_1st March, 1800._--Within these last ten or twelve days Mrs. Beauclerk and Mrs. Smith have each added their individual contributions to the population of the world: a little Mimi, and a still smaller boy are the production. [Sidenote: COMTE D’ARTOIS] Tierney told me of a circumstance which had been conveyed to him _from authority_. At one of the dinners given by the Comte d’Artois to Pitt and the Cabinet Ministers, the Cte. expressed his astonishment and indignation _to_ Pitt, that a man possessing such principles as Mr. Tierney does, and uttering all that his turbulent and discontented disposition gives rise to, was allowed to go about; that such a man in a well-regulated Governt. should be confined, and not allowed to be at large to preach politics. Pitt replied that Mr. Tierney was a member of Parliament, a very loyal subject, and respectable in his private character. This was said drily, and intended as a reproof to a very ill-judged question. Nothing could show a greater want of taste and knowledge of English customs, than to abuse a member of Parliament to the Prime Minister of England, and tho’ I would not detract from Mr. Pitt, yet his defence of Tierney was such as the occasion extorted, and ought to have been made for any man in Parliament who has not outraged the laws. Even Sir Francis Burdett is as yet entitled to a similar justification. The Cte. d’Artois (at present, according to the _ancien régime_, Monsieur) is a man of slender abilities with violent passions; before the Revolution he was weak and volatile, he is now weak and revengeful. Bonaparte gives fresh proofs every day of his talents for governing, both in his disposition to conciliate and resist. He has issued letters to recall most of the emigrant nobles who have not borne arms against their country, infants, women, and priests; he manifests a strong determination to fight as well as he did formerly, and not allow of anything being wrested from the nation.