I fell, last Wednesday, into a pretty kettle of fish. I was invited to a
dinner of the Literary Fund, presided over by Lord Palmerston, and just
as I was starting, received notice that, inasmuch as my name had been
placed opposite a toast on the literature of Continental Europe, I must
be prepared to make a speech. I yielded, with the pleasure that you may
imagine, and for a long quarter of an hour talked nonsense in bad
English, to an assembly of three hundred men of letters, or so-called
such, and more than a hundred women, admitted to the honor of observing
us eat tough chicken and leathery tongue. I was never so surfeited with
silliness, as M. de Pourceaugnac said.
I received a visit yesterday from a lady and her husband, who brought me
some autograph letters from the emperor Napoleon to Josephine, which
they wished to sell. They are very singular, for their entire subject is
love. They are perfectly authentic, being written on stamped paper and
bearing the post-marks. What I fail to understand is why Josephine did
not burn them as soon as she had read them....