Being roused he apologised in the usual manner, and then added, oddly enough: 'I am very sorry, indeed, to stand in the way of your mounting.' "March 15, 1832 .-- Yesterday Hannah and I spent a very agreeable afternoon with Tom.
"He began to talk of his idleness.

He really came and dawdled with us all day long; he had not written a line of his review of Burleigh's Life, and he shrank from beginning on such a great work.

I asked him to put it by for the present, and write a light article on novels.

This he seemed to think he should like, and said he could get up an article on Richardson in a very short time, but he knew of no book that he could hang it on.

Hannah advised that he should place at the head of this article a fictitious title in Italian of a critique on Clarissa Harlowe, published at Venice.