"After he had got some repose, and had become rather better in the
morning, he said, with a smile on his countenance, 'If you will promise
not to laugh at me I have a favour to ask. Do you know I have taken a
childish desire to see the place where I am to be laid when I go home,
which there is some probability may not now be long delayed. Now, as I
cannot go to Dryburgh Abbey--that is out of the question at present--it
would give me much pleasure if you would take a ride down and bring me a
drawing of that spot, which he minutely described the position of, and
mentioned the exact point where he wished it drawn, that the site of his
future grave might appear. His wish was accordingly complied
with."--_Reminiscences_.




1828.




JANUARY.

    "As I walked by myself,
    I talked to myself,
    And thus myself said to me."

_January_ 1.--Since the 20th November 1825, for two months that is, and
two years, I have kept this custom of a diary. That it has made me wiser
or better I dare not say, but it shows by its progress that I am capable
of keeping a resolution. Perhaps I should not congratulate myself on
this; perhaps it only serves to show I am more a man of method and less
a man of originality, and have no longer that vivacity of fancy that is
inconsistent with regular labour. Still, should this be the case, I
should, having lost the one, be happy to find myself still possessed of
the other.

_January_ 2.--_Cæcæ mentes hominum_.--My last entry records my
punctuality in keeping up my diary hitherto; my present labour,
commenced notwithstanding the date, upon the 9th January, is to make up
my little record betwixt the second and that latter date. In a word, I
have been several days in arrear without rhyme or reason,--days too when
there was so little to write down that the least jotting would have done
it. This must not be in future.

_January_ 3.--Our friends begin to disperse. Mrs. Ellis, who has been
indisposed for the last two days, will I hope bear her journey to London
well. She is the relict of my dear old friend George Ellis,[109] who had
more wit, learning, and knowledge of the world than would fit out twenty
_literati_. The Hardens remained to-day, and I had a long walk with the
laird up the Glen, and so forth. He seemed a little tired, and, with all
due devotion to my Chief, I was not sorry to triumph over some one in
point of activity at my time of day.

_January_ 4.--Visited by Mr. Stewart of Dalguise, who came to collect
materials for a description of Abbotsford, to be given with a drawing in
a large work, _Views of Gentlemen's Seats._ Mr. Stewart is a
well-informed gentleman-like young man, grave and quiet, yet possessed
of a sense of humour. I must take care he does not in civility over-puff
my little assemblage of curiosities. Scarce anything can be meaner than
the vanity which details the contents of China closets,--basins, ewers,
and chamberpots. Horace Walpole, with all his talents, makes a silly
figure when he gives an upholsterer's catalogue of his goods and
chattels at Strawberry Hill.

_January_ 5.--This day I began to review Taschereau's _Life of Molière_
for Mr. Gillies, who is crying help for God's sake. Messrs. Treuttel and
Wurtz offer guerdon. I shall accept, because it is doing Gillies no good
to let him have my labour for nothing, and an article is about £100. In
my pocket it may form a fund to help this poor gentleman or others at a
pinch; in his, I fear it would only encourage a neglect of sober
economy. When in his prosperity he asked me whether there was not, in my
opinion, something interesting in a man of genius being in embarrassed
circumstances. God knows he has had enough of them since, poor fellow;
and it should be remembered that if he thus dallied with his good
fortune, his benevolence to others was boundless.

We had the agreeable intelligence of Sophia being safely delivered of a
girl; the mother and child doing well. Praised be God!

_January_ 6.--I have a letter from the Duke of Wellington, making no
promises, but assuring me of a favourable consideration of Walter's
case, should an opening occur for the majority. This same _step_ is
represented as the most important, but so in their time were the
lieutenancy and the troop. Each in its turn was _the_ step _par
excellence_. It appears that these same steps are those of a treadmill,
where the party is always ascending and never gains the top. But the
same simile would suit most pursuits in life.

The Misses Kerr left us on Friday--two charming young persons,
well-looked, well-mannered, and well-born; above all, well-principled.
They sing together in a very delightful manner, and our evenings are the
duller without them.

I am annoyed beyond measure with the idle intrusion of voluntary
correspondents; each man who has a pen, ink, and sheet of foolscap to
spare, flies a letter at me. I believe the postage costs me £100 [a
year], besides innumerable franks; and all the letters regard the
writer's own hopes or projects, or are filled with unasked advice or
extravagant requests. I think this evil increases rather than
diminishes. On the other hand, I must fairly own that I have received
many communications in this way worth all the trouble and expense that
the others cost me, so I must "lay the head of the sow to the tail of
the grice," as the proverb elegantly expresses itself.

News again of Sophia and baby. Mrs. Hughes thinks the infant a beauty.
Johnnie opines that it is not _very_ pretty, and grandpapa supposes it
to be like other new-born children, which are as like as a basket of
oranges.

_January_ 7.--Wrought at the review, and finished a good lot of it. Mr.
Stewart left us, amply provided with the history of Abbotsford and its
contents. It is a kind of Conundrum Castle to be sure, and I have great
pleasure in it, for while it pleases a fantastic person in the style and
manner of its architecture and decoration, it has all the comforts of a
commodious habitation.

Besides the review, I have been for this week busily employed in
revising for the press the _Tales of a Grandfather_. Cadell rather
wished to rush it out by employing three different presses, but this _I
repressed_ (smoke the pun!). I will not have poor James Ballantyne
driven off the plank to which we are all three clinging.[110] I have
made great additions to volume first, and several of these _Tales_; and
I care not who knows it, I think well of them. Nay, I will hash history
with anybody, be he who he will.[111] I do not know but it would be wise
to let romantic composition rest, and turn my mind to the history of
England, France, and Ireland, to be _da capo rota'd,_ as well as that of
Scotland. Men would laugh at me as an author for Mr. Newbery's shop in
Paul's Churchyard. I should care little for that. _Virginibus
puerisque._ I would as soon compose histories for boys and girls, which
may be useful, as fictions for children of a larger growth, which can at
best be only idle folk's entertainment. But write what I will, or to
whom I will, I am doggedly determined to write myself out of the present
scrape by any labour that is fair and honest.

_January_ 8.--Despatched my review (in part), and in the morning walked
from Chiefswood, all about the shearing flats, and home by the new walk,
which I have called the Bride's Walk, because Jane was nearly stuck fast
in the bog there, just after her marriage, in the beginning of 1825.

My post brings serious intelligence to-day, and of a very pleasing
description. Longman and Company, with a reserve which marks all their
proceedings, suddenly inform Mr. Gibson that they desire 1000 of the 8vo
edition of _St. Ronan's Well,_ and the subsequent series of Novels
thereunto belonging, for that they have only _seven_ remaining, and wish
it to be sent to their printers, and pushed out in three months. Thus
this great house, without giving any previous notice of the state of the
sale, expect all to be boot and saddle, horse and away, whenever they
give the signal. In the present case this may do, because I will make
neither alteration nor addition till our grand _opus_, the Improved
Edition, goes to press. But ought we to go to press with this 1000
copies knowing that our project will supersede and render equivalent to
waste paper such of them as may not reach the public before our plan is
publicly known and begins to operate? I have, I acknowledge, doubt as to
this. No doubt I feel perfectly justified in letting Longman and Co.
look to their own interest, since they have neither consulted me nor
attended to mine. But the loss might extend to the retail booksellers;
and to hurt the men through whom my works are ultimately to find their
way to the public would be both unjust and impolitic. On the contrary,
if the _St. Ronan_ Series be hurried out immediately, there is time
enough perhaps to sell it off before the Improved Edition appears. In
the meantime it appears that the popularity of these works is increasing
rather than diminishing, that the measure of securing the copyrights was
most judicious, and that, with proper management, things will work
themselves round. Successful first editions are good, but they require
exertion and imply fresh risk of reputation. But repeated editions tell
only to the agreeable part of literature.[112]

Longman and Company have also at length opened their oracular jaws on
the subject of _Bonaparte_, and acknowledged its rapid sale, and the
probable exhaustion of the present edition.

These tidings, with the success of the _Tales_, "speak of Africa and
golden joys."[113] But the tidings arriving after dinner rather
discomposed me. In the evening I wrote to Cadell and Ballantyne at
length, proposing a meeting at my house on Tuesday first, to hold a
privy council.

_January_ 9.--My first reflection was on Napoleon. I will not be hurried
in my corrections of that work; and that I may not be so, I will begin
them the instant that I have finished the review. It makes me tremble to
think of the mass of letters I have to look through in order to select
all those which affect the subject of _Napoleon_, and which, in spite of
numerous excellent resolutions, I have never separated from the common
file from which they are now to be selected. Confound them! but they
_are_ confounded already. Indolence is a delightful indulgence, but at
what a rate we purchase it! To-day we go to Mertoun, and having spent
some time in making up my Journal to this length, and in a chat with
Captain John, who dropped in, I will presently set to the review--knock
it off, if possible, before we start at five o'clock. To-morrow, when I
return, we will begin the disagreeable task of a thorough rummage of
papers, books, and documents. My character as a man of letters, and as a
man of honour, depends on my making that work as correct as possible. It
has succeeded, notwithstanding every effort here and in France[114] to
put it down, and it shall not lose ground for want of backing. We went
to dine and pass the night at Mertoun, where we met Sir John Pringle,
Mr. and Mrs. Baillie Mellerstain, and their daughters.

_January_ 10.--When I rose this morning the weather was changed and the
ground covered with snow. I am sure it's winter fairly. We returned from
Mertoun after breakfast through an incipient snowstorm, coming on
partially, and in great flakes, the sun bursting at intervals through
the clouds. At last _Die Wolken laufen zusammen_. We made a slow journey
of it through the swollen river and heavy roads, but here we are at
last.

I am rather sorry we expect friends to-day, though these friends be the
good Fergusons. I have a humour for work, to which the sober, sad
uniformity of a snowy day always particularly disposes me, and I am sure
I will get poor Gillies off my hand, at least if I had morning and
evening. Then I would set to work with arranging everything for these
second editions of _Napoleon, The Romances_, etc., which must be soon
got afloat. I must say "the wark gangs bonnily on."[115] Well, I will
ring for coals, mend my pen, and try what can be done.

