have another Middlesex election, which is very unpleasant to me, who
hate mobs so near as Brentford. Sergeant Glynn, Wilkes's counsel, is the
candidate, and I suppose the only one in the present humour of the
people, who will care to have his brains dashed out, in order to sit in
Parliament. In truth, this enthusiasm is confined to the very mob or
little higher, and does not extend beyond the County. All other riots
are ceased, except the little civil war between the sailors and
coal-heavers, in which two or three lives are lost every week.

[Footnote 1: "_The_ 45" here serves for the Scotch rebellion of 1745,
and for No. 45 of the _North Briton_.]

What is most disagreeable, even the Emperor of Morocco has taken courage
on these tumults, and has dared to mutiny for increase of wages, like
our journeymen tailors. France is pert too, and gives herself airs in
the Mediterranean. Our Paolists were violent for support of Corsica, but
I think they are a little startled on a report that the hero Paoli is
like other patriots, and is gone to Versailles, for a peerage and
pension. I was told to-day that at London there are murmurs of a war. I
shall be sorry if it prove so. Deaths! suspense, say victory;--how end
all our victories? In debts and a wretched peace! Mad world, in the
individual or the aggregate!

Well! say I to myself, and what is all this to me? Have not I done with
that world? Am not I here at peace, unconnected with Courts and
Ministries, and indifferent who is Minister? What is a war in Europe to
me more than a war between the Turkish and Persian Emperors? True; yet
self-love makes one love the nation one belongs to, and vanity makes one
wish to have that nation glorious. Well! I have seen it so; I have seen
its conquests spread farther than Roman eagles thought there was land. I