Athens with a bomb, and be d----d to him! Waxed sleepy--just come
home--must go to bed, and am engaged to meet Sheridan to-morrow at
Rogers's.

"Queer ceremony that same of marriage--saw many abroad, Greek and
Catholic--one, at _home_, many years ago. There be some strange phrases
in the prologue (the exhortation), which made me turn away, not to laugh
in the face of the surpliceman. Made one blunder, when I joined the
hands of the happy--rammed their left hands, by mistake, into one
another. Corrected it--bustled back to the altar-rail, and said 'Amen.'
Portsmouth responded as if he had got the whole by heart; and, if any
thing, was rather before the priest. It is now midnight, and * * *.


"March 10. Thor's Day.

"On Tuesday dined with Rogers,--Mackintosh, Sheridan, Sharpe,--much
talk, and good,--all, except my own little prattlement. Much of old
times--Horne Tooke--the Trials--evidence of Sheridan, and anecdotes of
those times, when _I_, alas! was an infant. If I had been a man, I would
have made an English Lord Edward Fitzgerald.

"Set down Sheridan at Brookes's,--where, by the by, he could not have
well set down himself, as he and I were the only drinkers. Sherry means
to stand for Westminster, as Cochrane (the stock-jobbing hoaxer) must
vacate. Brougham is a candidate. I fear for poor dear Sherry. Both have
talents of the highest order, but the youngster has _yet_ a character.
We shall see, if he lives to Sherry's age, how he will pass over the
redhot ploughshares of public life. I don't know why, but I hate to see
the _old_ ones lose; particularly Sheridan, notwithstanding all his