In the evening I presided at the Celtic Club, who received me with their
usual partiality. I like this society, and willingly give myself to be
excited by the sight of handsome young men with plaids and claymores,
and all the alertness and spirit of Highlanders in their native garb.
There was the usual degree of excitation--excellent dancing, capital
songs, a general inclination to please and to be pleased. A severe
cold, caught on the battlements of the Castle, prevented me from playing
first fiddle so well as usual, but what I could do was received with the
usual partiality of the Celts. I got home, fatigued and _vino gravatus_,
about eleven o'clock. We had many guests, some of whom, English
officers, seemed both amused and surprised at our wild ways, especially
at the dancing without ladies, and the mode of drinking favourite
toasts, by springing up with one foot on the bench and one on the table,
and the peculiar shriek of applause so unlike English cheering.

_March_ 10.--This may be a short day in the diary, though a busy one to
me. I arranged books and papers in the morning, and went to Court after
breakfast, where, as Sir Robert Dundas and I had the whole business to
discharge, I remained till two or three. Then visited Cadell, and
transacted some pecuniary matters.

_March_ 11, [_Abbotsford_].--I had, as usual, a sort of levée the day I
was to leave town, all petty bills and petty business being reserved to
the last by those who might as well have applied any one day of the
present month. But I need not complain of what happens to my betters,
for on the last day of the Session there pours into the Court a
succession of trifles which give the Court, and especially the Clerks,
much trouble, insomuch that a _ci-devant_ brother of mine proposed that
the last day of the Session should be abolished by Statute. We got out
of Court at a quarter-past one, and got to Abbotsford at half-past
seven, cold and hungry enough to make Scots broth, English roast beef,
and a large fire very acceptable.

_March_ 12.--I set apart this day for trifles and dawdling; yet I
meditate doing something on the Popish and Protestant affray. I think I
could do some good, and I have the sincere wish to do it. I heard the
merry birds sing, reviewed my dogs, and was cheerful. I also unpacked
books. Deuce take arrangement! I think it the most complete bore in the
world; but I will try a little of it. I afterwards went out and walked
till dinner-time. I read Reginald Heber's Journal[272] after dinner. I
spent some merry days with him at Oxford when he was writing his prize
poem. He was then a gay young fellow, a wit, and a satirist, and burning
for literary fame. My laurels were beginning to bloom, and we were both
madcaps. Who would have foretold our future lot?

    "Oh, little did my mither ken
      The day she cradled me
    The land I was to travel in,
      Or the death I was to die."[273]

_March_ 13.--Wrought at a review of Fraser Tytler's _History of
Scotland_. It is somewhat saucy towards Lord Hailes. I had almost stuck
myself into the controversy Slough of Despond--the controversy, that is,
between the Gothic and Celtic system--but cast myself, like Christian,
with a strong struggle or two to the further side of this Slough; and
now will I walk on my way rejoicing--not on my article, however, but to
the fields. Came home and rejoiced at dinner. After tea I worked a
little more. I began to warm in my gear, and am about to awake the whole
controversy of Goth and Celt. I wish I may not make some careless
blunders.[274]

_March_ 14.--Up at eight, rather of the latest--then fagged at my
review, both before and after breakfast. I walked from one o'clock till
near three. I make it out, I think, rather better than of late I have
been able to do in the streets of Edinburgh, where I am ashamed to walk
so slow as would suit me. Indeed nothing but a certain suspicion, that
once drawn up on the beach I would soon break up, prevents me renouncing
pedestrian exercises altogether, for it is positive suffering, and of an
acute kind too.

_March_ 15.--Altogether like yesterday. Wrote in the
morning--breakfasted--wrote again till one--out and walked about two
hours--to the quills once more--dinner--smoked a brace of cigars and
looked on the fire--a page of writing, and so to bed.

_March_ 16.--Day sullen and bitter cold. I fear it brings chilblains on
its wings. A dashing of snow, in thin flakes, wandering from the
horizon, and threatening a serious fall. As the murderer says to Banquo,
"Let it come down!"--we shall have the better chance of fair weather
hereafter. It cleared up, however, and I walked from one, or thereabout,
till within a quarter of four. A card from Mr. Dempster of Skibo,[275]
whose uncle, George Dempster, I knew many years since, a friend of
Johnson, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and all that set--a fine good-humoured old
gentleman. Young Mrs. Dempster is a daughter of my early friend and
patron, Robert Dundas of Arniston, Lord Advocate, and I like her for his
sake. Mr. Dempster is hunting, and I should have liked to have given his
wife and sister refuge during the time he must spend over moss and moor.
But the two Annes going to Edinburgh to a fancy ball makes it impossible
till they return on Friday night.

_March_ 17.--The Annes went off at eight, morning. After breakfast I
drove down to Melrose and waited on Mrs. and Miss Dempster, and engaged
them for Saturday. Weather bitter cold; yea, atrociously so.
Naboclish--the better for work. Ladies whose husbands love fox-hunting
are in a poor way. Here are two pleasant and pretty women pegged up the
whole day

    "In the worst inn's worst room"[276]

for the whole twenty-four hours without interruption. They manage the
matter otherwise in France, where ladies are the lords of the ascendant.
I returned from my visit to my solitary work and solitary meal. I eked
out the last two hours' length by dint of smoking, which I find a
sedative without being a stimulant.

_March_ 18.--I like the hermit life indifferent well, nor would, I
sometimes think, break my heart, were I to be in that magic mountain
where food was regularly supplied by ministering genii,[277] and plenty
of books were accessible without the least intervention of human
society. But this is thinking like a fool. Solitude is only agreeable
when the power of having society is removed to a short space, and can be
commanded at pleasure. "It is not good for man to be alone." It blunts
our faculties and freezes our active virtues. And now, my watch pointing
to noon, I think after four hours' work I may indulge myself with a
walk. The dogs see me about to shut my desk, and intimate their
happiness by caresses and whining. By your leave, Messrs. Genii of the
Mountain library, if I come to your retreat I'll bring my dogs with me.

The day was showery, but not unpleasant--soft dropping rains, attended
by a mild atmosphere, that spoke of flowers in their seasons, and a
chirping of birds that had a touch of Spring in it. I had the patience
to get fully wet, and the grace to be thankful for it.

Come! a leetle flourish on the trumpet. Let us rouse the genius of this
same red mountain, so called because it is all the year covered with
roses. There can be no difficulty in finding it, for it lies towards the
Caspian, and is quoted in the Persian tales. Well, I open my
Ephemerides, form my scheme under the suitable planet, and the genie
obeys the invocation and appears.

Genie is a misshapen dwarf, with a huge jolter-head like that of
Boerhave on the Bridge,[278] his limbs and body marvellously shrunk and
disproportioned.

"Sir Dwarf," said I, undauntedly, "thy head is very large, and thy feet
and limbs somewhat small in proportion."

_Genie_. "I have crammed my head, even to the overflowing, with
knowledge; I have starved my limbs by disuse of exercise and denial of
sustenance!"

_Author_. "Can I acquire wisdom in thy solitary library?"

_G_. "Thou mayest!"

_A_. "On what conditions?"

_G_. "Renounce all gross and fleshly pleasure, eat pulse and drink
water, converse with none but the wise and learned, alive and dead!"

_A_. "Why, this were to die in the cause of wisdom."

_G_. "If you desire to draw from our library only the advantage of
seeming wise, you may have it consistent with all your favourite
enjoyments!"

_A_. "How much sleep?"

_G_. "A Lapland night--eight months out of the twelve!"

_A_. "Enough for a dormouse, most generous Genius.--A bottle of wine?"

_G_. "Two, if you please; but you must not seem to care for them--cigars
in loads, whisky in lashings; but they must be taken with an air of
contempt, a _floccipaucinihilipilification_ of all that can gratify the
outward man."

_A_. "I am about to ask you a serious question--When you have stuffed
your stomach, drunk your bottle, smoked your cigar, how are you to keep
yourself awake?"

_G_. "Either by cephalic snuff or castle-building!"

_A._ "Do you approve of castle-building as a frequent exercise?"

_G._ "Life were not life without it!

    'Give me the joy that sickens not the heart,
    Give me the wealth that has no wings to fly.'"

_A._ "I reckon myself one of the best aërial architects now living, and
_nil me pænitet hujus_."

_G._ "_Nec est cur te pæniteat_; most of your novels have previously
been subjects for airy castles."

_A._ "You have me--and moreover a man of imagination derives experience
from such imaginary situations. There are few situations in which I have
not in fancy figured, and there are few, of course, which I am not
previously prepared to take some part in."

_G._ "True, but I am afraid your having fancied yourself victorious in
many a fight would be of little use were you suddenly called to the
field, and your personal infirmities and nervous agitations both rushing
upon you and incapacitating you."

_A._ "My nervous agitations!--away with thee! Down, down to Limbo and
the burning lake! False fiend, avoid!"

    So there ends the tale,
    With a hey, with a hoy,
    So there ends the tale,
              With a ho.

    There is a moral. If you fail
    To seize it by the tail,
    Its import will exhale,
            You must know.


_March_ 19.--The above was written yesterday before dinner, though
appearances are to the contrary. I only meant that the studious solitude
I have sometimes dreamed of, unless practised with rare stoicism and
privation, was apt to degenerate into secret sensual indulgences of
coarser appetites, which, when the cares and restraints of social life
are removed, are apt to make us think, with Dr. Johnson, our dinner the
most important event of the day. So much in the way of explanation--a
humour which I love not. Go to.

My girls returned from Edinburgh with full news of their _bal paré_.

_March_ 20.--We spent this day on the same terms as formerly. I wrought,
walked, dined, drank, and smoked upon the same pattern.

_March_ 21.--To-day brought Mrs. Dempster and her sister-in-law. To
dinner came Robert Dundas of Arniston from the hunting-field, and with
him Mr. Dempster of Skibo, both favourites of mine. Mr. Stuart, the
grand-nephew of my dear friend Lady Louisa, also dined with us, together
with the Lyons from Gattonside, and the day passed over in hospitality
and social happiness.

_March_ 22.--Being Sunday, I read prayers to our guests, then went a
long walk by the lake to Huntly Burn. It is somewhat uncomfortable to
feel difficulties increase and the strength to meet them diminish. But
why should man fret? While iron is dissolved by rust, and brass
corrodes, can our dreams be of flesh and blood enduring? But I will not
dwell on this depressing subject. My liking to my two young guests is
founded on "things that are long enough ago." The first statesman of
celebrity whom I personally knew was Mr. Dempster's grand-uncle, George
Dempster of Dunnichen, celebrated in his time, and Dundas's father was,
when Lord Advocate, the first man of influence who showed kindness to
me.

