"Mended the fire with some 'sgobole' (a Romagnuole word), and gave the falcon some water. Drank some Seltzer-water. Mem.--received to-day a print, or etching, of the story of Ugolino, by an Italian painter--different, of course, from Sir Joshua Reynolds's, and I think (as far as recollection goes) _no worse_, for Reynolds's is not good in history. Tore a button in my new coat. "I wonder what figure these Italians will make in a regular row. I sometimes think that, like the Irishman's gun (somebody had sold him a crooked one), they will only do for 'shooting round a corner;' at least, this sort of shooting has been the late tenor of their exploits. And yet, there are materials in this people, and a noble energy, if well directed. But who is to direct them? No matter. Out of such times heroes spring. Difficulties are the hotbeds of high spirits, and Freedom the mother of the few virtues incident to human nature. "Tuesday, January 9. 1821. "Rose--the day fine. Ordered the horses; but Lega (my _secretary_, an Italianism for steward or chief servant) coming to tell me that the painter had finished the work in fresco, for the room he has been employed on lately, I went to see it before I set out. The painter has not copied badly the prints from Titian, &c. considering all things. "Dined. Read Johnson's 'Vanity of Human Wishes,'--all the examples and mode of giving them sublime, as well as the latter part, with the exception of an occasional couplet. I do not so much admire the opening. I remember an observation of Sharpe's, (the _Conversationist_, as he was called in London, and a very clever man,) that the first line of this poem was superfluous, and that Pope (the best of poets, _I_ think) would have begun at once, only changing the punctuation-- "'Survey mankind from China to Peru.' The former line, 'Let observation,' &c. is certainly heavy and useless. But 'tis a grand poem--and _so true!_--true as the 10th of Juvenal himself. The lapse of ages _changes_ all things--time--language--the earth--the bounds of the sea--the stars of the sky, and every thing 'about, around, and underneath' man, _except man himself_, who has always been, and always will be, an unlucky rascal. The infinite variety of lives conduct but to death, and the infinity of wishes lead but to disappointment. All the discoveries which have yet been made have multiplied little but existence. An extirpated disease is succeeded by some new pestilence; and a discovered world has brought little to the old one, except the p---- first and freedom afterwards--the _latter_ a fine thing, particularly as they gave it to Europe in exchange for slavery. But it is doubtful whether 'the Sovereigns' would not think the _first_ the best present of the two to their subjects.