mulus proceeds from reading Scott's
Diary--which he began very late in life and in consequence of
reading Byron's--not because I fancy I can write a diary as
amusing as Scott's or Byron's, but because I am struck by the
excessive pleasure which Scott appeared to derive from writing
his journal, and I am (and this is the principal cause) struck
with the important use to which the habit may be turned. The
habit of recording is first of all likely to generate a desire to
have something of some interest to record; it will lead to habits
of reflexion and to trains of thought, the pursuit of which may
be pleasing and profitable; it will exercise the memory and
sharpen the understanding generally; and though the thoughts may
not be very profound, nor the remarks very lively or ingenious,
nor the narrative of exceeding interest, still the exercise is, I
think, calculated to make the writer wiser, and perhaps better.
If I do this I shall read over all I write long before anyone
else will have an opportunity of doing so, and I am not likely to
be over-indulgent if I find myself a bore.

Yesterday morning I left town, slept at Newmarket, saw the
horses, rode out on the Warren Hill, and came here to dinner,
where I find twenty-two people--the Duke of Wellington and Lord
Aberdeen, the Salisburys, Wiltons, and a mob of fine people; very
miserable representatives of old Lord Burleigh, the two
insignificant-looking Marquesses, who are his lineal descendants,
and who display no more of his brains than they do of his beard.
The Duke of Wellington is in great force, talked last night of
Canada, and said he thought the first operations had been a
failure, and he judged so because the troops could neither take
the rebel chief, nor hold their ground, nor return by any other
road than that by which they came; that if Colborne could hold
Montreal during the winter it would do very well, but he was not
sure that he would be able to do so; that the Government ought to
exhibit to the world their determination to put this revolt down,
and that to do so they must seal the St. Lawrence[19] so as to
prevent the ingress of foreigners, who would flock to Canada for
employment against us; that the Queen could not blockade her own
ports, so that they must apply to Parliament for power to effect
this, and they ought to bring in a Bill forthwith for the
purpose. This morning he got a letter (from a man he did not
know) enclosing the latest news, which h