_March_ 23.--Arrived to breakfast one of the Courland nobility, Baron A.
von Meyersdorff, a fine, lively, spirited young man, fond of his country
and incensed at its degradation under Russia. He talked much of the
orders of chivalry who had been feudal lords of Livonia, especially the
order of Porte Glaive, to which his own ancestors had belonged. If he
report correctly, there is a deep principle of action at work in
Germany, Poland, Russia, etc., which, if it does "not die in thinking,"
will one day make an explosion. The Germans are a nation, however, apt
to exhaust themselves in speculation. The Baron has enthusiasm, and is
well read in English and foreign literature. I kept my state till one,
and wrote notes to Croker upon Boswell's Scottish tour. It was an act of
friendship, for time is something of a scarce article with me. But
Croker has been at all times personally kind and actively serviceable to
me, and he must always command my best assistance. Then I walked with
the Baron as far as the Lake. Our sportsmen came in good time to dinner,
and our afternoon was pleasant.

_March_ 24.--This morning our sportsmen took leave, and their _ladykind_
(to _renchérir_ on Anthony a-Wood and Mr. Oldbuck) followed after
breakfast, and I went to my work till one, and at that hour treated the
Baron to another long walk, with which he seemed highly delighted. He
tells me that my old friend the Princess Galitzin[279] is dead. After
dinner I had a passing visit from Kinnear, to bid me farewell. This very
able and intelligent young man, so able to throw a grace over commercial
pursuits, by uniting them with literature, is going with his family to
settle in London. I do not wonder at it. His parts are of a kind
superior to the confined sphere in which he moves in Scotland. In
London, he says, there is a rapid increase of business and its
opportunities. Thus London licks the butter off our bread, by opening a
better market for ambition. Were it not for the difference of the
religion and laws, poor Scotland could hardly keep a man that is worth
having; and yet men will not see this. I took leave of Kinnear, with
hopes for his happiness and fortune, but yet with some regret for the
sake of the country which loses him. The Baron agreed to go with
Kinnear to Kelso: and _exit_ with the usual demonstrations of German
enthusiasm.

_March_ 25.--I worked in the morning, and think I have sent Croker a
packet which may be useful, and to Lockhart a critique on rather a dry
topic, viz.: the ancient Scottish History. I remember E. Ainslie,
commonly called the plain man, who piqued himself on his powers of
conversation, striving to strike fire from some old flinty wretch whom
he found in a corner of a public coach, at length addressed him:
"Friend, I have tried you on politics, literary matters, religion,
fashionable news, etc. etc., and all to no purpose." The dry old rogue,
twisting his muzzle into an infernal grin, replied, "Can you claver
about bend leather?" The man, be it understood, was a leather merchant.
The early history of Caledonia is almost as hopeless a subject, but off
it goes. I walked up the Glen with Tom for my companion. Dined, heard
Anne reading a paper of anecdotes about Cluny Macpherson, and so to bed.

_March_ 26.--As I have been so lately Johnsonizing, I should derive, if
possible, some personal use. Johnson advises Boswell to keep a diary,
and to omit registers of the weather, and like trumpery. I am resolved
in future not to register what is yet more futile--my gleams of bright
and clouded temper. Boswell--whose nerves were, one half madness, and
half affectation--has thrummed upon this topic till it is threadbare. I
have at this moment forty things to do, and great inclination to do none
of them. I ended by working till two, walking till five, writing
letters, and so to bed.

_March_ 27.--Letters again. Let me see. I wrote to Lord Montagu about
Scott of Beirlaw's commission, in which Invernahyle interests himself.
Item, to a lady who is pestering me about a Miss Campbell sentenced to
transportation for stealing a silver spoon. Item, to John Eckford.
Item, to James Loch, to get an appointment for Sandie Ballantyne's son.
Not one, as Dangle says,[280] about any business of my own. My
correspondence is on a most disinterested footing. This lasts till past
eleven, then enters my cousin R., and remains for two hours, till
politics, family news, talk of the neighbourhood are all exhausted, and
two or three reputations torn to pieces in the scouring of them. At
length I walk him out about a mile, and come back from that
_empêchement_. But it is only to find Mr. [Henry] C[ranstoun],[281] my
neighbour, in the parlour with the girls, and there is another sederunt
of an hour. Well, such things must be, and our friends mean them as
civility, and we must take and give the currency of the country. But I
am _diddled_ out of a day all the same. The ladies came from Huntly
Burn, and cut off the evening.[282]

_March_ 28.--In spite of the temptation of a fine morning, I toiled
manfully at the _review_ till two o'clock, commencing at seven. I fear
it will be uninteresting, but I like the muddling work of antiquities,
and, besides, wish to record my sentiments with regard to the Gothic
question. No one that has not laboured as I have done on imaginary
topics can judge of the comfort afforded by walking on all-fours, and
being grave and dull. I dare say, when the clown of the pantomime
escapes from his nightly task of vivacity, it is his special comfort to
smoke a pipe and be prosy with some good-natured fellow, the dullest of
his acquaintance. I have seen such a tendency in Sir Adam Ferguson, the
gayest man I ever knew; and poor Tom Sheridan has complained to me of
the fatigue of supporting the character of an agreeable companion.

_March_ 29.--I wrote, read, and walked with the most stoical regularity.
This muddling among old books has the quality of a sedative, and saves
the tear and wear of an overwrought brain. I wandered on the hills
pleasantly enough and concluded a pleasant and laborious day.

_March_ 30.--I finished the remainder of the criticism and sent it off.
Pray Heaven it break not the mail coach down.

Lord and Lady Dalhousie, and their relation, Miss Hawthorne, came to
dinner, to meet whom we had Dr. and Mrs. Brewster. Lord Dalhousie has
more of the Caledonian _prisca fides_ than any man I know now alive. He
has served his country in all quarters of the world and in every
climate; yet, though my contemporary, looks ten years my junior. He
laughed at the idea of rigid temperance, and held an occasional skirmish
no bad thing even in the West Indies, thinking, perhaps, with Armstrong,
of "the rare debauch"[283]. In all incidents of life he has been the
same steady, honest, true-hearted Lord Dalhousie, that Lordie Ramsay
promised to be when at the High School. How few such can I remember, and
how poorly have honesty and valour been rewarded! Here, at the time when
most men think of repose, he is bundled off to command in India.[284]
Would it had been the Chief Governorship! But to have remained at home
would have been bare livelihood, and that is all. I asked him what he
thought of "strangling a nabob, and rifling his jewel closet," and he
answered, "No, no, an honest man." I fear we must add, a poor one. Lady
Dalhousie, formerly Miss Brown of Coalstoun, is an amiable, intelligent,
and lively woman, who does not permit society to "cream and mantle like
a standing pool."[285]

The weather, drifting and surly, does not permit us to think of Melrose,
and I could only fight round the thicket with Dr. Brewster and his
lordship. Lord Dalhousie gave me some interesting accounts of the
American Indians. They are, according to his lordship, decaying fast in
numbers and principle. Lord Selkirk's property now makes large returns,
from the stock of the North West Company and Hudson's Bay Companies
having united. I learned from Lord Dalhousie that he had been keeping a
diary since the year 1800. Should his narrative ever see the light, what
a contrast will it form to the flourishing vapouring accounts of most of
the French merchants! Mr. and Mrs. Skene with their daughter Kitty, who
has been indisposed, came to dinner, and the party was a well-assorted
one.

FOOTNOTES:

[263] See _Lear_, Act IV. Sc. 1.

[264] _Richard III_., Act IV. Sc. 2.

[265] See letter to George Forbes from Sir Walter, dated Dec. 18th,
1830.--_Life_, vol. X. pp. 19-20.

[266] Widow of Francis, Lord Seaforth, last Baron of Kintail, and mother
of the Hon. Mrs. Stewart Mackenzie.

[267] A sportive association of young athletes. Hogg, I think, was their
Poet Laureate.--J.G.L.

[268]

Mair spier na, no fear na, Auld age ne'er mind a feg; The last o't, the
warst o't. Is only for to beg.--BURNS'S _Ep. to Davie_.



[269] _Tempest_, Act IV. Sc. 1. (Stephano).

[270] This gentleman was a favourite with Sir Walter--a special point of
communion being the antiquities of the British drama. He was Provost of
Edinburgh in 1816-17, and again in 1822, and the king gracefully
surprised him by proposing his health at the civic banquet in the
Parliament House, as "Sir William Arbuthnot, Baronet."--J.G.L.

[271] John Hope, afterwards Lord Justice-Clerk.

[272] _Narrative of a Journey through the Upper Provinces of India_, 2
vols. 4to, 1828.

[273] Old Ballad (known as "Marie Hamilton") quoted by Burns in a letter
to Mrs. Dunlop regarding Falconer, author of _The Shipwreck_.--Currie's
_Burns_, vol. ii. p. 290.

[274] See _Quart. Rev._, Nov. 1829, or _Misc. Prose Works_, xxi.
152-198.

[275] George Dempster of Skibo, one of the few men connecting Scott with
this generation, died in Edinburgh on the 6th of February 1889. This
accomplished Scottish gentleman had for many years made his home at
Ormiston, where, in the old mansion-house, rich in associations of Knox,
Wishart, and Buchanan, he was the gracious host to a large circle of
friends.

[276] Pope's _Moral Essays_, iii.

[277] _Ante_, vol. i. p. 312, _n._

[278] Mr. Lockhart says, writing in 1839:--"This head may still be seen
over a laboratory at No. 100 South Bridge, Edinburgh. [It has since been
removed.] N.B. There is a tradition that the venerable bust in question
was once dislodged by 'Colonel Grogg' and some of his companions, and
waggishly placed in a very inappropriate position."

[279] Fenimore Cooper told Scott that the Princess had had Sir Walter's
portrait engraved in 1827 from the picture taken in Paris. [Mme.
Mirbel's miniature?]

[280] See Sheridan's _Critic_.

[281] Lord Corehouse's brother.

[282] Room may be made for part of one of the letters received by this
morning's mail, in which, after much interesting family detail, his
son-in-law describes the duel which took place between the Duke of
Wellington and Lord Winchelsea:--"There is no reason to expect a duel
every day, and all has been very quiet since Saturday.--The letter was
utterly forgotten till this recalled it to remembrance. _Ergo_, there
was no sort of call on the Duke after beating Buonaparte to go to war
with a booby. But he could not stand the fling at the fair. His
correspondence seems admirable every way, and the whole affair was gone
through in excellent taste,--the Duke and Hardinge trotting out, the two
peaceful lords rumbling down in a coach and four. The Duke had no
half-pence and was followed and bothered for some time by the tollman on
Battersea Bridge, when Hardinge fished out some silver or a groom came
up. There were various market gardeners on the road, who, when Lord
Winchelsea's equipage stopped, stopped also and looked on. One of them
advised a turn up with nature's weapons. The moment all was done the
Duke clapped spars to his horse and was back in Downing Street within
the two hours, breakfasted, and off to Windsor, where he transacted
business for an hour or so, and then said, 'By-the-by, I was forgetting
I have had a field-day with Lord W. this morning.' They say the King
rowed Arthur much for exposing himself at such a crisis."

