Rochefoucault for being always right! In him a lie were virtue,--or, at
least, a comfort to his readers.

"George Byron has not called to-day; I hope he will be an admiral, and,
perhaps, Lord Byron into the bargain. If he would but marry, I would
engage never to marry myself, or cut him out of the heirship. He would
be happier, and I should like nephews better than sons.

"I shall soon be six-and-twenty (January 22d, 1814). Is there any thing
in the future that can possibly console us for not being always
_twenty-five_?

"Oh Gioventu!
Oh Primavera! gioventu dell' anno.
Oh Gioventu! primavera della vita.

[Footnote 99: Two or three words are here scratched out in the
manuscript, but the import of the sentence evidently is that Mr. Hodgson
(to whom the passage refers) had been revealing to some friends the
secret of Lord Byron's kindness to him.]


"Sunday, December 5.

"Dallas's nephew (son to the American Attorney-general) is arrived in
this country, and tells Dallas that my rhymes are very popular in the
United States. These are the first tidings that have ever sounded like
_Fame_ to my ears--to be redde on the banks of the Ohio! The greatest
pleasure I ever derived, of this kind, was from an extract, in Cooke the
actor's life, from his Journal, stating that in the reading-room at