certain sense of doubt and sorrow-a fear of what is to come-a doubt of what is a retrospect to the past, leading to a prognostication of the future. (The best of Prophets of the Future is the Past.) Why is this? or these?-1 know not, except that on a pinnacle we are most susceptible of giddiness, and that we never fear falling except from a precipice-the higher, the more awful, and the more sublime; and, therefore, I am not sure that fear is not a pleasurable sensation; at least, Hope is; and what Hope is there without a deep leaven of Fear? and what sensation is so delightful as Hope? and, if it were not for Hope, where would the Future be ?-in hell. It is useless to say where the Present is, for most of us know; and as for the Past, what predominates in memory?-Hope baffled. Ergo, in all human affairs, it is Hope-Hope-Hope. I allow sixteen minutes, though I never counted them, to any given or supposed possession. From whatever place we commence, we know where it all must end. And yet, what good is there in knowing it? It does not make men better or wiser. During the greatest horrors of the greatest plagues (Athens and Florence, for example-see Thucydides and Machiavelli), men were more cruel and profligate than ever. It is all a mystery. I feel most things, but I know nothing, except

"Thought for a speech of Lucifer, in the tragedy of Cain:-
"Were Death an evil, would I let thee live?
Fool! live as I live-as thy father lives,
And thy son's sons shall live for evermore.

"Past midnight. One o' the clock. "I have been reading W. F. S** (brother to the other of the name) till now, and I can make out nothing. He evidently shows a great power of words, but there is nothing to be taken hold of. He is like Hazlitt, in English, who talks pimples-a red and white corruption rising up (in little imitation of mountains upon maps), but containing nothing, and discharging nothing, except their own humours.

"I dislike him the worse (that is, S**), because he always seems upon the verge of meaning; and, lo, he goes down like sunset, or melts like a rainbow, leaving a rather rich confusion,-to which, however, the above comparisons do too much honour.

"Continuing to read Mr. F. S**. He is not such a fool as I took him for, that is to say, when he speaks of the North. But still he speaks of things all over the world with a kind of authority that a philosopher would disdain, and a man of common sense, feeling, and knowledge of his own ignorance, would be ashamed of. The man is evidently wanting to make an impression, like his brother, or like George in the Vicar of Wakefield, who found out that all the good things had been said already on the right side, and therefore 'dressed up some paradoxes' upon the wrong side-ingenious, but false, as he

Thus marked, with impatient strokes of the pen, by himself in the original. VOL. II-T

himself says--to which the learned world said nothing, nothing at all, sir.' The 'learned world,' however, has said something to the brothers S

"It is high time to think of something clse. What they say of the antiquities of the North is best.

January 29th, 1821. "Yesterday the woman of ninety-five years of age was with me. She said her eldest son (if now alive) would have been seventy. She is thin-short, but active-hears, and sees, and talks incessantly. Several teeth left-all in the lower jaw, and single front teeth. She is very deeply wrinkled, and has a sort of scattered gray beard over her chin, at least as long as my mustachios. Her head, in fact, resembles the drawing in crayons of Pope the poet's mother, which is in some editions of his works.

"I forgot to ask her if she remembered Alberoni (legate here), but will ask her next time. Gave her a louis-ordered her a new suit of clothes, and put her upon a weekly pension. Till now, she had worked at gathering wood and pine-nuts in the forest,-pretty work at ninety-five years old! She had a dozen children, of whom some are alive. Her name is Maria Montanari.

"Met a company of the sect (a kind of Liberal Club) called the 'Americani' in the forest, all armed, and singing, with all their might, in Romagnuole-Sem tutti soldat' per la liberta' ('we are all soldiers for liberty'). They cheered me as I passed-I returned their salute, and rode on. This may show the spirit of Italy at present.

"My to-day's journal consists of what I omitted yesterday. Today was much as usual. Have rather a better opinion of the writings of the Schlegels than I had four-and-twenty hours ago; and will amend it still farther, if possible.

They say that the Piedmontese have at length risen-ça ira! "Read S**. Of Dante he says that at no time has the greatest and most national of all Italian poets ever been much the favourite of his countrymen.' 'Tis false! There have been more editors and commentators (and imitators, ultimately) of Dante than of all their poets put together. Not a favourite! Why, they talk Dante-write Dante --and think and dream Dante at this moment (1821) to an excess, which would be ridiculous, but that he deserves it.

