THE JOURNAL OF

SIR WALTER SCOTT

FROM THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT

AT ABBOTSFORD

[Illustration]

VOLUME I

BURT FRANKLIN
NEW YORK

Published by BURT FRANKLIN
235 East 44th St., New York, N.Y. 10017
Originally Published: 1890
Reprinted: 1970
Printed in the U.S.A.

S.B.N. 32110
Library of Congress Card Catalog No.: 73-123604
Burt Franklin: Research and Source Works Series 535
Essays in Literature and Criticism 82


[Illustration: [Greek: NUX GAR ERCHETAI.]]

"_I must home to work while it is called day; for the night cometh when
no man can work. I put that text, many a year ago, on my dial-stone; but
it often preached in vain_."--SCOTT'S _Life_, x. 88.]



     "_I shall have a peep at Bothwell Castle if it is only for
     half-an-hour. It is a place of many recollections to me, for I
     cannot but think how changed I am from the same Walter Scott who
     was so passionately ambitious of fame when I wrote the song of
     Young Lochinvar at Bothwell; and if I could recall the same
     feelings, where was I to find an audience so kind and patient, and
     whose applause was at the same time so well worth having, as Lady
     Dalkeith and Lady Douglas? When one thinks of these things, there
     is no silencing one's regret but by Corporal Nym's philosophy_:
     Things must be as they may. _One generation goeth and another
     cometh_."--To LORD MONTAGU, _June 28th,_ 1825.




PREFACE.


On the death of Sir Walter Scott in 1832, his entire literary remains
were placed at the disposal of his son-in-law, Mr. John Gibson Lockhart.
Among these remains were two volumes of a Journal which had been kept by
Sir Walter from 1825 to 1832. Mr. Lockhart made large use of this
Journal in his admirable life of his father-in-law. Writing, however, so
short a time after Scott's death, he could not use it so freely as he
might have wished, and, according to his own statement, it was "by
regard for the feelings of living persons" that he both omitted and
altered; and indeed he printed no chapter of the Diary in full.

There is no longer any reason why the Journal should not be published in
its entirety, and by the permission of the Hon. Mrs. Maxwell-Scott it
now appears exactly as Scott left it--but for the correction of obvious
slips of the pen and the omission of some details chiefly of family and
domestic interest.

The original Journal consists of two small 4to volumes, 9 inches by 8,
bound in vellum and furnished with strong locks. The manuscript is
closely written on both sides, and towards the end shows painful
evidence of the physical prostration of the writer. The Journal abruptly
closes towards the middle of the second volume with the following
entry--probably the last words ever penned by Scott--

[Illustration: by one of the old Pontiffs, but which, I forget, and so
paraded the streets by moonlight to discover, if possible, some appearance
of the learned Sir William Gell or the pretty Mrs. Ashley. At length we
found our old servant who guided us to the lodgings taken by Sir
William Gell, where all was comfortable, a good fire included, which
our fatigue and the chilliness of the night required. We dispersed as
soon as we had taken some food, wine, and water.

We slept reasonably, but on the next morning]

In the annotations, it seemed most satisfactory to follow as closely as
possible the method adopted by Mr. Lockhart. In the case of those parts
of the Journal that have been already published, almost all Mr.
Lockhart's notes have been reproduced, and these are distinguished by
his initials. Extracts from the Life, from James Skene of Rubislaw's
unpublished Reminiscences, and from unpublished letters of Scott himself
and his contemporaries, have been freely used wherever they seemed to
illustrate particular passages in the Journal.

With regard to Scott's quotations a certain difficulty presented itself.
In his Journal he evidently quoted from memory, and he not unfrequently
makes considerable variations from the originals. Occasionally, indeed,
it would seem that he deliberately made free with the exact words of his
author, to adapt them more pertinently to his own mood or the impulse of
the moment. In any case it seemed best to let Scott's quotations appear
as he wrote them. His reading lay in such curious and unfrequented
quarters that to verify all the sources is a nearly impossible task. It
is to be remembered, also, that he himself held very free notions on the
subject of quotation.

I have to thank the Hon. Mrs. Maxwell-Scott for permitting me to retain
for the last three years the precious volumes in which the Journal is
contained, and for granting me access to the correspondence of Sir
Walter preserved at Abbotsford, and I have likewise to acknowledge the
courtesy of His Grace the Duke of Buccleuch for allowing me the use of
the Scott letters at Dalkeith. To Mr. W.F. Skene, Historiographer Royal
for Scotland, my thanks are warmly rendered for intrusting me with his
precious heirloom, the volume which contains Sir Walter's letters to his
father, and the Reminiscences that accompany them--one of many kind
offices towards me during the last thirty years in our relations as
author and publisher. I am also obliged to Mr. Archibald Constable for
permitting me to use the interesting Memorandum by James Ballantyne.

Finally, I have to express my obligation to many other friends, who
never failed cordially to respond to any call I made upon them.

D.D.

     EDINBURGH, 22 DRUMMOND PLACE, _October_ 1, 1890.




ILLUSTRATIONS.


VOL. I.

PORTRAIT, painted by JOHN GRAHAM GILBERT, R.S.A., for the Royal Society,
Edinburgh. Copied by permission of the Council of the Society,
_Frontispiece_

VIGNETTE on Title-page

"The Dial-Stone" in the Garden, from drawing made at Abbotsford by
GEORGE REID, R.S.A.

"WORK WHILE IT IS DAY."

       *       *       *       *       *

[Greek: NUX GAR ERCHETAI.]

     "_I must home to 'work while it is called day; for the night cometh
     when no man can work.' I put that text, many a year ago, on my
     dial-stone; but it often preached in vain_."--SCOTT'S _Life_, x.
     88.

MAP OF ABBOTSFORD, from the Ordnance Survey, 1858, _to face_ p. 414.


       *       *       *       *       *


SIR WALTER SCOTT'S JOURNAL.


       *       *       *       *       *




NOVEMBER.


[_Edinburgh_,] _November_ 20, 1825.--I have all my life regretted that I
did not keep a regular Journal. I have myself lost recollection of much
that was interesting, and I have deprived my family and the public of
some curious information, by not carrying this resolution into effect. I
have bethought me, on seeing lately some volumes of Byron's notes, that
he probably had hit upon the right way of keeping such a
memorandum-book, by throwing aside all pretence to regularity and order,
and marking down events just as they occurred to recollection. I will
try this plan; and behold I have a handsome locked volume, such as might
serve for a lady's album. _Nota bene_, John Lockhart, and Anne, and I
are to raise a Society for the suppression of Albums. It is a most
troublesome shape of mendicity. Sir, your autograph--a line of
poetry--or a prose sentence!--Among all the sprawling sonnets, and
blotted trumpery that dishonours these miscellanies, a man must have a
good stomach that can swallow this botheration as a compliment.

I was in Ireland last summer, and had a most delightful tour. It cost me
upwards of £500, including £100 left with Walter and Jane, for we
travelled a large party and in style. There is much less exaggerated
about the Irish than is to be expected. Their poverty is not
exaggerated; it is on the extreme verge of human misery; their cottages
would scarce serve for pig-styes, even in Scotland, and their rags seem
the very refuse of a rag-shop, and are disposed on their bodies with
such ingenious variety of wretchedness that you would think nothing but
some sort of perverted taste could have assembled so many shreds
together. You are constantly fearful that some knot or loop will give,
and place the individual before you in all the primitive simplicity of
Paradise. Then for their food, they have only potatoes, and too few of
them. Yet the men look stout and healthy, the women buxom and
well-coloured.

Dined with us, being Sunday, Will. Clerk and Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe.
W.C. is the second son of the celebrated author of _Naval Tactics_.[1] I
have known him intimately since our college days; and, to my thinking,
never met a man of greater powers, or more complete information on all
desirable subjects. In youth he had strongly the Edinburgh _pruritus
disputandi_; but habits of society have greatly mellowed it, and though
still anxious to gain your suffrage to his views, he endeavours rather
to conciliate your opinion than conquer it by force. Still there is
enough of tenacity of sentiment to prevent, in London society, where all
must go slack and easy, W.C. from rising to the very top of the tree as
a conversation man, who must not only wind the thread of his argument
gracefully, but also know when to let go. But I like the Scotch taste
better; there is more matter, more information, above all, more spirit
in it. Clerk will, I am afraid, leave the world little more than the
report of his fame. He is too indolent to finish any considerable
work.[2] Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe is another very remarkable man. He
was bred a clergyman, but did not take orders, owing I believe to a
peculiar effeminacy of voice which must have been unpleasant in reading
prayers. Some family quarrels occasioned his being indifferently
provided for by a small annuity from his elder brother, extorted by an
arbitral decree. He has infinite wit and a great turn for antiquarian
lore, as the publications of _Kirkton_,[3] etc., bear witness. His
drawings are the most fanciful and droll imaginable--a mixture between
Hogarth and some of those foreign masters who painted temptations of St.
Anthony, and such grotesque subjects. As a poet he has not a very strong
touch. Strange that his finger-ends can describe so well what he cannot
bring out clearly and firmly in words. If he were to make drawing a
resource, it might raise him a large income. But though a lover of
antiquities, and therefore of expensive trifles, C.K.S. is too
aristocratic to use his art to assist his revenue. He is a very complete
genealogist, and has made many detections in _Douglas_ and other books
on pedigree, which our nobles would do well to suppress if they had an
opportunity. Strange that a man should be curious after scandal of
centuries old! Not but Charles loves it fresh and fresh also, for, being
very much a fashionable man, he is always master of the reigning report,
and he tells the anecdote with such gusto that there is no helping
sympathising with him--the peculiarity of voice adding not a little to
the general effect. My idea is that C.K.S., with his oddities, tastes,
satire, and high aristocratic feelings, resembles Horace
Walpole--perhaps in his person also, in a general way.--See Miss
Hawkins' _Anecdotes_[4] for a description of the author of _The Castle
of Otranto_.

