are about to leave the world, we do not perceive how much it contains to excite our interest and admiration: the sunsets appear to me far lovelier now than

they were in other years; and the bee upon the

flower is now an object of curiosity to me, which it was not in my early days.

With the exception of some good lines, such

as,

"Hell in his heart, and Tyburn in his face,"*

Churchill's poetry is, to my thinking, but mediocre ; and for such poetry I have little toleration; though perhaps, when I recollect my own writings, I ought not to make the remark.

I am not sure that I do not prefer Wolcot (Peter Pindar) to Churchill.-Wolcot's Gipsyt is very

neat.

["A wandering gipsy, sirs, am I,

From Norwood, where we oft complain,
With many a tear and many a sigh,

Of blustering winds and rushing rain.

* Not inserted in Wolcot's Poet. Works, 5 vols.-ED.
†The Author.-ED.

No costly rooms or gay attire
Within our humble shed appear;,
No beds of down, or blazing fire,
At night our shivering limbs to cheer.

Alas, no friend comes near our cot!
The redbreasts only find the way,

Who give their all, a simple note,

At peep of morn and parting day.

But fortunes here I come to tell,—

Then yield me, gentle sir, your hand:-
Within these lines what thousands dwell,-

And, bless me, what a heap of land!

It surely, sir, must pleasing be

To hold such wealth in every line:

Try, pray, now try, if you can see

A little treasure lodg'd in mine."]

And there can hardly be a better line of its kind than this,

"Kill half a cow, and turn the rest to grass."

In company with my sister, I paid a visit to Gilbert Wakefield when he was in Dorchester Gaol.

* Complimentary Epistle to James Boswell, Esq.-ED.

His confinement was made as pleasant to him as possible; for he had nearly an acre of ground to walk about in. But, still, the sentence passed upon him was infamous: what rulers we had in those days! Wakefield gave Beloe some assistance in translat ing Aulus Gellius.

At a splendid party given by Lord Hampden to the Prince of Wales, &c., I saw Lady Hamilton go through all those "attitudes" which have been engraved; and her performance was very beautiful indeed. Her husband, Sir William, was present.

Lord Nelson was a remarkably kind-hearted man. I have seen him spin a teetotum with his one hand, a whole evening, for the amusement of some children. I heard him once during dinner utter many bitter complaints (which Lady Hamilton vainly attempted to check) of the way he had been treated at court that forenoon: the Queen had not condescended to take the slightest notice of him. In truth, Nelson was hated at court; they were jealous of his fame,

There was something very charming in Lady

Hamilton's openness of manner.. She showed me the neckcloth which Nelson had on when he died: of course, I could not help looking at it with extreme interest; and she threw her arms round my neck and kissed me. She was latterly in great want; and Lord Stowell never rested till he procured for her a small pension from government.

Parson Este* was well acquainted with Mrs. Robinson (the once celebrated Perdita), and said that Fox had the greatest difficulty in persuading the Prince of Wales to lend her some assistance when, towards the close of life, she was in very straitened circumstances. Este saw her funeral, which was attended by a single mourning coach.t

* See pp. 59, 60.

Poor Perdita had some poetic talent: and it was acknowledged by Coleridge, whose lines to her, "As late on Skiddaw's mount I lay supine," &c., are not to be found in the recent collections of his poems. See, at p. xlviii. of the Tributary Poems prefixed to Mrs. Robinson's Poetical Works, 3 vols., “A Stranger Minstrel. By S. T. Coleridge, Esq., written a few weeks before her death," and dated "Nov., 1800,"-ED.