nt in passion and in softness (which
constitute the greatest charm in women), so that she excites more
of admiration than of interest; in conversation she is lively and
pleasant, without being very remarkable, for she has neither wit,
nor imagination, nor humour; her understanding is active rather
than strong, and her judgment is too often warped by prejudice to
be sound. She has a retentive memory and a restless mind,
together with a sort of intellectual arrangement, with which she
appears rather to have been gifted by nature than to have derived
it from the cultivation of her reasoning faculties.

[23] [Sarah Sophia, eldest daughter of John, tenth Earl of
Westmoreland, and heiress of Robert Child, Esq., of
Osterley Park, her maternal grandfather.]

I went from Middleton to Oatlands. The Duke was not there. We had
the Smiths, Worcesters, Alvanley, Stanhope, Rogers, Luttrell,
George Dawson, Lord Lauderdale, &c. Lord Erskine was ill, and
Lord Lauderdale was taking care of him. The house was very
uncomfortable, and the room I was in small, noisy, and inconvenient.

I came to London on Friday last. Parliament having met on the
Thursday, it is very full, and is filling more and more every
day. The Opposition expect to divide 180 on the Bank question;
they talk of re-establishing the dinners which they used to have
in Fox's time.

Rogers is in a nervous state about his poem, and trembles at the
reviewers.[24]

[24] [Rogers' poem entitled 'Human Life' was on the eve of
publication. The reviewers treated it more tenderly
than it deserved, as appears below.]

January 28th, 1819 {p.013}

I went to Gorhambury on the 24th to shoot. The Duke of York was
there. We should have had a brilliant _chasse_, but it rained. We
went out at three and killed 105 pheasants.

There has been some skirmishing in the House of Commons,
particularly the night before last, on Dr. Halloran's petition,
when the Opposition (Bennet _duce_) got completely beaten. Many
of the new members have spoken, but Mr. Lawson, a _soi-disant_
wit, and Sir R. Wilson have failed lamentably. It is odd enough
that Wilson made a reply to an attack which Cobbett had inserted
in one of his papers upon him. Cobbett said that he would make a
silly speech in Parliament and destroy himself, and it is just
what he did. The Opposition were very angry with Sir J. Coffin,
who, with the candour of a novice, had made himse