The Journal of Sir Walter Scott From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford (part 3 of 6)

The Journal of Sir Walter Scott From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford (part 3 of 6)

Some of our friends in London had pretended that at Paris I might stand some chance of being encountered by the same sort of tumultuary reception which I met in Ireland; but for this I see no ground. It is a point on which I am totally indifferent. As a literary man I cannot affect to despise public applause; as a private gentleman I have always been embarrassed and displeased with popular clamours, even when in my favour. I know very well the breath of which such shouts are composed, and am sensible those who applaud me to-day would be as ready to toss me to-morrow; and I would not have them think that I put such a value on their favour as would make me for an instant fear their displeasure. Now all this disclamation is sincere, and yet it sounds affected. It puts me in mind of an old woman who, when Carlisle was taken by the Highlanders in 1745, chose to be particularly apprehensive of personal violence, and shut herself up in a closet, in order that she might escape ravishment. But no one came to disturb her solitude, and she began to be sensible that poor Donald was looking out for victuals, or seeking for some small plunder, without bestowing a thought on the fair sex; by and by she popped her head out of her place of refuge with the petty question, "Good folks, can you tell when the ravishing is going to begin?" I am sure I shall neither hide myself to avoid applause, which probably no one will think of conferring, nor have the meanness to do anything which can indicate any desire of ravishment. I have seen, when the late Lord Erskine entered the Edinburgh theatre, papers distributed in the boxes to mendicate a round of applause--the natural reward of a poor player.

October 31.--At breakfast visited by M. Gallois, an elderly Frenchman (always the most agreeable class), full of information, courteous and communicative. He had seen nearly, and remarked deeply, and spoke frankly, though with due caution. He went with us to the Museum, where I think the Hall of Sculpture continues to be a fine thing; that of Pictures but tolerable, when we reflect upon 1815. A number of great French daubs (comparatively), by David and Gerard, cover the walls once occupied by the Italian chefs-d'oeuvre. Fiat justitia, ruat coelum. We then visited Notre Dame and the Palace of Justice. The latter is accounted the oldest building in Paris, being the work of St. Louis. It is, however, in the interior, adapted to the taste of Louis XIV. We drove over the Pont Neuf, and visited the fine quays, which was all we could make out to-day, as I was afraid to fatigue Anne. When we returned home I found Count Pozzo di Borgo waiting for me, a personable man, inclined to be rather corpulent--handsome features, with all the Corsican fire in his eye. He was quite kind and communicative. Lord Granville had also called, and sent Mr. Jones [his secretary] to invite us to dinner to-morrow. In the evening at the Odéon, where we saw Ivanhoe. It was superbly got up, the Norman soldiers wearing pointed helmets and what resembled much hauberks of mail, which looked very well. The number of the attendants, and the skill with which they were moved and grouped on the stage, were well worthy of notice. It was an opera, and of course the story greatly mangled, and the dialogue in a great part nonsense. Yet it was strange to hear anything like the words which I (then in an agony of pain with spasms in my stomach) dictated to William Laidlaw at Abbotsford, now recited in a foreign tongue, and for the amusement of a strange people. I little thought to have survived the completing of this novel.[384]

FOOTNOTES:

[350] Eldest daughter of the illustrious Admiral Lord Duncan, wife of Sir Hew Hamilton Dalrymple. She died in 1852.Return to passage

[351] This implacable enemy of Napoleon,--a Corsican, died in his seventy-fourth year in 1842.Return to passage

[352] E.H. Locker, Esq., then Secretary, afterwards one of the Commissioners of Greenwich Hospital--an old and dear friend of Scott's.--See Oct. 25.Return to passage

[353] As an illustration of Constable's accuracy in gauging the value of literary property, it may be stated that in his formal declaration, after sequestration, he said:--"I was so sanguine as to the success of the Memoirs of Napoleon that I did not hesitate to express it as my opinion that I had much confidence in it producing him at least £10,000, and this I observed, as my expectation, to Sir W. Scott." This opinion was expressed not only before the sale of the work, but before it was all written.--A. Constable and his Correspondents, vol. iii. p. 313.Return to passage

[354] Another of the Abbotsford labourers.Return to passage

[355] See Ballad of Edom of Gordon.Return to passage

[356] "On the 12th of October, Sir Walter left Abbotsford for London, where he had been promised access to the papers in the Government offices; and thence he proceeded to Paris, in the hope of gathering from various eminent persons authentic anecdotes concerning Napoleon. His Diary shows that he was successful in obtaining many valuable materials for the completion of his historical work; and reflects, with sufficient distinctness, the very brilliant reception he on this occasion experienced both in London and Paris. The range of his society is strikingly (and unconsciously) exemplified in the record of one day, when we find him breakfasting at the Royal Lodge in Windsor Park, and supping on oysters and porter in "honest Dan Terry's house, like a squirrel's cage," above the Adelphi Theatre in the Strand. There can be no doubt that this expedition was in many ways serviceable in his Life of Napoleon; and I think as little that it was chiefly so by renewing his spirits. The deep and respectful sympathy with which his misfortunes, and gallant behaviour under them, had been regarded by all classes of men at home and abroad, was brought home to his perception in a way not to be mistaken. He was cheered and gratified, and returned to Scotland with renewed hope and courage for the prosecution of his marvellous course of industry."--Life, vol. ix. pp. 2, 3.Return to passage

[357] John B. Saurey Morritt of Rokeby, a friend of twenty years' standing, and "one of the most accomplished men that ever shared Scott's confidence."Return to passage

He had published, before making Scott's acquaintance, a Vindication of Homer, in 1798, a treatise on The Topography of Troy, 1800, and translations and imitations of the minor Greek Poets in 1802.

Mr. Morritt survived his friend till February 12th, 1843, when he died at Rokeby Park, Yorkshire, in his seventy-second year.--See Life throughout.

[358] MS. note on margin of Journal by Mr. Morritt: "No--it was left by Reynolds to Mason, by Mason to Burgh, and given to me by Mr. Burgh's widow."Return to passage

[359] Chiverton was the first publication (anonymous) of Mr. W. Harrison Ainsworth, the author of Rookwood and other popular romances.--J.G.L.Return to passage

[360] It is interesting to know that Scott would not read this book until Woodstock was fairly off his hands.Return to passage

See ante, p. 167, and the introduction to the original edition written in March 1826, in which the author says:--"Some accidental collision there must be, when works of a similar character are finished on the same general system of historical manners, and the same historical personages are introduced. Of course, if such have occurred, I shall be probably the sufferer. But my intentions have been at least innocent, since I look on it as one of the advantages attending the conclusion of Woodstock, that the finishing of my own task will permit me to have the pleasure of reading BRAMBLETYE-HOUSE, from which I have hitherto conscientiously abstained."--Novels, vol. xxxix. pp. lxxv-vi.

[361] Ben Jonson, Every Man in his Humour.Return to passage

[362] Twelfth Night, Act II. Sc. 3.Return to passage

[363] Rehearsal, Act III. Sc. 1.Return to passage

[364] Merry Wives, Act I. Sc. 3.Return to passage

[365] Hamlet, Act II. Sc. 2.Return to passage

[366] Sir Walter had made his acquaintance in August 1822, and ever afterwards they corresponded with each other--sometimes very confidentially.--J.G.L.Return to passage

[367] The Dumergues, at 15 Piccadilly West--early friends of Lady Scott's.--See Life., vol. ii. p. 120.Return to passage

[368] It is amusing to compare this criticism with Sir Walter's own anxiety to identify his daughter-in-law's place, Lochore, with the Urbs Orrea of the Roman writers. See Life, vol. vii. p. 352.--J.G.L.Return to passage

[369] This brilliant conversationalist was the author of several airy and graceful productions in verse, which were published anonymously, such as Lines written at Ampthill Park, in 1818; Advice to Julia, a letter in Rhyme, in which he sketched high life in London, in 1820. He also published Crockford House: a rhapsody, in 1827. Moore in his Diary has embalmed numerous examples of his satiric wit. Henry Luttrell died in 1851.Return to passage

[370] The Orlando Furioso, by Mr. Stewart Rose, was published in 8 vols. 8vo, London 1823-1831.Return to passage

[371] King Lear, Act IV. Sc. 6.--J.G.L.Return to passage

[372] Afterwards the Right Hon. Sir Robert Wilmot Horton, Governor of Ceylon.Return to passage

[373] Moore, on hearing of Scott's arrival, hastened to London from Sloperton, and had several pleasant meetings, particulars of which are given in his Diary (vol. v. pp. 121 to 126). He would, as Scott says on the 23d, have gone to Paris with them--"seemed disposed to go"; but between that date and 25th fancied that he saw something in Scott's manner that made him hesitate, and then finally give up the idea. He adds that Scott's friends had thrown out hints as to the impropriety of such a political reprobate forming one of the party. This suspicion on Moore's part shows how he had misunderstood Scott's real character. If Scott thought it right to ask the Bard of Ireland to be his companion, no hints from Mr. Wilmot Horton, or any members of the Court party, would have influenced him, even though they had urged that "this political reprobate" was author of The Fudge Family in Paris and the Twopenny Post-Bag.Return to passage

[374] Sir George died in 1853. His journal does not appear to have been published.Return to passage

[375] Dr. Hughes, who died Jan. 6, 1833, aged seventy-seven, was one of the Canons-residentiary of St. Paul's, London. He and Mrs. Hughes were old friends of Sir Walter, who had been godfather to one of their grandchildren.--See Life, vol. vii. pp. 259-260. Their son was John Hughes, Esq., of Oriel College, whose "Itinerary of the Rhone" is mentioned with praise in the introduction to Quentin Durward.--See letter to Charles Scott, in Life, vol. vii. p. 275.Return to passage

[376] Mr. Pringle was a Roxburghshire farmer's son who in youth attracted Sir Walter's notice by his poem called The Autumnal Excursion; or, Sketches in Teviotdale. He was for a short time Editor of Blackwood's Magazine, but the publisher and he had different politics, quarrelled, and parted. Sir Walter then gave Pringle strong recommendations to the late Lord Charles Somerset, Governor of the Cape of Good Hope in which colony he settled, and for some years throve under the Governor's protection; but the newspaper alluded to in the text ruined his prospects at the Cape; he returned to England, became Secretary to the Anti-Slavery Society, published a charming little volume entitled African Sketches, and died in December 1834. He was a man of amiable feelings and elegant genius.Return to passage

[377] An esteemed friend of Sir Walter's, who attended on him during his illness in October 1831, and in June 1832.Return to passage

[378] Afterwards Sir Francis Palgrave, Deputy-Keeper of the public records, and author of the History of Normandy and England, 4 vols. 8vo, 1851-1864, and other works.Return to passage

[379] William Wilson of Wandsworth Common, formerly of Wilsontown, in Lanarkshire.--J.G.L.Return to passage

[380] E.H. Locker, then Secretary of Greenwich Hospital.--See ante, Oct. 7.Return to passage

[381] King John, Act I. Sc. 1.Return to passage

[382] There were two well-known Frenchmen of this name at the time of Scott's visit to Paris: (1) Jean-Antoine-Gauvain Gallois, who was born about 1755 and died in 1828; (2) Charles-André-Gustave-Léonard Gallois, born 1789, died 1851. It was the latter of these who translated from the Italian of Colletta Cinq jours de l'histoire de Naples, 8vo, Paris, 1820. But at this date he was only thirty-seven, and it can scarcely be of him that Scott writes (p. 288) as an "elderly" man. The probability is that it was the elder Gallois whom Scott saw, and that he ascribed to him, though the title is misquoted, a work written by the younger.Return to passage

[383] "When he was in Paris," Hazlitt writes, "and went to Galignani's, he sat down in an outer room to look at some book he wanted to see; none of the clerks had the least suspicion who he was. When it was found out, the place was in a commotion."--From Mr. Alexander Ireland's excellent Selections from Hazlitt's writings, 8vo, Lond. 1889, p. 482.Return to passage

[384] Ivanhoe might have borne a motto somewhat analogous to the inscription which Frederick the Great's predecessor used to affix to his attempts at portrait-painting when he had the gout: "Fredericus I. in tormentis pinxit."--Recollections of Sir Walter Scott, p. 240. Lond. 1837.Return to passage

NOVEMBER

November 1.--I suppose the ravishing is going to begin, for we have had the Dames des Halles, with a bouquet like a maypole, and a speech full of honey and oil, which cost me ten francs; also a small worshipper, who would not leave his name, but came seulement pour avoir le plaisir, la félicité etc. etc. All this jargon I answer with corresponding blarney of my own, for "have I not licked the black stone of that ancient castle?" As to French, I speak it as it comes, and like Doeg in Absalom and Achitophel--

"----dash on through thick and thin, Through sense and nonsense, never out nor in."

We went this morning with M. Gallois to the Church of St. Genevieve, and thence to the College Henri IV., where I saw once more my old friend Chevalier.[385] He was unwell, swathed in a turban of nightcaps and a multiplicity of robes de chambre; but he had all the heart and the vivacity of former times. I was truly glad to see the kind old man. We were unlucky in our day for sights, this being a high festival--All Souls' Day. We were not allowed to scale the steeple of St. Genevieve, neither could we see the animals at the Jardin des Plantes, who, though they have no souls, it is supposed, and no interest of course in the devotions of the day, observe it in strict retreat, like the nuns of Kilkenny. I met, however, one lioness walking at large in the Jardin, and was introduced. This was Madame de Souza,[386] the authoress of some well-known French romances of a very classical character, I am told, for I have never read them. She must have been beautiful, and is still well-looked. She is the mother of the handsome Count de Flahault, and had a very well-looking daughter with her, besides a son or two. She was very agreeable. We are to meet again. The day becoming decidedly rainy, we returned along the Boulevards by the Bridge of Austerlitz, but the weather was so indifferent as to spoil the fine show.

We dined at the Ambassador's--Lord Granville, formerly Lord Leveson Gower. He inhabits the same splendid house which Lord Castlereagh had in 1815, namely, Numero 30, Rue du Fauxbourg St. Honoré. It once belonged to Pauline Borghese, and if its walls could speak, they might tell us mighty curious stories. Without their having any tongue, they spoke to my feelings "with most miraculous organ."[387] In these halls I had often seen and conversed familiarly with many of the great and powerful, who won the world by their swords, and divided it by their counsel.

Here I saw very much of poor Lord Castlereagh--a man of sense, presence of mind, courage, and fortitude, which carried him through many an affair of critical moment, when finer talents might have stuck in the mire. He had been, I think, indifferently educated, and his mode of speaking being far from logical or correct, he was sometimes in danger of becoming almost ridiculous, in spite of his lofty presence, which had all the grace of the Seymours, and his determined courage.[388] But then he was always up to the occasion, and upon important matters was an orator to convince, if not to delight, his hearers. He is gone, and my friend Stanhope also, whose kindness this town so strongly recalls. It is remarkable they were the only persons of sense and credibility who both attested supernatural appearances on their own evidence, and both died in the same melancholy manner. I shall always tremble when any friend of mine becomes visionary.[389]

I have seen in these rooms the Emperor Alexander, Platoff, Schwarzenberg, old Blucher, Fouché, and many a maréchal whose truncheon had guided armies--all now at peace, without subjects, without dominion, and where their past life, perhaps, seems but the recollection of a feverish dream. What a group would this band have made in the gloomy regions described in the Odyssey! But to lesser things. We were most kindly received by Lord and Lady Granville, and met many friends, some of them having been guests at Abbotsford; among these were Lords Ashley and Morpeth--there were also Charles Ellis (Lord Seaford now), cum plurimis aliis. Anne saw for the first time an entertainment à la mode de France, where the gentlemen left the parlour with the ladies. In diplomatic houses it is a good way of preventing political discussion, which John Bull is always apt to introduce with the second bottle. We left early, and came home at ten, much pleased with Lord and Lady Granville's kindness, though it was to be expected, as our recommendations came from Windsor.

November 2.--Another gloomy day--a pize upon it!--and we have settled to go to Saint Cloud, and dine, if possible, with the Drummonds at Auteuil. Besides, I expect poor W.R. S[pencer] to breakfast. There is another thought which depresses me.

Well--but let us jot down a little politics, as my book has a pretty firm lock. The Whigs may say what they please, but I think the Bourbons will stand. Gallois, no great Royalist, says that the Duke of Orleans lives on the best terms with the reigning family, which is wise on his part, for the golden fruit may ripen and fall of itself, but it would be dangerous to

"Lend the crowd his arm to shake the tree."[390]

The army, which was Bonaparte's strength, is now very much changed by the gradual influence of time, which has removed many, and made invalids of many more. The citizens are neutral, and if the King will govern according to the Charte, and, what is still more, according to the habits of the people, he will sit firm enough, and the constitution will gradually attain more and more reverence as age gives it authority, and distinguishes it from those temporary and ephemeral governments, which seemed only set up to be pulled down. The most dangerous point in the present state of France is that of religion. It is, no doubt, excellent in the Bourbons to desire to make France a religious country; but they begin, I think, at the wrong end. To press the observances and ritual of religion on those who are not influenced by its doctrines is planting the growing tree with its head downwards. Rites are sanctified by belief; but belief can never arise out of an enforced observance of ceremonies; it only makes men detest what is imposed on them by compulsion. Then these Jesuits, who constitute emphatically an imperium in imperio, labouring first for the benefit of their own order, and next for that of the Roman See--what is it but the introduction into France of a foreign influence, whose interest may often run counter to the general welfare of the kingdom?

We have enough of ravishment. M. Meurice writes me that he is ready to hang himself that we did not find accommodation at his hotel; and Madame Mirbel came almost on her knees to have permission to take my portrait. I was cruel; but, seeing her weeping-ripe, consented she should come to-morrow and work while I wrote. A Russian Princess Galitzin, too, demands to see me in the heroic vein; "Elle vouloit traverser les mers pour aller voir S.W.S.," and offers me a rendezvous at my hotel. This is precious tomfoolery; however, it is better than being neglected like a fallen sky-rocket, which seemed like to be my fate last year.

We went to Saint Cloud with my old friend Mr. Drummond, now at a pretty maison de campagne at Auteuil. Saint Cloud, besides its unequalled views, is rich in remembrances. I did not fail to revisit the Orangerie, out of which Bon. expelled the Council of [Five Hundred]. I thought I saw the scoundrels jumping the windows, with the bayonets at their rumps. What a pity the house was not two stories high! I asked the Swiss some questions on the locale, which he answered with becoming caution, saying, however, that "he was not present at the time." There are also new remembrances. A separate garden, laid out as a playground for the royal children, is called Il Trocadero,[391] from the siege of Cadiz [1823]. But the Bourbons should not take military ground--it is firing a pop-gun in answer to a battery of cannon.

All within the house is changed. Every trace of Nap. or his reign totally done away, as if traced in sand over which the tide has passed. Moreau and Pichegru's portraits hang in the royal ante-chamber. The former has a mean look; the latter has been a strong and stern-looking man. I looked at him, and thought of his death-struggles. In the guard-room were the heroes of La Vendée--Charette with his white bonnet, the two La Rochejacqueleins, Lescure, in an attitude of prayer, Stofflet, the gamekeeper, with others.

We dined at Auteuil. Mrs. Drummond, formerly the beautiful Cecilia Telfer, has lost her looks, but kept her kind heart. On our return, went to the Italian opera, and saw Figaro. Anne liked the music; to me it was all caviare. A Mr. ------ dined with us; sensible, liberal in his politics, but well informed and candid.

November 3.--Sat to Mad. Mirbel--Spencer at breakfast. Went out and had a long interview with Marshal Macdonald, the purport of which I have put down elsewhere. Visited Princess Galitzin, and also Cooper, the American novelist. This man, who has shown so much genius, has a good deal of the manner, or want of manner, peculiar to his countrymen.[392] He proposed to me a mode of publishing in America by entering the book as [the] property of a citizen. I will think of this. Every little helps, as the tod says, when, etc. At night at the Theatre de Madame, where we saw two petit pieces, Le Mariage de Raison, and Le plus beau jour de ma vie--both excellently played. Afterwards at Lady Granville's rout, which was as splendid as any I ever saw--and I have seen beaucoup dans ce genre. A great number of ladies of the first rank were present, and if honeyed words from pretty lips could surfeit, I had enough of them. One can swallow a great deal of whipped cream, to be sure, and it does not hurt an old stomach.

November 4.--- Anne goes to sit to Mad. Mirbel. I called after ten, Mr. Cooper and Gallois having breakfasted with me. The former seems quite serious in desiring the American attempt. I must, however, take care not to give such a monopoly as to prevent the American public from receiving the works at the prices they are accustomed to. I think I may as well try if the thing can be done.

After ten I went with Anne to the Tuileries, where we saw the royal family pass through the Glass Gallery as they went to Chapel. We were very much looked at in our turn, and the King, on passing out, did me the honour to say a few civil words, which produced a great sensation. Mad. la Dauphine and Mad. de Berri curtsied, smiled, and looked extremely gracious; and smiles, bows, and curtsies rained on us like odours, from all the courtiers and court ladies of the train. We were conducted by an officer of the Royal Gardes du Corps to a convenient place in chapel, where we had the pleasure of hearing the grand mass performed with excellent music.

I had a perfect view of the King and royal family. The King is the same in age as I knew him in youth at Holyrood House--debonair and courteous in the highest degree. Mad. Dauphine resembles very much the prints of Marie Antoinette, in the profile especially. She is not, however, beautiful, her features being too strong, but they announce a great deal of character, and the princess whom Bonaparte used to call the man of the family. She seemed very attentive to her devotions. The Duchess of Berri seemed less immersed in the ceremony, and yawned once or twice. She is a lively-looking blonde--looks as if she were good-humoured and happy, by no means pretty, and has a cast with her eyes; splendidly adorned with diamonds, however. After this gave Mad. Mirbel a sitting, where I encountered le général, her uncle,[393] who was chef de l'état major to Bonaparte. He was very communicative, and seemed an interesting person, by no means over much prepossessed in favour of his late master, whom he judged impartially, though with affection.

We came home and dined in quiet, having refused all temptations to go out in the evening; this on Anne's account as well as my own. It is not quite gospel, though Solomon says it--the eye can be tired with seeing, whatever he may allege in the contrary. And then there are so many compliments. I wish for a little of the old Scotch causticity. I am something like the bee that sips treacle.

November 5.--I believe I must give up my Journal till I leave Paris. The French are literally outrageous in their civilities--bounce in at all hours, and drive one half mad with compliments. I am ungracious not to be so entirely thankful as I ought to this kind and merry people. We breakfasted with Mad. Mirbel, where were the Dukes of Fitz-James, and, I think, Duras,[394] goodly company--but all's one for that. I made rather an impatient sitter, wishing to talk much more than was agreeable to Madame. Afterwards we went to the Champs Elysées, where a balloon was let off, and all sorts of frolics performed for the benefit of the bons gens de Paris--besides stuffing them with victuals. I wonder how such a civic festival would go off in London or Edinburgh, or especially in Dublin. To be sure, they would not introduce their shillelahs! But in the classic taste of the French, there were no such gladiatorial doings. To be sure, they have a natural good-humour and gaiety which inclines them to be pleased with themselves, and everything about them.

We dined at the Ambassador's, where was a large party, Lord Morpeth, the Duke of Devonshire, and others--all were very kind. Pozzo di Borgo there, and disposed to be communicative. A large soirée. Home at eleven. These hours are early, however.

November 6.--Cooper came to breakfast, but we were obsédés partout. Such a number of Frenchmen bounced in successively, and exploded, I mean discharged, their compliments, that I could hardly find an opportunity to speak a word, or entertain Mr. Cooper at all. After this we sat again for our portraits. Mad. Mirbel took care not to have any one to divert my attention, but I contrived to amuse myself with some masons finishing a façade opposite to me, who placed their stones, not like Inigo Jones, but in the most lubberly way in the world, with the help of a large wheel, and the application of strength of hand. John Smith of Darnick, and two of his men, would have done more with a block and pulley than the whole score of them. The French seem far behind in machinery.--We are almost eaten up with kindness, but that will have its end. I have had to parry several presents of busts, and so forth. The funny thing was the airs of my little friend. We had a most affectionate parting--wet, wet cheeks on the lady's side.[395] The pebble-hearted cur shed as few tears as Crab of dogged memory.[396]

Went to Galignani's, where the brothers, after some palaver, offered me £105 for the sheets of Napoleon, to be reprinted at Paris in English. I told them I would think of it. I suppose Treuttel and Wurtz had apprehended something of this kind, for they write me that they had made a bargain with my publisher (Cadell, I suppose) for the publishing of my book in all sorts of ways. I must look into this.

Dined with Marshal Macdonald and a splendid party;[397] amongst others, Marshal Marmont--middle size, stout-made, dark complexion, and looks sensible. The French hate him much for his conduct in 1814, but it is only making him the scape-goat. Also, I saw Mons. de Molé, but especially the Marquis de Lauriston, who received me most kindly. He is personally like my cousin Colonel Russell. I learned that his brother, Louis Law,[398] my old friend, was alive, and the father of a large family. I was most kindly treated, and had my vanity much flattered by the men who had acted such important parts talking to me in the most frank manner.

In the evening to Princess Galitzin, where were a whole covey of Princesses of Russia arrayed in tartan! with music and singing to boot. The person in whom I was most interested was Mad. de Boufflers,[399] upwards of eighty, very polite, very pleasant, and with all the agrémens of a French Court lady of the time of Mad. Sévigné, or of the correspondent rather of Horace Walpole. Cooper was there, so the Scotch and American lions took the field together.--Home, and settled our affairs to depart.

November 7.--Off at seven; breakfasted at Beaumont, and pushed on to Airaines. This being a forced march, we had bad lodgings, wet wood, uncomfortable supper, damp beds, and an extravagant charge. I was never colder in my life than when I waked with the sheets clinging round me like a shroud.

November 8.--- We started at six in the morning, having no need to be called twice, so heartily was I weary of my comfortless couch. Breakfasted at Abbeville; then pushed on to Boulogne, expecting to find the packet ready to start next morning, and so to have had the advantage of the easterly tide. But, lo ye! the packet was not to sail till next day. So after shrugging our shoulders--being the solace à la mode de France--and recruiting ourselves with a pullet and a bottle of Chablis à la mode d'Angleterre, we set off for Calais after supper, and it was betwixt three and four in the morning before we got to Dessein's, when the house was full, or reported to be so. We could only get two wretched brick-paved garrets, as cold and moist as those of Airaines, instead of the comforts which we were received with at our arrival. But I was better prepared. Stripped off the sheets, and lay down in my dressing-gown, and so roughed it out--tant bien que mal.

November 9.--At four in the morning we were called; at six we got on board the packet, where I found a sensible and conversible man--a very pleasant circumstance. The day was raw and cold, the wind and tide surly and contrary, the passage slow, and Anne, contrary to her wont, excessively sick. We had little trouble at the Custom House, thanks to the secretary of the Embassy, Mr. Jones, who gave me a letter to Mr. Ward. [At Dover] Mr. Ward came with the Lieutenant-Governor of the castle, and wished us to visit that ancient fortress. I regretted much that our time was short, and the weather did not admit of our seeing views, so we could only thank the gentlemen in declining their civility.

The castle, partly ruinous, seems to have been very fine. The Cliff, to which Shakespeare gave his immortal name, is, as all the world knows, a great deal lower than his description implies. Our Dover friends, justly jealous of the reputation of their cliff, impute this diminution of its consequence to its having fallen in repeatedly since the poet's time. I think it more likely that the imagination of Shakespeare, writing perhaps at a period long after he may have seen the rock, had described it such as he conceived it to have been. Besides, Shakespeare was born in a flat country, and Dover Cliff is at least lofty enough to have suggested the exaggerated features to his fancy. At all events, it has maintained its reputation better than the Tarpeian Rock;--no man could leap from it and live.

