They both conducted themselves very well,
and I put them out of _pain_ as soon as I could.
There is an American _Life_ of G. F. Cooke [7], _Scurra_ deceased,
lately published. Such a book!--I believe, since _Drunken Barnaby's
Journal_ [8] nothing like it has drenched the press. All green-room and
tap-room--drams and the drama--brandy, whisky-punch, and, _latterly_,
toddy, overflow every page. Two things are rather marvellous,--first,
that a man should live so long drunk, and, next, that he should have
found a sober biographer. There are some very laughable things in it,
nevertheless;--but the pints he swallowed, and the parts he performed,
are too regularly registered.
All this time you wonder I am not gone; so do I; but the accounts of the
plague are very perplexing--not so much for the thing itself as the
quarantine established in all ports, and from all places, even from
England. It is true, the forty or sixty days would, in all probability,
be as foolishly spent on shore as in the ship; but one likes to have
one's choice, nevertheless. Town is awfully empty; but not the worse for
that. I am really puzzled with my perfect ignorance of what I mean to
do;--not stay, if I can help it, but where to go? Sligo is for the
North;--a pleasant place, Petersburgh, in September, with one's ears and
nose in a muff, or else tumbling into one's neckcloth or
pocket-handkerchief! If the winter treated Buonaparte with so little
ceremony, what would it inflict upon your solitary traveller?--Give me a
_sun_, I care not how hot, and sherbet, I care not how cool, and _my_
Heaven is as easily made as your Persian's [9].
Pages:
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350