I wrought accordingly on Gillies's review for the _Life of Molière_, a
gallant subject. I am only sorry I have not time to do it justice. It
would have required a complete re-perusal of his works, for which, alas!
I have no leisure.

    "For long, though pleasant, is the way,
    And life, alas! allows but one ill winter's day."

Which is too literally my own case.


_January_ 11.--Renewed my labour, finished the review, _talis qualis_,
and sent it off. Commenced then my infernal work of putting to rights.
Much cry and little woo', as the deil said when he shore the sow. But I
have detected one or two things that had escaped me, and may do more
to-morrow. I observe by a letter from Mr. Cadell that I had somewhat
misunderstood his last. It is he, not Longman, that wishes to publish
the thousand copies of _St. Ronan's_ Series, and there is no immediate
call for _Napoleon_. This makes little difference in my computation. The
pressing necessity of correction is put off for two or three months
probably, and I have time to turn myself to the _Chronicles_. I do not
much like the task, but when did I ever like labour of any kind? My
hands were fully occupied to-day with writing letters and adjusting
papers--both a great bore.

The news from London assure a change of Ministry. The old Tories come in
play. But I hope they will compromise nothing. There is little danger
since Wellington takes the lead.


_January_ 12.--My expenses have been considerably more than I expected;
but I think that, having done so much, I need not undergo the
mortification of giving up Abbotsford and parting with my old habits and
servants.[116]


_January_ 13, _[Edinburgh]._--We had a slow and tiresome retreat from
Abbotsford through the worst of weather, half-sleet, half-snow. Dined
with the Royal Society Club, and, being an anniversary, sat till nine
o'clock, instead of half-past seven.


_January_ 14.--I read Cooper's new novel, _The Red Rover_; the current
of it rolls entirely upon the ocean. Something there is too much of
nautical language; in fact, it overpowers everything else. But, so
people once take an interest in a description, they will swallow a great
deal which they do not understand. The sweet word "Mesopotamia" has its
charm in other compositions as well as in sermons. He has much genius, a
powerful conception of character, and force of execution. The same
ideas, I see, recur upon him that haunt other folks. The graceful form
of the spars, and the tracery of the ropes and cordage against the sky,
is too often dwelt upon.


_January_ 15.--This day the Court sat down. I missed my good friend
Colin Mackenzie, who proposes to retire, from indifferent health. A
better man never lived--eager to serve every one--a safeguard over all
public business which came through his hands. As Deputy-Keeper of the
Signet he will be much missed. He had a patience in listening to every
one which is of the [highest consequence] in the management of a public
body; for many men care less to gain their point than they do to play
the orator, and be listened to for a certain time. This done, and due
quantity of personal consideration being gained, the individual orator
is usually satisfied with the reasons of the civil listener, who has
suffered him to enjoy his hour of consequence. I attended the Court, but
there was very little for me to do. The snowy weather has annoyed my
fingers with chilblains, and I have a threatening of rheumatism--which
Heaven avert!

James Ballantyne and Mr. Cadell dined with me to-day and talked me into
a good humour with my present task, which I had laid aside in disgust.
It must, however, be done, though I am loth to begin to it again.

_January_ 16.--Again returned early, and found my way home with some
difficulty. The weather--a black frost powdered with snow, my fingers
suffering much and my knee very stiff. When I came home, I set to work,
but not to the _Chronicles_. I found a less harassing occupation in
correcting a volume or two of _Napoleon_ in a rough way. My indolence,
if I can call it so, is of a capricious kind. It never makes me
absolutely idle, but very often inclines me--as it were from mere
contradiction's sake--to exchange the task of the day for something
which I am not obliged to do at the moment, or perhaps not at all.

_January_ 17.--My knee so swelled and the weather so cold that I stayed
from Court. I nibbled for an hour or two at _Napoleon_, then took
handsomely to my gear, and wrote with great ease and fluency six pages
of the _Chronicles_. If they are but tolerable I shall be satisfied. In
fact, such as they are, they must do, for I shall get warm as I work, as
has happened on former occasions. The fact is, I scarce know what is to
succeed or not; but this is the consequence of writing too much and too
often. I must get some breathing space. But how is that to be managed?
There is the rub.

_January_ 18-19.--Remained still at home, and wrought hard. The fountain
trickles free enough, but God knows whether the waters will be worth
drinking. However, I have finished a good deal of hard work,--that's the
humour of it.

_January_ 20.--Wrought hard in the forenoon. At dinner we had Helen
Erskine,--whom circumstances lead to go to India in search of the
domestic affection which she cannot find here,--Mrs. George Swinton, and
two young strangers: one, a son of my old friend Dr. Stoddart of the
_Times_, a well-mannered and intelligent youth, the other that unnatural
character, a tame Irishman, resembling a formal Englishman.

_January_ 21.--This morning I sent J.B. as far as page forty-three,
being fully two-thirds of the volume. The rest I will drive on, trusting
that, contrary to the liberated posthorse in John Gilpin, the lumber of
the wheels rattling behind me may put spirit in the poor brute who has
to drag it.

Mr. and Mrs. Moscheles were here at breakfast. She is a very pretty
little Jewess; he one of the greatest performers on the pianoforte of
the day,--certainly most surprising and, what I rather did not expect,
pleasing.

I have this day the melancholy news of Glengarry's death, and was
greatly shocked. The eccentric parts of his character, the pretensions
which he supported with violence and assumption of rank and authority,
were obvious subjects of censure and ridicule, which in some points were
not undeserved. He played the part of a chieftain too nigh the life to
be popular among an altered race, with whom he thought, felt, and acted,
I may say in right and wrong, as a chieftain of a hundred years since
would have done, while his conduct was viewed entirely by modern eyes,
and tried by modern rules.[117]

_January_ 22.--I am, I find, in serious danger of losing the habit of my
Journal; and, having carried it on so long, that would be pity. But I am
now, on the 1st February, fishing for the lost recollections of the days
since the 21st January. Luckily there is not very much to remember or
forget, and perhaps the best way would be to skip and go on.

_January_ 23.--Being a Teind day, I had a good opportunity of work. I
should have said I had given breakfast on the 21st to Mr. and Mrs.
Moscheles; she a beautiful young creature, "and one that adores me," as
Sir Toby says,[118]--that is, in my poetical capacity;--in fact, a frank
and amiable young person. I liked Mr. Moscheles' playing better than I
could have expected, considering my own bad ear. But perhaps I flatter
myself, and think I understood it better than I did. Perhaps I have not
done myself justice, and know more of music than I thought I did. But it
seems to me that his variations have a more decided style of originality
than those I have commonly heard, which have all the signs of a _da capo
rota_.

Dined at Sir Archibald Campbell's,[119] and drank rather more wine than
usual in a sober way. To be sure, it was excellent, and some old
acquaintances proved a good excuse for the glass.

_January_ 24.--I took a perverse fit to-day, and went off to write
notes, et cetera, on _Guy Mannering_. This was perverse enough; but it
was a composition between humour and duty; and as such, let it pass.

_January_ 25.--I went on working, sometimes at my legitimate labours,
sometimes at my jobs of Notes, but still working faithfully, in good
spirits, and contented.

Huntly Gordon has disposed of the two sermons[120] to the bookseller
Colburn for £250--well sold, I think--and is to go forth immediately.
The man is a puffing quack; but though I would rather the thing had not
gone there, and far rather that it had gone nowhere, yet, hang it! if it
makes the poor lad easy, what needs I fret about it? After all, there
would be little gain in doing a kind thing, if you did not suffer pain
or inconvenience upon the score.

_January_ 26.--Being Saturday, attended Mr. Moscheles' concert, and was
amused; the more so that I had Mrs. M. herself to flirt a little with.
To have so much beauty as she really possesses, and to be accomplished
and well-read, she is an unaffected and pleasant person. Mr. Moscheles
gives lessons at two guineas by the hour, and he has actually found
scholars in this poor country. One of them at least (Mrs. John Murray)
may derive advantage from his instructions; for I observe his mode of
fingering is very peculiar, as he seems to me to employ the fingers of
the same hand in playing the melody and managing the bass at the same
time, which is surely most uncommon.

I presided at the Celtic Society's dinner to-day, and proposed
Glengarry's memory, which, although there had been a rough dispute with
the Celts and the poor Chief, was very well received. I like to see men
think and bear themselves like men. There were fewer in the tartan than
usual--which was wrong.

_January_ 27.--Wrought manfully at the _Chronicles_ all this day and
have nothing to jot down; only I forgot that I lost my lawsuit some day
last week or the week before. The fellow therefore gets his money, plack
and bawbee, but it's always a troublesome claim settled,[121] and there
can be no other of the same kind, as every other creditor has accepted
the composition of _7s._ in the £, which my exertions have enabled me to
pay them. About £20,000 of the fund had been created by my own exertions
since the bankruptcy took place, and I had a letter from Donald Horne,
by commission of the creditors, to express their sense of my exertions
in their behalf. All this is consolatory.

_January_ 28.--I am in the scrape of sitting for my picture, and had to
repair for two hours to-day to Mr. Colvin Smith--Lord Gillies's nephew.
The Chief Baron[122] had the kindness to sit with me great part of the
time, as the Chief Commissioner had done on a late occasion. The picture
is for the Chief Commissioner, and the Chief Baron desires a copy. I
trust it will he a good one. At home in the evening, and wrote. I am
well on before the press, notwithstanding late hours, lassitude, and
laziness. I have read Cooper's _Prairie_--better, I think, than his _Red
Rover_, in which you never get foot on shore, and to understand entirely
the incidents of the story it requires too much knowledge of nautical
language. It's very clever, though.[123]

_January_ 29.--This day at the Court, and wrote letters at home, besides
making a visit or two--rare things with me. I have an invitation from
Messrs Saunders and Otley, booksellers, offering me from £1500 to £2000
annually to conduct a journal; but I am their humble servant. I am too
indolent to stand to that sort of work, and I must preserve the
undisturbed use of my leisure, and possess my soul in quiet. A large
income is not my object; I must clear my debts; and that is to be done
by writing things of which I can retain the property. Made my excuses
accordingly.

