people to lie, to make us their friend:--that is their concern.

"* * is, I hear, thriving on the repute of a pun which was mine (at
Mackintosh's dinner some time back), on Ward, who was asking 'how much
it would take to _re-whig_ him?' I answered that, probably, 'he must
first, before he was _re-whigged_, be re-_warded_.' This foolish
quibble, before the Staël and Mackintosh, and a number of
conversationers, has been mouthed about, and at last settled on the head
of * *, where long may it remain!

"George[97] is returned from afloat to get a new ship. He looks thin,
but better than I expected. I like George much more than most people
like their heirs. He is a fine fellow, and every inch a sailor. I would
do any thing, _but apostatise_, to get him on in his profession.

"Lewis called. It is a good and good-humoured man, but pestilently
prolix and paradoxical and _personal_. If he would but talk half, and
reduce his visits to an hour, he would add to his popularity. As an
author he is very good, and his vanity is _ouverte_, like Erskine's, and
yet not offending.

"Yesterday, a very pretty letter from Annabella[98], which I answered.
What an odd situation and friendship is ours!--without one spark of love
on either side, and produced by circumstances which in general lead to
coldness on one side, and aversion on the other. She is a very superior
woman, and very little spoiled, which is strange in an heiress--girl of
twenty--a peeress that is to be, in her own right--an only child, and a
_savante_, who has always had her own way. She is a poetess--a
mathematician--a metaphysician, and yet, withal, very kind, generous,
and gentle, with very little pretension. Any other head would be turned