"In the same style this German talks of gondolas on the Arno-a precious fellow to dare to speak of Italy!

"He says also that Dante's chief defect is a want, in a word, of gentle feelings. Of gentle feelings!--and Francesca of Riminiand the father's feelings in Ugolino--and Beatrice-and 'La Pia? Why, there is a gentleness in Dante beyond all gentleness, when he is tender. It is true that, treating of the Christian Hades, or Hell, there is not much scope or site for gentleness--but who but Dante could have introduced any gentleness' at all into Hell? Is there any in Milton's? No-and Dante's Heaven is all love, and glory, and majesty.

* 1 o'clock.

"I have found out, however, where the German is right-it is about the Vicar of Wakefield. Of all romances in miniature (and, perhaps, this is the best shape in which romance can appear), the Vicar of Wakefield is, I think, the most exquisite.' He thinks!--he might be

sure.

But it is very well for a S**. I feel sleepy, and may as well get me to bed. To-morrow there will be fine weather.

'Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay.'

"January 30th, 1821. "The Count P. G. this evening (by commission from the Ci.) transmitted to me the new words for the next six months. and

The new sacred word is * -the reply -the rejoinder
The former word (now changed) was -there is also

Things seem fast coming to a crisis-ça ira!

"We talked over various matters of moment and movement. These I omit;-if they come to any thing, they will speak for themselves. After these, we spoke of Kosciusko. Count R. G. told me that he has seen the Polish officers in the Italian war burst into tears on hearing his name.

"Something must be up in Piedmont-all the letters and papers are stopped. Nobody knows any thing, and the Germans are concentrating near Mantua. Of the decision of Leybach, nothing is known. This state of things cannot last long. The ferment in men's minds at present cannot be conceived without seeing it.

"January 31st, 1821.

"For several days I have not written any thing except a few answers to letters. In momentary expectation of an explosion of some kind, it is not easy to settle down to the desk for the higher kinds of composition. I could do it, to be sure, for, last summer, I wrote my drama in the very bustle of Madame la Contesse G.'s divorce, and all its process of accompaniments. At the same time, I also had the news of the loss of an important lawsuit in England. But these were only private and personal business; the present is of a different nature.

"I suppose it is this, but have some suspicion that it may be laziness, which prevents me from writing; especially as Rochefoucault says that laziness often masters them all-speaking of the passions. If this were true, it could hardly be said that idleness is the root of all evil,' since this is supposed to spring from the passions only: ergo, that which masters all the passions (laziness, to wit) would in so much be a good. Who knows?

"Midnight.

"I have been reading Grimm's Correspondence. He repeats frequently, in speaking of a poet, or of a man of genius in any department, even in music (Gretry, for instance), that he must have une ame qui se tourmente, un esprit violent. How far this may be true, I know not; but if it were, I should be a poet per eccellenza;' for I have always had une ame,' which not only tormented itself but every body else in contact with it; and an 'esprit violent,' which has almost left me without any esprit' at all. As to defining what a poet should be, it is not worth while, for what are they worth? what have they done?

"Grimm, however, is an excellent critic and literary historian.

+ In the original "MS. these watch-words aro blotted over so as to be illegible.

His Correspondence forms the annals of the literary part of that age of France, with much of her politics, and still more of her way of life.' He is as valuable, and far more entertaining than Muratori or Tiraboschi-I had almost said, than Guingené-but there we should pause. However, 't is a great man in its line. "Monsieur St. Lambert has

Et lorsqu'à ses regards la lumière est ravie,
Il n'a plus, en mourant, à perdre que la vie.'

This is, word for word, Thomson's

And dying, all we can resign is breath,'

without the smallest acknowledgment from the Lorrainer of a poet. M. St. Lambert is dead as a man, and (for any thing I know to the contrary) damned as a poet, by this time. However, his Seasons have good things, and, it may be, some of his own.