Left Dover after a hot luncheon about four o'clock, and reached London at half-past three in the morning. So adieu to la belle France, and welcome merry England.[400]

[Pall Mall,] November 10.--Ere I leave la belle France, however, it is fit I should express my gratitude for the unwontedly kind reception which I met with at all hands. It would be an unworthy piece of affectation did I not allow that I have been pleased--highly pleased--to find a species of literature intended only for my own country has met such an extensive and favourable reception in a foreign land where there was so much a priori to oppose its progress.

For my work I think I have done a good deal; but, above all, I have been confirmed strongly in the impressions I had previously formed of the character of Nap., and may attempt to draw him with a firmer hand.

The succession of new people and unusual incidents has had a favourable effect [on my mind], which was becoming rutted like an ill-kept highway. My thoughts have for some time flowed in another and pleasanter channel than through the melancholy course into which my solitary and deprived state had long driven them, and which gave often pain to be endured without complaint, and without sympathy. "For this relief," as Francisco says in Hamlet, "much thanks."

To-day I visited the public offices, and prosecuted my researches. Left inquiries for the Duke of York, who has recovered from a most desperate state. His legs had been threatened with mortification; but he was saved by a critical discharge; also visited the Duke of Wellington, Lord Melville, and others, besides the ladies in Piccadilly. Dined and spent the evening quietly in Pall Mall.

November 11.--Croker came to breakfast, and we were soon after joined by Theodore Hook, alias "John Bull"[401]; he has got as fat as the actual monarch of the herd. Lockhart sat still with us, and we had, as Gil Blas says, a delicious morning, spent in abusing our neighbours, at which my three neighbours are no novices any more than I am myself, though (like Puss in Boots, who only caught mice for his amusement) I am only a chamber counsel in matters of scandal. The fact is, I have refrained, as much as human frailty will permit, from all satirical composition. Here is an ample subject for a little black-balling in the case of Joseph Hume, the great Æconomist, who has [managed] the Greek loan so egregiously. I do not lack personal provocation (see 13th March last), yet I won't attack him--at present at least--but qu'il se garde de moi:

"I'm not a king, nor nae sic thing, My word it may not stand; And Joseph may a buffet bide, Come he beneath my brand."

At dinner we had a little blow-out on Sophia's part: Lord Dudley, Mr. Hay, Under Secretary of State, [Sir Thomas Lawrence, etc.] Mistress (as she now calls herself) Joanna Baillie, and her sister, came in the evening. The whole went off pleasantly.

November 12.--Went to sit to Sir T.L. to finish the picture for his Majesty, which every one says is a very fine one. I think so myself; and wonder how Sir Thomas has made so much out of an old weather-beaten block. But I believe the hard features of old Dons like myself are more within the compass of the artist's skill than the lovely face and delicate complexion of females. Came home after a heavy shower. I had a long conversation about ------ with Lockhart. All that was whispered is true--a sign how much better our domestics are acquainted with the private affairs of our neighbours than we are. A dreadful tale of incest and seduction, and nearly of blood also--horrible beyond expression in its complications and events--"And yet the end is not;"--and this man was amiable, and seemed the soul of honour--laughed, too, and was the soul of society. It is a mercy our own thoughts are concealed from each other. Oh! if, at our social table, we could see what passes in each bosom around, we would seek dens and caverns to shun human society! To see the projector trembling for his falling speculations; the voluptuary rueing the event of his debauchery; the miser wearing out his soul for the loss of a guinea--all--all bent upon vain hopes and vainer regrets--we should not need to go to the hall of the Caliph Vathek to see men's hearts broiling under their black veils.[402] Lord keep us from all temptation, for we cannot be our own shepherd!

We dined to-day at Lady Stafford's [at West-hill].[403] Lord S. looks very poorly, but better than I expected. No company, excepting Sam Rogers and Mr. Grenville,[404]--the latter is better known by the name of Tom Grenville--a very amiable and accomplished man, whom I knew better about twenty years since. Age has touched him, as it has doubtless affected me. The great lady received us with the most cordial kindness, and expressed herself, I am sure, sincerely, desirous to be of service to Sophia.

November 13.--I consider Charles's business as settled by a private intimation which I had to that effect from Sir W.K.; so I need negotiate no further, but wait the event. Breakfasted at home, and somebody with us, but the whirl of visits so great that I have already forgot the party. Lockhart and I dined at an official person's, where there was a little too much of that sort of flippant wit, or rather smartness, which becomes the parochial Joe Miller of boards and offices. You must not be grave, because it might lead to improper discussions; and to laugh without a joke is a hard task. Your professed wags are treasures to this species of company. Gil Blas was right in censuring the literary society of his friend Fabricio; but nevertheless one or two of the mess would greatly have improved the conversation of his Commis.

Went to poor Lydia White's, and found her extended on a couch, frightfully swelled, unable to stir, rouged, jesting, and dying. She has a good heart, and is really a clever creature, but unhappily, or rather happily, she has set up the whole staff of her rest in keeping literary society about her. The world has not neglected her. It is not always so bad as it is called. She can always make up her soirée, and generally has some people of real talent and distinction. She is wealthy, to be sure, and gives petit dinners, but not in a style to carry the point à force d'argent. In her case the world is good-natured, and perhaps it is more frequently so than is generally supposed.

November 14.--We breakfasted at honest Allan Cunningham's--honest Allan--a leal and true Scotsman of the old cast. A man of genius, besides, who only requires the tact of knowing when and where to stop, to attain the universal praise which ought to follow it. I look upon the alteration of "It's hame and it's hame," and "A wet sheet and a flowing sea," as among the best songs going. His prose has often admirable passages; but he is obscure, and overlays his meaning, which will not do now-a-days, when he who runs must read.

Dined at Croker's, at Kensington, with his family, the Speaker,[405] and the facetious Theodore Hook.

We came away rather early, that Anne and I might visit Mrs. Arbuthnot to meet the Duke of Wellington. In all my life I never saw him better. He has a dozen of campaigns in his body--and tough ones. Anne was delighted with the frank manners of this unequalled pride of British war, and me he received with all his usual kindness. He talked away about Bonaparte, Russia, and France.

November 15.--At breakfast a conclave of medical men about poor little Johnnie Lockhart. They give good words, but I cannot help fearing the thing is very precarious, and I feel a miserable anticipation of what the parents are to undergo. It is wrong, however, to despair. I was myself a very weak child, and certainly am one of the strongest men of my age in point of constitution. Sophia and Anne went to the Tower, I to the Colonial Office, where I laboured hard.

Dined with the Duke of Wellington. Anne with me, who could not look enough at the vainqueur du vainqueur de la terre. The party were Mr. and Mrs. Peel, and Mr. and Mrs. Arbuthnot,[406] Vesey Fitzgerald, Bankes, and Croker, with Lady Bathurst and Lady Georgina. One gentleman took much of the conversation, and gave us, with unnecessary emphasis, and at superfluous length, his opinion of a late gambling transaction. This spoiled the evening. I am sorry for the occurrence though, for Lord ------ is fetlock deep in it, and it looks like a vile bog. This misfortune, with the foolish incident at ------, will not be suffered to fall to the ground, but will be used as a counterpoise to the Greek loan. Peel asked me, in private, my opinion of three candidates for the Scotch gown, and I gave it him candidly. We will see if it has weight.[407]

I begin to tire of my gaieties; and the late hours and constant feasting disagree with me. I wish for a sheep's head and whisky toddy against all the French cookery and champagne in the world.

Well, I suppose I might have been a Judge of Session this term--attained, in short, the grand goal proposed to the ambition of a Scottish lawyer. It is better, however, as it is, while, at least, I can maintain my literary reputation.

I had some conversation to-day with Messrs. Longman and Co. They agreed to my deriving what advantage I could in America, and that very willingly.

November 16.--Breakfasted with Rogers, with my daughters and Lockhart. R. was exceedingly entertaining, in his dry, quiet, sarcastic manner. At eleven to the Duke of Wellington, who gave me a bundle of remarks on Bonaparte's Russian campaign, written in his carriage during his late mission to St. Petersburg.[408] It is furiously scrawled, and the Russian names hard to distinguish, but it shall do me yeoman's service. Then went to Pentonville, to old Mr. Handley, a solicitor of the old school, and manager of the Devonshire property. Had an account of the claim arising on the estate of one Mrs. Owen, due to the representatives of my poor wife's mother. He was desperately excursive, and spoke almost for an hour, but the prospect of £4000 to my children made me a patient auditor. Thence I passed to the Colonial Office, where I concluded my extracts. [Lockhart and I] dined with Croker at the Admiralty au grand couvert. No less than five Cabinet Ministers were present--Canning, Huskisson, Melville, [Peel,] and Wellington, with sub-secretaries by the bushel. The cheer was excellent, but the presence of too many men of distinguished rank and power always freezes the conversation. Each lamp shines brightest when placed by itself; when too close, they neutralise each other.[409]

November 17.--My morning here began with the arrival of Bahauder Jah; soon after Mr. Wright;[410] then I was called out to James Scott the young painter. I greatly fear this modest and amiable creature is throwing away his time. Next came an animal who is hunting out a fortune in Chancery, which has lain perdu for thirty years. The fellow, who is in figure and manner the very essence of the creature called a sloth, has attached himself to this pursuit with the steadiness of a well-scented beagle. I believe he will actually get the prize.

Sir John Malcolm acknowledges and recommends my Persian visitor Bruce.

Saw the Duke of York. The change on H.R.H. is most wonderful. From a big, burly, stout man, with a thick and sometimes an inarticulate mode of speaking, he has sunk into a thin-faced, slender-looking old man, who seems diminished in his very size. I could hardly believe I saw the same person, though I was received with his usual kindness. He speaks much more distinctly than formerly; his complexion is clearer; in short, H.R.H. seems, on the whole, more healthy after this crisis than when in the stall-fed state, for such it seemed to be, in which I remember him. God grant it! his life is of infinite value to the King and country--it is a breakwater behind the throne.

November 18.--Was introduced by Rogers to Mad. D'Arblay, the celebrated authoress of Evelina and Cecilia,--an elderly lady, with no remains of personal beauty, but with a gentle manner and a pleasing expression of countenance. She told me she had wished to see two persons--myself, of course, being one; the other George Canning. This was really a compliment to be pleased with--a nice little handsome pat of butter made up by a neat-handed Phillis[411] of a dairymaid, instead of the grease, fit only for cart-wheels, which one is dosed with by the pound. Mad. D'Arblay told us the common story of Dr. Burney, her father, having brought home her own first work, and recommended it to her perusal, was erroneous. Her father was in the secret of Evelina being printed. But the following circumstances may have given rise to the story:--Dr. Burney was at Streatham soon after the publication, where he found Mrs. Thrale recovering from her confinement, low at the moment, and out of spirits. While they were talking together, Johnson, who sat beside in a kind of reverie, suddenly broke out, "You should read this new work, madam--you should read Evelina; every one says it is excellent, and they are right." The delighted father obtained a commission from Mrs. Thrale to purchase his daughter's work, and retired the happiest of men. Mad. D'Arblay said she was wild with joy at this decisive evidence of her literary success, and that she could only give vent to her rapture by dancing and skipping round a mulberry-tree in the garden. She was very young at this time. I trust I shall see this lady again. She has simple and apparently amiable manners, with quick feelings.

Dined at Mr. Peel's with Lord Liverpool, Duke of Wellington, Croker, Bankes, etc. The conversation very good--Peel taking the lead in his own house, which he will not do elsewhere. We canvassed the memorable criminal case of Ashford,[412] Peel almost convinced of the man's innocence. Should have been at the play, but sat too late at Mr. Peel's.

So ends my campaign among these magnificoes and potent signiors,[413] with whom I have found, as usual, the warmest acceptation. I wish I could turn a little of my popularity amongst them to Lockhart's advantage, who cannot bustle for himself. He is out of spirits just now, and views things au noir. I fear Johnnie's precarious state is the cause.

I finished my sittings to Lawrence, and am heartily sorry there should be another picture of me except that which he has finished. The person is remarkably like, and conveys the idea of the stout blunt carle that cares for few things, and fears nothing. He has represented the author as in the act of composition, yet has effectually discharged all affectation from the manner and attitude. He seems pleased with it himself. He dined with us at Peel's yesterday, where, by the way, we saw the celebrated Chapeau de Paille, which is not a Chapeau de Paille at all.

November 19.--Saw this morning Duke of Wellington and Duke of York; the former so communicative that I regretted extremely the length of time,[414] but have agreed on a correspondence with him. Trop d'honneur pour moi. The Duke of York saw me by appointment. He seems still mending, and spoke of state affairs as a high Tory. Were his health good, his spirit is as strong as ever. H.R.H. has a devout horror of the liberals. Having the Duke of Wellington, the Chancellor, and (perhaps) a still greater person on his side, he might make a great fight when they split, as split they will. But Canning, Huskisson, and a mitigated party of Liberaux will probably beat them. Canning's will and eloquence are almost irresistible. But then the Church, justly alarmed for their property, which is plainly struck at, and the bulk of the landed interest, will scarce brook a mild infusion of Whiggery into the Administration. Well, time will show.

We visited our friends Peel, Lord Gwydyr, Arbuthnot, etc., and left our tickets of adieu. In no instance, during my former visits to London, did I ever meet with such general attention and respect on all sides.

Lady Louisa Stuart dined--also Wright and Mr. and Mrs. Christie. Dr. and Mrs. Hughes came in the evening; so ended pleasantly our last night in London.

[Oxford,] November 20.--Left London after a comfortable breakfast, and an adieu to the Lockhart family. If I had had but comfortable hopes of their poor, pale, prostrate child, so clever and so interesting, I should have parted easily on this occasion, but these misgivings overcloud the prospect. We reached Oxford by six o'clock, and found Charles and his friend young Surtees waiting for us, with a good fire in the chimney, and a good dinner ready to be placed on the table. We had struggled through a cold, sulky, drizzly day, which deprived of all charms even the beautiful country near Henley. So we came from cold and darkness into light and warmth and society. N.B.--We had neither daylight nor moonlight to see the view of Oxford from the Maudlin Bridge, which I used to think one of the most beautiful in the world.

Upon finance I must note that the expense of travelling has mounted high. I am too old to rough it, and scrub it, nor could I have saved fifty pounds by doing so. I have gained, however, in health, spirits, in a new stock of ideas, new combinations, and new views. My self-consequence is raised, I hope not unduly, by the many flattering circumstances attending my reception in the two capitals, and I feel confident in proportion. In Scotland I shall find time for labour and for economy.

[Cheltenham,] November 21.--Breakfasted with Charles in his chambers [at Brasenose], where he had everything very neat. How pleasant it is for a father to sit at his child's board! It is like an aged man reclining under the shadow of the oak which he has planted. My poor plant has some storms to undergo, but were this expedition conducive to no more than his entrance into life under suitable auspices, I should consider the toil and the expense well bestowed. We then sallied out to see the lions--guides being Charles, and friend Surtees, Mr. John Hughes, young Mackenzie (Fitz-Colin), and a young companion or two of Charles's. Remembering the ecstatic feelings with which I visited Oxford more than twenty-five years since, I was surprised at the comparative indifference with which I revisited the same scenes. Reginald Heber, then composing his Prize Poem, and imping his wings for a long flight of honourable distinction, is now dead in a foreign land--Hodgson and other able men all entombed. The towers and halls remain, but the voices which fill them are of modern days. Besides, the eye becomes satiated with sights, as the full soul loathes the honeycomb. I admired indeed, but my admiration was void of the enthusiasm which I formerly felt. I remember particularly having felt, while in the Bodleian, like the Persian magician who visited the enchanted library in the bowels of the mountain, and willingly suffered himself to be enclosed in its recesses,[415] while less eager sages retired in alarm. Now I had some base thoughts concerning luncheon, which was most munificently supplied by Surtees [at his rooms in University College], with the aid of the best ale I ever drank in my life, the real wine of Ceres, and worth that of Bacchus. Dr. Jenkyns,[416] the vice-chancellor, did me the honour to call, but I saw him not. I called on Charles Douglas at All-Souls, and had a chat of an hour with him.[417]

Before three set out for Cheltenham, a long and uninteresting drive, which we achieved by nine o'clock. My sister-in-law [Mrs. Thomas Scott] and her daughter instantly came to the hotel, and seem in excellent health and spirits.

November 22.--Breakfasted and dined with Mrs. Scott, and leaving Cheltenham at seven, pushed on to Worcester to sleep.

November 23.--Breakfasted at Birmingham, and slept at Macclesfield. As we came in between ten and eleven, the people of the inn expressed surprise at our travelling so late, as the general distress of the manufacturers has rendered many of the lower class desperately outrageous. The inn was guarded by a special watchman, who alarmed us by giving his signal of turn out, but it proved to be a poor deserter who had taken refuge among the carriages, and who was reclaimed by his sergeant. The people talk gloomily of winter, when the distress of the poor will be increased.

November 24.--Breakfasted at Manchester. Ere we left, the senior churchwarden came to offer us his services, to show us the town, principal manufactures, etc. We declined his polite offer, pleading haste. I found his opinion about the state of trade more agreeable than I had ventured to expect. He said times were mending gradually but steadily, and that the poor-rates were decreasing, of which none can be so good a judge as the churchwarden. Some months back the people had been in great discontent on account of the power engines, which they conceived diminished the demand for operative labour. There was no politics in their discontent, however, and at present it was diminishing. We again pressed on--and by dint of exertion reached Kendal to sleep; thus getting out of the region of the stern, sullen, unwashed artificers, whom you see lounging sulkily along the streets of the towns in Lancashire, cursing, it would seem by their looks, the stop of trade which gives them leisure, and the laws which prevent them employing their spare time. God's justice is requiting, and will yet further requite those who have blown up this country into a state of unsubstantial opulence, at the expense of the health and morals of the lower classes.

November 25.--Took two pair of horses over the Shap Fells, which are covered with snow, and by dint of exertion reached Penrith to breakfast. Then rolled on till we found our own horses at Hawick, and returned to our own home at Abbotsford about three in the morning. It is well we made a forced march of about one hundred miles, for I think the snow would have stopped us had we lingered.

[Abbotsford,] November 26.--Consulting my purse, found my good £60 diminished to Quarter less Ten. In purse £8. Naturally reflected how much expense has increased since I first travelled. My uncle's servant, during the jaunts we made together while I was a boy, used to have his option of a shilling per diem for board wages, and usually preferred it to having his charges borne. A servant nowadays, to be comfortable on the road, should have 4s. or 4s. 6d. board wages, which before 1790 would have maintained his master. But if this be pitiful, it is still more so to find the alteration in my own temper. When young, on returning from such a trip as I have just had, my mind would have loved to dwell on all I had seen that was rich and rare, or have been placing, perhaps in order, the various additions with which I had supplied my stock of information--and now, like a stupid boy blundering over an arithmetical question half obliterated on his slate, I go stumbling on upon the audit of pounds, shillings, and pence. Why, the increase of charge I complain of must continue so long as the value of the thing represented by cash continues to rise, or as the value of the thing representing continues to decrease--let the economists settle which is the right way of expressing the process when groats turn plenty and eggs grow dear--

"And so 'twill be when I am gone, The increasing charge will still go on, And other bards shall climb these hills, And curse your charge, dear evening bills."

Well, the skirmish has cost me £200. I wished for information--and I have had to pay for it. The information is got, the money is spent, and so this is the only mode of accounting amongst friends.

I have packed my books, etc., to go by cart to Edinburgh to-morrow. I idled away the rest of the day, happy to find myself at home, which is home, though never so homely. And mine is not so homely neither; on the contrary, I have seen in my travels none I liked so well--fantastic in architecture and decoration if you please--but no real comfort sacrificed to fantasy. "Ever gramercy my own purse," saith the song;[418] "Ever gramercy my own house," quoth I.

November 27.--We set off after breakfast, but on reaching Fushie Bridge at three, found ourselves obliged to wait for horses, all being gone to the smithy to be roughshod in this snowy weather. So we stayed dinner, and Peter, coming up with his horses, bowled us into town about eight. Walter came and supped with us, which diverted some heavy thoughts. It is impossible not to compare this return to Edinburgh with others in more happy times. But we should rather recollect under what distress of mind I took up my lodgings in Mrs. Brown's last summer, and then the balance weighs deeply on the favourable side. This house is comfortable and convenient.[419]

[Edinburgh,] November 28.--Went to Court and resumed old habits. Dined with Walter and Jane at Mrs. Jobson's. When we returned were astonished at the news of ----'s death, and the manner of it; a quieter, more inoffensive, mild, and staid mind I never knew. He was free from all these sinkings of the imagination which render those who are liable to them the victims of occasional low spirits. All belonging to this gifted, as it is called, but often unhappy, class, must have felt at times that, but for the dictates of religion, or the natural recoil of the mind from the idea of dissolution, there have been times when they would have been willing to throw away life as a child does a broken toy. But poor ------ was none of these: he was happy in his domestic relations; and on the very day on which the rash deed was committed was to have embarked for rejoining his wife and child, whom I so lately saw anxious to impart to him their improved prospects.

O Lord, what are we--lords of nature? Why, a tile drops from a housetop, which an elephant would not feel more than the fall of a sheet of pasteboard, and there lies his lordship. Or something of inconceivably minute origin, the pressure of a bone, or the inflammation of a particle of the brain takes place, and the emblem of the Deity destroys himself or some one else. We hold our health and our reason on terms slighter than one would desire were it in their choice to hold an Irish cabin.

November 29.--Awaked from horrid dreams to reconsideration of the sad reality; he was such a kind, obliging, assiduous creature. I thought he came to my bedside to expostulate with me how I could believe such a scandal, and I thought I detected that it was but a spirit who spoke, by the paleness of his look and the blood flowing from his cravat. I had the nightmare in short, and no wonder.

I felt stupefied all this day, but wrote the necessary letters notwithstanding. Walter, Jane, and Mrs. Jobson dined with us--but I could not gather my spirits. But it is nonsense, and contrary to my system, which is of the stoic school, and I think pretty well maintained. It is the only philosophy I know or can practise, but it cannot always keep the helm.

November 30.--I went to the Court, and on my return set in order a sheet or two of copy. We came back about two--the new form of hearing counsel makes our sederunt a long one. Dined alone, and worked in the evening.

FOOTNOTES:

[385] For an account of M. Chevalier, and an interview in 1815 with David "of the blood-stained brush," see Life, vol. v. p. 87.Return to passage

[386] Madame de Souza-Botelho, author of Adèle de Senanges, and other works, which formed the subject of an article in the Edinburgh, No. 68, written by Moore. At the time Scott met her she had just lost her second husband, who is remembered by his magnificent editions of Camoens' Lusiad, on which it is said he spent about £4000. Mme. de Souza died in 1836.Return to passage

[387] Hamlet, Act II. Sc. 2.Return to passage

[388] The following mixed metaphor is said to have been taken from one of his speeches:--"Ministers were not to look on like Crocodiles, with their hands in their breeches' pockets, doing nothing."Return to passage

[389] The story regarding Castlereagh's Radiant Boy, is that one night, when he was in barracks and alone, he saw a figure glide from the fireplace, the face becoming brighter as it approached him. On Lord Castlereagh stepping forward to meet it, the figure retired again, and as he advanced it gradually faded from his view. Sir Walter does not tell us of his friend Stanhope's ghostly experience.Return to passage

[390] Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel--Character of Shaftesbury.--J.G.L.Return to passage

[391] The name has since been bestowed on the high ground on the bank of the Seine, on which was built the Palace in connection with the International Exhibition of 1878.Return to passage

[392] It should be noted that Scott wrote "manner" not "manners," as in all previous editions the word is printed. Of Cooper, his latest American biographer, Mr. Lounsbury, says there was in his manner at times "a self-assertion that often bordered, or seemed to border, on arrogance" (p. 79).Return to passage

Of this interview, Cooper is said to have recorded in after years that Scott was so obliging as to make him a number of flattering speeches, which, however, he did not repay in kind, giving, as a reason for has silence, the words of Dr. Johnson regarding his meeting with George III.: "It was not for me to bandy compliments with my sovereign." These two "lions" met on four occasions, viz., on the 3d, 4th, and 6th November, Scott leaving Paris next day.

It cannot be too widely known that if Scott never derived any profits from the enormous sale of his works in America, it was not the fault of his brother author, who urged him repeatedly to try the plan here proposed. Whether the attempt was made is unknown, but it is amusing to see one cause of Scott's hesitation was the fear that the American public would not get his works at the low prices to which they had been accustomed.

[393] General Monthion.Return to passage

[394] Fitz-James was great-grandson of James II., and Duras was related to Feversham, James's general at Sedgemoor. Both died in the same year, 1835.Return to passage

[395] Madame Mirbel, who painted Scott at this time, continued to be a favourite artist with the French (Bonapartist, Bourbon, and Orleanist) for the next twenty years. Among her latest sitters (1841) was Scott's angry correspondent of four months later--General Gourgaud. Madame Mirbel died in 1849. The portrait alluded to was probably a miniature which has been engraved at least once--by J.T.Wedgwood.Return to passage

[396] Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act II. Sc. 3.--J.G.L.Return to passage

[397] The Marshal had visited Scotland in 1825--and Scott saw a good deal of him under the roof of his kinsman, Mr. Macdonald Buchanan.--J.G.L.Return to passage

[398] Lauriston, the ancient seat of the Laws, so famous in French history, is very near Edinburgh, and the estate was in their possession at the time of the Revolution. Two or three cadets of the family were of the first emigration, and one of them (M. Louis Law) was a frequent guest of the Poet's father, and afterwards corresponded during many years with himself. I am not sure whether it was M. Louis Law whose French designation so much amused the people of Edinburgh. One brother of the Marquis de Lauriston, however, was styled Le Chevalier de Mutton-hole, this being the name of a village on the Scotch property.--J.G.L.Return to passage

[399] The Madame de Boufflers best known to the world [Hippolyte de Saujon Comtesse de Boufflers], the correspondent not only of Walpole, but of David Hume, must have been nearer a hundred than eighty years of age at this date, if we are to believe the Biographie Universelle, which gives 1724 as the date of her birth. It does not record her death. It is known that she took refuge in England during the Revolution; but Count Paul de Rémusat, who has been consulted on the subject, has kindly pointed out that the lady of whom Scott speaks must have been the widow of the Chevalier de Boufflers-Remencourt, known by his poems and stories. Her maiden name was de Jean de Manville, and her first husband was a Comte de Sabran. She died in 1827.--See Correspondance inédite de la Comtesse de Sabran, Paris, 8vo, 1875.Return to passage

[400] Readers who may wish to compare with the visit of 1826 Scott's impressions of Paris in 1815 will find a brilliant record of the latter in Paul's Letters, xii.-xvi.Return to passage

[401] A Sunday newspaper started in 1820, to advocate the cause of George IV., and to vilify the Queen and her friends, male and female. The first number was published on December 17th, and "told at once from the convulsed centre to the extremity of the Kingdom. There was talent of every sort in the paper that could have been desired or devised for such a purpose. It seemed as if a legion of sarcastic devils had brooded in Synod over the elements of withering derision." Hook, however, was the master spirit, the majority of the lampoons in prose, and all the original poetry in the early volumes from the "Hunting the Hare," were from his own pen, except, perhaps, "Michael's Dinner," which has been laid at Canning's door.Return to passage

Oddly enough Scott appears to have been the indirect means of placing Hook in the editorial chair. When he was in London, in April 1820, a nobleman called upon him, and asked if he could find him in Edinburgh some clever fellow to undertake the editorship of a paper about to be established. Sir Walter suggested that his Lordship need not go so far a-field, described Hook's situation, and the impression he had received of him from his table talk, and his Magazine, the Arcadian. This was all that occurred, but when, towards the end of the year, John Bull electrified London, Sir Walter confessed that he could not help fancying that his mentioning this man's name had had its consequences.