No other company at dinner except my cheerful and good-humoured friend
_Missie_ Macdonald,[5] so called in fondness. One bottle of champagne
with the ladies' assistance, two of claret. I observe that both these
great connoisseurs were very nearly, if not quite, agreed, that there
are _no_ absolutely undoubted originals of Queen Mary. But how then
should we be so very distinctly informed as to her features? What has
become of all the originals which suggested these innumerable copies?
Surely Mary must have been as unfortunate in this as in other
particulars of her life.[6]

_November_ 21.--I am enamoured of my journal. I wish the zeal may but
last. Once more of Ireland. I said their poverty was not exaggerated;
neither is their wit--nor their good-humour--nor their whimsical
absurdity--nor their courage.

_Wit_.--I gave a fellow a shilling on some occasion when sixpence was
the fee. "Remember you owe me sixpence, Pat." "May your honour live till
I pay you!" There was courtesy as well as wit in this, and all the
clothes on Pat's back would have been dearly bought by the sum in
question.

_Good-humour_.--There is perpetual kindness in the Irish cabin;
butter-milk, potatoes, a stool is offered, or a stone is rolled that
your honour may sit down and be out of the smoke, and those who beg
everywhere else seem desirous to exercise free hospitality in their own
houses. Their natural disposition is turned to gaiety and happiness;
while a Scotchman is thinking about the term-day, or, if easy on that
subject, about hell in the next world--while an Englishman is making a
little hell of his own in the present, because his muffin is not well
roasted--Pat's mind is always turned to fun and ridicule. They are
terribly excitable, to be sure, and will murther you on slight
suspicion, and find out next day that it was all a mistake, and that it
was not yourself they meant to kill at all at all.

_Absurdity_.--They were widening the road near Lord Claremont's seat as
we passed. A number of cars were drawn up together at a particular
point, where we also halted, as we understood they were blowing a rock,
and the _shot_ was expected presently to go off. After waiting two
minutes or so, a fellow called out something, and our carriage as a
planet, and the cars for satellites, started all forward at once, the
Irishmen whooping and crying, and the horses galloping. Unable to learn
the meaning of this, I was only left to suppose that they had delayed
firing the intended _shot_ till we should pass, and that we were passing
quickly to make the delay as short as possible. No such thing. By dint
of making great haste, we got within ten yards of the rock when the
blast took place, throwing dust and gravel on our carriage, and had our
postillion brought us a little nearer (it was not for want of hallooing
and flogging that he did not), we should have had a still more serious
share of the explosion. The explanation I received from the drivers was,
that they had been told by the overseer that as the _mine_ had been so
long in _going off_, he dared say we would have time to pass it--so we
just waited long enough to make the danger imminent. I have only to add
that two or three people got behind the carriage, just for nothing but
to see how our honours got past.

Went to the Oil Gas Committee[7] this morning, of which concern I am
president, or chairman. It has amused me much by bringing me into
company with a body of active, business-loving, money-making citizens of
Edinburgh, chiefly Whigs by the way, whose sentiments and proceedings
amuse me. The stock is rather low in the market, 35s. premium instead
of £5. It must rise, however, for the advantages of the light are
undeniable, and folks will soon become accustomed to idle apprehensions
or misapprehensions. From £20 to £25 should light a house capitally,
supposing you leave town in the vacation. The three last quarters cost
me £10, 10s., and the first, £8, was greatly overcharged. We will see
what this, the worst and darkest quarter, costs.

Dined with Sir Robert Dundas,[8] where we met Lord and Lady Melville. My
little _nieces_ (_ex officio_) gave us some pretty music. I do not know
and cannot utter a note of music; and complicated harmonies seem to me a
babble of confused though pleasing sounds. Yet songs and simple
melodies, especially if connected with words and ideas, have as much
effect on me as on most people. But then I hate to hear a young person
sing without feeling and expression suited to the song. I cannot bear a
voice that has no more life in it than a pianoforte or a bugle-horn.
There is something about all the fine arts, of soul and spirit, which,
like the vital principle in man, defies the research of the most
critical anatomist. You feel where it is not, yet you cannot describe
what it is you want. Sir Joshua, or some other great painter, was
looking at a picture on which much pains had been bestowed--"Why, yes,"
he said, in a hesitating manner, "it is very clever--very well
done--can't find fault; but it wants something; it wants--it wants, damn
me--it wants THAT"--throwing his hand over his head and snapping his
fingers. Tom Moore's is the most exquisite warbling I ever heard. Next
to him, David Macculloch[9] for Scots songs. The last, when a boy at
Dumfries, was much admired by Burns, who used to get him to try over the
words which he composed to new melodies. He is brother of Macculloch of
Ardwell.

_November_ 22.--MOORE. I saw Moore (for the first time, I may say) this
season. We had indeed met in public twenty years ago. There is a manly
frankness, and perfect ease and good breeding about him which is
delightful. Not the least touch of the poet or the pedant. A
little--very little man. Less, I think, than Lewis, and somewhat like
him in person; God knows, not in conversation, for Matt, though a clever
fellow, was a bore of the first description. Moreover, he looked always
like a schoolboy. I remember a picture of him being handed about at
Dalkeith House. It was a miniature I think by Sanders,[10] who had
contrived to muffle Lewis's person in a cloak, and placed some poignard
or dark lanthorn appurtenance (I think) in his hand, so as to give the
picture the cast of a bravo. "That like Mat Lewis?" said Duke Henry, to
whom it had passed in turn; "why, that is like a MAN!" Imagine the
effect! Lewis was at his elbow.[11] Now Moore has none of this
insignificance; to be sure his person is much stouter than that of
M.G.L., his countenance is decidedly plain, but the expression is so
very animated, especially in speaking or singing, that it is far more
interesting than the finest features could have rendered it.

I was aware that Byron had often spoken, both in private society and in
his Journal, of Moore and myself in the same breath, and with the same
sort of regard; so I was curious to see what there could be in common
betwixt us, Moore having lived so much in the gay world, I in the
country, and with people of business, and sometimes with politicians;
Moore a scholar, I none; he a musician and artist, I without knowledge
of a note; he a democrat, I an aristocrat--with many other points of
difference; besides his being an Irishman, I a Scotchman, and both
tolerably national. Yet there is a point of resemblance, and a strong
one. We are both good-humoured fellows, who rather seek to enjoy what is
going forward than to maintain our dignity as lions; and we have both
seen the world too widely and too well not to contemn in our souls the
imaginary consequence of literary people, who walk with their noses in
the air, and remind me always of the fellow whom Johnson met in an
alehouse, and who called himself "the _great_ Twalmley--inventor of the
floodgate iron for smoothing linen." He also enjoys the _mot pour rire_,
and so do I.

Moore has, I think, been ill-treated about Byron's Memoirs; he
surrendered them to the family (Lord Byron's executors) and thus lost
£2000 which he had raised upon them at a most distressing moment of his
life. It is true they offered and pressed the money on him afterwards,
but they ought to have settled it with the booksellers and not put poor
Tom's spirit in arms against his interest.[12] I think at least it
might have been so managed. At any rate there must be an authentic life
of Byron by somebody. Why should they not give the benefit of their
materials to Tom Moore, whom Byron had made the depositary of his own
Memoirs?--but T.M. thinks that Cam Hobhouse has the purpose of writing
Byron's life himself. He and Moore were at sharp words during the
negotiation, and there was some explanation necessary before the affair
ended. It was a pity that nothing save the total destruction of Byron's
Memoirs would satisfy his executors.[13] But there was a reason--_Premat
nox alta_.

It would be a delightful addition to life, if T.M. had a cottage within
two miles of one. We went to the theatre together, and the house, being
luckily a good one, received T.M. with rapture. I could have hugged
them, for it paid back the debt of the kind reception I met with in
Ireland.[14]

Here is a matter for a May morning, but much fitter for a November one.
The general distress in the city has affected H. and R.,[15] Constable's
great agents. Should they _go_, it is not likely that Constable can
stand, and such an event would lead to great distress and perplexity on
the part of J.B. and myself. Thank God, I have enough at least to pay
forty shillings in the pound, taking matters at the very worst. But much
distress and inconvenience must be the consequence. I had a lesson in
1814 which should have done good upon me, but success and abundance
erased it from my mind. But this is no time for journalising or
moralising either. Necessity is like a sour-faced cook-maid, and I a
turn-spit whom she has flogged ere now, till he mounted his wheel. If
W-st-k[16] can be out by 25th January it will do much, and it is
possible.

------'s son has saved his comrade on shipboard by throwing himself
overboard and keeping the other afloat--a very gallant thing. But the
_Gran giag' Asso_[17] asks me to write a poem on the _civic crown_, of
which he sends me a description quoted from Adam's _Antiquities_, which
mellifluous performance is to persuade the Admiralty to give the young
conservator promotion. Oh! he is a rare head-piece, an admirable Merron.
I do not believe there is in nature such a full-acorned Boar.[18]

Could not write to purpose for thick-coming fancies; the wheel would not
turn easily, and cannot be forced.

    "My spinning-wheel is auld and stiff,
      The rock o't winna stand, sir;
    To keep the temper-pin in tiff
      Employs aft my hand, sir."[19]

Went to dine at the L[ord] J[ustice]-C[lerk's][20] as I thought by
invitation, but it was for Tuesday se'nnight. Returned very well
pleased, not being exactly in the humour for company, and had a
beef-steak. My appetite is surely, excepting in quantity, that of a
farmer; for, eating moderately of anything, my Epicurean pleasure is in
the most simple diet. Wine I seldom taste when alone, and use instead a
little spirits and water. I have of late diminished the quantity, for
fear of a weakness inductive to a diabetes--a disease which broke up my
father's health, though one of the most temperate men who ever lived. I
smoke a couple of cigars instead, which operates equally as a
sedative--

    "Just to drive the cold winter away,
    And drown the fatigues of the day."

I smoked a good deal about twenty years ago when at Ashestiel; but,
coming down one morning to the parlour, I found, as the room was small
and confined, that the smell was unpleasant, and laid aside the use of
the _Nicotian weed_ for many years; but was again led to use it by the
example of my son, a hussar officer, and my son-in-law, an Oxford
student. I could lay it aside to-morrow; I laugh at the dominion of
custom in this and many things.

    "We make the giants first, and then--_do not_ kill them."

