enough in extent and proportion, are paltry in finishing. Instead of being lined with heart of oak, the palace of the British King is hung with paper, painted wainscot colour. There are some fine paintings and some droll ones; among the last are those of divers princes of the House of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, of which Queen Charlotte was descended. They are ill-coloured, orang-outang-looking figures, with black eyes and hook-noses, in old-fashioned uniforms.
We returned to a hasty dinner [in Pall Mall], and then hurried away to see honest Dan Terry’s house, called the Adelphi Theatre, where we saw the Pilot, from the American novel of that name. It is extremely popular, the dramatist having seized on the whole story, and turned the odious and ridiculous parts, assigned by the original author to the British, against the Yankees themselves. There is a quiet effrontery in this that is of a rare and peculiar character. The Americans were so much displeased, that they attempted a row — which rendered the piece doubly attractive to the seamen at Wapping, who came up and crowded the house night after night, to support the honour of the British flag. After all, one must deprecate whatever keeps up illwill betwixt America and the mother country; and we in particular should avoid awakening painful recollections. Our high situation enables us to contemn petty insults and to make advances towards cordiality. I was, however, glad to see honest Dan’s theatre as full seemingly as it could hold. The heat was dreadful, and Anne was so very unwell that she was obliged to be carried into Terry’s house, — a curious dwelling, no larger than a squirrel’s cage, which he has contrived to squeeze out of the vacant spaces of the theatre, and which is accessible by a most complicated combination of staircases and small passages. Here we had rare good porter and oysters after the play, and found Anne much better. She had attempted too much; indeed I myself was much fatigued.
October 22. — This morning Drs. Gooch, Shaw, and Yates breakfasted, and had a consultation about wee Johnnie. They give us great hopes that his health will be established, but the seaside or the country seem indispensable. Mr. Wilmot Horton, Under Secretary of State, also breakfasted. He is full of some new plan of relieving the poor’s-rates by encouraging emigration. But John Bull will think this savours of Botany Bay. The attempt to look the poor’s-rates in the face is certainly meritorious.
Laboured in writing and marking extracts to be copied from breakfast to dinner, with the exception of an hour spent in telling Johnnie the history of his namesake, Gilpin.
Mr. William and Mrs. Lockhart dined with us. Tom Moore and Sir Thomas Lawrence came in the evening, which made a pleasant soirée. Smoke my French — Egad, it is time to air some of my vocabulary. It is, I find, cursedly musty.
October 23. — Sam Rogers and Moore breakfasted here, and we were very merry fellows. Moore seemed disposed to go to France with us. I visited the Admiralty, and got Sir George Cockburn’s journal, which is valuable. Also visited Lady Elizabeth and Sir Charles Stewart. My heart warmed to the former, on account of the old Balcarres connection. Sir Charles and she were very kind and communicative. I foresee I will be embarrassed with more communications than I can well use or trust to, coloured as they must be by the passions of those who make them. Thus I have a statement from the Duchess d’Escars, to which the Bonapartists would, I dare say, give no credit. If Talleyrand, for example, could be communicative, he must have ten thousand reasons for perverting the truth, and yet a person receiving a direct communication from him would be almost barred from disputing it.
“Sing tantararara, rogues all.”
We dined at the Residentiary-house with good Dr. Hughes, Allan Cunningham, Sir Thomas Lawrence, and young Mr. Hughes. Thomas Pringle is returned from the Cape, and called in my absence. He might have done well there, could he have scoured his brain of politics, but he must needs publish a Whig journal at the Cape of Good Hope! He is a worthy creature, but conceited withal — hinc illæ lachrymæ. He brought me some antlers and a skin, in addition to others he had sent to Abbotsford four years since. Crofton Croker made me a present of a small box of curious Irish antiquities containing a gold fibula, etc. etc.
October 24 — Laboured in the morning. At breakfast Dr. Holland and Cohen, whom they now call Palgrave, a mutation of names which confused my recollections. Item, Moore. I worked at the Colonial Office pretty hard. Dined with Mr. Wilmot Horton and his beautiful wife, the original of the “She walks in Beauty,” etc., of poor Byron.
The conversation is seldom excellent among official people. So many topics are what Otaheitians call taboo. We hunted down a pun or two, which were turned out, like the stag at the Epping Hunt, for the pursuit of all and sundry. Came home early, and was in bed by eleven.
October 25. — Good Mr. Wilson and his wife at breakfast; also Sir Thomas Lawrence. Locker came in afterwards, and made a proposal to me to give up his intended Life of George III. in my favour on cause shown. I declined the proposal, not being of opinion that my genius lies that way, and not relishing hunting in couples. Afterwards went to the Colonial Office, and had Robert Hay’s assistance in my inquiries; then to the French Ambassador for my passports. Picked up Sotheby, who endeavoured to saddle me for a review of his polyglot Virgil. I fear I shall scarce convince him that I know nothing of the Latin lingo. Sir R.H. Inglis, Richard Sharp, and other friends called. We dined at Miss Dumergue’s, and spent a part of our soirée at Lydia White’s. Tomorrow,
“For France, for France, for it is more than need.”
[Calais,] October 26. — Up at five, and in the packet by six. A fine passage — save at the conclusion, while we lay on and off the harbour of Calais. But the tossing made no impression on my companion or me; we ate and drank like dragons the whole way, and were able to manage a good supper and best part of a bottle of Chablis, at the classic Dessein’s, who received us with much courtesy.
October 27. — Custom House, etc., detained us till near ten o’clock, so we had time to walk on the Boulevards, and to see the fortifications, which must be very strong, all the country round being flat and marshy. Lost, as all know, by the bloody papist bitch (one must be vernacular when on French ground) Queen Mary, of red-hot memory. I would rather she had burned a score more of bishops. If she had kept it, her sister Bess would sooner have parted with her virginity. Charles I. had no temptation to part with it — it might, indeed, have been shuffled out of our hands during the Civil wars, but Noll would have as soon let monsieur draw one of his grinders; then Charles II. would hardly have dared to sell such an old possession, as he did Dunkirk; and after that the French had little chance till the Revolution. Even then, I think, we could have held a place that could be supplied from our own element, the sea. Cui bono? None, I think, but to plague the rogues. — We dined at Cormont, and being stopped by Mr. Canning having taken up all the posthorses, could only reach Montreuil that night. I should have liked to have seen some more of this place, which is fortified; and as it stands on an elevated and rocky site must present some fine points. But as we came in late and left early, I can only bear witness to good treatment, good supper, good vin de Barsac, and excellent beds.
October 28. — Breakfasted at Abbeville, and saw a very handsome Gothic church, and reached Grandvilliers at night. The house is but secondrate, though lauded by various English travellers for the moderation of its charges, as was recorded in a book presented to us by the landlady. There is no great patriotism in publishing that a traveller thinks the bills moderate; it serves usually as an intimation to mine host or hostess that John Bull will bear a little more squeezing. I gave my attestation too, however, for the charges of the good lady resembled those elsewhere; and her anxiety to please was extreme. Folks must be harder-hearted than I am to resist the empressement, which may, indeed, be venal, yet has in its expression a touch of cordiality.
[Paris,] October 29. — Breakfasted at Beauvais, and saw its magnificent cathedral — unfinished it has been left, and unfinished it will remain, of course, — the fashion of cathedrals being passed away. But even what exists
