rate, into a summary appeal to the court of twelve paces. So 'I'll none
on 't,' but e'en remain single and solitary;--though I should like to
have somebody now and then to yawn with one.

"W. and, after him, * *, has stolen one of my buffooneries about Mde. de
Staël's Metaphysics and the Fog, and passed it, by speech and letter,
as their own. As Gibbet says, 'they are the most of a gentleman of any
on the road.' W. is in sad enmity with the Whigs about this Review of
Fox (if he _did_ review him);--all the epigrammatists and essayists are
at him. I hate _odds_, and wish he may beat them. As for me, by the
blessing of indifference, I have simplified my politics into an utter
detestation of all existing governments; and, as it is the shortest and
most agreeable and summary feeling imaginable, the first moment of an
universal republic would convert me into an advocate for single and
uncontradicted despotism. The fact is, riches are power, and poverty is
slavery all over the earth, and one sort of establishment is no better
nor worse for a _people_ than another. I shall adhere to my party,
because it would not be honourable to act otherwise; but, as to
_opinions_, I don't think politics _worth_ an _opinion_. _Conduct_ is
another thing:--if you begin with a party, go on with them. I have no
consistency, except in politics; and _that_ probably arises from my
indifference on the subject altogether."

* * * * *

I must here be permitted to interrupt, for a while, the progress of this
Journal,--which extends through some months of the succeeding year,--for
the purpose of noticing, without infringement of chronological order,
such parts of the poet's literary history and correspondence as belong
properly to the date of the year 1813.