"* * thinks the Quarterly will attack me next. Let them. I have been 'peppered so highly' in my time, both ways, that it must be cayenne or aloes to make me taste. I can sincerely say that I am not very much alive _now_ to criticism. But--in tracing this--I rather believe, that it proceeds from my not attaching that importance to authorship which many do, and which, when young, I did also. 'One gets tired of every thing, my angel,' says Valmont. The 'angels' are the only things of which I am not a little sick--but I do think the preference of _writers_ to _agents_--the mighty stir made about scribbling and scribes, by themselves and others--a sign of effeminacy, degeneracy, and weakness. Who would write, who had any thing better to do? 'Action--action--action'--said Demosthenes: 'Actions--actions,' I say, and not writing,--least of all, rhyme. Look at the querulous and monotonous lives of the 'genus;'--except Cervantes, Tasso, Dante, Ariosto, Kleist (who were brave and active citizens), Aeschylus, Sophocles, and some other of the antiques also--what a worthless, idle brood it is! "12, Mezza notte. "Just returned from dinner with Jackson (the Emperor of Pugilism) and another of the select, at Crib's the champion's. I drank more than I like, and have brought away some three bottles of very fair claret--for I have no headach. We had Tom * * up after dinner;--very facetious, though somewhat prolix. He don't like his situation--wants to fight again--pray Pollux (or Castor, if he was the _miller_) he may! Tom has been a sailor--a coal heaver--and some other genteel profession, before he took to the cestus. Tom has been in action at sea, and is now only three-and-thirty. A great man! has a wife and a mistress, and conversations well--bating some sad omissions and misapplications of the aspirate. Tom is an old friend of mine; I have seen some of his best battles in my nonage. He is now a publican, and, I fear, a sinner;--for Mrs. * * is on alimony, and * *'s daughter lives with the champion. _This_ * * told me,--Tom, having an opinion of my morals, passed her off as a legal spouse. Talking of her, he said, 'she was the truest of women'--from which I immediately inferred she could not be his wife, and so it turned out. "These panegyrics don't belong to matrimony;--for, if 'true,' a man don't think it necessary to say so; and if not, the less he says the better. * * * * is the only man, except * * * *, I ever heard harangue upon his wife's virtue; and I listened to both with great credence and patience, and stuffed my handkerchief into my mouth, when I found yawning irresistible.--By the by, I am yawning now--so, good night to thee.--[Greek: Nohairon]. "Thursday, November 26.