"I have burnt my _Roman_--as I did the first scenes and sketch of my
comedy--and, for aught I see, the pleasure of burning is quite as great
as that of printing. These two last would not have done. I ran into
realities more than ever; and some would have been recognised and others
guessed at.

"Redde the Ruminator--a collection of Essays, by a strange, but able,
old man (Sir E.B.), and a half-wild young one, author of a poem on the
Highlands, called 'Childe Alarique.' The word 'sensibility' (always my
aversion) occurs a thousand times in these Essays; and, it seems, is to
be an excuse for all kinds of discontent. This young man can know
nothing of life; and, if he cherishes the disposition which runs through
his papers, will become useless, and, perhaps, not even a poet, after
all, which he seems determined to be. God help him! no one should be a
rhymer who could be any thing better. And this is what annoys one, to
see Scott and Moore, and Campbell and Rogers, who might have all been
agents and leaders, now mere spectators. For, though they may have other
ostensible avocations, these last are reduced to a secondary
consideration. * *, too, frittering away his time among dowagers and
unmarried girls. If it advanced any _serious_ affair, it were some
excuse; but, with the unmarried, that is a hazardous speculation, and
tiresome enough, too; and, with the veterans, it is not much worth
trying, unless, perhaps, one in a thousand.

"If I had any views in this country, they would probably be
parliamentary. But I have no ambition; at least, if any, it would be
'aut Cæsar aut nihil.' My hopes are limited to the arrangement of my
affairs, and settling either in Italy or the East (rather the last), and
drinking deep of the languages and literature of both. Past events have
unnerved me; and all I can now do is to make life an amusement, and look