This gentleman says, the most remarkable, or rather the only act of
gaiety he met with in _London_, was an harangue made for an hour in the
House of Lords, previous to the trial of Lord _Byron_; and that, as he
afterwards understood, it was made by a drunken member of parliament. He
says it made him and every body laugh exceedingly; but he laughed only
(I presume) because every body else did, and relates the story, I fear,
merely to make it a national laugh; for the harangue was certainly very
ill placed, and the mirth it produced, very indecent, at a time a Peer
of the realm was to be brought forth, accused of murder; and the
untimely death of a valuable and virtuous young man, revived in every
body's memory.
This is the unfavourable side of what the gentleman says of the first
people in England. Of the peasants and lower order, he observes, that,
though they are well fed, well cloathed, and well lodged, yet they are
all of a melancholy turn.--The French have no idea of what we call _dry
humour_; and this gentleman, perhaps, thought the English clown
melancholy, while he was laughing in his sleeve at the foppery of his
_laquais_.
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