19–25 May 1828

A morning of business. Breakfasted with Dumergue and one or two friends. Dined by command with the Duchess of Kent. I was very kindly recognised by Prince Leopold. I was presented to the little Princess Victoria,—I hope they will change her name,—the heir apparent to the Crown as things now stand. How strange that so large and fine a family as that of his late Majesty should have died off and decayed into old age with so few descendants! Prince George of Cumberland is, they say, a fine boy about nine years old—a bit of a pickle, swears and romps like a brat that has been bred in a barrack yard. This little lady is educated with much care, and watched so closely by the Duchess and the principal governess, that no busy maid has a moment to whisper, "You are heir of England." I suspect if we could dissect the little head, we should find that some pigeon or other bird of the air had carried the matter. She is fair, like the Royal Family, but does not look as if she would be pretty. The Duchess herself is very pleasing and affable in her manners. I sat by Mr. Spring Rice, a very agreeable man. He is a great leader among the Pro-Catholics. I saw also Charles Wynn and his lady—and the evening, for a Court evening, went agreeably off. I am commanded for two days by Prince Leopold, but will send excuses.

I set out for Brighton this morning in a light coach, which performed the distance in six hours—otherwise the journey was uncomfortable. Three women, the very specimens of womankind,—I mean trumpery,—a child who was sick, but afterwards looked and smiled, and was the only thing like company. The road is pleasant enough till it gets into the Wealds of Sussex, a huge succession of green downs which sweep along the sea-coast for many miles. Brighton seems grown twice as large since 1815. It is a city of loiterers and invalids—a Vanity Pair for pipers, dancing of bears, and for the feats of Mr. Punch. I found all my family well excepting the poor pale Johnnie; and he is really a thing to break one's heart by looking at—yet he is better. The rest are in high kelter. My old friend Will Rose dined with us, also a Doctor Yates and his wife—the Esculapius of Brighton, who seems a sensible man. I was entertained with the empire he exerted over him as protector of his health. I was very happy to find myself at Sophia's quiet table, and am only sorry that I must quit her so soon.

This being a fine day, we made some visits in the morning, in the course of which I waited on Mrs. Davies, sister of Mrs. Charlotte Smith, and herself the author of the Peacock at Home, one of the prettiest and liveliest jeux d'esprit in our language. She is a fine stately old lady—not a bit of a literary person,—I mean having none of the affectation of it, but like a lady of considerable rank. I am glad I have seen her. Renewed my acquaintance with Lady Charlotte Hamilton, née Lady Charlotte Hume, and talked over some stories thirty years old at least. We then took a fly, as they call the light carriages, and drove as far as the Devil's Ditch. A rampart it is of great strength and depth, enclosing, I presume, the precincts of a British town that must have held 30,000 men at least. I could not discover where they got water. We got home at four, and dined at five, and smoked cigars till eight. Will Rose came in with his man Hinvaes, who is as much a piece of Rose as Trim was of Uncle Toby. We laughed over tales "both old and new" till ten o'clock came, and then broke up.

Left Brighton this morning with a heavy heart. Poor Johnnie looks so very poorly that I cannot but regard his case as desperate, and then God help the child's parents! Amen! We took the whole of one of the post-coaches, and so came rapidly to town, Sophia coming along with us about a new servant. This enabled me to dine with Mr. Adolphus, the celebrated barrister, the father to my young friend who wrote so like a gentleman on my matters. I met Mr. Gurney, Archdeacon Wrangham, and a lawyer or two besides. I may be partial, but the conversation of intelligent barristers amuses me more than that of other professional persons. There is more of real life in it, with which, in all its phases, people of business get so well acquainted. Mr. Adolphus is a man of varied information, and very amusing. He told me a gipsy told him of the success he should have in life, and how it would be endangered by his own heat of temper, alluding, I believe, to a quarrel betwixt him and a brother barrister.

I breakfasted with Chantrey, and met the celebrated Coke of Norfolk, a very pleasing man, who gave me some account of his plantations. I understand from him that, like every wise man, he planted land that would not let for 5s. per acre, but which now produces £3000 a year in wood. He talked of the trees which he had planted as being so thick that a man could not fathom them. Withers, he said, was never employed save upon one or two small jobs of about twenty acres on which every expense was bestowed with a view to early growth. So much for Withers. I shall have a rod in pickle for him if worth while. After sitting to Chantrey for the last time, I called on Lady Shelley, P.P.C., and was sorry to find her worse than she had been. Dined with Lady Stafford, where I met the two Lochs, John and James. The former gave me his promise for a cadetship to Allan Cunningham's son; I have a similar promise from Lord Melville, and thus I am in the situation in which I have been at Gladdies Wiel, where I have caught two trouts, one with the fly, the other with the bobber. I have landed both, and so I will now. Mr. Loch also promised me to get out Shortreed as a free mariner. Tom Grenville was at dinner.

This day we dined at Richmond Park with Lord Sidmouth. Before dinner his Lordship showed me letters which passed between the great Lord Chatham and Dr. Addington, Lord Sidmouth's [father]. There was much of that familiar friendship which arises, and must arise, between an invalid, the head of an invalid family, and their medical adviser, supposing the last to be a wise and well-bred man. The character of Lord Chatham's handwriting is strong and bold, and his expressions short and manly. There are intimations of his partiality for William, whose health seems to have been precarious during boyhood. He talks of William imitating him in all he did, and calling for ale because his father was recommended to drink it. "If I should smoke," he said, "William would instantly call for a pipe;" and, he wisely infers, "I must take care what I do." The letters of the late William Pitt are of great curiosity, but as, like all real letters of business, they only allude to matters with which his correspondent is well acquainted, and do not enter into details, they would require an ample commentary. I hope Lord Sidmouth will supply this, and have urged it as much as I can. I think, though I hate letters and abominate interference, I will write to him on this subject. I have bought a certain quantity of reprints from a bookseller in Chancery Lane, Pickering by name. I urged him to print the controversy between Greene and the Harveys. He wished me to write a third part to a fine edition of Cotton's Angler, for which I am quite incompetent. I met at Richmond my old and much esteemed friend Lord Stowell, looking very frail and even comatose. Quantum mutatus! He was one of the pleasantest men I ever knew. Respecting the letters, I picked up from those of Pitt that he was always extremely desirous of peace with France, and even reckoned upon it at a moment when he ought to have despaired. I suspect this false view of the state of France (for such it was), which induced the British Minister to look for peace when there was no chance of it, damped his ardour in maintaining the war. He wanted the lofty ideas of his father—you read it in his handwriting, great statesman as he was. I saw a letter or two of Burke's in which there is an épanchement du cœur not visible in those of Pitt, who writes like a Premier to his colleague. Burke was under the strange hallucination that his son, who predeceased him, was a man of greater talents than himself. On the contrary, he had little talent and no resolution. On moving some resolutions in favour of the Catholics, which were ill-received by the House of Commons, young Burke actually ran away, which an Orangeman compared to a cross-reading in the newspapers:—Yesterday the Catholic resolutions were moved, etc., but, the pistol missing fire, the villains ran off!

After a morning of letter-writing, leave-taking, papers destroying, and God knows what trumpery, Sophia and I set out for Hampton Court, carrying with us the following lions and lionesses—Samuel Rogers, Tom Moore, Wordsworth, with wife and daughter. We were very kindly and properly received by Walter and his wife, and a very pleasant party.