long as Sheridan, and outlived as much as poor Brinsley. What a wreck is
that man! and all from bad pilotage; for no one had ever better gales,
though now and then a little too squally. Poor dear Sherry! I shall
never forget the day he and Rogers and Moore and I passed together; when
_he_ talked, and _we_ listened, without one yawn, from six till one in
the morning.

"Got my seals * * * * * * Have again forgot a plaything for _ma petite
cousine_ Eliza; but I must send for it to-morrow. I hope Harry will
bring her to me. I sent Lord Holland the proofs of the last 'Giaour,'
and 'The Bride of Abydos.' He won't like the latter, and I don't think
that I shall long. It was written in four nights to distract my dreams
from * *. Were it not thus, it had never been composed; and had I not
done something at that time, I must have gone mad, by eating my own
heart,--bitter diet!--Hodgson likes it better than 'The Giaour,' but
nobody else will,--and he never liked the Fragment. I am sure, had it
not been for Murray, _that_ would never have been published, though the
circumstances which are the groundwork make it * * * heigh-ho!

"To-night I saw both the sisters of * *; my God! the youngest so like! I
thought I should have sprung across the house, and am so glad no one was
with me in Lady H.'s box. I hate those likenesses--the mock-bird, but
not the nightingale--so like as to remind, so different as to be
painful.[89] One quarrels equally with the points of resemblance and of
distinction.

[Footnote 89:

"Earth holds no other like to thee,
Or, if it doth, in vain for me: