Watt is at this moment himself the best encyclopedia extant; I dare not attempt to tell you half he said: it would be a volume. Chantrey has made a beautiful, mean an admirable, bust of him. Chantrey and Canova are now making rival busts of Washington.
I must hop, skip, and jump as I can from subject to subject. Mr. and Mrs. Moilliet took us in the evening to a lecture on poetry, by Campbell, who has been invited by a Philosophical Society of Birmingham gentlemen to give lectures; they give tickets to their friends. Mr. Corrie, one of the heads of this society, was _proud_ to introduce us. Excellent room, with gas spouting from tubes below the gallery. Lecture good enough. Mr. Campbell introduced to me after lecture; asked very kindly for Sneyd; many compliments. Mr. Corrie drank tea, after the lecture, at Mr. Moilliet's--very agreeable benevolent countenance, most agreeable voice. We liked particularly his enthusiasm for Mr. Watt; he gave a history of his inventions, and instances of Watt's superiority both in invention and magnanimity when in competition with others.
Mr. and Mrs. Moilliet have pressed us to come again. Mr. and Mrs. Watt, ditto, ditto. Mr. Watt almost with tears in his eyes; and I was ashamed to see that venerable man standing bareheaded at his door to do us the last [Footnote: It was the last. Mr. Watt died a few months afterwards.] honour, till the carriage drove away.
I beg your pardon for going backward and forward in this way in my hurry-skurry. I leave the Stratford-upon-Avon, and Blenheim, and Woodstock adventures, and Oxford to Honora and Fanny, whose pens have been going _à l'envie l'une de l'autre_; we are writing so comfortably. I at my desk with a table to myself, and the most comfortable little black stuffed arm-chair. Fanny and Ho. at their desks and table near the fire.
So now, my lady, good-night; for I am tired, a little, just enough to pity the civilest and prettiest of Swiss-looking housemaids, who says in answer to my "We shall come to bed very soon," "Oh dear, my lady, we bees no ways particular in this house about times o' going to bed."
We arrived here on Saturday last; found Lady Elizabeth Whitbread more kind and more agreeable than ever. Her kindness to us is indeed unbounded, and would quite overwhelm me but for the delicate and polite manner in which she confers favours, more as if she received than conferred them. Her house, her servants, her carriage, her horses, are not only entirely at my disposal, but she had the good-natured politeness to go down to the door to desire the coachman to have George Bristow always on the box with him, as the shaking would be too much for him behind.