_13th._—At Debrett’s, Weld rallied Tarleton on his approaching marriage, and military appointment. Spoke with me concerning Sheridan’s opera. T——r having quarrelled with S——, swore he would never be friends again; for he never pulled off his hat to him in the street, but it cost him fifty pounds, and if he trusted himself in the same room, a hundred. S—— still supposed to be concerned in the Haymarket. At Opie’s in the evening. Northcote present. Northcote animated, as usual. Related a comic conversation between himself and a framemaker, who had never heard the name of Northcote, nor noticed it in the prints he had framed, though he remembered the names of Sir Joshua Reynolds, West, Opie, &c. After supper, stories of terror were related. One, of a lady waked from sleep, who suffered her lap-dog to lie at the foot of her bed, and feeling something move, bid the dog lie still, at the same time stretching out her arm, to feel him; but instead of a lap-dog, took hold of a hand. When a voice bid her lie still, make no noise, but deliver her keys. The lady was a woman of courage, and immediately complied, only requesting her daughter might not be disturbed, who was sleeping by her side. She however was mistaken, the daughter had heard the thieves, had risen, slipped on a night-dress, and stealing into another room, gave the alarm, by which the thieves were secured. Another of a bigotted old lady, who seeing thieves enter her apartment with lights, at midnight, exclaimed to her maid who lay in the same room, “Lie still Betty, for now we shall see the salvation of the Lord!” imagining it was a celestial apparition. The thieves however, were driven away by the fury of a poor man, maintained out of charity, who was half an idiot; and who, after the exploit, was made drunk every day, when he went to Plymouth, with drams given him by people, who bribed him to tell the story. A third, of a gentleman, that having put out his candle, going to bed, read in blazing characters on his curtains, “Confess thy sins, this night thy soul shall be required of thee.” On which the gentleman fell on his knees, and, as directed, began to confess his sins aloud: not from terror, but aware it was a trick, meant to terrify him, by a waggish young lady; and hearing a little bustle on the stairhead, truly supposed that she, and others, were there listening. He confessed as the last and greatest of his sins, that he had seduced the young lady; and, if that might be pardoned him, he would never again be so heinously guilty. The joke was understood, and of course, the lady laughed at, instead of the gentleman.