These descriptions ought to have been written by Tiberius
at Caprea--they are forced--the _philtered_ ideas of a jaded voluptuary.
It is to me inconceivable how they could have been composed by a man of
only twenty--his age when he wrote them. They have no nature--all the
sour cream of cantharides. I should have suspected Buffon of writing
them on the death-bed of his detestable dotage. I had never redde this
edition, and merely looked at them from curiosity and recollection of
the noise they made, and the name they had left to Lewis. But they could
do no harm, except----.
Called this evening on my agent--my business as usual. Our strange
adventures are the only inheritances of our family that have not
diminished.
I shall now smoke two cigars, and get me to bed. The cigars don't keep
well here. They get as old as a _donna di quaranti anni_ in the sun of
Africa. The Havannah are the best;--but neither are so pleasant as a
hooka or chiboque. The Turkish tobacco is mild, and their horses
entire--two things as they should be. I am so far obliged to this
Journal, that it preserves me from verse,--at least from keeping it. I
have just thrown a poem into the fire (which it has relighted to my
great comfort), and have smoked out of my head the plan of another. I
wish I could as easily get rid of thinking, or, at least, the confusion
of thought.
[Footnote 1: Pope's 'Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot', line 197.]
[Footnote 2: William Bosville (1745-1813), called colonel, but really
only lieutenant in the Coldstream Guards, was a noted 'bon vivant',
whose maxim for life was "Better never than late.
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