Hook, in spite of his £2000 per annum for several years from John Bull, and large prices received for his novels, died in poverty in 1841, a prematurely aged man. His sad story may be read in a most powerful sketch in the Quarterly Review, attributed to Mr. Lockhart.

[402] See Beckford's Vathek, Hall of Eblis.Return to passage

[403] Lady Stafford says: "We were so lucky as to have Sir W. Scott here for a day, and were glad to see him look well, and though perfectly unaltered by his successes, yet enjoying the satisfaction they must have given him."--Sharpe's Letters, vol. ii. p. 379.Return to passage

[404] The Right Hon. Thomas Grenville died in 1846 at the age of ninety-one. He left his noble collection of books to the nation.Return to passage

[405] The Right Hon. Charles Manners Sutton, afterwards Viscount Canterbury. He died in 1845.Return to passage

[406] Mrs. Arbuthnot was Harriet, third daughter of the Hon. H. Fane, and wife of Charles Arbuthnot, a great friend of the Duke of Wellington. She died in 1838, Mr. Arbuthnot in 1850.Return to passage

[407] Sir Walter had recommended George Cranstoun, his early friend, one of the brethren of the mountain, who succeeded Lord Hermand, and took his seat on the Scotch bench before the end of the month. The appointment satisfied both political parties, though Cockburn said that "his removal was a great loss to the bar which he had long adorned, and where he had the entire confidence of the public." An admirable sketch of Cranstoun is given in No. 32 of Peter's Letters. He retired in 1839, and died at Corehouse, his picturesque seat on the Clyde, in 1850.Return to passage

[408] This striking paper was afterwards printed in full under the title, "Memorandum on the War in Russia in 1812," in the Despatches edited by his Son (Dec. 1823 to May 1827), Murray, 1868, vol. i. 8vo, pp. 1-53. Sir Walter Scott's letter to the Duke on the subject is given at p. 590 of the same volume, and see this Journal under Feb. 15, 1827.Return to passage

[409] In returning from this dinner Sir Walter said, "I have seen some of these great men at the same table for the last time."--J.G.L.Return to passage

[410] Mr. William Wright, Barrister, Lincoln's Inn.--See Life, vol. viii. p. 84.Return to passage

[411] Milton's L'Allegro.--J.G.L.Return to passage

[412] A murder committed in 1817. The accused claimed the privilege of Wager of Battle, which was allowed by the Court for the last time, as the law was abolished in 1819.--See Notes and Queries, 2d series, vol. xi. pp. 88, 259, 317, and p. 431 for a curious account of the bibliography of this very singular case.Return to passage

[413] Othello,--J.G.L.Return to passage

[414] Sir Walter no doubt means that he regretted not having seen the Duke at an earlier period of his historical labours.--J.G.L.Return to passage

[415] See Weber's Tales of the East, 3 vols. 8vo, Edin. 1812. History of Avicene, vol. ii. pp. 452-457.Return to passage

[416] Dr. Richard Jenkyns, Master of Balliol College.--J.G.L.Return to passage

[417] Charles Douglas succeeded his brother, Baron Douglas of Douglas, in 1844.Return to passage

[418]

"But of all friends in field or town, Ever gramercy," etc.

Dame Juliana Berners.

[419] A furnished house in Walker Street which he had taken for the winter (No. 3).Return to passage

DECEMBER

December 1[420].--The Court again very long in its sitting, and I obliged to remain till the last. This is the more troublesome, as in winter, with my worn-out eyes, I cannot write so well by candle-light. Naboclish! when I am quite blind, good-night to you, as the one-eyed fellow said when a tennis ball knocked out his remaining luminary. My short residue of time before dinner was much cut up by calls--all old friends, too, and men whom I love; but this makes the loss of time more galling, that one cannot and dare not growl at those on whom it has been bestowed. However, I made out two hours better than I expected. I am now once more at my oar, and I will row hard.

December 2.--Returned early from Court, but made some calls by the way. Dined alone with Anne, and meant to have worked, but--I don't know how--this horrid story stuck by me, so I e'en read Boutourlin's account of the Moscow campaign to eschew the foul fiend.

December 3.--Wrote five pages before dinner. Sir Thomas Brisbane and Sir William Arbuthnot called, also John A. Murray. William dined with us, all vivid with his Italian ideas, only Jane besides. Made out five pages, I think, or nearly.

December 4.--Much colded, which is no usual complaint of mine, but worked about five leaves, so I am quite up with my task-work and better. But my books from Abbotsford have not arrived. Dined with the Royal Society Club--about thirty members present--too many for company. After coffee, the Society were like Mungo in The Padlock.[421] I listened, without understanding a single word, to two scientific papers; one about the tail of a comet, and the other about a chucky-stone; besides hearing Basil Hall describe, and seeing him exhibit, a new azimuth. I have half a mind to cut the whole concern; and yet the situation is honourable, and, as Bob Acres says, one should think of their honour. We took possession of our new rooms on the Mound, which are very handsome and gentlemanlike.

December 5.--Annoyed with the cold and its consequences all night, and wish I could shirk the Court this morning. But it must not be. Was kept late, and my cold increased. I have had a regular attack of this for many years past whenever I return to the sedentary life and heated rooms of Edinburgh, which are so different from the open air and constant exercise of the country. Odd enough that during cold weather and cold nocturnal journeys the cold never touched me, yet I am no sooner settled in comfortable quarters and warm well-aired couches, but la voilà. I made a shift to finish my task, however, and even a leaf more, so we are bang up. We dined and supped alone, and I went to bed early.

December 6.--A bad and disturbed night with fever, headache, and some touch of cholera morbus, which greatly disturbed my slumbers. But I fancy Nature was scouring the gun after her own fashion. I slept little till morning, and then lay abed, contrary to my wont, until half-past nine o'clock, when I came down to breakfast. Went to Court, and returned time enough to write about five leaves. Dined at Skene's, where we met Lord Elgin and Mr. Stewart, a son of Sir M. Shaw Stewart, whom I knew and liked, poor man. Talked among other things and persons of Sir J. Campbell of Ardkinglas, who is now here.[422] He is happy in escaping from his notorious title of Callander of Craigforth. In my youth he was a black-leg and swindler of the first water, and like Pistol did

"Somewhat lean to cut-purse of quick hand."[423]

He was obliged to give up his estate to his son Colonel Callander, a gentleman of honour, and as Dad went to the Continent in the midst of the French Revolution, he is understood to have gone through many scenes. At one time, Lord Elgin assured us, he seized upon the island of Zante, as he pretended, by direct authority from the English Government, and reigned there very quietly for some months, until, to appease the jealousy of the Turks, Lord Elgin despatched a frigate to dethrone the new sovereign. Afterwards he traversed India in the dress of a fakir. He is now eighty and upwards.

I should like to see what age and adventures have done upon him. I recollect him a very handsome, plausible man. Of all good breeding, that of a swindler (of good education, be it understood) is the most perfect.

December 7.--Again a very disturbed night, scarce sleeping an hour, yet well when I rose in the morning. I did not do above a leaf to-day, because I had much to read. But I am up to one-fourth of the volume, of 400 pages, which I began on the first December current; the 31st must and shall see the end of vol. vi. We dined alone. I had a book sent me by a very clever woman, in defence of what she calls the rights of her sex. Clever, though. I hope she will publish it.

December 8.--Another restless and deplorable Knight--night I should say--faith, either spelling will suit. Returned early, but much done up with my complaint and want of sleep last night. I wrought however, but with two or three long interruptions, my drowsiness being irresistible. Went to dine with John Murray, where met his brother Henderland, Jeffrey, Harry Cockburn, Rutherfurd, and others of that file. Very pleasant--capital good cheer and excellent wine--much laugh and fun.

December 9.--I do not know why it is that when I am with a party of my Opposition friends, the day is often merrier than when with our own set. Is it because they are cleverer? Jeffrey and Harry Cockburn are, to be sure, very extraordinary men, yet it is not owing to that entirely. I believe both parties meet with the feeling of something like novelty. We have not worn out our jests in daily contact. There is also a disposition on such occasions to be courteous, and of course to be pleased. Wrought all day, but rather dawdled, being abominably drowsy. I fancy it is bile, a visitor I have not had this long time.

December 10.--An uncomfortable and sleepless night; and the lime water assigned to cure me seems far less pleasant, and about as inefficacious as lime punch would be in the circumstances. I felt main stupid the whole forenoon, and though I wrote my task, yet it was with great intervals of drowsiness and fatigue which made me, as we Scots says, dover away in my arm-chair. Walter and Jane came to dinner, also my Coz Colonel Russell, and above and attour[424] James Ballantyne, poor fellow. We had a quiet and social evening, I acting on prescription. Well, I have seen the day--but no matter.

December 11.--Slept indifferent well with a feverish halo about me, but no great return of my complaint. It paid it off this morning, however, but the difference was of such consequence that I made an ample day's work, getting over six pages, besides what I may do. On this, the 11th December, I shall have more than one-third of vol. vi. finished, which was begun on the first of this current month. Dined quiet and at home. I must take no more frisks till this fit is over.

"When once life's day draws near the gloaming, Then farewell careless social roaming; And farewell cheerful tankards foaming, And social noise; And farewell dear deluding woman, The joy of joys!"[425]

Long life to thy fame and peace to thy soul, Rob Burns! When I want to express a sentiment which I feel strongly, I find the phrase in Shakespeare--or thee. The blockheads talk of my being like Shakespeare--not fit to tie his brogues.[426]

December 12.--Did not go to the Parliament House, but drove with Walter to Dalkeith, where we missed the Duke, and found Mr. Blakeney. One thing I saw there which pleased me much, and that was my own picture, painted twenty years ago by Raeburn for Constable, and which was to have been brought to sale among the rest of the wreck, hanging quietly up in the dining-room at Dalkeith.[427] I do not care much about these things, yet it would have been annoying to have been knocked down to the best bidder even in effigy; and I am obliged to the friendship and delicacy which placed the portrait where it now is. Dined at Archie Swinton's, with all the cousins of that honest clan, and met Lord Cringletie,[428] his wife, and others. Finished my task this day.

December 13.--Went to the Court this morning early, and remained till past three. Then attended a meeting of the Edinburgh Academy Directors on account of some discussion about flogging. I am an enemy to corporal punishment, but there are many boys who will not attend without it. It is an instant and irresistible motive, and I love boys' heads too much to spoil them at the expense of their opposite extremity. Then, when children feel an emancipation on this point, we may justly fear they will loosen the bonds of discipline altogether. The master, I fear, must be something of a despot at the risk of his becoming something like a tyrant. He governs subjects whose keen sense of the present is not easily ruled by any considerations that are not pressing and immediate. I was indifferently well beaten at school; but I am now quite certain that twice as much discipline would have been well bestowed.

Dined at home with Walter and Jane; they with Anne went out in the evening, I remained, but not I fear to work much. I feel sorely fagged. I am sadly fagged. Then I cannot get ----'s fate out of my head. I see that kind, social, beneficent face never turned to me without respect and complacence, and--I see it in the agonies of death. This is childish; I tell myself so, and I trust the feeling to no one else. But here it goes down like the murderer who could not cease painting the ideal vision of the man he had murdered, and who he supposed haunted him. A thousand fearful images and dire suggestions glance along the mind when it is moody and discontented with itself. Command them to stand and show themselves, and you presently assert the power of reason over imagination. But if by any strange alterations in one's nervous system you lost for a moment the talisman which controls these fiends, would they not terrify into obedience with their mandates, rather than we would dare longer to endure their presence?

December 14.--Annoyed with this cursed complaint, though I live like a hermit on pulse and water. Bothered, too, with the Court, which leaves me little room for proof-sheets, and none for copy. They sat to-day till past two, so before I had walked home, and called for half an hour on the Chief Commissioner, the work part of the day was gone; and then my lassitude--I say lassitude--not indolence--is so great that it costs me an hour's nap after I come home. We dined to-day with R. Dundas of Arniston--Anne and I. There was a small cabal about Cheape's election for Professor of Civil Law, which it is thought we can carry for him. He deserves support, having been very indifferently used in the affair of the Beacon,[429] where certain high Tories showed a great desire to leave him to the mercy of the enemy; as Feeble says, "I will never bear a base mind."[430] We drank some "victorious Burgundy," contrary to all prescription.

December 15.--Egad! I think I am rather better for my good cheer! I have passed one quiet night at least, and that is something gained. A glass of good wine is a gracious creature, and reconciles poor mortality to itself, and that is what few things can do.

Our election went off very decently; no discussions or aggravating speeches. Sir John Jackass seconded the Whig's nominee. So much they will submit to to get a vote. The numbers stood--Cheape,[431] 138; Bell, 132. Majority, 6--mighty hard run. The Tory interest was weak among the old stagers, where I remember it so strong, but preferment, country residence, etc., has thinned them. Then it was strong in the younger classes. The new Dean, James Moncreiff,[432] presided with strict propriety and impartiality. Walter and Jane dined with us.

December 16.--Another bad night. I remember I used to think a slight illness was a luxurious thing. My pillow was then softened by the hand of affection, and all the little cares which were put in exercise to soothe the languor or pain were more flattering and pleasing than the consequences of the illness were disagreeable. It was a new sense to be watched and attended, and I used to think that the Malade imaginaire gained something by his humour. It is different in the latter stages. The old post-chaise gets more shattered and out of order at every turn; windows will not be pulled up; doors refuse to open, or being open will not shut again--which last is rather my case. There is some new subject of complaint every moment; your sicknesses come thicker and thicker; your comforting or sympathising friends fewer and fewer; for why should they sorrow for the course of nature? The recollection of youth, health, and uninterrupted powers of activity, neither improved nor enjoyed, is a poor strain of comfort. The best is, the long halt will arrive at last, and cure all.

We had a long sitting in the Court. Came home through a cold easterly rain without a greatcoat, and was well wet. A goodly medicine for my aching bones.[433] Dined at Mr. Adam Wilson's, and had some good singing in the evening. Saw Dr. Stokoe, who attended Boney in Saint Helena, a plain, sensible sort of man.[434]

December 17.--This was a day of labour, agreeably varied by a pain which rendered it scarce possible to sit upright. My Journal is getting a vile chirurgical aspect.

I begin to be afraid of the odd consequences complaints in the post equitem are said to produce. Walter and Jane dined. Mrs. Skene came in the evening.

December 18.--Almost sick with pain, and it stops everything. I shall tire of my Journal if it is to contain nothing but biles and plasters and unguents. In my better days I had stories to tell; but death has closed the long dark avenue upon loves and friendships; and I can only look at them as through the grated door of a long burial-place filled with monuments of those who were once dear to me, with no insincere wish that it may open for me at no distant period, provided such be the will of God. My pains were those of the heart, and had something flattering in their character; if in the head, it was from the blow of a bludgeon gallantly received and well paid back.

I went to the meeting of the Commissioners;[435] there was none to-day. The carriage had set me down; so I walked from the college in one of the sourest and most unsocial days which I ever felt. Why should I have liked this? I do not know; it is my dogged humour to yield little to external circumstances. Sent an excuse to the Royal Society, however.

December 19.--Went to Court. No, I lie; I had business there. Wrote a task; no more; could not. Went out to Dalkeith, and dined with the Duke. It delights me to hear this hopeful young nobleman talk with sense and firmness about his plans for improving his estate, and employing the poor. If God and the world spare him, he will be far known as a true Scots lord.[436]

December 20.--Being a Teind day, I had a little repose. We dined at Hector Macdonald's with William Clerk and some youngsters. Highland hospitality as usual. I got some work done to-day.

December 21.--In the house till two o'clock nearly. Came home, corrected proof-sheets, etc., mechanically. All well, would the machine but keep in order, but "The spinning wheel is auld and stiff."

I think I shall not live to the usual verge of human existence. I shall never see the threescore and ten, and shall be summed up at a discount. No help for it, and no matter either.

December 22.--Poor old Honour and Glory dead--once Lord Moira, more lately Lord Hastings. He was a man of very considerable talents, but had an overmastering degree of vanity of the grossest kind. It followed of course that he was gullible. In fact the propensity was like a ring in his nose into which any rogue might put a string. He had a high reputation for war, but it was after the pettifogging hostilities in America where he had done some clever things. He died, having the credit, or rather having had the credit, to leave more debt than any man since Caesar's time. £1,200,000 is said to be the least. There was a time that I knew him well, and regretted the foibles which mingled with his character, so as to make his noble qualities sometimes questionable, sometimes ridiculous. He was always kind to me. Poor Plantagenet! Young Percival went out to dine at Dalkeith with me.

December 24.--To add to my other grievances I have this day a proper fit of rheumatism in my best knee. I pushed to Abbotsford, however, after the Court rose, though compelled to howl for pain as they helped me out of the carriage.

[Abbotsford,] December 25.--By dint of abstinence and opodeldoc I passed a better night than I could have hoped for; but took up my lodging in the chapel room, as it is called, for going upstairs was impossible.

To-day I have been a mere wretch. I lay in bed till past eleven, thinking to get rid of the rheumatism; then I walked as far as Turnagain with much pain, and since that time I have just roasted myself like a potato by the fireside in my study, slumbering away my precious time, and unable to keep my eyes open or my mind intent on anything, if I would have given my life for it. I seemed to sleep tolerably, too, last night, but I suppose Nature had not her dues properly paid; neither has she for some time.

I saw the filling up of the quarry on the terrace walk, and was pleased. Anne and I dined at Mertoun, as has been my old wont and use as Christmas day comes about. We were late in setting out, and I have rarely seen so dark a night. The mist rolled like volumes of smoke on the road before us.

December 26.--Returned to Abbotsford this morning. I heard it reported that Lord B. is very ill. If that be true it affords ground for hope that Sir John ------ is not immortal. Both great bores. But the Earl has something of wild cleverness, far exceeding the ponderous stupidity of the Cavaliero Jackasso.

December 27.--Still weak with this wasting illness, but it is clearly going off. Time it should, quoth Sancho. I began my work again, which had slumbered betwixt pain and weakness. In fact I could not write or compose at all.

December 28.--Stuck to my work. Mr. Scrope came to dinner, and remained next day. We were expecting young Percival and his wife, once my favourite and beautiful Nancy M'Leod, and still a very fine woman; but they came not.

In bounced G. T[homson], alarmed by an anonymous letter, which acquainted him that thirty tents full of Catholics were coming to celebrate high mass in the Abbey church; and to consult me on such a precious document he came prancing about seven at night. I hope to get him a kirk before he makes any extraordinary explosion of simplicity.

December 29.--Mr. and Mrs. Percival came to-day. He is son of the late lamented statesman, equally distinguished by talents and integrity. The son is a clever young man, and has read a good deal; pleasant, too, in society; but tampers with phrenology, which is unworthy of his father's son. There is a certain kind of cleverish men, either half educated or cock-brained by nature, who are attached to that same turnipology. I am sorry this gentleman should take such whims--sorry even for his name's sake. Walter and Jane arrived; so our Christmas party thickens. Sir Adam and Colonel Ferguson dined.

December 30.--Wrote and wrought hard, then went out a drive with Mr. and Mrs. Percival; and went round by the lake. If my days of good fortune should ever return I will lay out some pretty rides at Abbotsford.

Last day of an eventful year; much evil and some good; but especially the courage to endure what Fortune sends without becoming a pipe for her fingers.[437]

It is not the last day of the year, but to-morrow being Sunday we hold our festival of neighbours to-day instead. The Fergusons came en masse, and we had all the usual appliances of mirth and good cheer. Yet our party, like the chariot-wheels of Pharaoh in the Red Sea, dragged heavily.

Some of the party grow old and infirm; others thought of the absence of the hostess, whose reception of her guests was always kind. We did as well as we could, however.

"It's useless to murmur and pout-- There's no good in making ado; 'Tis well the old year is out, And time to begin a new."

December 31.--It must be allowed that the regular recurrence of annual festivals among the same individuals has, as life advances, something in it that is melancholy. We meet on such occasions like the survivors of some perilous expedition, wounded and weakened ourselves, and looking through the diminished ranks of those who remain, while we think of those who are no more. Or they are like the feasts of the Caribs, in which they held that the pale and speechless phantoms of the deceased appeared and mingled with the living. Yet where shall we fly from vain repining? Or why should we give up the comfort of seeing our friends, because they can no longer be to us, or we to them, what we once were to each other?

FOOTNOTES:

[420] During the winter of 1826-7 Sir Walter suffered great pain (enough to have disturbed effectually any other man's labours, whether official or literary) from successive attacks of rheumatism, which seems to have been fixed on him by the wet sheets of one of his French inns; and his Diary contains, besides, various indications that his constitution was already shaking under the fatigue to which he had subjected it. Formerly, however great the quantity of work he put through his hands, his evenings were almost all reserved for the light reading of an elbow-chair, or the enjoyment of his family and friends. Now he seemed to grudge every minute that was not spent at his desk. The little that he read of new books, or for mere amusement, was done by snatches in the course of his meals; and to walk, when he could walk at all, to the Parliament House, and back again through the Princes Street Gardens, was his only exercise and his only relaxation. Every ailment, of whatever sort, ended in aggravating his lameness; and, perhaps, the severest test his philosophy encountered was the feeling of bodily helplessness that from week to week crept upon him. The winter, to make bad worse, was a very cold and stormy one. The growing sluggishness of his blood showed itself in chilblains, not only on the feet but the fingers, and his handwriting becomes more and more cramped and confused.--Life, vol. ix. pp. 58-9.Return to passage

[421] See Bickerstaff's Comic Opera, The Padlock.Return to passage

[422] This gentleman published his own Memoirs (2 vols. 8vo, Lond. 1832). They read like chapters from the Arabian Nights. He gives a somewhat different account of his occupation of Zante, which he says was effected at Nelson's suggestion, and by Lord Keith's authority. Sir James died in 1832 at a very great age.Return to passage

[423] Henry V. Act v. Sc. 1.Return to passage

[424] For By and attour, i.e. over and above.Return to passage

[425] Burns's lines to J. Smith.Return to passage

[426] Delta's lines on Leslie's portrait of Scott may be recorded here:--Return to passage

Brother of Homer and of him On Avon's shore, mid twilight dim, Who dreamed immortal dreams, and took From Nature's hand her picture book; Time hath not seen, Time may not see, Till ends his reign, a third like thee.

[427] Now at Bowhill.Return to passage

[428] James Wolfe Murray succeeded Lord Meadowbank on the Bench as Lord Cringletie, in November 1816, and died in 1836.Return to passage

[429] A Party Newspaper started by the Tories in Edinburgh at the beginning of 1821. It was suppressed in the month of August, but during the interval contrived to give great offence to the Whig leaders by its personality. Lockhart says of it that "a more pitiable mass of blunders and imbecility was never heaped together than the whole of this affair exhibited;" and Scott, who was one of its founders, along with the Lord Advocate and other official persons, wrote to Erskine, "I am terribly malcontent about the Beacon. I was dragged into the bond against all reasons I could make, and now they have allowed me no vote regarding standing or flying. Entre nous, our friends went into the thing like fools, and came out very like cowards." The wretched libels it contained cost Sir A. Boswell his life, and for a moment endangered that of Scott.--See Life, vol. vi. pp. 426-429, and Cockburn's Memorials, p. 312.Return to passage

[430] 2 Henry IV. Act III. Sc. 2.Return to passage

[431] Douglas Cheape, whose Introductory Lecture was published in 1827. Mr. Cheape died in 1861.Return to passage

[432] James Moncreiff, son of the Rev. Sir Henry Wellwood. The new Dean succeeded Lord Alloway on the Scotch Bench in 1829, and died in 1851. Cockburn writes of him thus:--"During the twenty-one years he was on the civil and criminal benches, he performed all his duties admirably. Law-learning and law-reasoning, industry, honesty, and high-minded purity could do no more for any judge. After forty years of unbroken friendship, it is a pleasure to record my love of the man, and my admiration of his character."--Journals, vol. ii, p. 264.Return to passage

[433] Troilus and Cressida, Act v. Sc. 2.Return to passage

[434] Dr. Stokoe, who had settled at Durham, died suddenly at York in 1852. He had been surgeon in the fleet at Trafalgar, and was afterwards appointed to St. Helena.Return to passage

[435] The University Commission.--See ante, pp. 256, 257.Return to passage

[436] The long life of Walter, fifth Duke of Buccleuch, more than fulfilled the hopes and prognostics of his friend. A "true Scots lord," he carried with him to the grave in 1884 the love and respect of his countrymen.Return to passage

[437] Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 2.--J.G.L.Return to passage

1827

JANUARY.

January 1.--God make this a happy year to the King and country, and to all honest men!

I went with all our family to-day to dine as usual at the kind house of Huntly Burn; but the same cloud which hung over us on Saturday still had its influence. The effect of grief upon [those] who, like myself and Sir A.F., are highly susceptible of humour, has, I think, been finely touched by Wordsworth in the character of the merry village teacher Matthew, whom Jeffrey profanely calls the hysterical schoolmaster.[438] But, with my friend Jeffrey's pardon, I think he loves to see imagination best when it is bitted and managed and ridden upon, the grand pas. He does not make allowance for starts and sallies and bounds when Pegasus is beautiful to behold, though sometimes perilous to his rider. Not that I think the amiable bard of Rydal shows judgment in choosing such subjects as the popular mind cannot sympathise in. It is unwise and unjust to himself. I do not compare myself, in point of imagination, with Wordsworth--far from it; for [his] is naturally exquisite, and highly cultivated by constant exercise. But I can see as many castles in the clouds as any man, as many genii in the curling smoke of a steam engine, as perfect a Persepolis in the embers of a sea-coal fire. My life has been spent in such day-dreams. But I cry no roast-meat. There are times a man should remember what Rousseau used to say: Tais-toi, Jean-Jacques, car on ne t'entend pas![439]

January 2.--I had resolved to mark down no more griefs and groans, but I must needs briefly state that I am nailed to my chair like the unhappy Theseus. The rheumatism, exasperated by my sortie of yesterday, has seized on my only serviceable knee--and I am, by Proserpine, motionless as an anvil. Leeches and embrocations are all I have for it. Diable! there was a twinge. The Russells and Fergusons here; but I was fairly driven off the pit after dinner, and compelled to retreat to my own bed, there to howl till morning like a dog in his solitary cabin.

January 3.--Mending slowly. Two things are comfortable--1_st_, I lose no good weather out of doors, for the ground is covered with snow; 2_d_, That, by exerting a little stoicism, I can make my illness promote the advance of Nap. As I can scarcely stand, however, I am terribly awkward at consulting books, maps, etc. The work grows under my hand, however; vol. vi. [Napoleon] will be finished this week, I believe. Russells being still with us, I was able by dint of handing and chairing to get to the dining-room and the drawing-room in the evening.