[283] _Art of Preserving Health_, book ii.

[284] George Ramsay, Earl of Dalhousie, had just been appointed
Commander-in-Chief in the East Indies; which office he held till 1832.
He died in 1838.

[285] _Merchant of Venice_, Act I. Sc. 1.




APRIL.


_April 1_.--A pretty first of April truly; the hills white with snow, I
myself as bilious as a dog. My noble guests left about noon. I wrote
letters, as if I had not bile enough in my bosom already, and did not go
out to face the snow wreaths till half-past two, when I am resolved to
make a brush for exercise. There will be fine howling among the dogs,
for I am about to shut my desk. Found Mrs. Skene disposed to walk, so I
had the advantage of her company. The snow lay three inches thick on the
ground; but we had the better appetite for dinner, after which we talked
and read without my lifting a pen.

_April 2_.--Begins with same brilliant prospect of snow and sunshine
dazzling to the eyes and chilling to the fingers, a beastly disagreeable
coldness in the air. I stuck by the pen till one, then took a drive with
the ladies as far as Chiefswood and walked home. Young William
Forbes[286] came, and along with him a Southron, Mr. Cleasby.

_April 3_.--Still the same party. I fagged at writing letters to
Lockhart, to Charles, and to John Gibson, to Mr. Cadell, Croker, Lord
Haddington, and others. Lockhart has had an overture through Croker
requesting him to communicate with some newspaper on the part of the
Government, which he has wisely declined. Nothing but a thorough-going
blackguard ought to attempt the daily press, unless it is some quiet
country diurnal. Lockhart has also a wicked wit which would make an
office of this kind more dangerous to him than to downright dulness. I
am heartily glad he has refused it.[287]

Sir James Mackintosh and Lord Haddington have spoken very handsomely of
my accession to the Catholic Petition, and I think it has done some
good; yet I am not confident that the measure will disarm the Catholic
spleen.[288] And I was not entirely easy at finding myself allied to the
Whigs, even in this instance, where I agree with them. This is witless
prejudice, however.

My walk to-day was up the Rhymer's Glen with Skene. Colonel Ferguson
dined with us.

_April_ 4.--Mr. Cleasby left this morning. He has travelled much, and is
a young man of copious conversation and ready language, aiming I suppose
at Parliament.[289] William Forbes is singing like an angel in the next
room, but he sings only Italian music, which says naught to me. I have a
letter from one David Patterson, who was Dr. Knox's jackal for buying
murdered bodies, suggesting that I should write on the subject of Burke
and Hare, and offering me his invaluable collection of anecdotes! "Curse
him imperance and him dam insurance,"[290] as Mungo says in the farce.
Did ever one hear the like? The scoundrel has been the companion and
patron of such atrocious murderers and kidnappers, and he has the
impudence to write to any decent man!

Corrected proof-sheets and dedication of the _Magnum_ and sent them off.

_April_ 5.--Read prayers to what remains of our party: being Anne, my
niece Anne, the four Skenes, and William Forbes. We then walked, and I
returned time enough to work a little at the criticism. Thus it drew
towards dinner in conclusion, after which we smoked, told stories, and
drank tea.

_April_ 6.--Worked at the _review_ for three or four hours; yet hang it,
I can't get on. I wonder if I am turning clumsy in other matters;
certainly I cannot write against time as I used to do. My thoughts will
not be duly regulated; my pen declares for itself, will neither write
nor spell, and goes under independent colours. I went out with the child
Kitty Skene on her pony. I don't much love children, I suppose from want
of habit, but this is a fine merry little girl.

William Forbes sang in the evening with a feeling and taste
indescribably fine, but as he had no Scottish or English songs, my ears
were not much gratified. I have no sense beyond Mungo: "What signify me
hear if me no understand!"

William Forbes leaves us. As to the old story, scribble till two, then
walk for exercise till four. Deil hae it else, for company eats up the
afternoon, so nothing can be done that is not achieved in the forenoon.

_April_ 7.--We had a gay scene this morning--the foxhounds and merry
hunters in my little base court, which rung with trampling steeds, and
rejoiced in scarlet jackets and ringing horns. I have seen the day
worlds would not have bribed me to stay behind them; but that is over,
and I walked a sober pace up to the Abbot's Knowe, from which I saw them
draw my woods, but without finding a fox. I watched them with that
mixture of interest, affection, and compassion which old men feel at
looking on the amusements of the young. I was so far interested in the
chase itself as to be sorry they did not find. I had so far the
advantage of the visit, that it gave me an object for the morning
exercise, which I would otherwise only have been prompted to by health
and habit. It is pleasant to have one's walk,--as heralds say, with a
difference. By the way, the foxhunters hunted the cover far too fast.
When they found a path they ran through it pell-mell without beating at
all. They had hardly left the hare-hole cover, when a fox, which they
had over-run, stole away. This is the consequence of breeding dogs too
speedy.

_April_ 8.--We have the news of the Catholic question being carried in
the House of Lords, by a majority of 105 upon the second reading. This
is decisive, and the balsam of Fierabras must be swallowed.[291] It
remains to see how it will work. Since it was indubitably necessary, I
am glad the decision on the case has been complete. On these last three
days I have finished my review of Tytler for Lockhart and sent it off by
this post. I may have offended Peter by censuring him for a sort of
petulance towards his predecessor Lord Hailes. This day visited by Mr.
Carr, who is a sensible, clever young man, and by his two
sisters[292]--beautiful singer the youngest--and to my taste, and
English music.

_April_ 9.--Laboured correcting proofs and revising; the day infinitely
bad. Worked till three o'clock; then tried a late walk, and a wet one.

I hear bad news of James Ballantyne. Hypochondriac I am afraid, and
religiously distressed in mind.

I got a book from the Duke de Lévis, the same gentleman with whom I had
an awkward meeting at Abbotsford, owing to his having forgot his
credentials, which left me at an unpleasant doubt as to his character
and identity.[293] His book is inscribed to me with hyperbolical
praises. Now I don't like to have, like the Persian poets who have the
luck to please the Sun of the Universe, my mouth crammed with
sugar-candy, which politeness will not permit me to spit out, and my
stomach is indisposed to swallow. The book is better than would be
expected from the exaggerated nonsense of the dedication.

_April_ 10.--Left Abbotsford at seven to attend the Circuit. _Nota
bene_--half-past six is the better hour; waters are extremely flooded.
Lord Meadowbank at the Circuit. Nothing tried but a few trumpery
assaults. Meadowbank announces he will breakfast with me to-morrow, so I
shall return to-night. Promised to my cousin Charles Scott to interest
myself about his getting the farm of Milsington upon Borthwick Water
and mentioned him to Colonel Riddell as a proposed offerer. The tender
was well received. I saw James the piper and my cousin Anne; sent to
James Veitch the spyglass of Professor Ferguson to be repaired. Dined
with the Judge and returned in the evening.

_April_ 11.--Meadowbank breakfasted with us, and then went on to
Edinburgh, pressed by bad news of his family. His wife (daughter of my
early patron, President Blair) is very ill; indeed I fear fatally so. I
am sorry to think it is so. When the King was here she was the finest
woman I saw at Holyrood. My proofs kept me working till two; then I had
a fatiguing and watery walk. After dinner we smoked, and I talked with
Mr. Carr over criminal jurisprudence, the choicest of conversation to an
old lawyer; and the delightful music of Miss Isabella Carr closed the
day. Still, I don't get to my task; but I will, to-morrow or next day.

_April_ 12.--Read prayers, put my books in order and made some progress
in putting papers in order which have been multiplying on my table. I
have a letter from that impudent lad Reynolds about my contribution to
the _Keepsake_. Sent to him the _House of Aspen_, as I had previously
determined. This will give them a lumping pennyworth in point of extent,
but that's the side I would have the bargain rest upon. It shall be a
warning after this to keep out of such a scrape.

_April_ 13.--In the morning before breakfast I corrected the proof of
the critique on the life of Lord Pitsligo in Blackwood's Magazine.[294]
After breakfast Skene and his lady and family, and Mr. Carr and his
sisters, took their departure. Time was dawdled away till nearly twelve
o'clock and then I could not work much. I finished, however, a painful
letter to J. Ballantyne, which I hope will have effect upon the nervous
disorder he complains of. He must "awake, arise, or be for ever fallen."
I walked happily and pleasantly from two o'clock till four. And now I
must look to _Anne of Geierstein_. Hang it! it is not so bad after all,
though I fear it will not be popular. In fact, I am almost expended; but
while I exhort others to exertion I will not fail to exert myself. I
have a letter from R.P. G[illies] proposing to subscribe to assist him
from £25 to £50. It will do no good, but yet I cannot help giving him
something.

    "A daimen-icker in a thrave's a sma' request:
    I'll get a blessing wi' the lave, and never miss't."[295]

I will try a review for the _Foreign_ and he shall have the proceeds.

_April_ 14.--I sent off proofs of the review of Tytler for John
Lockhart. Then set a stout heart to a stay brae, and took up _Anne of
Geierstein_. I had five sheets standing by me, which I read with care,
and satisfied myself that worse had succeeded, but it was while the
fashion of the thing was new. I retrenched a good deal about the
Troubadours, which was really _hors de place_. As to King René, I
retained him as a historical character. In short, I will let the sheets
go nearly as they are, for though J.B. be an excellent judge of this
species of composition, he is not infallible, and has been in
circumstances which may cross his mind. I might have taken this
determination a month since, and I wish I had. But I thought I might
strike out something better by the braes and burn-sides. Alas! I walk
along them with painful and feeble steps, and invoke their influence in
vain. But my health is excellent, and it were ungrateful to complain
either of mental or bodily decay. We called at Elliston to-day and made
up for some ill-bred delay. In the evening I corrected two sheets of the
_Magnum_, as we call it.

_April_ 15.--I took up _Anne_, and wrote, with interruption of a nap (in
which my readers may do well to imitate me), till two o'clock. I wrote
with care, having digested Comines. Whether I succeed or not, it would
be dastardly to give in. A bold countenance often carries off an
indifferent cause, but no one will defend him who shows the white
feather. At two I walked till near four. Dined with the girls, smoked
two cigars, and to work again till supper-time. Slept like a top. Amount
of the day's work, eight pages--a round task.

