lat country, and Dover Cliff is at least lofty enough to have
suggested the exaggerated features to his fancy. At all events, it has
maintained its reputation better than the Tarpeian Rock;--no man could
leap from it and live.

Left Dover after a hot luncheon about four o'clock, and reached London
at half-past three in the morning. So adieu to _la belle France_, and
welcome merry England.[400]

[_Pall Mall_,] _November_ 10.--Ere I leave _la belle France_, however,
it is fit I should express my gratitude for the unwontedly kind
reception which I met with at all hands. It would be an unworthy piece
of affectation did I not allow that I have been pleased--highly
pleased--to find a species of literature intended only for my own
country has met such an extensive and favourable reception in a foreign
land where there was so much _a priori_ to oppose its progress.

For my work I think I have done a good deal; but, above all, I have been
confirmed strongly in the impressions I had previously formed of the
character of Nap., and may attempt to draw him with a firmer hand.

The succession of new people and unusual incidents has had a favourable
effect [on my mind], which was becoming rutted like an ill-kept highway.
My thoughts have for some time flowed in another and pleasanter channel
than through the melancholy course into which my solitary and deprived
state had long driven them, and which gave often pain to be endured
without complaint, and without sympathy. "For this relief," as Francisco
says in Hamlet, "much thanks."

To-day I visited the public offices, and prosecuted my researches. Left
inquiries for the Duke of York, who has recovered from a most desperate
state. His legs had been threatened with mortification; but he was saved
by a critical discharge; also visited the Duke of Wellington, Lord
Melville, and others, besides the ladies in Piccadilly. Dined and spent
the evening quietly in Pall Mall.

_November_ 11.--Croker came to breakfast, and we were soon after joined
by Theodore Hook, _alias_ "John Bull"[401]; he has got as fat as the
actual monarch of the herd. Lockhart sat still with us, and we had, as
Gil Blas says, a delicious morning, spent in abusing our neighbours, at
which my three neighbours are no novices any more than I am myself,
though (like Puss in Boots, who only caught mice for his amusement) I
am only a chamber counsel in matters of scandal. The fact is, I have
refrained, as much as human frail