I have sent an excuse to Madame de Stael. I do not feel sociable enough for dinner to-day ;—and I will not go to Sheridan's on Wednesday. Not that I do not admire and prefer his unequalled conversation; but-that "but" must only be intelligible to thoughts I cannot write. Sheridan was in good talk at Rogers's the other night, but I only stayed till nine. All the world are to be at the Stael's to-night, and I am not sorry to escape any part of it. I only go out to get me a fresh appetite for being alone. Went out-did not go to the Stael's but to Ld. Holland's. Party numerous-conversation general. Stayed late-made a blunder-got over it-came home and went to bed, not having eaten. Rather empty, but fresco, which is the great point with me. Monday, December 13, 1813. Called at three places-read, and got ready to leave town to-morrow. Murray has had a letter from his brother bibliopole of Edinburgh, who says, "he is lucky "in having such a poet"-something as if one was a packhorse, or "ass, or any thing that is his;" or, like Mrs. Packwood,1 who replied to some inquiry after the Odes 1. Mrs. Packwood is the wife of George Packwood, "the cele"brated Razor Strop Maker and Author of The Goldfinch's Nest," whose shop was at 16, Gracechurch Street. Packwood's Whim; The Goldfinch's Nest, or the Way to get Money and be Happy, by George Packwood, was published in 1796, and reached a second edition in 1807. It is a collection of his advertisements in prose and verse. The poet, whom Packwood kept, apparently lived in Soho (p. 21), from his verses which appeared in the True Briton for November 9, 1795 "If you wish, Sir, to Shave-nay, pray look not grave, To P-d repair, you're shaved to a hair, "When in moving the beard-I wish to be heard The dull razor occasions a curse, 1813.] THE HAROLD AND COOKERY. 375 on Razors," Laws, sir, we keeps a poet." The same illustrious Edinburgh bookseller once sent an order for books, poesy, and cookery, with this agreeable postscript -"The Harold and Cookery1 are much wanted." Such is fame, and, after all, quite as good as any other "life in "others' breath." "Tis much the same to divide purchasers with Hannah Glasse or Hannah More. Some editor of some magazine has announced to Murray his intention of abusing the thing "without read"ing it." So much the better; if he redde it first, he would abuse it more. Allen (Lord Holland's Allen-the best informed and The strop that I view will its merits renew; "Some in fashion's tontine disperse all their spleen, But P-d's fine taste, with his Strops and his Paste, "I have taken this plan to comment on a man, For a razor and knife he will sharpen for life, "Soho, Nov. 6, 1795.” 1. The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, "By a Lady," was published anonymously in 1747. The 4th edition (1751) bears the name of H. Glasse. The book was at one time supposed to be the work of Dr. John Hill (1716-1775), and to contain the proverb, "First catch your hare, then cook it." But Hill's claim is un tenable, and the proverb is not in the book. Mrs. Rundell's Domestic Cookery was one of Murray's most successful publications. In Byron's lines, "To Mr. Murray" (March 25, 1818), occurs the following passage : "Along thy sprucest bookshelves shine 2. John Allen, M.D. (1771–1843), accompanied Lord Holland to Spain (1801-5 and 1808-9), and lived with him at Holland House. His Inquiry into the Rise and Growth of the Royal Prerogative in England, his numerous articles in the Edinburgh Review, and his one of the ablest men I know-a perfect Magliabecchi 1— a devourer, a Helluo of books, and an observer of men,) has lent me a quantity of Burns's 2 unpublished and neverto-be-published Letters. They are full of oaths and obscene songs. What an antithetical mind!—tenderness, life of Fox in the Encyclopædia Britannica, and many other works, justify Byron's praise. In the social life of Holland House he was a prominent figure, and to it, perhaps, he sacrificed his literary powers and acquirements. He was Warden of Dulwich College (1811-20), and Master (1820-43). Allen was the author of the article in the Edinburgh Review on Payne Knight's Taste, in which he severely criticized Pindar's Greek, and which Byron, probably trusting to Hodgson (see Letters, vol. i. p. 196, note 1), or possibly misled by similarity of sound (H. Crabb Robinson's Diary, vol. í. p. 277), attributed to "classic Hallam, much renowned for Greek" (English Bards, etc., line 513). 