_April_ 16.--I meant to go out with Bogie to plant some shrubs in front
of the old quarry, but it rains cats and dogs as they say, a rare day
for grinding away at the old mill of imagination, yet somehow I have no
great will to the task. After all, however, the morning proved a true
April one, sunshine and shower, and I both worked to some purpose, and
moreover walked and directed about planting the quarry.

The post brought matter for a May or April morning--a letter from Sir
James Mackintosh, telling me that Moore and he were engaged as
contributors to Longman's Encyclopædia, and asking me to do a volume at
£1000, the subject to be the History of Scotland in one volume. This
would be very easy work. I have the whole stuff in my head, and could
write _currente calamo_. The size is as I compute it about one-third
larger than _The Tales of my Grandfather_. There is much to be said on
both sides. Let me balance pros and cons after the fashion of honest
Robinson Crusoe. _Pro._--It is the sum I have been wishing for,
sufficient to enable me to break the invisible but magic circle which
petty debts of myself and others have traced round me. With common
prudence I need no longer go from hand to mouth, or what is worse,
anticipate my means. I may also pay off some small shop debts, etc.,
belonging to the Trust, clear off all Anne's embarrassment, and even
make some foundation of a purse for her. _N.B._--I think this whacking
reason is like to prove the gallon of Cognac brandy, which a lady
recommended as the foundation of a Liqueur. "Stop, dear madam, if you
please," said my grandfather, Dr. Rutherford, "you can [add] nothing to
that; it is _flaconnadé_ with £1000," and a capital hit, egad.
_Contra._--It is terribly like a hack author to make an abridgement of
what I have written so lately. _Pro._--But a difference may be taken. A
history may be written of the same country on a different plan, general
where the other is detailed, and philosophical where it is popular. I
think I can do this, and do it with unwashed hands too. For being
hacked, what is it but another word for being an author? I will take
care of my name doubtless, but the five letters which form it must take
care of me in turn. I never knew name or fame burn brighter by over
chary keeping of it. Besides, there are two gallant hacks to pull with
me. _Contra._--I have a monstrous deal on hand. Let me see: Life of
Argyll,[296] and Life of Peterborough for Lockhart.[297] Third series
_Tales of my Grandfather_--review for Gillies--new novel--end of _Anne
of Geierstein_. _Pro._--But I have just finished too long reviews for
Lockhart. The third series is soon discussed. The review may be finished
in three or four days, and the novel is within a week and less of
conclusion. For the next, we must first see how this goes off. In fine,
within six weeks, I am sure I can do the work and secure the
independence I sigh for. Must I not make hay while the sun shines? Who
can tell what leisure, health, and life may be destined to me?

Adjourned the debate till to-morrow morning.

_April_ 17.--I resumed the discussion of the bargain about the history.
The ayes to the right, the noes to the left. The ayes have it--so I will
write to Sir James of this date. But I will take a walk first, that I
will. A little shaken with the conflict, for after all were I as I have
been----. "My poverty but not my will consents."[298]

I have been out in a most delicious real spring day. I returned with my
nerves strung and my mind determined. I will make this plunge, and with
little doubt of coming off no loser in character. What is given in
detail may be suppressed, general views may be enlarged upon, and a
bird's-eye prospect given, not the less interesting, that we have seen
its prominent points nearer and in detail. I have been of late in a
great degree free from wafered letters, sums to make up, notes of hand
wanted, and all the worry of an embarrassed man's life. This last
struggle will free me entirely, and so help me Heaven it shall be made!
I have written to Sir James, stating that I apprehend the terms to be
£1000, namely, for one volume containing about one-third more than one
of the volumes of _Tales of my Grandfather_, and agreeing to do so.
Certes, few men can win a thousand pounds so readily.

We dine with the Fergusons to-day at four. So off we went and safely
returned.

_April_ 18.--Corrected proofs. I find J.B. has not returned to his
business, though I wrote him how necessary it was. My pity begins to
give way to anger. Must he sit there and squander his thoughts and
senses upon cloudy metaphysics and abstruse theology till he addles his
brains entirely, and ruins his business? I have written to him again,
letter third and, I am determined, last.

Wrote also to the fop Reynolds, with preface to the _House of Aspen_,
then to honest Joseph Train desiring he would give me some notion how to
serve him with Messrs. Carr, and to take care to make his ambition
moderate and feasible.

My neighbour, Mr. Kerr of Kippielaw, struck with a palsy while he was
looking at the hounds; his pony remained standing by his side. A sudden
call if a final one.

That strange desire to leave a prescribed task and set about something
else seized me irresistibly. I yielded to it, and sat down to try at
what speed and in what manner I could execute this job of Sir James
Mackintosh's, and I wrote three leaves before rising, well enough, I
think. The girls made a round with me. We drove to Chiefswood, and from
that to Janeswood, up the Rhymer's Glen, and so home. This occupied from
one to four. In the evening I heard Anne read Mr. Peel's excellent Bill
on the Police of the Metropolis, which goes to disband the whole
generation of Dogberry and Verges. Wrote after tea.

_April_ 19.--I made this a busy day. I wrote on at the history until two
o'clock, then took a gallant walk, then began reading for Gillies's
article. James Ferguson dined with us. We smoked and I became woundy
sleepy. Now I have taken collar to this arrangement, I find an open sea
before me which I could not have anticipated, for though I should get
through well enough with my expectations during the year, yet it is a
great thing to have a certainty to be clear as a new pin of every penny
of debt. There is no being obliged or asking favours or getting loans
from some grudging friend who can never look at you after but with fear
of losing his cash, or you at him without the humiliating sense of
having extorted an obligation. Besides my large debts, I have paid since
I was in trouble at least £2000 of personal encumbrances, so no wonder
my nose is still under water. I really believe the sense of this
apparently unending struggle, schemes for retrenchment in which I was
unseconded, made me low-spirited, for the sun seems to shine brighter
upon me as a free man. Nevertheless, devil take the necessity which
makes me drudge like a very hack of Grub Street.

    "May the foul fa' the gear and the bletherie o 't."[299]

I walked out with Tom's assistance, came home, went through the weary
work of cramming, and so forth; wrought after tea, and then to bed.

_April_ 20.--As yesterday till two--sixteen pages of the History
written, and not less than one-fifth of the whole book. What if they
should be off? I were finely holp'd for throwing my time away. A toy!
They dare not.

Lord Buchan is dead, a person whose immense vanity, bordering upon
insanity, obscured, or rather eclipsed, very considerable talents. His
imagination was so fertile that he seemed really to believe the
extraordinary fictions which he delighted in telling. His economy, most
laudable in the early part of his life, when it enabled him, from a
small income, to pay his father's debts, became a miserable habit, and
led him to do mean things. He had a desire to be a great man, and a
_Mæcenas bon marché_. The two celebrated lawyers, his brothers, were not
more gifted by nature than I think he was, but the restraints of a
profession kept the eccentricity of the family in order. Henry Erskine
was the best-natured man I ever knew, thoroughly a gentleman, and with
but one fault: he could not say _no_, and thus sometimes misled those
who trusted him. Tom Erskine was positively mad. I have heard him tell a
cock-and-a-bull story of having seen the ghost of his father's servant,
John Burnet, with as much sincerity as if he believed every word he was
saying. Both Henry and Thomas were saving men, yet both died very poor.
The one at one time possessed £200,000; the other had a considerable
fortune. The Earl alone has died wealthy. It is saving, not getting,
that is the mother of riches. They all had wit. The Earl's was
crack-brained and sometimes caustic; Henry's was of the very kindest,
best-humoured, and gayest that ever cheered society; that of Lord
Erskine was moody and maddish. But I never saw him in his best days.

Went to Haining. Time has at last touched the beautiful Mrs. Pringle. I
wonder he was not ashamed of himself for spoiling so fine a form. But
what cares he? Corrected proofs after dinner. James B. is at last at
work again.

_April_ 21.--Spent the whole morning at writing, still the History, such
is my wilful whim. Twenty pages now finished--I suppose the clear
fourth part of a volume. I went out, but the day being sulky I sat in
the Conservatory, after trying a walk! I have been glancing over the
works for Gillies's review, and I think on them between-hands while I
compose the History,--an odd habit of doing two things at once, but it
has always answered with me well enough.

_April_ 22.--Another hard day's work at the History, now increased to
the Bruce and Baliol period, and threatening to be too lengthy for the
Cyclopædia. But I will make short work with wars and battles. I wrote
till two o'clock, and strolled with old Tom and my dogs[300] till
half-past four, hours of pleasure and healthful exercise, and to-day
taken with ease. A letter from J.B., stating an alarm that he may lose
the printing of a part of the _Magnum_. But I shall write him he must be
his own friend, set shoulder to the wheel, and remain at the head of his
business; and of that I must make him aware. And so I set to my proofs.
"Better to work," says the inscription on Hogarth's Bridewell, "than
stand thus."

_April_ 23.--A cold blustering day--bad welcome for the poor lambs. I
made my walk short and my task long, my work turning entirely on the
History--all on speculation. But the post brought me a letter from Dr.
Lardner, the manager of the Cyclopædia, agreeing to my terms; so all is
right there, and no labour thrown away. The volume is to run to 400
pages; so much the better; I love elbow-room, and will have space to do
something to purpose. I replied agreeing to his terms, and will send him
copy as soon as I have corrected it. The Colonel and Miss Ferguson dined
with us. I think I drank rather a cheerful glass with my good friend.
Smoked an extra cigar, so no more at present.

_April_ 25.--After writing to Mr. Cochrane,[301] to Cadell and J.B.,
also to Mr. Pitcairn,[302] it was time to set out for Lord Buchan's
funeral. The funeral letters were signed by Mr. H. David Erskine, his
lordship's natural son. His nephew, the young Earl, was present, but
neither of them took the head of the coffin. His lordship's funeral took
place in a chapel amongst the ruins. His body was in the grave with its
feet pointing westward. My cousin, Maxpopple,[303] was for taking notice
of it, but I assured him that a man who had been wrong in the head all
his life would scarce become right-headed after death. I felt something
at parting with this old man, though but a trumpery body. He gave me the
first approbation I ever obtained from a stranger. His caprice had led
him to examine Dr. Adam's class when I, a boy twelve years old, and then
in disgrace for some aggravated case of negligence, was called up from a
low bench, and recited my lesson with some spirit and appearance of
feeling the poetry--it was the apparition of Hector's ghost in the
Æneid--of which called forth the noble Earl's applause. I was very proud
of this at the time.

