The sun set gloriously. Mr. ---- began talking about Greece, and, getting a good deal excited, presently burst forth into "The isles of Greece! the isles of Greece!" which he recited with amazing vehemence and earnestness. He reminded me of Kean several times: while he was declaiming, he looked like a tiger. 'Tis strange, or, rather, 'tis not strange, 'tis but natural, how, in spite of the contempt and even hatred which he often expresses for England, and every thing connected with it, his thoughts and plans, and all the energies of his mind, seem for ever bent upon changes to be wrought in England--freer government, purer laws, more equal rights. He began to talk about Cromwell: he wanted, he said, to have a play written out of Cromwell's life. We talked the matter over with infinite zeal, and established most satisfactorily, that to accomplish such a thing, as it ought to be done, would be quite one of the most difficult tasks in the world. Nobody but a religious and political enthusiast could do it: a poet, unless himself a republican Englishman, and fanatical sectarian, hardly could: it must be unlike all other works of art--not an imitation of truth, but truth itself. Schiller is the only man I can imagine who could have attempted it with any chance of success: and I even doubt whether he would have made of it the firebrand our friend wants.[105] Towards evening the heat became more and more oppressive. Our coach was but ill cobbled, and leaned awfully to one side. I fell asleep lying in my father's lap; and when we reached Auburn, which was not until nine o'clock, I was so tired, so miserably sleepy, and so tortured with the side-ach, from the cramped position in which I had been lying, that I just crawled into the first room in the inn where we alighted, and dropped down on the floor fast asleep. They roused me for supper; and very soon after I betook myself to bed. The heat was intolerable; the pale feet of the summer lightning ran along the black edges of the leaden clouds,--the world was alight with it. I could not sleep: I never endured such suffocating heat. _Sunday, 14th._