Talking of Wordsworth, he told Anne and me a story, the object of which was to show that Crabbe had not imagination. He, Sir George Beaumont, and Wordsworth were sitting together in Murray the bookseller's back-room. Sir George, after sealing a letter, blew out the candle, which had enabled him to do so, and, exchanging a look with Wordsworth, began to admire in silence the undulating thread of smoke which slowly arose from the expiring wick, when Crabbe put on the extinguisher. Anne laughed at the instance, and inquired if the taper was wax, and being answered in the negative, seemed to think that there was no call on Mr. Crabbe to sacrifice his sense of smell to their admiration of beautiful and evanescent forms. In two other men I should have said "this is affectations,"[440] with Sir Hugh Evans; but Sir George is the man in the world most void of affectation; and then he is an exquisite painter, and no doubt saw where the incident would have succeeded in painting. The error is not in you yourself receiving deep impressions from slight hints, but in supposing that precisely the same sort of impression must arise in the mind of men otherwise of kindred feeling, or that the commonplace folks of the world can derive such inductions at any time or under any circumstances.

January 4.--My enemy gained some strength during the watches of the night, but has again succumbed under scalding fomentations of camomile flowers. I still keep my state, for my knee, though it has ceased to pain me, is very feeble. We began to fill the ice-house to-day. Dine alone--en famille, that is, Jane, Anne, Walter, and I. Why, this makes up for aiches, as poor John Kemble used to call them. After tea I broke off work, and read my young folks the farce of the Critic, and "merry folks were we."

January 5.--I waked, or aked if you please, for five or six hours I think, then fevered a little. I am better though, God be thanked, and can now shuffle about and help myself to what I want without ringing every quarter of an hour. It is a fine clear sunny day; I should like to go out, but flannel and poultices cry nay. So I drudge away with the assisting of Pelet, who has a real French head, believing all he desires should be true, and affirming all he wishes should be believed. Skenes (Mr. and Mrs., with Miss Jardine) arrived about six o'clock. Skene very rheumatic, as well as I am.

January 6.--Worked till dusk, but not with much effect; my head and mind not clear somehow. W. Laidlaw at dinner. In the evening read Foote's farce of the Commissary, said to have been levelled at Sir Lawrence Dundas; but Sir Lawrence was a man of family. Walter and Jane dined at Mertoun.

January 7.--Wrought till twelve, then sallied and walked with Skene for two miles; home and corrected proofs, and to a large amount. Mr. Scrope and George Thomson dined.

January 8.--Slept well last night in consequence I think of my walk, which I will, God willing, repeat to-day. I wrote some letters too long delayed, and sent off my packets to J.B. Letter from C. Sharpe very pressing. I should employ my interest at Windsor to oppose the alterations on the town of Edinburgh. "One word from you, and all that." I don't think I shall speak that word though. I hate the alterations, that is certain; but then ne accesseris in consilium nisi vocatus,--what is the use of my volunteering an opinion? Again, the value of many people's property may depend on this plan going forward. Have I a right from mere views of amenity to interfere with those serious interests? I something doubt it. Then I have always said that I never meddle in such work, and ought I sotto voce now to begin it? By my faith I won't; there are enough to state the case besides me.[441]

The young Duke of B. came in to bid us good-bye, as he is going off to England. God bless him! He is a hawk of a good nest. Afterwards I walked to the Welsh pool, Skene declining to go, for I

"-----not over stout of limb, Seem stronger of the two."

January 9.--This morning received the long-expected news of the Duke of York's death.[442] I am sorry both on public and private accounts. His R.H. was, while he occupied the situation of next in the royal succession, a Breakwater behind the throne. I fear his brother of Clarence's opinions may be different, and that he will hoist a standard under which will rendezvous men of desperate hopes and evil designs. I am sorry, too, on my own account. The Duke of York was uniformly kind to me, and though I never tasked his friendship deeply, yet I find a powerful friend is gone. His virtues were honour, good sense, integrity; and by exertion of these qualities he raised the British army from a very low ebb to be the pride and dread of Europe. His errors were those of a sanguine and social temper; he could not resist the temptation of deep play, which was fatally allied with a disposition to the bottle. This last is incident to his complaint, which vinous influence soothes for the time, while it insidiously increases it in the end.

Here blows a gale of wind. I was to go to Galashiels to settle some foolish lawsuit, and afterwards to have been with Mr. Kerr of Kippilaw to treat about a march-dike. I shall content myself with the first duty, for this day does not suit Bowden-moor.

Went over to Galashiels like the devil in a gale of wind, and found a writer contesting with half-a-dozen unwashed artificers the possession of a piece of ground the size and shape of a three-cornered pocket-handkerchief. Tried to "gar them gree," and if I succeed, I shall think I deserve something better than the touch of rheumatism, which is like to be my only reward.

Scotts of Harden and John Pringle of Clifton dined, and we got on very well.

January 10.--Enter rheumatism, and takes me by the knee. So much for playing the peacemaker in a shower of rain. Nothing for it but patience, cataplasm of camomile, and labour in my own room the whole day till dinner-time--then company and reading in the evening.

January 11.--Ditto repeated. I should have thought I would have made more of these solitary days than I find I can do. A morning, or two or three hours before dinner, have often done more efficient work than six or seven of these hours of languor, I cannot say of illness, can produce. A bow that is slackly strung will never send an arrow very far. Heavy snow. We are engaged at Mr. Scrope's, but I think I shall not be able to go. I remained at home accordingly, and, having nothing else to do, worked hard and effectively. I believe my sluggishness was partly owing to the gnawing rheumatic pain in my knee, for after all I am of opinion pain is an evil, let Stoics say what they will. Thank God, it is an evil which is mending with me.

January 12.--All this day occupied with camomile poultices and pen and ink. It is now four o'clock, and I have written yesterday and to-day ten of my pages--that is, one-tenth of one of these large volumes--moreover, I have corrected three proof-sheets. I wish it may not prove fool's haste, yet I take as much pains too as is in my nature.

January 13.--The Fergusons, with my neighbours Mr. Scrope and Mr. Bainbridge and young Hume, eat a haunch of venison from Drummond Castle, and seemed happy. We had music and a little dancing, and enjoyed in others the buoyancy of spirit that we no longer possess ourselves. Yet I do not think the young people of this age so gay as we were. There is a turn for persiflage, a fear of ridicule among them, which stifles the honest emotions of gaiety and lightness of spirit; and people, when they give in the least to the expansion of their natural feelings, are always kept under by the fear of becoming ludicrous. To restrain your feelings and check your enthusiasm in the cause even of pleasure is now a rule among people of fashion, as much as it used to be among philosophers.

January 14.--Well--my holidays are out--and I may count my gains and losses as honest Robinson Crusoe used to balance his accounts of good and evil.

I have not been able, during three weeks, to stir above once or twice from the house. But then I have executed a great deal of work, which would be otherwise unfinished.

Again I have sustained long and sleepless nights and much pain. True; but no one is the worse of the thoughts which arise in the watches of the night; and for pain, the complaint which brought on this rheumatism was not so painful perhaps, but was infinitely more disagreeable and depressing.

Something there has been of dulness in our little reunions of society which did not use to cloud them. But I have seen all my own old and kind friends, with my dear children (Charles alone excepted); and if we did not rejoice with perfect joy, it was overshadowed from the same sense of regret.

Again, this new disorder seems a presage of the advance of age with its infirmities. But age is but the cypress avenue which terminates in the tomb, where the weary are at rest.

I have been putting my things to rights to go off to-morrow. Though I always wonder why it should be so, I feel a dislike to order and to task-work of all kinds--a predominating foible in my disposition. I do not mean that it influences me in morals; for even in youth I had a disgust at gross irregularities of any kind, and such as I ran into were more from compliance with others and a sort of false shame, than any pleasure I sought or found in dissipation. But what I mean is a detestation of precise order in petty matters--in reading or answering letters, in keeping my papers arranged and in order, and so on. Weber, and then Gordon, used to keep my things in some order--now they are verging to utter confusion. And then I have let my cash run ahead since I came from the Continent--I must slump the matter as I can.

[Shandwick Place,] January 15.--- Off we came, and despite of rheumatism I got through the journey comfortably. Greeted on my arrival by a number of small accounts whistling like grape-shot; they are of no great avail, and incurred, I see, chiefly during the time of illness. But I believe it will take me some hard work till I pay them, and how to get the time to work? It will be hard purchased if, as I think not unlikely, this bitch of a rheumatism should once more pin me to my chair. Coming through Galashiels, we met the Laird of Torwoodlee, who, on hearing how long I had been confined, asked how I bore it, observing that he had once in his life (Torwoodlee must be between sixty and seventy) been confined for five days to the house, and was like to hang himself. I regret God's free air as much as any man, but I could amuse myself were it in the Bastile.

January 16.--Went to Court, and returned through a curious atmosphere, half mist, half rain, famous for rheumatic joints. Yet I felt no increase of my plaguey malady, but, on the contrary, am rather better. I had need, otherwise a pair of crutches for life were my prettiest help.

Walter dined with us to-day, Jane remaining with her mother. The good affectionate creatures leave us to-morrow. God send them a quick passage through the Irish Channel! They go to Gort, where Walter's troop is lying--a long journey for winter days.

January 17.--Another proper day of mist, sleet, and rain, through which I navigated homeward. I imagine the distance to be a mile and a half. It is a good thing to secure as much exercise.

I observed in the papers my old friend Gifford's funeral. He was a man of rare attainments and many excellent qualities. The translation of Juvenal is one of the best versions ever made of a classical author, and his satire of the Baviad and Maeviad squabashed at one blow a set of coxcombs who might have humbugged the world long enough.

As a commentator he was capital, could he but have suppressed his rancour against those who had preceded him in the task, but a misconstruction or misinterpretation, nay, the misplacing of a comma, was in Gifford's eyes a crime worthy of the most severe animadversion. The same fault of extreme severity went through his critical labours, and in general he flagellated with so little pity, that people lost their sense of the criminal's guilt in dislike of the savage pleasure which the executioner seemed to take in inflicting the punishment.

This lack of temper probably arose from indifferent health, for he was very valetudinary, and realised two verses, wherein he says fortune assigned him--

"----- One eye not over good, Two sides that to their cost have stood A ten years' hectic cough, Aches, stitches, all the various ills That swell the dev'lish doctor's bills, And sweep poor mortals off."

But he might also justly claim, as his gift, the moral qualities expressed in the next fine stanza--

"------A soul That spurns the crowd's malign control, A firm contempt of wrong: Spirits above afflictions' power, And skill to soothe the lingering hour With no inglorious song."[443]

January 18.--To go on with my subject--Gifford was a little man, dumpled up together, and so ill-made as to seem almost deformed, but with a singular expression of talent in his countenance. Though so little of an athlete, he nevertheless beat off Dr. Wolcot, when that celebrated person, the most unsparing calumniator of his time, chose to be offended with Gifford for satirising him in his turn. Peter Pindar made a most vehement attack, but Gifford had the best of the affray, and remained, I think, in triumphant possession of the field of action, and of the assailant's cane. Gifford had one singular custom. He used always to have a duenna of a housekeeper to sit in his study with him while he wrote. This female companion died when I was in London, and his distress was extreme. I afterwards heard he got her place supplied. I believe there was no scandal in all this.[444]

This is another vile day of darkness and rain, with a heavy yellow mist that might become Charing Cross--one of the benefits of our extended city; for that in our atmosphere was unknown till the extent of the buildings below Queen Street. M'Culloch of Ardwell called.

Wrought chiefly on a critique of Mrs. Charlotte Smith's novels,[445] and proofs.

January 19.--Uncle Adam,[446] vide Inheritance, who retired last year from an official situation at the age of eighty-four, although subject to fits of giddiness, and although carefully watched by his accomplished daughter, is still in the habit of walking by himself if he can by possibility make an escape. The other day, in one of these excursions, he fell against a lamp-post, cut himself much, bled a good deal, and was carried home by two gentlemen. What said old Rugged-and-Tough? Why, that his fall against the post was the luckiest thing could have befallen him, for the bleeding was exactly the remedy for his disorder.

"Lo! stout hearts of men!" Called on said "uncle," also on David Hume, Lord Chief-Commissioner, Will Clerk, Mrs. Jobson, and others. My knee made no allowance for my politeness, but has begun to swell again, and to burn like a scorpion's bite.

January 20.--Scarce slept all night; scarce able to stand or move this morning; almost an absolute fixture.

"A sleepless knight, A weary knight, God be the guide."[447]

This is at the Court a blank day, being that of the poor Duke of York's funeral. I can sit at home, luckily, and fag hard.

And so I have, pretty well; six leaves written, and four or five proof-sheets corrected. Cadell came to breakfast, and proposes an eighth volume for Napoleon. I told him he might write to Longman for their opinion. Seven is an awkward number, and will extremely cramp the work. Eight, too, would go into six octavos, should it ever be called for in that shape. But it shall be as they list to have it.

January 21.--A long day of some pain relieved by labour. Dr. Ross came in and recommended some stuff, which did little good. I would like ill to lose the use of my precious limbs. Meanwhile, Patience, cousin, and shuffle the cards.

Missie dined with us to-day--an honest Scotch lass, lady-like and frank. I finished about six leaves, doing indeed little else.

January 22.--Work, varied with camomile; we get on, though. A visit from Basil Hall, with Mr. Audubon the ornithologist, who has followed that pursuit by many a long wandering in the American forests. He is an American by naturalisation, a Frenchman by birth;[448] but less of a Frenchman than I have ever seen--no dash, or glimmer, or shine about him, but great simplicity of manners and behaviour; slight in person, and plainly dressed; wears long hair, which time has not yet tinged; his countenance acute, handsome, and interesting, but still simplicity is the predominant characteristic. I wish I had gone to see his drawings; but I had heard so much about them that I resolved not to see them--"a crazy way of mine, your honour."--Five more leaves finished.

January 23.--I have got a piece of armour, a knee-cap of chamois leather, which I think does my unlucky rheumatism some good. I begin, too, to sleep at night, which is a great comfort. Spent this day completely in labour; only betwixt dinner and tea, while husbanding a tumbler of whisky and water, I read the new novel, Elizabeth de Bruce[449]--part of it, that is.

January 24.--Visit from Mr. Audubon, who brings some of his birds. The drawings are of the first order--the attitudes of the birds of the most animated character, and the situations appropriate; one of a snake attacking a bird's nest, while the birds (the parents) peck at the reptile's eyes--they usually, in the long-run, destroy him, says the naturalist. The feathers of these gay little sylphs, most of them from the Southern States, are most brilliant, and are represented with what, were it [not] connected with so much spirit in the attitude, I would call a laborious degree of execution. This extreme correctness is of the utmost consequence to the naturalist, [but] as I think (having no knowledge of virtu), rather gives a stiffness to the drawings. This sojourner in the desert had been in the woods for months together. He preferred associating with the Indians to the company of the Back Settlers; very justly, I daresay, for a civilised man of the lower order--that is, the dregs of civilisation--when thrust back on the savage state becomes worse than a savage. They are Wordsworth's adventurer,

"Deliberate and undeceived The wild men's vices who received, And gave them back his own."[450]

The Indians, he says, are dying fast; they seem to pine and die whenever the white population approaches them. The Shawanese, who amounted, Mr. Audubon says, to some thousands within his memory, are almost extinct, and so are various other tribes. Mr. Audubon could never hear any tradition about the mammoth, though he made anxious inquiries. He gives no countenance to the idea that the Red Indians were ever a more civilised people than at this day, or that a more civilised people had preceded them in North America. He refers the bricks, etc., occasionally found, and appealed to in support of this opinion, to the earlier settlers,--or, where kettles and other utensils may have been found, to the early trade between the Indians and the Spaniards.

John Russell[451] and Leonard Horner[452] came to consult me about the propriety and possibility of retaining the northern pronunciation of the Latin in the new Edinburgh Academy.[453] I will think of it until to-morrow, being no great judge. We had our solitary dinner; indeed, it is only remarkable nowadays when we have a guest.

January 25.--Thought during the watches of the night and a part of the morning about the question of Latin pronunciation, and came to the following conclusions. That the mode of pronunciation approved by Buchanan and by Milton, and practised by all nations, excepting the English, assimilated in sound, too, to the Spanish, Italian, and other languages derived from the Latin, is certainly the best, and is likewise useful as facilitating the acquisition of sounds which the Englishman attempts in vain. Accordingly I wish the cockneyfied pedant who first disturbed it by reading Emo for Amo, and quy for qui, had choked in the attempt. But the question is, whether a youth who has been taught in a manner different from that used all over England will be heard, if he presumes to use his Latin at the bar or the senate; and if he is to be unintelligible or ludicrous, the question [arises] whether his education is not imperfect under one important view. I am very unwilling to sacrifice our sumpsimus to their old mumpsimus--still more to humble ourselves before the Saxons while we can keep an inch of the Scottish flag flying. But this is a question which must be decided not on partialities or prejudices.

I got early from the Court to-day, and settled myself to work hard.

January 26.--My rheumatism is almost gone. I can walk without Major Weir, which is the name Anne gives my cane, because it is so often out of the way that it is suspected, like the staff of that famous wizard,[454] to be capable of locomotion. Went to Court, and tarried till three o'clock, after which transacted business with Mr. Gibson and Dr. Inglis as one of Miss Hume's trustees. Then was introduced to young Mr. Rennie,[455] or he to me, by [Sir] James Hall, a genteel-looking young man, and speaks well. He was called into public notice by having, many years before, made a draught of a plan of his father's for London Bridge. It was sought for when the building was really about to take place, and the assistance which young Mr. Rennie gave to render it useful raised his character so high, that his brother and he are now in first-rate practice as civil engineers.

January 27.--Read Elizabeth de Bruce; it is very clever, but does not show much originality. The characters, though very entertaining, are in the manner of other authors, and the finished and filled up portraits of which the sketches are to be found elsewhere. One is too apt to feel on such occasions the pettish resentment that you might entertain against one who had poached on your manor. But the case is quite different, and a claim set up on having been the first who betook himself to the illustration of some particular class of characters, or department of life, is no more a right of monopoly than that asserted by the old buccaneers by setting up a wooden cross, and killing an Indian or two on some new discovered island. If they can make anything of their first discovery, the better luck theirs; if not, let others come, penetrate further into the country, write descriptions, make drawings or settlements at their pleasure.

We were kept in Parliament House till three. Called to return thanks to Mr. Menzies of Pitfoddels, who lent some pamphlets about the unhappy Duke d'Enghien. Read in the evening Boutourlin and Ségur, to prepare for my Russian campaign.

January 28.--Continued my reading with the commentary of the D. of W.[456] If his broad shoulders cannot carry me through, the devil must be in the dice. Longman and Company agree to the eight volumes. It will make the value of the book more than £12,000. Wrought indifferent hard.

January 29.--Mr. Gibson breakfasted with Dr. Marshman,[457] the head of the missionaries at Serampore, a great Oriental scholar. He is a thin, dark-featured, middle-sized man, about fifty or upwards, his eye acute, his hair just beginning to have a touch of the grey. He spoke well and sensibly, and seemed liberal in his ideas. He was clearly of opinion that general information must go hand in hand, or even ought to precede religious instruction. Thinks the influence of European manners is gradually making changes in India. The natives, so far as their religion will allow them, are become fond of Europeans, and invite them to their great festivals. He has a conceit that the Afghans are the remains of the Ten Tribes. I cannot find he has a better reason than their own tradition, which calls them Ben-Israel, and says they are not Ben-Judah. They have Jewish rites and ceremonies, but so have all Mahometans; neither could I understand that their language has anything peculiar. The worship of Bhoodah he conceives to have [been] an original, or rather the original, of Hindu religion, until the Brahmins introduced the doctrines respecting caste and other peculiarities. But it would require strong proof to show that the superstition of caste could be introduced into a country which had been long peopled, and where society had long existed without such restriction. It is more like to be adopted in the early history of a tribe, when there are but few individuals, the descent of whom is accurately preserved. How could the castes be distinguished or told off in a populous nation? Dr. Marshman was an old friend of poor John Leyden.

January 30.--Blank day at Court, being the Martyrdom. Wrought hard at Bon. all day, though I had settled otherwise. I ought to have been at an article for John Lockhart, and one for poor Gillies; but there is something irresistible in contradiction, even when it consists in doing a thing equally laborious, but not the thing you are especially called upon to do. It is a kind of cheating the devil, which a self-willed monster like me is particularly addicted to. Not to make myself worse than I am though, I was full of information about the Russian campaign, which might evaporate unless used, like lime, as soon after it was wrought up as possible. About three, Pitfoddels called. A bauld crack that auld papist body, and well informed. We got on religion. He is very angry with the Irish demagogues, and a sound well-thinking man.[458] Heard of Walter and Jane; all well, God be praised!

By a letter from Gibson I see the gross proceeds of

Bonaparte, at eight volumes, are £12,600 0 0 Discount, five months, 210 0 0 ----------- £12,390 0 0 ===========

I question if more was ever made by a single work, or by a single author's labours, in the same time. But whether it is deserved or not is the question.

January 31.--Young Murray, son of Mr. M., in Albemarle Street, breakfasted with me. English boys have this advantage, that they are well-bred, and can converse when ours are regular-built cubs. I am not sure if it is an advantage in the long-run. It is a temptation to premature display.

Wet to the skin coming from the Court. Called on Skene, to give him, for the Antiquarian Society, a heart, human apparently, stuck full of pins. It was found lying opposite to the threshold of an old tenement, in [Dalkeith], a little below the surface; it is in perfect preservation. Dined at the Bannatyne Club, where I am chairman. We admitted a batch of new members, chiefly noblemen and men connected with the public offices and records in London, such as Palgrave, Petrie, etc. We drank to our old Scottish heroes, poets, historians, and printers, and were funny enough, though, like Shylock, I had no will to go abroad. I was supported by Lord Minto and Lord Eldin.

FOOTNOTES:

[438] "A half-crazy sentimental person."--Edin. Rev. No. xxiii. p. 135.--J.G.L.Return to passage

[439] Mme. de Boufflers's saying to the author of Julie.Return to passage

[440] Merry Wives of Windsor, Act I. Sc. 1.--J.G.L.Return to passage

[441] Mr. Sharpe was doing what he could by voice and pen to prevent the destruction of many historic buildings in Edinburgh, which the craze for "improvements" caused at this time. St. Giles' Church was unfortunately left to its fate. Witness its external condition at the present day!Return to passage

The immediate cause of Mr. Sharpe's letter was a hint to him from the Court, "that one person is all-powerful in everything regarding Scotland, I mean Sir W.S." This was not the only appeal made to Scott to interpose, and that he had done so at least in one case effectually may be seen by referring to Sharpe's Letters, vol. ii. pp. 380, 388, 389.

[442] Scott sent a biographical notice of the Duke of York to the Weekly Journal on this day. It is now included in the Misc. Prose Works, vol. iv. pp. 400-416.Return to passage

[443] Gifford's Mæviad, 12mo, Lond. 1797; Ode to Rev. John Ireland, slightly altered.Return to passage

[444] William Gifford, editor of the Anti-Jacobin in 1797, and the Quarterly from 1809 to 1824. His political opponent, Leigh Hunt, wrote of him in 1812:--Return to passage

'William Gifford's a name, I think, pretty well known. Oh! now I remember,' said Phoebus;--'ah true-- My thanks to that name are undoubtedly due. The rod that got rid of the Cruscas and Lauras, That plague of the butterflies saved me the horrors, The Juvenal too stops a gap in my shelf, At least in what Dryden has not done himself, _And there's something which even, distaste must respect In the self-taught example that conquered neglect_.'--Feast of the Poets.

[445] See Miscell. Prose Works, vol. iv. pp. 120-70.Return to passage

[446] James Ferrier, Esq.--See p. 103, February 3. 1826.Return to passage

[447] See Midsummer Night's Dream; a parody on Helena'sReturn to passage

"O weary night O long and tedious night."

[448] John James Audubon was born in Louisiana in the United States in 1780, but educated in France.--Buchanan's Life of Audubon, p. 4.Return to passage

[449] Written by Mrs. J. Johnstone, in after years editor of Tait's Magazine, well known also as the author of Meg Dods' Cookery Book, which Sir Walter refers to in St. Ronan's Well. Her sense of humour and power of delineating character are shown in her stories and sketches in Tait, and a good example of her ready wit has been told by Mr. Alexander Russel, editor of the Scotsman. On a visit to Altrive Mrs. Johnstone and her party were kindly received by the Ettrick Shepherd, who did the honours of the district, and among other places took them to a Fairy Well, from which he drew a glass of sparkling water. Handing it to the lady the bard of Kilmeny said, "Hae, Mrs. Johnstone, ony merrit wumman wha drinks a tumbler of this will hae twuns in a twalmont'!" "In that case, Mr. Hogg," replied the lady, "I shall only take half a tumbler."Return to passage

Mrs. Johnstone died in Edinburgh in 1857.

[450] Slightly varied from the lines in Ruth,--Poems, vol. ii. p. 112, Edinburgh, 1836.Return to passage

[451] John Russell (a grandson of Principal Robertson), long Chief Clerk in the Jury Court, and Treasurer to the Royal Society and the Edinburgh Academy. He took a keen interest in education, and published in October 1855 some curious Statistics of a Class [Christison's] in the High School [of Edinburgh] from 1787 to 1791, of which he had been a member. Mr. Russell died on January 30, 1862.Return to passage

[452] Leonard Horner, editor in after years of the Memoirs of his brother Francis (2 vols. 8vo, London, 1843). He died in 1864.Return to passage

[453] See Report by the Directors to the Proprietors of the Edinburgh Academy on the Pronunciation of Latin, Edin. 1827. Sir Walter always took a warm interest in the school. His speech as Chairman at the opening ceremony, on the 1st October 1824, is quoted in the Life, vol. vii. p. 268.Return to passage

[454] Burnt at Edinburgh in 1670.--See Arnot's Crim. Trials. 4to, Edin. 1785.Return to passage

[455] Afterwards Sir John Rennie, knighted on the completion of the Bridge.Return to passage

[456] See ante, p. 307, and post, p. 359.Return to passage

[457] Dr. Marshman died in 1837. See Marshman's Lives of Carey, Marshman, and Ward. London, 2 vols. 8vo, 1859.Return to passage

[458] John Menzies of Pitfoddels, the last of an old Aberdeenshire family, of whom it was said that for thirty-seven years he never became aware of distress or difficulty without exerting himself to relieve it. In 1828 he gave the estate of Blairs, near Aberdeen, for the foundation of the Roman Catholic College established there, and was also a munificent benefactor to the Convent of St. Margaret, Edinburgh, opened in 1835. Mr. Menzies died in 1843.Return to passage

FEBRUARY.

February 1.--I feel a return of the cursed rheumatism. How could it miss, with my wetting? Also feverish, and a slight headache. So much for claret and champagne. I begin to be quite unfit for a good fellow. Like Mother Cole in the Minor, a thimbleful upsets me,[459]--I mean, annoys my stomach, for my brains do not suffer. Well, I have had my time of these merry doings.

"The haunch of the deer, and the wine's red dye, Never bard loved them better than I."

But it was for the sake of sociality; never either for the flask or the venison. That must end--is ended. The evening sky of life does not reflect those brilliant flashes of light that shot across its morning and noon. Yet I thank God it is neither gloomy nor disconsolately lowering; a sober twilight--that is all.

I am in great hopes that the Bannatyne Club, by the assistance of Thomson's wisdom, industry, and accuracy, will be something far superior to the Dilettanti model on which it started. The Historie of K. James VI., Melville's Memoirs, and other works, executed or in hand, are decided boons to Scottish history and literature.

February 2.--In confirmation of that which is above stated, I see in Thorpe's sale-catalogue a set of the Bannatyne books, lacking five, priced £25. Had a dry walk from the Court by way of dainty, and made it a long one. Anne went at night to Lady Minto's.