_November_ 23.--On comparing notes with Moore, I was confirmed in one or
two points which I had always laid down in considering poor Byron. One
was, that like Rousseau he was apt to be very suspicious, and a plain
downright steadiness of manner was the true mode to maintain his good
opinion. Will Rose told me that once, while sitting with Byron, he fixed
insensibly his eyes on his feet, one of which, it must be remembered,
was deformed. Looking up suddenly, he saw Byron regarding him with a
look of concentrated and deep displeasure, which wore off when he
observed no consciousness or embarrassment in the countenance of Rose.
Murray afterwards explained this, by telling Rose that Lord Byron was
very jealous of having this personal imperfection noticed or attended
to. In another point, Moore confirmed my previous opinion, namely, that
Byron loved mischief-making. Moore had written to him cautioning him
against the project of establishing the paper called the _Liberal_, in
communion with such men as P.B. Shelley and Hunt,[21] on whom he said
the world had set its mark. Byron showed this to the parties. Shelley
wrote a modest and rather affecting expostulation to Moore.[22] These
two peculiarities of extreme suspicion and love of mischief are both
shades of the malady which certainly tinctured some part of the
character of this mighty genius; and, without some tendency towards
which, genius--I mean that kind which depends on the imaginative
power--perhaps cannot exist to great extent. The wheels of a machine, to
play rapidly, must not fit with the utmost exactness, else the attrition
diminishes the impetus.

Another of Byron's peculiarities was the love of mystifying; which
indeed may be referred to that of mischief. There was no knowing how
much or how little to believe of his narratives. Instance:--Mr.
Bankes[23] expostulating with him upon a dedication which he had written
in extravagant terms of praise to Cam Hobhouse, Byron told him that Cam
had teased him into the dedication till he had said, "Well; it shall be
so,--providing you will write the dedication yourself"; and affirmed
that Cam Hobhouse did write the high-coloured dedication accordingly. I
mentioned this to Murray, having the report from Will Rose, to whom
Bankes had mentioned it. Murray, in reply, assured me that the
dedication was written by Lord Byron himself, and showed it me in his
own hand. I wrote to Rose to mention the thing to Bankes, as it might
have made mischief had the story got into the circle. Byron was disposed
to think all men of imagination were addicted to mix fiction (or poetry)
with their prose. He used to say he dared believe the celebrated
courtezan of Venice, about whom Rousseau makes so piquante a story, was,
if one could see her, a draggle-tailed wench enough. I believe that he
embellished his own amours considerably, and that he was, in many
respects, _le fanfaron de vices qu'il n'avoit pas_. He loved to be
thought awful, mysterious, and gloomy, and sometimes hinted at strange
causes. I believe the whole to have been the creation and sport of a
wild and powerful fancy. In the same manner he _crammed_ people, as it
is termed, about duels, etc., which never existed, or were much
exaggerated.

Constable has been here as lame as a duck upon his legs, but his heart
and courage as firm as a cock. He has convinced me we will do well to
support the London House. He has sent them about £5000, and proposes we
should borrow on our joint security £5000 for their accommodation. J.B.
and R. Cadell present. I must be guided by them, and hope for the best.
Certainly to part company would be to incur an awful risk.

What I liked about Byron, besides his boundless genius, was his
generosity of spirit as well as purse, and his utter contempt of all the
affectations of literature, from the school-magisterial style to the
lackadaisical. Byron's example has formed a sort of upper house of
poetry. There is Lord Leveson Gower, a very clever young man.[24] Lord
Porchester too,[25] nephew to Mrs. Scott of Harden, a young man who lies
on the carpet and looks poetical and dandyish--fine lad too, but--

    "There will be many peers
    Ere such another Byron."

Talking of Abbotsford, it begins to be haunted by too much company of
every kind, but especially foreigners. I do not like them. I hate fine
waistcoats and breast-pins upon dirty shirts. I detest the impudence
that pays a stranger compliments, and harangues about his works in the
author's house, which is usually ill-breeding. Moreover, they are seldom
long of making it evident that they know nothing about what they are
talking of, except having seen the Lady of the Lake at the Opera.

Dined at St. Catherine's[26] with Lord Advocate, Lord and Lady Melville,
Lord Justice-Clerk,[27] Sir Archibald Campbell of Succoth, all class
companions and acquainted well for more than forty years. All except
Lord J.C. were at Fraser's class, High School.[28] Boyle joined us at
college. There are, besides, Sir Adam Ferguson, Colin Mackenzie, James
Hope, Dr. James Buchan, Claud Russell, and perhaps two or three more of
and about the same period--but

     "Apparent rari nantes in gurgite vasto."[29]

_November 24._--Talking of strangers, London held, some four or five
years since, one of those animals who are lions at first, but by
transmutation of two seasons become in regular course Boars!--Ugo
Foscolo by name, a haunter of Murray's shop and of literary parties.
Ugly as a baboon, and intolerably conceited, he spluttered, blustered,
and disputed, without even knowing the principles upon which men of
sense render a reason, and screamed all the while like a pig when they
cut its throat. Another such Animaluccio is a brute of a Sicilian
Marquis de ---- who wrote something about Byron. He inflicted two days
on us at Abbotsford. They never know what to make of themselves in the
forenoon, but sit tormenting the women to play at proverbs and such
trash.

_Foreigner of a different cast_,--Count Olonym (Olonyne--that's it), son
of the President of the Royal Society and a captain in the Imperial
Guards. He is mean-looking and sickly, but has much sense, candour, and
general information. There was at Abbotsford, and is here, for education
just now, a young Count Davidoff, with a tutor Mr. Collyer. He is a
nephew of the famous Orloffs. It is quite surprising how much sense and
sound thinking this youth has at the early age of sixteen, without the
least self-conceit or forwardness. On the contrary, he seems kind,
modest, and ingenuous.[30] To questions which I asked about the state of
Russia he answered with the precision and accuracy of twice his years. I
should be sorry the saying were verified in him--

    "So wise so young, they say, do ne'er live long."[31]

Saw also at Abbotsford two Frenchmen whom I liked, friends of Miss
Dumergue. One, called Le Noir, is the author of a tragedy which he had
the grace never to quote, and which I, though poked by some malicious
persons, had _not_ the grace even to hint at. They were disposed at
first to be complimentary, but I convinced them it was not the custom
here, and they took it well, and were agreeable.

A little bilious this morning, for the first time these six months. It
cannot be the London matters which stick on my stomach, for that is
mending, and may have good effects on myself and others.

Dined with Robert Cockburn. Company, Lord Melville and family; Sir John
and Lady Hope; Lord and Lady R. Kerr, and so forth. Combination of
colliers general, and coals up to double price; the men will not work,
_although_, or rather _because_, they can make from thirty to forty
shillings per week. Lord R.K. told us that he had a letter from Lord
Forbes (son of Earl Granard, Ireland), that he was asleep in his house
at Castle Forbes, when awakened by a sense of suffocation which deprived
him of the power of stirring a limb, yet left him the consciousness that
the house was on fire. At this moment, and while his apartment was in
flames, his large dog jumped on the bed, seized his shirt, and dragged
him to the staircase, where the fresh air restored his powers of
exertion and of escape. This is very different from most cases of
preservation of life by the canine race, when the animal generally jumps
into the water, in which [element] he has force and skill. That of fire
is as hostile to him as to mankind.

_November_ 25.--Read Jeffrey's neat and well-intended address[32] to the
mechanics upon their combinations. Will it do good? Umph. It takes only
the hand of a Lilliputian to light a fire, but would require the
diuretic powers of Gulliver to extinguish it. The Whigs will live and
die in the heresy that the world is ruled by little pamphlets and
speeches, and that if you can sufficiently demonstrate that a line of
conduct is most consistent with men's interest, you have therefore and
thereby demonstrated that they will at length, after a few speeches on
the subject, adopt it of course. In this case we would have [no] need of
laws or churches, for I am sure there is no difficulty in proving that
moral, regular, and steady habits conduce to men's best interest, and
that vice is not sin merely, but folly. But of these men each has
passions and prejudices, the gratification of which he prefers, not only
to the general weal, but to that of himself as an individual. Under the
action of these wayward impulses a man drinks to-day though he is sure
of starving to-morrow. He murders to-morrow though he is sure to be
hanged on Wednesday; and people are so slow to believe that which makes
against their own predominant passions, that mechanics will combine to
raise the price for one week, though they destroy the manufacture for
ever. The best remedy seems to be the probable supply of labourers from
other trades. Jeffrey proposes each mechanic shall learn some other
trade than his own, and so have two strings to his bow. He does not
consider the length of a double apprenticeship. To make a man a good
weaver and a good tailor would require as much time as the patriarch
served for his two wives, and after all, he would be but a poor workman
at either craft. Each mechanic has, indeed, a second trade, for he can
dig and do rustic work. Perhaps the best reason for breaking up the
association will prove to be the expenditure of the money which they
have been simple enough to levy from the industrious for the support of
the idle. How much provision for the sick and the aged, the widow and
the orphan, has been expended in the attempt to get wages which the
manufacturer cannot afford them, with any profitable chance of selling
his commodity?

I had a bad fall last night coming home. There were unfinished houses at
the east end of Atholl Place,[33] and as I was on foot, I crossed the
street to avoid the material which lay about; but, deceived by the
moonlight, I stepped ankle-deep in a sea of mud (honest earth and water,
thank God), and fell on my hands. Never was there such a representative
of _Wall_ in Pyramus and Thisbe--I was absolutely rough-cast. Luckily
Lady S. had retired when I came home; so I enjoyed my tub of water
without either remonstrance or condolences. Cockburn's hospitality will
get the benefit and renown of my downfall, and yet has no claim to it.
In future though, I must take a coach at night--a control on one's
freedom, but it must be submitted to. I found a letter from [R.]
C[adell], giving a cheering account of things in London. Their
correspondent is getting into his strength. Three days ago I would have
been contented to buy this _consola_, as Judy says,[34] dearer than by a
dozen falls in the mud. For had the great Constable fallen, O my
countrymen, what a fall were there!

[Sidenote: _N.B._ Within eight weeks after recording this graceful act
of submission, I found I was unable to keep a carriage at all.]

