.
Lancashire. Acted as representative in the booth half the day.
Results of election excellent. _5th._--Again at the booths. A great
victory here. _6th._--Wrote to Manning on the death of his wife.
_9th._--_Manchester._ Public dinner at 6; lasted till near 12.
Music excellent. Spoke 11/2 hours, I am told, _proh pudor!_[75]

Back at Fasque, only a day too late for the Twelfth, he found the sport
bad and he shot badly, but he enjoyed the healthful walks on the hill.
His employments were curiously mixed. '_Sept. 8th._--In the bog for
snipe with Sir J. Mackenzie. Read _Timaeus_. Began Byron's Life. My eyes
refused progress. Verses. _15th._--Snipe-shooting with F. in the bog.
Began _Critias_. _22nd._--_Haddo._ Otter-hunting, _senz esito_. Finished
Plato's _Laws_. Hunting too in the library.' The mental dispersion of
country-house visiting never affects either multifarious reading or
multifarious writing. Spanish grammar, _Don Quixote_ in the original,
Crabbe, _Don Juan_, alternate with Augustine _de peccatorum remissione_
or _de utilitate Credendi_ ('beautiful and useful'). He works at an
essay of his own upon Justification, at adversaria on Aristotle's
_Ethics_, at another essay upon Rationalism, and to save his eyes,
spins verse enough to fill a decent volume of a hundred and fifty pages.
He makes a circuit of calls upon the tenants, taking a farming lecture
from one, praying by the sick-bed of another.

BUSINESS WITH WELLINGTON

In November he was again in London to be sworn of the new parliament,
and at the end of the month he had for the first time an interview on
business with the Duke of Wellington--of interest as the collocation of
two famous names. 'The immediate subject was the Cape of Good Hope. His
reception of me was plain but kind. He came to the door of his room.
"Will you come in? How do you do? I am glad to see you." We spoke a
little of the Cape. He said with regard to the war--and with sufficient
modesty--that he was pretty well aware of the operations that had taken
place in it, having been at the Cape, and being in some degree able to
judge of those matters. He said, "I suppose it is there as everywhere
else, as we had it last night about Ireland and the House of Lords. They
won't use the law, as it is in Canada, as it is in the West Indies. They
excite insurrection everywhere (I, however, put in an apology for them
in the West Indies), they _want to pla