"Last night I supped with Lewis;--and, as usual, though I neither exceeded in solids nor fluids, have been half dead ever since. My stomach is entirely destroyed by long abstinence, and the rest will probably follow. Let it--I only wish the _pain_ over. The 'leap in the dark' is the least to be dreaded. "The Duke of * * called. I have told them forty times that, except to half-a-dozen old and specified acquaintances, I am invisible. His Grace is a good, noble, ducal person; but I am content to think so at a distance, and so--I was not at home. "Galt called.--Mem.--to ask some one to speak to Raymond in favour of his play. We are old fellow-travellers, and, with all his eccentricities, he has much strong sense, experience of the world, and is, as far as I have seen, a good-natured philosophical fellow. I showed him Sligo's letter on the reports of the Turkish girl's _aventure_ at Athens soon after it happened. He and Lord Holland, Lewis, and Moore, and Rogers, and Lady Melbourne have seen it. Murray has a copy. I thought it had been _unknown_, and wish it were; but Sligo arrived only some days after, and the _rumours_ are the subject of his letter. That I shall preserve,--_it is as well_. Lewis and Galt were both _horrified_; and L. wondered I did not introduce the situation into 'The Giaour.' He _may_ wonder;--he might wonder more at that production's being written at all. But to describe the _feelings of that situation_ were impossible--it is _icy_ even to recollect them. "The Bride of Abydos was published on Thursday the second of December; but how it is liked or disliked, I know not. Whether it succeeds or not is no fault of the public, against whom I can have no complaint. But I am much more indebted to the tale than I can ever be to the most partial reader; as it wrung my thoughts from reality to imagination--from selfish regrets to vivid recollections--and recalled me to a country replete with the _brightest_ and _darkest_, but always most _lively_ colours of my memory. Sharpe called, but was not let in--which I regret. "Saw * * yesterday. I have not kept my appointment at Middleton, which has not pleased him, perhaps; and my projected voyage with * * will, perhaps, please him less. But I wish to keep well with both. They are instruments that don't do, in concert; but, surely, their separate tones are very musical, and I won't give up either.