Mrs. Coutts, with the Duke of St. Albans and Lady Charlotte Beauclerk,
called to take leave of us. When at Abbotsford his suit throve but
coldly. She made me, I believe, her confidant in sincerity.[35] She had
refused him twice, and decidedly. He was merely on the footing of
friendship. I urged it was akin to love. She allowed she might marry the
Duke, only she had at present not the least intention that way. Is this
frank admission more favourable for the Duke than an absolute
protestation against the possibility of such a marriage? I think not. It
is the fashion to attend Mrs. Coutts' parties and to abuse her. I have
always found her a kind, friendly woman, without either affectation or
insolence in the display of her wealth, and most willing to do good if
the means be shown to her. She can be very entertaining too, as she
speaks without scruple of her stage life. So much wealth can hardly be
enjoyed without some ostentation. But what then? If the Duke marries
her, he ensures an immense fortune; if she marries him, she has the
first rank. If he marries a woman older than himself by twenty years,
she marries a man younger in wit by twenty degrees. I do not think he
will dilapidate her fortune--he seems quiet and gentle. I do not think
that she will abuse his softness--of disposition, shall I say, or of
heart? The disparity of ages concerns no one but themselves; so they
have my consent to marry, if they can get each other's. Just as this is
written, enter my Lord of St. Albans and Lady Charlotte, to beg I would
recommend a book of sermons to Mrs. Coutts. Much obliged for her good
opinion: recommended Logan's[36]--one poet should always speak for
another. The mission, I suppose, was a little display on the part of
good Mrs. Coutts of authority over her high aristocratic suitor. I do
not suspect her of turning _dévote_, and retract my consent given as
above, unless she remains "lively, brisk, and jolly."[37]

Dined quiet with wife and daughter. R[obert] Cadell looked in in the
evening on business.

I here register my purpose to practise economics. I have little
temptation to do otherwise. Abbotsford is all that I can make it, and
too large for the property; so I resolve--

No more building;

No purchases of land till times are quite safe;

No buying books or expensive trifles--I mean to any extent; and

Clearing off encumbrances, with the returns of this year's labour;--

Which resolutions, with health and my habits of industry, will make me
"sleep in spite of thunder."

After all, it is hard that the vagabond stock-jobbing Jews should, for
their own purposes, make such a shake of credit as now exists in London,
and menace the credit of men trading on sure funds like H[urst] and
R[obinson]. It is just like a set of pickpockets, who raise a mob, in
which honest folks are knocked down and plundered, that they may pillage
safely in the midst of the confusion they have excited.

[Sidenote: I was obliged to give this up in consequence of my own
misfortunes.]

_November_ 26.--The court met late, and sat till _one_; detained from
that hour till four o'clock, being engaged in the perplexed affairs of
Mr. James Stewart of Brugh. This young gentleman is heir to a property
of better than £1000 a year in Orkney. His mother married very young,
and was wife, mother, and widow in the course of the first year. Being
unfortunately under the direction of a careless agent, she was unlucky
enough to embarrass her own affairs by many transactions with this
person. I was asked to accept the situation of one of the son's
curators; and trust to clear out his affairs and hers--at least I will
not fail for want of application. I have lent her £300 on a second (and
therefore doubtful) security over her house in Newington, bought for
£1000, and on which £600 is already secured. I have no connection with
the family except that of compassion, and may not be rewarded even by
thanks when the young man comes of age. I have known my father often so
treated by those whom he had laboured to serve. But if we do not run
some hazard in our attempts to do good, where is the merit of them? So I
will bring through my Orkney laird if I can. Dined at home quiet with
Lady S. and Anne.

_November_ 27.--Some time since John Murray entered into a contract with
my son-in-law, John G. Lockhart, giving him on certain ample conditions
the management and editorship of the _Quarterly Review_, for which they
could certainly scarcely find a fitter person, both from talents and
character. It seems that Barrow[38] and one or two stagers have taken
alarm at Lockhart's character as a satirist, and his supposed accession
to some of the freaks in _Blackwood's Magazine_, and down comes young
D'Israeli[39] to Scotland imploring Lockhart to make interest with my
friends in London to remove objections, and so forth. I have no idea of
telling all and sundry that my son-in-law is not a slanderer, or a silly
thoughtless lad, although he was six or seven years ago engaged in some
light satires. I only wrote to Heber and to Southey--the first upon the
subject of the reports which had startled Murray, (the most timorous, as
Byron called him, of all God's booksellers), and such a letter as he may
show Barrow if he judges proper. To Southey I wrote more generally,
acquainting him of my son's appointment to the Editorship, and
mentioning his qualifications, touching, at the same time, on his very
slight connection with _Blackwood's Magazine_, and his innocence as to
those gambades which may have given offence, and which, I fear, they may
ascribe too truly to an eccentric neighbour of their own. I also
mentioned that I had heard nothing of the affair until the month of
October. I am concerned that Southey should know this; for, having been
at the Lakes in September, I would not have him suppose that I had been
using interest with Canning or Ellis to supersede young Mr.
Coleridge,[40] their editor, and place my son-in-law in the situation;
indeed I was never more surprised than when this proposal came upon us.
I suppose it had come from Canning originally, as he was sounding Anne
when at Colonel Bolton's[41] about Lockhart's views, etc. To me he never
hinted anything on the subject. Other views are held out to Lockhart
which may turn to great advantage. Only one person (John Cay[42] of
Charlton) knows their object, and truly I wish it had not been confided
to any one. Yesterday I had a letter from Murray in answer to one I had
written in something a determined style, for I had no idea of permitting
him to start from the course after my son giving up his situation and
profession, merely because a contributor or two chose to suppose
gratuitously that Lockhart was too imprudent for the situation. My
physic has wrought well, for it brought a letter from Murray saying all
was right, that D'Israeli was sent to me, not to Lockhart, and that I
was only invited to write two confidential letters, and other
incoherencies--which intimate his fright has got into another quarter.
It is interlined and franked by Barrow, which shows that all is well,
and that John's induction into his office will be easy and pleasant. I
have not the least fear of his success; his talents want only a worthy
sphere of exertion. He must learn, however, to despise petty
adversaries. No good sportsman ought to shoot at crows unless for some
special purpose. To take notice of such men as Hazlitt and Hunt in the
_Quarterly_ would be to introduce them into a world which is scarce
conscious of their existence. It is odd enough that many years since I
had the principal share in erecting this _Review_ which has been since
so prosperous, and now it is placed under the management of my
son-in-law upon the most honourable principle of _detur digniori_. Yet
there are sad drawbacks so far as family comfort is concerned. To-day is
Sunday, when they always dined with us, and generally met a family
friend or two, but we are no longer to expect them. In the country,
where their little cottage was within a mile or two of Abbotsford, we
shall miss their society still more, for Chiefswood was the perpetual
object of our walks, rides, and drives. Lockhart is such an excellent
family man, so fond of his wife and child, that I hope all will go
well. A letter from Lockhart in the evening. All safe as to his
unanimous reception in London; his predecessor, young [Coleridge],
handsomely, and like a gentleman, offers his assistance as a
contributor, etc.

_November_ 28.--I have the less dread, or rather the less anxiety, about
the consequences of this migration, that I repose much confidence in
Sophia's tact and good sense. Her manners are good, and have the
appearance of being perfectly natural. She is quite conscious of the
limited range of her musical talents, and never makes them common or
produces them out of place,--a rare virtue; moreover she is proud
enough, and will not be easily netted and patronised by any of that
class of ladies who may be called Lion-providers for town and country.
She is domestic besides, and will not be disposed to gad about. Then she
seems an economist, and on £3000,[43] living quietly, there should be
something to save. Lockhart must be liked where his good qualities are
known, and where his fund of information has room to be displayed. But,
notwithstanding a handsome exterior and face, I am not sure he will
succeed in London Society; he sometimes reverses the proverb, and gives
the _volte strette e pensiere sciolti_, withdraws his attention from the
company, or attaches himself to some individual, gets into a corner, and
seems to be quizzing the rest. This is the want of early habits of being
in society, and a life led much at college. Nothing is, however, so
popular, and so deservedly so, as to take an interest in whatever is
going forward in society. A wise man always finds his account in it, and
will receive information and fresh views of life even in the society of
fools. Abstain from society altogether when you are not able to play
some part in it. This reserve, and a sort of Hidalgo air joined to his
character as a satirist, have done the best-humoured fellow in the world
some injury in the opinion of Edinburgh folks. In London it is of less
consequence whether he please in general society or not, since if he can
establish himself as a genius it will only be called "Pretty Fanny's
Way."

People make me the oddest requests. It is not unusual for an Oxonian or
Cantab, who has outrun his allowance, and of whom I know nothing, to
apply to me for the loan of £20, £50, or £100. A captain of the Danish
naval service writes to me, that being in distress for a sum of money by
which he might transport himself to Columbia, to offer his services in
assisting to free that province, he had dreamed I generously made him a
present of it. I can tell him his dream by contraries. I begin to find,
like Joseph Surface, that too good a character is inconvenient. I don't
know what I have done to gain so much credit for generosity, but I
suspect I owe it to being supposed, as Puff[44] says, one of those "whom
Heaven has blessed with affluence." Not too much of that neither, my
dear petitioners, though I may thank myself that your ideas are not
correct.

Dined at Melville Castle, whither I went through a snow-storm. I was
glad to find myself once more in a place connected with many happy days.
Met Sir R. Dundas and my old friend George, now Lord Abercromby,[45]
with his lady, and a beautiful girl, his daughter. He is what he always
was--the best-humoured man living; and our meetings, now more rare than
usual, are seasoned with a recollection of old frolics and old friends.
I am entertained to see him just the same he has always been, never
yielding up his own opinion in fact, and yet in words acquiescing in all
that could be said against it. George was always like a willow--he never
offered resistance to the breath of argument, but never moved from his
rooted opinion, blow as it listed. Exaggeration might make these
peculiarities highly dramatic: Conceive a man who always seems to be
acquiescing in your sentiments, yet never changes his own, and this with
a sort of _bonhomie_ which shows there is not a particle of deceit
intended. He is only desirous to spare you the trouble of contradiction.