I was sad on another account--it was the first time I had been among
these ruins since I left a very valued pledge there. My next visit may
be involuntary. Even so, God's will be done! at least I have not the
mortification of thinking what a deal of patronage and fuss Lord Buchan
would bestow on my funeral.[304] Maxpopple dined and slept here with
four of his family, much amused with what they heard and saw. By good
fortune a ventriloquist and partial juggler came in, and we had him in
the library after dinner. He was a half-starved wretched-looking
creature, who seemed to have ate more fire than bread. So I caused him
to be well stuffed, and gave him a guinea, rather to his poverty than to
his skill--and now to finish _Anne of Geierstein_.

_April_ 26.--But not a finger did I lay on the jacket of _Anne_. Looking
for something, I fell in with the little drama, long missing, called the
_Doom of Devorgoil_. I believe it was out of mere contradiction that I
sat down to read and correct it, merely because I would not be bound to
do aught that seemed compulsory. So I scribbled at a piece of nonsense
till two o'clock, and then walked to the lake. At night I flung helve
after hatchet, and spent the evening in reading the _Doom of Devorgoil_
to the girls, who seemed considerably interested. Anne objects to the
mingling the goblinry, which is comic, with the serious, which is
tragic. After all, I could greatly improve it, and it would not be a bad
composition of that odd kind to some picnic receptacle of all things.

_April_ 27.--This day must not be wasted. I breakfast with the
Fergusons, and dine with the Brewsters. But, by Heaven, I will finish
_Anne of Geierstein_ this day betwixt the two engagements. I don't know
why nor wherefore, but I hate _Anne_, I mean _Anne of Geierstein_; the
other two Annes are good girls. Accordingly I well nigh accomplished my
work, but about three o'clock my story fell into a slough, and in
getting it out I lost my way, and was forced to postpone the conclusion
till to-morrow. Wrote a good day's work notwithstanding.

_April_ 28.--I have slept upon my puzzle, and will now finish it, Jove
bless my _pia mater_, as I see not further impediment before me. The
story will end, and shall end, because it must end, and so here goes.
After this doughty resolution, I went doggedly to work, and finished
five leaves by the time when they should meet the coach. But the
misfortune of writing fast is that one cannot at the same time write
concisely. I wrote two pages more in the evening. Stayed at home all
day. Indeed, the weather--sleety, rainy, stormy--forms no tempting
prospect. Bogie, too, who sees his flourish going to wreck, is looking
as spiteful as an angry fiend towards the unpropitious heavens. So I
made a day of work of it,

    "And yet the end was not."

_April_ 29.--This morning I finished and sent off three pages more, and
still there is something to write; but I will take the broad axe to it,
and have it ended before noon.

This has proved impossible, and the task lasted me till nine, when it
was finished, _tant bien que mal_. Now, will people say this expresses
very little respect for the public? In fact, I have very little respect
for that dear _publicum_ whom I am doomed to amuse, like Goody Trash in
_Bartholomew Fair_, with rattles and gingerbread; and I should deal very
uncandidly with those who may read my confessions were I to say I knew a
public worth caring for or capable of distinguishing the nicer beauties
of composition. They weigh good and evil qualities by the pound. Get a
good name and you may write trash. Get a bad one and you may write like
Homer, without pleasing a single reader. I am, perhaps, _l'enfant gâté
de succés_, but I am brought to the stake,[305] and must perforce stand
the course.

Having finished _Anne_[306] I began and revised fifteen leaves of the
History, and sent them to Dr. Lardner. I think they read more trashy
than I expected. But when could I ever please myself, even when I have
most pleased others? Then I walked about two hours by the thicket and
river-side, watching the appearance of spring, which, as Coleridge
says--

    "Comes slowly up this way."

After dinner and tea I resumed the task of correction, which is an
odious one, but must be attempted, ay, and accomplished too.

_April_ 30.--Dr. Johnson enjoins Bozzy to leave out of his diary all
notices of the weather as insignificant. It may be so to an inhabitant
of Bolt Court, in Fleet Street, who need care little whether it rains or
snows, except the shilling which it may cost him for a Jarvie; but when
I wake and find a snow shower sweeping along, and destroying hundreds
perhaps of young lambs, and famishing their mothers, I must consider it
as worth noting. For my own poor share, I am as indifferent as any Grub
Streeter of them all--

    "--And since 'tis a bad day,
    Rise up, rise up, my merry men,
    And use it as you may."

I have accordingly been busy. The weather did not permit me to go beyond
the courtyard, for it continued cold and rainy. I have employed the day
in correcting the history for Cyclopædia as far as page 35, exclusive,
and have sent it off, or shall to-morrow. I wish I knew how it would run
out. Dr. Lardner's measure is a large one, but so much the better. I
like to have ample verge and space enough, and a mere abridgment would
be discreditable. Well, nobody can say I eat the bread of idleness. Why
should I? Those who do not work from necessity take violent labour from
choice, and were necessity out of the question I would take the same
sort of literary labour from choice--something more leisurely though.

FOOTNOTES:

[286] Son of Lord Medwyn. Mr. Forbes had lately returned from Italy,
where he had had as travelling companion Mr. Cleasby, and it was owing
to Mr. Forbes's recommendation that Mr. Cleasby came to Edinburgh to
pursue his studies. Mr. Forbes possessed a fine tenor voice, and his
favourite songs at that time were the Neapolitan and Calabrian
canzonetti, to which Sir Walter alludes under April 4.

[287] Mr. Lockhart's own account of the overture is sufficiently amusing
and characteristic of the men and the times:--

"I had not time to write more than a line the other day under Croker's
cover, having received it just at post time. He sent for me; I found him
in his nightcap at the Admiralty, colded badly, but in audacious
spirits. His business was this. The Duke of W[ellingto]n finds himself
without one newspaper _he_ can depend on. He wishes to buy up some
evening print, such as the _dull Star_; and could I do anything for it?
I said I was as well inclined to serve the Duke as he could be, but it
must be in other fashion. He then said _he agreed_ with me--but there
was a second question: Could I find them an editor, and undertake to
communicate between them and him--in short, save the Treasury the
inconvenience of maintaining an avowed intercourse with the Newspaper
press? He said he himself had for some years done this--then others. I
said I would endeavour to think of a man for their turn and would call
on him soon again.

"I have considered the matter at leisure, and resolve to have nothing to
do with it. They CAN only want me as a _writer_. Any understrapper M.P.
would do well enough for carrying hints to a newspaper office, and I
will not, even to secure the Duke, mix myself up with the newspapers.
That work it is which has damned Croker, and I can't afford to sacrifice
the advantage which I feel I have gained in these later years by
abstaining altogether from partisan scribbling, or to subject the
_Quarterly_ to risk of damage. The truth is, I don't admire, after all
that has come and gone, being applied to through the medium of friend
Crokey. I hope you will approve of my resolution."

[288] Peel, in writing to Scott, says, "The mention of your name [in
Parliament] as attached to the Edinburgh petition was received with loud
cheers."

[289] Richard Cleasby, afterwards the well-known scholar who spent many
years in gathering materials for an Icelandic Dictionary. Mr. Cleasby
died in 1847, but the work he had planned was not published until 1874,
when it appeared under the editorship of Mr. Vigfusson,[A] assisted by
Sir George Dasent.

[290] Bickerstaff's _Padlock_, Act I. Sc. 6.

[A] An Icelandic-English Dictionary based on the MS. collections of the
late Richard Cleasby, enlarged and completed by G. Vigfusson. 4to,
Oxford, 1874.

[291] _Don Quixote_, Pt. I. Bk. II. Cap. 2.

[292] Friends of Joanna Baillie's and John Richardson's.

[293] This must have been an unusual experience for the head of a family
that considered itself to be the oldest in Christendom. Their château
contained, it was said, two pictures: one of the Deluge, in which Noah
is represented going into the Ark, carrying under his arm a small trunk,
on which was written "_Papiers de la maison de Lévis_;" the other a
portrait of the founder of the house bowing reverently to the Virgin,
who is made to say, "_Couvrez-vous, mon cousin_."--See Walpole's
_Letters_. The book referred to by Sir Walter is _The Carbonaro: a
Piedmontese Tale_, by the Duke de Lévis. 2 vols. London, 1829.

[294] No. 152--May, 1829.

[295] Burns's Lines to a Mouse: "a daimen-icker in a thrave," that is,
an ear of corn out of two dozen sheaves.

[296] John, Duke of Argyll and Greenwich.

[297] These biographies, intended for _The Family Library_, were never
written.

[298] _Romeo and Juliet_, Act v. Sc. 1.

[299]

"When I think on the world's pelf May the shame fa' and the blethrie o
't." Burden of old Scottish Song.



[300] That these afternoon rambles with the dogs were not always so
tranquil may be gathered from an incident described by Mr. Adolphus, in
which an unsuspecting cat at a cottage door was demolished by Nimrod in
one of his gambols.--_Life_, vol. ix. p. 362. This deer-hound was an old
offender. Sir Walter tells his friend Richardson, _à propos_ of a story
he had just heard of Joanna Baillie's cat having worried a dog: "It is
just like her mistress, who beats the male race of authors out of the
pit in describing the higher passions that are more proper to their sex
than hers. Alack-a-day! my poor cat Hinse, my acquaintance, and in some
sort my friend of fifteen years, was snapped at even by the paynim
Nimrod. What could I say to him but what Brantôme said to some
_ferrailleur_ who had been too successful in a duel, 'Ah! mon grand ami,
vous avez tué mon autre grand ami.'"

[301] Manager of the _Foreign Review_.

[302] Robert Pitcairn, author of _Criminal Trials in Scotland_, 3 vols.
4to.

[303] William Scott, Esq., afterwards Laird of Raeburn, was commonly
thus designated from a minor possession, during his father's lifetime.
Whatever, in things of this sort, used to be practised among the French
noblesse, might be traced, till very lately, in the customs of the
Scottish provincial gentry.--- J.G.L.

[304] _Life_, vol. vi. p. 90.

[305]

"They have ty'd me to a stake; I cannot fly, But bear-like I must fight
the course."--_Macbeth_, Act v. Sc. 7.

[306] The work was published in May30 under the following title:--"_Anne
of Geierstein_, or _The Maiden of the Mist_. By the Author of
_Waverley_, etc.

What! will the aspiring blood of Lancaster Sink in the ground?
SHAKESPEARE.

In three volumes. Edinburgh: Printed for Cadell & Co., Edinburgh; and
Simpkin & Marshall, London, 1829. (At the end) Edinburgh: Printed by
Ballantyne & Company, Paul's Work, Canongate."




MAY.


_May_ 1.--Weather more tolerable. I commenced my review on the Duke of
Guise's Expedition,[307] for my poor correspondent Gillies, with six
leaves. What a curious tale that is of Masaniello! I went to Huntly Burn
in the sociable, and returned on foot, to my great refreshment. Evening
as usual. Ate, drank, smoked, and wrote.