_January_ 30.--After Court hours I had a visit from Mr. Charles Heath,
the engraver, accompanied by a son of Reynolds the dramatist. His object
was to engage me to take charge as editor of a yearly publication called
_The Keepsake,_ of which the plates are beyond comparison beautiful, but
the letter-press indifferent enough. He proposed £800 a year if I would
become editor, and £400 if I would contribute from seventy to one
hundred pages. I declined both, but told him I might give him some
trifling thing or other, and asked the young men to breakfast the next
day. Worked away in the evening and completed, "in a way and in a
manner," the notes on _Guy Mannering_. The first volume of the
_Chronicles_ is now in Ballantyne's hands, all but a leaf or two. Am I
satisfied with my exertions? So so. Will the public be pleased with
them? Umph! I doubt the bubble will burst. While it is current, however,
it is clear I should stand by it. Each novel of three volumes brings
£4000, and I remain proprietor of the mine when the first ore is cropped
out. This promises a good harvest, from what we have experienced. Now,
to become a stipendiary editor of a New-Year's Gift-Book is not to be
thought of, nor could I agree to work for any quantity of supply to such
a publication. Even the pecuniary view is not flattering, though these
gentlemen meant it should be so. But one hundred of their close-printed
pages, for which they offer £400, is not nearly equal to one volume of a
novel, for which I get £1300, and have the reversion of the copyright.
No, I may give them a trifle for nothing, or sell them an article for a
round price, but no permanent engagement will I make. Being the
Martyrdom, there was no Court. I wrought away with what appetite I
could.

_January_ 31.--I received the young gentlemen to breakfast and expressed
my resolution, which seemed to disappoint them, as perhaps they expected
I should have been glad of such an offer. However, I have since thought
there are these rejected parts of the _Chronicles_, which Cadell and
Ballantyne criticised so severely, which might well enough make up a
trifle of this kind, and settle the few accounts which, will I nill I,
have crept in this New Year. So I have kept the treaty open. If I give
them 100 pages I should expect £500.

I was late at the Court and had little time to write any till after
dinner, and then was not in the vein; so commentated.

FOOTNOTES:

[109] To whom Scott addressed the fifth canto of _Marmion_.

[110] See letter to R. Cadell, _Life_, vol. ix. p. 209.

[111] "The first _Tales of a Grandfather_ [as has already been said]
appeared early in December, and their reception was more rapturous than
that of any one of his works since _Ivanhoe_. He had solved for the
first time the problem of narrating history, so as at once to excite and
gratify the curiosity of youth, and please and instruct the wisest of
mature minds. The popularity of the book has grown with every year that
has since elapsed; it is equally prized in the library, the boudoir, the
schoolroom, and the nursery; it is adopted as the happiest of manuals,
not only in Scotland, but wherever the English tongue is spoken; nay, it
is to be seen in the hands of old and young all over the civilised
world, and has, I have little doubt, extended the knowledge of Scottish
history in quarters where little or no interest had ever before been
awakened as to any other parts of that subject except those immediately
connected with Mary Stuart and the Chevalier."--_Life_, vol. ix. pp.
186-7.

[112] It may be remarked at this point how the value of these works has
been sustained by the public demand during the term of legal copyright
and since that date. That of _Waverley_ expired in 1856, and the others
at forty-two years from the date of publication.

On December 19, 1827, the copyright of the Novels from _Waverley_ to
_Quentin Durward_ was acquired, as mentioned in the text, for £8400 as a
joint purchase. Five years later, viz., in 1832, Mr. Cadell purchased
from Sir Walter's representatives, for about £40,000, the author's share
in stock and entire copyrights!

Nineteen years afterwards, viz., on the 26th March 1851 (after Mr.
Cadell's death), the stock and copyrights were exposed for sale by
auction in London, regarding which a Trade Journal of the date says--

"Mr. Hodgson offered for sale the whole of the copyrights of Sir Walter
Scott's works, including stereotypes, steels, woodcuts, etc., to a very
large meeting of the publishers of this country. After one or two of our
leading firms had retired from the contest, the lot was bought in for,
we believe, £15,500. This sum did not include the stock on hand, valued
at £10,000. However, the fact is that the Trustees have virtually
refused £25,000 for the stock, copyrights, etc., of Scott's works."

Messrs. A. & C. Black in 1851 purchased the property at nearly the same
price, viz.:--Copyright, £17,000; stock, £10,000--in all, £27,000. Mr.
Francis Black, who has kindly given me information regarding the sale of
these works, tells me that of the volumes of one of the cheaper issues
about three millions have been sold since 1851. This, of course, is
independent of other publishers' editions in Great Britain, the
Continent, and America.

[113] In _Henry IV._, Act v. Sc. 3.

[114] In an interesting letter to Scott from Fenimore Cooper, dated
Sept. 12th, 1827, he tells him "that the French abuse you a little, but
as they began to do this, to my certain knowledge, five months before
the book was published, you have no great reason to regard their
criticism.

It would be impossible to write the truth on such a subject and please
this nation. One frothy gentleman denounced you in my presence as having
a low, vulgar style, very much such an one as characterised the pen of
Shakespeare!"

[115] A proverb having its rise from an exclamation made by Mr. David
Dick, a Covenanter, on witnessing the execution of some of Montrose's
followers.--Wishart's _Montrose_, quoting from Guthrie's _Memoirs_, p.
182.

[116] Scott's biographer records his admiration for the manner in which
all his dependants met the reverse of their master's fortunes. The
butler, instead of being the easy chief of a large establishment, was
now doing half the work of the house at probably half his former wages.
Old Peter, who had been for five-and-twenty years a dignified coachman,
was now ploughman in ordinary; only putting his horses to the carriage
on high and rare occasions; and so on with all that remained of the
ancient train, and all seemed happier.

[117] _Ante_, vol. i. p. 120.

[118] _Twelfth Night_, Act II. Sc. 3.

[119] Sir Archibald Campbell of Succoth. He lived at 1 Park Place.

[120] The circumstances under which these sermons were written are fully
detailed in the _Life_, vol. ix. pp. 193, 206. They were issued in a
thin octavo vol. under the title _Religious Discourses,_ by a Layman,
with a short Preface signed W.S. There were more editions than one
published during 1828.

[121] _Ante_, p. 65.

[122] Sir Samuel Shepherd.

[123] Mr. Cooper did not relax his efforts to secure Scott an interest
in his works reprinted in America, but he was not successful, and he
writes to Scott in the autumn of 1827: "This, sir, is a pitiful account
of a project from which I expected something more just to you and
creditable to my country."




FEBRUARY.


_February_ 1.--I had my two youths again to breakfast, but I did not say
more about my determination, save that I would help them if I could make
it convenient. The Chief Commissioner has agreed to let Heath have his
pretty picture of a Study at Abbotsford, by Edwin Landseer, in which old
Maida occurs. The youth Reynolds is what one would suppose his father's
son to be, smart and forward, and knows the world. I suppose I was too
much fagged with sitting in the Court to-day to write hard after dinner,
but I did work, however.

_February_ 2.--Corrected proofs, which are now nearly up with me. This
day was an idle one, for I remained in Court till one, and sat for my
picture till half-past three to Mr. Smith. He has all the steadiness and
sense in appearance which his cousin R.P.G. lacks.[124] Whether he has
genius or no, I am no judge. My own portrait is like, but I think too
broad about the jowls, a fault which they all fall into, as I suppose,
by placing their subject upon a high stage and looking upwards to them,
which must foreshorten the face. The Chief Baron and Chief Commissioner
had the goodness to sit with me.

Dressed and went with Anne to dine at Pinkie House, where I met the
President,[125] Lady Charlotte, etc.; above all, Mrs. Scott of Gala,
whom I had not seen for some time. We had much fun, and I was, as Sir
Andrew Aguecheek says, in good fooling.[126] A lively French girl, a
governess I think, but very pretty and animated, seemed much amused with
the old gentleman. Home at eleven o'clock.

By the by, Sir John Hope had found a Roman eagle on his estate in Fife
with sundry of those pots and coffeepots, so to speak, which are so
common: but the eagle was mislaid, so I did not see it.

_February_ 3.--I corrected proofs and wrote this morning,--but slowly,
heavily, lazily. There was a mist on my mind which my exertions could
not dispel. I did not get two pages finished, but I corrected proofs and
commentated.

_February_ 4.--Wrote a little and was obliged to correct the Molière
affair for R.P.G. I think his plan cannot go on much longer with so much
weakness at the helm. A clever fellow would make it take the field with
a vengeance, but poor G. will run in debt with the booksellers and let
all go to the devil. I sent a long letter to Lockhart, received from
Horace Smith, very gentlemanlike and well-written, complaining that Mr.
Leigh Hunt had mixed him up, in his Life of Byron, with Shelley as if he
had shared his irreligious opinions. Leigh Hunt afterwards at the
request of Smith published a swaggering contradiction of the inference
to be derived from the way in which he has named them together. Horatio
Smith seems not to have relied upon his disclamation, as he has
requested me to mention the thing to John Lockhart, and to some one
influential about Ebony, which I have done accordingly.

_February_ 5.--Concluded the first volume before breakfast. I am but
indifferently pleased; either the kind of thing is worn out, or I am
worn out myself, or, lastly, I am stupid for the time. The book must be
finished, however. Cadell is greatly pleased with annotations intended
for the new edition of the Waverley series. I believe that work must be
soon sent to press, which would put a powerful wheel in motion to clear
the ship. I went to the Parliament House, and in return strolled into
Cadell's, being rather anxious to prolong my walk, for I fear the
constant sitting for so many hours. When I returned, the Duke of
Buccleuch came in. He is looking very well, and stout, but melancholy
about his sister, Lady Charlotte Stopford. He is fitting up a part of
Bowhill and intends to shoot there this year. God send him life and
health, for it is of immense consequence.

_February_ 6.--This and visits wasted my time till past two, and then I
slept half-an-hour from mere exhaustion. Went in the evening to the
play, and saw that good old thing, an English tragedy, well got up. It
was _Venice Preserved_. Mrs. H. Siddons played Belvidera with much
truth, feeling, and tenderness, though short of her mother-in-law's
uncommon majesty, which is a thing never to be forgotten. Mr. Young
played Pierre very well, and a good Jaffier was supplied by a Mr.
Vandenhoff. And so the day glided by; only three pages written, which,
however, is a fair task.

_February_ 7.--It was a Teind day, so no Court, but very little work. I
wrote this morning till the boy made his appearance for proofs; then I
had letters to write. Item, at five o'clock I set out with Charles for
Dalkeith to present him to the young Duke.

I asked the Duke about poor Hogg. I think he has decided to take Mr.
Riddell's opinion; it is unlucky the poor fellow has ever taken that
large and dear farm.[127] Altogether Dalkeith was melancholy to-night,
and I could not raise my spirits at all.

_February_ 8.--I had a little work before dinner, but we are only seven
pages into volume second. It is always a beginning, however; perhaps not
a good one--I cannot tell. I went out to call on Gala and Jack
Rutherfurd of Edgerstoun; saw the former, not the latter. Gala is
getting much better. He talked as if the increase of his village was
like to drive him over the hill to the Abbotsford side, which would
greatly beautify that side and certainly change his residence for the
better, only that he must remain some time without any appearance of
plantation. The view would be enchanting.

I was tempted to buy a picture of Nell Gywnne,[128] which I think has
merit; at least it pleases me. Seven or eight years ago Graham of
Gartmore bid for it against me, and I gave it up at twenty-five guineas.
I have now bought it for £18, 18s. Perhaps there was folly in this, but
I reckoned it a token of good luck that I should succeed in a wish I had
formerly harboured in vain. I love marks of good luck even in trifles.

_February_ 9.--Sent off three leaves of copy; this is using the press
like the famished sailor who was fed by a comrade with shell-fish by one
at a time. But better anything than stop, for the devil is to get set
a-going again. I know no more than my old boots whether I am right or
wrong, but have no very favourable anticipations.

As I came home from the Court about twelve I stepped into the
Exhibition. It makes a very good show; the portraits are better than
last year, those of Colvin Smith and Watson Gordon especially improve.
Landseer's Study at Abbotsford is in a capital light, and generally
admired. I particularly distinguished John Thomson's picture of
Turnberry, which is of first-rate excellence. A picture by Scrope was
also generally distinguished. It is a view in Calabria.

There is a rival Exhibition which does not hurt the earlier foundation,
but rather excites emulation. I am told there are good paintings there.
I came home with little good-will to work, but I will compel myself to
do something. Unluckily, I have again to go out to dinner to-day, being
President of the Bannatyne.

The dinner was a pleasant one; about thirty members attended. I kept
the chair till near eleven, and the company were very joyous.

_February_ 10.--I set myself doggedly to work, and turned off six leaves
before dinner. Had to dinner Sir John Pringle, my dear Gala and his
lady, and young Mackenzie and Miss Jardine. I was quite pleased to see
Gala so well recovered of the consequences of his frightful fall, which
hung about him so long. He is one of the kindest and best-informed men
whom I know.

_February_ 11.--I had Charles Young[129] to breakfast with us, who gave
us some striking anecdotes of Talma during the Reign of Terror, which
may figure in _Napoleon_ to great advantage.

My son Charles left us this morning to take possession of his situation
in the Foreign Office. He has been very lucky. Correcting sheets, etc.,
took up the morning hours. I wrote three leaves before two o'clock. Day
bitter cold--with snow, a strong contrast to the mild weather we had
last week.

Salutation of two old Scottish lairds:--"Ye're maist obedient hummil
servant, Tannachy Tulloh."--"Your nain man, Kilspindie."

Finished six pages, twenty-five pages of print that is, or about the
thirteenth part of a volume. That would be a volume in a fortnight, with
a holiday to boot. It would be possible enough for a little while.

_February_ 12.--I wrought hard this morning. Ballantyne blames the
Ossianic monotony of my principal characters. Now they are not Ossianic.
The language of the Ossianic poetry is highly figurative; that of the
knights of chivalry may be monotonous, and probably is, but it cannot be
Ossianic. Sooth to say, this species of romance of chivalry is an
exhaustible subject. It affords materials for splendid description for
once or twice, but they are too unnatural and formal to bear repetition.
We must go on with our present work, however, _valeat quantum_. Mr.
Cadell, less critical than J.B., seems pleased. The world will soon
decide if I get on at this rate; for I have finished four leaves to-day,
notwithstanding my attendance on the Court.

_February_ 13.--Mr. Macintosh Mackay, minister of Laggan, breakfasted
with us this morning. This reverend gentleman is completing the Highland
Dictionary,[130] and seems very competent for the task. He left in my
hands some papers of Cluny Macpherson, concerning the affair of 1745,
from which I have extracted an account of the battle of Clifton for
_Waverley_. He has few prejudices (for a Highlander), and is a mild,
well-mannered young man. We had much talk on Highland matters.

The Children's Tales continue in demand. Cadell expects a new edition of
10,000 about next year, which may be £750 or £800 in pouch, besides
constituting a fine property.

_February_ 14.--Mr. Edwards, a candidate for the situation of Rector in
the Edinburgh Academy, a pleasant, gentlemanlike man, and recommended
highly for experience and learning; but he is himself afraid of wanting
bodily strength for the work, which requires all the nerve and muscle of
Williams. I wish he had been three inches taller, and stout in
proportion. I went to Mr. John Russell's, where there was an Academical
party at dinner. Home at nine, a cigar, and to bed.

_February_ 15.--Rose this morning about seven and wrote at the desk
till breakfast; finished about a page and a half. I was fagged at Court
till near two. Then called on Cadell, and so home, tired enough.

_February_ 16.--There dined with me to-day Tom Thomson, Will Clerk, Mr.
Edwards, and my Celtic friend Mr. Mackay of Laggan.

_February_ 17.--A day of hard work, being I think eight pages[131]
before dinner. I cannot, I am sure, tell if it is worth marking down,
that yesterday at dinner-time I was strangely haunted by what I would
call the sense of pre-existence,--videlicet, a confused idea that
nothing that passed was said for the first time, that the same topics
had been discussed, and the same persons had stated the same opinions on
the same subjects. It is true there might have been some ground for
recollections, considering that three at least of the company were old
friends, and kept much company together: that is, Justice-Clerk,[132]
[Lord] Abercromby, and I. But the sensation was so strong as to resemble
what is called a _mirage_ in the desert, or a calenture on board ship,
when lakes are seen in the desert, and silvan landscapes in the sea. It
was very distressing yesterday, and brought to my mind the fancies of
Bishop Berkeley about an ideal world. There was a vile sense of want of
reality in all I did and said. It made me gloomy and out of spirits,
though I flatter myself it was not observed. The bodily feeling which
most resembles this unpleasing hallucination is the giddy state which
follows profuse bleeding, when one feels as if walking on feather-beds
and could not find a secure footing. I think the stomach has something
to do with it. I drank several glasses of wine, but these only augmented
the disorder. I did not find the _in vino veritas_ of the philosophers.
Something of this insane feeling remains to-day, but a trifle only.

_February_ 18.--I had other work to do this day. In the morning
corrected proofs. After breakfast, made a visit or two, and met Sandie
Buchanan, whom it joys me to see. Then despatched all my sheriff
processes, save one, which hitches for want of some papers. Lastly, here
I am, before dinner, with my journal. I sent all the county money to
Andrew Lang. Wrote to Mr. Reynolds too; methinks I will let them have
the Tales which Jem Ballantyne and Cadell quarrelled with.[133] I have
asked £500 for them--pretty well that. I suppose they will be fools
enough to give it me. In troth she'll no pe cheaper.

_February_ 19.--A day of hard and continued work, the result being eight
pages. But then I hardly ever quitted the table save at meal-time. So
eight pages of my manuscript may be accounted the maximum of my literary
labour. It is equal to forty printed pages of the novels. I had the
whole of this day at my own disposal, by the voluntary kindness of Sir
Robert Dundas interfering to take up my duty at the Court. The proofs of
my Sermons are arrived, but I have had no time, saving to blot out some
flummery, which poor Gordon had put into the preface.[134]

_February_ 20.--Another day of labour; but not so hard. I worked from
eight till three with little intermission, but only accomplished four
pages. Then I went out and made a visit or two, and looked in on Cadell.
If I get two pages in the evening I will be satisfied, for volume II.
may be concluded with the week, or run over to Sunday at most. Will it
tell, this work? I doubt it, but there is no standing still.

A certain Mr. Mackay from Ireland called on me, an active agent, it
would seem, about the reform of prisons. He exclaims, justly I have no
doubt, about the state of our Lock-up House. For myself, I have some
distrust of the fanaticism--even of philanthropy. A good part of it
arises in general from mere vanity and love of distinction, gilded over
to others and to themselves with some show of benevolent sentiment. The
philanthropy of Howard, mingled with his ill-usage of his son, seems to
have risen to a pitch of insanity. Yet without such extraordinary men,
who call attention to the subject by their own peculiarities, prisons
would have remained the same dungeons which they were forty or fifty
years ago. I do not see the propriety of making them dandy places of
detention. They should be a place of punishment, and that can hardly be
if men are lodged better, and fed better, than when they are at large.
The separation of ranks is an excellent distinction, and is nominally
provided for in all modern prisons. But the size of most of them is
inadequate to the great increase of crime, and so the pack is shuffled
together again for want of room to keep them separate. There are several
prisons constructed on excellent principles, the economy of which
becomes deranged so soon as the death takes place of some keen
philanthropist who had the business of a whole committee, which, having
lost him, remained like a carcass without a head. But I have never seen
a plan for keeping in order these resorts of guilt and misery, without
presupposing a superintendence of a kind which might perhaps be
exercised, could we turn out upon the watch a guard of angels. But,
alas! jailors and turnkeys are rather like angels of a different livery,
nor do I see how it is possible to render them otherwise.
Superintendence is all you can trust to, and superintendence, save in
some rare cases, is hard to come by, where it is to be vigilantly and
constantly exercised. _Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?_ As to
reformation, I have no great belief in it, when the ordinary class of
culprits, who are vicious from ignorance or habit, are the subjects of
the experiment. "A shave from a broken loaf" is thought as little of by
the male set of delinquents as by the fair frail. The state of society
now leads so much to great accumulations of humanity, that we cannot
wonder if it ferment and reek like a compost dunghill. Nature intended
that population should be diffused over the soil in proportion to its
extent. We have accumulated in huge cities and smothering manufactories
the numbers which should be spread over the face of a country; and what
wonder that they should be corrupted? We have turned healthful and
pleasant brooks into morasses and pestiferous lakes,--what wonder the
soil should be unhealthy? A great deal, I think, might be done by
executing the punishment of _death_, without a chance of escape, in all
cases to which it should be found properly applicable; of course these
occasions being diminished to one out of twenty to which capital
punishment is now assigned. Our ancestors brought the country to order
by kilting[135] thieves and banditti with strings. So did the French
when at Naples, and bandits became for the time unheard of. When once
the evil habit is altered--when men are taught a crime of a certain
character is connected inseparably with death, the moral habits of a
population become altered, and you may in the next age remit the
punishment which in this it has been necessary to inflict with stern
severity. I think whoever pretends to reform a corrupted nation, or a
disorderly regiment, or an ill-ordered ship of war, must begin by
severity, and only resort to gentleness when he has acquired the
complete mastery by terror--the terror being always attached to the law;
and, the impression once made, he can afford to govern with mildness,
and lay the iron rule aside.

Mr. Mackay talked big of the excellent state of prisons in Ireland.
_J'en doute un peu._ That the warm-hearted and generous Irish would
hurry eagerly into any scheme which had benevolence for its motive, I
readily believe; but that Pat should have been able to maintain that
calm, all-seeing, all-enduring species of superintendence necessary to
direct the working of the best plan of prison discipline, I greatly
hesitate to believe.

Well, leaving all this, I wish Mr. Mackay good luck, with some little
doubt of his success, but none of his intentions. I am come in my work
to that point where a lady who works a stocking must count by threads,
and bring the various loose ends of my story together. They are too
many.

_February_ 21.--Last night after dinner I rested from my work, and read
third part of [Theodore Hook's] _Sayings and Doings_, which shows great
knowledge of life in a certain sphere, and very considerable powers of
wit, which somewhat damages the effect of the tragic parts. But he is an
able writer, and so much of his work is well said, that it will carry
through what is _manqué_. I hope the same good fortune for other folks.

I am watching and waiting till I hit on some quaint and clever mode of
extricating, but do not see a glimpse of any one. James B., too,
discourages me a good deal by his silence, waiting, I suppose, to be
invited to disgorge a full allowance of his critical bile. But he may
wait long enough, for I am discouraged enough. Now here is the advantage
of Edinburgh. In the country, if a sense of inability once seizes me, it
haunts me from morning to night; but in Edinburgh the time is so
occupied and frittered away by official duties and chance occupation,
that you have not time to play Master Stephen and be gentlemanlike and
melancholy.[136] On the other hand, you never feel in town those
spirit-stirring influences--those glances of sunshine that make amends
for clouds and mist. The country is said to be quieter life; not to me,
I am sure. In the town the business I have to do hardly costs me more
thought than just occupies my mind, and I have as much of gossip and
ladylike chat as consumes the time pleasantly enough. In the country I
am thrown entirely on my own resources, and there is no medium betwixt
happiness and the reverse.

_February_ 22.--Went to Court, and remained there until one o'clock.
Then to Mr. Colvin Smith's and sat to be stared at till three o'clock.
This is a great bore even when you have a companion, sad when you are
alone and can only disturb the painter by your chatter. After dinner I
had proofs to the number of four. J.B. is outrageous about the death of
Oliver Proudfoot, one of the characters; but I have a humour to be
cruel.

    "His business 'tis to die."

Received a present from a Mr. Dobie of a candlestick said to be that of
the Rev. Mr. Guthrie, minister of Fenwick in the seventeenth
century,--very civil of a gentleman unknown, if there comes no request
to look over poems, or to get made a gauger, or the like, for I have
seen that kind of compliment made on the principle on which small
balloons are sent up before a large one, to see how the wind sits. After
dinner proof-sheets.

_February_ 23.--Morning proof-sheets galore. Then to Parliament House.
After that, at one, down to Sir William MacLeod Bannatyne, who has made
some discoveries concerning Bannatyne the collector of poetry, and
furnished me with some notes to that purpose. He informs me that the
MacLeod, alias MacCruiskin, who met Dr. Johnson on the Isle of Skye, was
Mr. Alexander MacLeod, Advocate, a son of MacLeod of Muiravonside. He
was subject to fits of insanity at times, very clever at others.[137]
Sir William mentioned the old Laird of Bernera, who, summoned by his
Chief to join him with all the men he could make, when the Chief was
raising his men for Government, sent him a letter to this
purpose:--"Dear Laird,--No man would like better to be at your back
than I would; but on this occasion it cannot be. I send my men, who are
at your service; for myself, higher duties carry me elsewhere." He went
off accordingly alone, and joined Raasay as a volunteer. I returned by
the printing office and found J.B. in great feather. He tells me Cadell,
on squaring his books and making allowance for bad debts, has made
between £3000 and £4000, lodged in bank. He does nothing but with me.
Thus we stand on velvet as to finance. Met Staffa,[138] who walked with
me and gave me some Gaelic words which I wanted.

I may mention that I saw at the printing-office a part of a review on
Leigh Hunt's Anecdotes of Byron. It is written with power, apparently by
Professor Wilson, but with a degree of passion which rather diminishes
the effect; for nothing can more lessen the dignity of the satirist than
being or seeming to be in a passion. I think it may come to a bloody
arbitrament,[139] for if L.H. should take it up as a gentleman, Wilson
is the last man to flinch. I hope Lockhart will not be dragged in as
second or otherwise. Went to Jeffrey's to dinner--there were Mrs. and
Miss Sydney Smith, Lords Gillies and Corehouse, etc. etc.

_February_ 24.--I fancy I had drunk a glass or two over much last
night, for I have the heartburn this morning. But a little magnesia
salves that sore. Meantime I have had an _inspiration_ which shows me my
good angel has not left me. For these two or three days I have been at
what the "Critic" calls a dead-lock[140]--all my incidents and
personages ran into a gordian knot of confusion, to which I could devise
no possible extrication. I had thought on the subject several days with
something like the despair which seized the fair princess, commanded by
her ugly step-mother to assort a whole garret full of tangled silk
threads of every kind and colour, when in comes Prince Percinet with a
wand, whisks it over the miscellaneous mass, and lo! all the threads are
as nicely arranged as in a seamstress' housewife. It has often happened
to me that when I went to bed with my head as ignorant as my shoulders
what I was to do next, I have waked in the morning with a distinct and
accurate conception of the mode, good or bad, in which the plot might be
extricated. It seems to me that the action of the intellect, on such
occasions, is rather accelerated by the little fever which an extra
glass of wine produces on the system. Of course excess is out of the
question. Now this may seem strange, but it is quite true; and it is no
less so that I have generally written to the middle of one of these
novels, without having the least idea how it was to end, in short in the
_hab nab at a venture_ style of composition. So now, this hitch being
over, I fold my paper, lock up my journal, and proceed to labour with
good hope.

_February_ 25.--This being Monday, I carried on my work according to the
new model. Dined at home and in quiet. But I may notice that yesterday
Mr. Williams, the learned Rector of our new Academy, who now leaves us,
took his dinner here. We had a long philological tête-à-tête. He is
opinionative, as he has some title to be, but very learned, and with a
juster view of his subject than is commonly entertained, for he traces
words to the same source--not from sound but sense. He casts backwards
thus to the root, while many compare the ends of the twigs without going
further.

This night I went to the funeral of Mr. Henderson, late of Eildon Hall,
a kind-hearted man, who rose to great wealth by honest means, and will
be missed and regretted.

In the evening I went to the promenade in the Exhibition of Pictures,
which was splendidly lighted up and filled with fashionable company. I
think there was a want of beauty,--or perhaps the gas-lights were
unfavourable to the ladies' looks.

_February_ 26.--Business filled up the day till one, when I sat to Mr.
Smith. Tedious work, even though Will Clerk chaperoned me. We dined at
Archie Swinton's. Met Lord Lothian, Lord Cringletie, etc. This day I
have wrought almost nothing, but I am nearly half a volume before the
press. Lord Morton,[141] married to a daughter of my friend Sir George
Rose, is come to Edinburgh. He seems a very gentlemanlike man, and she
pleasing and willing to be pleased. I had the pleasure to be of some
little use to him in his election as one of the Scottish Peers. I owe
Sir George Rose much for his attention to Walter at Berlin.

_February_ 27.--At Court till half-past two. Then to the Waterloo
Tavern, where we had a final and totally unfructuous meeting with the
Committee of the Coal Gas people. So now my journey to London is
resolved on. I shall lose at least £500 by the job, and get little
thanks from those I make the sacrifice for. But the sacrifice shall be
made. Anything is better than to break one's word, or desert a sinking
vessel. Heartily do I wish these "Colliers" had seen the matter in the
best light for their own interest. But there is no help. One thing is
certain, that I shall see my whole family once more around me, and that
is worth the £500. Anne too starts at the idea of the sea. I am
horribly vexed, however. Gibson always expected they would come in, but
there seemed to me little chance of it; perhaps they thought we were not
serious in our proposal to push through the Act. Wrought a little in the
evening, not much.

_February_ 28.--At Court till four. When I came home I did work a
little, but as we expected company it was not to much purpose. Lord
Chief Commissioner dined with us with Miss Adam; Mr. Hutchinson, brother
of Lord Donoughmore, and Miss Jones, Will Clerk and John Thomson made up
the party, and we had a pleasant evening, as such a handful always
secures. Stayed till wine-and-water time. Thus flew another day.

_February_ 29.--I had my proof-sheets as usual in the morning and the
Court as usual till two. Then one or two visits and corrected the
discourses for Gordon. This is really a foolish scrape, but what could I
do? It involved the poor lad's relief from something very like ruin. I
got a letter from the young man Reynolds accepting on Heath's part my
terms for article to _The Keepsake_, namely £500,--I to be at liberty to
reprint the article in my works after three years. Mr. Heath to print it
in _The Keepsake_ as long and often as he pleases, but not in any other
form. I shall close with them. If I make my proposed bargain with
Murray, all pecuniary matters will be easy in an unusual degree. Dined
at Robert Hamilton's with Lord and Lady Belhaven, Walter Campbell, and a
number of Westlanders.

