Ld. Suffolk[212] is ye strangest looking mortal; he had just come from a two hours’ audience of the King, who did not reply a word to any of his statements. He told ye King that the taking out of the Commons so many new peers degraded ye Commons, without adding dignity to ye Peers. The party broke up at 12, with very few more than a little gay. Sheridan and ye D. of Leinster supped, ye first having lost his dinner. Ld. Lansdown passed some days here; he is, I fear, breaking quite up. His extraordinary son is still in Dublin, where his conversation has procured him three spies who watch every action of his life. Great as would be his eventual loss should Ireland by continuing the war waste the country or become independent, I am convinced he delights in the turmoil, because it furnishes events and matter for critical discussion. When Grattan was taken up by mistake upon the arrestation of Mr. Lawless, he was carried to the D. of Portland’s office and before the Duke.[213] The meeting was humiliating on one side, as the conversation that ensued to explain away the mistake was the first communication that had arisen between them since the D.’s famous letter to Mr. Ponsonby and the free party in Ireland, assuring them that his principal reason for taking office (upon the breaking up of Fox’s party) was that he might put his system of conciliation in practice. There was a report that Grattan’s steward had been flogged into confession that his master was a United Irishman. Somebody expressed anxiety to Grattan about his returning, to which he replied, ‘I can have nothing to fear; I am not an opposer of all law; I do not countenance torture, flogging, free quarters, and military law.’ I have read since Xmas the D. of Marlbro’s _Apology_, Burnet’s _History_, ye _XIII. Satire of Juvenal_, Hearne’s _Travels into N. America_, Smith on ye figure and complexion of ye human species, Bancroft on dying, some desultory chemistry, _Roderick Random_, _Lazarillo de Tormes_, Leti’s _Life of Sixtus V._, various German and French plays, novels, and trash, Cook’s _Third Voyage_, Wolf’s _Ceylon_, part of Ulloa’s _Voyage_,[214] and some papers in ye memoirs of ye Exeter Society. Frequent dippings into Bayle, Montaigne, La Fontaine, Ariosto. Read ye three first books of Tasso; Ld. Orford’s works. [Sidenote: DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH]