_26th._—Call from Watts; another from Tobin, who had lent me the Sorcerer, translated from Veil Weber. He and his brother praised it as the first production in the world. I told him, I think the author a man of genius, but that his book is written in a taste no less disgusting than immoral, besides being deficient in several of the essential parts of composition, as, a choice of subject, conduct of the fable, probability, &c. Attwood came and told me the performers gave high applause at the reading of “the Old Clothesman.” Met Knight, who is to play Florid, and who wanted to tell me it as a secret, which I refused to hear. Dibdin, comedian, and author of the Jew and the Doctor, was with him. I like him, because he spoke so earnestly in praise of the virtuous principles of his brother. They are illegitimate sons of Dibdin, the musical composer, whose conduct towards them is highly reprehensible. The young man said he had seen his father so seldom, that, having weak eyes, he should not know him if he met him in the street. I invited him to my house. The news at Debrett’s was the failure in the Irish Parliament, of the attempt at a union; and not only there, but in the streets, it was the subject of general conversation. All whom I heard mention it, rejoiced. Naples, they say, is in the possession of the French. The king, having fled with eight thousand troops to Sicily, after twenty thousand others had laid down their arms to eight thousand French. The substance of this I suppose to be true. _28th._—Finished the alterations in my comedy. Debrett’s full. The conduct of the Irish parliament relating to the union, the whole subject of political conversation. Read a criticism in _La Decade Philosophique_, No. 8. An. 7,—on a French translation of Hugh Trevor, containing great praise, and some pointed blame. The chief articles of the latter are,—that the plan proposed is incomplete [true], that some of the conversations are too long [true], that my satire on professions is unfounded [false], that I have not put my morality sufficiently in action [false again, the law part excepted], that probability is not quite enough regarded [perhaps not], and that, to make Trevor so suddenly a wealthy man is entirely in the novel style [true; blamable]. The following are the concluding remarks: “Malgré ces défauts qu’on peut reprocher, comme nous l’avons vu, à beaucoup de romans, mêmes très-estimés, celui-ci mérite assurément d’être distingué par la justesse des observations, la vérité des tableaux et des caractères, le naturel du dialogue, la peinture exacte des mœurs et des ridicules. En un mot, c’est l’ouvrage d’un penseur, d’un homme de talent, d’un observateur habile et exercisé, d’un ami des mœurs, et de la vertu; disons encore d’un écrivain patriote, hardi défenseur des droits sacrés du peuple, et de telles productions sont toujours faites pour être bien accueillies.”