FOOTNOTES:

[124] Mr. Colvin Smith painted in all about twenty portraits of Sir
Walter, for seven of which he obtained occasional sittings. A list of
the persons who commissioned them is given at p. 73 of the _Centenary
Catalogue_.

[125] The Right Hon. Charles Hope.

[126] _Twelfth Night_, Act II. Sc. 2.

[127] Mount Benger, which he had taken in 1820.--See _ante_, page 96.

[128] It now hangs in the Drawing-room at Abbotsford.--See Sharpe's
_Letters_, vol. ii. p. 408.

[129] Charles Mayne Young, Tragedian, had been a visitor at Abbotsford
in the autumn of 1821. Of this visit his son Julian gives a pleasant
account in a Memoir of his father, pp. 88-96. London, 1871. Mr. Young
died in June 1856.

[130] This enthusiastic Gaelic scholar, then parish minister of Laggan,
joined the Free Church of Scotland in 1843, and was elected Moderator of
its General Assembly in 1849. As a clergyman, he had afterwards a varied
experience in this country and in Australia, before he finally settled
in the island of Harris; he died at Portobello in 1873.

The Gaelic dictionary of the Highland Society was completed and
published in 2 vols. 4to, 1828. The editor was Dr. Macleod of Dundonald,
assisted by other Gaelic scholars. Dr. Mackay edited the poems of Rob
Donn in 1829.--See _Quarterly Review_, July 1831.

[131] See next page, under _Feb_. 19.

[132] The Right Hon. David Boyle.

[133] _My Aunt Margaret's Mirror_, etc.

[134] See Jan. 25, 1828 (p. 114).

[135] To _kilt, i.e._ to elevate or lift up anything quickly; this
applied, ludicrously, to tucking by a halter.--Jamieson's _Dictionary_.

"Their bare preaching now Makes the thrush bush keep the cow Better than
Scots or English kings Could do by kilting them with strings."

CLELAND.



[136] See Jonson's _Every Man in his Humour_, Act I. Sc. 3.

[137] See Boswell's _Johnson_, Croker's ed. imp. 8vo, p. 318.

[138] Sir Reginald Steuart Seton of Staffa, for many years Secretary to
the Highland and Agricultural Society; died at Edinburgh in 1838.

[139] On reading the savage article on Hunt's Byron published in
Blackwood, for March 1828, Sir Walter's thoughts must have gone back not
only to Gourgaud's affair of the previous year, and to the more serious
matter of the _Beacon_ newspaper in 1821,--when, to use Lord Cockburn's
words, "it was dreadful to think that a life like Scott's was for a
moment in peril in such a cause"--but he must also have had very sad
recollections of the bloody results of the two melancholy duels arising
from the same party rancour in February 1821 (Scott and Christie) and in
March 1822 (Stuart and Boswell), with all the untold domestic miseries
accompanying them. It is satisfactory to think that this was about the
last of these uncalled for literary onslaughts, as one finds, in turning
over the pages of _Blackwood_, that in 1834 Professor Wilson in the
_Noctes_ rebukes some one for reviving "forgotten falsehoods," praises
Leigh Hunt's _London Journal_, and adds the ecstatic words, which he
also addressed later on to Lord Jeffrey, "The animosities are mortal,
but the humanities live for ever."

[140] Act III. Sc. 1.

[141] Sholto Douglas, eighteenth Earl of Morton.




MARCH.


_March_ 1.--Wrought a little this morning; always creeping on. We had a
hard pull at the Court, and after it I walked a little for exercise, as
I fear indigestion from dining out so often.

Dined to-day with the bankers who went as delegates to London in Malachi
Malagrowther's days. Sir John Hay Kinnear and Tom Allan were my only
acquaintances of the party; the rest seemed shrewd capable men. I
particularly remarked a Mr. Sandeman with as intellectual a head as I
ever witnessed.

_March_ 2.--A day of hard work with little interruption, and completed
volume second. I am not much pleased with it. It wants what I desire it
to have, and that is passion.

The two Ballantynes and Mr. Cadell dined with me quietly. Heard from
London; all well.

_March_ 3.--I set about clearing my desk of unanswered letters, which I
had suffered to accumulate to an Augean heap. I daresay I wrote twenty
cards that might have been written at the time without half-a-minute
being lost. To do everything when it ought to be done is the soul of
expedition. But then, if you are interrupted eternally with these petty
avocations, the current of the mind is compelled to flow in shallows,
and you lose the deep intensity of thought which alone can float plans
of depth and magnitude. I sometimes wish I were one of those formalists
who can assign each hour of the day its special occupations, not to be
encroached upon; but it always returns upon my mind that I do better _à
la débandade_, than I could with rules of regular study. A work begun is
with me a stone turned over with the purpose of rolling it down hill.
The first revolutions are made with difficulty--but _vires acquirit
eundo_. Now, were the said stone arrested in its progress, the whole
labour would be to commence again. To take a less conceited simile: I am
like a spavined horse, who sets out lame and stiff, but when he warms in
his gear makes a pretty good trot of it, so that it is better to take a
good stage of him while you can get it. Besides, after all, I have known
most of those formalists, who were not men of business or of office to
whom hours are prescribed as a part of duty, but who voluntarily make
themselves

    "Slaves to an hour, and vassals to a bell,"[142]--

to be what I call very poor creatures.

General Ainslie looked in, and saddened me by talking of poor Don. The
General is a medallist, and entertains an opinion that the bonnet-piece
of James V. is the work of some Scottish artist who died young, and
never did anything else. It is far superior to anything which the Mint
produced since the Roman denarii. He also told me that the name of
Andrea de Ferrara is famous in Italy as an armourer.

Dined at home, and went to the Royal Society in the evening after
sending off my processes for the Sheriff Court. Also went after the
Society to Mr. James Russell's symposium.

_March_ 4.--A letter from Italy signed J.S. with many acute remarks on
inaccuracies in the life of Bonaparte.

His tone is hostile decidedly, but that shall not prevent my making use
of all his corrections where just.

The wretched publication of Leigh Hunt on the subject of Byron is to
bring forward Tom Moore's life of that distinguished poet, and I am
honoured and flattered by the information that he means to dedicate it
to me.[143]

A great deal of worry in the Court to-day, and I lost my spectacles, and
was a dark and perplexed man--found them again though. Wrote to Lockhart
and to Charles, and will do more if I can, but am sadly done up. An old
friend came and pressed unmercifully some selfish request of his own to
ask somebody to do something for his son. I shall be glad to be at
Abbotsford to get rid of this town, where I have not, in the proper and
social sense of the word, a single friend whose company pleases me. In
the country I have always Tom Purdie.

Dined at the Lord Chief Commissioner's, where I met, the first time for
thirty years, my old friend and boon companion, with whom I shared the
wars of Bacchus, Venus, and sometimes of Mars. The past rushed on me
like a flood and almost brought tears into my eyes. It is no very
laudable exploit to record, but I once drank three bottles of wine with
this same rogue--Sir William Forbes and Sir Alexander Wood being of the
party. David Erskine of Cardross keeps his looks better than most of our
contemporaries. I hope we shall meet for a longer time.

_March_ 5.--I corrected sheets, and, being a Teind Wednesday, began the
second volume and proceeded as far as page fourth.

We dined at Hector Macdonald's with several Highlanders, most of whom
were in their garb, intending to go to a great fancy ball in the
evening. There were young Cluny Macpherson, Campbell Airds, Campbell
Saddell, and others of the race of Diarmid. I went for an hour to the
ball, where there were many gay and some grotesque figures. A dressed
ball is, for the first half-hour, a splendid spectacle; you see youth
and beauty dressed in their gayest attire, unlimited, save by their own
taste, and enjoying the conscious power of charming, which gives such
life and alacrity to the features. But the charm ceases in this like
everything else. The want of masks takes away the audacity with which
the disguised parties conduct themselves at a masquerade, and [leaves]
the sullen sheepishness which makes them, I suppose, the worst maskers
in Europe. At the only real masquerade which I have known in Edinburgh
there were many, if not most, of those who had determined to sustain
characters, who had more ill-breeding than facetiousness. The jests were
chiefly calculated to give pain, and two or three quarrels were with
difficulty prevented from ripening into duels. A fancy ball has no
offence in it, therefore cannot be wrecked on this rock. But, on the
other hand, it is horribly dull work when the first _coup d'œil_ is
over.

There were some good figures, and some grossly absurd. A very gay
cavalier with a broad bright battle-axe was pointed out to me as an
eminent distiller, and another knight in the black coarse armour of a
cuirassier of the 17th century stalked about as if he thought himself
the very mirror of chivalry. He was the son of a celebrated upholsterer,
so might claim the broad axe from more titles than one. There was some
good dancing; Cluny Macpherson footed it gallantly.

_March_ 6.--Wrote two pages this morning before breakfast. Went to the
Court, where I learned that the "Colliers" are in alarm at the
determination shown by our Committee, and are willing to give better
terms. I hope this is so--but _Cogan na Shie_--peace or war, I care not.
I never felt less anxiety about where I went and what I did. A feather
just lighted on the ground can scarce be less concerned where the next
blast may carry it. If I go, I shall see my children--if I stay, I
shall mend my fortune. Dined at home and went to the play in the
evening. Lady Torphichen had commanded the play, and there were all my
Swinton cousins young and old. The play was "A Bold Stroke for a
Wife,"[144]--Charles Kemble acting as Feignwell. The plot is extravagant
nonsense, but with lively acting the ludicrousness of the situation
bears it through, and few comedies act better. After this came _Rob
Roy_, where the Bailie played with his usual excellence. The piece was
not over until near one in the morning, yet I did not feel tired--which
is much.

_March_ 7.--To-day I wrought and corrected proof-sheets; went to the
Court, and had a worry at the usual trashy small wares which are
presented at the end of a Session. An official predecessor of mine, the
facetious Robert Sinclair, was wont to say the three last days of the
Session should be abolished by Act of Parliament.[145] Came home late,
and was a good deal broken in upon by visitors. Amongst others, John
Swinton, now of Swinton, brought me the skull of his ancestor, Sir Allan
Swinton, who flourished five hundred years ago. I will get a cast made
of the stout old carle. It is rare to see a genuine relic of the mortal
frame drawing so far back. Went to my Lord Gillies's to dinner, and
witnessed a singular exhibition of personification.

Miss Stirling Grame,[146] a lady of the Duntroon family, from which
Clavers was descended, looks like thirty years old, and has a face of
the Scottish cast, with a good expression in point of good sense and
good humour. Her conversation, so far as I have had the advantage of
hearing it, is shrewd and sensible, but no ways brilliant. She dined
with us, went off as to the play, and returned in the character of an
old Scottish lady. Her dress and behaviour were admirable, and the
conversation unique. I was in the secret, of course, did my best to keep
up the ball, but she cut me out of all feather. The prosing account she
gave of her son, the antiquary, who found an auld wig in a slate quarry,
was extremely ludicrous, and she puzzled the Professor of Agriculture
with a merciless account of the succession of crops in the parks around
her old mansion-house. No person to whom the secret was not intrusted
had the least guess of an impostor, except one shrewd young lady
present, who observed the hand narrowly and saw it was plumper than the
age of the lady seemed to warrant. This lady, and Miss Bell[147] of
Coldstream, have this gift of personification to a much higher degree
than any person I ever saw.

_March_ 8.--Wrote in the morning, then to Court, where we had a sederunt
till nigh two o'clock. From thence to the Coal Gas Committee, with whom
we held another, and, thank God, a final meeting. Gibson went with me.
They had Mr. Munro, Trotter, Tom Burns, and Inglis. The scene put me in
mind of Chichester Cheyne's story of a Shawnee Indian and himself,
dodging each other from behind trees, for six or seven hours, each in
the hope of a successful shot. There was bullying on both sides, but we
bullied to best purpose, for we must have surrendered at discretion,
notwithstanding the bold face we put on it. On the other hand, I am
convinced they have got a capital bargain.

_March_ 9.--I set about arranging my papers, a task which I always take
up with the greatest possible ill-will and which makes me cruelly
nervous. I don't know why it should be so, for I have nothing
particularly disagreeable to look at; far from it, I am better than I
was at this time last year, my hopes firmer, my health stronger, my
affairs bettered and bettering. Yet I feel an inexpressible nervousness
in consequence of this employment. The memory, though it retains all
that has passed, has closed sternly over it; and this rummaging, like a
bucket dropped suddenly into a well, deranges and confuses the ideas
which slumbered on the mind. I am nervous, and I am bilious, and, in a
word, I am unhappy. This is wrong, very wrong; and it is reasonably to
be apprehended that something of serious misfortune will be the deserved
punishment of this pusillanimous lowness of spirits. Strange that one
who, in most things, may be said to have enough of the 'care na by',
should be subject to such vile weakness! Well, having written myself
down an ass, I will daub it no farther, but e'en trifle till the humour
of work comes.

Before the humour came I had two or three long visits. Drummond Hay, the
antiquary and lyon-herald, came in.[148] I do not know anything which
relieves the mind so much from the sullens as trifling discussion about
_antiquarian old-womanries_. It is like knitting a stocking, diverting
the mind without occupying it; or it is like, by Our Lady, a mill-dam,
which leads one's thoughts gently and imperceptibly out of the channel
in which they are chafing and boiling. To be sure, it is only
conducting them to turn a child's mill; what signifies that?--the
diversion is a relief, though the object is of little importance. I
cannot tell what we talked of; but I remember we concluded with a
lamentation on the unlikelihood that Government would give the Museum
£2000 to purchase the _bronze Apollo_ lately discovered in France,
although the God of Delos stands six feet two in his stocking-soles, and
is perfectly entire, saving that on the right side he wants half a hip,
and the leg from the knee, and that on the left his heel is much
damaged. Colonel Ferguson just come to town--dines with us.

_March_ 10.--I had a world of trumpery to do this morning: cards to
write, and business to transact, visits to make, etc. Received letters
from the youth who is to conduct _The Keepsake_, with blarney on a £200
Bank note. No blarney in that. I must set about doing something for
these worthies. I was obliged to go alone to dine at Mr. Scott Gala's.
Met the Sinclair family. Lady Sinclair told me a singular story of a
decrepit man keeping a lonely toll at a place called the Rowan-tree, on
the frontiers, as I understood, between Ayrshire and Dumfriesshire
[Wigtownshire?]. It was a wild, lonely spot, and was formerly inhabited
by robbers and assassins, who murdered passengers. They were discovered
by a boy whom they had taken into the cottage as a menial. He had seen
things which aroused his attention, and was finally enlightened as to
the trade of his masters by hearing one of them, as he killed a goat,
remark that the cries of the creature resembled those of the last man
they had dealt with. The boy fled from the house, lodged an information,
and the whole household was seized and executed. The present inhabitants
Lady Sinclair described as interesting. The man's feet and legs had been
frost-bitten while herding the cattle, and never recovered the strength
of natural limbs. Yet he had acquired some education, and was a country
schoolmaster for some time, till the distance and loneliness of the spot
prevented pupils from attending. His daughter was a reader, and begged
for some old magazines, newspapers, or any printed book, that she might
enjoy reading. They might have been better had they been allowed to keep
a cow. But if they had been in comfortable circumstances, they would
have had visitors and lodgers, who might have carried guns to destroy
the gentleman's creation, _i.e._ game; and for this risk the wretches
were kept in absolute and abject poverty. I would rather be--himself
than this brutal Earl. The daughter showed Lady Sinclair a well in the
midst of a small bog, of great depth, into which, like Thurtell and
Probert, they used to thrust the bodies of their victims till they had
an opportunity of burying them. Lady Sinclair stooped to taste the
water, but the young woman said, with a strong expression of horror,
"You would not drink it?" Such an impression had the tale, probably two
centuries old, made upon the present inhabitants of this melancholy
spot. The whole legend is curious; I will try to get hold of it.[149]

_March_ 11.--I sent Reynolds a sketch of two Scottish stories for
subjects of art for his _Keepsake_--the death of the Laird's Jock the
one, the other the adventure of Duncan Stuart with the stag.

Mr. Drummond Hay breakfasted with me--a good fellow, but a considerable
bore. He brought me a beautiful bronze statue of Hercules, about ten
inches or a foot in height, beautifully wrought. He bought it in France
for 70 francs, and refused £300 from Payne Knight. It is certainly a
most beautiful piece of art. The lion's hide which hung over the
shoulders had been of silver, and, to turn it to account, the arm over
which it hung was cut off; otherwise the statue was perfect and
extremely well wrought. Allan Swinton's skull sent back to Archibald
Swinton.

_March_ 12.--The boy got four leaves of copy to-day, and I wrote three
more. Received by Mr. Cadell from Treuttel and Wurtz for articles in
_Foreign Review_ £52, 10s., which is at my credit with him. Poor Gillies
has therefore kept his word so far, but it is enough to have sacrificed
£100 to him already in literary labour, which I make him welcome to. I
cannot spare him more--which, besides, would do him no good.

_March_ 13, [_Abbotsford_].--I wrote a little in the morning and sent
off some copy. We came off from Edinburgh at ten o'clock, and got to
Abbotsford by four, where everything looks unusually advanced; the birds
singing and the hedges budding, and all other prospects of spring too
premature to be rejoiced in.

I found that, like the foolish virgins, the servants had omitted to get
oil for my lamp, so I was obliged to be idle all the evening. But though
I had a diverting book, the _Tales of the Munster Festivals,_[150] yet
an evening without writing hung heavy on my hands. The _Tales_ are
admirable. But they have one fault, that the crisis is in more cases
than one protracted after a keen interest has been excited, to explain
and to resume parts of the story which should have been told before.
Scenes of mere amusement are often introduced betwixt the crisis of the
plot and the final catastrophe. This is impolitic. But the scenes and
characters are traced by a firm, bold, and true pencil, and my very
criticism shows that the catastrophe is interesting,--otherwise who
would care for its being interrupted?

_March_ [14 to] 16.--The same record applies to these three days. From
seven to half-past nine writing--from half-past nine to a quarter past
ten a hearty breakfast. From eleven or thereby, to one or two, wrote
again, and from one or two ride, drive, or walk till dinner-time--for
two or three hours--five till seven, dine and rest yourself--seven till
nine, wrote two pages more, from nine to quarter past ten lounge, read
the papers, and then go to bed. If your story is tolerably forward you
may, I think, keep at this rate for twelve days, which would be a
volume. But no brain could hold it out longer. Wrote two additional
leaves in the evening.

_March_ 17.--Sent away copy this morning to J.B. with proofs. I then
wrote all the day till two o'clock, walked round the thicket and by the
water-side, and returning set to work again. So that I have finished
five leaves before dinner, and may discuss two more if I can satisfy
myself with the way of winding up the story. There are always at the end
such a plaguey number of stitches to take up, which usually are never so
well done but they make a botch. I will try if the cigar will inspire
me. Hitherto I have been pretty clear, and I see my way well enough,
only doubt of making others see it with sufficient simplicity. But it is
near five, and I am too hungry to write more.[151]

    "Ego nunquam potui scribere jejunus."

_March_ 18.--I was sorely worried by the black dog this morning, that
vile palpitation of the heart--that _tremor cordis_--that hysterical
passion which forces unbidden sighs and tears, and falls upon a
contented life like a drop of ink on white paper, which is not the less
a stain because it conveys no meaning. I wrought three leaves, however,
and the story goes on. I dined at the Club of the Selkirkshire yeomanry,
now disbanded.

    "The Eldrich knight gave up his arms
    With many a sorrowful sigh."

