_14th._—I have been reading over my ‘Inquiry into the Propriety of applying Wastes to the better Maintenance of the Poor.’ I had almost forgotten it, but of all the essays and papers I have produced, none I think so pardonable as this, so convincing by facts, and so satisfactory to any candid reader. Thank God I wrote it, for though it never had the smallest effect except in exciting opposition and ridicule, it will, I trust, remain a proof of what ought to have been done; and had it been executed, would have diffused more comfort among the poor than any proposition that ever was made. _February 21, 1807._—To think of keeping a journal regularly is all in vain; the gaps in mine are terrible. _March 9._—Mrs. Wilberforce lent me Crichton’s ‘Diary of Blackadder,’[236] and gave me Dr. Owen on the 130th Psalm. I have read much of the former and find it a reproach to my whole soul, life, and conversation. What a Christian was there! and what a wretch am I? _10th._—I am very much struck with ‘Blackadder’s Diary’ and letters to his wife, so much so that I have prayed earnestly to God to enable me by His grace to have the same constant trust and reliance in His mercy and goodness that this excellent Christian had. _12th._—The Marquis Saloo, from Sicily, gave me many accounts of Bolsamo, and how much he referred in his lectures to his master, Arthur Young. If there be glory in this sort of fame, oh! my Father, let me have done with glorying save in the Cross of the Lord Jesus. I have been glorying in foreign and domestic fame for forty years in true fleshly vanity. I have been seven weeks in London, and, blessed be the Lord, I have had only four or five invitations to dinner and accepted but two. There has been a great kick up in the Ministry. Tyrrwhitt, from Carleton House, called here, and tells me that Lord Sidmouth and his friends were actually _out_, but the Foxites made it up with the King, pacified him, and they were immediately restored; but Lord Howick and the rest are to give their opinion in the House of Commons, and the obnoxious clause to be left out. The King is ready to turn many out the moment there is strength enough to carry on business without them. Called at Lord Egremont’s; that detestable atheistical profligate kinsman —— was with him. Lord E. loud in the commendation of the _Dactylis glomerata_;[237] it succeeds so greatly with him on cold, strong, wet lands that oxen fatten where they could never be _kept_ before, and it grows all winter. I was the first man in England that had five acres of this grass. I believe they had a root of it twenty years ago; I had much, and recommended it greatly.