Hear of Miss White's death. Poor Lydia! she had a party at dinner on the Friday before, and had written with her own hand invitations for another party. Twenty years ago she used to tease me with her youthful affectations--her dressing like the Queen of Chimney-sweeps on May-day morning, and sometimes with rather a free turn in conversation, when she let her wit run wild. But she was a woman of much wit, and had a feeling and kind heart. She made her point good, a bas-bleu in London to a point not easily attained, and contrived to have every evening a very good literary mêlée, and little dinners which were very entertaining. She had also the newest lions upon town. In a word, she was not and would not be forgotten, even when disease obliged her, as it did for years, to confine herself to her couch; and the world, much abused for hard-heartedness, was kind in her case--so she lived in the society she liked. No great expenditure was necessary for this. She had an easy fortune, but not more. Poor Lydia! I saw the Duke of York and her in London, when Death, it seems, was brandishing his dart over them.[460]

"The view o't gave them little fright."[461]

Did not get quite a day's work finished to-day, thanks to my walk.

February 3.--There is nought but care on every hand. James Hogg writes that he is to lose his farm,[462] on which he laid out, or rather threw away, the profit of all his publications.

Then Terry has been pressed by Gibson for my debt to him. That I may get managed.

I sometimes doubt if I am in what the good people call the right way. Not to sing my own praises, I have been willing always to do my friends what good was in my power, and have not shunned personal responsibility. But then that was in money matters, to which I am naturally indifferent, unless when the consequences press on me. But then I am a bad comforter in case of inevitable calamity; and feeling proudly able to endure in my own case, I cannot sympathise with those whose nerves are of a feebler texture.

Dined at Jeffrey's, with Lord and Lady Minto, John Murray and his lady,[463] a Mr. Featherstone, an Americo-Yorkshireman, and some others. Mrs. Murray is a very amiable person, and seems highly accomplished; plays most brilliantly.

February 4.--R.R. These two letters, you must understand, do not signify, as in Bibliomania phrase, a double degree of rarity, but, chirurgically, a double degree of rheumatism. The wine gets to weak places, Ross says. I have a letter from no less a person than that pink of booksellers, Sir Richard Phillips, who, it seems, has been ruined, and as he sees me floating down the same dark tide, sings out his nos poma natamus.

February 5.--R. One R. will do to-day. If this cursed rheumatism gives way to February weather, I will allow she has some right to be called a spring month, to which otherwise her pretensions are slender. I worked this morning till two o'clock, and visited Mr. Grant's[464] pictures, who has them upon sale. They seem, to my inexperienced eye, genuine, or at least, good paintings. But I fear picture-buying, like horse-jockeyship, is a profession a gentleman cannot make much of without laying aside some of his attributes. The pictures are too high-priced, I should think, for this market. There is a very knowing catalogue by Frank Grant himself. Next went to see a show of wild beasts; it was a fine one. I think they keep them much cleaner than formerly, when the strong smell generally gave me a headache for the day. The creatures are also much tamer, which I impute to more knowledge of their habits and kind treatment. A lion and tigress went through their exercise like poodles--jumping, standing, and lying down at the word of command. This is rather degrading. I would have the Lord Chancellor of Beasts good-humoured, not jocose. I treated the elephant, who was a noble fellow, to a shilling's worth of cakes. I wish I could have enlarged the space in which so much bulk and wisdom is confined. He kept swinging his head from side to side, looking as if he marvelled why all the fools that gaped at him were at liberty, and he cooped up in the cage.

Dined at the Royal Society Club--about thirty present. Went to the Society in the evening, and heard an essay by Peter Tytler[465] on the first encourager of Greek learning in England.[466]

February 6.--Was at Court till two; afterwards wrote a good deal, which has become a habit with me. Dined at Sir John Hay's, where met the Advocate and a pleasant party. There had been a Justiciary trial yesterday, in which something curious had occurred. A woman of rather the better class, a farmer's wife, had been tried on the 5th for poisoning her maid-servant. There seems to have been little doubt of her guilt, but the motive was peculiar. The unfortunate girl had an intrigue with her son, which this Mrs. Smith (I think that is the name) was desirous to conceal, from some ill-advised puritanic notions, and also for fear of her husband. She could find no better way of hiding the shame than giving the girl (with her own knowledge and consent, I believe) potions to cause abortion, which she afterwards changed for arsenic, as the more effectual silencing medicine. In the course of the trial one of the jury fell down in an epileptic fit, and on his recovery was far too much disordered to permit the trial to proceed. With only fourteen jurymen it was impossible to go on. But the Advocate, Sir William Rae, says she shall be tried anew, since she has not tholed an assize. Sic Paulus ait--et recte quidem. But, having been half tried, I think she should have some benefit of it, as far as saving her life, if convicted on the second indictment. The Advocate declares, however, she shall be hanged, as certainly she deserves. But it looks something like hanging up a man who has been recovered by the surgeons, which has always been accounted harsh justice.

February 7.--Wrote six leaves to-day, and am tired--that's all.

February 8.--I lost much time to-day. I got from the Court about half-past twelve, therefore might have reckoned on four hours, or three at least, before dinner. But I had to call on Dr. Shortt at two, which made me lounge till that hour came. Then I missed him, and, too tired to return, went to see the exhibition, where Skene was hanging up the pictures, and would not let me in. Then to the Oil Gas Company, who propose to send up counsel to support their new bill. As I thought the choice unadvisedly made, I fairly opposed the mission, which, I suppose, will give much offence; but I have no notion of being shamefaced in doing my duty, and I do not think I should permit forward persons to press into situations for which their vanity alone renders them competent. Had many proof-sheets to correct in the evening.

February 9.--We had a long day of it at Court, but I whipped you off half-a-dozen of letters, for, as my cases stood last on the roll, I could do what I liked in the interim. This carried me on till two o'clock. Called on Baron Hume, and found him, as usual, in high spirits, notwithstanding his late illness. Then crept home--my rheumatism much better, though. Corrected lives of Lord Somerville and the King [George III.][467] for the Prose Works, which took a long time; but I had the whole evening to myself, as Anne dined with the Swintons, and went to a ball at the Justice-Clerk's. N.B.--It is the first and only ball which has been given this season--a sign the times are pinching.

February 10.--I got a present of Lord Francis Gower's printed but unpublished Tale of the Mill.[468] It is a fine tale of terror in itself, and very happily brought out. He has certainly a true taste for poetry. I do not know why, but from my childhood I have seen something fearful, or melancholy at least, about a mill. Whether I had been frightened at the machinery when very young, of which I think I have some shadowy recollection--whether I had heard the stories of the miller of Thirlestane[469] and similar molendinar tragedies, I cannot tell; but not even recollection of the Lass of Patie's Mill, or the Miller of Mansfield, or he who "dwelt on the river Dee," have ever got over my inclination to connect gloom with a mill, especially when sun is setting. So I entered into the spirit of the terror with which Lord Francis has invested his haunted spot. I dine with the Solicitor to-day, so quoad labour 'tis a blank. But then to-morrow is a new day.

"To-morrow to fresh meads and pastures new."[470]

February 11.--Wrought a good deal in the morning, and landed Boney at Smolensk. But I have him to bring off again; and, moreover, I must collate the authorities on the movements of the secondary armies of Witgenstein and the Admiral with the break-tooth name. Dined with Lord Minto, where I met Thomson, Cranstoun, and other gay folks. These dinner parties narrow my working hours; yet they must sometimes be, or one would fall out of the line of society, and go to leeward entirely, which is not right to venture. This is the high time for parties in Edinburgh; no wonder one cannot keep clear.

February 12.--I was obliged to read instead of writing, and the infernal Russian names, which everybody spells ad libitum, makes it difficult to trace the operations on a better map than mine. I called to-day on Dr. Shortt, principal surgeon at Saint Helena, and who presided at the opening of Bonaparte's body. He mentions as certain the falsehood of a number of the assertions concerning his usage, the unhealthy state of the island, and so forth. I have jotted down his evidence elsewhere. I could not write when I came home. Nervous a little, I think, and not yet up to the motions of Tchitchagoff, as I must be before I can write. Will [Clerk] and Sir A. Ferguson dine here to-day--the first time any one has had that honour for long enough, unless at Abbotsford. The good Lord Chief-Commissioner invited himself, and I asked his son, Admiral Adam. Col. Ferguson is of the party.

February 13.--The dining parties come thick, and interfere with work extremely. I am, however, beforehand very far. Yet, as James B. says--the tortoise comes up with the hare. So Puss must make a new start; but not this week. Went to see the exhibition--certainly a good one for Scotland--and less trash than I have seen at Somerset-House (begging pardon of the pockpuddings). There is a beautiful thing by Landseer--a Highlander and two stag-hounds engaged with a deer. Very spirited, indeed. I forgot my rheumatism, and could have wished myself of the party. There were many fine folks, and there was a collation, chocolate, and so forth. We dine at Sir H. Jardine's, with Lord Ch.-Com., Lord Chief-Baron, etc.

February 14.--"Death's gi'en the art an unco devel."[471] Sir George Beaumont's dead; by far the most sensible and pleasing man I ever knew; kind, too, in his nature, and generous; gentle in society, and of those mild manners which tend to soften the causticity of the general London [tone] of persiflage and personal satire. As an amateur, he was a painter of the very highest rank. Though I know nothing of the matter, yet I should hold him a perfect critic on painting, for he always made his criticisms intelligible, and used no slang. I am very sorry, as much as is in my nature to be, for one whom I could see but seldom. He was the great friend of Wordsworth, and understood his poetry, which is a rare thing, for it is more easy to see his peculiarities than to feel his great merit, or follow his abstract ideas. I dined to-day at Lord Ch.-Commissioner's--Lord Minto, and Lord Ch.-Baron, also Harden. Little done to-day.

February 15.--Rheumatism returns with the snow. I had thoughts of going to Abbotsford on Saturday, but if this lasts, it will not do; and, sooth to speak, it ought not to do; though it would do me much pleasure if it would do.

I have a letter from Baron Von Goethe,[472] which I must have read to me; for though I know German, I have forgot their written hand. I make it a rule seldom to read, and never to answer, foreign letters from literary folks. It leads to nothing but the battle-dore and shuttle-cock intercourse of compliments, as light as cork and feathers. But Goethe is different, and a wonderful fellow, the Ariosto at once, and almost the Voltaire of Germany. Who could have told me thirty years ago I should correspond, and be on something like an equal footing, with the author of Goetz? Ay, and who could have told me fifty things else that have befallen me?[473]

February 16.--R. Still snow; and, alas! no time for work, so hard am I fagged by the Court and the good company of Edinburgh. I almost wish my rheumatics were bad enough to give me an apology for staying a week at home. But we have Sunday and Monday clear. If not better, I will cribb off Tuesday; and Wednesday is Teind day. We dined to-day with Mr. Borthwick, younger of Crookston.

February 17.--James Ferguson ill of the rheumatism in head and neck, and Hector B. Macdonald in neck and shoulders. I wonder, as Commodore Trunnion says, what the blackguard hell's-baby has to say to the Clerks of Session.[474] Went to the Second Division to assist Hector. N.B.--Don't like it half so well as my own, for the speeches are much longer. Home at dinner, and wrought in the evening.

February 18.--Very cold weather. I am rather glad I am not in the country. What says Dean Swift--

"When frost and snow come both together, Then sit by the fire and save shoe leather." Wrought all morning and finished five pages. Missie dined with us.

February 19.--As well I give up Abbotsford, for Hamilton is laid up with the gout. The snow, too, continues, with a hard frost. I have seen the day I would have liked it all the better. I read and wrote at the bitter account of the French retreat from Moscow, in 1812, till the little room and coal fire seemed snug by comparison. I felt cold in its rigour in my childhood and boyhood, but not since. In youth and advanced life we get less sensible to it, but I remember thinking it worse than hunger. Uninterrupted to-day, and did eight leaves.[475]

February 20.--At Court, and waited to see the poisoning woman. She is clearly guilty, but as one or two witnesses said the poor wench hinted an intention to poison herself, the jury gave that bastard verdict, Not proven. I hate that Caledonian medium quid. One who is not proven guilty is innocent in the eye of law. It was a face to do or die, or perhaps to do to die. Thin features, which had been handsome, a flashing eye, an acute and aquiline nose, lips much marked, as arguing decision, and, I think, bad temper--they were thin, and habitually compressed, rather turned down at the corners, as one of a rather melancholy disposition. There was an awful crowd; but, sitting within the bar, I had the pleasure of seeing much at my ease; the constables knocking the other folks about, which was of course very entertaining.[476]

Lord Liverpool is ill of an apoplexy. I am sorry for it. He will be missed. Who will be got for Premier? Not B---- certainly;[477] he wants weight. If Peel would consent to be made a peer, he would do better; but I doubt his ambition will prefer the House of Commons. Wrought a a good deal.

February 21.--Being the vacant Wednesday I wrote all the morning. Had an answer from D. of W., unsuccessful in getting young Skene put upon the engineer list; he is too old. Went out at two with Anne, and visited the exhibition; also called on the Mansfield family and on Sydney Smith. Jeffrey unwell from pleading so long and late for the poisoning woman. He has saved her throat and taken a quinsey in his own. Adam Ferguson has had a fall with his horse.

February 22.--Was at Court till two, then lounged till Will Murray[478] came to speak about a dinner for the Theatrical Fund, in order to make some arrangements. There are 300 tickets given out.[479] I fear it will be uncomfortable; and whatever the stoics may say, a bad dinner throws cold water on the charity. I have agreed to preside, a situation in which I have been rather felicitous, not by much superiority of wit or wisdom, far less of eloquence; but by two or three simple rules which I put down here for the benefit of posterity.

1st. Always hurry the bottle round for five or six rounds without prosing yourself or permitting others to prose. A slight fillip of wine inclines people to be pleased, and removes the nervousness which prevents men from speaking--disposes them, in short, to be amusing and to be amused.

2d. Push on, keep moving, as Punch says. Do not think of saying fine things--nobody cares for them any more than for fine music, which is often too liberally bestowed on such occasions. Speak at all ventures, and attempt the mot pour rire. You will find people satisfied with wonderfully indifferent jokes if you can but hit the taste of the company, which depends much on its character. Even a very high party, primed with all the cold irony and non est tanti feelings, or no feelings, of fashionable folks, may be stormed by a jovial, rough, round, and ready preses. Choose your texts with discretion, the sermon may be as you like. If a drunkard or an ass breaks in with anything out of joint, if you can parry it with a jest, good and well--if not, do not exert your serious authority, unless it is something very bad. The authority even of a chairman ought to be very cautiously exercised. With patience you will have the support of every one.

When you have drunk a few glasses to play the good fellow, and banish modesty if you are unlucky enough, to have such a troublesome companion, then beware of the cup too much. Nothing is so ridiculous as a drunken preses.

Lastly. Always speak short, and Skeoch doch na skiel--cut a tale with a drink.

"This is the purpose and intent Of gude Schir Walter's testament."[480]

We dined to-day at Mrs. Dundas of Arniston, Dowager.

February 24.--I carried my own instructions into effect the best I could, and if our jests were not good, our laugh was abundant. I think I will hardly take the chair again when the company is so miscellaneous; though they all behaved perfectly well. Meadowbank taxed me with the novels, and to end that farce at once I pleaded guilty, so that splore is ended. As to the collection, it was much cry and little woo', as the deil said when he shore the sow. Only £280 from 300 people, but many were to send money to-morrow. They did not open books, which was impolitic, but circulated a box, where people might put in what they pleased--and some gave shillings, which gives but a poor idea of the company. Yet there were many respectable people and handsome donations. But this fashion of not letting your right hand see what your left hand doeth is no good mode of raising a round sum. Your penny-pig collections don't succeed. I got away at ten at night. The performers performed very like gentlemen, especially Will Murray. They attended as stewards with white rods, and never thought of sitting down till after dinner, taking care that the company was attended to.

February 25.--Very bad report of the speeches in the papers. We dined at Jeffrey's with Sydney Smith--funny and good-natured as usual. One of his daughters is very pretty indeed; both are well-mannered, agreeable, and sing well. The party was pleasant.

February 26.--At home, and settled to work; but I know not why I was out of spirits--quite Laird of Humdudgeon, and did all I could to shake it off, and could not. James Ballantyne dined with me.

February 27.--Humdudgeonish still; hang it, what fools we are! I worked, but coldly and ill. Yet something is done. I wonder if other people have these strange alternations of industry and incapacity. I am sure I do not indulge myself in fancies, but it is accompanied with great drowsiness--bile, I suppose, and terribly jaded spirits. I received to-day Dr. Shortt and Major Crocket, who was orderly-officer on Boney at the time of his death.

February 28.--Sir Adam breakfasted. One of the few old friends left out of the number of my youthful companions. In youth we have many companions, few friends perhaps; in age companionship is ended, except rarely, and by appointment. Old men, by a kind of instinct, seek younger companions who listen to their stories, honour their grey hairs while present, and mimic and laugh at them when their backs are turned. At least that was the way in our day, and I warrant our chicks of the present day crow to the same tune. Of all the friends that I have left I have none who has any decided attachment to literature. So either I must talk on that subject to young people--in other words, turn proser, or I must turn tea-table talker and converse with ladies. I am too old and too proud for either character, so I'll live alone and be contented. Lockhart's departure for London was a loss to me in this way. Came home late from the Court, but worked tightly in the evening. I think discontinuing smoking, as I have done for these two months past, leaves me less muzzy after dinner. At any rate, it breaks a custom--I despise custom.

FOOTNOTES:

[459] Foote's Comedy, Act I. Sc. 1.Return to passage

[460] Scott, who had accompanied this lady to the Highlands in the summer of 1808, wrote from Edinburgh on 19th January:--"We have here a very diverting lion and sundry wild beasts; but the most meritorious is Miss Lydia White, who is what Oxonians call a lioness of the first order, with stockings nineteen times dyed blue; very lively, very good-humoured, and extremely absurd. It is very diverting to see the sober Scotch ladies staring at this phenomenon."--Life, vol. iii. pp. 38, 95, 96.Return to passage

[461] Burns's "Twa Dogs."--J.G.L.Return to passage

[462] Mount Benger.Return to passage

[463] John Archibald Murray, whose capital bachelors' dinner on Dec. 8 Scott so pleasantly describes (on page 320), had married in the interval Miss Rigby, a Lancashire lady, who was long known in Edinburgh for her hospitality and fine social qualities as Lady Murray. (See page 378, April 2, 1827.) Miss Martineau celebrated her parliamentary Tea-Table in London, when her husband was Lord Advocate, and Lord Cockburn, the delights of Strachur on Loch Fyne.Return to passage

[464] Mr. (afterwards Sir Francis) Grant became a member of the Scottish Academy in 1830, an associate of Royal Academy in 1842, and Academician in 1851. His successful career as a painter secured his elevation to the Presidentship of the Academy in 1866. Sir Francis died at Melton-Mowbray in October 1878, aged 75.Return to passage

[465] Patrick Fraser Tytler, the Scottish historian. He died on Christmas-day 1849, aged fifty-eight.--See Burgon's Memoirs, 8vo, Lond. 1859.Return to passage

[466] Audubon says in his Journal of the same date:--"Captain Hall led me to a seat immediately opposite to Sir Walter Scott, the President, where I had a perfect view of the great man, and studied Nature from Nature's noblest work."Return to passage

The publication of Audubon's great work, The Birds of America, commenced in 1827, and was completed in 1839, forming 4 vols. in the largest folio size, and containing 435 plates. It shows the indomitable courage of the author, that even when the work was completed, he had only 161 subscribers, 82 of whom were in America. The price of the book was two guineas for each part with 5 coloured plates. During the last dozen years its price at auctions runs about £250 to £300. Audubon died in New York in 1851.--See Life, by Buchanan, 8vo, London, 1866.

[467] Biographical Notices had been sent to the Weekly Journal in 1826, and are now included in the Miscell. Prose Works, vol. iv. pp. 322-342.Return to passage

[468] Afterwards included in The Pilgrimage and other Poems, Lond. 1856.Return to passage

[469] See Craig Brown's Selkirkshire, vol. i. pp. 285-86.Return to passage

[470] Milton's Lycidas, varied.Return to passage

[471]

"Death's gi'en the Lodge an unco devel, Tam Samson's dead."

Burns.--J.G.L.

[472] For letter and reply see Life, vol. ix. pp. 92, 98.Return to passage

[473] Sir Walter at this date returned the valuable MSS. lent him by the Duke of Wellington in Nov. 1826 (see ante, p. 306) with the following letter:--Return to passage

"EDINBURGH, 15_th February_ 1827.

"My dear Lord Duke,--The two manuscripts safely packed leave this by post to-day, as I am informed your Grace's franks carry any weight. * * * "I have been reading with equal instruction and pleasure the memoir on the Russian campaign, which demonstrates as plainly as possible that the French writers have taken advantage of the snow to cover under it all their General's blunders, and impute to it all their losses. This I observe is Bonaparte's general practice, and that of his admirers. Whenever they can charge anything upon the elements or upon accident, he and they combine in denying all bravery and all wisdom to their enemies. The conduct of Kutusow on more than one occasion in the retreat seems to have been singularly cautious, or rather timorous. For it is impossible to give credit to the immense superiority claimed by Ségur, Beauchamp, etc., for the French troops over the Russians. Surely they were the same Russians who had fought so bravely against superior force, and how should the twentieth part of the French army have been able to clear their way without cavalry or artillery in a great measure? and it seems natural to suppose that we must impute to tardy and inactive conduct on the part of their General what we cannot account for on the idea of the extremely superior valour or discipline claimed for the French soldiers by their country. The snow seems to have become serious on the 6th November, when Napoleon was within two marches of Smolensk, which he soon after reached, and by that time it appears to me that his army was already mouldered away from 100,000 men who left Moscow, to about 35,000 only, so that his great loss was incurred before the snow began.

"I am afraid your Grace has done me an unparalleled injury in one respect, that the clearness, justice, and precision of your Grace's reasoning puts me out of all patience with my own attempts. I dare hardly hope in this increase of business for a note or two on Waterloo; but if your Grace had any, however hasty, which could be copied by a secretary, the debt would be never to be forgotten.

"I am going to mention a circumstance, which I do with great apprehension, lest I should be thought to intrude upon your Grace's goodness. It respects a youth, the son of one of my most intimate friends, a gentleman of good family and fortune, who is extremely desirous of being admitted a cadet of artillery. His father is the best draughtsman in Scotland, and the lad himself shows a great deal of talent both in science and the ordinary branches of learning. I enclose a note of the youth's age, studies, and progress, in case your Grace might think it possible to place on your list for the Engineer service the name of a poor Scots Hidalgo; your Grace knows Scotland is a breeding not a feeding country, and we must send our sons abroad, as we send our black cattle to England; and, as old Lady Campbell of Ardkinglas proposed to dispose of her nine sons, we have a strong tendency to put our young folks 'a' to the sword.'

"I have too long detained you, my Lord Duke, from the many high occupations which have been redoubled upon your Grace's head, and beg your Grace to believe me, with an unusually deep sense of respect and obligation, my dear Lord Duke, your Grace's much honoured and grateful, humble servant, WALTER SCOTT."--Wellington's Despatches, etc. (Continuation), vol. iii. pp. 590-1. London, 8vo, 1868.

[474] Smollett's Peregrine Pickle, VOL. i. cap. 13.Return to passage

[475] One page of his MS. answers to four or five of the close printed pages of the original edition of his Bonaparte.--J.G.L.Return to passage

[476] Lord Cockburn says:--"Scott's description of the woman is very correct; she was like a vindictive masculine witch. I remember him sitting within the bar looking at her. As we were moving out, Sir Walter's remark upon the acquittal was, 'Well, sirs, all I can say is that if that woman was my wife I should take good care to be my own cook.'"--Circuit Journeys, 8vo, Edinburgh, 1888, p. 12.Return to passage

[477] This can scarcely be taken to refer to Brougham, though at the timeReturn to passage

"Canning calls Brougham his Learned Friend. 'My honours come and share 'em. Reformers their assistance give To countenance old Sarum."

Annus Mirabilis.

It may, however, stand for Lord Bathurst, who became President of the Council shortly afterwards in Wellington's Administration.

[478] Mr. W.H. Murray, Manager of the Theatre Royal, Edinburgh. This excellent actor retired from the stage with a competency, and spent the last years of his life in St. Andrews, where he died in March 1852, aged 61.Return to passage

[479] This was the dinner at which the veil was publicly withdrawn from the authorship of Waverley; it took place on Friday, 23d February 1827, and a full account of the proceedings is given in the Life, vol. ix. pp. 79-84.Return to passage

[480] Sir Walter parodies the conclusion of King Robert the Bruce's "Maxims or Political Testament."--See Hailes' Annals, A.D. 1311.--J.G.L.Return to passage

MARCH.

March 1.--At Court until two--wrote letters under cover of the lawyers' long speeches, so paid up some of my correspondents, which I seldom do upon any other occasion. I sometimes let letters lie for days unopened, as if that would postpone the necessity of answering them. Here I am at home, and to work we go--not for the first time to-day, for I wrought hard before breakfast. So glides away Thursday 1st. By the by, it is the anniversary of Bosworth Field. In former days Richard III. was always acted at London on this day; now the custom, I fancy, is disused. Walpole's Historic Doubts threw a mist about this reign. It is very odd to see how his mind dwells upon it at first as the mere sport of imagination, till at length they become such Delilahs of his imagination that he deems it far worse than infidelity to doubt his Doubts. After all, the popular tradition is so very strong and pointed concerning the character of Richard, that it is I think in vain to doubt the general truth of the outline. Shakespeare, we may be sure, wrote his drama in the tone that was to suit the popular belief, although where that did Richard wrong, his powerful scene was sure to augment the impression. There was an action and a reaction.

March 2.--Clerk walked home with me from the Court. I was scarce able to keep up with him; could once have done it well enough. Funny thing at the Theatre. Among the discourse in "High Life below Stairs,"[481] one of the ladies' ladies asks who wrote Shakespeare. One says, "Ben Jonson," another, "Finis." "No," said Will Murray, "it is Sir Walter Scott; he confessed it at a public meeting the other day." March 3.--Very severe weather, came home covered with snow. White as a frosted-plum-cake, by jingo! No matter; I am not sorry to find I can stand a brush of weather yet; I like to see Arthur's Seat and the stern old Castle with their white watch-cloaks on. But, as Byron said to Moore, "d---n it, Tom, don't be poetical." I settled to Boney, and wrote right long and well.

March 4.--I sat in by the chimney-neuk with no chance of interruption, and "feagued it away." Sir Adam came, and had half an hour's chat and laugh. My jaws ought to be sore, if the unwontedness of the motion could do it. But I have little to laugh at but myself, and my own bizarreries are more like to make me cry. Wrought hard, though--there's sense in that.

March 5.--Our young men of first fashion, in whom tranquillity is the prime merit, a sort of quietism of foppery, if one can use the expression, have one capital name for a fellow that outrés and outroars the fashion, a sort of high-buck as they were called in my days. They hold him a vulgarian, and call him a tiger. Mr. Gibson came in, and we talked over my affairs; very little to the purpose I doubt. Dined at home with Anne as usual, and despatched half-a-dozen Selkirk processes; among others one which savours of Hamesucken.[482] I think to-day I have finished a quarter of vol. viii., and last. Shall I be happy when it is done?--Umph! I think not.