_May_ 2.--A pitiful day of rain and wind. Laboured the whole morning at
Gillies's review. It is a fine subject--the Duke of Guise at Naples--and
I think not very much known, though the story of Masaniello is.

I have a letter from Dr. Lardner proposing to me to publish the history
in June. But I dare not undertake it in so short a space, proof-sheets
and all considered; it must be October--no help for it.[308] Worked
after dinner as usual.

_May_ 3.--The very same diary might serve this day as the last. I sent
off to Gillies half his review, and I wish the other half at Old Nick.

_May_ 4.--A poor young woman came here this morning, well-dressed and
well-behaved, with a strong northern accent. She talked incoherently a
long story of a brother and a lover both dead. I would have kept her
here till I wrote to her friends, particularly to Mr. Sutherland (an
Aberdeen bookseller), to inform them where she is, but my daughter and
her maidens were frightened, as indeed there might be room for it, and
so I sent her in one of Davidson's chaises to the Castle at Jedburgh,
and wrote to Mr. Shortreed to see she is humanely treated. I have
written also to her brother.

    "Long shall I see these things forlorn,
       And long again their sorrows feel."

The rest was write, walk, eat, smoke; smoke, and write again.

_May_ 5.--A moist rainy day, mild, however, and promising good weather.
I sat at my desk the whole day, and worked at Gillies's review. So was
the day exhausted.

_May_ 6.--I sent off the review. Received the sheets of the Secret
Tribunal from Master Reynolds. Keith Scott, a grandson of James Scott,
my father's cousin-german, came here, a fine lively boy with good
spirits and amiable manners. Just when I had sent off the rest of
Gillies's manuscript, W. Laidlaw came, so I had him for my companion in
a walk which the late weather has prevented for one or two days. Colonel
and Mrs. Ferguson, and Margaret Ferguson, came to dinner, and so passed
the evening.

_May_ 7.--Captain Percy, brother of Lord Lovaine, and son of Lord
Beverley, came out to dinner. Dr. and Mrs. Brewster met him. He is like
his brother, Lord Lovaine, an amiable, easy, and accomplished man, who
has seen a great deal of service, and roamed about with tribes of
Western Indians.

_May_ 8.--Went up Yarrow with Captain Percy, which made a complete day's
idleness, for which I have little apology to offer. I heard at the same
time from the President[309] that Sir Robert Dundas is very unwell, so I
must be in Edinburgh on Monday 11th. Very disagreeable, now the weather
is becoming pleasant.

_May_ 9.--Captain Percy left us at one o'clock. He has a sense of
humour, and aptness of comprehension which renders him an agreeable
companion. I am sorry his visit has made me a little idle, but there is
no help for it.

I have done everything to-day previous to my going away, but--_que
faut-il faire_? one must see society now and then, and this is really an
agreeable man. And so, _transeat ille_. I walked, and was so fatigued as
to sleep, and now I will attack John Lockhart's proof-sheets, of which
he has sent me a revise. In the evening I corrected proofs for the
review.

_May_ 10.--This must be a day of preparation, which I hate; yet it is
but laying aside a few books, and arranging a few papers, and yet my
nerves are fluttered, and I make blunders, and mislay my pen and my
keys, and make more confusion than I can repair. After all, I will try
for once to do it steadily.

Well! I have toiled through it; it is like a ground swell in the sea
that brings up all that is disgusting from the bottom--admonitory
letters--unpaid bills--few of these, thank my stars!--all that one would
wish to forget perks itself up in your face at a thorough redding
up--devil take it, I will get out and cool the fever that this turmoil
has made in my veins! The delightful spring weather conjured down the
evil spirit. I sat a long time with my nerves shaking like a frightened
child, and then laughed at it all by the side of the river, coming back
by the thicket.

_May_ 11, [_Edinburgh_].--We passed the morning in the little
arrangements previous to our departure, and then returned at night to
Edinburgh, bringing Keith Scott along. This boy's grandfather, James
Scott by name, very clever and particularly well acquainted with Indian
customs and manners. He was one of the first settlers in Prince of Wales
Island. He was an active-minded man, and therefore wrote a great deal. I
have seen a trunkful of his MSS. Unhappily, instead of writing upon some
subject on which he might have conveyed information he took to writing
on metaphysics, and lost both his candles and his labour. I was
consulted about publishing some part of his works; but could not
recommend it. They were shallow essays, with a good deal of infidelity
exhibited. Yet James Scott was a very clever man. He only fell into the
common mistake of supposing that arguments new to him were new to all
others. His son, when I knew him long since in this country, was an
ordinary man enough. This boy seems smart and clever. We reached the
house in the evening; it was comfortable enough considering it had been
shut up for two months. I found a letter from Cadell asserting his
continued hope in the success of the _Magnum_. I begin to be jealous on
the subject, but I will know to-morrow.

_May_ 12.--Went to Parliament House. Sir Robert Dundas very unwell. Poor
Hamilton on his back with the gout. So was obliged to have the
assistance of Rolland[310] from the Second Division. Saw Cadell on the
way home. I was right: he had been disappointed in his expectations from
Glasgow and other mercantile places where trade is low at present. But

    "Tidings did he bring of Africa and golden joys."

The _Magnum_ has taken extremely in Ireland, which was little counted
on, and elsewhere. Hence he proposes a new edition of _Tales of my
Grandfather_, First Series; also an enlargement of the Third Series. All
this drives poverty and pinch, which is so like poverty, from the door.

I visited Lady J.S., and had the pleasure to find her well. I wrote a
little, and got over a place that bothered me. Cadell has apprehensions
of _A_[_nne_] _of G_[_eierstein_], so have I. Well, the worst of it is,
we must do something better.[311]

_May_ 13.--Attended the Court, which took up a good deal of time. On my
return saw Sir Robert Dundas, who is better--and expects to be out on
Tuesday. I went to the Highland Society to present Miss Grahame
Stirling's book, being a translation of Gelieu's work on bees,[312]
which was well received. Went with the girls to dine at Dalhousie
Castle, where we were very kindly received. I saw the Edgewell
Tree,[313] too fatal, says Allan Ramsay, to the family from which he was
himself descended. I also saw the fatal Coalston Pear,[314] said to have
been preserved many hundred years. It is certainly a pear either
petrified or turned into wood, with a bit out of one side of it.

It is a pity to see my old school-companion, this fine true-hearted
nobleman of such an ancient and noble descent, after having followed the
British flag through all quarters of the world, again obliged to resume
his wanderings at a time of life equal, I suppose, to my own. He has
not, however, a grey hair in his head.

_May_ 14.--Left Dalhousie at eight to return here to breakfast, where we
received cold tidings. Walter has had an inflammatory attack, and I fear
it will be necessary to him to return without delay to the Continent. I
have letters from Sophia and Sir Andrew Halliday. The last has been of
the utmost service, by bleeding and advising active measures. How little
one knows to whom they are to be obliged! I wrote to him and to Jane,
recommending the Ionian Islands, where Sir Frederick Adam would, I am
sure, give Walter a post on his staff. The kind old Chief Commissioner
at once interested himself in the matter. It makes me inexpressibly
anxious, yet I have kept up my determination not to let the chances of
fate overcome me like a summer's-cloud.[315] I wrote four or five pages
of the History to-day, notwithstanding the agitation of my feelings.

_May_ 15.--Attended the Court, where Mr. Rolland and I had the duty of
the First Division; Sir Robert and Hamilton being both laid up. Dined at
Granton and met Lord and Lady Dalhousie, Sir John Hope, etc. I have
spelled out some work this day, though I have been rather knocked about.

_May_ 16.--After the Court this day I went to vote at the Archers' Hall,
where some of the members had become restive. They were outvoted two to
one. There had been no division in the Royal Body Guard since its
commencement, but these times make divisions everywhere. A letter from
Lockhart brings better news of Walter, but my heart is heavy on the
subject. I went on with my History, however, for the point in this
world is to do what we ought, and bear what we must.

Dined at home and wrote in the evening.

_May_ 17.--I never stirred from my seat all this day. My reflections, as
suggested by Walter's illness, were highly uncomfortable; and to divert
it I wrought the whole day, save when I was obliged to stop and lean my
head on my hand. Real affliction, however, has something in it by which
it is sanctified. It is a weight which, however oppressive, may like a
bar of iron be conveniently disposed on the sufferer's person. But the
insubstantiality of a hypochondriac affection is one of its greatest
torments. You have a huge featherbed on your shoulders, which rather
encumbers and oppresses you than calls forth strength and exertion to
bear it. There is something like madness in that opinion, and yet it has
a touch of reality. Heaven help me!

_May_ 18.--I resolved to take exercise to-day, so only wrought till
twelve. I sent off some sheets and copy to Dr. Lardner. I find my
written page goes as better than one to two of his print, so a little
more than one hundred and ninety of my writing will make up the sum
wanted. I sent him off as far as page sixty-two. Went to Mr. Colvin
Smith's at one, and sat for my picture to three. There must be an end of
this sitting. It devours my time.

I wrote in the evening to Walter, James MacCulloch, to Dr. Lardner, and
others, and settled some other correspondence.

_May_ 19.--I went to the Court, and abode there till about one, and in
the Library from one to two, when I was forced to attend a public
meeting about the King's statue. I have no turn for these committees,
and yet I get always jamm'd into them. They take up a cruel deal of time
in a way very unsatisfactory. Dined at home, and wrought hard. I shall
be through the Bruce's reign. It is lengthy; but, hang it, it was our
only halcyon period. I shall be soon done with one-half of the thousand
pound's worth.

_May_ 20.--Mr. Cadell breakfasted with us, with a youngster for whom he
wants a letter to the Commander or Governor of Bombay. After breakfast
C. and I had some talk of business. His tidings, like those of ancient
Pistol, are of Africa and golden joys. He is sure of selling at the
starting 8000 copies of the _Magnum_, at a profit of £70 per 1000--that
is, per month. This seems certain. But he thinks the sale will rise to
12,000, which will be £280 more, or £840 in all. This will tell out a
gross divisible profit of upwards of £25,000. This is not unlikely, but
after this comes a series of twenty volumes at least, which produce only
half that quantity indeed; but then the whole profits, save commissions,
are the author's. That will come to as much as the former, say £50,000
in all. This supposes I carry on the works of fiction for two or three
novels more. But besides all this, Cadell entertains a plan of selling a
cheaper edition by numbers and numbermen, on which he gives half the
selling price. One man, Mr. Ireland, offers to take 10,000 copies of the
_Magnum_ and talks of 25,000. This allows a profit of £50 per thousand
copies, not much worse than the larger copy, and Cadell thinks to carry
on both. I doubt this. I have great apprehension that these interlopers
would disgust the regular trade, with whom we are already deeply
engaged. I also foresee selling the worst copies at the higher price.
All this must be thought and cared for. In the meantime, I see a fund,
from which large payments may be made to the Trustees, capable of
extinguishing the debt, large as it is, in ten years or earlier, and
leaving a reversion to my family of the copyrights. Sweet
bodements[316]--good--but we must not reckon our chickens before they
are hatched, though they are chipping the shell now. We will see how the
stream takes.

