face flushed, and he seemed to feel inwardly excited. Doubtless, it was
the high vision of half his lifetime which he here relinquished. I
cannot question that he is sincere; but, of course, should the people
insist upon having him for President, he is too good a patriot to refuse.
I wonder whether he can have had any object in saying all this to me. He
might see that it would be perfectly natural for me to tell it to General
Pierce. But it is a very vulgar idea,--this of seeing craft and
subtlety, when there is a plain and honest aspect.


January 9th.--I dined at Mr. William Browne's (M. P.) last, evening with
a large party. The whole table and dessert service was of silver.
Speaking of Shakespeare, Mr. ------ said that the Duke of Somerset, who
is now nearly fourscore, told him that the father of John and Charles
Kemble had made all possible research into the events of Shakespeare's
life, and that he had found reason to believe that Shakespeare attended a
certain revel at Stratford, and, indulging too much in the conviviality
of the occasion, he tumbled into a ditch on his way home, and died there!
The Kemble patriarch was an aged man when he communicated this to the
Duke; and their ages, linked to each other; would extend back a good way;
scarcely to the beginning of the last century, however. If I mistake
not, it was from the traditions of Stratford that Kemble had learned the
above. I do not remember ever to have seen it in print,--which is most
singular.

Miss L---- has an English rather than an American aspect,--being of
stronger outline than most of our young ladies, although handsomer than
English women generally, extremely self-possessed and well poised without
affectation or assumption, but quietly conscious of rank, as much so as
if she were an Earl's daughter. In truth, she felt pretty much as an