March 6.--A long seat at Court, and an early dinner, as we went to the play. John Kemble's brother acted Benedick. He is a fine-looking man, and a good actor, but not superior. He reminds you eternally that he is acting; and he had got, as the devil directed it, hold of my favourite Benedick, for which he has no power. He had not the slightest idea of the part, particularly of the manner in which Benedick should conduct himself in the quarrelling scene with the Prince and Claudio, in which his character rises almost to the dignity of tragedy. The laying aside his light and fantastic humour, and showing himself the man of feeling and honour, was finely marked of yore by old Tom King.[483] I remember particularly the high strain of grave moral feeling which he threw upon the words--"in a false quarrel there is no true valour"--which, spoken as he did, checked the very brutal levity of the Prince and Claudio. There were two farces; one I wished to see, and that being the last, was obliged to tarry for it. Perhaps the headache I contracted made me a severe critic on Cramond Brig,[484] a little piece ascribed to Lockhart. Perhaps I am unjust, but I cannot think it his;[485] there are so few good things in it, and so much prosing transferred from that mine of marrowless morality called the Miller of Mansfield.[486] Yet it pleases.

March 7.--We are kept working hard during the expiring days of the Session, but this being a blank day I wrote hard till dressing time, when I went to Will Clerk's to dinner. As a bachelor, and keeping a small establishment, he does not do these things often, but they are proportionally pleasant when they come round. He had trusted Sir Adam to bespeak his dinner, who did it con amore; so we had excellent cheer, and the wines were various and capital. As I before hinted, it is not every day that M'Nab[487] mounts on horseback, and so our landlord had a little of that solicitude that the party should go off well, which is very flattering to the guests. We had a very pleasant evening. The Chief-Commissioner was there, Admiral Adam, Jo. Murray, and Thomson, etc. etc. Sir Adam predominating at the head, and dancing what he calls his "merry andrada" in great style. In short, we really laughed, and real laughter is a thing as rare as real tears. I must say, too, there was a heart,--a kindly feeling prevailed over the party. Can London give such a dinner? It may, but I never saw one; they are too cold and critical to be so easily pleased. In the evening I went with some others to see the exhibition lit up for a promenade, where there were all the fashionable folks about town; the appearance of the rooms was very gay indeed.

March 8.--It snowed all night, which must render the roads impassable, and will detain me here till Monday. Hard work at Court, as Hammie is done up with the gout. We dine with Lord Corehouse--that's not true by the by, for I have mistaken the day. It's to-morrow we dine there. Wrought, but not too hard.

March 9.--An idle morning. Dalgleish being set to pack my books. Wrote notes upon a Mr. Kinloch's Collection of Scottish Ballads,[488] which I communicated to the young author in the Court this present morning. We were detained till half-past three o'clock, so when I came home I was fatigued and slept. I walk slow, heavily, and with pain; but perhaps the good weather may banish the Fiend of the joints. At any rate, impatience will do nae good at a', man. Letter from Charles for £50. Silver and gold have I none; but that which I have I will give unto him. We dined at the Cranstouns,--I beg his pardon, Lord Corehouse; Ferguson, Thomson, Will Clerk, etc., were there, also the Smiths and John Murray, so we had a pleasant evening.

March 10.--The business at the Court was not so heavy as I have seen it the last day of the Session, yet sharp enough. About three o'clock I got to a meeting of the Bannatyne Club. I hope this institution will be really useful and creditable. Thomson is superintending a capital edition of Sir James Melville's Memoirs.[489] It is brave to see how he wags his Scots tongue, and what a difference there is in the force and firmness of the language, compared to the mincing English edition in which he has hitherto been alone known. Nothing to-day but correcting proofs; Anne went to the play, I remained at home.

March 11.--All my books packed this morning, and this and to-morrow will be blank days, or nearly such; but I am far ahead of the printer, who is not done with vol. vii., while I am deep in volume viii. I hate packing; but my servants never pack books quite to please me. James Ballantyne dined with us. He kept up my heart about Bonaparte, which sometimes flags; and he is such a grumbler that I think I may trust him when he is favourable. There must be sad inaccuracies, some which might certainly have been prevented by care; but as the Lazaroni used to say, "Did you but know how lazy I am!"

[Abbotsford,] March 12.--Away we set, and came safely to Abbotsford amid all the dulness of a great thaw, which has set the rivers a-streaming in full tide. The wind is wintry, but for my part

"I like this rocking of the battlements."[490]

I was received by old Tom and the dogs, with the unsophisticated feelings of goodwill. I have been trying to read a new novel which I have heard praised. It is called Almacks, and the author has so well succeeded in describing the cold selfish fopperies of the time, that the copy is almost as dull as the original. I think I will take up my bundle of Sheriff-Court processes instead of Almacks, as the more entertaining avocation of the two.

March 13.--Before breakfast, prepared and forwarded the processes to Selkirk. As I had the loan of £250 at March from Cadell I am now verging on to the £500 which he promised to allow me in advance on second series Canongate Chronicles. I do not like this, but unless I review or write to some other purpose, what else can I do? My own expenses are as limited as possible, but my house expenses are considerable, and every now and then starts up something of old scores which I cannot turn over to Mr. Gibson and his co-trustees. Well--time and the hour--money is the smallest consideration.

Had a pleasant walk to the thicket, though my ideas were olla-podrida-ish, curiously checkered between pleasure and melancholy. I have cause enough for both humours, God knows. I expect this will not be a day of work but of idleness, for my books are not come. Would to God I could make it light thoughtless idleness, such as I used to have when the silly smart fancies ran in my brain like the bubbles in a glass of champagne,--as brilliant to my thinking, as intoxicating as evanescent. But the wine is somewhat on the lees. Perhaps it was but indifferent cider after all. Yet I am happy in this place, where everything looks friendly, from old Tom to young Nym.[491] After all, he has little to complain of who has left so many things that like him.

March 14.--All yesterday spent in putting to rights books, and so forth. Not a word written except interlocutors. But this won't do. I have tow on the rock, and it must be spun off. Let us see our present undertakings. 1. Napoleon. 2. Review Home, Cranbourne Chase,[492] and the Mysteries. 3. Something for that poor faineant Gillies. 4. Essay on Ballad and Song. 5. Something on the modern state of France. These two last for the Prose Works. But they may

"--do a little more, And produce a little ore."

Come, we must up and be doing. There is a rare scud without, which says, "Go spin, you jade, go spin." I loitered on, and might have answered,

"My spinning-wheel is auld and stiff."

Smoked a brace of cigars after dinner as a sedative. This is the first time I have smoked these two months. I was afraid the custom would master me. Went to work in the afternoon, and reviewed for Lockhart Mackenzie's edition of Home's Works.[493] Proceeded as far as the eighth page.

March 15.--Kept still at the review till two o'clock; not that there is any hurry, but because I should lose my ideas, which are not worth preserving. Went on therefore. I drove over to Huntly Burn with Anne, then walked through the plantations, with Tom's help to pull me through the snow-wreaths. Returned in a glow of heat and spirits. Corrected proof-sheets in the evening.

March 16.--

"A trifling day we have had here, Begun with trifle and ended."

But I hope no otherwise so ended than to meet the rubrick of the ballad, for it is but three o'clock. In the morning I was l'homme qui cherche--everything fell aside,--the very pens absconded, and crept in among a pack of letters and trumpery, where I had the devil's work finding them. Thus the time before breakfast was idled, or rather fidgeted, away. Afterwards it was rather worse. I had settled to finish the review, when, behold, as I am apt to do at a set task, I jibb'd, and my thoughts would rather have gone with Waterloo. So I dawdled, as the women say, with both, now writing a page or two of the review, now reading a few pages of the Battle of Waterloo by Captain Pringle, a manuscript which is excellently-written.[494] Well, I will find the advantage of it by and by. So now I will try to finish this accursed review, for there is nothing to prevent me, save the untractable character that hates to work on compulsion, whether of individuals or circumstances.

March 17.--I wrought away at the review and nearly finished it. Was interrupted, however, by a note from Ballantyne, demanding copy, which brought me back from Home and Mackenzie to Boney. I had my walk as usual, and worked nevertheless very fairly. Corrected proofs.

March 18.--Took up Boney again. I am now at writing, as I used to be at riding, slow, heavy, and awkward at mounting, but when I did get fixed in my saddle, could screed away with any one. I have got six pages ready for my learned Theban[495] to-morrow morning. William Laidlaw and his brother George dined with me, but I wrote in the evening all the same.

March 19.--Set about my labours, but enter Captain John Ferguson from the Spanish Main, where he has been for three years. The honest tar sat about two hours, and I was heartily glad to see him again. I had a general sketch of his adventures, which we will hear more in detail when we can meet at kail-time. Notwithstanding this interruption I have pushed far into the seventh page. Well done for one day. Twenty days should finish me at this rate, and I read hard too. But allowance must be made for interruptions.

March 20.--To-day worked till twelve o'clock, then went with Anne on a visit of condolence to Mrs. Pringle of Yair and her family. Mr. Pringle was the friend both of my father and grandfather; the acquaintance of our families is at least a century old.

March 21.--Wrote till twelve, then out upon the heights though the day was stormy, and faced the gale bravely. Tom Purdie was not with me. He would have obliged me to keep the sheltered ground. But, I don't know--

"Even in our ashes live our wonted fires."

There is a touch of the old spirit in me yet that bids me brave the tempest,--the spirit that, in spite of manifold infirmities, made me a roaring boy in my youth, a desperate climber, a bold rider, a deep drinker, and a stout player at single-stick, of all which valuable qualities there are now but slender remains. I worked hard when I came in, and finished five pages.

March 22.--Yesterday I wrote to James Ballantyne, acquiescing in his urgent request to extend the two last volumes to about 600 each. I believe it will be no more than necessary after all, but makes one feel like a dog in a wheel, always moving and never advancing.

March 23.--When I was a child, and indeed for some years after, my amusement was in supposing to myself a set of persons engaged in various scenes which contrasted them with each other, and I remember to this day the accuracy of my childish imagination. This might be the effect of a natural turn to fictitious narrative, or it might be the cause of it, or there might be an action and reaction, or it does not signify a pin's head how it is. But with a flash of this remaining spirit, I imagine my mother Duty to be a sort of old task-mistress, like the hag of the merchant Abudah, in the Tales of the Genii--not a hag though, by any means; on the contrary, my old woman wears a rich old-fashioned gown of black silk, with ruffles of triple blonde-lace, and a coif as rich as that of Pearling Jean;[496] a figure and countenance something like Lady D.S.'s twenty years ago; a clear blue eye, capable of great severity of expression, and conforming in that with a wrinkled brow, of which the ordinary expression is a serious approach to a frown--a cautionary and nervous shake of the head; in her withered hand an ebony staff with a crutch head,--a Tompion gold watch, which annoys all who know her by striking the quarters as regularly as if one wished to hear them. Occasionally she has a small scourge of nettles, which I feel her lay across my fingers at this moment, and so Tace is Latin for a candle.[497] I have 150 pages to write yet.

March 24.--Does Duty not wear a pair of round old-fashioned silver buckles? Buckles she has, but they are square ones. All belonging to Duty is rectangular. Thus can we poor children of imagination play with the ideas we create, like children with soap-bubbles. Pity that we pay for it at other times by starting at our shadows.

"Man but a rush against Othello's breast."

The hard work still proceeds, varied only by a short walk.

March 25.--Hard work still, but went to Huntly Burn on foot, and returned in the carriage. Walked well and stoutly--God be praised!--and prepared a whole bundle of proofs and copy for the Blucher to morrow; that damned work will certainly end some time or other. As it drips and dribbles out on the paper, I think of the old drunken Presbyterian under the spout.

March 26.--Despatched packets. Colonel and Captain Ferguson arrived to breakfast. I had previously determined to give myself a day to write letters; and, as I expect John Thomson to dinner, this day will do as well as another. I cannot keep up with the world without shying a letter now and then. It is true the greatest happiness I could think of would be to be rid of the world entirely. Excepting my own family, I have little pleasure in the world, less business in it, and am heartily careless about all its concerns. Mr. Thomson came accordingly--not John Thomson of Duddingston, whom the letter led me to expect, but John Anstruther Thomson of Charlton [Fifeshire], the son-in-law of Lord Ch.-Commissioner.

March 27.--Wrote two leaves this morning, and gave the day after breakfast to my visitor, who is a country gentleman of the best description; knows the world, having been a good deal attached both to the turf and the field; is extremely good-humoured, and a good deal of a local antiquary. I showed him the plantations, going first round the terrace, then to the lake, then came down by the Rhymer's Glen, and took carriage at Huntly Burn, almost the grand tour, only we did not walk from Huntly Burn. The Fergusons dined with us.

March 28.--Mr Thomson left us about twelve for Minto, parting a pleased guest, I hope, from a pleased landlord. When I see a "gemman as is a gemman," as the blackguards say, why, I know how to be civil. After he left I set doggedly to work with Bonaparte, who had fallen a little into arrear. I can clear the ground better now by mashing up my old work in the Edinburgh Register with my new matter, a species of colcannen, where cold potatoes are mixed with hot cabbage. After all, I think Ballantyne is right, and that I have some talents for history-writing after all. That same history in the Register reads prettily enough. Coragio, cry Claymore. I finished five pages, but with additions from Register they will run to more than double I hope; like Puff in the Critic, be luxuriant.[498]

Here is snow back again, a nasty, comfortless, stormy sort of a day, and I will work it off at Boney. What shall I do when Bonaparte is done? He engrosses me morning, noon, and night. Never mind; Komt Zeit komt Rath, as the German says. I did not work longer than twelve, however, but went out in as rough weather as I have seen, and stood out several snow blasts.

March 29, 30.--

"He walk'd and wrought, poor soul! What then? Why, then he walk'd and wrought again."

March 31.--Day varied by dining with Mr. Scrope, where we found Mr. Williams and Mr. Simson,[499] both excellent artists. We had not too much of the palette, but made a very agreeable day out. I contrived to mislay the proof-sheets sent me this morning, so that I must have a revise. This frequent absence of mind becomes very exceeding troublesome. I have the distinct recollection of laying them carefully aside after I dressed to go to the Pavilion. Well, I have a head--the proverb is musty.

FOOTNOTES:

[481] See Townley's Farce.Return to passage

[482] Hamesucken.--The crime of beating or assaulting a person in his own house. A Scotch law term.Return to passage

[483] King had retired from the stage in 1801. He died four years later.Return to passage

[484] Cramond Brig is said to have been written by Mr. W.H. Murray, the manager of the Theatre, and is still occasionally acted in Edinburgh.Return to passage

[485] Marginal Note in Original MSS. "I never saw it--not mine.--J.G.L."Return to passage

[486] By Dodsley.Return to passage

[487] That singular personage, the late M'Nab of that ilk, spent his life almost entirely in a district where a boat was the usual conveyance.--J.G.L.Return to passage

[488] Ancient Scottish Ballads, recovered from tradition, with notes, etc., by George R. Kinloch, 8vo, London, 1827.Return to passage

[489] Issued by the Club, June 4, 1827.Return to passage

[490] Zanga in The Revenge, Act I. Sc. 1.--J.G.L.Return to passage

[491] Nimrod, a staghound.--J.G.L.Return to passage

[492] Anecdotes of Cranbourne Chase, etc., by Chafin. 8vo, London, 1818. Mr. Lockhart says, "I am sorry Sir Walter never redeemed his promise to make it the subject of an article in the Quarterly Review."--See Life, vol. vii. pp. 43-44.Return to passage

[493] The article appeared in the Number for June 1827, and is now included in the Prose Misc. Works, vol. xix. pp. 283-367.Return to passage

[494] See Captain John Pringle's remarks on the campaign of 1815 in App. to Scott's Napoleon, vol. ix. pp. 115-160.Return to passage

[495] Lear, Act III. Sc. 4.Return to passage

[496] "Pearling Jean," the name of the ghost of the Spanish Nun at Allanbank, Berwickshire. See Sharpe's Letters, vol. i. pp. 303-5, and Ingram's Haunted Homes, Lond. 1884, vol. i. pp. 1-4.Return to passage

[497] This quaint saying, arising out of some forgotten joke, has been thought to be Scott's own, as it was a favourite with him and his intimates, and he introduces it in more than one of his works.[A] But though its origin cannot be traced, Swift uses it in that very curious collection of proverbs and saws, which he strung together under the title of Polite Conversation, and published about 1738.[B] Fielding also introduces it in Amelia,[C] 1752. See Notes and Queries, first series, vol. i. p. 385; ii. p. 45; iv. p. 450; x. p. 173; sixth series, vol. iii. p. 213; iv. p. 157.Return to passage

[A] e.g. Redgauntlet, ch. xii. Pate-in-Peril at Dumfries.

[B] Lord Smart--"Well, Tom, can you tell me what's Latin for a candle?"

Neverout--"O, my Lord, I know that [answer]: Brandy is Latin for a goose! and Tace is Latin for a candle."--SCOTT'S Swift, vol. ix. p. 457.

[C] "Tace, Madam," added Murphy, "is Latin for a candle."--Amelia, Bk. 1. cap. xi.

[498] Sheridan's Play, Act II. Sc. 1.Return to passage

[499] William Simson, R.S.A., landscape painter. He died in London, 1847.Return to passage

APRIL.

April 1.--The proofs are not to be found. Applications from R.P. G[illies]. I must do something for him; yet have the melancholy conviction that nothing will do him any good. Then he writes letters and expects answers. Then they are bothering me about writing in behalf of the oil-gas light, which is going to the devil very fast. I cannot be going a-begging for them or anybody. Please to look down with an eye of pity--a poor distressed creature! No, not for the last morsel of bread. A dry ditch and a speedy death is worth it all.

April 2.--Another letter from R.P.G. I shall begin to wish, like S., that he had been murthered and robbed in his walks between Wimbledon and London. John [Archibald] Murray and his young wife came to dinner, and in good time. I like her very much, and think he has been very lucky. She is not in the vaward of youth, but John is but two or three years my junior. She is pleasing in her manners, and totally free from affectation; a beautiful musician, and willingly exerts her talents in that way; is said to be very learned, but shows none of it. A large fortune is no bad addition to such a woman's society.

April 3.--I had processes to decide; and though I arose at my usual hour, I could not get through above two of five proofs. After breakfast I walked with John Murray, and at twelve we went for Melrose, where I had to show the lions. We came back by Huntly Burn, where the carriage broke down, and gave us a pretty long walk home. Mr. Scrope dined with his two artists, and John [Thomson?]. The last is not only the best landscape-painter of his age and country, but is, moreover, one of the warmest-hearted men living, with a keen and unaffected feeling of poetry. Poor fellow! he has had many misfortunes in his family. I drank a glass or two of wine more than usual, got into good spirits, and came from Tripoli for the amusement of the good company. I was in good fooling.

April 4.--I think I have a little headache this morning; however, as Othello says, "That's not much." I saw our guests go off by seven in the morning, but was not in time to give them good-bye.

"And now again, boys, to the oar."

I did not go to the oar though, but walked a good deal.

April 5.--Heard from Lockhart; the Duke of W[ellington] and Croker are pleased with my historical labours; so far well--for the former, as a soldier said of him, "I would rather have his long nose on my side than a whole brigade." Well! something good may come of it, and if it does it will be good luck, for, as you and I know, Mother Duty, it has been a rummily written work. I wrote hard to-day.

April 6.--Do. Do. I only took one turn about the thicket, and have nothing to put down but to record my labours.

April 7.--The same history occurs; my desk and my exercise. I am a perfect automaton. Bonaparte runs in my head from seven in the morning till ten at night without intermission. I wrote six leaves to-day and corrected four proofs.

April 8.--Ginger, being in my room, was safely delivered in her basket of four puppies; the mother and children all doing well. Faith! that is as important an entry as my Journal could desire. The day is so beautiful that I long to go out. I won't, though, till I have done something. A letter from Mr. Gibson about the trust affairs. If the infernal bargain with Constable go on well, there will be a pretty sop in the pan to the creditors; £35,000 at least. If I could work as effectually for three years more, I shall stand on my feet like a man. But who can assure success with the public?

April 9.--I wrote as hard to-day as need be, finished my neat eight pages, and, notwithstanding, drove out and visited at Gattonside. The devil must be in it if the matter drags out longer now.

April 10.--Some incivility from the Leith Bank, which I despise with my heels. I have done for settling my affairs all that any man--much more than most men--could have done, and they refuse a draught of £20, because, in mistake, it was £8 overdrawn. But what can be expected of a sow but a grumph? Wrought hard, hard.

April 11.--The parks were rouped for £100 a year more than they brought last year. Poor Abbotsford will come to good after all. In the meantime it is Sic vos non vobis--but who cares a farthing? If Boney succeeds, we will give these affairs a blue eye, and I will wrestle stoutly with them, although

"My banks they are covered with bees,"[500]

or rather with wasps. A very tough day's work.

April 12.--Ha-a-lt--as we used to say, my proof-sheets being still behind. Very unhandsome conduct on the part of the Blucher[501] while I was lauding it so profusely. It is necessary to halt and close up our files--of correspondence I mean. So it is a chance if, except for contradiction's sake, or upon getting the proof-sheets, I write a line to-day at Boney. I did, however, correct five revised sheets and one proof, which took me up so much of the day that I had but one turn through the courtyard. Owing to this I had some of my flutterings, my trembling exies, as the old people called the ague. Wrote a great many letters--but no "copy."

April 13.--I have sometimes wondered with what regularity--that is, for a shrew of my impatient temper--I have been able to keep this Journal. The use of the first person being, of course, the very essence of a diary, I conceive it is chiefly vanity, the dear pleasure of writing about the best of good fellows, Myself, which gives me perseverance to continue this idle task. This morning I wrote till breakfast, then went out and marked trees to be cut for paling, and am just returned--and what does any one care? Ay, but, Gad! I care myself, though. We had at dinner to-day Mr. and Mrs. Cranstoun (Burns's Maria of Ballochmyle[502]), Mr. Bainbridge and daughters, and Colonel Russell.

April 14.--Went to Selkirk to try a fellow for an assault on Dr. Clarkson--fined him seven guineas, which, with his necessary expenses, will amount to ten guineas. It is rather too little; but as his income does not amount to £30 a year, it will pinch him severely enough, and is better than sending him to an ill-kept jail, where he would be idle and drunk from morning to night. I had a dreadful headache while sitting in the Court--rheumatism in perfection. It did not last after I got warm by the fireside.

April 15.--Delightful soft morning, with mild rain. Walked out and got wet, as a sovereign cure for the rheumatism. Was quite well, though, and scribbled away.

April 16.--A day of work and exercise. In the evening a letter from L[ockhart], with the wonderful news that the Ministry has broken up, and apparently for no cause that any one can explain. The old grudge, I suppose, betwixt Peel and Canning, which has gone on augmenting like a crack in the side of a house, which enlarges from day to day, till down goes the whole. Mr. Canning has declared himself fully satisfied with J.L., and sent Barrow to tell him so. His suspicions were indeed most erroneous, but they were repelled with no little spirit both by L. and myself, and Canning has not been like another Great Man I know to whom I showed demonstrably that he had suspected an individual unjustly. "It may be so," he said, "but his mode of defending himself was offensive."[503]

April 17.--Went to dinner to-day to Mr. Bainbridge's Gattonside House, and had fireworks in the evening, made by Captain Burchard, a good-humoured kind of Will Wimble.[504] One nice little boy announced to us everything that was going to be done, with the importance of a prologue. Some of the country folks assembled, and our party was enlivened by the squeaks of the wenches and the long-protracted Eh, eh's! by which a Teviotdale tup testifies his wonder.

April 18.--I felt the impatience of news so much that I walked up to Mr. Laidlaw, surely for no other purpose than to talk politics. This interrupted Boney a little. After I returned, about twelve or one, behold Tom Tack; he comes from Buenos Ayres with a parcel of little curiosities he had picked up for me. As Tom Tack spins a tough yarn, I lost the morning almost entirely--what with one thing, what with t'other, as my friend the Laird of Raeburn says. Nor have I much to say for the evening, only I smoked a cigar more than usual to get the box ended, and give up the custom for a little.

April 19.--Another letter from Lockhart.[505] I am sorry when I think of the goodly fellowship of vessels which are now scattered on the ocean. There is the Duke of Wellington, the Lord Chancellor, Lord Melville, Mr. Peel, and I wot not who besides, all turned out of office or resigned! I wonder what they can do in the House of Lords when all the great Tories are on the wrong side of the House. Canning seems quite serious in his views of helping Lockhart. I hope it will come to something.

April 20.--A surly sort of day. I walked for two hours, however, and then returned chiefly to Nap. Egad! I believe it has an end at last, this blasted work. I have the fellow at Plymouth, or near about it. Well, I declare, I thought the end of these beastly big eight volumes was like the end of the world, which is always talked of and never comes.

April. 21.--Here is a vile day--downright rain, which disconcerts an inroad of bairns from Gattonside, and, of course, annihilates a part of the stock of human happiness. But what says the proverb of your true rainy day--

"'Tis good for book, 'tis good for work, For cup and can, or knife and fork."

April 22.--Wrote till twelve o'clock, then sallied forth, and walked to Huntly Burn with Tom; and so, look you, sir, I drove home in the carriage. Wrought in the afternoon, and tried to read De Vere, a sensible but heavy book, written by an able hand--but a great bore for all that.[506] Wrote in the evening.

April 23.--Snowy morning. White as my shirt. The little Bainbridges came over; invited to see the armoury, etc., which I stood showman to. It is odd how much less cubbish the English boys are than the Scotch. Well-mannered and sensible are the southern boys. I suppose the sun brings them forward. Here comes six o'clock at night, and it is snowing as if it had not snowed these forty years before. Well, I'll work away a couple of chapters--three at most will finish Napoleon.

April 24.--Still deep snow--a foot thick in the courtyard, I dare say. Severe welcome to the poor lambs now coming into the world. But what signifies whether they die just now, or a little while after to be united with salad at luncheon-time? It signifies a good deal too. There is a period, though a short one, when they dance among the gowans, and seem happy. As for your aged sheep or wether, the sooner they pass to the Norman side of the vocabulary the better. They are like some old dowager ladies and gentlemen of my acquaintance,--no one cares about them till they come to be cut up, and then we see how the tallow lies on the kidneys and the chine.

April 25.--Snow yet, and it prevents my walking, and I grow bilious. I wrote hard though. I have now got Boney pegg'd up in the knotty entrails of Saint Helena, and may make a short pause.

So I finished the review of John Home's works, which, after all, are poorer than I thought them. Good blank verse and stately sentiment, but something lukewarmish, excepting Douglas, which is certainly a masterpiece. Even that does not stand the closet. Its merits are for the stage; but it is certainly one of the best acting plays going. Perhaps a play, to act well, should not be too poetical.

There is a talk in London of bringing in the Marquis of Lansdowne, then Lauderdale will perhaps come in here. It is certain the old Tory party is down the wind, not from political opinions, but from personal aversion to Canning. Perhaps his satirical temper has partly occasioned this; but I rather consider emulation as the source of it, the head and front of the offending. Croker no longer rhymes to joker. He has made a good coup, it is said, by securing Lord Hertford for the new administration. D.W. calls him their viper. After all, I cannot sympathise with that delicacy which throws up office, because the most eloquent man in England, and certainly the only man who can manage the House of Commons, is named Minister.[507]

April 26.--The snow still profusely distributed, and the surface, as our hair used to be in youth, after we had played at some active game, half black, half white, all in large patches. I finished the criticism on Home, adding a string of Jacobite anecdotes, like that which boys put to a kite's tail. Sent off the packet to Lockhart; at the same time sent Croker a volume of French tracts, containing La Portefeuille de Bonaparte, which he wished to see. Received a great cargo of papers from Bernadotte, some curious, and would have been inestimable two months back, but now my siege is almost made. Still my feelings for poor Count Itterburg,[508] the lineal and legitimate, make me averse to have much to do with this child of the revolution.

