7 June 1875 – 13 June 1875

With Carlyle and Dr. John Carlyle to Hyde Park Corner. Ruskin's pamphlet on the Royal Academy — ' more coherent and reasonable than some he has written. ' I never was at a Royal Academy Exhibition. I was taken in once to the Hall to see a bust of myself — a wretched, absurd thing, — and should have been glad at any time to hear of its having been dragged out by a rope round its neck and pounded into lime-dust.' He spoke of a debate long ago at the London Library about the appointment of a Librarian. C. was for one man, Gladstone for a certain Italian. C. said : ' I discovered then that Gladstone had the art of speaking. He and I were like Valentine and Orson. I laid about me with a rough club, he got up in shining armour and drew his sword. But all in vain, too ; by no sleight of fence could he carry his point. I ' The London Library is choked with foolish books.' 7«/y 6.— Thomas Campbell. C, a youth' at Edinburgh University, was greatly struck by Campbell's lyrics — especially ' The Battle of the Baltic ' and ' Lochiel ' ; and when coming to London procured an introduction to the Poet. ' I found him one day in his house somewhere near the Edgeware Road, and was much disappointed ; — a little man in a black scratch wig, luminous eyes, but unkind looking, with a belli- gerent expression. He was unhappy and snappish, — thought I wanted something of him in the way of magazine work or literary introductions, — which I did not at all ; and I soon took my leave.'