Wedderburn Webster called--Lord Erskine, Lord Holland, etc., etc. Wrote
to----_The Corsair_ report. She says she don't wonder, since "Conrad
is so _like_." It is odd that one, who knows me so thoroughly, should
tell me this to my face. However, if she don't know, nobody can.
Mackintosh is, it seems, the writer of the defensive letter in the
_Morning Chronicle_. If so, it is very kind, and more than I did for
myself.
Told Murray to secure for me Bandello's Italian Novels [3] at the sale
to-morrow. To me they will be _nuts_. Redde a satire on myself, called
"Anti-Byron," and told Murray to publish it if he liked. The object of
the author is to prove me an atheist and a systematic conspirator
against law and government. Some of the verse is good; the prose I don't
quite understand. He asserts that my "deleterious works" have had "an
effect upon civil society, which requires," etc., etc., etc., and his
own poetry. It is a lengthy poem, and a long preface, with an harmonious
title-page. Like the fly in the fable, I seem to have got upon a wheel
which makes much dust; but, unlike the said fly, I do not take it all
for my own raising.
A letter from _Bella_, [4] which I answered. I shall be in love with her
again if I don't take care.
I shall begin a more regular system of reading soon.
[Footnote 1: John Henderson, the Bath Roscius (1747-1785), without any
great personal advantages, was, according to Mrs. Siddons, "a fine actor
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