April 27.--This hand of mine gets to be like a kitten's scratch, and will require much deciphering, or, what may be as well for the writer, cannot be deciphered at all. I am sure I cannot read it myself. Weather better, which is well, as I shall get a walk. I have been a little nervous, having been confined to the house for three days. Well, I may be disabled from duty, but my tamed spirits and sense of dejection have quelled all that freakishness of humour which made me a voluntary idler. I present myself to the morning task, as the hack-horse patiently trudges to the pole of his chaise, and backs, however reluctantly, to have the traces fixed. Such are the uses of adversity.

April 28.--Wrought at continuing the Works, with some criticism on Defoe.[509] I have great aversion, I cannot tell why, to stuffing the "Border Antiquities" into what they call the Prose Works.

There is no encouragement, to be sure, for doing better, for nobody seems to care. I cannot get an answer from J. Ballantyne, whether he thinks the review on the Highlands would be a better substitution.

April 29.--Colonel and Captain Ferguson dined here with Mr. Laidlaw. I wrote all the morning, then cut some wood. I think the weather gets too warm for hard work with the axe, or I get too stiff and easily tired.

April 30.--Went to Jedburgh to circuit, where found my old friend and schoolfellow, D. Monypenny.[510] Nothing to-day but a pack of riff-raff cases of petty larceny and trash. Dined as usual with the Judge, and slept at my old friend Mr. Shortreed's.

FOOTNOTES:

[500] See Shenstone's Pastoral Ballad, Part ii., Hope.Return to passage

[501] The coach to Edinburgh.Return to passage

[502] See "The Braes of Ballochmyle;" Currie's Burns, vol. iv. p. 294.Return to passage

[503] The conduct of the Quarterly at this time was in after years thus commented upon by John Wilson.Return to passage

"North.--While we were defending the principles of the British constitution, bearding its enemies, and administering to them the knout, the Quarterly Review was meek and mum as a mouse.

"Tickler.--Afraid to lose the countenance and occasional assistance of Mr. Canning.

"North.--There indeed, James, was a beautiful exhibition of party politics, a dignified exhibition of personal independence."--Noctes Ambrosianae.

It is understood that Canning, who had received the King's commands in April 10, felt keenly the loneliness of his position--estranged from his old comrades, and deterred by the remembrance of many bitter satires against them from having close intimacy with his new co-adjutors.

[504] See Spectator.Return to passage

[505] "... Your letter has given me the vertigo--my head turns round like a chariot wheel, and I am on the point of asking--Return to passage

'Why, how now? Am I Giles, or am I not?'

"The Duke of Wellington out?--bad news at home, and worse abroad. Lord Anglesea in his situation?--does not much mend the matter. Duke of Clarence in the Navy?--wild work. Lord Melville, I suppose, falls of course--perhaps cum totâ sequelâ, about which sequela, unless Sir W. Rae and the Solicitor, I care little. The whole is glamour to one who reads no papers, and has none to read. I must get one, though, if this work is to go on, for it is quite bursting in ignorance. Canning is haughty and prejudiced--but, I think, honourable as well as able: nous verrons. I fear Croker will shake, and heartily sorry I should feel for that...."--Scott to Lockhart: Life, vol. ix. p. 99.

[506] R. Plumer Ward.--See July 4.Return to passage

[507] A fuller statement of Scott's views at this crisis will be found in his letters to Lockhart and Morritt in Life, vol. ix. (April, May, and June, 1827).Return to passage

[508] Count Itterburg, then in his 20th year, was the name under which Gustavus, the ex-Crown Prince of Sweden, visited Scotland in 1819. It was his intention to study at the University of Edinburgh during the winter session, but, his real name becoming known, this was rendered impracticable by the curiosity and attention of the public. He devoted himself mainly to the study of military matters, and out-door exercises, roughing it in all sorts of weather, sometimes,--to his mentor Baron Polier's uneasiness,--setting out on dark and stormy nights, and making his way across country from point to point. This self-imposed training was no doubt with the secret hope that he might some day be called upon by the Swedes to oust Bernadotte, and mount the throne of the great Gustavus. Mr. Skene saw a good deal of him, and gives many interesting details of his life in Edinburgh, such as the following account of a meeting at his own house. "He was interested with a set of portraits of the two last generations of the Royal Family of Scotland, which hung in my dining-room, and which had been presented to my grandfather by Prince Charles Edward, in consideration of the sacrifices he had made for the Prince's service during the unfortunate enterprise of the year 1745, having raised and commanded one of the battalions of Lord Lewis Gordon's brigade. The portrait of Prince Charles Edward, taken about the same age as Comte Itterburg, and no doubt also the marked analogy existing in the circumstances to which they had been each reduced, seemed much to engage his notice; and when the ladies had retired he begged me to give him some account of the rebellion, and of the various endeavours of the Stewarts to regain the Scottish crown. The subject was rather a comprehensive one, but having done my best to put him in possession of the leading features, it seemed to have taken very strong hold of his mind, as he frequently, at our subsequent meetings, reverted to the subject. Upon another occasion by degrees the topic of conversation slipped into its wonted channel--the rebellion of 1745, its final disaster, and the singular escape of the Prince from the pursuit of his enemies. The Comte inquired what effect the failure of the enterprise had produced upon the Prince's character, with whose gallant bearing and enthusiasm, in the conduct of his desperate enterprise, he evinced the strongest interest and sympathy. I stated briefly the mortifying disappointments to which Charles Edward was exposed in France, the hopelessness of his cause, and the indifference generally shown to him by the continental courts, which so much preyed on his mind as finally to stifle every spark of his former character, so that he gave himself up to a listless indifference, which terminated in his becoming a sot during the latter years of his life. On turning round to the Prince, who had been listening to these details, I perceived the big drops chasing each other down his cheeks and therefore changed the subject, and he never again recurred to it."--Reminiscences.Return to passage

Count Itterburg, or Prince Gustavus Vasa, to give him the title of an old family dignity which he assumed in 1829, entered the Austrian army, in which he attained the rank of Lieutenant Field-Marshal. His services, it is needless to say, were never required by the Swedes, though he never relinquished his pretensions, and claimed the throne at his father's death in 1837. He died at Pillnitz on the 4th August 1877, leaving one daughter, the present Queen of Saxony.

Notices of his visits to 39 Castle Street and Abbotsford are given in the 6th vol. of Life.

[509] This refers to the Miscellaneous Prose Works, forming 24 vols., the publication of which did not commence until May 1834, although, as is shown by the Journal, the author was busy in its preparation. The "criticism on Defoe" will be found in the fourth volume, pp. 247-296, forming a supplement to John Ballantyne's Biographical Notice of Defoe in the same volume. The "Essay on Border Antiquities" appeared, notwithstanding Scott's misgivings, in the seventh volume.Return to passage

[510] Lord Pitmilly.--See ante, p. 125.Return to passage

MAY.

May 1.--Brought Andrew Shortreed to copy some things I want. Maxpopple came with us as far as Lessudden, and we stopped and made a pilgrimage to Fair Maiden Lilliard's Stone, which has been restored lately, to the credit of Mr. Walker of Muirhouselaw.[511] Set my young clerk to work when we came home, and did some laborious business. A letter from Sir Thomas Lawrence informed me I am chosen Professor of Antiquities to the Royal Academy--a beautiful professor to be sure!

May 2.--Did nothing but proofs this morning. At ten went to Selkirk to arrange about the new measures, which, like all new things, will throw us into confusion for a little at least. The weather was so exquisitely good that I walked after tea to half-past eight, and enjoyed a sort of half-lazy, half-sulky humour--like Caliban's, "There's wood enough within."[512] Well, I may be the bear, but I must mount the ragged staff all the same. I set my myself to labour for R.P.G.[513] The Germanic Horrors are my theme, and I think something may be yet made of them.

May 3.--An early visit from Mr. Thomas Stewart, nephew of Duchess of Wellington, with a letter from his aunt. He seems a well-behaved and pleasant young man. I walked him through the Glen. Colonel Ferguson came to help us out at dinner, and then we had our wine and wassail.

May 4.--Corrected proofs in the morning. Mr. Stewart still here, which prevented work; however, I am far beforehand with everything. We walked a good deal; asked Mr. Alexander Pringle, Whytbank, to dinner. This is rather losing time, though.

May 5.--Worked away upon those wild affairs of Hoffmann for Gillies. I think I have forgot my German very much, and then the stream of criticism does not come freely at all: I cannot tell why. I gave it up in despair at half-past one, and walked out.

Had a letter from R.P.G. He seems in spirits about his work. I wish it may answer. Under good encouragement it certainly might. But--

Maxpopple came to dinner, and Mr. Laidlaw after dinner, so that broke up a day, which I can ill spare. Mr. Stewart left us this day.

May 6.--Wrought again at Hoffmann--unfructuously I fear--unwillingly I am certain; but how else can I do a little good in my generation? I will try a walk. I would fain catch myself in good-humour with my task, but that will not be easy.

May 7.--Finished Hoffmann, talis qualis. I don't like it; but then I have been often displeased with things that have proved successful. Our own labours become disgusting in our eyes, from the ideas having been turned over and over in our own minds. To others, to whom they are presented for the first time, they have a show of novelty. God grant it may prove so. I would help the poor fellow if I could, for I am poor myself.

May 8.--Corrected Hoffmann with a view to send him off, which, however, I could not accomplish. I finished a criticism on Defoe's Writings.[514] His great forte is his power of vraisemblance. This I have instanced in the story of Mrs. Veal's Ghost. Ettrick Shepherd arrived.

May 9.--This day we went to dinner at Mr. Scrope's, at the Pavilion, where were the Haigs of Bemerside, Isaac Haig, Mr. and Mrs. Bainbridge, etc. Warm dispute whether par are or are not salmon trout. "Fleas are not lobsters, d--n their souls."

Mr. Scrope has made a painting of Tivoli, which, when mellowed a little by time, will be a fine one. Letters from Lockhart, with news concerning the beautiful mess they are making in London. Henry Scott will be threatened in Roxburghshire. This would be bad policy, as it would drive the young Duke to take up his ground, which, unless pressed, he may be in no hurry to do. Personally, I do not like to be driven to a point, as I think Canning may do much for the country, provided he does not stand committed to his new Whig counsellors. But if the push does come, I will not quit my old friends--that I am freely resolved, and dissolutely, as Slender says.[515]

May 10.--We went to breakfast at Huntly Burn, and I wandered all the morning in the woods to avoid an English party who came to see the house. When I came home I found my cousin Col. Russell, and his sister, so I had no work to-day but my labour at proofs in the morning. To-day I dismiss my aide-de-camp, Shortreed--a fine lad. The Boar of the Forest left us after breakfast. Had a present of a medal forming one of a series from Chantrey's busts. But this is not for nothing: the donor wants a motto for the reverse of the King's medal. I am a bad hand to apply to.

May 11.--Hogg called this morning to converse about trying to get him on the pecuniary list of the Royal Literary Society. Certainly he deserves it, if genius and necessity could do so. But I do not belong to the society, nor do I propose to enter it as a coadjutor. I don't like your royal academies of this kind; they almost always fall into jobs, and the members are seldom those who do credit to the literature of a country. It affected, too, to comprehend those men of letters who are specially attached to the Crown, and though I love and honour my King as much as any of them can, yet I hold it best, in this free country, to preserve the exterior of independence, that my loyalty may be the more impressive, and tell more effectually. Yet I wish sincerely to help poor Hogg, and have written to Lockhart about it. It may be my own desolate feelings--it may be the apprehension of evil from this political hocus-pocus, but I have seldom felt more moody and uncomfortable than while writing these lines. I have walked, too, but without effect. W. Laidlaw, whose very ingenious mind is delighted with all novelties, talked nonsense about the new government, in which men are to resign principle, I fear, on both sides.

May 12.--Wrote Lockhart on what I think the upright and honest principle, and am resolved to vex myself no more about it. Walked with my cousin, Colonel Russell, for three hours in the woods, and enjoyed the sublime and delectable pleasure of being well,--and listened to on the subject of my favourite themes of laying out ground and plantation. Russel seems quite to follow such an excellent authority, and my spirits mounted while I found I was haranguing to a willing and patient pupil. To be sure, Ashestiel, planting the high knolls, and drawing woodland through the pasture, could be made one of the most beautiful forest things in the world. I have often dreamed of putting it in high order; and, judging from what I have been able to do here, I think I should have succeeded. At any rate, my blue devils are flown at the sense of retaining some sort of consequence. Lord, what fools we are!

May 13.--A most idle and dissipated day. I did not rise till half-past eight o'clock. Col. and Capt. Ferguson came to breakfast. I walked half-way home with them, then turned back and spent the day, which was delightful, wandering from place to place in the woods, sometimes reading the new and interesting volumes of Cyril Thornton,[516] sometimes chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy which strangely alternated in my mind, idly stirred by the succession of a thousand vague thoughts and fears, the gay thoughts strangely mingled with those of dismal melancholy; tears, which seemed ready to flow unbidden; smiles, which approached to those of insanity; all that wild variety of mood which solitude engenders. I scribbled some verses, or rather composed them in my memory. The contrast at leaving Abbotsford to former departures is of an agitating and violent description. Assorting papers and so forth. I never could help admiring the concatenation between Ahitophel's setting his house in order and hanging himself. The one seems to me to follow the other as a matter of course. I don't mind the trouble, though my head swims with it. I do not mind meeting accounts, which unpaid remind you of your distress, or paid serve to show you you have been throwing away money you would be glad to have back again. I do not mind the strange contradictory mode of papers hiding themselves that you wish to see, and others thrusting themselves into your hand to confuse and bewilder you. There is a clergyman's letter about the Scottish pronunciation, to which I had written an answer some weeks since (the person is an ass, by the by). But I had laid aside my answer, being unable to find the letter which bore his address; and, in the course of this day, both his letter with the address, and my answer which wanted the address, fell into my hands half-a-dozen times, but separately always. This was the positive malice of some hobgoblin, and I submit to it as such. But what frightens and disgusts me is those fearful letters from those who have been long dead, to those who linger on their wayfare through this valley of tears. These fine lines of Spencer came into my head--

"When midnight o'er the pathless skies."[517]

Ay, and can I forget the author!--the frightful moral of his own vision. What is this world? A dream within a dream--as we grow older each step is an awakening. The youth awakes as he thinks from childhood--the full-grown man despises the pursuits of youth as visionary--the old man looks on manhood as a feverish dream. The Grave the last sleep?--no; it is the last and final awakening.

May 14.--To town per Blucher coach, well stowed and crushed, but saved cash, coming off for less than £2; posting costs nearly five, and you don't get on so fast by one-third. Arrived in my old lodgings here with a stouter heart than I expected. Dined with Mr. and Mrs. Skene, and met Lord Medwyn and lady.

May 15.--Parliament House a queer sight. Looked as if people were singing to each other the noble song of "The sky's falling--chickie diddle." Thinks I to myself, I'll keep a calm sough.

"Betwixt both sides I unconcerned stand by; Hurt, can I laugh, and honest, need I cry?"

I wish the old Government had kept together, but their personal dislike to Canning seems to have rendered that impossible.

I dined at a great dinner given by Sir George Clerk to his electors, the freeholders of Midlothian; a great attendance of Whig and Tory, huzzaing each other's toasts. If is a good peacemaker, but quarter-day is a better. I have a guess the best gamecocks would call a truce if a handful or two of oats were scattered among them.

May 16.--Mr. John Gibson says the Trustees are to allow my expense in travelling--£300, with £50 taken in in Longman's bill. This will place me rectus in curia, and not much more, faith!

There is a fellow bawling out a ditty in the street, the burthen of which is

"There's nothing but poverty everywhere."

He shall not be a penny richer for telling me what I know but too well without him.

May 17.--Learned with great distress the death of poor Richard Lockhart, the youngest brother of my son-in-law. He had an exquisite talent for acquiring languages, and was under the patronage of my kinsman, George Swinton, who had taken him into his own family at Calcutta, and now he is drowned in a foolish bathing party.

May 18.--Heard from Abbotsford; all well. Wrought to-day but awkwardly. Tom Campbell called, warm from his Glasgow Rectorship; he is looking very well. He seemed surprised that I did not know anything about the contentions of Tories, Whigs, and Radicals, in the great commercial city. I have other eggs on the spit. He stayed but a few minutes.[518]

May 19.--Went out to-day to Sir John Dalrymple's,[519] at Oxenford, a pretty place; the lady a daughter of Lord Duncan. Will Clerk and Robert Graeme went with me. A good dinner and pleasant enough party; but ten miles going and ten miles coming make twenty, and that is something of a journey. Got a headache too by jolting about after dinner.

May 20.--Wrote a good deal at Appendix [to Bonaparte], or perhaps I should say tried to write. Got myself into a fever when I had finished four pages, and went out at eight o'clock at night to cool myself if possible. Walked with difficulty as far as Skene's,[520] and there sat and got out of my fidgety feeling. Learned that the Princes Street people intend to present me with the key of their gardens, which will be a great treat, as I am too tender-hoofed for the stones. We must now get to work in earnest.

May 21.--Accordingly this day I wrought tightly, and though not in my very best mood I got on in a very businesslike manner. Was at the Gas Council, where I found things getting poorly on. The Treasury have remitted us to the Exchequer. The Committee want me to make private interest with the L.C. Baron. That I won't do, but I will state their cause publicly any way they like.

May 22.--At Court--home by two, walking through the Princes Street Gardens for the first time. Called on Mrs. Jobson. Worked two hours. Must dress to dine at Mr. John Borthwick's, with the young folk, now Mr. and Mrs. Dempster.[521] Kindly and affectionately received by my good young friends, who seem to have succeeded to their parents' regard for me.

May 23.--Got some books, etc., which I wanted to make up the Saint Helena affair. Set about making up the Appendix, but found I had mislaid a number of the said postliminary affair. Had Hogg's nephew here as a transcriber, a modest and well-behaved young man--clever, too, I think.[522] Being Teind Wednesday I was not obliged to go to the Court, and am now bang up, and shall soon finish Mr. Nappy. And how then? Ay, marry, sir, that's the question.

"Lord, what will all the people say, Mr. Mayor, Mr. Mayor!"

"The fires i' the lowest hell fold in the people!"[523] as Coriolanus says. I live not in their report, I hope.

May 24.--Mr. Gibson paid me £70 more of my London journey. A good thought came into my head: to write stories for little Johnnie Lockhart from the History of Scotland, like those taken from the History of England. I will not write mine quite so simply as Croker has done. I am persuaded both children and the lower class of readers hate books which are written down to their capacity, and love those that are more composed for their elders and betters. I will make, if possible, a book that a child will understand, yet a man will feel some temptation to peruse should he chance to take it up. It will require, however, a simplicity of style not quite my own. The grand and interesting consists in ideas, not in words. A clever thing of this kind will have a run--

"Little to say, But wrought away, And went out to dine with the Skenes to-day."

Rather too many dinner engagements on my list. Must be hard-hearted. I cannot say I like my solitary days the worst by any means. I dine, when I like, on soup or broth, and drink a glass of porter or ginger-beer; a single tumbler of whisky and water concludes the debauch. This agrees with me charmingly. At ten o'clock bread and cheese, a single draught of small beer, porter, or ginger-beer, and to bed.

May 26.--I went the same dull and weary round out to the Parliament House, which bothers one's brains for the day. Nevertheless, I get on. Pages vanish from under my hand, and find their way to J. Ballantyne, who is grinding away with his presses. I think I may say, now I begin to get rid of the dust raised about me by so many puzzling little facts, that it is plain sailing to the end.

Dined at Skene's with George Forbes and lady. But that was yesterday.

May 27.--I got ducked in coming home from the Court. Naboclish!--I thank thee, Pat, for teaching me the word. Made a hard day of it. Scarce stirred from one room to another, but at bed-time finished a handsome handful of copy. I have quoted Gourgaud's evidence; I suppose he will be in a rare passion, and may be addicted to vengeance, like a long-moustached son of a French bitch as he is. Naboclish! again for that.

"Frenchman, Devil, or Don, Damn him, let him come on, He shan't scare a son of the Island."[524]

May 28.--Another day of uninterrupted study; two such would finish the work with a murrain. I have several engagements next week; I wonder how I was such a fool as to take them. I think I shall be done, however, before Saturday. What shall I have to think of when I lie down at night and awake in the morning? What will be my plague and my pastime, my curse and my blessing, as ideas come and the pulse rises, or as they flag and something like a snow haze covers my whole imagination? I have my Highland Tales--and then--never mind, sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.

May 29.--Detained at the House till near three. Made a call on Mrs. Jobson and others; also went down to the printing-office. I hope James Ballantyne will do well. I think and believe he will. Wrought in the evening.

May 30.--Having but a trifle on the roll to-day, I set hard to work, and brought myself in for a holiday, or rather played truant. At two o'clock went to a Mr. Mackenzie in my old house at Castle Street, to have some touches given to Walker's print.[525] Afterwards, having young Hogg with me as an amanuensis, I took to the oar till near ten o'clock.[526]

May 31.--Being a Court day I was engaged very late. Then I called at the printing-house, but got no exact calculation how we come on. Met Mr. Cadell, who bids, as the author's copy [money] 1s. profit on each book of Hugh Little-john. I thought this too little. My general calculation is on such profits, that, supposing the book to sell to the public for 7s. 6d., the price ought to go in three shares--one to the trade, one to the expense of print and paper, and one to the author and publisher between them, which of course would be 1s. 3d., not 1s. to the author. But in stating this rule I omitted to observe that books for young persons are half bound before they go out into the trade. This comes to about 9d. for two volumes. The allowance to the trade is also heavy, so that 1s. a book is very well on great numbers. There may besides be a third volume.

Dined at James Ballantyne's, and heard his brother Sandy sing and play on the violin, beautifully as usual. James himself sang the Reel of Tullochgorum, with hearty cheer and uplifted voice. When I came home I learned that we had beat the Coal Gas Company, which is a sort of triumph.

FOOTNOTES:

[511] The rude inscription on the stone placed over the grave of this Border amazon, slain at Ancrum Moor, A.D. 1545, ran thus--Return to passage

"Fair maiden Lilliard lies under this stane, Little was her stature but great was her fame, Upon the English louns she laid many thumps, And when her legs were cuttet off she fought upon her stumps."

See New Stat. Account Scot., "Roxburgh," p. 244.

[512] Tempest, Act I. Sc. 2.Return to passage

[513] An article for the Foreign Quarterly Review, regarding which Mr. Lockhart says:--"It had then been newly started under the Editorship of Mr. R.P. Gillies. This article, it is proper to observe, was a benefaction to Mr. Gillies, whose pecuniary affairs rendered such assistance very desirable. Scott's generosity in this matter--for it was exactly giving a poor brother author £100 at the expense of considerable time and drudgery to himself--I think it necessary to mention; the date of the exertion requires it of me."--Life, vol. ix. pp. 72-3; see Misc. Prose Works, vol. xviii. p. 270.Return to passage

[514] See note 1, p. 387.Return to passage

[515] Merry Wives, Act I. Sc. 1.Return to passage

[516] The Youth and Manhood of Cyril Thornton, by Captain Thomas Hamilton, had just been published anonymously.Return to passage

[517] Mr. Lockhart adds the following lines:--Return to passage

"The shade of youthful hope is there, That lingered long, and latest died; Ambitions all dissolved to air, With phantom honours by his side.

"What empty shadows glimmer nigh? They once were friendship, truth, and love! Oh, die to thought, to memory die, Since lifeless to my heart ye prove."

(Poems by the Hon. W.R. Spencer, London, 1811, p. 68.) "The best writer of vers de société in our time, and one of the most charming of companions, was exactly Sir Walter's contemporary, and, like him, first attracted notice by a version of Bürger's Lenore. Like him, too, this remarkable man fell into pecuniary distress in the disastrous year 1825, and he was now (1826) an involuntary resident in Paris, where he died in October 1834, anno ætat. 65."--J.G.L.

[518] The following note to Mr. and Mrs. Skene belongs to this day:--Return to passage

My dear Friends,--I am just returned from Court dreeping like the Water Kelpy when he had finished the Laird of Morphey's Bridge, and am, like that ill-used drudge, disposed to sing--

Sair back and sair banes.[D]

In fact I have the rheumatism in head and shoulders, and am obliged to deprive myself of the pleasure of waiting upon you to-day to dinner, to my great mortification.--Always yours, WALTER SCOTT.

WALKER STREET,

Friday, 18th May, 1827.

--Skene's Reminiscences.

[D]

Sair back and sair banes Carrying the Lord of Morphey's stanes.

Border Minstrelsy, vol. iii. pp. 360, 365.

[519] Afterwards (in 1840) eighth Karl of Stair.Return to passage

[520] 126 Princes Street.Return to passage

[521] George Dempster of Skibo had just married a daughter of the House of Arniston. This lady has had the singular gratification of listening to these pleasant impressions of a dinner party given in her honour sixty-two years ago, and which she never forgot, nor Sir Walter's talk as he sat next her at table, and with unfeigned kindness devoted himself to her entertainment.Return to passage

[522] See Life, vol. ix. p. 114.Return to passage

[523] Coriolanus, Act III. Sc. 3.Return to passage

[524] Sir Walter varies a verse of The tight little Island.--J.G.L.Return to passage

[525] The engraving from Raeburn's picture.--See ante, p. 212.Return to passage

[526] Mr. Robert Hogg relates that during these few days Sir W. and he laboured from six in the morning till the same hour in the evening, with the exception of the intervals allowed for breakfast and lunch, which were served in the room to save time. He noted a striking peculiarity in Scott's dictation, that with the greatest ease he was able to carry on two trains of thought at one time, "one of which was already arranged, and in the act of being spoken, while at the same time he was in advance considering what was afterwards to be said."--See his interesting letter to Mr. Lockhart, Life, vol. ix. pp. 115-117.Return to passage

JUNE.

June 1.--Settled my household-book. Sophia does not set out till the middle of the week, which is unlucky, our antiquarian skirmish beginning in Fife just about the time she is to arrive. Letter from John touching public affairs; don't half like them, and am afraid we shall have the Whig alliance turn out like the calling in of the Saxons. I told this to Jeffrey, who said they would convert us, as the Saxons did the British. I shall die in my Paganism for one. I don't like a bone of them as a party. Ugly reports of the King's health; God pity this poor country should that be so, but I think it a thing devised by the enemy. Anne arrived from Abbotsford. I dined at Sir Robert Dundas's, with Mrs. Dundas, Arniston, and other friends. Worked a little, not much.

June 2.--Do. Do. Dined at Baron Hume's. These dinners are cruelly in the way, but que faut-il faire? the business of the Court must be done, and it is impossible absolutely to break off all habits of visiting. Besides, the correcting of proof-sheets in itself is now become burdensome. Three or four a day is hard work.

June 3.--Wrought hard. I think I have but a trifle more to do, but new things cast up; we get beyond the life, however, for I have killed him to-day. The newspapers are very saucy; The Sun says I have got £4000 for suffering a Frenchman to look over my manuscript. Here is a proper fellow for you! I wonder what he thinks Frenchmen are made of--walking money-bags, doubtless. Now as Sir Fretful Plagiary[527] says, another man would be mad at this, but I care not one brass farthing.

June 4.--The birthday of our good old king. It was wrong not to keep up the thing as it was of yore with dinners, and claret, and squibs, and crackers, and saturnalia. The thoughts of the subjects require sometimes to be turned to the sovereign, were it but only that they may remember there is such a person.

