Ld. Digby[126] fell in love with Ly. Bruce, who only coquets with him. He is good-humoured, and full of good useful sense. There was a bad lot of drinking Irish, with Ld. Tyrone and Mr. Jefferies at their head, but I knew little of them. Mr. Brand continues his _belle amitié_ for me, rather sentimentally tiresome when he gets upon that topic. Italinski as usual. Drew delighted to see me. He is discontented with the Bessboroughs. Ld. Berwick behaved shockingly to poor Ly. Plymouth: she is very unhappy. He speaks to her and of her with the most disrespectful familiarity. The Hamiltons were as tiresome as ever; he as amorous, she as vulgar. I made an excursion to Sorrento with Ld. Holland and Italinski: we slept there. I was terrified at crossing the bay. On my return I was foolish enough to get out of the boat on the Portici shore, and return home in a _calecino_. A book just published by Sir William Hamilton. He got Italinski to correct the English, upon which Mr. North said, ‘He has made the Knight as clear as day.’ Ld. Henry took his seat in Parliament, and made a maiden speech which I hear from other quarters was esteemed very good. He said he was terrified at the silence of the assembly. His friend Canning has decidedly abandoned his patron and friend Sheridan, and is coming into Parliament under the auspices of Mr. Pitt. Ld. H. regrets this precipitation; though he of course likes him to act on his side, yet he thinks the law would have been a more certain friend to him than the favour of a Prime Minister. Wallace[127] has totally failed in speaking, and his principles out-Herod Herod, for the Ministers could not support him in some assertion he made as to the King’s power of landing foreign troops without the consent of Parliament. This heresy to the British Constitution was in consequence of some Hessians landing from the Isle of Wight. [Sidenote: SOCIETY AT NAPLES] During my stay at Naples I went, as I was told, at the peril of my life, to see Baron d’Armfeldt, who it seems is pursued by the Regent of Sweden, the Duke of Sudermania. He is accused of having formed a conspiracy to murder him, and obtain the keeping of the minor King’s person. Be this as it may, he has been demanded of the Court of Naples by that of Sweden formally to be delivered up as a fugitive rebel, but the Queen is interested about him, and has him concealed. The Swedish emissaries are active in their search, and have several times fired at him, and once at a person getting out of his carriage, whom they mistook for this supposed delinquent. The accusation is black, but the truth of it uncertain. Ld. Henry laughs at me for calling him ‘The Victim’: he is at Stockholm, and can judge of the story. I passed a pleasant day at Cumæ with the Palmerstons. I took Italinski, Mr. Marsh, and Ld. Holland in my carriage. We were joined by Count Rumford, etc.