_21st._—I daily but slowly proceed with my opera. Saw Banks of K. at Debrett’s, and M. the ——’s, member in the last parliament, who very characteristically told me, (somebody having sent him the translation of Schiller’s Don Carlos) that he accepted every thing which was given him. I looked, and he endeavoured to correct himself, by adding, if it did not exceed the value of an octavo volume. A great gossip with little understanding, and I am almost surprised that a look should excite in him a temporary feeling of his habitual selfishness. Played chess and billiards with Geiseveiller. The marker, a garrulous old Irishman; affirmed that Irish wafers were better than English: the reason he gave was, that after a letter was sealed, you might open it, with an Irish wafer, but not with an English. He pretended to talk philosophy, said there was but one colour, and that the way to prove it was to produce total darkness, and then a brown dog would be white. The sun, he said, regulated the tides, and it is the moon, and not the sun, that is the cause of light. His own absurd manner of explaining his blunders is highly ludicrous. _22nd._—Wrote the chief part of scene 7, act ii. Called on Sir F. B—— to see a landscape he is painting. It is one of his best, the tone is admirable, the composition and execution spirited. After pointing out what I supposed to be its merits, I added, that the head of the cow in the fore-ground was in my opinion too large. The wide open mouth of a dog barking was overcharged: his clouds likewise, I said, were not sufficiently floating, too much in mass, and not tinted as clouds on such a day always are. We conversed of B—— who had made a favourable report to him of the reception I gave him, and of my pictures.