tely become his friends, was commenced in the
Courier and Morning Post, and carried on through the greater part of the
months of February and March. The point selected by these writers, as a
ground of censure on the poet, was one which _now_, perhaps, even
themselves would agree to class among his claims to praise,--namely, the
atonement which he had endeavoured to make for the youthful violence of
his Satire by a measure of justice, amiable even in its overflowings, to
every one whom he conceived he had wronged.

Notwithstanding the careless tone in which, here and elsewhere, he
speaks of these assaults, it is evident that they annoyed him;--an
effect which, in reading them over now, we should be apt to wonder they
could produce, did we not recollect the property which Dryden attributes
to "small wits," in common with certain other small animals:--

"We scarce could know they live, but that they _bite_."

The following is a specimen of the terms in which these party scribes
could then speak of one of the masters of English song:--"They might
have slept in oblivion with Lord Carlisle's Dramas and Lord Byron's
Poems."--"Some certainly extol Lord Byron's Poem much, but most of the
best judges place his Lordship rather low in the list of our minor
poets."]

"Nine o'clock.

"Been to Hanson's on business. Saw Rogers, and had a note from Lady
Melbourne, who says, it is said I am 'much out of spirits.' I wonder if
I really am or not? I have certainly enough of 'that perilous stuff
which weighs upon the heart,' and it is better they should believe it to
be the result of these attacks than of the real cause; but--ay, ay,
always _but_, to the end of the chapter.

"Hobhouse has told me ten thousand anecdotes of Napoleon, all good and
true. My friend H. is the most entertaining of companions, and a fine
fellow to boot.

"Redde a little--wrote notes and letters, and am alone, which Locke
says, is bad company. 'Be not solitary, be not idle.'--Um!--the idleness
is troublesome; but I can't see so much to regret in the solitude. The
more I see of men, the less I like them. If I could but say so of women
too, all would be well. Why can't I? I am now six-and-twenty; my
passions have had enough to cool them; my affections more than enough to
wither them,--and yet--and yet--always _yet_ and _but_--'Excellent well,
you are a fishmonger--get thee to a nunnery.'--'They fool me to the top
of my bent.'

"Midnight.

"Began a l