Saturday. Nov 6th. [sic, for 5 November.]
Reform meetings at Worcester & Hereford:[1] & Sam to the former, & Bro to the latter. I think too that my cough is reforming: but it is not “the whole bill”: only a “bit by bit” reform.
I wrote my little poem called “the weakest thing”[2]—with a view to Miss Bordman’s album. She asked me to give her something, & the idea of this poem struck me. It is not “the weakest thing” I ever wrote—but I dont know whether it is suited to an album.
Sky rocketting among the boys.[3] We went to the window, & “laid our golden cushions down”.[4] Afterwards I was faint & hystericky. Why, nobody can say.
Read two chapter[s] from the 2d. Alcibiades.
Sam brings back the news of the cholera having appeared in Sunderland. May God shield our country, & dear friends—& dear selves!—
1. Both reported in the Worcester Herald, 12 November 1831. The Hereford meeting was attended by “an assemblage of freeholders, and others, to the number of nearly 3000 … the address … avowed, in addition, the disappointment of the meeting at the rejection of the Reform Bill, … [and] was carried with the strongest symptoms of approbation.”
2. Included in The Seraphim and Other Poems (London, 1838), pp. 354–355.
3. To celebrate Guy Fawkes’ Day.
4. Cf. John Gibson Lockhart, “Andalla’s Bridal” (1816), line 1.