The Bannatyne edition of Melville's Memoirs is out, and beats all print. Gad, it is a fine institution that; a rare one, by Jove! beats the Roxburghe. Wrought very bobbishly to-day, but went off at dinner-time to Thomas Thomson, where we had good cheer and good fun. By the way, we have lost our Coal Gas Bill. Sorry for it, but I can't cry.

June 5.--Proofs. Parliament House till two. Commenced the character of Bonaparte. To-morrow being a Teind-day I will hope to get it finished. Meantime I go out to-night to see Frankenstein at the theatre.

June 6.--Frankenstein is entertaining for once--considerable art in the man that plays the Monster, to whom he gave great effect. Cooper is his name; played excellently in the farce too, as a sailor--a more natural one, I think, than my old friend Jack Bannister, though he has not quite Jack's richness of humour. I had seven proof-sheets to correct this morning, by Goles. So I did not get to composition till nine; work on with little interruption (save that Mr. Verplanck, an American, breakfasted with us) until seven, and then walked, for fear of the black dog or devil that worries me when I work too hard.

June 7.--This morning finished Boney. And now, as Dame Fortune says, in Quevedo's Visions, Go, wheel, and the devil drive thee.[528] It was high time I brought up some reinforcements, for my pound was come to half-crowns, and I had nothing to keep house when the Lockharts come. Credit enough to be sure, but I have been taught by experience to make short reckonings. Some great authors now will think it a degradation to write a child's book; I cannot say I feel it such. It is to be inscribed to my grandson, and I will write it not only without a sense of its being infra dig. but with a grandfather's pleasure.

I arranged with Mr. Cadell for the property of Tales of a Grandfather, 10,000 copies for £787, 10s.

June 8.--A Mr. Maywood, much protected by poor Alister Dhu, brought me a letter from the late Colonel Huxley. His connection and approach to me is through the grave, but I will not be the less disposed to assist him if an opportunity offers. I made a long round to-day, going to David Laing's about forwarding the books of the Bannatyne Club to Sir George Rose and Duke of Buckingham. Then I came round by the printing-office, where the presses are groaning upon Napoleon, and so home through the gardens. I have done little to-day save writing a letter or two, for I was fatigued and sleepy when I got home, and nodded, I think, over Sir James Melville's Memoirs. I will do something, though, when I have dined. By the way, I corrected the proofs for Gillies; they read better than I looked for.

June 9.--Corrected proofs in the morning. When I came home from Court I found that John Lockhart and Sophia were arrived by the steam-boat at Portobello, where they have a small lodging. I went down with a bottle of Champagne, and a flask of Maraschino, and made buirdly cheer with them for the rest of the day. Had the great pleasure to find them all in high health. Poor Johnny is decidedly improved in his general health, and the injury on the spine is got no worse. Walter is a very fine child.

June 10.--Rose with the odd consciousness of being free of my daily task. I have heard that the fish-women go to church of a Sunday with their creels new washed, and a few stones in them for ballast, just because they cannot walk steadily without their usual load. I feel somewhat like this, and rather inclined to pick up some light task, than to be altogether idle. I have my proof-sheets, to be sure; but what are these to a whole day? Fortunately my thoughts are agreeable; cash difficulties, etc., all provided for, as far as I can see, so that we go on hooly and fairly. Betwixt and August 1st I should receive £750, and I cannot think I have more than the half of it to pay away. Cash, to be sure, seems to burn in my pocket. "He wasna gien to great misguiding, but coin his pouches wouldna bide in."[529] By goles, this shall be corrected, though! Lockhart gives a sad account of Gillies's imprudences. Lockhart dined with us. Day idle.

June 11.--The attendance on the Committee, and afterwards the general meeting of the Oil Gas Company took up my morning, and the rest dribbled away in correcting proofs and trifling; reading, among the rest, an odd volume of Vivian Grey;[530] clever, but not so much so as to make me, in this sultry weather, go up-stairs to the drawing-room to seek the other volumes. Ah! villain, but you smoked when you read.--Well, Madam, perhaps I think the better of the book for that reason. Made a blunder,--went to Ravelston on the wrong day. This Anne's fault, but I did not reproach her, knowing it might as well have been my own.

June 12.--At Court, a long hearing. Got home only about three. Corrected proofs, etc. Dined with Baron Clerk, and met several old friends; Will Clerk in particular.

June 13.--Another long seat at Court. Almost overcome by the heat in walking home, and rendered useless for the day. Let me be thankful, however; my lameness is much better, and the nerves of my unfortunate ankle are so much strengthened that I walk with comparatively little pain. Dined at John Swinton's; a large party. These festive occasions consume much valuable time, besides trying the stomach a little by late hours, and some wine shed, though that's not much.

June 14.--Anne and Sophia dined. Could not stay at home with them alone. We had the Skenes and Allan, and amused ourselves till ten o'clock.

June 15.--This being the day long since appointed for our cruise to Fife, Thomas Thomson, Sir A. Ferguson, Will Clerk, and I, set off with Miss Adam, and made our journey successfully to Charlton, where met Lord Chief-Baron and Lord Chief-Commissioner, all in the humour to be happy, though time is telling with us all. Our good-natured host, Mr. A. Thomson, his wife, and his good-looking daughters, received us most kindly, and the conversation took its old roll, in spite of woes and infirmities. Charlton is a good house, in the midst of highly-cultivated land, and immediately surrounded with gardens and parterres, together with plantations, partly in the old, partly in the new, taste; I like it very much; though, as a residence, it is perhaps a little too much finished. Not even a bit of bog to amuse one, as Mr. Elphinstone said.

June 16.--This day we went off in a body to St. Andrews, which Thomas Thomson had never seen. On the road beyond Charlton saw a small cottage said to have been the heritable appanage of a family called the Keays [?]. He had a right to feed his horse for a certain time on the adjoining pasture. This functionary was sent to Falkland with the fish for the royal table. The ruins at St. Andrews have been lately cleared out. They had been chiefly magnificent from their size--not their extent of ornament. I did not go up to St. Rule's Tower as on former occasions; this is a falling off, for when before did I remain sitting below when there was a steeple to be ascended? But the rheumatism has begun to change that vein for some time past, though I think this is the first decided sign of acquiescence in my lot. I sat down on a grave-stone, and recollected the first visit I made to St. Andrews, now thirty-four years ago. What changes in my feeling and my fortune have since then taken place! some for the better, many for the worse. I remembered the name I then carved in Runic characters on the turf beside the castle-gate, and I asked why it should still agitate my heart. But my friends came down from the tower, and the foolish idea was chased away.[531]

June 17.--Lounged about while the good family went to church. The day is rather cold and disposed to rain. The papers say that the Corn Bill is given up in consequence of the Duke of Wellington having carried the amendment in the House of Lords. All the party here--Sir A.F. perhaps excepted--are Ministerialists on the present double bottom. They say the names of Whig and Tory are now to exist no longer. Why have they existed at all?

In the forenoon we went off to explore the environs; we visited two ancient manor-houses, those of Elie and Balcaskie. Large roomy mansions, with good apartments, two or three good portraits, and a collection of most extraordinary frights, prodigiously like the mistresses of King George I., who "came for all the goods and chattels" of old England. There are at Elie House two most ferocious-looking Ogresses of this cast. There are noble trees about the house. Balcaskie put me in mind of poor Philip Anstruther, dead and gone many a long year since. He was a fine, gallant, light-hearted young sailor. I remember the story of his drawing on his father for some cash, which produced an angry letter from old Sir Robert, to which Philip replied, that if he did not know how to write like a gentleman, he did not desire any more of his correspondence. Balcaskie is much dilapidated; but they are restoring the house in the good old style, with its terraces and yew-hedges. The beastly fashion of bringing a bare ill-kept park up to your very doors seems going down. We next visited with great pleasure the Church of St. Monans, which is under repair, designed to correspond strictly with the ancient plan, which is the solid, gloomy, but impressive Gothic It was built by David II., in the fulfilment of a vow made to St. Monan on the field of battle at Neville's Cross. One would have judged the king to be thankful for small mercies, for certainly St. Monan proved but an ineffective patron.

Mr. Hugh Cleghorn[532] dined at Charlton, and I saw him for the first time, having heard of him all my life. He is an able man, has seen much, and speaks well. Age has clawed him in his clutch, and he has become deaf. There is also Captain Black of the navy, second lieutenant of the Mars at Trafalgar. Villeneuve was brought on board that ship after the debate. He had no expectation that the British fleet would have fought till they had formed a regular line. Captain Black disowns the idea of the French and Spaniards being drawn up chequer form for resisting the British attack, and imputes the appearance of that array to sheer accident of weather.

June 18.--We visited Wemyss Castle on our return to Kinghorn. On the left, before descending to the coast, are considerable remains of a castle, called popularly the old castle, or Macduff's Castle. That of the Thane was situated at Kennochquay, at no great distance. The front of Wemyss Castle, to the land, has been stripped entirely of its castellated appearance, and narrowly escaped a new front. To the sea it has a noble situation, overhanging the red rocks; but even there the structure has been much modernised and tamed. Interior is a good old house, with large oak staircases, family pictures, etc. We were received by Captain Wemyss--a gallant sea-captain, who could talk against a north-wester,--by his wife Lady Emma, and her sister Lady Isabella--beautiful women of the house of Errol, and vindicating its title to the handsome Hays. We reached the Pettycur about half-past one, crossed to Edinburgh, and so ended our little excursion. Of casualties we had only one: Triton, the house-dog at Charlton, threw down Thomson and he had his wrist sprained. A restive horse threatened to demolish our landau, but we got off for the fright. Happily L.C.B. was not in our carriage.

Dined at William M'Kenzie's to meet the Marquis and Marchioness of Stafford, who are on their road to Dunrobin. Found them both very well.

June 19.--Lord Stafford desires to be a member of the Bannatyne Club--also Colin M'Kenzie. Sent both names up accordingly.

The day furnishes a beggarly record of trumpery. From eight o'clock till nine wrote letters, then Parliament House, where I had to wait on without anything to do till near two, when rain forced me into the Antiquarian museum. Lounged there till a meeting of the Oil Gas Committee at three o'clock. There remained till near five. Home and smoked a cheroot after dinner. Called on Thomson, who is still disabled by his sprain. Pereat inter hæc. We must do better to-morrow.

June 20.--Kept my word, being Teind Wednesday. Two young Frenchmen, friends of Gallois, rather interrupted me. I had asked them to breakfast, but they stayed till twelve o'clock, which is scarce fair, and plagued me with compliments. Their names are Rémusat and Guyzard.[533] Pleasant, good-humoured young men. Notwithstanding this interruption I finished near six pages, three being a good Session-day's work. Allons, vogue la galère. Dined at the Solicitor's with Lord Hopetoun, and a Parliament House party.

June 21.--Finished five leaves--that is, betwixt morning and dinner-time. The Court detained me till two o'clock. About nine leaves will make the volume quite large enough.

By the way, the booksellers have taken courage to print up 2000 more of the first edition [of Napoleon]; which, after the second volume, they curtailed from 8000 to 6000. This will be £1000 more in my way, at least, and that is a good help. We dine with the Skenes to-day, Lockhart being with us.[534]

June 22.--Wrought in the morning as usual. Received to breakfast Dr. Bishop, a brother of Bishop the composer. He tells me his brother was very ill when he wrote "The Chough and Crow," and other music for Guy Mannering. Singular! but I do think illness, if not too painful, unseals the mental eye, and renders the talents more acute, in the study of the fine arts at least.[535]

I find the difference on 2000 additional copies will be £3000 instead of £1000 in favour of the author. My good friend Publicum is impatient. Heaven grant his expectations be not disappointed! Coragio, andiamos! Such another year of labour and success would do much towards making me a free man of the forest. But I must to work since we have to dine with Lord and Lady Gray. By the way, I forgot an engagement to my old friend, Lord Justice-Clerk. This is shockingly ill-bred. But the invitation was a month old, and that is some defence.

June 23.--I corrected proofs and played the grandfather in the morning. After Court saw Lady Wedderburn, who asked my advice about printing some verses of Mrs. Hemans in honour of the late Lord James Murray, who died in Greece. Also Lord Gray, who wishes me to write some preliminary matter to his ancestor, the Master of Gray's correspondence. I promised. But ancestor was a great rogue, and if I am to write about him at all, I must take my will of him. Anne and I dined at home. She went to the play, and I had some mind to go too. But Miss Foote was the sole attraction, and Miss Foote is only a very pretty woman, and if she played Rosalind better than I think she can, it is a bore to see Touchstone and Jacques murdered. I have a particular respect for As You Like It. It was the first play I ever saw, and that was at Bath in 1776 or 1777. That is not yesterday, yet I remember the piece very well. So I remained at home, smoked a cigar, and worked leisurely upon the review of the Culloden Papers, which, by dint of vamping and turning, may make up the lacking copy for the "Works" better, I think, than that lumbering Essay on Border Antiquities.

June 24.--I don't care who knows it, I was lazy this morning. But I cheated my laziness capitally, as you shall hear. My good friend, Sir Watt, said I to my esteemed friend, it is hard you should be obliged to work when you are so disinclined to it. Were I you, I would not be quite idle though. I would do something that you are not obliged to do, just as I have seen a cowardly dog willing to fight with any one save that which his master would have desired him to yoke with. So I went over the review of the Culloden Papers, and went a great way to convert it into the Essay on Clanship, etc., which I intend for the Prose Works. I wish I had thought of it before correcting that beastly border essay. Naboclish!

June 25.--Wrote five pages of the Chronicles, and hope to conquer one or two more ere night to fetch up the leeway. Went and saw Allan's sketch of a picture for Abbotsford, which is promising; a thing on the plan of Watteau. He intends to introduce some interesting characters, and some, I suspect, who have little business there. Yesterday I dined with the Lockharts at Portobello.[536] To-day at home with Anne and Miss Erskine. They are gone to walk. I have a mind to go to trifle, so I do not promise to write more to-night, having begun the dedication (advertisement I mean) to the Chronicles. I have pleasant subjects of reflection. The fund in Gibson's hands will approach £40,000, I think.

Lord Melville writes desiring to be a candidate for the Bannatyne Club.

I made a balance of my affairs, and stuck it into my book: it should answer very well, but still

"I am not given to great misguiding, But coin my pouches will na bide in, With me it ne'er was under hiding, I dealt it free."

I must, however, and will, be independent.

June 26.--Well, if ever I saw such another thing since my mother bound up my head![537] Here is nine of clock strucken and I am still fast asleep abed. I have not done the like of this many a day. However, it cannot be helped. Went to Court, which detained me till two o'clock. A walk home consumed the hour to three! Wrote in the Court, however, to the Duke of Wellington and Lord Bloomfield. and that is a good job over.

I have a letter from a member of the Commission of the Psalmody of the Kirk, zealous and pressing. I shall answer him, I think.[538] One from Sir James Stuart,[539] on fire with Corfe Castle, with a drawing of King Edward, occupying one page, as he hurries down the steep, mortally wounded by the assassin. Singular power of speaking at once to the eye and the ear. Dined at home. After dinner sorted papers. Rather idle.

June 27.--Corrected proofs and wrote till breakfast. Then the Court. Called on Skene and Charles K. Sharpe, and did not get home until three o'clock, and then so wet as to require a total change. We dine at Hector Buchanan Macdonald's, where there are sometimes many people and little conversation. Sent a little chest of books by the carrier to Abbotsford.

A visit from a smart young man, Gustavus Schwab of Königsberg; he gives a flattering picture of Prussia, which is preparing for freedom. The King must keep his word, though, or the people may chance to tire of waiting. Dined at H.B. Macdonald's with rather a young party for Colin M'Kenzie and me.

June 28.--Wrote a little and corrected proofs. How many things have I unfinished at present?

Chronicles, first volume not ended.

do., second volume begun.

Introduction to ditto.

Tales of My Grandfather.

Essay on Highlands. This unfinished, owing to certain causes, chiefly want of papers and books to fill up blanks, which I will get at Abbotsford. Came home through rain about two, and commissioned John Stevenson to call at three about binding some books. Dined with Sophia; visited, on invitation, a fine old little Commodore Trunnion, who, on reading a part of Napoleon's history, with which he had himself been interested, as commanding a flotilla, thought he had detected a mistake, but was luckily mistaken, to my great delight.

"I fear thee, ancient mariner."

To be cross-examined by those who have seen the true thing is the devil. And yet these eye-witnesses are not all right in what they repeat neither, indeed cannot be so, since you will have dozens of contradictions in their statements.

June 29.--A distressing letter from Haydon; imprudent, probably, but who is not? A man of rare genius. What a pity I gave that £10 to Craig! But I have plenty of ten pounds sure, and I may make it something. I will get £100 at furthest when I come back from the country. Wrote at proofs, but no copy; I fear I shall wax fat and kick against Madam Duty, but I augur better things.

Just as we were sitting down to dinner, Cadell burst in in high spirits with the sale of Napoleon[540] the orders for which pour in, and the public report is favourable. Detected two gross blunders though, which I have ordered for cancel. Supped (for a wonder) with Colin Mackenzie and a bachelor party. Mr. Williams[541] was there, whose extensive information, learning, and lively talent makes him always pleasant company. Up till twelve--a debauch for me nowadays.

June 30.--Redd up my things for moving,[542] which will clear my hands a little on the next final flitting. Corrected proof-sheets. Williams told me an English bull last night. A fellow of a college, deeply learned, sitting at a public entertainment beside a foreigner, tried every means to enter into conversation, but the stranger could speak no dead language, the Doctor no living one but his own. At last the scholar, in great extremity, was enlightened by a happy "Nonne potes loqui cum digitis?"--said as if the difficulty was solved at once.

Abbotsford.--Reached this about six o'clock.[543]

FOOTNOTES:

[527] Sheridan's Critic, Act I. Sc, 1.Return to passage

[528] "No sooner had the Sun uttered these words than Fortune, as if she had been playing on a cymbal, began to unwind her wheel, which, whirling about like a hurricane, huddled all the world into an unparalleled confusion. Fortune gave a mighty squeak, saying, 'Fly, wheel, and the devil drive thee.'"--Fortune in her Wits, Quevedo. English trans. (1798), vol. iii. p. 107.Return to passage

[529] Burns: "On a Scotch Bard, gone to the West Indies."Return to passage

[530] Vivian Grey, by Benjamin Disraeli, was published anonymously in 5 vols. 12mo, 1826-7.Return to passage

[531] If the reader turns to December 18, 1825, he will see that this is not the first allusion in the Journal to his "first love,"--an innocent attachment, to which we owe the tenderest pages, not only of Redgauntlet (1824), but of the Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805), and of Rokeby (1813). In all these works the heroine has certain distinctive features drawn from one and the same haunting dream. The lady was "Williamina Belches, sole child and heir of a gentleman who was a cadet of the ancient family of Invermay, and who afterwards became Sir John Stuart of Fettercairn." She married Sir William Forbes in 1797 and died in 1810.--Life, vol. i. p. 333; Shairp's Memoirs of Principal Forbes, pp. 4, 5, 8vo, London, 1873, where her portrait, engraved from a miniature, is given.Return to passage

[532] Hugh Cleghorn had been Professor of Civil History in St. Andrews for ten years, afterwards becoming tutor to the Earl of Home, and subsequently employed by our Government in various foreign missions. A glimpse of his work is obtainable in Southey's Life, of Dr. Andrew Bell. Mr. Cleghorn died in 1833, aged 83.Return to passage

[533] Count Paul de Rémusat has been good enough to give me another view of this visit which will be read with interest:--"118 Faubourg St. Honoré, February 10, 1890.--.... My father has often spoken to me of this visit to Sir Walter Scott--for it was indeed my father, Charles de Rémusat, member of the French Academy, and successively Minister of the Interior and for Foreign Affairs, who went at the age of thirty to Abbotsford, and he retained to the last days of his life a most lively remembrance of the great novelist who did not acknowledge the authorship of his novels, and to whom it was thus impossible otherwise than indirectly to pay any compliment. It gives me great pleasure to learn that the visit of those young men impressed him favourably. My father's companion was his contemporary and friend, M. Louis de Guizard, who, like my father, was a contributor at that time to the Liberal press of the Restoration, the Globe and La Revue Française, and who, after the Revolution of 1830, entered, as did my father likewise, upon political life. M. de Guizard was first préfet, then député, and after 1848 became Directeur-général des Beaux Arts. He died about 1877 or 1878, after his retirement from public life."Return to passage

[534] "Woodstock placed upwards of £8000 in the hands of Sir Walter's creditors. The Napoleon (first and second editions) produced for them a sum which it even now startles me to mention--£18,000. As by the time the historical work was published nearly half of the First Series of Chronicles of the Canongate had been written, it is obvious that the amount to which Scott's literary industry, from the close of 1825 to the 10th of June 1827, had diminished his debt, cannot be stated at less than £28,000. Had health been spared him, how soon must he have freed himself from all his encumbrances!"--J.G.L.Return to passage

[535] See Life, vol. vi. p. 89. In Mr. Ballantyne's Memorandum, there is a fuller account of the mode in which The Bride of Lammermoor, The Legend of Montrose, and almost the whole of Ivanhoe were produced, and the mental phenomenon which accompanied the preparation of the first-named work:--Return to passage

"During the progress of composing The Heart of Midlothian, The Bride of Lammermoor, and Legend of Montrose--a period of many months--Mr. Scott's health had become extremely indifferent, and was often supposed to place him in great danger. But it would hardly be credited, were it not for the notoriety of the fact, that although one of the symptoms of his illness was pain of the most acute description, yet he never allowed it to interrupt his labours. The only difference it produced, that I am aware of, was its causing him to employ the hand of an amanuensis in place of his own. Indeed, during the greater part of the day at this period he was confined to his bed. The person employed for this purpose was the respectable and intelligent Mr. Wm. Laidlaw, who acted for him in this capacity in the country, and I think also attended him to town. I have often been present with Mr. Laidlaw during the short intervals of his labour, and it was deeply affecting to hear the account he gave of his patron's severe sufferings, and the indomitable spirit which enabled him to overmaster them. He told me that very often the dictation of Caleb Balderston's and the old cooper's best jokes was mingled with groans extorted from him by pains; but that when he, Mr. L., endeavoured to prevail upon him to take a little respite, the only answer he could obtain from Mr. Scott was a request that he would see that the doors were carefully shut, so that the expressions of his agony might not reach his family--'As to stopping work, Laidlaw,' he said, 'you know that is wholly out of the question.' What followed upon these exertions, made in circumstances so very singular, appears to me to exhibit one of the most singular chapters in the history of the human intellect. The book having been published before Mr. Scott was able to rise from his bed, he assured me that, when it was put into his hands, he did not recollect one single incident, character, or conversation it contained. He by no means desired me to understand, nor did I understand, that his illness had erased from his memory all or any of the original family facts with which he had been acquainted from the period probably of his boyhood. These of course remained rooted where they had ever been, or, to speak more explicitly, where explicitness is so entirely important, he remembered the existence of the father and mother, the son and daughter, the rival lovers, the compulsory marriage, and the attack made by his bride upon the unhappy bridegroom, with the general catastrophe of the whole. All these things he recollected, just as he did before he took to his bed, but the marvel is that he recollected literally nothing else--not a single character woven by the Romancer--not one of the many scenes and points of exquisite humour, nor anything with which he was connected as writer of the work. 'For a long time I felt myself very uneasy,' he said, 'in the course of my reading, always kept on the qui vive lest I should be startled by something altogether glaring and fantastic; however, I recollected that the printing had been performed by James Ballantyne, who I was sure would not have permitted anything of this sort to pass.' 'Well,' I said, 'upon the whole, how did you like it?' 'Oh,' he said, 'I felt it monstrous gross and grotesque, to be sure, but still the worst of it made me laugh, and I trusted therefore the good-natured public would not be less indulgent.' I do not think that I ever ventured to lead to this singular subject again. But you may depend upon it, that what I have said is as distinctly reported as if it had been taken down at the moment in shorthand. I should not otherwise have imparted the phenomenon at all."--Mr. Ballantyne's MSS.

[536] Mr. Lockhart says:--"My wife and I spent the summer of 1827 partly at a sea-bathing place near Edinburgh, and partly in Roxburghshire. The arrival of his daughter and her children at Portobello was a source of constant refreshment to him during June, for every other day he came down and dined there, and strolled about afterwards on the beach, thus interrupting, beneficially for his health, and I doubt not for the result of his labours also, the new custom of regular night-work, or, as he called it, serving double tides."Return to passage

[537] See Swift, "Mary the cook to Dr. Sheridan."Return to passage

[538] The answer is printed in the Scott Centenary Catalogue by David Laing, from which the following extracts are given:--Return to passage

"The expression of the old metrical translation, though homely, is plain, forcible, and intelligible, and very often possesses a rude sort of majesty, which perhaps would be ill-exchanged for mere elegance." "They are the very words and accents of our early Reformers--sung by them in woe and gratitude, in the fields, in the churches, and on the scaffold." "The parting with this very association of ideas is a serious loss to the cause of devotion, and scarce to be incurred without the certainty of corresponding advantages. But if these recollections are valuable to persons of education, they are almost indispensable to the edification of the lower ranks whose prejudices do not permit them to consider as the words of the inspired poetry, the versions of living or modern poets, but persist, however absurdly, in identifying the original with the ancient translation."--p. 158.

[539] Sir James Stuart, the last baronet of Allanbank.Return to passage

[540] "The Life of Bonaparte, then, was at last published about the middle of June 1827."--Life, ix. 117.Return to passage

[541] Archdeacon Williams, Rector of the New Edinburgh Academy from 1824 to 1847.Return to passage

[542] Among the letters which Sir Walter found time to write before leaving Edinburgh, was one to congratulate his old and true friend Mrs. Coutts on her marriage, which took place on the 16th of June. That letter has not been preserved, but it drew from her Grace the following reply:--Return to passage

"My dear Sir Walter Scott,--Your most welcome letter has 'wandered mony a weary mile after me.' Thanks, many thanks for all your kind congratulations. I am a Duchess at last, that is certain, but whether I am the better for it remains to be proved. The Duke is very amiable, gentle, and well-disposed, and I am sure he has taken pains enough to accomplish what he says has been the first wish of his heart for the last three years. All this is very flattering to an old lady, and we lived so long in friendship with each other that I was afraid I should be unhappy if I did not say I will--yet (whisper it, dear Sir Walter) the name of Coutts--and a right good one it is--is, and ever will be, dear to my heart. What a strange, eventful life has mine been, from a poor little player child, with just food and clothes to cover me, dependent on a very precarious profession, without talent or a friend in the world! 'to have seen what I have seen, seeing what I see.' Is it not wonderful? is it true? can I believe it?--first the wife of the best, the most perfect, being that ever breathed, his love and unbounded confidence in me, his immense fortune so honourably acquired by his own industry, all at my command, ... and now the wife of a Duke. You must write my life; the History of Tom Thumb, Jack the Giant Killer, and Goody Two Shoes, will sink compared with my true history written by the Author of Waverley; and that you may do it well I have sent you an inkstand. Pray give it a place on your table in kind remembrance of your affectionate friend,

"HARRIETT ST. ALBANS.

"STRATTON STREET, July 16th, 1827."

[543] Next morning the following pleasant little billet was despatched to Kaeside:--Return to passage

"My dear Mr. Laidlaw, I would be happy if you would come at kail-time to-day. Napoleon (6000 copies) is sold for £11,000.--Yours truly,

"Sunday. W.S."

--Abbotsford Notanda, by R. Carruthers, Edin. 1871.