_30th._—Wrote the letter; F—— having appointed to come for that purpose at nine, was with me at ten. Young S——, and B——’s nephew, came in their father’s name to ask for orders. Both families are rich, but I complied and procured them. B—— and N——, M.P. being at Brighton, where Major R—— was, N—— praised the Major as a man of great information, his friend, and one with whom B—— ought to be intimate. B—— said, they had met and spoken, and as there could be no great harm, he would accompany N—— to visit R——. They happened to meet him, and R—— presently took occasion to tell N——, that, from the principles he professed, and the speeches he had made in parliament, he could not but consider him as an enemy to his king and country, he therefore desired they might have no more intercourse. B—— laughed at N—— and his friend, but remarked the Major was an honest man, for most people would have said as much when he was absent, without the courage to declare such sentiments to his face. Hare, St. John, and others, at Debrett’s. _31st._—P—— and I had a dispute concerning Shakspeare. He asserted, quoting Gray and Warton as his supporters, that the thing in which Shakspeare excels all other writers, and in that only, is sudden bursts of passion. I allowed he did excel other writers in this, as in almost every other part of composition, but that he excelled them most in the full flow of passion. I doubt I was abrupt and dogmatical, for he appears to be a good-natured man; yet I could see he went away displeased. NOVEMBER _1st._—Met Weld and H—— at Debrett’s. Pitt met H—— on horseback, the day on which it was determined to strike Fox’s name out of the list of privy-counsellors, and made such strange faces at him, that H—— went to Brookes’s and reported him mad; on which a person present said, “that accounts for a strange speech, as I thought, of Grenville, who affirmed, that while Pitt was in his present temper, he would not see him, but in the presence of a third person.” The —— said to be of the Orange party, and inimical to Cornwallis. Weld affirms, that since London was a city, it never had such immense exports as at this moment. _2nd._—Wrote yesterday an apology to P——, for my warmth in dispute; and received a very friendly and proper answer to-day. _4th._—Music at Mr Mackenzie’s. Haydn’s symphony quintetto and Mozart: both men of uncommon genius, but the latter impatient after novelty and superior excellence, often forgets the flow of passion in laboriously hunting after new thoughts which, when thus introduced, have the same effect in music, as the _concetti_ of the Italians have in poetry; and for these Mozart is frequently extolled as superior to Haydn.