"February 2d, 1821. "I have been considering what can be the reason why I always wake at a certain hour in the morning, and always in very bad spirits-I may say, in actual despair and despondency, in all respects --even of that which pleased me over night. In about an hour or two, this goes off, and I compose either to sleep again, or, at least, to quiet. In England, five years ago, I had the same kind of hypochondria, but accompanied with so violent a thirst that I have drank as many as fifteen bottles of soda-water in one night, after going to bed, and been still thirsty-calculating, however, some lost from the bursting out and effervescence and overflowing of the soda-water, in drawing the corks, or striking off the necks of the bottles from mere thirsty impatience. At present, I have not the thirst; but the depres sion of spirits is no less violent.

"I read in Edgeworth's Memoirs of something similar (except that his thirst expended itself on small beer) in the case of Sir F. B. Delaval; -but then he was, at least, twenty years older. What is it?-liver? In England, Le Man (the apothecary) cured me of the thirst in three days, and it had lasted as many years. I suppose that it is all hypochondria.

"What I feel most growing upon me are laziness and a disrelish more powerful than indifference. If I rouse, it is into fury. I presume that I shall end (if not earlier by accident, or some such termination) like Swift- dying at top. I confess I do not contemplate this with so much horror as he apparently did for some years before it happened. But Swift had hardly begun life at the very period (thirty. three) when I feel quite an old sort of feel.

"Oh! there is an organ playing in the street-a waltz, too! I must leave off to listen. They are playing a waltz, which I have heard ten thousand times at the balls in London, between 1812 and 1815. Music is a strange thing.*

In this little incident of the music in the streets thus touching so suddenly upon the nerve of memory, and calling away his mind from its dark bodings to a recollection of years and scenes the happiest, perhaps, of his whole life, there is something that appears to me peculiarly affecting.

"February 5th, 1821. "At last, 'the kiln 's in a low. The Germans are ordered to march, and Italy is, for the ten thousandth time, to become a field of battle. Last night the news came.

"This afternoon, Count P. G. came to me to consult upon divers matters. We rode out together. They have sent off to the C. for orders. To-morrow the decision ought to arrive, and then something will be done. Returned-dined-read-went out-talked over matters. Made a purchase of some arms for the new enrolled Americani, who are all on tiptoe to march. Gave orders for some harness and portmanteaus necessary for the horses.

"Read some of Bowles's dispute about Pope, with all the replies and rejoinders. Perceive that my name has been lugged into the controversy, but have not time to state what I know of the subject. On some piping day of peace' it is probable that I may resume it.

"February 9th, 1821.

"Before dinner wrote a little; also, before I rode out, Count P. G. called upon me, to let me know the result of the meeting of the Ci, at F. and at B. ** returned late last night. Every thing was combined under the idea that the Barbarians would pass the Po on the 15th inst. Instead of this, from some previous information or otherwise, they have hastened their march and actually passed two days ago; so that all that can be done at present in Romagna is, to stand on the alert and wait for the advance of the Neapolitans. Every thing was ready, and the Neapolitans had sent on their own instructions and intentions, all calculated for the tenth and eleventh, on which days a general rising was to take place, under the supposition that the Barbarians could not advance before the 15th.

"As it is, they have but fifty or sixty thousand troops, a number with which they might as well attempt to conquer the world as secure Italy in its present state. The artillery marches last, and alone, and there is an idea of an attempt to cut part of them off. All this will much depend upon the first steps of the Neapolitans. Here, the public spirit is excellent, provided it be kept up. This will be seen by the event.

"It is probable that Italy will be delivered from the Barbarians if the Neapolitans will but stand firm, and are united among themselves. Here they appear so

"February 10th, 1821.

"Day passed as usual-nothing new. Barbarians still in marchnot well equipped, and, of course, not well received on their route. There is some talk of a commotion at Paris.

"Rode out between four and six-finished my letter to Murray on Bowles's pamphlets-added postscript. Passed the evening as usual -out till eleven-and subsequently at home.

"February 11th, 1821.

"Wrote had a copy taken of an extract from Petrarch's Letters, with reference to the conspiracy of the Doge, M. Faliero, containing the poet's opinon of the matter. Heard a heavy firing of cannon towards Comacchio-the Barbarians rejoicing for their principal pig's birthday, which is to-morrow-or Saint day-I forget which. Received a ticket for the first ball to-morrow. Shall not go to the first, but intend going to the second, as also to the Veglioni.