_November_ 29.--A letter from Southey, malcontent about Murray having
accomplished the change in the _Quarterly_ without speaking to him, and
quoting the twaddle of some old woman, male or female, about Lockhart's
earlier _jeux d'esprit_, but concluding most kindly that in regard to my
daughter and me he did not mean to withdraw. That he has done yeoman's
service to the _Review_ is certain, with his genius, his universal
reading, his powers of regular industry, and at the outset a name which,
though less generally popular than it deserves, is still too respectable
to be withdrawn without injury. I could not in reply point out to him
what is the truth, that his rigid Toryism and High Church prejudices
rendered him an unsafe counsellor in a matter where the spirit of the
age must be consulted; but I pointed out to him what I am sure is true,
that Murray, apprehensive of his displeasure, had not ventured to write
to him out of mere timidity and not from any [intention to offend]. I
treated [lightly] his old woman's apprehensions and cautions, and all
that gossip about friends and enemies, to which a splendid number or two
will be a sufficient answer, and I accepted with due acknowledgment his
proposal of continued support. I cannot say I was afraid of his
withdrawing. Lockhart will have hard words with him, for, great as
Southey's powers are, he has not the art to make them work popularly; he
is often diffuse, and frequently sets much value on minute and
unimportant facts, and useless pieces of abstruse knowledge. Living too
exclusively in a circle where he is idolised both for his genius and the
excellence of his disposition, he has acquired strong prejudices,
though all of an upright and honourable cast. He rides his High Church
hobby too hard, and it will not do to run a tilt upon it against all the
world. Gifford used to crop his articles considerably, and they bear
mark of it, being sometimes _décousues._ Southey said that Gifford cut
out his _middle joints_. When John comes to use the carving-knife I fear
Dr. Southey will not be so tractable. _Nous verrons_. I will not show
Southey's letter to Lockhart, for there is to him personally no friendly
tone, and it would startle the Hidalgo's pride. It is to be wished they
may draw kindly together. Southey says most truly that even those who
most undervalue his reputation would, were he to withdraw from the
_Review_, exaggerate the loss it would thereby sustain. The bottom of
all these feuds, though not named, is _Blackwood's Magazine_; all the
squibs of which, which have sometimes exploded among the Lakers,
Lockhart is rendered accountable for. He must now exert himself at once
with spirit and prudence.[46] He has good backing--Canning, Bishop
Blomfield, Gifford, Wright, Croker, Will Rose,--and is there not besides
the Douglas?[47] An excellent plot, excellent friends, and full of
preparations? It was no plot of my making, I am sure, yet men will say
and believe that [it was], though I never heard a word of the matter
till first a hint from Wright, and then the formal proposal of Murray to
Lockhart announced. I believe Canning and Charles Ellis were the prime
movers. I'll puzzle my brains no more about it.

Dined at Justice-Clerk's--the President--Captain Smollett, etc.,--our
new Commander-in-chief, Hon. Sir Robert O'Callaghan, brother to Earl of
Lismore, a fine soldierly-looking man, with orders and badges;--his
brother, an agreeable man, whom I met at Lowther Castle this season. He
composes his own music and sings his own poetry--has much humour,
enhanced by a strong touch of national dialect, which is always a rich
sauce to an Irishman's good things. Dandyish, but not offensively, and
seems to have a warm feeling for the credit of his country--rather
inconsistent with the trifling and selfish quietude of a mere man of
society.

_November_ 30.--I am come to the time when those who look out of the
windows shall be darkened. I must now wear spectacles constantly in
reading and writing, though till this winter I have made a shift by
using only their occasional assistance. Although my health cannot be
better, I feel my lameness becomes sometimes painful, and often
inconvenient. Walking on the pavement or causeway gives me trouble, and
I am glad when I have accomplished my return on foot from the Parliament
House to Castle Street, though I can (taking a competent time, as old
Braxie[48] said on another occasion) walk five or six miles in the
country with pleasure. Well--such things must come, and be received with
cheerful submission. My early lameness considered, it was impossible for
a man labouring under a bodily impediment to have been stronger or more
active than I have been, and that for twenty or thirty years. Seams
will slit, and elbows will out, quoth the tailor; and as I was
fifty-four on 15th August last, my mortal vestments are none of the
newest. Then Walter, Charles, and Lockhart are as active and handsome
young fellows as you can see; and while they enjoy strength and activity
I can hardly be said to want it. I have perhaps all my life set an undue
value on these gifts. Yet it does appear to me that high and independent
feelings are naturally, though not uniformly or inseparably, connected
with bodily advantages. Strong men are usually good-humoured, and active
men often display the same elasticity of mind as of body. These are
superiorities, however, that are often misused. But even for these
things God shall call us to judgment.

Some months since I joined with other literary folks in subscribing a
petition for a pension to Mrs. G. of L.,[49] which we thought was a
tribute merited by her works as an authoress, and, in my opinion, much
more by the firmness and elasticity of mind with which she had borne a
succession of great domestic calamities. Unhappily there was only about
£100 open on the pension list, and this the minister assigned in equal
portions to Mrs. G---- and a distressed lady, grand-daughter of a
forfeited Scottish nobleman. Mrs. G----, proud as a Highland-woman, vain
as a poetess, and absurd as a bluestocking, has taken this partition _in
malam partem_, and written to Lord Melville about her merits, and that
her friends do not consider her claims as being fairly canvassed, with
something like a demand that her petition be submitted to the King. This
is not the way to make her _plack_ a _bawbee_, and Lord M., a little
_miffed_ in turn, sends the whole correspondence to me to know whether
Mrs. G----will accept the £50 or not. Now, hating to deal with ladies
when they are in an unreasonable humour, I have got the good-humoured
"Man of Feeling" to find out the lady's mind, and I take on myself the
task of making her peace with Lord M. There is no great doubt how it
will end, for your scornful dog will always eat your dirty pudding.[50]
After all, the poor lady is greatly to be pitied;--her sole remaining
daughter, deep and far gone in a decline, has been seized with
alienation of mind.

Dined with my cousin, R[obert] R[utherford], being the first invitation
since my uncle's death, and our cousin Lieutenant-Colonel Russell[51] of
Ashestiel, with his sister Anne--the former newly returned from India--a
fine gallant fellow, and distinguished as a cavalry officer. He came
overland from India and has observed a good deal. General L---- of
L----, in Logan's orthography a _fowl_, Sir William Hamilton, Miss
Peggie Swinton, William Keith, and others. Knight Marischal not well, so
unable to attend the convocation of kith and kin.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _An Essay on Naval Tactics, Systematical and Historical, with
explanatory plates_. In four parts. By John Clerk. 4to. Lond. 1790.

[2] William Clerk of Eldin, the prototype of Darsie Latimer in
_Redgauntlet_, "admired through life for talents and learning of which
he has left no monument," died at Edinburgh in January 1847.

[3] _Secret and True History of the Church of Scotland from the
Restoration to the year_ 1678. 4to. Edin. 1817.

[4] _Anecdotes, Biographical Sketches, and Memoirs_, collected by
Lætitia Matilda Hawkins. 8vo. Lond. 1822.

[5] Miss Macdonald Buchanan of Drummakill.--J.G.L.

[6] Mr. Sharpe, whose _Letters_ and _Memoir_ were published in two
volumes 8vo, Edin. 1888, survived Sir Walter till the year 1851. In the
Sir Mungo Malagrowther of _The Fortunes of Nigel_ some of Sharpe's
peculiarities are not unfaithfully mirrored.

[7] One of the numerous joint-stock adventures which were so common in
Edinburgh at this time. There had already been formed a Gas-light
Company in 1818, for the manufacture of gas from coal, but the
projectors of this new venture believed they could produce a purer and
more powerful light by the use of oil. It was not successful
commercially, and, as is told in the Journal, the rival company acquired
the stock and plant a few years after the formation of this "Oil Gas
Co.," of which Sir Walter had been Chairman from 1823.

See _Life_, vol. vii. pp. 141, 144, 197, 251, 374; and viii. p. 113;
Cockburn's _Memorials_ (for 1825).

[8] Sir Robert Dundas of Beechwood, one of Scott's colleagues at the
"Clerks' Table,"--son of the parish minister of Humbie, and kinsman of
Lord and Lady Melville; he died in 1835. Some of the other gentlemen
with whom the duties of his office brought Scott into close daily
connection were David Hume, Hector Macdonald Buchanan, and Colin
Mackenzie of Portmore. With these families, says Mr. Lockhart, "he and
his lived in such constant familiarity of kindness, that the children
all called their father's colleagues _uncles_, and the mothers of their
little friends _aunts_; and in truth the establishment was a
brotherhood."

[9] Mrs. Thomas Scott's brother.

[10] George L. Sanders, born at Kinghorn, 1774; died in London, 1846.

[11] Sir Walter told Moore that Lewis was the person who first set him
upon trying his talent at poetry, adding that "he had passed the early
part of his life with a set of clever, rattling, drinking fellows, whose
thoughts and talents lay wholly out of the region of poetry." Thirty
years after having met Lewis in Edinburgh for the first time in 1798, he
said to Allan Cunningham, "that he thought he had never felt such
elation as when 'the monk' invited him to dine with him at his hotel."
Lewis died in 1818, and Scott says of him, "He did much good by stealth,
and was a most generous creature--fonder of great people than he ought
to have been, either as a man of talent or as a man of fashion. He had
always ladies and duchesses in his mouth, and was pathetically fond of
any one that had a title. Mat had queerish eyes--they projected like
those of some insects, and were flattish on the orbit."

[12] Moore's friends seem to have recognised his thorough manliness and
independence of character. Lord John Russell testifies: "Never did he
make wife or family a pretext for political shabbiness--never did he
imagine that to leave a disgraced name as an inheritance to his children
was a duty as a father" (_Memoirs_, vol. i. pp. xiii and xiv), and when
Rogers urged this plea of family as a reason why he should accept the
money, Moore said, "More mean things have been done in this world under
the shelter of 'wife and children' than under any pretext
worldly-mindedness can resort to." To which S.R. only said, "Well, your
life may be a good poem, but it is a ---- bad matter of fact."--Clayden,
_Rogers and his Contemporaries_, vol. i. p. 378.

[13] Moore's _Life of Byron_ was published in two vols. 4to in 1830, and
dedicated to Sir Walter Scott by "his affectionate friend, T.M." See
this Journal under March 4 1828.

[14] "I parted from Scott," says Moore, "with the feeling that all the
world might admire him in his works, but that those only could learn to
love him as he deserved who had seen him at Abbotsford." Moore died
February 26, 1852; see Moore's _Life_, vol. iv. pp. 329-42, and vol. v.
pp. 13-14.

[15] Hurst and Robinson, Booksellers, London.

[16] _Woodstock_ was at this time nearly completed.

[17] Probably Sir Walter's dog-Italian for "great donkey."

[18] _Cymbeline_, Act II. Sc. 5.

[19] "My Jo Janet," _Tea-Table Miscellany_.

[20] The Right Hon. David Boyle, who was at the time residing at 28
Charlotte Square.

[21] A quarterly journal edited by Leigh Hunt, "_The Liberal--Verse and
Prose from the South_," of which four numbers only were published.
1822-1823.

[22] See Dowden's _Life of Shelley_, vol. ii. pp. 448-9, 507-8; also
Moore's _Byron_, vol. v. pp. 313-321, and Russell's _Moore_, vol. iii.
p. 353.

[23] William Bankes, of whom Rogers said, "Witty as Sydney Smith was, I
have seen him at my own house absolutely overpowered by the superior
facetiousness of W.B." Mr. Bankes died in Venice in 1855.

[24] Lord Leveson Gower, afterwards first Earl of Ellesmere, had already
published his translation of _Faust_ in 1823, and a volume of "original
poems," and "translations," in the following year.

[25] Henry J.G. Herbert, Lord Porchester, afterwards third Earl of
Carnarvon, had published _The Moor_ in 1825, and _Don Pedro_ in 1826.

[26] St. Catherine's, the seat of Sir William Rae, Bart., then Lord
Advocate, is about three miles from Edinburgh.--J.G.L. Sir William Rae's
refusal of a legal appointment to Mr. Lockhart (on the ground that as a
just patron he could not give it to the son-in-law of his old friend!!)
was understood to be the cause of Mr. Lockhart's quitting the Bar and
devoting himself entirely to literature. Sir William Rae died at St.
Catherine's on the 19th October 1842.

[27] David Boyle of Shewalton, L.J.C. from 1811, and Lord President from
1841 till 1852. He died in 1853.

[28] See _Autobiography_, 1787, in _Life_, vol. i. pp. 39, 40.

[29] Virg. _Æn._ i. 122.

[30] M. Davidoff has, in his mature life, amply justified Sir Walter's
prognostications. He has, I understand, published in the Russian
language a tribute to the memory of Scott. But his travels in Greece and
Asia Minor are well known, and considered as in a high degree honourable
to his taste and learning.--[1839.]--J.G.L.

[31] _King Richard III_., Act III. Sc. 1. Count Orloff Davidoff lived to
falsify this "saying." He revisited England in 1872, and had the
pleasure of meeting with Scott's great-granddaughter, and talking to her
of these old happy Abbotsford days.

[32] _Combinations of Workmen_. Substance of a speech by Francis
Jeffrey. 8vo. Edin. 1825.

[33 33] Mr. Robert Cockburn, Lord Cockburn's brother, was then living at
No. 7 Atholl Crescent.

[34] This alludes to a strange old woman, keeper of a public-house among
the Wicklow mountains, who, among a world of oddities, cut short every
word ending in _tion_, by the omission of the termination. _Consola_ for
consolation--_bothera_ for botheration, etc. etc. Lord Plunkett had
taken care to parade Judy and all her peculiarities.--J.C.L.

[35] See the Duchess's Letter, p. 414.

[36] The Rev. John Logan, minister of South Leith, 1748-1788. The
"Sermons" were not published until 1790-91.

[37] For an account of her visit to Abbotsford, see _Life_, vol. viii.
pp. 72-76. The marriage took place on June 16, 1827, the lady having
previously asked the consent of George IV.!! A droll account of the
reception of her _Mercure galant_ at Windsor is given in the _North
British Review_, vol. xxxix. p. 349.

[38] Sir John Barrow, the well-known Secretary to the Admiralty, who
died in 1848 in his eighty-fifth year.

[39] Benjamin Disraeli, afterwards Lord Beaconsfield.

[40] In after years Sir John Taylor Coleridge (1790-1876), one of the
Judges of the Court of Queen's Bench.

[41] Storrs, Windermere.

[42] John Cay, member of the Scotch Bar, Sheriff of Linlithgow. He was
one of Mr. Lockhart's oldest friends; he died in 1865.

[43] Moore records that Scott told him "Lockhart was about to undertake
the _Quarterly_, has agreed for five years; salary £1200 a year; and if
he writes a certain number of articles it will be £1500 a year to him,"
Moore's _Diary_, under Oct. 29, vol. iv. p. 334. Jeffrey had £700 a year
as Editor of the _Edinburgh_, and £2800 for contributors: June 1823, see
Moore's _Diary_, vol. iv. p. 89.

[44] Sheridan's _Critic_, Act I. Sc. 2.

[45] George Abercromby, eldest son of Sir Ralph, the hero of the battle
of Alexandria.

[46] The following extract from a letter to Professor Wilson, urgently
claiming his aid, shows that the new editor had lost no time in looking
after his "first Number":--

"Mr. Coleridge has yesterday transferred to me the treasures of the
_Quarterly Review_; and I must say, my dear Wilson, that his whole stock
is not worth five shillings. Thank God, other and better hands are at
work for my first Number or I should be in a pretty hobble. My belief is
that he has been living on the stock bequeathed by Gifford, and the
contributions of a set of H----es and other d----d idiots of Oriel. But
mind now, Wilson, I am sure to have a most hard struggle to get up a
very good first Number, and if I do not, it will be the Devil." This
letter was quoted in an abridged form in the Life of Professor Wilson by
Mrs. Gordon.

[47] This probably refers to Archibald, Lord Douglas, who had married
the Lady Frances Scott, sister of Henry, Duke of Buccleuch. Lord Douglas
died on the 26th December 1827. For notices of these valued friends see
_Life_, vol. ii. pp. 27-8; iv. pp. 22, 70; and v. p. 230.

[48] Robert Macqueen--Lord Braxfield--Justice Clerk from 1788; he died
in 1799.

[49] Mrs. Grant of Laggan, author of _Letters from the Mountains_,
_Superstitions of the Highlanders_, etc. Died at Edin. in 1838, aged 83.

[50] Scott had not the smallest hesitation in applying this unsavoury
proverb to himself a few months later, when he unwillingly "impeticosed
the gratillity" for the critique on Galt's _Omen_. See this Journal,
June 24, 1826.

[51] Afterwards Major-General Sir James Russell, G.C.B. He died at
Ashestiel in 1859 in his 78th year.




DECEMBER.


_December 1st._--Colonel R[ussell] told me that the European Government
had discovered an ingenious mode of diminishing the number of burnings
of widows. It seems the Shaster positively enjoins that the pile shall
be so constructed that, if the victim should repent even at the moment
when it is set on fire, she may still have the means of saving herself.
The Brahmins soon found it was necessary to assist the resolution of the
sufferers, by means of a little pit into which they contrive to let the
poor widow sink, so as to prevent her reaping any benefit from a late
repentance. But the Government has brought them back to the regard of
their law, and only permit the burning to go on when the pile is
constructed with full opportunity of a _locus penitentiæ_. Yet the widow
is so degraded if she dare to survive, that the number of burnings is
still great. The quantity of female children destroyed by the Rajput
tribes Colonel R. describes as very great indeed. They are strangled by
the mother. The principle is the aristocratic pride of these high
castes, who breed up no more daughters than they can reasonably hope to
find matches for in their own tribe. Singular how artificial systems of
feeling can be made to overcome that love of offspring which seems
instinctive in the females, not of the human race only, but of the lower
animals. This is the reverse of our system of increasing game by
shooting the old cock-birds. It is a system would aid Malthus rarely.

_Nota bene_, the day before yesterday I signed the bond for £5000, with
Constable, for relief of Robinson's house.[52] I am to be secured by
good bills.

I think this journal will suit me well. If I can coax myself into an
idea that it is purely voluntary, it may go on--_Nulla dies sine lineâ_.
But never a being, from my infancy upwards, hated task-work as I hate
it; and yet I have done a great deal in my day. It is not that I am idle
in my nature neither. But propose to me to do one thing, and it is
inconceivable the desire I have to do something else--not that it is
more easy or more pleasant, but just because it is escaping from an
imposed task. I cannot trace this love of contradiction to any distinct
source, but it has haunted me all my life. I could almost suppose it was
mechanical, and that the imposition of a piece of duty-labour operated
on me like the mace of a bad billiard-player, which gives an impulse to
the ball indeed, but sends it off at a tangent different from the course
designed by the player. Now, if I expend such eccentric movements on
this journal, it will be turning this wretched propensity to some
tolerable account. If I had thus employed the hours and half-hours which
I have whiled away in putting off something that must needs be done at
last, "My Conscience!" I should have had a journal with a witness.
Sophia and Lockhart came to Edinburgh to-day and dined with us, meeting
Hector Macdonald Buchanan, his lady, and Missie, James Skene and his
lady, Lockhart's friend Cay, etc. They are lucky to be able to assemble
so many real friends, whose good wishes, I am sure, will follow them in
their new undertaking.

_December_ 2.--Rather a blank day for the _Gurnal_. Correcting proofs in
the morning. Court from half-past ten till two; poor dear Colin
Mackenzie, one of the wisest, kindest, and best men of his time, in the
country,--I fear with very indifferent health. From two till three
transacting business with J.B.; all seems to go smoothly. Sophia dined
with us alone, Lockhart being gone to the west to bid farewell to his
father and brothers. Evening spent in talking with Sophia on their
future prospects. God bless her, poor girl! she never gave me a moment's
reason to complain of her. But, O my God! that poor delicate child, so
clever, so animated, yet holding by this earth with so fearfully slight
a tenure. Never out of his mother's thoughts, almost never out of his
father's arms when he has but a single moment to give to anything. _Deus
providebit._

_December_ 3.--R.P.G.[53] came to call last night to excuse himself from
dining with Lockhart's friends to-day. I really fear he is near an
actual standstill. He has been extremely improvident. When I first knew
him he had an excellent estate, and now he is deprived, I fear, of the
whole reversion of the price, and this from no vice or extreme, except a
wasteful mode of buying pictures and other costly trifles at high
prices, and selling them again for nothing, besides an extravagant
housekeeping and profuse hospitality. An excellent disposition, with a
considerable fund of acquired knowledge, would have rendered him an
agreeable companion, had he not affected singularity, and rendered
himself accordingly singularly affected. He was very near being a
poet--but a miss is as good as a mile, and he always fell short of the
mark. I knew him first, many years ago, when he was desirous of my
acquaintance; but he was too poetical for me, or I was not poetical
enough for him, so that we continued only ordinary acquaintance, with
goodwill on either side, which R.P.G. really deserves, as a more
friendly, generous creature never lived. Lockhart hopes to get something
done for him, being sincerely attached to him, but says he has no hopes
till he is utterly ruined. That point, I fear, is not far distant; but
what Lockhart can do for him _then_ I cannot guess. His last effort
failed, owing to a curious reason. He had made some translations from
the German, which he does extremely [well]--for give him ideas and he
never wants choice of good words--and Lockhart had got Constable to
offer some sort of terms for them. R.P.G. has always, though possessing
a beautiful power of handwriting, had some whim or other about imitating
that of some other person, and has written for months in the imitation
of one or other of his friends. At present he has renounced this
amusement, and chooses to write with a brush upon large cartridge paper,
somewhat in the Chinese fashion,--so when his work, which was only to
extend to one or two volumes, arrived on the shoulders of two porters,
in immense bales, our jolly bibliopolist backed out of the treaty, and
would have nothing more to do with R.P.[54] He is a creature that is, or
would be thought, of imagination all compact, and is influenced by
strange whims. But he is a kind, harmless, friendly soul, and I fear has
been cruelly plundered of money, which he now wants sadly.

Dined with Lockhart's friends, about fifty in number, who gave him a
parting entertainment. John Hope, Solicitor-General, in the chair, and
Robert Dundas [of Arniston], croupier. The company most highly
respectable, and any man might be proud of such an indication of the
interest they take in his progress in life. Tory principles rather too
violently upheld by some speakers. I came home about ten; the party sat
late.

_December_ 4.--Lockhart and Sophia, with his brother William, dined with
us, and talked over our separation, and the mode of their settling in
London, and other family topics.

_December 5._--This morning Lockhart and Sophia left us early, and
without leave-taking; when I rose at eight o'clock they were _gone_.
This was very right. I hate red eyes and blowing of noses. _Agere et
pati Romanum est_. Of all schools commend me to the Stoics. We cannot
indeed overcome our affections, nor ought we if we could, but we may
repress them within due bounds, and avoid coaxing them to make fools of
those who should be their masters. I have lost some of the comforts to
which I chiefly looked for enjoyment. Well, I must make the more of such
as remain--God bless them. And so "I will unto my holy work again,"[55]
which at present is the description of that _heilige Kleeblatt_, that
worshipful triumvirate, Danton, Robespierre, and Marat.

I cannot conceive what possesses me, over every person besides, to
mislay papers. I received a letter Saturday at _e'en,_ enclosing a bill
for £750; _no deaf nuts_. Well, I read it, and note the contents; and
this day, as if it had been a wind-bill in the literal sense of the
words, I search everywhere, and lose three hours of my morning--turn
over all my confusion in the writing-desk--break open one or two
letters, lest I should have enclosed the sweet and quickly convertible
document in them,--send for a joiner, and disorganise my scrutoire, lest
it should have fallen aside by mistake. I find it at last--the place
where is of little consequence; but this trick must be amended.

Dined at the Royal Society Club, where, as usual, was a pleasant meeting
of from twenty to twenty-five. It is a very good institution; we pay two
guineas only for six dinners in the year, present or absent. Dine at
five, or rather half-past five, at the Royal Hotel, where we have an
excellent dinner, with soups, fish, etc., and all in good order; port
and sherry till half-past seven, then coffee, and we go to the Society.
This has great influence in keeping up the attendance, it being found
that this preface of a good dinner, to be paid for whether you partake
or not, brings out many a philosopher who might not otherwise have
attended the Society. Harry Mackenzie, now in his eighty-second or third
year, read part of an Essay on Dreams. Supped at Dr. Russell's usual
party,[56] which shall serve for one while.

_December_ 6.--A rare thing this literature, or love of fame or
notoriety which accompanies it. Here is Mr. H[enry] M[ackenzie] on the
very brink of human dissolution, as actively anxious about it as if the
curtain must not soon be closed on that and everything else.[57] He
calls me his literary confessor; and I am sure I am glad to return the
kindnesses which he showed me long since in George Square. No man is
less known from his writings. We would suppose a retired, modest,
somewhat affected man, with a white handkerchief, and a sigh ready for
every sentiment. No such thing: H.M. is alert as a contracting tailor's
needle in every sort of business--a politician and a sportsman--shoots
and fishes in a sort even to this day--and is the life of the company
with anecdote and fun. Sometimes, his daughter tells me, he is in low
spirits at home, but really I never see anything of it in society.

There is a maxim almost universal in Scotland, which I should like much
to see controlled. Every youth, of every temper and almost every
description of character, is sent either to study for the bar, or to a
writer's office as an apprentice. The Scottish seem to conceive Themis
the most powerful of goddesses. Is a lad stupid, the law will sharpen
him;--is he too mercurial, the law will make him sedate;--has he an
estate, he may get a sheriffdom;--is he poor, the richest lawyers have
emerged from poverty;--is he a Tory, he may become a
depute-advocate;--is he a Whig, he may with far better hope expect to
become, in reputation at least, that rising counsel Mr.----, when in
fact he only rises at tavern dinners. Upon some such wild views lawyers
and writers multiply till there is no life for them, and men give up the
chase, hopeless and exhausted, and go into the army at five-and-twenty,
instead of eighteen, with a turn for expense perhaps--almost certainly
for profligacy, and with a heart embittered against the loving parents
or friends who compelled them to lose six or seven years in dusting the
rails of the stair with their black gowns, or scribbling nonsense for
twopence a page all day, and laying out twice their earnings at night in
whisky-punch. Here is R.L. now. Four or five years ago, from certain
indications, I assured his friends he would never be a writer.
Good-natured lad, too, when Bacchus is out of the question; but at other
times so pugnacious, that it was wished he could only be properly placed
where fighting was to be a part of his duty, regulated by time and
place, and paid for accordingly. Well, time, money, and instruction have
been thrown away, and now, after fighting two regular boxing matches and
a duel with pistols in the course of one week, he tells them roundly he
will be no writer, which common-sense might have told them before. He
has now perhaps acquired habits of insubordination, unfitting him for
the army, where he might have been tamed at an earlier period. He is too
old for the navy, and so he must go to India, a guinea-pig on board a
Chinaman, with what hope or view it is melancholy to guess. His elder
brother did all man could to get his friends to consent to his going
into the army in time. The lad has good-humour, courage, and most
gentlemanlike feelings, but he is incurably dissipated, I hear; so goes
to die in youth in a foreign land. Thank God, I let Walter take his own
way; and I trust he will be a useful, honoured soldier, being, for his
time, high in the service; whereas at home he would probably have been a
wine-bibbing, moorfowl-shooting, fox-hunting Fife squire--living at
Lochore without either aim or end--and well if he were no worse. Dined
at home with Lady S. and Anne. Wrote in the evening.

_December_ 7.--Teind day;[58]--at home of course. Wrote answers to one
or two letters which have been lying on my desk like snakes, hissing at
me for my dilatoriness. Bespoke a tun of palm-oil for Sir John Forbes.
Received a letter from Sir W. Knighton, mentioning that the King
acquiesced in my proposal that Constable's Miscellany should be
dedicated to him. Enjoined, however, not to make this public, till the
draft of dedication shall be approved. This letter tarried so long, I
thought some one had insinuated the proposal was _infra dig_. I don't
think so. The purpose is to bring all the standard works, both in
sciences and the liberal arts, within the reach of the lower classes,
and enable them thus to use with advantage the education which is given
them at every hand. To make boys learn to read, and then place no good
books within their reach, is to give men an appetite, and leave nothing
in the pantry save unwholesome and poisonous food, which, depend upon
it, they will eat rather than starve. Sir William, it seems, has been in
Germany.

Mighty dark this morning; it is past ten, and I am using my lamp. The
vast number of houses built beneath us to the north certainly render our
street darker during the days when frost or haze prevents the smoke from
rising. After all, it may be my older eyes. I remember two years ago,
when Lord H. began to fail somewhat in his limbs, he observed that Lord
S.[59] came to Court at a more early hour than usual, whereas it was he
himself who took longer time to walk the usual distance betwixt his
house and the Parliament Square. I suspect old gentlemen often make such
mistakes. A letter from Southey in a very pleasant strain as to Lockhart
and myself. Of Murray he has perhaps ground to complain as well for
consulting him late in the business, as for the manner in which he
intimated to young Coleridge, who had no reason to think himself
handsomely treated, though he has acquiesced in the arrangement in a
very gentlemanlike tone. With these matters we, of course, have nothing
to do; having no doubt that the situation was vacant when M. offered it
as such. Southey says, in alteration of Byron's phrase, that M. is the
most timorous, not of God's, but of the devil's, booksellers. The truth
I take to be that Murray was pushed in the change of Editor (which was
really become necessary) probably by Gifford, Canning, Ellis, etc.; and
when he had fixed with Lockhart by their advice his constitutional
nervousness made him delay entering upon a full explanation with
Coleridge. But it is all settled now--I hope Lockhart will be able to
mitigate their High Church bigotry. It is not for the present day,
savouring too much of _jure divino_.

Dined quiet with Lady S. and Anne. Anne is practising Scots songs, which
I take as a kind compliment to my own taste, as hers leads her chiefly
to foreign music. I think the good girl sees that I want and must miss
her sister's peculiar talent in singing the airs of our native country,
which, imperfect as my musical ear is, make, and always have made, the
most pleasing impression on me. And so if she puts a constraint on
herself for my sake, I can only say, in requital, God bless her.

I have much to comfort me in the present aspect of my family. My eldest
son, independent in fortune, united to an affectionate wife--and of good
hopes in his profession; my second, with a good deal of talent, and in
the way, I trust, of cultivating it to good purpose; Anne, an honest,
downright, good Scots lass, in whom I would only wish to correct a
spirit of satire; and Lockhart is Lockhart, to whom I can most willingly
confide the happiness of the daughter who chose him, and whom he has
chosen. My dear wife, the partner of early cares and successes, is, I
fear, frail in health--though I trust and pray she may see me out.
Indeed, if this troublesome complaint goes on--it bodes no long
existence. My brother was affected with the same weakness, which, before
he was fifty, brought on mortal symptoms. The poor Major had been rather
a free liver. But my father, the most abstemious of men, save when the
duties of hospitality required him to be very moderately free with his
bottle, and that was very seldom, had the same weakness which now annoys
me, and he, I think, was not above seventy when cut off. Square the
odds, and good-night Sir Walter about sixty. I care not, if I leave my
name unstained, and my family properly settled. _Sat est vixisse_.

_December 8._--Talking of the _vixisse_, it may not be impertinent to
notice that Knox, a young poet of considerable talent, died here a week
or two since. His father was a respectable yeoman, and he himself,
succeeding to good farms under the Duke of Buccleuch, became too soon
his own master, and plunged into dissipation and ruin. His poetical
talent, a very fine one, then showed itself in a fine strain of pensive
poetry, called, I think, _The Lonely Hearth_, far superior to those of
Michael Bruce, whose consumption, by the way, has been the _life_ of his
verses. But poetry, nay, good poetry, is a drug in the present day. I am
a wretched patron. I cannot go with a subscription-paper, like a
pocket-pistol about me, and draw unawares on some honest
country-gentleman, who has as much alarm as if I had used the phrase
"stand and deliver," and parts with his money with a grimace, indicating
some suspicion that the crown-piece thus levied goes ultimately into the
collector's own pocket. This I see daily done; and I have seen such
collectors, when they have exhausted Papa and Mamma, continue their
trade among the misses, and conjure out of their pockets those little
funds which should carry them to a play or an assembly. It is well
people will go through this--it does some good, I suppose, and they have
great merit who can sacrifice their pride so far as to attempt it in
this way. For my part I am a bad promoter of subscriptions; but I wished
to do what I could for this lad, whose talent I really admired; and I am
not addicted to admire heaven-born poets, or poetry that is reckoned
very good _considering_. I had him, Knox,[60] at Abbotsford, about ten
years ago, but found him unfit for that sort of society. I tried to help
him, but there were temptations he could never resist. He scrambled on,
writing for the booksellers and magazines, and living like the Otways,
and Savages, and Chattertons of former days, though I do not know that
he was in actual want. His connection with me terminated in begging a
subscription or a guinea now and then. His last works were spiritual
hymns, and which he wrote very well. In his own line of society he was
said to exhibit infinite humour; but all his works are grave and
pensive, a style perhaps, like Master Stephen's melancholy,[61]
affected for the nonce.

Mrs. G[rant] of L. intimates that she will take her pudding--her
pension, I mean (see 30th November), and is contrite, as H[enry]
M[ackenzie] vouches. I am glad the stout old girl is not foreclosed;
faith, cabbing a pension in these times is like hunting a pig with a
soap'd tail, monstrous apt to slip through your fingers.[62] Dined at
home with Lady S. and Anne.

_December_ 9.--Yesterday I read and wrote the whole day and evening.
To-day I shall not be so happy. Having Gas-Light Company to attend at
two, I must be brief in journalising.

The gay world has been kept in hot water lately by the impudent
publication of the celebrated Harriet Wilson, ---- from earliest
possibility, I suppose, who lived with half the gay world at hack and
manger, and now obliges such as will not pay hush-money with a history
of whatever she knows or can invent about them. She must have been
assisted in the style, spelling, and diction, though the attempt at wit
is very poor, that at pathos sickening. But there is some good retailing
of conversations, in which the style of the speakers, so far as known to
me, is exactly imitated, and some things told, as said by individuals of
each other, which will sound unpleasantly in each other's ears. I admire
the address of Lord A----y, himself very severely handled from time to
time. Some one asked him if H.W. had been pretty correct on the whole.
"Why, faith," he replied, "I believe so"--when, raising his eyes, he saw
Quentin Dick, whom the little jilt had treated atrociously--"what
concerns the present company always excepted, you know," added Lord
A----y, with infinite presence of mind. As he was _in pari casu_ with
Q.D. no more could be said. After all, H.W. beats Con Philips, Anne
Bellamy, and all former demireps out and out. I think I supped once in
her company, more than twenty years since, at Mat Lewis's in Argyle
Street, where the company, as the Duke says to Lucio, chanced to be
"fairer than honest."[63] She was far from beautiful, if it be the same
_chiffonne_, but a smart saucy girl, with good eyes and dark hair, and
the manners of a wild schoolboy. I am glad this accidental meeting has
escaped her memory--or, perhaps, is not accurately recorded in
mine--for, being a sort of French falconer, who hawk at all they see, I
might have had a distinction which I am far from desiring.

Dined at Sir John Hay's--a large party; Skenes there, the Newenhams and
others, strangers. In the morning a meeting of Oil Gas Committee. The
concern lingers a little;

    "It may do weel, for ought it's done yet,
    But only--it's no just begun yet."[64]

_December 10._--A stormy and rainy day. Walked from the Court through
the rain. I don't dislike this. Egad, I rather like it; for no man that
ever stepped on heather has less dread than I of catch-cold; and I seem
to regain, in buffeting with the wind, a little of the high spirit with
which, in younger days, I used to enjoy a Tam-o'-Shanter ride through
darkness, wind, and rain,--the boughs groaning and cracking over my
head, the good horse free to the road and impatient for home, and
feeling the weather as little as I did.

    "The storm around might roar and rustle,
    We didna mind the storm a whistle."

Answered two letters--one, answer to a schoolboy, who writes himself
Captain of Giggleswick School (a most imposing title), entreating the
youngster not to commence editor of a magazine to be entitled the
"Yorkshire Muffin," I think, at seventeen years old; second, to a
soldier of the 79th, showing why I cannot oblige him by getting his
discharge, and exhorting him rather to bear with the wickedness and
profanity of the service, than take the very precarious step of
desertion. This is the old receipt of Durandarte--_Patience, cousin, and
shuffle the cards_;[65] and I suppose the correspondents will think I
have been too busy in offering my counsel where I was asked for
assistance.

A third rogue writes to tell me--rather of the latest, if the matter was
of consequence--that he approves of the first three volumes of the
_H[eart] of Midlothian_, but totally condemns the fourth. Doubtless he
thinks his opinion worth the sevenpence sterling which his letter costs.
However, authors should be reasonably well pleased when three-fourths of
their work are acceptable to the reader. The knave demands of me in a
postscript, to get back the sword of Sir W[illiam] Wallace from England,
where it was carried from Dumbarton Castle. I am not Master-General of
the Ordnance, that I know. It was wrong, however, to take away that and
Mons Meg. If I go to town this spring, I will renew my negotiation with
the Great Duke for recovery of Mons Meg.

There is no theme more awful than to attempt to cast a glance among the
clouds and mists which hide the broken extremity of the celebrated
bridge of Mirza.[66] Yet, when every day brings us nearer that
termination, one would almost think that our views should become
clearer, as the regions we are approaching are brought nigher. Alas! it
is not so: there is a curtain to be withdrawn, a veil to be rent, before
we shall see things as they really are. There are few, I trust, who
disbelieve the existence of a God; nay, I doubt if at all times, and in
all moods, any single individual ever adopted that hideous creed, though
some have professed it. With the belief of a Deity, that of the
immortality of the soul and of the state of future rewards and
punishments is indissolubly linked. More we are not to know; but neither
are we prohibited from our attempts, however vain, to pierce the solemn
sacred gloom. The expressions used in Scripture are doubtless
metaphorical, for penal fires and heavenly melody are only applicable to
bodies endowed with senses; and, at least till the period of the
resurrection of the body, the spirits of men, whether entering into the
perfection of the just, or committed to the regions of punishment, are
incorporeal. Neither is it to be supposed that the glorified bodies
which shall arise in the last day will be capable of the same gross
indulgences with which they are now solaced. That the idea of Mahomet's
paradise is inconsistent with the purity of our heavenly religion will
be readily granted; and see Mark xii. 25. Harmony is obviously chosen as
the least corporeal of all gratifications of the sense, and as the type
of love, unity, and a state of peace and perfect happiness. But they
have a poor idea of the Deity, and the rewards which are destined for
the just made perfect, who can only adopt the literal sense of an
eternal concert--a never-ending Birthday Ode. I rather suppose there
should be understood some commission from the Highest, some duty to
discharge with the applause of a satisfied conscience. That the Deity,
who himself must be supposed to feel love and affection for the beings
he has called into existence, should delegate a portion of those powers,
I for one cannot conceive altogether so wrong a conjecture. We would
then find reality in Milton's sublime machinery of the guardian saints
or genii of kingdoms. Nay, we would approach to the Catholic idea of the
employment of saints, though without approaching the absurdity of
saint-worship, which degrades their religion. There would be, we must
suppose, in these employments difficulties to be overcome, and exertions
to be made, for all which the celestial beings employed would have
certain appropriate powers. I cannot help thinking that a life of active
benevolence is more consistent with my ideas than an eternity of music.
But it is all speculation, and it is impossible even to guess what we
shall [do], unless we could ascertain the equally difficult previous
question, what we are to be. But there is a God, and a just God--a
judgment and a future life--and all who own so much let them act
according to the faith that is in them. I would [not], of course, limit
the range of my genii to this confined earth. There is the universe,
with all its endless extent of worlds.

Company at home--Sir Adam Ferguson and his Lady; Colonel and Miss
Russell; Count Davidoff, and Mr. Collyer. By the by, I observe that all
men whose names are obviously derived from some mechanical trade,
endeavour to disguise and antiquate, as it were, their names, by
spelling them after some quaint manner or other. Thus we have Collyer,
Smythe, Tailleure; as much as to say, My ancestor was indeed a mechanic,
but it was a world of time ago, when the word was spelled very
[differently]. Then we had young Whytbank and Will Allan the artist[67],
a very agreeable, simple-mannered, and pleasant man.