I went to Burleigh on the 23rd of December; there was no one there but Irby. The house disappointed me very much, but it is a very fine showplace. I went away on the 27th to Middleton; there were the Culling Smiths, Worcesters, Sir James Mackintosh, Ossulstons, Nugent, &c.; it was very agreeable, and the house extremely comfortable. Lady Jersey[23] is an extraordinary woman, and has many good qualities; surrounded as she is by flatterers and admirers, she is neither proud nor conceited. She is full of vivacity, spirit, and good nature, but the wide range of her sympathies and affections proves that she has more general benevolence than particular sensibility in her character. She performs all the ordinary duties of life with great correctness, because her heart is naturally good; and she is, perhaps, from her temperament exposed to fewer temptations than the generality of her sex. She is deficient in passion and in softness (which constitute the greatest charm in women), so that she excites more of admiration than of interest; in conversation she is lively and pleasant, without being very remarkable, for she has neither wit, nor imagination, nor humour; her understanding is active rather than strong, and her judgment is too often warped by prejudice to be sound. She has a retentive memory and a restless mind, together with a sort of intellectual arrangement, with which she appears rather to have been gifted by nature than to have derived it from the cultivation of her reasoning faculties. [23] [Sarah Sophia, eldest daughter of John, tenth Earl of Westmoreland, and heiress of Robert Child, Esq., of Osterley Park, her maternal grandfather.] I went from Middleton to Oatlands. The Duke was not there. We had the Smiths, Worcesters, Alvanley, Stanhope, Rogers, Luttrell, George Dawson, Lord Lauderdale, &c. Lord Erskine was ill, and Lord Lauderdale was taking care of him. The house was very uncomfortable, and the room I was in small, noisy, and inconvenient. I came to London on Friday last. Parliament having met on the Thursday, it is very full, and is filling more and more every day. The Opposition expect to divide 180 on the Bank question; they talk of re-establishing the dinners which they used to have in Fox's time. Rogers is in a nervous state about his poem, and trembles at the reviewers.[24] [24] [Rogers' poem entitled 'Human Life' was on the eve of publication. The reviewers treated it more tenderly than it deserved, as appears below.] January 28th, 1819 {p.013} I went to Gorhambury on the 24th to shoot. The Duke of York was there. We should have had a brilliant _chasse_, but it rained. We went out at three and killed 105 pheasants.