I told him that I had been reading his character in the Public Advertiser. The writer says that his figure is squalid and disagreeable. I told him that my opinion coincided with half of that account, that he was undoubtedly squalid, but if by his figure was meant, as in French, his countenance, it was not a true picture. He said he never cared what was said of his person. If he was represented ugly, and was not so, those who knew him would do him justice, and he did not care for what he passed in that respect with those who did not. The qu'en dira-t-on? he certainly holds very cheap, but he did (not?) explain to me exactly to what extent proceeded his indifference towards it. I then went home. To-day we have a late day in the House, but I shall go and dine first at Lord Ashburnham's in the King's Road, and to-morrow to my villa at Streatham. I have bought Johnson's Lives of the Poets,(173) and repent of it already; but I have read but one, which is Prior's. There are few anecdotes, and those not well authenticated; his criticisms on his poems, false and absurd, and the prettiest things which he has wrote passed over in silence. I told Lord Loughborough(174) what I thought of it, and he had made the same remarks. But he says that I had begun with the life the worst wrote of them all. Charles was yesterday very abusive upon Johns(t)on.(175) Lord N(orth) said in his reply that the gentleman was at a great distance; that if he had been on the spot, he would have given him as good an answer then as he had done on other occasions. We shall sit, I believe, till about the 11th of next month. John says, in regard to the East India business, we are now all afloat. It is a recommencer. I should, if I was the Minister, put (it?) into his hands for dispatch. Mr. Raikes has sent to me this morning to know how George does. I sent him word that he was very well, that I heard from him, and that he had particularly desired to be remembered to him. (173) The first hvraison was published in 1779; Johnson completed the work in 1781. (174) Alexander Wedderburn (1733-1805). He was appointed Solicitor-General in 1771 and Attorney-General in 1778. He was created a peer as Lord Loughborough on his appointment as Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. In 1793 he reached the Woolsack, and in 1801 was created Earl of Rosslyn. Beginning political life as a Tory, he presently became a Whig and an opponent to Lord North; then he took office under him. A member of the Coalition Cabinet of Fox and North on its fall he became leader of the Whigs in the House of Lords, only to conclude his official life as Lord Chancellor in Pitt's administration.