at the Palace of Hamilton will go to the hammer. There is no danger of Ld. Stanley claiming the dukedom.
I went on Thursday to the play; General Fitzpatrick came with us. Sr. Lionel[32] dined with us on Saturday, and Hamilton. On Sunday, General Fox.[33] He is going immediately to Minorca, where he is appointed Governor. His wife is not to accompany him now; she imputes her not doing so to Sr. James St. Clair’s pompous dispatches, in which he announces the intention of the Spaniards to attack that place, a vapour to give himself importance.
10th October, ’99.—On Monday last Ld. H. moved for leave to bring in an Address to his Majesty upon the Russian Treaties;[34] consequently the House is summoned, and to-morrow he is to bring it forward. He is extremely nervous, not having spoken in public for some months till the other two days last week. The Treaty for ye 17,000 men employed in Holland contains an article contrary to ye constitution: ‘His Majesty engages, in case the troops should be compelled to leave Holland at a season when the Baltic is frozen over, that they shall pass ye winter in England.’ This article is a direct violation of the laws, and without precedent. He means to introduce at the same time a wish that measures may be taken to manifest a desire of peace.
EXPEDITION TO HOLLAND
Alkmaer is taken with a great loss of men; the details are not yet come. Tierney was here this morning in a sort of perplexity at a suspicion of Nepean’s,[35] the Under-Secretary of State. It seems that in a private letter from General Coote to Sr. Charles Grey[36] the truth is told of the conduct of the Russians, who absolutely refused to advance, throwing themselves flat on their bellies and declaring they would not stir. This letter Tierney saw, and it was known to Nepean that he had seen it. Combining that with Ld. H.’s motion to-morrow, they feared this circumstance would be made public, and Sr. C. Grey came to town this morning, in a fright, to explain matters. The fact is, Ld. H. knew nothing of the affair till to-day, and at Tierney’s request from Sr. C. G. of course will not make any use of the knowledge.
11th October, ’99.—On Wednesday, 9th October, Ld. King[37] passed the day and dined. He is young and handsome. His political principles are strongly anti-Government; his liking to Ld. H. makes him act with him, tho’ his opinion disposes him to exceed the limits Opposition have drawn to themselves; pour trancher le mot, he is what is called a Jacobin. His dislike to what is established is more against the Church than to the State: he quite abhors the Christian religion. He has a considerable share of information in theology, metaphysics, and political economy. Seeing him but once sociably, I cannot accurately estimate his worth. He is a most affectionate, excellent son. He came to town on purpose to second Ld. H. to-night. Tho’ he is not a remarkable speaker, yet he is stout, and Ld. H. expects to find a consolation in having him; as any person who is warm on the same side must be a relief from the agony of a solitary opposition. Yesterday I had a visit from a strange man, a Dr. Hager;[38] he was employed by ye King of Naples to detect a literary fraud in Sicily. One of the impostures was a supposed Arabic translation of all the works of Livy containing the lost books: this curiosity he discovered to be an ingenious fabrication. The other was some grants to the Church during the period where there is a hiatus in ye Sicilian history. His head is crammed full of metaphysics and erudition, to the total exclusion of every particle of common sense. I could perceive rays of illumination about him, when he talked of his admiration of truth and the necessity among enlightened people to substitute a moral catechism for that built upon the credulity and superstition of mankind. His generous spirit of converting those misled by error, alias religion, will involve him in scrapes should he not be wiser before he publishes in this country, as I suspect it has done already in Germany. He is one of Ld. Wycombe’s strange men; he picked him up in Sicily.