t what remains on
earth that I like so well as a little society? I wrote not a line
to-day.

_August_ 9.--I finished the arrangement of the letters so as to put them
into Mr. Gordon's hands. It will be a great job done. But, in the
meanwhile, it interrupts my work sadly, for I kept busy till one o'clock
to-day with this idle man's labour. Still, however, it might have been
long enough ere I got a confidential person like Gordon to arrange these
confidential papers. They are all in his hands now. Walked after one.

_August_ 10.--This is a morning of fidgety, nervous confusion. I sought
successively my box of Bramah pens, my proof-sheets, and last, not least
anxiously, my spectacles. I am convinced I lost a full hour in these
various chases. I collected all my insubordinate movables at once, but
had scarce corrected the proof and written half-a-score of lines, than
enter Dalgleish, declaring the Blucher hour is come. The weather,
however, is rainy, and fitted for a day of pure work, but I was able
only to finish my task of three pages.

The death of the Premier is announced. Late George Canning, the witty,
the accomplished, the ambitious; he who had toiled thirty years, and
involved himself in the most harassing discussions to attain this dizzy
height; he who had held it for three months of intrigue and obloquy--and
now a heap of dust, and that is all. He was an early and familiar friend
of mine, through my intimacy with George Ellis. No man possessed a gayer
and more playful wit in society; no one, since Pitt's time, had more
commanding sarcasm in debate; in the House of Commons he was the terror
of that species of orators called the Yelpers. His lash fetched away
both skin and flesh, and would have penetrated the hide of a rhinoceros.
In his conduct as a statesman he had a great fault: he lent himself too
willingly to intrigue. Thus he got into his quarrel with Lord
Castlereagh,[20] and lost credit with the country for want of openness.
Thus too, he got involved with the Queen's party to such an extent that
it fettered him upon that memorable quarrel, and obliged him to butter
Sir Robert Wilson with dear friend, and gallant general, and so forth.
The last composition with the Whigs was a sacrifice of principle on both
sides. I have some reason to think they counted on getting rid of him in
two or three years. To me Canning was always personally most kind. I
saw, with pain, a great change in his health when I met him a