The dissolution of the Yeomanry was the act of the last ministry. The
present did not alter the measure on account of the expense saved. I am
one of the oldest, if not the very oldest Yeoman in Scotland, and have
seen the rise, progress, and now the fall of this very constitutional
part of the national force. Its efficacy, on occasions of insurrection,
was sufficiently proved in the Radical time. But besides, it kept up a
spirit of harmony between the proprietors of land and the occupiers, and
made them known to and beloved by each other; and it gave to the young
men a sort of military and high-spirited character, which always does
honour to a country. The manufacturers are in great glee on this
occasion. I wish Parliament, as they have turned the Yeoman adrift
somewhat scornfully, may not have occasion to roar them in again.[152]

_March_ 19.--I applied myself again to my labour, my mind flowing in a
less, gloomy current than yesterday. I laboured with little
interruption, excepting a walk as far as Faldonside with the dogs, and
at night I had not finished more than three leaves. But, indeed, it is
pretty fair; I must not work my brains too hard, in case of provoking
the hypochondria which extreme exertion or entire indolence are equally
unfavourable to.

_March_ 20.--Thomson breakfasted. I left him soon, being desirous to
finish my labours. The volume is finished, all but one fourth or
somewhat shorter; four days should despatch it easily, but I have
letters to write and things are getting into disorder. I took a drive
with my daughter, for exercise, and called at Huntly Burn. This evening
went on with work as usual; there was not above four pages finished, but
my conscience is quiet on my exertions.

_March_ 21.--I received young Whytbank to breakfast, and talked
genealogy, which he understands well; I have not a head for it. I only
value it as interspersed with anecdote. Whytbank's relationship and mine
exists by the Shaws. A younger brother of Shaw of Sauchie, afterwards
Greenock, chief of the name, was minister of the Kirk of Selkirk. My
great-grandfather, John Rutherford, minister of the gospel at Yarrow,
married one of this reverend gentleman's daughters; and John Pringle,
rector of Fogo, great-grandfather of the present Whytbank, married
another. It was Christian Shaw, my grandmother, who possessed the
manuscript respecting the murder of the Shaws by the Master of
Sinclair.[153] She could not, according to the reckoning of that age, be
a distant relation. Whytbank parted, agreeing to return to dinner to
meet the bride and bridegroom. I had little time to write, for Colonel
Russell, my cousin, called between one and two, and he also agreed to
stay dinner; so I had a walk of three hours with him in the plantations.
At dinner we had Mr. and Mrs. Bruce, Mr. Scrope, Mrs. and Dr. Brewster,
Whytbank, Russell, and young Nicol Milne, who will be a pleasant lad if
he had a little polish. I was glad of the society, as I had rather felt
the _besoin de parler_, which was perhaps one cause of my recent dumps.
Scrope and Colonel Russell stayed all night; the rest went home.

_March_ 22.--Had a packet from James--low about the novel; but I had
another from Cadell equally uppish. He proposes for three novels in
eighteen months, which would be £12,600. Well, I like the bookseller's
predictions better than the printer's. Neither are bad judges; but
James, who is the best, is not sensible of historical descriptions, and
likes your novel style out and out.

Cadell's letter also contained a state of cash matters, since much
improved. I will arrange them a day or two hence. I wrote to-day and
took a long walk. The thought more than once passed over me, Why go to
London? I shall but throw away £150 or £200 which were better saved.
Then on the other hand, it is such a gratification to see all the
children that I must be tempted. If I were alone, I could scrub it, but
there's no doing that with Anne.

_March_ 23.--I wrought regularly till one, and then took the wood and
marked out to Tom the places I would have thinned, particularly at the
Carlin's hole, which will require much thinning. I had a letter from
Cadell stating that 3000 _Tales of a Grandfather_ must go to press,
bringing a return to me of £240, the price being £80 per thousand. This
is snug enough, and will prettily cover my London journey, and I really
think ought in fairness to silence my prudential remorse. With my usual
delight in catching an apology for escaping the regular task of the day,
I threw by the novel of St. Valentine's Eve and began to run through and
correct the _Grandfather's Tales_ for the press. If I live to finish
them, they will be a good thing for my younger children. If I work to
the amount of £10,000 a year for the creditors, I think I may gain a few
hundreds for my own family at by-hours.

_March_ 24.--Sent copy and proof to J.B.[154] I continued my revision of
the _Tales of a Grandfather_ till half-past one. Then went to Torwoodlee
to wait on George Pringle and his bride. We did not see the young
people, but the old Laird and Miss Pringle gave us a warm reception, and
seemed very happy on the occasion. We had friends to dinner, Mr. and
Mrs. Theobald, Charles Kerr and his wife, my old acquaintance Magdalen
Hepburn, whose whole [kin] was known to me and mine. I have now seen the
fifth generation of the family in Mrs. Kerr's little girl, who travels
with them. Well--I partly wish we had been alone. Yet it is perhaps
better. We made our day out tolerably well, having the advantage of Mr.
Davidoff and his friend Mr. Collyer to assist us.

_March_ 25.--Mr. and Mrs. Kerr left us, Mr. Davidoff and Mr. Collyer
also. Mr. Davidoff showed himself a good deal affected. I hope well of
this young nobleman, and trust the result will justify my expectations,
but it may be doubted if his happiness be well considered by those who
send a young person, destined to spend his life under a despotic
government, to receive the ideas and opinions of such a people as we
are:

        "where ignorance is bliss,
    'Tis folly to be wise."[155]

We drove as far as Yair with Mr. and Mrs. Theobald. The lady read after
dinner--and read well.

_March_ 26.--The Theobalds left us, giving me time to work a little. A
walk of two hours diversified my day. I received Cadell's scheme for the
new edition. I fear the trustees will think Cadell's plan expensive in
the execution. Yet he is right; for, to ensure a return of speedy sale,
the new edition should be both handsome and cheap. He proposes size a
Royal 12mo, with a capital engraving to each volume from a design by the
best artists. This infers a monstrous expense, but in the present humour
of the public ensures the sale. The price will be 5s. per volume, and
the whole set, 32 volumes, from _Waverley_ to _Woodstock_ included, will
be £8.

_March_ 27.--This also was a day of labour, affording only my usual
interval of a walk. Five or six sheets was the result. We now
appropinque an end. My story has unhappily a divided interest; there are
three distinct strands of the rope, and they are not well twisted
together. "Ah, Sirs, a foul fawt," as Captain Tommy says.

_March_ 28.--The days have little to distinguish each other, very
little. The morning study, the noontide walk, all monotonous and
inclined to be melancholy; God help me! But I have not had any nervous
attack. Read _Tales of an Antiquary_,[156] one of the chime of bells
which I have some hand in setting a-ringing. He is really entitled to
the name of an antiquary; but he has too much description in proportion
to the action. There is a capital wardrobe of properties, but the
performers do not act up to their character.

_March_ 29.--Finished volume third this morning. I have let no grass
grow beneath my heels this bout.

Mr. Cadell with J. and A. Ballantyne came to dinner. Mr. and Mrs. George
Pringle, new married, dined with us and old Torwoodlee. Sandy's music
made the evening go sweetly down.

_March_ 30.--A long discourse with Cadell, canvassing his scheme. He
proposes I should go on immediately with the new novel. This will
furnish a fund from which may be supplied the advances necessary for the
new work, which are considerable, and may reach from £4000 to £8000--the
last sum quite improbable--before it makes returns. Thus we can face the
expenditure necessary to set on foot our great work. I have written to
recommend the plan to John Gibson. This theme renewed from time to time
during the forenoon. Dr. Clarkson[157] dined with us. We smoked and had
whisky and water after.

_March_ 31.--The Ballantynes and Cadell left us in high spirits,
expecting much from the new undertaking, and I believe they are not
wrong. As for me, I became torpid after a great influx of morning
visitors.

    "I grew vapourish and odd,
      And would not do the least right thing,
    Neither for goddess nor for god--
      Nor paint nor jest nor laugh, nor sing."

I was quite reluctant to write letters, or do anything whatsoever, and
yet I should surely write to Sir Cuthbert Sharp and Surtees. We dined
alone. I was main stupid, indeed, and much disposed to sleep, though my
dinner was very moderate.

FOOTNOTES:

[142] Oldham--"Lines addressed to a friend about to leave the
University."--_Poems and Translations_, 8vo. Lond. 1694.

[143] On the 20th April Moore writes to Scott: "I am delighted you do
not reject my proffered dedication, though between two such names as
yours and Byron's I shall but realise the description in the old couplet
of Wisdom and Wit,

'With folly at full length between.'

However, never mind; in cordial feeling and good fellowship I flatter
myself I am a match for either of you."

[144] By Mrs. Centlivre.

[145] See _Life_, vol. viii. p. 257 _n_.

[146] Miss Graham tells us in her _Mystifications_ (Edin. 1864) that Sir
Walter, on leaving the room, whispered in her ear, "Awa, awa, the Deil's
ower grit wi' you." "To meet her in company," wrote Dr. John Brown half
a century later, when she was still the charm and the delight as well as
the centre of a large circle of friends, "one saw a quiet, unpretending,
sensible, shrewd, kindly little lady; perhaps you would not remark
anything extraordinary in her, but let her _put on the old lady_; it was
as if a warlock spell had passed over her; not merely her look but her
nature was changed: her spirit had passed into the character she
represented; and jest, quick retort, whimsical fancy, the wildest
nonsense flowed from her lips, with a freedom and truth to nature which
appeared to be impossible in her own personality."

With this faculty for satire and imitation, Miss Graham never used it to
give pain. She was as much at home, too, with old Scotch sayings as Sir
Walter himself. For example, speaking of a field of cold, wet land she
said, "It grat a' winter and girned a' simmer," and of herself one
morning at breakfast when she thought she was getting too much attention
from her guests (she was at this time over ninety) she exclaimed, "I'm
like the bride in the old song:--

'Twa were blawing at her nose And three were buckling at her shoon.'"

Miss Graham's friends will never forget the evenings they have spent at
29 Forth Street, Edinburgh, or their visits at Duntrune, where the
venerable lady died in her ninety-sixth year in September 1877.

[147] Miss Elizabeth Bell, daughter of the Rev. James Bell, minister of
the parish of Coldstream from 1778 to 1794. This lady lived all her life
in her native county, and died at a great age at a house on the Tweed,
named Springhill, in 1876.

[148] _Ante_, vol. i. p. 253.

[149] _The Murder Hole_, a story founded on the tradition and under this
name, was printed in _Blackwood's Mag_., vol. xxv. p. 189: 1829.

[150] Written by Gerald Griffin

[151] _St. Valentine's Eve_, or _The Fair Maid of Perth_.