honest Dan's theatre as full seemingly as it could hold. The heat
was dreadful, and Anne was so very unwell that she was obliged to be
carried into Terry's house,--a curious dwelling, no larger than a
squirrel's cage, which he has contrived to squeeze out of the vacant
spaces of the theatre, and which is accessible by a most complicated
combination of staircases and small passages. Here we had rare good
porter and oysters after the play, and found Anne much better. She had
attempted too much; indeed I myself was much fatigued.

_October_ 22.--This morning Drs. Gooch, Shaw, and Yates breakfasted, and
had a consultation about wee Johnnie. They give us great hopes that his
health will be established, but the seaside or the country seem
indispensable. Mr. Wilmot Horton,[372] Under Secretary of State, also
breakfasted. He is full of some new plan of relieving the poor's-rates
by encouraging emigration. But John Bull will think this savours of
Botany Bay. The attempt to look the poor's-rates in the face is
certainly meritorious.

Laboured in writing and marking extracts to be copied from breakfast to
dinner, with the exception of an hour spent in telling Johnnie the
history of his namesake, Gilpin.

Mr. William and Mrs. Lockhart dined with us. Tom Moore[373] and Sir
Thomas Lawrence came in the evening, which made a pleasant _soiree_.
Smoke my French--Egad, it is time to air some of my vocabulary. It is, I
find, cursedly musty.

_October_ 23.--Sam Rogers and Moore breakfasted here, and we were very
merry fellows. Moore seemed disposed to go to France with us. I visited
the Admiralty, and got Sir George Cockburn's journal, which is
valuable.[374] Also visited Lady Elizabeth and Sir Charles Stewart. My
heart warmed to the former, on account of the old Balcarres connection.
Sir Charles and she were very kind and communicative. I foresee I will
be embarrassed with more communications than I can well use or trust to,
coloured as they must be by the passions of those who make them. Thus I
have a statement from the Duchess d'Escars, to which the Bonapartists
would, I dare say, give no credit. If Talleyrand, for example, could be
communicative, he must have ten thousand reasons for perverting the
truth, and yet a person receiving a direct communication from him would
be almost barred from disputing it.

"Sing tantararara, rogues all."

We dined at the Residentiary-house with good Dr. Hughes,[375] Allan
Cunningham, Sir Thoma