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Book, page 181 / 248 Mr. Ward was Under-secretary of State during a great part of Pitt's administration, and has been one of the Lords of the Admiralty, and is now Clerk of the Ordnance, and has been sent to Ireland to reform abuses in the Ordnance. He speaks well, and in agreeable voice. He told me that he had heard in London that I had a sort of Memoria Technica, by which I could remember everything that was said in conversation, and by certain motions of my fingers could, while people were talking to me, note down all the ridiculous points!! He happened to have passed some time in his early life at Lichfield, and knew Miss Seward, and Dr. Darwin, and various people my father and aunts knew; so this added to his power of making himself agreeable. Of all the multitude of good things he told us, I can only at this moment recollect the lines which he repeated, by Dr. Mansel, the Bishop of Bristol, on Miss Seward and Mr. Hayley's flattery of each other:-- "Prince of poets, England's glory, Mr. Hayley, _that_ is you!" "Ma'am, you carry all before you, Lichfield swan, indeed you do!" "In epic, elegy, or sonnet, Mr. Hayley, you're divine!" "Madam, take my word upon it, You yourself are all the Nine." Some of his stories at dinner were so entertaining, that even old George's face cut in wood could not stand it; and John Bristow and the others were so bewildered, I thought the second course would never be on the table. _November 18._ We are reading one of the most entertaining and interesting and NEW books I ever read in my life--Tully's _Residence in Tripoli_, written by the sister of the consul, who resided there for ten years, spoke the language, and was admitted to a constant intercourse with the ladies of the seraglio, who are very different from any seraglio ladies we ever before heard of. No Arabian tale is equal in magnificence and entertainment; no tragedy superior in strength of interest to the tragedy recorded in the last ten pages of this incomparable book. Some
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