stare, and gain a
new march ahead of them all!!! Well, something we still will do.

"Liberty's in every blow;
Let us do or die!"

Poor Rob Burns! to tack thy fine strains of sublime patriotism! Better
take Tristram Shandy's vein. Hand me my cap and bells there. So now, I
am equipped. I open my raree-show with

Ma'am, will you walk in, and fal de ral diddle?
And, sir, will you stalk in, and fal de ral diddle?
And, miss, will you pop in, and fal de ral diddle?
And, master, pray hop in, and fal de ral diddle?

Query--How long is it since I heard that strain of dulcet mood, and
where or how came I to pick it up? It is not mine, "though by your
smiling you seem to say so."[365] Here is a proper morning's work! But I
am childish with seeing them all well and happy here; and as I can
neither whistle nor sing, I must let the giddy humour run to waste on
paper.

Sallied forth in the morning; bought a hat. Met S[ir] W[illiam]
K[nighton],[366] from whose discourse I guess that _Malachi_ has done me
no prejudice in a certain quarter; with more indications of the times,
which I need not set down. Sallied again after breakfast, and visited
the Piccadilly ladies.[367] Saw Rogers and Richard Sharp, also good Dr.
and Mrs. Hughes, also the Duchess of Buckingham, and Lady Charlotte
Bury, with a most beautiful little girl. [Owen] Rees breakfasted, and
agreed I should have what the Frenchman has offered for the advantage of
translating _Napoleon_, which, being a hundred guineas, will help my
expenses to town and down again.

_October_ 19.--I rose at my usual time, but could not write; so read
Southey's _History of the Peninsular War_. It is very good
indeed,--honest English principle in every line; but there are many
prejudices, and there is a tendency to augment a work already too long
by saying all that can be said of the history of ancient times
appertaining to every place mentioned. What care we whether Saragossa be
derived from Caesarea Augusta? Could he have proved it to be Numantium,
there would have been a concatenation accordingly.[368]

Breakfasted at Rogers' with Sir Thomas Lawrence; Luttrell, the great
London wit;[369] Richard Sharp, etc. Sam made us merry with an account
of some part of Rose's _Ariosto_; proposed that the Italian should be
printed on the other side for the sake of assisting the indolent reader
to understand the English; and complained of his using more than once
the phrase of