Dined at a public dinner given to the excellent Lord Dalhousie before
his departure for India. An odd way of testifying respect to public
characters, by eating, drinking, and roaring. The names, however, will
make a good show in the papers. Home at ten. Good news from Sophia and
Walter. I am zealous for the Mediterranean when the season comes, which
may be the beginning of September.

_May_ 21.--This is only the 23d on which I write, yet I have forgotten
anything that has passed on the 21st worthy of note. I wrote a good
deal, I know, and dined at home. The step of time is noiseless as it
passes over an old man. The _non est tanti_ mingles itself with
everything.

_May_ 22.--I was detained long in the Court, though Ham. had returned to
his labour. We dined with Captain Basil Hall, and met a Mr. Codman, or
some such name, with his lady from Boston. The last a pleasant and
well-mannered woman, the husband Bostonian enough. We had Sir William
Arbuthnot, besides, and his lady.

By-the-bye, I should have remembered that I called on my old friend,
Lady Charlotte Campbell, and found her in her usual good-humour, though
miffed a little--I suspect at the history of Gillespie Grumach in the
_Legend of Montrose_. I saw Haining also, looking thin and pale. These
should have gone to the memorandum of yesterday.

_May_ 23.--Went to-day to call on the Commissioner,[317] and saw, at his
Grace's Levee, the celebrated divine, _soi-disant_ prophet, Irving.[318]
He is a fine-looking man (bating a diabolical squint), with talent on
his brow and madness in his eye. His dress, and the arrangement of his
hair, indicated that much attention had been bestowed on his externals,
and led me to suspect a degree of self-conceit, consistent both with
genius and insanity.

Came home by Cadell's, who persists in his visions of El Dorado. He
insists that I will probably bring £60,000 within six years to rub off
all Constable's debts, which that sum will do with a vengeance. Cadell
talks of offering for the Poetry to Longman. I fear they will not listen
to him. The _Napoleon_ he can command when he likes by purchasing their
stock in hand. The Lives of the Novelists may also be had. Pleasant
schemes all these, but dangerous to build upon. Yet in looking at the
powerful machine which we have put in motion, it must be owned "as
broken ships have come to land."

Waited on the Commissioner at five o'clock, and had the pleasure to
remain till eight, when the debate in the Assembly was over. The
question which employed their eloquence was whether the celebrated Mr.
Irving could sit there as a ruling elder.[319] It was settled, I think
justly, that a divine, being of a different order of officers in the
Kirk, cannot assume the character of a ruling elder, seeing he cannot
discharge its duties.

Mr. Irving dined with us. I could hardly keep my eyes off him while we
were at table. He put me in mind of the devil disguised as an angel of
light, so ill did that horrible obliquity of vision harmonise with the
dark tranquil features of his face, resembling that of our Saviour in
Italian pictures, with the hair carefully arranged in the same manner.
There was much real or affected simplicity in the manner in which he
spoke. He rather _made play_, and spoke much across the table to the
Solicitor, and seemed to be good-humoured. But he spoke with that kind
of unction which is nearly [allied] to cajolerie. He boasted much of the
tens of thousands that attended his ministry at the town of Annan, his
native place, till he wellnigh provoked me to say he was a distinguished
exception to the rule that a prophet was not esteemed in his own
country. But time and place were not fitting.

_May_ 24.--I wrote or _wrought_ all the morning, yea, even to
dinner-time. Miss Kerr, and Mrs. Skene, and Will Clerk dined. Skene came
from the Commissioner's at seven o'clock. We had a merry evening. Clerk
exults in the miscarriage of the Bill for the augmentation of the
judges' salaries. He and the other clerks in the Jury Court had hoped to
have had a share in the proposed measure, but the Court had considered
it as being _nos poma natamus_. I kept our friends quiet by declining to
move in a matter which was to expose us to the insult of a certain
refusal. Clerk, with his usual felicity of quotation, said they should
have remembered the Clown's exhortation to Lear, "Good nuncle, tarry and
take the fool with you."[320]

_May_ 25.--Wrote in the morning. Dr. Macintosh Mackay came to breakfast,
and brought with him, to show me, the Young Chevalier's target, purse,
and snuff-box, the property of Cluny MacPherson. The pistols are for
holsters, and no way remarkable; a good serviceable pair of weapons
silver mounted. The targe is very handsome indeed, studded with
ornaments of silver, chiefly emblematic, chosen with much taste of
device and happily executed. There is a contrast betwixt the shield and
purse, the targe being large and heavy, the purse, though very handsome,
unusually small and light. After one o'clock I saw the Duke and Duchess
of Gordon; then went to Mr. Smith's to finish a painting for the last
time. The Duchess called with a Swiss lady, to introduce me to her
friend, while I was doing penance. I was heartily glad to see her Grace
once more. Called in at Cadell's. His orders continue so thick that he
must postpone the delivery for several days, to get new engravings
thrown off, etc. _Vogue la galère!_ From all that now appears, I shall
be much better off in two or three years than if my misfortunes had
never taken place. _Periissem ni periissem._

Dined at a dinner given by the Antiquarian Society to Mr. Hay Drummond,
Secretary to the Society, now going Consul to Tangiers. It was an
excellent dinner--turtle, champagne, and all the _agrémens_ of a capital
meal, for £1, 6s. a-head. How Barry managed I can't say. The object of
this compliment spoke and drank wine incessantly; good-naturedly
delighted with the compliment, which he repeatedly assured me he valued
more than a hundred pounds. I take it that after my departure, which was
early, it would be necessary to "carry Mr. Silence to bed."[321]

_May_ 26.--The business at the Court heavy. Dined at Gala's, and had the
pleasure to see him in amended health. Sir John and Lady Hope were
there, and the evening was lively and pleasant. George Square is always
a melancholy place for me. I was dining next door to my father's former
house.[322]

_May_ 27.--I got up the additional notes for the _Waverley Novels_. They
seem to be setting sail with a favourable wind. I had to-day a most kind
and friendly letter from the Duke of Wellington, which is a thing to be
vain of. He is a most wonderful man to have climbed to such a height
without ever slipping his foot. Who would have said in 1815 that the
Duke would stand still higher in 1829, and yet it indubitably is so. We
dined with Lady Charlotte Campbell, now Lady Charlotte Bury, and her
husband, who is an egregious fop but a fine draughtsman. Here is another
day gone without work in the evening.

_May_ 28.--The Court as usual till one o'clock. But I forgot to say Mr.
Macintosh Mackay breakfasted, and inspected my curious Irish MS., which
Dr. Brinkley gave me.[323] Mr. Mackay, I should say Doctor, who well
deserved the name, reads it with tolerable ease, so I hope to knock the
marrow out of the bone with his assistance. I came home and despatched
proof-sheets and revises for Dr. Lardner. I saw kind John Gibson, and
made him happy with the fair prospects of the _Magnum_. He quite agrees
in my views. A young clergyman, named M'Combie, from Aberdeenshire, also
called to-day. I have had some consideration about the renewal or
re-translation of the Psalmody. I had peculiar views adverse to such an
undertaking.[324] In the first place, it would be highly unpopular with
the lower and more ignorant rank, many of whom have no idea of the
change which those spiritual poems have suffered in translation, but
consider their old translations as the very songs which David composed.
At any rate, the lower class think that our fathers were holier and
better men than we, and that to abandon their old hymns of devotion, in
order to grace them with newer and more modish expression, would be a
kind of sacrilege. Even the best informed, who think on the subject,
must be of opinion that even the somewhat bald and rude language and
versification of the Psalmody gives them an antique and venerable air,
and their want of the popular graces of modish poetry shows they belong
to a style where ornaments are not required. They contain, besides, the
very words which were spoken and sung by the fathers of the Reformation,
sometimes in the wilderness, sometimes in fetters, sometimes at the
stake. If a Church possessed the vessels out of which the original
Reformers partook of the Eucharist, it would be surely bad taste to melt
them down and exchange them for more modern. No, no. Let them write
hymns and paraphrases if they will, but let us have still

    "All people that on earth do dwell."[325]

Law and devotion must lose some of their dignity as often as they adopt
new fashions.

_May_ 30.--The Skenes came in to supper last night. Dr. Scott of Haslar
Hospital came to breakfast. He is a nephew of Scott of Scalloway, who is
one of the largest proprietors in Shetland. I have an agreeable
recollection of the kindness and hospitality of these remote isles, and
of this gentleman's connections in particular, who welcomed me both as a
stranger and a Scott, being duly tenacious of their clan. This young
gentleman is high in the medical department of the navy. He tells me
that the Ultima Thule is improving rapidly. The old clumsy plough is
laid aside. They have built several stout sloops to go to the deep-sea
fishing, instead of going thither in open boats, which consumed so much
time between the shore and the haaf or fishing spot. Pity but they would
use a steam-boat to tow them out! I have a real wish to hear of
Zetland's advantage. I often think of its long isles, its towering
precipices, its capes covered with sea-fowl of every class and
description that ornithology can find names for, its deep caves, its
smoked geese, and its sour sillocks. I would like to see it again. After
the Court I came round by Cadell, who is like Jemmy Taylor,

    "Full of mirth and full of glee,"

for which he has good reason, having raised the impression of the
_Magnum_ to 12,000 copies, and yet the end is not, for the only puzzle
now is how to satisfy the delivery fast enough.[326]

_May_ 31.--We dined at Craigcrook with Jeffrey. It is a most beautiful
place, tastefully planted with shrubs and trees, and so sequestered,
that after turning into the little avenue, all symptoms of the town are
left behind you. He positively gives up the _Edinburgh Review_.[327] A
very pleasant evening. Rather a glass of wine too much, for I was heated
during the night. Very good news of Walter.

FOOTNOTES:

[307] See _Foreign Quarterly Review_, vol. iv. p. 355.

[308] This short History of Scotland, it was found, could not be
comprised in a single volume, and the publishers handsomely agreed to
give the author £1500 for two volumes, forming the first and fourth
issues of their own _Cabinet Cyclopædia_, the publication of which was
commenced before the end of the year.

[309] Right Hon. Charles Hope.

