Emma's eyes turned to me to know what in the world I could have to say;
and she burst into a violent fit of laughter, maugre her pale, serious
cheeks, when, with the greatest gravity, I replied that it depended, I
believed, upon boiled legs of mutton. This clenched our conversation;
and my gentleman, with a face half wise, half in scorn, troubled us with
no more conversation, scientific or philosophical, for the remainder of
the journey.

Ayrton was here yesterday, and as _learned_ to the full as my
fellow-traveller. What a pity that he will spoil a wit and a devilish
pleasant fellow (as he is) by wisdom! He talked on Music; and by having
read Hawkins and Burney recently I was enabled to talk of names, and
show more knowledge than he had suspected I possessed; and in the end he
begged me to shape my thoughts upon paper, which I did after he was
gone, and sent him "Free Thoughts on Some Eminent Composers."

"Some cry up Haydn, some Mozart,
Just as the whim bites. For my part,
I do not care a farthing candle
For either of them, or for Handel," etc.

Martin Burney [1] is as odd as ever. We had a dispute about the word
"heir," which I contended was pronounced like "air." He said that might
be in common parlance, or that we might so use it speaking of the
"Heir-at-Law," a comedy; but that in the law-courts it was necessary to
give it a full aspiration, and to say _Hayer_; he thought it might even
vitiate a cause if a counsel pronounced it otherwise. In conclusion, he
"would consult Serjeant Wilde," who gave it against him. Sometimes he
falleth into the water, sometimes into the fire. He came down here, and
insisted on reading Virgil's "Æneid" all through with me (which he did),