1. Antonio Magliabecchi (1633-1714) was appointed, in 1673, Librarian to the Grand-Duke of Tuscany, to whom he bequeathed his immense collection of 30,000 volumes. In Burton's Book-hunter (p. 229) it is said that Magliabecchi "could direct you to any book "in any part of the world, with the precision with which the metro'politan policeman directs you to St. Paul's or Piccadilly. It is of "him that the stories are told of answers to inquiries after books, in "these terms: 'There is but one copy of that book in the world. "It is in the Grand Seignior's library at Constantinople, and is the "seventh book in the second shelf on the right hand as you go in."" 2. Byron himself was "likened to Burns," and Sir Walter Scott, commenting on the comparison in a manuscript note, says, Burns, "in depth of poetical feeling, in strong shrewd sense to balance and "regulate this, in the tact to make his poetry tell by connecting "it with the stream of public thought and the sentiment of the age, "in commanded wildness of fancy and profligacy or recklessness as "to moral and occasionally as to religious matters, was much more "like Lord Byron than any other person to whom Lord B. says he "had been compared. 66 "A gross blunder of the English public has been talking of "Burns as if the character of his poetry ought to be estimated with 'an eternal recollection that he was a peasant. It would be just as proper to say that Lord Byron ought always to be thought of as a Peer. Rank in life was nothing to either in his true moments. "Then, they were both great Poets. Some silly and sickly affecta"tions connected with the accidents of birth and breeding may be "observed in both, when they are not under the influence of the "happier star.' Witness Burns's prate about independence, when "he was an exciseman, and Byron's ridiculous pretence of Republi"canism, when he never wrote sincerely about the Multitude without expressing or insinuating the very soul of scorn." 1813.] LETTERS OF BURNS. 377 roughness-delicacy, coarseness—-sentiment, sensuality— soaring and grovelling, dirt and deity-all mixed up in that one compound of inspired clay! It seems strange; a true voluptuary will never abandon his mind to the grossness of reality. It is by exalting the earthly, the material, the physique of our pleasures, by veiling these ideas, by forgetting them altogether, or, at least, never naming them hardly to one's self, that we alone can prevent them from disgusting. December 14, 15, 16. Much done, but nothing to record. It is quite enough. to set down my thoughts,-my actions will rarely bear retrospection. December 17, 18. Lord Holland told me a curious piece of sentimentality in Sheridan. The other night we were all delivering our respective and various opinions on him and other hommes marquans, and mine was this:-"Whatever "Sheridan has done or chosen to do has been, par excel"C lence, always the best of its kind. He has written the best "comedy (School for Scandal), the best drama (in my mind, "far before that St. Giles's lampoon, the Beggar's Opera), "the best farce (the Critic-it is only too good for a farce), "and the best Address (Monologue on Garrick), and, to crown all, delivered the very best Oration (the famous Begum Speech) ever conceived or heard in this country." Somebody told S. this the next day, and on hearing it he burst into tears! Poor Brinsley! if they were tears of pleasure, I would rather have said these few, but most sincere, words than have written the Iliad or made his own celebrated Philippic. Nay, his own comedy never gratified me more than to hear that he had derived a moment's gratification from any praise of mine, humble as it must appear to "my elders and my betters." Went to my box at Covent Garden to-night; and my delicacy felt a little shocked at seeing S * * *'s mistress (who, to my certain knowledge, was actually educated, from her birth, for her profession) sitting with her mother, "a three-piled bd, b-d-Major to the army," in a private box opposite. I felt rather indignant; but, casting my eyes round the house, in the next box to me, and the next, and the next, were the most distinguished old and young Babylonians of quality;-so I burst out a laughing. It was really odd; Lady ** divorced-Lady ** and her daughter, Lady * *, both divorceable—Mrs. * *, in the next the like, and still nearer ****** !1 What an assemblage to me, who know all their histories. It was as if the house had been divided between your public and your understood courtesans ;-but the intriguantes much outnumbered the regular mercenaries. On the other side were only Pauline and her mother, and, next box to her, three of inferior note. Now, where lay the difference between her and mamma, and Lady ** and daughter? except that the two last may enter Carleton and any other house, and the two first are limited to the opera and b- house. How I do delight in observing life as it really is !-and myself, after all, the worst of any. But no matter-I must avoid egotism, which, just now, would be no vanity. I have lately written a wild, rambling, unfinished rhapsody, called "The Devil's Drive," the notion of which I took from Porson's "Devil's Walk."" I. "These names are all left blank in the original" (Moore). 2. Richard Porson did not write The Devil's Walk, which was |