[310] Adam Rolland, Principal Clerk of Session, a nephew of Adam Rolland
of Gask, who was in some respects the prototype of Pleydell, and whose
face and figure have been made familiar to the present generation by
Raeburn's masterpiece of portraiture, now in the possession of Miss
Abercrombie, Edinburgh.

[311] Sir Walter had written to Mr. Lockhart on 8th May:--"_Anne of
Geierstein_ is concluded; but as I do not like her myself, I do not
expect she will be popular."

As a contrast to the criticisms of the printer and publisher, and a
comment upon the author's own apprehensions, the subjoined extract from
a letter written by Mr. G.P.R. James may be given:--"When I first read
_Anne of Geierstein_ I will own that the multitude of surpassing
beauties which it contained frightened me, but I find that after having
read it the public mind required to be let gently down from the tone of
excitement to which it had been raised, and was contented to pause at my
book (_Richelieu_), as a man who has been enjoying a fine prospect from
a high hill stops before he reaches the valley to take another look,
though half the beauty be already lost.... You cannot think how I long
to acquit myself of the obligations which I lie under towards you, but I
am afraid that fortune, who has given you both the will and the power to
confer such great favours upon me, has not in any degree enabled me to
aid or assist you in return."

[312] _The Bee Preserver_, or _Practical Directions for the Management
and Preservation of Hives_. Translated from the French of J. De Gelieu.
1829.

[313] "An oak tree which grows by the side of a fine spring near the
Castle of Dalhousie; very much observed by the country people, who give
out that before any of the family died a branch fell from the Edgewell
Tree. The old tree some few years ago fell altogether, but another
sprang from the same root, which is now [1720] tall and flourishing; and
lang be it sae."--Allan Ramsay's _Works_, vol. i. p. 329: "Stocks in
1720." 2 vols. 8vo, Lond. 1800.

The tree is still flourishing [1889], and the belief in its sympathy
with the family is not yet extinct, as an old forester, on seeing a
large branch fall from it on a quiet still day in July 1874, exclaimed,
"The laird's deed noo!" and accordingly news came soon after that Fox
Maule, 11th Earl of Dalhousie, had died.

[314] The Coalstoun Pear was removed from Dalhousie to Coalstoun House
in 1861.

[315] _Macbeth_, Act III. Sc. 4.

[316] _Macbeth_, Act IV. Sc. 1.

[317] Lord Forbes was at this time His Majesty's High Commissioner to
the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland: he had been appointed in
1826.

[318] Rev. Edward Irving, minister of the Scottish Church in London, was
deposed March 1833, and died Dec. 1834, aged forty-two.

[319] That is as a lay-member of the General Assembly of the Church of
Scotland.

[320] _Lear_, Act I. Sc. 4.

[321] 2_d Henry IV_., Act V. Sc. 3.

[322] No. 25.

[323] The manuscript referred to is now at Abbotsford. It is a small
quarto of 8-3/4 x 6-1/2 inches, bound in old mottled leather, and
consisting of 251 leaves of paper, written on both sides in the Irish
character, apparently in the reign of James VI. It bears the following
inscription in Sir Walter's hand:--"The kind donor of this book is the
Right Rev. Bishop of Cloyne, famed for his skill in science, and
especially as an astronomer." For contents of vol. see Appendix. Dr.
John Brinkley, Bishop of Cloyne, was Astronomer Royal for Ireland.

[324] See letter to Principal Baird, _ante_, vol, i, p. 412 _n._

[325] The first line of the Scottish metrical version of the hundredth
Psalm. Mr. Lockhart tells us, in his affecting account of Sir Walter's
illness, that his love for the old metrical version of the Psalms
continued unabated to the end. A story has been told, on the authority
of the nurse in attendance, that on the morning of the day on which he
died, viz., on the 21st Sept. 1832, he opened his eyes once more, quite
conscious, and calmly asked her to read to him a psalm. She proceeded to
do so, when he gently interposed, saying, "No! no! the Scotch Psalms."
After reading to him a little while, he expressed a wish to be moved
nearer the window, through which he looked long and earnestly up and
down the valley and towards the sky, and then on the woman's face,
saying: "_I'll know it all before night_." This story will find some
confirmation from the entry in the Journal under September 24, 1830: "I
think _I will be in the secret next week_; unless I recruit greatly."

[326] In a letter to his son at this time he says the "sale of the
Novels is pro-di-gi-ous. If it last but a few years it will clear my
feet of old encumbrances."--_Life_, vol. ix. p. 32.

[327] Jeffrey, who had just retired from the editorship of the
_Edinburgh Review_, was succeeded by Macvey Napier, whose first No. was
published in October 1829.




JUNE.


_June_ 1.--Being Sunday I remained to work the whole day, and finished
half of the proposed volume of History. I was not disturbed the whole
day, a thing rather unusual.

_June_ 2.--Received Mr. Rees of London and Col. Ferguson to breakfast.
Mr. Rees is clearly of opinion our scheme (the _Magnum_) must
answer.[328] I got to letter-writing after breakfast, and cleared off
old scores in some degree. Dr. Ross called and would hardly hear of my
going out. I was obliged, however, to attend the meeting of the trustees
for the Theatre.[329] The question to be decided was, whether we should
embrace an option left to us of taking the old Theatre at a valuation,
or whether we should leave it to Mrs. Siddons and Mr. Murray to make the
best of it. There were present Sir Patrick Murray, Baron Hume, Lord
Provost, Sir John Hay, Mr. Gilbert Innes, and myself. We were all of
opinion that personally we ought to have nothing to do with it. But I
thought as trustees for the public, we were bound to let the public know
how the matter stood, and that they might, if they pleased, have the
theatrical property for £16,000, which is dog cheap. They were all clear
to give it up (the right of reversion) to Mrs. Siddons. I am glad she
should have it, for she is an excellent person, and so is her brother.
But I think it has been a little jobbish. There is a clause providing
the new patentees may redeem. I desired that the circumstance should be
noted, that we were only exercising our own judgment, leaving the future
trustees to exercise theirs. I rather insisted that there should be some
saving clause of this kind, even for the sake of our honour. But I could
not prevail upon my colleagues to put such a saving clause on the
minutes, though they agreed to the possibility of the new patentees
redeeming on behalf of the public. I do not think we have done right.

I called on Mr. Cadell, whose reports of the _Magnum_ might fill up the
dreams of Alnaschar should he sleep as long as the seven sleepers. The
rest was labour and letters till bed-time.

_June_ 3.--The ugly symptoms still continue. Dr. Ross does not make much
of it, and I think he is apt to look grave.[330] I wrote in the morning.
Dr. Macintosh Mackay came to breakfast, and brought a Gaelic book, which
he has published--the Poetry of Rob Donn--some of which seems pretty as
he explained it. Court kept me till near two, and then home comes I.
Afternoon and evening was spent as usual. In the evening Dr. Ross
ordered me to be cupped, an operation which I only knew from its being
practised by that eminent medical practitioner the barber of Bagdad. It
is not painful; and, I think, resembles a giant twisting about your
flesh between his finger and thumb.

_June_ 4.--I was obliged to absent myself from the Court on Dr. Ross's
positive instance; and, what is worse, I was compelled to send an
apology to Hopetoun House, where I expected to see Madame Caradori, who
was to sing Jock of Hazeldean. I wrote the song for Sophia; and I find
my friends here still prefer her to the foreign syren.

    "However, Madame Caradori,
    To miss you I am very sorry,
    I should have taken it for glory
    To have heard you sing my Border story."

I worked at the _Tales of my Grandfather_, but leisurely.

_June_ 5.--Cadell came to dine with me _tête-à-tête,_ for the girls are
gone to Hopetoun House. We had ample matter to converse upon, for his
horn was full of good news. While we were at dinner we had letters from
London and Ireland, which decided him to raise the impression of
_Waverley_ to 15,000. This, with 10,000 on the number line which Ireland
is willing to take, will make £18,000 a year of divisible profit. This
leads to a further speculation, as I said, of great importance. Longman
& Co. have agreed to sell their stock on hand of the Poetry, in which
they have certain shares, their shares included, for £8000. Cadell
thinks he could, by selling off at cheap rates, sorting, making waste,
etc., get rid of the stock for about £5000, leaving £3000 for the
purchase of the copyrights, and proposes to close the bargain as much
cheaper as he can, but at all events to close it. Whatever shall fall
short of the price returned by the stock, the sale of which shall be
entirely at his risk, shall be reckoned as the price of the copyright,
and we shall pay half of that balance. I had no hesitation in
authorising him to proceed in his bargain with Owen Rees of Longman's
house upon that principle. For supposing, according to Cadell's present
idea, the loss on the stock shall amount to £2000 or £3000, the
possession of the entire copyright undivided would enable us,
calculating upon similar success to that of the Novels, to make at least
£500 per cent. Longman & Co. have indeed an excellent bargain, but then
so will we. We pay dear indeed for what the ostensible subject of sale
is, but if it sets free almost the whole of our copyrights, and places
them in our own hands, we get a most valuable _quid pro quo_. There is
only one-fourth, I think, of _Marmion_ in Mr. Murray's hands, and it
must be the deuce if that cannot be [secured].[331] Mr. Cadell proposed
that, as he took the whole books on his risk, he ought to have
compensation, and that it should consist in the sum to be given to me
for arranging and making additions to the volumes of Poetry thus to be
republished. I objected to this, for in the first place he may suffer no
loss, for the books may go off more rapidly than he thinks or expects.
In the second place, I do not know what my labours in the Poetry may be.
In either case it is a blind bargain; but if he should be a sufferer
beyond the clear half of the loss, which we agree to share with him, I
agreed to make him some compensation, and he is willing to take what I
shall think just; so stands our bargain. Remained at home and wrote
about four pages of _Tales_. I should have done more, but my head, as
Squire Sullen says, "aiked consumedly."[332] Rees has given Cadell a
written offer to be binding till the twelfth; meantime I have written to
Lockhart to ask John Murray if he will treat for the fourth share of
_Marmion_, which he possesses. It can be worth but little to him, and
gives us all the copyrights. I have a letter from Sir Thomas Dick
Lauder, touching a manuscript of Messrs. Hay Allan called the
_Vestiarium Scotiæ_ by a Sir Richard Forrester. If it is an imposition
it is cleverly done, but I doubt the quarter it comes from. These Hay
Allans are men of warm imaginations. It makes the strange averment that
all the Low-Country gentlemen and border clans wore tartan, and gives
sets of them all. I must see the manuscript before I believe in it. The
Allans are singular men, of much accomplishment but little probity--that
is, in antiquarian matters. Cadell lent me £10,--funny enough, after all
our grand expectations, for Croesus to want such a gratility!